Inspirational Pictures... From Another Angle

Too lazy to write... didn't watch any new movies recently anyway... New Moon, Mulan, Astro Boy... all crappy movies :P. And I'm playing this new game, Dragon Age: Origins that need me to play at least 6 times before seeing all available content in the game... and every playthrough is like around 50+ hours... this is one of the best pc game investment I have ever made... now in second playthrough...

Found these pictures in my junk mail folder... just wanna share...

It's choice not chance that determines your destiny... it's true... so we should not give any chance to anyone at all!

Nothing happens... but first a dream... if everything that I dream of has a possibility of coming true, I shudder at that thought... basically, I dreamt myself ruler of the world and everyone else is my super loyal slave :P

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things... sure, handphones 10 years ago were really monstrously big!

Throw your heart  over the fence and the rest will follow... I can't help but laugh when looking at this picture... it's so true... when you jump over the fence into the cliff, surely the rest of your body will follow :P

Burn brightly without burning out... impossible... if the sun can burn itself out, who are we to compare ourselves to the great and mighty Sun?

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying... "I will try again tomorrow."... well, I don't know about you, but hearing a quiet voice in my head is pretty scary... and definitely will not make me courageous.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life... that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself... this is what I have been preaching all along... everyone who help another is a selfish person... so, not helping anyone is my motto!

Keep your face to the sunshine and you will not see the shadows... sure, if everyone has really dark, burned faces (due to sunburn), you won't be able to differentiate shadows and faces :P... tell that to the girls who hide behind umbrellas!

The best sermons are lived, not preached... true, but humans are such generous animals... they have to share what they know and if others don't follow what they believe is right, then the others are wrong.

The heart that gives, gathers... erm... I think it should be the one who gets a heart, gathers :P

Find your joy, and... share it with others... duh, if I can find joy without sharing with others, why would I need to share with others?]

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there... ah, this is what my mum told me when I was little... we must continue to improve ourselves or we will be left behind... but then again, even if you are on the right track, and running, you still will get run over by those who step over you to win the race!

Laughter is an instant vacation... which is why I rarely take vacation... people spend thousands going to foreign soil while I just need a dvd to laugh myself into vacation!

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything... including falling in love? :P

The only things that stand between a person and what they want in life are the will to try it, and the faith to believe it's possible... I'm pretty sure that other than will and faith, other things that stand in between includes, time, death, luck, destiny, God, etc.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but the echoes are truly endless... I'm unsure it that meant the effect resulting from kind words are endless or people talking about it would be endless... either way, it's bad... it's bad for someone to want others to talk about the good deed they have done and it's bad that your actions (kind or otherwise) have infinite consequences since sooner all later, everything good will turn bad and vice versa...

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides... again... nobody ever heard of sunburn? I'm wilting like crazy under one sun... but two? No wonder I avoid this like a plague...

Change your thoughts and change your world... okay... I am the Master of the world and everyone will be my slave... waiting... waiting... waiting...

Sometimes in the winds of change we find our true direction... it's possible... but more than often, we will get lost forever!

I know, I know, I'm so sarcastic but all I said were true too :P

Movie Reiew 35: 2012

Title: 2012

Director: Ronald Emmerich

Running time: 2 hours 38 minutes

Genre: Sci-fi

What would you do if the world is going to end in two days? Such is one of the themes explored in the movie... some would accept their fate, some would try to survive while some would die without knowing why. The reason behind the end of the world depicted in 2012 is too advanced for me to understand... it has something to do with shifting of Earth crust... in conclusion, the earth is restructuring it's surfaces... some land will rise, some will crack and some will just simply sink into the bottom of the ocean.

This movie focuses on the struggle of several characters... the intelligent geologist Adrian Helmsly (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is amongst the first to discover the shifting of Earth crust (apart from the Mayans and previous generations scientists) and later is the one who managed to increase the survivor numbers by several times more than previously arranged. Then, we have Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a divorcee, who do accidentally stumbled on the top-secret and will do anything to save his ex-wife, children and ex-wife's bf. These are the two group/individuals with the extra screen time... while others have a relatively short (living) time :P.

I think that this movie is quite nice. I don't like all those "end of the world" movies. Of course, the theme of this movie is nothing new... in the 90s, the end of the world is usually caused by aliens and demons, then meteors and nowadays, they blame on Mother Nature. And as with most other "end of world" movies (except alien types), the movie focuses on several groups of people who in some way connects with each other even though they don't know each other. I have always thought of this type of style as boring since there is too little character development and everything would feel so rushed.

And yes, this movie does feel rushed but not in a bad way. It started off slow, and then it's just one obstacle over another. The "apocalypse" scenes were quite nicely done... although I think that they are a little over the top... the almost-like atomic explosion of volcano is so surreal... beautiful but deadly... but hey, I've never seen a super major earthquake/volcano eruption before, so who am I to complain? But I just love what they have done to Hawaii... it's a perfect beauty. Though I must say that they miss out some details like... people. Sure, some people would pop up here and then during the earthquake... but I a lot of the buildings were void with people when one of the actor drove his car through buildings to escape the earthquake.

The 'ark' thingy is also a nice touch... it's much better and more plausible than 'spaceships'. However, I think the biggest weakness of this movie is the lack of inspiring emotions. Sure, there are great speeches and great emotional scenes, but I just can't feel it... I've never cried once during the movie... and those who know me know that I cry easily during emotional scenes or speeches. For example, when a son told his father that the end of the world is coming and that his father is going to die far, far away from his son, I just can't feel those "happy that his son will live, and don't you worry about me since I had a good long life" kind of feeling.

And the romantic scenes are just unromantic... I was rolling my eyes heavenward when the ex-wife was screaming/praying/hoping that her ex-husband (soon to be husband again) will resurface from the water... it was like, ugh... :P

Anyway, I still think that this is an enjoyable movie although the casts' acting skills really need some polishing... but the writers did a hell of a good job.

Observation: The communication system in India and US must be very good... people are using phones left and right even though the whole world is being torn apart by natural disasters. :P

Bottomline: If it's any indication, the cinema for this movie was fully booked throughout the day that I had to travel to a cinema 1 hour away from my house and had to watch a late night movie even though I had to work the very next day. I seriously never heard of this movie before this.

Bamboo Ranking: 4.0 / 5.0

Forgetful

Apparently, kindness still exist in this forsaken land. Last two weeks, I used my ATM card to deposit some money... and I actually forgot to retrieve the card! It took a very long time for the card to be ejected out after I completed my transactions mah...

So, I actually left the ATM without the ATM card! And I realised that only two weeks later... and not by myself. I received a phone call from the bank saying that my card was found in the ATM! And I was telling the girl that I still have the card with me! So embarrassing... I immediately check my bank records and thankfully all the money (albeit very small amount) are still there! Still, since I left the card in Kampar, and the bank said they can't hold my card till the next time I go home, I had to cancel my card and the next time when I reapply for it, I have to pay RM12 :(.

Not that I'm not thankful, but why does it take the bank 2 weeks before calling me? :P

Movie Review 34: Inglourious Basterds

Title: Inglourious Basterds

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Running time: 2 hours 32 minutes

Genre: Thriller, Action, Drama

Most of the time, I would not have watch a movie with such titles and the Nazi era thingy is really not my cup of tea. However, it was either watching a Michael Jackson movie, a Chinese poker game movie or this, so I chose the lesser of three evils :P.

What made me chose this movie is mainly the director, Quentin Tarantino and the name of Brad Pitt... and just to show how unpopular this movie is in Malaysia... for the first time, I had the cinema all by myself! Okay, initially, there were a couple but less then halfway through the movie, the left the cinema.

The story revolves in Nazi occupied France during the World War II. It started off with how a young Jewish refugee, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) witnessed the murder of her family by Colonel Hans Landa (Chirstoph Waltz). She escaped and several years later, an opportunity presents itself to her (Fredrick Zoller by Daniel Bruhl) which she starts plotting her vengeance. There were also another group of people who called themselves "the Basterds" led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who were plotting the assassination of the Nazis as well.

This movie might not go down well for a lot of people. First of all, it's gruesome... ever watched Kill Bill? Yup, it's on the level of gruesome though through the effort made by censors, it is less so. Anyway, for me, I think that this is a brilliant movie... in a twisted sort of way.

It doesn't revolve around the normal good vs bad kind of plot. You would be feeling bad when you see the 'bad guys' die in this movie... well, for some of them anyway. The director is able to express the reality of the war era in a very convincing manner. He constantly reminds us that there is such a thing called 'unreasonable' incidents. What I meant was there are a lot of scenes in which things happen for no reason at all. Bad things happen to the good and bad guys and good things happen to both too. I know this kind of thing happen in other movie as well, but it was presented in such a way that would really shake you to the core. It touches the core of humanity... and most people who watch it might not like to be reminded of their own true self throughout the movie. If this movie were to be shown during my college studying year, it would have made a fascinating discussion.

The storyline, although is simple, the director introduced a lot of plot twists inside to keep it going for two and half hours. There are not much of action since this is more of a brain over brawn kind of movie.

However, this movie is mostly using German as its main language... so, if you're not a subtitle reading kind of person, you might be put off by it. Also, it is a slow movie... again, if you're an action fan, it's not your movie. And since this movie touches on Jews and Nazis, it is important to have an open mind as well... though I would say that this advice is more applicable for Germans, French and Jews.

For me, I do not regret watching this movie... it's a soul touching movie... not your normal crying bucketful of love movie... I meant it is a movie that makes you think and reassess one self. And oh, by the way, this movie is fiction... you should not use this as a history lesson :P.

Trivia: Maggie Cheung is supposed to have a scene in the movie, but was deleted during the final cut :(... and no, the there is no typo in the title... the director purposely wrote it as such.

Bottomline: Not your everyday kind of movie... watch with an open mind.

Bamboo Ranking: 3.8 / 5.0