A Single Child

I just watched A Single Man with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. For all the high praise it got, I'm not too sure what I expected, but I was definitely less than satisfied when it ended. But I suppose the ending fit the general feel of the film. The whole affair is pretty pompous and melodramatic, not helped by its stringy and long-winded score. It's not a particularly poorly written soundtrack, nor a poor movie for that matter. It's just that I feel however poignant it gets, the build up takes too long to allow it an equal payoff.

That being said, it's a wonderfully stylish film. 2.5/4.


The other day my mom and dad and I were eating outside. It was dinner time, and my dad was on his laptop outside, as he usually is. Being summer, the sun had yet to set for a few more hours, and hunger struck our bellies like a lightning storm above a volcano. My brother was in Vietnam at the time, so he couldn't join us, naturally. My mom and I saw my dad outside and we decided to join his lonesome on the small table we have in the backyard next to my dad's makeshift hammock.

Our backyard was large, and where a patio could have been, we instead had cement laid out with a wooden roof I believe my dad made himself when we moved first arrived. We had two sliding doors on opposite ends of our house that led into the backyard. The roof covered the width of our house so no matter which door we slid open to enter, we'd be covered. One door was in the family room. When we first moved in, opening that door led to a clear view of the backyard. However, over the years a large ivy-like bush of flowers had extended from the ground to the room, providing shade onto the patio area. This was where the hammock was fastened, behind where the roof ended and covered by the big plant.

The other door, behind our kitchen, was opened and led right near a table where my dad was sitting. It was through this door that my mom and I exited to sit next to my dad.

"Who do you think is better-looking, bố?" I asked my dad during dinner. The sun was still up and the lack of humidity in the clear California weather was a blessing I never took for granted. The occasional breeze hugged my skin like a quiet lover, always gentle and soothing.

To his children, my dad is a generally reserved man. He projects the persona of the dominant male figure of the household and generally doesn't indulge us when we are silly. However, through the years, my brother and I have found that around his friends, he is extremely social and jovial, so we know that he can be very easygoing. Thus, unless he's giving us direct orders, we love joking around with him and being as ridiculous as possible.

"Me or you?" I clarified.

"Andrew, you can't be serious," my mom interjected. "Bố is much better looking, especially when he was younger. He was so handsome." She smiled.

My dad stared off, quietly, as he is apt to do. He spoke as if he wasn't really listening and answered as if he only heard the question in passing. It always seemed like he was thinking about something else, distracted even when talking to his children.

"Bố don't know. Probably you," he replied quietly before taking another chopstickful of rice.

I laughed.

"See?" I told my mom. "Even he admits I'm more handsome!" I told her jokingly.

"No. Definitely not," she said, looking at my father lovingly.

"Well," I said, thinking aloud to my dad, "who's better looking, bố? You or Matthew?"

There was less hesitation this time.

"Matthew," he said, more quickly, but still in his special reserved tone. "He's taller and has long eyelashes."

"Oh, Matthew is so handsome!" my mom said. "And he has those beautiful baby eyes!"

I thought about what she said for a second. It was then, I realized, that my mom thinks I'm the ugliest guy in our family.

Sad times.

Chapter One.

I bet many things are borne out of many things. Some things are borne out of frustration, others anger. Still other things are borne out of boredom. In this case, my accounts are borne out of fear and an amateur's diagnosis of incurable insomnia.

Meryl was always small. Even when she was younger, she knew, somehow, that she would always be a small person. This was not to say that she was by any means small of mind. Contrariwise, Meryl had as big a mind and soul as the next person, maybe even bigger. It was just that her parents were very small people, her older brothers were all small, and even the family dog was small. It was a stray pekingese-looking mutt they called Pete.

So Meryl accepted her size at a very young age. She had two older brothers who were in high school when she was in middle school. They were two years apart, but it was not until they were both in college did they become close. Strangely enough, they went to college on opposite ends of the country, so it was odd that they would come home during holidays and be so chum, at least in Meryl's mind.

She should count herself lucky, though. Growing up, Jared and Jay were barely tolerable of each other, but both loved Meryl very much. She was the youngest and their only sister. When she was in seventh grade, a boy followed her home from school against her will. Sure he was the handsomest and tallest boy in school, standing nearly six feet already at age thirteen, but she did not want anything to do with him. Luckily, Jared and Jay took it as their fraternal duty to tell poor Vincent to leave.

However, being only of average height (each four inches under six feet, Jay maybe four and a half), they would not appear intuitively intimidating. So poor, poor Vincent told them to do something that Meryl didn't like to repeat, but luckily for me, she was able to recall the dialogue perfectly.

"Come on, Meryl," Vincent cooed. "Go to the dance with me."

"I don't want to!" she replied, placing her backpack in the living room. "I don't like to dance!" Why didn't she think of closing the door behind her? God, she hoped one of her brothers were home.

Vincent continued, doggedly. "It's okay," he tried to reason. "You don't have to like it. Just come with me. You're the hottest girl in school."

"Wait. How does being the hottest girl in school make it okay? She said she doesn't like dancing, so being hot will all of a sudden make that dislike go away?"

Meryl had never been more relieved in her life to hear Jared's voice from the kitchen. Jared himself followed, first looking forward, then having to look up.

"What's your name, kid," Jared asked Vincent.

"Vince."

"I'm going to call you Vincent."

"Uh...okay."

"Are you Meryl's friend?"

"No!" said Meryl, perhaps a little too excitedly. "He just followed me here after school, after I told him I didn't want to go!"

"Then we have a problem, right?" Jay said, seemingly from nowhere. The voice came from behind Vincent. Jay, too, had to look up, which he did as he joined Jared in front of Vincent. They were both now standing where the kitchen met the living room, and Meryl was sitting at the table in the kitchen. The front door was behind Vincent, still unclosed.

Vincent was quiet, probably thinking. There was a weird, cinematic pause before Vincent spoke up.

"She has to go with me. I don't have a date."

Jared laughed. "Dude, your logic is flawless today. Personally, and I'm sorry if this overrides your facts, I think that you not having a date is a problem she's not solving."

Vincent looked confused.

Jay interjected. "That means she's not going with you and if you don't have a date, that's too bad."

"Go fuck yourself. Don't tell me what to do," Vincent said, still stubborn.

"We didn't, moron. But now we will. Leave."

Jared's voice brooked no argument.

"No."

Meryl was starting to get nervous. Her brothers were significantly smaller in stature than Vincent. She had only known them to be loving, kind people, never in confrontation.

"How old are you?" Jay asked.

"Thirteen," Vincent replied, perhaps a bit too proudly. Jay was fourteen and Jared was sixteen. They looked at each other and looked back at a dumbfounded Vincent.

Jared took off his shirt, revealing a number of tattoos and a very chiseled body. he was flexing, Meryl know, because his abdominal muscles were pretty defined. Meryl didn't think there was a way for Vincent to miss them.

She herself didn't miss the fact that the tattoos were fake, a product of a very talented artist in her brother. Jared could sit in front of the bathroom mirror for hours at a time, drawing on his body. Their parents didn't approve of it, but a lot of time, they didn't see it either. Jared used to come home with markings all over his arm, drawn intricately in the annals of the classroom's boredom.

But she knew Vincent probably couldn't tell. To him the dragon across the chest and a snake on the collarbone looked very intricate and real. The muscles looked real too.

"Get the fuck out before both of us beat the fuck out of you, fuckface," Jay said.

Vincent left, grumbling to himself about not having a date.

"Bye, Vince!" Meryl said after him, waving. "See you at school tomorrow!"

Jared laughed, putting his shirt back on and smearing some of the ink.

"You know," said Jay. "I think that is your realest looking fake tat yet. Were you doing just now in the bathroom?"

"Yeah," said Jared, still laughing. "If you look, I didn't even finish the claws on the dragon." Sure enough, there was an obvious lack of claws on the inked beast. Meryl couldn't have been more elated. She probably hadn't been this happy with having a brother since Jared first got his driver's license and took her and her friends to the mall a few months ago. Her coolness factor at school skyrocketed, then.

"Hey," said Jared as they were looking at his chest and shoulders. "Tell that kid not to mess with you again."

"Yeah, dude," said Jay. "That fucker was fucking dumb."

"Okay, I won't let him follow me next time," Meryl replied, rubbing some of the ink on Jared's shoulder. "And don't cuss so much, dude. What if mom hears you?"

But Jay was already walking upstairs.

Jared laughed. "Don't worry. He talks tough but he's a fat pussy when mom's around."

Meryl rolled her eyes, like only a preteen could do. Boys were so vulgar.

Fun Movie Facts

From 1958 to 2008, there were only 7 years that the Academy did not nominate at least one of the following actors for the Best Actor Award:

- Paul Newman
- Jack Lemmon
- Peter O'Toole
- Albert Finney
- Dustin Hoffman
- Jack Nicholson
- Robert De Niro
- Al Pacino
- Daniel Day-Lewis
- Sean Penn
- Tom Hanks

65, 66, 71, 77, 96, 04 and 05

If these 11 actors were a part of some super-secret guild (let's call it the Omnipotent Actor's Guild), that means that the OAG was represented at least once yearly 86% of the time in a span of 50 years.

It means that for half a century, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to nominate at least one person from the OAG 86% of the time. It means that all of the other hypothetical guilds out there, and there could be thousands of them, are being short-changed in terms of representation.

There is an obvious bias in the A.M.P.A.S.

Either that or I'm looking at an arbitrary sample.

Ignorance Is Bliss

Knowledge=Power, or "Knowledge is power."

Mathematically speaking, we can do to both sides the same thing. One concept in math is taking the absolute value of quantities. One concept of life is doing or being something completely. Thus, absolute knowledge is absolute power.

Moreover, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Ergo, since knowledge is power, and absolute knowledge is absolute power, we can substitute another definition of absolute power and realize that...

Absolute knowledge corrupts absolutely.

Which compels me to live my life according to the title of this post.

Short Films 2010

French Roast from Piokaz on Vimeo.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Wallace and Gromit - A matter of Loaf and Death from CUBO3 on Vimeo.

These were the five videos that were nominated for Best Animated Short at the 82nd Academy Awards. Logorama ended up winning, but I think I would have to disagree with the choice.

I think either A Matter of Loaf and Death or French Roast should have won. While I appreciate the originality of the world of Logorama, I must say that its animation and technical attention to detail isn't really up to par with some of the others. Perhaps it was the world itself and the story it told that limited the animation's details, but I still don't think it's as clever as the original premise seems to promise.

Furthermore, in terms of storytelling, I feel like Logorama is just a message film, and ultimately, a film that is pretty much an extended metaphor doesn't hold up cinematically compared to the other nominations.

If I were forced to pick a winner, I think it would have to be French Roast. While A Matter of Loaf and Death certainly has a strong story arc, abetted by its extended time, and no end of clever and original moments, I think the technical achievements combined with the cinematographic trick of shooting as if from one spot is just nifty. The only time it changes is to zoom in and out and one minor fade in the middle to show a time lapse. It's brilliant. In addition, I think it's just a great story.

However, all five are great films, and I would go so far that an hour or so of your time would not be wasted watching these.