Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere Gaiman's 1st full length novel reads like a dream. A story about London Above and London Below, if you have ever lived in the city, you would get this book.
I reserve the right to remove comments that I find too personal, inappropriate and/or likely to have me eating chicken curry for two years. I also assert all my rights folks.
Google images of Amy Winehouse and there's many of her in her pale pink ballet flats looking wasted, awfully thin and bleeding. Sometimes all at once. I enjoy her music and think she is extremely talented, but now I find Amy Winehouse has become incomprehensible. She's seen in this strange and sad video playing with baby mice and begging husband Blake Fielder-Civil, who is currently languishing in prison, not to divorce her. I am almost fearful that she will suddenly squash the little ones. That Pete Doherty is hanging about her looking very dirty, doesn't help.
I really don't mind the ratty beehive and super-lined eyes I think they're kinda cool but Amy, what are we going to do with you?
The Fulbright Scholarship, available to Bruneians and Permanent Residents (wayhey!) via the US Embassy, enables receipients to pursue postgraduate study in the US. The Scholarship was reactivated in 2004 after His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei's visit to the US in December of 2002, when President George W. Bush and our Sultan agreed on a commitment for academic exchanges. Former Fulbright scholarship receipients from Brunei included Dr Pg. Hishamuddin, Mohammad Yusra Salleh, Vivi Jafiana DP Hj Jaafar and Zul-Fakhri Maidy.
Hurry hurry because you have until the 15th of June to send in your application! Click here for further details.
Another X-Files movie coming out this July. Remember the series in the early 90s? I was a fan of Mulder and Scully, TV's buzzy couple at the time. Although the science fiction that laced throughout the story was engaging and was helped by weird characters like The Cigarette Smoking Man and the geeky trio called The Lone Gunmen, the thing that got to most our goat was the unresolved sexual tension between David Duchovny's Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Dana Scully. Too much talk and no action made the series drag on a bit. Then the producers released a movie.
I read Twilight, Stephenie Meyers book about teen vampires at high school, sometime last year at the behest of Inny Pooh who just KNOWS that I would enjoy the story. Being my sister and all, she is of course right. I like my high school quirky love stories, and if they happen to involve vampires, even better.
[*WARNING: SPOILER ALERT] Twilight is the first in a series of young adult vampire books by Ms Meyers, who obviously cottoned on to what got girls going. The series evolves around Edward Cullen, vampire who was made one at 17 and currently acting high school teen boy in a sleepy rainy town called Forks. The vampires in this series can stay out during the day time as long as the day is overcast. Forks is also known as the rainiest town in America so the gloomy rainy weather there works for them. Love interest 17 year old Isabella Swan, is the daughter of the town's sheriff, who decides to come live with her father when her mom remarries. Bella and Edward meet in high school and begins a strange love affair. Edward, whilst still a vampire, comes from a vampire clan that doesn't (anymore) drink the blood of man but animals. Bella has a penchant of attracting weird males because her best friend Jacob Black is a werewolf. The book is not going to win any Booker Prizes I know, but its a good yarn.
Hollywood has decided to cash in the Twilight appeal and made a movie of the same name, set to be released in December 2008. I've just watched the teaser trailer and I must say Kristen Stewart (Jodie Foster's daughter in the movie Panic Room) as Bella and Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter: The Order of The Phoenix) as Edward seemed good choices.
Twilight, coming to a screen near you (hopefully) 12.12.2008
Ps/ I didn't quite fancy the next two books of the Twilight Series, New Moon and Eclipse, because Bella was getting annoying.
I google anything and everything. Thanks to Tina @ My7thLife.net I have to make time for another obsession. Guess-The-Google is an online game created by Grant Robinson. The object of the game is to guess a keyword. On each round, a grid of 20 images appear. If you were doing an image search, what keyword would you enter on Google to get these images.
I remember years ago when we were living in London, we braved the cold, got into the beat up VW and drove to Whiteleys in Queensway. Mom gave me time out from being a young mother. She let you off as well because you look after Azim for me more than you should. You still do.
Anyway, we watched an indie Australian dance movie called Strictly Ballroom that evening. We enjoyed the movie so much that we didn't stop talking about it for days after. How we wished Mom had sent us to dancing classes! We've watched the movie many times since and memorised every line and every dance.
Just some Elton John and Robert Downey Jr to help ease you into Monday morning. RBJ had to be excused from prison for a day to do this video for Sir Elton. And the video was done in one shot. Good stuff.
A while back when we heard that there's an Iron Man movie in the making Bobby gets all excited and tells me that he has always been a fan of ol' tin can, not to mention comic master Stan Lee and his league of tortured superheros. Having not read the Iron Man comics in my youth (I preferred my X-Men and Swamp Thing) I must admit to not knowing who Iron Man really was. All I knew was he donned a stiff looking metal suit. I was just happy to hear one of my favourite actor and Golden Globe winner Robert Downey Jr got a chance to work. After reading the stories of him in and out of drug rehab and how directors were scared to work with his addictions, I was hoping that he'll get back on the saddle again.
So really, it was a stroke of genius (and irony haha) on the part of director John Favreau, that bad-boy-oft-seen-combating-blow Downey Jr be casted as Tony Stark, the hip and highly intelligent engineer who loves the opulent life (booze, women, machines and a press conference) a little too much. Incidentally the lifestyle paid by by the good ol' US government who buys bad ass weapons from his company, Stark Industries. The comeuppance for Tony happens when he gets badly injured by one of his own weapons, unbeknownst to him sold to the enemy by his business partner Obadiah Slate, played deliciously evilly by a bald and bearded 4X Oscar nominee Jeff Bridges. Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow came out of yummy mummy/Coldplay's band-aid sabbatical to play Tony Stark's Girl Friday (the rather unfortunately named Pepper Potts) in a manner reminiscent of Maggie Gyllenhaal's perverted character in the S&M movie The Secretary in tight pencil skirts and sky high heels complete with a geeky, yet restrained tart, demeanor. Terrence Howard, also an Oscar winner, plays Stark's confidante, and whilst his role was rather sparse, you can expect more from the sequel when he too will don the suit.
After being badly injured and kidnapped by the enemy terrorists Tony Stark is forced to build his latest super weapon the Jericho Missile from the broken down parts of the terrorist's Stark Industries weapons cache. After some soul searching, Tony Starks plans his escape and builds his Iron Man Suit Version 1.0. instead. He is greatly assisted by Yinsen (played by Shaun Toub), another captive who is not too shabby at engineering himself and who also saves Stark's life by embedding a magnetic device in his chest that will keep the bomb shrapnels from entering his heart.
Even with the top notch supporting cast (including Tony Spark's Robotic Arms assistants), almost perfect CGI and witty dialogue, the movie belongs to uber talented Robert Downey Jr and his past. When Downey Jr/Tony dons the Version 2.0 of the armoured suit for the first time (after inserting a flashy red to its golden exterior and some pretty cool gadgets within) past middle age and thankfully un-Botoxed, you get a feeling that he's giving himself another chance to contain the demons. Even though at the end, Tony Stark (and Downey Jr), remains just a little bit flawed.
Well played Robert, well played.
(because I am rooting for RBJ)
Ps/ If you're in Brunei, you should go watch Iron Man at a cinema near you. For movie schedules until the end of the month click here.
PPs/ If you watch the movie, stay right until the end credits have rolled because there is an extra scene with Samuel L Jackson. A bunch of us watched the movie at the Empire last Saturday and I can't believe the Empire Cinema stopped the movie in the middle of the end credits so we did not get to watch the extra scene! Thankfully, we have YouTube (and people with video recording capabilities on their phones):
And if you can't make out what they are saying, here you go:
Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury: Think you're the only super hero in the world? You're starting to become a part of a bigger universe.
Tony Spark: Who the hell are you?
Samuel/Nick: Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm here to tell you about the Avengers Initiative.
When Bobby was away in Singapore for work 2 weeks ago I thought I'd watch me some romcom (romantic comedy) to combat a tad of loneliness. I found a good copy of the movie P.S. I Love You, a (you guessed it) romantic comedy starring 2 time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Gina Gershon, Harry Connick Jr and James Marsden. The movie is not new, having been released in 2007, and it didn't have great reviews so I wasn't hankering to see it. Not to mention I couldn't imagine Swank in a fluffy romantic comedy after her dramatic turns in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby. But it was a good DVD copy and you know, I had some time on my hands.
The movie is based on the book by Cecelia Aherns, although according to Beloved Sisters (who watched the movie at my behest) the movie didn't quite stay true to the book. The summary of the movie at IMDB written by Orange goes like this:
Holly Kennedy is beautiful, smart and married to the love of her life -
a passionate, funny, and impetuous Irishman named Gerry. So when
Gerry's life is taken by an illness, it takes the life out of Holly.
The only one who can help her is the person who is no longer there.
Nobody knows Holly better than Gerry. So it's a good thing he planned
ahead. Before he died, Gerry wrote Holly a series of letters that will
guide her, not only through her grief, but in rediscovering herself.
The first message arrives on Holly's 30th birthday in the form of a
cake, and to her utter shock, a tape recording from Gerry, who proceeds
to tell her to get out and "celebrate herself". In the weeks and months
that follow, more letters from Gerry are delivered in surprising ways,
each sending her on a new adventure and each signing off in the same
way; P.S. I Love You. Holly's mother and best friends begin to worry
that Gerry's letters are keeping Holly tied to the past, but in fact,
each letter is pushing her further into a new future. With Gerry's
words as her guide, Holly embarks on a journey of rediscovery in a
story about marriage, friendship and how a love so strong can turn the
finality of death into a new beginning for life
I know. Pretty gooey stuff right?
I had expected to watch the movie with one eye on the TV and one eye on my computer screen. So I don't know whether its all the MissBimbo action I've been partaking that possibly helped increased my estrogen levels, but even before the opening credits rolled, I was hooked. Quite unexpectedly. I must say that the movie has a first scene that catches your eyes (and breath). Hilary is without a doubt a good actress and she pulled off a romantic
part in an endearing way. Hilary too has a kick ass body after playing
a boxer in Million Dollar Baby, so when she leapt off the couch and
into his arms, her legs clasping her torso, he in a white singlet, made me press the rewind button. The sight of Gerard Butler, fresh out of being King Leonidas in that highly testosterone charged movie called 300, a little less buff than when he was sparta, wearing nary a loin cloth but some adorable manly boyish (yes there is such a thing) clothes, is arresting.
The movie also has very funny moments. Supported by a good cast, I thought Holly's girlfriends were right for her and well played by Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon. Harry Connick Jr acted like a moron. And looked like one. James Marsters (previously platinum-haired Spike on Buffy) played his role adequately. Kathy Bates played Swank's mother in the film and did so briskly. Jeffrey Dean singing and playing the guitar is definitely pleasing to a girl's psyche.
But back to Gerard.
Ladies, if you haven't watched the movie, it would be remiss of me not to ask you to find a copy and WATCH HIM, I mean, THE MOVIE.
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