Some of us get dipped in flat,

some in satin, some in gloss;

but every once in a while,

you find someone who’s iridescent,

and once you do,

nothing will ever compare.

FLIPPED is originally a novel by Wendelin Van Draanen (a note to self to read the book). The movie is told from the points of view of both Juli Baker and the object of her affection Bryce Loski. I watched this a few weeks ago just because I was intrigued by the trailer. In the end I enjoyed it very much, surprisingly bringing up a myriad of emotions in me, sometimes I laughed out loud, there was a moment when I teared and there were also head-shaking-tsk-tsking moments. Here’s a synopsis of the movie:

“Juli Baker devoutly believes in three things: the sanctity of trees (especially her beloved sycamore), the wholesomeness of the eggs she collects from her backyard flock of chickens, and that someday she will kiss Bryce Loski. Ever since she saw Bryce’s baby blues back in second grade, Juli has been smitten. Unfortunately, Bryce has never felt the same. Frankly, he thinks Juli Baker is a little weird–after all, what kind of freak raises chickens and sits in trees for fun? Then, in eighth grade, everything changes. Bryce begins to see that Juli’s unusual interests and pride in her family are, well, kind of cool. And Juli starts to think that maybe Bryce’s brilliant blue eyes are as empty as the rest of Bryce seems to be. After all, what kind of jerk doesn’t care about other people’s feelings about chickens and trees? …” (imdb)

Some people would find the story a bit boring but slice-of-life stories always seem to move me and then catch me by surprise by its beautiful simplicity. Besides I am always a sucker for blossoming young love stories.

Album: Heartbreaker

Artist: G-Dragon

Thoughts: I was very reluctant to dip my toes in the Korean music industry, I’ve had a hard time keeping up with Japanese music releases and there’s a point where listening to songs that you can’t understand doesn’t work for you anymore. It was Clarisse’s pure love *laughs* at DBSK that with trepidation that I listened to boy bands again. Last time I listened to a boy band group was late 90s with Backstreet Boys and N’ Sync at the helm (why do I feel a thousand waves of shame overpower me when I admitted to that?! ).This year has made it nearly impossible for me to go back to my already failing social life with the introduction to fandoms – NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING.

I limit myself to the number of groups that I can fangirl about for K-pop there’s DBSK, Super Junior, 2PM and Big Bang. With DBSK and Big Bang tied for the top place, followed by 2PM then Super Junior.

Heartbreaker is G-Dragon’s (Big Bang’s leader) first solo album! I think that GD is multi-talented and adore his outlandish sense of fashion but Tae Yang has taken the number 1 spot in my Big Bang heart space. Still, I wasn’t really expecting his album to make an impression on me, enough to make a post about it and expose the fangirl side of myself. And trust me, I’ve heard a number of releases this year and they don’t make the “Elle Risks Tarnishing Her Image Because This Album/Single/Mini-Album Is Made Of Awesome” list, and yes, there is a list!

There are a number of reasons why I can’t possibly like this album: first, there’s the excessive use of autotune, I’m still old-fashioned in the sense that I rarely enjoy songs with a lot of post-production touch-ups/technological enhancements; second, I am more of an alternative rock/indie folk type of person pop, hip-hop and RnB are at the bottom of my ear candy ladder, but the lowest rung of all is technopop, also known as night club/trance-inducing music; third, it’s in Korean, I have a hard time reading the lyrics as it is so how can I sing along?!; fourth, call me whatever but I didn’t like the swearing that some songs had, admittedly it wasn’t like in every line of the song, but it wasn’t really necessary because the songs were awesome without the acting tough by not bleeping myself.

Anyway, let’s just continue with my flailing review of the album. According to my iTunes, my most played tracks therefore my favourite tracks are:

♥Heartbreaker - One of the alleged plagiarised songs, an issue where I have zero interest in because “everything has been done under the sun” and with all the similar musical experiences that people share there is a high chance that some songs might sound alike, aside from that who would in their right mind deliberately plagiarise something for their first solo album? That’s like career suicide…oh well, moving on. I liked this song because it’s so catchy and repetition really makes a greater impact, sing it with me You’re my heart, heart, heart, heart, heartbreaker! Not my usual fare but this song is really hard to get rid of once you’ve listened to it. And the music video is just too visually overwhelming for words.

♥ The Leaders (feat. Teddy and CL) – The intro is so cute! Plus GD singing GD Baby Baby! And CL’s rapping’s so awesome. I think it’s because there’s a lot of YG family love on this song that clinched it for me.

♥ Gossip Man – GD does it best with rapping! Like the other songs it’s very catchy and you’ll catch me bobbing my head to the point where I cause myself motion sickness…and I am not making this up!

♥ 1년 정거장 - this song has a different sound, fresher and fun! Not like the other songs, but I still think GD shines more when he’s rapping rather than singing.

♥ Korean Dream (feat. Tae Yang) - This barely made it to the top, because I’ve been distracted by the other songs’ sparkliness. When I heard him say, “Captain GD Sparrow”, I was like, No,GD, NOOO. The only reason why this made it to my top 5 because I would feel I betrayed my allegiance to Tae Yang’s vocals which is just average on this song.

Overall, the album isn’t that brilliant but it ain’t bad either. It just suits diehard fans, and those who have an increased tolerance for music that can induce migraines. And you can really tell all the hard work that GD and team put into this album. Still I liked Tae Yang’s Hot mini-album from last Summer, haha!