Everything seems blurry now. It's not my vision, no, that's just lack of sleep, rather, it seems to be my memories, my recollections, hazy, muddled miasmas, ever ready to fade into oblivion, into a the thick mist, until the very moment I least expect it, I trip over what was not within sight, or has been lost, and remember once again. But happy thoughts float to the sky, sometimes offering glimpses, tantalisingly out of reach, and sad thoughts sink, always, to the ground. If only I could see, choose, select what I want to remember, if only I could fly.
But I'm no superman.
[Palm blog]
It has, once again, been an interesting day (yesterday), as some days have been. It also goes without saying that I should refrain from ever starting my blog this way again, for it does nothing, achieves nothing, wastes our time, both you and I, and surely impresses nobody but the simplests of souls. I should go on to add that I'm not trying to impress anybody, and that I'm blogging on my palm.
My palm needs a new screen protector.
First, about school. Philo. once again (gah) was fun. Monty Python made an appearence, that's always good, but couple with that still feeling somewhat out of my league, my brain was not built for such high functions. Still, lessons go on. I hope for debates in tutorials.
Writing is awfully slow, almost the whole 197 bus ride is done.
And next, my gem... I watched Emma! And learnt more about film technique and all that, that's always a joy.
[/Palm blog]
(Palm blogging IS really slow, especially since I underuse the writing option, the bus is really shaky, I'm really sleepy and as you formulate them words you write them down... suddenly the whole process is drawn out, slower. But I think I can improve.)
Douglas McGrath, now, that's some kind of madman. I'm not sure what else he's ever done, but his approach to filming a movie, even without me actually studying either the texts or film technique, would have just led me to groan anyway. It is at times heavy handed, and at times utterly underwhelming. Almost every little scene somehow manages to hit you with the strength of Obvious-man, you know, just in case you don't realise it, and woah, the way he tries to connect scenes. That was painful. I've seen times where sound bridges were used to great effect... maybe once, at most twice in a movie. He manages to use it about ever 10 minutes, and by then I was just about ready to hammer nails into concrete slabs with my head. Not a bad movie, but I guess with adapting Austen and trying to stay true to it yet somehow condense all that (internal monologues included) into a movie slightly less than 2 hours long... is not a great idea. But perhaps! He forgot the only people actually going to watch Emma were (a) the purists who love Austen (b) the poor students studying Austen (c) Girls who don't know it's not exactly Titanic and (d) the boyfriends who get pulled along (or the gays... basically (d) is Guys, of all flavours) Perhaps he could have somehow stayed truer to Austen's "vision"? Maybe, maybe not.
Still, having watched how conventional editing is done just makes me want to do one great big mind-screw of a film. To try to destroy all these conventions just for the sake of destroying them, and hopefully, just hopefully, have a story to back it all up. To confound people and destroy their views and expose them for being conventional themselves when they should be rewarding great new visions in this realm we know as film.
Ok, so maybe not a "great new vision". Especially not if it turns out to not even be filmed.
I'm now free of all debt. At least, I hope so. I think I still owe wai for Beyond Good and Evil, but it really just slipped my mind yesterday in the midst of monty python and philosophy and how randomisation is our friend. (Our friend!) Maybe it slid out of my mind as we gave Wai new names, like Brandon or Billy-Bob or Yuzhan or Basil (from Grace) and Gaylord. Maybe it kinda sneaked away when Jack showed that he was the true Gaylord, or when later I was accosted by one. Of course, Jack has returned to being Doom and maybe we should call Wai Woffles. At any rate, I still only owe a little bit of money. I am a free man.
Dance. Maybe I view dance as something fluid, something expressive. It surely isn't, to me, the square dance or something out of the gentleman's ball, and that dance, when accomplished, can be truly something to behold. But then again, come to think of it, aren't most performance arts like this? Sometimes I wonder if I could set my own achy, breaky body free, probably not, but at the very least sometimes my mind is free of it's shackles of this world, dancing, singing, acting freely, on it's own accord. Then I have to do things like Stats.
[Ignore this it doesn't make sense and I just wasted time on it]
It's interesting to see how people can actually hate the New Paper, and then read through entire articles of it so prove how much one hates it. It's kinda... weird. It's somesort of masochism, to stare at an accident with eyes wide opened, wishing they were shut, and then taking down the 4-d numbers cos later then you can have just that little something to boast about. "I survived the New Paper". It's no more about surviving the big walk, it's about the paper itself, now, isn't it? I buy the paper everyday, if I can get my hands on it. It is, other than the internet, one of my good sources for football news, so it's importance is never in doubt. Sometimes I get really funny and odd entertainment news, or news one wouldn't consider news, but hey, it's there, I flip thru it. It's almost as close as we'll come to some tabloid with a naked girl on page 3, at least one that I can read (English, thank you.) I don't see why one looks down on the New Paper, then Clancy, Eddings, Jordan and Grisham (all of which I don't read either, thank you very much) and then has so much to say about xiaxue, who's blog I read about 2 lines and quit. Some things are truly unreadable, but I guess since that mindless drivel is free, hey! Why pay 60 (soon to be 70) cents on a paper which is so full of sports? If one read what one likes to read, and hence only that which he likes to read (the way I feel Mieville is actually just a guy with a dictionary throwing words together without actually deciding on a plot, and being unable to create one from thin air unlike Carroll, who does, and succeeds most of the time), complaining that one has the right to choose what one will read, then why does one complain about what others read? If so distasteful, get away from the common-man, get away from the man on the street or the heartlander, and just go away. It's interesting to see how intellectualism has become such a high form of itself (I used to call myself intellectual, back in secondary 2, when all I saw was drivel on the IRC), but hey I guess it takes all kinds of people, and yes, making money is important. It is interesting to see how it has become the reading of the absolute elite, the return to the point where the novel in general was considered the trash (kinda like chick lit today) and that somehow they do nothing but say how everything else sucks. Not much in terms of improving the world there. In the end all that happens is losing touch with the common man (but oh! what drivel, why should I associate myself with such... trash?), getting that little bit alienated (but oh my! who needs friends when I have books AND fellow intellectuals) and probably losing touch with reality. (I lost my point here somewhere). I have no right to say what I just said, actually. Ah well. Erm, my point is that, erm, hey, read what you want, let others read what they want and why begrudege what others read what they want when you read whatever you want or something like that want want want want. My IQ just dropped a few points. Ah, Carnegie, save me from debates which I muddle myself in and am not sure where to go. I am misunderstanding everything. Channel through me your inherent stepping away from everythingness.
[/ignore]
I don't think I've been so excited about movies in a while.
Hellboy is coming, so is
Spiderman 2 and
Big Fish, the
Last Samurai and
Kill Bill Volume 2. Jim Carrey (my favourite actor) is not going to appear in
Eternal Sunshine, but he's also going to be Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket's
A Series of Unfortunate Events. I am very, very excited. And then he's also going to be in
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and from what I'm reading it's like a modern day Don Quixote and it's directed by Steven Spielberg. Jim Carrey, it's good to have you back. I haven't seen you properly since the Truman Show. There's so many other movies to be excited about, but hey, speaking of movies...
Peter Pan. It's truly wonderous to see how much of J.M. Barrie's tale I remember, if not from actually having watched the cartoon before, then it must have been owning the Audio-books. Now, this Pan is no Disney confection, actually being produced by the Al-Fayeds, and it is only now that I know that basically the script has stayed the same all this while, that Peter Pan was originally something people would stage, or at least had a certain script.
It is whimsical, ethereal, magical. It is beautiful. It is, for sure, one of the must watch movies of the year. I'm not sure what else I can say. It's truly amazing to see child actors do really so well (as compared to the abysmal Episode I: Dennis The Menace) and it is delightful to see the adults, along for the ride, being able to once again channel their inner child, the emotions we know we once felt that isn't childishness, but childlikeness (I think I've gone thru this many a time).
And there I am, getting caught up in the exitement, reliving my youth (left so far behind) again, laughing not because it is funny, but because I am truely, utterly enjoying myself (the last time was probably Pirates of the Carribean). I am making a fool of myself, finding images which I remember from days of yore, treasuring them as they were back then, and then seeing, as they get unveiled in their new skin that they are better, newer, but still hold within them the enternal youthfulness.
One complaint: Jeremy Sumpter is a great Peter Pan... except of some speech problems. I think he happens to have a strongish lower jaw which affects his speech. And a bit of his smiling. Small, small problems. I could probably go into the film in more detail, but do go for yourself.
This film isn't about how MJ should be acquitted, or how he should be allowed to never grow up. It's not about seeing Jeremy Sumpter's nipples (if you're so inclined) or how pretty some boys can look, or how we can compare this with Disney's old musical version or Hook and see which one's better. It's about belief (no Plato, thanks). It's about seeing the world, once again with new eyes. It's about spending time next to the person you love, looking at it with the same kind of eyes and enjoying that link (quite unlike, say, watching Adaptation and enjoying it while loved one goes: Ah? Similan?" or something like that). It's about how it's perfect for basically everybody but the most cynical and lost. It's about being a child once again, but being on the cusp of adulthood, knowning what you can and cannot let go, and then flying up, and feeling the fairy dust. It's about believing in fairies.
It's about pure magic.
And it made me cry.
