If there’s a comedy you should see this year (well, arguably), it’s definitely Tropic Thunder. It’s stupid, hilarious, satiric, smart, and dumb, all at the same time. I’m not a fan of Ben Stiller, really (I mean Meet The Parents series are O.K., but his other movies, I just though he tried too hard to be funny, that it’s not funny at all), but this one is awesome.

So the storyline, this is about a bunch of Hollywood actors, trying to make an awesome war movie in the jungle of Vietnam, but then found themselves forced to become the soldiers they’re trying to portrait, through some stupid, freak occurences. Well, as weird as the occurences are, to me that doesn’t really matter (hey it’s a stupid comedy). The main point, obviously, is making fun of Hollywood and its actors. That’s about it (who cares about storyline of a comedy anyway?).

Now to the cast. Ben Stiller, as always, is Ben Stiller. To me, he is just OK. But Robert Downey is just awesome. I mean, among the three main cast (Jack Black is the other, and he’s kinda forgettable in this movie. Too bad, cause he’s on of my favourite comedian), Robert Downey is making the movie his own (just like IronMan). His character of an actor who really takes acting super-seriously is just hilarious.

Side casts are okay, aside from the one character who nearly stole the movie. (I didn’t even recognize him until somebody in the theater pointed it out exclaimingly). His performance is funnier than ever, and not the kind of character I would’ve expected from this famous and serious actor. Seriously, you have to see the movie till the end, and he’ll have you laughing out loud. Excellent performance, mister !!

Bottom line, highly recommended

Author : Joshua Ferris

Price : SGD 17.66 (Bookweb Kinokuniya)

We thanked each other. It was customary after every exchange. Our thanks were never disingenous or ironic. We said things for getting things done so quickly, thanks for putting in so much effort. We had a meeting and when a meeting was over, we said thank you to the meeting makers for having made the meeting. Very rarely did we say anything negative or derogatory about meetings. We all knew there was a good deal of pointlessness to nearly all the meetings and in fact one meeting out of every three or four was nearly perferctly without gain or purpose but many meeting revealed the one thing that was necessary and so we attended them and afterward we thanked each other (page 5)

With the decline of the dot-com era, layoffs are on everyone’s door, including a Chicago-based advertising company, where this novel is situated. Capturing the life of the employees in a *probably* typical american(if not all) corporations, bringing gossips, secret romance, stress, frequent breaks in a humorous way. It’s written in such details, if you’re a white collar worker, you’ll probably see yourself here and there, laughing and smiling at the gossips or pranks you probably have witnessed (or even involved in) on your work history.

Joshua Ferris successfully capture how workers think, reason, and feels at the same time. It may be based on an american company, yet I found his description familiar, even dead-on on some parts. There is Karen Woo, who is always ahead on gossip, there is the boss, Lynn Mason who has breast cancer everyone pretends not to talk about (although it’s always be part of coffee-break gossip), there is Joe, that guy who never involve with anyone but surprisingly close to the boss. You have a colleague whose character you hate the most, you name it, this book have it :D.

A real entertainment.

Ok, first of all, it’s old. This series has been around for a while (started at 1978, then come the 2003 miniseries reimagining the 1978 original series, then continued to TV series since 2004), and it still on-going, but hey, good series are always enjoyable :). By the way, this post is about 2003 miniseries continued with the 2004 TV series (now it’s season 4). I don’t know about the original series.

Battlestar Galactica is a science-fiction TV series about the nearly-end human being fighting itself to survival after almost being destroyed by Cylons. Cylons are created by human, to make human life easier, but then the cylons turn against their creator and started a war to destroy human being. The first war (which are not told in the series, by the way) ends with agreement where cylons leave human to build the world of their own. 40 years pass, no-one ever hear from Cylons again, when suddenly they come back, and attempt destroy The Twelve Colonies of man. The war ends bitterly at human side, the twelve colonies were destroyed. One battlestar, Galactica, however were away during the attack, and together with some survived civilian fleet, they started a long journey, running away from the cylons, in search of Earth, a place according to the scriptures, are the place where the thirteenth colonies of human reside.

I have been watching the miniseries, the first season, and half the second season, and this TV series is intoxicating. There are a few reasons to that, at least in my opinion. First, Cylons believe in God (see how interesting that is, how machines believe in God? :D), while human believe in gods (note that it’s plural). Human gods are the Lords of Kobol (Kobol is a planet in the universe believed to be the origin of human being). Meanwhile, Cylon’s God has never been mentioned (at least not until now, the middle of 2nd season). There are twelve colonies of men, but human scriptures tell stories about the thirteenth colony, leaving Kobol long, long, time ago, and find Earth. The ancient name of the colonies were are those we find in the modern zodiacs, namely Aries (Aerilon), Aquarius (Aquaria), Cancer (Canceron), Capricorn (Caprica), Gemini (Gemenon), Leo (Leonis), Libra (Libran), Pisces (Picon), Sagittarius (Sagittaron), Scorpio (Scorpia), Taurus (Tauron), and Virgon (Virgo). The colonies government is a republic, led by a president, and each colony has their representative in The Quorum of Twelve (probably like a house representatives).

This series is written by Ronald D. Moore (who is also the creator of the famous Star Trek series). Highly recommended. By the way, I recommend you start with the 2003 miniseries, then continue towards the 2004 series.

Second book of the The Bartimaeus trilogy, Bartimaeus, my favorite sarcastic djinni returns in his adventure with Nathaniel, two years later where now Nathaniel starts his career in magician government. Nathaniel is now responsible for destruction of The Resistance, pack of non-magicians or so-called “commoners” lead by Kitty Jones, who occasionally causes disturbance to the establishment of magician power. Following occasional appearance of Golem, an almost ancient magical creatures, the tension in the country rises higher than ever, Nathaniel, Bartimaeus and Kitty crosses path and involved in a highly dangerous, planned attack against the government.

I would say this book is less interesting then the first (well, aside from Bartimaeus’ witty, sarcastic character that I still fond of the most), with less plot-complexity and excitement. Nevertheless, I found it still worth-reading and recommended.

Rating : 7.5 / 10

The last chapter of the Bartimaeus trilogy starts with Bartimaeus weakened and weary due too spending too much time on the earth carrying tasks for Nathaniel, now a minister in the government. British empire, governed by magicians, now found itself in a war with America, which turns out be both costly and dangerous. Dissatisfaction against the country’s policy is now stronger than ever, things are growing out of the magician’s control. Kitty, Nathaniel, and Bartimaeus once again found themselves in a complicated plot of conspiracy and rebellion involving both magicians and demons.

A perfect ending, I must say, and the best of the trilogy. This book brings you the long history of Bartimaeus, glimpse of The Other Place where all demons came from, a daring, exhilarating plot, and a triumphant, unexpected ending. It has anything you wanted in the closing of outstanding trilogy, and more.

Rating : 9/10

Boring. You wouldn’t want to watch this, seriously. Yes there are some fun to it, but all and all, it’s just not worth it. The plot is terrible, the characters are easily forgettable, the humors are slapstick. The shouldn’t have made the sequel of mummy. I mean after all, they are mummies. They’re supposed to be kept buried.

Rating : 6/10

Another effort to bring the classic Three Kingdom saga to big-cinema, this episode brings the prequel to the famous Red-Cliff battle. The scenario is good. They try to keep it align with the story (although there are some twists here and there, but I found them acceptable) which is good, compared to the other Three Kingdoms : Resurrection of The Dragon (which I hate every part of if, by the way). The fighting scenes are awesome. But it just TOO SLOW. I mean, they wasted 2.5 hours for a movie that should’ve been completed in 90 minutes. John Woo tries too hard to give his characters some personality, which I think it’s a waste of time (if you know the book you’ll probably know the characters already and you’ll be pissed anyway, and if you don’t then you wouldn’t bother too much of details. And by the way, too many close-ups). Even worse, it’s TO BE CONTINUED. I mean, why make a sequel when you can actually finish it off?

Rating : 7/10

This book has been around awhile I guess, and it’s kinda late to read it now, but nevertheless, I picked up a copy of it while I went to Plaza Indonesia the other day, and start reading. And I’m hooked

If you ever read Harry Potter series book and see how the magic world there works, with this book it all goes upside down. Jonathan builds up a fantasy world of magician who rule the world (London, for that matters) and actually live together with non-magicians or commoners, both aware each side actually exists and live together side by side. However, magicians in Jonathan’s book is different. They don’t own the power themselves by casting spells or do other sort of tricks, but they summon and controls demons from the other world who actually do the job, i.e. by themselves they’re actually powerless :). There are many types and many grades of demons of course. One of them, the focus of this book is Bartimaeus, a five-thousand year old djinni who posses knowledge, abilities, and experience ( it is 5,000 years, yes, so might be aware know what this djinni has gone through :p).

Bartimaues is summoned by an apprentice 11-years-old magician, Nathaniel, who wants revenge after being humiliated in public by another magician. Nathaniel, raged by the humiliation, order Bartimaeus to steal The Amulet of Samarkand, a very powerful amulet with outstanding protective charm. The story switches back and forth from Bartimaues and Nathaniel points of view, where Jonathans writes the twist, conspiracy, and politics, of his magical world.

The best part, of course, is Bartimaeus character. Sharp-tounged, witty, sarcastic, and hilarious with his foot-notes, he’s just something you can’t stop read until you’re finished

Totally recommended