House Haunting

House-hunting, especially in current market conditions, is a bitch. And then some.

First - the inept agent. My first agent (we'll call him/her E) is absolutely useless. E has "serviced" so many folks from my workplace (this just sounds wrong, but I'll keep it there for the fun of it), that she/he completely ignored my simple brief (2 bedder, modern, furnished, west side) and showed me places that other folks from work were moving out of! They were 3 bedders, old, unfurnished and in the north. If she/he was my agency, I'd fire her/him. Oh wait, she/he is my agent. And yes - I fired her/him.

Enter - the ept agent (I know ept is not a word, but it should be - opposite of inept.... come to think of it, it could be outept... but I like ept better and this is my blog... so ept it is). We'll call her/him D. Now D has never "serviced" (I'm enjoying this) anyone from my workplace. She/he took all of 2 viewings and 5 minutes of briefing to understand what I was looking for. About 10-12 apartment viewings later, I saw it. A place that spoke to me. A place that said, come live in me. And above all, a place I could afford in this crazy real estate market. I move in May 1.

There are a few disturbing things about D though. She (ok - i'm over the gender neutrality thing) wants to party with my bald male businessman friend and me at St James Power Station (popular teeny bopper club in Singapore). This is not alarming in itself given how dashing and irresistable the two of us are, but apparently she has a 26 year old daughter (alarm 1) who plays in a band and D thinks I should meet her (alarm 2). Oh and the daughter is also getting married next year (alarm 3). It's all very confusing and disturbing. I need to lie down.

Requiem for a Dream

When a dream comes decisively crashing down, it's one of the hardest things to deal with. This movie is about 4 dreams that 4 different people chase and in the process self destruct.

Requiem for a Dream is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Batman Project, The Fountain), it's an Academy Award nominated film (2000) starring Ellen Burstyn (Exorcist, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood) - playing the widowed mother, Jared Leto (The Thin Red Line, Fight Club) - playing the junkie son, Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Blood Diamond) - his also junkie and artist girlfriend, Marlon Wayans (Above the Rim, Scary Movie series) - their also junkie friend.

The film opens with Sara (the mother) who lives alone, is a TV junkie, loves her food and dreams of one day appearing on TV. She gets her opportunity in the mail and she starts preparing by going on a diet so she can fit into "that red dress". She ends up taking diet pills which are actually an upper (and therefore a diet suppressant). The starts doubling her dosage, hallucinating, taking valium, hallucinating some more, only to end up with psychosis.

The son and his girlfriend, in the meanwhile, are in love and dream of a life together where they open a shop for her to sell her sketches. One small problem. They love their heroin and need a fix every now and again. They go to great lengths to finance this bad habit. They start dealing (with their friend), and when that dries up, she even sleeps with her shrink to score some. When that doesn't work anymore, she even sleeps with another dealer to score some.

The movie climaxes hauntingly with all 4 of their dreams meeting a tragic and decisive end.

The photography is outstanding. The music score is hair-raising. The acting is stellar. But most of all, the directors treatment - especially the devices he uses for drug addiction - is absolutely stunning.

Check out a tralier below:

Thrilla in Manila

For those of you who've been to Manila, you'll know that this place is crazy... way crazier than Singapore but not as crazy as say Bangkok. Leaving your hotel late for a flight is not a good idea. In fact it's very far from a good idea. I think it's what you might call a bad idea. A really bad idea!

It all started last night. Went to the Podium (or Pojioom as the cab driver would have me call it) for dinner. Pojioom is a mall about 5km from my office. But in the evening it should take about 45 mins. Not so bad. Caught up with a long lost old friend who I saw after a gazillion years! Had a couple of coffees, the first of which was weaker than Munaf Patel's throwing arm (if you don't know cricket - just ignore the reference to it.. but read on). For the second one, well, I asked for a strong coffee. And she went around the entire mall and the 3.5 barangays and 2 villages surrounding the mall, found all the caffeine she could find, and pumped it into my coffee. I suspect she also added a dash of red bull in it... just in case.

Headed back to the hotel soon after and was bouncing off the walls while watching FoxCrime (Really cool crime channel!) for about 4 hours!!! Watched Law and Order, CSI NY, PI something and Masterminds! Slept at 4. Now the bad news here was that I had a flight at 8.20am. Needed to wake up at 5.45am. Decided I couldn't go wrong with 3 alarms. It turns out I could.

Yes - I have the ability to turn off 3 different alarms, placed, by careful design, in 3 different parts of the room. And I went back to sleep. Next time I woke up, it was 7.19am! I had 1 hour and 1 minute to my flight. Fortunately I had packed before I slept (not usual for me). So crashed out of the room. Paid my bill. Got into a hotel cab and gave him the promise of a hefty tip if he pulled off a miracle for me.

Got to the airport at 7.50am (thanks to an in-car preview of the formula 1 season that kicks off in Melbourne today - GO FERRARI!). Gave Filippe Massa the tip I'd promised. Crashed through the customary baggage check line before check in. But alas. The counter was closed. I had officially missed my flight.

Now unfortunately, the Manila airport is shit when it comes to spending time there. So I headed back to the hotel and had my breakfast buffet - apple juice, yet another coffee, scrambled eggs, baked beans (watch out SQ afternoon flight!) and toast. Now I'm at the lobby reflecting on my Thrilla in Manila. I wonder what else the day has in store for me!

Juno Reviewed

Rarely do you walk out of a film feeling light, refreshed, optimistic, touched and poignant at the same time. And Juno did that to me.

Oscar nominated and beautifully written, Juno is a dramatic yet comedic portrayal of a 16 year old high school girl who gets pregnant and then deals with it. She has a geeky boyfriend who "tries very hard" to be cool and gets her pregnant in the bargain, a loving father, a rock steady step mother who are all very well written characters. She tries suicide and fails. She tries abortion and fails. She finally settles on finding parents to adopt the baby and she does. Well almost.

The parents she finds are another story altogether. A rich couple - a controlling wife and a really cool, easy-going husband who is in the process of realizing he doesn't want to be in this marriage.

One of the beauties of the way the film is written is that as you go through it, at various points, you expect the plot to end up being just another film.. and then it surprises you.

It's excruciatingly funny as well. The writing is crisp, witty and laugh-out-loud funny without a single slapstick moment through the entire movie.

Oh and I LOVED the soundtrack.

Check out the trailer below:

A Short History of Singapore

Of late I've discovered some really good gems about Singapore on the net. One of them is a blog called www.mrbrown.com. Think of him as a Singaporean Michael Moore. Only funnier.

For anyone outside of Singapore reading this, you might not relate to this easily - so I'm sorry, but for those of you in Singapore..... enjoy this.

Also found this really cool video that captures Singapore history in a short Singlish song!