meaning in the moving design

Everyone loves making lists for the new year. That's what new years are all about: lists. Nobody actually cares if you quit smoking, you just have to put it on your list...

All this end-of-the-decade listmaking makes me want to make lists. I don't know how many hours I've spent watching movies this decade, probably something in the region of "a fuck of a lot," so I guess that's as good a place to start as any. So, in no particular order, here we go.

I've been shamelessly obsessed with So You Think You Can Dance for about a year now... so dance is on the brain. This is awesome. Spoken word dancing should be the next new thing (along with capoeira martial arts films and breaking to classical music). Me likes...




That is all.

I'm a huge fan of This American Life. I download the podcast almost every week, hoarding them for those long line-ups, layovers and other periods of travel tedium (the stuff no one talks about when they romanticize being 'on the road'- the waiting). Still, as much as I love TAL, lately it's been falling a little flat for me. There will be a good act, followed by a boring bit, and sometimes I don't even make it to the end. This, coming from someone who used to treat TAL as a bedtime story, who would curl up every night in bed and listen with warm and geeky anticipation...*

So, with 3 hours to kill in the Manila airport, I'm glad I picked a good one today. The episode is called Human Resources, and it is really bloody interesting/funny/thought-provoking from beginning to end. In a nutshell: where NYC teachers go when they've been bad, gentrification and displacement, and chimpanzee retirement homes.

This American Life is the way that public radio should be: interesting, well-produced and FREE. I try to donate when i can to keep it that way.


Ok, and to tangent (or to follow this thinly shared theme of gentrification), I also saw a really great film recently called Home, by Swiss director Ursula Meier. The film centers around a family who've built a house in the idyllic fields at the edge of an abandoned highway. Their carefree lives are upended when news hits that the highway will finally be opened. The cars and traffic become an unnerving source of noise and pollution, driving the family to take increasingly drastic measures to preserve their home and way of life.
Home weilds the displacement metaphor like a blunt object, and the series of blows it deals, as the family goes from coping with positive thinking and tight smiles to trying not to completely lose their shit, are crushing and emotionally raw. It helps that it's also amazingly well-acted, especially by Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher) as the mother and Kacey Mottet Klein, who plays little Julien. I feel a little out of the loop- I'd heard nothing about this film and only chanced upon it when a friend invited me out. It was a really pleasant surprise and exceptionally well done for a first-time feature. I says "Check it out, yo."


*I know, I know. There are other great radio shows deserving of praise. Radio Diaries is awesome, radiolab's ok, and DNTO for some down home canadianness. But... I don't know, I think it's Ira Glass' voice. It's so matter-of-fact. Most radio personalities tend to come off sounding a little too theatrical, literary, contrived. Ira's voice is totally the secret to TAL's success. I'm convinced that new contributors secretly have to attend Ira training, where they learn to imitate and perfect his style of pause and nuance. And I swear that at least one of their producers was hired purely on account of the fact that he sounds just like him...

I've been getting a few emails about random things that I'm rather excited about, so I thought I'd spread the word in a cultural smorgesboardian-type post.

I wrote about Court 13's new film Glory at Sea here, and I've just been told they've recently released it on their website here. Glory at Sea is a castaway epic set in the aftermath of Katrina, about a group of ruffians who build a makeshift boat to scour for their loved ones at the bottom of the sea. Up until now, all the Court 13 stuff I've seen has been on the strange side of humour, and while some of the witicisms remain, GAS definitely feels like a transition. I think Benh actually relocated to New Orleans shortly after Katrina, and I know the film has been a long time in the making, so maybe it's just my imagination but I feel like there's a whole lotta heart in this one. It's a very earnest film, and the music really moves it along; is very much a part of the package. The writing is solid, the concept is heartbreaking, and it totally made me want to... I dunno... GET UP. Go check it out, and dip into the back catalogue, there's some awesome stuff in there.

I met Pat and Marek of Tin Can Forest while I was working on my live soundtrack gig, and then in person while I was at Planet in Focus. They showed me some of the other stuff they were working on, a series of macabre Czech fairy tales thrown together under the title Domovoi. The drawings are amazing- totally engaging, mysterious and BUSY. I'm super-excited because apparently they now have an animation piece in the works based on Domovoi. It's called Pohadsky. Check it out. For peeps in Toronto, Tin Can Forest has an exhibition on at Resistor Gallery until early January.





Here's another one:


I wish I could show you some illustrations from the book, or show you how big my eyes are when I'm looking at them.... I've made it a personal mission to learn how to read some of his books... although I've been told it ain't gonna be easy.

That's all for now.

Wendy & Lucy
There are films with nothing but narrative- 2-hour-long "and then and then" movies that entertain through distraction. All Bollywood films and most of Almodovar's movies fall into this category. (Not complaining, btw, I love these films; they are always the easiest to digest, no matter what mood I'm in).

Then there are other films, ones that say virtually nothing, offer scant dialogue and long looks; where nothing moves but each still moment is thoughtfully milked. Wendy and Lucy is one of those films.

Nothing happens. A drifter (Wendy) and her dog (Lucy) are trying to get to Alaska on a shoestring budget and encounter a snowballing set of problems enroute. That's pretty much it. The barebones story is told in pregnant pauses, using nothing but the rawest of materials- its tiny cast and the keen eye of its director- to make it move.

Michelle Williams (who has, by the way, done some awesome stuff since Dawson's Creek) is brilliant in this. She's pretty much a one-woman show, actually. There are cameos by Will Oldham and Larry Fessenden (who co-produced with Todd Haynes) but really, it's all Williams and director Kelly Reichardt. We are voyeurs sitting beyond the camera, watching Wendy struggle to hold it together, but only barely. The story is told through her concerned look as she carefully counts her money and rubs her cold feet; her head hung low in her lap after countless hours detained; the back of her head as lines of sunlight cast shadows on her back...

It's hard to describe in writing why films like this work. It's a little like slowly panning through a a series of very emotive photographs. Anyone who's ever spent any time drifting aimlessly on their own can probably relate to the long gaps of silence in the film, and anyone who hasn't might gain some insight into what it's like. It's quiet. It's lonely. It's full of horribly mundane events. You are left with nothing but your own muteness and the weight of your problems... and it can feel pretty damn stifling. It's a very real story, right down to the banality of Will Oldham's "drunk drifter" rant.

Granted, the story/non-story does run on a little too long, and by the end, my attention was starting to wane. If Wendy and Lucy had been a short film, it would have been an absolute work of genius, hands down. But as it was, it was still pretty damn good.


The Silence of Lorna
I really really like the Dardenne brothers. I've only seen 2 of their films, so if they are beginning to get formulaic, well, I haven't noticed, and whatever, I like the formula (which I would attempt to sum up as "trying to fold all the cruelty of the world neatly away into your wallet, only to have it leak and stain and get horribly messy").

Lorna is a professional "wife" involved in an elaborately organized marriage scheme. A native Albanian, Lorna married to obtain a Belgium citizenship, and plans to end the marriage (by murder or divorce) and swiftly marry a Russian, also looking for EU citizenship. The sham marriages are organized by goons, who are effectively Lorna's agents, or pimps if you will, though there is no sex or abuse involved- this is purely a business transaction.

This is perhaps the prevailing Dardenne theme- business as usual. All of the film's characters play this out; show no emotion. This was exactly the nerve-wracking part of watching L'enfant- I was so emotional and horrified by what the characters were doing and, at the same time, totally frustrated by their utter lack of conscience. Well, this time, the brothers let in a little crack of emotion and I felt like I got what I wanted. Just vindication that no one can go through these incredibly personal and emotional experiences without feeling something, or without having those feelings manifest into something else. Repression can bend emotions into a weird kind of... indigestion sometimes.

I'm not bored of the brothers yet. I do think watching their films is a bit of a test of character, like either you feel too much and it's hard to watch... or you don't, and you wonder what's wrong with you.

[Sidenote: The Silence of Lorna makes a really good counterpoint to Wendy and Lucy- both are voyeuristic character studies of a female protagonists who a) struggle to remain emotionally "sober" in the midst of a somewhat hostile environment; and b) are simultaneously held back and propelled forward by their economic situations. It's sort of like the micro and macro for me- W&L is a small, personal story told in a small confined space. You sort of come out feeling like an imploded silent ball. SofL is not really about Lorna, more about the attitude or politics that she stands for, or the societal norm or necessity that she must act out. and once the film has appalled us with this cold, blaise as-usual attitude, then it moves inwards, and we see what all this baggage does to one woman's psyche; how it all comes spilling out. The two films both push emotional buttons, but the method and the effect are very different- one feels very real; the other, very symbolic. It's pretty interesting.. to me, anyway.]

OM SHANTI OM
There's very little to say about this one, except that it was thoroughly entertaining, had a great cast, great songs (one was called "Pain of Disco"... awesome), great dancing, and a very awesomely ridiculous storyline that I absolutely loved. Even the credits were great.
I've never seen a Bollywood film I didn't like.
Wait, that's not true.. there was that ghetto futuristic sci-fi Bollywood flick I fast forwarded through once...
Ok, well all the other ones totally kicked ass.

I'm out of steam, I can't write about film anymore. I feel like I've just thrown up a big gurky puddle of trivial thought and I'll be walking around for the next few days just nodding and smiling out of fatigue. Good time to ask me for something special.

My Magic
I never thought I would describe a movie where someone puts a spike through his tongue as family friendly, but it seems right, so I'm just going to go with that...

Eric Khoo's My Magic tells the story of Francis, a depressed, grossly alcoholic single dad struggling to take care of his son. Francis works at a club, and occasionally impresses the bartender with magic tricks to coax free drinks out of him. The higher-ups catch wind, and soon concoct a plan to exploit Francis by showcasing him in a freak show at the club. Determined to provide his son with a chance for a brighter future, Francis allows the stakes of his freak show performance to get higher and higher.

Ive never seen anything else by Eric Khoo, so I'll just call it like I see it. By all indications, Khoo is a master juggler of conflicting emotions. This is a kid's movie with very adult themes. Khoo's balance of humour and pathos is just incredible, and is especially apparent in his portrayal of Francis. Khoo paints the alcoholic father as raw, vulnerable, and painfully pathetic, but nevertheless revels in taking light-hearted pokes at him. So in watching it, I am simultaneously struck with both empathetic shame, and a chuckle at his expense. It's... not quite a "Ha Ha" kind of funny, more like a sad, swallowed smile, but these small comedic touches pervade the film, and make much of the latter half bearable, as Francis is exploited to increasingly degrading levels.

I also don't know anything about the state of Singapore's racial harmony/disharmony, so I won't theorize on that, although Khoo does seem to be saying a lot there, especially given the film's ending. A minor point of interest for me (I think in light of the fact that I am living in a foreign country and often find myself oscillating between two, sometimes three different languages every day) is that the film shows not only how diverse Singapore is, but that all those diverse cultures bleed into an odd socks cesspool of language mixing. Most of the film was in Tamil, but Francis regularly interacts with others in Cantonese and Taiwanese (and maybe Hindi??), all with spots of English in between.

It's hard to label My Magic. It's either an incredibly harsh kid's film or a film meant to scar the soft at heart. All I know is that I wasn't its intended audience (I am neither young nor soft), and so yes, at times it was too cheesy,too melodramatic and the stiffness of the acting did get to me. But I kind of feel really forgiving about all that. I still enjoyed the film... although I sort of suspect it's because I'm reading some race/class disparity theme in there that may not actually exist...

Whatever the case, it's fair to say that this is not a film that exactly leaves you skipping gleefully out of the theatre, but still, it does it's best to soften the cold-hearted blow. Khoo's cynical message "The world is a cruel place, you will learn that one day," is wrapped in bubble gum kid gloves, almost as if we are being introduced to the cruelty of life through the innocent eyes of Francis' son. And because of that, there was a hint of magic that lingered as the credit rolled. Not quite as sweetly bittersweet as the ending of Harold and Maude, but still pretty comendable. It's certainly peaked my interest in Eric Khoo.

Timecrimes
The problem wth time travel films is that the movie ends near the beginning, so it tends to be a tedious road back and forth through the same territory as the movie progresses. And unless you put an ingenious twist to it, or unless you pray for a dumb audience, well... it runs the risk of coming off a little redundent.

I was first introduced to Nacho Vigalondo while I was working in short film. His 7:35 in the Morning, a black and white suicide bomber musical, was ironic, cheeky and thoroughly awesome. After watching his second short, Choque, I started to get a feel for Nacho's humour, and it agreed with me, very much so. I went to see Timecrimes purely because it was Nacho's first feature length film and I was super curious and excited to see how he'd manage.

The storyline is one of those that works best the less you know... mainly because there isn't much to know. It's a simple premise with some complicated cracks in between. Erm, so fair warning- mini spoilers ahead...

Hector has just moved into a new house and decides to relax in the yard with his binoculars. Only instead of the birds and the bees, Hector spots a naked woman in the nearby forrest. Upon wandering into the bush to check up on her, Hector is attacked by a mysterious, menacing bandaged man. Hector is chased into the arms of a budding young scientist (played by Nacho himself) who, unbeknownst to Hector, has been fiddling with a time travel machine. Throw Hector into said machine, shake, stir in some hubristic folly and add a twist of naive intention and you've pretty much figured out the rest of the story.

So personally, I guessed how the story would play out somewhat early in the film, and while I still found it entertaining, it definitely started to peter out for me in the last half hour. It's kind of a "fool me once" situation, where what was novel the first time around gets to be a little dry on the second go. Retracing the same scenes from different perspectives can be interesting... but it's much more effective in small doses, methinks.

Nacho, however, should get mad credit for doing so much with so little. It's a cast of four, and there are only a few locations. Like Primer, another sci-fi indie flick, Nacho compensates with a smart story. This is a budget film that doesn't feel budget at all, even despite the b-movie theme.

The script is tight... unfortunately, I found it a little too tight. Uncomfortably tight. The fun of sci-fi movies for me is the unknown; being able to let my imagination run wild with endless possibilities and "what if"s. There is no room for that in Timecrimes, every little detail is explained. I felt like my imagination was locked and sealed into Nacho's AHA! box, and I found that kind of stifling.

Having said that, Hector- a balding, befuddled everyman- makes a great anti-hero, and Nacho's comedic touches are impeccable. I have incredible respect for this guy on all sides of the camera and I think he is immensely talented. All in all, it was really good for a first feature... I just wish I had more to latch onto and make my own.


24 City
Will somebody please oh please fire Jiang Zhangke's musical arranger?!

Fictional narratives that incorporate documentary elements can work. Gary Burn's Radiant City, and Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool come to mind, but I'm sure there are countless others I'm forgetting. Documentaries that incorporate fiction? Hmmm... not if you're supposed to take them seriously. Ok, there was "dramatization" in A Thin Blue Line, but I'd argue that that was more of a necessary evil than a plus; the story is what made that movie. And Marlie Matlin pretty much ruined What the $@#* Do We Know? for me...

I bring this up because 24 City is one such animal. Jiang weaves documentary interviews with scripted scenes; has real interviewees sit alongside actors pretending to be interview subjects.

Obviously, the risk of doing this is that your audience may be able to discern the real interviews from the scripted ones- a rather jarring effect. Credit to the actors, but the difference was obvious to me. There is a HUGE difference between a personal story that someone haltingly and hesitatingly tells a camera, and one that has been fictionally crafted; the latter is always guilty of being too cute, too flowery... to arty.

Beyond this bare flaw, Jiang's narrative arch for the film seems confused, or at least it confused me. I simply don't get what he's on about... is it supposed to be a nostalgic love letter to Chengdu? A statement against the tediousness of factory work? A cry for the loss of work pride in the face of China's development frenzy? Jiang's interviews all take turns supporting and refuting each of these themes, and the result is a whole lot of staged talk with scant moments of genuine pathos that all fail to tie together.

Jiang's style also rubs me the wrong way. His method of having various interviewees, family members and anonymous strangers stare at the camera for a minute of silence seems like a poor Digibetaman's version of Koyaanisqatsi. What's more, they're not even close ups, so it isn't particularly uncomfortable for the viewer, if that's what he was going for. Most jarring of all is Jiang's choice of music, which I can only assume he arranges himself because it is consistently bad in his films.

Jiang, word to the wise- cantopop love songs and electronic mandopop DO NOT fit your scenes of factory workers, nostlagic shots of Chengdu and sob stories about coal mine workers. WTF??

Jiang is sort of a Cannes darling, and has earned some serious arthouse cred. Well, I've seen two of his films, and I don't see what all the fuss is about, so I think I'm done with this guy.


*PS- I knew I was a film geek, but I really didn't know I was this much a film geek.
I... apologize.

If China Post was a newspaper that people actually read, I may never write in this town again. Thankfully, this is not the case, but I'm not exactly celebrating.

There's this movie, it's called Cape No. 7. It's huge here, people are freaking out over it. I first saw and reviewed the film back in June. It was, as I saw it, a light-hearted comedy full of local humor and great characters that lost itself in an over-ambitious, unforgiveably sappy story. More hype than substance. Then this happened. And this squirmy little cutsie commercial film is now like a rusty screw burrowing its way into my gut.

It's not hard to see why it went to Number 1 in Taiwan. Up until now, Taiwanese filmmakers have largely consisted of arthouse auteurs, more bent on alienating or depressing their audiences than entertaining them.

Let's take Tsai Ming-liang for example. I've never seen any of his films in its entirety, although I did catch a few minutes of The Wayward Cloud when I was working at TIFF... before I left because I was falling alsleep. I don't actually recall, but there's a chance I was actually the TIFF publicist for this one. All I remember is that one flip through the press kit made me dub this film "the watermelon porn musical." And indeed, (ssshhh) that's actually how I sold it to the press. Well... my press. To our left, we have a bunch of semi-nude women with buckets on their head trying to seduce a man with a giant penis head on his head. To the right, the doctor is checking her melons. Apologies for the tiny jpegs.

Set in a place like Taiwan, where the cute per capita ratio is ridiculously high; where what people look for in a pet is whether or not it will fit in their handbag and everyone gets daily email dosages of cute cat and cute panda photos, Tsai is... well god, he's like his giant penis head man set amidst a display of hello kitties. This IMDB article kind of sums up Tsai's relationship with Taiwan:

Berlinale Winner Says He May Not Release Film In His Homeland
A Taiwanese film that won the International Critics Prize at the Berlin Film Festival last Saturday may not be released in Taiwan if any of its sexually explicit scenes are ordered deleted by local censors, the film's director told reporters in Taipei. Returning to Taiwan after receiving the award for outstanding artistic contribution, director Tsai Ming-liang vowed not to distribute his film, The Wayward Cloud, in Taiwan "unless in its totality." The Taipei Times observed today (Wednesday) that movies are generally barred from showing genitals, sexual intercourse or nudity. But Tsai commented, "Audiences are smart enough to tell if it is pornography. This film can jerk tears. Can a porn film have [that] effect?" Ironically, the film deals with two porn actors.

The result is two-fold. It means that the handful of hardcore cinephiles in Taiwan have a higher tolerance for pretentious arthouse than most, and that everyone else will go screaming for the first cinematic exit door. Enter Cape No. 7. It's inoffensive, funny, immensely accessible and has Taiwan written all over it. Instant mass appeal. Taiwanese audiences have been starving for its simplicity for years. It's a bad film, but it's good for Taiwan.

So, for fear of stepping on another landmine, I'm not even going to bother embarassing myself. Every time I try to share my opinions about a movie, I get slammed. The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival has started, I'm going to post my thoughts here, safely, where I know no one will read them.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of this entry? It's a line from the film.

I grew up on a healthy diet of John Woo films, back in his heyday, when every film was a masterpiece. As a child, I used to think that Chow Yun-Fat had surgically implanted a toothpick between his teeth, and that someone had sewed a pair of guns to his hands the way mothers sew mittons to coats. Whenever he was standing in a scene, I would have to tilt my head, because he just didnt seem right unless he was on his back or flying sideways through the air, guns ablazin'. My cousin and I would reinact all the scenes where Chow and [the other guy] would point guns at each other's head while spouting calm, witty dialogue; sometimes we would spin in circles to emulate the camera moving round and round the pair.

I stopped watching John Woo films when he started working with the whities*. I didn't want to see the man who had introduced me to guns, machetes and the brotherhood (all before I reached puberty) embarass himself. And time and Hollywood proved me right. There was that unfortunate Jean-Claude van Damme debut, and then one too many films starring Nicholas Cage... So I've only heard the rumours of how bad the others were, and I'm quite glad to have closed my eyes on the last 15 years of John Woo's career.

But when I heard about Red Cliff, I just couldn't resist. Woo's first foray into the ancient China genre, armed with a historical epic and a bloated budget? And no Nicholas Cage? Happy day! Come back, my prodigal son, come back to the motherland. Here, take a timeless classic, and go forth...

It's 208AD, and the scheming Prime Minister Cao Cao is set to inherit the fading Han Empire. Having already conquered the North, Cao Cao sends his mighty army to the southlands of China, in an attempt to unify the entire kingdom under his control. As Cao Cao's men march towards them, General Liu Bei’s military strategist Zhuge Liang organizes an alliance with Sun Quan, a neighbouring warlord. The two consolidate their armies, and Zhuge and Sun’s Viceroy Zhou Yu lead the allied forces to a minor victory against Cao Cao’s calvary, a precursor to the great battle still to be won at sea. With the enemy's massive fleet on the opposite banks, Zhuge and Zhou cautiously plan their next military move against the powerful Cao Cao, in a battle of chess-like wit and cunning.

Woo’s casting woes prior to production were almost as dramatic as the film itself, with a revolving door of actors moving in and out of roles. Tony Leung Chiu-wai, turned down the role of Zhuge Liang (which was later taken up by Takeshi Kaneshiro), but came back to the production to replace Chow Yun-Fat as Zhou Yu, after Fat unexpectedly bowed out during the first week of shooting.

Kaneshiro is surprisingly good as the youthful and smart strategist, displaying a confidence of ease; a man whose strength is clearly more brains than brawn. His character plays counterpoint to Leung's Viceroy; soft wisdom partnered with hard experience. Kaneshiro’s Zhuge is the sagacious strategist, while Zhou Yu is a man wisened by battle, the elder, more experienced of the two. Together, Zhuge and Zhou share duties as the brains of Liu Bei’s military operations.

Sadly, (and it really hurts to say this) Tony Leung's performance is a little unconvincing. Leung gives Zhou Yu a sensitive touch that seems naggingly misplaced, and he can't seem to hold down the commanding presence and brute smarts that his Zhou Yu's character demands. This is partly the failure of the script too, as it doesn’t help that Lin Chi-ling has been cast as the superfluous pretty thing clasping his arm, dragging Zhou Yu's strong silent machismo down with her.

Perhaps I can blame the voice actor for Leung's failings. Apparently, Leung's Mandarin is so egregious that Taiwanese audiences have never heard his real voice. Or perhaps I can blame the costume designer, who for some unknown reason has made Leung look exceptionally more ridiculous than his fellow actors. But beyond all this, Leung's portrayal of the strong, hardened commander is simply... lacking. Leung's performance leaves me wistfully thinking that Woo had it right the first time- Chow (or at least the Chow of old) would probably have been a much better fit for the character of Zhou Yu, and Leung would have made an appropriate Zhuge Liang.

Woo's supporting cast provides a lively backdrop to the furrowed brows of military scheming. Some, like Lin Chi-ling, are merely cinematic window-dressing while others, Liu Bei’s brothers-in-arms in particular, evoke a sense of martial heroism that is trademark Woo. His themes of fraternal brotherhood from his good ol' days (A Better Tomorrow, Hard-Boiled) shine in the context of warring ancient China. Woo manages to convey the age-old sentiments of chivalry and loyalty without appearing melodramatic, and the result is an emotionally-sweeping sense of brotherhood-in-battle bravado. Ba Sen Zha Bu delivers a particularly sharp performance as the fierce and legendary warrior, Guan Yu.

The strangest thing about Woo's big-budget blockbuster- the most expensive Asian film ever made- is his visual aesthetic, or rather lack of one. When George Lucas brought back the Star Wars series, he used wipes and iris transitions between scenes- a self-reflexive, old school send-up to his earlier series. But I don't know what John Woo's excuse is. Red Cliff has none of the colourfully-saturated imagery of Zhang Yi-mou's Hero, nor the gritty bleak look of Peter Chan's The Warlords. It leaves me wondering where the hell all the money went. Battle sequences notwithstanding, there are parts of Red Cliff that could have come straight out of a kareoke video. It's as if, not being able to cinematically date the film back to 200AD, Woo has settled for circa 1982.

Despite all this, Woo has the advantage of having one of the most entertaining and engrossing stories in Chinese history at his disposal. The Battle of Red Cliff is a dramatic tale of strategy and wit, and the film serves to fill in the complicated imaginary spaces of the book with vivid, awe-invoking visuals and stunning scenes of scale. Not only are the individual heroics of the characters in battle amazing, but Woo has made military strategy look sexy, in a big big way, especially in the film's big battle finale.

Red Cliff has plenty of awesome action and a thoroughly engaging story, but Woo still looks groggy from his Hollywood daze. Hopefully he'll have walked it off in time for the film's finale.


*A version of this appears on Twitch, my friend's film site, where I was virtually accosted by angry cinephiles for using the term "whitey". I guess it was smart to take out the part where I refer to Chinese folks as "my people"... to see me stand corrected, click on the link.

I know a lot of madly talented people. Seriously, I'm not talking about no "proud mom" syndrome, where every crappy thing that little Timmy makes in school is an automatic masterpiece, I mean that Im drawn to smart, creative, madly talented people (... as people who do not possess such mad talent are prone to be, I guess- oh dis!)

Which brings me to a certain pair of peeps back home. I met insideamind while putting together a gig for the worldwide short film fest in 2006. I'd seen these guys do scratch magic to a reel of old school kung fu films, and I invited them to do a live score for some films I put together. They killed it. Like they actually outdid any expectations I had, they were that good. I had an amazing line up that night, some really incredible musicians, and of all of them, Cheldon and Eric came the closest to delivering what I had wanted- musicians who would intereact with the images, play with them, confront them, defy them, all of that. These guys have a visual consciousness about the way they make music- not just beats n breaks, but images and moods... and for a filmy music geek like myself, well it just makes me as giddy as a seal in heat.

Ok, so having said that, I never thought much of insideamind outside the context of performance. I'd listened to bits of Fragmental and thought "yeah cool, but not entirely listenable, unless youre watching them play, or play to something". Well, I've changed my mind. They're new album, Scatterpopia (at least the bits Ive heard) is awesome. If i found Fragmental too bare bones, in Scatterpopia, the boys have put on the pounds the Atkins diet way or some shit. They've filled out, and it sounds complete to me for the first time. They're getting tighter and more melodic and... just better. Which makes me want to say "Chia you!!" (it means "add oil!" in chinese, and kinda has the connotation of "you go girl!") and so forth. Check it.

I'm writing all this as the remnants of Typhoon Fengshen spin across Taiwan, and the sound of the rain outside is drowning out my tunes. I'm feeling reflective (what else is new??) and I have to say, I miss the cool scene. Don't get me wrong- I was NEVER a scenester, and I do not in any way miss having to play nice with people I hate, or the shmoozing, I definitely don't miss the schmoozing... but, in t-dot, I knew a lot of cool bands; was exposed to good music, good films, cool things to do... I knew where to find the good shit- always. Taipei's got good films and some wickedly cool things to keep me busy, but I have yet to find the cool music. So for now, I'm still getting my fix virtually.

Ok, I know user-generated content and Web 2.0 are sooo 2002, but it still warms my heart when i see it happen. Like, YAY! Go creative energy! and so forth.

I love radiohead. First, it was about the music, but now I've fallen in love with their politics. While every wannabe rockstar is plying myspace for the elusive record deal, radiohead decided to use the same cyber empowerment to downsize, and get a bit closer to the little people. By releasing In Rainbows as a digital download, they let the community decide what their music was worth. In the same stroke, they also managed to send a big "fuck you" to EMI.


But they didn't stop there. Bent on seeing how far creative potential can go with this new-fangled technology, radiohead is now organizing an online contest to make their first music video off In Rainbows- created by the fans, for the fans (musical FUBU!) They've invited fans to choose any song, submit storyboards, and vote on the projects. The ones with the highest votes get $1000 to make a video, which get passed onto the band, who choose the eventual winner.

So. No more sweaty record exec telling the band which song to release as their first single- the fans choose it. And they do it through this collective democracy. So far, a lot of the storyboards are gravitating towards the same few songs- Weird Fishes Arpeggio, Videotape, All I Need.... that's everything you need to know, right there, by virtue of the collective choice. The other massively cool byproduct of the contest is that you don't just get one music video- you get hundreds. The premise of the contest lets hundreds of people from all around the world borrow a little fame from radiohead to burn some creative energy. That is fucking cool.

So's this (there's something about flappy ears atop a flying humpback whale that instills trust):




And here's a T-dot plug:





I'll end with a tangent:
YouTube, once the amateur online version of Jackass, is now my supplimentary news source. I go to BBC, I read about Tibet or Burma. Then I go to YouTube and find the footage.

I will always remember the VCR, carphones, laserdisc kareoke, dial-up, playing with the phone cord during marathon calls. But god how i love my intermanet.

I've been following Court 13 for a while, they're a group of young directors out of New Orleans with some really awesome ideas and mad talent. I'm sort of a sucker for their brand of humour. I programmed a few of their films back when I did the midnight series for WSFF. One was a twisted re-telling of the Moby Dick story called EGG and one was a story about the tinman and his heartless doppleganger called DEATH TO THE TINMAN (which I can't link to but it's on their website). I consider both to be amongst the weirdest and most creative stuff I've ever programmed. They've got a new short out called GLORY AT SEA!- a castaway epic set in the aftermath of Katrina. It's about a group of ruffians who build a makeshift boat to scour for their loved ones at the bottom of the sea. You can see the trailer on their own site here.

Benh also made a film with his students called I GET WET, which I think is super cute and deserves a look if only to inspire you to round up all the kids you know and make a movie. Them boys done do good work.