The year is not quite done, but I've decided to do a short run through of the best (and worst) movies I've seen in 2009.
Best Movie seen in the Cinema: To date, I have seen 40 movies in the cinema this year. If I go a December movie binge I might just bring the total to around one a week. There were many quite wonderful films - the brutal rawness of The Wrestler, the emotionally heart wrenching (some would say manipulative) yet also quietly funny Departures, the wonderfully adapted 1960s take on suburban unhappiness that is Revolutionary Road, the delightful Up! and the thought provoking and just generally provocative Waltz with Bashir, and the list goes on.
Two movies stood out for me, though. For sheer pure enjoyment, nothing quite beat J.J Abrams Star Trek. It managed to both pay homage to and reinvent and revitalize an old franchise, but more importantly it was just a tremendous blend of wonderfully good humour and great action. Sean Penn rightfully won the Best Actor Oscar for a chameleon like portrayal of Harvey Milk - Milk, in my opinion deserved the Best Picture Award as well. I was supposed to choose between them, but I honestly can't, so I'll fudge and pick both.
Best Movie Seen (Other Media): This was truly impossible to decide. How could I possibly choose, when I saw A Man For All Seasons, The Lion in Winter, The Third Man and The Hustler on DVD? All of them are classic films that are deservedly great. How to choose between Paul Schofield's tremendous portrayal of Thomas More as a man of conscience (A Man for All Seasons) or Paul Newman's immensely charismatic yet complex pool shark (The Hustler), not to mention a classic film Noir in The Third Man complete with a Orson Welles cameo. That's to discount Bernado Bertolluci's tremendously influential Last Tango in Paris with an unforgettable performance by Brando which I also saw for the first time this year. All brilliant movies which I would definitely watch again.
Worst Movie Seen (Any Media): Hollywood continues to churn out fairly bad, testosterone fueled action movies which ensures that Michael Bay will always have a job. While the first Transformers movie was fairly successful (mainly by not taking itself too seriously), the second one was bloated, overcooked and excessively long that took itself far too seriously. It was also not helped but some fairly bad acting (Sam's dad going "I don't wanna lose you" in such a terribly fake way in the middle of a war zone being the icing on the cake). New Moon was turgid and often excruciating. I found it impossible to overlook the often terrible lines such as "all you have to do is breath" [to make me happy], or "Bella, you're everything to me" (okay, I'll be honest and admit those aren't the exact lines, but rough paraphrases, but you get the idea!).
Occasionally I also feel the odd compulsion to watch a bad, generally brainless action movie without any plot. Thus, the abysmal Elecktra and the rather dull Fantastic Four. Oh, and I also did pay to watch Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li in the cinemas, but that had Kristin Kreuk in it, and a local Singapore actor!
Addendum: Avatar did indeed turn out to be a spectacular movie which made my Top 25 list of the decade (as did Milk) while Star Trek missed out in that regard. So I guess Avatar and Milk are my best of 2009.
26 November 2009
25 November 2009
Coloured (Paper) Memories
I was attending a Knowledge and Inquiry workshop organized by the Ministry and one of the sessions involved a hands on activity where we had to try and show a proof of Pythagoras' theorem using coloured paper.
Beyond the fact that the proof was really interesting, what struck me was that coloured paper was fundamentally the same from my school days. Even more impressively, the price tag showed that it cost only 60 cents for one packet of coloured paper, compared to 50 cents when I was in primary school. The price tag also showed that it had been purchased from one of those random neighbourhood stationary shops that are slowly disappearing.
All in all, a bit of a nostalgia trip as I hadn't seen coloured paper for years. It also struck me as fairly impressive that the price had remained relatively the same even after two decades. Other stationary items (fullscap paper, pens) are now far more costly, let alone food, cars and much else beside.
I remember a budding young entrepreneur type in my primary school who used to pay five cents to fellow classmates to make ninja stars which he would then sell for ten cents to other students. Even taking into account the cost of the coloured paper, he would turn a small profit. Ninja stars made of the prized gold and silver sheets cost more of course. It was also an early introduction to colour matching since a ninja star was made from two pieces of coloured paper folded together. There were many random combinations to be had - I particularly enjoyed black/pink and green/red ones.
Given my lack of ability in folding/wrapping/creating anything, I was often the student who bought the ninja stars for ten cents, rather than ending up part of the stable of individuals earning some small change making them. To put things into context, 10 cents was not inconsiderable in those days when your daily pocket money often amounted to a dollar. A glass of soya bean milk would cost that, from the old grumpy uncle (ten cents, ten cents, all also ten cents, big one twenty cents) who also sold Walls ice cream from a large cooler which he regularly slammed (never closed or shut, always slammed). A plate of small chicken rice cost only 30 cents.
For old times sake, I tried my hand at making a ninja star (while also attempting to prove Pythagoras right of course). I took a pink sheet and a black one and tried to combine them, but of course it came out all wrong. A person who apparently took weeks to learn how to tie my shoelaces (when I was little), who gets presents to family members wrapped by other family members to whom that present is not meant for (sis wraps dad, dad wraps mom, mom wraps sis), and who often struggles to tie a half windsor knot, that was always going to prove a challenge.
Beyond the fact that the proof was really interesting, what struck me was that coloured paper was fundamentally the same from my school days. Even more impressively, the price tag showed that it cost only 60 cents for one packet of coloured paper, compared to 50 cents when I was in primary school. The price tag also showed that it had been purchased from one of those random neighbourhood stationary shops that are slowly disappearing.
All in all, a bit of a nostalgia trip as I hadn't seen coloured paper for years. It also struck me as fairly impressive that the price had remained relatively the same even after two decades. Other stationary items (fullscap paper, pens) are now far more costly, let alone food, cars and much else beside.
I remember a budding young entrepreneur type in my primary school who used to pay five cents to fellow classmates to make ninja stars which he would then sell for ten cents to other students. Even taking into account the cost of the coloured paper, he would turn a small profit. Ninja stars made of the prized gold and silver sheets cost more of course. It was also an early introduction to colour matching since a ninja star was made from two pieces of coloured paper folded together. There were many random combinations to be had - I particularly enjoyed black/pink and green/red ones.
Given my lack of ability in folding/wrapping/creating anything, I was often the student who bought the ninja stars for ten cents, rather than ending up part of the stable of individuals earning some small change making them. To put things into context, 10 cents was not inconsiderable in those days when your daily pocket money often amounted to a dollar. A glass of soya bean milk would cost that, from the old grumpy uncle (ten cents, ten cents, all also ten cents, big one twenty cents) who also sold Walls ice cream from a large cooler which he regularly slammed (never closed or shut, always slammed). A plate of small chicken rice cost only 30 cents.
For old times sake, I tried my hand at making a ninja star (while also attempting to prove Pythagoras right of course). I took a pink sheet and a black one and tried to combine them, but of course it came out all wrong. A person who apparently took weeks to learn how to tie my shoelaces (when I was little), who gets presents to family members wrapped by other family members to whom that present is not meant for (sis wraps dad, dad wraps mom, mom wraps sis), and who often struggles to tie a half windsor knot, that was always going to prove a challenge.
12 November 2009
More Quizzing Mayhem
I was asked to stand in for Peter again this week as quizmaster, and the choice of "black-eyed Pete's" [a riff off Black Eyed Peas] as a team name was a not too subtle allusion as to why. I was short of inspiration for that week's quiz so it took a fairly long time to set. In the end, I set rounds on Remembering '89 (in honour of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall); A Test of Character (teams had to name the film after I listed out some characters from it); and The Natural World (Animals, Plants, Physical Geography).
It was a full house - nine teams in total - and it made for a fairly good night. There was a bunch of first timers that definitely caught the eye no less because one of the members was a television personality who was a presenter on ESPN Sport Center. Attractive young ladies are a rarity at Old Brown Shoe quiz nights, so it was refreshing to see two of them that night, teammates of said television personality.
It turned out to be a fantastic quiz, perfectly pitched. By the end of the night, as many as 5 or 6 teams had a shot at winning it, and the top 5 were separated by a mere four points. The team with the attractive young ladies won, but sadly they had to forfeit their winnings for violating the long standing rule that each team could only have a maximum of six members. I still gave them a bottle of wine though, along with the third placed team. To give some idea of the balanced scoring, none of the nine teams scored a perfect 10 in any of the rounds; almost all teams scored at least a five in every round except for a team, self-styled as the "wooden spoons", which predictably struggled.
All in all, it was a very fascinating night, made even lovelier when I ended up speaking to Colette afterwards and was introduced to one of the girls - Emilie - who proved to be slightly tipsy. She proceeded to show her immense flexibility by placing both feet at either ends of the table top, and her considerable singing prowess by belting out some tunes from Annie. No doubt the alcohol had something to do with it, but I suspect she is generally random and slightly crazy, which is quite wonderful. A great pity then that I didn't get her number, one can only hopes she comes down to quiz again.
It was a full house - nine teams in total - and it made for a fairly good night. There was a bunch of first timers that definitely caught the eye no less because one of the members was a television personality who was a presenter on ESPN Sport Center. Attractive young ladies are a rarity at Old Brown Shoe quiz nights, so it was refreshing to see two of them that night, teammates of said television personality.
It turned out to be a fantastic quiz, perfectly pitched. By the end of the night, as many as 5 or 6 teams had a shot at winning it, and the top 5 were separated by a mere four points. The team with the attractive young ladies won, but sadly they had to forfeit their winnings for violating the long standing rule that each team could only have a maximum of six members. I still gave them a bottle of wine though, along with the third placed team. To give some idea of the balanced scoring, none of the nine teams scored a perfect 10 in any of the rounds; almost all teams scored at least a five in every round except for a team, self-styled as the "wooden spoons", which predictably struggled.
All in all, it was a very fascinating night, made even lovelier when I ended up speaking to Colette afterwards and was introduced to one of the girls - Emilie - who proved to be slightly tipsy. She proceeded to show her immense flexibility by placing both feet at either ends of the table top, and her considerable singing prowess by belting out some tunes from Annie. No doubt the alcohol had something to do with it, but I suspect she is generally random and slightly crazy, which is quite wonderful. A great pity then that I didn't get her number, one can only hopes she comes down to quiz again.
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