moviejornal: Bee Movie, Elizabeth: TGA, Shanghai Kiss

Jerry Seinfeld is undoutedly a very funny man alive today. his unique brand of observational comedy touches every very little aspects of our daily lives that we tend to ignore or written off as insignificant, yet he makes a huge career and hence profit out of it. he is really remarkable and unique in that regard. as a very successful and accomplished man with nothing left to prove in the tv and comedy world, the last 4 years he concentrated on making the bee movie which draws mixed reviews. one of the most salient issue with this particular cartoon is the jumpiness of plots. one moment the bee is happily humming along and the next it's suing human race. while it's not a huge problem with fans it's nonetheless disconcerting. overall i laughed more than usual fair share which will indicated that the quality of the film is above average for me. but i'm a giant sucker for cartoon usually anyway, so that always counts.

Elizabeth: the Golden Age depicts a time where the title protagonist was in charge of fending off Spanish Almada (?) while having big personal relationship issues of her own as well. while it is skim on historical facts, it is big on personal trepidations. all in all a good film and made me look up history on her. (but after reading 3 pages on wikipedia i decided to give up). her decapitated cousin is a role well-played and deserve a honorable mention in one of the B-grade film festivals i think.

Shanghai Kiss is refreshingly original. it's story of chinese american in china is hardly explore these days i think. inevitably people recognize the chic from Heroes and that's a plus for the film. well acted by all. i didn't realise kelly hu was 39 years old until later. i thought she's 30... oh well.

so that's it folks!

有助常人成功的十招

1、表面魅力——没事就笑，有事也笑，笑容能增加你魅力，增加人愿意与你合作的兴趣；
2、求新习惯——每天做一件新事，哪怕给自己新买一朵花、给人家新留一个言、自己在博客上编一段新文字；
3、可爱特质——能和小孩子交朋友，有和他们说话的耐心，关心小孩子喜欢的事情，学会哄小孩开心；
4、社会资本——能与陌生人搭讪，即使看来不相关的陌生人，我们需要储备各种各样的社会关系；
5、耐心倾听——学会耐心听完别人的批评还能不打断，甚至还能笑着说谢谢，可以辩解，但不要着急辩解；
6、学习欣赏——学会在不喜欢的人身上发现至少一个优点；
7、无偿投入——有意识地让自己做好事情，如果可能就一个月做一件，如果还做不到，就一年做一件；
8、尝试风险——如果你的父母、朋友、老师给你说这是一件很有风险的事情，你应该认真地考虑，每过一段时间应该尝试做一件；
9、重视行动——你过去10年中可能有好几件想到但没有做的事情，或者有很多条件要求很高的事情，不要先想你做不到，而要先想怎么做到，不要先想别人没做过，而要想到需要准备哪些条件，不要觉得高不可攀，而要直接去接触那些可能提供资源的人；
10、赞扬美好——无论是你熟悉者的勇敢、创造、突破，还是你不熟悉者的美丽、优雅、前卫，你要赞美他们，还要大声地说出来。

moviejournal: lions for lambs

in my eternal pursuit of documenting every single piece of movie going experience regardless how shit, aweful or great they are, i persevered to record yet another masterpiece from hollywood, thee boring yet tasteful lions for lambs.

in the current us climate (where constantly people call dubya bush idiots just to be politically correct), this movie can't be more of a sign of more to come. while the bush empire is finishing for sure, this haze of war-time confusion and illegal activities are finally surfacing to the fore of public consciousness just as vietnam and korean wars details are still being revealed bit by bit after more than 40 years. just in the vanity fair magazine last month, there are at least 2 reports on how much wastage and wrongdoing exist.

anyway this movie leaves something different in your mouth when it ends. robert redford is basically saying "i resent sending bright, underpriviledged kids to war to die, but i absolutely worship your courage to enlist yourself to army". this is getting bizzare to comprehend in this civil world where isolated conflicts inflicted purely from ideological differences and political gains. i can't help but lash out at the minds of those who enlist. while i can sort of see their passion to proactively change the status quo by being part of the action, the action itself is not justified at all. so is participating in the wrong war less wrong than not participating at all? is proactive equal to fight the wrong war only to arrive at some endpoint, whatever that endpoint is described by their political leader? i'm sorry but i can't justify it. it's kinda similar to my inert disbelief in religion that simply not believing is enough. i guess this is the quintissential question of our time, of any time: do we want to participate even if the cause of action is wrong? YES or NO?

while we are on the topic related to US politics, why is america still have bush as president? i mean they have to keep for the full four year term, but 1. why is he get into power in the first place and 2. why is he supported domestically for all the wrongdoings especially towards late. do americans never admits their wrongs?

Moviejournal: Michael Clayton

I reckong the whole movie can be condensed to the final 10 minutes of climatic dialog, but of course it takes the whole movie (quite long) to build up to that moment. another quality work by george clooney, not that all his works are classy.

merc season post-morten debrief

with only 1 more merc to write and all the pressure of house hunting behind me, it seems like a fitting time to blog away on recent tries and trepidations me as a human have experienced. looking back on the afternoon browsing/morning napping PHD days of yesterday, the busy lifestyle afforded to me now indeed must seem like a far cry. i've achieved the miraculous feat of doing more than 15 full flavoured reports/essay this semester without accurate counting, and i believe there's more than 5000 bucks in there. the true after taste of doing excessive amount of mercenary writing is different to any other sense of tiredness or drunkness (not that i'm familiar with that one) i've ever experienced before. with improvement resilience to merc-induced tiredness i am better positioned now to weather through post-merc slump. the encompassing feeling of over-merc symdrone (i just gave it a name didn't i) express itself as follows

1. rapid tiredness - it's 9:30 and you can't keep your eyes open. blood is rushing out of your brain at a truly alarming rate.

2. hatred - that's right baby, pure and simple hate of writing

3. idea drain - no meaningful and constructive formulation can coherently flow out of your consciousness anymore. your brain develops a shield against taking in or giving out any thought on any material you just read

4. vow of never again - which invariably falls under monetary incentives when future offers flow in...

thankfully the holiday season and thus the long hiatus in merc writing will arrive upon us with no huge merc until may/june next time. this is a time of regroup! and learning and gearing for better life in the nextyear.