I was supposed to post this a while ago but I was waiting for my friend to write up her movie review first since she is a movie critic for her school newspaper, then we would show our reviews to each other. She invited me to go with her to a movie screening at a MPAA building and I thought I would try to write a review, if it could resemble one. Sounds good? Sad to say, we never showed each other’s reviews. Anyway, here it is below.

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I just did something today that I have never done before. That was to attend a movie screening. Thanks to a cool girl I met recently, her name is Ally Burguieres. She works as a movie critic for her school newspaper at Georgetown University, so she gets to go to movie screenings and for free! Guess where the movie screenings were at? None other than the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) building in Washington DC, the sorry organization I’ve been leeching off from on my Linux server. The irony was that it was free too but in a different sense. The only difference was that I cannot put the movie on pause for my bathroom breaks.

Out of all movies that are out there, the movie turns to be “The Namesake” about an Indian boy who has an identity crisis with his name that is not even Indian.

Before I even start, I have this firm belief that if you are deaf and unable to hear what characters are saying and that there are no subtitles, there is absolutely no reason to go to movie theaters. You’d be clueless as to what the movie is talking about and you can slowly feel your ten dollars being drained away unless you think cool special effects justify the ticket purchase, which some of my friends did with Star Wars movies. It’s almost as same as buying a glossy hard-covered book with blank pages. When you finally do get out, your understanding of the movie isn’t that much better than you step into the theater before. “Light saber fights were so awesome!” “Um, why did Anakin turn into Darth Vader?” “Uh, no idea.”

But she gently informed me that this movie, the Namesake, might have some subtitles since it follows an immigrant family from India, settling into the city that is the most diverse city in America and home to millions of immigrants, New York City. In spite of that, the family moved during the 1970s and they were among the first group to migrate from India so the husband and the wife only had each other to support, then they had a son which they named Gogol. They spoke Hindu, thus, some English subtitles were shown.

The name, Gogol, is a Russian name taken from a short story author, Nikolai Gogol. It is his book that has miraculously stayed in the father’s bloody hands after he survived a devastating train accident which left him in a full cast and unable to move for a few weeks. After having recovered, they left India to live in New York City with his wife and soon thereafter, they have a first-born son and they decide to name him Gogol after the Russian author, to remind how lucky and blessed their life are and to be holding a healthy baby. Obviously they did not think about the social effects that the name may bring to the boy and his life.

Sloppily dressed in a navy baseball shirt with a number 83 on his chest, Gogol, acted by Kal Penn who was made famous from the movie, “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.”, shows what it takes to be an American. He dates a white girl, plays loud metal songs, rebels against his parents, smokes a joint and of course, hates his own name. Even his sister is equally American, spraying colors in her hair, sporting both bright and dark lip colors, and wearing fishnets on her legs. Later in the movie, it would have to take someone’s death in the family to finally realize what does it mean to be an Indian and sheds a baseball shirt with a white saree.

Kal Penn tries his best to portray as an Indian-American but his limpy body prevents him from looking like an All-American guy and resembles nothing like those model bodies in Abercrombie & Fitch cover magazines. Even in a few nude scenes, his body actually reminds me of Gandhi’s. Sad to say, Kal Penn’s fate, to me, may be already and forever sealed as a slacking college Indian whiz who smoke marijuana joints.

The movie takes us through different phases of life that we all may have experienced at some point of our life. It is a movie that reminds us that we aren’t the only ones experiencing life’s struggles and that all the immigrants who came to America, from the pilgrims to Englishmen to Germans to Italians to Irishes to Chineses to Purples and lately, Indians all experienced same things when they arrive at a new land with little of what they have. The movie moves mostly in a chronological order with a few flashbacks linking to the name of Gogol and ends with a feeling that is touching and that life shall go on.

Although the movie title says “the Namesake”, it doesn’t necessarily revolve around the name but we can see how the story is developed behind the name and how they resolve together to overcome obstacles they face in life—unknowns, hardship, death, infidelity, and family/cultural values.

If you found yourself covered in blood, barely able to move but you see this book that spells “Gogol” that stares directly into your eyes, you cannot help but bound to feel that you are meant to survive, to live and with that, you damn better live your life with a purpose. That’s exactly what the father did and in the end, the son finally understands and was able to accept his name, Gogol, for the reminder of what it is.

When she and I got out of the theater, I thought to myself, hey, that wasn’t too bad, with its limited subtitles and my lack of ability to hear but I could understand the movie and managed to make some reflections of my own.

What’s so cool is that I get to see a movie that hasn’t been released in theaters nationwide and free too!

I just did something that I haven’t done in a long while. That’s to watch three movies in three days straight. For some reason, I stopped being an avid movie watcher. In my hometown, we had an inexpensive video store, unlike Blockbuster, named The Family Video. It’s so cheap to rent movies there, at $1.50 each, new releases. Any cheaper, it’d have to change its name to Thrifty Video Store. My friend Kent and I would nab latest DVDs and watch them with 12” tombstones on our TV stands. That was a good time.

Three movies I watched: Glory Road, Tell Me Guilty, and The Greatest Game Ever Played.

Glory Road is basically another “Remember the Titans” movie on basketball. I’m glad they made the movie to emphasize the significance on the national championship game and what it meant. Even I learned something from it, that Pat Riley was on the Kentucky team and was a key player who led his team to the championship game. Since he and his team lost to Texas Western in the national championship, Pat Riley has amassed seven NBA championships—one as a player, one as an assistant coach and five as a head coach. I think winning those in different ways say a lot about this guy, Pat Riley.

Tell Me Guilty - if it wasn’t for Vin Diesel and his charisma, the movie would have been a lot worse. It seems confused with what kind of style it was going in. Was it supposed to be like Law and Order TV show—with a sense of seriousness and reality or was it like Jim Carrey’s movie in Liar Liar? I guess it was mostly a humorous movie with Vin Diesel making some crackers jokes but considering that it was based on a true story and that it said most of the dialouges were the same in the old case. I found it hard to believe that it would look like that movie. Worst of all, the ending was just too predictable. Everybody knew what it was gonna happen, despite what main characters said. “I give it a week.” Yeah, right. It was over in less than 10 seconds.

The Greatest Game Ever Played - that was a pretty good entertaining game with some cool effects. The actor did a pretty good job portraying a golfer. I get to learn a little more about the golf history and realize that it’s very hard for amateurs to win the U.S. Open right now, at least not with the way Tiger Woods is playing right now. My favorite clip of the whole movie was probably that scene when the boy was able to putt the ball on hardwood into the cup. The ball actually moved left-right a few times before going home into the cup. Another thing I noticed was the crowd. It looks like in the old times, they actually let people stand really really close to golfers, like standing on the green with them and golfers could feel them breathing. I’d love to get that close to Michelle Wie. :-)

Well, that goes my short movie reviews; I’m trying to do more writing.

While doing research on the cochler implant technology, I had a flashback of this book, called “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. I read this book in high school and was one of my favorite books. What’s cool about this book is that it’s written in the first-person narration when the main character, Charly, was asked to write a progress report. Since he was mentally retarded, he wrote on a elementary-level grammar writing and would misspell words. After he got a surgery, his grammar improved, so did his IQ and at one point, he was smarter than the scientists who did the surgery. But his emotions could not keep up with his rapidly growing intelligence, like finding out about who were his real friends as they would tease him when he was mentally retarded, and ofc there was a love plot as he fell in love with one woman. The book cannot be a book without any kind of drama, that his intellect was only temporary and he slowly drifted back to where he was before the surgery.

This book is one of my fave books I read in high school.

Abiding by this tip to make your blog a worthy time to read, here’s my movie review for Open Water DVD.

For about the first time in my life, my parents actually watched a movie before I did. I often would be the first one to say “Did you see that movie?” to my parents or vice versa and I would always reply “Yes, I’ve already watched that.” Sometimes my parents would get frustrated that I’d already watch the movie and losing family quality time. Anyway, my parents suggested me to watch this movie and they said very good movie. So, I decided to take their suggestion after all. I thought it was going to be some kind of “Jaws” movie, from the look of the cover. But it never was and it wasn’t even done professionally. What do you call that movie with high-quality film? Panavision? Open Water movie was shot with DV camera with only four people mostly. Two characters (husband and wife), director and his assistant, apparently. That’s what I learned from reading one of the reviews on the www. It was like a documentary movie but wasn’t shot this way, like you would see in 9/11 Fahrenheit.

I guess I’m a little lazy to tell you the whole story as you can find all about it on other sites but I do want to make this point so that you can appreciate the movie somewhat a little more. At the end of the movie, I wasn’t even happy with the movie and thought I wasted a good five bucks that I rented at the blockster. (Yes, I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon to subscribe monthly yet). Before I reacted too harshly, I decided to read some members’ reviews around in the www to get a better understanding of the movie. That’s how I learned that this movie actually took two years and was shot with only four people. Two in front of camera and the other two in the back. What set this movie apart from the Jaws movie was that they interacted with REAL living flesh sharks. They weren’t fake or made up in CGI or have any kind of special effects. I suppose that’s what made this movie a bit special, if you will. Also, I think Americans aren’t used to this kind of movie that is too realistic and doesn’t have a Disney-like (Cinderalla or Remember the Titans) ending. So, when you watch this movie, please keep in mind that it’s a documetary movie (meaning no awesome special effects like Jaws or CGI effects like the Perfect storm), was shot with real live sharks, and the constant up-and-down shots (like the Blair Witch project) to make you feel like you are in the sea with the actors. All in all, it’s no Oscars-award winning movie but it does teach you a lesson. Be SURE that you’re known to your guide and that they know you’re here so they won’t forget when you become missing. :-)

For about a week since, I have been reading this really mind-opening book called “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” by Bill Bryson. At first, I thought the author was joking about the title—how could you explain everything about Earth’s history and how we come in form in one book? I’m no scientist or geologist myself so I thought it’d be rather difficult reading this book but it’s surprisingly not. The sentences aren’t laden with all the technical words and the author did his best to give a brief background on each scientist that contributed to the history of Earth and us.

As I read through the book, I realize that this is not just a literary book but also a textbook cuz it really has a lot of information with tons of theories, explanations, and names. It’s 100 times better than any science textbooks I’ve ever read in middle school or high school. In fact, the author criticized a lot about textbooks we used in secondary education. They were either already outdated or some theories were misinterpreted as proved by recent scientists. Anyway, back to the topic, I read a really cool paragraph that summarized everything about Earth’s history. Imagine, Earth’s history in a single paragraph? Could you write like that? Bill Bryson did. Here’s the vivid paragraph.

“If you imagine the 4.5 billion odd years of Earth’s history compressed into a normal earthy day, then life begins very early, about 4 a.m. with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours. Not until almost 8:30 in the evening, with the day five-sixths over, has Earth anything to show the universe but a restless skin of microbes. Then, finally, the first sea plants appear, followed twenty minutes later by the first jellyfish, and the engimatic Ediacaran fauna first seen by Reginald Sprigg in Australia. At 9:04 pm, trilobites swim onto the scene, followed more or less immediately by the shapely creatures of the Burgess Shale. Just before 10 pm, plants begin to pop up on the land. Soon after, with less than two hours left in the day, the first land creatures follow.

Thanks to ten minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10:24 pm the Earth is covered in the great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all our coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scence just before 11 pm and hold sway for about three-quarters of an hour. At twenty-one minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins. Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight. The whole of our recorded history, on this scale, would be no more than a few seconds, a single human lifetime barely an instant. ” pp. 337

Ok ok, so it’s not one but two paragraphs–close enough but what about this next paragraph?

“Perhaps an even more effective way of grasping our extreme recentness as a part of this 4.5 billion-year old picture is to stretch your arms to their fullest extent and imagine that width as the entire history of the Earth. On this scale, according to John McPhee in Basin and Range, the distance from the fingertips of one hand to the wrist of the other is Precambrian. All of complex life is in one hand, “and in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history.”

There you go, you have the entire Earth’s history right across your extended arms. Isn’t that better than what we were reading in HS science textbooks?

Before you start thinking about becoming 100 years old, our existence in Earth’s history is very SMALL, no more than a few seconds into Earth’s modified 24 hour history and can be easily wiped off with a nail file. Bill Bryson says that one certain thing about life is it goes extinct. Nobody knows when but we all will become extinct. So, you what do you do? Focus not on the length of your life but the width of your life. Try to make your life as wide as you can and you shall die a rich, fullfilling life. :-)

Before I end this post, the average species last 4 million years. :-)

Since I’ve started working at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and getting steady paychecks, I’ve gotten become conscious of my cash flow. I want to be more financially responsible and grow my wealth. So I went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore and browsed through aisles. Found this bestseller and bought it. Man, I really learned a lot from this book—-common sense, advice, and wisdom make up the most part of this book. The book explains that being rich and being wealthy are not the same thing. It’s “Income vs. Consumption.” You may be earning more than 100k (only 5% of all Americans earn more than 100k) but you spend on a lot of things (consumption), such as 60 inch tv, fancy house, 2 or 3 different luxury cars, pool, and so on. These prevents you from becoming wealthy. You may look “rich” to your peers but inside, you’re really not.

The book has a formula of how wealthy you should be. (I left my book at home so I’ll look up the formula again) The big key to become wealthy is to “live below your means”. That means don’t overspend your income earning and try to have the widest margin between spending and saving as much as you can. The less you spend, the more you can save. Then your money begin to accumulate and build wealth. That’s all there is to it. But we are in the capitalism world and we’re surrounded by marketing—billboards, tv commercials, even competition with your peers who just bought a brand-new car or a big screen tv.

It also talks about Offense and Defense. We have to defend ourselves from those marketing pitfalls. Offense is accumulating wealth while defending against spending on items. I learned more about taxes and why people are always trying to avoid paying taxes. I realize that the government really takes a big chunk of your money (approx. every 30 cents of a dollar goes to the government), so the best you can do is to minimize your income taxes.

To do that, start investing in tax-deferred accounts such as 401k, TSP (Thrift Savings Plan for those who work for the Federal), IRA (Individual Retirement Account). Your paychecks will be deducted first before tax is charged. I plan to invest in these accounts as soon as I build up my savings account first (for emergency).

Finally, if you’re 25 years old or less, like I am, USE YOUR AGE AS YOUR ADVANTAGE because the younger you are, the more you are able to accumulate your wealth over time. So that’s what I’m gonna do. Start investing early and live below my means. That’d be a struggle for sure and takes some time to become used to it. My goal to be financially independent before I become 50. :-)