Johnny Depp

I love all his quirky roles in the movies with Tim Burton. He built himself a unique identity in the filming industry that no one would be able to exact a replica of him without lacking something. I haven't indulged myself with all his movies with Burton, but have only seen 5 out of the 8 movies they have made - all of it had Depp dressed in the most peculiar manner, but each clearly reflected the personalities of the characters.

One of my favourites, and also among the first to turn my attention to Depp, is "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

This movie was a 2007 musical film starring Johnny Depp opposite Helena Bonham Carter. This film did not receive high acclamation from the Singapore theaters. However, it was prized the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - or Comedy and receiving soaring commendations from the critics.

This film is about a skilled, vengeful barber returning to London to seek his revenge after being exiled for 15 years for a crime he never committed. The brutal killings and blood spurting scenes earned the film an M18 rating in Singapore.

In the movie, Depp starred as "Sweeney Todd". Covered with torn, tattered clothing, and surrounded with the deep, almost charred circles around the soulless eyes, Todd is easily comprehensible as a person of bottomless darkness.

The other 4 movies which I totally love are:

Alice in The Wonderland

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory 

Dark Shadows

Edward Scissorhands

In all these movies, it takes merely a glimpse of the body language to identify Depp's role (...Maybe except Edward Scissorhands). That was also the main factor that got me to recognise him as "Willy Wonka". Before that, I never knew Depp was Wonka, I just loved the almost singing voice whenever he spoke, and the very elegant and yet, in every manner, strange behaviour of the talented chocolatier he portrayed. I would say, it has, in all aspect, surpassed the 1971 musical film, "Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory", starring Gene Wilder as "Willy Wonka". Johnny Depp has brought the character on a different level.

I think of Helena Bonham Carter when I think of Johnny Depp (apart form Harry Potter). They have the most wondrous chemistry ever. Strangely enough, despite the multiple collaborations, none of the films ever showed the pair as couples. At the most is just the unrequited one-sided love. To make things even weirder, I had never once imagined Depp and Carter as couples. They are far too great to be working partners than couples. :D

The Ban Country

Singapore's latest effort to reduce the number of smokers in Singapore is to ban more places for smoking. Is this the only kind of measures Singapore can come up with to decrease the number of smokers? Has this solution proven to yield drastic decrease in the number of smokers the first time we implemented it? If it is, then good for us. But banning is not a long term solution, if it has not been very obvious to us yet. If it isn't, then to what purpose are we still implementing this even though the previous experience already showed us the result?

Personally, I don't believe that this solution is anywhere effective. simply because it doesn't tackle the root cause of why people smokes.

I am not a big fan of cigarettes because they stink, and I have tried convincing my dad to quit smoking. But he always left me speechless just by the backing of this one reason that i have yet to know a rebuttal for, and seems like the Health Promotion Board hasn't addressed it either. That is, smoking is the only recreation that he can depend on to relieve stress. Oh yeah oh yeah, my first response was of course, the standard answer, there are always other ways of relieving stress, not necessarily smoking right? But think about it, a packet of cigarettes may be expensive, but it is the quickest solution to relief stress! Other activities like reading, bowling, sports etc etc etc. that you can think of are either time consuming, or expensive activities. Of course, I'm not referring to all of us here, just specifically lower income groups who usually work 10 or more hours everyday. Long hours and low pay, surely Singapore doesn't think this standard reasoning that our citizens have been fed upon is able to convince this group of people?

To me, this sounds like a root cause for smoking. It's basic human needs - Work hard, play hard? You work too hard and play too soft , you find yourself sinking into depression. But playing can be expensive and time consuming in Singapore, so it only natural that smoking comes to as the solution! So now, the task here is just to provide an alternative for these people to engage in rather than passing laws for ban ban and more bans.

Speaking about bans, i mentioned that it is definitely not a long term solution. Enforcing more bans encourages people to be more creative in importing illegal cigarettes to Singapore, a good practice used in a skewed manner. Increase in illegal cigarettes means tighter control. Tighter control means more laws are passed down, more laws means limited freedom. Limited freedom means we should start to feel ashamed for calling ourselves a "democratic" country when we are being binded everywhere we go. So why come down hard on citizens when you only yield so little result?

The Korea Crisis

It's fascinating how we are living history. Especially now with the Koreas on the verge of war.  Sometimes I stop to think what would history write of this event 50 years from now? For now, we just fill ourselves with questions. Will there be another Korean War II? What would be the outcome of this war? Will this war finally leads to reunification? What would happen to Korea's economy? However, these questions will go unanswered until a decade later.

Korean unification is imminent. Whether it would happen in this crisis, or later in the future, is not up to us to decide. But I firmly believe the merge would come hopefully sooner rather than later. It could be during Kim Jong Un's reign, or maybe his son, or someone in North Korea. It could be possible that there is already plans to overthrow the Kim's family 100+ of power right within North Korea itself!

But still, it would have been nice to visit North Korea before the merge. After all, it is where the last traces of the 1940's lives is, and it must have been an eye-opener experience to see the propagandas and the drastically different lifestyle of North Koreans. Even their dressing is the 1940's style!

Now that China has announced a nay for North Korea's threatening actions to USA and South Korea, it seems highly unlikely that there will be a Korean War II. After all, North Korea can only be this strong. With only itself to enter the war is like saying to send the entire country into ruins.

It's a pity North Korea still believes in the 1940s' way of thinking - war solves everything. I don't need to be a know-it-all to know all these missile launches are plain stupidity. Do you even have enough food to feed your people before you start with all the nuclear threats? Can you be 100% sure that your citizens have a place for shelter before you decide to lunge into all these missile testing? Are your people receiving the proper education for them to survive? Or wait...North Korea feeds its citizens knowledge of ignorance, so that doesn't really matters...  Nevertheless, the basics aren't even there, so what's with you showing off your "highly advanced" nuclear technology?

So if we want to have an idea of how people think back in the 1940s, look at North Korea.

청담동 앨리스 Cheongdam-dong Alice

I only watched episodes 1 to 11, and the last episode of this drama. After episode 11, the abrupt turn of events turns ME off.

This is all, but my personal preference. It could have turned out to be a really enjoyable drama. The comedy is there, the story is there, the only thing that really pisses off is really the subsequent episodes after Se Kyung found out Seung Jo is the CEO of Artmeis, and Seung Jo found out Se Kyung actually likes him. I enjoyed even the last minute of episode 11,  but after which, all that was left of the drama were sorrows, guilt, and all the teary scenes (Not really sure if there were lots of teary scenes, but judging from the storyline, there were definitely more heart aches than laughters). 

Although it was necessary for Seung Jo to prove to his dad of his independency, but to propose a marriage right after your girl got to know your not-so-glory past? ...However, on the other hand, it just seems reasonable that Seung Jo would do that, taking into account his character in the series. Anyhow, I still don't like it that marriage was even brought up in this drama. 

I don't like it that Se Kyung decides to keep the truth away from Seung Jo. That was the most upsetting one, if she have revealed, the whole story would have CHANGED. But this has always been how dramas are made. Decide on one thing, but do the other, then to end the drama off is for the truth to be revealed. OhMyGod. Viewers need something new directors. Get us something that's unexpected from a drama, please? 

Wouldn't it be nice if instead of listening to Yoong Joo's advise, Se Kyung actually went ahead to tell the truth to Seung Jo although she knows that it means two things - 1. they are going to break-up, 2. Seung-Jo is going to get hurt because of this (again) - Then we have Seung Jo still willing to understand and forgive Se Kyung, and they both can finally embark on an honest relationship. The rest of the story would revolve around how these two lovebirds overcome obstacles and finally to mark it off, with all they have gone through, they finally gain acceptance from Seung Jo's father. Rather than having the entire episode building on aches aches and more aches, at least we get to enjoy lovey dovey moments after each heart-wrenching moments. Ohh.....That would have made me go crazy for another drama.

I love how Park Shi Hoo handled his role, although I have to admit some of his scenes are...overly exaggerated, but it IS a different side of him, and I loved it. Maybe it's just me being biased, or maybe not, but he didn't appear as mere pretense with all the weird stances that Seung Jo is capable of pulling, which I feel was quite a feat for Park Shi Hoo, considering that he has never done this in his previous dramas. And he sounds really cuteeeeee with the countryside accent. *heh*

Moon Geun Young, on the other hand, didn't really grab my attention as much as Park Shi Hoo (Ok, partly because she's female)  Maybe it was the "Mary Stay Out All Night" effect where she portrayed "Mary" really well in that drama. But seeing her in this drama somehow makes me feel that Se Kyung didn't really come alive with her acting. Maybe it was her chubby face, or maybe i was just too used with "Mary". In any case, i didn't particularly enjoy her scenes. Much less with her hair, I preferred her curly hair than straight hair.  Her appearance with straight hair makes her look A LOT more older than her real age. 

The Chance For "FREE"

There's a chance for free tickets to see Mr. Hyun Bin in Singapore!

I AM excited, even though strictly speaking, I'm not really a fan of his. At least, not to the extend of paying over $200 just to see his face. So I'm going all out to become as cheeeeeeeapskate as possible - winning that once-in-a-lifetime ticket!

I refused to watch this drama because there weren't any attractable guys in there. In fact, I didn't want to watch it because Mr. Hyun Bin starred in the series! Until that fateful day, E City decided to air episode 8 when I was desperate fueled by boredom. Then the craze came...

During the drama, my gaze were locked in his despair-ridden eyes. The next moment, I became 120% awake just at the slightest mentioning his name. This is the after-effect of starting a new series. People who didn't look that appealing to you at first could suddenly raise many levels higher till the point of becoming the centre of attraction.

I would have wanted to see him, if only his face didn't cost me $200. So in order to land myself in a win-win situation, I'm going to give all in my power to get the ticket FREE-OF-CHARGE.

This is insane, but I'm just going to do it...just for the fun of it :D