turning into a couch potato

I've been watching a lot of Mediacorp programmes, anime, movies and DVDs in the last 2 weeks.

I try to catch as many episodes of Channel 8's 7pm and 9pm shows - '美丽的气味' is a brand new series that just started showing this week (I forgot the name of the previous show I caught a few episodes of) and '缘之绘'. Also the repeat series '有福' on weekends starring Christopher Lee. I even caught an episode of a super old series '卫斯里传奇' starring Li Nanxing, Zoe Tay and a HK actor Tao-something. These crappy Channel 8 serials, I'll definitely miss when I leave for Sydney this Sunday. I think they are very uniquely Singapore. I also saw this crappy TVC with Joanne Peh (have I mentioned before she used to be my junior in my sec sch symphonic band?) in it promoting MobTV at SGD6++ monthly. While switching channels, I also caught bits of Jacky Wu's '我猜' show on Channel U and Fear Factor on Channel 5. The best show I watched on these Mediacorp channels has to be the CNY countdown where a lot of the local celebrities gathered to perform the good old dong dong chiang songs. It takes being away from home for a long while to make me realise that I actually enjoy watching all these. Maybe I should subscribe to MobTV so I can watch them online.

I managed to disrupt tudi's jogging routine and invaded her place for a DVD night. Out of 3 options given: 2046, Chungking Express and Wilde, I picked Wilde because of 2 men - 1 smart and 1 simply droolicious. It's a 1997 movie about a 19th century Irish playwright, novelist and poet Oscar Wilde (played by Stephen Fry) whose life was ruined by his love for golden boy Bosie (played by Jude Law). My favourite quotes by Wilde in the show were 'I find that alcohol, when taken in sufficient amounts, brings out all the effects of drunkenness' and 'In this world, there are only two tragedies, one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it'. This movie is now in my list of favourites.

Also thanks to tudi who passed me a collection of Studio Ghibli short anime films, I've watched 4 out of the 14 films: Grave of Fireflies, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and The Cat Returns. Not sure I've got time to watch the rest too. They are really good. I especially like Spirited Away. Oh and Princess Mononoke was actually released by Miramax in 1999 and had Claire Danes and Billy Bob Thornton amongst many other Hollywood celebrities voicing for the characters. Talking about anime, I finally caught up on Bleach and Naruto. I find the fight between Naruto and Orochimaru too gross, especially the part when Orochimaru vomitted hundreds and thousands of snakes at Naruto. That made my hair stand. Orochimaru should just die cos he looks really disgusting. Tudi also gave me a link to watch a jap romantic comedy anime 'School Rumble' and I'm 2.5 episodes into it. Funny and worth continuing, except it takes a while to stream.

Other DVDs I've watched include Death Note 1 and 2. I heard part 3 will be showing soon and remarked to P that I did not get the chance to watch the first 2 episodes and he bought the DVDs for me. I just googled and found out that the third instalment, 'L, Change the World', about the last 23 days of L's life, will only be released on 21 Feb. I'll have to wait for the DVD and watch it alone in Sydney then. I'm also contemplating getting the manga. I remember flipping through volume 1 just before I got a job based in Sydney. That was when I was crazy over Bleach and thought shinigamis really cool. My favourite shinigami in the Death Note movies is Rem, the white gentle god of death who sacrificed himself to protect the girl his friend loved so as to keep his promise to his good friend. I don't mind having such a guardian angel also, lor.

On the big screen, I caught CJ7 with my bro and Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of fleet street with tudi. CJ7 was better than I'd expected (I went into the cinema not knowing what the whole show was about). It's hilarious with very touching parts that made me tear big time. I find it quite refreshing in that you don't see a lot of Stephen Chow and none of his act-stupid faces. I was blown away by the kid's acting and thought him really cute until I found out subsequently he's actually a she. O.O"

I loved Sweeney Todd too. I read up a bit on it (it's actually based on an old musical from the late 70's) before watching it and am very impressed by Tim Burton - I didn't expect him to do such a good job of it on the big screen. Johnny Depp looks yummier than ever. I just didn't like the bloody parts and had to shut my eyes many times.

Movies I'd like to watch before returning to Sydney are Kungfu Dunk (this is purely because of Jay Chou), Ah Long Pte Ltd (I support local productions! Even though the reviews on the show are really really bad. Btw, I caught 881 on the mini screen in SIA's inflight entertainment and loved it!) and Leap Years (another local production starring Wong Li-Lin, Nadya Hutagalung and Qi Yu Wu) but I doubt I have the time for all of them...