Happy New Year!

Have a good year ahead! :D

The Many (Recent) Virtues of Natalie Portman

'Nuff said. ;)

Swim Until You Can't See Land

Going to ditch the whole 'Submerge Your Senses' thingy and do it more subtly instead. ;)

This is my ode to one of the greatest songs I've heard in recent history.

Hope you like it. :)

2011: Year of the Western

There used to be a time when the word 'Western' was not seen without the word 'spaghetti' and the best thing about the whole genre was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Ennio Morricone's sweeping soundtrack that captured the mood and the dangers of the Western frontier. But thanks to the (almost) runaway success of the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men (which I consider to be a Western, despite not being included in the genre, because of its mood) and the excellent slow-burn of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the Western is making its slow but sure comeback into the mainstream.

2011 will be peppered with Western, Western, and more Western with promising line-ups.

First up is True Grit. Sure, it was released in 2010, but we'll be hearing more about its virtues and whatnots in 2011 when the awards season is in full swing and the movie makes its rounds outside of the US.

According to IMDB, True Grit revolves around a stubborn young woman who enlists a tough U.S. Marshal to help her track down her father's murderer. Reviews have so far been very positive, but it's a no-brainer anyway since this is another work of the (mostly) faultless Coen brothers. 

Here's the trailer:

This here next Western is an unconventional one that I am personally anticipating (would you expect anything other than Mr. Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2?): Cowboys and Aliens.

Yes, laugh while you may. Besides being helmed by a director who is known for his inventiveness and ingenuity, the cast billing will floor you: Daniel Craig, Harrison friggin' Ford, Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde. I believe you have stopped laughing. 

Official summary for the movie as given by Universal Pictures is as thus: 

"The Old West.. where a lone cowboy leads an uprising against a terror from beyond our world. 1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don't welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It's a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he's been..."


And if you need more conviction as to its potential awesomeness, here be its trailer down here:

The Western genre is also being embraced by the animation genre, it seems. Johnny Depp lends his voice talents to the animated film, Rango which, officially that is, is about a chameleon with an identity crisis. 

But from the trailer a few cowboy/sheriff antics seem to be involved. 

Giddy up fellas! We're in for one helluva ride in this here comin' year. Yee-ha!

What I REALLY Want for Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone without any presents for fortunate ol' me. Celebrating Christmas and the tradition of gift-exchanging is not practised in my family, but I'm someone who so easily gets influenced by temptations around me, so when I see the Christmas decor in shopping malls and hear tales of what others got for Christmas, I can't help but feel a little jealous. Ah well, human nature eh?

If I could somehow choose what I COULD have for Christmas, I'd choose any one of the Criterion Collection DVDs. Yeap, any one will make me extremely, EXTREMELY happy.

(from left to right, up to down: Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) by Jean-Luc Godard; Cronos by Guillermo del Toro; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie by Luis Bunuel; Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander) by Ingmar Bergman; Le Samourai by Jean-Pierre Melville; Eyes Without A Face (Les yeux sans visage) by Georges Franju; Rebecca by Alfred Hitchcock; Under the Roofs of Paris (Sous les toits de Paris) by Rene Clair; 

and Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa)

Other choices that would be just as nice include this gorgeoussss swallow-print blouse by Warehouse:

Love the wonderful print! Check out more about the blouse here.

A Playstation 3 would be nice as well!

Or a new phone (mine is 3 years old now and its speakers have gone soft):

This, my friends, is the Samsung Galaxy S. 

Yes I know, I'm drooling too.

OR... a couple of (original ;P) PC games would be nice too:

Yeah, I'll just keep on dreaming...

Christmas Trees for the 21st Century

Ho ho ho! As the merry festivity dawns upon us, this year it has struck me that Christmas trees are getting odder as they conform to our growing desire to be modernist.

Here are a few examples:

Love those inventive ideas!

I think Taylor Swift did an okay job on her rendition of 'Last Christmas', but it was too rushed in certain parts in my opinion. My favourite version is still Glee's.

Merry Christmas!

Review: TRON: Legacy

Let me begin by saying that I have not watched the original TRON. Going into this movie, I have not an inkling as to what this movie is really about, i.e. the words Tron, Kevin Flynn, ENCOM, all do not make any sense to me. I only know that it had kick ass trailers and what promises to be an awesome soundtrack by Daft Punk (oh yeaaaahh).

And after I was done with the movie, I was ready to dive into watching the original.

TRON: Legacy is basically a passing-the-torch movie involving a father-and-son relationship (Jeff Bridges in a dark robe with glo (I will refer to the painfully cool light strips as 'glo' from now on) trimmings is remarkably reminiscent of Master Kenobi, bringing to mind another father-and-son scifi movie) and another ethical question for the digital age. Much like The Social Network, TRON: Legacy questions the good of allowing excessive digitalisation of our lives. And obviously, judging from the orange glo trims of the enemy, it's not. In this sense, the movie does not open your mind and moves you to have profound thoughts about what our increasingly digitalised lifestyle will amount to in the fast-approaching future, nor does the presentation of the dark, dystopian world of The Grid make you fear it, but TRON: Legacy raises shadows of those issues in a very, very stylish way.

Every frame is, pardon my juvenile self, just so cool. There's impressive glo-trimmed machinery (the lightcycle. is. AWESOME) everywhere you look, super cool glo outfits on various characters, and even Jeff Bridges' lair. The futuristic look of TRON: Legacy has been gotten right down pat. The action scenes are executed very stylishly as well; the disc fight (or is it war?) scene, as well as the Grid challenge are bound to go down as some of the coolest, slickest futuristic duels I've seen this year. Action-wise, you're in safe hands.

What of the characterisation? I thought the cast was solid, all the way from Jeff Bridges' multiple performances (they really, REALLY got his younger self rendered well) to Michael Sheen, who popped out of nowhere to give us a zany version of himself. Olivia Wilde was cute as the quirky but tough wide-eyed wonder Quorra.

But the real redeeming feature of the movie, besides the painful stylishness, is Daft Punk's soundtrack: a harmonious blend of 8-bit, orchestra, and electronica that will stay with you (in your iPod, that is) long after the movie's done. Combine that and the fast-moving glo trims and a furious disc fight and you're in techno-heaven.

And please do yourself a favour and get yourself a mini musicgasm courtesy of Daft Punk:

You're welcome.