The Haze...Again

As the haze cover Singapore in its smokey embrace, ministers in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are playing political football with each other. Each country is trying deflect blame for the choking haze that has surrounded the region as they talk, I shall say what everyone knows; in the end, nothing will be done.

The haze is not something new. Every year when it's time for the farmers and land-owners in Indonesia to clear land for the upcoming planting season, the haze will come. It's just a matter of how serious it will be. This year, the haze is bad and that's why we have ministers in 3 countries going at it. No one want to be blamed for it but it's not a new thing. The haze has happened before, and it will come again because too much money is involved.

Indonesian farmer and giant palm oil companies use the “slash and burn” method of clearing land as its the cheapest way to do so. In their goal for maximum profits, does anyone truly believe they will stop doing it next year or the year after? No, it's just not going to happen.

Review of Man of Steel

The much anticipated "Man of Steel" is the reboot of Superman. After the slightly disappointing "Superman Returns" in 2006 with Brandon Routh as Superman, I cannot fault Warner Bros. for rebooting the franchise. Whether "Man of Steel" works or not however is another question.

"Man of Steel" is directed by Zack Snyder (director of 300), produced by Christopher Nolan (director of The Dark Knight Trilogy), and written by David S.Goyer. It stars Henry Cavill as Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Laurence Fishurne as Perry White, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El. That's a laundry list of some of the best acting, directing and writing talent in Hollywood with Oscars, Emmys and everything in between everywhere.

So it no surprise that for most of the film, the talent shows.

The film starts on the planet Krypton where General Zod and Jor-El both tried in their own ways to save the planet. Both failed and they became enemies in the process. As the planet  faced imminent destruction, Jor-El and his wife Lara (played by Ayelet Zurer) sent their newborn so Kal-El to safety on a spacecraft to Earth. After Zod killed Jor-El, he and his followers were captured by Kryptonian soldiers and banished to the Phamtom Zone

Kal-El was raised as the adopted son of Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark Kent. Clark's Kryptonian heritage gave him superhuman abilities and after the death of Jonathan, he wandered around the world. He eventually discovered that an alien object was found buried in the ice of the Arctic and after infiltrating a military science project, he found that the alien object was a Kryptonian spaceship. Clark enters the alien ship and communicates with the consciousness of Jor-El via an alien chip left to him by his parents. Lois Lane, a journalist from the Daily Planet sneaked into the ship while following Clark but had to be rescued by him when she triggered and was injured by the ship's automated defenses system.

After rescuing Lois, Clarke piloted the ship away further into the Arctic, away from human eyes.  He learned from Jor-El the history of Krypton and why he was sent away to Earth. Following Jor-El's tutorage, he gradually learned how to harness his powers to its full potential.  Meanwhile Lois's editor Perry White rejected Lois' story of the alien ship, forcing her to start tracking Clark. She managed to trace him back to Kansas where Clarke confronted her with his story. After hearing it, she decided not to reveal his secret.

Soon after, Earth got paid a visit by General Zod who had been freed from the Phantom Zone when Krypton exploded. With their world and all their people dead, Zod and his men seek to terraform Earth into a new Krypton. The process however would  eradicated the human population, and Clark (now known as Superman) battled Zod to stop him.

Now despite my misgivings stated earlier, I found "Man of Steel" to be a good film. The action scenes within the film were great and CGI guys were working overtime on this film. The film was also packed with strong performances from the cast. Henry Cavill and Amy Adams are very competent professionals and despite the less than convincing tacked-on love-story, their abilities shone in this film. Even actors in supporting roles like Russell Crowe, Diane Lane and Christopher Meloni (as Colonel Hardy) were extremely good.

However special praise need to be given to Michael Shannon. His General Zod was easily the best Zod I had ever seen on screen. A warrior who was trying to save the last slim hope of his people, his desperation was such that you can't help but sympathized with him. It says a lot of his performance when some people do realized that from the Kryptonian point-of-view, Superman is a traitor to his people!

Despite the strong performance of the cast however, the film never went from good to great. There were parts of the story that never set well for me. Remember what I said about the love story between Superman and Lois? To me, their kiss just did not make sense. Okay, they just had a life-or-death situation and survived it but where did their love and that kiss came from? I mean this is going to be a franchise right? What? Can't Hollywood wait for the sequel before getting them to kiss?

Also I hate the ending. Not because of what Superman did, but because after destroying at least half of Metropolis, with skyscrapers dropping like tin cans left, right and centre, suddenly Superman felt conflicted when a family was in danger from Zod? That was just so stupid it almost ruined the whole film for me!

Luckily, it didn't. The film on the whole did a competent job of rebooting the Superman franchise and with the box-office on fire, a sequel is already in the works.  "Man of Steel" is a good film and while I'm disappointed it never became great despite its promise, it is good enough that I'll be there for the sequel. Ultimately, for fans and Hollywood, that's good enough. 

Expected Anger

Just last month, I blogged about several Singapore government ministers publicly commenting that have an university degree is no necessary for a good life in Singapore. I also commented how Singaporean parents will ignore the comments and still make their kids strive for that (still) all-important degree.

Several people commented on my post on 26/5 (totally-ignored) on how angry Singaporeans are about the comments by the ministers. Now I may agree with the notion that there’s no need of that many Singaporeans degrees holders (due to the influx of foreigners with degrees coming into Singapore), I do understand why so many Singaporeans are angry.

Anyone who don’t just need to look at the latest Ministry of Education/Singapore Airlines Youth Scholarship for Indian Students. A Singapore government ministry and a Singapore linked-company are offering a scholarship for Indian-born youths to study in Singapore. Just to sweeten the pie, the scholarship offers an annual allowance of S$2,400 with hostel accommodation, a one-off "settling-in allowance" of S$500, coverage of school fees, coverage of GCE ‘A’ Level examination fees, and even  a return economy class air ticket! 

Oh, and in an expensive healthcare country like Singapore, the scholarship also offers subsidized medical benefits and even accident insurance cover! All these on a scholarship offered to foriegners when, at the same time, Singaporean ministers are trying to discourage Singaporean students from ITE and Polytechnics from local universities.

If the government had tried to do one of these two things, then maybe there could be some leeway for them. However they did both of them together and when you do that, needless to say, the anger of Singaporeans is something that should be expected.

For Real?

Crime is actually a funny thing. What is considered legal in one country might not be considered so in another. What is considered taboo in one country might be totally allowed in another.

Case in point: Sweden

It would seem that next year, Sweden will introduce a total ban on bestiality. Bestiality means a sexual act between a human and an animal and it would seem in Sweden, right nor it is legal unless cruelty to the animal could be proven!

Seriously? Bestiality is only an offence if it can be proven that it is cruel to the animal? For real? Man, that’s hilarious. I would thought that the every act of bestiality would be enough proof of cruelty to the poor animal but evidently, it's not enough for the Swedes! I wonder if any people in Sweden ever got off on that technicality. 

Comics this week

Demon Knights #21- Oh, another one of my series is been cancelled! Ever since Paul Cornell and Diogenes Neves were taken off the series, I had feared this and although writer Robert Venditti and artist Bernard Chang did their best, the difference between the two team’s works was too great. However with a few more issues to go and the Holy Grail storyline coming to a close, hopefully Venditti will wrap things up nicely. Demon Knights is a series that deserved that at least.

Threshold #6- Oh, another one of my series is been cancelled! I know; it’s a trend this week. However unlike Demon Knights which was given a good run, Threshold was never given a chance. The news that Threshold was been cancelled came from DC a week after #5 came out. This meant the decision to cancel the series came within 4 issues of the debut. A new series starting mainly new characters and writer Keith Griffen was given just 4 issues? That is why I say this series was never given a chance. If it had, this series had the potential to be great.

Constantine #4- After having Constantine running around the world chasing magical artifacts, writers Jeff Lemire & Ray Fawkes slowed things down by showing John Constantine on his day off. Of course a typical day in the life of John Constantine consists of getting beaten by thugs, warning an angry ex that her childhood friend is now a murderer, and allying himself with the meanest, bloodiest, most brutal magical player in New York in order to fight an even greater threat. Yes, this is the typical day of John Constantine and this is why this was a bloody good issue.

Where's the Starhub's EPL Program?

Ever since SingTel’s mio TV struck an exclusive deal with the Football Association Premier League (FAPL) for the screening of the Barclays Premier League (BPL), I have been without English football. So when the Media Development Authority (MDA) ruled that SingNet will have to share its BPL content with rival StarHub over the next three seasons, starting from August 2013, I was delighted. 

This ruling by MDA was recently affirmed by the courts when they ruled against SingTel’s “exclusive negotiation period” with FAPL that would have locked out Starhub for months. So with all the hurdles (except the appeal) been cleared, I was awaiting Starhub’s package for the new EPL season. 

I’m still waiting.

I must say I’m kind of surprised by the lack of movement from Starhub. Ever since SingNet got the deal for the EPL, the expectation was that Starhub would try to get program back. Now they got it…and nothing happened! There hasn't been a word about how they would show the EPL in the coming season! What channel would it be on? How much do we have to pay? All these questions are currently unanswered.  

I know it’s still mid-June so Starhub has about 2 months to get their plans ready but considering how hard they fought against Singtel to get the EPL rights, you would think they would have had some sort of plan in place already. That doesn’t seem to be the case, and I find that both strange and worrying. 

AoC & Steam

Recently, I got advertisement/mail from Funcom on the anniversary of Age of Conan (AoC). With a bagful of goodies, the mail was to get former players back into AoC. Frankly, it worked because the goodies on offer were very good.

However I faced a problem in that I just got a new PC earlier this year and AoC is not installed. I still have the original disc but here in Singapore, the full update of the game could take days (AoC has a lot of patches) and frankly I wasn’t interested in waiting that long.

Now since last year, I had known that AoC is among Steam's free-to-play offerings. Since the update on Steam is usually quicker, I was willing to try it out. So I went into Steam’s free-to-play section and…there’s no AoC!

Am I missing something? The forums clearly state AoC is on Steam but on Steam, the game isn’t there. I even tried searching for it via Steam's search function and still can’t find it. So…is AoC on Steam?