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Comical tragedies are sure tear jerkers. Encountered two recently:

A Spoild Man (short fiction, the New Yorker)
Reminded me of a few works I read before … but too tired to remember which ones. Or is it an metaphore of many things in life, including that of the American Dream? The dream was induced by an American, that is for sure.

Turtles Can Fly (an Iran-Iraq movie)
If there is any good artistic rendering of Leviathan’s famous opening: “the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, this must be it.

The kid-king setting echos the Road Warrior movies. However, whereas the Gibson movies are meant to be absurdist fantasies, the Kurdish kids life portrayed in the movie are fiendishly real. The most moving moment came when the Blackhawk helicopters flying over a hill full of confused and scared refugees, spreading leaflets that promised a “paradise”.

There can’t be any stronger contrast between the powerful and the powerless, between the weightiness of the promise and the hopelessness of reality.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Another surprise find. I thought I watched all the Vietnam movies there are.
This one differs from others in that it tells the story of an anti-hero–in the sense that a “good” guy turning “bad” (from a pure liberal pov) Unlike Born on the 4th of July where a USMC soldier lived through war and turned into a peace activist, “Joker” lived through a battle and turned into a bona fide killer!The movie is full of shit–machoism, libido and adrenaline, but that is why I love it. In fact, I am writing this piece listening to the “micky mouse marching song” on YouTube and Joker’s final words:

 My thoughts drift back to erect nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the Great Homecoming Fuck Fantasy. I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I’m in a world of shit… yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.

It is a story of survival. Also, every one performed so well and the script was just chrisp and juicy. Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was my favorite character until he was shot. I didn’t get Kubrick’s other movies, but I totally dig this one.

Idiocracy

Just a very dark but funny B movie. Goes well with my rant against popular democracy. Movies sometimes are scarily close to life. Wag the Dog was such a case. Had “Idiocracy” been released today, I am sure people will associate it with Sarah Palin. Particularly after she failed to answer what paper she reads–being a journalist major and all that.

1. Just watched the movie “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels“. Pretty funny, particularly towards the end. Very witty. Everyone performed wonderfully.

2. Still haven’t figured out whether the Riviera town we visited was Villefranche-Sur-Mer or not?

3. A new word learned: MacGuffin. According to Wiki:

a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but the details of which are of little or no importance otherwise.

Don’t I wish many things in life are MacGuffins!

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When one is physically ill what does that do to one’s mind? I had many hours of sleep but dreaded the dreams. It was the day time stress and anxiety repeated over and again. I was making arguments that at once seemed to make perfect sense and no sense at all. Just like my paper… Early in the morning, I didn’t want to go back to sleep just because I didn’t want to go back to the dreams. But when I was at 39c, it wasn’t always up to me.

While sick, I had time to watch some TV and to read from New Yorker:
1. Watched the Indy Race in St. Petersburg on TV, I think the cry “it is green flag racing!” is very sexy!

2. Watched Carman the opera: I always enjoyed listening to Carman. After all, the Toréador Song was what got me into classical music to begin with. And I watched the opera couple of times before. But this time it was different. Something clicked. Micaëla’s solo in the Gypse’s camp is the most moving: not only the music beautiful, but perfectly encapsulates the obsession of Jose and the power of Carmen. Although Don Jose’s possessiveness is pathological, Carman’s free-will almost justifies one’s total admiration: she is woman worth dying for.

3. Watched One Flew over Cuckcoo’s Nest: It is more Owellian but definitely not Foucaultian. The antagnistic nurse Ratched is NOT how mass society works today. Rather it is the elaborate weddings and ceremonies that David Brooks talked about in the Bobos in Paradise. However, the movie is superb at portraying the tension between the subjected and the privileged once the sensation of being free is discovered and the pursuit of liberation is on.

4. Read Eric Alterman’s “Out of Print” on NYKr. I am certainly in Lippmann’s camp. For a while, I thought that is what Alterman’s argument too. But that is just not progressive enough, uh? This article deserves another entry. But in summary, I do think politics and governance are becoming too complicated, too nuanced to be decided by the general public.

I remember a skit from SNL where a weekend party is going on in a loft apartment somewhere. That was right after 9.11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. Suddenly a guy rushes in and says, “the Northern Aliance just took Jalalabad!” and everybody raises their glasses and cheers.

The moral of the joke is that the world is just too complicated. Alterman seems to be finding hope in the newly burgening phenomenon of “participating” journalism, or a mixture of opinions and leaks and rumors. He is well aware of the ptifalls of such a development: the degradation of journalistic integrity. And more importantly, the polarization of public opinions. But strangely, he seems to say this is actually good for democracy: the reason that more Europeans voted than Americans is because they have so many tabloids.

Of course, his musing stops right there. No further reasoning offered why these two are even corelated! That is rather ridiculous for a serious article (or posting, should I say). But he has several good points, for example, that the “veneer of neutrality” is becoming increasingly unsustainable. And the very effort to stay “above the fray” may render print journalism cold and distant.

5. By the way, just saw my old boss Dan Hesse on TV in a Sprint commercial. I was such a fan of his while at Terabeam. I still think he is a heck of communicator and salesman.

Watched “There Will Be Blood” tonight. After the movie was over, Song and I stayed in our seats, didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, I said, “Boy, I never saw so much anger in one movie.”

Not sure it is my kind of movie but I can tell it is a good one. If it does become some kind of arty cultish movie, I can image why.

I remembered once I went with a church group to hike Mt. Adams. On our way back, the leader, Paster Bob, decided to go spelunking in a cave nearby. When we got to the cave entrance, I knew it was a mistake: it wasn’t so much an entrance as a rat hole on the ground. Following a thread-thin ray of daylight, I could see the hole expanding into profound darkness. We squeezed, crawled, climbed and pulled each other along half a mile. Turning on flashlight didn’t help much, since all I could see was the light beam being sucked into endless darkness.

When I finally shake myself out of the ground, I knew full well this would be my last and only spelunking outing. However, thinking back, I have to admit it was a very memorable trip.

That is how this movie makes me feel: I was very uncomfortable while watching it. But I can totally see why it is extraordinary or why there are others who will like it.

One more thing, I don’t know why the director chose the allegro from Brahms’ violin concerto for the sound track. It is rather strange seeing a primitive industrial machine slowly cranking under an oil rig in the middle of Navajo desert while listening to Ann Sophie Mutter playing her hearts out …

Nothing in particular, just some thoughts today:
1. Finished Blustein’s “And the Money Kept Rolling in (And Out)”. His main theme? Too much liquidity is bad for a small developing economy.

Note liquidity is not just “hot money”, as the term is highly charged and predisposed against currency trading (as Jesus would do). Instead, liquidity means zero-friction convertibility.

His proposed solution? If market is addicted to a quick buck, then impose an sovereign bankrupcy protection scheme that is enforced by international laws and institutions (e.g. IMF). Call it the Chapter 11 procedures for nations. It incurrs a mandatory suspension and restructuring of a nation’s debt. According to the author, some creditors were begging the Argentinians to organize such a “hair cut” across the board during the crisis.

The chance of his idea becomes a reality? Very small I am afraid. The creditors can easily influence the U.S. decision makers while the developing nations can’t.

2. Movies:
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen). A good movie that I’d recommend to others. Worthy of the Best Foreign Movie recognition. Other than the Dreyman character, everyone performs well. However, I am not sure whether the movies is trying to tell a story or to leave an impression. Its linear progression leaves little room for any explosion. The closest is Christa’s suicide–a perfect moment to paint a torn body and soul. Yet the shots on the blood, the twisting body and her last words are short, tentative and restrained. What is more, Dreyman’s devastation and the exposure of Wiesler in front of his boss are compartmentized. Now instead of having to face an angry lover and a furious master, Wiesler is totally out of picture. How about that for a bang?

Then I watched the Madness of King George III again–always one of my favorites. Love the performance–everyone: the King, Pitt, Fox, etc. Unlike the Germans who like to use lighting and cinematographic composition to tell a story, the British are actors. They use body language, facial expression and catchy dialogue to “shake” you into feel something. The screen writer tried somewhat half-heartedly to circumscribe the significance of KGIII’s illness (e.g. American independence). They don’t have to, because the way the actors act makes an audience think the significance is already known to them and is irrelevant. Now that is art.

3. The Democratic Congress
Usually, I don’t care for what is going on in D.C. any more. But noticed that recently the Democrats are having trouble getting their agendas into law. It really came to no surprise to me. A short while ago, I commented on the difference between being politically liberal and ideologically liberal.

The problem with the Democrats is that they politik too much and govern too little. Either by nature or by design, they are more of agitators than administrators. That is very unfortunate. Since some of them are pretty brilliant and progressive.

The second failed attempt to pass SCHIP and the decision to roll everything into a defense bill are just a few examples (if Clinton ever did something, it is an exceptions (given eight years) that proves the rule). They fail to see the value of their causes can only be realized if the legislations are enacted (i.e. in the governance domain), not when they are held as political hostages (i.e. in the political domain).

Watched the movie “Michael Clayton” tonight. Really enjoyed it: a simple story tightly developed into a brilliant thriller; Excellent casting, scripts and acting.

In terms of acting, we thought Tom Wilkinson’s stands out. I never saw his performance before but a five-minute dialogue between him and Clooney reminded me of Ian Holm in Joe Gould’s Secret. Very typical English stage acting IMHO.

Clooney wasn’t bad either. I liked the movie partly becuase I liked where Clooney is going: he is not afraid of taking on serious topics–topics that demand the “silent majority” to do some collective soul-searching. He is the “righteous guy” from the left and he is happy to throw in his fame and fortune at it too.

Is this Clooney’s new niche? I also liked Syriana. If that movie was a little too dark to be popular, Michael Clayton’s triumphant ending can certainly make a difference here (but I would act differently if I were him. $10 million is enough to buy a life, let alone truth).

One thing I noticed was that the villain in the movie is played by the only female character–is this Clooney’s view on gender equality?

Incredibly, I just read this story on WP: “A former Qwest … executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in [the evasdropping program].” Nacchio’s case was a high-profile one. It was all over the news when it came out. Now this new twist? Only WP put it on its web front page. No others mentioned it ever. Looks like NSA got everything covered now that Nacchio is allowed to leak the story.

Song is leaving for Beijing again. We thought it would be nice to spend a day in the city instead of being stuck on the east side.

Dinner at Waterfront Seafood Grill: Great sound view, spectacular sunset, pricy menu (the burning-through-your-wallet kind), excellent Lamb Rack.

Seafair Torchlight Parade: The lamest street fair I’ve ever witnessed. Where the New Orleanians turn funeral parade into a festival, the Seattlites turn a festival into a funeral parade. There was even a large contingent of Fa Lun Gong band: a wierd sight that left me … ???? (or “not sure to frawn upon or to laugh at”).

The Simpsons Movie: for an long time fun, the movie is hardly any more entertaining. But it didn’t ruin the brand either. The really fun part was the experience of watching it: as different people picking on different jokes, it reminded me watching an episode with a group of guys in a bar. There is “solitary” movie and “social” movie. The Simpsons certainly belongs to the latter.

Saw The Last King of Scotland last night. Here is what I thought: it is a good, serious movie. Yet its artistic richness cannot overcome the story’s hollowness.

The movies uses a fictional character to paint a picture of Idi Amin who, perhaps more than anyone else, defines the term “African dictator”. Although the movie raises several good points, such as the peril of blind liberal allegiance with the downtrodden, or how terrible Ami was as a ruler (especially for the younger generation who have never heard of him before), I was struck by how Euro-centric the movie is–”not there is anything wrong with it”, but that is what I mean “hollow”.

The whole story was told by the young doctor from Scotland, who escaped from a bourgeois future to seek excitement and adventure. He was soon secuded by power, statue and charisma and became a unwilling servant of Idi Amin. It is really odd to look at Idi Amin this way because he meant so much more to his people, his neighbors and to history than he could ever have been to a lone Westerner.

In the movie, Amin, played by Whitaker, invoked his tribe, his agenda against colonialism, Libya and the PLO during conversations. Those names, each saturated with historical significance, matters a lot to everyone else except the young Scot who was engaged in a passionate affair with one of Amin’s wives. Therefore, the enormity of Amin’s crimes came to the young Scot’s–and us viewers’–consciousness only through the terrors he cast upon the two adulterers. I thought this arrangement errorneously aggrandized western individualism (I doubt even Satre would object to an Ugandan dictator torturing a green-eyed hunk for screwing his wife behind his back. If so, then what Amin did wrong?) but trivialized the suffering of the victims–after all, hundreds of kids starved to death before they are old enough to play Paolo and Francesca!

Another issue I have with this movie, and the portrait of African politics in the West in general, is that the picture is too simplistic: it is either “he’s his people’s savior” or “he will turn the country into his personal checkings account”–as if there is no shade of grey in between. After all, nationalism was invented in the West, when Amin keeps saying, “my country”, what exactly does he mean? Does he equates a head of state to a chief of a tribe? If so, where is the evidence? If not, where are the nuances? It is always the subtlety that tells a more complete story. Unfortunately, all the subtlety The Last King of Scotland has is the flirtacious eye contacts between the young Scot and his black beauty. What a waste of time!

Just watched two movies on DVD last night: Babel and The Departed

I certainly like Babel much better than The Departed, particularly knowing the latter is the movie of the year. What a M.F.S. (or Martin F$#*%&! Scorsese) fraud!

Babel is one of those films that has a simple story but leaves a lot room for acting/performance and imagination/internalization. In other words, it builds a narrative that invites a viewer to interpret for himself. For example, other than those obvious good and bad things, there is a lot that is neither-or and the implied fatalism, serendipity leaves a very chewy sentiment and to a certain degree, a sense of hopelessness (I have never seen so much crying from a Latino person until this movie). I have certain bias against Japanese cultural products but I have to give it to the Japanese actors in the movie. The deaf girl’s (Rinko Kikuchi) performance is just soooo good. The casting director must have some talent picking the right actors across so many countries.

The Departed is rather lame in comparison. If extravaganza meant peanut-like muscle groups for Michelangelo, or exotic customes for Puccini, to M.F.S. it is profanity and violence. Unlike Tarantino, M.F.S. still thinks P&V is means to an end, not the end itself. But the story pales in comparison to the P&V. Acting was so so: it seems DiCaprio wants to be DeNiro but turns out a mixturer of DeNiro and Pesci. Damon is never comfortable in a leading role. He probably makes less eye contact with his audiences than an average MBA interviewee.

Anyway, Babel 5 and The Departed 3.

I watched a documentary last night with my wife: “Jesus Camp”. It was a really good film. The story was told in a really “close to hull” fashion: tight and speedy. It does raise a few interesting questions:
1. To what extent parents are entitled to “own” their children’s mind?
2. Is this (i.e. Jesus Camp) a good thing for democracy?

I always wanted to but never had the time to read Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He must have some insight as to the first question. Nevertheless, what is an “ideal” education model? Can there be one that fills children with the tools to develop their own thoughts, but not the thoughts themselves? For example, is there a type of education that can nourish children’s curiosity, but not embed solutions (regardless what kind) into their minds?

Logically, there is not. Here is how to prove it: curiosity comes with the means to answer the questions. Yet how to find solutions implies adopting an epistemology, which is seldom idealogically nutural. In other words, had the pastor told the kids, “Go ahead wondering about the world to your heart’s contend. But all the solutions are in the Bible”, it would be no different from outright preaching.

Parent’s claim to children’s education can also be looked at from the public-space/private-space angle: is education a private matter? Or the public has a claim too? In the end, it has the same logic and ramification as the recent debate on “eminent domain“–but a much explosive one for sure.

As for the second question: is “Jesus camp” a good thing for democracy? Well, the camp does teach civic “participation” but not enough “association”. Again, I am circling around Huntington’s therom. Nevertheless, my point is I’d rather the extremists participating than not participating. Of course, the next thing to do in order to co-opt them is to show them how to participate. Hopefully, this documentary and Mr. Ted Haggard can have a mirroring effect.

By the way, the documentary did make a splash: the camp was vandalized after the film was released. And the pastor decided to close the camp for a few years. See article here. I don’t know what to make of that.