sweeney todd

wow, what a movie. I just came back from watching it. The visual, music, acting...the whole production was amazing from start to finish. Tim Burton is not the most narrative-oriented directors out there but in this film he plunges in and erupts out with a handful of golden fish.

What made the movie work was the tone, the mood. It fused nicely with the music. Though originally from the musical, which borrowed its story and music, Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd” is, it seems, a perfect match between his style and the genre, musical. It neither is too horror to make audiences cringe their faces nor is it too comedic to dilute the horror element. It makes that delicate balance. Tim Burton here, at last, is himself once again.

I’m thinking of going back and watching it again.

obama

It's really interesting to see Obama’s strong finish in Iowa. It think his win took everybody by surprise. It did for me. He’s won cross-section of Iowa even in rural areas where white population is dominant. What’s more interesting about his win is that the margin between the second and the first is huge. About 7.5 percentage point, that a black candidate winning by that margin is really jaw-dropping in a state where black population is merely 2 percent. This makes the contest in New Hampshire much more fascinating. I’m interested to know what the Clinton camp will decide to do against Obama. His win will no doubt give him a big boost to his popularity in New Hampshire.

The Koreans: who they are, what they want, where their future lies.

This book is by Michael Breen, a formal British journalist who lived in Korea, my motherland, for 15 years. As the title suggests the book attempts to dissect and explain who Koreans are. From the history to their everyday manners, Breen culls enormous amount of data and personal observations to disqualify and confirm some of the held belief and prejudiced view by the foreigners about Koreans.

I’m in the middle of the book and all I can say is that it’s a damn good book. He nails almost all the themes he touches. I never knew a foreigner could get into so deep the psyche of Koreans. I myself have been wondering about the subject but, being too complex, gave up analyzing them. It like a quicksand, the more you think about study them, the more it will confound you.

I’m going to finish the book by tomorrow.