Tag: film

Que sera, sera

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I have learnt on my trip that things never goes as planned. Never.

I pride myself on being meticulous with organisation, down to the details of arriving at a meeting place just a little bit late so that I am not the one left waiting (what a terrible person I am). I would visualise myself (literally) arriving in my destination, meeting my companions and either smashing out a chore or having the best night of our lives- almost to no avail. In fact, there’s always something that occurs that completely derails the entire evening, no matter how menial the distraction was.

The moment I recognised this, or rather admitted to myself its reality, is on one of our final nights in Montréal, when the 11156254_10153281449321886_1879609985174678592_nclique I associated myself with made plans to explore the city in style. We were going to ride bixis around the famous Lachine Canal when, as fate had it, an accident occurred between one of our…um…acquaintances and a local cyclist. Personally, I think that idiot acquaintance of ours was stupid for not seeing the…ahem…moving on.

With some blood, short term memory loss, ambulances and all that gore, the rest of our day was shifted. We ended up being late to a dinner at McKibbin’s, which meant making other people wait for us. Which meant finishing our meals later than planned, which meant we were too late for a screening of the new Avengers…which led to one of our friends being stranded at the cinemas without anyone there with him. Let’s just say that the night ended with me walking out on my own friends in frustration, on some unsettled business like the elephant in the room.

However if none of this had happened, our friendship would have never been tested. And as over-compensating as that sounds, the relationships that I have made were only made stronger by the trials that we have all had to face together.

Now I can declare to myself that things don’t always work out as you want it, nor do stories end as fairy tales do. But that’s life. It’s raw, it’s directionless and as much as we refuse to admit it we can only go with the flow. And although I don’t have a five-year plan like some communist, I just have to learn to make the best of what I’ve got and to grow with the people around me.

Like a certain Mad-Eye(d) Moody once said, “Constant Vigilance!” And that I shall personify.

Gone Girl

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Despite being a young ‘un living in modern Melbourne, I often find myself lagging with trends and this one in particular is the positivity surrounding David Fincher’s Gone Girl, adapted from Gillian Flynn’s novel. Having seen it last night with a fresh mind and a happy belly, I gone-girl-DF-01826cc_rgb.jpgwas absolutely absorbed into Nick Dunne’s plight, battling the media frenzy accusing him of murdering his missing wife. The plot’s Psycho-esque turnaround halfway through the film, during which Rosamund Pike’s Amy reveals her whereabouts and her psychopathic methods of spicing up her marriage, leaves the audience flabbergasted by the audacity of her character’s pure evilness. For once, paying customers are batting for the happiness of an Affleck character, no longer criticising him for performance (cough Daredevil and Batman?). Although yes, one would roll their eyes at Nick’s naivete smiling for the cameras, taking selfies with random female strangers and continuing her adulterous relationship with a student; on second thought, these moments of stupidity are somewhat realistic for the modern married man. Despite leaving the theatre very content with what I had just taken in, I was left wanting more with the cliffhanger ending, and though I haven’t read the novel myself (and trust me, I’ve downloaded the audiobook right after seeing the film), I was hoping for more than a one-sided manipulation game between wife and husband. I wanted to see Nick and Amy go into a sociopathic showdown destroying each other’s credibility. I cannot wait to begin the audiobook experience, not just to compare and contrast the adaptation differences between film and novel, but to clarify uncertainties that would’ve been left out deliberately such as Amy’s baby’s paternity–the only humane reason why Nick Dunne wasn’t going to kill his wife. Despite my thirst for content, I was satisfied with the ending, as it was the only way to preserve the characters’ motivations. A true sacrificing hero, good man Nick Dunne would endure living with his psychotic wife to bear a child which, would inevitably be, the spawn of the She-devil.

FIVE STARS.

Doubts

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I came across this video on TIME Magazine and felt compelled to share it.

I still remember the days when I was a carefree kid living on the outskirts of Manila. As the only child (and only grandchild for eight years), I was quite the pampered [not-so-] little prince at home. My grandparents’ apartment complex was my palace, the neighbours were all my friends and my nannies were my second mothers. We can truthfully assume that criticism from other people is part of growing up, in whatever aspect of our humanity–appearance, intelligence, cultural origin, even religion. It is these bullies that we ourselves would have assumed the role of at some point, who break down our confidence in adulthood and act as anchors to unlocking our potential.

It is important to look back to these times of innocence, not to retain it for ourselves, but to perpetuate a kid’s passion for life.