The month of June starts with the end of The Amazing Race 29

I have been following every episodes of The Amazing Race Season 29 each week. I have actually followed this reality television show for several continuous seasons by now. I love this program which sees a number of teams in pair travelling across the world, completing tasks, having arguments within themselves or with other teams, experiencing difficulties, brace the extreme challenges and sweating it all out to win the final grand prize of US$ 1 million. In this Season 29, the teams are formed by choosing within the group of individual participants who are completely stranger to one another.

I look forward to the new episodes every weekend and they traveled to countries like Panama, Brazil, Norway, Italy, Greece, Vietnam, South Korea, etc to complete tasks. Matt and Redmond are a great team that I first foresee their potential to win this season of The Amazing Race. They have been performing very well and consistently in every episodes. However, their poor decision of choosing train as their mode of transport in Seoul and the carelessness of their taxi driver later on the same day who brought them to other location has cost their opportunity to win the race. What a bad day that turns everything over for them! They were the last team to get kicked out before the final leg which is so unfortunate.

The final 3 teams that successfully proceed to the final leg are Scott and Brooke, Tara and Joey, and London and Logan. These 3 pairs were always considered the underdogs earlier on as they have not performed very well in the earlier legs. And to my surprise, luck is on Scott and Brooke’s (picture below) side on the last two crucial legs. Everything seems to be very smooth for this pair and they indeed win the race in the end and won the 1 million dollar. A huge congratulation to them! I actually find it unexpected because they are actually one of the weaker teams as compared to the rest. I also cannot stand the consistent whining by Brooke in every legs. She is too annoying and unbearable throughout the whole race. She can’t even do a simple task properly and loves to scream ‘I’m dying’ even at simple task of just running around. Scott should just get the whole bunch of the 1 million dollar just for putting up to her. Brooke do not deserve a single cent from this win. She should seriously work on her attitude. She now literally becomes my most hated person in The Amazing Race series, and will not be remembered as the winner of this reality show. Now, I have to wait for the next one, The Amazing Race 30 and I hope it will be out very soon. That will be the iconic 30th edition of the show!

On the other hand, did TVB has no new own dramas to show now? It has two timeslots every evening on the television. TVB ended up putting a mainland China drama and an old local drama made 10 years ago currently. This is a very bad move. People will just move away from their dramas for now. TVB should really appreciate the viewers and not letting them leave with such move especially in this year when the station will celebrate its 50th anniversary. I’m sure you have a lot of other completed dramas in shelf ready to be released out. I have no choice but to watch ‘Phoenix Rising’ now, a drama that was actually made a decade ago and they choose to release it now. They did release this drama earlier on though in oversea market.

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

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Finished The Amazing Race 27…and the other much bigger news; this is my 1700th blog post!

First of all, a huge announcement need to be made first; My blog had reached another milestone on this day, by having a total of 1700 blog posts to date. This blog post is exactly the 1700th of this blog. Wonderful! Target achieved before the end of the year of which I have set or forecast earlier. What a great news…my Sunday couldn’t be more happier in marking this accomplishment.

Producing 100 blog posts is already a no-easy task, and now I have went so far beyond, and reached 1700 today. I believe not many bloggers out there can have that much of posts in less than 8 years. So far, in this year alone, I have written over 200 blog posts which obviously shows that my blog is very active and frequently updated, and that I’m very hardworking and passionate about blogging. Haha…taking this opportunity to praise myself.

Well, on this Sunday too is the day I finished watching ‘The Amazing Race Season 27’ after gone through its exciting final episode (12th episode) just now. If you didn’t know, I have been catching up with this US television programme for many seasons already (about several teams of 2 person each racing around the world and performing tasks to avoid getting eliminated in each episode) and this latest one is not excluded. I’m happy that my favourite pair, Kelsey and Joey won the race as well as the awesome US 1 million dollar prize. From the beginning, I have been in favour of this pair as they are kind, good, seldom quarrel and always performed tasks in very efficient way. However, in the earlier stages, they always ended up being in the second place. Fortunately, luck is on their side at the most crucial last leg and they won the race after having gone through 5 continents and 10 countries with the other two finalist teams.

The other two teams which succeeded into the final leg are Justin and Diana and Chris and Logan. Justin and Diana had been conquering the earlier legs (winning many of them) but cab issue had cost them the final leg. They are really one strong team to beat as seen in their dominating leads in earlier rounds. However, I find the attitude of Justin to be quite bad and he is always being cocky. I’m okay with them ended up in first runner-up in the end. Chris and Logan are famous for frequent quarrel and they surprisingly made it into the final 3. It’s the best that they can do already. Now, another season has ended and I have to wait for the next one. The season 28 should be on early next year.

I am also quite excited today because the TVB Anniversary Awards 2015 is going to be held tonight. Too bad, I couldn’t watch it live because I have a full-moon dinner to attend tonight as my cousin’s newborn baby would be celebrating 1-month (full moon) today. Nevertheless, I would still catch up to the results as soon as possible and will write a blog post about it later on. And on the other hand, in about less than a week later, I have another dinner to attend and this time it is my cousin’s wedding dinner. That’s it for my 1700th blog post on this lovely Sunday.

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

Oscar season is back with line-up of many great movies coming soon…

As we are approaching the last few months of the year, it is also the time when we shall get ourselves prepared for many upcoming movies to be released before the end of 2015 that are tipped for Oscar glory early next year. ‘Birdman’, Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore winning Oscars early this year will become history as attention is now redirected to potential films this year that could score big in the world’s most prestigious film awards, the Academy Awards next year.

Well, some of you would say that it is a bit too early now to talk on this topic as the next Oscars is still more than five months away. However, there have been already many polls, forums and websites out there debating and making their early predictions for 2016 Oscars, much earlier than me. I have been a keen follower of the Oscars in these recent years by watching many of the Oscar winning and nominated films in the past. I have had also many of my predictions for Academy Awards early this year accurate.

The first film that made its mark as a strong contender for next year’s Oscars is ‘Carol’, a film that received critical acclaim after being premiered in Cannes Film Festival in the past May. The film about a woman falling for an older, married woman starred Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Rooney had already won the Best Actress from Cannes from her role in this film. But everyone is expecting her to be better if placed in supporting actress category for Oscars next year, and she looks like an unbeatable frontrunner in that particular category. This will eventually allows Cate Blanchett to potentially shine again in leading actress category next year for her similarly astonishing performance as judged by the critics in Cannes. Cate Blanchett is one of my favourite actresses and I’m looking forward to watch ‘Carol’. Ohh…by the way, she’s the evil stepmother in ‘Cinderella’ film early this year too.

Not long ago, a movie trailer for ‘The Revenant’ is released, starring Leonardo diCaprio and Tom Hardy, which is about a frontiersman setting out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling. Directed by the most recent Academy Award winning director, Alejandro G. Innaritu, people see this film as finally a smooth road for Leonardo diCaprio to get his Best Actor statue. He is definitely long overdue and if he is really doing absolutely great in this movie, then I have no problem anticipating him to get the trophy. But wait…as usual, the competition for best actor race is always tight and compacted every year. Who is there to prevent that from happening again?

He is Eddie Redmayne, who had just won the most recent Academy Award in best actor from his portrayal as Stephen Hawking in ‘The Theory of Everything’. He is now looking good to win back-to-back Oscars as he has one wonderful film coming up by this November. The movie is ‘The Danish Girl’, one of my most anticipated films this year after looking at the first teaser image of Eddie portraying as a woman in the movie. The movie, inspired by a true story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people to undergo gender change surgeries is tipped for Oscar glory. The first trailer for the movie had just been released yesterday, and many were already abuzz about it. Here’s the trailer that got me watching it for about 5 times.

Directed by Academy Award winning director Tom Hooper, starring Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne and also Alicia Vikander, an exceptionally great newcomer actress that is predicted to make it big in Hollywood very soon, there is no way Academy members would put this movie aside. The movie’s release is also considered very timely as this is a big year of America’s transformation in LGBT issue. It has all the Oscar-bait elements, and if the movie is really good in the end, then I’m quite sure it will be receiving multiple nominations in 2016 Academy Awards. The 2-minutes long trailer of the movie is already very touching and captivating. The movie will premier in Venice Film Festival this weekend.

Other films that could be in the slot for Best Picture nominees are ‘Steve Jobs’, ‘Bridge of Spies’, ‘In The Heart Of The Sea’, ‘Suffragette’, ‘The Hateful Eight’, ‘Joy’, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, etc. Well, this is just my very preliminary prediction as all of the films mentioned above have not been released yet except for Mad Max which is surprisingly good. Check out trailers for ‘Steve Jobs’ and ‘In The Heart Of The Sea’ below too.

It’s certainly a good day for many nice movie trailers! Haha….

The Amazing Race 26’s highlights.

‘The Amazing Race’ has been my only interested English reality TV show currently after ‘Fear Factor’. It’s a waste that ‘Fear Factor’ is not running anymore with unknown reason. In recent years, I have been catching up with all the latest seasons of ‘The Amazing Race’ which is about a competition where over 10 teams (two in a team) race around the world and complete tasks to win USD$ 1 million in the end. The broadcast of the show had now reached its 26th season with initial broadcast over at the US ending on May 15, 2015. It has only recently started airing at AXN channel in Malaysia. Well, the only way for me to watch all the 12 episodes in this Season 26 is through online for free.

And yup….I managed to watch all the episodes in 2 days. One episode on Thursday and a whopping eleven episodes on Friday. That’s equal to over 7 hours spent watching on Friday alone. That’s crazy and creepy. Well, you can do that if you have nothing to do and don’t mind having a neck pain and slight headache after that. I’m just very interested on the show, which kept me craving for the next and the next episodes. It has the suspense, climax and intensity in every episodes and the show also taught me various cultures and places across the world where the teams are racing. So, it’s fun and gaining knowledge at the same time from watching the show.

In this 26th season, six existing couples and five blind date teams (who met for the first time at the start of the race) raced across 5 continents, visited 9 countries (Japan, Thailand, Germany, France, Monaco, Namibia, Netherlands, Peru, United States) and traveled approximately 35 000 miles for the USD$ 1 million prize. Only one will win it in the end. It must be hard for the five blind date teams as they have only met their partner when the show started. They don’t know their teammate beforehand. There must be a lot of issues (like communication problem, quarrels, attitudes problem, etc) for them, but ironically, all the three final teams that successfully went into the last leg are the blind date teams. Also not to forget one existing couple team that manage to proceed to the last leg but still eliminated in early stage of the final leg.

Laura Pierson and Tyler Adams won this season of ‘The Amazing Race’. I’m happy for them. They are steady, stable and filled with positive energy during the race most of the time. Jelani and Jenny finished in second place, and I’m glad for them too. Jenny is a strong and tough girl. She is exerting authority most of the time, leaving Jelani only looks like following orders from his teammate. Pity Jelani. Hayler and Blair finished third. In the 10th and 11th leg, they stayed at the top among the other teams, making them as the frontrunner for the champion title. But in the last leg, a fatal mistake made by Hayley at Reunion Tower, Dallas caused them the USD$ 1 million. Talking about Hayley, she was the most annoying person in this season. She is weak, clumsy, irritating, and has bad attitude most of the time. Eventhough her teammate Blair do make mistakes some of the time, but she is the one that makes the team fall behind all the time. A big pity for Blair in getting this horrible teammate. He had been very calm and patient on dealing with her already.

In this season, the teams made a lot of selfies. Interesting. There is even one team that missed a train while they were taking a selfie, causing a delay on their race. Opps. Selfie Fail. I’m informed that the 27th season of ‘The Amazing Race’ is currently filming. Good. Looking forward to it. It is scheduled to premier on 25th September 2015 and to finish airing by end of the year (I guess). Keep it running. Don’t make it stop. I just love this show. As the show’s title said, it’s really amazing.

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

Michael Keaton vs. Eddie Redmayne for Best Actor.

Looking from all the recently held major film awards in Hollywood, I am almost 100% certain that Julianne Moore will win the best actress, J.K. Simmons to win best supporting actor and Patricia Arquette for best supporting actress in the coming Academy Awards. They literally swept almost all the awards in their respective categories in the current Hollywood awards season before all culminates into the prestigious Academy (Oscars) Awards. No question on their worthiness as their performances this year easily out-shined the rest in their respective categories. Right now, they should start preparing a nice shelf to display their coming Oscars trophy. They are locked for it.

 

(From left: Julianne Moore, J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette with their SAG trophies)

What sets to be the most exciting race now is the Best Actor category! Looking from the current statistics, Michael Keaton is a clear front-runner in the race with over 20 best actor prizes awarded to him earlier for his critically-lauded performance in ‘Birdman’ film. I didn’t watch the film, hence I couldn’t see it myself whether he is really that good. Right now, I will just stick to the majority and agreed that he is excellent in that movie. If not, how can he won that much of best actor trophies in the current Hollywood awards season. His most distinguished win are at the Golden Globes Award 2015 for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Leading Actor at Critics’ Choice Award 2015.

 

(Left, Michael and right, Eddie goes on an exciting race for Best Actor this year)

However, right now, I’m sure he is no longer that confident to continue his winning streak in the last two approaching major film awards; British Academy of Film Awards (BAFTA) and of course, the Academy Awards (Oscars). Why? Eddie Redmayne is now racing up to pose a huge threat to Michael. Eddie Redmayne’s performance as the physicist Stephen Hawking in the film ‘The Theory of Everything’ had already won him Golden Globes Award 2015 for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama. Despite losing Critics’ Choice to Michael, he got back to the race by winning the Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) yesterday. The SAG Awards are always seen as a strong precursor to the coming Oscars, and with Eddie winning over Michael for the Best Actor in SAG, then this is going to be very exciting.

(Eddie Redmayne with his SAG Trophy for Best Leading Actor)

Michael could no longer perfect his collection of Best Actor trophies right now. Eddie took the Screen Actors Guild Award, which is voted by about 160 000 members of actors, performers, journalists and radio personalities across the world. That’s a lot of people there. This may hint out that in Oscars, both is on neck-to-neck battle.

Who you are picking for Best Actor? I personally chose Eddie Redmayne because first, I watched his brilliant performance in that film, and secondly, he truly amazed me with his phenomenal handling of this role as Stephen Hawking. This role is more challenging (both physically and mentally) than Michael’s Birdman role in almost all angles. So, I will go for Eddie if I have the qualification to vote. Right now, his chance for winning at BAFTA is quite high (since he is a British and is easily favored by voters back in his home ground). As for Oscars, Michael Keaton still leads but Eddie is not far behind. Michael 60%, and Eddie 40%. As for the other nominees, sorry. Not to be rude, but you guys are nominated just to fill in the blank spaces. Wait…maybe Academy will give us another major shock this year (just like when they announced nominees for Best Animated Film when The Lego Movie isn’t even nominated) by giving Best Actor trophy to the other nominees. Who knows? Haha…

So, the current analysis on who will win the Oscars for best actor is like this:

Michael Keaton, Birdman – 45%

Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything – 35%

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game – 10%

Steve Carrell, Foxcatcher – 5%

Bradley Cooper, American Sniper – 5%

Wouldn’t want to give Steve and Bradley 0% eventhough I wished to actually. But since they are nominated, they deserved at least a bit of percentage in my analysis of chances of winning. If Academy wants to deliver another surprise, then it would be Benedict Cumberbatch. I like his performance in ‘The Imitation Game’, but still not as fascinating as Eddie or Michael. Before that, many already predicted Michael as the hot favourite, now Eddie also successfully raised his Oscars’ chances. Now, we will just wait and see the result in the coming BAFTA and Academy Awards.

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

My predictions for Hollywood awards season for 2014 films.

There are about 10 different awards presentation to honour the best of Chinese films in Asia Pacific every year (from critics society, guilds or organizations, as well as the main ones like Asian Film Awards, Hong Kong Film Awards, and Golden Horse Awards). But that figure is no comparison to Hollywood awards season that has about 50 or more of such awards given to recognize the best of films in the previous year. The three major from those are no other than BAFTAs (British Academy Film Awards), Golden Globes and the prestigious Academy (Oscars).

So, I’ll just pretend to be an expert in movie critics for a day and contribute my personal predictions to who will get nominated and win in few important categories in awards selection. This is the right time to do so before the three major awards mentioned earlier (Golden Globes to take place tonight, BAFTAs as usual on early February, and Academy on late February).

Best Film / Motion Picture :

Top 5 : Boyhood (70%), The Theory of Everything (50%), Selma (50%), The Imitation Game (40%), Birdman (40%)

Next five to make it to the list but with very little chance of winning: Whiplash, Nightcrawler, Gone Girl, Foxcatcher, The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Next five that may even get into the list: Interstellar, Unbroken, American Sniper, Wild, Into the Woods.

Will win : Boyhood.

My pick : The Theory of Everything.

Best Director :

Top 5 : Richard Linklater – Boyhood (80%), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – Birdman (70%), Ava Duvernay – Selma (50%), Morten Tyldum – The Imitation Game (40%), David Fincher – Gone Girl (30%)

Will win : Richard Linklater (Boyhood).

My pick : Richard Linklater (Boyhood).

Best Leading Actor :

Top 5 : Michael Keaton – Birdman (70%), Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything (60%), Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game (50%), David Oyelowo – Selma (40%), Steve Carell – Foxcatcher (20%)

Wish to include in Jake Gyllenhaal – Nightcrawler (20%)

Will win : Michael Keaton (Birdman)

My pick : Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)

Best Leading Actress :

Top 5 : Julianne Moore – Still Alice (80%), Reese Witherspoon – Wild (50%), Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl (50%), Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything (40%), Jennifer Anniston – Cake (20%)

Wish to include in Amy Adams – Big Eyes (20%)

Will win : Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

My pick : Julianne Moore (Still Alice)

Best Supporting Actor :

Top 5 : J.K. Simmons – Whiplash (90%), Ethan Hawke – Boyhood (40%), Edward Norton – Birdman (40%), Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher (30%), Robert Duvall – The Judge (20%)

Will win : J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

Should win : J.K. Simmons (Whiplash)

Best Supporting Actress :

Top 5 : Patricia Arquette – Boyhood (90%), Meryl Streep – Into the Woods (40%), Emma Stone – Birdman (40%), Laura Dern – Wild (30%), Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game (30%)

Will win : Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Should win : Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)

Best Animated Film :

Top 3 : The Lego Movie, How To Train Your Dragon 2, Big Hero 6.

Will win : The Lego Movie.

Should win : The Lego Movie.

That’s it. I didn’t watch all of the listed films above. Hence, the outcome above is from my research on various critics or polls online, as well as from my personal judgement particularly on the films that I did watched. Do you agree with my predictions above? I believe the result of those upcoming awards will be something like this unless the awards’ organizers wanted to give us a big surprise.

Best actor is a very tight race this time. Everyone able to be qualified into that category is very strong on their own. Now, mostly are saying Michael Keaton, but I think that Stephen Hawking is much harder to portray in ‘The Theory of Everything’. Eddie Redmayne nailed the role brilliantly and so I chose him. As for best actress, everyone is saying that Julianne Moore is long overdue for this award. I agreed. She is a great actress, and I believe this is the time for her, since she did amazingly in ‘Still Alice’ too. I think most are very sure that supporting actor and actress shall be given to J.K. Simmons and Patricia Arquette respectively. Both stay far ahead on their race. As for best director, I’m totally impressed with the idea of shooting the ‘Boyhood’ film in over 12 years for the more realistic outcome of that coming-of-age film. Hence, Richard Linklater deserved the recognition. Lastly, best animated film shall be no other than ‘The Lego Movie’, but ‘How To Train Your Dragon 2’ may be a dark horse. This is it. No comments on other smaller categories of the awards (screenplay, cinematography, editing, score, song, visual effects, sound effects, production design, etc).

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

Watched both The Amazing Race 24 and 25 this year. Loved it.

Do you believe it? I have just completed a marathon of watching all the 12 episodes of the latest season of The Amazing Race 25 in just two days. 6 episodes for a day. That sounds crazy but that’s how I spend my Christmas break at home. I enjoyed this American reality television show which already has a history of 13 years in its running. I think you must have heard of this show of which a number of teams (two person in each) go around the world and complete challenges to win US$ 1 million in the end. That’s a huge reward (not to mention some prizes awarded to winner of each legs).

Just about a few months ago, I took the time to watch The Amazing Race Season 24 which is actually released early this year. From there on, my interest to the show keeps building up and I will certainly catch up with its future seasons. It’s quite interesting, intense and exciting to watch those teams betraying or teaming up with the others, arguing within themselves over matters, fed up or intend to give up in some difficult challenges, took some wrong decisions, made some embarrassing moves, lost in the directions, running madly to pit-stop to prevent from being eliminated, etc. It’s just so thrilling and heart-stopping watching the show. What an adventure for them!

Sometimes, I do think what would happen if I am one of the contestants. I would have the chance to be a millionaire after winning the show, but I think my chance to win it is very slim as most challenges are very difficult, physically and mentally demanding for me. Haha…And by the way, if you don’t know, The Amazing Race is hosted by Phil Keoghan. He is getting pretty old after seeing him hosted the show for 25 times already and more to follow soon. He is very good in the show by the way.

Comparing Season 24 to 25, I liked Season 24 more. The challenges in that season are mostly more interesting, and things are a bit more organized. The winners for that particular race are Dave and Connor O’ Leary (father and son) (featured in image below with KL’s Petronas Twin Towers in the background in one of their legs). They are the first parent-child team to win the American edition of the competition, and at age 58 at the time of filming, Dave is also the oldest person to win an edition of The Amazing Race. Very happy for them to have won that. They deserved it very much. In one of the legs of the race, they traveled to my country, Malaysia too and had challenges at Sabah and Kuala Lumpur.

Season 25 which had just been released not long ago is not that good. It lacks a bit of excitement and it is quite unfair in certain stages when some with poorer performances made it to next legs while they should actually be eliminated. The time arrangement isn’t in very good order in this season too. The winners for this 25th race are the food scientists, Amy and Maya (featured in image below with Phil). For me, this team is among the poorest or weakest but luck came to their rescue most of the time, and they won the race surprisingly in the end. This team should have been eliminated in the 11th leg (before the final) as the organizer should sticks to the rule of only allowing 3 teams in the final leg. Personally, I prefer Adam and Bethany to win.

Anyway, still looking forward to future seasons of The Amazing Race. A cool reality TV game show. I felt like I’m in the race myself too while catching up with all the episodes of The Amazing Race 24 and 25 this year too. Haha…

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