"Beijing Bicycle": Another Excellent Film from the World's Center of Creativity

Above: The cast and director of Beijing Bicycle

Above: Li Bin as Jian in Beijing Bicycle (International Title)

Domestic Title: Shiqi sui de danche 十七岁的单车 ("A Seventeen Year-Old's Bicycle")

An excellent film indeed. The cinematography, especially the final chase sequence, is exquisite. More importantly, the story line--really two vignettes about two boys whose drastically different lives are bound together by a bicycle--is well written, and the characters are well-defined. Some scenes are a bit too long, but that's an insignificant fault when the film is taken in its entirety.

With this film as well as others by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, China indeed is the undisputed Center of great and meaningful cinema!

In an interview, BB's director Wang Xiaoshuai stated that China is not "there" yet in terms of making the big box-office action films of Hollywood. And we say thank God for that!

A plea to all Chinese film-makers: Please, please, don't ever go "there." Today's films coming out of Hollywood studios are filthy, crass, meaningless and absurd. We at the Fairbank Report need the kind of films Wang and his colleagues are making for inspiration...

Click here for the trailer from Netflix.

Mortgage Rate at 6.66% on 6/6/06

Is the market playing mind games?

D-Student Turned "Educator," And It Shows...

Apparently, the principal (see yesterday's entry below) of the taxpayer-funded Mechista madrassa in Los Angeles does not know the difference between "principal" and "principle." He refers to himself in the madrassa's website as "principle." With "educators" like these, the future of "the people of the corn" is secure.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Academia Semillas del Pueblo raises the bar of public education for all.

CONTACT: MARCOS AGUILAR, Principle Director of Development and Operations

323/791-7496

4736 Huntington Drive South, L.A., CA

Academia Semillas del Pueblo Charter School (Academia) is focused
on organizing an excellent education and producing the highest levels of academic achievement. A culturally relevant education makes academic excellence possible for all students. Academia continues to be focused on a rigorous academic program...

Breaking News: Mechistas Attempted to Kill Reporter

KABC Radio (Los Angeles) reporter Sandy Wells was nearly run over by a mysterious car near the Mechista madrassa, which is funded by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Wells was at the PUBLICLY FUNDED school attempting to interview the principal, Marcos Aguilar. Aguilar had earlier threatened KABC about sending someone down to the school site.

We publicly question Mr. Aguilar's qualifications for school principal and demand that the school district reveal his academic records and personnel files. Mr. Aguilar is in his thirties. It is very rare for a thirty-something to become principal, especially at Los Angeles Unified. Something does not smell right. It smells like nepotism and favortism at LAUSD...

Is it the LAUSD policy to fill school principal positions with common street gangsters and thugs?

MEChA's Taxpayer-Funded Madrassa

By Evelyn Waugh

In the big scheme of things, the tomfoolery of these reconquistadores is at best amusing. These intellectually shallow reconquistadores do not affect historical currents. They and their activities are mere insignificant sideshows as the world progresses into hyper-modernity. If any one, it will be the Chinese and the people of the Pac Rim region who will be setting very high standards for the global economy. And the Chinese do not brook mediocrity as the Americans had through affirmative action and similar programs.

Yet, it is disturbing and problematic that American taxpayers are funding an anti-American and anti-intellectual school. The link above mentions Marcos Aguilar, the principal of said madrassa.

Senor Aguilar was my contemporary at UCLA. While I was finishing a dual-degree program in four years' time, he was wrapping up his sixth year at UCLA pursuing the useful degree of Chicano/a Studies. From all accounts, he was a C- or D-student and radical Mechista.

Now through nepotism and favortism, Senor Aguilar is principal of a Mechista madrassa, making a six-figure salary, which he never would have attained in a free market economy. We have long known that nepotism and favortism are rampant in the public sector, but this case is simply over the top.