flights

The movie I saw with D was called Closer, written by Patrick Marber, directed by Mike Nichols and competently performed by Jude Law¹, Julia Roberts², Natalie Portman³ and Clive Owen⁴.

It had the feel of something that had been written for the stage, and indeed, I subsequently found out that Closer is Marber’s screen adaptation of his own play. As such, it reminded me of several plays I’d written in my twenties for the Unlikely Theater Company in Phoenix. Marber worked with the same subject matter, rendering it more skillfully. Just barely, which is not to say my work was very skillful. His, however, was a few small steps above something banal and amateurish. A handful of his lines were things I’d actually written myself – verbatim.

The story followed two couples – well, four people who coupled in different configurations at various points in the story. It was about fidelity and forgiveness, selfishness vs. self restraint. It was about truth and lies in relationships and the relative value of each in various contexts. There were no redeeming characters, and I walked out of the cinema feeling like I’d just spent my evening at a cocktail party chatting with a whole lot of people I couldn’t stand.

At the same time, it made me reflect a little on my own relationships and how hard it is to share life with someone. When I think about my own individual life, I would never go back and erase even the most difficult things I’ve been through, and I would never wish for a future without more trouble. I don’t wish for tragedy of course, but eternal unblemished happiness would become a different kind of unbearable lightness.

When it comes to relationships, it goes without saying that you can’t stay in the honeymoon period forever, and a relationship would feel pretty insubstantial if you could. It’s just so goddam hard to endure unhappiness with another person.

Near the beginning of Closer, Jude Law’s character kisses a photographer (Julia Roberts) while she’s shooting the jacket photo for his book. Afterward, she asks him whether he’s living with Alice, the girl on whom he based his novel’s protagonist. He tells her “yes”, he is. She then asks him, in reference to the kiss they just exchanged, “why are you wasting her time?”

I hate the idea of having wasted time, mine or anyone else’s.

^{1 the overexposed
2 the overexposed and overrated
3 the beautiful and underutilised
4 the nearly forgettable}

I watched two excellent films yesterday – Infernal Affairs and Hero. Infernal Affairs was a hugely successful Hong Kong thriller a couple of years ago that has spawned two or three sequels. Martin Scorcese is currently directing a US remake-in-progress, under the working title The Departed, which is due in 2006 and will apparently star Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. Ouch.

Anyway, the plot follows what is essentially a chess match between a Hong Kong police detective unit and a group of triad gangsters. Early on, each side learns there’s a mole in their midst, and the rest of the film follows their respective efforts to discover the identitity of the traitor.

Tony Leung, who plays the police infiltrator of the triads, has been deep undercover for ten years, and only the leader of his investigative unit knows his true identity. He’s half mad and half strung out from years of acting the gangster. He’s been harassed by the police so much he hardly remembers he’s still part of the force.

Andy Lau plays the mole inside the police unit, and the film sets up an interesting dynamic between him and his fiancee, who’s writing a novel about a man with multiple personalities. She becomes stuck when her protagonist can no longer tell whether he’s a “bad guy or a good guy.”

Jet Li’s Hero is the highly stylised story of four would-be assassins who plot to kill the king of Qin – the most powerful warlord in pre-unified China. It’s gorgeously filmed – each mini-episode in a different color – with epic swordplay and special effects befitting the legendary quality of the tale it’s based on. Tony Leung stars again, this time as the assassin, Broken Sword, who has a kind of epiphany as a result of his calligraphic study. He decides the king must not die, and he’s willing to do anything to stop even his beloved friends from going through with their plot.

The other night a small group of us went to see a play called “godeatgod” by local playrwright, Haresh Sharma.

On our first or second day here, Tracy handed me an eye-catching post card, and ever since then I’d been spotting them around town.

post cards for godeatgod

The cards quote a review from the sold-out 2002 run and describe the show as “a layered and moving exploration of power, sexuality, spirituality and survival in the post-traumatic world”. A review in the Straits Times summed up the play as “the perfect antidote to rambling or too-glib experimental theatre pieces disconnected from the flesh-and-blood of human suffering”.

As such, we thought it might also be the perfect antidote to the painful US election results.
Continue reading ‘godeatgod’ »

Unpacking this week, I found my ticket stub from the (May 29) The Flaming Lips show at the Warfield in San Francisco. Liz Phair opened. It was an amazing night. It’s probably still too early to tell for sure, but I’m placing it tentatively on the shelf as one of my top five shows of all time (along with the likes of Peter Gabriel and The Talking Heads circa 1982), to see how it fits. Their new album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is solid from beginning to end. It’s their best in a while, and in true Lips fashion you can listen to the whole thing on their web site. I’m only sorry I missed Liz Phair, whose opening set must have been miniscule.

The best way to summarize my opinion of Yankee Doodle Dandy is to say that when the AFI gets around to updating the list, this one is sure not to make the cut.
Continue reading ‘AFI #100: Yankee Doodle Dandy’ »

About a year ago, my friend Steve and I were laid off by Vodafone. Since he had worked there twelve years longer than me, he got a lot more money. Now he’s somewhere in Asia, a year and counting into a lengthy world tour.

When I first met Steve, he was in the midst of watching the AFI’s “100 Years, 100 Movies” list, in order, from bottom to top – of which he owns all that have ever been released on DVD.

When he embarked on his world tour, I borrowed the films and began the same trek through them in order. I decided to watch them in order, no matter how many times I had previously seen them, although I admit I skipped The Sound of Music (#55) because I’ve seen it just too many times.

Over the summer, I sort of stalled between The Philadelphia Story and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (#’s 51 and 50). I finally watched Butch and Sundance a couple of weeks ago, and I seem to have run out of steam again.

Anyway, I expected to watch one or two films a week and be done within a year. I also expected to keep a sort of diary of reviews. Having not done either of those things, I still want to publish my reviews – going back and re-watching the films if necessary.

So watch this space for those reviews, but don’t hold your breath.

Saw ACDShe the other night. They’re an all-girl ACDC tribute band. I’m speechless. What’s better than hot chicks playing hard rock? As one dude in the crowd screamed, “Girls-who-rock rock!”

Incidentally, I spent some minutes before the show talking to “Agnes Young”, who works days as a flight instructor. She should totally be in the next Bond movie.