As if the weather heard me, the temperature plumped 20 degrees last few days, back to the normal 60s. That also brings back the beautiful white stuff—fog.
Yesterday at work, the fog flirted with the water in the bay almost the entire day. The Golden Gate Bridge hides behind the blanket of fog, perhaps taking a nap.
Today, the fog returns. I took a few pictures from my apartment window. The bridge tried to push away the fog, unsuccessfully. I just can’t stop staring at it.
It looks like that it will be a chilly morning in the Golden Gate Park tomorrow morning during the AIDS Walk. It will be fun, and I am looking forward to it. After the walk, I plan to rush to Dolores Park for a concert by San Francisco Symphony. It doesn’t matter what they will play, I am sure I will enjoy it.
So, I am going to go to bed now in order to get up early tomorrow morning. Oh, here are the reviews I wrote for three films opening this weekend.
What qualifies somebody to be an artist? And what makes their works to be art? Of course talent and creative expression are crucial, even they are subjective to the eyes of beholders. However, if these eyes belong to a famous art critic and collector, it will make a huge difference to the individual. Unfortunately, it’s the ultimate verdict for some individuals’ works to be regarded as art or not (ever been to SFMOMA?). The life story of French painter Séraphine Louis (1864–1942) vindicates the perplexity of the art world.
The film begins with the 48-year-old Séraphine (Yolande Moreau) does her daily cleaning routines as a maid in Senlis in 1913. She is a religious, quiet, canny, hard-working, natural loving, and worn lady. When she returns to her little apartment that she owns back rent, she indulges herself into another wonderful world where she becomes a self-taught painter, guided by angels. Her works have been laughed at, until she meets a German art collector Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur), who also discovered Henri Rousseau and who are friends of artists such as Pablo Picasso and George Braque. Uhde starts to support Séraphine and encourage her to paint more.
Wilhelm Uhde’s support to Séraphine is disrupted by the war, but Séraphine continues to paint when she is not cleaning. Tragically, after they reconnected in 1927, Séraphine’s mind tragically slips away, but not her work, nor her dedication and passion to painting.
The film is captivating, humorous, and sometimes poignant. It doesn’t really focus on understanding Séraphine’s art work, but it brilliantly shows us how Séraphine paints her love into her paintings. Yolande Moreau gives an exceptional performance as Séraphine. Her expressive eyes are absolutely magical to allow us to peak inside Séraphine’s own world—regardless if we can comprehend her world or not, we can feel it.
In addition, almost every frame of the film can be frozen up as a postcard. It’s simply breathtakingly beautiful. The long shot of Séraphine lurching toward to a tree at the end of the film will stay with us forever, a perfect portrait of her incredible life story.
What should people do against a repressive regime? It would be naive to think that demonstration and protest alone can overthrow a hard line military government. Certainly not enough if the outside world is not aware of the demonstration and not lending supports.
Everybody knows the tacit, so does the anti-government movement in Burma (now it’s called Myanmar). Based in Norway, a group called "Democratic Voice of Burma" (DVB) sends its underground members to Burma with video cameras to document the protests, and smuggles those footage out of Burma. Danish filmmaker Anders Østergaar‘s documentary "Burma VJ" (Denmark 2008 | in Burmese/English | 84 min.) tells a story about this group’s effort to bring the anti-government activities to people outside Burma.
Triggered by a sudden rise of fuel prices due to the removal of government’s subsidies, a series of protests broke out in Burma beginning on August 15, 2007. The protests lasted more than a month, joined by monks, until the military junta cracked down the protesters on September 26, 2007.
27-year-old "Joshua" coordinated over 30 self-claimed underground video journalists (VJs) to videotape the protests, hoping the protests would provoke blood shed and escalate the conflicts, and eventually overthrow the military government.
This film almost entirely focus on Joshua’s effort to obtaining the "money shot" during the protests in order to gather supports from the rest of the world. The film does little to explain the objectives of these protests and what made these people, especially the monks, to protest on the streets day after day, sometimes risking their lives and facing imprisonment.
This one sided documentary must be extremely inspiring to people who are involved in the movement of anti Burmese military ruling. Unfortunately, in the age of Youtube, almost everyone who has a camera at hand is shooting something. For many who are not familiar with the struggle in Burma, these footage might be lost in the sea of Youtube clips. Aiming cameras at these protests in Burma is indeed a courageously brave act. However, to be a VJ and to tell a compelling story require much more skills.
Perhaps that’s precisely the reason Joshua was hoping people would become more provocative and people would die during the protest. Hopefully, the images would be captured on cameras. Otherwise, the mob scenes on the streets are soon to be forgotten.
Can two straight guys talk themselves into making porn with each other on camera? As absurd as it might sound, the story unfolds amazingly convincing in director Lynn Shelton‘s award winning (Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Independence at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival) comedy "Humpday" (USA 2009 | 94 min.). This charming film eloquently explores the complex and fascinating male bonding relationship between two protagonists.
Ben (Mark Duplass) settles down with his wife Anna (Alycia Delmore) and they plan to have a baby. However their nesting life becomes topsy-turvy when drifter Andrew (Joshua Leonard) shows up one night unannounced. Ben and Andrew recharge their best-buddy male bonding that traces back to their college years. How? They want to "reclaim pornography back to the art world" by having sex on camera and submitting the film to the HUMP!, an annual film festival in Seattle presenting amateur pornography.
Sound strange? Amazingly so. However, what’s remarkable is to witness how Ben and Andrew push the envelope to the limit and talk themselves into this wacky episode, sincerely and innocently.
Ben and Andrew show the perfect chemistry as buddies on screen, although they are not gay. These two straight guys talk like, well, two straight dudes talk to each other. Their conversation is incredibly naturally and the actors never appear to be reciting lines. That’s probably because they actually are not reading lines—according to writer/director Lynn Shelton, most of the dialogues are improvised by the actors themselves during the shooting. They are genuine, funny, and impressive.
It is a delicious surprise that each scene is quite believable and engrossing no matter how unbelievable and bizarre a situation the characters are in. In the end, indeed these two buddies made a piece of art in film, regardless if that is pornography or not.
Silky Tofu, 味道好极了! 