Just yearning to make another film.

A couple of weeks before my departure to Perth last year, I was visited by a high school friend who's also an aspiring filmmaker. The guy was collaborating with another friend of his to work on something for the Astro Chinese Short Film Competition, so he came over to pitch his ideas to me, and also wondered whether I can help them out as well. Alas, I was going to Perth, so I had no choice but to turn down his kind offer, even though I was very tempted to join them.

Alexander Payne's SIDEWAYS

Most films that are nominated for the Oscars are usually not shown in Malaysian theatres. In fact, among the five films that were nominated for this year's Oscar (Ray, Finding Neverland, The Aviator, Sideways and Million Dollar Baby), only one, The Aviator, was shown in the cinemas, probably because it had a star-studded cast, and a pretty huge budget.

Books and CDs I bought in Singapore

Books

Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco - Always wanted to read a book by Umberto Eco, so I picked up the very first book he wrote.

A Heartbreaking Work of Overwhelming Genius by Dave Eggers - Was attracted by the title. Obviously.

Kelly Chen, Ronald Cheng, Grasshopper. 1996

More personal memories from Cantopop of the mid-90s.



The lady beside me is Kelly Chen. It was 1996, there was a celebration after an award ceremony in Singapore, but she was also celebrating her birthday.



Ronald Cheng and Calvin Choi (one of the guys from the pop group, Grasshopper) were there too.

My 10 Favourite Films of 2004

Swifty's Top Ten Films of 2004

Here are my favourite movies that I saw on 2004, not in any particular order.

Golden Globes 2005

Yay, last night, right after I finished my entry, I continued writing the subsection 2 of SD:IS's Episode 22, and I think it's shaping out to be pretty well. But enough with that.

Just watched the Golden Globes just now, and see how did my predictions fare.

My Golden Globes Predictions.

Eek, suddenly remembered that Golden Globes is tomorrow morning (Malaysian time), so I'll be making my predictions right now. Yep, I love keeping track on these award shows that lead to the Oscars, been doing that ever since I was a kid. So... here we go!

Leon Lai in 1993. Jacky Cheung and Alan Tam in 1996.

I went to scrape through my old collection of photographs. These stuff were taken AGES ago, when I was still a young, weird-looking little kid.

Cantopop in the 90s.

With Leon Lai. 1993. A press conference in Singapore before his concert.



With Jacky Cheung and Alan Tam. 1996. A celebration after an awards ceremony. It was also pop star Kelly Chen's birthday.

Soap Opera Alert! Kimi ga Nozomu Eien!

Finished Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien in one sitting last night (watched everything except the last episode in double speed though, so characters were speaking quickly in high voices). What can I say about this anime? Hmm... it's not exactly what I would consider entertaining, but it's compelling enough to keep me awake from beginning to end.

Evaluating the heroes of PS2 RPGs

Okay, I did finish Lord of the Rings: The Third Age as I've promised. But the story of the game got so retarded in the end that even though I had a faulty copy (after beating the final boss, me cannot see the ending), I was too indifferent to care already.

I've started playing Shadow Hearts 2 right after that even though I've never played Shadow Hearts before (it's a direct sequel) because it's getting better reviews than Star Ocean Story 3, and it's seemingly more... different from your generic RPGs (The Third Age really left a bad taste in my mouth, I shit you not). I'm currently loving the game even though I'm just two hours into the game. The hero's a badass dude who can turn into a demon and already I can declare that he's BY FAR the coolest PS2 RPG hero ever. Really, I shit you not. Look at his competitors (just the main male characters in RPGs, not the female ones, so Shion from Xenosaga is excluded):

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

I'll probably finish the Lord of the Rings: The Third Age by tonight (I can actually do it now, but li'l sis wants me to wait for her before I lay the smack down on Sauron, so...) and makes it the very first console RPG I've completed for this year.