Liew Seng Tat's 'Flower In The Pocket' Won 2 Awards At Pusan International Film Festival

(Blog post no. 999. Look out for the next one, I'm announcing a contest.)



I'm a couple of days late, but gonna post this:

'Dear Frankie' made me weep like a little girl.

Pardon my lack of updates these days, been busy setting up casting sessions for an upcoming film, while working on submitting mentor Woo Ming Jin's film, The Elephant and The Sea to the local censorship board (some re-editing for the film had also been done, coupled with some new background music composed by yours truly), and I also had this new addiction for ENTOURAGE (watched the first two seasons) and HEROES (watched the first 8 episodes). Ah well, just your usual producer stuff.

Anyway, I watched 'Dear Frankie' on DVD yesterday. It's about a 9-year-old deaf boy, Frankie (Jack McElhone), who writes letters to his absent father all the time, but the letters he received from the father are actually make-believe letters written by his mother Lizzie (Emily Mortimer), telling the boy his adventures as a sailor in exotic lands on the ship HMS ACCRA (a name invented by Lizzie).

Conversation on 'Brave Story ブレイブ・ストーリー' with DMJ

It's rare to have a Japanese animated film shown in local theaters, not a single Ghibli film had ever gotten theatrical distribution in Malaysia, yet this year, I was surprised to see not one, but TWO anime films screened in theaters, the first one being a Doraemon movie (Nobita's Dinosaur 2007 or something like that) and BRAVE STORY.

I'm reviewing this film with DMJ because she's an anime specialist. I said specialist, because she is self-aware, cynical, witty and intellectual enough NOT to be a mere constantly squealing anime otaku fangirl.

HOWEVER, our exchange contains MAJOR SPOILERS and is better read if you have already seen the film and is interested to jump into a discussion with us.

Otherwise, if you want more conventional, spoiler-less reviews, you should check out A Nutshell Review's... review, Saffron Star's review or SHTUFF: Anime Blogage's review

All I can say is that it's a visually amazing animated film that sucks you right into its fantasy world, but is plagued with a weak storyline and underdeveloped characters and subplots. Enjoyable, but not mindblowing.

RESIDENT EVIL 3: EXTINCTION

The one semi-cool scene in Resident Evil 3, where Milla Jovovich was burning infected crows and shit

The Resident Evil films are an important part of video game adaptation history. It is the first and only trilogy of live-action films based on video games (disregarding spin-offs and straight-to-DVD sequels) so far. We haven't had a Tomb Raider 3, yet we have the privilege to endure a third Resident Evil film.

Goodbye old laptop. Hello new laptop.

My old laptop died early last month. It happened in an afternoon without warning. Just the sounds of clicking and whirring from the insides, and everything froze, the LCD screen went black.

I never understood what happened. The motherboard got fried, along with other things inside. Repairing it would cost nearly as much as buying a new laptop, so I made a painful decision. She was put down.

The Detective C+侦探 by the Pang brothers

When I saw 'THE DETECTIVE' (Chinese title of the film translates as C+ Detective, a Cantonese wordplay for 'Private Detective') the newest film from the Pang Brothers two nights ago, my immediate thought was that Chewxy would have benefited a lot from watching it if this film had came out before he did his debut short film.

Returning to the filmmakers' roots, THE DETECTIVE is set entirely in Thailand, and the film begins with a Thai song. The story is simple, like an old-fashioned film noir, a nearsighted private detective Tam (Aaron Kwok) is visited by an acquaintance, Fat Dragon, one morning, who seeks his help in finding a woman named Sum (Fat Dragon claims that the woman is trying to kill him). So Tam takes this seemingly innocuous case that becomes increasingly complex as it goes on, especially when each lead he gets will bring him to a dead body.

Happy Birthday to ME

First off thanks to everyone who wished me Happy Birthday in the last post from Swifty. It was truly an amazing night involving handcuffs, baked goods, and far too much liquor. I am now officially an old man of 23.