Sunday Movies

The Messengers - I thought this would be real heart breaking movie but instead I hated the characters of the two men who deliver the news of soldiers killed to their families. Instead of being a movie about compassion or even how hard a job this is, it was about what jerks these two men were and how messed up they were. It left me thinking less of the military instead of appreciating what a difficult job that would be.

 

It's Complicated - This is a must see movie, funny, so funny. My 15 yo son though so didn't get it and couldn't figure out why my husband and I were laughing so much. This movie had both of us laughing out loud which was a very hard thing for me since I have this cough and I would have to stand up and hold myself because I would start coughing so hard. Mr. Baldwin is one hairy dude - gross but funny. Meryl Streep is fabulous! Being an ex (however a long time ago) I could relate and in general this is a funny movie for anyone.

 

Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief - This is a movie which is totally geared towards a younger audience. My 11 yo son thought this was one of the best movies he's seen. My husband and I just kept saying things like. "How did she know where those buttons were?" and my husband wants to know how you put an entire horse’s ass in a wheelchair and keep it hidden? So there are little things like why doesn't the boy get upset when his mother dies or at least he thinks his mother is dead, he just goes on with the day - really? My recommendation is if you are 10 yo and younger you'll love this movie, otherwise skip it.

Om Shanti Om - I had to throw in a Bollywood movie! This has great songs and dance numbers, a little cheesy but I'm getting used to it. Story of revenge and love and there is a great scene where over 32 Bollywood actors all show up in a dance scene in cameo roles.

Kites - This is a Bollywood movie that has been edited down from almost 3 hours to 90 minutes and it is at your local theatres now. I just say it and I have to say I liked it though I did miss the big dance numbers. Guys will like this because there are guns shot outs and lots of cars being blown up. You have a love story, murders, gangsters, robberies and more love story. So it has something for everyone - a good date night movie. Since it is shot mostly in Las Vegas and Mexico there is plenty of English spoken. The two love birds have the problem of one speaks Spanish and the other Hindu, so there are some subtitles on the screen. If you have been hesitant about seeing a Bollywood movie this would be a good one to start with.

Teamwork - Kind of

My oldest son worked on his death poems and got them finished just in time. I wanted to share what we came up with. He had to have art work with his poems so I've included what he picked as well.

The Sound of Life

Thump, pause, thump

Thump, pause, da thump, pause

Pause, thump, silence.

Thief

Death has come to me like a thief in the night,

He gave no warning, but left his calling card.

As I slept in blissful slumber, death stole by dreams,
He snuck in and snuck out taking the sunrise with him.

Death has made a mockery of love, what should have been forever,

He has now made eternally his and I am left alone.

Everybody Hurts

Pain.

Everybody knows.

Your heart aches

as though the hand

of God has closed around

You and breathing which once was

Second nature has become the hardest thing

to do, you’ve lost all feelings except one,

the pain that seems to fill your

entire body, your bones feel

it, your skin is

crawling with it.

Everybody knows.

Pain.

Suffocating

Bullets flying by, orders being yelled

-Move, move, cover your right!

I watch in disbelief as a car explodes

I can’t breathe, I can’t move.

My hands are tingling; my eyes are filled with tears.

I looked to my left to speak to Joe,

But only part of him has been left behind.

I can’t breathe, I can’t move.

All around me the sounds are dying out,

The colors of the flames and the blood

are muting into gray and black.

I can’t breathe, I can’t move.

Seven Lives

If I can get a redo on this life,

If when I die I can come back to you and do this all again

I will.

If there is more for me to learn and

If I must come back

I will.

If has become the now

If wouldn’t wait for you but

I will.

Death in the Morning

Death in the Morning




I couldn’t sleep last night because my oldest son asked for help on his English project. He asked me to write five poems about war and death. They could be separate or together and then were some rules about what they had to contain. Ok I know why am I writing the poems?

Me: Why?

Him: Because you wrote other sons poems.

Me: silence…got nothing to say

Me: How many?

Him: Five and hey mom they can’t be that good, so don’t try to hard.

Me: silence again

Him (to dad): its cool mom’s an English major, it comes in handy.

So I was up early this morning trying to think about death and all the glorious ways it could be written about because hey that’s how I like to start the day. When son came down for breakfast I told him I had been working on them and he again told me to make sure they weren’t too good because he doesn’t want to have to read them aloud in class. So I have three done and I have to take a break from death besides now I have to think about how to write bad poetry.

The Same is the Same Everywhere

I’ve come to understand of late that no matter what blogs you read or write at some point you will read about love, laughter, sadness, grief and joy. There are no emotions that are not expressed somewhere out there in the world of the WWW. I have read blogs that spoke to the sadness and despair that I was feeling at that same moment that I could have claimed as my own story. As well I have read stories that made me smile, giggle and laugh out loud (which is always hard to explain to those around me). Then there are the blogs which complain about some physical ailment and surprise I’m going through the same thing.


I suppose what I’ve come to realize that is that bloggers have a lot in common. We might look different, live in different parts of the world and our homes may have nothing in common but the human race is not as complex as we have been led to believe. It is a shame that we can feel compassion, sorrow and joy for those we have never seen but we know nothing about our neighbors or our own families. Perhaps it is because if we are offended or made uncomfortable by a blog posting we just stop reading that page, no harm no foul. Whereas our neighbors and families are a face to face contact and not so easily removed from our lives.

I hope that my experience of emotions that I have had in reading the blogs of strangers in the virtual world might someday carry over to having more compassion for those in my real world.

Sunday Movies

On Netflix you rate the movies you've watched in a 1-5 star rating, 5 being the "I loved it" category. The first movie I want to tell you about I gave 5 stars too, but I didn't like the movie, I hated the people in it, I was enraged at their actions and sat in disbelief that this story was true. Tears ran down my face as I felt helpless and ashamed that I could do nothing. The Stoning of Soraya M. is a powerful, sad, though provoking story. Based on a true story of an Iranian woman whose husband wants a divorce so he can marry a 14 yo. He falsely accuses her of adultery and the story proceeds. This is not a movie for young people but as a woman I feel like everyone who is able should see this film and then look around you and be grateful and blessed that you do not live in a country (hopefully) that would condone this behavior.

The New Daughter stars Kevin Costner and is a supernatural thriller, or so it says on the dvd. This is a good movie, nothing to gross and a few good made me jump moments but what makes this movie a bummer is that the ending is so open. You really never get a sense of what really happens at the end. My husband thought perhaps they were leaving it open for part two but I think it is just a crappy ending. It has an interesting idea as its main idea but really never builds upon it or gives you enough information.

Planet 51 is an animated movie which we as a family rated as we didn't hate it but we didn't love it. Dwayne Johnson is the astronaut but I couldn't tell it was him, plus I thought it was werid that his character is very white, with red hair? Just seemed a bit odd. It is very predictable and fits most standard in space animations. Nothing real exciting.

Mama Kat's Assignment

I haven’t written anything for a while and even reading Mama Kat’s reading prompts was hard. I seem to have a bad case of writer’s block. Maybe because school is out my brain took a vacation too! But I made myself choose one so I could get back in the swing of things, so here goes it.


5.) “You know a happy ending isn’t really the end. It’s just the place where you choose to stop telling the story. Why not make everything work out when you have the chance?” Where would you could you place your happy ending? (inspired by The Myth Of You And Me pg. 137)


     Happy endings remind me of an end to the movie, the screen credits roll up and “The End” appears. You leave either thinking good thoughts or wishing you could have those few hours back to do something worthwhile. Perhaps that is what life is all about. Our happy ending could be the end of our life, with contemplation of how we lived our lives or it could be at the points in our lives when we felt we had achieved some measure of success, self-worth or milestone.

     I tend to think in Technicolor so my happy ending would be like something out of a Bollywood movie, lots of singing and dancing. Happy endings would come at times like graduations, weddings and births. Though, even some deaths would need to be celebrated with song and dance for a life well lived.

     Personally I envision a happy ending when I finish college and walk the isle to get my college diploma. I don’t think I will literally break out in song and dance but later I will. But I hope the story doesn’t end there. I am a long way off (I hope) from having the credits of my life rolling up. But every day has the possibility if a happy ending!

School's Out and other Tidbits

Schools out for Summer! Can you hear me cheering and doing obscene gestures with my hands, ok probably not because the kids might see me but in my head I’m doing cartwheels and such! Now the process of waiting for grades to be posted, I did hear that they have to be done by next Friday, so that’s not too long.


My son (13yo) and I did something very interesting yesterday; we went to a worship service or prayer service at a mosque. We had to take our shoes off to enter and the men were very nice. I say men because the women go to a secluded room to worship and hear the sermon so we never saw them. The gentleman in charge answered some of our questions about what to expect and other things about India and Pakistan. We sat on chairs in the very back corner of the room and watched as the men came in and did their private prayers and then there was a 20 minute sermon which was basically keep your prayer live in tact because that will be what keeps you from doing wrong and how you can’t go and do something wrong thinking your prayers will make it all right. It sounded a lot like what I would hear in a church of my own faith. Then just as we thought it was all over the men all move forward and stand shoulder to shoulder as tightly as possible and pray together. When they sang (chanted) together it was truly breathe taking and beautiful. Afterwards my son asked some questions about things like why they touch their face, hands open by the side of the face. He was told that it is a sign of submission to God that they are here and listening. Also when the wipe their faces after prayer it is to remove the prayer from their lips and leave it in God’s hands. It was interesting because the men all come from different countries or sometimes just different regions of the same country and might do the gestures just slightly different because of their culture. The men did not shake my hand but were very warm to my son and shook his hand and wanted him to ask questions. In preparation for the two of us to go to India next summer we have volunteered to help some of the new refuges with their English, especially the women. There was one college student young man who spoke English fine (along with 6 other languages) but wants help with writing. So my son and I are looking forward to helping him because he is going to teach us Hindi and Arabic and will help him writing and conversational English.

Unbelievable the Things that are News Worthy

World Cup Welcome: A Billion Condoms and 40,000 Sex Workers

Prostitutes wait at a bar in a plush northern suburb of Johannesburg August 22, 2002.

(Credit: Juda Ngwenya / Reuters) CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The taxi drivers hustling around the bars on Long Street in Cape Town say they are ready for all the soccer fans that will flood the city in June for the World Cup. So are hotels, restaurants, breweries and, inevitably, prostitutes.

Arguably, the soccer World Cup is to the sex industry what the holiday season is to candy shops, a temporary surge of excited people feeling collectively festive, willing to pay for a bit of extra indulgence.

South Africa's Drug Central Authority estimates 40,000 sex workers will trickle in for the event from as far as Russia, the Congo and Nigeria to cater to the wide taste spectrum of some 400,000, mostly male, visitors and their apres-soccer needs.

Henry Africa, 49, drives a taxi in Cape Town and, aside from the usual airport pickups and winery tours, he also operates the "Bright Red Tour," which he expects to be a hit among soccer fans. For the equivalent of 500 dollars, he'll shuttle customers from strip bar to strip bar all night and even bring them over to a safe-sex practicing prostitute, a relevant selling point in a country where one in five adults are estimated to be HIV positive.

Just Becayse its Good

Just like a good song, book or movie, when you come across something that touches you, it is important to share with others. I read this blog yesterday from If Mom Says Ok and it made me think, smile and tear up. It's not a long post and it is so worth your time.

Sometimes other people are better at expressing your life than you are at the time!

Early Morning Inspirations

I can’t sleep, woke up at 5 am and my brain won’t shut off. Perhaps it’s the finals I have to finish today or perhaps it’s my grand plan or something else. Whatever, I’m up and I can’t really turn on all the lights to work because everyone is still sleeping. Besides if I turn on the lights the three dogs will wake up and get all excited thinking its food time (two of them are here in the same room with me, sleeping on the couch and no they shouldn’t be). So I’m sitting in the glow of my lap top, listening to music, reading twitters from foreign countries (India is 24 hours ahead of us) and surfing the web.


A song came on and I started to think about why I put it on my MP3. I’m not a big rap fan, well not a rap fan in a small way either. This song though appeals to my soul. I think about the words and what they mean. The song makes me think about what it must be to live in war torn countries. I wonder what it must feel like to be a refuge and separated from your family.

There is a line in the song that refers to “Buffalo Soldiers”, here is what it means:

The Beginning

African Americans have served proudly in every great American war. In 1866, through an act of Congress, legislation was adopted to create six all African American Army units. The units were identified as the 9th and 10th cavalry and the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st infantry regiments. The four infantry regiments were later reorganized to form the 24th and 25th infantry regiments.

These fighting men represented the first Black professional soldiers in a peacetime army. The recruits came from varied backgrounds including former slaves and veterans from service in the Civil War.

The Nickname

The nickname buffalo soldiers began with the Cheyenne warriors in 1867. The actual Cheyenne translation was Wild Buffalo. The nickname was given out of respect and the fierce fighting ability of the 10th cavalry. Overtime, Buffalo Soldiers became a generic term for all African American soldiers.

So not sure why this song won’t leave my life, I only heard it one time on the radio about a year ago and it keeps coming back. I have two videos of the same song, one is a represntation of the somg and the other is about the FIFA World Cup which is in Africa 2010, they choose this song as the official theme.

Your Gone

You walked out the door,
I cried, I got scared,
I begged you to come home.

You walked out the door,
I cried, I got worried,
I waited for you to come home.

You walked out the door,
I shed a single tear,
I moved on.

Homework Block

So I have no classes and as  I have already blogged I should be getting ready for finals, but I'm stuck.
Everytime I get near my homework, I freeze up and move on to something else. I...hold on....I....I even cleaned the house, caught up on the laundry, baked and downloaded music, but homework not so much.

What am I going to do, two of my papers are due Friday. Of course I did stay up til after 1 am last night watching another Bollywood film but I had good intentions to get up and going today, you know conquer the world.

I have a Netflix disc of Grey's I could watch fo rmotivation, no, no stay away from the TV.

Ok after I post this I am going to spend at least 1 hour doing English homework and then reward myself with well not sure, another hour of literature homework?

Anyway pray to the homeworks gods I get through this please.

Dead Week

So this is dead week at college, not sure why this is since the professors continue to lecture and give new information that will be on the finals next week. But  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I am looking forward to ending another successful year!

It is so hard to believe that this will be the end of my second year. I know we all notice how fast time goes by, still it bears remembering sometimes. So I guess I will have to stay off the computer these next weeks and focus on doing well on my finals, no more blogging, reading blogs, watching Bollywood films online (sometimes watching the same movie two-three times. My family will have to feed themselves and clean the house, answer my every need, and acknowledge that I need perfect quiet!

Oh yeah I just woke up from that dream! Like I would every up my movies and there is no way they would feed themselves or be quiet. Since the rest of my dream is not going to come true I'll still be here with you!

Sunday Movies

So I haven't watched a lot of movies this week. Well I watches some foreign films because duh - that's my new thrill but I only have one of those that I want to recommend. So here are my two review for the week (don't be fooled by the number, it's just some of the movies were ok but not worthy of a review, neither bad nor good).




Where the Wild Things Are

I remember vaguely reading this book as a child and/or reading it to my kids, but in no way was I prepared for how much I would dislike this movie. After the first scenes before he runs away, my husband looks at me and says "What is wrong with this kid, he is the worst kid on the planet." We couldn't find one redeemable aspect about him and the movie never really tells you why it is ok for this kid to be so angry, so violent (he bites his mom). We watched the whole movie and then put it on our worst movies seen in 2010 list. I didn't even save it for the boys to watch but returned it.

Kal Ho Naa Ho

So this movie is more than the sum of its parts. Let me explain, I told you I’ve watched a few Bollywood films this week and for the most part they ok, nothing to write about. As I began to watch this movie I was thinking to myself oh no here we go again another cheesy movie. About half through (it was entertaining) it grabbed me. No really, I couldn’t decide which man she needed to be with, and then I was crying and cheering. This is a love story on the grand, grand gesture scale. I was still crying when it was over and then again as I downloaded some of the music to my MP3. Really if you watch this movie, get over the first half and wait, if you like PS I Love you, then this movie is for you.

>