Cultural Uniqueness or Stereotypical Caricature?

"But as I think of the many myths, there is one that is very harmful, and that is the myth of countries. I mean, why should I think of myself as being an Argentine, and not a Chilean, and not an Uruguayan. I don't know really. All of those myths that we impose on ourselves - and they make for hatred, for war, for enmity - are very harmful. Well, I suppose in the long run, governments and countries will die out and we'll be just, well, cosmopolitans." - Jorge Luis Borges, 1980

Whilst attending a seminar organized by the Sin Chew Jit Poh Newspaper last year, where two acclaimed Malaysian filmmakers, James Lee and Tan Chui Mui, were featured as guests, one thing that left the deepest impression for me was when they started speaking about how some people, both the authorities and the filmmakers, have been trying too hard to produce a film with a 'distinct Malaysian feel', thus limiting the boundaries of creativity. After all, must all Malaysian films feature people speaking Manglish? (to proclaim proudly to people of other countries our sheer ineptitude with the English language?) Must all Malaysian films feature mamak stalls and coconut trees? Why, because Malaysia is all about mamak stalls and coconut trees? And that without these, Malaysian isn't Malaysia anymore?

Is height an issue in relationships?

Well, haven't been able to go online due to the fact that I can't reload my Internet quota (it's one of the biggest annoyances about staying on-campus, the lack of unlimited Internet connection). It's Easter weekend, and I assume everyone's probably celebrating by slaughtering bunnies for fun. Hah.

Anyway, I'm currently developing two screenplays for two short films that will be done by this all-Malaysian girls screen production group I've volunteered to help (oh, and Kenny Sia's cousin happened to be one of them, small world huh?). I've already written one called 'A Mother's Love', which deals with a man who is still dealing with the grief of losing his wife, and also trying to bond with his son, who seems oblivious to the death of his mother. And then, the man's asthmatic attackes are also growing increasingly violent. Since this IS written by me, the entire short film takes a pretty cruel twist towards the end which will leave people shaking their heads in disgust after losing their meals. Of course, it's a matter of whether it will be translated well onscreen.

I am now starting work on a second screenplay for the group called 'Vertical Distance', which I have to examine how important a role heights can play in a relationship. As in, will guys go out with gals taller than them? Will gals go out with guys shorter than them? If yes, why? If no, why?

Koda Kumi's 4-part music video miniseries: YOU, FEEL, LIES, SOMEDAY

While speaking about using music videos to inspire myself when planning the visual looks of a film, I posted Koda Kumi's 倖田來未 beautifully shot 'You' music video because I was amazed by it. But most of all, I was really intrigued by the fact that it unfolded like a short film (I'm pretty into plot-driven music videos, actually), and when I realized that there are continuations to the 'You' music video. I went off to look for them, and I finally did, and arranged them into sequence so that you peeps can the music videos, and get the whole damned thing.

L'Enfant (The Child) by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

L'Enfant (The Child), A French film directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, is Cannes Film Festival 2005's Palm D'or Winner.

Tsotsi by Gavin Hood

Tsotsi, a South African film directed by Gavin Hood, is this year's Oscar winner for Best Foreign film.

Minds Blown Apart By Sigur Ros' Perth Concert

Swifty: Sigur Ros' concert in Perth wasn't something I was looking forward to. After all, the price was rather steep (70 bucks!), and while I appreciated their two albums that I have, () and Takk for their unique-ness and weirdness (it adds to my indie cred), I just never bothered listening to them over and over again. Their stuff are spaced out, indescribable, the main vocalist sings in a language invented by himself, which makes things even more outlandish and crazier to get into.

Finding inspiration in J-pop music videos

Music videos tend to be one of the most overlooked sources of inspiration for aspiring filmmakers. While I tend to avoid those from Hong Kong (too uninspired, bad production values, very generic) and Taiwan (they occasionally have some hot babes, but still too bland for my liking).

I am expected to hand in a visual style report (which illustrates the stylistic approach, setting, design, lighting, wardrobe design and editing) for my upcoming allegorical (hopefully) sci-fi romantic (hopefully) short film, Girl Disconnected, within two weeks, thus I have spent the past two days poring over some films, like the aforementioned Eraserhead, Alphaville and Fellini's 8 And The Half (three vastly different films that use black and white to enhance their surrealism). Yet as my tale emphasizes more on the romance (like I said before, it's pretty much a love story with science fiction elements, because both sci-fi and romance aren't explored by anyone else in my screenwriting class... not surprisingly, considering that Crash's unjust Oscar victory had everyone shifting their attention to developing sociodramas with preachy messages), I need something more emotional for reference, something so lush and romantic that can make me melt whilst silently making mental notes that can aid me in my visual style report.

V For Vendetta

I walked into the cinema with heightened expectations for V For Vendetta, after all, it is the most-talked about Hollywood film in Singapore and Malaysia during the past few weeks. People I know told me it's a cool film, I see people on my MSN list quoting its lines, ranting and raving about Hugo Weaving's coolness, and the reviews I read are generally positive in Rottentomatoes (it scored 75% on the Tomatometer). Until Guestblogger Justin, who saw it few days ago, told me that he was rather disappointed with it, but he was willing to see it one more time with me.

Since it's written by the Wachowski brothers, I thought, even if it might not be the classic Matrix was, it might at least have some fun action scenes of the sequels (bad they may be, the action sequences, to me, ARE entertaining), with some rather thought-provoking questions thrown in for me to ponder. But as I sat through the movie, I realized that, yes, there are some similarities to the Matrix sequels, but unfortunately, not the action scenes, it's the over-the-top, overwrought, sheer pretentiousness, like the Zion rave scene, or the LENGTHY Architect scene, where you wish the film would just move on instead of lingering on something you barely care about. Based on Alan Moore's graphic novel, it was disowned by him as he thought the screenplay was 'rubbish', but then, this guy doesn't really want to have anything to do with every single film adaptation of his works after the disappointments of From Hell and the hellishly bad League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Inspired by awesome Perth artist Shaun Tan

It's been more than two weeks since I've spoken about my upcoming sci-fi short film. But then, come to think of it, I have actually ceased updating this site on a daily basis. Yes, I have been THAT busy. Working on a documentary, battling security forces of the university who are preventing me from shooting my short film in the toilet, and toiling non-stop with my screenplay for the sci-fi short film.

I don't think I have announced it here before, the title of the short film is Girl Disconnected.

If you are new, or you have forgotten about the basic concept of the sci-fi film, well, here's the entry to jog your memory. It was originally meant to be based loosely on this short tale I wrote about the Internet collapsing entirely (or to be more precise, stolen by this evil massive conglomerate called YahooGleSoft) and the heroine, Maya, had to begin a quest to restore the internet to the world. This project managed to evolve much throughout the past 6-7 weeks since its inception. From a mockumentary, it turned into a drama that had elements of romance and satire in it, my musings during the evolution can be read here, and then, in the end, I examined the themes I was playing around with for the Girl Disconnected, which should be the very last entry I wrote about it.

Kenny Sia Appearing In Upcoming Erotic Thriller. Urgh, my eyes.

Disgruntled with Singaporean blogebrity Xiaxue's popularity, Malaysia's very own blogebrity, Kenny Sia (picture below) has promised to appear in my upcoming short film, 'Coconut-breaking Dykes' an erotic thriller which is a combination of the masterpieces, Basic Instinct and Showgirls.

Someone's 2004 April Fool Prank.

This is a (less funnier) April Fool prank I posted on Jpopmusic.com, a popular Japanese music news and gossip page, back in 2004.

Someone's 2003 April Fool Prank.

This is an April Fool prank I posted on famous Jpop news and gossip site, Jmusic.com back in 2003. It was pretty big, got thousand plus hits on that day. Putting it here for archiving reasons.

Spike Lee's Inside Man

Prior to writing this review, my friend Sebastian told me that he had just read about (or heard) an interesting commentary about Inside Man, and that's about every single Spike Lee film sharing a common theme: Power. (My initial guess was racism, or 'white people are bad’, or 'white vs. black'… but then, I was affected by the Talkback section in Ain't It Cool News's film review).

Unfortunately for me, I haven’t actually seen that many Spike Lee films, in fact, He Got Game is the only one I’ve seen (my credibility is immediately destroyed in the eyes of my visitors with this confession), which has Denzel Washington and NBA star Ray Allen in it. But I’ve always been given the impression that Spike Lee films are generally edgy modest-budget productions with one or two big-name cast member attached and take place usually in New York (but then, that's because I haven't seen that many Spike Lee films). I didn’t know a single thing about Inside Man until I saw its poster (and then, the trailer)

Battling The Entire Murdoch Uni Security Force (To Shoot A Scene)

Perhaps you remember me mentioning about wanting to do a short film that takes place entirely in a public toilet two weeks ago. It would've been a masterpiece, shooting would've commenced today, then the craziest shit ever to happen in my brief filmmaking career occured. Being the bad boy filmmaker I am, I had wanted to go on with my project despite not getting the proper permission from the authorities, yet I made a grievous error.

Don Bluth is underrated

It all happened during a conversation I had with Guestblogger Justin when we had dinner just now, about the animator, Don Bluth. Many people have already forgotten about him, all thanks to the evil Disney, and the rise of 3D animation (Pixar's stuff are great, but the Shrek movies are kinda overrated, and we also get such mediocre shit like Robots and A Shark's Tale).

But I remember, during my childhood, Don Bluth's animated masterpieces leave a much deeper impression than Disney films (before they reached the 'second Golden Era' with the likes of Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and Lion King). And therefore, I will now revisit my fond memories of Don Bluth cartoons, which, all of a sudden, I have a strong desire to find their DVDs.

I combined an Australian student short film with Cowboy Bebop dialogue for mashup video

Well, here's another entry to remind you that I AM a filmmaker. Just a couple of days ago, I mentioned that during my editing assignment, I realized common themes found it the majority of my projects, you can now witness the editing assignment for yourself.

Now Everyone Knows My Fear For Dogs

"My hatred for dogs extend to cartoon characters. I hate Goofy and Pluto because they are so freaking annoying. And I think Snoopy's a pretty condescending son of a bitch, even though he IS literally one. And Scooby Doo, goddamn Scooby Doo and his stupid cry, I can't freaking stand him."

"I hate dogs. I am supposed to be a manly man, but they made me seem unmanly, man. They make me feel exposed and vulnerable."

"When I was a toddler, and I wanted to get out of my house, my nanny told me that if I do thus, I would be eaten by dogs. Well, even if I don't believe that I'll be eaten by dogs now, I feel that they can still bite off my fingers easily."

"Crazy rottweilers. I remember reading the news about how this old woman was beaten to death by some crazy rottweiler many years ago, I never looked at the same way again."

"I always thought that by revealing my fear for dogs to a woman, she will appreciate my soft and sensitive side, and hopefully share this trait of mine as well, so that they would invite me home and that we can then... discuss about our mutual fear. Unfortunately, this had never happened."

My creative works seem to share a common theme...

During the editing assignment, a raw footage from a short film is given to groups of two to edit into a watchable short film. The rushes weren't anything special. It's about this guy who works in the filming equipment room at the Media And Communications School of Murdoch University. It was late at night, someone called Monty phones in to book a camera, the main guy complied. Then, suddenly, a hot babe walks in, flirts with him, seduces him into giving her the last camera. Hot babe leaves happily.

David Cronenberg's A History of Violence

When I was in the cinema, many people snickered and giggled during the two much-talked about sex scenes of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, and some wincing and groaning during the second staircase one. I felt that the scenes were pretty over-the-top, but someone in IMDB justified the scenes like this in reply to someone who made a remark similar to mine (and that the sex scenes were entirely unnecessary and slowed down the pacing of the film):

Jeff Lau's A Chinese Tall Story 情癲大聖 is underrated

This film has received some rather mixed reviews, and it did only middling business in the box-office, but knowing that this Jeff Lau film is a quasi-sequel to Stephen Chow's Chinese Odyssey (which was also directed by Jeff Lau), I was looking forward to see this film, and was rather annoyed that I never had the chance to see it when it was showing at the cinemas, nor was I able to find anyone to watch it with me. It was already judged as a shitty film. Perhaps it had to do with the cast. Having guys from Boy'z as the Tang Monk's (Tripitaka) disciples doesn't really help matters. Nicholas Tse's once-promising acting career has been buried by one tabloid news after another, and Charlene Choi? Well, she's from Twinz. What more do I have to say? I can't even name a film which she doesn't annoy me... except, maybe that Andy Lau film last year. That's because SHE DIED IN THE BEGINNING OF THAT FILM.