Talking About Movies, Anime, Music, Etc.

January 8th, 2020 NOTE: This post is another stream of consciousness

I recently watched The Prestige after being told by many people (namely Rishabh and Will) that I would not be a true Nolan fan without having seen one of his classics. Needless to say, I was absolutely and thoroughly beaned by this film. I don’t wanna spoil anything for those who might wanna see it, but Nolan kinda twisted my brain again. Everything was beautifully crafted and set up so well that it all came together perfectly. Christopher Nolan is not a sophisticated story teller. In fact, he has very simple ideas that he just executes well. His concepts are not novel, in fact, I’m sure there are plenty of other films that genuinely have more interesting plots. For example, who the hell thought a movie about Batman and Joker would be so interesting? I didn’t, until I saw The Dark Knight trilogy. There was nothing special, except the execution and focus on a few central themes is what drives everything home.

We do a very similar thing in improv, where we tell the story in the beginning but always try to make it circular and link everything in the end. It’s this strange phenomenon where the audience thinks that what just happened was super clever or novel. Where as in reality, it’s just an illusion (just like the Prestige, ha!) I think Nolan does a good job doing this in most of his films. He focuses on a central theme and builds a decent story around it. Interstellar talks about space and stuff, but it’s really just focused on the love between a father and his daughter. Inception is all about the deep insecurities that are ingrained deeply in our minds (the psyche of man). Dunkirk was about…Dunkirk I guess lol. Nolan’s movies are always fresh because they’re not insanely commercialized (at least not yet.) I hope we can see more of these original story lines in the future, not ones that are based on Marvel comics or some crap like that. However, the more well known brands will always make more money, an unfortunate reality of the film industry.s

I think I got my life completely mixed up. For most of my childhood, I assumed that STEM was the way to go. Numbers made sense, science came to me quite easily, and I never really appreciated subjects like history, philosophy, drama, etc, as much as I should have. These days, I’ve found myself drifting towards more liberal art-sy types of things. I’ve found an appreciation for learning about how people think, how the world works, why the economy breaks down, what makes us human, and how we express stories and emotions in words. I think it’s a luxury of being in the upper middle class: I don’t really have to worry about my survival in the world and as a result, I can sip a nice cup of tea and type this entire reflection on my Macbook Pro provided by my father in my two-story childhood home eating the food prepared to me kindly by my mother.

Anime has been a huge part of my childhood ever since my father (surprise!) introduced it to me. My dad actually introduced Tintin as the first series of comics that I ever read and he then showed me a how to read manga when I was visiting the Davis Library. From that point, I started reading mangas that I found interesting and slowly got into anime that way. I can definitely say that anime has had a huge impact on me as a kid, teaching me certain values in my life that I still hold today: discipline, determiniation, and betting on yourself. Kind of silly, but if it works, why not?

Music has been another huge part of my life. I’ve been engaged with music my entire life. I started playing the piano when I was 5, learned the violin in middle school and switched to the double bass for the rest of my pre-college career. I think music really shaped my emotional structure and has provided as a great outlet for my daily stresses in life. Although I listen to a LOT of music, I tend to listen to a select few artists and usually need Rishabh, Hanna, or Vy to help break my mold from time to time.