SDAFF 2009: Twice as Nice

ROUGH CUT was amazing!!! I love how at the surface level, it’s mindless fun, but when you start thinking about it, the movie is actually pretty deep. There’s a lot of different layers going on, and the movie doesn’t get too much into them, leaving it ambiguous and open for interpretation. Between the lines, ROUGH CUT touches on identity, coming to terms with who you are versus the appearance you portray, and prioritizing what is important in life. I love how the lines between reality and imagination blur together, in more than one way, defining, or trying to define, what is real and what isn’t. And the action sequences were really good, I think they were realistic enough. Actually, I think the tone throughout the movie was pretty realistic, as in you get pulled in emotionally, empathizing with the characters. My favorite scene, which is NOT an accurate portrayal of the movie as a whole, is where Mi-na and Gang-pae are in the bathroom and Mi-na keeps kissing Gang-pae. He asks her, “why do you keep kissing me?” and Mi-na responds along the lines of to take the pain away, so you don’t get hurt. AW! Too cute! And the ending was like, whoa, did that really just happen? The movie is excellent and I didn’t want it to end. I’m so glad I caught it. I want to see it again =)

Then hung out at the theater, raving about how much I liked ROUGH CUT, running into friends of all sorts, and letting the volunteers find similarities between my brother and me. That was too much fun. All week, the volunteers have been bugging me about never being at the theater the same time as my brother because we don’t look alike at all and they wanted to compare the two of us. So they had this joke going where the two of us were the same person, just in different disguises. I think they decided we have similar smiles and that we’re both light of heart. Either way, I love my brother <3.

Then headed in to see MUSHI-SHI. I don’t follow the anime, so the whole experience was new to me. The second half of the movie was such a mind trip. At the end, everyone was like, “What?!” and I spent the rest of the credits with my friend Vince (who follows the anime) trying to figure out what just happened. There are still parts of the ending that neither one of us know what to make of.

Then we had some more volunteer fun. Still trying to find similarities between my brother and me. And all I’m going to say is that Anthony and I are trouble for Mark.

Tonight’s gonna be a good night.

IP MAN (7pm) and All American Grill for the reception afterwards. Silent auction and announcing the winner of our Star Campaign (again, it doubles as a raffle for a 7-day Holland America Line Cruise for TWO to the Caribbean or Mexico! Winner need not be present).

ALL ABOUT DAD (5:30pm) Added screening! Director Mark Tran and actor Chi Pham are scheduled to attend! Yay!

THE REAL SHAOLIN (7:30pm) Added screening!

LEGEND IS ALIVE (9:30pm) Added screening!

IP MAN (Encore @ 9:45pm)