Dominatio Per Malum

Self explanatory. Great pic.

From Cinematical.

Japan Hates The Dark Knight?! | /Film

critic Chika Minagawa, who offers the following thoughts on why Japanese audiences aren’t fawning over the film: The story is very pessimistic. It has a dark and gloomy texture that Japanese movie fans do not find appealing in a ‘comic hero’ film… Japanese movie fans expect such films to be fun and action packed, for the hero to be attractive, for the villain to be loud and outrageous, and for the movie itself to be easy to understand and light.

Exactly why i don’t like films that the Japanese like.

How can this statement: ‘It is entirely possible for a person to have committed acts which amount to a crime and yet, there may be no conviction. No serious lawyer will question this possibility.'’

ever be reconciled with this:

‘There is no intention to question or qualify that principle in any way. I am surprised that any doubt should at all have arisen about this,'’ he said.

If you can’t get a conviction with all the resources and advantages offered to the prosecution, you should not cast aspersions on the guilt or innocence of another.

“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.”- WHITE J, in Coffin v. U.S. 156 U.S. 432

“Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt subject to what I have already said as to the defence of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception. If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. No matter what the charge or where the trial, the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the prisoner is part of the common law of England and no attempt to whittle it down can be entertained” -Viscount Sankey,in Woolmington v. The Director of Public Prosecutions. [1935] A.C. 462

Not guilty = innocent?

A MAN is charged with a crime. After a trial, he is acquitted and goes free. Does that mean he is innocent?

Not necessarily.

Witnesses may have changed their evidence or a technicality may have got in the way. The end result: The prosecution is unable to convince the judge that the man had done the deed.

And once there is a reasonable doubt as to his guilt, duty requires that the judge acquit the man.

Said Law Minister K. Shanmugam in Parliament on Monday: ‘It is entirely possible for a person to have committed acts which amount to a crime and yet, there may be no conviction. No serious lawyer will question this possibility.'’

He was responding to two lawyer-MPs, who wanted him to clarify the position of the Attorney-General on the subject of acquittals.

The issue of guilt and innocence has been in the air since mid-May when AG Walter Woon stated that an acquitted person may be ‘not guilty'’ in law, but guilty in fact.

Two months later, Appeal Court Judge V K Rajah weighed in on the issue, noting that such comments could undermine confidence in the courts’ verdicts and the criminal justice system which is predicated on the doctrine of ‘innocent until proven guilty'’.

Not so, said Mr Shanmugam.

He described the presumption of innocence as an ‘important and fundamental principle'’ which the Government is ‘absolutely committed to upholding.'’

‘There is no intention to question or qualify that principle in any way. I am surprised that any doubt should at all have arisen about this,'’ he said.

Nor does the Government have any intention to encroach on the functions of the Courts.

‘It is for the courts, and the courts alone, to exercise judicial power and decide the question of guilt, in a trial.'’

The position taken by the AG was a logical one, the same as that taken by his predecessor Chan Sek Keong, now the Chief Justice, he said.

CJ Chan had pointed out in a lecture in 1996 that the trial process was designed to prove guilt - not innocence.

Quoting from the lecture, Mr Shanmugam reported the then-AG saying that the presumption of innocence is a presumption that an accused is ‘legally innocent.”

‘It is simply an expression, that in a criminal trial, the procesecution is obliged to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt,'’ said Mr Shanmugam.

The AG’s position was also consistent with jurisprudence from Commonwealth countries, such as England and Scotland.

Transsiberian (2008) 8/10

“In Russia, we say that with lies you may go forward in the world, but you may never go back.”

The best compliment i can give a film, especially a thriller, is to say i don’t know what will happen next. That is the case for Transsiberian, the latest film by Brad Anderson, one of my favorite indie directors. Drawing upon classic Hitchcockian themes, Anderson directs a tautly crafted drama that slowly but surely creeps up on you and ramps up the tension with the skill of someone who knows how to push all the right buttons.

Note to self: Add visiting the Transsiberian railway to the list of stuff i need to do before i die. The vista, and the landscape captured by Anderson is beautiful lends a classic charm to the “films that take place on a train” genre. You don’t get such films nowadays: they are all but obsoleted by the airplane genre film.

I’ll confess that i found the beginning rather slow-going as Anderson painstakingly builds up the character’s backstory. But it is a trap, and Anderson slowly lulls you with seeming monotony before slyly adding scenes of tension and drama. The drama here is compounded by the characters and their flaws. And when you least expect it, he suddenly ratchets up the tension and moves the film into full speed. This doesn’t happen until maybe the halfway mark, but once it hits its groove, Transsiberian becomes a tense, thrilling and utterly enjoyable film. One of Anderson’s talents is his ability create expectations of what the audience predicts will happen, then develop the film in a different direction. Very often, i was surprised by the turns that the movie took and the way it developed.

The strength of the film really rests on Emily Mortimer who gives a splendid performance. Also notable is Ben Kingsley who seems to be having fun doing this film. I was less impressed by Woody Harrelson because his naive nice guy persona became boring quite fast. Transsiberian is one of the best films of 2008, and an indie gem that deserves your time.

“It’s not often that I feel true suspense and dread building within me, but they were building during long stretches of this expertly constructed film.”- Ebert

Batman (1989) 7/10

Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?- The Joker (Jack Nicholson)

I will probably never be able to enjoy Batman the way i did after watching The Dark Knight.

Watching the original Batman by Tim Burton in 2008, soon after watching Nolan’s Dark Knight is like revisiting a treasured childhood cartoon. Sure, there’s a sense of nostalgia, but also the crushing realization that the show you thought was the “awesomenest” show ever!!! isn’t that great now that you are older. Such is the realization that hit me. Sure Jack Nicholson was still great, but lingering behind Nicholson’s performance is a shadow of Ledger’s redefinition of the Joker. Nicholson’s Joker is more an over-the-top crazed clown than the real menace that Ledger’s anarchistic Joker was.

To be fair, Batman is still a very good movie, just that it isn’t quite the masterpiece i remembered it. Tim Burton’s beautiful, gothic re-imagining of Gotham City still looks good, although it does feel a tad dated. The effects which wowed me as a kid now seem somewhat unimpressive. Despite its flaws, it still has many things going for it, amongst them Tim Burton’s assured directing and visual style, an excellent soundtrack by Danny Elfman that is better than even the soundtracks used by Nolan (although Batman does however contain tracks by Prince. WTF!). Still, the year was 1989, i was a kid and Batman was the awesomenest movie i had watched.

Welcome to The Dollhouse (1996) 6/10

Sometimes, growing up just plain sucks. Just ask Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo), bona fide social outcast with a dysfunctional family to add. It could have turned into a dark exploration of the ugliness of growing up like Water Lilies, but Welcome to the Dollhouse opts for dark comedy, infusing the main character with exaggerated tragi-comic qualities. The sort of film that would likely be a cult favourite, Dollhouse does however fall prey to a fairly predictable storyline progression. Thankfully, the charm, or rather the lack of charm of its endearing protaganist makes this almost the ancestor to modern “growing up” films like Juno.

Water Lilies (2007) 8/10

Dark, but beautifully acted film about growing up and discovering yourself. Plunged into the world of synchronized swimming, director Celine Sciamma directs her talented cast with aplomb. A deft look at the cruelty and backstabbing in a tween’s world, the film is a beautiful, almost haunting ode to the loss of adolescent innocence.

Mind - Boredom May Let the Brain Recast the World in Productive, Creative Ways - NYTimes.com

Yet boredom is more than a mere flagging of interest or a precursor to mischief. Some experts say that people tune things out for good reasons, and that over time boredom becomes a tool for sorting information — an increasingly sensitive spam filter. In various fields including neuroscience and education, research suggests that falling into a numbed trance allows the brain to recast the outside world in ways that can be productive and creative at least as often as they are disruptive.

In a recent paper in The Cambridge Journal of Education, Teresa Belton and Esther Priyadharshini of East Anglia University in England reviewed decades of research and theory on boredom, and concluded that it’s time that boredom “be recognized as a legitimate human emotion that can be central to learning and creativity.”

I have never had much luck with module allocation. So my joy at finally getting all of my 1st choice picks were naturally short-lived when they decided to void it and reallocate. So second time around, i got back the exact same stuff that was given to me initially at first. And naturally they had to burst my bubble and declare the results void again. And finally, with the third go-around, i got back the exact same thing that was allocated to me the first and second time. Now, barring divine intervention, i shall finally get all my first picks.

The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made - Reviews - Movies - New York Times

The New York Times makes a list of the 1,000 Best Movies ever made, and i realize that there are so many acclaimed movies i have yet to watch. Its a fairly decent list, and includes foreign language films like Amelie and Red. However, there seems to be an appalling lack of East Asian films. 1990’s Internal Affairs is included but not HK’s Infernal Affairs (which was remade into The Departed)?? Plus, no entry for Requiem For A Dream, Chungking Express or Life Is Beautiful?!

Mongkok (旺角). It has the highest population density in the world, and i believe it. Standing on the pavement on a Wednesday afternoon, you are immediately struck by how many people are walking around this busy district. Hongkong is already one of the most densely populated cities in the world, but it seems as if Mongkok is the centre of all the happenings. Walking into a nearby mall from Mongkok MTR, i found myself inside one of the most packed shopping malls ever. Stalls selling a variety of knick-knacks and clothing are crammed into small spaces teeming with human traffic. It is a great place to people-gawk, and a haven for shopping. Those who are claustrophobic may not enjoy such closed confines but everyone should soak in the experience of being caught in this mass of human bodies.

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