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Category Archives: Emily Blunt

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU – STUPID, PIG, DOG, SWINE ARKI – HOLLYWOOD TODAY

11 Feb

On a Winter Sunday I go. To clear away the snow. In green the ground below.

“Did you call her a vampire?” the fifty something husband asks his wife as they exit the cafe. “No,” his wife says laughing. “I just said she sucked!”

April all an ocean away. Is this the better way to spend the day? Keeping the Winter at bay.

I look at Lemon Face serving our coffee today. She does look a little bit sour.

While in line waiting, Fulton tells me that Arki got “let go” from the bar last night. He was found with liquor in his back pack and a bottle of hot sauce. It was the hot sauce that got him fired. Especially because “the hot sauce was in his back pack before the shift began, not even at the end of the night.” Everyone at Arki’s Hollywood hip spot venue, is p*ssed with Arki. He’d been a part of the team for five years. He is the second long term staff member to be let go for theft in two weeks.

“Poor Arki,” I offer. “No. Not poor Arki,” Fulton says angrily. “Stupid, pig dog swine dumb Arki, that’s what. Stupid Arki,” Fulton fumes. “Okay, stupid pig dog swine Arki!”, I say as a friend. Strange, because I’ve never met Arki and I repeat the mantra like I am disappointed. Already my encouragement points of the day are in the red. My sister Rachel would kick my behind, if she heard me speak like this.

I know that Fulton is more p*ssed that Arki has robbed his workmates of the chance to be in team. That sense of being in ‘Hollywood family’ each week has been stolen from Fulton. In Hollywood, your workmates become just that to many single people. Hollywood Family. Poor Fulton and team, my mind forms the empathetic thoughts without saying them as words.

What were the words I meant to say before you left? When I could see your breath lead.

Stupid pig dog swine Arki.

“Kia Ora. I’ll have a venti cup of your finest Pike River Roast of the day please.”

“Sure” Lemon Face says, with a nice enough smile.

Because my perception of Lemon Face has been framed by her previous customer’s response to her service, my instincts kick in, when they shouldn’t even have to work this early, to make up my own mind about her.

I wouldn’t smile more than that, if I served coffee I think gauging her smile. So she’s okay by me so far.

“How’s life? I ask,” a mistake.

“My daughter’s sick today. I had to take her to the doctor this morning. It was so hard to come to work.”

“I hear ya,” I offer throwing an extra dollar in her tip jar.

Fulton throws me a look, as in ‘don’t.’ Too late. The money’s in her honey pot.

Her smile gets bigger. Maybe she’s not a vampire after all. Like a Hollywood actress, for twenty seconds of talking, she just made an extra buck. I guess that makes her a good vampire then. She’s all good. She’s winning.

Where you were going to? Maybe I should just let it be. And maybe it will all come back to me. Sing O January O.

I hum my oriori Maori song lyrics in my head over top of The Decemberists catchy guitaring tunes playing on cafe stereo. Once I have a coffee in my hand, I always wake up to the ocean of Maori culture inside me. It’s weird. But that always happens at first sip of the day.

“Stupid. Pig. Dog. Swine. Arki” Fulton mutters.

“Have you seen that movie?” I gesture towards Matt Damon’s latest movie billboard on the boulevard, figuring that a change of focus is as good as a rest.

“Your fate has been adjusted. The Adjustment Bureau,” Fulton reads the signage. “Well, that does nothing for me.”

“Look. You never know. It might be a good film. Wanna go see it?” I offer.

“No. I think it’s total pigs wallop, how Matt and Ben got their Oscar. There were 16 other writers on that script. They got the credit.”

Great. Another movie alone I think looking at Damon’s billboard with the Hollywood Hills winking behind it. How am I supposed to write scripts with a writer, who never wants to see the latest flicks in Hollywood? Argh!

[Stupid. Pig. Dog. Swine. Arki].

How I lived a childhood in snow. And all my teens in tow. Stuffed in strata of clothes.

“So, what’s going on with you?” Fulton asks.

“Well, the blog. I met this guy who wants to do tee shirts, coffee mugs and jewelry sales via the–”

“No. Don’t do it. You’re better off being independent.”

Pale the winter days after dark. Wandering the gray memorial park.

“But when do I get a chance to sit in a hot tub at my place with views overlooked from the Hollywood Hills if I’m always ‘independent’ and broke then aye?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Fulton says finally laughing.

“Made you laugh though aye bro? Stupid. Pig. Dog–

“Swine. Arki.” Fulton finishes his mantra, his smile now almost back-to-normal.

A fleeting beat of hearts. What were the words I meant to say before she left?

__

The Adjustment Bureau is a film that reads like a Natalie Portman tribute, in which – “Just as he is on the brink of winning a senate seat, politician David Norris (Matt Damon) meets a ballerina named Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). Though David is smitten, mysterious men conspire to keep him away from the beautiful dancer. David learns he is up against the powerful agents of Fate itself, and, glimpsing the future laid out before him, must either accept a predetermined path that does not include Elise, or defy Fate to be with her.”

___

adjust (əˈdʒʌst)
— vb
1. ( tr ) to alter slightly, esp to achieve accuracy; regulate: toadjust the television
2. to adapt, as to a new environment, etc
3. ( tr ) to put into order
4. ( tr ) insurance to determine the amount payable in settlementof (a claim)

~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 2.9.11~

 
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Posted by horiwood on February 11, 2011 in A Different View, America, Economy, Emily Blunt, Hollywood Today, Matt Damon, Movie News, Movie Posters, Parenting, Pop Cultural Commentary, Signs of The Times, Song Lyrics, Song Writers, The Decemberists, UK