The Hobbits- The desolation of Smaug

Last Wednesday I went to cinema to watch The Hobbits- The Desolation of Smaug. 

Overall, it was a good movie. The story picked up from the last episode, whereby the dwarves, along with Bilbo Bagggins and Gandalf the wizrd, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland from Smaug the dragon. The story is easy to follow and my favorite part of the movie is the interaction between Bilbo and Smaug. There is so much chemistry between the dragon and the hobbit and I love love Bilbo's unique hobbit-humor. In addition, their role were played by none other than Holmes and Watson pair from The Sherlock- Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch. My favorite actors and drama of all time.

I missed Sherlock, please air the season 3 soon!!!

Anyway, check out http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/notyetamovie/news/?a=88896 for the interview of Bendict Cumberbatch on his voice over as the smaug.

Am not to sure whether its an aftermath or what, but watching the movie reminds me bits and pieces of scenes in The Lord of the Ring trilogy I watched like something 10 years ago. Mind you I have a very bad memory when it comes to remembering the storyline and characters of the previous movies which I have watched. Sometimes when I watched the sequel of a movie, I will start to question Peter like, "how come this or that character from the previous movie no longer appearing? oh he was dead? how did he die?".... 

Usually Peter gets really pissed off with me when I did that. 

Anyway, coming back to Lord of the Rings. Some of the things Frodo Baggins said keep on lingering in my mind for days. It was a scene at the end of story in The Return of the King when the journey and fellowship ended and everyone went back to their home. Everyone were celebrating their victory and reunion with their family members, the Hobbits were dancing and drinking, except Frodo. He seems to be disconnected from the rest of his friends and family, his life before the LOTR journey. 

I can't remember exactly what Frodo said but its was something along the line that he can no longer go back to his old life nor he knows how to move on after going through such a painful yet so magnificent and life altering journey. Well, as usual, I have to google for it and this is the exact words of Frodo:

".....We were home. How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on... when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend... some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold. Bilbo once told me his part in this tale would end... that each of us must come and go in the telling. Bilbo's story was now over. There would be no more journeys for him... save one. 

My dear Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be and to do. Your part in the story will go on."

Back then, I didn't really quite understand what is the significant of the name Bilbo mentioned by Frodo at that scene. But after watching Bilbo's story nearly 10 years after, now I finally see the connection. Bilbo was the first hobbit to embark on such a journey! They went through the same adventure that one would never imagine a hobbit would experience. They went through the same struggle and burden of carrying the ring. And at the end of the journey, both of them did not and could not go back to their old life. Strange enough, somehow I was able to recognize why they felt and acted that way. At the end of such a great journey, one will inevitably succumb into one of these two scenarios: either he spends the rest of the days living in the shadows of that journey, reminiscence those moments knowing the fact that the rest of his life will never experience the magnitude of such a journey again. Or to be overly contented with the achievement of the conquest. Knowing he is and will always be different from others, he spends his life waiting for another peak which big chances that it never comes. 

Of course I never experience a magnitude of such a great event/ journey in the past 30 years in my life. But sometimes I wonder, as I'm passing the gate of "30 years old" this year, should I just leave my youthful days behind, contented with the fact that there will be no more "wild and young" journey ahead, and move on with living the life of a normal 30 years old married woman should be. Is there any possibilities that I can still achieve another heights in my life?

Anyway, its a thought for another day. 

Leave you with the Hobbit theme song from Ed Sheeren, I see fire. Enjoy!

Oh, misty eye of the mountain below
Keep careful watch of my brothers' souls
And should the sky be filled with fire and smoke
Keep watching over Durin's son

If this is to end in fire
Then we shall all burn together
Watch the flames climb high into the night
Calling out father, stand by and we will
Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side

And if we should die tonight
Then we should all die together
Raise a glass of wine for the last time
Calling out father, prepare as we will
Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side
Desolation comes upon the sky

Now I see fire, inside the mountainI see fire, burning the trees
And I see fire, hollowing souls
I see fire, blood in the breeze
And I hope that you'll remember me

Oh, should my people fall
Then surely I'll do the same
Confined in mountain halls
We got too close to the flame
Calling out father hold fast and we will
Watch the flames burn auburn on the mountain side
Desolation comes upon the sky

Now I see fire, inside the mountain
I see fire, burning the trees
I see fire, hollowing souls
I see fire, blood in the breeze
And I hope that you'll remember me

And if the night is burning
I will cover my eyes
For if the dark returns then
My brothers will die
And as the sky's falling down
It crashed into this lonely town
And with that shadow upon the ground
I hear my people screaming out

Now I see fire, inside the mountain
I see fire, burning the trees
I see fire, hollowing souls
I see fire, blood in the breeze

I see fire, oh you know I saw a city burning (fire)
I see fire, feel the heat upon my skin (fire)
And I see fire (fire)
And I see fire burn auburn on the mountain side

The Butterfly Effect

Having explosive diarrhea for the past two days. Am sure you are not interested to know the process of how did it developed and happened. Anyway, the interesting part of what happened last night was, with the combination of bloated stomach, lose of appetite, and lack of flexibility, i was lying on the sofa watching an old movie called Butterfly Effect.

Frankly, i didnt know that the movie was this good. The cast wasnt even attractive, come on. Ashton Kutcher? whenever i think of him, Demi Moore will popped up in my head. Its not that he is a bad actor or what, its just that his personal life had overshadowed his true talent as an actor. Anyway back to the movie, seriously, I have a hard time removing my eyes from the screen. Even when my stomach make the unavoidable call, i have to quickly paused the movie, ran to the bathroom to heed the call, and ran out and jumped into the sofa to continue the movie.

Ashton acts as a young man who blocks out harmful memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life. And boy it works, he manage to turn back time not once, but multiple times and everytime he did that, it changes the entire history of his life. The problem its not only his life which was being altered, but also his loves ones, families and his friend's life. He is quite lucky that the final time he did this, he manage to pull off and everyone had led a good life in this version of life.

It sorta led me to think that, things which we did everyday, maybe its just a very tiny gesture or a little decision which we made can eventually stir us to another direction in our life. Just like the caption which was shown when the movie starts:

The flapping of butterfly wings could eventually culminate in a typhoon on the other side of the world

Imagine if i decided not to meet up with Peter's cousin for yum cha after my prom night back in year 2004. Forget about becoming his wife, I would never had the chance of knowing Peter at all. If i didnt save enough money to go to bought the ticket to fly to UK for further my studies, i would never know my dear sisters at all.

Scary huh.

So, i kinda agreed with Edward lorenz's chaos theory, in the end its all about the cause-and-effect. And i have always acknowledge the fact that we may not make good decision all the times, but whatever decision we made, we need to take the consequences.

In short, it was the second movie after "Inception" which gives such as good mind warping cinematic experience to its viewers. Kudos!

Movie review: Inception

Peter, Chui and I watched "Inception" on last Saturday midnight. I don't really like to watch midnight shows but i managed to buckle up myself and stayed conscious until 10pm, and that's when a good dose of Hazelnut old town white coffee have to kick in.

At first i thought that it will be pretty dreadful to try to stay awake for the 150 mins movie. BOY, how WRONG am I. The movie was ridiculously GOOD! At 230am, we left the cinema with our mind totally blown away, while craving for more!

The movie is very intelligently designed, from the idea, concept, storyline, all the way to its characters and graphics, it was simply a class of its own. Many might think that the movie is a bit to hard to comprehend with its complicated plots, however, i would say a good movie involves two way interaction. If you are looking for a movie which congest all your senses and turn your brain off with special effects and superhuman stunts, well, there are many of those movie out there which are able to provide you a adrenaline pumping vegetative ride. However, the moment you stepped out of the cinema, you'll remember nothing.

Inception is the total opposite. There are not only a lot to take in and digest, its even more to imagine and to think. And that is what hold our breath and kept us riveted for the 2 and half hours. As the movie tag line goes "your mind is the scene of the crime", the whole movie is all about our mind, how we perceive, think and react towards what the visual is trying to tell us.

I wont talk much about the storyline, cuz i think words do not do any justification to the movie itself. So go and watch the movie, i can assure you that you'd never seen anything like Inception before.

The cove (2009)

Am away for CDC Regional Combined camp 2010 for 4 days 3 night last week, which means works are piling up on my desk... and hopefully it justify why i didn't post any blogs for the past 2 weeks (ok maybe i am just plain lazy).

Anyway, cried a river last Sunday while watching a movie called "The cove". Please do watch the movie if you never heard about it before. It will change your perspective towards animal care as well as humanism all together. The cove is a documentary movie which talks about a man called Ric O Barry and his journey of transformation from training dolphin in captivity (for a famous TV series "flippers" in 1960's) to assertively combating the captivity industry.

Here comes the short description about the movie adapted from http://www.takepart.com/thecove

"In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. The Cove exposes the slaughter of more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises off the coast of Japan every year. Begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric OBarry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and Keep Out signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt.

Undeterred, OBarry joins forces with filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Ocean Preservation Society to get to the truth of whats really going on in the cove and why it matters to everyone in the world. With the local Chief of Police hot on their trail and strong-arm fishermen keeping tabs on them, they recruited an Oceans Eleven-style team of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and world-class free divers who will carry out an undercover operation to photograph the off-limits cove, while playing a cloak-and-dagger game with those who would have them jailed. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea for hope."

Commercial whaling has been outlawed worldwide since the mid-1980s, but that prohibition has not been extended to smaller cetaceans, or marine mammals, like dolphins, in large part because of Japan’s opposition. As a result around 21,000 dolphins are killed there each year, according to Japanese government estimates, in places like Taiji, a small seaside town south of Osaka where most of "The Cove" was filmed (http://www.nytimes.com)

Further to release of the movie, critical praise and audience awards worldwide have focused international attention on Taiji and the annual dolphin drives off the coast of Japan. Under intense pressure, Taiji called for a temporary ban on killing bottlenose dolphins. The film, which was originally rejected, was shown at the Tokyo Film Festival due to public outcry. Residents in Taiji are being tested for mercury poisoning, and for the first time Japanese media are covering the issue.


The fisherman are clearly rattled, but haven’t stopped killing dolphins (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/6255789/Sea-of-blood-as-Japan-slaughters-thousands-of-dolphins.html)

Movie reviews: From west to east

Another 2 movie reviews.

Watched New Moon last night.

I always thought that twilight fans are over hyped, what is there to drool over? pale lifeless looking vampire and half naked under aged werewolf? However with that being said, i also felt that the twilight haters are over judgmental as well. Though there is absolutely nothing qualifies the movie as A rated blockbuster, but for a chick flick movie, maybe it wasnt that bad after all. Many said the books are good, so the translation from words to celluloid works cant be that bad. Probably, there is some neutral ground in between.

boy, how wrong was i.

The movie SUCKS, BIG TIME. I have wasted two precious hours of my life watching the mundane life of a suicidal confused teenage, a pretty useless vampire and a nearly peadophile victim.

No more comments, case closed, am downgrading myself if i write more.

Another movie i've watched was Hua Mulan.

It was a stark contrast compare to New Moon. The story literally hammered hard in my heart.

It was a sad sad movie. A totally different interpretation/rendition of the lady warrior story that we are so familiar with. If you have watched the Disney Mulan or the Drama series Mulan, you will know exactly what i'm talking about. In this 2009 version, there is no hillarious makeup scene ready for match making; there is no cover up scene whenever Mulan true gender was getting exposed; there is no animated dragon mushu that talks non stop; and there is no 'happily ever after' the end.

The love between the jeneral (or rather the 7th prince) and Mulan in the movie was forbidden from starting till the end. The only time Mulan acts on her feelings, it costs the lives of her own comrades. The ill fated lovers are bound by their duty and responsibilities to protect the country, they suppressed their feelings, parted their ways and lived in each other's memories.

To be honest, there are flaws in the storyline, the background of the heroine (Vicky Zhao) was nothing more than a brief walk through, and the character development of her love (Chen Kun) was a stark constrast to the heroine's, vague and under developed. However, it was understandable as the story was focused on the perspective and emotions of the female in the setting of a cruel and gruesome war.

Frankly, am not a patriotic person, i cant comprehend the sentiments behind the heavy price which Mulan paid to restore the peacefulness. But i do know that war is nothing but man made calamity, the fruit of evil bore from the selfishness of irresponsible and arrogant leaders. The movie reminds the spectators there is always causalities during wars, it doesn't matter if they only leave behind a wooden name tags, they shouldn't be forgotten by the survivors after the battle was won.

A heavy movie to digest but a definitely must watch.

Avatar, when human become inhumane

* BIG SPOILER * dont read this if you planned to watch Avatar.

I went to watch Avatar yesterday. To be frank, take away the tiny flaws in the plot of the story, i have to say it was pretty entertaining and i enjoyed it very much. Its good that sometime we go to watch movie without any expectation and when its still oven hot, there wont be much reviews from others which may creates certain biasness and expectation in our mind.

The perfect example- New moon, get what i mean?

James Cameron must be really craving for a BIG comeback after the history making Titanic blockbuster, cuz Avatar is a movie with gob-smacking sensory overloaded visuals impacts. It was action packed, full with vivid colors, beautiful and almost magical sceneries, but the most captivating thing about the movie is that the 3D scenes are almost human real without the cartoonish/anime-nish look.

Avatar talks about human invation into a foreign planet of an indegenious species called Na'vi to mine for a precious mineral. Jake Sully, an ex marine who was paralyzed from the waist down was hired as the driver (through neural links) for Avatar, a biological replication of Na'vi species created by human. The Avatar programme aimed at diplomacy between the two population however Jake Sully was the mole who repurpose the programme from diplomacy to espionage.

What's unexpected was Jake fell in love with his new body, new identity, new culture, new home and Neytiri, the teacher and the princess who taught him everything about being a Na'vi. He soon realized Pandora (the greens) and the Na'vis are too precious to be destroyed by humans and the realization led him to road of betrayer for his own species.

My movie kaki felt that Avatar is the Sci fi version of Disney's Pocahantus story, except that Jake Sully become the de facto leader of the indegenious population while John Smith had failed miserably, leaving behind Pocahantos and the colors of the wind. To me, it was not much of a love story, but more of a man whom was given a second chance to live again. In the Navi's body, Jake had experienced the life which he can never experienced in his crippled body, although his physicals was still in the human's world, but his conscious and heart is with the Na'vis. Well, given the chance, who wants to be associated with human whose greed is a never ending black hole.

Avatar was not the first movie which describe cruelty of human against the other life form, the inhuman act of human in District 9 preceeded Avatar in many ways. Its kinda funny to see the crowds in the cinema shed tears when the Na'vis were butchered and cheered when the human troops were killed, what an irony. In my opinion, it wasnt something which is outrageous or absurb, if human are mass killing themselves (genocides, war), what stopping them from killing the 'aliens'?

The movie was indeed an eye opener.

Terminator Vs Star Trek: Post Mortem

I'm not a BIG fan of sci fi movie, the futuristic space ship and nuclear explosion doesn't give me that much of adrenaline pumping effect like how it did to those with XY chromosomes. I went to watch both star trek and Terminator salvation since there are alot of good comments

Star trek was a pure enjoyment. I never really watched Star Trek series before, however i find it easy to understand compare to Terminator Salvation and Star Wars series. J.J. Abrams has indeed succeeded in making a movie which is both entertaining to both the die hard trekker fans and to those who have not seen Star Trek before. The storyline was simple yet interesting, and the cast were simply outstanding. The highlight of the movie was the interaction between the major characters: Spock, Kirk, Sulu, Chekov etc. In fact, all the cast were not so famous but they were all talented and pretty much stood out on their own. e.g. The Samurai Sulu, the funny Chekov who cant pronounce the 'V', and last but not least, Spock who is so cool yet so full of emotion. Gosh i loved him so much! Zachary Quinto really played the character well. His expression of being a taught-to-be emotionless young vulcan yet with so much of emotions in him yearned to give it all out was simply spot on.

old cast versus new cast

On the other hand, the cast in Terminator Salvation are forgetful. Christian Bale (John Conner) acted like a co star, nothing about him stood out, except those scene he was kick assed by the Terminator Arnold. His radio broadcast speech was a bit plain if you compare to Will Smith's in I'm a legend's. The Marcus character has alot of loop holes, the kissing scene with the cancer researcher was meaningless, the part where he suddenly appeared in Skynet main controller room and underwent the skin rejuvenation process was not making sense. At the end of the movie, i cant recalled any memorable scene except the endless earth shattering explosion and shoutings.

Anton Yelchin was totally not there. His less than 10 mins appearance as Chekov in Star Trek give greater impact than his Kyle Reese role. He showed no resemblance to John Conner (although he supposed to be the father of John Conner) in terms of his characteristics/ appearance.

Can anyone tell me whether is it the real Arnold Schwarzenegger who make an appearance in the movie? I thought he quit from the entertainment business after he became the governor. It will be hilarious for the Californians to see their beloved Governor naked in the movie though.