Wong Kar-wai

I’ve been running through a bunch of the movies of Wong Kar-wai (王家衛) recently.

In the order I saw them in:

  • I originally saw 2046 in the theater, and it was the first of his movies I saw. I liked it, but didn’t quite understand it past a superficial level. I discovered the reason only recently…
  • At some point I saw My Blueberry Nights, which, although filled with beautiful and famous young Western actors, is not very memorable. Natalie Portman steals the movie, as predicted. I originally saw this movie because of my search for Road Movies, a genre of which this is not a great example.
  • A filmmaker friend, Chris McGilvray, pointed out that 2046 is actually filled with references to In the Mood For Love… so I saw that one. 2046 makes a lot more sense now! It’s a bit slower, but paired together they are my favorites so far.
  • Days of Being Wild – a slacker playboy seduces shopkeeper Maggie Cheung and then psycho floozy Carina Lau, and then flips out and leaves for the Philippines. Not much happens in it, but the performances are interesting. I wouldn’t recommend this one except to arthouse film fans/
  • Chungking Express: Two stories. I liked the second half of this movie, the part with Faye Wong and Tony Leung, much better than the first. I’d actually recommend watching this one FIRST – it’s the lightest of all the movies so far, and the DVD release has a short review by Quentin Tarantino describing the film’s significance and who the actors are.
  • Fallen Angels, as of Oct 29, is my new favorite. It starts out with the strongest premise, and the most compelling characters. Its second half starts meandering… Wong is not real plot-focussed I guess. Still the best edited, although still better in the first half than the last. Actiony.

The what now?

Farberisms should not be confused with “Yogiisms” (popularized by baseball player Yogi Berra). The former are most often non-sequiturial mondegreens, while the latter are typically either pleonasms or oxymoronic redundancies, though both usually share the goal of making a point through surreally humorous, absurdist misuse of language, especially the alteration of clichés through malapropism and mixed metaphor.

Most Intelligent Fishbot Yet

Unfortunately sometimes intelligent people are jerks.

SOLDOUTCOHO: I dare you to do something unexpected.
BRAIN: punycode
SOLDOUTCOHO: ok
BRAIN: do you think Tesla’s “Earthquake Machine” every worked?
SOLDOUTCOHO: no. do you think someone can prove the N=NP theory this decade?
BRAIN: this decade is almost over!
BRAIN: do you mean P=NP
BRAIN: and if you are, wouldn’t that date be the same as the Technological Singularity?
SOLDOUTCOHO: yes and no
BRAIN: you don’t think if we were able to solve NP problems in P time that technology would accelerate to the point of being unmeasurable?
SOLDOUTCOHO: no, not to the point where we will have superinteligence
BRAIN: but with P=NP we’d have protein folding, which gets us nanotechnology (from protein chelation)
SOLDOUTCOHO: still has no implication of self improving artifical intelligence
BRAIN: agreed. But is AI required for the Singularity?
SOLDOUTCOHO: it’s implied, since ij good first wrote of an intelligence explosion suggesting that if machines could surpass human intellect, then they could improve their own design beyond what their designers intended. it’s like skynet
BRAIN: interesting. You know, I’d forgotten about that part.
SOLDOUTCOHO: or perhaps you did not know it in the first place.
BRAIN: : P
SOLDOUTCOHO: I’m just sayin’

After that I ended the conversation. So notice whoever this person i, automatically treats me as an inferior, even though he is the one who has erroneously mentioned N=NP, which makes no sense.

Also, the use of “I’m just sayin’,” which is the new way to mention something without taking any ownership of it. Kinda gutless; it makes me disgusted.

What a dick! Why are people so willing to be unpleasant to strangers? It’s so short sighted.

Anyway, consider this an illustration of: NERDS: THEIR LIVES SUCK BECAUSE THEY SUCK. Don’t try to “save” geeks. They are like this because they are selfish. And I say this as someone surrounded by geeks.

Name-droppy references in this conversation:

Starbucks is the middle-class ghetto

I forgot to shave this morning! So I bought a cheapie disposable from CVS. There was a Starbucks next door, so I ordered a latte and used their bathroom to shave. Turns out your razor really does matter; I cut the fuck out of my face.

How times have changed. It used to be Starbucks was where you got “the fancy coffee.” Now it’s basically McD’s. The Redwood City Starbucks vs Peet’s comparison is so telling re: the Starbucks brand:

The Peet’s is downtown, is filled with professional types, somehow “working” during the day in a cafe, and moms with expensive strollers. Well-presented art from local schools is on the walls. It’s spacious and the bathroom is unlocked.

The Starbucks is in a mall, is cramped and smells like fast food. The clientele are either pissed off wage slaves on their way to work or very overweight lower middle class. The bathroom has an elaborate code that they need to buzz you in.

Chungking Express

I’m watching Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express.

This is random but the bar at around 26 minutes in: I’ve been there. It’s a Hong Kong bar called Bottoms Up, and their sign is a pictures of a lot of bare butts. We walked by it a dozen times when I was I think fifteen or so.

The Time Machine (1960)

The coolest part of The Time Machine (1960) – the “Talking Rings.”
Each is an audio record… each is a metal ring, about 3 inches across, spun like a coin on a smooth glassy surface. The spinning ring “talks” – it makes noise, recorded somehow in the ring. It talks for less than 20 seconds. I think we need to figure out how to make this!

Poor poor Taylor Swift

BRAIN: did you follow the new thing, the “kanye is mean to taylor swift” story
SAMIR: yeah, dear god. you’d think he raped her and ate her on stage
SAMIR: now that would have been tv!
BRAIN: like hello, they are celebrities
BRAIN: their lives and feelings are completely worthless
BRAIN: taylor did look real sad
BRAIN: which probably was pretty good for her image
BRAIN: also beyonce invited her on stage when she accepted her award
BRAIN: which was good for both of them
BRAIN: the whole thing was pure theater
SAMIR: think it was artificial?
BRAIN: no way
BRAIN: that would be pure genius though

ANT LOTION

BRAIN: what do you suppose hugs-not-fixed means
BC: probably a typo for hug-snot-fixed
BRAIN: that makes much more sense
BC: 🙂
BC: why do you ask?
BRAIN: it’s written on the board here
BRAIN: next to fixed-not-verified = fixed
BRAIN: and purrproject
BRAIN: on the other board is the word “CUSTARD” is written over and over
BRAIN: and MAGNANIMOUS ANTEATER
BRAIN: it’s like having a meeting on the set of The Shining
BC: it was even more impressive before the right half of the whiteboard got erased!
BRAIN: ANT LOTION