Boys Boys Boys
December 7, 2009 § 4 Comments
“…Seriously?”
“You’re already a junior in college,” mother said during dinner. “It’s time for you to start thinking about finding a boyfriend.”
Incredulity stifled my first instinct, which was to laugh. After years of rebelling against mother’s decree that I don’t date until college and then her ridiculous rules and curfews when I was in college and was seeing someone, I never expected to hear those words from her mouth. The mother of my best friend has been urging her to find a boyfriend for ages, and we always laughed about the disparity between their goals.
I also wanted to laugh because at this point in my life, I’d actually prefer being single than being in a relationship, yet now mother encourages me to get back on the market.
Despite my resentment toward mother, I appreciated the underlying message that I inferred: Do well in school now so that you can get a good job and won’t have to depend on a man for support. Seems reasonable enough, though sometimes I feel like the message is more: Be successful so that you can snare a successful man who will be able to support you financially.
In actuality, I believe mother wants something in the middle. I do want to date/marry an intelligent man with a good job. As a journalist, I won’t be expecting to be making tons of money, and occasionally I’m relieved that society doesn’t put the pressure on me to find an occupation that will fund an entire family. On the other hand, it’s sad that neither of my parents believe that I’ll even make enough money to support myself and have both tried to persuade me to change my major on multiple occasions.
“What about that guy you spent so much time with over the summer?” mother inquired.
“I don’t talk to him anymore,” I replied, chuckling.
“Oh? Why not?”
I glanced at Larry while trying to think of a response. “I’ll tell you later. He’s…a bad person.”
“Has he found a job yet?”
“Hah, no.”
I was surprised that she brought him up during such a conversation. Was she actually condoning that potential relationship?? Mother didn’t leave me much time to think about it as she dove into a mini-lecture on finding the right man.
“Looks should be your last priority,” she began.
I’ve already failed — looks are my FIRST priority. Well, EC put it better: Looks are like the bar that a guy has to jump over to get into the room, which has a tunnel that leads to another room. I will not date or marry an unattractive man, much less sacrifice my body to make babies with him [if you can’t sympathize, don’t bother commenting on that].
“You need to find somebody smart. In this economy, only 40% of college students find jobs after graduation,” she continued. “Of those hired, 90% are from Ivy Leagues are hired, which only leaves 10% for other universities.” Sounds dire.
“Well, there definitely isn’t anybody for me at MY school, so I won’t have to worry about this until later.” I’ve said this many times to many different people because it’s basically true.
“How about the boys at church?” she pressed. I rolled my eyes as she named her two favorites — both are successful, smart, upright, from good families, not bad-looking, and most importantly, single.
“Mooooooom,” I moaned. “I’ve never had any kind of connection with the first one, and the second one practically dated my best friend! I can’t cross that kind of boundary!”
“Well they never actually dated, did they? It’s totally fine.”
Oh my goodness. What degree of shamelessness is this? I’m going to pretend she was joking about that last one. Father named a family friend [his favorite], which incited more eyeball-rolling. I understand that these are fine specimens, but I’ve known them forever! If there was any sort of connection with any of those people, I would’ve jumped on it. But I cannot force those kinds of things.
On the bright side, now I feel free — pressured, even — to spend time with guys [as long as they’re somewhat acceptable to her] when I’m at home. Huray?
I Don’t Have A Heart.
November 28, 2009 § 6 Comments
Being a ninja has never been scarier or bloodier.
I had high hopes for Ninja Assassin. The trailer seemed filled with action and Asian choreography — what’s not to love? I’ve been seeing pictures of Rain’s transformation and was excited to see him in action.
The very beginning of the film showed promise. Sung Kang, whom I recognized from Tokyo Drift, plays some kind of mob boss who is getting tattooed while his lackeys hang out. On the big screen, it’s rare to see a room full of Asians who are fluent in English, but the enjoyment stopped there. The lines uttered between Sung Kang and his wizened tattoo artists are full of overacting, and the lousy script didn’t help.
Soon afterward, we were treated to a display of violence so gratuitous that I had to shield my eyes from the sheer brutality. In every fight scene, blood sprayed like water coming out of a whale’s blowhole. Is it really possible for ninja blades really able to cut cleanly through a human’s torso?! This was the resounding question in my mind for the whole movie. I know that our belief is supposed to be suspended, but perhaps director James McTeigue could’ve tried to exercise just a bit more restraint in this area.
Rain is the headlining star in this movie [which might partly account for the relatively low budget]. This is good because it means we get to see him a lot, but disadvantageous because he’s still a comparatively amateur actor whose English is imperfect — carrying a film is a big burden. Also, his hairstyle in this movie is awful.
Much like the seventh Harry Potter book, the first half of Ninja Assassin has no plot. It consists of three vaguely connected subplots: a Europol agent trying to uncover the ninja clan with no apparent motive, Rain working out in his apartment, and Rain’s flashbacks of training to be a ninja. The film’s problems begin here.
Although most of the movie is set in Berlin, everybody inexplicably speaks English. I understand that many American movies do this out of convenience, but there isn’t even an attempt at pretending these people are German. Actress Naomi Harris speaks with an American accent the entire time, as do all the other Europol agents except for her co-worker, who has a British accent. In fact, the setting of Berlin is such a trivial detail that they might as well have been FBI agents. Unfortunately, her scenes are so boring that I spent most of them typing notes of complaint into my phone to remember later when I wrote this review.
Joon doing what he does best
The more important issue with language comes from the fact that this film heavily features Asian [and Asian American] actors. I would firstly like to ask why Ninja Assassin chose two Korean singers to play the lead character. If I were Japanese, I’d be offended that they didn’t bother to find an authentic representative. [Still, Lee Joon is not bad at his role as teenage Rain, and his English is pretty good as well.] To pile on the confusion, EVERYBODY in this movie speaks English, including the Japanese ninja master and his entire clan. The film would have been much better if the supposedly Japanese people actually spoke Japanese — the oversimplification makes the cheesy lines sound even stupider.
I don’t know very much about ninjas other than the stereotypes, and the ninjas in this movie are much less subtle than I’m used to. They whisper creepy threats when emerging from the shadows and run through the streets [and get hit by cars] in pursuit of prey. What? Aren’t they supposed to be stealthy and discreet? Instead, they leave blood spatter everywhere. As powerful as he is, even Rain is not very smooth when jumping from platform to platform, and there are many cringe-worthy scenes of him acting like a crazy, murderous fiend. It adds a human element, I suppose, but it all somehow falls to the wayside during the very last fight scene.
My final complaint is the total lack of character development. We never get to see what’s going on inside of the main character’s mind. Nobody really has a motive to do anything, and the end of the film is dissatisfying because of the total lack of direction. Rain stares off into the Japanese landscape with a slight smile, but what does it mean? Did he learn anything in the course of the 109 minutes? I certainly didn’t.
There are a few redeemable qualities to Ninja Assassin, but not enough for this review to be favorable. For one, every scene featuring Rain’s torso is incredibly hot, even when he’s covered in blood and battle scars. The choreography is entertaining [though not beautiful or inspiring], as is the cinematography. Also, Rain’s weapon [two blades swinging on a long chain] was really cool. Props to him for doing most of his own stunts.
In the end, I don’t regret seeing this movie. I’m happy to support Asian artists trying to break into the American entertainment industry, and I just hope that the next films will be better.
Sweet Home
November 25, 2009 § 2 Comments
After only three days at home, I already feel like I’ve eaten twice my weight in food. I don’t stress about my eating habits too much, but being full all the time is not exactly comfortable — seriously, I’m going to switch to one meal a day from now instead of six.
I arrived home on Saturday night [after six hours in the car with two girls I didn’t really know but who both went to my high school] and immediately went to the house of a family friend, where we dined on delicious, homemade Chinese food. I spent the night figuring out how to use my new Blackberry while playing Halo 3 with SS, who stayed with my family for a few days because she’s never been to Chicago.
On Sunday I stepped foot inside the finished church building for the first time. It’s an impressive structure, though the parking lot still has an overflow and the starkly white walls are in severe need of color. I was excited to see some old friends again, and there were also some who I would rather not have seen. Some girlfriends and I loitered after lunch to attend a ladies’ teatime. It wasn’t my idea to attend [I thought it sounded cheesy], but it was encouraging to see a mix of ages and meet some new people from church.
My girlfriends and I then returned to my house to hang out. XZ and CZ baked cookies & brownies to sell around my neighborhood for fundraising [fail — the treats are still in my kitchen] while LC and I watched Kpop performances on YouTube, ha ha. They all stayed for a delicious dinner of hot pot [we have it every time I come home because my parents know I miss it the most], during which my parents force-fed every one of them, as usual. I really am grateful for the generosity of my parents in times like those.
The next day, LC, SS and I took the Metra downtown. SS had never been in a big American city before, so she was extremely pleased with the familiar sight of large buildings and concrete. The weather was brisk but we walked to Shedd Aquarium anyway, where we ogled the fish and talked about which ones looked more delicious. I had my first hot-dog-stand Chicago-style hot dog while we waited for SS’s cousin to pick her up [and drop us off at Michigan Ave.].
LC and I did some shopping, which included picking out ridiculous outfits for each other to try on at Forever21. Surprisingly, I kind of liked the shiny purple skinny pants she chose for me. XZ and CZ picked us up from there, and we traveled to Wicker Park to meet JC and have dinner at Sushi Para. We ate until we were ready to vomit — I’ve had sushi more times this semester than my entire life, and after that meal, I don’t want to eat fish for at least a month. Somehow, we still managed to find room for frozen yogurt afterward, but not before CZ fell out of the parked car onto the curb, heh heh.
We had to race to make it to the Metra on time [as usual when we’re leaving the city], and CZ and LC slept over at my house. We spent a few hours in the basement filming another music video, which elicited much laughter because of our crazy antics and failure to dance in a coordinated manner. All I can say is, I never knew CZ had such an affinity for Mickey & Minnie Mouse. It took me quite a while to figure out how to use iMovie ’09, which is completely — and frustratingly — different from the ’04 version. I showed the completed video to my parents, who were pretty tickled at the sight of us dancing around our basement with the random crap stored down there.
Last night after dinner, mother took me and Larry to get H1N1 flu vaccinations at a nearby middle school. I arbitrarily wore a knit hat [kind of looked like this] that was a Christmas present from YC maybe five years ago [I’ve never really worn it in public before], but Larry took it and put it on himself, saying that it looked much better on him [true, sadly], and that he was going to wear it next time he went skiing. This was especially amusing for me because I had actually offered him that hat a few years ago when he went skiing, but he chose my blue Adidas beanie instead [which he lost, the punk].
Because I haven’t had a shot in a long time, I was quite nervous about getting vaccinated. It didn’t hurt at all, however, though Larry and I both wondered how exactly it worked, since the nurse just randomly stuck the needle into our arms. In the car on the way home, we were playfighting about something when he punched me on the left shoulder in the exact location where the needle entered. Like I said, the shot didn’t hurt, but thinking about it makes it sensitive. Two minutes later, he forgot [or “forgot”] and punched me there AGAIN.
Anyway, three full days of extreme eating remain, and I must have the self-discipline to restrain myself during the day in preparation for gorging at dinner. Yay! I love Thanksgiving break!
auradis 