Sunday, July 22, 2012

MasterChef Indonesia & The Dark Knight Rises

Hello peeps, how are you doing? I'm writing this in the middle of watching MasterChef Indonesia. It's kinda on a half an hour break now (I'm not so sure how long) in anticipation of the breaking of fast in Indonesia west timezone. I am currently in love with MasterChef Indonesia. I found out about it coincidentally actually. It's the second season now and I didn't watch the first season and I didn't even know that it exists. So 2 weeks ago, I happened to be going through the Indonesian tv channels and as I tuned in to RCTI, I saw MasterChef Indonesia and what got me attracted straight away was one of the judges, Chef Juna. Coincidentally also, I happened to read an article about him some day before so I kinda had heard of him. He was seriously handsome and I think he's the hottest Indonesian man alive now! I can even get over the fact of the tattoos all over his body :P I remember texting my mom straight away telling her that he's so handsome and to tune in to RCTI :P I couldn't believe I only know this guy exists now :P I think his criticism is as deadly as his smile, but today I think I've decided that his smile is deadlier. So as I jumped half way into that first episode, I realized that the show was pretty good. Last week episodes were good as well for a tv programme but then I have to say that the cooking was bad. Last week some of the things that they had to make were gado-gado and kue lapis. They were to be judged on presentation skills. All the presentations sucks but one person. More disappointing than that, looking at their gado-gado, I may not even want to eat it, they didn't look nice :( I have high expectation as gado-gado is the only way I would ever eat vegetables whole heartedly. Then the kue lapis challenge was rather a disappointment as well. I know it's not easy to do it but I think most of them performed terribly. The example was around 3 cm high and some of them came out with like half of that height. It was so bad that I think if they bring it to the sellers in the traditional market where these would be in abundant, noone would want to sell it. So the cooking was bad, I think they did worse than MasterChef Australia Kids. However I think the show was pretty good, even though I was pretty turned off with the first elimination of the top 20 yesterday. The girls were so drama mama and they cried like mad. They are pretty young but still ... I would have expected more maturity.

The way the show feels to me is totally Indonesian, which made realize how wonderful and strange it is that just by watching these characters you just feel a certain bond, you just feel like you can relate with them or the situation, like you know certain people in your world that behave or think that way or share certain characters like the contestants. I don't know if I am describing this well. Simply put, I feel Indonesia watching it and it's great to feel that way :) So the cooking was not so good, I seriously hope it will get better. We are only in week 3, so hopefully they will get better and better. I am already kinda love and somewhat don't care about certain contestants and it's one of the main ingredient for a good reality tv programme - the contestants should captivate the audience and make them care for them. I still wonder though why most of them are in the 20s, because this makes for many emotional, not level-headed youngsters. On the other side of the contestant are the judges. Now, Chef Juna has kinda been marked as the mean one. He's not as screamy as Gordon Ramsay and thank God he's way hotter but still it's such a turn off that my dear cousin dislikes him despite of me being absolutely sure that this is the type of guy my cousin likes :P Comparing to the early days of American Idol, when you have Simon Cowell as the mean one and then you have the nice Paula Abdul and the middle ground Randy Jackson, apparently there's a better formula for that. That is when all the judges can be snappy as well. We have Chef Juna whom so far I felt has been strict and playful at the same time. He has this evil laugh when he feels like the contestants gonna screw up. Then we have the pretty Chef Marinka who can dish some pretty ouch comment, so don't get fooled by her cuteness. Then we have Chef Degan who's more like the silent killer. He looks fatherly, soft spoken, but darn he's also a no bullshit kinda person. This also makes me need to comment on the God damn brainless contestants. They've been told many times that unnecessary garnish are food cost and week after week, some of them still do that mistake. It's amazing that the chefs didn't just scream at them :P Overall though, I think all the judges are actually pretty nice. Yes the comments can cut but if you see them as teachers and bosses, they're actually pretty normal. They're not doing it for the show or for kinda showing up their authority, they're doing it because they want all of them to do right, more in a teacher role. Anyway it's so interesting that I wonder how the first season was like. Chef Degan is replacing one of the judges in season 1, so I really wonder how the dynamic was like back then. I am loving it a lot and though it's not easy keeping up with its schedule every Saturday and Sunday and with my time difference, I do try to do it and when the Sunday episode ends, I cannot wait for next weekend :P It's heartening that there's something with a quality kind of entertainment in Indonesian tv. My only criticism are on the quality of the contestant and the cooking and hopefully as this season continues and as this programme continues, it will get better and better :) Also hopefully future contestants will be ones with more bones and less drama :P

So today, I am back to the cinema. It's been awhile. I went to watch The Dark Knight Rises. I am never a fan of the Batman movies because I feel they are very heavy and serious. However I also feel that many superheroes movies can be pretty shallow and I guess that's the reason I gave The Amazing Spider-Man a miss and chose The Dark Knight Rises. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I think it's the best of the trilogy and I love it a lot. Its long running time was really testing on my bladder though. In fact there were so many people running in and out during the movie and they annoyed me a lot. Watching it in light of the shooting in America did kinda make me feel rather uneasy at the beginning. Not that I was afraid that the same thing would happen in Singapore, it's just I felt retrospective on the incident. It's reported that shooting began around 20 minutes into the movie, coinciding with a shooting scene in the movie and for the early part of the movie, I did kinda pay attention to where roughly it happened. Sigh, crazy people in America. It's always mind boggling for me that people in America can get guns easily. I guess that's the price of liberty. Anyways as the movie progressed, one of the good sign was that I found myself liking Christian Bale. He didn't come across as pretty likable for me in the previous Batman movies. Then there was Michael Caine, the butler, who got me teary eyed even from the beginning of the movie. He's a really good actor. Overall the story did make me wonder and got pretty confused on the logic of the bad guy, Bane. I had some questions that kinda got answered immediately after I thought of it. As the movie was reaching its climax, I was thinking that Marion Cotillard's character was so unnecessary and I did wonder that how come she had time to change her clothes when she was a hostage. Apparently she was part of the twist of the movie. A twist that made this movie great because I totally didn't expect it. Then coming into this movie, I was actually kinda expecting that Batman would die because of an interview Anne Hathaway did with David Letterman recently. So watching the supposedly death scene, I was thinking, well that doesn't mean he's dead, he could well be alive. Well let's just say that I am glad that the movie ends the way it is :) It's a really good one, at least that's what I think. I do not know what the hard core fans will say :)

:) eKa @ 8:43:00 PM •