twenty-something women come to New York City in search of the two L's

Labels and Love. or so begins Sex and the City with the voice of Carrie Bradshaw the protagonist of the infamous uberfeminine TV series-turned-film. so i saw it a few days ago and liked it. in the past i tried to bring myself to get addicted to the series (yes, it's a conscious effort) in hopes of at least understanding what about it that drew in such crazed fans single and married alike. as it turned out, i was somewhat disappointed because i got the impression (perhaps a wrong one) that the series was a little too much on the drama side. so, unlike the suburban Desperate Housewives  or recently the ultra-cosmopolitan socialite Cashmere Mafias, SATC failed to win me over, for it didn't have this sharp witty biting edge to it that i'm personally fond of as a viewer. 

To be sure, the movie version also doesn't possess such quality. But perhaps it's the cinematic pace of it that does the trick for me. Very swift, assured, and to the point, SATC managed to hold my undivided attention throughout the entire two-hourish session (quite a challenge if u know the ADD me). The protagonist's voiceover works really well as, uhm, the guiding voiceover and more importantly as the meta-structural self-reflection and doubt of the protagonist herself. 

The art direction is of course overwhelmingly praised. From the costumes, which naturally outshine other aesthetic elements, to settings (classy bars, cafes, and the New York public library) and lavish decors, the viewer can tell where a large part of the budget went. If the lives of these women can be described as superficial frivolity, what other alternative could have been employed to convey such decadence if not the dazzling of the actual "surface." Better yet, the dazzling display gets a little too, well, dazzling on occasions. Yes, i'm talking about the graphic scenes, all of which were made blurry by the censorship unit of Thailand's Ministry of Culture, the cultural watch-dog who is notorious for its history of banning movies, songs, and other media from Thailand and overseas alike. In a country where political democracy has been obsessively preached and fetishized (but not necessarily practiced), cultural democracy is suppressed and dictated to the extent that a ministry was established to inform the people of what is right and wrong culturally. If hypocrisy is not the right word to label the current state, i don't know which will. 

Despite the blurred scenes, SATC fortunately was not banned altogether. Given the number of Thai fans sworn by the TV series, to disallow the movie from our theaters would sure cause some roar. Much as I hate to compare the film version to its original version, for I believe there'll always be something lost "in translation" necessarily entailed in the cross-media appropriation/interpretation (which is not always a bad thing), lots of my friends think that the film does the series justice. Of course, I have no authority to comment on this seeing that I have yet to finish one episode of the show. But for what it's worth, I enjoyed it a lot. And this is not a "chick flick", mind you. because the ladies are no longer chicks? or the movie itself doesn't fall under that category? i'll ponder in my sleep. bonne nuit tout le monde. 

Un beau jour

Ah.. today is so insanely beautiful and warm (my dashboard reads 72 degrees baby) i want to nestle my face in the grass on the main green and breathe in the freshness of spring soil. but i can only wish because I have this book review to write. in fact, I have yet to read the book. 222 pages, vomit please. I'm hoping as hell that I'll finish it tonight. Yes. Right.

Today is the last day of the week-long Ivy Film Festival, which is claimed by the organisers to be the world's largest student film festival. As with the previous years, I have attended some of the screenings (3 days so far) in earnest. This year seems like a Sundance parade. Starting with "The Linguists", a film documentary about two linguists who globe-trotted to India, Siberia, and Bolivia (?) in pursuit of dying languages. Very beautifully and genuinely rendered, the film doesn't lose any of the essence of a documentary, yet doesn't bore the viewer with techy details.

On Wednesday, I went to see "Son of Rambo", a retro story of two kids growing up and cinematographically coming of age. The story revolves around the kids' film-making project, but there are a few other stories smoothly running in parallel. It was refreshing, funny, and purely pleasurable. Something that reminds an aspiring film student of why film always gives him joy and why he wants to make film in the first place.


Last night, I saw the pre-release screening of "Adventures of Power", which was followed by Q&A with writer/director/actor Ari Gold. After 15 minutes, I expected Napoleon Dynamite (which many hyped it up to be). 45 minutes later, I was disappointed. It was witty and funny at first and waxed cheesy and, may I, nonsensical after a while. Below is the blurb I took from the Ivy Film website:

ADVENTURES OF POWER is the epic tale of a rock-n-roll loving mine-worker named Power whose love of the beat--and lack of the drums--has made him the ridiculed “air drummer” of his small town. But after his union-leader father calls a strike at the mine, Power discovers an underground subculture of air-drummers who just might hold the key to changing the world.

The post-screening Q&A is however pretty informative and entertaining. What I noticed about Ari Gold the director is that he fulfilled at least to me the stereotype of the directory of an independent film, awkward, weirdly funny, and spontaneous. He talked about how his film was accepted and declined on various occasions. Filmmaking might be hard, but marketing it is way harder man.