I guess the topic and the following picture basically sums up the experience I gathered from watching Poseidon. Thanks to the Klang chow ah beng, Galvin, who said this movie was “pretty good”, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have watched it. Spoilers ahead, you are warned.
giant sinking ship, yawn
The story:
A giant luxury cruise liner, Poseidon, was crusing somewhere in some ocean during new year’s eve, the year wasn’t mentioned either. The main characters were each given a 1 minute character build up, don’t worry, you won’t even remember their names. There were a wealthy dude ex NY mayor who owns the ship, his hot daughter (every film needs a hot chick) and the boy friend, a professional gambler, a single mom with her kid, an old gay man, and a Latina girl who didn’t pay her fare to get onboard. Sounds exciting?
Then all of a sudden, a rouge wave hit the ship while the old gay dude was standing outside trying to call his ex boy friend who just dumped him or something. Interesting thing was that for the ship this size and sophistication, apperantly there weren’t any radar or warning system, everything was dependant on the 6th sense of a navigation officer.
They did not manage to steer the ship to greet the incoming wave fast enough, and well, the ship was hit and toppled upside down. Somehow the old gay man ended up back in the ballroom just at the same instance, teleportation at work, I presume.
Well, some pretty fantastic camera works showed how so many people died, there was fire, and electric shocks and all that jazz. The captain who was in the ballroom tried to get everybody to calm down and wait for rescue to come, but the gambling man and all the other main characters decided to find their own way out.
The story then became an adventure of those guys and gals trying to get to the stern of the ship. Went through hips of danger and a couple other characters were introduced. The kitchen crew was quickly killed about 5 minutes after he was introduced, and there was this other annoying fella who was killed too in less than 10 minutes just because he was an asshole. Very good for morale education class.
After those two were killed, they continue finding their ways up, the Latina girl had to die because her skirt got caught and she drown, but somehow that scene wasn’t even sad. The little boy got lost somehow (the mom suddenly didn’t give a shit about the boy for 10 minutes) and then rescued by the gambling man (hero) just to add some very lousy spark to the story. The rich guy ex mayor (Kurt Russle, yey) who initially hated his daughter’s relationship with the boy friend, then had to die too to save everyone by reversing the propeller of the ship so they can get out.
When they got out (gambling guy, mother and kid, rich guy’s hot daughter and boy friend, old dude), they found a life boat in half a second, and got rescued 2 seconds later. End of story.
My criticism & plot holes:
My verdict:
The story was flat an uninteresting, the actors themselves weren’t necessarily bad but there was nothing for them to work with. The script was horrendous, there were too many plot holes too. To their credit, the cinematography was pretty good and some of the effects were amazing. I give it a 4/10, it scored a 5.6/10 on IMDB, what say you?
Hollywood, please do not waste another US $150 million in bad scripts. From the other reviews that I read, it seems that this one is not even half as good as the original The Poseidon Adventure (1972). I am hoping that X-Men: The Last Stand is going to be a good one.
I wrote an entry on Rojak! the shorts and monologues last week, and went for the opening show last night. To sum it up, it was a very good show, and very well worth the entrance fee. If you have a chance, go catch it. It’ll be a good alternative to watching, say, Ice Age 2, which sucked.
This will be a little bit of review and criticism (hopefully constructive) on last night’s performance.
warning: Those who doesn’t want any potential spoilers, you can stop reading. This entry contains alot of pictures too.
Overview:
There are 5 shorts & monologues on each side of the 15 minute intermission. Altogether the play lasted about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Below are my comments on each performance, by sequence (I don’t remember the titles and don’t have a booklet with me)
A story about the brutality of sales girls. This play is funny, showing not only the hardcore tactics of each girl trying to get the customer by their product, but also the general brutality of female that you don’t want to mess with. The cast gave a pretty good performance, a good opening act.
Two friends spending some time at a mamak stall, talking about everything from current issues, politics, and personal relationship, a reflection of everyday life of a Malaysian. Some pretty daring display of “free speech” was involved, touching on some sensitive issues some of us might want to avoid being on record.
While pretty good in it’s own right, I feel that the ending was a little confusing. If it was meant to be a parody of an unfortunate event that happened at a mamak stall in PJ, I would think the victims and anyone who has anything to do with them will find this in poor taste.
A happy family, with everything perfect, everyone “chose to be happy”. This is a very comical act, with colorful language and a funny script. Great performance by the ‘son’.
However, the story ended rather abruptly, missing a great opportunity to give it a twist, perhaps revealing that everything of the family is superficial on the surface, while each of them holding multitute of lies and secrecy to support their cheerful display. Then again, it’ll be very long and can probably be a whole 1 hour show by itself.
A monologue, of a party with no guest turning up. A funny script and a pretty good performance by Emily. Very entertaining.
Frankly speaking, I don’t get this story. I don’t know what it is about, what are the screamings signify? What about the crazy mother? Who is the teacher, etc, etc. Altogether very confusing. Pretty much a theatrical experiment went wrong.
This story is slightly less confusing. I gather that it is trying to tell us to doubt the authority, to question the unquestionable, and to seek your own path and not merely following the status quo. Decent performance by the cast.
This is the monologue that has won the audience, and in my opinion, the best performance of the night. “Who wants to be a Malaysian” reminds me of the Daily Show by Jon Stewart, funny, and hits the various ugly spots that define us as a Malaysian on the dot. The actor gave a superb performance.
A story at a funeral, the gossips that went on, reflecting what must a mistress go through. A mixture of serious and funny display. The “Indian gossip lady” was pretty good.
The most serious of all the shorts. A showcase of the oppressed females. The contrast of one who accepts the reality and paint a make-believe picture to herself, and the other who vow to seek equality and stand up for herself. A very good story, and excellent performance by the casts, especially the silent E at the background.
This is a .. monologue by 7? I don’t know how you call this format. It was entertaining and delivered the anti-smoking message via reverse psychology. A good way to end the play, however, there was a guy smoking outside the building right after the play ended. Perhaps he didn’t get the message. hehe.
No conclusion here (I wrote it in the beginning,) go watch and have fun. By the way, their website – The Oral Stage
So the suanie has this funny hobby, she loves to watch ghost movies but are absolutely terrified by the TV set at the same time.
I myself don’t particulary fancy ghost movies, mainly because I don’t believe in ghosts, and usually only take the them as comedies, irregardless of the directors’ original intentions. However, often time I was dragged by this emotional masochist in watching the film, lending her my share of “courage” and all.
This time, it was The Wig, a Korean ghost movie about a dead gay lover’s hair being woven into a wig and then possessed a cancer patient who’s got a sister who can’t speak, trying to kill the ex lover, etc etc. Actually I don’t really care what was going on, it wasn’t even really scary. However, the real enjoyment is watching Suan absolutely terrified by the show. I’ll give the movie a C and the movie experience with Suan a B+
I have taken the liberty of in showing you how she watches ghost movies, enjoy the pictures!
suan: i scare ghost movies!
So I finally had the chance to go to Bangsar Actor studio to catch up one of my hobbies of old, live staged show. The show was D’Arranged Marriage performed by “Those Indian Guys” from New Zealand, introduced to me by Lenny.
Believe it or not, yours truely used to perform in dramas. I was once the main character, a begger, conspire with the daughter to cheat in a comedy. Another time I was a trishaw rider, and in yet another show I was one of the villians of the monkey god story. That was years ago, with the group “Dramatic Boundary” back in Penang, performing mostly in Mandarin. Strange as it might sound, but people actually PAY to watch us.. ahh.. memory.
Now lets get back to this one. This show has been touring at least since middle of 2004 and been around in different countries, it was the second time they perform in Malaysia.
D’Arranged Marriage tells the story of a young Indian boy called Sanjay who spends most of his life avoiding the issue of an arranged marriage. His nagging family finally gets the better of him but to his surprise he discovers that Neenu, the prospective bride, is the one! Unfortunately ‘the one’ is already dating the village idiot Rundeep…
The show completely blew me away, the whole show was performed by only one guy – Rajeev Varma. He was very lively, taking up 9 or 10 characters, mainly by using different voices and gestures. There were also dancing, playing crickets, and the main character’s parents getting it on, all acted by Rajeev alone. It was hillarious and at the same time, very very impressive. The 57 ringgit spent on the ticket was well worth it.
I don’t think I’ve seen a better live perfomance yet, and will definately make a point to go to the Actor Studio more often.
Alright, let me give you a small warning – SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Here’s how the story goes, this dude named Anakin, he’s like the pwn in all of Jedi. Other Jedis ain’t got nothing on him. He’s also got a pregnant hot chick gf, Padme. She is hot, trust me.
So they have this war, starwars, where the Republic duking it out with the Seperatis. Pwn pwn pwn… And the Chancellor got kidnapped by some dudes from the other side, Count Dooku and this General Grievous. Anakin and his master Obi-Wan went to rescue him.
During the rescue, Obi-Wan got pwn pretty bad but Anakin rescued him, then he killed Count Dooku, totally owned him. General Grievous escaped tho, sucks. Anakin saved the Chancellor too. So he’s like the hero, you know.
So now cos of the war, the Chancellor got higher power, to bypass the senate and all those crap in making decisions. Jedis didn’t think that was a great idea, cos it’s supposed to be a republic, right?
Cos Anakin rescued him, the Chancellor liked him alot. Named him into the Jedi Council, but since he’s young and powerful and dangerous and owning, the other Jedis said he shall not be a Master yet.. He got pretty pissed.
Now the dude dreamed of his chick, Padme, dying while giving birth. You know Jedis, their dreams can become true. When he was young he dreamed of his mom dying, and next thing you know, she was 6 feet under. He’s scared of losing her, and want to save her .
Back to earlier, this Anakin dude was already pissed, right? Then chancellor want him to spy on the Jedis, and the Jedis want him to spy on the Chancellor. Dude was confused too, and scared, and pissed…
So turned out, the Chancellor is the LORD SITH, the OWNING sucker from the dark side whom allt he Jedis want to pwn! However, Chancellor persuaded Anakin that he shall be his apprentice so he can teach him the greater force of dark side to save Padme. Apperantly the Jedis only got half of the force, and if you’ve got all the force, you can save people from death, to create live! The previous Lord Sith could do that, but killed by his own apperentice though (the Chancellor, of course! you noob)
Hence that is how Anakin got to become Darth Vader, Lord Sith gave him that name.
So, madness follows, lotsa fightings. Chancellor got all the clone soilders to kill most of the Jedis. Anakin killed the young kiddo Jedis too, and then proceeded to kill the members of the Seperatis group who was being controlled by Lord Sith, as instructed by Lord Sith himself, yeah, he is that evil! All these was happening as Obi-Wan went to pwn General Grievous. Light saber didn’t kill him tho, Obi-Wan had to use a gun, and said “how uncivilized!”
So now the remaining Jedis, including the all powerful Yoda (yah the little green dude who can’t speak proper English) went to get the Chancellor. However, Yoda lost, and subsequently went into hiding.
At the same time, Padme jumped on a space ship to visit Anakin. Problem was, Obi-Wan was hiding in that same ship. Padme met Anakin, and dissapointed cos Anakin changed so much more evil now, so she doesn’t really love him anymore. Anakin is now PISSED, EVIL, and JEALOUS, cos he saw Obi-Wan, and probably thought Obi-Wan wanted to hit on Padme. So they started fighting.
Now this place is a volcanic planet. They faught and faught and faught. The whole place was falling apart. Then Obi-Wan jumped to higher ground, and told Anakin, “dude, you losing, I’m on higher ground, give up”, Anakin was pissed, did a somersault, but Obi-Wan sliced off his 3 remaining limbs in one stroke. Boy that was cruel, left Anakin there getting burned by hot lava and suffering, but he didn’t kill him off, figured Anakin would die. Being the true hero, he didn’t die, of course.
After a while, Lord Sith the Chancellor, came to find Anakin, discovered he is still alive! He fixed him up with some cool artificial limbs, and put him on the black Darth Vader outfit, so cool. It came with a synthetic voice that we’re all too familiar in later episodes, too.
So the next scene was Padme giving birth to Vader’s children (twins). She named them Luke, and Leie Skywalker. However, she didn’t feel like living, so she died, I think.
They took the children to seperate places to be raised. Obi-Wan took the boy back to Anakin’s hometown and gave him as adoption to a couple, while the other lesser known Jedi took the girl.
END OF STOREY. IT WAS GOOD.
I am giving this show a 8/10. Alot better than the previous two. WOOHOO.
