Greatest Hits: The Best of Des

The obsession with this film continues. If you have seen it, please share your "nut graf" of the movie with me, either by posting a comment or email. A nut graf is the paragraph in a news article that sums up the story for the reader succinctly. Think of it this way -- if your reader could only read one paragraph, this should be the one that tells him or her everything he or she needs to know.

And away we go!

Desiree Koh
Boxing is one of the most poetic metaphors to life because it's graceful, physically challenging and mentally demanding, and it can make you a hero in the middle of the ring but a fallen castaway in the wrong corner. With humility, morality and the gentle hand of someone who's atoned from being sent into the brush by Sergio Leone and dirtied by the1970s grit of New York City, Clint Eastwood directs a film of tragic Shakespearan level -- hope and hopelessness, triumph and letting go, pride and mortality, friendship and betrayal -- as moving as the silhouette ofHilary Swank working on her speed bag.

Jit Fong Chin
Men try to be good father figures, but they can't control everything and choices arise out of chances and fate.

Sam Miller
Being strong means being flexible, not rigid or determined.

Blythe Bernhard
Blood alone does not a family make. Life is not tried, it is merely survived if you're standing outside the fire.

Caroline Sietmann
It's about taking a chance. And falling hard. It's about being able to say that you took the chance. That you lived.

OK, enough already. Over 12 inches of snow blitzing continuously for the last 16 hours is unnecessary and unacceptable. It wouldn't be so bad if we had some decent slopes around here for skiing and apres-ski. But all we have are ploughed-in cars, squalls swirling the snow aimlessly up in the air and generally awful weather perfect for re-reading a book like Misery.

It's a giant sno-cone machine out there -- from my street-level apartment, I can see about half a foot of snow blown and packed up against my windows. It's a Dairy Queen blizzard. When I left the house at 7.30 this morning to go boxing, I stepped through knee-deep snow to get to the truck and spent 15 minutes brushing off the fresh snow -- really, if we need to find some good cheer in all this, at least the snow is fresh, soft, pretty. Although I easily powered Brucie on to four wheel drive on high and he propelled through snow embankments easily, I ended up at the gym with wet socks and shoes. Then I helped shovel out cars stuck in snow (which was a lot of fun -- you don't get to do this in Singapore!) and now, I'm just going to spend the rest of my day catching up on reading Middlesex.

But oh wait, Beth and I are going to see A Streetcar Named Desire tonight and we're grabbing a bite beforehand. Oops. Can't get too uncomfortable under the blankie.

Is it spring yet?!

My second HotelChatter.com story: http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2005/1/14/02656/2298

OK, so I'm a nerd, but hear me out anyway. There is a scene in "The Aviator" (good movie, follows all the good movie rules, beautiful colour, 1920s Hollywood glamour galore, Jude Law as the best Errol Flynn since "Robin Hood" -- yet, something about it doesn't really say "Best Picture" to me... for that, see "Million Dollar Baby") where Howard Hughes is beginning his descent into madness. He's unshaven, his hair is not cut and neither are his fingernails. His house is a mess in trying to keep the germs out. Ava Gardner, his former lover and arm candy, shows up and cleans him up for a court appearance. For this scene, Artie Shaw's "Nightmare" blares.

Reading my book club's latest selection, "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides (great choice, Jitty), there is a scene when a character is wooing his chick by imitating Artie Shaw's "Begin the Beguine" on his clarinet. Inspired, I put on the CD and the first track is "Nightmare." I recognized it as the song from that scene in "The Aviator." Earlier in the week, I had read a Shaw obituary that he was once married to Ava Gardner. It hit me like the gusto of a swing band at the Cocoanut Grove, the irony of Marty Scorcese's soundtrack selection! God almighty, Marty is amazing.

My debut on HotelChatter.com, a neat site devoted to tales and gossip about hotels around the world -- the boutique hotel of hotel web sites, if you will.

http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2005/1/11/235524/521

Also, I should probably share some of my other works. I write the W News, the W Hotels' online and email newsletter, and here is the Holiday Issue, the most recent edition:

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/promotions/promo_landing.html?category=WH_NEWS_1204_1

The premiere issue: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/promotions/promo_landing.html?category=WH_NEWS_0704_1
The second issue: http://www.starwoodhotels.com/promotions/promo_landing.html?category=WH_NEWS_1004_1&IM=WNEWS_oct104_HP_NAV

Thanks for perusing!

Easy.

1. Million Dollar Baby
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Mean Girls
4. Spider-Man 2

The best boxing movies aren't about boxing -- they're stories told through the grace and violence of the sport. The best dramatic movies aren't about CGI and Lucasfilm -- they're about stories so understatedly dark that beyond the shadow of a doubt, as you're sitting with the lights turned down, you know that there's a little part of you projected on the screen.

Never much a fan of spaghetti westerns nor Harrys that are dirty, I've always acknowledged Clint Eastwood as an important member of the contemporary film community, but never directly (although anyone who pays as lovely a tribute to Johnny Mercer as he did in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" must surely be some sort of a wicked mint julep). Last year, "Mystic River" was perhaps one of the most honourable meditations on fate and destiny -- as unbending and non-negotiable as the title river that runs through the film. I realized that Clint was a fantastic director -- I never thought such Macbethian drama was possible (sorry, didn't believe what they said about "Unforgiven").

I had been waiting for what seemed like the longest time to see "Million Dollar Baby," both because of my current obsession with boxing and because it's a Clint (they tell you in the sport that you have 15 rounds to knock out your opponent, why do it in the first? Patience has never been more of a virtue in this game of virile violence). This story has been told a million times, both through fiction and non-fiction -- downtrodden characters who carry sadness with them like kids dragging their bookbags to school, boxing as a physical fight they could win while a metaphor for beating the odds against dead end lives. Clint doing what he does best, grizzly scowl and rasp, Morgan Freeman as the gentleman voice of reason, Hilary Swank the scrappy champion fighter waiting to be sharpened and unleashed. She is one of those who lives in Los Angeles and has to take the bus. The point is, you don't see privileged people wanting to box with such intensity and desperation.

But aren't all of our lives cliches, until derailed unexpectedly? What happens then is that tragedy brings out the most, if not the best, out of humanity. The irony of great boxing films is that they are made with heart, and the icing on the cake is that this movie showcases some of the most beautifully shot fight scenes since "Raging Bull." It's not a film you can really talk about, you just have to watch it and feel. When they created the term "motion pictures," they must have also meant movies this moving. Clint is the best director of Shakespearan tragedy, except that there's no costumes, no double entendres, no double-edged, hidden meanings in the dialogue -- it's a direct connection from screen to soul.

Can I have the envelope please?