Of the Trip to the Village
So the day started with me rushing to school on a beautiful Friday morning for the National Day Celebration.Upon realising that i was supposed to meet the student council members outside the LTs for the collection of maps i rushed out of my house 10 minutes late.Anyway,so there i was rushing down the slope at the side of the tracks when my bag miraculously opened and spilled out my CD pouch and mostly heart wrenching object,my disman.And the bag was wide opened at that time.I wonder how that even happened.Anyway,so i rushed to the area outside the LT and collected the maps.I wasa actually late,which showed how poor the councillors showed their punctuality.Collected my map,a score card,song lyrics and went off onto the tracks.

The parade started off as usual,with students dressed in police uniforms and stuff marching pass the principals with the Singapore Flag in their hands.Ive never seen the ceremony up close.I mean,Ive seen them,but during Secondary School i usually viewed it from the second floor.Last year was viewed from the further side of the quadrangle.Anyway,the ceremony up close is hilarious.At least i thought it was.It was hard not to laugh at the seriousness the students had on their faces.Yeah,they had to be.But the way they walked was just really funny.Made them seem as if they had knee problems and were taking steps at 2 miles per minute.The funniest moment was when Lucas(One of the police guys) and the girl had to bring the flags up to the grand stand.So they made a turn,and started walking towards the stairs which were less than 6 metres away from them.They ended up taking a minute to finish that distance,then took forever to go up the stairs,and forever once more to pass the flag to the flag raisers.I bet everybody was desperately searching for new batteries to replace the old ones in them.It was public humiliation.

The school then sat on the grand stand for a brief performance.The dance club came,and they were in mini skirts and stuff.Some guys were particularly excited,while Dudley and his classmates made fun out of Evon,who was in the centre of the group.I was with them,and simply laughed alongside them.After all,its hard not to laugh when you are around Dudley.My focus really wasnt on the dances,which wasnt at all close to spectacular.My attention was mostly on the dancer at the backrow.Well,she's pretty good looking,and was in my opinion the best dancer amongst them.Yeah,instead of looking at the dance i was looking at a girl.Not very decent of me,but even Samuel looked.Ahmad even brought his camera!I guess as far as the "Pervert Scale" goes Ahmad topped it.Then it was the Drama Club performance,in which Mei Jian had a role in.Well,she sang.Again.Though i am a big fan of hers,i contained my excitement.It was all good old fun,and it was indeed an interesting way to convey a national day message.It really was.The "Bimbo" recieved a lot of "Ews" and "Yucks" from the audience,since she WAS supposed to be the bimbo.Man,she was good as one.Haha.Is it just me?Or did she walk away from the performance still walking the same way?

The Community Adventure started,and i was pretty excited for it(For some reason).The whole school was divided into 17 groups(I think),and were each asked to leave the grand stand.My class and some other classes were the last to leave.Great.That left the class anxious to leave the college,neglecting the existence of Miss Nirmala,who was asked to tag along with the class.In the end,her legs couldnt keep up with us and was left behind.We simply ran through the HDB blocks and dodged cars and dog poops to the first station.It was a station which you had to guess 5 items in the box by feeling it.Well,i didnt play that because i was talking to Nirmala on the phone.I didnt want her to find us then give us a good lecture.Irritating.The second station was far,and it wouldve been a big waste of time if we were to run all the way there.*(I typed something here initially,but deleted it because it might be the bane of our class.Therefore i removed it on my own accord.)*We got to the second checkpoint anyway,and LingFeng and I had to play.We were blinded folded and I was the "Eater" while LingFeng was the "Feeder".He basically fed me with whip creams with the instruction from the class.It tasted good really,and i couldnt get enough of it.Haha.Third station was quick,as we dashed through the streets and the carparks.We just kept running and running.It was the station called "Dress Up your Idol" or something.We had a string of instructions left to the instructin group,and we were asked to tell the material group what to prepare for our idol.Well,basically they are materials like newspapers and tissue rolls,and we were supposed to dress somebody up with these materials.Shariffah became our idol,and she was dressed up according to our instructions.Haha.It was great fun really.Third station was the one where we had to solve a puzzle to open the lock.Poor ZhuangYi was locked up and we had to free him by breaking the code on the puzzle sheets and unlocking the lock.Well,we did it pretty quickly,and thats that.Last station could not be found at first.We searched the blocks and around them but we couldnt find anybody in blue.Thankfully,as we walked down the corridors,a councellor walked pass it and was spotted by us.Pictionary was the game,and we were asked to answer questions related to Singapore,with WeiYi as the artist.Haha.Angeline and her definitely had the same frequency and Angeline answered most of the questions,despite the atrocious drawings.I mean,that was "Sentosa" you drew WeiYi?

3 puzzles after 5 games.We needed 6.Oh well,the councellors asked us to go back to school to get the complete map.We did,and got this paper with a drooling lip on it.Initially,we figured that it mustve been refering to the canteen.But we couldnt find anything there.We got back to check out the 3 pieces of puzzles,and it was a picture of a lock.Lock.Locker!We searched the lockers,but didnt find anything inside.We were dismayed,but just as i was about to give up,screams rose from the left side of the hall were the other sets of lockers were.LiuYin the great found the blue can and we rushed back to the hall.Haha.We were first in school,believe it or not.Haha.Amazing.

It was then followed by annoying national day songs.Never liked the patriotic feeling.I just think it is stupid.Like Nisah said,why are we celebrating for Singapore,a country.What IS a country anyway?Well,so the songs went on and on and threatened to go on forever.That was boring.

Well,i took a bus to Bishan MRT afterwards,where my discman and CD pouch fell out again.My bag was once again wide opened.What the hell.Nothing was stolen,so theft is ruled out.Strange enough,the zips just opened by itself.My discman is still working fine really.After hearing the news regarding the man who committed suicide at the tracks.He jumped right into a running train and it basically cut him into half.Woohoo.Ironically,Bishan MRT was initially a graveyard before they were dug up for trains.Yeah,so i got to Orchard,and there were surprisingly little school girls/boys on the streets.Too tired perhaps?Anyway,i met up with Krishna and Samuel and we watched The Village.Met Dudley and Teck Meng in the theatre,so that was great.Haha.

The Review of The Village



Ive ever been a fan of M.Night Shyamalan's work.The Sixth Sense was greatly filmed,though it didnt necessarily scare me.However,the twist was amazing.I mean,who couldve thought that he was actually...Wait,i suppose there are readers who havent watched the movie.Haha.So there,since The Sixth Sense everybody loved how M.Night Shyamalan,an initially unknown director/writer,filmed his movie.From then on,he was officially labelled as this generation's Alfred Hitchcock.His second work "UnBreakable" wasnt exactly my cup of tea.It was filmed with a dark tone,and the story moved really slowly and the suspence in the first movie cannot be seen here.Due to numerous complains about that movie,M.Night Shyamalan moved back to his favorite horror genre and made "Signs" last year,which i highly recommend.It is one of the scariest movie i have ever seen,especially with the audience i had last year,consisting the school girls who screamed their heads off.This year,they were present as well.However,they were far worse than last year's.They screamed at night.Everybody was screaming even before the movie started.Yeah,before.I mean,if you are excited,fine.But stop screaming even when the movie already started.Annoying,irritating,immature and childish Singaporeans.Simply disgusting.
Anyway,the movie started out with a bang.By bang i mean it literally.The title of the movie basically pops onto the screen with a loud boom in the sound system.Here is a brief outline of the story:

The story opens in a late 19th century village called Covington,with its inhabitants living a peaceful and enjoyable life.The village is surrounded by woods,and creatures dwelled within the woods.The elders of the village,namely William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver.William Hurt is the father of Ivy(Bryce Dallas Howard,director Ron Howard's daughter),and Sigourney Weaver as Lucious'(Joaquin Phoenix) mother.William Hurt has a son called Noah,a retarded man played by Oscar Winner Adrien Brody(My idol).The town was peaceful,until Lucious accidentally ventured into the woods while he was painting the tree trucks on the perimeter of the woods.From then on,dead corpses of animals were found in the village,skinned.Signs were seen on the doors,marked with the color red.

The acting is solid,with Bryce Dallas Howard's character being the female lead,she was astounding.Despite being a newcomer,she pulled off her role brilliantly and it was definitely an solid effort on her part.And as for the others,they gave perfect supporting roles in the movie.Adrien Brody was amazing as the retarded man in the village,and he showed himself as one who definitely deserved his Oscar for his role from "The Pianist".

The direction was great,with M.Night Shyamalan's trademark written all over.The cinematography resembles that of Hitchcock's,and every camera moves were heart pounding.He has the ability to make ordinary everyday objects seem scary.A hanging lamp,a chair or a keyhole.Amazing director.He definitely has the potential to become a great director,and he already is in Hollywood.

Now comes the bad parts.The story was weak.Very weak.It dragged throughout the movie.And if you think you are going to head to the theatres expecting yourself to be freaked out,think again.The movie was scary at the weakest level.Its what ZaoYi would like to call,a "Cheap Scare".The story dragged on so bad at the beginning,that i was begging to be scared.Then when the creatures entered the village,i had high hopes until the sequence ended in 5 minutes.The scene where Ivy reaches out into the darkness was perfectly filmed.However,we ask ourselves.So what?The creature had some scary moments,which i shall not spoil here.However,if you've watched the trailers it wouldve spoiled it for you.It showed almost every frightening thing in the movie that its not scary at all.The movie was not tensed,not frightening,remotely interesting at parts.M.Night Shyamalan had three twists in this movie,and they were all weak.The first two were predictable really.I myself predicted the second twist.I hated the fact that the directed revealed the truth,then covered it back up,then revealed it again.You'd know what i mean by that.We are set to believe a certain thing,then was utterly smacked in the face with the truth.Fine,the story goes on and it goes back to the beginning where we were forced to believe what the director shows us,then smacked up again.Instead of having one big twist in The Sixth Sense,this one had three.Three utterly weak ones.

The design of the monster was pretty bad.It resembled a Nazgul in red.The sound it made was scary,but nothing more than sudden movements that made people jump in our seats.Cheap scares again.The story kept dragging even at its so called climax,and i got bored to tears.The supposingly big twist at the end requires somebody with an opened mind to accept it.I read the ending already before i watched the movie.Well,it was online half a year ago.When i read it,i thought,"This is too stupid to be an ending."I never thought M.Night Shyamalan actually used that ending as the real one.It was totally stupid and utterly bad.Perhaps the real big twist is the fact that the movie was a real disappointment and its stupidity.So is this movie a romance movie or a thriller?Nobody can really tell,because at the end of the day neither of the elements suited the movie well.It was an utter waste of money,and everyone should save up their money for "Collateral" starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx starting next week.Pass on this so called "Summer Blockbuster" and move on.Dont believe the reviewers on Singapore newspapers.They are not trustworthy.Yes,the film was artistic.It was M.Night Shyamalan at his peak with his style of filming,but it was stupid.Really stupid.Shyamalan,please just stop writing and stick to filming.This movie was a disappointment and an bad ending to a day.

Ratings:4.5/10