Lost in Translation

Am bored, got tons of work to do for tomorrow, and what did i do for the past 2 hours? Why, watch "Lost in Translation" on my laptop, of course! Darn you procrastination! Anyway, I wouldn't say Lost in Translation would be the best ever movie that i have ever seen before in my life, but i do think that it is quite an interesting movie, although at the end of it I did sort of have the feeling of "What the hell, so what, is that it?!!". Anyway, i just HAVE to add that i thought Scarlett Johanson looked quite cute throughout the movie. :D *Sigh*. It was interesting to see how life as a foreigner in Japan can be and how lonely it could be being there by yourself. The question of when will Bill Murray actually screw Scarlett Johansson did cross my mind a couple of times as well, although the thought of Bill Murray, erm... let's not go there. But at the end of it, I guess the moral of the story would be that you can find friendship anywhere and in any situations, and from whatever experiences that you go through, its the friendships and relationships that you make that count, and would be what you bring with you into the future and remember. Well, that's what I think.

Like my life in my former workplace. Its not the projects, or the reports, or the systems that I have worked on that I cherish the most from it, but for me, what I would take with me and remember from it all would be the good people (let me emphasize the *good* here) that I've worked with. I would remember more fondly the times we spent together working, or the 2am night shifts where we were working our asses off and with shit loads of work to do but still could find time to monkey around and get everyone laughing just to make sure that the environment is more lively, or even the times that we spent at the mamak at 11pm after we finished work.

Thinking of Scarlett Johansson now... *sigh*

I don't want your history, I don't want that stuff
I want you to shut your mouth, That would be enough
I don't care if you've been here before, You don't understand
Tonight I feel above the law, I'm coming into land
I want your love and I want it now

I know, I'm sad! OK back to work :P

Where will you be....?

Have been absolutely busy these past few days and all, and have been staying in the office extremely late, until the wee hours of the morning. Like last night for example, the work that i had to do just kept coming and coming and coming non stop, and without me noticing it, it was already 11pm and i had to FORCE myself to shutdown my laptop and leave. Sad? Absolutely! Necessary? Unfortunately. Watched two movies at the end of last week which I am surprised now, thinking about it, that i actually found the time to head off and spend 2 hours plus a time, idle, just sitting in the cinema. However, it was good fun and it did keep my mind off more pressing matters which i just did not want to think about at that particular time.

First movie that i watched was the Roland Emmerich "Doomsday thriller", "The day after tomorrow" (or "Lusa" as what some of my colleagues call it). Its one of those mega-budget, blow your brains away with over the top special effects and CGI and hope you don't notice the absolutely ridicilous plot line. Basically what happens in this 2 hours and 4 minutes of film is, the hero, Professor Adrian Hall (Quaid) finds out that due to us humans continously polluting the environment, earth will, in a million years, due to some scientific mumbo jumbo reasoning that he tried to explain, which I just failed to comprehend after the first few lines, experience another ice age which would wipe out all living creatures as the previous one. Obviously, the deputy President of the United States would laugh at his over the top suggestions , and obviously the hero will be proven right, well sort of right since his timing was way way WAY off as it happened within a few weeks, not a few hundred years!

So what happens then? His son finds himself in New York for joining some quiz competition to be spending some more time with the girl (which initially, i wouldn't have mind either, but after seeing her absolute stupidity of just keeping quiet and walking around like everything's fine and dandy while a whole chunk of her leg has been ripped off, i had my doubts), and surprise surprise, New York would be one of the first places to be hit by the storm. So, after finally convincing the Deputy President of the US of A that shit is indeed happening, and saying stuff like "Save as much as you can" and telling people to move as far south as possible, our hero goes against everyone and goes up north so save his son (initially he was planning to go BY HIMSELF, but obviously his two buddies would follow him, right?), because he is the hero of the movie, and only the hero as his gang of merry men would be able to survive ultra freezing temperatures that even the oil in the tanks of helicopters would freeze in a matter of a few seconds. Yes, he is the MAN. Actually, I just cannot be asked to write much more on this, but i just have to mention that the ending is just SUCH a rip off. ** Spoiler Alert**. I mean, at the end of the day, the "greatest storm ever experienced by mankind" just suddenly decided, "hey, i'm tired of all this" and just DECIDED TO STOP WITHOUT ANY PARTICULAR REASON. When I saw that, i was thinking to myself, "What the ****?!!". In the end, he saves his kid and some other people, and everyone is happy.

At the end of the day, if you can see past the major flaws in the movie, such as the scene where the ultra freezing cold temperature "chases" the guys from the back, up the stairs and all, while freezing everything else that it comes across, only to be stopped in it's tracks by, get this, a WOODEN door!!, (and come to think of it, i read somewhere else something that didn't come cross my mind a that time, that the kids were burning the books to keep the fire buring when there were tons of WOOD, like the chairs and all laying around. A normal person like me would have thought that burning the wood would be a much better idea, only to be corrected when they used the wooden chairs as "snow shoes" (is that what u call them) for them to go outside in search of medication for the poor little girl, only for them to be chased by ultra huge wolves which can survive ultra freezing weather), basically, it IS an entertaining movie. You just need to shut your brains off and be mesmerized by stunning scenes of water flooding through the streets of manhattan, and also don't miss the scene which i personally find absolutely hilarious and ironic, where you see American citizens illegally crossing over the border to Mexico, where some of them actually were cutting the barded wires in order to get through.

I think i've written enough for now. The other movie which i saw was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which i think i'll write about a bit later. "Lusa" gets 3/5 stars for the special effects, 4/5 stars just for the scene of Americans crossing over the border, -5/5 stars for an absolutely ridicilous plot line, 3/5 stars for Emmy Rossum, and -2.5/5 stars for her character being an absolute idiot. So all in all, "The day after tomorrow" gets 2.5 / 5 stars. Cheers.

Kate Beckinsale

Dont know why, but nowadays suddenly i seem to be extremely fond of Kate Beckinsale, to such an extent that on Saturday night, when i didnt really feel like going out, (since i was too tired after a good session of futsal with the mates), i decided to stay in and watch "Serendipity" on VCD at home. My god. What an extremely soppy SOPPY movie. Probably a good choice to watch with your other half in the cinema, since it is a feel good movie, with an ending which is just so predictable i could spot it at the very start of the movie (i mean, who wouldn't have?!!). But, it was interesting to see though the "signs" that they were getting and how each one of them decided to either follow them or not. Probably give "Serendipity" 2and1/2 stars out of 5, and 1 star is there just because Kate's in the movie. Ha ha ha. Terrible.

Of emails, revolutions, managing teams and a donkey

Came into work to work early this morning, alert, refreshed, brimming with enthusiasm to take on the world again after a week off celebrating raya. Booted up my laptop, opened up my outlook mail and... 187 mails unread. After a slight tinge of panic, i thought to myself, must be those goddamn spammers at work again. Off i go deleting emails telling me that i have won a gazillion bucks, some holiday at some exotic beach resort and also all those goddamn forwards from the ppl who have me on their mailing lists. OK done, check my inbox again.. 132 mails unread. Shite. Thats a lot of mails that i have to read. So have been spending the whole day today replying those emails from god knows where asking about supposed i supposedly am supposed to know. Oh look, i've replied my last mail, so now i can actually start doing work. Oh, look at the time. Freaking 5pm. Looks like its gonna be another long day in the office.

Watched the third Matrix movie over the weekend. Yeah yeah yeah, i've ONLY seen it. The thing is, i just couldnt be asked to wrestle through the crowd at Mid Valley and queue up for tickets just to watch it, so i thought i might as well wait til much later and see it in peace. My stress levels are high enough as it is without having to endure waiting ages queueing up for the tickets at the cineplex. You could say that i could've watched the Sunday morning show since it isnt that crowded then, like since nobody watches movies during Sunday mornings, but thats the point, nobody watches movies on Sunday morning, including myself. I wanna wake up at 2pm on Sunday and vegetate in front of the idiot box the whole day.

I dont understand what the big commotion was about. Almost everyone i know said that the movie was a huge dissappointment. For me, i guess, it wasn't really that bad. It was OK. It wasnt the WORST movie i've seen this year. Not the best either ( I shall refrain on deciding on my best movie of the year until i've watched what happens to Frodo and friends ). Probably since i wasn't putting my expectations TOO high up like i did with reloaded, since that was a huge huge disappointment. I guess i just enjoyed watching the not-so-over fighting scenes and the battle at Zion.One thing i have to point out is the silly silly way that they have to reload the guns on the robot things. I mean, i find it so ridicolous that someone has to actually run out with trollies carrying bullets to the robots and manually inserting them. I don't know. I just found it so massively hilarious.

Some people say that the ending was a huge disappoinment since *spoiler to whoever hasn't seen it yet, ok maybe not that many ppl, but just to warn those of you yet to see it* trinity dies, and there was no huge scene of ppl waking up from the *farm* and unplugging themselves from the matrix, which i guess would have been a grand finale and i expected it to end that way as well. But i guess the way that they ended it wasn't too bad, since it still leaves the plot open for ANOTHER sequel. I mean, if they killed all the robots, who are they gonna be fighting in the NEXT one?

I was also thinking (suprisingly) the other day of the parallels between the Matrix trilogy and the Star Wars trilogy ( Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi ). I mean, just look:

Star Wars : Luke Skywalker finds out that he has amazing superpowers to be the top jedi warrior, and is trained by Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda. It ends with Luke using his powers to defeat the Empire and blow up the Death Star with the Empire running away pissing in their pants.
Matrix 1: Neo finds out that he has amazing superpowers (or sometthing like that) to be "The One" after being plugged out from the Matrix. Is trained by Morpheus to harness his mental ability to bend the rules in the Matrix world. It ends with Neo using his powers for the first time to defeat the watchamacallits agents at the end and ending up with the agents running away pissing in their pants.

Empire Strikes Back: The empire gets stronger, and at the end of the movie, the empire is on the ascendancy, and Luke finding out the truth about Darth Vader being his father. It ends with Luke getting injured having had his hand chopped off.
Matrix 2: The machines gets closer and closer to Zion, and at the end of the movie, the machines are on the ascendancy, and Neo finding out the truth about the Matrix and how he is the person to choose whether the people in Zion live or not. It ends with Neo getting injured / going in a some sort of coma.

Return of the Jedi: Luke faces his dad, his dad decides to be on his side, ends up in a battle where the people on the planet are battling against the empire with those cute lil ewoks and Luke somewhere up there battling with the emperor. The battle of the rebels against the empire in space hinges on the ppl down on the planet blowing up the force field thingamjib.
Matrix 3: Neo faces the Oracle, who decides to help the humans instead (if i am not mistaken), and then it ends up with a battle in Zion against the machines and Neo is somewhere up there battling with Agent Smith. The battle in Zion hinges on whether the last ship can make it in time to blow their EMP at the port. (On a side note, i am also amazed that they themselves in Zion didnt have their own EMP, like just in case. Either that, or i missed something ).

Oh well, i could just be talking utter nonsense here, or it is widely know around the world already, but still. I wouldn't be suprised if they come up with "Matrix episode 1: The Washing MachineMenace where they tell the story of how the robots came into power, where one machine was thought to be the best machine in the world, a machine that could fly planes faster than any machine can ever fly before. And then they come up with Episode 2: Attack of the Toaster Ovens, where the fast flying machine meets another female machine and decide to start running around in fields together, rolling around in beds of flowers, running around trees and riding on horses. Obviously, the fast flying machine is also a very hot headed machine who can't stand authority where in Episode 3, he runs away with the female machine and decide to create their own machines which will end up giving birth to the Architect and the ORacle!!! Ok i am talking crap now. Enough of that.

Oh yeah, i bought the latest Championship Manager 2003/04. Looks like some endless sleepless night ahead of me now. It seems to look much better than the previous version, and the bugs, most of them are gone already. It seems like the original version was released so that the buyers could do their testing for them. Sneaky basterds. Anyway, my Liverpool team currently is third in the league. Only 5 points behind Arsenal and Chelsea. Seems the scum aren't doing too well. He he he.

Speaking of football, our very own donkey scored what i would say the most amazing goal i have seen from him so far. Chesting the ball from the Salif Diao (shockingly inept for most of the game, being given the runaround by the "wing wizard" from Birm they call Stan Lazaridis), and then semi-scissor kicking it into the goal, leaving me with a gaping mouth, amazed out of my head. Honestly speaking, good for him, but its just so goddamn hard to take, seeing what he can do, only to see him do it once a decade. An optimist would say, "Now thats more like it, sunn, now you've got ur confidence back, go on and show us the real Emile Heskey and score gazillion goals up the Mancheter United arse!!!", but most people, i hear, are saying "Lucky basterd, now that you've scored that, Houllier will be saying that he has been proven right by sticking to him, and will continously pick him based on that one goal, only for us to endure painful games watching him fall on his arse countless times again and again, and hearing Houllier defend him again and again saying he only needs some confidence back!!". On a side note, i feel that Pongolle does indeed fall to ground oh so very often. I mean, he is a quality player with bags of potential, but diving is just not on. I despise diving as it is cheating and that is not Liverpool football club is based on. So get that "falling to ground at the slightest of touches" habit out of your game son! Anyhow, the penalty awarded to use was indeed a bonafide penalty, considering the way Cunningham was man-handling him.

Anyway, gotta be going now. Got some work to be done. Hmm.. where did my San Francisco Coffee go?

Laters

KILL BILL

Just watched some clips of the 4th Quentin Tarantino movie, Kill Bill part 1 on my friends computer. I watched the scene where the "Bride", Uma Thurman, went on a body slicing, limbs flying around, blood spurting out of your lacerated body parts, killing fest. This must be the most number of flying limbs i have seen in once scene of a movie.... EVER!!! Disgusting! Gross! Repulsive! Revolting!Sickening! Where do i get it?!! LOL. Anyway, gonna go searching for the VCD around town. Here's the link to it:

http://www.kill-bill.com/

Enjoy