The Exception to the Rule

On the plane from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok I watched the movie, He's Just Not That Into You. I heard that it was a pretty crappy movie but there was nothing else to do so I was like, OKAY, why not.

But you know what. I actually liked it. I thought it was really sweet and funny. There were so many nice quotes in there too. For example:

"if a guy treats you like he doesn’t give a s--- it’s because he doesn’t give a s---.”

"Don’t get tricked into asking him out. If he likes you, he’ll do the asking."

"If you can find him, then he can find you. If he wants to find you, he will."

"girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up: if a boy punches you he likes you, never try to trim your own bangs, and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. every movie we see, every story we're told implores us to wait for it: the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. but sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. how to tell the ones who want us from the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. and maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. maybe the happy ending is just moving on. or maybe the happy ending is this: knowing after all the unreturned phone calls and broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment... you never gave up hope."

I want to write more on this but I'm off to the gym now. So maybe later.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly/The Sea Inside

These are two movies I've been meaning to watch but keep forgetting to get.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a memoir about Jean-Dominique Bauby (former Elle editor) and his life after he suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed. The only means of communication is by blinking his left eye. I really like the title of the movie. I think it's beautiful.

The Sea Inside is about a guy trying to commit suicide. It's based on a real-life story of Ramon Sampedro who was left quadriplegic and who fought a 28-year campaign in support of euthanasia and his right to end his own life.

I don't know why I want to watch these two movies now after all these years.

Twilight

Nick downloaded this and wanted to watch it last night. I really didn't want to because I preferred reading it first. But even when I was standing in Asia Books reading the first few pages a couple weeks back I was just turned off by it because it sounded like just another teenybopper love story between a vampire and human. Oh those poor souls who are forbidden to love each other because they come from different races. *boo hoo* Anyway, after watching half of it I guess I'll buy a copy of it just to see how better the book is than the movie, which was awful because the acting (I thought) was unbelievably crap. Bella and Edward looked constipated throughout half of the movie.

Bolt

Bolt is so cute!!! He reminds me so much of Ginger, especially the batman-like ears! I love Ginger so much! Go watch it~ Mittens is also such a cute name for a cat.

Serendipity

"I'm the man Eve. Staring into the sky, thinking. Not about my fiance, but about some mystery guy I met a million and a half hours ago. It was only a moment, a fragment really. But it was like, in that moment, we were supposed to be together. That's why I'm here Eve, that's why I'm going to let destiny take me where it wants to. Because when all of this is over, at least I'll never have to think about him again. Let's just hope he's some bald fascist who picks his nose and wipes it under the car seat."

Something I watched last night. I remember in New York we went to the Serendipity restaurant because of the movie. Just us girls. It was winter and snowing just like in the movie.

But yeah, that's my favorite quote from the movie.

The Dark Knight

The Joker really kept me on the edge of my seat last night as I watched The Dark Knight on IMAX. He was the epitome of anarchy and Heath Ledger captured the deranged, maniac and psychopathic Joker wholeheartedly. You've also got to hand it to the makeup artists too who did an amazing job at recreating the Joker from the vision of Christopher Nolan. I really enjoyed The Dark Knight, but it wasn't the same type of enjoyable as watching Iron Man. I mean, people have compared this movie with The Godfather and Heat. It's not just another superhero movie because I felt that it transcends that. It was very much morbid and gripping to watch the downward spiral of morality. The fall of Harvey Dent. Because ultimately this was about the representation of goodness and how fragile morality is. The uneasiness that comes with hope. How powerful insanity is in which all it requires to tip the scale is a gentle push. The casts were assembled really well and the acting were flawless. I don't know. I'm still pretty blown away by the Joker. You can't even find a trace of Heath Ledger in there. It's like you're watching the Joker, not Heath Ledger playing the Joker. Personally, I think he was so brilliant that I consider him one of the best villains to date. And it's pretty depressing that this was his last role. I also really liked the comparison between the Dark Knight and the White Knight at the end. The real meaning of being a hero.

Kill One Save A Thousand

Although that was the code The Fraternity in Wanted lived by, after watching the movie, it sounded more like Kill a Million to Kill One. Anyway, they were suppose to be the bad guys in Mark Miller's graphic novel and I'd like to get my hands on a copy of it actually, along with V for Vendetta. The movie's OK. I thought Angelina Jolie's arms and tattoos were beautiful though.

Get Smart

Last night I went to watch Get Smart at Esplanade. It was good to get in some laughs considering how down I felt the past couple of days. Anyway, the movie's OK. I like Steve Carrell and he always makes me laugh. He's also in Little Miss Sunshine, which is also another great movie to watch.

Some movies that I'm anticipating:

The Dark Knight (I love comic books but I was never into Batman until Christian Bale took the leading role in Batman Begins. Plus, I'm really looking forward to Heath Ledger as the Joker. I love that it's all dark.)

Hellboy 2 (Not a huge fan of the red demon but I'm really looking forward to see all those fantasy creatures in the trailer from the golden army to the long-haired, jigsaw-faced prince with amazing sword moves. I'm a fantasy nut after all.)

Wanted (Another comic book remake. Angelina Jolie looks hot. And the guy is also cute in a dorky way. )

Wall-E (Pixar!!)

I have this Esplanade Cash Card my brother gave me for free so I can watch like 2000 baht worth of movies there, which is pretty cool.

There's also some pretty horrific slasher movies like Asylum and Frontier(s) out, but I don't think I'll watch them because it'll make me too squirmish.

Wonderful Town

On Saturday I went to watch an independent film by Aditya Assarat (pronounced Athit as in sun) called Wonderful Town at CentralWorld.

It’s about an architect name Ton from Bangkok who was sent to a small town in Southern Thailand after the tsunami to oversee plans for the reconstruction of a hotel near the beach. He stayed at a nearby rundown and empty hotel where he met Na, the hotel’s caretaker and owner. They fall in “love” but problems arise along the way.

With minimal dialogue and expressionless/stiff acting, I honestly didn’t really like it. I thought that the whole movie was painstakingly slow, which made it incredibly boring. Part of the reason is because I'm usually drawn to characters the most when watching movies, especially the conversations they have with each other (like in Before Sunset).

We also had a chance to talk to the director after the movie, which actually turned out to be the more interesting part of watching this movie.

He said that the movie was purposely slow in order to recreate the atmosphere of the town, which he filmed in Takua Pa. According to him, people there were still haunted by the tsunami. The ghosts (of the past) were still haunting them, figuratively. Although reconstruction had begun, he said that it’s still harder to fix people’s emotions than physical objects and buildings. Though they know that they should move on, they wonder if they deserve such happiness. Since it is a small community and almost everybody knows one another, the sadness and loneliness becomes feelings of jealousy and ill-will when they see others happy.

*spoilers*

I asked him a few questions surrounding the death of Ton by the hands of a local gang led by Na’s little brother at the end. He said that Ton was pretty much the scapegoat. They saw Ton as an outsider and he became an easy target for them to vent their anger, annoyance and feelings of pressure.

The weird thing was that after he got killed, it was as though the town suddenly did a 360. Color returned to the drabby town, Na’s little brother returned to help at the hotel, the grandma found her fan (she was looking for it during the whole movie), it was as though hope resurfaced from death. Anyway, I asked him whether this was kind of misleading considering Ton was killed by these people and that it’s almost saying that you can get away with murder and that life will become better from it. He replied that yeah it can be looked at that way and that it’s definitely not a movie for kids. He did say something else I think but I can't remember. All in all, I still felt that the ending was unjustified.

*end of spoilers*

I also asked him some other questions about the film industry. Some things I found interesting from what he said:

1. It took him 2 months to complete the script but 2 years to get enough funding for the movie.
2. It was incredibly difficult to get funding from Thailand so he had to sell it as a film promoting and preservingThai arts and culture.
3. Going to film school abroad or in Thailand is the same. He pretty much said that everything you really learn in going to college abroad is how to be more independent, etc. Equipment and technique-wise, it’s pretty much the same. You can’t learn to be an artist.
4. His favorite movie is Yi Yi by Edward Yang.

Throughout the whole movie, I kept thinking to myself how this movie could be better, which is probably something I should’ve asked him, whether he was content with how the movie came out or whether he should’ve changed something.

Even though I didn’t like the movie, what I do like about movies like this is that it gives people an opportunity to discuss it, their ideas about the movie meanings, the characters, the symbolism, etc. It’s not a popcorn movie where you go just to watch and come out saying, yeah that’s a good movie, period, end of discussion.