Juno

Caught the movie Juno just before the Oscar.
This is the dark horse film among the Oscar nominees much like "Little Miss Sunshine" from 2006.

Ellen Page, just 21years of age, shines in this comedy about a teenage girl faced with an unplanned pregnancy, after having a one-time sexual encounter with her nerdy best friend. Not wanting to give away too much on the storyline, the movie manages to avoid being preachy or judgmental over issues like teenage pregnancy, choice, or adoption.

The role of Juno earned Ellen Page a nomination for Best Actress and the film was also up for major categories like Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. For a low budget film, this is indeed something to shout about. You might be interested to know that the screenplay was written by Diablo Cody, an ex-stripper! The film won 1 Oscar out of the 4 nominations, and guess what, it was the screenplay that got the nods from the panel! Kudos to Diablo!

In the film, one commendable thing is the artistic use of drawings in some of the opening sequence and the seasons transitions. When the first scene shows the winter landscape , there is a pencil sketch of the word "Winter", this is followed with Spring and Autumn. And the drawing somehow juxtapose to a drawing of the lead character Juno walking into a grocery store and then suddenly the drawing become real. Duno how to describe but you will know when you watched it :)

MacBook

I've got a Mac! I've finally succumbed to the dark side :)

I bought a white MacBook, the cheapest of the range, with the following specs:

13.3"
2.0 GHz
Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB RAM
80 GB Hard Drive

Come loaded with Leopard OS, 1st time using a Mac so lots of things to learn. Very excited with the buy :)

A Thousand Splendid Suns

This article appear on zaobao, its about the second book "A Thousand Splendid Suns" from Khaled Hosseini who wrote Kite Runner.

完颜藉

　　“让孩子知道家族的根源很重要。父母的历史是一笔财富。”

　 　畅销小说《追风筝的人》（The Kite Runner）和《一千个灿烂的太阳》(A Thousand Splendid Suns)的作者胡赛尼(Khaled Hosseini)说的这句话，让我内心赞赏。他是移居美国27年的美国籍阿富汗裔作家。他像许多旅居外国的作家一样，是“通过镜子的碎片”回看祖国阿富 汗的。镜子的碎片？说的该是从通讯社发出有关阿富汗零零星星的新闻。像阿富汗这样的常年动乱的国家，胡赛尼无法亲身回国经历国家的苦难，也只好靠“镜子的 碎片”探听阿富汗的消息了。从碎片中，胡赛尼当然看到美国最近在没有预先知会巴基斯坦政府就轰炸巴基斯坦境内的基地组织（基地组织）藏匿地点。我不知道， 对这个事件，他有什么想法。他会不会觉得，美国轰炸巴基斯坦跟美国控制阿富汗，是不是同样是侵略？美国人当然认为不是，他们认为是以牙还牙，基地组织在美 国境内制造九一一恐怖事端，如果不算侵略，那美国炸巴基斯坦的基地组织组织，甚至操纵阿富汗政权也就不是侵犯阿富汗的主权了。

　 　但这类问 题，往往一时很难解说清楚。倒是胡赛尼的《一千个灿烂的太阳》里叙述的故事，情节却不像阿富汗的局势那么复杂和难以理喻。两个身世不同的女子，因意想不到 的事故（人事和战争），被逼嫁给同一个男人。两人由势不两立、互怀敌意到后来变成患难与共的同性知己。《一千个灿烂的太阳》里有爱情，有恩怨、有妒忌、有 情杀还有战乱（苏联军入侵阿富汗、塔利班上台的故事背景）。但整个内容，依我的看法，都在歌颂困难重重中的阿富汗妇女的伟大。引用胡赛尼自己的话：他希望 这部小说，能给披着从头套到脚的黑服的阿富汗妇女形象，添加几笔彩色与深度。所以小说的书名就出自诗人赛依伯的诗句：

　　人们数不清她的屋顶上有多少轮皎洁的明月／数不清她的墙壁后那一千个灿烂的太阳。

　　诗句里的她，原意虽指阿富汗首都，但到了胡赛尼手里，她就是“她”了。

The Kite Runner

Having read the bestseller by Khaled Hosseini sometime back, I was looking forward to watch the film to see if it is as good as the book.

It did not disappoint. The beginning sequence where they show the producer, director, film company etc were done in a very arty way, fused with Arabian music, composed by Alberto Iglesias. I got to know this Spanish after watching some of his works including Pedro Almodóvar's films like
Volver, Talk to Her and All about my mother.

Right from the start, I was captivated by the cinematography, which they filmed in China's Xinjiang province that borders Afghanistan.

If you have read my review on the book in one of my earlier post or have read the book, you will know that the story is about the friendship between Amir and Hassan. Amir is the rich, pampered child and Hassan is the servant's son who taught Amir the skills in kite flying and is always there to protect Amir from being bullied. The story is told from Amir's perspective as he relates about the brotherly love between him and Hassan, the war that break out in Kabul - his hometown, and the relationship between him and his father.

I think the most important message the story wants to put across is in the tagline "There is a way to be good again". Amir did something wrong and tries to be good again to redeem when he had wrongly done.

The child actors are all first time actors and the young Hassan is really commendable for his performance that he won a best young actor award in the Critics Choice Award. Due to a controversy scene in the movie, DreamWorks, the American studio that financed the film, postponed its release date for a month so that the child actors and their families could be moved to Dubai. Under the movie deal, the studio is also paying for the child actors education till a certain age if I remember correctly.

Read a trivia that in many of the kite flying shots, the children were actually pulling balloons and the kites were added in post-production.

The movie is directed by Marc Forster, a german who also did Finding Neverland which I enjoyed. He will also be directing the next Bond film Quantum of Solace, quite exciting to see new directors coming up and producing good quality films.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Caught this movie last night. What a cheem title "Scaphandre et le papillon, Le" is French and the English title is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

The film is adapted from a book about the real life story of Elle magazine France editor, who met with an accident and suffered a stroke. His entire body was paralyzed except his left eye. With his strong determination, he managed to write a book by communicating with a very patient nurse, not by talking since he can't talk but with his left eye! The nurse sat down with him every day to pen down what he wanted to say. For example, the nurse will read out the alphabets a, b, c, d, etc and the man will blink his left eye once it hits the right character. This goes on for ages and you can just imagine the amount of patience just to go through the whole ordeal.

The man writes about his feelings and relates the torture he has to go through like being trapped inside his body. The movie flashes images of a diver being trapped inside a diving bell, and with the yearning to be release of the suffering, using butterfly as a metaphor, that probably explains the book and film title. I anyhow guess one, do correct me if I have interpreted it wrongly :) Unfortunately, he died shortly after the book was published.

The movie was depressing to watch, seeing the man suffering and what he has to go through in pain. A good film nevertheless and I enjoyed it.

To date, it won several international awards and is nominated for Oscars in the following categories:

• Best Achievement in Cinematography
• Best Achievement in Directing
• Best Achievement in Editing
• Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published

Strangely, the film was not nominated for Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category, but it did win in this category in the Golden Globes and also grabbed the Best Director award.