'TMNT' made me remember the days when I dressed up as a Ninja Turtle

Back when I was 8, there was this costume performance event in my primary school where participants are supposed to dress up in costumes of their choices and perform for the Standard 6 students during their Graduation Ceremony. The numerous preliminary rounds leading up to that event remain my most vivid memories of my primary school days.

I remembered a girl dressed up as a pop star. (she had some pretty mad dancing moves)

I remembered some performing a Malay dance.

Then some performing an Indian dance (naturally, it was a huge hit).

And then, a few girls dressed in kimono, performing some traditional Japanese dance.

There was also a Korean dance, but I might have mixed it up with the Japanese dance.

And then, there was me, who dressed up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

My Short Film, Girl Disconnected, Screening At KL Jam Asia Tonight!

Yes, after being screened at FILMMAKERS ANONYMOUS 2 (videoblog here, watch me babble non-stop about my film, includes snippets of the film itself) on February and MALAYSIAN SHORTS on March (videoblog here, watch me babble less about my film, and watch famed Msian filmmaker Amir Muhammad presenting the films), my short film, GIRL DISCONNECTED, is going to be screened at KL JAM ASIA this month (... er, wow), which, I believe, is a special REPEAT SCREENING of FILMMAKERS ANONYMOUS 2. (FILMMAKER ANONYMOUS and CINEJAM are sister events/ close allies/ best friends etc.) tonight (12th of April), at 9:30pm.

This MALAY MAIL article features screenshots of GIRL DISCONNECTED.

It's unlikely for me to attend the actual screening since I'm having dinner with some family friends (where I will seize the opportunity to convince this friend of mine to be the main guy in my upcoming short film), but I'll see whether I can make it to the Q & A session after the screenings.

(of course, even with my absence, enthusiastic viewers eager to know the secrets behind the romanticism and poetry of my last short film can always leave their questions here)

I will now copy and paste the line-up from CINEJAM's site:

Back From TV Movie Production Shoot. Working On New Short Film!

Yup, I'm back after a week in Port Dickson for my assistant director gig.

The poisoned and mortal wound of the civilised world

Manic Street Preachers knew it.

"You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretences of your civilization, which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilised world."
- Octave Mirbeau

Defending THE DEPARTED makes me a mindless Hollywood drone?

**Warning: This post contains spoilers for THE DEPARTED and INFERNAL AFFAIRS**

My recent involvement in a new production, coupled with my month-long addiction to Final Fantasy 12 made me too busy to actually post much here. I know some occasional film reviews and a once-in-a-blue-moon videoblog entry, peppered with one or two of Justin's 'too bored to blog' posts in the past month hadn't really make this blog that interesting. So I intend to write something I've been feeling rather strongly about in the past week.

The kind of hate THE DEPARTED had generated from hardcore INFERNAL AFFAIRS fans since its victory at last month's Academy Awards had started to irk me. But then, their reactions towards THE DEPARTED ever since Brad Pitt bought the remake rights years ago hadn't been exactly exemplary. And I've always believed that everyone's been waiting for a chance to rip the movie apart, to nitpick at the smallest things, to throw rationality and objectivity in the wind and condemn those ignorant gwailos for defiling our much-beloved yellow culture.

VIDEO: Malaysian Shorts (March 2007 Edition)

Just as I've mentioned here, my short film, Girl Disconnected, was one of the 10 short films screened at this year's first edition of MALAYSIAN SHORTS, held in HELP Institute. Once again, I was the only person representing the film. Unsurprising, considering that I'm the only one of the three Malaysians involved in the production who is still in the country. (Assistant director Yun Chin had gone back to Perth to finish her studies), the other, my actress, Grace the Rabbit Fairy, had seemingly disappeared in the past few weeks. Couldn't reach her via email, blog comments and Friendster messages. Worrying.)

All short films shown there were of high quality, and they were pretty different from one another. Don't really feel like reviewing them one by one, since I feel somewhat... wrong to review other films in a screening which my short film is part of.

Yasmin Ahmad's heartwarming and wonderfully-acted 'Mukhsin'

Saw yesterday with Kannan Thiagarajan (director of the telemovie I'm working on as assistant director... to make things simpler, he's my current boss) and award-winning filmmaker Woo Ming Jin. Sorry, I just need to name drop :D MUKHSIN is the latest movie of Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad's semi-autobiographical series that feature the character Orked. Basically, what she's doing now is rather similar to what Francois Truffaut did back then with the Antoine Doinel character. However, while Antoine Doinel was played only by the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, from a child in 400 BLOWS to an adult on the verge of middle age in LOVE ON THE RUN, Orked, who was played by Sharifah Amani in the first two films, is played by Sharifah Aryana (Sharifah Amani's younger sister) this time. And this movie is about young 10-year-old Orked's prepubescent first romance during her school holidays with Mukhsin, a boy two years older than her.

(Quick recap to the uninitiated:

Took an assistant director job for a television movie

This blog has slowed down considerably since those days when I could put up at least an entry or two a day. I don't even have the time to put up any vlog entries lately, the last one being a video of me playing the piano during my birthday.

There are numerous things I should be doing here, like finally putting the videos of my Indian vacation together (editing is actually a really time-consuming process, since I'm too much of a perfectionist to put unedited footages online for your viewing), reviewing the last two films I saw, Half Nelson and Mukhsin, and most of all, my time in Malaysian Shorts during monday night, when Girl Disconnected was screened.

The fact is, I've taken an assistant director job more than two weeks ago for a television movie meant for NTV7's Festival slot (basically, it's a program where local independent filmmakers are paid to make their projects to be aired on TV). The screenwriter and director of this telemovie is Kannan Thiagarajan (HEYA!!!!). I'm keeping the plot of the movie under wraps. All I can let you know is that it's a slow-burning thriller that takes place at the idyllic beaches of Port Dickson.

'Dreamgirls', Jennifer Hudson's performance (singing and acting) had people cheering in the theater

Second of the three movies I saw in Singapore.

Wanted to see DREAMGIRLS for a long time due to its pre-Oscar hype, and the furore over its lack of Best Picture nomination, and then Jennifer Hudson's victory (was also intrigued by Eddie Murphy's much-lauded dramatic performance).

Ranking each segment of Paris Je t'Aime (Paris, I Love You)

Paris Je t'Aime is an omnibus film where 18 (originally 20) directors from around the world were asked to make short films that serve as a love letter to Paris, the City of Lights and Romance.

Over the past few months, my friend, the lovely Krystle Chow of theCicak had told me repeatedly about how awesome this film is. I could only sigh in resignation, valiantly trying to shake away the overwhelming feeling of envy I had for her. After all, she saw the film in a film festival, the film was only traveling in international festival circuits, and then shown in limited screens (just arthouse theaters). It seemed highly unlikely that I would get the DVD of this film over here in Malaysia. (if I were still in Perth, there might be a slight chance that this would be available at the Murdoch University library someday, unfortunately, I'm not in Perth anymore)

Yet it was actually screening in Singapore! So, knowing that this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, I immediately bought the ticket and dashed into the cinema (thank you, Orchard Cineleisure!), I could barely contain my excitement.

Of course, that wasn't all. Two days later, returning from Singapore, I managed to get myself a copy of the DVD when I was in Johor. I was shocked (I don't expect many casual Malaysian DVD buyers would give a damn about the film... although to be fair, not many are aware of its existence).

Anyway, I highly recommend this film. Being an anthology film, it's obviously pretty uneven, some not that amazing, but some are pretty mind-blowing, it's like sitting through a short film festival, kinda brings back memories of Sony Tropfest. Ahhh...

Anyway, I'll rank the segments based on my own preferences. (Put up some of the segments that were uploaded on Youtube by some people, go watch it before it's taken down)

Girl Disconnected Screening At Malaysian Shorts, March 2007 Edition.

I'm back from Singapore!

My short film, Girl Disconnected had been chosen for screening at the March 2007 edition of Malaysian Shorts!

DATE: 19th of March, 2007
TIME: 8pm
VENUE: HELP INSTITUTE AUDITORIUM, Pusat Bandar Damansara

ADMISSION IS FREE!

I'll be there for the Q & A session, although if I really get the chance to speak, I'll try not to babble as much as I did during last month's Filmmakers' Anonymous 2 (I was, ah, both excited and nervous at the same time then, being its Malaysian premiere and all, you see).

For the whole line-up of that night, I'll copy and paste directly from Amir Muhammad's message I got from the Malaysian Cinema mailing list.