8 posts tagged “movies”
I just came back from our (rival? haha) college event Orientation Odyssey Night. Their team did a good job setting up the event, including a fairly nice stage and all. I won't say my opinions on the event here yet, because I usually like to dress my posts up with a lot of photos and videos.
You won't be seeing any videos or photos of performances on the next post - there aren't any! Plain and simple. There are, however, a crapload of post-event photography. We're all worse than socialites at a restaurant opening.
OO Nite '08 is, however, memorable for two things. One was the fact that today was my maiden solo drive. The parents, bless 'em, let me drive on my own to college for OO Nite. Seroja was having her birthday party which I had to leave early for, and the family were all at home, so they let me take the BMW out. Thank God. This is a very major step for me. I was nervous and all, but now that I've survived and made it safely back - multiple trips no less - I'm a lot more confident about driving alone.
Second thing it's memorable for - Julia performed! As part of a band called Impromptu (am I getting the exact spelling correct? Or are they spelling it funny the way young people now like to do, like Impromp2 or something?) with Kieran, Bryan, and local college emcee legends Samson and Martin, Julia did pretty neat. I finally saw her rap on stage. I won't disclose on my full opinions on her performance until a bit later, mind.
So there aren't pictures. Is there anything I can provide?
Nope, there's nothing. Will you wait a day or something so I can post the many photos of myself and many people? Mucho thanks to Sarah for the liberal lending of her camera to me (for those photo-frenzied thirty minutes or so after the event).
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Movies I've been watching?
I watched two excellent ones - Hot Fuzz and Hard Candy. Two extremely dissimilar films, but tremendously excellent. Hot Fuzz is one of the funniest movies I've ever watched. Hard Candy was one of the most beautiful movies I've ever watched. And torturous too. Once you watch it you'll understand. I love Ellen Page, even if she's kinda scary, yes.
I've done a lot of movie watching these last weeks. My MacBook is now my entertainment machine, a fact solidified by not being able to play any games anymore (except Peggle).
Through Julia I now have a copy of The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, of which I've given the first a thorough viewing. Epic, of course. I haven't watched The Godfather in about four years, and the last time I did, a three and a half hour movie kind of ruined your attention span and all.
Having watched all the movies on my previous list - refer to blogposts before, I'm heading straight on a Stanley Kubrick filmfest, with A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Now, Kubrick, he was a genius. Clockwork Orange - can I say "banned"?
Also, following through the David Bowie theme of the last few blogposts, next on the list will be the Bowie and Jennifer Connelly film Labyrinth. Quiet down! He's Jareth the Goblin King!
Yeah.
A movie that isn't all that old but something I want to watch all the same: I'm Not There. Bob Dylan played by Cate Blanchett (and others too). Yes.
Now, something I've been dying to watch for the longest, longest time - Blade Runner. Very much necessary.
Edward James Olmos yay! Tell me you're not extremely excited at the notion of him flying a Raptor in the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, finally admitting he can't live without President Roslin, and letting (now Admiral?) Saul Tigh get away with impregnating Caprica-Six. Oh, and Lee Adama's the President. Allow me here a moment. ZOMGWTFBBQ ROMO LAMPKIN'S CAT! I'm going to watch that episode again, dammit.
Battlestar Galactica is tight.
And so are movie-films.
I can't properly update you people on the blog, because I'm too filled with laziness.
But, please, let me tell you about the movie-things I've been watching lately.
I just finished watching Andrei Tarkovskiy's Stalker. Very deep, philosophical, and in its own way deeply and philosophically beautiful. I watched the first part (the movie's split into two chapter-like parts) yesterday, and finished the second today. I recall that 2007 game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and now I want to play it again. Too bad it ran too slow on my old desktop. What are the odds it'll run anywhere decent on my MacBook?
One of the best movies I saw recently was the 1976 film The Message (or Muhammad: Messenger of God), which was beautifully done and extremely excellent. Highly recommended. Too bad the subtitles were crap on that edition.
I watched 300 recently. A hell of a lot of people swear by the movie, saying it's awesome-this-awesome-that, but when I watched it, I was distinctly underwhelmed. Except for that bit where the Oracle's dancing, there was nothing particularly great for me. Or maybe because I already knew the story of Thermopylae long before that movie was made.
I probably haven't mentioned I very much enjoyed Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb not too long ago, and I'm giving that a rerun.
I still haven't watched indie Scandinavian movie Om Gud Vil, which stars Nina Persson, and hope there's some way I can find it.
Next: waiting for the arrival of the indie movie Walk All Over Me with LeeLee Sobieski and Tricia Helfer. It's got Tricia Helfer in it. That always means awesome.
I suppose now I want to read some too, to balance my life out. More movies, excellent. But need books too.
I've hit a wealth of movies to watch sometime soon, now. Juno's one of them shortlisted and I should get to watch that within the week. I finally watched Little Miss Sunshine tonight on TV, having waited patiently since its original release. I also caught two episodes of The Sopranos, which makes its Malaysian TV debut on HBO. I'm intrigued enough to want to watch the next few, at least.
Also, what I'm really hyped up for, is my acquisition of a copy of a movie I have spent far too long wanting, Bernardo Bertolluci's The Dreamers, which stars Michael Pitt and Eva Green. Eva Green. Oh wow. Um, weirdly enough, I have all the time in the world being my holidays after all, I've not had the time to watch it yet. I will, I swear. I've wanted that movie a long time now. I'm sure going to be busy.
...Except that I actually don't, of course. Love glasses, nor have hurt eyes.
At the library, studying. Exams start on Thursday, with accursed accursed Bahasa Malaysia (I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE JOKES ABOUT IT!). Then it restarts proper on Saturday with Hubungan Etnik. After that, it can't possibly be any worse, right? Let's hope on it.
New listenings: I have come to enjoy very much some B-sides on The Other Side Of The Moon, which I pretty much liked anyway, but now wholeheartedly love. Especially Country Hell and the basic version of After All.
Been doing some anagrams today. "A Watchman, She" is the best I can come up with after tampering with a few names and variations - I did so wonderfully last year when I was compiling my list of Laura anagrams. They were amazing. Too bad I can't remember them now. LAURA! DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR ANAGRAMS?
(Some people may ask who Laura is. Others will know she is unborn daughter, and others yet will expect a comment from her on my Vox. Why, there she is now! Hi, Laura!)
This has been very, very fascinating. I've never watched Season One nor the Miniseries, so now I can! Wheeeeeee! Yeah. Whatever.
Alright, I'm going to send in the bank draft for the hostel second semester fees thing.
I didn't live in the 80s. Not a single part of me belonged to the 80s. I don't get the hairstyles, the TV shows, (but the music I do... sometimes. I'm a hypocrite), the lifestyles. I'm a true kid of the 90s.
In that same sense, I don't get Transformers. It's a silly, simple concept. You can disguise it in thick nerdy mythology, but the fact remains that... it's just about robots. Fighting each other. And causing great explosions. You'll notice that this concept would still make lots of money and attention even today. It's the lowest common denominator. Robots, fighting each other. And causing explosions. Most people love this kind of thing. I'm not most people.
It's a silly, juvenile film, really. The titular super-machines are way, way over-the-top. The jokes involving urination... juvenile. Immature. But no doubt fun, I'm sure. I do enjoy ludicrous action movies like the other man does.
But I tell you this. Throughout the entire movie, I was thinking of one thing and one thing only. Okay, two things - but one's a person, so let's ignore that. I was thinking --
"Damn, I want to play Deus Ex."
Something's wrong with my DX game - now, I can't play it. I'm terribly angry about it. Deus Ex is, like, number two or something on my favorite games evar. Deus Ex is a thinking game. You sneak around, talk philosophy, and shoot tranq darts into NSF terrorists. Then you talk some more philosophy.
Transformers involves no real sneaking about, no such philosophy, and lots of things are shot. We have missiles. 40mm sabot rounds. We've got lots of things exploding, kerploding, imploding, or otherwise -ploding. And you have the US Military involved, so you know there's going to be explosions.
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We went on Tuesday. Class ends at two on Tuesdays, and by sheer dint of luck we ended at 1.40, meaning we could spend those two extra minutes commuting. Took the LRT from Wangsa Maju to KLCC. 'Twas me, Amir ("Psycho" though I more often than not call him Amir), Julia and Tabby. This was all Psycho's idea. He, a true child of the 80s, wanted to watch the movie, but didn't have anybody to go with. (the only other Transformnerd, Josiah's watching this Saturday). Julia and Tabby wouldn't go if I didn't. They were like, "Do you want us to go and have fun and you'll be all jealous?" I was like, "Well, why not."
Got tickets from a relatively uncrowded movie ticket line, and then made our way to the food place. Tabby had fettucine carbonara. I love fettucine. I love carbonara. People, make mental notes of this. Now! (Unless you're family, because by then you'll already have heard my constant aggrandizing of fettucine carbonara. Except I don't like it when they put mushrooms. Urk.) In contrast, my meal cost about the same, but wasn't fettucine. But now I know! I look forward to going there again, and having the carbonara.
I finished my meal quicky-ishly, and while the other three still ate. I went up to Kinokuniya. And bought myself TWO books. Two books of the fifty-plus range. They are:
They don't have full Requiem, in its red hardcover, full-color glory. It would probably cost RM139. Surprisingly, they've got Mage, Werewolf and Promethean.
Also, after months of wanting, now I have a copy of the much-vaunted, much-recommended The Raw Shark Texts.
So we watched the movie. Then we finished the movie, two and a half robot-filled hours later. We then walked around, ending up in Avenue K. Due to the 6.30pm massive traffic of people at the station, we decided to walk to Ampang Park, then use its own LRT station. It wasn't so packed, but the trains itself were. Once we got off we taxied down to TARCland. Yeah, and that's pretty much how I spent Tuesday. (Oh, and after getting back from the movie, I spent four hours whining about how I wanted to play Deus Ex to Shafiq)
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I did assignments yesterday. The girls (Visha, Julia, Tabby, Sheela) called me up at 10.58pm and asked me to come down with the laptop. We did assignments. The IT proposal is done. I wrote all that in half an hour. Now it's printed. At 10.30 I'm meeting Visha for a suddenly called-up meeting with out Program Supervisor Ms Chan (Mrs?). I wonder what's it about. Me, I'm just there as advisor/observer (Asst Course Reps have no real power).
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ENDNOTES:
For reference purposes, here are three examples of stompy robots.
Big, stompy, silly, and with even sillier names and voices. What was that Jazz about?!
Big, stompy, but oh so happy.
Stompy and fun, and a lot more intelligent, but no less stompy. My personal favorite.
I've never been so broke in my college lifetime. (Though I have a comparatively large surplus of funds in my wallet left)
ACT ONE, SCENE ONE
One man (man/boy/lad/guy/whatever) is giving a monologue to the screen. He is standing, shifting his weight from foot to foot every so often. This character is AMIRUL.
AMIRUL
Hey. I want to tell you about something, and I hope I can type as fast and as long as I'd like to think, because if I can't, that would suck, and besides, I fall short lots of times.
He paces around. The camera follows him. A cough is heard offscreen.
OFFSCREEN VOICE
(*Cough*)
AMIRUL
So today... today I've been attending meetings... hell, I just got back from one. There was a meeting for all the Course Representatives in the entire SSSH --
(*Subtitles appear onscreen, saying "SSSH: School of Social Sciences And Humanities"*)
Yeah, yeah, you know what that means. So I'm there because I'm Visha's assistant, right? We're supposed to be there. I've never really met any of the others, either. There're a lot of courses, eh, from like Journalism (JOURNALISM!) to like Broadcast Communication and Fashion Design. Lots, as I said.
He stops pacing around. The camera zooms a small increment.
It was long, two hours long. But no doubt enlightening. More work has to be done, that kind of stuff. When it was done, like, 11.30am, we were both almost half an hour late for our class - we had our IT practical - but we were quite lucky, eh. I myself, I'm quite lucky. I had to skip Swimming to attend the meet. Luckily for me I can always go and take it again any other day of the week.
AMIRUL pauses, and smiles once.
Oh! Yeah, lucky for me I was late for IT practical instead of something else (say, E-Commerce tutorials, God forbid, no). They were only learning how to make subdocuments in Microsoft Word, how to make Tables of Content. Hell if I don't know how to, because I do, and if I don't I've got the Office '07 to try this on. But hey, that's all boring stuff, you know? We had a significantly more important class next. Mass Comm., you know. A two hour lecture. A short detour to the SSH office beforehand to ask about the SPM verification things - you don't need to know, it's boring - and off we went to DK ABD. It's the lecture hall with the plastic chairs. Those plastic chairs aren't as nice as the cushioned seats in ABF, but they sure as heck beat the Bronze Age benches in DK X and Y, like.
Then we were working on the Hubungan Etnik assignment. Finishing it up, really. We've got to compile it tomorrow. 's gonna give us some time to work, okay. Then there's... ooh!... the English Language Society first meeting for the junior exco. Now that's a long meeting. Four to six-thirty. That long. And like in any newly established democracy, it kinda got chaotic at times. That's just with, what, sixteen newly minted potential executive committee members. Add that to the voice of, what, ten senior committee members. Add that to the overruling voice of the four advisors. I'm surprised I can even run Journalism (JOURNALISM!) at all. Sorry, run it with Visha. She does the running. I do the following and keeping up, and the occasional escort job, as well as replacement duties.
Yeah, so I'm here. I've checked my blog and my mail (I used to ignore my Gmail for long stretches of time, but now I don't, yeah) and the usual blogs (ha! I can't tell you their names now can I... okay: Jim, Roslyn, etc etc etc). I think I'll go off and live in the streets of warmth, because this bit here is... so COLD! It's cold, really. Today I was wearing three layers of shirts to counteract the cold. You know what happened then?
OFFSCREEN VOICE
What?
AMIRUL
I took one off.
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Eh, so?
AMIRUL
I'm just telling you,
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Oh... okay.
AMIRUL
Should I continue?
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Go on.
AMIRUL
Are we running out of time?
OFFSCREEN VOICE
You're talking to a nonexistent entity whose sphere of influence doesn't even consider time. There is no concept of time. Time is a swearword here, because it does not exist. Not only does it not exist, it forbids itself from existing. It forbids itself from forbidding itself from existing, because to forbid itself from existing is to actually exist, and that's forbidden. And... No, we're not running out of time.
AMIRUL
Cool.
So, yeah, now I'm here. I'm yearning for food. I want a burger. No! I had a burger already. No! I've had burgers these few weeks. So I'll have rice! No. No. I'll have to wait a long time. Ah well... I'll have both, I guess. Laters. Dinner awaits!
OFFSCREEN VOICE
But we're not running out of time.
AMIRUL
Yeah, I know.
AMIRUL turns and begins to walk away, footsteps resonating all across the empty room.
OFFSCREEN VOICE
That guy should really learn the proper way of being interviewed.
SCENE.
Video: Show us a scene from your favorite movie.
Submitted by Caroline.
One? Why not twenty? Here's twenty, courtesy of Google Image Search. I don't know if this is my favorite scene, or heck, if it even has to do with the movie at all.
