Movie Marathon - Dark Knight Rises and Brave

As a result of work, we had been rather deprived of a movie since end June. We were looking forward to watching two movies: The Amazing Spiderman and Dark Knight Rises. However, by the time we managed to squeeze some time to watch a movie, the former had already stopped showing on the screens. Luckily for us, the latter was still on the big screens.

There had been much hype about the Dark Knight as it was the last of the much anticipated trilogy. The movie started off with the protagonist idling away, wallowing in self pity, as Gotham was free of organised crime ever since the last episode a few years back and there was no need for Batman. However, no city was ever crime-free and the cops were soon chasing some bad guys which eventually led to the apperance of the main bad guy, Bane. The story soon developed into Bane trying to take the city hostage by setting up a nuclear bomb, cutting off the escape routes for the citzens and trapping the cops underground after bombing several key installations.

At the same time, the movie also presented the life of a thief, the female protagonist, who apparently was also in good distant working relationship with Bane as she was the one who caused Batman's back to be broken by Bane. However, Bane kept him alive in a prison to torture him mentally by making him feel that he was helpless in trying to save Gotham. Luckily, the prisoners helped Batman to heal his back by using some godlike skills of pushing the dislocated / broken bones back into his spine and to give him hints as to how to escape for the prison.

Once back in Gotham, Batman embarked on his mission to save the city and managed to enlist the help of the thief as she felt disgusted with the progress of Bane's plan. Batman soon got into a fight with Bane and almost defeated him. However, the twist came when the girl whom Batman was saving turned out to be the ultimate bad guy, the only one who managed to escape from the prison that Batman was in, and stabbed Batman. The thief came in to save the day by blasting Bane away.

However, time was not in the good guys' favour and Batman ultimately sacrificed himself by bringing the nuclear reactor to a faraway place for it to detonate. Meanwhile, the policeman who kept helping Batman throughout the movie was disheartened with the legal system, decided to quit his job and ventured into the bat cave, hinting that he would later become the famous Robin. It was also subtlely indicated that Batman did not really die with the discovery of the fixing of the automated flight program and the sighting of him with a girl by his butler, just like how the butler had wanted him to live, a life of happiness instead of revenge and misery. Never mind how he managed to escape in 10 seconds, but I guess being Batman allowed him to have godlike travelling speed too.

Being the last of the trilogy, the story wrapped up very well with a cliffhanger, but I still felt that it was not as impressive as I expected it to be. Perhaps the depth and awesomeness of the second installation set the bar too high and thus I was slightly disappointed. Nonetheless, it was still enjoyable and soon we got ourselves ready for the next movie.

Brave was a children's movie which depicted the story of a viking lord's daughter who has an unique wild personality. However, she constantly felt restrained by her mother who expected her to be trim and proper and follow the decorum of the clan. The daughter was also expected to marry another viking prince from another clan, who had to defeat all the other viking princes in competitions. The last straw came when the daughter won the arrow shooting competition herself and declared that she would marry herself, much to the disappointment and disgust of the other clans. The mother thought that this was an embarrassment and disgrace to the family and an argument broke out.

The daughter thus resolved to change her mum via a witch's spell but she did not realise that the potion would change her mum into a bear, who was seen as an aggressor to the vikings. It was comical to see later that her triplet brothers would also transformed into bears. Thus, the daughter undertook the task to restore her mum and her brothers. It was only at the last minute, before the father struck with his sword, that the daughter managed to seal the deal by mending the tapestry that was torn during the earlier argument.

This movie was much better in contrast, probably due to the lack of expectations, and it was one of those few movies that illustrates the love and tension between a mother and her daughter. Usually it would be between the father and his daughter instead. I thought the movie was heart-warming and had some values imbued in the story plot, which was brought out quite strongly. As a result, we enjoyed this movie very much.

Progress of Xiao Xiao 2

My dear had been anticipating the arrival of the checkup just to see how Xiao Xiao had progressed. This time, we can actually see the general makeup of a baby: the head, the body and the limbs. In fact, my gynae actually said that the baby was sucking his/her thumb, which was much to my dear's delight, though I am more skeptical and would just take it with a pinch of salt. I was more amazed with the capability of the ultrasound machine as we could even see the size of the baby's brain, which at this moment in time was not occupying the entire skull. For beginners, the head is located at the bottom right, while the legs are at the top left.

Top: baby sucking thumb
Bottom: baby's small brain

My dear then proceeded to Thomson's Medical Centre the next day for the OSCAR scan. My dear was rather upset that I could not be there because of my involvement in my school's National Day celebrations. The name OSCAR actually stands for "One-stop Clinic for Assessment of Risk for Fetal Anomalies" which is something which I cannot really remember. It was mainly done to check for the likelihood of Down's syndrome in the baby, which has a higher probability in older mummies, usually above the age of 35.

The nurse commented that the baby was sleeping and thus not easy to get him/her to move and shift location in order for the nurse to take critical measurements. I guess Xiao Xiao will be another night owl like the mum. Below are some of the scans:

Left: baby small brain again
Right: baby lying on his/her back

Guess it will be till the next visit then we will know the results of the scan. Hope everything will be alright.