my list of things I'm lacking*

1. time
2. money
   
3. patience
4. trust
   
5. sleep
6. discipline
7. focus
8. support
9. humility
10. genius
    

* just noticed list is in fact equally valid if in reverse

my list of 58th Berlinale best films

1. Bam gua nat/Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea (2008))
2. RGB XYZ (David O'Reilly, Ireland (2008)) [short]
3. Invisible City (Tan Pin Pin, Singapore (2007))
4. Udedh Bun (Siddarth Sinha, India (2008)) [short]
5. Kabei/Our Mother (Yamada Yoji, Japan (2008))
6. Mompelaar/Mumbler (Wim Reygaert/Marc Roels, Belgium (2007)) [short]
7. Yasukuni (Ying Li, China/Japan (2007))
8. Haze (Anthony Chen, Singapore (2008)) [short]
9. Tout est parfait/Everything Is Fine (Yves Christian Fournier, Canada (2008))
10. Frankie (Darren Thornton, Ireland (2007)) [short]

my list of best films in 2007

1. Se, jie/Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, USA/China/Taiwan/Hong Kong (2007))
2. Bushi no ichibun/Love And Honor (Yamada Yoji, Japan (2006))
3. The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK/France/Italy (2006))
4. Geuk jang jeon/Tale of Cinema (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea (2005))
5. Auf der anderen Seite/The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin, Germany (2007))
6. Sanxia haoren/Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China (2006))
7. Kain no matsuei/Cain's Descendant (Oku Shutaro, Japan (2006))
8. Sang sattawat/Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/France/Austria (2006))
9. Strange Culture (Lynn Hershman-Leeson, USA (2007))
10. Takva/A Man's Fear of God (Özer Kiziltan, Turkey (2006))

IMDb's list of best Royston Tan films to date*

1. Cut (8.6/10 by 29 votes (2005))
2. Sons (8.2/10 by 16 votes (1999))
3. 881 (7.5/10 by 42 votes (2007))
4. Mother (7.1/10 by 12 votes (2001))
5. 4:30 (6.9/10 by 138 votes (2005))
6. '15' (6.7/10 by 127 votes (2002))
7. 15: The Movie (6.3/10 by 281 votes (2003))
8. 24 Hours (6.3/10 by 10 votes (2002))
9. Hock hiap leong (5.9/10 by 43 votes (2001))
10. Monkeylove (4.1/10 by 10 votes (2005))
    

* all data compiled from and courtesy of IMDb.com

ymagonale 2007

2^nd ymagonale 2007 - programme

1. Be With Me (Eric Khoo, Singapore (2005))
2. Salinui chueok/Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-ho, South Korea (2003))
3. Xiao Wu (Jia Zhang Ke, China (1997))
4. Batoru rowaiaru/Battle Royale (Fukasaku Kinji, Japan (2000))
5. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi/Spirited Away (Miyazaki Hayao, Japan (2001))
   

The strictly private, non-profit 2^nd edition of the ymagonale miniature Asian Film Festival was held April 6^th - 8^th 2007; Miyazaki Hayao's “Spirited Away” took the accolade of this year's ymagonale award, while Eric Khoo's “Be With Me” won the jury's “hearts” vote.

my list of best DeLillo works to date

1. Underworld (1997)
2. The Body Artist (2001)
3. The Names (1982)
4. Libra (1988)
5. White Noise (1985)
   
6. Ratner's Star (1976)
7. Mao II (1991)
8. Cosmopolis (2003)
9. Players (1977)
10. End Zone (1972)
    

my list of 57th Berlinale best films

1. Bushi no ichibun/Love and Honor (Yamada Yoji, Japan (2006))
2. Kain no matsuei/Cain's Descendant (Oku Shutaro, Japan (2006))
3. Strange Culture (Lynn Hershman-Leeson, USA (2007))
4. Takva/A Man's Fear of God (Özer Kiziltan, Turkey (2006))
5. La León (Santiago Otheguy, Argentina (2007))
6. Tekkon kinkreet (Michael Arias, Japan (2006))
7. Ichijiku no kao/Faces of a Fig Tree (Momoi Kaori, Japan (2006))
8. Senkyo/Campaign (Soda Kazuhiro, Japan (2006))
9. Apa khabar orang kampung/Village People Radio Show (Amir Muhammad, Malaysia (2007))
10. Luo ye gui gen (Zhang Yang, China (2007))

my list of ingredients that make for a good movie

1. good acting
2. structure
3. evocative score
4. long takes
5. the characteristic sound of things
6. un-written dialog
7. self awareness
8. humor
9. variations on a major theme
10. epiphany

my list of challenging/promising theme-pairings

1. death and
2. love and exuberance
3. time and the image
4. history and cybernetics
5. language and faith
6. art and friendship
7. sex and communication
8. politics and fear
9. globalization and heritage
10. beauty and the trivial

ymagonale 2006

1^st ymagonale 2006 - programme

1. Kaze no tani no Naushika/Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds (Miyazaki Hayao, Japan (1984))
2. Wo de fu qin mu qin/The Road Home (Zhang Yimou, China (1999))
3. Zatôichi (Kitano Takeshi, Japan (2003))
4. 15: The Movie (Royston Tan, Singapore (2003))
   
5. Kagemusha/The Shadow Warrior (Kurosawa Akira, Japan/USA (1980))

The private, non-profit 1^st edition of the ymagonale miniature Asian Film Festival was held April 22^nd - 24^th 2006; Zhang Yimou's “The Road Home” was declared winner in both, the jury's “hearts” and “minds” votings.

my list of one possible shortcut to German Literature

(in chronological order)

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers/The Sorrows of Young Werther (1787)
2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust. Der Tragödie erster Theil/Faust. A Tragedy Part One (1797)
3. Friedrich Schiller: Wilhelm Tell/William Tell (1804)
4. Theodor Fontane: Effie Briest (1895)
5. Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie/Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)
6. Hermann Hesse: Unterm Rad/Beneath the Wheel (1906)
7. Erich Maria Remarque: Im Westen nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
8. Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder/Mother Courage and Her Children (1941)
9. Günter Grass: Die Blechtrommel/The Tin Drum (1959)
10. Christa Wolf: Nachdenken über Christa T./The Quest for Christa T. (1968)
    

unfortunately not yet available in English: Ralf Rothmann: Junges Licht (2004)

my list of best real-life films ever

1. Tokyo monogatari (Ozu Yasujiro, Japan (1953))
2. Solntse/The Sun (Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia (2005))
3. 4:30 (Royston Tan, Singapore (2005))
4. Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom/Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-duk Kim, South Korea/Germany (2003))
5. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, USA (1994))
6. Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meirelles/Kátia Lund, Brasil (2002))
7. Kagemusha/The Shadow Warrior (Kurosawa Akira, Japan/USA (1980))
8. Fa yeung nin wa/In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wei, Hong Kong (2000))
9. Giant (George Stevens, USA (1956))
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, UK/USA (1968))

my list of literary heroes

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany
2. Don DeLillo, USA
3. Kawabata Yasunari, Japan
4. James Joyce, Ireland
5. Thomas Mann, Germany
6. Mishima Yukio, Japan
7. André Gide, France
8. Günter Grass, Germany
9. Gao Xingjian, China
10. Thomas Pynchon, USA

my list of best films in 2006

1. 4:30 (Royston Tan, Singapore (2005))
2. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, USA (2005))
3. 46 oku nen no koi/Big Bang Love: Juvenile A (Miike Takashi, Japan (2006))
4. Big River (Funahashi Atsushi, USA (2005))
5. Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, USA/Mexico (2006))
6. Capote (Bennett Miller, Canada/USA (2005))
7. Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain (2006))
8. Shisso/Dead Run (Tanaka Hiroyuki (Sabu), Japan (2005))
9. Requiem (Hans-Christian Schmid, Germany (2006))
10. Hwal/The Bow (Kim Ki-duk, South Korea/Japan (2005))

my list of defining reading-experiences

(in chronological order)

1. Child of the Morning (Pauline Gedge)
2. Homo Faber (Max Frisch)
3. Faust, der Tragödie erster Theil/Faust, der Tragödie zweiter Theil / Faust Parts I & II (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
4. Alles Leben ist Problemlösen / All Life is Problem Solving (Karl R. Popper)
5. The Tempest (William Shakespeare)
6. The Counterfeiters (Andre Gide)
7. The Sound of the Mountain (Kawabata Yasunari)
8. Underworld (Don DeLillo)
9. Ulysses (James Joyce)
10. Mare Foecunditatis / 'The Sea of Fertility' tetralogy (Mishima Yukio)

my list of dearest films

1. 4:30 (Royston Tan, Singapore (2005))
2. Mononoke-hime (Miyazaki Hayao, Japan (1997))
3. Indochine (Régis Wargnier, France (1992))
4. Fa yeung nin wa/In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wei, Hong Kong (2000))
5. Watership Down (Martin Rosen, United Kingdom (1978))
6. 15: The Movie (Royston Tan, Singapore (2003))
7. Batoru rowaiaru/Battle Royale (Fukasaku Kinji, Japan (2000))
8. Die Unberührbare (Oskar Roehler, Germany (2000))
9. Lan feng zheng/The Blue Kite (Tian Zhuangzhuang, China (1993))
10. Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, USA (1985))

my list of best novels ever read

1. Ulysses (James Joyce)
2. Underworld (Don DeLillo)
3. Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
4. Der Zauberberg / Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann)
5. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers / The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
6. Mare Foecunditatis / 'The Sea of Fertility' tetralogy (Mishima Yukio)
7. Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)
8. Genji-monogatari / The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu)
9. The Counterfeiters (Andre Gide)
10. Thousand Cranes (Kawabata Yasunari)

my list of most visually convincing films ever

1. Ying xiong/Hero (Zhang Yimou, china (2002))
2. Fa yeung nin wa/In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wei, Hong Kong (2000))
3. Solntse/The Sun (Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia (2005))
4. 46 oku nen no koi/Big Bang Love: Juvenile A (Miike Takashi, Japan (2006))
5. Kagemusha/The Shadow Warrior (Kurosawa Akira, Japan/USA (1980))
6. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, USA (2003))
7. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, USA (1968))
8. 2046 (Wong Kar Wei, Hong Kong (2004))
9. Wo de fu qin mu qin/The Road Home (Zhang Yimou, China (1999))
10. 4:30 (Royston Tan, Singapore (2005))
    
    

my list of best books ever read

1. Die Bibel / The Bible
2. Ilias/Odyssee / Iliad/Odyssey (Homer)
3. Faust, der Tragödie erster Theil/Faust, der Tragödie zweiter Theil / Faust Parts I & II (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
4. Iphigenie auf Tauris / Iphigenia in Taurus (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
5. Ulysses (James Joyce)
6. La Divina Comedia / Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
7. Underworld (Don DeLillo)
8. Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
9. Die Vier Jahreszeiten / Kokin-wakashu: pts.1-6, The Seasons
10. Der Zauberberg / Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann)