No one should be immortal
Hello Jon, after watching the movie, I think a lot about being immortal.
I'm thinking what will I do if I had a watch like that. I maybe keep watching my time go away by seconds.
But things changed when there is a century for me. As the Will said, at least I'd stop watching the clock.
However, we can't really have a century to live, especially in real life. We are even not able to know how much time do we have. We will never know what happens tomorrow and whether we will be out of time or not. That's the mysterious part of our lives. That is death. But that also gives our lives meaning.
Without death, I wonder if a person ever lived a day in his life. Like what is told in the movie, some people are so rich that they could be immortal, but the poor die and the rich don't live.
Why can't people just seize the day? People would rather waste their time in chasing more time rather than stop and enjoy the time they've already have.
Even if there is only one day left, you can do a lot. If you take full use of every second, you really don't need to be afraid of death.
To me death is not horrible, living within triviality is horrible. What's the point when you live day after day with nothing changed?
That's true that everyone wants to live forever, and Philippe noticed that.
He knew well about human desire and greed because that's the way he lives. And it is his greed that made him lose his family. He spent so much time earning time that he ignored t he value of love.
Therefore no one should be immortal and sometimes even more so, no one can bear that.
Hope you enjoy.
It's getting late and I'm still working at my exam. I even missed the shower. Ok, let's back to the point, Hope you enjoy.
从甲方的角度看规划 在规划局工作了一年多，从自己手上经过的规划也已经有十来个，诸位同学很多都是从事规划编制的工作，有时候参与竞标觉得自己的很好，为什么就是没有中呢？我从甲方的角度来剖析一下什么样的规划才是领导眼中的好规划，供大家参考。该方面的内容仅限于由领导评审的规划项目，专家评审的项目至今一个都没碰到。 在领导眼中，一个好的规划必须围绕一个内容来展开：即规划内容必须满足领导对于政绩上的需求，也就是说在未来的几年时间要通过实施规划来改变或改善一个城市的风貌，形成政绩。 通常情况下，决定竞标方案最终命运的人将是分管规划的副市长，由他来组织会议确定深化设计的单位，在这之前，副市长通常会与规划局、城投公司等相关单位碰头，确定一个初步意向，实际上在评标会上最终的结果早已确定，你只是在走过场而已。在这个阶段，副市长的意见很重要，现在各市的财政压力都很大，副市长会非常关注规划的可行性以及资金平衡，当然最重要的还是规划的亮点以及规划中的核心理念。也就是说，一个好的规划必须拥有以下特质： 一、一个令人振奋的核心理念 这个核心理念就是未来规划建设的愿景，在这个部分要分成两种情况来对待。一种是领导比较务实，那你的愿景必须是通过利用该城市现有的资源，在4年时间内（领导一届的任期）能够基本建成，形成政绩的一个目标，但是这个目标也不能太低，你必须把一个先进的规划理念灌输给领导，让他们知道这样做的好处，并且你的规划里面必须把这个理
念充分体现出来，这个度要把握好（在这方面欧美好的设计公司做的很不错，有时间可以看看他们的作品，最好能看看他们的ppt，绝对OK）。一种是领导不太务实，那么你只要吹的天花乱坠，什么先进的理念都给他弄进去就行了，反正目标只有一个，如果能够打造成曼哈顿，就千万不要打造成陆家嘴。 实际上这两种都不是很好，不过中国特色大家都懂的，东部地区绝大部分都是第一种领导，后一种领导在中西部地区有不少，比如山西煤老板扎堆的地方（这里面没有调侃lich的意思，只是一个事实，我看见城市空间做的一个山西的方案，根据山西领导要求做的，里面高楼林立，比上海的高层密度还高）。 二、必须有一个突出的亮点 亮点和理念实际上是相辅相成的，让理念能够充分的体现在图纸上，给人眼前一亮的感觉，这个就是亮点，比如规划中的整体布局或者是建筑形态。实际上，我们这边的领导看规划一般主要看几张图纸，总平面图、用地图、功能分区图以及效果图，分析图一般并不重要。 总平面图上主要注意建筑体量、建筑间隔等内容，要跟实际的房地产项目类似，不能太离谱，就比如上次我们这里一个22平方公里的项目，因为总平面图建筑摆的太离谱，建筑体量建筑间距太大，结果调了两次，既浪费时间又浪费精力。用地图对于政府来说，用地中的商业、居住用地偏多一点会比较好，同时商业、居住尽量不要出现三角型、多边形的用地，不宜于政府进行土地出让。功能分区图只有一个要求，条理清晰，不过我们这的领导特烦一种情况，就是“一轴一带几星几片”这种类型，大家见仁见智。效果图就很简
Journey to the Center of the Earth（地心游记）2008 There is a part of me that will always have affection for a movie like "Journey to the Center of the Earth." It is a small part and steadily shrinking, but once I put on the 3-D glasses and settled in my seat, it started perking up. This is a fairly bad movie, and yet at the same time maybe about as good as it could be. There may not be an 8-year-old alive who would not love it. If I had seen it when I was 8, I would have remembered it with deep affection for all these years, until I saw it again and realized how little I really knew at that age. You are already familiar with the premise, that there is another land inside of our globe. You are familiar because the Jules Verne novel has inspired more than a dozen movies and countless TV productions, including a series, and has been ripped off by such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, who called it Pellucidar, and imagined that the Earth was hollow and there was another world on the inside surface. (You didn't ask, but yes, I own a copy of Tarzan at the Earth's Core with the original dust jacket.) In this version, Brendan Fraser stars as a geologist named Trevor, who defends the memory of his late brother, Max, who believed the center of the Earth could be reached through "volcanic tubes." Max disappeared on a mysterious expedition, which, if it involved volcanic tubes, should have been no surprise to him. Now Trevor has been asked to spend some time with his nephew, Max's son, who is named Sean (Josh Hutcherson). What with one thing and another, wouldn't you know they find themselves in Iceland, and peering down a volcanic tube. They are joined in this enterprise by Hannah (Anita Briem), who they find living in Max's former research headquarters near the volcano he was investigating. Now begins a series of adventures, in which the operative principle is: No matter how frequently or how far they fall, they will land without injury. They fall very frequently, and very far. The first drop lands them at the bottom of a deep cave, from which they cannot possibly climb, but they remain remarkably optimistic: "There must be a way out of here!" Sure enough, they find an abandoned mine shaft and climb aboard three cars of its miniature railway for a scene that will make you swear the filmmakers must have seen "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Just like in that movie, they hurtle down the tracks at breakneck speeds; they're in three cars, on three more or less parallel tracks, leading you to wonder why three parallel tracks were constructed at great expense and bother, but just when such questions are forming, they have to (1) leap a chasm, (2) jump from one car to another, and (3) crash. It's a funny thing about that little railway: After all these years, it still has lamps hanging over the rails, and the electricity is still on. The problem of lighting an unlit world is solved in the next cave they enter, which is inhabited by cute little birds that glow in the dark. One of them makes friends with Sean, and leads them on to the big attraction -- a world bounded by a great interior sea. This world must be a terrible place to inhabit; it has man-eating and man-strangling plants, its waters harbor giant-fanged fish and fearsome sea snakes that eat them, and on the further shore is a Tyrannosaurus rex. So do the characters despair? Would you despair, if you were trapped miles below the surface in a cave and being chased by its hungry inhabitants? Of course not. There isn't a moment in the movie when anyone seems frightened, not even during a fall straight down for thousands of feet, during which they link hands like sky-divers and carry on a conversation. Trevor gets the ball rolling: "We're still falling!" I mentioned 3-D glasses earlier in the review. Yes, the movie is available in 3-D in "selected theaters." Select those theaters to avoid. With a few exceptions (such as the authentic IMAX process), 3-D remains underwhelming to me -- a distraction, a disappointment and more often than not offering a dingy picture. I guess setting your story inside the Earth is one way to explain why it always seems to need more lighting. The movie is being shown in 2-D in most theaters, and that's how I wish I had seen it. Since there's that part of me with a certain weakness for movies like this, it's possible I would have liked it more. It would have looked brighter and clearer, and the photography wouldn't have been cluttered up with all the leaping and gnashing of teeth. Then I could have appreciated the work of the plucky actors, who do a lot of things right in this movie, of which the most heroic is keeping a straight face. 1
No one should be immortal Hello Jon, after watching the movie, I think a lot about being immortal. I'm thinking what will I do if I had a watch like that. I maybe keep watching my time go away by seconds. But things changed when there is a century for me. As the Will said, at least I'd stop watching the clock. However, we can't really have a century to live, especially in real life. We are even not able to know how much time do we have. We will never know what happens tomorrow and whether we will be out of time or not. That's the mysterious part of our lives. That is death. But that also gives our lives meaning. Without death, I wonder if a person ever lived a day in his life. Like what is told in the movie, some people are so rich that they could be immortal, but the poor die and the rich don't live. Why can't people just seize the day? People would rather waste their time in chasing more time rather than stop and enjoy the time they've already have. Even if there is only one day left, you can do a lot. If you take full use of every second, you really don't need to be afraid of death. To me death is not horrible, living within triviality is horrible. What's the point when you live day after day with nothing changed? That's true that everyone wants to live forever, and Philippe noticed that.
Seven(七宗罪)1995 David Fincher's classic tale of inventive serial killing and urban degredation, with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman on excellent form Who'd have thought? An absurd-sounding tale of a serial killer basing his crimes around the seven deadly sins, directed by the man behind the mess that was Alien3, turning out to be one of the most chilling and original thrillers of the 1990s. From the outset, through the film's brilliantly designed deliberate under-lighting - we see very little blood and guts - and muffled sound, the audience is encouraged to lean towards the screen, immerse itself in the film's unbearably grim world. Pitt is in career-making form as Mills, a simple cop moving with his sweet young wife (Paltrow) to a grim, anonymous city, determined to make a difference, to do some good. He is assigned to track down a vengeful killer, and works alongside Somerset (Freeman), a jaded, wise policeman on the verge of retirement. The two are that modern movie cliché -the mismatched pair thrown together by circumstance, who gradually learn mutual respect. But Fincher and Walker take these hackneyed ingredients, play with them in the context of a brilliantly cohesive plot, and present something consistently fresh - the police finding themselves with too much evidence, the premature unmasking of the killer - and very, very dark. 1
时间规划局观后感 本文是关于心得体会的时间规划局观后感，感谢您的阅读！ 篇一：时间规划局观后感 《时间规划局》讲述的是未来的世界，每个人手臂上有一行能够显示自己生命还剩多少时间的数字，当手臂上的时间消耗成为零的时候，生命就结束。每个人早上醒来第一件事就是看自己生命还剩余多少时间，接着一天都要为延续生命而努力。当着廉价的工厂劳工，每天赚取一点微薄的时间延续家人和自己的生命。在那个时代，没有货币，时间真的就是金钱，买什么都是用时间支付，换句话说，是用生命支付，一杯咖啡价值4分钟，乘坐公交车要消费1小时，还贷款和水电气费都是要刷自己的时间，时间就是唯一流通货币，人们做什么事情都是快节奏的，去哪里都是一路小跑，没时间聊天，没时间喝酒，没时间交女朋友。 这部电影给我印象最深的不是枪战场景，而是影片中有许多描写奔跑的镜头。每一次的一路狂奔都给人一种紧张的气氛，镜头不断地切换到他们手上的时间表，他们是在与时间赛跑，与生命赛跑，一秒钟的时间都显得无比珍贵。影片中有一个情节让我震撼：威尔的妈妈消费了2天时间还完贷款回家上公交车的时候，司机说涨价了，要2小时，妈妈的生命只剩下1个半小时，面对无情的司机和漠然的乘客，她只能跑着回家，她飞奔起来，路上空空荡荡，和生命赛跑。威尔意识到妈妈时间不够，飞奔去接，然而母亲只差两秒钟，时间变成了零，死在了威尔的怀里。看着时间一分一秒的流逝，能体会到那种生命一点一点走向尽头的窒息的感觉。 当很多人在感叹时间去哪儿了的时候，一些年轻人却不懂得青春易逝，不懂得时间宝贵。他们每天浑浑噩噩，或沉迷游戏，或沉迷于QQ,或终日无所事事，虚度青春，没意识到生命本身就是由一分钟一分钟的时间组成。 青年朋友们，珍惜时间，珍惜青春，将每一分每一秒的生命过精彩、充实，不要空留遗憾。 篇二：时间规划局观后感 被《时间规划局》深深地吸引。电影开头就令人紧张不安，我一直在问我自己，如果一觉醒来我只剩一天的寿命，我这一天要干些什么，随着时间的流逝，我不断问自己，还剩18小时的时间，我要做些什么，还剩半小时我能怎么办，
清河公园设计说明 一、现状概述及分析 1、区域位置分析 基地为杭州市城北某处的公共开放空间。 2、场地现状分析 基地总面积3.3公顷，呈倒“L”型，基地总体地势平坦，标高基本在34.04－34.10米之间，月牙河常水位33.50米，汛期标高为34.00米，旱期标高为33.00米，西北侧有一处水杉林，东侧有一条5.5米宽的小区消防车道，月牙河为城市非主要泄洪支流。 3、周边环境 基地北临月牙河，东侧为居住区，西侧为艺术产业园区和写字楼，南侧为城市次干道路。 4、现状分析 根据基地的区域位置、场地现状和周边环境，在规划设计之前对基地的用地适宜性、使用者人群、公园对外交通和外部视觉景观等做出了详细的分析，以便使公园规划功能合理健全、景观优美并与城市环境有机结合。 基地设计主要满足周边居民休憩需要以及与西边艺术产业园区的相协调，同时满足人们的亲水感，所以设计主要解决问题即是公园的交通组织，艺术展区位置设置。 二、规划社计依据 1．清河公园规划设计条件。 2．1：1000场地现状地形图。 3．中华人民共和国行业标准《公园设计规范》（CJJ48—92）。
三、规划目标（公园性质） 根据上述分析，本规划将清水公园定性为具有时代特色和地方特色、反映城市和满足游人休闲、锻炼、游览的城市开放空间。 四、规划原则 1、场地性原则：体现场地的原有的内涵和特色。 2、功能性原则：满足市民休闲、锻炼、游览的需求。 3、生态原则：强调公园在城市生态系统中的作用，强调人与自然的共生。 4、经济原则：充分利用场地条件，减少工程量，考虑公园的经济效益。 五、总体设计思想 1、核心设计思想 清水公园是开放的城市空间，它是线索也是游客的观赏心情，不同心情，观赏的区域，选择的区域，景点，道路不同，不同心情选择游览不同的景色。主要设计目的是缓解城市居民日常工作焦虑，各个年龄层人们休闲娱乐，亲水的放松场所，公园设计了一些相对比较幽静，环境优美，可游可歇的场所，可以弥补现代城市休闲所欠缺的功能。同时公园在核心区布置了一个较大的广场，广场中心设有2级抬升的圆坛，正中是一个大气古朴的的千手观音雕像，使广场可以成为一个具有一定文化内涵的集散中心，平时可供大家参观游览，节假日可以举行一些大的集会演出祭祀活动等。总的来说清河公园定位是一个全开放的公共空间，人们可以根据需要在其中穿行，可以看看路边的风景，周边居民茶余饭后可以到其中歇息，清晨可以在公园小路上晨跑锻炼，假时可以在其中喝茶观景。本设计考虑到东边艺术产业园区的条件，在设计区域东边建立了一幢3层的艺术展览馆，艺术展览馆南面是一个小型观鱼广场，人们可以在此享受观鱼喂鱼的乐趣，艺术展览馆滨水过桥，可到东面运动场，运动场设置为四楼，主要提供一些室内健身器材，当然也包括茶咖一体的简单服务设施。
Tess(苔丝)1979 Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, which Roman Polanski has turned into a lovely, lyrical, unexpectedly delicate movie, might at first seem to be the wrong project for Mr. Polanski in every way. As a new biography of the director reports, when Tess was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the press pointed nastily and repeatedly to the coincidence of Mr. Polanski's having made a film about a young girl's seduction by an older man, while he himself faced criminal charges for a similar offense. This would certainly seem to cast a pall over the project. So would the fact that Hardy's novel is so very deeply rooted in English landscapes, geographical and sociological, while Mr. Polanski was brought up in Poland. Finally, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is so quintessentially Victorian a story that a believable version might seem well out of any contemporary director's reach. But if an elegant, plausible, affecting Tess sounds like more than might have been expected of Mr. Polanski, let's just say he has achieved the impossible. In fact, in the process of adapting his style to suit such a sweeping and vivid novel, he has achieved something very unlike his other work. Without Mr. Polanski's name in the credits, this lush and scenic Tess could even be mistaken for the work of David Lean. In a preface to the later editions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Mr. Hardy described the work as "an impression, not an argument." Mr. Polanski has taken a similar approach, removing the sting from both the story's morality and its melodrama. Tess Durbeyfield, the hearty country lass whose downfall begins when her father learns he had noble forebears, is sent to charm her rich D'Urberville relations. She learns that they aren't D'Urbervilles after all; instead, they have used their new money to purchase an old name. Tess charms them anyhow, so much that Alec D'Urberville, her imposter cousin, seduces and impregnates her. The seduction, like many of the film's key scenes, is presented in a manner both earthy and discreet. In this case, the action is set in a forest, where a gentle mist arises from the ground and envelops Tess just around the time when she is enveloped by Alec. Alec, as played by Leigh Lawson, is a slightly wooden character, unlike Angel Clare, Tess's later and truer lover, played with supreme radiance by Peter Firth. Long after Tess has borne and buried her illegitimate child, she finds and falls in love with this spirited soul mate. But when she marries Angel Clare and is at last ready to reveal the secret of her past, the story begins hurtling toward its final tragedy. When Tess becomes a murderer, the film offers its one distinctly Polanski-like moment—but even that scene has its fidelity to the novel. A housemaid listening at a door hears a "drip, drip, drip" sound, according to Hardy. Mr. Polanski has simply interpreted this with a typically mischievous flourish. Of all the unlikely strong points of Tess, which opens today for a weeklong engagement at the Baronet and which will reopen next year, the unlikeliest is Nastassja Kinski, who plays the title role. Miss Kinski powerfully resembles the young Ingrid Bergman, and she is altogether ravishing. But she's an odd choice for Tess: not quite vigorous enough, and maybe even too beautiful. She's an actress who can lose her magnetism and mystery if she's given a great deal to do (that was the case in an earlier film called Stay As You Are). But here, Mr. Polanski makes perfect use of her. Instead of a driving force, she becomes an echo of the land and the society around her, more passive than Hardy's Tess but linked just as unmistakably with natural forces. Miss Kinski's Tess has no inner life to speak of. But Mr. Polanski makes her surroundings so expressive that her placidity and reserve work very beautifully. Even at its nearly three-hour running time, Mr. Polanski's Tess cannot hope for anything approaching the range of the novel. But the deletions have been made wisely, and though the story loses some of its resonance it maintains its momentum. There are episodes—like one involving Tess's shabby boots and Mercy Chant, the more respectable girl who expects to marry Angel—that don't make the sense they should, and the action is fragmented at times. That's a small price to pay for the movie's essential rightness, for its congruence with the mood and manner of the novel. Mr. Polanski had to go to Normandy and rebuild Stonehenge to stage his last scene, according to this same biography. As is the case throughout his Tess, the results were worth the trouble. 1
今日说法观后感200字(精选多篇) 《今日说法》讲了一个与物业管理有关的案例。一户业主在自家阳台上盖了一个厨房，物业公司派人将正在装修的厨房砸掉，业主以物业公司没有与业主交涉，便将其厨房砸毁，造成损失为由将物业公司告上法庭。最终法庭认为物业公司只是具有民事权力，而没有强行拆毁他人建筑（甚至是违章建筑）的权力，只有司法机关才有权力依法将其拆毁，而物业公司的做法已经超出了自身的权力范围。因此法庭判决物业公司败诉，赔偿损失。我觉得任何物业公司在对待业主时应当摆正自己，把业主当作上帝，而把自己当作业主值得信赖的管家。业主有什么不对，应当与业主进行沟通交流，对其进行劝说，不能作出冲动的决定。最近有关部门正在审定物业管理的法规，希望尽快颁发让广大物业管理的同行有法可依。 今日说法 by小江 7月11日 孝，为天之经，地之义，人之行，德之本。女儿竟坑害无知母亲，其卑劣行径让人唾弃。一错再错不知悔改还把自己女儿也扯进这社会鄙夷的行列里，既不是一个合格的女儿也不是一个合格的母亲，甚至不能成为是一个合格的人。贪婪的特质与不孝的行为让人寒心。我们要以孝为做人的根本，拒绝这种法律与道德不容的行为。 7月12日 偷窃本是违法犯罪行为，应受到法律的制裁。但左志刚的咄咄逼人一不小心就造成了小偷的死亡。一时气愤不冷静，造成了不可回头的惨案。生命宝贵，每个人都没有扼杀他人生命的权利。人格可贵，每个人都必须堂堂正正做人，不做法律所禁止的事情。 7月13日 父女患小病附诊所花费120万。可见基本的健康医疗常识有多么重要。无论是诊所无牌伪冒医生黑色行医，是正规医院对病人隐私的暴露，还是患者的无知，都值得我们加以警戒。阅读有关的书籍、视频、报刊就可以避免这次的损失。大家挣钱都不容易，还是靠正当的方式好。 （1） 7月14日 工薪阶层攒了一辈子，甚至是一家两代人的心血买的房子，竟然摊上 这么一个安全问题，着实让人愤怒。开发商、规划局、自来水公司三 方互相踢皮球推卸责任，其实三方才拥有不可推卸的责任。开发商袖 手旁观，规划局隔岸观火，不采取正确的行动，自来水公司仗着自己 是民生工程为所欲为。三方都抹杀了人民的表达权、参与权、知情权。
The Pursuit of Happiness（当幸福来敲门）2006 With a title like The Pursuit of Happiness, you expect the characters to get to the promised land. They do, but if the journey matters more than the destination, this is a movie to skip. The Pursuit of Happyness is long, dull, and depressing. It expands into two hours a story that could have been told more effectively in one. This is not the feel-good movie of the season unless you believe that a few moments of good cheer can redeem 110 minutes of gloom. Sitting through The Pursuit of Happiness is a chore. Downbeat movies aren't inherently bad (in fact, many are powerful), but this one provides artificial characters in contrived circumstances. How is it that movies "inspired by a real story" often feel more fake than those fully embedded in the realm of fiction? Will Smith has generated Oscar buzz for his portrayal of Chris Gardner, the real-life guy whose rags-to-riches story forms the basis of the movie. (Impoverished guy becomes capitalist poster boy.) While it's fair to say that this is one of the best straight performances of Smith's career, it didn't blow me away. In and of itself, the acting, while effective, is not Best Actor material, but it wouldn't surprise me if the movie's prestige factor and Smith's popularity earn him a nod. Meanwhile, his female co-star, Thandie Newton, isn't going to be considered for any award. Newton spends about 90% of her screen time doing an impersonation of a harpy: screeching, bitching, and contorting her face into unpleasant expressions. Smith's son, Jaden, is okay as the movie's child protagonist; it's unclear whether his occasional deficiencies are the result of his acting, Steven Conrad's writing, or Gabriele Muccino's direction, but there's not much personality behind the cute features and curly hair. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is down on his luck. It's 1981 San Francisco and his self-employed business of selling portable bone density scanners isn't doing well. His wife, Linda (Thandie Newton), does nothing but yell at him and give him a cold shoulder, and the lack of domestic harmony is impacting the disposition of his beloved son, Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith). That's when Chris' life turns into a country song. His wife leaves. He is evicted from his home. He goes to jail, neither passing GO nor collecting a much-needed $200. He gets hit by a car. He is robbed. He makes his son cry. He alienates a friend over $14. He gets to spend a night in the cleanest public restroom in the history of public restrooms. But there's a bright spot, although you need a dark-adapted eye to find it. Despite having no experience, Chris applies to enter an internship program at Dean Witter. He would appear to have no chance to get in until he amazes the head of the program (Brian Howe) by solving the Rubik's Cube puzzle in the back of a taxi cab. It's a blessing that the movie doesn't use a stock villain to impede Chris' herky-jerky trip to the top, because that would have tipped the movie into the empire of the unwatchable. However, the lack of a strong conflict makes the two-hour running length seem very long. Thankfully, there's also not much in the way of overt melodrama, but that could be a byproduct of having characters who are not deeply realized and have narrow emotional ranges. It's tough to connect with Chris and his son. Although they are played by a real-life father and son, there's no chemistry between them. We're constantly told how desperately Chris loves Christopher, but it takes a long time before we begin to buy it. Most of the time, Christopher seems like an annoying piece of baggage that Chris drops off at daycare when he has other things to do. The film's most compelling scenes are those that show Chris struggling to enter the rat race. Granted, this is no Glengarry Glen Ross, but it shows the pressure these salesmen are under and how important the contact lists are. In the overall scheme of things, however, these sequences are background noise. They are neither plentiful nor lengthy. The movie spends more time following Chris on his futile sales rounds for the bone density scanner than it does accompanying him during his broker training. The moral of the story is as trite as they come: don't let anyone convince you to give up on your dreams. Disney animated films have been doing this better for decades. The Pursuit of Happyness concludes with a caption that tells us what happens to Chris after the end of the movie; it promises a better story than the one we have just watched. The film is also marred by a persistent (although not verbose) voiceover that adds nothing to the story while frequently jerking us out of the experience of watching it. I don't need Will Smith telling me: "This part of the story is called 'riding the bus.'" This is the English-language debut of Gabriele Muccino, who has made a name for himself in Italian cinema. The Pursuit of Happiness has the kind of slow, drab tone one occasionally associates with a director raised outside of the Hollywood system. What can be an asset in some circumstances is a detriment in this one. The Pursuit of Happiness isn't enjoyable, and its meager pleasures, including the eventual "payoff," aren't enough to justify the unrelenting misery. The Pursuit of Happiness is competently made and gets lots of the details right, but when it comes to the emotional core of the story, it loses the pursuit and misses the "happiness."