TONY SCOTT. FILM DIRECTOR

Personal Quotes.....

[on Ridley Scott] Nobody does toga movies like my brother.

[on Tom Cruise] A magnet for women.

[on Days of Thunder (1990)] The problem was, we started on the movie without a script. Tom [Cruise] was already part of the line-up when I arrived and they said: "Tom can sit behind the wheel of a race car and smoke a cigarette and this movie will make a fortune." And that was the attitude we went in with. Robert Towne would be writing the scenes at night, we would shoot in the morning. It was a dangerous way to work. But we really thought, "Look - it's racing cars and it's Tom Cruise!" But you always have to get a story and you've got to get character first, and we hadn't.

CU

niusnews 妞新聞

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR & HAPPY TET

GONG XI FA CAI - 恭禧發財 - CHUC NUNG NAM MOI  !

I just spent a wonderful, difficult, challenging, magical, moving five months in Taiwan, teaching again. ....My TNUA graduate and undergraduate film and theatre students have made this semester happy and meaningful for me, even when they peacefully sleep in class, dreaming of girlfriends and boyfriends! I've given them the chance to practice English, and they've given me a chance to speak English. Almost fair.

We talked about creative passion, real and imaginary artistic blocks, fear of failure and losing face, taking risks in filmmaking and life, interesting and clear unique storytelling, communicating with an audience of over 2, impoverished International art cinema vs. greedy Hollywood entertainment, personal taste and critical judgement, learning from films you hate, and, most important, the best restaurants.

I will deeply miss Taiwan and Taiwanese lovers, friends, students, teachers, and MRT (best in the world), but not Taiwan politics and bureaucracy. As famous General Douglas MacArthur said, "I shall return!" (But he was fired.)

Have the warmest, most intimate, loving, kind new year 2013 with your family, friends, and cute snakes!

Ron

POSTERS & PUPPETS

 Great classic Taiwan films and puppets.....

CULTURAL EQUALITY

All cultures are NOT equal, all people are. Cultures can be spiritually and intellectually insane. Insanity, even when shared by an entire culture, is not exotic or charming for tourists to visit. It is tragic and devastating, destroying generation after generation, dooming a nation and its people to everlasting human hell.

FULONG, N.E. COAST

A GOOD WOMAN

February 3, 2013

Sotomayor, a Star on the Book-Tour Circuit, Sees a New Niche for a Justice

By JODI KANTOR

CHICAGO — At her Wednesday night book talk here, Justice Sonia Sotomayor glided through her audience of 700, dispensing homespun wisdom through a cordless microphone, interrupted by impromptu applause.

When the moderator read a question from Tabbie Major, age 7, about which books Justice Sotomayor loved as a child, she found the girl, locked her in an embrace, held on while reminiscing about Nancy Drew mysteries and then called out for a photographer to capture the moment. No need: a good portion of the crowd was already snapping pictures.

Welcome to another night in the life of Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court justice, current queen of the best-seller list and suddenly the nation’s most high-profile Hispanic figure.

TV IS SERIOUS

One of the greatest moments ever on television.

Not 100% true about "old" glorified America, 

but as close to the political Truth as you can find on TV.

(The Wire" was even closer social truth.)

Pilot: "THE NEWSROOM" (2012, HBO). 

Created and written by Aaron Sorkin ("Studio 60").

Starring Jeff Daniels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw&feature=youtu.be

LOVE VIGNETTES

純攪和創意手工皂

HSIMEN VIGNETTE 1

(Hsimen/Hsimenting is the very crowded, noisy, energetic 12-square block historic center of lower-cost nightlife in Taipei, Taiwan for teenagers (and ages 12-22)….popular movies,  few art flms, restaurants, fast food, food stands, coffee, convenience stores, young clothes, cute gifts, stuffed toys, karoake, street performers, street artists, gays, people-watching, love.)

Saturday night I saw a 17-18 year old couple happy in love in Hsimen, Then I saw them together on the MRT later, still happy in love. The boy got off first. The girl’s expression instantly changed from happy to sad. The boy’s expression was sad as the MRT sped passed him….The swift change from happiness to sadness was stunning.

STRANGE SOCIETY

Workers and Students on campuses live in 2 completely different worlds, never communicating or even acknowledging each other.

It is the 5000-year-old caste system - those who use their intellect and mouths vs. those who use their hands and muscles.

KINDNESS

LUCK

There is no such thing as Luck....

There is hard work, skill, patience, trust in yourself,

courage, creativity, playfulness, wonder, and love.

You need all, and love, to succeed in your dreams 

and feel there is meaning in the hard struggles of life.

Money doesn't save souls.

[Art by Oaehyun Kim]

CHILDHOOD

LIFE OF PI

สมาคมนิยมสาวม.ปลาย

MONEY AND THE SOUL

Mr. Kalayanasundaram worked as a Librarian for 30 years. Every month in his 30 year experience(service), he donated his entire salary to help the needy. He worked as a server in a hotel to meet his needs. He donated even his pension amount of about ten lakh rupees to the needy.

He is the first person in the world to spend the entire earnings for a social cause. In recognition to his service, United Nations Organization adjudged him as one of the Outstanding People of the 20th Century. An American organization honored him with the ‘Man of the Millennium’ award. He received a sum of Rs 30 cores as part of this award which he distributed entirely for the needy as usual.Moved by his passion to help others, Super Star Rajinikanth adopted him as his father.

JOYOUS CHAOS

Art by Peter Liu Wan-Wei

EELS CIRCLING

Art by Peter Liu Wan-Wei

AMERICAN "ART" FILMS

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                            by A. O. SCOTT and MANOHLA DARGIS

When Do We ‘Get It’?

LOOK past the award-season hype and the current bounty of decent, good, great movies, and one thing becomes clear: We live in interesting narrative times, cinematically. In “Cloud Atlas” characters jump across centuries, space and six separate stories into a larger tale about human interconnectedness. In “Anna Karenina” Tolstoy’s doomed heroine suffers against visibly artificial sets, a doll within an elaborate dollhouse, while in “Life of Pi” a boy and a tiger share a small boat in a very big sea amid long silences, hallucinatory visuals and no obvious story arc. In movies like these, as well as in “The Master” and “Holy Motors,” filmmakers are pushing hard against, and sometimes dispensing with, storytelling conventions, and audiences seem willing to follow them. The chief film critics of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, consider this experimental turn.        

This is an amazing video.....

http://www.cornell.edu/video/?VideoID=2398

SELF-PORTRAIT

I understand the feeling . . . 

OBAMA

Although Obama will not / cannot follow the powerful humanistic passion of his own words and beliefs, at least he SAID them...for the first time in American Presidential Inauguration history!  Obama's speech may serve as the final brilliant burst of American ideals, as it grows dimmer and possibly flickers out…..

NEW YORK TIMES - January 21, 2013 - by Peter Baker

OBAMA OFFERS LIBERAL VISION: “WE MUST ACT”
He became the first president ever to mention the word “gay” in an Inaugural Address as he equated the drive for same-sex marriage to the quests for racial and gender equality.

ART COSTS

GOODBYE....2010, 2013

This letter was written in 2010, when I decided to resign my teaching positions and return to live in America. I had been living and working in Taiwan for 11 years then, since 1999. After I left, I returned briefly to teach in 2011, and now returned again for 6 months, September 2012 - February 28, 2013…..Re-reading the original letter, it still reflects my true deep feelings, so this time I want to share it on my new blog and Facebook page. I will leave Taiwan again on 228, and expect to always return.

A VERY PERSONAL GOODBYE, FOR NOW . . . . .

一封私密的暫別信

Dear Friends,

親愛的朋友們：

I am leaving Taiwan on 31 July 2010, and going back to America, after 11 years

of living and teaching here. This truly was the most meaningful period in my life.

Taiwan has changed me forever, in only good ways.

我在台灣定居的教學生涯已經有十一年，七月三十一號，我即將告別台灣回到美國。

這段時光絕對是我人生中最有意義的一段，台灣改變了我的一生，而且都是正面的轉變。

                                       

Teaching and living in Taiwan has re-opened my creativity, heart, intellect,

and passion, after a decade of mourning in America. Taiwan, literally, has been

a rebirth, and I have become a better, more caring (hu)man.

在美國經歷了十年的低潮後，我來到台灣定居教學，台灣重啟我的智慧和創意，

更點燃我的熱情和真心。不容諱言地，台灣是我的重生之地，讓我不只變得更好，

也更會關懷他人。

LIFE

KUANDU MUSEUM OF FINE ART

KoMoFA (on the TNUA Campus, 1, Hsueh-Yuan Rd., Guandu, Beitou) has world-class artists, often better quality shows than the more famous (and better-funded) downtown Taipei museums.  The previous show had a few of the best modern work I've seen in America, Europe, or Asia.

The current show, "Post-Loyalist of Doomsdayism," well-curated by Huang Wan-Hsuan, is equally wonderful.....