For a 104-minute feature about a jaded, elderly man, The Visitor is neither mawkish, dated, nor as boring as one may at first expect. Instead, it’s thought provoking, refreshing and full of life.
Entertainment
If you’re the sort who eats ice cream, thinks ice cream, dreams ice cream, congratulations, your dreams have come true.
Your fairy godmother? Ben & Jerry’s.
Come Dec 6, the well-loved ice cream brand will be holding its very first Chunk Fest.
Named as such “in honour of the delicious chunky add-ins found in every single Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream”, Chunk Fest promises to deliver a “moovellous concotion of great activities, moosic from the best local bands and DJs, great food, and euphoric amounts of ice cream”.
Well, they said it, so you better believe it.
To better entice you, Ben & Jerry’s bringing in 12 exclusive ice cream flavours available only in the United States, in addition to 22 flavours currently offered in local scoop shops. Pumpkin Cheesecake, Cinnamon Buns, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Triple Caramel Chunk; if the names don’t leave you salivating already, tasting them certainly will.
And if you still haven’t gotten your fill of ice cream, take part in the Vermonster Eating Contest and stuff yourself silly. 20 scoops of ice cream topped with 20 scoops of toppings that include savoury hot fudge, chocolate chip cookies, walnuts, chocolate jimmies, chunks of Reese’s and colourful M&Ms topped with whipped cream. That’s right, the contest’s going to put a whole new meaning to “ice cream feast”.
Still not convinced? Why not head down for yourself to experience all that icy-cool goodness?
Then, with your tummy full of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, log onto the UrbanWire, as we bring you the chowing action from the Vermonster Eating Contest.
That’s right, not only can you have your ice cream, you can eat it, and watch others eating it too!
The Ben & Jerry’s Chunk Fest will be taking place at Fort Canning Green from 2pm to 11pm.
Admission is free for all.
Pandora’s box, evil fantasy creatures, ancient secret societies – all of these elements are fundamental to any mythology geek’s wet dream.
And the storyline of Legendary, peppered with truckloads of these, could have been the best thing that has ever happened to geeks since Richmond Lattimore’s The Odyssey of Homer.
Regrettably, Legendary is not a book. It’s a First-Person Shooter (FPS) game, and in that aspect, the title of the game begins to sound more than just a little presumptuous.
You play professional art thief, Charles Deckard, who is contracted by a wealthy businessman to steal what’s inside Pandora’s Box from a museum in New York. And in doing so, you have unleashed a vast array of mythical monsters into the unsuspecting world.
Who could ask for a more perfect excuse to use every manner of heavy duty ordance at your disposal to blow up some werewolves?
Unleashing what’s inside Pandora’s box
Playing the game for the very first time is not dissimilar to opening the Pandora’s box itself - It’s full of examples of what a video game should not be.
Developers California-based Spark Unlimited, have, instead of translating Legendary’s stimulating storyline into stunning visual effects to reel the player into the game, compressed the prologue into a disappointing slideshow. Not only are the pictures of the slideshow boring, they fail to fully capitalise on the captivating storyline.
Forgetful storyline aside, the graphics are not amazing either. In fact, although UrbanWire was playing the PlayStation 3 version, the cutscenes shockingly resemble graphics of PlayStation 2 instead.
Ho-hum visuals resonate throughout this title but nowhere is this more evident than in Deckard himself. Although the FPS genre has seen its share of grim protagonists with less cheer on their faces that the Grim Reaper himself, Deckard looks downright shady even for a professional art thief. He looks more partial to trading the fate of the world for riches untold than placing his neck on the chopping board to save it.
Never-ending tutorial and unremarkable chores
The total game hours of the meagre storyline are so miserly that if Legendary wanted to have players blitz through their plot in record time, it has certainly done a fine job.
Most obstructions blocking the way out are either blown up by the electric force emanating from the opened Pandora’s box or crushed by a passing monster for you to pass through. Plus, any objects that you have to interact with will glow red so you will hardly be stumped at how to get your way out of a situation.
As pleasant as that sounds however, it gets extremely dreary to be ‘hand-held’ after awhile. It doesn’t help either that some of the puzzles are repetitive, such as hacking into the keypad. It was cool the first time around but after hacking into the 10th keypad, this action has simply become monotonous.
Evil terrorises Earth
But if there is anything that can save Legendary from being a complete waste of money, it is the mythical creatures themselves. The variety of monsters available, such as golems, firedrakes, werewolves and griffons, are definitely astounding and each of these creatures requires a unique way of killing them. So it’s not about just blasting away your submachine gun; it takes a bit of skill to kill your enemies.
But good things do not last long in Legendary. Never mind that there isn’t an extensive range of weapons available to kill the creatures in the game. Besides, the weapons are all relatively of the same quality anyway. But the movements of Deckard are seriously unrealistic. He could hardly jump over a train platform and when attacked by a firedrake, he doesn’t even take a step back from the impact.
Other than the drawbacks of not having realistic human capabilities, you have somehow gained the ability of absorbing the life energy of the monsters after they die. Called Animus Vitae, you can heal yourself easily just by holding the triangle button when you are near a glowing sphere of a slain creature’s life energy.
Final verdict
Legendary is full of promise of being an extremely exciting video game. It has an exhilarating (albeit unoriginal) storyline, great mythical monsters and a potentially huge pool of fans just waiting to lap it up. Unfortunately, the flawed gameplay design and lack of visual effects leave this game with much to be desired. And with other highly rated FPS games released this season, such as Call of Duty: World at War and Resistance 2, it is highly likely that not even the most hardcore geeks can dig Legendary out of obscurity.
Score:
Graphics: 4/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Addictive Rating: 3/10
Replay Value: 3/10
Overall Rating: 4.4/10
Legendary is available exclusively on the PlayStation 3 console and retails at $79.90 from Atari.
In the world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life.
Together with Festive films, the Urbanwire is giving away 5 pairs of tickets to preview screening of The Visitor, on Dec 5, at Golden Village Plaza Singapura.
Simply answer the following question and stand a chance to win a pair of tickets to the screening. Email your answer with your full name and NRIC to contest.urbanwire@gmail.com by 5 December, 12 noon.
“The young immigrant couple who moved in with Walter are Tarek, who is Senegalese, and his girlfriend Zainab who is Syrian” True/False?
Screening Details
Date: Dec 5, Friday
Time: 9:10pm
Runtime – 104min
Venue: Golden Village, Plaza Singapura, Hall 4
Rating: TBA
Language: English, French Arabic and Russian with English subtitles
About the movie
“You can live your whole life and never know who you are until you see the world through the eyes of others.”
A college professor becomes embroiled in the lives of a young immigrant couple living in New York City and stumbles into an unexpected romance as a result. As these strangers struggle to deal with their individual lives in a changed world, their shared humanity is revealed in awkward, humorous and dramatic ways.
This poignant film about rediscovering happiness in the least expected places stars a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.
62-year-old Walter Vale is sleepwalking through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn to play classical piano. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go.
In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him.
Friendship blossoms and in time, differences in culture, age, and temperament begin to fall away.
After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek’s beautiful mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her son, the professor’s personal commitment develops into an unlikely romance.
And through these newfound connections with three virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and a new life.
Riddle me this: What do you get when you put a stellar cast with an impressive 18 Oscar nominations (5 of which were wins) among them into a single, hugely anticipated holiday movie?
(Read more)
Imagine an underwater video clip of a humpbacked whale, warm sunlight filtering through the iridescent blue ocean, drawing wavy nets of sun across its expansive back. Now imagine it up-close at arm’s length – its white-mottled tail fin almost threatening to hit you as it cleaves powerful strokes through the cerulean waters.
This is total immersion at its best – a distinctive mainstay in 3D digital movies. “3D has the power to educate in the most entertaining way,” says Francois Mantello, producer of Dolphins and Whales: Tribes of the Ocean 3D, of the new dimension of reality that 3D digital filmmaking affords the cinema.
“When we screened our 3D digital underwater documentary (Dolphins and Whales), the children were trying to catch the fishes,” he recalls, “some liked it so much, they even became advocates of marine conservation.” Such is the massive influential power that 3D digital films possess.
3D digital film works by rapidly projecting two slightly different images on to the movie screen, and through special tinted 3D glasses, members of the audience will see a slightly different image through each eye. The brain then works to merge the two images into one for a more complete, tangible picture.
Change In The Playing Field
Traditionally, films have always been shown in 2D, restricted to capturing only the elements of width and height, but not depth, compelling film makers to deftly use the effects of light and camera angles to bring specific characters and happenings in a scene to the fore of the collective audience’s attention.
With the advent of 3D filmmaking, conventional cinematographic techniques have undergone a paradigm shift. Proponents of the silver screen are now able to add the concept of depth into their pictures, giving the viewer a sense of distance – some characters seem almost close enough to touch, while others appear to be further away. By harnessing this aspect of depth and distance, cinematographers are able to manipulate the audience’s attention to certain characters by making them seem closer or further away in the audience’s field of vision.
A digital 3D-rendered form of James Cameron’s 1997 classic, Titanic, illustrates this concept. In a scene where an elegantly dressed Jack Dawson meets Rose DeWitt at an ornate stairwell before a dinner party, the camera shifts to a closer view of the two – an excellent stage for the digital 3D to showcase its magic.
The 3D rendering establishes a sense of distance, making the couple appear closer and at a more intimate proximity underscoring the romantic and emotional intensity of the moment while other partygoers walking past the couple seem more distant and secondary.
Future prospects and the viability of the 3D digital film cinema were unveiled at the inaugural 3DX International 3D Film Festival held on Nov 18-23 in Singapore.
Anime Festival Asia 2008 (AFA’08), the first of its kind in Singapore, spanned from Nov 22 to Nov 23. The event, aimed at celebrating Japanese pop culture, was certainly quite an experience for some.
Taking up 2 halls of the Suntec City Convention Centre, the mega event was packed to the brim with merchandise booths, cosplayers and interactive zones such as the arcade gaming section for the inaugural Arcade Showdown competition.
The event also had 5 special guests to grace the festival event. Performers Ichirou Mizuki, known to most as “Aniki”, rendered passionate performances during the event while Japan’s upcoming pop idol May’n warmed our hearts with her bubbly personality and strong vocals as she gave her first mini-concert outside of Japan right here in Singapore.
Mechanical designer for popular series, Mobile Suit Gundam, Kunio Okawara, Studio 4°C’s Director Koji Morimoto and LaMB’s storyboard artist, Soejima were also present to give talks and to showcase their work.
The AFA’08 is a stepping stone to introduce the Japanese Creative Center that would be scheduled to open in Singapore next year in 2009.
The UrbanWire brings you inside AFA’08 for the 2 delightful days with Japanese pop culture enthusiasts and cosplayers. Click any of the following sections to navigate.
- Figurine displays and impressive model-kit works
- Merchandise at AFA’08
- Cosplayers galore
- Other sights and scenes of Day 1
- More pictures from Day 1
At about 10.05am, AFA’08 officially opens. After queueing to get in (and boy were the queues long), you will be welcomed by a giant Gundam model.
“Welcome!”
To your sides are rows of ‘gashapon’ (ガシャポン), or what we grew up knowing as capsule machines.
Figurine displays and impressive model-kit works
Shounen Jump Booth by Chuang Yi:
Using her alias, ‘milodrums’, an avid anime fan that this UrbanWire writer caught up with commented that, “The Jump booth was not really ‘Jump’ There wasn’t much (SHOUNEN Jump) characters and manga. There was only Bleach, Naruto and One piece. I would have liked to have seen more merchandise.” Back to top
It was easy to spot veteran cosplayer, Seijiro (above), who has been in the local cosplay scene since June 2002. She is versatile in many different genres of cosplay, including Japanese Rock. She attended the event with her team from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! (below).
Other sights and scenes of Day 1
Tucked away outside the convention center, this writer spotted about 10 owners of Ball-Jointed doll with their dolls gathered in a vacant room outside hall 403. They only wanted a place to pose their dolls for photos and not many of them were too interested in the event itself.
Aniki’s passionate performance and the cute Tamagotchi mascots making an appearance (below). There were certainly loud cheers for, “Aniki” as he belted out crowd favourites and familiar tunes. Aniki’s passion for singing definitely moved this writer as she stood among the appreciative audience.
Tamagotchi mascots were there to promote their latest version of Tamagotchis from Bandai.
Day 2 of AFA’08 had a slightly smaller crowd compared to Day 1. However, queue lines were still long.
The program for the day closely followed that of Day 1’s, save for the cosplay mania competition and May’n’s mini concert.
Nevertheless, we bring you more awesome cosplayers.
UrbanWire spoke to Asuka, who has cosplayed since 2005 to ask her of what she thought of AFA’08.
“They should have more booths dedicated to the anime event. For example, there was no Allen Walker (Of D.Gray-man ) figurine. I expected more doujins, figurines, anime calenders etc”, says Asuka.
On ticket prices, Roy, a ball-jointed doll collector and cosplayer, mentioned, “$5 is ok. If it’s more than that, then no (to entering the event).”
A way around paying for a ticket?
This writer discovered a way that was being used. That is, by purchasing 1 ticket to enter the hall and then proceeding to the exit after a while. There, you will be “stamped”, so you may re-enter again. You probably would have figured this by now, that upon exiting, you can then pass your ticket to someone else to have them do the same for another.
AFA’08 was certainly an interesting experience for most people. Some were left wanting more out of it, while others are describing it as “a bit dull, with no difference from other events”. But when asked if they would come for AFA’09, many responded with a “Yes”.
“We hope in any case you had fun at AFA’08!”
Some time between now and Armageddon, someone will decide to do away with our sophisticated telecommunication network and replace it with human messengers who will verbally deliver messages, much like a schoolyard game of broken telephone.
Based on Jeanne Duprau’s best-selling novel of the same name, City of Ember paints a bleak picture for the future of humanity. It foretells a catastrophe of a magnitude that will wipe out the entire human race and plunge the earth into eternal darkness. (Read more)
Win tickets to Angels & Airwaves’ first-ever performance in Singapore
In conjunction with Midas Promotions, the UrbanWire is giving away tickets the AVA concert to 2 lucky readers.
Here’s what you need to do to get a chance at those tickets:
Tell us why you want to be at the AVA concert and share with us your love for alternative music, and send in your response to contest.urbanwire@gmail.com with your full name, NRIC and contact details by Dec 1.
The San Diego-based band, also known as AVA, will be making contact with fans here in Singapore for the very first time this coming Dec 7. It is also right here in Singapore, that their South-East Asia tour kicks off.
Featuring frontman and former Blink-182 guitarist/vocalist Tom Delonge, the band consists of guitarist David Kennedy, drummer Atom Willard, and bassist Matt Wachter.
AVA has certainly been going places since their rise to fame in 2006 after their first album We Don’t Need to Whisper was release. The album went on to top the Billboard 200 chart at No.4. The band has performed at packed venues in the United States (U.S), Canada, Europe, as well as Japan.
Having just concluded their recent U.S tour with Weezer (from Los Angeles), AVA will be here in Singapore with a mission to unify and call to arms all supporters of alternative music.
AVA Concert and Ticketing Information:
Date: Dec 7
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: University Cultural Centre Hall, NUS
Tickets*: $85, $100 and $125
*Tickets are on sale at all SISTIC outlets and check out the promotional site for a chance to meet the band.
It’s the FU, the FU! It looks like the Undertaker is down for the count. John Cena is going to be the victor of this match! Oh no, waitaminit, the Deadman is rising, and he looks pissed!
The iconic J.R. screams from the ringside announcer’s table, throwing sparks of tension into the already electric atmosphere.
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 (SVR 09) has come a long way since the days of the original WWF Smackdown!
Once a big hit with teens back in year 2000, Java applications are now back with a vengeance. Fresh off their warm reception in Thailand, Software Mall has hit Singapore in a bid to recapture the market for Java-based mobile phone applications and games. (Read more)
Together with Festive films, the Urbanwire is giving away 5 pairs of tickets to preview screening of Cape No 7, on Nov 19, 7pm at Shaw Lido.
Simply share with us when and who you wrote your first love letter/email to and stand a chance to win a pair of tickets to the screening. Email your responses to contest.urbanwire@gmail.com.
The Singapore Hit Awards 2008 had less star power and attracted a smaller crowd at the National Indoor Stadium: Only 2,500 people were present at the event. Nevertheless, those who were there were treated to the energetic performances of local and overseas artistes.
Gloria Kho Yzelman, guest writer for UrbanWire brings you the highlights of this event.
The usual hot favourites like Fahrenheit, S.H.E and Jay Chou were missing. Even local songbird, Stefanie Sun, snubbed at the nominations stage for Best Local Artiste, was too busy to attend the Oct 25 event. Unlike last year, the Singapore Hit Awards was not broadcast live.
Before you pick up a copy of Perfect Symmetry, you should be warned that the album will showcase a side of Keane you probably never thought possible.
Tom Chaplin and gang have abandoned their penchant for gloomy piano-driven anthems about love, loss and yearning for a good ol’ (literally) bold 1980’s synthesiser-heavy sound.
The new Keane even features, surprise, surprise - the added use of electric guitars.
A journey far from perfect
Released last month, Perfect Symmetry represents the British band’s third studio effort since their 2004 debut.
In their 4 years so far, Keane has certainly come a long way between battling critics about their sound and coping with lead singer Chaplin’s constant drug rehabilitation problems. Fortunately, Chaplin finally got cleaned up, and Keane headed to Berlin on a night train ride to seek inspiration for their new album.
But perhaps seeking ideas on the German railway wasn’t that inspired an idea because Perfect Symmetry crudely resembles something of a sonic trainwreck.
Like getting “Rick-Rolled”
While there are certainly a few well-crafted tracks, much of the album sounds too formulaic and uninteresting.
The lads clearly aspired to move away from their old sound but failed to muster enough, if any, fresh and exciting material.
The track “You Don’t See Me” is an example of this. The band sounds tired and the song lacks the edge and direction to move listeners. In the end, it winds up sounding like a bland filler track left in just to make the numbers on the album.
The band’s elaborate use of synthesisers circa 1980 throughout the album to expand their sonic palette also at times borders along sounding overtly cheesy (”Black Burning Heart“). The inclusion of hand-claps, and saxophones that sound like they were ripped off from an 8-bit video game soundtrack doesn’t help either.
Even lyrically, the band has opted for cliche verses (”Give me your hand/Cut the skin, let me in/The molecules of us/Bleeding into one again”) that would surely have no problems making its way into a Rick Astley song.
Perhaps taking a listen to Perfect Symmetry is a little like getting Rick Rolled - a fun prank that can get frustrating if it happens one too many times.
The upside
However not all is lost on Keane’s third studio outing. There are a handful of bright sparks where the trio’s pop sensabilities pull through and remind listeners why they are still one of Britain’s biggest acts in recent years.
The track “You Haven’t Told Me Anything“, manages a fine and tasteful balance between the new 80’s synthesiser sound and contemporary pop, while giving it just enough edge to make it relevant to young listeners.
Other notable tracks include “The Lovers Are Losing” and “Perfect Symmetry“. However both tracks seem to be drawn more from the sound of their previous albums than the current direction of things. Take a listen to the former, and you might just mistake it as a B-side to the single “Crystal Ball” from the band’s previous sophomore album.
In a nutshell
Keane certainly didn’t break new ground with the release of Perfect Symmetry. While it might please the casual listener, you would be hard-pressed to find a critical listener or fan who isn’t dismayed at the album’s lack of depth and innovative content.
Then again, Keane doesn’t claim to be an art rock group like Radiohead and by that standard, Perfect Symmetry isn’t too terribly far off from being a decent pop rock album.
For their retro album, this UrbanWire writer gives it a rating of 3 out of 5.
Now let’s just hope that Keane doesn’t look further back in time and start mimicking Sgt. Pepper for their next album.
Track Listing
01. Spiralling
02. The Lovers Are Losing (Sample)
03. Better Than This
04. You Haven’t Told Me Anything (Sample)
05. Perfect Symmetry (Sample)
06. You Don’t See Me (Sample)
07. Again And Again
08. Playing Along
09. Pretend That You’re Alone
10. Black Burning Heart (Sample)
11. Love Is The End
Together with Festive films, the Urbanwire is giving away 5 pairs of tickets to preview screening of Rabbit Without Ears, on Nov 12, 7pm at Golden Village, Plaza Singapura.
