We were impressed by the actors’ performance: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren and Scarlett Johansson were all above any possible words of appraisal; just standing ovations – that’s what the whole cinema did after the movie finished. Husband and wife alliance and mutual cooperation and support be it work, business or just life are important for any genius: be it Alfred or his wife Alma. They are both gems for us – now we know. There would never be a Hitchcock is it was not for Alma with her approach to work on the movie; there would never be Alma without Alfred and his crazy innovative ideas that changed the cinematography and uplifted it to another higher level. What would we all do without our other halves? It might also change your view on your life… who knows?
Rate: 10/10
There are some nice shots from the movie and the movie trailer:
Life of Pi NEW
Beautifully done movie: not only technically but the scenario is written with lots of humour and lots of philosophical, life, moral and religious thoughts embedded. Luck, faith.. no matter what - this life story is amazing – believe it or not…
I cannot resist not to share some nice quotes from the movie:
“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation”
“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
“If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.”
“Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud...”
“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.”
“When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.”
“Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.”
“If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?”
“You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”
“You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.”
“To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing--I'm sorry, I would rather not go on.”
“The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?”
“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.”
“These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.”
“Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims.”
“I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.”
“The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity; it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.”
“I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
“What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life. And now go where you must. You have known the confined freedom of a zoo most of your life; now you will know the free confinement of a jungle. I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you , that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.”
“That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?”
“Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.”
“The presence of God is the finest of rewards.”
“If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?”
“I love Canada...It is a great country much too cold for good sense, inhabited by compassionate, intelligent people with bad hairdos.”
“Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.”
“The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.”
Rate: 9/10
Quartet NEW
We are all thinking: we will never get old... Is it right?..
The subject is very interesting and complex as the movie is about talented and aging people. Some of them are still full of life but some just give up on almost everything...
There is one more thought: love scars that never heal exist but watch what can happen if you just give it a go, open the doors of possibilities and open your heart...
Excellently done picture!
Rate: 9/10
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
There is just a couple of positive thoughts as usual... The scale of this movie is more than impressive: tremendous indeed... I should admit that even 2D looks grand no mentioning the 3D format. There is not one faulty note: the movie is done in one deep breath - all credits to the talents of Mr Tolkien and master of Peter Jackson. You literally feel part of the traveling group, you watch with their eyes, you see the beauty of the land and experience their fear, you fight and your smile with them. The movie is geniusly done - there is no doubt about that. We are looking forward to watch the second part soon. We have to admit that this film is good to watch not only for the kids but for the adults who like to feel that child inside of them once again and once again - light and believing in miracles. It is a total relaxation of the mind and a fairy tale living together with you...
Rate: 10/10
Liberal Arts
One thought that keeps repeating in most of the last 10 movies we watched: you never know whom you will meet around the corner: in the bookshop, on your teacher's retirement party or on the street... and it may be the love of your life. Just keep your heart open.
There are different types of books (as there are movies on that topic as we figured out some time ago too) - some are very very deep and smart but depressing. You should watch them but be very careful with the amount as the author/ director will keep projecting his own depressing feelings on you and you might end up in a loony bin or you will start feeling suicidal. It especially relates to the authors who died young themselves and left deep but poisonous books for the young ones to read and to feel bad. You should read these books as they open your eyes on certain things in life but know your limit as you should always keep in mind how the author ended his life. There is another type of books. They might be shallow and stupid but they make you feel happy about yourself. They should be read in breaks of the other deeper ones. Happiness should never leave your heart.
But there is another thought: reading is an excellent entertainment to spend time (as TV and internet) but there is life. You should write, read and live your own life instead of reading someone else's.
Enjoy the movie!
Rate: 7/10
Skyfall
Entertaining but one-time-watch movie. A message for the human masses to think: "You believe that you are safe. But how sure you are?"
Rate: 6/10
Step Up To The Plate
As usual: just three little thoughts from us
1. Please eat well before you go to this movie and preferably to a good five stars cuisine place.
2. It is easy to progress to the top rather than remain on the top
3. The art of eating: before you start - observe your meal and think... Your thoughts will go well together with a good meal and bring you health and vitality. It is an art and the people that create the food art are the Gods that play games with food inspired by everything they see: bridges across the brooks, the hands of their mothers that separate the thick milk skin from the fresh milk and the nature... and remember: you come to the art gallery not to paint, the same way works when you come to such restaurants: you do not to eat but you are here to taste.
4. ...and may be the fourth thought about passing the knowledge through generations. In Japan for example they cooked like this for 150 years and the restaurants pass their knowledge from the father to he son, from the mother to the daughter. It is different with European traditions: we break the traditions, we start from scratch but we always come back to the roots...
Rate: 9/10
The movie starts with artistic creation of this dish with more than 30 ingredients: a painting of a Master...or should I say: God...
There are my first impressions as I believe I would need to see this movie twice
I was actually glad that I could not find anyone to go to the preview session with due to different reasons my friends and VIP Club members had but I suddenly realised that I was given that chance to enjoy this movie in a silence of loneliness left facing my inner self and in a state of deep and transforming meditation.
My recommendation for you: if you have a chance to go there alone please do so without hesitation.
So here we go...
Around the earth in 180 days? Where are You going? Shall we take you there in 99 minutes? Who will do that? May be the sand that stands still for centuries in between the blindly closed doors and open doorways covered with old fading and flaky paint or may be the sand that is always on the move that travels together with the wind and with your thoughts? Take a pick and let’s go…
Today – you are a bird, who floats by the mirrored lake surface, today you are a bird that glides above all, today you are a bird whose eyes are widely open but your vision is limited as your time is counted…
Today you will see distraction and creation, today you will want to remember everything, to fall in love with everything and then forget who you are and forget that you were here…
Who rules here? Kings? Nature? Humanity? You?
Eyes… and their silence, the voiceless eyes that look in the world with despair, the eyes that see the world's splendour, its stillness and reflection… the eyes that are curios and the eyes, that do not want to face it anymore, the eyes that were never opened and the eyes that were never alive. Will we have the time for everything? So much to see and so much to do… What are the places you never went before and you might never visit? Be my bird today and I will see it all with your eyes…
These eyes are full of surprise, interest, lust and greed… Chew, chew, chew – chew it all: computers, scraps of metal, irons, push buttons, dust, volcanos full of magma and waterfalls full and refreshing; chew it all: fries, plastic bags and plastic dolls, cows, piglets and chickens, chew the world's ugliness and its wonders, dance and chew while you are still alive, as there might not be tomorrow even to remember… look at the sun: pray, believe and look but never judge…
In the ocean of our beauty, innocence, cunning-ness and stupidity...
Please remain in the image that mandala of yours, the sand picture coloured by the patience of monks, the picture that is structured and enjoyed now, it will be breezed away by a simple wave of one hand an hour after… as today we are all separate and we are all One – the enormous human entity with many hands and with none… the entity with vast mind and with no brain, with no limits and with potential on a cosmic scale and so imperfect in promises we make to ourselves, to our conditioned, passing through and mortal existence, risking it all including our children as the borrowed clock is ticking…
Some dictionary notes and explanation. samsara is defined as a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth… samsara means journeying and perpetual wandering describing the transition like a billiard ball hitting another billiard ball; While nothing physical transfers, the speed and direction of the second ball relate directly to the first. So the term most often used is rebirth, rather than reincarnation. Reincarnation implies the transfer of an essence, or a soul, while rebirth follows the law of causality, or dependant origination, where this arises because of circumstances which happened before. A primary aim of Buddhism is to break free of the wheel of samsara, and to reach a new level, Nirvana meaning extinguishing or unbinding. The implication is that it is freedom from what ever binds you, from the burning passion of desire, jealousy, and ignorance. Once these are totally overcome, a state of bliss is achieved, and there is no longer the need of the cycle of birth and death. All karmic debts are settled.