was woken up by a dream/nightmare. well, it was a real-life scenario which seemed plausible at the time, so i think it shares most aspects of reality in that there were good parts and bad parts.

couldn't get back to sleep, maybe because neurons firing very fast or something. after a few attempts thought it best not to waste the dream-like state that i have and just put it down, and usually it will be easier to go to bed.

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for you masochists out there, sam mendes is coming out with a new film about suburbia and dysfunctional marriage consisting of disaffected parents. it's "revolutionary road", and i believe trailers are out. this one doesn't even try to be subtle, because it has people in gray suits walking about to represent the daily grind of walking to office. It's based on a by far more famous book, revolutionary road by richard yates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_vantage/revolutionaryroad/

so it's probably not going to be very subtle. but it actually could work. The problem is, I actually fear the stuff that's going to happen in that movie. I don't know why I fear it. i used to think that people were divided into two types, normal and not normal. indie films, especially american ones, encourage you to be not normal. they are typically suspicious of conformity. yet what do people conform to? it must have been much clearer in the 1950's, at least to them, which was why the liberal counterculture evolved. because i don't think it's the same in the 2000's, and I don't think you can pin down "normal" anymore, precisely because the world we inherited is nothing like the 1950s. but there the logic breaks down. what does a "normal" person then, who watch a film like that think? does he squirm uncomfortably because he has a "normal" life with enough to eat with an 18 hour job as a lawyer? no, i don't think so, i think if he watches the film, he will be afraid of the same thing as I am. to be second rate. or rather to be second rate having voluntarily given up the chance to be first rate. so all this "higher ideals" stuff, pfft, that's an optional extra. just don't be second rate. then again, if you have all these ideals, you are twice as likely to fail, given the standards you set yourself.

oh sam. american beauty was unconscionably depressing. why do you have to make another film like it. .

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other movie news. lars von trier will finally finish his american trilogy next year. "wasington" is expected to be out 2009. if it's going to be anything as good as "dogville", i'll probably catch it just to see how it pans out.

frank miller is also releasing a new pic this year, the spirit. i love the comic-rl blend. cinematography looks good. plus, it has scarlett johansson (hot, real woman with curves) and samuel l. jackson as the badguy (again|boring!).

last on the upcoming films series, gus van sant is releasing "milk", based on the life and times of harvey milk, america's first openly gay elected official who was assassinated soon after.

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oliver stone's W. when i walked out of the movie, the first lesson was. beware dreaming. dreams aren't just your standard if barack obama has a dream then it is good but if george w. has one then it isn't.

in the character study, he is generally very sympathetic, but i learn nothing much new about him then what is commonly portrayed in the media. that he is a rich kid who got couldn't hold down a proper job, kept getting bored and switching careers, and finally driven by an oedipal need to prove himself as well as finding the strength of religion to finally mend his life. it is a standard picture to portray, given that reading h.w's cv, you would think w. has a lot to do even to match up. jeb is the one that does all the matching up, and you can see the prodigal son dynamic when w. becomes governor of texas while jeb, the good guy, lost his own race in florida.

blah blah. basically age old stories. we will never know if they are true and maybe i am able to be more skeptical given that i did see this president in action. it finally portrays him as not so much malevolent as full of hubris and blind spots, and not realizing the extent to which he has screwed up. the film is full of make-believe white house decision making sessions based on media reports, and does satirize them to some extent. h.w's loss to clinton, and w's own loss in his first congressional seat were seen as a dramatic moment where w's zero-sum instincts decide that winning is more important than anything else.

that said, i wonder how much you can trust this movie. we don't know about w's legacy because we don't have the benefit of hindsight. we see cheney making a presentation of why one should invade iraq. h.w. stayed out because he spent years in the intelligence services and knew that to be an occupying power in the arab world was fraught with danger. but w. is portrayed as a dreamer. and to be fair, we haven't seen how the dream has panned out. there's a lot of treasure lost so far, and it looks like it's going to be vietnam rather than gulf war i. but we don't know, and we should reserve judgement on the man.

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o2 millennium dome. beautiful place, large, new, mega -mall proportions. almost empty. either bad location, or british people are suspicious of shiny new things or huge shopping centres. it's just not very them. but then again, westfield has been a success so far.

the greenwich peninsula is actually really new. it feels like america, because they have these huge sainsbury's, comet built to sprawl with huge carparks, and things are actually new and not grimy. i guess i did have a mental picture of london over the last 3 years and this happens to be a different part of it. even my place is what, no more than 5 years old.

caught arsenal's kids last week. they were a beauty to watch. carlos vela is so fast! and the emirates stadium is nice and shiny too.