Tops for 06

10.The Fray-How to Save A Life
9.Regina Spektor-Fidelity
8.Camera Obscura-Let's Get Out Of This Country
7.TV On The Radio-Wolf Like Me
6.Arctic Monkeys-Scummy
5.YeahYeahYeah's-Cheated Hearts
4.Cold War Kids-Hospital Beds
3.Justice vs Simian-We Are Your Friends
2.The Kooks-Naive
1.The Decemberists-The Crane Wife 3

Above are my top songs for 2006 with The Decemberists topping the list,but in truth most of the best songs i've listened to and movies i've watched this year aren't from 2006-Being John Malkovich and Pulp Fiction,for example.There weren't too many great films this year,but Little Miss Sunshine and 2:37 definitely go into my list of alltime faves.

Most Overhyped & Disappointing Indie-Shortbus
Most Boring Blockbuster-The Da Vinci Code
Most Beautiful-to-Watch-Marie Antoinette
Most Predictable Storyline-The Devil Wears Prada
Worst of 06-Eragon
Best TV Show-Lost
Worst New Season-Nip/Tuck
Worst New Show-Jericho
Most Annoying Show-Heroes

Okay so Lost lost heaps of fans and only showed 6 eps this year,but those six were incredibly intense,brought about new revelations and i'd prefer this to a whole sleezy season of any other show.I watched more mainstream films this year,but the handful of indies i did watch (e.g:Brick,Shortbus,Swimming Pool) weren't anything to shout about.

Cinta

Watched Cinta yesterday,the cinema was full and the audience extraordinarily responsive towards the film-all through out i kept hearing loud laughter,and even louder weeps particularly from the bunch of Malay girls seated close to me.Cinta is far from being a perfect film and like most local films it has its obligatory share of very obvious flaws-out of the many intersecting stories in the film,very few of them (typically involving the older generation and graver conflicts) are truly genuine and moving while the others remain cold,incomplete and lack any heart to be meaningful.One of the stories in particular,involving the relationship between an overly self-conscious celebrity and a much-less glamorous girl,is shamelessly chuck-full of vomit-inducing cliche's that ultimately seem superficial and unreal,and this part of the movie is very hard to watch.Character development is done very poorly for some-we are introduced to their present selves,who are often conflicted in some way,and we see them deal with their personal issues and display sad emotions,but we have no idea who they really are as individuals and we remain as outsiders watching in but failing to connect fully with the characters-for example,Pierre Andre's Taufik is played brilliantly,but he is written in a way that is very hard to understand,when we first see him he is painfully shy,seems utterly depressed and avoids any social contact,but the reason he is this way remains a total mystery and is never uncovered.The amazing thing is,the movie does have its good parts and they manage to make all these otherwise hugely noticeable flaws seem insignificant-two of the stories in Cinta,feature some of the most compelling,honest,tragic,incredible characters i've seen in a movie-and these two stories alone would be sufficient reason for anyone to watch and enjoy this film.A story of love between two siblings,and another between an elderly woman and an Alzheimer-stricken man,both these two stories and some other touchy parts of the film easily makes Cinta the best local film this year.

Miracles

Whoever said miracles don't exist probably never experienced two of them in a short period of time.The first for me was achieving the mark needed for Unimelb,because i was almost completely certain my Math would bring me down and had prepared my mind to deal if failure were to occur,miraculously i pulled through.Miracle number two took place today,when i passed my driving exam-i'll skip the part where i spent five hours (i swear) waiting for my turn because all those details now seem trivial-i didn't lose control of the car at anytime and after an agonizing,long nervous wait for the exam and all those torturous driving classes with Mr Unbelievably Bad Temper,it's all come to an end i won't have to ever drive a manual car again.So you see,despite the year being chuck-full of miserable moments as tediously documented on this blog,there are times like these that defy the gravity and significance of any other event,and all these little miracles have made me define 2006,as my best year of life (so far:).

Black X'Mas

So it's finally Christmas and i'll save you the torture from having to listen to me whine and rant about having to waste the festive spirit on nervous anxiety due to tomorrow's driving exam,which i'm definitely going to fail.Like Valentine's to Hershey's and Hallmark,Christmas is the time when the cinema's flood with Christmas movies designed to make viewers leave the theatre feeling good inside and full of holiday spirit.So every year around Christmas,these manipulative films that are hollow,predictable and would probably tank miserably if released during any other time of the year,come out by the dozens-and they usually revolve around the archetypal characters mostly consisting of annoying,sometimes retarded children (Macaulay Culkin/Dakota Fanning-big ew) and dysfunctional families,and i get horribly sick watching these films being played back to back on HBO.Fortunately this year there's Black Christmas,judging by the poster itself anyone can tell this flick has almost nothing to do with smiling toddlers or dancing nuns.It's a remake from the 1974 flick by the same title,and many critics have expressed disliking but hey,it has a wicked poster and Michelle Trachtenberg in it,and i'm more than willing to watch this failed horror remake than another dumb,saccharine Christmas flick.
As long as i'm talking about films,i might as well delve in to the 2007 Oscar (Nomination) Predictions for Best Film-as finalised and thoroughly justified by IMDB,AW-only 5 nods will be given,but i'll simply list down the films considered by either party.

1.Dreamgirls
2.Letters from Iwo Jima
3.Little Children
4.The Queen
5.The Departed
6.Babel
7.Little Miss Sunshine

So out of the millions of films out this year,these seven have risen and are regarded by most as the year's best produce.I've only managed to watch the last four-an am happy to see Little Miss Sunshine getting the attention and publicity it deserves,and i would personally name it the year's best but i doubt this small,indie flick can compete with the other more costly,grandeur films in the category that have received significantly bigger box office numbers and earnings.The Queen,which i naturally presumed to be a dull,monotonous flick specifically catering those pitiful vegetables watching cable in their abandoned homes and fans of British humour,turned out to be surprisingly delightful-it has it's sharp,humorous moments,but above all Hellen Mirren is just phenomenal as Queen Elizabeth II.The Departed was much more entertaining,and i'm willing to put my bets to say that this film will definitely win.The most frustrating choice however,is Babel,which i watched recently,and found it seriously unconvincing,emotionally detached and unable to connnect in any way with the viewer-sure the three (loosely-connected) storylines look attractive on paper (a deaf-mute Asian girl stuck in alienation,loneliness and complete silence,two brothers who accidentally shoot an American tourist and put the whole village under suspicion for terrorism),but as a motion picture i find it hollow despite how amazing the performances were.

Well that's probably enough film talk for the year,MerryChristmas y'all.

Eragon

Eragon is the biggest piece of crap i've seen in quite sometime,i feel sleepy just even thinking about it.The unashamed use of countless cliche catchphrases,the unbelievably dull conversations,the clumsy music arrangment,the inexperienced cast,the haywire chronology-it all looks like a 1992 Disney flick meant for 10 year-olds who strangely find orange-haired villians with heaps of black eyeshadow and mind-reading dragons amusing.It isn't LOTR,nor is it The NeverEnding Story,it's just rubbish.One last thing,the theme song sung by Avril Lavigne is fucking unbearable.Will stop talking about Eragon now and forever.Random songs busy undoing the damage:

Cold War Kids-Hospital Beds
YeahYeahYeah's-Rich
Band of Horses-The Funeral
Liars-The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack
Tenacious D-Wonderboy
The Decemberists-Crane Wife 3

Transformers

Just returned from Singapore,i might dwell more on that later on but for now-the new,official trailer (click on the poster) for Transformers.Honestly i've no idea what these things are (unlike hundreds of fanatics who can identify which robots are which at a single glance),but i am fully aware the production of this massive film has been followed by months and months of hectic anticipation-online,people have made countless speculations about the plotline and created forums dedicated to this matter,few blogs i visited were posting what was supposedly the leaked script draft,and so on-and yes many have put their expectations for this film pretty low considering it's directed by the same man behind the disasters that were Pearl Harbor (uck!),The Rock & The Island,but after seeing the trailer,i'd believe the film won't be as bad as some predict it would be but then again,this probably won't compare to what Sam Raimi did for Spiderman.

Update:OMFG forget fuggin Transformers,Grind House now has a brand new teaser trailer,official site & Yahoo! promo page with heaps of pics & juicy details!

Pic Sequel

The pics turned out that way-flatter than normal-so if any of us look fat it's really the camera's fault.Had fun playing around with Sha's new T-10 Sony Camera,7.2 megapixels (my 5.1 cam suddenly feels so miserable to hold)-all of us dressed our best for the wedding of our eldest sister,the night's theme was orange and neither my father or I are fans of the colour,but after scavenging all wardrobes in the house i finally found a fluorescent,tacky orange tie-which i was willing to wear,thinking most of the guests who attended were strangers hence i would not be remembered.I was silly to post those artsy pics before,only recently did i realise i hadn't posted pics of anyone-so here are the pics of my family,the last pic being my fave-my four beautiful sisters in a candid pic,laughing,although Yat's hand looks a bit weird (the inai i think).Will be going to Singapore tomorrow,i'll be busy taking my long,much-deserved rest beside the hotel pool or in the sauna for two days,leisurely taking my time to finish the Marisha Pessl book i recently purchased (for a staggering 20% off) and listening to the new songs i've just uploaded into the Ipod.

Here's my Christmas present to everyone:click on the smiley-:)

Happy Holidays,everyone.

The Marriage

After much hassle and long days,lengthy discussions spent planning,the wedding day finally arrived and the morning was spent in sweaty anxiety,thinking of the many things that could go wrong.The first sign of trouble was when Yat's make-up artist arrived 90 minutes late (!),thankfully this had no effect on the event overall,the akad nikah ceremony (which was,in my opinion,highly patriarchal in nature and i blame no one but tradition for this practice of prejudice) in the morning passed breezily and close to nothing went wrong in the afternoon.I'll skip the tiresome wedding details and talk about how this meant so much to my family and myself-it wasn't until the wedding was almost over,when the tribute montage was played for guests that i realised the gravity of my sister's departure into marriage-those pictures from our rocky childhood in the montage reminded me of how much fun my siblings and i had as children,and how Sha and myself felt a bit disconnected when Yat ascended into teenagehood as both of us remained young and gullible,and how all these events and relationships have shaped who we are today.And now that Yat's off to start her own life,i'm left to wonder when that day will come for the rest of us and whether we'll achieve the same luck with fate she has.Enough talk,here are some pics from the event,i might post some later (there are few here).

Marriage.Haih,que sera sera.

Running Inside

Saddest Songs

The Drugs Don't Work by The Verve tops a list of songs which make us sad, according to a scientist.Dr Harry Witchel, an expert in physiology and music, analysed the physical reactions to music on behalf of Nokia UK.Using a shortlist compiled by the Official UK Charts Company, he measured their "tune trigger quotient" measuring heart rate, respiratory response and skin temperature to find the saddest, happiest and most exhilarating tracks.The happiest songs were measured by contentment judged on levels of sighs per minute (indicating the recall of happy memories) plus low level of boredom.Sad tracks were indicated by decreased heart rate and exhilarating tunes by increase in breaths per minute.The happiest song was LDN by Lily Allen, followed by Abba's Dancing Queen and REM's Shiny Happy People. Source

I can't argue with those scientists-the melancholy violins,dark lyrics (my fave part:like a cat in a bag,waiting to drown),and the general sense of absolute hopelessness makes 'The Drugs Won't Work' the kind of song that a suicidal would consider for (dis)encouragement.But there are several other songs that when i listen too,i can't help but feel a bit down-it's either in the way the song sounds,or the sad messages it conveys-and here they are.

Rolling Stones-Wild Horses
Placebo-My Sweet Prince
U2-With or Without You
Josh Pyke-Silver
Coldplay-Beautiful World
Nirvana-Something In the Way
Al Green-I'm so tired of being alone
Gary Jules-Mad World
Cat Stevens-Wild World
Fleetwood Mac-Gold Dust Woman
Bill Withers-Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

As you can see,most of the songs are mainstream stuff,maybe the kind of songs you hear played in one of those dimly-lit bars people go to drink their sorrows away,right before drunkenly driving their cars off cliffs or shooting their brains out,or possibly the type of music played at funerals.There are those odd,ambiguous songs that i associate with both sadness and happiness-Oasis' Wonderwall for example.Those songs i've listed above have a considerably negative effect on my mood,but the two songs i try to avoid most are:Elton John-This train don't stop here anymore,and The Beatles-Julia.And of course,who can ignore the unbelievable sadness that was Yesterday.

Now i need a place to hide away,oh i believe in yesterday

...

Wedding Preparations

I have never been able to fully comprehend the meaning behind weddings,and why people become so obsessive about them.Until today.Yat,the eldest among five siblings,will be getting married on Saturday and I've just returned from the family meeting where matters concerning the event were discussed thoroughly-the three hours involved around 30 people,all adults aside from Sha,Ivana and myself,and the discussion of every aspect of the upcoming wedding including seating arrangements,the treatment of vip's,the chronology of events and several other less intimidating topics such as the distribution of door gifts and the management of noisy,annoying children that are bound to come.What i once perceived to be an unnecessary time filler for bored housewives and people with too much time on their hands,now seems an exceedingly important and meaningful event ,one which has much importance-it signifies the final transition for a woman,finally leaving her previous life and giving herself to the idea of perfect Independence and a real commitment,it's one event where all the relatives come together to make it special,and as a younger sibling i feel a bit sad,proud of course,but sadder even,to see my eldest sister leave the family to begin her own adventure,and i just hope for myself that the journey taking me to that point would be a slow,steady and enjoyable one as i wouldn't want to wake up one day with a mediocre job to attend to and three unloving children impatiently waiting to be sent to school,with the grave knowledge that all the ambitions and aspirations i had were suddenly obsolete and gone,the images of what could've been passing through my head as i absentmindedly work and struggle my way through the remaining years of an unhappy life,finally reaching the final years realising how my life had been a sad,tragic and wasteful.Okay,how such a happy event like my sister's wedding lead me to think about such depressing things,i have no idea how or why.And like the many other mysteries my mind constantly produces,they leave me with a lingering sense of disturbing anxiety,but more of wonder and curiousity-the thought of having a shapeless future i can bend and change,and the knowledge that i have many years ahead to determine how my life turns out,seems more hopeful than not.

Driving Lessons

Today i witnessed the rebirth of hope.After facing the trauma of my last driving lesson more than 8 months back,i was convinced there was no way i could drive a manual car.My previous instructor,Mr Lau,had the temper of a fire-breathing dragon as he screamed and shouted every time i made a small mistake,and i had given up after one class with him-i didn't even bother to ask for my money back,because i just didn't want to see that bastard ever again,i wanted him to die-but today i was fortunate to be under the guidance of a different man,Mr Teo,because as Kak Linda (the driving school manager) told me in confidence,Mr Tan had received heaps of complaints about his temper problem and the final straw was when he lost his cool on some bigshot's daughter who of course told her dad,and finally he was given the axe.If there's one person in the world who deserves to be fired,it's him.There's nothing,absolutely nothing remotely funny about being cursed and shouted at for not understanding how to use the clutch on the first class-i learned almost nothing from that class,as every question asked was replied with a harsh comment about my incompetence.It was a traumatic experience that made me decide never to take up the license.But after considering the fact that most of those my age already have their licenses are are busy driving around town on their own (while i'm miserably left to depend on my family and taxi's for transport),i decided to give driving another try before finally calling it quits.And thankfully today's class wasn't bad at all,after an hour i had mastered the difficult (well,for me at least) art of balancing the clutch & accelerator,changing gears and using the hand break instead of gear 1-the only trouble i had was with ascending the car,aside from accidentally turning the wipers on instead of signals a couple times.But this is simply the tip of the iceberg,and there are bigger challenges waiting ahead.Plus it was a bloody kancil with very limited legspace,so for the whole two hours my legs were forcefully strained as to avoid accidentally stepping on the pedals below.The engine did die a couple of times,but half the time he didn't even notice because i was quick to restart the car.Mr Teo is one helluva heavy smoker,he must've smoked one whole packet during that whole time and the car was filled with smoke,but i restrained myself from coughing as to ensure his mouth was too occupied with the cigarette for any talking.And the last half an hour my instructor started talking on the phone jovially,oblivious to all the tiny mistakes i was making-those two hours were intense but when class finally ended i felt that i had survived some big storm and that i could actually do this,i could actually drive a manual car.And just like that,hope is restored.

Running With Scissors

Running With Scissors,based on the bestselling novel by Augusten Burroughs,revolves around an amazing and beautiful story-with its set of wonderful characters and their dysfunctional relationships,but translating this into a movie ultimately results in a weak,messy and horribly empty film.

Watching this film was frustrating mostly due to its disorganized and incoherent nature-characters enter and exit,subplots appear and vanish,soon the main focus (presumably the alienated son and delusional mother,and their relationship) simply blurs out and halfway through,the story starts driving aimlessly and audiences on the ride are given no clue of which direction the story intends to take and i was just too bored to pay attention and just wanted the movie to finish.Even the stellar cast full of big names including Annette Benning,Alec Baldwin,Gwyneth Paltrow and Patrick Wilson can't save this sinking ship-the characters are written with dark sattire and sharp humour in mind,and at times they do succeed in entertaining us but overall they lack the heart and sincerity to really intrigue us or arouse our sympathy and interest.Rated only 29% on RT,the film starts of trying to be a comedy and proceeds in a predictable fashion,injecting small emotional scenes that are immediately cut off before they become too developed and before you know it's a full-blown family drama-but it neither succeeds as a comedy or drama,it's just a confusing film that contradicts itself too much to be engaging.

But it has a good soundtrack,some good songs from the film:
Elton John-Bennie & The Jets
Catherine Feeney-Mr. Blue

Currenly watching Litte Miss Sunshine again on dvd,i reckon this small,meaningful and simple film is the best i've watched this year,the other two being 2:37 and The Prestige,and maybe even The Departed-but there are plenty more i intend to watch namely Deliver Us From Evil,Pan's Labyrinth,Babel,Half Nelson,The Queen and Deja Vu-my picks mostly based on these two lists and other recommendations.The biggest disappointment this year has got to be Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette,considering all her previous films were really good and Lost In Translation was insanely excellent,i expected so much more.I'll be watching more films over the holiday and who knows,there might be some underdog films that could possibly knock Little Miss Sunshine down from being the year's fave for me.

Crabs

The day's been a tiresome one,so here are some pics.

The amazing sushi.

Ivana's two shy petcrabs Benedetto & Claud,behind there you can see their tank-looking like the perfect resort with a plastic palm tree and decorational shells.

Had dinner at Fatty Crab with the family,next to our table was this small cliff where below lay a gathering of catfish,and,oddly enough a stray cat too.

After dinner we went to Hartamas to buy some DVD's,looking forward to watching Accepted and Running With Scissors-Ivana has Material Girls on,she bought a copy of the movie simply because she just hated Haylie Duff,and true enough the movie is exceedingly annoying but perhaps nothing short of good for the target audience (typical young girls who laugh at the dumbest of jokes).I'm feeling really tired and i have some bothersome thoughts circling in my mind but i bet by the time i wake up tomorrow i'll feel a whole lot better,it's probably just the fatigue messing with my mood.

Boring Casino

Considering the previous post was a bit overlong,i'll try to be as brief as possible.

Watched Casino Royale yesterday.People often provided strong opinions about the movie-those who watched were polarized into two groups:they either loved it or loathed it.Movies that manage to arouse such strong reactions (e.g:Micheal Moore films,but that's mostly due to its political themes) usually manage to attract a lot of negative reviews,but the few who feel otherwise usually consider the film a legend.Firstly,Eva Green could possibly be the most boring Bond girl to have ever graced us.From the pale,pedestrian looks to the unfeeling screen presence,almost every scene involving her seemed incredibly dull-one scene in particular,when Bond and her chat in the garden made me look at the clock every two minutes,just waiting for the overwhelming dullness to end.Despite having some extraordinarily boring bits,the movie redeems itself with the few action scenes that go for quite a long time,specifically two scenes:the scene after the credits,and the airport scene.One thing that really pissed me off was the storyline itself-so we're supposed to believe Bond's sent to win a poker game that supposedly involves huge amounts of money,in order to prevent this money from falling into the hands of a man who plans to use it to fund terrorism.How condescending of the writers to have written such an uncomplicated,incomplete plot-those who've watched 24 know terrorism is much,much more complicated than this and saving the world usually doesn't involve such trivial tasks such as winning poker games.But the Bond story has always been characterized by unbelievable plots,extravagant sets,intricate gadgets and exotic females-Bond,to me at least,is a synonym for rubbish (Die Another Day was beyond crap) but Casino Royale stands out,despite having its flaws,compared to recent Bond films (mainly those involving Pierce Brosnan) this one doesn't make a fool out of itself too much.Daniel Craig has a straight face throughout the movie,that face that's supposed to say ''there's always trouble,but i'm always calm.Always'',and audiences are left waiting for action for long periods-meanwhile having to bear the torture of watching cheesy romantic scenes,long windy arguments about nothing and the littlest of things seem to trigger bigger events (Bond reading an sms,Bond drinking a cocktail) and the worst part is when the focus falls on the relationship between the two leads-how the film spends such a long time to try convince audiences that two of them were really in love,so that when the girl is taken we understand why Bond fights back-it was like a retarded love story that went too long-just so,so,so boring.

That was one messy review but i guess somewhere in there you can find the gist.Uma Thurman would be the perfect Bond girl,nothing like these other Bond girls who do nothing in the film but act helpless and emotional,just waiting to be kidnapped and saved later.And just like Eva Green and her uninteresting,one-dimensional character,this film is just too plain to be remembered.

Sky High

So i'm home.Now rewind couple hours back.The morning before the flight was productively spent packing,after a whole year of trying to make the room feel homely by putting up pictures,posters and arranging things in ways that reminded me of home,it finally came the time to reverse these time-consuming efforts and once again make the room naked and cold-one last walk around the room before leaving for the airport,i was reminded of the many memories associated to this place-all those hilarious,sad,both memorable times taken place in this small confinement.Once Sha and I boarded the taxi my heart started beating fastly,anxious for the many things that could go wrong-and if they did,our parents or friends weren't there to turn to-so many things could've gone wrong:the cabman could've been another rude middle-eastern oldie who shouted verbal abuse or overcharged us,the person at the baggage counter could've been another local racist who's prejudice reflected his intolerance for a few grams of baggage overweight,and the many other frightening possibilities of things that could happen on the 7-hour flight.But thankfully none of these things happen and the closest i got to danger was when a 10/11-year old 'special' boy stared at me endlessly throughout the 30minute wait for the check-in counters to open-i just felt very uncomfortable,but of course somehow knew this tiny boy meant no harm.And i knew the long journey home,from the cabride to the airport to reaching klia would make me nervous so i prepared two playlists-'ride' & 'flight'-the former specifically built for the taxi ride home and predominantly occupied with Scott Matthews & Fleetwood Mac tracks that would keep me too distracted in retrospect to feel nervous,the latter mostly filled with Foo Fighters & The Shins.There were some good new movies playing on the flight,watched three movies-the first i can't recall,then Click,and finally Lost In Translation.I think it's about the 6th time i've watched this Sofia Coppola film,and still it manages to leave a mark-it's just so profound and moving,the thought of two strangers who become alienated and lonely in a foreign land and massive world to find comfort in each other,only to know this mutual feeling cannot last for both their lives demand more of them.Oops,sorry for the digression.

Fast forward,reached the airport and quickly went over to Sha's house to finally meet Sushi-Chichi's newly-born (few months old) kitten who turned out to be cute but quite the menace.Now i'm home,well,home's being renovated so i'm in an apartment somewhere in Damansara Perdana-and next to the keyboard is a small tank containing two of Ivana's pet crabs-Ivana who in the world has crabs for pets ha?I think watching too much Spongebob has something to do with this.I watched for afar as Ivana played with the crabs,letting them crawl on her palm and onto the table-i held it once and suddenly it brought out its sharp,murderous claws and i screamed like a 2 year old girl and accidentally smashed that crab onto the table-miraculously it's still alive.Damnit.Had laksa for din and chatted at the dinner table with ma and Ivana,ma telling stories about her eventful life (like her encounter with the Datuk Bandar,whom she offered 3 of her koi fishes to-but the man took nine instead,saying he had to because it was his lucky number) and Ivana was busy preparing slices of cherry tomato to feed the crabs.My room in this apartment isn't that bad-except when i saw Ivana's room,which was about three times bigger,i was a bit,pissed.I blame the crabs somehow.

Psst,blogger's spacing problem is back.Don't know why i'm saying this,but yeah,it's back.

The maid,that woman i sympathised with for having to leave her grandchildren faraway to do petty household chores in a foreign land,had been returned home couple months back so now we all have t do our own laundry and cleaning,but the apartment's quite small so i suspect maintenance won't be a tough task.I've yet to properly settle into home,a slight feeling of numbness still plagues me but i'm nonetheless excited at the prospect of staying here of the next two months-and i wait in anxiety and wonder,as i watch the many surprising events to come,unfold.

Prototypes

Ipod ads never fail to amaze me-they're simple yet fancy,extravagant yet basic-but what's best about these Ipod ads are the songs in them-like this one for the new Ipod Shuffle,with some help from Yahoo Answers i managed to find the track playing in the background:The Prototypes-Who's Gonna Sing,the song's catchy and has been on auto-replay since i downloaded it this morning.More songs by the French band at their MySpace here.

Before Borat came on screen,heaps of ads played and i realised two of them (one for channel 9,one for an xbox game) used the same song,except sung by different people.Anyways,my point is,the song sounded really sad,so i went back and googled the only two lines i remembered being sung in those two ads-''And i find it kinda funny and i find it kinda sad,the dreams in which i'm dying are the best i've ever had''.Turns out to be a really depressing song about emptiness,Gary Jules-Mad World.

Creepy,creepy eyes.

Saw III

Saw 3 is not a good horror film.

The film starts of trying to cram as much gore and bloodshed they can insert into the first 15 minutes-the first character performs the most disgusting feat in the movie,and two other characters are killed in ways that involve the ripping of torso's and peeling of skin.Once you've managed to survive the first15 minutes,there is very little to worry about-the first 15 minutes seems to have been created in such a way as if to lure audiences into pigeonholing the movie into the category both its preceding films fell in-that is,the genre of mindless horror films characterized by heaps of bloodshed and killing scenes that make audiences cringe.But wait,all of a sudden,a story appears.And this is when the film takes a sharp turn downhill.

A father has lost his child in an accident,and this time Jigsaw (playing teacher again) attempts to remove this father's vengeance and anger by subjecting him to four tests,and yes you guessed it-these four tests are none other than those which involve Jigsaw's self-made machines and timed gadgets (my fave being the jaw-ripping machine from Saw 2) but none of the scenes manage to compare to the gruelling nastiness of the first 15 minutes.The writers should be praised for being aware of the lack of story in the first two films (while there were some pretty cool blood shedding scenes,neither focused on a story-simply justifying this with a wicked twist near the end),but their efforts have failed poorly-the writers have attempted to put human in this otherwise inhuman movie.We don't sympathise with the grieving father or Jigsaw's 'noble' attempts at correcting others,the presence of a willing,kind-hearted doctor and conflicted murderer with sad past does not give the movie anymore substance,it just makes it one fucking hell of a boring movie.An,oh,there are few twists and the movie ends with a cliffhanger,but Saw 3 as a whole just comes off as boring.

I consider the first Saw a fucking classic but the second wasn't too impressive,this one just confirms my doubts-but i still have faith in the idea and know that a few dumb Saw movies later (Lionsgate recently announced that Saw IV will be made) someone will manage to revive it-same way Christopher Nolan did for the Batman series.Earning a rating of 27% from RT,reviewers have managed to come up with one collective opinion (as written on RT)-''Saw 3 does little beyond adding more gore''.The first Saw film set the bar pretty high and fans will keep watching the Saw movies to come despite how dumb they may be,simply for hope that the same satisfaction from the first Saw will be found again.Saw 3 is dull (meaning not too good or too bad,just incredibly dull.There are hundreds of worse horror films-Fear.com,The Omen,Scream,Darkness Falls to mention few)-horror fans would have much more fun renting and watching Night of The Living Dead or 1978's Dawn of The Dead for the 312-th time than watching this rubbish.I forgot about the film around 20 mins after walking out the cinema,having only vivid memory of those 3 noteworthy scenes in the first 15mins-the rest was just too fucking boring to be in my long-term memory.

Morning Blues

It's 6.30am on Friday morning and calmsleep once again eludes me but this time it wasn't a restless experience-i pullup the blinds of the window,revealing a view of Melbourne i had long forgotten.The sun had barely risen and dark shadows cast the buildings,cars and other vehicles pass by every now and then,and i realize i''ll be leaving this place in less than a week-somewhere inside me i don't want to go,but then i'm reminded the pleasures of home.

Spent the early hours of the morning reading a Kazuo Ishigiro novel,one that got more interesting than i had expected,so with nothing else to do and no nice shows to watch i laid there on my bed reading,two songs playing in my Ipod over & over again:TV On The Radio's Wolf Like Me,Natalie Imbruglia's That Day.Rewind the day 12 hours,i spent the entire morning walking around the city window shopping and browsing mindlesslythough stores,navigating my way through fast,timid crowds and taking my time to walk slowly as to not let the day slip by too quick.Finally i reached the City Library,sat down next to a middle-aged woman wearing sunnies indoors,a stackof wedding and tabloid magazines on her lap.I greedily took a large stack of magazines from the music section,mostly consisting of old copies of Rolling Stone,and after a while got too frustrated because i realized the mag's reviewers were too tame and kind or busy trying to make friends in the industry that all the albums and movies reviewed were given some form of grand praise,describing every single film as if it were a classic-i suspect workers for the mag were more interested in avoiding arguments or nasty e-mails,or the reviewers were really just old men with grandchildren whose hearts had been too withered by time and affection to be able to give a straight opinion about anything without sounding like a representative for the church.Left the place with a few cd's i borrowed simpy for the sake of filling up my Ipod space-Bowie,Sarah McLeod,Super Furry Animals and some bands i've never heard of.

The walk home was a long,tiring one-my mind dwelling in retrospect about the past year,along to the new playlist of random tracks i had built the night before,and just in time The Shins' We Will Become Silhouettes (a trippy,happy song) started playing as i reached my doorstep.Movies arive so fucking late in Australia,presumably the same time the dvd comes out in the US-movies i intend to watch on ciplakcd,because Aussie is just too fucking slow.

Dreamgirls.Almost Famous.Who Killed The Electric Car?Borat.Psycho.The Graduate.Casino Royale.The Hours.And all old Sofia Coppola & Tarantino films.I fucking hate the way the Msian film indstry overvalues films that are really horrible once subjected to the higher global standards-reviewers raved about Gubra and Sepet (okay Sepet was above average),but Gubra to me was a huge piece of crap where things become too sentimental and tragedies are inserted simply for the notion that they are sad an therefore worth inserting into a movie (e.g:a death,an affair,a prostitute-none developed properly,they just went in and out.But what annoyed me most was Sharifah Amani's character who seemed to be suffering identity dissociation,one minute she's this immature little brat,next she's in kebaya with her hair in a bun handling marital issues.WTF) and the characters were so one-dimensional and predictable,the pretentious script was disorganized the stories incomplete,and yet people still called it excellent.Fucking crap.But i admit the film was considered grand possibly because the typical films that graced Malaysian cinema was otherwise even worse,hence when something different came along people embraced it as a miracle.Still fucking crap.

Blogger won't let me space my sentences.The vid for Kissing the Lipless,and live versions here.

The Prestige was just inserted into IMDB's Top 250 films of all-time,being one of the very few films from 2006 making the list-the only other two being Little Miss Sunshine,The Departed.

Oh,the usual morning chaos has finally begun-noisy trams gliding on rusty rails,the sound of cars honking loudly,the sight of members of the workforce walking or cycling to work fully prepared in their black and white suits to face the day's hassle.Haish the monotony.