"You Don't Know Jack" movie review

Jack Kevorkian, whom the media oftly refer to as "Doctor Death", gained notoriety in the medical world for audaciously promoted a peaceful termination to agonising lives of people struck with incurable diseases. You Don't Know Jack is a biographical movie of his dealings with the issue of mercy-killing, starring the legendary actor Al Pacino as the lead role.

The intro started with Kevorkian regretting to have seen his own mother dying in such pain during the last days of her life. Partially blaming himself for not taking action, he henceforth intended to give peace to those people who no longer have any satisfying or fulfilling lives, such as those sentenced with Lou Gehrig's disease, pancreatic cancer, and other terminal illnesses. However, he was not the Grim Reaper as some cult fiction portrays him to be. For one, he does not even charge those patients. Also, before he could end a patient's life (painlessly) with a gas device, he always made sure that he videotaped one last interview with the patients and their family, in order to ensure the legal system in the future that he did not just murder those patients on a whim. He even dissuaded most patients from ending their lives when there was still hope. Such a case was shown when Kevorkian asked a patient whose body was slightly scarred from a fire accident to refrain from suicidal wills. Kevorkian told him that the real problem was not the fire burns but clinical depression, which was curable. Eventually, that patient decided to choose life, which Kevorkian happily obliged.



The latter half of the movie deals with Kevorkian's legal battles against the state of Michigan, which sparked a ferocious nationwide debate on the issue of mercy-killing.

I personally find the movie highly amusing due to the fact that it is well-produced. Al Pacino plays Kevorkian so well that he even adopts Kevorkian's Detroit accent. The movie also carries a sardonic, comical undertone by showing Kevorkian's genius outside the medical field (he sold some surrealistic paintings to art galleries) and the soundtrack of Bach played throughout the duration(who is Kevorkian's favourite musician).

In the end, it does not matter whether you are a conservative religious or an atheist...it is highly likely that you will find this movie as amusing as I did. You Don't Know Jack does not attempt to argue on whether physician-assisted suicide is right or wrong. It is, simply put, a movie about Kevorkian's dealings with euthanasia, his patients, and the consequences he would face later on in public.

The morality behind euthanasia is for yourself to decide.


Rating: 8 stars out of 10

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American Sign Language

I registered for the classes of ASL 101 and ASL 102 back-to-back as a foreign language requirement to complete my Associates. And in contrary to what most other people say, I think this is among the hardest languages I've studied, especially since I'm not adept in facial expressions.

As a result, I would have dropped my ASL 102 at the completion of 101 next month....if not for the highly-attractive young female professor who is teaching the class.

I love coming to this class. It is probably the first course where I have a perfect attendance (i.e., no skiving off classes).

Seriously, I do think that more universities should have a professor like her.

A slightly tall brunette-haired lady in her mid-20s, with a lithe figure, sweet complexion and always wears nice cardigans... ASL is probably the only class in my campus where male students don't doze at all throughout the lecture, not even for one minute. We just stare at those beautiful eyes, even if we don't understand one bit what the hell she's talking about.



So why did I decide to register for the class anyway?

(FYI, I had no knowledge of who the teacher was until the first day of class)

Because of the movie Orphan. Yes, that psycho-thriller movie about the adopted girl who ended up almost killing the entire family.

I rated the movie 4.0/5.0 in Flixster, and it was indeed one of the best movies in 2009. The movie has one of the characters, Max, who is a deaf-mute girl who communicates with her family using ASL.

It got me saying: Oh my, what a cute language!

I always have an adjective for different languages. While German is coarse, English is practical, Japanese is awesome, French is lovely and Chinese Mandarin is complicated, I'd say that ASL is cute.

I didn't know if I ended up liking ASL because I thought that the kid Max expressed the ASL well, or simply because I liked ASL for what it looks like. Anyway I ended up registering for these classes.

Little did I know that I would change my opinion of ASL later on. I should've known it.

But I don't regret taking this class. Why should I?

'post~script The professor — unfortunately — is happily married and has a toddler. Which kinda shucks, but that does not discourage males from looking at her anyway! Tsk tsk.. Shame on them! Haha.

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(499th) day of Summer

While signs of autumn seemed to have arrived on early September (it dropped from 28 C to 12 C in less than 24 hours, how annoying is that?), some people just can't wait to have autumn back on the doorstep.

Ah, autumn!



The most romantic month of the year in Kentucky is not February.

It's October, when the rustic charm resonates in the surroundings with early steps of autumn. Autumn in Kentucky also tends to have more rain than any other time of the year, which gives the impression of living in the outskirts of Oregon.

Calm, peaceful, and slightly cool. Makes you want to cuddle with your lover.

When I get married, I'd probably have the ceremony outdoors in autumn. Winter would be freezing while summer would be too sweltering.

Spring would confuse people as to what dress code one should wear, since the cold days and hot days come alternately.

Not that I have anyone in mind though.

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A decision (not) to delete Facebook

Facebook's policy on account deletion requires its users to deactivate for a period of 14 days without any logging whatsoever. Those who are tepid hence could always decide to log back in and reactivate their accounts.

Take me, as an example.



After mulling it over, I have decided not to delete my account. There are simply some whose main avenue of communication with me is thru Facebook, and should I delete my account, there is a good chance I may never see them again.

I shall be deactivating it temporarily though, until I sort some personal matters out.

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Why old movies are not worth watching

In deciding whether a movie is worth watching, I tend to have several aspects in mind. I favour movies that are:

1. Hollywood, French, German, or Japanese produced



2. Produced after year 1999

It's not about BWs or silent movies, really (though I have to admit, I am not knowledgeable in that aspect since I have not watched any BW or silent before).

Despite being a young film aficionado, I am not biased against indie movies. Just because a movie is indie does not mean that it is going to suck (though I admit around 50% to 60% of indie movies have a poorly-written script).



Here are several reasons why think that any movies produced before 1999 are not worth watching:

1. Movies of those era (especially Westerns and dramas produced between 1950 to 1989), tend to have a loud, blaring classical soundtrack that eats up the first 10 minutes of the movie intro.

I find that very annoying, especially when that soundtrack has almost the same decibel loudness as the characters speaking in the movie. I'd rather watch something where I can hear the characters speaking...I'm not deaf, I don't need soundtracks that loud and that long.

2. Older movies tend to have poorer CGI (this should be obvious).

I am not a fan of CGI-heavy movies like the The Transformers or Chronicles of Narnia franchises, but I personally think that if you have to have CGI in your movie, you gotta do it right, baby! There is nothing more painful than having to be entertained with a good storyline in the beginning, only to have your eyes hurt having to watch poor attempts at CGI by prehistoric people.

3. That classical soundtrack I mentioned above in No.1 would be played in endless loop throughout 80% of the movie duration.

with the same loud, blaring decibels.


~~~~~~~~

Of course, exceptions do exist. I find both The Sound of Music (1965) and Heidi (1993) highly likable.

But such exceptions are rare. Until this day, I still cannot get myself to watch highly-recommended oldies such as Scarface, The Godfather franchise, or Lawrence of Arabia. I just haven't got the willpower to watch them yet.

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