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!)
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
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?
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.
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.
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