Notes Of What I've Seen : The Cove

As you all know, this is the winner for Best Documentary of Academy Award® 2009!!!!
That's the main reason why I watched it, beside I really like documentary because it is REAL and it is more fun to watch documentary than reading newspaper or watching news broadcast. Documentary has important points/events noted and summarized to one well-edited package (you don't have to follow the news daily) and it is both informative and quite entertaining.

This is a very nice to watch documentary. We are like watching a detective story about a group of dolphin lovers trying to find facts about dolphin slaughter and make the world aware of this issue. It feels real, exciting and also heartbreaking.

After watching it, I wonder why many smart people are so neglectful, only mind about their own profit and position. How small countries can be easily driven by other slightly more powerful country. And why there are politics in a non-profit organization?!!!! *hate politics*

Does everybody have to regret what they've done first to finally do the right thing? While there are money/profit/conflict of interest involved, will this (nature and health) issue resolved?! Huff....

This documentary use lots of hi-tech stuff like thermal camera (it's so cool) and underwater camera. They all captured things very well, like when the clear water turns red because of the blood from dolphins being killed, or harmonious swimming between a diver and dolphins.

I remember a scene where those heartless japanese laughed at the diver (I forgot her name) who cried watching a baby dolphin dying. It was so heartbreaking.

I wish this documentary can make a change! Please.....*fingers crossed*

Notes of What I've seen: It's Complicated

Okay, actually there are other movies I've seen through January, but this one is the most entertaining!!

Meryl Streep was once married to Alec Baldwin and then divorced after 20 years of marriage because Alec cheated on her. So Alec married his mistress and Meryl lives alone and expands her business as caterer.
One day before their youngest son graduation, they had good conversations , danced and finally......slept together.
I actually shocked when Alec put his hands on Meryl's 'female area' and said finally back home!!!!
So, they officially had an affair while there is another man : Steve Martin who works as her architect also have feelings for her.

This movie is very entertaining, quite funny, and not so complicated for me, though it's complicated for Meryl in the movie. :D

I Heart Meryl !!

Notes of What I've seen: Sherlock Holmes

Haven't read any sherlock holmes' story, watched this movie because it is a box office movie and many of my friends said that the movie is good :p

The story is about two men : Holmes -a famous detective- (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson -a doctor- (Jude Law) who are friends and also partners to solve crimes.

This episode of Sherlock Holmes (I say 'episode' because I think they'll make the sequel ;p) is about people in England who are afraid of black magic practitioner : Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), so they’re really happy that he was caught and will be hanged to death. He was hanged and Watson called the time of his death before finally he was buried.
Meanwhile, Holmes ex-girlfriend Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) came to Holmes apartment asking him to find a man. After she left, Holmes followed her and found out that Irene was hired by a man whom she was really scared to.
Not long after that, someone saw Blackwood rose from grave and after they opened Blackwood’s coffin, there was the person Irene had been looking for inside it. The story after that was about Holmes and Watson look for clues to find Blackwood and logically solve all the “black magic” happened.

I feel the story pace was fast and the explanation of all the solving was explained quite fast so you really must pay attention to what Holmes said and to screen that showed what really happened/what Holmes thought was happened. The movie is very successful in showing Holmes as a very logical, well calculated and smart person..though at many times his luck played the biggest part :)
I don’t know what Holmes is in the novels, but many people said that he should be just plain logical person, he should not be at all comical like in one scene where he paid a lady in the street to pretend to be a palm-reader and told bad premonitions so Watson will cancel his plan to proposal to his girlfriend Mary.

Overall, this movie is just quite entertaining, don’t feel anything through the movie, not at all excited seeing the explosions , fights, nor getting “wow” effect from seeing how smart Holmes is in the movie. I think the best in this move is Rachel McAdams’ act and the city view…:D *when will I go there…mmm…*

-2009.01.04-

Notes of What I've seen: Three Monkeys (Üç maymun)

It started with a man,Servet, ran over and killed someone with his car, and all he did to protect his political career was asked his chauffeur, Eyüp, to replace him going to prison. While Eyüp is in prison, his paycheck will be paid in cash and he’ll get big amount of money after he’s out of prison. Eyüp’s son, İsmail, who didn’t manage to get into college asked to buy a car and his mother ,Hacer, asked Servet to give her an advance on money to buy the car, and somehow they finally got into affair. İsmail knew about the affair but didn’t say anything to his dad when he visit.

After Eyüp got out of prison, he went to the office to see Servet for the big amount of money that Servet promised him, Eyüp told him to subtract the amount that İsmail took to buy the car, but Servet said that he won’t subtract the amount. Eyüp also suspicious to his wife who had a call from a male (Servet…you know where this is going..he2). Servet wanted to break up his affair with Hacer. And when Servet was killed , police called Eyüp and Hacer for interrogation and there’s where Eyüp found out about Hacer’s affair. Finally Eyüp knew that İsmail is the one who killed Servet, and he did the same thing : find a replacement for his son.

I had a headache after watch this movie, it’s like an old telenovela where they kill each other and protect each other…The difference is it is Turkish movie…he2.
They all play like 3 monkeys – play deaf, blind, numb – knowing things but pretend not knowing them to protect each other, to keep their family from tearing apart.

This is not a bad movie, the set was beautiful…and there’s one scene I remember well: when Servet wanted to break up with Hacer , (the scene was really beautiful) they met beside a lake, first it was just windy, and then along with the arguments and fights they had, the weather was slowly worsen, with thunder and all.. The weather supported the scene very well.

-2010.01.01-

Notes of What I've seen: Mary And Max

Screened with two color tone: one is black&white , and the other one is colorful-but more brown colors involved-. The one with color belongs to the story about Mary Daisy Dinkle, a young girl in Australia, who has no friend, neglected by her parents, have many ideas in her mind, and curious about things. Her curiousity about "where do children come from" gave her an idea to write a letter to someone from another continent to ask about this specific question. She picked Max Jerry Horowitz in New York from a phone book she read in post office to be her pen pal.

Both have no friend (though Max has an imaginary friend, but he always wanted a real friend as one of his 3 goals in life, beside having enough chocolate for whole life and collection of Noblets figurines), love Noblets cartoon, like eating chocolate, bullied and alienated by other people around them. They become good friends as he likes to answer Mary’s questions in her letters such as 'if a taxi goes backwards, does the driver owe you money'..:) And Max also shared about his obesity and mental illness problem, his jobs, and other things about his life.

Because of this friendship, Mary changed herself, succeed in university learning about mental illness, wishing someday she’ll be able to cure her friend Max. She even published a book about the illness using Max as her study case which makes Max furious, sent a full of hate letter that made Mary devastated.

This is not a fun, kiddy cartoon.. It even had a narrator in some parts of the movie, beside the letter writing and reading in most part of it. I like this movie although it is too dark for me. I like how little Mary suggests things and asking things to Max in a very simple way (even put them in drawings). Max even laminated her letters..so cute… Max even tell little Mary about essential, logical things like ‘why people cut trees down while we still need oxygen’ , or how to survive being bullied by making up lies and at the same time he told her that lying is not good, and tell her that he’s an atheist (a very heavy material for a kid like Mary)…

Have I told you about the color difference between Mary’s and Max’s frame? One time Max imagined that their path would somehow cross and they can meet each other, it is still pictures half B/W –Max’s side- and half colorful –Mary’s side- with a very blurry blend in the middle. And when they finally meet in the end of the movie (it was supposed to be a secret, he2) , colorful Mary went to Max’s B/W world…I wonder why they make the color like that..???

A story about friendship (ups and downs of it), life (most of it are awful side of life), and loving yourself…

Likes it…my first movie in 2010…^^

-2010.01.01-

Notes of What I've seen: Departures (おくりびと, Okuribito)

Seen this movie on Jiffest 2009. It was the only japanese film , and from my experience Japanese films are really good, very different from other films and this one is reaaaaaaaally good.

This film started showing a dead body 'preparation' and they can not decide whether the dead person is a man or woman..hahaha...and then it flew back to a scene where an orchestra is performing, and because of the ticket-selling is bad, the orchestra was dismissed. A young cello player - who have pursued this career for a long time, and very optimistic about the future of this orchestra, even offered to have his wife designed a website for them - have to let his dream go, sell a 'professional' cello that he just bought, and ask her wife to go back to his hometown.

He looked for a job and went to a interview to a company which he thought was a travel agency. He finally figured out that the company give 'dead person preparation' service . He was immediately hired and was offered big salary, he even went home from the interview with an advance salary.

He hated the job at first but he slowly takes the job very seriously and even loves the job. He risked his marriage, lost a friend because of this job. But because of his strong heart, his passion for his job,he finally gets it all back and even get closure with his dad that had left him and his mom since he was a child.

This movie move not in linear way, it can move to the past or to the later story without you knowing it...It shows someone's integrity to one's job though everyone was against it. It shows a lot of 'dead preparation' service, each family has their own way to say goodbye to their died family member.

This film is perhaps the best I had in jiffest 2009, I laughed a lot, cried as much through this film. Loves it!!
Please watch this film..I beg you..hahaha...

-2010.01.01-

Notes of What I've seen: (500) Days Of Summer

"You should know upfront , This is not a Love story"

It is indeed not a love story...it is about finding n losing love I think.

It moves back and forth through 500 days of Summer. Summer here is not the season, it's the name of the main character in this movie. And the movie tells us about how Tom - a regular male working as greeting card writer - met Summer and had 500 days Summer-ed. Those 500 days were ups and downs for Tom , we can see Summer brings out the best and worst in him.

Can not tell much about this movie, you should really watch it yourself. The story is common (I think). But how the story is put together in this movie is really refreshing, the characters are so alive, all the jokes & conversations between them, and Summer's unpredictable acts made me think "Hey, I wanna date her!" hahahaha...

There is one more thing that I love in this movie, when they move from one day to another, the frame shows the day-number and the background shows the mood.. Like when their relationship was in bad term , the background was dark, gloomy ..and when it was all good, the background was big orange sunshine.

Ooooops, almost forgot to tell you..its soundtrack album was soooooo good too..my fave: Us - Regina Spektor..*I'm her big fan, he2^^*

-2010.01.01-

Notes of What I've seen: Julie & Julia

Two stories about two women at their own time are told side-by-side.
One.
Julia Child (Meryl Streep),an American, moved to Paris following his husband who was assigned there. Being a housewife, she was looking for things to do, trying out hat making lesson, bridge lesson, and somehow led her to cooking lesson. Having a very supportive husband and being a very competitive person , she managed to be the best in her class, even get to teach person and after so many struggles she had her book published.

Two.
Julie Powell (Amy Adams) moved to Queens from Brooklyn, hated it there, needed to find something new to fill her days beside being a government employee (I think her job is soooooo depressing, listening to people's complain), a housewife. She started a blog with the challange is to finish all recipes from recipe book co-authored by Julia Child in one year.

Julie compared to Julia is less competitive, less happy, but she find the way out of it from Julia Child's recipes, life experience. But if we look at their life in linear way, we can see so much similarity, though they're from different era, they both needed something to do - obsession - target - hobby , and finally led them both to cooking...

I love Meryl Streep!! Her character is so funny, lovable...All through the movie, I don't care about Julia Powell's story (though I think this movie is supposed to be about her blog project)...I only want more of Julia Child!!! hahaha....

I like this kind of story, life story...life-changing story...It's a good movie to start a new year...makes me think of my resolutions...;p

-2009.12.31-

Notes of What I've seen: The Hangover

I saw this movie last week...





Temen gw sampe gini : "You'll thank me later" ...segitunya ya...





Nah, filmnya dimulai dengan Phil (Bradley Cooper) yg super kotor n luka2 telepon ke Tracy(Sasha Barrese) u/ kasih tau bahwa Doug-her fiancee (Justin Bartha) gak akan sempet balik ke acara wedding mereka.





Nah, trus flashback deh ke few days before, start dari adegan Doug lg fitting baju bareng calon kakak ipar nya Alan (Zach Galifianakis) yang super dodol. Di situ Doug ajak Alan untuk pergi ke bachelor party nya dia di Vegas bareng sama 2 sahabat karibnya : Stu(Ed Helms) n Phil.





Pas mereka otw ke Vegas , kelihatanlah karakter mereka masing-masing...Stu tuh kaku banget - follow the rule, Alan tuh super dodol - sloppy n makes 'stupid' statement, Phil yang pengen banget get away n have fun, n groom-to-be: Doug yang bisa have fun tapi lebih 'mind things'





Nah, mereka sampai ke Caesar Palace buat nginep..si Alan dengan pintarnya tanya ma resepsionis 'Caesar doesn't really live here right?' huahahaa...gondok bgt dah si resepsionisnya..


They start the bachelor party dengan naik ke atap hotel dengan view lampu kota Las Vegas, mereka bersulang ... Nah, kejadian selanjutnya mereka udah bangun esoknya dengan keadaan kamar yang super berantakan, furnitur hotel rusak, Stu kehilangan 1 giginya, ada harimau di toilet, ada bayi di lemari n Doug is missing..Yang paling parah adalah : mereka gak inget satu hal pun tentang hal yang terjadi malam sebelumnya....





Setelah itu mulailah perjalanan mereka mencari Doug.





Yang gw gak suka dari film ini cuma Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) yang super annoying...cina totok tapi gayanya sok gangster, ilfil banget dah.





Perjalanan ini mengubah hidup mereka, especially Stu yang bisa pecahin masalah relationshipnya, gimana Alan ngebuktiin idenya yang dianggap tolol ma mereka akhirnya bisa bantu mereka keluar dari masalah, Phil yang menyadari arti family nya...





Menurut gw film ini bagus. Kocak tapi gak jorok (at least gak di-expose banget adegannya, cuma ditampilin dalam bentuk foto2 di akhir film). Celetukan dan tingkah laku Alan yang bikin film datar ini ada warnanya...Buat orang-orang yang suka American Pie mungkin gak akan suka film ini soalnya beda tipe.





Selamat nonton! ^^

Q&A <> Slumdog Millionaire

"Originally published as Q&A"...I bought the book which has its film poster on its cover (It shows Latika running with black background) - not the original cover (I love the original cover - but my boyfriend said that it is a waste to buy a book which I already have just because I want to have the one with original cover on it..^^)
I bought it in the first place because my friend told me the film based on this book will be a BIG HIT, and it was!!! Actually, the film won Best Picture in Academy Awards. Hmm...

I read the novel & I watched the movie, and it is natural to compare what I feel about those two. Perhaps u already guessed that I like the book better..It's true! hahaha... And I don't think this film was based on this book like other films, such as Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, etc. The film is totally different from the book. And the film (just like other films based on books) lacked in many things. So U MUST READ this novel..

What I see in the book:
1. a very rich story about an orphan who struggled for his life : how he found friendship, how he showed his empathy tho others, how he protected other people as his own family, how he first had sex 'n finally felt love...how he had & lost money, people who love him, friends, knowledge ....
2. the stories in this book are not chronologically told (it is based on the questions given in the quiz)...so it is very exciting to finish this novel with a lot of things may come up between stories...
3. the quality & variety of knowledge offered within the stories were both entertaining & triggered u to think hard like it was a puzzle to solve. The answers to all questions are not always given to you plainly, but perhaps it is just a simple unimportant detail in his 'big' life story , and there is a question that his particular life story points out all the wrong answers and leave out the right one for him...So sometimes you should re-read the chapter to make sure & find where this detail was laid out in the story.

What I see in the film:
The story is not as good as its book & actually they have completely different story (beside the same big idea about why the main character attend the quiz : to protect the girl he loves). The film shows us how a poor & uneducated (he went to primary school in teh beginning of film) kid can be a winner in a quiz which requires him to be very knowledgeable to win, simply because of random information he gets throughout his life & some help he got (like 50:50, ask the audience, and other things that I'm not gonna spoil).

I feel there are many missing link , such as:
- How can his blind childhood friend recognise Jamal? Jamal's voice & appearance is totally different from the last time they see each other , and I wonder how that blind kid touched Jamal's face can help him recognise Jamal....
- This "love" between Jamal & Latika : when did it start? I don't feel it at all...

Things I wanna point out:
- I like main character's name in the book : Ram Mohammad Thomas : how he got his name, how it affected his life, and why there are 3 religions name combined together (Hindu, Islam, Christian)
- I like how in the book Ram Mohammad Thomas tells us the story before the question is told, not like in the movie where Jamal tries to explain how he answered all questions after the police showed him the recording
- The film was too over-simplified. The book has more conflicts, more exciting things, it shows much more information that help him throughout the quiz.

Mm...I think that's all ... experience both the book & film yourselves 'n tell me what u think...