Thursday, June 03, 2004
Train of Fools
2 days, 16 hours, and 47 minutes till I watch Harry Potter on Sunday. Oooh I am positively melting from the anticipation. I even dreamt of Harry Potter yesterday, and it was a really strange dream since, for one thing, Voldemort was a fat Indian with a strange tattoo on his face, and Harry was some pesky little kid. Anyway did you know that John Malkovich will be playing Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I wonder what he will look like. But then the director is going to be different for GoF. I do hope whoever it is - I forget - will do a good job, what with all the directorial alterations and all. Things would have been so much better if Chris Columbus had stuck with the movies. Oh but he is still the producer, so it cannot be that bad, at least not yet.
I am in a state of extreme high tension right now. What you might call high-strung. I have this vision of myself walking out of the theatre on Sunday evening and just collapsing from all the pent-up tension and mental aggravation. But I still cannot wait.
And yes, you are really tired of hearing me rave about a movie I have not even seen yet. And quite obviously, it will get worse after the movie. So I shall spare you and go on to other interesting matters.
---------------------
What can I say about Last Exile, now that I have watched three episodes. Not that I can make any accurate comments regarding the characters or plot, since I have seen so little of them to make any such comments totally baseless and quite laughable. I do want to say, however, how I love the opening and ending themes. Unlike many other animes I have seen - admittedly, not much, since I do not really think that 5 Digimon series can count as serious anime - the soundtrack here veers a little on the eclectic side, what with an opening theme that sounds like it was sung by a male Faye Wong, or something to that (airy) effect.
Opening theme (Cloud Age Symphony): Loved the rather techno as well as traditional (bagpipe) influences behind the airy delivery. The rather unique combination invokes the feeling of air, of course, this being an anime about flying, the feeling of unfettered freedom and of wind, endless and buffetting. At the same time, there is a tinge of something post-modern and at the same time archaic, as well as an apocalyptic feeling. A bit of numbness, mixed together with traces of thrill. Quite inexplicable, but very spellbinding.
Ending theme (Over The Sky): A more conventional song with an easy melody and a beautiful lilting delivery that brings across a certain wistfulness which touches one deeply. Somewhat similar to the ending theme for Scrapped Princess, which I liked very much as well. Almost like a call for something that was lost, which is very touching.
I am not trying to be a music critic or anything, since music is probably something I have not much idea about. What I am trying to express with this is to describe how these songs make me feel as I listen to them, which is what makes me truly like a song for itself and not because of any association to singer or anime. Very few anime songs make me feel so deeply, but perhaps I have not been listening intently enough. One of the few times, besides for Ready Steady Go in FMA, that I do not click on the media player seek bar to forward past the opening and ending sequences.
I am really quite slow at watching Last Exile, the reason being I am still downloading episodes 9 to 17, and I have no desire to watch everything too fast and end up at a point where I am driven by my craving to download like crazy, which is already happening for FMA.
--------------------
I am driven to the edge of reason and sanity by the commercials that are running on those suspended television screens in MRT stations that helpfully tell commuters when the next train will arrive. I remember the time when the screens were newly constructed, and all was well, because it was a lot more convenient to know when the train would arrive. Then, they started adding commercials, but all was still well, since the commercials had no audio output. The nightmare came with audio output.
I cannot be sure for any other MRT station, but the screens at Eunos MRT currently run a grand total of two commercials in a maddening loop every fifteen seconds. I mean, a few months ago when it was Cetebe slow-releasing Vitamin C tablets, or Star Movies, that I could take. But have a commercial for a Linkin Park concert and Jack Neo's new movie with that ear-piercing jingle (more like a jangle) back to back every ten seconds and you are driving people to throw themselves on the tracks to rid themselves of the ghastly aural torture. Might this not acutally be classified under unadulterated noise pollution, I wonder.
And you thought it was bad enough with TV Mobile, having your ears invaded by reruns of Under One Roof and Holland V even when you have no wish to watch the programme, until it ends up that I always bring a discman with me these days in case I happen to board a bus with TV Mobile. Now we have never-ending repeats of two commercials, a googol times a day, every five minute wait for a train translating into approximately twenty rounds of advertorial ammunition aimed at your ears, destroying your sanity with their implacable omnipresence.
What next? The Merlion exhorting tourists to buy Filet-O-Fish burgers? The statue of Sir Stamford Raffles calling out via megawatt speakers to all in the hundred-metre vicinity, promoting multi-vitamin pills? The state of public transport today is appalling in its invasion of the private space of commuters with commercials. Do not even presume to explain that the advertising keeps transport costs down. With the staggering amount I pay every month to get around Singapore? That is plain rubbish, and I will not accept it.
Where is all the "funding" going? To build elevators that lazy Singaporeans squeeze into and eventually mangle? To install fancy metal studs in the floors, to aid the blind in finding their way around MRT stations, which end up becoming dangerously slippery during rainy days and a hazard to every commuter, not to mention the blind? And tell me, who will tell the blind people that SMRT have installed these so-called handicap friendly features? The Braille Daily? Will we then expect to see the blind thronging MRT stations before long in some bizzare farce of a secondary school field trip, tapping at the metal studs with looks of wonder and amazement on their faces, taking the elevator and admiring all the fancy glass- and metal-work that have gone into the design? Do you not find it as ridiculous as I do?
I must at this point apologise for any offense taken to my tirade, since it was not meant as anything beside a complaint over incessant commercial-broadcasting on public transport. I might have been a little harsh, but I do not regret anything I said. As I mentioned, I have been driven to the brink of insanity.
Avaris / 6/03/2004 11:03:00 PM
0 consumed