The Movie, “Dan in Real Life”

‘Plan to be surprised.’

I didn’t expect this movie to be any good at all when I picked it up among the other comedy drama movies that I decided to digest over the past couple of days. Yes, I am a movie junkie who just wanted to tune it for a simple laugh or some easy-going movie that doesn’t make you think much which is the point when you are trying to escape from all the brainstorming sessions for the dreaded research. Anyway, as I have said, I never did expect the movie to turn out to be any good and indeed, it was more than I expected. The simplicity of the movie was the catch. Yes, very predictable stuff but that’s the beauty about the movie. The following could be a spoiler so just ignore this if you have any plans to watch it.

The American comedian, Steve Carell, played the lead role, Dan Burns, who is an advice columnist who is supposed to be an expert in relationships but somehow struggles to succeed as a brother, a son and a single parent. Throughout the whole movie, he was pathetic. The whole family even the little kids were teasing him, jeering him as if he’s like a nobody but though being treated so, he resisted it all until the day he met Marie, a “hottie” that is being played by the lovely actress, Juliette Binoche. Yes, obviously, he fell in love with her after 4 dreadful years being a widower. For a moment, he thought he wouldn’t find love anymore after losing his wife but somehow the lovestruck was beyond his control and in just merely 3 days, the love forced him to break many rules that he had been trying to abide to all these years for his 3 daughters’ sake.

I really liked the last part, a voice-over in which Dan narrates his column to the readers, indicating that he was chosen by the newspaper media company to have his column nationally syndicated. It goes something like this, “Dear readers, for most of you, this is my first column in your paper. In the future, I will be answering your questions but today, I want to break from my usual format and talk to you about the subject of plans. Not so much my plan for this column, more like, life plans. How we all make them and how we hope our kids make good, smart, safe plans of their own. But if we are really honest with ourselves, most of the time our plans don’t work out as we hoped. So, instead of asking our young people, “What are your plans ?”, “What do you plan to do with your life ?”, maybe we should tell them this. Plan to be surprised.”

I have always been the boring type person who asks those silly questions to others about their future plans and had been judgmental when someone answers they don’t have anything particular in mind. And, of course, biased in many ways accordingly to my sets of values. I guess I am the type of person who gets weary about the idea of not planning. Plans are good, (since there’s the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”) I still believe but we must always remember there’s a possibility that certain plans may not turn out as how we hoped, the main message that this movie wanted to convey. Life is filled with randomness and we, human, tend to want to be in control all the time and definitely, it could be easier for ourselves to ‘plan to be surprised’. Anyway, there’s quite a few cute scenes especially the quarrels between Dan and his 2nd daughter, Cara, who’s in a rebellious teenage phase who’s deeply in love with a young boy. The keyword, “murderer of love”. *hehe* When you find time and want an easy-going movie like how I did, this could just be that movie.

The movie, “The Kite Runner”

Watch it, watch it and watch it !

A real moving story that just needed to be shared

Watching this movie simply reminds me how I should be appreciating my happy enough life more. It also gave me a big tight slap in the face for being so ignorant all these times regarding the Taliban issues in Afghanistan. The way they illustrated Kabul, I’d definitely wished that someday I have a chance to visit it although I know that it wouldn’t be the same as it was a couple of decades ago. The story simply portrays all the good values Muslims practice and I’m glad I could understand from the background of where I was brought up in, Malaysia. There are more to this movie that I wish to share but I guess the best is to watch it. It will definitely clear away all those misunderstandings that people have towards Afghanistan. There must be more to the issue raised in this movie definitely I believe and I plan to learn more about it in the near future for the message was definitely a clear one to me. The culture of flying a kite is very beautifully captured in this movie. The fact that children around the world still suffers as we speak hurts me but I promise to do my part one day. Thumbs up to the wonderful team who created this great movie.

The movie, “Into The Wild”

My salute goes out to you, Mr. Supertramp !

“Into The Wild” is both a non-fiction novel by Jon Krakauer (which I am going to get real soon) and a movie by Sean Penn. This movie got my standing ovation though I was alone in my room (consider it crazy but it was that amazing). I am not going to talk much about the movie because it is going to be a spoiler for those who are going watch it from now. Anyway, it was a great movie indeed, which means that the original novel must be a greater version of the greatest journey that “Mr. Supertramp” had in his life. Why am I labeling it a good movie? Simple reasons, there are many things in this movie that I can relate to myself but at the same time, many of the things inside are simply things I wouldn’t do normally and of which I could only dream of for I really wish to know what’s the taste of living those lives. Perhaps someday I would unleash myself ‘into the wild’ like Alex and the other distinct characters in his adventure but the ending tells you that you don’t have to rush into it. I am recommending this movie to you my junior (you know who you are) so that you can illustrate your future undertakings in a more focused and vivid way, but still have the wild style to it. Thumbs up for this movie and I recommend this movie to anyone who’s looking for a good one to watch. Pretty long but every minute invested counts.

P.S. The actress, Kristen Stewart, that appeared in this movie caught my eyes once again after my eyes first laid on her in the movie “In the Land of Women“, which is another good movie. She’s the “next door girl” type of chick that you wished you had in your teens.

“Little Wonders” from ‘Meet the Robinsons’

“Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas

From the movie ‘Meet the Robinsons‘ by Walt Disney Studios

Another simple heart-warming animation movie from Disney

Little Wonders

Let it go,
Let it roll right off your shoulder
Don’t you know
The hardest part is over
Let it in,
Let your clarity define you
In the end
We will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

Let it slide,
Let your troubles fall behind you
Let it shine
Until you feel it all around you
and I don’t mind
If it’s me you need to turn to
We’ll get by,
It’s the heart that really matters in the end

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

All of my regret
Will wash away some how
But I cannot forget
The way I feel right now

In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists & turns of fate
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away but these small hours
These small hours, still remain,
Still remain
These little wonders
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away
But these small hours
These little wonders still remain

This song was really meaningful and it definitely hit the right spot for the movie when it started playing at the end before the credits came in. I was totally wrong when I underestimated by thinking it was just some lame kid show but certain kid show can turn out to be far more meaningful to grown ups like me when we could comprehend the significance when comparing to our own lives.

The first part “Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulder, don’t you know, the hardest part is over” really got me and things had been real rough and tough on me lately but I guess I should learn to just simply “let it go and let it roll right of my shoulder for I should know that the hardest part is over”. I understand everything happens for a reason and clearly, there is a reason for me to watch this movie at this time when everything seems to have been awful meaningless.

The final words by Mr. Walt Disney himself, “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious … and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” were real meaningful as well and everything seems so significant to me at this moment. This may sound crappy but I guess I am definitely a person who was “raised up” with Disney movies (I remember how excited I was the moment I stepped into the dreamland, Tokyo Disneyland for the very first time and met up with Mickey Mouse). Anyway, “Keep moving forward” was the key lesson that this movie wanted to let everyone know.