Decision

Have you ever watched Moneyball? I have just did. The movie is about a baseball manager who applied a new style of putting a player based on statistical performances to win the match. His name was Billy Beane. Brad Pitt acted as him as a cold attitude kind of person. He was also a stubborn 40 years old ex-baseball player. One moment showed it when he asked his baseball team owner, to give more funding to buy players. The reason is surely to win the league. Unfortunately, his owner said that Oakland Athletics (A’s) was not have a huge budget. To be survived in the main league, is even more, too good to be true.

Billy Beane once have been a baseball player. It all started in his upcoming high school graduation in early 1980s. He was offered to two options of his future career: to be a baseball athlete, or go to prestigious college. He chose number one. A flashback of his past was showed along, with the moment when he struggled to save A’s. With his facial expression and gesture, we’ve got to known that he was regret to choose those path. Until one “eureka” moment came along.

He met Peter Brand, a data analyst that helped Billy to use a technique called sabermetrics. By using this way of managing player, he put a lot of statistical numbers as consideration to choose to buy or sell baseball player(s). The result was satisfying, A’s won the game for 20 times in a row. 

Actually sabermetrics was first ackowledged in the early of 19th century. Even so, Billy and Peter was fully use it in that first decade of 20th century. Oakland Athletic’s didn’t came as a winner for the tournament. Nevertheless, under Billy Beane’s managerial tactic, there was one magical moment that he (always) missed—Billy was never watched their team played. Peter showed him at the end of their 20nd victory on a recorded video. There was a fat player dying to run to the base after he beat the ball. Unbeknownst, he pointed a home run—his ball thrown highly so that their enemy cannot interupt the batter to run over the circle to make a point. So, actually he hasn’t need to did so because afterall, his statistical record proved that he could did it. And Beane gave him that chance. You ought to watch it by your own to see this serenical climactic moment.

At the end of the film, Beane was offered a job as GM on another team: Red Sox. Reffering to his experience on leaving college scholarship for baseball (and money), he took one crucial choice: decline the offer that would make him “the highest-paid GM in the history of sports.” Beane said, “I made one decision in my life based on money and I swore I’d never do it again.” []

Shadow

Imagine you are in this kind of condition: an Iranian mother who lives in a high rise building in the middle of war situation. At the same time, you were haunted by a jinn. That’s the story you would see when you are watching Under The Shadow. I have seen it a few days ago after the movie was released in 2016. Formerly, I have heard several reviews said that this Iranian film served us an intense fear and terror feeling. Does it really do?

Under The Shadow tells the story of an Iranian wife whom his husband leave her and their daughter to go to work. It was situated in the early 1980s, when Iran and Iraq confronted in a military war. One day, their building was attacked. On one hand, she has to survived, but on the other hand she have to persuade her daughter to come along. The problem is, they were haunted by a ghost. Moreover, they were separated by the spirit’s incitement.

This film showed us of how Iranian portray ghost appearance. Same with how we see ghost in Indonesia (and another country in Southeast Asia), Iranian—based on Under The Shadow—also see women as a the scariest ghost. Even so, in this film she came with no face. All of her body was covered with a spreading fabric, and using that cloth to terrorized her (allegedly) daughter. I’m not sure about whether she was really are or not, because there were no blatant clue to said so. The figure of mother only showed through the dialogue and writing in the book whom saved secretly by the main character. 

Perhaps, that was just the way of how Iranian filmmaker delivered the story. Once in the past, I have watched another Iranian movie called A Separation. That Abbas Kiarostami’s movie was not precisely ended up the divorce process of one household. We as a viewer, decided by ourselves with considering each and every character involved on it. I guess—without being generalizing—that’s the beauty of Iranian art of moving pictures. []

Joshua

What did you do when you were 18 years old? There was a boy in Hong Kong who managed to gather people in his country to fight against tyranny. His name is Joshua Wong. I watched a story of him through the movie called Joshua: Teenager vs Superpower.

The movie was started with a glimpse of Hong Kong’s history in the day when they handovered from British Empire’s territory at 1997. Since then, Chinese government handled Hong Kong as one of its area based on a principle called: one nation, two systems. It means that Hong Kong has its own government. The problem is, leader of Hong Kong was dictated—or chosen—by Chinese government. It means that their program would not be dedicated to the people of Hong Kong, because they weren’t choose their own leader. 

As time goes by, Hong Kong government was going to adopted the Chinese education system. Meanwhile, Chinese government thinks that Hong Kong’s students are not nationalistic enough. The nationalism term in Chinese national education context, means obedience. Joshua, was rise against that idea. Through Facebook, he and his friends creates an organization named Scholarism. They fought for their future by occupied public space. Long story short, in September 2012, chief executive of Hong Kong announced that national education system was not a mandatory. Joshua was win.

Another success story of defending Hong Kong’s freedom from Chinese pressure, was happened in early 2014. Joshua and friends, gathered with activist Benny Tai whom declared to fight for national suffrage. They tried to get out from Chinese domination in choosing their own political leader through a mass action called Occupy Central. CY Leung took a hard action to defend national conductivity. Police push mass hardly to clear the occupied place. Even more, they attacked Joshua when he was speaking in the middle of demonstrant. Nevertheless, Joshua kept his chin up. He said he will never stop make hong kong is hong kong again. 

At last, Scholarism turned into a political party. Some of the activist ride through it to make their political goals comes true—to fight for freedom beneath legislative board. On the other hand, Joshua was found guilty on unlawful assembly. A few days ago, Joshua was freed after he has been detained for one month. And Hong Kong, once again fell to the battlefield. This time, people fought for anti extradition law. Will they be the victor? []

Memorize

By submitting netflix’ subcription, I have a chance to watch so many movies. By this week, at least eleven movies i have watched. The last 2 movies was a classic movies: MiB and Kungfu Hustle. MiB was first released at 1997. It tells the story about special forces who handled problems referring to alien activities on planet earth. Actually, the latest film of MiB was released last month. And I haven’t seen it (even more, not interested to do so) due to negative review about it. The first MiB saga, somehow felt fresh. I still can released some laugh at the moment where local police officer named James Edward—whom then known as Agent J—tried to catch a running alien-human in the streets of New York. 

“New York is now raining with a black people”, he said when jumped down to the opened-ceiling-tour-bus. The dialogue showed how he mock himself—as black guy. The same pattern was used when J joined a selection of an upcoming new agent of MiB. He asked Zed about the purpose of being there: running some test with a number of best of the best of the best marine, army, and other military person. One of them answered Edward with the exact answer as Zed told: to be the best of the best of the best—without knowing theirown roles later. James then mocked him as a “captain america” with silly expression. 

The same sensation, I got from the second classical movie: Kungfu Hustle. It was produced in Hong Kong at 2004. Stephen Chow played as the main character—and director as well. He roled as a clumsy boy whom tried to scam residents of one village in order to get a staggering reputation as member of the axe gang—in fact, he wasn’t. Unpredictably, he found out that almost all of the villagers are doing well in kungfu fighting. Among them, also live 2 legendary self defense virtuoso whom inevitably has to woke their power up to defend their home from the brutality of axe gang. Unbeknownst of himself, the boy has a kungfu super power as well.

I guess, this was the second best action movies that i have ever saw. The first place belongs to The Raid 2: Berandal (2014). Those two titles offered a beautiful fighting scene. Those are shot in a medium close up composition, so that we can see from a wider perspective of how the fight runs out. Kungfu Hustle feels more special because it’s comedic taste. The moment when the main character challenged villagers to fight, was the most hillarious one. We can trully feel the interesting usage of “setup-punchline” pattern in almost all over the movie. 

MiB and Kungfu Hustle are two memorable movies that up till now, still feel warm to enjoy. Even so, I have another movie that I have been watched lately, and gave a strong comedic/ satiric/ sadistic effect. I recommend You to watch this one: Parasite (2019). []

Lost

One day, Windi, Sara and I went to supermarket. We bought daily goods. As windi picks this and that, I took Sara to stroll around the store. Sometimes, I let her move quite far from me, about 10 to 15 meters away. As I met Windi in one certain point, she asked me where Sara is. Jokingly said, i told her that I didn’t know. Right after that, worry face aroused. It seems like she’s going to scream out to call Sara, if I wasn't told her that Sara was still around. Shortly after that, Sara appeared from racks with her jolly tiny footsteps. 

The same moment happened to Marie when she lost Sara—her daughter. Marie and Sara are a fictional characters in the movie that I have saw on Netflix entitled Arkangel. It was part of a series named Black Mirror. Black Mirror tells different stories about the dark side of near future probable condition. In this particular episode, it depicts us about how Marie uses an apps (actually it was an internet-of-things) to control her daughters whereabouts. 

It was started when Marie losts Sara for the first time when her daughter was 3 years old. She ran for a cat in the park, out of her mom’s supervision. Then, Marie implanted a device from a company named Arkangel to her daughter’s body. So much so that she can see what Sara sees, or even further, can modify her daughter’s vision to some kind of harms. Unfortunately, it was irreplacable. Sara grew with the Arkangel and faced several teenage “naughty/ natural” moments, under her mothers access to the device. What happened next, leads to their separation. As if they meant to be away, since Sara was a little.

The movie made me think about how we should keep a healthy relationship with our daughter. On one hand, we tend to be overprotective, but on another one, we also ought to trust to our child's level of growth--and accompany them as well. []