Falling Slowly

黄金甲

黃金甲在LA一直都是限量放映的. 我一直沒看,是不想開車開老遠的去看一個很可能很不好看的電影. (雖然總有人拿支持亞裔電影事業的大帽子來壓我.)

周五快下班的時候, bf突然來電話說我家附近的電影院也開始放黃金甲了. 于是趕著去看了.停了車時間已經有點晚了,小跑著進去.發現空空的沒幾個人.才松口氣坐下. 這麽空可能是因爲黃金甲沒有十面埋伏公映的時候那麽多宣傳. 也可能因爲不是武打片,也可能是因爲沒有章子怡.

黃金甲裏這群人,演技最好的就是劉烨了. 我一直喜歡他. 雖然辛巴大姐總說他是民工相. 可是他凹下去的雙頰,蒼白的臉色,大而圓的眼睛. 正好適合演這樣一個聰明又懦弱的王子. 劉烨發現密謀,然後質問皇後那段最好看了. 話都說的全,說的盡. 表演的也淋漓盡致, 看著痛快. 不象戲裏其他人, 欲言又止吞吞吐吐. 看得我著急.

周傑倫的演技就被比下去好多. 初聽皇後藥裏有毒, 需要表現出震驚和憤怒,我看的時候都替他捏把汗. 周傑倫的衣服好象太沈.不然武打動作還可以顯得再驕健些.洗澡的鏡頭遠看我還以爲是大王子呢. 結果是周傑倫,給他洗澡不知道是啥意思.又沒有秀身材%$##%$

如果真要一一對位, 周傑倫帶兵反抗的精神有些象雷雨裏面的魯大海. 可是他的反抗是局限在母子之情,爲了救母才起兵. 並不是出于想要推翻獨裁, 他最後也並不能背叛父君. 所以最後一劍還是刺在自己身上. 這一點就和魯大海反壓迫反封建要求平等的精神完全不同了. 沒有了這層精神,我就不太明白翻拍一個雷雨的意義在哪裏.

我不喜歡黃金甲裏把吃藥改成了毒藥. 我覺得,十年來枯木死灰的生活夠讓人絕望了, 再加上大王子要出走, 這時候皇後被逼謀反. 更有震撼力. 改了毒藥之後,一切都簡單化了. 你要毒死我,我自然要反抗. 也許皇後的謀反也是爲了留住大王子. 只是加了毒藥這一節, 謀反留人的效果就被削弱了.

不過,就算謀反成功了. 留得住留不住大王子,皇後都沒有好結果. 留住了,荒淫的皇太後在曆史上都沒有好下場的. 向來女子都逃不過忠孝禮義的懲罰.那些大臣們怎麽可能放過她.
留不住呢,雖然不用再吃毒藥了. 然後呢? 繼續枯木死灰. 一樣的悲劇. 所以說毒藥這一節是多余的. 殺死皇後的又不是毒藥.

讓我遺憾的是, 謀反的力量差別太懸殊了. 根本沒有撕殺. 直接屠殺! 沒有給人一點點希望. 一進大門就知道他們完了. 後來亂箭齊放是在炫耀武力. 其實那時候根本可以讓他們繳械的. 很多人也都會繳的. 與其屠殺, 讓二王子看著手下齊齊下跪, 背叛他, 更能顯示皇帝的至高無上不可動搖的權利. 是皇帝不會弄權還是導演的智謀和武夫相當.

說到智謀,二王子邊疆三年,是應該稍微懂得帶兵的. 可是向來逼宮是講究講裏應外合的, 二王子怎麽只把禁衛軍撤了,而沒有預備自己的人呢. 這樣,就算皇帝預先不知道謀反的密謀, 內宮那麽大,他也是可以趁機逃跑的. 只要皇帝不死,別人是坐不了王位的.
再說, 帶兵是要過一關守一關的, 沒見過沖進大門了, 居然沒有派人把守的大門. 這樣的打法,就算皇帝不知道他們謀反,我看也難成事.

bf對結局很不滿. 說沒有交代清楚. 我問他對誰的結局不明白. 他想了想, 說都明白. 可是覺得還是交代出來比較好. 我覺得結局明白交代二王子自殺已經不錯了. 如果停在三個人都坐下那一幕,你說是不是叫人更犯嘀咕? 我想bf對結局不滿意是覺得受欺負受壓迫的都死了, 失去了這麽多生命,並沒有換來什麽? 改變什麽, 動搖什麽. 一切都沒變. 只是犧牲了很多無辜的生命. 這確實夠讓人失落的.


另外: 結局拍得還是不錯的. 透綠色的杯子和暗紅的藥水飛出去,然後慢慢灑下來, 讓人覺得,電影又回歸到因簡單自然而體現出來的美. 或者說,結局讓人更加感激簡單自然的美.

The Holidays

After watching the first half the holidays, I was already disappointed. My bf asked, "What did you expect from this movie?" I was expecting another "Kissing Jessica Stein", journeys of two completely different girls rediscovering love, life and themselves by breaking out of the normal routines, by doing something completely different.

The holidays wasn't as thought provoking as "Kissing Jessica Stein". It was not even as heart warming as "Love Actually".
The holiday started off with a very attractive concept, swapping homes with someone from a different city. One was from LA, the other London, and first time in the new cities for both. How exciting as I had longed for such an experience, escaping to a different city, a new home, new people, living a different life, experiencing a different culture, a life do-over.

But the holidays quickly shrank this concept to just a new romance, a new leading man. The only difference between LA and London as far as I could tell was the accents. The London experience never went beyond the girl's cottage and Jude Law's bedroom.
The LA experience was limited to only the LA movie industry. Three people in her LA life were a movie script writer; a movie music composer, and an actress. How dare they reduce LA to just the Hollywood?

But I loved Jude Law's role in this movie as a caring father. I loved when Jude Law showed his insecurities as he talked about how hard it was to be a father and a single man. I was a little surprised when he said he sometimes pretended the kids didn't exist. Surprised because I had already settled down into this otherwise completely sugar coated movie.

Christmas cards kicked my butt

All I wanted was a couple of blank Christmas cards so I can express my appreciations and my Christmas wishes to those whom I usually don’t tell enough how special they are to me.

As I stood in front of aisles and aisles of cards, I realized Christmas card makers had thought of every category of friendship imaginable and had made Christmas cards and wrote down Christmas wishes for them. To mother, father, daughter, son, grandma, grandpa, love, friend, coworker, boss and humor, classics, contemporary, cute, religious, etc… whatever feelings you had, there was a card for them and there were words written down for them, words that were better written than you could ever thought of yourself.

But I wanted completely black Christmas cards. I didn’t want other people’s thoughts invading my card. I had to leave the store empty handed. Are we really so handicapped as "they" think that we couldn't be trusted in writing our own words in our Christmas cards? They had to make sure that there were no blank cards left in the rack so we wouldn't ruin another person's Christmas by "oh my gosh" doing our own writings?
Maybe, just maybe I will make my own cards next year.

Only in California...

will you find people pair a turtle neck sweater with flip flops....
or tan tops with fur boots....

Engineering Ignorance

Today google has the scream as a logo. If you click on it, it shows links to Edvard Munch.
But for the longest time I thought it was one of Van Gogh's paintings.
After I confessed my confusion to my coworker, we looked at each other, shrugged and said what we always say at situations like these:

"What do we know? We are engineers."

Things you find out about yourself....

How do you know if you are a nerd?

When you think the user manual of an operation system is fun to read.

Yes, that where we draw the line...