aleng's journal

Expelled from Paradise, a Japanese animated sci-fi movie released on Dec 2014.

"Expelled from Paradise" poster

I'm still unsure if many have watched it or not, but I do believe this is definitely one film I need to share out. But before I begin, of course, SPOILERS!

PLOT
Angela Balzac is an agent at the space station DEVA, whose inhabitants have no physical bodies, their minds digitized and processed into a virtual reality environment. After failing to track down the hacker known as "Frontier Setter", who had infiltrated DEVA's systems dozens of times to gather allies for his cause with no success, she is tasked to look for him down on Earth, now a barren planet where the rest of the humans live. After being given an organic body and sent to the surface, Angela meets Dingo, her contact on Earth, who cuts off all communications with her base, in order to prevent Frontier Setter from discovering their location as well, despite her protests.

Angela and Dingo's investigations lead them to an abandoned city, where they meet Frontier Setter, who is revealed to be an AI developed to supervise the construction of Genesis Ark, a ship designed for deep space travel, and somehow developed a conscience, continuing its work long after its masters perished. Realizing that Frontier Setter intends to do no harm at all, Angela leaves her body and reports to her superiors at DEVA, who order her to destroy it, fearing that it may eventually become a threat, but she refuses. Angela is then sentenced to have her mind stored into an archive forever, but Frontier Setter hacks into the system to rescue her. Once Angela returns to Earth and her body with supplies and weaponry, she and Dingo join forces to hold back DEVA's other agents long enough for a rocket carrying Frontier Setter and the final module to complete the Genesis Ark to be launched, and run away afterwards, while Frontier Setter starts its journey though space.
(Source: Wikipedia)

Critics..
This is one amazing movie I should've watched the first time my friend recommended me, but I still got a spare time to watch it anyways. First off, the story of the film is good in a sense it doesn't bore me, but what makes me wonder is how a hot appealing 16 year old girl walking in a sexy spacesuit (I think that's what they call it) doesn't get anyone's attention in the town. I mean, she is super annoying and wearing a sexy suit, how can no one notice that?! Anyways, musically, the film sure has a way with using simple "according to the scene" that makes you feel related. The animations are somewhat amazingly colorful yet disturbingly 3D, I'm not saying that the 3D animation is bad, is just that they might've brought the animation a bit too realistic, and sometimes, I feel like the calm scenes just doesn't stand out much. Character development is one of the best things I find so far in this film, and I'll admit that I love all 3 of the main characters in the film, and really... you gotta watch this film if you love animated films 'cause this one is colorful and technological at the same time. Overall, a good film that describes what being human is like, and literally one of my favourite Japanese films.

WILD, a biographical drama film which was released on December 2014. Although there isn't much to speak of in this film in terms of the plot, there are still some parts that I find it boring yet interesting at the same time. Well, before beginning, SPOILERS ALERT!!


PLOT
The film tells a story about a non-experienced hiker, Cheryl, who went through days (to be precise, 94 days) to hike miles of different terrains, like; deserts, forests, and fields. Upon hiking, some flashbacks of herself when she was a daughter, lover, drug abuser, teen, and a mother. The flashback consists of her loss of her mother, self-destructive behaviour, and sweet memories of her childhood times with her mother. She soon ended arriving at the destination she wanted to go, and understands her problems, and enlighten herself by realizing all she had to do was to live for the moment (this is probably where the term "WILD" comes), letting go off the past. And also, forgot to tell this in the beginning, the story is a non-linear narrative one, and the flashbacks can come any moment in the film.


CRITICS!
My first impression on the film was "The Hiking Version of 'Life of Pi'", and since I'm a lover of colorful animated films filled with musics, this was pretty boring in my terms of liking. However, the film seemed emotionally honest when it comes to feelings, making it surprisingly interesting. Plus, did I mention that this film contains sex scenes? I guess not. Well, the film speaks of drugs, sex, loss of loved one, and broken relationships, and as far as I've seen, this film teaches quite a lot of life lessons, like; "treasure your loved ones no matter who they are", "drugs and sex may seem fun, and although they might help in minimizing the pain from the past, they're just ruining your future", and "life is limited, live it to the fullest". Something tells me that this films is trying to give out a message saying "live life to its fullest in a right way", and that is something eye-opening for me. In terms of recommendation, I would say this film wouldn't suit children, even if the sex scenes were removed, they would still find this film boring, while people who truly are deep movie lovers will find this film a truly amazing film, and I'm not surprised that this film got a 90% rating from Rotten Tomatoes.

Watched the film? Share your thoughts on the comment below...

I FINALLY GET TO WATCH IT! And trust me, since I am a fan of Doraemon, the plot of the story was actually pretty much predictable, and by predictable, I'll simply start with the plot of the story. Spoilers alert!
PLOT
In 2004 during 2004 Summer Olympics, Nobita Nobi is a fourth grader who constantly gets failing grades in his subjects due to his laziness and is always bullied by his classmates Suneo Honekawa and Takeshi "Gian" Goda. His great-great grandson from the 22nd century Sewashi (2036), who watches him everyday, travels to Nobita's timeline while bringing along his robotic cat Doraemon. Sewashi reveals that if Nobita keeps up his act, he will have a disastrous future: he will marry Gian's sister Jaiko, have his private company burned down, and will be left with a great debt. To circumvent this, he orders Doraemon to help Nobita, modifying Doraemon's nose to prevent him from returning to the future unless Nobita gains a better future.
Being reluctant until the threat, Doraemon introduces his gadgets to help Nobita which helps him immensely. Though Doraemon warns Nobita not to be too dependent on his gadgets, Nobita asks Doraemon to help him woo his crush Shizuka Minamoto whom Doraemon reveals is the one Nobita will marry if his future is corrected. However, all his efforts end up making Shizuka becoming closer to ace student, Hidetoshi Dekisugi. Nobita's attempt to be equal with Dekisugi by studying harder is futile and he decides to let go of Shizuka to make her happier. Mistaking him planning to commit suicide, Shizuka arrives at the Nobi residence and resists Nobita's people-repelling potion to help him which Doraemon reveals is the first step in Nobita and Shizuka's growing relationship to eventually becoming a couple.
Upon seeing his older self rejecting Shizuka's invitation to a mountain climbing, Nobita disguises himself as his older self to help Shizuka whom he thinks is separated from her group during a heavy blizzard. His efforts to help Shizuka do more hurt to himself, but this makes Shizuka feel that she has to accompany Nobita saying "yes" before collapsing from cold she contracted from her earlier conversation with Nobita. Forcing himself to remember the moment, the two are rescued by Nobita's older self who recalled the memory. Nobita learns from his older self that Shizuka was answering to the latter's proposition to marry her which means that the two will indeed marry. After hearing that Shizuka's father has also accepted her daughter's spouse, Nobita and Doraemon return back to the present timeline.
As Nobita's future has changed for the better, Doraemon's programming commands him to return back to the future in 48 hours. Noticing that Doraemon has a hard time to leave due to his worry for Nobita, Nobita confronts and have a brutal fight with Gian to prove that he is able to defend himself without Doraemon. Seeing that Nobita refuses to give up, Gian forfeits as Doraemon tearfully takes Nobita home before leaving in peace the next day. During April Fools, Nobita is tricked by Gian into believing that Doraemon has returned. In anger, he drinks a solution Doraemon gave to him which turns all lies into truth and vice versa. Finishing his retribution against Suneo and Gian, Nobita goes back home while lamenting that Doraemon will never return. To his surprise, Doraemon suddenly returns because Nobita said that Doraemon would never return, still with the effects of the potion, and it became a lie. The two hug and cry in happiness. (Wikipedia)

CRITICS!
Graphically, I find it 'unique' compared to the other Doraemon movies, probably due to its 3D-animation. Not that I'm complaining, but the 3D-animation might be a sudden change for the Doraemon films because as far as I have watched, all Doraemon films are anime styled, and this change kind of disappointed me. If you read the Doraemon comics (manga), I reassure that you know what is going to happen in the film "Stand by Me", because it's basically the same, only simplified. I mean, if you watch the movie, it's pretty obvious that all those years Doraemon had with Nobita were pretty memorable, and if you read the comics, you will know what the ending would be like. (No, seriously, the ending didn't surprise me at all) However, the story will still touch you to the heart, and that's what I like about the movies. Overall, I would say the film is great, with a new style of animation plus the old touching cliche that never gets bored for some reason. Not to mention, there's another upcoming Doraemon movie which will be released in this year. (I must watch it)

Now that we've covered a part of origin of calendars, let's move on to how time was originated.

Unstoppable Time

How did we know that a day consists of 24 hours, and of course, this is related to the previous post; hence, different countries and tribes might use different methods to calculate hours. Like the Sumer calendar, it is (probably) agreed that a minute is 60 seconds and each hour is 60 minutes, but why 60? Why not 50 or 20?
EXTRA NOTES: 60 is a widely used number, such as; angles, time, and geographic coordination. The number 60, a superior highly composite number, has twelve factors, namely {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60}, of which 2, 3, and 5 are prime numbers. With so many factors, many fractions involving sexagesimal numbers are simplified. For example, one hour can be divided evenly into sections of 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 12 minutes, 10 minutes, 6 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute. 60 is the smallest number that is divisible by every number from 1 to 6; that is, it is the lowest common multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
One hour of time is divided into 60 minutes, and one minute is divided into 60 seconds. Thus, a measurement of time such as "3:23:17" (three hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds) can be interpreted as a sexagesimal number, meaning 3×60² + 23×60¹ + 17×60⁰. As with the ancient Babylonian sexagesimal system, however, each of the three sexagesimal digits in this number (3, 23, and 17) is written using the decimal system.
Similarly, the practical unit of angular measure is the degree, of which there are 360 in a circle. There are 60 minutes of arc in a degree, and 60 arcseconds in a minute; hence the origin concept of clocks and stopwatch (the analogue stopwatch)
(Source: Wikipedia)
The 24 hours concept was actually counted by astronomers in the old days, and there were various methods in counting; counting from dawn, sunset, noon, and midnight. And again, each country have different methods in counting it.
For those which counted from dawn, sunrise marked the beginning of the first hour (the zero hour), the middle of the day was at the end of the sixth hour and sunset at the end of the twelfth hour. This meant that the duration of hours varied with the season. In the Northern hemisphere, particularly in the more northerly latitudes, summer daytime hours were longer than winter daytime hours, each being one twelfth of the time between sunrise and sunset. These variable-length hours were variously known as temporal, unequal, or seasonal hours and were in use until the appearance of the mechanical clock, which furthered the adoption of equal length hours. Not to mention, this concept might've lead some astronomers to think that the Earth's revolution orbit was NOT a circle shaped one, which was then proven and now lives the concept of elliptical shape orbit. And also, this method is used in Jewish law.

Sundial

Meanwhile, unlike the previous one, the Babylonians count hours using sundials, and divide the day and night into equal 24 hours.
For many centuries, up to 1925, astronomers counted the hours and days from noon, because it was the easiest solar event to measure accurately. An advantage of this method (used in the Julian Date system, in which a new Julian Day begins at noon) is that the date doesn't change during a single night's observing.
In the modern 12-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and restarts at noon. Hours are numbered 12, 1, 2, ..., 11. Solar noon is always close to 12 noon, differing according to the equation of time by as much as fifteen minutes either way. At the equinoxes sunrise is around 6 A.M., and sunset around 6 P.M.
In the modern 24-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and hours are numbered from 0 to 23. Solar noon is always close to 12:00, again differing according to the equation of time. At the equinoxes sunrise is around 06:00 and sunset around 18:00.
While astronomers are busy counting how many hours exist in a day, other scientists uses the concept of time as a unit to count other stuffs, like velocity, acceleration, force, manpower, etc. And so, it was probably universal for the world after they see their results and compare to one another, and agreed that one day consists of 24 hours.

Christmas IS FINALLY HERE!!! OK, at least at +7 GMT...
Anyhow, for today's post, I'll be sharing my Top 10 Favourite Christmas Themed MV since 2014, so pre 2014 MVs are probably not included...
First up!
1. Cover of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Idina Menzel and Michael Buble