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Sunday, July 10, 2005

The Malaysian Chinese Filmmaking Scene And Its Many Many Obstacles.

EDIT: I didn't specifically pointed out that I was ranting about the Malaysian Chinese filmmaking scene when I first posted it, and not exactly the Malaysian filmmaking scene in general. So yeah, remember, I was ranting more about the Malaysian Chinese filmmaking scene.

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Yup, went to this Q & A session at a film academy today with my dad, and I had the fortune to meet James Lee (top photo), a famous local independant filmmaker who is considered as one of the pioneers of the current Malaysian independant filmmaking movement, and Chan Jin Quan (that's what his name sounds like in Mandarin, I'm not too sure what his actual English name is, bottom pic), a veteran TV actor who had been around from the glory days of Chinese Malaysian television to its fall, and he had managed to stay tough and continued the career he had loved... despite this, he looks really young though.

The local Malaysian filmmaking scene is being discussed today, the industry, the regular cinemagoers, the numerous obstacles and restrictions preventing filmmakers from succeeding, many things, therefore, I'll try to speak out about the numerous things that caught my attention today. There had been many issues in our local film industry that makes aspiring filmmaker like me want to stay overseas instead of here, because I knew that there are more opportunities in, say, Australia, than here. So, enough talk, here are the crucial flaws of our system that leaves me rather apprehensive about pursuing my passion here.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Coping With My Retirement From Fanfiction, Future Plans For Both Writing And Filmmaking.

I am still utterly blown away by the fact that I've finished a fanfic I've spent three years working upon. Post-creativity depression is sure to settle in soon, but I seriously doubt it. Yes, although I'm done with Slam Dunk: Inside Stuff, this is just the beginning. From now on, I will attempt to promote it like I've never before, I'll attempt to make it accessible from anywhere. I'll make sure its URL will be on any anime fanfiction site, search engines and everything else. (insanely active forums are perfect for this)

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Retiring From Fanfiction,

Oh my god! OH MY GOD! I've just finished writing the Slam Dunk: Inside Stuff epilogue! This is nuts! This is insane! I so totally didn't expect this to happen that easily! So soon!

Special thanks to Yuan-Yue for helping me out with the very last line in that chapter. I will upload it soon, once I've done my acknowledgements and stuff.

My fanfiction career is finally over. I'm speechless.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Live-action adaptation of INITIAL D

Despite being an ardent anime follower, the whole Initial D craze didn't hit me a few years ago. I watched the first few episodes and the last few episodes for Initial D Stage 1 (there's seem to be a shitload of seasons...) and despite the horrendous character artwork, it IS an addictive anime, hohoho. Just that I couldn't convince myself to spend that much for the series.

So yeah, I went for the live-action version of Initial Day last night, despite it being directed by the directors of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, I wasn't looking forward to it cos...

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS

Yeap! Managed to go to the national premiere (or was it worldwide?) premiere of Steven Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds', starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning.

So here are my thoughts, I just came back minutes earlier, so pardon me if I don't sound intelligible enough.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

BATMAN BEGINS

Wasn't originally planning to go for a movie today since my very last exam paper is tomorrow, but ended up going. So here's my thoughts about 'Batman Begins'.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Some Random Conversation With Some Random Guy At Some Street.

17th of June, 2004. Friday. Was at Perth city, buying a small cake for someone's birthday. Despite buying merely a small slice of cheese cake, accompanied by two small chocolate muffins, I was given a large box because they ran out of small boxes. Holding the box with both of my hands, I trudged through the busy streets of Perth... and ran into some random bearded guy. I was concentrating mostly on trying to balance the box perfectly so that everything in it could be presentable at night. Our conversation went like this:

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

MR AND MRS SMITH



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Mr and Mrs Smith have been married for 5-6 years (He says that it's five, she says that it's six), and they are pretty bored with their domestic lives. However, they are both assassins, and they've been hiding this from each other successfully throughout their marriage until they were finally sent to kill each other. Dum dum dum.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

The Injustices Of My University Life.

Imagine this:

You're a university student, and this is the final semester of your course. You have been studying pretty hard to ensure the fact that you can graduate in time. Now, there's this girl (whom I will refer only as Miss O as I don't like to name names much), an acquaintance you knew back in your college in Malaysia, who had just came to Perth during the beginning of this semester, who isn't really pretty, in fact, she resembles a weasel, but that is not the point. What she likes to do is to hassle you weekly, begging and pleading for you to lend her the notes you have done for your Marketing Law subject, and better, she begs and pleads for the answers of the tutorial questions because, for reasons that can never be comprehended, she seems perfectly incapable of doing her homework without relying on you.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

THE LONGEST YARD and A LOT LIKE LOVE

As I've mentioned in my previous entry, I was planning to go for a rom-com today, 'A Lot Like Love' cos' I figure that 'The Longest Yard' would be funner to see with other people.

However, when I reached the cinema, 'The Longest Yard' was just about to start while 'A Lot Like Love' had started for ten minutes, so I went for the former. After finishing it, I figured that 'Bah, I can just sneak into 'A Lot Like Love' without anyone noticing and save myself the $6.50'... and that's what I did. Hah, I think I might start doing this in the future, for the sake of ahem, saving more money.

So, here are my reviews for the two films.

THE LONGEST YARD

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Adam Sandler's latest film. I always felt that Adam Sandler's films are pretty solid, despite the mauling he usually gets from critics (Little Nicky is the only Adam Sandler flick I haven't seen though), and '50 First Dates' is a romantic comedy I enjoyed immensely last year (I think it was in my top ten of 2004). And Chris Rock's in it too! With this comedic duo, things would be really funny, right?

To my surprise, this is a more serious film than I've originally expected. Yeah, there are some funny scenes, but overall, this is not a laughfest, especially when a major character actually dies in the film. Whoa.

'The Longest Yard' is about a former NFL star (Sandler) who got thrown into jail after wrecking his girlfriend's car, and when in prison, he has to assemble a team to play against the guards in a game where they were 'fixed' to lose. So it's another one of those generic underdog films where you get to see a bunch of likable misfits facing impossible odds to achieve glory... well, I happen to be a sucker for such films, so yeah, I enjoyed it.

There are cameo roles of WWE wrestlers like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Kevin Nash (both as the evil guards), and Goldberg (as a player in Sandler's team, his role in the movie is way more likable than his wrestling persona). And the wrestlers, technically being 'actors' for years, did pretty well in the film. Nash turned out to be really, really funny. Guy seems to have acting skills not seen during his days as a wrestler in WCW and WWE. Ah man, I would've liked seeing Austin and Goldberg's characters facing off in the film, unfortunately, that didn't happen cos' Austin's character seemed to focus more on tormenting Nelly (guy was okay in his role too).

So yeah, if you're into Adam Sandler films and underdog type films, go ahead and check this out. Won't really waste your time. It's entertaining, just don't expect anything more than this.

Now, for the second film...

A LOT LIKE LOVE

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This romantic comedy stars Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet as the protagonists, Oliver and Emily, and follows their relationship in a span of 7 years where they spend most of the time navigating between the line of friendship and romance. There are numerous chance encounter and abrupt separation throughout the film.

All in all, despite its attempt to be more mature and serious than most of its peers, it's still a pretty unremarkable romantic comedy that failed to grip me that much emotionally, but one thing it succeed was to make me relate to Ashton Kutcher's character. An idealistic young man who chose to concentrate on establishing a career and put aside his desire to get romantically-involved. That's pretty much the story of my life right now.

'A Lot Like Love' is a rather forgettable film (I can't remember a single line from the film now, even though I've just finished seeing it few hours ago) with a weak script, but Ashton Kutcher deserves more credit for this. (in my opinion, the guy has more range than what Orlando Bloom is showing thus far) Ditto with Amanda Peet. I guess both are decent actors, just that they were given very boring and pointless characters to deal with. I don't really recommend this unless you are desperate for some romantic comedy, even so, I think Ashton's earlier feature this year 'Guess Who?' is more entertaining than this one.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Musing about my soon-to-be concluded fanfiction career.

"I love watching romantic films alone by myself. They make me feel... empty." - me


Holy crap, I've finished writing the final subsection of Slam Dunk: Inside Stuff Episode 22 in two freaking nights. I'm really surprised by how quick I got to finish this, and how simple it ended up becoming since this was supposed to be the most ambitious chapter of them all. Ah well.

So, this means that there's only the epilogue left for me to write. And once Slam Dunk: Inside Stuff is done, I will finally be able to do what I've actually set out to do when I started this fanfic nearly three years ago: to retire from fanfiction. When I finished writing that chapter last night, I had this weird tingling feeling within me. And I tried scanning through the chapter over and over again, wondering whether they are any necessary changes that have to be made.