Twilight & The Day The Earth Stood Still

We finally got woke up and out of the house yesterday to catch 2 movies.

Twilight

Twilight felt so lame. Sigh. I did so want to like it.

The cinema was almost entirely filled with squeeling girls who gasped and twitched whenever Robert Pattinson/Edward Cullen appeared! But what the ... he's so wooden and stiff! I think he was better as a nice, smiley boy in Harry Potter.

I didn't really like the makeup done for the vampires. I liked Kristen Stewart/Bella's though, especially loved her hair.

Strangely, the movie made me want to read the books. I didn't really like the romance part even though it's really The Main Plot. I think the back stories are actually more interesting hahaha, like the feud between the wolves and the vampires. Rehashed but I like the way Stephenie Meyer added the touch about the Indian-wolf connection. I want to find out how it all ends.

Now feeling sorry that I didn't get the books during Kinokuniya's 20% discount period!!! Sheesh.

OMG, how could I forget this? I love the Cullen cars in the movie though. HOHOHO.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

Not an earth-shaking movie but good fun. Good pace, nice special effects.

Beautiful leads.

Keanu Reeves - Gorgeous - Wonderful casting, he's always good in this sort of role that doesn't require much emoting.

Jennifer Connelly - Sooo ethereal - Love her in soft focus - she's gotten so thin - I want to be thin like her - but I don't have the determination - but I want to be like her!


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Doctor Who

Doctor Who features hugely in our lives.

The Doctor Who boxsets I purchased arrived. They were my son's Christmas pressie (as he requested and I happily complied because I wanted them too haha).

Two of us watched them discs one after another. Even episodes that we've seen before, then saved some that we've not seen for the New Year's Day holiday.

I love the immediate connection we have in the shared memories and experiences of Doctor Who episodes. We both love David Tennant and are quite sad when we found out he's going to quit Doctor Who! We even discuss Doctor Who theories and timelines.

Imagine that. It blows my mind.

I can't even get grown adults to talk Doctor Who but my 9 year old can. There must be something good if even Neil Gaiman watches and discusses Doctor Who, so don't go dissing Doctor Who as something childish or mindless that adults couldn't possibly comprehend.


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Magazines at Kinokuniya

I went to Kinokuniya on Saturday afternoon and the queues were so long that I decided to come back the next day to get my magazines. I was specifically holding a copy each of the Voce and Maquia Feb 09 issues. It didn't occur to me to reserve them. When I went back early this morning, there was not a single copy of Voce Feb 09 issue in sight and only a few copies of Maquia!

How can magazines disappear so quickly?


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Some New Books

Purchased at the Kinokuniya 20% sale: The Graveyard Book, Anathem and Queen magazine.

Currently reading Sepulchre, which I bought a few months ago. It's an easy read. Will review it when I'm done.




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Bolt and Madagascar 2

I'm on a weeklong leave now and brought my son out yesterday for movies. We saw Bolt and Madagascar Escape 2 Africa.

Both Bolt and Madagascar 2 provided lots of laughs, good family entertainment and lovely animation. However, we agreed that we prefer Bolt, both for the storyline, the good comic sequences and the "cuteness" factor.

There really isn't much more that can be said, beyond what critics and reviewers have already written. The only recommendation is: If you can only watch one, go for Bolt. I personally liked how they captured the essence of animal behaviour in the animation.

In Bolt, it seemed like the animals were the main focus, meaning, they retained animal characteristics and did not become too humanised. I felt this was an improvement over the latest animal animation where the animals were like humans dressed up as animals. In the longer past, for shows like 101 Dalmations or even The Lady and The Tramp, animals retained animal characteristics and seemed less human. However in comparison, shows like Madagascar, made the animals, like the Lion seem too human, eg. walk on 2 legs too often and smile in human ways, that they lose the sense of being an animal.

Oh-oh I didn't expect to talk so much about the difference between an animal that looks like an animal who happens to be able to "talk" and an animal that seems like a human dressed up as an animal ...

I'm just often worried that people don't quite understand what I mean. It's hard to express certain ideas sometimes.

Anyway, if you get a chance to watch Bolt, let me know what you think?

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The Plague

I bought this VCD on Saturday at SG$5 for some cheap entertainment and watched it last night.

In this show, children all over the world were suddenly attacked by fits and fell into a coma for 10 years, then woke up and started killing all the adults. There's no explanation for why the children fell into a coma or why they had to kill all the adults or why at the end of the show, the sacrifice of one man made them all stop the killing.

There were some good shocks but other than that, the movie was a lousy immitation of the usual zombie movies. It tried to do a little more by putting in some extra messages about love and how to bring up children but it was not developed properly. While I do like movies that give clues and let the viewer think for himself, this movie tried but failed to do that.

So, overall, it's such a silly show. Besides the senseless script, the acting is wooden and the special effects so terrible for a show made in 2006.

The movie is supposed to be based on something Clive Barker wrote or something inspired by him, but I can't tell how much influence he really had in this movie because it really was so bad.


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Magazine Haul

On Thursday, a magazine distribution company set up a temporary stall at our office building and sold magazines at a discount. My colleague Big Star and I started looking at the magazines before lunch and couldn't decide, so went back again after lunch.

Although it was cheap, $10 for 3 magazines, I couldn't decide if I should get so many. In the end, we stood there dithering for so long that the seller decided to give us a further discount as he was packing up to leave.

While these magazines aren't as full of infotainment value as the Taiwanese or Japanese mags, it's a nice stack of leisure reading at a great price. I ended up with 9 fashion and food magazines and one yoga journal.




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