It was a mad rush to get from the Changi Airport (i left at 1023am) to Vivo City's Golden Village to catch the 1045am Monsters VS Aliens. In tow was my 4 year old son who was arguing throughout the whole journey about the fact that I did not keep my promise to let him take the Skytrain. Hello, mommy had like 22 min to travel multiple kilometres and she's not driving a jet plane! Grr...
Anyways, we got to the ticketing counter a few minutes shy of 11am, with bursting bladders (him and mine) and a promise (to pacify sonny from breaking the skytrain promise) that I'd get him popcorn for the movie.
These are the few moments in my life I'm grateful that there is a culture of late startings for movies in theatres that runs tons of movie advertisements.
We got into the theatre past 11am, after clearing our bladders and buying popcorn, and we managed a catch a few more trailers before the movie began.
Let's start with a run down of the characters. Well, there are the MONSTERS:
Ginormica: This is a regular lass who got "zapped by a meteorite" in her own words, on her wedding day and grew to become a giant lass. The substance, we found out later, that she got "zapped" with was Quantonium.
Dr. Cockroach: One mad British scientist who's extreme experiment went awry and he turned himself into a cockroach in the process. The good news - he's now indestructable like a roach. Bad news - he's stuck with ugly looks and unappetizing food choices (this dude eats garbage)
The Missing Link: Some sea creature that is an Ape-Fish with bulging muscles and water-skills only a fish can manage.
BOB: essentially a blob of goo, he was created brainless (LOL) when fused between gelatin and tomato or something.
Insectosaurus: A gigantic bug that is in my opinion, rather adorable. What with huge innocent eyes and soft rounded bug teeth, how can anyone think he's scary?
And there's.. effectively only one ALIEN that went and clone himself into multitudes:
Gallaxhar: This octopus looking dude with an ape-ish face and an over-sized brain-cap is the ultimate bad guy who wants to conquer the universe or something.
So the gist of the story went that these Monsters were gathered by an intelligence in the US force and was volunteered for services in the form of fighting Alien forces that had invaded planet Earth in a bid to retrieve Quantonium - an ultimate source of power.
The ordinary life of Ginormica (before she became a giant, she was about to marry the love of her life, a weatherman on some news channel) got turned topsy turvy and she discovers her incredible strength and ability to save the earth, literally.
Caught and jailed in some unidentified underground facility along with fellow Monsters, they only found freedom when the US President got them to fight the alien force of Gallaxhar.
Amidst the fighting, the movie was interjected with messages of friendship being the ultimate driving force for incredible power, selfish love, female power etc.
Packed with lots of action, my four-year-old jumped on his seats at unexpected loud sounding attacks and gobbled the popcorn with an intensity of a food eating competitor.
For an animation movie, launched during the school hols (so assumingly targeting kids), Monsters VS Aliens had lines and themes that were too complex for a young child's understanding. Hence alot of the humour was lost. However, I'd recommend it for a family bonding time since kiddo will probably enjoy the animatedness and the lines should keep the parents entertained enough not to doze off mid-movie.
My favourite part: when Ginormica AKA Susan Murphy picked ex-fiance up at the end of the movie and flicked him off while LIVE on camera. (Watch the movie to find out why she did that)
My son's favourite part: when Ginormica put on 2 cars and skated around the streets.
Went to catch this play on Saturday at Drama Centre and was seated at Circle 2's front row. Before watching this Oscar Wilde comedy, directed by Glen Goei and starring an all male cast, I was wondering if I might be revolted by the portrayal of the males in their gender-bending depiction.
Don't get me wrong, I am not gay-phobic but most times, males acting as females in theater tends to overplay the 'feminine factor' and the dramatized depiction gets a little uneasy and unnatural.
I was glad to experience none of the unnatural-'ness' as the gender-bending characters played by Ivan Heng (Lady Bracknell), Chua Enlai (Gwendolyn Fairfax), Hossan Leong (Miss Prism) and Gavin Yap (Cecily Cardew) were a natural balance of masculine-femininity. Much like how a normal girl might be in real life. Of course, I'm not referring to a dainty, 'manja' girlish type but a typical new age female.
The actors did not try too hard to up the girlish-ness of feminine factor and in fact interjected masculine outbursts at certain points for comical effect.
The direction given to this play by Glen Goei, from the beautiful classical pieces serenading the crowd by T'ang Quartet, to the laid-back setting of an otherwise 'snooty' era the play is set in, made the play very 'consumable' to non-theater goers (in my opinion anyways).
Particularly commendable are the portrayals by Brendon Fernandez (as Algernon Moncrief), the cheeky young lad who is never serious about anything and lives life beyond his means, as well as, Gavin Yap's portrayal of a ditsy and pretty 18-year-old Cecily Cardew. Together, their young, romantic antics and comic timing brought many laughs to the audience.
Ivan Heng in 'her' royal-highness, did a grand portrayal of diva-ness and Hossan Leong as usual never fails to entertain with his shrilly, old maid style. However, it failed to impress not because they were not great but simply because I expect them to be this good.
Kudos to T'ang Quartet for being so candid in their segments, being part of the lively act between cast and musician. I can definitely bear a late start to the show simply because their music make time irrelevant.
Another point to note is the beautiful costumes designed for this cast by Frederick Lee. I used to model for his bridal shows but seeing his creations in this play makes me wanna be living in the play just to wear his clothes all over again.
You don't have to be an 'artsy' theater-goer. If you are a comedy-buff, fashionista, music lover or simply wants to be entertained, this play is worth being at. And at the price the tickets are going for, Wild Rice is definitely pegging it to current financial situations.
Rating:
Show details: Date: 25 Mar - 11 Apr 2009 Venue: Drama Centre Theatre @ National Library Building Tickets: www.sistic.com.sg
Brendon Fernandez talks about the play and his character:
My dear friend (aka my son's godma) treated us to Bedtime Stories at GV, Vivo on Saturday.
The movie had to stand the test of 2 full grown adults and a restless 4 year old and that in itself, is no mean feat.
A quick run down of the cast is as follows:
Adam Sandler: (plays Skeeter) The underdog. Courtney Cox: (Wendy) Skeeter's sourpuss older sis. Keri Russell: (Jill) Wendy's friend/colleague and Skeeter's arc 'lover'. Green-lover and Miss Perfect. Russell Brand: (Mickey) Skeeter's bohemian buddy who waits at the hotel and suffers from sleep panic attacks. Guy Pearce: (Kendall) The ass-kissing hotel mogul wannabe. Richard Griffiths: (Barry Nottingham) The hotel mogul with a very Trump-like style ;) Teresa Palmer: (Violet Nottingham) The hotel heiress who totally channels Paris Hilton lol.. Jonathan Morgan Heit: (Patrick) Skeeter's nephew and son to Wendy. Laura Ann Kesling: (Bobbi) Skeeter's niece and daughter to Wendy.
Sandler leads the show as the underdog of a not too successful, chronically cynical Mr Handyman in the hotel that his old man had sold to a hotel mogul decades ago, in the hope that he could one day take over the reins of running the hotel again (as promised by the hotel mogul to his Skeeter's dad).
While Cox does a great job channeling her Monica Gellar into Wendy with the control freak style and OCD dispositions, I can't help but feel that her casting was rather pigeon-holed.
Keri Russell's character was too nice to be real and bordered on boring for me.
The characters that stole the show, at least for me, were Mickey and the guinea pig, Bugsy. Both generated lotsa laughs to the otherwise overly sarcasm-laced movie. Not the best of themes to allow your little ones to watch (if they even understand the sarcasm in the first place).
Overall though, I'd still say go watch it. If nothing else, then for the fantasy playbacks while the bedtime stories goes on..
Let's start with a run down of the characters. Well, there are the MONSTERS:
Ginormica: This is a regular lass who got "zapped by a meteorite" in her own words, on her wedding day and grew to become a giant lass. The substance, we found out later, that she got "zapped" with was Quantonium.
Dr. Cockroach: One mad British scientist who's extreme experiment went awry and he turned himself into a cockroach in the process. The good news - he's now indestructable like a roach. Bad news - he's stuck with ugly looks and unappetizing food choices (this dude eats garbage)
The Missing Link: Some sea creature that is an Ape-Fish with bulging muscles and water-skills only a fish can manage.
BOB: essentially a blob of goo, he was created brainless (LOL) when fused between gelatin and tomato or something.
Insectosaurus: A gigantic bug that is in my opinion, rather adorable. What with huge innocent eyes and soft rounded bug teeth, how can anyone think he's scary?
Gallaxhar: This octopus looking dude with an ape-ish face and an over-sized brain-cap is the ultimate bad guy who wants to conquer the universe or something.
