Unrelated...really unrelated...things

I saw Curse of the Golden Flower sometime last week (I can see movies and go out whenever I want to-mwah-ha-ha-because it's writing period!) and Jaime is soooo right about the Chinese breast thing. Americans don't really know anything about China (except Chinese Americans) but the ONE THING WE DO KNOW is that Japanese/Chinese/Korean women are supposed to have flat chests and be really really good at fighting ninjas.


Armies of women with prominently displayed bosoms.

Curse of the Golden Flower, despite this minor flaw, was actually super enjoyable. For those of you who may be worried that this movie will be like its predecessor, House of Flying Daggers, Golden Flower is WAY more interesting. This movie is Greek in its scope (tensions between various family members of the Imperial family) and completely over the top, full of Chinese goodness in its execution. I'm trying to think of examples...like the palace, which is ornate to the point of psychadelic hanging cloth, or the palace timekeeper dude, who announces the hour of the day along with various crazy sayings about rivers, suns, etc. in town-cryer-y fashion throughout the movie. The best thing, though, is that this movie relies more on super-intense relationships than on the visual spectacle of fighting. Visual spectacle is totally fulfilled by the palace, the fighting that comes later on (not to give anything away), but most appropriately, by...the golden flower!

Moving on to the unrelated thing...I did eventually get those pictures of the Bosque developed, but they didn't turn out very well because the TSA people over x-rayed my film, I guess. Whoops. Here are a couple of the pictures from the roll of lower-speed film, taken later in the morning and so not as dramatic: