My sordid and sometimes greasy affair with the ubiquitous M16 finally ended with barely a whimper last Wednesday evening. And as expected, i failed once again to garner the 200 bucks. Or should i say, my team failed in securing 1200 dollars. But i am unfazed for the money was always just a consolation in my eyes. Completing the darn range is the real deal. Do it once, do it good and never come back again. Now, it's no closely guarded secret that i hate donning the helmet as well as the webbing. All those nitty gritty dirt as well as grease on my hands was making me scream in my mind. THe first thing i did after sending arms was to soap up. Completely. Something that make me loath going to range was the long waiting time one have to endure before the actual shoot itself. And if you have a truckloads of details eagerly awaiting their turns, good luck to your wait. But the gigantic curry puff sold at the Range canteen was really finger-licking good though. Heh.
Yeap and so my last combat shoot ended to my relief. No more wee hour breakfast and bye bye, gritty helmet... And just when i was rejoicing in my head, the bus driver came chugging around the corner to give us a hell of a ride. Was it a urge to return home for supper or simply annoyance at our delay in moving off, I am never going to know for sure what the old man was thinking. So we left Nee Soon Camp and returned back to Mt Barebones as you would expect. The first thing that made me uncomfortable during the bus ride was the fact that the Bus actually managed to maintain a consistent distance from a particular car in front of it. Now, you may think nothing of this but think again. How else do you think an aging Bus that was packed to the brim with stinking blokes, was able to maintain a consistent speed with a Mercedes E200? And not to forget, on a windy and narrow road as well? I cringed when i realised that the old man was trying to prove that he was the mentor to Michael Schumacher.
And boy... I never let go of the trusty grab hold in the bus from that moment on. Cornering at approx 70km/h and trundling down Mandai Road at 110km/h... He was travelling much faster than i would when I drive on the same stretch of road to Mt Barebones! I started muttering prayers when we went onto the KJE. From then on, you could be forgiven for thinking that the bus sounded than a aircraft engine in full swing. We had a mini scare when the aging bus driver swerved his equally archaic vehicle away from a slow van with barely 2 metres to spare. Note that i was describing the speed of the van in relative terms. You can possibly dismiss a van that was travelling at 70km/h as outright slow could you?
And so, the end of the my short affair with the M16 rifle was given a dramatic twist, thanks to the old man. I hope he wakes to his senses soon...
Enough of things in Mt Barebones. Let me talk about my latest movie adventure that officially ended my film drought of 3~4 months. It was a film recommended by Urong, titled "Lake House".
It was the kind of film that make you go "Must i watch this" at the beginning and then slowly by surely, seduce you to lap it up later on. Well, at least I became riveted to my seat as we neared the end of the movie. But watching the movie is very unsettling to me because of the way the scriptwriter perceives of the dimension of time. According to the movie, a past segment of time is regarded as an fluid matrix in which anything can be done to achieve a purpose in a later segment of time. I disagree with such a notion conceptually because I regard Time as a very dynamic dimension. Though conventionally, Time moves in a single direction, I think that the Past and the Present can affect and influence each other equally in the same manner. Since a good part of this movie bases its central premise on the interpretation of Time, I end up as a very disorientated member of the audience.
I must say that this was a very good role for Keanu Reeves to take up. For it is an open thing that he has been taken to be an individual with stiff acting. Somehow, he was able to slip into his role with ease. Hopefully, he will be able to shake off his ugly nametag soon. One of the most grippy moments must have been the part when Sandra Bullock realised that Reeves' absence on Feb 14th in the year 2006 was due to his car accident earlier on in the morning. Seeing her break out in desperation and praying fervently at the mysterious post box at the Lake House was defintely an iconic moment to remember in the film. But like all good movies, this one too had a few mini plots running concurrently with the main one with the purpose of adding realism and also, extend our attention beyond the main leads.
Seeing Reeves break down upon seeing a heartwarming photo taken with his dad when he was a child was certainly an occasion that left me misty-eyed. I too gained a key takeaway from this- There is no such thing as enduring hatred for your loved ones...
Thanks for giving me an opportunity to watch such a meaningful film...
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