"Be With Me"

I reached Lido early and shopped around. Like last weekend, I didn’t see anything worth buying at all. This is an all-time-low for shopping. Argh…

My elder sis came promptly at 7. We went over to the reception area where it seemed a feast was waiting. Unfortunately, the feast was not for us. We could only stand around and look:



Too bad you can’t see the tiger girls standing around inside. Haha! I’ve got a super lousy camera on my phone.

My elder sis noticed a discrepency on the ticket. We noticed all the very well dressed and ever smiley crowd going into Lido 1. Our ticket stated Lido 3.

Hmm…

We stood around to stare at the crowds move and noticed that the more “normal”-looking people like us were going into Lido 3, so we came to the conclusion they segregated us that way. Must be a security feature huh? President Nathan and his wife there also mah, although I didn’t get to see him at all.

We got in and realised that we were sitting on the 3rd row. Luckily still can watch properly. And each seat had a “Be With Me” poster too. We started to munch on our dinners. (McChicken only $2 sia.)
Surprisingly there were trailers, but I am so thankful for those ‘cos we got to see “Corpse Bride” and “Harry Potter” trailers!!! MUST WATCH!!!

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About the movie:
“Be With You” weaves several lives together, but focuses on one: Theresa. [In fact she is on the front page of Life! today.] She is blind and deaf. The movie is based on her life. Please read the subtitles when they come on because at first I thought it was a technical glitch – subtitles appearing faster than the acting – but turns out it is actually a “silent narration” of some details.

The movie is extremely quiet. The main sounds you hear are a piano piece from the soundtrack, atmospheric sounds and the very rare dialogue. It seems to accentuate every movement on screen and bring out the acting. Now I understand why my scriptwriting lecturer told us to use minimal dialogue in our scripts.

One of the reviews at Cannes mentioned that he cried at the end of the movie, and added that that was a rarity in itself. Personally (and my sis agrees), it wasn’t as emotional as we had expected it to be. [It could have been the people at the back who giggled at some in appropriate points that spoiled some moments?] It was moving, and a good art film for non-art film watchers like me to even understand. Everything was kept simple. Minimalistic. No exaggeration. Could be why everything seemed so real.

Thresea’s life journey is exposed in the movie. After this you just gain a whole load of respect for her and life. All the problems we have suddenly become negligible.

Yes, there’s a pair of lesbians in the movie. Young school girls, to be precise. ANYONE who wants to catch the movie just to see this has to be out of his/her mind. They only take a small portion of the movie, and during that small portion, the “hottest” action you get to see are the 2 girls sharing a soft short kiss whilst in their uniforms. Sit through a nearly 2 hour movie just to see this scene? Nahhh.. but their love story with bouts of sms-es may be good for youngsters to see that their “problems” in such relationships are minute compared to other bigger problems happening to people around us. Additional message I deciphered from there is to NOT ignore sms-es from people who are sad and emotional – HUGE no-no ‘cos you never know when your ignorance is going to cause them to lose their life, and that you could have helped.

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When we walked out of the cinema, we noticed that the who’s-who at Lido 1 were not out yet. Eric Khoo was speaking to some fellas behind us while we noticed this. Haha! I guess everyone at Lido 1 needed to wait for all the credits to roll and give some applause.

We stared at the buffet layout once more and pondered what were the chances of us getting in. The staff at the buffet had been standing around waiting for a long time. I wonder why they even had to set everything up before the movie.

My sis needed to get some food and wanted to show me this food place called “Pepper Lunch” (or something like that). It’s a place where you pay to cook what you eat. Biangz. I can go home and do that too.

We went to the confectionery, and I spotted this:



Expensive weiners. I don't know what got into me. I just had to snap it.

We saw a row of mooncakes on sale. All sorts of weird flavours every year. Anyone who wants to get free samplings of mooncakes can go to Shaw (Lido) basement 1, near the confectionery, and try mooncakes from Hyatt, Haagen Daaz, etc. My sis said that there’re even more at Raffles The Plaza. Hmm… Too bad I don’t like mooncakes. Haha!

We had to head back up ‘cos her husband needed some food so we went up the way we came to where we were orginally. This time we saw that people were spilling out of Lido 1. Ooh… You could just tell that these people are either from the media, or in some industry close enough to them. Everyone seemed to know everyone else.

We stood there for a long while. We people watched and guess who I captured?



Elizabeth Choy! This World War II veteran was being led by a couple of people. She made an appearance in the movie.

This was as close as I could get to the buffet:



Which really doesn’t look very near at all. We really wanted to go in, but we noticed that even some ang mohs who were dressed in a smart looking business coat were turned away. If you see Chinese dressed that way, they CONFIRM can go in liaoz otherwise they won’t bother to dress like that.

We stood around some more and saw the people walk in while they flashed their passes. We had the same invitation cards but remember? Our ticket does say Lido 3 and not 1. My sis couldn’t bear it anymore and decided we should just go in and see what the door bitches do to us.

So we did, and we noticed a couple more people being turned away. We noticed that those who could enter had an extra line printed on their invitation card. Wow. Apparently even if you were in Lido 1 it might not mean you get to go in anyway.
We turned away quickly enough and headed right for food again. We saw Ericia Lee being interviewed with her boyfriend Ix Shen busy talking to some other people.
Very odd couple I’d say. Ix Shen looks good – tall and well-built, though doesn’t seem huggable; while Ericia Lee had this incredulous waistline with her unproprotionate boobs. I say it’s a good bra or implants. I’ll prefer the good bra argument. Any girl can have big boobs with a push-up.
Too bad they’re too expensive. I have no intention to get a whole drawer of maximisers so that I do not have ever boobs that inflate and deflate when I wear different ones. No padding best. Easy to wash. Long lasting. Not cheating. (Like anyone will know.) Good for the pocket. Not so obvious when I go without.

Ok. I digress again.

Back to last night.

We got the food. An ang moh asked me what was the event going on and we told him. He asked if the prime minister was there. I nearly wanted to tell him that the prime minister won’t attend this kind of stuff. Only the president would. Hahahaha!

We got a cab back. I reached home slightly past 10, just like during days when I have classes. Only I was much more exhausted. I made a mental note to call YL once I got back ‘cos she sms-ed me so.

Ah… like she predicted… YL’s performers pulled out on her less than a week to her event. Young kids (in a VERY good JC horz) got no sense of responsibility lor. Kaoz. Both girls were supposed to put up an item on the piano but for some reason they don’t have time to rehearse. What the hell?!?!?!?! In JC and got Grade 8 or so, means you didn’t get the certificate too long ago lor!!! Which also means that you are probably still in touch with the piano! Biangz.

And best part was that YL needs some light hearted pieces. Preferably those familiar tunes, pop-ish kind of music. She said that the 2 girls were very classically trained. Okaaaay. Don’t tell me their entire life they only practice examination pieces hor. Never play anything out of classical music mehz?! If that’s the case then really… the certificate can throw away lah. Anyway, pop music easy to play on piano what. Just sight read a few more times than usual, listen to the original, more or less can play lor! Not say must sound perfect wat.

I stopped playing for so many years but at least if given ample time to practice (and a piano I can use at any time at home), I also can play. And some more I was and still am a lousy player! (Check my cert and you’ll know why. Hahahaha!)

Well, YL needed help, and I said before that I would help her in whatever way I can if she asked. She did, so I will. She needs me to sing. She will try to get one of the girls to play the piano while I do that. I’d play and sing at the same time if I could. Told ya I’m not good at playing the piano already, still want me to multi-task like that ah? Haha! I need more than a week for all 3 songs lor!!! I don’t know which is worse, my singing or my playing.

She’s taking a huge risk asking me this… I’ve warned her already. I sound horrible never mind, ‘cos a cheena person like me singing English songs sure cannot make it anyway – otherwise I go Singapore Idol liaoz right??? But the horrible thing I always do is forget the lyrics. It’s happened to me at least twice on stage already okie? I have a history of that. I have never been able to remember word-for-word passages. It goes way back to primary/secondary school when we had to do so for “Chinese spelling”.

This makes a good reason to go ktv right? Hahaha! But I’m so sleeeeeepy… I need some rest before my immunity goes down and start catching everyone’s flu from the office.

Let’s see what happens this Sunday. If I do land up going on stage, it’ll be one interesting entry of my screw ups.