Wavelet Blog

The Hurt Locker was the biggest winner of this year’s Oscar. My predication was wrong. The Hurt Locker did earn much attention and the critics swing to it as well lately in the award season. I’m not fully convinced though. Given that I watched the movie on the plane to China, I didn’t miss the inherent intensity. However, it is so focused on one man’s heroic actions without trying to investigate the complexity around it. It’s a small movie with a narrow intention. I bet the success is a surprise to its own film maker.

I think Avatar does not deserve it either. It has not much other than the stunning visual effects. I have to say, this is a weak year for the Best Pictures.

So cheap.

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Fail to deliver the intensity that a psychological thriller requires, although Leonardo DiCaprio is as intense as usual.

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Photoshop turns 20 as of today. The measurement of its success, similar to ‘google’, which is not achieved by many other more popular products, is that ‘photoshop’ has become a verb, although often time with a negative meaning.

Learn to make Korean dishes because we were so out of ideas of what to bring to Chinese New Year party in a friend’s house. These dishes are quite easy to make. The most challenging part is to slice all the vegetables thinly. The key to the taste is the onion and sesame.

Assorted Vegetables (Namool)

Noodles with Mixed Vegetables (Chapchae)

Avatar not only won the best picture of the Golden Globes, it has surpassed Titanic and is setting the new world-wide box-office record every day. Looks like it will conquer the Oscar as well. James Cameron will stand on the top of the world again.

It’s a spectacular movie to watch when you put the 3-D glasses on. It is first movie that truly delivers the photo-real computer graphic. The world of Pandora is stunning scene by scene. The interaction between the characters and the environments are so believable, and you don’t realized the their world only exists in the computer. Besides the technical supreme, the film is brilliantly directed. It’s tight, balanced and fills the two and half hours with ceaseless actions.

However, it is also lucky for Cameron that there is no other movie this year can really challenge him. Putting Avatar in recent 10-year’s competition, its advantage would be pretty much diminished. (although I never thought Crash as a good movie, the nominations of 2005 was not bad). In terms of novelty and creativity, The Matrix challenges the audience visually at the same level and physiologically more. You can also see many similarities of other movies in Avatar. For example, both Titanic and Avatar can be divided into the first half of perfect and romantic theme, and the second half of conflicting and action theme. The turning points are exactly same, the two main characters make love. More creative people even merged Avatar trailer into Pocahontas. Comparing them side by side, it is really a piece of work.

I can’t help sharing this. The Poor kangaroo is certainly caught by surprise.

The more I think of it, the more I realize how good it is. Memorable performance, beautiful camera work.

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“The Wrestler” with a brighter ending.

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Fine acting, but I think Meryl Streep smiles too much just for the movie to fit into the romantic comedy genre.

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