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Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

A Beautiful Mind

Posted 2002-03-20 (水) 午後8:02 by terra

I just watched A Beautiful Mind. My God, it’s so much better than I had expected. The film’s well-crafted and wonderfully acted. The film never gets boring and is sentimental but not overdone.

I’ll have to read the book when I get the chance. Maybe after my exams and during the holidays. I’m pretty sure the community library has it. Why? Because I’d heard about the book more than a year ago from my grandfather, before the film even began its preproduction stage. One day, while I was at my granddad’s house, he showed me this white, hardcover book that he had borrowed from the library, and he was telling me what an interesting character, John Nash, a mathematician who had won the Nobel prize a few years ago had been. How he suffered from schizophrenia for over 30 years and eventually overcame his demons while in the process producing other brilliant pieces of work despite his illness. I thought then, “wow”. But never thought of reading the book even though I never forgot the story in the abstract.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: A Beautiful Mind, John Nash, library, Nobel, schizophrenia

Good intentions

Posted 2002-01-06 (日) 午前1:13 by terra

I had meant to sleep early: my eyes are almost hurting because they are so tired and dry. Looking at the time now however — I guess not.

I wanted to mention something about this last year (actually, to be less vague, over a week ago) in my blog, but because blogger.com was down, I put off the update until I forgot all about it. Anyways, just wanted to say that I watched Miyazaki Hayao’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi last week in the best cinema in Singapore and totally loved it. I can’t wait for it to be released on DVD. I already have the Mononoke Hime DVD at home, so it’ll be the second Miyazaki film that I’ll purchase.

While we’re on the topic of Miyazaki films, My Neighbour Totoro was showed on TV on New Year’s Day morning. I only managed to catch the last half-an-hour of it. However, the version that was being shown was the Chinese-dubbed version of it, which as usual sounded awful. To make it worse, the broadcasters must have used an old copy of the film or something because the picture quality wasn’t too fantastic. The colours looked murky and the lines of the drawings were blurred.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: anime, Avalon, DVD, Final Fantasy, Kawai Kenji 川井憲次, Lord of the Rings, Miyazaki Hayao 宮崎駿, music

I love the LOTR

Posted 2001-12-22 (土) 午前9:59 by terra

This is a bit belated, but I just have to say: Lord of the Rings, what a great, great movie. The best fantasy movie in years, and a completely different cinema experience from what we’re used to seeing. This should be what movie-making should be about. And the score, damn, Howard Shore, you’ve convinced me to buy your album. What a nice present to get for your family for christmas.

The only thing that marred my viewing experience was the horrible audience who couldn’t appreciate the subtleties of the film. This bunch of women at the back just couldn’t shut up throughout the movie, even in the quiet moments of the film. How unfortunate for them that they missed out on one of the greatest movies ever, even though they had paid S$7.50 and were propped in one of the best seats of the theatre.

Right now, I’m done with re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring and starting on The Two Towers. I have the Alan Lee embellished hardcover edition that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. I see the movie-tie-in mass paperback editions in the market right now, they just don’t do the book justice. Even though the prices of the hardcover editions have increased over the years (My book cost about S$70 four years ago, the same books now cost around S$105), I think they are a great investment if you can afford.

Subjects: Books 書物, Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: anime, Christmas, cinema, gift, Lord of the Rings, Miyazaki Hayao 宮崎駿

Anticipating the FOTR

Posted 2001-12-20 (木) 午後12:41 by terra

I’m going to watch The Fellowship of the Ring tonight. =) Bought the tickets from the cinema when it opened its doors today. The blasted cinema… its first show was supposed to be showing at 10:10 AM in the morning, so I expected the booths to be open at around 9:40 so I was there waiting around that time. It made sense didn’t it? But noooo… it turns out the cinema’s run by a bunch of slackers and it only opened at 10AM sharp. *grumble* I guess I wasn’t the only one pissed because there was a bunch of people wanting to watch the early show with not-very-happy faces. I must admit one good thing about Singapore is that you can easily buy tickets to opening-day screenings/sneak previews on the day itself without having to queue up for a long time as long you go to book the tickets early. Alternatively, you can also book via Internet/Phone if you have a debit/credit card. Call me old-fashioned but I prefer the traditional means of booking.

Anyways, It’s the 8:15 show, that means the show will probably end at around 11:25.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Gratifications

Tags: cinema, Lord of the Rings

Amidala

Posted 2001-05-31 (木) 午前11:24 by terra

I had a Star Wars photo reference for this. Basically did a sketch on a piece of paper, scanned it in and coloured with Photoshop. The hair details and face contours were drawn in with the mouse using the airbrush and paint tools. The picture could have been less blurry if I had given myself more time to complete it but I sort of lost interest after a while. ^_^

Amidala

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Tags: Natalie Portman, photoshop, Star Wars