Science can answer moral questions?

Only on BFM, you can hear an atheist trying to rationalize moral issues with science!

Hold on tight! It's your personal journey of the mind!

So, I am writing after watching the first instalment of 'The Girl'. During my purchase of the arty morbid Japanese movie (Departures), I also grabbed a legal National Censorship Board approved, with hologram,18 rating of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'! The seal must have been given by the imams on a day after stuporous meal of santan laden lemang and rendang or flatulent nasi lemak! In their normal tour of duty, their 18 rating is equivalent to Sesame Street!

Noomi Rapace@Lisbeth Salander

It is always better to read a book before watching a movie. What you see in the movie is just the result of the brain work of an individual director's perception of how a fictional story or event took place. To stimulate the action potential at the cerebral level (probably to decrease the chance of senile dementia and possibly Alzheimer's disease), it must be therapeutic; if not life saving, to read and form your own impression of how a paperback fiction should happened. Unfortunately with the advent of TV and various telecommunication advances, the awe, surprise and gore factor is slowly dwindling. As we, humans, become more exposed and more megalomaniac, everything we see becomes, "Ah, seen that, done that!"...
Maybe that is why, when I watched "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo TGWDT- the movie", what I saw was not much different from what I expected it to be. The disadvantage of watching a movie versus reading the book is that one will miss out all the quirky notes mentioned by the author. You would also miss out on the author's soliloquy and the thinking process of the characters, unless the movie is done along the line of Humphrey Bogart's films. Reading the book opened my eyes on the social structure and history of Sweden which is not quite apparent if I had just watched the movie.

Michael Nyqvist @ Mikael Blomkvist

Blame it on watching many made-for-TV Disney movies and made-in-Canada survival in the cold movies during my childhood, my perception of how TGWDT and Sweden should look like mirrors the one showcased by the director - cold, bone-chilling chilly wind, snowing all the time, showery rains and thick clothes. Living up to the name of being a Swedish movie (option of English dubbing and English subtitles) and a modern one at that, they just had to show less of clothes and unnecessary lots of skin and frontal nudity in some scenes.

That is the problem with many of the new movies. They do not sell if they do not portray graphically the emotional affections and bedroom activities - TGWDT is guilty of that. So, now we know that Lisbeth Salander was sexually abused by her guardian and bedded Mikael Blomkvist - to show minutes showing it in detail? Maybe that is why the Millennium trilogy movies are so popular that the following two instalments of 'The Girl' are out! And yours truly had the privilege of ordering and receiving it recently. TGWDT is good otherwise but I am still contended with my black and white Alfred Hitchcock movies as well as movies from the bygone golden era of the silver screen where acting and great dialogue took paramount importance over matters like the scenery (they had not perfected outdoor filming anyway!)

Steve Jobs R.I.P. (1955-2011)

George Harrison: The HBO Documentary

 

Trailer

Don't you trust nobody, old chap!

A couple of weeks ago, I was an accomplice in someone's crime. A crime of a trivial nature meaning to do no one no harm but only a pleasant surprise. The intended victims are relatively young; hence their heart should be able to take the shock of the deceit!
The modus operandi was planned with the daughter of my friend (RM) calling to get contact numbers of my friend way back 6 months prior to the event. What event? My friend and wife's 50th birthday and 20th wedding anniversary. That was it. RM never called back.
She single handedly right under her parents' noses managed to arrange the venue, the caterers, contact all the relatives and friends secretly, sneak out some of the family photos for the slide presentation, organize the invitation cards, get the caterers, arrange the itinerary of the day and at the same time juggling with her work in college. She managed to cough off some of pocket money and squeeze out contributions from conniving relatives.
On D-day, her uncle, was to take the parents out a night out. In the pretext of wanting to check out the surprise party venue for his own social function, he managed to hoodwink my friend and his wife to the party and ....SURPRISE!!!!
My friend and his wife were flabbergasted, shell shocked but pleasantly surprised! They could not believe that their little girl had managed to contact all their old friends and relatives and arrange the whole event under the noses living under the same roof without the knowledge of her 16 year old sibling. My friend could not believe that his almost 80 year old who was ushering in the entire guest, whom my friend checks regularly for his well-being, decided to stay mum. And his mum too! All was forgiven in the name of meaning well.
RM handled the whole extremely well to earn complements from all attendees. My friend, who was undecided about sending RM to study overseas - being a young girl whose street-smartness was suspect, decided there and then she was up to it!
Talking of surprise birthday parties, I remember how my other half single-handedly (with the cooperation of friends and relatives, without the knowledge of my four then young blabber mouth kids) arranged my surprise 40th birthday party without  inkling to any of the occupants of my home!
Lesson in life to learn - Like the cowboys in the Wild West would say, "Don't you trust nobody!'

more pix

Soap opera in real life!

Now that The Star is 40 years old, they decided to publish some of their old newspaper articles, bringing fond nostalgic tinge in our otherwise mundane lives!

Soap opera in real life as seen later in trial! This 

case got everybody excited. They did not have 

Fox TV and CI channels then! News like rape,

infidelity, murder and masala excites people then

and now! 

The start of University and College Act 1971.

Thugs chasing old cops (ACP Bala 

and subordinate) meeting by chance

after umpteenth years!

Note: ACP Bala mentioned here!

A few things we can note is some of the topics are the same. In some aspects, we are way too conservative now - we do not see swim suits now and the newspapers did not pixel out or bleep out cleavage and armpits!
ACP (Assistant Commissioner of Police) Balasundram who, with his boss, the feared DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) used to give hell to bandits like Botak Chin is seen in one of the photos. Aging gracefully, now almost 80, has put his swashbuckling gun wielding days behind for a quieter environment with his children and grand children!