Life's Happenings

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Godsend / Man On Fire - movie review

Godsend - starring Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert De Niro & Cameron Bright. While shopping with his mom one day, the little boy was killed in an unfortunate road accident. A stem cell research doctor approach the boy's parents at the funeral to obtain their permission to 'create' a similar boy through scientific technology. Reluctantly and hesitantly they agreed as the love for their son was too much to bear.

Time passes by and a baby boy was born and as he grew up, his facial similarity could be seen. Only weird thing is that the young boy seems to has nightmare day in day out (yeah even during day time). He sees weird things and eerie sounds. Bringing him back to the doctor, he was declared sound and fit. But things didn't go well the moment the boy passes the age of his 'previous'. He reacts violently and was revengefull towards people.

He almost killed his mother and his dad reprimanded the doctor for the botched job. In the end, they found out that the stem cell placed was a stem cell that belonged to the doctor's dead son. Complication arose and things went awry. Suspense thriller movie which could be classified as horror due to the director's brilliant ways of playing with the nightmares and sound integrated into the movie. It's more of a conspiracy cooked up by the doctor.

Man On Fire - starring Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning & Marc Anthony. A middle age couple has hired a tough guy to be their only young daugther's bodyguard. The bodyguard has to monitor her movements, ensuring her safety, bringing her to school and back home, following her to the piano classes & standing by her side in school sports.

Day by day, a feeling of closeness has developed between Denzel and Dakota. He became her swimming coach and managed to help her to win a particular swimming race. One day, while she was having her piano class, a group of known gangsters wanted to kidnap Dakota and Denzel has to be at his best to deny that opportunity. Unfortunately, he was hurt badly and the gangsters wanted him killed as he has killed a few of their guys. Moved out of hospital by a clean cop to ensure his safety, Denzel later teamed up with this cop and a brave lady reporter to expose the corrupted police force and find out who kidnapped the young girl.

One by one was hunted down to catch the big fish. News got around and his mission was getting more dangerous. Eventually, the hunting/investigation led him to one person that Denzel himself couldn't have expected. It was Dakota's own dad. Even finding out the answer, he has yet to find Dakota. Sacrificing his life, he made sure that the little girl was out of danger. A final hug of good bye between them was the most touching moment. He finished job and did his job well. He surrendered himself to the kidnappers to ensure her safety.

Marvellous story line and such incident could happen in the life of such gangster bosses.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Godsend, Man On Fire, Greg Kinnear, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, Marc Anthony

Ethiopia - Somalia War

New have been coming on the Ethiopia - Somalia conflict where Ethiopia has launched strategic airstrikes against Somalia. It's sad to see that news has to link the conflict to religions. Terrible news agencies as such news sells. It mentioned that Ethiopia, a predominant Christian majority country, is waging war against Somalia's Islamic force under the Union of Islamic Courts ("UIC"), an Islamic party. The UIC does not want to work with the interim government and has seized major cities in order to take control of the country where there is still no government since 2004. What a mess!

The next thing that came to my mind is that the conflict is exactly at the south-east of Sudan only. Not far away.

Tags: Ethiopia, Somalia, Conflict, Dispute, War, Union of Islamic Courts, Africa

Santa & His Reindeers

Tags: Christmas, Santa Claus, Reindeer, Humour, Funny

Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas in India

Students join sand sculpture artists to create a 30-meter-long (100-foot-long) Santa Claus sculpture on the Puri golden beach, in the Indian state of Orissa on Christmas Eve, Sunday. Though Hindus and Muslims comprise the majority of the population in India, Christmas is celebrated with much fanfare. (AP Photo/Biswaranjan Rout)
Tags: Christmas, India, Puri, Orissa, Santa Claus, Sand Sculpture

The Skeleton Key / Flightplan - movie review

The Skeleton Key - starring Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt & Peter Sarsgaard. A private hospital nurse, Kate Hudson, was disillusioned with the hospital's policy in caring for the patients. Thus, she quite to take up a private nurse post with an old couple living at south USA. The husband is deaf/dumb/wheelchair bound. The wife's old age is taking a toll in taking care of the husband. The nurse was handed a master key that could open any doors in the 3 storey mansion that will ease her movement.

While staying there, she went up to the attic against the advise of the old lady. She various old pictures of a couple of african housekeepers for the previous white owners. After pressuring the old lady on who they, it was found that both the housekeepers were killed, due to practising black magic, right in front of the house. The old lady believes that the housekeepers stay in the attic all these years.

The nurse's senses spurred her to check further and later obtained simple witchcraft methods to heal the old hubby and just the old hubby could warn her, the old lady found out and was furious with her doings. The movie is excellent with full suspense/thriller. Must watch the movie with loud surround sound to beef up the heart beats. It's not classified as a horror movie but good exercise for your blood circulation in a short span of time.

Flightplan (excellent website) - starring Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean & Kate Beahan. Jodie together with her 6 yrs old daugther were devastated with the death of her husband while overseas. They brought the body back to USA via a tran-atlantic flight and tried to ease her daugther with a good rest at the back seats which were empty. Upon waking up later, she found her daugther has wandered off. She went around looking for her and got the stewardess to page for passengers' lookout too.

The captain of the plane later came to assist but Jodie's frantic search is to no avail. Later, the captain and his crew found that there was no young girl by that name that has boarded the plane and found that Jodie has taken some anxiety pills coupled with the need to handle the husband's death. Her emotions somehow affected all the passengers and was guarded & kept quiet by an air marshall.

A mother's love is always very strong and it pushes her beyond her limits just to find the daugther. She was an airplane designer and just knew where to squeeze through to escape the air marshall and cause pandemonium in the airplane when she cut off the cabin lightings. In the process of it, the air marshall has to act to before something bad happens. Her impulse led her to the daugther but it also cause a misunderstanding that made the plane landed on emergency basis where a bomb was said to be planted. Excellent movie due to Jodie's outstanding character. Another heart pounding and you'll be wondering what actually happened to her daugther, was it just an illusion painted by Jodie when she has her daugther with her in the plane. Well recommended.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, The Skeleton Key, Flightplan, Kate Hudson, Jodie Foster

CHRISTMAS !!

Finding The Joy Of Christmas

Ten Timeless Christmas Traditions

1. Celebrate 12 days of Christmas

2. Organize a Christmas Eve Scripture reading

3. Do something for somebody else

4. Go Christmas caroling together

5. Make Christmas ornaments together

6. Do a missions project as a family

7. Celebrate with music

8. Hold Christmas Communion

9. Organize a game night

10. De-stress Christmas

Christian Meanings For Christmas Traditions

Christmas is a Christian holiday.
Though many non-Christian traditions have grown up around this celebration of the birth of Jesus, there are still many remnants left of its original intent. Nativity scenes, the singing of carols, and other traditions are reminders of its true meaning. Many traditions that don’t seem to have any connection with the Bible’s Christmas story actually began — or were adapted — to point to Jesus. Knowing a little bit about the symbolism of Christmas traditions helps us understand what Christmas is really about.
Here are the stories behind some of our Christmas traditions.

The date: Was Jesus really born on Dec. 25?
In ancient Rome, there was a pagan festival celebrated on this date. Courts and schools were closed, there was no military activity and slaves were even freed temporarily. When Emperor Constantine became a professing Christian, he was influential in instituting the Christian feast of “the birthday of the Sun of righteousness” (Malachi 4:2) as an alternative to the pagan festivities then in practice. This points to the Christian triumph over paganism. By the end of the fourth century, the “Feast of the Nativity of Christ” or the “Christ Mass” was celebrated throughout most of the Christian world.

Secular traditions and excesses eventually dominated, causing Christians to be wary of the celebration. In the 1640s, Puritans in England actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas.
Today some Christians in other parts of the world celebrate Christmas on Jan. 6. We don’t know when Christ was actually born. But it is good to have a set time to honor such an important event.

The Bible says, “Some of the Lord’s followers think one day is more important than another. Others think all days are the same. But each of you should make up your own mind. Any followers who count one day more important than another day do it to honor their Lord” (Romans 14:5,6, CEV). It is not the day, but the honoring of Christ that is important.

Santa Claus: A fourth-century bishop in Myra, Turkey, was named Nicholas. He supported the doctrine of the Trinity at an important church council. He also was extremely generous and loved children. Legend says he rode a white horse and threw coins through open windows to impoverished families.

After his death, he was eventually sainted by the Catholic church and from then on was known as Saint Nicholas. On the eve of Saint Nicholas Day (Dec. 6), some came to believe he visited children with admonitions and gifts, in preparation for the gift of the Christ child. Some even thought he had a companion who carried switches and promised sweets to good boys and girls, but threatened punishment to the bad. (That’s the source of, “You’d better watch out, better not pout … .”) This legend spread throughout the Old World. In other countries he became known as the Christmas Man, Father Christmas, Father January or Grandfather Frost.

The Dutch added customs, such as leaving hay for his horse (later hot chocolate and cookies in the U.S.), and putting out a wooden shoe to be filled by “Sinter Klaas” (the source of our stocking tradition). When the Dutch settled in New Amsterdam (now New York), they brought these traditions with them. In America, Sinter Klaas became “Santa Claus.” The mythos grew here. The red suit today’s Santa wears is actually a poor copy of the bishop’s clothing the original Saint Nicholas would have worn. The name Kriss Kringle is a corruption of Dutch words meaning Christ child (who some said brought gifts on Christmas Eve). By 1842 Kriss Kringle was identified with Santa Claus.

On Christmas today the focus should be on the true story of Christ more than the legend of Santa Claus.

Christmas tree: The use of the evergreen probably began in the eighth century when Saint Boniface brought Christianity to Germany. One variation of this story says he cut down a so-called sacred oak tree to convince the pagans he was preaching to that it was not sacred. When it fell, behind it he found a small fir sapling and dedicated it to the Holy Child.

In the 16th century, Martin Luther popularized decorating trees. One night while walking home shortly before Christmas, he felt a strong love for God and His creation. He placed tapers on a little evergreen to symbolize the forest and the stars. The custom of decorating the tree spread throughout Europe, reaching England in 1841 and the U.S. in 1851. A young pastor named Schwan in Cleveland, Ohio, created a furor by bringing a lighted tree into his church. People thought it was a pagan custom. Later research proved this to be a Christian tradition.

Today, the evergreen Christmas tree represents the Holy Child in His everlasting nature — and the eternal life available to all through Christ.

Presents: Merrymaking and gift giving were originally a part of the ancient Roman celebrations. Only in the last century or so has the tradition of gift giving increased to current proportions. Previous Christian celebrations focused on a giving spirit, with token gifts of food and so forth. The commercialized giving of today neglects the true association of gifts with Christmas. The Christ child received gifts from the Wise Men. We must not forget to give to Him.

The best gift you can give is yourself — a commitment to serve Jesus Christ with your whole life. Another Christian way of giving at Christmas was stated by Jesus himself: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). We should not exchange gifts, but give them. Giving to the needy is one way to do that.

Today: Though these and other customs have obscure origins, their importance is in what they mean today. Christmas is about the Son of God who came to earth to save sinful man. Let’s do our best to keep Christ in our celebration of Christmas.

(Extracted from Assemblies of God)