An Education : review

An Education, I must say, is not just one of the best British movie of the year, but also one of the best love flick I've seen, apart from 500 Days of Summer. I've been waiting for this one since the hype from Sundance Festival, where it won the Audience Award. And also, a lot of people have praised the performance of Carey Mulligan, which has been nominated for various awards (including Golden Globe, and Oscar perhaps). I missed this movie when it premiered in Singapore back in November, but I managed to get a 'clean download' last week, and yes, it was a very very good movie indeed.

Based on the memoir of Lynn Barber, with Nick Hornby (my favorite novelist) working on the script, An Education tells a story of Jenny (Mulligan), a 16-year old girl, who studies in all-girl school, with the background was set in 1961. For her, the life which she's been through has been 'straight' on the line, which has been laid down by her dad, Jack (Alfred Molina), that after finishing high school, he expects that Jenny would go to Oxford. On the other hand, Jenny feels her life has been monotoneous, or some say, boring enough, with Oxford is solely her only destination at the moment. Until, one day, on a rainy day after an orchestra reherseal, she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard), a charming guy in his mid-30s, offer her a ride home with his red sporty Bristol car. She cannot reject nor explain the sparks between them, but she's sure enough, that this is something new, something that is beyond her boring life. David starts to bring her along with his friends, Helen (Rosamund Pike) and Danny (Dominic Cooper) to concerts, clubs, supper in late night, and even a weekend at Paris. David's charms are also working well for Jenny's parents, especially Jack, where all the cold and strict attitude seems to be melted down by David's influential and convincing words. Jenny has just started a journey of her life, where she can do whatever she wants, and whatever she likes. She feels that she's within the right group with the right man beside her, with Oxford is clearly out of the focus, and self-pleasure becomes the priority at hand. But in the end, like any other 16-year old girls, the fragility and the rebellious inside her begins to crack and shattered when she founds out that David is not the 'perfect' David she imagines when they first met in the rain.

Carey Mulligan is the new hottest commodity from the UK, I must say, and I believe she's on the right track to follow her procedessors such as Kate, Cate, Keira, and perhaps Emma from the teenager side. Mulligan, 22, is perfect and flawlessly convincing as 16-year old Jenny. Her sweet appearance in every scenes always captures our attention, and refreshing. From the potrayal of an innocent girl living her boring life, into the excitement of the first crush, until the breakdown of all hopes and dreams in a quick succession, damn, she’s really good in all aspects. With all the big star cast inludes Alfred Molina, Peter Sarsgaard, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, and even Emma Thompson, the main star is Mulligan in every scene she’s involved. With this kind of performance, she might be the one of the favorite nominees at Oscar later on.

This catchy drama won’t be successful without the playlist of nice soundtracks, mostly influenced by 60’s French pop music, which most of the time will keep us entertained. I mostly enjoyed the song from the club scene where Jenny had her first ‘supper’.

Overall, it’s not cheesy, nor too melodramatic. It’s not trying to lecture us about the whole teenage fragility, it’s just trying to educate us about consequences and responsibilities, which is are often forgotten when our hormons and emotions were running high. In one scene we felt happy for Jenny, and later on, we also felt all the regretable decisions she made. We can understand the burden of Jack, for pushing her daughter too hard, or being too cold, but in the end, all he just wants the best for Jenny. The final scene when Jack is talking to her from outside her room, behind the door, is so sweet and memorable, and we can see what kind of a dad Jack is.

An Education is one of the movie which will stay in your head for several days, and when you take a look back in to it, you will smile eventually. For all teenage girls, watch this, and learn something from it. Be educated !

My Ratings : 9/10

2009 Christmas...

The main purpose of coming back...celebrating christmas with family and friends. I just realized that since I've been in Singapore, I have always celebrated Christmas in my lovely J-Town. I was back on December 19, and straight away on the following day, Suri, my parents, and I watched AVATAR, and it was one hell of a movie !!! I'm planning to watch it 2nd time on 3D next week !!! Then, I had dinner with Lorraine + Arman, where they treated me on Sundanese dinner @ Ikan Bakar Cianjur. It's been a while since the last time I tasted local cuisine, and this one was perfect enough to fulfill my appetite. The nasi liwet was so delicious, especially combined with the griled fish, tahu, and kangkung. Slurrpp...

One of those many double datings to come...

Afterwards, we went to Cafe Pisa, to have some desserts, and last but not least, a very long chit chat almost about everything. I guess this double dating thing works out well, huh? Also, I brought the laptop so they can finish the last 10 minutes of '500 Days of Summer'. Well, apparently, the copy which I gave them several months ago was hanged in the last 10 minutes, and it was stopped right at the park scene, where Tom and Summer met again after some time. Imagine they were watching, near the climax ending, and suddenly they got that shit??? Well, now they can take relax a bit, I guess.

On the 23rd, I had a chance to meet Alicia, since she was also going home from Bali, and it's really rare occasion since usually our schedules of going back to J-town are usually messed up. As a part of our ritual meetings, we had a lunch at Bakmie GM. I know there are many other noodles which taste better than this, I guess it was only for sentimental purpose. And to my surprise, her sister just had a baby, with a cool name, Reindhart. Man, so many kids named with R these days, Richie, Rexton, and now we have Reindhart. I hope they don't grew up CADEL !!!

Fast forward to Christmas Eve, we made a plan with Icil, Lorraine and Arman again, to meet up at CC, my high school, to attend the Christmas Mass. As far as I remember, this was my first trip ever since my sister holy matrimony back 2 years ago. I used to talk a lot about my high school times to Suri, but I never gave her the tour. Now, she could saw what used to be my classes...sealed up with glass and air con !!!! For the mass itself, there was nothing new, same old ceremony at the basketball hall, hot as usual, great choir with the whole band of instruments, same person in charge (Pak Wayan), but it was with different group of priests. Then, we met some of old friends along the way, Paul, Rifan with the long Hair, Jeffry, Yoan (suprisingly), Manley, Aditya, and Andre Wombat's parents.

Bring back those high school memories again...

We missed the snack box, getting really hungry, and just in time, Lorraine asked us to join them to have dinner...'makanan pinggir jalan'...(how to say it in English by the way???). Finally, after dunno how many years, I finally can re-taste 'Nasi Gila' again (Crazy Rice, is that a proper English?) and the Side Road Toast a.k.a Rotipang. It was a hilarious night, with lots of cheers and laughter, not bad to celebrate Christmas Eve with a bunch of friends, although it was only a few of us.

On the Christmas Day, we had a little gift exchange with my mum and dad, and too bad my sis, Temmy and Arthur couldn't make it. If they were here, I'm sure it would be a blast !!! On that nite also, we went to my uncle's place @ Tebet, to celebrate his birthday and had family gathering. It's been a tradition in my family (from dad's side) that we have this reunion every Christmas, so the house is always packed up with relatives. It's nice to see the old faces again, and some new ones. Not forget to mention, the dinner was great !

Look who's back? Miss Canada...

On the next day, Vincent and Angela (my cousin), held a similar party at their place, but on different occasion where on that day, they were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. To make things better, their kids are all in the house, since Nisa is at Jakarta for holiday. Apart from the dinner, we also had the gift exchange, with total 27 christmas presents altogether.

It was a hectic weekend, I must say, but it was also a memorable one. I guess, Christmas is much more meaningful when you spend some of your time with God, family, friends, and your love ones. Well, again...Merry Christmas everyone !!!

You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen !

James Cameron is back with a bang! You can say that AVATAR is overhyped, over ambitious, over hours or even years in the making, etc. Eventually, Cameron has the last laugh. Okay, maybe it's too soon to tell whether AVATAR can make big bucks as much as Titanic, but the result is this might the best sci-fi movie, or even one of the best block buster movie of the year. I put the word 'blockbuster' there since I can't compare this thing to movies such as Up In The Air, Blind Side, or Precious, can I? What I'm trying to say is that Cameron is the master in this kind of movie, whereas Michael Bay or Stephen Sommers can start taking lectures from him.

The fact that Cameron has spent almost a decade to create the Pandora World story, it's mostly because he didn't have the technology to support his imagination. He is so damn perfectionist, combined with his big ego, he makes sure that no one mess up with his vision, and turns out it is fruitul enough to convinve all of us (me for sure) that you can always believe in James f*ckin' Cameron. In short, whatever hypes or rumours you hear about AVATAR, they are true enough. It's the biggest sci-fi of the year, and all the money were well spent on the 10 feet blue creatures, I supposed.

From the cast point of view, many people didn't aware about who the hell is Sam Worthington (me was one of them). I only hear that name early this year when he was one of the cast in McG's Terminator Salvation. Although I didn't watch it, I heard many positive things about Worthington. Then, after I watched AVATAR, I must say, he's the next Hollywood action man, and if you has seen the CLASH OF THE TITANS trailer, Worthington is looking great there! Nevertheless, he delivers a convincing performance as Jack Sully, a disabled marine who has just lost his brother, and all of sudden, he has to step in replacing the bro to continue his research in Pandora. Apparently, a greedy company led by Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) is trying to dig up some very expensive mineral from the Pandora land. But, things get complicated since the local people, the indigenous Na'vi people are relentless to give their land. Therefore, a group of scientist led by Dr. Augustine (Sigourney Weaver, aka Ripley from Alien series), is trying the soft way to study the people and the environment, by growing half alien/half human bodies which they can jack their consciousness into and explore the world in (ala the Matrix). However, Colonel Miles Quatrich (Stephen Lang) doesn't share the same tolerance towards the Na'vi, where all he wants is to sweep them clean from Pandora. In the process of adapting life with the Na'vi, Sully has a change of heart, where he turn his coat from the marine into the blue skin of the Pandora's inhabitats. Afterwards, tha Na'vi has to work together with Sully to survive Quatrich's and Selfridge's ego madness, with the help of the Na'vi deity, Eywa.

The Avatar story line about surviving from the ruthless invasions, environment issues, and the belief in the higher form, reminds me of Kevin Costner's Dancing With Wolves (with the Indians), Tom Cruise's Last Samurai, or even the Force in the Star Wars series. In these memorable Hollywood's flicks, humanity is destroyed by human itself. Nowadays, we're living in the world where human conflicts and environmental damages have become the headlines, and still people are still unaware that the end will eventually come soon or later. I guess, James Cameron has done a brilliant job to remind us, that the ego for wealth will bring destructive consequences.

The social message sent by Avatar is not the only powerful element from the movie, but the technology as well. Cameron got help from Peter Jackson's WETA Digital to turn his imaginative world into life. Now, with the Lord of The Rings and District-9 as the portfolios, no wonder I'm so f*ckin' amazed with the results. The Pandora landscape, the Na'vi flawless movement, and the hectic battle scenes, already make other big budget CGI movies look like crap (again...TF2, you suck !!!). Cameron has just injected us with the notion that Pandora do really exists, with the Na'vi lives among humans, somewhere out there. And also, he's not only making them looks real, but also beautiful and sophisticated, and it makes us so sad to see the Pandora is heavily bombared and under fire. In some cases, it looks like a video game translated into movie, but nevertheless, it didn't fail to deliver pure enjoyment of entertainment. Not bad huh, remembering Titanic was Cameron last movie, which was like...12 years ago??? All hail the Cameron's return.

My Ratings : 9/10

PS: Watch in 3D !!!!!

I'd really like to help you, but I DO NOT kiss frogs.

It's been a good year for Disney animation, first we just had the magnificent UP for the summer, which has propelled Disney Pixar to the summit of the 3D animation movies (in term of quality, not the big bucks), and on the other hand, now we're having the classic Disney feature, the 2D animation with THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG.

Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, Tarzan, Cinderella, Snow White, etc. Ring a bell? I miss those kind of movies, with family value story telling, along with nice soundtracks. Back then, Disney could come up with something fresh for each year release. I guess, the last time I saw a good one was Lilo & Stitch. Afterwards, we were bombarded by the 3D, and the 2D was lost into the abyss. But, thanks to John Lasseter (Pixar's boss), who has a great vision of bringing the old 2D alive again, by opening the Disney Animation Studios again, with The Princess and the Frog as its first production. And beyond my expectation, Disney's back with its magical charm.

Back then, Disney went for multi-cultural Princess (Belle, Mulan, Jasmine, and Pocahontas), and I think the decision to go for a 'black' Princess is not just a bold decision, but it pays well in the end. In fact, the New Orleans Jazz-era settings is a different approach compared to previous fairy tales which took place in older era. It's kinda giving us something fresh about princess movie.

The story tells us about Tiana, a waitress and expert cook, who works in a small New Orleans cafe, where she works double shifts to earn enough money to open her own restaurants, in order to fulfill her late father's wish. Meanwhile, Prince Naveen just drops by to the city, where he will marry the local princess, Charlotte, who happens to be Tiana's best friends. Apparently, every fairy tale must have an antagonist. Dr. Facilier, part magician part voodoo expert, has his own agenda by using the Prince and his butler to fulfill his madness ego and rule New Orleans under his feet. In this case, he persuades the butler to become both the Prince and the his puppet, while the original Prince is transformed into a frog. After some strings of events at the welcoming party, Tiana met the frog princess up in the balcony, where she's making a wish upon a star to make her dream comes true. Well, surely becoming a frog is not part of the wish list, since this is not that particular story where the frog kisses the princess and he becomes human again. After the shocking incident, Tiana and Naveen has to find out the way to overcome their curses and save New Orleans from Facilier's madness.

Disney smartly twists the whole plot in order to make it an extraordinary fairy tale which sets in a more modern era, where Jazz is the main theme. Watching this movie successfully re-ignites my old memories of classic Disney's plot and soundtracks. With the trademark of introducing memorable characters, catchy songs, funny moments, and not to mention the 'live happily ever after' portion, I think THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG has met my expectations on how a Disney movie should be done. Disney just makes our dreams come true by return to its roots on animation film making and story telling. Other big addition is the Jazz, where Randy Newman perfectly provides the whole range of jazz music which are authentic to the locals, with a mixture of pop and catchy tunes.

It's amazing and a bold move by Disney, where most studios are producing the 3D movies, and suddenly they create something which a step backward in technology, but nonetheless, it's not step down in delivering the entertainment. Perhaps it is too premature to celebrate the 2D is coming back to the cinemas, but at least this is a huge first step from the grave. It is nice to see the fairy tales are in the big screen again, since I believe that these kind of movies are the best to be told not only for children, but also for people who still believe in hope, love story, dreams, happy ending, and wishing upon a star.

My Ratings : 9/10

Time to nut up or shut up!

I must say, I'm not a big fan of horror movies. But then, several years ago, I watched a zombie flick, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, and it was instantly became my favorite comedy-zombie movie. It was really hilarious with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost gave me tons of laughter. Back to early 2009, I watched the the trailer of ZOMBIELAND, and I couldn't wait to see this one. Last night, I managed to watch it, and yes, it was just as I expected, funny and gory! Hey, nowadays it's common to see funny and porn in the same sentence, but gory? Nah, dun think so. Even Suri agrees with me on this one, ZOMBIELAND is funny as hell, with a good written script and jokes.

For starters, there's only 4 main characters in this movie (plus one very surprising guest star, which I won't spoil it here), where all of them are the survivors from the apocalyptic incident which has turned US citizens into zombies. It's not clear what happened at the beginning of the zombie outbreak, but it doesn't matter for me. Colombus (Jesse Eisenberg) is the first character showed in the movie, where his narrative tells us some tips and rules how to survive the Zombieland, and believe me, these rules as logical as they can be, the implementations couldn't stop me from laughing (e.g. Beware of Bathrooms and Don't Be a Hero).

Then, along the way, he met with other survivor, a crazy-zombie killer-guy name Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). FYI, these guys don't want to mention names, so they introduced themselves based on their hometown, stupid heh? Afterwards, they are joined by 2 girls, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who bully them in two different occasions, by stealing their cars (twice) and guns (twice also). After some strings of incidents, they learned that they have to stay together to survive the journey to the place where there is no zombie (in this case, a theme park in L.A).

For me, the plus point about this movie is all about the cast. Eisenberg is as funny and naive as he can be, just like his previous character in Adventureland. He's not that kind of slapstick guy or too-much-talking-porn-jokes kinda person. He's just as normal as we are, but it's the way he sees things which is unique and hilarious. Harrelson is a marvelous addition to the cast, I can't imagine this movie without him, he's a one tough crazy bastard, where in one scene he can be the magnificent hero, and on the other, he can be as dumb as a donkey (the Twinkies thing is very very very dumb indeed). Emma Stone can be the new hot action chick, since her character is a strong sexy gal, who happens to be very good at handling shotguns. While Abigail Breslin, who has matured a lot since Little Miss Sunshine, is a cute and nice supporting cast, a perfect complementary.

I should mention that this is an R-rated movie, means if you can handle a large amount of bloodshed and some body splatters, you'll be just fine. Well, I'm a no brainer for horror or zombie movies, but this one is not scary as any typical genre I know, there are some moments which made me jumped a bit, but overall, it's a 'perfect' horror movie for me. I even found that Shaun of the Dead is much scarier than this. In other case, I guess this movie deliver one of the best cameo ever (better than Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder). Overall, ZOMBIELAND is a surprise hit of 2009, but nevertheless, it didn't fail to entertain me.

My suggestion, leave the brain at the door, enjoy the movie and the jokes, have fun with your friends, and learn all the zombie surviving rules (there are 32 of them). The best zombie exploitation film since Shaun of the Dead. With Twinkies!

Columbus: The first rule of Zombieland: CARDIO. When the zombie outbreak first hit, the first to go, for obvious reasons... were the fatties.

My Ratings : 9/10

Bon appetit!

3 main reasons for watching Julie and Julia : (A) Nora Ephron, (B) Amy Adams, and (C) Cooking. Back in the 90's, Ephron's When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail were my favorites for rom-com (romantic comedy) genre. But since then, I guess it's been somehow so many misses for her. But after watching this one, it's like her biggest comeback after the total failure of Bewitched (damn you Will Ferrell!!). With amazing cast such as amazingly Meryl Streep and Amy Adams (what a beauty), this is one of the best rom com of the year, especially when it is combined with lots of cooking. Mind you, our favorite TV channels at moment are Asia Food Channel and Discovery Health and Living. Basically, we love cooking shows, from Jamie Oliver, Curtis Stone, Rob Rainford, etc, you name it! With all these perfect ingredients, Julie and Julia just deliver us a perfect recipe to experience a different kind of rom-com movie.

Based on 2 true stories, Julie and Julia tells us the life of Julia Child and Julie Powell. The first one was a famous American Chef who introduced the French cuisine and cooking techniques to the American mainstream through her cookbooks and television shows. The movie told us where Julia just moved to Paris in 1948, with her husband who worked at the US embassy, where she couldn't stand of doing nothing. Therefore, since her main interest was cuisine, she was interested in learning how to cook. The funny thing, she was almost 40 year old, and she didn't even know how to boil an egg. And after struggling with French language and horrible reception towards women on learning to cook, she managed to get a grip, and found her way to write "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", which eventually will become one of the most influential book in American culinary history.

On the other era, 2002, Julie Powell just moved in to Queens, NY, with her husband. Apparently, Julie worked in Lower Manhattan Development, just near the Ground Zero location. Her daily basis was to deal with stressing and complaint phone calls regarding the 9/11, family grief, or the protest on the new tower plan. In short, her life was so miserable back then. But, she always finds joy and pleases her self through cooking, where her husband acknowledges the talent in culinary. Therefore, he suggested that she should start her own blog. Since Julia Child is her inspiration for cooking, Julie then came up with the idea about making a challenge by cooking all 500+ recipes from "the Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book, within a year period, and wrote the experiences down in her blog. A plan which looked like lots of fun and full of excitements at the beginning, eventually became an egoistic and nightmare torture for Julie, since she was taking it way to seriously. In the end, she had to find a better way to keep her blog and marriage life in perfect balance, especially when her blog suddenly became popular each day.

These two stories are told in parallel with nice switching and mixing between them, so we won't be confused at all. The combination of telling the 1950's and 2002's era altogether gives us different colors and feelings, which are perfectly blended into the main character. We can see how each character struggles with her own ambitions and how they can go through all the ups and downs. And most importantly, how they can maintain their relationships when all else fails. Julia is a positive thinker, and always able to encourage herself when she feels down, while on the other hand, Julie is kinda childish person, who is self-centered, but not able to solve all the problems by herself. But most of the times, it's the cooking which eventually becomes their life savior.

Merly Streep gave one of her best performance (as always), where she provides the warmth and comforting Julia. I reckon she will get nominated for Golden Globe next year. On the other hand, Amy Adams (with short hair) as always, mesmerizes us with her magnetic appearances and gorgeous looks, and not to mention, good performance on bringing Julie into life. Other notable cast such as Stanley Tucci with Chris Messina are able to balance the main characters story life as the supportive husbands.

As quoted from rottentomatoes.com, boosted by Meryl Streep's charismatic performance as Julia Child, Julie and Julia is a light, but fairly entertaining culinary comedy. With great panache, it celebrates butter, bravery, and believing in oneself, all excellent things, brilliantly executed. Bon appetit !!!

My Ratings : 8.5/10

PS: Do check Julie's blog, the Julie/Julia Project at http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

Birthday + X-mas presents !!!

Last night, we were watching CSI, when suddenly Suri asked for her Chip's pillow, since she could only find Dale. Then, when I looked under the bed cover, to my SURPRISE, she had already prepared 2 gift boxes. For the the opener, she gave me a birthday card, with nice and touching words (I'll paste them right down below). Then, for my x-mas gift, she gave me a box full of Mars chocolate packs, damn right on the spot !!! I really really fond of those Mars with caramel inside. Guess I should re-write the whole diet plan for December (she asked me whether the Mars could hold up for one year, I replied, try a month instead !!!). But once again, do I really have a workable diet plan, anyway???

(Homer expression) Hmmm.....Chocolate....D'oh !!!!

Then for my birthday present, she bought me a Man Utd 09/10 home jersey, which I've been craving on for the past few months !!! Actually, back then when I went to Malaysia to see Man Utd Asia Tour, I planned to buy it by the time I got back to Singapore. But, I abandoned the plan since I found the jersey was quite expensive, and since then, I played down my intention to buy it. I told Suri I probably will skip this year's jersey, and planning to buy England shirt for next year World Cup. Well, turns out Suri told me that I should own it, since I'm quite a big fan of the Red Devils, and it looks so terribly wrong to watch their match every week but not having their latest home jersey. Who knows it can be a good investment if they manage to won the Premier League again this season. Although, she was quite disappointed since she couldn't find her own size, because the initial plan was that she wanted to have a pair of those, so we can wear it together if let's say we want to watch a match. Oh well, nevertheless, I got myself wonderful presents !!! Note to myself : find a pair for her then (I'm sure she will reply me, you better buy me the new Zara clothes instead !!!)

There have been times

when I've thought about

what my life would be like

if I'd chosen a different career

or done something else

with my talents.

But when it comes to imagining

my life without you,

I just can't do it.

You're such an important part

of everything I do,

everything I've become.

You've always been there

to help me figure things out

and make me laugh

when I take myself

too seriously.

Most of the time,

you know what I'm thinking

even before I do.

That's how close we are.

It's a beautiful experience

to go through life

with someone who makes you feel

so totally and wonderfully complete.

Happy 27th Birthday, Hunny !

Those words reflect how much I felt about you

Love you so much.

SURI

Princess is in da house !!!

After a whole month being separated, finally the princess is back. Yeay...it kills off the those lonely days without having someone to talk to...It sounds cheesy, but really, it feels so good to have her back. Now I can say so long and farewell to the terrible foods, cause I miss her cooking. On the other hand, guess I also have to say farewell to all my games, since logically, I have to spend more time with her than my Wii rite??? But, I think we can still play that Mario Bros altogether....

So, what's in the queuing line? Well, we've finished Julie and Julia yesterday, and later on tonight, we'll catch Fantastic Mr. Fox, and maybe 500 Days of Summer when we get home. The TV series are waiting, from Lie To Me, Mentalist, How I Met Your Mother, and CSI. What else?? Oh yeah, definitely she will go shopping at some time. Last but not least, we're gonna decorate the Christmas Tree, which she strictly told me not to do it when she's not around. She even brought some more ornaments and dolls to be put on doors. Wow, guess she really likes Christmas....

Oh well, time go home! Nasi Goreng for lunch!