nan | 楠木

The first signs that Shutter Island may not appeal to my tastes came very early – when the actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, playing a couple of US marshals, first step on said island and is being transported to the central facility, a loud and intrusive score starts blaring. The ominous cellos make your heartbeat race, and I couldn’t help but notice that this is an effect typical of horror flicks – the opening credits of The Shining immediately comes to mind, where an otherwise scenic drive up to a mountain resort is transformed into a trail into your worst nightmare, thanks to the eerie score. Indeed, quite a few critics have picked up on these editing choices.

Shutter Island is primarily concerned with blurring the line between what is real and what isn’t. DiCaprio’s character, Teddy Daniels, is brought in to investigate the disappearance of a patient at the mental asylum housed on the island. As the audience soon discovers, Daniels has his own agenda to pursue (partly driven by the events surrounding his wife’s death), and the asylum is not all it seems.

Some of the film’s most visually compelling scenes are Daniels’ dreams, which are a rich collection of montages stunningly designed. Sharp colors, camera tricks and some haunting settings combine to make impressionable images – in one scene, Daniels (a WWII veteran) is back in the concentration camp at Dachau and witnesses the slow agonizing death of a SS officer; in another, he is reunited with his wife and as they embrace she starts to effuse water and blood (a piece of the puzzle).

Being a psychological thriller, Shutter Island goes off in several directions, intentionally. There is a general sense of direction, through the plot device of the island and its facilities being sectioned off by accessibility – Daniels has access to Ward A and Ward B, but Ward C, originally a fortress, houses the most dangerous (and therefore the most interesting) patients and is off limits; and then there is a lighthouse, cautiously guarded and far from the main facilities. It seems that these areas house the answers to the mystery, and the film naturally builds up in tension as Daniels explores these grounds.

Ultimately, at 138 minutes, Shutter Island just drags a bit too long for me. The puzzle is an interesting one (what is the truth? What’s real and what’s not?), but it takes an strenuous effort to sit this film through. It is a stylish production, full of memorable individual scenes, but as a whole it doesn’t particularly stand out.

7/10

An Education is a delightful little film with a big coming-of-age story to tell, and well worthy of its Best Picture nomination at the upcoming Academy Awards. Set in England in the early 60s, the film narrates the the life-changing events of 16-year old Jenny (beautifully portrayed by young actress Carey Mulligan, who in more than one scene evokes images of Audrey Hepburn).

The story revolves around two themes. The first is a predictable yet still heart-wrenching tale of a young girl falling for an affluent and cultured older man (Peter Sarsgaard in a perfect role). As is always the case, the man – David – is not all he claims to be, but he gives Jenny enough excitement and surprises that she goes along for the ride anyway (and pays the price). The second theme is a subtle but thought-provoking discussion of women’s liberation. Jenny is a well-educated and extremely smart young girl, and part of the reason she falls for the thrills is that she doesn’t see a future for her life – what is the value of an Oxford education (her parents’ dream for her), if she would only end up being a house-wife or a “boring” profession such as a high school teacher? So when the sand castle of romance finally crumbles, the most valuable thing that Jenny has lost is not her chastity (another theme in the film) or her shot at Oxford, but her dream of escaping the “boring” and “dead” world. And while that is a particularly bleak moment in the film, Jenny ultimately comes to terms with her condition and rediscovers her meaning and purpose in life, ending the film on a positive note.

This is a blissful film to watch, effusive with the energy and innocence of youth. And like any good coming-of-age film, it strikes a chord emotionally with the audience through the process of innocence lost and wisdom gained. It reminds us of our own youthful days, the forgotten dreams, the could-have-beens and the disappointments that saw us mature. While its chances at winning Best Picture are slim – it doesn’t fit the typical profile of the winners historically – I’m really happy that it got the nomination. More people need to see this delightful gem of a picture.

9/10

I only recently started reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. is really the perfect companion film which touches upon and (perhaps) expands on the core themes of that book. This is a highly potent documentary – it is designed to stir emotions and thoughts – and it is not shy from advocating a specific agenda.

The basic premise of the narrative is thus – in the last 50 years, the rise of the fast food industry (and to a lesser extent, the massive retail chains) has led to a complete overhaul of food production. Practically everything we eat is now produced through a heavily consolidated and industrialized value chain; and virtually everything we buy in supermarkets can be traced back to one crop – corn. In this relentless drive for greater scale and lower costs, we have fundamentally altered the food we eat, and in the process created many new problems. For example, cattle traditionally eats grass, and when they are fed corn they develop digestive problems (as well as being a breeding ground for E. coli); in turn we pump them with anti-biotics, and all this is passed on eventually to the consumer, who bear the hidden costs with severe health issues and even sudden illness and death.

Furthermore, with massive consolidation in the industry, there is prevalent abuse of workers and farmers due to the mismatch in negotiating power. Agriculture heavy-weights such as Monsanto patent their seeds and actively sue farmers who keep seeds (and thereby infringe their patent); other companies abuse illegal immigrants by using them as cheap labor then allowing authorities to deport them.

The filmmakers contend that this is an industry that blatantly disregards consumers, workers, and its products. It’s an emotionally charged and visually shocking argument, with images of a lost infant (due to E. coli) and undercover footages inside hog slaughter houses. It is intentionally intimidating and leverages all the typical narrative tools available to documentaries.

On the whole, I really like this film. I think it makes a compelling argument. However, there are definitely issues large and small that beg further discussion (and I’d be very glad if this film stimulates debate on such an important topic). For example, one point the film advocates is to buy locally produced food, with the conventional wisdom that this is environmentally friendly. I’m not ashamed of myself being a “skeptical environmentalist”, so I’ll just go ahead point out that there are studies that show locally produced food may actually have a larger footprint (even this essay in support of local concedes this point).

A bigger point of debate is the issue of genetically modified food (GMOs). This used to be a favorite back in the day when I was a college debater, so I really can’t resist saying that the jury is still out, whether from a philosophical or practical point of view. Philosophically, you can argue that the only difference between artificial modification and natural evolution is the speed of which the change is achieved. Of course, with natural evolution the entire food chain has time to adjust to mutations; with artificial modification there could be severe unintended consequences, especially when the industry is so consolidated so a “revolutionary new product” can be rolled out in a matter of years and not centuries. Philosophically you can also argue that mankind has always been trying to change nature (indeed the whole history of mankind is such a tale), and modifying genes really isn’t that different from earlier agriculture techniques such as crossbreeding. Back in China, we’ve always celebrated Yuan Longping and his hybrid rice, which yields 30% higher than traditional seeds – which probably has done its part to alleviate food crises in China. Which brings us back to the original point – yes, it’s terrible that in the pursuit for higher yields at lower costs the food industry has created some serious issues; but this doesn’t mean that the pursuit for higher yields at lower costs itself is fundamentally wrong.

The issue is still one of regulation. it’s fine for the film to advocate organic foods etc., but for most people in the lower income class that will probably always be a luxury (unless of course you scale up organic food production, but that itself seems to be a vicious cycle – scaling it up will inevitably create the same problems we have today, i.e. lots of new production processes with unintended consequences and hidden costs). What we can and should advocate is effective regulatory response, so that consumers are protected.

8/10

John Lee Hancock’s The Blind Side is a mostly faithful adaptation of the book by Michael Lewis (one of my favorite authors). It tells the larger than life story of Michael Oher, a (super)naturally gifted athletic talent from the ghettos of Memphis, who was taken in by the affluent Tuohy family and given the chance to let his talent develop.

While Lewis’s book explores a range of topics (including racism, poverty and the college sports recruiting system, among others), the film mostly focuses on the human side of the story – the immense amount of love Oher received from his new family and the people around him. There are occasional (and successful) jabs at racism and other topics, but the film does not try to go into as much depth as the book. This is a necessary trade-off – there’s a lot of ground to cover in Michael’s story – but it also makes the film fall somewhat short. Most critically, the biggest moral of the book – how opportunity can change a person’s life forever, and therefore equal opportunity should be a founding principle of society – is portrayed but not effectively fleshed out, and arguably drowned in the feel-good mood of the film towards the finale. Michael’s success should be celebrated, no doubt; but there is much to ponder – how many other Michaels are not as lucky as he is, and end up living a life of poverty? And is there anything we could do about this?

8/10

很久没有写日记了。从周四到今天，去了趟洛杉矶。周四、周五参观了华纳、NBC环球、迪士尼下属的一家数字媒体公司，以及环球音乐集团。见到了一些很有趣的校友，娱乐圈就是不太一样。。。

周五晚上和Chris的一众朋友去洛杉矶k-town，喝的烂醉如泥，搞得连续两周都有因为喝酒而吐，非常之不好。。。

周六和PF见了一面，上次见他大约是半年前─夏天在北京。他在USC的研究生生活过的也还算滋润。周日见到了WD，真的是很多很多年未曾谋面，准确的说06年毕业后就没再见过了。生活都有了很大的变化，时间仓促没有能够多聊，也未能见到他太太，据说厨艺很赞，只能下次体验了呵呵。

另外周六晚上跟Chris以及他当年的水球队队友Joe去参加一个UCLA法学院的派对（Joe在读法学院），发现他们法学院女生质量比我们商学院好。。。好很多。也可能是洛杉矶的关系，感觉那些女生比较时尚些。

总的来说对洛杉矶没有什么感觉，除了意识到如果没有车就会非常不方便。阳光很不错，但我们也赶上了下雨。