Fall Movies to watch out for.

After a depressing afternoon (coupled with a venti mocha that I finished in no time) and a soothing dinner with my parents, I decided to analyse the EW’s fall movies issue and watch the first season of Breaking Bad at the same time, find out what the fuss is all about. The boy has mentioned that Breaking Bad might not be my cup of tea (I would’ve agreed with him two years ago) but recently I’ve found the stomach for heavier shows.

I would usually default to the lighter, girl-ier shows to destress (so that I didn’t have to think so much while watching tv). However, recently I’ve found myself watching shows that have meatier plot lines. I still go through almost everything, but I usually fall back on shows that are more heavy. The flavour of these few months has been Person of Interest – I felt the emptiness when I finished both seasons and the third season hasn’t started (it only just began two weeks ago). Subsequently after finishing Person of Interest, I moved on to Suits and Covert Affairs. They have been largely more crime and procedural, something I would’ve definitely avoided two years ago. This afternoon in my depressed state, I actually watched S3E02 of POI to perk myself up. Hence I thought it might be a good time for me to go on a Breaking Bad spree, considering I can binge watch all five seasons at one shot.

Anyways – moving on to the fall movies to note (I always adore the EW’s compilation of the fall movies and tv shows issues!) – movies labelled with the asterisk are on EW’s Oscar watch list (because they fulfil the default Oscar movie criteria)

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Holiday Movies time!

It’s been a while since we watched movies in the theatre, by our own definition. The boy and I are huge movie goers – so I figure our definition of “a while” is most likely a lot shorter than some of you readers (I know there are some of you out there!).

Our last movie was Argo – which was a fantastic thriller. It made me read up on its history, to realise that too many countries have too many different viewpoints on what happened exactly, so Argo is the US’s side of the story. If you were to ask Canada, they’ll give you a completely different picture. Of course, with the US taking a much much smaller piece of the action.

The movie before Argo, was probably Skyfall.

I’m annoyed at missing out on Pitch Perfect (the boy didn’t want to watch it with me sobs) and Frankenweenie (it’s Burton cmon!) because it was barely on the screen for less than 1.5 weeks. 1.5 weeks! Seriously.

   

So in the spirit of the December (and festive) holidays, there’s a whole slew of movies coming our way that I don’t want to miss. Besides, it’s almost the awards season and this is when the quality ones come our way. Argo is considered one of the top contenders for the awards – it is pretty damned good.

The movies I am gonna keep my eye out on:

1. Lincoln (funny how two Lincoln movies came out this year, one biopic and one nonsensical one. This is the biopic one.)
2. Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence!)
3. Life of Pi (catching it tomorrow!)
4. Les Miserables
5. The Impossible
6. Zero Dark Thirty
7. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (how can anyone miss this one? We’ve been waiting for so long!)
8. The Guilt Trip
9. Gangster Squad (Emma Stone! Ryan Gosling!)
10. Movie 43 (quoted by EW as starring half of Hollywood)

Movie 43 is an interesting one. I found the youtube trailer and watched it. It had my jaw drop for the full length of the trailer. One would never expect this to come out from Hollywood. Almost never.

It’s mildly offensive – don’t watch if you are offended by the sight of female anatomy on your screen.

I am surprised at how the stars of Hollywood agreed to do Movie 43. Must read up more.

In the meantime, I really should be researching on Macau and Taiwan. Less what to watch, more what to see when travelling. More like, alternative things to do in Taipei for a few days.

JJ Abrams

For a period of time, his name eluded me. It was vaguely familiar, when we read about Revolution, an upcoming new dystopia drama, which he produced. It was then when I said to the boy, “I think he did Lost.”

To that, the boy waved it away and said, “Nah he didn’t.” I didn’t give a second thought, since the boy watched Lost, and I didn’t.

Hence, the next time his name appeared on my reading, I paid attention to it. So this morning while travelling to meet a colleague for breakfast, I chanced upon this reading list: The Risk Factor: rating fall’s new TV shows. Of course a title like that would grab my attention, with my fascination over Fall TV and the new upcoming shows (an onslaught of new comedies this year – looking out for the next new breakout ala Modern Family before anyone else does!). So I was scanning the writeups until I came across Revolution, again. It was odd to see JJ Abrams and Lost in the same article so I googled him.

As it turned out, he didn’t just produce Lost, he co-created it. It must have been all that Entertainment Weekly that I’ve been reading for the last two years that firmly nudged that piece of information in my brain, such that when it looked familiar, I could vaguely place him even though I haven’t had much interest in his works thus far.

Perhaps Revolution should be on my watch list this fall.

懷舊老歌 – 我們的歌大家唱

每年我們的歌大家唱，都讓我懷舊不同的老歌。每次都一樣，不識歌詞，認樂曲。

今年沒比去年high，可能因爲沒有董姿燕吧。Sugi也是出來唱了一首歌 – 來是爲了老九做宣傳。

七月的老九 – 票已賣了！

 

53A

oh 53A, 53A, 53A.

How I’ve tried to hunt you down twice, but to no avail.

First it was at CMPB Dempsey, where said colleagues and I wanted to hear you guys sing – but you had a private function that night, and we had to bear the consequences of wannabe-country-boy-singer with really pretty mike. Then it was tonight (last night) where I thought you were going to be at Timbre Substation, but you had a last minute swap with Goodfellas in the end.

Perhaps we’re just not fated. Of course I still had a good time with the Goodfellas, especially with Timbre’s snacks and downing 1 litre of beer (and remaining wide awake and amazingly hyper).

But I was still looking forward to listen to you sing, 53A.

Another time, perhaps.

Bloody humid.

I hate today’s weather – it’s too damn bloody warm.

The weekend didn’t go too well – some disappointments, with a whole lot of waiting involved. Wish I was at the Foster The People concert – I was bloody excited when I saw it on Sistic, until I realised I had a wedding dinner on that very night.

Nonetheless, something to tide me by!

Work life is slowly becoming more steady, with me having a little more time to myself. Slow and steady is good – I can’t breathe when the pace goes too fast. I can barely hang in there. Missing some colleagues badly, one on reservist the other on maternity. Come back soon you people!

There’s a half day this Wednesday (thanks to our not-bad results in January) and the JL is headed down to Aquamarine, Marina Mandarin to feast. I think it might be our first (and hopefully not ever) JL outing (+ 1 wife + 1 baby)! The baby is going to be tortured badly – 5 predicts that his face will be sorely red by the end of the feasting session.

This week is nice, because there are no classes on Friday (not that it matters much to me, with that one single period), plus I get to meet Shuz on Thursday for her boy-woes. Gosh, talking about boy-woes brings back memories, both good and bad. Those were the teenage years – we’ve all grown older, and hopefully a little wiser.

Congrats to a good friend for his successful switch in job/career (no more mundane irrelevant work – cheers to (a hopeful) flying!) and shoutouts to the loved ones that I miss and have no time to meet. Need to make time to meet people!

19thjan with Shuz, 29thjan with Peanut+Lamsy, 4thfeb with Peanut + Eileen + partners, 12thfeb with theroo/tok.

My social circle really shrinks as I grow older. Anyone out there would like to meet me?  Can’t wait for Ling to get back from US before we can organise a girls outing with the rest.

In the meantime, leaving you with my current favourite – a cover of Pumped Up Kicks, one that I’ve featured on my blog before:

I actually think the cover is better than the original, and I already think the original is pretty awesome. Both chase the grey skies away when I’ve had a bad day. Beams.

Must Watch – 2012

I have been waiting for these two movies for so so so so long. I have to catch these in the theatres. Their trailers were highly sought after, and created much fanfare when they finally arrived.

1. The Avengers

I can’t remember when I’ve started waiting impatiently for this. Perhaps since we watched Thor, and caught a very very brief preview of the Avengers. The idea of putting all those swoon-worthy (I know, not the point) superheroes all together just sounds crazily marvellous. The action-packed scenes, the idea of the good triumphing the evil with somewhat of a (hopefully) decent plot line will make that movie a entertaining evening.

2. The Hunger Games

The book was incredible. I couldn’t put it down. I went through all three books in one shot, at one go and probably slept very little in between those three books. I will probably read it again before the movie, but I can’t wait to watch the cast live in those characters, especially Katniss and Peta (of course, how typical). They may have been young adult books, but the material is dark. I started paying really close attention to the movie when they slowly revealed the casting. Everybody had their own interpretation and ideas of how the characters should be casted, but so far the cast looks very promising. Absolutely can’t wait.

Youtube covers: Tyler Ward

Am so in love with Tyler Ward.

Especially this cover:

I wish I could get the single, but it’s not available on Amazon. In fact, all of his covers (albums) are not available on Amazon. Which only means one thing.

I need those damned iTunes gift cards to attempt to access the iTunes store to buy his music. Why can’t he just make it available on Amazon?

Have been spending too much on music recently – been discovering bands and groups, falling in love with acapella and listening to it on repeat.

Want to see grown men do the Can-can? Watch this.

Time and time again, I remind myself why I fall in love with acapella so easily. The cheekiness, the cheoreography and the harmonies.

Been spending the last few days exposing myself to different groups, expanding my music collection through online purchasing. Looks like I’ve been spending my December pay in advance already. Already bought all of SNC’s songs. Now I just need to lay my hands on those damned gift cards so that I can buy music by Tyler Ward + Alex Goot + Fun.

Leaving everyone with one last music video – a cover by Glee on Fun.’s “We are young.”

with the original – Fun.’s “We are young”

我們的歌大家唱！

唱得好爽好爽！

有些歌曲，看似不認識，其實熟悉得很。

原來的我 – 齊秦

野百合也有春天 – 潘越云

光陰的故事 – 儸大佑

歌，就與整千人唱了一整晚。High, 也high了一整晚。只可憐男友不斷地被我騷擾 – 不是對著他唱情歌，就是猛把手揮到他面前，要不然就猛向他撞腰，要他陪我一起high.

歌唱完了，就像瘋歌迷似地跑到台前，要求董姿燕合照。她在8月尾，將與George Chan, Robin Goh 等人同台演出。

我，一定會去看。明天就一定要買票，才有20%回扣。好迫不及待！

Blockbusters.

Busted our butts watching 4 movies over the last 3 weeks.

Fast and Furious 5, Kungfu Panda, X-Men: First Class, Hangover 2. What a mouthful, especially the last 2 where we did a semi-movie marathon (with dinner in between).

1. Fast and Furious 5 was a pleasant surprise.

If I had to quote Entertainment Weekly, it was like “Jersey Shore meets Oceans’ Eleven”. It was a heist film and I have a terrible soft spot for heist films – think Oceans series (minus Twelve) and The Italian Job. Plus there was no lack of hunks and babes – who could resist the combination of good action, fast and suave cars, hunks and babes? I went in expecting good Hollywood fun and I got it, with that twist of pleasant surprise. A good film that we watched on the whim – it was also the same weekend where I got my Xoomie its casing and screen protector I think.

You can watch it independently of the previous 4 Fast and Furious movies – I never did watch the earlier 4.

2. Kungfu Panda – Inner Peace.

Seriously – who can resist this adorable bumbling panda who sought after his own origins and kept asking himself – “Who am I?” We ask ourselves that once in a blue moon, don’t we all? Though I must say, I would rank this my least favourite – partly because I didn’t enjoy myself as much as compared to the other movies. However, I did enjoy myself alot in this movie – so you can try to imagine how much more I enjoyed the others.

“Inner peace” will sum up the main plotline of Kung Fu Panda. I think I enjoyed the first one better though – but that will probably be the case of the original versus the sequel.

3. X-Men: First Class – absolutely fantastic!

Favourite movie out of the four. This fifth installation in the X-Men franchise humanized the many X-Men characters that we’ve familiarized ourselves with as non-comic readers. BX and I were talking about it over dinner tonight when we were trying to recall the previous movies, and compared the storylines with the original comics. I really liked the way they built the relationships amongst the X-Men characters (as I try to describe my enjoyment without spoiling too much) and it was evident in the cinema that the movie goers enjoyed it too.

Watch out for the cameos, there were a few – we laughed out loud at one of it. I particularly loved the chemistry between the 2 male leads and was pretty sad at the end of it. Having said that, this prequel explained a lot for the non-comic readers.

Watch it if you’re up for a really good summer blockbuster – this is not one you’d want to miss.

4. The Hangover 2 – abso-fucking-lutely hilarious.

It would be good to watch The Hangover before watching Hangover 2 – as a refresh, or if you didn’t watch it before. It was my June holiday assignment, and you’d appreciate watching the first one because of its references in Hangover 2. The format remains essentially the same, you could literally substitute one for the other (e.g. the tiger in Hangover 1 for the monkey in Hangover 2.) The rapport amongst the main 3 is insane – the sarcasm and jokes literally bounce right off one another.

For girls:
Avoid it like the plague if you don’t like crude humour – plenty instances when that happened. Watch it if you’re a fan of the up-and-coming Bradley Cooper. I love him when he carried his kid. Bradley Cooper with a dressed-in-pink baby – awwww swoooons. Or you could simply watch it if your male friends invite you to watch it – just don’t wince when you see them laughing heartily at everything on screen.

For guys:
Watch it – I shouldn’t think I have to convince you. I think.