Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Top 5 Ways The American Flag is Bastardized By Congress During SOTU
Top 5 Ways The American Flag is Bastardized By Congress During SOTU
[Use plenty of screen shots from the speech/animated gifs of the flag doing something it shouldn't be doing, etc. Once it goes live, spread it. ]
Our corrsponding corresponding in Correspondia writes:
1, Hey, yo, like you, I was born in America and I love America. But
living overseas for over 20 years has shown me that America does not
always get it right, in terms of international PR.
2, I watched President Barack Obama's "State of the Union" address on TV
CNN Internatjonal here in Taiwan the other day, like millions of other
viewers worldwide, and I found the speech well-written and
well-orated. President Obama has not lost his touch with the spoken
word.
3. I was able to follow the speech along with the full text as printed
online, and it made the speech even more
intesting, using my iPhone screen for the text and looking up at the
TV screen as well.
4. But I have a small proposal to make and I hope someone somewhere is
listening. It's this: the State of the Union address is given every
four years with the American flag behind the president, in full view
of worldwide TV audience, which grows bigger each year with social
media and other platforms following the speech as well, including
"live" tweets as the speech unfolds in real time.
5. One problem for me, as an American living overseas for over 20 years:
the American flag is hung vertically behind the president -- yes,
vertically! -- in a way that viewers from foreign countries might not
understand. Why the flag is hung this way is a long story, and it's
partly due to the U.S. Flag Code and partly due to Congressional
regulations.
AND MORE:But I feel that the American flag, on such a globally momentous
occasion, should be hung against the wall behind the president in a
horizontal position. This would be an important and positive
international "optic'' as they say in the PR business. Viewers in
China, Japan, France and Italy, among the other 140 or so nations that
get the SOTU speech via satellite and cable TV worldwide would "see"
the American flag -- "Old Glory" -- as she was designed to be seen:
horitzontally.
So I am proposing with this quiet oped that in future years, the SOTU
address given inside the Congressional building position the American
flag horizontally on the wall behind the presidemt, whoever he or she
is after Obama's term is over.
I am proposing this mostly as a PR idea for the global viewership of
the SOTU address, with the thinking that a good optic of an easy to
see and easy to understand American flag for foreign viewers would end
up being a positive PR achievement for America on the international
scene.
Of course, to do this will take some doing, and it might take 20 years
to see this happen. But you read it here first.
Notice the Japan never hangs its national flag in its Diet in a
vertical way. Neither do Germany or Brazil or Sweden or India. So why
does America hang Old Glory vertically behind the president during the
SOTU address?
It's lousy PR and lousy optics, and it's an easy to fix issue. So I am
typing these words and sending them to my editor in San Diego in the
hope that they will land someday on the right ears in Washington.
Put the flag right! Enough with this vertical thing. It does not show
America at its best. and we do have a lot of PR work to do in regards
to how we are "seen" by people in far away countries. My proposal is
one way to correct a bad optic.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Cli-fi defined: a new genre that zeroes in on climate change and global warming survival or solution issues
Cli-fi defined: a new genre that zeroes in on climate change and global warming survival or solution and has little to do with eco-fiction or ecological fiction or environmental novels or movies. Cli-fi is not about cleaning up polluted rivers or lakes. Cli-fi is not about using LED lightbulbs to save energy. Cli-fi is not about worlds transfigured by environmental disaster or environmental change, as very good and prescient novels such as John Wyndham’s ''The Day of the Triffids'', John Christopher’s ''Grass'', John Brunner’s ''The Sheep Look Up'' or Australian author George Turner’s ''The Sea and Summer.''
No, cli-fi movies and novels, as the genre term implies, are about CLIMATE issues, about climate change and global warming. They are not novels or movies about planting more trees or asking the United Nations to make it mandatory for everyone to use recycled chopsticks or personal steel or aluminum chopsticks that can be re-used again and again. No, cli-fi is about climate change.
No, cli-fi movies and novels, as the genre term implies, are about CLIMATE issues, about climate change and global warming. They are not novels or movies about planting more trees or asking the United Nations to make it mandatory for everyone to use recycled chopsticks or personal steel or aluminum chopsticks that can be re-used again and again. No, cli-fi is about climate change.
And cli fi movies and novels will serve as harbingers of what a changing climate will mean in the years ahead.
Cli fi novels and movies are not about environmental crises, accelerating species loss,
collapsing fish and bird populations or acidifying oceans. [Well, maybe acidifying oceans, yes. Margaret Atwood is a big proponent of fighting the good fight against ocean acidifcation, and I support her on this. The issue is directly connected to AGW and climate change.]
It's not surprising that our literary culture has become suffused with cli-fi narratives about the end of the world due to AGW and climate change, or unfortunately, at the same time, that so few of them ever get reviewed and noticed by the mainstream media in English-speaking countries. Cli-fi is still a tough sell to publishes and media observers, if only because most people still don't understand what cli-fi is all about. [Note to readers: if you want to know what cli-fi is really all about, ASK ME: my number is in the phone book and my door is always open: danbloom@gmail.com]
Margaret Atwood,
whose ''MaddAddam'' trilogy of speculative fiction and which takes place against the backdrop of a world despoiled
first by human rapacity and later by a genetically engineered plague is not really a cli-fi trilogy per se. Nor is American author Edan Lepucki’s debut, ''California'' part of the emerging cli-fi genre, since her novel depicts an America
sliding back into tribalism in the aftermath of peak oil. And American Nathaniel Rich’s surreal actuarial
comedy, ''Odds Against Tomorrow,'' the second half of which features a flooded
Manhattan, has never been classified by Rich or his publishers as a cli-fi work, but merely as ''literary fiction.''
We would argue that the growing library of movies and novels exploring climate-related themes should be understood as a new genre, usually described as ''climate-themed fiction'' or -- to use the lovely, cooing, melodious shorthand preferred by its boosters— ''cli-fi.''
I am convinced of the cli-fi term’s utility. It is here to stay.
We would argue that the growing library of movies and novels exploring climate-related themes should be understood as a new genre, usually described as ''climate-themed fiction'' or -- to use the lovely, cooing, melodious shorthand preferred by its boosters— ''cli-fi.''
I am convinced of the cli-fi term’s utility. It is here to stay.
Sure, novels such
as ''California'' and ''MaddAddam''
Those works are not cli-fi.
"Station Eleven'' and ''The Dog Stars'' for instance,
are novels where civilisation collapses in the aftermath of a flu pandemic -- and have nothing to do with AGW and climate change. Cli-fi is not about the flu pandemics or recycable choptsticks and alien invasions or "Interstellar" trips to outer space to save the remnants of humankind in Christopher Nlolan's twisted dystopiana.
Yes, climate change and AGW -- that's man-made global warming, human-caused global warming, is the latest in a long line of fears that have
given rise to apocalyptic imaginings in earlier works of novels and movies. Go back a decade and it was terrorism
we were frightened of, fears that echoed through books and television shows such
as ''The Road'' and ''Battlestar Galactica''; go back three decades and it was our
terror of nuclear war that gave rise to television events such as ''The Day
After'' and novels such as Russell Hoban’s ''Riddley Walker''. Over and over again
fictional narratives have afforded us a medium in which the anxieties of the day
could be engaged with, explored and, hopefully, controlled.
In 1957, we had Nevil Shute's "On The Beach" novel about nuclear war and nuclear winter. Followed by the popular Hollywood movie of the same title.
So yes, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that climate change and AGW issues are in the same boat as earlier novels mentioned above. Cli-fi movies and novels are stories about how climate change impacts the characters and events in those works of art. They are part of a new genre. The new genre does not replace older genres, and it does not erect a barrier or a wall between those other genres. Cli-fi is a couin of those earlier genres, but with a distinct raison d'etre, or as we say in English, "reason for being." And that reason is to serve as a wake up call, an alarm bell, via novels or movies, about the very real dangers that climate change and AGW present to future generations, perhaps some 30 generations from now, perhaps sooner. Perhaps today!
So yes, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that climate change and AGW issues are in the same boat as earlier novels mentioned above. Cli-fi movies and novels are stories about how climate change impacts the characters and events in those works of art. They are part of a new genre. The new genre does not replace older genres, and it does not erect a barrier or a wall between those other genres. Cli-fi is a couin of those earlier genres, but with a distinct raison d'etre, or as we say in English, "reason for being." And that reason is to serve as a wake up call, an alarm bell, via novels or movies, about the very real dangers that climate change and AGW present to future generations, perhaps some 30 generations from now, perhaps sooner. Perhaps today!
The American climate activist Bill McKibben and the British writer Robert
MacFarlane both observed in 2005 -- and Mckibben again in 2009 -- that part of the problem is that climate
change as a subject lacks the charismatic swiftness of nuclear war as in "On The Beach" from 1957 and instead it
“occurs discreetly and incrementally, and as such, it presents the literary
imagination with a series of difficulties: how to dramatise aggregating detail,
how to plot slow change.”
So cli-fi movies and novels, to truly suceed with viewers and readers, are going to have to work extra-hard to make the stories gell. It's not going to be easy. Cli-fi is a hard road to trek and it's a hard moutain patht to climb. And the mainstream media at the present time is not interested in cli-fi, which makes its reception among intellectuals and literary critics problematical.
Still, cli-fi must be; cli-fi is, cli-fi is here, now.
For writers of cli-fi movies or novels, of course, there will be problems. Because fiction in general tends to focus on ''character'' and ''psychology'', cli-fi fictional works will have to struggle to find ways to represent forces that cannot be turned into obstacles for its characters to overcome, or which take place on new kinds of time frames.
For writers of cli-fi movies or novels, of course, there will be problems. Because fiction in general tends to focus on ''character'' and ''psychology'', cli-fi fictional works will have to struggle to find ways to represent forces that cannot be turned into obstacles for its characters to overcome, or which take place on new kinds of time frames.
Will cli-fi works of art fall back on set-pieces and stories we understand, of
which the apocalypse is but one? Some movies and novels will, of course, but others will soar beyond this and go where few literary or cinema works of art have ever gone before. And with a purpose, other than just to make money or serve as escapist entertainment on weekends -- and that purpose will be nothing less than serving as wake up calls and alarm bells about the very real existential threat we human in the 21st century face now and for our descendants in the coming 30 generations of man and woman!!!
Via cli-fi, our passion for these kinds of narratives will grow and grow -- and give shape not only to our sense of loss and vulnerability in future centuries but also to imagining a world where we can hopefully find solutions to the mess we are in.
Cli-fi is not only dystopiana for dystopia fans. Cli-fi can also be a positive look at possible solutions to the vexing climate issues we face.
Cli-fi is a call to arms. It is a cri de coeur. It is a shout from the rooftops.
Yes, it's true, imagining alternative futures has traditionally been the preserve of sci fi writers, so perhaps it’s not coincidental that one of SF's luminaries, Neal Stephenson, recently issued a challenge to his contemporaries, calling on them to give away their passion for dystopias and rediscover the belief in technology’s transformative power that underpinned science fiction’s golden age. And sci fi novels and movies can also explore the climate issues discussed above in this essay. Many already have and many will do so in the future, so long live sci fi.
But cli-fi is different and serves a more precise, directed purpose.
As Australian novelist James Bradley has observed: "We need to find ways of representing not just the everyday weirdness of a world transformed by climate change, but also the weirdness of the everyday, to find ways of expressing the way climate affects not just the natural world but our own worlds, our own imaginations."
Bradley goes on: "In many ways that is a revolution that has already begun, visible in the flood-haunted visions of novels as different as Australian author Kathryn Heyman’s comic yet tender ''Floodline'' and Simon Ings’s ''Wolves'', the bleakly brilliant vision of near future Britain, both of which explore the way the changing environment infects our consciousness, dissolving social bonds and altering our sense of who we are as much, if not more, than it alters the world around us. But it is equally visible in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, the deeply impressive ''Flight Behaviour'', in which a swarm of monarch butterflies whose migration has been disturbed by climate change descend upon a community in America’s Appalachian Mountains, throwing the lives of the locals into disarray. The theme is also present in books such as Ruth Ozeki’s Man Booker Prize-shortlisted ''A Tale for the Time Being'', which explores time, loss and globalisation, and science fiction author Monica Byrne’s dazzling debut, ''The Girl in the Road'', in which the main character elects to walk from India to Africa along a floating wave-power installation, a structure that symbolises both the possibilities of the future and the way history divides the rich from the poor, the fortunate from the unfortunate. For despite their differences both seek to open up a conversation about the degree to which our thinking about climate change is framed by the privilege of our lives in the West, the way our wealth inoculates us from the consequences of our lifestyle.''
Auden famously said, Bradley reminds us, ''poetry makes nothing happen''. Yet people tend to forget he also said it survives, giving voice to our experience, bearing witness. In much the same way, Cli-Fi movies and novels will make nothing happen. And yet they will, by their very existence and distribution via paperback books and digital cinematography, give popular voice to our experience of climate change and AGW, bearing witness.
Cli-fi movies and novels will help us repossess our future, take imaginative control of it. In time that could mean big change. As Bradley also reminds us, sci fi writer Ursula Le Guin has observed: “Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”
As Australian novelist James Bradley has observed: "We need to find ways of representing not just the everyday weirdness of a world transformed by climate change, but also the weirdness of the everyday, to find ways of expressing the way climate affects not just the natural world but our own worlds, our own imaginations."
Bradley goes on: "In many ways that is a revolution that has already begun, visible in the flood-haunted visions of novels as different as Australian author Kathryn Heyman’s comic yet tender ''Floodline'' and Simon Ings’s ''Wolves'', the bleakly brilliant vision of near future Britain, both of which explore the way the changing environment infects our consciousness, dissolving social bonds and altering our sense of who we are as much, if not more, than it alters the world around us. But it is equally visible in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, the deeply impressive ''Flight Behaviour'', in which a swarm of monarch butterflies whose migration has been disturbed by climate change descend upon a community in America’s Appalachian Mountains, throwing the lives of the locals into disarray. The theme is also present in books such as Ruth Ozeki’s Man Booker Prize-shortlisted ''A Tale for the Time Being'', which explores time, loss and globalisation, and science fiction author Monica Byrne’s dazzling debut, ''The Girl in the Road'', in which the main character elects to walk from India to Africa along a floating wave-power installation, a structure that symbolises both the possibilities of the future and the way history divides the rich from the poor, the fortunate from the unfortunate. For despite their differences both seek to open up a conversation about the degree to which our thinking about climate change is framed by the privilege of our lives in the West, the way our wealth inoculates us from the consequences of our lifestyle.''
Auden famously said, Bradley reminds us, ''poetry makes nothing happen''. Yet people tend to forget he also said it survives, giving voice to our experience, bearing witness. In much the same way, Cli-Fi movies and novels will make nothing happen. And yet they will, by their very existence and distribution via paperback books and digital cinematography, give popular voice to our experience of climate change and AGW, bearing witness.
Cli-fi movies and novels will help us repossess our future, take imaginative control of it. In time that could mean big change. As Bradley also reminds us, sci fi writer Ursula Le Guin has observed: “Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”
So, if
nothing else, let us hope that cli-fi works of art, be they movies or novels, will help us and future generations grasp what is happening in a way that allows us -- and them -- to
comprehend it, and perhaps, to try to do something about it.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
What's with all the 'Blooms' in Hollywood movies?
What's with all the Blooms?
by a Mr. Dan Bloom in cyberspace
http://www.imdb.com/media/
''all of life in a single day''
What's with all the Blooms in Hollywood movies?
I never paid much attention to this until I began seeing so many
characters in Tinseltown movies named Bloom. And then it dawned on me:
Bloom is perhaps the default name for movie character names in the
scriptwriting process, with some of them even making the grade and
becoming the surname in the final cut.
Of course, I have a small take in this angle of inquiry, given my ownlast name, but that's neither here nor there. But let's take a look at
some of the Blooms in Hollywood so far.
In ''The Brothers Bloom,'' a 2008 American caper comedy about two
orphans. the Jewish actor Adrian Brody plays one of the Bloom brothers
and Mark Ruffalo takes the role of the other Bloom brother. Ruffalo's
character gets named Stephen Bloom in the movie credits, but Brody is
just called Bloom throughout the movie and viewers never learn his
first name, although presumably he had one.
Then there's the British actress Claire Bloom, once married to
novelsit Philip Roth. And don't forget Orlando Bloom, the handsome
actor from South Africa whose father was a well-known social activist
named Harry Bloom.
In a recent movie titled "Nightcrawler," Jake Gyllenhaal's character
is named Lou Bloom, and the well-received crime thriller explores the
dark side of the news business in Los Angeles.
And don't forget the 1968 film ''The Producers,"' the Broadway musical
based on it, and the later 2005 film adaptation of the musical. Mel
Brooks created the movie and came up with calling one of the main
characters Leopold "Leo" Bloom, a mousy, nervous and fearful
accountant prone to panic attacks who keeps a security blanket to calm
himself.
Bloom was played by Gene Wilder in the 1968 film and by Matthew
Broderick in the Broadway musical and 2005 film.
And who can forget ''Big Fish,'' a 2003 movie based on the 1998 novel
of the same name by Daniel Wallace. In the story, Albert Finney plays
Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman with a gift for
storytelling, and in the movie confined to his deathbed.
When I saw "Big Fish" at a quiet movie theater in Taiwan in 2004, I
was happy to hear the name of Finney's character called Edward Bloom,
because that was the name of my beloved New Jersey toy salesman uncle
Eddie Bloom. Yes, my Uncle Eddie was a travelling salesman, and Daniel
Wallace's movie touched me so much that I wrote an email letter to
Wallace telling him so and that the Edward Bloom name resonated with
me for personal reasons.
In my email, I asked Wallace why he called the character in his novel
Edward Bloom and while I can't find his email in my files now or
remember what his exact answer was, it was something like, to
paraphrase it: "I just liked the name, that's all."
I lked the name, too. Very much.
Then there was the 1973 comedy titled "Blume in Love" starring George
Segal as a lawyer named Stephen Blume who specialized in divorces, and
yet even after his divorce is still in love with his ex-wife. The
spelling of Blume, of course, doesn't follow the exact curve of the
Bloom name, but it's close enough and when it's said out loud in the
movie, it's good enough to fit the meme.
In "Bloom," a 2003 movie adapted from James Joyce's novel "Ulyssesm"
Stephen Rea played the role of Leopold Bloom, with
Angeline Ball taking the part of Molly Bloom. The movie was the story
of June 16, 1904, which is the day the novel took place. Posters for
the film carried the tagline "All of life in a single day."
Well, like I said, what's with all the Blooms, from Edward Bloom to
Leopold Bloom to Lou Bloom and Stephen Blume? I suspect there is a
default button in some long lost Hollywood playbook that notes in fine
print somewhere that when you need a name for the common man, who ya
gonna call? A Bloom, that's who!
I can already see a long list of future characters with the Bloom
surname in the next 100 years of Hollywood history. Bloom, Blume,
Blum, Bluhm, they'll all be there. It's in the cards. Watch.
But still, all the above said, I have no idea why Hollywood movies use
the Bloom surname so much. It's hardly a common name. At least, not
where I live.
And by the way, you don't have to be Jewish to be a Bloom. Although
most of us are.
49th 'Golden Horse' film fest ignores Taiwan, fetes Communist China and SAR Hong Kong instead.
49th 'Golden Horse' film fest ignores Taiwan, fetes Communist China and 'one country two systems' lie of Hong Kong instead. WHY?
Then in its 49th year, the Golden Horse Film Festival
is
still an annual fixture on Taipei’s cultural calendar, and in a televised
show that is often
called the ''Oscars of Asia'', Mainland Communist China’s ‘Beijing
Blues’ entry won the gong for
best Chinese-language film on Saturday night. Hong Kong, China's
partly free but mostly a sub-autonomous region of the communist
dictatorship across the border, saw director Johnnie To get the nod
for best director.
A humble director Gao Qunshu said on stage in Chinese, in accepting
the award, that he wanted to thank the "entire world" for giving such
a relatively-inexperienced director such recognition.
Johnnie To's "Life Without Any Principles" tackled the plight of Hong
Kongers caught up with gangster thugs in the fallout from the global
financial meltdown. His film saw Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan get the
best actor award for playing a tough, thickskinned gangster.
On stage, Lau said what was probably the most interesting thing said
on stage all night when he very elegantly said
in Chinese that while he was of course very happy to get the award, he
"didn't go into acting in order to win awards."
While the Golden Horse film fest is sponsored by and run by Taiwan, a
sovereign and independent island nation off the coast
of China, the televised show seemed like it was taking place in
Beijing or Hong,Kong, since many of the awards went to
Hong Kong and Beijing film people and even one of the evening's TV
hosts was popular actor from Beijing. Taiwan seem liked it
hardly existed during the awards show, with Hong Kong superstars like
Jacky Chan and Andy Lau getting most of the attention.
One small nod to Taiwan saw 20-something Gwei Lun-mei get the best
actress award for he role in the Taiwanese movie
''Girlfriend/Boyfriend." Actresses Hao Lei and Bai Bai He, both from
China, were left sitting in the aisle and had to endure
watching a Taiwanese woman getting the gong that they were hoping for.
More awards for China and Hong Kong included Liang Jing as best
supporting actress in "Design of Death," and best supporting actor for
Hong Kong’s Ronald Cheng in ''Vulgaria," a moving Chinese-language
film about Hong Kong's once-glorious film industry now falling on hard
times.
In yet another nod by the Golden Horse party to the film industry in
communist China, director Lou Ye, who did not pick a Golden Horse for
his box-office hit "Mystery," nevertheless got a shout out on stage
for his edgy and often-censored work.
For directors, producers, actors and fans of Chinese-language cinema,
Taiwan's festival gets better every year. You might wonder why it's
called the Golden Horse Film Festival and why the "Oscar" handed out
to winners is in the shape and color of a golden horse. There's a good
story here.
Turns out that when the film festival first got its start, long ago
when Taiwan and China were mortal enemies, the tiny "frontline
islands" of Jinmen and Matsu along China's coast were part of Taiwan's
territory and served as military islands to defend the island nation
halfway between Japan and communist China.
The first character of the
word ''Jinmen'' in Mandarin characters means "gold" and the first
character of the word "Matsu" means "horse." So the Taiwan government,
which funds the annual film awards, decided to call the event the
Jin-Ma Awards Show, or Golden Horse, to send a message to China that
those two islands were defending Taiwan's sovereignty.
It's ironic that now China picked up most of the awards at the show
this year, even with over 1,800
missiles aimed at Taiwan, said one
Taiwanese observer in Taipei.
The stage banner for the show spelled out "Golden Horse Drama Awards"
in English in
a strange artistic college that made it look to viewers in Taiwan that the
words read "Golden Hore Drama Awards" since the "s" in "horse" was
almost invisible.
The four-hour show basically went over like a lead balloon, and left
most of Taiwan yearning for a better deal
in next year's ceremony.
still an annual fixture on Taipei’s cultural calendar, and in a televised
show that is often
called the ''Oscars of Asia'', Mainland Communist China’s ‘Beijing
Blues’ entry won the gong for
best Chinese-language film on Saturday night. Hong Kong, China's
partly free but mostly a sub-autonomous region of the communist
dictatorship across the border, saw director Johnnie To get the nod
for best director.
A humble director Gao Qunshu said on stage in Chinese, in accepting
the award, that he wanted to thank the "entire world" for giving such
a relatively-inexperienced director such recognition.
Johnnie To's "Life Without Any Principles" tackled the plight of Hong
Kongers caught up with gangster thugs in the fallout from the global
financial meltdown. His film saw Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan get the
best actor award for playing a tough, thickskinned gangster.
On stage, Lau said what was probably the most interesting thing said
on stage all night when he very elegantly said
in Chinese that while he was of course very happy to get the award, he
"didn't go into acting in order to win awards."
While the Golden Horse film fest is sponsored by and run by Taiwan, a
sovereign and independent island nation off the coast
of China, the televised show seemed like it was taking place in
Beijing or Hong,Kong, since many of the awards went to
Hong Kong and Beijing film people and even one of the evening's TV
hosts was popular actor from Beijing. Taiwan seem liked it
hardly existed during the awards show, with Hong Kong superstars like
Jacky Chan and Andy Lau getting most of the attention.
One small nod to Taiwan saw 20-something Gwei Lun-mei get the best
actress award for he role in the Taiwanese movie
''Girlfriend/Boyfriend." Actresses Hao Lei and Bai Bai He, both from
China, were left sitting in the aisle and had to endure
watching a Taiwanese woman getting the gong that they were hoping for.
More awards for China and Hong Kong included Liang Jing as best
supporting actress in "Design of Death," and best supporting actor for
Hong Kong’s Ronald Cheng in ''Vulgaria," a moving Chinese-language
film about Hong Kong's once-glorious film industry now falling on hard
times.
In yet another nod by the Golden Horse party to the film industry in
communist China, director Lou Ye, who did not pick a Golden Horse for
his box-office hit "Mystery," nevertheless got a shout out on stage
for his edgy and often-censored work.
For directors, producers, actors and fans of Chinese-language cinema,
Taiwan's festival gets better every year. You might wonder why it's
called the Golden Horse Film Festival and why the "Oscar" handed out
to winners is in the shape and color of a golden horse. There's a good
story here.
Turns out that when the film festival first got its start, long ago
when Taiwan and China were mortal enemies, the tiny "frontline
islands" of Jinmen and Matsu along China's coast were part of Taiwan's
territory and served as military islands to defend the island nation
halfway between Japan and communist China.
The first character of the
word ''Jinmen'' in Mandarin characters means "gold" and the first
character of the word "Matsu" means "horse." So the Taiwan government,
which funds the annual film awards, decided to call the event the
Jin-Ma Awards Show, or Golden Horse, to send a message to China that
those two islands were defending Taiwan's sovereignty.
It's ironic that now China picked up most of the awards at the show
this year, even with over 1,800
missiles aimed at Taiwan, said one
Taiwanese observer in Taipei.
The stage banner for the show spelled out "Golden Horse Drama Awards"
in English in
a strange artistic college that made it look to viewers in Taiwan that the
words read "Golden Hore Drama Awards" since the "s" in "horse" was
almost invisible.
The four-hour show basically went over like a lead balloon, and left
most of Taiwan yearning for a better deal
in next year's ceremony.
What's with all the Blooms?
by a Mr. Dan Bloom in cyberspace
http://www.imdb.com/media/
''all of life in a single day''
What's with all the Blooms in Hollywood movies?
I never paid much attention to this until I began seeing so many
characters in Tinseltown movies named Bloom. And then it dawned on me:
Bloom is perhaps the default name for movie character names in the
scriptwriting process, with some of them even making the grade and
becoming the surname in the final cut.
Of course, I have a small take in this angle of inquiry, given my ownlast name, but that's neither here nor there. But let's take a look at
some of the Blooms in Hollywood so far.
In ''The Brothers Bloom,'' a 2008 American caper comedy about two
orphans. the Jewish actor Adrian Brody plays one of the Bloom brothers
and Mark Ruffalo takes the role of the other Bloom brother. Ruffalo's
character gets named Stephen Bloom in the movie credits, but Brody is
just called Bloom throughout the movie and viewers never learn his
first name, although presumably he had one.
Then there's the British actress Claire Bloom, once married to
novelsit Philip Roth. And don't forget Orlando Bloom, the handsome
actor from South Africa whose father was a well-known social activist
named Harry Bloom.
In a recent movie titled "Nightcrawler," Jake Gyllenhaal's character
is named Lou Bloom, and the well-received crime thriller explores the
dark side of the news business in Los Angeles.
And don't forget the 1968 film ''The Producers,"' the Broadway musical
based on it, and the later 2005 film adaptation of the musical. Mel
Brooks created the movie and came up with calling one of the main
characters Leopold "Leo" Bloom, a mousy, nervous and fearful
accountant prone to panic attacks who keeps a security blanket to calm
himself.
Bloom was played by Gene Wilder in the 1968 film and by Matthew
Broderick in the Broadway musical and 2005 film.
And who can forget ''Big Fish,'' a 2003 movie based on the 1998 novel
of the same name by Daniel Wallace. In the story, Albert Finney plays
Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman with a gift for
storytelling, and in the movie confined to his deathbed.
When I saw "Big Fish" at a quiet movie theater in Taiwan in 2004, I
was happy to hear the name of Finney's character called Edward Bloom,
because that was the name of my beloved New Jersey toy salesman uncle
Eddie Bloom. Yes, my Uncle Eddie was a travelling salesman, and Daniel
Wallace's movie touched me so much that I wrote an email letter to
Wallace telling him so and that the Edward Bloom name resonated with
me for personal reasons.
In my email, I asked Wallace why he called the character in his novel
Edward Bloom and while I can't find his email in my files now or
remember what his exact answer was, it was something like, to
paraphrase it: "I just liked the name, that's all."
I lked the name, too. Very much.
Then there was the 1973 comedy titled "Blume in Love" starring George
Segal as a lawyer named Stephen Blume who specialized in divorces, and
yet even after his divorce is still in love with his ex-wife. The
spelling of Blume, of course, doesn't follow the exact curve of the
Bloom name, but it's close enough and when it's said out loud in the
movie, it's good enough to fit the meme.
In "Bloom," a 2003 movie adapted from James Joyce's novel "Ulyssesm"
Stephen Rea played the role of Leopold Bloom, with
Angeline Ball taking the part of Molly Bloom. The movie was the story
of June 16, 1904, which is the day the novel took place. Posters for
the film carried the tagline "All of life in a single day."
Well, like I said, what's with all the Blooms, from Edward Bloom to
Leopold Bloom to Lou Bloom and Stephen Blume? I suspect there is a
default button in some long lost Hollywood playbook that notes in fine
print somewhere that when you need a name for the common man, who ya
gonna call? A Bloom, that's who!
I can already see a long list of future characters with the Bloom
surname in the next 100 years of Hollywood history. Bloom, Blume,
Blum, Bluhm, they'll all be there. It's in the cards. Watch.
But still, all the above said, I have no idea why Hollywood movies use
the Bloom surname so much. It's hardly a common name. At least, not
where I live.
And by the way, you don't have to be Jewish to be a Bloom. Although
most of us are.
