Caveat
If you find any content to be bigoted, politically incorrect and / or offensive in any manner at any point in time, please exit this blog IMMEDIATELY . Subsequently, ERASE any memory of what you have read, seen, inferred etcetera.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Retard In Disguise
At the workplace, it is inescapable that we make small talk in order to not risk being portrayed as standoffish. This is acceptable, and in fact beneficial, as long as the tete-a-tete does not hinder your efficacy.
And so, our story begins.
This bold declaration above came about while I was toiling through my work and my colleague practically quite did nothing at all. He was absolved of blame as he had a physical defect in his wrist. Or so he said. Working at a factory could be somewhat repetitive. To break the tedium, we engaged in some mindless chit-chat across a panoply of topics. We talked about ourselves, e.g. where we live, which school are we from, which CCAs do we participate in, etcetera. This colleague of mine was singularly reticent about his school and where he stayed and so I had to change the topic to further our conversation.
As I had heard from him that he had taken leave to accompany his grandmother to the doctor and conveniently catch a movie with his friends, I decided to broach the subject on movies. The movie he had watched was Avatar (pronounced as air-vuh-tahr, not ah-vah-tahr), which had been receiving much hype. Being the curious me, I sought his opinion on the movie. I had expected him to lavish praise on James Cameron's gargantuan production. To my surprise, he begged to differ from the perspective of the masses. He was critical towards the movie, claiming that it was "stupid" and "difficult to understand". These two remarks seemed to me as contradictory and thus, left me confounded. In a bid to know more about the movie, I asked him his reasons for the negative comments. He stuttered at first but thought of a reasonably sound explanation after awhile. His reason for labelling Avatar as "stupid" was the omission of an exciting action sequence. According to him, the protagonist, Jake Sully, mananged to tame the strongest creature in the blue aliens' world. This was deemed impossible as no one had done it before. Unfortunately, such a momentous fighting scene between the creature and Jake Sully was cut out. How he knew which scenes were censored is still a mystery to me. Anyway, that was why my colleague called the movie "stupid". Then, Avatar was "difficult to understand" because it contained a "fuck scene" (those were his exact words) between Jake Sully and Neytiri. As a result, primary school students, who apparently lack carnal knowledge, would find it "difficult to understand". Noting his discerning eye for movies, I asked him the movies which he would recommend to me. Being the critic that he was, he was quick to recognise that there was no such thing as a perfect movie. I had to acquiese with him on this point. Perfection is decidedly unachievable. So, I proceeded to ask him which movie he had watched was the closest to attainng perfection.
And here came the punch line.
"Transformers is the almost perfect movie," he said with a professorial air and a glint in his eyes. I maintained my stolid countenance. He carried on professing his admiration for Trasformers without my prompting this time. All the while, he complimented Transformers for its suspenseful plot, frenetic action sequences and classy acting.
I have not seen Transformers myself and hence, it would be awfully insular to discount its merits on my part. Having said that, I am convinced that Transformers is by no means a flawless artwork.
And here is the crux of the issue. Teenagers, nowadays, often fail to appreciate a genuinely praiseworthy movie. All they care about are SFX, CGI and BDSM. I am no movie aficionado. I am clueless about artistic direction. When it comes to acting, I am a worse judge than Ellen Degeneres is in American Idol. But at the very least, I am able to identify movies such as American Beauty as a movie with a message. Didn't we learn in Social Studies that by picking out the message or purpose of a source, it indicates a higher level of thinking? Then why can't we do the same for movies? I fancy watching slapstick movies (e.g. Scary Movie, Zombieland) as well to get a good laugh and train my abs. But the distinction is here. I perceive such movies as simple pure fun and do not expect them to aim anywhere near moral or intellectual high ground. And that is what I am driving at. To be cognizant of the fact that Scary Movie can only make your sides hurt and Transformers is nothing but artificial action entertainment. They offer no sophistication at all.
The worst part of all these is people pay to watch these movies while those really deserving ones are, more often than not, box-office debacles.
I am still a greenhorn but still has my fair share of watching movies. If anyone wants any advice, I highly recommend American Beauty. That is my favourite movie so far. To get an idea of what is good acting, take note of Lester Burnham's visage when he dies. Genius.
And please. Don't ever say Transformers is the almost perfect movie. Don't be the ignominy of human cognition.
As I had heard from him that he had taken leave to accompany his grandmother to the doctor and conveniently catch a movie with his friends, I decided to broach the subject on movies. The movie he had watched was Avatar (pronounced as air-vuh-tahr, not ah-vah-tahr), which had been receiving much hype. Being the curious me, I sought his opinion on the movie. I had expected him to lavish praise on James Cameron's gargantuan production. To my surprise, he begged to differ from the perspective of the masses. He was critical towards the movie, claiming that it was "stupid" and "difficult to understand". These two remarks seemed to me as contradictory and thus, left me confounded. In a bid to know more about the movie, I asked him his reasons for the negative comments. He stuttered at first but thought of a reasonably sound explanation after awhile. His reason for labelling Avatar as "stupid" was the omission of an exciting action sequence. According to him, the protagonist, Jake Sully, mananged to tame the strongest creature in the blue aliens' world. This was deemed impossible as no one had done it before. Unfortunately, such a momentous fighting scene between the creature and Jake Sully was cut out. How he knew which scenes were censored is still a mystery to me. Anyway, that was why my colleague called the movie "stupid". Then, Avatar was "difficult to understand" because it contained a "fuck scene" (those were his exact words) between Jake Sully and Neytiri. As a result, primary school students, who apparently lack carnal knowledge, would find it "difficult to understand". Noting his discerning eye for movies, I asked him the movies which he would recommend to me. Being the critic that he was, he was quick to recognise that there was no such thing as a perfect movie. I had to acquiese with him on this point. Perfection is decidedly unachievable. So, I proceeded to ask him which movie he had watched was the closest to attainng perfection.
And here came the punch line.
"Transformers is the almost perfect movie," he said with a professorial air and a glint in his eyes. I maintained my stolid countenance. He carried on professing his admiration for Trasformers without my prompting this time. All the while, he complimented Transformers for its suspenseful plot, frenetic action sequences and classy acting.
I have not seen Transformers myself and hence, it would be awfully insular to discount its merits on my part. Having said that, I am convinced that Transformers is by no means a flawless artwork.
And here is the crux of the issue. Teenagers, nowadays, often fail to appreciate a genuinely praiseworthy movie. All they care about are SFX, CGI and BDSM. I am no movie aficionado. I am clueless about artistic direction. When it comes to acting, I am a worse judge than Ellen Degeneres is in American Idol. But at the very least, I am able to identify movies such as American Beauty as a movie with a message. Didn't we learn in Social Studies that by picking out the message or purpose of a source, it indicates a higher level of thinking? Then why can't we do the same for movies? I fancy watching slapstick movies (e.g. Scary Movie, Zombieland) as well to get a good laugh and train my abs. But the distinction is here. I perceive such movies as simple pure fun and do not expect them to aim anywhere near moral or intellectual high ground. And that is what I am driving at. To be cognizant of the fact that Scary Movie can only make your sides hurt and Transformers is nothing but artificial action entertainment. They offer no sophistication at all.
The worst part of all these is people pay to watch these movies while those really deserving ones are, more often than not, box-office debacles.
I am still a greenhorn but still has my fair share of watching movies. If anyone wants any advice, I highly recommend American Beauty. That is my favourite movie so far. To get an idea of what is good acting, take note of Lester Burnham's visage when he dies. Genius.
And please. Don't ever say Transformers is the almost perfect movie. Don't be the ignominy of human cognition.
11:00 PM
Friends are fish, not food
?ChekWei
?GuoChuan
?Jackson
?LehChuan
?NgZiXuan
?RuiJie
?YueTing
used to
April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 September 2009 December 2009 January 2010 March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 June 2010
credits
Designer
DancingSheep
Resources
x
round table