Wednesday, August 26, 2009

-AUSTRALIA-



I have just watched the movie ‘Australia’ and if I can rate it, I give it 3 out of 5 stars. It is not a really enjoyable movie but not a really boring one neither. We can just say that it is a movie rich with meaningful message. First, it is a travelogue of a wide brown land with sweeping plains and lofty mountain ranges; second, it is a glorious Mills & Boon style romance between an English aristocrat and her love interest of an Outback drover; and third, there is the gut wrenching social justice commentary of the wrongs wrought on the Australian aborigines. This movie was directed by Baz Luhrmann and is rated PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality.

The story begins in AUSTRALIA, where Lady Sarah Ashley, a proper Englishwoman who journeys to Australia in the years before World War II reached the country's shores. She is determined to have her estranged husband sell his cattle ranch to a monopoly-craving businessman named King Carney, but when she arrives, Lord Ashley is dead, and her plan to sell the ranch changes when she sees an employee named Neil Fletcher cheating her husband's business and mistreating a young boy named Nullah because he is of mixed race. Urged on by both pride and a sense of justice, Lady Ashley wants to drive her herd of cattle to Darwin so she can sell them to the troops, but she'll require the help of an independent cowboy known as The Drover to get them there. The drover is not really a fan of Sarah's either, but they are forced together due to their mutual dislike of the competition. Of course, being that this is a romantic epic, they soon discover there is an attraction between them that can't be denied.


I would like to talk about The Drover which is played by Hugh Jackman. Drover, in the story is narrated as a muscular and handsome drover, with unshaved beard making him look fierce. He is the one who helps Lady Sarah Ashley move the cattle across the property. In the story, he is essentially an outsider; in his back story he was married to an Aboriginal woman who died. It was illegal to marry an Aboriginal woman back then, so he was not accepted in white society, however he was not fully accepted into Aboriginal society either because he is a white man. So he was truly an outsider. He became known just as the best drover around.

A drover is the Australian version of a cowboy and his journey involves taking cattle a long way across one of the most inhospitable parts of the planet for a long period of time. Drovers, these men who do this for a living, are as tough as you can’t imagine. Jackman had really done a good job in this movie.


Now, let's go through his characteristics in this movie. The drover is an independent person. He never depends on other to survive in his life. His works as a drover needs him to drive herds of cattle across hundreds of miles of brutal, unforgiving terrain. The Drover is a superb horseman who prefers to live under the sun and stars, a nomad and a solitary man. He is more comfortable out there with his horse and the cattle than he is with people. He doesn’t want to be beholden to anybody. He said once in the movie which described himself : “No man hires, no man fired”. He struggles by himself to live.

Besides that, The Drover hates the wealthy, land-owning establishment, and Sarah is the poster girl for the aristocracy. He takes delight in shocking and teasing her, because everything about her annoys him. She is arrogant, pretentious, frustrating and impossible in his eyes. Actually, The Drover has spent years trying to bury his anger over the loss of his wife, who died from tuberculosis because Aboriginal people were not allowed in hospitals. But those walls start to break apart as he comes to know Sarah better and becomes a kind of father figure to Nullah. At the end, under the awesome power of the landscape, transformed by the love of a child, Sarah and the Drover fall in love.


The drover is also a person who disagrees on the discrimination towards the aboriginal people. He never treats the aboriginal in bad ways as the other white men did. For him, it is easier to be friend with the aborigin other than the white men. Even his ex-wife was an aborigin woman. There was a scene in the story at the last part of the movie where he went to the bar after he knows that Sarah was bombed while working. With him is Magarri, one of his aboriginal friends, was first not allowed to be in the bar as the bartender refuses to serve blacks. But, he said “Just because it is, doesn't mean it should be.”- actually, it was Sarah’s word. He bravely stands up for Margarri. This show that he never agrees with the way the white men treats the aboriginal badly.

Next, we can see in the movie that the drover is the one who lead the journey to drive all the 1500 cattle-if i'm not mistaken, to Darwin. He possesses the great true-leadership skills in himself. To drive a big crowd of cattle with just a small group of people in not an easy job to do. But, he still managed to do it. They succeed to bring all the cattle down to Darwin and sold them to the army corporation.


The Drover is really an amazing person right? ^^

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Coach Carter

I am not a fan of sports movie. But, after watching a movie entitled, ‘Coach Carter’ directed by Thomas Carter, I really enjoyed myself then. I will rate this movie 4 out of 5 stars. Thomas, the director, is an African American three-time Emmy Award winning American film and television director known for Swing Kids, Save the Last Dance with Julia Stiles, and Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson.

A true-life story of a coach who tries to teach his players that there's more to life than basketball is brought to the screen in this sports drama. Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson) was once a star player on the Richmond High School basketball team in Richmond, CA, and years later, he returns to the school and to the team as the new basketball coach. While Carter wants to make the Richmond oilers into a winning team, he also wants a lot more - to teach the boys to respect themselves and one another, and that they must as well excel in the classroom. It is a fact that most of these guys are decent ball players, but are all dealing with some pretty adult issues as young men. Kenyon (Rob Brown) feels like he’s being held back by his pregnant girlfriend Kyra (Ashanti), Timo (Rick Gonzalez) is living the dangerous life alongside his drug-dealing cousin, and Ken’s own son, Damien (Robert Ri’chard), just wants to play for his dad, even if it means leaving the better education that private school St. Francis offers across the tracks.
Ultimately, Coach Carter was the one man that saved these guys from becoming another statistic. He sets strict new rules for the players, insisting that they sign contracts agreeing to meet his standards. They must keep a grade point average of 2.7, wear ties on game days and do other academic skills in order to keep their spot on the team. Some players decide to leave the team. With Carter's intense coaching, the team begins the season undefeated, and wins a holiday tournament. However, Carter discovers that some of his players are not producing the agreed academic results. He locks the team out of the gym in the midst of their still-undefeated season, canceling practice and forfeiting games in favor of studying in the library. The school board eventually votes to end the lockout, despite dissenting votes from the principal and the chairwoman of the board. Carter is about to quit, but he finds the players sitting at school desks in the gym, with teachers tutoring them. The players point out that even though the gym is reopened, the school board can't force them to play. Carter is heartened and decides to stay, thanking the players. The team makes it into the state high-school championship playoffs. The climactic game takes place in the tournament's first round against the #1 ranked team in the state, St. Francis (starring a superstar NBA prospect, Ty Crane). Did they managed to win it? If you want to know the rest, watch the movie yourself!

I can simply conclude this is a great movie with a great message. It teaches us about team spirits and having the strong wills to become a better person. Never give up and give your best in all that you do are obviously stressed on in this movie. There was a scene in the movie where one of the students, Timo Cruz, played by Rick Gonzalez, walks off the team during a practice. When he returns to get back on the team, Carter gives him until Friday to do like 2500 pushups and 1000 suicide laps. This tests Timo a lot, so when Friday comes around and he still owes coach some stuff, the whole team begins helping Timo out. Jason Lyle says to the coach and the team, ''You said we're a team. One person struggles, we all struggle. One person triumphs, we all triumph.'' This shows a great lesson in life.

In 'Coach Carter' we feel moved by some of his speeches or conversations, just how strong they really are is amazing. It's even more amazing though that this is based on the real life of Ken, and how much someone still cares about the school system and the real value of education, it's good to see that someone out there still thinks on the right level of things. The script was written by Mark Schwahn and John Gatins, who must have done a lot of research on Carter in order to get the story right. I really appreciate the way Mark and John approached the movie without being too sympathetic or attempting to make a tear jerker, but more of a study in academic achievements/failures and how one man can change a group of students forever. Thomas Carter never takes the movie too far and I never felt bored of the plot or the characters. The basketball scenes were well invented as well, sometimes I felt like I was actually at one of the games.
'Coach Carter' is an amazing movie, it is definitely one of the best in more recent sports dramas and well worth the watch.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Hoping for holiday?

I went back home last weekend and left my roommate alone in the room. haha.. But, she said that she still enjoyed her weekend. On Saturday, she text me that there had been a confirmed cases of h1n1 in INTI! Guess what was the 1st question that I asked her? hehe...
---do we get holiday?---
Then, my roommate reply..
---NO. Only the library is closed.--
OMG.. what a heartbreaker answer... I'm so sad you know.. My mom is enjoying her holiday because her school was closed due to this case.. Hooray for her..! If I'm not mistaken, quiet a lot of school in Melaka had been ordered to be closed because of h1n1.. Kolej Mara Banting(KMB) which is not far from here was also had been closed.. Quiet scary yeah.. Maybe INTI will be next.. hehe..
But, I am not hoping for that as seniors are now preparing for their exam.. It will be a messy if their exams need to be rescheduled again..
Now, I can see that more people has take the first step of preventing from being infected by this virus.. The face mask had become a big hit in INTImart now.. Well, I'm still hoping it will be given with free for all the students... (^.^)
Well, before I end my post today let me share with you info about H1N1..

The symptoms of influenza A (H1N1):
The symptoms of influenza A (H1N1) in people are expected to
be similar to the symptoms of seasonal influenza and include
fever,
cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some
people with influenza A (H1N1) have also reported
diarrhoea or
vomiting
. If you get any one of these, please stay away from me! hehe.. just joking.. just go meet the doctor lah..
The four key things to do that will help in preventing you from getting the H1N1 Flu:
1. Wash Your Hands
2. Cover Your Cough
3. Don't Touch Your Face
4. Stay Away from People Who are Sick
If you do get sick, stay home so you won't pass it on to anyone else.