fashion futures

Carmen Carrera: Show Girl by Steven MEISEL – W magazine Sept 2013

Carmen Carrera: Show Girl

The trailblazing performer is dressed to thrill.

I’m a Jersey girl. I was raised by my mom—who was the flyest girl ever—my older sister, and my grandmother. My father died of AIDS when I was 2, but I grew up really happy; there were women around me all the time, and a lot of love. My mom is Peruvian and curly-haired and is a big beauty inspiration for me. We’d always be singing the latest hits, and she would enroll me in little plays, but I was shy. I was more into doing things by myself: I’d wrap a T-shirt around my head and put on makeup to try to look like her. I knew that I was different, but my mom never told me I should be any other way. Consequently, I didn’t grow up thinking that I was wrong being who I was—until I got to school. That’s when the actress in me had to come out.

I’d see kids who were gay, and they’d get picked on. So I learned very quickly that I had to keep certain things to myself: I’d try to act like a boy and wear sneakers. It helped that I was friends with all the cool girls. They would hang out with the popular boys, who knew better than to tease me or the girls would get on their case. But straight after finishing high school, I left them all—I went to New York, like, that weekend. I’d gotten a brand-new car, and I started going to the Village and getting to know the scene. I went to my first drag show at a Latin club called Escuelita. The finale starred this stunningly beautiful goddess. She was obviously a transwoman, and she took my breath away. At the time I was studying photography in college, so I would take pictures of the shows, and I got to know all the girls. I also started doing makeup professionally, but surprisingly I discovered that what I really wanted to do was perform. I participated in an amateur show, and the audience loved me—I won! After that, I started touring clubs and acquired a fan base. I also realized that being onstage gave me an escape: I could be feminine, which is what I was on the inside. I never felt like a gay guy—growing up I’d pray that I would wake up a girl.

Eventually, I didn’t want to act like a woman anymore—I wanted to become one. I went to a doctor, and he prescribed what I needed. But I sat on it for a little bit. I kept thinking, What happens if I don’t look nice? That same month, I got a phone call from the producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Literally the day after we finished filming the show, I decided it was time to transition.

It hasn’t been easy—especially when it comes to dating. I tell people I’m transgender, and they bring up all the negative stereotypes that come from ignorance. I don’t have time to play psychologist, so I try to lead by example. I want to leave something behind so people can look back one day and say, “Wow, remember when transpeople were discriminated against the most? This person was like, ‘Screw everybody! I’m going to parade around half-naked and be superproud, because that’s how everyone should be!’ ”

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week 1 to 4: internship with Filmax

Week 1

The first day of work, I was so excited that I went their 30 minutes
early, I supposed to meet with the editor in chief (Alongkorn) of
Filmax at 14.00 but I got there at 13.30. I was surprised by the size
of the office. It’s an apartment with one bedroom which they used as
an editor’s office, outside of editor’s room there’re 5 to 6 desks in
the living room which are all occupied by computers and paper works.
There were only two people when I got there, I was curious how they
operate to come out with a magazine every month. The place doesn’t
look very much like a functional office.

They told me to go wait in the editor’s room. I waited for 2 hours,
until Khun Alongkorn came in and we started to talk. He said that this
is his daily routine, he doesn’t come to work in the morning but he
works mostly at night. He said that nobody comes into office here.
They go out and do their work. He said that he is about to close this
current issue that he’s working on, all of the articles are done and
ready to publish the only I can do then is to help them check for
spelling mistakes which I did and it was not a very exciting job and
they got to do this spelling check many times though until they send
it off to the printing company. But as I trying to find for wrong
spelling in the articles, it also gave me a chance to learn more about
the magazine. I found out that their magazine is not actually a film
critic magazine.  Their magazine is more about introducing new movies,
film news and stuff like that. So the magazine basically focuses more
on the mass movies or the big budget movies but not the indy ones
which is kind of disappointing. The editor said that film market in
Thailand is not very versatile. People don’t go watch those indy
movies or even drama films are hard to sell here in Thailand. There
are not many company in Thailand that are buying movie from Hollywood
and have then shown here in Thailand. There used to be more movies
coming in to Thailand but now those companies only pick the ones that
they think will definitely sell here in Thailand. For example, good
movies like Crazy Heart, The Blind side weren’t shown in the theatres.
It makes me sad for myself and other Thai people that they lose
opportunity to see many good films.

Week 2

There is one film critic who has been working as a freelance and has
been writing critiques for filmax for quite sometimes now, but the
problem is that this film critic guy, he insists that he will write
everything on a piece of paper and then fax it to filmax instead of
typing it in computer so every time they got the hand written copy of
the critiques then they have to type it again in order for it to be
ready for printing so the editor ( Khun Alongkorn ) was kind enough to
give me this work. It’s not a hard work to do, basically you have to
read his hand writing and then type it in word by word. The article
was about two films that just hit the theatres which are The Switch
(From the director of Juno) and Machete. I noticed that this film
critic guy, when he critiques he will not say that the movie is good
or bad but he will instead say what he thinks the film is all about
and let the readers decide if it’s a good or bad movie.  I was
surprised that there are some people that still refuse to use computer
to write. I guess he used to doing stuff the same way over and over
that he doesn’t feel that he needs to change. He’s probably not a
young film critic I think but it’s more believable when you read
critiques from someone who is older because they have more experience
in watching films.

The editor wants to see how well I write so he told me to write two
articles, the first is to pick either this movie called RED or The
Exorcism which I decided to do RED. The second assignment is for me to
write about any person in the film business that I like or admire.

Week 3

This week is a research week. In order to write an articles that I was assigned to do, I first have to get some basic information on the topics first. I have never written any magazine articles before so it’s a little hard to start, I didn’t what style should I write, should I be funny or should it be a formal article. To solve the problem I went out to buy many different film magazines and study those articles in the magazines and used those as guideline to write my own articles.

I’m doing articles on RED, the DC comic series turned feature film. A little bit about this film, it’s a story about this retired secret government agent (played by Bruce Willis) who is spending his peaceful life away from all the craziness but then the craziness follows him. A group of younger and more equipped agents are on a mission to get rid of him because he’s dangerous and know too much. So Bruce has to fight back and with a help from his old gang, including Helen Mirren, John Malcovich and Morgan Freeman. The purpose of writing this article is to help promote the movie and make people want to go see the movie so even if you don’t like the movie you still got to make it sounds like the best movie of all time. So after quite a few research, I came to conclusion that the greatest thing about this movie is the casting because it got many great actors. Who wouldn’t want to see Bruce Willis back doing what he does best which is action movie and if that’s not enough for you to go watch then imagine Helen Mirren from The Queen with gun in her hands shooting off people, that’s something you got to see. Other than that for me without all these casts I wouldn’t go watch the movie but of course I didn’t write that down. What I did write is that this movie is a must see and that you gonna see who’s going to win in this fight between an older but more experienced agent or a younger agent with more advanced weapons?

(Red article in Thai)

Red หนังแอคชั่น คอมเมดี้ ที่ดัดแปลงมาจาก ชุดหนังสือการ์ตูน Red ในชื่อเดียวกันนี้ ของ Warren Ellis และ Cully Hamner โดย มีสำนักพิมพ์อย่าง DC comics เป็นผู้จัดจำหน่าย หนังสือการ์ตูนนี้ถูกดัดแปลงมาเป็นบทภาพยนตร์โดย สองพี่น้อง Jon และ Erich Hoeber ผู้ซึ่งเคยเขียนบทให้กับหนังอย่างWhitout และ Alice

 

น่าแปลกใจที่ในเวอร์ชั่นหนังนี้ได้ Robert Schwentke มาเป็นผู้กำกับ เพราะเขาผู้นี้คือผู้กำกับที่เคยฝากผลงานไว้กับ หนังโรแมนติก ดราม่า ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ ที่มี Eric Bana และ Rachel McAdams แสดงนำ

 

Red ได้นักแสดงนำชื่อดังหลายคนมาเข้าร่วมแสดง นำโดย นักแสดงหนังแอคชั่นสุดเก๋าที่คงไม่มีใครไม่รู้จักอย่าง Bruce Willis ซึ่งเราเคยเห็นเขาแสดงนำในหนังบู๊ล้างผลานมาหลายต่อหลายเรื่อง ไม่ว่าจะเป็น Die Hard 1988, Pulp Fiction 1994 และ Sin City 2005 และตามมาด้วยกับนักแสดงคุณภาพระดับออสก้าร์ สามคน เริ่มต้นด้วย John Malkovich วึ่งเคยได้ถูกเสนอชื่อเข้าชิงออสก้าสองครั้งด้วยกัน ในบทบาทที่เขารับใน เรื่อง ‘Places in the Heart’ ในปี 1984 และใน 1993 อีกเรื่องชื่อ ‘In the Line of Fire’คนที่สองคือหนังแสดงสุดเก๋าอีกคนอย่าง Morgan Freeman ที่ใครๆก็ต่างชื่นชมในผลงานแสดงของเขา โดยรับประกันจากบทบาทที่เขารับใน เรื่อง Million Dollar Baby ที่ทำให้เขาได้รับรางวัลออสก้าร์ในฐานะนักแสดงสมทบชายยอดเยี่ยม และคนสุดท้าย คือนักแสดงหญิงรุ่นใหญ่ มากฝีมืออย่าง Helen Mirren ซึ่งได้รับรางวัลการันตีความสามารถอย่างนับไม่ถ้วน หนึ่งในนั้นคือ รางวัลออสก้าร์ สาขานักแสดงนำหญิงยอดเยี่ยม ที่เธอคว้ามาได้ในปี 2007 กับบทบาทการแสดงของเธอใน The Queen

 

แค่เห็นชื่อนักแสดงสี่คนนี้ก็เป็นเหตุผลที่เราจะไปดูหนังเรื่องนี้กันแล้วครับ อีกอย่างใครจะไม่อยากเห็น Helen Mirren ที่ เคยเล่นในหนังเครียดอย่าง The Queen ลุกขึ้นมาพลิกบทบาท หยิบปืนไรเฟิลขึ้นมายิงต่อสู้บ้างละครับ และที่น่าสนใจว่าบทที่ Helen Mirren ที่รับในเรื่อง Red นี้เคยเกือบตกเป็นของนักแสดงหญิงอีกคน Meryl Streep
Red เป็นเรื่องราวที่เล่าเกี่ยวกับ Frank Moses ซีไอเอเก่า รับบทโดย Bruce Willis ซึ่งเขากำลังใช้ชีวิหลังเกษียณที่เงียบสงบปราศจากความเครียด อยู่ที่บ้าน แต่มาวันหนึ่งก็มีคนที่จะพยายามเข้ามาฆ่าเขา ด้วยความที่เขาเคยเป็นสายลับที่เก่งกาจมาก่อน เขาจึงถูกตามฆ่าเพราะเค้านั้นเป็นตัวอันตราย ซึ่งเมื่อเขาถูกตามล่า เรื่องราวสุดมันส์ก็เริ่มต้นขึ้น ด้วยที่ว่าเขาไม่นิ่งดูดายนั่งเฉยรอให้ฆ่า แต่เขาเรียกรวมตัวเพื่อนก๋วนเดิมของเขา Marvin, Joe และ Victoria มาร่วมกันต่อสู้ครั้งสุดท้ายเพื่อเอาตัวรอดจากเหตุการณ์นี้ ซึ่งบทเพื่อนซี้สามคนนี้แสดงโดย John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman และ Helen Mirror เรื่องนี้ยังได้ Mary-Louise Parker (นักแสดงนำจากซีรีย์ทีวี Weeds) มาแสดงเป็นคู่รักต่างวัยของ Bruce Willis อีกด้วย
ชื่อของหนัง ‘RED’ นั้นย่อมาจากตราปะหน้าไฟล์เอกสารในหนัง ของ Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) ซึ่งเขียนว่า ‘Retired, Extremely Dangerous’ ซึ่งหมายความว่า ‘เกษียณ และ อันตรายเป็นอย่างมาก’ หนังเน้นให้เห็นถึงการที่คนมีอายุอย่าง Frank Moses ซึ่งต้องการที่จะละทิ้งชีวิตอันวุ่นวายไล่ล่าคนอื่น แต่กลับต้องมาถูกตามฆ่าฟันโดยสายลับที่ทั้งอ่อนกว่า ฟิตกว่า และก็ยังมีอุปกรณ์ฆ่าฟันที่ทันสมัยกว่าอีก ต้องมาดูกันว่า รุ่นเก่าผู้มีประสบการณ์โชกโชน หรือว่ารุ่นใหม่ ไฟแรง ใครที่จะเก๋าและเจ๋งกว่ากัน

หนังได้เริ่มถ่ายทำตั้งแต่ เดือนมกราคม 2010 ที่ โตรอนโต ประเทศแคนาดา และย้ายไปถ่ายทำอีกที่ในเมือง นิวออร์ลีนส์ ในรัฐลุยเซียนา Red มีกำหนดออกฉายทั่วโลกพร้อมกันในเดือนตุลาคม 2010

 

Another article is not limited, I could write about anyone in the business actors, directors or anyone so I chose to write about this upcoming actor that i’m sure not many people know him that much, Chris Pine. The process of writing this one is pretty much the same as the first. For this one it’s like introducing one person to another person. You say about the basic information about him, the bio, and also the interesting facts about him. For example what interested me about Chris Pine is that his family has a long history in acting from his grand mom to his father and mother. They were all actors which Chris said that it is a big advantage to him because his family understand what he has to go through as an actor, being rejected by the casting or having to deal with the press.

Chris Pine article in Thai

Chris Pine (Christopher Whitelaw Pine) นักแสดงหนุ่มวัย 30 ที่มีผลงานออกมาให้พวกเราได้ดูกันเรื่อยๆ ไม่ว่าจะเป็น The PrincessDiaries 2 ที่รับบทเป็นคู่รัก Anne Hathaway หรือว่าจะเป็นหนังรัก

โรแมนติกอีกเรื่อง Just My Luckที่เขารับบทนำคู่กับนักแสดงที่ตอนี้กำลังมีปัญหาเรื่องยาแสบติดรุ้มเร้า

อย่าง Lindsay Lohan และเขายังแสดงนำใน หนัง Startrek ภาคล่าสุด โดยมีผู้กำกับที่กำลังประสความสำเร็จสุดๆ อย่าง J.J. Abrams (Lost: Tv series, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible IV)

เมื่อตอนที่เขาตกลงรับบทนำใน Star Trek ทุกๆคนต่างตั้งหน้าตั้งตาค่อยดูว่า Chris Pine นั้นจะเล่นเป็นCaptain Kirk ได้ดี อย่างที่ William Shatner (นักแสดงคนก่อนที่เล่นเป็น Captain Kirk) เล่นไว้รึเปล่า แต่เขาก็ได้พิสูจน์ว่าเขานั้นก็เล่นบทนี้ได้ ด้วยตัวเลขรายรับของหนัง ที่กวาดรายได้ไป 257,704,099ดอลลาร์สหรัฐ ทั่วทั้งอเมริกา มันก็พิสูจน์ให้เราเห็นว่า Chris ไม่ได้เก่งแต่บทเจ้าสายสุดหล่อในหนังรัก
โรแมนติก แต่เขายังสามารถเล่นหนังแนว แอคชั่น ไซไฟ นอกโลกได้อีกด้วย ดขาเป็นที่จับตามองเป็นอย่างมากในขณะนี้ นิตยาสาระบันเทิงหลายเล่มในอเมริกาให้ชื่อเขาขึ้นไปอยู่ในลิสต์ของ นักแสดงน่าจับตามองในยุคนี้ และแม้แต่นิตยาสารอย่าง US Weekly ของอเมริกา ยังเรียกเขาว่า เป็น Harrison Ford คนใหม่ของวงการ Hollywood

 

มันไม่น่าแปลกใจในความสามารถในการแสดงของเขาเลย เพราะครอบครัวของเขามีพื้นฐานการแสดงกันอยู่แล้ว Chris Pine เกิดวันที่ 26 สิงหาคม 1980

เขาเกิดที่เมืองลอสแองเจลิส แคลิฟอร์เนีย ในครอบครัวของนักแสดง ทั้ง พ่อ แม่ พี่สาว และ ยาย ของ เขาก็เคยเป็นนักแสดงมาก่อน พ่อเขา Robert Pine เคยรับบทนำในทีวีซีรีย์ชีวิตตำรวจ ที่ประสบความสำเร็จมากในสมัยก่อนเรื่อง ‘CHiPs’ ตั้งแต่เด็กๆ ที่พ่อของเขาจะพาเขาไปที่กองถ่ายด้วย และเขาก็จะซึบซับเทคนิคต่างๆที่เขาเห็นรอบๆตัว แต่เขาก็ไม่ได้รักวงการนี้ตั้งแต่แรก ด้วยว่าเขาเห็นทั้งด้านดีและไม่ดีของวงการมาตั้งแต่เด็ก เขาเลยไม่ได้คิดว่าเขาต้องเป็นนักแสดง แต่เขากลับอยากเป็น นักกีฬาเบสบอล และเขาก็ยังฝันว่าอยากจะเป็นนักบิน หลังจากที่เขาดูหนังเรื่อง ‘Top Gun’ 1986 แต่ความฝันทั้งสองก็ไม่ได้เป็นไปได้สวยอย่างที่เขาคิด เขาจึงเปลี่ยนความคิดตัวเอง และหลังจากที่เขาเรียนจบ ปริญญาตรี จาก University of California, Berkeley ในปี 2002 และเขาก็ไปเรียนการแสดงต่ออีกหนึ่งปีที่ American Conservatory Theater ใน ซานฟรานซิสโก และเขาก็เริ่มอาชีพการแสดงของเขาจากทีวีซีรีย์ เรื่อง ER และ เขาก็ยังแสดงเป็นตัวประกอบ ใน CSI ในปีเดียวกันอีกด้วย

 

เขายังบอกอีกว่าที่เขาเกิดขึ้นมาในครอบครัวของนักแสดงนั้นดี เพราะครอบครัวของเขาจะรู้ว่าเขาต้องผ่านอะไร ยากเย็นขนาดไหนในการเป็นนักแสดง ไม่ว่าจะเป็นความกดดันที่ต้องโดนปฏิเสธ หรือจะเป็นการโดนข่าวโคมลอยจากสื่อนั้น ทำให้เขารู้สึกดีที่ไม่ว่าจะเป็นพ่อ หรือ แม่ หรือ ยาย เขาก็เคยผ่านประสบการณ์เหล่านั้นมาก่อน เขาเคยผ่านการไปทดสอบการแสดงหลายครั้ง กับหลายบทบาท ไม่ว่าจะเป็นAvatar ซึ่งเขาคิดว่าเขาการไปทดสอบการแสดงของเขาครั้งนั้นเป็นครั้งที่แย่ที่สุด เขาจึงพลาดบทนำในเรื่องAvatar ไป และเขายังเคยเป็นหนึ่งในนักแสดงที่ถูกพิจรณาเพื่อที่จะมารับบทนำในหนังแอคชั่นเรื่อง Green Lantern แต่บทนั้นมันก็ตกไปอยู่กันักแสดงหนุ่มอีกคน Ryan Reynolds

ตอนนี้ Chris Pine เองได้พลิกบทบาทอีกครั้ง ด้วยการกลับไปเล่นหนังรัก โรแมนติก คอมเมดี้ ‘This Means War’ซึ่งได้แสดงคู่กับ Reese Witherspoon นักแสดงหญิงผู้น่ารัก เจ้าแม่หนังรัก โรแมนติก ซึ่งน่าจะเรียกเงินจากแฟนๆหนังรักได้เยอะเมื่อหนังออกฉาย หนังเรื่องนี้จะเริ่มถ่ายทำในปลายปีนี้ ที่ แวนคูเวอร์ ประเทศแคนาดา
แต่สำหรับแฟนหนังแอคชั่นของ Chris Pine เองนั้นก็ไม่ต้องรอนานอีกต่อไป เพราะตอนนี้เขามีหนัง แอคชั่น ทริลเลอร์ ตื่นเต้น ระทึกขวัญอีกหนึ่งเรื่องที่กำลังจะออกฉาย Unstoppable กำกับโดย Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Deja vu) ที่เขาได้มีโอกาสมาเล่นคู่กับนักแสดงมากฝีมืออย่าง Denzel Washington เขารับบทเป็นผู้ควบคุบการทำงานของรถไฟ ซึ่งเขากับ Denzel Washington
ต้องช่วยกันหยุดรถไฟคันหนึ่งที่วิ่งเองโดยไม่มีคนควบคุบและอาจจะชนเมื่อไหร่ก็ได้ และในรถไฟคันนั้นยังมีสารไวไฟและแก๊ซมีพิษ ซึ่งทั้งสองต้องช่วยกันหยุดรถไฟคันนี้ก่อนที่มันจะสายเกินไป
หนังมีกำหนดจะออกฉายในเดือน พฤศจิกายน 2010 ที่อเมริกา

 

Week 4

This week we have a job to go interview this new thai indy film director named Amon Harinnitisuk who has a new movie coming out called “Doggod&Fullwater” which is his debut feature film before this he only did commercial work. We went to meet him at the true coffee shop at Siam square. P’Panu, a freelance film writer from filmax was here with us that day and he’s pretty much the one who asked all the questions and I was asked to taped the interview so that later on he can use it to write the article about the film. There’re many subjects that brought up during the interviews. For example the director was talking about how he came up with the project and how he used his own money to make this film. The interviewer then asked him why didn’t he asked for fund from the film festival like most of the indy film makers do, he answered that those film has to be very original and groundbreaking and very indy which is not like his film. The director said that his film is not that indy because this film was meant to sell to Thai people which is not a very clever film watcher so he didn’t want to make his film into those kind of indy film where no one would understand. He said that the script was based on himself, when his girlfriend left him and treated him badly like a person that treats a dog badly and thats how he came up with the script. He also added that his film is a 2 or 3 dimension but 5 dimension which you have to go into the theatre to experienced it yourself. The film will not only be shown like any other film but there will also have live acting while the film is showing which will make people involved fully to the film. When the director was asked about how much did he expected to make from this movie, he said that he didn’t expect much and he don’t really care if it’s going to make money or not, in fact he knew right from the start that it’s not going to make money. The poster of the film is a also very controversial, it’s a picture of a dog that was pushed down into a small bottle. So P’Panu asked him if that’s going to be a problem with animal organization or not but the director said that it’s not real, it was made up in computer. Another interesting subject that were brought up during the interview is that the problem with Thai society is that people can’t handle the truth, people are often feel offended so most of the movie that came out are ghost movie and comedy because those movies are not offensive to anybody. For instance if you want to make a movie about Thai politician then of course it’s going to be banned or censored because those politician feel offended. The film will only be shown once a day at Lido Theatre at Siam from 11 Nov-10 Dec.

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Fargo 1996

A story sets in Minnesota where the whole town covers in snow. It’s a story of a loser car salesman; Jerry Lundegaard who has doesn’t have money so he hired two criminals to kidnap his own life in hope of getting money from his father in law who thinks of him as a loser. But then his plan got out of hands when the two criminals Carl Showalter (talkative quirky annoying person) and Gaear Grimsrud who doesn’t speak much killed of the police and there’re two people seeing them killing the cops so they killed those two too.

The cinematography of the film is like any ordinary movies, more real and not so elaborated. I guess it’s because this is adapted from a real story so they might want to keep it simple in documentary style. There’re some very beautiful establishing shots of the town, like in the parking lot where everything is white with cars parking nicely next to each other.

Jerry, the car salesman is the kind of person you could be really annoyed by. He never takes action, he doesn’t know how even though he wants to be success. So with his little brain, he decides to get money the easy way. But when things got out of hands he tends to run away rather than facing it. But for the movie it’s funny to watch a character like this, to watch them nervously trying to come up with plans and lies and later end up dying or getting caught. If he is a criminal himself he would get caught in the first five minutes of the movie.

Then there’s Frances McDormand playing Marge Gunderson a pregnant chief of police who can’t even start a car in the morning and have her husband cooks breakfast for her but actually she’s good at what she does, when she went to the crime scene, she can figured everything out as it happened. I think she brings a lot of comedy to the film not by dressing as crowd but being funny as a real person.

The movie have a lot of funny moments, watching Jerry’s freaking out is one but also the accent of Marge is another and also a scene where Marge goes into the city and met up with her high school friend who is still in love with her and then found out later that he’s a real psycho.

They put two such different criminals together, one talks all the time and another one doesn’t talk at all, which is kind of funny and then we get to watch the not talking so much one kills off the other talkative one.

But before the talkative one (Carl) died, he killed of the father’s in law and ran off with the money and hides it under snow somewhere. So no one ends up getting the money at the end. Like Marge said at the end that they did all this for the money, killed like six people and no one ends up knowing where the money is which is so true why putting in all the effort and getting nothing back.

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Syndrome and a Century 2006

The cinematography of this film is very clean and peaceful to me. The camera moves very slowly like looking at a still photograph. The film starts out with a picture looking up to the trees, very calm looking, this is to established that we’re now in this world with lot of trees where the sky is blue with cool wind blows. So the first half of the story will happen in this rural environment in the countryside province of Thailand. There’s a scene when the camera totally stop following the character and just stares out to the blank space of the green rice fields. It looks like the camera lost interest in the characters conversation and wonders of to somewhere else and then the credits come up as the camera is staring at the fields. In the movie it looks like the camera have life of its own. It often wonders of to somewhere else and when there’s a people talking, it’s like a person standing in a corner looking in to those people from a far, most of the movie is shot in medium long shot. The film is divided into two parts the first part happens in the rural area and the other one happens in a modern hospital in the city. The director said that it’s a story about his parents and what he can remember when his parents are doctors in the hospital when he was a child. The film doesn’t have a linear narrative story but instead it’s like you put some characters into the story and let see what will happen. The film is filled with lots of humors. From the start in the rural hospital a female doctor interviews a young soldier doctor and she asked him what is DDT stands for? And he said is it for killing bugs and the female doctor (Dr. Teoy) doesn’t reply anything so he said “Destroy Dirty Things”, “ Deep down To you” Dr. Teoy remains silence. This first half focuses on this female doctor.  I think this doctor is supposed to be what he can remember of his mother. Later on Dr. Teoy treats an old monk who dream that chicken is trying to revenge him because he’s eating too much chicken and the monk said he has been doing nothing but good to the chicken by praying for them everyday. It looks like the director is joking with the beliefs of Buddhism which is kind of funny though.  I think it’s a love story but an unfulfilled love story. A man is secretly in love with Dr. Teoy but she doesn’t like him instead she likes a guy who she met once at the orchid fair, so you see no one’s really happy in love. And it then there’s a scene of a young dentist and a monk firting with each other in the hospital. The director wants to play with the Thai beliefs of reincarnation, so the dentist said that he think the monk is his brother who died sometimes ago. And the monk also tell him that he used to want to be a DJ and own a comic store, which is a bit strange, what kind of monk wants to be a DJ and likes to listen to foreign songs but ironically the dentist likes to sing a Thai country songs. Later on the dentist even gives monk his CD singing love songs but normally he only sings about teeth and gums. The second part of the story happens in a big city hospital where everything looks a bit more haunting. This part focus more on the character of Dr. Nhong where he was asked to go to work in another city with her but he doesn’t want to go which is another unfulfil love and ends up having erection before saying goodbye. Also the reincarnation theme still exists in this second half, a young patient who is poisoned with carbon monoxide, the doctor asked him if he can reborn again next life, what sex will he choose to be. And he said he’ll be a man because in his last life he’s also a man. Also there’s this old woman doctor who has to drink before going up to speak in front of TV but she said that she’s not an alcoholic. So there’re many things going on in the story, many relationships and characters it doesn’t necessary tell a story as a whole but each of them left us with a story will from them, they don’t need to have a happy ending but it left us think what will happen to them after and let us see the outcome of the people lives in different places. The story gives us the feeling that its not so healthy living in the city but at the end it gives us an idea that may be there’s a place of peacefulness in the city which is the park where city people is trying to maintain their health as a whole by doing aerobic dancing.

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Chinatown 1974

Chinatown is a film made by the infamous director Roman Polanski. It’s a film Noir but not like the Noirs of the 50’s though. Because this Noir doesn’t focus on a heroic, professional, good police or chief instead the main character, Jack Gittes is a flawed, not so good at what he does type of hero. He works as an adultery detective. The movie starts in his office with client sitting looking at the pictures of his cheating wife. And it introduced us to this character of what kind of person is he. Then the next scene is of him with his new client Mrs. Mulwray asking Jake if he would find out if her husband is cheating or not but actually that woman is not the real Mrs. Mulwray, it’s just someone trying to discredit Mrs. Mulwray’s husband. But of course Jake didn’t know so he agreed to so it. He went out to find clues, climbing up the roof to take picture of Mr. Mulwray and also fell down. But still he got the picture and them the news spread and that brings the real Mrs. Mulwray into the picture. Mrs. Mulwray came into Jake’s office telling him that it’s not her to hired him to do this and she’s very mad that she will go to court. After that Jake is probably feeling guilty and feels the need to go to Mrs. Mulwray’s house to find out that her husband is dead. Because of this we go into another new whole world of corruption and incest. Jake went out trying to find out who killed Mrs. Mulwray’s husband and he didn’t do this with much grace, he got his nose cut off, people always given him leads, he didn’t really know what to look for example he didn’t have any clue until he ran into the gardener and the Asian gardener said ‘salt, bad for grass’ it was then that he knew Mr. Mulwray was killed at the house. So now he thinks that what Mrs. Mulwray has been telling him is all lies, so he went to find her and slap her several times (not that many heroes that will slap a girl) Then it’s finally revealed that her sister is actually her daughter of herself and her father. And her father Noah Cross (the name in biblical sense) is a very rich and powerful man who can do anything. This suggests that LA was a land based on corruptions that people who have money is like god, they can do anything they want. At the end Mrs. Mulwray was shot into her face. The director kind of given us clues from the beginning that she will be shot in the face, in the scene where Jake notices that she has a flaw in her eye that is the same side she was shot into. Another visual clue is on Jake’s face where he has this big cut right on his face, may be to suggest that he’s a flawed person and everyone can see it but later on in the movie the wound started to healed as the crimes started to be solved, the director used this as a metaphor of the state of where Jake is in the story. The character Mrs. Mulwray at first looks very femme fatale type, dangerous woman who often kill people off at the end but not her she seems strong at first but she’s actually the victim after all this and that she doesn’t have a happy ending. The name Chinatown is used because anything can happen in Chinatown and that in Chinatown is very messy and dirty just like the world outside. The big theme from the movie is that people have flaws and that even though some horrible things happen to people, they got to be able to move on and just accept the fact that the world we live in is not that beautiful and nice after all.

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Le Fils 2002

It doesn’t look like something you’ve seen before but it’s not very attention grabbing either. The film was shot in hand held following the main actor around every single step. We are so close to him that it’s a bit uncomfortable. We don’t talk or do things with each other that close unless we’re very close to that person but that also don’t happen very often. By this technique it makes the most viewers walk out in the first five minutes of the movie but for the thinker type of viewer, it’s refreshing to see something different, something that gives us an opportunity to be in the main character, Olivier’s world. Every move he made and every expression on his face give us information about him. He doesn’t smile that often. We see him mostly from his back looking out to the world in front of him. Isn’t it interesting if you can get inside someone’s head and see the world through that person’s eyes? This is good thing about this technique. We’re inside his head. We see all past and regrets he has to carry with him on his back. I would describe him as an uptight person who keeps everything inside of him. It feels like all these feelings he has inside is about to explode any second. He even does push up when his feeling is boiling up inside of him but he ha no other way to let it out. And he has this thing to support his back, preventing him from getting hurt. He would wear it really tight and adjust it a lot just like he need something to hold himself together, to be able to walk forward. And the fact that he’s a carpenter says a lot about him. That he’s good at measurement, balancing things and building things. He used to have a son and used to be a husband but now everything is gone after his son died so the only identity he has left is being a carpenter. So he sure is very good at it. He doesn’t even have to use ruler to measure, he can tell it by just looking at it. For example in the scene with Francis the boy who killed his son, they stand near each other and the boy asked him how far is the distant between himself and Olivier and Olivier can tell him exactly how many inch they stand far from each other. It also be interpreted as that Olivier always know what’s his position between their relationship. He knew it all along and he should keep distant from Francis. But it’s obvious that Francis has effect on Olivier. His world changed after Francis appears. His life stays the same since his son died, he can’t move on with his life, his past is holding him back. Unlike his ex wife who moved on already. May be he just need to meet with Francis himself and may be to forgive and forget in order to move on. Is that why he’s working at this school for troubled kids? May be he wants to meet the killer of his child. And when he meet the boy, he has to face with the decision whether to kill the boy as a revenge or to let him live, to let the boy to rebuild his own life just like Olivier’s profession which is to build something not ruining it.

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Terminator 1984

It starts with the picture of a ruined future LA in the year 2029. Nothing looks green anymore, life hardly exists there. It’s the idea of machine versus human. At the time the deadly machine is getting out of control, human are no longer in charge. There’s a way of traveling back in to time and that’s what they do. They came back to the past to kill of the person who started it all, Sarah Corner. But not so easy, the cyborg is not going to kill her so easily. The cyborg (Arnold) has to fight with a human, also from future who comes to rescue Sarah from this danger. This brings us to the LA in the present time where everything looks dirty; the society is going down the trash. There’s a scene where three gangsters is trying to mess with the cyborg and of course the cyborg killed them without trying so hard. And then there comes a hero, Reese who also traveled from the future. He appears to the present with lightening strikes and with no clothes. They’re both finding Sarah Corner. In the weapon shop scene where the cyborg is getting a weapon, it shows us that he’s very good at killing, he knows everything about the weapons and it sure isn’t going to be easy for someone to destroy him. Although he’s good at this stuff but the way he’s looking for Sarah Corner is a bit stupid for a robot, he just look at the yellow book and kills off everyone with a name Sarah Corner because the robot doesn’t really know which one is her. In the club where the robot finally meets the real Sarah and he’s about to kill her, Reese gets in there just in time to safe her which is very typical of him and then there’s this long scene of gunshots and running and driving and chasing. Then there’s always a stupid police who think they know everything and so caught up in their own world not to listen to Reese which he tries so many times to warn them about the robot and the future but of course they refuse to listen to him and think he’s crazy. So he’s the individual fighting with the whole even Sarah at first doesn’t believe him. Eventually she listens to him and starts to run away. Then the two have sex and then reveals that actually he’s the father of John Corner. They tried to kill the robot many times but it is so strong that it couldn’t be killed. Although its flesh starts to come off piece by piece, toward the end it doesn’t have any flesh at all, it doesn’t look like human, but just pieces of metal. Then finally it got killed by another machine in the big factory, crushing it down into pieces after so many bombs, gunshots and crashing. People are so fascinated about the future. We always curious about what it would be like in the future. Also we feel threatened by the computers. We want it to be our servant, keep it at a certain level and not made them as clever as human. Because they have this fear of the computers replacing themselves and one day human will no longer be needed.

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