Monday, February 22, 2010

Free Boba.

my company has some thing called 9/80. basically, instead of working 80 hrs in 10 days, you work 80 hrs over 9 days. its nice cause, you can take every other friday off. i happen to take advantage of it two wkends ago. how nice and delightful. when sunday rolled around, i was pretty miserable, not because work was the next day, but i looked back at the wkend and wondered where it went! then, i realized, stupid me, i wasted a full 10 hours of it! waste? yes, waste. i wasted it by watching 5 movies. 5 whole movies. i might as well went to work on friday and would've still gotten some more free time.

here are the movies i watched and on a scale of 1-10 (higher number = bigger smile) how i enjoyed it at the time:

1. thursday night - count of monte cristo -- 7.5
i love the plot. dealing with injustice, betrayal, wasted time, and then i love how the author turns edmond dantes' fate around. i love, how the priest teaches him not only education and how to use the sword, but of principles and character. great plot. shows you the evilness of men and the humor of fate. if i ever get good at french, i'd read it in french. maybe i should read the unabridged version in english some time.

in terms of the movie, the ending is weak and cheesy. but, mercedes is pretty enough, so i kept watching. see, the movie and the book have different endings. you gotta go read the book! maybe you can savor it if you ever end up in jail and desired a jail break.

2. friday afternoon - when in rome -- 5.5
random factoid - i love romantic comedies. yeah, yeah, rain on the girl jokes. to fight for my defense, i hate chick flicks (the joy luck club, divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood, titanic. those are chick flicks -- romantic dramas. i'd even put the notebook in that list, but i semi-enjoyed the notebook, only cause i watched it with 5 other queers in mammoth, otherwise... nope!) but i love romantic comedies. i enjoy seeing a pretty girl fall in love and i enjoy laughing while it happens. one of my favorite romantic comedies is forgetting sarah marshall. (the sweet song of inside of you sung by carlan and jon chen, echoes in my head. those clowns.) romantic comedies require a good combination of humor/comedy and romance. hard to achieve, but when done well, so enjoyable, so entertaining!

when in rome is a your typical romantic comedy. girl meets boy, and its the story of how they fall for each other, and the obstacles they face to finally being in a relationship with each other. unfortunately, the humor/comedy part of it was a bit bizarre. it was semi-entertaining. i think it ranked a whopping 5.5 because i got to enjoy it with my mom in the theater, while secretly thinking kristen bell of both forgetting sarah marshall and when in rome is cute.


3. friday evening #1 - 500 days of summer -- 5.0
5 minutes into the movie, my friend and owner of the movie, went upstairs and brought down 2 briefcases. opened it, and busted out a dozen airsoft guns, replicas of the real thing. haha. girly movie + guns.

if i was more artsy fartsy i might enjoy it more. the concept of the "jumping time-line" of the movie was unique. i eventually got the hang of it. the quirkiness and subtle artistic rifts were sprinkled throughout the movie. it was hard to pick up, take in and savor when you're fiddling with a gun in each hand and your friend is constantly pulling the trigger at the television every 5 minutes because of a lame scene or dialog - either when the guy was being a wuss or when the girl was annoying. i disliked the guy. he was pretty wimpy, but he grew up towards the end when he encountered the next season. the girl wasn't much better. she was weird and had issues. i enjoyed and hated the contrast and the polarity of the two main characters and their relationship. fitting for such a movie. ultimately, i felt that she needed to be honest, not give him a lame line and then turn around and get engaged/married to some one else. i think we tend to be dishonest so we're not "mean" and hurt each others feelings. understandable, but i'd rather be honest when it really matters. lastly, the movie was gloomy and depressing. i never noticed how gloomy los angeles, which is a total lie cause it's pretty much constantly sunny year round. liar liar pants on fire!

i give the movie a 5.0 because of its artiness, daringness to try something different and the lessons i can learn from the movie. i would probably enjoy the movie more if i was in a mopier mood or if there were bazookas to play with instead of lame sauce guns.

4. friday evening #2 - the lovely bones -- 1.5
i hate scary movies. i couldn't shower nor sleep without looking over my shoulder for weeks after the sixth sense. i was expecting a scary movie cause its trailers advertised it as such. the lovely bones didn't even do that. so in that sense it failed. how lame, couldn't even scare me.

i dont even want to go into details of the movie. i would not recommend it. jon chen kept saying the book is probably better, probably, but, i wont waste my time on it, unless someone could tell me about it and convince me. lastly, the ending pissed me off even more. that just made the whole movie even more upsetting.

man, do i sound bitter. haha.

5. saturday evening - matchstick men -- 6.5
nicholas cage's acting is pretty sweet. i think he does a good job, especially when he's drunk or if he has some weird mental disorder. the plot was interesting, unfortunately for me, towards the end i anticipated a turn in events was approaching, but i just didn't know when. so in that sense, it kept me guessing and that made it entertaining. i liked the shrink and how he dealt with nicholas cage. i admire the courage of changing careers after recognizing how his previous job was messing up his life. lastly, i think it was cool how cons occurred, i.e. like how the whole winning the lottery scene unfolded. pretty clever.

so, after that wkend, i was disgusted with the waste of my 10 hours. the movies were not great and rather unsatisfying, it brought about a feeling of wasted time and wasted life. also, while watching tv, i just turn off my brain. my grade school teacher used to say, if you don't use your head, its going to turn to mush. my brain already mushy, just become mushier. so, i'm going to strike out movies from my life for a little while, only till my trip. what's a better anecdote for a 14 hour plane ride than to waste away time by watching movies? i have a bet with my sister, no movies till then, and i win a cup of juicy refreshing boba. haha. she thinks i can't do it. but little does she know i'm blogging about it, and i'm bribing all of you! hold me to it and i'll share a boba with you.

watch those movies, they're killer!

5 comments:

  1. all your ratings are less than 8. not very convincing!

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  2. just finished the book! pretty long but a good, interesting read. the theme of justice is captivating. now i must see the movie. full text at http://www.literature.org/authors/dumas-alexandre/the-count-of-monte-cristo/ but library is recommended instead

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  3. nice alfred! maybe i should re-read it on my trip in march. i was thinking of doing 3 musketeers next. we should start a book club. :P

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  4. "share a boba" = 一顆珍珠 or 一杯奶茶? :P

    ReplyDelete