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In Review, Thoughtful Enlightenment

Not a Review: The Worst Person in the World (2021)

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Not a Review: The Worst Person in the World (2021)

i. Julie

Julie was most of us. Or perhaps, we were all a Julie once. But most ridiculously for me, Julie is me.

It might be long overdue, but my boyfriend and I finally watched the movie the other night. After five minutes of processing the prologue that somehow felt a little too embarrassingly familiar, he broke the silence by saying, “Why do I have a feeling that this woman is essentially you?”

And he was right. Julie is me – a more reckless version of me, the kind of person I would become if I deliberately let my truest colours shine unabashedly and allow my impulses to redirect my life to all territories I was always too afraid to venture into, and a more satisfied one, perhaps.

From quitting a presumably prestigious program because it did not resonate with what poked her curiosity, deciding that she’s now attracted to how human’s minds responded to all sorts of stimuli, only to end up choosing photography and writing over a well-respected and promising field, also getting scared of not being able to navigate her own steering wheel in her own life that she cut off the stability that felt like gluing her foot to the brake pedal – I could go on and list every single act she did in the movie but the underline was that, I found myself (and a lot of us) in her.

It just so happens that my upbringing of mostly values and principles shared in eastern cultures anchors me and grounds me to never dare myself enough to make split-second decisions as bold as hers. I was taught to always have a degree of self-control to constantly make logical and conscious decisions to suppress my itches and avoid chasing something on a whim, for better or for worse.

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In Review, Thoughtful Enlightenment

Randall Pearson of This Is Us

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Randall Pearson of This Is Us

I just committed a dangerous sin that I should’ve never even thought of doing at such times like these days when I’m on a tight deadline regarding my thesis progress: binge-watching a TV series that goes for 18 episodes in the first season. But, Lord, is it all worth it. This Is Us is basically an enlarged version of all types of rom-com movies I’m very much into, hence every second spent staring at my laptop’s screen was the utmost guilty pleasure experience.

But the reason why I even type this post is not simply because this is a well-thought series worth reviewing. This is something beyond. I’m not really a movie-goer kind of millennial, there are many awesome movies people in average would’ve watched but I haven’t, so when I decide to write a review or even afterthoughts after watching something, the thing must’ve been exceptional. And everyone who has survived watching This Is Us until this year’s new season must’ve agreed with me. All those nights of tears and box of tissue papers were entirely worth wasting.

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In Review

Sing Street (2016)

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Sing Street (2016)

I think I just found my most favorite musical movie, ever. Not Beauty and the Beast, not Sweeney Todd, nor The Sound of Music, nor even La La Land. (For the record, I actually gave up watching La La Land just after three minutes into the movie where the people were all stuck in a traffic jam and begin singing and dancing on the highway… good Lord I just can’t.) For me, it’s definitely Sing Street (2016). Despite the fact that I was having a hard time trying to understand what those quirky 80’s Irish teenagers try to pronounce, there was just that particular sort of constant gaiety I felt all the way from the very beginning to the end which beautifully segued into a burst of consolation at the end, knowing that the heroes of the movie finally make it to the end with an unharmed heart although not necessarily easier lives ahead.

The theme probably sounds like a more everyday kind of plot where a 15-year-old Irish folk of a broken, financially-troubled family was transferred to another school where he was exposed to even a more harsh environment and found himself falling in love to a 16-year-old stranger who works as a self-proclaimed model. The story then revolves around these two, when Conor/Cosmo (Ferdia Welsh-Peelo) decides to form a rock ‘n roll band so that Raphina (Lucy Boynton) gets to be the model in the band’s music videos, even though each of their worlds seems to be falling apart as well in the background. What makes it uniquely interesting is that the movie was shot in 1980’s setting where music video was a breakthrough that just got surfaced at the moment, and it was also the era where many Irish youngsters sailed to London for the sake of new hopes and dreams as shown by the early sequences in the movie, thus everything matches Conor’s personal circumstance.

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In Review, Thoughtful Enlightenment

Post-Thoughts on Good Will Hunting

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Post-Thoughts on Good Will Hunting

To be really honest and also to confirm some ideas about me from people who know me: you guys are right, I am indeed not actually passionate about geology. Gosh, studying ugly-coloured sedimentary rocks that are not even fascinating to look at, that was never something my younger self imagined to be something I would be devoted to do anytime in the future. But now that I am taking a Master’s degree in it, doesn’t it sound like I’ve been investing too much for someone who is not even that into the subject?

The thing is, that kind of “passion” is not what keeps me going. Nearly six years being submerged into this field, I realize that I do not necessarily have to be interested and excited about the subject to keep myself being on the track. I wasn’t, and am not even looking for fun in something that I would like to study, learn, and be responsible about. Most people who know me would’ve (and even have) said, “I think your passion is in art! Why didn’t you go to art school and became an artist instead?”

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In Review, Thoughtful Enlightenment

Good Will Hunting (1997)

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Good Will Hunting (1997)

Have you ever looked at a very fortunate somebody, blessed with some sort of gift the majority of people in the world would kill to steal, and yet they seem to really have no idea about what to do with those talents it irritates you so much to the very core of your bones?

But wait a sec. Do they really have to utilize it the way you think though? ‘Cause maybe, it is just this little world in our minds that keeps telling us to always aim for a greater good. Maybe, since they never actually asked to be born with such great gifts, it is not actually their faults that they’re not using–let alone maximizing–that massive luck the rest of the world wish they had been born with. But of course we’d all think oh what an arrogant, imbecile prick who wouldn’t use their frickin’ ability to achieve an actual something that makes the world a better place. Or at least to make jealous a bunch of losers who wished it had been them who achieve those stuff. Give it to me and I’ll aim high, I’ll land in a place where I have better chances to fix the world. In other words, a place where I can get more satisfaction about myself as a human being, having something bigger to claim that distinguishes me from the mediocre. Where I could feel secure about my accomplishments and stop worrying about my images in society.

After all, isn’t that what we’re after? Or has it ever solely been that pure intention of “I want to change the world“?

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