Hear ABBA songs in MammaMia

I’ve just recently watched MammaMia movie. This movie really made me curious since the trailer said that I could enjoy various ABBA songs in it.

The movie started with a young woman singing ‘I have a dream’. It turned out that this young woman, Sophie, was getting married but she never knew who her father was. One day, she found her mom’s diary and found out that there were three possible men. Thus she decided to invite those men to attend her wedding party. She did this without her mom’s knowing, since her mom would definetely reject the idea. She only told her plan to her two best friends.

Meanwhile, her mom, Donna, is going to fetch her best friends and when they met, they did some crazy little reunion. Unbeknown to her that around the same time, those three men arrived. Unfortunately, Sophie’s effort to hide their presence failed. Then it started a little clash between mother and daughter, and memory-flooding-in reaction for the mother.

Overall, this movie’s plot or story is quite simple. About how a mother prepared her daughter’s wedding to realizationthat it was actually her own desire to wed since she never had one. But what amazing was how the script writter managed to fill in and to connect so many ABBA songs till it became a story. So practically there’re not many dialogues, instead the actors/actresses sang the dialogue. Almost like an opera, but with so much modern athmosphere and of course not with opera songs.

I considered myself as a fan of ABBA, since I really like their songs. But apparetly, I only recognize several of the famous songs. Well, I’m not a big fans to begin with anyway XD But this movie didn’t dissapointed me in the songs performances. And to my surprise, it was actually the actors/actresses themselves who sang the songs!! I thought they just do lip-singing or something like that XD Well, of course I never knew that Meryl Streep or Pierce Brosnan could sing and quite good in it XD

So anybody out there who loved ABBA, this movie is a must see. But don’t expect to see a ‘story’ in it, just enjoy those musics and the way it performed ^_^

‘So I say thankyou for the music and bringing it to me....’

One Piece Movie 9: Episode Chopper Plus

Okay, this OP movie really made me curious. Because eversince its first performance, all I heard are compliments. That’s why I feel really exited when I finally get ahold of this movie.

The story started with the appearance of a word ‘if’. I was chuckled when I saw that. It’s as if the animators already warned OP fans to not complain later on since this movie was an ‘if’ story. Then we saw many wanted posters and prologs to explain the situation in One Piece world, a very good start for nonregular OP watchers.

The story, as explained in the title, was about Chopper recruitment/ retell of Drum arc, but without Vivi as in the original story. Instead, we have Robin, Franky, and Thousand Sunny in it. But unlike movie 8 (the retell of Arabasta arc), this time, they managed to made a great story and somehow managed to fit in all those characters without, we watchers, felt akward. For example, Robin obviously played Vivi’s part, but you’ll saw her as Robin herself without out-of-characterness. And when you saw Franky or Sunny or Wapol’s brother, you won’t saw them as something that shouldn’t be there.

About the pace, this movie had good pace. I mean, you didn’t feel rushed when watching it. Eventhough I still felt that some scene was skipped, but remember, this is an ‘if’ story XD

The animation used what we called Movie 6’s style. Personally I didn’t like it. It looked like the characters were ‘messy’, but it was good in term of consistency and the combination with the 3D backgrounds graphics. Looked at the snow, forests, and of course the ‘sakura’. It was totally awesome!! Beautifull!! Plus the sounds and BGMs were perfect. Notice the sound made when the characters stepped on the snow. Perfect!!

Still I’m a bit dissapointed to see that Robin didn’t get as much fight as Zoro and Franky. Yeah, I know that she played Vivi, but if they could made the extra characters feels all right, they should be able to add extra fight for her isn’t it?? -_- But, that’s, of course, just a personal complain XD

Overall, I would say that this movie was a success, especially when you compared it with Movie 8. But, personally I still prefer a ‘new story’ kind of movie instead a ‘remake with extra story’ kind of movie, and I prefer Movie 7’s art style (exclude the ‘boing-boing’ effect of course), so my favourite OP movie untill now is still Movie 7 followed by Movie 5.

Now I can’t wait to see Movie 10, since it will have ‘new story’ and from I saw from the trailer, it will be awesome ^_^

When Reality Bites

These past weeks, I’ve been strugling to achieve my dream to become an opthalmologist. The first step, of course, is entering the selection/eliminary test. After finding some informations from several opthalmology residents, I made final preparation to enter the exam.

Finally, at 14th October 2008, I was called to attend the first meeting, where we would get to know each contestant and the way the test would be held, and what would happen if we managed to pass the test.

The test itself was divided into 3 parts. The first part is to have our health examined (Rӧ Thorax, ECG, Blood test) and pshycologic test. The test was held in two weeks. After that, I need to wait untill the result came out a week after.

At the test, I was very astonihed to know that there’s something wrong with my eyes, aside that I wear a glasses. I didn’t know what’s wrong yet, but I’m afraid that would become an obstacle.

At the end, when the result day came, a miracle happened. I managed to pass the first elimination!!! I was so surprised. I tought I would fail. Thus I again went to the place to enter the second step.

The second part was knowledge test. The test itself, a multiple choice type, was like my usual test back when I was still in college. Unfortunatelly, maybe I still haven’t enough preparation to do it. They said, they will choose only 6-8 best results. I’m positive that I managed to get 7 or 8 mark, but apparently, other contestant were so much better than that. So.... on the result day, as I’ve guessed, I failed.

I was sad, of course, but on the other hand, failed means I’m brave enough to try. ^_^ And it’s not like I didn’t managed to gain something important in this test. I managed to made many new good friends from other cities, I managed to have experiences in doing some preeliminary tests, and I finally able to have a good general check-up XD

The fact that I failed is hurt, but I know, live must go on. I can try again later, or maybe I’ll find some other interesting carrier that’s more suitable for me. Whatever it is, I know that God’s choose what’s best for me ^_^

City Tours

Being a citizen who lived in a big city, I rarely visit any of tourist attraction. So, when my cousin asked me to acompany him in visiting those tourist attraction, I was very glad to do it.

The first tourist attraction we visited was Tangkuban Perahu mountain. This is a very famous tourist attraction that attract many tourists, but I never steped on it before. Embarrasing isn’t it?? XD

So we drove all the way there, and entered the wrong entrance (the alternative entrance) by accident. But we didn’t regret it, since we was able to see a beautiful pine forest. Just that that I realized that the wheather was fine and the air was so fresh!! Ah… So why people really want to demolished all the forest available in my country ;_; They really didn’t appreciate things that can’t be bought with money.

This is the beautiful forest:


And my car:


Then we finally arrived at the main crater, Kawah Ratu. Beautiful scenery!! But I forgot to use sunblock that my skin got burned >_<

Kawah Ratu, beautiful isn't it?


After visiting the main crater, we continued our journey to the other famous crater, Kawah Domas. It is said that we could boil eggs in this crater. But the crater could be achieved only by foot. So we walked about 2-3km throug a beautiful forest. It was just a small forest though, but the air was different. We couldn’t find such air in cities of course. Nice… And finally, we arived at the crater. And it’s true!! We can boil eggs in the crater. Amazing scenery indeed.

the forest we have to walk:


And Kawah Domas:



After seeing the view for a while, we went home. Not to forget to have our Sundanese late-lunch. Then at night, we visited one of the famous café in Dago highland. The wheater was very bright, and not to say it was fullmoon. We could saw the beautiful city-lamp scenery from above clearly. Ah… I was very contended that day. I am indeed living in a beautifull city. ^_^ I’m so lucky!!

The night citi view:


The cafe's athmosphere:


Then, a few days later, I visited Jakarta for I don’t know how many times already. But that time, it was the first time I went to visited old Jakarta/Batavia. Usualy I only visit the gorgeous mall in Jakarta.

So, we use the TransJakarta Bus (or also nicknamed Bus-way) to the place. To be honest I never expect the old buildings/ museums could be that attractive. Amazing!! It has different architecture style from Bandung’s old buildings. It has more ‘curles’ and ‘extras’. Eventhough it was build by the exactly same Holland people more than 300 years ago.

The Holland culture still could be ‘grasp’ just by seeing the buildings and by walking around the court. The building was made so that the hot air woulnd’t be that hot inside. Eventhough we visited the buildings in the middle of the day, we still could feel the creepiness. It was said that many Indonesians were killed in the court and in the prison under the big builidng. =S

The Govenors Kantoor:



We also visited the old style café there. Café Batavia was the name. But to our surprised, the price was sooooooo expensive!! Ah, well… at least we could enjoy the old environment around us. XD

This is the cafe: