Khamis
Tak ada aktiviti hari nih, lepak kat bilik aje sepanjang hari sementara tunggu masa nak pergi kerja. On the way ke subway, singgah bayar bill talipun/internet. Nasib baik lah Sprint Instinct phone tuh sold out, kalau tak, harus dah aku rembat satu. Tak ada lah pasal apa pun nak tukar cellphone baru, cuma aku nih gitulah, bila ada duit sikit tuh, mula lah nak beli itu ini.
Jumaat
Malam semalam aku makan NightQuils sebelum tidur, sebab aku rasa macam susah aje nak tidur. So lena lah aku tidur nya, dan walaupun aku terbangun pukul 5 tuh, lepas lepak-lepak sekejap, aku sambung semula tidur. Biasanya aku akan terbangun lagi sekali sebelum pukul 7 sebab kat luar dah cerah.
Tapi, bila aku sedar-sedar, jam dah pukul 8 pagi, sedangkan aku biasanya dah di Chelsea masa tuh, sebab aku akan kerja kat apartment MamatGQ tuh hari nih. Dah terlewat, selamba ajelah aku, sempat online jugak lagi tuh. Sampai apartment dia pun dah pukul 9 setengah, gila lambatnya aku. Tapi sebelum tuh aku dah talipun MamatGQ, aku kata train lambat, ada masalah, dia kata tak kisahlah pukul berapa aku nak datang pun since I have the keys to his apartment kan?
Tapi aku lah pulak yang rasa tak seronok sebab tak dapat jumpa dia, tak dapat nak sembang-sembang sedangkan aku selalunya betul-betul look forward to have a chat dengan dia, yang biasanya will make my entire day kan?
Aku terserempak dengan dia kat lobby, dia dah nak pergi kerja dah, dia kata dia ingatkan aku akan sampai lewat so dia blah lah dulu. Cerita sesikit gitu ajelah, sembang-sembang pasal konsert semalam.
"Wait, you can't just leave me like that!", aku kata kat dia masa dia dah nak blah, aku tengah tunggu lif masa tuh. Aku pandang dia, muka macam terkejut aje. Puas aku menahan nak gelak.
"What? Oh, I forgot to leave you some money", kata MamatGQ sambil keluarkan wallet.
Aku pergi dekat dia, aku hulur fist, ajak dia berlaga penumbuk. Puas dia gelak bila dia terperasan yang aku suruh dia tunggu tuh sebab nak laga fists.
Aku ambik lunch kat Thai restaurant yang kat Forest Hills, lepas Sembahyang Jumaat kat Jackson Heights. Malam pulak, David/Hal ada guest, aku terpaksa tunggu sampai pukul 9, itupun takat prepare tempat tidur Hal aje, sesambil bersihkan dia sebelum dia tidur.
Sabtu
David keluar harinih, seharian, sebab ada member dia ajak tengok Broadway show sempena birthday dia yang lepas. Seharian lah aku dengan Hal harinih, dia asyik nak suruh aku urut aje kerjanya, dua kali, sejam lebih setaip kali urut tuh. Sampai nak tertidur aku dibuatnya, dia syok aje berdengkur bila kena urut tuh.
Balik kerja terus aje aku ke Lincoln Plaza Cinema kat Columbus Circle/Lincoln Square, dah lama dah tak tengok wayang, dah seminggu lebih kot. Sure banyak filem-filem baru. Memang pun, ada dua filem yang sold-out, Tell No One (film French) sama Brideshead Revisited. Aku kena tengok dua-dua nih, tapi tiket tak ada pulak dah, show yang ada pun show pukul 8, so aku belilah tiket pukul 8.
Selama aku duduk Amerika, tak pernah aku masuk panggung yang penuh sampai tak ada kerusi kosong. Dan sebab aku masuk 10 minit sebelum film mula (biasanya dibenarkan masuk dalam 10 minit sebelum wayang ditayangkan. Ituhari masa first time masuk Lincoln Plaza cinema tuh, aku kena halau sebab masuk awal sangat, dalam 20 minit sebelum wayang. Itu yang aku masuk lambat sikit kali nih tuh).
Aku dapat seat yang barisan kedua dari depan, mamposlah sakit tengkuk, itu yang bersandar aje tuh, macam tengok wayang sambil baring pulak jadinya. Tak lama filem mula, adalah this one old lady masuk, sambil dorong kerusi roda yang pesakitnya lelaki tua. Nak duduk sebelah aku, so aku cepat-cepat tanggalkan seat belt orang tua tuh, aku lipatkan foot-rest kerusi roda tuh, terus aku dukung PakCik tuh (kurus aje orangnya, itu yang aku dukung tuh), much to thier surprise sebab aku tak kata apa-apa pun, tak mintak permission pun.
"Don't worry, I work as a caregiver, Ma'am", aku kata gitu. Tak henti-henti Makcik tua tuh berterima kasih kat aku, dalam hati aku kata, "kalau dia offer aku jadi caregiver PakCik tuh kan ker best, sure diaorang nih orang kaya yang duduk kat area-area Central Park West nih".
Best ceritanya filem tuh, nih sinopsis/review dia (yang aku copy paste aje nih) pasal aku tahu filem-filem gini tak mungkin tayang kat Malaysia kan? Lagipun, nak kasi panjang sikit entry aku ekekekeke
This French adaptation of Harlan Coben’s 2001 best seller is the kind of conspiracy-minded mystery almost no one seems capable of creating anymore, except David Lynch in his surreal way. Watching it is like gorging on a hot- fudge sundae in the good old days when few worried about sugar and fat. There are no bogus geopolitics weighing it down with a spurious relevance. Beautifully written and acted, “Tell No One” is a labyrinth in which to get deliriously lost.
The story, which involves murder and depravity in high places, is so elaborately twisty that about halfway through the movie you stop trying to figure it out and let its polluted waters wash over you, trusting that the denouement will reveal all. It does and it doesn’t. When the truth spills out, and ugly revelations pile onto one another in an extended final confession, the puzzle pieces fit more snugly than those of “The Big Sleep,” the granddaddy of impenetrable noirs. But one of the pleasures of both films is surrendering to a vision of corruption and evil that resists tidy explanations.
The protagonist, Alex Beck (François Cluzet), is a kindhearted pediatrician in Paris who goes out of his way to help the poor in the clinic where he works. He is also a spiritual cousin of Scottie Ferguson from “Vertigo” in his obsession with a woman who may or may not be dead.
As the story begins, he and his wife, Margot (Marie-Josée Croze), are revisiting the remote country lake where they spent summers as children and became sweethearts who carved their initials on a tree. Blissfully married decades later, they return to swim nude in the moonlight, then sprawl on the offshore raft where they have a minor squabble about real estate. Margot abruptly departs and disappears into the woods. A minute later Alex hears a stifled cry. Scrambling to shore, he is struck on the head while pulling himself out of the water. He remains in a coma for three days.
While Alex, who was inexplicably pulled to shore, recuperates, Margot’s father, Jacques (André Dussollier), an imperious police inspector, identifies his daughter’s body in the woods. In the film’s most wrenching moment Alex comes apart in a drunken reverie remembering her cremation, as Jeff Buckley’s version of the early-’50s torch song “Lilac Wine” is heard on the soundtrack.
On the eighth anniversary of Margot’s death, Alex, still numb with grief, is interrogated by the police after two bodies are unearthed near the site of her murder, along with a key to a safe-deposit box that contains incriminating photos and a bloodstained weapon that connects him to Margot’s death.
Simultaneously, Alex begins receiving anonymous e-mail messages directing him to a Webcam video of a woman who appears to be Margot, gazing anxiously into a surveillance camera. An attached message warns: “Tell no one. They’re watching.” He begins a desperate undercover search for the woman, suddenly believing Margot may still be alive.
The characters encompass a wide swath of Parisian society. Alex’s confidante and best friend, Hélène (Kristin Scott Thomas), is the wealthy lover of his secretive younger sister, Anne (Marina Hands), a competitive equestrian. Through Hélène, Alex acquires a high-powered defense lawyer (Nathalie Baye), who begins to doubt Alex’s innocence after he flees the police.
Just as Alex is about to be taken into custody, a gangster (Gilles Lellouche), whose hemophiliac son’s life was saved by Alex in the clinic, rescues him and spirits him to a safe hiding place in a working-class suburb where young toughs delight in foiling the police. The rescue follows a thrilling chase sequence worthy of “North by Northwest.” Like that 1959 classic, “Tell No One” is about an innocent man on the run with nowhere to turn. Mr. Cluzet may not be Cary Grant, but he is a convincing Everyman with a heart and soul stretched to the breaking point.
“Tell No One” is pure, nasty fun. I watched it twice. It was even better the second time.
Ahad.
Mamposlah, dah dekat pukul 2 baru David/Hal nak keluar tengok wayang. Sebenranya David tak nak ke mana-mana sangat sebab dia dah keluar di sebelah pagi, tapi bila dia tengok Hal dah bersiap nak keluar aje petang tuh, (macam budak kecik yang tunggu bapak dia aje, bersiap sambil tunggu dekat pintu, the moment bapak dia balik, terus ajak keluar) so terpaksalah dia kata ok.
Hal nak ajak tengok MammaMia, aku pun ok aje lah sebab walaupun aku dah tengok, apa salahnya aku tengok lagi sekali kan? Aku suka filem tuh, tengok beratus kali pun aku rasa ok, sama level dengan filem Moulin Rouge lah nih, yang dah aku tengok berpuluh-puluh kali. Lagi best tengok kali kedua nih sebab David/Hal pun suka filem tuh.
Cepat-cepat aku siapkan Hal, balik aje dari tengok wayang. Dia nak berak lah, nak buat catheter lah, semuanya lah. Itu yang aku terpaksa tunggu sampai dekat 6 petang tuh sedangkan Sundays aku biasanya habis kerja pukul 5. Lagi pulak tuh, aku dah plan nak tengok Brideshead Revisited, nasib baik aku tak buat advance order semalam tuh, kalau tidak, sure rugi aje.
Ngam-ngam aku sampai, film pun main, again, kali ini penuh jugak panggung, penuh dengan orang tua-tua aje. I'm a sucker for British films kan, so memang aku suka lah Brideshead Revisited tuh walaupun jalan ceritanya kadang tuh membosankan. Ini review/sinopsis film tuh.
The story is told by Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), who when we meet him, is a famous painter, a guest on a postwar Atlantic crossing. On board, he encounters Julia Mottram (Hayley Atwell), who when she was Julia Flyte in the years between the wars, inflamed Charles with love. That he was previously, less ardently, in love with her brother Sebastian (Ben Whishaw) was a complication. That he was a middle-class boy infatuated with the entire family -- their inherited Marchmain title, their wealth, their history, their great mansion Brideshead -- was in a way at the bottom of everything.
The novel begins during the war, when Charles is posted to Brideshead, requisitioned as a military headquarters. His memories come flooding back, bittersweet, mournful. Time rolls back to the autumn day at Oxford, when Charles has moved into his ground-floor rooms just in time for Sebastian to throw up through the open window. Sebastian is a dazzling youth, witty, beautiful, the center of a gay coterie. Charles is not his type, is apparently not even gay, but that for Sebastian is the whole point, and he takes the boy under his arm.
The friendship between Charles and Sebastian during a summer holiday at Brideshead is enchanted, and platonic until a tentative but passionate kiss. Then Lady Julia comes into view, and during a later holiday in Venice, she and Charles fall in love -- and Sebastian is shattered when he realizes it. To blame his disintegration on lost love would be too simple, however, because from being an alcoholic, he rapidly progresses into self-destruction in the hashish and opium dens of Morocco, his youthful perfection turned into a ghastly caricature.
At the center of all of this is Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson, in a superb performance). Of her son's proclivities, she professes a certain vagueness. Of her daughter's love for Charles, she makes it clear that it is not the matter of his lower caste that is the problem (that could be lived with) but the fact that he is an atheist, and the Marchmains have been Roman Catholic from time immemorial.
This theme must have attracted Waugh because he was a Catholic convert, and was fascinated by the division between Catholics and Protestants as a social as well as a religious issue. Catholicism was once a practice punishable by death in England, and no doubt hidden somewhere in the stones of Brideshead is an ancient "priest hole," used by aristocratic Catholic families to conceal a priest if royal troops came sniffing. Lady Marchmain (and Julia) are not casually Catholic, but believe firmly in the dogma of the church, and that any unbaptized children would be forbidden the sight of God. Since Charles will not renounce his atheism, he loses Julia, although not before first going as an ambassador for Lady Marchmain to Sebastian -- one of the film's best scenes.
There are two peculiar fathers in the film. Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon), still officially married of course, lives in exile in a Venetian palazzo with his mistress Cora (Greta Scacchi). Charles' father (Patrick Malahide) is a pronounced eccentric who lives embalmed in a London house and apparently prefers playing chess with himself to conversing with his son. He is a character from Dickens.
Charles is Dickensian in a way, too: The impecunious but parentless youth adrift in an unfamiliar social system. Matthew Goode plays him as a little bland, a mirror for the emotions he attracts. Whishaw steals all of his scenes as Sebastian, the carefree ones and the doom-laden ones. Atwell, as Julia, could have been drawn a little more carefully. The actress does what she can, but why, really, does Julia marry the odious and insufferable Rex Mottram, who is nothing more than a marked-down Jay Gatsby?
While elegantly mounted and well acted, the movie is not the equal of the TV production, in part because so much material had to be compressed into such a shorter time. It is also not the equal of the recent film "Atonement," which in an oblique way touches on similar issues. But it is a good, sound example of the British period drama; mid-range Merchant-Ivory, you could say. And I relished it when Charles' father barely noticed that he had gone away to Oxford -- or come back, for that matter.
Aku punya komen? Charles wanted everything but in the end he got nothing. He even let go some of the things he really wanted. Pasal aku rasa aku macam boleh relate dengan diri aku aje cara Charles nih?
See, dalam dua hari, 3 wayang aku tengok, ekekekekkee, what a life kan? Banyak lagi filem-filem yang aku belum tengok, tapi I have no desire pun nak tengok Batman, The Dark Knight. Ataupun Hancock. Aku nih berjiwa lembut orangnya, orang berjiwa kasar jer kot yang suka filem-filem gitu tuh.
