Alien – The Scariest Movie Of All Time

 (1979)

The Exorcist is considered the scariest movie of all time, but I’d rather pick this one. It really scared the shit out of me when I first watched it. It did leave me an after-burn of what I think I saw. Just like Director Ridley Scott said, the most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see, but the effect of what you think you saw. Though it’s called Alien, it’s not the alien that scares you the most. It’s the backdrop of a lonely spaceship floating in the creepy deep dark space, where on one seems to hear or care about your scream for help when you’re in danger. The crew die one by one. You think you saw the murderer, but you didn’t. You never did till James Cameron created more and let you see what it’s really like in Aliens. Gross scenes can never make a scary movie the scariest. They’ll only make us sick. The scariest feeling is always like something you can’t see, but you know it’s coming to get you.

 (1986)

  (1973)

The Road Home – Tissue Needed

 (2000)

I only watched it once, on a local English TV channel. And I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again coz I don’t wanna ruin the good memory of it. I’d rather let it stay as sweet and beautiful as it was. I had never before seen a film that could make me cry a river till The Road Home. I don’t know. Maybe there’s something to do with the story and its scoring and pictures. Why are love stories that appear to be so poignant and desperate always able to touch us deep down? We human beings are in a sense strange animals that incessantly long for love, care and attention, but hate the pain that comes with them. The Road Home depicts a beautiful, touching story of love, but don’t forget, it already shows us the pain it brings in black and white in the beginning. Love is colorful, but yet inseparable from pain itself.

In The Heat Of The Sun – Once We Were Young

 (1994)

In The Heat Of The Sun, a story about several adolescent men during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 70s, is one of Two Chinese films that impress me so much. It portrays a positive, vigorous picture of being young and wild, reckless and free, as animals preying for, say, girls, attention, fun, fights and maybe a chance to be heroes. Adapted from Wang Shuo’s novel, Wild Beast, the actor-director Jiang Wen tells a mellow, dream-like story of how Monkey and his friends (as shown on the poster) get through those boring but yet crazy summers. I don’t really mind if it’s authentic or believable. The point is, as a youth while getting to watch it for the first time, I felt like I was part of them. We can never redo our past, no matter how sweet or bitter it is. It’s become part of us. We are who we were, aren’t we?

Phone Booth – Never Too Late To Be Good

 (2003)

Why do we only care about ourselves, and not the others? Why do we have to be so hypocritical and need lies to cover our ass? Why are we so afraid of facing ourselves? Why do we never learn to cherish the things we’ve already got till we lose them? Why do we always want some more when, in fact, we’ve got everything we need? Why do we feel so ashamed of ourselves sometimes when we appear to be so perfect? Why do we always do things that we actually don’t really mean to?

So many questions, huh? Yeah, right, if you knew the answers to those questions, you’d know what life’s all about. Sadly, Stu doesn’t. That’s why he’s taught a lesson. He hasn’t been true to himself till he gets in that phone booth. He doesn’t obey at first. Then he struggles. He breaks in the end, and he learns a universal truth, that is, whenever there’s a longing, there’s pain.

I like Phone Booth. I like the story. I like the dialogues. I like the morality behind it. It’s one of the best flicks I’ll never forget in this life.

District 9 – Surprisingly Terrific

 (2009)

This time, it’s not about aliens trying to conquer the Earth, and men fighting back on Independent Day. It’s considered a sci-fi flick, but seriously, does it look like one? Yes maybe, coz it’s got prawn-like aliens, laser weapons and a battlesuit that reminds me of the big killing machine in Terminator Salvation. But a giant alien spaceship breaks down above Johannesburg, South Africa, after dropping a command module to the ground? And humans are able to crack into the mother ship, capture all the aliens, take away their lethal weapons and turn them into refugees? Come on, this is bullshit, isn’t it? Alright, the story may have flaws, but it doesn’t matter really. It might’ve carried some political provocations, or sarcasm if you like, but we don’t have to care either. The point is, it’s going to touch you. You may think it’s another piece of crap trying to fake a documentary (Try to look real? What’s the point?) by using hand-held cameras, like Cloverfield, but it’s far more entertaining and inspiring than that. You may tease at first, but you may cry in the end. So don’t take it as it may seem, or you’ll be let down.

 (A failure in 2008)

City Of Life And Death – Not Good Enough

  (2008)

One of the reasons why the Japs are so despicable is that they, after all these years, still deny what they did back in 1937, in Nanjing City, China, where they killed thousands of Chinese soldiers and innocent civilians, including babies and young girls, by using the most vicious means you could never imagine. And this black-and-white film, City Of Life And Death by the Chinese director Lu Chung, was made to let us know what really went on in Nanjing City 70 years ago.

It somehow reminds me of another black-and-white film, Schindler’s List, which is about Nazi German’s genocide against the Jews. A businessman named Schindler abandoned most of his fortune and saved quite a lot of Jews from the concentration camps. The most touching scene comes at the end where Schindler said regretfully that he should’ve also exchanged his ring on his finger for more lives of Jews. This is humanity. This is love. This is mercy and compassion everyone should have, or say, has already had. I believe human nature is virtuous. We do evil things just because our heart is veiled by devil and dirt.

During the Nanjing Massacre, some German set up a Safety Zone for the Chinese people to stay safe from the Japanese holocaust. Adolf Hitler murdered a lot of Jews during the World War Two, but the German had repented and apologized for what they did. The Japanese, however, have not yet properly apologized for their crimes committed, including the Rape of Nanjing. That’s why they’re despicable. They’re still trying to cover the truth, and not doing any self-reflections. We can’t change what we did wrong, but we should learn from it. So we won’t make the same mistake again hopefully. The Japanese did something terribly wrong 70 years ago, and now it seems like they still can’t get rid of their broken pride and admit the pain they caused us. How could they ever expect to have our forgiveness?

I’m not saying we should never forgive them. It won’t do us any good either if we carry the hate against the Japanese. It all happened because of hates. During the interview with BBC News, Lu Chuang the director said, “it’s very important to tell Chinese people that Japanese people are human beings, not beasts”. Well, I think either he missed out something or the translator made a mistake. It should be like, “it’s very important to tell Chinese people that {some of the} Japanese people are human beings, not beasts”. During another interveiw with RTHK, Mr Lu said he was shocked by the calmness of the Japs executing such a holocaust. They were not crazy as everybody thought. Yeah, right, the question is, how could they be this calm while killing people? How could they (or we) see themselves as normal human beings this way? Killing people without any guilt, or sympathy or feelings can actually be considered insane or crazy if you like.

Most of the Japanese, at the time, were indeed like beasts. Why? That’s exactly the question they should ask themselves! The day they find the answer will be the day we forgive them.

An Inconvenient Truth – Gotta Move For Sure

  (2006)

A great documentary on global warming; about how we should do to save our planet Earth before it’s too late; no religions, no politics, on propaganda, just show you a truth that we human beings should’ve been aware of long time ago, but somehow thought it was inconvenient and found it hard to deal with. And in a sense, we still do.

How much time do we still have before the water rises and washes us all away? Scientists said it is 7 years, if we don’t wake up and start to do something effective to reduce the greenhouse gases that are deteriorating the Earth’s climate. It’s been more than 3 years now since An Inconvenient Truth was released. The temperature has kept going up. The ice caps have kept melting away. The weather has been more extreme and vicious than before. Still we’ve done nothing imperative, just kinda staring at each other, and waiting others to make the first move, so we’ve stood still as a result.

Everybody believes they’ll die, but no one believes they’ll die soon. That’s why we keep pushing and bending till we finally break. That’s why we never learn to cherish what we’ve already got, but instead keep chasing something we don’t and can’t have. The beautiful Earth is the one and only home we’ve got. There’s no other place like this in the universe. Even if there was, it would be sure either too far, or too late to reach when the end began.

I felt guilty and sad and touched after watching this film. I was speechless for quite a while, and my eyes were tearful. Tomorrow’s Earth Day. Let’s give our sweet home a salute. Don’t just feel sorry. That’s useless. The truth is out there. We should do something now. It shows us some little things we can do to save our planet at the end, along with this soul-striking song by Melissa Etheridge, I Need To Wake Up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKJlS5GJMg8&feature=player_embedded

Have I been sleeping?
I’ve been so still
Afraid of crumbling
Have I been careless?
Dismissing all the distant rumblings
Take me where I am supposed to be
To comprehend the things that I can’t see

Cause I need to move
I need to wake up
I need to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Something’s got to break up
I’ve been asleep
And I need to wake up
Now

And as a child
I danced like it was 1999
My dreams were wild
The promise of this new world
Would be mine
Now I am throwing off the carelessness of youth
To listen to an inconvenient truth

That I need to move
I need to wake up
I need to change

I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Something’s got to break up
I’ve been asleep
And I need to wake up
Now

I am not an island
I am not alone
I am my intentions
Trapped here in this flesh and bone

And I need to move
I need to wake up
I need to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Something’s got to break up
I’ve been asleep
And I need to wake up
Now

I want to change
I need to shake up
I need to speak out
Oh, Something’s got to break up
I’ve been asleep
And I need to wake up
Now

Departures – Death Is Never Easy

 (2009)

Body washed. Hair combed. Clothes changed. Kisses given. Tears shed. Button pressed. Nothing left. I cried. I didn’t intend to, but tears just ran down my cheek uncontrollably. I kept wondering… what if it was the ones I love? What if it was me?

I guess it’d be a whole lot easier if it was me, but I would sure be devastated to watch the loved ones go away, even in peace and grace. I have a friend, who always tells me to let it go whenever I feel down with something. Yes, right, Let It Go, that is pretty eaiser said than done, though. Well, he does seem like a good example. He never seems to be preoccupied with anything. Maybe he’s still too young to know life’s nothing but a struggle, true love’s nothing but a lie, all you see, all you hear, all you touch, all you smell, all you feel, is nothing but a mirage. Or maybe I’ve lost my guilty conscience, maybe I’m way too narrow-minded, short-sighted, stupid, pathetic or headstrong too understand what life’s really about.

On my way home after watching this film, I felt kinda cold inside. I was thinking, maybe we’ll be better off without knowing what life’s all about, coz no matter how hard you’ve tried, how far you’ve got, in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

Suspect X – It Could’ve Been Perfect

  (2008)

He held his head up high and proudly walked down the long bright corridor, with a satisfying smile upon his face, recalling how he’d been saved from despair, and his cold dark world of logic and reasoning. For the very first time, he felt the warmth of sunlight caressing his heart and soul, the joy of living and making sacrifices, and a real sense of completeness in tearing down the broken house of cards. He kept walking. He felt like on cloud nine. His job seemed to have perfectly been accomplished. Nothing seemed to be in his way to heaven and true happiness. Then a woman cried out to him… he collapsed and was slapped back to reality. Gravity pulled him back to the ground. He realized he was nothing more than a little boy inside who cried out for love, yet he always tried to hide, and his sins could never be washed away.

Slumdog Millionaire – Money’s Not Really The Problem

 (2008)

I didn’t watch it in cinema, but I regret it now. I should have indeed. For quite a while, I haven’t seen a film that can leave tears in my eyes, and a smile upon my face. And this is the one. Thanks to the academy awards, I finally made up my mind and gave it a go, since I really have no time to waste on trash or junk or things like that. And let me tell you this, it’s definitely worth 2 hours’ time of your life. It’ll make you ruminate over things like friendship, love, tension between traditions and modernization, dreams and reality, how things should be and how things are, etc. In this world of madness and violence, is it really okay to keep up with the show-me-the-money attitude?

Jamal could just up and leave with half a million, which is quite a lot really to a “dog” from a slum like him, but he chose to continue to challenge the one-million question. (Why? He got nothing to lose at the time. Why so? You’d better find out for yourself.) When the final question was revealed, he had no idea what the correct answer was. He dialed the only number he’d got, and asked for help. He didn’t really expect anyone would answer his call as a matter of fact, but the truth is, when his call was answered, he knew he’d already got what he wanted, no matter if he would be the slumdog millionaire or not!