High Rise (2015)

Social classes are a vertical divide of the world; High Rise quite literally made the world into a building.    And like life itself the building experiences operational stresses; the residents instead of getting their acts together act only according to the meaning attached to the height of their floors to the ground. 

The Kryptonite Spear

The two reasons I hated Batman vs Superman are called Justice League: Doom and Dark Knight Returns.

Justice League: Doom is about Batman’s contingency plans landing in the wrong hands and used by the enemy against the Justice League. Against Superman, all that was required was a distraction and then a kryptonite bullet. 

Sherlock (S4) (2017)

All the scenes above are from season 4 which has become more graphic in its filming of thought than in previous seasons. Visuals coupled with humor are what set BBCs Sherlock over most procedural dramas.

Can you imagine Sherlock Holmes just talking?  And Sherlock talks about all his observations including day to day ones not included in story’s main case. CSI would have its tools to add to the flash the facts they have collected.  Molly Hooper, friend and occasional lab help, was never that flashy.  All talk would then the modern version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation would blend along with the rest.  

The Lobster (2015)

When hotel staff acted for guests the reasons to find a mate – since I can’t remember ever hearing the word marriage – it made me understand what the story is about. 

Lando's and Lorie's Banay Banay Eatery

I never had it so good at a local eatery: Kaldereta, Calamares, Bulalo, Barbecue.  There was what looks like grilled tilapia which I didn’t get because it was on the other side of the table. I had line of sight too for some kind of shrimp dish which I refused because the shrimp was small and I had to work a bit to get into the meat.  There are times when the best meal is one which I can just throw in my mouth and chew.

Midnight Special (2016)

Unearthly existence should have been able to change lives or points of view but I never felt that here.  Actually a change feels like a requirement since the protagonists came from a cult.

Midnight Special though sounding like a 24 hour deliver service is in fact a cat and mouse story that ironically ends in broad daylight with millions of witnesses.  The story’s sci-fi component was built up slow and steady. Drawback is that no one among the millions – on screen anyway – explicitly asked what it is they saw and that left me feeling empty.

Southbound (2015)

Southbound is B movie. You feel it when you see it; something about the visuals that says no budget which is not all together a sign of a bad movie.

Elstree 1976 (2015)

Immortalized and forgotten – that was my take away from the opening with its juxtaposition of toy and actor.   Toys went first with actor’s voices in the background talking about the action figures that represented them.  It was an odd mix so in my mind was always the question, who?  Who’s talking? Another set of visuals and images follow, this time actor follows the toy Star Wars character that they played.  They don’t ring a bell so I wondered who are they again?

Everyone remembers Mark Hamil, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford in 1977 when the original Star Wars was first released but in Elstree 1976 the focus now turns on extras and bit players. 

Lazer Team (2015)

Is it unfair to walk out on a movie before seeing the end; say that the fact I have not finished it, it therefore sucks.  Or, as in real life I should finish it all before I pass judgement. Almost always I try the latter; at least it gives me the reasons why I think that of a movie.

Sometimes I feel it in the beginning the urge to walk out or in the front of the PC, it’s the urge to press stop.  There’s being fair and there’s the right to keep your sanity. 

Almost always that first urge is triggered by the visual. Lazer Team is classified as a science fiction movie.  Sci-fi nowadays carries with it visual expectations and suffice to say the movie screams cheap and under budget – lights, composition, sets, costume.

The Daughter should say Goodbye

image from Vanity Fair

Disney has reportedly held meetings recently with its creative minds to discuss how to proceed with the story of General Leia now that Carrie Fisher has passed on. 

Some key issues it looks like are story choke points: the reunion of the twins, Leia and Luke; the reunion of Leia and Kylo Ren. Regardless if such scenes were already shot for Episode VIII or reserved for IX, the story cannot be played out to fruition now without deep consideration.

Postcards from the Edge (1990)

“Who could resist my stunning layered and moving not unlike Mary Poppins performance...?”  Carrie Fisher said that referring to Princess Leia during her one woman show Wishful Drinking. The audience laughed especially when Carrie paired it with Mary Poppins.  They understood what she meant. 

Now I don’t know what the technical definition of layered is – besides that analogy on onions – but I have seen Star Wars many times and all I remember is the gung-ho princess. Not even Han Solo managed to peel off a mushy side of her.  Not even the destruction of Alderaan revealed an orphan of an entire planet now that I think about it.

For much of Carrie’s life millions of fans – more so if they lived outside the States like me – Princess Leia was never peeled off the late actress’s life.  And when Carrie died this Christmas break I decided to change that and peel off Princess Leia from my eyes, see what I have missed.

What the CEO Wants You to Know

What the CEO Wants You to Know: Using Business Acumen to Understand How Your Company Really Works by Ram Charan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My favourite is Chapter 2 which has the title Every Business is the same Inside: Cutting through to Cash, Margin, Velocity, Growth, and Customers. I attended a seminar once on financial statements, the lecturer was very good but the allotted schedule was too short because the topic felt like basic accounting. It was a struggle to keep awake because there was all these terms and the table looks complicated for me to keep track of.

Having read that chapter I now feel that I finally get it even when I can’t remember anything after a year of non-use. Finance is not my area. In the seminar it is tables and terms I had to memorize on the other hand Chapter 2 gave me why a business makes money: cash, margin, velocity, growth, and customers. The book has formulas but it has no tables which may have helped ease my mind into it.

Silly 2016

You don’t know how silly you have looked at 2016 until you’ve seen this trailer produced by Friend Dog Studios.

The trailer is modeled like a slasher/horror movies.  Cuts or timing was right for the genre; the music elicited dread; composition had a dark feel to it; and the general feel of the story was ‘what the hell is happening?’ and ‘who’s next?’

But what’s missing? 

King Rat

King Rat by James Clavell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If I compare to Tai-pan and Shogun, this book, King Rat, would be my least favorite. There is a restrictive feeling about it since it is a World War II POW camp in Singapore: Changi. The first two books had an epic nature about them, one was control on Imperial Japan and the other was control of East Asia by means of trade by the English.

Shogun

Shōgun by James Clavell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Chinese philosophy the Yin and Yang are the two opposing forces beneficial to the well being if there is harmony. In the book Shogun harmony is Wa. While I sound philosophical let me be clear that Shogun is not a philosophy book. The best modern pop culture analogy I can give would be Game of Thrones only here you have the real world of samurais.

The harmony or the Wa I speak of is to the quality of the book. James Clavell has mixed east and west elements often opposing into a seamless story worth 1,000 pages long.

Tai-pan

Tai-Pan by James Clavell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tai-pan is another East and West tale in the quality of Shogun, Clavell’s other popular book. Though in the later there is more versus between East and West, in Tai-pan there is more “diplomacy”.

For one reason the story of Tai-pan is more economic and business in nature. There is more subtlety in business than there is with the story of the samurai.

Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To think of Hollywood westerns is to set oneself up for wrong expectations in this book. Hollywood or the movies for one is a visual medium and books are never made into movies as they are written.

I fell into that expectation at the beginning of the book almost always expecting gunfights every few pages. After finishing a few chapters I thought writing gunfights every so often will ultimately be boring. The scene was best if it was watched with its quick draw and the gunfighters just flipping their guns into their holster.

Then we go into the genius of the book of moving to and from the concept of boring to epic. My only complaint of the author is that he uses euphemisms for anything sexual even rape. I had to read that paragraph twice at that rape section to understand and feel pity for the character. It was a weird choice to use indirect words when overall the author has been so vivid in describing the life in the old west.

Brooklyn (2015)

Reading letters is a plot device. 

However in the 2016 Best Picture nominee Brooklyn directed by John Crowley reading letters – this is snail mail mind you – was more than a plot device but was also the visualization of a heartbreak and thus highlight of my watching experience. They act as my goal posts wherein I could judge what condition Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) was in and where she was going.  The letters or rather the reading of it was what hooked me.

Rogue One (2016)

It seems reviews today need to come with a disclaimer in the beginning as to whether there are spoilers or not so in compliance with the requirement I'd say yes there are spoilers. There are spoilers even though I tried to be as vague as possible but its impossible to describe what I like or don't like without giving even just a little.  My advice as someone who tries to avoid spoilers every so often it is best not to read anything at all.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is better than the prequels (The Phantom Menace, Attack of theClones, and the Revenge of the Sith) especially if you see it side by side with A New Hope.  It is even better than the newest sequel the Force Awakens which felt like a rip off of A New Hope.

Start-up Nation

Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As Asian whose culture is subscribe to elders, seniors, people of title it is a big surprise for me that Israelis with a prominent military culture can still have a culture of openness and reject the rigidity that comes with hierarchies. Telling your leaders they are wrong is frowned upon in other cultures.

Actually every entry about the military is an eye opener for me. Perhaps it is only real in the Israeli context but before reading this book when I thought of armies I thought rigid and closed. Here it’s a springboard. There’s team; it’s one of the most important social glue in the country. There’s intermixing of disciplines including high tech.

I also like the part of clusters. I always thought about that subject in a smaller sense (an office) wherein it’s not always about the infrastructure and the systems, there is an informal social glue or links you have to consider, and you can’t just manufacture.

There are also parts about Israeli history, explanations of how they became that way or like in the kibbutz, how they overcame challenges. The book is quite comprehensive. A must read.

View all my reviews