(Photos, Copyright 2010 by Unjoo Na)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3XzUYd6nrU

Frankly, I’ve always felt that there are too many tourists and office buildings uptown spitting out too many white collars like lawyers and bankers into the street during the lunch time like “March of the Penguins.” Believe it or not, I was one of the penguins searching for food sharply around 12:00. ^^

So Downtown has always been my turf. But don’t get me wrong. There are many beautiful spaces I like in uptown and Uptown has its own unique mature attitude I enjoy. Especially, I like Bryant Park and Central Park vicinities.

Love. Love. Love to walk around…

(Photos, Copyright 2009-2010 by Unjoo Na)

(Photos. Copyrighted 2010 by Unjoo Na)

Karl Lagerfeld working in my neighborhood^^

Sky over LES

A Fantasy Wall at the Junction of Soho, LES and EV. Love it.

A Fantasy Wall 2

It was a divine day.

(Photos. Copyrighted 2010 by Unjoo Na)

(Photos. Copyright 2009 by Unjoo Na)

The story is about a contestant for the famous TV game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in India. Every question to become a millionaire is bringing powerful and touching flashback memories of this main character’s life story growing up in poverty, turbulent life experience and finding love. Each flash back scene gives important clues to the questions from the show. Its very unique story telling and visuals are very powerful in a sense that when you watch these kids growing up in a very tough and poor environment without any social protection. From the combination of all the vibrant colors and heart-throbbing music sound, you will experience a new level of emotions you rarely experience in usual Hollywood movies.  Maybe, it could be a Bollywood influence, as the director and the writer admitted. When they arrived in India, they were swept off by Bollywood’s dramatic love stories and its vibrant dance/music styles. Those elements are visibly melted into the movie. Especially, the music/sound was amazingly well done. 

Casting was really good, too. Especially, child actors brought all the emotional connections you need to be immersed in the story. Danny Boyle talked about how well the casting process was done and how the international production cooperation was done in the process. It’s spoken in two languages, Indian and English, with occasional subtitles, which Danny Boyle admitted was a bit of a challenge at first, starting from brining out real emotions from child actors to persuading big studio executives about the foreign language uses.  As he also talked about coordinating different work culture and going through the red-tape process to get a permit, international productions are sure to meet certain challenges and obstacles. However, in my opinion, that kind of international/intercultural production efforts brought out fresh elements we would not see elsewhere, creating a cool breeze to the creative work products. Maybe, Bollywood style is coming to the shore. 

Trivia: This film was shot within 84 days (originally scheduled to shoot for 70 days, but they were there early. So they said why not). 80% of the film was shot with a cool digital camera ‘SI-2K’ which is similar to RED but not distributed in the market yet. 5% of the film was shot with a still digital camera with multiple shots that were smoothed over. That still cut images brought out nice colors and memory snap-shot-like images. The music director (who did a wonderful job) did laconically say “oh, it’s like Shaw Shank Redemption” when he first watched the movie clips, on which Boyle jokingly commented that he still doesn’t understand what that means.

New York Korean Film Festival, starting from August 22 till 31, 2008.

The festival’s opening film was “Hwang Jin-Yi,” starring Song Hye-kyo and Yu Ji-tae, and directed by Chang Youn-hyun. The movie was screened at the New York Times Building on 41st street and the director and the actor Yu Ji-tae were at the theater for Q&A.

The story is based on a North Korean novel written by Hong Seok-joong, who fled South Korea with his grand father as a northbound asylum seeker in 1948. According to the director, this is the first licensing deal between North Korea and South Korea and the movie was partially shot and screened in the Keum Kang mountain of North Korea. The main character is based on a real historical figure, Hwang Jin-yi, who was a beautiful high class entertainer/service woman called ‘Ki-saeng’ and she is remembered as a great artist and writer of the age. She was once an aristocrat, but her destiny and social class stigma led her into the world of professional prostitution. Hwang Jin-yi is considered a very interesting woman in history, ironically a feminist figure because of her unusual life and extraordinary talent, and because of her journey and courage to challenge the social constraint and hypocrisy.

The director Chang confessed that most of the scenes were shot in a specially built movie set because not many traditional wooden structures are left in Korea now. But this film was beautifully shot and the whole shooting was done in 70 days, with additional 6-8 months of preparation and 4 months in post production.

If you want to check out other Korean films during this period, check out the official website for this Korean Film Festival.

http://www.koreanfilmfestival.org/

Around 8pm, I got on a nice three story boat on Pier 16 on the South Seaport Street to enjoy this beautiful art installation. The opportunity came through as an invitation from the Producers Guild of America for a new art installation project tour in New York City. The 90-120 feet artificial Waterfalls was created by Olafur Eliasson and presented by Public Art Fund, in collaboration with the City of New York. This waterfall is expected to contribute $55 million to the city’s economy.

The night was perfect. Food, drink, music and the unusually large and terracotta-colored moon in the night-lit sky. Looking at all the lights from Manhattan skyscrapers and the Waterfalls sceneries, I just thought about my past 5 years in New York city. From my tough law school years to the times when I was running around to make things happen even without having a moment to enjoy a boat ride to see the city from outside. Breathe… There was lots of fresh air floating around that night…

“The Dark Knight” revolves around a dark contrast between two unusual characters, both burdened with flawed destiny.

On the one side of the coin, there is a Joker who seemingly puts on smiles and fun chasing masks all the time; but he has a somehow tragic and traumatic past from a family authority figure, his father. This dark side bared under the surface is believed to have inescapably destined him to become a villain, resisting the system, ridiculing the authority, and promoting disorder and anarchic chaos. Joker is out loud in ridiculing the authority’s ‘little scheme’ to control the system. He claims he’s not doing his act for money, but to realize his idealism. His ideal utopia is Anarchy and an uncontrolled society like a vicious hacker terrorist would justify.

On the opposite side of the coin, there is a Batman who puts on a dark mask without smiles, or sometimes puts on a millionaire playboy mask with no care for the world; but in truth he is a hero who cares about the world the most and reveals his vulnerability even for Joker. He represents heroism, justice, reason, science, knowledge, belief in the good, and wealth. Batman stands on the opposite of Joker, but he doesn’t necessarily represent control or rigid societal rules. Batman even gets to control the telecommunications system and use them for the bigger good, but his ideal is to do good, not in the control or monitoring itself.

Since these two are on the opposite side, they are all different? Or are they part of the same coin anyway, displaying the same side in reality with deception to be different like the coin District Attorney Harvey was playing with? If we get to choose one of them, should they be Head or Tail, or Black or White? Aren’t they all weak tear-shedding human beings anyways? They could remind us of history-long conflict between social classes. Would it be proletariat vs. Bourgeois? Would it be nationalists vs. anarchist? Or is government vs. individual? Villain vs. Hero? I may be stretching too far, but their conflict has set to exist from their origin and destiny. Their free will and individual choices could be part of the huge wheel of fate for all flawed individuals. Or our individual heroic choices could really matter in the end. Sometimes, we could have two faces like Harvey when he got burned and a sense of fairness and revenge was burning his mind.

“The Dark Knight” was full of dark quests for moral and social dilemmas faced by weak, wicked but sometimes heroic human beings. Who would Batman should run to save, when his love and a symbol of justice were captured and kept wired to bombs in the opposite side of the city? What would you choose if you should choose between two seemingly impossible choices? Choosing one of them could bring at least one devastating consequence anyway. Are you willing to leave it to a random chance, just by tossing the coin? Or are you going to make heroic a decision with real courage to face the consequence. You may choose the same destiny without knowing that you are going to be in the trap of the wheel.

As described in “The Revolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod, similar “Prisoner’s Dilemma” was portrayed by the situation where people in boats in a mass exodus from the Gotham City face a brutal dilemma in the bomb detonation game trap Joker set for people to fall under. People on ships are given detonators and get to choose to detonate the bombs in other ships. If they choose to blow off other ships, then they will be ok. Otherwise, people in another ship would choose to detonate these good people who choose not to press the button. Would Joker be right about ordinary people’s selfish desire for their interest or would ordinary people rise up to heroic altruism?

When two prisoners are separated in different room, who were forced to defect on the other prisoner to survive, the best outcome will be achieved if both prisoners cooperate and not defect on each other. On the other had, the worst outcome will be brought to both of them when both defect. So, what would make self-interested people cooperate in a society full of selfish people? When you are in the middle of dilemma to choose one of the choices, what would be the best way to come best out of that dilemma? People can leave it to chances, like tossing coins. They could wait for super heroes. Or they can rely on popular votes. Or they could heroically decide not to defect, even facing the threat of harm on themselves. When faced with the dilemma to choose his love or a symbol of justice, Batman took the courage to choose one of them and took the pain and dealt with its consequences.

“The Dark Knight” cast philosophical questions surrounding moral, social and ethical outlays, and of course about true heroism. The answer would be not be one-sided like Harvey with the two-faces: one side showing symbol of justice and the other side showing dark vengeful side.

I thought that “Batman Begins” was a great movie. But after this screening, I dare to say that “The Dark Knight” is the best Batman movie ever. I hardly watched Batman movies before Christopher Nolan directed these two Batman movies. He raised the story to s different level. I would applaud Christopher Nolan’s ingenuity as our age’s true film maker and as a genius. And finally, I really admire Heath Ledger’s superb last acting as Joker… He was great!!! Period.