Submarine

Director: Richard Ayoade
Writers: Richard Ayoade (screenplay), Joe Dunthorne (novel)
Cast: Craig Roberts, Sally Hawkins, Yasmin Paige and Paddy Considine
Year: 2011 (UK)
IMDB

My Rating: 8.5/10

Wonderfully funny and touching. I think the casting is wonderful. Oliver and Jordana makes a lovely couple. Oliver's parents look and act exactly like their characters. I'm glad the film didn't linger on just portraying first love. It actually explores some family issues. There are hilarious moments, sad moments, and moments where you can look back on your life and think "ah, I was there before!" Well, we're not that young anymore. However, I love how this film reminded me, and refreshed my feelings towards love.

Alex Turner's music is really good, and fits with the film perfectly. Oh, yes, better than Juno I think...

The Victim

It is his second work. Along with his first novel Dangling Man, they are considered Bellow's "apprentice works", before he unleashed his true literary voice in The Adventures of Augie March.

I should have read that before I took the book from library shelf, should have chose Augie March even it is massive. Well, that's my next book. This is not bad... but not at his best.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising

Director/Writer: Bruce Robinson
Cast: Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward and Richard Wilson
Year: 1989 (UK)
IMDB

My Rating: 9/10

Well, I study marketing, and I fucking hate it. And this film tells you exactly why we need to hate advertising/marketing. For general taste, this is a fucking weird film, but it's not done for the sake of weirdness. It's an over the top satire attacking our modern lifestyle, on advertising.

The more I learn about marketing, the more I see marketing in everything. Everything can be part of marketing. When you tell your friends some online shops have massive sale, it's a word-of-mouth marketing. When you wear some fashionable coats, you're advertising yourself and the coat. When will this fucking end? When you made that purchase, wait, no it doesn't end there... you need to keep on buying and buying buying buying and then die. But the aggregate marketing system doesn't stop because of you dying. The system has perfected itself with some help from humans. The monstrous system has already crept into everyone's mind with us knowing it, and tell us "want, need, consume". Now, isn't that a wonderful system?

I want to put some quotes here, but without context, I'm afraid they won't make much sense. Just watch it, how to get "A Head" in advertising...

...And God Created Woman

Director: Roger Vadim
Writers: Roger Vadim , Raoul Lévy
Cast: Brigitte Bardot, Curd Jürgens and Jean-Louis Trintignant
Year: 1956 (France)
IMDB

My Rating: 6/10

Shit movie, but Brigitte Bardot was burning HOT!!!

Rabbit Hole

Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Writer: David Lindsay-Abaire
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest
Year: 2010
IMDB

My Rating: 7/10

A deep, moving movie about dysfunctional family.
Nicole Kidman's performance is just terrific.

Billy Liar

Director: John Schlesinger
Writers: Keith Waterhouse (novel), Willis Hall (play)
Cast: Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie and Wilfred Pickles
Year: 1963 (UK)
IMDB
My Rating: 7/10

A film about a dreamer. I'm very much a dreamer myself, except that I don't lie like Billy does. Interesting film. Some of the highlights must be some wild imaginations by Billy, Tom Courtenay's performance and Julie Christie. Man... Julie Christie... I'm in love with a movie star...

The Beautiful and Damned

My God, the first half of the story was the story of my life... I was in a relationship just like what Fitzgerald have written, except that she's not as beautiful as Gloria in the book, but her personalities and thinking are very much alike with Gloria. After I've read some critical essays, some people find that this novel lacks of unity. True, the first half of the story is quite different to the second half, but who cares! He has written this book with heart and soul (obviously, there are a lot of input from his personal life), and told the tragic romance with fierce poignancy. The joy and hardship of being in a relationship. It also questions the big question, "what's the use of doing anything when nothing is worth doing?" This is a wonderful masterpiece. Maybe because I'm a hopeless romantic, and a hopeless pessimistic...