3 years anniversary @ Conrad Centennial Singapore and a dose of Hairspray
Its been a pretty hectic work for Yh and myself as assignments piled up. By a stroke of luck, Yh won a night’s stay at Conrad at her recent annual dinner. It seemed like a good idea to take the opportunity to extend the stay and so we booked ourselves another night and checked in this afternoon.
Our original room on the 13th floor didn’t have the king sized bed we requested and was on the smoking level! Luckily, after a great buffet dinner at Honjin Japanese Restaurant (more details later in Where2Makan?), Yh called room service and found that a room was now available on the 7th floor. We quickly packed up and moved down. Glad the hotel made the effort to help shift us and we’re glad we decided to extend our stay.
Shortly after, we headed to GV Marina Square to catch Hairspray. I didn’t realise but I had read about John Travolta’s transformation in the movie and that it had enjoyed pretty good reviews in the press. Quite liked the muscial styled movie based on a 1988 screenplay and stage play. The music and dancing was very well coordinated. Its pretty interesting that it chose to potray a time in US’s history about the racial divide. I guess the unversal theme of accepting and integrating people from different cultures is something we can still identify with.
Back to hotel and it 2.45am! Time to hit the sack and looking forward to our “tour” of Singapore on this special weekend getaway in town.
Ratatouille and 881
I HATE RATS!
So much that I still cringed when I watched the latest offering from Pixar - Ratatouille. Remy, the rodent star talented in gourmet cooking, is no Micky Mouse.
Don’t get me wrong, Mic and I enjoyed the movie. By that, I mean the rats in the movie look so much like the real McCoys (so not like Mickey Mouse) that I actually cringed in the cinema during the scenes when the whole colony was running / working about. But this also means that the animation was very real, well, it is Pixar after all.
The movie received favourable ratings (like 4 out of 5 at least) in the papers but personally I find it more of a 3.5 star. I still prefer The Incredibles. This one never gave me a high like The Incredibles did.
Last Friday when we were deciding on a movie to catch, I was considering Ratatouille, Hairspray or 881. To my amazement, I saw that 881 has a better selling than the other 2. I was puzzling over how our homegrown movie, which has been showing for more than 2 weeks already, could have beaten blockbusters like the other 2 (Hairspray had received rave ratings too).
Later that weekend, I discovered yet again the power of word-of-mouth and the media. With the support of SM and lots of media exposure for the local flick, people’s attention and curosity are drawn. It also helps that this is the month of getais. I guess that and the appreciation of getais were what pulled my in-laws, who had not gone to the cinema in years, to watch it. Many want to see if it is really that good, and if the Hokkien tunes are really so cool.
I have not watched 881 yet so I cannot comment if it is any good, but no matter what, a local success is always something to celebrate about.
Pixar’s Ratatouille
Pretty interesting how a rat can get such attention in Pixar’s latest offering. Yh absolutely hates rats but has considered watching this movie since its an animation. Should be pretty interesting to watch once it shows. Enjoy the videos!
<Insert Transformers transformation sound>
Finally Transformers hit our shores on 28th June and Yh managed to get some tickets after hitting a bit of a snafu with GV’s booking system at GV Bishan and we ended up watching at GV Plaza Singapura. Actually we should thank them for making a mistake with the listing since they gave 2 complimentary free tickets for the mistake 
Anyway, as we settled in to the movie and sat through the obligatory commercials and blah blah stuff, the prologue started up and gave everyone a quick intro into the movie. The special effects are great but you really haven’t seen anything yet till they hit the scene in the desert and in later parts of the movie. Without giving away too much specifics, the scene when a Decepticon transforms from a combat helicopter into a Transformer was priceless. The last time I heard that cool sound was as a kid watching Transformer’s cartoons and it gave me goosebumps watching it on a huge screen with the sound effects pumping out in a theatre.
Michael Bay managed to bring something new to a generation who probably never heard of Tranformers and also something to relive for countless of people who grew up waching robots transform into vehicles to protect Earth. I am definitely not a fanatic who keeps track of every detail of whether specifics are accurate but the experience was definitely something worth going to watch and enjoy. Even Yh who didn’t know what the movie or story was about commented later that the special effects was quite amazing.
Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer … Evil or Good Guy?
We were merrily doing some gift shopping for parents at Marina Square and Yh was doing some window shopping when we neared GV Marina. Not realizing what shows were on (a bit out of touch nowadays), we saw the poster for Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer and it said “Now Showing”! Quickly checked the time and it was 9.26pm with the show screening at 9.25pm. Great timing for us since we didn’t have to sit through too many commercials and the show started.
Shall not spoil the movie for you but shall just say that the show felt just right. Not too much mushy moments or long winded speeches but rather special effects galore with the foursome saving humanity from destruction and Silver Surfer showing what making the right choice can do. Great show to catch for our date night
*ps. Loved the scene when Stan Lee tried to gate crash the wedding.
Go Meet the Robinsons!
We went to Orchard and enjoyed an afternoon spa on our rare day off yesterday. The package offered via HSBC at the Ultimate Spa @ Shaw Centre was for “The Ultimate Wine Spa Indulgence“. It was our first time experiencing it and must say it was quite nice although a bit chilly when the red wine scrub gets done since the air-conditioning is turned on quite high.
Since we didn’t make any reservations for dinner, we walked around a bit and headed towards Far East Plaza for yakitori but alas the place was packed and in the end we ended back at Shaw’s Resturant Hoshigaoka… The set meals were surprisingly well designed with a little bit of everything that we liked.
Going along our impromptu plans for the evening, we headed up to the theatre to check out the movies on show. Timing couldn’t be better since 9pm show was for “Meet the Robinsons”. Yh and myself didn’t really know what the movie was about other than it being a Disney animation. The first few minutes after the usual trailers even brought back childhood memories as they ran an old clip of Mickey, Donald and (Dog we can’t remember name) building a ship for Minnie. Was rather unusual since don’t usually have this before movies?
Anyway, the main event came up and we sat through the start of the movie. The main character (Lewis) as we find out is an orphan who happens to be a brilliant tinkerer but constantly encounters failures in his experiments to solve problems he thinks can be solved but sheer determination and cleverness. We also encounter some unusual characters (Wilbur, Bowler Hat Guy and Doris) who hail from the future and find that this isn’t an ordinary run of the mill story about a kid getting adopted!
The story goes through some very funny moments like when the T-Rex bumps his head against the wall and tries to grab Lewis with his small hands and starts wondering to his master if the plan was well thought out.
I think Disney’s movies have really changed quite a lot since Mickey’s time? We encounter a sinister timeline when Doris takes over the world and starts dominating the human existence (not unlike The Matrix). The scene where mini-Doris’s chase after Lewis remind me of the Matrix’s chase through earth.
Not to reveal too much, go watch this movie! I think its well worth the time and money to sit through the story as it unravels. I think the tagline “Keep moving forward” should hold true for everyone young or old as they encounter failures. Good fun. great animation and a lesson to learn (all wrapped up in a nice 2 hours).
Stardust Movie - Official Site
Looks like quite an interesting movie that’s coming up… Watching the trailer and seems like kinda of a “alice in wonderland” story? Having a cast with Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro and Claire Danes sure sounds interesting enough to take note of.
Behind the Scenes of the Marie Antoinette cover, Vogue Magazine
Marie Antoinette - a new movie with Kirsten Dunst. I saw some of the behind the scenes shots and found it quite interesting. Also chanced upon a video of a Vogue shoot - nice shots and music!
An Inconvenient Truth
Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.
Source: An Inconvenient Truth
Just watched this on a lazy 2nd of January afternoon. The film highlights some pretty interesting issues about global warming and tries to warn us about not taking the warning signs seriously enough to bring about changes into our lifestyles. I was motivated enough to go read up a little bit more on the website and downloaded some of the tips.
While this film talks about scientific facts and figures brought to live via a personal conduit by Mr. Al Gore, another film attempts to bring us to the future - Idiocracy. At first glance, I wasn’t too intrigued by the plot : some guy gets frozen and wakes up 500 years later to a dumb civilisation, sounds like fiction doesn’t it? But the picture potrayed of land-filled garbage continents doesn’t seem that far-fetched from reality if we don’t heed warning signs that our pursuit of wealth without considering our environment can hurt us.
Seems pretty commonsense but I wonder if most people understand why looking after the place we live in is more important than making tons of money to live comfortably.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Just watched a very inspirational film starring Will Smith (playing as Christopher Gardner). His character bore through tough times (homelessness, near-bankruptcy and taking care of his son) to finally being happy when being told that his efforts at being an intern has paid off. The film started off slow and brought us slowly through the mini-episodes of his life i.e. “Riding the Bus”, “Being Stupid”, “Running” and a few others that showed us how he had to choose to live and take care of his son.
The stark contrast between the adult and the child was interesting as one was constantly concerned about finances and housing (therefore being unhappy) while the other was being taken care of, had place to sleep and got the present he wished for (therefore being happy). Watching the show made me realise how much life has changed since my childhood days, and it made me realise how hard my parents worked to take care of my family. Although I can’t say I have experienced what the main character had gone through, I can most definitely understand the need to constantly work hard and improve one’s situation in the pursuit of happyness.