And now we have the Top 3!

Anyone excited for how this year's Singapore Idol is turning out?
I know I freaking am.

Having kind of consistently followed the show since the top 13, I am quite happy with how Singapore has voted to lead the remaining 3 contestants to where they are now (note: anyone agree how weird it was that Charles chose to do a beatbox song if you call it that, as his exit song yesterday??). I am so crossing my fingers that the final 2 will be the girls. Personally, I feel that you can very much see that Tabitha and Sylvia is star material already. And they both cater to different audience and hence different markets, so it does not really matter who deserves to win. I just hope the judges will continue blatantly showing their biasness for the girls and that Sezairi can gracefully step aside in the next episode.

I am rooting for Tabitha because she is young, cute, very poppish and very Idol-like, you know? As for Sylvia, I predict she would very well be signed on by a reputable record company once the show ends even if she becomes the runner-up. Her style is for the more mature audience. I'd love to see what songs she can come up with if she's given the chance to be involved in the production of her own album. Who knows, she could even be marketed as Singapore's own Norah Jones or Bob Sinclair or something. That'd be awesome.

As for Tabitha, just give her the winner's title already! She is SO ready to be Singapore's first female Idol winner. She strongly reminds me of Kelly Clarkson cum Jordin Sparks. And look how successful they both are in the music scene now. So it's easy to imagine likewise for Tabitha.

Whatever it is, we gotta give the top 3 credit for certainly having worked very hard to get where they are now. They've got serious vocal chops and determination to win to survive round after round of elimination. I think this season makes a good example of showing that Singapore *gasps* HAS talent, and they're getting younger and more ambitious. I mean, from what I've observed, the average age of the oldest contestants is 22 and the average age seems to be 17. And if you had watched the auditions (which I recently did on Youtube), a lot of those young Idol-wannabes COULD confidently belt out a good tune.

So...it seems that there is hope yet for Singapore to put itself on the international pop music market. Me thinks Tabitha winning is the start of the shifting times and I AM pretty pumped just thinking about it. If, and when she does conquer the hearts of Singapore's music-listeners and lovers and our local airwaves next year, that could only mean future Singapore Idol seasons would live on and encourage more Singaporeans to pursue their passion in the arts.

Yeah, the show is pretty low-budget and hence lame, the talents raw, the host irritating, the sponsors shameless blahblahblah but at the end of the day, one gotta admit it kind of works. It's popular, somewhat entertaining and overall, does some good for our local music scenes.

Aren't you looking forward to the Singapore Idol finale already?? (and which I heard is taking place on 27th Dec!)

    Tabitha!!                                                                                                                                                                        Sylvia!!

Post-wedding blues

                                                        

Yesterday, I attended my first ever formal wedding dinner, since I cannot recall the last one I went to, which must have been AGES ago. Anyway, it was for the son of an old friend of my dad's.

Not used to attending formal functions of any sort, let's just say the ladies in my house went into a bit of a frenzy over getting dressed to the nines for the event. My mum especially, she had this big notion that we simply HAD to look absolutely spiffy at all costs, since we haven't really met up with the groom's family for close to ten years. For myself, I had long decided to wear either one of the two LBDs I own, one of which was gifted by an aunt and which I haven't even worn yet. I wanted to lay low in that colour you know, seeing as I barely knew that family. But then on the day itself, my dad had to casually inform, more like demanded us all not to wear black because apparently from what he suddenly recalled, that family never did think it was an auspicious colour. So in the end, I had to wear this sparkly gold and white cheongsam top chosen by my mum from my wadrobe but I had to insist on wearing good old jeans as the bottom. As for the heels, it drove me crazy. Not only am I not used to wearing them, but I think I have broad feet because whenever I slip on any kind of ladies' shoes on with or without protective gear i.e. padding, plasters,etc some part of my feet will experience blisters, pain or discomfort. So you can imagine the immense internal shudder I felt at being weighed down by the burden of donning those immensely menacing pair of shiny black heels which I had bought on a whim in Korea as everyone there were wearing them then. I really hoped I could avoid wearing them yesterday by first trying on a few of my flat sandals to go with my outfit but tragically, they didn't complete the look. So I accepted my fate, sucked it up and resignedly stepped into those heels when the time came and tottered out the door thereafter. As for my mum, she had her own problems to deal with, from sourcing out countless clothing and shoe shops to borrowing my make-up to an incident involving my old nail polish and her old stockings. Needless to say, we were slightly ill at ease from all that mini-emergencies and excitements by the time we left home.

The wedding itself was held at a club at the only ballroom there I believe. No one was being seated in the room yet  when we arrived so everyone stayed outside and milled around tables with party snacks and kept being plied with soft drinks served in tall glasses by the eager servers. One of my brothers seemed awed by the glamour of the well-dressed guests and kept bragging that his own wedding would be 'star-studded' when his time came when he was 30. He even said he was going to be 'investing in children', all 4 of them. I was quite irritated and amused by all his talk, thinking he could plan for things like that. Also at the reception was a photobook chock-full of photoshoots of the couple at all sorts of places doing some crazy poses. By that I mean like, split jumps and acrobatics in cheerleading uniforms. But there were other more conventional ones with them in gowns and tuxes swinging in a park and all. I thought to myself I would immensely enjoy doing that meself, playing dress-up and posing properly for pics. It does seem like tons of fun. And meeting the groom and his family, man, the children especially all looked very different, and were very different from how I remembered them in my childhood days. As an example, the groom's brother, the youngest who I heard was always very pampered and whom I remembered as a very nice sweet guy, was actually dressed and looked like, of all people, get this, ADAM LAMBERT, this year's American Idol runner-up- with a big padded jacket in a loud flashy red colour, black eye-liner, earrings, tons of black rings, black nail polish and his large stature. People can indeed change vastly years later huh.

Anyway, highlights from the wedding, the entrance by the best-men and then the groom, were marked by even crazier stunts by them. They literally donned sunglasses and back-flipped and swaggered in one after the other onto the aisle and then galloped and somersaulted onstage to mark each of their presence, in time with some dance music. I wish I was more in front to catch all the action, as this kind of thing you only catch on TV or Youtube (like this!) you know? And then there was even a cartoon video shown onscreen of the couple's love story, reminiscent of what was done at Fann Wong and Chris Lee's wedding. You could tell the wedding was really thought out and modernized by the young couple. Other highlights included the two wedding singers, one male and one female who entertained us all night with love songs but with a jazzy feel-good twist with their own interpretations (even despite them only having minus-one recorded music and not a live band!). There was one point where the female sang Jason Mraz's I'm Yours in a whole new freaking awesome way I've never heard of before and which I immensely enjoyed. And finally, the couple each gave a thank-you speech and which the groom mentioned, get this, his primary school peeps, secondary school peeps, JC peeps and Uni peeps all in attendance. Man, now that is called Appreciation when you have your gratitude list in order and down-pat like that. All in all, it was a cozy simple jolly affair and which the couple and their families spent all night going round the tables to enthusiastically mingle with the guests and their photographer in tow to take pictures with every single table! They were truly the celebrities of the night lor.

Of course, attending this wedding made me think a little about ahem, my own wedding. It made me think what elements I wouldn't want to include and how different or similar it might turn out. What I eventually came up with was something which would ultimately reflect who I am, my likes, my tastes and not about what the guests expect from me. But one thing is for sure, music is definitely an important element for my 'wedding'. For now, imma gonna spare you the agony and keep the rest of my fantasy dream wedding a secret.

Because at the end of the day, who knows how reality will turn out say, at least five years from now? I say five because I did a bit of calculating and came up with this figure as I feel this number of years is what it takes to truly find a best friend and then fall in love with Him. But also, I'm not forgetting the fact that for now, I hypothetically have a grace period of ten years because, you know, my bro plans to get hitched by then.

Ah well, these kinds of things, Only time will tell, man.

Thankful for: New Moon

So if you didn't know, yesterday was Thanksgiving day in the US. Apparently, the Americans like to take this time to really reflect on what they're grateful for, apart from having the traditional stuffed-Turkey meal with the family.

I noticed the considerable significance of this major festive day by the twitter trending topics such as #imthankfulfor and #iamthankfulfor. I thought it was a monthly topic kind of thing which would have made people by the likes of Paulo Coelho and Jason Mraz very happy before I realized all the Americans were twitting about how they were each going to spend their Thanksgiving. lol!

Anywaaay, for myself, while we're on the thread of gratitude, I'm thankful yesterday for being able to catch a new movie at the theatre after a drought of like, three months? To be more specific, the drought started after having come back from the US, I believe. Wow, that long. I actually did manage to catch a couple of movies while in the US- they were, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Time Traveler's Wife, which I shall comment on soon in a while.

When I made my way to the local box office yesterday, I could not believe the freakin long queue literally snaking on and on in front of it. I don't know if this only happens on public holidays or when hot movies are being previewed every Thursdays, hot movies like Ninja Assassin (for the parents) and...New Moon (for the kids)! Yes, New Moon was actually screening though I heard it's supposed to only open nationwide next week?? I had initially planned to catch 2012 with my brother but the only timing left was sold out (apparently this movie is doing immensely well worldwide, despite being shown here for quite some time already?).

Anyway, luckily daddy was around to let me peruse his platinum credit card so I was able to get onto the priority queue where only 2 people were in front of me. muahaha. We got our tix for:

and

[Here's food for thought: why are Hollywood films with an Oriental slant ALWAYS about the Japanese? Seriously, the Americans are freakin narrow-minded people. They think everyone either comes only from China or Japan. Maybe they even think China IS Japan. or vice versa.

Does anyone remember that announcer at the Oscar's who introduced the then nominated film The Departed as 'America's remake of the Japanese film Infernal Affairs' -_-ii Of course, when you're in America, 9.8 out of 10 people think you're a zhong guo ren simply because you're from Singapore. I've asked some American people a couple of times before where did they ever get that idea that Singapore=China from and they're stumped. My answer? HOLLYWOOD FILMS.]

Then we made our way to Fish & Co for dinner. Let me tell you, that outlet was horrible, I was so not grateful for dining there. The waiter in charge of our table, was doubling up as a seating host as well. And he looked to be the youngest there. He took way too long to serve us water, we had to request for it. Furthermore, the place didn't allow refills, saying they charged $2 for it. Their beer was out already, at like, 7pm in the evening so we couldn't order any. We had only ordered two items. The seafood platter for 2 people and the NY fish and chips which I ordered like, 10 minutes after ordering the first item. The fish & chips took 15 mins or more to arrive while the platter took ages. For that item, the prawns tasted horrible. I suspect it wasn't fresh or prepared properly, while the cuttlefish choked me every single time I ate a piece. I don't know why i was more sensitive to it among my family, but I just couldn't seem to swallow that tough piece of lining in the pieces every time and it ended up just choking me till I had to force-swallow it down. Fish & Co's food turns out nasty when they have simply too many customers. I can draw this conclusion from the last two times I ate with that brand. Fish these folks man!

Anyway, on to much more happier things, to my thoughts on New Moon! Woohoo! You ready? I was uber excited when the movie started. We waited too long for this, you know? I fully-expected the crowd to be twittering restlessly and whoop when it started or at parts of the film (like when Robert makes his appearance, hello? he was swaggering in slow-mo with his outer shirt blowing out and all for goodness sake) But nooo, typical Singaporeans are subdued and hushed down when the lights dimmed. Maybe it was reverent silence? The audience was so different from the US ones man. Don't people go to theatres to enjoy movies collectively and react, laugh, cry, sigh at appropriate moments? That's what happened when I caught Transformers in a full-housed theatre in the US, at Salt Lake City, no less. The people were whooping, whistling and cheering all in jolly good fun- at the start of the movie, when Megan Fox first appears, etc.

Back to New Moon, the presentation of the title in the beginning is quite creative and builds the suspense for fan-viewers. hehehe. However, other than that, the relevance of the title New Moon to the movie is quite null. If it were up to me, I would simply change the name of the film to "New ensemble line-up, new Jacob Black."

I want to give Taylor Lautner (the guy who plays Jacob) two thumbs up man!! He portrays the character perfectly. He made Jacob that reliable friend to Bella without being annoying and overbearing, and man, he worked real hard on his teenaged body! When I was reading the twilight book, I was Team Edward all the way because I felt Jacob came off as pushy, angsty and irritating. I couldn't ever understand those people who were on Team Jacob. Let's just say now I do. :)

I feel this movie is more for the fans. You have to understand the full story to really appreciate the characters and the movie overall. The movie tried to fit as much of the plot in and didn't have too much reinterpretation by the director, which was good enough for me. Furthermore, the dialogue lines were less emo and cheesy this time round. I want to give Kristen Stewart two thumbs up too. She plays up the tortured and emotionally-inflicted Bella very well. People may say she was too broody in the first film but here, it legitimately suits her fittingly. Me thinks she has the potential to be a great actress. Lastly, the people who played the Volturi(the ruling vampires) were almost exactly how I pictured them to be. Brilliant casting I say. Meanwhile, I felt the director should have played up the story of the werewolves more, because that is where the title came from. The pack came off looking like twins and had brief and forgettable appearances. Anyway, enjoy the pics:

^Oww! Mamma mia...

^*shivers* Chillingly good-looking vampires with their iron-straight hair of course.

Go catch New Moon if you like the Twilight books, or simply, for the hot shirtless guys ;)

PS: I've always had a thing for male bad-ass characters with long straight flowing locks. Like that vampire guy in Hellboy 2 and Malfoy's dad in Harry Potter. Who wouldn't?