trampled under foot

So I'm blogging at 8am. No I didn't wake up early; I haven't slept. I haven't slept well for a while now, did I run over a kid and then block it out of my mind or something, wtf?

At least I'm making productive use of my time though. I just went to California Fitness and was delighted to learn that at 6am, they don't have their music on. If you've been to Cali Fitness, you'd know they have the shittiest collection of music: rock music that's DJed/tranced/remixed out. I heard a rave version of Chili Pepper's Under the Bridge and I damn near threw my back out.

And I'm doing alot of reading. Reading the news right now and came across this interesting piece on the Chinese government vs the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Basically, the "big six" government is at it again, demanding the film festival pull the film 10 Conditions of Love, which they claim "incites ethnic violence between Muslim and Chinese". The best part is China threatened to cut Melbourne's "sister city ties" with Tianjin if Australia "does not right its wrongdoings".

Wrongdoings for screening a film at a fucking festival? Remember what Noel Gallagher said about the Chinese government? "Music is music, I don't get what that has to do with politics, but fucking communists don't agree".

The same can be said for film.

Two highlights to this story. The first is Hong Kong is represented in a good way, and by that I mean we're not written like we're part of China and that we're not on China's side on this issue:

Rebecca MacKinnon, an assistant professor in the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Center, noted that for generations film, theater and literature had been little more than tools in the Chinese government’s propaganda arsenal. Many Chinese, she said, simply have no firsthand experience of uncensored art.

The second highlight? The director of the film that got pulled is JEFF DANIELS. aka Harry Dunne from DUMB AND DUMBER. AHHAHAHA.

You know ever since Dumb and Dumber I can't take Jeff Daniels seriously? I ain't the only one. According to IMDB, you know in the original script of Speed, Jeff Daniels was supposed to backstab Keanu and be the main villain? But the director was like "hey come on now, Jeff Daniels can't be no villain he's too goofy" so they hired Dennis Hopper. AHAHAH.

“Where does this stop?” Jeff Daniels asked. “This is just a film festival. What’s next?”

All I remember is Harry selling a headless bird to a blind kid.

Mark Fishkin, who runs a film festival in California, had this to say:

While China will most likely continue to pressure festivals and filmmakers, Mr. Fishkin said he hopes such efforts backfire. “The Chinese could receive so much negative publicity over this that as a member of world community it may just not be worth it,” he said. “But I may just be playing the optimist.”

Yeah, Fish, I think you're being too optismistic, because the Chinese government is unaware that all their demands and random laws and restrictions are making the rest of the world roll their eyes at them. They just think they're victims of a Western media biase.

It's good to be optismistic though, according to Radiohead: if you try the best you can, if you try the best you can. the best you can is good enough.

Or at least that's what we were told when we was kids.