I can't think of what to get my darling sister for her birthday and it's driving me frigging crazy. I eventually sent her a Better Luck Tomorrow DVD 'cos she was active in the Asian American activism/arts scene through high school and college. In another weird BLT moment, at a film festival I ran into my old UCLA roommate who I think was involved in one of the tragic stories that inspired that movie. It was nice, he seemed really grown into himself and actively attending this Asian Am film event. He even went out of his way to find me and say that he liked our short. I'll always wonder though, what he thought about Better Luck Tomorrow. Probably shouldn't say more about that in a public forum.
I think Thom Yorke of Radiohead sounds sad because he knows his place in the System (like the preprogrammed rebel faction in "The Matrix") is to be this anguished clown essentializing a countercultural spirit in the form of pretty music that creates a "scene" for scenesters and in this scene, the more genuinely sad he gets, the more he seems to be performing a function.
In the casino, underneath politeness and "could you move over a little/pass that to me please?" there's this despicable self-absorbed disregard for other people that makes all politeness seem ugly.