Bright Lights

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Bright Lights was made before the passing of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. It was intended to record the lives of a very unconventional family. Both Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are mega stars in their own right and that had more or less caused an impact on their mother-daughter relationship in their early years. Todd Fisher, the brother managed to stay out of the limelight but then he was also tasked to witness how fame adversely impacted on his family during the early years.

Bright Lights is a very frank account of a snapshot of the family legacy. Both Carrie and Debbie are larger than life characters in real life and the great thing about this documentary is that they do not shy away from their struggles. It is not a reality show but an account of the daily struggles they experienced now that they are older but still trying to live up to other people’s expectations of their legacy. It is moving, funny and sometimes sad.

Debbie Reynolds is basically the young girl we knew trapped in a flailing body. You can see life and energy in her eyes but her body was unable to catch up. That is the aspect that worried Todd and Carrie most as they witnessed how their mother’s refusal to slow down was taking a toll on her body. Debbie still wants to be the Debbie she once was but her body acted otherwise. Nonetheless, it is her positive outlook of life that kept enabling her to do “another one last show” after the last. She loves being on the stage and you could see life gushing out of her when she is on the stage interacting with her audience. And you can definitely see her strength to soldier on in the segment about receiving the Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild. For Carrie and Todd, her insistence to attend was reckless considering her health but nonetheless, as Carrie sang in one of Debbie’s show, she would never say no to her mother.

The documentary also gave a frank account of the breakdown and crisis Carrie Fisher went through post Star Wars years. Her depression and drug addiction to try to be herself again without the need to live up to other people’s expectations was nothing but raw. Debbie Reynolds gave an account of how she didn’t know how to help because the mental illness was not diagnosed (because it was unknown at that time) and how she and Todd were on their toes about Carrie’s spiralling out of control. The emotion was unrehearsed and you can still tell that these events had permanently scarred the family. Carrie Fisher on the other hand are more positive in outlook as now she felt she could really be herself. She knew where she was and you could see how she tried to fight for her own right when she was forced to lose weight for Star Wars: The Force Awaken. As she put it, when she was young she didn’t know what to do but she knew she didn’t like what she was being asked to do. And that was one of the main reasons for her spiralling. She mentioned that there were things and conversation inside Postcards from the Edges that did happen at that time and she didn’t want to hide them.

The so called sibling rivalry between Todd and Carrie was also touched on. However, it is less than a rivalry but more of an unfairness that Carrie felt as she believed “Todd had got it much easier” because Debbie had no expectations for Todd to fill her or his father’s shoes. The whole burden was rest upon Carrie. This is also why Carrie did not want to become a singer as a sign of rebellion to her mother, only to fall into the mega machine of Star Wars unwittingly. As Todd said, Carrie thought it would just be a B Grade Sci-fi movie not knowing that she had thrown herself into the limelight that she had fought so hard to avoid.

There was also an account of Debbie Reynolds trying to establish a museum for the film industry without success. She spent a lot of her savings rescuing memorabilia for the industry but only met with solid walls when trying to convince funders to build a museum to centrally hold these items for the future generation to understand and appreciate. The heartbreak that Todd felt for his mother in her relentless quests to achieve this lifetime goal was very emotional. It also gave us a glimpse of how the American film industry is not interested in looking back but capitalise everything they could. This is a very sad portrayal of how lack of long term vision the American film industry is.

Both Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher are no longer with us. It is a huge loss to a legacy of a family but at the same time Bright Lights gave us a good glimpse of this family, and how human they are despite all the limelight that had ushered them around throughout their lives. We will miss them both dearly and I believe they will continue to be the bright lights they were to many as when they were with us.

The Star of Princess Leia

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2016 sees the loss of a lot of iconic figures in the entertainment business. I was telling a friend that when people you knew as a kid and saw them as icon or idols or people you looked up to are dropping off like flies, you know you are really growing old.

One of the latest casualty was Carrie Fisher, the world’s beloved Princess Leia from the Star Wars series. Even with the success of the latest ‘The Force Awaken’, the original Star Wars series is still seen by a lot of people, especially the generation X, or the “X’ers” as the token and best of the whole saga. I personally have watched it countless number of times, and at one stage it was my cheer up movie when I was down, although can’t really say ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ was cheering in any sense. But at least they made me feel I had something to hold on to.

With Carrie Fisher’s passing, it suddenly created a void in this perfection of the Star Wars universe that was once a big part of me. One of the things I admired about Carrie Fisher is that she did not try to maintain the princess visage to maintain a perfect image. She is brave enough to admit her follies and how hard she worked to try to amend them. The courage that was seen in her book ‘Postcard from the Edges’ was something that inspired me that there is nothing too scary to face if you truly want to meet the challenges of your life. Not that I would want to dabble in drugs or alcohol addiction or any kind of such things but the courage to face them and tried to tackle them is a courage I personally feel that I should have if I want to face the obstacles in my life. It gave me the energy I needed to summon when I am in a bad situation in my life.

Carrie Fisher also did not shy away from talking about misogyny and sexism in the entertainment industry. What she said still exists but her views had been very frank – from her unwillingly and unwittingly compliance to what the industry regarded as standards for actresses’ looks and how they should behave; to how wrong she felt and how she did not like that she had compromised to perpetuate this in the industry. She once talked about how her iconic Princess Leia hairstyle came by because “her face were considered as too chubby for the screen so they created two big buns to contain her face to make her look less chubby”. It was funny now but it must be extremely hurtful when people talked about that in her face at that time when she was merely 19.

I still remembered how I could not understand as a kid that why Princess Leia needed to wear that golden bikini in ‘Return of the Jedi’ when she was supposed to be a kick ass heroine. Not that she did not look pretty, she looked extremely hot in it in fact, but as a kid I just couldn’t make sense of that outfit and how it fit into all the other things that she was doing at that time. It did not necessarily destroyed my view on the character but it was one of the unsolved riddles for me as a kid until Carrie Fisher talked about it candidly much much later. This also helped me understood how our society cannot irrevocably accept strong women and heroines and must at some point sexualise them so that they, even as strong women, have a place in a man’s world. This is the sad world that we are living in.

Carrie Fisher’s passing burnt a hole in me in a way that it created a strange sense inside me about losing someone I never knew in person but yet extremely integral to me in most of my life. I never felt such kind of loss as I did with Carrie Fisher because no matter what happened in real life, she would always be the strong, quick wit and sharp tongued Princess Leia, golden bikini cladding or not. She is not a side kick to any men in Star Wars but a strategist and diplomat that no men in the whole saga was able to become, lightsabre wielding or not.

Star Wars will never mean the same to me, but Star Wars will also remain the same for me as I am not going to let this precious memory of an icon and role model to depart from me simply because of Carrie Fisher’s passing. She will always be the Princess Leia whom I respect and look up to.

Stranger Things

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Have heard a lot about Stranger Things. Since its debut on Netflix it has created a buzz around it and the kids from the show are everywhere. So true to my usual way of dealing with media hype about shows, I decided to stay away from it as I do not want that hype to create unnecessary expectations that lead to disappointment. Recent events in the real world triggered a self-imposed embargo on the real word, so I needed find something to do to fill up my usual time I spent on reading news and watching current affairs on YouTube. Strangely enough, Stranger Things became something I decided to try on.

Watching the show without thinking about the hype of the show did allow me to look at the show objectively. And the verdict? It was an extremely engaging show that you feel like you have experienced before at the same time.

The premise of the show was quite straightforward, a small quiet town got entangled into a bigger mess brought to them by a mistake that the Government was trying to cover up. As the offenders tried to clean the mess up, it just got messier and messier each day. Centre of the plot were three boys who were trying to find their friend who went missing and in the process stumbled upon bigger and scarier stuff. There isn’t a lot of strange lore and philosophy in it but the show smartly ties the Dungeons and Dragon (I think so) lore into the whole premise making it very accessible for people who grew up with that game.  And this also made it very clear what this show is about. This was especially smart when they tried to explain the alternate dimension with the game board.

One of my pleasant surprises was Winona Ryder (I did not look up anything about the show beforehand so I did not know who were in it apart from the kids) as I haven’t seen much of her since Girl, Interrupted and thought that she was truly forsaken by the ageist Hollywood. Now probably in her forties or even late forties, she has morphed into an extremely refined actress who portrait the mentally exhausted mum trying to find her missing child perfectly. She has always been a good actor in my opinion but her beauty in her younger years had prevented her to be cast into more interesting roles until Girl, Interrupted. So it was great to see her back in top form in Stranger Things.  Other actors were good though they were completely overshadowed by the kids, who were the central characters in the story. The authenticity of the kids was impeccable and I think that is the good thing about kid actors. They were really a blank canvas acting on their instincts. And that gave their performances so much realism than some adults who were trying to “act as the characters”. Whether this trail of excellent authentic performance could continue in season 2 is yet to be seen, but the kids in the show truly shone and it was really about them.

I mentioned that Stranger Things for me was engaging yet familiar. This was because throughout the whole show you can feel the influence of a lot of 80s and 90s stuff in this genre popping up everywhere. First up, the Upside Down dimension has an extremely strong Silent Hill feel with the ashes flying around and the walls covered by weird things like blood vessels. When it switches over to this dimension, it switches over in a similar way and the thin veil between the two dimensions feels extremely Silent Hill. Then the scene where they found the missing kid, it strongly reminded me of a scene in Aliens when the crew found the nest of the Alien Queen. Further, the kids riding on bikes chased by cars had a strong ET feel to it and not to mention the design of the monster looks very similar to the lickers in the Resident Evil series. Probably these were what inspired the premise of the show I don’t know but that does not mean that I have issues with it. In fact it is because of this familiarity and together with an extremely original story with excellent pacing, they made the show more engaging for me than I would have expected.

Stranger Things has been commissioned for another season. Whether it would be as successful is still too early to say. However, with the huge expectation created by the first season, there sure will be big shoes to fill and high bars to reach. I would in the meantime just enjoy the nostalgic yet new experience brought to me by this unique show.

If you like ET, Silent Hill, Aliens, Resident Evil, and sometimes moments of teen horror flicks, you would probably like this show. So check it out if you happen to have a Netflix account.

Sense and Sensibility...and Zombies

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In a world that keeps moving and moving at lightning speed, over the years we have created a culture that craves for instant gratification and satisfaction. This culture while is sensually appealing is undermining the very basic foundation of our society beyond our notice.

In my line of work, a lot of things are based on evidence (service improvement) and actual experience (acting). I was taught from a young age that nothing comes quickly but you have to look for them, and if you are willing to look hard enough you will find your answers and thus leads to your personal growth.

However, in a technologically advanced world we are always bombarded with information, be that accurate or not. As a human tendency we tend to filter information to our own liking and gradually developed an information bubble that screens out anything that does not please our eyes or our ears. This tendency of information screening has become worrisome as we can no longer develop balanced views of our world, and thus be truly informed and open minded.

One may say, “If I like something I just like something, why do I need to be open minded and informed?” That is by theory true. If you like chocolate you can eat chocolate to your heart’s consent, it doesn’t bother anyone except you. However, with the predominance of social media and the various platforms available to us, what you like is no longer about what you like. We are living in an age of easy comments on social media. We constantly exercise our freedom of speech to justify our rights to comment. However, in the process we gradually forgot how these ill-informed, one sided comments would affect or hurt our society. When we put something out there, it is no longer about what we like or think but what we tell people this is how things should be according to your own world view. One may or may not notice, every piece of comment floating around on social media will have an effect, no matter big or small. Ill-informed and one sided comments as such do not inform our society but create distorted space in our society that further digresses from the core issue and further distorts views about those issues.

For example, the current marriage equality debate in Australia essentially is not a debate. When we tear this apart and look at it closely, the centre of the debate are arguments such as “The Bible said marriage is between a man and a woman not two person of the same sex”, “I personally do not like this” and “This is not the society I grew up in and should remain so”. None of these arguments are about what positive or negative effect providing marriage equality would have to our society. The negative effects about equating marriage equality put out by the “no camp” about it encourages paedophilia, bestiality and forcing gender fluidity into school programs have no evidence support at all, but are catchy in political means. Even the whole notion that Australia is a Christian country is not correct as Australia had not declared itself as a Christian country constitutionally. What should have been looked at is – would marriage equality brought on issues that we are not constitutionally and legally prepared for? Instead of how a sector of the society wants to see marriage as, we should be looking at some basic human rights, which is what a democratic society is built upon, because anything other than that is irrelevant from a social and constitutional point of view.

Looking further away, the current mess America had got itself into with Donald Trump is another example of such issue. Donald Trump is used to throwing out comments in a manner that sound like fact (hence his casual and assertive tones in his comments), and that is appealing to people who just take words for granted. These people can be intelligent but also intellectually lazy. So as momentum built, fact checking is no longer an important part in Trump’s campaign because people who support him, including the right wing media in the States, do not think fact checking is important anymore. They just want to hear things that fit their world view and for them this is a good President candidate. They will jump to their defence with more off the cuff but flashy comments, and eventually creating this huge void of commentary politics that is doing nobody any good. In fact during the debate on Monday, what Hilary Clinton did was providing fact checking to everything Donald Trump said and claimed he did not say to the audience, which quickly unravelled into a consolidation of exposure of Trump’s lies throughout the whole campaign. The fact that the Trump camp immediately labelling Clinton as nasty and mean because she was exposing all the lies by facts showed that Trump’s campaign thrives on nothing but unfound comments and claims, if not lies. However, the sad fact is that the void the campaign had created is so big now it won’t dent his campaign a bit unless the Republican Party acts, which is not going to happen at this stage.

What saddens me in the current stage of our society is that levelled and balanced evidence based debates are no long that relevant anymore. We have commercial journalist who thrive on catchy headlines and sensational reporting that sometimes are not based on evidence but their own world view or rating attraction potentials. We have media conglomerates that promote ignorance is good and feed their audience with baseless “facts” as actual facts, and these audiences just absorb it like a sponge in the ocean and being nurtured into brain craving zombies to satisfy their brainless hunger for misinformation. When facts and evidence were presented, they were dismissed and criticised forcefully by these media conglomerates trying to suppress them under the disguise of freedom of speech. And even more disappointing is that this kind of practice is championed by some high profile politicians across the world to garner cheap and easy support from the uninformed, which seem to be growing at an exponential rate.

I do not believe there is a Utopia, as humanity had throughout history proved that it is unable to deliver that. But with a bit of sense and sensibility about our society and our world, I do believe that we could live in harmony and with respect at the very least. I will just keep hoping even if it is a fool’s hope at this stage.

To Go! or Not to Go!?

My urb converted into a virtual world

For Pokemon Go!, either you are a Goer or No-Goer. The game came out last week and surprisingly took the world by storm. Servers were crashed, headlines – good and bad were written, and people are talking about it. However, as with all things, it created a whole new bunch of haters. Also as with all things, haters will always be haters as their existence is not for conversion but preaching hatred, whatever it is based on.

For me, Pokemon Go! is a great game because it is Pokemon, period. As someone from the Pokemon generation we understood why it is important to us. So with a game that married modern technologies with a franchise that we have been following since we were kids, of course we will not pass the opportunity out. The fact is, every single Pokemoner had at some stage wishing that they could catch Pokemons in the real world, which is what Pokemon Go! offers.

What made Pokemon Go! successful is that it successfully modernised a franchise of 20 years old that has a huge following and transformed it into a modern, portable and wish fulfilling game. The application of augmented reality in Pokemon Go! places these cute little creatures into our “real life” habitat turning every part of the world into Kanto, the fictional Pokemon world. You can catch them all, you can battle in the virtual gyms to train them up, and you can evolve your Pokemons, just like what you did in all those games on various Nintendo handheld consoles. The only difference is this time the trainer is YOU, not a persona in the game that Nintendo created for you. That aspect further broke down the barrier between you and your Pokemons.

There are a lot of bashers for the game since the phenomenon started. I have a colleague questioning me catching Pokemon around the urbs and thought it is a waste of time. According to him I should go out do some exercise and talk to people instead. My reply was any comments on the game without first understanding the game is lame and I would take no notice of them. I told him his opinion is just like I say to him playing golf is lame (he is a golfer) as it is just a bunch of old men walking on a piece of lawn and swinging their poles. He laughed and said they exercise as they walk and they socialise as they talk. I replied “Exactly! This game requires you to go walk about to catch and hatch Pokemons and along the way you interact with other users in real life finding out more about where to catch Pokemons and share the same passion with each other.” From what I read online, a lot of so called bashers or haters don’t really understand the game or haven’t even tried the game. They read two paragraphs in the papers and started talking shit about the game as if they were experts. For me I don’t really care about their opinions as haters are not there to be converted anyway, so why bother? You can only educate people who have the curiosity in life and want to be educated.

As for reports of people hurting themselves while playing the game, it is not game’s fault but the players’ fault. You cannot blame the game when it is the people who were playing the game acting out irresponsibly. It is just like people driving without paying attention to the road and crashed into a lake or a tree. Is it the car’s fault? People giving out credit card information without thinking whether it is secured to do so, is it the credit card’s fault? People talking on their mobile phones and walked into a manhole, is it the mobile phone’s fault? For me all this Pokemon Go! blaming is just people want to shift responsibility as apparently an application on a phone cannot defend itself against criticisms. What we need to understand is people should always play the game responsibly, that is what needs to be communicated. But then whether people took the advice is another matter.

One thing I appreciate about my mum is that she would try to understand before she makes comments. She messaged me on the second day the game came out and asked me whether I was playing it. When I told her yes I am playing it, she called me to understand how the game operates and stuff before asking me to play responsibly. Yes, I cannot expect everyone to act like my mum, but if we want responsible players, we need to have responsible commentators and critics too. Ignorance will only breed ignorance and I can’t see how this would do any good to our society <cough cough right wing cough commentators>.

Whether you are a Goer or not, it is important to enjoy things without being critical for the sake of being critical. If you are a Goer play responsibly so you don’t give radical bashers an excuse to generalise exceptions and then normalise them. If you are a No-Goer, I respect your choice but I do expect you to respect our choice too and try to understand it better before you pass your judgement. Whether Pokemon Go! has a long lasting appeal is not an issue for me because I am enjoying it and I am not placing a dollar value on to my positive experience. But I do understand none of us live in an augmented reality so it is our responsibility to make the real world we live in a better place, with Pokemon or not.

The Price is (always) right?!

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Monday’s Q and A was quite a display. Steve Price’s performance during the segment about violence against women and his unrepentant attitude for his behaviours was quite a scene.

He was first asked by an audience about the media’s role to battle against violence against women. The audience member indicated his sister was a victim to it and was killed at age 23. Steve Price did not offer any condolences (he only offered that after every other panel member did so) and jumped into defence of Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman. He basically said, “It was a blokey joke but the society doesn’t like it so he apologised so that should be end of story. The society and the media had overblown it, which is inappropriate”

Firstly brushed it away as a blokey joke and still see it as a blokey joke highlighted how a non-issue he considered violence against women is. From what he said he basically said “We did not actually do it so it is ok to joke about doing it. You guys should lighten up”. This view was rightly pointed out by the rest of the panel as a first step to endorsement of violence against women because first you joke then you act.

Secondly, the fact that he blamed the society for making this sound like an issue highlighted the fact that he and his friends refused to acknowledge they have any responsibilities on the whole saga. “It is someone else faults but we gracefully showed how accepting we are to the society’s erroneous views” is basically the sub-text of his saying. Refusing to acknowledge personal responsibilities of wrong doings is another issue within the whole violence against women issue.

When the Guardian columnist Van Badham sharply pointed out that he is no different from his friends, Price immediately jumped to his own defence and accused her for painting him with the same brush. This further highlights how lack of solidarity Price is on this issue. He basically knows this is not right, that’s why “don’t paint me with the same brush” but at the same time he refused to acknowledge his views and his friends’ behaviours are incorrect.

Then in the next few minutes Price basically tried to talk over Van Badham to shut her down completely. This is a blatant behaviour of lack of respect for others, not to just mention women. And during the talk over he repeatedly pointed out it is not the women’s exclusive rights to be upset by this or to call this out, which basically mean “we men know better so we don’t need you women to tell us”. Van Badham rightly pointed out to Price his behaviour is an accurate display of the point that she was making.

Price clearly is not happy with the debate. He without a doubt lost the argument as the audience were overwhelmingly unhappy with his performance but gave Van Badham one of the greatest cheers and support on the program this year.

However, the story did not end here, in the next few days he continued to attack Van Badham using his media platforms such as his own show, The Project and his appearance on Andrew Bolt’s program to attack Van Badham. Once again shifting responsibilities to ABC claiming his does not know the question (ABC clarified none of the panellists in history knows the questions beforehand but only the topic) and he felt ambushed. So again typically it is not his fault but someone else’s. He also further trying to discredit Van Badham by claiming he eavesdropped about her troubled personal life. But then seriously is eavesdropping then publicising someone else’s personal life ethical at all? Obviously there is no ethical boundary Steve Price cannot cross gracefully in his and his friends’ views.

He continued to label Van Badham as an aggressive woman when on the show he was the most aggressive one sitting next to her talking over her on the top of his voice trying to shut her down simply because he did not like what he heard.

Steve Price is the typical old fossil right wing misogynist man that this country is currently overrun by in the upper strata of our society. The fact that he is still trying to shut down opposite opinions in the disguise of freedom of speech is disturbing. To this group of people, including Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, and even Tony Abbott, freedom of speech means their freedom of speech. Anything different from their views are not worth of this freedom. The blatant display of this attitude in the past few years from the Parliament to the media had consolidated a number of views that are not sitting well with our society. Disrespect to and hence violence against women is exactly one of them.

Would the rest of the media let Price go easily or would the society continue to hold these people responsible for their behaviours? Time will tell. But in my opinion, continuation of misogynist speeches like this in the public will only breed a new brand of terrorists – the ones that mostly acted against women. If they think other ethnicities or faiths are not as good simply because they did not have gender equality and thus are backward, Steve Price and his friends are no different, even when they are straight white men with supremist egos and allegedly Christian upbringing.  Their whiteness can never cover up the darkness of their behaviours.

X-men Apocalypse

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Anyone who follows the X-men franchise would know that “Days of the Future Past” is a tough act to follow. That entry in the franchise rounded up all the most popular actors and X-men in one movie and re-wrote the timeline of the whole franchise to enable it to move on in a separate space. It was more than just an enabler but a resetter for the franchise that involved some of the best actors in the franchise. In my last blog on the “Days of the Future Past” I wrote that I hope there would be no sequel coming out anytime soon as it was a movie to be relished on.

But as Hollywood has it, “Apocalypse” came out two years later.

The thing is, for me, “Days of the Future Past” still has strong lingering feelings in me. There are still scenes that I dare not to revisit but at the same time still stayed vividly alive in my head. So I basically see “Apocalypse” as a palette cleanser for me. Afterall it is a story that is happening in a rewritten timeline with some of the familiar characters exhibiting different personalities because of what happened in the last movie. The director Bryan Singer also took this opportunity to introduce some new characters and set the stage for future instalments. So for his efforts seemed to have gone unwelcomed.

“Apocalypse” was not particularly well received by critics and fans alike. This came as a surprise as “Apocalypse” reintroduced a number of extremely popular characters such as Angel, Psylocke, Cyclops and Jean Grey back into the X-men universe while continue with the current story line involving Professor X, Magneto and Mystique. So what went wrong?

Personally I think “Apocalypse” represented a huge departure of theme from some of the more popular X-men movies. Previous X-men movies emphasised strongly on the discrimination against mutants and how mutants suffered because of this. There were heavy narratives on non-mutants failing to understand them, and trying to control them, to imprison them or to cure them. They were about pride and being socially disadvantaged at the same time. These themes resonated strongly with fans and audience alike as they are real issues both depicted in the comics and in the society we are living in. However, in “Apocalypse” main story was about Apocalypse woke up in the modern age, did not like what the society had become and decided to cleanse it. This change had inevitably rendered the movie into just another action packed comic book adaptation that has no correlations to fans who supported the franchise because of the theme it had carried in the past.

Is “Apocalypse” a bad movie? I personally do not think so but it just doesn’t carry the pack of punches it used to have when it is just a Sci-fi movie and nothing else. I just could not feel what the characters feel anymore as their journeys became just a dramatic plot paving way for a finale and that’s all. In the earlier X-men movies, the discrimination and survival theme made X-men stood out from its pack. Especially in “Days of Future Past” when they were being hunted down for just being who they were, something they could not change at all. I felt that if the movie capitalised more on the coming of age of the younger characters, it might make the film a bit more relevant, but then it had been done in “The First Class” so it makes it hard to repeat that subject again.

Structure wise “Apocalypse” has a pretty concrete structure although I did feel the motivation for Apocalypse was a bit over simplistic. Maybe he represented a force that used to be on the top but now not even part of the food chain. But then that kind of motive did not really sit well with the rest of the movies in the franchise. As for the four disciples, I can understand why Magneto and Angel wanted to join Apocalypse because of their experience, but then for Psylocke and Storm their motives never really stack up. Quicksilver still stole the screen and Evan Peters’ quirky and geeky approach to the character added so much colour to it that he had made it his own. I did like the back story for Magneto in this movie and in fact I think it really did justice for Michael Fassbender as one of the most versatile actors in his generation. As for many of the other characters, they are either not very flashed out or I just felt the characterisations were a bit on the weak side, disregarding the performances of the actors portraying them.

I am not saying “Apocalypse” is a bad movie. I don’t think it could even be considered as bad or even mediocre as I did enjoy every moment of it while I was in the cinema. But I did feel lacking when the credit rolls. I think maybe to a certain degree audiences do try to relate themselves to the stories on the big screen nowadays. If that kind of connection was not there the audience could feel disengaged. X-men is a series that is not just about super power. Super power in the X-men universe was just a means to an end or even a cause to an issue. Without that theme flowing through the vessels, it feels less human and thus less powerful. Nonetheless if you are just looking for an action packed movie with lots of good CGI effects, “Apocalypse” is still a good choice.

When the difference makes a difference

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So Waleed won. There are people who are still not happy. Attacks on him continued but then he won, so those attacks are really irrelevant. The thing is some people said that his win is a big deal because of racial correctness and it shouldn’t be an issue at this day and age. But what is ironic is that people who claimed that mostly belong to people who still hold dear that Australia is a white Anglo and western country and so the media should reflect this.

Does political and racial correctness exist?  Yes it does but then when we are living in a society that is thriving on diversity, the same diversity will inevitably become an issue. Yes Waleed won. Yes he is different. But when the difference made a difference it became a different issue. The fact that certain sectors of the media and our society are so up in arms against Waleed and Lee Lin Chin reflected this part of the society is still fighting the change. It is sad but then at the same time it is encouraging. This is because our society has moved from not-acknowledging the need for change to now acknowledging the change and then moving towards resisting and attacking the change. Noni Hazelhurst nailed this at her acceptance speech for the night – the good thing about glacier is that you either ride on it or you got overrun by it.

I have worked with a number of younger generation producers and writers and for them ethnicity is not any issue for they see characters as, well characters. So TV personalities are, well just TV personalities. The thing with the Gold Logie was that it is a gong nominated and selected by the audience – the audience who are still watching TV. The fact that both Waleed and Lee were nominated means they resonate with the audience in such a way that they reflected the acceptance of TV personalities as who they are. Some of the resisting fractions attack the nominations by pointing out their programs are not that great and popular, so they should not be nominated. However the other ironic aspect of this argument was that Carrie Bickmore who was also nominated was Waleed Aly’s co-host on The Project, but nobody seemed to give a thing about it. So are the attacks about the popularity of the show or are they about something else?

During all the attacks in the foray it seemed that people have forgotten about something – yes Waleed is not white, yes Waleed is a Muslim but also yes Waleed was born and bred in Australia, and yes Waleed was educated in a Christian school. He is as Australian as any of those white hard heads who are trying to hit him like Juggernauts. Like a lot of Australian kids who went to Christian schools he just did not get converted to Christianity but stayed with his parents’ faith.

Waleed’s win both matters and does not matter. It matters because it represents a change of preference of the audience. So many a time I was told the Australian audience is not ready to accept non-Anglo characters as leads in shows (I was even told by a producer to write out or dump down non-Anglo leads in a series that he thought was good but too non-White) but Waleed and Lee’s nominations is a reality check that those recycled arguments are no longer valid – and yes the audience had changed – not just ready for a change but had changed. And this is an ideological battle beaten by reality. It also does not matter because this is already the world we are living in so the television landscape is just catching up whether the power holders like it or not. With the competition from streaming services such as Netflix, the Australian audience have more choices and can switch off on programs they don’t relate to anymore. So the choice for the television industry in Australia is either to go with the flow or as Noni Hazelhurst said get overrun by the glacier.

Am I excited about this change we saw last night? I must say I am just cautiously optimistic as when a difference start to make a difference people in power will do whatever they can to put them down. Star Wars and Hunger Games might be fictional but they did portray people in power in quite accurate ways. These people will do whatever they can in their power to “fix the problem” even deep down they know it is a change not a problem. But who would want to surrender what they believe they have built and yield to the newer and younger generation?

Waleed’s win and Lee’s nomination are pivotal because they were nominated for who they are and not caricatures of where they belong to. For me this is extremely important as a practitioner in the media landscape because this represents the recognition of what is being done instead of where they came from. The likes of Andrew Bolt who argued on the grounds of political correctness gone mad are in my opinion nothing but patronising as I firmly believe you are in no position to talk about the need for non-racial-correctness if you are not a person who had experienced it.

Waleed’s win and Lee’s nomination are also results of hard work being recognised by a changed audience demography. People who said otherwise are irrelevant as they know they are becoming more and more irrelevant as time passes. They won’t be shut down but then when their voices truly become irrelevant, this debate will truly become irrelevant because then truly there is no need to talk about it anymore.  

Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War without a doubt is one of the most anticipated films of the year. The hype was everywhere and if you were even remotely interested in comic books adaptation movies, you would know it and would have seen one of its trailers.

The Civil War story in the comic book was an extremely dark one. The hunting were ruthless and the hunted usually suffered terrible fates. So I was scared and excited at the same time. To avoid having accidental spoilers coming my way, I decided to see it on the day it came out without waiting for the cheap ass Tuesday discount.

So how did it hold up?

Without giving out too many spoilers I must say I enjoyed it a lot. Nonetheless I will probably need to see it again to catch on to a lot of things – because a lot happened in the movie. And all these things that happened at the same time tied in to the past and future movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So one sitting of the movie would not be enough for me to pick up all the clues, hints and references. t

The movie picked up where The Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron left behind. The new bunch of Avengers at the end of Ultron are now an operative unit. As they continue to live their “normal” lives, as usual mankind interferes. This is the premise of Civil War. The main question is “Can we trust mankind to take care of the world by having them controlling the super humans who are taking care of them?” “When they said they are afraid what actually should we be afraid of?” It is a great debate in the move and each one of them has his or her strong reason to sign or not to sign on. The truth is when there are greed and politics no one can be trusted. This is something that was shared in common in the conversation between Black Widow and Black Panther before all hell broke loose. Batman Vs Superman touched on the same premise but without the huge back story already created for it, Batman Vs Superman felt like a rush to the destination while Civil War came out as a natural progression of the storyline in this huge Universe.

It is a super hero movie so naturally there are lots of actions and special effects in the movie. The introduction of Spiderman and enlisting of Ant-man have inevitably expanded the games and tricks the Russo brothers can do. Even veterans such as Falcon received an upgrade and not to mention the extended screen time for both The Winter Soldier and Agent 13. The action scenes are spectacular and breathtaking. It is impressive how the movie can squeeze in so many styles of fighting and made every single one of them stood out among the crowd. Every character has a purpose in the fight and that made all those scenes extremely cohesive and meaningful. Some of the superpower combos are well choreographed and appropriately referenced.

Nonetheless a film with all action and no story is still not a good film. That is what I think Civil War did extremely well. As the opening movie for Phase 3 it has a lot to tie in from Phase 2 and a lot to set up for the rest of the movies in Phase 3. It was quite impressive how it managed to weave all the story arcs for different characters in and out without at the same time losing the main plot. Surely a lot of things were handled through different dialogues but it is because of this that when you picked things up you would have that “oh yeah!” or “oh wow!” feel. This kind of reward for paying attention to what they said is the incentive for the audience to pay attention to the dialogues while appreciating all the actions flying off the screen. As I said sometimes you can still get distracted because of the actions and that what makes one wants to go back and see it again to pick up more clues and references.

Relationships among characters had also become very complicated. Sometimes I feel like Tony Stark was the jealous party in the bromance between the Captain and Bucky and thus would try to break them up at all costs. The fact is Civil War is about people falling out after some extremely intense situation that brought them together. One would think the bond would be so strong that they would be friends and allies for life. However, in the real world, politics and egos always come first, so with Civil War setting in the “real” world, it is inevitable that these factors played strong parts to divide this seemingly unbreakable group. When something fell apart from the inside the consequences and aftermaths are a lot messier to deal with. The Avengers certainly tasted it in this one.

Captain America: Civil War reflected that even superheroes could not help themselves. As soon as their common enemies disappeared, personal preferences and politics immediately came into play at the expense of their allies. They might be able to table whatever arguments they had but are they actually working for the benefit of the world that they are trying to protect? That is the question.

If you want to find out whether anyone of them found any resolution in this conflict, you will have to find this out yourself. I am not going to spoil it here. As for me I totally enjoyed it. The hype is quite hyped but then it did not disappoint. As I said earlier I will probably go see it again on a cheap Tuesday so I can pick up more clues and hints as my OCD will not permit me to let things like this left unresolved.

The Chronicles of Clovar - The Missing Chapter

Image courtesy of Phuong Tran

Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a Grand Cleric. The Grand Cleric dedicated his life to cure the most difficult diseases in the realm and was loved by the people near and far.

Unfortunately then came a day when the Grand Cleric was struck down by the same disease he dedicated to cure and despite all his peers and novices working extremely hard to save his life, he passed the River of Fire Flies and joined the elders of the world.

The realm was in mourning over the loss and the Grand Steward of the realm and his peers decided to build a House of Healing to commemorate his work and to continue the fight of such deadly deceases. The Grand Steward gathered a group of people, peers and friends alike and formed the Grand Council for the House of Healing and nominated a Fellowship of Life to carry out the plan.

As the plan moved forward, a rival conglomerate was jealous of the resources for the House of Healing and made different attempts to stall the progress. There were much struggle as the Fellowship of Life was determined to push forward without breaking important relationships along the way. The Fellowship of Life consulted the Grand Council at times but it was a battle for the Fellowship to fight. Along the way, the House of Healing gathered some traction and attracted able adventurers of different nature and background to help with the cause. The rival conglomerate understood there was no way to stop the House of Healing so had no choice but move their sabotage operations underground and attempted to establish blood binding deeds to limit the success of the House.

Finally after years of hard work and jumping over a lot of hurdles, the House of Healing opened its door to the realm providing care to all the seriously ill. The battle with the conglomerate continued while the Fellowship soldiered on with the vision of the Grand Cleric. Eventually battles with various parties to uphold the vision of the Grand Cleric took its toll and the Leader of the Fellowship of Life decided to move on with his life.

The departure of the Leader sent shockwaves across the Fellowship and the House. At this point the Grand Council was going through its own power struggles and became unstable itself. With the Grand Cleric’s vision still yet to be fully realised there was a race to find a new Leader for the Fellowship. The rush opened up opportunities to the unsavoury and deceitful kinds. A Witch of the South managed to meander her way through the gates and took up the leadership position. Two of the Fellowship members smelled the rat of the Witch of the South and decided to depart before she strikes. The Witch of the South, at that time yet to establish a strong foothold begged one the members not to disclose her departure and kept the news tightly inside her robe. However, as she slowly established herself she started to reveal her true colours bit by bit and commenced waves of white terror over the House. She gradually removed members of the Fellowship using different tactics, be it embarrassing them by dismissing them from the Fellowship without notice, humiliating them by forcing them out the Fellowship in front of their teams and continuously throwing unsavoury warnings about members’ positions in the Fellowship.

During the age of terror, the true colours of some of the adventurers who joined the cause were also unveiled. Some of them realigned their allegiance with the Witch of the South and turned the House of Healing into a House of Purging. One by one members of the Fellowship and adventurers who joined to establish the House were force out of the establishment. Meanwhile the Witch of the South showed no limits to her ambitions and decided to wage full scale war with the conglomerate at the expense of the House. The conglomerate was angry with the lack of respect from the Witch of the South and vowed to disintegrate and absorb the House. So the war continued without an end in sight.

Meanwhile ex-members of the Fellowship of Life and their fellow adventurers who were forced out of the House by different disgraceful tactics continued to live their lives in different corners of the realm. They were sadden by the downturn of the House into a personal political plaything by the Witch of the South but were still strongly bond by the initial success of the House. One thing they all knew was that the Witch of the South would never be able to establish the degree of legacy in the realm as they knew political and personal gains were nothing but delusional baits that would lead her nowhere but to her own demise.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

With the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it will be surprising if DC Comics did not attempt the same with their great many iconic characters. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is a product of such. 

The movie has been hyped for quite a while and of course stirred up quite a bit of discussion with Ben Affleck cast as the next Batman. Man of Steel was a successful movie despite the mixed review it received from critics. Nonetheless, Henry Cavill’s Superman did bring the Man of Steel back to life. So as the second entry to the DC Universe and the rebooting of another iconic character, how did Batman V Superman stack up?

The end product is a very long movie of 2.5 hours packing in a lot of characters and a lot of storylines. As I weaved myself through this maze of storyline I found myself lost in time and space, and wondering when would this all stop. Yes, it is a pity as the stories can be so rich and powerful, but with everything happening, there seems to be lots of loss of opportunities littering around the place. 

The first issue I had with the movie is the lack of motive for most of the characters. Even when they have motives you couldn’t help but wonder: “Is that it?” In the Marvel Cinematic Universe every character was given sufficient time to develop their character and their role in that world, so when Avengers came along, even when Black Widow first appeared in Iron Man 2, things made sense and puzzles pieced together neatly. However in Batman V Superman, it seems they tried to force marrying the worlds and thus leaving all characters quite hollow in their motives for doing what they wanted to do. I personally felt the whole back story of Batman could be taken out because we had already watched Chris Nolan’s trilogy, we know very well its back story. It is only being played by a different actor that’s all. For Batman / Bruce Wayne, there were jarring questions in his storylines: if he cares so much about people who suffered in the last Superman battle, why wouldn’t he follow up with the guy whom worked for him and Bruce rescued personally? Why would he let that guy go rogue by over-indulging in grand scale of things that had a foundation as thin as a piece of A4 paper? If Batman is so smart, how would he not know this is Lex Luthor’s doing when going through the whole server archive of information? These were just some huge plot holes that screaming to be filled but never filled.

As for Superman, I understand we want to talk about his human side and his care of this world. But his relationship with all those he cared about were just lightly brought up with a few scenes here and there. And honestly, if he is so super how could he not hear the trouble his mother was going through? Shouldn’t he have a specific channel tuned in for his mom? I mean he came just in time to save Lois and let his mother went through that? That is again beyond comprehension. 

As for Diana Prince, aka Wonder Woman, how would she not be able to decrypt the server archive if she was supposed to be smart and resourceful? She managed to do stuff under Batman’s nose and went almost unnoticed. Even the whole Lex Luthor thing did not make much sense with the whole father complex and personal over thinking about the world leading him to decide to kill off some superheroes and destroy the world? He might be a lunatic but lunatics still need better motives to do what they are doing.

The issue here is everyone is reacting to things that are trivial to their cause. When there are so little for you to react to and you kept on reacting to them, the characters got driven into hyper-hibernation and became extremely boring. This is a pity because each of the characters had so much potential and if done properly could rival people mounting interests and indulgence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The only saving grace was Lois Lane, the person who figured out the whole plot bit by bit using her journalist instinct. Batman for me in the movie was just an angry piece of junk that annoyed the hell out of me. Seriously why would you want to destroy a character rebuilt by the Chris Nolan trilogy?

That said the film did have great visuals, especially when they re-created the Man of Steel battle scene from the ground perspective, which linked the two worlds neatly together. However, there were situations that CGI or special effects were used for the sake of it and I genuinely did not know why those scenes existed in the movie when they were not even significantly moving the plotlines.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice carried a lot of weight on its shoulder and in this case did weigh it down. I mean the scene when Wonder Woman showed up was great but it was already spoiled by the trailer, so there was nothing left to be excited about. Ben Affleck did a good middle aged Batman but I wished the screenwriters gave him more materials to work on, which applied the same to Gal Gadot and Henry Cavill. For me Batman V Superman is a missed opportunity and I think DC Comics really need to think about this holistically to avoid themselves being dragged into this cinematic mess again, for once their characters were destroyed it will take a long time to rebuild.

A Rebel with a Heart

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No matter what the media said, there is no denial that Madonna still commands a huge influence in the performance industry and music scene. Not every single is a hit and there surely are prejudice against her in terms of air time for her music, but most of them still pack a punch and most of them are still unforgiving in terms of the messages they carried.

Recently got a chance to see her live performance in Sydney so decided to catch up with her recent catalogue before attending. I only remember the last song I listen to was 4 Minutes with Justin Timberlake and that’s about it. Did not notice MDNA was a standalone album (thought it was just another best compilations) but did notice Rebel Heart because of the controversy of “defacing pictures of historical icons”. Also the concert was named after this album so there you go.

People have been criticising her being late. So for me I had no expectation for her to come on stage on time. Sometimes I do feel people nowadays will just criticising her for the sake of criticising her. Seriously when you already knew she would be late and then complaining about her being late is a bit too much. Anyway she did address the part by saying “Greatness equates lateness” – typical Madonna style.

Once she was on stage there was no cheating at all. At 57 I personally think it is acceptable that you cheat a few dance numbers as they can be pretty demanding live on stage. However, there was no such thing that night. When the beats came up, she was dancing without any hesitation. Her dancers were brilliant and she did not show any sign of catching up at all. Her flexibility and fluidity on stage is beyond comprehension. I think that really what differentiates a good performer from a great performer. Choreography was done for specific numbers and those specific numbers intertwined with the emotion of the audience.

With a concert based on mostly new materials you would expect people to be more lukewarm as people might be there for her old materials. However surprisingly a lot of the audience managed to follow the tunes and lyrics of her latest materials. That showed that Madonna still has a strong following whether the current media likes her or not. Songs like Iconic, Rebel Heart, Body Shop Heartbreak City etc. were all greeted with excitement from the audience. There were of course her all time classics such as Vogue, Material Girl, Like a Virgin, Music and Like a Prayer. Some were remixed and some were delivered in their original flavours. The audience responded to every single track and none of them disappointed. Madonna’s ability to sing and dance without losing a beat or a tune proved that she is still one of the best live performers in the music industry.

During various chat sessions Madonna responded to all the negative media coverage claiming her experiencing a meltdown with her ongoing custody battle for her 15 year old son. She told the audience “Madonna is not having a meltdown. God forbid a mother missing her son. It is a crime for a mother to miss her son”. That pretty much summed up how she despised the modern media that tried to continuously write her off without even attempting to know her. But then how often modern media tries to understand something before reporting them anyway?

The concert was a full three hour fest with lots of memorable tunes and performances. It is something that you would relish and remember for a very long time. The show is about Rebel Heart and surely it is representational of Madonna as an artist. For me I do think Rebel Heart is Madonna return to form (I still failed to relate to MDNA and the Hard Candy albums in any sense except for 4 Minutes). As an artist Madonna is uncompromising, which I think is the reason that made her great and outstanding. She is also fearless about critics and continued to push her musical and creative boundaries. She does not give a shit to the media and various outlets whom have no relevance to her life. She really has the heart of a rebel inside her. 

The Family Law

Finally finished watching “The Family Law” today. I did not watched it when it was live on air and some of my friends were thinking that I was sour grape because I did not get the role I auditioned for. But the fact was that I am never a weekly following person and never liked to watch and stop. So I just as usual record the whole season and find a good time to watching them in minimal sittings. I also want to have a more objective judgement by watching the whole season in one go without commenting it slice by slice thus losing the whole picture.

For those who don’t know what the show is about, it is based on the book of the same name by Benjamin Law, a Chinese Australian writer, about his own family. The story has brought the whole timeline forward to the modern times (I am sure when he was 14 Kim-West were not around, not to mention mobile phone that plays high quality videos) but remained truthful to the family story. It is a family full of colourful people and hence drama and comedies guaranteed.

I remember the day after the show first went on air a colleague of mine asked me why SBS made another show about a Chinese family running a Chinese restaurant. I spent some time explaining to her that though the show seemed to be so it is based on a true story so it is not really aiming at further stereotyping Chinese. I asked her to continue watching it then make the judgement. For me, especially in Australia, a show such as this cannot be judged by the cover or even by the first page.

For me, the show started off in a very comedic fashion. Clearly Jenny, the mother, was the centre of the attention despite the story was being told from Benjamin’s point of view. Her larger than life and no pull back way of talking more than once embarrassed her kids in front of everyone. But she saw that as part of the family, part of the bonding and what the family is about. For the kids the whole growing up in Australia bit completely clashed with a lot of their parents’ thinking. The people they hung out with, the people they date, they food they like etc. are completely opposite to what their parents portrayed them to be. The father is a typical Chinese father who thought providing means love. I auditioned for the father part so did quite a bit of research on the part and understood that Ben’s father acted that way because this was what he experienced and admired about his father when he grew up. So long story short this family is a Clash of the Titans every day.

I am quite glad this show was produced although I would personally hope the Chinese aspect could initially be limited to daily living details than being amped up so much in the earlier episodes. I found myself quite disengaging when something showed up on screen screaming CHINESE at my face. I particularly find it quite annoying with the whole Chinese whisper gossip part which I personally think the show could do without. It might be funny the first time but when these just go on and on episode after episode, it just became annoying. However, since the show is about a Chinese family in Australia, the producers might felt compelled to amplify the Chinese bit at the beginning as cultural differences and clichés always sell. But I am glad that as the characters established themselves, it became more about the story than the Chinese-ness of the show. A pity was that by that time the show is already coming to a close.

One aspect I really appreciate about the show was that it does not shy away from a lot of subjects, including racism, puberty, inter-racial relationships and homosexuality. The good thing is it does not wave banners on those subjects but smartly incorporating them into the dialogues. For me this is the smartest way to cover these subjects – by not making them like subjects at all.

However, there is one major aspect that bugs me throughout the whole series – the really bad articulation of Cantonese by a lot of the characters. Jenny’s distorted Cantonese was quite acceptable as she was originally from Malaysia, but for Danny, he was supposed to be born and bred in Hong Kong and yet his Cantonese was even worse than Jenny. Also for the two gossiping women I personally felt that if they were from Hong Kong, have good Cantonese, if they are from Malaysia, then might as well speak Mandarin. I am sure Jenny would be able to understand. I know I am getting quite picky here and seriously most would think none of the local audience would picked up the really bad Cantonese, but for me it was just like thorns to my ears every time I heard that. I wish more works could be done to address this in the future seasons or at least find a voice coach to coach the cast so they could speak more accurate Cantonese. That is if the speaking Cantonese part is about the authenticity of the family, make it authentic.

On the whole I think “The Family Law” was showing quick maturity around 3.5 episodes into the season. If there is a second season, I would like to see the series focusing more on the family and the characters, who just happen to be Chinese.