A Prairie Home Companion

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10004957-prairie_home_companion/

I loved this movie. The fact that the background is where I have lived for four years (St. Paul, Minnesota) pulled me into the movie somewhat. And then the never-ending live performances were just fun by themselves. The very unique and different setting was refreshing, and all the veteran actors and actresses really did their parts.

I seem to like movies that are full of music and live performances. "Chicago", "The pianist", "O, brother where art thou?", "Walk the line", , "That thing you do", etc. I like all those movies.

I also liked the movie because of the uniqe setup. Have you seen the movie "Dogville"? It sets up the whole movie as a televised play. It is really unique in the setup. You might want to try.

Before Sunrise & Before Sunset

Before Sunrise(1995)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_sunrise/
Before Sunset(2004)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_sunset/

Obviously (is it?), the second movie is a sequel of the first one.

Before Sunrise is about a young couple who met in a train fell into each other and sped the whole night talking to each other in Vienna. The funny thing is (even though it's not a funny movie) that they just part each other in the following morning and they are never able to see each other again.

Before Sunset is about that couple finally meet again in Paris after about 10 years, and again spend a whole day talking to each other.

Interesting thing about these movies is that other than the two main characters, no one else seem to have any significant lines. The two people keeps talking constantly from the beginning to the end. You may feel bored already, but it is really not boring, and actually you will end up getting amazed about how such a movie could keep the audience so focused and entertained (not bored at least).

Before Sunrise has 100% in rotten tomato user ratings, and Before Sunset has 94%. User ratings in imdb are also very good: 7.8 and 8.1 respectively.

I can guarantee that you will also like these movies.

Harold & Kumar go to White Castle

I love this movie. (Do I love too many movies?)

It's called "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle".
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/harold_and_kumar_go_to_white_castle/

Harold (a Korean-American) and Kumar (an Indian-American) are roomies. One night they decide to go to White Castle for a late-night snack. On their way to White Castle all kinds of funny and crazy things happen.

Again, this movie reminds me of Minnesota because only White Castle I've seen was in Minnesota, and that could be one reason why I like it.

But the biggest reason is Harold, who depicts a typical Korean guy so well. In this movie, he is sooooo Korean. Maybe it's not about being Korean. Rephrasing, he is sooooo like me.

It is also interesting because it depicts all the humiliations, disadvantages, unfair stereotyping and segragation that Asian immigrants (well, Jews and black people too) go through in the US in a humorous touch.

The Butterfly Effect 1 & 2

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/butterfly_effect/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10006575-butterfly_effect_2/

Have you heard of "the butterfly effect"? According to the theory, when a butterfly flaps its wings in China, that little movement causes a big complex network of other events and it may end up causing a big hurricane on the other side of the earth, e.g. in the US. In "complexity theory", they use this example to explain various phenomena that cannot be easily explained by other simpler models. So much for the boring theories.

Today I watched a movie called "the butterfly effect 2". Obviously, it's a sequel to "the butterfly effect", which I've watched last year. Even though I like the original better, it was OK and made me think a lot, again. Both movies basically have the same storyline, where a guy finds himself have a special ability to go back to the past and change things, and keep rewinding his life to the very moment when he thinks everything went wrong, trying to fix it by making different decisions, and doing things differently, only to find that no matter what he tries, things may look better for a while but eventually become same or even worse.

It makes me keep thinking about various moments of my not-too-long life, and ask myself "what if I didn't do that", "what if that didn't happen" questions. Of course, I know that, as both movies keep claiming, "You cannot control eveyrthing!", and "things just happen!" But, you know, it is not so easy to drop those useless "what if" questions, once they started flooding my mind.

Groundhog day -- My all-time favorite

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/groundhog_day/

I've seen a short clip of this movie when I was going to the ESL (English As a Second Language) right after I came to the US back in 1996. Actually, the ESL teacher used a short clip from this movie to tell us about what is "small talk".

Anyway, it is about a man who got into an unreal situation, where he has to live the same day (the groundhog day) over and over thousand times. It is really interesting to see the way he lives changes over time. Of course, he refuses to believe it at first, but then he tries to kill himself, and then he tries to make use of it with bad intentions, and then finally he starts doing good things using his power, and finally he got out of the loop.

I watched it literally more than 100 times. I really love the movie. It is fun, but still makes me think about how to live, and what to do in life every time I watch it.

Our future depicted in the movies...

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gattaca/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/equilibrium/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/island/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/v_for_vendetta/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/aeon_flux/

There have been quite a big shift in the way that the moviemakers see our future.

In the old days, the future in the movies were always full of machines, robots, aliens and clones. The world ruled by machines, or wars of humans vs machines, humans vs aliens, humans vs clones, etc.

But recently, there were quite a few movies that focused their attentions to "humans vs humans". Gattaca, the equilibrium, the island, v for Vendetta, and Aeon Flux. The common background of all these movies is that the world has turned into one big totalitarian nation, where people lose their humanities, identities and diversities, where they are totally controlled and watched by the government, where people are punished for being humane, unique, and different.

A few days ago, I watched "the Equilibrium" again. In the movie, in the post-world-war-III world, the new totalitarian government claims that all the bad things in the past happened because of the human's ability to FEEL. So, all citizens have to take some psychiatric
medication regularly to control their feelings, they are not allowed to feel anything, naturally all forms of art is prohibitted. As you expect, there are underground, protesting groups who collect the old arts (paintings, records, sculptures, books, etc.), and there are special forces to find them, kill them, and incinerate all the EVIL articles (such as original "Mona Lisa"). The movie is about one of the special force members, realizes the irony, and fights back with the
government.

As these movies usually contain quite a lot of violence, you might not like them. But I think they are not completely about violences, and leave a lot of things to think about: what we are missing and losing in the rapidly changing world. I think "Gattaca" and "the island" don't have too much violence in them either.