What to watch? ~ 2016 movies: December

It's the last month of the year! But wait, before we put our attention to the 2017 movies, there are still some movies in December that look pretty interesting. Below are some of them that caught my attention. It's almost new year but I hope I'm not too late to share this. Check them out below.


1) Sing

Release date: Dec. 2, 2016
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Seth MacFarlane, Tori Kelly, Nick Kroll, John C. Reilly

There are quite a few trailers for this movie and I must say that all of them look super entertaining, and the variety of music that were featured in those trailers definitely will help in getting people's attention to the film. It looks like the animated animal version of American Idol where the characters in the film compete in a singing competition. Singing competition is definitely popular in pop culture so I think the film hopes to capitalize on that as well. It does looks like it has a good and uplifting story of overcoming hardship, so I hope the movie will not only be fun but inspiring too.

Watch Sing trailer here.


2) La La Land

Release date: Dec. 9, 2016
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, J. K. Simmons, Tom Everett Scott, Finn Wittrock, Meagen Fay

Here's another musical but this time it's not an animation but a live action musical film, which I must admit I don't normally watch in cinema but La La Land does intrigued me with it's fabulous trailers; the songs, the settings and the cast look amazing. The film received universal acclaim from critics and had won numerous awards with tons of nominations. It is also currently seen as a front runner for the Oscars. Quite the buzz, right? I'm considering to check this out at the cinema when it is released in my country.

Watch La La Land trailer here.

The Amazing Race Asia Season 5 Winners!

Parul (left) and Maggie

Congratulations to Maggie & Parul for winning the 5th season of The Amazing Race Asia! These beauty queens not only powered through all the challenges and finished the race first but also made history by making the contestants of the Philippines to win the TV reality competition for two consecutive seasons (season 4 of the show also won by contestants from the Philippines). Good job girls!

I really enjoyed this new season of the TV show, partly because it has been awhile since we had a new season, but even on its own, season 5 is a really good and entertaining season. It has interesting contestants, showcasing beautiful and unique places in Asia, and also contained some pretty challenging tasks as well as some heartbreaking moments for the contestants. I had missed an episode for this season (in which I will try to catch the re-run of it as soon as I could possibly can) but overall I can say that I'm very entertained and pleased with season 5 of The Amazing Race Asia.

While I pretty much enjoyed this new season, I also have some criticisms. First of all, they eliminated a team way too early, and I'm not talking about the end of Leg 1 of the race. They eliminated a team after the very first task of the season which is a pretty cruel thing to do in my opinion. If they don't have the budget for 11 teams, they should have make it a 10-team race from the beginning.

Another criticism is about the countries that they visited, they were only South-East Asian countries. I think they should of at least bring the contestants to one country outside of the Asia region. Or if they couldn't afford it, it could be one of the countries in Asia but outside of the South-East Asia region like Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, India or Sri Lanka. But in their defense, it's a pretty tough economy in 2016 so they might have less budget for this season than they used to.

Anyway, I hope we don't have to wait few more years for another season of The Amazing Race Asia. It has been a great season and I hope they could keep the momentum going by making a new season every year, or perhaps every other year if they couldn't secure enough fund to make it an annual thing.

Before I end this post, I would also like to congratulate Yvonne & Chloe from Malaysia (Malaysia Boleh!) and Eric & Rona from the Philippines for making it into the finale and getting second and third place respectively. A pat in the back is also due to all the people behind the scenes for this great season as well. You all have done a great job so well done!

Yvonne (left) and Chloe

Rona (left) and Eric

Images from the official The Amazing Race Asia website.