Movies You Must See Before You Grow Up

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It has recently dawned upon me that this is the perfect time for me to introduce you to some of the movies that defined my childhood. I'm a bit of a film buff – movies are my thing – so I'm really excited to do this and introduce you to the worlds of Marty McFly, Jar Jar Binks and Forrest, Forrest Gump.

Sandy and Selina finished the Back to the Future series the other week, and we were all really sad that hoverboards had not been invented yet. Technically, Marty travelled to 2015, so I don't know about you but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for hoverboards in two years. Sandy even wrote a short blog post and Selina an essay about how much they loved the film.

These past few weeks, I've racked my brain, as well as the brains of my mum and sister, to come up with a list of movies that you absolutely must watch before you grow up. And if you're grown up and haven't watched them, then there's no better time to start!

• Back to the Future I
• Back to the Future II
• Back to the Future III
• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Star Wars IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars V: The Empire Strike Back
• Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
• Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
• Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
• Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
• Jurassic Park 
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Jurassic Park III
• Die Hard
• Die Hard 2
• Die Hard with a Vengeance 
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
• Grease
• Mary Poppins
• The Sound of Music
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
• The Princess Bride
• Big
• Forrest Gump
• Dirty Dancing
• Babe
• Ghostbusters
• Jaws
• Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the old one)
• The King and I
• Clueless
• Sister Act
• The Wizard of Oz
• Superman 
• Superman II 

A few personal favourites:

• Forrest Gump (again)
• It's a Wonderful Life
• My Fair Lady
• Singin' in the Rain
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Romeo + Juliet
• The Truman Show
• Groundhog Day
• House of Flying Daggers
• Hero
• Gone with the Wind
• The Snowman

Comedy:

• Rush Hour 
• Rush Hour 2
• Beverly Hills Ninja
• Flubber
• Mrs. Doubtfire
• Hook
• Bean

And of course:

• Everything Disney
• Everything Pixar 
• Everything Hayao Miyazaki

Now children, go forth into the world, and may the force be with you.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary

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At long last, the Day of the Doctor is upon us. After half a century of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, today, November 23rd, 2013, is the 50th anniversary of the British science-fiction TV show Doctor Who, the longest-running science-fiction TV show in the world ever!

Obviously, I am terribly biased because I am a die-hard Whovian (a Doctor Who fan), but I simply could not let this opportunity pass by without writing at least a short blog post to acknowledge the other 50th landmark (besides JFK's assassination) this year. I have been waiting for this day for some time now, and it appears the Internet has been as excited as I am. There's been a big bang in Doctor Who stuff in the past two weeks after the BBC launched a Build the TARDIS site, which collects all the information tagged with the hashtag #SavetheDay. Check it out, it's very "cool," as the Eleventh Doctor would say.

Yesterday was a very Who day for me, starting from when Selina told me about the Google 'Whodle'. Without Selina, I'd never have realized that Google had done a doodle to celebrate one of my favourite TV shows turning 50 years old! I absolutely love that it was Selina who told me – it was a complete full circle/Who-esque moment. I introduced her to Doctor Who, and she would in turn tell me about the 'Whodle'. This is turning out to be a lot like a Doctor Who episode. No? Then "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," as the Tenth Doctor (AKA, my Doctor) would say.

Naturally, when I got home, I ran, got exterminated by Daleks, deleted by Cybermen and zapped back in time by the Weeping Angels and regenerated more than a few times. I was able to finally save the Google logo and defeat the Daleks – as the Doctor always does – and see all 11 Doctors united and rejoicing:

For reference, here's what the 11 Doctors look like:

And here is a video celebrating the 50 years, featuring all 11 Doctors in costume (Let me know if you want to talk Easter Eggs in the vid):

And a little bit of an introduction about Doctor Who from author Neil Gaiman for any new potential Whovians amongst my students (ahem, Sandy):

No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed 'cause he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch 'Blink'.

Continuing my Who celebrations – and because they didn't know who the Weeping Angels are and what they are capable of – Selina, Sandy and I then followed Neil Gaiman's advice and watched "Blink" together yesterday. It was creepy and "fantastic!" as the Ninth Doctor would say.

Anyway, this blog post has turned into me dashing about being really excited about "The Day of the Doctor" (and trying to insert as many Doctor Who references as possible). "The Day of the Doctor," the 50th anniversary special episode, is going to air this Sunday (11/24) at 3:50 AM in Taiwan on BBC Asia. Before you ask, yes, I will be up at the unearthly child hour.

Now some links to cool Doctor Who stuff done by our own:

• Selina has written two wonderful blog posts about two episodes that we watched together – "Father's Day" and "The Girl in the Fireplace."
• On the other hand, I have written a post on my other blog about my favourite episode of each season of the new Doctor Who.

That's all for now. Until then, you'll find me eating fish fingers and custard in the little shop – I love a little shop! Now, onto the TARDIS and to 23.11.13 we go! Geronimo! Allons-y! RUN!

P.S. Spoilers! I am going to be geeking out all of next week.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween all you witches, vampires, zombies, ghosts, werewolves and creepy creatures of the underworld!

You may have noticed that this blog has had a tiny bit of a makeover for pumpkin season. (Selina, please tell me what kind of irony I just used in the previous sentence.) For now, this blog will remain this way until we are done with all our creepy Halloween festivities this week!

Although Taiwan doesn't celebrate Halloween with trick-or-treating, we can still get into the holiday spirit with a few freaktastic videos. To get things rolling (over in the grave), let us start with the wonderfully iconic theme song of The Addam's Family.



Followed by Vincent, one of the first films done by Tim Burton, master of mystery and horror, when he was working at Disney. This short film is loosely based on Tim Burton's own life!



Speaking of Tim Burton, this is the Halloween a song from the essential Halloween movie – The Nightmare Before Christmas.



If that made you howl like a werewolf, cackle like a witch or crawl like a spider (happy, in other words), check out this amazing Halloween light show set to the same song:



And of course, no Halloween video post would be complete without the King of Pop's most famous song.



Have a spooktacular day!