Madam Secretary

Madam Secretary Featurette

Didn't expect that the TV show would be so good. Though the show seems to be related to the real world but it's not entirely true on facts. Afterall, it's entertainment.

What I admire the show most is how Madam Secretary solves problems one after another. She knows her assets and the boundaries. She is a good negotiator and a decisive boss. It must be fun working for her.

Each episode features a country where the U.S. has a crisis with. It's always life or death matters or moral issues on the line. I like watching people skillfully solve problems.

Definitely a recommended show for people who are interested in what goverment officials / PR do.

Big Eyes (2014)

Big Eyes Trailer

I think the big eyes children are so familiar. It turns out that it has inspired Blythe dolls and many Japanese manga characters that come after.

Margaret is a very introverted character. She doesn't like her husband, Walter, telling lies to the customers at the club, where he sells their paintings. But when a customer asks who painted the paintings, she does not speak up. Instead, the more sociable Walter steps up and claims that he is the painter. As a result, Margaret has to follow the story and stay at home to paint while Walter would be the salesman / facade, so as to make a living.

Margaret becomes more and more upset as she has to hide the fact from her daughter. She later finds out that Walter is a con man. The paintings of the streets of Paris are not even his own paintings. She realizes that she has never seen him paint.

Margaret is very powerless as she is a divorcee and a single mom. She knows that she holds the truth but she is not brave enough to expose Walter. She only finds the courage after she finds a religion. 

Women tend to have harder times in selling their work in art or writing (as J.K. Rowling once said). It is a triumphant and cathartic moment to see that she out-paint Walter in the court to claim her justice and name back.

To conclude, this is a very inspiring biography of a female painter who rise to success and is recommended to all art-lovers.

Inside Out (2015)

Inside Out Trailer

I have to write this film review because I think this movie is very meaningful. It's educational not only to children but also adults who would want to understand more about emotions.

The premise is what's going on inside the mind of a teenage girl, Riley, who newly moves to a new city with her parents. There are five emotions, namely, Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness, that lives in the control room / headquarters of Riley's head.

Moreover, there are different islands, namely, Goofball Island, Hockey Island, Friendship Island, Family Island, and Honesty Island, that shapes Riley's personality.

One day, an accident happen which Joy, Sadness and some core memory balls are sucked away from the headquarters. Without some of her core memories and Joy, Riley is becoming more upset and introverted. She loses her temper at her Dad and then her Goofball Island crumbles. Her best friend in the old city befriends with a new girl and she becomes angry and loses her Friendship Island. Her islands crumbles one by one and Riley is unable to have any feeling.

The plot becomes more interesting as we encouter Bing Bong the imaginary friend of childhood who helps Joy and Sadness to find a way back to the headquarters. Bing Bong is an elephant mixed with cotton and cries like a dolphin. He tears are candies.

It is very touching when Bing Bong sacrifices himself for Joy to ride up the cliff. It's so sad to see our imaginary friend fade away.

Joy used to think Sadness is useless, but when she sees a core memory which Riley lost her hockey game, the team and family tries to console her, she realizes that Sadness is indeed an important emotion.

At last, Joy and Sadness make their way back to the headquarters and the new islands are built up. Riley becomes happy again and more confident in her life.

Things happen, and emotions come naturally, but different people has different responses or reactions to the same event. It's how we face / deal with a situation that differs. To the same event, different people have different beliefs. We have to ask ourselves: are our beliefs reasonable? Are we being catastrophic? How true are our beliefs? And our beliefs and emotions will lead to our rational or irrational behavior. To conclude, the takeaway from this movie is that we all have emotions and we need to face them, to acknowledge them, and to understand why we feel that way, so as to become a healthy person.

Jurassic World (2015)

Jurassic World Trailer

When I saw the poster of Jurassic World, I thought if I were the writer, the premise would be a new theme park where dinosaurs escape. That's how you can scare people and make the story interesting. And guess what? Bingo! The formula is the same, just the actors are different.

I like the technology introduced in the movie, such as the car ride the kids takes. I believe the imagination by the filmmakers will someday become real technology or real gadgets. For instance, there are much imagination in Back to the Future, Terminator, and Jurassic Park. I used to play spy as a child and talk to my watch as if it was a walkie-talkie. And now we have Apple Watch.

This time the antagonist dinosaur is the Indominus Rex. And T-Rex becomes the protagonist dinosaur. I like the introduction of Monsasaurus. According to the official web page of Jurassic World, Monsasaurus means "Meuse River lizard". It is an immense seagoing lizard, not an actual dinosaur. It uses its fearsome array of teeth to catch fish, birds, and other marine reptiles, even great white sharks.

Velociraptors also appear in this movie and it mirrors Jurassic Park (1993), they attack the protagonists at first and then they together attack the bigger dinosaur.

If you haven't watched Jurassic Park, this is a good movie to watch. But if you have watched Jurassic Park before, you will find many of the scenes are so familiar.

Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl Trailer

A dark yet interesting story about love, marriage, cheating and revenge.

***Spoilers alert***

Amy disappears. Nick cooperates with the Police and the audience thinks that he is a good man at first. As the plot thickens, because of Nick's inappropriate smile in front of the press, an inappropriate selfie with a random woman, an affair with a student, and more and more evidences pointing at Nick, making the viewers to start to think that, well, maybe Nick did kill his wife.

Half way through the movie, all of a sudden, we see Amy driving in a car and we hear her "cool girl" monologue. It turns out Amy has faked her own death and planted evidence against Nick because she thought "Nick Dunne took my pride and my dignity and my hope and my money".

Amy unfolds her plan in her monologue. "To fake a convincing murder you have to have discipline. You befriend a local idiot and cram her with stories about her husband's violent temper. Secretly create some money troubles: credit cards, perhaps online gambling. With the help of the unwitting, bump up your life insurance. Purchase getaway car. Craigslist. Generic, cheap, pay cash...You know what's hard? Faking a pregnancy. First drain your toilet. Invite pregnant idiot into your home and ply her with lemonade. Steal pregnant idiot's urine. Voila! A pregnancy is now part of your legal medical record. Happy Anniversary. Wait for your clueless husband to start his day. Off he goes...and the clock is ticking. Meticulously stage your crime scene with just enough mistakes to raise the specter of doubt. You need to bleed. A lot, a lot. The head wound kind of bleed. A crime scene kind of bleed. You need to clean, poorly, like he would. Clean and bleed, bleed and clean. And leave something behind: a fire in July? And because you're you, you don't stop there. You need a diary. Minimum three hundred entries on the Nick and Amy story. Start with the fair-tale early days: those are true, and they're crucial. You want Nick and Amy to be likable. After that, you invent. The spending, the abuse, the fear, the threat of violence..."

Amy thinks that she is smart, charming, and cool. She thinks she made Nick smarter, sharper and rise to her level. Amy and Nick used to be fun together. Amy would play treasure hunts with Nick on anniversaries to add spice to their marriage. But after Nick loses his job and decides to move to Missouri, everything starts to go south. She thinks Nick gets lazy and dares her to be someone she doesn't want to be: the nagging wife or the controlling bitch.

I think the way Amy takes revenge on Nick is too dramatic. She wants Nick to pay the price for cheating on her. But when she kills Desi, who cares for her, and frames him for kidnapping, starving and raping her, in order to go back to Nick (because she cares so much about her public image and doesn't want to be a pariah), it proves that she is a sociopath. Nick did not kill his wife but he was not a good man either. Moreover, the couple has irreconcilable differences in their values. For example, Nick said, "I loved you and then all we did was resent each other, try to control each other. We caused each other pain." Amy replied,"That's marriage." That's why Tanner Bolt said that they are the most fucked-up people he has ever known.

I like the editing of the movie. There are only seconds between each cut in Amy's monologue and it makes the scene more tense. We often don't see a lot of dissolves as a transition in movies nowadays, but the editor uses it in the scene where Nick pushed Amy. It makes Nick and Amy looks more shocked by the event. The sound editing is also very good as it increases suspense and tension. I like the colour timing of the movie. The darkness demonstrates the director's auteurism and aesthetics.

Though there are plot holes in the movie, such as why the hospital staff would let Amy go while she is covered with blood, it doesn't matter because the story is interesting and staggering.

Solomon's Perjury: Suspicion & Solomon's Perjury 2: Judgement (2015)

This is a two-part Japanese thriller. The premise is that a school boy (栢木) was found dead on campus. The police and school determined that the boy committed suicide. However, an anonymous letter reports that a bully (大出) at school killed 栢木. So the students together decide to hold a mock trial at school to find out the truth.

The pace of the story is a bit slow. And some plots are unreasonable. For example, when the bully hits and steps on the face of the victims (三宅、淺井), the victims did not fight back or protect themselves but just lay on the ground and let the bully steps on them. Moreover , the bullying happens in a residential area, how come no one (except the protagonist 藤野) hears their screaming and comes to help?

The trial is supposed to be a serious matter because the story used the first part of the movies to explain the background of all the characters involved. So the trial, which is the second part of the movie, is the highlight of this story.

It seems that the mock trial is very organized. The students take up roles of the judge, prosecutor, defence lawyer, secretary and jury.

The motive of the boy from another school (神原) to involve so much in the trial is a mystery, but it will be explained near the end of the movie.

When the trial is over, the people stepping out the court carry smiles on their face. Is it appropriate to smile on a suicide case? Or are they smiling at the ridiculousness of the mock trial?

Anyway, the students serve the mock trial as a resolution to overcome their shadows and it certainly reaches what they are looking for. 

The movie ends with U2's famous song With or Without You. It is a very nice touch of the movie. Every time I hear it I have goosebumps.

MasterChef Australia

The first MasterChef show I watched was  Junior MasterChef Australia. Then I watched all five seasons of MasterChef (U.S. version) and MasterChef Junior (U.S. version). Now I am following MasterChef Australia.

I find this food show very interesting. Not only do I learn some techniques to cook, I also expand my food vocabulary and my understanding of the cultures of different countries.

Most of the contestants have a day job but they all share one thing in common: the passion for food. Some of them entered the competition so that they could move to the food industry. Moreover, there were occasions where distinguished cooks take eliminated contestants under their wings. I find this very inspiring. It is such a nurturing environment for the contestants to learn and grow and become something. I believe people can have more than one passion and skill sets. You can be a lawyer but also a good cook. You can be a tax accountant but also a good artist. I don't understand why it is so hard for the people in Hong Kong to accept any career change.

To career-changers: may the force be with you!

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Trailer

This is a touching story about a boy, Oskar, who loses his father in 9-11. He wants to trace the lock to which the key he finds in his father's closet as a means to extend his memory of his father.

This movie talks about how one handles the loss of loved ones. And it's also about personal growth.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Oskar is very upset that they buried an empty coffin. His mum explaines, "I know it's an empty box...I did it for me and I did it for you so we can at least try and say goodbye to him."

Oskar mourns his father in his secret corner at the top of the cabinet and he excludes his mum in the secret mission. It is later revealed that Oskar did not pick up the last call of his father and he is very sorry for that. And it hurts his relationship with his mum.

The first half of the story is very lose. It's not clear of the momentum of this story until the point which the renter joins his quest to look for the lock.

It is said that Oskar is a very bright kid. But i think that he's not very sociable and that is why his father sends him out for excusions so that he can meet and talk to different people. 

Sandra Bullock's mum character at first is very weak. It is later revealed that she is very helpful in Oskar's mission as she finds out Oskar's plan and meets all the people before Oskar even meets them.

It is very odd to see how Oskar communicates with his grandmother. He likes to wake his grandmother up in the middle of the night with a walkie-talkie and "spy" on her (across the street). And grandmother did not explain why the renter stays in her house.

Oskar's mum says, "I don't know why my husband is dead, but no matter how hard you try...it's never going to make any sense, because it doesn't..." I think it's the absurdity and meaninglessness of life. Tragic happens and we don't know why it happens. Each of us cope with it differently: some will cry, some will become alcoholics, some move on, some will learn through pain and sorrow. How can we make the most out of life?

Still Alice (2014)

Still Alice Trailer

***Spoilers alert***

Alice is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. She knows that her conditions will deteriorate and she doesn't want to be a burden to her family. So she shoots herself a video with instructions watch it when she can no longer answers the questions she sets for herself. The video is actually an instruction to commit suicide.

This movie reminds me of Momento. When you know that you are going to lose your memory, you will prepare notes and even tatoos (LOL) to remind yourself of important things. How are we going to do it systematically? Or we will end up avenging the same revenge like the protagonist of Momento?

But setting instructions to future self to commit suicide is sad. Luckily, someone interrupts Alice and she forgots about the suicide instructions.

Top Gear (Season 22), MasterChef Junior (USA), Face Off, the Mentalist(Season 7)

These are the latest TV shows I'm watching.

Top Gear is a funny British car show. The presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond have so much chemistry amongst themselves. I like the episodes with the three of them racing to the finish line by different cars or different means of transportations.

MasterChef Junior (US version) is educational and entertaining. I'm amazed by kids that can cook from 2! At 8-12, they can already prepare dishes that looks like real chefs.

Face Off is an amazing special effects make-up competition. It opens the doors to the Hollywood film industry for the competitors. This show always mentions Hunger Games and Star Trek.

The Mentalist has already been in its seventh season. Jane is witty, cunning and fun to watch. He breaks almost every rules and thinks outside the box. I don't think there is any real life Jane, especially in my industry. Breaking the rules is strictly forbidden. That's why he's a dream.

Fun. - Some Nights, We Are Young

Fun: Some Nights [Official Video]

The songs by Fun. are interesting. Like the rythum. Not quite sure what the lyrics are about, but the melody is wonderful. Quite an uplifting music.

Birdman (2014), This is Where I Leave You (2014), Beginners (2010) andso on...

Birdman Trailer


This is Where I Leave You Trailer


Beginners (2010) Trailer

I put these movies together because they all discuss the absurdity of life.

Each of these movies features a loser protagonist: in Birdman, Riggan who was once famous as a comic character Birdman is struggling to gain his fame back and is risking all his money to a new Broadway show "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". The poor man suffers hallucination and his alter-ego Birdman annoys him a lot in his mind. In This is Where I Leave You, Judd loses his job and his wife after finding that his wife sleeps with his boss. Worst, his father died. In Beginners, Oliver's father died. He couldn't recover from the fact that his dad came out of the closet four years ago and had a young lover.

These movies talk about how the protagonists life sucks and how they struggle and deal with life.

I like the endings of these movies because they are all uplifting. In Birdman, Riggan tries to commit suicide but fails. He jumps out of the hospital window. His daughter looks out of the window, she looks down, finds nothing. And then she looks up, smiling. In This is Where I Leave You, Judd leaves his mum's home after resolving his personal problems. The sunshine in the ending scene shows that he is optimistic about his future. In Beginners, Oliver and Anna resume their relationship and they glance hopefully at each other.

Though these movies did not bring out a lot of meaning to life, they give a little bit of hope to the people who feel life's absurd and meaningless. Maybe life really is meaningless.