Category IIB. Some films last through the ages. Others are products of their time, lost relics of a bygone era that mean little to later generations. And then there are those that fall into a strange middle ground, capturing the obsolete zeitgeist of a period while feeling wholly timeless. Antonioni’s 1966 “Blowup” is one such film.

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You can thank Orson Welles for changing the face of cinema—and we’re not just talking about “Citizen Kane.” In 1958, Welles’ last (and arguably best) studio picture, “Touch of Evil,” was submitted to the Brussels World’s Fair. The two French critics who judged the ceremony awarded it the top prize, and both were so influenced by the film that they each made their first films a year later. These turned out to be Francois Truffaut’s “400 Blows” and Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless.”

Category III. Whatever happened to the humble sex scene? Once an essential part of every sweaty, seedy thriller, recently it’s been phased out, perhaps obsolete in an age of streaming online porn. It somehow seems fitting then, that “Watchmen,” a sleazy, Category III superhero epic set in an alternate 1985, should have at least two of them.

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They are an important part of Hong Kong’s street culture and character——large neon signs dangling above the street, just inches from the passing double-decker buses. Tourists love them, and we love them. But not everyone does—green groups are upset with the amount of pollution they generate, and for unsuspecting pedestrians, falling pieces of derelict signs are a tragedy waiting to happen.

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You see it all the time: a group of four police officers standing on a street corner, passing the time, stopping “suspicious” teens, checking I.D.’s., fining jaywalkers. Don’t they have anything better to do?

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We have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. With 39 public hospitals and 12 private, over 30,000 beds in total and an annual budget large enough to run a small country, there would appear to be no reason to complain. But the recent outcry can’t be ignored. In the past few months, we’ve been plagued with hospital “blunders” ranging from lost baby corpses and deaths on hospital doorsteps to reams of lost patient data (for a larger list see here), and the public is starting to ask why.

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These are but a few of the mishaps that befell our hospitals over the past two years.
April 2007: A man undergoing weight-loss surgery has his artery ruptured and bleeds to death at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
June 2007: Patient dies after being injected with a chemotherapy agent into her spine instead of a vein at Prince of Wales Hospital.
June 2007: Part of a suction tube is left in a patient’s body after an asthma operation at Tseung Kwan O Hospital.

There’s little doubt that Hong Kong has a drug problem. Our drug abuse statistics have held steady over the past decade, averaging at 15,000 reported users per year. It’s safe to say that the war on drugs has made little to no headway. But with newer, more easily concealed drugs such as ketamine on the rise among younger people, the government has decided to push on with a shocking new front in their war: compulsory drug testing.

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Category IIA. As you no doubt have heard or guessed from the promotional posters, “Gran Torino” is supposed to be “Dirty Harry” for the suburbs. It’s also publicized as Clint Eastwood’s final starring role, a tired old hoax that’s been whored around Hollywood since 1992’s “Unforgiven.” But if that’s true, the man has chosen to end on a fairly high note (or at least an unexpected one), re-inventing the classic American archetype of Dirty Harry as the angry old coot.

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What with our current economic climate, cutting costs is not so much a choice as it is a necessity—whether it’s buying groceries in bulk, weekends out at 7-Eleven or selling off old furniture, we’re all saving where we can. But when it comes to your toys, who says you can’t have your media and play it too? Here we present cost-cutting methods to manage your geek lifestyle.

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