The Number 23 (2007)
I did wonder once why the seed of humanity is intertwined around an unusual number, 23; a prime number. [Refer] It could easily be centred around an even number or one around the most mysterious figures known to Man, i.e. nine. But it had to be 23. A funny number. Obscure or intentional?
Actually, if we look around us, the number 23 appears more often than we realise. The enigmatic constant manifests as Avogadro's expression of 6 X 1023 is the number of atoms in a mole of a substance. The Quran's first verse was told on the 23rd day of the ninth month, and it took 23 years to be fully revealed. Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times; Brutus' twenty-third one proving fatal after saying Et Tu, Brute?' Then there is the superstitious belief of 'enigma 23' where bad things can happen around number 23.
I thought Jim Carrey acted very well in this thriller. He portrays the role of a disturbed city dog catcher who believes that the author of an obscure book is trying to convey a cryptic message to him using the number 23. Suddenly he sees everything with the cursed number association. His obsession with this 'most paranoid' number reveals much more than meets the eye.
The element of confusion, whodunit and surprise is nicely embedded in this flick. Unfortunately, the general public thought that the story was too convoluted for general consumption. It only managed a measly 8% on the Rotten Tomatoes' scale, and Carrey was the runners-up to the Raspberry award that year (losing to Eddie Murphy for 'Norbit').
I thought that it came with a few memorable lines. It may appear cliche to some.
I did wonder once why the seed of humanity is intertwined around an unusual number, 23; a prime number. [Refer] It could easily be centred around an even number or one around the most mysterious figures known to Man, i.e. nine. But it had to be 23. A funny number. Obscure or intentional?Actually, if we look around us, the number 23 appears more often than we realise. The enigmatic constant manifests as Avogadro's expression of 6 X 1023 is the number of atoms in a mole of a substance. The Quran's first verse was told on the 23rd day of the ninth month, and it took 23 years to be fully revealed. Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times; Brutus' twenty-third one proving fatal after saying Et Tu, Brute?' Then there is the superstitious belief of 'enigma 23' where bad things can happen around number 23.
I thought Jim Carrey acted very well in this thriller. He portrays the role of a disturbed city dog catcher who believes that the author of an obscure book is trying to convey a cryptic message to him using the number 23. Suddenly he sees everything with the cursed number association. His obsession with this 'most paranoid' number reveals much more than meets the eye.
The element of confusion, whodunit and surprise is nicely embedded in this flick. Unfortunately, the general public thought that the story was too convoluted for general consumption. It only managed a measly 8% on the Rotten Tomatoes' scale, and Carrey was the runners-up to the Raspberry award that year (losing to Eddie Murphy for 'Norbit').
I thought that it came with a few memorable lines. It may appear cliche to some.
- There's no such thing as destiny. There are only different choices. Some choices are easy, some aren't. Those are the really important ones, the ones that define us as people.
- To die there in the street would have been easy. But it wouldn't have been justice, at least not the justice fathers teach their sons about. I'll be sentenced in a week or so. My lawyer says the judge will look kindly upon me for turning myself in. Maybe it's not the happiest of endings, but it's the right one. Someday I'll be up for parole, and we can go on living our lives. It's only a matter of time. Of course, time is just a counting system — numbers with meaning attached to them — isn't it?
- I'd like two words on my tombstone: what if.
- Time is just a counting system with numbers attached to it.
P.S. Just learnt a new word. 'Graphomania' (or scribomania) is the obsessive impulse to write. It is a psychiatric condition when it degenerates into contradictory statements or meaningless rumblings. It then is defined as 'graphorrhoea'. Sometimes I wonder if I had crossed the imaginary boundary.
