german-ish movie thoughts

It has been more and more difficult to find my kind of movies as I am aging.
Even though as I am aging, my kind of movies are changing, I expect that movie makers are creative and ahead of time so that there should always be someone who makes incredible arts on the big screen.

At the beginning, I liked 85% of the movies I saw. I saw at least 2 movies a week in that phase.
The next phase, I became picky. I decided whether to see a movie based on the actors who play in it. Although I did this screening before hand, the proportion of the movie I liked decreased.
The next phase, which is the present, I follow my instinct of how I feel when seeing a trailer or preview. If I like the trailer, I will pay attention to what a critic says in their first sentence of their criticism. If it gives me a good impression, I will see the movie.
Or I listen to friends' conversations . I know my taste is like someone and is not like someone else. If this someone else says he likes a certain movie, then I will not see the movie. Simple as that. Usually it works very well.

Recently, I want to develop the ability to memorize the names of the directors of movies that I like very much. I have this skill when it comes to Chinese-speaking movies. But I watch way more English-speaking movies than Chinese ones, I should have started memorizing names way back at the age of 12.
In particular, many young directors have made me fall in love with movies in a whole new different level.

Let me list 5 of my favorites. These are movies I saw after I left Taipei. I put them in a random order.
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind --- by Michel Gondry
2. Thank You for Smoking --- by Jason Reitman
3. Little Miss Sunshine --- by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
4. Before Sunset --- by Richard Linklater
5. Something's Gotta Give --- by Nancy Meyers

Brokeback Mountain is not on the list, not because it is not one of my favorite, but because I know Lee Ang's work very well already. His name is easy to remember too because he is a Taiwanese Chinese-speaking film maker.

Today I am gonna remember another name, Marc Forster.
Actually "Stranger than Fiction" is not the first movie I saw from him. I saw "Finding Neverland" but was not so impressed.

"Stranger than Fiction" is a piece of Modern Art. It is like an afternoon walk in MoMA. If you know me, you know how much I love MoMA. (I also like the floors of MoMA. Tango on it makes me romantic.)
The story is novel.
The acting is just perfect.
The music is just right.
The visual effect is a bonus, not distracting at all.
I had expected seeing a light just-seeing movie. It turned out that this piece was so tasteful and I hated to turn off the TV. Visually, auditorially, and mentally, it was a great treat for a cold pre-spring Saturday.

Of course, I watched the special features too. They called it "extra" in the DVD.
Then I saw the image of the director.
He is a nice-, smart-, attractive-looking guy. He gives me a message that I will like his work. Period. His appearance is sincerely telling people that he knows what he is doing and that people trust him.
Of course, I imdb it and rated it. On imdb, I learned that Marc Forster is German with New York English accent.

I like Germans, I have found.
German men are handsome in nature. They also know how to present themselves in a not too gentleman and lightly humorous, witty way.
I like to see, or rather, observe them. How they talk, walk, shake hands, use hand gesture in talking, dress themselves, and attend to a conversation are so my type.
Most Germans I know are blond with blue eyes. But this does not mean that I like blond hair and blue eyes. It is what those eyes give forth that is attractive. They listen to you with eyes. They speak with their body figures. They nod with a sincere smile.

Well.. I lost my train of thoughts on movies.

tango or not

On Easter Sunday, I was sitting in this Attcus place, where my housing-host Emily had recommended.

This was my first time having brunch at a diner bar that was in a bookstore. By a diner bar, I mean that you can see how food is processed and how dishes are cleaned in front of you. Your order is taken from a person behind or inside the bar. Forgive me if I am not using a correct American term to describe it. I am too lazy now to check it on Answers.com

Anyway, I was sitting there, having my sunflower-seed croissant and coffee, and enjoying my memory of last night's milonga. This Yale Tango Festival was so good not just because of the good teachers but, most importantly, because of the good dancers coming from New York, Montreal, Boston, D.C., Philly, and many other places, and local Yale people.

By exchanging dancing experiences, usually agreement will come easily as to who is great to dance with, who is difficult to build the connection, who is impossible to practice with, and who is admirable for his willingness to learn. Yang and I, after the festival, exchanged great dancing experience after three nights of milonga. We agreed with each other mostly. I am going to eye the eyes of the good dancers, whom I did not dance with but Yang did, in my next milonga in New York or Princeton Univ.

When my sweater was absorbing the smell of the diner, some names came to my mind. Names that are after people who are not nice to dance with. I wish I could tell them why I do not like to dance with them. I wish they were in Nick and Tara's classes. I wish they were rejected by Jennifer or Tova when asking for a dance. I wish they could feel what a clear, natural lead is like from Robin or Tomas. I wish they could understand their bad habits are not going to make me to do beautiful, comfortable Sacadas. As my thoughts went, I felt upset for my inability to encourage all Penn State dancers to come out to be shocked by how great Tango should be. I may be considered an advanced dancer in State College, but I am actually an advanced beginner if anything.

I found a desire to write. An avocado-colored little notebook was convenient to find in Attcus. I was happy to eat alone in a bookstore.
I paused with my pen. I found no clue in terms of how to tell all my wishes to those people.

It is much easier to tell someone how much I like him/her than how I dislike him/her.
It is way way way harder to tell someone how much I dislike his/her skill in dancing. Because they take it personally. They would think I don't like to dance with them because I don't like them as a person. Actually I don't like them because they suck as a dancer.
This is getting worse when I have tried to say something in practica and they did not listen.
When my partner does not listen to me or takes my feelings as my mistake, I found it impossible to communicate with him. Hence, I shut up. Hence, I resist to dance with him in any occasions. Hence, I resist to befriend with him.

Things build up quickly, especially negative feelings.
If someone cannot make me tango with him on a dance floor, I somehow cannot tango with him out of the floor.
No connection at all.

Yeah, you wish I was a nicer person.

the pursuit of reasons

Oh, that ... actually those, not just one, are flags of Republic of China. The abbreviation is R.O.C., but it is known as Taiwan. I want to know where they played basketball in the film. Some top of a building in San Francisco.
That's a little distracting for me when seeing this greatly moving movie "The Pursuit of Happyness"

If you have not seen it, I recommend it, and thus, I will not tell you what is going on.
If you have not seen it, I recommend that you rent a DVD or buy a DVD to see it.
You'll like it more if you see all the special features.
I watch special features. I rarely like all special features. I do like all the special features of this movie on DVD.

It is based on a book, a book of a true story, a story of a man, a man who had to take care of his son and himself by himself.
You'd say "Big deal. A lot of women have raised their children by themselves. Their lives are not less difficult or less inspiring."
I'd respond "Sure. I respect those women too. But I was so touched because I have been told that most of the time it was the father who left. This time, the father insisted staying by his little boy. He kept his goal and worked hard and went through all those humiliating situations and still maintained his dignity and role as a respectful father. He cherished the role he's playing: a father."
I am glad to learn that Chris Gardner is a real person. He actually briefly appeared in a scene. Of course I did not know that until watching every second of the special features.

What else do I learn from the special features?
1. It is a movie directed by an Italian, whose name I do not remember. But I can imdb for you. His name is Gabriele Muccino. The producer and the actor of the movie, Will Smith, decided to invite him to direct the film after Will Smith saw two movies directed by Muccino.
2. Will Smith's son played his son in the movie because Muccino could not find the right actor during the week of audition.
3. The homeless were actually homeless. They were paid for appearing as who they were in the film.
4. And the pursuit of the world-record-holder of speedcubing!!!!!!
5. And the blindfold speedcubing!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(alright, i got too amazed by those geeks.)

The footage of the speedcubing makes me want to own the DVD.
I had one Rubik's cube in Taipei. I believe my parents bought it during the 80's. It was the time when the cube had created and become popular from Hungary to the whole world.
I did not play it like crazy. I gave it up easily. This might have hinted something of my personality. Usually I stared at it and thought who would waste their time to twist the cube. Why couldn't I just paint a side of the cube in the same color and call it a day? Oh because buying paints and painting and painting it nicely waste time too. So why should I bother myself?
This is why I cannot bring myself to be very enthusiastic about sudoku, either.
I am good at reading during my free time. I am impatient at playing puzzles when taking a break.

Why am I so impatient? Why doesn't a Rubik's cube or a sudoku puzzle interest me?
Because I am not a geek? To some extent, I am. In some fields, I am.
Because I cannot be obsessed? I can be very obsessed in many things other than puzzles.
Perhaps it is like the fact that I don't like the color pink. It is a simple fact without deep reasons.

Why am I so excited to see the R.O.C. blue-sky-white-sun-red-all-over-the-ground flags? I don' t know.
I also get excited when seeing "Made in Taiwan" marked on products. I bought my leggings for that mark.
It just makes me smile and proud. A surprising feeling is generated when you see something so familiar in a foreign setting.
Suddenly, I am afraid that this movie may be banned in China. If that's so, what a big loss of Hollywood. Well... or not. Movies can be bought easily in super cheap prices in China, actually downloaded easily even, because pirates are kinda not so illegal in people's mind over there.


Why happyness ?
It was explained in the first 5 minutes of the movie. Go see it. Do see the special features too.

worms between words

Technically, it is called the tilde, a symbol that does not exist in the Chinese standard writing system. But we use it. For example, I would write "Hello~". For me, it means a casual tone. I do not use it when writing to a stranger or a tax officer.

Recently, I see it quite often. For example, http://www.wretch.cc/blog/chon1990&article_id=11808170
I suspect the age of this blogger. People in my generation do not write like that. We prefer to use comma, period, colon, semicolon, exclamation, and question marks within and between sentences. A tilde at the end of a sentence is okay if it only appears once in an article.
But tildes everywhere are not standard.
I understand that language evolves. You prefer to write in this way, and I prefer to write in that way. One day we will write in a similar way that both of us agree as a norm in writing. Not that I am preaching a mark-using method or even a writing style. It is that I am not approving tildes replacing all other marks.

I am also okay when knowing that New Zealand has decided to allow the use of text message speak on its NCEA exams. A test-grader has to know a lot of abbreviations in order to understand a student's essay. By the way, NCEA stands for National Certificate of Educational Achievement, which is New Zealand's national qualification for secondary school students. Students of course will not risk their grades by using some abbreviations that only they and their friends know. Of course, not just abbreviations are in texting language. Some standards are ur (for you are), 2nite (for tonight), cuz (for because), 4gt (for forget), and zup (for what's up). Slowly, I believe, more and more people will accept the use of them. X'mas is okay and printed on cards. Xing is okay and painted on roads. And younger generations eventually will be the main stream or hold the ruling power of the society. You cannot stop the evolution.
Chinese is also changing. Phrases such as LKK or 881 are seen even in news reports. I am following with the flow as best as I can.

But I have to say the "~" mark is difficult to pass my acceptance. I prefer a circle (in Chinese) or a dot (in English) to mark the end of a sentence, and a comma (interestingly the same shape in both languages) to mark a rest in the middle of a sentence. Worms between words are just bugging me.
And the pronunciation symbols! Sometimes I use one or two for sounds that are not represented in characters. But pronunciation symbols are used often among people who are 6 or more years younger than me. I assume it is a way to prevent people from China to read. But it is annoying even for people like me who learn those symbols at the age of 6.
We don't have a Chinese character for the sound "A", so I usually write "ㄟ", which is a pronunciation symbol used in Taiwan. We do have "的" (sounds "de") and "了" (sounds "le"), which do not need to be replaced by "ㄉ" and "ㄌ" respectively. However, many youngsters use them. Is this really a generation gap or am I too meticulous?

Am I?
Two spaces or one space between two sentences?
Space between a header and its following paragraph?
Parentheses or double dashes?
Tell me if you don't have your pickiness of details.

aging sign

Programming is a bitch.
Seven hours after I sat down with it, it still refuses to produce what I want. How stupid can it be? I am speaking its language, Matlab, and I am offended by its wasting my precious youth.

Oh my youth.
Even though I have been taken as a kid because of my firm, chubby cheeks, my body is showing signs that I am not young anymore. For whatever godess’s sake, I am 29 by Chinese standard.
I am not saying a 27-year-old person should behave like a 27-year-old because I have no idea of what a 27-year-old should behave like.
I have no idea of what a 32-year-old or a 14-year-old should behave like, either.
I am saying that I feel pain when I bleed monthly, and that I feel terrified when I see lines around my eyes.
Programming for seven hours is not helping the situation. So I am complaining.

The good thing after graduating from a university and moving to the States is that people around me are in different ages. Age difference is never a problem of being friends. No one introduces him/herself as “Hi, I’m a 27-year-old.” Same as in sexual orientation, marital status, weight, and height. You make friends because you like these people as they are.

But friends frown at me every time I say “Oh I am getting old.”
Take it easy, my friends. I am simply stating my feelings toward myself. I am not sarcastically tricking you into telling me your actual age. By the way, I know how old you are.

Prospective students are visiting recently. Some of them are seniors in college. I would say “Hi, I am senior in the graduate school.” There I feel old.
I went to some parties and got tired before midnight. There I feel old.
A friend talked about her choices on lipsticks. There I feel old.
These are easy to overcome. I am excited to get out of the graduate school and become a freshman as a postdoc. I expect to go to new parties and meet new people and experience new atmosphere, so that I will not get tired before midnight. As to a boring, too-girly subject, it never is my types of subjects to talk about. I will take it even lightly next time.
But a physical change inside or on the surface of my body indicates the fact of aging. I have to live with it.

Women with their periods should not do head stand. Well… I have convinced myself that I am able to learn how to make myself up-side-down. But this news is not encouraging.
Last year, if I did not have a phobia of being up-side-down, I would have said “oh come on, it doesn’t matter. I want to do it.”
Now I cure myself from being afraid of lifting my whole body on my arms and head. But I have aged. Aged women can feel cranky in their stomach once in a month. The crankiness worries me. I pass the opportunity to be trained as a head stander. I have to wait for a few days if I am reminded of the enthusiasm of practicing difficult yoga postures.

The crankiness not only worries me but also makes me sympathize with many friends of mine. They always take a day off or show up moody once a month. I was like “What a drama. Don’t fool people. You can function normally. You just choose not to.” Now I understand. I only want to stay in bed and drink hot chocolate.

Instead, I sat in the lab and stared at the computer for seven cranky hours. Programming irritates my irritated feelings of getting old.