ELAINE Te's life is almost like a scene out of a superhero action movie: By day, she's a white-coated research technician, but once dusk falls, the coat comes off and she turns into 'Wonder Girl'.

WITH National Day around the corner, August is a month of reflection on identity and nationhood - and a couple of curators are tapping into the mood with politically charged exhibitions. Valentine Willie Fine Art puts up 'Beyond LKY' for the second instalment of its 'Singapore Survey' series, while Objectifs looks at the 'myth' of nationhood with 'M.M. I Love You!'.

MOST art lovers are familiar with Singapore's contemporary art but are unaware that a group of pioneer artists had paved the way for today's contemporary artists. And too many artists in this group, according to Aniele Rahardj, director of art gallery Sbin Art Plus, have been forgotten.

WHEN American artist Trenton Doyle Hancock stepped off his plane at Changi Airport, he didn't just see Singapore as a clean and green country, he saw Singapore as a clean, white sheet of paper, a whole new world for him to explore and to be inspired by.

IT'S understandable that Precious has arrived at local multiplexes about six months after its North American release. It's an anti-feel-good movie - and definitely not one that is likely to pack the house, given its uncomfortable subject matter of poverty, domestic abuse and incest. Hold the popcorn and soda - this is not the sort of movie that goes down well with cinema snacks.

A DEVASTATING earthquake in northeastern China exactly 34 years ago serves as the historic backdrop for Aftershock, a film that effectively dramatises an event of cataclysmic proportions by following the fictional story of a family torn apart in the wake of the disaster.

DRAWING inspiration from French New Wave cinema, American-born Chinese director Arvin Chen's feature-length debut, Au Revoir Taipei, is an entertaining and playful take on an arthouse genre that's cunningly reworked into a breezy romantic comedy.

RECORD labels are often exemplified by key artists. Stevie Wonder embodied Motown, for example. Fusion jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth is a key face of Moonjune Records, which is run by Holdsworth's manager, Leonardo Pavkovic.

WHAT do food and yoga have in common? Hardly anything, apart from being Emmanuel Stroobant's two passions. But for the local celebrity chef, he sees a link between yoga and what he foresees as the future of food.

WHEN you make science-fiction gaming fans wait a dozen years for a sequel, pent-up frustration usually results in an extreme reception, which explains the tears and cheers that 10,000 local fans greeted StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty with on Tuesday.

AT the risk of being tiresome, I want to return to the subject of Chablis, the white burgundy which quite likely does not even exist in the vocabulary of many a wine lover here - and possibly in the rest of Asia.