Anime Watching 10 October, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Moving Pictures, Nihon no koto, Slice of Life.1 comment so far
All of us grew up watching some form of children program on TV. One genre of programs that captured the imaginations of countless children worldwide is animation, or cartoon in some places.
For us in Singapore, we grew up watching mainly cartoons from America, be it Disney or Marvel. Pardon me for the over generalization but I feel that American cartoons of my era (1980-90s) fall into 2 main categories, Talking Animals or Superheroes.
The only Japanese animation that we had and I could remember was Doraemon. Of course, during that time, I couldn’t tell the difference between American and Japanese animations. To me, they were all cartoons, the only difference being whether they were shown on Channel 5 or Channel 8.
I enjoyed watching cartoons immensely as a child. I remember rushing home from primary school everyday so that I could catch the 6.15pm cartoon on Channel 5. I remember learning how to operate the timer function on the VCR so that I could record cartoons that I knew I was going miss. I remember recording and compiling my own cartoon series so that I could watch them over and over again. I remember The Land Before Time was my all time favourite movie for many years and If We Hold On Together was my all time favourite song.
I remember proudly declaring to my mum that I will never ever grow sick of cartoons and will never stop watching cartoons even when I grow older.
I was that much a fan. And in a way, I did fulfill my declaration. Till this day, I am still very much in love with animation, just that I had shifted from American cartoon to Japanese anime.
I couldn’t really remember when I started the switch. Perhaps it was during the time when SCV started screening up to date anime from Japan. I recall persuading my mum to sign up for SCV just so that I could watch the anime Detective Conan. It was then that I realized animated films can be much more than Talking Animals and Superheroes. It was then that I realized opening and ending songs of anime didn’t need to sound childish. It was then that I realized themes such as crime, guilt and justice can be embodied by an anime.
It was then that I realized anime can be enjoyed by adults too.
It wasn’t until broadband was introduced that the anime became more accessible. Thanks to the hard work of fansub groups, the latest anime from Japan was able to reach out to all corners of the world. I even considered joining a fansub group to make my little contribution to the anime world.
The next big event that contributed to the accessibility of anime was video streaming. Just click Play and moments later the video will begin its run. Now, anime fans around the world could watch their favourite anime even with a basic broadband connection.
I digress.
A few years back, at my peak, I used to watch about 5-10 anime per season. I used to watch an episode or two in the morning while I sipped away at my morning coffee. Those were the days. However, it felt like I was choosing quantity over quality.
Since moving in with Dear2, I’ve learned to reduce my anime intake and focus on quality instead. These days, I watch about 1-2 anime per season. And I would introduce those that I think are really good to Dear2 so that we can watch them together as a couple.
I guess I really will never outgrow anime. And in the future, hopefully Dear2, baby and me can all watch anime together as a family past-time. :D
-Dear1
(p.s. Currently, I’m trying to find a good, calm and tranquil anime that perhaps Dear2 and I can watch together in the delivery room at TMC so as to take her mind off the labour pain. I wonder if they have DVD players there?)
Kia Movie Night 26 August, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Moving Pictures, Vroom Vroom.add a comment
Kia Movie Night occurred some time ago, on 21 July 2009 if I remembered correctly. I think it was quite smart of C&C to organise such a movie event to thank and bribe their customers who bought their car recently (like us). After all, movie tickets are so cheap on a weekday evening. But the impact of a movie event is much higher compared to, say, a $20 Starbucks voucher. Sure, the $20 voucher is worth more, but a movie ticket is perceived as more glam.
So, after attending with Dear2, what do we think of the event?
First, venue was great, at Lido Hall 1, the largest. Yeah…
Second, it was great of them to be thoughtful enough to provide dinner refreshments before the movie becos the movie timing is 7.45pm. People can just go directly after work and have some food before the movie. But they made 2 blunders in the organization. First, they started the refreshments almost 10 mins late and it was visible that all the hungry guests were quite irritated. Second, there wasn’t enough food to go around. People at the back of the queue only had egg sandwich. It turned out that they replenished all the food about 20 mins later for guests that were late. But still, the food should have been continuously replenished and not replenished at a predetermined timing.
Third, the timing wasn’t fantastic. Only people who have bought a normal plated car would be able to drive to the movie event. Those who bought OPC (like us) didn’t have time to go home to pick up their cars and drive to Orchard. Saturday or Sunday evenings would have been a much better time for everyone, but of course they would need to spend more money to book a weekend theatre.
Fourth, they didn’t provide snacks and drinks, no popcorn and coke. This left us with quite a bitter taste as we’ve attended other movie events before that gave a complimentary popcorn and drink to all guests. A small popcorn and a coke at wholesale price shouldn’t cost much, so we were quite disappointed when we didn’t receive any this time. -_-
We arrived early to an empty theatre at Lido. The poorly done powerpoint slideshow was horrible.
Fifth, they looped a poorly done powerpoint slideshow on the big screen before the start of the movie. The slideshow was meant to promote their upcoming products such as the Forte Koup and others. However, there were only about 5 slides in total (I think) with nothing more than a picture and the name of the car, coupled with bad music. I think they should have made full use of the large cinema screen and show a full feature advertisement for all their upcoming products. Or even just a documentary style corporate video that demonstrates what goes on behind the scenes in making a car.
Sixth, the movie was rather bad. But it wasn’t their fault. After all, they did give us free tickets to the blockbuster movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It’s just that the movie wasn’t very nice.
Overall, it wasn’t the best movie event that we’ve attended but still thumbs up for the efforts. Hopefully, they’ll learn from their shortcomings and run an even more successful event the next time round.
-Dear1
A Total Flop – 12 Lotus 25 April, 2009
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Moving Pictures.add a comment
Following the ’success’ of 881, Royston Tan went on to produce 12 Lotus, the ‘inspiration’ apparently coming from one of the songs, 12 Lotus, which was featured in 881 becos ‘the director’s heart went out for the plight of girl in the song’. Oh wow.
12 Lotus. The song tells of the pathetic life story of a girl, and that was exactly what the movie was all about. Pathetic is the whole theme. Pathetic as in an entire movie depicting the pathetic story of a girl, and pathetic as in how terribly made was the movie.
Dear2 rented this movie from Ezyvideo recently, wanting to catch on the fame of the much acclaimed 881 (881 was very much locally made – heavily getai-ish, and very much a low cost production. Theme wise, still ok – at least there was an encouraging moral to the story. And I dun mind its overly local flavour though this just goes to show how little thought had been given to the conceptualization of the movie.).
12 Lotus probably just wanted to tap on 881’s fame – everything was repeated, from the cast, to the costumes, to the set up, to the genre of songs, to the team. Everything was simply copycat. Fine, den I’ll at least expect the same kind of ‘low standards’ for this film.
But it was an unbearable 1.5 hours for Dear2. The movie basically tells the story of a mad woman, mind u, it’s not even what was supposed to be, that of a pathetic girl, but of a mad women instead. There’s enuff suffering in this world, and we dun need a movie to tell us how imbalanced is this world. The hysteric and degrading plot and characters totally leaves the audience uncomfortably irritated – what the heck am I watching!?
This movie dun even warrant half a popcorn. Frankly, the audience ought to demand compensation for even watching such a lousy production. Dear1 and Dear2 did not finish watching the movie, the 1.5 hours spent was an utter waste of time.
- Dear2
A Perfect Cut 1 & 2 20 March, 2009
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What a disappointing two and a half weeks.
Following a brilliant viewership rating, the Singapore drama Perfect Cut went on to produce a sequeal, Perfect Cut 2. As we all know, sequeals are never as good as the first production, but Dear2 thought that it was such a rarity that Mediacorp ever produce such a beautiful drama (shown on Channel U some more), and if they do decide to do a sequeal, then this has better to be good.
But as expected, (or unexpected for Dear2 - that was too high a hat for the production team afterall), Perfect Cut 2 did not manage to even present the shine of that brilliant first.
Why all the disappointment?
Really. Perhaps of the expectations that 2 will retain that cleverly devised story line, one where there’s a daily short story but yet interwines the stories and development of the main plot. Or even the touching themes songs, played so beautifully at the beginning and ending of the show, as well as the short durations that the songs are injected into the story to make the drama’s emotional factor rise to the maximum (dun u just feel like tearing during that scene when Zheng Wanling did the ‘make up’ for Pan Ling Ling’s deceased daughter? That is what i call a brilliant presentation of visual and audio effects). Even the selection of actors were so apt. Thomas Ong, Michelle Chia, Julian Hee, even Zheng Wanling, and even all the supporting actors, all of them played their characters sooooo well that u can feel that ‘ya, that is really a Alex Tan’. Kudos kudos. The biggest credit will still go to the plot – how there’s a flip side to everything we see, how we may be beautiful on the outside, but yet what matters more is of the inside. And the most amazing thing is how these subtle messages are up to the viewer to expound on their own. What a brilliant production.
But 2 was a far cry from 1. Where is that clever interwine plot? Ya, they still try to make every episode a distinct one, but the messages are now spoken outright. Was it becos they felt that 1 was too ‘cheam’ for the audience to appreciate?? And what’s with this competitiveness nature of Dr Win? Seems to me that this character was introduced merely to bring tension to the show. Is that really necessary? (hmm, come to think of it, most Mediacorp shows are like that, there’s always an irritating character within an all-loving team. Now i understand……………) Oh, Dear2 ESPECIALLY hate those scenes of raw pork. Please, if it can’t be done properly, might as well dun do it. 1 did not have all those meaty surgeries scenes, and viewers are ok not to see those anyway, so, nice effort for trying, but this further confirms the lack of thought, in all aspects, given to the whole production of 2.
It’s finale episode for Perfect Cut 2 tonight. We are going to miss Alex Tan, Sky Tan, and even Xiaoli (kudos for keeping up the wonderful performance, that was at least some consolation). Until we can see the good thoughts behind a production again, i think it’s better that we do without Perfect Cut 3.
- Dear2
Making your own wedding montage 27 September, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Moving Pictures, Wedding.add a comment
Today, I’m going to talk about making ur own professional looking wedding photo montages with some freeware programs from Microsoft. It is easy to use, dun require programming background, and it is free! The most it will cost is a few litres of your sweat. :P To begin, you will need these 3 softwares:
Ok, I’m not going into details about how to install and how to use these softwares. Rather, I’ll talk about my experience with using it, and tips and tricks that can help you to improve ur own wedding montages.
Photo Story (PS) allows you to line up a series of photos into a slideshow. In addition, it allows you to add titles, add Ken Burns Effect, specify display duration, transition type, transition time and add music. Finally, the entire slideshow is compiled as a wmv file so it can be played back by simple Windows Media Player.
During the creation of the slideshow, you may want to add titles or words on a black background. This can be done by creating a plain black screen using Paint, then simply import it as one of the slides and add the words within PS. However, I find this rather restrictive, so I prefer to add my text using my preferred image software, in this case GIMP, then importing it as an image into PS. GIMP is also useful for adding circles or boxes into the images to highlight the star of the photo. Using PS, you can also create the visual effect of the circle drawing itself around ur subject. To do this, import the original picture first, then import the picture with the circle directly behind the original one. Then choose an appropriate transition effect, such as Top to bottom, and the circle will look like it was drawn during the video.
Depending on the intention of the montage, the duration of each photo should be customized accordingly. For a short video to be shown before a wedding march in, for example photos of the couples’ childhood, it should be about 5 minutes or shorter. The duration of each picture should also be short and the transition slightly fanciful. These, couple with some catchy music, should set a lively mood for the entrance. However, if the mood is to be a romantic one, cross fading transitions provide the least intrusion and the music should be one of those romantic ballads. Duration of each picture should also be slightly longer.
If the montage is meant to be used as a backdrop, duration of each picture can be lengthened to 8 or 10 seconds. It is also advisable to add Ken Burns Effect to avoid an awkward wait for the next picture. How should I explain this? When the viewer looks at a picture in a slideshow, he expects the slideshow to move on soon, otherwise he would feel weird and experience some form of time dilation where he perceive that he has been waiting for a long time and the picture is not moving. At this point, he starts to think the video is spoilt and starts to become impatient. This kills the mood and we want to avoid it. The threshold for still image is about 6 seconds. With Ken Burns Effect, this can be stretched to 8 seconds or so. And with appropriate music, maybe an extra 2 seconds. That’s about it, any longer and it starts to feel weird.
The black screen is also useful as an ending of the montage. When the last photo fades out to a black screen, the video will abruptly stop and may disrupt the mood created by the montage. To avoid this, a black screen can be added as the last image and the display duration made as long as required to maintain the mood of the audience and also to signal to the audience that the show has ended with this prolonged black screen. This technique is also frequently used in movies to let ppl know the credits are coming out soon.
Credits is something nice to add to ur montages. For me, if the credits in a movie contains bloopers, I’ll definitely stay on to watch the entire thing. You can use this to ur advantage. Photos that are not suitable for the main show, such as candid shots, closed eyes, stranger walking pass, can be shown in the credits to bring a light hearted ending to the video. Of course, the added advantage is that ppl will pay more attention to ur credits, meaning ur supporting crew will all get their due recognitions from the audience.
When it comes to encoding, the first thing you want to do is to edit the encoding profile with the Windows Media Encoder (WME). Use WME to open one of the PS profiles in the PS folder and look for the one with resolution 800×600 for computers. Notice that the Quality is set to 95. That is totally insufficient. Change this to 100, and do not settle for anything less than that. The improvement in visual quality is worth the increase in file size. Save your new profile and always use it. For reference, a 25 minute montage at 800×600 will take about 85 megabytes with music.
Now, why 800×600? I think this is the best compromise between video quality and hardware requirement. Playing at 1024×768 will result in choppy videos, no good. 640×480 will not be able to please picky viewers, especially if the montage is to be used during a wedding, on a projector. 800×600 is a good balance that will provide good resolution, sharp images and smooth playback. If you are using media player classic, try not to use VMR9 as it will result in image tear and dropped frames. VMR7 should work fine.
Ok, now what about Movie Maker (MM). MM is useful for 2 things. First, it has a wide range of transitions, title effects, subtitles, and credits effects. Especially useful is the ability to overlay titles with transparency in the video. If you are not using the black screen method to create titles for your montage, the title effects from MM can also be used. Fancy titles like moving words, scrolling words and picture in picture news channel effects are available in MM. Also, becos MM is a video editing program, you will be able to import a lot of videos into it. This is particularly useful if you are dealing a many groups of slideshows, such as one for the bride, one for the groom, and one for the time together. Using PS, these slideshows can be created separately and using MM, they can be compiled into a continuous movie. This kind of modular creation process can help to organise your project and make editing much simpler.
Phew.. that’s quite a lot to digest. The thing to do right now is to get started and get some hands on practise with the softwares. You will learn as u go along, and u will start to develop the movie director in u. It’s all more meaningful making a video for your own wedding. Enjoy making your wedding montage. I’m sure I did.
-Dear1
Pursuit of Happyness 23 August, 2008
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Moving Pictures, Slice of Life.add a comment
Dear1 and Dear2 rented this movie from Ezyvideo that day. It had a Most Popular tag on, so even though Dear1 and Dear2 had not known about this movie before, decided to rent it anyway.
The story started with this chap, Chris. Chris is a salesman, and sales had been poor for a while. Typical American family struggling to meet ends meet with Here In There Out kind of lifestyle, and when there’s None In, Chris started to feel the strain. He chanced upon a guy, Jay who looked so happy. Chris asked Jay, “What do you do and how do you do it?” Jay replied, “I’m a stockbroker.” Then and there, you thought that the pursuit of happiness will logically led to a pursuit of money.
The story unfolds, and Chris had to meet with increasing pressure. With no income as an intern in the stockbroking firm, Chris had to cope with selling all his products from his sales job in order to have money for everything. Comes a point in time when wife is tired of this kind of lifestyle and walks out of the family, and Chris and son plunges into even more financial hardships. Heart wrenching.
Thru’out the internship period, incidences when Chris and son are out and poor are a daily scene. Every cent is precious, and to have a roof over your head is a comfort. Finally comes the day for announcement if Chris is gonna get that official position as a broker. With teary eyes, Chris accepted the offer of a permanent broker, and you half expected that the story will continue to unfold Chris’ future prosperity and fortune in this line at a time in 1981. But whoa! The story concluded with Chris thinking aloud about this pursuit of happiness, not of the riches therafter, but of the journey that he had came through. The hardships, the pain, the struggles, it was not these that led to his happiness, but the overcoming of them were the happiness itself. Profound, immensely profound, that’s what Dear2 thinks, if this was the intent of the scripwriter. Cheerios!
There are many lessons portrayed in this story as well. Like how Chris did not manage to close a successful big deal, but took the opportunity to network with the CEO’s friends, and in turn closed 31 smaller deals. And like how Chris was chiding sonny of why he shouldn’t spend time on basketball, just because daddy cannot play well, but after that realised this limiting thought and in turn encouraged sonny not to ever let anyone tell you what you cannot do. Chris’ determination in everything that he do, from turning up at an interview right out from police detention and in dried paint, and still being truthful and jovial about his ordeal, to his determination to do his work in 6 hours when others can afford to use 9. The favourite will still have to be how we all always think that having money is the happiness itself, but have we ever thought of the overcoming of all our daily challenges that can be a form of happiness itself?
Life can never be smooth. There are bound to be ups and downs along the way, and many more that will be beyond our control. It is the strength in ourselves that determines who and what we are, so even a small obstacle can be your opportunity to pursue and achieve happiness.
- Dear2
Movies during the holiday season 15 December, 2007
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Dear1 and Dear2 have been watching quite a few movies these few weeks. Quite a few by our standards since we aren’t really movie go-ers and its quite rare for us to watch more than 1 movie every month. But within the last 2 weeks or so, we’ve caught 3 movies, 2 of which we used our Eng Wah movie pass which we bought for $5 per ticket some 8-10 months ago and 1 free movie complimentary from working associates.
Something I realized from these movies are that, holiday movies are really quite meaningless. Their plot tends to be rather thin and focus more on light hearted comedy aimed at creating a holiday mood. And the main factor that drives people to watch these movies are really a happy holiday spending mentality that is more likely to reply “Why not?” when considering whether to watch a movie. Movie go-ers also tend to be more forgiving when it comes to plotline loopholes and sub-par special effects and so on. So these movies really are tapping on consumers’ good mood and cashing in on some lucrative year end bonus spendings. Not that the movies are of poor quality, in fact some are quite entertaining and does indeed infuse a feel-good factor when you leave the theater. Let’s do a quick recap of dear1 and dear2’s movie spree.
Enchanted
Nice! A good mix of good old Disney style cartoon and new shading technology. Great costumes in the live action part of the movie too. Story is simply but the scenes are quite cinematic. There’s quite a good dose of humour in the movie and I find myself laughing away heartily after a relative slow start. Maybe my only complain is the ending when the witch turns into a dragon. It’s just a little overly fantasy-like, spoiling the balance demonstrated throughout the film. For example, singing and calling pigeons, rats and cockroaches to help out in the housework is a nice blend of fairytale and city life. But a dragon crashing out of the a ballroom window is definitely not. Still, it’s a movie that I didn’t regret going to the big screen for. 4 out of 5 popcorns.
Fred Claus
Well… Santa Claus runs a toy making and delivery business and is subjected a regular compliant checks from the relevent authorities. Fair enough. Santa’s elder brother, who is on bad terms with Santa, arrives at the North Pole for a reunion but ended up jeopardizing the whole Christmas. Santa breaks down from stress and it’s up to Fred to save Christmas. Fair story. Again, there’s a nice mix of clockwork and crystal ball technology with the latest in LCD monitors and NASA style operations headquarters. I really liked how they portray Santa’s flying sleigh as a turbulent jet-like supersonic open-canopy flying machine. The ending is highly predictable but that’s the ending everyone hoped to see anyway. Humour is ok but can get a little old and overused sometimes. The flow of the movie isn’t really quite smooth and I feel some scenes seemed a bit forced and out of place. For me, this movie is just o-kay. 3 out of 5 popcorns.
Mr Macgorium’s Wonder Emporium
This is the free movie we went to. Luckily it’s free. I would have regretted it very much if I needed to pay for this. Plot summary? I dun even know how to summarize its lack of any apparent plot. Ok, let’s try. Mr Macgorium has decided that he wants to leave (die), so he passes his emporium to his shop assistant, Mahoney. Mahoney doesn’t want Macgorium to die, refuses to take over the shop, but eventually still does and creates the magical emporium. I thought the story began well but it got all so draggy towards mid movie. And just when Mahoney seemed to have rediscovered his talent, the show ends abruptly. Hmm… Plot, pacing and storytelling, fail. Special effects, good enough since realism is not a criteria here. Humour, erm… I dun even remember laughing. Touching scenes, none for me. The worst part of the movie for me is really the ending. At the very end of the movie, when the mood is finally building up and I anticipate it’s the start of a climatic final third of the show, the credits start to scroll. Luckily it’s free. 1.5 out of 5 popcorns.
And there you have it, our holiday movies escapade. Merry Christmas. Hohohoho…
-Dear1
Die Hard 4 (2007) review 2 August, 2007
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Moving Pictures.add a comment
Been a long time since any video review is posted here. Well, for the pass few months, we didn’t really have time to catch any movies. Off the top of my head, the recent movies that we watched but did not review were Ocean’s 13 which we watched at Cathay (Plaza Singapura), Transformers at Eng Wah Westmall and Harry Potter and the Order of Pheonix also at Westmall. The most recent one is Die Hard 4 also at Westmall. Why so many Westmalls? Becos it’s near our house mah. Haha… And also, we bought 10 movie passes for $50 some time back, so now it’s time to start redeeming. On to the movie!
First of all, I didn’t have high hopes for this movie becos it’s already the 4th in the series, and my experience with series are that it gets worse after the 2nd one. So, it’s really going in with no expectations. But why did we even choose this movie to watch in the first place? For the simple reason that there isn’t any other better shows to watch. Also, if u noticed, Die Hard 4 released at around the same time at Transformers, but we watched Transformers, followed by Harry Potter then Die Hard in this order. So, we really watched it towards the end of it movie run life.
Plot: A relatively simple plot. Some crazy guy wants to ‘take over the world’. Only in this case, it’s not really the world, but he just wants a hefty ransom from the US government. This time, it’s a digital invasion where the villian takes over the computer networks running the nation and wreck havok by messing up communication lines, traffic control, electric supply and so on. The unlikely hero, someone in his forties and know nuts about computers have the save the world in good old fashion beat them all up style.
Computer animation: Not too bad here, most of the animation looks realistic. My complain is the smoke. Somehow, the smoke looks rather fake, or something’s not quite right about the particle physics. The falling bridges looks just a little bit out of place but it’s passable. Animation for the F35B looks good although it’s depiction in the movie is a little exaggerated. There’s no way it can hover and fight air-to-ground in that manner.
Cast: I personally find Maggie Q a waste of screen time. Not only does she have very little dialogue, she also have very little screen time. The same goes for all other cast except Bruce Willis and Justin Long. Here’s a little trivia about Justin Long. I find him very familiar the first time I saw him in the movie. It turns out that he’s the guy in the Get-a-Mac ads. Haha… Do a search on Get-a-Mac and u should see him. “I’m a Mac.”
Pacing: Wow! This is what an action movie should be like. Gripping, fast paced action from start to finish to keep u at the edge of ur seats. Although some of the tricks the characters use are rather lame, but it’s entertaining enough. There’s gun fight, melee combat, car chases, fighter jets, big explosions, cliff hanging, really just non stop action. And taking out a helicopter with a car jump is also really cool. This movie is really back to the basics of action movies and it does deliver.
Since both Dear1 and Dear2 thinks that this is the best of the recent movies that we’ve watched, it’s going to get a 4 out of 5 popcorns from us.
-Dear1
Ezy Video 19 May, 2007
Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Moving Pictures, Shop till you drop.1 comment so far
Dear1 and Dear2 wanted to spend a relaxing Saturday. Dear2 suggested going KTV, but public entertainement on a weekend for two easily cost up to $40. We decided to go grocery shopping and practise our culinary skills of stir-fried vegetables and potato-baked beans again. While marketing, we came across Ezy Video and decided to check out the packges.
Dear1 is only interested in DVDs, for obvious reasons that quality are more superior as compared to VCD. Dear2 is okay – can’t really tell the difference anyway. There were a few different packages: $13.50 for 3 DVD for 7 days; $20 for 5 DVDs, $10 for 2 DVDs. Apart from costing differences, the other factors which determine which combination to take will be New Releases and number of days you wanna rent for. We took the $13.50 one cos that has a good balance of bargain and rent duration.
Within one afternoon, Dear1 and Dear2 has already completed 2 out of the 3 DVDs we rented. So much for wanting to rent it for one week. And that was pretty cheap entertainment, considering the $18.50 for 3 movies for 2. Yap, the extra $5 comes from signing up as a member before you are eligible to rent the discs. How come we don’t seem to sight anything on this menbership registration anywhere within the shop? Oh well.
- Dear2
Spiderman 3 review 16 May, 2007
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In the third week of its opening, Dear1 and Dear2 finally had time to go catch the highly acclaimed Spiderman 3. Actually, Dear1 and Dear2 thoroughly enjoyed Spiderman 2, so even without recommendations, we’d still go watch it. We caught show at Eng Wah Cinemas @ Suntec using our Eng Wah value card we bought last time. Only $5 per ticket! I think now no more already. The show is at 1.15pm and the theater is completely empty. Perhaps it is becos today is a Wednesday afternoon. Gee… Great! We have the whole theater to ourselves. This is the first time ever that Dear1 and Dear2 watched a movie in a completely empty theater. Hehe… And we did what any couple would do if they were alone in an empty theater. We abandoned our designated seats and sat at the comfort premium couple seats right at the last row! I suppose these seats would normally cost more, but since nobody’s there, we get a free upgrade. Hohohoho… The sofa is really comfy and there’s even a table to put our popcorns and drinks. There’s also a leg rest too. So relaxing… Now, the movie.
Plot: This time round, there’s lots of characters, Green Goblin Jr, Sandman and Venom. And the introduction of an extra female character which I initially thot would play an important role in a love triangle with Peter and Mary Jane, but it did not. In fact, I think she’s nothing more a waste of screen time. The rest of the villians are quite as aggressive as ever, so there’s some good action scenes throughout the movie.
Animation: Is it just me or did the quality of CG animation dropped. In many scenes, the animation is quite obvious and did not blend in well with the environment. This is especially obvious in building explosions, the shattering of glass just didn’t look naturally enough.
Setting and props: I didn’t bother to check the budget of this movie but it felt like not enough was spent on the set. Or maybe they had a change of designer. Some background scenes looked a bit cheap and didn’t cast the appropriate mood. Notably, Peter’s room looked like a total mess. I thought that in movies, even the messiest of rooms should look beautifully ugly.
Overall, the directing of the film is abit of a letdown, but the strong story line of Spiderman itself is good enough to support the movie. Somehow, the movie didn’t feel as engaging as the last one, perhaps it is due to high expectations stemming from the last movie. At least, I didn’t feel bored throughout the 2+ hours. However, I did stop at various spots thinking, ‘That scene is weird…’ 3.6 out of 5 popcorns.
Oh, and the Popcorn Prices page is updated with EW @ Suntec.
-Dear1
