Battle Royale + 500 Days of Summer

I had a 2-movies-in-a-row night. Dustin was going to call me about some bash that was supposed to be happening at his house, but he waited till 12 a.m., then sent me a text saying,

“what r u you doing?”

“Watching a movie. You?”

“just got home”

(long silence)

And that was the end of the conversation.

I watched 500 Days of Summer and Battle Royale. The two opposing genres back to back can confuse the adrenals.

500 Days of Summer is a clever indie romance movie about a boy who never quite gets the girl, a catchy indie soundtrack plays in the background.

Battle Royale is a Japanese movie about a class of 7th graders who are sent to an island to kill each other off, the last one alive wins.

Battle Royale was made in 2000. I could see how much Quentin Tarantino borrowed from it; even one of the characters was cast in Kill Bill (you know, the girl with the spiky ball ‘n chain?). Sure enough, it’s said to be one of his favorite movies of all time.

If you want to see a bunch of adolescents forced to confess their crushes to one another in the face of death and acts of twisted human nature, check out Battle Royale.

If you want to see a guy get taken for the ultimate emotional roller-coaster ride in a nice-guys-finish-last kind of way (amongst heavy Smiths references), check out 500 Days of Summer.