This disc covers the caves, deserts, and ice worlds.

The mysteries of the caves, especially the Lechguita cave, are new and astonishingly beautiful to me. The cathedral crystal formulations are a real treat. Thanks to the BBC talents who risked their lives to capture so vividly those beautiful objects. Especially these animals after spending perhaps millions of years in the pitch dark have long evolved to lose their eyes – another exhibit in proving the Theory of Evolution.

The audience was given a glimpse of the wild camels in the desert – quite rewarding. Of course, BBC also showed how they waited so long to film those wild camels with the help of a local wild camel guru.

The struggle of the female polar bear to fight the giant walrus for food was rather disheartening. I was ruling for the bear as there were definitely more walrus than the polar bears. But the bear simply lost her strength after being stabbed by the sharp tusks of the walrus. The polar bears are definitely losing out and facing extinction due to the global warming.

The emperor penguin’s division of labor in batching the egg between the male and female penguins struck me as simply amazing. They seem to have got the process down through many years of evolution.

Overall, I’m quite impressed with the animals’ tenacity and ingenuity to struggle and fight for survival, especially in their respective harsh environments. The central theme is that they’re all given a natural ability; it could be the energy extraction chemically for a extremophile or the water seeking capability in the desert for the desert animals. I believe the same metaphor can be applied to the human life. Somehow, we are all endowed with the survival instincts and capabilities; it’s entirely up to us to take advantage of them and the make the best of our lives.

This is the kind of video that you wish had a blu-ray and HD TV to watch on. The videos are so soothing and relaxing to watch. I fell as sleep a couple of times while watching.

This first disc has the animals on from the north pole to the south pole, like penguins, polar bears, birds, panda, piranha fish and many others. The mountains, waters are simply breathtaking. It also includes the inner working of the people who brought us the videos and the difficulties they encountered like shooting the videos on how the wild dogs hunt, and the habitat of a couple of snow leopards, and shooting the video on piranha.

After watching the videos, I gained better appreciation for the magics of this planet. This planet earth somehow evolved into the most beautiful planet that humans with the biggest brain on this planet can comprehend. It has given us (all the animals) so much and we’re all here to share, not to monopolize and abuse. As a guardian of this “Eden,” we need to be protective of it.

Did this video just turned me into a naturist? Perhaps, it has worked its magic.

Selected this movie to watch because Dr. Ariely mentioned it in his “Upside of Irrationality.” Thanks to the Netflix streaming and the instant gratification, I was able to watch it instantly. The movie is about a man (Kevin Kline) got fired from his house modeling job after 20 years. In the heat of anger, he smashed all the models in the firm before walking out. But he collapsed on the way out and discovered that he had cancer and only months to live. He decided to rebuild the the old house on the cliff overseeing the Pacific ocean, and invited or forced his son to do it with him. Through the process, he won the love of his ex-wife who left her current husband to join him rebuilding the house. But most of all, he won the heart of his teenager son, who was about to turned bad. In the end, he died from his illness but his son got the house completed and fulfilled his wishes.

This is a heartwarming story about a man who was never really happy until he stared death in front of him and decided it’s his last chance to be happy. And he wanted to share it with his son and passed on “something” to his son. It’s amazing that we often resort to do the “right” thing just when our time is about to run out. This movie motivates not to do that. Our lives are really short and we never really know when we’re supposed to check out. It’s the best policy to do the right thing all the time.

Kevin Kline was fantastic in this movie. The intricate funny business among the neighbors in the cul-de-sac reminds me of an old soap opera. Overall it’s a good movie, worth watching for those who haven’t got their priority straight yet in their lives.

A young nun teacher observed a strange bond developed between a black student and the Father (Philip Semour Hoffman) of the church, coupled with some strange behavior. She told her superior, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), rather casually without much conviction. But Sister Aloysius was convinced that there had been an inappropriate relationship. Without seeking evidences, she convinced the Father to resign and transfer after his putting up a big fight.

It’s amazing to me that a series of coincidences (the child’s alcohol breath, Father’s returning of the child’s underwear, the caring gesture of the Father toward the boy) can be easily construed as circumstantial evidences against the Father. With them, System Aloysius convinced herself of his bad deed and fought him to the nail without seeking more evidences. To me, this is a tragedy biased by the past abuses of power in the church – you’re guilty until proven innocent. In the name of protecting the children, people are more than willing to crucify the good people. Isn’t it how Jesus was crucified? How ironic!

Both Hoffman and Meryl Streep are excellent in this movie. The conversation between Meryl and the mother of the boy was quit uncomfortable to watch; a mother was willing to trade an abusive, unloving father for a pedophile, as the principle accused the Father to be, just because he’s nicer. What a trade off: whichever is less of the evil!

I have learned that it’s important to check and double-check to test your belief before accusing someone of the grave sin/crime. So many people have been hurt because of some people’s imprudence. Like the metaphor in the movie, the feathers letting out of a pillow are very hard to collect and fix.

The end of the world is near, thanks for the huge solar flare and alignments of the planets within the Solar system which cracked the crust of earth and cause huge tectonic plate shifts and big time tsunami. The movie is about a man’s struggle (John Cusak, a philosopher with a full-time chauffeur job for a Russian billionaire) to save his family and the heads of the countries to save only selective people with wealth and power from the world destruction. Several giant ships like Noah’s ark were built in China (probably due to their cost-effective manufacturing prowess) to maintain human civilization. The only interesting moral topic to consider is the trade offs in selecting the people to bring in the ark. The reality plays out as only the powerful and the wealthy (over $1B) get to enter the salvation – not very Christian-like but it’s reality when God is not consulted in the decision-making process.

This is a no-brainer movie with lots of computer graphics involving volcanic, earthquake, car chases, tsunami, airplane, cruise ship, the big ark ship and etc. No bad for people who are into computer-graphics movies. And I did enjoy it, which kept me awake one hour past my bed time. This is the kind of movie to pick you up when there are things that really bother you at work and at home.

An detective father (Mel Gibson) was enjoying his daughter’s company when she was gunned down in front of his own house. What ensues were a grieving father’s pursuit of the killers and the scheme that involved a big-company’s conspiracy. Mel Gibson was his usual super-charged self with a very good reason to be very angry.

There were lots of actions and interesting conversations between Tom and the hired killer, who reminds of me the consultant in the “Pulp Fiction.” The quotes, “everything is illegal in Massachusetts” was cliche but funny and spoke volume of the liberal state. The quote about “officer involved” was ironic when the one that sold Tom out was his own boss.

The action was good and the twists and turns kept me guessing. Very nice. A summary is as follows (Stop here if you plan to watch the movie and haven’t watched yet).

Tom Craven heard only the shout of “Craven” when a shot gun showered the bullets on his only daughter’s body. Prior to that, they were shopping and sitting down for a homemade dinner. Due to the vomiting and nose bleeding, Emma Craven was about to be rushed to hospital when the shooting occurred. Tom couldn’t imagine his little Emma could have elicited such a violent revenge from anyone until he ran into her scared, paranoid boyfriend, who mistook Tom for the surveillance team outside of his apartment and got into a big fight.

Eventually he had some misgivings about Emma’s employer, Northmoor, after seeing the CEO of the company. Through Emma’s close friend, he discovered that Emma was about to whistle-blew on her employer about some conspiracy, which involved creation of nuclear weapon for foreign countries in order to sustain the R & D team of the company. To expose the conspiracy, she engineered a break-in by a third-party organization that resulted in their being murdered. She was also poisoned by hired guns of Northmoor.

The senator was involved in the cover up as well. The shocking thing is that at the end the hired killer/consultant of the senator, touched by Tom’s sincerity and genuine love for his daughter and his country, turned against the senator and killed the senator and all of his cronies and, of course, got himself killed.

Betrayed by his own police boss, Tom was kidnapped to be poisoned by radiation but he escaped and confronted the killers at the company CEO’s home and killed them all. He finally died from his death bed and joined his daughter in the “better” place.

This movie shows how badly the poor people in the third world country live and how much they want to get rich and become a millionaire. Especially, when a boy is willing to jump into a poop hole and had himself covered in poops in order to get an autograph of his idol. Sad but a reality nevertheless. Coupled with the pure, innocent, love story between a boy and his girl and the brotherly love despite constant conflicts, the movie managed to bring out all the human natures and put them in close examination. No wonder it was widely acclaimed. Bollywood is not far behind Hollywood now. Everyone wants to have the American dream – very badly as the movie showed. A brief summary is shown below (stop here if you haven’t watched the movie and don’t want me to ruin the ending for you):

One young man, Jamal Malik, was on his way to winning the biggest prize, 20 millions rupees, of “Who wants to be a millionaire” in India. In the middle of the program he was put in jail for being a fraud as he came from a slum and little educated. No way a person like that, according to the detectives and the host, could reach the next-to-last question in a popular game show in India and US. During the interrogation, he reflected on how he escaped from the slum with his brother when one day his Mom was killed during a religious riot many years ago when he was barely 7 years old. Jamal invited an abandoned, little girl, Latika, to join them despite his elder brother’s objection. The three musketeers were then formed. At some point, they were tricked into joining a gypsy-like group to beg money on the street. In return, they were fed and sheltered. His brother, Salim, turned into a helper of the operation. When Salim saw that some of boys had their eyes poked out after passing a singing contest, in order to solicit more sympathy from the passerby. He tipped his brother into running away from the group. In the escape process, he had to abandon Latika while running away from the bad guys. As they grew up, they managed to survive by selling things in the train and even faked being a tour guide in the Taj Mahal.

Jamal never forgot his first love, Latika. So he convinced his brother to go back to find her, who now became a beautiful teenager learning dancing and was ready to put into prostitution. During the rescue process, Salim shot the bad guy and ran to an abandoned hotel. From here on, Salim got recruited to join a bigger mob and slowly grew up to become to executioner of the mob. At this time, the two brother broke up from each other when Salim decided to have his way with Latika.

Eventually, Jamal found Latika working/serving the big mobster.He devised the plan to run away together but the scheme was broken up by his brother, who took the girl back to the mobster. Jamal decided to join the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” game show in order to find Latika, since she was into the show, like many other Indians at that time.

At the end, Salim gave in to his brother when he saw him on TV and helped the girl escape the mob and got himself killed, covered in money in the tub – earning his millions in his own ironic way. So the girl joined the 20-millionaire and lived happy after – a classic Indian movie ending and laughably with all the signing and dancing in the train station.