Synopsis

This movie is a prologue to the much acclaimed Shrek series, but the focus this time is on the origins of the character Puss in Boots. Puss was childhood friends with the (in)famous Humpty Dumpty, and they grew up together in a small orphanage in San Ricardo. Humpty has always been an adventurer and dreams of finding magic beans to get to the magical castle in the clouds to find the golden goose. Puss started out rather shy and reserved, but soon warms up to the outgoing and chatty Humpty. The 2 make a pact to complete their adventures mission together, but Puss soon gets sick of Humpty’s dirty ways. In a bid to keep Puss by his side , Humpty tricks Puss into becoming his accomplice in a bank robbery. Puss is wanted, and begins leading an outlawed life.

On one occasion, Puss hears about news of the magic beans. Apparently, they’re now in possession of a murderous couple, Jack and Jill. Puss decides to take this chance to get the beans and clear his name. However, his plans are thwarted by another cat thief, Kitty Softpaws. It turns out that Kitty is Humpty’s new partner in crime. Humpty convinces Puss to join him in his quest for the magic beans. The trio succeed in snatching the beans from Jack and Jill and ultimately gain access to the castle in sky and kidnaps the golden goose.

However, Puss soon discovers that all this is Humpty’s plot for revenge against Puss for leaving him behind to get caught and thrown in San Ricardo prison. Meanwhile, the golden goose’s mother comes in search for her child, and pledges to wreck havoc in the town of San Ricardo. In the end, Puss saves the day, returning the golden goose to her mother and peace back to San Ricardo.

 My Thots

If you’re familiar with fairy tale stories like Jack and the Beanstalk, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, etc, this movie is going to change the way you look at these stories and characters. I’m not sure if I really like Humpty as a baddie, but I sure enjoy Puss as a hero. I must admit, not everyone will enjoy this movie, but if you’re a cat-lover (like me) you’ll definitely love this! My favorite scene in the movie had was Puss challenging Kitty Softpaws to a dance fight in the Glitter Box pub. Cats, cats and more cats! That’s my kind of movie! Me-ow!

I also loved watching Puss the kitten, shy and reserved, yet curious and brave when necessary. His entrance into the orphanage sent the entire cinema audience going “Awwwww…”. Baby Puss is simple irresistible!

Overall, this is a movie I’ll recommend, although I probably would not let young children (12 and below) watch this. Meanwhile, I’ll be anticipating this movie’s release on DVD.

Trailer

Tags: cats, movies, Puss In Boots, Reviews, videos

Synopsis

The movie starts with growing up snippets of a pair of unlikely brothers in Smalltown, Gary and Walter. While Gary is your typical “normal” American boy, Walter is a puppet stuck at being 3 feet tall. Just as he starts to despair, he discovers The Muppets. The 2 brothers grow up to be ardent Muppet fans.

One day, Gary decides to bring Walter along on a trip to LA to celebrate 10 years of dating his fiancé Mary, much to Mary’s chagrin. Nonetheless, the trio make a much anticipated visit to the now abandoned Muppet Studios. Walter accidentally discovers oil tycoon Tex Richmond’s evil plan to acquire the Muppet Studios, only to tear down the Muppet Theater and dig for oil. Walter and Gary take it upon themselves with the task of saving the Muppets and their theater, and along with a reluctant Mary, they find Kermit and convince him to gather the Muppet family and put up a fund-raising telethon show to raise 10 million dollars to keep their beloved theater, as well as the rights to the Muppets name.

However, the Muppets have been estranged from each other and have not been in contact in a long while. Eventually, the team travels around the globe to pick up all other the members of the Muppet family. They are faced with the reality that their popularity and chemistry have lapsed since their last performance together. Ultimately, they brave all odds to beat the evil villain and keep the Muppet Studios. Meanwhile, Walter discovers the inner Muppet in him and joins the gang as the newest cast member.

 My Thots

I fondly remember spending hours in front of the TV every week watching The Muppet Show, very much like Walter did in the movie. It sure has been a while since they last appeared on screen (big or small), so it was good to see them all again this movie.

My favorite part of the movie had to be when Kermit and the gang sang Rainbow Connection. I was half expecting the cinema audience to burst out in song along with Kermit because I was singing along myself. Ah.. happy memories indeed.

Overall, this is definitely a happy healthy source of entertainment for the entire family!

Trailer

Tags: movies, Reviews, The Muppets, videos, youtube

As you’ve probably noticed, it’s been a while since I last updated. Life has kept me busy, especially with the recent title change that I had at work. Nonetheless, I managed to steal some time off my crazy work life last week to enjoy some quality time with myself.

I’ve been meaning to watch Puss in Boots when it started its run 2 weeks ago, but I noticed The Muppets was coming up too. So rather than taking 2 days to watch 2 movies, I decided to have a mini movie marathon.

Naturally, before the movies started, we were served some trailers for upcoming movies:

We Bought A Zoo

The trailer claims that the movie is based on a true story. I’ve not done any research on this yet, but the trailer does make it look like quite a touching story about love. Love of your family, love between man and woman and love of animals. This sure looks like a movie I might want to catch next year. Storyline and animals aside, I just want to say “What happened to Matt Damon????”. I mean.. he looks so.. matured!! On the hand, it sure is refreshing watching Scarlett Johansson fully dressed for once.

The Amazing Spider-man

Yup, I said Amazing Spider-man and not Spider-man 4. Why we need so many Spider-man movies, I’ll never know. The effects look good though and I already know a handful of my friends who’ll want to watch this. As for me, I’m not much of a Spider-man fan, as you can probably tell, so I might just skip this one.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Alvin, the troublemaker, and rest of the Chipmunk gang are back. This time they go on cruise but somehow the 6 furry friends get stranded on a lone island. I nearly laughed my head off when I saw them singing and dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. I may not watch this one in the cinema, but I’ll mostly like catch it on DVD.

After the movies, I popped over to the nearby H&M that opened in Singapore recently to see what’s the fuss. Sure, the apparel is fashionable and all, but most of the items were a little above my budget. I did pick up a knitted beret at a reasonable price though. No exactly my “go to” place to shop for clothes, but I’ll definitely be back to look at accessories.

I went on to make a brief stop at Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream. I’ve heard lots of good things about the ice cream here, but somehow I was a little disappointed. I had the Cheesecake Fantasy, but the strawberries and blueberries tasted nowhere near sweet and had a distinct “frozen” aftertaste. Maybe next time I’ll just have the ice cream and only mix in extras that I like.

It felt good to relax and recharge for a day, even though I’ve no one to enjoy it with. The last time I did something like this was  on my birthday, which is almost half a year ago! I really should do this more often.

Meanwhile, watch out for my movie reviews coming up in the next couple of days.

Tags: life, movies, musings, Personal, rant

I took leave from work on my birthday. 2 weeks ago, to catch the much anticipated grand finale of the Harry Potter saga. As I’ve expected, the best seats were already taken by the time I got to the cinema, so I settled for the next best thing available, and off-center seat in one of the back rows. It was the cinema’s 76th anniversary and they were giving away free popcorn and soft drinks for every regular-priced to ticket. Since I’d already taken breakfast, I chose to get a discounted ticket with my credit card instead. I wasn’t a big fan of popcorn anyway.

SPOILER ALERT: The following may contain spoilers, so if you’ve not watched the movie or read the book, you may want to give this post a pass until you’ve done at least one of two.

The final Harry Potter book is probably (IMHO) the one that’s most packed with Christian themes among all the 7 books, particularly the plot leading up to the final face-off the between our main protagonist, Harry Potter, and his arch-enemy, Voldemort. Hence I had high expectations for the movie rendition, especially after watching the trailers on YouTube.

I chose to watch the high-definition version with digital surround sound rather than 3D since it was much cheaper, and also because I didn’t want to end up with a headache after the show. Moreover, I’ve heard that the 3D version wasn’t that much more impressive. Although the Harry Potter themed 3D glasses did look like quite a tempting collectible.

The movie opens with a very downcast Snape, looking like he’s deep in thoughts. The scene immediately switches over to Voldemort, who is standing victoriously at Dumbledore’s grave, after gaining possession of the infamous Elder Wand. The adventures of Harry and his sidekicks ensues as they continue to hunt down and destroy the remaining Horcruxes. Their wild goose chase eventually leads the trio back to Hogwarts. This is also where Harry and Voldemort will have their final showdown.

As I sat in the cinema watching the scenes fly by at break-neck speed, I was grateful that I’d already finished reading the book. Even then, I still find it a little difficult to catch up with fast plot. It was like I was on some sort of high-speed roller coaster ride, exciting and breathtaking. The group of young girls sitting in the row in front of me were squealing towards the end when the bad guys started to die off one by one. We all had a good laugh when the infamous epilogue appeared at the end. And when the movie ended, the entire cinema roared with enthusiastic applause.

My favorite part of the movie had to be Harry’s death in the Forbidden Forest. To me, this was one of the climaxes in the movie. Harry’s brief afterlife moment where he converses with Dumbledore at he deems as King’s Cross Station was particularly witty and thought-provoking. This is also the point in the book where Christian, some even Catholic, references are abundant. Harry sacrificing his life to save Hogwarts very much mimicked Christ’s sacrifice of Himself to save humanity. When Voldemort marches into Hogwarts with the limp, “dead” body of  Harry, pronouncing his “victory” and demanding recognition of his lordship, I was immediately reminded of our Lord’s death on the cross. If the devil had a physical body with which he could speak, I’m sure he would have screamed victory at the top of his voice, just like Voldemort did.

Naturally, when Harry literally sprang back to life. The crowd at Hogwarts were exhilarated, not to mention the bunch of squealing teenage girls seated in the row in front, just like the disciples where when Jesus returned on Easter Sunday. Thankfully, there weren’t any “doubting Thomas-es ” around this time to spoil the mood.

Finally, Harry brings down Voldemort, after an intensive chase and battle of spells. However, the lethal blow which ultimately led to Voldemort’s demise was his refusal to repent of his evil ways. Voldemort attempts to attack Harry with a deadly spell, which our hero deftly deflects in self-defense, inadvertently “redirecting” the evil spell back to the one who mouth it. Another classic example of the golden rule in action: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

As the tagline on the movie states, “It All Ends Here”. I’ll definitely be missing my (almost) annual dosage of Harry Potter movies, unless Ms Rowling decides to go back on her words. I know I didn’t quite do the movie justice with my brief review. Here are a couple of folks who’ve done a much better job than me:

• Spiritual Popcorn
• Another Cup of Coffee

You might also want to check out the Secrets of Harry Potter podcast (website)|(rss) from SQPN, where they explore various Christian themes in the Harry Potter series, and discuss Harry Potter books and movies. I particularly loved their detailed review of the latest movie. Definitely a must-listen if you’re a fan!

Tags: Harry Potter, movies, Reviews, videos, youtube

Whoa! Time sure flies when you’re busy. A third of a century of  my life just flew by like that, before I even realized. So here I am, 33 years old. Single, but definitely not lonely. Poor in the pockets, but rich with the love of family and friends around me. As it is, I’m already into the 3rd day of the 2nd third of a century of my life. So far so good. With a bit of luck (and possibly some hard work), things could get better.

The big day started without any bangs. Just a frantic search for stockings since I accidentally ran a hole in the pair I was wearing. Thankfully that got fixed easily. I wish my program bugs could be fixed as effortlessly.

Next, I headed to fill my hungry little tummy before rushing to purchase tickets for the earliest screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 at my favorite cinema (which as coincidences go, happen to share the same birthday as me, only that they’re 43 years older than I am). The movie was great! However, I found it very fast-paced, which was understandable since there was lots to be packed in this grand finale. I’m just glad that I’d read the book before watching the movie, so I more or less knew what to expect. Watch out for my review of the movie coming up soon!

Here are a couple of trailers I watched while waiting for the movie to begin:

Cowboys & Aliens are 2 things that I’d never think of putting together in a movie. A rather interesting mix of genres involving sci-fi, western & suspense. Not something that will draw me spend my time and money to watch in the cinemas though.

Captain America isn’t something I’ve grown up with on my side of the world either, although I’ve heard some of my online friends mention the popular set of comics. Not particularly a comic fan myself, so probably will give this one a miss too.

The remainder of the day was themed “shop-till-you-drop“. Hey, if you’re a shopaholic like me, whose birthday happens to coincide with the annual Great Singapore Sale, you’ll most likely do the same. Finally at around 3pm, I decided to sit down to rest my tired legs and to get some late lunch. Japanese ramen followed by light cheese cake for dessert. Yummy!

So there, my 33rd birthday well spent; tired legs, empty pocket and all. Nothing extravagant or grand, just a simple itinerary to satisfy my simple needs.

Tags: Harry Potter, movies, musings, Personal, youtube