Thursday, March 30, 2006

Das Boot

Das Boot

In conjuction with my recent flurry of watching videos in der Bibliothek, I watched Das Boot this afternoon. Nope, it's not a film about a boot (shoe), it's a film about a Boot (German for boat), more specifically a U-Boot, a submarine.

This shall be a short entry, short as in Joan's standards of short, because she is damn tired today and her brain is dead and she wants to watch football later too. The voting for the blogfest thingie is closing like soon, so maybe you can cast your last minute votes for it here:
http://nusartsclub.org/blogfest/
Thank you~

This film was touted as the best war film of the 1980s, so I decided to use that to occupy my time. I always thought our library was stocked with the latest DVDs and interesting titles, I was rather disappointed to see that Das Boot came in a video. A video as in a video tape. Damn old school sia... But at least it's still watchable, only a little bit grainy but that can be overlooked.

The story is about a group of naval officers on board this submarine U-96 and their life in the sea, with lots of battle scenes fighting British destroyers and also trying to control damage and how they tried their best to survive. It's the very standard kind of war film where you know what is the outcome after watching too many of them and after having studied so much about them in class, especially for someone like me who've watched like one whole semester of war films last semester for the module total war.

I bring up the module total war because I thought that Das Boot reminded me very much of this other film I watched in total war, The Dam Busters. Okay, the Dam Busters is about the air force while Das Boot is about the navy, but essentially the theme behind it is still the same, war takes away the lives of the elites. Not of the everyday common volk who don't have the brains to differentiate between flying and sailing, but the elites who gone through vigourous education and training. Das Boot didn't show it very clearly because the men were already jaded from war, but the Damn Busters showed it very clearly in the last scene where there was a tour of the men's dorms and many plagues and trophies were on display with the names of schools like Cambridge and Oxford plastered over. The men who died were like the top in their batches in prestigous universities.

I was glancing through IMDb's message boards and there's this person who said that Das Boot reminded him of Stalingrad. I think I'll watch that this weekend, but not in der Bibliothek. Ich habe das DVD. Ich kann das in mein Hause sehen. I think I'm made watching this many depressing war films. In another message board someone was saying that Das Boot is one of the most depressing films of all time, then the thread went off tangent with people talking about the saddest films they've watched. Depressing and sad is two different matter. Das Boot is depressing but not sad. The Dam Busters is also depressing but not sad. Many war films are depressing but not sad. Sad is like Titanic, tear inducing, but that's all. War films documenting real life events are depressing because you know these are real people who died, you feel for the war.

I think after watching Stalingrad this weekend I shall not watch anymore war films. Next on my list possibly Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run). Seems pretty depressing too, but at least not that a heavy topic. And it's only 80min long, unlike all those war films, all like at least two and a half hours long. *shudders*

Das Boot, I gave it 9/10 on IMDb's voting, I docked the one point because I compared it to Der Untergang and because I thought that the film was a tad bit too long and draggy. And maybe because video is just uncomparable to DVDs.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

The Manhattan Fish Market

After hearing so much about it, we finally went there for a meal. We went there after watching this movie. Noticed that I've been using "we" and in that entry I also used "we" throughout but never once said who were the "we"? The "we" shall be unravelled later on as this post unfolds itself.

This is now my third entry for the night, please people, there isn't much time left till the end of the blogfest thingie, so please vote for me here okie? I'll promise to continue blogging even if I get lost deep in the Schwarzwald. Actually I'm really hoping I can get lost in there then find myself in Baden-Baden at the resort housing the English football players~ wahaha~ Okay, people, can vote for me here?
http://nusartsclub.org/blogfest/
I'll promise to ask for a few more autographs if I lose my way in the Schwarzwald.

The Manhattan Fish Market
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At first we had only wanted to look at the prices and the range of food since they weren't really fans of seafood, but it turned out that that price range was actually quite a fair bit lower than the prices at Fish and Co, so we decided to eat there. Yea... Fish and Co's really exorbident sia...

The interior of the place.
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Not bad. Though it reminds me very much of Fish and Co.

The Menu.
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Looks very nice, I like the red, and I like the pictures.

The table settings.
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Reminds me a lot of Fish and Co. Maybe all Fish and Chip places just happens to be like that, I don't know. Or maybe I shouldn't be comparing, I should just shut up and eat, but as Fish and Co seems to be the flagship in this fish and chip line, one cannot help but make comparisons. Actually, remember Harry's Fish and Chips which used to be at the Stadium there? I miss the fish and chips there man...

Okay, we had wanted to try out the fish and chips there. The Dory Fish and Chips to be more precise. But I thought, since I would be blogging about it, and since I'll be having to take pictures of the food to display, why are we all ordering the same thing??? But I can't manage to change the mind of those two, so in the end I chose to eat something else. But then, this makes this entry more interesting. Okay, I don't know if it would interest anyone, but personally, this suaku here was very amazed.

But that would be later, our food wasn't arriving until we whiled our time away camwhoring. I mean, we had a window seat!!! Oops, not window, MIRROR seat~

The we were...
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Jinwei
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Jinsen
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Joan

Jinwei will look shuai when he loses weight; Jinsen will look shuai if he wears contacts; Joan will look mei if she makes up. Unfortunately, only Joan will make up when se goes out; Jinwei is too lazy to lose weight; Jinsen doesn't wear contacts, so in the end there's only one halfway good looking person. erm... bah~ I'm too buay hiao bai liao le. Nah... I'm not really that good looking, I just know how to angle myself to look a bit better than in real life. But at least I don't resort to photoshopping my faces, only make up.

Jinwei's Dory Fish and Chips
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Jinsen's Dory Fish and Chips
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It looks smaller than Jinwei's. lol~

And while they were deciding which fish to choose from they were like thinking of what is a dory fish and even wanted to ask the waitress. duhz~

Joan's Cream of Mushroom and Ice Peach Tea
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I added to make my meal a set. I a bit regretted my decision, but I couldn't seem to be able to pass any soup of the day which happens to be mushroom soup.
The ice peach tea is comparable to that of Delifrance's, not bad, there's the peach taste while retaining the fresh brew of tea.
The Cream of Mushroom was a tad disappointing. It came not piping hot, not that I'd want to scald my tongue, but just that although it wasn't cold, it just don't taste that freshly cooked as I'd expect.

Joan ordered a something grilled fish and flaming prawns. When I read flaming prawns I thought it would be like flaming spicy, but the waitress reassured me that it was not spicy. Wanting to eat prawns before I go deep into the Black Forest, I ordered that to satisfy myself. It turned out to be and eye popping experience.
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This is what they meant as flaming. Like Flaming Lambourghini. Stupid me, I should have thought of that.

When my food came, and the waitress burned my prawns I was shocked. Then remembering that I have a mission on hand I thrusted my handphone over to the more strategically placed Jinwei to take photos. The waitress was pretty game, when she heard I wanted to take photos she paused for me to set up and also burned my prawns a few more times to get a good shot. She even obeyed Jinwei's order of smiling to the camera (that's another photo, taken after this). I give them thumbs up for their service~ It turned out later during our course of meal that quite a lot of people also ordered flaming stuff, and the fire burned a couple more times and nobody looked surprised, or even stopped to take photos. I think I'm damn suaku~

The end product
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Bigger version
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I eat local food cannot without sng kam; I eat western food cannot without lemon~
The fish was normal, I'd have preferred to have had fried fish.
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The prawns was fabulous man. I loved that sauce over it, and the prawns were big and succulent, and easy to deshell without me using hands.
The chips were normal, like Fish and Co.
The rice was too much for me to take it, and the rice rids the taste of the fish, I don't think rice and fish goes that well together, or maybe it's only that fish the problem.

After we were done, there started to form a long queue to enter to place, the waiter hurriedly cleared out tables. We had wanted to hang about longer and chat, but when we saw the long queue behind us, we decided to well, vacate our seats and let those poor hungry fellows have something to eat. "zou lor" the we just pai pai our pi gu and left the Manhattan Fish Market.

*spot anything weird?*

As we walked towards the escalator, Jinsen and Jinwei stepped on it, I was about to step on it, some people were behind us, I went, "Oh no!"

"We haven't paid yet leh!"

Oh my God... Panic~

Jinwei and Jinsen hurried up the escalator and bumped into the people behind us, with them staring at us with a weird look in their eyes, we rushed back there.

Our table was cleared by then, and the whole seating was rearranged to accommodate the other customers, and every waiter seemed to be busy. So we just stood in the middle of the place with all the customers staring at us weirdly, remember we rushed in without queuing, and well panicked some more. In the end we told a kind manager that we haven't paid yet, and we went straight to the counter to pay up, the three of us unglamly digging out money in full view of all the amused customers.

Really, if I hadn't remembered, would we have had paid up? Don't tell me nobody noticed we'd just left like that without paying?

wahahaha~

I've missed half and hour of Champions League match, I don't care, I don't even know who's playing who. All I cared about was that my team's out. What the bloody fucking asshole of Barcelona~ I curse them lose sia~ And I want the other London team to fall out too.

Moody Joan
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Too bad got extras behind...
wahaha~

Kim's Hokkien Mee

I was supposed to blog about this last night but I was too tired. I'm tired today too, but well, I need to have something to do as I wait for Champions League night. So, three entries I shall post in a night, with this being my second one, pretty jialat hor...

If you think me jialat, can please vote for me here:
http://nusartsclub.org/blogfest/
I think I'm the only one out of the rest of the finalists blogging this much, of course, I'm the only one who doesn't have any term papers nor exams to mug for, but also of course non of them are needing to buy airplane tickets, packing luggage, or settling irritating administrative stuff like me. bleahz~

Actually I wouldn't be blogging about this piece if not for the father.

daddie: You must remember to tell all your friends about this place.
daddie: They sell the best Hokkien Mee.
xxoos: Tell? That means must blog about it.
xxoos: If not how I bring up this subject of the best Hokkien Mee to my friends out of no reason or anything.
daddie: Then go ahead lor.
xxoos: That means must take picture.
xxoos: Stop eating! I take picture first~

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It's along Still Road, near Eunos there.

Well, if the father says there the Hokkien Mee is the best, then there must really be the best. Why? Because the father grew up in Serangoon Gardens, and the Hokkien Mee there is the second best in Singapore. hehehe~

I only starting eating Hokkien Mee maybe about a year ago. The first time I ate Hokkien Mee was with the person who led me into my rough patch, so Hokkien Mee does have this special place in my diet. *Now, who can still say that Joan is high maintanence? I'm still that Ah Beng girl in heart lor* Hokkien Mee to me is the local version of seafood pasta. hahaha~ I love seafood pasta, but well, it's not cheap, so often when I'm craving for seafood pasta, I'll eat Hokkien Mee in place. I'm really deep in heart your local Ah Beng (not Ah Lian though).

We ordered the $10 one to share between us, the parents and me.
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This was actually half eaten. Look at the above conversation to know the reason.

There was like 5 prawns and about 6 sotongs (in seafood pasta it's called calamari) 3 sng kams (look at this on Char Kuay Teow to understand my needs for sng kams) and lots of zhuyouzha. Some places sell Hokkien Mee with pork pieces, I don't like those, hence I really love this place's Hokkien Mee.

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See how big the sotong and the prawn are~

As the father was saying, it's very funny when he orders (the store owner knows my dad since he's always there) for himself it would be Hokkien Mee without prawns and sotongs, for him and the mother it would be Hokkien Mee without sotongs, for him and her and me it was Hokkien Mee. I got to eat all the sotongs, and two (or was it three?) prawns~ The perks of eating with the parents, I get to eat lots of seafood since they don't eat much. The father don't eat seafood at all, he's allergic. The mother don't eat sotong, I don't know why. Because she doesn't eat sotong, she brought up me and my sister not to eat sotong, but in the end we both were exposed to the devil and never looked back ever again. lol~

I'm hungry now. damn... And my next post is about food too... shit!

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

The New World

The New World
or you can visit the official website

We weren't supposed to watch this film, actually, we wanted to watch something else, but fate has it that it was sold out, both time slots for today was sold out so decided to watch something else. With the other trash in the cinema, well, this was the best that was offered.

We went to the Cathay Cineplex. First time I was there, ever. There still wasn't much in the building except for the cineplexes, but by looking at the shops that are going to be opened there, we're guessing that that place would end up being another Cineleisure. Not that it's a bad thing, in fact I think that would be great, can ease up congestion at any one place, and with the exclusive showcases for those arty-farty movies, it's a big yay to me.

A lovely video of the facade of the cineplex~

I had wanted to take a photo of it, but with the colours changing, I couldn't decide with colour should I take the picture of so instead I took a video. diaoz~

Since we weren't able to watch the movie we wanted, we ended up having half an hour to burn while waiting for us to be able to enter to watch the New World. Like another other camwhore, what can one do to burn time? Take photos. duhz~ I went around taking photos of movie posters, well, actually I didn't really take a lot of photos (me paiseh la!), I only took photos of movie posters which I want(ed) to watch.

Rent
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Actually we were supposed to watch this last week(end), but in the end didn't, then it stopped airing, so we can't watch it this week. Cathay was only screening it exclusively as part of their opening ceremony, but we didn't know that and we weren't able to make it last week when it was screening, then when he asked me again last night to watch it today, well, then we found out that well, we missed it. damn!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
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Johnny Depp!!! But it will be screening only in May. damn! I'll have to watch it in German, and I won't be able to hear Johnny Depp's sardonic voice. wahaha~

Ice Age: The Meltdown
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Diego is so shuai~ "Where's the baby? Where's the baby? There he is!" wahaha~ I like~ I know most people would think I'm the arty-farty type of film audience, always preferring a French film to any American commercial one, but I love Ice Age! I'll want to watch Ice Age 2 too, but damn, I'll have to watch it in German too. sucks~ Nevermind, I think I'll just stare at Diego's shuai looks when I'm in the cinema.

Okay, back to The New World, that's supposed to be the focus for today. In a nutshell, the plot of the New World, unlike what the name might suggest is actually Pocahontas and Pocahontas: Journey to a New World added together to form a long film chonologicaling the life of Pocahontas. erm... Quite a weak plot only to be saved by some very good cinematographing. Before I go any further, I must confess that I'm a big fan of the first Pocahontas animation, but although I heard of the second one I never watched it because I heard that in the end *spoilers alert* Pocahontas married some other guy than John Smith.

One thing I felt was that this film was handling with too much material. It made the film too long and draggy. Although the film wasn't really that lengthy, about two and a half hours, we felt like more than three hours have passed while we were watching it which isn't something very good. The worse was that unlike the Walt Disney pictures, this so called Pocahontas didn't speak until the second half of the movie. Yea... There was a very obvious change in mood between the first half and the second half of the movie, sort of like when you put both Walt Disney's Pocahontas together and watch it in one sitting, it feels like there are two films in one. If this was meant to be so, it was successful, but if this was not then well, this film would be seen as quite patchy.

Some photos from the movie since I don't have a poster for the movie. Surprise I can't find much of the movie in the internet. The official website doesn't even allow me to download any pictures.
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Another thing I didn't like about this film was the casting. Colin Farrell should not have been casted at all. I don't know how the real John Smith looks like, but after years of watching Pocahontas the Disney version, I'd like the real life John Smith, or at least the casted John Smith to be blond hair blue eyed. Don't call me an Aryan or what, I have my reasons. John Smith, is a very typical Englishman name, so I'd like that John Smith to represent the stereotypical Englishman, also in terms of looks, so the blondness and the blue eyes. Not only wasn't a stereotypical Englishman casted, the ugly Colin Farrell was casted. There is only one shuai Farrell and he's in the history department, not the one acting in history genre films. bahz~

*spoiler alert*

Actually if you watched both Walt Disney's Pocahontas, or if you know the stories of John Smith, this won't be a spoiler, but well, if you didn't the spoils ahead. In the end, Pocahontas, now named Rebecca married the other guy John Rolfe rather than John Smith after she heard the death of John Smith, but well, Simth did not die, so Pocahontas was torn between two men, one whom she loved, one whom she had came to love. Well, if I were her, the choice would be so obvious, Christian Bale is so much more shuai than Colin Farrell, why does she still need to choose?

I gave the Yahoo Profile of Christian Bale rather than the usual IMDb one because well, there are more photos in Yahoo!~ But sadly there is no picture of him in The New World. He was so damn shuai lor... Looked a bit like a younger version of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai. shuai~~~ Almost as shuai as the shuai Farrell~ wahaha~
batmanpreg

Well, I think he singled handedly saved the film.

Not only was the film long and draggy and often not much dialogue, there is this recurring narration that well, sounds sort of poetic, but often rather unfitting. Or at least that was what I felt. I don't like the breathy voice the actors used when narrating the so called poems, and well, I don't like poems being narrated, in general. But what was so irritating of this film was that there is not much dialogue.

But I like the subtle use of "touch" and the "touching" of the characters with each other. It gives a rather intimate feeling to the viewers and well, without speech, touch is actually a very important tool in communication. Often the deaf and mutes like to touch their partner when conversing, the blind too. This is a way to break down communication barriers and in such a film where there's few conversations, touching is good. Often modern people are too caught up in their own lifes and forget that they have loved ones around and the lack of regular touching can actually distance a couple, or even between friends and family members.

In all, I'd maybe give it 7/10 points ba. This is not a show I'd recommend to people unless you are the kind of people who don't like commercial films. Or unless you, God forbid, like Colin Farrell.

Monday, March 27, 2006

If you like Soccer, You're Nazi

If you like Soccer, You're Nazi

I shall reserve my comments regarding this parody. I shall give him due credit for this piece of work. wahaha~

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Quick Tip Handling School Admin

I wanted to blog about this a couple of days ago, but I forgot. wahaha~ I must be getting old liao le.

I met Prof Ian Gordon, head of the history department, that day (can't remember which day since time flies by so quickly) and we had this short conversation about handling the admin stuff/staff. He noted that me contacting Prof Brian Farrell, deputy head of the history department, to help in such situations is the most efficient. According to Prof Gordon, Prof Farrell is apparently the best man to handle administrative stuff/staff.

In Prof Gordon's words, the most efficient method of handling such stuff is to go look for the head of departments. *pause* Or the deputy heads. hmm... Wonder what was his intented meaning with that pause... lol~ Anyway, just to share with anyone here who might find this little information useful, that the head of departments *pause* and the deputy heads hold their titles for this reason, for you to ask them to help you efficiently handle stuff you don't wish to handle yourself.

Yea... I thought I should be talking at least a little about school since my blog is still running for the Best NUS Blog in http://nusartsclub.org/blogfest/. Please vote for me there~ See me so good, got tips I share with you so must vote for me~ wahaha~

Although I'm technically a European Studies major, I find myself more at ease at the history department since I'm like doing so many history modules, and I think i can say I feel more comfortable with the history lecturers, most of my noted Profs were all from the history department. Wait... I don't think I can remember any Prof I find good who's not from the history department. Wait, I take back my words... Herr Chan! From the Centre for Language Studies. Okay, so in general, let me stereotype, history lecturers are good lecturers~

And they are damn shuai too~ Wait... I think this is over generalising and over stereotyping already. A Farrell doesn't make up the whole of the history department, okay, I shall take back my words.

The ironies of the history department which I can never come to understand. We have so many American lecturers, but they all specialise is like Chinese History (Dr Dubois), Southeast Asian History (Dr Barnard), Japanese History (Dr Clancey), European History (Dr Keck). And the lecturer specialising in American History, well, is not American but Australian (Prof Ian Gordon). But then again, considering that I'm a little Singaporean girl doing European History, I shouldn't be too surprised.

Triumph des Willens

200px-Triumph_poster

I was at the Central Library this afternoon, feeling a sudden urge to watch some videos the afternoon and trying to make the best use out of all the school fees I'm paying, I made use of my LAG3203 module code to borrow this film to watch.

Triumph des Willens
otherwise known as Triumph of the Will

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I've been meaning to watch this film for a very long time, but never got a chance to watch it so watching it today was a very enlightening and illuminating experience.
From the article from Wikipedia, this film has been lauded by many for its artistic direction, state of the art use of cameras and technology, and for its role in modern propaganda, even setting an example for many in years to come to emulate that sort of use of camera angles and settings. The intention of the film might not be that a positive one but we cannot deny Leni Riefenstahl of her accomplishment in film making.

The film is a documentary. But again, it's more than a documentary, it's definitely not a feature film with no story lines nor plots, but it presents to us a wide range of emotions hoping to similarly evoke our emotions. This is called propaganda in its purest form. Manipulation of screen emotions to evoke human emtions, exploiting the use of film to rally a people together towards a cause. This thought's pretty scary to think of it in this way.

Actually when I was at the library I had just wanted to maybe read a couple of books, but when browsing through the linc, I decided watching a film sounded more interesting than reading a book. And I needed to listen to more German too. So matric card in hand I borrowed the DVD and settled myself down in the multimedia viewing room for the next two hours.

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See the stark warning? I actually had tried to video a speech by Goebbels from the telly, but stupid me didn't realise something. I had wanted to video the speech hoping that I might be able to make use of it for my oral presentation or something and that was what I did, I held up the camera in front of the telly and video-ed the whole speech. After that, on my way home, I played the video again to watch it, hoping that I can understand the German speech without reading the subtitles, but no sound came out of the video. I was flabbergasted. Then I realised, I video-ed the speech without sound. Because I was hearing the speech on headphones so I could hear the speech but I couldn't video the sound. Stupid me.

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Hitler was taken from this low angle to make him look more heroic. I'm must say this is pretty awesome.

I don't think I have any picture taken from a low angle because for me I think my face would look fat that way, so I always like photos to be taken from a high angle and my chin to be tilted downwards in photos. Okay, I've found a couple of low angle photos of myself. hey... They do look pretty awesome, only that the photos seem a bit blur because of the camera focusing.
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This is Goebbels. Seems like only Hitler is given the special treatment from the cameras.
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Well, when I was watching the footages from the Nuremberg Rallies the thing that first popped into my mind was actually the National Day Parade. I've always thought that our National Day Parades were huge propaganda festivals and a huge waste of money, but I didn't realise that well, our stage managers were just emulating Hitler and what he had achieved.

In terms of parading the military...
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Hitler paraded his military men, his youth camp, paramilitary, and everyone, and us? We have our military and also our youth organisations like Scouts, Girl Guides, NPCC, NCC, SJAB, Red Cross. *shivers* Can NCC be considered as a paramilitary? *more shivers down the spine*
2004_Parade_001

In terms of flag waving and flag bearing, and the whole essence of the significance of a flag as a symbol of a nation...
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Actually I wanted to use a photo of the German civilians doing the Nazi salute and compare it with a photo of Singaporean civilians waving the red and white flag, but I couldn't manage to locate the former picture, so I am merely doing comparisons of the whole idea of the flag, which is scary enough even though not as scary as my original intention.
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This is scary. The idea of the "leader" being paraded in a car...
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Note the use of a black open top car with the "leader" standing up there and greeting the civilians.
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Note the use of a black open top car with the "leader" standing up there and waving to the civilians not pictured, but we all know anyway.

All photos from the NDP which I've used are from this government commissioned site so there is no way anyone can say that I've manipulated materials. And face it, we all atch the NDP every year, and we KNOW what's going on, just that you might not realise the propaganding going on slowly brainwashing you.

And well, remember Hitler's motto to his people?
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer
(One People, One Empire [which is somewhat similar to a nation], One Leader)
Compare this to...
One People, One Nation, One Singapore
*dying from all the shiverings*

Friday, March 24, 2006

Fan Lihua 樊梨花

移山倒海 樊梨花

I'm a TV junkie, I've said this many times, but I think I've taken a new low on this title of a TV junkie. I wanted to put up a video clip of something i video-ed off the telly, but before I clicked on You Tube's upload, I paused, I'm not sure if I'd be breaking any copyright laws by uploading it so in the end I didn't upload it. Oh well...

And there left like only a week for the blogfest thingie. So if you haven't voted for me, can please go http://nusartsclub.org/blogfest/ to vote for me. I just received an invitation from the organisers that there would be a little party next Friday from 6.30 to 8.30pm. Well, I call this discrimination. For four semesters now, never have I a semester which has less than two days of lessons ending at 8pm. This semester I have 3, and a three day week even before I dropped those modules. bahz~

I start my story by telling of a story of fate. I remember that was when I still lived in PGP, so that makes it when I was in year one. I was bored living alone and nights alone were the hardest to bear, so I left the telly on throughout the night, hoping that the noise from the telly can bring me some warmth of home. I flipped channels occasionally but most of the time I went about doing my stuff mostly online chatting and surfing and sometimes reading when I took little notice of the telly.

But fate has it that one day I coincidentally saw this part of this serial in the telly, and I got hooked. I finished watching that episode, but took little notice of what I'd watched. The next day I too let my telly on through the night, and somewhere in the middle of the show, I noticed that that was the show I watched the night before, and I continued watching it, and finished the episode. The next night I took notice of that show, and kept my telly on and waited for that show to start. I didn't know what time that show was starting, and could only guard by the telly.

The following nights I got clever. I checked out this very handy website before I watched that show to check out the times and listings. It was at an ungodly time of like 1.30am. It was the last show on channel U before you hear the Mari Kita and the telly goes blue. But I didn't care that it was a trashy Taiwanese programme, I just watched it. I'm saying it's trashy as it's the standard kind of Taiwanese low budget, period show with old actors. Think Sun Cuifeng and Ma Jingtao. But I still liked it maybe because I was really bored. Even when I went home, I still proceeded to switch on the telly at the stipulated time to watch that show. Even my mother who've seen me watched really trashy shows was flabbergasted by me watching this show.

This show should not be mixed up with the TVB one by Michelle Yip. This is the less well known one.
Click here for the webbie
I wanted to put up the picture of the heading but I can't seem to be able to download it. Must be the copyright thingie.

Fast forward one year later. Last week I was at my parents' room talking, the telly was on, and straight away I noticed that THE TELLY WAS SHOWING FAN LIHUA!!! Oh my God... I guarded by the telly that night. And I went to check the listings at the another very handy webbie. And now, I'm a slave to that show all over again. I don't know what it is about that show that hooked me, maybe the method acting ba... The actors are all very good method actors who can tear on demand. Sun Cuifeng started out as an opera actress and Ma Jingtao is the standard Qiongyao lead actor when he was younger.

Some photos of the show~
001-s003-s005-s013-s
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023-s024-s026-s027-s
031-s033-s035-s036-s
037-s040-s044-s047-s
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057-s059-s060-s061-s
062-s063-s064-s066-s
067-s069-s070-s071-s

The story of Fan Lihua is something like she disgused herself as a guy and went to school under the wing of a very respected master together with Xue Dingshan and Yang Fan. But fate has it that Fan Lihua, a Xiliang general's daughter, fell in love with Xue Dingshan, a Tang general's son. Things get messy when you include the villianous Yang Fan from Xixia who also likes Fan Lihua and another girl, Dou Xiantong, who manages to get married to Xue Dingshan after much scheming.

Yesterday I was quite bored, and wanted to play around with my new handphone (to me it's still new), so I video-ed some sequences of the show, but because of copyrighted laws I don't feel that safe uploading them onto youtube to share, so here's the next best thing, photos. wahaha~

Here's the normal photos I've taken...
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Our title character

Now, this is the colour mixtures I tried to play with. I've played with these colour mixtures on other people's phones before (namely the ever around Wei, I think I look good when I use his handphone to take pictures of myself) but first time playing it out on my own handphone is something new.

Sepia~ I like sepia~ The photo I use for my blogger account is in sepia, you can see it on the top left hand side of my blog and when I leave comments on other people's blogger blogs.
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I thought the effect was great. With the whole period background and costumes, this looked like a flash back of the past, brings me memories of the Shaw Brothers era of Gongfu flicks from Hong Kong and Shanghai.

But quite funny, the black and whites don't seem to remind me much of the black and white film era.
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Black and white seems so monotonous, especially when put beside the pictures of sepia. Now to think of that I remembered when I first played with the colour tones on Wei's handphone, I loved the sepia ones much much more than the others. The black and white one was quite the ugliest cos the whole tone is so flat. Even the negative one was so much nicer. Okay, the negative one was supposed to be artistically taken.

I don't know why but it seems that taking negative pictures from the telly seems to be the wrong thing because, well, let the pictures say for themselves.
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They look like *censored*. Notice the fairer they are, the blacker they look.

Compare those pictures to those of me, in colour tones~ All taken on Jinwei's handphone, actually these pictures aren't the nicest, like my blogger photo, but well, thought I must give credit to him so I left that blogger photo out. (Note: The blogger photo is taken by another friend of mine who's using the same handphone model as Wei, so I'm generalising that that handphone model takes nice pictures of me!)

A normal me. One of the earliest photos Wei took of me so I don't think I look that great yet.
Joan in blue adidas cap

Sepia. For quite a short time I used that as my MSN display picture.
joan big head smiling in sepia

Black and white. Maybe it's my problem, I just don't think I look nice in the photo, maybe it's because I was slouching, and my shoulders look fat.
joan slouching upper body in black and white

Negative. Compared to the above photos, I don't think I look that much like a n*****, do I? I like this picture. Everytime when I'm feeling depressed and sad I'd use this for my MSN display picture.
joan sitting in empty hall in negative

I don't know what this is called, I don't have this colour tone in my handphone, but I like it leh... How ah?
joan big head tilted in paint
I think my make up looks nice in this picture, making me look good too. I always use this as my MSN display picture when I'm happy. Quite a pity this picture has some distractions at the back, if not I'd frame this picture up and also use it as my blogger picture instead.

Okay, this I've ranted on too much about myself. Fan Lihua is showing on Channel 8 every Thursdays to Saturdays (I think) at 2+ (no exact time for each day), I don't expect anyone other than me or maybe some other suffering from insomnia people to watch it, but if you trust me, maybe you'd like to watch it too? Look out for their actings, those are really good method actors.