Paul Auster's IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS, William Gibson's NEUROMANCER, Sue Grafton's A IS FOR ALIBI and Kate Atkinson's NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

Yes, I read a lot. Yes, I used to be a fairly fast reader. Devouring one book after another. But things have changed, busy with my filmmaking endeavours, I can only read a rare book a week, and mostly for the Popular Literature and Science Fiction unit I'm doing now.

I'm still fucking pissed that my previous attempt of posting my reviews of the four books I've finished reading disappeared just like this. Poof! 'Blog can't be found' eh? Fuck you, Blogger, fucking you fucking piece of shit for fucking making my fucking post disappear like this, you fucking shit fuckwit. I'm more fucking pissed that the string of profanities I used will be useless except for venting my frustration. If Blogger were a person, I would fucking bash it to a bloody pulp with a fucking spiked baseball bat, if Blogger were a pregnant woman, I would insanely plunged my hand deep into her belly and rip out the fetus.

So, I'm attempting this again. But unlike before, I won't be posting book covers of them. If you are that interested, just click the freaking title and you'll get to view its info on amazon.com yourself.

A GOOD WOMAN starring Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johansson and Tom Wilkinson

I NEED to put Scarlett Johannson on the subject title even though her role in this film is arguably smaller than Helen Hunt's (who plays the title role) because most Malaysians have jumped into the Scarlett bandwagon recently thanks to 'The Island', which flopped in the US but did surprisingly good business overseas.

I was at Perth City, doing some location scouting for my next film before I was gripped by boredom and gave in to my temptation to see a movie at the cinemas. Not Red Eye or Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, mind you, cos' they are too expensive, I was at this small cinema which plays older films, and arthouse films with tickets half the price of your usual multiplexes.

Hey Fandom, Up Yours!

It's not often that I feel so in sympathy with one of Swifty's posts that I feel it calls for an immediate followup on essentially the same theme. However, the last one calls for it.
I've never had much tolerance for "fans" of anything. This isn't to imply that I've never been so overawed by something that I haven't sung its praises in exorbitant, losing-your-shit-like-a-schoolgirl-with-her-first-period fashion. Far from it; in fact I'd distrust someone who never confessed to being blown away (see: people who think they can write but have never read anything, people who want to make films but only watch Hollywood). However, I've never seen the point of identifying yourself so strongly with any one artwork or belief, cause or culture. Simply put: it's reductive. Say someone says they're a furry. Well, what the hell else are they - a Republican? How can anybody tell, there's no way to see the forest for the fursuits.

Just to break it down more, here are some "fandoms" which particularly raise my ire:

Intend to do a Malay-language lo-fi sci-fi film.

Yeap, spent the past few days developing ideas for my next project, and have finally done so today. It's confirmed, my next film will be a black and white, LOW BUDGET sci-fi film in MALAY. (I would've done a French film, or an Aramaic film, but I am too patriotic)

Won't reveal too much of the storyline, but Jean-Luc Goddard's 1965 sci-fi classic Alphaville (a film he shot in modern-day Paris with a shoestring budget) and some famous Malaysian folklore will be the main inspiration for this one. Once again, will attempt to send this to film festivals around the world once it's done.

Actually, how many Malaysian sci-fi movies have been done before? I can only remember this XXray thingie I watched when I was a kid which had this invisible guy and some woman in an alien spaceship. Tried running a search for this on Google, no luck.

Historical Events That Happened On 31st August. The Reliability Of History Books.

And thus, National Day has arrived. To Malaysians, 31st of August is a day of joyous celebration and display of bandwagoning patriotism. Celebrate of what? Independence? Independence from what? The Brits?

Ironically, a day of joy in Malaysia happens to be a day of sorrow of our former rulers as 31st of August also marks the day of Princess Diana's death eight years ago. The birth of a nation, the passing of the princess of hearts, both on the same day.

Curious to know what other historical events have happened on this day, I went to Wikipedia to seek answers. And here are the more interesting ones:

What Will Happen If Malaysian Independence Was Never Achieved?

A thought-provoking conversation left me curious, and perhaps an idea for an alternative reality novel or a movie.

My desired film adaptation of the Hang Tuah vs Hang Jebat folklore

Two days away from National Day, I shall join the patriotism bandwagon keep with the flow and make the entries of the next few days Malaysian-centered even though I am in foreign soil.

I've always wanted to make a Hang Tuah movie because they are accessible to Malaysian audiences. After all, anyone who didn't forget about their secondary education can definitely remember this guy, and the release of high-profile Puteri Gunung Ledang last year helped too (though by how much, I don't know). So yeah, the most effective method for me to sell out is to make a movie about this famous folk hero. To those who are unaware of Hang Tuah, here's his info from Wikipedia.

This is my 'Malaysian Dilemma'

National Day is drawing near (31st of August), so it's obvious that the lovefest for Malaysia is going strong in the blogosphere. Definitely the best moment to display your inner patriot, aye? Many people have been blogging about social problems faced in our country recently, really big, heavy, major stuff that involve politicians, the trends of the nation and the mentality of people nationwide.

I am still at Perth, so I've not been following the Malaysian news that much. (over here in Australia, people are more concerned with er, Corby) So what can I say about Malaysia to display my sheer patriotism? Join the bandwagon and diss Xiaxue for dissing KL? Oh puh-lease, I don't even consider her important enough to be bothered by her opinions.

So I shall tell you a tale of what happened to me not too long ago.

Fantasy-genre bandwagoners...

It's funny how many people are reading fantasy books these days. Who should we thank? Harry Potter? Or Frodo Baggins? Whenever I was at a bookshop back in Malaysia, I see a group of people gathering before the Lord of the Rings books, explaining the history of elves and dwarves, then exchanging insults in Elvish.

Revision of Kirksman87's "A Hundred Dollars"

My comments in bold. Kirksman87's in regular text.

The brilliance of Yasunari Kawabata

At first glance, Yasunari Kawabata wouldn't seem to fit the conventions of a Nobel-prize winning author. He doesn't overreach for big themes, he doesn't make grand pronouncements about the human condition or the inevitability of war and discrimination; and his prose style (at least in English translation - I've tried reading the original Japanese and it ain't easy) is lucid and free of fancy diction. None of his books are intimidating, plus-sized tomes crammed with psyche-penetrating monologues and dissections of the spirit - far from it, in fact: you could read most of them in a day, or a couple of hours if you're fast. There are few large, decisive gestures: Kawabata's characters don't embrace life so much as stand outside of it looking vaguely perplexed and distant.

T.M. Umar's "avant-garde" tale of revisiting Malaysian Independence through time-traveling

On Thursday, August 25th, 2005, Edmund Yeo sent me T.M. Umar's script-story "The 50's Project" with the intention that I would edit and/or critique it. I set to the task with aplomb, only to find that the text consisted of nothing but implausible dialogue in the service of some kind of time-travel plot to discover the origins of Malaysia. There was nothing of narrative or grammatical interest. Faced with my assignment yet unable to continue reading, the only thing I could do was apply William S. Burroughs' cut-up technique to the text, interspersed with any random observations that Umar's subliterate nonsense prompted in me. The results are as follows. T.M. Umar's text is represented in regular font. My comments are represented in bold. The original text is presented mostly in excerpts, as to inflict its full length on readers would be an unpardonable offense.

Amusing incident while watching Pang Ho Cheung's AV

AV stands for adult video, which is pornography. AV is also the name of a HK film this year by Edmond Pang, who is part of the HK New Wave responsible for such wonderful black comedies like 'You Shoot I Shoot' (about professional killers trying to film their tasks for the entertainment of their clients) and 'Men Suddenly In Black' (adulterous husbands trying to cheat on their wives, filmed like a slick suspense triad/cop thriller, with the husbands being the gangsters and the wives being the cops).

Creative works that made me want to LIVE

It has come to my attention, mostly through the previous post, that Eliar Swiftfire has been suffering from the ever-traumatic post-creative depression. Being familiar with this myself, I have decided to alleviate the condition by posting a list of all the creative works that have ever made me want to LIVE. Seeing as I'm a pretty negative guy, it's taken a while to get this much. If any of disagree with any of this you probably have bad taste (kidding), but prove me wrong by posting your own shit in reply.

A wave of melancholy...

The wave of melancholy that assaulted me since I've finished my short film, 'Forced Labour', continues.

After Sending My Short Film To Tokyo, I Suffer From Painful Post-Creativity Depression.

Post-creativity depression is a painful feeling. You feel empty and depressed because you've finally completed something you've been working on for ages. I had this feeling when I finished the first version of Forced Labour almost four months ago. And that lasted for almost a week.

What Nationality is my film?

Okay, I've pretty much finished editing my short film, 'Forced Labour', the only thing giving me fits now is the end credits. Having some problems as I realized that most of the characters (in fact, all but one) are nameless, so how the hell are audiences going to know if I put the names of the characters (yeah, they have names in the script) next to the names of my cast members?

Or perhaps I'll just stick with a simple 'Featuring', and then followed by names of my cast members? Decisions, decisions.

Have to get this done as soon as possible so that I can send it to this Internet film festival in Japan, followed by numerous other film festivals I can think of. However, there has been something that's been bothering me for quite a while.

Which country is my short film representing?

Is it a Malaysian film? Or is it an Australian film?

An Amusing Email Regarding Fanfiction.net's New Rule. The Uselessness Of Online Petitions.

I received this email yesterday.

My Very First Acting Audition

It was a quarter past two, Swifty wandered down the empty corridors of the Education and Humanities building in his university, searching for 'TELEVISION Studio B', the place where the audition was going to be held. He was not nervous, even though this was the very first audition he had been to.

WEDDING CRASHERS

It has been two weeks since I last saw a movie at the cinemas, two long weeks devoid of movies, leaving my soul hungry and empty. My soul craves for movies, and without movies, it withers.