Sunday, December 4, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
"C" You
Here is my shamelessly plagiaristic attempt to pay tribute to a computing technological visionary who recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. And I am NOT talking Steve Jobs.
Dennis Ritchie, a true pioneer in modern computing, was found dead on Oct 12th in his New Jersey home at the age of 70. The exact date of death cannot be identified since Mr. Ritchie chose to live alone despite being in declining health in recent years due to prostate cancer. For most of the general public, his name is as alien as Martian. However, anyone self-respecting software developer will tell you that Mr. Ritchie’s contribution to the industry is as monolithic as Steve Jobs’, if not more.
As the chief designer of the C programming language in the late 60s, Dennis Ritchie brought to the world a more sophisticated tool to program a computer for hitherto computer software had been written primarily in assembly language or even machine code, a very low level and cryptic instruction set that are both labour-intensive to write and difficult to decipher. The C programming language, on the other hand, provides a (relatively) closer to human-language syntax and allows programmer to shift the focus from execution level to a more paradigm aspect of a design. The quantum leap of computing advancement the C language brought is comparable to the evolvement of written language from spoken dialog in the linguistic term, and it also paved the way for the more complicated programming languages that we use today.
Together with Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie also co-invented UNIX, the first computer operating system that won widespread acceptance. Today we are so used to having a platform like Windows or MacOS to run our software applications that we might not realize what a monumental concept an operating system was. Flashback forty years ago when dinosaur like mainframe was lauded as the most cutting-edge programmable machine, software programs were installed and run via punch cards since the machine was virtually devoid of an interface between end user and its system resource. Such cumbersome maneuver restricted the device to mainly engineers. The introduction of this intermediate layer between the machine and the user’s program made computer much more user-friendly. And because the UNIX Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson built was essentially free, it was easily obtainable and enhanced, indirectly led to the democratizing of computer from primarily corporate and government use to indispensible household appliance.
In all honesty, I can only be considered as a pseudo(哎呀)-techie at best. I reached the legal age for marriage before I first used a computer and my embarrassing discovery that there exists more than one language you can use to program a computer is material made for stand-up comedy. Naturally my experience with C was and is not smooth sailing (remember those dreadful pointer de-referencing?) and every software developer has horror stories to spare about UNIX’s segmentation fault and core dump. While these tools might seem primitive by today’s standard, you have to realize that they played a crucial role in the evolving of what we have taken for granted in computer technologies today. When you put them in this perspective you can’t help but marvel the ingenuity of their creators and what a vision they have.
While being greatly mourned within the industry, Dennis Ritchie’s passing was barely mentioned in the mainstream media and the public remains oblivious to his contribution to their lives. Given that UNIX is the very operating system Mac OS X inherited from and eventually went into various handheld gadgets Apple Inc. sold, the irony is not lost in the tech community when Steve Jobs' passing has been greeted with outpours of tributes but Dennis Ritchie’s is by and large ignored.
I am not born yesterday to not realize that in our society it is the kind of marketing geniuses like Steve Jobs who are celebrated over the nameless inventors like Dennis Ritchie, and I have no intention to discredit Steve Jobs’ achievement either, the world needs both kinds of people. However, as someone who makes a living (or should I say ‘steals’ a living) on the legacy Dennis Ritchie has left behind, I feel obligated to let the uninformed be aware that the lofty pedestal Steve Jobs has been put on, rests in no small part on the shoulder of Mr. Ritchie’s twin towers of invention
Thursday, October 13, 2011
感覺完美九十天
Actually it was only 89 days to be exact but who is counting? For these I have my sister and brother-in-law to thank, a summer of truly perfect memory that would last a lifetime
Momentarily I have toyed with the idea of a quick trip to Hong Kong to see Sandy Lam in concert but, no offense, watching 林憶蓮 MMXI won't even come close to this and I don't want to miss one minute of it.
An angel sent from above
Do you know that when a cranky baby keeps pulling his ear it is likely because he is teething?
You can take me out of Japan but you can’t take the samurai out of me
有得玩水就最開心
I can swim too, I just need a little *push*
感覺多麼完美 都只因有著你
Momentarily I have toyed with the idea of a quick trip to Hong Kong to see Sandy Lam in concert but, no offense, watching 林憶蓮 MMXI won't even come close to this and I don't want to miss one minute of it.
An angel sent from above
Do you know that when a cranky baby keeps pulling his ear it is likely because he is teething?
You can take me out of Japan but you can’t take the samurai out of me
有得玩水就最開心
I can swim too, I just need a little *push*
感覺多麼完美 都只因有著你
Friday, September 23, 2011
Meet Priscilla Chan
Not THAT Priscilla Chan
For 老餅 like me who grew up in Hong Kong during the 80s, there is no better way to pass your time by Googling the once superstars from yesteryears' Pearl of Orient. With the ongoing of Sandy Lam's concert, it is only logical for me to dig up the latest scoop on her one-time classmate/nemesis 陳慧嫻. I was expecting images of 傻女
or that lamp shade hat 
from 秋色 to pop up on my laptop but instead what showed up is none other than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg along with some Asian girl. 陳慧嫻 might have seen better days but you would have thought she would still be the most famous Priscilla Chan out there.
Well but no but no. Turn out I am obviously a little behind in the dating gossips of Internet moguls. Hot in the news earlier this year was that online networking revolutionist Mark Zuckerberg had come clean with his relationship status when he flipped his own Facebook page to "In a Relationship" with a certain Priscilla Chan whom he has been seeing ever since they were students in Harvard. That shouldn't be of any interest to me if not for one minor detail - I happen to know someone named Priscilla Chan who went to Harvard during the early 2000s.
In truth, to say I know Mr. Zuckerberg's girlfriend (and rumoured fiancée) is a little stretching; we were more like acquaintances through the same part-time job we both had in late 2002 only and I don't expect she would even remember me at all. In fact, not until I saw the hometown and high school in her Facebook page was I certain that she is the person I once worked with.
When I was laid off from my software development job one month after Sept 11, 2001, as the story goes, I went into an extended period of unemployment. On the advice from career specialists, I took up a part-time job in a local office supply retailer, not so much for financial reason but just to keep my spirit up. It is the kind of work mostly for high school students looking for some extra spending money. Although it isn’t something I am keen on repeating again, I still believe it was the right move at the time.
So for the first time in over a decade, I had high school kids as my co-workers and the best part of it was most of them assumed I was their age when I was actually at least twelve years their senior. Among them was a high school senior working at the register named Priscilla Chan, whose name was naturally the first thing that caught my attention. I had once asked her and she freely admitted that she was aware there was a famous singer in Hong Kong who shared the same name but she was quick to point out that she was born a tad too early to be named after 陳慧嫻. Later on I found out she went to the same local high school where I spent one year in before heading to college. So she updated me that Mr. Harrington, the History teacher who had lobbied to take me out of ESL (English as Second Language) into his class, has since retired.
Priscilla lists Cantonese as one of the three languages she speaks in her Facebook page but in the six months or so we worked together I had never heard her speak Cantonese. However, in the couple occasions where a few Cantonese-speaking customers were visiting the store, I could tell she can comprehend their conversation since she figured out what they are looking for. So it could be just that she wasn’t comfortable enough to talk to native Cantonese speakers, just like how I feel about speaking English socially sometimes. Besides, Priscilla was genuinely an amiable person - one thing I remember the most is she always gave another girl in the store a ride home after work. For a long time I just assume they are close buddies from school. Turned out they were from different schools and only got to know each other through work. For those who have never live in North America, you may not realize how huge a favor it is for high school kids to be able to count on someone for a ride when most of them don’t own a car.
Asians in America tend to have the reputation to be the model students who all excel academically and aspire to be doctors or scientists. Priscilla certainly did not disappoint these expectations. With her potential it was only natural for her to be ambitious when it came to her college choices. She has confessed to be feeling guilty about applying close to ten universities at the time because it would cost quite a fortune (the application fee for most colleges is about US$ 70 these days). Having been in the same position before I divulged to Priscilla one of the best kept secrets in Boston - you are allowed to have up to four college application waivers per lifetime, made available to you by The Education Resources Institute (TERI) in the Johnson Building of Boston Public Library. Considering where she eventually went (and whom she had met there) maybe I could claim some credits here myself.
That of course is all jest, Priscilla is gifted enough to reach the top without anyone's help, much less mine. In fact, if I am not mistaken she enrolled at Harvard through Early Decision, meaning application for most schools was still open when she was accepted. Chances are she might never need to use the waivers at all.
When the news that she got admitted to Harvard broke a mild buzz of excitement was brought to the otherwise uneventful life in the store. In April 2003, after being out of a full time job for almost a year and a half, I finally landed a real job and back in the high tech. industry. Promptly I quitted my part-time job and I think Priscilla did the same a month before me, probably to get ready for a new life after high school. In the following couple years I occasionally wonder if I would bump into her whenever I pass by Harvard campus on my way to the library but it never happened. As the time passed she kind of faded from my memory, until now. Ever since her relationship with Mark Zuckerberg had become public she had been hounded by photographers and the media but information on her is rather sketchy. Some said she is currently in medical school but other said she is a grade school science teacher. Regardless, I am sure Priscilla will shine in whatever career pursuit she is undertaking. Let’s hope a bright and challenging future lie ahead for her, both personally and with Mr. Zuckerberg.
For 老餅 like me who grew up in Hong Kong during the 80s, there is no better way to pass your time by Googling the once superstars from yesteryears' Pearl of Orient. With the ongoing of Sandy Lam's concert, it is only logical for me to dig up the latest scoop on her one-time classmate/nemesis 陳慧嫻. I was expecting images of 傻女
or that lamp shade hat 
from 秋色 to pop up on my laptop but instead what showed up is none other than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg along with some Asian girl. 陳慧嫻 might have seen better days but you would have thought she would still be the most famous Priscilla Chan out there.
Well but no but no. Turn out I am obviously a little behind in the dating gossips of Internet moguls. Hot in the news earlier this year was that online networking revolutionist Mark Zuckerberg had come clean with his relationship status when he flipped his own Facebook page to "In a Relationship" with a certain Priscilla Chan whom he has been seeing ever since they were students in Harvard. That shouldn't be of any interest to me if not for one minor detail - I happen to know someone named Priscilla Chan who went to Harvard during the early 2000s.
In truth, to say I know Mr. Zuckerberg's girlfriend (and rumoured fiancée) is a little stretching; we were more like acquaintances through the same part-time job we both had in late 2002 only and I don't expect she would even remember me at all. In fact, not until I saw the hometown and high school in her Facebook page was I certain that she is the person I once worked with.
When I was laid off from my software development job one month after Sept 11, 2001, as the story goes, I went into an extended period of unemployment. On the advice from career specialists, I took up a part-time job in a local office supply retailer, not so much for financial reason but just to keep my spirit up. It is the kind of work mostly for high school students looking for some extra spending money. Although it isn’t something I am keen on repeating again, I still believe it was the right move at the time.
So for the first time in over a decade, I had high school kids as my co-workers and the best part of it was most of them assumed I was their age when I was actually at least twelve years their senior. Among them was a high school senior working at the register named Priscilla Chan, whose name was naturally the first thing that caught my attention. I had once asked her and she freely admitted that she was aware there was a famous singer in Hong Kong who shared the same name but she was quick to point out that she was born a tad too early to be named after 陳慧嫻. Later on I found out she went to the same local high school where I spent one year in before heading to college. So she updated me that Mr. Harrington, the History teacher who had lobbied to take me out of ESL (English as Second Language) into his class, has since retired.
Priscilla lists Cantonese as one of the three languages she speaks in her Facebook page but in the six months or so we worked together I had never heard her speak Cantonese. However, in the couple occasions where a few Cantonese-speaking customers were visiting the store, I could tell she can comprehend their conversation since she figured out what they are looking for. So it could be just that she wasn’t comfortable enough to talk to native Cantonese speakers, just like how I feel about speaking English socially sometimes. Besides, Priscilla was genuinely an amiable person - one thing I remember the most is she always gave another girl in the store a ride home after work. For a long time I just assume they are close buddies from school. Turned out they were from different schools and only got to know each other through work. For those who have never live in North America, you may not realize how huge a favor it is for high school kids to be able to count on someone for a ride when most of them don’t own a car.
Asians in America tend to have the reputation to be the model students who all excel academically and aspire to be doctors or scientists. Priscilla certainly did not disappoint these expectations. With her potential it was only natural for her to be ambitious when it came to her college choices. She has confessed to be feeling guilty about applying close to ten universities at the time because it would cost quite a fortune (the application fee for most colleges is about US$ 70 these days). Having been in the same position before I divulged to Priscilla one of the best kept secrets in Boston - you are allowed to have up to four college application waivers per lifetime, made available to you by The Education Resources Institute (TERI) in the Johnson Building of Boston Public Library. Considering where she eventually went (and whom she had met there) maybe I could claim some credits here myself.
That of course is all jest, Priscilla is gifted enough to reach the top without anyone's help, much less mine. In fact, if I am not mistaken she enrolled at Harvard through Early Decision, meaning application for most schools was still open when she was accepted. Chances are she might never need to use the waivers at all.When the news that she got admitted to Harvard broke a mild buzz of excitement was brought to the otherwise uneventful life in the store. In April 2003, after being out of a full time job for almost a year and a half, I finally landed a real job and back in the high tech. industry. Promptly I quitted my part-time job and I think Priscilla did the same a month before me, probably to get ready for a new life after high school. In the following couple years I occasionally wonder if I would bump into her whenever I pass by Harvard campus on my way to the library but it never happened. As the time passed she kind of faded from my memory, until now. Ever since her relationship with Mark Zuckerberg had become public she had been hounded by photographers and the media but information on her is rather sketchy. Some said she is currently in medical school but other said she is a grade school science teacher. Regardless, I am sure Priscilla will shine in whatever career pursuit she is undertaking. Let’s hope a bright and challenging future lie ahead for her, both personally and with Mr. Zuckerberg.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
地震
There is a first for everything I supposed but it only felt like a rocking boat, thankfully
Monday, May 23, 2011
Heard from the Street
I can't take credit for these but it is just too brilliant not to share out
"It has been a really tough weekend," Camping said Sunday, after emerging from his Alameda, California home for the first time to talk to a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. "I'm looking for answers ... But now I have nothing else to say"
89-year-old Harold Camping's admission that he's "flabbergasted" the world didn't end last weekendOh cheer up Harold. We all make mistakes. Its not the end of the world
Sunday, May 8, 2011
星光伴我心之中西合壁
One of my somewhat embarrassing-to-admit interests is old black & white movies. I can never pass the opportunity if I happened to glance an old movie playing on TV when I was flipping through channels. That even included old-fashioned 粵語殘片, much to the annoyance of the people I live with since most of them would sneer at their corniness. Admittedly many 粵語殘片 are dated story and tilted acting galore, some actually are, however, in reasonably high quality (particularly those by 中聯) if only you give it a chance and judge it based on its own context. Naturally it caught my attention when net acquaintance Chris introduce the 粵語殘片 actress 麗兒 in his blog 子貓物語~~附庸風雅
麗兒 (Marianne Quon) is, of course, a ground-breaking Chinese actress in both Hollywood and Chinese movie history. However, what really took me a ride down the memory lane are the two actors in the audience in the above clip:
For those who are novice to 粵語殘片, the one on the left is 鄭惠森, one of his more famous (recurring) roles is 凌雲階 in 關德興’s 黃飛鴻 series. The one on the right is an actor named 馮應湘. His name was more obscure today because he was primarily a character actor and passed away in the mid 50s already. However, seeing 馮應湘 in the clip above has reminded me one of the most unusual 粵語殘片 I had once watched by chance when I was a kid years ago. 馮應湘 was often cast as ne’er-do-well or playboys but in this particular case not only did he play a hero, he actually played a superhero. I only remember bits and pieces of the movie but the part I remember is something like this:
It was an ensemble movie and 馮應湘 was just one of the many cast members who have super power but his is the one I remember the most. I have never come across this movie again and often I wonder if that actually happened at all. If this movie really did exist, it must be one of the first ever superhero movies in Hong Kong.
Now that my memory of the movie was triggered once again, I set out to locate the movie but even though 馮應湘 died at the relatively young age of 46, he has made a staggering two hundred something movies in his short life and most of them have details missing to say the least. It will need some detective work to find the match, if at all. Fortunately with its unusual storyline, I managed find a movie named 亂世英雄 (A Hero of Troubled Times) in 中國影視資料館 with the following synopsis and list of cast, characters:
The plot sounds like a page you ripped off from an episode of the 70s comic book superhero series Super Friends 萬能勇士:
萬能勇士
Remember that American TV program, featuring 正義堂 (The Justice League of America), 雙子少俠 (Super Twins)...? In fact, it is not hard to detect the American influence on 亂世英雄 from the photo still of the movie in 中國影視資料館:
Here we have the hypnotist wearing a sultan outfit that recalls the sorcerers in many old Hollywood fantasy movies like The Thief of Bagdad, an American cowboy and even a blackface, a distinctive (not to mention extremely racist and politically incorrect) piece of Americana.
The only other info I can find on 亂世英雄 is this photo still I came across on a discussion board on Hong Kong nostalgia, featuring "離魂秘客金萬成" (played by 鄭君綿) on the left and "迷魂賊章大朋" (played by 姚萍) on the right:
Even people of my generation would recognize 鄭君綿 since he had acted on TV from time to time until he passed away in 1994. He was famous for impersonating Elvis Presley during his 粵語殘片 days and he was nicknamed “東方貓王”. According to 中國影視資料館, 亂世英雄 was released in 1950, when Elvis had yet to put out a record. Looking at the above photo still, I can’t help but wondering if 鄭君綿 was channeling the famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
鄭君綿 vs. Salvador Dalí's self portrait
Even though I haven’t found any clip of 亂世英雄, I can’t tell you how excited I was to be able to locate the name of a movie that had lived in my memory for so long. For I have never met anyone who has recollection of such an odd 粵語殘片, even from people of my parents’ generation. Once and for all I proved that I didn’t dream the whole movie up. Next time I am in Hong Kong I definitely will try my luck with 亂世英雄 at Hong Kong Film Archive. In the meanwhile it would be more than welcome to hear from anyone who knows anything about the movie or how to get hold of it.
麗兒 (Marianne Quon) is, of course, a ground-breaking Chinese actress in both Hollywood and Chinese movie history. However, what really took me a ride down the memory lane are the two actors in the audience in the above clip:
For those who are novice to 粵語殘片, the one on the left is 鄭惠森, one of his more famous (recurring) roles is 凌雲階 in 關德興’s 黃飛鴻 series. The one on the right is an actor named 馮應湘. His name was more obscure today because he was primarily a character actor and passed away in the mid 50s already. However, seeing 馮應湘 in the clip above has reminded me one of the most unusual 粵語殘片 I had once watched by chance when I was a kid years ago. 馮應湘 was often cast as ne’er-do-well or playboys but in this particular case not only did he play a hero, he actually played a superhero. I only remember bits and pieces of the movie but the part I remember is something like this:
There was a guy who took refuge in 馮應湘‘s house because he was on the run from some kind of (righteous) mission. Unbeknown to this man, 馮應湘 happened to have a jacket that can turn him invisible. As a result, they decide to join force together to carry out the mission...
It was an ensemble movie and 馮應湘 was just one of the many cast members who have super power but his is the one I remember the most. I have never come across this movie again and often I wonder if that actually happened at all. If this movie really did exist, it must be one of the first ever superhero movies in Hong Kong.
Now that my memory of the movie was triggered once again, I set out to locate the movie but even though 馮應湘 died at the relatively young age of 46, he has made a staggering two hundred something movies in his short life and most of them have details missing to say the least. It will need some detective work to find the match, if at all. Fortunately with its unusual storyline, I managed find a movie named 亂世英雄 (A Hero of Troubled Times) in 中國影視資料館 with the following synopsis and list of cast, characters:
新任市長章大朋的真正身份是大盜'迷魂賊', 其妻梅玲則是'野女郎'. 二人軟禁了前市長馬頌潮, 企圖迫他道出國家藏金的所在, 但頌潮一直不肯就範. 由政府首都派來的監察員金萬成正對大朋的舉動有所懷疑, 遂展開追查, 並聯同'女黑俠'呂秀雲施計營救馬市長. 秀雲以歌女身份混入大朋的迷宮, 與萬成裡應外合. 此際梅玲發現了她的勁敵'玉面霸王'史劍青及其妻雪蝶尋至, 便擬先下手為強, 除掉雪蝶. 劍青在逃命期間結識了'隱形博士'戴鐵龍, 二人決定合力除害, 對付大朋夫婦. 各路英雄用不同方法混進迷宮, 皆被識破, 最後萬成巧施催眠術, 加上隱形博士的隱形衣, 終告打敗迷魂賊夫婦, 成功救出頌潮復職, 社會回復太平.
羅品超 .... 玉面霸王史劍青
郭秀珍 .... 野女郎梅玲
姚萍 .... 迷魂賊章大朋
徐人心 .... 女黑俠呂秀雲
鄭君綿 .... 離魂秘客金萬成
馬小玲 .... 周雪蝶
譚子駒 .... 陸隊長
冼江 .... 特務長
馮應湘 .... 隱形博士戴鐵龍
藍菲 .... 馬頌潮
林華 .... 獄卒
佩佩 .... 蕙絲
The plot sounds like a page you ripped off from an episode of the 70s comic book superhero series Super Friends 萬能勇士:
Remember that American TV program, featuring 正義堂 (The Justice League of America), 雙子少俠 (Super Twins)...? In fact, it is not hard to detect the American influence on 亂世英雄 from the photo still of the movie in 中國影視資料館:
Here we have the hypnotist wearing a sultan outfit that recalls the sorcerers in many old Hollywood fantasy movies like The Thief of Bagdad, an American cowboy and even a blackface, a distinctive (not to mention extremely racist and politically incorrect) piece of Americana.
The only other info I can find on 亂世英雄 is this photo still I came across on a discussion board on Hong Kong nostalgia, featuring "離魂秘客金萬成" (played by 鄭君綿) on the left and "迷魂賊章大朋" (played by 姚萍) on the right:
Even people of my generation would recognize 鄭君綿 since he had acted on TV from time to time until he passed away in 1994. He was famous for impersonating Elvis Presley during his 粵語殘片 days and he was nicknamed “東方貓王”. According to 中國影視資料館, 亂世英雄 was released in 1950, when Elvis had yet to put out a record. Looking at the above photo still, I can’t help but wondering if 鄭君綿 was channeling the famous Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
Even though I haven’t found any clip of 亂世英雄, I can’t tell you how excited I was to be able to locate the name of a movie that had lived in my memory for so long. For I have never met anyone who has recollection of such an odd 粵語殘片, even from people of my parents’ generation. Once and for all I proved that I didn’t dream the whole movie up. Next time I am in Hong Kong I definitely will try my luck with 亂世英雄 at Hong Kong Film Archive. In the meanwhile it would be more than welcome to hear from anyone who knows anything about the movie or how to get hold of it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wedding Madness
Not until now did I realize what a big worldwide obsession the British Royal family is
I was in Milan when the news of the engagement between Prince William and Catherine Middleton broke. All day and all night it was Will and Kate on the hotel TV (in Italian naturally). Back in Boston we have been bombarded with every little detail of the upcoming nuptial for weeks (or was it months?). Even a local bicycle enthusiast had become headline news simply because she shares the same namesake with the bride to be:
And I thought the Yanks had fought a war against their former landlord!!
For me all I can say is time and tide – It doesn’t seem that long ago we were witnessing Diana madness when a twenty year old kindergarten teacher walked down the aisle to the arm of a (marginally) dashing prince, and now it is her son’s turn. How quietly the years can creep up on you!
In additions to the well wishing, the press has kept reassuring us that the road ahead for the engaged couple will be much less rocky than their predecessors – they are much closer in age; they have been together for almost a decade; the prince is not pressured into marriage this time; Kate grew up in a happier childhood and is more educated… etc. One particular argument the press like to emphasize is that Kate is far more worldly, confident and sophisticated than Diana was at the time of the wedding, so the verdict is Kate would be more ‘prepared’ for intense scrutiny to come, or is it so?
I have never actually paid much attention to Kate Middleton before but in the midst of the Royal Wedding frenzy I decide to dig up the interviews of both couples before their wedding on YouTube:
William and Kate do look like they are very excited and happy but which engaged couple wouldn’t? You could say the same about Charles and Diana at the time as well and we all know how the latter turned out to be. Diana did sound like ditsy and babbling at times but she was also more straight forward and uninhibited. Kate, on the other hand, appeared a lot more subdue than I expect. Apart from the bit where she said she was grateful that they have split up for awhile because it allowed her to grow and see relationship in a more realistic perspective, she didn’t appear to be particularly perceptive about their union. Especially when she was asked about the difficulty of stepping into the shadow of Diana, which understandably will dog her for years to come, you would expect she must have thought of that and be prepared for questions like this but her response is disappointing and confusing.
However, what a revelation Prince William is, he is supposed to be the one that is uncomfortable and shy from the spotlight but he was quite at ease here. More importantly he was very protective and ready to jump in to dodge the bullet for his future wife when she appeared lost in the question. How reassuring it is to have your prince give you a pat on your lap and said “she will do really well”. No wonder he is one of the biggest heartthrobs of England in his time.
Every marriage will have its problem and no one will know what the future will hold. When you decide go into a marriage you'll need to be brave and I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone can be *prepared* for it to be done in such a public way if you aren't born into it. Well, good luck Kate!
I was in Milan when the news of the engagement between Prince William and Catherine Middleton broke. All day and all night it was Will and Kate on the hotel TV (in Italian naturally). Back in Boston we have been bombarded with every little detail of the upcoming nuptial for weeks (or was it months?). Even a local bicycle enthusiast had become headline news simply because she shares the same namesake with the bride to be:
And I thought the Yanks had fought a war against their former landlord!!
For me all I can say is time and tide – It doesn’t seem that long ago we were witnessing Diana madness when a twenty year old kindergarten teacher walked down the aisle to the arm of a (marginally) dashing prince, and now it is her son’s turn. How quietly the years can creep up on you!
In additions to the well wishing, the press has kept reassuring us that the road ahead for the engaged couple will be much less rocky than their predecessors – they are much closer in age; they have been together for almost a decade; the prince is not pressured into marriage this time; Kate grew up in a happier childhood and is more educated… etc. One particular argument the press like to emphasize is that Kate is far more worldly, confident and sophisticated than Diana was at the time of the wedding, so the verdict is Kate would be more ‘prepared’ for intense scrutiny to come, or is it so?
I have never actually paid much attention to Kate Middleton before but in the midst of the Royal Wedding frenzy I decide to dig up the interviews of both couples before their wedding on YouTube:
William and Kate do look like they are very excited and happy but which engaged couple wouldn’t? You could say the same about Charles and Diana at the time as well and we all know how the latter turned out to be. Diana did sound like ditsy and babbling at times but she was also more straight forward and uninhibited. Kate, on the other hand, appeared a lot more subdue than I expect. Apart from the bit where she said she was grateful that they have split up for awhile because it allowed her to grow and see relationship in a more realistic perspective, she didn’t appear to be particularly perceptive about their union. Especially when she was asked about the difficulty of stepping into the shadow of Diana, which understandably will dog her for years to come, you would expect she must have thought of that and be prepared for questions like this but her response is disappointing and confusing.
However, what a revelation Prince William is, he is supposed to be the one that is uncomfortable and shy from the spotlight but he was quite at ease here. More importantly he was very protective and ready to jump in to dodge the bullet for his future wife when she appeared lost in the question. How reassuring it is to have your prince give you a pat on your lap and said “she will do really well”. No wonder he is one of the biggest heartthrobs of England in his time.
Every marriage will have its problem and no one will know what the future will hold. When you decide go into a marriage you'll need to be brave and I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone can be *prepared* for it to be done in such a public way if you aren't born into it. Well, good luck Kate!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
AA制之旅: Going Dutch Part 1
What do you do when you have the whole house all to yourself and you will have to cook for the entire month? Since a lot of eating out is expected when cooking is never my favorite pastime, I figure out I might just get the double whammy by eating out abroad. There I was, searching for a cheap flight and found a fare to Amsterdam that costs me only a low USD 500. So off I go for a five-day rendezvous in the land of wooden cloggs, windmills and of course weeds.
Flying
, it is a low cost airline from Ireland that I have never heard of until this trip; naturally my flight had to connect at Dublin. There was a nearly four and a half hour wait for my connection, I have plenty of time to kill even after a breakfast, so I just did some Duty Free window shopping at Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath. One unusual service their Duty Free offers is hair salon:
I suppose that does make senses. There must be plenty of people who want to look their best after a long flight, when their hair just looks like a mess.
Because I felt I was ripped off in getting my Euro during my trip to Italy last November (which I still haven’t blogged yet), so this time I want to make sure I get the best deal by keeping track of the exchange rate at the airport, so here on the right is the rate at Schiphol Airport from ABN AMRO Bank, the biggest bank in Amsterdam, advertised in vs on the left the rate I got at Boston Logan Airport:
If I read it correctly, that means one USD will get me 0.64758 Euro in Amsterdam versus 0.639 Euro in Boston. In the end I didn't get my Euro in either places. Instead I get it through the ATM of my brokerage account at Schiphol airport since they don't charge any fee. After checking my brokerage account statement, I actually get 0.705408 Euro with one USD. So I guess that is a wise move but I must say either I have misunderstood the rates in kiosks at the airports or they are just high way robberies.
Two observations I have about Schiphol airport
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is about 19 km (roughly 10 miles) southwest of Amsterdam. If you don't know your way in Amsterdam, the best way to get to town from the airport is through the train service offered by GVB, the company that manages all the public transport of Amsterdam, including bus, tram and subway. The railway station conveniently located underneath the terminal complex of Schiphol and you can buy the train ticket in one of the yellow ticket vending machines that can be found at the terminal exit:
These machines supports multiple languages and are relatively easy to navigate but there are quite a few options to choose from: namely the one way or round trip, same day or open ticket, first class (which I suspect no one uses) or second class… Although the ticket vending machine has the capability to accept cash, this option happened to be unavailable in all the machines at the airport terminal when I was there. So I can only pay by credit card. However, credit cards purchase in Europe in general requires you to enter a PIN which does not exist in North American credit cards. I know there is a workaround if you want to use your American credit cards in Europe but that would require human intervention. So you would be out of luck with these machines when they are programmed to prompt you for your credit card PIN. In the end I had to buy my ticket with a live person at the ticket counters just outside of the terminal. The catch of this is the fare will cost you slightly more (maybe half a Euro) but that was my only option, or so I thought – after I paid my ticket I found that at the train station there are plenty more of these ticket vending machines and a few of them did have the pay by cash option available. One final word, there is an extra one Euro fee to pay by credit card, so if you are nickel and dime-ing with your traveling budget the cheapest option to reach downtown Amsterdam is to buy a second class train ticket on a vending machine by cash, for EUR 3.6 one way.
GVB offers a few different lines of train service and even within the same line they don’t always stop at every station. But since Centraal Station is the main hub of Amsterdam’s public transportation, almost every train will indicate whether or not it will stop there on the billboard. For instance, the 1:39 p.m. train below will not:
However, if you are unsure, don't be afraid to ask the people at the platform. The Dutch in general are very friendly people and everyone can speak English in the Netherlands, some are amazingly fluent even.
After years of enduring the subpar services of North American public transportation, it is always a pleasure to take the train in Europe. Notice the scheduled arrival time (left on the billboard) and the actual arrival time (on the right) of the train I was about to take in the clip below:
to be continue...
Flying
, it is a low cost airline from Ireland that I have never heard of until this trip; naturally my flight had to connect at Dublin. There was a nearly four and a half hour wait for my connection, I have plenty of time to kill even after a breakfast, so I just did some Duty Free window shopping at Aerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath. One unusual service their Duty Free offers is hair salon:
I suppose that does make senses. There must be plenty of people who want to look their best after a long flight, when their hair just looks like a mess.
Because I felt I was ripped off in getting my Euro during my trip to Italy last November (which I still haven’t blogged yet), so this time I want to make sure I get the best deal by keeping track of the exchange rate at the airport, so here on the right is the rate at Schiphol Airport from ABN AMRO Bank, the biggest bank in Amsterdam, advertised in vs on the left the rate I got at Boston Logan Airport:
If I read it correctly, that means one USD will get me 0.64758 Euro in Amsterdam versus 0.639 Euro in Boston. In the end I didn't get my Euro in either places. Instead I get it through the ATM of my brokerage account at Schiphol airport since they don't charge any fee. After checking my brokerage account statement, I actually get 0.705408 Euro with one USD. So I guess that is a wise move but I must say either I have misunderstood the rates in kiosks at the airports or they are just high way robberies.
Two observations I have about Schiphol airport
- It takes a long time go through the security checkpoint but the security checkpoint is done at the gate level instead of the restricted area level. Therefore, as long as you’ve checked in it is unlikely you would miss your flight because of delay in security checkpoint
- A more difficult phenomenon to get used to is that like everywhere else, the janitors for public toilets (after living in US for more than 20 years, I needs a more deliberated effort to say toilet instead of bathroom) are held by women but unlike most of the places I have been to, the janitors do NOT shut down the toilet when they work, including men’s toilet. That means when you are using the toilet, don’t be surprised there is a woman standing next to you and it seems everyone is quite nonchalant about that. In fact that seems to extend to the entire Amsterdam where the general close proximity between public men’s and women’s toilets would allow you a few view of interior of either sex (Amsterdam is known to be a very tolerating city where prostitution and marijuana are not outlawed; I wonder what their attitude toward Peeping Toms is). So you might want to stick with the stall instead of urinal if you desperately need your privacy.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is about 19 km (roughly 10 miles) southwest of Amsterdam. If you don't know your way in Amsterdam, the best way to get to town from the airport is through the train service offered by GVB, the company that manages all the public transport of Amsterdam, including bus, tram and subway. The railway station conveniently located underneath the terminal complex of Schiphol and you can buy the train ticket in one of the yellow ticket vending machines that can be found at the terminal exit:
These machines supports multiple languages and are relatively easy to navigate but there are quite a few options to choose from: namely the one way or round trip, same day or open ticket, first class (which I suspect no one uses) or second class… Although the ticket vending machine has the capability to accept cash, this option happened to be unavailable in all the machines at the airport terminal when I was there. So I can only pay by credit card. However, credit cards purchase in Europe in general requires you to enter a PIN which does not exist in North American credit cards. I know there is a workaround if you want to use your American credit cards in Europe but that would require human intervention. So you would be out of luck with these machines when they are programmed to prompt you for your credit card PIN. In the end I had to buy my ticket with a live person at the ticket counters just outside of the terminal. The catch of this is the fare will cost you slightly more (maybe half a Euro) but that was my only option, or so I thought – after I paid my ticket I found that at the train station there are plenty more of these ticket vending machines and a few of them did have the pay by cash option available. One final word, there is an extra one Euro fee to pay by credit card, so if you are nickel and dime-ing with your traveling budget the cheapest option to reach downtown Amsterdam is to buy a second class train ticket on a vending machine by cash, for EUR 3.6 one way.
GVB offers a few different lines of train service and even within the same line they don’t always stop at every station. But since Centraal Station is the main hub of Amsterdam’s public transportation, almost every train will indicate whether or not it will stop there on the billboard. For instance, the 1:39 p.m. train below will not:
However, if you are unsure, don't be afraid to ask the people at the platform. The Dutch in general are very friendly people and everyone can speak English in the Netherlands, some are amazingly fluent even.
After years of enduring the subpar services of North American public transportation, it is always a pleasure to take the train in Europe. Notice the scheduled arrival time (left on the billboard) and the actual arrival time (on the right) of the train I was about to take in the clip below:
to be continue...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Reunited at the Oscar?
The last time I seriously followed the Oscar race Hong Kong was still under the Union Jack. I supposed as one grows older you can’t help but get more cynical about how self-congratulatory these so-called honours are. However, as this year’s race is approaching its frenzy finale I can’t resist sharing a little trivia I have noticed. Coming to the home stretch Colin Firth is no doubt the favorite to win the Best Actor; his George VI in The King’s Speech has all the prestige and momentum for the award. The fact that he lost out to Jeff Bridge last year could only boosts his chance this year even more. Only slightly more suspenseful is the Best Actress race, Natalie Portman has been on a roll in the last couple months: a new husband, a new baby, a number one box office hit, the only thing missing is a statuette which seems inevitable since Annette Bening is the only other serious contender. On the other hand, if everything pans out according to the script, that means once again Bening will play the bridesmaid. Although there is no hard evidence to it, common consensus is that Annette was the runner up in both 1999 and 2004, both times to Hilary Swank.
At 52, Annette Bening has long expired her leading lady time limit and this year will be her last realistic chance to win the Oscar for Best Actress but that dubiously could be her trumping card to pull off an upset, particularly when Natalie Portman is considered still at the dawn of her career. Supposed the Academy did decide to honour the award this year based on one’s career instead of an individual performance, that means it could reunite Colin Firth and Annette Bening at the winner podium. For at the very beginning of their Hollywood careers Firth and Bening co-starred together in an A-list production but with few audience called Valmont.
The first starring role for Bening and the first Hollywood movie for Firth, Valmont was the Czechoslovakia-born director Milos Forman's follow up his Oscar success Amadeus in 1989. Adapting from the Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses about revenge and seduction, Valmont, like Amadeus, is another costume drama set in Baroque Europe. The producer no doubt was hoping that the similar format could duplicate the success of its predecessor. But what was unexpected is that in the middle of the production, rising British director Stephen Frears had announced his first foray into Hollywood should be Dangerous Liaisons (孽戀焚情), the movie adaption of Christopher Hampton’s stage production of the same novel, and its release date beat Valmont by eleven months. Dangerous Liaisons went on to great success during the Award season and firmly established Frears in Hollywood. Milos Foreman is famous for stories about underdogs such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and Amadeus (Mozart is the underdog to Salieri within the movie). However, in this case Foreman had become the underdog himself and Valmont would need to be his extraordinary in order to have a chance, and it was not - Valmont impressed few critics, fizzled at the box office and it did nothing to further Colin Firth's career in Hollywood (History will repeat itself when the public largely ignored Infamous, the Toby Jones’ vehicle about author Truman Capote’s research for his book In Cold Blood, one year after Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for the same story in Capote). Nevertheless, it is always interesting to, given the same sources, compare two movies for the creative difference behind them. In this case, it is also a career starting point of two of this year's award favorites.
Dangerous Liaisons vs. Valmont
For those who are unfamiliar, the plot of Les Liaisons dangereuses revolves around a bet between widow Marquise de Merteuil and notorious womanizer Vicomte de Valmont. Upon learning her lover is deserting her for her second cousin, the young convent-educated Cécile de Volanges, Merteuil suggests her ex-lover Valmont to seduce Cécile in order to humiliate Cécile’s future husband. Valmont instead sets his eyes on Madame de Tourvel, the virtuous wife of a judge who is staying in the châteaux of Valmont’s old aunt. Merteuil then promises Valmont if he succeeds in sleeping with Tourvel she will spend the night with him. In the meantime, Cécile falls in love with her music tutor Chevalier Danceny and the two carry on a secret affair behind Cécile’s controlling mom. Seizing the opportunity, Merteuil and Valmont pretend to help uniting the secret lovers in order to gain their trust so that they can carry out their own schemes…
Benefited from a stage adaption, the dialogues of the movie Dangerous Liaisons were more literate and concise but delivered a more powerhouse punch. Frears casted two theatre veterans (and bigger stars), Glenn Close and John Malkovich, for the two leads in order to be faithful to the stage flavor, even though Close and Malkovich are significantly older than the characters they portrayed. The movie also made strong use of close up and medium shots to accentuate the dramatic effect of the dueling between the various protagonists. (Some also suggests this is to mask the minimal sets in order to keep the movie in a relatively tight budget). Valmont, on the other hand, featured a much younger cast; the five main characters on average are six years junior to the respective actors in Dangerous Liaisons. Featuring numerous extreme long shots and crowd scenes, Valmont showcases its bigger budget on elaborate sets and on-location shooting, even with a more obscure leads.
Glenn Close vs. Annette Bening
As the bitterly scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close was once again casted in a sexually charged role following her turn as the psychotic female stalker Alex Forrest in the box office smash Fatal Attraction. Although it was implied that she had numerous lovers in Dangerous Liaisons, one gets the feeling that it wasn’t carnal pleasure but revenge that Close’s Merteuil was seeking. Revenge against a male-dominated society where she, as a woman, was condemned to play a subservient part. When asked how she managed to invent herself with the murderous plans she had constantly plotted, Merteuil said:
"I had no choice, did I? I'm a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has ever thought of before. And I've succeeded because I've always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own"
When Valmont related to Merteuil the erotic bliss he experienced when he successfully seduced Madame de Tourvel into sleeping with him, the look of envy and self-pity on Close' face seemed to suggest Merteuil had never actually enjoyed sexual intercourse in her life. If Dangerous Liaisons was directed by a woman, I wouldn't be a bit surprised Merteuil will be turned into a closeted lesbian. On the contrary, after another round of secret rendezvous in the beginning of Valmont, Merteuil lying naked on the bed unabashedly yearned for the quick return of her lover Comte de Gercourt (a character who didn't appear in Dangerous Liaisons at all even though he was supposedly the primary motive behind Merteuil's bet), unbeknown to her at the time Gercourt was about to leave her for her second cousin Cécile. In fact, when Annette Bening's Merteuil first took Cécile under her wing upon Cécile's mother's request, she actually protect Cécile from the amorous advance of Valmont. Unlike Close's Merteuil, Bening's version did have a certain noble intention in her soul.
It was Stephen Frear who temporarily set Annette Bening’s career back with Dangerous Liaisons. Ironically it was also Frears who righted her course for he casted Annette as one of the double-crossing con artists trio in his next Hollywood movie, the neo-noir The Grifters, for which Annette received her first Oscar nomination and finally put her on the map. She followed that up with the role of Virginia Hill, 40s Hollywood starlet and gun-moll to Warren Beatty’s Benjamin Siegel in Bugsy. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening hooked up during the filming, almost a standard procedure for any Beatty’s movies but Bening managed to have Beatty married her, something none of the luminous list of Beatty’s old flames that includes Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton… had accomplished. They stayed married close to twenty years now, almost longer than all his previous affairs combined
John Malkovich vs. Colin Firth
Half bald, slightly crossed-eyes and looked older than his age, if not for his outstanding stage pedigree, John Malkovich was indeed an odd choice to play the supposedly charming but diabolical seducer Vicomte de Valmont. His renowned for playing creeps, however, gave an extra predatory dimension to the character, such as the time when Tourvel had to flee to her room to recompose herself upon hearing Valmont’s shocking declaration of love for her. The way Malkovich went after Michelle Pfeiffer to her room was like a wild beast toying with his wounded prey: giving his victim a false sense of security with an easy escape but always knows that it is within his grasp. Malkovich’s sadistic trait was never more evident than his callous and brutal brash off of Tourvel by repeatedly saying "It’s beyond my control":
On the other hand, Colin Firth was only slightly better casted himself. With the exception of Mr. Darcy in the mini-series Pride and Prejudice where he did a skinny-dipping, Firth usually played characters that are solid but stoic, dependable but internal and low in charisma, including his turn as the stuttering King George VI in this year’s nomination, which is a long way from the debauchery of Valmont. This is evident even in his first movie Another Country, where he played the intellectual Marxist Tommy Judd while Rupert Everett played the flamboyant Guy Bennett. Interestingly, Rupert Everett would play Vicomte de Valmont himself in a 2003 French TV adaption of Les liaisons dangereuses, and Everett would be a better choice than Firth had the series was made ten years earlier.
As a result, Firth’s Valmont was more playful and joie de vivre than dangerous. Instead of a charming devilish seducer, he was more an immature Casanova who was just unable to commit to one person. While Malkovich’s Valmont will charm a woman just for the sake of ruining her, Firth’s actually did care the woman he wooed, regardless how short that might last. His Valmont sincerely believed that one should only marry for love and not for honour and position and that’s why he openly sided with Cécile to choose Danceny instead of marrying a man she doesn’t love, even before he and Merteuil had declared war against each other.
In fact, Bening’s Merteuil had such an upper hand over Firth’s Valmont throughout the movie that the victor of their duel was never in question, while the pairing of Glenn Close and John Malkovich did at least have an element of tension.
Michelle Pfeiffer vs. Meg Tilly
While Forman presented a gentler, less malicious Merteuil and Valmont in his version of Les Liaisons dangereuses, he also presented a less virtuous Madame de Tourvel. Firth’s Valmont managed to breakdown Tourvel’s defense with all the time-honoured trick of courtship: a little horseback riding, a little picnicking in open garden, a little romp on the dance floor…etc, nothing out of the ordinary any hormone driven male wouldn’t do. Contrasting with the distance John Malkovich has gone: feigning a moral reformation, bribing and then blackmailing Tourvel’s maid, intercepting all Tourvel’s personl correspondence… Surprisingly, there was no hint of Tourvel’s religious faith at all in Valmont (Michelle Pfeiffer made her first entrance in Dangerous Liaisons in a Sunday mass). Michelle Pfeiffer actually turned down the offer of the Merteuil part in Valmont to play Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons. Considered that she is never known for playing innocent characters, Frears probably cast Michelle Pfeiffer for her iciness than her purity. For the battle to breakdown Pfeiffer’s frigid façade with Malkovich’s connivance had been most dramatically effective
Meg Tilly, on the other hand, was known to specialize in ethereal childlike roles. A very appealing and promising actress during the 80s, Tilly aspired to be a dancer growing up. However a back injury cut her dance career short and so she drifted into acting, following her older sister Jennifer Tilly’s footsteps. She first gained notice in Psycho II, the surprisingly effective sequel to Hitchcock’s masterpiece. She followed that with a part of the ensemble cast in Lawrence Kasdan acclaimed cult dramedy The Big Chill. Her most famous role is the mysteriously impregnated nun in Agnes of God (神蹟奇案) , for which she won an Oscar nomination. Her casting in Valmont was actually a compensation for missing out the part of Mozart’s wife in Forman’s Amadeus. The part was offered to her only to be recasted due to Tilly's untimely foot injury. Although Valmont was not the success as Amadeus, Tilly and Firth fell in love during the filming and she bore him a son shortly after the film wrapped. Meg‘s career couldn’t sustain the momentum in the 90s and sadly she quitted movie altogether in 1995 to concentrate on raising her children and a new career as a writer. One interesting trivia about Meg Tilly: she and her sisters are actually half Chinese and their surname by birth is Chan, Tilly was the surname of their mother they adopted after their parents got divorced. In fact, her sister Jennifer Tilly was casted in a Eurasian part in the Aaron Kwok costume historic drama 白銀帝國
Uma Thurman vs. Fairuza Balk
Keanu Reeves vs. Henry Thomas
At 52, Annette Bening has long expired her leading lady time limit and this year will be her last realistic chance to win the Oscar for Best Actress but that dubiously could be her trumping card to pull off an upset, particularly when Natalie Portman is considered still at the dawn of her career. Supposed the Academy did decide to honour the award this year based on one’s career instead of an individual performance, that means it could reunite Colin Firth and Annette Bening at the winner podium. For at the very beginning of their Hollywood careers Firth and Bening co-starred together in an A-list production but with few audience called Valmont.
The first starring role for Bening and the first Hollywood movie for Firth, Valmont was the Czechoslovakia-born director Milos Forman's follow up his Oscar success Amadeus in 1989. Adapting from the Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses about revenge and seduction, Valmont, like Amadeus, is another costume drama set in Baroque Europe. The producer no doubt was hoping that the similar format could duplicate the success of its predecessor. But what was unexpected is that in the middle of the production, rising British director Stephen Frears had announced his first foray into Hollywood should be Dangerous Liaisons (孽戀焚情), the movie adaption of Christopher Hampton’s stage production of the same novel, and its release date beat Valmont by eleven months. Dangerous Liaisons went on to great success during the Award season and firmly established Frears in Hollywood. Milos Foreman is famous for stories about underdogs such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon and Amadeus (Mozart is the underdog to Salieri within the movie). However, in this case Foreman had become the underdog himself and Valmont would need to be his extraordinary in order to have a chance, and it was not - Valmont impressed few critics, fizzled at the box office and it did nothing to further Colin Firth's career in Hollywood (History will repeat itself when the public largely ignored Infamous, the Toby Jones’ vehicle about author Truman Capote’s research for his book In Cold Blood, one year after Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for the same story in Capote). Nevertheless, it is always interesting to, given the same sources, compare two movies for the creative difference behind them. In this case, it is also a career starting point of two of this year's award favorites.
Dangerous Liaisons vs. Valmont
For those who are unfamiliar, the plot of Les Liaisons dangereuses revolves around a bet between widow Marquise de Merteuil and notorious womanizer Vicomte de Valmont. Upon learning her lover is deserting her for her second cousin, the young convent-educated Cécile de Volanges, Merteuil suggests her ex-lover Valmont to seduce Cécile in order to humiliate Cécile’s future husband. Valmont instead sets his eyes on Madame de Tourvel, the virtuous wife of a judge who is staying in the châteaux of Valmont’s old aunt. Merteuil then promises Valmont if he succeeds in sleeping with Tourvel she will spend the night with him. In the meantime, Cécile falls in love with her music tutor Chevalier Danceny and the two carry on a secret affair behind Cécile’s controlling mom. Seizing the opportunity, Merteuil and Valmont pretend to help uniting the secret lovers in order to gain their trust so that they can carry out their own schemes…
Benefited from a stage adaption, the dialogues of the movie Dangerous Liaisons were more literate and concise but delivered a more powerhouse punch. Frears casted two theatre veterans (and bigger stars), Glenn Close and John Malkovich, for the two leads in order to be faithful to the stage flavor, even though Close and Malkovich are significantly older than the characters they portrayed. The movie also made strong use of close up and medium shots to accentuate the dramatic effect of the dueling between the various protagonists. (Some also suggests this is to mask the minimal sets in order to keep the movie in a relatively tight budget). Valmont, on the other hand, featured a much younger cast; the five main characters on average are six years junior to the respective actors in Dangerous Liaisons. Featuring numerous extreme long shots and crowd scenes, Valmont showcases its bigger budget on elaborate sets and on-location shooting, even with a more obscure leads.
Glenn Close vs. Annette Bening
As the bitterly scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close was once again casted in a sexually charged role following her turn as the psychotic female stalker Alex Forrest in the box office smash Fatal Attraction. Although it was implied that she had numerous lovers in Dangerous Liaisons, one gets the feeling that it wasn’t carnal pleasure but revenge that Close’s Merteuil was seeking. Revenge against a male-dominated society where she, as a woman, was condemned to play a subservient part. When asked how she managed to invent herself with the murderous plans she had constantly plotted, Merteuil said:
"I had no choice, did I? I'm a woman. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You can ruin our reputation and our life with a few well-chosen words. So, of course, I had to invent, not only myself, but ways of escape no one has ever thought of before. And I've succeeded because I've always known I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own"
When Valmont related to Merteuil the erotic bliss he experienced when he successfully seduced Madame de Tourvel into sleeping with him, the look of envy and self-pity on Close' face seemed to suggest Merteuil had never actually enjoyed sexual intercourse in her life. If Dangerous Liaisons was directed by a woman, I wouldn't be a bit surprised Merteuil will be turned into a closeted lesbian. On the contrary, after another round of secret rendezvous in the beginning of Valmont, Merteuil lying naked on the bed unabashedly yearned for the quick return of her lover Comte de Gercourt (a character who didn't appear in Dangerous Liaisons at all even though he was supposedly the primary motive behind Merteuil's bet), unbeknown to her at the time Gercourt was about to leave her for her second cousin Cécile. In fact, when Annette Bening's Merteuil first took Cécile under her wing upon Cécile's mother's request, she actually protect Cécile from the amorous advance of Valmont. Unlike Close's Merteuil, Bening's version did have a certain noble intention in her soul.
It was Stephen Frear who temporarily set Annette Bening’s career back with Dangerous Liaisons. Ironically it was also Frears who righted her course for he casted Annette as one of the double-crossing con artists trio in his next Hollywood movie, the neo-noir The Grifters, for which Annette received her first Oscar nomination and finally put her on the map. She followed that up with the role of Virginia Hill, 40s Hollywood starlet and gun-moll to Warren Beatty’s Benjamin Siegel in Bugsy. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening hooked up during the filming, almost a standard procedure for any Beatty’s movies but Bening managed to have Beatty married her, something none of the luminous list of Beatty’s old flames that includes Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton… had accomplished. They stayed married close to twenty years now, almost longer than all his previous affairs combined
John Malkovich vs. Colin Firth
Half bald, slightly crossed-eyes and looked older than his age, if not for his outstanding stage pedigree, John Malkovich was indeed an odd choice to play the supposedly charming but diabolical seducer Vicomte de Valmont. His renowned for playing creeps, however, gave an extra predatory dimension to the character, such as the time when Tourvel had to flee to her room to recompose herself upon hearing Valmont’s shocking declaration of love for her. The way Malkovich went after Michelle Pfeiffer to her room was like a wild beast toying with his wounded prey: giving his victim a false sense of security with an easy escape but always knows that it is within his grasp. Malkovich’s sadistic trait was never more evident than his callous and brutal brash off of Tourvel by repeatedly saying "It’s beyond my control":
On the other hand, Colin Firth was only slightly better casted himself. With the exception of Mr. Darcy in the mini-series Pride and Prejudice where he did a skinny-dipping, Firth usually played characters that are solid but stoic, dependable but internal and low in charisma, including his turn as the stuttering King George VI in this year’s nomination, which is a long way from the debauchery of Valmont. This is evident even in his first movie Another Country, where he played the intellectual Marxist Tommy Judd while Rupert Everett played the flamboyant Guy Bennett. Interestingly, Rupert Everett would play Vicomte de Valmont himself in a 2003 French TV adaption of Les liaisons dangereuses, and Everett would be a better choice than Firth had the series was made ten years earlier.
As a result, Firth’s Valmont was more playful and joie de vivre than dangerous. Instead of a charming devilish seducer, he was more an immature Casanova who was just unable to commit to one person. While Malkovich’s Valmont will charm a woman just for the sake of ruining her, Firth’s actually did care the woman he wooed, regardless how short that might last. His Valmont sincerely believed that one should only marry for love and not for honour and position and that’s why he openly sided with Cécile to choose Danceny instead of marrying a man she doesn’t love, even before he and Merteuil had declared war against each other.
In fact, Bening’s Merteuil had such an upper hand over Firth’s Valmont throughout the movie that the victor of their duel was never in question, while the pairing of Glenn Close and John Malkovich did at least have an element of tension.
Michelle Pfeiffer vs. Meg Tilly
While Forman presented a gentler, less malicious Merteuil and Valmont in his version of Les Liaisons dangereuses, he also presented a less virtuous Madame de Tourvel. Firth’s Valmont managed to breakdown Tourvel’s defense with all the time-honoured trick of courtship: a little horseback riding, a little picnicking in open garden, a little romp on the dance floor…etc, nothing out of the ordinary any hormone driven male wouldn’t do. Contrasting with the distance John Malkovich has gone: feigning a moral reformation, bribing and then blackmailing Tourvel’s maid, intercepting all Tourvel’s personl correspondence… Surprisingly, there was no hint of Tourvel’s religious faith at all in Valmont (Michelle Pfeiffer made her first entrance in Dangerous Liaisons in a Sunday mass). Michelle Pfeiffer actually turned down the offer of the Merteuil part in Valmont to play Tourvel in Dangerous Liaisons. Considered that she is never known for playing innocent characters, Frears probably cast Michelle Pfeiffer for her iciness than her purity. For the battle to breakdown Pfeiffer’s frigid façade with Malkovich’s connivance had been most dramatically effective
Meg Tilly, on the other hand, was known to specialize in ethereal childlike roles. A very appealing and promising actress during the 80s, Tilly aspired to be a dancer growing up. However a back injury cut her dance career short and so she drifted into acting, following her older sister Jennifer Tilly’s footsteps. She first gained notice in Psycho II, the surprisingly effective sequel to Hitchcock’s masterpiece. She followed that with a part of the ensemble cast in Lawrence Kasdan acclaimed cult dramedy The Big Chill. Her most famous role is the mysteriously impregnated nun in Agnes of God (神蹟奇案) , for which she won an Oscar nomination. Her casting in Valmont was actually a compensation for missing out the part of Mozart’s wife in Forman’s Amadeus. The part was offered to her only to be recasted due to Tilly's untimely foot injury. Although Valmont was not the success as Amadeus, Tilly and Firth fell in love during the filming and she bore him a son shortly after the film wrapped. Meg‘s career couldn’t sustain the momentum in the 90s and sadly she quitted movie altogether in 1995 to concentrate on raising her children and a new career as a writer. One interesting trivia about Meg Tilly: she and her sisters are actually half Chinese and their surname by birth is Chan, Tilly was the surname of their mother they adopted after their parents got divorced. In fact, her sister Jennifer Tilly was casted in a Eurasian part in the Aaron Kwok costume historic drama 白銀帝國
Uma Thurman vs. Fairuza Balk
Keanu Reeves vs. Henry Thomas
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Measure of A Day
For us Chinese, February 2nd of 2011 will mark the end of the Year of Tiger. However, for American, Feb 2nd of any year will be known as the Groundhog Day. Groundhog is a kind of North American rodent that hibernates in the winter. According to folklore, on Feb 2nd, upon emerging from its burrow after a winter of hibernation, if a groundhog sees its shadow and retreat back to the burrow, it means the winter will extend for another six weeks. Otherwise, an early spring will be just around the corner, or so they say...
If every culture is entitled to have a certain idiosyncratic ritual, such as Mamemaki (豆撒き) for Japanese and Villain Hitting (打小人) for Cantonese, then for American Groundhog Day will be one of those. Although I don’t think many people will actually plan their spring vacation around the prediction the groundhog made, the occasion was greeted with much fanfare across the country, particularly in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the tradition supposedly originated from. The whole proceeding receives major coverage from all weather channels every year and it also gave birth to one of his most critically acclaimed movies for comedian Bill Murray, also named Groundhog Day.
Strategically released the week after Groundhog Day and just before Valentine's Day in 1993, the movie Groundhog Day tells the story of a conceited man named Phil Connors who worked as a weatherman in a small local TV station in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was, against his will, sent to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog festival for the fourth year in a row. Accompanying him was cameraman Larry and producer Rita whom Phil secretly fancied.
However, even the charming Rita could not make the experience any more bearable for Phil and he won’t waste a moment to flee town the minute he perfunctorily finished his coverage. As fate would have it, a massive blizzard that supposedly should detour the area has changed its course and hit Punxsutawney in full blast, causing all the major highways to be closed and everyone had to turn back. Hardly the happy camper, Phil barely dragged through the night but then strange things happened: he woke up the next morning to the same date as the day before, re-encountering the same events with the same conversation all over again. Even stranger, the same thing happened again the day after, and the day after… Before long he realized by some force of nature, he was eternally trapped in a time loop and had to relive the day he detested the most over and over again, Groundhog Day.
Throughout the course of the movie, Phil’s reaction to this unexpected turn of events went through a series of stages – First he was perplexed, then he was elated as he realized he would never need to be responsible for his action when tomorrow never came, but soon boredom crept in which ultimately led to despair and suicidal. Nothing, nevertheless, could alter the fact that it will always be Groundhog Day every day. Eventually, out of desperation, he seeks comfort from Rita by confiding to her with his implausible tale even though he knew no matter how understanding Rita could be, it would all go back to square one when the day was over...
For many, Bill Murray’s Oscar nomination for the more pretentious Lost in Translation is just a belated remedy to his snub for Groundhog Day (and also Rushmore, another under-appreciated work from Bill Murray)
It is possible that the filmmaker never intended the movie to be anything more than a romantic comedy with a fantasy twist to it. Regardless, audience has read many different philosophies into the premise of Groundhog Day: when Phil rhetorically asked an acquaintance ‘what would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?’, ‘That about sum it up for me’ was the cynical reply and I am sure many audience will concur. For there is a Groundhog Day in each of us and like Phil we are forced to confront the meaning of life when it appears to be just an endless repetition of routines with no consequence. It is this element of existentialism that elevates Groundhog Day from a mere comedy to a cult favorite over the years. It is also one of the few Hollywood movies that received a remake treatment from Europe, reincarnated as È già ieri (literally it means It's Already Yesterday):
European movies have always prided themselves to be more original than their Hollywood counterpart. However, in a rare reversal of norm, an Italian remake of Groundhog Day was filmed in 2004. Briefly showed in some isolated art house theaters in US under the name Stork Day, È già ieri retold the story with Italian TV personality Filippo who was sent to make a documentary about storks in Tenerife, one of the seven Canary Islands archipelagos that belong to Spain. However, after the filming wrapped, the ferry that supposed to take the crew back to civilization broke down and everyone has to return back to the island, thus accounted for the stranded element in the original tale. I have never watched È già ieri but instead of a gray, little east coast town in gloomy winter, Tenerife is actually a sunny, tropical paradise that attracts over five million tourists each year. A lot of convincing the movie will need to do if trapping there is meant to be a curse, the Bossa Nova flavored score certainly doesn’t help.
Bill Murray became famous along with Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Jane Curtin and Chevy Chase as the original cast members of the phenomenally popular sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) during the late 70s. The success of the show allowed Murray to spill over to a movie career and propelled him to a huge box office star with a string of hits like Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Tootsie (1982), Scrooged (1988), peaking with one of the quintessential 80s blockbusters, Ghostbusters (1984). Groundhog Day continued his winning streak when it became the tenth highest domestically grossed movie of 1993 (Wikipedia said thirteenth but that is only because it was based on the final gross instead of the year-end gross, notice that three movies ahead of it, The Pelican Brief, Schindler’s List and Philadelphia, were released in the last weeks of 1993 and so technically it hadn’t passed Groundhog Day when the year ended)
However, Bill Murray has never been a box office draw in Hong Kong partly because SNL didn't have the same kind of impact there. A search in Internet revealed that Groundhog Day was released under the generic title 《偷天情緣》 in Hong Kong during late 1993 and grossed a mere HK$ 1.25 million, ranked 174 out of 380 released that year. Ranked number one was 《侏羅紀公園》(Jurassic Park) with the then record-breaking gross HK$ 61.9 million. Comparing with a special effect galore is of course unfair, but even measuring against the similar genre 《緣份的天空》 (Sleepless In Seattle) Groundhog Day still appeared to be under-performing when it only grossed one ninth of the former even though it definitely is a much better movie than the sappy Meg Ryan yarn. A common trait among cult movies is that they tend to get overlooked during initial release. Maybe it was high time for you to rediscover this lost gem in this Groundhog/Valentine's Day season
If every culture is entitled to have a certain idiosyncratic ritual, such as Mamemaki (豆撒き) for Japanese and Villain Hitting (打小人) for Cantonese, then for American Groundhog Day will be one of those. Although I don’t think many people will actually plan their spring vacation around the prediction the groundhog made, the occasion was greeted with much fanfare across the country, particularly in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the tradition supposedly originated from. The whole proceeding receives major coverage from all weather channels every year and it also gave birth to one of his most critically acclaimed movies for comedian Bill Murray, also named Groundhog Day.
Strategically released the week after Groundhog Day and just before Valentine's Day in 1993, the movie Groundhog Day tells the story of a conceited man named Phil Connors who worked as a weatherman in a small local TV station in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was, against his will, sent to Punxsutawney to cover the Groundhog festival for the fourth year in a row. Accompanying him was cameraman Larry and producer Rita whom Phil secretly fancied.
However, even the charming Rita could not make the experience any more bearable for Phil and he won’t waste a moment to flee town the minute he perfunctorily finished his coverage. As fate would have it, a massive blizzard that supposedly should detour the area has changed its course and hit Punxsutawney in full blast, causing all the major highways to be closed and everyone had to turn back. Hardly the happy camper, Phil barely dragged through the night but then strange things happened: he woke up the next morning to the same date as the day before, re-encountering the same events with the same conversation all over again. Even stranger, the same thing happened again the day after, and the day after… Before long he realized by some force of nature, he was eternally trapped in a time loop and had to relive the day he detested the most over and over again, Groundhog Day.
Throughout the course of the movie, Phil’s reaction to this unexpected turn of events went through a series of stages – First he was perplexed, then he was elated as he realized he would never need to be responsible for his action when tomorrow never came, but soon boredom crept in which ultimately led to despair and suicidal. Nothing, nevertheless, could alter the fact that it will always be Groundhog Day every day. Eventually, out of desperation, he seeks comfort from Rita by confiding to her with his implausible tale even though he knew no matter how understanding Rita could be, it would all go back to square one when the day was over...
For many, Bill Murray’s Oscar nomination for the more pretentious Lost in Translation is just a belated remedy to his snub for Groundhog Day (and also Rushmore, another under-appreciated work from Bill Murray)
It is possible that the filmmaker never intended the movie to be anything more than a romantic comedy with a fantasy twist to it. Regardless, audience has read many different philosophies into the premise of Groundhog Day: when Phil rhetorically asked an acquaintance ‘what would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you did mattered?’, ‘That about sum it up for me’ was the cynical reply and I am sure many audience will concur. For there is a Groundhog Day in each of us and like Phil we are forced to confront the meaning of life when it appears to be just an endless repetition of routines with no consequence. It is this element of existentialism that elevates Groundhog Day from a mere comedy to a cult favorite over the years. It is also one of the few Hollywood movies that received a remake treatment from Europe, reincarnated as È già ieri (literally it means It's Already Yesterday):
European movies have always prided themselves to be more original than their Hollywood counterpart. However, in a rare reversal of norm, an Italian remake of Groundhog Day was filmed in 2004. Briefly showed in some isolated art house theaters in US under the name Stork Day, È già ieri retold the story with Italian TV personality Filippo who was sent to make a documentary about storks in Tenerife, one of the seven Canary Islands archipelagos that belong to Spain. However, after the filming wrapped, the ferry that supposed to take the crew back to civilization broke down and everyone has to return back to the island, thus accounted for the stranded element in the original tale. I have never watched È già ieri but instead of a gray, little east coast town in gloomy winter, Tenerife is actually a sunny, tropical paradise that attracts over five million tourists each year. A lot of convincing the movie will need to do if trapping there is meant to be a curse, the Bossa Nova flavored score certainly doesn’t help.
Bill Murray became famous along with Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Jane Curtin and Chevy Chase as the original cast members of the phenomenally popular sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) during the late 70s. The success of the show allowed Murray to spill over to a movie career and propelled him to a huge box office star with a string of hits like Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Tootsie (1982), Scrooged (1988), peaking with one of the quintessential 80s blockbusters, Ghostbusters (1984). Groundhog Day continued his winning streak when it became the tenth highest domestically grossed movie of 1993 (Wikipedia said thirteenth but that is only because it was based on the final gross instead of the year-end gross, notice that three movies ahead of it, The Pelican Brief, Schindler’s List and Philadelphia, were released in the last weeks of 1993 and so technically it hadn’t passed Groundhog Day when the year ended)
However, Bill Murray has never been a box office draw in Hong Kong partly because SNL didn't have the same kind of impact there. A search in Internet revealed that Groundhog Day was released under the generic title 《偷天情緣》 in Hong Kong during late 1993 and grossed a mere HK$ 1.25 million, ranked 174 out of 380 released that year. Ranked number one was 《侏羅紀公園》(Jurassic Park) with the then record-breaking gross HK$ 61.9 million. Comparing with a special effect galore is of course unfair, but even measuring against the similar genre 《緣份的天空》 (Sleepless In Seattle) Groundhog Day still appeared to be under-performing when it only grossed one ninth of the former even though it definitely is a much better movie than the sappy Meg Ryan yarn. A common trait among cult movies is that they tend to get overlooked during initial release. Maybe it was high time for you to rediscover this lost gem in this Groundhog/Valentine's Day season
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
