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Archive for the 'National cinemas: Hong Kong' Category
The World comes to Vancouver
The Golden Era.
Kristin here:
One of the great pleasures of the Vancouver International Film Festival is the ability it provides for a quick trip around the world, especially to countries whose films are seldom seen in a non-festival setting.
In one day I was able to see an Algerian film and one from the Ivory Coast. It struck me that both of them reflected how far digital filmmaking has come in small producing countries. When digital cameras came on the scene, they were hailed as a way for people in nations with little or no filmmaking infrastructure to create movies. The results, fascinating though they might be, often betrayed visually the fact that they were made with non-professional cameras.
Perhaps we have reached a new stage in digital filmmaking in such countries. Both the Algerian film, The Rooftops (Merzak Allouache, 2013), and the Ivory Coast one, Run (Philippe Lacôte, 2014), have a polish and complexity of form and style that put them on a level with those made in larger, more established national cinemas.
The Rooftops provides a model of how to make a film with a limited budget and avoid conventionality. Allouache chose to set the film entirely on the rooftops of five districts of Algiers. It's a gimmick of sorts, and yet it carries practical advantages. No sets had to be built, and few, if any scenes required artificial light. Presumably no streets had to be cleared, since no action is staged at ground-level.
Beyond that, each scene could be played out with the city of Algiers providing a backdrop, as when a group of young musicians practice on one of the rooftops:
With backgrounds like that, who needs sets?
The film has a strict formal logic, both spatially and temporally. It begins by introducing five rooftops, each with its own set of characters. There's no crossover among the groups. None of them ever meet, so this isn't what David has termed a network narrative. But the look of each rooftop is different, and simply by keeping the characters in one limited area, the filmmakers help us keep track of them fairly easily as the narrative moves among storylines.
The film starts with the first call to prayer in the darkness before dawn, and at intervals the four other calls follow (with a subtitle providing information on the name of each call and the time period within which the respective prayers are supposed to be performed.) These essentially act as chapter breaks, giving a sense of time passing. The five prayers also echo the five rooftops.
There's no shortage of drama in each group's story. On a lower floor of an unfinished building a mob boss has a man tortured, trying to force him to sign something. This disturbs a group of filmmakers taking shots from the roof above, with dire consequences. A landlord is murdered on another rooftop, and a suicide occurs on yet another. One gets a cumulative impression of crime and conflict being rife across these various districts of Algiers.
Allouache is considered the preeminent Algierian director, and the violence and strife depicted rather melodramatically are part of his ongoing critique of his nation's social problems.
In contrast, Lacôte sets Run apart by adopting a classic flashback structure. The film opens with the crisis of the story: the hero, nicknamed "Run," shoots the prime minister in a crowded auditorium and flees.
From then on, we see him in hiding as he reflects on how he became an assassin. The alternation of scenes from his youth and his current-day attempts to avoid capture are easily comprehensible. Lacôste finds ways to create visual interest and avoid conventional stagings of scenes, as in the low angle above that juxtaposes the hero with a looming, crisscrossing ceiling.
Another example comes when his friend gives him shelter and food. Rather than a simple shot/reverse-shot conversation across a table, we see a depth scene, with Run sitting on the floor to eat and his friend in the foreground twisting to talk with him:
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the notion was that people in underdeveloped countries could gain small cameras and discover their own ways of making films, free of Hollywood conventions. To some extent that happened. But with the globilization of mass media, few people, however isolated, can remain unaware of Western culture.
Presumably some filmmakers have aspired to match the technical standards of Western offerings in international film festivals. These two films show them succeeding, having thoroughly grasped the conventions of both art films and popular genres. We 'll discuss an example of the latter in an upcoming entry on Middle-eastern films at VIFF, and in particular the Iranian vampire film, Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.
Ann Hui's quiet epic
Ann Hui's career is usually associated with intimate films, mostly studies of character. We saw her at Ebertfest earlier this year, where she presented A Simple Life, the epitome of such films.
Now she has surprised audiences with another character study, but one set in a tumultuous period of Chinese history, the late 1930s and early 1940s. The Golden Era (2014) tells the story of female writer Xiao Hong, who died young in 1942. Not all the facts of Xiao Hong's life are known, and the narrative sketches scenes derived from the author's own writings. Interspersed are "documentary" shots of interviews with people (played by actors) who knew and worked with Xiao Hong.
Much of the tale consists of small-scale scenes, conversations among a few people set indoors or in the streets. Yet as the Japanese invasion begins and spreads, occasional big scenes occur, and Hui proves herself perfectly capable of suggesting creating a sense of epic events.
The war is only fleetingly present, however. We see it mainly from the viewpoint of the main characters, as when a quiet indoor conversation scenes are abruptly and startlingly cut short by bombs going off outside and shattering windows.
The film's settings and costumes create a vivid sense of the era. There are street scenes in Hong Kong shortly before its fall to the Japanese that appear almost documentary in their realism. Throughout the images are beautiful, as the frame at the top of the entry demonstrates.
The film's three-hour running length adds to the epic feel, tracing the heroine's changing fortunes across momentous historical events. It makes a striking contrast with A Simple Life, and yet Hui's concern with precision and detail in delineating characters remains constant. The pair might bring her back to the sort of prominence outside Hong Kong that she enjoyed in the 1980s and early 1990s. Indeed, The Golden Era was just presented as the gala film at the Busan Film Festival.
Another farewell from a Ghibli master
Just over a year ago Miyazaki Hayao announced that he would retire, having completed and released his final film, The Wind Rises (2013). Speculation over the fate of Studio Ghibli, the animation studio that he co-founded, followed.
Now we have the reported final film of a second of the three original founders, Takahata Isao, whose most famous film is Grave of the Fireflies (1988). Like The Wind Rises, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2014) lets its director go out on a high note.
Based on a tenth-century fairy tale, Princess Kaguya has a distinctive style, with most scenes done in translucent watercolors in pastel shades, quite different from the solid, vivid colors of much of Miyazaki's work. It tells its story in a leisurely fashion, running 137 minutes, which may be a bit challenging for younger children, but it is never boring.
Kaguya is not necessarily a princess. We're not sure what she is. She appears miraculously one day as a tiny baby in a glowing bamboo shoot. She is iscovered by a bamboo-cutter who assumes she is a princess and insists on calling her that. The bamboo-cutter and his wife raise her in a forest cottage (seen below). The opening section is idyllic, with the tiny girl growing unnaturally fast, in spurts. She is befriended by neighboring children, and the group explores the surrounding countryside, reveling in the beauty of the plants and animals they observe there.
Spurred by another miraculous discovery, this time of gold nuggets inside a bamboo stalk, the bamboo-cutter decides to build a mansion in a nearby city and make Naguya into a real princess by marrying her off to royalty. There ensues the classic competition among suitors to find the most fabulous object and present it to Naguya.
Naturally Naguya longs for the countryside and finally rebels. In a remarkably stylized, exciting scene that contrasts with the rest of the film, she races toward her forest home, and the pastel settings disappear. She becomes a blur of black, white, and red flashing through a gloomy landscape with sketchily drawn trees and plants that flicker wildly past:
The Tale of Princess Taguya has been announced for an October 17 release in the USA, distributed by GKids. Unfortunately it will only be available in a dubbed version. Even dubbed, it's worth seeing on the big screen, but with luck there will be an option for the original Japanese-language version with subtitles on the DVD/BD release.
Studio Ghibli has released another film, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, a documentary about the studio by Sunada Mami. (It played at Toronto but is not here at VIFF.) Its appearance seems to hint that Ghibli really is going to cease feature production, though the official story is that it is only pausing. It has been a prolific producer of short animated films, and perhaps that side of its activities will continue. For a good summary of the situation and a description of the documentary, see here.
The Tale of Princess Taguya
Unveiling Ebertfest 2014
Kristin here:
In the early days of Ebertfest, Roger personally introduced every film at this five-day event, which took place this year from April 23 to 27. He would be onstage for the discussions and question sessions after each screening, often joined by directors, actors, or friends in the industry.
In the summer of 2006, there began the long battle with cancer that Roger fought so determinedly. He withdrew gradually from full participation in the festival that he had founded in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana sixteen years ago. He struggled to immerse himself in the festival, even though repeated surgeries had robbed him of his voice. He introduced fewer films, doing so with his computer's artificial voice, and when even that became too taxing, he sat in his lounge chair at the back of the Virginia Theater, enjoying the event and occasionally appearing onstage with a cheery thumbs-up. Finally, last year on April 4, less than three weeks before the fifteenth Ebertfest, he passed away. That year's festival became a celebration of his life.
The celebration continued this year, though on a more upbeat note. Some films were chosen from a list that Roger had left to his wife Chaz and festival organizer Nate Kohn, and they selected others in the same indie spirit. The tradition of showing a silent film with musical accompaniment was maintained. As always, the festival passes sold out, and the crowd, including many long-time regulars, enthusiastically cheered both films and filmmakers.
The tributes
Roger did not live to see the documentary devoted to his life and based on his popular memoir of the same name, Life Itself. It premiered in January at this year's Sundance Film Festival. He participated in its making, however, encouraging director Steve James (whose 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams Roger had championed) to film him during the final four months of his life. Some of this candid footage reveals the painful and exhausting treatments Roger underwent, but much of it stresses his resilience and the support of Chaz and the rest of his family.
Life Itself was the opening night film. James has done a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the book and in assembling archival footage and photographs, interspersed with new interviews. The result is anything but maudlin, with a candid treatment of Roger's early struggles with alcoholism and an amusing summary of Roger's prickly but affectionate relationship with his TV partner Gene Siskel.
Life Itself was picked up for theatrical distribution by Magnolia Pictures and will receive a summer release, followed by a showing on CNN. (Scott Foundas reviewed the film favorably for Variety, as did Todd McCarthy for The Hollywood Reporter.)
Another tribute followed the next day, when a life-size bronze statue of Roger by sculptor Rick Harney was unveiled outside the Virginia Theater (above). Harney portrays Roger in his most famous pose, sitting in a movie-theater seat and giving a thumbs-up gesture. There is an empty seat on either side of him, so that people can sit beside the statue and have their photos taken. (See the image of Barry C. Allen in the section "Of Paramount importance," below.)
Far from silent
Roger was a big fan of the Alloy Orchestra, consisting of (L to R above) Terry Donahue, Ken Winokur, and Roger Miller, who specialize in accompanying silent films. They have appeared several times at Ebertfest, playing original music for such films as Metropolis and Underworld. Rather than taking a traditional approach to silent-film music, using piano, organ, or small chamber ensemble, they compose modern scores, played on electronic keyboard combined with their well-known "rack of junk" percussion section, including a variety of found objects, supplemented with musical saw, banjo, accordion, clarinet, and other instruments. The result is surprisingly unified and provides a rousingly appropriate accompaniment to the silents shown at Ebertfest over the years.
I have had the privilege of introducing the film and leading the post-film Q&A on some of these occasions, including for this year's feature, Victor Seastrom's 1924 classic, He Who Gets Slapped. (Swedish director Victor Sjöström used the Americanized version during his career in Hollywood.) I put the film in context by pointing out three important historical aspects of the film. First, it was the first film made from script to screen by the newly formed MGM studio, formed in 1924 from the merger of Goldwyn Productions, Metro, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. (Two earlier releases by MGM were Norma Shearer vehicles which originated at Mayer.) Second, it was probably the film that cemented Lon Chaney's stardom, after his breakthrough role as Quasimodo in the 1922 Hunchback of Notre Dame. Starting in 1912, Chaney had been in well over 100 films before Hunchback, many of them shorts and nearly all of them supporting roles. Third, He Who Gets Slapped was Seastrom's second American film after Name the Man in 1923, and a distinct improvement on that first effort.
Naturally MGM wanted a big, prestigious hit for its first production, and He Who Gets Slapped came through, being both a critical and popular success–and also boosted Norma Shearer to major stardom. Seastrom and Chaney both stayed on at MGM, though the former returned to European filmmaking after the coming of sound and Chaney died in 1930.
I was joined for the post-film discussion by Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, and we talked with Donahue and Winokur while Miller sold the group's CDs and DVDs in the festival shop. They revealed that this new score had been commissioned by the Telluride Film Festival and that it was a project that appealed to their taste for off-beat films. There were many questions from the audience, and we suspect that the Alloy Orchestra will continue to be a regular feature of the festival.
A cornerstone of indie cinema
Although Roger was occasionally criticized for supposedly lowering the tone of film reviewing by participating in a television series, he and partner Gene Siskel regularly tried to promote indie and foreign films that didn't get wide attention. Roger did the same in his written reviews, and Ebertfest was originally known as the "Overlooked Film Festival." Inevitably it was shortened by many attendees to "Ebertfest," and eventually that name became official. It reflects the wider range of films that came to be included, with the silent-film screening and frequent showings of 70mm prints of films like My Fair Lady that were hardly overlooked.
Among Roger's friends was Michael Barker, co-founder and co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, one of the most important of the small number of American companies still specializing in independent and foreign releases. A long-time Ebertfest regular, Barker usually brings a current or recent release to show, along with filmmakers or actors. This year he was doubly generous, bringing Capote (2005, above), to which Roger had given a four-star review, and the current release Wadjda (2012).
Roger never reviewed the latter, but it is certainly the sort of film that he loved: a glimpse into a little-known culture by a first-time filmmaker with a progressive viewpoint. Wadjda is remarkable as the first feature film made in Saudi Arabia, where there are no movie theaters. Moreover, it was made by a woman, Haifaa Al-Monsour, and tells the story of a little girl who defies tradition by aspiring to buy and ride a bicycle in a country where this, like women driving cars, was illegal. (Below, Wadjda learns to ride a bicycle on a rooftop, hidden from public view.)
Both the film and Al-Monsour thoroughly charmed the audience. Barker interviewed her afterward, and she revealed that, not surprisingly, the making of the film was touched by the same sort of repression that it portrays. Women are not allowed to work alongside men in Saudi Arabia, so Al-Monsour had to hide in a van while shooting on location. Given that there is no cinema infrastructure in the country, the film was a Saudi Arabian-German co-production, with Arabic and German names mingling in the credits. We also learned that it has since become legal for Saudi girls to ride bicycles. Perhaps someday filmmaking will become more common there, and male and female crew members can work openly together.
Naturally Wadjda was made with a digital camera, since this new technology is crucial to the spread of filmmaking in places like the Middle East where there is little money or equipment for production. In contrast, Capote was shown in a beautiful widescreen 35mm print that looked great spread across the entire width of the Virginia's huge screen. Naturally the screening became a tribute to the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, giving his only Oscar-winning performance (out of four nominations) in the lead role.
Barker had brought with him a surprise guest, Capote's director, Bennett Miller, whose appearance had not been announced in advance. He discussed how he and scriptwriter Dan Futterman learned that there was a second, rival Capote film in the works, Infamous (2006), which also dealt with the period when the author was researching In Cold Blood. Miller and Futterman decided to press ahead, a wise move in that their film drew more attention than did Infamous. Much of the discussion was devoted to Hoffman's performance and his acting style in general.
Capote was Miller's first fiction feature. He had come to public attention with his documentary The Cruise (1998), which Roger had given a brief three-star review. Roger continued his support for Miller with a four-star review for Moneyball (2011). It's a pity he did not live to see Miller's latest, Foxcatcher, which will be playing in competition at Cannes in May.
Overlooked no longer
Perhaps no young filmmaker better demonstrates the impact that Roger's support can have on a career than Ramin Bahrani. Roger saw his first feature, Man Push Cart, at Sundance in 2006 and invited it and the filmmaker to the "Overlooked Film Festival" that April. (Roger's Sundance review is here.) The film then played other festivals, notably Venice and our own Madison-based Wisconsin Film Festival. It won several awards, including an Independent Spirit Award for best first feature. In October Roger gave the film a more formal review, awarding it four stars. Man Push Cart never got a wide release, and it certainly didn't make much money. Still, quite possibly the high profile provided by Roger's attention allowed Bahrani to move ahead with his career.
His second film, Chop Shop, brought him to Ebertfest a second time, in 2009. (Roger's program notes are here, and his four-star review here.) At about that time, Bahrani's third film, Goodbye Solo, was released. Given its modest budget, it did reasonably well at the box office, grossing nearly a million dollars worldwide (in contrast to Man Push Cart's roughly $56 thousand). Bahrani inched toward mainstream filmmaking with At Any Price (2012), starring Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron, and he is currently in post-production on 99 Homes, with Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, and Laura Dern. During the onstage discussion, he spoke of struggling to maintain a balance between the indie spirit of his earlier films and the more popularly oriented films he has recently made.
Bahrani visited Ebertfest for a third time this year, belatedly showing Goodbye Solo. We had enjoyed this film when it came out, and it holds up very well on a second viewing. It's a simple story of opposites coming together by chance. An irrepressibly talkative, friendly immigrant cab driver, Solo (a nickname for Souléymane), becomes concerned when a dour elderly man engages him for a one-way trip to a regional park whose main feature is a windy cliff. He fears that William is planning suicide. Solo arranges to drive William whenever he calls for a cab and even becomes his roommate in a cheap hotel. Gradually, with the help of his young stepdaughter Alex, he seems to draw William out of his defensive shell.
As in Bahrani's earlier films the main character is an immigrant and played by one, using his own first name (Souléymane Sy Savané). He's the main character in that we are with him almost constantly, seeing William only as he does. William is a vital counterpart to him, however. He is perfectly embodied by Red West, an actor who worked for Elvis Presley and did stunt work and bit parts in films and television since the late 1950s. He may look vaguely familiar to some viewers, but he's not really recognizable as a star and comes across convincingly as an aging man buffeted by life's misfortunes.
Most of the film takes place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Bahrani's hometown, with many moody, atmospheric shots of the cityscape at night. One crucial scene involves a drive into the woods and mountains, however, and much of it is filmed in a dense fog. One questioner from the audience asked if Bahrani had planned to shoot in such weather or if, given his short shooting schedule, the fog turned out to be a hindrance to him. He responded that he had dreamed of being able to shoot in fog and that the weather cooperated on the three days planned for that locale. In fact, he re-shot some images as the fog became denser, to keep the scene fairly consistent.
Bahrani's presence at Ebertfest spans half its existence, from 2006 to 2014. As the festival becomes more diverse in its offerings, it is good to have him back as a reminder of the Ebertfest's early emphasis on the "overlooked."
Of Paramount importance
Logo for National Telefilm Associates, TV syndication arm of Republic Pictures.
DB here:
Among the guests at this year's E-fest was Barry C. Allen. For over a decade Barry was Executive Director of Film Preservation and Archival Resources for Paramount. That meant that he had to find, protect, and preserve the film and television assets of the company—including not just the Paramount-labeled product but libraries that Paramount acquired. Most notable among the latter was the Republic Pictures collection.
We may think of Republic as primarily a B studio, but it produced several significant films in the 1940s and 1950s—The Red Pony, The Great Flammarion, Macbeth, Moonrise, and Johnny Guitar. John Wayne became the most famous Republic star in films like Dark Command, Angel and the Badman, and Sands of Iwo Jima. John Ford's The Quiet Man was Wayne's last for the studio, which folded in 1959. Next time you see one of the gorgeous prints or digital copies of that classic, thank Barry for his deep background work that underlies the ongoing work of his dedicated colleagues.
Barry told me quite a lot about conservation and restoration, but just as fascinating was his account of his earlier career. A lover of opera, literature, and painting since his teenage years, he was as well a passionate movie lover. An Indianapolis native, he thinks he saw his first movie in 1949 at the Vogue, now a nightclub. He projected films in his high school and explored still photography. He was impressed when a teacher told him: "If you want to make film, learn editing." Soon he was in a local TV station editing syndicated movies.
Hard as it may seem for young people today to believe, in the 1950s TV stations routinely cut the films they showed. Packages of 16mm prints circulated to local stations, and these showings were sponsored by local businesses. Commercials had to be inserted (usually eight per show), and the films had to be fitted to specific lengths.
WISH-TV ran three movies a day, and two of those would be trimmed to 90-minute air slots. That meant reducing the film, regardless of length, to 67-68 minutes. Barry's job was to look for scenes to omit—usually the opening portions—and smoothly remove them. Fortunately for purists, the late movie, running at 11:30, was usually shown uncut, and then the station would sign off.
By coincidence I recently saw a TV print of Union Depot (Warners, 1932) that had several minutes of the opening exposition lopped off. We who have Turner Classic Movies don't realize how lucky we are. Fortunately for film collectors, some stations, like Barry's, retained the trims and put them back into the prints.
While working at WISH-TV, Barry began booking films part-time. He programmed some art cinemas in the Indianapolis area during the early 1970s, mixing classic fare (Marx Brothers), current cult movies (Night of the Living Dead), and arthouse releases like Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie—a bigger hit than anyone had anticipated. He also helped arrange a visit of Gloria Swanson with Queen Kelly; she carried the nitrate reels in her baggage.
At the same time, Barry was learning the new world of video editing, with ¾" tape and telecine. Because of his experience in television, Barry was contacted by Paramount to become Director of Domestic Syndication Operations. His chief duty was to deliver films to TV stations via tape, satellite, and prints. From that position, he moved to the preservation role he held until 2010, when he retired.
Barry is a true film fan. He has reread Brownlow's The Parade's Gone By many times and retains his love for classic cinema. The film that converted him to foreign-language cinema was, as for many of his generation, Children of Paradise, but he retains a fondness for Juliet of the Spirits, The Lady Killers, and other mainstays of the arthouse circuit of his (and my) day. He's proudest of his work preserving John Wayne's pre-Stagecoach films.
It was a great pleasure to hang out with Barry at Ebertfest. Talking with him reminded me that The Industry has long housed many sophisticated intellectuals and cinephiles. Not every suit is a crass bureaucrat.
Young-ish adult
Patton Oswalt had planned to come to Ebertfest in an earlier year, to accompany Big Fan and to show Kind Hearts and Coronets to an undergrad audience. He had to withdraw, but he showed up this year. On Wednesday night he screened The Taking of Pelham 123 to an enthusiastic campus crowd, and the following night, after getting his Golden Thumb, he talked about Young Adult. (Roger's review is here.)
As you might expect from someone who has mastered stand-up, writing (the excellent Zombie Spaceship Wasteland), TV acting, and film acting, Oswalt stressed the need for young people to grab every opportunity to work. He enjoys doing stand-up; with no need to adjust to anybody else, it's "the last fascist post in entertainment." But he also likes working with other actors in the collaborative milieu of shooting film. He insists on not improvising: "Do all the work before you get on camera." I was surprised at how quickly Young Adult was shot—one month, no sets. Oswalt explained that one aspect of his character in the film, a guy who customizes peculiar action figures, was based on Sillof, a hobbyist who does the same thing and sells the results. Oswalt talks about Sillof and Roger Ebert here.
It's common for viewers to notice that Mavis Gary, the malevolent, disturbed main character of Young Adult, doesn't change or learn. "Anti-arc and anti-growth," Oswalt called the movie. I found the film intriguing because structurally, it seems to be that rare romantic comedy centered on the antagonist.
Mavis returns to her home town to seduce her old boyfriend, who's now a happy husband and father. A more conventional plot would be organized around Buddy and his family. In that version we'd share their perspective on the action and we'd see Mavis as a disruptive force menacing their happiness.
What screenwriter Diablo Cody has done, I think, is built the film around what most plots would consider the villain. So it's not surprising that there's no change; villains often persist in their wickedness to the point of death. Attaching our viewpoint to the traditional antagonist not only creates new comic possibilities, mostly based on Mavis's growing desperation and her obliviousness to her social gaffes. The movie comes off as more sour and outrageous than it would if Buddy and Beth had been the center of the plot.
Making us side with the villain also allows Oswalt, as Matt Freehauf, to play a more active role as Mavis's counselor. In a more traditional film, he'd probably be rewritten to be a friend of Buddy's. Here he's the wisecracking voice of sanity, reminding Mavis of her selfishness while still being enough in thrall to high-school values to find her fascinating. As in Shakespearean comedy, though, the spoiler is expelled from the green world that she threatens. It's just that here, we go in and out of it with her and see that her illusions remain intact. Maybe we also share her sense that the good people can be fairly boring.
All you can eat
There aren't any villains in Ann Hui's A Simple Life, a film we first saw in Vancouver back in 2011. Roger had hoped to bring it last year, but Ann couldn't come, as she was working on her upcoming release, The Golden Era. This year she was free to accompany the film that had a special meaning for Roger at that point in his life.
The quietness of the film is exemplary. It's an effort to make a drama out of everyday happenings—people working, eating, sharing a home, getting sick, worrying about money, helping friends, and all the other stuff that fills most of our time. The two central characters are, as Roger's review puts it, "two inward people" who are simple and decent. Yet Ann's script and direction, and the playing of Deanie Yip Tak-han and Andy Lau Tak-wah, give us a full-length portrait of a relationship in which each depends on the other.
Roger Leung takes Ah-Tao, his amah, or all-purpose servant, pretty much for granted. She feeds him, watches out for his health, cleans the apartment, even packs for his business trips. When he's not loping to and from his film shoot, he's impassively chowing down her cooking and staring at the TV. A sudden stroke incapacitates her, and now comes the first surprise. A conventional plot would show her resisting being sent to a nursing home, but she insists on going. Having worked for Roger's family for sixty years, Ah-Tao can't accept being waited upon in the apartment. So she moves to a home, where most of the film takes place.
A Simple Life resists the chance to play up dramas in the facility. Thanks to a mixture of amateur actors and non-actors, the film has a documentary quality. It captures in a matter-of-fact way the grim side of the place—slack jaws, staring eyes, pervasive smells. (A small touch: Ah-Tao stuffs tissue into her nostrils when she heads to the toilet.) Mostly, however, we get a sense of the facility's everyday routines as the seasons change. The dramas are minuscule. Occasionally the old folks snap at one another, and one visitor gets testy with her mother-in-law. One woman dies (in a bit of cinematic trickery, Ann suggests that it's Ah-Tao), and an old man who keeps borrowing money is revealed to have a bit of a secret. It's suggested that a pleasant young woman working at the care facility will become Roger's new amah, but that seems not to happen. The prospect of a romance with her is evoked only to be dispelled.
Ah-Tao's health crisis has made Roger more self-reliant, but his life has become much emptier. He seems to realize this in a late scene, when he stands in the hospital deciding how to handle Ah-Tao's final illness. Throughout the film, food has been a multifaceted image of caring, community, friendship, childhood (Roger's friends recall Ah-Tao cooking for them), and even the afterlife. Ah-Tao and Roger rewrite the Ecclesiastes line about what's proper to every season by filling in favorite dishes. As he mulls over Ah-Tao's fate, Roger is, of course, eating. But it's cheap takeaway noodles and soda pop. This silent scene measures his, and her, loss better than any dialogue could.
The art of American agitprop
Matt Zoller Seitz and Oliver Stone on stage at the Virginia Theatre.
A Simple Life is a very quiet film. Ebertfest's highest-profile visitors brought along two of the noisiest movies of 1989. It's the twenty-fifth anniversary of Do The Right Thing (Roger's review) and Born on the Fourth of July (Roger's review), and seen in successive nights they seemed to me to put the "agitation" into agitprop.
During the Q & A, Spike Lee reminded us that some initial reviews of the film (here shown in a gorgeous 35mm print) had warned that the film could arouse racial tensions. Odie Henderson has charted the alarmist tone of many critiques. Lee insisted, as he has for years, that he was asking questions rather than positing solutions. "We wanted the audience to determine who did the right thing." He added that the film was, at least, true to the tensions of New York at the time, which were–and still are–unresolved.
The ending has become the most controversial part of the film. It's here that Lee was, I think, especially forceful. The crowd in the street is aghast at the killing of Radio Raheem by a ferocious cop, but what really triggers the riot is Mookie's act of smashing the pizzeria window. I've always taken this as Mookie finally choosing sides. He has sat the fence throughout–befriending one of Sal's sons and quarreling with the other, supporting Sal in some moments but ragging him in others. Now he focuses the issue: Are property rights (Sal's sovereignty over his business) more important than human life? Moreover, in a crisis, Mookie must ally himself with the people he lives with, not the Italian-Americans who drive in every day. It's a courageous scene because it risks making viewers, especially white viewers, turn against that charming character, but I can't imagine the action concluding any other way. Lee had to move the project to Universal from Paramount, where the suits wanted Mookie and Sal to hug at the end.
Staking so much on social allegory, the film sacrifices characterization. Characters tend to stand for social roles and attitudes rather than stand on their own as individuals. The actors' performances, especially their line readings, keep the roles fresh, though, and the film still looks magnificent. I was struck this time by the extravagance of its visual style. In almost every scene Lee tweaks things pictorially through angles, color saturation, slow-motion, short and long lenses, and the like–extravagant noodlings that may be the filmic equivalent of street graffiti.
By the end, in order to underscore the confrontation of Radio Raheem and Sal, Lee and DP Ernest Dickerson go all out with clashing, steeply canted wide-angle shots. (We've seen a few before, but not so many together and usually not so close.) Having dialed things up pretty far, the movie has to go to 10.
In Born on the Fourth of July, Stone more or less starts at 11 and dials up from there. Beginning with boys playing soldier and shifting to an Independence Day parade that for scale and pomp would do justice to V-J Day, the movie announces itself as larger than life. The storyline is pretty straightforward, much simpler than that of Do The Right Thing. A keen young patriot fired up with JFK's anti-Communist fervor plunges into the savage inferno of Viet Nam. Coming back haunted and paralyzed, Ron Kovic is still a fervent America-firster until he sees college kids pounded by cops during a demonstration. This sets him thinking, and eventually, after finding no solace in the fleshpots of Mexico, he returns to join the anti-war movement.
Even more than Lee, Stone sacrifices characterization and plot density to a larger message. The Kovic character arc suits Cruise, who built his early career on playing overconfident striplings who get whacked by reality. But again characterization is played down in favor of symbolic typicality. While there's a suggestion that Ron Kovic joins the Marines partly to prove his manhood after losing a crucial wrestling match, the plot also insists that his hectoring mother and community pressure force him to live up to the model of patriotic young America. He becomes an emblem of every young man who went to prove his loyalty to Mom and apple pie.
Likewise, Ron's almost-girlfriend in high school becomes a college activist and so their reunion–and her indifference to his concern for her–is subsumed to a larger political point. (The hippies forget the vets.) We learn almost nothing about the friend who also goes into service; when they reunite back home, their exchanges consist mostly of more reflections on the awfulness of the war. Later Cruise is betrayed, almost casually, by an activist who turns out to be a narc. But this man is scarcely identified, let alone given motives: he's there to remind us that the cops planted moles among the movement.
What fills in for characterization is spectacle. I don't mean vast action; Stone explained that he had quite a limited budget, and crowds were at a premium. Instead, what's showcased, as in Do The Right Thing, is a dazzling cinematic technique.
Visiting the UW-Madison campus just before coming to Urbana for Ebertfest, Stone offered some filmmaking advice: "Tell it fast, tell it excitingly." The excitement here comes from slamming whip pans, thunderous sound, various degrees of slow-motion, silhouettes, jerky cuts, Steadicam trailing, handheld shots, all jammed into the wide, wide frame. Every crack is filled with icons and noises–flags, whirring choppers, kids with toy guns, prancing blondes, commentative music. "Soldier Boy" plays on the supermarket Muzak when Ron is telling Donna about his plans.
By the time Ron visits the family of the comrade he accidentally killed, Stone finds another method of visual italicization: the split-focus diopter that creates slightly surreal depth.
Since so many scenes have consisted of a flurry of intensified techniques, simple over-the-shoulder reverse shots might let the excitement level drop. So a new optical device aims to deliver fresh impact in one of the film's quietest moments.
Like Lee, Stone took the Virginia Theatre audience behind the scenes. He agreed with William Friedkin, who was originally slated to do the film: "This is as close as you'll every come to Frank Capra." Instead of using the shuffled time scheme of Kovic's autobiography, Friedkin advised that "This is good corn. Write it straight through." Hence the film breaks into distinct chapters, each about half an hour long and sometimes tagged with dates. They operate as blocks measuring phases of Ron's conversion. Like many filmmakers of his period, Stone deliberately made each chapter pictorially distinct–the low-contrast Life-magazine colors of the opening parade versus the lava-like orange of the beachfront battle.
Stone pointed out that this film marked the beginning of his career as a figure of public controversy. Like Lee, he was attacked from many sides, and from then on he was a lightning rod. Matt Zoller Seitz (who's preparing a book on Stone) pointed out that at the period, he was astonishingly prolific. From 1986 (Salvador, Platoon) to 1999 (Any Given Sunday), he directed twelve features, about one a year.
Lee was hyperactive as well over the same years, releasing fourteen films. And neither has stopped. Lee's new film is the Kickstarter-funded Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, while Stone is touring to support the DVD release of his 2012 documentary series, The Untold History of the United States. Both men like to work, and more important, they're driven by their ideas as well as their feelings. By seeking new ways to agitate us, they impart an inflammatory energy to everything they try. And in giving them a chance to share their insights and intelligence with audiences outside the Cannes-Berlin-Venice circuit, Ebertfest once again demonstrates its uniqueness. Roger would be proud.
The introductions and Q&A sessions for most of the films, as well as the morning panel discussions, have been posted on Ebertfest's YouTube page. Program notes for each film are online; see this schedule and click on the title.
For historical background on Barry Allen's work as an editor of syndicated TV prints, see Eric Hoyt's new book Hollywood Vault: Film Libraries Before Home Video.
P. S. 1 May 2014: Thanks to Ramin S. Khanjani for pointing out that Ramin Bahrani had worked on other films before Man Push Cart. These included one feature he made in Iran, Biganegan (Strangers, 2000); it got only limited play in festivals and apparently a few theaters. I can't find information about the others online, and presumably they were shorts and/or did not receive distribution. (K.T.)
Ann Hui, with Kristin, gets into the spirit of Ebertfest. David is represented in absentia by the Dots.
Genre ≠ Generic
The Shape of Night (Nakamuro Noboru, 1964).
DB here:
I didn't plan it that way, but it turns out that a great many films I saw at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival would have to be categorized as genre pictures. Not, admittedly, Shu Kei's episode of Beautiful 2014, which interweaves flashbacks and erotic reveries in a purely poetic fashion. And not Tsai Ming-liang's "sequel" to Walker (2012, made for HKIFF), called, whimsically, Journey to the West. Here again, Lee Kang-sheng, robed as a Buddhist monk, steps slowly through landscapes, some so vast or opaque that you must play a sort of Where's-Waldo game to find him. (You have plenty of time: there are only 14 shots in 53 minutes.)
But there were plenty of other films that counted as genre exercises. Yet they mixed their familiar features with local flavors and fresh treatment, reminding me that conventions can always be quickened by imaginative film artists.
Keeping the peace, in pieces
Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014).
Take, for instance, The Shape of Night, a 1966 street-crime movie from Shochiku, directed by Nakamura Noburo. Nakamura was the subject of a small retrospective at Tokyo's FilmEx last year, and this item certainly makes one want to see more of his work. A more or less innocent girl falls in love with a yakuza, who forces her to become a prostitute. In abrupt, sometimes very brief flashbacks, she tells her life to a client who wants to rescue her. The film makes characteristically Japanese use of bold widescreen compositions, disjointed close-ups, and mixed voice-overs from her and the men in her life. In retrospect, everything we've seen has been seen in other movies, but Nakamura's handling kept me continually gripped and often surprised.
Or take That Demon Within, a Hong Kong cop film that premiered at the festival's close. Dante Lam has made several solid urban action pictures, especially Jiang Hu: The Triad Zone (2000), Beast Stalker (2008), Fire of Conscience (2010), and The Stool Pigeon (2010). They're characterized by wild visuals and exceptionally brutal violence, and That Demon Within fits smoothly into his style. The new wrinkle is that a boy traumatized by the sight of police violence himself becomes a cop. He's then haunted by the image of the cop from his past, while he's also caught up in a search for a take-no-prisoners robber.
His hallucinations and disorientation are rendered through nearly every damn trick in the book, from upside-down shots and blurry color and focus to voices bouncing around the multichannel mix.
There are dreams, too (seems like almost every new film I saw had a dream sequence), and scenes under hypnosis, and men bursting into flame, and action sequences that are visceral in their shock value. I thought the movie careened out of control pretty early, and its nihilism wasn't redeemed by an epilogue that assured us that this possessed policeman was, at moments, friendly and helpful. In this case, the storytelling innovations generated some confusion about exactly how the hero's breakdown infused what was happening around him.
More consistent, largely because it didn't try for the subjectivity of Lam's film, was the Chinese cop movie Black Coal, Thin Ice. My friend Mike Walsh of Australia pointed out that the mainland cinema's bleak realism seems to be starting to blend with traditional genre material. Director Diao Yinan explained, "My aim was not only to investigate a mystery and find out the truth about the people involved, but also to create a true representation of our new reality." The opening crosscuts the grubby detail of bloody parcels churning through coal conveyors with a couple entwined in a final copulation before breaking off their relationship.
The mystery revolves around body parts that are showing up in coal shipments around one region. After a startling shootout in a hairdressing salon, the case remains unsolved for several years. The surviving detective, a shabby drunk, returns to track down the culprit, but in the meantime he runs into a frosty femme fatale. "He killed," she says, "every man who loved me." Needless to say, the detective falls for her too, especially after ice-skating with her. Diao's film reminds us that you can create a neo-noir in two ways: By taking a mystery and dirtying it up, or taking concrete reality and probing the mysteries lurking in it.
There were even two Westerns. Another mainland movie, No Man's Land, was unexpectedly savage coming from the director of the super-slick satires Crazy Stone (2006) and Crazy Racer (2009). Now Ning Hao has given us a bleakly farcical, Road-Warrior account of life on the Chinese prairie.
A wealthy lawyer brought out to the wasteland to negotiate a criminal case becomes embroiled in primal passions involving men with very large guns, very large trucks, impassive faces, and almost no sense of humor. It's a black comedy of escalating payback (involving spitting and pissing), and it exudes sheer masculine nastiness. Completed four years ago, it found release only after extensive reshoots demanded by censors. Yet even in its milder state it remains true to the spirit of Sergio Leone's jaunty grimness, bleached in umber sand and light.
Itching to see a Kurdish feminist political Western? You'll find Hiner Saleem's My Sweet Pepperland welcome. A tough policeman (= sheriff) is dispatched to a remote village in Kurdistan to keep order (= clean up the town). A young teacher (= schoolmarm) leaves her oppressive family to teach there as well. A warlord (= town boss) and his minions (= paid killers) have terrorized the locals, while marauding female guerillas (= outlaws) bring their fight into town.
These time-honored conventions shape a story of stubborn courage taking on complacent viciousness. In key scenes, our sheriff faces down big, hairy, scary killers.
USA frontier conventions, it turns out, work pretty well in a Muslim society too. The Hollywood Western's continued embodiment of American values transfers easily to the former Iraq. "Our weapons are our honor," the chief thug says, in a line that resonates through our history right up to now. Yet things we take for granted bring modern change to the wasteland. The sheriff assigns himself to the village in order to escape an arranged marriage, as the woman he finds there has done. She is vilified by both the locals and her male relatives, who would prefer death (hers) to dishonor (theirs). In the process, both he and she become heroic in a righteous, old-fashioned way.
A killer proposes a compromise while sneakily drawing his pistol. The cop shoots him and remarks: "I don't do compromise." Neither does My Sweet Pepperland.
Gangs of New York, and elsewhere
The Dreadnaught (1966).
From March to May, the Hong Kong Film Archive has been running a series, "Ways of the Underworld: Hong Kong Gangster Film as Genre." It's packed with classics (The Teahouse, To Be No. 1, City on Fire, Infernal Affairs) as well as several rarities (Absolute Monarch, Bald-Headed Betty, Lonely 15). I managed to catch three titles, all previously unknown to me.
The Dreadnaught (1966) has a familiar premise. Two orphan boys indulge in petty theft after the war. One, Chow, is caught but gets adopted by a policeman. He turns out a solid young citizen. Lee, the boy who escapes, grows up to be a triad. When the two re-meet, Lee is attracted to Chow's stepsister. Some years later, Chow is now a cop and vows to smash Lee's gang. After a struggle with his conscience, Lee agrees to help.
The film's main attraction is the shamelessly flashy performance of Patrick Tse Yin. Tse would make his fame in the following year in Lung Kong's Story of a Discharged Prisoner, famous as a primary source for A Better Tomorrow. With his sidelong smile, his endlessly waving cigarette, and the dark glasses he wears at all times, Tse in The Dreadnaught looks forward to Chow Yun-fat's charismatic role as Mark in Woo's masterpiece.
Another icon of the period is Alan Tang Kwong-wing. He played in over 100 films, mostly romances and triad dramas made in Taiwan. Westerners probably know him best as the producer of Wong Kar-wai's first two features, As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild. Wong had worked as a screenwriter for Tang. Onscreen, Tang had a suave, polished presence marked by his perfect coiffure; he was known as the Alain Delon of Hong Kong. His company, Wing-Scope, specialized in mob films during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
New York Chinatown (1982) shows Tang as a young hood whose ambitions to dominate the neighborhood are blocked by a rival gang. Eventually the police decide to let the two gangs decimate each other. This leads to an enjoyable, all-out showdown involving surprisingly heavy armaments. Shot quickly on location (passersby sometimes glance into the lens), the movie gives a rawer sense of street life than you get from most Hollywood films. There's also a scene in which Tang, apparently attending Columbia part time, corrects a history professor lecturing on Western imperialism in China. Although the film circulates on cheap DVD in 1.33 format, it's a widescreen production, and it was a pleasure to watch a fine 35mm print at the Archive.
The biggest revelation of the series for me was Tradition (1955), a Mandarin release. This is considered one of the earliest pure gangster films in local cinema. It's a fascinating plot about a boy raised by a triad kingpin in the 1930s. When the godfather dies, the young Xiang is given power over the gang and the master's household. Trying to be faithful to the old man's principles, Xiang finds himself unable to control his master's widow and daughter, who are led astray by the widow's worldly, greedy sister. At the same time, Xiang must ally with other triads to smuggle aid to the forces fighting the invading Japanese. He is torn between devotion to tradition and the need to adapt to modern materialism and the impending world war.
Tradition is redolent of film noir, not only in the sister-in-law's fatal ways (she seduces the old master's weak son) but also in the film's flashback construction. Tracking back from a ticking clock, the movie begins with Xiang meeting the master's daughter after his gang has been decimated in a shootout. The film skips back to Xiang's childhood and takes us up through the main action before a final bloody confrontation with police and the corrupt family members. At the end, the camera tracks up to the clock, closing off the whole action.
Even more tightly buckled up are director Tang Huang's obsessive hooks between scenes. A final line of dialogue is answered or echoed by the first line of the next scene; a closing door or character gesture links sequences in the manner of Lang's M. Most daringly, when sister San starts to light a cigarette in one scene, we cut to her puffing on it in a tight close-up—a gesture that takes place in a new scene hours later. This and other admittedly gimmicky links look forward to Resnais's elliptical matches on action in Muriel.
Fortunately for us, the Archive has published Always in the Dark: A Study of Hong Kong Gangster Films. Edited and partly written by Po Fung, it is an excellent collection of essays and interviews. It is in Chinese, but it includes a CD-ROM version in English. It's available from the Archive's Publications office.
Behind the scenes at Milkyway
Johnnie To and a recalcitrant crane during the shooting of Romancing in Thin Air.
Sometimes a genre film becomes a prestige picture. This happened, in spades, with The Grandmaster. If awards matter, Wong Kar-wai's film has become the official best Asian film of 2013. I missed the Asian Film Awards in Macau (was watching early Farhadi films), but the event was a virtual sweep: seven top awards for The Grandmaster, including Best Picture and Best Director. After I got back home, the Hong Kong Film Awards gave the picture a staggering twelve prizes, everything from Best Picture to Best Sound.
Unhappily, nothing in either contest went to the other outstanding Hong Kong film I saw last year, Johnnie To Kei-fung's Drug War. It lacked the obvious ambitions and surface sheen of Wong's film. Many probably took it as merely a solid, efficient genre picture. I believe it's an innovative and subtle piece of storytelling, as I tried to show here.
Mr. To presses on, as prolific as usual. He has finished shooting a sequel to Don't Go Breaking My Heart, a rom-com that found success in the Mainland, and he's currently filming a more unusual project in Canton. More on that shortly.
During the festival only one recent To/Milkway film was screened, The Blind Detective (I wrote about that here). But Ferris Lin, a young director from the Academy for Performing Arts, presented a very informative documentary feature on To and his Milkyway company. Boundless takes us behind the scenes on several productions, particularly Life without Principle, Romancing in Thin Air, and Drug War. It also incorporates interviews with To, his collaborators, and critics like Shu Kei.
Sitting at the monitor with his cigar, To may seem distant, but actually he is wholly engaged. We see him help push a crane out of the mud and shout commands to his staff. To confesses that he may scold too much, but the dedicated cooperation he gets confirms his demands. The team gives its all, as we learn when they explain the tension ruling the three days of rehearsal for the sequence-shot at the start of Breaking News. For The Mission, made at the time of Milkyway's biggest slump, the actors supplied their own cars and costumes.
To remains a complete professional who has perfected his craft, albeit in the Hong Kong tradition of "just do it." He doesn't rely on storyboards or even shot-lists, only outlines of the action, and he adjusts to the demands of the locations. The Mission had no script, but the entire story and shot layout were in his head. For Exiled, he didn't even have that much and simply began thinking when he stepped onto the set each day. It's hard to believe that precise shot design and sly dramatic undercurrents can emerge from such an apparently unplanned approach. In its recording of To's unique creative process, Boundless provides a vivid portrait of one of the world's finest contemporary directors.
To continues to challenge himself. He is currently trying something else again, shooting a musical wholly in the studio. Its source, the 2009 play Design for Living, was written by and for the timeless Sylvia Chang Ai-chia. It won success in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Mainland. In the film Sylvia is joined by Chow Yun-fat, thus reuniting the stars of To's 1989 breakout film All About Ah-Long. The project also indulges the director's long-felt admiration for Jacques Demy. There is no 2014 film I'm looking forward to more keenly.
Special thanks to Shu Kei and Ferris Lin of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Thanks as well to Li Cheuk-to, Roger Garcia, and Crystal Yau, as well as all the staff and interns of HKIFF, and to Winnie Fu of the Hong Kong Film Archive.
Journey to the West (Tsai Ming-liang, 2014).
Back in THE Place
View of Hong Kong harbor from the Convention and Exhibition Centre. Above, the flag of the People's Republic of China; below, the Hong Kong flag bearing the Bauhinia emblem. According to official protocol the national flag must be larger and be mounted more prominently.
"For us, Hong Kong will always be the place."
Chuck Norris, The Octagon (1980)
DB here:
After missing two editions because of some minor health problems, I'm back in Hong Kong for their annual festival. As customary, it kicked off with the Filmart, now the biggest film market in Asia. It gathers producers, distributors, and financiers for discussions and dealmaking. There are panels, equipment demos, and displays of media items for sale. There's the Hongkong-Asia Film Financing Forum, a competition that funds planned projects. (This year's winners are here.)
Some booths are huge. The TVB display was towering, dwarfing the TV chat show being shot underneath.
Since its founding in 1997, Filmart has been so successful that it spawned an umbrella event. The Hong Kong Entertainment Expo, now in its tenth year, is a jamboree for the international entertainment industry, including music and digital entertainment of all sorts.
Filmart is now very big. This year it packed in over 760 exhibitor stalls from over 30 countries (including Brunei and Malta). It attracted over 6500 attendees, and most, unlike me, were there to buy and/or sell films, TV shows, and video games.
National film organizations use Filmart to coax production into their territory. Government agencies like KOFIC can put producers in touch with prime locations and service firms.
The opening reception was graced by Chief Executive C. Y. Leung, who while extolling the rule of law in the territory did not mention the recent violent attack on a major journalist. A characteristically blank-faced Leon Lai looked on. In the crowd, you might also meet Bruce Lee, or at least his avatar.
On the market floor, a Chinese vampire squared off against Donnie Yen, immortalized by Madame Tussaud.
Who would win in a face-off? The movie is probably being shot as we speak.
China ahead
Out of Inferno (2013).
The big news this year was, as ever, mainland China. By any measure it just keeps growing. Back in 2012 it became the world's second-biggest market, yielding $2.74 billion in box-office grosses. (US and Canada were at $10.8 billion.) In 2013 Chinese grosses were $3.6 billion, a growth of 25%. (North American grosses grew only about 3%.) In tandem, the number of exhibition sites expanded hugely. China added over 5,000 screens in 900 new multiplexes, yielding a total of 18,195 screens. That is still remarkably few for such a populous country; North America has over twice that number. So we can expect still further growth. More generally, another sign of the times was that last year Asia-Pacific became the most lucrative region outside North America, and of course China is the centerpiece of that.
You see the China syndrome in the films as well. For several years Hong Kong producers and directors have partnered with mainland talent and business groups. Two of last year's best Hong Kong films, Johnnie To Kei-fung's Drug War and Wong Kar-wai's Grandmaster, epitomize cross-border initiatives, mixing HK and PRC stars in stories that hold appeal for both audiences.
A new wrinkle: Now even films that might seem purely of Hong Kong interest credit major Chinese companies as coproducers, and they may feature mainland stars. Tim Youngs, local HK film expert, suggests that because some big-budget Chinese films haven't succeeded in Hong Kong, mainland investors may be interested in financing small films that will catch on in the territory.
Yet some films persist without mainland financing. An example I saw at Filmart is the modest indie Dot 2 Dot, by first-time director Amos Why.
The story is rooted in local history and geography. Chung, returning from Canada to take a job in a design firm, recalls how much he enjoyed connect-the-dots puzzles as a boy. Now he discreetly puts up speckles on walls, marking sites that were significant to him and his city. Xue, a young teacher, discovers them, puzzles them out, and draws out the abstract patterns that Chung embedded in them. When he spots her graceful graffiti he determines to find who has cracked his code. What gives the story contemporary currency is the fact that Xue has emigrated from the mainland and is teaching Mandarin to Hong Kongers, and she is played by Meng Tingyi.
Dot 2 Dot interrupts its lovers-at-a-distance plot with images from Hong Kong's past. Xue's supervisor, an elderly teacher, and Chung, a nostalgia buff who treasures his childhood comics, recall moments in local history, such as when the Daimaru department store closed after a gas explosion. The émigré Xue, in finding her way around this imposing city, comes to appreciate its past. Eventually we learn through a degrees-of-separation device that both Chung and Xue have shared Hong Kong kid culture–two dots, in effect, waiting to be connected in adulthood. Those interested in allegory could see here a claim that for decades, China's modern popular culture has been imported from Hong Kong, and that fact fosters cross-border bonds.
On a bigger budget there are other more or less "pure" Hong Kong films–in tone and genre, despite mainland backing–being made. Even the cockeyed English title Out of Inferno (2013) brings back the 1980s and 1990s, as does the premise. Two brothers dedicated to firefighting fall out; one (Lau Ching-wan) becomes obsessed with his job, the other (Louis Koo) leaves to form a company specializing in modern fire-protection equipment. When a skyscraper catches fire during a party demonstrating the equipment, Koo and Lau's pregnant wife, along with many others, are trapped inside. The brothers must reconcile, inside and outside, to save innocent lives. In short: Towering Inferno + Backdraft + Johnnie To's Lifeline. Indeed, certain shots and the very presence of Lau Ching-wan, recall To's genre masterpiece. So what's new? Well, it's set in Guangzhou and it's in 3D.
Out of Inferno comes to us co-funded by the HK company Universe and the mainland company Bona. It grossed about US$2.6 million in Hong Kong and over $20 million in China, which says all you need to know about the relative power of the two markets.
Nobody I respect seems to like this movie. Most critics have written off the directors, the brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, as hacks. Kozo's review at LoveHKFilm states the case against. Granted, the film is routine in many ways and can't match Lifeline, but I enjoyed its almost unceasing bursts of clear, cogent action. I began to realize that one benefit of a firefighting movie is that rooms can explode, ceilings and floors can collapse, and elevators can stop or plunge–at any time, whenever you something to goose a scene. After all, it's a fire, right? Who can predict what a fire will do? In 3D, many shots were splendid, and I will watch Lau Ching-wan doing sullen integrity in nearly anything. Still, Tim Youngs alerts me (so I alert you) to another action-filled firefighter movie, As the Light Goes Out–not screened at Filmart, not yet available on disc, and with more admirers, at least in my vicinity, than Out of Inferno.
A future for Retro
The White Storm (2013).
Universe and Bona, who seem to team up for blockbusters, offered a more delirious example of the Hong Kong flavor in The White Storm, which also screened at the Filmart. It's another exercise in mixing. We have Bullet in the Head: three boyhood friends undergo a harrowing trip to wilder Asia, expending much sweat and tears, and even more blood. We have Infernal Affairs too, with the deadly game of undercover work and the possibility that a Triad mole has infiltrated the police. The three buddies consist of the familiar pairing of Lau Ching-wan and Louis Koo, along with the ever-dependable Nick Cheung as the apparently weakest member of the trio.
Unusually long at nearly 140 minutes, The White Storm (the title refers to the heroin plague that has descended on Hong Kong) is really three movies in one. The first centers on Koo in the now-familiar role of the cop who wants to come in from the cold. After a frantic drug bust gone wrong, he's forced to return to the underworld and lead his comrades to a Thai kingpin. The second stretch takes place in Thailand. There after a savage assault on the dealer's compound, our three are captured. The dramatic weight shifts to Lau, who must choose to kill either Koo or Cheung. His decision gains complexity because we know something he doesn't about his partners' loyalty. The film's last portion returns to Hong Kong, with a few surprises and a bloody casino finale.
While building suspense in the Infernal Affairs mode–will the gang discover the mole in their midst?–director Benny Chan also tries to recover the searing romanticism of Woo's heroic bloodshed films. As far back as The Big Bullet (1996) he showed a flair for shocking, precise action, and his Jackie Chan vehicle New Police Story (2004) is an exhilarating piece of work. Benny Chan shows his skill in each of the three sections' violent set-pieces. Add in the 1980s-1990s Hong Kong excess–bodies thrown into pools of crocodiles, a sexy transsexual, outrageous haircuts–and you have an almost purely retro exercise.
Another throwback is the shameless but stirring tear-jerking moment in which the three men comfort Cheung's dying mother. She thinks that Lau is her son, back from study abroad with his buddies. They spontaneously accept her delusion, each pretending to be another member of the trio. The film's play with false identities turns melancholy, and in comforting her the men apologize, obliquely, to one another. Chan's use of singles and two-shots deftly traces out the flow of feeling, as the men exchange glances and Cheung starts to weep in shame.
The old Hong Kong cinematic energy resurfaced in another, stranger film, Fruit Chan's new release The Midnight After. It's based on a popular internet novel by Pizza (yes, you read that right). The premise is apocalypse, the time is now. A minibus driving from downtown Hong Kong to the New Territories passes through a tunnel and emerges into an urban landscape from which everyone seems to have vanished. A mass extinction? An evacuation? A time warp? The mystery deepens after we get an occasional glimpse of dark figures in protective gear monitoring the frantic efforts of the survivors to make sense of their fate. Some of the passengers die–crumbling to bits, suffering giant boils, bursting into flame. Even a compassionate bicyclist is drawn into the desperate struggle for survival.
A Hong Kong director often asks us to take his or her film as reflecting a general mood in the territory. Fruit Chan says:
It feels as though Hong Kong is suffering the worst of times. People's lives, people's businesses and the political climate are all seriously depressed. The impact hit us harder than anything else in the past century. Through The Midnight After I'd like to tell the est of the world something about the problems that Hong Kong faces in this period of social upheaval.
The tone, as well as the plethora of familiar landmarks, may give the film some local resonance. More broadly, the film also joins a tradition of horror-fantasy that hearkens back to classic Hong Kong movies about the supernatural and even dystopian exercises like The Wicked City (1992). The latter was rendered with typical Tsui Hark brio, though, and The Midnight After is more sober and straightforward, at times perilously close to flat. Nor does it have the conciseness and growing creepiness of Chan's Dumplings (2004).
I didn't find The Midnight After particularly compelling. The characters are viewed from the outside and don't solicit much sympathy; they're mostly collections of types and tics, including a mysterious young woman who is given I-may-be-a-demon treatment by the expedient of momentarily billowing hair. As usual when a Cantonese film doesn't know what else to do, it sets its characters screeching, quarreling, running around, and punching. Moreover, I couldn't figure out what made the unfortunate victims die in different ways. And what's behind the mysterious watchers? My friends say: "There aren't any rules." Maybe they're right. But it's fairly easy to pile on mysteries in your plot; the task is to tie them up in the end.
To be fair, we don't really have the end. The film adapts only the first part of Pizza's cybernovel, so perhaps everything will get straightened out in a sequel. What matters, for better and worse, is that many Hong Kong filmmakers still resort to Reboot mode.
You can read the trade papers' Filmart daily publications here. Also visit Film Business Asia for many articles on deals announced at Filmart. Peter Martin reports on a panel on the Asian industry at Twitchfilm. Perhaps most important, Patrick Frater of Variety signals an important upcoming change in PRC distribution policy.
My information on the 2013 growth in Chinese screens is gleaned from David Hancock's survey in of world exhibition in IHS Media and Technology Digest no. 504 (September 2013), 9-12. Additional information comes from Jeremy Kay's CinemaCon report in Screen International and Patrick Frater's account of screen expansion in Variety. Derek Elley offers a very thorough analysis of the contemporary Chinese industry in "Mainland Cinema's New Maturity," in Film Business Asia.
The trailer for Dot 2 Dot is here. Kozo, as you'd expect, has a nuanced review of The White Storm.
In other welcome news related to The Place, Grady Hendrix is back with Kaiju Shakedown. The inital entry is a full-blooded overview of the career of mystery auteur Jeff Lau.
P.S. 1 April 2014 (HK time): This entry has been revised to correct my original claim that Dot 2 Dot had some financing from the mainland. Director Amos Why wrote to explain that despite the credited participation of two companies based in Beijing, there was no investment from Chinese sources; the funding came entirely from Hong Kong. I thank Amos for the correction.
Smoke from a towering inferno? The creeping miasma of The Midnight After? No, just a low-lying cloud settling on Central after a rainstorm.


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Yard, craft sale
MILLVILLE - Katys Church will host a yard, antique and craft sale at 2952 Route 42, the former Hotel Iola, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Food will be available. Vendors still are being accepted. To reserve a space or for more info, call 441-5416. The event will help the church raise funds for the continued restoration of the historical 1869 church.
Pancake breakfast
St. Matthew Church, 2233 Linn St., will hold an all-you-can-meet pancake breakfast from 7-10 a.m. featuring pancakes, two eggs to order, three pieces of bacon or sausage, coffee or tea and juice. Cost is $7 for adults, $4.50 for children under 12 and those under 6 eat free.
Strawberry Festival
McELHATTAN - McElhattan United Methodist Church, McElhattan Drive, will hold a strawberry festival and chicken and waffle dinner from 4-7 p.m. The menu includes chicken and waffles, mashed potatoes, vegetable, cole slaw and drinks plus strawberry desserts. Cost is $8 for adults, $4 for children 6-12 and free for those under 6. Take-outs available, The bake room will be open.
Movie night
SALLADASBURG - Salladasburg United Methodist Church, Main Street, will hold movie night at 8 p.m. There will be snacks provided and the movie will start when it gets dark enough. The movie will be outside unless there is inclement weather. The movie is "Courageous." Bring a lawn chair or blanket to sit on.
March Forth in concert
LAIRDSVILLE - March Forth will perform in concert at 7:30 p.m. at Lairdsville Faith Church, 6786 Route 118. Call Pastor Max L. Walters Jr. for more information at 584-2765.
Clothing closet open
Oak Grove Alliance Church, 1680 Fox Hollow Road, clothing closet will be open with free clothing from 9 a.m.-noon. Call 323-9697 for more information.
Strawberry ice cream festival
FARRAGUT - Farragut Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, Route 864 near the intersection with Route 87, will hold its annual strawberry ice cream festival from 4:30-7 p.m.
Kingdom Force coming
ROARING BRANCH - Mt. Zion Retreat Center and Zion Fellowship will hold Kingdom Force for youth at 5:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday. Kingdom Force is a team of Elim Bible Institute graduates who minister under the direction of the EBI Ministry Department. The team travels throughout the U.S. and Canada ministering in churches, schools, colleges, camps, special events and conferences utilizing worship, preaching, drama and service to challenge teens and adults to live radically for Jesus Christ. Saturday evening our snack shop will be open serving hot wings and pizza, milk shakes and more. For more information or directions, call 673-3338.
New pastor installation
Vicar Gary Shumway will be ordained today in the Weber Chapel at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove and he will be installed as the pastor at St. James Lutheran Church in Rauchtown.

subset: commoncrawl


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Video: Daniel Hannon Rips Gordon Brown a New One
Saw this on Rod Dreher's blog. It's a three-minute thrashing of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the hands of MEP Daniel Hannon. It's worth your time! Wouldn't it be more fun for all of us if US politicians were so brutally honest? C-SPAN's ratings would skyrocket, if nothing else. Anyway:
UPDATE: Here's Hannon's blog. It's worth checking out.


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Going out to eat isn't always about cravings. Often enough, mealtimes dictate our choices, limiting restaurant possibilities. When circumstances narrow the options, let 10Best help. We'll direct you to the best Lunch restaurants in Pittsburgh and save you the hassle of calling around for business hours. 10Best readers find much to enjoy at Smallman Street Deli thanks to its all-around good offerings. It's also hard to beat Grille On Seventh, which serves just what you're looking for when you're in the market for a great Lunch.
Primanti Bros.
Primanti Bros. is probably the most famous restaurant in Pittsburgh, and its main location (known as Primanti's on the Strip) is open 24 hours to satisfy even the most dire of sandwich cravings. Their claim to fame is creating an entire meal in a sandwich – in addition to meat, you get fried potatoes and Pittsburgh-style coleslaw (no mayo) right on the sandwich. Regulars suggest the double egg (surprisingly good early in the morning!), pastrami, and cheese steak versions to get an authentic taste of this Pittsburgh favorite. (412-263-2142)
Union Grill
Union Grill's sign boasts "Honest American Food," and the "honest" part is that everything is brought in fresh daily from local markets. That dedication to premium goods would explain the crowds that usually frequent Union Grill for burgers, desserts, and other American foods. The bar tends to stay open later than the grill's listed hours. (412-681-8620)
The Original Oyster House
This vintage seafood house boasts monster fish sandwiches and an attractive updated bar. It's been in operation since 1870 and is a city mainstay for both visitors and residents. Platters and sandwiches are most prevalent, featuring shrimp, scallops, oysters, crab cakes, and even Italian hot sausage. The seafood breading is a signature recipe, and 25 major films have been shot on location here. (412-566-7925)
Six Penn Kitchen
Located in an attractive corner building, this inviting restaurant features an open kitchen and a wood-burning oven. The menu offers American classics, from tempting soups, salads and sandwiches to entrees that include wood oven meatloaf, pizza, and tilapia. The adjoining bakery's a popular spot for coffee and pastries, and the rooftop terrace offers a delightful atmosphere for cocktails. (412-566-7366)
Carson Street Deli
Carson Street Deli turns out true, NYC-style deli sandwiches for reasonable prices. Need more tempting? Try this on for size: the Godfather features imported Dilusso Genoa salami with provolone, oil, oregano, and roasted peppers on a baguette. È buono, indeed! N.B. Not on the South Side but want a shot at one of their delicious sandwiches? (412-381-5335)
Uncle Sam's Famous Submarines
Famous for consistently great cheesesteaks and hoagies, Uncle Sam's is reason for a noontime treat. Be sure to visit in the afternoon for mushrooms and cheese on a baguette or for a pizza sub. Students love Uncle Sam's for its inexpensive prices, quality sandwiches, and casual atmosphere. In fact, reading a paper and talking at a booth are almost as popular as indulging in the food, which comes with free fries if you eat there. (412-621-1885)
Smallman Street Deli
Denizens of the Strip District count themselves lucky to have this eatery in the neighborhood. Classic deli sandwiches are the place's forte. That they serve 'em up at delicious prices is yet another boon. The space's old-fashioned aesthetics include a meat counter, barrels that double as tables, and exposed ductwork. Sidewalk seating is available. (412-434-5800)
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Memorial Day weekend is on its way, and with it the official start of the summer season.
For an increasing number of Americans, that means one thing: Road Trip Bingo, the new game from NJ.com and The Star-Ledger designed to make those hours in the car pass quickly as front- and back-seat spotters strive to get five highway-sighted clues in a row before anyone else.
AAA says 31.2 million Americans will travel by car this Memorial Day weekend, packing up kids, luggage, snacks and a car-full of iPads, iPods, smart phones and in-car DVD players. Add Road Trip Bingo sheets to the list.
Simply click the "get new card" link at the bottom of the game twice for every passenger on your trip. Everyone should have their own card; And one for the way back.
Next, click "print a card" on each of the cards. Printing works best from Internet Explorer and Chrome.
Then, when your sights are spotted on the trip, like a red car, a dump truck or a grain silo, check off the appropriate bingo squares.
The rules? Up to you. Only the spotter gets the square or everyone? Five in a row wins or fill the card? Time limit? Teams? Judge for disputes? Prizes?
The game is designed by the team behind NJ.com's popular Oscar Bingo and Super Bowl Bingo. Road Trip Bingo is intended to be played on the highway. Some clues are visual, others scent-based. A few require some imagination. You can play nicely on an internet-connected tablet, laptop or phone but it's best, simply, on a piece of paper for each player.
Where will you play? The destination can be anywhere. Road Trip Bingo works wherever you're driving — from the Jersey Shore, to some of the top road trip destinations listed by AAA: Hershey, Pa.; Williamsburg, Va.; and Washington, D.C.
The prizes are up to you, of course. Although, may we suggest an ice cream cone at the first roadside stand after someone gets B-I-N-G-O? You don't have to sing the song about the dog, but you can.
Now have fun, and get driving — and playing!
Feel free to leave tips and your travel experiences in the comments.


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Friday, April 11, 2014
Behind a strong pitching performance and timely hits, the Ashley Ridge softball team defeated cross-town rival Fort Dorchester 5-1 Wednesday.
We started off a little slow but picked it up throughout the game and finished strong, Ashley Ridge coach Chelsie Lisenby said. That is one of our big things this year is finishing each game strong and they did a great job tonight. Cam Alverson pitched a really great game for us.
Alverson struck out nine batters and the Lady Swamp Foxes played error-free defense to improve to 6-4 on the season with a 3-4 mark in Region 8-AAAA.
Outfielder Taylor DeLeon went 3 for 4 at the plate with an RBI triple to lead all batters. Catcher Annika Ponton was 2 for 3 at the plate with an RBI and shortstop Val Frank drove in two runs with a double and scored two runs.
Second baseman Bricelin Balcer led the Patriot batters, going 2 for 2 at the plate.
In the bottom of the third inning Frank reached on a fielders choice, moved over on a groundout and scored off a single by Noel Gilley.
After not allowing a base runner in the top of the fourth, the Swamp Foxes mounted a two-out rally in the bottom of the frame to score four runs. Ponton kicked things off with a single. Kelly Cousins and Katie Chambers then reached on errors to push Ponton across the plate for the game-winning run.
Frank followed with her 2-RBI double and DeLeons triple plated Frank for a 5-0 Ashley Ridge lead.
Anastasia Baber opened the fifth with a single, moved around on a groundout and a single by Balcer and then sco4ed on a single by Kayla Holladay. But Alverson fanned the next batter to limit the damage to a run.
The Swamp Fox pitcher struck out four batters during the final two innings. The only two other Patriot batters in the sixth and seventh were sent to the dugout on a line-drive catch and a groundout.
Ashley Ridge hosts Beaufort Friday while Fort Dorchester plays next in the Azalea Invitational Tournament that starts Monday at Gahagan Park.
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Surrounded by a sub-tropical forest, Brenwin Guesthouse is a true escape in the middle of bustling Green Point, Cape Town's lively seafront suburb that links the city with the V&A Waterfront and famous beaches on the Atlantic seaboard. Tall palms, loping banana trees, and frizzy ferns cram the walkways around the guesthouse and surround the generous-sized swimming pool.
The mood inside is a heady mix of peach tones and cherrywood finishes. A variety of room options is available all of them having received a thorough makeover. Choose from palatial selects, spacious standards and self-contained apartments. All have a private en-suite bathroom, heating, satellite TV, minibar, tea/coffee, direct-dial telephone and a wall safe. The breakfast room extends into the garden by way of an elevated wooden deck and the lounge is stuffed with comfy couches and warmed by an open fire.
Brenwin Guesthouse


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The Wall Street Journal reports that the law passed in 2010 allows the state to claim and hold unused balances on gift cards for consumers after the card remains dormant for two years.
"The state gets that card," New Jersey Department of Treasury spokesman Andy Pratt told NPR. "It will give you that money, and you just have to inquire, file a claim and you get the money back." Treasury officials have said consumers will be able to retrieve their money with interest.
The law, which state officials have said was intended to prevent companies from establishing inactivity fees, requires prepaid card sellers to obtain ZIP code data from buyers to track the cards.
In response to the law, American Express began removing its prepaid gift cards from New Jersey stores last week, and two other companies -- Blackhawk Network and InComm -- have followed suit, threatening to remove their third-party cards from New Jersey stores beginning in June if the law is not changed.
Blackhawk Network sells cards representing 175 different brands that are sold in over 1,300 locations in the state. In a company news release, Blackhawk president Talbott Roche argued that the law's requirements were overreaching and unnecessary.
"As it stands now, Blackhawk Network and its retail partners do not have a cost-effective way to record data from gift card purchasers or their ultimate gift recipients," Blackhawk president Talbott Roche said, according to a company news release. "In addition, gift cards sold through Blackhawk Network's program do not have expiration dates or dormancy fees, which means that consumers already have the right to the funds on their cards – forever."
The bureaucracy necessary to comply with the law would force the end of their business, some companies say.
InComm, which sells gift cards in more than 2,500 locations in New Jersey, pointed to the difficulty of complying with the law due to the cards being sold through third-party retailers.
"In addition to the compliance issues this law creates, we are very concerned that our New Jersey consumers will not have continued access to their gift card funds," InComm President and CEO Brooks Smith said. "States should not have the right to remove funds from an unexpired gift card."
New Jersey officials point out that retailers don't hunt down consumers and send back small unused balances they may have forgotten. The card industry representatives point out that under the new law, neither will New Jersey.


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Madanis Apartamentos Turisticos3
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About the hotel
The hotel is situated next to Barcelona's Camp Nou Football Stadium, 200 m from Collblanc metro station. Various restaurants, the bus station and shopping venues are in the immediate vicinity. Barcelona's tourist centre is some 5 km away and Barcelona-El Prat Airport is approximately 9 km away.
This apartment hotel offers 25 accommodation units in a building adjoining the main hotel and guests have access to the establishment's full range of services, such as a bike-hire service, parking and wireless Internet access. Refreshments can be obtained from the hotel's cosy café and stylish bar. At reception visitors can obtain information about the best bike lanes for visiting the city or the beach.
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- 24 Hour Reception , Safety Deposit Box , 24 Hour Room Service , Lift to all floors
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- 02/04/2014 to 28/04/2023 - Please note City tax is payable locally. The price shown is based on the occupancy and dates you have searched for. Prices and availability are subject to change based on the arrival date, number of nights and occupancy searched for. All prices are inclusive of all local taxes.
- Pets are not allowed
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------Thank you Lord for my mother who taught me the joy of sewing, for my father and husband who encouraged my sewing, for the talent You gave me to sew, and for all the special people in my life to sew for.
------my shield and my very great reward ~ Gen. 15:1
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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As followers of Christ, we are called to be actively involved in serving – both in the church and in our community.
We believe that "everyone gets to do the stuff," a phrase that Vineyard founder John Wimber coined. Jesus taught that we were to love one another and serve one another in tangible ways. As Christians, we follow His example.
Manchester Vineyard has a number of opportunities where you can do this. Take a look at any of the service areas by clicking on one of the links in the menu below. We pray that you will find a place where you will find it in your heart to serve. And if there is some way that we can serve you, please let us know!
- Men's Ministries
- Women's Ministries
- Missions
- Worship Ministries
- More to Come


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cigarette, derived from the common term niglet
I am going to go smoke a ciglet.
by BrownEye4U April 13, 2006
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?
Top Definition
1. an underage person, of any ethnic race, illegally smoking a ciggarette.
"Look at the ciglet trying to look cool in front of his fetus friends!"
by footballrocks37 April 10, 2012


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Words Are Magical or The Lingering Funk
I visited the doctor today. My karmic punishment for taking care of my sick husband? Not only catching his cold, but upgrading it to a sinus infection. My doctor labeled it The Lingering Funk. Immediately my brain went into overdrive. Sure, it was the perfect description of my hacking cough and stuffiness.
But...the words could also describe that stench in my back yard I used awaken to that said skunks partied there overnight. Or the depression that lingers after eating an entire carton of ice cream in one sitting post-breakup. A biochemist who studied and named vitamins (okay, I had to look that one up, but it's true!). Or the most kick-ass name ever for a jazz group.
So yes, I walked out of that doctor's office still sniffly, but also jazzed by the wonderous possibilities of words. I like the musicality of my Lingering Funk. Now it's your turn. What phrases set your mind spinning?
7 comments:
- 34500aac-0631-11e1-9e00-000bcdcb8a73
Great post, Christi. LOL about skunks that party. Your blog looks aweseome and I look forward to stopping by often. Good work! :)Joya
- November 3, 2011 at 11:34 AM
- Wendy S Marcus
Love the new blog, Christi! Congrats!
- November 3, 2011 at 11:44 AM
- Rose Anderson ~ Romance Novelist
Congratulations on the new Blog Christi. As a fellow Wordie, I offer an evocative string of words:
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
~Max Ehrmann~ Desiderata
:) Rose Anderson
- November 3, 2011 at 1:07 PM
- Stephanie Dray
Some band needs to snap that up now!
- November 3, 2011 at 1:35 PM
- Kari Thomas
Congrats on the new solo blog, Christi; looks great!
LOL---Ive always said that skunks PROVE that God has a lopsided sense of humor!
hugs, Kari Thomas, www.authorkari.com
- November 4, 2011 at 2:40 PM
- Pamela
Nice solo, Christi. Hope you feel better.
- November 4, 2011 at 10:18 PM
- Laurel Wanrow
Love the breezy look.
So, the phrase I can't stop giggling about is "Get stuffed." from Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series. It is used throughout by a 15 year old girl posing as a boy--she takes on all sorts of cursing as an air force Midshipman in the 1914--but this line ends up being a great punch line when her secret is discovered.
Yep, I like words, too.
- November 5, 2011 at 8:42 PM


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'Doctor Strange' Shortlist Lists Three Possible Actors for the Ancient One
Posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2014 by Russ Fischer
There are a few big characters in Marvel's Doctor Strange, which acts as one of the first salvos in Marvel's big Phase Three story set. The primary is obviously Doctor Strange himself, to be played by Benedict Cumberbatch. There's at least one villain, who may be played by Daniel Bruhl, and may or may not be Strange's early adversary Baron Mordo. Strange and Mordo meet because they have the same teacher, the Ancient One, and he's the third big character for the film.
So who plays the Ancient One? We don't know yet, though there has been speculation that it could potentially be Al Pacino, who recently revealed that he has met with Marvel. Now a new report says there is an Ancient One shortlist of three names, with all the actors already contacted about possibly playing the character. Pacino is not one of them. It's a fairly diverse group — get an eyeful of the Ancient One shortlist below. Read More »


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Notable Features
- Power liftgate
- Power-folding third row
- Standard backup camera
- Long-wheelbase Navigator L available
- 310-hp, 5.4-liter V-8
- Available Engines:
- 310-hp, 5.4-liter V-8 (flexible; E85)
- Transmissions:
- 6-speed automatic w/OD
Expert Snapshot
What We Like
- Power-adjustable pedals
- Heated and cooled front seats
- Stability system with Roll Stability Control
- Side curtain airbags for all three rows
What We Don't Like
- Overly ornate gauges, interior trim pieces
- Poor gas mileage
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'Prisoners' reaches No. 1
"Prisoners" didn't take any at the box office.
Buoyed by critical praise that helped moviegoers support a film with often brutal depictions of violence, children in peril and revenge, the thriller starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal opened to an estimated $21.4 million, easily winning the weekend.
Although several other films performed well in limited engagements -- including the 3-D Imax reissue of "The Wizard of Oz" -- the returns were meager for the other new movie in wide release, the break-dancing tale "Battle of the Year," which grossed just $5 million, according to preliminary sales figures released Sunday.
The $46 million "Prisoners," which played to favorable notices at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, stars Jackman as a parent searching for his kidnapped daughter. When his character, frustrated that a suspect (played by Paul Dano) has been released from custody, starts taking the law into his own hands, a police officer (Gyllenhaal) tries to ensure that vigilantism is kept at bay.
"Enough Said," Fox Searchlight's romantic comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the late James Gandolfini, opened in four theaters and grossed an estimated $240,000, a very strong $60,000-per-screen average.
Last week's No. 1 film, "Insidious: Chapter 2," plunged a steep 64 percent to $14.5 million in its second weekend, finishing second. The $5 million production has grossed $60.9 million overall.
-- from wire reports


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Search suspended for Renton dentist missing after avalanche
The search has been suspended for Mitch Hungate, a Renton dentist who is missing after an avalanche near Granite Mountain on Snoqualmie Pass Saturday.
King County Search and Rescue members said the area is too hazardous to send in search crews, according to Sgt. Cindi West, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff's members have talked with avalanche experts who said the area is very unstable and will likely remain that way for days, according to West.
Once the avalanche danger decreased searchers will be sent back into the area in an attempt to recover the man's body, according to West.
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