A family friend gave this great quote from Charles Swindoll (?) tonight (Sunday night, technically) and it was so great, I had to share it!
From the age of one to eighteen, daughters need parents' care.
From the age of eighteen to thirty-five, they need beauty.
From the age of thirty-five to fifty-five, they need personality.
After fifty-five, they need cold hard cash.
^_~ Isn't that a riot?
Tonight was actually a great night for laughs. I finally got a chance to watch (with the family friends who were over) this movie that my parents have been bugging me to see for a while: "I Not Stupid." It's a Singaporean "slice of life" kind of movie, and it's great! It's got humour, a good storyline, great actors, and most importantly, a real heart and mind. For all its lightheartedness, the movie speaks a lot about the pressures parents put on their children to succeed in school. Watching the movie, the family friend who gave that great quote commented on how accurately teh movie portrayed a child's life in Singapore. She said that it had been that way when she had left twenty years ago, and that it is still like that today. Sorry, if I'm not making much sense; you should really watch this movie.
It will especially hit home to people with Chinese/Asian backgrounds, I think. The education in Asia is a very different from the North American system, and kids are faced with a lot of pressure to do well in school. A lot of them commit suicide because it's just so hard to handle. Reflecting on the movie, I realize how thankful I am that my parents have always been supportive but not pushy about my school work; if I strive to do well, it's always been more for my own sake and desires than for my parents.' Not everyone can say that.
If you have any sort of Singaporean/Malaysian background, you'll find the movie extra entertaining. Since it is a Singaporean movie, they talk like Singaporeans, and use Singaporean slang, like ba qua. Oh, and the social/political commentary is pretty clever too.
Anyway, this "review," such as it is, hasn't exactly been coherent (my worst marks in English are always related to film or non-print media assignments), but I want to mention one last thing: the actors. The three kids, the protagonists of the story are amazing! They are such believable characters, and show so much emotion! I kind of ashamed to admit it (I have this thing about crying--I hate being a sap), but when they cried--real crying, not the exaggerated cry of pain type of crying--my eyes misted too, and I had to work to keep my eyes from watering, to keep myself from crying.
I know this hasn't been the most persuasive "review," but I really mean it when I say that people should watch this movie, because it's a gem.
