Summary

    Time is fleeting. There is my 10^th post, and I would like to summarize my blogger about movies.

    The reason why I choose this topic is that there are lots of movies on the shelves, and I consider every movie teaches one or more lessons for me. Therefore, I want to choose some of my favorite movies, talk about them, and tell you what I learned from them.

    In the past nine weeks, I choose different kinds of movies. Some are action movies, others are serious movies, and still others are romantic movies. That is because I want to tell you that not the certain movies but almost all movies can teach you some lessons.

    In addition, not like novels, autobiographies, and other books which took you much time to read, you can learn an important lesson just through a two-hour movie. Therefore, if you are busy, you can still learn lessons without taking much time on it. How worthy it is!

    In the end, I want to say,  ”Movie is one of the human’s great inventions.” When you watch movies, you can temporarily run out of the reality, comfortably release yourself into movies’ background, and learn the lessons from them. Watching movies kills two birds with one stone, so why don’t we watch them?

The Great Gatsby(大亨小傳)

    Well, this week I want to introduce the movie “The Great Gatsby”, which is one of 20^th century classics of America. This movie is adapted from the book of the same name. Before I begin to talk about the movie, I have to tell you that there is not the happy ending in this story. That is because the story is about the dark side of the 20^th century American prosperity.

    Gatsby is the core role in this movie. Daisy is the beautiful woman and Tom’s wife. Nick, who is the speak aside (旁白), is Daisy’s cousin. Gatsby and Daisy were once the couple, but they had to break up because of World War l. Then, Daisy was married with Tom, who is a millionaire.

    After the war, Gatsby inquires about the whereabouts of Daisy (探聽下落), and he knows she isn’t happy at all. Her husband, Tom, even has an extramarital relation(外遇).

Therefore, Gatsby decides to become rich ,attract Daisy’s attention and resume the relationship with her(挽回她).

    Thanks to Nick’s help, Gatsby and Daisy met each other and fall in love immediately. However, in this relationship, Gatsby makes money to attract Daisy, but Daisy falls into the material life so she choose Gatsby. Therefore, in the end, after Gatsby is shot dead, Daisy goes away with Tom.

    The lesson I learned from this movie is that “Money can be a tool, or be the pursuit. It is decided to you, and no one is wrong. Just choose you love, love you choose, and accept the result.” By the way, actually Gatsby knows that Daisy loves money than him, but he still decides to keep loving her.

Crimson Peak(腥紅山莊)

    While, this week I want to introduce the recent movie,《Crimson Peak 》. Somebody consider it so horrible at all. However, it is more like a suspense film(懸疑電影) than a horror film(恐怖電影).Or you can say " It is the dark romance movie."(黑暗愛情電影)

    This story is about a women, Edith Cushing. She is smart and beautiful, and she is also a novel writer. By the way, she can see the ghosts. In some coincidences, she knows Thomas Sharpe, who is sir of Britain(英國的爵士). He is interested in Edith’s novel. They gradually go out together more and more often. Then, Edith falls in love with Thomas deeply, but her father reject it persistently. Strangely, at the day Thomas has to go back to Britain, Edith’s dad is died in the bathroom. Because losing the person she can depend on, Edith decides to go with Thomas to Britain and marries him.

    However, after arriving Thomas’s old villa, she begins to see ghosts everywhere in the house. She is very scared at first, but she gradually knows they are helping her. Then she found there are lots of secrets in this house…..

    The lesson I learned from this movie is that “The real horrible things are usually not the ones seemed scary but the ones seemed normal”. Therefore, we should make decisions with our rationality(理性) but not always with our sensibility(感性).

There is the video of the movie's preview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCSXxAuJFe8

Silver Linings Playbook(派特的幸福劇本)

    This time I want to introduce a romantic film--《Silver Linings Playbook》. The story starts by a man, Pat Solitano, leaving from a mental hospital. He got into there because he became crazy when he saw his wife having an extramarital relation(外遇).

    He always hopes that he can repair the relation between him and his wife. He tries hard to become the best man in his wife. Even if everyone knows his wife won’t come back again, he still does it.

    One day, he meets Tiffany who is also crazy after her husband died. They both consider that they won’t become blessed(幸福) forever. They gradually jogging together every week. Because of some reasons, Tiffany falls in love with Pat, but Pat still misses his wife. Tiffany uses some methods to express her love to Pat, and that finally moves Pat’s heart. They become couples in the end, and they finally understand their happiness is each other.

    The lesson I learned from this movie is that everyone is worthy of happiness, even if you was never happy at all before. (任何人都值得幸福，即使以前從未幸福過。) Hence, don’t be afraid of pursuing happiness, because it absolutely belongs to you!

Tuesdays with Morrie(最後十四堂星期二的課)

    This movie is adapted from the same name book. Some people who have watched this movie consider it boring, but I think it is absolutely a deep movie. The topic of this movie is about life and death. Because of that, lots of people lose their interest. So unfortunate it is.

    The male lead, Mitch, was a normal person----had a stable job and a girlfriend. However, because of boring job and recently girlfriend’s proposal, he lost way in his life little by little. One day, he ran into his college professor, Morrie Schwartz, who had ALS (葛雷克氏症，俗稱漸凍人) and didn’t have too much to be alive.

    Then, he began to visit the professor and ask some question about life every Tuesday. Through the conversation, Mitch gradually found his way and understand his mind.

    Not like other movies, the most important part in this movie is conversation. Because of that, views consider it more similar with our lives, which help viewers learn the meaning of movie deeply.

“When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

Ratatouille(料理鼠王)

    It is a story about a rat, Rémy, want to become a cook. However, although he can understand English and know how to cook well, he cannot achieve his dream just because he is a rat.

    Incidentally, he met a man, Alfredo Linguini, who did some cleaning works in a famous restaurant. He tried to cooperate with Alfredo Linguini and wanted to become a cook by helping Alfredo Linguini. In the process, especially after Alfredo Linguini becoming a famous cook, there were more and more frictions between them. Finally, they fixed, reinforced their relationship, and found that they cannot live without each other.

    The lesson I learned from this movie is “It is impossible to make everyone become great artists, but great artists could come from everywhere possibly.”(不是每個人都能成為偉大的藝術家，但偉大的藝術家可能來自任何地方。)

註:The movie title “Ratatouille” is also a name of a French dish, 南法蔬菜雜燴(雜菜堡)

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty(白日夢冒險王)

    The leader, Walter Mitty, is a manager in a large scale magazine firm, Life. His job is to arrange the photos took by the photographer, Sean O'Connell. In Walter Mitty’s daily life, he usually daydreams. Some dreams are crazy, some are impossible happened, and some are romantic, but he never has enough bravery to do one of them. He just choose the way he always choose.

 One day, lots of employees in Life are fired because of the incorporation, and Life is going to issue the last magazine. Then, Walter Mitty received the photos from Sean O'Connell as usual. However, this time he couldn’t found the 25^th photo everywhere, which Sean O'Connell hoped can be on the cover of the last magazine. Therefore, he decided to walk out , find Sean O'Connell and ask him where the photo was. In the travel, he experienced the volcano eruption, fought against sharks, and climbed Himalayas.( 喜馬拉雅山) After coming back from the travel, he never daydreams at all because he tries to do them all.

In our day life, we just like Walter Mitty : We want to something different but do nothing. We want to express our comments but fear to lose something. And we want to change ourselves but give up finally. “Just do it.” This is what I learned from this movie. Change may be good or not. However, if you don’t change everything, you will never know what will happen and what you will get. You will fill your life with the same day. How boring it is! So, just do it!

About Time(真愛每一天)

    Most of people will consider it is another romantic movie at their first scene, and so do I. However, this movie has more dimension than you think. It is about love which is not only couple but also family and friendship.

    The leading man knows that he can get in and out his memory to change his life as long as he wants when he is 21 years old, and all the men in his family can also do that. Then, he use his superpower to prevent all bad things. For example, when his landlord’s drama failed, he came back to the same time and turned it to the right direction.
    Because of this superpower, he has had the almost perfect life until his sister had a traffic accident. Therefore, he comes back to the past again. However, this time when he return from the past, he finds his child became a boy. Wow, it is “The Butterfly Effect”.(蝴蝶效應)
    As for the continue development, I will not keep talking about because there is lots of details. The last but not least, the leading man finally understands that happiness is not according to how perfect your life is but according to your attitude to your life.
    “我們生活的每一天，都在一起穿越時空。我們能做的就是盡其所能，珍惜這一趟不凡的人生旅程。
    把每一天當作從未來回味的每一天，試著把每一天視為不平凡的一天。”

附註:最後一段中文是電影中的對話。

Moneyball(魔球)

    My second topic of movies is “Moneyball”,which is not much popular than others in public,but it’s a so classic example in economics.By the way,this movie is adapted from the book,” Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”.(魔球:逆境中制勝的智慧)

    The protagonist, Billy Beane, is the general manager of the baseball team, ”Oakland”. This team’s size is smaller than others,and its budget is less,too. Thus,to get more excellent player in limited budget, they usually choose the non much traing youngster in the university.However, as long as they have turned the players into the excellent veterans, the other team which have lots of budget would poach them from Oakland ,just like bandits.

    Some day, after Billy Beane’s player was poached another time, he decides to do something different. He seeks for solution, and fortunately finds out what is that --  Peter Brand. They cooperate and choose the players with the statistics, no longer with the scouts’ feeling. Absolutely,this way arise lots of negative waves,but Billy Beane doesn’t care about it and keeps doing what he considers right.In the end,the team he leads wins the qualification into the playoff series.

    The thing I learn is “If we want to break off the situation,we have to do something different from before” and the spirit Billy Beane has. Even though he faces the negative comments from almost all over the world,he can still insist on what he decides to do. It is praiseworthy.

The Maze Runner (移動迷宮 )

    Today,I want to introduce the movie "The Maze Runner",which is adapted from the same name novel.  I haven't read all three sets of the novel. However,according to the comments wrote by readers,the movies are much better than the novels. Most of reasons of that is the novels don't have the explicit ending and direction,and that they don't have the integrant contents. Nevertheless,the version of movies improve the shortcoming above so that they are more popular than the novels.

    In the second episode,there are also lots of challenges,which are harder and harder,for protagonists to achieve.However,the leader is more maturity instead of childishness.He know more better how to lead others,but because everyone's lives is chosen by his decision,he feels pressd by tons of stone on his chest.

    As long as we are in a group, we always have the opptunity to be a leader, but only a few people really know how to lead others well. Thus,although the protagonist is not the excellent leader,I still consider he can let me know what problem I would meet. Finally,I hope the next time when you watch these movies,not only notice the sound and light effect of them, but also be aware of the protagonist's mind changes from his face.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2i4FfHebYw