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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

VIDEO: Weekend In Ipoh 2: Unlocking My Mother's Past


My father, my cousin and I went on a road trip to uncover my mother's past


This is the second and last video of my weekend in Ipoh (first one is here, my mother's hometown. Shot on the 10th of December. Shot mostly when I was in my cousin, Hing Yip's car, as we all went for a brief tour through the city, trying to find the schools my mom had attended during her teenage days. (my mom was at my grandmother's place back then, and we were desperate for some fresh air)

Unlike most of my previous videos, you'll actually get to see a few glimpses of me... doing random stuff and making weird expressions.

To overseas readers, well, now you get to see another part of Malaysia you've rarely seen before, and have I mentioned that Ipoh is also film star Michelle Yeoh's hometown?

The music I used is 'Doot' from, once again, Adrianna Krikl.

Tell me what you think after you've watched it.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

LOVE CONQUERS ALL by Tan Chui Mui

I woke up from my beauty nap yesterday and saw messages on MSN from Suanie asking whether I would like to attend the preview of Love Conquers All, the feature-length debut of Malaysian female director Tan Chui Mui, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last year when she was at a seminar with director James Lee and my dad in the Sin Chew Jit Poh (the country's leading Chinese newspaper) discussion about the Malaysian indie filmmaking scene.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Yasunari Kawabata - The Master of Go


Yasunari Kawabata is a writer I admire immensely. Although perhaps slightly limited in his range of themes and stories, he has a truly world-class sense of technical perfection and stylistic beauty, and the best of his novels and stories (Snow Country and Beauty and Sadness are my favorites, with the excellent Palm of the Hand Stories perhaps being his masterwork) are so satisfying and haunting as to make him unquestionably deserving of his Nobel Prize. Someone (can't remember the source) compared reading a Kurt Vonnegut book to eating an ice cream cone, and if that's true, then a Kawabata book is more like a high-quality Italian gelato - cold, perhaps, but exquisite, and best when served in small portions. At one point I pretty much blindly accepted him as a god; and while after much consideration I've decided Mishima at least equals him, he's still up there for me as one of the masters.

ERAGON

Eragon poster


I had no high hopes for Eragon. All I've hoped for was some campy, silly fun where the filmmakers would choose not to be too faithful to its source material, after all, the source material, the first book of a fantasy trilogy published when author Christopher Paolini was 19 (back in 2003), isn't Lord of the Rings nor Narnia, just a work of a fantasy fan that happened to appeal to many other fantasy fans due to the popular, conventional fantasy elements he had used in his book. In my opinion, it's much better for a filmmaker to not view a source material with so much reverence that he would end up not being able to take the necessary creative liberties that could optimize the quality of the film, we know what might have worked on paper wouldn't have worked onscreen.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

VIDEO: KL's Writer's Circle: Meeting 15-Year-Old Novelist Lim May Zhee And Bibliobibuli Sharon Bakar.


Video of Swifty at KL's Writer's Circle, Meeting Author Lim May Zhee and Sharon Bakar


I attended the KL's Writer's Circle today that was held at the MPH bookshop in 1-Utama shopping mall. I learnt about this event from the blog of Lim May Zhee, a 15-year-old girl who self-published her novel, Vanity Bee this year and made some news. However, as I was still in Perth back then, I was entirely unaware of her until I recently detected a link to this blog from this entry of hers after I came back, where I was credited for inspiring her to make this wacky little webcomic. So, that was how I found out about her, who apparently, is becoming a rising star in both the literary scene and the blogosphere since dear old Kenny Sia himself had mentioned her in one of his magazine columns, calling her, I paraphrase 'Malaysia's answer to (Singapore blog queen) Xiaxue (it's all right, Dawn, you're still my queen), but without broccoli for brains'.

Friday, December 15, 2006

VIDEO: Weekend In Ipoh Part 1: Day And Night In Ipoh


Weekend In Ipoh Part 1: Day And Night In Ipoh


I'm going to be doing a 2-part video of my stay in Ipoh last weekend. (from the 9th to the 11th of December, I posted my entry about the badminton craze in my country during this period)

Ipoh is a city in Malaysia that's the capital of the state of Perak, just a 2-3 hours away from Kuala Lumpur (it really depends on how fast you drive :D). It's the hometown of my mom, and also international movie star Michelle Yeoh (of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Memoirs of a Geisha fame). YES, to the uninitiated, Michelle Yeoh is MALAYSIAN, she's not from Hong Kong, nor China, nor Taiwan.

Justin Reviews 'Sukeban Deka: Kôdo nêmu = Asamiya Saki'

Thursday, December 14, 2006

[Lavazza Italian Film Festival 2006] Arrivederci amore, ciao' and 'Mio miglior nemico, Il (My Best Enemy)'

The Italian Film Festival 2006 was held during my last two weeks in Perth at the Luna theaters (a chain of theaters in Perth that specializes in arthouse fare, or local Aussie films). I've long made my decision to catch some of the movies they were showing since attending the same festival the year before. After all, it's not really that easy to see an Italian film anywhere.

Last year, I had the pleasure of watching Manuale D'Amore (Manual Of Love), a wondrous romantic comedy I loved so much that I rated it alongside Fellini's 8 1/2 as one of the greatest Italian films I've ever seen! Unfortunately, during the same festival, I also saw the indescribably agonizing Cantando Dietroi i Paraventi (Singing Behind Screens)... a film that scarred me until this very day, you can check out my really brief and not entirely comprehensible reviews of both films here.

Anyway, like last year, I saw two films in this year's Festival.

D.B. Weiss - Lucky Wander Boy



I picked up Lucky Wander Boy (Swifty: Official website of the book here) on a recent trip, mainly on the strength of its premise but without any real expectations, since the book is about, among other things, video games. A 'gaming novel' is not a prospect that would seem especially earmarked for greatness, and so D.B. Weiss's debut came as a welcome surprise: while perhaps not great in any real sense, this is certainly a very good book*, with more-than-capable prose and much trenchant humor.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Video: Goodbye Perth, Hello Malaysia.


Goodbye Perth, Hello Malaysia - Video of Swifty's last day in Perth


I've mentioned before that I was stuck with limited Internet access back in Perth. Basically, I was using the Internet system in my university as I was staying in the student village, and I had to pay for my internet fees based on the bandwidth I was using, for example, 10MB will cost around 50 cents, thus making it impossible for me to actually upload or download any videos and music, hell I even had to disable the images in my browser just so that I don't have to spend that much a day for my surfing. Yeah, It was THAT bad.

Anyway, I've whipped together another video to share with you all today (I'll be doing that pretty regularly from now on since, well, I am the very first Malaysian listed at the Vlog Community, I'm definitely going to make up for the lack of videoblogging I've done in the past few months I was in Perth.

But anyway, this video of mine is shot during my very last day in Perth (5th of December, 2006), just a short and simple video of my dad and I driving to the Perth International Airport, and this video is my farewell to Perth, my home for the past two and a half years. Less of the flashy stuff I usually had on my videos, more focus on the introspective mood and the atmosphere I had back then.

The program I used to edit this is the Adobe Premiere Pro 2 (I also use it to edit my last two short films), unfortunately, without the facilities I had in university, the quality of the video capture's pretty bad (it's fuzzier and lower definition compared to what I would get if I were using those editing studios in uni).

Music I use for this is 'Away' by Adrianna Krikl, whose other work I had used for the opening of my last short film, Girl Disconnected.

It's a pretty personal video.


Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Video: Cousin Wee Suan's Wedding Tea Ceremony




There's an ulcer in my mouth, so I'm not really in the mood to write another lengthy entry, thus I'm merely posting a video for your enjoyment.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

The State of Malaysian Badminton + Squash Legend Nicol David

Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong winning the semis


Badminton is one of the most popular sports in Malaysia, its popularity mostly contributed by the fact that the wife of Former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir's a hardcore badminton fan. I, like most Malaysians, would root for the the national badminton players during major sporting events, like the Olympics, the World Championships, the various tournaments, or Thomas Cup (the Badminton equivalent of the World Cup?). As a child, I used to watch in excitement as our own players advance deep into the tournaments, rooting for their victory.

Friday, December 08, 2006

What I'll Miss About Perth (3): Friday Nights

Perth at night


One of the biggest annoyances in Perth is the fact that shops are closed before 6pm, while many restaurants would close by 9:30pm, the only thing that seemed to open for 24 hours is McDonald's. Basically, the city of Perth itself feels entirely lifeless once the sun has already set. Can be pretty annoying when one needs to do some emergency shopping, takes a bus to the city, only to realize that most shops are closed.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Sifow's Blog and Me

UPDATED (April 27, 2014): It's been 8 years since this blog post was written by Justin. Since then, Sifow had announced her indefinite hiatus in 2008. I'm not sure whether she still sings, but as of April 2014, after her hiatus, she moved to this new(er) blog, where she still updates quite often.



Sifow is hot
I've written about my future girlfriend's music before, now to take a look at something equally influential, equally interesting, something everyone reading this should be well-familiar with: blogging.

CASINO ROYALE is one heck of a James Bond film

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale


All right, I said in my previous entry I'm going to write something heavy, but I'm still not ready for that, so I'll just churn out another film review for a film I saw last night (first movie I saw in Malaysia since my return two nights ago!).

'The Illusionist' vs 'The Prestige'

The Illusionist poster


The Prestige poster


My next entry will be rather heavy, so I'm just going to warm up by writing about two movies I've seen recently, The Illusionist and The Prestige, that happen to 'look' fairly similar, both are about 19th century magicians. To me, these two films brought back memories of those years when there were competing volcano films (the crappy Dante's Peak vs that Volcano film starring Tommy Lee Jones, which was kinda bad, but in my opinion, not as bad as the former), and asteroid films (Armageddon vs Deep Impact), or 3D cartoons about insects (Antz vs A Bug's Life, both really good flicks). But obviously, both are really different films.

Friday, December 01, 2006

What I'll Miss About Perth (2): Public Transport

I find it rather apt that what I have suffered during my last few days in Perth would be pretty much what I have suffered throughout my whole stay here in the past two and a half years.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

What I'll Miss About Perth (1): His Flatmates

I'm currently chillin' in my friend, Amir's house after moving out from the Murdoch University Student Village, Flat 90, a place I've called home for the past 2 and a half years. And in less than two weeks, I will be leaving Perth for good.

The bitter and cynical part of me wanted to say 'GOOD RIDDANCE, I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH AN OPPRESSIVE ENVIRONMENT WITH LIMITED INTERNET CONNECTION AND RUN INTO ANNOYING DUMBASSES WHO HAPPEN TO LIVE IN THE VILLAGE TOO!'. However, that's the only thing I won't miss about the place.

Everything else about it is almost great. Here's a quick list of everything I loved about staying in the Student Village.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Blogging is depressing

Tifa Cosplayer 5


Justin says:
Blogging feels so hopeless
Swifty says:
Yeap


More 'Girl Disconnected' Production Photos From The Corridor Scene!

Based on the test viewings thus far (test viewings amongst my teachers, fellow film students etc.) The 'Corridor Scene' from my latest short film, Girl Disconnected, is one of the most well-received scenes of the film. Some called it the turning point of the film, where it just elevated to another level of filmmaking (compared to the first half of the film). Another friend of mine just shook his head and smiled, saying that it was certainly 'trippy'.