A Movie Review: Rainbow

It serves me right I guess. I was at the store the other day, and one the sales rack, there was a Thai gay movie. At 99 baht, it seems a bargain to see some top Thai starts acting gay for a while in Tang Rak See Rung (Rainbow - tagline "What color... is your love?").

I should have seen that it was a straight to video job, and the screenwriter has his/her name under a psuedonym. While I really have to give credit to the film makers for making a movie with good intentions and with positive portrayal of gay characters, the movie is one of those so bad it makes you laugh out loud kind of films.

I'll list out some cliches, and perhaps you can stitch all this together back into the movie's story line.

• Gay hero #1 is an outspoken, but sensitive fashion editor who is pining for love after a bad break-up.
• Gay hero #1 is played be Bordin Duke. To signal his out-ness, he wears a man-scarf in every scene.

• Gay hero #2 is a not so outspoken, but sensitive up-and-coming model/closet case. In just one scene it's revealed that his father is adamant he gives up modeling soon and enter military service. Oh and he used to dress up in his sister's clothes when he was a kid. Of course, his dad beat him up very severly for it. His nickname is 'Man.'
• Gay hero #2 sees gay hero #1 with another guy. In despair, of course, he goes into a dressing room and put on flaming red lipstick. Then cries.
• Lesbian heroine #1, host an affairs of the heart talk-radio show with a gay slant. In an early scene, she storms into the station manager's office, screaming "You've move my program because I'm a lesbian!"
• Lesbian heroine #2, use to have a 'phase' in highschool where she was in a relationship with lesbian heroine #1. Now she's returned to heterosexuality but her uncaring, philandering boyfriend is really causing her to think twice about men.
• Lesbian heroine #2 and gay hero #2 get drunk, fall into a pool and try to make out. It takes three kisses for them to realize, oh yeah, I'm not attracted to the opposite sex that much.
• Lesbian heroine #1 and gay hero #1 get drunk, wind up in a dance floor together and try to make out. It took them only one kiss to realize that they were, well, still gay.
• Gay hero #1 and gay hero #2 embrace in the rain, but just as they are about to kiss, gay hero #2's mom sees them. She shakes head, he cries.
  
• Gay hero #2 goes home to face the wrath of his father. Some unrealistic beating. He cries. His mom hysterically tries to deflect his father's blows.
  
• Gay hero #2 rebels against his father by wearing woman's clothing. Some more unrealistic beating. Gay hero is bleeding when he says "Even if we beat me to death or even if you make me join the army... you'll never change who I am!" Hysterical mother makes noises in the background.

He he... it was kinda fun though.

The Poets of Singapore: Cyril Wong

From his collection below: absence

arrival

for G

During our first few dates, we
scribbled our confessions on paper,

sending them like fast-forward
letters back and forth across the table.

Then you relented and taught me sign-
language, demonstrating how "like"

is the drawing forth of an invisible
string from the centre of your chest

like a loosened thread, freed from
the constraining fabric of your body,

while "love" is the crossing of
both arms in an act of self-defence

and a warning, or simply that "X"
which marks the point of arrival

upon the very treasure map of you.

You know you have too much free time on your hand...

... when you actually do one of those online quizzes and find out you are a 'materialist' (cue Madonna):

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 69% Postmodernist 63% Cultural Creative 56% Existentialist 50% Romanticist 44% Modernist 38% Idealist 19% Fundamentalist 6% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

... when you've actually found that quiz through the Xanga of your former college crush's friend, after spending an hour browsing through Hi5.com (btw, they do get cuter when they're older).

... when you spend another hour looking through a suburban mall (Central Ladprao, in case you are wondering) trying in vain to look for a Sufjan Stevens CD.

But hey... it's fun!

Insomnia

I just finished Bernhard Schlink's The Reader and just could not go back to sleep. It's an amazing book - how can one write a novel so lyrical and sensitive, and at the same time deal with the burden of the entire post-war German generation - the Holocaust?


*************************************

I made another one of those embarassingly late connections in pop culture while browsing at Kinokuniya the other day. On the philosophy shelf, not far from Focault, was a name teasingly waiting to be dug up from my assorted memories...

Marshall McLuhan...

Connections started to light up in my head (the sound effect is one of them sounds when you get awarded points in gameshows). Hadn't Prabda Yoon just name dropped just the other day? The Medium is the Message. The movie line in Annie Hall!

[An excerpt from Woody Allen's Annie Hall] (audio)

MAN: It's the influence of television. Now, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a, a high-- high intensity, you understand? A hot medium--

WOODY ALLEN: What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it.

MAN: -- as opposed to the truth which he [sees as the] media or--

WOODY ALLEN: What can you do when you get stuck on a movie line with a guy like this behind you?

MAN: Now, Marshall McLuhan--

WOODY ALLEN: You don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's work--

MAN: Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called TV, Media and Culture, so I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, do you?

MAN: Yeah.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. Come over here for a second?

MAN: Oh--

WOODY ALLEN: Tell him.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: -- I heard, I heard what you were saying. You, you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

You learn something new everyday.

The Poets of Singapore: Arthur Yap

there is no future in nostalgia

& certainly no nostalgia in the future of the past.
now, the corner cigarette-seller is gone, is perhaps dead.
no, definitely dead, he would not otherwise have gone.
he is replaced by a stamp-machine,
the old cook by a pressure-cooker,
the old trishaw-rider's stand by a fire hydrant,
the washer-woman by a spin-dryer.

& it goes on
in various variations & permutations.
there is no future in nostalgia.