Movie Buzz/Event : ‘Sex And The City 2′ Gala Premiere
Courtesy of HP, I had the chance to attend the Sex and the City 2 Gala Premiere @ Golden Village, VivoCity with my bestie, Rachael ! I’m ashamed to say that I am no huge fan of the TV series nor have I watched “Sex and the City” before the event, so I went into the theatre pretty much with an open mind and the idea that the whole show is about – 4 manipulative women in NYC with the most gorgeous dresses and a lifetstyle to die for…and I came out with the same conclusion !
This highly anticipated film, well..put it this way – if men have porn, women have Sex and the City. The fashion is to die for, the lifestyle is to die for, the men are to die for. The story gets drowned among the blings and backdrop, a typical chick flick about relationships, sisterhood, women empowerment – the men just don’t get it ! Girls gone wild but a more mature version and bringing the glam factor to the max. If you’re a film critic, you might want to skip this film but you must watch this if you’re a fashionista or follower of SATC the series. I’ll pretty much spoil the entire show if I were to comment on the story (yes, it’s THAT shallow and the plot is absurdly over-simplified) so I shall keep my comments to myself. Let’s just say that I can relate to Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) most because of her relationship problems and craziness while with her friends. I can almost imagine myself telling my future husband “Me and you, just us two”. On a side note, I must say it is quite an interesting topic to discuss if this film were to be alil more political – they were (almost) certainly mocking the Middle East in a way ! (haha)
Anyways, back to the event itself ! I had a great time checking out the HP products (look out for the gorgeous HP mini in the show itself ! ) and catching up with other bloggers. Thanks HP once again for the great night ! As you can see, it’s rather rare for me to post up pictures of myself on my blog but the SJP perfume is my current favourite ! Will someone please get it for me ? (puppy eyes) Hur.
I’ll give this movie a 2.5/5 but a 5 for the gorgeous dresses and yummy eyecandies ! They coo, we coo and coo some more together..that’s how the movie goes.
AOTW [34] : Byron Koppens
Another nice surprise while doing some random surfing online. Came across Byron Koppen’s myspace profile and really liked this cover of “It’s my life”. This 20 years old is located at New Zealand and his originals aint too bad too. Check out his cover of Adam Lambert’s “Whataya want from me” – a current favourite on my playlist.
Adam Lambert – Whataya Want From Me
Hey, slow it down
What do you want from me
What do you want from me
Yeah, I’m afraid
What do you want from me
What do you from me
There might have been a time
I would give myself away
(Ooh) Once upon a time
I didn’t give a damn
But now here we are
So what do you want from me
What do you want from me
Just don’t give up
I’m workin’ it out
Please don’t give in
I won’t let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
Hey, what do you want from me
What do you want from me
Yeah, it’s plain to see
that baby you’re beautiful
And it’s nothing wrong with you
It’s me – I’m a freak
but thanks for lovin’ me
Cause you’re doing it perfectly
There might have been a time
When I would let you step away
I wouldn’t even try but I think
you could save my life
Just don’t give up
I’m workin’ it out
Please don’t give in
I won’t let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
Hey, what do you want from me
What do you want from me
Just don’t give up on me
I won’t let you down
No, I won’t let you down
So
Just don’t give up
I’m workin’ it out
Please don’t give in
I won’t let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
Hey, what do you want from me
Just don’t give up
I’m workin’ it out
Please don’t give in
I won’t let you down
It messed me up, need a second to breathe
Just keep coming around
Hey, whataya want from me
(whataya want from me)
Whataya want from me
whataya want from me
Love Yourself.
Future Ted : Kids, there are two basic philosophies of how to handle yourself after a breakup. Some people throw themselves into..
Robin : My career. That’s my number one focus right now. From now on, no more dating, it’s all about work.
Future Ted : .. while others throw themselves into..
Barney : Every woman in New York City ! That’s right, Barney Stinson is back on the market ! Mothers, lock up your daughters.. Daughters, lock up your MILSWANCAs !
- How I Met Your Mother “The Playbook” (S5E08) *awesome episode by the way*
Very much like Robin, I have been throwing myself into my summer part time job and planning for the upcoming term. Number one focus is to get my life back together, find and love myself again before I learn to love another. Cliche as it sounds but I think it’s the better than the latter option because 98% of the time, you end up hurting someone new because it ends up like a rebound or you don’t learn from your previous relationship mistakes but rush into someone new and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
“Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” – Russ Von Hoelscher
Some people think that it is a good way to move on when you find someone new, in fact, I had friends offering to ‘matchmake’ or introduce guys to me (which I’ve all kindly refused). During one of the conversations, my friend asked “So what kind of guy do you like ? Can’t really tell your ‘pattern’ apart from the fact that you always end up with ‘hot tempered/emo people’… ” (in which I laughed out loud because come to think about it, it’s quite true..hur) So she suggested that I should write a letter/blog post to remind/prevent myself from making the same ‘mistakes’ – like how Ted would write to Future Ted after each breakup…just that this will be a summary of all the past relationships (haha)
So Dear Future Ingrid,
Remember this : “When you struggle with your partner, you are struggling with yourself. Every fault you see in them touches a denied weakness in yourself. “- Deepak Chopra
If you start to feel that your partner is having expectations of you, that’s because you feel that you’re not good enough. Instead of complaining or finding faults in the other person, remember a relationship is not just something to ‘take’ from but to ‘give’ as well. If you feel that you can’t meet the ‘expectations’, don’t be afraid to voice it out and find other ways to fill that ‘gap’. Trust is the main key to effective communication and foundation to hold any relationships. It can’t be found in words but through actions. People will find out the truth no matter how hard you try to hide it so don’t bother telling lies or covering up. To love is to risk not to be loved in return. When you love someone, it may not mean that you have to be with that somebody. Find someone who shares the same mindset/beliefs/values. Love doesn’t count on the laughter that you shared but on the pain and tears you tried to get over with just for the sake of holding on. To understand is to listen, not what your partner says but what he/she does not say.
Actually, enough of all these nonsense. Just be yourself and love yourself. Like what Ted Mosby said :
“Kids, you may think your only choices are to swallow your anger,or throw it in someone’s face.there is a third option you can just let it go, and only when you do that is it really gone,and you can move forward.
And that, kids, was the perfect ending to a perfect love story. It just wasn’t mine.Mine was still out there waiting for me.”
God has his plans for you. =)
So…Thank You(s) for the calls, the SMSes, the DMs, the tweets/plurks, the msn conversations, the talks, the meetups with attempts to make me feel better lately. I am truly blessed with wonderful friends around me and I really appreciate all the effort ! Sorry to cause all the worries but like the following quote :
“But in the end, the most important thing to accept is that no matter how alone you feel, how painful it may be, with the help of those around you, you’ll get through this too.” – Scrubs
Just give me the space and time too eh ? Thank You once again =)
AOTW [33] : Carmina Topacio
Happened to see Carmina’s cover on the 2nd single that I really like from Breaking Benjamin’s album ‘ Dear Agony’. This 18 years old sweet looking girl is from Philippines and I love the fact that she plays the song out on her keyboard instead of singing along to the song. I think she did a fairly good job on this song as compared to most of the covers I’ve heard. Enjoy and check out her other covers too !
Breaking Benjamin “Give me a sign”
Dead star shine
Light up the sky
I’m all out of breath
My walls are closing in
Days go by
Give me a sign
Come back to the end
The shepherd of the damned
I can feel you falling away
No longer the lost
No longer the same
And I can see you
starting to break
I’ll keep you alive
If you show me the way
Forever – and ever
the scars will remain
I’m falling apart
Leave me here
forever in the dark
Daylight dies
Blackout the sky
Does anyone care?
Is anybody there?
Take this life
Empty inside
I’m already dead
I’ll rise to fall again
Movie Buzz : Robin Hood
Robin Hood – You would imagine a hero who struts his stuff in green tights, leaps around with his bow and arrows, robbing the riches for the poor, being cheeky and witty in his speech….Or at least I strolled into the cinema thinking of that ! Will talk about it later but straight to the film first.
Beautiful settings with vast halls, huge castles, deep wandering forest with a great eye for lighting. Robin Hood is your typical film in historical times, think ‘King Arthur’ or ‘Joan of Arc’ with more combat and of course the rain of arrows during those scenes.
Russell Crowe is without a doubt one of the sexiest man around and very suitable for the role, but there were moments when the ‘Gladiator’ side of him surfaces. I find his sidekicks alil more entertaining and they actually reflected the more lively side of Robin Hood’s story with the leaping around etc. Russell Crowe is probably the most serious Robin Hood I’d imagine…he could have passed off as Spartan with more clothes on.
In summary, we see the history of Robin Hood BEFORE he was actually ‘Robin Hood’. It was more like the history lesson of how he became Robin Hood whereby he must push across the countryside to settle score between the King of England and King of France, meet up with comrades, and eventually restore order in the country while discovering his own past. If you’re not a fan of history, you’ll be bored to death. To me, it was just way too draggy – to think it was just a 141 minutes film..I almost thought I sat there for 4 hours !
So back to the story of how my friend and I were questioning nonstop during the movie – ”where is the climax ?’, ‘ I
think we’re not even half way through the movie !’, ‘ Why is Robin Hood holding a hammer (or whatever that’s called) instead of bow and arrows ?’ – mainly because the images on our minds were based on the cartoon version of Robin Hood that we grew up with. It was until the end of the movie then we realized the words on the top left corner of the banner that says ‘The Untold Story Of The Man Behind The Legend.’ Silly us.
From the movie we had several conclusions :
1) Englishman are really horny bastards.
2) Robin Hood steals basically everything right from the start, mainly from the dead – the horse, his attire, his wife.
3) Everyone (the characters) wants sex in the film but never get to the action so that the film can be rated PG.
Robin Hood breaks zero new ground in terms of film in my opinion but it certainly provides a good back story to Robin Hood 2 (if any, I’m guessing yes). If you have a couple of hours to kill, this is entertainment but don’t expect your heart to be stolen by Robin Hood.
I’ll give it a 2.5/5. But the ending credits is worth staying for, stunning graphics so for that I’ll give another 0.5 !
AOTW [32] : Cobus Potgieter
I’ve always been a girl who adores drums but never had the chance to learn because
a) My dad thinks/wished I should be more feminine – so I was ‘forced’ to learn the Guzheng instead
b) Never had the chance to because not many schools offer drumming lessons – especially when I was from a girl’s school and the only set of drums is for the school’s concert band.
c) Drum sets were too expensive back then as a ‘hobby’ and it’s too noisy to keep at home – my mom would probably keep the drum set and throw me out..or hopefully the other way round.
When I first had the chance to fiddle around with the drums was in polytechnic while the boys had their jamming sessions. Sadly, I didn’t manage to find that passion or time to learn drums proper but I certainly still love drums (and drummers) alot.
So here’s Cobus Potgieter with one of my favourite song in Kelly Clarkson’s album ‘All I Ever Wanted’ – ” My Life Would Suck Without You”. Looks alil crazy but totally cool stuff I say ! Try to stay on beyond the 2 mins point !
I thought he put in quite abit effort to edit his videos at least, if you’re not a fan of drums. If all else fails, Kelly Clarkson is singing ? Hur.
My Life Would Suck Without You
Guess this means you’re sorry
You’re standing at my door
Guess this means you take back
All you said before
Like how much you wanted
Anyone but me
Said you’d never come back
But here you are again
‘Cause we belong together now, yeah
Forever united here somehow, yeah
You got a piece of me
And honestly,
My life (my life) would suck (would suck) without you
Maybe I was stupid for telling you goodbye
Maybe I was wrong for tryin’ to pick a fight
I know that I’ve got issues
But you’re pretty messed up too
Either way, I found out I’m nothing without you
‘Cause we belong together now, yeah
Forever united here somehow, yeah
You got a piece of me
And honestly,
My life (my life) would suck (would suck) without you
Being with you
Is so disfunctional
I really shouldn’t miss you
But I can’t let you go
Oh yeah
‘Cause we belong together now, yeah
Forever united here somehow, yeah
You got a piece of me
And honestly,
My life (my life) would suck (would suck) without you
‘Cause we belong together now, yeah
Forever united here somehow, yeah
You got a piece of me
And honestly,
My life (my life) would suck (would suck) without you
Moving On – Easier Said Than Done ?
Life can still change with the blink of an eye, so does relationships with others. Sometimes when a relationship has been damaged, we learn to deal with them and move on. “Time will heal” they say, but how ? After a term of reading about relationships (one of my module in school talks about such things) and personal experiences, here’s 5 tips that I gathered :
1. It takes time to repair a damaged relationship. You will experience resistance initially but you have to commit yourself to doing what it takes to get the relationship back on track.
2. Share your feelings, listen to each other’s concerns. Sometimes what we end up saying might just be plain outrageous and hurtful – sometimes we don’t even recall saying/doing whatever that was shared. It is hard not to get defensive but resist the urge to act on these feelings and be patient with each other.
3. Apologize and seek for forgiveness, even if you don’t feel like it’s your fault. It removes the barriers between each other and it is important to spend time together and talk about various issues that might affect your future relationship with the person.
4. Don’t let pride get in your way. There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in a relationship, if you start to justify your actions (which is most likely to happen) – stop and listen.
5. Make a sincere effort to get back on your feet, on your own. If you’re strong enough to face yourself, you can face anything in life =)
Relationships with people are a funny complicated matter, in which I think we all go alil mad sometimes. It’s definitely easier said than done to repair a relationship and there are tons of books out there which act as ’guidebooks’ in a way or another. Who should we listen to ? What’s the right step ?
I guess I chose to observe and learn from my own past experiences – follow your heart.
Movie Buzz : Iron Man 2 VS Ip Man 2
A quick review on both movies that I caught recently. It’s the battle between the IM 2.
Iron Man 2 – Even though I’m not exactly a hardcore comic book fan, it was rather easy to catch on the characters with its brief build-up and backstory scenes between the characters. One scene that I thought was superbly done was the grand prix scene in Monaco with the introduction of the character Vanko aka Whiplash. Another would be the scene whereby WarMachine and Iron Man battled against the Vanko and his droids army. Overall, the movie was really enjoyable but I thought the fighting scenes could be longer (like seriously, fighting against Vanko took less than 1 minute ?! That’s…noob.)
Of course, you can’t resist the charm of Robert Downey Jr and stunning Scarlett Johansson as Natalie Rushman. Apparently The Avengers will be out in 2012, I believe this is a good intriguing ‘trailer’ for fans out there. Jon Favreau (Director) handled the action and special effects with real skill, I have to say it was better than what I’d have expected.
Ip Man 2 – A real dramatic martial arts film, in terms of plot and characterization, it portrayed how Chinese people were treated by the British back in those days, as well as the western perceptions towards Chinese martial arts. A random rush of Chinese pride after watching this film, especially when you recall the history of how the Chinese have always been ‘bullied’ by the Japanese then British during that period. Patriotism much. (Jackie Chan should just step aside with his crappy police beat them up action flicks)
Sammo Hung is one of my favourite martial art actor and I think his character was terrific. It’s a shame that it won’t be a trilogy as to build up the characters more and there would be a better focus in Ip Man 2′s story. Impressive use of technology to showcase the traditional martial arts and I really enjoyed the fighting scenes. As usual, the villains in most movies are rather astonishingly dumb, like how 20 men would wait patiently for their turn to whack Donnie Yen or having one ignorant boorish British man offending the entire Chinese population, but that’s how movies do it – unfolding the next events.
If you’re not exactly into the action, I must add that Huang Xiaoming (Leung) is rather cute as Donnie’s first student. Too bad there wasn’t much worth-watching scenes of him except being a troublemaker (which instigated the fight that brings Yen and Hung together)
I’ll give this movie a 4.5/5 !
–
If you have only time for just one movie this summer, I would say go for Ip Man 2 !
