RIP - Artists that left us in 2009

A tribute to some of the artists that left us in 2009.

26th June - Michael Jackson

Share with you my favourite MJ song:




2nd Dec - Eric Woolfson from Alan Parsons Project

Quoting Eric's Facebook profile:

"We are very sad to have to tell you that Eric Woolfson passed away in the early hours of this morning after a long and brave battle with cancer. He very much enjoyed seeing all your kind comments and posts on this Facebook page and his family wanted to thank you for your appreciation of his work."

Eric Woolfson was the main songwriter of the Alan Parsons Project. He also played keyboards and sang on a good amount of tracks, like "Eye In The Sky", "Time", "Don't Answer Me" among some others.

Days are Numbers (Time Traveler) song is my favourite, pardon the lousy video:



14th Sep - Patrick Swayze

One hit wonder from the movie Dirty Dancing



6th Aug - John Hughes

I grew up watching alot of his works, which are synonymous with the 1980s teen movies. My personal favourite from him is Ferris Bueller's Day Off, other notable ones include Uncle Buck, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Home Alone.

Found this video clip made by a fan as a tribute to John Hughes:

Mary and Max

Mary and Max is not your typical Disney, Pixar cutesy kiddish cartoon. It is a clay animation production, similar to the what we have seen in Wallace and Gromit and Chicke Run.

The film is directed and produced by a talented Australian Adam Elliot and it won the feature film award in the 2009 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

It is a touching story recounting the penpal relationship between Mary, a 8 year old girl from Australia and Max, an Asperger's suffering 44 year old man from New York. Asperger syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder, and people suffering from it has difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.

You may wonder what's so special about a story about this young girl and an old man and how interesting can it be but under the creative hands of the director, he was able to pen this story of a pen-relationship between two very different people with such a big age gap and from different continents. The story touches on many issues revolving friendship, psychiatry, trust and much much more.

I'm really glad I watched this, not sure if it was shown in the local cinmeas or not cos it was released in April this year, either I missed it or there wasn't much publicity or reviews.

I googled the director Adam Elliot and found out that he won a Best Animated Short Film Oscar back in 2003 for another clay-animated film titled Harvey Krumpet. I will definitely get the DVD.

Oh ya forgot to mention the casts of Mary and Max, the production feature credible Australian stars like Toni Collette and Eric Bana. In Harvet Krumpet, Geoffrey Rush was the voice over for the main character.

Pixar's Up

"Up" is Pixar's 10th feature animation film and I watched it the 2nd time recently en-route to Sydney.

Some critics and fans said that "Up" is not as nice compared to some of its previous productions but personally I like it very much. I would say it is my top 3 favourite Pixar cartoons alongside with Monster Inc and Finding Nemo.

For the first 10 minutes, I can't stop myself tearing even when watching it on the small screen on the plane. I can't remember if I did the first time I watched it in the cinema a few months back but despite it being a cartoon, the film subtly brings out its sentimental side.

The film has a great soundtrack too, really enjoyed the tracks done by Michael Giacchino.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

Watched this Japanese cartoon Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea on New Year's day.
This Hayao Miyazaki's production is rumoured to be his last project, the master of Japan's animation is 67 years old, dont know if he will still continue to churn out any more wonderful works for us.











The story is about a girl goldfish who tries to escape from her father and got trapped in a bottle. The bottle eventually find its way to a 5 year old boy Sousuke and he kept it as a pet and names the fish Ponyo. Partly adapted from The Little Mermaid, the girl fish has the power and magic to transform herself to a little girl to be with the boy. The story continues from there in many interesting ways.

The animation are mostly hand drawn, something so rare these days where almost everything is computer animated. Ponyo is so cute, with her goldfish like chubby cheeks.

I also find myself humming to the cute theme song after the show, here's the clip for you to enjoy!