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	16 April 2005 NOVEL: A JUDGEMENT IN STONE (1976). An illiterate housekeeper slaughters her family employers on Valentine's Day out of shameful resentment. That's how Ruth Rendell begins her novel: she reveals the crime, the killer, and the motive all on the first page. By so boldly declaring the plot, she makes it perfectly clear that this is a crime novel concerned with the how, not the Agatha Christie-esque what. But Rendell doesn't merely explore character motivation; she passes each specimen under a lens of brutal truth, firmly punctuating her observations with razor-sharp truisms. But far from mutilating her characters out of artistic frigidity, she underscores the tragic significance of each shortcoming, each selfish act of compensation, each flaw by all involved—every moment of the book, after all, points squarely in one direction, the murder of an entire family. Judgement is thick with irony as a result, and every agonizing turn of events rings true. Rendell satisfies the guilty desire for lurid gossip with similar skill. We get to see each character at their ugliest, most private moments, when true greed reveals itself. In her finely crafted, dry prose, she will state that the mother hired the housekeeper out of a snobbish desire to command someone of a lesser class, or that the housekeeper, ever-defensive due to a lifetime of illiteracy, is on the constant lookout for ways to blackmail everyone around her. But even as she describes such every day (and catastrophic) cruelties, she never neglects to paint a sympathetic portrait of the killer, whose shame the literate world could never imagine. It's this sort of complexity that transforms this page-turner into a literary chess match. Absolutely mesmerizing and thrilling. So well done, in fact, that the ultimate outcome feels both inevitable and frustratingly avoidable all at the same time. It is not so much true that all the world loves a lover as that a lover loves the world.     Back to main MOVIE: SHAOLIN SOCCER (2001). A scrappy group of kung-fu rejects escape the mundanity of their modern workaday to form a soccer superteam. Imagine The Bad News Bears colliding with Jacky Chan-style slapstick, and bingo: Shaolin Soccer. An amazing, dumbfoundingly simple combo, I gotta say. And big fun! We've got over-the-top action, rendered with wacky CG. A bunch of lovable, underdog losers (who all happen to be master Kung-Fu artists) with names like Iron Belly. A sweetly nostalgic "getting the band back together" sequence. An evil, corporate soccer boss to defeat—he trains underwater, for strength! He shoots his players up with evil American steroids! The creamy bits of icing surrounding this fluffy cake are director Stephen Chow's many parodic references, including the climactic one-arm smackdown from The Matrix, and a character who happens to look, sound, and move just like Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon, complete with yellow jumpsuit. The cartoonish mayhem concludes with the requisite Chinese nostalgia for past glories (the team's success supposedly sparks renewed popular interest in ancient martial arts), but I suppose that's no more off-putting than the American Individualism claptrap spewed by Hollywood. I love this Stephen Chow guy. Next on my to-see list: Kung Fu Hustle. If she had studied Shaolin Kung-Fu, parking would be much easier.     Back to main MOVIE: SAW (2004). A mysterious serial killer tortures his victims through a series of death trap games. Now, when I first "saw" (heh) the previews for this indie-horror flick, I was impressed: here we have some poor soul, stuck in a deadly brain-teaser with only a creepy clown puppet keeping them company. I was hoping for a delightfully sickening mix between The Game and Seven. But I should've seen the warning signs—there, right above Danny Glover's name in the film roster, sat the name: Cary Elwes. Ever since his one moment of glory in The Princess Bride, he's starred in one stinker after another (proof: Robin Hood: Men in Tights) rendering his judgement in scripts utterly dismissable. Indeed, he sucks rocks, struggling through even the easiest of roles with an embarassing, hollow formalism. To make matters worse, the deathtraps are neither ingenious nor torturous (despite the previews), and are tainted with the corny morality of the killer, whose mission seems to revolve around teaching these bourgeois milquetoasts how to properly appreciate life ("He helped me," says one surviving victim. Jesus.). And any suspense his machinations may have once promised is rudely hijacked by the cinematography, which feels like a cheap knock-off of Nine Inch Nails' exquisite junk aesthetic. Quick cuts, cranked camera, and goth grunge just make the whole thing feel like a throwaway B film. Lingering silence would've been a lot more effective. By the end of the film, literally a "the butler did it" deus-ex-machina reveal that had me slapping my forehead in despair, I was ready for bed. No nightmares for me that night. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore. Game over!     Back to main 14 April 2005 PHOTO DIARY. I got a new laptop for my birthday a couple weeks ago. It's a Fujitsu T4010. With a simple twist, it goes from this... ...to this! An overgrown, 4.5 pound PDA with a 12-inch SXGA screen? Me likey.   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. Actual point-of-purchase product: The Exercise Block, whose instructions read: 1. Place block on floor. 2. Walk around it twice. 3. Sit down and relax. You have just walked around the block twice. Walking is good for you!   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. Here's the new building where I work, located in Koreatown just across the street from the Wiltern Theater. It's called the Wilshre Colonnade, and is made with lots of white soapy stone. It features a genuinely soothing fountain in its courtyard. Nicki and I get to eat lunch together every day in this sunny courtyard. It's fun. 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