After Earth

And after earth, there was a story by a father who wanted to boost his son's career. And it possibly worked. 

After Earth

Will Smith is one of my favourite actors. The only film he's been in that hasn't been awesome was 'I Am Legend', and that's not because he was poor in it. His performance was great, but the book was just miles better. 

Kilometres. I believe it is 100 kilometres that Kitai Raige, Jaden's character, has to travel to recover the beacon thingy-majiggy; the technical gubbins that the father and son combo have to use to call for help on this planet which has evolved to kill our species. 

There are cute conversations that happen throughout the film that highlight the people are no longer of this planet, such as when Kitai's sister (or mother, I got confused) holds up a physical copy of Moby Dick and exclaims that she had been able to take it out of the museum / library. I guess there are no books in the future / 'After Earth' period. 

The start of the film gives us a back story into the characters of Kitai and dad Cypher that leads up to their crash landing, but the whole aim of this film is to give more screen-time to the young Smith. 

That's not a terrible thing though; story by Will Smith and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the kid has a big break and a lot of pressure to show he is his father's son, or rather that he's a competent actor despite the large shoes he has to fill. 

Jaden has a lot of time to show off that he can do these kind of roles, but it means that there isn't much screen time for any nobodies (to put it bluntly), or even Will Smith himself. The trailers for this film make it seem like there will be interaction between the two throughout the film, but the only interaction is done via a high-tech walkie talkie. 

The special effects are out of this world (well it's our world... but it's different now... so... they're good). There are chimps / apes / baboons, and giant eagles which seem to be all-CGI, and also creations such as the Ursa Monster (Although I kept saying Ursa Major in my head), which is quite an imaginative and bland creature at the same time. 

There are surprising moments in the film portrayed through memories and hallucinations from lack of sleep from both the father's and son's perspectives. They're welcome additions to break up the running and action scenes and it's a shame they're not looked into more in depth. There could have been a whole other layer to the film if there was more focus on the activities off earth. 

So it's a nice idea for a film, and good sentiments behind why Will Smith has a story focusing on a young boy's journey to save his dad's, and his own, life. There are some heartfelt moments where we see how and why their relationship has been affected, and again it's these scenes that I think would have benefited from having more exploration.

As a new film, it's not one I'd say is a must see, but it's light-hearted and is jumpy in a few places so by all means isn't terrible. 

Well call me Ismail. Those humans didn't kill all the whales!

:-)

Elky

Weight Training, Training Weight.

When I was growing up I was a skinny little kid obsessed with watching martial arts films and Power Rangers. I guess because I was so active, my metabolism was quite high.

As soon as I hit secondary school though, I became a more serious individual. I had no time for fly-kicking the air and play-fighting with my brother (I had a lot of time for sitting around eating lunch though), and I gradually put on more and more weight.

I was a large guy going into university so I started at the gym and gave up after a month. I hadn't noticed any change but apparently I lost a lot of the weight from seven years of inactivity. I couldn't see this though.

Which brings me slightly more up to date. My weight has fluctuated up and down for the past three years but it was only last year when I noticed just how much I had put on that I decided that something had to be done!

One step at a time.

I had to talk myself into it really. When I look at the bigger picture, I usually feel goals to be quite daunting, so I made mine very vague. Find the quickest and biggest cheat to get rid of the weight!

I went into research mode (thank you journalism degree!) where I looked into different diets, exercises and training routines and I started to understand how exactly my body differed from other people's.

I am an endomorph (if I remember correctly) and this means my body doesn't work as hard to burn fat. Add to this the fact I wasn't doing anything in particular to help this fact I was just heading toward obesity!

A few sit-ups, attempts at pull-ups and push-ups and that was how I started. I'd do this everyday for a while until my curiosity made me look for training videos which started to teach me that I didn't have to do cardio to achieve the results that I wanted!

I really didn't want to give up food, because I love it so much! And I knew I wouldn't get a physique that professional models and body builders have but I was okay with that! I'm not really a calorie counter so I knew that wouldn't work. But I had to have a basic knowledge to get by on.

I learned that protein would help me on my quest while carbohydrates would only benefit me if I was very strict, so I cut them out and replaced breakfasts with a diet protein shake. This immediately meant that I was cutting about 250-500 calories out of my regular routine and giving my body a different energy source to run on.

After this I cut fizzy drinks out completely which I used to live on! Again I had learned that liquid calories were not my friend. Things like gravies and sauces (and those sugary fizzy beverages) were pushing my calorie intake over the recommended amount.

It sounds like there was a lot that I changed, but actually the bit that nobody believes is that I never stopped eating what I wanted. Instead of a few meals a day I would indulge at lunch time. Whatever I wanted. I ate out a lot so it wasn't really on the healthy side. Pizza buffets, fried chicken, kebabs, burgers. The worst of the worst. And I don't recommend this method to lose weight, but it worked for me...

I'd make sure I had my dinner before the 5 o'clock mark and would not eat just before I went to bed as this was something I was really bad with beforehand.

So I was slowly becoming more and more active. Losing hours in the day to weight training and also eating differently so that I was actually training my weight. My body started adapting to the change in my patterns positively. I noticed better toning in my arms especially and the numbers on the scale kept going down week by week.

I would say over a six-month period, from July 2012 to January 2013, I got rid of about 2 stone (or about 12kg).

I have gotten back into bad routines though. I've become lazy again, I eat many times throughout the day and even before bed, but I'm at a stage where I am quite happy with what I have achieved. That, and I've trained my body slightly so that it helps to keep the weight off more than before!

I am a lazy person, and to be honest this isn't really a motivational story. I did everything the wrong way and by cheating to get to where I wanted. I'd recommend people go and research what is best for them. The only message I was trying to get across is that even a lazy person can get the job done. ;-)




"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."
― Bill Gates

:-)

Elky