Of local talent

[Stephen Bishop - It Might Be You]

Bulgaria may have her "Ken Lee" but here in sunny Singapore, we have Ken Foo.

I stumbled upon Ken Foo by accident while surfing through Zero's blog. I don't know much about him so I'd let his works speak for themselves. I absolutely love his "The Childhood Years" series. I've showed a few friends and they love it too. What say you?

And since we're on the topic of local artists, allow me to dissuade you from catching Jack Neo's "Money Not Enough 2". (In fact, I don't even think it's worthy of a link here.) In any case, I caught the film with Joey and Kenny (plus their respective spouses) on Friday and here are some of the facts about the film.

1. The film opened with a CG sequence about the ERP gantries. That sequence looked entirely GROSS - everything looked fake and nothing blended. For a moment, I thought that it's his way of saving money but no, it's just horrible work.
2. The first 30 minutes of the film is a major commercial with placement ads from Pokka, OCBC, Mitsubishi Air-Conditioning, Singtel, (maybe Mazda) and later part of film we see Carlsberg. The placement ads are too blatant and it just reminds me of a scene from The Truman Show.
3. Plot and character development is horrible. There's almost no plot and the characters are so shallow - you can barely tell their thought processes or emotions.

But Jack Neo does have his trump card, the mother of all 3 brothers. She is not just their saving grace but his too! Through her, he is able to connect with ALL the audience. WHO THE FUCK CANNOT UNDERSTAND A MOTHER'S LOVE?! So that's his ace. Without her, Money Not Enough 2 is crap.

Before I caught the film, I told Kenny that I think Jack's productions are tasteless and he is only capable of doing so much. Perhaps for our heartlanders, they just need someone to resonate their woes and that's enough for them. If that is so, then I worry for Singapore's future.