Before Midnight

I enjoyed Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, so I guess it is inevitable that I love Before Midnight as well.  I've always felt that this series of movies is so different from other movie sequels.  All of the Before series (let's just call them the Before series since they all have that word in common) are consist of long shots of conversations, interesting and insightful conversations, conversations about Celine and Jessie's thoughts and ideas about life and love and of each other.

It was another nine years since we revisit Jessie and Celine, and well, if you are old enough and mature enough to have watched Before Sunrise since day one, you will say that you have grown up, grown old and grown mature with them.  Imagine you were the same age as Jessie and Celine when Before Sunrise went in theaters, literally you are growing up with them.  Even though I am only birthed in 1995, I do feel like as I watch Jessie and Celine's lives progress, they have grown.  The topics and the things that they talk about, things that they think of, their thoughts and ideas, have changed and matured.  They saw things differently.  Before Sunrise is full of hopes and dreams, full of enthusiasm and excitement of the future.  Before Midnight here, is about grown ups, about matured love, about family and the burdens of daily lives.  Before Midnight is about two people sorting out their lives.

The way the actors aged with their characters too, is impeccable.  Julie Deply has grown, well, a little plump and more feminine, more maternal.  Ethan Hawke has grown mature and has grown a few wrinkles and a belly.  But this is all alright because this is how reality is.  This is how real life relationship is and how real people are.  People age, nobody can always be young and perfect.  

Jessie and Celine's relationship is obviously not perfect as well.  Just like any other couple, they argue and they hate each other and then they make up.  The climax of the entire movie (given the movie is filled with conversations around lunch tables and long walks and car drives) is when the couple is arguing in the hotel room about sacrifices and their love for each other, how the other person's love is not enough, how the other person have fucked another girl or blew another man.  It's an argument that any couple will most probably have.  The way they make up though, is extremely cute.  I love Jessie's story.

I also love the chemistry between those two.  Their conversations are witty and interesting.  Yes, they are long, but they are absorbing and hook me right in.  I wish I could have a relationship as such.

The Six Dollar Fifty Man

This is a story about that awkward kid in every class, every school.  This is a story about 8-years old Andy, an outcast at school, who thought he has super powers.  This is a story about a young boy's life, about his fantasies, being bullied and being, well, being a man.  

There is something about Andy's face.  This child's face seemed old and worn, as if he has tasted pain and suffering at his young age.  And I wonder what gives a child that torn up look.  The looks his eyes give, those tense lips and tight frowns.  He is the outcast, the odd ball, the target for bully, and maybe this is why he has the face of an old man, shattered and battered by life. His shoulder bag was heavy on his shoulders, way too big a burden for him to carry.  They way he screams as he is swinging his shoulder bag at the bullies, they way he lose it... Andy is as if full of anger and unsatisfaction, and pain.   He never smiled during the movie, well, except for at the end when he won the competition with his drawing.

He is a man in a little boy's body.  He is a real man.  He is the brave one to climb up to the roof to get the girl's ball.  He is courageous enough to hold all the responsibility.  

Andy is truly a superhero, the hero who has saved his girl from the punishment.

second chances

Today, my theatre class TA asked the class this question ‘what would you trade the devil with your soul for?’ after we read Dr. Faustus.  When he came to me, I answered him that I would trade my soul with the devil for the power of having second chances, to go back in time to undo, or redo things. 

In the past, when people ask me what do I regret in life, I was one of the lucky ones who could say “nothing, I regret nothing and would do everything again just the way I had done them.”  I was a lucky soul, or now, come to think of it, I was an inexperienced soul, fresh, new and naïve in life.  I thought I could keep everything that way, and I could be a lucky soul to die regret-free. 

I was being too hopeful.

Now I know, there actually come times in life, when you did things you regret so much, and you just wish to start over, to go back, rewind, and undo things, but you just can’t.  When you made stupid decisions and fucked all good things up and ended up drowning in your own damn mess.  And the bitterness, the guilt, the regret kept tearing you apart bit by bit and you could just see your world dissolve and dissipate into powder, leaving a great big void right in the middle of your heart.

That time of regret came, and I am just helpless and remorseful, but my arms and legs are bounded and there is nothing I can do or say that can change how things ended up. 

All I can say is, I did my best to make things right.  I was confused and I was a fool, but I tried my best to salvage things.  Though, not everything can be saved, and not every one can be salvaged.  I can’t expect to live a scar-free and pain-free life, because that is not living.  We all do things in life and we put ourselves, our hearts on the line, we experience and we live.  And we get hurt and scratched and lose a limb or two.  But that’s just how things are, living is not living if we don’t get hurt.  We will never get hurt if we don’t put ourselves on the line, and we will be safe and sound and innocently happy; but we will never live and experience the sweetness of life if we never feel pain and taste the bitter.

I am running out of words now.  I don’t expect this to be only time in my life when every single breath of mine taste like regret.  I am pretty sure there are a lot of regrets and remorse awaiting me, and just I wish I could trade my soul for the power of having second chances.  I wish I could make this trade.  I wish.  I wish.

Bruce Lee Played Badminton Too

Directed by: Corrie Chen

Australia/14 mins

In this cute short film, Corrie Chen shows us Nic, a chubby teenager who is determined to play badminton and win the competition despite his father's negative comments about his weight and his ability in playing sports.  Well, Nic is a rare find, as he, unlike other teenagers, believes in his own ability and wouldn't let anything stop him.  Turns out, he is an impeccable badminton player and killed all the Chinese kids that are supposed to be good at playing badminton (racial stereotypes).  Even though he lost in the end to his crush and neighbor, Jenny, Nic has proved his ability to his father and the audience.  Someone big like Nic can play badminton, and can play extremely well.

Bruce Lee comes in as Nic's idol.  There are loads of posters of Chinese badminton players in Nic's room and the one that stands out most is the giant poster of Bruce Lee, with a badminton racket pasted onto his hand.  This is a juxtaposition, with a white kid having an Asian idol and living in a setting, a neighborhood of Asians in Australia.  The picture above shows Nic, a white kid, on one side of the bus station, and a group of Asian kids on the other side of the station. This highlights the contrast that the short film is trying to bring out.  Instead of having Asian/immigrants trying hard to fit it, Chen flips things over and have Nic, the white kid, jotting out weirdly among the Asians in the film.  

There is the scene in the middle of the short film where Nic's mother said, 'Being a champion is not about being the best in the game, sometimes the champion is someone who clears the way for the triumph of an idea'.  True, Nic doesn't have to win the match.  As cheesy as it sounds, Nic has already won by his his hard work and his proving of his capability, that he, as a chubby kid can play sports just as well as the rest.  

I find it particularly funny watching the Bruce Lee-esque movements of Nic's first component.  And the scene with Nic looking across the fence, peeking at Jenny is extremely cute.  Of course, being an Australian movie, it is quite natural (well, not really) to end the movie with a San Cisco song.  Cute.

Death to the Tinman

In this darkly fantastical and romantic short, Ray Tintori has delivered a story of revolution and wars for love.  The short film definitely touch viewers with the great sacrificing heart of Bill, as he fights so hard, even while he has lost his body, for the girl he loves.  The black and  white adds to the dark and mystical feel of the short, and the ending is especially bitter to watch.  I give it a 9.5/10.  

Writer's Tears

I recently found out about this brand of Irish Whiskey. Writer's Tears.  It is such a poetic name.  Here is how it gets its name.

I find the above description extremely spot on and I can totally picture in my head, troubled writers sitting by a bar, frowning, massaging the bridge of their noses where their glasses rest, while smoking a cigarette.  In front of them were glasses of Whiskey, or Writer's Tears.  

Being a writer is not easy.  There are times when you are filled with inspirations and ideas, of poetic words and rhymes.  There are also times (or most of the time) when you are empty of inspirations, empty of words and emotions, when you are plain empty of anything.  You will feel stuck and no matter how hard you think, how hard you try to write, you will end up tearing that sheet of paper out, scrunching it up and throwing it at the pile of bad writing by the full trash can.  You will feel helpless, like the way you cannot lift your ring finger when your middle finger is folded under your palm.  You will panic as you see deadlines approaching and you find yourself staring at an empty blank page.  And that is the moment when you cry and let all of the frustration stream from your eyes, when you let the writer's tears flow.  As failure and disappointment wash off, they make room for new inspirations and words, new emotions that you will write and chronicle.

This is the cycle writers go through.

It's not you, it's me

Gilian Jacob's performance in the short It's Not You, It's Me, by Matt Spicer, is very believable,  Her portrayal of the normalcy and the madness of her character was very spot on.  I was definitely shocked as the boyfriend slipped and fell onto the coffee table, and have that piece of glass stabbed into his body.  It was definitely the moment the dark enter the comedy.  And well, the dark and the comedy is pretty obvious in the short.  Viewers can already guess what will happen to her husband and her kids as they were making all the noises at the dinner table and messing with the food and all that.  The ending bit, is where the comedy lies, with the three luggages behind in the trunk and Jacobs sobbing and driving in the front.  The cycle just never ends, does it.