movies movies

I saw three movies this weekend (in a very liberal sense of the word... I think only college fraternities consider Thursday as part of the weekend).

Thursday: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Friday: Juno. Sunday: No Country for Old Men.

All very different movies, and all very good. I didn't feel like I "got" everything in No Country, but it's probably nothing a little research on IMDB won't clear up. I'm a long-time Coen brothers' fan, and this movie definitely doesn't disappoint. It's a bit gorier than I was expecting though. So much so that I found myself shielding my eyes in bloody anticipation on more than one occasion.

Now it's just There Will Be Blood left on my short list of movies to see.

Here we are enjoying some mango desserts after Juno. Note Simon's heart-shaped dish. And my mango drink cozy.

the brave one

No this isn't a movie review. I haven't even seen this movie. All I've seen is the Asian version of the movie poster (below), and just a little while ago, while in New Town Plaza, I saw some DVDs with the same cover.

So what is my reason for this post? Take a look at the picture below and see if Jodie Foster reminds you of anyone besides herself.

Have you had a chance to think it over?

I swear, is she not the spitting image of a young David Bowie?! Frightening, isn't it?

cinematheque and time to kill

I had a free ticket at the Cinematheque that was going to expire on the 31st of this month. I like this theater a lot, but today felt that I almost had to drag myself over there. Part of the problem was that, since it was a somewhat spontaneous decision, I had no idea what movies were playing, show times, etc., and I had visions of myself sitting through a movie that I really didn't want to see, or watching Harry Potter again just to avoid wasting the ticket. But fortunately for me, there was a movie I'd been wanting to see playing in the theater -- 2 Days in Paris.

The movie turned out to be pretty good. It reminded me a lot of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and not just because Julie Delpy is in it (she incidentally wrote and directed the movie too). It had the same kind of "real time" feel to it, as well as the same kind of witty pseudo-realistic dialog. But this time, instead of being about a chance romantic encounter or an unexpected reunion, this movie presents a couple who has been together for two years and is now questioning whether they even know each other. I wouldn't go as far as to recommend this movie (I think parts of it would be offensive to some), but there were a number of things that I really liked about it. One being that I loved how natural Julie Delpy looked throughout the movie. Frizzy hair, occasional bags under her eyes, etc. -- it's clear that she's very comfortable with herself. And though this might sound cliche, it's so nice to see an actress on screen who, beautiful as she is, looks like a real person.

I got to the theater at about 4:30, but the next showing of 2 Days in Paris was at 7:45. That meant a good 3 hours of time to kill. I should know by now to carry a book with me always, for unexpected situations like this... but unfortunately, hadn't been reading much lately. So, although I have a nice stack of books at home waiting to be read, I gave in and bought a book at Kubrick. It's a collection of nine short stories by J. D. Salinger. I hadn't read anything by him since high school when I read Catcher in the Rye, which was, and possibly still is, a favorite of mine. I got to read four of the stories today while waiting, and so far, feel that it was a good purchase.
During the three-hour wait, I also gave into a long-standing compulsion of mine and bought some stationery (well, just one card, actually). I'm putting a photo of it here because I like it so much! This collection of illustrations is called "Small is Beautiful" by Peter Suart.


I really don't need any more stationery, but it's really hard for me to resist adding to my "collection" when I see something that I like. And I do actually use it too. I love real letters, stamps, the whole deal. If you are doubtful, send me your address and I'll post something to you ASAP.

sewing with die hard and hell's kitchen

My [mom's] sewing machine isn't working (a problem with the bobbin, as far as I can tell), and I'm at a loss for what to do right now. I think I'll probably opt for going to bed early, but at the moment I'm quite intrigued by Die Hard 2. I turned the TV on a couple of hours ago because it gives me something to listen to while sewing (though, now I'm thinking that maybe I should try books on tape instead...). I just watched the scene where McLane's wife calls him on the airplane phone and they have an entertaining little discussion about the advances in 90's technology (i.e. fax machines and air phones), and of course there's the obligatory "This is the 90's!" sentence. It's also a bit of a time-capsule with respect to airport security (i.e. the old lady sitting next to his wife on the plane is carrying a stun gun -- am I right in recalling/predicting that it will play a pivotal part later in the movie?).

Before Die Hard 2 came on, I was watching Hell's Kitchen -- the reality show with the wanna-be chefs trying to stay on the good side of the cranky restaurant mogul/chef Gordon Ramsay. It can be quite a stressful show to watch, but since I was still sewing at that time, I wasn't paying much attention. One thing I did notice though, was how, whenever anything remotely negative occurred, the overly dramatic narrator (is that even the right word?) would utter such phrases as "after all, this is Hell's Kitchen" or "they don't call this Hell's Kitchen for nothing..." Stupid.

OK, I'm going to see what can be done with the sewing machine now...

depression

I watched Cinderella Man for the first time last night and really enjoyed it! Not only is it a great, well, Cinderella story, but it also provides good insight into what life during the Depression was like. I've seen other movies set during the depression (my all-time favorite being O Brother, Where Art Thou?), but really liked the attention to detail paid in this movie. Yes, many movies do a good job of showing the desperation of that time, but in this movie, I appreciated seeing some of the creative ways that people met the challenges of Depression-era existence. Neighborhood kids all celebrating their birthdays together so that the cost of the cake could be shared, a mother adding water to milk to make it go further, etc. I like those everyday, seemingly unimportant details...

I've posted stuff about Shorpy: the 100-year-old photo blog before, but just thought that I would take this opportunity to point to their great collection of Depression-era photos. Many of them are by Dorothea Lange, whose work is pretty incredible.

hap mun beach and cashback

I've fallen behind in my posts... here are some pictures from Tuesday, when Sal, Kaiser and I headed to a beach near Saikung (same one as last summer...).

A view from the boat.

Kaiser and Salome on the boat to Hap Mun.

The pier, rocks and of course, sea.

View of the beach and lovely, clear water!

Some interesting flowers...

Beautiful clouds.
Kai and Sal on the pier.
Then we headed to Yau Ma Tei to catch a movie, taking advantage of our complimentary tickets.

Dinner at Kubrik. I took this picture mainly to illustrate that in HK "salad" can refer to anything smothered in mayonnaise...
Sal and I preparing to enjoy Cashback from the very front row of the theater. The show was completely sold out.
I'd seen the Cashback preview, and was a little skeptical about the movie. For some reason the preview tries to convince viewers that the movie is about naked women and little else (and on a side note, I just noticed that IMDB has "Nudity/Nude Girl/Female Nudity" listed as the plot key words! *#&@!). But I was pleased to find that there was quite a bit more to the story than that.

Now, a few days later, it's pouring rain and Sal and Kai are in Williamsburg, Virginia, the home of my Alma Matter. In fact, they're probably eating at the Cheese Shop at this very moment -- I'm so jealous!! :) Have a great time guys!

dolores

I just finished watching Dolores Claiborne on HBO. I wasn't planning to watch the whole thing -- it happened to be starting when I turned on the TV and I had vague memories of liking it when I saw it years ago -- but found the story to be so intense (both in character and plot development) that I couldn't bear to turn it off! And possibly more surprising -- I didn't fall asleep while watching it!

If you've never seen this movie, I highly recommend it. It's good enough that I am planning to locate a copy of the book as soon as possible... and that's coming from someone who's never read anything by Stephen King. It's also one of those movies that should have won numerous Oscars but didn't (in fact, it wasn't even nominated!!). Susan Sarandon took the award for best actress that year (1996) for Dead Man Walking, but it could have easily gone to Kathy Bates. But maybe the academy didn't want to give her another award for a King-based movie, after she'd already won for Misery in 1990. Jennifer Jason Leigh is incredible in this movie too, as are all the members of the supporting cast (i.e. Christopher Plumber, Judy Parfitt, David Strathairn, John C. Reilly!!).

imdb movie poll

I am in the middle of writing a paper, so of course had to go online for a little distraction. I went to IMDB and clicked on their daily poll. Today's poll asks you to choose your favorite best picture winner from the 90's. Here are the choices:

Dances with Wolves
The Silence of the Lambs
Unforgiven
Schindler's List
Forrest Gump
Braveheart
The English Patient
Titanic
Shakespeare in Love
American Beauty

Quite a few good movies there, but I didn't have a hard time choosing The English Patient as my favorite. I submitted my vote, and found out that I'm really in the minority on this one. Less than 2% of participants chose The English Patient as their favorite, putting it at the very bottom. Here are the results of the poll. Guess I'm just surprised at how low it was on the list... below Titanic? And I'm sorry, but how did Shakespeare in Love even win best picture at all? OK, that's my rant for the evening. I hope I haven't offended anyone. Back to writing that paper...

lazy sunday

I wasn't feeling well this morning, so decided to spend a day doing nothing. My morning started with a viewing of Dangerous Liaisons... not the most uplifting, let alone wholesome of Sabbath movies I realize, but it was a film I'd been wanting to re-watch (I have vague memories of being traumatized by it as an 11 or 12-year-old) and the edited version happened to be on TV. All I can say is wow. I'm surprised Glenn Close didn't win an oscar for her performance (not to mention she's never won an oscar, though she has been nominated 5 times!) -- I thought she was amazing!

The only semi-useful thing that I did today was work on a craft project that I'd been wanting to try. It's a really easy idea that I came across in Make (via the Craft blog) -- spraying a 50:50 bleach solution onto t-shirts with different objects placed on them. I liked their idea of using everyday objects like doilies and scissors to make interesting patterns, but decided to try something a little more natural. So I picked some leaves and ferns from outside, and put them on one of my t-shirts that already had a little bleach damage.

Here's the t-shirt, ready to be sprayed.
Before spraying, I noticed the tiniest snail I'd ever seen crawling on the fern. I put him out of harms way, of course -- no snail death-by-bleach on my watch. He was so small that the close-up function on my camera wasn't able to focus on him clearly... time for a new camera. :)
For the most part, the spraying went alright. One unforeseen problem that I encountered was that the force of the spray blew away some of my clover. I tried to remedy this by spraying each clover head-on... but I think it made that part of the t-shirt a little blotchier than I wanted. But overall, I'm pleased with the final product, and will wear it proudly. :)

oscars

I couldn't watch the Oscars live at 8:00 am because of school, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it replayed in the evening. But in the end, although I'd already read the results online, I decided to watch some of the Academy Awards. I'd only seen 2 of this year's nominated films -- "Babel" and "Little Miss Sunshine" (oh, and I guess "Borat" was nominated too, huh?) -- so didn't have many strong feelings about who I thought should win. I was quite pleased with most of the results (I liked Alan Arkin in LMS, and I think Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker are great actors, though I have yet to see the movies they were nominated for) and was very happy to see Ennio Morricone win an honorary Oscar (I've never grown tired of the music he wrote for"The Mission"). Then of course, there were other moments I'm glad I didn't miss, like the Will Ferrell/Jack Black/John C. Reilly musical number, and those crazy Oscar acrobats.

But probably the moment that will stand out most in my memory from the 79th Academy Awards was when "The Departed" won for best adapted screenplay, and a female announcer explained that it was based on the Japanese movie "Infernal Affairs." I was shocked that they would make such an error at the Oscars. Even a quick check on IMDB will tell you that it "Infernal Affairs" is 100% a Hong Kong movie. Didn't one of the Academy's writers have a minute to do a quick search on Google? Come on! But in spite of the magnitude of this mistake, somehow it doesn't surprise me. Instead, it just reminds me of the countless times I've been asked whether or not I ever picked up Japanese, or if I had a happy childhood in Japan. It was all I could do to restrain myself from screaming at the TV, "Hong Kong is NOT in Japan!!"

So it seems that the Oscars really hit a nerve with me this year... :)

happy groundhog day!

I just found a site where you can check Punxsutawney Phil's prediction. It's part of a the Punxstawney Groundhog Club's official site -- www.groundhog.org! I didn't realize that the movie Groundhog Day was so accurate in its depiction of the ceremony. The site is definitely worth a look.
Unfortunately, due to time zone differences, I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how much more winter to expect...