I am a self-proclaimed fan of all things zombies and apocalyptic. I've devoured numerous episodes of The Walking Dead (pardon the imagery), eagerly bought premiere tickets to Resident Evil movies despite the bad reviews, sat through Zombieland and am eagerly awaiting all the zombie/apocalyptic films to be released in 2013. I am such a sucker for triumph of the human spirit against zombies.
But I absolutely draw the line at "Warm Bodies."
The basic synopsis is as such: R, a teenage zombie in a post-apocalyptic world, devours a guy's brains and subsequently falls in love with the guy's girlfriend, Julie. The two develop a special relationship and goes through supposedly funny and romantic events together subsequently.
My verdict as of now? NAUSEATING. Think Twilight, minus the attractive vampires, plus disgusting rotting zombies. An absolute freaking NO. I feel nauseated watching the trailer. I don't care if he starts to think or act like a human; zombies are walking, rotting corpses which smell and eat living beings, or in this case, themselves. Can you ever kiss or hug a rotting human-like zombie? If it were me, I'd never be able to let go of the eternal fear of him biting me. See trailer below for a taste of Warm Bodies (sorry, couldn't resist another pun).
Warm Bodies Official Trailer
Don't take my word for it though.
According to Wiki:
The Guardian called it, "Ruefully humorous, knowingly cinematic in scope." The Seattle Times said, "Absurd as its premise could be called, "Warm Bodies" works on lots of levels," and called it "Gruesome yet poetic."
Watch the first four minutes to judge for yourself. And while you're watching it, imagine hugging this particular lovable zombie to sleep at night.
2013 is approaching and what better way to be forward looking than to list down the release dates all the blockbusters we've been anticipating? Here's a handy guide for everyone to refer to over 2013 ;)
To complete the Parisian journey, following the last review
on Les Miserables set in Paris in the 1800s, today’s movie review is on CZ12 set
in modern day Paris (mostly). Just kidding, it was an unintended coincidence.
- - -
CZ12 is a reawakening of Jackie Chan's wildly popular
action series Armor of God (1986 and 1991). In this, JC goes in search of the
12 bronze heads of the Chinese Zodiac and embarks on various adventures along
the way.
A classic Jackie Chan film, CZ12 was held together with
Jackie’s trademark slapstick humour and action sequences as the main draws of
the show. Even though there were numerous hotties such as Korean heartthrob Kwon
Sang Woo and French actress Laura Weissbecker (who plays an amusingly bimbotic
Duchess), they were limited by their native languages and served merely as unexciting
eye-candy for the audience. Still, an enthralling and energetic girl-on-girl fight
between Bonnie (JC’s teammate played by Zhang Lan Xin) and Katie (Vulture’s
teammate played by Caitlin Dechelle) made for a treat towards the end of the
movie.
Save the first sequence in which he rollerblades down a hill
in a “Buggy Rollin Suit”, invented by French daredevil and designer Jean Yves
“Rollerman” Blondeau, and the final action sequence where he braves a live
volcano dive, the rest of the action sequences gave off a been-there-done-that
vibe. During these scenes, I found myself awed by how a 58-year old man could
still perform those acrobats as JC did, but other times, I worried if he would
get up from a particular fall. The behind-the-scenes following the movie served
as a reminder that Jackie was but mere human close to retirement.
Coco (Yao Xing Tong), an annoyingly self-righteous student
in Paris, constantly reminded the audience and fellow characters about how relics should be returned
to their original country. While a Jackie Chan movie is hardly the platform to expect
an in-depth discussion this complex issue, it was slightly frustrating to listen
to the actors as they extolled the importance of returning pilfered relics to
their home countries.
Don’t go into the theatres expecting anything but Jackie’s slapstick
humor and classic sequences. This shouldn’t be a problem for the die-hard fans,
even as the rest of the audience witness the curtain falling in, what Jackie himself expects to be, his "last major action film.”
Watchable on days when you feel like you need a happy ending or a break from reality.
This film
is 123 minutes long. *All pictures credit to their respective owners.
Les Miserables
has been making huge splashes in the news with its star-studded cast and as a
film remake of the world’s most famous musical. Not everybody speaks French, however,
so how do we walk into the theatres this season sounding less like miserables and
more like a seasoned Les Mis fan?
Presenting: The Les
Misérables Survival Guide
Song of songs: 'I dreamed a dream by Anne Hathaway
Pronounciation guide
for the English-speaking Audience
Les
Miserables: Lay-Miz-er-ahb-le
(the ‘le’ is very short)
Les Mis:
Lay-Miz
(Nothing like short forms to help avoid a long
name prone to mispronounciation)
Jean
Valjean (Hugh Jackman): Schjon Val-schjon
(‘Jean’ sounds like something between John
and Shawn)
Javert
(Russell Crowe): Schja-Vair
(‘Schja’ sounds like something between Sch
and Ja)
Fantine
(Anne Hathaway): Faun-teen or Fon-teen
Cosette (Amanda Seyfried): Koh-zet
Marius (Eddie Redmayne): Mair-ee-us
(accent on the ‘Mair’)
Eponine (Samantha Barks): Eh-pown-een
Thenardiers (Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen):
Tay-nar-dee-A
(Accent on the last syllable)
Hilarious villians Mr & Mrs Thenardier, hugging young Cosette
10 things to know before watching the Les Mis movie:
1.”Les Miserables” is “sung-through,” meaning all
of the action takes place in song and the movie was true to this.
2.Unlike other big screen adaptations of musicals,
Hooper insisted the cast sing live instead of lip-synching to prerecorded
tracks, painstakingly erasing the actors’ mics frame by frame after the
filming.
3.For the added touch of realism, Hathaway lost 25
pounds for her role as Fantine while Jackman stopped drinking water 36 hours
before the shooting to achieve the gaunt prisoner look. Talk about sacrificing
for art.
Emaciated prisoner Valjean
4.‘Suddenly’ is an original composition for the
film, sung by Valjean after rescuing young Cosette from the thieving Thenardiers.
5. ‘I
dreamed a dream’, sung by Fantine and slated to win Anne Hathaway an Oscar, was also performed by Susan Boyle (on Britain’s Got Talent) and Lea Michele Feat. Idina Menzel (on
Glee) most recently.
6.Hugh Jackman is a broadway veteran and has won a
Tony Award for his role in The Boy From Oz.
7.Debuting in 1985 (London), the show has been
seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries and in 21 languages.
That’s 28 years!
8.Les Mis is the world's longest-running stage
musical because of its London production.
9.It takes place amidst the backdrop of the Paris
Uprising of 1832.
10.Early
reviews of “Les Mis” were not ecstatic. “Watching it is rather like eating an
artichoke,” Kenneth Hurren wrote in London’s Daily Mail. “You have to go
through an awful lot to get a very little.” Michael Ball, the original Marius,
told the BBC later: “We thought we’d be looking for new jobs after the first
night.”
5 volumes of books which will take quite a while to read, if you finish reading it.
Les Misérables Review:
Set in the
gritty streets of Paris in the 1800s, Les Misérables served up a platter of heart
wrenching loss, noble sacrifice and tragedy on Christmas Day (or in my case,
Christmas Eve) with a side of earnestness.
For many of
us, this movie was remarkable in changing our perception of Hugh Jackman as
X-men’s claw-wielding Wolverine (not so different in circumstances if you
really think about it; ex-prisoner, heart of gold under the rough exterior) and
Anne Hathaway of recent sultry Catwoman fame. Who would have thought they could
sing? And sing, they did. The roles of Valjean and Fantine stretched these two extraordinary
actors and got them to emote like no other films had previously.
Valjean carries the dying Fantine away
Valjean started
off as a prisoner receiving his parole notice in the rain, as the song “Look
Down” boomed in the background with a grand military style and the other prisoners
marched along. This scene does what the original play cannot in its grandeur
and scale, and sets the show for the eternal battle between Valjean and
Inspector Javert. Throughout the movie, Valjean plays the role of a reformed
man determined to make good his new life as mayor of a town and a loving,
protective father of Cosette, a role Jackman played to tear-jerking perfection.
Ill-fated
Fantine burnt brightly as a shooting star while she lasted. Hathaway’s
rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” was a showstopper as she performed it (in Anne’s
words) “not [as] an iconic song…but as this woman’s howl. It’s her processing what’s
just happened to her.” The desperation and hopelessness of Fantine’s situation
was evident as the cinema fell quiet with awe.
Inspector
Javert pursued Valjean throughout the show, a pillar of determination and an instrument
of blind justice. His suicide was a tragic moment in the show. Not able to live
with himself for letting Valjean go, his mercy towards Valjean caused him to
take his life.
Inspector Javert
The most
understated character in this film must have been Eponine (played by Samantha
Barks), the kind daughter of the greedy Thénardiers,
so deeply in love with Marius. She was the embodiment of unrequited love and
sacrifice. Her rendition of “On My Own” was worth a special mention. Throughout
her performance, there was no doubt she would never end up with the handsome
and idealistic Marius, who only had eyes for beautiful Cosette. As the audience
watched her die in the arms of her beloved, we couldn’t help but wonder: was
love worth the pain?
Eponine
Like Victor
Hugo’s novel, Hooper's film begins in 1815 and concludes in June 1832, amidst
the proletarian rebellion. A result of the one-take Tom Hooper required of the
actors when it came to the musical numbers, the close-ups on the actors’ expressions
sometimes dragged on a little too long, making such scenes a little visually
boring. The trick to surviving these scenes would probably be to close your
eyes and listen closely to the actors’ voices and emotions instead, taking note
not to drift off to sleep;) All in all, a brave and grand on-screen adaptation
of the famous musical.
Three Best
Songs: I dreamed a dream (Anne Hathaway), On my Own (Samantha Barks), Castle
on a Cloud (Isabelle Allen as young Cosette)
*All pictures credit to their respective owners. Sources:
Somehow, Christmas eve always seems alot more special than Christmas day itself. That's true at least for me. Maybe it's because of the gifts we are anticipating or that it just seems like a day in which something special could possibly happen. It seems like only yesterday that I was at Disneyland in Florida watching the fireworks go off in the shape of Mickey Mouse! ^^ MAGICAL... But that's a story for another time.
This year, the boy and I decided to pamper ourselves with a night at
Shaw Premiere @ NEX for the Les Miserables sneak preview
which I've been waiting so eagerly for ever since I heard Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman were going to be singing in it. The Les Mis review will come a little later to do justice to this film (:
Starting from the dedicated queue (or non-queue) to collect the shiny silver Premiere tickets, the service at Shaw Premiere was impeccable!
SHINY SHINY TICKETS
I really loved how there was a special entrance into the theatres through a lounge, and the butler service that came along with it. Throw in the fresh, clean blankets and the leather reclining chairs in the theatre, and all I can say is that it was an experience fit for a Queen. Only issue was that the ground staff at the first level didn't seem to know how to answer my questions for Shaw Premiere. We made it up to the Premiere lounge anyway, where my issues could be resolved, thankfully, and I started feeling like a Queen.
Specifically, I chose the Sparkling Christmas Set because I reasoned that the Premiere tickets were going to cost close to $30 per person and all decent restaurant fare would be overpriced on Christmas Eve anyway.
From Shaw online
We started with a glass of white wine and some salmon appetizers! Reclining on my leather seat and munching made the usual pre-screening advertisements so enjoyable I momentarily forgot which movie I was watching.
Sorry, super bad lighting!
After which, we got them to serve our main course, a dish of turkey (or chicken?) with mushy beans and sweet potato. That was a little too much like baby food for our liking :\
Towards the end of the movie, a dessert of Christmas pudding and Oreo ice-cream came. We both hated the Christmas pudding (no fault of Shaw's; it's a personal taste) and would have much preferred the entire dish to be Oreo ice-cream. However, even as I was groping in the dark, I could make out the careful plating of the dessert with garnishing of fresh fruit and a thoughtful little Merry X'mas sign on it!
Besides the food, what I really enjoyed about this Premiere experience was the free flow of warm water! ^^ It sounds like such a minor issue now, but most of us have probably experienced being freezing cold in the middle of the movie; a warm beverage feels absolutely heavenly at that point when we are most vulnerable.
Oh and also, there was a gift which came with this mystery set... which they almost forgot to give us.
Mary Chia Voucher & Bose Projector Alarm Clock
So all in all, the Shaw Premiere experience was wonderful because of the impeccable service, blankets, comfy chairs and privacy (the seats are in pairs). On hindsight, however, the Sparkling Christmas Set was not really value for the price I paid. The bf and I would have liked a choice of appetisers/mains/desserts because not everybody has the same palette and there wasn't alot of information on the food served. Also, it wouldn't hurt to have a free flow of wine as well, as one glass seemed really sad. We might have been better off ordering the ala-carte dishes which seemed pretty affordable. That said, there are other promotions which seem really value-for-money such as the weekday brunch set, so we look forward to returning or trying out similar experiences at other cinemas.
At first look, It Takes Two may seem to be a show in which there is alot of mindless chasing for a 发财米桶 [Fortune Rice Bucket] , but just like the humble Singaporean hawker centre where the show is set, the characters and plot start to grow on the audience gradually throughout the show. It Takes Two revolves around a group of hawkers in this hawker centre, as well as their hopes and aspirations.
If you are looking for a slice of how the everyday Singaporean lives and goes about his daily business in the HDB estate, this show would be it. Underlying this show is a theme of how Singaporeans are trying to keep up with the ever-rising cost of living and the increasing competition. Almost everybody in It Takes Two was trying to get rich, some through orthodox ways like Hao You Cai, a poor fishball noodle seller who eventually starts to make fishballs by hand to recreate his Master's taste, but most through unorthodox ways, like B-Niu, a 22 year-old who hoped to get rich through becoming a male social escort, Kopi-soh, the drinks seller and resident gossip of the hawker centre, who sidelined as a runner for the underground bookies etc.
Last Friday, It Takes Two 《对对碰》came to a heartwarming end. The ending was nothing to shout about, but I feel that the value of this drama lay in the subplots which unfolded throughout the season. I haven't been keeping up with Singaporean dramas, but I must say that this has been one hell of a funny show (mostly), with endearing characters like Zhang Yang, a loveable half-wit who ended up in Singapore as a loanshark runner, Niu Wuyin, a rival fishball noodle seller and a lustful, greedy man who is taught a lesson, and the not-so-lovely Vivian, a hilarious member of the loanshark syndicate, played by Ann Kok.
Zhang Yang (right)
Vivian while eating :O
SPOILER ALERT
This rant by BNiu was particularly memorable as a hilarious summary of the financial concerns of the 20+ year olds in Singapore.
"This is a time when you can make $1 billion overnight... and that's what I call success."
But what was so interesting about this show was that beneath the portrayal of chaotic lives led by characters, there were also other themes about Singapore's growing pains, such as how citizens treat the elderly and online witch hunts which we see all too often these days.
Treatment of Elderly in Singapore
Niu Wu Yin's grandfather deliberately let his whole family mistake him for being a rich old man, citing fears that his children would abandon him if they found out he was poor. Right he was about that though, for when two of his children found out he was not that rich after all, they immediately disappeared and left behind nothing but broken promises. That got me thinking if Singaporeans were as callous towards the elderly as portrayed ... and with the recent comments made by the residentsabout how the nursing home built behind their block would affect them [41-year-old Bernard Lau said to ST that 'the old folk will be groaning right into my home']... this sub-plot hopefully provided some food for thought for fellow Singaporeans.
Online Witch Hunts
Luo Na, the foul-mouthed wife of Hao You Cai and a filial daughter, was caught on video by her youngest daughter shoving the Fortune Rice Bucket into the arms of her mother-in-law, causing her mother-in-law to slip and fall. Subsequently, her youngest daughter uploaded this video online for kicks, sparking off an online witch hunt for Luo Na as the 'vicious daughter-in-law.' Interestingly, this episode took place after the racially-insensitive Facebook posts made by Amy Cheong which led to her dismissal from NTUC.
Living in a connected world like ours, hopefully this episode reminded Singaporeasns that sometimes, people do things in a folly which unfortunately went viral online. Hopefully, it also reminded us to take what we see online with a pinch of salt, as such videos may be a misrepresentation of what had transpired. With the rise of social media, such videos and images could make its rounds around Singapore within a day or two, making the situation uncontrollable.
Conclusion
All in all, I would say this show is worth a watch for everyone living in Singapore for a taste of life in the heartlands and even as a dinner conversation with relatives, because the characters portrayed in the show are so reminiscent of people we've come across in our daily lives. While certain parts were a little too draggy for my liking, most episodes were funny enough for the 45-minute-ish screenings to pass by in a flash. One thing I noticed was that the standard of Mandarin spoken by the younger generation of actors was a far cry from the veterans, with the exception of Ryan (played by Jerry Yeo). That's probably one thing MediaCorp could work on for future Channel 8 dramas.
*Pictures credit to their respective owners.
Update: Yay my submission to ST Communities was published! This is encouraging for my second post. Thank you ST! ^^
I don't claim rights to the pictures (unless otherwise stated), so please leave a comment if you would like me to remove the stated picture or insert credits to you.
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