Free ice-cream and 3 Needles

Today, the Ben & Jerry's ice-cream store close to the Concordia campus was giving away free ice-cream, as part of a campaign to raise money for the Sick Kids Hospital. (I don't recall the exact cause that they were raising money for, but it was for children). I donated $2 while I was waiting for an ice-cream. It was actually pretty good as well, since it only took 13 minutes for me to get the ice-cream. I was expecting 20 - 25 minutes.

I headed towards the AMC Cinemas after I got my ice-cream to go see the movie 3 Needles. I enjoyed the movie, it was three movies about blood and AIDS, and it took place on three continents. It was a film shot in Montreal, well - bits of it, so I recognized some road signs. I didn't find it complicated, it was three distinct stories, but presented together, in snipbits, not like a book where you presented it in chapters. There were many taboo topics: sex with nuns, rape, condom usage in Africa - or lackthereof, faking blood tests, porn industry, blood trade, bug chasing.

This was the first film that I saw with Lucy Liu in it, where she speaks Mandarin. Obviously I know that she speaks at least Mandarin, since she has Chinese roots, but I have never physically seen her speak Mandarin in any North American film. In this film, she did not have one line of English! All her dialogue was in Mandarin, and she was awesome. It also helped that I understood some or most of what she was saying. Of course, there were also subtitles, but sometimes, what she said did not exactly match the subtitles. This illustrates that some expressions in Chinese do not translate well into English. And probably vice-versa.

Of course, there were people in the theatre who were murmuring, and some guy beside me had his phone on, but on vibrate, and it went off during the movie. This movie was not difficult to comprehend: It was three distinct stories, set in different continents. It was not hard to follow, really. It wasn't presented in a linear fashion (of course - that would make the film really boring), but it really is not difficult to follow. I do not understand why some people were asking about what happened, etc.

I highly recommend 3 Needles. It is a film with three stories that will make you think.