A while ago, I posted about the growth of the MRT system since our arrival in Singapore.
The expansion continues. The blue Downtown Line now stretches out eastwards all the way to the airport.
2017 MRT map
Year: 2017
Book launch for All the Little Children by Jo Furniss
Jo Furniss, a fellow member of the Singapore Writers’ Group, has published her first novel, All the Little Children, with Amazon imprint Lake Union.
Here she is launching her book at Kinokuniya, Singapore’s best-known downtown bookstore. She answered questions posed by another writer friend, Elaine Chiew, read an excerpt aloud, answered audience questions, and signed and sold all the copies she brought with her. It went great!
On the way into the store, I noticed Jo’s book on one of the tables in the aisle. She’s in good company, wouldn’t you say?
Expedition to Little India
I went with a friend to Sri Krishnan Temple at Waterloo St. Then we walked to little India and walked around to do some shopping. Below are a few photos from that day.
Miss Peregrine’s movie’s ending
Right after I said I was in no particular rush to see how this movie turned out, which movie did I see first, once back in Singapore? You guessed it: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
It didn’t get scarier; it just got silly. Not a career highlight for Samuel L. Jackson.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children/id1151555161
Rerouted!
What should have been a twenty-four-hour, three-airport trip from Atlanta to Singapore turned into a thirty-plus-hour, five-airport trip.
I watched another seven-and-a-half movies.
The reason my trip got longer was that at some point while we were flying over Canada, someone on the plane had a stroke. We backtracked to Minneapolis/St. Paul to get him off the plane and then the plane had to be refueled and paperwork filled out.
I missed my connecting flight at Tokyo Narita Airport because of the delay. Delta issued new tickets, but I had to collect my luggage and wait for Delta to put me on a bus to the Tokyo Haneda Airport (about an hour away). Delta gave me about $20 in meal vouchers which I used to buy a nice dinner at a katsu restaurant.
It was a lot of extra travel time, but it wasn’t really so bad for me. I spoke with a guy who had been on a flight from Florida to Atlanta before being re-routed on the flight from Atlanta to Narita, and his new flight to Seoul took off a couple of hours after mine.
Obviously the one with the worst luck was the man with the stroke. I hope he’s okay…
I remember what they said to us at Mammoth Cave: once you start the tour, there is no magic button to get you out if something goes wrong underground. Similarly, it takes time to come back from the sky when something goes wrong on a plane.
See below for photos taken at Haneda.
Batman vs. Superman (2016)
Pfft. The movie was just one huge, holy mess of CGI action scenes.
Also, how the heck are Metropolis and Gotham like just across the bay from each other? Gotham is undeniably New York City, and I always thought Metropolis was Chicago. Surely they can’t BOTH be New York?
Also, I’m tired of plots built on the idea that the public has turned the tables on heroes and has started criticizing them for their actions. The first few times you could argue that it’s necessary and interesting, but does every superhero movie have to be like that now?
Also, The Lego Batman Movie handles pretty much all the same themes that this one does, but it’s fun to watch—and this one wasn’t.
I’m glad I watched it, because I watched the movie before it (Man of Steel) and after it (Wonder Woman), and there was a kind of gap in the overall story, and now there isn’t. Wait, that’s not true… I still haven’t watched Suicide Squad. I didn’t realize that was part of the DCEU timeline.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice/id1092464213
Blades of Glory (2007)
I enjoyed Balls of Fury, so I figured I’d give this sports-themed comedy a try. It was pretty solid. Not amazing, but solid.
More about the movie at Nerdist and Business Insider.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/blades-of-glory/id271407294
Lethal Weapon (1987)
I get the sense that this is the canonical buddy-cop movie. I didn’t get to watch the whole thing because the plane landed. I wouldn’t say I was necessarily enjoying it, but I would have liked to see the end.
The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
Silly? Absolutely, but it’s also clever, amusing, and deep.
Why deep? Lego Batman is successful and proud, but isolated, lonely, and feeling more and more rejected as he realizes that his time has passed. It’s no longer cool to be a vigilante; justice has to be dispensed democratically. Lone heroes are old hat; today’s heroes need to leverage teamwork. No man is an island, not even Lego Batman, who lives on one.
Seriously, this cartoon beats Dawn of Justice hands down.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-lego-batman-movie/id1197505667
Heidi (2015)
In this German-language tale based on a bestselling work of Swiss children’s literature, orphan girl Heidi is left at the mountain hut of her grouchy grandfather when her money-grubbing aunt finds a job in the city. Heidi befriends her grandfather and a goatherd named Peter and is enjoying mountain life when her aunt returns, insisting she leave the Alps to become the companion of a crippled city girl, at least temporarily…
The story of Heidi bears a resemblance to the English children’s classic The Secret Garden. In both works, you have an isolated wealthy child who is transformed with the help of nature and a kind of wild child.
The story of Heidi also has religious overtones; the movie incorporates the parable of the shepherd who (presumably) leaves his flock to find the lost lamb.
On the surface, the story is beautiful and uplifting, but I can’t help thinking that nature is overly romanticized. I think it’s all too easy for city people suffering from urban ennui to dream of going “back” to nature, even though they’ve never been there. It’s my understanding that the author of the book (Johanna Spyri) lived a city life.
The rejection of civilization is not complete, however, because Heidi learns to read. Reading, her friend Peter argues, is not a skill a goatherd needs; nevertheless, it is a skill Heidi finds she wants. Therefore, overall I approve of the movie and the messages it has about family, friendship, identity, and pursuit of happiness.
