A few days ago, I watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", loosely based on a short story of the same name, but with large differences. The timeline for the film takes place from 1918 to 2003, while the timeline for the book took place from 1860 to 1930.
It is a very touching story of a man who was born with the appearance and physical limitations of an 85-year-old man, abandoned by his father (a rich button maufacturer) right after birth, and adopted by a childless Afro-American couple. Over the course of the story, Benjamin begins to biologically grow younger, yet his physical condition tnded to improve over the years; by the age of 20, he no longer need to walk in cutches or a cane. Ben eventually reconciled with his biological father Thomas upon his return to the US, just before the latter passed on. In the 1950s, he looked to be in his 40s, with many people mistaking him as Daisy's "uncle". By the 1960s, when he looked like a 30-something, he and Daisy lived together and they had a daughter named Caroline, after Ben's biological mother. Ben then left Daisy and Caroline behind with his possessions, travelling around the world and supporting himself with odd jobs. By the 1980s, Ben looked to be in his 20s, reuniting with Daisy for a while, eventually accepting the fact that Daisy had become too old. By the 1990s, Ben turned into a teenager who had just hit puberty, with very little recolletcion of his past, even when Daisy comes back regularly every year to check on him. By the year 2003, he was an infant, and since he could no longer grow any younger than one month, he died peacefully in Daisy's arms.
I feel this film is a heartwarming family drama for everyone, one that teaches about self-importance, full of sheer ambition and technical prowess. It is cliched, but visually impressive and down-to-earth. I rate this movie 8.5 out of 10 stars. :-)
Yesterday I left the house at 4 something, braving through heavy rain and settling dinner rather early at Raffles City. Then I went around Raffles Place region, taking lots of photos before going to Victoria Theater to watch "Chestnuts Dark Knuts", it started about 40 minutes late due to overwhelming number of guests at lower gallery!! The upper gallery had a lot of empty seats, much to my surprise. I met Angie at the entrance, and I also saw Pat Mok at the 2nd level. Later on I saw Wendy Cheng aka Xiaxue with friends... they sat at the front row (AA) of the upper gallery. I think I saw a church friend with her husband present at the same place as well.
It is so hilarious, you could easily peng-san!! I laughed til tears flowed down xiah... Never thought those guys would poke fun at PM Lee Hsien Loong during the National Day Rally about Team S'pore losing to Team China at the table tennis finals (the Parliament House is just nearby!!), Jade Seah swearing during "Tonight in Beijing", Ng Chin Han talking about his time in US, Mas Selamat, Pondan News Asia, war dramas of the last 25 years, the Little Nyonya series, etc. There seemed to have too much focus on Avenue P puppets, I feel. The show may have ended on a rather strange note (though it lasted for abt 2.5 hrs), but I still enjoyed the whole show nonetheless.
Highlights include...
- Welcome to Avenue P- They're amazing singers and wonderful actors, cheaper than Broadway! No wonder everyone's feeling a little bit pinoy these days... the puppets even fool around with Wall-E and Eve at one point.
- Bats In The City- fighting crime is hard... fighting crime and looking sexy is effing hard. Bruce Wayne and his 3 pals navigate the ups and downs of crime and couture.
- Singalympics- since F1 only managed to shut down a small part of the island, Singapore decides to make a daring bid to host the next Olmypics!
- Quantum-Mia- the increasingly intense 007 agent Daniel Craig is being sent to a Greek island to search for fromer Bond actor Pierce Brosnan who had been masquerading as the father of the bride in a musical, when he clearly cannot sing.
- Twi Knight- Bella Swan moves in to Washington to live with her mother and stepfather. She sits next to Edward during biology class, unaware that he is different from everyone else. The time came when Edward eventually reveals himself to be something much more sadistic and sinister than a vampire...
After the show ended, me and the others discovered (much to our ismay) that the cast and crew had left the place rather quickly to go for supper. Even more frightening, a TRANSSEXUAL (a rather hot one, I have to admit) had just come out from the GENTS restroom after I had 'done big business'!! It was damn frightening, I tell you... nearly scared the s**t out of me. Very hard to tell that the 'chiobu' who just came out from the GENTS is actually a man... later I heard 'her' talk to some guys a bit and I found out that the voice was rather manly. (urghhhh!!!) And I thought the katoeys (lady boys) in Pattaya were already scary enough!!! :-S
Anyway, I took a long walk from Victoria Theater to Armenian Street... I missed the last Bus 51 when the red man was still on (damn!!), so I took Bus 80 all the way to Kovan region and walked home. Lights out at 1 am.
Will upload pictures taken at Raffles Place when I have the time...
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