Weekend with durian, movie and music all by myself!

I have spent this weekend all by myself and there’s fun in it too. Besides than giving the time just to myself without being bothered by anyone else, I also got to enjoy the things I like to do in this last weekend of July. Sometimes, it is just right to spend some quality time alone.

It looks like durian season is coming to an end and hence I will not miss the chance to treat myself with the king of fruit. I treated myself yesterday two XO durians that cost 30 dollars in total. I just love it; its creamy texture and the mix of sweet and bitter taste are so mouth-watering. I usually have them on weekend as to avoid speaking to my colleagues and boss on weekdays with bad breath. Haha…its smell is really very strong and that’s why this fruit is highly controversial.

For me, a weekend feels incomplete without a movie. Although ‘Toy Story 4’ has been out in cinemas for quite some time now, I only managed to watch it just today. ‘Toy Story 3’ that was released 9 years ago is already a remarkable way to end this film series and everyone felt that it is not necessary for another ‘Toy Story’ films (me included). However, ‘Toy Story 4’ surprised us all with yet another brilliant addition to this film series that has accompanied a lot of kids for years till now when they have all grown up.

There is so much emotion in ‘Toy Story 3’ and in this latest sequel, we saw a similar parting moment again between the main characters (a little spoiler here) at the end of the movie. ‘Toy Story 4’ delivered yet again with its humor (had some great laughs and fun…the new character, Forky is really hilarious) and emotion. The vocal performances are top-notch and the animation do look marvelous too. It’s hard for a sequel to work well especially after an impressive conclusion in the third film and yet ‘Toy Story 4’ defies that. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Toy Story 4’ a total of 8.6. A highly enjoyable, entertaining, fun, and moving film. This is so far the best animated film of the year. So far, the film has grossed US$ 870 million worldwide and I hope it will go over t-billion dollar milestone.

Recently, I have been actively following the development of Sammi Cheng’s Follow Mi concert tour in Hong Kong (if you do not know her; she is a famous Hong Kong singer and is regarded as a Cantopop queen). Although I am not in Hong Kong personally to watch her show (she held 13 shows at Hong Kong Coliseum which ended last night), but I do watch a lot of her performances recorded by some kind audiences and uploaded to Youtube recently. She tried on some new directions in this concert (her 10th concert tour at Hong Kong Coliseum and she had also break past her 100th show at that venue) and I love it. Some of the guest artists that she had invited in her 13 shows are Kelly Chen, Sally Yip, Kay Tse, Candy Lo, Karen Mok, Louis Koo, Joyce Cheng, Jackson Wang, Gigi Leung, Amanda Lee, Coco Lee, etc). Her new song (We Grew Up The Same Way) is particularly meaningful and beautiful and I love it so much that I kept repeating the song from day to night whenever I’m listening to music nowadays.

Too bad that I’m not in Hong Kong to watch her show (it’s super hard to buy her concert ticket) and it also looks like it’s not the good timing for tourists to visit Hong Kong now due to the never ending protests that happened currently (Hong Kongers protesting against the extradition bill and the interference of mainland China on Hong Kong’s own different governing policies). Anway, I do hope that she will come to perform at Malaysia or Singapore very soon and I will not certainly miss it. She’s my no.1 favourite singer to listen to.

Alright, that’s it for my last post of the month (most probably). Can’t wait for this long month to end and can’t wait for the holidays in August (National Day and Hari Raya Haji for a long weekend break).

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

Less than one year to go to Tokyo 2020!

The first Olympic Games that I have watched was Athens 2004 when I was only 13 years old. From then, I am impressed by the sheer beauty of its opening and closing ceremonies, huge variety of sports contested, large number of participating athletes from all across the world, and the loud cheers from enthusiastic audiences.

Beijing 2008 stunned us all with unforgettable and magnificent opening and closing ceremonies, topped with stunning architecture in its Olympic venues (particularly the famous ‘Bird Nest’ stadium). London 2012 also fascinated us all with its fantastic green initiatives in the games and I even did a research report about it in my Master study. The latest edition of the games was Rio 2016. That’s the games that didn’t leave any impression due to its pretty average ceremonies and venues (the venues had now fallen into state of disrepair) and its multiple controversies.

Now, I’m looking forward to the next games which is now just a year away; Tokyo 2020. I have high expectation to this games as I believe Japan can deliver and put us all in awe with its advanced innovation and ideas. It will be the 5th Olympic Games (or to be exact, the 5th Summer Olympic Games) that I will be paying my attention to (I never bother to watch the Winter Olympic Games).

With the clock now ticking, Tokyo has already made immense progress on its preparation to this games. It will be their second time hosting the games (also the first Asian country to host it twice). The exterior of the main National Stadium looks completed as seen from the recently released photographs. Designed by Kengo Kuma, the latticed timber stadium will have a maximum seating capacity of 80 000 people and is set to be completed end of this year.

Recently, the Tokyo 2020 medal design has also been unveiled to the public’s excitement. Why? It is because that all the medals are manufactured from recycled smartphones and small electronic devices that were donated by the public between April 2017 and March 2019. Talking about green inititative here again…Altogether, these yielded 32kg of gold, 3500kg of silver and 2200kg of bronze. Ohh! I didn’t know that our common electronic devices have gold in them?!

I am also looking forward to our Malaysian athletes’ performance in this games. Our best bet, Lee Chong Wei will be no longer playing but I do still hope that we can finally win our country’s very first Olympic gold either from other badminton players (but our national badminton team isn’t doing well now unfortunately) or even from other sports.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

 

 

3 movies to join the 1 billion dollar club simultaneously, and they are ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Lion King’.

We certainly saw a lot of movies that smashed the box office this year. Just last week, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ defeated ‘Avatar’ to become the world’s highest grossing film of all-time at US$2.79 billion. At this stage, it looks like ‘Endgame’ will ends its run possibly breaking through the unprecedented US$2.8 billion mark. We will see.

Then, before this weekend arrives, ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ becomes the 40th movie to cross the prestigious 1 billion dollar milestone. It is the first ever Spiderman film to accomplish that feat (after multiple attempts by different studios in the past). It has so far accumulated approximately US$ 1.005 billion. As of now, the three films this year that had passed the milestone are ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Captain Marvel’ and ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’. Yup, they are all Marvel movies. 2019 is proven to be a big year for Marvel (this year marked the end of the three phases of MCU films that spanned 10 years and over 20 films) and people from all around the world aren’t tired yet of superhero movies.

The next film to join the 1-billion dollar club is ‘Aladdin’. This live-action remake of the animated classic is going to achieve that before the weekend arrives too Currently, the film has gained US$ 999 million and it’s only less than a million dollar away.  By the way, I do like the original animated film but I have yet to see this live action remake.

The next film that is a sure thing to also join the 1-billion dollar club is ‘The Lion King’. It is also a remake (remake of the original computer animated film to the current photorealistic animated film). The movie has only been out in theatres for about a week and it has already made over US$710 million. That’s certainly impressive and with huge box office return coming in every day, this film will get past the 1-billion mark pretty quick (most probably by next weekend).

Yup, three 2019 films get past US$1 billion simultaneously. This impressive feat makes people wonder now whether is it too easy now for movies to cross the 1-billion milestone. It’s is definitely not as hard as before due to increasing movie ticket prices and much bigger market from foreign countries (especially China).

On the other hand, it looks very likely that there will be at least 7 films released this year that will be 1-billion grosser. They are ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Captain Marvel’, ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘The Lion King’ and the upcoming ‘Frozen 2’ and ‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’. There has never been a year with this many films that would gross over 1 billion dollar. ‘Frozen 2’ will be the only animated film this year that will do that although I still hope that the currently airing ‘Toy Story 4’ can accomplish that as well to push the number to 8. The film has been in cinemas for quite some time now and has currently accumulated over US$ 870 million. It needs another US$ 130 million. That is still possible only if the movie stay as leggy as it can. By the way, I still haven’t watch it too.

That’s it for my update to the blog on this lovely Friday evening. Have a great weekend!

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

Sightseeing at the famous spots in SG…special of the weekend: National Day rehearsal fireworks!

This weekend has been a more interesting weekend, thanks to my friends who came all the way from Malaysia to Singapore to meet me up, hangout at several famous spots in this tiny island and to check out some special events in this weekend.

The highlight of the weekend is definitely the rehearsal fireworks for the upcoming National Day celebration. From what I have researched, this year is a special year for Singapore as it marks the bicentennial (200 years anniversary) of the founding of Singapore as a British colony (Sir Stamford Raffles first step foot on Singapore in 1819). Hence, the National Day celebration this year is to be made grander. As I will be back to Malaysia on the National Day (on 9th August), at least I was able to catch its fireworks display on its rehearsal yesterday evening at the waterfront along the iconic Marina Bay Sands. Here’s a short clip of the finale of the fireworks display last evening:

Besides than walking around and exploring the popular tourist spots (mostly around CBD, Marina Bay Sands and City Hall area…the views around these areas are really spectacular and pictures-worthy), we also managed to visit an exhibition at the Art and Science Museum called ‘Floating Utopias’. There’s a super long queue for the exhibition not because of the popular appeal of it but because it offers free admission.

Enjoy some of the shots that I have taken:

The weekend is coming to an end. I am grateful for my friends’ company and all the serious, funny and nonsense chats that we had (although they only stayed for one to two days) that have made my weekend more exciting (although exhausting too…but it’s okay). Tomorrow…it’s time to get back to reality and it’s work, work and work again. So much things to do in this coming week and I can’t wait for my salary to come in as the end of the month nears.

 

We have the new worldwide box office champion! ‘Avengers: Endgame’ dethroned ‘Avatar’ as the world’s highest grossing film.

After three months in theatres and a re-release, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ finally succeeded on taking the No.1 spot from ‘Avatar’ as the world’s highest grossing film of all time(not adjusted for inflation). By end of today, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ would have grossed around US$ 2.790 billion, which has already exceeded the US$ 2.788 billion that ‘Avatar’ has collected previously.

‘Avatar’ has been on the throne for about 10 years now and finally, another film has the ability to snatch the title away from it. ‘Avatar’ and ‘Titanic’ (both were directed by James Cameron) have been sitting comfortably in the top 2 positions for a long time and now James Cameron has to settle for the 2nd and 3rd place. Well, there is a chance that the sequel to ‘Avatar’ may be able to take back the crown later.

But for now, a huge congratulation to Marvel Studio! After an absolutely insane worldwide debut (grossed over US$1.2 billion in its opening weekend alone – this is already a record), the movie dropped significantly in its box office sales week after week due to heavy front-loaded factor and intense competition from many other famous movies releasing within the same period. Then, the hope of seeing the movie taking down ‘Avatar’ is getting slimmer as day goes by. However, Marvel did a huge trick and offered a re-release and it successfully boosted the box office sales of ‘Endgame’.

And yup, ‘Endgame’ is now officially the world’s highest grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation). It looks like the movie will end its run at an impressive figure of US$2.8 billion. So far, the movie has grossed over US$ 850 million in domestic (US and Canada) box office (second highest domestic earner, behind only ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and over US$ 1.92 billion in international markets (also the second highest international earner, behind only ‘Avatar’). But when you add the total up, ‘Endgame’ prevailed at the top.

After this impressive box office performance, many may wonder if there is possibility for another movie in the near future to break past the unprecedented US$ 3 billion milestone. The coming sequel for ‘Avatar’ or perhaps a totally new masterpiece just like how the ‘Avatar’ first came out in theatre and stunned the world with its massive box office intake.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

 

Cesar Pelli, the architect behind the iconic Petronas Twin Towers, passed away at age 92.

After the demise of I.M. Pei two months ago, another legendary architect passed away this year unfortunately. Cesar Pelli, an Argentine American architect who is famous for designing the Petronas Twin Towers, died yesterday (19th July 2019) at age 92.

Besides than the Petronas Twin Towers which were once the world’s tallest buildings (they are now still the current world’s tallest twin buildings), Cesar Pelli was also the architect of many tall buildings across the world. Hence, he is famously known as the master of skyscrapers and he is one of my favourite architects (obviously since I am obsessed with skyscrapers).

Born in October 12th, 1926 in Argentina, Cesar Pelli moved to the United States in 1952 and received his Master of Science in Architecture degree from University of Illinois in 1954. He then worked for Eero Saarinen and then became the director at Daniel, Mann Johnson and Mendenhall in LA. In 1977, he opened his own firm, Cesar Pelli & Associates.

With a career spanning over 6 decades, he is the architect of over 100 buildings across the globe. Here are some of his famous completed projects;

Pacific Design Center, LA, USA (1975)

World Financial Center, New York City, USA (1981-1987)

Carnegie Hall Tower, New York City, USA (1987-1990)

One Canada Square, London, UK (1987-1991)

Wells Fargo Center, Minneapolis, USA (1988)

Bank of America Corporate Center, North Carolina, USA (1992)

Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1998)

Two International Finance Centre, Hong Kong, China (2003)

National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (2004)

BOK Center, Oklahoma, USA (2008)

One Park West, Liverpool, England (2008)

Torre de Cristal, Madrid, Spain (2008)

Connecticut Science Center, Connecticut, USA (2009)

The Landmark, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2013)

The Theatre School of DePaul University, Chicago, USA (2015)

The American Institute of Architects named him one of the ten most influential living American architects in 1991 and awarded him the AIA Gold Medal in 1995. In 1997, he received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. In 2008, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat presented him with The Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award.

We have lost another notable and inspiring architect this year. Rest in peace, Cesar Pelli, You have been a great inspiration to many young architects and has been a role model to skyscraper fans like me. By the way, I am never tired of looking at the majestic Petronas Twin Towers from day to night. Its design is simply striking and out of the world.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

Drama review for TVB ‘Big White Duel’ and movie review for ‘Crawl’

‘Big White Duel’ is a Hong Kong drama that centered around a group of doctors in a hospital. This 25-episodes series starred Roger Kwok, Kenneth Ma, Ali Lee, Natalie Tong, Matthew Ho, Crystal Fung, Kelly Cheung, Ashley Chu, etc. This line-up of cast is already sufficient to persuade me to watch the series. The series started off pretty well with me having high expectation to it as it progresses. However, I’m getting more and more disappointed as the series continues till its ending aired yesterday.

This series tend to go on a different approach from the past TVB medical dramas. Rather than emphasizing on relationship between the characters and the emotional sides from both the doctors and the patients, this series focuses more on the politics of high-ranking doctors in the hospital, the proposal for a medical law by Roger Kwok (this has been dragged on forever throughout the entire series and left me bored whenever I heard those words again), and the realism of the surgeries shown (good effort for that but that’s not the main reason we wanted to watch this drama in the first place).

With this new direction, the series felt fresh but lacks emotional depth. The drama lacks content that would get the audiences moved of which I was expecting since it is a medical drama that is all about life and death. The romantic story arc between Kenneth Ma and Natalie Tong felt flat. I couldn’t feel any chemistry between them and I am seriously annoyed by that English song that is overused throughout the entire series. Kenneth’s chemistry with Ali Lee is even better but they didn’t end up together. The story arc for Ali Lee’s character is interesting but her ending is very badly done. She was just completely left out in the end to allow for Kenneth to be together with Natalie. Talking about the ending, this drama has an open ending. There is no wrong to it and it highly suggested that a sequel is coming. However, such ending left me hanging and disturbed; there are too many unresolved issues and unanswered questions. And this is a bad way to end a drama that is already going downhill in my opinion. As for the supporting characters, there isn’t a single moment for them to shine. They are truly very much being ‘supporting’ in this drama without any importance. What a waste to a drama with such a huge potential to be the next ‘The Hippocratic Crush’. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Big White Duel’ a total of 6.8.

Let’s move on to a movie review now. Creature attack film is one of the film genre that I like to watch because they are usually intense, no-brainer and fun. Hence, I wouldn’t want to miss out on this newly released film called ‘Crawl’. The movie is about a daughter (Kaya Scodelario…ahh, remember her from the ‘Maze Runner’ film series) and her father (Barry Pepper…ohh, he was also in ‘Maze Runner’ film series) trying to escape their house from alligators during a hurricane. After just about 15 minutes into the movie, everything gets down to serious business straight away. No time is to be wasted and it’s all a thrilling ride till the end seeing the two characters trapped in the house with the fierce and terrifying alligators.

The movie is super intense and kept me at the edge of my seat. There are also some solid jump scares that really got me. The two main actors are exceptional while the alligators look freaking real and scary. I had a great time watching this. Surprisingly, this movie is also getting positive acclaim (very high Rotten Tomatoes score currently) which is unusual for film of this type. It means that this film is real good. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Crawl’ a total of 8.5.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)

 

IKEA shopping and Spidey movie to de-stress.

I felt a little depressed recently. Moody feeling most of the time and I find that everything around me just didn’t go well or as what I wanted. Also a bit of stomachache early this morning and so I had to take a day off today. I’m taking full advantage of this day off to get myself recharged to face this super long month that doesn’t have a single public holiday at all. I went filling up the day not only just by resting at home, but also a quick shopping stop at IKEA and a time for a movie (to de-stress).

The movie was ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’. This movie is the last film in the third phase of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the story picks up after the world-changing events in ‘Avengers: Endgame’ that we have all seen few months ago. In this Spider-Man film sequel, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) to face Elemental threats while he is on a school trip to Europe.

I find that this sequel is a lot better than ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ with a more interesting plot and more engaging actions. Everything is upped in scale as compared to the first film. Tom Holland has proven to us again that he is the right man to play this neighborhood-friendly superhero by conveying excellent emotions and witty awkwardness that somehow made us to like this teenage version of Peter Parker that has not been seen in the past Spiderman movies. There’s also a lot of twist (spoiler: a lot of illusion going on in this movie) in the story that got us surprised. The only downside to this movie is the casting of Zendaya as MJ (Peter Parker’s love interest). Zendaya just doesn’t fit well into this character and appears not compatible with Tom Holland. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ a total of 8.2. A satisfying, fun and charming film.

Until now, I still don’t understand why are people leaving the theatre as soon as the credits start rolling at the end of a Marvel movie? Is this the first time you have been watching Marvel movies? There must be one or two scenes after the credits (mid and/or end credit scenes). I felt bad for them for missing those scenes (for this movie, there are two scenes). Although sometimes they are pretty useless, but sometimes they gave out huge hint on what’s next to come. Now, I’m very excited to see where Marvel will go after this third phase. On the other hand, ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ is doing very well to both critics (90% at Rotten Tomatoes currently) and at the box office. It’s now almost certain that this film will become the first Spiderman movie to break the 1-billion mark in worldwide grossing because it already had gained over US$ 580 million in only its first week of release..

Before I end this post, I would like to wish Happy Birthday to our beloved Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He is 94 years old now! That’s an incredible feat by itself apart from all the achievement that he had brought to Malaysia in his political career that spanned over multiple decades. Do you know he is currently the oldest living prime minister in the world?! Yes, he is. Although I find that his age really hinders his commitment for the top post of the nation from some of his outdated/backward-thinking principles, but I have to really admire and respect to this man for what he has done and still doing for the country.

(Images in this post are from various online sources)