Bernie: But for a Dark Moment

Lovable Mostly

This is about one of the best Jack black movie ever to come our way. Jack Black is in the "death business" of a mortician but his role in  Carthage, Texas grew beyond the funeral home with his pivotal role in the church as his influence spread throughout the community.

A Dalliance that ended in death

He became likable and lovable and could even make Marjorie Nugent, the most dislikeable of characters in Carthage to soften her hear for Bernie.

 Matthew as the Go-getting Sheriff Buck

However, her possessiveness of Bernie got better of her and in a dark  moment of weakness, Bernie shot her in the back with her armadillo gun. He then kept her copse in the fridge waiting for a good time to give her the perfect funeral which never did come.

Bernie's trial had to be taken out of Carthage as the jury there will certainly return a verdict favourable to Bernie.

Found guilty of murder, Bernie served life and has yet to be released.

Well paced movie and you will definitely enjoy it.

Watch out for Jack Black-he really sings for real  like one charming canary!

By the way, this film is based on a true life story.

LPI-Not Even a Trading Buy These Days

London Pacific Insurance Berhad

This is a great counter or what?

Apart from attractive dividend payouts, there is a  capital gain of close to almost 31 % since the bonus and rights issue in 2010.

At about the peak price of more than RM 15.00, it asked for a cash-call of RM 7.00, a haircut of almost more than 50%.

Today, assuming you had bought one lot of LPI in 2010 at RM 15.00, it would mean that after the ex-bonus and rights, you would have 1,600 units of LPI.

Total outlay would be RM 15,000 ( for the purchase) +RM 700 paid for the rights of 100 units. As such the total investment is  RM 15,700.

At today's price of close to RM 15.00, it would mean you have created value of up to RM 24,000 (1600 units x RM 15.00).

As such, the value, without calculating the payout of yearly dividends of 75% in 2011 and 65% for 2012, the return is RM 8,300. If you add RM 1,400 dividends, that will a grand total of RM 9,700.

Taking a 24 months investment period and annualising it, we would have a gross of RM 4,850 or 31% return to capital.

Today, at a peak of RM 14.70, how much will it go?

There is a dividend of RM 50.00 to be paid soon before January 2013 is out. At today's price, it
should to RM14.20.

But would it?

Let's assume it did.

But how long will it stay at this newly adjusted price?

Remember-it is hardly traded and a technical price rebound is always possible given its tight supply.

Unless it is a continuous bad season of sorts, LPI will likely be left unscathed.

Only weak holders will throw out their stocks only to regret it when it bounced upwards again.

I do not expect any corporate restructuring anytime soon in LPI.

If at all there is, it would be Teh Hong Piow taking it private as LPI does not need to raise any market capital  currently.

So, as a stock caught in a narrow price rut , will it go up?

Your guess is as good as mind

Django Unchained- Licence for Violence

Return to the Spaghetti western era

If it is a Tarantino outing, expect a lot of action and a lot of explosions.

Here, we see Jamie Foxx together with Christoph Waltz, his German bounty hunter partner taking on Leo DiCaprio, a slave owner on the Candieland Plantation and freeing his childhood lover, Kerry Washington.

The lovely Kerry Washington

As usual, with any Quentin Tarantino show, it's all blood and gore.

Senseless killing with a simplistic plot.

If you like the hey-day of the Italian spaghetti westerns, you will like this movie!

Osama: The Incredible Final Countdown

Katryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty surely is a slow fuse as it builds the precursor to the longest man-hunt ever in history. Then it quickens and tightens as it went along!

Bent on killing the invisible Osama Bin Laden, Maya, a 9-year CIA operative plots the scenarios where Osama will likely be sequestered.

On the Edge of The Seat Suspense

A chance event of a courier sending a missive to a Jalalabad fortress of a mansion, sends waves to Maya that she may have at last found the hideout of Osama.

Killing of a Terrorist

As she rubbishes the theories that Osama was hiding in the high hills of Afghanistan where he cannot communicate with his operatives, she got the big wigs all the way to Obama to give her that chance so that Osama will not slip away this time.

The Success of   US Espionage

Her sixth sense paid off as they finally annihilated the man responsible for the destruction of the twin towers of the New York World Trade Centre and avenge the deaths of countless innocent lives taken away by the suicidal plane bombs on the towers.

A gripping movie-worth every sen and every second to watch the movie!

Les Miserables-A Resounding Musical Treat

Symbol of Revolution

This is one great musical based on the story by Victor Hugo of the French Revolution and one man's atonement for stealing bread, his retribution of 19 winters and a man, bent of catching him called Inspector Javier for breaking parole.

Love in Battle-scarred Paris

The songs are great particularly Anne Hathaway singing I believe and a young Cossette  sating Castle on a Cloud.

Jean Valjean the Protagonist

The story ended well with the loose ends being sewn up well where the value of forgiveness overtakes vengeance.

You must be Broadway inclined to enjoy this movie.

Javier who never gives up!

I did since I enjoyed Miss Saigon very much when it was staged in Drury Lane, London.

The Unfortunate Fantine

The music, song and lyrics are strangely similar and powerful.

Cossette 

The songs will play in your mind many times over after you have seen the movie.

The Life of Pissing Pi

Tiger meets the Modern Mariner

This is another Ang Lee wonder that manages to put him back into the limelight after the legendary Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the controversial Brokeback Mountain. That he could even take the classic novel of Sense and Sensibility  and bring magic into it is sheer indicator that he would go far.

Extraordinary Visual Storyteller

In Life of Pi, we are again embedded into s foreign culture and this time it is the Indian sub-continent. From the French quarters of Pondicherry, we have to take in a privately-run zoo, a voyage at sea and a survival between man and beast.

Pi's adventure with the tiger, Richard Parker and a whole new world out there on the open sea is at once spectacular and captures our hearts as we savour the delight with our eyes. The computer graphics must have been good as it was in 3D at the cinema.

The Survival Game

The short side-line story of the two Japanese investigators of the sunk vessel and their evaluation of the stories spun by Pi of cannibalism and the adventures of the zebra, monkey, tiger and himself is amusing nonetheless.

Co-existence  out of Necessity

Though I have my reservations that the movie could have been better, I felt that I enjoyed it so much more than Spielberg's Lincoln.

Lincoln-Politics,Lobbyists and Abolitionists

If you like the back-room antics of lobbyists and wheeling-dealing and hard dialogue, perhaps you may like Steven Spielberg's movie about the hey-days of Abraham Lincoln in his second term fighting for the end oft slavery, the Civil War and the family drama within the White House.

Surveying the Carnage of War

Do not expect any excitement per se as it does follow close to script about Abraham Lincoln; how he won the Congress's vote to end slavery and his death at the Ford Theater.

It is a long  movie of  150 minutes; so be prepared for the long haul.

Cabinet Meeting at the White House

Nominated for 12 Academy Awards, it is piped to take the lion-share of the statuettes this time around.