Jeux d'Enfants (2003)

saw it from Soir-de-fete's blog.
Guillaume Canet et Marion Cotillard.
are you still playing games from your childhood?
Julien and Sophie are. but theirs is not an easy game for the those who lack courage and flair.

Are you game?

Emma (1996)

"I rode through the rain! I'd - I'd ride through worse than that if I could just hear your voice telling me that I might, at least, have some chance to win you."
- Mr. Knightley

out of all the Jane Austen movies, Emma is perhaps my favourite, or it is a close second to Joe Wright's P&P (I chose it soley due to the fact that Joe Wright is directing it and Keira Knightley is in it) Emma as a much better plot and a heroine that I like and that I can sometimes identify with, and Mr. Knightley, shall I say he's one of the most charming men in Austen's novels, after Colonel Brandon and Edward Rochester (but he's a Bronte's character) nevermind that.

going to a theme party on this coming friday and everyone has to dress up as movie characters. I'm still thinking which one I should be (considering the troubling fact that I haven't got a costume and it's hard to find a nice one in HK) usually you hv to hv them custome made and I don't have much time. argh. I've been thinking of a few possibilities.
1. Alice in Alice in Wonderland
2. Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz (just because I have a pair of red shoes)
3. Wednesday Addams (the plaits are easy to do compared to the blonde wig I need to get for Alice's character)
4. Helen of Troy in Troy
5. Olympia (Angelina Jolie's character in Alexander)
you see I'm going for the toga ones cuz I really want to have a toga party
6. Holly Golightly
7. Celia in Atonement
or just any flappers in the 20s

Notting Hill (1999)

one of my favourite films of all time.
watched it for over a dozen times and now I'm watching it again. It's the second most watched films in my list after Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant just shine in it.

and Richard Curtis. He's one of my favourite screen writers. I love all his films - Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill. but Notting Hill is perhaps the most hilarious and light hearted one with a "surreal but nice" romance.

Up at the Villa (2000)

adapted from Somerset Maugham's novel of the same name, this film is quite an intriguing period drama about how people change under different circumstances no matter how hard they try to stick to their own ideas of themselves.

the scenery is absolutely beautiful and Italy is always the place for a romantic encountering (apart from paris) and yet it is also the ideal venue for murder and suspence i think. the villa, the farmlands, the vineyards, everything just adds up so beautifully and they all seem idyllic and romantic and dangerous at the same time. Reminds me of the book I read some time ago - The Savage Garden by Mark Mills - it's about how a British guy who stays in Italy for the summer in the early 1940s discovers a truth about the family murder in his hostess' villa while the present is slowly mingled with the past, quite an intricate whodunnit novel.

just a change of tone here. watched Johnny English again last night after I saw the ad of Mr. Bean's Holiday in hbo. Steve Carrell's Get Smart is just repeating what Rowan Atkinson did in Johnny English I guess, but this time it's an American spy... but I always think that a British spy is way cooler than those CIA agents. the brit agents are just suave and sleek and everything, maybe that's an influence from my childhood cuz my dad is a James Bond fanatic. haha

the theme song for the film - a man for all seasons is soo hilarious when it's put in the film... the juxtaposition between bond n' english. lol

Angel (2007)

It's finally released in Hong Kong!!!

adapted from Elizabeth Taylor's novel and directed by Francois Ozon, this film is an amazing confection with a slightly melodramatic portrayal of an Edwardian female writer's quest for fame, love and wealth. Many people who watched it say Angel's life is really tragic. but I think her perception of her own life have to be nice, as she decorates the whole Paradise house into somewhat a paradise. the ambiguity Ozon tries to bring out this time is -

whether we're looking at the life she lived or the life she dreamed.

I have to agree with many that Angel Deverell (Romola Garai) is slightly pulled away from the reality as in many scenes. She refuses to grow up when Esme finally takes up the responsibility of a man and goes to war (the story spans the late 19th century and the early 1920s). and the only sad part is she can't catch up with the society when everything changes. It's such a pity that a writer like her experiences a catapult to fame and is suddenly robbed of everything.

the only disappointment in the film is the character of Esme. Michael Fassbender is really good as Angel's husband and the painter. the thing I don't really understand is how Angel can love a man to the extent that she's willing to give up everything for him, and gets nothing in return. maybe true love doesn't ask for anything in return, but it's quite shocking at the end when she finds out abt Esme's past. Sometimes I think Angel isn't ruined by her own ambitions, as Charlotte Rampling's character Hermione says she rather admires Angel for her qualities to get what she wants, Deverell is somehow ruined by her inability to live in the present and her love for Esme. that's why the audience is able to sympathise with Angel when she appears to be a showy person.

quite an oustanding performance from Romola Garai I must admit. She has grown up a lot since I first saw her in I Capture the Castle.

I always feel that this dress is going to create a sensation after Keira Knightley's green biased cut one in Atonement.

a little poetry reading

http://www.wretch.cc/blog/jerocca&article_id=13912749

Jerocca's blog is about films and cultural issues. quite innovative and inspirational. : ) I especially like her entry on Apr 3 about poetry.

"Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it
but those who need it."
- Mario Ruoppolo (Il Postino)

poetry is fashion.
as seen from the recent trend of blooming flowers for summer. this trend does sparkle when accompanied by a line or two of poetry. things don't get as surreal and beautiful without John Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci

"...I see a lily on thy brow,
with anguish moist and fever dew,

and on thy cheeks a fading rose
fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
full beautiful - a faery's child,
her hair was long, her foot was light,
and her eyes were wild..."

a kind of fish tail mermaid dress from Zac Posen

this Peter Som is amazing.
a combination of effortless grace and modernity.


the flower child theme is always making a come back in the summer. reminds me of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

watched it today, the one with Sophie Marceau, Rupert Everett, Christian Bale, Calista Flockhart, Michelle Pheiffer and Stanley Tucci.

it's dreamy and poetic. it's my favourite Shakespearean play (Romeo & Juliet is classic, but this one wins my heart whenever I read it or watch the film). with all those faeries and Titannia and the dreamy Oberon. sigh.

just love these two. they're comical in there.

having a pre-summer madness right now. it's still not midsummer thank god, or else it will be steaming hot in here. exam's not done, but since I've finished two subjects, so I'd better come here and write a bit of a blog. just can't resist it. anyway have to get on with my studies. big challenge ahead. argh. starting to get restless again.

bonne nuit.

books... books... more books

just got to know this author - Iain Pears. his books look interesting, kind of mystery/suspense... I don't really know, but I'm interested in the one called The Dream of Scipio.

watched Becoming Jane the other day, and I'm suddenly interested in her novels again. Used to read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, but maybe I was too young at that time (around 12) and seriously as a non-native english speaker I don't really know what Austen's writing about. but now I somehow grasp her words, there's certainly a subtle force in it that makes her novels one of the top books of all time. I'm going to read Bronte's Jane Eyre after the exam too... lots of books unread.

going to finish off Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, the Dreamer... don't really like the plot and background of On Chesil Beach.

haven't finished Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette as well... and I'm planning to reread Left Bank. and I'm going to get Oscar Wilde's complete works, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned and This Side of Paradise. just love his books and the decadence of Jazz Age.

will probably update after the exam.

bonne nuit