Saturday, December 18, 2004

Back!

Ah! Finally!

I have my MS Words at long last! The wonder of word processors! At least fEn won't be asking me to go get MS Words now! =P

Let's see, my last decent post was on 28th November. It's kind of weird but I'm normally very free at this time of the year but apparently it isn't so. I've been going to gathering after gathering. This is the time of the year where the tummy grows and the wallet shrinks!

Why do people celebrate Christmas in the first place? It's becoming a very commercialized holiday, just like Valentine's Day, which is VERY commercialized. Call me un-romantic or something, but I just think that the prices of flowers rockets ridiculously high around that period! But still, what can I say if the flowers make my darling a happy person on that day?

I've watched a few movies recently, three to be precise: Alexander, Blade Trinity and Ocean's Twelve.

Alexander wasn't as good as I expected.

Firstly, the show is 3 hours long! I don't know much about the history of Alexander and his empire but the show certainly didn't give a concise understanding of what happened either. No thanks to the lack of subtitles (I was watching the preview). It really pales in comparison to the other great epics like Lord of the Ring and Troy. The fighting scenes were greatly blurred and merged. One can't help but feel that the show lacks a good cinematographer and fighting choreographer.

The scenes between Alex and his gay lover weren't that appealing too. There was this scene where the both of them were standing on the balcony. The setting was great! There were stars in the sky, the balcony overlooking the city of erm, one of his cities of conquest, the back views of what looked like a long haired woman and man. What a romantic setting, you said?

NO! The long haired woman is a guy! Damn spoiler, can? Not to say that I have a thing against gays, (there are so many in my social circle!) I do still have a problem seeing 2 men behaving intimately.

Isn't it sad that most sequels cannot live to the hype of the original?

While Ocean's Eleven revolves around the special abilities of the crew, O12 didn't. Instead, most of the film-time was dedicated to just Clooney, Pitt and Damon. The most interesting part of the show was perhaps when the Night Fox was tangoing his way through the laser beams. Other than that, O12 wasn't as interesting as O11. Sure, there was also a twist in the plot at the end but somehow the whole show isn't that memorable.

On the other hand, Blade Trinity was pretty decent. I can't compare it to the original because I didn't watch it, but still the 2 sequels were both pretty good and decent.

Has anyone seen the Botero exhibition ongoing at the Esplanade Park? I think it's pretty interesting. For Reader's information, Botero is the one who did the fat little (ok, it's not that little) bird sculpture near UOB Building along Singapore River. I think they are all pretty interesting, go catch them if you have the chance. I'm not too sure when the exhibition is on until but it was still there when I was in the area last night!

Hmmm, there's a Sleeping Beauty on Ice this weekend! Should I go? I actually went for the Singapore Dance Theatre's production of the Sleeping Beauty. I wasn't too sure whether the dancing was good, considering that it was my maiden trip to the theatre. Personally, I felt that it wasn't that great but still the whole show was considerately enjoyable. And no, I didn't fall asleep. The music from the Philharmonic Chamber orchestra, by the way, was good.

It's just a pity that the show was pretty long (3 hours with 2 intervals), and you could hear the weariness in the players towards the end with quite a lot of mispitches by the brass players and occasional bad chord.

The last few weeks haven't been that good. 3 of my friends' parent passed away within a week. How bad can that be? Just this morning I got a shock when I was reading the papers. I came across this photo that looked suspiciously like my secondary school mate. He died in an accident. The name was suspiciously familiar! Thankfully, upon checking with my yearbook, the names were different! Still, a young life was lost on the road again, something of which is nothing to be happy about.

And yes! I've just finished Michael Crichton's latest book: State of Fear. Buy it from Times if you want, there's a discount of 20%!

Well, I think the book is really good. I like all his books anyway. I think the only ones that I haven't read so far are those in the Jurassic Park series. Nevertheless, I shall get down to them one day!

***

News for music lovers!

Philadelphia Orchestra is coming to town next year! They will be here for the Arts Festival on the 28th and 29th May.

The programme is a must-go!

28th May
Dvorak Carnival Overture
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in Bb, Soloist: Lang Lang
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra

29th May
Mozart Oboe Concerto in C, Soloist: Richard Woodhams (Principal Oboist, Philadelphia)
Mahler Symphony No. 5 in C# minor

As you can see, it's a die-die-must-go!

Anyone?
fjozn at 1:20 PM