Les Choristes

I watched this movie last year in my French class at school.
It's a French movie. This movie makes me want to learn more French! x) There are other several reasons though.. :P

SUMMARY

50 years after the main story takes place, a man is shown conducting an orchestra. While conducting, he is informed that his mother has died. After the performance, he returns home for the funeral. Soon, an old friend called Pépinot arrives at his door with a diary. It is the diary of their teacher, Mathieu, and they read it together.

In France in 1949, Clément Mathieu, who in his own words has failed at everything else, arrives at the gates of Fond de l'Etang (The Bottom of the Swamp), a boarding school for "difficult" boys. At the gate he sees a young child, Pépinot, who is waiting for Saturday, which is when his father is supposed to come for him. Pépinot's parents were killed in World War II, but Pepinot has not been told and still thinks that his father would come back on a Saturday.

In his first week at the school, Mathieu discovers the boys being ruthlessly punished by the headmaster Rachin. Mathieu attempts to use humour and kindness to win them over. When a booby trap set by one of the boys, a troublemaker named Le Querrec, injures the school's elderly caretaker, Mathieu keeps the boy's identity from the headmaster, while encouraging the boy to nurse the caretaker during his recovery.

On discovering the boys singing rude songs about him behind his back one night, Mathieu, who is a musician and composer, forms a plan - he will teach them to sing, and form a choir. As he groups the boys into soprano, alto etc., one student, Morhange, refused to sing. He caught Morhange singing to himself one day and discovers that Morhange has a wonderful singing voice. Mathieu awards him solo parts on the condition that he behave.

One day, Morhange's mother Violette arrives at the school. When Mathieu goes down to explain that Morhange cannot be visited because he has been locked up as a punishment after writing rude notes about the headmaster, he finds himself sorry for, and attracted to, the boy's beleaguered mother, and instead tells her that Morhange is at the dentist.

Meanwhile, a cruel "perverted" boy named Mondain has arrived at the school, and begins causing trouble - bullying and extorting money from the other boys, smoking in class(e), and generally rebelling. After stealing a watch, he is locked up for 15 days as punishment.

Mathieu notices that the school is taking a turn for the better: The choir is improving rapidly with Morhange as its lead soloist, the children are happier, the faculty less stiff, and even Rachin begins to loosen up, playing with the boys and practicing flying a paper airplane.

Mondain is eventually released from confinement and promptly runs away from the school. At the same time, all of the school's money disappears. The headmaster beats Mondain, who attempts to strangle Rachin. Rachin hands him over to the police, despite not knowing the location of the stolen money. At the same time, he hears the children singing vulgar songs about him. Furious, Rachin disbands the group. They go "underground", practicing at night.

It is soon revealed that another boy, Corbin, stole the money that Mondain was accused of taking. Despite this, Rachin refuses to accept Mondain back at the school. Mathieu is upset at this injustice—besides, Mondain had been his only baritone.

Mathieu continues to meet Morhange's mother, to share his plans to help her son win a scholarship to the music conservatoire in Lyon. His attraction to the mother is obvious to the audience, but not to her. One day she blithely informs him that he has brought her good luck, as she has met an engineer whom she hopes to marry.

Rachin discovers that the school's main sponsor, the Countess, has found out about the choir and decides to claim it as his own idea. The choir performs to the Countess and others, with Morhange enchanting the audience with his solo.

As Rachin goes to accept an award from the board for "rescuing" the boys and reforming them, Mathieu and the school's caretaker rebel by taking the boys into the woods to enjoy the sunshine. While they are out, Mondain returns and sets fire to the roof.

Mathieu is fired for breaking the rules, even though he saved the boys' lives. As he leaves, the boys, who are forbidden to say goodbye, throw messages to him on paper planes out of the window. Touched, he waves farewell.

Back in the present, the conductor, who has been revealed to be Morhange, finishes reading the diary and recounts what happened afterwards. Morhange won his scholarship to the conservatory, and the headmaster, Rachin, was fired for his brutal discipline. Mathieu, Pépinot relates, continued to give music lessons quietly for the rest of his life.

The final scene shows Mathieu waiting for his bus after being fired. As he boards the bus he looks back and finds Pépinot running after him, insisting that he come too. Initially Mathieu refuses, saying that this is not allowed. But he gives in and they board the bus together, and we hear Mathieu narrating, saying that Pépinot had got his dream, for Mathieu and he left on a Saturday.


Here's the movie trailer.. :)

Follow That Dream

I watched this movie when I stayed in my grandparents' house a few weeks ago.
I really love this movie, the story is really good. It's really funny & humorous, yet it teaches me some valuable lessons. :)

SUMARRY

A vagabond family composed of Pop Kwimper (Arthur O'Connell), his son Toby (Elvis Presley), and various "adopted" children, including nineteen-year-old Holly Jones (Anne Helm), is traveling in Florida when Pop drives onto an as-yet-unopened section of highway. When the car runs out of gas, Holly persuades Toby to persuade Pop to take up residence on the land next to the road. A chance encounter with an avid fisherman (Herbert Rudley) gives Holly an idea. They build a thriving business catering to sports fishermen.
Trouble soon follows. Toby rejects the advances of amorous social worker Alisha Claypoole (Joanna Moore), who goes to court to have the children taken away in revenge. Also, her government official boyfriend considers the squatters' home to be an eyesore and wants to evict them. Finally, since the area is outside the jurisdiction of any law enforcement, two gamblers (Jack Kruschen and Simon Oakland) soon set up a casino in a trailer, and Toby has to deal with their armed thugs.
In the end, Toby's earthy wits win over the judge and the family returns to its new land and home. Holly also gets Toby to recognize that she is a grown woman

 

The Giver

Hey guys!

I want to tell you about the book I'm reading at school at the moment. The title of the book is The Giver. This book has a theme of a utopian society. Well, it appears like a utopian society at the beginning of the book, but more likely to become a dystopian society along the way until the end.

Utopian society is a society which holds the concept of perfection. Dystopian society has the same concept, but more likely to cause discrimination to some groups of people that the community thinks are inappropriate for their society.

SUMMARY
The book is told from a third-person point of view. The protagonist, Jonas, is followed as he awaits the Ceremony of Twelve. Jonas lives in a standard family unit with his mother (a "law enforcer"), his father (a "Nurturer") and his seven (later becomes eight) year old sister named Lily. As he anticipates the Ceremony of Twelve, which is the last ceremony, he has a dream. He has to tell his family unit what his dream is and he explains how he dreamed that he was in the House of the Old (where he was before), alone in the bath house with his friend Fiona. He tries to explain how in his dream he wanted her to take off her clothes so he could bathe her though he feels angry at the same time, mostly due to her laughing in the dream and feeling slightly embarrassed while telling the dream, not knowing why. After he told his family this, his mother tells him to take pills to suppress the "Stirrings", or the beginning of sexual attraction, which is totally eliminated in Jonas's world, possibly even for Birthmothers, who may be impregnated via artificial insemination. When the day of the Ceremony of Twelve arrives, each of the eleven-year olds is called up by their number, which corresponds to the order in which they were born, (Jonas is nineteen) and is given their Assignment. However, the Chief Elder skips Jonas' number and proceeds with twenty. After everyone has been given their Assignment, the Chief Elder calls up Jonas and apologizes for the confusion. It is revealed that Jonas has been selected to be the next Receiver of Memory. The Chief Elder reveals to him that training will involve physical pain that the community has never felt before and that ten years ago, another selection was made but it was a failure. He is selected to be "Receiver of Memory" at the Ceremony of Twelve because of his unusual "Capacity to See Beyond", which is the ability to see color (or in other cases, hear music, which is referred to as "hearing beyond"), which the other people in the community cannot. This is noted in the fact that Jonas has lighter eyes, which only a few people, such as Jonas, Gabriel, The Giver, and a female Six named Katherine have rather than the dark eyes that everyone else has.
After Jonas has been selected to be the Receiver of Memories, he is set aside to receive training through the Giver (who was the last Receiver of Memory), who becomes his teacher. Jonas telepathically receives memories of things eliminated from his world: violence, sadness, and loss, as well as true love, beauty, joy, adventure, animals, and family. Having knowledge of these complex and powerful concepts alienates Jonas from his friends and family, as well as making him more cynical towards his previously sheltered life, as he often discusses with the Giver. Eventually, these revelations prompt Jonas to seek to change the community and return emotion and meaning to the world. He and the Giver plan on doing this by having Jonas leave the community, which would cause all of the memories he was given to be released to the rest of the people, allowing them to feel the powerful emotions that Jonas and the Giver feel. Eventually, Jonas asks the Giver if he ever thinks about his own release. This conversation leads to watching the release of a lighter child of a set of twin boys born that morning. Jonas watches in shock and horror as his father talks sweetly to the baby before giving the newborn a lethal injection, and then dumping the body down a garbage chute. It is also said by The Giver that the previous Receiver of Memory had applied for release, and had told them that she would prefer to inject herself. The Giver then reveals that he also had a child named Rosemary, who was the previously selected Receiver of Memory.
During the course of the novel, Jonas's family temporarily houses a baby named Gabriel, because he is unable to sleep throughout the night and disturbs the other babies in the "Nurturing Center". Jonas learns that unlike the other people in his community, "Gabe" can receive memories from Jonas, which he uses to help calm the baby. Because Gabriel still cannot sleep through the night without crying after the extra year he was given to learn how to sleep soundly, he is now destined to be released. Desperate, Jonas flees the community with Gabe. Also, he was given the instructions from the Giver to flee, and release all the memories that he had stored to the rest of the community. At first, the escape seems successful, with all of the search planes finally giving up their search for Jonas. Soon, however, food runs out and they grow weak. Cold and hungry, Jonas and Gabe begin to lose hope, but then remembering the memory of sunshine Jonas was given, he uses it and regains strength. Jonas begins to no longer care about himself, but only about Gabe's safety; it is here that he feels happy as he remembers his parents and sister, his friends and The Giver. Jonas and Gabriel cross a snow-covered hill in the dark and find a sled on top, which Jonas remembers from the first memory he ever received. He and Gabriel board the sled and go down the hill where they seem to hear music coming from some houses, which possibly could be Christmas, because he sees trees there too, which Jonas believes is the Beyond.
The ending is ambiguous, with Jonas depicted as experiencing symptoms of hypothermia. This leaves his and Gabriel's future unresolved. However, their fate is revealed in Messenger, a companion novel written much later.



There are also plans of making a movie adaptation of this book. I heard that the movie will be released on 2013. I hope the movie production will make this official. I'm so looking forward to this! x)

Fernando Torres Says Being Benched Taught Him Lesson

Fernando Torres says being benched by Chelsea after his U.K. record 50 million pound ($78.9 million) transfer turned him into a better player. The Spaniard is determined not to be a spectator again. Speaking ahead of the London team’s Super Cup game against his former team Atletico Madrid tomorrow, Torres said being left out for as long as eight straight games last season taught him “a lot of things” about himself. Torres became captain of his home town team Atletico as a teenager. He moved to Liverpool, where he scored 65 goals in 102 games, prompting Chelsea’s billionaire owner Roman Abramovich to pay the record transfer amount. He didn’t find success in London last season. During his worst run, Torres went five months and 25 straight games without scoring. “I was in a very different situation last season because I’d never been there before,” Torres told a press conference. “When you’re there you understand what people go through on the bench. It was a new experience. I learned a lot of things about that, which made me a better teammate.” Torres was a substitute in last season’s Champions League final in which Didier Drogba’s late goal took the match to a penalty shootout. Chelsea went on to win and gain its first European title. Torres was brought into the game by coach Roberto Di Matteo but didn’t take a penalty. Drogba has moved to China, allowing Torres to spearhead the team’s attack this season. The Spaniard has scored twice so far in the new campaign. The west London team is leading the Premier League after starting with three wins. That follows success with Spain at the 2012 European Championship, in which Torres finished joint top scorer and the national team retained its title. Confidence Returns “I’m playing more minutes and the confidence is back,” Torres said. “In these 18 months, I’ve become a better player. I have played in a different way to that I played at Liverpool. I can play more outside the box, associating more with my teammates. I gave a lot of assists last season. I can mix it more. This season I’m sure we’ll see that.” Torres said he remains an Atletico Madrid fan. If he extends his scoring run against his hometown team tomorrow he says he won’t celebrate. “It’s not only the club that trained me, developed me, but built me as a person,” he said. “Everyone knows I’m an Atletico fan and this will be an exceptional day, but we’ll be trying to win. I have to leave these emotions behind. Afterwards, I can go back to being an Atletico fan.” Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/

A Few Words from Me

Hello! I haven't actually been very active in this blog for a very long time.. I'll try to post more things here from now on.. :)

Demo Fusi Nuklir dengan Sebuah Reaktor Mini

Para peneliti di University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) berhasil mendemonstrasikan fusi nuklir dengan sebuah reaktor mini. Seth J. Putterman, salah satu anggota tim peneliti, melaporkan keberhasilan tersebut dalam Jurnal Nature edisi Kamis (28/04). Eksperimen tersebut diakui sejumlah ilmuwan karena tidak melanggar prinsip-prinsip fisika. "Tidak ada kontroversi, sebab mereka menggunakan metode yang sudah teruji dan benar," kata David Ruzic, profesor teknik nuklir dan plasma dari Universitas Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Sebelumnya keberhasilan reaksi fusi nuklir pernah diklaim oleh Dr. B. Stanley Pons dari Universitas Utah dan Martin Fleischmann dari Universitas Southampton. Namun mereka gagal untuk mengulangi keberhasilan klaim fusi dingin pada suhu kamar. Secara teori memang meragukan sehingga klaim tersebut tidak dipercaya. Proses fusi nuklir sebenarnya meniru proses perubahan energi yang dihasilkan inti matahari. Di dalam inti matahari yang bersuhu 10-15 derajat Celcius, hidrogen diubah menjadi helium sebagai pasokan energi di alam semesta. Untuk membuat reaksi fusi nuklir, para peneliti menempatkan sepotong kristal lithium tantalate ke dalam ruang hampa udara yang berisi gas deuterium. Kemudian kristal tersebut diaktifkan dengan memanaskannya pada suhu 10 derajat Celcius. Kristal lithium tantalum adalah material yang berada pada kelompok pyroelectric. Material ini menghasilkan medan listrik yang kuat bila dipanaskan atau didinginkan. Pyroelectric sudah ditemukan sejak 314 sebelum masehi oleh seorang murid Aristoteles. Medan listrik menimbulkan pancaran atom-atom deuterium yang akan ditabrakkan pada sebuah selembar plastik dengan jarak 2,5 cm. Semakin lama semakin banyak deuterium yang melekat. Deuterium yang terus ditembakkan akan bertubrukan kemudian pecah menjadi isotop helium dan partikel-pertikel neutron sebagai pembawa energi. Percobaan ini menghasilkan 1000 neutron per detik. Dengan menaikkan suhu kristal secara bertahap, reaksi fusi akan bekerja selama 8 jam. Keberhasilan tersebut berpotensi menjadi sumber energi tak terbatas dan ramah lingkungan. Deuterium merupakan ion hidrogen yang dapat diturunkan dari air. Sehingga jumlahnya hampir tak terbatas. Selain itu bahan baku fusi nuklir aman dan tidak menghasilkan pencemaran lingkungan. Reaktor mini bisa menjadi cikal bakal reaktor portabel yang dapat dipakai dalam berbagai peralatan. Sumber: Kompas (Kompas Cyber Media)