Movie Saturday

After watching the trailer last year, I was intrigued by "Children of Men" which was released while D & I were in Hong Kong. Even though it hasn't done well at the box office, we went to go see it anyway, especially I read this Digg posting of Why Children of Men is the Best Picture of the Year. I like intelligent and original movies so I loved it. I do hope it gets nominated for an Oscar. The Digg posting says it the best:

"Children of Men" is one of the most poignant and creative films of the past decade, yet Universal, the Film's distributor, has left the film with a non-existent advertising campaign and little press. This amazing film is being ignored by a majority of film goers, and even the film industry. Do not let a movie like this go unrecognized!

The other movie we watched was Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth". From looking at the poster and a brief preview, I thought this was a children's movie, so I was shocked at the violence and disturbing scenes. I highly recommend it, but it's definitely intended for adults. The film is entirely in Spanish, but I don't mind reading subtitles; I prefer that to watching dubbed movies.

This is an unusually great start to the year for movie watching. I hope it continues!

Temeraire

Thanks to my friend James, the quality of my reading material has improved dramatically. He was the one who introduced me to the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, which I thoroughly enjoyed, mostly because of the writing: it's delightful. Naomi really has a way with words - I would re-read sentences and paragraphs just to reflect on how she cleverly describes things so creatively and vividly. It's the first time that I've read anything and thought, "Wow, I wish I could write like that."

James and I previously made a pact that we would never spring a book series on the other unless the series was in fact, complete. There is nothing more annoying than getting to the end of the book, only to realize that there is more coming, but you have to wait (usually months) for the next installment to be published. When he recommended the series to me, he was quite explicit that there are THREE and ONLY THREE books to the saga. What happens when I get to the end of book 3? I see an excerpt from book 4! Argh! I had half a mind to hunt him down to give him a sound walloping. James' own defense is that each of the books can be read standalone because they don't end on a cliffhanger, so the "book series rule" doesn't apply here. Hrmph.

Curious as to how book 4 was going, I visited Naomi's official site, Temeraire.org, which links to her LiveJournal. Good news! Book 4 may be published as soon as fall 2007, with book 5 slated for spring 2008. Not only that, it appears that Peter Jackson has optioned the movie rights to the series. Yay!

Movies: "The Ring" and "Beijing Bicycle"

Since today is Easter Sunday (Happy Easter everybody!) I thought I'd post a cartoon Jenn sent me that I thought you'd enjoy.

Finally watched "The Ring" which is an English (American) adaptation of a popular Japanese movie called "Ringu". Both should be available for rent at your favorite local or online rental store.

I won't post a comprehensive movie review of "The Ring" since there are already so many out there already. In fact, I highly recommend Rotten Tomatoes which aggregates reviews into a convenient "Tomato Meter Reading" from 0%-100%. Anything with less than a 60% rating is considered a rotten tomato and thus probably not worth watching. I liked "The Ring" a lot. It's the third scariest movie I've ever watched behind "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others".

The other movie we watched was "Beijing Bicycle" which is a 2001 Chinese film. It's an interesting snapshot of the some of the social issues in modern day Beijing. For all the modernization that has occurred in the city, most people are still living modest lives and are struggling to make ends meet. Regardless, there is a daily massive influx of "wai di ren" (country folk) who come to Beijing in the hopes of striking it rich. The movie reminded me of the time I spent in Beijing learning Mandarin.