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.




© Copyright. All rights reserved.

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?

© Copyright. All rights reserved.

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.


© Copyright. All rights reserved.

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.




© Copyright. All rights reserved.

Doctor Who Discs

The New Doctor Who DVD box sets are on sale at Amazon at almost half the original price.

We already have Season 1 discs, have seen all of Season 2 and are still watching Season 3 on BBC Entertainment channel on cable. So, with all my Christmas pressie and personal makeup, skincare, shoes, bags, clothes, and electronic device lists, I am wondering whether I should even buy those discs!

They are so tempting though ... so many wants and such limited cash ...



© Copyright. All rights reserved.

Vexille

We stayed up to watch Vexille on Octo last night.

The way the storyline unfolded in stages, together with enough action sequences, kept me piqued and keen to continue staying up to watch. I liked the art work with surreal and beautiful scenes.

Here's a Wiki link to the plot summary of Vexille, but I'd say not to read it, but watch the anime first so that the story reveals itself slowly to you.

The only misgiving I had about this was the key premise for the entire show, which is also the turning point that reveals the main "secret". I felt it's an unrealistic one, as in why did "It" have to done to everyone?

Other than that, I felt it was an entertaining anime, worth staying up late to watch.

© Copyright. All rights reserved.

The Woods are Dark & Out are the Lights, Richard Laymon

I read about The Woods are Dark at a blog that discussed the newly-released full original version of the book, which is filled with gratuious sex and violence that were edited out in the previous editions.

Not wanting to spend money and storage space on such a "trashy" book, I went to the local library to borrow it. I found a 2-in-1 edition, which also included another book of short stories, Out are the Lights, by the same author

The Woods are Dark is sufficiently fast-paced, gory and freaky, but I'm thinking it's the censored version that I read because I was shocked at several parts but it wasn't ever really too stomach churling. I wish the library has the new uncensored version for a frightening read.

As for the short story collection, Out are the Lights, not all the stories are well-written and some are actually quite corny, but there are a few gems in the collection.

Overall, these 2 books are easy and quick reads for light, scary amusement.


© Copyright. All rights reserved.