There's a hit local movie The Maid -- it's earned about S$1,160,000 since its release last week, a record for local productions. The movie's obviously been very warmly received, and has been picked up for release in the United States; more, there are rumors that Brad Pitt's production company wants to do an American remake already. It's thought the movie might be the breakout for the Singaporean film industry. The movie's marketers went around some of the suburban areas yesterday distributing flyers to actual maids, who'll be admitted free Sunday. The thought was to give them something personal to enjoy on their day off.
The Maid is a horror movie about Rose, a Singaporean maid, who during the Hungry Ghost Month, that is, September, who stumbles across the gate to hell (which opens this month, so that spirits walk the earth). As the festivities in Singapore progress she's tormented by a mutilated boy, a faceless woman, all sorts of horrors. Her thoughtful employers urge her to grin and bear it, or risk losing her job and her brother.
Maybe the marketing department can go on to give free screenings of The Johnstown Flood to New Orleans refugees.
In ongoing hurricane news, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has announced the establishment of a Gulf Coast Visiting Scholars Program, which will accept up to 100 students who'd been enrolled in Tulane University or the Xavier University of Louisiana, and provide them the fall semester without tuition or room and board or student fee charges. It's a noble sentiment, but taking people whose lives have been ruined by the hurricane and setting them to live in Troy, New York, for four months? But I kid the 'tute ...
(There's no connection between the subject line and anything in the entry today; I just couldn't think of any songs even faintly appropriate, so went for one I heard during the day. It actually was an interesting cover, not quite one I've ever heard before, playing at Centrepoint mall.)
Trivia: Doctors hired to tend English King George III's illness in 1789 were paid £30 for each visit to Winsor Castle and £10 for each visit to Kew Palace. Source: George III, Christopher Hibbert.
Currently Reading: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, Barbara W Tuchman.