Watched "The Sign" yesterday with a couple of friends. Like the movie quite a bit. The atmosphere of the whole film was very well controlled. Plus, I just like how more and more information were given to you as the story proceed. And I like the ending. That's as much spoiler free as I can get to describe it. While some of my friends complaint about the pace, I also hear other saying the plot as not convincing. I think the atomsphere rules in this film. Go see it!

This coming Saturday, my fiancee's parents will meet with my parents for the first time. Not noticing until recently that the gifts suppose to be presented from the family of the husband-to-be to the family of wife-to-be varies so much between the Japanese culture and the Chinese culture.

In the Chinese culture, we are supposed to present coconuts with red double happiness character painted on it, a pair of candles, live chicken, raw pork meat, live fish, fruits ... which are pretty hard to carry around and present.

For the Japanese culture, they are called "���[" (yuinou) which could include some folded paper tied with golden ribbons, a pair of dolls, pine cone and leaves etc. Which I don't know the meaning of it either! Here is a sample image:

Watched my Criterion Collection edition of "The Royal Tenenbaums" DVD yesterday nite.



Enjoy the comical illustration on the cover and in the inside brochure. This is my favorite movie of this year (well, at least up till now). I enjoy the story telling skill and the approach used on portraiting the wide spectrum of characters in the movie. Some of the really short cut scenes brought me lots of smile. I found most of the characters there quite loveable. The feeling of alienation, geekiness behavior of certain characters, the touch of the 80's (just loved seeing that
Apple ][ and the Parker Bro. board games) all struck a chord in me.