Sunday, December 25, 2016
Christmas 2016
Hello guys, how have your Christmas been? I spent it with movie and lunch with la Gioia. I was thinking that last Christmas we most probably did the same thing and I became quiet thankful that I do have a friend to spend the day with. It got me thinking about my friendship with la Gioia. We don't see each other often and though we do tell each other stuff, I don't tell her everything, but still I think we're good enough of a friend. I'm thinking about what happens when the day comes that I leave Singapore. Well she has her friends and family, so I don't think she'll really be so alone. Me on the other hand? Hmmm ... I can't remember how long we've known each other, but throughout all the times that I know her there were friends who come then go. Friends are perhaps a weird term to put it. It's just there were people who I used to spend a lot of time with, but somehow when I kinda stopped asking them out, they never asked me back. It's like I'm forgotten. This kinda thing made me really sad, but such is my luck. La Gioia on the other hand would be the kind of friend who after some time bothers to text me asking if I'm alive. So I do have a bigger appreciation for her. Anyways movie was
Passengers and lunch was at Jamie's Italian which was quite expensive, but at least the portion wasn't too tiny. Let's talk about the movie for a bit, I'm also going to talk about
La La Land too which I watched yesterday. Please skip the next paragraph if you want to watch it but haven't because there's spoilers. Well I guess perhaps ignore the rest of this post, because many spoilers ahead.
La La Land was pretty good. It was creatively executed. It tells the story of a jazz musician (Ryan Gosling) and an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) who fell in love when they're a nobody. When they broke up, it launched them to a career trajectory that helped them realize their dreams. In the end they're not together, but they seemed to be in a good place, at least for Emma Stone's character who seemed happy and fulfilled with her family. However there's a scene in the end when they met again years in the future where it seemed there's a lingering sadness of what could have been. This is the part where I'm not so on board with. Sometime you're just not meant to be with certain people, but those people helped you on your ways and you should just be happy for what had happened. Now let's talk about
Passengers. It's not as optimal as it could have been, I think. I was expecting more mystery, more intrigue, but there's no such thing. It doesn't have as much sadness and terror of
Gravity or perhaps
Cast Away though at one point Chris Pratt had a Tom Hanks' look in
Cast Away. Then it had a scene towards the end that was reminiscent of one in the end of
The Martian, so there's kinda a lot of unoriginal things there. Then I was quite ready for Chris Pratt's character to die, but he didn't and I was just like goodness, come on. I guess the makers just want a happy ending, a love will prevail story, but the struggle wasn't that hard to warrant that for me. Writing that and my thoughts on
La La Land, I guess I am perhaps quite heartless :P I asked la Gioia if she would make the same decision as Chris Pratt to wake someone else up so that you wouldn't be alone, she said it's really hard to say you will or will not do it. I guess I'm so used to being alone and lonely that I always think I will fare quite well in such situation. In the
Passengers, you actually can still have conversation with the android bartender, so it's not so bad. I thought the situation in
The Martian was actually more dire, but it wasn't that depicted in the movie and that's perhaps the reason why
The Martian was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, something was supposed to be sad and scary was made not so.
Gravity on the other hand excelled in what it's trying to convey, because I would truly be freaked out stranded in space alone. It's unlike the situation in
The Martian and
Passengers, where one had quite a comfortable living condition. In fact the scary thing in
The Martian for me was when the main character had to make the travel alone far from safety. Anyways, perhaps if you think about what happened after the end of
Passengers, Chris Pratt's character might actually make the right decision. It wasn't shown in the movie, but perhaps they managed to make a family and life became meaningful and fuller and made even more amazing. Hmmm ... as I write that, perhaps the key to make your life better is to spend it with someone. God know I have prayed *sigh*
That also ties it to things I have been watching these days. Been watching
Mr. Robot. In season 2 now. This series is critically acclaimed, but I'm not feeling it much. I do love the main character, Elliot, from the first meeting. It's because I understand his loneliness. I totally get it. In the first episode he talked about how he couldn't control the crying because of the loneliness. I don't cry as much as his character (again perhaps because I'm becoming more heartless), but I always get that restlessness that gets me pretty depressed and I do always think that if it's other people, one might go into drinking or drugs like Elliot. I don't do all that, I just get sad all the time. Anyways, the 8th episode of season 1 is where things got pretty interesting, but as things are revealed more, it kinda went rather downhill for me. It has a bit of The
Fight Club theme into it so again I kinda have issue with originality though perhaps this similarity is not intended. The series also makes me wish for the days when they show programmers as people who don't actually prefer working in such a dark environment. Why do they always show hackers like that? I think programmers with their systematic way of thinking would rather have a better working environment with lights and good ventilation, not some dungeon like place. At least for me, but well maybe it's because I'm not that good of a coder myself :D Anyway I'm invested to Elliot now, so he's pretty much the only reason why I keep on watching. I just want him to be alright and happy.
Other things that I watched before this was
This is Us which is really really good. I heard good things about it and it's really true, I recommend you to watch this. Some parts of the story tell about these twin and their adopted brother (same birthday) who celebrated their 36th birthday in episode 1. The adopted one, Randall, is actually doing pretty well in life. It's like he's figured it out, a good settled life, the type of life that perhaps the twin and me wish for ourselves. The twin though is not doing so well. Episode 1 showed one of the twin, Kevin, getting quite depressed on his birthday. It made me feel rather comforted to see these 36-year old siblings still feel pretty lost in their lives at that age because they're older than me so I don't feel quite like a failure to be feeling lost in life where I am now, but at the same time I also feel sad for them because I wonder if I would also reach their age and be as equally lost and sad. This series is so heartwarming and nice, quite different from what American TV been offering so far, so please go and watch it peeps. Speaking about being old and lost, I also watched
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. I was quite looking forward for this, but I got pretty disappointed especially at the end towards Rory. Rory is younger than me and I perhaps should give her some slack, but she was so promising and smart, so her life decisions are just so confusing. The ending got me very upset. By the way, I'm so Team Jess in
Gilmore Girls. That's where I first saw Milo Ventimiglia and love him ever since :P He's also in
This is Us by the way.
Other unimportant things today, the Ya Kun Kaya Toast uncle purposely brought my nutella cheese order himself to me. He remembered me ordering it last time and told me it's the last day it would be served. I don't really talk much to the uncle and aunt there, but since I come in quite a regularity they do remember me and I think they do look out for me and I love them for it. Today the usual auntie who mans the cashier wasn't there when I placed my order, she came after I have ordered and since I didn't order the eggs today I think she kinda asked the other staff if they got my order correct. You know simple things like this do make me happy. Talking about uncles, there are 2 uncles I often see around my block. I think I talked about them before. One is the really slow uncle walking with a walker and another is the uncle in a wheel chair who's kinda weird and have a testy relationship with his maid. I haven't seen them for some time and I wonder if they have died :( I get quite sad when I think about it and also when I saw the shoes repair uncle sitting alone in his spot. Yeah these are my weird observations. Also observed today was workers cleaning windows in buildings. It's Christmas day but they're working, I guess they don't get day off.
What else to say guys. Today being Christmas means 6 days left to this year. It's kinda a deadline for me to really complete plans and stuff. I like this Christmas period because everything feels calmer, more relaxed, jolly even, but then I can see myself being sad and depressed when the new year comes because that means real life and it's shittiness will come and pound us again. They may come even harder as payback for being all nice during Christmas. Yeah, I may sound so pessimistic, it's just the way I am. It's kinda a good thing that Chinese New Year is coming soon. Of course me being me, I hate it how fast all the Christmas commercialization makes way for Chinese New Year commercialization. In Singapore, it's pretty much gonna start tomorrow especially considering Chinese New Year comes pretty early next year. Okay guys, hope you guys have a nicer heart than me and a more hopeful look on everything. Happy holidays! :)
:) eKa @ 9:34:00 PM •