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This is an indie movie of sorts even though it does boast Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette and Steve Carrell in its cast. Quite a little gem of a movie, it is a road trip which sees a family travelling to California to let Olive (outstanding Abigail Breslin) take part in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

The family comprises the dad (Greg Kinnear) as a motivational speaker who is ironically, unsuccessful himself, the cocaine-addicted grandad (Alan Arkin) who tries to make the most of what time he has left, the son (Paul Dano) who takes a vow of silence until he goes to flight academy and the suicidal uncle (Steve Carrell), a gay former professor who lost both his love and job.

There is a lot of heart and heartbreak but with lots of humour. Abigail shines in this movie and you can’t help but be swept up in her excitement to take part in the beauty pageant.
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I’ve been hearing and reading lots of incredible things about Bangkok’s new airport as I was planning my almost annual pilgrimage to the city of angels.

Never mind the expected chaos, lost luggage and long queues that invariably come with any new system, except for Singapore where you can expect things to run like clockwork right off the bat.

Things that seem implausible – like how arriving passengers have to take a shuttle bus to another terminal 3km away to take a metered taxi. This could go into a segment of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”.

There are airport “limousines” for those who want to take a taxi directly from the arrival terminal instead of lugging their stuff onto a shuttle bus to go to the metered taxi area located 3km away. Gosh, why would the bright sparks at the Thai airport management think anyone would want to do that?

Just as the word “limousines” suggest, their flat fare is a sky-high THB1,000 (S$43). That’s excluding from any surcharge and toll. For a place like Bangkok where it’s more a backpacker’s paradise than for upscale tourists, that is really mind-boggling.

If you want to take the airport shuttle to the city, again, you will have to take a bus to the Transport Centre where buses will take you to various parts of the city. A train service is planned by 2007, but most don’t expect to see it operational before the next coup.

Wait, there’s more. The international airport tax will increase from THB500 to THB700 in February 1, 2007. After clearing immigration, it can take 30 minutes to walk to the furthest international gate. 30 minutes!!! Seeing as how my luck has been, I’m sure my flight will depart from the second furthest, if not the furthest gate.

This movie adaptation of 300 looks stunning. When you look at the videos of the filming process, they look quite dorky with flat lighting and the blue screen which is where the background would be added later in post-production.

But once it’s been processed, it looks spectacular. The cast is perfect with Gerard Butler (Lara Croft: Cradle of Life) as King Leonidas and the stunning Lena Headey (Imagine Me And You) as Queen Gorgo.

I really hope the movie is as good as the trailer looks.

Apparently Warner Bros has been very picky about blogs hosting the trailer. Several bloggers who have put up vids of the trailer were asked to remove them.

The last graphic novel that was successfully translated into film was V for Vendetta. The spirit and soul of the graphic novel was kept intact even though there were quite a few changes and omissions done to the subplots involving the characters.

There’s still a long way to wait for the movie release though – it’s out only in March 2007.

So when is “Watchmen” coming out?

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Singapore Dreaming has won the Montblanc Screenwriters Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Written by Colin Goh and his wife Woo Yen Yen, it is quite amazing that Singapore Dreaming, a film that is in English, Singlish, Mandarin and Hokkien – that is about as local as it can get – actually won. I’ve seen it and there are many scenes that I think only locals would “get it”. Yet, audiences at this film festival in Spain have responded so positively, surely it proves that local films can transcend cultural barriers.

And it did so without any of the artsy pretentiousness and silly storylines prevalent in independent local films.

Some local films which I’ve seen over the years:

Singapore Gaga: This is more a documentary showcasing slices of Singapore sights and sounds, featuring some of the most interesting but largely ignored folk who eke out a living around MRT stations. Loved this.
I Not Stupid: Love this one for the way it pokes fun at local politics and policies.
Money No Enough: Terrible cinematography, lighting, looks cheap (shot on video if I’m not mistaken) – great example of how a great script rises above all.
Bugis Street: Oh my god…one of the worst local films ever. Has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Mee Pok Man: Classic pretentious film with long-winded, inane storyline.
12 Storys: I liked this one for its bunch of dysfunctional people.

I don’t know why I didn’t discover this author earlier. Maybe being brought up on a diet of books by western authors, I never really thought to read any Asian ones.

I am in the midst of reading this wonderfully weird 2-in-1 book by Haruki Murakami. Actually weird doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s like dreaming 2 dreams simultaneously, each dream held in separate and distinct bubbles of their own where I zip in and out chapter by chapter.

“Hard-boiled Wonderland” tells of a guy who came into the possession of a unicorn skull and becomes the target of mobsters, while “The End of the World” tells of a land where roam beasts with gold fur.

Perhaps these 2 stories will come together somehow in the end. I am just halfway through the book, but I hope I don’t reach the end too quickly.

! ! ! ! W A R N I N G – S P O I L E R S – B E L O W ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! W A R N I N G – S P O I L E R S – B E L O W ! ! ! !

! ! ! ! W A R N I N G – S P O I L E R S – B E L O W ! ! ! !

UPDATE 2 OCTOBER, 2006

Gasp! The plots thicken. The bubbles have joined and merged a little into each other and now share a common zone. “Hard-boiled Wonderland” has this unicorn skull and talks about the end of the world. “The End of the World” has skulls of golden beasts with horns.

UPDATE 6 OCTOBER, 2006

Finished the book.

I have to say it’s one of those books when you reach the end, you let out this huge sigh, re-read the last bits in an attempt to savour the penultimate poignant moments of revelation. It’s absolutely… (over-working brain cells to avoid cliched phrases)out-of-this-world, a must-read, not-to-be-missed, one of the best ever, the pinnacle of creativity. Amazing!!! Brilliant!!!

A traditional mooncake made of the usual lotus seed paste and an egg yolk contains almost 1,000 calories. It is quite mind-boggling.

According to the Health Promotion Board:
* A mooncake holds up to 14 teaspoons of sugar (the recommended daily dose is 10 or less).
* A mooncake has also up to 6 teaspoons of fat – half the recommended daily limit
* A 180g mooncake contains 800 calories – equivalent to three bowls of white rice, and more than 1/3 of a regular person’s daily caloric intake.

I enjoy mooncakes quite a bit. The traditional lotus seed paste ones with DOUBLE egg yolks – so how many more calories with DOUBLE egg yolk? No snowskin or chocolate mooncake crap for me. I’m quite a purist that way. And they have to be from the one and only Tai Chong Kok, the iconic bakery with a legacy of generations in Chinatown. Even they have had to evolve with the times – they now sell the snowskin crap as well. One thing that has changed for the better though, is that less sugar is used.

Health-conscious as I am, when the Mooncake Festival comes around, I need to have my mooncakes. The way I balance up my diet is the way of the wise – moderation. I ration myself to a quarter slice a day, on alternate days. That way, whatever blood in me that got clogged up by the previous quarter slice would hopefully have been cleared by my vegetable and legume lunch that day.