I was at the Cathay Picturehouse yesterday for the first time, to catch "A Matter of Size", as part of the Israeli Film Festival. And I was duly impressed that for one of the few times ever, the movie started punctually! (the movie was supposed to start at 9:20pm, and when I looked at my watch when it started - not the trailers mind you, it was 9:20.52pm...) Impressive. In fact, when the movie started, the (small) cinema was only about half-full (or half-empty... ;p), since I think most other patrons were still mingling outside. (Too bad!)


Personally, I kinda like indie films, without the Hollywood glitz. Plus I also like movies which are filmed in exotic places, like in Israel, and not your usual US-based, or Europe-based movies. The movie is about a (fat) man, named Herzl, who was part of a diet club, whom despite his "best efforts", was still putting on weight week after week. Whilst working at a Japanese restaurant (as a dish washer), he comes to know of Sumo, and decides to start his own Sumo club. And guess where he recruits his group members? From the diet club of course. Well, the story goes on to tell how they started a sumo competition, and how Herzl finds love in Ramle, and so on, but I guess in the end, this movie just reminds us that being skinny is simply just a sort of social phenomenon, and there were numerous hilarious moments in the film. It's a pity that there will/are only 3 screenings of the film during this festival (the last show is at 7.15pm tonight, but it's sold out...)

If you know of other upcoming film festivals, do let me know! :)

Labels: Movies

It's been a while since I've updated the blog - i wonder if anyone still reads it... but well, it's more for me to document some of my thoughts anyway... :)

Anyway, I'll be starting my practicum (omg, it's a real word!) next week at Changkat Changi Sec Sch. well, i can hear the gasps and looks of horror already. Ever since I've got my posting (which happens to be my final posting as well), and I tell people that I'm posted to CCSS, they react first with shock, and then looks of apathy (orh, u poor thing...) But I think it's okay lah - my sister was from CCSS and she turned out alright (mostly... ;p)

CCSS wasn't my first posting though. i was initially posted to Anglican High, and was looking forward to leading the "high life" (on top of the hill that is), struggling to cope with "high-ability students". But unfortunately, this was not to be, as I soon found out the MOE (being ever so efficient), has messed things up, and there were already an excess of physics/maths teachers at AHS, and so I got my destined school.... From the city to the slums it is... ;p

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Speaking of slums, Slumdog Millionaire is pretty much a rags to riches movie - both within the movie, and the circumstances of the movie (since it's a low budget production, and lacked the glitz of Hollywood glamour). But the movie is certainly worth watching - for its accurate, and raw portrayal of India (it's true! people really do behave like that!), and I loved the token pseudo-"Bollywood" dance at the end of the movie.

For this, I hope they win some Oscars this weekend.

Labels: Movies, Teaching

(link to the Official 12 Lotus Website)

I went to watch 12 Lotus today with my mum! Well, given that I'm a fairly staunch supporter of local productions (and not so much the main stream ones, read: jack neo, though), I had to watch it lah. Besides, I usually enjoy Royston Tan's films..

But I must say I was slightly disappointed by 12 Lotus. The film started off with great promise - and made me feel so "kek sim" (damn, how do I translate "kek sim"?), because it was, to be it quite simply, in your face. Especially those scenes with Wang Yi Liang in... aiyo, so kek sim - you'd wanna get out of your seat and punch him in the face! (breathe kenny breathe!)

However, after the opening 40 minutes or so, the movie just kinda headed into a dreary bore. The storyline got a bit confusing (I thought it was quite a lousy story to begin with), got rather unrealistic, and the pace slowed to a crawl. And unfortunately, Royston didn't manage to pick up the pace from then on, and the movie ended.

Though having said that, the hokkien songs were quite power (I know my mum enjoyed it anyway. And the 12 Lotus song is not a made up song btw - source: my mum), and singing hokkien songs never sounded so cool! And just so I don't end this post the way 12 Lotus ended, I shall leave you with lyrics to the song: 一百万 (ji pa ban), so that you can sing along to it, after you've downloaded it from here!

若是我有一百万　一百万　
我有一百万　一世人就轻松

(bridge)
无讲无人知　讲到真歹势　
吃甲彼呢大汉　搁不曾坐飞机
拼搏彼多年　无车无厝搁无爱人　
看人娶某搁做生意　有钱搁有势

若是我有一百万　我要坐飞机　
我要游世界HAWAII晒太阳　日本吃寿司
若是我有一百万　我要买车买厝山珍甲海味　
啥人卡福气来乎我做某

若是我有一百万　一百万　
若是你有欠用钱　开嘴免客气

(bridge)

若是我有一百万　我要坐飞机　
我要游世界　意大利饮咖啡　路边吃Spaghetti
若是我有一百万　我要买车买厝买店来收租　
闲闲免做工　带狗去散步

若是我有一百万　一百万　
若是你有欠用钱　开嘴免客气
若是我有一百万　一百万　
十千八千拿去用　免还嘛无问题
若是我有一百万　一百万
念白：朋友啊，你想一百万真多啊！

PS: If you want a free preview of a Royston Tan production, then check out my previous post on "CUT". (no, it's not pirated/illegal)

Labels: Movies, Muses, Singapore Dreaming

(yeah baby yeah!)

I've just finished watching "Becoming Jane" (on DVD!) - one of those shows I've been wanting to watch for a long time (in addition to Batman: Dark Knights & Red Cliff of course). And what can I say? It's a brilliant movie! (in case you wonder why I say that about every movie I watch, the reason is that I only mention the good ones! (and the horrigible ones of course... gotta name and shame... tsk tsk..)) It's probably mostly romanticised screenplay, but quite a large portion of it was based on historical accounts of Jane Austen's life. (you might have already guessed that I've been converted to a Jane Austen fan, having read & watched Pride & Prejudice, and got started on Sense & Sensibility).

Still, if the historical accounts are what it claims, then it's easy to see where Miss Austen got her inspiration for Pride & Prejudice from. In fact, I found many similarities between Becoming Jane & Pride & Prejudice. And given how much I loved the latter, you can guess that the affection follows through for this movie as well. (though given this affection, i've mentioned it remarkably few times on this blog. In fact, only a brief mention in this post [at the end] and this other post! Shocking, I know...)

And other than being an excellent film (oh, and it features such lovely country scenes filmed in Ireland! How I miss the Irish soil..... This post gives some excellent photos taken by yours truly, me... ;p but I digress once again), my friend also describes this as a "chick flick" - not quite the "Bring It On"-type chick flick. This one's more subtle, and more... elegant.... :)

Jane Austen - played by Anne Hathaway...


Jane's sister, Cassandra Austen - played by Anna Maxwell Martin.


And I shall now leave you to wonder why there's no caption for the last photo.

Labels: Movies

Kuchiki Rukia - with the most beautiful ice sword (Sode no Shirayuki) in Soul Society.
wah. Bleach is damn exciting now! Can't wait to find out what happens next. And being back in Singapore, I think it's best to play safe, and download direct instead of using bit-torrent - If only there was an iTunes store equivalent for anime... tsk tsk...

Meanwhile, I'm probably the last person on this planet to not have watched movies like Batman (Dark Knight) and Red Cliff. Boohoo. Anyone not watched them yet/wanna watch it again? ;p

I did however get my fix on local movies. I bought Royston Tan's 4:30 from Kinokuniya the other day. I can imagine how "thick" the script for the show must have been, given the incredibly low amount of dialogue in the movie. There were some amusing and poignant moments in the movie, but still, there were moments during the movie where I felt rather restless, and just wanted it to move on.

Some shots from the movie:

Labels: Anime, Movies

Magnolia - What a terribly gripping movie, if not very long (3 hours!). It's quite old I know, but it was the first time I've watched it. It was really enjoyable though, and not in the Mary Poppins kind of spoonful-of-sugar type happiness, but the oh-my-f**king-goodness type of enjoyment. And somewhat depressing as well.

Towards the end of the show, there was this scene of raining frogs. And I was commenting on how that's technically not possible, since you'll need a incredibly high concentration of frogs to be sucked up, transported to the city, to be rained upon. But a search on Wikipedia reveals that it does actually happen, though the animals may not always be alive. (Article HERE). And the most interesting about it is that there's apparently a documented rain of fishes in Singapore once upon a time (in 1861), according to this source.

The note is entitled
“Shower of Fishes; earthquake at Singapore,” and was published in 1861:’

We experienced here an earthquake at 7: 34 m., February 16, that lasted about two minutes; it was followed by & rains, which on the 20th, 21at, and 22d became veritable torrents. The last day at 9 a. m. the rain redoubled in fury, and in a half hour our inclosed plot became a sea of water * * *.

At 10 o’clock the rainn lifted and from my window I saw a large number of Malays and Chinese filling baskets with fishes which they picked u in the pools of water which covered the road. On being asked where the fishes came from, the natives replied that they had fallen from the sky. Three days afterwards, when the pools had dried up, we found many dead fishes.

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In other random stuff, I found out that GDBO in a Cambridge context means God Damn Bloody Oxford! ;p All the best to CUW and CULRC who are racing tomorrow - go kick some dark blue asses!

Labels: Cambridge, Movies

Over the last few weeks, I managed to watch a few movies, mostly on DVD, and I've enjoyed most of them...

Powaqqatsi - Life in Transformation
I watched it as part of the CUUNA film screening. It's quite an interesting film about the developing world. It has no dialogue, no actors, only great cinematography and music. If you think you've seen all the "developing world images", then you're wrong, cos most of the scenes shown were so raw, and quite eye-opening. It's still quite relevant even though this film is twenty-years old...


High School Musical(again!)
Haha... I just had to watch it again. And of course, I discovered that Leon is a fan of it as well....
(referenced to this post)

That Thing You Do
(oh my... Liv Tyler...)

Oh classic show. Got inspired to watch it again after my Sec 1/2 classmates formed a Facebook group for our lower sec class. We performed to "That Thing You Do" during assembly (i think it might have been during the JRIC - Junior Rafflesian Investiture Ceremony) then.... Memories.... =)

Palm Blossom
A Korean "coming of age" film. By coming of age, they meant lots of sex. A little disturbing though I thought. If you watch it, you'd understand. What's with this "love" for older women man?

I guess my favourite coming of age film is still "the Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" - go watch it if you haven't already...

Secret (不能说的秘密)
WAH! Finally caught the Jay Chou show.. To be honest, I really liked it, not so much for the story line I guess and I'm probably just romanticising anyway, but what the heck... it's nice to escape reality once in a while...

桂綸鎂(Kwai Lun-Mei or Gui Lunmei) - she's so pretty! So worth your money just to go and watch her... haha...

yubikiri... And I really enjoyed the piano/music pieces as well. No wonder it won Best Original Film Song at the 44th Golden Horse Awards.... well done!

Labels: Movies

just watched High School Musical on DVD (original ok... not download one... ;p) Anyway, this is another one of those movies which I will not normally watch, cos like very paiseh to walk into the cinema to watch it.. haha... but I had to watch it cos when I was in Singapore this summer (jul/aug 07) and I was doing this primary school camp. During the campfire, we played some song, and then all the kids started singing along! And I was quite stunned, cos I'd like to think that i'm fairly up to date with the music industry *cough* *cough* haha... So we asked the kids, and found out that the song was from High School Musical... (and mind you, these were like 11-year olds...) Anyhow, i thought, wah, how can kenny be ulu-ated, and so that's the story behind why I watched it. (very long story to justify hor...?)

The movie certainly didn't disappoint me, and I would probably say it exceeded my expectations. =X It's another of those movie with no real story lines, but the choreography and music is soooo superb! my two favourite-est songs are the basketball dance one and the finale dance sequence. It's damn catchy and makes you just jive along to the rhythm! I don't mind watching again, so if you want to watch, come to my room some day before i return the DVD to my friend... haha... :)

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term's been quite busy thus far otherwise. I'm pretty much stuck in the labs the whole day every day for the next 2 weeks, although it will be fairly relaxed after that... and I'm tired already... :(

Labels: High School Musical, Movies