Movie Review....sort of

Been doing some housekeeping. Now if only what I meant by that entailed anything of the material world, my mom would undoubtedly be pleased. Well too bad the memory clog up of both my thumbdrives and my one and laptop required more immediate attention than the apparel infested floors of this location once dubbed as 'My Room.'

Its amazing what remains undeleted in your storage devices if left unsifted for over a year. I was half expecting Max Headroom to pop out.......

In other news...... I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian....... and that's a first ever for a movie that I wouldn't really rate as a jawdropper or spirit lifter. And yes Corrine, I was mistaken, Liam Neeson was and is the lion. I guess I kept thinking it was Sean Connery was because I had it in my mind (most of the time) that he would have done a better job. Now the movie wasn't bad or anything..... it was good but not as good as I hoped it to be. Then again it is unfair of me to base it against other truly solid book to movie adaptations of fantasy tales which I would also include The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as one of them.

Now my friends who were with me during my first viewing loved it so I decided to give it another go today. Who knows, I might've missed something. And when you've got someone who wants to treat you for a movie, how could you say no?

I particularly liked the CGI in the movie itself, it was almost as good as the first movie. Plot wise, there was a lot of things going on, mostly revolving around the growing pains of the Pevensie children mirrored by the crown prince of the Telmarines' own struggles in accepting his seemingly preordained fate. Add that with the prevailing notion of an 'evil' force invading the nice, cuddly and peace-loving creatures of Narnia and you'd have what would seemingly be a rock solid story.

The not so good parts were at times I felt the cinematography or editing could have been better as there were moments when I felt as though a particular scene felt stuck in a single lens shot or just plain too long. The Iberian (Spanish or Portuguese...) accents (at least I think were Iberian) were a bit difficult to follow. Now I understand that the Telmarines are meant to appear, feel and sound foreign to Narnia and I guess that includes the Pevensie children but I guess to me they went a bit far on the sounding part.

The worst part to me was a feeling of lost direction on where to actually go with this movie at the start (and some ways close to the middle too). I know that the director was trying to give a feel of a more savage and 'human infested' Narnia devoid of the Deep Magic. To me, it didn't quite come off and felt a bit like neither here nor there. It was only when Aslan began to return and also a cameo appearance of the protagonist in the first movie did it feel somehow right. Then again, it is always difficult to define the feel of a movie and I'll have to give kudos to the director on at least attempting to get it right.

Now this being the first of the Caspian trilogy I would've expected them to put more effort into its making. With The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair still yet to come to complete this trilogy, Prince Caspian left me a wondering if the following two could be any better (if not worse).

Regardless, the Caspian trilogy had always been what I felt was the more interesting of the Narnia stories and I guess I'll still watch the next one and probably complete watching all three movies in the Caspian trilogy, that is if they don't suck so bad.

Which I hope they don't as there are another three more stories that could be adapted to the screen apart from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and the Caspian trilogy.

I've become so.....

I have this freakin' song running through my head and I don't know exactly why. Doesn't help that I have it running on loop on my iTunes......

Anyway, I've been itching to get myself a good enough camera as it seems kind of weird for me to be part of the photography team training the students in my school and yet not own his own camera. Besides finger's getting the whole snappity-snap syndrome. And it wasn't that I haven't ever had a digi-cam. I used to have two. One which I bought from a friend and another which was given to me, both around the same time. Needless to say, one proved unable to withstand my usage (and I don't blame it, some cameras just can't take moisture...cough) and another I gave away coz it was just too much of a sissy cam for me to use without having the heeby-jeebies.

Have my eye specifically on the Canon Powershot A series of cameras.

"[sighs] Look what you made me do, look what I made for you
Knew if I paid my dues, how will they pay you
When you first come in the game, they try to play you
Then you drop a couple of hits, look how they wave to you
From Marcy to Madison Square
To the only thing that matters in just a matter of years (yea)
As fate would have it, Jay's status appears
to be at an all-time high, perfect time to say goodbye
When I come back like Jordan, wearin the 4-5
It ain't to play games witchu
It's to aim at you, probably maim you
If I owe you I'm blowin you to smithereeens
Cocksucker take one for your team
And I need you to remember one thing (one thing)
I came, I saw, I conquered
From record sales, to sold out concerts
So muh'fucker if you want this encore
I need you to scream, 'til your lungs get sore"

The Canon Powershot A590 IS really caught my eye.

Not really the best picture but I guess that'll have to do. But I definitely do want it in black. Doesn't have the depth of zoom that I like but price wise though, its an affordable SG$370. Plus its a familiar tried and tested model for me features wise, especially for the things I'm going to be putting it through. Affordable if I had that kind of cash in the first place. Well I do, but I guess eating, drinking and several other activities of daily sustenance take precedence. And though I would love to get those cameraman's cameras, I doubt anything close to SG$2000 would fall into my lap any time soon.

"I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take"

Does my itch at getting a camera far outweigh that of getting an iPod of my own? Most definitely, at least for now. I already have my brother's iPod to leech off from time to time. Besides, I'd rather make my first iPod a touch. Works well as a PDA, plus it can access the internet wirelessly, so....yeah, it'd definitely be my first iPod. And that whole thing about getting my own MacBook? Well, goes without saying that it'll take a lot more time. Unless I somehow get a novel writing contract for my unfinished manuscripts....heh.

"I've become so numb I can't feel you there
I've become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you"

One step at a time I guess.

Captain's Log .... somewhat

Yeah yeah, I know I haven't wrote on here for some time...... but seriously I'm not in a mood to update you guys on every little gritty bit of detail in my life. So I guess I'll just pick an incident that occurred that I thought was....oh well, you be the judge. Besides, I'm hoping this'll help get my writing muse up and running. Just so happens that this transpired yesterday......

I've been taking cabs lately, sometimes to but mostly from work. No, that's not the incident.........

It's mostly due to work, taking cabs tends to ease the stress off. Especially when I got a good convo going with a complete stranger. That ain't the incident either, though I realize how this could be news to you.

So, I was assigned the job of picking my mom up from my relative's house sometime in the evening, but she wasn't clear on the time. Not that my mom couldn't get home by herself, it's just that well, you know how it is when you're attending a function at your relative's place. They'll definitely bagging foodstuffs for you to bring home. No? Well, I don't sympathize with you either way. Besides there were also around 50 plastic trays, some Tupperware tumblers and containers that my cousin had already shifted transported there a few days back that needed some transporting back. And though my mom's still quite a fit woman given her age, lugging those things around when you're going to travel from the west side of Singapore to the east side is quite a thing to ask of.

Long story short, I had just completed watching The Diving Bell & The Butterfly DVD I got from a few days (I think) back when the sms to activate me came in. The time was around 8:30 pm and so I rushed in getting ready which was not really that difficult considering I'm a guy and got moving as fast as I could.

Took the first cab that decided my outstretched arm was worth a gander. It was an old school Toyota Crown taxi sporting the blue of the Comfort Taxi group. The cab driver was like how all cab drivers were, chatty when you don't want them to be and eerily silent when you needed a voice to listen to. And I was in no mood for chatter.

A crash course in pedestrian ethics and a civil engineering thesis on road mapping later, we arrived at the entrance to the CTE heading to the AYE. It was just before Ang Mo Kio Avenue 10. Traffic seemed good, despite the moans and groans of my 'chauffeuer' for the day. Well, at least it was moving....... or so I thought.

We edged into the expressway and a bit of the way further in before the congestion seemed to truly be a congestion. No problem right? I mean this is the Central Expressway and all, what with central meaning most traffic passing through here.

Seconds became minutes and I saw an ambulance trying to squeeze its way further down the expressway to where I assumed an accident could have occurred. I mean, this is normal too right? Accidents occur on highways all the time. Some drive too fast, some drive too slow and some drivers should just not freaking have a license. The ambulance came to rest some ways up ahead while several motorcyclists were weaving their way through the stagnant hunks of humming automobiles. They have the advantage of doing so and I knew I would do the same given the situation. Yeah, nothing but the green jealousy monster emanating from where I sat.

Minutes felt like hours and the ever escalating swear-mixed groans of the cab driver I was with didn't help matters.

It was only when I saw the bikers that had once so eagerly meandered their way to the front of the non-moving queue backtracking the other way, did I have a true sense of something being truly wrong.

An eternity went by before the police arrived. And it was only then that I got wind of what was happening up ahead. After much prodding of course. You know how wonderful the men in blue are at dispensing much needed information. Turns out that there was this huge tree that fell across all the lanes of the expressway. There were motorists that were severely injured by that huge log now sprawled some ways ahead from where I was.

I hope they weren't too badly hurt. And I did the only thing I could....I paid the fare ($15 as it stood) and walked out, casually informing any inquirers of what lay ahead to the dismay of my already severely disgruntled cabbie. Even did my civic duty (or at least I thought it was my civic duty) by informing the motorists nearer to the exit to turn back out.

Not much else to add on here, seeing as I was not near enough to Ground Zero. But it was indeed a cab ride to mark all cab rides I've ever had.