Walking Dead

I'm one of those - living, but not living.

一拍两散

Walking past the Xmas tree decor outside JP, and the hordes of people with their phones and cameras flashing, trying to capture an image of the falling 'snow' that is in fact disintegrating bubble, got me thinking about my attitude towards photography. I never really understood why so many people like to capture images with their phones/digital cameras; the choice of subject is often mundane and challenging (a towering tree that will not fit into the frame. a darkly lit background), and their devices will never really be able to do reality justice. it is a misrepresentation.

The more amazing pictures i see, the more i want to pick up photography skills/ techniques and the less i want to shoot with a normal camera. Perhaps it's my inadequacy with the already complex functions of the digital camera, but the digital camera will never be able to take the kind of pictures a DSLR can, and if u cant shoot a justified shot, or a stunning, if not more impressive shot that offers an alternative way of seeing the subject (which all great pictures have), then there is no point in shooting it. i find the experience underwhelming.

this is not a case of photography snobbery, if ever there is such a notion. Call it practicism, if you may.

of course i do take pictures with a normal camera. there is no doubt in it's practicality and essential utility in capturing moments. i snap many random items - a table, food, streets or alleys - that i hope will merge to form a realised memory of that moment in time. they might not even have any humans in them, but they trigger memories. in such occasion, the most mundane makes sense. but the difference is that i do it selectively, and not bring it out to point at the first thing i see. i give it some thought and feeling.

i guess what i'm trying to say is, the next time u take a picture, don't just do it because it is the cutest thing, or because everyone else is doing it. if there aint a reason, if u're not a tourist, if you're not a foreign worker, then maybe you don't have to be so amazed and obliged to snap a shot with your latest hipstamatic application. and if u're going to post it on twitter, pls make sure it is something people would care about. the world is cheap enough already.

standing there video-ing the fake snow, i wonder if it gives u any form of pleasure, especially when JP's xmas tree, with it's moving musical figurines and fake snow, contains more plastic than the Exxon Mobile factory and looks like child's play. This phenomenon should rank high in Jason Hahn's latest 8 Days article about Singapore's "Mysteries of Life", together with #22 - why do so many people not flush the public toilets?



In other photographic stories, please support my junior Hoong Wei Long.

In my opinion, this dude is highly underrated, and takes some of the most amazing shots i've seen. Bin and WL are the 2 people whose pictures almost always have me mad-loving them. do take some time to read the following msg from him (nope i did the pimping on my own accord, without his request), and show some support this Xmas. Share your love with the less fortunate by buying a picture. i have. All proceeds go strictly to the Make A Wish Foundation.

and since i'm at it, screw those people who committed fraud in charity.

(Facebook URL at the bottom)



PRINTS FOR CHARITY

Hiho,

Thank you taking time to look at this album :) As the title suggests, I am selling prints of images I've shot at Baybeats 2009 for charity this X'mas.

These pieces were used for exhibitions during both the post Baybeats 2009 'Budding Photographer' exhibition at *Scape and this year's Noise Singapore exhibition.

Due to the handling processes during the exhibits, some of the pieces have their edges nicked but they're by and large in good condition. That said, these aren't meant to be archival, collector's items (it would be crazy to suggest so). They're really purely for decorative purposes.

For me, getting to shoot Baybeats 2009 under the 'Budding Photographer' programme was a big milestone. Perhaps the fact that I had tried 2 years before that, and finally getting it on the third try made it all the more memorable.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it was in ways a dream come true for me. Finally being able to experience what is was like to be in the photo pit during a rock show...the rush...the excitement...I think every music photographer can attest to that.

So I thought I would pay it back and come full circle with this. All sales will go directly towards a donation made to the Make-A-Wish Singapore Foundation. I'm not keeping a single cent from this.

If you're interested in buying the piece, just drop me a message and I'll get in touch with you as soon as I can. Do note that sales will be conducted on a first come basis. Delivery of the item will be done via a meetup (preferably in the West or Central). It's cash on delivery but no obligations should you be unhappy with the physical conditions of the piece before payment is made :)

If you're kinda tight this X'mas or know someone else who might be interested in the sale, do forward, tweet, or send a smoke signal to your friends and spread the word. This sale will run till 31 Dec 2010.

Cheers,
Wei Long

______________________________________________________________________

Hoong Wei Long is an aspiring music photographer. Since 2007, his love of capturing the art of performance has pushed him to document a multitude of gigs. Of which includes the likes of The Observatory (SG), Delphic (UK), Nine Inch Nails (US) and Shai Hulud (US). In 2009, Hoong was privileged to be selected as a budding photographer for Baybeats and enjoyed his first photo exhibition that year.

Hoong continues to work towards his dream of being a top music photographer and has recently provided coverage for Guttermouth (US) LIVE in Singapore and I Am David Sparkle (SG)'s 'Swords Are Drawn' album launch.

-----------------

To see his selected works, visit:
www.flickr.com/photos/hwlportfolio

To find out more about Make-A-Wish Singapore, visit:
www.makeawish.org.sg


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150099370091756&set=a.10150099369501756.305040.672756755&pid=7427374&id=672756755#!/album.php?aid=305040&id=672756755

无题

I felt very vexed and restless today. It's an imminent feeling, like something is not going as it should be, and that nagging sense that you're not where you're supposed to be. It felt like being stuck in a moment that doesnt belong to you, and you're just an obsolete entity, watching. And the worse thing is, you can't pinpoint where the problem lies.

Without that, any solution would seem preposterous.

Amidst the din, I realised something: I've been surviving. And if past experiences were any indication, I will endure and succeed. it's just a matter of time. I might get by, but i'll emerge victorious in the end. i've made it through O Levels to get into a JC, i've endured physical challenges during my army days. It's just that it's taking a longer time now. and with it, comes the reminder that one shall never be complacent.

You might have the upper stance now, but the tables will turn. So all the showing off that you're doing right now, i'll make sure i learn from you, and be more humble in the future.

All my life, i've been acting cool. i've tried to be the coolest kid in school, listen to the most obscure music, and walk and talk aloof. Unless you talk to me, you will never know me. Even if you did, you can never entirely predict me. I try to attend the hippest concerts and make the best out of my wardrobe. That is not to say i do not enjoy the process - i love all the music and films and everything else that i've been exposed to. However, i feel like i'm a hybrid, stuck in the middle. and i realise it's time i do me. the real me. without false pretense. and if the world doesnt like it, they can kiss my poo-at like Leticia Bongnino.

after giving it some initial thought, 2011 will be the year i follow my dreams and myself.

WOE WOE WOE!

i feel like this: A TERRIBLE MESS.

2 hours of trying to upload to SINA.COM makes me feel like a slut. ROARSSSSS!!!






and this is the ultimate dirty song.

On Hindsight

"As we grow older, life's dangers grow more imminent. We're no longer sheltered by our parents, protected by cots and playgrounds, fed by home-cooked healthy food, fetched by maids and chauffeured by parents. We're no longer in school, where life revolves around the afternoon nap, followed by homework and meals and tv, where the people we know are the characters that were either heroes or villains. It's a safe routine where little can go wrong, except maybe not doing your homework, or mixing with bad company.
We now see life in the face. We confront dangers, right on, sometimes without us knowing, helplessly, some fearlessly. Death comes in many forms, accidents with many identities. We get our hearts broken, we fix it back up, only for it to get trampled again. We face the realities of the race, the mundane and the routines, the backlash of the mistakes, the responsibilities. We face life, head on and without life buoy.

Face it - strongly, and with dignity."


I wrote this about 2 years back. For once I'm kinda slightly impressed by my own writing. I think I'm coming into my own, getting used to my style and trying to improve upon it, and being more confident in the meantime. That's good, I guess.

The Social Network

When we look back, The Social Network will probably go down as the movie that will best represent what it means to live vacariously through the internet over the past 2 decades, leading up to the culmination of arguably the biggest invention of our generation.

Perhaps it was the recent dry spell of not catching too many movies, but i highly doubt my senses were that numb or deprived to overrate a movie when i see one. This is one of the best movies I've seen all year.

The Social Network unveiled like a 2 hour tele-movie, in part due to Aaron Sorkin’s style of writing that has proved to be familiar in shows like The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – dialogue intensive scenes filled with long witty repartee, with plenty of dramatic punch, leading to dramatic twist of events.

If you’re not used to fast-talking actors rambling on and on like a bullet train, and if you’ve not seen an Aaron Sorkin show in your life, TSN might be hard to swallow initially, but if you stick with it, the rewards are tremendous. Aaron’s script is gripping and crafted in perfect timing, going between flash backs and flash forwards. This non-linear narrative, together with the smart script, had me holding my breath for more throughout the movie. I would say long takes like they do in The West Wing will be impressive, but David Fincher’s way of re-doing a take over and over again to the point of perfection might be very exhaustive for the actors. I’ve also read that Fincher is contractually bound to keep this movie under 2 hours. (haha)

There is so much rave going on for the 3 lead actors – Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, and Jesse Eisenberg – that I went in with much expectations, knowing that both JT and AG have been touted to be competent for next year’s supporting actor Oscar race. In the end it was really Jesse who shone the brightest IMO, and whose performance I was most impressed with.

Justin Timberlake plays Napster founder Sean Parker, the douchebag that will expand Facebook beyond Zuckerberg’s imagination - a smooth-talking slime-ball, one of those businessmen so great with PR he will tell you the world is ending tomorrow and you will believe him. As smooth as he is on stage, Justin Timberlake seemed like a natural on screen. It wasn’t a breakthrough role for him, and there wasn’t much to test his versatility, so even though I thought it was believable, it wasn’t impressive.

Andrew Garfield’s role is incredible likeable. As Eduardo Saverin, Andrew Garfield played the role with immense earnestness. Eduardo formed the emotional aspect of the back story, and it is through him that issues of trust, friendship, loyalty and honesty were unveiled. In contrast, the twins’ narrative explored the violation of intellectual property and the blurring boundaries of what constitutes theft, and provided an insight into the Harvard’s code of conduct. Their meeting with Harvard president Larry Summers was an interesting scene, not entirely necessary and did not add to the pace, but it highlighted the Harvard community and its exclusivity, as well as the seemingly notoriety of the recently scandal-laden Harvard. One of the earlier scenes when Mark first created Facemash was brilliantly edited with the initiation into a Harvard sorority, building a correlation and an undercurrent early in the film, which will later prove to be one of Mark’s motivations for creating Facebook.

Rashina Jones looks like a Jessica Alba. Always lovely to see her on screen.

I thought the best performance, and undeniably the trickiest, came from Jesse Eisenberg. Jesse’s Mark is one constantly in thoughts; even when he is not speaking he seemed like someone who is going through a lot in his mind. There is a certain punk attitude, a contempt for rules, and an impenetrable quality about Jesse’s portrayal, all of which unbeknownst and belied when you look at a picture of the real Mark Zuckerberg. The kind of attitude that pays no attention to the superficiality and the farce around him, but instead has total devotion for what he believes to be the next best thing on campus, and his ticket to the girls he desires. So much of what he was going through was conveyed in Jesse’s restraint acting, and his facial expressions say it all. To say Michael Cera or Shia Labouf can replace Jesse is undermining what he has done, and I do not think neither of them can convey the depth and complexity of the character the way Jesse anchored it in vulnerability, and a delicate balance between conniving and determined. Well, maybe Shia can do it, but he doesn’t look like Mark Zuckerberg the way Jesse’s wide-eyed demeanor does. And Michael Cera is too kiddish for the role.

David Fincher has a great eye for detail and irony. I especially loved the subtle difference in the scene where Eduardo’s girlfriend almost set fire to his bed, and Mark was on the other end of the phone line, talking in front of a pool. The casting of Justin Timberlake as the person who “brought the music industry down” was ironic, given he is part of the music industry in reality. The one part I didn’t like was when the twins were competing in rowing and lost, played to blurry dreamy cinematography and chariots-of-fire-esque music in the background. I thought that portion was redundant and lingered for too long, and though I get a sense that Fincher might be mocking the standard jock-type, still it was a little overkill. Trent Reznor’s score together with another person whose name I can’t remember turns out to be pretty interesting, a few simple piano notes over a constant undercurrent of imminent buzzing, a perfect blend of pathos and anticipation.

The significance of movies based on reality has seldom lasted long. Think of all the movies that were deemed important in our generation: with the exception of Titanic, the technological and cultural significance of Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Lord of the Rings, and many more, far outweigh the impact and social importance that reality-based movies have. Movies that directly depict or retell an important milestone in history – rather than one that represents it through fictional characters or genres – seemed to have lesser success. I doubt a decade later, we will look back at “United 93” or “World Trade Center” for insight into 9/11’s tragic happenings, neither will we revisit “Frost / Nixon” for that important interview, nor biopic “Che” for a sense of what it feels like to know Che Guevera.

Then comes TSN, a movie that in my opinion might not be timeless (because we can never know what the rapid rate of advancement in technology has in store for us), but it definitely represented a whole generation who grew up under the influence of the internet, where the boundaries of privacy are blurred and the voyeuristic nature of humans never more exposed.

I wished the film had more ambition though. Granted the film-makers have mentioned that this is not a film about the internet, but had the experience of the internet and its impact on modern life been explored more, this will definitely be a movie that will speak to the 550 million people on Facebook, and perhaps go on to become the movie of our generation.

Instead of having our Avatar and its constant droning of environmental preservation, its didactic and almost preachy manner of narration, the profuse display of the advancement in 3D technology, as well as the awe-inducing grandeur, TSN will go down in my books as one of the most important films of the last decade over Avatar, simply because the social-networking experience and the themes it highlights represents what each of us is going through, whether you’re 6 or 60.

Perhaps the final scene says it all – Jesse Eisenberg adding the ex-girlfriend as a friend on Facebook, the person that in the first scene somehow triggered the chain of events that led him to become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. And he kept refreshing the page, over and over again, until the scene fades. Our infatuation with the site, at one point or another, is no different. We take action and we ponder, we wait and we can’t keep our eyes off it, eagerly waiting for something to happen. It is a meditation on what it means to be on Facebook – an addiction. In the end, Jesse became one of those 500 million members who can’t get enough of it, and can’t get what he wants out of it.

anticipating

[THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT]
Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, front-runners at the Oscar race next yr. it might be a little too early to tell, but the reviews for this film have been spectacular. they play a couple, with a teenage son and daughter. when their kids found their sperm-donor father, played by Mark Ruffalo with manly charisma, their lives are turned upside down.
i love JM. and i cant wait for this film in Jan.







[I AM LOVE]
Tilda Swinton looks gorgeous in this. the trailer doesnt say much about the movie at all, except that Tilda is speaking in Italian. but the score, editing, and rave comments make this film desirable.
i'm killing myself for missing it when it's being shown in Spore last mth. oh well.







[BLUE VALENTINE]
so the trailer doesnt say much. here's the synopsis:
"The film centers on a contemporary married couple, charting their evolution over a span of years by cross-cutting between time periods."
but the star-power of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams is enough to give me goosebumps. i love it when Ryan does indie films. cant wait.







[RABBIT HOLE]
Touted as Nicole Kidman's return to good films. The Best Actress curse has befallen many - Halle Berry's dramas didnt do so well after her win for Monster's Ball, and her highest grossing film was X-Men, which was not a film she anchored. Nicole Kidman's said to be a similar box office poison, after Fur-Golden Compass-Birth-Bewitched failed to give her the creds nor the box office success. it didnt help that these films werent that great either. Her role here is fast gaining Oscar buzz, and i cant wait for her to put some gold on this Pulitzer winning script. The Hour's a Pulitzer-winning book, so if it's any indication, 2nd time's the charm.

watching this trailer sorta makes my heart sink a little.

王菲

I love this song. i think it's so poignant, how you yearn to love, yet fear the many outcomes. I love how it comes right after 为非作歹，which is a total contrast in both theme and mood, yet fits beautifully.

it always almost makes my heart sink a little deeper.





This is finally up on youtube. IMO it's quite underrated. i love 周禮茂's lyrics； 天不變地變 - a theme which echoes in many of Faye's songs. "没有什么会永垂不朽”


作詞：周禮茂　作曲：黃舒駿

天空不變短　地為何變暫　海水不變枯　　為何石變爛
一去的你未返　一切帶走然而留下冀盼
不變的思念中　感覺浮進眼
溫馨的記憶　漫燃流滿面　仍走不出作天　跟過去糾纏
想我的生命中　只有你手從來是最暖　不要潻黑夜深　冰冷如永遠
這一分我在變　這一刻我在變
這一天我在變　　去不變地為你生存
天它不變地變　海它不變地變
心它不變地變　　卻又還未變　未能令你改變
天空不變短　地為何變暫　當初不變的　竟也要改變
海水不變枯　為何石變爛　當初不變的　終也要改變





here, i find my peace of mind. and through whatever i face in life, i know i'll always have these songs.

Eyes On Me

it's as if i'm seeing her for the first time. There's something different about her, a twinkle in the eyes, more expressive than usual.

Wow.

Brandon Flowers - Only The Young

This is shaping up to be my anthem of the year. I cant seem to get enough！ and the MV is GORGEOUSSSSS. froth in mouth kinda beautiful.

all time low

i think i've hit an all time low =(
true, there's no where left but up.
hopefully this period will serve as a humbling reminder

Eat Pray Love

i've not seen the movie yet (sigh), but reading the interview made me fall for Julia Roberts. I now understand why she is the best-paid actress in Hollywood. Few actresses nowadays can command the screen the way she does, without saying a word. that's star power, her whole being, and it's a throwback to the classic leading lady.



"EW: Have you ever been in such a dark and sad place as liz finds herself in the movie?
Roberts: As a younger person, (with) problems that are more unformed and immature, I'm sure. There's a moment where you're hitting the compass and it's just not giving you the way to go.

EW: When was that for you exactly?

Roberts: Well, my whole 20s was like that: trying out this idea of things, working a lot, and moving away from home at 17 and being away from my mom. So there are times when you're figuring out those puzzles where you really do feel lost. "Do I really want to be an actor? Is it really going to work out?" You want to talk about a series of breakdowns? Talk to any actors in their 20s. You just never know if it's going to click.
.
.
.
EW: it's hard to believe, but this year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Pretty Woman. What advice would you give to your younger self if you could?Roberts: Nothing. The funny thing is, I'm still so much that same person, really. I think that you're born that person - becoming famous doesnt make tou crazy. I just dont believe any of that crap. Twenty years is, first of all, a drop of water. It's all still kind of hilarious and unbelievable to me. And I have so many places to put the big weight of identity of my life that movies just will never have that. They just fulfill me in a different place.

EW: Do you obsess over your appearance? Do you like the way you look today?

Roberts: I'm human. Sometimes I, like anybody, wake up in the morning and go, "F---, Really? THIS is the starting point?" Havent you ever picked up a picture of yourself from, like, five years ago, and you look at yourself and you go, "And I had no appreciation for how lovely I looked, how fit and healthy I looked." So now I say, "Now listen. Ten years from now, you're really going to think you should have appreciated yourself more." And I', raising a daughter, and I really want to empower her by example.

EW: At the end of the movie, your character comes up with one word to sum up where she is in her life. I'm sure you've been asked this dozens of times already, but what's your word?
Roberts: What is my word? Has anybody asked me that? I dont think so. What do you think it is? If someone said "What is Julia Roberts' word? You just spent an hour with her."

EW: Balance?

Roberts: Balance is good. You know, I probably would say happy. Just happy. It's so easy to be really, truly happy, and so easy to forget that and get grumpy. I know it's a shock, but I can be grumpy." - Entertainment Weekly #1114, August 6, 2010

Bionic

i should be writing about other things, but as usual music dominates.
i really like Christina Aguilera's latest album Bionic. 'Not Myself Tonight', 'WooHoo', and 'Elastic Love' are just crazy catchy, and i almost forgot that MIA helped her on this album. WooHoo is a cheeky reference to the, erm, groin area, and all expletives and anatomical references were replaced with a very ambiguous WooHoo. niceeeee =)

i love how in 'Not Myself Tonight', the MV is racy and raunchy, with a look and set that resembles Madonna in Express Yourself. Since the song is about one night of fun that is against who she is entirely, the sexy vid is rather ironic, cos we've all seen Xtina play dirrty before. (maybe she IS a convent girl afterall). and was she trying to break away from the Madge reference (ie: this is not me. not myself tonight) by pulling out that look? hmmmmm

'I am', 'You Lost Me' and 'Lift Me Up' are gorgeous ballads that i have on replay now. and with the recent news of her divorce, it only becomes more timely as i try to connect the dots with these songs. so there's plenty of ways to interpret the divorce.

i just found the ballads very very suitable for my mood these few days.

'I Am'


'I am' stripped


'You Lost Me'



'Lift Me Up', from the Hope For Haiti concert. Linda Perry on the piano. Beautiful

Synecdoche New York

"As the people who adored you stop adoring you
as they die
as they move on
as you shed them
as you shed your beauty
your youth
as the world forgets you
as you recognise your transcience
as you begin to lose your characteristics
one by one
as you learnt there is no one watching you
and there never was,
you think only about driving
not coming from any place
not arriving any place
just driving
counting off time:
now you're here at 7.43
now you're here at 7.44
now you're gone."



Synecdoche New York is one of the most depressing and revelatory films i've seen all year. deep. very deep.

Inglourious Basterds

"Quentin Tarantino's fevered fantasia Inglourious Basterds makes
 the delirious assertion that World War II was won through a combination of the power of movies and the prowess of a band of renegades led by Brad Pitt as a twanging moonshine-maker. So it's perhaps unnecessary to point out that the blithe misspellings 
 in the movie's title are a delirious touch of nonsense too — 
the whim of a filmmaker who's a bit of a renegade himself.

Still, I start with the title, since so too does Tarantino. His orthographic choices seem to say, Love me, love my idiosyncrasies — fun with words is only a hint of the coming attractions. (Trivia experts in the QT movie clubhouse know that Inglorious Bastards, properly spelled, is the American title of a 1978 B-minus Italian war movie with only the loosest of plot connections to this loopy homage.) Few young-to-middle-aged American filmmakers have the nerd-centric depth of movie knowledge and technique that Tarantino brings to his high-flying projects, and fewer still have the confidence to simultaneously glorify and deconstruct genre as he can, whether the genre is blaxploitation, Hong Kong action, '70s grindhouse fare, or, in this case, war movies and '40s noir. But Tarantino's gleefully assembled spectacles are
 inextricable from his frustrating emotional limitations: Everything is 
a game. And here the game includes spelling and the actorly imitation of ''people'' in ''trouble.'' And Nazis.

Or should I say, ''NAH-zeees''? That's what Lieut. Aldo Raine (Pitt) calls them, as he handpicks a team 
of cocky malcontents — most of them Jewish — to join him in accumulating Nah-zee scalps. (Literally: Each man is assigned a quota of 100.) Pitt, in a '40s-style toothbrush-bristle mustache, undertakes Raine's preposterous speechifying in an accent just east of a George W. Bush drawl; he also pulls his lower lip up in a cornpone approximation of Monty Python's Mr. Gumby. Among those who cowboy up for Raine's regiment is Hostel 
director Eli Roth as "the bear Jew," a baseball-bat-wielding lug who smashes his enemies' heads to a pulp. You can watch, since QT is always up for a lavishly designed shot of brain splatter.

As is his preference, Tarantino builds his movie as a collage of interlocking set piece — cinematically dazzling, to be sure, 
 enhanced by an meticulously chosen retro soundtrack — rather than a linear progression. As a result, it's easy enough to tune out the Basterds while they scalp up a storm, and drop in instead on other colorful players. As Bridget, a German actress and undercover agent with exquisite taste in footwear, Diane Kruger presides over a conversation-rich scene in a pub populated with good guys and bad. As French-Jewish Shosanna, who witnesses the slaughter of her family, forges a new identity, opens a movie theater, and plots revenge, Mélanie Laurent presides over a climactic blowout — literally — in her Cinema Paradiso of a movie palace. (At the Cannes premiere, this line 
of Shosanna's killed: ''We're French. We respect directors in our country.'')

And as Nazi colonel Hans Landa, nicknamed ''the Jew hunter'' for obvious and terrible 
 reasons, Austrian actor Christoph Waltz 
 triumphs, heroically, over Tarantino's brash, cine-drunk tall tale. His Landa makes a 
 magnetic entrance in the movie's first (and very best) scene, terrifying a French farmer suspected of hiding Jews simply by requesting a glass of milk. Waltz, who easily won the 2009 Cannes prize for best actor, centers Inglourious Basterds with the welcome subtlety of his performance. In Tarantino's besotted historical reverie, real-life villains Adolf Hitler and 
Joseph Goebbels are played as grotesque jokes. The Basterds are played as exaggeratedly tough Jews. The women are femmes fatales.
 In such a cartoon world, the appearance of one stereotype-resistant protagonist — a Nazi, no less — counts as something glorious indeed."
- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly. grade: B





I wanted to write a review about Inglourious Basterds, but Lisa's review was so succint i thought anything i wrote will put me in shame, so here.

i've seen some other great great movies this past week: Monga, Mother (Korean, with Won Bin), and The Hurt Locker. if i can stop bumming, and curb my enthusiasm in reading other critics, perhaps i'll put them down in writing. it's been a long time since i did a full-blown review anw. yeaaa.

what do you want to do?

Sometimes, when people ask me what do i want to do in life, the first things that come to my mind are usually the places i wana travel, the artistes i want to catch live, and the teevee shows i want to watch.

there's many shows i'd love to watch, and i feel less of a human now cos i haven seen some of these iconic productions. In celebration of the Emmys, here's a list in no particular order, sorta like a resolution list, to remind myself:

- SEX AND THE CITY. i feel like a loser for not having caught it.
- The Golden Girls. because of Betty White
- Breaking Bad. so much rave for Bryan Cranston
- Modern Family. touted to be the best comedy in states now
- BUFFY. nuff said.
- FRINGE 2
- GOSSIP GIRL 3
- ugly betty. only for Michael Urie and V. Williams
- The Wire
- The Simpsons!!!
- Battlestar Galatica
- catch up on PROJECT RUNWAY =(
- rewatch Felicity and Gilmore Girls and Alias.

disconnect

united in that moment
of music.

that when it ends,
so does our shared conscious.

the world jolts back to reality-
a reality.
a disparate and disconnected
superficiality.

it's about as much as we ever shared.
that when the party ends,
and the lights come on,
all that remains
are the spills
the leftovers
the silence.

LOST

"Most believe that what's done is done; you can't change fate, no matter how hard you try. And those who challenge what is destined will always be met with disappointment, for fate has a way of charting its own course. But before one surrenders to the hands of destiny, one might consider the power of the human spirit and the force that lies in one's own free will." - Michael Emerson, in his voice over for LOST S6ep00.





sadly, i have neither the courage to challenge destiny, nor the power of the spirit to decide my own free will.

how pathetic.

PRECIOUS

Lee Daniel's directorial debut dug many issues and laid them bare for us to examine: child abuse, incest, education, white supremacy, idolatory & celebrity, body image, illiteracy, HIV, sexuality, and even black humour.

It also leaves you with many learning points to take home: the distaste towards oily fried food with pork, a sense of security with our lifestyles, improved black vocabulary and grammar, hope for a better future, a feeling of undeserving bliss due to the geography in which we're born in, etc. but for me, the personal take-away message was how a mother's love for her children can push someone to achieve greater dreams.

There's 2 very different portrayal of motherhood in Precious. There's Mo'nique's Mary, a chain-smoking and abusive mother who lied her way through welfare aid, whose jealousy blinded her from what's right and wrong. And then there's Gabourey Sidibe's Precious, who rised above the discrimination and inner demons to chart a path of her own, "breaking through" an abusive relationship to find the strength in her to give the best that she was unable to get to her children.

Amidst all the issues that she faced, that message stood out to me the most. the undivided and selfless act of wanting to provide for her children, with no self-pity at her illness, moved me. that before her death, all she wants to do was to give them the best, struck me. How noble the cause, and how bravely she steamrolled ahead.

Gabourey Sidibe gave a pure and understated performance. despite how come have cried foul at the lack of great female characters in cinema these days, Gabourey found something that fitted her like a glove. Yet i wonder how much of this is a one-hit wonder, and she'll forever be known as the girl from Precious, stuck in that image and unable to find another role fitting for her. Her physical presence was strong. Any smaller actor would not have lend the same kind of gravitas needed for the role. but that might also limit her in her body language, which might affect the roles she get in the future. Nonetheless, Gabourey Sidibe is a tour-de-force in this movie, and sometimes, one single performance is all you need to create a legacy.

Mo'nique made a big sweep during the awards season, and true to hype, her performance was moving and raw, and she delivered those lines with emotions. you might not sympathise with her totally, but u can emphatise with the fact that she did what she thought was right.

The film played like one of them BET videos Precious wants to be in: unevenly paced, with flashbacks of fantasy, loud at times, and lots of vulgarities. I felt the film lacked a deeper connection due to the many issues it was trying to bring to light. As a result, there was no clear emotional climax until the end, which to me felt more like an anti-climax. I would have loved for a happily-ever-after, or at least some fragments of it, though it could never be possible. If anything, credit should go to the director for not sensationalising on the issues and toying with our sympathy. there was some respect for the audience for not putting things out blatently. it could have easily been overdone, but the restraint Paula Patton and Gabourey Sidibe had, Mo'Nique's brave performance, and the healthy dose of humour, brought closure.

Pecious is a film for anyone who is facing a tough period in their lives. if not to make you feel awfully lucky in your own shoes, at least for the acting and the humour. It is a rare gem in a crowd of false aplomb.


"The other day, I cried. But you know what? Fuck that day. That's why God, or whoever, makes other days."

WINNER!

my first "letter of the month" is published in this month's AUGUST MAN magazine! zippeeeee! very very pleased that i won for myself a Kenneth Cole watch. =)

i really shouldnt be this happy, cos the more i read it, the less impressed i am with it. i thought the other two letter were somehow better: one had better language, while the other a more diverse viewpoint. i had a better opener i guess. or mayb i was just plain lucky. or mayb they realised tt i've been following them on facebook and twitter and wana award my new-found loyalty and keep me reading. hmmm.

in any case, the idea to write in came to me during shower, like most bright ideas. i donno whether this is some divine luck, or some great writing, but today, it made me happy and motivated. and the recent success of HCJC training brought back some confidence in me as well. so i guess, it's uphill from here i hope.

tomorrow will be the day towards progress, in which today's reward spurred.

SALT

"A lack of plausibility used to be thought of as a liability in movies. When a critic, or an audience, complained that a plot twist was too luridly far-fetched to believe, that it stretched and snapped the bonds of reality (a rather vague concept, to be sure), that would generally go down as a negative assessment. Over the past couple of decades, though, expectations have shifted. Fantasy has leaked, like an oil spill, into everything, even naturalistic thrillers, and that has changed our relationship to them. Salt, a jacked-up espionage/action machine starring Angelina Jolie as a CIA superstar who may or may not be a Russian mole, is a movie I have no trouble calling flagrantly preposterous and over-the-top — impossible to buy on any sober, adult level. It's like a John le Carré double-agent yarn compacted into comic-book pulp as if by the makers of Con Air. Yet the movie doesn't pretend to be anything other than that; to call it out for being ludicrous would be like complaining that Superman flies. Besides, Salt knows how to stay one step ahead of you in devious, if jaw-droppingly contrived, ways. The movie is fun, dammit. So who cares, really, if it's trash?" - Owen Gleiberman, in his review of the new Angelina Jolie movie, SALT


OG has a knack for succintly putting in words my thoughts. I want to write like him.

ar see wa wu ghor baa ban

2 person behind me in the queue to buy toto/4D (was buying for my mum dad -.-) was overheard talking about their plans if they won the $5 million prize. Lady A was telling Man B that she asked her family what they will do with the money if they won (now this is what i call DAY DREAMING). A's mum and dad both said they wana invest in property and buy a bungalow (don't they always want the biggest of everything?!). A told them $5 million not enough to buy bungalow, which got me wondering:

1) how much do u need to buy 3 freaking layers of roof over your head in Singapore?
2) what will i do if i win $5 million frakking dollars!?!?!

then i found the answer.

in our favourite local newspaper XIN MIN RI BAO NONETHELESS!!

Next to the very sexysaucysteamy headline of Jackie Chan's confession that he shot a R(A) blue film before (why am i not surprised? hmmm) is an article about a man who won an undisclosed huge sum of money and 坏事连连 quickly followed. what divine providence yet again!　someone is telling me to be contented instead of being a daydreamer and lust after what i did not work hard for!

and i have learnt it the hard way once that what goes around comes around, so i dun think winning $5 million will be something i want. the paranoia will kill me. my life is destined to not have any huge windfalls.

but please just let me strike 4D like $1k a yr i will be super happy and contented already thankyouverymuch higher power that be if u are reading this.


so if u find out that i won 5 frakking million bucks, pls come look for me. i will give my money away nonetheless. unless u've been a bad bad bad person to me.









i think i am harbouring a growing resentment, one that i admit is bad, but an inevitable one, at the chances that i was denied, which led me to take a different, and more difficult path. oh well.

LOST

The caption for the above photo reads:
"Downward dog Will we ever be able to think about this scene and not cry?"

I'm obsessed over LOST lately. 3 episodes into the final season, and i cant wait to finish them all. But i have to finish Doc Jensen's recaps and theories and Totally 'LOST' videos on s5 first before i can proceed further. and because i do not have a smart phone, i've copied exhaustively all the recaps onto Microsoft Word (a grand total of at LEAST 100 pages, font size 8), only to realise that Doc Jensen actually has LOST THEORIES articles after each episode too. By then i was too exhausted and decided i should just read the theories online, the recaps on paper while i am on the road. but all these are worthwhile.

After i've seen LOST, everything else just feels like second rate. PREDATORS' theme of strangers-dropped-on-an-island-for-greater-mission, and them discussing whether they're in purgatory or in a game just had me in cynical inside-laughs at how tired this idea is, and how badly they're writing the lines and picking the characters. they're 1D in comparison to Sun/Jin's epic star-crossed romance, or even John's faith.

While watching INCEPTION, i related the dream extractions to LOST's time-travelling stories, and wished the minds of one criminal has more intrigue and interests rather than a similar replication of the modern world, albeit the action sequences and JGL's zero-gravity scenes are to-die-for. I wished they have more dimensions than the mythologies of the LOST universe.

There's so much i can say about LOST and its tales that it's difficult to encompass all within an entry. but i can say, that i'm so emotionally invested in the show it's unbelievable. i stopped myself from reading spoilers when copy/pasting the final season's recaps. but when i saw the picture above of Jack, face defeated and hands covered in blood, a stark contrast to S1E1's opening scene, and then a dog by its side as a drastic comparison - life and imminent death, man and animal, grappling and abundant cuteness - it just did it for me. The stage is set for an imminent death, and i don't think i am ready for it.

In many case, Jack Shepard is the character i most identify with. the reluctant hero, the one trying to please everyone, the doctor always trying to fix things, the man with issues and inner demons. but above everything else, Jack is like everyone; human, and flawed.

The day i watch that scene will be a very sad day indeed.







________________________________________________________________________________


Sarah McLachlan - Fear

Fear.
they say that limits us from getting out of our comfort zone, to play 10/10 or more.
(but isnt 10/10 still within the comfort zone? but that's for another day)
Every chanced sight of the word, because it doesnt bloom in front me every now and then contrary to popular beliefs, reminds me of Sarah McLachlan's soprano voice, where she effortlessly and so smoothly, like caramel, lived out those notes like dew in the "morning sky", innocent and spirited, almost spiritual.
The song's atmospheric arrangement, with the backing vocals hazed out, hinted at the whispers and voices in our heads, where fear most often sprang from uncertainty and doubt, confusion and conflict.
And then at the end, because like anything else, it has to end. And then i realise, that in songs, i am exorcising myself and whatever fragments of it that needs mending.

"But I fear, I have nothing to give. I have so much to lose here in this lonely place, tangled up in our embrace. There's nothing I like better than to fall."




The Cardigans - My Favourite Game

In sec 1, I heard this song and saw the MV.
the very sight of a tatooed Nina Pearson, driving along to this song, uninhibited, with the wind blowing in her face and the smell of open air, together with that liberating sense of freedom that comes along with it, I recognise. And i worship that immunity from everything else except living in that moment.

in that mad rush there is a cathartic release of pent up emotions. The song narrates the anger and frustrations from possibly a very fresh breakup, and later in the chorus turned soft and mellow (don't we all contradict ourselves so beautifully sometimes) before that repetitive yet incredibly hooky beat explodes in your head once again.
a cautionary tale against speed driving? sure it is. But every now and then, the incredible hook resurfaces in my mind everytime i travel, or am in some high-speed drive. The feeling is incredible, and the release even better.





I wonder what songs people have in their heads, when they're walking, waiting for train, or in the middle of a conversation that they're out of. I have a song in my head most of the time. Do you?

Oprah and Ellen

Oprah: Would you say that coming out was the seminal moment in your life?

Ellen: Oh yeah, because it stripped everything away. The whole world was talking about me. You know, if you're going o be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wanting people to talk about you and wanting everyone to knopw who you are. But that also means there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don't like you. No matter who you are. I'm sure there's somebody out there who doesnt like Betty White because she's short and has white hair.

O: Refresh my memory: At what point did you make the decision to come out? You were three years into your sitcom?

E: I was four years in, because the fifth is when they canceled me. I think I've told you about a dream I had. i was struggling with the idea of coming out - what it would do to my career and to me - and in this dream, i was holding a tiny finch in the palm of my hand. i could feel how much i loved this bird and that it was safe in its cage - one of these thin, bamboo, beautiful, multitiered cages - and as i was putting the bird back in, i realised that the cage was against a window and the bird could fly out. the bird realised it at the same time i did, and i became the bird. and the bird looked at me and wanted to fly out, but i looked at the bird and said, "but u're safe in here in a beautiful cage. don't leave." and the bird just looked at me and flew out over the window.

O: wow.

E: So i was like, okay, i know what that meant. until then i'd had no idea i was in a cage. i was in this beautiful setting, and i was making money and had everyone taking care of me.
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O: But it's so important to say that out loud so people can see for themselves how the things that broke you open actually allowed you to be set free.

E: I think Diane Sawyer told me she read something that said te cracks in your heart let the sun shine through. i just thought that was beautiful. and it's all part of balance. i'm a comedian, and i definitely see the humour in a lot of things. i am also sad a lot. i cry often and easily. i think you're supposed to feel all kinds of things. you're supposed to laugh, you're supposed to cry, you're not supposed to shove your feelings under the rug. i was raised in an atmosphere of "everything's fine." but as i got older, i was like, "well no, everything's not fine. there is stuff that's sad." I am a really sensitive person. i think i am too sensitive sometimes, especially in this business.
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O: Okay. So, when i saw you at the photo shoot for the cover, what i was most struck by was the light in your eyes.

E: Well, of course there was a light - i was with you!

O: [laughs] No, there really was a twinkle in your eye that comes only from a sense of well-being. i'm telling you, i recognise it when i see it. what's that all about for you?

E: you told me you wanted to talk about this, so i was thinking about it. and i asked my massage person: what is it about me that you think is balanced?

O: [laughs] that's like when Gayle was invited to speak about self-esteem and she calls me and says, "how do i feel about self-esteem"" so your massage person said...

E: She said i constantly challenge myself. she has known me for 11 years, and she said when something goes wrong, instead of running away from it, i look at it and go "what's my part in it, what's my responsibility?"

Wedding bells

My Aunt Janice got married today. In a sea of young couples, what she lacked in youth she made up for with her usual spunk and attitude. Amongst the usual white gowns/shirt-tie ensemble, she wore a purple short skirt, with her trademark short hair, dyed to matching gold with Uncle Randall, the groom.

My first solemnisation. It wasnt as sacred an affair as I had expected: children were free to run amok, released by disrespectful parents, who probably after their own solemnisation saw no meaning out of it given their present marriage. To me, it was a romantic moment when the groom held the bride's hand out of his initiative when reciting the vows.

The wedding was a very simplistic affair. At 5pm we then went to Ice Cold Bs at SMU for beer and Wii while waiting for dinner to begin. It was a small dinner - 4 tables at Yan's Palace, Hong Lim Complex. It lacked the costume changes, the 4-tier wedding cake that will eventually get thrown away, the farcical and usually badly edited/scored ppt slides and videos, the annoying yum-seng, and the commercial money-laundering table photos and 5-star hotel dinner. Instead, we had the best bonding over KTV and a nice meal. They didnt have to go through all the troubles of putting on a show, and we didnt have to pretend to be happy. We shared the best family dinner with lots of fun, even more so than chinese new year routines, and the no-frills simplicity of it made me abhor the wedding machine even more. I got to know my aunts and cousins better, so that beats any 10 course dinner with tons of shark fins.

The extravagance. The farce. Wedding in Singapore is rarely what it's meant to be, but instead has become a business almost. First the house, then the wedding, then the cars and babies and investment in children, blah blah blah.

Sometimes simplicity is the best way to go.

bullees

i just found out, that Lee Hsien Yang is the (ex) boss of SINGTEL, and Lee Hsien Long's wife is the founder of Starhub.

SERIOUSLY, are they trying to take over Singapore?!!?! their family inheritance must have been able to last them 23546779890890 generations!!!

The world is so unfair. some people just have it so easily.

Fantasia - I'm Here

I cant put this on facebook without putting my heart on my sleeve and disclosing the fact that i cried to a Fantasia performance yet again, but after a really really long time. It won't be doing this justice. This is tear-jerker to the max, i mean, i didnt even cry this hard when Sue Sylvester visited her mentally disabled sister.

guess i'm still human after all.

Emotional

I feel emotional right now. It's the fatigue these few days, a sign of illness that comes with lethargy, coupled with late night sleeps and the mental stress of work. Sigh.

reading bee's note on Mdm Aishah didnt help at all thou.

today marks the first day of a new beginning. well, sort of. after slogging for 4 yrs 2 months and 1day, i've finally my slave of a part time job, in search for something better. The very unethical and unprofessional way they let me go was to not inform me, and get my colleague, who was not made for this, to do the job. in the end i had to call them to hear it from the pig's filthy mouth what was disguised as a "chance for the newcomers to be independent". sure, be that. i'll see how long you can survive.

but somehow there was a sense of closure and release after that phone call. for a while now, i've been pent up working there. i guess i understand now how all my previous colleagues felt, and how come they all said it was for the better that i left. i hate it that no one told me to get out of this hellmouth earlier. what a fool i've been.

like how simon cowell see's his 9th yr on idol as his last cos he felt it was just time to go, so can be said for me. so many people are embarking on new journeys this period. if anything, the best part about that is an empty canvas which you can decide on the best way to paint. i feel now a sense of release, and cant wait for what exciting events that is to come.

time to sing "Don't Rain On My Parade" now. give me my audience and my band. i'll march them out now.

Exhausted

I think it's been a mentally gruelling week, and coming into Saturday's Singapore Can Speak round, I wasnt prepared at all to face my group of ambassadors and tell them to be happy and pro-ative when all i wanted to do was to finish Far From the Madding Crowd. (There's no significance to the text, it's just my lit text for the upcoming exam on Tuesday) But when it came down to seeing these 17 yr old, somehow or rather it just came to be naturally that i have to be this ball of energy that they can absorb from. it's not putting up a front, but it just came to be. And strange enough, i gave more of myself this week than the last.

And i never knew that giving so much of yourself could be so exhausting. during the show it didnt feel tiring at all. i was energetic and forgot about my troubles. but after 3 hours at the end of the show, i just wanted to go home take off my shoes have a hot bath wash wax off my hair and just raise my feet up and have a cold beer. and read Hardy - not cos i want to but cos i have to. Then I just want to detonate my social calendar and just be by myself for a while, but figured i'll be more miserable by myself, so i went to bec's.

i realise that some people just zap the energy from you, without giving. I sometimes feel that way about myself too. but to my conscious, i hope that i've been there for my friends as much as i could be. i want to be remembered as someone who was giving all his life, and was there for people everytime.

in writing, I purge

Not many people inspire me to write. The events in my life and all that is happening around me do though. Not the great authors, Dickens, Eliot, Bronte, that I am reading; not the famous movie critiques like Owen Gleiberman, Whang Yee Ling, or Peter Travers. Its people I know that writes well that inspires me to write. Jack always inspires me to create something that is beautifully my own, always with a critical eye and never settle for second best. And recently, reading a junior's blog has spurred my interest in writing again. If at 17 he is able to write effortlessly and fluidly, it really puts me to shame.

and that's all i seem to be feeling these days, the constant nagging feeling that i am inapt and incapable of anything remotely great. My life is in shambles, really, and when i think of the sum of all that is wrong in my life, i just feel like giving up entirely, run away to some faraway place free from all of this and be by myself.

There's no sympathy out there it seems.

But on good days, the music will heal the soul. the only crying i'm doin now is from watching tv. through that, i live vicariously; rejoice, cry, laugh, and get excited, i do them all in solitude.




"I was. I lost. I sang. I knew. I ever hope for that strange autumn light again with the good dog again with the thousands of years. Scrap of [me] off Eurydice torn. Her number I lost her lark I shot and she a pulse. History never looks so possible as when leaving a heart spilt among the stones crying Don’t read it again it was perfect"
- Anne Carson

long time coming

I have so much to write, but when it comes down to sitting in front of the computer, trying to type out my thoughts with these tired hands, i'm unable to do so. so whatever comes to mind now.

i'm listening to 陈珊妮 right now. i find 如果有一件事是重要的, which was posted in the previous entry, a very soothing song that somehow makes me feel slightly better. not over-the-top exuberance, but just slightly more at peace with myself. and the lyrics are so simplistic, yet speaks volume. makes me wana kill myself for not catchin her in concert earlier this year.

i'm officially a GLEEK. about time now. i've cried 3 times to the show, and have been harbouring the idea that it's possibly better than American Idol. Wait, it could very well be true. if my tears are any indication, that i can cry 3 out of the 13 episodes of Glee Season 1 part 1, as compared to the less-than-10 times i've cried during Idol's 9 year run, then yes, GLEE is much better. but more so because this season's Idol is so lacklustre my puke had more character than 56345678 of the contestants. With the exception of Siobhan Crystal Lee lily and Alex Lambert, the others can go straight to oblivionville hell for all i care.

i've been hearing, that youths should be energetic and be full of fire and energy, endless amount of them. i forgot where i heard it from, pretty sure it's a tv show, and i got scared, because i do not feel like i have tt fire in me. i feel lethargic and empty most of the time recently. i do not feel driven much of the time. i procrastinate. and all this should be saved for when i am 90 yrs old (if i ever live that old) while i'm rocking that wooden piece of chair. but right now, i'm supposed to have fire in my eyes. but i'm not.

what ever happened to me and my dreams?

they're sucked away.

i have a list of ppl i admire and want to emulate. by 70 i will still be rocking like Tina Turner on heels. at 70s i wana be as artistically and critically acclaimed in my career as Clint Eastwood, who at 70+ is directing some of the best movies of his career. at 50 i wana be like Simon Cowell, full of confidence and all-knowing, but not cocky and arrogant. and be damn freaking rich. at 30 i wana be like Oprah Winfrey and reinvent myself by lugging out a trolley of fats and lose weight (if i get that fat). oh, and give all my friends a car when i am 40+. and build a freakin empire. and have a tv network and a tv show tt makes ppl cry.

far fetched eh. how bout that for falling short of your dreams.

如果有一件事是重要的

如果有一件事是重要的
曲:陈珊妮
词:陈珊妮

你想要不变心的情人
还是永远不老的青春
你想要更伟大更不朽
还是一个瞬间成永恒
你在期待命好使人废
还是坚持厄运不服输
回忆再珍贵都有极限
未来多完美并未可知
what if...what
if...谁都是自己问题的答案
what if...what
if...谁都是自己答案的问题
谁都有一辈子 好好想清楚
你想先得到一个祝福
还是先给予一个感谢
美丽再完美都有极限
思想多珍贵并未可知
what if...what
if...谁都是自己问题的答案
what if...what
if...谁都是自己答案的问题
谁都有一辈子 好好想清楚
如果有一件事是重要的
那就是 对与错的总合

44 to 24: the top 24 revealed!

ALLRIGHT it's that time of the year again where i boost my ego by boldly predicting the frunt-runners to watch out for last yr's idol, and true to my predictions, after hearing just 10sec of Glambert's cover of "Believe", he went on to become the hottest thing on Idol last yr!
but this season there's no such impressive instants yet. but here's a few potentials to watch:

Lily Scott - the girl with silver hair and oversized earrings who covered Fitzgerald
Crystal Bowersox - the tattoo-mum with a kid's photo as lucky charm. "Natural Woman"
Tyler Grady - 70s rocker. very Morrison. very cool.
Andrew Garcia - tattoo-on-neck dude with a decent voice and a very punk-wife tt resembles a certain ANTM contestant.

AVATAR and HURT LOCKER lead with 9 nominations each

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air


Best Actor
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker


Best Actress
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds


Best Supporting Actress
Penélope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo’Nique, Precious


Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Best Original Screenplay
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson & Tom McCarthy, Up
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds


Best Adapted Screenplay
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche, In the Loop
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Best Animated Film
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Best Foreign Language Film
El Secreto do Sus Ojos (Argentina)
Un Prophete (France)
The White Ribbon (Germany)
Ajami (Israel)
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)


Best Art Direction
Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria

Best Cinematography
Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon

Best Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
The Young Victoria

Best Documentary
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

Best Editing
Avatar
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious

Best Makeup
Il Divo
Star Trek
The Young Victoria

Best Score
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
Up

Best Song
“Almost There,” The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans,” The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname,” Paris 36, Reinhardt Wagner & Frank Thomas
“Take It All,” Nine, Maury Weston
“The Weary Kind,” Crazy Heart, T-Bone Burnett & Ryan Bingham

Best Sound Editing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up

Best Sound Mixing
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Visual Effects
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek

Best Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin

Best Animated Short
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Live-Action Short
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
The New Tenants

蓝奕邦 – [邦]

蓝奕邦 – [邦]
发行：东亚唱片

蓝奕邦不是天籁之音，但像他一样的歌手更稀少，可欲不可求。

05年的[无非想快了]一鸣惊人，让我在07年初次听那张专辑时开始对他注意。被专辑名称所吸引，想知道他到底是谁，会对“快乐”与“不快乐”又有什么看法。那可说是我花最多时间在歌词本的专辑之一，因为它记载着奕邦生活的笔记，和歌背后的故事与泉源。潦草的笔记虽然让我看得头大，但也看得投入。

每听一张蓝奕邦的专辑都是一次的experience，一种“体验”。老黄瓜说过： “实体专辑的可贵，除了音质更加以外，歌词册是关键。” 你不单是在听歌解闷，而是在了解一个人：他的经历，想法，生活方式，甚至是姓名的来源。由此把歌手与听者的距离拉近，把艺人那高不可攀的形象打掉，建立坦诚与真实的桥梁。

听[邦]有如与朋友聊了一夜后获得的安慰，十分comforting。

[邦]是蓝奕邦三部曲的完结篇，词曲全由奕邦一人包办。以姓名取为专辑名称，应该不难发现主题一定环绕在他身上。[邦]是累积两年酝酿出的生活写照与成长片段。曲目的编排有如平常天的次序：起身时必定先《赖床》，之后你会在工作上遇见《奇珍异兽》，而一切的不满与闷会让你想《逃学去英国》。你会想突破，而那必须从自己开始（《独行侠》）。接下来，唯一的路就是面对万难地《向前走》，因为《时候尚早》，要面对与跨越的还很多。

前四首的摇滚曲风逐渐转重。一切的烦燥在前四首重叠，直到《逃学去英国》最后一段副歌之前才得到释放。喜欢《逃学去英国》我行我素的霸气。歌者的发泄，听者也感受到，有共鸣，有如终于叹了一口气的爽。Bridge部分是高潮，词写着：“游荡 纵有不安 / 仍期待 去破天荒 / 到远方 谁人又可罚我留堂 / 而沿岸 有好风光/ 还是 满布肮脏 / 总好过闷局里发荒” 。接着的5首是抒情曲风的励志歌曲， 以反败为胜做主题。

我听专辑时，注重的除了概念与可听度，觉得让一张专辑更上一层楼的，就是cohesion （整体感）和 flow。[邦]做到了两点， 让我陷入歌者的生活，完全投入。这不简单，尤其当[邦]里的6首歌已在之前的两部曲发表过。

也是你会觉得他的歌太“芭乐”，主流了。但比起市场上一般非诚意，为讨销量而刻意“芭乐”的歌来说，他的歌是有意义，不造作的。

西洋乐坛有Elton John, Billy Joel, 两位以钢琴为主的流行音乐歌手，而香港男性代表有蓝奕邦。他们最大的武器是钢琴，整场演唱会可以几乎在钢琴面前演唱，考琴艺，更考魅力。有诚意，但更有感动。他们都是说故事的人，不仅是在让你听一把好嗓子发出来的音符，而是在对你调情，聊天。

这是一张当你陷入生活谷底时，能给你一份力量和推动力的专辑。他不会让问题凌空，但音乐就妙在能给于你暂时的逃避，而从中得到“向前走”的力量。好听的专辑其实不少，但能真正让我反复回播，很有信心的说在十年后也会一样喜欢，一样有影响的，却不多。蓝奕邦的自传是我们人生的反照，而他的诚意与感动，你也听得到。

哪根蔥说过：“为了不让这个会创作，会反思的歌手，莫名被我判下无期徒刑，下面两张绝对不会错过。” 希望你也会试听，会喜欢，但更希望这是一张会对你有启发的专辑。

歌词册里，蓝奕邦这么写着：

“我坚信，音乐，是用来说故事的。

而故事，是要用生活炼成。

我不“活”，如何“说”？

I have to live, so I can live to tell。”

希望你也能在歌里，找到属于你的故事。

推荐：逃学去英国，赖床，向前走，时候尚早，。 。 。

Hope For Haiti Now

Mary J Blige sang this song 2 days ago at the "Hope For Haiti Now" charity telethon, led by George Clooney. This song is "a popular song written by Stephen C. Foster during 1854. Well-known and popular in its day,[1] both in America and Europe,[2][3] it was a favorite of both sides in the American Civil War."

Nobody does heartache quite as real and believing as MJB.



Stephen Foster - Hard Times Come Again No More
Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh Hard times come again no more.
Chorus:
Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.
While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh hard times come again no more.
(Chorus)
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er:
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh hard times come again no more.
(Chorus)
Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh hard times come again no more.
(Chorus)


Jennifer Hudson - Let It Be