Chocolat

Speaking of which, I haven't seen that movie in ages.

Anyway, I think it's safe to say that I'm on an official eating binge. For some reason, I just can't stop eating, and it's not the I-love-food-so-much-it's-a-replacement-for-TV reason. I'm thinking it might be because I ran out of biscuits, and I've absolutely NO snacks left to stuff my face with. Except instant noodles. But that's more like, a full-meal type thing. Argh.

weightupby100foldbythetimeIgetback*choi*

Edit: I just noticed an influx of reviews on my part. Hahaha.

Another edit: The title's Chocolat because I spent $2.40 on a Cadbury bar today. In the afternoon. After I had my sammich. See? BINGING!!

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It's done~!

And I'm referring to my half of my Money And Capital Markets assignment (groupie). It's finally done! Dun dun DUUUNNN!!! I only have wait for my partner to approve of it (or if not, tell me where I went wrong so that I can make the necessary amendments) then I'm be home free! WHEEEE!!! Now, to work on the other assignments piling up on my ass... And one's due this Sunday (yeah I know, SUNDAY??). But yeah, Sunday.

Currently (as in, right now, at this moment), I've only to worry about tomorrow's test. No wait, today's test, since it's past 12 already. I should really go to bed now. Toodle-loo~

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The only reason I checked out this movie on YouTube was because I'd heard it was a cult hit. And Tim Curry. The movie's basically a musical-comedy parody on the ol' Frankenstein story. With a few minor adjustments, of course.

It begins with the newly-engaged Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon, back when she wasn't famous yet) who get stranded because their car broke down, and they wander into this castle they passed on earlier to borrow a phone. And that's where the fun begins.

In the castle, they meet its seriously weirded-out inhabitants, first Riff-Raff the handyman, his sister Magenta, and Columbia the groupie, and then Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the cross-dressing scientist from Transsexual, Transylvania (played by the FAH-bulous Tim Curry!) who's just created this Greek God of a man called Rocky Horror. Come to think of it, the whole movie's the opposite of the Frankenstein mythology. The monster's supposed to be hideous; that's why they kept trying to burn him, and Frankenstein's most definitely human-looking. In this movie, well... you get the picture.

So the couple is forced to stay the night, because they don't have access to a phone, and is seduced by Frank in turn. Then Janet finds out that Brad cheated on her with Frank (teehee!), so she cheats on him with Rocky instead. Then Dr. Scott, a mutual acquaintance of Frank and Brad, shows up looking for his missing nephew Eddie, whom Frank has just slaughtered about half an hour ago. Eddie's dead and rather rotten body is revealed during dinner, which leads to Frank chasing Janet around in six-inch heels, because he's still cross-dressed, and Rocky likes her more instead of Frank. That part was rather fun.

Then Brad, Janet, Dr. Scott, Rocky and Columbia gets Medusa'ed (Frank has this machine; Columbia gets it because she likes Eddie and she's upset), and then they get DeMedusa'ed, and do this cabaret-type Floor Show. And then Frank comes in again, does his number, before Riff-Raff and Magenta come in all pissed, because they want to go back to Transylvania (in this movie, it's a galaxy, and Transsexual is a planet. Haha.).

So then they lasered Frank, and Rocky gets upset, and they laser him too. So both of them dies. Riff-Raff and Magenta let the humans get out before the house takes off. And that's how the movie ends.

To be honest (and I'm SOOO gonna get crucified for this), I thought the movie was a crock of bull (the only saving grace was Tim Curry, I've to say), but that was my first time watching it, so after my assignments let up a bit, I'll watch it more properly next time around. I still get a kick out of watching Tim Curry singing Sweet Transvestite in drag, though ;)

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Terry Pratchett's The Light Fantastic

So this book is a direct continuation of The Colour Of Magic, with Rincewind literally flying off the face of the ea–, I mean, Disc. He doesn't die, because the Spell in his head won't let him. Which is good for him in a way.

Trymon is introduced in this book, and is described as a young, ambitious wizard who likes things organized (i.e. the opposite of the messy wizards), and sends out memos and stuff. Sounds like the modern manager to me. Hahaha. Anyway, Trymon finds out that if he reads out all the Spells in the Octavo, which is like, T3H ULT1MAT3 SP311B00K(!!1!) because it was supposedly left by the Creator, he'd be able to get whatever he wants, and be super-powerful and take over the world! He would also be releasing monsters from the Dungeon Dimension, if I'm not mistaken, but no one really cares about that. Currently, he doesn't have all eight, because one of them's in Rincewind's head.

The main issue in the book is where the Great A'Tuin is heading. Turns out, he's heading towards this red star, which isn't all too good for our people on the Disc, since stars are hot, and well, they're not. So we have the usual massive panic.

In the end, Rincewind manages to get the spell out of his head, Trymon gets his comeuppance (he gets possessed by the Bad Creatures, pretty similar to how the condemned souls went into the bad guy in Ghost Rider. They don't need a portal to be opened; they could just use Trymon) and becomes a splat on the ground below, and Twoflower heads back home after the adventure, after giving the Luggage to Rincewind as a gift. I love the Luggage.

This book was alright for me, I guess, although I enjoyed the bit about how trolls (who're made of rock) start philosophising about their existence and why they're here and stuff and stop being trolls and turn into part of the scenery. One of the trolls say that the rock on the end was his aunt, and she hasn't moved in two hundred years. Hahaha.

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Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic: Part 1 (2008)

Now I'm reviewing the TV adaptation. Huh. It's supposed to be taken from The Colour Of Magic and The Light Fantastic, since both books are back-to-back and the second one's a direct continuation of the first one.

So I watched the first part of this online (Part 2 isn't up yet; not sure when it will be) instead of doing my assignments. Damn, I suck.

Anyway, I found that it was pretty good. David Jason's a bit (well, I guess 'a bit' is pretty much of an understatement) old to be Rincewind, but he plays the coward just fine. Sean Astin's perfect as the naive and simple Twoflower; only thing is, Twoflower's supposed to be Chinese, even though that fact is only established in Interesting Times, 16/17 books later. Christopher Lee is the voice of Death (so what's new? Haha.). Tim Curry's evil (as usual!) as Trymon, an overambitious wizard offing everybody so that he could be ArchChancellor, although The Light Fantastic describes him as 'young'. But anyway, love the guy.

As with all on-screen adaptations, they leave some bits of the book out. Like the Bel-Shamharoth part. I really wanted to see that massive tentacled thing and the green dryads. And Liessa's supposed to have MASSIVE RED CHESTNUT HAIR! She seems more exotic than anything in this show. And they left out the Sea Troll! But I love how they rendered the Great A'Tuin and the four elephants and the Discworld. That part was amazing.

The best part in this TV special is the Luggage. It's this massive chest with hundreds of legs (human legs) under it that it uses to walk about. And they brought it to screen perfectly! I just love the part where they show the Luggage toddling across the scenery, following Twoflower and Rincewind, and it was just so ADORABLE!!!11!one! My heart's melting right now...

Jeremy Irons as the Patrician! I mean, I'd already found that out ages ago by scouring Wikipedia, BUT... when I first found out, I was shocked. I mean... JEREMY IRONS! Even though he was out for like, 5 minutes, it was fun to watch him while it lasted. Haha.

I'm guessing that Part 2 would be more towards The Light Fantastic, even though they showed Trymon's ascension to power alongside the events in The Colour Of Magic. Watching Tim Curry offing people never fails to bring a smile to my face =)

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Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic

This is the first book in the Discworld series, and the copy I have right now (Copyright 1983; got it from the library) is the 9th edition, if I'm not mistaken. At any rate, the book still looks rather worn... But without further ado, background story and review:

The Discworld is looks like a disc. It revolves on top of four giant elephants (how friction doesn't burn up the hides of those elephants, I don't know. That's fantasy for ya), that in turn, stands on the Great A'Tuin, a very Giant Turtle that sails across the space, towards... well, something (my five readings thus far haven't established what that 'something' is yet, though.).

The Colour Of Magic is quite a lot of fun. It revolves around Twoflower, a tourist to Ankh-Morpork (the main city of the Discworld), his Luggage (made out of magic sapient pearwood, has hundreds of little legs, and is extremely protective of its master) and his hapless guide, the failed wizard Rincewind (the common character and sometimes protagonist in most of the later books), who only knows ONE spell, since that one spell is really, REALLY powerful and prevents him from memorising any other spell (unfortunately, we don't find out what that spell does. Even Rincewind doesn't know what it does, but he knows that major crap would be going down if he finished the incantation, eight words in all). From the other books, Rincewind has a hat that says 'WIZZARD' on it, but in this book, that hasn't been introduced yet.

Twoflower is from the Counterweight Continent, where gold flows EXTREMELY freely in circulation (that doesn't make everybody rich, ya know. They have peasants there. Mostly). The CC is further explored in much more detail in Interesting Times (which is my first Discworld book, and is by far the FUNNIEST book I'd ever come across, and is one of my absolute favourites), and based on that, the CC is mostly China, and some of Japan (because we have massive Tsimo wrestlers in one part). And they have a city called Sum Dim. And they also have the Forbidden City, and terracotta warriors, but they're called the Red Army in this instance. They even have The Art Of War, written by One Tzu Sung. Hahaha.

So anyway, Twoflower is an insurance agent (in Morporkian, there's no such word to describe the word 'insurance', so it's spelled as 'inn-sewer-ants'. And reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits is Morporkian 'echo-gnome-ics', which we know as 'economics'. HAHAHA!). He, being extremely simple and naive and good-natured, gets into trouble, and Rincewind, even though he makes a break for it, is commanded by the Patrician (the ruler of Ankh-Morpork) to follow Twoflower around and keep him alive, since if Twoflower dies, they'd incur the wrath of the CC, which is a massive continent indeed and so, has massive army.

Later on, the CC changes its mind on Twoflower, and orders him assassinated (because if he comes back bearing photos and stories of his travels, well, the CC operates feudally; loads of that in Interesting Times), so Twoflower and the reluctant Rincewind gets bounced around a lot on their adventure. Rincewind even meets Death on several occasions (they pretty much know each other for a while now. Death comes personally for wizards and witches, instead of delegating to lesser minions, as we see in Mort, Death's apprentice of the same name. That book wasn't too bad either). In this book, Death just doesn't come across as characteristic of what he's like in Mort. But this is the first book, so... Death has a soft spot for cats, by the way, and there's no underlying meaning in that statement. He just likes cats. We get that from Mort, as well.

Anyway, back to The Colour Of Magic. Twoflower sells insurance to Broadman, who owns the local bar The Broken Drum, and Broadman proceeds to burn down the bar, and unintentionally, a huge part of the city as well (Broadman doesn't make it though, as we see Death making an appearance prior to the fire-starting). Rincewind and Twoflower manage to get out in time, and proceed to almost be sacrifices for Bel-Shamharoth (a Lovecraftian creature with one eye that eats souls. Bel-Shamharoth, that is, not the eye. They defeat it when Rincewind took a picture and the flash blinded Bel's eye. Eight is Bel's number, by the way, so Rincewind's spell has something to do with Bel. Just that we don't know what it does), get involved in a power struggle in Wyrmberg (with dragons!) and finally, reach the Edge of the Discworld (the people of Krull, who stay near the Edge, want to find out what the gender of the Great A'Tuin's is. We find that out on the first page, but they didn't. So they need two volunteers. Guess who.).

There's also this sub-plot about the Gods playing games using people as game pieces. The two left standing in the book is Fate, and the Lady (her name isn't given, but Interesting Times call her 'The Lady in the Last Chance Saloon'. I don't get it, but apparently Google does. She's Lady Luck.). Fate is controlling everybody else, and the Lady seems to like Rincewind (she also uses him as a piece in Interesting Times.).

By the way, little bit of a continuity quibble. In the chapter 'The Lure Of Wyrmberg', Liessa's name changes to Lianna when she finally catches up to Hrun the Barbarian. Hmm.

I'm glad that The Colour Of Magic is actually revealed to us in the book. Without giving what that colour is away, it's basically a combo, so there. All in all, the book's pretty good (even though the ending's a literal cliff-hanger), but I still find nothing beats Interesting Times.

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For some reason, people think I'm from Singapore.

Yes, it's true. In the span of almost a month and a half, I've gotten four hits, so far.

First two was on the same day, ironically, both are Singaporeans. First was this Monash girl at the airport who's doing post-grad, and the second was this girl at Orientation. Second said I spoke like one.

Then the third would be my Money And Capital Markets assignment partner. She said I sounded like her Singaporean friends.

Fourth (that is, today) is from this girl (Malaysian) in charge of the OSHC booth when I went to collect my health insurance card (in line, for like, an hour. STANDING!).

Huh.

I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. I mean, about the way I speak.

*cough*PhuaChuKang*cough*

Oh well. I guess I'll take it in stride. It's too early to make anything out of it anyway.

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