Harley Quinn and Suicide Squad

*Disclaimer : There might be some spoilers on how you look at it so if you haven't seen the movie yet and loath on spoilers then it's highly advised to avoid reading this post. 

To say Suicide Squad was a disappointment--well, not really. It was actually really good. But it would have been even better if there were more scenes of Joker and Harley Quinn together--and not those flashback scenes.

Before I saw the first Suicide Squad trailer a year ago, I've never read any Batman comics before. I've vaguely heard of Harley Quinn and kind of knew she was a comic character but that was all I knew about her. Then I saw the trailer, and what intrigued me the most on Suicide Squad compared to other comic movies was the concept of a bunch of bad guys getting together and forced to save the world. Then I saw Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and damn she looked so cool. And one night I was just Youtube-ing all the Suicide Squad trailers and I came across a video from the Batman the Animated Series of how the Joker seduced Dr Harleen Quinzel, and as we all know, from the highly acclaimed episode "Mad Love".

And since then, I became obsessed with Harley Quinn. I watched every episode of Batman the Animated Series with her in it and started reading every comic that mentioned her including the whole Gotham City Sirens series, Batman: Mad Love, Batman: Harley Quinn, Joker's Asylum II: Harley Quinn, Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad Special Edition, and now I have just started on Suicide Squad (2011)--the edition with Harley Quinn in it, of course.

Image courtesy of dc.wikia.com

I don't know what it was, but the twisted obsession Harley has for the Joker and how he mentally and physically abuses her and even tries to kill her, but every single damn time she still runs back to him, really got to me and made me want to see more of the crazy couple.

And the fact that she was a psychiatrist before she became mad just made me want to understand her even more. I always thought intelligent people are actually mad deep down inside. It's just that without triggering it, it will stay buried. The Joker was Harley Quinn's trigger.

Image courtesy of www.ign.com

So I was super excited to watch Suicide Squad--mainly to see Harley and the Joker, but was disappointed to see that the Joker was just a supporting character rather than on of the main characters. In fact, with or without the Joker wouldn't have affected the storyline at all. That's how much of a sideline he was.

To be fair, the movie is Suicide Squad, and not The Joker and Harley Quinn, but in the trailers they made if off as if the Joker was the main character. They highly publicized Jared Letto in interviews and stuff and Jared kept on talking how much he was into the character and the time and energy he spent to pull off the perfect Joker and heck, the whole music video "Purple Lamborghini" was practically about the Joker.

You could tell Jared Letto was quite pissed off in interviews at how many scenes of the Joker were cut. If people never read the comics or seen any of the Batman Animated Series before, they would never know how unhealthy the relationship between Harley and Joker really is just by watching Suicide Squad.

The good news is, I heard that they're making a Harley Quinn and Joker movie soon. Fingers crossed and hope against all hope it's not just a rumor but actually a dream come true!

Image courtesy of comicsalliance.com

Okay, back to reading Suicide Squad. I'm on Issue #4 now wohooooo.

Ps the Suicide Squad OST is totally sick.

Me Before You: A Movie Where Daenerys Targaryen and Tywin Lannister Are Actually in the Same Scene!

*Disclaimer*

No major spoilers here.

Sorry, couldn't help slipping in that Game of Thrones reference in the title there. 

So what did I think after watching the movie compared to the book? I guess it’s fair to say you can’t really expect much from a movie adaptation of a 140,000 (possibly more) word count novel. First of all, I love the book. I couldn’t put it down right from the beginning. The storyline wasn’t draggy, the characters were beautifully written, the scenes were almost so realistic you kind of forget you’re reading a book, there were lots of humor and wit, and also a lot of gentle and emotional moments at the right places. It’s really difficult to write a book with all that and Jojo Moyes did it. No wonder it sold over 4 million copies.

Taken from Goodreads

Taken from Wikipedia

Now, for the movie, I love Emilia Clarke as an actress. I wouldn’t have known her if it wasn’t for Game of Thrones. I mean, I did watch Terminator Genisys, but I didn’t start watching GOT yet at that time, even though my boyfriend did, but he wasn’t the type to get all excited and jump up and down pointing to the screen and shouting, “Sarah Conner is Daenerys Targaryen!”

No, no. He definitely does not do that. So yeah, Emilia Clarke never did stood out for me before I started seeing her as Daenerys.

As for Sam Claflin, I didn’t know who he was but he did justice protraying Will Traynor.

One thing that annoys me when my favorite books get adapted into films is how much they change the plot. Think The DUFF by Kody Keplinger (they just took the characters! Changed practically 99% of the plot. They even casted Bella Thorne as the mean girl where in the book, there were no mean girls at all, and made the whole movie seem so superficial when actually the book was not), and Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen (okay, fine, in all fairness How To Deal was a merger of Someone Like You and That Summer, but still, the movie kind of sucked). But Me Before You was pleasantly a surprise. It didn’t run far from the original storyline, just a few small changes and some plots never made it to the big screen, but the script and characters was everything like in the book. And that’s most likely because Jojo Moyes wrote the screenplay herself.

BUT it was all a little too rushing for me. It was like they were trying to put everything in only under 2 hours and it developed just way too fast that you didn’t have time to feel any real emotions and before you know it, Lou is already crying on the bed beside Will, and you’re thinking, wait, they alredy fell in love?

This is just my personal opinion and maybe it’s because I read the book before watching the movie and because of all the emotions I felt from the book, I was having high expectations from the movie. I didn’t feel this way with A Walk To Remember by Nicholas Sparks though, because maybe  I saw the movie first before reading the book, and I felt a lot of emotions from the movie.

Would I recommend watching the movie? Sure, because Emilia Clarke is a delight to watch. But I would also highly recommend to read the book instead because it’s too good to pass up.

And I’m still thinking if I should read After You or not, because after Lou and Will’s love story, it just feels so wrong to have a sequel and should just have ended there with a bang. I read that Jojo Moyes wasn’t even thinking of a sequel when she wrote Me Before You, so I think when the writer writes a story without the intention of it having a sequel, then if later a sequel happens, the sequel won’t be as good, if not better, as the first one.

I Drove Under A Rainbow Today!

Yeah, it's no big deal or anything seeing a rainbow especially in a tropical country where it's raining all the time but today on my way back from work, I was in such a crappy mood because it was raining so heavily and the jam was horrible. It took me almost three hours just to get home. But halfway through the jam, the rain stopped and a rainbow appeared!

And it was an actual FULL rainbow. Usually we only get to see partial rainbows, but here was this big, beautiful rainbow with a perfect arch, and you could practically see the colors stacked up against one another so clearly.

Well, that lifted my mood. And a bag of Famous Amos cookies. And it's not easy trying to take a picture while keeping your eyes on the road and stuffing your face with cookies.

Umm. Not that I did that...

Animal Rights Activist My Foot!

I recently read an article entitled "Director of Taiwanese animal shelter commits suicide after 'feeling distraught about having to euthanise too many dogs'". You can read the original article here. 

The article is about a vet who is also the director at  Xinwu Animal Protection and Education Centre, a centre where they take in stray animals, nurse them back to health and care for them, but carries mercy killings when the centre runs out of place, committed suicide after becoming distraught when "animal rights activists" started sending her threatening messages and called her a "female butcher". She left a note explaining she had become too distressed about the number of dogs she had to put down. 

I wrote this on my Facebook profile, and I'm going to write it again in here because a lot of people need to open their eyes wide.

This is just so wrong on so many levels. First of all;

1) She's not a butcher. She helped these animals by giving them a home, nursing them back to life, and caring for them. She's done more than any of us has ever done for a dying animal on the streets.

2) Stop buying pets and start adopting. There are too many strays out there that badly need a home and that's why they are forced to be put to sleep because people would rather have cute little expensive kittens/puppies than the old domestic cats/dogs.

3) Neuter/spay your pets and yes, some people find it to be evil and mean but unless you'll be the ones responsible for the many litters that will be born, then it's just something you have to do or this vicious cycle will just go on repeating itself.

And lastly;

4) Don't you dare have the audacity to call yourself an ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST when all you do is complain and bash about the one person who has helped these animals in the most humane way possible. If you really ARE an activist then PLEASE DO SOMETHING USEFUL. Donate time, energy, or money to these shelters, volunteer, adopt, or even better yet, open up a new shelter to accomodate more animals. Activists aren't people who yell and shout and say hateful words to other people. They actually DO something to make things better.

Why Do We Kill People Who Kill People To Show That Killing People Is Wrong? (credits from a protestor's sign)

Image courtesy from google.com

I don't usually write or comment about political topics but this particular subject gave a huge tug at my heartstrings.

About more than 24 hours ago, the British Parliament had voted into a decision regarding how to make UK safer after a 10-hour debate. The verdict? Yes in starting airstrikes in Syria. Merely within a few hours after David Cameron announced results of the voting on UK's national television, the British Royal Air Force had carried out their first airstrikes in Syria.

What is the most sickening thing is how the decision was made based on votes. Deciding to start airstrikes upon Syria is not something as simple as deciding whether the prices in oil should be increased or not. These are innocent lives, we are talking about. Do they really think that their bombs are so highly technologinised to the point there are GPS targetting only ISIS? Yeah, I hardly think they are that stupid, which just proves that in the back of their mind, they KNOW innocent lives will be at risk. If they didn't learn that from the war in Iraq in 2003, then they have been living under rocks. No, not even JUST under rocks. Under rocks in PLUTO. 

And don't they dare say "oh, well, that's just part of war. There will always be collateral damage."

They won't be saying that if it's another country voting in favour to bomb their homes, now will they?

And please stop trying to defend them by saying, "oh, well we can't just sit back and do nothing! Why don't YOU come up with a solution?"

So it's not their jobs to come up with the best solution? Heck, if all it means being in the parliament is voting for the most violent and easiest way out, then I also can surely enter the parliament. Piece of cake.

I applaud the British public for standing up and publically protesting the decision their government made. Which just shows every government is the same. They never listen to their people. The good people of Britain even started a trending hashtag #NotInMyName to show they do not support this atrocious decision, and this proves that whoever agreed to this decision have no concious whatsoever.

For the 397 British Parliament that voted for yes, including the dear prime minister of Britain, what do you think about after that long debate, when you are tucking your children in for bed that night, them safe and warm under the covers, while 3000 miles away from you, Syrian parents are tucking in their children, kissing their foreheads, and placing a hand on their child's heart, with the thought that this may be the very last time they feel their child's heart beating, anticipating for the bombs to come, just because all you did was vote yes?

Wow. It's that simple to take out an innocent life. That's even worse than being cold-blooded murderers. Do you guys even sleep at night?

To the victims of this evil war, I pray that God will protect you and you are all martyr. Aamiin.