Categories
Drama Movie Reviews

Sweeney Todd – Yawn?

Sweeney Tood

Why does the musical film adaptation “Sweeney Todd” receive such a positive review from so many sources?  I don’t know.  One thing I know though is that director Tim Burton loves to work with Johnny Depp and especially his wife Helena Bonham Carter time and time again.

Maybe it was the green tea or maybe it was something I ate the night before, I had a terrible stomach cramp.  I thought I wasn’t able to make it to this evening’s movie outing.  Maybe there is such a thing as ‘green tea overdose’.  But since I am replacing alcohol with green tea, I ain’t going to quit that as yet.

“Sweeney Todd” surely made my stomach churned with all those throat cutting scenes and blood spurting scenes.  The blood does look fake but still … that silver blade that cuts throat after throat, gruesome!  I give a thumb up to the computer generated scenes though. The effect goes well with the dark, insane nature of the movie.  If I could bypass the utterly boring monotonous melody and silly lyrics, I would say the acting is pretty good.  Come to think of it, I am a big fan of Tim Burton for his “Corpse Bride” (2005).  Had “Sweeney Todd” be filmed in the same way as “Corpse Bride”, I may be able to enjoy those silly music.  It is hard to watch Johnny Depp sings about being complete with his blade or Helena Carter sings about the worst pie in London.  I just couldn’t get into the mood with real actors.

That is my view.  How about the rest of the Movie Review Squad?  TK fell asleep 20% of the time, couldn’t bear to see the blood scenes, and Cynthia thinks that it is so-so and below expectation.

My stomach cramps again.  I should moderate on green tea consumption.

Categories
Music Reviews Pop Rock & Alternative World Music

Vanessa Paradis’s Divinidylle – Creatively Classy … Sexy

Vanessa Paradis’s Divinidylle

Most non-French speaking people may recognize Vanessa Paradis as the partner of the American actor Johnny Depp and the mother of their daughter and son. Some of you may remember her as the girl who promoted Chanel’s fragrant Coco back in 1991. I certain remember her by her single “Joe le taxi” (1987) when she was 14. Despite having 20 years of music career, she has only released 5 studio albums. “Divinidylle” is 7 years in the making.

I like French music because it brings something fresh into my English music collection. There is something about French music that is hard to explain, something that doesn’t quite follow the usual formula of the English music scene. The melody sounds fresh, the way of singing sounds fresh, even the music arrangement sounds fresh. Especially “Divinidylle”, if you pay attention to each individual music track, there are full of little bits of creative moments scattered along the tracks. The entire album is consistent with memorable hooks. Vanessa Paradis took part in the writing of some of the songs and she sings well throughout “Divinidylle” – from her low range to light whispering to falsetto.  Need not to say, I found her voice pretty sexy.

“Divinidylle” seems a bit short (35 minutes). But it is a perfect album to listen to in the evening on the couch surrounded by candle lights with a glass of wine – on your own or with your partner.  Check out the song below called “Dès Que Je Te Vois”.  If you like it, you may wish to try the single “Divinidylle”

Categories
Reflection

That Sweet Eb Chord Is Years In The Making

The 4 guitar chords that string nicely

This is probably one silly insignificant blog entry but hopefully you may be able to relate to some of the take home messages I found.

When was the last time you hear someone or even yourself saying “no, I can’t dance”, “I can’t play any instruments”, “I can’t paint”, “I can’t sing”, “the only thing I can cook is instant noodle”, and etc.  Maybe some of you have already taken the first step in any of the above-mentioned activities and are convinced that no way in life you can do any of those.  The irony in life is that it may take much lesser time than you think in order to get over the initial hurdle.

The Eb guitar chord has been a nightmare to me for close to two decades (the 3rd picture from the left). I simply couldn’t play it.  I was so scared of it so much so that I would avoid the Eb chord at all cost – even if I have to transpose (change the key) the entire song.  I’ve tried many times and didn’t have the determination to persist.  Of course I can still play the Eb chord on the 6th fret (bar chord).  But it just doesn’t go along with the rest of the chords that predominately play on the first few frets (the higher the fret number is, the higher pitch the chord becomes).  The good thing though is that I am trained to transpose songs in my head as I play. Not many friends whom I know would go through that mental hassle.  They would rather transpose the song on paper first or use a clip for the stepping up of the keys.

The main draw back is, as I transpose the song in my head, some chords that were previously not Eb may now become an Eb.  And then I will need to transpose to yet a different key (another step up or step down) to avoid the Eb chord.  This at times poses a challenge of my vocal range as the song may be too straining to sing.

Last night, there was one particular song that I really like and I felt that the key was a bit too high for me.  So I attempted to transpose the song to two keys lower.  And I hit the Eb chord.  I was frustrated.  If only I could master that one single chord!  Since the new theme of this year is “do it”, which by the way has already motivated me to do quite a few things in just one month, I have decided to … do it.

After one hour worth of playing a four-chord set continuously that amounted to about 570 repetitions (see the 4 chords in the picture above), need not to say, my fingers were pain like hell because I was (and still am) not used to the positioning of the Eb chord pattern.  But I am happy that I can actually play that chord.  I will still need a lot of practice to perfect it, I am sure, and you have no idea what it means to me as I have finally got rid of that one blind spot.

One year ago, none of us in the band believed that memorizing our band’s songs can be a reality.  Neither was I.  We were even planning to have the music scores projected during our live performance.  Our years long common belief was, “no, this can’t be done because the songs are way too complex”.  I started to give it a try and managed to memorize 10 songs – chords and lyrics – in a rather reasonable time frame.  As I have predicted (and promised) and with my help in articulating how the chords progress, it took our bassist Cynthia less than 3 hours to memorize the chords of 5 songs that are chosen for our first gig.  Seeing how we did it, our lead guitarist Jason also gave it a conscious effort in memorizing the songs during our jamming sessions.

Bottom line is, yes you can do it.  And the initial hurdle may take much lesser time than you anticipate.  You may take years to discover that you can actually do it.  Or you can start doing it now.

Categories
Experience Sharing

Ripping DVD Tracks For Your iPod, MP3 Player, And Wireless Phone

Playing Ayumi Hamasaki’s video on my new N95 8GB

Am I the only one who is obsessed with importing my favorite music video clips into a portable device while keeping each track separate? I have been asking my circles of friends, from techno-geeks to don’t-ask-me-I-am-just-a-user, but no one can give me a satisfactory answer. So I have decided to try to find an answer myself, an answer that is safe and free-of-charge. Click here for a dedicated article on how I do it.

Now, with more and more portable devices that are capable to play video clips in an acceptable size and quality, watching your favorite video clips on the go is indeed a God sent reality. Imagine, you are squeezed into a train and your destination is just a few stops away. You don’t have your book or magazine with you and you are bored staring at a train full of bored people. Listening to music is just not good enough. What shall you do? Yes, take out your iPod, or MP3 Player, or wireless phone and watch your favorite video clips. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is late again and you have absolutely nothing better to do, what shall you do? That’s right, take out your portable device, watch a clip or two of your favorite homemade video, and be reminded why you still love that person despite the fact that he or she is yet again late. Or when you are stuck in a jam at CTE, cars are not moving and you car is on handbrake, what shall you do?

Okay, probably not for the last scenario but you get the drift.

I am surprised that none of the mainstream software application allows ripping of DVD tracks into a portable format with a click of a button. We can rip audio track into MP3 format. Why can’t we do the same for the DVD that comes with the CD that I own? There are software applications out there that may do the job with just a click. Most of them are on trial version and not free-of-charge. I also have had bad experience installing and un-installing these third party software (even for that famous video converter for iPod) ended up with system corruption here and there. Finally, not many out there have the feature of allowing you to rip your DVD track-by-track much like the audio CD. Usually the end result is one huge video file that takes up too much space in your precious portable device.

So, are you ready to read more?

Disclaimer: My criteria may be different from yours.  If you are happy with installing trial or full versions of third party software, please continue to do so. I also prefer the total flexibility of extracting any part of the video that I want.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

On Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic & Baby

Shopaholic & Baby

Yet another fellow senior from my good old university that I am proud of (erm … somewhere in Oxford, UK), I swear I might have met Sophie Kinsella or rather Madeleine Wickham back in my college days. Make no guess of how old I am please. Onto her fifth installment of the shopaholic series, this time round, our all-too-famous Becky Brandon is back … with a baby. To be honest, I am more interested in the success formula of Sophie Kinsella rather than the book itself.

Sophie Kinsella must have been one of the most consistent writers I have come to know and such an achievement is not at all easy to attain.  I have started with her Undomestic Goddess and now onto 5 of her shopaholic series. Every single book is as entertaining as ever making me laugh-out-loud unfailingly – something that I don’t usually do unless the book is really funny. I make a note that I shall read Can You Keep a Secret? next – a book that is sitting in my bookshelf somewhere. And I am certainly looking forward to her yet-to-be-released-novel Remember Me?

On average, each chapter is about 10 to 30 pages long  and each chapter may have 2 to 3 sub-sections. Each section is engaging on its own – however sequential it is. Sophie Kinsella creates her main character (always a female so far) not without flaw, but yet commands her readers to fall in love with that character. That, is art. If I could do what Liz Phair did to a song-by-song reply to the Rolling Stones’ 1972 album Exile on Main Street, I would write a series of books with titles as follows (okay, private joke between the shopaholic fans and me):

  • The Secret Binary World of a Geek
  • Geek at Silicon Valley
  • Geek found a Soul-mate (who is into Tetris)
  • Geek and his Long Lost Brother
  • Geek and his Techno-baby

On a serious note, “Shopholic & Baby” is certainly a good read. On surface, it is the typical Becky loves shopping, Becky encounters a problem that cannot be surmounted, and Becky comes out to be the hero once again. Deep inside (OK, you can’t go that deep for a chick-lit), “Shopholic & Baby” is not too much into shopping but more into her love relationship. For those who have complained that there isn’t enough character development for Becky’s husband Brandon, rest assure that in Sophie’s latest installment, there is more into that.

Overall, I enjoy reading “Shopholic & Baby” immensely. Certainly a light read for one of my trips to the SeaWorld and the Taman Safari. If you despise any of her previous work on the shopaholic series, you probably won’t like this one either. I do recommend reading from the beginning of the series because the storyline will make more sense to you.

Are her books memorable? Probably not. Do her books entertain? A million yes.

Related Entries: Remember Me By Sophie Kinsella – A Calculated Risk That May Or May Not Work For Some, Can You Keep A Secret?, and Undomestic Goddess – A Good Read

Categories
Comedy Movie Reviews Romance

27 Dresses – Girls Would Love This

27 Dresses

If you have just started dating a girl not for long, bringing her to watch “27 Dresses” would probably up your rating for a good few notches. She may even remember this chick flick as the movie for the both of you.  So you better prepare to write down the date and place and what she wears for your future reference.  Believe me, girls have super memory when it comes down to dates and clothes.

Despite my rather vehement protest of watching yet another romance comedy two days in a row, Cynthia leaped in joy when she heard the words “27 Dresses”.  TK seconded that because he needed something to relax.  In the name of democracy, I booked “27 Dresses”.

The close to 2 hours movie has quite a straightforward storyline of a perpetual bridesmaid (Jane) who has a secret crush with his boss (George) and one day, her sister (Tess) turns up and falls in love with George.  Meanwhile, a journalist (Kevin) stumbles into Jane’s life and perhaps, having attended 27 weddings as a bridesmaid, it is time for Jane to start thinking about herself.

The chemistry between Jane (Katherine Heigl) and Kevin (James Marsden – the prince from Enchanted and the cyclop from X-men) is pretty good. I especially enjoy watching the performance of Katherine Heigl who is an Emmy-winning and Golden Globe-nominated American actress best known for her role in Grey’s Anatomy.  There are sufficient humors in “27 Dresses” that keeps the movie entertaining to watch. Some scenes – though very much like scenes straight from a TV drama – are pretty memorable (such as the one when Kevin is trying to teach Jane how to say no). The overall plot is also pretty believable without making me cringe too much. Believe it or not, Cynthia did shed some tears in some parts of the movie.

If you like the chick flick genre, “27 Dresses” maybe for you.  I personally get a bit “wedding overdose” at the end of the movie. “27 Dresses” has definitely a higher entertainment value than “Mr. Average” but scores lower in the area of originality.

Categories
Comedy Foreign Movie Reviews

Mr. Average (Comme tout le monde) – A Light Entertainment

Mr. Average

My body was definitely suffering from movie withdrawal syndrome and the good thing about not having any for a while is that every movie advertised looks good. In the morning, I texted my Movie Review Squad with the message of “documentary, French romance comedy, Japanese anime, or horror?”. And almost simultaneously, I received two text messages pointing at the direction of a French romance comedy. OK. I was not the only one who was itching for some good movies. “Mr. Average” it was then.

“Mr. Average” is not one of those French movies that after the ending hits you, you have to re-watch the entire movie again.  Nor it is the typical French romance drama that has lots of character development.  The rather plump looking main actor Khalid Maadour, who plays the role of Jalil, does look like any Tom, Dick, and Harry (he does look like the policeman who can listen to people’s mind in the TV series “Heroes” to me though). The main actress from Montreal, Quebec – Caroline Dhavernas – who plays the role of Claire is anything but. She is totally stunningly attractive and sweet looking (Cynthia agrees) that I can easily bypass how immorally wrong her role is at the beginning. Claire, a budding actress, is hired by a top marketing company to deceive Jalil who has the gift of predicting what the mass market wants through his own opinions. Claire even sleeps with Jalil on day one! Surprisingly, with such a sweet looking girl, condemning her decision was the last thing on my mind … the success of making likable characters in the movie eh?

There is nothing deep about the romance comedy “Mr. Average” though the scriptwriter is pretty imaginative. You will most likely walk out of the theatre feeling happy. The soundtrack is great though. I will certainly check out the CD.

Categories
Other People's Lives

Just For Laugh – Handphone Charging Service

Major Hotel in Jakarta

Okay, I actually do like this hotel in Jakarta so I am going to put the logo instead in order to avoid the name being picked up by the search engine spiders. It is also my attempt to write something light and not so wordy. Hope you like it.

Last Monday, when I left Jakarta, I accidentally packed Cynthia’s handphone charger home. Her phone was running out of battery. How to do business without a handphone these days? Panic! At the 15th Floor … Cynthia quickly referred to the hotel service guide and surprise, surprise, there was actually a handphone charging service for major brands.

Delighted, Cynthia called the front desk on the same night and asked for the handphone charging room service.  The front desk politely informed her that she has to bring her phone to the lobby instead.

The next morning at six, Cynthia’s mother brought the phone down to the hotel lobby.  The front desk promptly informed her to visit another desk for such a service.  Upon reaching the desk as directed, she said to the hotel staff, “Good morning, could you please charge this handphone for me?”  And his reply was …

“Yes ma’am.  Have you brought the charger with you?”

Need not to say, Cynthia’s mother was shocked.

PS. In the end, there is such a service. Perhaps that particular staff was not familiar with that rare request?

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

The Bible By Karen Armstrong – Books That Changed The World

The Bible by Karen ArmstrongI confess that when I first picked up Karen Armstrong’s latest work, I was skeptical about a biography written based on the world’s most widely distributed book. Nevertheless, I have deep respect for Karen Armstrong who is now a freelance monotheist and is able to look at all three faiths of Abraham in an objective manner. And since “The Bible” is relatively light in volume (229 pages of main text and 73 pages of glossary, notes, and index), I gave it a go. Given the track record of I still am trying to finish that close to 700 pages book called “Holy War” (1988) by the same author, I was also skeptical of my ability to finish reading “The Bible”.

“The Bible” does not promote any theory nor provide technical details on how the bible is reconstructed over the years. Nor has the author voiced out any of her opinion on what is right or wrong. Karen Armstrong simply lays down established facts over the entire history of the bible from the beginning when the stories were passed onto the next generation within the Jews, to the time when the followers of Judaism and Christianity took a different path in compiling the bible, to our present days when the bible is still being interpreted and used as the justification – in some instances – to rage war to end wars. Our civilizations evolve through cycles of violence and cycles of enlightenment and throughout the history of time, Karen Armstrong highlighted the different approaches mankind has taken when interpreting the language within the bible and the numerous key persons in history who have influenced the way the bible is complied. All these established facts are tied back to some of the major events of our world.

Personally, I think the first 5 chapters – Torah, Scripture, Gospel, Midrash, and Charity – are interesting and are quite an easy read. These chapters do not dwell too much onto the well known stories within the bible but rather the origins of the fragments of literature that existed in the old days and how these fragments were being compiled initially. I am more familiar with the Christian side of the house and I find that reading how the Jews compile the Hebrew bible is refreshingly new. More so when I realise that although Christian and Judaism have taken a different path, they did arrive at the same way on how the bible should be read – through charity. The next 2 chapters – Lectio Divina (Sacred study) and Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone!) – are quite a tough read. I will probably have to go through that again when I have time. In fact, I may even have to go through the entire book again after familiarizing myself with some of the key terms in the glossary section. The last chapter – Modernity – is a good read as it becomes more relevant to the modern day development. Finally, Epilogue summarizes the entire book with Karen Armstrong interjecting what  is deeply needed in our torn and fragmented world – ‘principle of charity’ as a spiritual discipline.

Will the bible continue to be relevant to us? I can’t say what is going to happen in year 3000 but the bible seems to have survived through millenniums. As an afterthought, the bible must be one of the most time and resource consuming projects in the history of mankind. Adding up the man-hours of the scholars and theologists and leaders who have contributed to what the bible is today is phenomenal.

My initial skepticism has largely been cast aside. The bible is still an inspiring piece of work that the devotees have contributed to. My only discomfort is that “The Bible” mostly focuses on Protestantism and America towards the end. I don’t think I have read a single reference to the Vatican, which I think has played quite a big role in reforming the Catholic tradition in recent days. Nor I have read any reference to anywhere in the world besides the West and the Middle East. The latter I can still accept due to the lack of contribution to the way the bible is compiled by the people of the East. The former, is hard to swallow.

Categories
Travel Blog

Taman Safari Indonesia – Don’t Miss If You Visit Jakarta

Taman Safari Indonesia

Quite honestly speaking, Taman Safari is simply the destination to be if you are to visit Jakarta. Equipped with tons of carrots and bananas, we drove into a path that most animals roamed freely. Animals such as zebras and deer, they tended to stick their heads into the car as they munched onto the carrots we held. Those big wet snouts and teeth may have scared or disgusted the living helium out of Mark and Cynthia – who were the guardians of the passenger car windows. I have to keep screaming at them in a friendly way to keep the windows opened. It was a total pandemonium inside the car with everyone screaming for different reasons, but in a good and fun way.

One time, an elephant walked by and as it put its face really close to the car, it was like that one Jurassic scene. What I saw was one huge eye and the reptilian textured skin around the eye and nothing else. Very scary! Even I did scream a bit.

There were other tame animals strolling along the path as well. Like that huge hippo, I have no idea what it was eating. Hippos are like big bags of fat to me. Gruesome! No way on earth I am going to touch them.

The not so tame animals were breathtaking. It was the first time for all of us – Mark, Felicia, Cynthia, her mother, and I – to be in such proximity with the tigers, and lions, and leopards, and bears. Each zone is guarded by two huge iron gates in both entrance and exit. As you can imagine, having any of these animals leave their zones would definitely spell trouble to the rest of the animals outside the zones.

Just how close we were with these wild animals? Not more than 2 meters I reckon. We were warned to keep our windows closed at all time while inside the zones but being the Animal Planet journalists-want-to-be, Mark and I did wind down the windows when the lions seemed to be having a nap (and then one of them half opened its eyes and scared the living calcium out of us) and when a tiger took a walk away from us (and when it did came back towards us, we quickly closed the windows). Mark managed to take the video clips of two bears fighting, or rather playing, with one and other in a pool of muddy water as well as one tiger picked up a fight with another tiger that was taking a nap. The tigers were no further than 10 to 15 meters away from us and the roar of a tiger has definitely left a lasting impression to me. There was even a white tiger too! Majestic! One thing I can’t comprehend is why these wild animals love to rest on those manmade wooden platforms that were placed just beside the path? Is it more comfortable to sunbath on a raised platform rather than on the grassland under the shade? Or it is closer to human meat?

Some of you may have read my writing about a monkey (or rather an orangutan) that threw the banana back to me twice while I was trying to feed it across the canal. That was 10 years ago by the way. Well, I am not sure if it was the same orangutan that walked towards our car. If so, it seems to have grown much bigger. I wish I could have taken a picture of what happened next but the bus behind us sort of shoved us away. So, I shall try to describe in words. One orangutan walked slowly towards us and as it reached the canal, it slowly stood up in its two legs – with its chins high and stomach tucked in – it raised its right hand to the sky with its palm stretched flat. I picture the orangutan as the pillar of the ancient disc world. The scene was majestic. What was it doing? I have no clue (some guessed that it was asking for bananas). And it maintained that posture for a good few minutes in front of all the tourists.

If you do visit Taman Safari, which is a one to two hours drive from Jakarta, I would recommend buying some carrots and bananas before you enter. Of course, hire a driver will give you a more personal experience than taking a bus. Since feeding the orangutans is discouraged, I think the only animals that eat bananas are the small bears and elephants. Hence, do get more carrots instead. Blow about two third or even three quarter of what you have for the beginning route right before entering the “danger” zones. Obviously, those tigers or lions are more interested in you rather than your carrots and bananas. There aren’t that many animals to feed after those zones.

I wish I could write more on our wonderful trip to the beautiful city of Bandung – Cynthia’s birth-town – but I shall leave this to another blog or article. After I sort out the photos back in Singapore, I will share them with you all. Once again, stay tuned!