Twelve Stops and Home by The Feeling
Already I’m wondering how long this love affair can last. But for now, The Feeling’s debut album is the perfect summer fling. Singles ‘Sewn’ and ‘Fill My Little World’ are typically swoonsome offerings from the band, with uncomplicated and direct lyrics about love and desire set to sunny tunes. Sample lyric: I want you now/I don’t care how/We’re both too young/To be sitting around
Ah youth!
The hidden track ‘Miss You’ slows things down and ends things on an elegiac and bittersweet note. Lovely.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Cars
Maybe it was the setting, a car race in which to the victor goes the spoils of endorsement deals, a movie career and of course, female cars. Maybe it was the well-worn story that lacked Pixar’s customary heart. Maybe it was just inevitable.
The fact remained that Cars didn’t quite live up to expectations. Sure, those were high expectations but Pixar had been successively knocking them out of the park since Toy Story. The animation was great but Pixar have forgotten their own mantra that “the story is king.” Cars’ plot, a minor retread of the mentor-protégé relationship, misses the royal mark this time. Suddenly, every character seemed like a stereotype from the goofy sidekick to the spunky gal.
Still, it wasn’t all bad and the last act mustered up some excitement and heart, but it was not nearly enough. The taint of commercialism lingered still. Here’s hoping for a return to form with Ratatouille.
Maybe it was the setting, a car race in which to the victor goes the spoils of endorsement deals, a movie career and of course, female cars. Maybe it was the well-worn story that lacked Pixar’s customary heart. Maybe it was just inevitable.
The fact remained that Cars didn’t quite live up to expectations. Sure, those were high expectations but Pixar had been successively knocking them out of the park since Toy Story. The animation was great but Pixar have forgotten their own mantra that “the story is king.” Cars’ plot, a minor retread of the mentor-protégé relationship, misses the royal mark this time. Suddenly, every character seemed like a stereotype from the goofy sidekick to the spunky gal.
Still, it wasn’t all bad and the last act mustered up some excitement and heart, but it was not nearly enough. The taint of commercialism lingered still. Here’s hoping for a return to form with Ratatouille.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
A Stranger At Home
A mish-mash of several plays by Quah Sy Ren as well as essays co-written with Ng How Wee. Alas, what might work better on the page does not translate well to the stage. A couple of interesting points were made. For example, the fact that Singaporeans had no sense of the past, literally, since old buildings were constantly being torn down to make way for new ones. Even the dead were not spared this constant redevelopment and had to be exhumed as well. Or the ironic story of how Hokkien, driven to extinction by officialdom, turned out to be the sole language of communication between a professor and a Malay cleaning woman. However, these were buried deep within an overly self-indulgent whole. The entire Ying Ru-Joan-Tim triangle served only to grate while the Wu Yue story, narrated in Hokkien with patchy surtitles, further tested one’s patience. The music and projected visuals often seemed unnecessary and ended up distracting one’s attention.
A mish-mash of several plays by Quah Sy Ren as well as essays co-written with Ng How Wee. Alas, what might work better on the page does not translate well to the stage. A couple of interesting points were made. For example, the fact that Singaporeans had no sense of the past, literally, since old buildings were constantly being torn down to make way for new ones. Even the dead were not spared this constant redevelopment and had to be exhumed as well. Or the ironic story of how Hokkien, driven to extinction by officialdom, turned out to be the sole language of communication between a professor and a Malay cleaning woman. However, these were buried deep within an overly self-indulgent whole. The entire Ying Ru-Joan-Tim triangle served only to grate while the Wu Yue story, narrated in Hokkien with patchy surtitles, further tested one’s patience. The music and projected visuals often seemed unnecessary and ended up distracting one’s attention.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
15
Royston Tan’s unflinching portrait of lost youths: cutting classes, getting into bloody fights, taking drugs, smuggling drugs, prostituting themselves. Tan doesn’t judge but invites us into their world. This is their Singapore, one in which the Merlion spews forth an endless stream of bile and the merits of architecture are based on the criterion of suitability for suicide.
Despite the sombre subject matter, the film’s aural and visual inventiveness relieves some of the oppressiveness. The secret society chants set to techno beats kick gangsta rap’s ass. Good thing there were subtitles though or I would have been totally lost. In a scene on a bus, Tan presents us with a visual metaphor for the boys’ emotional state. You realise, after a while, that the scene is unfolding in rewind mode, but forwards, backwards, there’s little discernible difference. That’s how trapped they feel.
There seems to be a lot of crying for a film about gangsters, and then it hits you that these kids are just 15. It’s not quite clear how they ended up on such a desperate path, though broken families and familial violence are referred to. These kids feel so hopeless and alone that they cling onto each other with a fierce desperation. Before they were ostracised because of their tattoos and piercings, were they already marginalised because of their family backgrounds, which were broken, violent and drenched in verbal abuse? Can anything be done for them? The bleak end titles suggest not.
Royston Tan’s unflinching portrait of lost youths: cutting classes, getting into bloody fights, taking drugs, smuggling drugs, prostituting themselves. Tan doesn’t judge but invites us into their world. This is their Singapore, one in which the Merlion spews forth an endless stream of bile and the merits of architecture are based on the criterion of suitability for suicide.
Despite the sombre subject matter, the film’s aural and visual inventiveness relieves some of the oppressiveness. The secret society chants set to techno beats kick gangsta rap’s ass. Good thing there were subtitles though or I would have been totally lost. In a scene on a bus, Tan presents us with a visual metaphor for the boys’ emotional state. You realise, after a while, that the scene is unfolding in rewind mode, but forwards, backwards, there’s little discernible difference. That’s how trapped they feel.
There seems to be a lot of crying for a film about gangsters, and then it hits you that these kids are just 15. It’s not quite clear how they ended up on such a desperate path, though broken families and familial violence are referred to. These kids feel so hopeless and alone that they cling onto each other with a fierce desperation. Before they were ostracised because of their tattoos and piercings, were they already marginalised because of their family backgrounds, which were broken, violent and drenched in verbal abuse? Can anything be done for them? The bleak end titles suggest not.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Cut
Royston Tan’s screw-you to the Board of Censors, done with wit and humour, song and dance. When a member of the board is discovered shopping in a supermarket, a zealous ‘fan’ tails her, admiringly reciting the number of cuts made in films past, including The Hours (‘Will watching two women kiss turn me into a lesbian?’), City of God, Y Tu Mama Tambien (in which the pivotal ending was cursorily excised). And of course, the 27 cuts made to Tan’s 15. The 'fan' enthuses over the edgy, jump-cut cinematic style 'championed' by the board and how it proved its ‘ingenuity’ in editing Chicago’s musical numbers. The short then goes into full-blown musical mode with cameo appearances from fellow sympathisers in film, theatre and tv. In 12 succinct minutes, Tan takes aim and lets fly one satisfying zinger after another.
Royston Tan’s screw-you to the Board of Censors, done with wit and humour, song and dance. When a member of the board is discovered shopping in a supermarket, a zealous ‘fan’ tails her, admiringly reciting the number of cuts made in films past, including The Hours (‘Will watching two women kiss turn me into a lesbian?’), City of God, Y Tu Mama Tambien (in which the pivotal ending was cursorily excised). And of course, the 27 cuts made to Tan’s 15. The 'fan' enthuses over the edgy, jump-cut cinematic style 'championed' by the board and how it proved its ‘ingenuity’ in editing Chicago’s musical numbers. The short then goes into full-blown musical mode with cameo appearances from fellow sympathisers in film, theatre and tv. In 12 succinct minutes, Tan takes aim and lets fly one satisfying zinger after another.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Death and the Ploughman
The demise of his beloved wife fuels the ploughman with such a deep rage and grief that he questions Death, demanding justice for the wrong that has been done. Death, dapper and polite, stands in stark contrast to the emotional ploughman but is eventually shaken by the latter’s persistence and rejection of death’s reasonableness. The deus ex machina proclaims honour to the ploughman and victory to Death.
Death and the Ploughman was written in the context of the death of the author’s wife and after the Black Death had exacted a heavy toll on Europe. It is both a personal cry of anguish and a questioning of man’s place in the larger scheme of things.
As the translator Michael West acknowledges, “it is not, strictly speaking, a play.” Staging it proves to be a daunting challenge. The choreographed movements of the actors prevent the drama from lapsing into stasis but prove to be distracting at times. The decision not to have an interval was the right one but it did not make the heavy-going play any easier to absorb. The arguments made are not exactly new to us but provide an illuminating look at one man’s struggle with faith and life and death at the turn of the 15th century.
The demise of his beloved wife fuels the ploughman with such a deep rage and grief that he questions Death, demanding justice for the wrong that has been done. Death, dapper and polite, stands in stark contrast to the emotional ploughman but is eventually shaken by the latter’s persistence and rejection of death’s reasonableness. The deus ex machina proclaims honour to the ploughman and victory to Death.
Death and the Ploughman was written in the context of the death of the author’s wife and after the Black Death had exacted a heavy toll on Europe. It is both a personal cry of anguish and a questioning of man’s place in the larger scheme of things.
As the translator Michael West acknowledges, “it is not, strictly speaking, a play.” Staging it proves to be a daunting challenge. The choreographed movements of the actors prevent the drama from lapsing into stasis but prove to be distracting at times. The decision not to have an interval was the right one but it did not make the heavy-going play any easier to absorb. The arguments made are not exactly new to us but provide an illuminating look at one man’s struggle with faith and life and death at the turn of the 15th century.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Fundamental by Pet Shop Boys
Widely acclaimed as PSB’s return to form circa ‘Very.’ However, lead single ‘I’m With Stupid,’ despite its deliciously cutting lyrics on the Blair-Bush relationship, can’t measure up to ‘Can You Forgive Her.’ The highlight is instead ‘The Sodom and Gomorrah Show.’ The OTT-ness and religious imagery bring to mind ‘It’s A Sin’ but it’s its own beast. ‘Do you want to go to the Sodom and Gomorrah show?’ Hell yeah!
Elsewhere, the Boys explore a darker synth-pop sound to go with the doom and gloom of the sometimes clunky lyrics. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, all this moroseness has inspired the Boys to come up with their strongest set of tunes in a while. So if comparing “Fundamental’ to ‘Very’ is premature, it’s nevertheless an indication of its strength that comparisons are being made in the first place.
The design for the 2-CD limited edition boasts an all-black CD jewel case (to complement my all-white CD case of Faye Wong’s Ridiculous Thoughts) housing a lyric booklet in glossy black, all the better to set off the neon-light design of the song titles. The bonus disc ‘Fundamentalism’ comes with remixes and two new tracks ‘Fugitive’ and ‘In Private,’ which features Elton John. ‘Fugitive’ would have fit right in on ‘Fundamental,’ while ‘In Private’ is an anthemic stomper.
Fisherman’s Woman by Emiliana Torrini
Folksy Italian-Icelandic chanteuse, morphed from earlier incarnation as cool queen of chill on ‘Love in the Time of Science.’ Not like Bjork. At any rate, why does hailing from the same region necessitate a comparison between artistes? Is geography destiny in music?
Highlights are ‘Sunny Road’ and ‘Heartstopper.’ The unusual mix of the tales of a defiant and unrepentant protagonist with lovely melodies and delicate vocals works nicely. Torrini grounds her stories with a slice-of-life ordinariness that makes them more compelling. On ‘Sunny Road,’ she sings that she’s ‘running out of space/n here’s my address and number/just in case.’
It’s Never Been Like That by Phoenix
What is plain from the get-go of the title and album opener “Napoleon Says,’ is that Phoenix are reinventing themselves on their third album. Out goes the laidback, unflappable cool groove of ‘Alphabetical’ that they perfected over two albums and in come the guitars and the drums. Their Frenchness seems more pronounced in the odd lyrical phrasing or did I just not notice this before? I miss the Phoenix of old, but it’s nice to see them striking out in a new direction. They’ve shaken things up to deliver a consistently listenable album of toe-tapping guitar pop and it seems churlish to cling onto the past. For those seeking an easier transition, head for ‘Long Distance Call’ and ‘One Time Too Many’ first.
Veneer by Jose Gonzalez
Veneer has been a surprise top ten fixture in the UK largely on the strength of ‘Heartbeats,’ an inspired cover of The Knife’s electro-punk original. It was accompanied by a whimsical and irresistible video of tens of thousands of coloured rubber balls bouncing through the streets of San Francisco, which was also the TV ad for Sony’s Bravia television sets.
So what about the rest of the album? Gonzalez doesn’t veer far from the territory staked out by Heartbeats, acoustic guitar folk-pop paired with intimate vocals. The first half of the album works better, including the grower of an opener ‘Slow Moves’ and the OC-approved ‘Crosses.’ Unfortunately, the latter half of the album melds into one undistinguishable whole. Still, most of the songs clock in at under 3 minutes, which has the canny effect of leaving you wanting more on the tracks you like and not vexing one too much otherwise.
As the man himself sings ‘my moves are slow, but soon they’ll know.’
Widely acclaimed as PSB’s return to form circa ‘Very.’ However, lead single ‘I’m With Stupid,’ despite its deliciously cutting lyrics on the Blair-Bush relationship, can’t measure up to ‘Can You Forgive Her.’ The highlight is instead ‘The Sodom and Gomorrah Show.’ The OTT-ness and religious imagery bring to mind ‘It’s A Sin’ but it’s its own beast. ‘Do you want to go to the Sodom and Gomorrah show?’ Hell yeah!
Elsewhere, the Boys explore a darker synth-pop sound to go with the doom and gloom of the sometimes clunky lyrics. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, all this moroseness has inspired the Boys to come up with their strongest set of tunes in a while. So if comparing “Fundamental’ to ‘Very’ is premature, it’s nevertheless an indication of its strength that comparisons are being made in the first place.
The design for the 2-CD limited edition boasts an all-black CD jewel case (to complement my all-white CD case of Faye Wong’s Ridiculous Thoughts) housing a lyric booklet in glossy black, all the better to set off the neon-light design of the song titles. The bonus disc ‘Fundamentalism’ comes with remixes and two new tracks ‘Fugitive’ and ‘In Private,’ which features Elton John. ‘Fugitive’ would have fit right in on ‘Fundamental,’ while ‘In Private’ is an anthemic stomper.
Fisherman’s Woman by Emiliana Torrini
Folksy Italian-Icelandic chanteuse, morphed from earlier incarnation as cool queen of chill on ‘Love in the Time of Science.’ Not like Bjork. At any rate, why does hailing from the same region necessitate a comparison between artistes? Is geography destiny in music?
Highlights are ‘Sunny Road’ and ‘Heartstopper.’ The unusual mix of the tales of a defiant and unrepentant protagonist with lovely melodies and delicate vocals works nicely. Torrini grounds her stories with a slice-of-life ordinariness that makes them more compelling. On ‘Sunny Road,’ she sings that she’s ‘running out of space/n here’s my address and number/just in case.’
It’s Never Been Like That by Phoenix
What is plain from the get-go of the title and album opener “Napoleon Says,’ is that Phoenix are reinventing themselves on their third album. Out goes the laidback, unflappable cool groove of ‘Alphabetical’ that they perfected over two albums and in come the guitars and the drums. Their Frenchness seems more pronounced in the odd lyrical phrasing or did I just not notice this before? I miss the Phoenix of old, but it’s nice to see them striking out in a new direction. They’ve shaken things up to deliver a consistently listenable album of toe-tapping guitar pop and it seems churlish to cling onto the past. For those seeking an easier transition, head for ‘Long Distance Call’ and ‘One Time Too Many’ first.
Veneer by Jose Gonzalez
Veneer has been a surprise top ten fixture in the UK largely on the strength of ‘Heartbeats,’ an inspired cover of The Knife’s electro-punk original. It was accompanied by a whimsical and irresistible video of tens of thousands of coloured rubber balls bouncing through the streets of San Francisco, which was also the TV ad for Sony’s Bravia television sets.
So what about the rest of the album? Gonzalez doesn’t veer far from the territory staked out by Heartbeats, acoustic guitar folk-pop paired with intimate vocals. The first half of the album works better, including the grower of an opener ‘Slow Moves’ and the OC-approved ‘Crosses.’ Unfortunately, the latter half of the album melds into one undistinguishable whole. Still, most of the songs clock in at under 3 minutes, which has the canny effect of leaving you wanting more on the tracks you like and not vexing one too much otherwise.
As the man himself sings ‘my moves are slow, but soon they’ll know.’
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