Movie Review: The Imitation Game

THE IMITATION GAME

Unlock the secret, win the war

www.theimitationgamemovie.com

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Rory Kinnear, Mark Strong, etc.

Directed: Morten Tyldum

Genre: Biography, Drama, Thriller, War

Released date: November 14, 2014

Rating: PG-13

Run- time: 1 hr 54 mins

               

             The Imitation Game is a historical thriller movie based on true story. The story is about how a genius yet narcissist and lack of social ability, anything but ordinary mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) breaks NAZI ‘unbreakable code’ called Enigma with his fellow mathematicians and code breakers. During his younger age, Turing described as a brilliant but weird as a student which was why he was bullied in boarding school. He has only one friend in his boarding school named Christopher. In 1939, when Britain declares war on Germany, Turing goes to Bletchey Park and joined a cryptography team of Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard), Keith Furman and Charles Richards which is under the direction of Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance). As to his lack of social ability, Turing was very difficult to work with. While his colleagues are trying to decrypt the Enigma, he spends his time alone trying to build a machine that can break any code, particularly Enigma at that time. After Denniston refuses to fund construction of the machine, Turing writes to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who puts Turing in charge of the team and funds the machine. He then fires Furman and Richards and find Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) for replacement, who is the only woman in that team. The movie goes on how the team faces the trouble and difficulties as they try to decipher Enigma and how as Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility.

            The movie screenplay(watch trailer down below) is written by Graham Moore which based on the Biography of Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. The movie setting is very excellent and realistic in portraying the condition during World War II, including LGBT and gender issues. Alan Turing’s pathetic and terrible background story was also made realistically. The most fascinating about this movie is how incredible Benedict Cumberbatch acting in it. He had succeeded to play the role of Alan Turing both physically and emotionally thanks to his beautifully unique face and his exceptional talent to bring Alan Turing’s personality, social disabilities, and stuttering problem into the big screen. Keira Knightley’s acting as Joan Clarke in this movie is also terrific and admirable. Not to mention Alex Lawther’s tremendous performance, as young Alan Turing. All the actors and casts in this movie are very well prepared and dedicated themselves to this movie and have the right to receive any credits and praises of the success of this film.

This film clearly tells how the WWII is not only just a war of power and weaponry but a huge, huge universal code war. This story also tells how WWII has created a technological revolution which until this very second still has a strong influence. The title itself refers to Turing’s proposed test, which he discussed in his 1950 paper on artificial intelligence entitled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". Overall, this movie has nominated and won some prestigious awards, such as Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTA, San Diego Film Festival, etc. In fact, this movie gets 8 Oscar (2015) Nominations. The nominations are for Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role (Benedict Cumberbatch),  Actress in a Supporting Role (Keira Knightley), Directing, Film Editing, Music (Original Score), Production Design, and Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

The Imitation Game is the top grossing independent film release in 2014. The film opened number two at the UK box office just behind the big-budget film Interstellar, earning $4.3 million from 459 screens. Its opening box office figure is the third highest opening weekend haul for a UK film in 2014. It achieved a very high 90% “definite recommend” from its core audience, according to exit poll figures. Its opening was 107% higher than that of Argo, 81% higher than Philomena and 26% higher than The Iron Lady following its debut.

I personally would give this brilliant movie 8.5/10 stars. Morten Tyldum clearly had managed to direct this mix of biography and war movie into its success. The official film website also allows visitors to unlock exclusive content by solving crossword puzzles conceived by Turing in his lifetime. As Joan Clarke said: “But whoever loved ordinary?”

Benedict Cumberbatch stated “If any young person’s ever felt like they aren’t quite sure who they are, or aren’t allowed to express themselves the way they’d like to express themselves, if they’ve ever felt bullied by what they feel is the normal majority or any kind of thing that makes them feel an outsider, then this is definitely a film for them because it’s about a hero for them”.  Turing’s service for his country itself has only been recognized lately. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 89%

Metascore: 73/100

IMDB Rating: 8.2/10

Trivia (spoiler alerts)

Soundtrack

Want to know more about Alan Turing? Click here, here or here

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB

 

“Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine”

Book Review: Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea

BECAUSE OF MR. TERUPT

Rob Buyea

              

Date Published: October 12th 2010

Publisher:  Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Pages: 268 pages

Goodreads review: 4.32/5 (review)

                Because of Mr. Terupt tells about the story of fifth grade students and their new teacher, Mr. Terupt. There’s the new girl, Jessica, a very smart girl but having a hard time fitting in. Alexia, the bully and the drama queen. Anna, the shy one. Peter the class clown and troublemaker. Luke, the smartest one. Danielle who is afraid to stand up for her own self and Jeffrey who hates school. 

                Mr. Terupt is described as this new teacher who is very different, energetic, a little bit mysterious and very understanding of all his students. He really cares about every one of them. He knows how to handle and control his class. He is very wise in every action and plan he took. By the near end of the fifth grade, the students seemed to grow love Mr. Terupt as their teacher and wish that they would have him as theirs next year. This novel features seven narrators with their very own perspective of everything happened for the whole year. You might thought that it would be confusing to read a book with seven narrators, but this book is so well written that you can imagine everything that happened without ever have to reread any sentence. 

                This children/young adult realistic fiction novel is the first novel of Rob Buyea. This 268 pages novel, for me, is an inspiring story. It was a very enjoyable read. I really wish I had a teacher like him when I was younger. He doesn’t only teach his students about the academicals lessons like science and math, he also teach the students about caring of others and be friends with everyone without ever sounding like an obnoxious teacher. I hope that there would be more teachers who are like him in real life. My favorite character besides Mr. Terupt is Jessica. Jessica has a very interesting perspective about things that happening around her. For a fifth grader, I think she’s very smart. 

                What I love about this book is not that we just read about a story, we also learn as if we are Mr. Terupt’s students. There are some part in this book where the narrators/the students tell about their family background and I really like it because not everyone comes from the same family background as us and this book teaches us to be more understanding towards other people. I think Rob Buyea really dedicated himself in writing this book. It is a quick and easy read, but definitely not the one to be forgotten easily.

                I would recommend this to everyone because this is a general day-to-day yet inspiring story. I think that teachers would like this book, because there are a lot of great ideas of teaching method. One of my favorite Mr. Terupt’s method is how he teaches his students Math. He teaches them about ‘dollar words’. It makes the students excited and eager about learning the subject without forcing them. This book also shows how much impact a teacher can have in their children’s life. Kids would love this book because they would easily relate to this – about the drama queen, the class prankster, the bully, everything. There is a sequel to this book, Mr. Terupt Falls Again which also as good as the first book but more mature as the students are in the sixth grade on that book. Lastly, I would give this great a book a 5/5 stars as Because of Mr. Terupt is a basically a book for everyone.

“Maybe you just do the best you can, 'cause you can't control what happens in the end.”

                 

Book Review: To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE

By Jenny Han

 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
 

Date Published: April 15th 2014

Pages: 355 pages

Goodreads reviews: 4.07/5 (reviews)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

This beautifully written novel is written by the well-known, wonderful children and teen novels writer, Jenny Han. The story tells about a teenage girl named Lara Jean. She has one older sister named Gogo aka Margot who is two years older and one younger sister named Kitty aka Katherine. She lives with two of her sisters and her dad. Lara Jean always writes letters to all the boys she has ever had crushed on. But she never actually sends them. Instead, she just keeps it in a teal hatbox. One of the letters was written to Josh, Gogo’s boyfriend. Yes, that’s right. Lara Jean used to have a crush on her sister’s boyfriend, before her sister dated Josh. A few days before the last day of summer, Gogo broke up with Josh because she is going to Scotland for college and she doesn’t want her relationship with Josh holding her decision down. And since her mom has passed away years ago, all responsibilities fall to Margot.  Now that Margot is going to go far away, it’s going to be Lara Jean responsibilities to take care of almost everything, including her little sister. Everything was fine nothing hurt until one day she found out that all five of her ‘crush letters’ were sent out to every single one of her ‘ex-crush’. This makes her have to deal with all her old crushes, old friends, etc. 

                I find this book a little bit similar with The Summer I Turned Pretty, not that I’m complaining. In fact, I find it is more like a collaboration of The Summer I Turned Pretty and The Duff. There’s the story about stolen first kiss, falling for someone you can’t have, etc. Maybe partly because I just read both books last month and both still have that effect on me. But the general plot has some similarity and I actually love the similarities of these three books. What’s interesting about this book is that Lara Jean parents are a biracial couple. Lara Jean dad is a Caucasian while her mom is a Korean. That makes the cover even more beautiful because it related to the book.

                Lara Jean is described as this sweet, innocent, old fashioned girl who never dated and never had a boyfriend. She is used to live in the shadow of her sister. When you think about it, it’s more like she’s her sister’s shadow. She looks up to her so much and quite attached to her that when her sister left she became a little bit clueless. This makes her feel very anxious and worry about every little thing that happened. But she managed to survive anyway. . I personally like Lara Jean. She seems very cool, calm and funny, sometimes, sarcastic.  Margot is described as this perfect mature sister who always takes care of everything and always plans everything thoroughly. She is so mature that sometimes it makes her seemed emotionless and cold. Then there is this one guy named Peter who is one of the five boys Lara Jean ever had a crush on. Peter started off as this pretentious, shallow, cheap, too confident and down-right obnoxious guy. He is the popular guy from the lacrosse team that every girls want to be with. But throughout the book, Peter changed or at least he shows his true self. That is some real character development. I actually like him the most out of all 5 boys of Lara Jean’s crushes. Peter has a girlfriend named Genevieve, who used to be Lara Jean’s friend. She has this unsettling smile which is kind of makes Lara Jean (and me) nervous. It’s like, her smiling to you means she has planned something bad for you. Another interesting character is Chris, Lara Jean’s best friend. She is very mysterious which reminds me of Alaska Young (Looking For Alaska by John Green) but actually very kind. All the characters in this book are very realistic and so real. They have their own traits and point of view which makes it very interesting to read.

                There are some Sleepless in Seattle (MFEO – I knew that acronym from the movie) AND Harry Potter reference which makes this book even better. Then there’s the mention of Indonesia, which is my country and I looove when books mention my country. This novel a little bit slow paced, which is not exactly my go-to book but this one keeps me turning every single page without even realizing it even though the beginning is quite too slow for me. Jenny Han writing is style is very easy to read and it really pulls you in. When you read this book, it feels so real you can feel what Lara Jean feels and you keep guessing what’s going to happen in the end because you have no idea. By the time I finished reading this, I was like ‘wait, what? I thought there would be more!’

                In case you didn’t know, there is the second book called P.S I Still Love You (spoiler alerts), which I can’t wait to read! Lastly, I would recommend this to those into romance young adult/contemporary book or anyone who want to read it, despite whatever genre you’re into. I would give this book 4.85/5 star. I hope you guys enjoy this. Have a beautiful day! 

P.S: You can get this book online on  

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

iBook Store

Or if you live in Indonesia you can get it on Periplus online or Periplus bookstore.

“But the little things are what make up life.”