今次講一套舊片和一套cult片。

要數我喜歡的導演，Stanley Kubrick一定穩在三甲之列。畫面設計和鏡頭運用大膽，以電影作為批判社會和剖釋人性更是匠心獨運。無論是六十年代的《一樹梨花壓海棠》(Lolita)，或是及後的《亂世兒女》(Barry Lyndon)、《閃靈》(Shining)，和他的遺作《大開眼界》(Eyes Wide Shot)，無不給我無比的震憾。不單止是官能上的刺激，更激發觀眾對人性的好奇和疑問。

《死之吻》(Killer’s Kiss)
近排找了一部Kubrick早期的出品來看，是1955年出品的《死之吻》(Killer’s Kiss)，才發現原來這鬼才某些常用的視覺材料，早見於五十年代已經出現。在知道這一點後，覺得Kubrick不再陌生，像是了解他多了一點。記得幾年前開始看他的電影，他拿揑人性的本領實在嚇倒了我，當時想，這一人不是瘋了，就一定是一個忍不住要將自己陰暗的一面宣洩出來的人。但看過《死之吻》後，我發覺事情和我想像中有點出入。

原來，Kubrick也曾經平凡過。

所謂平凡過，不是説《死之吻》拍得不好。我反而覺得，假若他沒有在1955年完成《死之吻》，也許他會需要更長的探索期去為自己定位，也許《閃靈》也不能在他的電影生涯完成，而我們亦無緣看得見《大開眼界》。作為這鬼才的里程碑，《死之吻》讓Kubrick首次將本領展露於人前，雖然算不上鋒芒畢露的，像是帶有羞澀味道的debut。若果你有看過Kubrick的電影，也許曾經跟我問過差不多的問題，《死之吻》可能就是為你解謎的鑰匙。

《發條橙》(A Clockwise Orange)
我看過的cult片當中，Kubrick 1971年的《發條橙》(A Clockwise Orange)無疑是令我最印象深刻的一 部。每次翻看這電影感覺都不一樣，還記第一次看發條橙的時候我差點反胃了。就憑這個反應，我知道Stanley Kubrick這作品徹徹底底地成功了。

像是性惡論的寫照，《發條橙》赤裸裸地展露了人在不理會道得規範下，本性可以有多醜陋，而在無法擺脫社會制約時，偽善可以到逹怎樣的地步。這電影絕不商業化，以灰諧的音樂貫穿這電影，把人性的邪惡諷刺得相當精彩。

不過説來慚愧，到今時今日我還未看得明《2001:太空漫遊》(2001: A Space Odyssey)究竟想講甚麼。

In case you have no luck to attend the Web Wednesday we had with Guy Kawasaki, here is a short recap.

1. He found ‘my cat rolls over’ is quite a common tweet, but not that interesting.

2. Only ask for venture capital (VC) when you have too many orders but not enough resources to handle them, but never use that as a lifesaver.

3. Out of 100, VCs would say ‘No’ in 99 cases, and ‘Yes’ for the remaining case, and then they will regret the deal after a month. Because they just found that their money was poured into the hands of jerks.

4. Talk about giving out money, entrepreneurial experience may not be that important. Guy is perfectly comfortable to invest in young men who are 19 with nothing but just good skills to create a product.

5. Entrepreneurs’ mind will go rotten after taking VC. Before that, they will try their best to find interns to work for them without taking a penny. But after that, they will start buying 32 inches LCD monitors for their programmers without thinking whether they need them.

7. While Guy is not a prophet, he said he is not visionary enough to tell us what the next big thing is.

8. Focus on presenting projection figures of your site traffic and revenue to VC is kind of stupid, because you are just going to miss them. Be a sensible man, tell them what you are doing now.

9. Cloning an idea and bring it to China is simply not a smart idea.

10. Taking love matching site as an analogy, those require you to fill in 25 pages of questions may give you a higher probability to find your soul mate, but most VCs usually find company in the traditional ‘HOT or NOT’ way.

11. A guy tells you ‘you’re not hot’ doesn’t mean you’re not hot for another guy.

12. If you found Guy’s tweets keep flooding your twitter, you can either un-follow him or, follow more people so that tweets will not be all from him.

13. Guy’s new book is in pipeline, which is about how to influence people.

14. Alltop.com is for general users, including your mother, but not for geeks.

15. Responding to a question ‘how much you have changed Apple?’, he said on a scale of 100 (assuming Steve Job is 100), he would be 20.

16. On a scale of 10, how successful a venture capitalist he is? His answer is 4 or below.

17. Marriage can keep you happy for a month, which is pretty long, but helping others can keep you happy for your whole life.