Crazy Rich Asians

There’s been a lot of hype surrounding the release of the movie “Crazy Rich Asians”.  I’ve read the various viewpoints – Asian-American, Singaporean, Malaysian.   I went into the cinema with an open mind, intending to watch it as a RomCom that happens to be set in Singapore.

I was surprised to find myself almost moved to tears when the movie opened with the big band sounding track by Jasmine Chen “Waiting For Your Return”.  I am not sure why it affected me so.  Maybe because I never thought I would see Chinese music being featured so prominently in a Hollywood studio production.

The rest of the movie was enjoyable, with surprisingly good performances from Singapore actors Koh Chieng Mun, Selena Tan, and especially Tan Kheng Hua.  They certainly deserved their roles, and what a refreshing change from the melodramatic performances  we see from them in  MediaCorp productions!

Whether or not one agrees with how good the movie is, it IS breaking box offices records .  But what I see as most impactful that has come out of this production are the conversations about Race and Diversity that has arisen. 

About time, I say

Decibels

I wonder why movie theaters crank up the volume so high?

A & I watched "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" on Lunar New Year's Day (oh so festive of us) and during the scenes with car chases/bombs exploding/guns shooting, the decibel levels were high enough to hurt my ear drums.

I resorted to putting in ear plugs which I always carry in my purse (a habit I developed thanks to the various very loud rock gigs I attended when my boys were performing in high school).  Even with ear plugs on, the volume was high enough that I could still hear the dialog being spoken in the movie.

Ridiculous.

6 degrees of Separation

A good friend in Beijing just told me that she & her husband knows Hugh Jackman's father.

Hugh Jackman.

HUGH JACKMAN!!!

One of my favorite actors!

In this shrinking world of ours, it's funny where life brings us & whom we meet along the way.  They say that we are all connected in six or less degrees of separation.  True or not, all the connections that I have made in life this far have been precious.

Here's to connecting some more....

The Avengers Movie

It's been a long time since I've been excited over a movie.  Yesterday I watched one that I had been looking forward to for months: "The Avengers".  I must admit that the first thing which drew me to this movie was the "Hunk" factor!  Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Capt America, Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man...what more could a girl want (although Hugh Jackman as Wolverine would have been the icing on the cake!)

It was action-packed almost from beginning till end.  Joss Whedon, who also directed the Buffy series (one of my all time favorites) directed the movie, and a great job he did too.

A new addition (kind of new, I guess) to the Marvel movie world was Mark Ruffalo who played Dr Banner/The Hulk and he was the one who was surprisingly engaging.  His Dr Banner has a wry sense of humor that Edward Norton's didn't have, and his angst of being burdened with this monster within himself was very convincingly portrayed.  In one scene, and I don't know how he did it, there was even an apparent involuntary  facial tic that one sees occasionally in someone going through extreme emotional upheaval.

Chris Evan's Captain America was rather underwhelming here, compared to the Captain America movie.  I somehow did not get the vibe that he was the leader of the group, and he rather paled in comparison to RDJ's Tony Stark personality or even Thor.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie was a very Buffy-like Girl vs Bad Guys fight with the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) managing to defeat 3 (or was it 4?) villains while still tied to a chair in the middle of an interrogation!  Joss Whedon's touch could definitely be seen here...

I want to watch the movie again, because with so much happening on screen, I am sure there are bits & pieces here & there which I missed while trying to absorb everything at once.

I hope a sequel is in the making!

Finales

On the one hand, I am excited and so looking forward to watching Part 2 of "Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows".

On the other, I am also sad, as it is the last installment of the series. Although not all of them were well made, these movies (and the books, of course) have brought some magic into our lives, not matter how young or old we are.

Inside Job

I have never taken a course in Economic.

And I would be the first to admit ignorance when it comes to the why's & wherefore's of today's global economic woes.

Watching this Academy Award-winning documentary has opened my eyes somewhat on what went wrong in the US. I am astonished at how this blatant abuse of power was allowed to go on and work its way insidiously into the American financial & banking system. I am also amazed at the millions & billions of dollars that ended up in the pockets of those who played their part in causing the 2008 economic downturn in the first place.

Shame on you.

Movie Mania

Summer in the US usually means movie mania in our family.

Our list of "have-watched" so far with my verdict in a nutshell:

The Karate Kid - pleasant enough, but I still prefer the original one
The Last Airbender - awful
Inception - one of the best made movies I have ever watched
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - better than the first two...but then that really doesn't mean much since the first two were pretty darn bad. The Twilight movies, like the books, are like whirlpools - fascinating to watch from afar, and then it pulls you in & draws you, unwillingly, into its swirling maelstrom of bad writing/acting, and you can only but helplessly allow them to do so......

Movies to watch before we return to the land behind the Great Firewall:
Dinner For Schmucks - starring the ever funny Steve Carrell
Charlie St. Cloud - a tearjerker starring Zac Efron - perhaps this may give him a chance to prove that he is not just a pretty face.

Movies that I want to watch but will probably be able to only catch on bootleg DVD's:
Eat, Pray Love - starring Julia Roberts, it is based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert. A great & inspirational read.
Easy A - admittedly, this is targeted towards a teenage audience, but looks entertaining
The Other Guys - starring another funny guy Will Farrell
The Expendables (although this one has a high likelihood that it will be played in the Chinese theaters since one of its starts is Jet Li) - pack load of action movie stars
RED - another action movie with the unlikely Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich & Bruce Willis as aging retired ex-CIA agents. Helen Mirren wielding a gun is enough to make me want to watch this!

Impressions from China - 'Avatar' pulled from 1,628 Chinese movie screens - latimes.com

One word: UN-FRICKIN'-BELIEVABLE.


'Avatar' pulled from 1,628 Chinese movie screens - latimes.com

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New Moon

OMG.

This movie is SOOO BAD.

'Nuff said.

The Big Screen

Avatar was an amazing experience. To call the experience "watching a movie" would not do it justice. The storyline was admittedly predictable & rather cliched (sorry, Mr Cameron!). However, all was forgiven by the jaw-dropping, newfangled CGI technology that was used in the making of this blockbuster epic (last count: more than 1 BILLION USD in ticket sales worldwide!!!)

Watching it in 3D made it even more awe-inspiring. What made it even more special for me was being able to see emotion on the animated faces of the Na'vi; and (I know this sounds strange) that James Cameron even made sure that Jake Sully's paraplegic legs looked appropriately atrophied!

The Avatar story reminded me of what happened to the Native Americans on the plains of North America hundreds of years ago. At the same time, it echoed currently trendy (and deserving) calls to save the Earth from the ravages of Mankind.

I enjoyed the movie, cliches and all, with its hopeful ending.

Another movie that I recently watched and enjoyed, this time on DVD, was The Blind Side, based on the true story of American football player Michael Oher. An African American teenager abandoned by his drug addict mother, he is taken in by a wealthy white family, the Tuohys, and goes on to fulfill his potential both academically as well as in athletics. He was recently drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the 2009 NFL Draft.

It is unabashedly a feel-good movie, full of hope & inspiration.

As you can tell, I love these kinds of shows where the underdog ends up triumphant, the heroes end up saving the day, and where good defeats evil. Much better than the gore & violence of movies like "Inglorious Basterds", or "Kill Bill" (not a Quentin Tarantino fan - sorry) or any of the other thousand and one horror movies out in the market today.

Next up - Sherlock Holmes - which is supposed to come to the big screens in Beijing next week *fingers crossed*...

Wolverine!!!

Check this out...

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE HD


Opens May 1st.

PLEASE let it be released here in China!!!

Random Musings

It's been an incredibly busy past few weeks for me, as we went away for a short break, & I was involved in the planning of an International Day in my kids' school.

It's hard to know what to blog about these days. I started this blog partly as a creative outlet for my right brain, & partly as a vent for my woes as a physician. Now that I am not practicing clinical medicine, I find myself busy & enjoying my busy-ness volunteering in school, helping to organize events, updating websites, creating poster & flyers & endless other tasks. What a difference it is to be busy & not feel miserable about it like in my previous life!

People ask me occasionally whether I miss it (my practice, that is) - & more often than not, the answer is no. Admittedly, I sometimes feel a slight pull to start working again. But then this lasts for perhaps, a nanosecond before I brush it off & immerse myself back into the role of parent volunteer again.


On a different note, I think Chinese drivers are the worst in the world. Yesterday, I was stuck in a gridlock when the Airport Expressway was closed for the arrival of dignitaries into Beijing for the Asia-Europe summit to discuss the horrendous world economic situation.

Drivers here do not understand the concept of giving way. Neither do they pay any attention to the concept of a two-way street. Long line of cars? Never mind, they think, just go onto the opposite lane to create a nearly impossible situation of cars going every which way, that takes an expert in the game of Rush Hour to solve.


The US elections are on the minds of many these days, & not just the Americans. My husband asked my opinion last week on who he should vote for, as it was & is a tough decision. If I could vote, I think I would go for Barack. McCain looks like a good guy, but the thought that if he dies (he IS in his 70's after all) & Sarah Palin taking over doesn't really sit well with me!



I finally watched Mamma Mia last week (on bootleg DVD of course, where else) & throughly enjoyed reliving the music of ABBA. I was rather put off by Pierce Brosnan's singing though & was cringing through the bits when he had to whine his way through duets with Meryl Streep, who had a very pleasant voice. I also caught "The Rocker", a "School of Rock" copycat which held its own with Rainn Wilson being hilariously funny as a has been rocker/drummer from the 80's trying to regain his fame with a teenage rock band. Next up on my list of DVDs To Watch include "Wall-E", "The Adventures of Zohan" (which probably contains mostly juvenile slapstick humor - but in these days of economic doom & gloom, I need the laughs), & season 4 of Gray's Anatomy.

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....

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!

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.

FF2

I just watched the trailer for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and it looks...well... FANTASTIC.

It opens in Singapore June 14, 2007.

Guess who's going to be there?

Me!

Yay!

:)