It's a wrap
Stills from my 229 final production
Kingpin:
My favourite huskies
A first proper video shoot consists of an abandoned place, a van, a car, 3 outdoor locations, 8 actors, countless props, lightings and impossible equipment and a student-unfriendly budget. Watch out for the final product.
The Departed
The Americans love it just like how the Asians adore Infernal Affairs. There are concerns prior to watching a Hollywood remake whose original version had been so successful: the characters that we all knew too well, the iconic scenes and the intelligence of the story. The Onion and rotten tomatoes rated it as good as Lord of The Rings. Some say Martin Scorscese has once again outdone his impossible standards. There is, however, no decent or credible movie critique we can find in an Asian point of view.
The Departed has done Infernal Affairs justice but then again its very hard to go wrong with its star-studded cast, star director and of course, its ingenious plot. The Boston neighbourhood is explored like it has never been before and its police-thief culture permeates through the entire movie. You have to admire Jack Nicholson for churning out great performances one after another but this one isn't difficult for him. It almost feels like that is another facade of him, like the characters he plays in all his movies. But then again, we all love Jack Nicholson. Matt Damon outshone Leornado Di Caprio in this movie although DiCaprio did quite a decent job. Perhaps after seeing Tony Leung with all that tiredness, fatigue in his eyes in Infernal Affairs, its hard to picture how a babyface like DiCaprio can pull off such a complicated and confused person. DiCap's acting is flawless but Tony Leung is the person himself.
Matt Damon didn't have that much of a hard time though. His moral ambiguties and cleverly crafted subtle body language makes this one of his best performances in his career so far. He fits the bill of the young, cocky, i-love-to-hate character.
There are harsh critics towards this film by many and I can understand why. The Departed is far too quick for Asian audiences. No time is wasted and people are killed without warning. No iconic scences, no slow-mos, no gun-pointing for 20 seconds or more. It's snappy and it gets to the point. There is a fine mix of humour with violence where everybody takes death and violence with a pinch of salt. Whereas in Hong Kong or Asia, violence is more serious and people really think through before squeezing the trigger. Slapstick is slapstick and reserved for the slapstick scenes. Violence means violent scene, you don't mix.
There was no sympathy when DiCaprio or Martin Sheen died. There was no big hurrah, no dramatic turn of emotions when the bad guys get shot. Everyone gets shot. Everyone gets killed for fun. We accept it, think it's a damm good movie and go back home.
For me, Mark Wahlburg should get more scenes and you gotta love the profanities.
Happiness
In this short life of ours, we often wonder what is the true meaning of happiness.
Setting up a happy family?
Persuing dreams or your passion?
Leading the simple life, retiring at a beachhouse or milking cows in some New Zealand farm site?
These images are programmed in our systems to be the perfect life or the perfect ending. We think they are because we picture it in our heads. We sense happiness.
Happiness derives from anticipating and hoping but not the actual result. True happiness is derived from the process, the labouring and then the afterthought. The recall of events. Happiness as such is never about the present. It is always about looking back or looking forward at something which has happened, something which may never happen or something that you think may happen. Happiness therefore never happens in real time.
What the hell am I talking about.
