yin

singapore, SINGAPORE


Joined March 17th 2008

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it's typical, it's predictable but it sure as hell makes you feel good when the credits start to roll.

what's there not to like about romantic comedies? this is one of the best ones that i've caught so far. what with cameron diaz and ashton kutcher thrown together in the mix, it was worth the amount of money (that we did not) paid to catch it.

joy mcnally (cameron diaz) just got dumped by her fiance during his surprise birthday party. jack somethingsomething (ashton kutcher) just got fired from his own dad because he lacked direction and focus in the job. so the pair's down in the dumps and they end up (with their friends) heading to vegas. a silly mix-up at the lobby and they were put in the same room. but after straightening things out and with a bunch of freebies thrown in thanks to jack's amazing haggling skills (joy struck fear into the heart of the guy at the counter and they got penthouse suites), they're all set and ready for a night of fun in vegas.

there's booze, drunken madness and everything rolling around and next thing you know, the couple ends up getting hitched, vegas-style. from the trailers you know that they scored the 3 million jackpot prize but because they were fighting over it and stuff, the judge said that they had to work at being a married couple before seeing a single cent.

so this is where the fun bit begins. they pretend to be all happy but the counsellor sees through them and then they just let their true colours show. there's a lot of chaos and going behind each other's backs to do something to get the other to divorce or break-up or wreck the agreement so that either party might end up with the money. but at the very end of it, whaddya know.

they fall for each other and in love with each other.

there's real chemistry between diaz and kutcher. not just the physical but a certain emotional one as well. they're very likeable and relatable characters. diaz as the workaholic stockbroker who wants approval and recognition and get to the top. then there's kutcher with his own dreams and goals but is always somehow being put down by his dad, or rather, is trying very hard to live up to dad's expectations.

there's the muck-ups and the conflicts that even involves the ex-fiance (who 'graciously' dumps her) to return and ask her back into his life since he realized what a fun and outgoing person she actually is (all thanks to kutcher) and her inviting his parents to dinner and almost blowing his cover - hiding the marriage and the money from them.

at the end of the day though, she gives him all the money because he broke her heart (read: ex-fiance letting slip what kutcher had done) and escapes to her hideout somewhere from the busy chaotic city. he finds her, gets down on one knee and proposes:

"will you marry me, again?"

course she says yes and it's a happily ever after and it just makes you go aww and wipe that lil tear from the corner of your eyes. it's not outrightly cheesy. the things that they do are outright hilarious and plus, they're both very very easy on the eyes.

i'd watch this again, hell i'd even buy the vcd/dvd when it comes out. it makes you feel that despite all the lemons that could possibly be thrown at you to wreck your outfit, you can always step back, catch them all with a basket and make lemonades.

while in reality happily ever afters are a rarity, the magic of it happening is still as enchanting and captivating as ever and it makes you believe in love and the endless possibilities, all over again.
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thanks to nuffnang we got tickets to catch PRINCE CASPIAN way before everyone else. ok, save for the hundreds other who were in the same theater as us.

the movie follows the book pretty closely (from what i can vaguely remember) which occasionally results in pretty draggy but necessary bits. those lil' bits are the ones that make you feel as if your butt has expanded twice its original size and could very well start growing roots if you're not careful.

they used the same cast from the first for the kings and queens of narnia. this time round instead of edmund being the pain in the ass, peter took the royal seat (a deliberate pun). suppose during that age there's the manifestation and warring of ego and pride. you think what you're doing is right and for the good of all but in actual fact, beneath that guise is nothing more than a possible ego trip. his plan fails (expected) and many narnians die under the cruel hand of whatisname.

lucy isn't as irritating nor annoying as she was in the first but the boyfriend got rather annoyed by susan (for aesthetic reasons). quite personally, edmund stole the light from both caspian, peter, aslan and lucy with his mixed maturity and composure. there's a fair number of punch-lines and witty/quirky one-liners that had the audience laughing and tittering. apart from that, it's nothing truly significant.

i suppose they -tried- to make the battles as realistically epic as lord of the rings, but no other fantasy movie produced has ever been on par with lord of the rings. maybe harry potter but... that's something else on its own.

is it worth your money and time to catch prince caspian and his merry band of minotaurs, centaurs and kings and queens of narnia? well, if you love(d) the book then why not just catch it and see if their portrayal of the characters match those in your imagination. for people who have money to burn and time to waste, go ahead as well. good way to build up that appetite for dinner/lunch.

else, waiting for this to come out on dvd would be a really good idea. i slept through the first one and didn't even finish the book and yet i could already predict half of what was going on. hmm.
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if you ever needed a cheer-upper. this is a must watch. i spent 3/4 of the show, at the edge of my seat (and occasionally almost crushing the boyfriend’s hand) just laughing my head off. i don’t know how they do it, but they did it so well. i’m not a huge fan of jack black (or actually, his face), but the way dreamworks created and animated kung fu panda, made me forget that it was jack black in a digital panda-suit.

hell! you wouldn’t even know angelina jolie voice tigress if it weren’t for the credits rolling at the end.

it’s your typical combination of the unsuspected (but we all know it’s gonna be him) underdog who’s been chosen/typecasted to play the hero but is clearly not cut up for it. all the criticism and the hurt from the famous 5 kung fu warriors whom he idolizes and admires hurt him. but he’s a bear (did you know pandas are actually a relative of the racoon?) with a thick coat and the jibes bounce off him. well, until the crunch time when big bad snow leopard breaks out of prison (it’s seriously amazing. i mean, take THAT michael scofield!) to wreak havoc after he finds out that they’ve found the elusive and mighty dragon warrior.

i was quite surprised that the flow of the show was… perfect. like the right amount of slow reflective moments, the right amount of action-packed kungfu power and just that right amount of sap or drama and comedy. it’s brilliant! some people would argue that it’s just an animated show and appeals to the kids, but trust me, the adults who were in GV max with me were equally enjoying themselves.

totally random: the macdonal’s viper for the happy meal set either looks pathetic or just… wrong. it’s like a skinny dildo for gawd’s sake!

at the end of the fight i pretty much understood why the turtle chose panda instead of the existing 5. it makes sense. tai long is swift and sleek. he’s powerful and fast. the 5 have been trained in the similar manner as he had and its possible that they’re all following the same steps and mindset as laid down by shifu.

along comes panda who is the physical opposite of tai long. he’s big and furry and fat. the nerve attacks don’t work on him (remember when mantis was doing acupuncture and got all mixed up?) because what you initially assume to be the pressure points turn out not to be there. altho i hope the boyfriend does not think that being as big and round as the panda is a good thing. we do not do nerve attacks here. the belly also works in deflecting/absorbing attacks! although i can’t be too sure bout the agility since that mostly sets in when he’s thinking bout food.

we’re still trying to figure out the pinky-thing tho. the end bit with shifu just lying down, not dead, was prolly the best hilarious bit.

verdict? OMG WATCH IT! it’s hilarious and i think i’ll just bring my parents to catch it this coming weekend. yes oh wise one, be prepared for awesomeness!
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if you caught the spiderwick chronicles then freddie highmore is a familiar face. he’s evan taylor, this timid and reserved fair-skinned boy in an all boy’s orphanage somewhere on planet earth. he’s special. not that he’s retarded. he can hear his parents in the wind, he hears the melody of the whistling leaves and the zap of electricity in the power lines. the other kids think he’s weird, they tell him that he can’t hear his parents because they’re dead.

but evan knows that they’re alive. one night, he looks out the window and hears the whispers in the power lines outside. so he gets out and he walks and follows the music and it lands him in new york city


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untraceable, only by word-of-mouth

April 10th 2008 03:42


it's ironic in a sense. to watch a movie that would somehow be related to work. brief background, i work for a company that deals with word-of-mouth in singapore but being on the frontlines, it's far more amazing to see how word-of mouth ends up backfiring instead of bringing good at times


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isn't darjeeling, tea?

March 31st 2008 13:06
you'll have to pardon my apparent ignorant being. i like being enclosed in my bubble of delusion and fantasies. because when i caught THE DARJEELING LIMITED i thought it had something to do with tea. maybe a lot of tea or less or something along the lines but tea nonetheless.

so to my dismay and confusion, it's the name of a train taken by three brothers, that runs through picturesque india. yes, lovely country and someday i'd like to visit it. commentary aside, it's supposed to a journey of discovery and self-reflection, of forgiveness and some spiritual enlightenment. it seems to fail, since the brothers somehow land themselves in some weird-ass situation or rather. the truth is that the big brother (played by Owen Wilson) are dragging his two other brothers along to find their mother - this nutjob of a lady who keeps disappearing and eventually decides to make a nest in the himalayas


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gundam 00, the long and short of it

March 31st 2008 12:59
i promised that once GUNDAM 00 ended, i'd write about it. and it has and everyone waits with bated breath for season 2.

honestly, this series rocked more than WING and SEED combined. fanservicing aside, the plot was actually quite solid (despite many a controversy) and had sentiments that rung pretty close to home; even despite the fact that this supposedly happens many years after our fossil fuels run out and the denizens of earth decide to do something with that mighty ball of fire called the sun. euphimisms and pretty words aside, GUNDAM 00 spoke of war (didn't all the rest?) and of the sometimes fooliosh decisions we make in trying to quell it


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the predictable chronicles

March 25th 2008 08:29
why do people make adaptations of books into movies?

some people do it well, like THE KITE RUNNER although it was more of a grossly condensed story shoving a somanypageslong book into 2 hours. i believe that some books shouldn't be made into movies. a reader's imagination is far more vivid and fertile as opposed to what could be done on screen. yes, we have wonderful special effects and animation but it sometimes all that hard work and money simply doesn't justify what the book really is


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we are not alone.

March 20th 2008 17:30
on my 13th birthday, a long long time ago, my brother gave me my first (and last) birthday present. it was a vcd boxset of evangelion. i had only just started watching anime, hooked on to RUROUNI KENSHIN (which got sadly bastardized by axn and renamed SAMURAI X) and then started raving about the snippets that i knew about evangelion.

a couple of hours ago the boyfriend and i made a random decision to catch a movie. grumpy from work i figured why not catch THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES. long story about how we had preview tickets but i was unhappy and blablabla and we weren't in town anyway. but we reached the theater and caught sight of EVANGELION. the only review i got was from my sister, she's watched it before (thanks to me i might add) and told me that it wasn't anything new. consider it a very condensed version of 4 discs (which is roughly 8 episodes). so we went in, not expecting anything and definitely not hyped up about it


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asian vs western horror

March 20th 2008 03:49
i've always found it a lil' funny. that western-styled ghost stories don't freak me out as much as asian ghost stories. perhaps it's the culture and that flashing-neon-light fact that i am after all asian and grew up in a society that, for all it's metropolitan modernization, has still got its feet trapped in the tangles of tradition.

i got freaked out by nightmare on elm street because of the graphics. but it definitely wasn't one of those things that stuck for long. to be honest, after watching a really old malay flick called pontianak which basically means female vampire, that one had me cowering under the sheets, triple-checking the locks on my windows and me praying till sleep claimed me


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Recent Comments

Comment by yin
on the predictable chronicles

March 26th 2008 02:30
lol. that was very well put. children's stories turned to reel-life are definite cashcows indeed. i guys we, as adults (noooo i don't wanna grow up), aren't satisfied with what we see is what we get and pick on littlest things (that more or less spoils the whole experience).

Comment by yin
on asian vs western horror

March 20th 2008 07:31
yup! that's precisely the thing. western horror flicks tend to focus on effects and the alien. crazy but true, often it's the shows that's built on a low budget that's capable of chilling and raising hair rather than those picture perfect a-lists.

Comment by yin
on (don't) meet the spartans

March 19th 2008 14:39
hi harry!

thanks for commenting on my entries. i didn't think anyone would bother reading my reviews. it's a sad thing that shows like these end up on the big screen and other shows that are of similar budgets are just tossed aside or labelled indie or just... forgotten. grr. i mean really, couldn't they have come up with something more original and uniquely funny?

i'll need to be more cautious of such spoofs in the future.