All Hallows Eve Movie

You know, Halloween is pretty awesome. It's the only time of the year where you can get skull motifs at almost any store. Not to mention, candies go on sale and you get to be someone else. Also, it's the time of the year where horror movie characters gets the spotlight. So to honor that, I've put together a must watch psycho-thriller movie (with a horror-ish touch) list. For example, Usual Suspects is a great thriller movie, but it's not that scary. FYI, I don't care much for movies that makes you sit through 2 hours of random dude with chainsaw/sickle/other bladed weapons that would draw immediate attention if caught running around with, chasing after some not-so-bright people whose weapon of choice is nonstop annoying screaming. Yeah...I'll leave that for some other horror flick lists. One last thing, I think it goes without saying that movies on this list are probably all rated-R's. Kids, go watch Casper or Harry Potter.

1.  Silence of the Lambs

Sorry to be totally predictable and all, but this movie is that good. Won the Oscar, too. Speaking of which, since when did psycho-thrillers stop being on the Academy Awards fave list? I don't think I've seen one take home an Oscar recently.

2.  Hannibal

Being a Thomas Harris fan, it's inevitable for all four Hannibal Lecter movies to make this (somewhat biased) list. Did you know that the ending of the Hannibal-the-movie is completely different from Hannibal-the-book? Usually I get pretty disappointed when a plot is drastically changed, but the change in the movie was so well written that I actually liked both endings.  

3.  Seven

2 words: Total. Classic. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are pretty awesome, but *bleep* does some fantastic job as a *bleep*.

4.  Shutter Island

Is the ending really what it seems? or is there more to that? For the ending to be that straightforward, there're serious plot holes, which means that there's more... High five to you if you can crack it.

5.  Hannibal Rising

Who wants to know how Hannibal became, well, the Hannibal we know? If your answer is yes, this is the movie to watch. Every villain you develop a love-hate feeling has a good character development. Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter just have that.

6.  Red Dragon

This movie probably has the least Hannibal Lecter appearance, but still a great thriller movie. I would say it's worth watching.

7.  Identity

A mixture of And Then There Were None and The Minds of Billy Milligan. I bet you won't guess who the mastermind is...

Sidenote -- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Tim Burton: check. Johnny Depp + Helena Bonham Carter: check. Sacha Baron Cohen as Italian barber singing with superthick Italian accent: check. Great art direction: check. Highly recommended for those who can stomach (mostly) Johnny Depp singing while splattering gallons of fake blood and can handle some serious black humor. If you're going to watch it, I hope meatpie isn't your favorite dish. ;)

Happy Halloween!

xx-N

Somebody to Love

In my previous article, I wrote about how it's quite okay to be different and to be yourself, and that if you're not liking the said "different" person around you, leave that person alone instead of resorting to bullying. I was being somewhat vague, in not stating that I was writing in response to the string of anti-gay hate crimes. Well, Vanity Fair posted this article online. Reading about this very sad incident happening in the city that is supposed to be very liberal, and also in the city that I love - it just breaks my heart.

I'm not trying to change people's opinion; everyone's entitled to their own belief system. I'm making my voice (somewhat) heard in hopes that people may see things from different perspective. If what I'm writing makes you want to stop reading, there's no one stopping you from doing that.

So really, what's up with the hate? Just because some people prefer to have a relationship with people of the same sex doesn't make them any less human than people who prefer to have a relationship with people of the opposite sex. For that reason, I personally don't like to label people based on their sexual orientation. Here's a question for straight people: Do you go out announcing that you're straight? I bet the answer's no. I mean, I never came out as straight. So why is it that there's an unspoken expectation for gay people to make an announcement, and when they do, it's a huge deal? The notion of dating is personal enough, so let's not make an event out of it. And FYI: posting other people's sex tapes online is so last decade, Heidi Klum would Auf Weidersehen you off of runway in a split second.

Speaking of runway, it is a very well known fact that gay men have amazingly great taste in fashion. So really, if a person is to be anti-gay without being super hypocritical, that said person should swear off all designer clothes for the rest of his/her life. How is it that a person can love the designers' work, but fail to respect them as a human? Don't you think that's very contradicting? If I'm going to have a favorite designer - Alexander McQueen - I'm going to love his work, and respect him as a talented designer. He deserves that much. Going along with that logic, there is a song played and sung at every major sports event, written and sung by a gay man I absolutely love. We Are the Champions, written by Freddie Mercury, performed by Queen. Again, isn't it going to be very contradictory to be anti-gay and yet love Freddie Mercury and Queen, when some of the well-known Queen songs - Bohemian Rhapsody, Somebody to Love to name a few - were written by Freddie Mercury, and are about being gay, being rejected from society, and dying from AIDS? Food for thought.

Homophobia, along with hammer pants, are better off left in the 20th century. If we have enough common sense to not wear that hideous pants, I'm pretty sure we can turn the unconditional hate to unconditional love.

xx-N

Baseball: A Love Story

Before I do a vol.2 of "Favorite Soccer Players," I would like to do the baseball version of it. Then it occurred to me that how I came to like my teams can make an article on its own. I'm calling it a baseball love triangle, and here's why

I was forever being undecided between Yankees and Red Sox. Yes. For real. If I were Twilight fanatic, I'd throw in a Edward-Jacob metaphor, but it would be an insult to equate baseball to a emo-stalker vampire or a fluffy dog werewolf.

In all seriousness, I think that liking Yankees is one of the things you're expected to like - along with Starbucks and subway musicians - if you love all things New York. So, I did like them because it was the thing to do, but I just couldn't bring myself to love them. There always were managerial decisions that I just hated. When they let go Joe Torre, I was pretty upset, but I still tried to like the team. So I convinced myself with a lame excuse ("Well, they probably needed to change up the team to give a fresh start...")  and held onto it. I knew in my gut that if I'm only trying to make-believe that I'm attached to the team, when I'm not. Then they let go Godzilla after that awesome World Series win, which made me realize that I am so over that team. See, it's not the team, it's me...

Then there's the other team - Red Sox. From what I kept hearing, it was either you love or hate Red Sox; the middle ground seems to not exist with this team. With all that hype, it was only natural that I decided to check them out. What's up with the weird stereotype that if you like Yankees, you automatically have to hate Red Sox? After spending some quality time with my ESPN, I ended up feeling pretty close to the team and the players. I went to the light side (or dark side? Fine by me, I still get the lightsaber in the team color) and now am totally attached to the team. Just like it's hard to explain why you love certain things in your life, I really can't explain why I love the team. I just do. For those who actually kept track of my baseball woes in the past articles, yes, it was Red Sox not being able to make it to the playoffs that I was totally depressed about. Mike Lowell's retirement only fueled my bummed-out-ness. To make up for it, Daniel Nava better make the team full time next season, and everyone on the DL better get back in the game. :)

I have no idea whether this is going to gain or cost me readers. Yankees fans, you still got the entire NYC and more, sans Mets fans. Red Sox fans, I hope you enjoyed it. Everyone else, I hope got my jokes (if you didn't, pretend you got them anyway). ;)

xx-N

Reality, Science Fiction, and Flying Cars

A certain Wikipedia page told me that in five years, we're gonna reach that monumental year from Back to the Future II. Cool! But really, how does reality compare to science fiction? I know there are number of other lists like these and I've always wanted to make my own "reality vs sci-fi" list. Let's just say I'm doing it 5 years early, and hoping that certain technologies pull it off in the next 5 years to make sci-fi a reality.

1.  HOVERBOARD!!!

Yes, it is an all-caps situation. We (somewhat) have 3-D TV, car that runs on electricity, and all other cool gadgets with the apple logo. But when are we getting this? FYI to whoever in charge of making this: Please make it run on water, it sucks when you stall on the pond when you're running away from the crazy-looking bully.

2.  Flying Cars

Caution: the above picture do not qualify as a "landing attempt." Learn how to drive without wrecking things, else you just wasted gas and contributed to global-freakin-warming. This whole flying car business seems so close to coming true...but probably won't. [HUGE sigh] However, if miracle happens and flying car becomes a reality, I insist on mandatory IQ tests (as part of the steps you need to take to get that license) and more strict punishment for people who wreck other people's cars (especially the intentional ones).

3.  Transgenic Super-Soldiers

Bonus points if you get one to look like Jessica Alba. Then again, I suppose this is one of those things we're glad that it didn't happen?

4.  Iron Man's 3-D CAD, and...

Seeing from the movie, that CAD comes with some kind of automatic body scanner (have you seen Tony enter his hand dimensions?), and automatic assembly function.  Also, because Tony is pretty busy between saving the world and crashing parties, the correct fasteners will be chosen for you. Uh...I want me one of those? Pretty please?

5.  Iron Man's 3-D Printer

3-D printer that prints stuff out in Titanium!? As in, not some plastic? And it will do all the assembly, and painting? So. Jealous. Yes, even if it's a comic book/movie thing. While we're at it, I also want Tony's car collection before he lands his powersuit on it. :)


See, I was going to do 10, because everyone does Top-10 lists, but sadly, I ran out of cool gadgets. Maybe I'll add them later on. Technically, I could do Star Trek for the rest, but the technology on Star Trek that hasn't become a reality is still to far out there. Although, I'd love a "Beam me up, Scotty" to become a reality one day, granted that it's Scotty beaming me up. I want me in one piece.

xx-N

It Gets Better

In light of recent news followed by a video message from Ellen DeGeneres, all of which I'd like to call It Gets Better Movement, here's my 2 cents.

Before pointing fingers and blaming people - because that's way too easy - I'd like to think why people are acting the certain way and how to best understand them. Why do people bully each other? I get that there are some people who just get on your nerves or simply annoy you, and that's natural. Unless you are one of those extraordinary people who can just love everyone, chances are, there will be people who we love AND hate in our lives. That's okay, as long as you don't channel that hate energy to do something very destructive.

By the way, by "people we hate in our lives" I mean people who are otherwise good person but you are somehow annoyed by them - I'm trying to get into bully's perspective here - not people who are just morally wrong.  I get a feeling that there's all the talk on HOW it's a bad thing but no one's really thinking WHY. I don't think you can solve the problem without understanding both ends.

I think it's quite natural for us human beings to be intimidated by character traits that are different and thus unknown from the rest of us. After all, our immune system does fight against things that are foreign and hostile to our body, right? But here's the thing: it's not a cold virus, it's people we're talking about. Before we go into fight mode, we should all take a moment to understand the differences and make the unknown known. Then, you might be surprised to realize that a "freak" and a "weirdo" is not so much a "freak" and a "weirdo" after all. They may not be like you in many ways, but it doesn't make them a bad person. It's okay that people are different, because that's how we learn - through differences. Before you slap a stereotypical label on a person, think again. All it takes is an effort to get to know your classmate, your teammate, your colleague, and your future friend. It doesn't hurt to take that effort. If you become friends with that person as a result, that's awesome! But if it's still not working out, move on, and I'd say don't keep bothering that person after it became clear that you and that said person don't get along.

Take a look at the history of mankind and you'll see that it's ridiculously easy to hate and ridiculously hard to love (within the moral standards). Just pick any given disputes and you'll learn that the very most underlying cause comes down to: "this person A didn't like this person B (insert excuses here) and hey, while we're at it, let's shoot some huge guns at each other." Seriously? That's only fun when it's a plot of some action flick. So the question is, are you one of those people who learned something and decided to give the hard way a shot?

Lastly to the bullied: seriously, it freaking gets better. In 5 years, maybe less, those people who are causing you pain won't matter to you anymore. If you want some kind of "ha! take that bully!" satisfaction, LIVE. Live, work your butt off, and have one successful life. I'd say that's WAY better than you being stuck 6 feet under becoming a full course dinner to the bugs, don't you think?

xx-N