Happy together

I watched the 'Happy together' 10 year anniversary DVD last week. The movie aged good and the acting was top-notched. But the focus of this set was the special feature with the clips that ended up on the cutting room floor.

We learned the story behind the creation of this production. Not a pretty one but I was glad to see the version of the story that WKW managed to pull together in the end.

The two female characters introduced during the process were eliminated from the movie almost completely. Funny thing was WKW kept on recycling his characters and images but at the same time anything that was too familiar might not survive the final cut.

Leaving friends, family, and history behind and restart in another place was an emotional journey. The feeling of waking up in a foreign land without knowing when to return home was draining. At the end, happy together was a simple movie that followed the fundamental emotions of 3 guys who chose to exile themselves. It has a happy ending, not a very conventional one, for the very least, they're still able to make the choice for themselves.

Identity

"Infernal affairs" was a well crafted Asian movie. The best part of infernal affairs was the ending. The villain got rebirth through the sacrifice of the good. There certainly were frustrations and unfairness but at the same time it was hopeful. The bad had been struggling for change, to evolve, to become different. One fought hard with his fate, one tried to manage his own future. It's achieved through some evil deeds for sure but he's so determined and he never stopped trying. Of course, if he could tell good from bad, why did he ever wanted to be a mole in the police squad to begin with?

"The departed" was another well-crafted movie based on the same script. It's more like a remix of the original movie than the IA sequels. For people who already watched the originals, it's quite tiring if not redundant. I was surprised that some of the violence in the departed was not as shocking as IA. Not in the sense of the amount of fake blood, but the impact on the audience.

The dialogues were nothing more than a bunch of swearing. And I didn't see the importance of all the f* word to the characters. Quentin Tarantino over done it and do did Martin Scorsese. I didn't like the soap treatment of the love triangle between the characters and I hate the ending.
What's the point if it's only a bad guy got killed at the end movie? I think I appreciate more if we have something more tastefully done like "the talented Mr. Ripley".

the Devil wears Prada

"Power is bad. Free spirit is noble. Good people don’t boss around."

I question about the title: what’s with Prada? I question on people who want to watch this movie because of the title: Does a sweatshirt look better because it has a designer label on it?

Clothes are essential to keep us warm. Clothes can help to present us to others.

Fashion is unnecessary. (yes, it feeds the industry itself) Why do we need to have a different collection every season? Do I need to have a different image of myself next year? Do I get bored of how I look easily? Will I like myself better by wearing this piece of fashion? Will I dislike myself because I wear this piece of yesterday fashion?

This movie was set in the fashion industry, but it’s pretty much applicable to mostly everything.

You get what you paid for. You work harder and you become better. Successful management is control freaks and they play politics to survive. It is not a fair world but the rules are fair and square. At the end of the movie, I didn’t see anything that Andy needs to wake up to. This is where we are living in, this world is never meant to be perfect and it never would be.

If Miranda is meant to be the devil, ain't we all living in hell? The moral of this movie is: the major moviegoers are still the 16-year-old.

Hannibal

The stupid mask.. What to do when running out of ideas for another sequel of a successful franchise? Do the prequel! (Brilliant*)

One of the most successful examples was Godfather II, which earned a second Oscar for Coppola. The worst case scenario was Star Wars - instead of 1, 3 state-of-the-art mindless prequels were made to level Lucas' landmark epic almost 30 years ago.

Manhunter was the beginning of the series. It was pretty much a network production, loosely paced, and was not too popular. Brain Cox set the tune of Dr. Lector in this first appearance. Anthony Hopkins played Brain Cox in silence of the lambs and won the world. (Brain Cox is always a good actor!)

Hannibal Rising has a poor story. Somehow, it doesn't have much ground to make sense out of the creation of a sociopath. Maybe it does, but the plot is plain stupid and predictable.

Young Hannibal acted like he had a history of 3 movies behind him and had to pick up every little move Sir Hopkins did to reinforce the connections. As if this has anything to do with good acting or is of any necessary to make this a better prequel/ movie.

Revenge is the word, and it makes justification to any silly, stupid, crazy, inhuman actions. An eye for an eye, in this movie’s prospective, to get even, one must pay back. The spirit is quite pro-anti-terrorist war – as far as you have something behind you, you can go all the way! “Those bastards are no human, they don’t have parents and families and deserve to be cleaned off by the righteous YOU.” Thanks for the educating lesson.

The dialogues are like the theme of Batman. Fearing the audience might doze off anytime and forget which movie they were watching - the characters had to continuously repeat "Hannibal" throughout the show. In most cases, Ms. Gong Li. How annoying!

It looks, smells, sounds like a stinky movie, and more than that, it’s rotten bad. (The cine-photography is at times good)
Hannibal rising! Soooo horrible, you should run away not walk!

Global Warming

Well, it's too late.
Don't know if I should be glad that some scientists coincidentally agreed with my previous common sense interpretation that it's too late to reverse the global green house effect. Yes, I know I am cynical to start with, but if you have seen the glacier retracts in Alaska and British Columbia, you will definitely feel the same.

I have doubts if the estimated 11F increase in global temperature by 2100 was anywhere accurate. With the adverse condition growing exponentially, under our current living patterns without any control measures, I guess we can get to the 11F point in half the time, it's more like 2060.

Furthermore, the extreme weather continues. The hot gets cold and the cold gets hot. The clock is ticking for sure, but there's ain't no turning back. What comes around goes around, we abuse this planet good enough now we are eating our own fruits.

The ecology system has its cycle, the world has its own cycle, and human civilization has its. We are going to suffer, and at the same time we will be witnessing another page of history. We do have to admit the fact that nothing last (or stay the same) forever, there's is nothing to begin with and there'll be nothing left in the end. Do we have the privilege to see it till the end?