'The Sky Crawlers スカイ・クロラ' by Mamoru Oshii

I went to see THE SKY CRAWLERS, the latest film by Mamoru Oshii yesterday.

I've completed my novel

Back in February, I said something about dusting off my Nanowrimo 2005 novel. Just to summarise what I posted then: I participated in the National Novel Writing Month back in 2005, I reached 50 000 words but never completed the story. I wanted to finish it one and for all.

The fantasy/scifi novel was based on ideas, concepts and characters I was working on since my secondary school years, one of those rare periods of my life where the childhood dream of filmmaking was put aside for something else. I wanted to write an epic fantasy story so epic that it would probably take 4-5 books to complete. Through those years, I was collaborating with a friend on it. What filmmaking is to me now was what the story was to me then. Almost everything.

Chacun son cinéma (To Each His Own Cinema)

I was originally planning to see SKY CRAWLERS or anything offered at the Shinjuku cinemas after meeting up with Maiko the producer regarding the status of our short film, YUKI (she's going to Kyoto end of this month for a 2-month internship at Toei, so had to see what to do next). But then she mentioned about her watching 'Chacun son cinéma' sometime ago at Shibuya. 'Chacun son cinéma' is an omnibus film commissioned last year to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival.

Is FINAS really helping to develop the Malaysian film industry?

This was forwarded to the Malaysian Cinema mailing list yesterday. It's from a filmmaker named Ahmad Yazid:

Hiking in Nasu

This happened more than 3 weeks ago, when I was at the ESC (English Summer Camp) in Nasu.

The ESC is held throughout the end of July to early August. Each round lasts for 3 days 2 nights, I think there were a total of 6 to 7 rounds. I went to the first round, and we had Japanese kids in the first year of junior high (13 year olds). They have just started learning English this year, I was there, along with numerous international students, as 'team captains' to help interact with them in English.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the camp, to me, was the hiking. It was horrifying to see how quick the kids were as they just sped through the hiking trails in the forest while we, the team captains, were trying to keep up with them. I doubt the 13-year-old me would have survived the hiking, being the fat nerdy kid I was.

I'll be posting up some photos from the summer camp in the next few days. But here
are the hiking ones. I can't really remember the name of the place though. :(

Photos of us beginning our journey:

'The Incredible Hulk' isn't better than Ang Lee 'The Hulk'

Just saw it today.

When I first heard the news of this 'reboot' of the HULK franchise, I had mixed feelings. Firstly, the HULK, being such a well-known Marvel character, might have the potential to become a franchise, so I understood the need to do a more commercial and action-packed HULK film for the masses so they can erase the bad taste from Ang Lee's 2003 film.

Organizing THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA press premiere

(From left to right) Ming Jin the director, Berg Lee, Ng Meng Hui and Chung Kok Keong

THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA finally had its press premiere yesterday morning. I was so excited that I called Ming Jin just before it started to check out on things, and to remind him who were to attend it. But now that I've already read Ming Jin's post about the premiere, I felt only relief. The past week of putting this together had been hectic. Especially when Ming Jin had to head off to the Brisbane International Film Festival for the screening of KURUS (aka DAYS OF THE TURQUOISE SKY) and I was left to handle things.