Movie Watch: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Yesterday I went to watch the latest installment in the Harry Potter movie franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, with Queenie at Plaza Singapura.

We watched the movie in the 2D version as we felt that 3D movies are not our cup of tea. This first part of the movie is mostly focused on the backstory in the book and hence, is less action-packed. The second part promises to be more action-packed and I can't wait for it to be out next July.

However this first part is still good and worth the watch. Harry, Hermione and Ronald have finally grown up to the reality of the harsh battle with Voldemort. They have to be on the constant run from the Death Eaters that pop out from nowhere to hunt Harry down.

The most emotional part in the movie came when Dobby was killed while trying to save Harry and his friends from Bellatrix. I knew this was going to happen since I have already read the book but I still can't stop the tears when I saw it onscreen. In fact, Dobby was among the top ten trending topics on Twitter when the movie is released.

It is amazing how Dobby can make the trending list but not the movie's name. Twitter can be such an asshole sometimes. Nonetheless, I would recommend this movie to anyone who is interested to watch.

Dinner and Karaoke with Queenie @ Suntec City

Today I met up with Queenie for dinner as well as karaoke. Well the karaoke was decided at the last minute as we don't know of any other activities that we could do at night. Furthermore, recent offerings at the cinemas are not so good and thus karaoke is the only option left.

For dinner, we went to the Ministry of Food at Suntec City. This a a new fusion Japanese restaurant that serves nice Japanese food. The best thing of all is that it even serves onigiri, a Japanese staple that can't be found in Singapore.

My choice of food can be seen in the pictures below: 

Onigiri! My favourite!

Well, I sure eat a lot of food, as you can see from the pictures above. The tamago sushi is also not bad and its sweetness is just right.

After we finished our food, we went to Kbox for our karaoke session. I was surprised to see that Queenie is finally using an iPhone. She works in the IT industry yet is one of the last people to get the fabled iPhone. Amazing, eh? She put her iPhone to good use by checking out the operating hours of the Kbox outlet in Marina Square.

It's amazing how long we could actually sing if given the time. We checked in at around 8+pm and by the time we ended, it was 2+am in the morning. Wow.... It was so rare to get Queenie to accompany me for so long since she's always busy and running out of time. Perhaps she is making up for lost time? Or could it be that the next time that we can meet is gonna be a long time from now?

Oh well, at least tonight we got to sing like crazy. So that's all for now.

Gokusen Movie Coming to Singapore on 19 November 2009

Yay! Gokusen the movie is coming to Singapore soon! The opening date for the movie here is stated as 19 November 2009, which means it's next week! I have pasted a copy of the movie poster below for some eye-candy-viewing. That's Yukie Nakama as Yamaguchi-sensei in the poster by the way.

She's so cool, eh? ^_^

Currently I am watching Gokusen 3 of the TV series on my Apple iPod classic and I was so surprised to see the movie poster up at Commonwealth MRT station a few days back. I contacted Queenie immediately to book her to watch the movie.

Boy I am lucky enough that she's interested to watch and that she has the time to watch. Well, my movie kakis are getting lesser and lesser >_< Pathetic eh? Nonetheless, it's great that I can get to watch this movie as I love Gokusen.

Too bad I didn't get the chance to read the manga version, which should definitely be very good. Still I managed to get hold of all the 3 seasons of the TV series and I am very happy to re-watch them again. My favourite season is number 2 as it has Kazuya Kamenashi and Jin Akanashi. They are soooo cool. \(^o^/

In any case, the movie cast description mention Kazuya Kamenashi and I am sooo looking forward to seeing him again. Hee... Seeing how passionate Yamaguchi-sensei is teaching her students makes me wonder why I didn't get my own version when I was still schooling.

Oh well, this is the manga version so we can't take everything at face value. It's all entertainment, right? *_* Alrighty, I better start counting down to the day that I can watch the movie.

*paging for Queenie!*

Movie Watch: Angels and Demons

Yesterday, I went to watch the latest movie starring Tom Hanks, Angels and Demons, with Queenie. This movie is based off the best-selling book by Dan Brown with the same name.

Movie Poster

Book Cover

More or less, the movie followed the premise of the book but personally I don't really like the casting of Tom Hanks in the main role of Robert Langdon. I had imagined a much younger Robert. Hanks is way too old for my professor fantasies. Muawahaha!

The movie wasn't that bad but it wasn't particularly good either. I don't get sucked into the movie's plot and the dialogue between characters was bland too. Sometimes Hollywood doesn't get it right and this is one of them.

No doubt the action is there but I just don't feel satisfied from watching the movie. Perhaps my expectations are too high but the feeling that I got from reading the book was much better than this. I was truly enthralled by the book's plot and pacing, something lacking in the movie.

The few comic reliefs in the movie were quite funny but then, they don't lift the movie up a lot. Perhaps I should re-read the book again to get that previous feeling of thrill.

Movie Watch: Slumdog Millionaire is worth to watch

Yesterday I went to watch a newly acclaimed and crowned Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards 2009 recently, Slumdog Millionaire, together with Queenie. A winning film directed by newly minted Best Director, Danny Boyle, it's a heartwarming story about how a boy from the slums win his way to a 20 million rupees prize on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Poster for the movie

Poster for the movie

Dev Patel, Actor for the main protagonist, Jamal Malik

Overall, the movie is neither too serious nor too light-hearted. It has just the right amount of story twists to entertain viewers while ensuring that the plot doesn't sink. I admit that I watched the show mainly out of curiousity generated by the Academy buzz. So many articles has been written about this film and critics have been giving it a glorious report card.

Since there are none other movies that I want to watch, I thought this movie might just be the one to beat the blues. After all, it is marketed as a feel-good movie. Hmmm, I think the feel good part is due to the fact that Jamal has a happy ending together with Latika and that probably makes all viewers, including me, happy at their joy. So our protagonist got his money and the girl, what's there not to like? And of course, being an Indian film, we get to see the compulsory dance routine performed by Jamal and Latika at the movie's ending despite the fact that the director is a foreigner.

Generally speaking, it all seems too good to be true and so when I found out that it's just a fiction story, I heaved a sigh of relief. If you have watched the movie, you'll understand why. Who on earth will get to live a life like Jamal? Or have a bastard of a brother like Salim? I really can't think of anyone.

Good or not, it's all based on personal preferences but still, this movie is worth the movie ticket price. Wanna see how much I pay? See below:



Ahahaha! Yep. S$7.50. Not that cheap nor that expensive. So go watch the movie while it's still being aired. Again, this movie is distributed by Warner Bros so now we really know that they have lots of moolah to spare. LOL. Well Warner Bros has to share the moolah with Fox Searchlight though.

Slumdog Millionaire is now raking in all the money from all over the world. Worldwide total as of Mar. 6, 2009 is estimated at $217,030,943. With all those cash, Warner Bros can comfortably rest its laurels this year. Not to mention that they have another blockbuster on hand, the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That is a certain huge cashcow for the studio.

As for us lesser mortals, we can only drool at the amount of money that we will never get to see in our own bank balances ever. Haiz....

Wow! It's the Year of the Cow

Time passes by so quickly and before I know it, it's time to usher in the Year of the Ox and send away the Year of the Rat in the Chinese lunar horoscope.

The Rat year has not been very good and it's all the same usual stuffs like the Sichuan earthquake, Mumbai bombings, Myanmar tsunamis, global economic crisis, tainted milk crisis and many more. It seems to be more happening than any other years.

Be it the English year or the lunar year, it's all the same. Disasters one after another, never stopping to give us a breather in life.

Will the new year usher in a change of fortune? For the Singapore Flyer, it seems to be the case. News reported that the Singapore Flyer, which had been closed for a month due to technical fault, has been reopened today, just in time for the lunar new year.

As for me, so far nothing significant has happened and it's quite a disappointment. This year I decided not to take the initiative to approach Moonie and Queenie to go out on the first day of the lunar new year, as was the case in previous years. I want to see if they would approach me instead. Yet I was disappointed when they truly did not bother to contact me. Guess our friendship is nothing more than just words. *sighs*

So I went to pay house visits to my mum's relatives, though I was hoping that I could stay at home for the whole day. I have no mood to go anywhere this year. My mum can be quite a kancheong queen sometimes. Most of my relatives don't pop in for visits very early, except for one of my coousins.

My mum wanted to catch this cousin in order to see her daughter, so she woke me up rather early. Me being me, naturally I dragged and lazed about in my bed to avoid getting up. Still, sometimes mothers' powers can be hard to block out. *grins*

In any case, we didn't manage to see that cousin in time. The travelling alone took up quite some time as I lived in the east and my relatives live in the north.

Frankly speaking, my holidays are usually quite boring and I don't have many exciting stuffs happening. But today I almost came face to face with a guy that I never want to see in my life again.

My mum forced me to do house visit to this particular aunt and her son had once did something very bad to me. Hence I had never wanted to see him again. The past few times that I went to her house, he wasn't around as he had been either put away in a boys' home or in jail.

However, today he's no longer in jail and didn't even went out with his stupid girlfriend. Instead he stayed at home and slept. Well I wished that he could go on sleeping without waking up but my mum's super loud voice had woken him up.

It was a good thing that I felt bored and had tuned in to my iPod to watch one of the InuYasha's movie. So my hair had hidden my face and thus, I won't have to see that guy, even if he's standing close. It was an unbearable time, waiting for my mum to finish whatever chitchat she had and that we could quickly head home. It certainly felt like hours to me.

During the whole time, I never turned my head in his direction and never llifted up my head even though my shoulders were aching. When my mum finally decided to leave, it was such a huge relief and I quickly stepped out of the house to get my shoes and leave.

Phew. I am glad that I didn't get to see his face so that I won't get nightmares. Hmmm, probably it wouldn't hurt to see how he looks like after all those years in jail. I heard from my mum that he was once caned 14 times for drug trafficking offences. Oh whatever. This guy gives me the chills.

So I managed to survive my first lunar day without any problems. Time to get back to my InuYasha.

See ya!

And a Happy Chinese New Year.

Celebration with DBS

It's yet another fantastic lunch from mum today and she cooked 2 thick slices of pork chop for me. It's very yummy and I posted the pork chops picture below for remembrance's sake.




After I finished the pork chops, I headed off to meet Queenie and Moonie. It's been a very long time ever since the last time we met. That was way back in June, when we were celebrating Queenie's birthday.

Today, they are going to celebrate my birthday even though it's now considered belated. At least it's better late than never, don't you think so?

Once again, I received a black bag as my birthday gift. This year is truly a year of bags for me and I'm very happy with it. As you can see, I'm a bags person and the more compartments the bag has, the better. I posted the birthday bag below for reference:




After having dinner at Swensons', we headed to McDonald's so as to get a seating space for our chitchat session.

Once again, it's a very simple celebration and life is good for me now.

^.^