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Climb every mountain. Films reviewed: Abominable, Monos
Posted in Animation, Canada, China, Colombia, Kids, Tibet, Uncategorized, violence, War by CulturalMining.com on September 27, 2019
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/garber-september-27-19-review.mp3
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
The majesty and beauty of mountains makes some people stare in awe, while others see it as a personal goal – something to climb, claim or conquer. This week I'm looking at two new movies about mountains. There's a group of kids in China on their way to a mountain as they protect a mythical beast; and a group of kids in Colombia holding a hostage on top of a mountain as they fight an inner beast.
Dir: Jill Culton, Todd Wilderman
Yi is a teen who lives with her mom and her grandmother Nai-Nai in a downtown Shanghai apartment. She's saving the money from three parttime jobs to travel across China in the path of her late father, a musician. But her life is turned upside down when an enormous furry creature appeared on her roof. He has white hair, a huge mouth and pale blue eyes that stare longingly at a nearby billboard advertising Mount Everest. It's his home, and he wants to go back.
Standing in his path are Mr Burnish a billionaire CEO, and a zoological scientist named Zara. Everest is a Yeti, the legendary Tibetan creature, never captured until Beamish enterprizes nabbed him. They want their specimen back, dead or alive. But Yi has other plans. Along with her two neighbours – the selfie-obsessed Jin and the basketball dribbler Peng – they set out on a journey across China. Can they save Everest and bring him back to his homeleand? Or will they all end up captives in a corporate lab in Shanghai?
Abominable is a fun and exciting animated movie for little kids. It's full of cultural references, from the classic Ming Dynasty novel Journey to the West (西遊記), to the classic '80s film ET: Yi lures the creature with a trail of steamed dumplings instead of Reece's Pieces, and the alien creature is "Yeti" not "E.T.". But it's also fun and original in its own right, with exciting magic, humour, action and the sentimental bits you need to make it worthwhile. I saw it with an audience of small children and they loved most of it, but were frightened when it looked like the heroes were going to die (Spoiler Alert: they don't die… 'cause it's a kids movie!)
Voices include Chloe Bennet (Crazy Rich Asians) as Yi, and Tenzing Norgay Trainor as Jin. Fun fact: if the name sounds familiar it's because he's the grandson of Tenzing Norgay, the Nepali-Tibetan Sherpa who climbed Mt Everest with Edmond Hillary.
Abominable is fun movie for kids that grown ups can enjoy too.
Dir: Alejandro Landes
On a mountaintop somewhere in Colombia a multi-ethnic, multi-gendered group of "monos" – cool, cute teenagers – are fooling around. They're stylin' with hip hairstyles and military outfits. They play games like blindfolded soccer, where you kick a ball with bells attached, into a net that makes noise. Or one-on-one wrestling matches, combining martial arts, modern dance and Capoeira. Everyone has a nickname reflecting something about them: Smurf is young and cute, Lady is pretty, Rambo's a fighter, Swede is light-skinned, Lobo is wolflike… plus Dog, Bigfoot, and Boom Boom. Some even pair off as couples.
Their only contact with the outside world is a staticky two-way radio and a diminutive, muscular man who visits them every so often. He's from The Organization, a cryptic paramilitary group fighting the government. Their assignment is to guard an American woman they call Doctora. The girls braid her hair and the boys invite her to play in their games. The problem is she's a hostage of The Organization, and a potential source of power and money. So when things go wrong, the monos take sides and start fighting each other. And when the enemy bombards them with missiles. things turn into a co-ed Lord Of The Flies. Can they stick together in peace and harmony? Or will outside pressure, internal divisions, and harsh military culture lead to harm and even death?
Monos is an aesthetically beautiful look at a period of violence and death in Colombia. The ensemble cast play it as part melodrama, part dance performance, plotted against breathtakingly lush scenery. From sexualized wrestling, to scenes of struggle filmed underwater, to an exquisite pantomime of soldiers walking in the jungle covered in different colours of mud, this highly-stylized movie is as pretty as a Vogue fashion spread, but just realistic enough that you care about the kids and their fate.
Good movie.
Monos starts today at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and Abominable also opens in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Tagged with: Abominable, Alejandro Landes, Directed by Women, Jill Culton, Monos, TIFF Bell Lightbox, TIFF19, Todd Wilderman
Hot Docs 2019! Films reviewed: Bellingcat, The Corporate Coup D'Etat, American Factory, One Child Family
Posted in 1980s, China, Clash of Cultures, Corruption, documentary, Economics, Journalism, Ohio, Politics, Unions by CulturalMining.com on April 26, 2019
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/garber-april-26-19-review.mp3
Toronto's Hot Docs International Documentary Festival is on now. These films tell us what will be news in a year or two, and goes behind the scenes of stories we only think we know about. Hot Docs is showing hundreds of documentaries from around the world, way more than I could ever talk about, but let me briefly tell you about a few I've seen that might interest you.
These capsule reviews are shorter than usual, but hopefully long enough for some of it to sink in. This week I'm exposing you to amateur journalists influencing world politics, multinational corporations taking over governments, foreign-owned factories replacing local ones, and government control reaching into women's bodies.
Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World
Dir: Hans Pool
With the explosion of Photoshop, propaganda and fake news, how can we find the real truth? A new news source called Bellingcat offers an alternative. It is similar to Wikileaks but functions as an original news source, rather than a publisher of leaked documents. Founded by Eliot Higgins, a UK "vigilante journalist", Bellingcat uses Open Source investigations to determine whether what we see on the news and online is what is really happening.
Composed of a network of digital news geeks spread across Europe (all men), Bellingcat's investigations range from responsibility for the Malaysia Airline plane shot down over the Russia/Ukraine border, to a look into bombings in Syria, and identifying neo-nazi faces at the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville. Using an ingenious combination of satellite footage, snapchat images, and uncensored, online discussion groups of soldiers wives, they find convincing evidence that conventional journalists – and government propaganda – ignore. I would have loved to have seen more about Bellingcat's investgations into malfeasance within its own country – not just about Russians – but their work is fascinating, valuable and so clever.
You can find Bellingcat's most recent investigations here)
Moving on now from journalism to governments themselves…
The Corporate Coup D'Etat
Dir: Fred Peabody
Do we still live in democracies, imperfect though they may be? Or has there been a corporate coup d'etat, a virtual takeover of our government? Well this filmmaker says, at least in the United States, the answer is a resounding yes. Widespread incarceration, congressmen and senators with corporate ties, and the phenomenal number of paid lobbyists working in Washington. New laws with extreme libertarian views are often written in total not by politicians but by ALEC a private body associated with the Koch Brothers.
Talking heads include Chris Hedges, Cornel West, Maude Barlow, and John Ralston Saul — who coined the term corporate coup d'etat.
But it also takes us into the heart of the problems by talking with the people of Camden, NJ., a city allowed to decay, and Youngstown Ohio, a former engine of the steel industry, where some people switched their votes from Obama to Trump… not because they love him, but because everyone else had failed to rescue the steel industry, so why not try someone from "outside" the system? This is a great doc, filled both with smart pundits and unknown but unforgettable ordinary people who tell it like it is. Corporate Coup d'état is another politically astute doc from Fred Peabody (whom I interviewed about All Governments Lie in 2016).
Youngstown Ohio may look bleak but how are things in Dayton? The next doc looks at both sides of an…
Dir: Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
Dayton Ohio is the longtime home of Moraine, a major General Motors plant. But when it moved south, the burgeoning middle class started to collapse.
Enter Fuyao Auto Glass, a China-based multinational that manufactures windshields for a large percentage of the world's cars. Formerly struggling workers with decades of factory experience are offered a new chance. The only problem is GM payed $29 an hour, Fuyao pays $12. Workers are flown in from China to "train" already skilled labourers in the company's philosophy. Can formerly unionized factory workers adjust to an autocratic, and some say unsafe, shop? Or will they succeed in unionizing the plant? American Factory is great look at changes in a Midwest factory town. It talks to the people on the shop floor and in their homes. It also follows some American managers visiting the mother plant in China. And it speaks directly both to the American and Chinese workers and management (including the odd, billionaire owner) and the cultural roadblocks they meet on the way. Another great doc from Bognar and Reichert!
And finally, a highly personal doc set in China that exposes some dark secrets…
Dir: Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang
Nanfu Wang is a young American filmmaker, originally from Jiangxi, a desperately poor, landlocked province in southeast China. She was born in the 1980s right when the One Child Family policy comes into force. (It lasts officially until 2013.) It says city people can only have one child, but peasants can have a second child if their first one is a girl. Why? It's simple economics: peasant families depend on their son to stay in the family home and provide for the parents in their old age. Girls move away once they marry.
But the film shows a dark side of this policy. Wang returns to her home village and finds evidence of parents abandoning baby girls to die, foetuses scattered in garbage dumps, and a trafficking ring that sold babies to orphanages to be adopted abroad. There are even cases where village chiefs dictated whether pregnant women must abort their foetuses. I don't know how much of the film applies to a huge country with 1.4 billion people, but what the filmmaker uncovers in her own area really makes one wonder. One Child Nation is a heartfelt but disturbing documentary.
You can catch all of these films — One Child Nation, American Factory, The Corporate Coup D'Etat, Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World — at Hotdocs over the next ten days. And remember, students and seniors can get in free to daytime screenings!
Tagged with: American Factory, Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World, Fred Peabody, Hans Pool, Hot Docs, hotdocs19, Jialing Zhang, Julia Reichert, Nanfu Wang, One Child Nation, Steven Bognar, The Corporate Coup D'Etat
Daniel Garber talks with Jia Zhang-ke about his new film Ash is Purest White
Posted in 1990s, 2000s, China, Crime, Migrants, Movies, Romance, Women by CulturalMining.com on March 22, 2019
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/garber-march-22-19-interview.mp3
Photo of Jia Zhang-ke (left) by Jeff Harris.
Qiao is the girlfriend of a smalltime hood in a dingy mining city in northern China. She is confident, pretty and fiercely loyal. But after a violent showdown on a downtown street, she ends up taking the fall for him. She serves five years in prison. When she is released she discovers her one-time lover has abandoned her.
Will her journey across China — to find her ex-lover and reestablish her reputation — bring her what she wants?
Ash is Purest White is a new Chinese feature that played at Cannes and TIFF. It's a passionate melodrama that chronicles China's changes as it modernizes, as seen by a gangster and his moll. It is written and directed by one of China's best and most famous filmmakers, Jia Zhang-ke.
I spoke to Jia Zhang-ke in New York City via telephone from CIUT 89.5 FM in Toronto.
Ash is Purest White opens today in Toronto.
Tagged with: Ash is Purest White, Films We Like, Jia Zhangke, Photos by Jeff Harris, TIFF18
Noisy or quiet? Films reviewed: Mission Impossible: Fallout, Angels Wear White PLUS #TIFF18
Posted in Action, China, CIA, Corruption, Crime, Drama, Espionage, Migrants, Thriller, Women by CulturalMining.com on July 26, 2018
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/garber-july-27-18-review.mp3
Summer is when the blockbusters come out but there are also great arthouse pics to watch, too. So this week I'm giving you a choice. A Hollywood action thriller that takes you to world capitals, and a moving Chinese drama set in a quiet seaside resort.
But first, here's some news about what's coming this fall to theInternational film festival.
TIFF held its annual press conference this week, about the first wave of festival choices coming up. If you're going here's how to navigate through the hundreds of movies playing. A few that look terrific, are Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters, about a gang of child thieves that operate like Fagins fake family. This year a full third of its movies will be directed by women. French director Claire Denis is always a good bet. she has one called Highlife… Did you see Moonlight two years ago? Barry Jenkins is premiering If Beale Could Talk. based on James Baldwin's novel. And look out for Canadian films by Donald McKeller, Kim Nguyen, and Patricia Rozema, among many, many others they'll be announcing soon.
And a warning: if you want to avoid potentially bad movies stay away from remakes, movies about movies, and movies directed by movie stars.
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Wri/Dir: Christopher MacQuarrie
It's present day Europe, and the Mission Impossible team is together again. There's the indestructible Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), he faces any crisis by saying "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it." yHe's supported by the always affable Luther (Ving Rhames) and the nervous Benji (Simon Pegg). And Ethan's onetime lover Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), late of the MI6, will pop up every so often when they least expect it. Their mission: to recover three high grade plutonium balls before terrorists use them to destroy large parts of the world.
The bombs are in the hands of The Apostles, devotees of cult leader Solomon Lane. And the IMF – Impossible Mission Force – is further hampered by their own government: The CIA doesn't trust them. Ethan has to work beside a CIA agent named Walker (Henry Cavill) who looks more like Sgt Preston of the Yukon than a spy. But the team has a bag of tricks of their at their disposal: digital trackers, rubber masks, and the die hard resilience of the members themselves. Can they trick the bad guys out of their info , smoke out the traitors in their midst… and save the world?
Mission impossible:Fallout has its good points and its bad points. It has beautiful shots of tourists sites in Paris and London… but no actual local people – just criminals, cops and more spies. Parisians and Londoners are just scenery. (And in scenes supposedly set in Kashmir there wasn't a single Kashmiri.) There are fast -moving fist fights, shootouts and relentless chase scenes… but you never know why they're doing what they're doing. The chases are there just for the spectacle.
The script is bad, the acting is mediocre, but the stunts and special effects are amazing. This is an action movie with a cliffhanger (literally) and a ticking bomb (also literally). I love the helicopter fights, the mountain-side fights, and the rooftop chases. I just wish there was something there there. Mission Impossible: Fallout never leaves you bored, just feeling empty inside.
Angels Wear White
Dir: Vivian Qu
Xiaomi (Wen Qi) is a teenaged girl in eastern China. She works as hotel maid at a seaside tourist spot. She spends her free time wandering the beach, paying daily visits to her mentor – an enormous statue of Marilyn Monroe in a white dress. She seeks comfort curled between the goddess's towering legs. Her life is simple until she witnesses a crime at the hotel and saves a copy on her cell phone. The criminal? A high-ranked party member. The crime? He forces himself on two little girls he lured to the hotel.
She is horrified at what happened but when the police come by she clams up. She's undocumented, a migrant from a poor area, so she has to keep a low profile, especially around cops. (But maybe she can sell the video for enough cash to buy an ID card?)
Meanehile the two victims Xiao Wen (Zhou Meijun) and her best friend go back to school as if nothing happened – "to save their reputations." They are scolded by teachers for being late, bullied by other students, and finally Wen's bitter divorced mom blames her own 12-year-old daughter for the attack. Why is your hair so long, why do you wear clothes like this? So she runs away, ending up at her dad place inside a splash park. His boss says he'll fire him if he does anything to embarrass powerful official. The parents of the other girl are hoping for a big cash payoff for keeping quiet.
Only the state attorney, an honest lawyer named Hao (Shi Ke) wants justice. So she doggedly pursues the witness and the victims to build an airtight case. But can one woman — and some little girls – fight the power of a rich corrupt official and all his cronies? Or can only the powerless statue Marilyn Monroe come to their rescue?
Angels Wear White is an excellent film about a loathesome crime. She handles it with skill and compassion, showing the results through the eyes of three girls and women: the victim, the witness, and the lawyer. No exploitation here. It's also about corruption and all its tentacles, the status of women – terrible – and the plight of the quarter of a billion migrant workers in China. Angels Wear White is a powerful, heart-wrenching story.
For more info on TIFF films go to tiff.net. Mission Impossible: Fallout and Angels Wear White both open today in Toronto; check your local listings.
Tagged with: Angels Wear White, Christopher MacQuarrie, Films We Like, Mission Impossible: Fallout, TIFF18, Tom Cruise, Vivian Qu
Shells. Films reviewed: Journey's End, Ready Player One, The China Hustle
Posted in 1910s, China, Class, Corruption, Darkness, documentary, Drama, Games, Movies, Poverty, Science Fiction, Wall Street, War, WWI by CulturalMining.com on March 30, 2018
It's a holiday weekend filled with eggs, whether hard boiled or made of chocolate with a prize inside. So this week I'm looking at three new movies about… shells. There are VR gamers looking for a hidden easter egg, Wall Streeters investing in shell corporations, and WWI soldiers dodging mortar shells.
Journey's End
Dir: Saul Dibb
It's March, 1918, in the WWI trenches of northern France. Underground, where the officers stay, it's dark, dank and smelly. Up on the surface its deadly dangerous, with snipers aiming at your head. Four British divisions rotate their stays at the front at one week per month. It's like a lottery – with a one in four chance of dying. And the soldiers in Company C are just trying to stay sane and alive. There's the fatherly Osborne (Paul Bettany) who everyone calls "Uncle", the indefatigable cook Mason (Toby Jones), and the shell-shocked Hibbert.
So no one can understand why the green, idealistic Lt Raleigh (Asa Butterfield) pulls strings to join this benighted group. Why? His upper classman Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin) is stationed there and he wants to see him again. But he doesn't realize the level of death and despair that has taken hold there. And that his hero, Stanhope,
is now a mean and bitter alcoholic. The soldiers there are forced to make pointless raids in daylight so as not to interrupt the dinner schedule of far-off Generals. And things reach a boiling point when word gets out the Germans are about to attack on Thursday, right there. They're essentially sentenced to die at the front. How do they all handle this?
Journey's End – based on the classic play – is a tense retelling of an old war story, exactly 100 years later. It deals with the futility of war, the rigid British class system, and the male comeradery of life in the trenches. The acting is very good, and the camera wonderfully captures a world lit only by flickering lanterns. Even so, it was hard to sympathize with the stuff-upper-lip, tally-ho language of the script. The long theatrical conversations might might work on stage but not on the screen. The main emotions I got from this movie were depression, disgust claustrophobia and fatalism. It all felt too long, too slow, and too distant, especially once you know their fate… Just die already!
Dir: Steven Spielberg
It's 2045 in Columbus, Ohio and the world is a mess. People live marginal existences in ramshackle towers beside huge corporations. Wade (Tye Sheridan) is an 18-year-old orphan who spends most of his time online in a wildly- popular VR fantasy world called Oasis. Its creator left a trillion-dollar prize to whoever can solve the puzzles hidden within this digital world. First they must complete three levels of games and collect three keys and claim the hidden easter egg. Wade he surprises the world by appearing on the boards as Player One, the top ranked player in the world. But he's not the only gunter (egg hunter) trying to win. His closest virtual rivals are Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) a fiery red-head, Aech, a muscular giant and genius mechanic; plus Daito and Sho whose avatars look like a samurai and a ninja, respectively. Wade calls himself Parzival. Like the Wagner opera character, he's searching for a holy grail. And he's in love with the lovely Artemis. But as best-bud Aech keeps telling him: you only know her avatar – that's not what she's like in real life. And lurking in the shadows is the rich and evil Sorrento, (Ben Mendelssohn) the head of IOI, the corporate rival to Oasis's company. He pretends to be a champion gamer, but he's actually a fake who hires employees to play for him. But he's out to win — and take over the world — at any cost. Which of the hunters will figure out the puzzle and find the easter egg? And can they defeat the villainous Sorrento?
Ready Player One is an incredibly fast-moving sci-if action movie. Oasis's inventor, whose puzzles they're all trying to solve, was obsessed with the 80s, so the movie feeds you a random hodgepodge of Back to the Future and Iron Giant, Gandam and Street Fighter, New Order and Van Halen, a non-stop shower of pop culture, to the point where you can't tell self-referential jokes from cheap product placement. (Maybe they're both?) But why would kids in the 2040s care about the 1980s? I can't call this a good movie; it's incredibly commercial, felt more like a theme park ride than a film, and parts were like watching a video game with someone else holding the controls. But you know what? I still enjoyed it. And it does have that classic Spielbergian look and sound.
China Hustle
Wri/Dir: Jed Rothstein
After the Subprime Mortgage crisis, American investors, pension funds, and ordinary moms and pops were looking to make some money. But where? Chinese people were making millions investing in their red-hot companies, but those stocks weren't traded on Wall Street. Until, suddenly, they were. Hundreds of Chinese startups were being bought and sold and making big bucks. And companies like Roth Capital were holding lavish parties known as "investment conferences" to reel in buyers. They were backed by reputable auditors like Deloitte. It's a win-win proposition – everyone makes money. Until, that is, some suspicious investors fly to Shanghai and looked around.
Turns out, many of these companies operate as "Reverse Mergers". Existing Chinese corporations buy shell companies already registered in the US, take them over, change their name, and they're open to make money.
But their books here don't look like their books there. Idle factories in China are said to be making ten times what they're actually earning. And no one's checking up on them.
So a few maverick investors decide to short sell their stock (like in that movie The Big Short) counting on its value crashing soon. And they speed this along by publicising the corruption and questionable accounting of the parent companies back in China. The result, riches for a few, terrible losses for many.
The China Hustle is a fascinating documentary looking at the shady practices behind deregulation, auditing and investments, as told by three American short-sellers. I thought its view of China as a monolithic villain was superficial and rather one-sided; for example, it shows how these fraudulent investments affect ordinary Americans' lives, but not how they affect ordinary Chinese.
But it does expose in detail a huge scandal I knew nothing about.
Ready Player One opens today in Toronto; check your local listings. Journey's End and The China Hustle are in theatres and Video On Demand. This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Tagged with: Jed Rothstein, Journey's End, Ready Player One, Saul Dibb, Steven Spielberg, The China Hustle, TIFF17
Cultural Revolution Nostalgia? Film reviewed: Youth
Posted in 1970s, Bullying, China, Movies, Music, Vietnam, War by CulturalMining.com on January 5, 2018
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/garber-january-5-18-review.mp3
We're in the midst of a cold wave, and it's so cold, I feel like extending my New Year's holiday by a few more days. So I'm keeping my review very short. This week, I'm looking at an historical drama from the Peoples Republic of China.
Dir: Feng Xiaogang
It's the early 1970s in China, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. In the 1960s, fanatical members of the Red Guard tried to purge the entire country of "bourgeois elements". There's widespread upheaval. Millions of educated youth, the zhishi qingnian, have been sent down to the countryside to work on farms. And because it's a Cultural Revolution, only a handful of operas and ballets are allowed to be performed anywhere in China.
Enter He Xiaoping (Miao Miao) a young woman with pigtails from a poor family. She has been chosen to join an illustrious art troupe that performs these productions as part of the PLA, the Chinese Army. She is escorted from the train station by the always helpful Liu Feng, right into the middle of a rehearsal, with rows of leggy women in extra-short gym shorts and clingy tops are running about the hall in perfect formation. He Xiaoping is in awe, but also self-conscious and intimidated. She's naïve, unsophisticated, and unskilled… the exact opposite of two beautiful young women who are leading the group: Dingding (Yang Caiyu) and Suizi (Elaine Zhong). They are both relatively rich, come from big cities and look down on her simple ways. They say she sweats like a farm girl. But the director thinks He Xiaoping has natural talent. She tries to fit in but is constantly mocked and bullied. Will she ever succeed as a performer?
Liu Feng (Huang Xuan) is a kind and generous young man, modest, hardworking and always ready to help other people. So much so that they start to call him Lei Feng, not Liu Feng. Lei Feng was an ordinary soldier who died in the early 60s, but whose name and face is known to almost everyone in China. He's on posters everywhere, and he's a role model for everyone to follow. Liu Feng is seen as the living version of Lei Feng… but will his wholesome image stop him from showing his attraction to one of the women? At the end of the cultural revolution the group disbands and the members go their separate ways, becoming soldiers, journalists, and medics.
The story picks up later, during the time of the Sino-Vietnamese war, where some of them meet again, and again much later in a more modern China. Who ends up doing well, and who is left behind? And has anyone changed their ways?
Youth is an unusual look back at the Cultural Revolution. It works as a broad, epic romantic drama. The director Feng Xiaogang does Big Hollywood-style movies really well, with action, love, and as much gratuitous near nudity – steamy shower scenes, etc – as the censors will allow. I just had problems with the history. He sees it as a happy, nostalgic time of simple thoughts and good people. Sort of a Cultural Revolution-Lite. There have been many other movies about Chinese performers in the Cultural Revolution (Jia Zhangke's Platform, Zhang Yimou's Coming Home) but this is the first one I've seen that paints it as a happier time. Then there's the war – like any good war movie with lots of explosions, valour and "war is hell" feeling. But this is Vietnam, which China attacked to "punish" them. Why? Because they drove the genocidal Khmer Rouge out of power in Cambodia!
Even so, the director tempers the movie with a bitter-sweet ending that makes you think about present-day China in a new light.
Youth – in Chinese with English subtitles – is playing now in Toronto: check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
Tagged with: Feng Xiaogang, TIFF17, Youth
Daniel Garber talks with producer Jason Charters and director Larry Weinstein about Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas
Posted in China, Christianity, Christmas, Christmas songs, Cultural Mining, documentary, Eating, Judaism, Music, Toronto by CulturalMining.com on December 22, 2017
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/garber-december-22-17-interview.mp3
It's the 1960s. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… outside the snow is falling and friends are calling yoo-hoo… it's Christmastime in the city. Mom, Dad and the two kids get in the car to go out for their traditional family dinner. Is it ham? Turkey? No… it's Chinese food! Beause these folks are dreaming of a "Jewish Christmas".
Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas is a new documentary that looks at the secular celebration of a religious holiday in North America and how it's reflected in popular culture – especially in Christmas songs. It re-eneacts a 1960s dinner in Chinatown with new performances of classic Christmas songs by Steven Page, Dione Taylor and Aviva Chernick.
The film was produced in Toronto by Jason Charters and Liam Romalis at Riddle Films and directed by Oscar nominee Larry Weinstein.
I spoke with Jason in studio at CIUT and with Larry via telephone.
Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas is playing on CBC Documentary Channel on Dec 24 and Dec 25.
Tagged with: CBC, Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas, Jason Charters, Larry Weinstein, Riddle Films
Daniel Garber talks with director Tiffany Hsiung about The Apology
Posted in Canada, China, documentary, Korea, Philippines, Slavery, Women, WWII by CulturalMining.com on December 3, 2016
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/garber-december-2-16-interview.mp3
Japan joined the European race for colonies late in the game. But they took to it with a vengeance, expanding ever southward. First Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria, and by the 1930s they began to seize territory in Eastern China, Southeast Asia and Islands of the Pacific and South China seas. And at the vanguard of all this was the Japanese Imperial Army. To keep the soldiers free from disease they initiated a program of Comfort Women (従軍慰安婦). Over 200,000 girls and young women from Japanese colonies across Asia were forced into sexual slavery to serve the troops. Because of the shame involved, the survivors remained silent for fifty years. What happened to them, what are their stories, and what apologies do they seek?
The Apology is a new NFB feature documentary that follows three elderly Comfort Women – from Korea, China and the Philippines — who survived that horrible ordeal. It is a highly personal film, seen through Hsiung's eyes as she documents the three Grandmothers' lives while they still have a chance to tell their stories.
The Apology opens in Toronto today. I spoke with Tiffany Hsiung in studio at CIUT.
Tagged with: Comfort Women, Hotdocs, NFB, The Apology, Tiffany Hsiung
Eurasia. Movies reviewed: Mountains May Depart, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Sing Street
Posted in 1980s, Afghanistan, China, Ireland, Journalism, Musical, Romance, Science Fiction by CulturalMining.com on March 11, 2016
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/garber-march-4-16-review.mp3
Europe and Asia, despite what some people think, are part of the same continent: Eurasia. This week I'm looking at movies set on the Eurasian landmass, from the far east to the extreme west. There's a love triangle set in a rapidly westernizing China, a true story about expat journalists in Afghanistan, and a coming-of-age musical set in Ireland.
Wri/Dir: Jia Zhangke
It's 1999 and a mining town China prepares for the new millennium. Especially Tao (Zhao Tao) who is a pretty, young performer. She's being courted by two men. Liangzi (Liang Jingdong) is a brash but nice guy, brimming with confidence. He works in the mine store. Equally confident, but self-centred and vengeful, is Zhang Jinsheng (Zhang Yi). He's rich and Liangzi isn't. She wants to be friends with both of them. But she has to choose, and she chooses the one with money over the one she loves.
They have one son they name Daole or "Dollar", named after the US dollar, what Zhang desires most. Tao stays in the mining town, while her husband moves to the city to rule his burgeoning financial empire and satisfy his perverse obsession with guns. And their son, Dollar, is sent off to a private English-language boarding school in far-off Shanghai.
The second part of the movie jumps to the near future. Dollar lives in Australia now and only speaks English. He has distant memories of his country and his mother and transfers his feelings onto a rootless, Chinese-Canadian teacher named Mia (Sylvia Chang).
The movie then reveals what has become of Liangzi, Jinsheng and Tao – the original three characters.
Jia Zhangke is one of the best filmmakers in China, and a personal favourite. He has a unique style and feel that exposes the flaws and idiosycracies of modern China. But always in a funny satirical or shocking way. What other Chinese director would start his movie with people dancing on a stage to the Village People? It looks like one of his first movies Platform (2000). That said, this isn't his best work. The first half is a good classic Chinese melodrama, but the second half, with its prediction of China's future, feels empty in comparison.
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot
Dir: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa (based on Kim Barker's memoirs)
It's the early 2000s. Kim Baker (Tina Fey) is a network TV newswriter whose career is going nowhere fast. So she jumps at the chance to relocate to a place grabbing all the headlines: Kabul, Afghanistan. She says goodbye to her boyfriend and takes off. But as soon as she arrives she sees it's not what she expected. She's shocked by the unvarnished crudity of the other expats. But she also exalts in her new status. She has, at her disposal, a buff kiwi bodyguard, a smart Afghan translator, and a local fixer, to name just a few. A blonde Aussie reporter named Tanya (Margot Robbie) takes her under her wing. She says, "In New York City you're a 6 or a 7, but here you're a borderline ten." Tanya also tells her who to get to know, and who to avoid. And above all, to watch out for the womanizing lush Iain (Martin Freeman: The Hobbit) a Scottish journalist.
Aside from drinkin', dancin', cussin', and screwing around, she also has to file stories. She's embedded with a Marine battalion, under the misogynistic General Hollanek (Billy-Bob Thornton.) But she manages to find some real news, even venturing out of the insular, foreign enclave in Kabul (or "Ka-bubble" as Tanya calls it). Will her new digs bring her fame and fortune? Or is it a bottomless pit that swallows journalists whole?
This movie is a fictionalized account of print journalist Kim Barker's stint as an expat in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's an enjoyable movie and Tina Fey and company give a good sense of what it's like to live there as a foreigner. What it doesn't give is what it's like to be an Afghan. There are some good scenes of an Afghan wedding, and she has a bit of professional contact with locals like Sadiq (Alfred Molina) a sleazy government minister, but nothing that challenges existing stereotypes.
And the Afghan women in burqas? Completely silent.
Wri/Dir: John Carney
Cosmo (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is a middle-class kid at a private Jesuit school in Dublin in the 1980s. He lives at home with his parents, his little sister and older brother Brendan (Jack Reynor) a pothead who dropped out of college. But when his family falls on hard times he is sent to a rougher school run by the Christian Brothers. (Canadians know the name from the Mt Cashel orphanage in St John's, Newfoundland, notorious for its horrific abuses.) The school is run by men in black priestly gowns from neck to feet, and who are not adverse to corporal punishment. They make it their goal to crush every hint of non-conformity. Cosmo gets bullied from day one, especially by a skinhead. But all is not lost. Because across the street he sees a beautiful girl who looks like a model who just stepped out of a Duran Duran video. She even has a proper model's name: Raphina (Lucy Boynton). Thinking quickly, he invites her to star in his band's video for their next song – and she agrees. Only problem is, there's no video, no song, and no band. Somehow Cosmo has to make it all happen. He meets Eamon (Mark McKenna) and together they start writing songs. Soon, they turn into new wave rock stars complete with appropriate make-up and frosted hair. But will they have it all ready in time for the school prom and before Raphena leaves for London?
Something about this movie grabs me – I really like it. It's your basic boy-meets-girl/ coming-of-age story, and it's set in the 80s, but there's nothing old or tired about it. Sing Street feels fresh and new featuring young actors and musicians who are all amazing.
Sing Street, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, and Mountains May Depart all open today in Toronto: check your local listings.
Tagged with: Glenn Ficarra, Jia Zhangke, John Carney, John Requa, Kim Barker, Mountains May Depart, Sing Street, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Cracks in the Foundation. The Continent, Rocks in my Pockets, Rosewater
Posted in Adventure, Animation, China, Class, Cultural Mining, Depression, Dreams, Family, Iran, Latvia, Mental Illness, Prison, Road Movie, Suicide, Torture, US, 中国电影 by CulturalMining.com on November 14, 2014
https://danielgarber.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/garber-november13-14.mp3
From far away, porcelain looks smooth, shiny and flawless, but look too close and fine cracks appear. This week, I'm looking at movies that expose the cracks in faraway Latvia, China and Iran. There's an Iranian man who wants to leave prison; three Chinese men who want to leave their island, and a Latvian woman who, at times, wants to leave life altogether.
The Continent
Dir: Han Han
Three young men have lived their lives on a tiny, windswept island off the east coast of China. But they decide it's time to check out the continent. Like in the classic Chinese novel, they set out on a "Journey to the West. They each have a different reason. Jianghe (Chen Bolin [陈柏霖], who also starred in Buddha Mountain [觀音山] — read my review here) a school teacher an"d eternal optimist, is transferred by the government to a remote location far, far away. Haohan (Feng Shaofeng [冯绍峰]) is a blustering young man dying to see the world. He longs to stand on a determined mountaintop and shout to the world about the size of his dick. And he has a childhood pen-pal Yingying (Yolanda Yuan [袁泉]), a pretty girl he'll finally meet face to face. And true love will soon follow. Their third friend, Hu Sheng, is mentally challenged, and depends on the other two to tell him what to do.
But they soon discover life outside their tiny island is bewildering and confusing. They stumble onto a movie set in WWII. And at their first hotel Jianghe is approached by an escort named Sumi, immediately followed by knocks on the door from aggressive police. Bewildered, he plays the hero, busting out through a barred window and "saving" Sumi from a fate worse than death. Or so he thinks. And a sketchy, Cantonese hitchhiker helps them with their navigating – but can he be trusted? Maybe not, in a place where anything that you don't hold onto with both hands when you gp to sleep will likely be gone by morning. But it's also a country with stunning and empty vast vistas, rockets flying to outer-space, and cool and savvy people at every turn.
The Continent is writer-director Han Han's (韩寒) first film, but he's far from unknown. His blog is the best-known one in China which automatically makes him one of the most famous people in the world. This is not just a simple, picaresque road movie. It's also a slyly humorous — if bleak — cautionary tale about life in contemporary China.
Wri/Dir Signe Baumane
Signe is a Brooklyn artist, originally from Latvia, with a hidden family past. She wants to find out the truth behind the family matriarch, her late grandmother. On the surface, she was a preternaturally hard-worker, known for her Sisyphean feat of carrying endless buckets of water up a steep mountain. She had retreated to a backwoods cabin with her husband, an eccentric entrepreneur, to escape the difficulties of life in the city. But, after a bit of digging, Signe discovers a streak of depression, suicide and mental illness in her family stretching back three generations. The title refers to her grandmother's attempted suicide by drowning – she was unsuccessful because she forgot to fill her pocket with rocks. Even if the mind wants to end it all, the body – until the last breath — will fight against dying. At the same time, Signe realizes that the many children and grandchildren managed to survive and succeed despite harsh time. In this film, Riga is imagined as a place with enormous human faces on their buildings, within a country filled with animistic creatures with long tails, dog ears and goggly eyes that lurk everywhere, just out of sight.
Her odd family history is portrayed in a series of short, animated episodes, using panels of sketched characters moving against brightly-tinted backgrounds. These are interspersed with super-imposed stop-motion images made of rope and papier-mache figurines. This giuves the whole movie an unusual three-dimensional feel, combining classic drawing with computer-manipulated mixes. And omnipresent is the wry and funny –though at times grating – voice of the narrator telling and commenting on her family history. The director shows the deleterious effects of Soviet era psychiatry – one where cures consist of medicinal corrections to chemical imbalances – and how it makes some people long to "erase themselves" and ceasing to exist. A poignant, fascinating and great animated feature.
Dir: Jon Stewart
Maziar Bahari (Gael Garcia Bernal) is an Iranian-Canadian journalist based in London. He lives there with his beautiful (and pregnant) wife. He is assigned to cover the upcoming elections in Iran, but quickly runs unto trouble as soon as he arrives. He quickly makes friends with a politically active and sympathetic taxi driver who takes him to areas fertile with dissent. But after witnessing a potentially explosive event he is arrested. His charge? Spying.
Ironically, a comic TV interview he had given to an American comedian on the Daily Show is used as evidence of his wrong doing. He is quickly thrown into solitary confinement in a notorious prison. He is psychologically tortured until — says the warden — his will is broken and he will lose all hope.
His family, it turns out, is no stranger to death and imprisonment for political views under earlier regimes. Both his father and his sister had gone through it, and appear, in his mind, to convince him to hold on. But will he make it?
Rosewater is Jon Stewart's first film, and it shows it. Stewart is known for the brilliant and funny The Daily Show that skewers mass media from a left-ish perspective. But a feature film is not a three-minute sketch. The movie starts out great with exciting scenes of news-gatering, but it starts to drag, heavily, once it moves to the prison. While it conveys the loneliness and suffering, solitary confinement does not make for good cinema. Bernal and the supporting actors are fine, but the buffoonish prison guard and the sinister administrator seem too much like the evil twins of Schultz and Klink to take seriously.
The Continent played at the ReelAsian Film Festival which continues for another week (reelasian.com), Rosewood played at TIFF this year and opens today in Toronto, check your local listings; and Rocks in my Pockets opened the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival (which features films on addiction and mental health – with an additional screening tomorrow: go to rendezvouswithmadness.com for times. Also opening: next week at Hot Docs there's the great documentary called Point and Shoot about a young American traveler/journalist who, despite being non-religious and non-radicalized, nevertheless joins the rebel armies fighting in Libya (listen to my review here). And a surprising story about the Life of Pigeons on CBC's the Nature of Things.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.
Tagged with: 韩寒, Han Han, Jon Stewart, Rocks in My Pocket, Rosewater, Signe Baumane, The Continent
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text:
Royal Democrat
Reza Pahlavi says America should help Iranians who oppose the regime.
It's been an agonizing week for Iranian patriots. On Monday, Washington's ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, suggested that if Iran's ruling clerics abandon efforts to make nuclear weapons, they can remain in power. Thursday brought another jolt, when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. would join direct negotiations with Tehran if Iran verifiably halt its weapons program.
In one fell swoop, it seems, the U.S. not only committed itself to a course that is certain to fail. It blundered into the one strategy guaranteed to strengthen the revolutionary regime while simultaneously undercutting the only force capable of stopping it: the Iranian people themselves.
At least, that's what I thought Reza Pahlavi would say when I telephoned Thursday for a comment on Secretary Rice's statement, following up on a long conversation we had in person last week. But Mr. Pahlavi, perhaps drawing on diplomatic skills he's honed in the quarter-century since his father, the shah of Iran, was deposed in 1979, gracefully called it "overall . . . a good move by Washington." The reason? "It will once and for all force Tehran's hand," and show that "the clerical regime is irreversibly committed to its dual-use enrichment program; that it will seek to stall for time, by following a pattern of deceit and duplicity; that at the end, it will prove its untrustworthiness and incapacity to become a reliable partner in diplomacy."
But then Mr. Pahlavi brought up the alternative strategy which Iranians, at home and abroad, have been urging deaf Western policy makers to adopt for years now: "That can only be internal pressure on the regime . . . support for proponents of democracy and human rights in Iran. There is no other answer."
Mr. Pahlavi should know, and not only because he is the son of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who for a time made Iran the linchpin of Middle Eastern stability and set his country on a course toward modernity and prosperity. The famous name helps, but so, for instance, does the Internet. From his home in a Washington suburb where I visited him last week, Mr. Pahlavi is in constant contact with people all over his homeland, including curious students who turn to him as a link with a more liberal past and also to exchange thoughts about a democratic future.
In short, Mr. Pahlavi easily grasps what the rest of the international community refuses to understand or to acknowledge.
"There is no incentive that we can give the Islamic Republic to stand down," he told me over Memorial Day weekend. "They need to do what they're doing, first and foremost because this is a totalitarian system. It has to keep the mood on the streets in its favor by continuing this process. If they are using the slogan of enrichment as a tool to keep these people mobilized, the minute they concede, they will lose their entire praetorian guard. Therefore there's no way that they are going to concede on that point."
[photo]The threat of sanctions or the promise of aid won't budge the regime either, he says. "There is no economic incentive that you can throw at them, because you are not dealing with a conventional state, in the sense that it is ultimately accountable and responsible and cares about the citizens living in that boundary. It's not the welfare of the people that matters to them. They can send $100 million to Hamas in Palestine when people are starving on the streets of Iran. They could care less about their economic status, so long as they can fuel their own war machine.
"You cannot even offer them a security guarantee, they don't care. For them, war is a gift from God. [President] Ahmadinejad is talking about Armageddon. He's talking about paving the way for the reemergence of the 12th imam, which is coming back to the planet to bring back stability and peace after major cataclysm. They really believe that."
Until that happens, the prospect of negotiations with the U.S. is a little godsend for the regime, Mr. Pahlavi explains. Iran's rulers can say, "Look at us! We're standing against the Great Satan . . . and guess what? We have brought them to their knees, we have brought them to the table."
As for Tehran's end game, that's simple: "Ultimately, what is the grand prize for them? They would like to achieve something the Soviets never could–the control of the Middle East. The economic lifeline of the Western world. By encircling the Persian Gulf, by institutionalizing themselves, with their proxies operating everywhere, and in a fait accompli-type scenario, force the world to reckon with them. Naturally, if they ultimately get the bomb, their deterrent will be even more dangerous."
Mr. Pahlavi, who is 45, has seen danger in his own life. He was at school in the United States when his parents left Iran, but joined them in exile and, after his father died in Egypt in 1980, became a target himself of the new regime's vilification campaign. Today, although he does not advertise his address, he doesn't surround himself with bodyguards. Inside his airy and attractive house in Maryland, pictures on a side table of his regally attired father and mother are the only obvious signs of his unique heritage.
Mr. Pahlavi is so focused on the future of Iran that he prefers not to spend time on the past. Even so, when I ask what might be different today if the Iranian revolution had never taken place, he points to a chain of events that seem even worse with hindsight than they did at the time: "The Russians probably would not have invaded Afghanistan the way they did, and Saddam Hussein would not have attacked Iran. . . . From Sudan to everywhere else you can think of, there have been acts of terrorism, attacks on apartments in Khobar, the blowing up of Marine barracks in Beirut. It's been all over the place. If you look at the world the way it was before this regime took over, we didn't have any of these problems."
And yet a solution to all of this is percolating up today, Mr. Pahlavi says, and it's coming from the Iranian people. In fact, he insists, in dealing with a belligerent Tehran, "there is only one thing that the outside world can do, and that is to tell the regime: 'We are serious about supporting the people who are inside Iran who are against you.' That is the only thing that will make Mr. Khamenei [Iran's supreme leader] and everybody stand down. Because nothing else ruffles them. The only thing they are really scared of are the people themselves."
Peaceful revolutions from within have worked before, so why, he asks, isn't the West investing in the Iranian people–"the same way they supported so many movements in Eastern Europe that ultimately brought down communist governments that were under Moscow's umbrella?" Dissidents are everywhere, in the universities, workplaces, the conventional armed forces, he adds: "There are thousands of cells . . . each trying to bring as much pressure as they can–but with very limited resources. Imagine the cumulative weight of all these resistance groups in a civil disobedience act–nonviolent, we don't believe in violent change–that could begin sustained pressure to the point of paralyzing the system until it would collapse."
It might be easy to dismiss Mr. Pahlavi as a typical pipe-dreaming exile if there weren't so much evidence from Iran of mounting popular unrest, including student demonstrations and other massive protests and labor strikes. Arguably, unrest does not automatically translate into a force for change. Like other Iranians in opposition, though, he has reason to believe that they could. People in Iran are among the world's busiest bloggers, for one thing, and many are talking their heads off to anyone who will listen:
"They want to have justice, they want to have equality, they want to have freedom of speech, they want to have a better life, they want to be connected to this progressive world, they like modernity. . . . And they know that the only obstacle between them and the free world is this regime. When you talk to young students today, they say: 'We don't have any more fears. We are out there, we are fighting–all we need is the support and recognition because that is going to prompt even more action inside Iran.'"
Helping opponents of the regime inside Iran does seem like a smart option, especially when you look at Iraq today–and then imagine how much better it would be if Saddam had been replaced by Iraqis who had already decided to pull together for a common cause and similar goals. It's also a far less precarious and destructive option than a military attack on the current regime or its nuclear sites.
Mr. Pahlavi is horrified by the thought, and not only because he loves his country. He can come up with plenty of other objections, beginning with the fact that Iran's top ayatollah and the rest of the regime would be the only beneficiaries: "I think Mr. Khamenei is sitting there praying and hoping that such an attack would occur. Because it would play right into their hands: They can call another jihad or it would give them every excuse in the book to deflect attention yet again [from their failings]. It would be the greatest gift you could give them."
Besides, he continues, "nobody in this world really believes that a full-scale military attack on Iran is foreseeable. Tanks marching all the way to Tehran–impossible. Limited air strikes at best. [And] it wouldn't achieve anything except infuriate the people; . . . you would lose many nationalists, who would say: 'This is an attack on Iran, not defiance of the regime–you want to hurt the regime, why don't you put sanctions on the regime? Keep their diplomats from traveling. Why don't you go and block and freeze all their assets and bank accounts and dummy companies that they operate through and [use to] transfer money to their cronies?'"
Why not indeed? Mr. Pahlavi says he is no enemy of diplomacy. What he can't figure out is why so much time and effort has been focused on Iran's rulers, while so little attention and support has been directed to the Iranian people. As he emphasizes every chance he gets, "It's not by sending the Sixth Fleet and annihilating the entire Iranian navy that anything is going to be achieved, not to mention the loss of lives. It's going to be by helping the people on the streets. . . . They are the best army that can fight against this evil and remove it from the planet."
By the way, Mr. Pahlavi says that in a democratic Iran, he would be honored to assume the title of shah in a parliamentary system, but only if the Iranian people ask him to. He already has at least one vote. On the way to meet him at his house, the nice lady who drove me there quite naturally referred to her boss as "His Majesty."
Ms. Smith is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana – Nissan's LM P1 team completed an intensive four-day test at NCM Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, this week. After a static show for the fans at last weekend's WEC season-opener at Silverstone, the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO was all-action for this important test.
Harry Tincknell, Michael Krumm, Max Chilton, Marc Gene, Jann Mardenborough and Alex Buncombe were on driving duty in Kentucky where the order of the day was to put miles on the car and start to set it up for Le Mans.
NCM Motorsports Park was chosen as it has corners that mimic various sections of the Le Mans track, as NISMO's Darren Cox explained: "This circuit was a great find, as we now have a very good idea how the GT-R will perform through Mulsanne Corner and the PlayStation chicane. This track also has its own version of the Porsche Curves – in curvature but not in topography – so it is the ideal place for us to test."
The team could choose the configuration of the circuit for testing, but unfortunately couldn't control the weather. Torrential rain in Bowling Green means that the team will have a head start if it rains at Le Mans in June.
"Testing has been going well," said Tincknell, who did the lion's share of the driving this week. "We managed some laps in the dry on the first morning, but it has been mainly wet since then. We have had the car running smoothly and are still learning masses every day. We have learned a lot about the Michelin 'wets,' especially our bespoke designed rear tire, so it has been very useful."
The focus of this week's test was to add mileage to the car and to continue the tuning process. The GT-R is still a brand new racing car, so it is testament to the hard work of the team that they are now at the stage when they can start to work on the set up of the car. The team also ran a Nissan-powered LM P2 car at the test, which validated the work they had done in the simulator in terms of setting benchmarks for the track and the performance of the tires. All this took place under the watchful gaze of NISMO COO Motohiro Matsumura, who was pleased to see the good progress that has been made.
"Our focus was on optimizing the suspension set up and refining elements like traction control," said Team Principal Ben Bowlby. "We've gone from trying to make the car go around a race track to getting the car ready to race. We had some issues with the drainage of the track. Because of the river issue we were having to run the wet tires a long way into what would have normally been classed as dry running. Interestingly, we could stay on the wets for a long time in drying conditions, so that gives us a lot of confidence."
While the online rumor mill gathers pace, the efforts of the Nissan LM P1 team continue at full throttle, fuelled by the support of the race fans who can't wait to see the GT-R on track at Le Mans.
"We're very pleased to have put almost another 1,200 miles (2,000 kms) on the car, especially when you consider that 50 percent of our running was disturbed by the wet weather," said Cox. "It was interesting to get Michael Krumm's feedback on the car, as he hasn't driven it for a while, and it was great to see Al Buncombe go out and be bang on the pace straight away. There is still a long way to go, but the car is really starting to look like a racing car now. Every time we go out on track, we find something new. It is a delight to see the car come on in leaps and bounds, but nobody knows exactly where we will be until we get to Le Mans."
The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO will be homologated at the end of April. Nissan has just two more days of running in the U.S. in early May before the entire LM P1 team decamps to Europe in preparation for Le Mans.


text:
Table of contents Page
1.0 Introduction 2
2.0 Effective website by Rayport and Jaworski 5
3.0 Aspects of effective website adopted by MPH groups Sdn Bhd 7
4.0 Recommendations to enhance into an effective web page 12
4.1 MPH goes mobile 12
4.2 Podcast 13
4.3 Context 15
4.4 Communication 16
4.5 Other changes 17
6.0 References 19
1.0) Introduction
MPH Group Malaysia Sdn Bhd is best known for its book retailing. MPH is involved in printing, publishing and distribution of books services throughout Malaysia and Singapore. The history of the company begins in the year 1890 with W. G. Shellabear being the founder of MPH who established the Amelia Bishop Press in Singapore. In the 1900's, Reverence William T. Cherry expanded the organisation and changed the name to (MPH) Methodist Publishing House. MPH further went name changes to Malaya Publishing House (MPH) and owner changes but the acronym remained as the company is known today. The final breakthrough came in the year 2002 when Malaysian businessman Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary acquired the company through Jalinan Inspirasi Sdn Bhd. Hence, the MPH becomes a wholly Malaysian-owned private limited company.
The MPH headquarters is located in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, with approximately 100 personnel where reliable, efficient and quality services offered to ensure seamless distribution to customers of various grades. It is built over 26,000 square feet to fulfil the dispatching areas where it provides a complete warehousing and distribution services. Currently, MPH distributors have 15 vans and 2 trailers to provide distribution to major cities apart from engaging independent transport services to ensure timely distribution to all customers.
Recently MPH started its own printing and publishing arm under MPH Group Printing and MPH Group Publishing respectively. As of today MPH has 27 outlets in Malaysia and 4 in Singapore. It has a heavy presence in Klang Valley with 17 outlets operating in major shopping outlets and cities including in Sunway Pyramid, Subang Parade, 1Utama and The curve to name a few. Others are 3 in Johor, 2 in Negeri Sembilan and 1 each in Perak, Penang, Melaka, Kedah and Sarawak operating under the MPH bookstore's brand name.
MPH Groups are a company that develops products like books, magazines, stationery and greeting cards. Its subsidiary companies are MPH Bookstores Sdn Bhd, MPH Magazines Sdn Bhd and MPH Distributors Sdn Bhd. Although there are a lot of publishers under its wings, the major publishers are:
· Harper Collins (US and UK)
· Random House (US)
· Transworld (UK)
· Simon And Schuster (US)
· Hachette book Group (US)
· Lonely Planet (Australia)
If one have to surf a website for information on books, MPH Online is very coherent and user friendly. Their website has the key elements of effective websites such as appearance, content, functionality, website usability and search engine optimisation structured on the main page. The advertisements and banners map out the products that are relevant to the websites which always introduces to a link that comes under the same company products which is MPH Groups Sdn Bhd. Products are pictured with meaningful graphics and tagged with the selling price furthermore the overview of the products is given when clicked on the particular product. Some prominent features available from the web page are such as:
v Text- Background does not interrupt the text and it is large enough and is perfectly clean.
v Navigation bars and buttons are easy to understand and use, consistent and has an index to provide the users on where they are.
v Every graphic are labelled and not big or corky with background use browser-safe colours.
v General design like page downloads quickly, immediate visual impact and excellent graphic elements.
Figure 1.1
Figure 1.1 is the official logo for visual identification of the company.
Figure 1.2 is the aerial view of some of MPH bookstores operating in the Klang Valley.
2.0) Effective website by Rayport and Jaworski
Jeffrey F. Rayport and Bernard J. Jaworski (co-authors of e-commerce) who run Marketspace LLC, a creative marketing firm in San Francisco introduced the 7C framework for E-commerce interface design. The 7C framework (Figure 2.1) was developed primarily for analysing E-commerce interfaces and examines the customer interface based on seven factors:
Figure 2.1 Rayport and Jaworski's 7C framework
2.1) Context:
Context refers to how the website is delivered, if it is user friendly, aesthetically or functionally. Functionality refers to the layout of the content to a set of pages with means of navigation to give satisfaction for users. The section breakdown is also a main aspect of content on how a piece of information is partitioned into a set of pages. The linking and navigation must be related to other web pages and be systematic. Aesthetically means the use of correct colour contrast and visual themes for the particular webpage. For example an attractive website with colourful banners and visuals makes the users to remember the particular website.
2.2) Contents:
The content focus on how a website is presented. It comprises of text, images, sounds and videos available on the web site. It frequently offers a mix of products which are interrelated with each other. For example, the correlation of products supported with audio narration may promote and convey a message, thus users are able to get a hold of the product overview.
2.3) Community:
Community concerns with the interaction between users through the web page. An effective interaction creates a feeling of membership and a sense of involvement. Interactive communication is when users are a member of the group where they can send instant messages, queries and to obtain information, however, non-interactive communication usually involves in a direct exchange or response. For instance like e-CRM (Customer Relations Management) is widely used by businesses to enhance customer care.
2.4) Customisation:
Customisation is the ability of the website to allow the users to adjust the structure and preface to give a convenient environment for users. It is the site's ability to be tailored by each user. The ability for a user to personalise the website by changing the fonts, translating to preferred language and page layout makes them feel comfortable. For instance by holding shift & press plus (+) button together on the keyboard enables to zoom in the content of the page.
2.5) Communication:
This refers to on how a website allows interaction or dialogue between the websites and the users. There are three phases of communication that takes place in a web based system.
Ø Broadcast- a one way communication like value distribution
Ø Interactive- a two way of communication like customer service request
Ø Hybrid- a combination of both the above like freeware distribution
An effective website is a site that enables a very dynamic interactive communication where sending and receiving of information is fast, accurate and reliable.
2.6) Connection:
The efficiency of the website to connect to other websites is characterised according to the linkage and the amount of information quoted from the other sites. When users are interested in a particular product, they demand for the overall features of the product. This usually connects to other layouts hence the server transfer rate should match the speed. For example a microsite that advertises on the page is an outsourced content which links to the fastest pathway for the connection. Users are most likely does not like to wait.
2.7) Commerce:
Finally, commerce deals with the ability for a website to close a business or a successful transaction. For example like shopping cart, privacy, security, order tracking, delivery options and payment structures are considered as commercial business for making profit. A successful website is a website that provides services and security from purchasing to delivering of goods.
3.0) Aspects of effective website adopted by MPH groups Sdn Bhd
There are over 600 million websites in the world. The MPH official website (www.mphonline.com) is one of those bookstore industry with very appealing, polished and professionally structured site. It has all the essentials to compete with the current e-market trend. Figure 3.1 is the sample home page of the MPH Groups bookstore.
Figure 3.1 MPH Homepage
Based on Rayport and Jaworski's 7C framework, the readers will be discussed with the features adopted by MPH online.
3.1) The context of the page is clear and precise with Log-in/Register, My Account and Help tab are all on the main page. The promotional page which offers 15% discount with redemption Voucher (Baucer Buku 1Malaysia) clearly displayed (Figure 3.1.1). This voucher is given to Malaysian higher education students and can redeem only in selected bookstores and MPH is one of them.
Figure 3.1.1 Advertising redemption vouchers utilisation at MPH stores
The coherent arrangement of books according to their genre is very appealing. As we can see, the upper tab design has the breakdown from bestsellers, new arrivals, school revisions, e-books, special offers and etc. The advertising sectors are minimised on the left hand site of the page. These advertising sites offer a related field of advertisements like security alerts and foreign language bestsellers. The web designer clearly utilised the concept of 7c effectively.
3.2) The contents are in standard use of contrast with white backgrounds and black alphabets. The bestseller and most frequently asked books are all highlighted with bold letters associated with clear visual graphics. The sentences are short and organised where topics are clearly labelled in a small paragraph. Frequent visitors will find it that the website is frequently updated as I have noticed because of frequent log-in. When new arrivals hit the market, the previous books are moved to the second layer. The flashy graphics are tempting to make us crave to feel the books.
3.3) Functionality of the webpage is quick and efficiently connects hyperlinks, contact forms, site search for the title/author/ISBN/publisher/e-book search under one tab. One has to just move the cursor to the search tab and click from one of the above mentioned titles. The site simply is fascinating with its:
I. Simplicity- The page simply is a website to be revisited because it is not very bombastic.
II. Fast-loading pages- According to marketingland.com research analysis, a retail internet site should load up between 8-10 seconds and the MPH official website loaded with an impressive less than 5 seconds. Thus the connection meets the standard of retailers' homepage.
III. Consistent Layout- the mapping of the webpage is not confusing as some other sites. Most of the sites lead to a labyrinth of pages but MPH online is consistent within their website.
IV. Prominent/ Logical layout- The main menu item is at the pinnacle of the site as the best way it should be. Based on Rayport and Jaworsky, the menu items should be limited to 10 or lower and MPH online maintains only eight tabs on the menu. Within this they have covered all the necessity breakdowns to be precise.
3.4) Communication between the webpage and the users are relatively fast. When we click for the books of our choice, the page loading is still at an impressive 5 seconds and lower. For example when browsing for a particular book by the author John Grisham, I simply moved my cursor to the tab search by author and typed the name and it pops up; all the books under the writer came within seconds. Clicking the selected title prompts the plot of the novel together with the selling price and shipping fee. Figure 3.4.1 represents the image of the book with its plot.
Figure 3.4.1 Novel with its pricing and plots
Apart from books there are many other categories MPH group provides online such as stationery and office tools, toys and games, electronic and multimedia, gifts and lifestyles. When move your cursor to these options it will further break down the categories, for example like under stationary and tools one may click to choose sub categories like wallpapers, writing tools, notebook and diary, calculator, file ink cartridges or even stickers. Communication does connect people even between users and websites.
3.5) On the contact us section at the bottom of the page, one may find placing orders, search the store, your account, and contact us tabs when clicked. This process is to lubricate the commerce process. The delivery process includes delivery rates between east and west Malaysia and the rates according the amount of purchasing also included. The payment method includes:
· Maybank2u
· CIMBClicks
· Major credit cards from Visa and Master or
· Payment at outlets
Customers may choose the most convenient method to smooth the payment process they feel safe and convenient. On the other hand, the company provides a rebate of 20% off the list price for every online purchasing. Figure 3.5.1 shows the discounted price for online shoppers.
Figure 3.5.1. 20% discount offer for online purchasing
4.0) Recommendations to enhance into an effective web page
MPH's main competitors are bookstores like Amazon.com, Kinokuniya Malaysia, Times Bookstore and Popular Bookstores Malaysia. All these bookstores are very popular in Malaysia and are going online where the internet purchasing becomes a phenomenon for the retailers to expand their product offerings, adding in-store pickup, free shipping and experimenting with social media. All these firms in the industry are reinventing how to shop online in the future. Therefore, there will be more choice for the consumers to compare and contrast products and prices for evaluation. MPH Groups need to keep in pace to stay afloat in the industry. Here are some of my humble recommendations for MPH Group to consider:
4.1) MPH Goes Mobile
With the dawn of the digital era, millions are reaching their Smartphone when the urge to shop strikes. Whether at home or on the go, these consumers use their phone to browse and research their products, hunt and make deals for purchases. Before this you have to go to Paris to buy books of their cultural values, now Paris comes to you. That is the way it goes now.
Rayport and Jaworski added two more elements on their scholarly articles which is 2M. The 2M are Mobile Settings and Mobile Device constrains. The 2M's and 7C's are proposed as a new framework for mobile commerce interfaces. The common aspects of e-commerce and m-commerce interfaces make it possible for m-commerce researchers begin their investigations with the body of knowledge accumulated in e-commerce. Mobile setting represents the unique environment where mobile users perform their tasks in terms of time, place, and context. Mobile device constraints encompass the various issues associated with the inferior performance of mobile devices. To be portable, mobile devices have smaller screens, less convenient input facilities and lower multimedia processing capabilities than desktop computers. Context-awareness computing provides the users with task-relevant information or services. To further enhance the Mobile commerce MPH Group may use the following framework for the study of m-commerce interface design by Rayport and Jaworski.
· How a web site is delivered
· Aesthetic and functional look and feel
· Time-sensitive content as well as place, context-sensitive content
· User to user communication
· Site's ability to tailor itself or to be tailored by users
· The dialogue between sites and users
· Formal linkage between sites
· Shopping tools supporting the sale of goods and services
Figure 4.1. The new framework for m-commerce interface design
4.2) Podcast
A podcast is a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of audio, video, PDF or e-pub files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. A podcast can be played with iTunes or iPod. This is a new trend that brings a fantastic selection of in-depth author interviews straight to your PC or mobile. Podcasting is both a converged medium bringing together audio, the web and portable media player, and a disruptive technology that has caused e-business to reconsider some of the established practices and preconceptions about audiences, consumption, production and distribution.
An example of podcasting book is the Oxford Handbook of Clinical medicine which it represents a three part podcast series about the medical and health related topics:
ü Volume 1: We hear how the book comes into existence and how it set out the prevailing culture of medical education.
ü Volume 2: Exploring the philosophy of the book and the authors hope and;
ü Volume 3: Looking at how the handbook kept up to date and meeting the challenges in the future.
There are tons of other books from health, cookbooks to novels going podcast where one can listen anywhere and anytime with the mobile or by just downloading it to their computer. MPH group can play these books through iTunes or YouTube channel provided they subscribe with YouTube and iTunes for support. Figure 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 are taken from Blackwell Bookshops going iTunes and YouTube.
Figure 4.2.1 Podcasting books from iTunes (Source: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/blackwell-online-podcasts/id313180102)
Figure 4.2.2 Podcasting books from YouTube (Source: https://www.youtube.com/BlackwellOnline)
4.3) Context
Aside from the main upgrades as stated above, MPH Group seriously needs to consider upgrading a few elements on their webpage as described by Rayport and Jaworski's 7C under the context arrangement and design. There is no home button located on the page. It is very peculiar because home button is an important substance in any web pages. When we surf a web we tend to go on the far side of the page and once we have over circumnavigate things we need to go back to the homepage in order to look for other items.
Basically, the users' habits are a bit similar to customers in the store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they're looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don't even look at. Most users search for something interesting or useful and as soon as some promising products are found, users click. It is advisable for MPH to utilise the white space available on their left and right side and start advertising books by category each per line. For example:
Ø First Layer: Bestselling novels
Ø Second Layer: Bestselling Nonfictions
Ø Third Layer: Safety and Health Books
Ø Fourth Layer: Bahasa Malaysia bestsellers
Ø Fifth Layer: Other Language Bestsellers (Chinese, Japanese, French and etc.)
Ø Sixth Layer: School revision books and
Ø Seventh Layer: Magazines
By doing this, most sought after book advertising on the home page are covered and minimises scroll thus reducing the existing 15 layers to 8 layers. Users don't read but they scan. By analysing the webpage, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page. The number of books also can be added from five (currently) to 7 in each layer if the white space is utilised.
4.4) Communication
Communication between the web and users may also be upgraded. As we can see on the homepage, there is a search feature but it comes with the choice of title, author, ISBN, Published and e-book searches only. Meaning we can search the page by these titles only. Since MPH online provides many other types of products rather than books such as gifts, stationaries, magazines and e-books, how a user might search the site for the above items? It is essential for the MPH group includes a search feature for all categories and includes a link to this feature in every page. Refer to figure 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 for the difference in the search category from MPH online and Penguin. Co of United Kingdom.
Figure 4.4.1 Search box for penguin books online UK
Figure 4.4.2 Search box for MPH online only in selected headings
4.5) Other Changes
There are a few other areas that can be enhanced as well such as:-
Creating e-CRM (Customer Relationship Management). The goal of e-CRM is to help create and increase customer equity. Numerous studies have found that e-CRM emphasis can give mutual benefit to both the company and the customer.
Buying and selling new, used and rare books to wider the market scope by allowing the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world. MPH Group can also promote books by doing an exhibition in schools throughout Malaysia. For instance they can start off with local schools from the Klang valley first. This tour is to emphasize students the importance of books and the value they might gain from reading at the same time creating awareness of the importance of books in our daily lives.
Philanthropic organisations- This is to promote the welfare of others by donating a portion of the money for good purposes, generous and benevolent. For instance like RM1.00 donation for every purchase of RM50 and above to the research foundation of any selected university or any other educational funds.
5.0) Conclusion
With the 7C's framework in hand, the abundant literature on this subject indicates the trend in designing websites is toward simplicity. "Cool stuff" is on its way out. Revolving windings, flashing banner ads, grotesque background colours and textures and a meaningless multitude of multimedia effects that require endless plug-ins will be extinct as electronic commerce continues to advance. Users no longer want glitter – they want content and service, and they want it fast. This demand will continue to drive MPH Groups Sdn Bhd toward speed, navigation efficiency, simplicity, and elegance with an emphasis on customer focus and security.
Although the adopted features of MPH Groups are relevant and consistent with any other web pages, they need to keep pace with the current trends because Information Technology related items are becoming obsolete faster as time passes by with the invention of new methods are always in the experiment.
This assignment aimed to evaluate various elements designed to produce an effective and quality service. A focused approach has been identified in all possible views with some specific reference from competitors to fill in the gap with the key components in order for MPH Groups to compete with the global market. The MPH Groups Sdn Bhd might consider my humble suggestions enhancing the quality status of web design for quality assessment. Thus I would like to conclude with MPH Groups to emphasize the continuous improvement of the design aspect to promote and provide to customers anytime, anywhere as education is the best investment for anyone.
3, 644 words
6.0) References
Blackwell books. (2013). Retrieved on 28 September From Http://www.bookshop.blackwell.co.uk
Gesenhues, A. (2013). Marketing Land retail website. Retrieved on 30 September From http://marketingland.com/retail-website-load-times-continue-to-decline-with-a-22-decrease-during-the-last-year-37604
MPH Group Sdn Bhd. (2013). Retrieved on 25 September From Http://www.mphonline.com
Penguin Putnam. (2013). Retrieved on 28 September From Http://www.penguin.co.uk
Rayport, F. Jeffrey and Bernard, J. Jaworski (2005). Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces with customers, 2 (6).
Young, E. L and Benbasat, Izak (2004). International Journal of Electronic Commerce. A framework for the study of Interface Design for mobile Commerce, 8 (3), 80-84.