Category: My Opinion

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Fantasy & Sci-fi Movie Reviews

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 – A Deeper Look Into The Saga Thus Far

Cue to perfection, at the very nanosecond that this show was ended, the dude next to me bellowed in pain.  For a good ten or twenty seconds, I wasn’t counting.  It could well be half a minute.  I was giggling.  I could feel his pain, even though I could not relate.  Like having 117 minutes of his life utterly wasted, not going to get it back.  And then he screamed with his face and hands offered skyward, “Thissss issss teeeerrrriiiibbbbleeee!”  His two female companions next to him broke into laughter.  And I too laughed out loud as he switched back to the bellowing mode.  Cynthia did not catch on initially.  But when she did, she too laughed along.  Poor guy.  He should have been indoctrinated before watching any Twilight movie.  We Twilight followers are like movie cultists.  There isn’t even a discussion on which Twilight installment is better.  It is irrelevant.  To give you an analogy, Gossip Girl [guy] fans will not say season 3 is the best because there is a threesome scene involving Hilary Duff.  A true Gossip Girl fan would love every season, every episode.  In the eyes of a true Twihard, the entire saga is like a wondrous feast that spans five long years.  Five long years of anticipation and we are so close to climax.  I hope there will be a climax in 2012 when this saga ends.  Because “Breaking Dawn: Part 1” is neither a foreplay nor a climax.  The first three installments – “Twilight”, “New Moon”, and “Eclipse” – are foreplay.  Should the two kiss, should they not?  Should the two have sex, should they not?  Twihards are treated like a rubber band, played by the filmmakers.  This formula has been successful because if for a moment you think Twilight saga is a series of movies on vampires and werewolves, you are misinformed.  Twilight Saga is a teenage romance story, a soap opera.  And on that note, I sincerely hope that “Part Two” will blow our Twihard minds away.  Give us the climax please!

Now, how Stephenie Meyer murdered the lore of vampires and werewolves is, in my opinion, unforgivable.  It gets worse in “Part 1”.  Of course, I could be bias in taking Ann Rice’s work as canon.  To my best knowledge [of the lore], vampires don’t have the desire to have sex with humans.  They may seduce humans because they have desire for human’s blood.  Sex among vampires is merely an exchange of blood, and their memories.  In the world according to the writer Meyer, vampire and human can have sex, in a humanly way.  The catch is, because vampire is so much stronger, the human may be killed (or crushed I suppose)  in the process.  Bear in mind that in previous episodes, vampire and human have no problem frolicking in the wood, flying from tree tops to tree tops.  No one gets crushed.  But sex, however, is dangerous and can be deadly.  Even a werewolf knows as he (or it) confronts the vampire on this very private matter (how come he knows?)  What is more gruesome is the sex after.  I will not go into details.  All I can say is that if there is one morale of the story filmmakers have quite successfully imparted onto our teen viewers’ hearts, that would be: Sex is bad and marriage is the end of romance.

If you are to ask a Twilight fan: Would you like this “Part 1” condensed into a 10 minutes clip and combine that into “Part 2” or would you like to watch a 117 minutes “Part 1” and wait another year for “Part 2”?  I think most would prefer the latter.  It is true.  The entire “Part 1” can be told in 10 minutes.  The story for this part 1 is not complex.  It is a miracle that this small plot can be expanded into a 117 minutes long show.  Team Jacob should be delighted for “Part 1”.  The werewolf Jacob scores big (‘score’ not in an urban sense).  It is a delight to finally see him coming out of his character, to be something closer to greatness.  Good job, Jacob.  Team Edward, unfortunately, would have nothing to cheer about.  Edward is so skinny, and pale.  His contribution to “Part 1” is minimal.  Personally I am happy.  Because I am Team Bella.  This movie is all about Bella.  Her decision making, her perseverance, and her will to overcome the unthinkable.  Bella, if I were you, I would dump that loser vampire of yours and hang out with the dogs, or wolves more.

I am a hardcore Twilight fan, indoctrinated by Cynthia on the Christmas Eve of 2008.  The year after, we forced our friend TK to watch “New Moon” with us and that did not go well.  He bellowed like the dude sitting next to me on “Part 1”.  Lesson learned, we watched “Eclipse” on our own.  It is impossible to dive into an installment midway without watching all the previous ones (or to skip any for that matter).  So, friends, you have one whole year to catch up with all Twilight installments before the Saga’s climatic (I hope) finish – “Breaking Dawn Part 2”.

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Animation Movie Reviews

Puss In Boots – Too Cute To Even Think

Life can be like scenes from your favorite movies.  Take today as an example.  I felt like being Rachel McAdams in “Morning Glory“.  I was excited to face the day, with added responsibility as one of our colleagues was on compassionate leave.  No problem.  In our team, we watch over each other’s back.  We are there for each other.  I entered into a multiparty conference call, with close to zero knowledge of the specific work this colleague of mine is doing.  After some harmless introduction, we entered into a moment of silence.  Then all of a sudden, questions were shooting from everywhere, and onto me.  That scene, reminded me of Rachel McAdams’s first day of work in that movie.  Coupled with the meetings that were within my domain of work, I had half a day worth of non-stop meeting.  On the last meeting, my reaction time was so slow that I had to apologized.  My brain was fried.  Fortunately, I have so many nice people around me at work.  They understood.

After watching “Puss In Boots”, Cynthia asked if I know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  I said no.  What about Princes and the Pea?  I said no.  Rapunzel?  I asked, “How do you spell that?”.  Red Riding Hound?  I said, “Like the movie by Amanda Seyfried?”  Cynthia gave up.  Well, in Hong Kong, we studied legends of the Oriental.  The culture is different there.

Back to “Puss In Boots”, it is loosely based on some well known fairly tales that of course, I am not familiar with.  That does not bother me.  This movie is hilarious.  Puss is mightily cute.  Cynthia observed that “Puss In Boots” has a strong reference to Banderas’s Zorro.  I do not disagree.  It is one of those movies that by the time a week passes by, you would not remember much about the movie.  Is there a moral to the story?  I really can’t think of any.

Categories
Action & Thriller Movie Reviews

Drive – Memorable Story, Great Soundtrack

OK.  Yet another Gosling movie.  This one is good.  Much darker than I have expected.  It is an artistic movie that captivates.  In this movie, Gosling drives cars and works in a garage.  He seldom talks.  In fact, a good chunk of the movie contains no dialogues.  As an audience, in most part, I would hold tight onto the arms of the chair (or rather one hand holding onto Cynthia’s), hold my breath, and eagerly await for what is to come.

Carey Mulligan has left a good impression in “An Education“.  And I was looking forward to seeing how she acts in “Drive”.  Is there a chemistry between Mulligan and Gosling?  There certainly is.  And I enjoy the subtle build up between a man with no past and a married woman with baggage from the past.  What makes Gosling a good driver (in the movie of course) is his fearlessness and his precision in timing.  The filmmakers manage to bring out this essence of his and apply to the remaining plot.

There is a fair amount of blood and gore in this film.  Be warned.  I begin to see that Gosling – besides looking quite good – can be quite a good actor.  I seldom give credits to movie soundtrack.  From the first song to the last, the music has wrapped the entire film in such darkness.  It gives a vintage and classic feel to “Drive”.  Two thumbs up.

This pretty much concludes how we celebrated 11.11.11.  I cannot recall what I was doing at 11.11 pm.  I could well be answering a work-related overseas call from US.  What about you?  What did you do on 11.11.11 11.11?

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Drama Movie Reviews

The Ides of March – Politics, And More Politics

When we told our friends that we have watched “The Ides of March” on November fifth, the most common response would be, “The what?”.  Ides!  Then we added, “That Clooney show”.  Or I think we should have said, “That Gosling show”.  Gosling is involved in quite a few films these days.  He must be one of the hottest actors in Hollywood now.

Ides means the middle of a particular month in the Roman calendar.  Or more specifically, the fifteenth day of March, May, July, or October, and the thirteenth day of the other months.  I am not that into US politics.  I doubt the film title has anything to do with March fifteenth.  I would say that this title may refer to the date whereby Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by fellow politicians in 44 B.C and died.  But who is Julius Caesar in this movie?  I can’t tell.  Perhaps, the filmmakers just wish to associate this film with the brutality of politics.

Gosling plays the campaign manager for Clooney.  While the film is directed and scripted by Clooney, Gosling is the main actor.  I am not that into politics, especially politics that is outside my country.  But I gather from the story that there is no clean politics.  The path to the dark side could well be triggered by a single simple mistake.  Overall, it is a pleasant film to watch.  It was a pity that our buddy TK was not feeling well and had to leave early.  Cynthia and I ended up celebrating our wedding anniversary at Brotzeit German Bier Bar & Restaurant at 313 @ Somerset.

Shock band founder Marilyn Mansion‘s ex-fiancée Evan Rachel Wood is one of the actresses in “The Ides of March”.  Personally, I am happy to finally see her on a big screen.  She gives hope to weirdos and less than handsome men around the world that some gorgeous girls do look pass these attributes.  Not every one is as good looking at Nate Archibald if you know what I mean.  I certainly am not.  If you are interested to see how Wood looked like when she was 20, you can check out this music video with her and her then-boyfriend Marilyn Mansion.  Warning: lots of blood and gore.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle By Haruki Murakami – So Unreal, So Mesmerizing

The paperback version of “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is more than 600 pages long.  It sat inside my bookshelf for a long time because I was not sure if I have the patience to digest such a mightily thick book (to me that is).  I brought it along anyway for my trip to Hong Kong.  I did not manage to finish reading it because I was distracted by a fantasy book I picked up at the airport.  It took me another week in Singapore to finish it off.  If not for my holiday, it would take mightily long for me to complete.  Now I am looking at his new book “1Q84” that I bought in Hong Kong with deep concern.  That too looks thick, divided into three books like “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”.

“The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is surprisingly engaging.  I was glued to the story not wanting to put down.  Not many story books these days have this effect on me.  The book is not quite a page turner in a sense that it takes some effort to digest the content.  But it is worth it.  From start till the very end, I had no idea which way the story is heading.  Book One is titled “The Thieving Magpie” and it documents the events that happened between June to July 1984.  Then we have Book Two titled “Bird as Prophet” for events that happened between July to October 1984.  The last books is “The Birthcatcher” that spans a longer time frame of October 1984 to December 1985.

After reading the first few chapters, I concluded that this book has a very strong “Murakami” feel.  As in we could have wiped out the author’s name and avid readers would immediately identify the author.  While the setup may be as such, the story has evolved into something it is unexpected of.  Each character added into the story carries with him or her an unique story.  Centered to the story is the narrator, a man who is ordinary and laid back, whose wife is becoming more distant as days go by.  And they have recently lost a cat.  It seems like such an ordinary story but it is not.  It get more and more complicated and interconnected as the story unfolds and as the little parts chained together.  At some point, I wished I had drawn out a relationship diagram like some of the fellow readers would have done.

Authors like Murakami write stories that lead to open interpretation.  I am sure some of you may interpret “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” in a completely different way.  But here is mine.  There are a few themes that have emerged.  First is fate versus free will.  The entire story, or at least a good part of it, is driven by fate and prophesies.  Every character seems to exist for a specific reason to fulfill one’s fate and affect others to fulfill theirs.  If it is prophesied that someone is not going to die outside Japanese’s soul in World War II, he or she no matter what will not die.  But that does not mean a happy ending.  And in a morbid way, death may not mean a bad ending either.  It is how fate plays out and people will have to accept the circumstances.  Free will then becomes an illusion.

And then we have our narrator who is surrounded by fate and prophesies of others (and his), by and large goes with the flow, but unafraid of pursuing what he ultimately wants.  That opens up the second theme of this something that exists inside us.  This concept is perhaps the most abstract concept coming from this book.  Most of the time, as a reader, I am unable to pinpoint or even visualize what this something is.  This something could be sinister and evil.  Some use this something to hurt others.  Some possesses this something as an ability to heal others that are bothered by that something inside them.  Like the subject of psychology, it takes time and word to describe that something.  And hence the rather long stories that each character carries.

The good news is that as far as I can remember, there is some kind of closure for each character’s bizarre ‘somethingness’.  Some may demand a bit of open interpretation but it is there.  The third theme I can see is the theme of reality versus the unseen world.  Within the boundary of the story, what is real and what is not?  We are taught that literature that is narrated in first person may not be entirely trustworthy as we are seeing the world through the narrator’s eyes.  But what if those chapters that are outside of this rule may not may not be real within this boundary?  This book has missing chapters that we know should exist within the story’s boundary but are not revealed to us.  And yet some chapters that are revealed to us may not even exist in the eyes of the narrator.  To make matters more intriguing, there seems to be some invisible linkages between certain characters.  Are they the same person or entity?  How do they relate?  Explicitly, this story is divided into a physical reality and a realm that exists only for the soul.  Hence, summing all up, “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is engaging, but it does take time to digest.

The fourth theme I can think of is more like a metaphor.  A metaphor that depicts politic as secretive and dirty.  It is probably one of the harder concept to grasp in this book.  What does defilement of body and mind mean?  How does one possibly become a ‘prostitute of mind’?  While reading the book, I kept on wondering if some of these concepts are lost in translation, or simply misunderstood due to cultural gap.  That, together with the triviality of hacking into a computer like many Hollywood movies are the only tiny complaints I have with the book.

Similar to some of the recent book summary I have written, below are some of the memorable quotes.  Is knowing your future a blessing?  Or is it a curse?  If you are to know that you cannot die till a certain age, how is it going to change your life?

When the revelation and the grace were life, my life was lost.  Those living things that had once been there inside me, that had been for that reason of some value, were dead now.  Not a single thing was left.  They had all been burned to ashes in that fierce light.  The heat emitted by that revelation or grace had seared away the very core of the life that made me the person I am.  Surely I had lacked the strength to resist that heat.  And so I feel no fear of death.  If anything, my physical death would be, for me, a form of salvation.  It would liberate me for ever from this hopeless prison, this pain of being me.

The next one is on money.  It is a rather long quote.  I like the punch line at the end of the paragraph.

The address – an office building in the wealthy Akasaka district – was the only thing on the card.  There was no name.  I turned it over to check the back, but it was blank.  I brought the card to my nose, but it had no fragrance.  It was just a normal white card.

“No name?” I said.

She smiled for the first time and gently shook her head from side to side, “I believe that what you need is money.  Does money have a name?”

I shook my head as she was doing.  Money had no name, of course.  And if it did have a name, it would no longer be money.  What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

And here is one confession from a girl to a man in the form of a letter.  Often when I think of my personal weakness, I seem not have a straightforward answer.  Perhaps, the answer is as simple as this.

I’m sorry, though.  I know I should never have done that to you (or to anybody).  But I can’t help myself sometimes.  I know exactly what I’m doing, but I just can’t stop.  That’s my greatest weakness.

Finally, there is one quote on work.  It could be something most of us can relate.

Lately, it’s really been bothering me that, I don’t know, the way people work like this every day from morning to night is kind of weird.  Hasn’t it ever struck you as strange?  I mean, all I do here is do the work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tell me to do it.  I don’t have to think at all.  It’s like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on the way home.  I spend seven hours a day at a workbench … then I eat dinner in the cafeteria, take a bath, and of course I have to sleep, like everybody else, so out of a twenty-four-hour day, the amount of free time I have is nothing.  And because I’m so tired from work, the “free time” i have I mostly spend lying around in a fog.  I don’t have any time to sit and think about anything.  Of course, I don’t have to work at weekends, but then I have to catch up on the laundry and cleaning, and sometimes I go into town, and before I know it the weekend is over.  I once made up my mind to keep a diary, but I had nothing to write, so I gave up after a week.  I mean, I just do the same thing over and over again, day in, day out.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Thrall: Twilight Of The Aspects By Christie Golden – Powerful, And Moving

After I have finished reading Thrall in Hong Kong, I said to Cynthia, “Drop everything you are reading now and start to read this!”  It is that good.  Rewind to the day when we were at the airport.  On several occasions, I struggled if I shall read another book written by Christie Golden.  Price is a factor (S$44 in Singapore while you can get a Kindle copy from Amazon for merely US$15).  I have been camping at our library website for quite some time but the book is nowhere to be seen in the catalog.  Christie Golden does not strike me as a great writer, in the genre of fantasy.  Hence that added to my hesitation.  But hack, it is a holiday trip.  On the day of my holiday, Blizzard has announced a new expansion for the World of Warcraft online game: Mists of Pandaria.  On top of that, Cynthia and I have committed for a one year subscription and will get the upcoming Diablo III free.  There were many reasons to celebrate.  So I bought Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects.

The story is epic, even for those who may have no knowledge of the Warcraft Universe.  The book has told the story well, assuming that the readers may not have any background.  In the beginning, Titans (or creators) have entrusted their power to five dragon Aspects (leaders of dragonflights) and these Aspects – together with their respective dragonflights – are tasked to protect our world.  The green dragon Aspect is bound to the waking Dream of Creation.  She touches all living beings, and sing to them the songs of creation and interconnections.  The blue dragon Aspect regulates, manages, and controls all magic that must be appreciated and valued, and not hoarded.  The yellow dragon Aspect keeps the purity of time.  The red dragon Aspect is gifted with compassion for all living things, to protect and to nurture.  Heal those others cannot, birth what others may not, and love even the unlovable.  And the black dragon Aspect is offered the earth, the basis of all things, to manage time, life, dreams, and magic.  Prior to Cataclysm, Neltharion the Earth-Warder (black) was corrupted by the old gods and has become Deathwing who now destroys life instead of protecting life.  Malygos the Spell-Weaver (blue) was destroyed by the dragonflights led by Alexstrasza the Life-Binder (red) due to his genocidal crusade against all magic users in Azeroth.  Since then, the blue dragonflight is left without an Aspect.  Ysera the Awakened (green) has recently come out from the Emerald Dream after thousands of years of dreaming and she is still somewhat dreamy, somewhat confused.  Nozdormu the Timeless (yellow) has gone missing and no one knows where he is in time and space.

In short, Thrall is a story set against the dragonflights and the unique situation the dragons are now at.  For those of you who are mesmerized by the stories of the dragons since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, this book is going to fill in so many lore gaps that are not featured in a gaming environment.

The world event Cataclysm was launched on December 7, 2010.  In less than a year, Blizzard has transformed one of the key lore character Thrall from a leader of one faction into a protector of Azeroth and more.  Some may or may not agree on such a special treatment of a Horde character (the Alliance certainly is not happy).  But given the unique background of Thrall – an orc who was raised by humans and learned to befriend with and trust other races – is a pivot to the general theme of Cataclysm: The healing of a wounded world.  Christie Golden has done a great job in intelligently describing Thrall’s life history without making this book reads like a history scroll.  Her strength is her story dialog and it remains powerful and moving.  In more than a few counts, I was moved to tears.  To be frank, I rarely cry reading books or watching movies.  But I do have a few soft spots here and there.

Unlike some of her other books, I feel that the plot of Thrall is tighter.  There is an overall build up to climax and a conclusion to a subplot less likely to be seen in the game.  Now that Dragon Soul patch 4.3 is at hand whereby adventurers will be able to experience first hand in aiding Thrall and the Aspects to battle against Deathwing, Thrall is a must read.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

My Favorite Quotes From “Aleph” By Paulo Coelho

I enjoy reading Paulo Coelho’s novels.  They are always inspirational.  Or simply put – food for the soul.  To be frank, I enjoy reading some of his earlier works better than his recent ones.  Hence my expectation for “Aleph” was not that high.  This book surprises me on several fronts.  First, it is quite a page turner, which is not usually the case of Paulo Coelho’s books.  Second, it seems genuine, pouring out from author’s personal experience.  After some research (and to my horror as you will find out in just a bit), while “Aleph” may not have accounted for all that has happened, what is written is 100% bibliography based on a true story.  Hence, depending on your moral compass, it could be inspirational for some, troubling for others.

The center theme of “Aleph” can easily be related by many.  Routines wear us down.  Great losses in life too may dip us into an emotional abyss.  We may find faith and then lose it along the way.  Or regrets in our past and worries in our future too can weigh us down.  How then can we get out of this?  A pilgrimage, as suggested by the author, may have the answer we need.

In “Aleph”, the 59 years old Paulo Coelho has taken a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway to meet his readers across Russia.  During his journey, a 21 years old Turkish girl Hilal has insisted to travel with Paulo and his team of editor, distributor, and translator.  Coelho (who is married) and Hilal became physically, emotionally, and spiritually close that even with my rather liberate mindset, I was finding it a bit uncomfortable to read.  But it is what it is.  Two people performed rituals together in an intimate setting.  And if you buy into the concept of reincarnation, that two lifetimes ago, Coelho and Hilal were lovers, that past and present are one, I suppose it is OK to be that close.  A bit confusing if you are an outsider.  But say for a moment that reincarnation does exist and we do happen to meet with the same people through time and space, perhaps what Coelho and Hilal have done is beautiful.  It is certainly romantic to read.  I love you like a river, said him to her.  That is probably the most artistic thing a married man can say to his admirer (and lover from another lifetime).

There are quite a few quotes that are memorable, that I can relate and would like to share with you.

1. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.

2. When faced by any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been, it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new.

3. People never leave, we are always here in our past and future lives.

I think the first quote is self-explanatory.  What we do at present matters the most.  The next two are to help us coping with losses.

4. Although sometimes, we need to be strangers to ourselves.  Then the hidden light in our soul will illuminate what we need to see.

What it means, I suppose, is that in order to rediscover ourselves, we need to look pass what has become so familiar.  Examine our lives in the eyes of a stranger in a detached manner.

5. Now each morning, when your mind is still empty, devote a little time to the Divine … Inhale deeply and ask for all the blessings in the air to enter your body and fill every cell.  Then exhale slowly, projecting happiness and peace around you.  Repeat this ten times.  You’ll be helping to heal yourself and contributing to healing the world as well.

I have not tried the above method.  It may work out better than screaming out loud into the mirror every morning and say: This is going to be a great day!

6. Walking is doing wonders for body and soul.  I’m completely focused on the present moment, for that is where all signs, parallel worlds and miracles are to be found.  Time really doesn’t exist.

When I was young, I used to walk a lot, in great distance.  My mother used to call me Walkman.  I agree with Paulo that walking does wonders for our bodies and souls.  Ideas do hit me.  But I have yet to encounter lovers from my past incarnations that way.

7. Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions.  Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.

8. Anyone who knows God cannot describe Him. Anyone who can describe God does not know Him.

Both quotes are again self-explanatory.  But it does take some time to fully internalize.

9. Love is beyond time, or, rather, love is both time and space, but all focused on one single constantly evolving point – the Aleph.

That, is the Aleph.  You may need to read the book in order to understand what he says.

10. We can never wound the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched, even when we have everything we need in order to be happy.

On face level, this quote can be useful to most.  But after reading the book, I think that the author may refer to memories of our past lives.  I am not ready to believe in reincarnation (as yet).  Having said that, we should be reminded that we have everything we need to be happy.  And those things are within our reach.

11. Is it possible to deviate from the path God has made?  Yes, but it’s always a mistake.  Is it possible to avoid pain?  Yes, but you’ll never learn anything.  Is it possible to know something without ever having experienced it?  Yes, but it will never truly be part of you.

This is probably one of my favorite quotes.  We shall always seek to experience, accept the pain as it comes, and follow God’s will.

Last but not the least, there is one quote to share.  I agree wholeheartedly.

12. Like the children we will never ever cease to be.

Categories
Comedy Movie Reviews Romance

Friends With Benefits – Mila Is Adorable

I don’t think it has anything to do with aging (I hope).  It was a pretty hectic week at work.  In some instances, you can almost measure how overloaded one is by observing the number of mistakes one begins to make.  I read the showtime of 17:30 as 7.30pm, which was obviously wrong.  Saturday traffic near Orchard area was horrendous.  We have so many cars in town.  Perhaps all we need is a second Orchard area to split the crowd.  This weekend, we are confined to our areas nearby.  Japanese sushi and sake on a Friday night, Nonya food on a Saturday afternoon and a home-cooked cod fish meal for dinner, takeaway Yong Tau Foo for lunch after Sunday Mass and yet another home-cooked meal for dinner.  All within the proximity of our home.

Back to our previous weekend, by the time we reached the cinema, we were 10 minutes late (actually, we were 2 hours and 10 minutes late).  Cynthia was starving and TK was not feeling 100% either.  So, in retrospect, it was a blessing in disguise.  We had a relaxing dinner and the cinema was kind enough to print another set of tickets for us.  Same movie, same time, but on the next day.

“Friends With Benefits” is so much better than “No Strings Attached“.  Some parts of “Friends” are a bit uncomfortable to watch.  But not as bad as “Strings”.  I do not know many celebrities who publicly admit that they play World of Warcraft.  Mila Kunis has played WoW once upon a time.  That is a good enough reason for me to be her fan.  For most part of the movie, she is irresistibly adorable.  It is the dialog and the way she carries it more than anything else.  As for Justin Timberlake, I did not have high expectation on his acting ability.  There seems to be chemistry between the two on screen.  That too is good enough for me.

Movies like these often have little takeaways.  The story seems to conclude that with girls, it is not just sex, however casual the relationship is.  I thought that we have well passed the era of sexual stereotype after all these years.

Categories
Drama Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Apple Of My Eye – A Taiwanese Movie, A Nostalgic One For Me

How many of us end up spending the rest of our lives with our school day sweethearts?  Do you remember the time when love was so awkward, so childish?  We kept on reading and sending the signals wrongly, but yet our puppy love affair appeared to be  at the center of our universe, all that we could think about?  Watching “Apple of My Eye” put me right where that piece of my memory has faded.  It reminded me of what love once was.  Not only that.  This movie brought me back to the time before mobile phones were widely used, a time whereby a public phone booth was the only place to make a conversation with someone far away.  Yes, once upon a time I queued at a phone booth to call that special someone; once upon a time I was by a phone booth waiting for that one phone call.  Dating scene was quite different back then.

I cannot recall how many guys in this movie were chasing after the same girl.  Looking at the movie poster, there must have been five.  The background of the story was set in 1994, with boys chasing after girls in school and beyond.  Some of the silly things that boys do are so real that watching them made me cringed (in a good albeit embarrassed way I suppose).  It is a comedy, with tons of drama.  Some bits are quite exaggerated, probably due to the fact that the story was retold from the memory of a first person perspective (boys are really not that gross, at least most of us are not I hope).  These scenes are a good laugh nevertheless.

It is quite rare to see such honesty in a movie.  Cynthia and I enjoyed watching it.  Once upon a time, love was so innocent, so pure.  It is a film about growing up too.  If I am to directly translate the movie title, it would called “Those Where The Years When We Chased After The Same Girl”.  I suppose “Apple Of My Eye” would be a better choice for the English speaking crowd.

Categories
Blu-ray / DVD Review

Ayumi Hamasaki Rock’n’Roll Circus Tour Final 7Days Special – Simply Amazing

The barrier of our imagination is often defined by our experience.  If you have not seen a Japanese concert by Ayumi Hamasaki before, it is hard to describe what you have missed.  Let me say, it is mind blowing.  Cynthia does not know her music.  But she has thoroughly enjoyed watching the music recording.  She even dug into the bonus clips of this 3 DVD collection.

I have been collecting Ayumi’s concert recording for years.  Each time I would think to myself: there is no way she can top that.  And she tops her performance time and time again.  Imagine a concert with a massive stage that extends deep into the audience, giant screens that blend the videos into the songs, a talented team of dancers in costume, band members in costume, and Ayumi in costume.  That wedding gown that extends all the way across the giant stage is jaw dropping.  Every move and every moment is meticulously choreographed, full of emotions that even if you are not a Japanese, you understand what the artists are trying to convey.  Then there is this theme of circus whereby additional talents are deployed on the stage as crowns and acrobats.  The edited concert lasted more than 3 long hours.  In between, there is even a game show hosted by Ayumi and some of her dancers so as to entertain the crowd.  There are in total 40 concerts, 7 of which werer delivered after a few month break with enhanced contents.  40 game shows were delivered with different scripts.  I have watched quite a number of concerts – live and recorded ones.  There is no production like a Japanese production.  There is no concert like a Ayumi concert.

It is inspiring, to say the least, to see how one person can look into so much details and deliver such a solid performance.  Ayumi is the one producer behind the scene.  True.  She has done it for years and that is probably why she is getting better at it year after year.  Looking at how hard she works throughout the year, she has my respect for her sacrifice and effort.  While watching the concert, Cynthia said to me, “Let’s go to Japan and watch her live.”  I may take up her offer on that.