Kempton & 張婉婷 給十九歲的我 (National Treasure) To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self – Mabel Cheung 2.5 hrs chat

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Related: “多謝《給十九歲的我》的參與者。 #終身學習 Thanks Participants of “To My 19 Year Old Self” #LifelongLearning”

Related: “回應張堅庭導演 #給十九歲的我”

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• 10 years in the making, 300,000 hours of footage, and 3 years editing
• Calling 給十九歲的我 To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self a “National Treasure“
• What good can documentaries do? Can you imagine documentaries changing lives or society?
• Director Mabel’s “Final Cut” & Ying Wa’s “Final Decision”
• re Mabel and her filmmaking & loving life partner the late Alex Law 羅啟銳
• Has Mabel thought of donating Alex’s and her creative archives to her alma mater HKU or NYU like Canadian author & living national treasure Margaret Atwood had donated 600+ boxes to create the Atwood archives at U of T?
• Sending my thanks & love to Mabel & team, student interviewees, and Ying Wa Girls’ School 英華女校 staff
• Concluding thoughts
• Postscripts 後記

10 years in the making, 300,000 hours of footage, and 3 years editing

It was my great honour and pleasure to have an extensive ~2.5 hours four parts insightful video interview (watch here) with Ms. Mabel Cheung 張婉婷導演 , an award winning director from the start of her career including her first student film (the famous “Migration trilogy“: The Illegal Immigrant 非法移民 (1985), An Autumn’s Tale 秋天的童話 (1987) and Eight Taels of Gold 八兩金 (1989)). My previous “record” of longest film interview was ~2 hours with Taiwan director Mr. Shen Ko-shang 沈可尚 to talk about his documentary LOVE Talk 幸福定格 which he took 7 years to film 8 couples.

Mabel and I chatted last Sunday Hong Kong time (2023/01/15) to talk about her documentary (10 years in the making, 300,000 hours of footage, and 3 years in the editing room) 給十九歲的我 To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self (in short 給十九 ToMy19). And then the film won 2022 Best Film from Hong Kong Film Critics Society 香港電影評論學會 one day later on Monday (2023/01/16). Perfectly timed for Mabel‘s words of thanks to be appended to Part 4/4 of the interview clips.

My extensive ~2.5 hours chat with Mabel covers many topics, including scenes I love in 給十九 ToMy19 from the perspectives of movie viewers and also things that documentary filmmakers like myself or aspiring filmmakers want to know. Some viewers and filmmakers maybe curious how Mabel worked with 300,000 hours of footage to create a film that is loved by many? Or when the student interviewees didn’t want to be interviewed anymore, what did Mabel & team do to keep things going? What kind of advices does Mabel have for documentary or drama filmmakers or aspiring filmmakers wanting to create their first film?

Have a watch of all four parts of the interview. Mabel & I were originally scheduled to chat for 2 hours and those time flew by in the blink of an eye. And Mabel was so kind in giving me a 30 minutes extension. I used my additional time to ask questions I previously collected from a photographer friend interested in filmmaking and three questions by Norris Wong 黃綺琳 (note: Norris 黃綺琳 is Mabel’s former university student and current filmmaking project mentee 香港電影發展基金「薪火相傳計劃 ((2022?)-(3) 張婉婷 / 黃鐦 黃綺琳)」).

Calling 給19歲的我 To My 19-Year-Old Self a “National Treasure“

Right from the start, I mentioned to Mabel that I’ve watched 給十九 ToMy19 6+ times and I love it. In the same way that many Brits now love the Up (film series) (a series of docs featuring group of ~14 people in UK when they were 7, 14, 21, 28, … all the way to 63 years old) and consider Up (film series) a National Treasure, I love 給十九 ToMy19 a ton and also consider it a National Treasure.

Love is hard to explain. In some sense I started falling in love with longitudinal documentaries in 1988 as I was lucky to discover and watched the first four Up (documentary series) when the subjects/interviewees were 7, 14, 21, and 28 years old, at the SigSam audio-visual library of my alma mater University of Toronto. To my knowledge, the Up (film series) produced by Granada Television for ITV is the oldest, most famous, and most successful longitudinal documentaries of all time. Hoop Dreams (1994) is another longitudinal doc I love. There is also longitudinal dramas like director Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood (2014) (same actors filmed from 2002 to 2013) and the Before trilogy (Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013)) of romance films featuring the same leads.

And now you see why I’m primed to LOVE Mabel’s 給十九 ToMy19 which has become my latest favourite. Yes, a National Treasure. If I were a betting man, the 2022 Best Film mentioned above may just be the first of many awards. Of course, “winning awards” should never be any good filmmaker’s goal and definitely wasn’t Mabel’s as she told me. But a good film about HongKongers should be watched by more HongKongers.

What good can documentaries do? Can you imagine documentaries changing lives or society?

Many documentarians (good and even bad ones) aspire to capture their times for history. You may ask what good can documentaries do? Is it even possible that documentaries can change lives or society? Let me share two examples to illustrate.

Oscar winning director Errol Morris‘s documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988) was instrumental in Randall Dale Adams‘ (wrongly convicted of murder) exoneration the following year. Dear Zachary (2008) is a documentary that is instrumental in changing the legal system (specifically, bail reform) in Canada which I had the heartbreaking honour to video interview David & Kate Bagby when they attended the 2008 Calgary International Film Festival screening.

I hope a good documentary like 給十九 ToMy19 can lead to self and collective reflections, follow by positive changes in minds and actions of Hong Kong students, parents, teachers, school admins, education system, and even Hong Kong society in general. I wonder can and should 給十九 ToMy19 be screened at Ying Wa for all incoming new students in future years? Or will other Hong Kong schools want/plan to screen the film for teachable moments and learning purpose? I think the film contains many universal truths and can be used as good teaching aids in the hands of wise and loving teachers, vice-principals and principals. I think. I hope.

One scene that breaks my heart into a million pieces is the one that Vice-Principal Siu-Fung 小鳳 talked about some school where students (and their parents?) were thrilled to burn their school books after public exams were over. How tragic? Joi Ito (伊藤 穰一), former director of the MIT Media Lab, said this in a cool TED talk which I love, “Learning over Education. To me, Education is what people do to you. And Learning is what you do to yourself.”

For the books burning students, their cheering teachers & parents, I wonder what were they thinking? Do they think all their learning were “finally over” once they got accepted into university or graduated and got their undergrad degrees? Have they ever heard of or aspire to the idea/ideal of “Lifelong Learning“?

I want to especially thank the student interviewees and their families for their open sharing of a wide range of topics, including public health topics like mental health, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and many other topics that we can all learn more about and become better members of our communities. Be kind, be caring, and be loving of others.

Director Mabel’s “Final Cut” & Ying Wa’s “Final Decision”

As Mabel told me in our chat, she has the Director’s Final Cut on the documentary so that means anything that is on screen (or not on screen), the length, etc were all her decisions to make and her decisions were final. And “luckily”, the Hong Kong film censor did not have to cut one frame off her film.

And if my memory serves me, Mabel in one of her many interviews with media directly said (or implied) that it is always Ying Wa‘s “Final Decision”, in it I took it to mean that Ying Wa could have nixed the whole documentary after Mabel had done all the hard work. But Ying Wa did not. And for that, I thank the higher-ups at Ying Wa for letting 給十九 ToMy19 have her own life with us HongKongers and viewers around the world.

re Mabel and her filmmaking & loving life partner the late Alex Law 羅啟銳

My heart was broken into million pieces as I watched hours & hours of YouTube videos of insightful interviews of Mabel and her filmmaking & loving life partner the late Alex Law 羅啟銳. (see links below) The sudden passing of Alex last year came as a shock for Mabel and HongKongers and deeply saddened us all. Many in the film industry and media lovingly call the duo “雌雄大導” (for directors) drawing parallel to the saying “雌雄大盜”. To me, Mabel & Alex were 形影不離, the duo were actualization of the word inseparable for their creative & personal lives (see this 美紙 Art & Piece 2022 Nov cover (FB link)).

Some day I would love to ask Mabel about her & Alex’s creative process. Hopefully Mabel will let me interview her again in the future. Will see.

Recommended YouTube videos: a) 書展2013：移民3部曲 – 羅啟銳、張婉婷 (2013, 76 minutes), b) 影談系列——張婉婷 · 羅啟銳《秋天的童話》映後談Movie Talk—Mabel and Alex “An Autumn’s Tale” Post-screening Talk (2022, 105 mins), c) 影談系列——張婉婷 · 羅啟銳《玻璃之城》映後談 Movie Talk—Mabel and Alex “City of Glass” Post-screening Talk (2022, 88 mins)

Has Mabel thought of donating Alex’s and her creative archives to her alma mater HKU or NYU like Canadian author & living national treasure Margaret Atwood had donated 600+ boxes to create the Atwood archives at U of T?

Knowing how precious Mabel’s and Alex’s creative archives can be of inspiring values to filmmakers of this and future generations, I asked if Mabel had thought of donating Alex’s and her creative archives to her alma mater HKU or NYU like Canadian author & living national treasure Margaret Atwood had donated 600+ boxes to create the Margaret Atwood Papers at U of T that anyone can access digitally and freely?

Mabel thought who (no one really?) would be interested in Alex’s and her creative papers? I promptly said I would and think many people would too! And I suggested the papers should be digitized for easy and free global access. (Yes, I’m selfish and thinking of making sure me in Canada can access easily.) Mabel wasn’t thrilled of the amount of work involved. Of which I said it would totally be the receiving institution’s job (in fact, a pre-condition) to make sure these precious papers and creative materials of Mabel’s and Alex’s are as easily, digitally, and freely accessible for research purpose as the Margaret Atwood Papers at U of T that people can access and have a look anytime, like now.

If and when Mabel has decided to donate more of their creative papers, I would love to chat with Mabel to talk more.

Sending my thanks & love to Mabel & team, student interviewees, and Ying Wa Girls’ School 英華女校 staff

I want to send my thanks & love to Mabel & team for their hard work in the last 10 years. Without their dedicated and persistent hard work, 給十九 ToMy19 would have been impossible to make. My special thanks to the so called “師奶兵團 (義務導演) C9 Army corps (Volunteer Directors)“!

And I want to send my thanks & love to all 30+ Form 1 student interviewees, all 13 student interviewees that appeared on the film credit list that, I understood, to have participated till the end. And in particular the 6+3 interviewees that we got to know a little in the film.

In order of featured appearances

「阿佘」Britney

「阿聆」Ling

馬燕茹  Jenny

“Madam”  Karen

「香港小姐」“Miss HK” Katie

「阿雀」“Birdy” Chloe

plus

“Ken” Myra

Shirley

Angel

And I also want to send my thanks & love to all of Ying Wa Girls’ School 英華女校 teachers, vice-principals, and former & current principal.

To all who appear in front of the cameras, I again thank you for making 給十九 ToMy19 possible.

Concluding thoughts

After watching 給十九 ToMy19, a National Treasure, that took 10 years to make, it is easy for us viewers to think we, all of a sudden, “know” all of the interviewees “deeply” because we watched them “grew up” in front of our eyes for 10 years, right? 10 years flew by in the blink of an eye. Some of us may think we know something or even a lot about them, right? I’m afraid that will be wrong. I think, all documentaries, no matter how good, can only capture some very small parts of people. In fact we only know very little about our beloved student interviewees as there have been a lot of growths and changes happening off cameras. Especially since the film finished shooting in 2019 which was over 3 years ago.

If I may use a “musical tangent” of a song example to illustrate growth and changes. Do you remember in the first few minutes of the film 「阿佘」Britney sang an excerpt of “Think of Me” from Phantom ? I love it. But Britney didn’t. Britney wasn’t too happy as she told Mabel, because she thought she kinda sang off-key (走音) for a few words and would rather see her singing cut. But I (we) love it, right?

Thing is life is all about growing & learning. We all mature in time. Our singing. Thinking. Now here comes my “musical tangent” from me doing “too much research”. This is a clip of the talented Emmy Rossum singing “Think of Me” in The Phantom of the Opera (2004). And in 2012, eight years later, Emmy on a late night comedy talk show singing “O Mio Babbino Caro” impromptu and it was, to me, 20x better than her 2004 movie singing because her voice has more practices and time to mature. I’m no expert in music. Maybe Britney can have a listen and tell me? Or better, maybe we all can have a “listen” to the “music” of growth, learning and maturity with our “ears” in our hearts.

Postscripts 後記:

P1.S.) 張堅庭 Alfred Cheung’s take ===> I read from Facebook that Mabel’s director good friend Alfred Cheung 張堅庭 watched 給十九 ToMy19 in Taiwan twice in three days. Alfred shared a story of an interesting encounter with a 2x viewer concluding with the comment “這就是「給19歲的我」的另一種吸引，有時紀錄片比劇情片更讓人刻骨銘心。近期的心水推薦。”.

P2.S.) 小鳳 Siu-Fung is #cool ===> Check out this interview of Vice-Principal Siu-Fung 小鳳 shared by the movie Facebook page, “我要用上帝的愛浸死他們——訪《給19歲的我》英華女校副校長“

P3.S.) Words about translation of National Treasure and pandas 熊貓 ===> I’ve decided to keep on using the English words National Treasure and not translate it to Chinese for this article. For my generation, it feels easier to say “love you” to my parents instead of saying the words “我愛你” which feels very 肉麻. To me, the words 國寶 should ONLY be used to describe pandas 熊貓 like the adorable Jia Yueyue (加悅悅 ‘Canadian Joy’) and Jia Panpan (加盼盼 ‘Canadian Hope’). So 給十九歲的我 To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self will always be a National Treasure to me. :)

P4.S.) 金成 + 張婉婷 ===> Of the many recent interview videos of Mabel I’ve watched, 金成 has done one of the most comprehensive and insightful interview and I highly recommend watching, 叔叔的愛（番外篇）：金成、張婉婷對談.

P5.S.) Unprofessional to call 給十九歲的我 “National Treasure”? ===> I can always count on my Better Half being frank with me and call my bull beep out. She warned me that by calling 給十九歲的我 To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self a National Treasure, I appear rather “unprofessional” and appear to “suck up” to Mabel and others. But did I? Did I NOT ask some tough questions during my extensive interview with Mabel? Did I NOT try to correct Mabel about some minor factual info (about the Up (film series)) when I could easily have said nothing? I felt important to ask questions in a respectful manner as Mabel is an accomplished filmmaker and yet, to do a good job, good (and sometimes tough) questions must be asked. While I was typing this, I kept thinking of Alex telling Mabel that her 1st and 2nd versions of 給十九歲的我 To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self was “boring” 好悶啊. Something only an honest and loving partner can and must keep on telling each other. I continue to mourn the passing of Alex, one half of a beautiful creative duo. To expand, “雌雄大導” focus on their creative work, while “形影不離” transcend work and become encompassing of work and life with love. Me think.

P6.S.) Ming Pao’s insightful interview with video ===> worth a read and watch, “花十年拍紀錄片變「老頑童」 張婉婷面對生活像快要崩潰的牆｜張婉婷專訪” [HT YWGS]

P7.S) 張婉婷想做飛機師 ==> I love this interview a ton, “(端傳媒) 導演張婉婷專訪：用十年紀錄香港千禧世代之後，她想做飛機師” [HT YWGS] I wish I had more time to chat with Mabel about her dream (or desire) to be a pilot (想做飛機師). You see, my US Wyoming based political talk show host friend Glenn is a private plane pilot and owns a small plane. With my previous CAATS – ATC (Canadian Automated Air Traffic Systems – Air Traffic Control) Software Engineering experience, we love to talk shop sometimes including topics like glass cockpit, Boeing 737 MAX tragic crashes & groundings, … and sometimes Glenn shares beautiful made-by-pilots cockpit YouTube videos like “Vancouver Island Series – Tofino, Long Beach – Can’t believe this is allowed! – Part 4 – (S3:E4)“. I would love to ask Mabel if she really wants to fly herself? Or would she be just as happy (like me) to watch beautiful clips like Vancouver Island Series – Tofino, Long Beach – Can’t believe this is allowed! and be amazed? Or Mabel really want to fly in the air?

P8) 說自己想說的話 ==> Check out am730 “張婉婷是香港的童話” as I love this line a lot, “然後，張婉婷輕輕笑一笑：「我們拍電影，不是為賺錢，是為說自己想說的話呀！」” [HT YWGS]

P9) 20230128 Ming Pao 明報OL, (with video) “《給十九歲的我》成績超乎預期 張婉婷盼成功為母校籌錢建泳池” 20230128 香港01, “優先場票房600萬　張婉婷面對負評︰不能客觀評價“

P10) 20230129 “文化誌，人物記 時日再變　樂天不變　《給19歲的我》阿雀：啲人笑我似林敏聰” (Youtube video) & “時代論壇 – 英華女校榮休石玉如校長專訪“

Update history: 20230128 6:28am Minor editorial changes + adding news links. 20230125 11:20pm Minor editorial changes + adding internet links. 20230121 12:25pm Created Internet archive saved page to properly and permanently link info to 香港電影發展基金「薪火相傳計劃 ((2022?)-(3) 張婉婷 / 黃鐦 黃綺琳 project. 5:52am Added P8 and reworded the beginning of each Postscript a little. 20230120 12:50pm Title change to match video clips and few other editorial changes. 11:22am MST Style and top picture position change. 5:18am MST – Add a pix up top which links to YouTube list of all 4 videos. Add P6.S., P7.S. and other minor updates. 20230119 10:25pm MST – Added P4S 金成 video interview recommendation. Added P5S My Better Half challenged me and asked: Did I “suck up” to Mabel and others by calling 給19 ToMy19 a National Treasure? P5S is a reply to her legitimate question. 20230119 9:47pm MST – Fixed typos and making minor changes

First published: 20230119 ~8pm MST

#Dune 2021 Goodies – Watched & Love it on #IMAX – New #QuoteILove

Jan 19, 2022 Update: Legendary & WarAdd video of “Dolby – Director Denis Villeneuve and Sound Team on Dune | Sound + Image Lab“

Oct 26, 2021 Update: #GreatNews Legendary & Warner Bros are officially moving forward with Dune: Part Two (THR) (FB)! [HT Seastar]

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Watched Dune on IMAX during opening weekend. What an amazing film and world that Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has created! Following is a collection of Dune Goodies that I watched/read (many with #SPOILERS so considered yourself warned), enjoyed, and tried to learn from. I will start with Denis breaks down the Gom Jabbar scene and this cool quote I love by Denis that I’m adding it to my collection of Quotes I Love,

“For the first time, I think I did this movie for a single audience member, which is me. I read the book 40 years ago. I deeply fall, felt in love with it. I was aware that there are millions of hardcore fan of the book out there, but I took up in my shoulder to deal with the one that I was the most afraid of, which is me. I was a teenager. That was a totalitarian dreamer. I was arrogant. I was pretentious. I had big dreams. It was kind of frightening for me. And I will say that the truth is as any movies, it’s movies are made of victories and failures. There’s some moments in Dune that I knew I was not good enough. There’s others that I feel that it was very close to the original dream. And the Gom Jabbar scene is definitely one that I knew that at 14 years old, I will have been okay with that.” – Denis Villeneuve

(17 mins) Oct 22, 2021 ‘Dune’ Director Denis Villeneuve Breaks Down the Gom Jabbar Scene | Vanity Fair

(33 mins) Q on CBC, “Dune director Denis Villeneuve on adapting Frank Herbert’s notoriously unfilmable sci-fi epic“

(12 mins) BBC Radio 1 , ““Amazing actor, amazing” Director Denis Villeneuve on Timothée Chalamet, Dune & cinema’s importance.“

(23 mins) Denis Villeneuve and Hans Zimmer on Dune | NYFF59 (Film at Lincoln Center)

(29 mins) BFI At Home | Dune Q&A with Denis Villeneuve (“One day somebody else will make a new adaptation.” was what Denis felt after watching David Lynch’s adaption.)

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Articles

Sept 4, 2021, TorStar, “A lot of people warned Denis Villeneuve not to make ‘Dune’ — he refused to be deterred and this is why“

“I read the book when I was around 13 or 14 years old,” Villeneuve says, smiling at the memory. “I wanted to make movies back then. I remember drawing with my best friend, Nicolas Kadima … We were drawing storyboards, drawing costume designs, dreaming about making (‘Dune’) all this time.”

Oct 22, 2021, NYT, “The Man Who Finally Made a ‘Dune’ That Fans Will Love How Denis Villeneuve broke the curse.“

“Josh Brolin, who plays the warrior-minstrel Gurney Halleck in the movie, took a lifelong “Dune”-fan friend to a screening in New York, and at the end of the movie the friend started screaming: “That was it! That was it! That’s what I saw! That’s what I saw when I was a kid!””

“Villeneuve’s insistence on filming in real-world environments was shaped by his early work as a documentarian. In the early 1990s he traveled to Ellesmere Island as part of a small unit with the Québécois filmmaker Pierre Perrault to shoot a poetic natural history documentary, called “Cornouailles,” about musk oxen defending their tundra territories. [K note: Stream the doc Cornouailles (French only, no English sub?) for free at NFB.] “It’s about French Canadians and America,” he told me, wryly. He was there to bring the tripods and make the soup, but the experience was transformative. “I saw things there,” he said, “that I will never see again in my life. And that I will never experience again. To walk inside a glacier, things that are difficult to describe — but it was like being on another planet.” Like the desert, the tundra had a deep psychological impact on him, instilling a sense of humility, the feeling that he was “seeing the earth without any skin. It’s like you are at the core, you are in contact with time … with infinity and time.”

The “Cornouailles” shoot taught Villeneuve to embrace the exigencies of a real-life location where “every day the landscape in front of you is totally different, according to light and the nature of the elements” — and in a more existential sense, the tundra revealed to him how small and insignificant we are, an experience familiar to many of those involved with “Dune.””

2021 Nov 6th update: (fascinating) Why is Dune’s Score Like That?

2021 Dec 21 Update: James Cameron & Denis Villeneuve on ‘Avatar’, ‘Dune’, and Pioneering CGI | Directors on Directors

2022 Jan 19 Update: “Dolby – Director Denis Villeneuve and Sound Team on Dune | Sound + Image Lab“

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Good movies online @Kanopy! Thanks @CalgaryLibrary!

Here is a list of good movies online via the Kanopy streaming service. Calgary Public Library (CPL) users get to watch up to 10 movies each month. Hope you will enjoy these movies. (Note: Movie links are for CPL. A quick Google confirms public libraries in Toronto and San Francisco are also subscribers of the Kanopy service.)

1. Guangzhou Dream Factory (documentary) (5/5 stars), trailer (added: 20181206)
2. Patema Inverted (Japanese Anime) (4/5 stars), trailer (20181206)
3. Hearts Beat Loud (drama) (5/5 stars), trailer, SXSW Q&A with Nick Offerman and Director Brett Haley, Sundance Q&A (20181206)
4. Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (documentary) (4/5 stars), trailer (20181206)
5. Sweet Bean (Japanese drama) (5/5 stars), trailer (20181206)
6. Like Someone in Love (Japanese drama) (4/5 stars), trailer (20181206)
7. After The Storm (Japanese drama) (5/5 stars), trailer (20181206)

P.S. I love Calgary Public Library system’s awesome collection of books, audio books, and, in recent years, massive DVDs and Blu-rays collection! The brand new Central Library is really a work of beauty! Library users can actually make five (5) suggestions per month to the library (via our online account) to buy new books, DVDs, or Blu-rays to add to its collection! So far two out of my five suggestions have been accepted.

Recently Guangzhou Dream Factory was rejected as a purchase but I was told that the film is actually available to watch online via Kanopy ! Truly a case of one door closes, a window opens!

(video) LOVE Talk 幸福定格 (7 years filmed 8 couples) director Shen Ko-shang 沈可尚 interview

I recently had the great pleasure of having an extensive 2-hour interview with Taiwanese award-winning director of LOVE Talk 幸福定格 (see below for synopsis) Mr. Shen Ko-shang 沈可尚. after watching his new documentary (spent 7 years to film 8 couples) which I really enjoyed and found insightful.

最近慶幸有機會訪問台灣得獎導演沈可尚兩小時，詳談他非常好看及發人深省的新紀錄片”幸福定格 LOVE Talk” (七年時間拍攝八對夫妻) (影片簡介見文章末).

LOVE Talk 幸福定格 movie poster

Trailer 預告片

Ko-shang was very accommodating in letting me asked questions in English (with some Mandarin translation when necessary) and then he answered in Mandarin.

沈導演非常包容合作, 樂意讓我用英語發問（必要時加上一些普通話翻譯），然後沈導演用普通話回答。

Since Ko-shang gave some very broad, in-depth, very insightful and sometimes unexpected answers, I wasn’t sure if it is useful or unhelpful to break the Q&As down and provide precise time codes to help viewers access a specific section.

由於沈導演給出了一些非常廣泛，深入，有見地且有時出乎意料的答案，我也不確定是否應該把每一段問答(Q＆A)分開，並提供時碼 (time codes, 時分秒)以幫助觀眾跳到訪問特定的時碼是否有益。

My suggestion is to watch the whole interview from beginning to end so it flows better. But if you must, see below for linked time codes and my questions.

我建議從頭到尾觀看整個訪問，以保流暢。 但是，如果你覺得有幫助，訪問片段之後有我的題問和相關的時碼 (time codes) 連接。

LOVE Talk 幸福定格 director Mr. Shen Ko-shang 沈可尚 interview

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Here are some of the questions asked: 以下是訪問中的一部份問題:

Question @1m45s I heard from a HK organizer of Chinese Documentary Festival (第十一屆華語紀錄片節) the first screening of “Love Talk” was sold out on the first day of ticket sales. And the second screening are almost sold out. So they added a third screening.

How do you feel when hearing this good news? Do you feel pressure from anticipation of the audiences?

Question @3m52s Are you looking forward to Q&As with HK audiences?

Question @5m10s In 2010, you pitched 幸福定格 with the English title “Double Happiness Limited” at the CCDF pitching forum (華人紀錄片提案) and now 7 years + editing time later, 幸福定格 has evolved into “LOVE talk” (with the letters
L.O.V.E. in upper case).

Can you talk about what did you try to capture in the beginning and what did you get at the end?

Question @14m07s So it took 14 months to make: 賽鴿風雲 RACING PIGEON IN TAIWAN, 3 years to make: 築巢人 A Rolling Stone, and now 7 years to make 幸福定格 LOVE talk filming 8 couples.

How did you feel during the 7 years of filming and about one year of editing? Were you very worried about not getting what you want or need?

Question @21m28s When you decided you to start editing, did you ever go back to film more footage?

Question @29m03s Are there cases after their chats were filmed, they asked you to delete the footage or promise not to use them? If not, what would you have done if you were asked?

Question @37m26s If you had a time machine and could time travel to 10, 20, or 30 years into the future to talk to the grown up children of the couples, what would you tell them? Would you thank them? What would you say?

Question @44m11s How did you decide to place the funny moments, the heart warming moments, the tense and stressful moments in the film? In a sense, how did you discover the flow of the film?

Question @1h03m14s Since LOVE talk has already screened at film festivals in places like 西寧, 武漢, and 北京, and you’ve Q&As, something I understand you enjoyed. Can you give examples of three memorable audience questions that you were asked and your answers?

Comment @1h12m01s Mr. Shen: “In the three screenings, audiences all have asked this question.”

Question @1h15m20s Some viewers who have watched a promotional clip would have learned one of the women in the movie had stage 3 liver cancer. After rematching the film, I realized it wasn’t mentioned it the movie. Can you explain a little of your reasons of actually NOT giving much details about the couples and what happened to them as some scenes ended mid-argument?

Comment @1h16m42s Mr. Shen: “The most important message of this film is “TALK“.”

Question @1h18m56s My question about naming the film “TALK love” since TALK is so important?

Question @1h20m56s In the end of the film, we learned one of the husbands was in HK? Is he still working in HK? And do you know if he plans to attend one of the screenings?

Question @1h23m37s German director Werner Herzog is known for making some great documentaries and drama. I love his documentaries: Grizzly Man , Cave of Forgotten Dreams and his dramas like Rescue Dawn. You yourself have made both dramas and documentaries in your career. Can you briefly talk about your processes in coming up with ideas, planning, and making documentaries vs dramas? Do you have a favourite genre: documentaries or dramas?

Question @1h33m10s When you write your script, do you have actors/actresses in mind playing those roles? And how do you cast actors/actresses to act in your movies? Canadian director David Cronenberg once used YouTube interview videos to help him cast a movie (Twilight superstar Robert Pattinson in his movie Cosmopolis).

Question @1h44m42s What next for you with “LOVE talk”? Which festivals are you scheduled to attend? And will people in Taiwan get to see “LOVE talk” in film festivals or main theatres?

Question @1h47m25s What do you look forward in your upcoming trip to HK? What do you like to eat? What do you usually do in HK?

Question @1h48m33s Some of your HK friends make documentaries. Do you end up talking shops and each others’ movies with your documentary filmmaking friends?

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Here are some official film stills of LOVE Talk 幸福定格:

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LOVE Talk 幸福定格 @ The 11th Chinese Documentary Festival 2018
Date Time Venue
17/10 (Wed) 2:30 pm Lecture Hall, Hong Kong Science Museum*
18/10 (Thur)【Additional Screening】 9:50 pm MOViE MOViE Cityplaza*
20/10 (Sat) 3:30 pm MOViE MOViE Cityplaza*
*Q&A session with the director

** From LOVE Talk 幸福定格 promotional materials **

//LogLine:
He spent 7 years looking for the secret to the preservation of marriage. Taiwan director Shen Ko-shang, after his first year of marriage, started to question his marital life, and with these questions, he had been shooting 8 couples for 7 years. He invited them to have conversations in front of the camera, while the topics ranging from their in-law issues, children upbringing problems, to the division of responsibilities in their marriage, in order to seek for the answers to two questions: Do people really need marriage? How exactly do two people get along with each other for a lifetime?

Synopsis
One finds love, marries and then expects happiness. Once in marriage, love alone ceased to be the only thing that bonds the two together; things of more complexity are added to the play. A conversation, an exchange, is the only possible means of dissolving the boundary between two individuals. The film focuses on daily conversations between eight couples. In their trivial dialogues of love, husband and wife question each other on topics ranging from sex, parenting, housework division, problems with their mother-in-law, and even dullness of marital life. The conversations reflect the authenticity of characters’ conditions of living, exploring the depth of intimate relationship in marriage while at the same time shedding a dim light on the significance of happiness. Perhaps this sort of happiness lies in the journey where seeking is the end itself, and it can certainly not be captured in frame.//

//影片簡介
作品曾獲亞太影展最佳紀錄片、臺北電影節首獎導演沈可尚,歷時七年,執著記錄八對邁入婚姻殿堂、時間長短不一的夫妻生活對話,他們開誠佈公、質問著對方日常生活中不會觸及的話題,從為什麼要與對方結婚到不再有激情的婚姻生活;是否厭倦對方到一觸及發的婆媳問題;還有關於性、關於生孩子、關於受不了對方的點點滴滴…。
其中中國大陸的小夫妻阿飛和樂會,他們在共同打工的地方認識、相愛、結婚,通過質樸的對話,可以看到內地年輕一代農民工的婚戀觀念;來自臺灣的白領年輕夫妻勇諴和薇之,他們展現了城市新潮夫妻的對於婚姻生活的期待與妥協;另外還有教授、小吃店老闆、白領職員、藝術工作者、創業家、家庭主婦等來自不同地方不同處境的夫妻,將帶領觀眾再次反思自身對婚姻與幸福的定義。//

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Further exploration (interviews & news):

*) Ko-shang did an insightful and fun to listen to hour long interview with 人氣心理專家鄧惠文 (精神科醫師/心理治療師) on her radio show. You can listen to the full News98 radio show on YouTube.

*) 《幸福定格》導演沈可尚：婚姻，比愛情深刻，比親情好玩 (ref)

*) 导演沈可尚：爱比我们想象中的复杂得多

Molly’s Game – insightful interviews, TIFF Q&A, and trailer

I really enjoyed Aaron Sorkin‘s Molly’s Game (starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera). Love how Sorkin saw and got more out of Molly Bloom‘s stories than just those in her book “Molly’s Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World”. (note: this Vanity Fair article is worth reading, “Inside the Viper Room: Hollywood’s Most Exclusive Poker Game“) Here is a trailer and then a ton of in-depth interviews, TIFF Q&A, and other insightful clips that I have or plan to watch. Enjoy!

MOLLY’S GAME – OFFICIAL TRAILER [HD]

DP/30: Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin

DP/30: Molly’s Game, Jessica Chastain

DP/30 Abbreviated Chat: Molly’s Game, Idris Elba

Molly’s Game – TIFF World Premiere Q&A – Aaron Sorkin and Jessica Chastain

Arrival – my random thoughts

If you haven’t seen Amy Adams & Jeremy Renner‘s Sci-Fi film Arrival directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015)), go watch! I’ve written an extensive post with many video links here.

Here are my random thoughts:

• A good Sci-Fi story/novel/movie will get you thinking. And Arrival (based on Ted Chiang‘s short story Story of Your Life) sure got me thinking long after I left the theatre.
• If you can see the totality of time, what would you do? How would you behave?
• I LOVE the movie so much that I ended up reading Ted Chiang‘s Story of Your Life to try to enjoy it on a deeper level and to try to understand how the story got adapted into a movie.
• There were, in hindsight pointless to me, “outrage” in Hong Kong at the ‘Arrival’ poster skyline blunder that was reported by BBC, The Hollywood Reporter, Guardian, and CBS News (with some reference tweets). It has not lost on me that the film deals with the difficulty in communicating in an alien language and troubles we humans can cause each other if we don’t communicate well.
• While not explored in the film, we can all play “thought experiments” and imagine on our death beds, what would we have wanted to have done with our lives “looking back”?
• Denis‘ next film will be “Blade Runner 2049“. It will be awesome to see what he will do in it!

Women’s Horizon (好風景) documentary film review

Women’s Horizon (好風景) HK documentary

Documentary title: Women’s Horizon (好風景)

Directors: Jo Ho Ka Wui (何嘉滙) and Bryan Chang Wai Hung (張偉雄).

Casts: Kitman, Esther, Kai Kai (佳佳), Charlene, Chan Hei (陳熹).

Film rating: **** out of 5

Film review:

Women’s Horizon (好風景)  is documentary that recorded the different small slices of lives of five Hong Kong women from 2010 fall to 2012 spring. In 58 minutes, the filmmakers were successful in getting the viewers to see how the five women living their lives and for this reviewer, to care about them all. The filmmakers were careful in telling/reminding the viewers by putting up slides on screen part way through the film stating “We are not comparing or judging. We don’t want the audience to generalize all Hong Kong women either. This might only a be a tiny part of their life. Going in front of the camera may cause hesitation or glossing over issues, We want to capture that brief moment of their sincere reality.”

Without heavy hands nor trying to sensationalize things, the film gives viewers windows to the women’s work lives, family lives, their aspirations, their disappointments, their dating/love lives, and more. And at one point, we felt like an intimate participant along Kai Kai’s political protest and can emphasize the changes she must have gone through since the beginning of the film.

Watching the film, there are many scenes with Kitman, Esther, Kai Kai, Charlene, and Chan Hei that put a smile on my face, made me laugh out loud, got me thinking, felt sad, and got me scared for what I saw on screen. These are signs of a good documentary.

As far as this reporter knows (plus checking with Jo), Women’s Horizon is possibly the first Hong Kong documentary that wishes/plans to come back to revisit the same documentary subjects in a few years time (if the documentary subjects are willing to participate). Jo mentioned to this reviewer in an video interview that she and Byran were inspired and influenced by the British Up Series when they were planning the documentary in 2010. As a big admirer and lover of the Up Series, this reviewer hopes Jo & Byran’s wishes will come true and viewers will have the pleasure to learn more about Kitman, Esther, Kai Kai, Charlene, and Chan Hei in a few years.

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Women’s Horizon (好風景) film outline,

“[Women’s Horizon (好風景)] Paints a portrait of five unique Hong Kong women. Kitman, a big fan of online sweepstake;; Charlene, a dance instructor and urban fashion shop owner;; Esther, growing up in in a christian community aspiring to live the life within the church;; Chan Hei, was an advocate for the fair treatment of sex workers and is employed at a bookstore;; Kai Kai, Representative of the League of Fanling North Villages and Residents. The documentary recorded their lives from 2010 to 2012. It represents a history of their growth, a reflection of their temporal moods and aspirations for the the future. The images filmed are like five mobile mirrors into individual lives revealings their feeling intentionally or unintentionally. The documentary is not aiming to judge but solely at catching a glimpse of the women’s innermost feelings in this era.”

Here is a trailer,

Goodbye Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

Terrible sad day for movies lovers to hear the news that Roger Ebert is no longer with us. I’ve got the pleasure and honour to met him once in 2000 at the Toronto International Film Festival. He was pleasant, nice, and larger than life. I remember in one screening, a volunteer had no idea who he was and didn’t let him get into the theatre for a screening which got him quite upset. I think they eventually figured out who Ebert was and let him in.

I love how Ebert writes about movies and can bring out things that I miss even though sometimes our tastes are not quite the same.

Goodbye Ebert. I know wherever you are, they will be playing movies you love non-stop.

“Roger Ebert dead at 70 after battle with cancer” Apr 4th, 2013, Chicago Sun-Times obituary

EW, “Werner Herzog on Roger Ebert, ‘the good soldier of cinema’ — EXCLUSIVE”

I then read these two pieces by Ebert, “A letter to Werner Herzog: In praise of rapturous truth” and “review of Encounters at the End of the World”

Apr 5th, 2013 update:

via PBS, “In this 1994 clip, Roger Ebert answered the question: What final message would you leave for future generations?”

TorStar, “For Roger Ebert, it was always about the movies: Howell”

CBC, “Roger Ebert mourned by world leaders, film industry vets”

The Hollywood Reporter, “THR’s Todd McCarthy Remembers Roger Ebert“

Argo, Oscars, Grateful President Jimmy Carter, Ben “WTF” Affleck

Oct 15, 2015 update: It is with deep sadness that I report the passing of Ambassador Ken Taylor at 81. CTV News report with video. Global News report (with video).

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“90 percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian. And the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA. And with that exception, the movie is very good.” — Former President Jimmy Carter on Ben Affleck’s movie ‘Argo’ to CNN’s Piers Morgan.

“There’s nothing much right from Day 1 I could do about the movie [Argo]. I changed a line at the end because the caption at the end was disgraceful. It’s like Tiananmen Square, you are sitting in front of a big tank.” – Ken Taylor

Many people (including me) are predicting Argo will likely win Best Picture in The Oscars tonight. So no time is better than now to set the record straight and urge Mr. Ben Affleck, director/actor of Argo to thank Canada and Canadians in his Oscars acceptance speech. If I may be frank and honest, Mr. Ben “WTF” Affleck, enough is enough. Your drama license to twist history to enhance your story telling makes this and other Canadians angry. What will Americans feel if filmmakers from UK or France rewrite history in a “based on real events” movie and minimize the US effort in World War II? Ben, Man up and thank Canada and Canadians in your Oscars speech tonight. If not, I’ve decided to change your name to Ben “WTF” Affleck!

President Jimmy Carter on Argo in Speech at Queen’s University Nov 2012

AP, “Canada deserves Argo Oscar mention, ex-ambassador says ‘The Canadians were brave’, says ex-ambassador Ken Taylor”

AP, EX-CANADA AMBASSADOR SLIGHTED BY AFFLECK’S “ARGO”

“The original postscript of the movie said that Taylor received 112 citations and awards for his work in freeing the hostages and suggested Taylor didn’t deserve them because the movie ends with the CIA deciding to let Canada have the credit for helping the Americans escape.

Taylor called the postscript lines “disgraceful and insulting” and said it would have caused outrage in Canada if the lines were not changed. Affleck flew Taylor to Los Angeles after the Toronto debut and allowed him to insert a postscript that gave Canada some credit.

Taylor called it a good movie and said he’s not rooting against it, but said it is far from accurate.

“He’s a good director. It’s got momentum. There’s nothing much right from Day 1 I could do about the movie. I changed a line at the end because the caption at the end was disgraceful. It’s like Tiananmen Square, you are sitting in front of a big tank,” he said.“

THR, “Ex-Ambassador Again Slams ‘Argo’ for Canada Snub”

The full convocation video with President Carter. (portion related to Argo, ~25:55 – 28:15) Queen’s University press release.

An excerpt from the transcript of President Carter on CNN Piers Morgan with my extensive notes,

“MORGAN: A scene from the Oscar-nominated film, Argo, about a daring rescue during the Iranian hostage crisis. I’m back now with former President Jimmy Carter, who was, of course, in the White House at the time. You’ve seen Argo, I take it? How accurate is it from your memory?

CARTER: Well, let me say first of all, it’s a great drama. And I hope it gets the Academy Award for best film because I think it deserves it. The other thing that I would say was that 90 percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian. And the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA.

And with that exception, the movie is very good.

But Ben Affleck’s character in the film was only — he was only in — stayed in Iran a day and a half. And the main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process.

I was informed about it the first day. And I was very much involved with the Canadian government because the Canadian government would not legally permit six false passports to be issued. So the Canadian parliament had to go into secret session the first time in history, and they voted to let us use six Canadian passports that were false. [Kempton’s note: Lets be clear, I doubt the Americans will issue false US passports to Canadians if our roles were switched. Agree? To me, I am so proud of my government, and the cabinet (?, not the parliament?) in approving the false passports to help our friends in urgent need.]

MORGAN: But when you first heard about this outlandish plan to create a fictitious science fiction movie to get these hostages out, you’re the president of the United States. I mean, if this had gone badly wrong, you would have been an absolute laughing stock. So it’s a bold moment for you, for the presidency, for the country.

CARTER: Well, I don’t deny that, but it was much bolder for the Canadian government to do it because the Canadian government was not involved in the hostage crisis, as you know. They could have been hostages themselves had it been revealed. [Kempton’s note: This is absolutely the case! Remember, other countries (I will not shame them here) were asked to help the trapped Americans and they refused. Canada helped. And by helping, “Argo” is how Mr. Ben “WTF” Affleck decided to thank us?! WTF Ben!]

But as I said, you know, they did the primary work. And as a matter of fact, the American hostages left Iran and landed in Switzerland and landed before the Iranians ever discovered that they had been there.

When I left office, I ordained that we would not reveal any American’s involvement in the process, but to give the Canadians full credit for the entire heroic episode. And that prevailed for a number of years afterwards. [Kempton’s note: This is a right tactical move by President Carter. Totally different from what the movie implied.]

But I think it’s a great film, and it tells a dramatic story. And I think it’s accurate enough. [Kempton’s note: President Carter is nice. I am frank with Ben and is hoping I won’t have to call him Ben “WTF” Affleck after tonight. Will see.]“

This article is cross posted in examiner.com by me.

Les Misérables Christmas Eve Musical Preview – One Day More!

Dear Lovers of Les Misérables music,

One Day More! The wait for our dear LesMis (2012) is almost over! To help me relax and get this article started, I looped songs from the original French concept album and listening to classics like À la volonté du peuple (aka Do You Hear the People Sing?) and J’aivais Rêvé d’Une Autre Vie (aka I Dreamed a Dream)) [HT Aulina for introducing me to the French originals.]

Feel free to listen to À la volonté du peuple or J’aivais Rêvé d’Une Autre Vie as you read along this! Now lets focus on a few things musical.

1) Yes, LIVE Singing!

What does LIVE Singing really mean? The actors & actresses you see on screen, their images and singing would have been recorded LIVE together. So no faking or lip syncing at all! The Live Singing is going to be awesome!

If you haven’t seen the Les Misérables Singing Live Featurette yet, it is totally worth a watch!

Now, the Les Mis promotional machine would want you to believe the film’s LIVE Singing is “ground breaking” and “never been done before” without qualification. The fact is filmmakers in the past have done it. Here is Candice Bergen singing in a comedic scene with Burt Reynolds in Starting Over. Don’t tell me Candice actually recorded this in studio first and then managed to lip sync to the bad comedic singing! :)

I guess I will be happier if the promotional hype is toned down a little.

2) Russell Crowe can seriously act! But seriously, can Russell sing?!

OK, Russell is in a rock band but this is Les Mis! And we are talking about the critical role of Javert! So I had to look for some positive reassurance. And I found Russell and Hugh Jackman singing in this Les Misérables clip. Unfortunately, the clip wasn’t quite the “high notes” I had hoped for. But as luck would have it, I ended up discovering & watching the YouTube clip of Russell and Hugh singing “The Confrontation” at a private Indoor Garden Party at Joe’s Pub NYC.

Sure, the sound quality in the clip and setup was no where near great but it strangely eased my worry a bit more. Not completely, but a little more. I see/hear something in the pub performance, and I trust Russell to be a perfectionist that he would have practiced a ton and done takes and takes and takes … until he and director Tom Hooper think he got things right. Following the “trust, but verify” advice: I trust Russell can deliver but I am eagerly waiting to watch the film to tell decide for myself!

3) Hugh Jackman can sing!!!

If there is an absolute “sure win” performance in Les Mis, it the  awesome Tony-award-winning Broadway star Hugh (also known for being Wolverine) ! His singing of “Who Am I” is wonderful and interesting. I will have a “risky” technical discussion later.

Now, is there anything the awesome Tony-award-winning Broadway star Hugh (also known for being Wolverine) can’t do?! Well, apparently he can make pancake too! Correction: not just pancake but Crêpe according to Anne on Letterman promoting the film!

Hugh Jackman’s opening number at the 2009 Oscars (with Anne)

4) I LOVE Anne Hathaway as Fantine!

If you haven’t done it already, please hear Anne sings and watch she performs I Dreamed a Dream in this trailer.

Anne‘s increasingly skillful acting, her 25 lb weight loss (absolutely crazy in creating the desired look), and her singing combine together will, I believe, create a transcending experience that we have NEVER experience in a LIVE singing musical film EVER.

I have to admit I used to quite like Les Misérables (1998 film) starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman, and Claire Danes. But when I recently borrowed the 1998 film from the library to watch again for my LesMis series research, I was only able to watch a few segments. I could not bare to watch it from beginning to end. As a drama with no singing, I found the film dry and a bit too much “Reason Before Passion“. LesMis needs the LIVE singing like we need oxygen, a LIVE singing film version of LesMis can, I hope, achieve “Reason alongside Passion“!

5) Samantha Barks can sing!!!

In case you don’t know already, Samantha actually “starred as Éponine in the London production of Les Misérables at the Queen’s Theatre” for a year from 2010-2011. Have a watch of her spectacular “On My Own” at the 25th anniversary performance of Les Miserables. Based on the trailers and the behind the scenes clips, I totally think Samantha will shine like a bright star in LesMis (2012)!

HuffPost, “‘Les Miserables’ Trailer: Samantha Barks Steals The Show In New Preview”

6) Amanda Seyfried as Cosette; Eddie Redmayne as Marius Pontmercy

Amanda and Eddie are nice actor & actress and I’ve seen some of their work and love them. And I found this clip “God Is With Us (Eddie Redmayne singing)“. Eddie has a beautiful voice!

By the way, Eddie seemed like a nice guy when he won his Tony.

7) Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thénardier; Sacha Baron Cohen as Thénardier

It should be a ton of fun to watch Helena and Sacha (you may know him as the awesome Borat). Because of the types of songs the two roles will perform, I suspect the two talents can easily handle the singing. I was able to find Sacha singing in Sweeney Todd. Have a watch.

By the way, for those who can only think of Sacha as the crazy & rude Borat, here is what Johnny Depp (co-star in Sweeney Todd) said of Sacha,

“He’s not what I expected. I didn’t look at those characters and think, This will be the sweetest guy in the world. He’s incredibly nice. A real gentleman, kind of elegant. I was impressed with him. He’s kind of today’s equivalent of Peter Sellers.”

8)  A risky technical discussion re singing

I am not a musician nor trained in music in anyway. So to do the research for this article, I asked my music advisor (a trained soprano) for help. She made the point that words have to be articulated and sung loud and clear. Now, I love Samantha‘s “On My Own” at the 25th anniversary performance, but that is not good enough for my “ideal” LesMis (2012) performance. Why? Here comes my risky take. I think Samantha sang “On My Own” in a much too articulated and loud/clear manner! My preferred performance is one that somewhat goes against the years of training professional singers have learned by heart. With sensitive mic near by shooting the scene and the singing, the performer can be free to let the sung words play a subservient role to the core emotion need to be expressed at that moment. Think about what I just wrote and watch “On My Own” again. Am I way off base?

Under the above stated thinking, I personally think Hugh‘s “Who Am I” rocks! I think it may have a chance to become a more enduring performance than the many other “Who Am I” that we’ve heard before.

9) Concluding Thoughts

I think LesMis (2012) should do very well with lovers of LesMis the musical and lovers of musicals in general. But for the film to be a success in the box office for the studios to try something like this again with other musicals (which I hope they do), LesMis will have to be successful with the general audiences.

If I have time and there are enough interest, I may write an article about the business of LesMis (2012). Until then, it is One Day More! Tomorrow is LesMis on Christmas!

Cool references:

1) Songs from Les Misérables

2) Here are À la volonté du peuple and J’aivais Rêvé d’Une Autre Vie for your listening pleasure! :)

3) TIME Magazine, “They Dreamed a Dream: Les Misérables Is a Whole New Kind of Movie Musical”

Note: This article will be cross-posted by me at examiner.

My Favourite Documentaries of Calgary International Film Festival 2011

The joy of attending Calgary International Film Festival 2011 (or any film festival in your area) is to watch great films that you normally may not get to watch. The following are trailers and interviews of some of my favourite documentaries at Calgary International Film Festival 2011.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (trailer, press, and interview)

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress (trailer)

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman (film, trailer, pre-screening & post-screening interviews, and Q&A)

Wiebo’s War (NFB trailer, post screening interview, Q&A)

Warner Bros. owns Rotten Tomatoes

THR “Warner Bros. to Acquire Rotten Tomatoes Owner Flixster“,

“Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group on Wednesday said it has agreed to acquire Flixster, the movie discovery service with over 25 million worldwide users per month that also includes film review site Rotten Tomatoes. […]

Under the terms of the deal, Flixster will continue to operate independently and will expand its services beyond movie discovery to enable digital content ownership and delivery across connected digital devices.

The Flixster team will stay in San Francisco, and the Rotten Tomatoes team will continue to work independently from Los Angeles.“

This can’t be good news when the reviewer is now owned by the reviewed even independence is claimed.

The Adjustment Bureau – perfect date movie

As a hopeless romantic, I love “The Adjustment Bureau” a film based on the science fiction short story “Adjustment Team” by Philip K. Dick. The chemistry between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt is as perfect as I have seen in recent films. Here is an excerpt from NPR interview/review,

“Thinking Outside The Genre

Nolfi and Mackie joke that dance, plus sci-fi, plus a love story make The Adjustment Bureau the perfect date movie. The film is essentially a sweet story about two people who are meant to be together — but it’s also action-packed.”

Here is a trailer. By the way, you can read the full original short story online which is out of copyright and in public domain.

Movies A-Z

I looked up a “randomish” list of movies from A-Z, in no particular order, that I have watched and enjoyed over the years. There are drama, comedy, action, and even documentaries that you may have never heard of (I have interviewed some of the doc filmmakers).

I think part of the fun of watching films is to explore films that you may not normally check out. You can click on the links to find more info about them. [HT Mad Dog]

American Beauty (1999), Avatar (2009)

Bridges of Madison County (1995), Blue (1993), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Being Caribou (2004)

Cinema Paradiso (1989), Comrades: Almost a Love Story (甜蜜蜜) (1996), The Corporation(2003), Casablanca(1942), Crash (1996), Crash (2004), Campaign (選舉) (2007)

The Decline of the American Empire (1986), District 9 (2009), Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

English Patient (1996), The End of the Affair (1999), Eastern Promises (2007)

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)

Groundhog Day (1993), Grizzly Man (2005), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (2007)

Hoop Dreams (1994), Heat (1995), A History of Violence (2005)

In the Mood For Love (2000), Iron Man (2008)

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006), Jumper (2008)

Kill Bill Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2003 & 2004), Kings of Pastry (2009)

Lost in Translation (2003), Les Invasions Barbares (2003), Leave Them Laughing (2010), Last Train Home (2009)

Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Match Point (2005), Moon (2009), The Matrix (1999)

Nikita (1990)

Ocean’s Eleven (2001), One Big Hapa Family (2010), Orgasm Inc. (2009), Objectified (2009)

Pride & Prejudice (2005), Patton (1970), Paper Moon (1973)

The Queen (2006)

Red (1994), Roger & Me (1989)

Strictly Ballroom (1992), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Spanglish (2004), Super Size Me (2004), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Standard Operating Procedure (2008)

The Truman Show (1998), Thank You for Smoking (2005), Tiger Spirit (2008)

United 93 (2006), Unforgiven (1992)

V for Vendetta (2006)

White (1993), When Harry Met Sally (1989), WALL-E (2008), The Way We Are (天水圍的日與夜) (2008), War Hospital (2005)

X-Men (2000)

You’ve Got Mail (1998)

Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)

The Invention of Lying $1.79 DVD review

The comedy The Invention of Lying, directed and starred, by the talented Ricky Gervais is a film I have been waiting to come out on DVD for a while.

Now, this reporter is a big fan of Ricky because of his wonderful work in The Office and the subsequent series Extras. Plus the movie Ghost Town is actually quite lovely in its own quiet way. Unfortunately, unless you are a super fan of Ricky, I won’t recommend renting the film at your local Calgary DVD Play kiosk even at only $1.79. Yes, some of the jokes and sketches are funny in the first 30 minutes or so, but then the movie is ~90 minutes long and the rest of the movie just fell flat. If the DVD had a commentary track by Ricky, may be it would have added a bunch more fun to the second viewing, too bad the DVD doesn’t have a commentary track. (note: it is sad that the commentary track could be more fun than the movie.)

Now, after giving The Invention of Lying such a bad review, I still hope to interview Ricky at the Banff World TV Festival this June, 2010. (Note to Ricky: Dear Ricky, if you are reading this, I hope you will still let me interview you at Banff. After all, you won’t want to me lie when reviewing The Invention of Lying, right? P.S. I did rent the movie! :)