The Greatest Game Ever Played

Every great journey begins with a dream. 

A 2005 biographical sports film, The Greatest Game Ever Played directed by Bill Paxton tells a true story of a young amateur golfer Francis DeSales Ouimet (May 8, 1893 - September 2, 1967) who has nothing but a seemingly impossible dream to challenge the world's greatest player, his idol Harry Vardon (9 May 1870 - 20 March 1937). The film was adapted from the novel - The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet and The Birth of Modern Golf by Mark Frost.

Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) was born in 1893 to a working-class family in Brookline, Massachusetts. His family purchased a house on Clyde Street across from the 17th hole of The Country Club when he was four years old. He grew up fascinated by golf after watching an exhibition by legendary British golf pro Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane) as a seven years old boy. However, at that time golf was considered a pastime only for the wealthy and privileged and British and Scottish players dominated the professional game.

At the age of nine, Francis started caddying at The Country Club while making friends with other caddies. Using clubs from his brother and balls that he found around the course, Francis teaches himself the game and wins the Massachusetts Schoolboy Championship.

HARRY VARDON, FRANCIS OUIMET & TED RAY

One day, a gentleman asks Francis to play with him over The Country Club course, where caddies have almost no access of their own and he shoots a fine round of eighty-one despite a triple bogey. His talent, composure and good manners earn admirers and interest; with the help of the gentleman, Francis gets a chance to play in an upcoming tournament, the U.S. Amateur, the local qualifying for which is to be held at the very same Country Club course. However, his father insisted Francis to drop out and do "something useful" with his life.

FRANCIS OUIMET & EDDIE LOWERY

Francis fulfills his promise to his father and works at a sporting goods shop. One day, the president of the United States Golf Association enters the store and personally invites him to play in the upcoming 1913 U.S. Open Championship. Against all odds, twenty years old Francis with a ten years old Eddie Lowery (Josh Flitter) playing hookey from school to caddy for him, he manages to beat the British champions Harry Vardon and Ted Ray (Edward R. G. "Ted" Ray)(28 March 1877 – 26 August 1943), considered the world's best golfers in an 18 holes playoff, following their three-way tie after the regulation 72 holes and becomes the first amateur to ever win the U.S. Open.

The film ends reveals that the following year Harry Vardon won his sixth British Open Championship, a record which stands to this day. Although he died in 1937, he is still considered the greatest English player of all time. While Francis Ouimet became a prominent businessman who went on to win two American Amateur Championships and became the game's most admired ambassador who changed the perception of the entire sport; sweeping away the notion that golf was a stuffy game for the old and rich. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.

Eddie Lowery (Edward Edgar Lowery)(October 4, 1902 - May 4, 1984) became a multi-millionaire as an auto dealer in San Francisco. Francis and Eddie remained lifelong friends and when Francis died in 1967, Eddie was one of the pallbearers.

All men dream, but not equally.

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds,

wake in the day to find that it was vanity:

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,

for they may act on their dreams with open eyes,

to make them possible. 

Movie Trailer:

       

Children of Heaven (Bacheha-Ye aseman‎)

Children of Heaven (‎Bacheha-Ye aseman), a 1997 Iranian family drama film written and directed by Majid Majidi. The first Iranian movie to ever be nominated by the Academy Awards for best foreign language film.

Set in Majidi's native Tehran, the film begins with Ali (Mohammad Amir Naji) sitting beside a shoemaker who is repairing a tiny pair of worn shoes that belong to his little sister Zahra (Bahare Seddiqi). Ali then carries the shoes to a fruit market and leaves them outside the door unattended to buy some potatoes. Unfortunately, a garbageman accidentally picks up the shoes, hidden in a bag and takes them away.

Ali's family, whose poverty makes it necessary for the children to bear many adult responsibilities, is behind on the rent for their tiny, one-room apartment. Ali fears to tell his parents about the mishap since his father (Reza Naji) who is employed in an office, would have to borrow money to buy Zahra another pair of shoes, but without the shoes Zahra can't go to school. So the children come up with their own solution: they decided to share Ali's equally worn Converse sneakers since they go to school at different times. Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and race back to return them to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. However, this uncomfortable arrangement between him and his sister leads to one adventure after another as they attempt to hide it from their parents and teachers and a matter of time when even Ali's shoes will wear out.

Finally, Ali enters a high-profile children's long distance footrace in the school. The third prize is one week at a vacation camp and a pair of brand new sneakers which he promises that he will win for the sneakers to Zahra ... ...

A wonderful and moving film revolving around Ali and Zahra and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes in a typical Iranian village and family, where a simple standard daily belongings to us turns to be a pure decadence to them.

Movie Trailer:

                

The Blind Side

Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

The Blind Side, written and directed by John Lee Hancock released in 2009 is based on the 2006 book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis tells the remarkable true story of Baltimore Ravens of the NFL offensive lineman left tackle Michael Oher (born May 28, 1986).

Michael grew up in the inner city housing projects in Memphis, Tennessee and was one of twelve children born to Denise Oher. His mother was an alcoholic and crack cocaine addict. His father, Michael Jerome Williams was frequently in prison and was murdered in prison when Michael was a senior in high school. Due to his impoverished upbringing, he received little attention and discipline during his childhood. He attended eleven different schools during his first nine years as a student. He was placed in foster care at age seven and alternated between living in various foster homes and periods of homelessness.

The film begins with seventeen years old Michael, at the instigation of acquaintance Tony Hamilton (Omar J. Dorsey)(based on Tony Henderson who in real life runs an athletic program that mentors teens in his neighborhood), an auto mechanic with whom he was living temporarily requests Burt Cotton (Ray McKinnon)(Hugh Freeze in real-life), the coach of Wingate Christian school (a fictional representation of Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, Tennessee) to help Michael enroll to the school. Impressed by Michael's size and athleticism and Coach Burt gets him admitted despite his abysmal academic record. At his new school, Michael is befriended by a boy named Sean Jr. "SJ" (Jae Head). SJ's mother Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) is a strong-minded interior designer and the wife of wealthy businessman Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw).

SUE MITCHELL

One rainy night, Leigh Anne notices Michael wearing only cutoff blue jeans and a t-shirt, shivering in the cold is walking down the road. When she learns that he is walking to the school gym to escape the weather and find warmth place to sleep, she offers him a place to sleep at her house. The next morning, when she sees Michael leaving, she asks him to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with her family. Slowly, Michael becomes a member of the Tuohy family. When Leigh Anne seeks to become Michael's legal guardian, she is told that even though he scored low in almost every category in a career aptitude test, he is in the ninety-eight percentile in protective instincts.

Michael is allowed to join the school football team after his grades improve and he has a shaky start due to his polite and gentle nature. He wasn't able to get the hang of the game and its rules and he wasn't able to understand what his role in the field was until Leigh Anne tap into his protective instincts to explain him how to play in the field. From that moment, Michael starts to play well and be useful to his team. An opportunity arises for Michael to play at university level, however, he needs to improve his grades. Hence, Leigh Anne hires a private tuition teacher, outspoken and kind Miss Sue (Kathy Bates) who worked five nights a week for four hours at a time to teach him and raised his GPA from a 0.6 to a 2.05 by the time he graduated in 2005.

SEAN JR., SEAN SR., LEIGH ANNE, MICHAEL OHER & COLLINS

When coaches from three respective universities come to recruit Michael, SJ talks to the coaches and leads the negotiations on Michael's behalf. Michael chooses the university where Sean had played for and where Leigh Anne was a cheerleader. That causes Investigator Granger (Sharon Morris) to move onto the matter before Michael arrives and she questions him as though they were holding interrogatory preceding at a police station. She thinks that the Tuohys and Miss Sue are using Michael to benefit that particular university. After thinking and questioning Leigh Anne on the matter, Michael realizes that the Tuohys are now his family and he tells Granger that that's the reason for him to choose that university.

The film ends showing the 2009 NFL Draft with the real Michael Oher being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round. Eight years after the Tuohys brought Michael into their home, they are just as devoted to him as ever and Michael bought his own home, lives in suburban Baltimore and Leigh Anne, an interior decorator helped him to decorate his house.

Most of the scenes in the film are based on real-life; the “White Walls” essay that was read by his biology teacher, the car accident, the No.74 jersey, the real Michael Oher never had his own bed before seventeen years old, he inspired the Tuohy family to sit around the dinner table and the encounter on the side of the road except it was on a snowy November morning in 2002 during Thanksgiving break and Leigh Anne didn’t offer Michael a place to stay immediately instead on the next day where she couldn't ignore that he had been out in the cold in cutoff jeans and a t-shirt, the same outfit he was seen wearing every day in the school.

An inspiring and touching story that will have you laughing along and fall in love with the characters, especially the little boy in the film, he was cute and his lines were incredibly funny.

People don't care how much you know

until they know how much you care.
No acts of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted.

Movie Trailer:

      

Everybody's Fine

Everybody's Fine is a 2009 American drama film that is written and directed by Kirk Jones. A remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's 1990 Italian film, Stanno Tutti Bene.

Frank Goode (Robert De Niro), an eight months widowed retiree lives by himself in Elmira, New York, is getting ready for his children, David (Austin Lysy), Rosie (Drew Barrymore), Amy (Kate Beckinsale) and Robert (Sam Rockwell) to come visit him in the summer for the first ­family get-together after their mother died. However, one by one though, each of them call to cancel on him at the last minute.

Deflated at first, Frank decides to head out on a cross-country trip to pay them all a surprise visit, despite warnings against travel from his doctor who says he needs to rest. He is chronically ill with cardiac and respiratory problems from his life work making PVC-covered power lines. He deceives his children about his health and telling them that he is fine. Frank travels by train to each of his children's homes, beginning with his artist son David who is absent from his New York apartment. His daughter Amy, the advertising executive in Chicago, his son Robert, the conductor on tour and presently in Denver and his daughter Rosie who is a performer in Vegas. In each case, his visit appears to be untimely and he is quickly shunted from one sibling to another, all of whom seem to hiding things from him. Amy was hiding that her husband had an affair, that her creative director was her boyfriend and that her son wasn't at the top of his class. Robert hid that he was a percussionist and not the conductor of an orchestra. Rosie was hiding that she wasn't a dancer, her fancy apartment doesn't belong to her and she had a child without Frank knowing.

Frank then decides to return home by plane and suffers a heart attack just before the plane land. He has a vision of him taking the day off to talk to his children (depicted as youngsters). He asks them what on earth can he now say to their mother and the young Rosie replies, "Tell her nothing if you love her as she loves you. Tell her what she wants to hear. Tell her we're all fine".

While in the hospital with his children, they finally tell him the truth that David has died in Mexico of a drug overdose, he can't accept it and breaks down. Upon his release from the hospital, Frank goes back to the gallery where he sees a painting in the window painted by David and wants to buy it but it has been sold. The gallery assistant recognizes his surname and takes him to the storeroom to show him a picture of the home landscape with telegraph poles painted by David. A metaphor of Frank's life, a telephone cable maker who spent his entire life working to provide for his family. She tells him that David always said without his father's push, he would never have become an artist.

I like this film, so much reality existed in it; parents who still see their grown up children as small kids, children bringing the good news instead of the truth back home to spare the discomfort or to avoid being disapproved, a father who is worry yet too hard at times and children grown up with different paths in lives after leaving a family nest and becoming distant. A lot of similarities with the real life in a family.

In the film, when Robert and Rosie watching the back of Frank off in the train station and airport respectively, it reminds me the time when my parents sending me off in airport for a course trip and looking at my parents from the boarding gate, they have grow old so much that I have not realize as we are so busy with our lives and it just make you feel like you want to spend more time with them.

A sentimental film that reminds us of a FAMILY (Father and Mother I Love You). A healthy foundation for life's adventures to support you in times of need, to challenge you to grow and to celebrate with you in times of victory.

Parents were the only ones obligated to love you;

from the rest of the world you had to earn it.

Movie Trailer:

      

明日話今天

偶然间听到了这首广东歌，觉得很有意思也很好听。就在网上搜索，才知道愿唱者是曾慶瑜，可惜她唱不紅這首歌。而香港歌手甄妮(生于一九五三年二月二十日)在七十年代尾期把這首歌曲给唱紅了。

不知道是不是人到了一定的年龄就特别怀旧，喜欢歌词里概叹日子的流逝，事物的变迁，应该要懂得把握当下，面对目前，珍惜今天。有种历尽沧桑而劝人不要自艾自叹而带有励志的意识。真是百听不厌。

好听的歌曲，永远都让人有刻骨铭心的效能 。。。

                

明日話今天 - 甄妮

无论有几多变迁 何必诸多挂牵

过了今天 再有一天 仲有几个十年

愿望系做个预算 梦话系自我去编

无谓去搵个道理把你欺骗

* 命里系注定从前 梦境系一片糊言

唯有我永远去面对目前 明日话今天

昨天亦提到 想到旧年 更多挑战

迎面有几多变迁 谁知道边一个先

这里高山 那里沧海 在那天变良田

实在系话变就变 预伏在乐趣前面

前面有干变万化 不会睇见

Patch Adams

Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams (born May 28, 1945) who had a difficult childhood. In 1961, his father, an officer in the United States Army had fought in Korea and died while stationed in Germany. After his father's death, Adams returned to the United States with his mother and brother. Upon his return, Adams has stated that he encountered institutional injustice which made him a target for bullies at school. As a result, Adams was unhappy and became actively suicidal. After being hospitalized three times in one year for wanting to end his life, he decided "You don't kill yourself; You make (love) revolution."

A 1998 comedy-drama film Patch Adams directed by Tom Shadyac is the fact-based story of Hunter "Patch" Adams, an unconventional physician who attempted to heal patients with laughter, based on his own book and mixing equal doses of scatological humor and pathos.

In 1969, Hunter Adams (Robin Williams) is a troubled man who voluntarily commits himself into a mental institution. His experiences there convince Adams to become a doctor and two years later, he enrolls at Virginia Medical University being the oldest first year student, where he is appalled at the cold, clinical professionalism that alienates patients from their caregivers. Determined to provide emotional and spiritual relief as well as medicine, Adams clowns around for his patients, getting to know them personally. Although his efforts seem to work wonders and the hospital nursing staff is grateful for the levity Adams provides, his methods alienate his uptight roommate Mitch Roman (Philip Seymour Hoffman) as well as the staff and faculty of his school. Adams perseveres, however, even starting his own low-cost rural clinic called the Gesundheit Institute and wooing a pretty fellow student, Carin Fisher (Monica Potter). Tragedy strikes and Adams' career is put in jeopardy, forcing him to defend his style and philosophy before a board of jurists determined to bar him from practicing medicine.

In real life, Adams attended George Washington University and graduating brilliantly in 1967. He received his recognition as a doctor from the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in 1971 and thereafter, he founded the Gesundheit Institute, a non-profit organization that is working towards building and sustaining the first FREE hospital in the United States.

Adams and Linda Edquist (who he met in MCV and she volunteered in the clinic) married in 1975 and divorced in 1998. They had two sons, Atomic Zagnut "Zag" Adams and Lars Zig Edquist Adams. In the late 1960s, one of his closest friends (a man and not a woman as depicted in the film) was murdered. As a speaker, now he travels around the globe lecturing about his medicine methods - good health is a laughing matter.

Life, Stormy says, 

is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. 

It's about perseverance,

about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.

Movie Trailer:

      

The Intouchables

“Sometimes you have to reach into someone else’s world to find what’s missing in your own.”

This is what the 2011 French comedy film The Intouchables directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache about; to leave from your comfort zone and go into the wilderness of your intuition to discover yourself. An unlikely true story of friendship between two men who should never have met, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo (born Feb 14, 1951), a quadriplegic aristocrat who was injured in a paragliding accident and his carer original Algerian, Abdel Yasmin Sellou for ten years.

The film begins at night in Paris when Driss (Omar Sy) is driving Philippe's Maserati Quattroporte at high speed with Phillipe (François Cluzet) in the passenger seat. They are soon chased and caught by the police. Driss claims to the police that he is trying to get urgent medical attention for Phillipe; Philippe pretends to have a stroke and the fooled police eventually escort them to the hospital. The two men are jubilant. As the police leave them at the hospital and they drive off. 

The story of their friendship is then told as a flashback.

Phillipe is a rich quadriplegic living in a mansion in Paris and he is interviewing for a live-in carer. Driss, a candidate who has no ambitions to get hired. He is just there to get a signature showing he was interviewed and rejected in order to continue to receive his welfare benefits. He is told to come back the next morning to get his signed letter. Driss goes back to the tiny flat that he shares with his extended family in a bleak Parisian suburb. His aunt, exasperated from not hearing from him for six months and orders him to leave the flat.

PHILIPPE POZZO DI BORGO
& ABDEL YASMIN SELLOU

The next day, Driss returns to Philippe's mansion and learns to his surprise that he is on a trial period for the live-in carer job. He learns the extent of Philippe's disability and then accompanies Philippe in every moment of his life, discovering with astonishment a completely different lifestyle. A friend of Philippe's reveals Driss's criminal record which includes six months in jail for robbery. Philippe states he does not care about Driss's past as long as he does his current job properly.

Over time, Driss and Philippe become closer. Driss dutifully takes care of his boss who frequently suffers from phantom pain. Philippe discloses to Driss that he became disabled following a paragliding accident in 1993 and that his wife died three years later of cancer without bearing children. Gradually, Philippe is led by Driss to put some order in his private life, including being more strict with his adopted daughter Elisa who behaves like a spoiled child with the staff. Driss learns about fine art, opera and responsibility from Philippe and Philippe is transformed by Driss to rediscovers his sense of adventure, hope and wonder in life. Together, they express a view of the world as full of possibility and life with opportunities to move forward.

An incredibly uplifting story about friendship, trust and human possibility that based upon a true story and real characters. The film ends reveal Philippe who is now his principal residence in the region of Essaouira in Morocco, is happily remarried and had two adopted children while Abdel is married with three children in Algeria, where he runs a poultry farm. The credits show Abdel Sellou and Philippe Pozzo di Borgo in reality and they are still in contact till today.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms 

and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you 

because you would not be able to live them. 

 And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. 

 Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, 

and live along some distant day into the answer.

Movie Trailer:

      

3 Idiots

One of the best Bollywood movie that I have ever watched even though is a bit lengthy but a true entertaining, enlightening and heartwarming film that remains etching in memory.

3 Idiots, a 2009 Indian comedy film directed by Rajkumar Hirani based on the novel Five Point Someone - What not to do at IIT! written by Chetan Bhagat in 2004. The film tells a story of three engineering students whose friendship stands the test of time.

The film begins with two friends, Farhan Qureshi (R. Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) embark on a quest to find a lost buddy, Ranchhoddas "Rancho" Shamaldas Chhanchad (Aamir Khan). Enroute, their memories drift back to the days when three of them were all college roommates in Imperial College of Engineering (ICE) ten years ago.

Farhan wants to become a wildlife photographer, but has joined engineering college to fulfil his father's wish. Raju is studying to get his family out of poverty while Rancho studies for his simple passion in machines who believes that one should follow excellence, not success as success will take care of itself if excellence is followed. With his different approach Rancho incurs the wrath of dean of college, Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (ViruS)(Boman Irani). Rancho irritates his lecturers by giving creative and unorthodox answers and confronts ViruS after fellow student Joy Lobo (Ali Fazal) hangs himself in his dormitory room. Joy had requested an extension on his major project on compassionate grounds that his father had suffered a stroke but ViruS refused, saying that he himself was completely unmoved by his own son's accidental death after being hit by a train. Rancho denounces the rat race, dog-eat-dog, mindless rote learning mentality of the institution, blaming it for Lobo's death. Threatened by Rancho's talent and free spirit, ViruS labels him as an "idiot" and attempts on a number of occasions to destroy his friendship with Farhan and Raju, warning them and their parents to steer clear of Rancho ... ...

There are few funniest moments in the film and one of it is when Rancho replaces the vernacular word chamatkar (serve, serving) with balatkar (screw) in the written speech prepared for Teachers' Day at the Imperial College of Technology and the insufferable Chatur Ramalingam (Omi Vaidya) who mindlessly memories the speech without noticing that anything is amiss. His speech becomes the laughing stock of the audience.

"Welcome our Chief guest, the Minister of Education. Welcome our respected Mr. Chairman and our respected teachers and schoolmates ... The reason our school can be so successful is only one person's contribution, Dr. Viru Sahhastrabuddhe! Give him a big hand ... He's a great guy really ... For 32 years, he has been continuously raping (the original word chamatkar means 'doing wonders' whereas balatkar means 'rape') college students ... We believe that he will continue that. It's so astonishing that a man can rape so many students perfectly in his life! His perseverance must come from his practicing! He devoted every moment to raping! We should learn from him! The students here will soon be all over the world. Wherever we go, we will continue to rape! We will make I.C.E proud! We will show everyone that our ability to rape is incomparable!"

"Good evening, Mr. Minister of Education. You gave us one thing that we need most ... Breasts (the original word means funds). Everyone has boobs but they all hide it ... No one would generously give them to others! But you gave your boobs to this rapist ... Now you'll see how he uses of it! (Verse) A loud fart is respectable ... A medium fart is tolerable ... A slight fart is fearful ... A silent fart is unbearable ... !"

Watch it and it sure make you laugh and cry at the same time for every moment of the three hours film and in the process in learning many golden rules for life. You will definitely love this awesome and remarkable film!

Whatever the problem in life is ...

just say to yourself 'Aal Izz Well' ... 

This wont solve your problems but it will give the courage to face it.

Chase Excellence and success will follow.

Life is not about getting marks, grades but chasing your dreams. 

Movie Trailer:

      

Full Movie (With English Subtitles):

     

Something The Lord Made

"They say you haven't lived unless you have a lot to regret. I regret ... I have some regrets. But I think we should remember not what we lost but what we've done." Alfred Blalock

The true life story of the first heart surgery in history - Something The Lord Made directed by Joseph Sargent in 2005 based on the National Magazine Award-winning Washingtonian magazine article "Like Something the Lord Made" by Katie McCabe.

The film tells the moving story of the thirty-four years partnership that begins in Depression Era Nashville in 1930 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee between one of the nation's pioneering cardiac surgeons, Alfred Blalock (Alan Rickman) and an African-American carpenter, Vivien Thomas (Mos Def) as his lab assistant.

Thomas, without a college degree, is a gifted mechanic and tool-maker with hands splendidly adept at surgery. In 1941, Blalock requests Thomas come along with him when he is offered as Chief of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas arrived in Baltimore with his family in June of that year, confronting a severe housing shortage and a level of racism worse than they had endured in Nashville. Hopkins, like the rest of Baltimore is rigidly segregated where the only black employees are janitors in the hospital and where Thomas must enter by the back door.

HELEN BROOKE TAUSSIG
(May 24, 1898 - May 20, 1986)

Blalock and Thomas formed a very close relationship and together, they developed a shunt technique to bypass coarctation of the aorta. While they were working on this, the cardiologist Helen Taussig (Mary Stuart Masterson) presents Blalock with the problem of the blue baby syndrome - a congenital heart defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot which results in inadequate oxygenation of the blood.

The film dramatizes their race to save a dying blue baby against the background of a Jim Crow (racial segregation) in America, illuminating the nuanced and complex relationship the two sustain. Thomas earns Blalock's unalloyed respect, with Blalock praising the results of Thomas' surgical skill as being "like something the Lord made" and insists that Thomas coach him through the first blue baby surgery over the protests of Hopkins administrators.

Yet outside the lab, they are separated by the prevailing racism of the time. Thomas attends Blalock's parties as a bartender, moonlighting for extra income and when Blalock is honored for the Blue Baby work at the segregated Belvedere Hotel, Thomas is not among the invited guests. Instead, he watches from behind a potted palm at the rear of the ballroom.

ALFRED BLALOCK (Apr 5, 1899 - Sep 15, 1964)
& VIVIEN THEODORE THOMAS (Aug 29, 1910 - Nov 26, 1985)

After Blalock's death, Thomas continued his work at Johns Hopkins Hospital training surgeons. In 1976, in a formal ceremony, Hopkins recognized Thomas' work and awarded him an honorary doctorate. A portrait of Thomas was placed on the walls of Johns Hopkins next to Blalock's portrait in the lobby of the Alfred Blalock Clinical Sciences Building.

The way you get meaning into your life 
is to devote yourself to love others, 
devote yourself to your community around you, 
and devote yourself to creating something 
that gives you purpose and meaning.

Movie Trailer:

      

Hachi: A Dog's Tale

For those who are dog lovers will bring to mind on this 2009 film directed by Lasse Hallstrom based on a true life dog story of a remarkable loyalty of a Aikta in Japan, Hachiko to his owner even many years after his owner's death.

The film begins in a class with full of young students who are giving oral presentations about their personal heroes. One of the boy named Ronnie (Kevin DeCoste) stands up and begins to tell of his grandfather's dog, 'Hachiko'.

In Bedridge, Professor Parker Wilson (Richard Gere) finds an abandoned dog at the train station and is instantly captivated by the dog. When the station controller Carl Boilins (Jason Alexander) refuses to take him, Parker takes the puppy home overnight with the intention of returning the dog to its owner the next day. But no one has and Parker convinces his wife, Cate (Joan Allen) to welcome him as part of the family. A Japanese friend Ken Fujiyoshi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawareads) translates the symbol on the pup's collar as 'Hachi', Japanese for 'good fortune' and the number eight. Hence, Parker decides to call the dog 'Hachi'.

SHIBUYA STATION (1912-1945)

Hachi is a somewhat peculiar dog that refuses to learn normal, dog-like things like chase and retrieve a ball but he is a faithful companion and friend to Parker, alerting him of potential dangers and accompanying him to the train station each morning and meeting him there after his return trip each evening. This continues for some time, until one afternoon Parker attempts to leave but Hachi barks and refuses to go with him. Parker eventually leaves without him but Hachi chases him, holding his ball. Parker is surprised but pleased that Hachi is finally willing to play fetch the ball with him. Worried that he will be late for the college, Parker leaves on the train despite Hachi barking at him. At work that day, Parker still holding Hachi's ball is teaching his music class when he suddenly suffers a fatal heart attack.

HIDESABURO UENO
(May 1871-May 21, 1925)

HACHIKO
(Nov 10, 1923-Mar 8, 1935)

At the train station, Hachi waits patiently as the train arrives but there is no sign of Parker. He remains, lying in the snow for several hours until Parker's son-in-law comes to collect him. The next day, Hachi returns to the station and waits, remaining all day and all night. For the next nine years, Hachi is old and achy, waiting at the station for his owner. Late at night, Hachi returns to the train station and closes his eyes for the last time. Then, Parker walks out of the station and greets him as if nothing has changed at all and the two reunite as their spirits rise up to Heaven to be together forever.

A moving sad true story about loyalty and the rare, invincible bonds that occasionally form almost instantaneously in the most unlikely places. In real life, Professor Ueno took Hachiko in 1924 and the pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage and died, never returning to the train station where Hachiko was waiting. Every day for the next nine years, Hachiko waited at Shibuya station and his legendary faithfulness became a national symbol of loyalty in Japan till today.

On April 8 each year, Hachi's devotion is honored with a solemn
ceremony of remembrance at Tokyo's Shibuya railroad station with
hundreds of dog lovers often turn out to honor his memory and loyalty.

Movie Trailer:

   

Jakob The Liar

Jokob The Liar, a 1999 American tragicomedy film directed by Peter Kassovitz is a remake film of 1975 East German-Czechoslovakian Holocaust film Jacob the Liar directed by Frank Beyer and based on the eponymous novel by Jurek Becker published in 1969.

The name "Jacob" is related to Jewish history and culture. In the biblical story of Jacob, from the Book of Genesis, Jacob tells a lie to his father Isaac in order to steal the first-born birth-right from his older brother Esau. According to classic Jewish texts, Jacob lived a life that paralleled the descent of his offspring, the Jewish people, into the darkness of exile.

During World War II in Nazi occupied Poland of early 1944, a Polish-Jewish shop keeper named Jakob Heym (Robin Williams) is summoned to Ghetto headquarters on a charge he broke the curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements and the defeats of the German Army. Returned to the Ghetto, Jakob shares his information with a friend Mischa (Liev Schreiber) who wants to risk his life by escaping. Mischa eventually spreads the lie out that Jakob possesses a radio since no one will believe he went to the Ghetto office and came back alive.

Jakob is now forced to become creative to tell favorable tales of information from "his secret radio". He has to provide new items of fictional news each day in order to help maintain the peace and hope and prevent despair from returning to the Ghetto. However, the Gestapo get wing of the stories, they become convinced that someone has communications equipment stashed away somewhere and they demand the person with the radio to give himself up or risk hostages being killed. Jakob surrenders himself to the Germans and tells them that he had only listened to the radio inside German Kommondant's office. He is ordered to announce publicly that this was all a lie but Jakob refuses to tell the truth when presented to the public and he is shot before he can make his own speech.

This is an old firm but still worth watching it again. Many Jewish prisoners died in the concentration camp through deliberate maltreatment, disease, starvation and overwork or were executed as unfit for labor. Jakob the Liar shows another tragic aspect of the Holocaust and in the film, many have attempts to hang themselves or risk their life escaping to end the situation cause they do not see a future but Jakob with his own individual's unique attempt brings hope and faith alive in the desperate situation.

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Only Time

Originally released in November 2000 which composed and recorded by Irish singer Enya (17 May 1961) who influences are with Irish music, church music and classical music.

To date, "Only Time" is Enya's biggest solo hit in the United States, where it peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, number twelve on the Pop Chart and first on the adult contemporary chart.

Personally, love her songs, especially her beautiful voice and Only Time is just one of it which was also featured in the soundtrack of the romantic film - Sweet November.



                

ONLY TIME - Enya

Who can say where the road goes

Where the day flows, only time

And who can say if your love grows

As your heart chose, only time

Who can say why your heart sighs

As your love flies, only time

And who can say why your heart cries

When your love lies, only time

Who can say when the roads meet

That love might be in your heart

And who can say when the day sleeps

If the night keeps all your heart

Night keeps all your heart

Who can say if your love grows

As your heart chose, only time

And who can say

Where the road goes

Where the day flows, only time

Who knows - only time

Who knows - only time

The Crucible (Silenced)( 도가니)

The Crucible (도가니) is a 2011 South Korean film directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk based on the novel of the same name by Gong Ji-young published in 2009. It is based on actual events that took place at Gwangju Inhwa School for the hearing-impaired, where young deaf students ages seven to twenty-two were the victims of repeated sexual assaults by faculty members over a period of five years in the early 2000s.

Kang In-ho (Gong Yoo) is the newly appointed art teacher at Benevolence Academy, a school for hearing-impaired children in the fictional city of Mujin, North Jeolla Province. His wife was a high school student who committed suicide and he has a daughter who is staying with his mother suffers from asthma. Kang has to earn money for his daughter's surgery and on his first day at school, Kang meets the school's principal and director of administration who are an identical twins. The director of administration asks for a bribe from him to work at their school. Kang's mother delivers the 50 million WON (US$50,000) by taking out the deposit money for their home.

One day, on his way home, Kang notices one of his students Yoo-ri (Jung In-seo) sitting on the ledge of her dorm room window, he rushes into the dorm building and pull her back from the window. Yoo-Ri then leads Kang to a door down the hall where he sees the dormitory superintendent, Yoon Ja-ae (Kim Joo-ryung) dunking the head of orphaned male student, Yeon-doo (Kim Hyun-soo) inside a washing machine and discovers an ugly horrifying truth about the school. The children are being physically and sexually abused repeatedly by their teachers.

Kang decides to fight for the children’s rights and expose the crimes being committed at the school. He teams up with human rights activist Seo Yoo-jin (Jung Yoo-mi) but they soon realize that the school’s principal and teachers and even the police, prosecutors and churches in the community are actually trying to cover up the truth. Even after the court proceedings, the faculty members were only given light penalties and some even got their jobs back.

Being based on a tragic real-life story of sexual abuse at a school for hearing-impaired children, The Crucible is a haunting, brutal, visceral and ultimately heartbreaking tale that literally shocked the nation which raised public awareness and outrage about lenient laws and court rulings on sexual violence against minors.

Two months after the film's release and resulting controversy, Gwangju City officially shut down the school in November 2011. In July 2012, the Gwangju District Court sentenced the sixty-three years old former administrator of Gwangju Inhwa School to twelve years in prison for sexually assaulting an eighteen years old student in April 2005. He was also charged with physically abusing another seventeen years old student who had witnessed the crime (the victim reportedly attempted to commit suicide afterward). The administrator, only identified by his surname Kim was also ordered to wear an electronic anklet for ten years following his release.

Sometime real life can be far more cruel than the fiction.

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Erin Brockovich

A 2002 film directed by Steven Soderbergh tells a dramatization of the true story of Erin Brockovich who fought against the US West Coast energy corporation Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993.

Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is an unemployed single mother of three who after losing a personal injury lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident she was in, asks her lawyer, Edward L. Masry (Albert Finney), if he can help her find a job. Edward gives her work as a file clerk in his office and she runs across some information on a little-known case filed against Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case, convinced that the facts simply don't add up and persuades Edward to allow her to do further research. In time, she discovers a systematic cover-up of the industrial poisoning of a city's water supply, which threatens the health of the entire community.

ERIC BROCKOVICH-ELLIS
(Born June 22, 1960)

Eventually a man approaches her and says that he was tasked with destroying documents at PG&E, but he had noticed the medical conditions plaguing the workers who worked in the unlined ponds, and kept the documents instead. Now he gives them to her. One is a 1966 memo that ties a conversation of a corporate executive in the San Francisco PG&E headquarters to the Hinkley station which proves that the corporate headquarters knew the water was contaminated with hexavalent chromium but did not do anything about it.

EDWARD LOUIS MASRY
(Jul 29, 1932 - Dec 5, 2005)

Rather than delay any settlement for years through a series of jury trials and probable appeals, Edward takes the opportunity to arrange for a final disposition by binding arbitration. Erin is able to persuade the 634 plaintiffs to go along and the evidence is examined by a judge without a jury.

In 1996, the judge orders PG&E to pay a settlement amount of $333 million divided among the plaintiffs which was the largest in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. In the final scene, Edward hands Erin her bonus payment for the case, but says he has changed the amount and she is astonished to see that he has increased it to $2 million.

By the way, Edward L. Masry has a non-speaking cameo in the film as a diner patron sitting behind Julia Roberts, the same diner that cameos Erin Brockovich as a waitress named Julia R. To date, Erin Brockovich is the president of a consulting firm Brockovich Research & Consulting and is currently working as a consultant for Girardi & Keese, the New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure and Shine Lawyers in Australia.

We all have our own life to pursue, 

our own kind of dream to be weaving 

and we all have the power to make wishes come true, 

as long as we keep believing that can make anything happen. 

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Catch Me If You Can

Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (born April 27, 1948), also known by countless aliases including "The Skywayman" is an American former check confidence trickster, forger and impostor who became notorious in the 1960s for passing meticulously forged checks worth about $2.5 million in twenty-six countries and all fifty U.S. States over the course of five years, all before he was twenty-one.

In 2002, Steven Spielberg made a film - Catch Me If You Can based on the life of Frank Abagnale, who successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars and became the youngest man to ever make the FBI's most-wanted list for forgery.

FRANK W. ABAGNALE JR.

Frank W. Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a sixteen years old high school student who finds himself emotionally cut adrift when his mother, Paula (Nathalie Baye) leaves his father, Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken), after Frank Sr. is denied a business loan at Chase Manhattan Bank due to unspecified difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service. One day at school, Frank Jr. attempts to pass himself off as a substitute teacher and easily makes the subterfuge work. His small-scale success gives Frank some ideas and he soon discovers bigger and more profitable ways of hoaxing others, passing himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor and an attorney. Along the way, Frank learns how to become a master forger and uses his talent and charm to pass over 2.5 million dollars in phony checks. Frank's increasingly audacious work soon attracts the attention of an FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) who is determined to put Frank behind bars. Frank seems to enjoy being pursued by Carl and even goes so far as to call Carl on the phone to chat every once in a while. While posing as a doctor, Frank falls in love with a sweet girl working as a candy striper Brenda Strong (Amy Adams). When Frank asks Brenda to marry him, he decides to assume a new identity to impress her father, Roger (Martin Sheen) who happens to be the District Attorney of New Orleans, LA.

RETIRED FBI AGENT
JOE SHAYE

Carl tracks him to his engagement party where Frank has eventually admits the truth about himself to Brenda and asks her to run away with him in two days later after he left. But Frank realizes he has been set up when he sees Brenda waiting for him with agents in disguise and he escapes on a flight to Europe. A year-and-a-half later in 1967, Carl remembers from an interview with Frank's mother that she was born in Montrichard, France. He goes there and finds Frank and tells him that the French police will kill him if he does not go with Carl quietly. Frank assumes he is lying at first, but Carl promises Frank he would never lie to him and Carl takes him outside, where the French police escort him to prison. The real Frank Abagnale appears in the film as a French policeman arresting him to the car.

Frank is sentenced to twelve years in prison in the Federal Correction Institution at Petersburg, Virginia, in April 1971. In 1974, after he had served less than five years, the United States federal government offer Frank a deal by which he can live out the remainder of his sentence working for the bank fraud department of the FBI, which Frank accepts.

The ending credits reveal that Frank has been happily married for twenty-six years, has three sons and lives a quiet live in the Midwest. Since his release from prison in 1974, Frank has helped the FBI capture some of the world's most elusive money forgers and counterfeiters and is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on bank fraud and forgery. He earns millions of dollars each year because of his work creating unforgeable checks and to this day, Frank and Carl (retired FBI agent Joe Shaye) remain as close friends.

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors 

and mistakes and make amends for them. 

To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, 

but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character. 

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The Front Line (고지전)

The final battle of Korea war that determined the border between North and South - The Front Line (고지전). A 2011 South Korean war film directed by Jang Hun set during the 1953 ceasefire of Korea war.

Despite the ceasefire negotiations which began on July 10, 1951 at Kaesongon, the fighting continues around the Aerok Hills on the eastern front to determine the future dividing line between the North and the South. The hills continue to change hands so frequently that the generals at the negotiation table can't even keep track of it.

First Lieuenant Kang Eun-pyo (Shin Ha-kyun) of the Defense Security Command is sent to the front to investigate the murder of a South Korean officer commanding Alligator Company who is found dead by a Southern bullet and also to discover if there is a mole in the unit when mail from a North Korean soldier to his family in the South is found.

Upon arrival, Kang is immediately shocked at the state of the soldiers, the conditions on the front and the presence of a former friend, Kim Soo-Hyeok (Go Soo) who he believed to be dead early in the Korea war. A disarray unit led by Kim because of the high kill rate in the dangerous region. With a truce promised for years but no end in sight, one man struggles to make sense of a crime in the face of countless lives sacrificed for war.

Though the characters in the film are fictional and the symbolic hill called Aerok in the film is form by the word "Korea" in backwards but the war between the North and South Korea is real and it shows the seriousness as it comes to the consequences of the war for a small, strategic hill on the front. Like what Kim in the film said, "Our enemy wasn't commies, but the war itself."

The film ends with Kang walking down the hill among the corpses of all the fallen soldiers, leaving the fate of Aerok Hill unknown.

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Les Choristes (The Chorus)

Les Choristes (The Chorus), a moving and heartfelt French drama film about a correctional school for boys set in post war France directed by Christophe Barratier in 2004. The film is an adaptation of the 1945 film La Cage aux Rossignols (A Cage of Nightingales).

The story begins with a wildly successful orchestra conductor Pierre Morhange (Jacques Perrin) returns home for his mother's funeral. Soon, an old friend called Pépinot (Didier Flamand) arrives at his door with a diary. It is the diary of their teacher, Clément Mathieu and they read it together.

On 15 January 1949, an unemployed music teacher Clement Mathieu (Gerald Jugnot) who finds a job working as a supervisor in a French school called 'Fond de l'Etang', a school whose name literally translates to "at the bottom of the pond". 'Fond de l'Etang' is a boarding school for orphans and problematic boys. At the gate, Mathieu sees a young child, Pépinot (Maxence Perrin) who is waiting for Saturday for his father to come for him. Unfortunately, Pépinot's parents were killed in World War II, he has not been told and still thinks that his father would come back on a Saturday for him.

The school is run by an egotistical disciplinarian principal M. Rachin (François Berléand) and the motto of the school is "Action - Reaction", meaning that there will severe punishments for any boy who is 'out of the line'. Obviously, this method isn't working as the boys continue to misbehave. Mathieu does not believe in the "Action - Reaction" policy and sets out to change the boys using his own methods. One night, Mathieu discovers the boys singing rude songs about him behind his back, including ones that refer to him as "cueball" for his baldness, he instead reacts positively by stating that "some of them even had good voices" and plan to acquaint them with the magic and power of music. With his methods, Mathieu changes the lives of the boys, of the other employees and his own.

A truly inspiring, touching and magnificent film that is engaging and enchanting from the very first scene. Especially, towards the end of the film, when Mathieu is fired for breaking the rule and asked to leave the school, the boys who are forbidden to say goodbye, throw messages to him on paper planes out of the window to the beautiful song, "Cerf-Volant".

Music gives a soul to the universe, 
wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.

Les-Choristes - Vois Sur Ton Chemin

Les-Choristes - Cerf Volant

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Scarborough Fair

This was originally an Elizabethan Era riddle song about a young man and his former lover, wishing for the impossible, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

However, Simon and Garfunkel's version include a second lyrics behind the originals. These are lyrics against the Vietnam War (in The Wonder Years TV series from 1988 through 1993), placed there in a magnificent manner through sublime notes. The meaning of this song varies individually, it can be about war or love or remembrance. Nevertheless, it is a very sad and beautiful song.

                 

SCARBOROUGH FAIR

Simon and Garfnkel

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
(Blankets and bedclothes a child of the mountains)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsely, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Washed is the ground with so many tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strand
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather
(War bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And to gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

 Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

J.S.A.: Joint Security Area

Joint Security Area (공동경비구역 JSA) is a 2000 South Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook and is based on the novel DMZ by Park Sang-yeon. The film, which was shot on location in South Korea, concerns an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a fatal shooting incident within the DMZ, the heavily fortified border that separates North and South Korea.

The film opens with a shooting along the heavy militarized border between North and South Korea, which leaves a North Korean soldier Pvt. Chǒng U-jin (Shin Ha- Kyun) dead and a South Korean soldier Sgt. Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-hun) on border duties, attempts to flee back to the South Korean side.

Hoping to reduce the potentially explosive political fallout by solving the crime quickly, both countries agree on a special investigation conducted by Major Sophie E Jang (Lee Yeong-Ae) on behalf of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission.

In a politically-sensitive place where safety is ensured by covering-up the truth, the young lady investigator learns that things are often not what they seem. As she methodically sifts through the evidence, Sophie learns that the testimony of two other soldiers, North Korean Sgt. Oh Kyeong Pil (Song Kang-Ho) and South Korean Sgt. Lee Soo Hyeok (Lee Byung-Hun) are completely contradictory. Another witness Pvt. Nam Sung-shik (Kim Tae-Woo) tries to commit suicide rather than divulge information.

In her ardent desire to uncover the details of the bizaare incident, she risked the eruption of a serious conflict and discovers a tragic story of friendship.

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山楂树之恋 (Under the Hawthorn Tree)

《山楂树之恋》是张艺谋执导的一部二零一零年文艺类电影，其改编于美籍华人艾米的同名小说。故事发生在文革时期(一九七五年前后)，讲述了一段真实纯真的爱情故事。

一九七四年的初春，上高中的静秋（周冬雨饰）原是一个城里姑娘，长得很秀气，但家庭成份不好(父亲是地主后代，文革中被打击)故而性格较为内向和自卑。静秋和同学被学校选中，参加编辑新教材而来到西坪村采访村民。在去西坪村的途中，村长向他们介绍了一株开红色花朵的山楂树。村长说，这棵树原本是开白花的，但在抗日战争期间，无数抗日英雄被杀害在树下而他们的鲜血都流进了地下，这棵树就开了红花。

‘静秋'原型熊音（1957年出生）
‘老三' 孙建新（1950年4月28日-1976年的5月4日） 

在西坪村，静秋被安排住在村长家，认识了英俊又有才气的军区司令员的儿子 ‘老三' 孙建新（窦骁饰）。老三喜欢上了静秋，静秋怕他欺骗她，起初常常躲避。老三是个极重情谊的人，他一直在鼓励静秋，甘愿为静秋做任何事。后来二人在交往中渐生情愫。老三期待静秋毕业，工作，转正，等待静秋所有的心愿都成了真。最后老三的愿望终于实现了，但他却得了白血病，最终离开了人世。那时候，一九七六年，老三他还很年轻。

老三走了，按他的遗愿，他的遗体火化后，埋在了那棵山楂树下。老三生前把他的日记，写给静秋的信件，照片等都交给他的弟弟保管，并对他说，如果静秋过得很幸福，就不要把这些东西给她；如果她爱情不顺利，或者婚姻不幸福，就把这些东西给她，让她知道这世界上曾经有一个人，倾其身心的爱过她。

老三日记本的扉页上写着：“我不能等你一年零一个月了，我也不能等你到二十五岁了，但是我会等你一辈子。”

电影预告片:

刻骨銘心 - 常石磊

他哪裡走 我哪裡跟

心中的相思說不清 

我唱的歌 他拉的琴

山楂樹連兩顆心 

紅花如是血 白花就是情 

滿束的鮮花卻看不見他

天呀 地呀 你不要帶走他 

 風呀 雨呀 你不要傷害他 

我要變做山楂花 隨他化作泥土 在這裡安家

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山楂花 - 陈楚生

走过了这一片青草坡 有棵树在那等着 

它守着你和我的村路 站立成一个传说 

山楂树开满了花 落在你羞涩脸颊 

山楂树开满了花 我等你一句回答 

可是我先走啦 纵然太不舍 

别哭我亲爱的 你要好好的 

在时间的尽头 你定会看见我 

唱着歌在等你 微笑着 

就算我最后碎成粉末 也有你为我而活 

只要我还能为你记得 我就是不朽的 

山楂树开满了花 像你在对我说话 

山楂树开满了花 我就是不朽的 

可是我先走啦 纵然太不舍 

 别哭我亲爱的 你要好好的 

在时间的尽头 你定会看见我 

唱着歌在等你 微笑着

唐山大地震 (Aftershock)

一九七六年七月二十八日，在中国河北省唐山、丰南一带发生了强度里氏八点二级（矩震级七点五级）。地震持续约二十三秒，房屋倒塌，灾民无数，强震产生的能量相当于四百颗广岛原子弹爆炸。整个唐山市顷刻间夷为平地，全市交通，通讯，供水和供电中断。唐山地震没有小规模前震，而且发生于凌晨三时四十二分当人们熟睡之时，使得绝大部分人毫无防备，造成二十四点二万人死亡，重伤十六点四万人，被名列二十世纪世界地震史死亡人数第一。

由冯小刚导演的二零一零年影片《唐山大地震》，改編自华裔畅销作家張翎的作品《餘震》，讲述了一九七六年唐山地震中一个唐山家庭在震后三十二年间的悲欢离合。卡车司机方大强（张国强饰）和妻子李元妮（徐帆饰），龙凤胎儿女方登（张子枫饰），方达（张家骏饰）过着平凡幸福的生活。七月的一个傍晚，唐山发生了大地震。危急时刻，方大强拦住了妻子，冲进去营救时不幸罹难。李元妮在震后发现，一双儿女被困在一块水泥板两端，若要营救，只能选择救姐弟之一。情急之下，她做出了艰难选择-救弟弟。此事成为方登心中难以磨灭的隐痛。昏迷的方登被误认已经死亡而被陈尸于父亲身旁，但昏迷多天过后，方登奇迹似的苏醒。劫后余生的方登被军人王德清（陈道明饰）夫妇收养。高考后，方登（张静初饰）进入杭州医学院学习，并与研究生师兄杨志（陆毅饰）产生了感情而方达（李晨饰）则被救却断了胳膊，李元妮以无私的母爱抚养他成人。成年后的方达去了杭州闯荡，娶了媳妇小河（王子文饰），并干出了一番事业。直到三十二年后的汶川大地震，他们的生命轨迹才重新走到一起。

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天梯

在看了香港2012电视剧《天梯》，才知道是根据重庆古镇高滩村（现长乐村）一对男女「愛情天梯」的真人真事改编而成。

愛情天梯

在2002年，一隊登山隊在高滩村的深山中，發現了半坡頭的高山有條人工修築的石梯通向山頂。這條六千多級的石梯被大家命名為「愛情天梯」，是一名男子用了五十多年時間為愛妻所修築的。這條「愛情天梯」見證了真愛的存在。

在上世纪四十年代，六岁的劉國江認識了一位十六岁美丽的新娘子，徐朝清。一次意外磕断了劉國江的门牙。按照山里习俗，掉了门牙的孩子只­要被新娘子在嘴里摸一下，新牙就会长出来。于是，在长辈的带领下，劉國江来到新娘子面前，徐朝清就用小手轻轻地放到劉國江的嘴里，劉國江久久地深情地凝视着新­娘子。从此，徐朝清的模样就印在了劉國江的心中。

徐朝清与劉國江

天有不测之风云。十年后，徐朝清的丈夫患急性脑膜炎去世，她成了寡妇，独自带着四个孩子，最大的九岁，最小的才一岁，艰难地生活着。劉國江出于善良和助人的心里，帮助徐朝清，担水劈柴，照顾小孩，什么都做，渐渐地双方产生了感情。然而，在一个封闭且封建的深山小村中，他们俩的感情不被接受。為了避開閒言碎語，逃离世俗的尘埃，他們决定带着孩子遠離塵世到与世隔绝的深山定居。他們從山下帶了四個孩子上山，其中最小的一個孩子五歲時，掉進糞坑死了，後來又生了四個小孩，都是劉國江接生的。就这样，他们過著近似刀耕火种的原始生活，靠野菜和双手养大七个孩子，互称 ‘小伙子’ 和 ‘老妈子’，生活虽艱苦但却甜蜜温馨快樂。虽然徐朝清一辈子也没下过几次山，但上山下山步步艱難，為了怕妻子受傷，劉國江決定用雙手開墾石級，結果用了五十多年的時間，鑿了一條六千多級的石梯，在2006年8月被评选为“中国当代十大经典爱情故事”。

时光飞逝，二老的女兒們早已嫁出大山，兒子們也出山當了倒插門女婿（上门女婿或入赘女婿）。这对恩爱夫妻最后的心愿就是他们约定要是那一方先去世，就把骨灰埋在山巅，静静等候另一方的到来。在2007年12月12日，劉國江因脑血管破裂而與世長辭，享年七十二岁。安葬地点就在他曾凿过的「愛情天梯」而她的妻子则下山和兒子住，待百年後要運上山和劉國江合葬，終生與天梯廝守。

最美的幸福，是把一个人记住，

最好的辛苦，是想你想到哭，

最大的满足，是你给我的在乎，

爱受了些苦，才变得刻苦铭心。

      

天梯
C AllStar   

如可　找個荒島 

向未來避開生活中那些苦惱 

如冬天欠電爐　雙手擁抱　可跟天對賭 

無論有幾高　就如絕路 

隔絕塵俗只想要跟你可終老 

來跨出那地圖　不需好報　都只想你好 

能共你　沿途來爬天梯　不用忌諱 

中傷流言全悍衛 

留住你　旁人如何　話過不可一世 

問我亦無愧　有你可　失去我一切 

幾多對　持續愛到幾多歲 

當生命　仍能為你豁出去 (不轟烈 如何做世界之最) 

千夫所指裡　誰理登不登對　 

仍挽手歷盡在世間興衰 

幾多對　能悟到幾多精髓 

能撐　下去　竭力也要為愛盡瘁 

抱緊一生未覺累 

前方　仍然大霧 

到懸崖或海邊也許永不知道 

能相擁到白頭　一起偕老　不跟天鬥高 

前面有幾高　一片荒土 

每步隨著攀登叫雙手都粗糙 

從崎嶇這路途　開墾給你　可走得更好 

能共你　沿途來爬天梯　黑夜亦亮麗 

於山頭同盟洪海中發誓 

留住你　旁人如何　話過不可一世 

問我亦無愧　有你可以　拆破這天際 

握著手　而幸福包圍泥牆簡陋 

牽著走　懷著勇氣至愛得永久 

幾多對　持續愛到幾多歲 

當生命　仍能為你豁出去