More recently, I find myself coming to find the trend of movies in 3D to be a little tiresome. Roger Ebert who is no fan has said as much about 3D in a variety of places. I think he’s got a lot of pretty good points.

The first movie I’ve seen so far that I think really did a great job of using 3D was Avatar. That’s the only one though. I had a great time seeing it, it looked great, it was fun and bright and vibrant and generally a good time. I admit, I haven’t seen it in 2D and so can’t really compare but, still. Actually that’s true for all of the movies I’ve seen in 3D with the single exception of Up! which I feel didn’t really benefit from it very much, either.

Yesterday, I went and saw Alice in Wonderland and it was to me a pretty big disappointment. Not just the 3D-ness of it, which was pretty bleh, but in general the sort of discombobulated sense of confusion I had through much of it. I guess a lot of people say they enjoy the fanciful sense of whimsy something something Alice something blah blah but I just got annoyed and bored by turns while watching it.

Update: I saw How to Train your Dragon and actually that wasn’t that bad either. We’ll see, maybe when Toy Story 3 comes out here it’ll be improved for having 3D too.

Through hosting these movies, I’ve come to meet a whole bunch of new people in Beijing. It’s generally nice to meet new people in Beijing because over time I’ve come to notice that I lose friends pretty fast in this town. There’s no underlying drama or anything like that, only that it seems most people who I meet here are not long for Beijing, arriving and departing within the space of a year. If I’m lucky I’ll meet them early in that period and overlap with most of it. Mostly though I catch people in the middle and occasionally the end of their stays, their visits, their semesters, their job search.

So with the constant turn over in people there is a constant weakening if not breaking of those weak ties which I seem to have amassed so many of.

I wonder who I’ve known the longest here in Beijing. I guess there are a few people who I met very early on in my stay here, some even before I had even moved here, but who I don’t actually keep in touch with at all (for example, Ed I met at a dinner my parents hosted before I lived in Beijing. We never really spent much time hanging out or anything and at this point we’ll say hi when we run into one another but I feel like that’s happened less and less often as our mutual friends have drifted out of Beijing as well). But who is there who I actually keep up with regularly that I met here? I can think of maybe one or two people at most. Everybody else got here a lot later or already left.

I guess in a lot of ways that’s reflected in the notion that nearly three years is a long time to have been here to most people who hear it. There are of course the old timers, the old China hands who have been bouncing around Beijing for the better part of the last decade (my parents for example) but I don’t have all that much exposure to them. Mostly they seem to be a bit older than me, too, which has slowed my falling in with them socially.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, so I’ll cut myself short here and think on this some more.

first, we put in some random thoughts
then we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day
mixed with some memories from the past (that’s for two people)
love, friendships, relationships, and all those ships
together with songs you heard through the day, things you saw, and
also some personal…

From the opening scene of The Science of Sleep

One quote that I caught:

a: Do you ever want to go back?
b: To Oxford? I’m not not clever enough. I’m not anything enough, really.

But that was not really true, because I did see it.

Obviously, not the most memorable film.

After about 5 minutes of watching, I had reconstructed the plot, basically, and then spent the rest of the movie experiencing a strange sense of deja-vu because I had seen it.

How is it I completely forgot the movie? I have no idea. I have two theories, not by any means mutually exclusive.

The first, is that, as I said just now, it is not particularly memorable to begin with. It’s pretty predictable and well rooted in it’s… sort of routine portrayal of assorted stereotypes.

The other theory, which is a little bit more out there is the specific situation I originally did see the movie. I don’t remember the exact timing, but, I am constructing in my head this scenario where the screening date at Doc falls not too long after/during a somewhat protracted break-up process. Consequently, it got sort of lost in the mess of everything else going on at the time.

It’s pretty silly, I know, but it just really kind of freaked me out that I was so convinced I hadn’t seen it, but then after a few minutes had this epiphany where I suddenly could remember all the major plot points.

I don’t know, it was fun, but, for example, I think I enjoyed watching MI:III more.

edit: lol @ “I’m the juggernaut, bitch!“

First, the reason I was so tired to begin with, was that last night I didn’t really get so much sleep. I’m guessing about 4 hours maybe? It was weird because I woke up without an alarm or anything, in spite of having only gone to sleep a few hours before. Anyway by the time I was fully awake it was around 9 I think? I put away some laundry and cleaned up my room a bit. I was pretty starved so I ate an avocado and munched on other random snack-ish things like a banana and some bread.

After doing this, I remembered that the book [tag]Self-Made Man[/tag] by Norah Vincent was due back today and I still had about 80 pages to go. I sat down and read that. The last couple chapters struck me as not nearly so entertaining as the first few. It was an interesting read, though I don’t know if I would recommend it. That is, I found her perspectives on gender relations and gender roles to be quite fascinating, but there was too much other stuff that I didn’t really care about. I almost feel that just reading an exercpt will give you a good look at the fun parts and you can skip out on the rest. Maybe I’m being too harsh though.

Anyhow, after finishing that, I spent some more time cleaning off my desk and setting up the old computer which I had gotten back on Wednesday. Once set up I moved some files around, did some backups and other random stuff.

Mike got in touch with me and said he was up for watching the movie [tag]In the Company of Men[/tag], which we had originally intended to do yesterday but that plan fell through. So I biked over to the library, returned my book, then headed over to his apartment. I hung around there for a while and we played on N64 while waiting for his roommate to go pay his rent, as he’d expressed an interest in watching as well.

I find the movie really interesting to watch. As it happens it’s third time I’ve seen it, though the second time had actually been the night before. I was falling asleep then so I missed a bunch of things. They, being Mike, his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend, all thought that the character of Chad was too unbelievable. I don’t think I really agree with that though, as I feel like there are definitely people who are like that. They didn’t think that he had adequate motive to do all the terrible things he did, but I think otherwise. Anyhow, this is a movie I’d certainly recommend watching, as it does have a bit of humor in it, in spite of being a very dark comedy. I feel like it’s a movie I’ve thought about a number of times ever since seeing it way back when.

After this movie, I headed home and thought to perhaps take a nap. Instead, I stayed up, watched an episode of Arrested Development, and tried to figure out what the schedule was for later this evening. See, today, err, I guess yesterday now, the fifth, was Annie’s birthday. I thought it’d be a nice thing to do to make her a cake, so yesterday I did. There were some loose plans to go see a movie or something, but Annie had a dinner to attend and other key coordinating figures had other plans that evening as well. So I basically had this cake (a raspberry semifreddo torte) sitting in my freezer and I couldn’t get it over there (as I would have had to carry a pot full of berry compote as well) early, and then later we’d go see the movie and presuambly not return to my apartment afterwards. A few phone calls later it was all sorted out though and I got a chance to bring the stuff over before going to see a movie, and leave it there for until we got back.

With this window, I took the opportunity to try and get in a quick nap, which I did succeed with. I got almost an hour of sleep in here, I think.

The plans, as they ended up, were basically to go see [tag]Mission Impossible III[/tag] (or as I understand it’s abbreviated in ads, [tag]MI:III[/tag]), then return to Annie’s apartment to have cake and drinks.

Earlier when I had dinner, around probably 6-ish, I also consumed a fair bit of mild stimulant which I haven’t done for a while so I probably had too much. The expectation being that it’d keep me awake for the next 6 or so hours. Certainly in that regard it’s succeeded. Though at the moment I feel sort of physically awake but mentally exhausted. I don’t know, it’s weird and not entirely pleasant. I think perhaps it’s wearing off now?

That aside, well, maybe related actually, I really enjoyed MI:III. I thought it was a blast to watch and certainly blows the first two movies in the series away, in my opinion. Nary a dull moment, I’d say.

After the movie we all headed back to Annie’s apartment and had the cake. I’d never made it before, but I think it turned out pretty well actually. It looked astonishingly similar to the picture on the recipe site where I found it, and it tasted pretty good to boot. The crust was a little thick around the outside edge so maybe if I make it again I’ll work on that.

And that I think is about everything I did today. There’s probably stuff I missed, but whatever. I’m feeling a bit more sleepy now so I’m going to put this computer away and get some rest. Me and my roommates have decided to spend the whole day tomorrow doing stuff together and we need to be on a train at 10:00 in the morning or something. Hopefully 6-7 hours will suffice tonight. [tags]baking, dessert, torte[/tags]

Now, don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t at all consider myself movie literate. And just glancing at this list I know for certain I haven’t seen a lot because of how many appear to have been made before, say, when I was born (1984, but this is sort of arbitrary I could just as easiliy say 1980 or 1970). That said, here’s the list and I’ve indicated with *s those I have seen. I’ve tried to add some footnotes too with other random remarks of mine.

* 2001: A Space Odyssey
The 400 Blows
8 1/2
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
* Alien
All About Eve
Annie Hall
Apocalypse Now
* Bambi
The Battleship Potemkin
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
The Bicycle Thief
The Big Sleep
* Blade Runner
Blowup
Blue Velvet
* Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless [1]
Bringing Up Baby
Carrie
Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
* Chinatown
Citizen Kane
* A Clockwork Orange
* The Crying Game
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
* Do the Right Thing
La Dolce Vita
* Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Duck Soup
* E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial
Easy Rider
* The Empire Strikes Back
* The Exorcist
* Fargo
* Fight Club
Frankenstein [2]
The General
* The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
* Gone With the Wind
* GoodFellas
* The Graduate
Halloween
A Hard Day’s Night
Intolerance
It’s a Gift
* It’s a Wonderful Life
* Jaws
The Lady Eve
* Lawrence of Arabia
M
* Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior [3]
The Maltese Falcon
* The Manchurian Candidate [4]
Metropolis
Modern Times
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living Dead
North by Northwest
Nosferatu
On the Waterfront
* Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
Pink Flamingos
* Psycho
* Pulp Fiction
Rashomon
* Rear Window
Rebel Without a Cause
Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
* Scarface
The Scarlet Empress
* Schindler’s List
The Searchers
* The Seven Samurai
Singin’ in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
A Star Is Born
A Streetcar Named Desire
Sunset Boulevard
* Taxi Driver
The Third Man
Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil [5]
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble in Paradise
Vertigo
* West Side Story
The Wild Bunch
* The Wizard of Oz

1: Presumably this refers to the Godard film À bout de souffle from 1960 rather than North by Northwest which also comes up when I search imdb. Wait, actually it does.
2: I’ve only seen the 1994 Kenneth Branagh film.
3: I think I’ve seen this, but my memory is shaky on this one. Maybe on TV once? Maybe not.
4: I’ve seen both the recent remake as well as the famed original.
5: I actually have this sitting in my room. Maybe this will motivate me to watch it. Probably not. I still haven’t watched Citizen Kane or Casablanca either.

So there you have it. Spare me the “Oh my how have you never seen Casablanca!?” remarks. I should note also that I came upon this list by way of reading kottke and this entire post is pretty much stolen in idea and format.

I really enjoyed the [tag]movie[/tag]. I thought it was a really engrossing drama and I felt like I could relate to it in a lot of ways. The scenes with Aurora’s family struck me as very… I don’t know, I hate to phrase it like this, but, real, and captured what was for me a lot of very humorous and powerful moments (that is, some humorous, some powerful, not necessarily both). I don’t really have a vocabulary for talking about movies though, so I think I’m going to stop trying. I wasn’t really aiming to write a review here anyway.

If ever I get a chance, I’m going to encourage my siblings and parents to watch the movie, so I can get their opinions on it.

After the show, the lead actor, Chris Tashima, the director, Eric Byler and the author, Shawn Wong, of the novel American Knees were around for a short talk. They’re all really cool people, though it was a little unfortunate, I think, when Eric launched into a political tirade. Not because it was a political tirade, but rather because I would have rather had him field more questions from the audience, even if I personally wasn’t doing the asking.

Annie picked up a copy of Eric’s previous film Charlotte Sometimes and had him sign it, and maybe sometime after she’s watched it and things return to more normal, I’ll try and borrow it, as I would like to see it as well.

Anyhow, hearing them talk about the novel made me really want to go out and read it, and depending on how that went, I’m thinking I might go ahead and send copies to my family such that they read it too, in pursuit of having them give me their thoughts on it. I myself went out and checked out the library’s copy, and I’m reading through it now. I imagine in the near future, I’ll be making another post full of random quotes I thought notable.

Perhaps I’ll try and watch one or both of these again sometime soon. Maybe not Enemy actually.