Category: Movies
Terima Kasih Pierre Coffin!
Its school holiday and I must think of many many activities to keep my two angels busy!
Since they watch youtube regularly, I came across the trailers of MINIONS over a month a go. But, I thought that the release date is mid of JULY! So I was really really excited to know that it premier in our nearest theaters today!
I immediately took them to see it…and we started laughing even when the Universal logo appeared on screen ^^ Unlike Descpicable Me and Despicable Me 2 that did not pay particular attention on individual minions. In Minion, we follow three special minions: Kevin – the aspiring leader of the pack, Stuart – the musician and finally the adorable and sweet BOB.
It is difficult for us to understand exactly what the minions are saying, since they have their own language, but we can guess from their behaviors. Don’t try to over analyze the plots as adults or as movie critics, just roll along and let your self go..then you will totally immerse in the minions antics….there are plenty of it too :))
So, Terima Kasih Pierre Coffin, for inventing and voicing the hundreds minions. My girls love them!
In hibernation
Yesss, this blog is in hibernation. The owner is very much occupied with trying real hard to be an Event Organizer. Please check again after November 30th. Promise.
Oh btw. Just watched Big Hero 6, another Disney movie last week with the girls. Surprisingly good, touching and entertaining at the same time. Love Baymax to the Max, wish we can have one 😉 Really love the soundtrack too.
How I get to the music that I love
I have always loved Music but I don’t always have the time to really follow the latest one.
Thankfully, music is delivered to various media these days, so eventually good ones will come around 🙂 The keywords is “eventually” because it may not be the current hit song. In fact it might be 1 to 4 years late 😀
For me, the best chance to get to know the latest music is in the 15 or so minutes I drove my car back and forth from my home to the office or when I drove to do some errands, which is really not that long. But, during that short period, sometimes I got lucky to hear some music that would be my favorite. Just like love at first sight, the best music to me is those that I can really get the moment I heard it.
Back in 2002 I heard the song Drops over Jupiter from Train on the radio. I actually have to called the radio station to know the artist and the title 😀
Nowadays, it was really easy now to catch just a few phrase of the song and then Googled it to find out who sings it and search on Youtube to watch the music video.
Just like the other day, I suddenly heard this song…
Tell them all I know now
Shout it from the roof tops
Write it on the skyline
all we had is gone now
It was sung wholeheartedly by a guy with a very deep and unique voice. The songs it self was quite easy to catch. I just googled some of the lyrics that I remember and found out that it was originally sung by Shontelle, a female artist around 2010! While her original version was great, I wanted to know the guy who recycled the song. So, I browse through the google search and voila!
Found that it was sung by James Arthur on the final of UK X Factor in 2012. As I watched his performance I was really really moved. The song really blend with his voice. SO It came to my playlist really late 😀
If not through the radio, sometimes I got to know good music through other media. Top of the list would be Movies! Yes, good movies typically comes with good music. For example, watching Frozen really get me (and my girls) singing “Let it Go” and “Do you wanna build a Snowman”.
Another mean would be award ceremonies. During the Oscar ceremonies I watched Pharrell Williams got everyone dancing with his song “Happy” from Despicable Me. Actually, I have watched Despicable Me 2 with my girls so many time, but I did not noticed the song….so, at that time, I was rooting for Idina Menzel’s Let it Go for “Original Score from the Movie” and it did. But now I really cant get the song out of my head 😀
Clap Along if You Feel Like a Room without a Roof!!
Finally, I get introduced to the latest hit through entertainment news! I for example get to know Sara Barailles “Brave” because it was compared to Katy Perry’s “Roar”. I also get intrigued to listen to Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” because it was heavily cited in the news.
How do you get your music??
Learning Leadership from Watching Lincoln
Ahead of Oscar 2014 which will be held in a few hours, the cable TV showed some of the Best Movies from the Oscar last year. This has enabled me to watch Lincoln for the second time. What? Only the second? Considering how I love Daniel Day-Lewis, it is a surprise to me too 😀
If on the first viewing I focused more on how DD-L totally immersed in the role (as always!) this time around I enjoyed the movie as a whole. The story itself is quite heavy for me because obviously, I am not familiar with the history of that period. But, the fact that the movie can turn such a heavy subject into something interesting was really good. The movie can make politics and lobbying for votes as gripping as an action movie. It is really awesome!!
Of course nothing is more central than the man himself. Watching this movie I really got to see the characters of a great leader.
Here are some that I noted:
Visionary
Clearly, some of the great leaders of our time will envision great things beyond their time.
Great Communicator and Mover
Lincoln can articulate his idea well and thus moved people to follow him.
I got to see his visionary thinking and some of his ideas written in the Lincoln memorial.
I also visited a house where Lincoln spent a night in 1856 in Sterling Illinois.
Great sense of humor
The movie also portrays Lincoln as someone with a great sense of humor. I particularly loved the scene where he told a story of why the British like to hang a picture of George Washington in their bathroom.
32.5 Celcius in Surabaya, Yet Completely “Frozen”
LOVE can Melt a Frozen Heart
Ever since we went to watch Disney’s latest movie Frozen at the cinema, my girls and I have really gotten Frozen-Frenzy 😀
Tangled set the bar really high even for Disney. But Frozen certainly more than live up to the expectation. The movie was really entertaining. It has all the good elements of a Disney classics. At the center is of course a royal princess. Wait, not just one but two princesses. To me, what I can relate most from the movie and sets it apart from the rest of the Disney’s franchise is the relationships between the two princesses. I have a sister and we were really close. So, imagining that as sisters we have to be kept apart for years was really really sad. Call me sentimental but without knowing, I shed a few tears during the movie.
But, its not all sad…Just like Tangled has Pascal and Maximus to provide all the laughs, Frozen has the hug-worthy Olaf the Snowman, Svenn the Reindeer and the trolls to create the funny moments. The Princess love interests are a little extraordinary too…if Rapunzel end up with a thief turn hero, Flynn a.k.a. Eugene Fitzherbert then we saw a twist in Frozen from the typical prince (Prince Hans) to the awkward yet noble Kristoff. As if to teach us that nobility are not always inherited in your genes..
The animation were really beautiful. I especially love the scenes when Elsa build the Ice Castle 😀
Then the icing of the cake must be the wonderful soundtrack. There’s the powerful anthem of Let It Go. It’s full of energy and completely blend with Elsa’s transformation. Both Ratih and Hita loves the song so much. Ratih can even sing and imitate the entire Elsa’s action while singing the song. From the running part when she sang “Let it Goo..let it gooo…” and started building staircases…up to the closing “The Cold never bothered me anyway”. Even Hita, my younger girl who is just 3 year and 7 months, also sings it with her lovely toddler voice.
Apparently my girls are not alone…Check this video on how a 9-year old sings the song beautifully 😀
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20777883,00.html
The other tunes such as “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman” also got my two girls singing 🙂 They will take turn to sing Elsa’s and Anna’s part.
Thoroughly, enjoyable piece of Disney! Cant wait for another Disney outing 😀
Favorite Lines from a movie
There are some lines in the movies that are so memorable that they almost define the entire movies. Some of my favorite lines are:
The Last of the Mohicans
Hawkeye: My father’s people say that at the birth of the sun and of his brother the moon, their mother died. So the sun gave to the earth her body, from which was to spring all life. And he drew forth from her breast the stars, and the stars he threw into the night sky to remind him of her soul. So there’s the Cameron’s monument. My folks’ too, I guess.
Cora Munro: You are right, Mr. Poe. We do not understand what is happening here. And it’s not as I imagined it would be, thinking of it in Boston and in London…
Hawkeye: Sorry to disappoint you.
Cora Munro: No, on the contrary. It is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been.
Cora Munro: What are you looking at, sir?
Hawkeye: I’m looking at you, miss.
“You be strong, you survive… You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you” Hawkeye to Cora
In the Name of the Father
Gerry Conlon: I’m an innocent man. I spent 15 years in prison for something I didn’t do. I watched my father die in a British prison for something he didn’t do. And this government still says he’s guilty. I want to tell them that until my father is proved innocent, until all the people involved in this case are proved innocent, until the guilty ones are brought to justice, I will fight on. In the name of my father and of the truth!
Bridget Jones’ Diary
“I Like You Just as You Are” Mark Darcy to Bridget Jones
Jerry MacGuire
“You Complete Me” Jerry to Dorothy, Jerry MacGuire
“Oh shut up, just shut up…You Had Me at Hello” Dorothy to Jerry
While You Were Sleeping
Jerry to Lucy: You’re born into a family. You do not join them like you do the Marines.
Jack: I just wanted to give you this before all the presents started to pile up. I was droppin’ off some furniture in Little Italy. I look in a window, and…
Lucy: [it’s a snow globe of Florence] Florence.
Jack: Florence.
Lucy: Thank you. It’s really beautiful.
Jack: And I wanted to say that I think that Peter… is a very lucky guy.
Lucy: Thank you.
Jack: I had to say that because you’re gonna be my sister-in-law.
Lucy: Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other then.
Lucy: Peter once asked me when I fell in love with Jack. And I told him, “It was while you were sleeping.”
Pride and Prejudice (TV Series)
“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends—whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain.”
“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” (Darcy to Elizabeth)…well, Ardently is a nice word indeed
“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.” (Elizabeth to Darcy)
Too many to quote 😀
The Princess Diaries
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on you’ll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowships of the Ring
Frodo: “I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
Dame Thatcher, Enid Blyton and Marilyn Monroe
As a working mother I always try my best to balance between work and family life. It has always been my absolute goal. Year after year it comes on top of my resolution.
Unconsciously I want to find a role model: a successful working mother whom I can look up to. I seek everywhere, from news paper, from my environment in a hope that I can find secret recipes that I can apply to myself.
Back in October 2012, I happened to watch three different movies about three famous women. The first one is the Oscar winning movie “The Iron Lady”. While I admire Merryl Streep transformation into the role of Dame Thatcher, it was the story itself, which I am more interested. Dame Thatcher was one of the most influential politicians in our century. I remembered as a little girl reading headlines of the news about the Iron Lady almost every single day. Later on, one of my colleague at Nottingham University told me that she was a really clever and brave politicians. He went on to say that Dame Thatcher was the one who made Great Britain emerged as one of the economic leader at the turn of the nineteenth century.
So, despite all the politics, and criticisms she was really successful in her own right. I am interested to know, how she managed to do so while also being a wife and a mother. The movie showed how from the early on in their marriage, she has told her husband that she did not want to end up washing tea pots. Her husband appear to me as someone who always stood by her. But, the most touching scene for me was when she must leave her kids to pursue her political career. She just went into the cabs and her kids cry to stop her and even ran after the moving cab. It must have been really hard. But she made her choice and the rest is history.
Then not long after I watched Thatcher, I stumbled upon Enid, a TV movie about the famous writer Enid Blyton. She was one of my favorite writer. How could I not. I grew up reading famous five. My siblings and I bought all of the books. But, I knew very little about her personal life. So, watching the movie really surprise and even shocked me. I missed the first half of the movie 😦 In the movie, she was portrayed as a cold, scheming mother who try to distant her self from her daughters. I could not believe it. I don’t want to be judgmental, but I really could not imagine how a writer for children’s books could be as cold.
The final movie is about Marylin Monroe, titled Norma Jean and Marylin. Check it out at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117201/
It was a TV Movie. Again I did not watch from the start. But, from where I picked up, the movie has shown Marylin Monroe struggling with her double personality: the famous Marylin Monroe and her early life persona Norma Jean. Every body knows Marylin as a sex symbol. But, this movie showed Marylin as someone who really tries to find true love and her UN-accomplished wish to be a mother.
Having watch these three movies, I end up feeling more complex than ever. It gave me no answers on how to balance work with motherhood. At the same time, though, it gave me re-assurance that being a mother is definitely a huge responsibility and in Marylin’s case a blessing that she will never get. That even for the most prolific politician or writer, who can get the best help in the world, it is still something that you must work hard for by yourself. So, I must continue to find my way the best that I can ^^
Third Oscar for Daniel Day-Lewis!!!
Yeaaahhh, finally the award season has come to an end…and Daniel Day-Lewis becomes the first Actor who won three Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role..What a season for him…
I have been quite lucky this year since the cable TV aired all the major award ceremonies: The Golden Globes, The SAG award, The BAFTA and finally the Oscar. I get to watched DD-L took the prize in all of them ^^
Since then, I conclude that he was not only a good actor, but also a good, natural, eloquent, entertaining speaker. If there were a competition for best acceptance speech he can took home all the prize too 🙂
Here are all the speeches that I could find.
In the Globes, he came across as very genuine, and offer to have his award in a time share basis with his fellow nominees
Then in the SAG Award, he made a very good point that it was an actor who murdered Abraham Lincoln and that it only fitting every once in a while that an Actor should try to bring him back to life again…remarkable
And finally the Oscar. His speech about him being the first choice to play Margaret Thatcher was really funny and unexpected.
I still have not got the chance to watch Lincoln. But judging from the clips that every award ceremonies showed and the fact that he won every major award for the role, I am sure that DD-L did very well 😀
Simply amazing…just wander how long will it take this time until he came back with another movie 🙂
Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln!
Yes, its no secret that DD-L is my favorite actor. I cant emphasize it strong enough. I think he’s the GREATEST ACTOR in the world. Like most movie addict, I got to know him in the Last of the Mohicans…but since then he kept astonishing me with his ability to immerse into his characters.
He made me cried every time I watched In the Name of the Father. His portrayal of Christy Brown in My Left Foot truly deserved an Oscar. He made me feel his agony as Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence. He really scared me off as Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York. and finally he is truly remarkable in There Will Be Blood. That were just the highlights, even in lesser known movies his presence were undeniable.
His strength but also something that has deprived me of his talent is the fact that he choose his role carefully, which means he did not make a lot of movie.
We last saw him in a rather disappointing Nine in 2009. So I was more than overjoyed to hear that he will be gracing the silver screen once again in November 2012!!! Yayy! And the fact that he will be playing none other than Abraham Lincoln also get me really excited. Lincoln was one of the greatest leaders of the world. During my IVLP trip to the US, I got the chance to visit Lincoln Memorial and his historic home in Sterling, Illinois. In Lincoln memorial we can see his monuments. But what was more astonishing to me was excerpts from some of his famous speeches engraved in the monument walls. How a man at that time could write such words was just great.
So, Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln…really really cant wait!!
The M Ways 