Letters from Iwo Jima
There are movies, and there are films. An example of a movie would be Star Wars or RV. An example of a film would be Blade Runner or Little Miss Sunshine. Movies simply entertain you – a deeper meaning may be present, but not emphasized. A film can entertain, but a clear and understandable deeper meaning is present. There is a communion of sorts, between the makers and the viewers. When I watched Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, I was expecting a film, and was not disappointed.Letters is an incredibly well done movie. This, I was expecting. I mean, its Clint-goddamn-Eastwood. He was a bloody cowboy, for crying out loud. That exudes awesomeness. In some territories, it defines awesomeness.
I am not a photographer, but prolonged exposure to their kind has given me a degree to understanding on what constitutes great cinematography. Every shot is beautiful, and the (virtually) monochromatic tone of the entire film is both grim and slightly surreal.
The story itself is captivating, engaging the audience almost instantly. Not only does Eastwood manage to develop the plot and characters beautifully, he makes it look easy. I won’t give away to many plot details, since the majority hasn’t watched it yet.
Ken Watanabe performance is brilliant, as always, (Batman Begins is not counted, damn it!). His portrayal off General Kuribayashi is very real, and very powerful, almost disturbingly so. The rest of the cast act well too (alot better than the cast for most movies), but they pale in comparison to Watanabe. Other cast members of note include the Baron Nishi and Saigo – Baker-turned-Soldier. Apologizes, I can’t be bothered to find out more about them.
The score, apparently done by Eastwood’s son, was not remarkable, but it was suitable, and a bit haunting.
Well, I can’t think of anything else today, but basically, what I’m trying to say is that Letters is the best war movie I have ever seen; including Apocalypse Now. It manages to stay sincere and heart-wrenching, keeping to the classic themes of the war movie, while staying engaging and unique. I foresee it to become a truly timeless film, not to mention a cult classic.
Eastwood seems to have outdone himself yet again, and I’m genuinely shocked that the Departed managed to clinch Best Picture instead.
Job Search
The future is nearly upone me, it has crept surreptiously and stealthily like a panther-god of long lost African lore.
Oh how I wish for the days when life was simpler. You wanted to be a fireman, an astronaut or a superhero. Now you know that the Firemen are dead, the astronauts are crazy, and the superheroes are just badly written adolescent male power fantasies.
I often wonder what the hell I’m going to do with my life. In an ideal situation, which is to say, in my wildest dreams, I will be a humorist/writer of some sort, churning out scripts and suchlike for stage, screen and comic. This is, of course, highly unlikely.
Considering my subject combination, I realize that I can either be a journalist, a teacher or a lawyer. Journalism is supposed to be hard as hell, with long hours and suchlike. Teachering is similar, perhaps worse. Law has long hours too, but at least it pays well. This is good. Unfortunately, everyone also thinks so.
Thank God for IB, giving me this unfair advantage.Thank God for my Ceylonese heritage – its common knowledge that minorties make good lawyers, and that Indians like to argue.
However, I don’t particularly want to be a lawyer. Large sums of money with no self-fulliment isn’t something that sounds good to me. I’d rather be a poor schmuck that an rich prick, so to speak. What do lawyers do for society? Why the hell do we need so much lawyers? Why the hell are we paying them so much money? I don’t want a job that forces me to suck out the lifeblood of society, like some vicious scholar-remora of the instution.
But then again, its a lot of money. And money makes it all better.
Arcane Stealth Technique
I seem to be bumping into Mr Chew a lot, recently. Bumped into him on the Friday before Chinese New Year at Comicsmart, and today at Tanglin Mall. And it’s not ‘I-saw-him-from-a-distance’ bumping into him. It’s more like the real, infinitly more suprising ‘almost-actually-bumping-into-to-him’. Which is mildly disconcerting, since it means that either I’m alot more stoned than usual, or he practices some arcane stealth technique.
*plot twist*
I’ve been trawling through my large collection of links, and found this. I don’t know where it’s from, and why I have it. Interesting though.
Beryl is an OpenGL accelerated desktop that seeks to provide a free, open source desktop experience to the community that reflects the wishes of the users. Above all else, the project seeks to listen to and respond to the requests of the user base.
Fascinating.
In other news, listening to a lot of David Bowie suddenly. Have Joshua Cao to thank for that.
Moving Right Along
My cunning ruse has failed. The Internets are denied to me yet again!
We’ve recently had an ‘Interview Skills’ talk. I am thankful that 4 years in AC pre-IB/ IB has taught me the necessary presentation skills to breeze through anything an interviewer can throw at me. Muahaha.
*plot twist*
I’m eagerly awaiting the library release of Scott Mccloud’s Making Comics.
In other news, the production is going well (it usually is), and tickets are out. So buy tickets now. And buy them from me. Because I’m such an exceedingly charismatic salesman.
Foonotes
Funny.
I’ve gotten around my internet problems, and can finally post my long overdue Chinese New Year rant. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten most of what I wanted to say. And believe me, I had a lot to say. Chinese New Year is an interesting time for me. Almost everyone I know is celebrating, or overseas. Some are even celebrating overseas. Normally, I would go to this guy, who as big a cultural bastard as I am. Unfortunately, the jackass is in Amerika, living it up.
Ah well. At least I still have mindless footnoting to do.
The joys of mindless footnoting cannot be measured, even with a long bit of chalk.Truly, it is the only way to live.
Often, I contemplate an idyllic existence, in which, with nothing better to do with my time than footnote endlessly. At the end of each day, I shall skip, frollick and prance through the streets in a manner most jovial and carefree, caring a basket filled with my exhaustively-annonated creations, which I will throw to the maddened homeless, the starving sick and the maddened and starving undergraduate student.
As I skip, I will sing,
“Tralala! Tralalee!
Footnotes for thou, Footnotes for thee,
Essays now have reliability!”
So in love with this fine art, I am, that I plan to name my first child using the Oxford footnooting system, and as for my second, he/she will , of course, be christened Ibid.
ZOMG LAZERWOLFZZ!
Last post turned out a bit more emo that I thought it would. Oh well..To make for it, I present to you a Lazerwolf.
It’s something I dreamt of yesterday. I think it has something to do with Fiddler on the Roof.
CAS makes us manic-depressives
IB makes us develop mental illnesses. TOK makes us cynical and jaded, Coursework in general makes us frantic and neurotic. And CAS makes us into manic-depressives.
We sign up for ridiculous and overambitious projects with no real intention to contribute to society. We only do it to get hours. IB makes us sociopaths.
I was just thinking about my CAS. I’m trying to claim 96 Creativity Hours, 80 Action Hours and 54 Service Hours. This is not including any of this year’s projects. I realize that it will be hard to justify this.
The irony of it all is that I probably did more than this. I’m purposefully reducing my hours to make it look more ‘normal’. It’s silly, really. I was involved in 3 productions. I’ve written, acted and carried heavy things around. But apparently those Swiss bastards in IBO don’t believe me. Now, I can’t help feeling that I haven’t really done anything. It’s a bad feeling. I feel impotent. My work has no value.
I’m supposed to write, but everything my ideas are coherent enough. I involve myself in drama, but I don’t have the skills to go beyond a minor roles. I’m not funny. My funniest jokes involved the word nigger. I’m not even a nigger. I’m a Ceylonese and I’m a cultural bastard (Don’t know jack shit about Ceylon).
I don’t contribute to society. I’m a bad person. I should be sent for therapy or something, where I can get ride the psychedelic roller coaster of anti-depressants and sedatives. Zoloft and Prozac ftw!
Maybe I should have taken on more responsibilities. That way, I can be really stressed now, and won’t have time to worry about this sort of thing.
But seriously. I suppose acceptance of my failure as a human being is the first step.IB has taught me so much. I’m a much better person now. And if I’m not, TOK teaches me how to justify suicide.
Announcement
From now on, when you swear, say ‘Holy Roman Empire’ instead of your usual expletive.
For example,
” Shit, that’s a really huge gazebo.”
Is replaced by
” Holy Roman Empire, that’s a really huge gazebo!”
Thank you for your time.
