Spider-Man Reboot

I’m going to keep this brief, and separate this into things I like and things I dislike about the new Spider-Man reboot. Keep in mind; I’m not an avid comic book fan.


Like 1: Andrew Garfield’s acting. 

He knows it as much as the next person. This is the role of his lifetime. And with that in mind he acted his socks off. I noticed him trying to create a unique Peter Parker, not unlike what Johnny Depp did with Captain Jack Sparrow. Every second Andrew is on the screen, he steals it (except when Emma Stone is there). Comparing with the under emoted, dopey Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man, Andrew’s Spider-Man is so much more charismatic and dramatic. You think he had never missed a single acting class. In a nutshell, Andrew blew his predecessor away easily, acting wise.


Like 2: Emma Stone

Forget Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts, Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane; Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy is the superhero’s girlfriend I want. For non-Spider-Man comic readers, the blond bombshell Gwen Stacy is Peter Parker’s first love, before they snuffed out her character midway. The striking thing about Emma Stone is not her beauty; it’s her kick ass personality (as seen as the survivor in Zombieland) and that sensual maturity (as seen in Easy A). But here in Spider-man, she is accessible.


Like 3: The Grittier but not necessarily Darker Style

This new incarnation is Spider-Man’s supposed equivalent to Batman’s ‘The Dark Knight’, if the teasers and trailers were anything to go by. Unfortunately, on the darkness meter, it measures somewhere between Thor and Ghost Rider, basically a slight shade darker than the first Spider-Man. Well, they tried, they failed, but this is no Dark Knight. The grittiness here is mostly derived from Andrew doing most of his own stunts, more green screens and less CG.


Like 4: The Romance

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man has the iconic upside down kiss; this one has such no iconic four play tactics. But on the other hand, the kissing scenes are steamier than your average sauna. And now the word on the street is that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are now dating. One wonders how much actual romance makes it to screen.

Like 5: More Green Screen, Less CG

While Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man web slinging was 100% CG, this new one tries more stunts and green screens, which translates to more realistic whizzing action scenes.

Dislike 1: Casting of Andrew Garfield 
Andrew is six feet tall. Andrew is 28 years old. Andrew is also skinny as a rake. Apparently his wiry body type isn’t suitable for beefing up, trainer and actor both gave up and sourced inspiration from Bruce Lee. Despite his talented portrayal of the nerdy web slinger, he’s just not buff enough for a superhero role of today, visually.


Dislike 2: Spidey Costume
The reds are wrong. The blues are wrong. I don’t mind it being ugly if because they designed a suit that an above average high school kid can put together. Not only is it ugly, it looks like it came from the labs of NASA. That is so NOT spandex. Why does it have to be so scaly?


Dislike 3: Cheesy Scene

I got a taste of cheese, and it ain’t from my popcorn. Granted, this Spider-Man reboot only features one cheese worthy scene while its predecessors were curdling in it. It’s the one where all the crane operators line up the crane booms to allow Spider-Man quick passage to Oscorp tower, which leads me to the next point:


Dislike 4: Formulaic Plot

Sony Studios was clearly in charge. They brought together no name directors, no name actors and no one that could stand up against them. The plot itself was clearly written by the execs. While Peter Parker’s and Gwen Stacy’s characters were a breath of fresh air, the villain, ‘The Lizard’s’ character development was to me, run of the mill.


Dislike 5: Spider-Man wise cracks

In the heat of action, Spider-man, once nerdy teenager, is now a wise cracking masked vigilante. Problem is it sounds weird on the big screen.


Dislike 6: Spider-Man Fiction Deviations

I’m not sure if these are plot goofs or plot holes, but some of them interfere with what makes Spider-Man so special.

1) Bitten by a Spider

In Sam Raimi’s Spider-man, there were a handful of genetically modified spiders. One spider got away and bit Peter. In this one, Oscorp was already mass producing genetically modified spiders. There seems to be thousands of them, easily accessible and yet none of them have bitten any of Oscorp staff. But only when Peter stumbles upon them, they bite and he becomes Spider-Man? Logic be gone.

2) Webbings

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man made Peter Parker a biological mutant. He developed webbing glands on his wrists. The original comics depicted Peter as a genius developing his own sticky substance in his garage laboratory. This movie is even weirder. The mass produced genetically modified spiders were bred by Oscorp to produce industrial strength ‘Bio-Cable’ packaged in tiny cartridges. This new Peter Parker steals a boxful of these cartridges and merely devises a way to squirt out the liquid bio-cable which presumably forms into webbing upon ejection. Let’s be clear, this spider man uses commercially sold products for webbings.

3) Peter Parker’s Camera

Peter has an old film camera. I find this confusing as the producers said they wanted to give this version a modern take. Why give Peter Parker a cell phone but not a DSLR? Heck, using his phone’s camera would be more convenient.

If you like Spider-Man and its myth, it is worth a ticket. Its fresh depiction of the two romantic leads is a welcome change but it’s still mired in superhero movie contrivances. 8/10.

Phonetic Differences between Standard Mandarin (普通话Pǔtōnghuà) and Malaysian-Singaporean Mandarin (花语Huāyǔ)

The idea for this piece came about because while I’m taking Mandarin language courses from a Chinese cultural centre from mainland China, I live in Malaysia where the majority of local Chinese are schooled and brought up speaking Huayu, the local Malaysian dialect of Mandarin. There are differences such as the usage of certain words, grammatical deviations and even the pronunciation differences for many phonemes.


History had a hand in determining the variation in Malaysian/Singaporean Mandarin. First of all, when the Chinese settled in then Malaya in the 19th century, none of them were native speakers of the Mandarin dialect. Only when the Republic of China formed, the Chinese in Malaya gained a sense of Chinese nationalism towards the mainland. Mandarin was adopted as the Chinese people’s unifying language to be taught in local Chinese schools in Malaya, mirroring developments in China.


However, since the Malaysian Chinese were in a foreign land, they were heavily influenced by their original dialects (like Hokkien and Cantonese) as well as Malay and English. This was exacerbated when the Communists took over China and implemented a closed door policy. The cultural link to China had been all but severed. Hence, the local variety of Mandarin was free to evolve on its own.


Personally, if I were creating a new universal language, it would sound nothing like Mandarin. The problems that I have with Mandarin, as do so many people in the world have, are that so many consonants sound so similar. I compiled a list that compares between Standard Mandarin, what Malaysians think they know about Mandarin and how Malaysian Mandarin speakers really sound like. This is following my exasperating attempt to make sense of all the indecipherable chatter I hear.


Understanding of the pinyin system is needed to understanding the following list. In addition, there are a few concepts to introduce for the table to make sense:

*Aspirated means that a strong puff of air accompanies the consonant when it is sounded. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, you can hold a tissue up to your mouth. The tissue flutters with aspirated consonants while it doesn’t flutter with unaspirated ones.

Fricatives	Affricate
Consonant sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow channel in the mouth. In English s (sing) and z (zoom) are examples.	Consonants sounds that comprise of two stages. First, vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. Next, that restriction is loosened a little, while air is blown, resulting in a frication sound. In English, j (juice) and ch (choose) are examples.

Tongue Position	Description
Blade-alveolar	Roll up the tip of the tongue (blade) against the bony ridge behind the front teeth at the top of the mouth (alveolar ridge)
Blade-palatal	Roll up the tip of the tongue (blade) against the centre of the roof of the mouth (hard palate).
Palatal	The tip of the tongue is pressed against the back of the lower teeth, the rest of the tongue is against the roof of the mouth (hard palate)

The Phonetic/Pronunciation Differences between Standard Mandarin and Malaysian Mandarin

Initial Consonant	Standard Mandarin(普通话Pǔtōnghuà)	Malaysian Mandarin(花语Huāyǔ)	Malaysian Mandarin(Fast & Lazy Speech)
ch	Blade-palatal position, aspirated, affricate. Sounds not too dissimilar from the English ‘ch’	Very much like the English ‘ch’. Malaysians do not grasp concept of aspiration	Same as left
zh	Blade-palatal position, unaspirated, affricate. Has slight buzzing quality to sound.	Sound similar to Standard Mandarin, but tongue not rolled back enough.	Very much like the English ‘ch’.
sh	Blade-palatal position, fricative. Sounds similar to English ‘sh’ but with tongue rolled up	Very much like the English ‘sh’.	Sound like the English ‘s’.
c	Blade-alveolar position, aspirated, affricate.	Very much like the English ‘ch’.	Same as left
z	Blade-alveolar position, unaspirated, affricate. Has slight buzzing quality to sound.	Same as left	Very much like the English ‘ch’.
x	Palatal position, fricative. Not too dissimilar from the English ‘sh’	Sound like the English ‘s’.	Same as left
q	Palatal position, aspirated, affricate. Pursed lips help the aspiration process.	Same as left	Very much like the English ‘ch’.
j	Palatal position, unaspirated, affricate	Same as left	Same as left
s	Blade-alveolar position, fricative.	Same as left	Same as left

Malaysians narrow down the number of consonants when they speak fast. Five distinct consonants end up sounding like the English ‘ch’. Mandarin uses a lot of aspiration as a means to differentiate between different consonants. That’s an issue when people speak fast because no one can produce that puff of air in such short time. Aspirated consonants therefore sound unaspirated.

A good resource: ChinesePod 

Mandarin is so hard. Cantonese is a walk in the park by comparison. Just watch Hong Kong dramas/movies, and you’re speaking like the locals. For Mandarin, it’s been a hundred years and we still couldn’t get it. For me personally, I find that the written characters much easier than spoken Mandarin despite the number of characters to remember.

Brave – More Disney than Pixar

With the exception of the Cars franchise, I look forward to Pixar movies. Brave however seemed like a typical Disney princess movie. But instead of ending like one, Brave is widely campaigned as being different. I however feel that it should have had a Disney ending, since there are so many Disney elements in it already.

Brave is set in Scotland, in an unknown era. It tells of a kingdom’s princess choosing a suitor for her betrothal. And as you’ve guessed, the princess rebels against her insisting mother and refuses to marry prematurely. My main contention is that a Pixar movie of the past would have dealt with the issues in this story with more depth, gravity and seriousness. In Brave, a bear bites off the King’s leg, and all we hear are jokes and light hearted moments about it. The evil wicked witch was more comic relief than a character.


True, as a guy, the premise of girl power wasn’t intended for me, but to be totally disengaged? Sure the jokes were funny, but clearly Brave lacks the character development Pixar is so adept at. In fact there were categorically only two adequately developed characters, Princess Merida and her Queen mother, and no one else.


I can’t rate this on behalf of women and adolescent girls, but this is a no-go for male cartoon fans. 3/10. I wish Disney would stop meddling in Pixar’s strong suits.

Initiative: An Abused Word

Initiative. n. The power or ability to begin or to follow through energetically with a plan or task; enterprise and determination.

It's such a positive word. But in the workplace, I've only seen it used negatively. Too many "they should take the initiative" or  so and so "... lacks initiative". It doesn't happen to me, but I've sympathized with many a victim. It's the boss's lazy way of saying, 'You should do more work'. I hope that in time this word could become productive and supportive again.