Songs of Peace

In commemoration of Peace Day, and inspired by a good friend odf mine, I decided to compile a top 10 songs that, in my opinion, voicing messages of peace. So, here goes (in random order):

1. New Seekers - I'd Like to Teach The World to Sing

"I'd like to see the world for once all standing hand in hand, and hear them echo through the hills for peace throughout the land."

2. Live - The Beauty of Grey

"The perception that divides you from him is a lie. For some reason we never asked why."

3. Michael Jackson - Heal The World

"There are ways to get there if you care enough for the living. Make a little space, make a better place..."

4. Zee Avi - The Book Of Morris Johnson

"If you can't stop at least smile as you go by. Sometimes you just got to know how to feel."

5. Sting - Love Is The Seventh Wave

"At the still point of destruction. At the centre of the fury. All the angels, all the devils all around us can't you see?"

6. Queen - Under Pressure

"Cause love is such an old-fashioned word and love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the light and love dares you to change our ways of caring about ourselves."

7. Frente - Cuscutlan

"And fatherland raped motherhood and told her it was for the global good, and now we ring the mission bell to warn their children."

8. Blue feat. World Singers - One Love

"Oh I do believe, one love is all we need!"

9. USA for Africa - We Are The World

"We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving!"

10. Black Eyed Peas feat. Justin Timberlake - Where Is The Love?

"Can you practive what you preach? Or would you turn the other cheek?"

Lucy: The Truly Transcended One

I have not particularly been a fan of Scarlett Johansson; but I got to admit that she has produced extremely good movies lately. Aside from that, I have two more reasons why I went and watched Lucy: First, I am a sucker for sci-fi movies. Second, because I think the trailer is damn awesome. 

A friend of mine once wrote in her blog: "Never expect [anything] before you watch [a movie]."* I never succeeded in following her advise. I always have a certain degree of expectation when  I went and watched a movie. And Lucy was no different. I was not keen on routinely checking IMDB, so I gather my pre-understanding of Lucy through the poster and trailer.

Based on what I can conclude, it was a movie about a girl who accidentally, by some weird twist of fate, ingested a drug that would enable her to unlock 100% of her brain. Which is, highly unlikely to happen, as an average human being only use a mere 10% of his/her brain. And let's face it, most of us are average that way. In other words, I thought Lucy would be the female version of Bradley Cooper in Limitless. Boy, I have never been so wrong before in my life.

"It's gonna be another day with the
sunshine..." Wait! We are not talking
about this member of the Jang family!

So, the movie started with Lucy arguing with his boyfriend Richard, who asks her to do an errand for him. Delivering a locked case to a Mr. Jang inside a hotel. When Lucy refused, he basically tricked her into doing the chores, which sent Lucy in a spiral of mayhem. Don't worry. Richard died in the first scene.

To make a long story short, the bloodlust Mr. Jang forcefully made Lucy a drug mule by dissecting her stomach and put a package of a new synthetic drugs, CPH4, inside her. Something went wrong and the CPH4 package inside Lucy's stomach broke, making her experience a surreal, out-of-this-world experience, which transformed her (or in this case, her neurons) and enables her to unlock portions of her brains that ordinary humans cannot access. This, consequently, bestowed her superpowers: illustrious perception; astonishing reflexes; an, in time, even the ability to include elements within and around her.

At this time, I realised that Lucy is nothing like Eddie Mora. While Limitless focus on Eddie's struggle on surviving, Lucy is far more complicated than that. I am surprised that Lucy, both the entirety of the movie and the character herself, turns out to be highly philosophical.

I like that the movie is really straightforward. Once Lucy realised that she is transforming, she immediately seek what is necessary for her to survive. The problem was presented really early on, and we do not wait through the euphoria phase, which we saw in Limitless. Lucy transformed into a cold, highly strategic version of herself, claiming she is unable to feel pain and emotion. This is one part of the movie that I disagree with. I can understand if she cannot feel pain, as pain are mostly regulated by reflexes, however I think it doesn't make sense if she is unable to feel emotion. If she is able to gain access to her whole brain, why would this access deter her from making use of her limbic system? If any, her emotion should be heightened, not turned off.

Another thing I love about the movie, it did not waste any moment on trying to narratively explain all the science stuff, as many sci-fi movies did before it. Instead, this movie managed to beautifully depicts every science aspects visually. And as a very visual person, I highly enjoyed this method of presentation. Especialy because it allows the people watching to ponder upon their own thoughts for answers.

In terms of characters, I love how this movie keeps the character numbers slim; thus keeping the story focused on problem at hand. Most of the main characters are memorable in their own way. The victimised Lucy, the sadistic Mr. Jang, the flamboyant Limey, and the uptight Del Rio. That's all that's count. Oh, wait! We also have Morgan Freeman. But I don't think his character was memorable. Perhaps intentionally so. Me and my friends talked about how Liam Neeson would be a far better professor, but then again he would just steal the light away  from Lucy.

Now, came the part which I didn't particularly enjoyed. The time Lucy was freed from captivity, she immediately checked herself into a shady clinic in order to remove the CPH4 from her system. What I found doesn't make sense is, somehow the doctor in this shady clinic knows that a synthetic version of CPH4 is being developed, and he knows in graphic detail what CPH4 is for. Or maybe it's because he's working in a shady clinic? Anyway, I just feel that Morgan Freeman's character whose-name-I-already-forget is better suited to give the explanation. Oh well...

I also found the battle scene in Sorbonne a little too much. Why on earth would you bring an RPG to capture a girl. In Paris. Seriously. Also, what's with all the Samsung phones??? I assume that it's because Samsung becoming the sponsor, the bad guys are Korean gangster instead of Taiwanese triad. Hahaha...

Anyway, I felt strange when watching Transcendence because somehow, I disagree with how the movie define "transcending." However, when I watched Lucy, I realised that Lucy, at least for me, is a perfect specimen of a transcended human being. We've codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible, we've created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale." I do think that when a person is transcended, he/she would no longer follow typical human way of thinking; in this case, scale.

I often ponder about this unfathomability of the world that we are in. Especially after reading debates on how certain people define god, and insist that their definition is the most correct one. Fact is, average human beings are limited. And there's no way we can comprehend the vastness of the universe around us. Not with our limitation. To make us feel better, we make definitions, which we can understand. Which is fine, if only we don't insist that there can be no other correct explanation aside from ours. Now, just for the fun of it, let me close the writing with a video from Jang Na-Ra. :-D




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* Check out her awesome blog: www.rikanova.com! It's in Indonesian.
** Lucy's movie poster was taken from this page.
*** Picture of Jag Na-Ra was taken from this page.