The Fighter: 2 minute movie review

Christian Bale steals the show but Mark Wahlberg delivers the final KO.

Inspiring in the way you'd expect but still don't mind watching, The Fighter is a true underdog story. Christian Bale is fantastic as Dickie Eklund, a washed up junkie ex-boxer whose lost opportunities are now conferred to half-brother Micky Ward, played by Wahlberg (Bale's come a long way since Laurie in Little Woman).

The ladies are particularly confronting (Amy Adams as Micky's girlfriend versus his manager-mother and tough lot of half-bred sisters) but all the performances are solid and it's a very rewarding small-town-boy to champion-of-the-world story.

The Happiest Refugee, Anh Do

I honestly can't remember the last time a book had such an emotional impact on me. The Happiest Refugee constantly had me alternating between laughing out loud and being on the verge of tears.

I almost didn't read it. I'd seen Anh Do on TV occasionally, but never particularly followed his comedy or had any particular interest in him. Also, I don't do memoirs. I tried to read The Long Way Home once upon a time but even the embiggening story of Nelson Mandela couldn't catch my fiction fancy. However, one day I read a positive book review about The Happiest Refugee, so with a Borders gift card in hand, I toddled over and bought it. Little did I know it would be the best $34 I would spend on a book in all of 2010.

It's not exactly a literary tour de force - sometimes there are awkward turns of phrases that highlight the fact that the author is a comedian, not a writer by nature - but it's an absolutely compelling read. Through anecdotes and smaller bite-sized stories of a larger whole, Do tells us about his family's harrowing escape from Vietnam, the struggles of their early arrival in Australia and the career that took him into the loungerooms of families across the country.

When you read the book, you understand the reason for his success. Do is revealed through every word and every page as someone with good sense, keen humour, high intelligence, a lot of determination and even more gratitude. It's an uplifting and positive read that celebrates the richness of life, rather than dwelling on the poor-me aspect that many memoirs tend to do.

Through the funny stories and anecdotes, we're told about the enormity of his love and respect for his mother, his struggles with and ultimate forgiveness for an absent and alcohol-abusive father, and the mark they left on this young Vietnamese boy who would grow up with a never-say-die outlook on the world interpreted through a humorous eye.

Not only is The Happiest Refugee funny and touching, it's also full of (dare I say it) immigrant wisdom. It reminded me of moments when I was growing up, like my dad looking sadly at the vandalism of a public train and telling me, 'Why destroy public properly? It's there for our benefit, so destroying it only destroys ourselves'. I could identify with Do not only in the physical things (both being Asian and growing up in western Sydney), but also in the non-tangibles, like the instilled gratitude towards our adopted country and the desire to give back.

Regardless of whether you can identify with him or not, I guarantee you'll enjoy this book. It's the sort of book I wanted to buy as a gift for everybody I know, but three bookstores I went to had already sold out of them. I'm not surprised. Get your hands on it if you can, however you can. You won't regret it.

Creativity - innate or divine?

Wow. Where have I been for the past year? Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame delivered this amazing speech about creativity at a TED conference last year (a non-profit organisation for Technology, Entertainment and Design).

I haven't read her book(s) and I haven't heard her speak before, but I found this speech profoundly impacting. Whether you're a creative person or not, it's inspirational and moving, and as an added bonus, it's funny too. She's suddenly shot into the list of people I admire.

In short, if you don't have 18 minutes to devote to the clip (which is well worth the investment of your time), she talks about the historical shift in human thinking about creativity. In ancient Greek and Roman times, genius was like a genie - coming from somewhere external to the self to express itself through you. Then in the industrial age, there was a change and humans began to believe that creativity came from within, as an intrinsic part of self.

As a result, motivation became internalised and fear-based: how to top your last success, how to be the best in your field, etc. The focus, being solely on self and feeding directly into the sense of identity, led to the anxiety, depression and 'darkness' that creative geniuses now have a reputation for.

It's a liberating speech because it frees us from the idea that we ARE (or at least should be) genius incarnate, and that if everything we produce doesn't express that inner genius, then we've failed. As someone who experienced phenomenal worldwide success with her book, Eat, Pray, Love, she speaks candidly and with self-deprecating honesty about trying to follow up something as scary as that kind of success. For her, it just means continuing to do what she's always done, which is to write, and hope that that incredible creative force will come and do its part, but that it's something outside of her control.

She even goes so far as to name that force in certain circles as Allah, God, and provides an historical anecdote: at times when a person was obviously in the throes of genius (for example, dancing as part of a tribe), the people around them would recognise it and respond by calling out 'Allah Allah Allah', as in God God God. This practice still continues today, but it has been adapted in Spain and other cultures into Ole Ole Ole. Don't you just love learning new things?

Elizabeth Gilbert's speech resonated with me, because I do believe that God is the ultimate creative force.  Being made in his image, we all have the ability to create, but sometimes we need that external inspiration to do be able to do it. Leonardo had his paintbrush, Mozart had his piano. Heck, Kurt Cobain (if you believe he's a genius) had an electric guitar.

What do we have that we can start using to tap into this divine creative force? Whether it's a pen or a ukelele, it's amazing to think that we can do something that transcends ourselves.

Gifts that keep giving

Remember George's 'Human Fund' in Seinfeld? An untraditional present where the benefit of the gift goes to a charity or person in need (in that episode, the charity case was George himself).

Nowadays, charities are much more inventive and rather than offering generic donations 'on behalf of', you can give anything from farm animals to school books to seeds and almost anything else a person in need could possibly want. It's a fun way to give and do good at the same time.

For example, Oxfam Unwrapped offers gifts of cattle manure for $15 to help crop growers in Sri Lanka, or you can build a school in Vietnam on behalf of a loved one for $3,500.

ChildFund Australia's Donations with a Difference scheme allows you to buy the most 'Eggsellent' gift of chickens for impoverished famlies in Cambodia for just $21, or lay out some more dosh to pay for a water pump in Papua New Guinea for $1,485.

You can buy online and gifts even come with great gimmicky cards. You can even opt for an e-card, so it's never too late to start your Christmas shopping. I guess the only consideration is how much the gift will be worth in the sight of the recipient. Fortunately there are 2 recipients, so even if your intended gift recipient (the person who ends up with the card) isn't too thrilled about a family in Uganda gaining a water bucket on their behalf, the Ugandan family will love you to bits. And let's face it, it's much better than socks or random kris kringle gifts that end up re-gifted year after year.

Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom is most famous for his book Tuesdays with Morrie, but personally, I think The Five People You Meet in Heaven is more enjoyable. The story revolves around the life (or rather, death) of eighty-three year old Eddie, a war veteran and maintenance man for the amusement rides at Ruby's Pier. From the beginning, we are told that Eddie is going to die soon, but that death is only the beginning.

The premise is that upon death, we meet five people in heaven who explain the meaning of our lives - something we often miss in our mundane day-to-day. The first time I read this book (around a year or two ago for my book club) it had quite a profound impact on me and I'm sure I shed a tear or two. This time round it wasn't quite the same (I should've written this review back then) but I still think it's a great little book.

It's an easy and absorbing read that does prompt you to think about the meaning of your life. And I couldn't help but wonder what happens if you go to hell - do you meet five people who tell you what your life could've been, leading to remorse and eternal repentance rather than understanding and acceptance, which is what happens to Eddie in the end?

Overall, it's a lovely and well written story with a fable-like quality that reminded me a little of The Alchemist. In both cases, the stories are profound but written with great simplicity, allowing the meaning to really shine through. There's a touch of the spiritual and eternal in both, a sense of fate and purpose that's quite inspirational. This book would appeal to a wide audience.

PS - I just googled and discovered they made a telemovie out of it with Jon Voight!

Amazing Grace

Great cast, excellent historical character (William Wilberforce) and brilliant theme (abolition of slavery), but the movie, in itself, was a little boring. Its main problem was that it lacked major peaks and troughs, so it failed to engage that sense of imagination and inspiration that a movie of this sort really needs to grab hold of. Most of the film sailed by in a very join-the-dots type monotony, saved only by some of the witty repartees during parliament sessions and the more quote-worthy comments. I recognised that there were moments where I was supposed to be moved, but I just wasn’t. I felt like a spectator.

Rating: 6/10
While it’s a very respectful adaptation of his life, I don’t think the movie does justice to his story.

On Happiness

I recently read that a study on human happiness discovered that the level of our happiness is not determined by our actual wealth or possessions, but rather by the comparative wealth and possessions of those around us. So, according to this study, my joy at buying a new car would last only as long as it took for my neighbour to buy a better car.

Added to this is the idea of perfectionism, perpetrated by the media, which says that the only way to be happy is to have this or buy that, or look like this.

The solution, apparently, was found in a study of nuns that discovered that optimistic nuns live an average of 10 years longer than pessimistic nuns (doesn’t that sound like an oxymoron?). So what made those nuns happy?

1. Gratitude for the things they had, rather than focusing on what they didn’t have.
2. Tolerance for imperfection – not just accepting it, but embracing it.

Okay, I added that bit about embracing imperfection. But it makes sense right? One of my favourite movies is Beautiful People, which is a gorgeous little film that intertwines the lives of lots of different people in London. The idea is simple: life is not perfect, but it can be beautiful. It just depends on what you’re looking at.