Review, Review, Review, Review (That's 4 Reviews)

OK, have watched plenty of movie so here are some quick reviews of the last few. Actually, not sure if I should continue with these reviews coz I dunno if anyone reads them even. So, maybe if you do read them, how about saying something in my cbox so I can decide if I should continue doing them or not.

NIM'S ISLAND - I didn't really go to this movie with much expectation. I caught it simply coz there was nothing else to watch that day. I have to say I liked the movie in a weird kinda way. It was certainly quite childish, but I knew it was supposed to be, so that helped. I didn't take it too seriously so I didn't have an issue with Nim (the girl star) talking to the animals. I also liked how Jodie Foster didn't take herself very seriously and played a very funny author suffering from agoraphobia. Movie can be a little slow at times, but on the whole, an enjoyable, childish movie.

FORBIDDEN KINGDOM - Oh my goodness, how wrong can a movie get. Not much more wrong than this, I can tell you. This was supposed to be the ultimate showdown - Jet Li vs Jackie Chan, but it was just a big comedic attempt. What did they do wrong? (1) Do literal translations from Mandarin to English. Since when do we enter the Gate of No Gate to return to the Land of No Land where you Love of no Love exists? (2) Make the ancient chinese act like they had bilingual lessons in school! Since when did the chinese people of olden times speak english? American english no less! Come on, this was an obvious attempt to pander to the americans. When will Jackie take more pride in his own race. (3) An american kid as a hero in a chinese movie? OMG. To be fair, he did a decent job, but the whole idea is plain stupid. (4) Bad & sad Chinese stereotypes. The Jade Warlord and all his minions had a heavy does of eyeshadow. Don't ask me why. And the Jade Warlord spoke like some kuniang! And I loved it when the Jade Emperor (supposedly the king of the chinese gods) asks the ang mo kid "What is your request? Please?" SO POLITE!!! Like the Jade Emperor was some servant. This movie failed miserably as an action/kungfu film. If you are looking for a comedy, this is it.

THREE KINGDOMS - This is one complicated movie. They did try to give it a sense of scale and some of the battle scenes were not bad. But a poor script with a poor handling of the main characters left you wondering who was who and who did what. Kinda sad coz I know this is supposed to be an epic. It wasn't lousy. Just didn't live up to what it could have been.

STREET KINGS - This movie was kinda watchable. Nothing fantastic, which is a slight disappointment considering that Forest Whitaker is in it. Sadly, Whitaker overacts in this film and channels his 'Last King of Scotland' role too much. On the whole, this wasn't a bad movie, just a forgettable one. Felt just like a longer TV episode of the typical cops & villains show.

Buzzing Cashier

I never caught a proper episode of this show. Most of the time, I'm catching up on Last Comic Standing or something else. I finally remembered to set my Hubstation to record it tonite and for the first time, I watched a full episode and I must say I really enjoyed it very much!

First off, Kym Ng and Quan Yifeng are unbeatable as comperes. I've seen some of the other shows with the other mediacorp comperes and no one, not a single one, can compare to the chemistry of these two clowns. They are so witty and they can really play off each other. I don't think I've laughed so much at a mediacorp show in a long time.

Secondly, the concept of the show is really good. I heard it's loosely based on some english programme which I've never seen, so I don't really care. The basic idea is to go to a hawker/food court stall which is not doing well, offer to let the chefs undergo expert mentoring by some pro-chef and then see if they improve. This week's episode was so heartwarming I almost wanted to rush out to the food court stall to buy something from them to support the owner! The owner is this quiet, unassuming, humble man who was basically selling some mass produced char siew, roast pork, etc. So, he basically started learning from scratch how to make char siew and roast pork! He was so earnest and willing to learn and accept criticism. My heart really felt for him and his wife. I am so going to drop by cineleisure to try their char siew! In contrast, I think 2 or 3 weeks ago, I caught a bit of this hawker centre couple who were literally arguing and accusing the producers of the show when things didn't go too well.

It seems next week is already the last episode and I've missed the last 10 episodes. This might actually push me to try out mobtv so that I can catch those 10 episodes!

Great show!

My Toenailsectomy

I finally decided to go see my GP and get my toe nail sliced. I can't believe it, but it's been almost 2yrs since I first started having problems with an ingrown toenail on my left foot's big toe. 2 long yrs.

I've had countless visits to the podiatrist. Endured countless excruciating nail snips. Grinned through the toe infections.

I couldn't bring myself to go get it done coz I had heard that it was really painful. Well, I'm glad to say it wasn't painful at all. heh.

My GP first spent about 15mins injecting my toe at various points with a local anesthetic. When my toe finally lost it's feeling, he started working on slicing about a quarter of my nail off all the way to the roots of the nail. Basically, the idea is to stop that part of my nail from growing back every again. After about 10mins, it was done. He showed me the part he sliced off. I was quite tempted to take a pic for this blog, but kinda decided it might not be in very good taste to show a bloody nail. heh. Would have been cool though.

Anyway, he wrapped it up tight and good and now I look like those cartoon shows where they wrap a toe/finger until it looks a huge lightbulb. The local anesthetic started wearing off about 2 hours after the cut (which is about 1.5hrs ago) and it's starting to throb.... it's obvious that the pain is finally going to show it's true face.

Been warned about possible excessive bleeding. Doctor says it might even drip through the dressing.... (still can't decide if he was scaring me for fun or if it's true...) Thankfully, dun see any blood for now.

Glad I got it done. Hope I don't have this stupid ingrown toe nail problem again.

RIP Dear Friend

Today is a sad day.

After many many many years of good service, I have decided to let my favourite sleep-time-t-shirt go to the great clothes drawer up above. After many attempts at mending and patching (as you can see below), I think it's time to just let go. *sniff*

If I patched it anymore, it would probably be made of an entirely new T-shirt anyway. *sob*

It was one of my earliest BIG DOG shirts. It was one of my favouritest BIG DOG shirt.

Good bye. I will miss sleeping in you.

True or False?

There Brand's Essence posters have been posted up everywhere. The implications are obvious. But i wonder how true they are. If it's true that the two kids drank that chicken essence, at least it wouldn't be too bad. But if they didn't, then it's such a sad reflection of the unethicality (heh. my word) of the marketing industry. And what are we teaching these two 'top PSLE students'? The reality of false marketing and whoring themselves out to any company who is willing to pay?

Kinda sad, isn't it?

Nostalgia

Heard they were relooking into the redevelopment of the old capitol again. Hope it works out this time. So sad to see this icon wasting away. They've been talking about its redevelopment for years. Don't really know why it's been held up. I have many fond memories of the place. People of my era who've been there would undoubtedly remember the beautiful mosaic design on the ceiling. If memory serves me right, it was a mosaic of the zodiac. The last movie I watched there was MEMORIES, an anime that was being screened during the Singapore Film Festival. Can't quite remember when that was. lolz. I hope it can be brought back to its former glory. Maybe as a theatre/cinema. But please please PLEASE dun let it become some mall.

Patapon Demo

Okok, i'll try not to spam anymore Patapon stuff. But for those who have never tried this game or don't have a psp, you can try a PC demo version here.

Try it out and see why I'm so crazy over it.

Patapon (PSP) & Hot Shots Golf 5 (PS3) - Videos

Couldn't help it. Here are two youtube videos of these two great games!

Patapon Video


Hot Shots Golf 5 Video

Patapon (PSP) & Hot Shots Golf 5 (PS3)

My new distractions.... PATAPON (for PSP) & HOT SHOTS GOLF 5 (for PS3).

I hesitated with buying Patapon when it first game out coz I couldn't figure out what kind of game it was. It struck me as a 'lemmings-type' of game so I wasn't to interested at first. But recently, Play-Asia had an excellent sale and I manged to get the game (together with two other oldies) for less than S$35, shipping included! (I bought Caesar IV for the pc for S$7!!! Game shops are still selling the game at over S$60!).

Anyway, Patapon is an excellent game. It's basically a rhythm type game where you hit the PSP buttons in certain rhythms (so far, i've only need to learn 4 rhythms) which will then decide how the little characters (called Patapons) will behave. It's like playing the drum on a dragon boat or the war drums in those olden battle scenes. The animation is quirky and fun and the game is simple to pick up but kinda hard to get the rhythm just right. I've only started playing the game for a couple of hours and I'm hooked. If you like rhythm type games, Patapon is not to be missed.

Here's a silly trumpet mini-game where you copy the tree's rhythm to get him to drop stuff from his branches. Much like collecting dandruff. heh.

Below is an awesome battle scene which I have to reach. Given the interesting variety of troops, it's gonna take me some time to reach such a level I'm sure.


OK, my other distraction is Hot Shots Golf 5 for the PS3. I've never really liked golf video games. Always thought they were kinda stupid. But after playing the demo on the ps3 last year, I couldn't wait for the english version to be released. Maybe I'm getting... old... sigh.. but that's another story... I find HSG5 pretty relaxing to play and I really like the cartoony style graphics. It's not too difficult to pick up the game either.

The characters are really funny and animated very well. Love the little touches like all the special effects when you get the timing just right!

My slight complain is that I believe the graphics for the scenery can probably be much more awesome and realistic given the power of the ps3. But, then again, the game as a whole is interesting and the graphics do fit the style overall.

So there you have it. Patapon to keep me occupied on the bus/train. Hot Shots Golf to keep me occupied in my room. :)