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

Catharsis: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

Bad Ben and his Baseball Bat Put the gun down Virgil Han has entered the ring Take the red pill already, Daric

Quixotic: exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical.

Don Quixote

Temerity: excessive confidence or boldness; audacity

Daric, put that gun down. You and Virgil shouldn’t have guns

How did Google link my favorite movie to an image search of Better Luck Tomorrow…. Betty.

So that was a lot of media. I was just experimenting with visuals that represent the connections between the words Ben studied to the movie, my knowledge, and my life. I also added a picture to connect the word quixotic to the story of Don Quixote. If you do not know the story, it was a Spanish novel written in the beginning of the 17th century during the Spanish Golden Age. It is an influential work that tells the story of an hidalgo, Spanish nobility, that ventures out into the world to bring back chivalry after growing obsessed with reading chivalric novels. The tale follows this man, who takes on the name Don Quixote, and his self-appointed sire as they encounter life and it’s trials through the lens of a knight. Needless to say, this pursuit of chivalry and medieval romance was idealistic and impractical. The word quixotic comes from the traits of Don Quixote; much like Freudian can be a way to describe someones views if they resemble those of Sigmund Freud. Only connect…

“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

Car DISCUSSION with Sung Kang

I am somewhat a fanboy of Sung Kang and since he was in the movie  that we watched, Better Luck Tomorrow, I thought I would post this here to make a connection. This is just a short youtube series where Sung Kang holds a “car discussion” but his role is that of a terrible talk show host. In this video he is interviewing Tyrese Gibson. Enjoy!

And on a side note, for those who are fans of Fast and the Furious, I thought it was interesting that his name was Han in this movie as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

I really enjoyed this movie although this movie had few happy moments it was enjoyable to see it was  somewhat of a happy ending. From the start of the film where Binh was the outcast that no one wanted to be around. He was always called ugly even though as a viewer I didn’t see his ugliness.  When Binh found his mom he soon had to let her go. He had shut downs every time that he turned around. When he was trying to go America he wound up in Malaysia. He was stuck in a refugee camp where he met the love of his life.  When he was able to leave the refugee camp he found out that the business man on the boat that was taking them to America was charging more money that he had. After all the sickness on the boat he lost his younger brother, which he promised his mother that he would look over and protect. When he finally gets to  New York he has a place to stay and a place to work, but doesn’t have a girl to love him back. When he is told by a group of guys that he could have avoided all the drama from the boat by flying to America free because his father was a solider he freaks out and leaves to find his father. When he finally finds his father he finds that he is blind and can’t see his face. This movie ends happy because although its not said it hints that the father knows who Binh really is, his son. Binh doesn’t tell his father who he is because he realizes that it doesn’t need to be said. For one of the first films that we have seen in fall and winter quarter we don’t see the “white hero.” We actually see Binh being the hero for his father. A man that can’t see but learns how to paint. A man that would have been fired if another helper came along but isn’t because Binh wanted to get to know his father even in a one bed trailer.  This movie was really enjoyable to watch even if a couple of tears wanted the-beautiful-countryto run down my cheek.

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…