Movie Review: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010)

Movie Review: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Pt 1 (2010)

Well, it was a tough choice between Red and Harry Potter since I am limiting myself to watch only one movie per week and the latter finally got my vote because I thought the movie preview was a little reminiscent of Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of The Ring where Harry, Hermione and Ron had to travel through so many scenic places to reach somewhere. I am not a fan of Harry Potter but I just like to visit those magical fantasy movies once in a while to dazzle my imagination with spells, fireballs, dragons, etc.


The movie starts off with Harry, Hermione and Ron leaving their homes because Voldemort has successfully infiltrated and eventually took over The Ministry of Magic. The trio of close friends barely escaped with their lives under the cover of their friends and family and they realized they must venture to find Voldemort's Horcruxes since Voldemort had imbued seven items his soul and hence can always resurrect himself whenever he dies. They must find these seven items and destroy them to defeat Voldemort.


Of the seven Horcruxes, an Elder wand, a Resurrection stone and a cloak of invisibility are the most powerful items because when these three Horcruxes, when brought together, will give the wielder the power of Death itself. Henceforth begins a long quest spanning unfamiliar landscapes to find clues to find these magical items without the help of their friends, protection from their Hogswart professors and perpetually under deadly pursuit by the Death Eaters.


Patience, tolerance and friendship between Harry, Hermione and Ron were tested amidst bitter words, jealousy, nervous intimacy and frustration when their inner nature were periodically corrupted by one of the Horcruxes in the form of a locket which they could neither destroy nor discard until they finally discovered the use of the Sword of Gryffindor.


I shall not provide too many spoilers there but expect the touching scene of a burial of a memorable and likeable character when this character narrowly saved Harry and his companions but sacrificed his life to do so.


I was hoping for some good magical action scenes but other than the forest chase scene, most of the others were too fast to be truly enjoyable for a non-fan viewer like me but the acting was subtle and good and at least the graphical effects were good enough and the treachery ran deep enough on the side of Voldemort who managed to find one of the most powerful Horcruxes to use against Harry Potter and his friends in Part II.


Blog Modifications and Changes:

I realized that some of my links on my blog are no longer working and it's high time that I updated them and change some of them completely. So here are the most recent blog modifications and changes made:

Blog Roll:

Olivia Ong's Facebook Group is included at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Olivia-Ong/41155493643

-> Started off in Japan as a singer specializing in bossanova, Olivia Ong came back to Singapore with a big bang and received more accolades for her comfortable singing style and her squeaky clean image in her latest album "Olivia".

Tay Kewei's blog url is updated to become http://taykewei.com/

-> The Singaporean singer-songwriter-vocalist is moving on to bigger events and gigs with her latest album "Come Closer...with Kewei" and now has her own website. A true inspiration to all that such dreams can be realized in Singapore.

Serene Koong's blog url is included at http://blog.omy.sg/serenekoong/

-> The Singaporean singer-songwriter from Funkie Monkies Productions has came quite some ways to reach where she is. Her hard work paid off when her most recent album "55:38:7" was well-received in the region.

KTVClub SG's blog url is included at http://www.ktvclub.blogspot.com/

-> This is an interest group for singing enthusiasts to gather for karaoke outings and regular singing competitions. The leader of the group, Nigel Tan, has been making admirable efforts to organize such activities to bring together more people.

William's blog url is included at http://moveondaily.blogspot.com/

-> The artiste manager of Royal International Group has a blog updating his artistes' events as well as his own feelings about the highs and lows of artiste management.

Serena's blog url is included at http://workingtowardsmydream-serena.blogspot.com/

-> Another artiste manager of Royal International Group maintains a blog about her artistes' events as well as her own thoughts about grooming young artistes in Singapore.

Elson's blog url included at http://elsonsoh.blogspot.com/

-> A Singaporean artiste under Royal International Group who has been working hard for the past few years to get his fledgling career up into the air. He is earmarked to release his album in November 2010 with a newly-released track, Saranghamnida, on the radio station FM93.3.

Shanice's blog url included at http://www.silvergrandeur.blogspot.com/

-> An even younger Singaporean artiste who is also trying to get her dream as a singer realized. Her stellar appearance has already drawn invitations from modeling and acting agencies even before she has found her path in singing.

Joseph's blog url included at http://josephhuiblog.blogspot.com/

-> A boyish looking Singaporean artiste recently recruited into Royal International Group. Being already a founder of the local artiste group Youthbox, Joseph is actually more experienced on the stage than he looks in his profile pictures.


Alright. Signing off with a quote from Flora Whittemore:

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live."

That's all for now. Have a wonderful weekend ahead, my faithful blog readers! ^__^

Movie Review: The Devil (2010) NC16

(Image credit goes to this url website)

Initially, I was daunted by the length of the movie, which is but a mere 81 minutes, but I was really intrigued by the storyline of how everything can be compacted so tightly within an elevator so I went ahead and watched the movie anyway.

I did not regret my decision - it was worth a full five popcorns rating. If Avatar is widely recognized as one of the best action movies of the year, I think this movie will go well as one of the best suspense/morality thriller of the year. The story revolves around how five strangers in a office building's elevator were trapped and suffered a series of horrifying experiences which led them to believe that one of them was the culprit. The story is then narrated by a South American security guard who goes on to reveal that according to a folktale by his grandmother - the Devil sometimes transforms itself into human form and punishes a group of sinners in the most bizarre ways unimaginable.

Expect a lot of deaths and blood in the movie, which explain its NC16 rating but for those readers who are able to watch this movie, please don't miss it. A strange suicide off the 35th floor of a building with the victim holding onto a string of rosemary, a brilliant and hardworking detective who recently lost his family, a temp security officer, a senior-looking office lady, a rough man with a missing red sack, an arrogant and talkative mattress salesman and an attractive girl looking for a lawyer. The story brings all of these people together a way to explain how the Devil manipulates the fears, doubts and suspicions of people in the modern world who have so many secrets hidden in their lives.

The detective works as hard as he can, summoning policemen, mechanics, firefighters to the scene as well, but as he begins to realize that none of his excellent detective skills and logical reasoning is able to make sense of the scene, he begins to believe the South American security guard that something supernatural is involved in the whole scheme of things and that he is actually the intended audience for all that is about to happen in that fateful elevator.

Why is the detective chosen? Will any human being actually make it out of that elevator alive with the Devil lurking as one of the passengers? I won't spoil the surprise. Please do not go to Youtube to read the comments because some of them have actually posted full spoilers ahead. Go with an inquisitive mind and an open heart about The God, The Devil, The Man and how all these three beings can possibly interact and have a great 81 minutes in the movie theater!

Movie Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife (NC16)

I ain't a fan of Resident Evil but I thought the movie plot's backdrop was really interesting. A virus known as T-virus was accidentally released into the human population and it turned them into killer zombies. The very few human survivors struggled against the endless and tireless zombie hordes as they barricaded themselves against the flesh-eating zombies.

The female protagonist, Alice, is one formidable survivor because not only she is the only human with genes capable of merging with the T-virus and survived without the zombie transformation, she is also experimented upon by the mysterious Umbrella Corporation (which is the culprit behind the T-virus) and is implanted with powers beyond the ordinary human.

Alice, in this installment of the movie, tries to find the location of Arcadia, which has been broadcasting over the radio waves that it is a sanctuary against the T-virus, providing shelter, protection and food for all the remaining survivors who have managed to elude and evade the zombies across the world. Alice arrives at Arcadia, only to find an empty island full of aircraft supposedly left behind by survivors who were lured by the radio broadcast. Alice then goes to Los Angeles with her two-seater propeller plane and discovers a small group of survivors besieged within a city prison. Will Alice manage to rally and rescue this band of unusual survivors with conflicting interests and find the true Arcadia and the rest of the survivors who abandoned their aircraft? I won't spoil the movie here.

Personally, I think the movie is only passable because beyond the movie's exciting and fiery firefights and zombie slaughtering, which usually end with blood-splattering to the head by the twin powerful shotguns or the samurai swords carried by Alice, the movie lacks depth and explanation on why some scenes are not continued through properly and just fizzled, expecting the audience to figure out the ill logic behind them.

For example, for all her skills and agility, Alice was actually overpowered by the leader of the Umbrella Corporation so easily and assuming all her superhuman powers were removed by the latter in that blow, how could Alice have survived the catastrophic plane crash without breaking a limb or two? There were also some cheap scares without truly showing the tenacity of the zombies, so despite their numbers, the zombies seem to be more functional as mere cannon or explosive fodder than to actually push the intensity of the movie. In short, the movie becomes Alice vs Umbrella Corporation with the zombies and other survivors as mere forgettable expendables.

I would only give the movie a 2.5 popcorn out of a possible 5.0 because it has so much room for improvement especially in terms of character development and zombie action. Most of the blood shed could have had more meaning than a simple scream and struggling limbs.

Movie Review: Toy Story 3 (2010)

A snapshot of Toy Story 2's main characters - most of them pulled through the storyline and made it to Toy Story 3 but a few of them, accordingly to Woody The Cowboy, were adopted by other children and did not continue with them for the next adventure.
Sunnyside - a seemingly sunny-looking place for abandoned and second-hand toys where they get to be played by children from the day-care center in the neighborhood. Seems like a good deal the toys when they misunderstood Andy's intentions about their fate when Andy (their original owner who was then17 years old) was about to head off the college.


Upon their initial arrival at Sunnyside, the toys were totally bowled over by the sheer size, colors and spaciousness of the day-care center's playroom. There were also many other interesting toys whom they made friends with. Only Woody seemed worried about the place because he was more interested in getting back the attention of Andy.

Toy Story 3 is one movie about how a group of toys struggled deeply with their loyalty to their original owner and with their desires to continue their lives as playable toys with integrity rather than risk being stashed away in the dark attic or thrown right out to be incinerated as trash.

As the toys generally decided to try their luck at continued survival at Sunnyside Daycare Center, what seems to be a friendly cohort of new toys belies a dangerous and tyrannical regime of anger and rejection of love. Realizing they need to get back to their original owner, the toys planned to stage a daring escape from Sunnyside but there were numerous obstacles in the way.

How will they get past locked doors, alert patrols, floodlights and a sleepless, screaming monkey with surveillance cameras installed all around the godforsaken place? How will they make their way back to Andy without freaking out the neighborhood if they are seen trotting down the streets? Will they be united with their owner Andy who will be leaving for college in a matter of hours?

I shall not elaborate any further and spoil the fun for all you readers out there. Go catch the latest and epic five-popcorn-worth story of the toys at your nearest cinema now!

All I can say is that, by the final scene of the movie, I was close to tears as it brought back memories of how I could have chosen to save so many of my childhood toys but I chose to throw them away instead. My toys cars, my plastic toy soldiers, my magic drawing board and my only LEGO set. If only I had caught this movie then, I would have fought every objection from my parents and kept all of them or recycle them.

I want to watch the movie again - this time - with the only surviving childhood toy - Blackie - a brownish teddy bear from a toy factory many many years ago. It's still sitting there at my study table. And I will see to it that it will remain by my side till the end of my days. I swear it.

Movie Review: The Karate Kid (2010)

I finally found some time to watch the movie - a newer version of the original Karate Kid trilogy many years ago. The movie is about how a reluctant Detroit-born kid is forced to move to Beijing to start life anew because her mother Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) is transferred to a new workplace. New to the neighborhood, Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) tries to make friends with the children, especially to a violin prodigy Meiying (Wenwen Han) but instead has a series of bad encounters with the local bullies. During one of the deadlier encounters, Mr Han (Jackie Chan) finally intervened and stopped the bullies in time.

After much pleading, Mr Han accompanied Dre Parker to the martial arts school where the bullies learned their arts, only to realize they were trained to be cruel, unthinking fighters by their teacher Master Li (Rongguang Yu) inside. Master Li arrogantly put up a challenge and Mr Han reluctantly agreed to train Dre Parker to meet Master Li's disciples in a national martial arts tournament.

What follows is a series of interesting training sessions, including the seemingly-mindless "Take off your jacket-put up your jacket-take it off" routine but what is truly captivating is when Mr Han takes Dre Parker to what I believed to be Mount Wudang (one of the top martial arts sect in China where Taiji Quan is originated from). Dre Parker witnesses all sorts of martial arts and is deeply moved by the concentration level of all the master practitioners there.

All these while, Dre Parker tries even harder to develop a love relationship with Meiying, only to be rebuffed by her strict parents, because Dre takes off with Meiying from a violin practice session without permission and nearly costs Meiying's violin auditions with the Beijing Academy of Music. A sincere reading of an apology to Meiying's father finally wins the forgiveness and the two young lovebirds are together again before Dre's impending martial arts tournament.

The tournament is one exciting affair and the audience is treated to a spectacular display of agility and aggression from the various promising young martial artistes. Dre Parker, after the initial confusion, finally gets the hang of the competition rules, and starts delivering excellent moves, match after match but suffers a horrific injury to his thigh at the semi-finals when Master Li instructs his semi-finalist disciple to break his leg. Dre Parker pleads with Mr Han to use an ancient bulb-heating healing technique to temporarily heal his leg and he forces himself to enter the finals only to be floored badly by his nemesis bully and with his thigh twice injured, Dre Parker struggles up for one final technique which he learns on his own (a snake stance which he witnesses at Mount Wudang) and delivers an amazing flip kick to gain the final point for his victory.

This is one movie worth watching because you get to enjoy an innocent love story beyond racial lines, an unusual martial arts training regime, an exciting martial arts tournament and even a emotional scene between Mr Han as he shares the reason why he has a car in his house's living room. I love the acting and chemistry between Mr Han and Jaden Smith and also the realism between the mother and son relationship as they struggle to cope with a completely alien culture.

I will give a four popcorn out of five for this not-to-be-missed movie, which really influences the audience, especially the young movie-goers who are just re-enacting the moves even as they leave the cinema. I hope they will also understand not just the beauty of martial arts but also the deep philosophies behind the value of them as a way of living and respecting oneself and others as well.

"Kungfu is in everyday life!"

This is an edited version of the original Karate Kid which shows most of the footage of their version of karate tournament. Hope you enjoy this as well... ^__^

Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

The movie is about how Hiccup, the young son of a Viking tribal chief, becomes a dragon rider after realizing he has an affinity to dragons, rather than a self-induced thirst to kill one to prove his place in the tribe and subsequently saves his tribe from a powerful dragon.

Hiccup lives in a Viking village where it is perpetually being harassed by pests, not rats, snakes or wolves, but dragons - many different types of dragons which grabs their livestock and set fire to their houses.

"More than three generations of Vikings have lived since the village started and all the houses are new."

During one of the dragons' raids on the village, Hiccup managed to spot the most elusive and seemingly deadly dragons they have encountered - The Night Fury, and fired off a shot which successfully captured the lightning ball-breathing dragon. Although Hiccup was tempted to kill the dragon to put an end to the laughing he had endured as the most incompetent dragon-killing Viking in the village, he was won over by his own compassion and started befriending the injured and fish-eating Night Fury whom he named "Toothless".

As their unusual friendship grew and he began to try and modify the dragon's injured tail wing and fly with the dragon, Hiccup had to pretend he was interested in the dragon-killing training approved by his Father and trained by the village blacksmith. For a while, Hiccup found his double life as a dragon trainer and a dragon killer useful as he studied Night Fury's behavior and learned how to control other types of dragons without resorting to bashing their brains out with a Viking war hammer. His long time love interest began to suspect something was amiss when Hiccup became an expert against dragons over a short space of time and found out about his friendship with Night Fury.

An unexpected flight in the mist led the three of them to the Dragons' Lair which they found to be a resting place of a gigantic dragon and all the raids were actually conducted to feed the enormous appetite of this might dragon, contrary to what the villagers thought all along. When Hiccup's father finally discovered Night Fury and the location of the Dragons' Lair, he led the entire tribe's warriors to the lair, hoping to expel the dragons and stop the raids but without realizing the presence of the much more powerful six-eyed ancient dragon, Hiccup's father's army was defeated and routed before Hiccup arrived with the other young Vikings-in-training on the backs of lesser dragons.

A dragon fight ensued and I am not going to tell you what happened in the end because it would be such a spoiler to do so if you haven't watched the movie. Haha.

I particularly loved the part where how Hiccup and his father were trying to communicate about their diverse interests in dragons and how the awkward scene was portrayed so accurately with all the nuances in expressions and body languages. The graphics were great but unlike some of the proponents of the movie, I thought the flying scenes were not that impressive. It's probably because I have already seen Avatar The Movie and thus thought lesser of another protagonist flying on the back of a dragon-like creature. The thematic concerns of the movie were good though, showing how people may struggle with expectations of others and realizing that things do not have to happen in the ways in order to come up with a better solution to the seemingly impossible situation.

I would give the movie a 3.5 star out of 5 and it would be considered an entertaining and humorous movie to spend your movie money on.

Movie Review: The Green Zone (2010)

When Master Warrant Officer, Miller (Matt Daemon), realized that his special WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) Search unit had hit yet another empty site after being given "reliable" intelligence from the US Army in Iraq, he began to suspect that he was being led into a wild-goose chase. An out-of-the-blue tip-off by a seemingly ordinary Iraqi citizen brought Miller and his team to intervene in a meeting by the top generals in the then-defeated Iraqi Army and when Miller finally captured a suspect in the meeting and got hold of a encrypted notebook, Special Forces members suddenly arrived in helicopters and took away the suspect while Miller hid the notebook away. The bizarre and unexpected arrival of these mysterious Special Forces operatives further fueled Miller's suspicions that something was amiss.

I thought the movie was pretty well-made around MWO Miller, a one-legged Iraqi citizen, an imposing and elusive Iraqi general, a CIA chief, a top US official in the Iraqi Interim Authority, interspersed with realistic gun battles on the streets of Iraq, moments of tension within the various operating units of the US Army, teething moments of political cunning and outbursts of frustration by Iraqis who wanted peace and stability but faced such real threats of surviving the harsh post-war conditions.

It was a movie that I enjoyed watching and following the action, which was evenly and cleverly-spaced out between the acting and the unraveling of the storyline of what might truly have happened during the fateful Iraq War - it could have been just an excuse for war - there was no weapons of mass destruction and many have died in vain. I encourage those who wanted to learn more about the field conditions of the post-war Iraq then to watch this absorbing movie. A 3.5 out of 5, worthy of the movie ticket price.

Movie Review: 14 Blades 锦衣卫 (2010)

Movie Review:

I went to watch this movie because I support Donnie Yen's action flicks and I like the actors Sammo Hung and Zhao Wei. The movie is about how the Ming Dynasty's Imperial Guards, also known as The Brocade Guards (due to the silk brocades they wore on the outside), was being used in a power struggle and Qing Long, the commander of the Imperial Guards, was being pursued because he was in the way of the usurpers.

Qing Long felt compelled to prevent the conspiracy, which involved an exiled prince who wanted to get the Imperial Seal to allow him to return to the Imperial Palace to usurp the throne. The Imperial Seal is historically real but was lost in the folds of history. Qing Long, wounded in his failed attempt in one of his missions, decided to hire the services of an armed escort house known as Justice Escorts, in which acted by Zhao Wei was the daughter of the escort chief. The two of them ventured in the outer desert plains of China where the story would culminate into a series of deadly fights between Qing Long, Wu Zhun (who acted as a leader of some desert raider groups), Xuan Wu (acted by Qi Yingwu) and a mysterious and highly-skilled girl called Tuo Tuo (supposedly the adopted daughter of the exiled Prince).

The movie was quite alright since I was looking for some kungfu action from Donnie who managed to deliver despite the fact that he had to lug some heavy-looking box containing fourteen blades used to torture and kill enemies. There were some comical scenes in the show which lightened up the relatively morbid story about how Qing Long had to recover his dignity as an Imperial Guard because of all the treachery and betrayal. Wu Zhun was not much of an actor but at least he looked the part of the charismatic desert raider who bravely fought the mysterious female pugilist. The final scene was about how Qing Long had to face off the female pugilist who was incredibly powerful and the movie ended with a narrative of Zhao Wei recollecting the finer moments of the movie.

I would advise my blog readers not to hold their breath for any good acting close enough to the movie Bodyguards and Assassins but the action scenes were definitely impressive enough to keep my ticket value worthwhile. Zhao Wei was probably the one shouldering most of the heavy acting since almost none of the male leads could act well given their rather stony expressions and rigid body language. I took in more of the beautiful scenery but I lamented the lack of any character development of the main villain, Tuo Tuo, who seemed to only provide pugilistic scenes with too little acting to be connected well.

It's just a three popcorn movie to pass the week before Chinese New Year and I'd be looking forward to see Jackie Chan and Lee Hom's movie Big Soldier and Little General during the CNY period. Have a good Chinese Lunar New Year ahead! ^__^

Movie Review: Bodyguards and Assassins (2009), Photos of Memorable Moments of 2009

Movie Review: Bodyguards and Assassins (2009):

This movie is probably best compared with Avatar because if the latter is considered the pinnacle of graphics excellence, the former is considered to be the pinnacle of acting for Hongkong movies for 2009. Boasting a formidable array of actors and actresses, the movie storyline is about how a group of ordinary (well, some of them do possess extraordinary martial arts skills) people do their utmost to protect Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary leader who is on an hour's trip to organize some revolutions in Hongkong.

The problem is that The Chinese government of the Qing Dynasty has ordered imperial assassins to kill Dr. Sun in the British controlled colony of Hongkong and both sides clashed valiantly in their respective attempts to fulfill their mission objectives. I am not going to spoil the movie by revealing too much here but you can get a glimpse from the general description of the main characters here:

• A Hongkong policeman who is a gambling and a secret mercenary for crime.
• A street beggar who punished himself after falling for his mother and watching her die.
• A rickshaw puller who is a loyal servant to a generous merchant.
• A merchant who lives a secret life as a revolutionary but refuses his son to participate.
• A merchant's son who believes that a revolution is more important than carrying on the bloodline.
• A concubine who did not wish to see the death of her husband.
• An escaped Shaolin monk who wishes to regain his honor to return back to the temple.
  
• A Hongkong police chief who is squashed between British interests and Chinese revolutionaries.
• A newspaper editor who is prepared to die everyday in order to print revolutionary news.
• A daughter of an exiled Chinese general who wants to repay her father by living his dream.
• An imperial assassin who believes that western imperialism has given nothing to the Chinese.

Now...watch the movie to see how their lives, beliefs, fears and honour are all intertwined to clash into a climax along the busy streets of Hongkong for a deadly 60 minutes visit by Dr. Sun Yat-sen.


Photos from Memorable Moments in 2009:
The Hokkaido chocolate ice-cream dessert from Ministry of Food for me.
My lunch outing with Sushi Rabbit consists of a salmon set which tasted quite delicious but the salmon is a little over-fried till it charred on the underside. The Ministry of Food at Bugis Junction can be quite expensive so be prepared to fork out at least $50+ for a decent meal for two.
Some Hokkaido green tea ice-cream dessert for Sushi Rabbit, one of my VIP friends who is always flying around the world.
Sushi Rabbit ordered some egg-like soup with chicken in it. The portion was so big that she insisted that I helped her finish the food. As mischievous as I was that afternoon, I re-insisted her to finish up all the food before we leave. Hahaha.
The spaghetti with sausage was just passable because the sausages were way undersized compared to the picture on the menu and there was little ingredients besides to really make the dish as flavorful as I would have wanted. Still, after a 4 hour KTV session, I am too hungry to care that much that night.
The KTV.sg Club people decided to have dinner after the four hour session and we headed out to this Japanese foodcourt somewhere behind The Cathay. I did not know such a place existed so the outing yielded another location for me.
This was taken during my first outing with the KTV.sg Club people on an undisclosed date and location. I was most intrigued by the efforts of such an interest club, which is exceedingly rare in Singapore, and it turned out to be a memorable experience because there were really incredibly skilful members who could easily belt out difficult songs and it really livened up the outing.
This was the dinner at Marche at VivoCity when I met Da Niu and his wife after so many years apart. Da Niu is doing well with his own company and we had a jolly good evening talking and reminiscing about the old times during our secondary school years.
The map of Ferelden in Dragon Age: Origins. It sure looks plain but during my gameplay, I remembered crossing the game continent no less than twenty times and almost every trip entailed some random encounters which was both fun to watch and overcome. Imagine an encounter where wolves actually laid hunter traps for my adventuring party members??
This is a screenshot that I took from the game Dragon Age: Origins. I think this was about the quest to try and resolve some armed/clawed conflict between the werewolves and the elves in the forest. Eventually, I managed to persuade the leaders of both sides to commit suicide to end the conflict since neither of them wished to forgive the other whilst trying to avoid implicating their peoples/beasts to more bloodshed.
This was my last lunch for 2009 - Chicken Chop. It's been quite some time since I ate authentic Western food and I wanted to give myself a nice treat before the year ends. 2009 had been a terrible year in so many aspects.

Channel U's tele-movie "The Promise" 《 向日葵的约定》

Channel U is showing a new telemovie called The Promise 《 向日葵的约定》 on 27 Dec 2009 at 9.30pm and I am hoping to encourage more readers to view the movie because I thought it will be a good showcase of acting and songs. The story is about how two young lovers are trying to realize a romance of innocence and purity (the girl is suffering from a aliment which renders her to be child-like whilst the boy is quite lost with his own directions in life). How will all these work out in the end? Stay tuned tonight.

I came to know of it when XiaoHan started advertising her song composition of 《受保護》 on Facebook and wanted the readers to write in to collect the song from Funkie Monkies Productions instead of ripping the song off from the Internet directly.

For those who are interested in the song, here's the youtube video preview (it's not the complete song version) and if you are further interested in the song, please either click on XiaoHan's blog or within the youtube video itself and follow the instructions there to write in to get the song.

I have already gotten my copy of the complete song version from Funkie Monkies through email but I refuse to upload the entire song up here because I think they are collating data for those appreciative of the song and I don't want to spoil their deliberate efforts here. I also want to support the song because the song is completed locally by a local singer and a local songwriter. Long live music by Singaporeans! ^__^

Without further ado, let's hear the shortened version before you decide whether to apply to grab the song from the original producers.

Song Recommendation for Dec 2009
龔芝怡（芝麻）作曲、演唱，並參於編曲的《受保護》
小寒作词


A
心疼你一臉無能為力
你最不擅長演戲
反讓我更愛你

心領了你的小心翼翼
是怕我會委屈
傻瓜別怪自己

B
有你深愛過的我
有甚麼事談不妥
乖 聽我說
過你要的生活

C
我們其中一個幸福
好過兩人都不知足
你懂我最愛哭
眼淚並不表示我怕孤獨

這一刻最大的幸福
是錯下去前說不
分離不苦 這不算苦
不要想著彌補

我不是個孩子 無須再 受保護

A
別以為我的心像瓷器
心碎並不是委屈
是成長的必須

別小看這一路的回憶
它會開成感激
給我存在意義

B
有你深愛過的我
有甚麼事談不妥
乖 聽我說
過你要的生活

C
我們其中一個幸福
好過兩人都不知足
你懂我最愛哭
眼淚並不表示我很無助

這一刻最大的幸福
是錯下去前說不
分離不苦 這不算苦
不要感觸

D
不要反覆 不要反顧
不要愛她吞吞吐吐
女生最恨戀人還想保護
上一段追逐

C
我們其中一個幸福
好過兩人都不知足
你懂我最愛哭
眼淚並不表示我很無助

這一刻最大的幸福
是錯下去前說不
分離不苦 這不算苦
不要想著彌補
我不是個孩子
無須再 受保護

我因為愛了你
無須再 受保護

Movie Review: Avatar (2009), Tycoons: A Business Simulation Facebook Application

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers out there. I didn't really celebrate this year's Christmas because I wasn't in any mood to do so in any elaborate manner.

It seems the predominant mood amongst most of my circle of friends. Perhaps New Year Eve will be different. Meanwhile, I am just slacking away at home, gaming, napping and treating my parents to a small dinner. Hope all of you are spending the time the best way you deem appropriate. ^__^

Movie Review: Avatar (2009)





This is indeed the one movie you should be watching because the graphics are superbly done and the storyline is riveting, particularly so because of its theme of materialistic greed versus the genuine connection of humanity to nature.

The story revolves around how a US Marine soldier, Jack Sully, who was crippled from waist downwards took over a special assignment from his deceased brother - to enter a new world of Pandora using a state-of-the-art avatar (a genetically modified being created from both the genes of his brother and a native species of Pandora). Although the soldier made a double pact with both the scientific faction as well as the military faction of the entire Pandora expeditionary team, he began to realize how the native species, Na'vi, were incredulously human-like, but with a much deeper appreciation and connection to the natural world of Pandora.

Pulled in so many different directions, and with the time ticking on an all-out battle between the bow-wielding Na'vi and the machine-gun-toting ex-Marines mercenaries from the expeditionary team, Jack must choose his side and be prepared to lay his life down to determine the future of Pandora.

As the viewer, be prepared to be awed by the bewildering variety of flora and fauna on Pandora and be shell-shocked by the stunning battle scenes as both groups clashed fiercely and heroically over the fate of the entire planet. I would not hesitate to give this movie a 5 stars out of a possible 5 because it's been so long since so much effort is being put into weaving graphics, action, acting together and pace them into a heart-pounding and yet heart-rending movie. Don't miss it.

Tycoons: A Business Simulation Facebook Application

I am spending quite some time online playing a new facebook application game called Tycoons. It's another of those business simulation games but I thought it has been able to capture my attention for quite a few days so far because there is actually a good deal of realism within the game. It's highly recommended for any blog reader who is hoping for a feel of what business trading is all about and how business people plan for their investments and returns over commodities such as power, aluminium, oil, clothings, cars, housing and many more.

I am only a few days into the game and am still struggling with trying to hit the level necessary for the building for a national bank and a nuclear power plant. The learning curve is high but with careful use of the game reward points, I think it will be providing a nice platform for some learning on financial management for those trying to develop some business acumen.

Movie Review: Storm Warriors (2009)

Well, the main actors still look so handsome and charismatic but I really hated the storyline of this movie - too much was left unsaid and it could leave viewers pretty confused about why such and such happened. There was too little acting and too much display of computer enhanced graphics that I was a little disappointed because in the original comic book series, the battle between Wind and Cloud was a lot better and much more emotional than the movie could depict.

The story revolves around how Godless, a Japanese warlord, who "somehow" captured the Chinese Emperor and was trying to force the latter to reveal the location of the Dragon Tomb (where the first Emperor of China was buried) to find a relic (which was actually a spine) to gain invincible hold over the entire of China. Wind and Cloud, despite their initial efforts, could not defeat Godless and had to escape while many Chinese pugilists sacrificed their lives to cover their retreat.

Nameless, a supposedly great master, was so seriously injured that he decided to teach Cloud more skills to help to defeat Godless, which eventually laid the foundations of Cloud's mighty swordplay "Ba". On the other hand, Wind decided to take a shortcut by learning the Demonic skills from another great master. This had a terrible price though as Wind could end up as a demon so the former forced Cloud to promise to kill him if he could not recover from his demon state before he entered the training.

Upon accomplishing their skills, both Wind and Cloud went to the Dragon Tomb and managed to defeat Godless in a spectacular display of combat prowess but Wind became more maniacal and actually took the relic and headed off on his own. The Chinese Emperor pleaded with Cloud to recover the relic as Cloud was the only one capable of stopping Wind.

The final scene was how Wind and Cloud slugged it out and eventually, Cloud managed to slice Wind on the source of his demonic madness (an opening on his forehead) and as both of them, along with Dream (Wind's longtime penpal and lover-to-be), plunged from an extremely high mountain cliff, Cloud pushed the other two up while he plummeted even faster into the abyss. The movie ended abruptly there and I thought the ending could have been much better.

All in all, if you are watching for a storyline that made sense, don't watch this movie. If you are already a fan of the comic book series and are looking for the improvements made in making the kungfu display, go ahead and indulge in the fighting scenes, especially the one where Cloud intelligently used his new swordplay to trap the overly-arrogant Godless at the Dragon Tomb.

I would give the movie a mere 2.5 out of 5 as after so much trouble in getting the two main leads to act together again, I would expect a better story development. The fight scenes were over-emphasized at a huge cost to plot layout. I hope Bodyguards and Assassins and Avatar will be much better movies.

Game Review: Dragon Age Origins (2009)



After one week of playing, I finally completed the game and I must say it really provided quite some entertainment in role-playing and satisfaction in making good decisions which led to good outcomes. Of course, I made some bad decisions too which resulted in lost companions, incomplete quests and missing out on items which could have made my gameplay life a little bit better.

Oh well, at least I had fun watching how my Human Noble Warrior fared as he ventured through so many different quest areas to explore, solve quests, move the main storyline and tried his best at shopping for the ideal items to send gifts to his companions. The right gifts would even open up personal quests, which would affect the approval ratings of the companions about the main character one is role-playing in. For myself, I used Alistair (a Templar Warrior), Leliana (a Bardic Rogue), and Morrigan (a Shapeshifter Mage).

The other thing I loved about this game is that the very dialogue options you choose can really determine how the game turns out to be. Answer curtly and you may well have a huge fight ahead of you immediately. Answer intelligently and you may be able to pick the characters and vendors for more information that could lead to better rewards and even new areas of explorations.

It also pays well to read up on those scraps of paper, books and scrolls that the main character and his party of three other companions pick up during their travels. Some will open up new quests, some will provide history on the background of the game universe (which will also earn valuable experience points), while others may provide clues to unhidden quests and procedures in the game. This is one game which will surely penalize those players who only know how to kill anything that moves without doing their reading up on those books and scrolls (all conveniently located inside the journal that the main character carries).

My recommendations for those who intend to start up on this 5-star role-playing game are:

1) Buy the PC version - it allows one to pause in the middle of the chaotic battles to issue specific commands to individual companions, especially when to drink health poultices.

2) Complete the tombstones quest to get the full set of Juggernaut armor, which gives high resistances to various elemental attacks. This set of armor prevented my main warrior character from dying a single time throughout the entire game.

3) Develop a love for cold spells because almost everything in the game has a lower resistance to cold and freezing the enemy monsters give valuable time to reorganize your adventuring party, especially when they are caught out in the open.

4) Be nice to your companions - buy them appropriate gifts and don't be stingy in giving them out to develop their approval ratings for your main character. The personal quests that can be unlocked out of each of the companions are worth the trouble and some major plot developments hinge on whether they will actually comply with your decisions or walk right out from your party - forever.

5) Save your game often - sometimes, you may accidentally click on something that you will regret, be it a dialogue option, a vial of glass, or a door, especially when your adventuring party are not ready to face the consequences.

That's all for the blog post now. Sorry to keep my readers waiting. I wish I could update more about music and artistes for those enthusiastic about news as such, but there simply isn't much happening right now to garner a blog post. I will try my best to look for these meanwhile.

Have a good weekend ahead! ^__^

Movie Review: Ninja Assassin (2009) M18 Rating

Alright, I just returned from the movie "Ninja Assassin" and I thought it really had some superb action scenes - definitely too gory for most of the under-18-year-olds because blood was copious and bodies were dismembered in horrifyingly sudden ways, but it was jaw-dropping and vicious. I think it really gives a very realistic view of how deadly martial combat is and a moment's hesitation would bring death so quickly and those ninjas did not hesitate at all, which is probably why they are so good in their job.

The plot follows how Raizo was brought up from a child in a top-secret mountain stronghold to be one of the deadly assassins in the Ozunu Clan (aka The Black Sand Clan) and during the course of the very brutal training, befriended a fellow female student who taught him about the value of a beating heart and a freedom beyond the strict regime of Ozunu. Raizo, eventually, betrayed the clan and allied himself with a forensic researcher from an intelligence agency. They were trailed by the rest of the assassins and a number of bloody fights ensued.

The final scene culminated when Raizo carried a homing beacon inside him for a large group of international special forces operatives to track him all the way back to the mountain stronghold of Ozunu. Both groups went all out with bullets, shurikens, swords and rocket launchers against each other while Raizo fought his nemesis in his class before taking on the Ozunu teacher himself.

I thought the last fight was a bit over the top because the movie did not explain how Raizo could still summon enough strength to fight his ninja sensei when he was slashed and cut and torn to nearly oblivion by his sensei who had an amazing skill to semi-teleport in and out of the fight. I suppose that was to address that ninjas had developed superhuman strength, endurance and speed to withstand that kind of injuries and pain to begin with.

All in all, I would want to give a A for the action scenes because of their realism, but falling short of an A+ because the lighting in the movie was too dark to justify all the efforts put in by Rain and the stuntmen. Those somersaults in mid-fight were real but it was too dark for those not accustomed to fighting scenes to see properly. It was a real pity because I thought they really practiced supremely hard for the movie.

The plot would only garner a C+ because the movie did not address how Rain could have escaped the Ozunu Clan's assassinations for so long and who passed Raizo the message to save that forensic researcher from harm. I also find it difficult to see how Raizo could quickly defy his ninja sensei after finishing his first assassination attempt in the male toilet with very little account of his character development or inner thoughts. I also could not understand how come a large group of international special forces operatives could be deployed when it was described in the movie that the Ozunu Clan was regularly hired by many governments in the world for assassination jobs at the price of 100 pounds of gold per head. I thought the governments would gain more if they kept the Ozunu Clan instead of eradicating it.

A 2.5 popcorn out of 5 popcorn. It was a little disappointing for me because it's been so long since a movie about ninjas was made but I hope the standards would improve even more with this movie as a modern benchmark.

Ninja Assassin 2009 (NC18) Looking forward to watch it

This is one movie that I am just waiting to watch in a few days' time. The trailer looks cool but what appeals to me if all that mystery and magic behind those masked assassins. Reminds me of the days when I first watched American Ninja 1 and 2 - those movies looked really cheesy now but they were considered the pioneers for starting all the ninja fantasy in the movies and now after more than 30 years, we now have this...



Cool right? And just when you think most of the fighting in the trailer alone must have been done with computer graphics and lots of wires in the air...take a look at this video behind the scenes...



Wow...all those hard work put in by Rain and the team of stuntmen is enough motivation for me just pay that movie ticket. I know most of the movie reviews seem to say the movie plot is quite thin but for the sake of the action-junkie inside me, I think I will like this movie at least for the action and sincerity behind all those practices to make the scenes realistic. Will tell all you readers what I have witnessed in the movie as soon as I can.

Have a good week ahead meanwhile! ^__^

Movie Review: 2012

I finally found time to watch this movie and get to blog about it. The story revolves around how a down-and-out author had to struggle to reconnect with his estranged family who is living separately when he encountered a seemingly-mad radio deejay who told him about the coming of the end of the world, showed him photos of the unfortunate politicians and scientists, who tried to tell the world the truth, were assassinated in freak accidents, and whispered about a map where spaceships were being built to escape the apocalyptic changes that were about to come.

The male lead, acted by John Cusack, began by recklessly pawning his watch to a pilot at an airfield and quickly drove to his family in a bid to prevent disaster from happening to his loved ones. What happens from there is a series of death-defying escape on a mini-airplane as the family raced to try and reach the secret base in China where a flotilla of special ships were designed to carry a selected few to safety. There are obviously problems to this plan - the plan is too small to make the trans-oceanic trip, the Chinese military might shoot them, and they would not be able to afford seats on those spaceships - ten billion eurodollars per seat.

How are they going to reach safety amidst the chaos of sinking continents, exploding volcanoes, gigantic earthquakes, and yet juggle with human selfishness, selfless courage and elitist attitudes of the rich and the powerful? I am not going to spoil the movie by telling too much - go watch and find out yourself.

What I can offer as feedback for this movie review are:

1) The male lead seems to be so lucky that he doesn't feel real to be able to escape those disasters unscathed.

2) Hijacking planes from airports seem really easy.

3) I loved the speech given by one of the actors who appealed to the world leaders onboard those spaceships to open the doors to save those who had no tickets.

4) The disaster scenes are by far the best I had ever seen but the movie's touching moments could not outdo those from Deep Impact and the movie's humorous scenes could not outdo Armageddon. Those two movies are what I considered to be really impressive disaster movies about the end of our world.

Armageddon Movie Trailer


Deep Impact Movie Trailer


5) I don't know if 2012 will be the end of our world but I do know we should be doing what we ought to be doing - living our lives the best ways that we can instead of procrastinating, complaining, lamenting or worrying.

End of review. Time to take my nap. Zzzz...

Movie Review: Inglorious Basterds (2009), Dinner at Ion Orchard, Mid-Autumn Festival, Amazing Chimpanzee

Movie Review: Inglorious Basterds (2009) (M-18 Rating)
这其实是一部非常暴力的电影，因为它是在描述第二次世界大战时，在德国统治下的法国，有一群“杂种特工”如何以残忍的手段来杀德国兵将，并在一次重大的电影盛会上，精心部署刺杀德国的希特勒和他的部下尾将。

虽然故事属虚构，但演员们卖力的演出，确实实在在地淹没了所有的暴力残忍场面，把四部段落的故事连贯在一起，并在那场德国电影盛会上，把所有的角色全部钩挂在一起，引爆出令人意想不到的结局。

一位从死里逃生的犹太人，一位德国战争少年英雄，一位美丽动人的法国演员，一位细心如泥的德国军事侦探，一群视死如归的美国特工。他们会怎么纠缠在一起呢？

我不打算说，你们去看看吧，必定震撼无疑。五颗星？我想我会给吧！

Dinner at Ion Orchard with The Changed Man:
和Changed Man从百忙中找到了能吃个晚餐时段，便到一直都没机会去的Ion Orchard去兜一兜。好奇怪的石头，看起来像个凶恶的怪兽。应该是块风水石吧？
吃的是牛肉面，并没有想象中或传闻中的好吃，不过Ion Orchard 的食阁环境还不错，有好多美丽的人喔！哈哈！


又是个让我眼前一亮的摆设，像一匹马，可是又已经石化了，真奇怪的室内设计。

Mid-Autumn Festival 2009:
我对中秋节日已没多大的感觉，可能是因为已过了那么多的中秋节了。可是父母还是很期待，所以就提了三盒不同口味的月饼给他们享用。
至少我还是蛮喜欢灯笼，所以家里外也挂上了几盏传统灯笼，泡在中秋节的清雅气氛。




Amazing Chimpanzee:

如果我们学东西，能像这猩猩那样专注，肯定事半功倍！我们要加油喔！哈哈！

好啦，我要吃我刚买回来的薄饼了，祝大家有个愉快的一周吧！^__^

Movie Review: Ice Age 3 - Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (2009)

I caught the movie yesterday and I thought the movie was worth some laughs and chuckles because the characters, especially Scrat, Scratte and Buck, were still adorable enough to entertain with their unique brand of humor.

The movie sets out in a context where Manny and Ellie were about to have their first mammoth baby and excitement mounted amongst the creatures weathering the Ice Age. Diego felt that the longer he stayed with the docile herd of friends from the past two adventures, the faster he was losing his hunting skills so he wanted to set off on his own to regain his predator dignity. Sloth wanted to start his own family but realized he did not have any suitable companion amongst the group to do so and chanced upon three dinosaur eggs in an underground ice cave which he took to be his own children. Manny, in his excitement to be a dad, was pretty insensitive at the start of the movie towards his friends and somehow managed to distance them in their hours of need.

However, when Mama Dinosaur came looking for her missing eggs, she took Sloth along with her new hatchlings back to the secret world of dinosaurs underground and this finally spurred Ellie and Manny to go looking for Sloth and they re-encountered Diego along the tracking process. They met a reclusive one-eyed weasel called Buck inside the tremendously dangerous dinosaur world and had to rely on Buck to overcome all the treacherous dangers in the new environment.

Could they save Sloth in time before Mama Dinosaur eats him up? Could the herd regain their unity from this new adventure against a myriad of gigantic and fast-moving dinosaurs beyond their imagination? I won't spoil the show by spilling everything out here.

Watch the fun and adrenalin rush as they tried to adapt to Buck's unconventional ways in their quest to find Sloth. See how they weave the romantic and comedic subplot of Scrat and Scratte as the two of them fought and flirted with each other over that elusive acorn. Check if you can spot the movie makes a comic parody of certain scenes in movies such as Spider Man 3, Armaggedon, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, and Crocodile Dundee.

This is definitely one movie worth going if you wanted an enjoyable time of light humour and family fun. I would give it a resounding 4 stars because it managed to show how one must learn to be considerate of one's herds needs even if it meant sacrificing some of the most important things in one's lives to achieve that. ^__^

Movie Review: Transformers 2 Revenge of The Fallen

Movie Review: Transformers 2 Revenge of The Fallen

In the sequel to the highly-acclaimed Transformers movie, the plot continues to revolves around the Autobots' fight against the Decepticons but this time, the latter has a new powerfully ally, known as The Fallen, one of the first seven ancestors of the planet Cybertron, who wanted to use an ancient super-machine hidden on earth to harvest the energy of the sun. With this energy, The Fallen hopes to continue to breed new Decepticons to conquer new worlds.

However, The Fallen seemed to have a probia against the descendants of the Primes robots and the last remaining one is Optimus Prime. So The Fallen sets out to attack and successfully destroy Optimus Prime in a deadly confrontation using Megatron (who was resurrected with one of the two remaining shards of the Cube destroyed in the first movie) and Starscream.

With Optimus Prime out of action, Sam, the originally reluctant young college undergraduate, now has to find a way to prevent the catastrope from getting bigger by using his remaining shard's images of strange Cybertronic symbols to help to rally the remaining Autobots to prevent The Fallen from re-activating the ancient sun-harvesting machine before it is too late for Earth.

The movie was one sensory pounding for me because the battle scenes were bigger than ever, the action faster than ever and the intensity and brutality fiercer than ever. However, the movie over-emphasized on the action scenes and carried too little plot development and humour to make it as interesting as the first Transformer movie. By the end of the two and a half hour movie, my ears were humming from the explosions, my eyes were dazed by the firing of lasers, missiles, artillery shells and machinegun fire, and my mouth, though speechless by the spectacular display of combat, was pursed with some disappointment.

I was disappointed that neither the Autobots nor the Decepticons were given enough screen time for the audience to understand what sort of characteristics and personalities they have. Although there were a lot more robots in the second movie, most of them did not speak more than two lines and were given very little room for character development to make them likeable. In the final desert showdown, as many as thirteen Decepticons deployed by The Fallen from the giant Decepticon spaceship just plummeted from the sky and started shooting and dying in the firefight. I did not even know which robot went down. Even the mighty Devastator (a gigantic Decepticon combined from six smaller ones) was not given much personality before it went down with a giant cannon blast from an American destroyer ship from the nearby coastal area.

I was even more disappointed that the supposedly iconic Jetfire, an powerful Decepticon who turned to join the Autobots, was portrayed as a feeble and rusty robot who had to walk with a walking stick and perpetually in an unsound state of mind, blabbering around like some old man when the original Jetfire in the Tranformers cartoons was much more charismatic and an even more capable fighter against Decepticons. The human actors were given too little screen time to grow more impressionable and were only given plenty of time to run and dodge pursuing Decepticons when I thought they could have more roles to play to contribute to the overall enjoyment.

All in all, I wished the movie could have less robots and more detailed (and slower) fights, with more human and robot relationships and plot development rather than just a high adrenalin slugfest with so many soldiers and robots dying but not given enough details on how the plot interwined between all these action. I thought The Fallen alongside with The Devastator joining forces with Megatron and Starscream would have been more than enough robots enemies to bring enough fight to the movie rather than cramming in too many things. I would have given a low 2.75 out of 5.00 for this highly-anticipated but not so impressive movie.

Movie Reviews: X-men Origins: Wolverine and Start Trek

Movie Review: X-men Origins: Wolverine


I caught this movie last week and the movie was quite alright as it featured Wolverine and Sabertooth as brothers who both had beastly and regenerative powers but with slightly different temperaments and morals and the two brothers grew apart as Sabertooth began to grow into a more bloodthirsty mutant while Wolverine wanted a clear conscience. The plot revolved around how Colonle Stryker tried to capture all the mutants and merge their powers into one super-killing machine and Wolverine had to stop Stryker from killing whatever few mutant friends he had left.

Although the movie did show the prowess of some extraordinary mutants, such as one with a diamond skin, one with deadly accuracy with guns and another with unbelievably fast swords, msot of the movie went around with more action between Wolverine and Sabertooth, slashing and stabbing each other with their claws. Compared to the original three X-men movies, this one fell a little short of my expectations but it managed to keep the X-men interest going. Hopefully, they will get even better doing such one-mutant-background-story movie. I would give it a respectable 3.5 out of a possible 5.

Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)
I just caught this movie today and I thought it was a very well-paced story with very interesting mini-adventures, which are a little different from the original Star Trek series but definitely gave a refreshing look to the storyline. The story revolves around how Kirk and Spock started out as very fresh cadets in the space academy and how their personalities clashed around the main plot of a disenchanted and vengeful alien commander who plotted to destroy everything civilized because of a failed attempt to save his homeland.

Kirk was the rule-breaker adventurer who would try any means to accomplish the missions at hand whilst Spock was also the intellectual who wanted things done in the most analytical and emotionally-detached way. However, both of them, alongside with the green crew of USS Enterprise realized that they must learn to cooperate because in order to triumph against the vicious enemy who seemed to travel from the future with an incredibly powerful ship, only courage, wit, intelligence combined can hope to overcome.

With such a memorable star crew and alot more potential to grow, I think a sequel to this movie will not be too much to ask for in a 4/5 rating movie. ^__^

The next movie review would be on Angels and Demons - something historical, away from claw-slashing and phaser-lasers spacefights for a change.

Sociological Trip to Career and Education Fair 2009 and Mall Exploration of Kallang Leisure Park

Sociological Trip to Career and Education Fair 2009:

A couple of days ago, I met a old friend whom I had lost contact during my school days by chance on a MRT platform. I'll name this friend as the Indecisive M60 because she comes across to me as a very indecisive person who considers her options in things, reconsiders those options 30 minutes later, re-reconsiders those options 1 hour later and starts all over again in another two hours. And she speaks fast with a quick temper, just like a General-Purpose Machine Gun (one of which is known as an M60).

Still, the Indecisive M60 is my friend and I believe in fate, believe that our chance meeting has a purpose because she was in trouble then - needing a job to tide her over as she was dependent on her parents on and off for quite a number of years ever since we last parted. Apparently, her character seemed to have a disconcerting effect on many of her colleagues and workplaces and she could not fit into any of those jobs thus far. The Indecisive M60 made a couple of calls to me after our chance meeting and she mentioned about going to the Career and Education Fair 2009 at Suntec City on last Friday to see if she could find some direction for her life there. Being the only friend who was available on Friday to accompany her, I said yes and off we went to Suntec on that day.

The Career and Education Fair 2009 was not that crowded on a Friday morning at 11am because most of the more enthusiastic and eager 120-000 strong crowd came in on Thursday itself. The Indecisive M60 and I began touring the place and she went on speaking to the various exhibitors and recruitment executives of a number of booths there. While she was busying herself, I was observing the rest of the crowd doing their work - Economy seems to be worser than what the news reported because I could see the tinge of desperation in many of their eyes - hellbent on getting jobs, sitting anywhere on the floor to fill in whatever forms they could lay their hands on and listening extremely intently to the various speakers there giving mini-speeches about their recruitment drives' expectations.

Two hours later, we were driven out of the Fair by our hunger pangs and we settled at New York New York for lunch. As she was jobless for the past three months, lunch was on me and the Indecisive M60 was so happy that she ordered her favourite foods there - some salmon tuna sandwich, orange crepes dessert and green tea while I had the recommended cranberry turkey sandwich and some blueberry float drink. A nice relaxing lunch later, we roamed Orchard Road in the afternoon where she related how she had spent miserable months in her house with nothing to do and how lonely she felt after graduating from school as so many of her friends parted ways due to the diverging responsibilities of life.

I advised her the following: Do what we humanly can and leave the rest of life to work things out themselves because the more we try to grapple with life, the more struggled we are and thus we will never be as happy as we wanted ourselves to be. The indecisive M60 finally made her decision at 4.30pm at a Long John Silver's restaurant where we stopped for a drink (her treat this time because I wanted her to still remember the pride to pay for oneself and the joy to pay for others - and gladly she understood my purpose). We parted ways at 6pm on Friday and I wished her all the best in her new direction in life.


Ta-da! The title board outside Career and Education Fair 2009 at Suntec City. The sun just came up inside the exhibition hall.
The Marina Bay Sands Resort recruitment booth was packed with people trying to fill in forms to go for interesting jobs like croupiers, theme park managers and event management executives. I took zero photos of people because I thought it was not the right place to have people's faces in such places - most of them seemed with their belts tightened already.
The Blueberry Bling Bling Drink at New York New York - I was jokingly teasing the waiter "How come it's blackish and not bluish in colour?" And the waiter was smiling away as he left without answering.
This is the Cranberry Turkey sandwich with Foccacia bread which I ordered. Pardoned the blurred shot because I was really hungry by then so I could not wait to get started. Believe it - it's absolutely delicious but I did not manage to finish both halves (sobs) because the Indecisive M60 grabbed one half of it and shoved one half of her Salmon Tuna Sandwich on my plate instead. Boohoohoo...

Mall Exploration at Kallang Leisure Park:

Yesterday was a study appointment with The Busy Bee because she had wanted to study for some finance course but could never bring herself to do so given the kind of distractions she always surrounded herself with - sleep, tv, food, movies. Hahaha. And as I was one of those few friends she had who could sit still for hours on end to study (well, I had my game design to think about at least) so we went to try and study at Kalland Leisure Park because there were Coffee Bean and Starbucks Coffee outlets there.

We met at Kallang Indoor Stadium at around 12.30 pm and lunch was the first item on the agenda. Having a good, non-foodcourt meal was important to both of us because we made the effort to travel all the way to the fairly-deserted Kalland sports area to study, we chosed Mushroom Pot to have our meal. We ordered a Deluxe Set Meal for Two which had quite a spread of food (I did not take photos of the food because I wanted to have a day off from photographing my outings) - there was two small bowls of rice, two bowls of herbal-tasting mushroom soup, a plate of beansprouts fried with mushrooms, a plate of deep-fried sotong with wasabi sauce dip, a plate of chilli fried chicken pieces, a plate of beancurd steamed with mushrooms and we topped those off with tea and orange juice. It was one good meal over a quiet restaurant and when we had our fill, we hopped over to Kallang Leisure Park which was just across the road.

It was my first time there because it was not one of my favourite mall haunts but I liked the place - medium-sized with spacious interiors and there were actually very interesting niche sports competitions being held there - a remote-controlled auto race and an figure-skating competition at the ice-ring. The Busy Bee gave me a quick tour of the place and being the movie fanatic she always is, she tempted ourselves enough to buy movie tickets for Marley and Me at this independent movie theatre called Flimgarde and we went off to Starbucks Coffee to study before the movie began in an hour's time.

One hour at Starbucks Coffee brought some solace from walking and while The Busy Bee was reading and writing notes to prepare for her examinations for her finance course, I was browsing through my magazines, reading the theory of evolution as well as crusader maps because I was still trying to find some realistic settings for my medieval game design. I finally settled on a choice of five cities and the time was up for the movie.

The movie was very simple and touching because it was so realistically portrayed without any deliberate action or CGI - about the highs and lows of life and how a dog managed to interwine its life with chaos, mischief and loyalty until the final days of its live. The ending was less than satisfactory because it did not show that much about what happened to the family after the death of the dog but I loved the parts where the family had to struggle with their ideal lives, made incredible sacrifices and got all frayed up when the dog, Marley, started all its havoc in the house and out of the house again.

The movie ended around 5pm and we went off to the Cold Storage Supermarket, trying to complete ingredients for a cake the Busy Bee was trying to make and after a hour of running around the shopping aisles, we left Kallang Leisure Park with two plastic bags of food and ingredients. The Saturday outing ended at 7pm when I helped the Busy Bee lugg the stuff back near her place because she was already exhausted and still nursing an injuried hand.