501 posts-old!

Have been meaning to blog about this movie (along with other things as well) for a very long time. This is a scene from Roy Andersson's Songs From The Second Floor. It's so beautiful! So poignant! So surreal! etc. I really like this particular scene. It highlights his solitary state with song, framed with a subway setting.

On a similar topic, this year's Cannes Film Festival has ended this morning. Of particular interest to me was Eric Khoo's My Magic that was running for the much-coveted Palm d'or award. While I furiously wrote out my gong1 han2, the winners were being announced a few time zones away. My Magic didn't win, but I'm still proud to see Singapore being represented at these events. (But my sudden nationalism ends here, okay.)

Also, that Sayang Sayang show about a Peranakan family is so contrived, right down to the last rempah blot on the !#$*#^ flowery batik shirts that the babas would wear as they tuck into their ayam buah keluak. It stretches the limits of campiness. My grandfather probably wouldn't ever be caught dead in them, and my grandmother doesn't have time to wear pretty kebayas all day. Is being Peranakan that much of a novelty that the media would churn out comedies based on popular stereotypes?

And speaking of bad taste, Breadtalk's Sichuan pandas are unappetizing and they reek of insensitivity. So okay, fine, they are using the proceeds as aid money, that's fair enough. But to bank on such a tragedy? To cute-ify suffering with the rather tame and kawaiified faces of pandas in pain? Isn't there a better way to raise money that does not involve making a mockery of such a disaster?