August: Osage County

Without a doubt “August: Osage County” by Tracy Letts is one of my favourite plays in recent years. The play is not just about bitchiness, but also about how everyone tried to survive at everyone’s expense. When it comes to the time that everyone needs to come to terms about their doings and misgivings, more colossal consequences unfold and discoveries will never be pleasant surprises.

So I was quite reserved when I heard that it is going to be adapted into a movie. I had seen plays that didn’t work when being adapted and “Rabbit Hole”, another of my favourite plays, was one of them. People were trying to convince me that it should be fine as Tracy Letts is doing the adaptation, but so was “Rabbit Hole”, which was adapted by the original playwright too. Nonetheless, I have expectations for “August: Osage County” as it has helmed by a cast of Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. With that in mind, my concerns were eased a bit.

So here comes the movie. The verdict? In my opinion it was every bit as good as it was in the play. Surely it is a different cast but somehow the cast managed to translate an extraordinary piece of theatre experience onto the silver screen. Tracy made some tweaks around the original play to make it work with the screen, which I think were quite appropriate. I particularly like the fact that Tracy ended the screen version in the way that I originally thought it should be when I saw the play two years ago at the Wharf when the American production came over.

Meryl Streep playing the matriarch who lives her life at the expense of the happiness of every single person in the family was well and truly toxic. Her despicable ways of spitting out words with contempt with ease made the character truly alive and intolerable. How she uses her knowledge about the family as ammo and detonates land mines right at the exact moment to emotionally blackmail each and every one of them was just spectacularly played. Julia Roberts as the eldest daughter who though she escaped the calamity only to find herself clearing up both hers and the family’s issues was very well played. It is not the usual Julia Roberts you see. Personally I think it is one of the best works she did since Erin Brockovich. It seems that it needs a real strong and speaks her mind character for Julia to bring out her potentials. Facing Meryl Streep is not an easy game and without a doubt Julia Roberts upped her game significantly in “August: Osage County”.

“August: Osage County” is about the women in the household. Each female role was given some great moments to shine. Julianne Nicholson who played the daughter with the middle child syndrome was neatly portrayed. Her reservation about her life in order to protect herself and survive in this extremely aggressive and inquisitive family was a great contrast to Meryl’’s and Julia’s characters. Juliette Lewis playing the youngest daughter was comparatively weaker as the character does not really offer a lot of range comparing to the dynamic duo that her elder sisters provided. Margo Martindale as the outspoken and equally mean Mattie Fae was as expected a scene-stealer. However it was the scene between her and Chris Cooper, who played her husband Charlie that cemented the defining moment for both of these characters. This scene also set the stage for Mattie’s subsequent explosive confession. 

Apart from the main and major supporting characters, “August: Osage County” also commands a stellar cast of smaller roles. By this I mean smaller roles play by some well-known names in the industry. It is great to see Ewan McGregor has in recent years gone back to his roots and do some interesting drama based movies. Though his role as Julia’s husband was limited it was still entertaining to watch when he and Julia confronted each other’s demons. Abigail Breslin who played Julia and Ewan’s daughter Jean put a charm and at the same time attitude to this 14 year old “can’t wait to grow up and can do no wrong” character. I personally like Abigail as she tends to choose more interesting projects as compared to her child star counterparts. Also she added depth to the characters she played most of the time. Sam Shepard who opens the movie and set the stage of it performed a pivotal role with great precision. Although his opening monologue was significantly cut as compared to the original play, he still managed to capture the tone in just a few lines and set the mood for the rest of the movie.  As for Benedict Cumberbatch, I personally think that he was there for the rising star factor as his role was minimal in both the play and the movie.

“August: Osage County” is not everyone’s cup of tea. If you are not into heavily text based driven story, you would find it hard to swallow. It is unlike any of the standard American dramedy or comedy as physicality takes a back seat in this production. However, if you are into something that requires you to read (or listen) between lines to surprise yourself “August: Osage County” could certainly satisfy your appetite. As for me, I would trade two hours of my life for a great production as such in a heartbeat.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

OK if you are going to see Anchorman 2 you will need to leave all your political correctness at home to enjoy it. Similar to the first movie, Anchorman 2 used its creative licence to it fullest and exploited every opportunity on political incorrectness to score a laugh. Whether the original movie was a legend to warrant a subtitle of “The Legend Continues” for the sequel, in my opinion, is open to questioning. But surely this sequel has inherited all the things the original was about, and pushed the boundaries even further.

The story continued from the first one just loose enough to establish itself as an independent story. The main cast is still great. In fact the movie has some of the funniest moments you have seen this year. Steve Carell demonstrated why he is the latest comedy king with this electrifying performance as Brick. Compared to other members of the cast, he seemed effortless and just morphed into Brick effortlessly. His versatility as a comedy actor is once again on parade. I personally have never been a big fan of Will Ferrell. Not that he is not a good comedian or comedy actor, but how he tries so hard to tell people “this is funny, so please laugh”. His over the top performance Ron Burgundy made meI sometimes feel like there is a big light box in front of the screen flashing out “Laugh” to force something out of me. Since it is a movie about him, without a doubt there are lots of such moments in this film. I personally did not enjoy it that much but then I know a lot of people who are Will Farrell’s fans would utterly love it.  Paul Rudd and David Koechner delivered reasonably but still Steve Carell is the person who stole the show. James Marsden as Jack Lime was also very funny and interesting to watch. He demonstrated that he is more than just Cyclops (whom I utterly loved) and is totally transformable.

As mentioned earlier, Anchorman 2 banks in on political incorrectness to buy some cheap laugh. Cheap they might be but they are in context. I think that is what makes Anchorman 2 still stands out as a watchable comedy of the year. It is American, so it is about physicality over text, and Anchorman 2 did very well with this. The environment was in a period where women and other ethnic groups were unseen as important players in most industries, and there were a lot of such moments. Deep down you know that it is wrong, but then because of the background of the movie, you did not feel that “inappropriate” at all. Or you would simply “forgive” them. Having said that I do wonder whether this time round I am not as offended as the first movie is because I have grown older and have a higher tolerant threshold; or I have become more insensitive about these issues. I know it is a comedy so I should not be over thinking about these issues. But then I just can’t help.

Having said that, Anchorman 2 is still a very watchable and enjoyable movie. It has an insanely great cast with some of the best comedic timings in comedies. It exploits the genre with not just physicality but also framing, environment and references. Of course one should never underestimate the ridiculous cast of cameos in the movie. You really do wonder how did they manage to round up a whole bunch of who’s who in the current film industry in one go. Not only that, they were wiling to make fun of themselves, look silly and put together some of the most hilarious scenes for the movie. Just watching those scenes is worth your money.

Anchorman 2 might not be the most meaningful movie in human history. It might not be even an Oscar nominating movie. But for its purpose, it does very well indeed. If you are just looking for a good laugh without getting too serious Anchorman 2 certainly delivers. That aside, I still need to find out why I enjoyed the same political incorrectness more this time round…

Change My Race

There are many movies and TV shows about people longing to change their identities to live a different life. This kind of desire stems from the unhappiness these people have about themselves thus the idea of “what if I were somebody else?” Just having those thoughts brings along hope and escapism that real life does not offer.

Nowadays these kinds of thoughts are somewhat no longer unreachable. With advancement of plastic surgery changing life through changing face is no longer a distant dream. Girls, now even guys are flocking to the plastic surgeons for a dream self. Looks are now like items on the supermarket shelves available for pick, choose and buy.

As normal as this has become, in a recent SBS documentary by Anna Choy, something more disturbing is lurking around and coming out of the shadows. The documentary titled “Change My Race”. It is about Asian girls longing to look like westerners and ridding of their “Asian features”. In the documentary, it demonstrated how South Korean girls race for the western look and eventually all look alike. The program demonstrated how a recent Miss Korea pageant has finalists who all look exactly the same. When flipping from one headshot to another, nothing has changed except for the hairstyle and the outfit. The standard of beauty set by the west had driven these girls to throw their genetic look out of the window to become Barbie clones.

However, what is more disturbing is when the program brought us back to Australia. It followed three Asian Australian girls who went under the knife so they could look more “Australian”. As they all said, they sound Australian but they were neither fully recognised as Asian nor Australian. Some of them experienced bullying simply because they look different. They believe by looking more Australian, aka Anglo-Saxon, they would be more accepted and they would feel better about themselves. One of them did not want to alter her look but her parents forced her to do so because they want her to look pretty and by pretty Anglo Saxon. They were able to pay for her operation and want this to show how much their daughter loves them.

Having worked as an actor in Australia in the past 10 years I can certainly understand where these girl came from. Having the “Asian look” has been both a blessing and a hindrance for me. I got called in every time they wanted an Asian man but then at the same time I got called in mostly because they wanted an Asian man. My agent had worked very hard to get me out of that Asian man box and slowly we see that effort is working. However, this does not stop those Asian man calls. I do believe that after all these years I am very comfortable with how I look. I am Asian and look Asian that would never change. But at the same time I do understand where these girls came from because when I was a kid I was one of them. I have a pair of eyes that only show up with double eye-lids when I am tired. Noticing that I tried to look tired so I look like the celebrities I saw on TV and in movies. I also tried to put a peg on my nose when I went to bed so that my nose could be higher before my kiddy nose ridge sets for life. I did admire, adore and envy the good looks these people in films and TV have. My parents spent a lot of time trying to make me understand that I am who I am and if I do not appreciate myself nobody will.

I will be totally hypocritical if I criticise these girls for longing to look like “Australian” so they could fit in and feel better as an Australian. I do not blame her, or in one case her parents. I blame the stubbornness of our Australian media that after all these years we are still unable to see a real Australia on stage and on screen. In the past it was “no trained Asian or ethnic actors” but we all know in the past 10 years or so a lot of Asian and ethnic actors were trained by various drama and theatre school including NIDA. That “myth” for me was broken but the stubbornness not so much. It is still comforting that the younger generation of media practitioner are less “configured” to the idea that our society should be all Anglo-Saxon, although we probably need to wait till a major change up above before a further big step could be made.

As for these girls, I completely feel for them. I must admit changing your face to change your race is an extreme move but then who can throw the first stone when nobody in the society is qualified to do so? All I wish is that the faces of our society will continue to change so our race does not matter anymore.

Click picture to watch "Change My Race" on SBS

Threads of Silence

Have been re-visiting the tracks of one of my favourite Australian musicians lately. There aren’t a lot of Australian musicians that I know. In the past when I was in Hong Kong I only knew of Air Supply and Kylie Minoque. Then because of the Olympics I got to know Savage Garden, Christine Anu and more Kylie Minoque. After moving to Australian, I found out Kylie Minoque is just everywhere and a number of Australians worship her like a goddess. I tried to tap myself into the whole Australian music scene, as I love music but never really got quite into it. I didn’t even know that Olivia Newton-John was Australian until quite late. There are some odd balls ones like Kid Mac that I got quite into but for the mainstream industry it remains alternative to me.

Then came along Karise Eden, a 19 year old girl whose big voice shocked the audience last year and got all four judges in The Voice turned around their chairs the moment she finished her first bar. It was a story in the making – a girl stranded in life trying to make it through something she was passionate about. She told her story with her heart through other people’s song and Australia was moved. Her first original track “I was Your Girl” still gives me chills even now. She was “a star in the making”.

Then The Voice finished and as with the glamour of its contestants no matter what position you took in the competition. It was a reality show after all. People and audiences moved on from one reality to another, and that’s the reality of it.

Karise Eden released her debut My Journey album as with all other “talent show” winners and hoped for the best. The album is basically a compilation of covers. Most of them were released previously on iTune as part of the competition process. The other original track was “You Won’t Let Me”. Another heart felt song that I still string my heart along whenever I listen to it.

Then there was silence. A long period of silence. You wonder whether the media had finished churning her inside their publicity machines and had now spit her out. I wonder would this unique musical voice be drowned by a pop culture that focuses on artificial bodily constructs and bashing eyelashes.

Then she returned to The Voice for another performance with a new original track “Threads of Silence”. To be honest I didn’t watch The Voice this year, as I did not feel the need to do so. Also I do not have that $100 iTune voucher that I got from friends last year to spending on “voting”. But then I ran into her YouTube performance when I was wondering what happened to her.

I was stunned. Completely stunned. Karise, after a year of real life photoshop has become less real in her image. In fact she was kind of distance. It did not really fit with her usual heart warming down to earth image. Her hair is now polished like silk dropping down a silver waterfall. Her face looks more brushed up with features clearly spelt by the drawing pen. But when the first note came out after a hallowing keyboard introduction, she is still that captivating singer that caught everyone’s attention last year.

The lyrics:

He said you could do anything but anything is nothing when you need a bit of helping out
You could go anywhere but anywhere is nowhere when emptiness is where you stand

Completely drew out the conflicts and dilemmas of a person who wants to strike it out by itself. We all went through this stage in our lives and some might be even going through this now, but Karise has bared her emotions on stage while we strolled along the busy streets trying to pretend that we are living a life we want. Those two lines brought out our yearning to be strong while compromising ourselves to the reality. Then she sang:

Holding the Threads of Silence that lead me to your dawn.

The issue is – is this our dawn or yours?

The song for me is haunting because I most of the time I refuse to comprise my principals but when I do need to step back for the greater good, that is exactly how I felt.

I don’t know whether that is what Karise is feeling being in the media industry. A 19 year old trying to make her way and stand tall to do something she is proud of. But how many occasions did she need to give in, that is something nobody can see beyond her glamorous visage.

I hope “Threads of Silence” does not reflect Karise current feelings but she did as Seal said in the competition, “tell stories that nobody dared to tell through her music”. I might not like her rendition of “Hallelujah” but “Threads of Silence” once again proved that Karise Eden is a gem in the Australian music industry. Hopefully one day these “Threads of Silence” could weave a successful career that she rightfully deserves.

To listen to Threads of Silence click here

Timon of Athens

Have been doing an actor training program with the Bell Shakespeare Company in Sydney recently. Since my voice training years I have developed a great interest in Shakespeare, not just from a performance point of view but also from a language point of view. For a lot of people, Shakespeare is about structure and rules and “doing it in a certain way”. However for me it is about finding out the relationship between Elizabethan and modern English so that they are understood in a day-to-day usage context.

At the end of the training, we were allocated scenes to be performed to an audience. I was allocated a scene in the less frequently performed “Timon of Athens”. I was quite glad that I was not just doing some popular scenes from some popular plays. I feel like a challenge and “Timon of Athens” was a timely arrival.

For those who are not particularly familiar with the play, “Timon of Athens” investigates the relationship between money and friends. Timon who was a wealthy man in Athens wasted his wealth on his friends meeting their needs and solving their problems only to find out that once the money was gone so did his “friends”. He was repeatedly warned by one of his acquaintance Apemantus but words were to his deaf ears. The scene I did with my scene partner was about Apemantus seeking Timon out in the wilderness and mocked him for not listening to his warning before. It was a very smart and quick wit verbal tug of war between the two characters. I enjoyed doing it a lot.

When I was reading the play and researching on the play to prepare for the scene, I felt a very strong connection with its theme.  In the scene that I was working on, Apemantus said to Timon:

Your flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft
Hug their deceased perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was

For me Shakespeare’s insight to money and relationship was spot on. Where are those “friends” when you need them most?

Although I was never as wealthy as Timon and was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I was trained by my parents to be caring for others whenever I can. I tried to help out my friends whenever I could if it was possible for me to do so. However, as years passed, I gradually understood that some of these people whom I once thought they were friends, are nothing more than people who came along for a ride in your life. There is an old Chinese saying: “In hard times, see true friends”, which I think carries the same wisdom as Shakespeare did in “Timon of Athens”.

Despite I never expected people to return favours when I extending my helping hand to them, I do admit that when the “Timon moment” arrives, I couldn’t help but felt disappointed. I have never become as cynical as Apemantus was when it comes to friend, but over the years I couldn’t help but getting a bit more and more cautious about who I open myself to and who I could treat as friends.

Nonetheless, when it comes to human relationships, it is still hard to avoid the fact that you could get hurt. When people look so genuine, how could you distinguish the truthful ones from the ones who are just “in for the ride”? How do you deal with situations when people stop answering or replying to your phone calls and emails when they think you are no longer of use to them? How do you handle people who suddenly flock back to you as soon as they saw there are opportunities? Timon, after his experience is determined to destroy these people and wanted to have nothing to do with them. Apemantus wanted to give the world to the beasts and rid of the men if he has the power. That might be possible when you are in ancient Athens or are living in a fantasy world, but reality is still reality, and there is nothing more real than that. We could attempt to cut people off but with modern technology people can reach us by just sending a text message. When these people contact me again would I have an iron heart to delete these people off my life? It is easy to “unfriend” someone on Facebook, but it is a lot harder when you have to deal with this in real life (come on we all know most “friends” on Facebook are not real).

I think generally the world has gotten enough tougher than Timon’s time with the “evolution” of our culture. However, it seems that human nature still hasn’t change much when you can still feel strong connection reading something that was written centuries ago.  After the last few months, I certainly have moved myself towards the Apemantus and Timon’s end on the human relationship scale. But would I end up being as cynical and sceptical as they are, I don’t know.

The House of Healing

In Tolkien’s “The Return of the King”, Faramir, Eowyn and Merry were all taken to the Houses of Healing in Gondor to be treated. When Aragorn arrived to tend to the wounds affected by the Black Shadows, he mentioned to Eomer and Gandalf that for Faramir and Eowyn while physical wounds could be healed by applying the leaves of athelas on them, it could be their will that eventually take them down. Faramir was tormented by the rejection of his father who would “trade Boromir’s death for his” and for Eowyn, she was “loving a shadow and a thought”. Faramir came around when he woke up but for Eowyn, she did not know whether living would be despair instead of joy as she said, “But to hope? I do not know”.

The gist of this is about the will to live and it mentioned about a total care that was required not to just heal the body but also the soul. Aragorn was hoping that Faramir would come around, and miraculous as manly as these men are, Faramir wants to live because now the king of Gondor has returned and it is his duty to live and serve. As for Eowyn, she went to battle to seek death after Aragorn left her for the Paths of the Dead, but she escaped it despite she was gravely wounded when she killed the Witch-king of Angmar. When she woke up, Aragorn asked Eomer not to leave her, as she needs the love of her brother if she was to recover.

The Houses of Healing always fascinates me whenever I read “The Return of the King” again. I even bought the extended movie DVD simply because they have put the Houses of Healing part back into the movie. What fascinates me was Tolkien’s emphasis on healing both the body and the soul even when the injuries seemed to be physical only.

In the past few months I have been lucky enough to participate in a very meaningful project – Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. It is a new cancer research and treatment institute that focuses on patient oriented total care.  Its vision was to provide cancer treatment and care in a way that patient would not feel helpless and lost. It also has a strong focus on providing emotional support to patients and their carers. It acknowledges the importance of a strong mind and a calm mental state to assist the healing process. For me it is like a House of Healing in the modern times.

I first came across the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse when I did a corporate video for them back at the end of last year. At that time we were shooting a video for the integrated medical system to be deployed at the facility. There I met the Director of Patient Experience, Marketing and Communications. She explained what the project was about and I was fascinated by the idea.

Being a person who had a family member touched by cancer when I was at a very young age I understand the journey very well. Although I did not fully understand what was happening at the beginning, I still remember how cancer suddenly turned from something belonging to soap operas to something happening at home. It suddenly became very real. I still remember mum going into the hospital for her operation and her journey to recovery through numerous chemo sessions. I remember how I sat in the long, beige and heavily sanitised corridors with her waiting for her turn to receive treatment and hoped for the best. I remember how we tried to get home as quickly as possible after treatment before her condition kicked in. I remember how helpless I was when she was dealing with the side effects of treatments day in and night out. I still remember the faces of other patients waiting in the corridors – most of them trying to put on a brave face but when the verdict of more sessions were required was handed down, how they fell apart and broke into tears. These are pictures that had never left me and would never either.

So when I heard about the vision of Lifehouse, I was completely fascinated by it. I kept in touch with this Lifehouse lady when she told us that probably Lifehouse would be recruiting the following year preparing for the opening. At that time I did not expect anything to happen as I had a pretty good full time job already. After all I have never worked in health care unless you consider a guest role on All Saints counts.

Months passed. I left my previous job for personal reasons and started looking for more contract nature kind of work. I sent my updated CV to this lady at Lifehouse informing her that I am now available for work if Lifehouse has use for my skills. A few weeks later I received a call from the HR consultant there informing me about they needed a receptionist for the front desk before the hospital opens later in the year. I thought it would be a good chance to understand the organisation so I accepted the position. Later I agreed to move to a different role because I was touched by the enthusiasm of the staff there trying to make a great vision a reality. I wanted to contribute my skills to make it happen.

It is now less than two weeks before Lifehouse opens. There are still lots of work to be done and sometimes people are stressed out. However, everyone is working hard together to bring this vision to life. I think that is what I appreciate about this organisation. I do not know how long I could stay involved in this vision, as my contract will be finishing in mid December. But I am glad that I am part of it. We might not be able cure cancer with a 100% success rate at the moment, but this modern House of Healing could make the healing process a lot more bearable than what my family and I had gone through all those years ago. That is what I believe in.

The Skin I Live In

As an actor I always remind myself to be more thick skin. You can never survive the ordeal of an acting career if you are easily hurt by people’s comments and rejections. This is particularly true when you want to be an actor in Australia while possessing a different skin tone to what most power brokers want. The journey of an acting career is never an easy one, but I think so far I managed the ups and downs of this road pretty well.

However, what I found in the recent years is that if you want to just survive a 9 to 5 job you will need to apply the thick skin principles in the acting industry too. This kind of sucks in a way that because 9 to 5 jobs are supposed to be no brainer mortgage paying activities that sustain a certain lifestyle you hope to maintain before the “big break” arrives.

I don’t usually go into details about my daytime profession in a way that I kind of want to separate it from my creative life, which I prefer to live and relish. However, from time to time I do find that I was forced by people I work with in my day job into a position that I have to put an extra layer of acting skin to just to get through the day.

The acting skin provides a strong buffer against your true self, which is at times more vulnerable and exposed when being cut. It is thicker and usually has stronger elasticity that could just bounce off attacks. It is a defence mechanism you need to survive the acting industry. For me, I was lucky enough to receive a full training in this area but had been resisting applying this into broader aspects of my personal life. However, as a person who cares about getting things done correctly, willing to work hard to achieve great results while at the same time trying treating people with respect, I find it harder and harder to receive reciprocal response from some of my work colleagues nowadays. As time passes I found it harder and harder to deal with people who have no basic respect and courtesy for others. So in order to avoid conflicts I start pulling an extra layer of acting skin and live inside it at work. Still I can’t help but asking myself the question, “ Am I living a real life or am I compromising my own principle of living it real? “

The good thing about mankind is human beings are social animals. We build upon and improve each other through social activities and companionship. However, as with all things this aspect of mankind does have its dark side. Several occasions in my work life had got me seriously re-evaluate whether I should continue to treat people truthfully and honestly at work. I know that I don’t want to go all bastardy or bitchy (not that I can’t) because I do not want to commit myself to lowly activities such as office politics and backstabbing. I am not trying to stay on the high horse either – it is just not me. So if assault were not an option I would need to up my defence. This is where the acting skin comes into play. However at the same time I would also think is it worth it? Yeah I need the job to pay the bills but this is not an acting job afterall.

I always maintain I would do whatever it takes to move my acting career forward as long as I am not compromising certain basic principles. The acting skin is a mechanism to help getting me there.  For other parts of my life, I would prefer to live in my own skin and be comfortable and happy in it. So it is frustrating when you feel that you are compelled to use a skill that you developed for something you love to deal with something you utterly despise and hate. Is it possible to avoid this? Yes, if you leave that environment you could continue to be true to yourself. However, in this modern society, unless you are doing something totally independent and able to make a good living out of it, you would inevitably need to deal so craps and junks.

I guess I am just moaning over a human condition that has no cure. Or perhaps I should just stop letting these kinds of situations getting to me. Maybe I am just growing old as the clock tripped over the other day so I became more sentimental about things some modern people no longer hold great values to. Whatever reason it is I think I should just have a beer and stop thinking about this.