And now, on a completely different note, I thought I'd write about something that has pretty much nothing to do with my life in Japan.

I was listening to the Metallica S&M album the other day, for the first time in a while. The first song on the cd is an instrumental called “The Ecstasy of Gold”. It's a really good track, and from the first time I heard it I'd always had the feeling that I'd heard it before. A few months ago, I found out that it was from a movie soundtrack.

My TV gets about 6 or 7 free to air channels, and 2 free cable-like channels. One of the cable channels is Japanese news and documentaries. The other channel is actually quite good, as it shows world sports (NBA, PGA, NFL etc.) and most evenings there is a foreign movie broadcast in English (all the other channels dub movies into Japanese). This channel has regular movie theme weeks. One week might be Aid Disaster Week (Air Force One, Flight Plan, Stealth etc.), while the next week is Romantic Wedding Week (uhhh...). Some time last year they had a two week Spaghetti Western marathon.

I've always been impartial to Westerns. A lot of them are quite watchable, but I don't think I'd ever go out of my way to watch one. However, I found myself really enjoying the spaghetti westerns. It was interesting to see how the same actors constantly showed up in similar roles in a variety of movies. Take Clint Eastwood, for example. He basically plays the same guy in every movie, although he might have a different name or slightly different backstory.

Anyway, one movie I really enjoyed was “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. Clint plays “The Good”, Lee Van Cleef plays “The Bad” and Eli Wallach plays “The Ugly”. They are all searching for a stash of gold that had been buried in a secret location, and each of them knows one part of the puzzle that reveals the location. There are countless twists, turns, back-stabbings and betrayals. Finally they reach the cemetery where the loot is buried, and the Ugly takes off leaving the Good stranded behind. He charges into this sprawling, ramshackle cemetery looking for the grave that marks where the gold is buried. As he reaches the middle of the cemetery he starts spinning around like a madman, taking in the thousands of graves spread over the hills. The camera spins around too and you see close up shots of his eyes. He really does look like a guy who has lost his mind with gold fever. He knows that the gold and everything he has worked for is so close, but there are so many graves that he's not sure where to start looking. During this scene, in perfect accompaniment to what is happening on screen, “The Ecstasy of Gold” is playing in the background. It's one of the most memorable movie scenes I've seen.

The next scene is pretty good too. The Bad and The Good catch up to The Ugly and they decide that they can't share the loot. The Good writes the name of the grave on a stone and places it on the ground. They all draw their weapons and stand in a triangle around the stone. They know that if they shoot their opponent, it will leave them open to be shot by the remaining man. A great standoff scene. I won't spoil what happens. Go watch the movie.