I have to wonder these days if there's something wrong with my taste. A lot of people I know loved 2012, but as you have read here, I wasn't exactly thrilled about it.
Now, almost everyone is raving about the movie New Moon on their Facebook walls - either in eager, hip-writhing anticipation of watching, or in jubilation after being one of the first to catch it on-screen. Stephanie Meyer fans can rest easy, you have one less competition for seats here. I will not be queuing up for that movie anytime.
Don't get me wrong. I know the story of the Twilight series. In fact, I own the lot. So how do I explain owning the entire series when I'm not such a fan? Well, I finished the first book, and so I took it upon myself to go through all four books. After all, one must finish what one has started. Although some parts appealed to my long-forgotten teenage heart and reminded me how it felt like to have a really serious infatuation, I mostly suffered through the thick volumes. Especially New Moon. Bella is just too full of herself, and I am not about to apologise for that opinion.
I suppose the book version is okay, except that I am not the target market. Reading it did not feel any different from going through a copy of Goth-infused Sweet Valley High. It's too teenybopper. Which I guess would explain the brouhaha over Robert Pattison and his cohorts. (Imagine being hit by a car, trying to run away from frenzied teenagers - these rabidly "crush-ing" 16-year-olds will sooner drive RP to an untimely death, rather than succeed in having him kiss them)
Which leads me to another point. Why on God's green earth do people seem to think RP is perfect as Edward? So NOT! The book used glowing adjectives like beautiful, perfect, God-like, ethereal and all the wonderful superlatives you can come up with. Sadly, the screen version (I watched Twilight on DVD) falls oh-so-short of these heavenly attributes. RP looks like the classic vampire, which is a corpse. Awful acting, dead eyes. Oh dear, maybe that's why I thought he was perfect as Cedric Diggory. He died.
I expect an angry throng beating down my front door now, waiting to stone me to death. But, really, Brad Pitt is the closest thing to a perfect vampire if there ever was one. And Anne Rice will kick Stephanie Meyer's ass any day.
P.S. I am still contemplating whether I should post a question on my FB, as to why everyone is so excited about the gosh-darned movie. Then again, my Twilight fan-friends will probably try to talk me into watching it, and wax poetic over RP, so maybe it isn't such a wise thought...
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Gift
Last night, my son and I were having our usual pre-bedtime conversation.
Knowing that we live in a country with mixed religion, races and culture, I try my best to teach him about the Catholic faith he was born into. So I take these bedtime rituals as an opportunity to discuss things with him without sounding too preachy.
Since he likes listening to music before going to sleep (usually Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror", ad nauseam), I sang one of my favourite church hymns as a child, which was "Jesus, My Friend". I was telling him Jesus is our Father, yet He is also our friend.
After listening to the song, my son asked me where I learned it. I told him I went to a Catholic school, and so I learned the song as a little girl. He looked at me and said, "So I was listening to you while you were singing it?" I understand my son does not have a very firm concept of time yet, not quite grasping what is the past, present and future. I endeavoured to explain it, in simpler terms:
MOMMY: No, you were not listening in because you weren't born yet.
SON: (PUZZLED LOOK) Where was I?
MOMMY: You were still in Heaven because you were still an angel.
SON: I was with my Father, Jesus? (MOMMY NODS) How did I get here?
MOMMY: (NERVOUSLY ANTICIPATING A BIRDS-AND-THE-BEES CONVERSATION) Daddy and I prayed for you. You were Papa Jesus' very special gift to us.
SON: (FACE BRIGHTENING UP WITH A CHARMING SMILE) Did I come in a box?
Knowing that we live in a country with mixed religion, races and culture, I try my best to teach him about the Catholic faith he was born into. So I take these bedtime rituals as an opportunity to discuss things with him without sounding too preachy.
Since he likes listening to music before going to sleep (usually Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror", ad nauseam), I sang one of my favourite church hymns as a child, which was "Jesus, My Friend". I was telling him Jesus is our Father, yet He is also our friend.
After listening to the song, my son asked me where I learned it. I told him I went to a Catholic school, and so I learned the song as a little girl. He looked at me and said, "So I was listening to you while you were singing it?" I understand my son does not have a very firm concept of time yet, not quite grasping what is the past, present and future. I endeavoured to explain it, in simpler terms:
MOMMY: No, you were not listening in because you weren't born yet.
SON: (PUZZLED LOOK) Where was I?
MOMMY: You were still in Heaven because you were still an angel.
SON: I was with my Father, Jesus? (MOMMY NODS) How did I get here?
MOMMY: (NERVOUSLY ANTICIPATING A BIRDS-AND-THE-BEES CONVERSATION) Daddy and I prayed for you. You were Papa Jesus' very special gift to us.
SON: (FACE BRIGHTENING UP WITH A CHARMING SMILE) Did I come in a box?
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
2012: A Review
Note: This post contains some spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the movie yet, please skip this review.
Cast: John Cusack – Jackson Curtis
Amanda Peet – Kate Curtis (Jackson’s ex-wife)
Danny Glover – US President Thomas Wilson
Thandie Newton – Laura Wilson (Presidential daughter)
Chiwetel Ejiofor – Dr. Adrian Helmsley
My husband and I were expecting a crowded theatre when we decided to watch last Saturday. A combination of CGI and disaster is a sure-fire crowd-drawer, after all. Sure enough, the only good seats left were for the 11:50pm showing, and so we snapped it up before someone else “out-booked” us.
Turns out it was a blessing in disguise, because at least our son was snoring happily by the time we snuck out for our movie date (otherwise, I would have been too guilty to leave him behind). Good thing the mall is a short five-minute walk from our place. We even had time for a toffee nut frapuccino before the movie started. But I digress.
First off, 2012 does not exactly have a stellar cast. Cusack will forever remind me of Some Kind of Wonderful, and I was half-expecting him to say, “My future looks good on you.” The point is, he should’ve stuck to being an 80s matinee idol, and I find him totally ineffective in his role. He was still John, not Jackson.
I was also a bit disappointed with how under-utilised some of the actors were. Glover is a good actor, but he seemed to have been reduced to nothing more than a simpering, old, fatalistic politician (not that there was anything he could’ve done about the disasters, anyway). But they could have at least made him a bit more inspiring or awesome. James Earl Jones managed to be even more dignified using just his voice in The Lion King.
Peet was the mother of two kids, and she acted like a terrified mother, which I guess is fine. Any mom would be panic-stricken with the degree of disaster all around. I was sitting in the moviehouse and Peet’s eyes found mirrors in mine. When you watch a movie that claims to be based on something that has a fraction of scientific basis behind it, of course you’d be scared. So maybe the way I felt while watching her was not out of her spectacular thespian abilities, but out of a real maternal fear I had. As for Newton, well, let’s just say she looked good behind the wheel of a TT Coupe in Mission Impossible 2. That’s about it.
The story was poorly written. For a two-and-a-half hour movie, it left a lot of blanks. If you happen to be one of those who have never heard of the ancient Mayan prophecy and the hypotheses (and hype) everyone is attaching to it, you’d probably be baffled why you are looking at such images of destruction. The writers never bothered to squeeze in a decent explanation on the theory, apart from mentioning them in passing. It is strange that the vehicle they chose to kind of explain the Mayan prophecy was a loony guy.
150 minutes of talk-time and you’d think they would have room for that. Maybe they should have edited out some of the useless melodrama. Case in point: a father (a minor character) wanted to say goodbye to his estranged son, and just as the guy picked up the phone and was within 2 seconds of responding, the earth swallowed him whole while his father listened in horror. Was it really that important? I also felt that ALL the sequences involving the cruise ship could have been edited out and it wouldn’t be an issue. I guess they just wanted a touch of Titanic, even if it’s non-essential.
Most of the action sequences felt too contrived. Outrunning a volcanic eruption? Indeed. The loony guy’s scene at the peak of Yellowstone was far too stretched. Escaping a violent earthquake on a limo, when the rest of the city was swallowed up, is simply unbelievable. Plus, being able to take off on a plane just when you run out of runway is too much good luck, especially when the entire planet is having a really bad day.
Personally, the only saving grace were the rare moments of comedic relief, the heartwrenching scenes with children, and those who could not be saved because they couldn’t afford a billion Euros for a seat on the Ark (even if one of them happens to be the ONE who discovered the cataclysmic truth). It shoves in your face just how materialistic the world is, and that the government (particularly the US, in this case) is just one big conspiracy.
Overall, 2012 is a disaster mega-fest that combines the horror of The Day After Tomorrow, Dante’s Peak and Poseidon that falls flat in terms of my expectations. You’ll be riveted by computer-generated tsunamis and earthquakes, but that’s about it. Your only motivations for seeing this movie would be, 1) you’ll be the only one who hasn’t seen it if you don’t, and 2) animation-heavy movies just don’t look as nice on your 42-inch flat screen.
The verdict: 2 out of 5 popcorns. To paraphrase the tagline: you were warned.
The moral lesson: real estate investments in Africa would be a very wise idea. Oh, and Bentleys are really, really cool cars.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Thursday's Thoughts
An animal without stripes
A few days ago, my three-year-old son and I were watching TV. A commercial for a sporting brand flickered in and he curiously asked who the guy on it was. I told him, “Sweetie, that’s Tiger Woods. He’s famous because he’s very, very good in golf.”
He considered that for a while, then gave me a thoughtful look. “Tiger Woods?” he asked. “What a strange name, Mommy!”
Come to think of it, it IS a strange name. It just took a toddler to point out the obvious. Strangely reminiscent of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Reading progress
Finally, I am in the final chapter of Kafka on the Shore! It took me an inordinately long time to finish that book. For one thing, as the review mentioned, it’s a “metaphysical mindbender”…and they sure weren’t kidding! Murakami has a very fertile imagination. As I’m reading it, my mind was on video-edit mode, complete with the dissolves and Gaussian blurs and other transitional effects. I’m a bit ambivalent, though, on how this thing will turn out if and when someone decides to adapt it on the big screen. It might be a bit too “metaphysical” to be given any justice in a movie version, in my opinion.
Another reason why I took so long reading it is because I’ve been getting dizzy trying to accomplish the feat in a moving bus; these dizzy spells sometimes carry on well into the evening. My husband warned me about my eyesight. Being that I'm thirtysomething that loves reading even in not-so-conducive lighting, I take that seriously. I'm not about to wear specs if I can help it. But with a chatterbox of a three-year-old around, I can hardly find any decent reading time. And when I put him to sleep, I conk out even before he does, so that’s the end of the peaceful wee hours I could’ve enjoyed.
This book deserves a re-reading. I have a feeling I’ll appreciate it even more the second or even third time around. I love this book and I would definitely recommend it to my cerebral friends.
On to other books
I was surprised to enjoy Jodi Picoult’s Salem Falls. If you happen to like some small-town intrigue mixed with courtroom drama, and a hint of Wiccan charm, you may enjoy this book, too. I think I would consider getting a copy of My Sister’s Keeper, if I don’t find a copy of Nineteen Minutes first (which is on my reading list). But I think I would have to forego JP’s books in favor of all the other titles that are just screaming out my name.
As for Eat Pray Love…hmmm…I find it so-so. I liken the feeling to sinking my nose into somebody else’s private journal, and someone I don’t know that well, for that matter. The book is okay, but you won’t be missing out on a lot if you don’t get your hands on a copy.
After Kafka, The Time Traveler’s Wife is now winking at me from my bedside table. My colleague graciously loaned me the book. She cautioned me that this novel had her blinking back tears in the MRT, so unless I want curious stares from complete strangers, I think I’ll dive into this book in the privacy of my bedroom, thank you very much.
Next on my to-buy list: a toss-off between Artemis Fowl and The Lovely Bones.
The trouble with Tuesdays
The past few Tuesdays have been quite a bummer for me. Hubby’s been leaving every second day of the work week since the start of this month for his business trips. And it’s not gonna let up until sometime next month, I surmise.
Sigh. I knew the two months’ worth of non-travel had to have some hidden repercussions. But as my brother pointed out, I should expect it because his work requires him to travel a fair bit.
I just never get used to it, that’s all. At least, I have a lot more reasons to look forward to Fridays because he’s usually home by then.
A few days ago, my three-year-old son and I were watching TV. A commercial for a sporting brand flickered in and he curiously asked who the guy on it was. I told him, “Sweetie, that’s Tiger Woods. He’s famous because he’s very, very good in golf.”
He considered that for a while, then gave me a thoughtful look. “Tiger Woods?” he asked. “What a strange name, Mommy!”
Come to think of it, it IS a strange name. It just took a toddler to point out the obvious. Strangely reminiscent of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Reading progress
Finally, I am in the final chapter of Kafka on the Shore! It took me an inordinately long time to finish that book. For one thing, as the review mentioned, it’s a “metaphysical mindbender”…and they sure weren’t kidding! Murakami has a very fertile imagination. As I’m reading it, my mind was on video-edit mode, complete with the dissolves and Gaussian blurs and other transitional effects. I’m a bit ambivalent, though, on how this thing will turn out if and when someone decides to adapt it on the big screen. It might be a bit too “metaphysical” to be given any justice in a movie version, in my opinion.
Another reason why I took so long reading it is because I’ve been getting dizzy trying to accomplish the feat in a moving bus; these dizzy spells sometimes carry on well into the evening. My husband warned me about my eyesight. Being that I'm thirtysomething that loves reading even in not-so-conducive lighting, I take that seriously. I'm not about to wear specs if I can help it. But with a chatterbox of a three-year-old around, I can hardly find any decent reading time. And when I put him to sleep, I conk out even before he does, so that’s the end of the peaceful wee hours I could’ve enjoyed.
This book deserves a re-reading. I have a feeling I’ll appreciate it even more the second or even third time around. I love this book and I would definitely recommend it to my cerebral friends.
On to other books
I was surprised to enjoy Jodi Picoult’s Salem Falls. If you happen to like some small-town intrigue mixed with courtroom drama, and a hint of Wiccan charm, you may enjoy this book, too. I think I would consider getting a copy of My Sister’s Keeper, if I don’t find a copy of Nineteen Minutes first (which is on my reading list). But I think I would have to forego JP’s books in favor of all the other titles that are just screaming out my name.
As for Eat Pray Love…hmmm…I find it so-so. I liken the feeling to sinking my nose into somebody else’s private journal, and someone I don’t know that well, for that matter. The book is okay, but you won’t be missing out on a lot if you don’t get your hands on a copy.
After Kafka, The Time Traveler’s Wife is now winking at me from my bedside table. My colleague graciously loaned me the book. She cautioned me that this novel had her blinking back tears in the MRT, so unless I want curious stares from complete strangers, I think I’ll dive into this book in the privacy of my bedroom, thank you very much.
Next on my to-buy list: a toss-off between Artemis Fowl and The Lovely Bones.
The trouble with Tuesdays
The past few Tuesdays have been quite a bummer for me. Hubby’s been leaving every second day of the work week since the start of this month for his business trips. And it’s not gonna let up until sometime next month, I surmise.
Sigh. I knew the two months’ worth of non-travel had to have some hidden repercussions. But as my brother pointed out, I should expect it because his work requires him to travel a fair bit.
I just never get used to it, that’s all. At least, I have a lot more reasons to look forward to Fridays because he’s usually home by then.
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