Studying for the exams, over in two weeks! It’s been two years and I think I’m probably the only one in cell who doesn’t have a driving license - stopped at 20 lessons for a good 2 years! Procrastination is the thief of time.Finally, for all the good people of Dennis’ cell, we have a brand new cell tee coming up! Here’s a preview of the lovely tee, this is exciting! This is just the initial draft and everyone likes it!
OK, NTU Worlds 2010 failed in our bid to bring the World Debating Championships to Singapore and it is disappointing to lose a million dollar scale project but, our competitors Turkey and Botswana were strong challengers in what was an exciting campaign. Turkey won, I have to move on, and life goes on as usual.
The semester has started for a while and I’m taking Spanish which, along with English and Chinese, is one of the top 3 most populous languages in the world. Not a bad choice should I get to go on holidays to Spanish speaking countries or, I wish, get to work in a nice paying job abroad. Hah. We all dream.
I’ve gone back to a bit of fencing after an almost 4 and a half year absence. In the season opening Fencing Singapore Challenge I was happy to progress to the q-finals, knocked out by the eventual winner who’s the No.2 in Singapore anyway. No shame. This, in addition to a hard fought Bronze in my club’s Fencing Masters’ club championships in December, just 4 hours after my Batam church retreat, is quite an encouragement.
Sam and I had a great headstart to V-Day knowing we were watching P.S. I Love You, a movie based on a Cecilia Ahern book Sam loved eons ago and recommended it to me. So when it came out as a movie adaptation (kudos to sam’s good taste in books), it was really exciting to be catching it. Not to mention it starred Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank opposite King Leonidas Gerard Butler (Thissss, issss….SPARRRRTAAAA!!), amazing! A definite 3.5 to 4/5 for the movie .
That’s me at during out dinner at Crystal Jade Suntec before the movie. I went for Wanton Mee Soup!
And that’s Sam, who went for a really wonderful Duck noodles soup! After the movie, i collected the mega mega cool pressie, while I gave Sam hers!
Mega-amazed-ness!! It’s the famous red saddle@1!!!
Meanwhile, Sam was busily tapping away on her V-Day present, a digicam she’d always wanted for super mega long! It’s a Sony DSC-T2 White Digital Camera!! *Look at that flurry of tapping of the paint pen on the touchscreen*
I hope everyone’s had a really wonderful week. I’ve grown to be more appreciative, patient and less critical as time passes by and realise that everyday’s a day for you to appreciate the people around you, and V-Day’s one of them! God Bless everyone!In less than a month, I’ll be leaving for KL for 4 days, Mar 7-10 for Selangor Open! If only Chi Wern could organise a trip around that time! *It’s not too late to plan…* Hehehe!
My latest review is on a romance film of sorts, Feast of Love, starring Morgan Freeman. Check it out here.
Exams are over and everyone’s back from the retreat to Batam!
Thanks everyone for your prayers, I dedicate my bronze in the competition to everyone of you - makes my leaving the retreat early and rushing there all worth it.
Only thing is I’m aching like crazy - a result 3 months of inactivity. We’re bidding to bring the World Uni Debate C’ships to Singapore and NTU and the voting will take place real soon. Time really flies.
Done a handful more movie reviews, as well as a review of abc teen sci-fiction serial Kyle XY: it’s good, check it out here.
It does look that good
Estelle baked amazing looking chocolate muffins and brought me one the day she was finishing a Chronicle article on my tea allergy (yeah tea allergy, pfft.) It looked great - a chocolate muffin with raisins in them (!!!), in this nice little paper bag. (The white bit in the picture was some paper shred or something). Thanks! It must have been how cheesed off I’d been acting after a really hectic week- I was very slow and seemed sluggish replying to her interview questions online. Sorry!
Work kills everyone. Bleah. Even Lennel and Alvin, who hardly have time for tennis these days.
THE DEAD GIRL
Rating: * * * * (out of 5) RECOMMENDED*
James Franco and Rose Byrne in The Dead Girl
Release Date: 27 September 2007
Running Time: 95 mins
Rating: M18
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Language: English
Stars: Toni Collette, Brittany Murphy, Rose Byrne, Mary Beth Hurt,
Marcia Gay Harden, Giovanni Ribisi, James Franco
“Each story is like a different looking glass in a kaleidoscopic contraption of Moncrieff’s cinematic brilliance- it leaves you marvelling at the intricate and interweaving picture each and every one spins.”
It’s not hard to understand why The Dead Girl snagged the grand prize at the 33rd Deauville Festival of American Film. Writer and Director Karen Moncrieff spins a tale of 5 shorts involving 11 women, whose lives are interrupted by the death of a girl, played by the earnest, effervescent Brittany Murphy. Casting efficient, professional role actors and actresses and a screenplay that’s tightly-knit and never strays far away from the film’s didactic thematic focus, The Dead Girl effuses the brilliance of Moncrieff’s narrative work through and through as she speaks through the film on the social dynamics and consequence of violence and crime against women and girls in society.
The Dead Girl’s prominent on three counts: its distinct, recognisable narrative style, its dark, socially affecting thematic nature and lastly its prominent engagement of role characters tasked with bringing out thematically driven characterisation without drawing focus and attention on themselves. Moncrieff succeeds veritably on all three counts. The Dead Girl starts with the end at the beginning, much like Chris Nolan’s Memento. A tortured, lonesome caretaker (Toni Collette) discovers the body of dead girl and starts of the chain of stories that examines the different views of the single murder incident. From the start you know what to expect: a film that wants you to experience the process of character interaction and its social commentary.
Toni Collette and Giovanni Ribisi in the impactful opening short.
It’s always hard to avoid being pretentious when dealing with flashbacks and choppy narratives of short stories that each gets introduced with a black screen and titles like “The Stranger” and “The Wife”. Yet, Moncrieff carries across a very minimal and representative screenplay that is one of the most natural and realistic yet. The pacing is superb, there’s nary a moment where one feels any irksome sense of pretension or high-handedness in presentation.
The stories are segmented for a very clear purpose- we are guided intuitively to look at the different perspectives of a single event, and the various characters that are intertwined in the murder. Each story is like a different looking glass in a kaleidoscopic contraption of Moncrieff’s cinematic brilliance- it leaves you marvelling at the intricate and interweaving picture each and every one spins. The feeling of “we are all in this” never leaves you, much like in Magnolia.
Brittany Murphy headlines a successful cast as the feature character
As with movies with multiple short stories, The Dead Girl boasts a large cast. The likes of Toni Collete, Rose Byrne, Marcia Gay Harden, Giovanni Ribisi, James Franco, Bruce Davison and Brittany Murphy form a considerably powerful ensemble that delivers supremely. Where often you see certain shorts stand out more than the other, like Indonesia’s Oscar contribution Love For Share, here every character truly grasps and executes with artistic dexterity and technical virtuosity performances that exude the grittiness and uncompromising look at the trials of the 11 women involved.
The Dead Girl, for a fact, deals with the feminine issues that surround the characters involved. The females provide introspective and layered performances, in particular an excellent Toni Collette and an immensely commendable Rose Byrne as an emotionally wrecked sister struggling with her missing sister that she imagines is the dead girl she is forced to forensically examine. The guys, in their roles as foils, execute likeable performances that one cannot fault. Watch out for a brilliant Giovanni Ribisi as Rudy, the charismatically oddball kiosk help that strikes an interest in Toni Collette’s troubled caretaker character. James Franco, whom many will recognise as the young Green Goblin from Spiderman, charms splendidly as the man who tries to connect Rose Byrne to her emotional loss and need for support.
The Dead Girl is a film that receives my deepest recommendations for any self-respecting and socially conscious moviegoers; equally so for both males and females. The didactic flavour of the film never sinks into feminist preachy-ness or self-pity- instead it speaks like a wise, battle-hardened orator that shares with you the troubles of a world so warped in the comfort of a dark, shanty room, cigarette in hand, ready to blow you away with the rawness and honesty of its story.It is true, that corpses do tell tales. The Dead Girl for one gives a brilliantly thought-evoking account of cinematic brilliance.
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The following review, as well as other reviews by Daniel Lim, can be found on the excellent local movie review site moviexclusive.com
