Month: April 2008

Categories
I See I Write

It’s Not Who’ll Be In The American Idol Finale. Question Is: Which David Will Win?

American Idol

Provided that there will be no major screw-ups by the two David’s nor any kind of ”˜divine intervention’ by the producers, the next few rounds of the American Idol will be exactly like the past few rounds  – a series of agonizingly predictable episodes of everybody taking the musical chair of bottom positions except David … and David.  It is not even a remote question of who will be in the final two.  In the absence of a dark horse in this season, we may as well fast forward to the finale and get over and done with what this season ultimately offers  – a glorious battle between the little David and the Goliath who also called David; a battle of the soothing pitch perfect young vocalist who specializes in ballads and voice improvisation against the more mature, stage dominator, and arguably the most original singer of all seasons; and if that is not enough, a pianist against a rock guitarist.  Who can really tell what the outcome will be this end May?  Does anyone really care?  I don’t because I love them both.

What American Idol desperately needs is a winner who will have a career after the show, to stand the testimony of time that the producers do discover talents all over US.  Season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson had some fantastic achievement on her first and second albums (2x and 6x platinum in US) but is on decline with her latest one.  Carrie Underwood from season 4 stands as the favorite star of the American Idol having a 7x platinum sales on her debut and for her latest work, a 2x platinum sales.  Recent Idols such as Taylor Hicks and Jordin Sparks are embarrassments to the franchise.  Even the runner-ups are not doing well except Daughtry who achieved a 4x platinum over his band’s debut.

So, who can save the franchise?  David Archuleta or David Cook?  To pick a promising recording artist, my money is on Cook.
 
I love to analyze the weekly results and the trends with my friends – those are also fans of the American Idol.  There are many factors that work with the ”˜physics’ of this TV reality powerhouse.  Over 30+ million votes are cast (more towards the finale) by the audience each week and base on what?  Here are the down right dirty open secrets of American Idol that I am sure everyone knows but no one is crazy enough to pen down.  Please note that not one attribute is the governing factor when we attempt to spot the weekly trending.  We need to look at a bigger picture most of the time.

  • Sex: The only season that has contestants of the same sex in the final 3 was, I believe, season 3 with Fantasia, Jasmine, and Diana.  It is rare to see three or more consecutive elimination of the same sex.  In recent years, happened only once in season 6 and didn’t happen at all in season 5.  Season 4 was an odd one but by and large, opposite sex – between a viewer and a contestant – does attract.  So, is it as simple as …
  • Sex appeal: Not!  Fortunately, voters do usually prefer skills over appeal.  But how about last season’s great vocalist Melinda DooLittle?  That has to do with …
  • Growth: Viewers love to see growth.  We love to see not only the heroes but also the making of heroes.  And we love to be influenced by …
  • Judges’ preferences: Besides Paula’s comments, I think viewers do listen to judges’ reaction to each contestant’s performance.  I admit that I do not agree with them all the time.  However, if Randy and Simon are a fan of a someone, that someone is almost certainly going to sail through to the top.  But there is one more person I have not mentioned …
  • Ryan Seacrest: I once read a book (Tipping Point I think) on how a TV anchor’s approving smile could affect the voters’ choice of a presidential candidate.  I personally think that Ryan is a lot powerful than some may think.  At the end of the performance, before he announces the the number to vote, the questions he asks, the gestures he makes – all can give the contestants a little push to a certain direction, good or bad.  Surely you may ask: this is a singing competition and so …
  • Weekly performance: Matters of course.  More so in the initial stage.  But we all know that at times (remember this season who forgot the lyrics and who had to restart the performance but yet they did better than survived?), it is …
  • Fan-base: At work.  At later stage, it is almost all that matters.  And while we are at that, why don’t we examine the contestant’s …
  • Home town support: If you are from LA where celebrities are everywhere, you probably won’t have as much home town support as others (think Katharine McPhee).  That pub you often frequent, the school you grew up with, the church you go, they all add up.  OK.  What else are there to compare against others?  Could it be …
  • Genre: Can American Idol sustains, say, two rockers till late stage?  I think not.  Votes will have to be split amongst contestants of similar genres.  And if your rocker competitor get voted out of the competition, a chunk of the future votes may possibly land onto you and while we are in this topic …
  • Who get voted out last week: Assuming that voters will continue to vote even if the contestants they support leave the competition, I often challenge my mind on questions like: OK, now that Michael Johns get voted out, who would his supporters vote for next?  Imagine that if I do like Michael Johns, what do I like about him?  Talking about voters’ preferences, here is one piece of trivial thoughts that may or may not hold water.
  • Race (?!): 12.5% of Americans are black.  Majority of the blacks support Obama.  That aside, what about …
  • Age group:  Instinctively, I feel that a 21 years old girl may go crazy over the 25 years old David Cook than the 17 years old David Archuleta.  And last but not the least …
  • Divine Intervention: American Idol is a show business.  There are invisible hands behind the scene.  Maybe it is the producers; maybe someone or some entities have a stake on one of the contestants.  Regardless, you will be entertained.  And someone is getting paid for getting you entertained.  Oh, guess what?  I am not done yet.  One final last point (bad English, but who cares?) …
  • Unknown unknown and a game of personality: Cliché as it sounds, there are signals and information that are simply hard to pick up beforehand.  Scandals can spawn from nowhere (like the provocative photos of Antonella Barba in season 6 circulated in the Internet or the news of David Hernandez in the current season as a male stripper … for men).  And we have seen personality that works (David Archuleta’s boyish giggles), personality that should have worked (Kady Malloy’s impersonation of Britney Spears is just oh so funny), and personality that doesn’t.  Star quality to the singers is tantamount to the X-factor of the models – not only you have to born with it but also have to flaunt it in front of the crowd.  The show is called “American Idol” after all, instead of “So You Think You Can Sing”.

OK.  I purposely write this blog entry so long that 99.99% of my readers won’t reach this line.  And I am going to put my money where my mouth is and tell you who I think will win the American Idol.  Hence, even if I am wrong, only a 0.01% of the population may notice and I won’t end up with tons of comments posted here on May 22 to laugh at me.

Based on what I have observed so far, Cook will be the winner.  Cynthia will be upset.  And once again, we will support a different finalist.

What’s new?

And even if I am wrong, I will still stand by all that I have written here with perhaps some fine tuning – part and puzzle of the trending exercise.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Doris Lessing – The Story Of General Dann And Mara’s Daughter, Griot And The Snow Dog

Doris Lessing - The Story of General Dann and Mara\'s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog

By no means I wish to diminish the genius of Doris Lessing, the sequel to the epic novel “Mara and Dann” reads more like an extension than a novel that exists in its own right.  But, any kind of follow on story on where “Mara and Dann” has left off is going to be a piece of good news to the fans – at least to me.

Unlike “Mara and Dann”, “The Story of General Dann and Mara’s Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog” (year 2005, 282 pages, hardcover) has a totally different emphasis; and that emphasis is certainly not of the civilization progression and the struggle of survival that has been so well covered in “Mara and Dann”.  Like some of Doris Lessing’s previous works, there is a switch of perspective here and the world is now seen through the lens of Dann instead of Mara. 

I won’t cover how the story begins in this review as by doing so will inevitably give away the ending of the prequel.  All I can say is that the story dwells more on human emotion from within rather than a plot driven by quests and events as it was for the prequel.  Some readers may wonder why so much literature is spend on the internal struggle of Dann himself against his the other side and the undying loyalty to General Dann through the eyes and heart of Captain Griot.  To me, feeling seldom changes overnight; perspective seldom changes overnight; we seldom change overnight.  For the patience ones, the reward is the seamless transition of perspectives through different characters and to be able to observe how the characters grow, gradually and realistically.

Added to the main storyline are Mara’s daughter Tamar and a snow dog Ruff.  The snow dog has certainly added a new dimension of the story telling never seen before in “Mara and Dann”.  For the observant ones, I think the brilliance of having a snow dog as the plot unveiled is an attempt to explain and perhaps acts as a redemption to what happens at the beginning of the story.

This story reads like an extension partly because the physical location covered is a lot lesser than its prequel.  Dann’s perpetually yearning for exploration does guide him towards the Ice Cliffs of Yerrup – a part of the world that is new to “Mara and Dann”.  Other than that, the majority of the plot happens in North Ifrik.  And similar to “Mara and Dann”, this sequel does not have a main quest.  For those are hoping and expecting to read a story of how one man can save the world, this is not a story of such kind.  And no, I would not recommend you to read this before its prequel either.

With its open ending, I will not be surprised that there will be another sequel in the making.  Even if there is none, I am happy that the story ends where it is now, more so than how it was ended in “Mara and Dann”.

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Categories
J Pop Music Reviews

YUI – I Loved Yesterday – Kill Me Softly With “LOVE & TRUTH” …

YUI's I Love Yesterday

… and then kill me again.

I must have heard that one song “LOVE & TRUTH” no less than 400 times by now as I have frequently left my players (Hi-fi, mp3 phone, PC iTune) on single song repeat mode while traveling, working, reading, and blogging ever since YUI’s third album has landed in Singapore.  And if you think that I am obsessed with numbers, guess what I have noticed when I first read the song list of “I Loved Yesterday” at HMV?  All her three albums have 13 tracks.  No more, no less.  Strange eh?  And how did I even remember such a detail?  Freaky.

At times I wonder which is the most tedious to write: a book, a CD, or a movie review.  To write this review, I have listened to her two previous albums in conjunction with “I Love Yesterday” quite a few times in order to, perhaps, remind myself why I like YUI’s music in the first place.  Her trademark of a hauntingly innocent girlie voice with a taint of vulnerability and yet full of conviction in delivering her music is still written all over her third album.  The fact that she has written all the tracks on her own and plays the guitar track translates to yet another rock album that does not deviate from her style – except “LOVE & TRUTH” that seems to be the odd one out.  It must have something to do with the lethal combination of a rock ballad and a symphony.

A song written for the Japanese film “Closed Note”, what “LOVE & TRUTH” means to some of YUI’s fans is perhaps similar to what “Last Smile” does to the Love Psychedelico fans – we love that one song so much that we will probably spend eternity waiting for another “LOVE & TRUTH” or another “Last Smile” to appear from the same artist.

“I Loved Yesterday” comes with a DVD that contains 4 video clips of songs from her previous album and a short concert filming of “LIVE at BUDOKAN” (7 tracks).  I would be lying to say that the filming of her live performance is near perfect.  A bit far from it, unfortunately; a bit pitchy here and there, in fact.  On a more positive note, besides able to see her in action on stage with her guitar, the last clip “YOKYO” is probably one of the most moving music clips I have seen (the most moving scene still belongs to Ayumi Hamasaki when she screamed at the top of her lung thanking the crowd at the end of the show … at an open stadium, to a silence audience, without a mic).  Also, there is a clip called “Jam” and I swear I have not heard that song from any of YUI’s album before.  I like that one quite a fair bit.

Overall song quality-wise, “I Loved Yesterday” may be the weakest compares to her debut “From Me To You” that is packed with songs with memorable tunes and her commercially successful second album “Can’t Buy Me Love” that is lifted by her movie “Midnight Sun”.  Nevertheless, it is still a 21 years old YUI production that is worth keeping.  Below is the video clip of “LOVE & TRUTH”.

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Categories
Foreign Movie Reviews

The Forbidden Kingdom – “Gate Of No Gate” Cracks Me Up Big Time

The Forbidden Kingdom

Just a couple of days ago, a friend of mine at work sent me an Outlook invite titled “Girlie Lunch” and she has extended the invite to a few other guys.  In the end, I was the only guy who turned up.  Last evening might as well be qualified as a “Girlie Dinner” as my guy friend couldn’t make it for dinner and joined us for movie later instead.  I must say not often I am privileged for such outings and it is rather interesting to observe the topics that girls like to talk about and things they do on a dining table.  The “Girlie Bonding” is somewhat as strong as the binding of the neutrons and protons in the semi-absence of men.  The phrase the table has turned has a whole new meaning to me.

The story of the Monkey King or better known as Sun Wukong (孫悟空) in Chinese is based on an epic literature Journey to the West (西遊記) that I have read a couple of times when I was young (100 chapters!).  Ever since it was published in the 1950s, the story has been told and retold, packaged and repackaged in a hundred million ways on TV and on big screens.  And now, we get to see the Monkey King once again in “The Forbidden Kingdom”.

From a purist viewpoint, “The Forbidden Kingdom” watched almost like a blasphemy to the legendary characters so well known to those who have a deep Chinese background.  At times I find it hard to watch how some characters are teamed up against one another.  Also, having a bunch of well respected Chinese actors grouped together speaking in not-too-fluent English with an acting delivery less than conviction, to me, is hard to watch too.  The action sequence though is pleasant to our senses certainly not as artistic and original as some of the other Chinese films such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “House of Flying Daggers”, or “Hero”.

These aside, I can also understand why some (strangely all the girls in our group) found the movie entertaining – especially so with Jackie Chan’s hilarious performance.  The scripts can be humorous to both with Chinese background and the ones without.  Just like the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique in “Kill Bill” – a direct word-by-word translation so hilariously strange to the foreigner and yet so funnily ridiculous to the Chinese – “The Forbidden Kingdom” has tons of references that when directly translated, are pure madness.  My favorite is certainly the translated phrase of “Gate of No Gate” and some of those odd English dialogues like “you bitch!” meets with a “you orphan bitch!” reply.  A fellowship of a Westerner, a monk, a drunken scholar, and an orphan girl on a mission to return the magical staff to the Monkey King surely invokes some kind of resemblance to the “Lord of the Ring”.  Some may like the familiarity (and what’s up with the must-have cat fight scenes like “Charlie’s Angels” or “James Bond”?).

I was actually quite intrigued by the actress Liu Yifei who has quite an achievement prior to this film.  I was once tempted by her Japanese album back in 2006 (she has a Chinese album too) but I gave it a miss.  Also, in the same year, I resisted borrowing her highly recommended TV drama “The Return of the Condor Heroes (神雕俠侶)” from my buddy.  Perhaps I shall reconsider the offer.

Fortunately, the storyline is not too unbelievable (which ironically the traditional Cantonese movies usually are when it comes down to this genre).  You may probably have to read the subtitles to make out the strange English accents.  And if you are not too much of a purist, some of those absurd dialogues may stick onto your mind for days to come.

Categories
My Favorite Whacky Thoughts

Movie Script: Where In The World Is Mas Selamat?

The so-called vivid story told by today’s newspaper is neither in-depth nor entertaining.  I was expecting a Hollywood script like this.  Enjoy!  Rated M18 for strong language, blood and gore.

1. EXT.  DETENTION CENTER, SINGAPORE – NIGHT (4am)
 
(Writer’s note: Who wants to watch a fugitive film that happens at four in the afternoon?)
 
An unidentified truck pulls in front of the entrance of the detention center.  Two armed militias emerge spraying bullets at all living beings including a stray cat nearby.  Blood is everywhere.

MILITIA #1
Kekeke.

MILITIA #2 looks amused and takes out a walkie talkie.

MILITIA #2
Ahem.
(a beat)
Guardhouse secured.

2. INT. TOILET – NIGHT

As the head of the Singapore branch of the militant group Jemaah Islamiah MAS SELAMAT pees at the toilet bowl looking at an opened window right above him, we REVERSE ANGLE TO REVEAL:

Another two armed militias just a wall away from MAS.  MILITIA #4 is holding a walkie talkie that has lots of static noise.

3. EXT. OUTSIDE CHANGING ROOM – NIGHT

MILITIA #3
I heard the gunshots.  Where is our green light?!

MILITIA #4
(anxiously shaking his walkie talkie)
I think this thing is not working, boss.

MILITIA #3
(hesitated)
Hmmm … let’s do it!

MILITIA #4 takes out a slab of C-4, pastes them onto the wall, and whispers loudly at the opened window …

MILITIA #4
Jangan berdiri dekat jendela!

MILITIA #3
(puzzled)
What the heck is that?

MILITIA #4
Kekeke.  It means ‘back away from the window’ in Bahasa Indonesia, boss.  Now, back away from the wall!

As they back away from the wall …

MILITIA #3
For fudge’s sake, MAS SELAMAT is a Singaporean.  He knows English!

REVERSE ANGLE TO REVEAL: MAS is still peeing oblivious to all that happens outside the changing room.

4. INT. TOILET – NIGHT

Ka-boom!  A loud explosion.  A huge fireball.  The wall blows apart.  Dust everywhere.  The armed militias enters the cell.  REVERSE ANGLE TO REVEAL: MAS lies on the floor covered in blood.

MILITIA #3
You fudging moron!  Look what you’ve done!  You have bloody killed MAS SELAMAT!

MILITIA #4
What the fudge?!  I told him to stand back!
(a beat)
What shall we do now, boss?

MILITIA #3 grabs the walkie talkie from MILITIA #4 and says …

MILITIA #3
Abort mission!  Abort!  Can you hear me?!

Static noise from the walkie talkie is getting louder and louder and we REVERSE ANGLE TO REVEAL: MAS’s blood stained body twitches.  His fingers start to move.

CAPTION #1: “IT IS KNOWN THAT EXTREME SITUATION MAY INVOKE A SUDDEN LEAP OF EVOLUTION.”

5. EXT. HIGHWAY (P I E) – NIGHT (4.11am)

The four armed militias together with blood stained MAS SELAMAT inside the truck entering the PIE highway.  MAS does not seem injured.

MILITIA #4
Oh crap!  We must leave the highway now!

MILITIA #3
What now?!

MILITIA #4
I forgot to top up my Cashcard.

MILITIA #3
For fudge’s sake, you moron!  The ERP gantries won’t be operational in another 3 hours!  Now drive!  The plane should fly by us any time from now.

As everyone look up at the sky, our CAMERA slowly points up, spots a plane far away, and moves back to the crowd inside the truck …

MILITIA #3
MAS, it is time now.  You must leave Singapore alive.

MAS
How about you all?

MILITIA #1
We do what terrorists always do.  Kekeke.  Blown up into pieces.

MILITIA #4
Ya … 99 virgins in heaven!  Kekeke.

MILITIA #2
Kekeke.  Oh please … it is 70!

MILITIA #3
You guys are morons.  For fudge’s sake.

6. EXT. HIGHWAY – NIGHT

MAS SELAMAT gets on top of the truck, grabs the plane’s landing gear and flies off into the sky.  The CAMERA follows the plane looking back at the truck.  The truck gets smaller and smaller and then ka-boom!  A tiny fireball.

7. INT. COCKPIT – NIGHT

Inside the cockpit, MAS SELAMAT and PILOT engages in a deep conversation.  The CAMERA moves away from MAS and PILOT and points at the view outside the window.  2 F-14 Tomcat fighter planes are at their tail.

PILOT
MAS, you have to jump off the plane now!  They are going to shoot us down.

MAS
But I will die!

PILOT
MAS, if you can survive C-4 while peeing, you can surely survive this fall!  You are a super villain now!

MAS
How about you?

PILOT smiles as MAS looks back while jumping off the plane.  The CAMERA follows MAS as he falls looking back at the plane.  The plane gets smaller and smaller and then ka-boom!  A tiny fireball.

Wind noise is getting louder and louder and we REVERSE ANGLE TO REVEAL: Super villain MAS opens a portal right underneath of him and he disappears as he drops into the portal.

CAPTION #2: “AFTER CLOSE TO 2 MONTHS OF MANHUNT IN SINGAPORE, MAS SELAMAT IS STILL NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.”

CAPTION #3: “NO ONE KNOWS WHERE HE IS.”

CAPTION #4: “A FEW SMALL FRIES FROM THE CENTER RECEIVE DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS.”

CAPTION #5: “MINISTER FOR HOME AFFAIRS, WONG KAN SENG’S HEAD DOES NOT ROLL.”

CAPTION #6: “WILFRID WONG LOST A $2 BET WITH HIS FRIEND TK.  TK IS RIGHT.  WONG KAN SENG IS GOING TO FIRE EVERYONE FROM GROUND UP … TO ONE OR FEW LEVELS BELOW HIM.”

End.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Richard Laermer – 2011 Trendspotting For The Next Decade – A Futuristic Concoction That Aims To Inspire

Richard Laermen's 2011 Trendspotting for the Next Decade

Be it as you want to make sense of what is happening in your life or be inspired as you look ahead into the next decade, futurist Richard Laermer’s new concoction made of personal observations and opinions that are witty, humorous, and enlightening sprinkled with a healthy dose of sarcasm and brutal honesty will certainly make you stop and ponder: now, why didn’t I see it coming?

“2011 Trendspotting for the Next Decade” is not a list of inevitable events that are going to happen.  That – as quoted from the author- is the job of a fortune teller.  Instead, Richard Laermer has created a map that explains and forecasts a range of possible futures in the areas of media, technology, sociology, entertainment, and more.

I want to believe in the author that on January 1, 2011, we will finally wake up rising above the era of mediocrity – an era of us weighed down by the international inertia as we are perpetually waiting for something to happen in this decade.  But such a claim is likely to invoke a certain level of skepticism even for the most susceptible readers.  It is not until I have finished reading all the seventy over topics, attempted to connect all the dots together, then I said to myself: these may well be true.  All these trends may possibly point towards an era that something good is going to happen and I may possibly wake up to a bright new day!

How about a future whereby we say goodbye to short attention span and get more sleep by sleeping less?  A future whereby e-mail is death, office workplace is going to be way better than working from home, and more people will give genuine complements?  Think of what you can do with a paper thin battery.

But not everything is going to change in the year 2011.  TV is here to stay.  Mobile phone will always be our first love regardless of what other new toys we may have.  Our ‘generation broke’ will still be narcissistic (surprise?) and the ‘old people’ will continue to have a role to play in the workplace.

On a lighter side, “2011 Trendspotting for the Next Decade” is packed with entertaining topics ranging from Richard Laermer’s lively remarks on celebrities such as Donald Trump, Ashlee Simpson, Jennifer Lopez, and Britney Spears to his less than pleasant personal encounters with or opinions on the big corporates such as Starbucks, Apple, Frito-Lay, Victoria’s Secret, and Google.  You may even pick up tips on how to be famous and be cool.  At the other end of the spectrum, the book does layout concrete advice on topics such as how to spot trends, what is branding and marketing, and more.

Depending on your social and geographic background, you may connect to the book differently from other fellow readers.  First, the people, organizations, and events mentioned are largely from America.  If you are from the US or very much in tune with the US culture, you should quite readily be able to relate to the contents.  Second, to fully appreciate the book does require the readers to have a keen sense of current affairs including what goes on with the celebrities (you can easily fill up the gaps with the help of the Internet these days).  And third, some of the topics may urge you to self-reflect on something that you may not want to face.

Also, as a business book, the humorously casual writing style that tends to be random at times may not be something you are used to.  However, for the net savvy ones who frequent the blogsphere, you may feel at home.  Don’t expect a structured information download from this book and be prepared to be an active reader – constantly reading, constantly thinking.

Beyond the text, the author often leaves specific website addresses of his own for further reading.  Unfortunately, at the time of this review, none of these links were ready and there was this one-liner standard response at the site that did not say much.  I wrote to Richard Laermer via e-mail.  Within half an hour, he responded with a friendly reply, took my humble suggestion, and edited his web page to be more informative on the situation.  That’s right.  Richard Laermer is reachable, just like what he wrote in his book.

You may become more net savvy after reading this book (like I do); you may be loaded with interesting topics for your next (offline) social gathering; and you may even start to spot the trends based on your daily observation.  As an afterthought, even if only half of what Richard Laermer has mentioned turns into reality in the next decade, the world will still be a better place than today.  And if you become inspired and want to do something with the trends, I think that is what the author is trying to achieve.

“2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade” by Richard Laermer is published by McGraw-Hill and can be found in all good bookstores.

Categories
Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

Street Kings – Originality Aside, It’s One Entertaining Flick

Street Kings

I have to admit: the casting can’t get better than this.  Perhaps, it’s a bit too good.  Imagine these strong associations in my head while watching the movie.  At the beginning scene, the supposedly alcoholic Keanu Reeves puked at the toilet bowl and I kept thinking of “Constantine” (it’s the cigarette and lung cancer instead of the booze but a similar bathroom scene).  Besides, who better to take on a role whose wife has died before the show begins?  How about Forest Whitaker who acted as our crazy “king” in the world of corrupted cops stepping in and out of different characters?  That is so “The Last King of Scotland”.  When Huge Laurie’s first appearance is in the hospital (remember “House”, the TV medical drama series?), I nearly flipped.  Fortunately, Huge plays a cop instead.

I can understand why “Street Kings” receives a mixed review.  The storyline is not original.  It is the same old all-cops-are-corrupted story with some cops want to right the wrong and once for all, clean up the mess.  Within our Movie Review Squad, TK gives a thumbs up.  Cynthia being a keen supporter of Keanu (I am tempted to use the word “fanatic”) of course adds in her toes as well besides her thumbs.  I personally like the show for a different reason – Forest’s acting is such a joy to watch.  From the audience’s reaction in the theater, he has definitely got the crowd engaged whenever he steps into the spotlight.

A fast pace engaging storyline that you should have little to complain if you are not looking too deep into the story.  A well crafted plot I must say.

Categories
Dance Music Reviews

Moby – Last Night – Not Quite Close To Play But Way Better Than 18 Hotel

I really love “Play”.  Oh yes, I do.  Perhaps it’s because of the disco clubs by the beach of Grand Bay, Mauritius, that my project team often frequented (oh sweet days of Banana Café), and at that time, Moby’s “Play” was hot.  It was the sunset, the sea breeze, the sand, the resort, and the laid-back-good-old-days-post-modernization of an island nation off the coast of the African continent that gave me the illusion that I was dancing in the year of not 1999, but one or two decades prior to that.

Moby’s ambient electronic music blends well in such a dreamy land of nowhere, a tourist paradise.  How I miss Mauritius.

My sentimental bias aside, I think Moby fans would agree with me that “Natural Blues” from the “Play” (1999) album is probably one of tracks that made Moby known to the International mainstream music scene.  The chorus of “Oooh, Lordy, troubles so hard and Don’t nobody know my troubles but God” just sticks to our heads.

The subsequent album releases “18” (which I owned) and “Hotel” (which I got wiser and decided not to own) were major disappointments to me.  In “Last Night”, Moby took a slightly different approach.  Most of the vocal tracks are sung by talented unknown artists, in which Moby mentioned that they are much easier to work with without the complication of legal issues and big record companies’ involvement.  It works.  Though it is not quite close to “Play”, “Last Night” is a pleasant album to listen to.  Less experimental in nature, Moby returns to his disco dance music root and enriches each track with his distinctive electronic ambience touch.

I personally don’t think Moby is particularly strong in his lyrics department.  But who cares about lyrics when you are half drunk on the dance floor or about to collapse onto the couch?  So I have no qualm that the CD does not come with a set of lyrics; and they should as some of the lines even the Internet community cannot make out.  Inside the killer track “Alice”, the word “Jodice” keeps repeating and Cynthia and I one time looked at each other in the car and said, “Who is Jodice?”  Or “What is joh this?”  OK.  From what I researched in the net, the phrase in question could be “do this”.  Then again, you will never know.

Why does the song titled “Alice” anyway when it doesn’t even get mentioned in the song?  Perhaps it is a reference to “Alice in Wonderland”?  Perhaps it has something to do with the lyrics “Can you become girl here in the fun world?”

Anyway, who cares?

If you have nothing against rap singing style, the first single “Alice” will please you much.  The majority tracks of “Last Night” are loaded with up tempo music while the last few tracks substantially darken the mood and the album is concluded with the title song “Last Night”, a ballad.  That last song does remind me of the closing hour of the dance floor when the DJ usually plays a slow song to wrap up the evening or early morning.  How appropriate.

Featured below is the video clip of “Alice”.  Don’t expect the image to reflect the current decade.  It is Moby baby.  Let’s head back to the disco days with us having bad hairstyles doing crazy things; things that you don’t even want to recall.  Admit it!

Categories
Memorable Events

A Wedding – Of Brothers And Sisters And Being Emcee

The brothers and sisters of Jason and Selrol's wedding

Caption of the picture above: On the far left is me.  The lady next to me is my counterpart in Mandarin (the other much better looking emcee).  The rest are the sisters and brothers who guarded the gate and crashed the gate respectively in an early Sunday morning.

Part 1 of 2: Of Brothers and Sisters

I guess you can’t really say “brother, I will take a bullet for you” without rising up to the situation when called for.  So when my buddy Jason dropped me an email three weeks before his wedding titled “Band of Brothers”, I was like: wait a minute, I thought I have only signed up for the emceeing job?  Since it was my first time being one of the brothers or witnessing the morning wedding activity in Singapore, I was actually excited for the opportunity.

Note: In a Chinese wedding, the groom needs to make a trip to pick up the bride at her parent’s home.  The sisters handpicked by the bride are supposed to set up a few challenges and quests for the groom to handle and solve before getting his ultimate reward – the bride.  And to help the groom in accomplishing these meant-to-be humanly impossible tasks, he selects his own band of brothers to take on some of the challenges.  After all, the brothers are dispensable to a larger extend.  The groom is not.

The night before, one friend of mine shared some of the horror stories of what some of the brothers have to go through in crashing the bride’s gate heavily guarded by the sisters.  I was like …

OK, so long as I don’t need to put the spicy wasabi (“Japanese horseradish”) into my eyes in the MTV style, I am ready to walk on fire, cross the ocean, and slay a few dragons for my buddy.  (But please don’t wax my legs.)

The actual event was less dramatic than I visualized.  At the bride’s gate, the sisters demanded red packets (note: we put money inside the packets) like the ERP gantries on the CTE in Singapore.  The groom must be thinking that sincerity goes a long way so he gave the sisters the biggest packet he had in his pocket at the first gantry.  OK.  That didn’t work as the subsequent “backup” red packets were much lesser in value.  So when the negotiation broke down, we were left with only one way – the sisters’ way.

One sister poured out a cup of what appeared like lemonade, my mouth actually watered.  I could use some lemonade right now!  One brother quickly grabbed the cup and down it in one go.  Bravo!  What was it inside, we queried.  Nothing unusual, he replied.  Next came a cup of dark stuff, some kind of sweet drink for the groom.  Jason happily downed that with no sweat.

Then, one of the sisters pulled out a bottle of what seemed like a bright green juice for the aliens from the outer-space.  Uh-oh.  And she took out four cups for the brothers.  That stuff was bitter!  I have no idea how many bitter gourds I have “drank”, certainly no idea that bitter gourds are juicy at all.  It better be good for my skin.

The last dish was a plate of snacks creamed with wasabi.  So long as I don’t need to stuff them onto my eyes, I am more than happy to set my tongue on fire (that stuff was spicy).

The subsequent pole dancing by the groom must have set the aunties’ hearts on fire.  At one point, one auntie threw the key out of the gate, caught by one of the brothers, only to have it lost to one sister from the other side of the gate.  Dude?!  How the heck did that happen?!  In the end, one brother has to dip his naked hairy leg into a bucket full of ice cold water in order to fish out the key with his bare feet.  How heroic (and marginally gross too)!

And as simple as that, the what seemed to be an impassable gate that we stared at for what seemed like ages finally broke open.  Hooray!  But wait, the door to the bride’s door was still closed!  (I swear Selrol, the bride, must be very eager to have it opened, and so were the in-laws to be).  The last challenge was for Jason to sing a song.  Oh well, we all know how well the groom sings.

So, a piece of cake that was.

Part 2 of 2: Being Emcee

I guess you can’t really say no if one of your best buddies says, “We would be honored to have you as our emcee for our wedding dinner”.  I mean, people won’t ask you to be an emcee thinking that you are not right for the job, right?

Right?

Hmmm.  I certainly do enjoy getting involved with my friends’ weddings in some ways.  Like that one time our band put together one recorded song for the couple to play during the dinner.  And another time I was rehearsing with my buddy in my humble home studio for his surprise singing performance to his bride during their wedding dinner.

Emceeing is a different ball game, I soon found out.  OK, I am comfortable standing in front of the crowd.  But memorizing the scripts is another thing.  I am terrible in that and it took me hours and nights trying to memorize my few lines.  Seriously, I am one of the few in this planet who just cannot memorize.  The good thing is, it did make my job a whole lot easier on stage with the printout of the scripts as prompts and my lines at the back of my head.

The most nerve-racking portion of the evening, to me, was the storytelling part.  The couple suggested that I shall tell a story since I was “part of the process”.  And I soon realized that the words in my head, and the words I write, and the words I speak are all very different from one another (note: need to work on that in near future).  I spent days and weeks thinking of what to say and it seems so easy just thinking about it.  Then I spent days trying to write my thoughts onto paper and boy, that was tough!  I had so many versions of the story that it was no longer funny.  In fact, I learned that what I write is not exactly how I should speak.  Gosh!  I wonder how these talented netizens are able to create the pod-cast and video-cast in a regular basis (note: I shall start terrorizing my loyal fans with some what-not-cast).  I tried speaking to the windscreen while I was driving alone in my car and that was … tough and weird to say the least.

Maybe that’s why we have the talented scriptwriters to write the stories and the talented comedians to tell the stories in real life.

To cut a long story short, faced with a crowd from a diverse background and with time constraint, I have decided to change the script in the last minute and do a live interview to a few of the couple’s close friends.  I was planning to share an insight of what the newly wed’s love journey has been so far in an (hopefully) entertaining manner.  The best part of it all, I think, was when a birthday cake was taken out as a surprise and I prompted Jason to sing a birthday song for his bride in front of all their guests.  Selrol was in tears.

It was a lovely wedding dinner and an emotional night.  When I shook Jason’s hand as I left the ballroom, both of us were too tired to communicate.  But our eyes said it all.

So, two cakes that were – a wedding cake and a birthday cake.

Categories
Movie Reviews Romance

Definitely Maybe – There Is A Girl Whom I Really Like!

Definitely Maybe

I often marvel at how Western film titles are being translated in Chinese for the Hong Kong market (which can be different from the China market).  Take “Definitely Maybe” as an example.  It is translated into “愛情三選一” that loosely means “Choose One from Three in the Name of Love”.  OK, the Chinese title is a lot more poetic and cuter than it sounds in English.  And it definitely relates to the plot of the film better.  My favorite movie title translation is still “愛．誘．罪” for “Atonement”.  The three characters literally mean love, temptation, and crime, which sum up what the story is about.  And because of the phonetic similarity of the second Chinese character, the title has a dual meaning of “Love is Crime” when spoken, which also coincidentally reveals a slice of the story.

Back to “Definitely Maybe” – a title inspired by a line from possibly the most memorable scene – the plot is as simple as what the Chinese translated title suggests: choose one girl from three.  There are a college sweetheart (Elizabeth Banks), a reporter (Rachel Weisz), and a copy girl (Isla Fisher).  On the day Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) receives a divorce paper, his 10 years old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) suddenly gets curious about what her daddy’s love life is like after a lesson on … sex education.  To make the storytelling interesting, Hayes uses fictional names so as to keep the story engaging for Maya, and the audience I suppose.  The film extends beyond the flashbacks into the present time of Maya and Hayes.  By and large predictable but has its charm with a rather engaging, unusual, and entertaining storyline.  There are quite a few memorable scenes as well.

I missed the little girl Abigail Breslin’s Oscar nominated film “Little Miss Sunshine” and she may be too young for me to remember her performance in “Raising Helen” and “The Princess Diaries 2”.  I did enjoy her role as Zoe in “No Reservations” and am still a big fan of hers.  Her role as Maya in “Definitely Maybe”, I guess, is rather limited.  That’s one of my complaints (and I don’t really like the guy too!).

When Cynthia, TK, and I walked out of the movie theatre, we thought very hard on who Isla Fisher is.  Out of all the (grown-up) girls, Isla Fisher is my favorite.  When Cynthia mentioned “Wedding Crashers”, I still have no recollection.  At home I did some research and ah-ha!  She was one of the sisters in “Wedding Crashers” – the sex mania.  OK, now I remember that I did like her in that film too.  She has also acted in the famous Australia soap opera “Home and Away”.  Looking at the period of time she was involved in that opera, very likely I may have watched some of the episodes back in UK when the series was (still is?) pretty big over there.  Maybe memory does play funny tricks to us sometimes.

I was apprehensive when I first heard that the filmmakers are making a film out of my favorite chick-lit series “Shopaholic”.  When I read that Isla Fisher is taking on the role of Rebecca Bloomwood, all my worries have melted away.  Now, let’s hope that the scriptwriters are not going to screw up the plot.  “Confessions of a Shopaholic” is only the first installment from Sophie Kinsella’s 5-book series (so far).  The chance to see Isla Fisher more on screen is a definitely maybe.