Frances Ha

I watched this in the beginning of my vacation... So about the end of April. Frances Ha is a film that is recognized, but most likely not enough.

Directed by Noah Baumbach (known for work with The Squid and the Whale, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), and also written by him and the leading actress, Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha follows Frances, a woman in her late 20's trying to make her career work out in NYC while juggling self-loss, self-finding, friends, and acquaintances. The outwardly pressure of the society combined with raw explication of internal struggles that are not faltered by aesthetics makes Frances Ha one of the most captivating films I've watched recently.

Yes, it is a comedy, but maybe because I am also a somewhat-lost-trying-to-do-the-right-stuff-girl-in-her-twenties, this drama hits the emotional home run. I see my vices and habits of non-productivity and envy within Frances, plus I also see other positive attributes I know I encompass and the guaranteed reward that ultimately comes about for all of us that strive.

Trailer:

As you can see, the entire movie is in black and white. However, it is a little bit more modern... Consider the movie to be in a permanent Instagram-like, beautifully filtered black and white. Not only does this characteristically sets the film apart from the others, but the lack of colour aids the viewer to carefully follow the screenplay and the unconcealed expressions of the actors' faces to further delve into the emotions they are to convey. The screenplay is another story. It is just so delightful. I do not remember the soundtrack, but the quotes!

"Sometimes it's good to do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it."
- Frances

"Don't treat me like a three-hour brunch friend!"
- Frances

"I'm poor."
"That's actually offensive to poor people."
- Frances & Benji

"It's just this apartment is very... aware of itself."
- Sophie

..........And the recurring "undateable" chats between Benji and Frances!!!

"Are you still undateable?"

"Oh yes, very undateable."

To top it all off, Adam Driver is in this movie. And we all know that this guy has an irresistible charm even though he is SO unattractive. I can't get enough of him! His face! His voice! His next upcoming movie to hit the theatres is Tracks with Mia Wasikowska. That flick looks pretty amazing, too. Anyways, I didn't quote any of his lines, but they are great! In spite of his character being the most stereotypical and flat in the entire story, he nonchalantly delivers witty lines that generate laughs when they are needed to get away from Frances's anxiety and stress. 

Frances Ha is most conveniently available on Netflix, so if you've got 90 minutes to spare... Prioritize this. 

--- Follow my visual mood board @ I am Purpose on Tumblr ---

#instacapture v2

#Instacapture is back! 

A) Silhouette - left: Evan Mason, right: The Blonde Salad 

 B) Body Art by Gian Paolo Barbieri 

C) Model looks by Staz Lindes 

She is the fun, flirty, cute 21 or 22-year-old model that has been sweeping everyone off the grounds on her social media channels. The thing about Staz is that she's not really the highest roller, yet or never, but she's captured the hearts of many in the online journaling industry. 

D) Perception and toning it down

E) PLUM + PINK + PINK

I don't even know what's happening here, except that this should be my look one day this summer. 

IG: rachelchungg

*** see you around again *** 

Andy Warhol & Textbook Mag & Art shit viewpoint.

Andy Warhol once said, "An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have."
And he is correct; and he could not have been more correct! Look at this video.



I have a well-known hate-love relationship with Andy Warhol, because of his brilliance in selling-out his art, his friends, his fake personality, and then America. I hate him for selling everything and commercializing emotional relationships, yet I love him because it is -- as we all know -- damn hard to sell-out like Warhol did. To sell out and cheapskate his way into the high society and then to become a legend of the times?! Whoa, babe, you gotta chill out. Speaking of this tone on art & the art business....

I meant to blog about this way earlier.

I went to the launch of Textbook Magazine at Gesamtkunstwerk on April 24th. I even dragged along my girlfriend who still had to study for her finals (I think she came because yeah, she's interested, but more because I had asked her and she probably knows that I do not have too many friends to socialize with these days*). This event's highlight, the launch of Textbook Mag, which is quite endearing as it focuses on entrepreneurial minds of Vancouver and taking ownership of the print material, was overshadowed by the awful event place; alas, when the event venue is announcing its greatness and to out-show the highlight, then the energy of the people and the mingling gets all offset. At the end of the dya, it was just so damn cliche... and I was suffocating a bit. So I left quite early (apologizing to my friend for being a terrible accompaniment for the night). I was there about an hour or a little over an hour for the speeches and the high-times of the party (big congratulations to the Textbook crew!).

* I am not a loner. It's just people have left Vancouver and I had found the perfect time to return to Vancouver. I don't know if this is a smart retort to my ordeal or a pronounced denial. 

 Source: Vancouver Vantage Twitter

Source: Socialettes Twitter

The venue, then, Gesamtkunstwerk... What is wrong with this place? Well, I felt as if this venue is a tool to brainwash all the innocent folks of Vancouver on upcoming city planning and the plan's ridiculous highrises that are only of the architect's self-pleasure on accomplishment. These buildings are supposed to leverage the potential of beautiful Vancouver and enhance Vancouver as a world-class city that appeals to the young people with disposable income. As if these new buildings that boast impressive facades will actually facilitate to the standard of living for a city as a whole--hell, the city's in on building a goddamn ghetto to "improve sustainable housing" and "provide a solution on the drug use." Right. I bet that some suites inside these goddamn buildings are going to be so UN-LIVABLE (meaning super impractical), but the brainwashed buyers & tenants would think they are the new it-suite. Whewf. I finally ranted it out into the public world wide web space. Suck it.

Source: Derek Gaw's Twitter

There was essentially nothing super wrong with the event, except that I have strong, subjective viewpoints on "art" and "culture" and "business." These emotions and ideas of mine that I cannot seem to eloquently put into words for you, but they're along the lines of conflicting sentiments that I have with Andy Warhol. Either way, what I have utterly attempted to convey here is that

• An event as important as a launch needs to be held at a venue which will amplify the product's worth.
• I hate modern marketing fusing art and culture and beautiful cities. 
• But I love the fact I can do point made above, because I work in marketing. 
• Subsequently, I hate that I am giving it free press by ranting about it online. 
• But I love the fact that it had enough potential for me to rant about it online....

And please, can we have less conventional artsy-culture-I-care-white-walls-wine-ahamagawd-I-am-a-professional-hipster events in Vancouver? I don't want to choke on my wine while gulping it down like a no-class-mufucka when I should be networking.

I sound like an angsty teen, eh? Oops.


>> Read more about fancy Gesamtkunstwerk's brainwashing HERE. 
>> Because installing a CHANDELIER under a bridge where SOCIAL HOUSING exists is so COOL AND BEFITTING. Read more about this fancy get-up Gesamtkusntwerk's behind HERE. 
>> How to pronounce this German mouthful? Get in with it HERE. 


On the other hand, if you can grab a copy of Textbook Mag, it's a great great great mag. Loved two articles in it--like LOVE. And make sure to read it in order, as I find the order was impeccably executed. The mag houses a mish-mesh of articles and topics and for them to have an effortless flow from top-down demands acclamation.  

 Too many words? My Tumblr has none. 

 Get more personal on IG@rachelchungg. 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

So I'm not going to talk about the movie.
What I felt, what I loved, what I hated, the storytelling, the greatness of Wes Anderson..
None of that.
Not going to review it.
Not going to critique it.
Except for reminding you that if you like entertainment, and still have not yet watched The Grand Budapest Hotel...
Well what's wrong with you?
I'm offended!

Hah.

Today, I'm just going to talk to you about this story of me and my movie friend, Jono.

Jono and Rachel had planned to go watch The Grand Budapest Hotel on its opening night.
The arrangement of the night was made a few weeks prior, and of course, went without any hiccups -- as their relationship was fundamentally built on watching films.
As Rachel sat in a ghetto hair salon chair texting Jono and arranging times, she thought about how this movie was blessing her 23rd birthday; she will be lucky for the whole entire year.
Perhaps, there will even be a chance to meet Wes Anderson this coming year (note that Rachel likes to fantasize and is a detrimental habit of escapism that goes absolutely nowhere in her daily life).
Both Jono and Rachel were slightly appalled at the fact that this movie was opening at the largest cinema in Downtown.
Say what?
With the hype of the movie, maybe so.
So Rachel arrived at the theater with butterflies in her stomach to find that the show was sold out for the night.
Say what?
Might I add that she was 20 minutes early. She looked down at her drop crotch pants she was in and the hole she had just made down there by fussing about getting out of the car.
Now what? 
Jono and Rachel met up at another smaller (more befitting) theater. There, they grabbed their tickets and proceeded to line up. Line up. 
They reminisced of the time when they went to go watch Moonrise Kingdom and the theater's emptiness and where it opened. Definitely not citywide (one theater, Tinseltown).
What had happened, they do not really know. Why there were blogs showcasing Wes Anderson's font types over the years. Why there were blogs capturing colours that were used in Wes Anderson's films over the years. Why there were fan-made videos capturing the center-focus of Wes Anderson's films.
They had no answers.
Rachel was happy -- though a little startled -- that people were all out and about, and that she had a ticket stub in her hand. She was still nervous about entering this world of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

But we all understand what had happened.
The Grand Budapest Hotel signifies a certain burst of growth Wes Anderson had had. The complexity of his character development, the number of characters, the layers of storytelling... It is not about his distinctive style of filming nor the colours no more. Those are just natural elements that he lives in and comes to him. And all of these components of the film touched the hearts of so many more people around the world--outside the world of the Andersonians.

I added the two clips above to showcase the technicalities involved with enchanting filmmaking that we have today.

Wes Anderson bio (so you can watch all of his films)

Wes Anderson palettes (so you can gawk at his fandom)

Wes Anderson Prada commercial (so you can laugh at Jason Schwartzman--how can you not?)

The tumblr gets a lot of love, so follow! 

>> iampurpose tumblr << 

Marketing-related Tidbits

I don't even know if it is because of time and history; I obviously have not yet lived long enough to make any assumptions in regards to life. But through my brief 23 years of living on Earth, I feel like there is a general trend that life does get unnecessarily complicated over the years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and yes, even seconds (e.g. think of the split second before & after an opening of a devastating e-mail).

The worst case scenario on genuinely unnecessary-made-necessary element in everyone's daily lives (unless you are senile) is social media. It has evolved into the mass-time-consuming act of critical marketing, basically even creating multiple industries from scratch. I mean, I'm even directing and investing a whole chunk of my career within it. I do not disregard social media's powers and its importance on anything marketing (social media's powers even gets super personal -- think personal branding!), but I can't help but cringe with half-shame-half-pride when one of my publishing-enthusiast-cum-authenticity-driven fellows say phrases like "It's a joke," and "I mean you don't really write... do you?" I guess we don't. We talk. We really don't write. We really do talk. We talk in social media talk on social media so that we sound like we are an actual "personality." We want to be everyone's friend -- if not BFF. And fuck, man, it's fucking hard to be everyone's BFF in your multiple target audiences.

And here is a simple tip to the ones who do it in an infographic! It's just beautiful!!!
And also, this infographic may enlighten those somewhat unaware of the difficulties of small yet decisive social media marketing.

Here is the link to FULL ARTICLE: The Blogging Food Groups: A Well-Balanced Diet of Content
And here is a short preview screencap... Enjoy! :)

An additional tidbit is about The Talks and its support by Rolex... Has The Talks always been supported by Rolex?! And since when? Why do brands butt into almost everything that's great? If really The Talks was launched by Rolex as a brand project, that's pretty cool, I guess. Pretty brilliant, more like. If anybody has any answers to this, shoot me a comment/email? Thanks.

For EYE-CAPTIVATING Visuals, Click Me Now. 

Ciao, fellas.

Active? Lifestyle? Urban? What?

Former Nike design director and his brother based in Portland, Oregon, introduced this new urban bike just a couple of days ago. Currently in pre-production and expected to be out in the market sometime in the near future. It has pronounced itself the ultimate urban bike, however, the company still has plans for further innovation such as, e-bike.

For me, I just died at the three colour choices and the website in how the bike is presented. Beautiful. Really captures the essence of what the bike is all about. And do you see the subtle differences and modernization of the design? The white wheels, the two different sets of wires between the front & bak wheels, and the different options on the wheel cover. They ask for subscription to be added on to the waitlist upon its launch (most likely only in the US), and then also to take part in a quick survey. The survey is where users can make logical assumptions on Cylo's future moves.

According to Gizmag, three models of Cylo are being made, with prices ranging from US$1850 to $3150. The entry-level model will be single-speed, while the high-end model will have an 11-speed gearing system. There are other differences between the models but all feature aluminum frames and carbon belt chains.

Check out the coolest bike ever here: CYLO BIKE

Apparently this new free mobile app, LIFT - Daily Motivation, helps you on life coaching, endorses community with similar-goal-oriented people, and even keeps track of data to keep you on track on better living. Sounds like a boho-gone-urban, life-pick-me-up-book-gone-high-technology, and another one of those fairly-unnecessary-and-demotivating-apps-that-we-all-happen-to-download.

Girl. This app has your name all over it, girl. Yeah, so I'm going to give LIFT a try!

*goes to app store*
*searches Lift Daily Motivation*
*nothing comes up*
*goes to online app store*
*searches Lift Daily Motivation*
*finds out that it is incompatible with my shitty-old-Samsung-GalaxyS2*
*run into the nearest wall due to lack of anger management*

Yeah, so I cannot give LIFT a try! #EpicFail

So can somebody else? Or actually, I have an idea. I'll download it on my sister's phone and use it everyday at home. Maybe, if I feel like pursuing this blog quality a little higher than necessary (haha.... not funny actually... sorry....), I might do a review thing later. Don't wait for it though; I don't think I'll write one.

Check out more on the app here: LIFT MOBILE APP

*** follow rachel on tumblr to actually find out how non-urban / non-active she is! ***

LOL