The Latest July Heatwave

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.”