Really? May be I will watch it tomorrow

Super 8: Just as great as you hoped it would be

Richard Corliss 2 June 2011

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2075217-1,00.html



Something — some thing — is terrifying the good folks of Lillian, Ohio, but what is it? A gas-station attendant, his face blanched with fear, sees it and screams; all we see is his body being jerked out of the frame. A telephone lineman on his crane hears it as a clattering clank of metal, like a clumsy heist at Home Depot; soon he's gone. But the creepiest hint that a nasty creature lurks in Lillian comes when 12-year-old Joe (Joel Courtney) posts a notice about his lost dog on a public bulletin board and the camera pulls back to reveal a hundred posters of missing pets. Who, or what, took the dogs out?



J.J. Abrams, writer and director of the scary, artful new thriller Super 8, is a hoarder of secrets, a master in the fine art of withholding information. Fans of Lost, the TV series he co-created, had to stick around six years for its mysteries to be revealed. "J.J. makes the audience wait for it," says Steven Spielberg, a producer and abettor of Super 8. With a conjurer's practiced blandness, Abrams simply says, "I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective." But the man is no sadist. He, more than anyone, loves not knowing what comes next. As a boy, he bought a mystery box at a Manhattan magic store; now 44, he still has the box and still hasn't opened it.



What's Inside the Boxcar?



The mystery box in Super 8 is a boxcar on a freight train speeding through Lillian one night in 1979 as some kids are furtively shooting a Super-8 movie. Pudgy Charles (Riley Griffiths) is the director, with the quick mind, bossiness and vast reserves of movie lore that mark a budding auteur. Cary (Ryan Lee) puts his pyrotechnic and possibly pyromaniacal skills to use as special-effects wizard. Joe does makeup and constructs the models that Charles' action film will crash. But like any nebbishy guys, these kids are making movies to attract the ladies — specifically their leading lady, Alice (Elle Fanning), a 14-year-old blonde with an imperious star quality. As Joe powders her face for the shoot, he gazes at her with naked adoration, perspiration forming on his brow like evening dew.



In the middle of their big take, the train crashes into a car on the tracks, spraying tons of debris their way and sending a platoon of military men fanning out across the scene. Only Joe has noticed that the car was driven onto the tracks, seemingly in a suicide mission. In the car is the boys' science teacher (Glynn Turman), injured and near death. "They will kill you," he mutters. "Do not speak of this or else you and your parents will die." Do not speak of what? Of the thing that none of the kids saw — the some thing that has escaped.



In the other movies Abrams directed, the third Mission: Impossible and the retooled Star Trek, he ornamented familiar mythologies. Super 8, his first feature as writer-director, required that he build his own box — and open it. "Withholding things in a story is no good if you aren't building to something substantial," he says. "It becomes foreplay without the main event, and no one wants that."



Abrams adepts will recall a similar story, of young people banding together to face a ravenous monster, from Cloverfield, the 2008 alien-invasion film he produced. But Super 8 has a gentler vibe: it leavens the apocalyptic threat with the budding bonding of Joe and Alice. Joe's beloved mother has recently died in a steel-mill accident. His father (Kyle Chandler, from Friday Night Lights), Lillian's deputy sheriff, has his hands full trying to save the town. The lonely 12-year-old, clinging to his mother's necklace as a talisman, is aching for the sympathetic company of an older woman — even two years older.



Alice, just crossed to the other side of the great puberty divide, possesses a maturity that comes as much from abiding her angry father as it does from her natural poise. She's lonely too. Their inchoate romance could prove therapeutic for both, with Alice finding pure friendship and Joe learning to let go of morose childhood. All these kids, Abrams says, are "on the precipice of something — the end of a time. I wanted to catch kids at the very edge of full-blown, raging puberty, in their last moments of innocence."



The Age of Innocence



There's a reason that Super 8, with all its cool thrills, also seems a work of innocence: it takes incidental inspiration from the films of a director who, back in 1979, was the J.J. Abrams of his day. Look closely and you'll see that Super 8 is a medley of tropes from the films of Spielberg's early prime. They're all here: Duel (an unseen, car-wrecking force), The Sugarland Express (a blonde driving a hot car), Jaws (the town sheriff tracking a monster), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (ordinary folks unearthing a military secret), 1941 (people panicking on news of an invasion), Poltergeist (an underground menace that steals people), The Goonies (kids on a dangerous mission) and especially E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (an alien event seen through children's eyes, plus a few other echoes we won't mention).



The films are summoned not as a series of gag references but as an evocation — in a grainier, more urgent style — of the old Spielbergian nexus of childhood fear and wonder. "I didn't want the film to look like it was made in 1979," Abrams says. "I wanted it to look the way we remember films looking from 1979. I wanted to build a bridge between then and now. This was always an Amblin film in spirit," he says, referring to Spielberg's production company, "because that period in my life was so profoundly impacted by American cinema of the era."



That era was the late '70s, when Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was a movie-mad kid growing up in Los Angeles, the son of film and TV producer Gerald Abrams. Super 8 is a sort of fictionalized memoir of his early days shooting Super-8 movies with his pal Matt Reeves. Reeves later would direct Cloverfield as well as Let Me In, which, like Super 8, is a poetic rendering of preadolescent anguish in a horror-film setting. (Larry Fong, another teen compadre of Abrams', is Super 8's cinematographer.)



When they were 15, Abrams' and Reeves' work was written up in the Los Angeles Times, and, miracle of miracles, the boys got a call from Spielberg associate Kathleen Kennedy with an offer to have them repair two of the 8-mm films, then crumbling, that the master had made when he was their age. "To this day," Abrams says, "it makes no sense to me why Steven would put the original prints of Firelight and Escape to Nowhere in the hands of two 15-year-old strangers. I mean, have you ever seen 15-year-olds? Don't give them things if you want them back — especially repaired. But Matt and I did it."



Decades later, Spielberg and Abrams revisited their boyhood love of moviemaking. "We both had idea fragments about our early 8-mm days, using friends to act and crew our movies," Spielberg says. "Kind of like an insane 8-mm Our Gang adventure. Then J.J. had the idea to put them in the middle of a big sci-fi event but emphasized that the event was the B story and the kids were the big story. I acted as his sounding board, but J.J. was the creative engine from Day One. He felt this story from his soul. As I watched him acting out scenes, I saw myself 20 years ago. He was like my time machine."



Fanning, playing 14 when she was 12, is a showbiz pro, having co-starred in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere. But Courtney, 14 playing 12, was just an Idaho kid taking acting lessons when Abrams cast him. The stark tenderness of their scenes is surely due in part to the director's communicating with them peer to peer, as if, once again, he were a kid putting his friends through their movie paces. "He was 14 directing 13-year-olds," Spielberg says, "and the honesty that shows in every performance was the natural result."



Given Abrams' talent for the tease, Super 8 has fanboys on point for the movie's June 10 release. They and other moviegoers may be shocked at how the film plays with genre expectations, then transcends and obliterates them. "The greatest fun and challenge," Abrams says, "came from balancing a coming-of-age love-story character piece with essentially a monster movie." Did you ever cry at a boy-meets-girl picture? All right, did you root for a monster to win? Those are just two of the surprises awaiting you in the year's most thrilling, feeling mainstream movie. The some thing you'll feel is the open heart of J.J. Abrams, Super 8's boy genius.

My New Perfume

XYZ$#&^%!

朋友問我會不會看建黨偉業。



我答她，免費的話或者會考慮。



教育電視如果不是免費你會看嗎？



不過即使免費...........我還是寧願看頭條新聞。

六月飛霜

想起以前會考完數學後極有衝動想和Iris一起燒書慶祝。



最後當然沒有燒-----因為怕重考。



當時的數學題分兩部分。



我只完成了比較容易的Part A，核對了幾次肯定錯的機會不大及應該夠分合格，胡亂

做幾條較難的Part B，便提早離開試場。

幸好最後真的合格，不過只拿E，是我最差的一科。

Father's Day

Almost forgot that today is father’s day.



I already gave him some money last week. It seems that he doesn’t want to eat outside. Perhaps I should buy him sth? When I was small, I used to draw cards for him. They are no longer here now. Not sure it’s he or me threw them away……



I seldom say I love u to my family. Not that I m shy. Just I don’t like to express this way. In fact, every time I go to my parents’ place, before leaving, I give them a good bye hug & kiss. I consider it’s equal to saying I love u……and i assume they understand......



I love u, dad. Hope u listen to what I have said. Just accept the fact and...dont get mad easily to ppl who take care of you.



Happy Father’s Day!

I like this blog

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

大陸禁片 《 請為我投票 》

What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths

What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths

每況愈下

早前Sogo Thankful Week買了很多東西，主要是護膚品。



跟朋友討論戰績，說起某某狂掃Guerlain, La Mer……



朋友說：「這些牌子不是老了才用嗎?」



我：「會不會老了之後沒錢，最終用的是Olay?」

難得寧靜

11點了。眼睏。但仍未想睡。



看Time。回想今天看過的東西。發生過的事。



驟雨、藍色黃昏、灰雲、被黑夜吻扁了的月亮、我的股票......還有......你。



你在哪裡？現在做些什麼？你也有在想我嗎？

(幾乎)被遺忘的時光



2009年5月2日。台北八方美學商旅。房間別緻，床舒服。不過我大概吃得太飽，每晚都睡不好。





























電視後面是超大的按摩浴缸，水池還會變色！





























當晚我和幾個朋友，一人一杯珍珠奶茶坐在缸邊。浸腳。聊天。眼前是台北夜景。當時如果你在就好了。不過如果你在的話，你會坐在那裡和我慢慢聊天？我還會有說話的機會嗎？

2010年夏天，我又去了台北。這是前往桃園機場時拍下的。車太熱，睡不著。 身邊的人換了，心情也不同。 有時候，似乎跟朋友旅行開心一點。至少，朋友不需要我照顧，願意一起計劃行程，幫忙問路，支持我shopping.......最感動是嘉敏跟我說，喜歡就買，不夠錢，我借你！

2010年聖誕。尖東1881。冷。

美麗華酒店Yamm補祝情人節。我請客。所以，我絕不是港女!

沙田某意大利餐廳的焦糖蛋糕。好味到無法形容 (實情是自己中文差，詞彙貧乏)。和C在這裡談了一個下午。大家都覺得香港越來越悶，沒有前途，C更懷疑自己是不是有中年危機。我只聽過女人會有更年期問題，女人的中年危機是怎麼一回事，真的毫無頭緒。

2011年4月12日。Renaissance Harbourview HoteL第二餐生日飯。通常我自助餐頭一兩碟吃的東西就是這樣。當天我既沒有吃早餐，也飽到沒有吃晚飯。

短髮

終於把長髮剪短，還電了髮。他喜歡我長髮多點，朋友說看不慣。我又何嘗看得慣?



不過最不習慣的是頸後老是感到陰風陣陣。

謊言

想起一個笑話，說男人最大的謊言是：



「讓我插一下！我保證，只插一下！」



我不肯定有沒有人這樣跟我講過。也不肯定有沒有人曾經可以「只插一下」了事。

說謊

前天在髮型屋聽到的。不其然想起陳奕汛的淘汰。









<說謊>



作詞：施人誠

作曲：李雙飛

主唱：林宥嘉



是有過幾個不錯對象

說起來並不寂寞孤單

可能我浪蕩 讓人家不安

才會 結果都陣亡



我沒有什麼陰影魔障

你千萬不要放在心上

我又不脆弱 何況那算什麼傷

反正愛情不就都這樣



我沒有說謊 我何必說謊

你懂我的 我對你從來就不會假裝

我哪有說謊 請別以為你有多難忘

笑是真的不是我逞強



我好久沒來這間餐廳

沒想到已經換了裝潢

角落那窗口 聞得到玫瑰花香

被你一說是有些印象



我沒有說謊 我何必說謊

你知道的 我缺點之一就是很健忘

我哪有說謊 是很感謝今晚的相伴

但我竟然有些不習慣



我沒有說謊 我何必說謊

愛一個人 沒愛到難道就會怎麼樣

別說我說謊 人生已經如此的艱難

有些事情就不要拆穿



我沒有說謊 是愛情說謊

它帶你來 騙我說 渴望的有可能有希望

我沒有說謊 祝你做個幸福的新娘

我的心事請你就遺忘

掃興

星期六，慣常逛一逛影碟舖，看看有什麼新戲。



The King’s Speech, The Town, Finding Neverland, Wall.E, The Time Traveler’s Wife........ 都有興趣。



不過一想起沙發上那堆衣服，客廳地下的雜物，凌亂的書檯-----最後一套都沒有借。

工時「斬件」影響 外地前車可鑑

經濟日報

2011年05月05日 星期四



撰文:葉鏗然

欄名:爾事港





歐、美、台灣、南韓以至內地，早已推行最低工資，其中法國列明，當物價指數升幅達2%或以上，內閣便會發出命令調升最低工資。



表面看來法例保障員工，但看深一層，企業為減成本將僱員工時「斬件」，本港聘請兼職僱員比率大升；兼職員工幾乎沒有福利，僱主毋須支付休息日、疾病津貼及長期服務金等，此情況對社會發展有一定影響。



澳洲兼職人口 全球最多



據現行僱傭法例，僱員連續受聘於同一僱主4星期或以上、每星期最少工作18小時，便可享休息日、有薪年假、疾病津貼、遣散費及長期服務金；為減此等開支，企業大減工時、斬件式改聘兼職工代替。



根據經濟合作暨發展組織（OECD）發布的OECD Employment Outlook 2009報告，推行了最低工資的澳洲，其兼職人口比例居全球首位，佔勞動人口24.7%，英國排第4，佔23.9%，美國及法國分別為14.1%及13.3%。在最低工資下，企業為減成本，增加兼職僱員，由於缺乏保障，兼職僱員的流動性較大。



本港推行最低工資效果如何，暫時未知，但競爭對手新加坡已力抗最低工資，肯定了「不推比推的好」。新加坡總理公署部長林瑞生認為要提高工人薪金，首要是提高他們的就業能力、技能水平和生產力。



星拒立法 提供入息補助



新加坡政府相信，推行就業入息補助津貼計劃，付出的只有政府，對經濟衝擊不大。



他舉例，在10至20年前，任何身體健全的人可當保安員，月薪約850坡元，員工加薪難，工作效率也沒提高，5年前政府要求應徵者必須通過考試，保安員起薪點上升至1,600坡元。



基層薪金低，當地政府遂為月薪低於1,700元的工人，每半年提供薪金20%至25%的就業入息補助津貼，估計一年撥逾4億坡元（約25.28億港元）。



一個銀幣有兩面，推行最低工資的好處及壞處，陸續浮現，社會要付上的代價，值得大家深思。

當外星人遇上外星人

不記得是哪一個星期六，他早買了Pirates of the Caribbean戲票，但當天突然不適要回家，我第一時間想起Y，原來她正好和朋友在旺角，她說可以陪我看。



三點鐘我打電話給Y，她說和朋友，還有朋友的女兒正打算吃甜品，叫我不如也一起吃。



其實我本來就想吃甜品，真是相請不如偶遇。



吃甜品的時侯，其中之一的話題是大家平時看什麼電視。朋友的朋友說她只讓女兒週末看F檔案(即是Fringe)。



原來她們還在看Season 2，劇情說到Walter發明了一個可以看到另一個Parallel World 的窗口，他見到了在現實世界裡早已病逝的兒子。



我認識的朋友中，沒有人看Fringe，不由得對她們「加分」，更羨慕她們兩母女竟有共同興趣/話題。



我現在看的Season是Olivia B去了Olivia A 的世界做間諜。而Olivia A 則被擄去了Olivia B 的世界。Walter B 向Olivia A 注入了Olivia B 的記憶，令Olivia A 認為她是 Olivia B。 但Olivia A 卻不斷出現幻覺，令她懷疑她是否屬於身處的世界.........



Poor Olivia A.



Poor me.