AMELIE

 I watched Amelie first time when I was nine or ten years old, and back then I thought that it was the strangest film I’ve ever watched. After little more than a decade, I've watched the film once again and had totally different impression. Well what do kids know right?

Amelie or in French, Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain (The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain), is a 2001 French romantic comedy film depicting the contemporary Parisian life in Montmarte. The film was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It tells the story of a smart, kind and shy young waitress girl, Amelie (Audrey Tautou), who decided to change the lives of those people around her and make them happy. After all the effort she puts to help others she is still lonely, until she falls in love with a young man (very similar to her).  and the lucky coincidence happens.

Amelie was a big success gaining acclaims from critics and winning several awards including: Best Film at the European Film Awards, Best Film and Best Director at the Cesar Awards and two BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards. Amelie was the highest grossing French movie released in the United States. Its soundtracks got so popular as well.

Sources:

http://siyoencontraralaestrella.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/amelie/

http://on-the-road.it/cinema/le-fabuleux-destin-damelie-poulain/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9lie

POLICE STORY

The Police Story film is the Hong-Kong series directed by Jackie Chan and two other well known movie directors, Stanley Tong and Benny Chan. The series includes six crime action films released throughout 28 years.

Police Story- 1985

Police Story2- 1988

Police Story3- 1992

Police Story4- 1996

New Police Story- 2004

Police Story- 2013

All of the Police Story movies were produced by Raymond Chow, Leonard Ho, Jackie Chan, Barbie Tung (lol), Willie Chan and Solon So; and distributed by Golden Harvest, Media Asia, Golden Way Films and JCE Movies. They were all directed by the same directors mentioned above. Jackie Chan’s first film featuring as a Hong-Kong cop was a blockbuster in Asia, U.S, Hong-Kong and many other countries. Chan returned to fame after his blockbuster movies ended up in box offices. In Ong Kong alone, the series grossed over HK$ 26,626,760. The last two  series use gritty and dark approach compared to the first four ones. Jackie Chan is one of my most favorite actors whom I consider to be one of the very rare talents who can make both light, funny and serious characters;  and among the Police Story series I liked New Police Story, 2004 very much.      
Source:
http://cinehouseuk.blogspot.com/2011/07/cine-asia-to-release-jackie-chan.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Story_(film_series) 

BURLESQUE

I remember watching the film Burlesque starring Christina Aguilera and Cher three years ago in the Cinemax Blagoevgrad, yet the excitement the film has conveyed was so great that I remember even the details in the film like clothes of the performers and the music of the songs.

Burlesque is a 2010 musical film directed and written by Steven Antin and a debut of pop singer Christina Aguilera. It has also starred Eric Dane, Cam Gigandet, Julianne Hough, Allan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci and Diana Agron. Cher and Aguilera contributed to the soundtrack album, w^th Grammy Awards. The “ You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” sung by Cher, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 2011. The film has grossed over $90 million worldwide.

ith Aguilera contributing eight out of the ten songs and Cher the other two. The album received two nominations at the 54

Ali Rose (Christina Aguilera) moves to LA after she quits her job as a waitress. She fails every audition she goes on until one night she finds herself unknowingly in a burlesque club when she hears the music from the street. She sees Tess (Cher) and the dancers performing and becomes astonished by the performance that she decides to pursue a career in this club. And the adventure begins.

For me, the film was just breathtaking and I guess the fact that I watched it in the cinema affected much stronger reaction. Check out the trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P41uQaOLC-Q

Sources

:

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/04/25/11521/

https://www.google.bg/url?

sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=YO7BLPfx-pCtoM&tbnid=naN-__C3dq1kRM:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fburlesque-trailer.blogspot.com%2F&ei=wFZKU9vrMcnJsgao4YHwDA&bvm=bv.64542518,d.bGQ&psig=AFQjCNE1yiXQEwL8DF30a3_FnDDeD06xWg&ust=1397467152058778

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

Water for Elephants is a 2011 American romantic drama film based on Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel of the same name. The film was directed by Francis Lawrence and stars Christoph Waltz, Robert Pattinson and Reese Withwerspoon.

The film starts in the present day with an old man reminiscing his youth as a circus worker. And most of the film then takes in a flashback to the Great Depression era. Twenty three year-old Polish American student of Cornell’s veterinary medicine, Jacob unfortunately hears the news of his parents’ death in a car crash right during the final exam of the university. With a huge depth left after their parents, Jacob feels there’s no point in continuing to study further. He jumps on a passing train and the next morning he realizes he discovers that he jumped on Benzini Brothers Circus train. He meets the circus owner August, who is also the head animal trainer, and his beautiful wife Marlena Rosenbluth- the solo star of the circus. August hires Jacob as a circus vet after Jacob diagnoses the star horse Silver by laminitis, disease that affects the hooved animals’ feet. August is rough with people and animals, and his training method basically consists of beating them. He brutally beats the elephant Rosie, Silver’s replacement, when she fails to follow the orders. Jacob finds out that Rosie was trained in Polish and only understands polish commands. While working closely together to train Rosie, Jacob and Marlena fall in love with each other. However later August finds out. August together with his men beat Jacob and in Marlena’s attempt to help Jacob, August tries to choke her. Lying on the ground bloodied and beaten, Jacob looks up and sees Rosie hit August on the back and kills him. Back in the present Jacob explains what happened afterward: he returned to Cornell, took his last exam and finished his degree. He and Marlena took several of the horses and Rosie and got jobs with Ringling Brothers. They married and had five children and kept Rosie until her death.

I loved the movie. Check out the trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0DbfQaentM

 Source: 

http://waterforelephantsfilm.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_for_Elephants

SLAM DUNK

In high school I read first two mangas of the Japanese sports themed manga series, Slam Dunk, and remember laughing throughout the reading. It is about a basketball team from Shohoku high school. Hanamichi Sakuragi, a delinquent leader of a gang, although warm hearted and handsome, is very unpopular with girls because of his hot temper, immaturity and bossiness and has been rejected fifty times. In his first year at Shohoku, he falls in love with her dream girl Haruko Akagi and is glad that Haruko is not scared away from him like the other girls. She introduces Hanamichi to the Shohoku basketball team after seeing his athletic talent. Hanamichi is reluctant to join the team at first, but joins in order to impress Haruko. Despite his absence of experience and background in playing basketball, with time he proves to be a natural athlete. Later on Hanamichi realizes his interest in basketball has become equal to his crush. Then there occurs a star of the school, “a girls’ magnet” and a bitter rival of Hanamichi both in sports and in love, Kaede Rukawa; and the adventure of both love triangle and basketball contests begin.

Slam Dunk was serialized in Japan from 1990-1960 and was also adapted into an anime series which had been broadcast worldwide. As of 2012, Slam Dunk has sold 120million copies in Japan alone, making it one of the best-selling mangas in history.

Source:

http://www.animeslamdunk.com/

SECRET

One of my all-time favorite movies, Secret or in direct translation from Chinese, “The Secret That Cannot Be Told” is a 2007 Taiwanese film. Popular Taiwanese musician Jay Chou stars as the male lead also co-wrote the movie. In the year of release, the movie received six nominations at the Taiwanese Golden Horse Awards and won Outstanding Taiwanese Film of The Year Awards. Also it was nominated for Best Asian Film at the 27^th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2008.

In the film, a music student majoring in piano Ye Xianglun transfers to a music school popular with the most talented students. On the first day of school, as he wanders through the piano department building, he hears a mysterious melody being played that leads him to Lu Xiaoyu, another piano student. He asks her about the song and she tells it is a secret that cannot be told. They develop a relationship and the girl’s life stays clouded in mystery. When Xianglun tells Xiaoyu that the piano building is going to be demolished on a graduation day and the old grand piano will be torn down with the building, Xiaoyu eventually teaches him the mysterious song. Xiaoyu disappears for 5 months after seeing Xianglun accidentally kissing other girl and appears on the graduation day and mysteriously disappears again. After trying hard to find out what was going on Xianglun discovers the unbelievable secret of the mysterious song and the old grand piano. I didn’t want to write here what was the secret exactly because of my wish not to spoil it for those people who might be interested in watching the movie. I hope they would be as much excited as I was when I first watched the film and discover the secret together with Xianglun.

I would highly recommend watching this movie.

 Check out the trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTDuOkNSJA4

LinkedIn Value for Students

     Today numerous companies and organizations are actively using a recruitment though social media as one of their main recruitment methods. Among those, especially LinkedIn is found valuable as it is launched for professional networking specifically.

    For students and university graduates, LinkedIn is almost a must-use-social-platform in order to effectively and efficiently find the suitable jobs or internship programs. There are millions of companies on LinkedIn, including Fortune 500 companies.

    Once students have created a professional profile, they can receive alerts for the openings of the recommended jobs. Also LinkedIn gives students the chance to connect with professionals from all over the world more than any other social networks where professionals’ presence is not concentrated at all. Moreover, not only the job-seeking students conduct the research on the companies of their interest, but the companies themselves look for talented candidates and find them to hire. As social professional networks are fast growing source of quality hires for global recruiters, newly graduates are searching from an international pool of employment.