KNIVES OUT

        Knives Out is a multiple genre movie where it contains thriller, mystery, comedy, crime and many more. This American movie was written and directed by Rian Johnson which the movie is about a dysfunctional family where the siblings don’t want anything except for their father’s property.  This movie have confusing plots where it could make their viewers made their own interpretations about each character.

        This movie is about an old man name Harlen Thrombey, a successful mysterious writer was found dead by his housekeeper in his room while his hand still holding a knife which makes it look like he killed himself. But the question is why would he killed himself when he has lots of fame and fortune? It happened at midnight when his caretaker Marta Cabrera who played by Ana De Armas, accidentally injected the wrong drugs with high dosage into him and she couldn’t find the antidote. It was planned by others to frame her but fortunately with the help of Harlen Thrombey, he created a false alibi to save Marta’s family especially her mother who is undocumented immigrant.

         A couple of cops, Lieutenant Elliott and Trooper Wagner came to Thrombey’s estate to investigate deeper into this case. This case will be completely unsolved without the help of a private investigator name Benoit Blanc, who was hired anonymously with an envelope full of cash and the news about the “suicide”.  Almost all of them are potentially the killer because they all hold grudge onto the old man, Harlen Thrombey. He did such an amazing job putting in hidden details that most likely foreshadow later events. For an example, Harlen Thrombey has a secret way to communicate with his daughter through a piece of paper and Benoit Blanc manage to discover.

         I could say that the most outstanding feature is their filming site. This movie was filmed at a mansion called “The Ames Mansion in Bordeland State Park”, which makes the movie have more mysterious vibe.

         I never thought of how interesting this movie is going to be before I watch it. If I have to give a rating of it, I would give it a solid 8/10 since I really love the genre thriller. Anyhow it could be a bit bored to anyone who don’t like a movie that has really slow start. Once you watch this movie, you will become like a detective yourself, not only you will be searching of the details of what happened that night, but how the social message has embedded in all of it. 

WAKE ME UP by AVICII

 

In the middle of 2013, the song ‘Wake Me Up’ was released by a Swedish DJ named Tim Bergling or famously known as Avicii and had become a hot sensation and mesmerized people all over ever since. The song spread like wildfire to every corner of the world and was played on repeat on all platforms. On YouTube itself, ‘Wake Me Up’ has been played over 9 billion times. The singer and writer for this incredible song, Aloe Blacc stated to the reporters that the song was inspired by true events that had happened in his life.

       ‘Wake Me Up’ comes as a very nostalgic song to us these days, as we are tuning in to it, we could understand the meaning of the song. Listening to it makes you want to enjoy life and cherish it wholeheartedly because it is something that happens only once. Imagine yourself roaming the streets at night with your friends by your side as this specific music plays along, it truly makes you sing along with the lyric, “So wake me up when it is all over”. The song speaks so much of our youth life, our rebellious state. The pumped up feeling you get as you let the bass beat through your body, the little dance we danced when this song run through our headphone wires.

       The singer and songwriter, Aloe Blacc stated that the birth of the song title ‘Wake Me Up’ come across him as he was on the road thinking about how great of a life he had lived, how it all felt like a dream and someone should wake him up when it is all over, hence ‘Wake Me Up’.  The song was originally made to be an acoustic but then Avicii tipped in and remixed the song into what we know now as the sensational dance electronica song we listen to today. Other than Avicii and Aloe Blacc, American guitarist Mike Einzigler also played a part in writing the song. The song was written in only 2 hours at Einzigler’s house. 

         The song was made public in June 2019 and had achieved the number one spot in more than 20 countries like Germany, Sweden, The United Kingdom and so much more. It peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 at the time and today it has over than 1 billion streams on Spotify. To make things even better, ‘Wake Me Up’ sold over 4 million copies in United States that year only and is the first electronica song that achieved that much of sales.

        Unfortunately, Avicii passed away over suicide back in 2018. Though he may not be here anymore, we could still listen to his songs every now and then. His musical masterpieces would still be cherished, today, tomorrow, and possibly forevermore.

INCEPTION (2010)

A genius man called Christopher Nolan directed a movie called “Inception” which was released in 2010. It is an action movie with bits of violence scene in it that makes it suitable with it’s rating which is parental guidance for those under the age of 13. The movie barely used any 3D graphics, instead they used green screen to make the visual effects. We might lose ourselves in the movie filled with thriller elements along with visionary set pieces, grand imagery and exciting twists.  

      It is a fiction movie where Leonardo DiCaprio played a character named Domm Cobb who is a divorced man that can visit someone else’s mind while both parties sleeping. The storyline is quite slow but if you really focus you on it you can understand it well. 

    Domm Cobb put himself as an object in a dream so that he can control it and make it seem real for that person. Besides that, they can do something crazy in their own dream to create closed loops as a trick. This will help to expose the boundaries about their own dream that they contrive. Even so, it can be too impossible to analyze the dream because of the instability and because the object is motivated by emotion. 

 Some of the dreams can turn into reality which can cause them to wake up. For instance, every time Domm tries to see others’ dreams, he always gets a shadow of his past which is his late wife. Cobb is actually risking himself to get a vision of his wife as he can’t move on with his wife’s death that gave a big impact to his life. 

In order to change the superpower in the dream and change his father’s mind, they need a positive emotion reaction and that is Robert Fishcer who is played by Cillian Murphy.

To make things worse, some of them can get stuck in a dream for 10 years. That only happens if they finish all three levels which might take three to four months to complete. To escape from the dream, they have to use a “kick“ that is strong and usually happen when you are drifting away from your sleep. 

 No matter how deep in sleep the dreamers are in, they can still feel the sense of pain or something triggering like falling down from a building. It also synchronizes with the trick. Domm and his friends has to complete the three stages of inception and they have to use something as a countdown like music. 

 Notwithstanding that,this movie is little bit complicated to understand and the twist is surprising. By watching this movie,I realized it has a resemblance with the movie Doctor Stranger as both characters can control something that is beyond anyone else’s power.  Similar to Inception, Doctor Strange can control the multiverse and he is the source of other characters that wants to go to another verse or return to the past. 

 It shows that Inception is what every director wished for the storyline. Even though at first it is slow but at the end it quickly mesmerizes people’s minds.

AVATAR (2009)

      A movie called “AVATAR”, produced as well as directed by James Cameron was released on 2009. It was an eye-opener for people to see their incredible CGI as well as advanced 3D graphics.

    In a short period of time, James Cameron succeeded to create such technology in order to make the movie happen.    

 Leading the cast members is Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a former U.S. Marine who inhabits the body of the species called the avatars and were created by the scientists to discover more about the planet called “PANDORA”. That remotely controlled body or the avatar, was actually belongs to his brother who died for unknown reasons.

    Zoe Saldana was casted as Neytiri, one of the species that inhabits the planet and is part of the Na’vi Tribe that are blue-skinned with golden eyes and each one of them are probably around 12 feet tall.

   Sigourney Weaver who played as a scientist named Dr. Grace Augustine acted as a very powerful voice in the movie. Not to mention Stephen Lang acted as Colonel Miles Quaritch who used the harsh way to approach the Na’vi people.

 “PANDORA” is an earth-sized planet that was discovered by a great scientists from Earth for their rich mineral called “UNOBTANIUM” that is worth billions and were located under the Na’vi tribe’s home which is addressed as ‘the hometree’ for humans.

 Since Pandora doesn’t show any remote threat towards Earth, they send ex -militaries to attack and conquer them.

The relationship between humans and aliens were going downhill because of humans greediness towards the unobtanium. The humans trying to give the Na’vi an offering such as educations, medicines, roads and other things that human have but the Na’vi doesnt want any of that. They just want human to go back to their own planet.

   As Jake Sully were trying to save the Na’vis, the Na’vis were eager to fight back the humans or so called the sky people.

 Since the body he inhabits isn’t his, he’s been in and out from the avatar body and makes it hard to explain what is going on to the Na’vi tribe.  At the end, he convinced the Na’vis that he is ready to be part of them and permanently transfer his soul to his avatar body to protect and fight for their tribe against the sky people.

 In this movie, they showed us the that the sky people won’t show any mercy toward the avatars

All of the conflicts that happened there changes the perspective for both species. Some human find that they belong there with the Na’vi but some find it hard to adapt with them as they were trying to protect their home and was attacked by humans.   This movie will definitely make you believe that the planet Pandora is real because of the advanced graphic that nobody expected in that era.