movies

I've always been interested in films, especially since we had satellite TV when I was young, then they were available for free from the Shared Network at University, and then they were available ov DVDs for less than 1USD in China. Now my sister is a retired acress and a budding director, I am hoping she'll be famous one day and I'll get to mingle with the stars! Actually her films are very good (especially the 1 or 2 that I was in!), so I wish her all the best!

I stopped watching DVDs about 3 months ago, since I had no time, it was not a priority and no great films were out. However there are still lots of old films I have wanted to watch -but there is no hurry to watch them as they will always be in the DVD stores here! But since its so hot here (and my laptop sometimes feel like it will melt!) its hard to work, and i have managed to queeze some free time in now before the AIESEC work really takes off...so I have watched 2 movies in 2 days and wanted to share my thoughts.

Now I am open to all kinds of movies, foreign, hollywood, subtitled, old, new, sexual, humourous, violent..whatever. I can't even begin to list my favourite movies (although the one I have seen more than any other is lock, stock....) as there are so many, but I am a fan of Charlie Kaufman as a director (yes, THOSE kinds of confusing, thinking films).

Recently I watched Kinsey; a film about the famous sexologist in American 40s; an intriguing film about the effect of his research on America at the time. He researched American's sex habits and shocked America by telling them what they were doing (some claimed consequently the acts he reported became more frequent since he normalised them). In fact watching the film I went through interesting feelings. Is what he was doing 'sick', is sexuality a scale of 1-6, should 15 yr olds watch such a film and so on? In fact its interesting, because its a film about sex education, and the UK has one of the worse teenage pregnancy rates in the developed World, whilst China has (seemingly) the least amount of sex education in any developed (well Beijing IS developed!) country.

The other film is called Bad Education, one of the 3 foreign films I have been wanting to watch for a few years (City of Gods, Y Tu Mama Tambien are the other 2; which I have seen), that were 'foreign' but still successful at the box office -that were 'unusual' yet still applauded by critis -that won oscars/oscar nominations. Its an intriguing film, a clever one and one also (ironically and don't read anything into this, since none of the other films in my room waiting to be watched are abou sex!) about sex...about 2 young boys, a priest, homosexuality, transvetites .... a fascinating film.

And as with every movie i have seen in the last 5 years, I immediately read reviews of the films (www.imdb.com) from various sources; to get other's opinions, to get a better understanding of the films, and because it stimulates my own thoughts (who goes to the cinema with a friend and DOESN'T discuss the film afterwards?).

Thus I realised that the first film was not jsut about (american) society and social norms, but also about one person's obsession and the relation between the obsession and the person, and how they impact each other. For the second film I realised its mostly about role playing and about how you remember things..of course the details that you remember are selective and thus impact what you remember and how that affects your future. The second film is a confusing set of flash-backs and one of those 'is-it-the flashback'/'is-that-the-film-or-the-memory-or-the-book-or-real-life-or-twisted-reality' kind of films -Adaptation (Nic Cage) is the best example of that kind of film.

I could write forever about movies; as an art I think they are tremendous, and often undervalued (as art) by those who do not fully understand movies (of course, some are just point-and-shoot or sing-stupid-song-fall-in-love films) and i dont understand most films on this kind of level (hence reading online); but they also provide a unique insight into the director/writer's psyche, into imaginary and real worlds, into other cultures and into other's thoughts. they are also fun, funny, inspiring and so much more. If anyone has a film that I must see, then let me know!