Vertigo, 1958

Such a beautiful movie!

I was prepared to sit and watch a very predictable story, as often the case with old movies, but I was in for a real surprise. The movie though was made in the late 50s, but so poignant, so thick in the plot with many unexpected twists.

I loved most the way the cinematography was done. All the scenes in that movie was so perfectly done, that I kept thinking of postcard pictures.

James Stewart was wonderful and charming in his role as an ex detective, John "Scottie" Ferguson, who had left the police workforce because of his problem with height. Kim Novak was intriguing as the wife of Scottie's old friend, who approached him for help out of his concern for his rich wife.

Thought he was doing his friend a favour, Scottie faithfullly followed his old friend's so called wife, tried to keep an eye on her. Successfully saved her from a suicide attempt (drowning), Scottie eventually developed a certain affection for the beautiful woman. Knowing that the woman was also in love with him, he was shocked when she determined to jump to her death from a top of an old church. Numbing with complication from his vertigo problem, Scottie could not do a thing to save the woman he loved so much. He later blamed himself for her death, and thus, had a mental break down soon afterwards.

For months, he was numbed with grief. The moment he was better, what did fate deal him? He was fortunate or unfortunate enought to bump into a young lady, Judy Barton, who bore an uncanny resemblance to his lost love, except for her hair color and the way she dressed up.

Began to think that he was a victim of his old friend's malicious trick, who had conviniently used him and his problem with heights, to remove the rich but unwanted wife, Scottie set out to prove he was right. Fortunately for him, Judy seemed to co-operate in a way.

Very unhappy at what was happening, but so much in love with Scottie, Judy reluctantly tried to please Scottie, to the extent of dying her hair & dressed up in the exact manner of the dead woman, Madeleine Elster.

At the same spot where Madeleine was supposed to be before jumping to her death, Judy broke down, and confessed that she was the same lady who went out with Scottie before, and that Madeleine Elster's husband had planned everything, to frame Scottie for his rich wife's death later.

A sudden appearance of a nun, who came to investigate what all the shoutings were all about, made both Scottie and Judy jumped, startled. Judy stood too closed to the gap, that her lost of balance made her fell out of the rooftop. She was killed instantly at the same spot where Madeleine was pushed before.



At the time this movie was first shown to the public, it was not very welcomed. The result angered Hitchcock, the movie director, that he blamed James Stewart for it. These days, this movie has been hailed as one among the best of all movies produced by Alfred Hitchcock.

Such twist!

Secret Window, 2004

Borrowed this DVD from the local library, I never thought that it was a Stephen King's movie until much later. Johnny Depp played the role of the unhappy writer who lost his wife to someone else very well. Not only that, he was being bothered by a persistent and creepy person, who kept annoying him, accusing him of stealing his novel.

You would sympathise right at once with this writer, who just lost his wife, and who still tried to get over his break-up at an isolated place, far away from his old home.

You would want to be with him all the way, to give him at least, your spiritual support, while he tried to cope with all the new changes of his life, with being stalked about by a creepy and dangerous person...

but hang on there, how if he was not truly being stalked by anyone at all, and that all the killings, violence and misdeeds happened, were all done by him, the writer himself?

I think the movie was quite a success, in having a very twisted and surprised ending!

1408, movie, 2007

hmm, so this one was another product of Stephen King... (confirmed it just now from reading other people's comments).

Kept hearing about this movie, I thought the plot was intriguing enough, for me to really sit down and try finding out what all the talks were about...

Since I was never really care much for horror movies, it took me a while to really commit myself into watching it. Of course, I had to be very careful about the time, the location, blah blah blah, before I really turned on the movie. (I did not want to have my kids or myself to have unneccessary nightmares as a result of watching this specific movie!)...

It was surely a scary one OK, with series of events here and there that went on and on, resembled a kind of never ending nightmares.

Plot: A writer who wrote books about spirits and the other side world, found himself involved in the investigation of a horror room in a specific hotel. He tried to record everything by talking into a tape recorder. He was warned agaisnt having that room, for it was famous in killing or maiming people once the door was closed. The writer strongly believed that it was just a normal trick which many hotels had used to advertise and attract curious visitors.

He was given a box of chocolate as well as a bottle of expensive wine. All the horrors happened later within that room, made the writer wondered whether he was drugged (from the chocolate and wine provided), so that he would be under constant horrific illusions, witnessing images in which people suicided, of blood, of dead bodies, of terrible sufferings and cryings... But the most horrible experience which happened to him, was to face the last hour of his little daughter again, with his wife. Guess that the room had the effect of feeding on people's unhappiness and hidden sufferings, he tried to fight agaisnt it, only to find out that it refused to let him get out alive.

Went through the experience of being left on the cold (in freezing condition due to a malfunctioned thermostat in the room), then drown, then almost being burried alive with everything collapsing around him, then fire, he was lucky to get out alive finally!

When telling his wife of his time with his dead daughter in the haunted room, being hugged by her, talked to her, etc, of course - his wife thought he was still under the influenced of the fire (you have to watch it to understand more about this), until the tape recorder by chance, still having that short conversation recorded. (How did it survive the fire?)


John Cusack was marverlous in his role as the writer who tried to face his grief, as well as all the horrors which the room threw at him.

Samuel L Jackson's role in this movie as the hotel manager was real creepy. Since the movie was a bit tangled here and there, I couldn't figure out if he was truly a good manager or what!

All in all, the movie was quite successful in scarying the hell out of me!

journal

Just delete a few posts today!

Have been busy recently, due to my daughter's birthday, tax paperwork, etc. Things seem to be OK temporary. Still have to deal with a real estate agent before the next step could be carried out (this and that...). Regardless, lot of things I need to do before the end of this September (paperwork relates to the realestate agent whom we do not get along so well with! Better to finish with all the problem before a new contract could be signed for the new year!).

Lot of movies I should do review before I forget their details. Perhaps I would do them later? (feeling lazy right now!)

Stranger than Fiction 2006

A very interesting movie!

I was very impressed with the cast: Will Ferrell as Harold Crick (the main character of the movie, a "boring" tax agent working for IRS); Emma Thompson as Karen Eiffel, the famous author who always killed her main character, in this case, her imagined Harold Crick; Dustin Hoffman as Prof Hilbert, whom Harold Crick came to consult, hoping to be saved from being "killed"; Queen Latifah as a literature agent who was sent to help Karen Eiffel finishing her book on time; etc.

The plot was real strange, but was performed and shown brilliantly in this movie. The result was something real tragic plus funny (try to imagine such a combination!).

The story was about a boring Harold Crick, who lived his life in a monotone manner since the time his wife left him for someone else. Every day, he would do exactly the same things (almost) as the last, especially in regards of his routines: from waking up, brushing teeth, to taking the bus to work, etc.

(Will Ferrel was quite cute in a "dumb" way in this movie. One can not feel pity for him, because of the way he lived his life, when he looked so manly and quite adorable).

Things changed suddenly, when one morning, while he was brushing teeth and counting the brushstrokes as he often did, he thought he heard someone's voice narrating all of his routine activities. The odd thing about it was, the narrating was precisely about him, even his own name.

Then he heard the verse, a bit like, "little did he know, he was about to die a sudden death". That shocked him a bit.

The narrating voice kept drone on, and things kept happening around him in the exact manner of what the voice said. In fright, he decided to consult Professor Hilbert, who was quite famous in liturature field.

At the same time with the happening of these events, he was sent out to "edit" a baker, who had not pay tax properly as she should. This baker happened to be very attractive, with an attitude (which I thought was a bit overboard! Maggie Gyllenhaal played Ana Pascal. A pity that she sounded too sour, too sleazy, too unlovable here...). Harold promptly felt attracted to her, but being a serious and "boring" type, he did not know how to express his feeling.

Decided to live his life as if he was about to die (as advised by Prof Hilbert), our Harold went out buying himself an electric guitar. With his beautiful singing and guitar playing (did he really sing that, for the voice there was quite good!), he managed to charm our harden hearted baker wonderfully.

By chance, he found out who the narrator of his current life was, and decided to beg her to let him live. Emma Thompson was real brilliant in this role. I was so impressed with her acting from beginning to end (funny thing was, I did not recognise her as the same lady in Sense and Sensibility, 1995; or Nanny McPhee, 2005; etc. until I saw it in the credits).

Perhaps Emma Thompson's brilliant acting was highlighted by the presence of the charming and with very high sense of humour actress, Queen Latifah?

The humorous and very tragic ending of the movie was: Harold should resign to his fate, to be killed, because otherwise, it would mean spoiling a good ending of a long awaited novel by famous author Karen Eiffel. (The verdict from Prof Hilbert). Harold read the draft novel, and decided that the ending of the draft was too good to be changed, in which Harold Crick would be killed while trying to save a little boy from being crushed by a bus.

Resigned to his fate, he was really hit instead by the bus and proclaimed dead by others.


Fortunately for Harold, the writer Karen Eiffel when realised that her book was truly linked somehow with the real Harold Crick, a truly good man (even though he was a tax man, who worked for IRS), decided to let him survived the crash after all.

A very strange and touching movie, one that could make one smiled at time. Good music, good cast, interesting plot, what else could one hope for?

The Mothman Prophecies, 2002

Growing up from a small village, I had always been told that moths were representatives of the other world. I was taught to respect them, and learnt to leave them alone.

Came to Australia, I was surprised to find out that, no one around me seemed to think so. Since Australia has quite many different ethnic groups, I learnt with time, to keep my knowledge of moths to myself, or be thought of as "superstitious"...

It was a surprise to see this movie, "The mothman prophecies", and find out that this movie almost emphasized what I had always been told, that moths could be symbols of spirits who had not passed away to the other world completely due to some reasons.

The movie was a bit scary in the beginning. At first, I thought I was about to watch a movie about some sort of houses or villages which were haunted by unknown presence. With time, I began to link the name of the movie, with all the events shown in the movie, and figured out that it was about some sort of prophecies, shown to the main character, John Klein (played by Richard Gere).

The story began with John, a successful journalist, and his wife happily found the house of their dream. Right that night, his wife while driving, tried to swerve the car to avoid a creature with wings. Hit her head badly from the car accident, she recovered, only to find out that she had got some sort of brain tumour, and would not have long to live.

She passed away suddenly, leaving behind a grieving husband, and a sketch book full of strange images of something with wings, some were a bit demonical. Her husband thought those pictures could have been the combined result of her anger and grief from having her life cut short from everything.

Two years later, John suddenly found himself driving to a place 400 miles from where he lived, a place called Point Pleasant, West Virginia. He never really understood why and what made him did so at the dead of the night like that.

While he was there, John found out that quite a few peoples in that small town also encountered those strange wing creatures. Not only that, there were also reports of creepy phone calls, strange and weird predictions. Realised that his dead wife's sketchbook and what she told him before her death might have something related to what happening in this little town, John tried to investigate further.

With the help of some experts, he was told that perhaps he was chosen by the spirits to stop some very bad accidents which could happen to the town. A few events happened here and there, almost pointed to his dead wife, as someone who tried to protect him from some imminent dangers.

Being advised by the local cop female, to let go of the memory of his dead wife (she thought John was pushed into this subconsciously because of his grief), and that he should learn to accept destiny instead of trying to prevent things, John almost got killed in the collapsing of the bridge with many others. Luckily he survived, and managed to rescue the very same police woman who had been very patient and kind to him. (She almost got killed because she was busy trying to warn people about the collapsing of the long and huge bridge).

Some part of the movies were a bit confusing (perhaps only to me?), but in general, it was an OK movie to watch.

Laura Linney were quite good in her role as the cop of that small town: very sincere, always caring. She helped brighten up this serious and very gloomy movie some how with her presence.

A Secret Handshake 2007

Half a million US dollars was spent to make this movie!

The movie seemed to have an intriguing plot, but other than that, it was badly done, with limited scenes, bad filming techniques, bad performing, etc.

Plot: Jacob (Robert Olding) had a pretty wife (name Carmen) and an ordinary life. Suddenly, he had weird dreams: he was in a strange and cheap hotel room; his hands got tied; and he was tortured by a good looking lady who was not his wife or anyone he had ever met. Woke up, he began to compare facts and dreams. Result: he found out that there was one week of his life (which happened recently) when his wife, friends had no idea where he was, for no one could contact him.

The dreams kept coming, showing continuous events that happened during the week that he could not account for in real life.

In this dream, there was a small teddy bear (a strange item in a hotel room which was almost bare of everything else!).

He lost his job not soon after that, and his friends, wife, everyone around him began to think he was not right in the head. He began to think that his wife must have been the one that played tricks on him, tried to confuse him.

Then friends of his family began to be suspicious of both him and his wife (about this couple's sanity), for there was some events that husband and wife seemed to be sure that really happened, which involved their family's friends, but the friends were dead sure that no such thing ever happened.


Fact: Jacob was about to be executed for his sin of smothering a little girl name Carmen, to death, while acting as her babysitter. Turned out that he, a teenager at the time, had often sexually abused her, while promising her that he would marry her once she became an adult. The night it happened, the father of the little girl returned home suddenly, and in fright, Jacob told Carmen to be quiet. Carmen had different idea, she did not like to be molested any more, and decided to call out for her father. Jacob tried to stop her from making any noise, and perhaps accidentally smothered her to death.

In jail, he began to confuse between truth and imagination. Perhaps he tried his best to excuse his own sin (be it intentional or accidental)? In his mind, Carmen was not dead, and that they did grow up, really marry each other.

- The strange lady whom he met in his dream, who always tortured him in the strange and empty hotel room, was in fact, the replacement of his criminal defense lawyer. (His criminal defense lawyer left for her maternity leave). He was contented with his imagination: that he married Carmen, and lived an ordinary life as everyone else)...

- His family friends turned out to be:

+ a fellowed inmate who was jailed next to him, who frequently throwing abuses at him, cridiculed him over his imagining wife and life.

+ his criminal defense lawyer.


Perhaps a better director and cast, could make a better movie than the existed one?

The Good Shepherd 2006

A bit confusing, but if you concentrated and followed the dates closely, you should be fine...

Matt Damon again gave a marverlous performance as the head of CIA, Edward Wilson, always placid, stiff, but extremely intelligent.

Angelina Jolie was beautiful as Wilson's wife. (It was strange however, watching this actress played a passive role, after all the 'actioned' roles as Clara Croft in Tomb Raiders, or as Mrs Smith, etc).

The movie was about how Edward Wilson, facing a failure in his attempt to direct his CIA organisation grabbing Cuba back for US during the early 1960s, tried his best in finding the culprit, the leak.

In doing so, he inadvertently had flashbacks to his childhood, the last meeting with his dear father before the old man suicided, his university days at Yale, the romance he had, the wife he ended to marry only because he made her pregnant, the intensed and hard work he carried out for CIA and his country, the difficulties he got in dealing with his wife and only son, the constantly 'on the watch for treacherous activities' from his own circle and workforce.

Eddie Reymayne was good in his role as Edward Wilson junior, a weak character, who resented his father because he felt his father had neglected his mother and him for the CIA.

The contrast was there, Edward Wilson strived to do good for his country, because of what his father did and said before he took his own life.

His son, indifferent, self centred, undid as much as he could, the good work Edward Wilson tried to do for his country.

Found the leak, Edward Wilson was pressured into betraying his own organisation and country for his son's sake. Being an intelligent man, he decided to not following his father's mistakes, and outwitted the enemy in his own way.


It was very interesting, watching Matt Damon tried to play the roles of a young and old Edward Wilson. Angelina Jolie was quite successful playing a sad and ignored wife, who prematured before time (grey hair, wrinkles and all!). Matt Damon was not that good (should we blame the make-up peoples for that?).

It was a bit funny, watching the old Edward Wilson hugging his 20s YO son, for the two of them were practically like brothers (in age). Other than that, the movie was quite good, very poignant, deep, make ones wonders about life, about what ones should really values in life. It also showed that, life is always full of unexpected events, twists, but how one confronts one's mistakes and goes forward with life, is what make people different, make or break.

Breach 2007

A good movie to watch!

Though not of the same quality as' James Bond' movies, 'Breach' does have a good plot, cast: Chris Cooper (as the famous 'mole' within the FBI network, Robert Hanssen), Laura Linney (the FBI agent who was head of the hunt for proof of Hanssen's treachery, Kate Burroughs), and the good looking Ryan Phillippe (as the young and new FBI agent who was a computer specialist, Eric O'Neil).

Terrific performance from the cast, the movie retold a story (based on real facts) of how the FBI for many years, tried to catch a mole within their midst, but never managed to do it successfully. In the mean time, their mole kept revealing FBI's important secrets to the enemy, helping them removing off FBI's assets, agents, etc.

Knowing finally who the mole was, but having no definite proof, agent Kate Burroughs cooly pulled young Eric O'Neil in, under the pretense of being Hassen's clerk, to report Hanssen's detailed activities and his contacts over some underhanded sexual misconduct charges.

The task was not an easy one to young O'Neil, for he seemed to never have had to resort to any 'secret' activities before. Few other complications:

- Hassen was an old hand in this spy game. He seemed to constantly cover himself extremely well under the mould of a devoted Church frequent goer, a loyal and caring husband and a faithful and always hard working, environmental consciencious FBI agent. He was a real charismatic person who could charm young O'Neil easily.

- O'Neil could not explain to his young wife of his new tasks, due to the sensitivity of the matter. Hassen in his own way, tried to find out all O'Neil's activities via O'Neil's young wife, but not very successful.

Confronted Burroughs over the real issue related to Hassen, O'Neil was told the truth about Hassen's treachery over the 25 years he worked for FBI. Realised that the matter was above his ability, O'Neil did not want to continue with this dangerous mouse and cat game, which to him, not worth the break-up of his marriage. Of course, he was finally convinced to do this for the sake of his own country.

Chris Cooper acted brilliantly as a scheming, cunning, arrogant, deceiful, selfish and dangerous man, who played the spy game only because he was bored and happened to like outwit FBI, completely forgeting that he was causing tremendous and extensive damages to his own country and comrades.

Laura Linney was charming, persuasive, full of determination, in her role as the head of the hunting organisation for the traitor.

Ryan Phillippe as a fresh breath of wind, unexpectantly put in the treacherous game, and because of his quick wit, direct, honest, he managed to help FBI outwitted the famous mole ever in US history, only because he tried his best: be himself.

For viewers who like psychology, this is a wonderful movie to watch. To those who expect all the actions and martial arts, this movie is not it!

Music and Lyrics, 2007

A very cute and funny movie!

Hugh Grant was real hilarious, wonderful, and down to earth in the role of a washed up singer & song writer Alex Fletcher. In quite a few scenes, he dressed up in outfits that strongly resembled Austin Powers in the comedy “The Spy Who Shagged Me”. His performance was so marverlous (singing, playing piano, rock/performed on stages, etc), that I could not help smiling the whole time I sat there watching this movie. Have to admit, it must be the combination of the beautiful music/songs which Hugh Grant or Halley Bennett (as the young and wild singer Cora Corman) sang/played, the presence of the cute Drew Barrymore (in the role of Sophie Fisher who helped providing lyric for Alex's latest song), or Kristen Johnston (as Sophie's big sister), or Brad Garrett (as Alex's manager), etc, that made this movie such a wonderful one.

For some reasons, watching the wild singer Cora Corman performed, I kept thinking of Christina Aguilera. Another smile crept up there, for if the director planned to make a dig at Christina Aguilera, he/she almost succeeded there (it was real cute!).

It was real nice sitting there watching the witty and gorgeous Drew Barrymore fencing words (or teasing?) Hugh Grant. They looked beautiful together. The appearance of Kristen Johnston was a real surprise, for she was always terribly outrageous and funny. Another smile crept up every time I saw her made fun of “how she admired/loved the pop singer Alex Fletcher'...

Then again, perhaps because I have always liked pop/rock music of the 70s and 80s, that watching this movie, I felt tuned in with the characters and plot right at once?

If you expect a thick plot, this movie is definitely not it! It is a pretty simple movie but "very touching" actually.

The movie was about an almost out-dated, unsuccessful male song writer, singer, namely Alex Fletcher. He drifted with life, and was surprised that a new and famous singer, Cora Corman, (from the persuation of his manager) agreed to sing one of his song, if he could provide it to her within a few days.

Of course he wanted to be famous again as he used to be 10 years before that (when his band was still together). The problem remained: he seemed to have no mood or talent to write lyric for any song.

By luck, he found out that the young lady who supposed to care for his indoor plants (in his flat), was truly gifted with words/liturature. From an unfortunate experience in her past, Sophie had no intention to involve with writing ever again. Her big sister, however, happened to be a fan of Alex Fletcher. Events happened somehow, found Sophie Fisher ended up feeling sorry for Alex, and decided to help him out with lyric for his new song.

The song completed successfully, at the same time with the blossoming of attachment between the musician/singer and the lyric writer. Would the two continue helping each other to become better in love and self esteem?


I love all the songs performed in this movie. Do watch this movie if you want to have a good laugh at, and with, the cast of “Music & Lyrics”... It is truly cute and very entertaining!

(It was a surprise to me, that Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore could sing quite OK!)

The Last Castle, 2001

Impressed with Robert Redford from “Spy Game”, I was determined to watch “The Last Castle” to see if he could deliver similar performance.

After the first few seconds of watching, I was a bit worried that this movie might be about another “high security prison” with intelligent schemes of escaping from inmates...

Observing the smooth talking but merciless warden Col Winter (James Gandolfini) bragged about his extensively collection of war artifacts, and the innocent comment made by the newly arrival to the maximum security military prison, (General Irwin (Robert Redford), to another lowly staff there), that 'people who had real experience of war and combat, don't collect war artifacts', I could begin to see the shimmering of resentment from the petty and 'full of pride' warden.

(Why General Irwin was court martialled? It was a result of a miscalculation on his part, which resulted in the lost of 8 of his troups).

Famous for his bravery, as well as in combat tactics, at the same time, well loved by all those who used to fight under his guidance, General Irwin made a real stir in that military prison with his presence, even though he was there to serve his term as a common millitary prisoner.

While most of the inmates tried to convince Irwin to fight the cruelty warden on their behalf (using his extensive and impressive connection to the high rank US millitary officers), the warden on the other hand, tried to intimidate Irwin, since he did not like losing his absolute power over anyone.

A series of events happened, which inadvertently forced Irwin's hand. He had no choice, but to protect the powerless inmates from the ruthlessness and illegal killing/punishment which warden Col Winter continued to enforced over them.

It was fascinating, following the combat of will between the two powerful men, one with real power to crush (who was full of love for himself only), the other with intelligent combat tactics and the respect of all the 1200 inmates present.

Mark Ruffallo gave a wonderful performance in this movie (you have to watch in order to understand what I meant). Robert Redford was terrific as usual, while James Gandolfini was marverlous in his role as a shallow, cold, ruthless, 'always greedy for power' warden.

It was very touching, seeing how loyalty, honor, dignity, etc, were maintained among the “court martialled” soldiers in that millitary prison. The ending almost made me cried. At the same time, I felt very happy, because it proved that goodness would always win at the end, however bad the situations were...

A relief that it was only a movie, and that Robert Redford did not really “gone” for real at the end!

Hart's War, 2002

A surprise to know that all the filming of this movie was done in Czech!

This is a beautiful movie about the second world war, about what happened within a certain camp where many US Prisoners of War were kept, the interactions between the German captors and the captures, as well as the interactions between the POW themselves. This movie is quite a success, considering its terrific good plot (with many surprising twists), music, sceneries, performance, etc.

When first heard of the name “Hart's War”, I thought this movie would be about some war between a character Hart, against the German during the WWII. (I was so sure Bruce Willis would be that Hart. Alas, he played the role of Colonel William McNamara, head of all the prisoners of war in that specific camp instead).

Turned out that character “Hart” was another POW, a young lieutenant (Colin Farrell), who joined the camp later (with respect to Col McNamara).

At the end of the movie, I thought hard.

So, the movie was practically about the fights which Lt Hart constantly had, sometimes with his inner self, other times from his interaction with the new environment and people.

His way of interpreting right or wrong, black and white, etc, was challenged badly since the time he happened to get caught by the German. He was ashamed with himself when he had to reveal some army important information to the enemyto avoid more tortures. He felt uncomfortable with Col McNamara and other high rank officers at the camp, for knowing his betraying, but surprised about their attitude of never outright condemned him.

In the camp, he thought he was doing his best by defending a black fellow POW in a court case, against some murder charge which he knew this black officer had not committed. The tensed moments came, gone and kept returning, revealed many more surprising twists.

The story ended poignantly. Quite a few heroes died in victory after fulfilling their last mission: destroyed a huge munition factory which was hidden next door to the POW camp. Lt Hart survived the war to tell the tale of this final heroic act of Col McNamara (the war ended 2 months after that event). Hart himself, perhaps nevercould forget all the lessons he had learnt while in the camp, and became more humble from that.

Spy Game, 2001

With a good cast and an intriguing/thick plot, this movie was quite a success. It showed how Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), a CIA agent, coped with the unexpected events which happened in his last day at work before his long-awaited-for-retirement. In his cautious way, agent Nathan Muir played the last game of poker with his cunning and ruthless CIA colleagues: single handedly, he tried using any resorts he could put his hand on, to organise the last rescue to save his protege Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) from being executed by the Chinese government over some espionage charge. The movie was full of fascinating scenes/events from countries ravaged with war, which all of us kept hearing about, eg, suicide bombings, bullets flying as normal daily events in certain parts of Middle East, etc.

From Muir's cautious narrating/flashbacks, the progress of how Tom Bishop was recruited and trained to become a very good CIA agent, were shown in great details, backed up with missions he completed over the years, from asia, to Europe, then Middle East, etc.

How much of what Muir told was true or false, noone really knew. Muir took his time doing this, in order to figure out the best and fastest way while he still could use all the best and most updated modern facilities his CIA agency had, the last time, to save his protege before his execution took place (within the 24 hours from the time he got captured while trying rescuing his former girlfriend from a Communist Chinese jail).

Knowing that the CIA meant to let Tom Bishop died (due to the fragile diplomacy between China and US at the time, especially since the US president was about to visit China over some Trade talk right the next day), Muir became more determined with his lone mission, especially since he seemed to blame himself for causing Bishop's former girlfriend's capture by the Chinese government in the first place.

The movie ended brilliantly. My question is, did Muir really sacrified the last 282 thousand dollars he had, in order to save his protege from death?

And how much of what Muir told us (the flashbacks, the narrating about the past), really happened?

Shanghai Knights 2003

This movie has always managed to make me laugh and laugh... The humour embedded within, the hilarity peppered here and there, the funny clash between western and asian worlds (which are almost definite features in all Jackie Chan's movies), seemed to be better here in this movie. Some Jackie Chan's movies were made as a show of martial art/kungfu within a simple plot, which always guaranteed to make people laugh, but nothing else. This "Shanghai Knights" has a good plot, with beautiful actors & actresses, magnificent background, and lots of humour behind/within.

In this movie, Jackie Chan played the role of a sincere Chinese young man, Chon Wang, who came to US to learn more of the world around him. The time was late 19 century. His father back home, was a high rank officer in the Chinese Palace, being the important keeper of the unique and most revered China Imperial Seal. He was attacked one night, killed, and the Imperial Seal was stolen. His daughter, Chon Lin (played by the pretty and very charming Fann Wong), witnessed the murder, but could not fight back the thief, an English Lord, namely, Lord Nelson Rathbone, (Aidan Gillen).

Remembered the family's duty as keeper of the Imperial Seal, Chon Lin promptly sent message to her brother, told him of what she knew, and hoped he could retrieve the Imperial Seal back for China. She herself headed straight to England to chase after the enemy of her family.

Received the message, Chon Wang promtply set out to England, to do his duty as the next keeper of the Imperial Seal, as well as to revenge his father's death as any Chinese filial son would do at the time. With his buddy, the gorgeous, funny but silly Roy O'Bannon (played by Owen Wilson), Chon Wang felt sure that he would succeed his mission at a country which was completely unknown and strange to him. With time, they realised that things were not simple as they thought, but quite sinister. Unavoidably, they found themselves got tangled somehow in Lord Rathbone's plot of removing the queen of England.

The laughters kept increasing, with new friends and foes they made in England. The viewers would have a good opportunity to enjoy all the martial arts and kungu done in a sort of noble spirit, very hilarious, but at the same time, quite gripping.

The music and costumes in this movie were terrific too. (You have to watch in order to appreciate fully what I meant!)

A quite entertaining movie!

(Wrote this review for my friend because this movie was done partly in Czech. The filming was also done in UK, USA and Canada).

Miss Potter, 2006

I have always liked Renee Zellweger, but never could watch her trying to be plum and unsophisticated in her role as Bridget Jones in the Bridget Jones' diary series. Found out that she played Miss Potter, I was hoping to see the real sophisticated actress finally.

The movie was quite enchanting, with beautiful sceneries from the countrysides of England, all the cute animated pictures, the wonderful costumes of the old England at the late 19th centery (from the rich to the middle class), etc.

Playing the role of Beatrix Potter, (the famous female author of the children book series, with the tales of Peter Rabbit and his friends), Renee Zellweger showed the charm and determination of a young lady in a strict society, in which women were expected to wed and settle down as a minor figure in the family. She was determined to be an author instead, supporting herself independently.

Romance did come to her, only to be cut short by fate. This, the movie managed to show in a very touching manner. She found love again later in life, with an old childhood friend. (The director did manage to prepare the viewers of these events by gently introducing at the beginning of the movie her childhood friend and her high esteem for him).

The only thing that bothered me, was, the then single Miss Potter played by Renee Zellweger seemed to be a bit aggressive, short/rude to her parents now and then, even before the event of her fiance's passed away. (Miss Potter's parents had tried their best to stop her from marrying down, to her publisher Norman Warne. They did not know that he would die suddenly latter because of some sudden sicknesses).

I admired Beatrix Potter for her daring move at the end of the movie: she tried buying as much of lands in the Lake District as she could, to preserve the beauty of the area as well as to prevent these farmlands from being destroyed.

It made me sad however, that such a charming, intelligent and talented lady, who loved writing books and painting beautiful pictures for children so much, ended up passed away being childless.

It took me a few days to really recover from this sad thought! I kept thinking of Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, etc), the Bronte sisters (Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights).... They all left behind beautiful pieces of lituratures, but were they really happy when they were alive?

(Sigh!)


(by the way, Renee Zellweger as Miss Potter, still looked very plum and not youthful at all! Can't wait for some movie director to cast her in a role of a beautiful, slim, youthful and determined (female?)... )

Alien VS Predator, 2004

Thought it would be either a bad or lukewarm movie, but I was in for a surprise! The movie was quite interesting. The story behind did make me paused for some hard thinking (just a few points they made here and there through out the movie)...



- Imagined that the ancient human beings long time ago worshiped a God, and this God taught them (the human beings) lots of things which were terribly advanced (which even the 21st century could not figure out! The image reminded us of the Egyptians worshiping their SUN GOD, the building of strange pyramids, their technique in body preserving, etc).

- to control the slaves (the human beings), this so called God (who happened to be aliens from space, who were both aliens and predators to the human species), used a certain kind of scorpions. These scorpions were also used by the so called Gods/Predators, as a sort of "duel" partners, to test out their own strength before they could become real warriors of the Predator species.

- all of this happened long time ago, because due to some sort of accidents happened, which made these scorpions (or so called "aliens" in the movie) rebelled, fought the Predators, and made the human species then extinct. The predators then sealed the pyramid, put in some guards, and only returned when their teenagers needed a chance to prove their maturity by fighting with the aliens kept in that temple/pyramid which predated the Egyptians and the Aztec.

- this temple/pyramid was hidden thousand of feet under the antartica of the earth



Imagined that an industrialist billionaire happened to find out about the location of this strange pyramid by thermal imaging statellites, and wanted to investigate. He requested the help of a number of famous archaeologists, scientists and explorers to help him get into this pyramid.

The movie seemed to focus on a very complex plot. To some, it was
- too complex and not too convincing enough, (eg, the pyramid under ice, in antartica, etc)
- lacking all the horrible scenes/bloodshed that often came with the predator theme,
- not enough fighting (real fighting) as other predator/alien movies...

Since I only watched a few "alien" movies so far, I thought this movie was quite entertaining, worth the money and time I spent. I did not recognise any of the cast, except for Lance Henrikson, who played the role of the industrial billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland. I was very impressed with the main cast, Sanaa Lathan, who played Alexa Woods, the leader of the expedition. She looked quite pretty, spunky, and very determined in what she had to do.

Thing that made me laugh a bit: the tough looking predators in their armors, did resemble a mix between the famous black singer Bob Marley with his long hair and some bionicles (the pirakas series).

The movie was full of tense moments. It showed how the expedition progressed, with all the unexpected/twists. Seemed as the team of scientists/archaeologists/etc got to the location, and found themselves got entangled with a coming of age ritual of a teenage predator group. To be killed or not to be killed, the sole survivor Alexa Woods realised that she had to join team with the predators in order to defeat the scopions and its queen (the aliens), and get out of the temple/pyramid alive.

The ending was interesting (when you thought the climax was completely over, it promptly suggested another beginning of an un-ending story)!

7.5/10 for this movie!

(Imagine that, they made this movie at a Prague studio (Czech), with certain scenes filmed at a CDK factory in Vysocany, (also in Czech))

(Write this review for my friend)

The Crucible, 1996

I had avoided any movies, talks, etc, which reminded me of "The Crucible" since the time I had to read a play with the same name, in year 10, High School. The chaos, craziness, dishonest, etc of that play, frightened the hell out of me as a newly migrant to Australia at the time.

But I watched it last night, because of Daniel Day-Lewis, who played John Proctor in this movie. (I have become curious of the actor who dared play the role of the playboy Tomas in the movie "The Unbearable Lightness of Being").

I was real impressed with him and the movie.

Gee, the way he was so convincing in his role as a righteous, passionate farmer, who ready to die for his beliefs, his faith, his values in life, etc, gave me goose bumps.

Winona Ryder was very good too. She looked so dishonest, cunning and nasty, just as the role of Abigail Williams should be.

Joan Allen was incredible as Elizabeth Proctor, the wife of the righteous and passionate John. The two of them were so contrast in personality, except for the love of goodness. While Elizabeth sticked to rules, John sticked to the basic of why rules were made in the first place. They respected each other. They loved each other in their own way, and between their love, remained an uneasiness about the fact that John once did have an affair with Abigail Williams.

The movie was about a pretty but malicious Abigail, who manipulated events which had happened around her, to remove anyone she disliked, among these, the wife of her once, lover. Many residents of the town of Salem joined in with her game, under the name of "destroying witchcraft for Salem". Turned out, that many of them had been habouring anger, vindictiveness in their heart against certain fellow villagers. With Abigail Williams and a court full of proud and brainless judges, the game of revenging was carried out beautifully, even the devil himself could not have done better there.

The result was, many good and innocent residents of Salem were killed by hanging.

Anyone who wanted to learn about human being's weaknesses should watch this movie. It is brilliantly done, the cast did a terrific job, the conversations involved worthed thinking about and being comptemplated.

In Good Company, 2004

If you are a bit skeptical about life in general, or happen to feel a bit pissed off with the whole world in general and don't even know why, try watch this movie "In Good Company".

Watch it, and laugh (or giggle, or whatever), because that movie would show you cases, in which others who thought there could be nothing wrong with their lives, suddenly found out that, nothing is really what they seemed to be.

I have always liked Dennis Quaid (doesn't mean that I liked all the movies in which he was in!), perhaps because he is a musician who seemed to have a very good sense of humour & with principle.

In this movie, not only him, but the whole cast was great.

The plot? Hmm, imagined that you were a successful 51 (turned 52) years old saleman, and so sure that everything was OK in your life: a beautiful house with a mortgage, 2 teenagers daughters growing up, 1 of these 2 was in university, your job was OK, everything was under controlled.

or that you were a successful 26 years old saleman. Your life was truly looking up. You kept having one promotion after another because you could always talk your way out of any troubles. You just married to a beautiful girl who came from a wealthy background.

Anything could be wrong from here?

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) was the boss of his team of sale. Everything was OK in his life. His staff respected and liked him. His customers were all happy with his service. Then suddenly everything seemed to be in chaos: parallel with losing his top position in his company (result from a takeover), he found out that he would be a father again soon; he might be fired any time (& losing his job); his daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson) wanted to change uni, to a better one (which required higher school fees). There was no choice for him, except to take out a second mortgage, and bit his toungue to all the changes in his company.

Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) was the young man who was just got promoted again. From the takeover, he then became Dan Foreman's boss, even though he had no idea how to make thing better for this new company (except to fire staff). He was so happy with the way things looked up for him. He wanted to begin to have kid... But his young and beautiful wife had no intention of becoming a mother that young (or ever). She divorced him soon after that. Carter Duryea suddenly found himself lost.

Carter and Alex got attracted to each other, but knowing how Dan felt about his new boss, the two secretly went out with each other, until Dan found them out.

The movie was full of humorous moments, in a "tongue in cheek" style. It showed the ups and downs of life, of how uncontrollable life and its events could be.

I was impressed with Topher Grace. He was terrific in the role of a saleman, the way he fibbed so well to everyone with a straight face, but for some reasons, he could never lie to Alex (Dan's daughter) or to Dan.

Scarlettt Johansson was very good in playing her role. She looked secretive, innocent, very direct, very simple, never coquettish, always was a good daughter, who knew her own mind. I was very impressed with her acting, "always simple but to the point"! Watching her, I thought of the saying, "Actions speak louder than words", for she expressed lots just by using body language and some facial expressions.

Dan's wife, Ann (Marg Helgenberger) was superb in her role too. It took me a while to figure out where I had seen her. It was CSI, Crime Scene Investigation. (She was the main investigator of the series or so).

A very entertaining movie with lot of depths.

Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, 2005

Warning: This movie is extremely good!

I was supposed to write review for the first "Dungeons & Dragons" movie, done in 2000, but by accidents, I got this movie instead. Whatever! (I thought)... So I sat there in front of the screen, thinking, "perhaps it would be just another fancy movie about dragons, princesses and princes stuff!"

A pleasant surprise when I found myself got sucked up in the plot, and promptly fell in love with the hero(s) and heroine(s) of the movie. However, I was very worried with myself, because for the life of me, I did not recognise any of the brilliant cast.

Read the reviews for this movie later, I realised why! Turned out that this movie was a low budget one, with many "not too well known actors actresses" in it. Perhaps because they (the actors actresses) were pretty fresh, that was why they gave such a marvelous play acting?

The movie was brilliantly done, with a "full of surprises and twists" plot. The story told of a mythical kingdom (Ismir) where magics, mages, sorcerers, curses, evil dragons, anything that your mind could fancy and imagine of, would be there.

Wonderful use of special effects in this movie. A touch of "The Matrix" here, a bit of "The Mummy" there, and at between, lots of scenes which reminded the viewers strongly of "Xena the warrior", "Hercule", as well as all the Greek Gods and their wraths.

I love the costumes and all the wonderful magic/illusions they showed in this movie. Damodar (Bruce Payne) strikingly resembled the "bad" High Priest Imhotep in "The Mummy" (1999). Instead of all the horrors comed with "The Mummy", this movie showed the viewers all the dark and evil things in an artistic way. The thrills and all heart stopping moments were there, not because of scary and disgusting images, but of the unknown, the climax of the story.

The plot was about a powerful and evil dragon, which had been captured and trapped in a certain mountain by the wise men and women of Ismir many years ago. Its evil power was restricted by the removal of its magical strength and power, into a black orb. The ancient sorcerers and sorceresses of Ismir kept the dragon and this black orb separated to ensure that this specific dragon could no longer harm anyone, especially the human species.

Damodar, an evil sorcerer, thought differently. He schemed with the dark world, to unite the black orb back to the evil dragon, with the hope that this powerful presence would give him the power to reign over the human species, once the evil dragon had released its wrath and vengeance over the kingdom of Ismir.

Melora (Clemency Burton-Hill), the young and beautiful wife of the courageous and loyal Lord Berek (Mark Dymond), who was the king's treasurer, happened to be a young sorceress of Ismir. While trying out a magic, she happened to encounter the evil spirit of Damodar, and got entangled into a bad cursed by him. In her vision, she also saw a lot of bad things which was about to happen to Ismir.

Consulted with the senior sorcerers and sorceresses of Ismir over this big problem, lord Berek was asked to go on a mission with the 4 best warriors of the kingdom, to get the black orb before Damodar could get his evil hand on it to cause destruction to Ismir. The 4 warriors who accompanied lord Berek represented Intelligence, Wisdom, Honor and Strength, in the fight against the evil magic.

The journey they took was full of dangers, traps, and attacks. Step by step, they came closer to their target, not without big loss.

Lord Berek managed to bring the black orb back to the High Priest of Ismir, without knowing that the real high priest had been removed/killed, by the dark world. The black dragon was reunited with its power, and Ismir was in for destruction.

Melora was dying then because of the curse by Damodar. Seeing the destruction of Ismir, she managed to figured out the way to defeat the black force: by putting faith into the God of Nature.

With the shiny white orb (created by faith), the black dragon was destroyed completely, (not right at once of course!).

The movie was real beautiful, very touching with the love Lord Berek shared with his Melora, the love the people of Ismir had for their country, the kindred spirit which the warriors shared with each other, especially in time of trouble. All of that in a short and powerful movie, with superb acting, and with no sexual nor nude scenes, truly incredible!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1988

A bit erotic at the beginning of the movie! (The cover implied it too, a picture of a beautiful female, in a very artistic and seductive pose, terribly promising!)

Luckily, the movie did not focus on just that aspect only (thank God!), but used it to talk about something more serious: a philosophy of life which one of the main characters, Tomas, a successful surgeon in the movie/book, adopted.

To him, life meant enjoying, simply enjoying whatever life offers. In his case, it meant wealth, easy life, women, meaningless sex, etc.

From the same named novel, "The unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera, 1982, published in France, 1984, the movie was about Tomas and his life, his lovers, etc, in 1968, when the USSR took over Czech.

The movie was directed by Philip Kaufman, an American, but the cast chosen for the movie, was mainly from Europe, with Daniel Day-Lewis, British (Tomas); Juliette Binoche, French (Tereza); Lena Olin, Swedish (Sabina); etc.

The producer, Saul Zaentz, was the very same who did Amadeus (1984), The English Patient (1996).

With beautiful cinematography, superb acting, the movie was done in a stylish and artistic manner, which conveyed a poignant and deep themes behind: philosophy entwined with politics and a brief history of Czech around the event of 1968.

Tomas in this movie, represented a young and successful intellects of Czech at the time. He enjoyed living, doing his duties as a surgeon, and making love to whomever his mood came. Life to him, meaned no politics, no serious stuff. Sabina was his favourite lover, a painter, who shared his view of life: free from anything too serious like commitments.

Being pushed into certain situations, one of which was falling in love with a young and innocent Tereza, (who later, became a successful photographer with Sabina's help and encouragement), Tomas married her. However, Tomas couldnot see why he had to be faithful to his wife.

Running to Switzeland when the regime changed hand in Czech 1968, Tomas continued with his affairs and work, while Tereza became frustrated with the way her life turned out over there. Being a serious person, she decided to let Tomas be with his way of life, and left for home. Unexpected to her, Tomas risked everything to follow her back to their homeland, facing hardships from the new regime.

Due to his view over Czech communist, and what he pulished before, the new regime demanded Tomas to retract what he wrote. Tomas suddenly realised that life was not simple as he had thought. Refused to retract his view, Tomas and his wife found life unbearable under the new regime, but they were by then, no longer could leave the country.

Could not practise his professional career because of his view about the communist regime, Tomas and his wife had to find any work to survive. However, being a window cleaner did not seem to stop Tomas from having affairs with other women. Tereza in one of her angry mood, decided to copy her husband.

Realised that things around them had become too complicated, with undercover police, politics, etc, everywhere, the couple decided to run far away. They settled down happily as farmers. Returned home after an odd trip to town, the couple got killed in a road accident. The last scene showed that they had found peace and happiness within themselves and with each other, prior to the accident. (Tomas was driving the truck, Tereza sat next to him, the rain was steady, the road was lonely, but almost clear...).

Sabina received the news. She was in America at the time, contented with her life as an artist in a free country. Nothing showed much here, except her quiet tears. It was beautifully done!

The novel might have mentioned about the couple's son, who corresponded to Sabina, and was the same one who sent Sabina the sad news. The movie skipped this detail (about the son) completely.


Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin were all terrific in playing their roles. Watching Daniel Day-Lewis, I kept thinking of the young John Travolta in "Grease" (1978). However, Daniel Day-Lewis with his slim, tall and stylish figure, definitely beat John Travolta in this role of a playboy, the type who "loves them and leave them"...

I was impressed with Lena Olin. She seemed to be able to hide (or show) whatever emotions she wanted to. A real artist!

Just as in "Amadeus", this movie was equipped with beautiful music. Different to "Amadeus", it was not burdened much with heavy clothings. As a matter of fact, it was full of scenes with nudity, love making, etc, in very artistic ways.

(wrote this review for my friend in Czech)

Runaway Jury, 2003

Have to admit, this movie is terrific. A real success!

The funny thing is, I often saw this movie on TV, but always avoided it, because I confused it with another movie, "The Juror", 1996, in which Demi Moore was the main cast. (That movie was OK, and once I watched it, I did not want to watch it again!).

Since reading John Grisham's "The Street Lawyer" and "The firm", I have begun to be curious about movies based on his books more than before. I had watched "The Pelican Breef", "A time to kill" & "The Client" long before, and thought they were OK. After reading "The Firm", I searched for the movie based on that book to watch, and was a bit disappointed, for the book was much better than the movie.

Never read "The runaway jury" before, and practically avoided reading it, for I was worry that knowing the book would make me become too difficult to please with the movie (as in the case of "The Firm").

Before watching this movie, I have heard quite a bit of bad gossips about John Cusack, as well as watched a few of his other movies, all of which were very ordinary. Saw him in this movie "The Runaway Jury", I thought I was about to see just another ordinary movie.

Surprisingly, John Cusack was so brilliant in his role in this movie (as Nicholas Easter). The body language he used was so good, so superb!

Dustin Hoffman & Gene Hackman were also superb in their role. I almost thought that they were real enemies to each other in real life, one was so dignify, honest, the other was so slimy and greedy.

(Strange, Gene Hackman also played the role of a slimy character in "The Firm" (1993)).

Plot:

A young father was gunned down by a dissatisfied ex-colleague, at the same time with his other fellow workers who happened to be at the workplace at the time. His widowed decided to sue the gun manufacturer, with the hope that the government would restrict the laws related to buying and owning any gun.

Nicholas Easter was chosen to be one among the jurors in this case. He seemed to try his best to wriggle out of his duty, and to the normal eyes, he was just an opportunist, a greedy and lazy young man.

The truth was, Nicholas Easter happened to blame himself partly for the death of one of his childhood friends, who was gunned down by a kid in the same school with his group. He could not help his friend to avoid the bullets on that specific day, and growing up, decided to do something about it.

With the dead kid's sister, Marlee (Rachel Weisz), Nicholas Easter played quite a lot of tricks on the jurors, as well as on the laywers of the court case.

(Rachel Weisz did look very mysterious, serious and haunting with her big sad eyes and determined attitude, quite appropriate for the role of Marlee. However, I was surprised that she and Nicholas Easter dared playing their amateur game against a ruthless gun manufacturer and still alive and kicking at the end of the movie...).

Seemed as the court case in the book was about tobacco, while in the movie, it was about guns.

The outcome? Real good, with a terrific ending!

The movie in general, was real impressive!

(From some reviews I read, some people who read the book first, did not like this movie too much due to all the changes and differences between the book and the movie. Since I did not read the book, the movie was above my expectation!).

Draft Review, movies

1. In Her Shoes, 2005, with Cameron Diaz and Tony Collete as the two sisters. A surprise to see Cameron Diaz in a "serious" role. A very touching story, though maybe a drag to some. Good cinematography, and the way scenes were entwined skillfully to enrich and thicken the plot of the movie.

2. Their Eyes were watching God, 2005, Halle Berry. Hmm, the beginning and the end was good, the middle (long) was very boring. From the comments of other viewers, seemed as the book was very good, not the movie! Halle Berry was terrific in her role, regardless. Guess it was just the way the script was done (not good enough?), that made the movie a bit dragging. I almost slept (a few times) during that movie.

3. The four musketeers, 1974. I watched this many times before. Watched it again in DVD, only because I thought it was a new version. Got many good laughs out of watching it, for the movie was a real comedy though the main theme was real serious stuff. Interesting to see many famous and old actors actresses looked so young and beautiful in there. Of course, it was 33 years ago that this movie was first shown. Beautiful costumes in this movie!

4. Collateral, 2004, Tom Cruise. Interesting to see Tom Cruise being disguised as a middle age assassin. He did look very terrorrist in this movie. A bit boring in the first half of the movie, but became better at the end. The plot is not very convincing I think. How often do you hear of assassins who became attached to one of their victims, and decided to protect that specific victim? A few points I want to dissect and analyse, for I don't think it sounded right at all! In general, the movie is not bad!

Match Me If You Can, Susan Phillips, 2005

Remember this famous quote from Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen), "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."?

Well, this novel was about a man in such a situation: Heath Champion, a good looking, successful and ruthless sport agent, who wanted to get married by the time he turned 35.

He realised that in his sport circle, he could get laid easily, but the girls he encountered, were not whom he truly wanted to have as wife, for they could not help him advancing his future and career further.

Came from a poor background, with a drunk and womaniser for a father, Heath Champion tried his best to shake off all the bad things behind, among which, was poverty (& its smell). Got a law degree (or something similar) from Havard, he focused his career in becoming business manager for famous athletes. Then 34 years old, Heath decided to hire the best matchmaker of the country: Portia Powers, a 42 YO, cold, ruthless woman, who owned a matchmaking business named "Power Matches", to help him find a beautiful, intelligent, sweet, and "blue blooded" wife.

Unfortunately for Heath Champion, one of his best client (and friend) happened to mention his intention to his wife. This wife had a close friend, Annabelle, who at the time, was struggling to make her inherited (from her maternal grandmother) matchmaking business survived.

Out of courtesy to his client/friend, Heath had to let this Annabelle meet up with him. He did so, with reluctance, and had every intention to politely refuse her, for he had already hired a good matchmaking agency, "Power Matches" to find a wife for him.

Annabelle was 31, kind hearted, sweet, a shorty (from Heath Champion's view of her!), who had a degree in acting, (but had got no where with her life by then,) with average look, clumsy, but very determined to make her grandmother's business worked and became a success. She believed that with Heath Champion as her client, she would be able to make her "Perfect for you" matchmaking at least survived for the time being.

Heath Champion could not shake Annabelle off. He had no choice but to let Annabelle tried out her first matchmaking. He got hooked since then due to many reasons (you have to read the book to understand!).

The plot had many surprising twists, all was pleasant and cute.

The ending?

Heath realised that he liked Annabelle very much, more than anyone he could think of, but she did not possess certain features which he listed as "required" to be his wife (eg, she was not elegant or beautiful enough, too short, etc). The fact that she was an agent who supposed to help him finding a wife, confused matters further. He continued to see one lady after another (with Annabelle present as his assistant in this wife searching business, for he realised that Annabelle could help him smoothed out all the appointments he got with new candidates sent from the matchmaking agencies).

He was matched finally with a beautiful, elegant and well educated lady, from a well connected family. Her age was perfect too, 29! The lady was very keen to settle down with him, but suddenly, Heath found out that he was reluctant to propose to her or anyone.

Thing did not simply end there, that was the beauty!

I guess one has to really read it, to understand, for this novel has a very thick plot. The novel does not simply focus on just Annabelle, or Heath, but on many interesting characters. The psychology behind all the stories within, is truly amazing. Reading it, readers would feel sucked in, for the novel mentions, reflects many issues which the young generations are currently facing. I do like the way the author ends this novel, very cute!

Draft Review, Match Me If You Can, Phillips

The tittle really caught my attention, for the movie "Catch me if you can" was quite interesting. Since I have never read any book written by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, I was a bit curious. All in all, the introductions from various sources about this novel did sound good!

Hmm, about a sport agent looking for a respectable and "blue blooded" wife?

Good looking or not, I was a bit weary (I didn't really like the movie "Jerry Maguire" (1996, Tom Cruise)), but I was curious about the fights between the two matchmakers of the story...

It was a complete surprise to me, for the book was real good. I read and treasured every word, every line in that novel, and kept admiring the author. It took me a whole night to read it, (plus another 2 hours of the next day). The plot was full of hilarious twists, the characters in the novel were fascinating, the writing was terrific.

I was so impressed with the writer, that I am going to read more books from her (just to check out for more of her writing styles, her thought, etc...)

Plot? Can I tell you later? (It is a real cute romance, very convincing...)

Update on Friday 4th May

That afternoon was one of the most horrible Friday afternoon that I had ever encountered.

I had come early by car that afternoon, about 1/2 an hour before the time the school finished, but all the parking lots on the streets around that area was full with cars, (new, old, big, small, etc... any model you could think of!).

I was shocked!

Drove around the area about 4 rounds, finally, I resigned with my fate: I had to settle for a parking spot which was pretty far from the school (too late by then to park the car at home, and walked back to the school!).


The church next to the school chose that time to open its huge 2 doors. People in black suits, dresses, etc, squeezed out like ants.... Hah, so it was a burial ceremony! Damn it, why chose a Friday afternoon to congest the whole suburb like that?

I knew that we should respect the deads and all that, but when one had to fight to get through the crowds in order to pick up one's kids, then later, had to face the same struggle just to get out.... I was real mad by then.... A thought passed my mind: some people could manage to annoy others even after they were truly dead!

The dead person must be someone important, or very popular! People who attended the ceremony spreaded themselves out into a long line of about 20 metres to show respect to his coffin (the last time!).

Normally, I would admire such a show of respect, but when that black crowds of about 500 people caused extra blockage to an intersection which had always been busy, (it was truly a black spot, where many accidents frequently happened), the chaos then annoyed me greatly...

I began to feel sorry for the dead guy... (I bet he would not like to cause such an inconvenience to the area if he could voice out his opinion!).


***

Found out today, that the dead man was a local, well liked by many. He passed away suddenly from a heart attack, when he was only about 50 something years old. Asked if he was a very successful man in life, I was told, "No, he lived a very ordinary life, joined all sort of group activities, (sport(s) plus others), and got on pretty well with everyone. All the friends he made, he kept, that was why when he passed away, they all wanted to come to say goodbye to him the last time...."

Hmmmm.... sound like the dead man was quite a character!

Gloomy Friday

A few piles of dirty laundry to do, movies to watch, articles to write (to entertain my many friends), an old neighbour I need to visit, blah blah blah, the list goes on...

Time flies, regardless of how busy we are!

Our house guest left this morning. I had promised to provide dinner for him this coming Monday night, to save him some times. He is going to move into his new flat on that day!

He should have asked his wife to come along to ease some of his problems, but his mother in law is real old and sick at the moment, so I guess his wife would not and could not do that, ie, left the 80+ mom to someone else to care for. (The funny and sweet lady has been living with him and his wife for quite a long time now...).

I am right now, doing his dirty laundry for him, as an act of charity (hehehe).

He has been a good old friend and colleague to my husband for almost 10 years now. The two, both were born under the sign of Ox (based on the Chinese horoscope, that means they both share similar outlook of life, both believes in being steady, in hardwork, stubborn, etc). The differences between them are: my husband is a younger ox (by 12 years!), who is more stubborn and with less experience of life!

I have been doing my best to encourage and nurture the friendship between the two, for my husband does need some one very mature to chat to.

It has been 3 weeks this time, that he stayed with us. He sighed, told us that he did not have the chance to spend time with his grandchildren like he does with our young kids. It is funny, the way my babies in their early years, used to believe that our old friend, was really Santa Clause. He does resemble Santa Clause with his thick and fluffy white hair, beard, gentle smile and a huge/protruding belly.

I believed I had fed him well the last 3 weeks (while my husband stuffed the man with our good stock of wine/alcohols!). Just hope we did not shorten his life by doing that, for his wife is a real lovely person, who loves natures and seems to rely on him greatly for everything. (Though she always pretends as she could be very tough. A typical dragon!)

I admire them and their love for each other!

(hmm, from what I heard, they did their fair shares in bickering, fighting, arguing with each other too... But while their other friends and acquaintances' marriages all seemed to fall apart, theirs seem to be secure as ever. A true love of the 1960s, hippy and all? Yeah, she is still with long flowing hair (must have touched her hip or lower), bare feet whenever she could, and is most happy among the wilds...).

Time to run!


(It is very gloomy today. No rain like yesterday though. OOps, I am supposed to do something fast before the clock strikes 12 noon!)

Underworld (2003)

Plot:

The war between the lycans (werewolf) and vampires had gone on for centuries. The truth about whom had begun the war first, was not really clear according to the history book recorded by the vampires.

At the time when this movie began to tell its story, the leader of the lycans, Lucian (Michael Sheen) was believed to be dead at the hand of Kraven (Shane Brolly), a vampire warrior. For this wonderful victory, Kraven was rewarded: he was allowed to be in charge of the vampires on behalf of the vampire elders who were the most powerful of the vampires. These elders seemed to need rest, each in their special vault, and in a certain manner (quite interesting, like they were being re-charged, with all sort of wires attached to their back, neck, etc) for certain centuries.

Even though the leader of the lycans, Lucian, was believed to be dead, his species almost became extinct, the ruthless and vigilant death dealers continued to keep watch. As vampire warriors, their main duty was to find any survival lycans, and destroyed them without thinking twice.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale) was one such death dealer. She was intensed and very focus in doing her duty. Being beautiful, terribly intelligent and loyal, she was targeted by Kraven as his future vampire queen the day he managed to become king. Selene knew nothing of this. She was highly respected by her fellow vampires for her skills and intelligence. Not only that, she was almost like a daughter to Viktor, one of the powerful vampire elders. She felt like she was in debt to that specific vampire for rescuing her from being torn into pieces like her whole family, by the lycans from one of their raids. Viktor after saving her, had decided to pass the immortality of the vampire species to her, then, just a little girl, by turned her into a vampire like him.

While Viktor was having his rest in his vault, Selene pledged her allegiance to Kraven without questioning the elders' decision to put Kraven in charge of the vampires.

In one of her nightly hunts for lycans, she noticed a few strange events. There were two lycans who seemed to be intent on their stalking of a certain human. Not only that, she happened to encounter a place, where the number of lycans present, seemed to be completely unbelievable, compared to what she was led to believe, that they were seriously on the verge of being extinct.

Kraven's indifferent attitude about these odd events, made Selene became more curious and suspicious. Perhaps things were not really what they seemed! Believed that the strange human who was specially targeted by the lycans, might be the key of everything, Selene decided to confront him.

Selene arrived just in time to save the strange human, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) from being kidnapped by the lycans. However, both Selene and Michael Corvin were injured from the attack. Being bitten by one of a very powerful lycans, Michael Corvin's fate seemed to be sealed: he was turning into werewolf.

The encounter with the powerful lycan who injured them both, puzzled Selene. From searching the history books about the war between lycans and vampires, Selene suddenly realised that the lycan who hurt her and Michael Corvin before, must have been the very same Lucian, the leader of the lycans, who had been supposed to be killed by Kraven a long time ago (based on the pictures recorded in the book and what she saw with her own eyes).

Did not know where to turn, Selene secretly woke Viktor (Bill Nighy) up, the same vampire elder who had taken care of her when she was a little girl. Since she disrupted the order of waking up certain vampire elder at certain century, Selene displeased Viktor greatly. Her suspicion of what went on: about the lycans secretly regrouping, of Kraven being the mole within their organisation, of Lucian still alived and well, of the lycans' secret planning to overpower the vampires, which might involve a human being namely Michael Corvin, etc, was ignored by Viktor as un-confounded. Selene was confined to await for a correct punishment, for daring waking up any elders, especially waking up a wrong one. Her punishment was supposed to be properly meted out by the other vampire elders who would soon arrived for their pre-arranged council.

Lucky for Selene, one of her fellow vampires, a pretty blond named Erika (Sophia Myles, who played the elegant and wonderful Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds, 2004), happened to dislike the idea of Selene as Kraven's bride. Erika secretly helped Selene escaped successfully.

Thus, Selene had the chance to find some proofs of Kraven's treachery, to show Viktor. Unfortunately, her proof came slightly late, for the lycans managed to slaughter Amelia, the powerful vampire elder who had arrived with her own group for the scheduled council.

Amelia's blood was drained dry, with the purpose of turning the leader of lycans, Lucian, into a powerful and strong werewolf, who would be stronger than any vampire or lycan ever existed. This could only be done, with the presence of blood come from a certain direct descendant of the ancestor of both the lycans and vampires, whose blood must contained neither werewolf nor vampire diseases.

Before such event could take place, Viktor arrived, and injured Lucian badly. From the revealing of Kraven, Selene found out that her family was killed on that fateful night, not by lycans, but by Viktor in one of his wild mood. Little Selene was saved, only because she reminded him of his only daughter, whom he had killed, because she dared married Lucian, a werewolf, and were pregnant with his child. The war between lycans and vampires began and went on since that event. (Before that, lycans were slaves to the vampires. Their duty was to be "daywalker" guards to their betters).

To save Michael Corvin from being killed by the cruel and wicked Viktor, Selene promptly bit Michael Corvin, following Lucian's advice. (Lucian realised that those two were attracted to each other. That reminded him of the love he and his wife had shared. He let Selene know that, because Michael Corvin was a direct descendant of the ancestor who were with pure blood, if he carried both vampire's and lycan's blood (ie, got bitten by both), he should become the strongest of the two species).

The war did end as Lucian predicted.

_______


The movie was done in a very sophisticated and stylish manner. It had certain scenes which reminded viewers of "the Matrix" and "Spiderman". All horrible images (including bloodshed), were implied or shown briefly via sketches, which enabled the viewers to enjoy an interesting and unconventional plot which was full of twists and turns. The movie was impressive with a good cast, beautiful cinematography, and wonderful costume. Selene character was marverlously portraited by Kate Beckinsale. It was very pleasant to the eyes, just watching her beautiful and elegant figure, as well as following every movements she made, in her stylish black leather cladding.

It was a pleasant surprise to me, when I found out that in real life, Kate Beckinsale (Selene) and Michael Sheen (Lucian) once were in a relationship with each other. Their daughter, born January 1999, is now living with mom Kate Beckinsale.

Kate Beckinsale was so good in her role, that even though I felt sorry for Sophia Myles, being given such a minor role in this beautifully done movie, I had to agree that Kate Beckinsale was the best choice to play Selene character.

Scott Speedman did look a bit fragile for the role of Michael Corvin (even though he was very good looking!). Other than that, all the cast was wonderfully chosen. They were all marverlous in their role.

The movie was a real success.

(Some did point out somewhere, that this movie did not follow all the traditional myths about werewolf and vampire, eg, Selene was not supposed to pass out due to an injury which caused blood lost, since vampires could regenerate themselves. Also to them, it was annoying that this movie only had nights, never days, etc. Me, I think this movie was a real masterpiece).

Blade II (2002)

Spent a bit of time yesterday in the library, went through some reviews about this movie. (yeah, for some reasons, I was not kicked out even my booking time on that specific PC had finished).

Hmm, seemed as Blade I was not that great (but some said differently! Since I can't be sure that I had watched that specific movie, I have no idea one way or another!).

I, however, was impressed with the amount of blood, martial art and explosive weapons, etc, used in this second movie. Wesley Snipe was good in his role (as Daywalker, the vampire hunter). He did look real big, dark, dangerous, cool, unemotional (almost) and quite competent in the role of helping the world get rid of all vampires independently.

Didn't like too much of all the grostesque scences, in which Reaper vampires (a hideous species who was a mix of the famous monster Frankenstein and people who got inflicted with incurable consuming diseases and on their way to the gate of hell!), who only attacked vampires, and turned them into reaper vampires by biting their's victim's tounge (thus, passing the infected blood/saliva?).

The weapons used in this movie (to combat the vampires and reaper vampires) were quite interesting too. Not only garlic, sunlight, UV light, silver plated weapons, etc were mentioned, but also bullet/explosive device with UV flashbang. I was surprised to see EDTA, a chemical which could thin out blood, was mentioned, and used as part of weaponaries against vampires, (but it seemed as this EDTA thing had no effect whatsoever on the Reaper species (as it had on the normal vampires)).



Plot:

Daywalker, the vampire hunter, successfully rescued his mentor, Whistler (Krist Kristofferson) from the enemy. With Scud, (Daywalker's sidekick, whose main task was to create weapons for Daywalker to destroy the vampires), they later were asked by the vampires to help them out in the new war: destroying the Reaper vampires, who seemed to intent to attack only the vampire species.

(Krist Kristofferson was pretty good in the role of a "father figure" and "mentor" to Daywalker. His frail, old, and weary presence, seemed to balance out the ruthlessness, unreal and bloodiness of the movie some how).

Daywalker was reluctant, but agreed at the end. He was constantly keeping vigilant against their new team mates (a group of vampire warriors, whose previous task was to hunt Daywalker) while joining them searching for the Reaper vampires, (led by Nomak). The movie was full of suspense moments, for it was not a simple war between Daywalker's team and the Reapers, but a war between Daywalker and all the potential enemies around him. Daywalker could trust only himself and his intuition until he could figure out what really went on. In the mean time, he had to listen patienly to Scud's repeated warnings about the potential that Whistler might have been converted into a vampire (or least, defecting to the enemy's side) due to his long captivity.

The presence of the vampire's leader's daughter, Nyssa (Leonor Varela), gave the movie a touch of implied romance, a sort of sweet attraction between two immortals, both of them full of good intentions.

Among the aggressive vampires, Nyssa represented freshness, honesty, good intention, etc. Perhaps that was why our hero Daywalker was always very caring towards her (especially towards the end of the movie).

When the Reapers were almost wiped out, Daywalker was captured by the vampires. The leader of these vampires wanted to improve his species, using Daywalker's blood (with all of its special genetic codings?), to invent a better vampire species which could withstand the daylight like our hero. Turned out that Nomak, the original Reaper vampire, was the latest result of an experiment went wrong by this very same vampire leader. Nomak however, did not forgave "his father" for creating him, then cast him away so fast. Thus he only aimed to attack the vampires as revenge.

Realised that her father was prepared to sacrify her, his only daughter, and that he himself was the reason for the birth of Nomak, Nyssa became very angry. Found out that her father used Daywalker to destroy Nomak's species, then later, captured Daywalker for his own purpose, Nyssa decided to help Nomak (her so-called "brother").

Nomak successfully revenged the vampire leader as well as attacking Nyssa. He was later destroyed by Daywalker.

Nyssa's wish to die under the sunlight was fulfilled with Daywalker's help.


The movie was quite entertaining, but perhaps not for anyone who dislikes the scenes of huge amount of blood spattering out every where, with sickly bald men opening their huge mouth (and it promptly turned into some sort of terrible, disgusting and bloody thing, reaping people apart (or whatever... I tried to not looked at these repulsive scenes whenever they happened!)). I admired however whoever that imagined and put together the inside of a supposed Reaper vampire: the organs inside remided me of all the beautiful sea creatures, a mixture of corals, star fish, octopus, etc.

Underworld (draft review)

Hope I remember the name of this movie correctly! but since I am going to edit it properly once I have time, I guess noone would really mind here...

(In the library at the moment due to some other business, and I have exactly 9 minutes to type whatever I wanted to type here, before my time for using this PC is really UP!)...

I had begun to watch that movie on and off again for the last 2 weeks, but I kept having trouble with setting it up perfectly, but finally, the night before last, I managed to equip myself with the background plot of the movie, a correct subtitle version for the movie I had, and relaxing in front of my PC, I was really being sucked into the story.

I guess I was in love a bit with the actress who played Selene, the Death Dealer of the vampire world. She was beautiful, dignified, gracious, and real elegant (reminded me of a certain actress who was famous in the acting world, but damaged her own name a bit when she left her husband and daughter for love of another man... ).

The movie was truly beautifully done, gave glimpses of what going on between the vampire world and their enemy, the Lycans. The horrors and bloodsheds were there, but were covered/implied in an artistic way, made the viewers felt free to follow the wonderful acting and plot.

that is it, the booking time is up. Time to get out right now before I got kicked out ruthlessly, mercilessly....

(see yah later!)

1st of May

26 years today from the day we first set foot on Australia!

26 years, and lots of events had happened during that time, among that, was the events of me getting married, having children...

And right now, I feel a bit depressed, for quite a few things I had planned so well, suddenly did not turn out so good. Spent the early morning tried fixing one problem, but so far, I have received no response from the other side, to tell me if the problem is over or not.

The persistent cold that I have been having, drags my spirit down too (to gutter level?). I was supposed to write a few jolly articles to entertain others, as well as editing the movie "Blade 2", but suddenly, I do not feel like I am in any mood for doing anything constructive anymore...


It is sunny outside, beautiful sky, warm, etc... Everything around me looks almost perfect, just my spirit collapsed suddenly. Weird!

(would gardening help? another cup of coffee?)

Blade 2 (draft review)

I only want to write a quick note here about this movie. When I have time, I will try to be in more detailed, with names of actors, actresses that impressed me.

Well, to be honest, I don't like any movie that too bloody! Doesn't mean that I don't like vampire stuff, for there is something erotic about the way vampire only sucks blood from the opposite sex victim at the neck (one among the most eroneous zones of the body?).

Seriously, I think "vampire" was what people used as a disguise perhaps in the old time, as an excuse to "necking". Think of this, if a couple "necking" in public (in the old time, when everything was strict!), then the whole society would critise them badly for their "immoral" behaviour. But if it involved a victim and a "blood sucker", then the whole thing became "less immoral", don't you think?


Return to the movie Blade 2, I was so so reluctant to watch it, but I value the friendship I have had with a young lady who is now working in Prague, Czech, so I did it. (She sounds like a nice and direct young lady, who has always been helpful to me. She wants to help me earning extra money, by asking me to do reviews for some of the movies which either filmed wholly or partly in Czech!).

The movie was full of surprise (bloody surprise!), with blood spattered everywhere. In addition to blood, there were darkness and ugly looking men who were quite sickly, skinny and bald in features. They seemed to be a kind of mutation which the leader was Norak (I will check the spellings later), created by the leader of the vampire world.

The hero of the movie was Daywalker! Why he had that name? well, to distinguish him from the shadow world of vampires. Seemed as he was also partly vampire, but he could withstand the sunlight, and could control his thirst for blood by taking some ampulet of something which resembled blood!).

Our hero helps the human world fighting from the vampires, and thus, was considered as the enemy of the latter.

Daywalker was undestructable (forgive my spelling here will you?). His only weakness is his love for his "adopted" father, the old man who taught him how to survive, how to fight, how to be a good man, etc (perhaps whoever watched Blade 1, would know about this better than me?).

Daywalker managed to rescue his adopted father from the enemy's hand (they were doing some experiment on the old man I think). Soon after that, he and his gang was invited by the vampires to help them destroy Norak and his species. (Of course the vampires did not let Daywalker knew about their link to Norak, the source of a new contagious microorganisms, which kept converting Norak's and his victims' victims, into another "clone" of Norak if the "virus" passed to their system by the tounge).

In, lots of interesting weapons to fight the Norak gang, mainly things relate to bio chemical agents, (I am a biochemist/analytical chemist by trade, but I would rather check my textbook first before saying anything stupid here).

It was scary and awful, watching the "Norak" sucking blood from their victims (the whole process was real disgusting!)... Seriously, it reminded me of people who are drug addicted, the way they could not control themselves when the need for blood come suddenly (don't shoot me if you were one!). In this movie, the blood sucking process by this grostesque species was quite colorful and impressive. The inside of their head and body was quite unique too (reminded me of many octopuses inside!).

To cut the story short (will edit later), Daywalker was caught at the end by the vampire, when he almost destroyed all the "Norak" species. The leader wanted to learn from Daywalker's blood, and from there, to create a better vampire with similar features to Daywalker (eg, not exploded/burnt by sunlight as the current vampire species!).

His daughter (the pretty vampire) was disillusioned with her father, when she found out the truth, that her father was prepared to sacrify her as part of the trap to trap Daywalker, and that he was in truth, the source of the "Norak" problem.

She let Norak approached her father. Norak after destroy the leader of vampire (who he called "father"), turned around, and killed the daughter too.

Daywalker tried to fulfill her last wish: she wanted to die under the sunlight (which she did, exploded and disappeared into thin air! what a pity!)...

Daywalker chased after the person that betrayed him (I think so, have to check this info again!), and that was that....

Big Event 4 Today!

Should I cry or should I sing Allelluia? Hehehe, the boss just phoned, to let me know that her part time worker (a uni student), has decided to work full-time for her.

And That Means My Presence There Is No Longer Needed!

She was so apologetic, that I did feel sorry for her. After all was said and done, I had never really liked that job (working in a small shop!), and just this morning, I wishfully thought, "I wish I could stop working there. It is only casual there anyway!"

Well, that means I won't have to worry about my "cold", which has made me lost my voice 85%. It removes the need for me to take a cold and flu tablet tomorrow morning. Hurrah....


Hahaha, and all the friends who knew about my lowly status of last week, were real shocked. Yeah, it was a case of from rich to drag then... hehehe! They all advised me to drop the job, and I was in complete agreement with them, but so far, I had had zero courage to inform the boss (she has been a very kind hearted one!), that I wanted to quit.

Oh well, it is better this way, that she was not inconvenient by me and my wishes (and she did not need to know that I hated the job that she gave me!)...

Hmm, does it mean that I would have to search the internet again for any part time/casual job, that is close to home, which would let me have time off during school holiday, and time to fulfill my duty every morning and afternoon during school term, to take the kids to and from their school?

Wish I could find a job that allow me to work at home (hey, I am a night person. I could stay awake the whole night!)...


What should I cook for today dinner? Tuna casserole? (My throat is still bad!)

A Monday Morning

A horrible Monday morning!

I was so surprised to see hundreds of people steadily walking in silence, heading towards a certain station in the North (closer to the city) when I was about to turn the car left into the big street, heading south.

- First thought came: "Ooops, is there such a thing as marching/walking day on a Monday morning? How come I did not hear anyone mention about this special event?"

- Second thought: "Perhaps the train line went down (as usual), and this time, people chose to walk than taking the tram or waiting for another train?"


Watching them walking, not sticking to the kerbs or pedestrian pathways, but everywhere on the street, the whole thing did look really scary, especially cars still ran on that medium busy street, at 60 km per hour. (No, it scared me not because of cars kept running on that streets admist pedestrians, but because it reminded me of the time I was 2-3 YO, and often had to be dragged out of bed to rush to some bomb shelters at middle of the night!).


Guess those people were a bit pissed off about something?

(you would too, if it was a chilly Monday morning (about 10 degrees Celsius) and your train decided to stop at middle of nowhere, after you had spent heaps of money on the fare... Damn damn damn!)


Oh yes, by then, I was so sure (with 102% certainty), that the train they took, broke down, for it was right then, blocked the busy street that I was supposed to turn into...

Around the stopped train, everything was in real chaos!

I thought I would solve the problem neat and tidy by heading another way, and do a round about way... Might have taken me longer, but I was sure that it would be the fastest way to take the kids to their school on time.

Wrong there!

They blocked that section of streets too (for road servicing! hahaha... Grrrrrhhhh!!!)

So, I could not turn left, but right! Which I did, but then realised very soon that they blocked everywhere, except the right and right directions.... I almost drove home instead to take the kids to school by walking instead (practically it would take the same amount of time getting there either by car or by foot, for it could be a real nightmare trying to find an empty (and legally) parking spot around my kids' school!).

But I saw the road to the kids' school (straight ahead) clear of cars... so instead of turned left to get home, I went straight... Closer to the intersection, I began to see more chaos: cars fighting to turn left, right, everywhere. Looked like the traffic light at that corner went down with the boomgate and train.

Since I was real gentle at heart (a polite way to imply that I was real chicken in driving a huge car in busy streets where there was no proper traffic lights on!), I promptly decided then and there, that I should try the first parking spot available, take the kids to their school, then leave the car there (until it was safer to drive home!).



Amazingly, my kids came to their school just in time for the Monday assembly! Hurrah...


On and on, the routine ceremony took place, anthem and all!

I walked back home, noticing that cars seemed to be "almost" empty on the streets around the troubled intersection. (A sign that the chaos of today Monday morning had truly gone?)...

Observing the streets a bit more closely, I decided to drive the car home. (The street where I parked, was the same one where I had witnessed a "young female" car buglar operating her business. It was truly a frightening experience to me, witnessing such an act of vandalising, thiefing in public, during daylight.... Today, I saw signs of car glass window shattered on the ground, at a spot where most drivers used to make a U turn. Who knew then if it was another act of vandalising, thiefing, or just an accident while the driver tried to turn his/her car? I doubted the last theory! Thus, it would be perhaps safer just to park our precious "old bomb" at our driveway?).

The kids had agreed to walk home with mom later, so the car could rest there in our driveway until tomorrow morning. But please God, don't let the trains broke down during peak hours, especially at areas that roads/streets were being blocked everywhere for servicing!

(Did I mention anywhere, that they were blocking parts of the busy street in front of my kids' school right now too, (for road servicing)? Ghosh... they just did it a few weeks ago, now they did it again... and they always worked during peak hours! Why couldn't they do it during night time? or at middle of the day? Ah, perhaps I could guess:

- the bosses refused to pay extra for workers at overtime rate!
- It was too cold to work at night (bad condition for road works?)
- workers refused to work odd hours?)


(Shrug!)