On Anoop Desai and Jamal Malik

“He looks like that guy from American Idol,” my 11-year old son told me as we start to watch Slumdog Millionaire.

“Oh, you mean, Anoop,” I said.

I have a soft spot for Anoop Desai and my kids have heard me say a few times, “I don’t think he’s going to win, but I like Anoop.” I like him when he sings the slower songs, like when he sang You’re Always on My Mind, True Colors, and Everything I Do. Because he can sing naman, di ba? And probably one other reason why I have such a soft spot for him is that he looks like my kind of people. Brown skin and black hair. Just like my kids. If Anoop could be famous for being on American Idol, my kids could also have a good chance at being famous for being a jazz musician, or a basketball player, or an artist, or maybe an actor, or whatever it is they decide to do in the future. 🙂 Besides, Anoop seems to be such a nice, polite kid.

Well, anyway, back to Slumdog Millionaire . . .

I thought I’d convince the kids to watch the movie with me. Make it a movie night like last time. “It’s about this kid who was a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” I told them. We used to watch that game show.

My 19-year old wanted to watch the movie, but he has final exams next week and he needs to study and practice.

The 14-year old wasn’t interested or he probably just got annoyed with me for saying the word slumdog wrong. I said it like slamdog. 🙂 Of course I’m just kidding, he just wasn’t interested.

And after guilt-tripping my 11-year old son, “don’t you want to spend time with your mommy?,” I finally convinced him to watch it with me. Only to send him away after about 10 or 15 minutes into the movie. I’ve already asked him a couple of times to cover his eyes with the blanket when I told him, “I don’t think this is a good movie for you to watch. I’ll tell you whether he wins the million dollars or not. Sorry, Ryland.” I know, it was my bad. I thought, they’d show the main character play and win the game at the start of the movie or something, but the story was told in flashbacks of flashbacks. I know, it’s kind of complicated.

Well, it started with 18-year old Jamal Malik being tortured because they suspected him of cheating. He was from the slums of Mumbai, a slumdog, and here he was, one question away from winning 20 million rupees, which is equivalent to about US $400,000.00. But he didn’t cheat. (Ooops, sorry, if you consider that a spoiler.) He just happened to know all the answers, and that’s the reason for the flashbacks. His life story explains why he knew the answers.

The story of where he came from is really a sad one but it is filled with hope in the end. And on Jamal’s persistence to find his childhood love, Latika, again and again, I find it so inspiring and romantic at the same time. 🙂 Well, I’d spare you with anymore details. You might want to go rent the movie or buy your own copy because I highly recommend it.

Here are related movie reviews from a couple of my favourite bloggers:

Jayred’s Why you should watch Slumdog Millionaire

Wil’s Slumdog Millionaire

Watching romantic scenes with the boys

On Thursday nights, I tape Ugly Betty and on Friday nights, I watch it with my family. In this last week’s episode, Matt brought Betty home from their date and they were outside her house saying their goodbyes when suddenly the door opens and Betty’s dad Ignacio pops out. I saw my 14-year old son smiling and I told my 11-year old son, who was sitting next to me, “He did that on purpose.” “Why?” he asked. “Well, Matt was going to kiss Betty goodnight and I guess her dad saw that from the window and he didn’t want that to happen. So he went outside so Matt wouldn’t kiss her.” He looked confused but my 14-year old son was still smiling. “Remember that when the time comes that you have a girlfriend,” I continued. “Maybe you should check first if her dad is around before you decide to kiss her.” 😉 Now my husband started teasing him, too. And I was like, oh boy, what am I teaching my kids now?

There was a time when I’d make them look away or cover their eyes when there are kissing scenes on TV. But that was when they were little boys and they are not anymore. They’re growing up and they’re getting curious. And isn’t it better that they learn about the birds and the bees here at home rather than from the streets? And since almost all of the shows that we watch will tackle relationship issues or mention sex at least once in an episode, I find it a good idea to give a comment or two. “She’s crying because he hurt her feelings,” I would say. Or “She’s not talking to him because she’s still mad at him.” Or “It takes time for us girls to forget when boys hurt our feelings.” They don’t like it that much when I do that. “Mommy, will you please just not talk,” they’d say. “We’re watching.” 🙂

Let’s go back a couple of weeks ago. We watched an advertisement of the release of the Twilight DVD. They know I’m a Twilight fan and they asked me if I was going to buy it. “Yes, of course,” I said. “I’ll watch it then,” said my 14-year old. “I just want to see what it’s all about.” Two nights ago, I was excited when I announced, “So, I’m buying Twilight tomorrow.” “What time are you going to watch it?” asked my 14-year old. “After supper,” I said. “I want to watch it, too,” said my 11-year old son. 🙂

So we made it into a big movie night event. We made popcorn and we brought a big chocolate bar and a stick of Mentos that we all shared down in our basement where the flat screen is. And I watched Twilight again with my boys this time. I promised them that I’d keep my mouth shut and I kept my promise. They laughed at the funny parts and I heard “geez” at some parts. I missed the applause and the giggles from the girls when I watched it in the theatre. As I’ve mentioned in my Twilight movie review, the girls applauded and giggled every time Edward got his close-ups and when he and Bella would stare at each other or kiss. 😉 But I love the moments when I exchanged smiles with my 11-year old son last night while we watched those “giggly scenes.” 🙂

And their feedback on the movie? “Ah, it’s okay.”

A Mother of A Problem

A Mother of a Problem

This past week’s episode of Ugly Betty titled, A Mother of A Problem, brought me many years back.

You see, Betty is now dating Matt. She met him in her YETI (Young Editors Training Initiative) class. She just recently found out that Matt is rich. But she liked him even when she suspected that he didn’t have money. Well, last week, she went to his house to meet him there. But Matt wasn’t home yet and Betty met his mother, Mrs. Victoria Hartley. At first, Mrs. Hartley thought that Betty was one of the maids. When Betty told her that she’s dating Matt, she wasn’t too impressed. Matt came and introduced them properly and when they left, he apologized to Betty about her mother, “She’s judgmental and controlling. No one I date is ever good enough for her.” But Betty said, “It matters to me that she likes me.” And she wanted to meet her again.

So Matt invited Betty to this fancy dinner that his mother was holding the following week. Betty wanted his mother to like her and so she prepared for it, even asking her boss’s mother, Mrs. Claire Mead, how to act at this kind of parties and Mrs. Mead even told her how Mrs. Hartley have these topics for these dinners. They tried to find out what the topic was and it was “Torture.” Good thing that Betty just read an article about the topic.

The big night came and there was a mushroom fiasco with an expensive painting owned by the hostess, but Matt took the blame for Betty. Even so, Mrs. Hartley made sure that Betty wasn’t sitting beside Matt at dinner and what do you know, she changed the topic to “The Future of Opera.” Well, Betty is a smart girl and since she works at a fashion magazine she came up with an answer that she knows very well, “Opera is fashion.” (She does know about fashion a lot, although her sense of fashion may be debatable. 🙂 ) The guests were impressed with her opinion. She thought that she impressed Matt’s mother, as well.

But she was wrong. After dinner, Mrs. Hartley talked to Betty. She asked Betty what she has in common with Matt. She went on ahead and told Betty that Matt went to Yale University, he speaks three languages and he plays the piano. When Betty couldn’t answer, Mrs. Hartley told her that it would be the last time they’d be seeing each other. When Matt saw Betty leaving, he told his mother that he was leaving with her.

This is the part where I was brought back in time. I was in my early 20s many years ago and I had been dating this guy for quite a while. I already had a feeling that his mother wasn’t that fond of me. One night she came to my house and told me that maybe I should give her son some space. She noticed that we had been spending a lot of time together and that he was at my house a lot. She thought that since her son was still young, that he should still meet other girls. She kinda knew that we were getting serious. She probably thought that if it were not for me, her son would meet someone who conformed more to her standards, whatever they might have been. Maybe she didn’t think that I was good looking enough for him or that he was a bit young for me (only two years, btw). I didn’t know. I never thought of asking. Because, honestly, I was surprised when she came to talk to me. I thought that “you’re not good enough for my son” speech only happened in the movies. At that time, I rattled my brains and tried to think what lines those characters delivered in the movies that I had seen. I told his mother that I wasn’t trying to force her son on myself. He liked me and I liked him and if he ever felt that he didn’t want to be in the relationship, he was free to go.

And yeah, of course, I was hurt. Friends told me to ignore her. She wasn’t the one I was dating or going to live with if the relationship was headed in that direction. My friends had a good point. But I think, to some girls, it matters that their boyfriend’s mother like them, like it did matter to Betty. But to what lengths are you going to try to make them like you? If it’s a matter of attitude, you can probably try to change. But if it’s a matter of personality or the way you look or just the way you are, there’s nothing much you can do, is there?

I like Claire Mead’s advice to Betty. She said that she’s never going to win over Mrs. Hartley and that she needs to stand her ground. And I guess that’s what I kinda did.

Real Women Have Curves

I have been looking for this movie since America Ferrera became well-known because of Ugly Betty. I’ve heard good things about the movie and since I love America and Betty, I’ve wanted to watch Real Women Have Curves.

So I was at Kildonan Place yesterday browsing books and DVDs at Coles, HMV and Zellers. They had some items that are on sale. I was actually surprised to see some titles that are already in the bargain bins, like A Paper Life: Tatum O’Neal and She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan. It doesn’t seem so long ago when these two women were guests on Oprah promoting their books. I guess the books are not doing well, sales wise, anymore. Well anyway, I found a copy of Real Women Have Curves in one of the bargain bins at Zellers. $2.99 only. I guess as much as the movie has been critically acclaimed, it didn’t do well in sales either. Well, I wanted to watch it so I took it home. After paying for it, of course. 🙂

I enjoy watching America in any of her movies without the Ugly Betty getup. I mean without the frizzy hair and bangs, the bushy eyebrows, the red-rimmed eyeglasses and the blue orthodontic braces. I love looking at America’s face without all that stuff. I think she’s pretty and I love watching her face as she expresses the feelings that her character needs to emote.

In Real Women Have Curves, she plays Ana, an 18-year old Mexican-American, who just finished high school. She wants to go to college and her English teacher, Mr. Guzman (George Lopez) encourages her to apply for a scholarship at Columbia University. But her mother (Lupe Ontiveros) wants her to stay at home and help out at her sister’s sewing factory. Ana is always clashing with her old-fashioned mother who always criticizes her for being fat. But she likes the way she looks and as a young woman, she already realizes that “real women take chances, have flaws, and embrace life...”

In one of the scenes, Ana said to her mother, “Mama, I do want to lose weight but part of me doesn’t, because my weight says to everybody, ‘Fuck you!’ How dare anyone tell me what I should look like or how I should be, when there’s so much more to me than just my weight?” Very well said. Women shouldn’t be defined by the way they look, by their size, culture or race. We should be defined by what we can do and contribute to society.

I know that I may sound like I’m contradicting myself when I have just written a post on how I lost weight. But I did lose the weight on my own accord and not because somebody told me to do so. I lost weight because I wanted to become healthier and feel better about myself.

Here’s a clip of my favourite part in the movie.

youtube=http://www.yout[ube.com/watch?v=nG1L3wIIxlc]

Lance and Lacey’s Mambo

I know that Brooke Burke has shown her dancing talent since the beginning of Season 7 in Dancing With the Stars, but it was Warren and Lance whom I’ve always looked forward to watch dance every Monday night. And after seeing his latest performances, Lance has been my favourite. I want him and Lacey to win, but I think they should have done some lifts in their free-style last night.

This is one of my favourite dances, Lance and Lacey’s Mambo. (Please click on the link if you are unable to view the youtube video below.)