Which Side Are You On?

The sky this morning.

(sorely tempted to make corny references to 'the Dark Side of the Force')

The proportion of clouds compared to 'sky' also reminds me of this quote:

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean."
-- Arthur C. Clarke

Woman

Update entry accumulating the several past weeks. =) 'Woman' happens to be a common thread running through the rambling that follows.


-- be an evil woman --

So... I finished watching Yume wo Kanaeru Zou ('Dream-fulfilling Elephant') some weeks ago. It's a comedy about the elephant god Ganesha (ah, ITB mascot!) who appeared to people wishing to change themselves, and taught them how to do so by giving 'tasks'. Some of these tasks felt like the points in a self-improvement book, but there were also some that were pretty thought-provoking. The prelude special starred Oguri Shun as a salaryman who wanted to be successful, while the proper 13-episode series starred Mizukawa Asami (i.e. how I found this drama =3) as a woman who dreamed of a happy (married) life. There were plenty of parodies including one of Death Note I still feel like laughing at, cheesy as it might be. xD


Of all the tasks I particularly remember a rather peculiar one: "Be an evil woman". It certainly puzzled the main character, as she was on a mission to charm men. The task meant for her to say and do what she wanted instead of suppress her true opinions for the sake of being perceived polite or nice. The application in the drama was of course exaggerated for comedic effect, but I think it was a pretty good advice actually, for people with sheepish personality like mine, and also in the context of the Japanese society where one is always careful not to be rude or to inconvenience others. It means acting as oneself instead of merely reacting to the surroundings. It is, contrary to what it may seem, an appeal.

My watch-list then moved on to Majo Saiban ('The Witch Trial') -- that is, the real 'evil woman'. =) Well, deciding whether or not this woman is evil is a major point in this court drama, revolving around the lay judge system that was apparently newly put into effect in the country this year. (Anyone recall John Grisham's The Runaway Jury?) The case is of a woman -- an awe-inspiring one in many ways! -- accused of murdering her lover in order to inherit his wealth. As one of the characters said in the drama, though, "the verdict has nothing to do with the truth", because the judges were manipulated via threats as well as vague evidences. The string of twists was mostly quite intense (though I wished they hadn't played on the 'psycho villain' thing too much), and even the ending was... should I say... riling. =P In Indonesian term, 'geregetan', lol.


-- woman's day out --

As for life off-screen, I had a fulfilling me-outing last Saturday. Ehm, nothing particularly womanly in the activities (in fact, most were rather unwomanly-geeky if we were to stereotype) but... yeah... I'm a woman, and let's focus on the singularity of that noun instead of the gender implication? ^__^

It started with The Blue Mansion movie, which I've been wanting to watch. Eka only wants to know who kills the guy. xD As it turns out, this dark comedy focuses more on the family dynamics rather than the murder mystery. I think it is pretty well done and enjoyable. Being a local movie, it didn't lack the hilarious Hokkian moments, too. =D The only thing I have against it is the paranormal angle in the resolution, but I am quite content to apply my own interpretation to it.

Afterwards, I couldn't find my fave Korean hotplate tofu set in Plaza Sing kopitiam -- did I remember wrongly? -- so I ended up having a Yoshinoya lunch. Somehow I still feel a little insecure eating alone in malls =D; (while canteens are of course okay) but I liked the meal so it wasn't difficult to ignore the other customers who weren't watching anyway, lol.

My errands for the day were to get my watch battery changed [*check*] and to get a gift [*check*]. Speaking of which, I owe the good ideas for the two most recent gifts I've bought to the just-in-time suggestions from Yesie and Eka, respectively. Casual mentions of such things have good results! Thanks, gals.

Quite a number of stores were having 'moving out sales' in Plaza Sing, that I wonder if something is happening.. I took one round each in Fila and Hang Ten but didn't get anything from there. The more tempting one was Sembawang's half-price deal for all their CDs. The store corridors were not wide to begin with, and at that moment they were filled with stacks of CDs as well as (probably many times the amount of their usual) customers, but still I spent an hour or so scouring the title lineup, and honestly, felt kind of a bonding with the people there as we kept excusing ourselves while carefully maneuvering our bodies around each other. xD That and our love for music and our opportunistic kiasu-ness? Ahahaha.

I of course hovered back and forth the Asian pop section mostly, and was considering to get one of the albums by one of my favourite artists just for collection, but in the end decided there wasn't really a point to it. =P Not a very good fan, huh. But I figured I'd save my money to buy more worthy collectibles that they would still be producing. =3


-- girl-talk --

Moving on... yesterday, had a mini picnic at Vivocity with the choir bunch initiated by Rebecca, after the rehearsal. Two guys and four girls, and we still managed to have some women-talk. =3 Well, men-talk too, as Julia, as always, had a lot of gender observation stuff to share, on top of her very unique recent experience. I think I've always been too attracted to gender-defying views to not be skeptical about such categorizations, but as a generalization those are interesting and useful knowledge. And oh, August also linked us to this very funny 'lecture' on men's vs women's brains:




-- lady in red ...or blue? --

Last update... got a new pair of spectacles today because I (accidentally, of course) added one more crack to it a few days ago, and this time it was not quite negligible. =P While choosing the frame I was attracted to a flexible kind with modern-ish design, but it had to go with impact-resistance lens which were costly. For my second choice I hesitated between a red-black one (striking!) and a navy blue one (more 'general-purpose'). Red or blue -- warm or cool -- right or left -- 51 or 244? xD (Ahem, ignore the last one, just my random fandom bit.) In the end, my pragmatic side won, so...


-- masculine-feminine --

To close off! (Woooo, longest post in a while...) Just got this hilarious Rose of Versailles parodying commercial from DIsk (a 'childhood shattering' discovery, to borrow his term, so RoV purists please consider that a warning) and since it involves the all-female musical group Takarazuka, I thought it'd be appropriate. (Come to think of it, the story itself is already a gender-bender, and now that both 'men' are acted by women, it gets even more twisted!) Enjoy!

Let Death See You Smiling

I've been more selective with movies lately, and I'm happy to say that most of what I've watched I would gladly recommend to others. =) Today, it is My Sister's Keeper. It is sort of a 'dark horse' to me; I've seen the poster but haven't been attracted enough to check it out before Eka asked if I'd want to watch. The promise of non-straightforward moral issues in the synopsis got me interested, and while the movie did deliver those, they were not the strongest impression I got by the end of the movie, because the story had much more. Well, we cried a whole lot. xD The runny nose I got was quite reminiscent of Okuribito..

After Wiki I found out there were differences from the original book. I kinda like both versions in this case. The movie's soundtracks are very nice too...

Life is beautiful
We love until we die

Let the monsters see you smile,
Let them see you smiling.

Do I hold you too tightly?
When will the hurt kick in?

Life is beautiful
but it's complicated.

We don't need to understand
There are miracles, miracles

I will hold you tightly
When the hurting kicks in.

Stand where you are
We let all these moments pass us by.

This is ours just for a moment
There's a lot that we can give.

Also invested 21.90 dollars in a foldable umbrella from Umbrella Label today. Quite ex surely, but I've been fed up with under-five umbrellas whose frame snapped broken within the first few times I used them and were close to useless in the strong wind. Hopefully this one will be durable, I'll let you know after a few months maybe. It is baby-blue and has cute giraffes on it... what I would call an 'Eka-approved' feel, lol. Speaking of which, my taste in umbrella colours can run from humble dark green to elegant maroon to striking purple, depending on my mood at time of purchase. Hm..

We'll love you just the way you are if you're perfect.

What does it take
to live by one's own values,
when they do not coincide with popular opinion?

Constant self-assurance,
or else
just-as-stubborn mindset,
or else
smooth manners to conceal them well.

What does it take
when those very values
contradict the existence of these traits?

Just the answer to one question maybe:
"What am I living for?"

Acoustic Lovelies 2007

Did some catching up with artists who have enchanted me in the past, and they didn't disappoint indeed.

Three talented ladies, all of whom happened to release their latest albums in 2007. Live versions, because they shine like that.


Katie Melua, "If You Were A Sailboat"
Album: Pictures
Hunt down her other songs for: flowy, relaxing melodies like this one

Interesting bits from Wikipedia:

Melua said of the song: "...a lot of love songs tend to deal with the fluffy nice side of love, but this one deals with how you get very selfish when you fall in love with someone, and you don't want to share them with the world, you just want them all about yourself. ... Musically it sounds like a really nice smooth love song, but the message is pretty intense and quite dark."

Mark Radcliffe of BBC Radio 2 was amused by the lyric 'If you were a piece of wood, I'd nail you to the floor', and asked his listeners to send in equally strange lyrics and compose a parody song for her to sing, not expecting her to actually do so. However Melua sportingly contacted the show and agreed to play the song. The lyrics included 'If you were some tiling, I would grout you.' and 'If you were ten pints of beer, I would drink you down my dear'.




Missy Higgins, "Where I Stood"
Album: On A Clear Night
Hunt down her other songs for: emotive, brooding ballads like this one




KT Tunstall, "Saving My Face"
Album: Drastic Fantastic
Hunt down her other songs for: impressive live performances

Tatami Potato

Orthros no Inu has put me in the mood for detective dramas, so I finally got down to watching Ryuusei no Kizuna, which had actually been sitting on my harddisk since it was out months ago, even before Orthros. (The consecutive Nishikido-sidekick choices are purely coincidental.)

Given the somber theme, I was pleasantly surprised to see wonderful crack-ish sense of humor reminiscent of Kisarazu Cat's Eye -- and later found out that they indeed shared the same scriptwriter. While KCE's hilarity was more in the event twists (delivered in a rewind/fast-forward, fill-in-the-blank technique much like a roller-coaster ride yet with smooth and comprehensible transitions), Ryuusei's was in the way it delivered the story-within-story down to the mock title sequence and cast intro and the consistent Post-It tagline (watch it to know the significance). I was slow in catching the parodic reference to lead actor Ninomiya's "Letters from Iwojima", and had since been curious if the others were also references to things I wasn't aware of...

I find it impressive how this series managed to be hilarious and touching and thrilling, and achieved all three magnificently. The child actors also did a good job of making me cry along with them. I'm not sure if some would find the solution predictable (I did suspect a twist but aimed it at the wrong person =P) but to me the emotional tension was strong enough to keep me on the plot track they laid out.

Speaking of lead actress Toda Erika, Liar Game will apparently continue its storyline in Season 2 winter this year, and conclude in a final movie next spring. Looking forward. \(^^)/

Next in the watching queue... probably Majo Saiban (having stalked the lead actor on-and-off from Hanakimi backwards to Akihabara@Deep and forward to Maou), before I make the descent to the seemingly dark, dark Zeni Geba... after which I have the seemingly true-crack Love Shuffle ready for detox, lol. But depending if my mystery appetite continues, they may make way for Odoru Daisousasen, an Oda Yuuji classic which I just heard of recently and is still in procurement process.

(I've had more than a year to get/watch the above dramas, so don't let the long list mislead you about the extent of my obsession... yet.)

(--After all, I haven't told you about other shows I stalk, na? ~_^)

#1

always am weak for your tears
no matter how trivial they seem
and these
made me realize
to you, nothing is ever trivial
when it comes to us.


do i love you well? can i love you well?
-- ASKA, "Hajimari wa Itsumo Ame"

Stalking Cinema 2009

Went to watch The Proposal yesterday. All for Sandra Bullock, lol. It's entertaining. Not fantastic, but that was expected. Watched it alone, and I realized I've been too used to watching things on my computer, because I commented to myself and physically reacted to the movie as though I were in my own room. ^^;;;

Saw the trailer of The Blue Mansion, which has Adrian Pang and Swee Lin + Kay Siu, among others. Immediately had my eyes set on it! =D The narration in the trailer (see website) has that humorous-thriller Desperate Housewives feel (um, based on what I remember of that series, having watched, like, one or two episodes ^^0) and I think the plot development would be interesting.

...Then, that reminded me of another trailer that really impressed me a while back:


十月围城 (Bodyguards and Assassins)

I went through a few versions to find the exact one I meant (as above) =D; because at that time the powerfulness of the sequence really captured me -- particularly around 0:58 onwards. But teasers aside, I'm not quite into the genre so I'm not planning to watch it, but maybe we'll see. Big-name cast, big budget and all, and I have a soft spot for Donnie Yen, though that hasn't stopped me from missing many of his movies, ahaha...

Also saw the trailer for 余命1ヶ月の花嫁 (Yomei Ikkagetsu no Hanayome / April Bride) starring Eikura Nana and Eita. The original title literally translates to "Bride with a Month to Live" so the story is obvious enough. Ah well... I like both leads, but there have been many tear-jerker movies from this country, and this movie doesn't seem to have anything new. But I am still quite touched by the very first dialogue (see website for trailer):
Taro: What do you do from day to day?
Chie: (ponders awhile) Live.
So somewhere at the corner of my mind there is a tiny bit of expectation that it may have something different. Hm. =)

So far those are the ones that caught my eye from the theaters... As for TV series, I have made the mistake of starting on Orthros no Inu while it is still on-going, so now I'm quite impatient waiting for the next episode sub to be out. xP It is intriguing and has good moral points in my opinion, though I guess stalking-wise I should go for Mizukawa Asami's variety shows more than her dramas because while she is an okay actress, she is really so much more interesting in real life. ❤ Experience it here if hopefully you can be bothered to, and maybe I can drag you down this fandom hole. =)P