mirrormask

it always amazes me how many different ideas that neil gaiman can come up with in each of his new stories. dave mckean's creativity and ingenuity with his illustrations always leaves me speechless. i've been totally marvelled by their works since sandman, and yet again their latest collaboration took my breathe away before i even manage to see the movie.

early in the sandman series, richard madoc, a novelist, exchanges a trichinobezoar for a the muse, calliope. "I need her. If I didn't have her, I wouldn't be able to write. I wouldn't have ideas." says richard madoc when morpheus the dream king arrives to free the enslaved muse.

sometimes, i wonder if neil gaiman has a few muses of his own locked up in his attic. :)
i read through the first 100+ pages of the script and there are already so many unheard-of ideas - sphinxes love eating books, books will float back to the library if you don't want them anymore and the flutter around like butterflies too, people wear masks and believe that you can't express any emotion without masks - my brain will probably fry itself if i were to try coming up with stuff like these.

photos from the set n the movie shows a very strong feel of dave mckean. it's like seeing his illustrations coming to live on screen. ok, i'm just guessing on that but i'll bet the movie will feel exactly like that to anyone who's familiar with dave mckean's style in art. the panning of the camera on certain scenes looks really impressive from the script.

the story is a twist of alice in wonderland, making it much darker (when comparing with the comtemporary children's version), more witty humor n a totally brand new neil gaiman fairy tale, riding dave mckean's design n directing.

like i said before i even read the book, a collaboration of my fav artist n fav author, moved to the big screen, what more can i ask for?

PS: that's death from sandman on the side. she's got nothing to do with the movie, i just like the pic. :P

inspirational

According to Nash (played by Russell Crowe) in A Beautiful Mind, Adam Smith is wrong. The concept of "the best results comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself" is, according to Nash, incomplete. The best results is only achieved when everyone in the group does what's best for himself AND the group. And then, he illustrates this with the example of how everyone can get laid. Basically, the most intereting thing in the movie.

The scenario was that there was this stunning blonde, with a few brunettes, just entered a bar/student lounge where Nash and his fellow students were, and everyone wanted the blonde.

So Nash came up with the following, which is entirely true in real life:
"If we all go for the blonde, we'll be in each other's way, and none of us will get her. So we turn to her friends, but they'll all give us the cold shoulder because no one wants to be second choice...". And he concludes that, for all of them to get laid, none of them should go for the blonde.

That, basically, sums up a lot of the success techniques of the first move in picking up women (or girls, if you'd prefer), in a bar/club. Always go for the second best, unless the best has an eye for you and only you. :)

OK, back to the movie. I actually find it kinda inspiring, the way that Nash dealt with his schizophrenia without taking medication. He probably wouldn't have done it without the support from his wife and friends though. It's basically your typically inspirational success story with a twist. The twist being success not in achieving something widely recognised or would revolutionalize something, Nash did that when he was much younger. The success here is overcoming personal difficulties in the face of overwhelming despair.

One other thing that had me thinking about this movie, and all biographical movies in general, is how true or how romanticised the story on screen is, compared to what really happened. I usually think of this point since I'd read Neil Gaiman's Reboot a few years ago.

Reboot is a short story included in Neil Gaiman's short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors. It's about a drug that cures cancer, but has certain non-lethal nor destructive side effects. One of these side effects, changing one's gender overnight, led the drug, Reboot, to be a hit. The story told of the inventor of the drug's real life and his counter part in a biographical movie of him. Two totally different versions of the "same" person, with the movie romanticised to suit the market.

Somehow, this takes the fun out of most "real-life" adapted, inpirational movies.

love is

have you ever been in love? horrible isn't it?
it makes you so vulnerable. it opens your chest and
it opens up your heart and it means that someone
can get inside you and mess you up
you build up all these defenses
you build up a whole suit of armor
so that nothing can hurt you
then one stupid person
no different from any other stupid person
wanders into your stupid life
you give them a piece of you
they didn't ask for it
they did something dumb one day
like kiss you or smile at you
and then your life isn't your own anymore
love takes hostages
it gets inside you
it eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness
so a simple phrase like
'maybe we should be just friends'
turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart
it hurts
not just in the imagination
not just in the mind
it's a soul-hurt
a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain

//Quoted from Rose Walker in Sandman: The Kindly Ones, by Neil Gaiman