Month: July 2008

I’m so not a summer person. I don’t like heat!

Friday, July 18, 2008: “Pretty to Think So” at the Asian American Int’l Film Festival. A law school classmate of mine was a co-director/co-writer of the film – how cool is it that two fellow APA attorneys made a movie? At any rate, I thought it was a well done movie, with independent film spirit. Some moments turned out to be funny for the audience (and even me), but I don’t think that was necessarily intentional (not necessarily the fault of writing or acting, or maybe I just couldn’t tell). Umm, so it’s not a perfect movie.

But, the actors did well – particularly the slimey Korean-American lawyer – ah, yes, don’t we love seeing an APA attorney on the big screen? Each character was fascinating: Alex, the Chinese-American Christian youth minister, who has a serious and dangerous gambling addiction; Hanna, the South Asian American young woman, who got downsized in the dot com bust; Jiwon, the slimey Big Firm attorney, who thinks he’s in control (umm, no, dear!). I kind of imagined that they could have each anchored their own story well enough – well, actually, I think Hanna was the slightly weaker one, since she could have taken more control – too much passiveness – but then again, maybe that was the point?

The fact that the movie takes place in 2000 was rather poignant – the dot com era; the rise of the Big Firm Lawyer’s power (come on – this was when associates got their six digit salaries, wasn’t it?); the insane 2000 presidential election; plus, the World Trade Center Twin Towers… the recollection of the pre-9/11 world, and that you can’t it get back.

Ultimately, I’m not big on tragic love triangles (as I said, I prefer romantic comedies), but I applaud movies where APA’s get their opportunities. Plus, a nifty little movie website.

With the AAIFF’08 over – some lovely item: “Kissing Cousins” won for AAIFF08 Audience Award-Narrative Feature!

Oh, and the big movie of the weekend: “The Dark Knight.” I didn’t think I would see it right away, but I did catch it on Sunday, since my brother really, really, really wanted to see it. Long movie; I would’ve tightened some parts; some one or two odd plot holes; but a good movie. Is the hype overhype? I don’t know. Entertaining and fun? Well, it sure was grim and dark – which is what being “The Dark Knight” is about when the crazies like the Joker come out.

I won’t give anything away, but I liked the strong cast. I wished I had more time to drool over Christian Bale; really, my heart cries for Bruce Wayne and his sacrifice of anything resembling normalcy. (yeah, yeah, I didn’t watch the Val Kilmer and George Clooney Batman movies and I don’t read the comic books, but I’m a Batfan). The key person was The Joker, not quite the Batman; and so, yes, Heath Ledger did a pretty good job (the Joker is scary, whether it’s played by Ledger, Jack Nicholson or Mark Hamill (who did the voice of the Joker in the 1990’s Batman cartoon – an insane character with his version of logic – nothing but consistent, no matter who plays him, with the variation involved). Maggie Gyllenhaal arguably is better than Katie Holmes in the character of Rachel Dawes; Aaron Eckhart as DA Harvey Dent — well, if there’s a lawyer whose downfall was easy to predict but still hard to watch, that’s him. Gary Oldman was awesome as Jim Gordon. Lovely cameos too by other tv-familiar faces (Nestor Carbonell! William Fichtner!).

Be advised that this is not a movie for the weak of heart or for young children. Otherwise, thumbs up! (I’d like to give a high thumbs up, but I’m not big on long movies that aren’t epics of the Lord of the Rings proportion; some movies – not matter how good – make me wish for commercial breaks or a pause button just to let me take a break; and I guess some people really like wacky violence in their movies).

I don’t always like Time Magazine’s Richard Corliss’ reviews (they tend to give away too much), but his last lines in his review of “The Dark Knight” is quite right; he too said the new Batman movie’s a bit long, but, he notes: “The chill will linger, though. The Dark Knight is bound to haunt you long after you’ve told yourself, Aah, it’s only a comic-book movie.” So true; I keep thinking about it and the psychology and the various implications (or not-implied stuff). As a writer and a lawyer – my head just spins over what the heck was going on there.

Slate’s Dana Stevens has a very good review, but I really loved her spoiler special podcast discussion, located on the webpage – but don’t listen to it until after you see the movie! Meanwhile, if you want to read more reviews, MNSBC.com kindly links to more reviews at the end of their contributor’s positive review.

Anyway, as much as I love Bale, I doubt that anyone will quite beat the best Batman, Kevin Conroy, who has done the voice for animated Batman for quite some time (dealing with Hamill’s Joker? Yeah, that’ll never end). The easy thing about an animated Batman is that the violence is supposedly less painful because it’s animated (tell that to Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam though, considering every time Bugs Bunny shoots them).

NY Times’ Bill Carter on “Heroes” 2008-2009 season; here’s hoping that it’ll be a worthy journey. The Powers behind “Heroes” could take my advice (focus on your core group; balance between characters and plot. Why not let the heroes interact with each other more – some of them can work quite well together? Umm, how about not trying to kill Congressional candidate/lawyer/flying man Nathan every season? How about seeing if Hiro still makes that journey towards becoming Dark Hiro? Plus, will Nathan’s brother Peter not be so dense?).

In non-entertainment front (and notably for being about an APA):

NY Times has an interesting profile on Arnold Kim, M.D., who is giving up his day job as a doctor to be a full-time blogger (that is, of publishing on tech news) – and to spend more time with the baby. Aww. Guess majoring in computer science at Alma Mater was worth it (but, really, what about all that time and money in that medical degree…?).

Last but not least: Al Gore’s latest rally for pushing for more action for the environment has some response that he’s being a bit unrealistic (but really, he is right – if we got a man on the moon in ten years, why can’t we save the Earth in that amount of time? On the other hand, all we had to do was spend tons of money to send three guys into space in 1969; having billions of people save the world kind of really, really, really tough). This Time.com article by Bryan Walsh nailed it for me with these last couple of lines: “What we most need is time to make these changes, but that’s what we’ve squandered. If only someone else had been President these past eight years — someone like, well, Al Gore.”

Cool idea: urban “vertical farms,” by Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University. I loved the following paragraph from the NY Times article by Bina Venkataraman:

Architects’ renderings of vertical farms — hybrids of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Biosphere 2 with SimCity appeal — seem to be stirring interest. “It also has to be stunning in terms of the architecture, because it needs to work in terms of social marketing,” Dr. Despommier said. “You want people to say, ‘I want that in my backyard.’ ”

SimCity! Whoa! The futuristic cities of Sim City can be quite amazing too, I must say. Sim City also believed that by the 21st Century, we’d have fusion power plants, but we haven’t reached that either yet. So, as much as I’d think that vertical farms are a cool idea, I’d wonder if the NYC real estate market and other factors might make it difficult to pursue.

Sometimes, I give credit to Slate for leading me to articles I wouldn’t otherwise read about: these magazine summaries led me to a fascinating article in The New Republic (a magazine I really don’t read usually) about Barack Obama’s time at the University of Chicago Law School.

I also liked this article on Law.com by Professor Kyron James Huigens of Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, on his observation that he understands Obama’s nuanced thinking because it’s the nuanced thinking of a law professor:

I have to confess that I think I know Obama’s mind. He’s like me — a legal scholar.

Obama is a graduate of one of the best law schools in the country and has taught on a part-time basis at one of the others [hyperlink to a Law.com article on Harvard Law, by Tony Mauro of Legal Times removed]. Every law school produces at least one scholarly journal, usually its flagship journal, that is edited by students. Obama was the president of the Harvard Law Review, a political office of sorts that, nevertheless, gave him an opportunity to work with accomplished, often brilliant, scholars.

Obama’s legal education, his law review work and his teaching have produced a presidential candidate whose positions on major issues have been described as nuanced, compromised, centrist or insincere. They might be all or some of these things, but many of them are also legally sophisticated. This matters to anyone who wants to truly understand Obama’s thinking. Legal analysis cannot be adequately portrayed in political terms, and to push Obama’s beliefs back and forth along the conventional left-right spectrum badly misrepresents them. […. comments on Obama’s recent comments about Supreme Court decisions]

None of this really justifies my sense that I know Obama’s mind. But beyond these issues and the way he handles them, I sense a certain temperament and a style of thinking that sounds and feels very familiar. I would be surprised if many of my colleagues in legal academia did not sense it too. Whether this counts as a reason to vote for Obama is, of course, another question.

I finished reading Obama’s book, “Audacity of Hope,” and the law professor side of him is a very interesting aspect of Obama that was clearly obvious. Ah well. Got to give law profs credit for saying a whole heck of a lot of stuff; whether we listen to them (even when they’re wrong, or just not completely making much sense) is another story.

Wednesday night: watched more Asian American Int’l Film Festival movies; I think I’m really getting into this.

Kissing Cousins at Asia Society – thumbs up! Very well done romantic comedy. Actor Samrat Chakrabarti as Amir, a professional “relationship termination specialist,” who has to learn to appreciate love — terrific acting. There were some weak moments of either acting or writing (Amir’s sister was a tad weak character, and the character of Bridget, the friend’s sister, could’ve been given a bit more to work on), but the movie worked because of Amir and his cousin Zara. (umm, yeah, they’re cousins, which makes the kissing just a little “uh…”). Nifty little movie website, by the way.

Also watched “Gone Shopping” – hmm. Interesting movie got the glimpse of mall life in Singapore. It kind of felt like an Asian “Desperate Housewives,” with its mix of satire and pathos (well, “Gone Shopping” was far more watchable than most episodes of “Desperate Housewives” – I’m not much of a DH fan anyway). The cast was quite strong and the writing felt impressive. This movie also has a pretty nifty and informative website, with the whimsical soundtrack too.

But, I personally like romantic comedies with the happy endings; that’s just me!

So, check out what’s left of the next few days; embedding the AAIFF ’08 trailer from YouTube: