For a small country, Singapore certainly has a vibrant clubbing scene. The number of great clubs that entertain clubbers are many – Ministry of Sound (MoS), Attica, Home Club, the recently opened St James Powerstation – the list goes on and on. But the one club that triumphs over all other is without a doubt, Zouk. (Read more)
Samsung has once again retained the honour of producing the “world’s slimmest phone” with its new Ultra Edition II, Ultra 5.9 U100 which is standing at an all time record of being only 5.9 mm thin.
Remember when the fever for the title of the “world’s slimmest phone” first started? The new phones that were launched during that period of time became slimmer by the day and many mobile phone companies bounced that prestigious title around, each holding the title for only short periods of time.
Back when Samsung’s first Ultra Edition Series was released in the third quarter of 2006, the electronics giant launched the SGH-X820, otherwise known as the 6.9, as the phone was only 6.9mm thin. Undoubtedly, it nabbed the title of the world’s slimmest phone then.
But in this world where phones can never be too thin, 6.9 mm has become not good enough.
When the Ultra 5.9 U100 made its debut appearance, the thinness of the phone was quite shocking. Stripping 1mm off its predecessor, the 5.9 not only retains everything that the 6.9 had, it also beats the 6.9 in more ways than 1.
Starting with the exterior, the 5.9 is a lightweight phone which feels almost nonexistent when placed in your pocket. Just like its predecessor, it’s completely flat on both the front and back surface, with the exception of the onboard camera, which juts out.
Many had marvelled at how Samsung engineers had managed to squeeze a 2-megapixel camera capable of taking photos up to 1600×1200 pixels into such a thin package when the phone was first launched. This time round, the 5.9 boasts of a 3.2-megapixel camera capable of taking photographs up to 2048×1536 pixels, a massive improvement considering the fact that the phone is now 1mm slimmer. Now, that’s what we call sheer engineering brilliance.
Juxtaposed to each other, there’s no difference between one and the other. The 5.9 has a 220×176pixel TFT screen capable of displaying 262k colours as with its predecessor.
The keypad however, is completely different. While the 6.9’s keypad is made up of individual buttons, the 5.9 is made of one complete sheet with each row of buttons separated from the next by a smooth, sloped ‘V’. It is reminiscent of the Motorola V3 Razr’s keypad, but better.
The 5.9 also has 70mb of internal memory, and while it’s not expandable, it should be sufficient for the average user. Everything else works like the new range of Samsung phones. Clearly, there is no software differentiation among the phones. The 5.9 uses similar software that other Ultra Edition II phones have, such as Smart Search. It also has Bluetooth, a USB 2.0 port, GPRS Class 10, and a music player capable of playing formats such as MP3, AAC, eAAC+, and WMA.while the battery is able to withstand up to 2 hrs of talktime, and 250 hrs of standby time.
The perfect solution to chunky, annoying mobile phones, the 5.9 is great for short overseas trips. When UrbanWire brought the virtually weightless 5.9 out of the country, it proved to be a great companion which lasted the entire 3 days with moderate to heavy usage on a single charge. Quite certainly, the Samsung designers and engineers have created a technological miracle with the Samsung Ultra Edition II U100, the 5.9.
Go ahead, try holding one in your hand and you’ll know how powerful a punch it really packs in its super-slim frame.
The Samsung 5.9 is available at an recommended retail price of $498 without contract.
For the first time in Asia, opera fans and music lovers outside Japan will be able to enjoy world-class opera on the big screen in High Definition (HD) digital format. That will take place in Singapore, starting Aug 31, as Golden Village VivoCity screens the New York Metropolitan Opera’s productions of Tan Dun’s The First Emperor and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. (Read more)
Selected to close the 64th Venice Film Festival on September 8, inspired by John Woo’s classic 1990 work Bullet in the Head, set in 1930s Shanghai that is reminiscent of old school Shanghai bund gangster films and shot entirely in the People’s Republic of China, Blood Brothers is director Alexi Tan’s first feature film.
Developed before the film project came into fruition, the screenplay was originally written in English by Alexi Tan himself, which was then subsequently painstakingly translated into Chinese by Jiang Dan, who’s knowledge of Chinese classical literature not only helped translate the dialogues into a more authentic Shanghai style, but also added a more feminine touch to the otherwise masculine feel of the film, especially in the romantic scenes.
The film is about 3 close friends, Fung (Daniel
Wu), Kang (Liu Ye) and his little brother Hu (Tony Yang), who grew up together in Zhujiajiao, a small village on the outskirts of prosperous 1930s Shanghai. Being young, poor and trapped by circumstances, they daydream about greater things while earning their keep as fishermen. After one incident too many, they realize that their potential is hampered by the lack of opportunities that their village offers and decide to move to Shanghai together in search of whatever opportunities that the bustling city might have in store for them.
Once in Shanghai, Fung and Hu lead honest lives as rickshaw pullers, while Kang works as a waiter at Paradise Club, the most infamous nightclub in Shanghai. Owned by Boss Hong (Sun Honglei), a powerful figure in the Shanghai crime world, the Paradise Club is a seedy place where the dance stage explodes with vibrant colour and energy every night as beautiful women such as Lulu (Shu Qi), the resident songstress and Boss Hong’s mistress, sing and dance. Drawn by the seductive life of luxury offered by the Paradise Club, Fung and Hu join Kang in working there and eventually are drawn into the vicious crime world, where women are treated as objects and guns settle disagreements.
Behind the bright lights and glitter offered by Paradise Club, Boss Hong discovers his mistress’ infidelity and his right hand man, Mark (Chang Chen)’s betrayal. At the same time, his enemies and allies are all plotting to wrestle control of the local gangs away from him. All this happens while the three brothers rise to power and grapple with the problems that power brings. Fung has to make a choice between the irreversible route of a life of crime and unrequited love, or to return to the honest, carefree man that he was back at Zhujiajiao, where his childhood sweetheart Su Zhen (Lulu Li) is waiting for him. Hu has trouble with his own apparent inability to fire a gun and commit crime and is struggling to adapt to the dangers of his new life of crime as there are young upstarts trying to upstage him in front of his own brother. Kang, blinded by a lust for power and wanting more despite his meteoric rise in power, pursues his dark ambitions at any cost.
What follows is a powerful film full of energy and talent brought to fruition by Alexi’s unique vision, helped on the sidelines by producer John Woo, the first time he is producing an Asian film for another director, and who signed on because Alexi’s originality and vision in the 15-minute short film Double Blade (starring Jay Chou) caught his eye.
Aided by strong acting from a very good cast, beautiful cinematography by Michel Taburiaux shot on specially built sets, and on location in Zhujiajiao (where all they had to do was amplify the location by adding clothes drying on poles), and served with the dishy clothes by costume designer Tim Yip, who went through an exhaustive process just to make sure that all the clothes fitted the 1930s time period, Blood Brothers is an excellent film, with nitty gritty dialogue, solid acting, and sitting in the cinema and watching it would make you feel like you have been transported back to 1930s Shanghai, and actually watching the action unfurl from a traditional teahouse.
As already mentioned, acting is superb on the overall, but in particular, Shu Qi stands out brilliantly as the star performer at Paradise Club, her beauty accentuated by the gorgeous costumes and her famous pouty lips (lifted by a fiery red lipstick) leave a lasting impression on your mind, especially after you hear her sing, in a scene where it’s the first time the three brothers are at the Club together. Director Alexi Tan knows his craft and in this scene, Shu Qi croons out an entire song so heavenly, it is the one scene that justifies the ticket price.
Its selection as the closing film for the Venice Film Festival doesn’t faze me at all, for Blood Brothers is indeed a very stylish film. Running on the underlying themes of brotherhood and love (unrequited or not), with a tinge of betrayal, brought to perfection by nitty gritty violence, gunfights and emotional tear-jerking scenes, it seeks to prove Lord Acton’s famous saying, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
This is one film that you should watch.
Rating: 3.5/5
Movie Details:
Opens: Aug 23
Runtime: 95 mins
Cast: Daniel Wu, Shu Qi, Chang Chen
Director: Alexi Tan
The Samsung SGH-U600 is a slim and sleek slider phone that falls under Samsung’s Ultra Edition II range of phones. With its exquisitely slender form, soft curves, and clean lines, the phone is a visual delight that would stand out when placed next to other phones simply based on looks alone. It’s unconventional in design, but strikingly beautiful at the same time.
The new SGH-U600 is one of the slimmest phones available in the market today, barely losing out in terms of “thin-ness” to another Samsung phone, the SGH-E840 by a mere 0.3mm, however it’s still 2g lighter than its contemporary.
Nonetheless, the phone is still thinner than almost every candy bar phone in the market, but yet doesn’t suffer from the pitfalls of miniaturization. It ranks up there in terms of usability and ergonomics; it’s feature rich despite its sleekness. The thin-ness can be deceiving indeed. The build quality is also very solid, and users will not have a problem sliding it into the tightest of pockets.
The large 34mm x 44mm display features dazzling 262k colours with crisp images on the QVGA TFT screen. While the screen doesn’t have a double function as a mirror unlike the E840, it still sports a mirror-like reflective finish that can double up as a mirror, although not that effectively. The design is very clean, and as mentioned earlier, the U600 has soft curves and clean lines. The volume keys, shutter button, and the 2 ports are found on the side of the phone, as well as a power button on the top that also serves as a keypad lock key.
The front of the U600 is almost completely flat, with the exception of the slightly-raised d-pad, which makes it easier to access. The soft keys and dial / hang-up keys are however touch sensitive, which makes it possible for it to be on the completely flat phone surface. While the dial / hang-up buttons are not backlighted, the softkeys and even the d-pad have got a white backlight behind them that adds easy access in the darkness of environmental conditions. All touch-sensitive keys are automatically locked during phone conversations and when the phone is slid in place, so that it wouldn’t pose any accidental press of button problems while during a phone call or while in the pocket.
Hidden behind the U600’s screen but displayed when the phone is slid open is a 3.2 megapixel camera that adds impressive photographic ability to a super sleek form factor. The camera has auto-focus capabilities and it also switches automatically between auto-mode and macro-mode by sensing the distance that the phone is away from the object. Photographs and videos can be saved directly onto the memory card instead of having to move them manually. The U600 comes with internal memory of 50MB and can be expanded with a microSD card of up to 2GB in capacity.
The U600 makes for quite a good multimedia device, with music playback capability apart from its decisively good camera. However, the audio quality (it’s quite good), is hindered for the fact that even at its highest volume, still isn’t loud enough, and that the phone does not have a 3.5mm earphone jack or adapter. The screen is also pretty hard to view under sunlight due to its glossy mirror-like surface.
Messaging is pretty easy, and the phone automatically switches from SMS to MMS once multimedia is inserted in the message. At the same time, Samsung has provided in the U600, many customizable options, such as the ability to change the font size, brightness, and various display configuration options. It is a breeze to use, and even if you’re new to Samsung, you’ll find it easy to get used to.
The battery is rated for 4.3 hours of talktime and up to 275 hours of standby time, and during usage, UrbanWire found that it took almost 2 full days of moderate-heavy usage (100 over text messages, 10+ phone calls each lasting around 5-10 min) deplete its battery. According to Samsung, the U600 has had its talk time increased by 10% and power usage decreased by 30-40% without adding any bulk to the standard battery unit.
Falling into the Ultra Edition II category under the name 10.9 means that it works on Samsung’s Ultra II concept based on, according to press materials, “a perfect trinity of design, technology and function that works seamlessly to aspire, enable and offer top-of-the-line mobility”.
And it really does.
Sean Ellis’ Cashback, is an elongated elaboration of his Oscar-nominated short of the same time, back in 2004. At once charming, sensual, erotic and delivered with polished aplomb, Cashback is a conventional romantic comedy on the surface, with undertones of time and memory gameplay.
Ellis’ 2004 short film, a 18-minute slingshot on how employees at a local supermarket fight the boredom of a late night eight-hour shift, forms the basis of this new, 90-minute feature-length version, with additions of character development and back stories elaborating around the original premise, with Ellis adding an Act One and an Act Three to bookend a reworking of the original short. And he pulls it off masterly, and while the time-control theme might give it a sci-fi slant, Cashback is actually a sweet romantic comedy with a brilliant concept.
In both films, Ben (Sean Biggerstaff - best known as Oliver Wood in the Harry Potter movies), is a gifted art college student in London, who’s imagination runs wild and begins imagining that he has the ability to freeze time. Whilst the original short film revolved around the premise of how Ben and his colleagues try to pass the long, endless hours of the night, the feature-length film, that according to production notes was actually written in seven days, actually masquerades as a philosophical movie that tries to explain one of the most eternal questions that has haunted us since time immemorial, “what is love?”.
It starts off with Ben’s girlfriend dumping him, screaming and throwing things at him, in a really creative sequence where all you hear is Ben’s thoughts, but yet all you see on screen is the girlfriend noiselessly screaming and throwing furniture and ornaments at the male protagonist. In the following weeks after his violent breakup, Ben realises that he has insomnia and thus finds that he now has 8 extra hours every night at his disposal. To pass the time, he works the dreary 8-hour night-shift at the local Sainsbury’s supermarket.
Although filled with quirky and very interesting 
co-workers, the supermarket job is extremely mundane and the hours are slow, but soon enough, our protagonist finds that the solitude of the night shift offers an outlet for his creative side. As an arts student, his greatest gift is finding beauty in still images every second of every day. We are therefore brought on an artistic journey of unspeakable beauty, starting with a spilled bag of green peas along aisle four that Ben stares at for what must seem like eons, until his overbearing boss Jenkins (Stuart Goodwin) appears and snaps him out of his trance-like, beauty-admiring state.
It also includes the freezing of time, and undressing women, as Ben finds a great source of interest in the naked female form. We then see, in a seamless intercutting series of flashbacks, with Ben’s voiceover explaining how he has always been impressed by the beauty of the female body, how he, as a young innocent boy, gawked at a Swedish boarder who has stayed at his place, and who had liked to walk from bedroom to shower stark naked. We also see little Ben’s friend Sean (Shaun Evans) showing him pornographic magazines.
Of course, as a film that attempts to answer the question “What is love?”, the protagonist has to have a new romantic interest after his breakup. And in this case, the new interest is Sharon (Emilia Fox), who also works the night-shift.
Ellis is a highly successful fashion photographer known for his stunning and unique imagery and famous for his talent in creating arresting images that are iconic, beautiful, and memorable. And his image-making ability shows, as he brings us through a navigation of Ben’s life and thoughts, in a series of brilliantly mastered scenes, flashbacks, reality and fantasy.
Filled with well-written dialogue that’s best watched and heard than read, the film is also flushed with well-placed comedy, especially Ben’s 2 hilarious colleagues at Sainsbury’s, both of whom are dumb yet goofy who pass their time pranking people, and acting like idiots, such as smuggling phallic looking objects into women’s shopping bags and laughing at their reactions when the women pick it out of the shopping bags at the cashier counter.
The acting is superb, with the lead characters especially standing out. Biggerstaff is excellent as Ben, full of emotion and perfectly fitting to the role of an insomniac arts student full of thoughts about love and life, while Fox has a face and a persona that serves to soothe, rather than to excite, perfect for the Sharon role. And despite the 9 years between them, the leads are splendid and the chemistry, exceptional.
The cinematography by Angus Hudson is breathtaking, and the music score appropriately sweet. The dialogue is witty, the comedic elements simple yet effective. They combine to give the low budget project a big movie feel, and will delight audiences to no end.
Cashback is cool, without being pretentious. It’s beautiful and sensual, without being cheesy. It’s intense and creative, without being overbearing. In short, it’s a movie treat you shouldn’t miss.
Rating: 4/5
Movie Details:
Opens: Aug 2
Runtime: 90min
Cast: Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, Stuart Goodwin
Director: Sean Ellis
Disturbia tells the story of a teenage boy named Kale (Shia LaBeouf), sentenced to 3 months house arrest after punching his Spanish teacher in the face for making a derogatory comment about his father.
Disturbia has been compared to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. However, it must be said that the only thing that likens Disturbia to Hitchcock’s masterpiece of tension that oozes technical genius is the film’s premise: a person is unable to leave his room and must look out of the window for entertainment and it is during his routine peeping sessions that he discovers that his neighbour might be a killer and tries to get everyone around him to help him uncover the truth. Apart from the premise, everything else is different.
Director D.J. Caruso of 2004’s Taking Lives (starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke) and 2005’s Two for the Money (starring Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey) fame has completely created a whole new, different, contemporary world in which our male protagonist assumes the role of the “trapped” person, bound to the boundaries of his home due to a house arrest anklet affixed to his leg.
Kale gets used to his house arrest predicament comfortably by downloading songs from the iTunes Music Store on his Mac machine and playing endless rounds of online games on his Xbox360 (product placement alert!), but gets into a boredom fix when his Mom cancels his iTunes Music Store subscription, and cuts the cord of his television. He therefore ends up resorting to spying on his neighbours with a pair of binoculars to pass the time.
Every window that he spies into is like a different movie to be watched, re-watched, and watched again. There is the couple living across the street mirred in infidelity, the kids down the road (but still within binocular vision) watching porn behind their Mom’s backs, and more.
He spies on his new next door neighbour, an incredibly attractive girl, Ashley (Sarah Roemer). Ashley is the quintessential “breath of fresh air” for depressed Kale, for whom everything is going bad until he sees Ashley move in next-door. Kale therefore befriends Ashley in the hope of “summer romance”, for to him, she signifies all that is hope in the “bleak and boring”
life that he is leading. Together with Ashley and his best friend from school, Ronnie (Aaron Yoo), they camp over at Kale’s house and play silent observers and spies on the entire neighbourhood with a huge array of high-tech surveillance equipment that Ronnie claims came from his “obsessive-compulsive” uncle.
Kale notices startling similarities between his other next door neighbour’s car and the car of a person last seen with a woman who has been recently reported missing, and suspected to have been kidnapped and murdered. Intrigued, he ropes in his friends to help him find out more, as he is unable to travel beyond the boundaries of his house, this is where Ronnie comes in, because what would a journey for a teen under house arrest be without a sidekick? Ronnie thus becomes Kale’s somewhat reluctant legman to do all his dirty work, because he and Ashley have struck up a romance and he would rather her be beside him far from unknown dangers.
Making full use of modern technology, the 3 teenagers use cell phones, the Internet, video cameras, and all sorts of high-tech devices in the quest to uncover the truth behind Mr Turner (David Morse), the next door neighbour that seems to have a hidden secret.
And the end result is that we have a delightful movie that has seemingly taken an old masterpiece, and given it a completely refreshing overhaul. Disturbia starts out strong, and you immediately get a sense of what the film is all about, with an incredible action scene put together by special effects coordinator Darrell Pritchett and stunt coordinator Manny Perry that seems to set the pace for the film. Instead, the film moves on at a steady pace, before speeding to a climatical ending under excellent direction and incredible camera work.
Throughout the entire film, there is hardly a moment that you’re not kept in suspense. The movie is well-written, with good comedic moments intermixed with scenes that make your heart beat that much faster. It does a perfect job of making you feel both slightly nervous and anxious at the same time. It conveys paranoia and fright through the use of mood and mere suggestions of menace that constantly has you at the edge of your seats.
LaBeouf pulls it off convincingly as Kale, and with this coming after his starring role in Transformers, only serves as notice that he’s the next up-and-coming Hollywood superstar. Well-suited to the role, his acting is great and he really makes you believe and you actually feel his anxiety. Roemer’s girl-next-door is quite possibly the most sensual role this year. It’s not just about her confidence and beautiful sparkling eyes. Her body language makes it work, and you’ll find yourself walking out of the movie feeling as though you’ve fallen in love, just as how Kale does in the movie. Yoo pulls off the role of Ronnie with much comedic fanfare, always supplying the laughs whenever needed, and Carrie-Anne Moss (from The Matrix fame) is very convincing as Kale’s Mom, Julie.
However, it has to be said that the main 
driving force of the film is Morse. He’s a gem of a character actor, and is at the top of his craft in his role as the villainous yet mysterious “did he or did he not” neighbourhood serial killer. In Disturbia, he is perfect as the creepy, sly, smiling force accused of kidnapping and killing women, and his screen appearances keep the audience enthralled, eyes hooked to the screen.
With Disturbia, Caruso has proven that it is possible to make a good suspense-filled thriller without all the gore. Disturbia isn’t a horror flick, but it will surely give you more of a fright than any of the recent horror movies (i.e. The Messengers). In fact, Disturbia managed to be a creepy psychological horror thriller yet maintaining its “teen drama-comedy” slant.
Watch Disturbia, you won’t regret it.
Rating: 4/5
Movie Details:
Opens: Aug 2
Running Time: 104 mins
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Sarah Roemer, David Morse
Director: D.J. Caruso
Developing from the simple story of 2 warring robot factions hailing from the planet Cybertron: the heroic Autobots led by Optimus Prime, and the evil Decepticons led by Megatron, Director Michael Bay crafted a spectacular film that closed to a standing ovation at the gala premiere.
Who would be a better director to handle this movie than Michael Bay? The director of explosive, big-budget action films such as Bad Boys 1 and 2, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay has certainly succeeded in making the audience believe that a toy franchise can actually be the basis of a believable, very entertaining film.
It begins with the reason for the alien robot race’s existence: how the all-important AllSpark is lost into the vacuum of space after the robots go into a war between the good and the evil. Falling onto Earth, entities from both warring factions trawl the galaxy in search of this all-important device. (Read more)
With Quentin Tarantino’s filmography credentials filling up just about every position including actor, producer, writer, director, cinematographer and editor, he’s played a part in several cult classics, such as 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, 1994’s Pulp Fiction, 2003 and 2004’s Kill Bill I, and even being a special guest director on 2005’s Sin City. So it was with much anticipation that I caught the screening of his latest offering, Death Proof.
Initially offered as a double-billed Grindhouse feature alongside Robert Rodriguez’s (of Sin City fame) Planet Terror, with trailers for imaginary films (including a segment by Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz fame), it was intended to be a spoof on cheesy exploitation films complete with scratches on the film screen, erratic reel changes and sudden film cuts. However, that was a disaster in the US box office and so Tarantino and producer Harvey Weinstein decided to market both films individually, and in full extended-version glory, containing additional information regarding certain plot techniques and parts that were left out in the double feature. (Read more)
In 2004, director and co-writer Edgar Wright, co-writer Simon Pegg and actor Nick Frost defined a whole new genre of geek cinema with Shaun of the Dead, a film that paid homage to classic horror with wit and creativity that snowballed into richly deserved recognition, achieving instant cult status in the process. 3 years later, the trio is back with Hot Fuzz, a film that parodies typical Hollywood cop movies with such inventive brilliance that in one whole package, manages to go one-up on Shaun of the Dead. (Read more)
Not being that big a fan of local music myself, I went to The Substation with 2 friends, not knowing what to expect, but certainly hoping that I’d at least enjoy myself. What happened for the next 10 hours simply blew me away, and shamelessly, I became one of the many moshing to the fantastic performance by the excellent local bands, wishing the night wouldn’t end as soon as it did.
Yes, Rock The Sub at The Substation was really that good.
It started off with My Writes, a young band of 4 fronted by female vocalist Dhaniah, who played to a small crowd. Perhaps it was 2pm on a Sat that resulted in the small audience, but My Writes gave a good performance, their last before a 2-year hiatus because the guys in the band have National Service duties to fulfill. The guitarist wowed the crowd with his riffs, and the drummer did just enough to whip the small but growing crowd into a frenzy.
After My Writes came ETC, touted by The Straits Times as the most literate band playing in the region, ETC served up a 45min set of bittersweet psychopop with their distinctive volume-varying style, from the insistent backbeat to Ben Harrison’s ambivalent vocals their songs injected with smart lyrics, coupled with music that made some in the crowd start dancing. The Super Illegals came on thereafter, one of the newest indie rock bands making the (still somewhat) small crowd pack the front with their mix of classic and indie rock.
The Fire Fight was next in turn, and by then the crowd had swelled in numbers as throngs of fans of the local indie music scene crowded the theatre floor, anticipating the exuberant indie rock that The Fire Fight have been known for. Soaring in popularity after opening for Anberlin and Copeland at their recent concert and led by Joshua Tan on vocals and guitars, they kept the crowd rocking and very happy.
No matter which direction you turned, all eyes were on the stage as the 4 boys churned out innovative tunes, Joshua’s vocals backed by Iain on drums, Jon on guitars and Josh Barker on bass. Bearing their unique style of indie rock and with their strong stage presence, The Fire Fight had the crowd eating out of their hands, especially with their 3-chord song, Hours, rocking and preparing the crowd for what came next, Caracal, undoubtedly the most popular band playing that afternoon.
Levan Wee of Ronin fame appeared on stage during Caracal’s sound check to promote the upcoming Rock for Wayne gig, a tribute to Wayne Thunder from The Suns, who passed away in his sleep on May 21 this year. He talked about Wayne not just as a fellow musician, but as a friend and mentor as well. The grief he felt was evident as his eyes filled up with tears halfway through his speech, and his voice was choked with emotion. The crowd listened in rapt and respectful silence.
However, the mood refused to be dampened. It was a rock concert after all, dammit! Levan then took the liberty of introducing Caracal and touted them as the Next Big Thing. It’s easy to see why though, as the boys put up a frenzied, ferocious and ultimately, entertaining performance for an appreciative audience. What truly set them apart from the other bands was their showmanship, as front man Chris worked himself into a sweat, dancing and headbanging in tandem to the music. It was riveting, to say the least. The highlight of the set was when Matt from A Vacant Affair joined Chris on stage for a duet, if you can call it that.
The Analog Girl was up next, armed with her trusty Apple notebook. Her heady mix of edgy, dreamy and futuristic electro-rock was chosen to accompany Nike Europe’s new retail campaign.. Delivering an eclectic and awesome show of synth pop mixed with sensous rock, her sequencing was not only spot on, but her vocals added to the music’s ambience, enrapturing the audience, charming those new to her brand of disco punk rock tunes.
Astreal, fronted by Ginette Chittick, appeared on stage after The Analog Girl, and immediately all her fans in the crowd went wild. She certainly repaid their faith, as Astreal put on a brilliant showpiece of electronica rock. Having released 2 demos and 2 full length albums, Astreal looks set to soar, and after this performance, has certainly sealed their place up there amongst the better local bands.
By then, the temperatures were getting to the crowd, as many started milling in and out of the theatre. They took the time in between the set change after Astreal finished to catch a breather. As many stayed outside, The Pinholes went on stage and played a good set of vintage rock, keeping the crowd that remained happy, and in the mood for B’Quartet, the 2 pairs of brothers who all happen to be cousins. Blending funk, jazz, metal and progressive rock into a tight set, their performance reflected their eclectic musical tastes. Hailed by The Straits Times Life! music journalist Sujin Thomas as one of Singapore’s “most exciting live acts”, they were entertaining and kept the crowd pumped up for West Grand Boulevard (WGB), the first of the final 2 acts that kept everyone rocking, jumping, moshing.
Replacing Daphne Khoo of Singapore Idol fame who once sang for the band was Brian Gamboa, the original frontman of WGB who left to fulfill his NS commitments, and the emo-rock quintet certainly brought the house down. Delivering an infectious dose of a mash of pop and emo-rock, Dharma, Jude, Erik and Syed pulled off a brutally energetic performance that was epitomised by Brian’s sweaty shirt, and the never-ending screams of WGB fans.
Rounding off the day’s performance on was Plainsunset, one of the local music scene’s most influential and inspiring pop-punk bands known for their energy and fun-loving stage antics, and they provided a rousing finale to the fantastic performances by each and every local band that played before them with the best performance of the night. There was a funny incident though, when a man in white went up on stage and attempted to stage dive, but the crowd that was jumping and moshing to Plainsunset split in the middle and the man fell flat on his face, to much laughter.
Revellers and local music fans could then stay on for Indie Disco till 3am, where Beat! Disco, Twee Like Me, and sweetmusic.fm hit the decks, but for me, the entire lineup from 2pm was good enough, and as I dragged my weary body home, I realised I am now a new convert of local music.
For more details on upcoming events at The Substation, visit their website.
Fans of local music and indie disco listen up, for you’ll all be able to rock to the music and beats for 13 hours straight at Rock The Sub.
Featuring a wide variety of local bands of different musical genres at both venues from 2pm to 11pm and an indie disco (after 11pm) at The Substation, as well as live music at Timbre all the way till 3am, it will make for a wild Sat afternoon till Suday morning.
At the same time, audiences at Rock The Sub will get a chance to win an Epiphone guitar and gear sponsored by Gibson.
Ticket holders can also gain entry to the testing booth of Gibson guitars at The Substation. The line-up of bands: 1) My Writes 2) ETC 3) The Fire Fight 4) Super Illegals 5) Caracal 6) The Love Experiment 7) Heritage 8) Syawla Evol 9) Ugly In The Morning 10) Moods 11) Analog Girl 12) Astreal 13) The Pinholes 14) B- Quartet 15) West Grand Boulevard 16) Plain Sunset Indie Disco line up: 1) Beat! DJ Set by Ginette Chittick, George Chua and Joe Ng 2) Twee Like Me by DJ Set by Fruit Records DJS 3) Sweetmusic.fm vs unpopular radio- Home Based Internet Radio Station 
Tickets cost $15 each, available at The Substation box office.
For more information, check out the full listing of bands and their playing times here.
Rock The Sub is brought to you by The Substation, and for a more comprehensive look at their upcoming programmes, visit their website.
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3 seems to be a big number for Shrek. The intervals between Shrek, Shrek 2 and Shrek 3 have been three years each. It’s the third part of a money-raking franchise that saw Shrek 2 becoming the “3rd highest grossing film of all time”, according to their official website. It’s also the third blockbuster threequel to be released here recently, hot on the heels of third installments in the Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises.
If so, 4 writers may be 1 too many for Shrek 3. Especially if that 4th is Chris Miller, who’s also the new guy directing this beloved perversion of fairy tales, taking over from Andrew Adamson. (Read more)
Very often, newer phone models are only marginally better than their predecessors and released just to keep brands in the radar of buyers. This isn’t the case for the Blackberry 8800 however, which altogether is an impressive mobile device.
First up, the Blackberry 8800 is the new Blackberry device from Research In Motion, a technological and stylistic update of the previous model, the Blackberry Pearl, and the differences, though not many, certainly do make a difference. It starts off with the size: the 8800 is wider than the Pearl but is thinner. Another difference is the 35-key, full QWERTY keyboard that the Blackberry 8800 sports, compared to the 20-key keypad running on SureType keyboard technology that the Blackberry Pearl has.
Looking at the Blackberry 8800, it is one sleek and sexy device. In hand, it has a very solid feel, and the finish on the plastics look high quality, and feels a lot smoother and more valuable than the typical mobile phone. The sides have a chrome-mirror finish, like the iPod, which makes stylish design. The 8800 comes with a full QWERTY keyboard that makes typing emails and messages smooth and quick (once you get used to it), but the keys are a little too. It also comes with a new navigation roller of a trackball that makes scrolling around the different applications and icons on screen easy and responsive.
By default, the 8800 will adjust the screen brightness on the impressive high-resolution 320×240 landscape TFT colour display (that supports over 65,000 colours) based on the ambient light conditions, but the display is difficult to see in bright direct sunlight.
The new Blackberry 8800 performs snappily without lag, powered by its 312mhz Intel Xscale processor. Web pages load fast, music and video files play well, and opening attachments and applications are a breeze . The 8800 comes with the whole range of standard Blackberry functionality that has made it such a popular device: the powerful, peerless email system, seamless web browsing, third-party application expandability and a host of other functions that makes the device very useful for the typical office worker on the go.
The large 6 cm screen gives more screen real estate that many phones today and users will definitely find that useful, especially with the bundled GPS navigator (works depends on your mobile service provider).
The 8800 also comes with expandable memory on a micro-SD slot, which actually serves the device well as it comes with a built-in media player. This reviewer found that the best way to load music into the Blackberry is by organising your music into appropriate subfolders on the memory card.
The Blackberry 8800 device has an insane battery life. The 1400 mAhr removable / rechargeable lithium battery has been rated at having 5 hours of talk time and up to 22 days of standby time, compared to 3.5 hours of talktime and 15 days of standby that the Blackberry Pearl has.
However, the fact that the Blackberry 8800 is not a 3G device, nor does it have WiFi might be an issue for web surfers. As mentioned earlier, the keyboard also has a cramped layout but the tightly packed keys are compensated with slightly raised grooves that keep your thumbs from slipping when typing. There is also no stereo Bluetooth support, and UrbanWire had problems figuring out how to transfer Bluetooth files between the device and his laptop.
The bottom line is that the Blackberry 8800 is a tremendously effective messaging phone, which is hardly surprising, as messaging has always been the brand’s forte. The Blackberry push-email system is still unmatched in eases of use and flexibility of merging multiple email accounts. The Blackberry 8800 is a truly amazing, stylish, sexy phone that you know you want, if you have the need for a powerful business phone.
Technical Specifications:
Size (LxWxD): Approximately 114mm x 66mm x 14mm
Weight(batt included): Approximately 134g
Memory: 64MB flash memory
Expandable Memory: MicroSD
Display: High-res 320×240 landscape TFT colour display (over 65,000 colours)
Battery Life: Standby: 528 hours (22days), Talk Time: 300 minutes (5 hours)
Keyboard: 35 key, backlit QWERTY keyboard
Convenience Keys: Send key, End key, Power key, Mute key, Volume key and a programmable key
Navigation: Trackball, ESC key, Menu key
Voice Input / Output: Integrated earpiece and microphone, hands-free headset, integrated speakerphone
Ringtones: Polyphonic – MP3, MIDI
GPS: GPS enabled and preloaded with Blackberry Maps application
Media Player: Supported audio formats:
MP3, MIDI, AMR-NB, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, WMA
Supported video formats:
MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.263, WMV
Bluetooth: Bluetooth v2.0; headset, hands-free and serial port profiles supported
Headset: Stereo headset capable
USB Ports: Enables charging and data synchronization via USB to mini-USB
Power Adapter: +5V DC / 500 mA AC power adapter with interchangeable, region-specific plugs
Modem: Embedded wireless modem, plus tethered modem support for EDGE
Network Support: Quad-band 850/900/1800/1900 Mhz GSM/GPRS and EDGE networks
Desktop Software: Synchronizes calendar, address book, tasks and memos between your smart phone and desktop
Smartphone security: Password protection and keyboard lock.
This summer, Hollywood has flooded us with highly anticipated third episodes of top-grossing film franchises. It started with Spider-Man 3, then Shrek 3 (opening May 31) and now it’s Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End. At the risk of losing credibility in this review, I’d first want to point out that I’m a fanatical fan of Johnny Depp and the whole Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
While it’s not as good as the first flick, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, At World’s End does the franchise good and helps finish the trilogy on a high note. The last half hour is a fun-filled roller-coaster ride of thrill, adventure and excitement that will guarantee you sit at the edge of your seat. (Read more)
