BlogSport

Suzi and I watched the feel-good movie of ANY year last night: Beijing Bicycle. And by "feel-good" I mean "starts happily and then side-swipes you with anger and violence and desperation and you feel wrung out when it's done." I had seen good reviews of this film (in retrospect I probably just read headlines whose gist was "This film is worth watching" without delving into *why* they felt it was) and when the Q and I got together for pizza, chips and soda, and threw in a DVD for good measure, this seemed like such a good idea. Watching with Suzi was actually helpful and interesting for me because she could enlighten me on aspects of "typical" Chinese life and culture (like relative levels of affluence, or what happens when families have more than one child--in direct contradiction of the One Child rule long in effect there)...That Suz sure is a smartie! She said that films like this go hand in hand with something called Scar Literature, which is typical of post-Cultural Revolution (and particularly post-Tiananmen Square uprising) China: the bleakness felt by many and the cracks that show more and more in everyday life. Important, and relevant, but it won't have you dancing in the streets when you're done.

Oh, and Tom, I stole "The Brotherhood of the Wolf" and "Mystery, Alaska." Suzi is running her own personal Netflix with your DVD stash. Just thought you should know. ;)

posted by ADD @ 07:27