Swimming Pool is a suspense that makes you think after watching it. The movie is a little bit slow. The thriller picks up at the last half hour. So what makes you sit through the first one and a half hour? Yes! The nudity and the sex. Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) is either half naked or completely naked throughout the film. Not only she adds so much visual elements to the feature but her performance is exceptional as well. She got a banging body but doesn’t care the type of guys she bangs with. Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) gave a superb performance in her role as a crime novel writer. My favorite moment is when she desperately flashes herself to the old pool cleaner to distract him from …. Sorry, I don’t want to ruin the film. To be honest, I think I know what happened but I am not so sure if I am correct. If you watched this film, I would love to hear your interpretation.

Finally went to see Pirates of the Caribbean after Keish has repeatedly recommended it. Well, I gotta say, the film is quite entertaining. Geoffrey Rush gives a wonderful performance. His sense of humor carries through the entire film. I am suprise to see Johnny Depp pulls it off so well with his character. His Donnie Brasco’s character stuck in my head but he surely impressed me with his ability to take on different roles. Keira Knightley, what can I say? She is blazing. After all, Pirates of the Caribbean is a nice little escape from a long day at work.

Please, please, please! Don’t go see it. Go experience it. Together is a masterpiece that you definitely don’t want to miss. It’s so touching that caused almost everyone in the theater broke into tears. It’s a perfect film with great acting, beautiful cinematography and an inspiring story. On top of that the exquisite musical score provided an aesthetic experience in the entire feature. I am not going to give away any details. You have to experience it for yourself. I haven’t seen a film this great for a while. This is definitely an awarding work of art. Hopefully it will reach all the theaters. Right now it is only showing in selected theaters. It was my first time at Upstate Films. The theater is really different. It’s warm, cozy and friendly. I will definitely come back to it more often to experience great independent films. In fact I am ready to experience Together for the second time.

Just finished watching 30 episodes of Twisted Fate, a Chinese soap opera. It’s a great film. I really like the evil character. She has it all: money, beauty, intelligent, independent and evil. She is currently a top executive for a large firm but her goal is to be the CEO of the company and she is willing to sacrifice everything to reach it (even her love). She is good at hiding her emotional and is best at using men for what she wants and toss them after she is done. She works hard for everything she got and absolutely independent. At the end, she lost everything and even her life. She had no friends or family members left. Even though it’s just a movie, I can’t get her evil character and that pretty face out of my mind.

Yes, you can call me a ‘filmatic’ if there is such a word. I watched 4 movies over the weekend. Yeah! What a life huh? I am going to give a quick review for each of them.

Let’s get the bad one out of the way. Wrong Turn is a horror film starring a group of young good-looking teenagers, which reminded me of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer series. I hate horror films. They don’t scare me and the storyline is so predictable. The reason I watched this film because I missed ‘2 Fast 2 Furious.’ Instead of wasting my time walking around the mall for two hours, I wasted my two hours on this movie; therefore, I am not going to waste my time writing a review for it.

Next, 2 Fast 2 Furious is very entertaining. The storyline is out the window once again. Why would a top dog drug dealer (Carter played by Cole Hauser) hire two racers to deliver his money for 100 Gs each? Isn’t it safer to deliver the money by himself since he is a drug dealer anyway? Beside the storyline the film pretty stands out with hot racing cars and sexy chicks. Racing scenes are great. Tyrese’s performance was quite good with charisma. Monica Fuentes is absolutely sexy. 2 Fast 2 Furious is an enjoyable film after all.

Pixar once again created a masterpiece for Finding Nemo. Wish I could watch this film in an Imax 3D Theater. It’s such an inspirational film with gorgeous colors and fantastic motion. The storyline is very cute also. I was thinking of Sammy the whole time. I will take her out to see this when I go home. She would love this movie. Man, the characters are so real that I felt in love with them. It’s such a pleasure movie.

Lastly, The Italian Job is not that bad. It’s funny and entertaining. Mar Wahlberg and Edward Norton performances are not that bad but they are not that great either. I like the computer genius played by Seth Green. He is so funny and the whole ‘Naspter’ thing is hilarious. It’s not a bad film at all.

Gai Nhay portrays the reality of many young girls in Vietnam. It’s all about sex, money and survival. The film takes viewers into the dark and corrupted reality part of the Vietnamese society. Young girls were getting jacked, busted, and fucked. The film shows the life of the Bar Girls drinking, snoring, sniffing and vomiting afterward. Not only they had to deal with all the shit from the clients but their pimp as well. On top of that they had to battle with AIDS/HIV. I was surprised this film was allowed to screen in Ho Chi Minh City. They usually wouldn’t allow this kind of film to be show to the public. This film might be the birth of the Vietnamese’s movie industry. Although the cinematographic of this film is very poor, the storyline is real. Highly recommended.

If you watch Memento on DVD, you would notice the fascinating motion graphic piece in the interface where a flipping Polaroid photograph fades away instead of develops. I was not exactly sure what happened in the movie because I was drawn into the visual design and the motion graphic throughout the film. Especially the stunning technique in the beginning where the photograph fades to white than a bullet zips out a man’s head and back into the chamber of the gun. I might have to watch the movie again to get a better understanding of the story.

Wouldn’t be neat if you can be like Leonard (Guy Pearce)? You don’t have short-term memory but you can control your memories? You don’t need to remember all the bad ones and just capture and archive all the good and memorable ones. It’ll be cool because you would do things that you would not normally do. For instance, you wouldn’t afraid of embarrassing yourself in a crowd because you wouldn’t remember that embarrassing moment anyway. Overall, Memento is a great film from clever storyline to fascinating motion graphics. As Hillman Curtis describes it, “[Memento] will give you a generous dose of adrenaline, as you take the ride on a psychological roller coaster.”

Sister Helen Prejean, best known as the author of Dead Man Walking, gave an inspiring lecture on the death penalty and the injustice system. Minorities and the poors are more on deathrow than the whites and the riches. She covered many incidents during her journey and the interesting one she touched on was president George Bush. He executed a woman while he was a Texas governor. According to Sr. Prejean, the woman had picked up the bible and began to changed her life. She also taught other prisoners the words of God. She could have been sentenced to life but Bush decided to execute her. The woman’s life and death were in his own hands. He had the power to give her half of a chance but he did not.

Watch the film Dead Man Walking, if you haven’t seen it; however, her lecture was even better then the film. The way she described her experience and her interaction with the prisoner was phenomenon. She also expressed how hard it was facing the conflict between the victim and the accused murderer family members. At the end, she encouraged Vassar students to get a good education and start taking actions against death penalty.

The screening was filled with professors, administrators, and students. They actually ran out of seats. Jose Padron, the director, traveled all the way from Cuba to share his film. This is his first time to the US and he thanked Vassar for it. There are a few directors from Cuba that were suppose to come to the US for a film festival; however, they could not get here because of the war. Isn’t Vassar powerful or what?

Leo Brouwer is one of the world greatest guitarist. I knew his music before but didn’t know it was his until I saw the documentary today. I was totally fascinated with the way he plays his guitar. It sounded like there were forty fingers playing instead of ten. Although the documentary was only 70 minutes long, it took Jose Padron 22 years to complete it due to political and financial issues. The film deals with Cuba social issues so it was not pleasing the officials. He wanted to have the complete control over the artistic part so he was funding the movie on his own. He shot the entire film with a 35mm camera which is a pain. Well, all his hard works paid off because the documentary was fantastic and I enjoyed it very much. Congratulations! Jose. Oh by the way, he is a very nice individual.

Film Presentation

Jose Padron, one of Cuba’s most important contemporary filmmakers, will show and discuss Leo Brouwer, a documentary about the world-renowned Cuban musician, composer, and conductor. Of course, I am going to be there. Man, I love working at Vassar. They always have all kinds of great events, lectures, and resources. This is the type of college that I would definitely send my kids to. The tuition is kind of high but it worth every penny of it. If you’re looking for a “real” intellectual institution, you might want to consider Vassar. Come and visit us, I will guarantee that you’ll fall in love with the campus. I remembered my first interview. My first impression was the beautiful campus. I am not kidding you. If you don’t believe me, take a sneak preview at the slideshow presentation. Please keep this on the down low. The presentation is still in its development stage and only you can get a sneak peak at it because I love you. As a visitor to D3studio.net, you are very special to me. Alright, let me stop kissing your ass. Go ahead, launch the presentation. Caution! The movie is 11.9 mb. Dial-up users, you might want to launch a smaller version (2.8 mb) instead. Enjoy!

The screening for Feminist Pornography was packed and of course most of the audiences were females. I was the only employee there and the rest was students. Obviously the porn industry is dominated by males but this documentary focused on females who produced and controlled their films from feminist perspectives. I might be ignorance about pornography but the film did not inspired me at all. It’s true that all porns are the same. They all do the same damn thing. I do want to see people takes pornography into a higher level. I don’t mind women take control by being aggressive and erotic but fuck my ass with a dildo? Hell fucking no. I can’t even watch shit like that. It’s against nature. In addition, how can a girl gets aroused when she has a dildo strapped on and another girl sucks her dildo? Makes no sense to me. The dildo should get aroused not the person who wears it. Maybe it’s a feminist thang.

Unbelievable!

It’s still snowing in Poughkeepsie. Tonight, Vassar is showing a documentary by Becky Golberg called Hot and Bothered: Feminist Pornography. Screening to be followed by a Questions and Answers session with the director and the director of photography. Interesting! Hope it won’t be cancelled due to the weather.