Ian On The Red Dot

Chuck is a real hidden gem of a TV show. At least it was to me.

Some fan sites here and here.

Finally managed to catch up on the show starting with season two. Saw adverts for this show but never got a chance to watch it, what with my family not having a TV for about one and a half years.

I think Sarah could possibly be the hottest TV character at the moment,

and Chuck, the most endearing geek.

I have been following the comments on the remarks made by Minister Khaw regarding the elderly Singaporeans living in nursing homes in JB.

I think it is a brilliant idea.

We can’t expect our government to take care of us. We can’t expect the government to control prices of anything in Singapore. So, if market forces push the cost of taking care of our elders in Singapore to a prohibitive price, then Singaporeans need to find our own alternatives.

I’ve not been to any nursing home in JB but I’m guessing that the lower cost of sticking an elderly Singaporean there is much more due to favorable exchange rates and the lower cost of living there then because of substandard facilities and care.

I mean, no Singaporean could possibly ever be guilty of dumping our elders in terrible conditions. Filial piety is one of our important Confucian virtues.

Just think of it as something similar to retiring in Australia. Spending your last days overseas. Away from the country of your birth. Away from the country you contributed to.

Filial Piety.

Would it be filial to keep our parents in Singapore and then deny them the healthcare that’s necessary. I mean, it is so expensive that there isn’t any way healthcare could possibly be offered to the people we love.

It isn’t like the middle class in Singapore have any room of cutting their own expenditures to find that little bit more to keep our parents in Singapore. I mean, it isn’t like we could do what these Chinese dudes did in these stories.

The truth is this.

We can’t depend on the government on anything. Except to collect our taxes, fines and send the guys to jail if they don’t serve NS. The only 3 guarantees you have with regards to our government.

So, what now? The cost of healthcare isn’t going to drop. Face it. Accept it. Embrace it.

So what are we to do? Forgetting the inconvenient issues of nationhood, statehood and all that jazz for the moment, it all boils down to this – do you think putting your elderly relative in a nursing home in JB is tantamount to abandonment.

To me, it does. To others, it may not. To Minister Khaw, it is the same thing as traveling from Boon Lay to Woodlands, and then a little bit more.

Notes:

I remember when I was in Primary school, we had these moral and civic lessons. We had a chapter on filial piety and there was an interesting story told in the textbook. I can’t remember the story exactly, and can’t seem to find a translated version. However, I did manage to find a reference to that story from this essay:

There is an ancient Chinese story which is very popular among Chinese. Once upon a time, there was a family of a grandfather, a father, and a son. The father did not take a good care of the Grandpa. When the Grandpa died, the father was so stingy that he took the Grandpa’s dead body out with a broken basket. When the young boy saw it, he told his father:” Dad, please don’t forget to bring the basket back. It is still useful.” The stingy father was very happy to hear what his little son said. Then he asked his son what he would use it for. His son answered:”I will re-use it when you die.“

I find it funny that our government wants us to have more children while at the same time suggesting to these offspring how they can possibly get rid of us. I mean, seriously, we must be idiots to breed the very people who will grow up and stick a knife into our backs and toss us off the ship like a cheap ragged doll.

The best TV series not known by most is BACK!

Sad though that most of these sleeper hits suffer the curse of missing original cast members after a few seasons. Danny Blue and Stacie Monroe are still in the states….

Or rather, Jaime Murray and Marc Warren are trying to get famous in Hollywood.

In first episode of Season 5, Mickey “Mickey Bricks” Stone (who returns after being missing in Seasons 4) said:

“Recessions only seem to affect ordinary people…”

BBC’s Hustle is back for Season 5.

Once again, the rules of the con:

1. You can’t cheat an honest man
2. Never give a sucker an even break
3. Feed the greed
4. Always give the mark an out
5. It’s all in the detail
6. Always look out for No. 1
7. Always have a Plan B
8. It’s not just about the money
9. Don’t have anything in your life you can’t walk away from in a second

Note:
Television series produced by the BBC tend to have less episodes per season than the ones produced by US counterparts. What it means is that Season 5 of Hustle is already over.

Slumdog Millionaire is a really simple movie. No twists, no special effects. It is a simple, but not simplistic, love story told with solid pacing, great acting and some fine cinematography.

Boy meets girl, boy and girl go through shit, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl, boy tries to find girl, boy finds girl, boy loses girl again, boy and girl go through more shit, boy finally reunites with girl.

The beautiful thing about this film about love is that while it was in a way made for ‘western’ audiences, it still managed to stay faithful to one of the core principles that traditionally defined Hindi movies – no kissing and sex scenes between the romantic leads.

I thoroughly enjoyed the way the director teased us at the end of the movie when Jamal leaned in and kissed Latika on the cheeks. It would seem that the film would have ended with that shot and stayed true to convention, but the director allowed the film to go on, finally ending it with a shot of the romantic leads’ lips touching.

That was supposed to be the KISS. Yet it wasn’t the kind of kiss ‘western’ audiences are used to. It wasn’t some wet, slobbering kiss with tongues sword-fighting. In fact, it was really just the beginning of a kiss. The rest is left to our imagination.

Yet, not really.

Here is where simple brilliance was shown. The director combined the Hollywood and Bollywood way of expressing love on screen by interspersing a dance scene with the ending credits. So while the film had kind of ended with the shot of lips touching, the love story actually continued.

The dancing was love being expressed, love being made.

Some notes:
Richard Gere’s public kissing of a Bollywood actress sparked protests.

In truth, some Hindi movies do feature kissing, but there are very good commercial reasons not to do so.From here:

As you can see in the still from Raja Hindustani, sometimes the characters do. But it’s rare. The censor board is notoriously unpredictable; no one wants to risk getting Karisma and Aamir get personala rating that would scare away families. Also, Bollywood plays to a diverse range of people, from the illiterate and provincial to the worldly and urban. Ideas of morality differ widely from group to group. Why include a kiss when you can easily leave it out and avoid the risk of offending customers? Also, actresses don’t want to lose their conservative fans, nor do they want to endure salacious flak from journalists. So they’re not too keen on kissing on-screen, and many proudly trumpet their refusal to do it.

Flowers for Valentine’s Day here.