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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.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Crying For Love, In The Center Of The World 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ

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Watched Crying For Love, In The Center Of The World 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ couple of nights ago with family. I have heard many good things about it, like how this film how successful this film is in Japan last year and how it became a pop-culture phenomenom. Also, director Yukisada Isao's previous feature, GO was pretty incredible.

So, yes, based on the plot, this movie SHOULD reek of melodrama and manipulative tear-jerking you see all the time in Korean dramas. You know, the ones where the girl suffers from terminal illness, and how her poor boyfriend has to cope with this, and how their pure and strong love triumphs over everything in the very end.

Thursday, June 02, 2005

I just saw REVENGE OF THE SITH for the 3rd time...

Family (parents+little sis+grandmother) came to Perth to visit me, so didn't really have much time to go online.

Can't believe I saw Star Wars 3 for the third time two nights ago. Went to the cinemas with dad and little sis, they were going to see SW3, I was planning to see Madagascar... only to realize that it ain't actually showing. The other choice I had was Wedding Date, soooooo, I had to choose between some B-list chick flick, or Star Wars 3 for the third time... I ended up going for the latter.

(The only movies I've bothered to see three times in the cinemas in recent memories were the first two Lord of the Rings movies. But the third viewings came during the LoTR Marathon I went through for the premiere of Return of the King, and the third viewing of the Fellowship of the Ring's extended version in the cinema came after I've watched it NUMEROUS TIMES on DVD)

Still a fine flick (especially after the Mace Windu vs Palpatine fight). Though the question my dad asked after the movie ended is same like what I've been discussing with some of my friends after seeing the film during the two previous times.

"How did he sever both the legs AND an arm with one swing?"

Attempted to write something in Chinese two nights ago, let a friend of mine proof-read it for me just now. I might put it up on my site sometime soon. But hopefully after someone has turned it into a short flash animation or something.

On a funnier note, my little sister told me that she found out her IQ was around 120 after taking this IQ test, so I told her that she was less than average because the 'average IQ for everyone is 150). Poor girl ended up believing that she had a less-than-average IQ for the next few days.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Final Thoughts On My Recently Completed Short Film, 'Forced Labour'.

Okay, I've just finished burning DVDs of 'Forced Labour' (my short film) a week ago, and I've also sent my submission to the Euganea Movie Movement 2005, a film festival in Italy couple of days ago. And now that my parents, my little sister and my grandma have seen it, I think it's time for me to give my second feature a proper send-off, and my thoughts regarding the entire experience. (my speech during the celebration party back then was too short)

Here's a summary of the 'Forced Labour', to those who don't know yet: