Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Movie watched in November 2011
Zach and Miri make a porno - by Kevin Smith ( from Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, etc), with Seth Rogen (from Knocked Up). Zach (Seth) is pretty funny who works at a Starbuck look alike and is out of cash. He has the brilliant idea of directing a porno movie with his housemate Miriam to make loads of money after he meets a gay porno actors couple in their high school reunion. It was quite funny throughout with some cheesy cute romantic scenes (as Zach and Miri have to become a couple in the end).
I can't believe I only watched one movie in November. I will try to make up for the lag in December.
I can't believe I only watched one movie in November. I will try to make up for the lag in December.
Movies watched in October 2011
Glengarry Glen Ross - an all-male casting movie (except for the coat-check girl at the Chinese restaurant), about real estate agents that need to sell better or they will get axed. Al Pacino is the salesman that manages most sales per month, while Jack Lemmon is the one that is almost being fired. Alec Baldwin plays the major asshole that has the best lines of the movie. It is an excellent movie, but rather depressing (throughout, and more so towards the end).
The Town, by Ben Affleck and with Ben Affleck. He is a young man from Charlestown, a neighborhood of Boston well known for breeding bank robbers (dunno whether that is true or not). He is the brain of the operations, while his other Irish-American friends are the hands etc. He starts dating the girl that was the manager in one of the banks they robbed and that was taken hostage by them, and wants himself out of the bank robbing business, but is forced to make another robbery. It's a pretty cool movie.
Margin Call - about the Wall Street crash, or the 24 hours before it. I don't remember *which* Wall Street crash, but I think it was the 2008 one. Some investment bank analyst realizes that investments have been sold outside of their risk margin (or something like that, as I have no clue what it is all about), and basically everything was overvalued and things were going to collapse soon, and some people need to be sacrificed and fired. It has some really famous people (Demi Moore, Jeremy Iron, Stanley Tucci - I like Stanley Tucci - , Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, etc), nothing really happens during the movie yet it doesn't feel that long. It's just mood, mood, oh something bad is going to happen soon what do we do, and then the movie is over.
Atonement, based on Ian McEwan's homonymous book. I have mixed feelings about this movie. At some point in the middle of watching it I thought it was pretty crappy, then near the end I started liking it again. I haven't read the book yet so I can't tell whether I like it better than the book or not. A friend said there was good acting in it (which I disagree) but the movie wasn't good and another friend loved the movie, so I decided to keep the movie for a while and maybe watch it again some other time.
The Town, by Ben Affleck and with Ben Affleck. He is a young man from Charlestown, a neighborhood of Boston well known for breeding bank robbers (dunno whether that is true or not). He is the brain of the operations, while his other Irish-American friends are the hands etc. He starts dating the girl that was the manager in one of the banks they robbed and that was taken hostage by them, and wants himself out of the bank robbing business, but is forced to make another robbery. It's a pretty cool movie.
Margin Call - about the Wall Street crash, or the 24 hours before it. I don't remember *which* Wall Street crash, but I think it was the 2008 one. Some investment bank analyst realizes that investments have been sold outside of their risk margin (or something like that, as I have no clue what it is all about), and basically everything was overvalued and things were going to collapse soon, and some people need to be sacrificed and fired. It has some really famous people (Demi Moore, Jeremy Iron, Stanley Tucci - I like Stanley Tucci - , Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, etc), nothing really happens during the movie yet it doesn't feel that long. It's just mood, mood, oh something bad is going to happen soon what do we do, and then the movie is over.
Atonement, based on Ian McEwan's homonymous book. I have mixed feelings about this movie. At some point in the middle of watching it I thought it was pretty crappy, then near the end I started liking it again. I haven't read the book yet so I can't tell whether I like it better than the book or not. A friend said there was good acting in it (which I disagree) but the movie wasn't good and another friend loved the movie, so I decided to keep the movie for a while and maybe watch it again some other time.
Movies watched in September 2011
Dockanema in Maputo happened this month (see Pigs in Maputo), and I managed to watch 5 documentaries this year.
Nostalgia de la luz, Dockanema - directed by Chilean Patricio Guzmán, tells the story of astronomers observing the stars from the Atacama desert, while a group of mothers try to find the bones of their children that were killed by the Pinochet regime and were supposedly buried there. I think it was a very good movie, but unfortunately I was too tired and fell asleep during the screening. My boyfriend went with me, he stayed awake throughout the entire movie and liked it.
Warchild, Dockanema - this is the story of Emmanuel Jal, who was a child soldier in Sudan's civil war, and who eventually fled through Kenya to the world and became a hip-hop artist. He was there after the screening and answered questions from the audience. Really cool guy, and he's smart, young, and single (for any women out there who might be interested - I say women because I think he's straight, but I didn't ask). He might be a little fucked up still because he still has nightmares about what happened and things he had to do. More about the movie can be found here. It was a really powerful movie, and of course, depressing at the same time.
Robert Mugabe - What happened?, Dockanema - this is a documentary in which many people from Zimbabwe were interviewed. People who used to be politicians and even Mugabe's friends or coalition people and later fell out of grace. Also farmers (white and black) who suffered during his regime. The movie, however, doesn't really answer the question posed. It gives the impression that Mugabe started off quite well, and flipped off once he decided he didn't want to lose power and has been behaving like a crazy maniac since. My favorite part of the movie is when they say that not long after his wife died he married his secretary with whom he already had some children. Didn't look like he was too heartbroken...
The axe and the tree, Dockanema - it's a movie about an NGO that helps people recover from wars. They join people from both sides of the war, and they share their losses and suffering in a big circle, have activities with trees and nature, to try to help them forgive things they've done, and thing they've done to others. Also with people from Zimbabwe.
My name is Ahlam, Dockanema - a movie about a little girl that has a disease (I think it was leucemia but now I'm not sure) and her mother has to keep crossing the border between Israel and Palestina, I think. The girl is really cute (about 2 or 3 years old), and sometimes she gets better but most times she gets worse. In the end she dies, which just goes to prove my theory that people never make happy documentaries. A happy documentary is a fantasy.
Midnight in Paris, by Woody Allen - nothing happens in the movie, except to show how cool Paris always was, especially in the 1920s with all the artists and writers. Owen Wilson even made his voice whinier than usual, and sounded more like Woody Allen. Scary. Maybe if I had read books by Fitzgerald and the other writers mentioned I would have enjoyed the movie more. Unlikely, though.
Wolf's Rain - anime series. I watched this 3-dvd series (my 2nd dvd was a bit weird, it had many repeat scenes from previous episodes) about wolves that could look like humans. These wolf-humans were after the Flower Maiden, because she could lead them to Paradise. About 4 of these wolf-humans get together, and start searching for Paradise together, while some funky weird people trapped the Flower Maiden to create their own Paradise. There are various battles in which all wolves die except one, and then everybody seems to revive again. I would not watch this series again. I should not even have wasted my time watching it the first time, but I am a sucker for anime, especially anime that I have bought.
Nostalgia de la luz, Dockanema - directed by Chilean Patricio Guzmán, tells the story of astronomers observing the stars from the Atacama desert, while a group of mothers try to find the bones of their children that were killed by the Pinochet regime and were supposedly buried there. I think it was a very good movie, but unfortunately I was too tired and fell asleep during the screening. My boyfriend went with me, he stayed awake throughout the entire movie and liked it.
Warchild, Dockanema - this is the story of Emmanuel Jal, who was a child soldier in Sudan's civil war, and who eventually fled through Kenya to the world and became a hip-hop artist. He was there after the screening and answered questions from the audience. Really cool guy, and he's smart, young, and single (for any women out there who might be interested - I say women because I think he's straight, but I didn't ask). He might be a little fucked up still because he still has nightmares about what happened and things he had to do. More about the movie can be found here. It was a really powerful movie, and of course, depressing at the same time.
Robert Mugabe - What happened?, Dockanema - this is a documentary in which many people from Zimbabwe were interviewed. People who used to be politicians and even Mugabe's friends or coalition people and later fell out of grace. Also farmers (white and black) who suffered during his regime. The movie, however, doesn't really answer the question posed. It gives the impression that Mugabe started off quite well, and flipped off once he decided he didn't want to lose power and has been behaving like a crazy maniac since. My favorite part of the movie is when they say that not long after his wife died he married his secretary with whom he already had some children. Didn't look like he was too heartbroken...
The axe and the tree, Dockanema - it's a movie about an NGO that helps people recover from wars. They join people from both sides of the war, and they share their losses and suffering in a big circle, have activities with trees and nature, to try to help them forgive things they've done, and thing they've done to others. Also with people from Zimbabwe.
My name is Ahlam, Dockanema - a movie about a little girl that has a disease (I think it was leucemia but now I'm not sure) and her mother has to keep crossing the border between Israel and Palestina, I think. The girl is really cute (about 2 or 3 years old), and sometimes she gets better but most times she gets worse. In the end she dies, which just goes to prove my theory that people never make happy documentaries. A happy documentary is a fantasy.
Midnight in Paris, by Woody Allen - nothing happens in the movie, except to show how cool Paris always was, especially in the 1920s with all the artists and writers. Owen Wilson even made his voice whinier than usual, and sounded more like Woody Allen. Scary. Maybe if I had read books by Fitzgerald and the other writers mentioned I would have enjoyed the movie more. Unlikely, though.
Wolf's Rain - anime series. I watched this 3-dvd series (my 2nd dvd was a bit weird, it had many repeat scenes from previous episodes) about wolves that could look like humans. These wolf-humans were after the Flower Maiden, because she could lead them to Paradise. About 4 of these wolf-humans get together, and start searching for Paradise together, while some funky weird people trapped the Flower Maiden to create their own Paradise. There are various battles in which all wolves die except one, and then everybody seems to revive again. I would not watch this series again. I should not even have wasted my time watching it the first time, but I am a sucker for anime, especially anime that I have bought.
Movies watched in August 2011
Ceremony, with Michael Angarano and Uma Thurman. About a man (Michael Angarano) who is infatuated with this older woman (Uma Thurman) who is engaged to a documentary director who was good looking, mature and cool. Eventually the man realizes he is an ass and Uma should marry her fiancée, who knew about her infidelities anyway and didn't give a shit about them. Lame movie, but I've seen worse romantic comedies. This one wasn't even a comedy.
Henry's Crime, with Keanu Reeves, James Caan and Vera Farmiga. Henry (Keanu Reeves) comes out of prison for a crime he did not commit but then he decides to rob a bank that is right next to a rundown theater, where an actress (Vera Farmiga) is rehearsing for her next play. Henry calls for the help of James Caan (who is in prison, but manages to get out pretty easily for good behavior), and part of the plan requires Henry to act in the play with Vera as well. It is a naive movie, but not bad. Quite entertaining.
Pirates of the Caribbean 4 - On Stranger Tides, with Penelope Cruz. I was a bit disappointed because there was no Orlando Bloom in this movie but then I remembered that his character only steps on land every 20 years and it hasn't been 20 years since Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I don't like Penelope Cruz anymore, so I didn't pay much attention to the movie, except that she seemed to have had a fling with Captain Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and then a fall out. They were after some water that would give eternal life to someone. Reminded me of Indiana Jones 3.
Kung Fu Panda 2 - unfortunately my copy wasn't too good, but the general story is that there is a bad-ass peacock that was the reason Panda had to flee from his native land and end up adopted by a goose (duck?). His father finally tells Panda that he was adopted, and he has flashback images of his homeland being burnt down. Of course Panda wins in the end, after quite a fight with Mr. Peacock.
Wrecked, with Adrien Brody - according to the description on the cover of the movie: "a movie exploring the nothingness as the new standard for making a story". It was at the heart of nothingnesss. Adrien Brody is trapped in a car accident and doesn't remember anything. Nothing happens in the movie, and there is not even a proper script. But it was meant to be that way, so in some sense this movie was successful. Probably the worst movie I saw this year.
Hanna, with Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett - Hanna is a girl that was trained by her father to be a Nikita. She goes back and tries to avenge her mother by killing the people who had her mother killed (for example, Cate Blanchett being one of them). Eric Bana is her father but apparently Hanna is a product of some special experiment to make super human agents. Not a bad action movie. (I think my standards are going downhill.)
The conspirator, directed by Robert Redford - by far the best movie watched this month, it tells the story of the trial of Mary Surratt, who was accused of plotting the assassination of American president Abraham Lincoln. Young Professor Xavier from X-men (James McAvoy) plays her reluctant defendant, but as he sees that it would be an injustice to incriminate her he actually does a good job of defending her (even though he still fails).
Henry's Crime, with Keanu Reeves, James Caan and Vera Farmiga. Henry (Keanu Reeves) comes out of prison for a crime he did not commit but then he decides to rob a bank that is right next to a rundown theater, where an actress (Vera Farmiga) is rehearsing for her next play. Henry calls for the help of James Caan (who is in prison, but manages to get out pretty easily for good behavior), and part of the plan requires Henry to act in the play with Vera as well. It is a naive movie, but not bad. Quite entertaining.
Pirates of the Caribbean 4 - On Stranger Tides, with Penelope Cruz. I was a bit disappointed because there was no Orlando Bloom in this movie but then I remembered that his character only steps on land every 20 years and it hasn't been 20 years since Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I don't like Penelope Cruz anymore, so I didn't pay much attention to the movie, except that she seemed to have had a fling with Captain Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and then a fall out. They were after some water that would give eternal life to someone. Reminded me of Indiana Jones 3.
Kung Fu Panda 2 - unfortunately my copy wasn't too good, but the general story is that there is a bad-ass peacock that was the reason Panda had to flee from his native land and end up adopted by a goose (duck?). His father finally tells Panda that he was adopted, and he has flashback images of his homeland being burnt down. Of course Panda wins in the end, after quite a fight with Mr. Peacock.
Wrecked, with Adrien Brody - according to the description on the cover of the movie: "a movie exploring the nothingness as the new standard for making a story". It was at the heart of nothingnesss. Adrien Brody is trapped in a car accident and doesn't remember anything. Nothing happens in the movie, and there is not even a proper script. But it was meant to be that way, so in some sense this movie was successful. Probably the worst movie I saw this year.
Hanna, with Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett - Hanna is a girl that was trained by her father to be a Nikita. She goes back and tries to avenge her mother by killing the people who had her mother killed (for example, Cate Blanchett being one of them). Eric Bana is her father but apparently Hanna is a product of some special experiment to make super human agents. Not a bad action movie. (I think my standards are going downhill.)
The conspirator, directed by Robert Redford - by far the best movie watched this month, it tells the story of the trial of Mary Surratt, who was accused of plotting the assassination of American president Abraham Lincoln. Young Professor Xavier from X-men (James McAvoy) plays her reluctant defendant, but as he sees that it would be an injustice to incriminate her he actually does a good job of defending her (even though he still fails).
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Maputo parou de manhã por causa do ciclismo nos jogos africanos
Os transtornos continuaram na sexta-feira, dia 09 e também hoje, domingo dia 11. No entanto, as pessoas dessa vez já estão mais precavidas...
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Movies watched in July 2011
X-Men 5: First Class - the fifth X-Men movie wasn't as good as the first ones, but it was definitely better than the one about Wolverine's origins. James McAvoy plays young Professor Xavier and Michael Fassbender plays young Magneto (which is a pity, as one of the attractions of the X-Men movies for me was Ian McKellen). Story is about Magneto's origins, and how he and Xavier try to work together but never really get to that point, and also shows how Xavier becomes paraplegic. Young Xavier seems to take some sexual interest in the opposite sex than the older Xavier, who seemed to me as sexual as Spock.
The Phantom - pilot movie of a series that never came out, a re-adaptation to more modern times of the comic "Phantom" - this guy who dressed in purple, had a skull as his symbol and lived inside a cave with the shape of a skull.
Sunset Limited - the entire movie is a conversation between Black (Samuel Jackson) and White (Tommy Lee Jones) inside Black's apartment, after Black, who believes in God, has saved White (an atheist) from committing suicide in a train station. I found the movie a bit boring the first time I watched it but on second watching it was ok. Written by Cormac McCarthy, maybe it was originally meant to be a play.
Jack Goes Boating - a movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing this guy who tries to go out with this woman who always thinks people are hitting on her or harassing her all the time. He learns swimming so that he can take the girl out on a boat ride later in Summer, and he also learns how to cook so that he can invite the girl out to dinner (i.e. basically he is a very nice guy). Meanwhile his friend and his wife are fighting each other the whole time. It's not really a comedy, it's not ready a drama. It's not funny and it's not touching, yet it doesn't suck entirely. It's an ok movie.The Savages is a much better movie.
The Milagro Beanfield War, directed by Robert Redford (with Sonia Braga in it!) is a movie about this big real estate company going into some Hispanic people's fields without their consent. The company was trying to buy out all the land and push people away but one guy decides to start planting beans in his field and that creates a lot of trouble for everybody. According to who recommended this movie to me, this is a movie about "how things can go bad without proper community consultation". Christopher Walken and Melanie Griffith take a part in the movie, too.
The Phantom - pilot movie of a series that never came out, a re-adaptation to more modern times of the comic "Phantom" - this guy who dressed in purple, had a skull as his symbol and lived inside a cave with the shape of a skull.
Sunset Limited - the entire movie is a conversation between Black (Samuel Jackson) and White (Tommy Lee Jones) inside Black's apartment, after Black, who believes in God, has saved White (an atheist) from committing suicide in a train station. I found the movie a bit boring the first time I watched it but on second watching it was ok. Written by Cormac McCarthy, maybe it was originally meant to be a play.
Jack Goes Boating - a movie with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing this guy who tries to go out with this woman who always thinks people are hitting on her or harassing her all the time. He learns swimming so that he can take the girl out on a boat ride later in Summer, and he also learns how to cook so that he can invite the girl out to dinner (i.e. basically he is a very nice guy). Meanwhile his friend and his wife are fighting each other the whole time. It's not really a comedy, it's not ready a drama. It's not funny and it's not touching, yet it doesn't suck entirely. It's an ok movie.The Savages is a much better movie.
The Milagro Beanfield War, directed by Robert Redford (with Sonia Braga in it!) is a movie about this big real estate company going into some Hispanic people's fields without their consent. The company was trying to buy out all the land and push people away but one guy decides to start planting beans in his field and that creates a lot of trouble for everybody. According to who recommended this movie to me, this is a movie about "how things can go bad without proper community consultation". Christopher Walken and Melanie Griffith take a part in the movie, too.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Ramadan 2011
Ramadan começou de novo este ano, na data de 01 de agosto de 2011. Aqui segue a tabela dos horários de "quebra de jejum" diários. Notem que para cada dia, porque o sol está diferente, o horário para se quebrar o jejum varia alguns minutinhos. Sem contar que, dependendo de onde você está, o horário também varia alguns minutinhos. Eu descobri também que no horário para se quebrar o jejum é obrigatório comer ou beber qualquer coisinha. Bom, eu não estava fazendo isso. Mas como eu também estou fazendo isso só de farra, eu quebro meu jejum quando eu quero, normalmente depois do horário oficial mas às vezes também antes.
Sem contar esta lista de outros itens a serem seguidos. Meu favorito é "Ser tolerante e manter-se alegre com todos e a todo o momento".
As mulheres aqui cobrem o cabelo durante este período todo para não tentar os homens a pensarem besteira.
Sem contar esta lista de outros itens a serem seguidos. Meu favorito é "Ser tolerante e manter-se alegre com todos e a todo o momento".
As mulheres aqui cobrem o cabelo durante este período todo para não tentar os homens a pensarem besteira.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Movies watched in June 2011
Hangover and Hangover 2 - because Hangover 2 was being sold on the streets and everybody was telling me how Hangover was a funny movie, I decided to watch both of them on the same day. Bad idea. Hangover 2 is not so funny when watched right after Hangover 1. Also because my copy of Hangover 2 wasn't that good, I generally liked Hangover 1 better. I was kind of surprised when they didn't show what happened on the bachelor's night out and felt a bit jipped until I realized the story got cooler and cooler. My favorite part was Mike Tyson's tiger showing up in the hotel room. Hagover 2 is basically Hangover 1, but in Bangkok.
Water for Elephants - a movie based on Sara Gruen's homonymous book. I think the book won some prize, but I'm not sure. The movies is BAD. The photography is fine, there are good actors in it (Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz, from Inglorious Basterds), but a lame script and Robert Pattinson, the vampire lead in the Twilight Series kind of ruin it. Robert is a cute face but he has fewer expressions than the elephant in the movie. Then my dvd copy went out of sync (sound and image) and that just made the whole experience go downhill. I gave the movie away to a friend and I feel a bit guilty about it. More about my feelings on the movie can be found here.
Armless - I think this movie is Canadian, and it was weird and interesting. The story is about a man who has a psychological disorder called Body Integrity Identity Disorder, and his quest to cut off his own arms to feel complete. That's all the movie is about and we feel it's going to be a drag in the beginning but it actually catches our attention and the movie goes by really fast. I was afraid they would show really gruesome bloody scenes of the guy sawing away his arms, but they never showed that scene.
Smart people - an ok movie about a literature professor (played by Dennis Quaid) who is still mourning his dead wife and starts dating Sarah Jessica Parker. She basically ruins the movie. Ellen Page is really good as Dennis's daughter and Thomas Haden Church is pretty cool as the brother/uncle.
I suspect if Sarah Jessica Parker wasn't there the movie would have been a lot better.
Barney's version, with Paul Giamatti. Giamatti is a Jewish producer whose father is played by Dustin Hoffman. The movie starts from his youth in Italy and, after two unsuccessful marriages, he finally marries the mother of his children (played by Rosamund Pike, who was in Pride and Prejudice). After that the movie gets slower and more boring, until Giamatti gets Alzheimer and dies. That's it.
Water for Elephants - a movie based on Sara Gruen's homonymous book. I think the book won some prize, but I'm not sure. The movies is BAD. The photography is fine, there are good actors in it (Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz, from Inglorious Basterds), but a lame script and Robert Pattinson, the vampire lead in the Twilight Series kind of ruin it. Robert is a cute face but he has fewer expressions than the elephant in the movie. Then my dvd copy went out of sync (sound and image) and that just made the whole experience go downhill. I gave the movie away to a friend and I feel a bit guilty about it. More about my feelings on the movie can be found here.
Armless - I think this movie is Canadian, and it was weird and interesting. The story is about a man who has a psychological disorder called Body Integrity Identity Disorder, and his quest to cut off his own arms to feel complete. That's all the movie is about and we feel it's going to be a drag in the beginning but it actually catches our attention and the movie goes by really fast. I was afraid they would show really gruesome bloody scenes of the guy sawing away his arms, but they never showed that scene.
Smart people - an ok movie about a literature professor (played by Dennis Quaid) who is still mourning his dead wife and starts dating Sarah Jessica Parker. She basically ruins the movie. Ellen Page is really good as Dennis's daughter and Thomas Haden Church is pretty cool as the brother/uncle.
I suspect if Sarah Jessica Parker wasn't there the movie would have been a lot better.
Barney's version, with Paul Giamatti. Giamatti is a Jewish producer whose father is played by Dustin Hoffman. The movie starts from his youth in Italy and, after two unsuccessful marriages, he finally marries the mother of his children (played by Rosamund Pike, who was in Pride and Prejudice). After that the movie gets slower and more boring, until Giamatti gets Alzheimer and dies. That's it.
Movies watched in April 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1 - not a particularly memorable movie, but I had to watch it because it was being sold here and I really liked all the books. I did notice that the kids (Hermione and Ron) improved in their acting skills since movie 1. The kid who plays Harry, however, continues to be hopelessly expressionless. Fortunately all the magic and special effects distract us a bit from his bad acting. Deathly Hallows part II is already being sold but the "dvd quality is bad" (when even the salesmen say it's bad, it must be un-watcheable!).
Never let me go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, with Carey Mulligan (actress from An Education), Andrew Garfield (from The Social Network and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), and Keira Knightley (from the Pirates of Caribbean, etc). On the cover, it says this is "a superb, poignant film about everlasting love". Well... it was an ok movie, where these three were kids who were in a school just for people who were born solely for the purpose to be organ donors. Therefore, they always knew that eventually they would die by the time they give their third or fourth organ donation. Their death is called "completion". The character played by Mulligan delays her completion a bit, because she chose to become a caretaker - someone who provides caring (psychological and otherwise) to those who are already donating their organs. There is some love triangle also (Mulligan always loved Garfield, who made out with Knightley). This movie was certainly better than Harry Potter and the movies I saw in March, though that's not saying much...
Heart and Souls, with Robert Downey Jr. and Elisabeth Shue (from Leaving Las Vegas, I always thought she was a hottie), about a boy who was born when 4 other people were dying. These 4 people become his attendant spirits, and follow him around everywhere, almost giving the impression that the child is schizophrenic. They only leave him one by one, when he (Downey) finish doing what these people were supposed to do in their lives but died before they managed. It's a light movie. The best scene is when Downey plays a woman taking over the body of his character in a business meeting.
The House Where Evil Dwells - a B minus or C plus movie about this American family that moves into Japan, into a house that previously witnessed murder: a Japanese woman who was betraying her husband with his student got caught by the husband, who killed both lovers and then harakiri-ed himself (incorrectly, according to a friend). The spirit of those three continue in the house (i.e. the house is haunted) and the same things start happening to the American family. The only person that doesn't get so affected is the American family's daughter, who is safely removed from the house before the shit hits the fan. The movie was ok B minus until one scene where crabs showed up from nowhere and tried to attack the little girl. Where did the giant crabs come from? That turned the movie into a C plus movie.
Jacob's Ladder, with Tim Robbins. By far the creepiest movie of the month, the movie is full of random scary scenes in the life of Jacob, Tim Robbin's character, a peaceful post office man who came back from Vietnam war. To understand the movie, one has to realize everything is going on in the astral planes, and Jacob is fighting for his soul. Given that I didn't realize that until someone in the audience said it out loud, I was pretty much lost for about 70% of the movie. Macaulay Culkin plays the role of Jacob's dead child who is in heaven already. One thing I did notice, though, is that Tim Robbins is f*ing TALL. He was at least one foot taller than pretty much everybody else in the movie.
They Live, a movie about how aliens are infiltrated in the general population, and this stud looking guy manages to find some sunglasses that allows one to identify who are the infiltrated people. He decides to join the quest of people who fight against the aliens. The movie is so trashy that is good and funny.
First Knight, a movie about Lancelot (played by Richard Gere) and King Arthur (played by Sean Connery) and his wife, who had a not so little crush on Lancelot. It was entertaining. Richard Gere is good looking (as in a shampoo commercial, with wavy hair that blows in the wind when he is riding horses) but expressionless (which fits his hard-ass role of warrior).
Communion, a movie about alien abduction played by Christopher Walken. Christopher Walken already looks creepy enough to be an alien himself, and the movie is kind of strange overall (like Christopher Walken).
The Prophecy - here again Christopher Walken is in it, but this time playing the bad guy (he was sort of a good/normal guy in Communion). Walken is archangel Gabriel, who in this movie goes bad and wants to start another rebellion in Heaven. The plan is to revive the spirit of a nasty war general who was accused of various atrocities in the body of this Mexican-American girl so that the balance between good and evil flips to evil's advantage. One sort of good looking guy and the little girl's teacher try to stop this evil plan.
The exorcist - the classic movie about this girl that gets possessed with an evil spirit and manages to lift the bed, walk backwards and turn her head 360 degrees around her neck. There was so much hype around watching this movie and I was so scared of it originally that it wasn't so bad after all (kind of like my reaction after watching Alien 10 years later - the alien then looked like a sorry little penis and not scary at all). Two priests try to exorcise the girl and I am not sure they succeed, given that both die in the end, leaving me the impression that the evil spirit was still left in the air. Maybe that's what lead to making Exorcist 2, 3, etc.
Devil's advocate - this is the second time I watch this movie where Al Pacino plays the devil himself (he looked as if he enjoyed the role) and Keanu Reeves is his protegé lawyer and Charlize Theron his (Keanu's) hot wife. It is probably the best script among all the ones I watched this month. The main message is that the devil dwells in the small details.
Matrix I, by the Wachowski brothers - another old classic, probably the N-th time I watch this, but it is always kind of fun. Again Keanu Reeves is in the movie, playing Neo, "the One" who can beat the Matrix, and Carrie-Anne Moss plays his kick-ass sidekick. Something about them all dressed in sleek black long coats, tight clothes and cool sunglasses make them look really hot and gay (especially Neo). I remember watching the other two movies in the series too but somehow they weren't as good.
Never let me go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, with Carey Mulligan (actress from An Education), Andrew Garfield (from The Social Network and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), and Keira Knightley (from the Pirates of Caribbean, etc). On the cover, it says this is "a superb, poignant film about everlasting love". Well... it was an ok movie, where these three were kids who were in a school just for people who were born solely for the purpose to be organ donors. Therefore, they always knew that eventually they would die by the time they give their third or fourth organ donation. Their death is called "completion". The character played by Mulligan delays her completion a bit, because she chose to become a caretaker - someone who provides caring (psychological and otherwise) to those who are already donating their organs. There is some love triangle also (Mulligan always loved Garfield, who made out with Knightley). This movie was certainly better than Harry Potter and the movies I saw in March, though that's not saying much...
Heart and Souls, with Robert Downey Jr. and Elisabeth Shue (from Leaving Las Vegas, I always thought she was a hottie), about a boy who was born when 4 other people were dying. These 4 people become his attendant spirits, and follow him around everywhere, almost giving the impression that the child is schizophrenic. They only leave him one by one, when he (Downey) finish doing what these people were supposed to do in their lives but died before they managed. It's a light movie. The best scene is when Downey plays a woman taking over the body of his character in a business meeting.
The House Where Evil Dwells - a B minus or C plus movie about this American family that moves into Japan, into a house that previously witnessed murder: a Japanese woman who was betraying her husband with his student got caught by the husband, who killed both lovers and then harakiri-ed himself (incorrectly, according to a friend). The spirit of those three continue in the house (i.e. the house is haunted) and the same things start happening to the American family. The only person that doesn't get so affected is the American family's daughter, who is safely removed from the house before the shit hits the fan. The movie was ok B minus until one scene where crabs showed up from nowhere and tried to attack the little girl. Where did the giant crabs come from? That turned the movie into a C plus movie.
Jacob's Ladder, with Tim Robbins. By far the creepiest movie of the month, the movie is full of random scary scenes in the life of Jacob, Tim Robbin's character, a peaceful post office man who came back from Vietnam war. To understand the movie, one has to realize everything is going on in the astral planes, and Jacob is fighting for his soul. Given that I didn't realize that until someone in the audience said it out loud, I was pretty much lost for about 70% of the movie. Macaulay Culkin plays the role of Jacob's dead child who is in heaven already. One thing I did notice, though, is that Tim Robbins is f*ing TALL. He was at least one foot taller than pretty much everybody else in the movie.
They Live, a movie about how aliens are infiltrated in the general population, and this stud looking guy manages to find some sunglasses that allows one to identify who are the infiltrated people. He decides to join the quest of people who fight against the aliens. The movie is so trashy that is good and funny.
First Knight, a movie about Lancelot (played by Richard Gere) and King Arthur (played by Sean Connery) and his wife, who had a not so little crush on Lancelot. It was entertaining. Richard Gere is good looking (as in a shampoo commercial, with wavy hair that blows in the wind when he is riding horses) but expressionless (which fits his hard-ass role of warrior).
Communion, a movie about alien abduction played by Christopher Walken. Christopher Walken already looks creepy enough to be an alien himself, and the movie is kind of strange overall (like Christopher Walken).
The Prophecy - here again Christopher Walken is in it, but this time playing the bad guy (he was sort of a good/normal guy in Communion). Walken is archangel Gabriel, who in this movie goes bad and wants to start another rebellion in Heaven. The plan is to revive the spirit of a nasty war general who was accused of various atrocities in the body of this Mexican-American girl so that the balance between good and evil flips to evil's advantage. One sort of good looking guy and the little girl's teacher try to stop this evil plan.
The exorcist - the classic movie about this girl that gets possessed with an evil spirit and manages to lift the bed, walk backwards and turn her head 360 degrees around her neck. There was so much hype around watching this movie and I was so scared of it originally that it wasn't so bad after all (kind of like my reaction after watching Alien 10 years later - the alien then looked like a sorry little penis and not scary at all). Two priests try to exorcise the girl and I am not sure they succeed, given that both die in the end, leaving me the impression that the evil spirit was still left in the air. Maybe that's what lead to making Exorcist 2, 3, etc.
Devil's advocate - this is the second time I watch this movie where Al Pacino plays the devil himself (he looked as if he enjoyed the role) and Keanu Reeves is his protegé lawyer and Charlize Theron his (Keanu's) hot wife. It is probably the best script among all the ones I watched this month. The main message is that the devil dwells in the small details.
Matrix I, by the Wachowski brothers - another old classic, probably the N-th time I watch this, but it is always kind of fun. Again Keanu Reeves is in the movie, playing Neo, "the One" who can beat the Matrix, and Carrie-Anne Moss plays his kick-ass sidekick. Something about them all dressed in sleek black long coats, tight clothes and cool sunglasses make them look really hot and gay (especially Neo). I remember watching the other two movies in the series too but somehow they weren't as good.
Movies watched in March 2011
Elephant White, with Djimon Hounsou (the black guy from Blood Diamond) and Kevin Bacon, directed by Prachya Pinkaew (same guy who directed Ong Bak, which I haven't seen). Ok, not a good movie, but I watched the whole thing. Djimon Hounsou is some hired assassin to kill some mafia dude, and there is this Asian girl that keeps falling him around, and supposedly helps him, but then I think he realizes she was already dead, one of the victims of the mafia he was hired to assassinate. Something like that.
Fair Game, with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is a movie based on the real-life story of an undercover CIA agent that lost her cover during the Iraq war. It was ok. The funny thing is that in real life, the character played by Sean Penn, an ex-diplomat, keeps having twins with his wives (Naomi Watts playing his second or third wife, I forget). It must be in his genes.
Fair Game, with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is a movie based on the real-life story of an undercover CIA agent that lost her cover during the Iraq war. It was ok. The funny thing is that in real life, the character played by Sean Penn, an ex-diplomat, keeps having twins with his wives (Naomi Watts playing his second or third wife, I forget). It must be in his genes.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Another scam - just received
Delay on my part has been due to the change of my duties. I have sucessfully deposited your Cashier Check of $825,000.00 USD with the United Parcel Service. I am now in Dubai (UAE) for my new job.
I need you to contact the United Parcel Service (UPS) for delivery of your check.
Please take note that you will pay a shipping/handling fee of $87.00 US Dollars.
Contact UPS with below details and pay the shipping/handling fee ($87 USD) to receive your cashier check:
Name: Collins Abah
Tel: +2348182662437
E-mail: ups-dispatch.ng@xnmsn.cnups-dispatch.ng@xnmsn.
Thank you for your patience.
Moore Pamela
Programme Manager
I need you to contact the United Parcel Service (UPS) for delivery of your check.
Please take note that you will pay a shipping/handling fee of $87.00 US Dollars.
Contact UPS with below details and pay the shipping/handling fee ($87 USD) to receive your cashier check:
Name: Collins Abah
Tel: +2348182662437
E-mail: ups-dispatch.ng@xnmsn.cn
Thank you for your patience.
Moore Pamela
Programme Manager
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The girl who loved pink
Once upon a time, there was a girl that had a special gift.
She could see things that no one else could see.
Like angels and fairies, which would make her very happy.
And monsters and demons, which would make her very scared.
Because she was scared, she decided she didn't want to see strange things anymore.
She took pink paint, and started pairing everything pink.
Because pink was her favorite color.
She covered all the demons and monsters in pink.
And she wasn't scared of them anymore.
But in her rush, she painted the angels and fairies pink as well.
So she couldn't see angels or fairies anymore.
She also painted herself pink, because she liked pink so much.
Her whole world was now pink, and she felt very safe in it.
The problem was, she couldn't see herself anymore.
When people told her she was a pretty girl, she didn't know whether they were saying that because the was pink, or because she was really pretty.
When someone gave her a flower and told her, "Here's a pretty flower for you, " she didn't know whether it was really a pretty flower because everything looked pink.
Even though she loved pink, she couldn't trust what was pretty anymore.
Slowly, she couldn't trust anything or anyone.
And she felt very, very lonely.
So lonely that she started to cry.
And she cried a lot!
The curious thing was, with her tear, she noticed that her dress wasn't pink anymore. Where the tears had dropped, it was a colorful flower print. The tears had washed away the pink paint.
"Wow! This is the real color of my dress! I had forgotten about it," she thought.
And she felt so sad that she could have forgotten the real color of her own dress that she cried some more.
And more things started to show up. And the more she saw, the more she cried.
Soon her whole world was back with its original colors again. And the angels and fairies showed up. And so did the demons and monsters.
But his time the girl didn't want to pain everything pink again. "I'm kind of sick of this color," she thought.
So she took a broom, and started sweeping all the unwanted entities out of her room.
She could see things that no one else could see.
Like angels and fairies, which would make her very happy.
And monsters and demons, which would make her very scared.
Because she was scared, she decided she didn't want to see strange things anymore.
She took pink paint, and started pairing everything pink.
Because pink was her favorite color.
She covered all the demons and monsters in pink.
And she wasn't scared of them anymore.
But in her rush, she painted the angels and fairies pink as well.
So she couldn't see angels or fairies anymore.
She also painted herself pink, because she liked pink so much.
Her whole world was now pink, and she felt very safe in it.
The problem was, she couldn't see herself anymore.
When people told her she was a pretty girl, she didn't know whether they were saying that because the was pink, or because she was really pretty.
When someone gave her a flower and told her, "Here's a pretty flower for you, " she didn't know whether it was really a pretty flower because everything looked pink.
Even though she loved pink, she couldn't trust what was pretty anymore.
Slowly, she couldn't trust anything or anyone.
And she felt very, very lonely.
So lonely that she started to cry.
And she cried a lot!
The curious thing was, with her tear, she noticed that her dress wasn't pink anymore. Where the tears had dropped, it was a colorful flower print. The tears had washed away the pink paint.
"Wow! This is the real color of my dress! I had forgotten about it," she thought.
And she felt so sad that she could have forgotten the real color of her own dress that she cried some more.
And more things started to show up. And the more she saw, the more she cried.
Soon her whole world was back with its original colors again. And the angels and fairies showed up. And so did the demons and monsters.
But his time the girl didn't want to pain everything pink again. "I'm kind of sick of this color," she thought.
So she took a broom, and started sweeping all the unwanted entities out of her room.
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