The Proposal, Moon and Time Traveler’s Wife in one weekend
We contributed nicely to the weekend movie ticket sales (not often but we try) for three shows over last Saturday/Sunday. Starting the movie mayhem was “The Proposal” starring Sandra Bullock and some young dude. Simple premise with the threat of deportation causing Sandra to propose to her assistant and thus giving us a many laughs throughout the show. Favorite scene : naked wet couple running into each other *grin*.
Sunday morning, we caught “Moon” @ The Picturehouse (The Cathay). This movie caught my attention #1 for being a sci-fi film, #2 being shot on the (set of the) Moon (week before we also had the debunking of the moon landing if you can believe that)! The lack of good science fiction is getting on my nerves so I’m glad for directorial debuts in “Moon” and “District 9“. The subject matter of cloning isn’t new but the very process of discovery about the cloning deceit and great visuals (I miss the look and feel of good old models) made for an entertaining viewing even if it has a very limited screening here. As we left the cinema, we also caught the trailer of a very funny Israeli movie,”A Matter of Size“, about sumo wrestling but unfortunately, all four screenings have been sold out!
“Time Traveler’s Wife” from my short review on Bookjetty of the book (2nd read) while Yh is on her 2nd read also.
Bought this book while taking a flight up to Bangkok to pass the time.
Got quite absorbed in the fascinating narration that I had trouble
putting it down during the trip. Might not be the best book for some if
you find yourself having trouble with time travel stories. I love it
though.
Both of us agreed that while the attempt at making the film was admirable, it would be too difficult to achieve the emotion and pace of the book so it was a slight letdown (especially after second reads of the book).
Star Trek – Entertaining a new generation
- Romulan Warship (Mining Ship?!) kicking Federation starships ass – Check!
- Kirk in Orion Female’s Bed (I predict green body paint sales volume increasing) – Check!
- Scotty’s Technobabble about transportation to another destination while in warp – Check!
- Spock’s Vulcan Nerve Pinch – Check!
- Spock and Uhura (what was her first name again?) KISSING (more than once!) – Check!
- Lens flare in every scene (do we view the world like this in real life?!) – Wish they hadn’t done it, Check!
Just got back from the gala screening! The 11th film to bear the Star Trek brand is definitely a modern rewrite with a brand new cast. There’s humor between the characters as they get to know each other for the first time and action scenes galore with very well done special effects (just that the lens flare was a tad too much at times).
We watched this movie from two very different perspectives, myself with the experience of watching TOS, TNG, VOY, DS9, ENT (at least twice of each episode, yes I’m a trek fan! 
) and reading lots of fiction on the characters in storybook and comic form and YH who is totally new to the Star Trek franchise. I sat down to the movie hoping that they wouldn’t ruin all the years of history and came out feeling that perhaps its a good thing they had done a refresh. After all, the last seven years has been without a new trek movie or series being aired. The new Kirk (Chris Pine) is definitely reminiscent of Shatner’s Kirk with his swagger and all about the action character. Spock (both Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto) shine in their performance. The usual time travel trick allows them to interact and gives a nice twist to how the storyline has changed to accommodate the new cast and direction.
Some minor gripes would be perhaps after getting used to the clean, utilitarian design of the engine room, here we are shown a sprawling network of pipes and archways that looked more in place in a brewery. While it definitely added to the set design and lots of explosions, it felt very cluttered. The bridge with its brand new white tones made me wonder who would want to work in an environment that gave you constant white glare. And “red matter” for the plot device, did we just step into an Alias set (you know what I mean if you watch Alias)?
The villain in the show is the Romulans this time, though we only see a facet of them with Eric Bana being the sad, lonely and psychotic person who seeks revenge for future deeds. There has been many times when this has been done (Voyager’s Year Of Hell) so it’s nothing new as a plot. After Trek II Wrath of Khan, it would perhaps be hard to write another interesting villain but one can only hope with the new direction, we’ll see lots more quality Trek in the years to come.
Star Trek XI is simply Star Trek
J. J. Abrams’s new Star Trek is about to be shown on May 8th 2009. Today at 8.50pm we’re getting a special treat courtesy of omy.sg.
I’ve been a fan of J.J. Abram’s work like Alias for quite some time. When his name came up as the director of the new movie, it was definitely a piece of good news as I’ve felt that the recent movies and series (Enterprise) have lacked the excitement of what science fiction should be about. It has been a long wait since the last film Star Trek Nemesis in 2002!
After a delay in release on December 25th 2008, we’re finally getting to watch a new cast and well known Zachary Quinto (if you watch Heroes, you’ll know Sylar) as Spock, this should be greatest adventure of all time with the U.S.S. Enterprise.
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.