London 2012: The wonderful opening ceremony of the 30th Summer Olympic Games

One of my goals of this year is fulfilled; to watch the live broadcast of the opening ceremony of London 2012. I have been waiting for this since 4 years ago from the end of the previous edition of this world largest sporting event, Beijing 2008 that uplifts the standard and scale of the games to the highest ever level that made it far more challenging for London 2012 to stage a better one. The opening ceremony of London 2012 concluded few hours ago and can be considered a successful ceremony produced from a much smaller budget as compared to the huge cost allocated for Beijing 2008 memorable out-of-this-world ceremonies. It is almost impossible of not trying to compare the former with the latter, and due to that, London 2012’s opening ceremony which is themed as ‘Isle of Wonder’ is a bit of disappointment.

One of the main reasons of my poor feedback over the ceremony is particularly over the performances delivered on the approximate first 90-minutes of the ceremony. The key stunt that marked the start of the ceremony is plainly too simple, by just ringing the so-called world largest tuned bell without any dramatic actions. As compared to Beijing 2008 opening stunt in the ceremony that comprised of a huge group of drummers with uniform play of light and sound to create an absolutely unforgettable countdown to the big start of the ceremony, London 2012’s standard on this part is already way way behind. By the way, the venue, the newly-constructed Olympic Stadium which is not aesthetically pleasing in design looks so much better with the lighting at that very special night.

Something different and unique is delivered this time in London 2012’s opening ceremony. Is that a good thing? Not really. Why? The stadium is transformed into a land of grass indicating the British countryside with some notable village-like structures as well as live animals that were only slightly featured in the broadcast. For me, there is nothing special or distinctive on the theme of countryside that the nation tries to showcase to the world from this ceremony. However, it feels good to see some ‘greens’ in the stadium, especially the man-made hill created as a podium for speech as well as for placing of flags of all the participating nations after the parade of athletes. And I found out that there isn’t any ‘true’ performance going on in the first part of the show, with only few visible separate clusters of people dressed in similar theme wondering around and doing minimal things that I don’t find interesting and it’s very unorganized. There seems to be small things here and there but it’s very messy all around.

Next, the scene changed to accommodate to the new theme; Industrial Revolution. On this segment, Danny Boyle, the Oscar-winning artistic director of the ceremony intended to inform the world that Great Britain was once the greatest ‘factory’ of the world. Few tall chimneys extended out from the base of the stadium. An interesting moment observed from this section is a stunt showing industrial workers working on producing and firing metal in a shape of a huge ring. Then, the ring raised up and alongside with other arriving metal rings floating in the stadium, formed the iconic symbol of the Olympics; the five adjoining rings brightly-illuminated with fireworks. There is finally a breathtaking moment that gets the roaring applause from the 80-000 strong crowd of audiences in the stadium. Other than that, there is nothing else from that part of the performance that captures my attention while I remembered very well that Beijing 2008’s opening left us in total awe in every parts of the performances delivered.

I find it a bit weird that the opening ceremony began with such scenarios, and after that, I didn’t had any high expectation of the next segments anymore. Hmm…next silly thing arrived. Over few hundred hospital’s beds are brought into the stadium. It is a segment in tribute to the national health service. Luckily, there is some sort of sequence and drama involving those beds that are accompanied with light to tell out the imaginative mindset of kids. Giant representatives of famous fictional villains in British’s film industry like the Childcatcher from 101 Dalmations, Captain Hook from Peter Pan and biggest of all; Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. Ahh, even the writer of the successful ‘Harry Potter’ book series, J.K. Rowling had a role on stage. The famous villains were then vanquished by Mary Poppins characters descending from stadium roof carrying brightly-illuminated umbrellas.

The approximately 90-minute performance show ended with final segment showing the best of British music particularly in the past decades. This part is quite playful with variety of costumes of fun-themed colours and different types of dance and in youngster-dominating atmosphere. However, things don’t seems to be that systematic, balanced or organized. Furthermore, I find that there is unnecessarily too much of singing of songs which are quite time-wasting. Those could have been replaced with other themes (like showing the best of the country in technology, landmarks, etc) to make up for a better show instead. This is an opening ceremony, not a concert! This section of performance also included the power and fame of thee current cyber-dominating world and it’s good that the inventor of world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee is honoured at the end after a group of bike riders with brightly-illuminated wings attached came out in a sequence, surrounding the center stage. I believe that part should be longer as planned with bike stunt sequence but it had to be called off due to restriction of time imposed to the opening ceremony.Too bad.

The weak thing from all the performances observed is that the visual impact failed to reach to the spectators in the stadium and over billion of audiences worldwide; with absence of stunts or formations in huge scale or proportion, lacks of organization in sequences, too much of built-up sets placed, confusing appearance of so many little things at once with no concentration on a particular point, and some boring or unappealing imageries shown in the broadcast. It’s good to have some close-up to get visuals on more details and for a sense of human touch but I prefer ‘huge’ thing that would steals the show. Before that, there are some interesting scenarios; one showing Daniel Craig portraying as the iconic James Bond character skydiving with the doubles of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II from a flying helicopter that had fly over the city of London earlier to the stadium with then leads to the arrival of the Queen herself, another one presenting a little humour or laugh with presence of famous British comedian, Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean with showing of a short funny clip of him  related to sport. I felt that part is a bit too fast and insufficient to really entertain us. Well, his presence had already surprised us. There is also a part  interrupting the performance segment by showing the olympic torch being carried over on a beautifully-illuminated boat crossing over River Thames and through the famous London Bridge Tower with David Beckham, a famous good-looking footballer standing in the boat as well. Well, there are many superstars involved. It is heard that Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and some other famous Hollywood artists attended the opening ceremony as well but with no roles in the performances.

Then, came the parade of athletes that took around one hour and thirty minutes of the show. Athletes of 204 participating nations and one extra from independent olympic body entered the stadium, with athletes from Greece seen first as usual in tradition that puts the country of host to the inaugural modern Olympics, Greece at front in parade. The last to enter would be the strong-number of athletes from the host nation, Great Britain. They are received with the loudest cheer and applause as expected. National anthem and flag of Great Britain and the Olympic anthem and flag are played and raised before the speeches by Chairman of London 2012 Organizing Committee, Mr. Sebastian Coe and President of International Olympic Committee, Mr. Jacques Rogge. Luckily, the speeches are short yet inspiring with beautiful phrases spoken. Then, it’s time for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to officially declare the games open before a set of fireworks exploding out over the stadium.

The olympic torch finally arrived in the stadium after travelling few thousand miles over the host nation. After several passing of the torches around, a group of seven teenage athletes as final torchbearers (not a single final torchbearer) light up some small copper petals which then runs through to the others in some distance (all 205) which were then all engulfed in flames. That is not the end yet. All those copper petals are raised on stalks to form a single huge flame, looking like a burning flower. Well, that is really cool! The olympic flame is to remain in the stadium during the course of the games before it will be turned off at the closing ceremony two weeks later.

Finally, the three hours and thirty minutes ceremony came to an end with an amazing flame-lighting technique and a brilliant and spectacular display of fireworks all over the Olympic Park and the stadium itself. The fireworks are impressive despite in lesser amount compared to the amount used for Beijing 2008’s ceremonies. That ended the ceremony beautifully well after a series of not-so-amazing performances.

So, overall, the beginning of the ceremony is plainly simple that leads to performance of lower standard (sorry for saying this way, but this is very true compared even to previous games before Beijing 2008), but finally there is a thing that saves the night; fascinating olympic flame lighting and stunning fireworks display. If I am to give points to this ceremony, then I can only afford to give 70 out of 100. For Beijing 2008, I gave 90 (the highest ever, the best). Even the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games (smaller sporting event) got 88 points from me for its distinctive opening ceremony two years ago. Anyway, London 2012’s opening ceremony is still good and is not to be missed. Wao…what a lengthy write-up I have produced regarding the just-concluded opening of the games despite me being very exhausted already at this moment as I didn’t sleep almost the whole night just to catch the live broadcast of the ceremony. How nice and awesome it would be if I am watching it from a seat in the Olympic Stadium itself, being there in the venue which would heighten my experience of watching the extravagant show, but the ticket is too costly.

Hmm…now we’ll see the staging of the games in many sports contested for the following two weeks before it brought down its curtain to make way for the next Summer Olympics, Rio 2016 to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have to wait another four years from now for Rio 2016 turn. But for now first, go London 2012! Inspire the generation! Eventhough the opening ceremony isn’t really that successful or breathtaking based on my perspective, but it’s still a good effort from Great Britain. Thumbs up…

(The images used on this post are not mine and are all from the following source: http://sports.yahoo.com/photos/olympics-london-2012-opening-ceremony-slideshow/, click on this link for more lovely images of the ceremony)

Countdown to London 2012: A day left!

The action begins tomorrow….when the 30th Summer Olympic Games, London 2012 would commence after the much anticipated opening ceremony on Friday’s night in the newly-built Olympic Stadium, London. After seven years of planning and preparation, the organizers are all geared  up and ready for the beginning of the games, and looking forward to have the world’s attention towards the games particularly from its opening ceremony tomorrow and its closing 17 days later. I believe London’s iconic landmarks, Big Ben, London Bridge Tower, Buckingham Palace, London Eye, and the newly-built The Shard (tallest building of the country) would be featured tomorrow as well in the broadcast besides than showing awesome aerial view of the Olympic Park.

I have been waiting for London 2012, even from the time when Beijing 2008 just brought down its curtain with epic display on its opening and closing ceremonies. I’m not expecting for London 2012 to deliver much better since the organizers themselves have announced that they do not try to compete with Beijing 2008, but at least I’m expecting something really awesome from its opening ceremony directed by Danny Boyle with a much lower budget. Perhaps, Danny could deliver an absolutely fantastic ceremony even with lesser money allocated. We’ll see that not in a year, or a month, but tomorrow in the not-so-cool looking stadium, but thanks to the lighting at night, it looks better.

After keeping the details of the opening ceremony secret for so long, everything would be finally revealed tomorrow, when we would be given surprise on what we are about to see tomorrow’s night. However, since the influence of the cyber technology is so overwhelming, it’s very hard now to keep something this big a mystery. Many pictures and details regarding the ceremony have been revealed, and I even had read some. Opps…nevermind, I would pretend I don’t know anything when I’m about to watch the live broadcast of the ceremony over here in Malaysia in Saturday’s very early morning.

Hmm…I’m a bit surprised that the Olympic Stadium in London, the main venue for the games is nominated for 2012 Stirling Prize, Britain’s top architecture award. Well, I believe it gets nomination because of its fame, and not because of its architecture which is already been commented heavily as being seriously lacking in design value, especially when compared with Beijing National Stadium (aka ‘Bird Nest’) used for Beijing 2008 games. For me, there isn’t any much good architectural essence found from the design of this newly-constructed stadium, but there is one point that I like from it, which is the ability to transform into much smaller community stadium after the games for sustainability purpose and to prevent ‘white-elephant’ issue, which is one of the highlight of this 30th Olympiad in London.

Well, well, well….now, I couldn’t wait any longer for the next day to arrives, for the opening ceremony to commence. It’s now only about several hours left before Friday comes; the day when everyone especially people of UK would be so excited as the world is watching upon their city, and to see how the opening ceremony could left all of us speechless. What is going to be performed tomorrow? Who is going to be the final torchbearer that would light the torch in the stadium? How is it going to be like? David Beckham is given what particular role in the ceremony? My expectation is high. Everything will be revealed tomorrow on the opening ceremony that would begins at 9pm (not the usual time of 8pm) at London. (It’s 4am here in Malaysia for your information)

Movie review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Christopher Nolan, a very acclaimed film director reboot the ‘Batman’ successfully with a much darker and realistic tone with the film of ‘Batman Begins’ in 2005. Then, he continued to produce marvelous sequel for it, leading to ‘The Dark Knight’ in 2008 that receives major positive reviews and gain over 1 billion grossing. That is not the end yet. On this year, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ which puts the epic franchise into trilogy is reported to be the conclusion. Hence, this film which is seen as one of the summer blockbuster is expected to gain more than its predecessors, but not in term of my review.

First of all, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is an extremely long movie, taking almost three hours with much of the time wasted on the slow pace of story development particularly in the first hour. The part that shows how Bruce Wayne (the Batman portrayed by Christian Bale) hide himself from the city of Gotham that feels that he is wrong and responsible for the death of Harvey Dent (in previous case back in The Dark Knight) is excessively long. I didn’t say its unnecessary, but that aspect is being delivered in a boring and draggy mode which is frustrating. Well, luckily there is a good interception in between, on which Selina Kyle is introduced as the Catwoman, portrayed by the gorgeous Anne Hathaway. Heavy emphasis is also given to a new character; Detective Blake portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and that is a good addition too.

Hmm…I predicted the character of the Catwoman to be a little bad in the beginning but turns out to assist Batman on saving Gotham city later on. Well, there is no surprise there for the reason of introduction of this character. The main villain this time is Bane (portrayed by Tom Hardy), a physically strong pure-evil mask-wearing man who planned for destruction of the city in the underworld beneath all the underground sewage systems running throughout the city. I like the part on how his character and his evilness is introduced in the beginning of the film at the scene involving the plane. But then, I find his physical strength isn’t enough to make him really ‘evil’ on this film. I prefer ‘The Joker’ in the previous film over Bane. ‘The Joker’ managed to sort out wonderful plans to do the tricks and damages in simple ways that gets the attention of the audiences. All Bane shows over here is only his power in combat with the Batman on which he prevails but in the end killed by a simple shot firing by Catwoman using Batpod. So, it’s actually unnecessary to show ample of not-so-thrilling combat scenes between Bane and Batman. In the end, you could just kill Bane with a shot. And that huge group of police force shown in the film is a bit useless over there in such a situation.

Sorry for a bit of spoiler over there. It’s like inevitable not to show any spoiler over here when I’m writing down my thoughts over this film. There had been out-of-proportion character’s development to Bruce Wayne, whom is the Batman himself. That is what makes kids get bored of this film. Furthermore, the script is very good but is too hard for us to digest or absorb. I hardly understand some of the dialogues spoken which is supposed to be very meaningful but it’s hard even for me to get it. It’s just too complicated. Luckily, there is still a kind of surprise at the climax part (aah, I won’t reveal it here) which is an interesting twist to the elaborative plot. This time, there is not much intense content going on throughout the film compared to the many seen in 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’. The performance by the casts who are mostly experienced are generally good.

What’s good about this film is the soundtracks produced by Hans Zimmer. Those soundtracks are so awesome to be heard during the movie and they fit into it perfectly. It provides extra dimension and intensity to the film, and helps to cover many parts which are not that interesting but is being turned into heart-stopping moments in the end. And one more thing, Batman is now equipped with much advanced tools and vehicles (now Batman has an auto-driven flying weapon machine called simply The Bat). Cool addition. Hmm…I like the ending as well. The ending is pretty intensifying, emotional, meaningful and puts the film to a very great end indeed despite going through disappointing path in the middle. It is a perfect ending to the franchise. Somehow, Christopher Nolan had successfully captured our ‘souls’ from his spectacular direction in the Batman trilogy he directed.

So overall, the movie starts off quite well but just for a while, then makes you bored for around one to two hours before getting you to a not-so-thrilling but surprising climax, and finally to an epic end. So, it’s imbalance and lengthy ride all the way. And that took me three hours which is too long for me. To be honest, it’s not that interesting or exciting for me, but I find there is a kind of substance on this work of masterpiece that would still adds up to a generally favourable review for it. Some parts should be cut off, then it should be a bit better. Anyway, it’s still a great outcome by Christopher Nolan. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ a total of 7.6. It turns out to be a a little letdown from my expectation and fails to mesmerise me, but I believe this film shall not be missed for any movie-goers.

(Images on this post are obtained from various sources throughout the world wide web)

Countdown: A week left to London 2012

Yes, it’s now only a mere 7 days left to 30th Summer Olympic Games, London 2012. A week later, which is the next Friday, I would  stay awake till the middle of the night just to be on time to watch the live broadcast of the much-anticipated opening ceremony of the games, to be held in the newly-built Olympic Stadium in Stratford, London.There has been no revealing detail on the exact time that the opening ceremony would begins. Some believed it would starts at 8pm as similar to previous games while some choose for 12 minutes past 8 which the number indicates the current year as well (20:12) which is a very good idea.

In whatever time it will starts, the producers of the opening ceremony directed by Danny Boyle were informed recently that the ceremony has to be cut short to within three hours to allow for the 80-000 strong crowd of spectators to have ample of time for their transportation after the ceremony. Security is also further enhanced as a huge number of country’s leaders are expected to attend, particularly the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II who would officiate the opening of the games on the very awesome night. So, if I am to adjust the time zone difference between UK and Malaysia, then I would have to be in front of TV by 4am in the morning. It’s 8 hours difference between here and UK.

Some details of the opening ceremony are finally revealed recently. I have read part of those revealed details and there are even some pictures released showing some built set on the Olympic Stadium ready for the opening ceremony. I’m not going to expose it here, so that you would be amazed with a bit more surprise by the time of the real show begins next Friday. The 10 000 performers are now in very frequent schedules on few last rehearsals for the opening ceremony so that they would perform smoothly and in organized manner as planned on that night, to be watched by not only 80-000 crowd in the stadium, but also by over billion people worldwide through online or television broadcasting.

Will Danny Boyle succeed to amaze the world from his directing effort on this opening ceremony? And not to forget, the theme of this opening ceremony is ‘Isle of Wonder’. So, imagine what we can expect to observe from that particular theme at this moment? But the real thing would comes very soon in only a week later. It’s like I couldn’t wait any longer for it anymore. If you want to know more on some details regarding the ceremony, you can simply google it like me. This opening ceremony which costs only about 27 million which is far behind from Beijing 2008 games that used up around 200 million only for the opening ceremony. London 2012 is not trying to compete with that, but still comes in a strong heart to deliver the best to the spectators. We’ll see soon enough; next week.

Movie review: Ice Age 4 – Continental Drift (2012)

The first ‘Ice Age’ film is released way back a decade ago. Then comes its first sequel entitled ‘The Meltdown’ on 2006, following with second sequel; ‘Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ in 2009. On this year’s July, there came the fourth instalment, latest of the famous animated franchise entitled ‘Continental Drift’. I watched the first teaser trailer of this film long long ago, and after watching the film, the teaser trailer actually shows the actual beginning of the film as well, which marked the way for the whole story of the film, continuing from previous stories set in the first three films.

Well, all the main characters remain, and of course with addition of several new interesting characters, in approach similar with that of the previous films of the franchise. This time around, the saber-toothed squirrel does not only appears to be in parallel with the main story with no purpose. His obsession to nuts lead to the beginning of the whole story started from the continental break that separates the main protagonists; the mammoth, sloth and the tiger from the mammoth’s wife and daughter whom is now grown up but was disappointingly under strict control from her father in the beginning. The continental break that makes the world map of what it is today makes no sense, but I like that. That is awesome…haha

That brings the main protagonists to the middle of the ocean, away from the land, and from there, they began an adventure to reach back to the land after going through the rough sea, unhelpful current, tornado and particularly a group of animal pirates headed by an evil captain which is an ape. That sounds exciting. But after watching the film, I find that the story is not delivered to its best eventhough there is a strong potential on it. Comparing it with the first three films, I find ‘Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ is better in terms of the intensity of the story in reaching out to the audiences. I hardly feel anything exciting from the story of this fourth film. Anyway, it’s still a good story, but is being treated too similarly with the previous films in some aspects. It’s not that bad actually. It’s quite interesting after all.

The characters are lovely and funny. They are there for some sort of adventure in each films. Now, each main protagonists are not alone. The mammoth has his own family now, while his daughter had a group of friends of the same species. The sloth is dumped again by his family but then he had a new family member, his granny with him along the journey whom helps to save the day in the end. The tiger met a new companion, a white female tiger which at first belongs to the group of pirates, but turns over to help them as very much expected. You see…this is something not good. Many parts of the film are very much predictable after seeing similar patterns from the first three films. A bit of twist is good enough to bring a thrill to the story.

It’s still a very entertaining film. Since this is already the fourth instalment to the franchise, we couldn’t expect anymore further or fresh from it. It’s actually a good sequel that provides a bit of fun to the audiences with some laugh-provoking moments. What are the producers going to think of if they are planning to make another sequel on this franchise? Even if they had new idea, at last, the story’s development would be very much similar and predictable. That is what happened to Ice Age 4: Continental Drift. It had a good and potential start, but goes on not very well, not very thrilling until the very predictable end. Out of 10 points, I rate this film a total of 6.8.

(Images from this post are not mine and are obtained from various sources throughout the world wide web)

Countdown: 10 days left to 30th Olympiad, London 2012

It’s now only 10 days left to the 30th Summer Olympic Games, London 2012. I believe the city of London currently is well ready to greet the opening of the games and to welcome over a billion audiences around the world. Many athletes from participating nations have had arrived the amazing city of London for their competition soon in sports contested in the games, which is known as the world biggest sporting event.

The athletes are ready to do their best, and if not, they are going to wait for another four years. The organisers have completed the lengthy preparation works for the games, and now they must be very excited for the day to come when the games open. The performers must be very anxious as their day would arrives in ten days when they would be finally performing to the world on the opening ceremony of the games, after going through so many stages of rehearsals.

Along with this post, I would be providing some interesting facts regarding the Olympic Games.

(a) London becomes the city of highest number of hosting to the Olympic Games, having hosted it twice and is going to host it ten days later. (1908, 1948, 2012)

(b) Olympic Games had been cancelled three times before, in 1916 (Berlin), 1940 (Tokyo then Helsinki) and 1940 (London) due to World War I and II.

(c) In the  bidding for 2012 games in final round, London won over Paris by a small margin of 4 votes, taking a total of 54 votes.

(d) Athens, Greece is the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games as well as the host city for the inaugural modern Olympic Games back in 1896, 116 years ago.

(e) The iconic Olympic ring used as the symbol of the games consisting of 5 interlocking rings represents the five continents in the world involved on this global-scale games.

That’s all for today. I’m not giving extremely long facts over here. If you wish to know more about the history of background of the games, you can search yourself. There are many information provided out there which some that I have read is quite interesting. 10 days more and I would be staying up till the middle of the night to watch the opening ceremony of London 2012 live. Ahh…the day I am waiting for is much nearer from now on. Looking forward to the opening ceremony of the games.

The first year that I skipped the entire Astro Star Quest 2012 competition including its grand final

Whenever Astro Star Quest is held every year from preliminary rounds to the grand final, I would always allocate my time to watch it every weekend. After so many years of continuous support to this competition, I finally skipped the one for this year which had just concluded last Saturday. Hmm….few months ago, when I first saw the 20 finalists succeeded on entering the preliminary rounds, they don’t really capture my attention. Basically, to be honest, mostly girls are better this time, and many of them are not equipped with star-studded appearance.

(Image above is from the official facebook page of this competition)

And yes, this is the first time in the history of the competition that there is not a single male qualified to enter the grand final that only allows five competitors. The five finalists whom made it to the final are all girls, and I don’t really know or remember their names. This year’s grand final is not held in KL or Penang, but rather in Dataran Pahlawan Square in Malacca. A bigger stage is set up this time with concert-like features facing a huge open field, which made it look more like an outdoor performance/ concert rather than a competition.

Before that, many had predicted that Nicole, one of the hot favourites would win the competition. Then, they are all right. Nicole, with her beautiful voice and appearance stands out over the rest on that night, gaining higher points than the other four finalists from the beginning till the end of the grand final, after going through several stages as usual in the pattern of the final every year of this competition. Congratulation to her for winning this year’s Astro Star Quest. Well, others did quite a good job too, and basically, all of them performed quite well, but not the very best as compared to finalists from previous years. Who gets first runner-up, second runner-up, fourth placing and fifth placing? I forgot. I only watched a very minimal portion of the grand final only.

So, the five finalists are going to compete on the Million Star, a very famous Taiwan singing competition soon as usual. The top three would also be able to join the annual TVB International New Talent Singing Championship later.Too bad, this year’s Astro Star Quest has one lesser supporter; me. This is the first year that I skipped the entire competition that usually begins from May and ends in July. I just don’t have the passion or mood to allocate around two hours for it every weekend. I don’t really know the actual reason for that. Well, am I going to watch back Astro Star Quest next year? Depends…

London 2012: Two weeks to go

14 days more and we would witness the beginning of the world biggest sporting event, held once in every four years, with this edition to be held in London. It’s exactly now two weeks left before the much anticipated opening ceremony of the games. There had been many speculations lately over expectation on the opening ceremony to be held on 27th July directed by Danny Boyle, a famous artistic director.

With budget of less than even half of the cost used in previous Beijing 2008’s opening ceremony, it is foreseen by many others already that London 2012 would falls behind the extreme glamour and scale from the previous Olympics held in China’s capital. It appears that London has no intention on doing better than Beijing 2008’s opening ceremony which is seen as the world most amazing opening ceremony ever in history. But let’s hope that the organizers would still deliver something spectacular to the world from the opening ceremony with that limiting budget so that people won’t see it as a shame or extreme disappointment compared to ‘the best-of-the-best’ delivered by Beijing 2008.

Well, it’s people’s natural response in comparing the soon-to-happen of London 2012 with the unforgettable past of Beijing 2008. So, Danny Boyle is now facing a serious pressure of planning something great to showcase to the world on 27th of this month. Let us wait and see how the opening ceremony is going to be…Awesome? Or purely failed? Boring? Stunning?

It is reported recently that Pandela Rinong, a diver from Malaysia is chosen to carry the national flag during the march of athletes in the opening ceremony representing the country. She would be the first woman carrying the flag, and that must be a very great honour for her. However, I find that Lee Chong Wei is much more suitable for that prestige. Since this would be his last outing in Olympics and that he is seen as a much potential player to help Malaysia to get its first ever Olympic gold medal, he deserves that honour much more. Many people have also objected to that decision. Too bad, it’s confirmed that Pandela is the flagbearer. I believe there must be some kind of racial issues provoked by Olympic Council of Malaysia that lead to this decision. Pandela has so many chances ahead for her, as she can be the flagbearer for future Olympics. What a bad decision OCM made.

There is also a news recently reported that a millionaire is to present a gold bar worth a whopping RM 2 million to any player who won a gold medal from London 2012 Summer Olympic Games. So, if you win a gold medal from the games and you are representing Malaysia, then you would become an instant millionaire! If there is two or more players won gold, then the gold bar will be shared by them. But I think the chance of winning one is already very minimal, so forget about winning two or more, which is almost impossible looking at our country’s record in the games’ history. We have never won any gold medal. The furthest we have gone to is only winning a silver from Beijing 2008, and another one back many years ago. But anyway, think positively. Let’s hope for the best to the Malaysian athletes representing the country in the games. Two weeks left before the games open.

Movie review: The Amazing Spider-man (2012)

‘The Amazing Spider-man’ is one of the highly-anticipated blockbusters of the year. This film directed by Marc Webb is a total reboot to Sam Raimi’s ‘Spiderman’ trilogy back many years ago, and it is a stand-alone superhero film by Marvel this year, separating it from the large ensemble of superheroes in ‘The Avengers’ film.

First of all, I am a bit disappointed that a reboot is planned rather than following the continuity from the previous films directed by Sam Raimi which are good enough to provide a successful path to ‘Spiderman’ character in box office. It’s like after you have watched a three films of it, then you have to turn back to watch the beginning part of ‘Spiderman’ once again, from this latest film but with a different villain and girlfriend this time around. Well, no doubt that people would still compare ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ to Sam Raimi’s ‘Spiderman’ trilogy, and if I do, I find any one of the trilogy by Sam Raimi is a bit better.

Regardless of all those very favourable feedbacks over this film, for me, I find ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ isn’t that amazing after all. The first half of the film is quite boring to me. Besides than having some good and funny moments from Peter Parker (Spiderman) realizing his new powers and abilities, I don’t find anything else interesting on the first half of the film, before the villain, ‘Lizard’ surfaces. Even when the ‘Lizard’ appears, there is no sense of intensity felt which is bad. The audiences should have felt excited over how Spiderman is going to battle all out with the evil ‘Lizard’, a transformation by Dr. Curt Connors. But I’m not. The giant ‘Lizard’ just came out, made some little destroy, had a plan but definitely failed in the end, and out of sudden, turned over a new leaf and saved Spiderman instead. (Sorry for a little spoiler). Not enough ‘power’ shown from the ‘Lizard’.

Another worst thing about this film is that it highlighted a lot over the romantic relationship between Peter Parker (by Andrew Garfield), the Spiderman with Gwen Stacy (by Emma Stone). That is unnecessary too much in the film, leading to limited time for exciting battle scenes between Spiderman and Lizard. Very disappointing. Who wants to know so much over their relationship? Even the kids in the cinema with us felt very bored over their numerous scenes together. Their scenes are making things slow in the film, eventually dragging the whole story to nowhere. Well, we are expecting intense fighting scenes and that are only shown in a very small proportion.

Well, it is no doubt that the visual effects are great for this high-budget film. Many scenes showing the beauty of New York City at night with Spiderman flying all around are brilliantly produced. But that wouldn’t save the movie much from all those weaknesses I had pointed out just now. Andrew Garfield portrayed a much comedic and ‘younger’ feel of the superhero and that is a good thing, which makes it different with Tobey Maguire’s portrayal as a much matured Spiderman in Sam Raimi’s trilogy. The plot for ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ is much more complicated and with certain twist involving the background for the missing of Peter’s parents and their relationship with Dr. Curt Connors, which opens up for sequel possibility that is further hinted from a scene shown after the ending credit that reveals a mysterious man in the shadow that is expected to be the villain on its planned sequel. Don’t know why but I find that things can be made simpler and much easier to understand from this kind of superhero films as it can gets more attention from the kids as well, right?

So, overall, it’s still a good worth-watching film, but fails beyond my expectation and anticipation. Not that entertaining, interesting or exciting either. It doesn’t really perform very well according to my perspective. I’m sure it is going to gain a lot from box office intake, but I am quite disagree to most of the positive reviews given to this film. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ a total of 6.8.

(The images from this post are not mine and are obtained throughout various sources from the internet)

Just back from ARCHIDEX 2012.

You know what is ARCHIDEX? If you have read my previous post, then you would know it already. If you are an architect/ interior designer/ contractor, then you would know of this event. ARCHIDEX stands for architecture and interior design exhibition, which is held annually in Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. This year, which is the 13th ARCHIDEX, over 100 booths are set up promoting various advanced industrial products useful in construction industry, accompanied with series of other events like DATUM KL (design conference) and forums.

Admission to the conference and forums requires payment, which is quite expensive for me. But then, I think the price is reasonable for the ‘rich’ architects. I went just for the exhibition along with my colleagues after registration which is very quick for me as I go for ‘architect’ section without the need to wait in long queue. Cool…extra privilege for architects! And I absolutely like that. There are several halls we need to get in for the exhibition, and we went to all of them in quite a short period of time, as my colleague needs to rush back home soon after.

There are a lot of people attending this exhibition, as today is Saturday and it is also the last day of the exhibition. Everything seems to be quite busy inside, with people promoting their products or company to the visitors, visitors asking for brochures and information, people exchanging ideas and discussion, visitors taking pictures of cool stuff visible from the booths or products, etc. What we do? We had a quick walk all around and covered many booths by taking only brochures. We had a longer stop at some booths that attracted our attention. There is even a booth that has a small pool inside with a people in there demonstrating and explaining (so it’s obvious on what the booth is promoting; pool system). I didn’t manage to take a picture of that.

Too bad, we can’t stay any longer for the exhibition, as we came by one car, and we had to go. Before we left, we saw some works (presentation panels) displayed that are awarded and shortlisted for competitions. Some are impressive. This year, there are also a display of several small-scale design models which I believe are from student works. Some are good, but some are too simple to the point that those do not deserved to be showcased over there. There must be a lot of experienced or professional architects out there looking at all that. Too bad, I didn’t join the DATUM KL conference. If I did, I would have the chance to meet Daniel Libeskind, a very famous international architect who participates on this year’s DATUM that sets the theme of ‘reflection’.

We left with not only a single bag, but several bags full of variety of brochures and some small gifts like pens. So heavy to carry. Basically, now, I have been to this exhibition twice, first time in few years ago when I was still a university’s student and this time around is my second time, as an ARCHITECT. Cool…Since this exhibition gathers people of the similar industry together and is very much beneficial to people like us who need to know more on new products and suppliers on which we can apply or use those in our design projects, and so I think starting from now, I would be going for ARCHIDEX every year.  (Image below is from http://www.asiabuilders.com.my/asiabuilders/NewsListing.aspx?ind_ctry_code=conMY)