Patiently Waiting for Exams to Come and Go

My goodness, this last week or so has been droning on so terribly slowly. It's so hard to concentrate and try to study, especially when all the content I'm learning is so terribly boring.

I'm trying to keep myself busy and studying, but it's just sooo hard. I haven't been able to watch many movies lately, so here are some that I watched a few weeks ago. I've got Edge of Tomorrow and Godzilla.

But BEFORE that, I also went to Sculpture(s) by the Sea last week with Diwan as a little sort of break from studying (but also because it finished on Sunday, so we wanted to get in there).

Firstly, as I think pretty much every visitor has duly noted, the title of the open exhibition is called SCULPTURE by the sea. One sculpture. And, as everyone has noted, there is more than one sculpture. There are 109.

So secondly, quantity does not mean quality. Just because there is a great multitude of art does not mean that many of them are great at all. Factor in the walking and it's really not a terrific experience. I mean sure, some of the sculptures were good, but some were just... terrible. Like number 49, 'A spacious affair, from the outside to the inside' by Mikala Valeur is a closet that people line up for and what do you see when you are in the closet? Mirrors. The interior of the closet is just mirrors. Then the light at the top goes off so that "the darkness switches your attention to your inner consciousness and thoughts", except it's not even dark because the daylight from outside is flooding in from the gap underneath the door. And I lined up for that.

Thirdly, they're very abstract. Of course, this is most of the reason that you get so many sculptures and so many that are bad. Plus, a lot of them look kinda cool but then their descriptions are just sooo weird. Like number 63, 'Nevermore' by Jonathan Leahey is like some steel origami bird thing, and the description says: "Inspired by 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe". Uhm, I'm pretty sure it was more inspired by origami than The Raven.

Fourthly, the Sculptures Inside is more enjoyable than the outdoor sculptures. Maybe because everything is in the one place and you don't have to trek all the way to see the next disappointing sculpture, but it's still better nonetheless. A lot of them are mini sculptures of the outdoor ones, and they look really cool.

Fifthly, it's very difficult to enjoy this without purchasing the booklet at the information center, and the booklet costs $10. Luckily my mum bought it when she went so I just took hers when I went. The money goes towards next year's exhibition, and there are also $20 calendars for sale. But as I was saying, it's very difficult to enjoy this without a guide telling you where each sculpture is (especially in that middle grassy section near Bondi since it's like a chaotic free-for-all that's totally not even ordered). It's also fun reading the descriptions of them and (at least attempting an) understanding of what the artist desired.

Sixthly, schoolchildren make it very hard to enjoy. There were so many on excursions, and they were sitting around on the grass eating their lunch, climbing on things, being really loud and even writing on some of the sculptures! I was so terrified of them.

My mum's favourite was number 33, 'Breaching' by Michael Greve.

I liked it too and it was one of my favourites as well. My mum had a chance to talk to the sculptor, since he stands there under the trees every single day making sure no one ruins his sculpture. He didn't do anything to the wood he used besides sculpt thoses lines through it, but the shape is natural and that's how he found it. He also bolted the flippers to it as well. I think it's pretty cool.

One of my favourites, if not my all-time favourite, was number 55, 'Resignation' by Michael Purdy.

The description reads, "The artist's father, a twice Australian chess champion, died in 2011. This chess piece, slumping in resignation, is in part a memorial to him while exploring the broader theme of mortality."

That's deep.


Anyway, time for movies!

Edge of Tomorrow

8/10 on IMDb
90% on Rotten Tomatoes

Tom Cruise, it's been a while since I've seen you in something decent. But obviously my bias against you as an actor and a person may play a part in that...

But even my strong dislike for Tom Cruise's voice couldn't prevent me from loving this film.

The concept is amazing, where the main character (Cruise) is unfortunately deployed into the army to fight against aliens, except he discovers that every time he dies, he wakes up only to relive the day again. This obviously opens up to a potential of "Groundhog day meets..." proposals, except it's Groundhog day with aliens, so... Groundhog Day meets Matrix?

And because of this, like in Groundhog day, you see him knowing how every single thing will pan out. He knows when to jump, turn, shoot behind him, and even how many steps to take. It gets to the point where everything is choreographed by him, but he still doesn't know how to actually fight, so he needs to train for it.

Enter Emily Blunt's character.

Firstly, Emily Blunt was amazing. I believe this was her first badass role and she was indeed a badass. I love her as an actress, and when her character comes, in the whole movie gets so much more interesting.

The main character then learns to fight and train, day after day after day, death after death after death. But the question remains as to why they still can't defeat the aliens. Then they discover it's much more complex than they imagined.

So the whole film was very intense and thrilling; the sci-fi part of it was done really really well, and it had great moments of humour interspersed throughout.

I must definitely commend Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise on their action scenes, since their suits weighed 85 pounds (38.5 kg) and they did quite a lot of scenes in those suits.

The only thing is that the ending did not make perfect sense to me, and I thought that it was actually going to end in some other similar way that would have made more sense, but then all of a sudden it ended super quickly.

~SPOILER!~

See I didn't understand why he got reset to the day BEFORE the normal time he used to get reset to (i.e. he got reset to that scene where the helicopter is flying him in?). Shouldn't he have gotten reset to just when he woke up in the army? Unless they did that just so that he could this time NOT try to bribe Mad-Eye Moody and instead gain his dignity back? But still that doesn't make sense.

Anyway, so he gets reset. I thought it was actually going to be: he gets reset, goes to the army place, then they win the war because the Alpha and Omega are no longer alive and therefore no longer know what the enemy is going to do. Or something like that. But when he resets, the Alpha and Omega are already dead. And they are dead two days BEFORE his character actually killed them. How does that make sense?

Also I don't understand why he was reset in the first place. I mean I know that the Alpha exploded and therefore its blood went into him to allow him to reset, but I thought that he could only reset if the Alpha and Omega were alive, since resetting uses the Omega's memories?

I dunno, this was a few weeks ago so I can't remember my first impressions/thoughts on how the ending should have been.

But I read something that is quite interesting and makes sense on why he reset. From IMDB: It is ambiguous whether Cage harnessed the Omega's powers without its influences, or if the Omega ingrained itself into Cage in a last-ditch effort to survive and to control/influence Cage.

But anyway; definitely a really great movie, and one of the good ones released this year.


Godzilla

6.7/10 on IMDb
73% on Rotten Tomatoes
Ahhh, Godzilla. Classic. Nobody has not heard of Godzilla; it's a legend that ripples through our hearts and runs in the backgrounds of our minds.

And yet, this film seems to ruin it all.

I mean sure, people praise it for being quite... different I guess to what you would imagine it to be, but that's what I didn't like. It wasn't so much action or thriller as it was just building up to something, and then making you disappointed. I can't really say much without putting a spoiler tag (which I will soon), but it just wasn't very exciting for me. In the trailer you don't really see Godzilla, it just hypes it up for you to see it in the movie, but in the movie you still barely see it at all. You see glimpses of it then at the end you see it, but apart from that it's like "eh".

But maybe it was just too hyped up for me. I don't know, I feel like it was one of the most hyped up movies of the year and it really disappointed me because it just wasn't that great.

I was also a bit disappointed in some specific stuff, for example:

~SPOILER!~

Bryan Cranston is barely in the movie when, come on let's face it, we all expected him to be a major character.

and

~SPOILER!~

The humans don't really do anything, do they? All they do is make you want to slap them because they're so stupid.

"Whatever you do, don't leave the hospital! Even if everyone is evacuating and Godzilla is coming for you. Don't leave the hospital. Feel free to send off our son so he can be safe, but you yourself don't leave it!"

Like, seriously?

It was also very slow paced, so I was completely not entertained throughout.

I wouldn't really recommend it.