BarclayCard Waterslide Ad

An interesting advert I came across today. Effectively sliding information to the viewer.

Cemeteries, Weddings & Michel Gondry?!

This weekend is the Halloween weekend but more importantly it’s the All Saints & All Souls’ Day weekend. This is the weekend where traffic in the Metro loosens up as most people would go out of the city to visit the graves of their departed love ones.

While it is a weekend where people pay respects to those who have come before us, it is also a great time to reflect on life and what’s coming for us in the future. On the way home from the cemetery, I remembered how short our life is really and that at any time, any one of us could be gone at any time. I have told myself many times in the past that I should grab hold of my life and try to live more, and yet sometimes I still continually cruise through life, making the decisions based on what I am comfortable with and usually avoiding what I fear the most. I like moments like these where I get a bit of a ‘kick in the ass’ from the realizations from contemplating on life & death.

Moving towards the future.. Aside from paying respects to the dead, visiting the cemetery means meeting up with family and sharing stories and experiences. One of the topics that came up was the upcoming wedding of my cousin. A lot of the uncles and aunts were pretty excited, they were giving advice and tips on how to avoid some of the problems they have might previously encountered in their own weddings. It’s funny how topics nowadays have moved from schooling and general interest, and now we are talking about weddings.

I have a couple of friends who are getting married next year as well, and a lot of people in my age group are getting hitched as well. Last week I reached a ‘boiling point’ in terms of proposals and their general cheesiness. I was given a link about a proposal inside the airport arrival area and then in the same week I saw pictures of proposals given by a friend and my other cousin. The cheese level was pretty high and to add on, all the proposals that has been happening the past 6 or so months. I had enough of it! However I couldn’t really control it but just needed to let some steam out via ranting it to friends and on here. I don’t know why I’m so affected though. Is it because I am in no position to be giving proposals anytime soon? Or am I simply jealous? Jealous that I may not be able to experience the same happiness. The radiance on the faces of the couple when they talk about it or how people are excited for them when they talk about the details of the proposal and the upcoming wedding itself.

I still want to get married, maybe. It’s funny ’cause if you asked me 2 years ago, I would have said that I hope to get married when I hit 28 or earlier. I don’t feel the same way now, there have been many changes in my outlook on life and suddenly getting married or getting into relationship isn’t in my current priorities. I still haven’t been able to pinpoint what exactly ‘changed’. Hopefully someday I will and maybe once I do, I’ll have the answer to my questions.

While waiting for the answers to come to me, we shall enjoy life for now and try to ‘live’ more and be generally happy. One of the main things that makes me happy is art and one of the greatest artists to hit the film industry is Michel Gondry. I chanced upon this news blurb about a new book he has, “You’ll Like This Film Because You’re In It: The Be Kind Rewind Protocol”.

It basically plays off his film, Be Kind Rewind, where Jack Black and Mos Def re-shoot their own versions of classic movies such as Robocop and Ghostbusters after accidentally erasing off the data off the VHS tapes. Michel Gondry wanted to push the idea that anybody can be creative and make their own films without necessarily following the commercial system. The book seems to be sort of a guide that provides the user some tools which can be used in creating films, I believe that some of it contains information from Gondry’s own experiences. So far, I’m most impressed with how Gondry can use simple ideas and props to deliver a solid stories through his films. He himself is the example that one doesn’t need a very big budget to make a good film. Pick the book up if you have a chance at PictureBox.