I think this film is going to start making me write reviews about any film I watch now.

I would classify this film as being one of my top 10 now (I don’t even know what my top 10 are!), however, the impact of this film in terms of the psychology, the concept and the storyline – this just left me speechless at the end.

I gave a telephone call at 11pm after watching this film to wandii (James Wood), who I know very well (that’s another story for another post). Anyway, I needed to tell someone non-female just so I could clarify a few things about the film.

I basically just said to him: “Watch this film.” and cut the line. That was my clarification. Not much of a clarifying aspect to it, but the point is, everyone should watch this film. It got a rating of 8.5 at imdb, which for those who are not aware of that site – it is THE biggest movie rating website there is on the Internet (hence the name – Internet Movie Database).

However, aside that, the film astounded me. I will attempt to outline the plot where spoilers are most likely to be mentioned, but watching the film is a completely different experience! I just need to put this out in words so I can come back and read this one day.

Joel Barish (acted by Jim Carrey) has an everyday job, working at his desk, waking up every morning to the same old routine (you don’t get to see him working at his desk though, but it just gives an idea of his personality straight away!).

His life is based upon writing in a diary. Everywhere he goes, he takes it with him, drawing pictures, writing notes, attempting to explain actions which he can’t explain, but more over, explaining what life is about from his perspective. Moving on a great deal through the film, he had a love life with a so called Naomi (who you don’t get to see – he just mentions about her), and explains how he wishes he could have the life he had with her, again.

With this in mind, it is obvious that he will meet someone. After strolling the day around several places (after deciding to call in sick for work), he spent most his time reflecting about how his life is so glum. His life is very anti-social. He prefers to be alone, express thoughts by himself, feels very introverted and doesn’t feel the need to get involved with everyday news/matters that concerns others.

However, he tries to involve himself more with these matters from time to time, but cannot find the courage to overcome them/succeed, e.g. falling in love with a woman.

Having noticed this girl (Clementine Kruczynski acted by Kate Winslet) at a beach he last stopped on, she too, has a similar mind set. She can’t decide what to do. Whether to approach him, wait for a smile, wait for a signal/greeting from Joel to allow for a closer encounter of one another or merely to forget about him because she’s “just like the rest and doesn’t have a chance at anything”. She too, feels in a similar situation as Joel, i.e. she is not worth the love from a man.

As time goes on, they introduce each other on a train having “coincidentally” bumped into each other. It was actually Clementine who decided to move in, as she could not resist the fact that she actually liked Joel. With Joel consistently making notes about his feelings of Clementine, he soon feels comfortable with her attitude.

The life of Clementine is very sociable. She likes to “live life to the fullest.” Therefore, the rest of the film is spent on the two of them expressing each others thoughts and how they are perfect for one another. But here is where the twist begins…

Joel waits in the car for Clementine after a day out, until he realises that she disappears. She was to stay the night at Joel’s place, but she had to drop off at her place to pick up a few things (a toothbrush…). This is where Joel breaks down.

After days of traumatic and unexplainable events, his opinions/feelings about her are being spoken to a couple (who are friends of Joel, just listen to him and don’t have a clue what to do!), but answers to his questions are still a mystery, as to why she never came back. Then the husband (Rob played by David Cross) decides to give him a message he had come across (he knew Clementine too, but only really by name).

The message was written on a business leaflet, outlining that “Clementine Kruczynski has had her memory of Joel Barish erased,” by a company called Lacuna Inc. (I just took a huge pause after that sentence and read about all the different happenings in the film, for 35mins on imdb. That site has everything!).

Anyway, back to the plot. Having found out that her memory was erased (he also encountered her at one point, only to find that she didn’t have a clue who he was), he could not handle it anymore and decided to have his memory of erased by the same company. After visiting the company, the secretary Mary (played by Kirsten Dunst) takes all details and informs him of all the requirements. Mary however, has her own story behind it all! She is a new employee to the business, who is willing to find out about everything to do with the memories.

So to cut to the chase of the twist, Joel finds out that he can’t handle the fact that she would just erase her memory, just like that. The film is now shot in the memory of Joel Barish, while the people who erase his memory are scanning his brain, trying to destroy all the parts of the memory about her. At the same time however, he’s confronting these memories within his mind and realising the truth behind why they broke apart.

It’s at this point in Joel’s apartment (where the procedure takes place), while unconcious he tries to save the memories he has left of Clementine, by moving the memories of her which he is encountering, to areas which he had never shared with Clementine before.

It was through this, an employee of Lacuna Inc. (mainly Frank played by Thomas Jay Ryan, but there were also others involved, including Mary (who was there to “learn” hehe – you’ll see for yourself ; ) )) who were trying to erase all traces of Clementine from his brain (as approval was given by Joel to do so)

Yet! At one point they did not have any trace of her in the parts of Joel’s brain according to the computer, as Joel was trying to force her to visit different memories for her to still be a part of him (read that again!). So he would be safe for a while as Frank didn’t know where to search, but it was still not sufficient enough…

With Frank not being able to trace them, he calls upon the director of Lacuna Inc. Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (played by Tom Wilkinson) to sort out the mis-haps of Joel’s memories. Further to that scene, Mary soon realises the truth about why she got involved in the business.

So, the truth? Well to start with, it was actually an employee at Lacuna Inc. that used the personal profile of Clementine as a method to obtain an attraction from her. The role of Lacuna Inc. is to gather all material to do with your memory, so they can pin-point the exact spots on the brain. Therefore, the need for the client (Clementine) to give personal details were kept on file.

Patrick (an emplyee of Lacuna Inc. played by Elijah Wood), used these details after she got erased, to obtain her lust for love, with him, i.e. Stealing love (which comes in the form of the diary, letters, notes, memories, pictures and any artefact that Clementine handed in to the company for erasing and most importantly, the tape recording all clients have to make) from one person (Joel) and using it to their advantage.

However, the reason for why she had her memories erased of Joel were due to the forthcoming events she perceieved as being “boring” (with Joel) and she didn’t know what else to think of him (having spent ages with him). She was merely wanting to get on with life, while Joel was taking things too slowly, i.e. too boring.

Unfortunately for Joel, while realising he has no more luck with her, while the audience experiences the loving memories of Joel and Clementine, he too realises that he cannot accept the loss of Clementine. He desperately keeps finding new words to say to Clementine, but they are only memories which keep getting erased by Frank.

Communicating with himself, inside his own mind, to only memories of Clementine were his only ways of keeping as many thoughts about her, until he found a way to keep her for real.

Finally, it is at this point, regardless of the memories, that Joel has proven to himself that he will never leave her. Having woken up in his apartment (all the Lacuna Inc. employees had left by the time he woke). He is aware of Clementine, and throughout the film Clementine’s “relationship” with Patrick gradually triggers more memories of Joel – to lead them each to one another.

Soon enough they meet, only to find the truth about why they WOULD leave each other. They listen to the tapes of their pre-recorded memories for when they would get their memory erased, as they were posted to them by Mary.

The story behind Mary was, she finally realises she had been through the procedure without knowing (she actually fell in love with Dr. Howard Mierzwiak before he erased her via the procedure); she came to realise it is the wrong way to live life and a business never to be carried out – even if you have the worst of memories.

Memories must live forever. Watch the film. Now.

Well I thought I’d do a quick update on how I think I’m doing. Lol, that sounds so sad. The point is though – recently, I’ve really noticed that I haven’t done as much work as I would have liked to.

There have been many factors playing a part in it. However, from what I can tell, I have it all planned out, ready to get on with. It’s all in my head though! The worst place for it to be right now! Argh!

I managed to fit some of it on the whiteboard in the back of my room. Lol at the random words I wrote on there. Nevertheless, they are all meaningful in their own way and will help to remind me about the things to include in my work.

I spent some time on Monday with my good friend Kintay (Tom Penny), who had his birthday. I bought some interesting sphere shaped designs (unique is what he likes, I think!) and also bought lunch for him (which cost quite a lot – good ‘ol Costa!) Again, this was an unplanned event, which kind of put me in a difficult position given my schedule with other committments. However, I still managed to fit all that was necessary during that day as well as enjoy it.

Tuesday I attended lectures in the morning at Park. However I needed to leave half way through the lecture to attend another lecture (which I have to do for another two weeks). The lecture that falls in my normal timetabled one is to do with placements. Should I wish to go on a placement next year – I have to attend these lectures on Tuesday. They clash in one of my main (core) lectures, but I should be ok!

They give vital information regarding how to go about getting a good placement opportunity. At the same time, this website – this is actually part of it. I need to at least make the effort to add a further article each week to the pages list (actually I should be able to do more than that! Blah!).

Coaching wasn’t too bad on Tuesday afternoon at the Cheltenham Ladies College. All my students turned up, so I got straight on with the lessons. They all enjoyed it and even better, I’m applying a lot of psychological aspects to the lessons which they love! (I do go mad when it comes to tennis and psychology! Crazy I say… Hehe).

Wednesday I had University Tennis trails. That was a breeze and I’ve made the team just fine. I have to, again, prioritise carefully, as there are matches coming up, both home and away (no not the soap : p ).

Today, I went to Park Campus where my friend kindly tutorialised me on the lectures I missed yesterday (Wednesday) due to the tennis trials. He was great and I don’t know how I’d do the things he showed me, if he wasn’t around! Thanks Ceido (Finlay Belcher)!

To be honest with myself, all these extra involvements I get into only reflect back to less time I have for my university project work. Then again, my feelings over this are to remain the same. I suppose I’m to cope with the way things go and take all future events on board, as and when required.

You might notice a few more posts which are passworded too. That’s private : ).

Ergh it’s late. My laptop battery is about to die. I Need some sleep now.

Hmm… battery die… me sleep… why did I just think those two were connected in some way?

Are you tired? I am. Today has been a really tiring day. In fact, I can’t believe how much I have done today! I’ll sum it down:

9:00am to 9:45am – Bus to Cheltenham

10:00am to 1:45pm – Tennis at Cheltenham Ladies College

2:00pm to 2:45pm – Bus back from Cheltenham to Gloucester

3:00pm to 4:00pm – Individual lesson at Denmark High School for Girls

4:25pm to 4:40pm – Walk to Oxstalls Indoor Tennis Centre

4:30pm to 6:30pm – Training with some of the guys

6:30pm to 7:10pm – Had a coke (the drink :P) and a chat

7:10pm to 7:30pm – Went to Tesco’s to fill mates car with petrol so he could drop me home

7:30pm – Literally, as I get out of the car, I get a phone call from Fiona saying her wireless network isn’t working.

7:34pm to 9:25pm – On the phone talking to Annabelle about fixing their wireless router

8:46pm – Had some food brought up for me (at last!)

9:30pm to NOW – Talking to some friends on MSN Messenger and writing this!

So, from 9:00am to 9:30pm I have been talking non-stop. Give it a try sometime. You might like it :|. It’s not been a very bad day though. I have enjoyed today. Travelling from place to place, teaching tennis and accomplishing pretty much everything I had planned!

The thing is – today is probably the longest day I’ve had, in terms of talking. If I break down the amount of talking I’ve done, I would estimate that – a total of five hours of coaching (to the pupils directly) and another three hours of other random nonsense that I either comment about/opinionate about/talk to myself about – which gives a total of eight hours of talking.

Now, I don’t know how much talking that is. No one really ever wonders how long they’ve spoken in a day, as talking is a natural aspect of life. You speak when you need to, listen when you have to and reply with simple or complicated answers. But, I swear, today has been eight hours of constant talking.

It doesn’t sound realistic to most, but when I look back at today – I’m confident that I spent most the day talking. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how much of that has been useful. So being realistic again, I’d say at least fours hours of the coaching has been worth talking about, and two hours of other “useful” information.

The rest (two hours) – that was just not necessary I think. Maybe it was, but hey – that’s life and that’s what actually happens if you think about it! Mad.

Mood: Unknown/cold

Well today I spent the whole of this morning creating banners for my good friend Goose. He asked me to animate them for him. At first, I was being very stupid. But then again, I wasn’t aware that .png can have more than one image stored within it.

Furthermore, if a .png has more than one image, it is only Macromedia Fireworks 8 that can read those other images stored within it. Any other image software you use to load a .png image just picks up the first frame (basically just shows one picture).

Yesterday, it took me about 2 hours in total to realise that, hence my confusion of Goose sending me a flat image and he constantly asking me to “just animate it!” He kept saying to use the images sent in the .zip file, yet everytime I looked at them all I saw were 5 different images, all looking rasterised (rasterised means it’s a plain flat image and you cannot edit any part of it).

Finally the conversation went something like this:

Me – “Do you want me to edit every part of the image and the animate it?”
Goose – “yes”
Me – “So recreate everything on each banner you’ve made and animate it?”
Goose – “yep”
Me – “Couldn’t you have at least done that given the time scale! Lol!”
Goose – “you do know .png’s are multilayered?”
Me – “WHAT?! AGRHFDnkdghodsnhd!”

My fustration at that point really kicked out. It had been one of the most annoying days, not having realised that .png’s can have several layers stored in them, but then again – not realising that Fireworks was the only program that could read it in that way.

So having installed Fireworks, even worse – during installation of Fireworks, I decided to import the .png in Macromedia Flash (that was where I was to animate each banner). And, of all options it Flash asks – the first one is “paste each layer on a single frame making every element editable where possible.”

Sigh, 4 hours figuring out how to animate an image, when all I had to do was import each .png into Flash. I should have also realised that. That’s the advantage of a multi-package software like Macromedia. Small option requirements like that are added to every product they produce, helping to minimise the need to switch from one program to the other. In other words, I didn’t have to install Fireworks :/.

Anyway, the following morning (that’s today), I spent another 3 good hours perfecting the animations and giving alternates forms. The brief asked for the animations in .gif. I was puzzled by this as Flash is the more common method of advertisement these days.

Therefore, I’ve also supplied each banner in .swf, along with gradient backgrounds and solid backgrounds. This in turn showed the differences in filesizes compared with the .gif’s (which I also provided) – one the advantages of having the banner as .swf’s (flash). All in all, creating it in Flash made things a lot easier for me! So, at least I did one good choice and not making the .gif banners in an image-editing program!

Well it’s finally done. From 11am to 2pm, I’m finally sending them to Goose for his approval, and in turn, of his client’s approval. Hopefully that’ll earn me a few coins.

Today I’ve learnt a lot. Mostly to do with the simplicity of banners, yet the complexity in organising them in the first place. Goose admitted he sent me a few errors of explanation (that’s rare! Hah. I win) but it was sorted after getting into the rhythm of things.

Nevertheless, everything worked out fine and should there be any adjustments required, I have the source files all pre-made and ready to edit!

Mood: Annoyed still :/

Sigh. WordPress crashed on me. I lost everything I typed up. For those who didn’t even get a chance to see it, it was at least 40% complete and that’s nothing to what I had left to fill in.

Well it’s back to the drawing board. I’ve set up the layout once again. Time to fill in the gaps again. Hopefully it’ll all work fine this time!