Andy Shen
Sunday, January 3, 2021
伤痕 - 林忆莲 / Scars - Sandy Lam
Monday, December 28, 2020
Palm Springs: Groundhog's Day with more Passengers
"It's gonna be a beautiful wedding!"
I have been looking forward to this movie for a while. The trailer was exceptionally cut and I was hooked. Plus, I'll always watch anything with Andy Samberg. Him plus Cristin Milioti? Sold.
The concept of time loop interests me, the chance of reliving the same day over and over again. At the start... it would be to anticipate what happens that day, to learn the routine. I'm extremely curious of pondering the what if, being able to remember the outcome for the next day.
What Groundhog's Day did... was to put the main love interest as a constant, to start the day as the same, and hopefully change her with each version of the day. I found it too drastic the difference between what's shown as the "end of day" for her in earlier versions at the start compared to the canonical "end of day".
At the same time, it does not explore the loneliness that Phil feels, the kind that Bill Murray is really good at in Lost in Translation 10 years later. That's where the Passengers thoughts come in.
Chris Pratt's world does not repeat on a particular day, instead, it is full of emptiness in a futile situation. He's not able to predict the day, but... there's nothing to predict. He does the same things, a mundane repetition. The beauty of setting it in space also helps to give the audience a more direct translation of isolation. He pulls in another character to share the experience, and they're shown to enjoy each other's company.
It however lacks a motivation for either character to do something... else. The Mcguffin is... oh boy.
The above two movies, completely different settings and storylines but sharing the same theme of repetition and loneliness.
Palm Springs does a great job of learning from the mistakes of both previous movies. The Mcguffin makes sense (for what it is) and they resolve it with a bang. The main events of the day gets covered in the first 5 mins with a lot of scenes left out. Hence, when it does repeat, the viewers get more context and additional scenes for the day.
Story is told from Milioti's perspective, with Samberg showing her the ropes of the day. It is a much tighter movie than Groundhog's Day as a result. In my opinion, the chemistry between Samberg and Milioti is much better than Pratt and Lawerence or Murray and MacDowell. This time as Milioti is in the time loop with Samberg, both have lots of character development and play off each other.
People have been calling Palm Springs a modern revised Groundhog's Day. That is absolutely correct. To me, I reckon it to a more refined and enjoyable Passengers.
Go watch it, is what I'm saying.
"It's gonna be a beautiful wedding!"
___
P.S. I also love that they threw in a quick 2 seconds of J.K. Simmons holding a whip and "lashing" out at Samberg. It's amazing.
P.P.S. Coincidentally, there's a video on YouTube on how if Passengers was rearranged it would be a much more interesting movie.
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Car
He sat in the car after driving 2 hours back at a Starbucks off the side of the highway.
Thoughts settled. He dialled up her phone.
The voice on the other end seemed despondent and confused.
"Why are you calling me?"
"I just got back, and wanted to talk to you."
There was silence, and then more silence and then the sobbing started.
"I promised I would call you when I got back."
...
"I didn't even know who this number was."
"I deleted you off my contacts list"
________________________________
遗憾的不是人,而是曾经承诺的。
就算承诺现在达到了,人也不在了。
怪要怪时间吧,计划赶不上变化。
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Chapter 7: (夜的)第七章
Racism teaches us that we are different because of the color of our skin. But because racism is stupid, it’s easily tricked. If you’re racist and you meet someone who doesn’t look like you, the fact that he can’t speak like you reinforces your racist preconceptions: He’s different, less intelligent. A brilliant scientist can come over the border from Mexico to live in America, but if he speaks in broken English, people say, “Eh, I don’t trust this guy.”
“But he’s a scientist.”
“In Mexican science, maybe. I don’t trust him.”
However, if the person who doesn’t look like you speaks like you, your brain short-circuits because your racism program has none of those instructions in the code. “Wait, wait,” your mind says, “the racism code says if he doesn’t look like me he isn’t like me, but the language code says if he speaks like me he...is like me? Something is off here. I can’t figure this out.”
种族主义说我们因为肤色的不同而不同。但种族主义者很蠢,很容易被骗。如果你是个种族主义者,你遇到一个和你长得不一样的人,恰巧他说话的方式和你也不一样,这只会加深你的种族偏见:他和我不一样,智商低。假设一个很厉害的科学家从墨西哥移民到美国,但他的英文说得磕磕巴巴,人们会说:“呃,我不相信他。”
“可是他是科学家啊。”
“墨西哥科学吧,我不相信他。”
但是,如果这个人和你长得不同,但是说话方式一样,你那植入了种族主义程序的大脑就会短路,不知道该如何处理此类代码。“等等,”你的大脑说,“种族主义的代码说,如果他长得不像我,那么他和我不同,但是语言代码又说他和我说一样的语言......所以他和我一样?什么地方不太对啊。我想不明白了。”