New Creative Thanksgiving Juice

I know there's a lot going on in the world right now, but life goes on and I just can't help but be concerned with realtively small things.

Today, on the day after Thanksgiving, I'm thinking mostly about these two things:

1) MOJO TANGO -- Jonny Stranger, who was at NYU with me in the MFA program and is now based in Austin, TX sent me a DVD of his second feature. I think the film is still not locked down (it's still being edited), but the version I saw blew me away.

I watched it once. Then, in the middle of the night (4AM), watched it again. It has its flaws and needs a few adjustments (some scenes need to be cut and a few scenese need to be added), but it is going to be a real crowd pleaser at festivals.

Here is one of Jonny Stranger's other works, a short animated film that is a sample of his creative visual sense. Enjoy.




As for MOJO TANGO, he has done an amazing job of making a really entertaining and hip film about two friends and their relationships with women. I've seen lots of indie no-budget films shot on digital video about floundering 20somethings and 30somethings that have since been labeled as mumblecore, most notably THE PUFFY CHAIR, FUNNY HA HA, KISSING ON THE MOUTH, and Jonny's movie is way better than all those. And those movies were reviewed in the NY TIMES.

I tip my hat to you, Jonny Stranger, for persevering and getting your second feature made under remarkable duress. You are a true independent filmmaker. I can't wait for you to experience the love of the audience at festival screenings, especially since the film also authentically captures the hipster Bohemian scene of Austin. If anyone hasn't been there, the hype is for real. It is one cool city, still great for artists and slackers in general.

Anyway, being witness to Jonny Stranger's struggle and now seeing the fruit of that struggle has been humbling and enlightening. I will follow your example.


Now, the second thing.

2) I've been busy since returning to Hong Kong doing Korean-to-English translations. I did the translation (English subtitles) for an old-school Korean television mini series (all 16 episodes). This entails watching the episodes and coming up with English dialog that has same or similar meaning but that also matches the relative length of the original. It's not that difficult, and I'm pretty good at it--I'm relatively good with languages. But it still takes time. It doesn't pay much (especially now since I get paid in Korean won and that currency has plummeted), but it's work I can do at a very flexible schedule and without having to schlepp around.

Because of that job, I really haven't had time to do much else. So, it wasn't until this morning that I realized that the laptop that was stolen from our luggage in the Maldives contained the latest file of the novel that I've been working on--more fitting description is the novel that's been kicking my butt-- for the past 3, 4 years.

I thought I'd backed it up to an external hard drive that I have at home, but it turns out I hadn't. So basically, what I do have of that novel is an old draft from about a year ago before a major rewrite.

I'm not even sure what the point of this is. I'm not really sad about it. It's more like begruding acceptance of a situation.

Basically, I didn't lose it all, so if I can go on and finish the novel, losing the laptop will make for a good making-of overcoming-obstacles story.

On the other hand, it's as if this novel, a hip mystery, is giving me a way out, tempting me to take the easy way out and abandon it.

I ought to, as I know its flaws already, but I've invested so much in it already, that I just couldn't do that.

Anyway, this is what it feels like sometimes to write a book.

On a positive note, I got an e-mail from out of the blue from some prof at UC Berkeley who tracked me down to tell me she is teaching my book BOY GENIUS to her class of 40 students this semester.

This happens to me about once a year, but this is the first time from a really big name school. Very gratifying feeling.

I guess one has to find encouragement in all things.

BACK from Paradise a.k.a. The Curse of Montezuma

We're back from paradise. The radio silence comes to an end. So much to write about. Will do so slowly over the next few weeks. The trip cost a fortune, but even a seasoned tightwad like myself can't help but begrudgingly admit that it was well worth it, especially to mark our 10 year anniversary.

The Maldives truly is paradise on earth. Lots of beautiful little islands. Clear beaches. Coral reefs and amazing tropical fish. Most resorts are on their own little island with a hundred or so guests. So basically, you're secluded with your loved ones and get to snjoy the sea. It sounds rather confining, but it's not so when you're being pampered.

The Maldives was a fitting destination for us to mark our 10 years of marriage since we'd first heard about the place 10 years ago. I'd stumbled on a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC filled with amazing pictures of the Maldives and used to look at it quite a bit back then when we were living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. We've had an amazing 10 years since. What an adventure! We've been very lucky, knock on wood. Bottom line is, the Maldives trip is something we will treasure for a long long time...

We got to lounge about, eat well, read from time to time, watch DVDs, and swim in our own private backyard pool, complete with two crows who would stand guard and a great view of the moon peeking above the coconut trees. We also got to ride a little seaplane like the ones they had in FANTASY ISLAND.

The Plane! The Plane!

We got to scuba dive for the first time and even got certified. Yes, we had to sit in a classroom for a bit during our vacation and had to practice hand signals--my favorite is the one for "Out of air"-- and various other scuba skills in a lagoon, but we're PADI Open Water Divers now with four open sea dives notched on our weight belt, ready and itching to scuba again to a depth limit of 18 meters.

We also learned to skin dive with our snorkels. We'd done snorkeling before but always from the surface. We didn't know how to clear the snorkel underwater. We also didn't know about hyperventilating to expand our underwater dive time. I really like skindiving and am amazed by just how deep you can actually go just on your own lungs.

In addition, I got to windsurf again, which I'd first tried in Mexico about 2 years ago. It looked so easy then but was so hard. I'm sure there are lots of kids who pick it up easily, but it took me three afternoons in Mexico just to get my balance and be able to lift the sail without falling in the water. Three days of tenacious effort and lots of ropeburn on my hands only to be cursed by Montezuma with dead calm and no wind...



This time, there was enough wind. And despite the lapse, I was still able to stay on my feet and lift the sail from the getgo, no problem. In fact, by the end of our vacation, I was actually zipping along quite nicely with a 5.0 sail and had managed to figure out how to position the sail to control where I went and didn't look like a complete schmuck out there. Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks??

The only downside to our trip was that having been pampered and lulled by paradise, we forgot that there's crime and poverty in the world and stupidly put our laptop, which we'd brought with us to do a little writing and so we could watch DVDs-- in the checked baggage on our trip back--a marathon journey with stopovers in Colombo and Kuala Lampur--and came home to find that it had been stolen out of our luggage. It was naive and dumb of us to not have the computer with us as carry-on. Still, I guess such lapses happen after being in the Garden of Eden...

It was a sad coda and quite a big nuisance to lose a laptop, especially since it was our only computer and contained nearly all of our photos from the trip... But then again, even as our luggage was being rifled through, the universe did somehow balance out the minuses and threw us a bone--well, actually, more than a bone--a very much appreciated upgrade to business class for our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. I guess it was from having accumulated so many miles this years on Cathay.

And on top of that, when we got back to Hong Kong and were reminded instantly upon arrival by the decorations there and P.A. system music that it is now already Christmas, I found an e-mail waiting for me from Cullen Thomas, the author of BROTHER ONE CELL, an excellent book which I wrote about in one of my earlier posts. There's also a link to this book in my OTHER PEOPLE'S BOOKS list. He'd actually somehow read the post and wrote me to say hello. For those of you who haven't read that post, Cullen Thomas and I are both writers and share a link to the Bronx as well as to b-ball.

Anyway, how cool is that!!! The wonders of the Internet. Now if only I could figure out who the other 2.5 readers of this blog are.... More posts about random funny incidents and observations from this trip will follow in the next few weeks. Any similar experiences out there? re: airport theft?

I end this post with a photo of yours truly leaving a part of me in the Indian Ocean.

RADIO SILENCE in the form of a TELEGRAM

Note for 3.5 people out there who rd ths blg---STOP

Will be incommunicado for nxt 2 wks ---STOP

In Mldvs 4 much-nded r&r ---STOP

Check in agn in 2wks ---STOP

Chow, HK!! ---STOP

Quantum of Solace Is One Big Mess

So Jene and I saw QUANTUM OF SOLACE last night at the movie theater in Kowloon Station with the rumbling seats and glorious Shaw Sound (Thank you, Sir Run Run!).

We both loved CASINO ROYALE and became fans of Daniel Craig. So we had a certain level of expectation for the latest 007 film despite having heard that it's not as good.

That assessment turned out to be quite an understatement.

The film was a complete dud. It was more than that. It was an unadulterated mess, the type of movie that gives big-budget mainstream Hollywood movies a bad name.

Hollywood is usually excellent at delivering big-budget action movies that are slick and entertaining. Just look at any BOURNE movie, EAGLE EYE, DIE HARD...

But this one was botched to the point that it had very little redeeming about it. The movie runs about 90 minutes, but it's so clear that it was meant to be much much longer. That longer version must have been so bad that they just hacked it to make it shorter, hoping to minimize the damage.

There's very little that's good about the movie. Not one good sequence. Not one good scene. Even the trademark 007 opening credit sequence with the new Bond song was forgettable. In fact, there were exactly two things I liked about this film(and I am not being facetious here): 1) a CU shot of a lizard in a desert in Bolivia 2) a throwaway line toward the very end of the movie about someone working for "Canadian intelligence", the mere concept of which made me chuckle.

The action scenes (chase scenes) are so poorly crafted that they end up being just confusing. The TIMEOUT HK review makes it sound like this film fails because it has too many high-tech computer-generated special effects action sequences and too few dialogue amongst human scenes, when the truth is the film fails precisely because its action sequences suck. I may seem to be harping on the TIMEOUT review, but to me, those are the absolute laziest film reviews--the argument offered in such phone-it-in paint-by-numbers revies goes like this: This high tech action film is not so good and will not please "traditionalist viewers" because it is all action and does not have enough quiet sentimental human interaction scenes."

The truth is, a major reason that QUANTUM fails and thus disappoints, is precisely that its high tech action stuff doesn't deliver. Its high tech action stuff is subpar. Compare any action sequence in this film to those in CASINO ROYALE, and you'll see the difference between a mess and solid assured execution.

In addition, the villain is weak. The story and dialog are completely lackluster. Don't let the TIMEOUT reviews fool you. This is one of the worst 007 movies ever.

So Jene and I were so disappointed by how poor this film was--the only good thing about this moviegoing experience was that we shelled out the extra bucks to see it in the fancy private screening room with recliners (it was well worth it)--that even though it was late (around midnight) and we were both exhausted, as soon as we came home we watched the opening 20 minutes of CASINO ROYALE on DVD again just to confirm that what we remembered was indeed so.

Martin Campbell, the director of CASINO ROYALE did such a better job. The action sequences are shot and edited so much more crisply and solidly in that film. Script is so much more substantial. That film delivers what it's supposed to, a slick well-crafted action movie that's got real weight.

It's never clear who's at fault or why a film turns out so bad, but the director is always an easy target. I'm not really familiar with Marc Foster, the director of QUANTUM. But I know he directed THE KITE RUNNER, which I thought was okay, despite being a bit clunky in storytelling (I thought it had too many false endings, but that may have been simply to appease the fans of such a well-known book). Anyway, I'm sure Marc Foster is a talented director to even be in the position he is now, but it doesn't show in this film. There certainly were elements in it that belonged in and resembled a good action movie. For instance, the action sequences had fast-pace cutting, cross-cutting etc., but they were confusing and didn't add up to much. I think So Jene summed it up best when she said, "This guy can't make action movies."

Compare the first 20 minutes of CASINO ROYALE, or even the first 3 minutes, or any 3 minutes of that film to its counterpart in QUANTUM, and it's clear that QUANTUM is laughably lacking.

I don't know what the behind-scenes story is, but why wouldn't the people who put up the money for QUANTUM just rehire Martin Campbell after he had done such a stellar job? It's clear they know this film sucks, but are still trying so hard to recoup as much money as possible from it. I've seen Jean Claude Van Damme movies that are better scripted and have better stories.

QUANTUM is going to get very poor word-of-mouth. It leaves the viewer completely dissatisfied. Indeed, it's by far the crummiest big-budget action film we've seen in a long long time. Daniel Craig deserves better than this. The audience deserves better than this. And on top of all that, what the heck does QUANTUM of SOLACE mean exactly?

Two Films That Are Way Way Out There

This comes in the wake of Barak Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election yesterday.

I'm still feeling high from that victory. I've seen two films since. Both are films that I've been trying to see for quite a while now.

The first is Nagisa Oshima's DEATH BY HANGING(1968), which has been written up in so many books as epitomizing Japan's New Wave but is a really hard film to get to see. It's virtually impossible to find in the U.S., here in Hong Kong, and even in Japan. I looked for it at various video stores in Tokyo a few months ago to no avail.

I won't get into the logistics of how I finally got to see this film, which I first read about more than 10 years ago, but it was a treat. That said, I can't believe it was ever produced. It's one of the strangest most experimental films I've ever seen. It's divided into 7 sections. For me 2 were gripping and ridiculously intense. The others were too disjointed and anti-cinema for me. These sections were like watching Godard from the 80s and 90s where there's no effort whatsoever to accomodate the viewer.

The film is almost unclassifiable. It starts out like a documentary, then quickly turns into an absurd play. Overall, it is a treatise or interactive inspired dissertation on capital punishment and Japan's historical role and treatment of its underclass. I cannot imagine the film finding any sort of audience in Japan. I don't know the facts, but I'd be willing to bet that it made no money. It is just too intense a film, too experimental, too out-there. Indeed, it's an indictment on Japan and simultaneously a call for real soul-searching but made by a film genius.

It is definitely one of those super obscure intellectual films that you have to be a ridiculous film snob to have seen.

The second film was Kim Ki Duk's debut feature CROCODILE (1996), which was trademark Kim Ki Duk. It was bizarre but strangely compelling and original. Even though it was the first feature film the guy made, there were moments of complete originality. In fact, the film contained two things I've never seen before in my life. One, the main character dives into the river, and while underwater blows and inflates a balloon. I've never seen this before in real life or in a movie. Two, the main character picks up a turtle at the river's edge and paints its shell blue before releasing it back into the river. Again, original.

The film was clunky at times and had big gaps in narrative. Still, it had enough elements and signs of promise. The film was strong visually and told the story with pictures, which to me, is always a sign of a filmmaker using the medium. Most films are well-made and do indeed tell the story with the sound off. Try it sometimes. Park Chan Wook's OLD BOY is great to watch with the sound on mute.

Watching a movie with the sound off is also a good way to focus on the picture and see just how interesting or mundane a film truly is. I tried watching FAILURE TO LAUNCH with the sound off. The director truly took no risks in making that film. There isn't a single original or inspired shot in the picture. Instead, just the usual 'coverage' of conventional shots. They might as well have made that film on auto-pilot. Maybe they did. That film quickly dies without the sound.

The point is, CROCODILE was a treat despite its inadequacies and despite the fact that the copy I managed to get my hands on didn't have the best picture or sound quality. I can't believe anyone produced it. It was a truly bizarre film. It was clearly meant to be a low-budget quickie cheap entertainment, but Kim Ki Duk subverted it and turned it into a surreal and at-times visually stunning personal picture complete with his obsesssions and neuroses.

This guy is a true creative force. In his prolific output and sheer originality, the only person who even comes close in the history of cinema was Rainer Warner Fassbinder. And of course, both were complete originals. Not every film of both filmmakers was impressive. They each had some duds, but overall, they made more interesting and original films in a short period of manic productivity than some studios do in a lifetime.

By the way, tonight we will go see QUANTUM OF SOLACE. I can't say I'm a huge James Bond fan though I've seen my share of 007 films, but I thoroughly enjoyed the last one. So Jene loved that film. Hope this one is just as much fun.

The U.S. is Back on Track!! I Am In Tears!!!

**UPDATE: It's 12:05PM Wednesday, Hong Kong time. ABCNews has just announced that it projects Obama to win California and Washington, and hence announced that he is the 44th President of the U.S.***

With that announcement, I was overcome with emotions. I am literally in tears. And I'm drinking a celebratory shot of my favorite Cuban rum. I am so proud of my country and the people there. This is one of the most amazing things I've experienced in my lifetime. I am so happy.

Anyway, here's the rest of my post that I wrote a few hours ago when it seemed evident that Obama's victory was only a matter of time.

-------------------------------------------------

It's hard to not be cynical about things as you get older. I was so upset 8 years ago with the whole recount fiasco in Florida and so disappointed and disgusted 4 years ago.

But today is completely different. I'm so proud to be an American and so happy that other Americans voted for the best candidate.

That said, for most of my life I honestly didn't believe that I'd live long enough to see a black President. I believed it would happen eventually but much later.

I've never been so happy to be wrong!!!!

Barack Obama is truly special. I wish I were there to celebrate with everyone. It's such a relief.

If you haven't lived in the U.S. and seen some of the awful things that have gone on in the inner cities there, it's hard to truly appreciate the magnitude of today's election.

A black president!!!

This is a validation that even though the U.S. is an experiment that doesn't always work, when it does work and does live up to its professed ideals, Americans have a common sense that transcends those shackles of tradition that hold so many other countries back.

Despite its many problems, the U.S. is still the most integrated, most diverse place on earth. People of so many colors and backgrounds rub shoulders together each and every day. And I'm not talking about just in so-called 'elite' cities like NY and San Francisco and L.A.

You travel around down South and in small towns, and you see that even in the most rinkydink towns in the middle of nowhere, you'll see different people interacting as part of daily life.

It's like the old saying: You can tell what a person's about by what he or she does, not what he or she says.

In the U.S., we live together despite our differences, despite the discomfort of being forced to deal with difference. It's not perfect and lots of people may lament this reality, but you can't argue against demographics. The country is diverse. And it'll only get more so and hence, better, in the future.

Academics and pundits and other experts can go on arguing about policy and ideology in their on-going culture wars, but in the streets and in the schools and in real life, people, rich or poor, are forced to deal with difference. In fact, it might be the case that poor people are forced to be more frank about race and have more interactions with people of other races than the rich, but that's another can of beans...

Anyway, as great and egalitarian a society as the ones that have been built in Japan and in Scandinavian countries, which I respect them so much for doing, theirs will never be truly exciting and dynamic as in the U.S. because of this diversity.

Diversity is the true legacy of the U.S. and what makes it the most special place on earth.

We're finally back on track!!! Thank you!!

***This is a little off-topic, but the local coverage on Pearl TV is so shabby, it's almost funny. Why do they even bother? Just send us the abcNews feed already.

It's like the 'stellar' English-language coverage of the Olympics that Pearl TV provided in which the broadcasters' utter and unbelievable lack of expertise or even basic knowledge of the sport they were covering was to the point that it was embarrassing. It's times like that that HK seems to be a small and parochial backwater and not the World Asia City that whoever is doing the PR campaign keeps claiming it to be.

Most Infuriating 'How I Became a Film Director' Story in History

I, like most other people, fell in love with movies as a child by watching movies simply as a consumer enjoying entertainment. I cherished the whole popcorn and soda experience and watched anything and everything. It wasn't until I was about 19 or 20 that I was exposed to truly great movies and became more serious about this magnificent medium.

Since then, I've been fascinated with how people get their foot in the door and the circumstances under which they got to make their first feature film. I made a terrible first feature film when I was 24 called FREE COUNTRY that was lackluster on all fronts. I wrote the screenplay myself and financed it by scrounging money from my student loans. Maybe not a great move if you're a sensible person with more practical concerns, but that's a different can of beans...

Whatever the case, I must have read hundreds of books over the years about different filmmakers from the most revered to the most crass to glean how they got their first films made.

In most cases, filmmakers have had to use their own money. This was the case for Godard, who used an inheritance to make his first film. In a few cases, they are able to supplement their own money with other people's money, which was the case for the Coen Brothers and Sam Raimi.

Of course, in those places where there is less emphasis on entrepreneurship and where the state controls the film industry, a small number of filmmakers catch a break while at the national film school and the state finances their first film. This was the case for Roman Polanski, Zhang Yi Mou, and Andrei Tarkovsky...

The point it, no matter who paid for the first film, most aspiring filmmakers find it incredibly difficult to get a break and it is through extreme struggle and luck that they get a chance to helm their first picture after having desperately wanted to make a feature film for a long long time.

Given this state of affairs, I learned something so very infuriating this week in a book on IM Kwon-taek. For those of you who may not know 'IM (sorry, couldn't resist), he is an old-school film director who has also come to be regarded in some circles as the elder statesman and face of Korean cinema. His most well-known films outside South Korea are SOPYONJAE, a period film about a family of itinerant beggar singers; THE GENERAL'S SON series, about a patriotic Korean gangster who fights Japanese gangsters during the 1930s when Korea was colonized by Japan; and CHIHWASEON, a period film about an extremely talented painter who was also a maverick, a drunk, and a womanizer.

Through these films he has won critical acclaim both in South Korea and in Europe. And it is through these films, which are quite impressive, that I first learned about this director, who is in his 70s now and still working in South Korea. But it turns out this is just the tip of the iceburg. The guy has directed 100 feature films since making his feature debut in 1962. During the first half of his career, he was considered something of a hack, who robotically and rather haphazardly cranked out genre pictures as was the industry practice then. He only gained his current reputation in the past 20 years.

Be that as it may, the guy's place as the representative figure of a national cinema--whether such a thing even exists or whether the reputation is deserved is a separate issue-- is similar to AKIRA KUROSAWA's in Japan.

Here is a link to the wikipedia entry on IM Kwon-taek:


Now, here is the zinger. It turns out that the guy's becoming a film director was a complete accident. The guy didn't love movies. He didn't even watch many movies. He didn't try for years to become a film director.

So how did it happen?

During the Korean War (1950-53), he found himself an 18-year-old refugee separated from his family in the southern port city of Busan. To survive, he worked for a time as a day laborer, but quickly found out the work was just too strenuous. So, he got a job working at a shoe store, which some enterprising person had set up to sell U.S. Army issued boots in the blackmarket.

Near the end of the war, the owners of the shoe store went to Seoul, the capital, and left him in charge of the Busan store. He managed that business for another 6 months on his own. At that point, the owners told him to close up shop and come to Seoul. They wanted him to help out in their new business venture, a fledgling movie production company.

Thus began his entry into the film industry. He started out in the props department and began doing all sorts of tasks to help the fledgling movie production company, until he eventually became a film director with his first feature FAREWELL TO TUMAN RIVER (1962 B&W), whose print has since been lost.

To put it simply, IM Kwon-taek became a film director because he worked at a shoe store.

The closest to this story that I can think of is AKIRA KUROSAWA's, who as a floundering high-school graduate who had failed to get into a Japanese university, became an assistant director by answering a newspaper ad and then somehow passing the Japanese film studio's (I think it was TOHO) lengthy interview and examination process.

But even in that case, Kurosawa had already been enamored with films from having seen numerous Russian and European classics under the influence of his older brother and had harbored an ambition to make films.

With IM Kwon-taek, there was no such exposure or ambition. Initially, his working in films was akin to his working on an assembly line at some factory.

Maybe his example is what some people might call FATE or DESTINY?

Whatever the case, it must be so strange for him to see the current brouhaha about filmmaking and just how competitive and popular the film industry has become and that there are even film schools where people pay large sums of money to go to study the craft.

Amazing!!!

OASIS by Lee, Chang Dong

I just read a book on the Korean director Lee, Chang Dong, which I got from the main branch of the HK public library over the weekend.

Lee, Chang Dong has made four feature films in the past 12 years. All four films were serious movies and well-received.

Prior, he was a novelist with two books and no ties whatsoever to the film industry. I have read none of his novels but have seen all four of his films. They are all pretty amazing.

That said, I learned from the book that the guy's father was a leftist intellectual who was blacklisted and persecuted in Korean society of the 1970s and 1980s. This left its mark on Lee, Chang Dong.

From reading the book, I got the impression that this director is one serious person and a real intellectual. Most film directors are not. It is a hands-on medium after all.

Still, the guy's strength as a writer is evident in all four of his films: GREEN FISH, PEPPERMINT CANDY, OASIS, and SECRET SUNSHINE. He wrote the screenplays for all four films. All are complete original works except for SECRET SUNSHINE, which is based on another author's short story. All have tight storytelling structure and form and content are excellently-crafted.

Today, I saw OASIS again. The acting is superb, but the screenplay is even better. Lee, Chang Dong is the master of the subtle exposing of hypocrisy. The film slams middle class aspirations that most people in Korean society have by focusing on two outsiders, a fuck-up ex-convict and a woman suffering from cerebal palsy. This description doesn't do the movie justice. The film is no RAIN MAN or MY LEFT FOOT. It doesn't look for redemption in some vindication of the human-spirit type of story. It's far more desperate and disturbing than that.

My favorite contemporary filmmaker is Kim, Ki Duk. But this guy, Lee, Chang Dong, is intense like Kim, Ki Duk, but only much more cerebral and cautious. The film plays like there was nothing at all left to chance. Every frame seems to have been crafted. This guy must be such a perfectionist.

I was also impressed that in the book, which contained interviews, Lee, Chang Dong repeatedly mentioned Kim, Ki Duk as a terrific filmmaker from Korea. Kudos to the guy for giving credit where credit is due.

These films aren't for everyone, especially if you haven't seen many films. It's like reading, the more you read the better a reader you become. Same thing with films, the more you watch films, the better you become at appreciating them. Of course, this is only relevant to people who have a serious respect for movies. For most people, movies are just a time filler.

Regardless, OASIS is definitely a winner. A haunting film like no other that will stay with you for a long time. The closest European equivalent is FASSBINDER, but Lee, Chang Dong's films are more carefully crafted with less theatrical cavalier quality.

OLD JOY by Kelly Reichardt

I saw this film again on DVD as it is one of the 400+ DVDs that we brought with us to Hong Kong.

It is a short feature (about 70min), but beautifully shot. There's not much story or dialog. If you take away some sequences that are just scenery of Oregon woods, the film would be about 55 minutes.

I wanted to see this initially a couple of years ago after learning that it was based on a short story by Jonathan Raymond, who graduated with me from Swarthmore College.

Jonathan Raymond was one of these guys at Swat who was really serious and very smart. I'm actually a little surprised that he is now a writer. I always sort of pegged him to become an English prof.

Anyway, he has a novel called THE HALF-LIFE. He also did the screenplay for OLD JOY.

The film is a roadtrip/camping trip of two men who were old friends but have grown apart. One is a bohemian drifter. The other one is married and is expecting a child. The drifter guy comes to town and the two men go into the woods to camp out and spend some time together.

The story doesn't have classical dramatic structure. There's no conflict. Seeing it a second time, the film wouldn't work at all if it weren't for its visually stunning cinematography and the nuanced acting.

The whole movie is two guys sitting in the car, sitting by a campfire, talking about random stuff that are linked together by thinnest shared motif of having to grow up and longing for the past in a world that seems to pass by so quickly.

The film supposedly cost $30,000 U.S. to shoot. In the hands of another director, the film might have tanked without seeing the light of day. It benefits from gorgeous cinematography. I don't know the technical details eg. what cameras they shot on etc, but some scenes look lik they were shot on 35mm film. Sound is excellent, and some scenes are intense.

Overall, I checked it out to see what Jon Raymond contributed to the film. The guy knows Portland and Oregon. He was from there. I hear he now lives in Brooklyn.

Anyway, this is a contemplative small film that requires active viewing.

Kudos to a fellow Swattie for keeping it real. Where the hell are you Jon Raymond?

THE WIRE, or Not Reading Dostoevsky

I feel like such a loser for finally catching THE WIRE only 5+ years after it premiered.

Again, credit goes to Philippe, who gave me a DVD of all 13 episodes of season 1. He's been telling me to see this show for a couple of years now. So have other people. And there have been those great reviews. I remember a few in particular on NPR, describing it as the best thing on TV and simply sublime.

After seeing all 13 episodes in one day (I couldn't put it down--that's almost 13 hours of DVD watching), I have to agree. It lives up to the hype and more.

I don't know about the other seasons because I have yet to see them (now I will have to get them somehow), but season 1 was epic. It felt like I was watching or reading some epic Russian novel--something heavy and serious.

It's the only show I've ever seen where cops seem real and haven't been glorified like crazy and ditto for the drug hustle in the projects. It was brilliant. Each episode, each scene was so well acted and, most importantly, so well written.

The episodes have different guest directors, but the influence of the writer is so strong, that there isn't much stylistic difference among the 13 episodes in terms of visual content.

And to the writer's credit, there is very 'little showing off' to draw attention to his obvious brilliance. Though what little showing off there is is enough to put a smile on your face.

What do I mean by the writer 'showing off'?

The best example is the scene when McNulty and Bunk go out to examine the now-empty apartment in which a young woman was killed 6 months earlier. Working from a thin file, which contains another homicide detective's shabby write-up of the same scene and a half dozen photos of the victim, McNulty and Bunk, being more thorough, observant, and better cops, figure out the angle of the bullet's trajectory and manage to find a bullet that had been lodged hidden inside the refrigerator for 6 months. They do this while a third man, the super, who has let them into the vacant apartment, is standing there watching them and being treated to a show of two really skilled cops at work.

Of course, my clunky description of the scene doesn't do it justice. Because besides serving the utilitarian function of exposition, the 5-minute scene, which might have been a part of any police procedural, is elevated to art by being played out in such a way that the progressive little discoveries that the two detectives make in piecing together what really happened in that apartment is conveyed by one detective to the other with multiple exclamations of "fuck" by McNulty and "motherfucker" by Bunk.

In other words, the only dialog in this 5-minute scene, is 15-20 "fuck"s and "motherfucker"s.

Basically, te two actors play the entire scene with the imposed limitation that each convey all the exposition by uttering only one expletive. Usually on TV shows, the same scene would have been loaded down by clunky exposition dialog of the "From the angle in the photo, the bullet must have come through the window and entered her neck and come out her back. Hey, wait a minute. Do you think it's possible that she might have had the fridge open? I'm not sure, let's take a look..."

The characters in this ensemble piece are terrific and have complex internal lives. The show is frank about homosexuality, alcohol abuse, snitching, fuck-up cops, corruption, and a dozen other things. In other words, it is true about life, without being completely pessimistic or cynical.

I know that my description of season 1 is rather vague and rambling. I'm writing this on Sunday morning after having spent all of Saturday watching the show.

One more thing. The show seemed to switch protagonists half way through the season. It starts out being about Jimmy McNulty, a white detective with a maverick streak, but then at some point in the 2nd half of the season, becomes about Lieutenant Cedric Daniels. Indeed, Lieutenant Daniels has the biggest character arc and changes the most due to the events of the story. I've never seen the actor who plays him on other TV shows or in movies. I'm guessing he must be a theater vet. The guy was amazing. His delivery of lines is so utterly unique.

Overall, watching THE WIRE was like reading CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, but without the reading.

I'd read Richard Price's CLOCKERS way back in the early 1990s when it came out. That tome was about a stuttering low-level drug crew manager in a housing project in Newark. It was a good read, if ultimately not as gripping as some other books about the drug hustle in the ghetto. Still, it was ambitious, but became a rather bad movie by Spike Lee, who is one of my favorite directors.

Compared to CLOCKERS, or other dramas set in the hood, THE WIRE shines even that much more brilliantly. I normally don't even like cop shows. I think they nearly always lie about how noble, smart, and hard-working cops are. THE WIRE is different.

If you haven't yet seen this show, you have to check it out. Don't take my word for it. Trust the next President of the United States.

According to Wikipedia, THE WIRE is Barack Obama's favorite TV show.