…is like this new show, sorta like a dramatized documentary, on Cinemax about the life of reconnaissance marines in the first few weeks of the Iraq war. Originally based on the book by Evan Wright, a Rolling Stones reporter embedded with the battalion, it chronicles the bare-faced, undecorated truth behind the lives of the soldiers participating in the war. And what I mean by that is, none of that Dulce et Decorum Est, “hero and honour” sappiness usually associated with war films/dramas. And above all, there aren’t any unrealistic scenes of two soldiers talking about abstract concepts (i.e. the cruelty of war, friendship yada yada) while hiding behind sandbags in the middle of a shoot-out, or slow-mo closeup shots of the distorted expressions of soldiers charging into battle or stuff like that. So if you’re looking for melodrama or something that will make you ponder deeply about life and morals (a la Saving Private Ryan), Generation Kill is not for you.
What you have is protrayal of war filled with a wicked sense of humour and a strong dose of the gritty truth, and the often LOL moments that arrise from all the cussing and stupidity. Okay I admit I watch it mostly because the guys are hot but that’s not the main thing. The thing is, the series throws you in the thick of the action (sometimes in-action), with all the slang and swearing and dissing, but it really is damn funny. Half the time I have no idea what is happening because they talk in some sort of code or something, but in the end at the end you go like “ohhhh so that’s what they were doing”. You can be a layman and still like the show, even though I felt that it was slightly un-objective at times because it made them out to be more negative than they should, but since this is based on a real-life account (all the characters are modelled after real people and some of the people play themselves even!) I guess even the screwed up bits reflect the truth to a certain extent.
The best part about it is probably the way they show all the things you’re not supposed to show in a war film/series; the incompetence of the higher-ups and the dissent of the subbordinates, the politicking of team leaders, the underlying hypocrisy, the in-action of the soldiers in the action (half the time they’re just sitting around), the mistakes and deaths caused by ill-defined orders, the psychos who just want to kill people… the list goes on.
Yup the above is just my two cents of what I feel changed my mindset about this genre, sorry it it sounds like I’m trying to talk about something I don’t know well because well, I really know nuts about this kind of thing.
p.s. But one thing is for sure though. The guy playing the lieutenant is freaking cute. STARK SANDS!! He even has a nice voice.
Filed under: rambling, random, reflective, songs, videos | Tags: awesome, music, video
corinne bailey rae has such a nice voice! i love it. her music makes me feel as if i’m lying on a golden carpet of fallen leaves on the bank of a river twinkling in the soft autumn sun. aaaah if only singapore had autumn-ish weather… or maybe even rained more often at night, then the weather will be so nice. it’ll be perfect; romantic city that only rains at night haha. but the actual scorching heat kills any cell of romance imo.
anw i found this the other day while watching stop-motion animation videos. i love these kinds of videos because they’re just so whimsical and otherworldly (in a sense they remind me of some other parallel universe) not to mention the pain-staking effort behind it all; it makes it all so ironic since they seem effortless in the first place
it helps that the song is really great too!
i was gonna talk about about generation kill (it’s a hbo mini-series about us recon marines in iraq) but it somehow doesn’t seem to fit into the tone of this post, lol.
Filed under: daily, rambling | Tags: awesome, dream, friends, fun, shoes, shopping
yipee the guy just came to fix it! our bandwidth rate was supposed to be 8mb but it was only at 500kb -_- no wonder it was slower than a turtle. and walao, wake me up so early. zzz gg back to sleep after this post.
tuesday:
went shopping with kk and ming for ming’s birthday present. i was late, as per usual. me and kk bought this black and white leaf-print dress for ming!! and then after leaving far east we sat in front of this hotel (marriott? hyatt?) and talked about stuff. anyway the biggest shocker came during the time before dinner. kk is attached!!!!!!!!!!!! omg and is it a weird twist or what that guy used to date my best friend back in sec 2. i rmb before that i didn’t even know who kk was and what she looked like, but my best friend told me one day “there’s a bitch trying to steal my bf” (and she was refering to kk) and so naturally i said “omg yes i hate her”. and then in sec 3 kk became my best friend and now she is dating the same guy!! weird. the world is tiny. ate ajisen ramen for dinner. very very nice, but expensive. :( and then on the way back home on the mrt ming was asking me about the difference between a bridesmaid and a maid-of-honour, and i was thinking “WHAT you’re planning your wedding with jh already?!?!?” then she told me she had this idea that the maid-of honour is like the slave of the bride, like carrying all the shopping bags and stuff behind her when they go dress-shopping. funny funny funny! but now of course the saddest thing is that i’m the only single one left in the trio. boohoo :’(
wednesday
went to yifan’s house with pam to mug, which was semi-successful, i must say. we were like choosing songs for their band to jam haha. i did math for a bit, and i realised how sucky my math is. which shouldn’t be since i have tuition (along with bl and bj who both got As for their recent exams)!! then yifan helped me and pam do our hair! my hair was super curly. then we took retarded pictures, LOL. then yifan helped me paint my nails but bah, the paint didn’t dry properly so it was all ruined when i got home. -_- then on the way home my shoes were killing my feet! i got blisters all over the soles of my feet and some of them even burst. yuck. and the the shower my feet were like searing!! i kid you not it was super painful, like someone pouring hot water over your feet (which might actually be the reason cos the water was pretty hot. hmm). it has reduced me to hobbling around the house. ahhh i need to buy more comfy slippers cos my old pair broke so i had to wear the white pair which had heels and were feet-killing.
then yesterday i had this pretty epic dream. i dreamt that there was this huge epidemic/invasion of the world or something, but when they were evacuating the whole world i didn’t hear the announcements or something (i think i was in the toilet or sleeping) and no one bothered to stay behind to tell me so when i came out of my room, the house was abandoned and so were all the other houses everywhere!! i looked out of my window and there were dinosaurs and wild animals roaming the streets but not a single soul anywhere (imagine dust bushes rolling around in the wind). the weirdest thing was, when i went to the living room, there was this cheetah there growling at me. then somehow or the other i found a way to make the animals follow me (using the ringing of the purple toy timer… wtf right) so i was trying to get the cheetah away from my house, and in the process it went to attack a gazette instead of me so hurray. and some how i knew all was right again in the world, and this army truck came out with a bunch of guys in monkey masks jumping out and cheering! BUT THEN the swat team came and gassed all of us with sleeping gas!!! and then in my dream i realised that those monkey men were terrorists and they were responsible for all the animals everywhere, and then the police thought i was one of them!! i was trying to tell them but i became too sleepy and i fell asleep due to the gas (in my dream). weird huh. i have been having many apocalyptic/end-of-the-world dreams lately. might be an omen for the midyears, lol.
bc is a sad sad girl. she should just change her name to bs (bao sad) and creep through life via capillary action and be bombarded by an inert gas in a hollow cathode lamp. so sad because she is nocturnal and can only concentrate at night and wake up at 2pm with eyebags the size of russia and mope around the house.
boohoo i’m sad cos… roar (words fail me)
bye can’t type coherently
p.s. i wish i could go to bryant park…! if only i ooze creativity and sophistication (and the craftsmanship skills)
p.p.s. happy birthday 18th ming!! dunno if you’ll see this but sorry im kinda late!
Filed under: daily, rambling | Tags: brother, dad, friends, movie, random, weird, work
just watched wolverine with the bro!! it was a awesome movie but some parts were really accidentally funny (like the part deadpool (or deathpool?) was falling/spiralling down the empty cylindrical chimney and was cutting it into slices from within using cyclop’s laser-eye ability… it’s funnier actually watching it, seriously). so anyway i was almost falling asleep on the couch while waiting for dad and bj to fix up the tv while studying chem, but at least i finished most of medicine&drugs and organic chem today. whoopee for me! and anyway the movie was pretty nice cos a) wolverine was hot b) his girlfriend was hot c) hugh jackman’s acting was pretty good d) daniel henney (agent zero) was also hot (at least for the 10 min that he was in the movie). but seriously i felt it was better than the x-men franchise movies cos you didn’t have all these expectation of who does what yadda yadda (and there’s no jean grey… hurray!) like a breath of fresh air!
monday i watched state of play w/ pam at shaw. the screen was so small i swear it’s the same size as the tv in my house (as in proportionately) when i first saw russel crowe i was like (pardon me) “woah jesus (sans beard)”, but overall the movie was pretty good; y’know going on about journalistic integrity and political lobbying (i think that’s what it’s called) with a good amount of irony and twists thrown in for good measure. but well i thought they cast ben affleck wrongly cos he seems too dumb to scheme anything. then walked around with pam shopping… (her new obsession is zebra shirts lol) and she told be this disturbing thing on the mrt on the way home it’s still giving me nightmares (hahahaha).
overall today was a pretty good day cos i managed to mug even though i fell asleep halfway. lying on the sofa is not a conducive way to stay awake guys, i learnt that today. and recently i haven’t been sleeping well at night. first of all i keep getting episodes of sleep paralysis (that’s when you wake up at night in this semi-conscious state but you can’t move your body) and it doesn’t help that i keep thinking i’m being possessed. and it’s not even scary anymore i mean it happens so often i get really irritated when it happens, like even in my semi-conscious state i go “walao not again” and try to kick my legs. second of all there was this day i kept getting woken up by, get this, pains in my knees. *crickets chirping* i kid you not i think i have rheumatism. but that happened only after monday cos i walked a lot around orchard and over exerted my granny joints, haha. lastly i keep dreaming of pomeranian puppies (which is kinda nice, actl.) but when i wake up it’s just my bear. how disappointing. i like my bear but i really want a real pom. :(
