Though I am Gone

This is a documentary about an old man recollecting what happened to her wife during the Cultural Revolution.

A very depressing movie as we learnt about the atrocities performed by the students in the name of ideology! Would be interesting if the director could interview one of the Red Guards but there was no "the-other-side-of-the-story" to be heard. Learnt about the existence of a Cultural Revolution Museum from the protagonist. Would like to visit it if I have the chance!

Patriotism

The story is about how a Japanese soldier decided to commit seppuku (the act of killing oneself by slitting one's belly open) and his wife's reaction to it. This is an adaptation of the director's own short story.

Liked the silent film look and feel, the minimalistic noh theater setup as well as the great acting by the actor and actress!

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Fitzcarraldo

The story is about how a young man dreamed of building an Opera house in the jungles of Peru. He encountered many difficulties and even had to drag a streamboat across a mountain in the process!

Had a pleasant surprise initially when I saw that Claudia Cardinale was the lead actress but realised that it had been almost twenty years since she acted in Fellini's "8 1/2" and Visconti's "The Leopard". She still looked beautiful but not as young as before. Liked the nice jungle adventure and the great acting by Klaus Kinski!

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The Decalogue

This is a 10 1-hour episode TV series made in Poland that is loosely based on the Catholic Ten Commandments.

Liked the excellent script and the modern interpretation of the commandments! It is interesting to see how each character is placed in a situation where he or she has to make a moral choice where there is no clear right or wrong! Episodes 2, 3 and 8 are the most boring while episode 10 is the most funny! Episodes 4, 5 and 7 are pretty good but my favorites would be episodes 1, 6 and 9!

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PSTAR Scrabble Games 2008

The PSTAR Scrabble games is an annual event for organisations in the civil service to take part in a friendly game of Scrabble. It was held at the Civil Service Club on 6th Sep 2008 from 10am to 5pm. A total of 38 teams took part. MINDEF had two teams taking part this year.

Here's my match report, with quizzes marked with [number] and the answers given at the end of the report.

Chew Chuah helped to draw our first pairings for MINDEF 1 and it was against the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) team 1. MINDEF 2 played against the all girls team from CPF 2. I saw that Peng Kee was really happy with his draw!

Game 1: MEWR 1
Had a bye as my opponent could not make it on time. Played a friendly game with Linda from Ngee Ann Polytechnic instead. My luck was pretty good! I bingoed with TEARIES*(74) and AILERON(73). What are the 2 anagrams for AEEIRST ?[1] I also guessed correctly the "C" front hook for OFF and scored with CHAIN(59) by hitting the triple word cell. Linda could only bingo with BARTENDED(75). If only this was an actual game where it really mattered!

Our team won the match by 3-0.

Next game was against IRAS 2.

Game 2: IRAS 2
I played against Chris who was from the same reservist camp as me! It was a closed board with no bingos from either of us. I scored big when he opened up the triple word score lane with WaRNS(40) and JET(39) by capitalising on the double letter score. Was lucky to be able to play my Z late in the game with ZETA(23). If not, the score line could have gone the other way round.

Won 310-280. Our team won convincingly with 3-0.

Had free lunch catered for us after our second game and it was delicious!

Our third game was against CPF 1. Hmm, I remembered our third game at last year's PSTAR games was against them too!

Game 3: CPF 1
I played against Chee Keong, the same player whom I played last year. JP and CC had a switch of opponent from last year. Missed my opponent's opening phoney HINE*. He bingoed with SWaYERS(88) and scored big with sEZ(64) and OX(38). My only big scores were OATH(44) across the triple word lane and PEAK(35). Maybe I should have blocked when my opponent played OVER with the O hovering underneath the triple letter cell. Didn't realise he had the Z!

Lost 324-403. Our team won with 2-1.

After 3 rounds, MINDEF 1 was placed in the top category that consisted of the top 6 teams: HDB 1, HDB 2, LTA 1, MINDEF 1, MOE 1 and NP 1.

Our final game is against HDB 2.

Game 4: HDB 2
I played against David. Our scores were neck-in-neck after both of us scored one bingo each. I had SoRRIES*(74) while he had InTRUDE(68). What are the 2 anagrams for EIORRSS ?[2] I was leading slightly towards the end until he scored with JOBS(37) to pull ahead.

Lost 375-391. Our team lost narrowly with 1-2.

In the end, MINDEF 1 came in 4th placing among the top category teams. We beat MOE 1 and HDB 1 who both lost 1-2 in terms of spread. LTA 1 came in 1st, NP 1 came in 2nd and HDB 2 came in 3rd. MINDEF 2 had a pretty good showing too with 2 wins and 2 losses! Had fun seeing so many familiar faces! Hope we could do even better next year!

Quiz answers (highlight to see clearly)

[1] AERIEST, SERIATE
[2] ORRISES, ROSIERS

Sakuran

This film is adapted from a Japanese manga and it is about a girl growing up in a brothel and becoming the top prostitute.

Liked the colorful kimonos and the nice soundtrack! The lead actress, Anna Tsuchiya, was a pretty interesting character too!

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Pathos

This is a follow up to "Broken Blossoms" and it is a documentary about the director's role as a woman, a wife and a mother.

Liked the last segment best as I thought the director's daughter was very cute! It was also interesting to see how a midwife clinic worked!

Broken Blossom

This is a documentary about the impact of the director's miscarriage on her.

Liked the scene where the director talked about her feelings towards the miscarriage! I also learnt a bit more about her during the Q&A session later!

Birth / Mother

This is a documentary about the director's grandmother and how she gave birth to a baby son.

Liked the reality TV style with the extreme close up shots!

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The Banishment

The story is about what happens when a gangster went to stay in the countryside with his family that consists of his wife, his son and his daughter. Their peaceful lives were disrupted by a bunch of unexpected events.

The countryside scenery was beautiful and the portrayal of the husband-wife relationship was interesting! Didn't quite understand the last bit of the flashback towards the end though so I was not as moved as I thought I would be.

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The Eternal Breasts

The story is about the life of a female poet who died at an early age due to breast cancer.

The pacing was slow and I thought the story could have been condensed! One thing that puzzled me was the relationship between the poet and the reporter towards the end.

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Love Letter

The story is about the plight of Japanese women who served the US soldiers during the second World War. After the war, they had to pay someone who knew English to write love letters to their former lovers to ask for money to survive.

Considering that it was a debut effort by Tanaka Kinuyo, it was not too bad! Thought it could be improved by deleting unimportant scenes which did not contribute to the main storyline.

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Wordplay

This is a documentary about the world of crossword puzzles.

Pretty comprehensive! Learnt a bit about the creators of the puzzles as well as the interesting people who do the puzzles both as a recreation and competitively! Didn't know that Bill Clinton liked to do crossword puzzles too!

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Wanderer's Notebook

The story is about how a woman called Fumiko struggles to survive and eventually becomes a successful writer.

Liked the sequence where Fumiko tried to find a job but was rejected repeatedly. Some parts were really funny!

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Ginza Cosmetics

The story is about the life of a middle aged bar hostess who has to support her young son.

Felt that this was like a precursor to "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs" which was made 9 years later! Thought the director has improved on his story telling skills in WWAS by presenting just the core ideas that he wanted to transmit to the audience.

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Sandakan No. 8

The story is about the plight of poor Japanese girls who were sent overseas to work as prostitutes in the early 20th century. This is told through flashbacks from an old Japanese woman to a researcher whom she befriended.

Liked the friendship forged between the researcher and the old Japanese woman! Nice story and the use of silence during two key scenes were pretty effective!

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Mad about English

This is a documentary on how the people from China learned English in preparation for the Beijing Olympics. These included an elderly man who wanted to be an Olympics volunteer, a taxi driver who wanted to converse well with tourists, a young student who wanted a better future, an English tutor who wanted to spread his teachings and a foreigner who wanted to get rid of every wrongly translated signs.

It was interesting to see how enthusiastic the people were about learning English! I thought the multi-lingual police was quite funny when he imitated the New York accent! The sales people at the Silk Market were pretty good too!

The Spirit Compendium

The story centers around a special book that is able to provide answers to your queries. A guy used this book to solve a few problems faced by him and his house mates during the hungry ghost festival.

The cast was pretty good looking and the outdoor scenes looked beautiful! I also liked the songs and the special sound effects used whenever something supernatural was encountered!

My Dad is a Priest

The story is about the relationship of a father and a son. The son is still studying in school while the father is a priest who is slowly losing his memory because of a recently diagnosed alzheimer's disease.

Liked the simple storyline and the close father-son relationship depicted! Thought the father acted really well when he showed the effects of alzheimer's disease!

La bete humaine

The story is about the dark side of human nature shown through the encounters of a worker at a railway station.

Liked the nice country side view during the train rides and the in-depth study of the psychology of the characters!

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