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Better Luck Tomorrow

soph·o·mor·ic

adjective \ˌsäf-ˈmȯr-ik, -ˈmär-also ˌsȯf- or ˌsä-fə- or ˌsȯ-fə-\

: having or showing a lack of emotional maturity : foolish and immature

:  conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature <a sophomoric argument>

This definition I felt suited not only every single character in the film, but even the film itself. First off, I felt the use of this was particularly intentional, as referenced by the use of the word temerity to express their “rash boldness” of their boredom. Each of the characters expressed a different kind of individualistic personality, but this trait was common among all. Ben was the fairly innocent bad guy (inverted when he practically kills Steve later). Virgil was the idiot, Daric the smart alec, Han the badass.  The tropes provided here could be constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. Overachievers, bored with their passive intelligence go on to become criminals. The innocent bad guy trope is there as well(Ben didn’t kill Steve, he just nearly did and someone else finished him off, saving his active innocence). I would personally have liked to see these tropes at least inverted, turned on their head to express a point. I feel like this film absolutely had a fantastic point, but it was so drowned in tropes from other films that this one seemed almost infantile in its expression. I loved the film, don’t get me wrong.

I was disappointed that they didn’t touch on the individuals nationalities, but in a way it made it more endearing. It wasn’t important to the plot of the story. Only one Asian joke was made through the entire film(surprising considered it was picked up by MTV, seeing as how they like to make every race the butt of the joke), and this made me feel like they didn’t quite want to touch the idea of race within the film.

I’m sure I have more to say on the subject of the film, but I need some more time to gather my thoughts and deconstruct what I saw in my own head, so I plan to revisit some of the things I’d like to talk about after that. Please, leave some comments if you think anything I’ve said is wrong, or even if you just feel like playing devil’s advocate. I love to hear counter arguments.

 

 

Better Lemon Tomorrow

Our skin compared to the color of lemons. Yellow, such an inviting color on the outside, however when you cut a lemon, whether you eat it or the juice creeps into a cut that is on your hand, it stings, it’s not inviting, the look of uneasiness on your face. A fruit that looks so juicy, but tricks everyone.

Go beyond, get through the uneasiness, and one finds that it’s still just a fruit. A fruit that provides good health just as any other fruit. A fruit that is commonly used to help ease the burn of alcohol in your mouth, refreshing. A hot summer day, lemonade.

Yet at the end of the day, we still equate lemons to sourness. A lemon does so much good but is only seen for it’s color and acidity. So which can part of a lemon can we trust? Does a lemon ever get tired of it’s bright color and is that the reason why it’s so bitter on the inside?

“Better Luck Tomorrow”

To start off with I’d like to say that I love the tittle for this movie, which in my opinion is only funny once you’ve watch the film. Starting the movie off with a scene of  Virgil and Ben finding a dead body was misleading for me towards the rest of the film. Even though we get to the point of why there’s a dead body I wouldn’t have thought that Ben and Virgil were part of the murder because of how non nonchalant they were talking on the chairs and their shock about the body. But I would say that it being misleading went along with the challenging of stereotypes in this film. All of the Asian/American characters in the film fit into the model minority stereotype by being smart students with extracurricular activities, but I appreciated that the film touched on the reasoning behind that behavior and went further to disprove the stereotype by focusing on the guys in their free time and their short business run.

Better Luck Tomorrow: Random Thoughts

Okay so what?! I Honestly haven’t decided what I think of this movie quite yet. It was entertaining, but I still have mixed feelings about it.

1. So in the very beginning of the movie, we saw that somebody was buried… but by the end of the movie, I forgot all about it and I was wondering where the conflict was. Like most movies have a huge conflict in them, and the movie is focused around it the entire time… but with this one, it was kind of pushed off to the side until the very end… then I was like “Oh yea, there’s a dead guy.”

2. “Population Control: Why retarded people and handicap people should be executed.” WTF?! This pissed me off.

3. I liked Ben throughout the whole movie. He made stupid decisions at times, but he was the character that the audience tends to side with. He just seemed so nice! (Besides the fact that he beat Steve with a baseball bat) But I wanted him to be able to get with Stephanie, so I was happy when she was his New Years kiss :)

4. Virgil is a cry baby. But I felt bad for him, because I am a cry baby too and I know how it feels to be in situations that you don’t want to be in, but don’t know a way out of.

5. It was interesting how they played off of the Model Minority Myth… then showed what could happen behind the scenes :0

6. Did they REALLY have to kill Steve? I know he was a jerk but geeze.

7. “If you’re clever enough, you could get away with anything” (;

8. “When you have everything you want, what’s left?” When I was like 8, I remember talking to my niece (also like 8 )about being the richest person in the world. I decided that it didn’t sound fun because then there is nothing left to do or accomplish.

9. Ben must have felt so guilty kissing Stephanie right after she was asking him if he has seen Steve, and saying she was worried about him.

10. That’s it for now….

 

Movie Review: Better Luck Tomorrow

Literally just finished watching this movie… you know how a film takes a twist half way through? That’s what happens here. It starts off narrated by Ben, a high school student preparing for college. About 2/3 of the way through it takes a turn “it’s time to break the cycle.” Yep, Ben and his fellow high school buddies begin by working on their college applications then slowly switch to lives of  crime… One of their ventures goes bad, ending up with Ben & company murdering one of their fellow students.

A few of the repeated sayings:

“At least it will look good on my college application”

“I can’t wait till I get out”

“When you got everything, what’s left?”

“Wake up call”

“Need to break the cycle”

A few days after the failed crime venture that has yet to be discovered, Ben is talking with the girlfriend of his buddy– the guy they just murdered… she asks Ben, “…have you ever made decisions that lead to other decisions, then you forget why you made those first decisions?”  You can take your pick– any of those quotes could lead this review into far greater meanings… “For the first time in my life I don’t know what I’m going to do, or what the other guys are going to do…” narrates ben as the credits begin to roll. Like the film, I’m going to leave this post unresolved

The Beautiful Country

If you wanted to know how this movie made me feel, see above

I absolutely love films like this. It’s times like these I wish I knew more about the culture of the characters in the film. This is important to me personally because I like to know whats more culturally based reactions to situations and what is part of a characters design. For example, we are provided with a brief view of Binh’s life before he left for Saigon, a grim half bowl of food on the porch alone and sleeping on a small boat. He is then thrown from this half-life of being told he’s a horrible creature to meeting his mother and brother. After a brief encounter with them (it feels like one day! they got to hang out for one freakin’ day…) Binh is thrown into a whirlwind after the wife of the house he is working in falls and dies. He is sent away with Tam to go to America to find Binh’s father. The very short amount of time they were together really made me feel uncomfortable with the relationship formed. Wouldn’t it take some time to get to know each other over a longer period of time before feeling obligated to help a small boy get out of the country (even though he died anyway T.T)? Is this an obligation to family more of a cultural ideal or is this built into Binh’s character? Or is it just Binh, who has been put down most of his life, experiencing familial love for the first time and feels as though he’s been offered a place in his own world? These are just a couple questions I generated based off of the brief period in the film with Binh’s mother and brother.

I wanted to express my impression of Binh overall. New to the concept of bui doi, I don’t understand the stigma surrounding it within the culture. But from what I can gather from the film, he has been treated poorly all his life. His posture alone tells all, slightly hunched, eyes always looking at the ground. This is exemplified when, in the refugee camp, Binh and Ling have a moment under the broken water pipe where Binh is staring at her feet, and Ling says, “Look at me.” and Binh, continuing to stare at her feet, says, “I am”. I interpret this as all of Binh’s life moments, all his experience with people, he never looked them in the face and his expression of looking is staring at their feet. It’s a really dark thought for me.

raining_david_tennant_nosedripThe moment when Binh’s brother, Tam, dies on the boat is an incredibly difficult moment for me (anyone sitting next to me knows how I took it. T.T). More to come, but for now…Lunch.

The Beautiful Country

My main question after watching this film was: Did his father actually know that his son had come to find him? It seemed as if the producer of the film left it for the viewers to try and figure out whether or not he knew it was his son. Towards the end of the film, while Binh was making the two Pho, his father, Steve began to tell him about his first wife in Vietnam and what happened to where he never saw her again… once the two sat down to eat, his father began to  touch his face and it seemed as if he was sure that Binh was his son. To the viewer, it seemed that he knew after Binh also stated “My mother is beautiful” after Steve said “My wife was beautiful”

What is the meaning of the title of the film, The Beautiful Country?

Is the title The Beautiful Country somewhat of a personification for his mother?

Other concerns: It was upsetting to have to see Binh’s little brother die. What happened to Binh’s mother? What happened with the situation after the lady died from hitting her head on the ground?

Beyond the film: Throughout the film, especially during the time period they were on the ship to go to America, the amount of suffrage was clear and ultimately turned others against each other when in reality the enemies were not each other. Furthermore, I began to think about my life and make connections with other minority groups. The struggle that many minorities face are all similar to one another in some way.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 

My thoughts on The Beautiful Country

I have a friend named Angelina and she is 100% Vietnamese. Both her parents are from Vietnam and moved to the States to to have kids. Her father died over the summer and she told me that her dad wanted his ashes to be sprinkled around Vietnam. She was telling me how much her dad Vietnam and how she’s only seen it in pictures but how beautiful it is. And before we watched the movie in class someone was talking about how pretty that country was.

Throughout the whole movie though, Bihn and everyone else around him was focused on getting to America. They kept calling it ‘The Beautiful Country’ And as someone who has lived in America her whole life, I can say it has it’s beautiful parts but I’d much rather travel the world. That thought got me thinking, mostly about the notion of ‘the grass is always greener’.

Maybe, it doesn’t matter what part of the world you come from, you’ll always want something else. It doesn’t matter how privileged you may be, someone out there will always have it better and you’ll constantly strive for that. Do you think there is a point where you stop wanting more? I wonder if its possible to be satisfied with everything in your life. I know I’m not, but i’m only 21 and I have so much more life to live.

Just and interesting thought I guess. Like how people still think America is this great land when it clearly has so much to improve on. But like I was saying earlier, no matter how much you have, someone always has it better. I guess it’s just important to remember that someone also has it worse.

The Beautiful Country

First looking at the title, it seemed as their was going to sad story to this and there was. I know that the story was sad and I almost cried, I ain’t gonna lie, it was a sad sorry from everything when Binh and his younger brother were on their journey to America. I didn’t know anything that happened during this time like when boats would go to foreign shores and the passengers would be put into relocation camps. I had no idea of this tragedy. I really admired Binh’s courage and strength to go on and find his father, but with certain journeys come some consequences and that was very sad, but life is hard. I enjoyed the movie in the end, but would want to see some more about maybe going back to Vietnam and the mother coming to America or something. I just wanted a longer ending I guess.

Check out the movie, its a good one. The Beautiful Country- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273108/