HERE AND THERE IN NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009

Two weeks ago, on a Sunday A and I decided to eat fish curry head but the shop that we were looking for was closed (near Public Bank at Kampung Attap) and after roaming around aimlessly, I saw a restaurant in Muzium Negara and decided to give it a try . At 4.00 pm, there were not much food left except curry mee/laksa and rojak. Too hungry to complaint, we ate in silent. Its has been awhile since I have been here, awhile means ages ago, the last if I am not mistaken was during my study years in ITM, i.e being a chaperon to my distant cousins from Saudi Arabia who cannot speak BM and little bit of English... After the late lunch, I persuaded A to take the tour to the whole muzium and to an exhibition which interest me i.e an exhibition from the 'orang asli' called 'Magis Belantara'.

At the entrance of the exhibition

Nope, 'he' did not invite me in...hehe

Yup, the shaman, err .. not him, but at the back...

Ermm..not the Magis Belantara but other sections..memories....

Always the curious one...

Last Saturday, my mother called and asked me to drive her back to Muar...together with A, we reached Muar by 2.00 pm. After eating the infamous 'mee bandung' , A and I went to Tanjung Agas and we were surprised that HotFM was having its last Night Jam Concert for 2009 there... It was one of the biggest concert sponsored by Streamyx and after watching the concert, we left for KL after the concert ended at 12.00am.

Still early, ronda-ronda dulus..

The stage at the back...Ate rojak, keropok lekor and buttered corn, delicious..

The concert started. Pasha, and his band, UNGU among the fav artiste that night

Datok Siti Nurhaliza belted 3 songs, one with all the HotFM DJs as her backup dancers

SOFAZ were to me the best vocal performance for the nite..

Other artistes performing were Alya, Akim, AXL, Sixth Sense, Ahli Fikir, One Nation Emcee and the worse performance of all were from Liana Jasmy..girl you need to go back to learn how to sing or else stick only to acting...

Other than that nothing much except watching movies such as Princess and the Frog which I highly recommended together with AVATAR..yup the Navi's world was actually the highlight of the whole movie... irregardless any dummies can really associate the animals in that world with ours such as dogs, horses, rhinos or birds....yet the technique was magnificiant (espcially you watch it in 3D)... the story so-so, the battle too long...my verdict...a movie that I will watch again with HD DVD. Off course you cant really compared this to TITANIC, the only movie that I watched 4 times in the cinema....Nonetheless AVATAR really has a deep meaning actually...the phrase "I SEE YOU" means something inside you that counts in whatever persona your outer layer would be... Again, if James Cameron said that this is his original story, I beg to differ. The story has a combination of Pocahontas and the animation of Battle For Terra, with regards to greedy invasion, betrayal of your own kind with the right course and love entwined so on and so forth...

By the way..a special thanks to Is for last Saturday's BBQ nite at his house, thanks to Leo, Amri and Panzer for the thang to BBQed, I prepared for the homemade dessert, and drinks and Azrul brought his homemade curry puffs... Shah and Sharul too... We had a blast....the fire crakers of the Ponggol devotees add glamour to our affairs hehe..

ACTIVITIES IN NOVEMBER 2009

With 3 movie animations (watching it 2 days in a row), a few other movies (also 2 movies a day on certain days) plus one live stand up performance and preparing for my next trip to Bali again (the 1st was in 2008) which is scheduled on the 28 Jan till 1 Feb of 2010 were all the activities done in November.

Lets talk about movie animations. Which is the best between these 3 movies i.e Christmas Carol, Planet 51 and Astro Boy? For me, the best movie in terms of storyline, family value, delightful characters and also a movie which does not afraid to address adult themes, then my vote will go to Astro Boy. There's nothing to dislike about this movie albeit it was originally a Japanese mangga cartoon produced in 1938...

Nonetheless, if you want to savour a really visually beautiful animation with jaw dropping detail and movement together with dazzling special effect then my vote will go to A Christmas Carol. If you observed carefully, the mood and colour of the movie is changing from dark and murky into bright and cheerful as the main character i.e. Ebe Scrooge changes into a new person...awesome......

What about Planet 51? This movie is not bad at all..it is just that, the previous two movies are much better in its own categories making this most expensive movie produced in Spain with its $70 million budget fails to compete. Planet 51 is a satirical movie, poking fun at everything with witty and clever humor and some of it I must say not and I repeat not suitable for children yet I am sure adults won't be bored thanks to these jokes.

Grade A list artistes lend their voices in all of these movies. The most significant was non other than Jim Carrey who played so many characters beside the frail and frighten Ebe Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. While in Planet 51, Dwayne Johnson a.k.a The Rock, Jesscica Biel, Justin Long, Sean William Scot, Gary Oldman and John Cleese played their part well. As in Astro Boy, we had the talented boy, Freddie Highmore (I simply love him in August Rush), Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Nathan Lane and more..

Strong yet caring , I love Astro Boy's character.

Two Malaysian were hired as animator and lighting engineer for this movie

The reverse role of who is the alien in this movie...

Next, comes the other 3 movies. Ninja Assassin, Mulan and New Moon. From these 3 movie, the best, despite a mixed review, I still prefer New Moon. Irregardless if it is regarded as not a particularly good movie unlike the last film, taking into account critics for bad acting, the long plot to type up loose ends and its two hours it's also a bit too long, I don't mind....hey its a love story for goodness sake, it captures the agonies and ecstasies of being young and in love (like me, young at heart...I am so will be labeled ASB's..hack!!!).. New Moon has romance, action, excitement and love that has only grown form time apart. The special effects of the wolves were superb but sadly Victoria, the bad vampire was totally underused...hope to see more of her in "Eclipse" which is rumored to be shown six month from now plus and a short but effective performance by Dakota Fanning was a pleasant surprise...

Talking about Mulan, this superb Chinese movie is far from the cutesy Mulan you saw in a Disney cartoon character a decade ago. Played by Zhao Wei, this legendary icon is seen to sprayed with blood on her face after killing a general and a desert king. But again, despite the war and the marvellous action scenes, this is still a love story between Mulan and one of her co-generals...one slack is that, this movie is a bit too long with few unnecessary scenes. Other then that, the acting skills of all especially Zhao Wei is commendable.

Jacyee Chan (behind), son of Jackie Chan acted as a supporting role..

Ninja Assassin.. The title hints at the idea of a highly skilled assassin, working his martial arts skills against high profile individual/government...true but then again the plot does not seem to handle the story well making it into the borderline of a B movie category. People either come to watch this movie because of the director, James McTeigue who is the second director of the Wachowski Brothers of the Matrix's fame i.e for its techniques OR only to see Rain, the Korean singer for his debut in film. For me, I have seen better ninja movies before and this I don't mind giving it a pass. As for the action sequences, even our neighbouring country can deliver such a jaw dropping scenes irregardless of genders, yup our awesome Thais...

So much blood but none on the floor, the normal CGI patchwork..

One Load of Bull Jit: Stories True and False.

Last Saturday, A, Farra (my niece) and myself went to the newly opened PJ Live Arts Theatre in Jaya One to watch the renowned actor and playwright Jit Murad sharing his thoughts on current affairs and idiosyncrasies of Malaysian life in a light and humorous style. This was the second time I watched Jit in action..so I can anticipate his jokes quite well and yet he still delivered his line with punch and gusto...The ticket was priced at RM65 and seen at the PJLA were Jit's buddies, Harith Iskandar, Han Issac, Shanon Shah and few other local artistes. This occasionally crude, usually hilarious and always witty (and at times quite provoking) performance was presented by Dramalab and produced by Datuk Zahim Albakri.

Jit Murad, yea youuu, yea youuuuuuu....

By the way, I enjoying myself listening to Leona Lewis's new album, ECHO... I must say her vocal is more powerful then ever...just like her previous album, all 13 tracks here are gems worth listening over and over again..especially her 1st single BRAVE. But then my favourite will be BROKEN and MY HANDS...pure bliss..

As for my reading material...am reading PATHS OF GLORY, a new novel from my all time best writer, Jeffery Archer..ermm will be finishing soon and waiting after that will be THE HOST by Stephenie Meyer (author of Twilight saga) and URBAN ODYSSEYS - KL Stories - an anthology from our various local writers...

Just bought Gossip Girl's 3rd season...can't wait to watch that too. Ermm..where do I have time for all this...hehehe

Last..am going to Anugerah Skrin tonite...have a nice weekend.. XOXO

PAPADOM IN SPACE???

Nowadays its so easy to buy your ticket to see a movie...sure enough, you can book it online either in TGV or GSC....and like anyone else, my dear brother did the same when he wanted to bring his whole family to watch PAPADOM, the most successfull Malay movie todate which had won The Best Movie during our local Film Festival even before the movie was being shown in the cinemas... And yes, Papadom is a great movie with a comedy family drama kinda thang... A true relationship between a single father and his daughter...yada yada yada...

Online ticketing requires you to select from the screen from your computer inter alia, the date, the time and the movie in which you wanted to see. Once confirmed, you will be given a confirmation number for you to produce while purchasing the ticket at the cinema. My brother did just that. After ticking the date, time and movie, he gave the confirmation number with the money to his eldest son who later went to the cinema to collect 7 tickets. Later that nite, all of them went to the cinema. Entering into the cinema, my brother was impressed with the full house and with so many races came to watch this movie, thinking Afdlin Shauki, the award winning director and actor must have hit the jack pot for this movie i.e box office status... (very the 1Malaysia lah....)

My brother was further impressed when the starting of the movie with the appearance of a flying space ship....thinking again that Afdlin had really spent much money on CGI for his movie with a gimmick and waiting patiently for him and the rest of the cast to appear but BEHOLD...none of it came....THEN REALITY STRUCK....they were not watching PAPADOM but ....jeng jeng jeng PANDORUM, a sci fi action movie. Gone were all the anticipated comedy and touching scene at the end of Papadom and being replaced with the shocking action sequences aka.Resident Evil in space....

The chilling scene

You must know the reason by now...my dear brother had paid a price for wrongly ticked the correct movie during his online booking..well I cant blame him, both movies sound quite the same.. Luckily, PANDORUM was not a bad movie, kinda intriguing actually to compare with the awful 2010..opsss. At least its a English movie. I wonder what will happened to them if its Tamil film, no pun intended for that remark...but just my imagination.... as much as I must imagine my dear brother will have his magnifying glass ready every time he books his next movie online again hehe... And ermm..Afdlin Shauki will cry out loud reading this...why in the hell, PANDORUM appeared at the same time as PAPADOM........urghhhhhhh...


What about 2012 then? A trailer IS INDEED a SPOILER to a movie but again..the movie suck nonetheless...together with its partner, TRANSFORMER 2, The Revenge of The Fallen... I hate things so Americanseque (is there a word for that?) ... the Americansavetheworld kinda thing, purely robotic and no sense of human loss at all... (guyssss!!!!! , go and watch Tsunami, the Korean movie at least...the human touch in the movie can give you misty eyes, no doubt), YES except the CGI, I knowledged that but still such a waste of my RM20 ticket price watching at GSC Signature, The Garden, Mid Valley (less RM1,00 if you use your EON GSC gold card, promo sat....gituuuuuu).... The next anticipated movie will be AVATAR...I don't want to say more, suffice to say...ermm the storyline is kinda klise....see how it goes.......