Revenge of the zZzzZzzz Monster

It's way way past my bed time and i'm still trying to keep awake... My eyelids are weighing a ton now.

Remember the assignment I was talking abt last week, the one which I supposedly shld have solved the issue. It's not solved!! There are still plenty of problems. I hope I can get some answers to them today. Or else....

G Force *3D

Watched on 6th Sep @ GV Marina

This is a much anticipated movie, at least for myself it is. I wasnt really expecting much of a fantastic plot of super cool effects. I was just looking for cute guinea pigs to entertain myself with. And I see in that respect, the movie did not disappoint.

The 3D effect in the movie was actually quite cool, cos the 3D was not only on the animated CGI, but also on the real life surrounding and humans. So there was depth in everything. But I have to say, they could have done more cos, that fantastic effect was not throughout the movie, certain parts were 3D pointless, while some parts are just COOL!

These guinea pigs are cooler than the CHIPMUNKS!!

1 thing I really dislike personally, is disney's recent fetish with using cockroaches!! OMG!! why are they depicted like cute and useful!!?? that part totally grossed me out!! TOTALLY!!!
Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7.5 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Darwin: Juarez admitted that she likes you, she said she only acted like she likes me to get you to be interested in her.
Blaster: So what makes you think she didnt say that just to make you like her?

Official Website

Pictures

A stressedful week turns out not bad..

This week started off as super stressedful as I was totally stuck on one of my assignments. I was stucked at one step and really couldnt figure my way out of it, I just got so pissed, so frustrated, I stared at it for hours and hours and I'm still stuck!!! I stared at it so much and so long that my other assignments snowballed! That simply compounded my stress further.

Good thing I decided to do this assignment early, I set an assumed deadline for myself on monday, which I COULDNT meet. But I managed to remind myself I would still have time for submission so I let it go first and decided to find some groupmates to discuss the assignment later. It turned out to be a good decision.

I worked on my other assignments and more or less got them done pretty fast. So I was quite happy with myself on that.

When I got to discussed my 1st assignment with my groupmates, I realised I was not the one who's most lost. Others are worst off, that made me feel slightly better but that still doesnt solve my problem. But during my lesson just now, somehow a edison's light bulb lighted up for me!! Eureka!! I realise what I could do to resolve the problem, that totally made my day.

Although I've not start rectifying the assignment yet, but I'm now confident it can be done much easier now. I'll leave that for tml.

Heads up, Chins up, Look ahead....

This week is by far the week which i've spent the most time in school. Even my mum knew i've been home late everyday, but I usually do come home late anyway, so.. watever. I've been in school ALOT!! So much more can be accomplished in school den at home. And I do feel i've done quite abit of work, which is WONDERFUL!

Had IFG training on friday, not the fierce kind of training, which is good for me. I enjoyed the matches, felt abit more in touch as compared to last week. I just wanna enjoy playing, not the trainings. Though as a coach I do know the importance of training up for a sport. I KNOW!! I'm trying to keep the weight off, so please dun bother me abt that, I'll bother myself!

But I do feel that I'm not spending enough time with dear. She's busy, i'm busy.. Either one of us is dead tired when we meet. So kelian, the both of us... Maybe I should start buying TOTO... :P

Oh yah, G Force, have not watched it yet, cos all the cinemas are only showing 1 3D session today, and they are full. Tml as well!! WTH!!

Dance Flick

Watched on 5 Sep 09 @ Funshion

This is a spoof movie by the Wayans. sometime back, I thought there was only shawn and marlon wayans, this movie made me realised they are huge!! thay have a whole family in the business. Oh they were the people behind scary movie too!!

Anyway, it's a lame, funny, pure senseless movie. Wanna have a good laugh?? go see it. I would not pay $10 on a weekend for it though.

Here's a list of spoofs they did, see if you can spot them if you ever watch this movie. That's always the fun part abt watch spoofs, identifying the links.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Free Willy (1993)
Bring It On (2000)
Honey (2003)
1 Night in Paris (2004) (V)
Catwoman (2004)
"The Biggest Loser" (2004)
"So You Think You Can Dance" (2005)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Step Up (2006)
Employee of the Month (2006)
Stomp the Yard (2007)
Flashdance (1983)
Mean Girls (2004)
High School Musical (2006)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Dreamgirls (2006)
Hairspray (2007)
Superbad (2007)
Juno (2007)
Enchanted (2007)
Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)
Twilight (2008)


Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: kindda lame, but makes some sense
Audio & Visual: not bad... good for laughs
Overall: 7 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

No more short weeks for me.. SobzZ

I started off the semester with only 3 days in my timetable. Happy days did not continue for too long. My 3 days school week is not effectively extended to 7 days. Thanks to the following commitments.

Tedious counting exercises for traffic flow...
Researching and reading up on transportation planning
Readings and writing essays for geography
Being the "tech" guy in my new venture creation group

FYP video-ing to start asap..
Training for IFG, though not very tough, it's quite shack for me in this condition.

so basically there goes my free days... time to camp in school more and time to learn to like that... !! :P :( :)

I wanna watch G FORCE!! :)

Year One

Watched on 27 Aug @ The Cathay

This movie is so forgetable I totally forgot abt it, until now.

Story wise, it's really not abt the story, the flow of the story is ridiculous. It plainly just for laughs. Jack black is on the verge of become the comedian with the least number of tricks in his bag. His first few comedies, yeah great & interesting. Well It seems he he no other tricks to show. I was disappointed with that, utterly!

It tries to fill the movie with a few spoofs of biblical characters which I'm not really familiar with, perhaps due to the fact i'm not christian. But I doubt christians would be happy abt it too.

Micheal Cera on the other hand gave a pretty ok performance, I think it's cos of the role. It's just so much like his previous few roles. Just the nerdy guy. Not too bad.

Watch it, only if you have nothing better to go for.. But beware of the excessive amounts of sexual jokes, not too advisable unless you want your partner to know how u know abt horny jokes... :P

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: Lame but funny
Audio & Visual: nothing exceptional
Overall: 6 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Oh: I'm a virgin by choice.
Zed: Ha. Not your choice!

Official Website

Another week has gone

another week of school has past, and progress is going quite well so far. I like it. Keep it up!!!

The tempo for this week is simply to kick start all my projects and get the ball rolling. That's the part which I thought I did pretty well.

I gave advise for a first assignment for my traffic flow module.
I gave a whole list of ideas for Singapore tourism slogan generation.
I came up with a pretty cool idea for new venture creation module.
I kick started some discussions on transportation planning.

All sounds good to me now. JIayou jiayou jiayou!!

Management

Watched on 23 Aug 09 @ GV Vivocity

A romantic comedy was the description by GV. BUT!! It's really only romantic in small parts comedic in even smaller parts. But again, that's not to say that this is a bad movie. It's just somewhere between average & more average. I bet i'll forget abt it after a while.

The lead, Mike is the main romantic component of the movie, yet he does do it the classic romantic way. It's his give it all for love, regardless anything actions that make him romantic.

Comedically, Al who played Mike's good friend and only showed up past halfway thru the show, is the spark of comedy.

A huge thing i dun really like abt this movie is that, the story likes to jump. It's like the director has the "click" remote control, and he keeps pressing skip!!

What I like abt this show, it's a positive movie. The underlying meaning I find is that, many people are stuck at some point in their life. But being stuck is not the end, we just have to learn to move on.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 6 out of 10
Overall: 6 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

Post Interim Presentation

For the past week or so, i've been freaking out abt this presentation. Cos i really have no background abt this sort of thing, then i'm really unsure abt the things I need to achieve for this presentation. But I think everything turned out quite ok for this event.

I think I did quite an ok job and left the examiners without much questions to ask except for those which I have an idea abt. That in itself is quite an achievement I think. And more importantly, I might actually have a good idea of what else to do next. Perhaps this could be my one significant achievement in NUS, to be able to publish an academic paper for use in Singapore.

It does sound quite "woah", yah??

Well that's still far fetch, I still have plenty of work to do.

With this interim out of the way for the moment, I have other things to worry abt, I have 4 modules this semester and all 4 does involve projects intensively. So not much rest time left for me. I think it's just tonight and tml i'll have to work on the other stuff already. Good thing, I've already sent some "arrows" out, waiting for reply to get some sense of my next step. Now i'll just WAIT!!

Week 2 of School

Week 2 has begun, although i'm kindda like a part time student now cos none of my lessons start before 12noon, and I only have 3 day week so far.

But there's LOTs of things to do already. Readings & projects!!

District 9

Watched on 16th Aug 2009 @ The Cathay

I watched this film without much knowledge abt it except for the fact that it should involve aliens. This film managed to leave me kindda lost at the end of the movie. Quite a lot of ???s left the cinema with me. Why did the aliens come? Why are these aliens so uncivilised?

I sensed that the producers are using aliens to mimic the actions of whites in south africa,during the apartheid, hence the location in Johanesburg and the military encampments.

For most of the show it's actually quite grossed, the way people and aliens were injured and killed, DISINTEGRATED!! In the end, it's a simple plot of a bunch of aliens trying to go home.

Kindda let down by the ending actually, I was hoping more was explained clearly.

It's not a bad movie, but not fantastic either.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10

Official Website

The Proposal

Watched on 16th Aug 2009 @ The Cathay

This is a GREAT movie to watch to cheer yourself up!! It's really funny, but not lame. It's actually believable. Great acting, especially by Ryan Reynolds who plays Andrew Paxton. Sandra Bullock does look a tad old, but perhaps that's needed for her character. Successful & "old"?

Beyond the acting, I think we should really credit the scriptwriters for this one. The lines are fantastically witty. It's so well written you can enjoy the show by purely listening.

So my recommendation is simple, WATCH IT!!

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8.5 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 8 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Andrew Paxton: [referring to the story about how he proposed to Margaret] You know what? Actually, Margaret loves telling this story, so I'm just gonna let her go ahead and do that. We should just sit and rapture.
Margaret Tate: Wow, okay... wow, where to begin... the story... Well, um, wow... Okay, well, um, Andrew and I... Andrew and I were about to celebrate our first anniversary together and I knew that he'd been itching to ask me to marry him and he was scared, like a little tiny bird. So, I started leaving him little hints here and there because I knew he wouldn't have the guts to ask...
Andrew Paxton: That's not exactly how it happened.
Margaret Tate: No?
Andrew Paxton: No, no, I mean I picked up on all of her little hints... this woman is about as subtle as a gun. Yeah, no what I was worried about was that she might find this little box...
Margaret Tate: Oh, the decoupage box that he made, where he'd taken the time to cut out twenty little pictures of himself, just pasted all over the box. So beautiful! I opened that beautiful little decoupage and out fluttered these tiny little hand cut heart confettis and once they cleared, I looked down and I saw the most beautiful, big...
Andrew Paxton: ...fat nothing! No ring.
Grandma Annie: No ring?
Grace Paxton: What?
Andrew Paxton: No, but inside that box, underneath all that crap, a handwritten note with the address to a hotel, date and time. Real Humphrey Bogart type stuff. Masculine. Naturally, Margaret, she thought...
Margaret Tate: I thought he was seeing someone else... so it was a terrible time for me, but I went to that hotel anyway, I went there and I pounded on the door. But the door was already unlocked. As I swung open that door, there he was...
Andrew Paxton: Standing.
Margaret Tate: Kneeling.
Andrew Paxton: Like a man.
Margaret Tate: On a bed of rosebuds, in a tuxedo. Your son. Your son... and he was choking back soft, soft sobs. And when he held back the tears and finally caught his breath, he said to me...
Andrew Paxton: 'Margaret, will you marry me?' and she said 'yep', the end!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Margaret Tate: I am not getting in that boat!
Andrew Paxton: Fine, see you in three days.
Margaret Tate: You know I can't swim!
Andrew Paxton: Hence... the *boat*.

Official Website

Pictures

Orphan

Watched on 14th Aug @ The Cathay

I seriously have no idea why we would actually have the urge to watch this movie. The trailers have been showing for a while, and it's really obvious it's going to be a movie that would try to scare you from start to the end.

Well, it's scary, cos the irritating director uses the scary music and tactics to make u feel threatened. You will always feel there's something that's gonna pop and scare you, BUT sometimes its just a bluff. Which really builds up the atmosphere for the next scare! BOO!!

The plot of this movie should be considered quite unique, but due to me having just watched "Murderer". I kindda guessed this plot and twist halfway thru the movie. So I concluded Aaron Kwok's "Murderer" is the spoiler for this movie.

Actors wise, the kid, Esther, really creeps you out!!!! She is beyond SICK!!!!!!

My recommendation, if you plan to watch this movie, catch murderer too..

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 7.5 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Kate Coleman: Esther? We have to talk about last night.
Esther: Do we?
Kate Coleman: Yes, we do... See, there are certain things that grownups do that children aren't supposed to see, and, uh... that was one of 'em.
[a pause; Esther keeps painting]
Kate Coleman: Esther, listen to me.
[Esther turns to Kate]
Kate Coleman: When grownups love each other very, very much... they want to show each other that love; they want to express it...
Esther: I know. They fuck.

Official Website

Official Trailer

Pictures

Back in School!!

First day back in school. There's this scary feeling surrounding me, cos it seems like this bunch of newbies in NUS are SCARY!! 4 years in NUS, I dun think i've seen a first day like this.

The library was FULL!!
The carpark was FULL!!
The Canteens are PACKED at 3pm!!

Handed in my interim report finally, many many thanks to dear for helping me collate the data. It's really tedious. Perhaps 1 or 2 days rest is all i'm going to get cos, the interim presentation is coming up next week.

Also took a look at the Lenovo Laptops on sale this year. It's quite bad cos they are selling the huge and tiny models only. I wanna get a new one this year.. but I wonder which one to get...

August Rush

Deadlines!! BLOODY DEADLINES!!

G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra

Watched on 8 Aug 2009 @ Cineleisure lvl 6

This is a cool movie to watch. Nothing much in the effects that's new or exciting, but it does remind me of a modern version of the mummy. Notice the way the nanomites eat away everything, just like the scarabs in the mummy series.

This movie has a hugely popular cast, that alone would be quite an attraction. Marlon Wayans plays Ripcord, a joker character in the movie, bright spark actually. Like his performance and interaction with Scarlet a lot.

There will be sequels, and i'm looking forward to them.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Duke: Ok, that was crazy... What happened to you?
Ripcord: I went through the train. What happened to you?
Duke: I jumped over it.
Ripcord: [pause] You can do that?
Duke: Yeah, you should have read the instruction manual.
Ripcord: This thing has an instruction manual!?


Pictures

Road Trip: Beer Pong

Watched on 7th Aug 2009 @ Funshion

This is a another movie by the Road Trip franchise, previous editions include Roadtrip, Eurotrip. It usually involves 3 friends who decide to go on a trip during their school holidays. Usually college students, and wacky stuff always happen along the way.

It's basically American Pie style humor and entertainment. Lot's of sex jokes, crude jokes, lame jokes. It's basically simply brainless entertainment.

Watch it if you are in need of a laugh or a moment of bimbo-ism. :P

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 5 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 6 out of 10

Human Counting

I have severely underestimated the difficulty of counting human traffic. People never walk in straight lines and they overtake like nobody's business. HEADACHE!!!

Murderer

Watched on 27 Jul 2009 @ Cineleisure Lvl 9

I dun usually watch chinese movies in the cinemas anymore, simply cos they churn out in DVDs too fast. And there is seldom any need to watch it for any visual effects. But this time, I'm watching it at the cinema cos I wanna see Aaron Kwok in action. And the results... well, let's put in it in 2 ways..

Acting wise it's really superb, regardless of the lead, Aaron Kwok or the rest of the supporting crew. I think they did a fantastic job. They are really really into the character, even though the version I watch is in mandarin whereas the original shld be in cantonese. If you look beyond the weird lip-synching cos of language. It's a fantastic job, he might be up for best actor once again. And the actor who played his son in the movie, great acting, cause even I wanted to kill him!!

Next when we look at the script, the flow, the story, the plot... It has a pretty good 100mins before turning ridiculous in the last 20mins... Sometimes I think they think too hard to provide twists that people would not expect. They went totally out of this world this time!! crazy I tell you!!

My advice, wait for the dvd, and you will not get as fed up as I did...
Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 5 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 6 out of 10
Overall: 5.5 out of 10