Travelog - Jersey Boys

I love musicals, & always have, whether on the big screen or live on stage.

It was with eager anticipation that I went to the Broadway musical Jersey Boys, which is based on Frankie Valli & his career with the Four Seasons.

I loved it.

Even my husband & two boys, who are usually averse to watching musicals were enthralled almost from start to finish, so much so that once the curtains closed, the first thing my 14-year-old said was, "Let's watch it again." We even bought the CD recording of the music & now, included in their iTunes playlist are Four Seasons classics like Walk Like A Man, Sherry, Big Girls Don't Cry etc!

Listening to the CD which had John Lloyd Young playing the role of Frankie Valli, I think I much prefer Young's voice to Michael Longoria's, whose falsetto, honestly speaking, sounded rather chipmunk-ish at times.

Christian Hoff (who played Tommy DeVito) was brilliant. I could see why he won the Tony for this role in 2006. Peter Gregus , who played the "happy" (*ahem*) manager Bob Crewe was also very enjoyable.

For anyone hoping to catch a Broadway show while in New York, this is HIGHLY recommended!

Here's a snippet taken from the David Letterman show, featuring the original cast doing a medley from the show, with a very enthusiastic review from Paul Schaeffer...

Movie-palooza

We were in the US for about 2 & a half weeks.

And watched SIX movies in that time. Told ya we were movie buffs.

Indiana Jones 4 - watched it for the sake of nostalgia (and Harrison Ford, of course!). Thoroughly entertaining.

The Incredible Hulk - I preferred this version to the Ang Lee one. I still prefer Spidey, the FF & the X-Men though, among the Marvel movies.

Get Smart - rather juvenile humor, if you ask me. That's why my two teenage boys liked it. I wish there could have been smarter dialog...Steve Carrell is such a great comedian, his talent was wasted in this one.

Iron Man - we liked it so much the first time around, we couldn't resist watching it again. And enjoyed it just as much!

Wanted - I'm not a huge fan of graphic violence but was outvoted (perils of being the minority in a testosterone-laden family). James McAvoy was great in it, but I really didn't have to watch bullets piercing heads, knives slashing flesh etc etc in slow-mo. I know it sounds strange coming from a doctor, but I hate watching gore. Performing surgery, I can deal with. Watching traumatic injuries on the big screen...ugh.

Hancock - disappointing despite all the hype. The storyline just didn't cut it for me, although Will Smith & Jason Bateman did the best they could with the material.

We would have watched Wall-E, the Love Guru & The Happening if we had more time, but we didn't so I guess we'll just have to make do with the DVD versions.

We look forward to more movie-watching in Singapore. More specifically, The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (yay, Brendan Fraser!), The Dark Knight (in the trailers, it looks like the late Heath Ledger did a tremendous acting job in this) , Mamma Mia (yay! I watched this 3 times in 3 different countries & thoroughly enjoyed myself each & everytime. It's such a fun musical, that makes you just want to sing & dance along. I guess for those of us who grew up in the 70's & 80's when ABBA was HUGE, it's more meaningful), Journey to the Center of the Earth (Brendan Fraser again :)), The X-Files (I watched every single episode of the TV series). A couple of quirky looking films also look promising when we saw the trailers : Burn After Reading, a Coen Brothers film starring George Clooney & John Malkovich; and Step Brothers, starring Will Farrell & John C. Reilly

Music to my ears!

I was buzzed when I saw that Jason Mraz & One Republic are both going to be performing at Singfest 08.

What a treat that will be!

:D

Music

My latest fave - OneRepublic. Check them out.

My younger son recently wrote a song for his friends who are leaving his school for good. A soulful melody with heartwrenching lyrics, it makes me want to cry when I listen to it, especially since I will also be saying farewell to a few good friends this week. I will try to post it on this site once he has done a recording of it. Get your tissues ready.

Geeks r Us

Conversation that ensues over lunch immediately after watching "Iron Man".

(Spoilers ahead...)

W:
"So, what was that thing that Tony Stark had on his chest for?"


Me:
"Well, remember initially he had a car battery that was attached to his chest? Well, the thing on his chest was an arc reactor which basically generates energy, like the car battery, to create an electromagnetic field that prevents the shrapnel in his chest from piercing his atrial septum hence killing him. Although in reality, in this day & age, he could probably have open heart surgery to get the shrapnel removed."


W:
"Oh. How does it work?"


Z:
"Well, theoretically, it would require some kind of fusion reaction to happen in order to create the energy. There would be these two electrodes that sit within plasma, & the arcs of light that shoot between the electrodes would be the energy that is created."


Silence.


Me:
"Are we movie geeks or what?"


A, W & Z (in unison):
"Yes!"

'Nuff said.

Iron Man!

One word.

AWESOME.

This was a rare occasion that we had the opportunity to enjoy a movie in an actual movie theatre in Beijing even BEFORE it is released in the USA.

Movies have always been an outlet of escape from the real world for me, together with TV & books. And I needed something today...and "Iron Man" didn't fail to deliver. Robert Downey Jr. shone in his quirky portrayal of Tony Stark aka Iron Man. He brought humor & sexiness to the role - something which I have never associated with the comic book version of Iron Man. (Admittedly, I have never been an Iron Man fan, & don't "know" him very well, having preferred Spiderman & the Fantastic Four; nonetheless, I had always thought him to be a very serious, straight-laced, "by-the-book" kind of character.)

Action-packed, & jam-packed with special effects, I was riveted to the storyline, as were my boys, who were also thrilled by the heavy rock music that was used for much of the accompanying background scores, including classics by Black Sabbath & ACDC.

One gripe I had , though, was the name of Tony Stark's assistant. Why Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow)??? I would think that the writers could have come up with something less comical! Pepper Potts????!!!!

Comic fans will not be disappointed by this film. I know I wasn't.

Hint: Don't leave before the credits finish rolling, or you'll miss a scene that lays the foundation for a future Marvel movie....

Impressions from China - James Blunt

James Blunt's concert was wonderful. I have read about how many people dislike his "whiny, annoying" voice but I disagree. And by the looks of the sold out crowd at the concert last week, many are with me.

It was a bit strange, this concert, not because of James Blunt & his band, but because of the behavior of the security people. There were three of them standing in front of the stage. This venue is set up more like a nightclub than the typical concert-on-a -stage style. The people standing in the front row (standing room only downstairs) could literally reach out & touch James. And he did try to reach out to them too. But the security guards, whom I could tell, were very zealous about keeping Mr Blunt safe from the hands of his audience, raised their arms whenever the audience tried to reach for James (& vice versa). At one point, I thought they were going to slap James' hands away from the audiences'!!!

And so many people were taking pictures during the concert, flashing away rather annoyingly. I even saw the red point of a laser light shining on one of the musician's faces!!! Chinese concert etiquette certainly leaves a lot to be desired. The security people should have made an announcement before the start of the concert letting everyone know that the use of recording devices was not allowed & so on & so forth. Instead, the above mentioned security guards basically just used their hands to block anyone using cameras in the front area of the audience pit. Which meant the ones in the back could do as they please.

So this is the kind of thing that makes me wonder what will happen during the Olympics....hardware ready, but what about the software?

Hmmm.

Hooked!

O.M.G.

I am now officially hooked to the soapy family drama hit TV series "Brothers & Sisters". I just went through the entire Season 1 in 5 days.

Before you say how pathetic I am, let me just first counter that this series about a large rather dysfunctional family of 5 siblings in upper middle class America draws you in because we see bits of our own family in the Walkers. Their in-your-face & no-holds-barred interaction with each other strike a chord because they say things to each other (sibling to sibling, parent to child, child to parent, spouse to spouse, partner to partner) that we sometimes wish we can say out loud in our real & oftentimes, repressed lives.

I know this series has been screened in Singapore. I wonder how Mediacorp dealt with the gay issues encountered by one of the siblings (who happens to be homosexual). I would imagine that the scenes of two guys in a passionate embrace probably ended up on the floor of the censors.

And now, on to Season 2......

Our Home

I have been captivated, engrossed, enthralled by the BBC series "planet earth", a documentary about, well, our planet.

It gives a fascinating overview of our home, an audio-visual history, if you will, covering almost every single landscape one can find on Earth. From the frigid poles, to the arid deserts; from the highest summits to the unlit ocean depths, the producers have used the latest in film making technology to give us never-before-seen images of sometimes alien-looking environments.

The cameramen went through extremes in weather & environmental conditions just to get shots of rare animal breeds & behavior. Accompanied by elegant orchestral compositions, we see waddling penguins, leapin' lizards, galloping gazelles, graceful dolphins, hunting predatorial cats, many of which has never been seen by the human eye before. Haunting whalesong, the unforgiving cruelty of nature, & the rarely seen dances of mating birds of paradise are just a few examples of the amazing scenes captured by the seemingly omnipotent BBC cameramen. The miracle of nature has never been so apparent - the wonders of how animals & plants have adapted over the thousands & millions of years are seen up close & personal.

Narrated by the guru of documentary narrators David Attenborough, this series also highlights how fast our climate is changing, resulting in the destruction & shrinking of much of the natural habitat of our fellow earthlings.

The icing on the cake are the short segments at the end of each episode called "Diaries" which gives viewers insights into how certain scenes were captured. This was fascinating, especially for a wannabe film maker like moi.

This should be mandatory viewing for all...especially for those who are still not convinced that global warming is, in fact, affecting everyone of us on this precious blue planet of ours.

Holiday in HK

Hong Kong sure is crowded. We spent the Chinese New Year holidays there. Talk about 人山人海 (literal meaning: people mountain people sea; actual meaning: kazillions of people around).

It was a bit strange meeting Chinese salespeople & waiters who spoke English! Not used to that as most Beijingers can't.

The Police concert at the Macau Venetian Arena was amazing.




























Sting's bass guitar looked really worn out - but that's ok.
And Stewart Copeland looked winded during most of the concert while he was energetically banging on the percussion insturments - but that's ok.
And Andy Summers looked rather pathetic (and rather arthritic)when he tried to jump off an amp like rockers are supposed to do - but that's ok too.

Because despite appearances, they still sound frikkin' fantastic! Sting was trim & toned & still looks pretty sexy!




Sting!





















Surprisingly, my 14 year old son really enjoyed the concert too, probably in part due to the fantastic performance of the percussionist, who not only played on the traditional drum set, but also made brilliant music on a variety of cymbals, & bells & timpani. He was not impressed by the guitarist though, aficionado that he is, of all things pertaining to the guitar & the playing of. :)



Stewart Copeland in action! Believe it or not, this image was taken off the HD screen on stage.





















My 16 year old, on the other hand, found it too loud, didn't really like their music & looked at me in astounded disbelief when I sang along (rather enthusiastically) & knew the words to the classics like Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, Message in a Bottle & Every Breath You Take...:) He actually enjoyed the support band, Fictionplane, more - not surprised as they have a more modern rock sound.

The rest of our holiday was spent shopping, eating & meeting family we otherwise would seldom get to meet. A good time was had, in all.

Happy Year of the Rat!

Awesome Talent

I saw this video clip on the Ellen show today & was blown away by this 14 year old girl's talent...

Aliens in America

This looks like a promising new series that addresses our differences (as well as our similarities) head on, without the double-talk & hypocrisy that is so rampant nowadays in the guise of political correctness.

Crossing my fingers that it will reach our shores (or at least, our satellite waves!) eventually!

Finish the Fight...

The marketing blitz surrounding the Halo series of video games has been phenomenally & amazingly successful. I pre-ordered the 3rd installment of the game for my boys & had to stand in line (which snaked all the way outside the shopping mall!) to collect it, surrounded by fans, some wearing the Halo 3 cap & gear...grown-ups, mind you, not kids!

It has spun off into novels & even a movie, due to be released in 2009. I can't imagine what it will be like then...

The End

I finished reading the final installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows last week.

Spoilers ahead...
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I've always enjoyed the Harry Potter books. I think JK Rowling is a wonderful writer, managing to capture her readers' imaginations & drawing them into the story so that one is loathe to put down the book until the end.

It was the same with the Deathly Hallows, although I got rather frustrated with Harry's reluctance to let others in on his secret mission just because Dumbledore said so. And this despite his own doubts about Dumbledore's sincerity & truthfulness. These people- Remus, Moody, the Weasleys - were willing to sacrifice their own safety to save his life, for crying out loud! So I didn't quite get Harry's very child-like loyalty to Dumbledore's confidence.

The final battle sequence was enthralling although Voldemort's demise was quite anti-climactic...downed by a reflection of his own Killing Spell??? I wonder if Ms Rowling's creative energy was running out of steam at this point.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book overall, & is quite sad to see it end. I hope Ms Rowling will change her mind about not writing anymore about the Harry Potter universe, as I am sure many fans will wonder at how the various relationships develop (i.e. Harry-Ginny, Ron-Hermione) between the time when this book ended, to the Epilogue of Nineteen Years Later.

Die Hard, or rather, Hard To Die

Man, that Det. McClane ought to be given The Ultimate Survivor award.

Spoilers ahead...





















He managed to live through being shot at by multiple automatic weapons from multiple bad guys, shot at by a fighter jet, falling off aforementioned fighter jet onto semi-destroyed freeway slanted at an 80 degree angle then sliding into concrete debris, thrown out of a speeding cop car, blown up by a rigged computer, blown up by natural gas in a power plant, falling from a height equivalent to oh, about 3 flights of stairs.

Hmm...have I left anything out? I probably have.

Despite Det McClane's apparent immortality, I did enjoy the movie. It was mindless entertainment, with amusing dialogue, and fantabulous stunt work (although these days with the extremely high quality of CGI, it is sometimes hard to differentiate between what is virtual & what is real).

Harry Potter: Losing Its Magic?

Possible spoilers ahead:
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Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix (henceforth to be referred to HPOP) was, I hate to say, a disappointment.

I felt like the whole movie had a subdued air to it. Yes, I know the story gets darker here, & the children are no longer children anymore. I miss the magic that was so apparent in the first three installments. During those movies, I didn't want it to end. But in HPOP, that childlike exuberance is gone, replaced by a moody, angst-filled Harry. The unique relationships between the three friends seems so superficial now - the movie didn't seem to dwell enough on it. There was no Quidditch, and the Cho Chang-Harry relationship was barely touched upon (despite the much hyped about first on-screen kiss).

Perhaps it's the fault of the screenplay, which felt so condensed that the editing looked sloppy with such clumsy & glaring cuts during some of the scene changes, that it left us with mouths gaping & asking "Huh?" I know it's hard to translate a book into film, especially one with so many elements in it, but this director (David Yates) & screenwriter (Michael Goldenberg) seem to have done a rush job on this movie, that even the credits at the end of the movie are "cheap" looking!

Bring back Steve Kloves, I say (and according to the IMDB website, he will be doing the screenplays for both the Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows - Yay!) and Chris Columbus too while they're at it, and finish off the series with a Bang!

Movie-mania

My family has always been mad about movies. Preferred genres included romances/romantic comedies (moi), action (A,Z & W), sci-fi/fantasy (all of us), & comedies (Z & W). This pretty much covers 80% of the movies out in theatres at any one time.


We would catch the latest releases on opening weekend. So moving to Beijing with its limited number of English movies (I read somewhere that they get on average 20 English movies a year -20!) really bummed us out as far as this recreational activity was concerned. True there are bootleg copies of the latest releases out in the DVD stores usually within 2 weeks of the movies' release despite efforts of the copyright lobby. But nothing beats sitting in a movie theatre watching a movie on widescreen with Dolby/THX (or other system) sound blasting.


So having been back here in Singapore for about a month now, we have, so far, watched a total of 5 movies (not counting the 2 - Harry P. & Die Hard 4.0- that we will be watching this week).


Pirates 3 - a disappointment. Johnny Depp was great, but the storyline which continued from Pirates 2 lost me. No doubt the special effects were well done, but a movie can't live on SFX alone.


Fantastic Four 2 - loved it! I used to read FF comics as a kid (still do sometimes!) which is probably one reason why I enjoyed the movie. But Jessica Alba doesn't quite cut it as Invisible Girl though (ya, ya, I know she is probably one of the most downloaded celebrities in web-dom)...just something about that blonde hair which just doesn't go with the rest of her look.


Nancy Drew - Curiosity got the better of me & I succumbed to the temptation & greatly regretted it within a half hour of the show. I had previously blogged about it & my first impressions were not wrong. Sigh.

Transformers - Jaw dropping CGI, & awesome action sequences made for light entertainment. I think it's a "guy movie" as my kids LOVED it. I thought it was OK, worth the ticket price, but wouldn't want to go back & see it again. But my geeky car-loving son probably thought it was one of the greatest movies ever...hey, what more could a boy ask for? An intelligent Chevy Camaro that speaks & turns into a superhero 'bot when need be.

Shrek 3 - another disappointment. I watched Shrek & Shrek 2 on DVD & thought they were both excellent movies. But Shrek 3 was just plain corny. Weak dialogue, fairy tale characters springing up left right & center, predictable storyline all made me wish for the movie to end ASAP.

I am looking forward to more movies this week. Harry Potter/Det. McClane, here I come!

My Son, The Rocker

My 13-year-old has discovered the advantages of being a really good lead guitarist in a rock group. (Before anyone starts accusing me of being a biased mom, there have been quite a few other more objective people who have commented favorably on his skills as a guitarist at his age - heh heh).

For the last couple of months, my basement has been turned into a rehearsal studio for his band to practise for a Middle School "rock concert" which happened last week.

This was the song they did:


It has been loud. Real loud.

There were teenagers running in & out of our home after school almost everyday. And recently, I discovered that among these teens were also a bunch of groupies - MY SON HAS GROUPIES??? But he's my baby boy!!!

Anyway, apparently, he has become quite popular among the ladies due to his reputation as a rock guitarist, especially after the performance. He pointed out from his yearbook who were the girls who like him (although, he clarified, he doesn't reciprocate the feelings).

This is new territory for me. My older boy has lots of friends, both girls & boys, but not the target of adulation. I will have to tread carefully & slowly through this.

O, sweet child o' mine, is growing up...

Books & Movies

NOOOOOO!!!! What have they done to Nancy Drew????

I just came across the "Nancy Drew Movie" website & it looks like they have changed this classic character into the latest geek-turned-cool-chick a lá "She's All That", "Never Been Kissed", "10 Things I Hate About You" etc.

I remember devouring this series of detective stories voraciously in my pre-teen years. I think I must have gone through the entire series before moving on to the"Hardy Boys" series, which, by the way, was made into a short-lived TV series starring Parker Stevenson (whom I had a teeny weeny crush on) as Frank Hardy & Shaun Cassidy as Joe Hardy. I vaguely remember the Nancy Drew TV series as well, but I don't think they brought it into Singapore. If they did, it didn't make much of an impression.

Targeted at adolescents, the Nancy Drew books were unique because its main character was a girl, with brains (gasp!), had a cute boyfriend and leadership qualities (gasp again!). Given the fact that this character was created in the 1930's, you can see how unusual this was. And the series has endured because of these qualities. She made it cool to be smart.

And now look what they've done. Watching the trailer, it seems like the producers have tried to make it more appealing to the modern-day teenage girls by making Nancy Drew's transformation from geek to cool dudette, the focus of the story. And her best friends George & Bess seem to have disappeared as well.

It's always tricky trying to make a movie from a beloved book or series of books. The Harry Potter series was pretty well done, for the most part, depending on which installment one is talking about (although nothing beats reading the books). And the Lord of the Rings has been done true to the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien's books; I ploughed through all three books consecutively which I would never had done had it not been for the first movie "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring". Although I enjoyed the movies more than the books, I thought that Peter Jackson stuck to the core of the story & brought out its soul when he translated the written word into the amazing visual images we saw in the three movies.

I hope that I will be proven wrong in my preliminary impression of the Nancy Drew movie, although it doesn't look promising from the trailer.

:(

Spidey's Back!

We finally watched the much anticipated "Spiderman 3" today. Yes, amazingly, the movie came out here in China together with much of the rest of the world, & we were definitely not disappointed.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
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We have been eagerly awaiting its release since last year. We recognized the street (Broadway) where the Sandman was hiding in the dump truck, as well as the street where Peter Parker did his Tony Manero strut a la Saturday Night Fever. I even caught a glimpse the Art supply store (Pearl River Mart) where I went to buy paint! I still kick myself when I think about how we could have witnessed the actual shooting of a blockbuster movie!!!

I was impressed by Tobey Maguire's performance, especially his nerdy-geek-trying-to-be-cool Venom-ized Peter Parker. And I must say, he does a pretty good jazz dance routine (well, it looked like it really was him doing it & not a stunt double).

The storyline may be a bit too busy for non-Spidey fans or for first time audiences who missed the first two installments. Because (without giving too much away) there was the Peter Parker-MJ thing, and the Peter Parker-Harry Osborne/Green Goblin II thing, and the Venom-Spiderman thing, and the Sandman/Flint Marko-Spiderman/Peter Parker thing, and the Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy thing & the Peter Parker/Brock thing...so as you can see, lots of things going on. But there was also some closure with regards to Ben Parker's murder & also with Harry's enmity against Peter. I was a bit disappointed with Sandman's rather schizoid changes in behavior though - bad one minute, then all soft & emotional the next.

And the special effects...OMG...the CGI wizards have really outdone themselves this time & have done an AMAZING job with this. The Sandman & Venom were brought to life vividly, and the aerial fight scene between the GG & Spidey was awesome (for lack of a better word).

So for die-hard Spidey fans like moi & my son, we walked away from the theatre with a smile, and a hope that there will be a fourth installment to this very successful series. We even stayed till the end of the credits hoping for a teaser clip, like what happened in X-Men III, but alas, nada. But in the movie world where moolah means a lot (and this franchise is probably one of the most successful coming from Marvel), I suspect that Spidey 4 will happen.