That Reaallly Hurts!

Seriously adorable baby siblings, complete with British accents. THE MOST ADORABLE THING IN THE WORLD!

The Power of a Woman's Tears?

So, when all hope seemed lost, as Obama was on a seemingly unstoppable surge post-Iowa, carrying a 10+% lead in pre-primary poll in NH (when he was behind by similar margins pre-Iowa), Hillary Clinton has somehow managed to win the New Hampshire primary , reversing poll stats of a mere two days old(!),and stemming the Obama momentum train. Polling inaccurary? Or was it due to the power of her (almost) tears on Monday, as seen here? Calculated or not, women voters apparently bought it, with a large majority voting for Clinton. I do admit, I was sorta moved by it too. She's human, y'all! Of course, one could also say that the first moment of difficulty encountered, she (almost) cries. Lame!

Regardless, the nomination is now a tight two- horse race. Exciting (and with Oscar season upon us, double the fun!)

Anyway, here's a irreverent take of the Clinton/Obama relationship, set to a spoof of Rihanna's Umbrella. So, so wrong!

Soul Food

Somehow, ever since I got here, I've been finding myself listening much more to Chinese music. Perhaps it's to compensate from not hearing or speaking the language, but there's this sense of comfort and familiarity I draw from listening to 燕姿 (Stefanie Sun) and others that I don't get from English music. It's probably just me.

Anyway, besides listening to a lot of Stefanie (I told Adel that I've decided she's my favourite musical artiste, all languages considered), I've managed to check out two high-profile Mandopop releases of these past 2 months: Jolin's 特務J (Agent J) and local talent Tanya's Goodbye & Hello.

Jolin's album, from the MVs I've youtubed, is a big disappointment. I had thought that she made some, if not much, artistic progression in her previous album, the mega-selling 舞孃 (Dancing Diva), and was expecting that with her having reached a stage where she could pretty record her farts, package it, and still be the top-seller of the year, she would take some risks. Instead, she chooses to focus more on ever-increasing elaborate dance moves and big budget MVs, with the music serving as a mere backdrop of beats for her to display her hard work at the dance studio. The thing is that there is a limit to the level of complication or intricacy you can throw into your choreography. First, there was the ribbon-tossing of Dancing Diva, then now there's the pole-dancing in Agent J. What's next? 3 1/2 pikes with 2 somersaults and a degree of difficulty of 4.0? And as she gets older, how is she gonna keep upping the stakes in dance? By no means am I against dance-pop music, but I wish she would stop regressing to more generic Ah Lian techno pop crap and put out something less dated, more sophisticated. Think electropop along the lines of Robyn, Girls Aloud, Kylie or even Britney. Sigh, I'm disappointed in you, Jolin.

On the other side of the coin, I absolutely love the singles Tanya has put out thus far for her new album, Goodbye and Hello. This is the first time Tanya contributed lyrics to the songs (usually, she writes the music and then gets others to fill in lyrics), so she's telling a more personal story. That's the PR angle anyway. But the important thing is the melodies are as good as ever, though less obvious and more nuanced and thus more likely to grow on you. The music feels less commercial and hooky (unlike something like Beautiful Love, which is a lovely song, but definitely written and produced for KTV singalong popularity in mind), and more pared-down, organic and very intimate, as if you're sitting in the bar where she's performing just a few metres away on stage, but it remains very accessible. I'm no expert on Mandarin lyrics, but by my reckoning, she's done a pretty decent job. Her theme (a lament on a previous relationship) is nothing new, but her interpretation is different from the usual "my heart's broken when you leave"-kinda obvious sentiments, and it manages to be genuinely moving. And of course, her vocals, simple, chilled and histrionics free, complement the songs perfectly.

An aside: I don't know if it's just me, but I find that in Mandopop, Singaporean female singers have this level of maturity and depth in their vocals that you don't see in most of their Taiwanese peers. Kit Chan, Mavis Hee, Stefanie, Tanya & Kaira Gong all have this quality that I'm talking about (Ok, let's ignore Jocie Kok and Sun Ho), and it means they're able to elevate even crappy run-of-the-mill ballads to a decent level.

So here are the first two singles from Tanya's album. I think both are wonderful.

當你離開的時候 When You Leave


空白格 Blank



Incidentally, Tanya's having the best success of her Mandopop career thus far, with the album debuting at No.1 in Taiwan, so keep up the brilliant work, Tanya!

Football in all its glory

This is a highlights clip of the classic 1999 FA Cup semi-final replay between Manchester United and Arsenal. United won it 2-1 on route to the treble and it was an amazing game with all the ingredients for high drama: a cracking, electrifying atmosphere, brilliant goals (one from Becks and of course, that virtuoso goal from Giggs), red cards (Keane), disallowed goals (Anelka), penalty saves (Schmikes from Bergkamp) and extra-time match winners. Simply awesome.

I love Manchester United.

Edited to add: I just found two fellow freshmen Man United fans, and they're both Americans! Cool beans!

Balls of Steel

Stephen Colbert is a famous American humourist and satirist. Here, he is speaking at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. The man is brilliant. And has balls of steel. Right in the face of George and Laura Bush, he skewers the man and the administration with his trademark biting wit and humour, and it is amazing (Bush has this smile plastered on his face. It's hilarious.). Goes to show how comedy can be used to serve a larger purpose.







Can you ever imagine such a roasting session ever occuring in Singapore?

2OLEGEND

Farewell, Ole. You were a great servant to the club, and will always be remembered for the last-gasp goal against Liverpool in the 99 FA Cup and of course, that magical night in Barcelona.
A better finisher than you in the club, no one can find.


This clip embodies all that is brilliant about Ole. On as a substitute in the second half in a league match against Forest, he promptly scores 4 goals in 12 minutes.

You are my Solskjaer,
My Ole Solskjaer,
You make me happy,
When skies are grey,
And Alan Shearer,
Was f*cking dearer,
So Please don't take,
My Solskjaer,
Away....

Sigh. Slowly but surely, all my 90s United icons are leaving the game. The only ones left standing are Neville, Giggs, (my fav) Scholesy and obviously, Sir Alex Ferguson. Time sucks.

I want to catch Superbad super badly

The Judd Apatow-led team is without a doubt Hollywood's best in comedy right now, with hit after hit like 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, all of which are actually funny. Adam Sandler who? Anyway, Superbad is their latest work, and it looks fuckin' hilarious! Advance reviews have really been strong and it's bound to be a hit.

Story-wise, it's your typical high school graduation party/coming-of-age movie in the vein of Can't Hardly Wait and American Pie. The plot is perfunctory in such movies of course. Two high school best friends who are about to separate after graduation plan one last hurrah to get laid and fun ensues!

Check out these clips. Warning: NSFW due to explicit language.
The first is a R-rated trailer of the movie.


The film is written by Seth Rogen (the dude in Knocked Up) and he has a small part too. And for the 5 people in Singapore (and about 10 in the US, which thus brought about its cancellation, sadly) who are fans of the absurdist sitcom, Arrested Development, Micheal Cera, who played young son George Michael in the TV show, is one of the co-stars of Superbad. I'm a big fan of Cera. He has brilliant comedic timing and the fact that he stood out in AD even with its stellar cast says a lot. He is enacting his awkward kid persona again in Superbad, one which he has down pat. I hope his career goes places. HE is the star of the new "leading men who don't exactly look like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp thus making them more accessible" generation, not Shia LeBeouf, who hasn't 1/4 of Cera's talents.

This second video is a short scene from the movie. Absolutely outrageous!


The movie opens in the US this coming week and hopefully will come to Singapore soon. By hook or crook, I'll catch it in NYC! And when it comes to Singapore, you guys must as well!

90s Nostalgia

I was doing my usual YouTube browsing (the wonder and joy that is YouTube - its glorification would deserve a post of its own), looking to hear the theme song to the just-concluded Chn 8 drama, Switched (sung by Shi Xing Hui, in case you were wondering). It was a mini Fann Wong love fest for the next 15 minutes as I clicked on link after link of TV theme songs starring dear Fann, and i thought I ought to embed three of my all-time favourites here so I don't have to search for them when I require my next dosage of nostalgia indulgence.

阳光列车 The Morning Express


I'm sure many from my generation or thereabout know this show well. Fang Lao Shi, anyone? 阳光列车 aired in 1995, catapulting Chen Hanwei to A-list status and was so successful it warranted a sequel (Remember that sequel theme, 蒲公英? Blech). I can't really remember the plot, but I do recall Ann Kok in the show dying of cancer, or leukemia, or some other plot-device terminal illness. For me though, this was the show which really cemented my love of Fann. It was here perhaps that her act-cute shtick emerged, but back then, it was age-appropriate and it worked. She looked adorable in the show. I love the very last shot of her in this video.

The theme song is sung by Emil Chau, and it's called 海阔天空. My 11 year-old self loved its inspirational lyrics and its rousing, singalong chorus. Coupled with the sunshiny images of the TV series, it now evokes this feeling of warmth and a rush of quarter-life crisis-style 'those were the days' laments.

再见萤光兰 Wild Orchids

Back in the 90s, Fann and co-star here, Thomas Ong were the local equivalent of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, a golden on-screen couple. And this breezy, light-hearted show was the showpiece for their chemistry. The plot: Fann and Thomas play students who fall in love, Carole Lin is the cousin (hopefully a far-removed one, I'm not sure) of Thomas who loves him as well, and tried to break them up, drama ensues, will they get together in the end, plus some random shit about glowing fireflies, orchids, and not-even-trying-to-hide-it plugs for Australian tourism, etc.

Like Morning Express, Wild Orchids isn't exactly the pinnacle of Fann's dramatic achievements, but that's not the point of the series. I seem to recall it being about reveling in the glow of youth, about carefree joy and abandon, about livin' like there's no tomorrow. I could be spouting romanticising shit too. Anyway, the series is also noted for being the only time Fann had short, short hair (boy's cut, gasp!) and slightly more than 1.354% body fat, and for Fann's debut attempt at singing! The song's "真爱宣言", and I loved it so much I bought this abominable TCS compilation called Gems for this one song. Fann's singing is very raw here, and using my amateur singing judge prowess, I deduce that she's projecting from her throat, hence the very low, sounds-like-speaking-voice tone and lack of power. She's no Mariah or A-Mei, but Fann did improve on her singing over the years.

步步为赢 Out To Win

Out To Win, I conclude after years of existential agonising, is my favourite Fann Wong TV serial of all time! This '99 10-episode serial is a pure Fann star vehicle. She's an ambitious, go-getting woman who rises up in the ladder as a SIMEX trader; Ix Shen is her neglected boyfriend (think Adrien Grenier in The Devil Wears Prada and Lynn Poh is the mousy girl who, unlike Fann, can't cut it on the trading floor, and pines for Ix. One day, Fann knocks down a boy in a car accident, crippling him (because women who put their focus on career are evil!) and she suffers terribly from guilt. Hence, she tries to befriend and take care of the boy and along the way gets to know his coincidentally single and available father (Chen Tianwen), and thus she begins her humanising process. Then, dum dum dum! Fann slowly loses her hearing, meaning she can no longer do her job (Her career is what defines her, what is she to do?), and Ix leaves her for Lynn! No worries, this is just an opportunity for her to realise that life is more than dollars and cents, and it's about loving your family, appreciating them, sunshine, carebears, hugsandkisses and what not. So, in the end, she gracefully leaves her job, and gets together with Tianwen as a couple and in a pretty-sweet-for-Chn8-standards scene you can see in the video, she exchanges thumbs up with Lynn, who over the series grew the balls required to become a kickass trader. A poignant, rewarding and well-earned, if somewhat obvious conclusion.

I don't know, I just loved Fann in this role, to see how she goes from proud peacock to humbled girl. There is range involved in her acting, and it's refreshing that instead of the usual sweet thing, she's playing a confident, strong woman (who's not the antagonist). And there was the interaction between her and the disabled kid, which was wish-fulfillment interaction with Fann for me and probably many other teens then. Also, I liked that she ended up with Tianwen, who's definitely not pinup material. Again, nice if obvious statement about looks not mattering (Master of subtlety, Mediacorp definitely isn't).

Pop-culture moments of the series No.1 was the whole hand-signing trading shtick, which I remember acting out with (possibly imaginary) friends in secondary school. Didn't we all want to be SIMEX traders after the show, with their cooler-than-sign-language signals and garishly coloured jackets? Pop-culture moment2: The Nokia 8810! It was the Razr or Iphone of that era. Fann was seen craving for it as a status symbol in the show, and boy was it ever! It cost $1000plus when it launched. Remember the oh-so-cool glossy silver surface of the phone, meaning irritating fingerprints which had to be wiped after each use, or the never seen before slider, or those small keypads which made Snake high score attempts a bitch? Nokia 8810, how I loved thee (and I never owned it....)...

So those were three of my most memorable Chinese drama serials of the 90s. [Non-sequitur alert]It's quite damning a sign when one realises that Mediacorp productions have not progressed in writing, directing, cinematography, acting, lighting and any other component you can think of in the decade that's passed. But that's a rant for another post, I guess.