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His leading role in Brokeback Mountain earned him an Oscar nomination. One of his most recent movies was Casanova, I remember I watched that. He was also to appear as The Joker in the upcoming Batman installment, The Dark Knight. But one cannot forget his role as Patrick Verona in 10 Things I Hate About You…

What a tragic loss, indeed. Farewell, Heath Ledger.

And I mean real, spooky, scary movies. Not that lame comedy that is not even half scary. Save for a few really good attempts, Hollywood is no match for Asia when it comes to producing horror films. Have you noticed that recently Hollywood has been remaking movies that are originally from Asia? It says alot about the ideas and creative juices of the screenwriters in Asia, doesn’t it? However, Hollywood is no doubt more superior when it comes to budget and technology.

In many scary movies, it’s easy to come across lame attempts to frighten the audience with sudden, loud sound effects and gory images. Also, if the movie is too visual (more on ‘visual’, later!), it can get quite boring. That’s because most of us don’t know how ghosts really look like. It is the *thought* of knowing that there is a presence nearby, somewhere… that really scares.

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I read that it’s supposed to be a special day today for singletons in China, because Nov 11 indicates ‘11/11′, which is made up of quadruple 1’s. Not sure how the heck that came about, but it sure is a piece of interesting info. This occasion is also said to be highly commercialized and popular, given the number of singles - which is increasing due to “rising gender imbalance” - in that country. Here in KL, it was just another Sunday. And I finally stepped foot into a cinema again since Transformers. This time it was Bee Movie. Er, entertaining… entertaining… that’s all I can say. At least I got to eat the sweet caramel popcorns.

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I think the crowd that flocked to Putrajaya for the fireworks competition this week had doubled. Maybe even tripled. Seriously, the jam actually started from DHL in Puchong. Shortly after the USJ toll, I was shocked to see cars coming to a standstill on the way up the ram towards LDP. Needless to say, it took much, much longer than I thought to reach even the second toll.

I decided not to go into Putrajaya anymore as we were definitely going to be late. Luckily Xinyi didn’t mind. We ended up in Cyberjaya, which wasn’t that bad considering we could have missed the whole thing altogether. Actually it was also an enjoyable experience in the sense that you actually watch the show, rather than fiddling with camera settings trying to capture perfect shots. I didn’t bother to set up the tripod as the Italian team had already started their performance. Everyone actually abandoned their cars in the jam (refer to pic), which was pretty cool. I had never parked my car in the middle of the road like that before, lol.

Thankfully the journey back wasn’t as bad as last week’s. It’s strange, I don’t know why. I got home in time for a good night’s sleep, as I gotta get up early this morning for the SJ10K run. I don’t know how well I did, but I think I missed the 60 minutes qualifying time, judging from the time one of the boys told me. In any case, it was a good workout - beats running on the treadmill anytime. Oh btw, I must say that this year’s T-shirt design is bad.

The Hungry Ghost Festival

I’m sure by now you have seen many people burning jossticks and other offerings by the roadside. It is the time of the year (in the lunar calendar, at least) where the Buddhists believe that the gates of hell are opened and the spirits of the dead will roam the streets. Offering jossticks, prayers, food and hell notes is a way to pay our respect for the dead. My family did just that outside our house today, where we paid respect facing all four directions at the crossroad.

From online.sh.cn via Google Images

By the by, speaking of ghosts, have you watched Jay Chou’s latest movie, Secret (不能说的秘密)? Well it’s not exactly about ghosts, more like a case of intertwined dimensions of time. Ah, whatever it is, it surely was a creative work. I’m not gonna go on telling you about the story, because it’s supposed to be… well, a secret. Go watch it and tell me if it reminds you of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense. Whoops, was that a spoiler? Actually, The Sixth Sense was about ghosts but Secret is not. I can’t say I liked the acting in Secret, but the storyline really impressed me. And the actresses, too - they’re worth a mention. So pretty can!!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Wow, as much as I love to write about my first day experience, I don’t think I have the time and brainpower to do it. Suffice to say, I’ve no regrets landing myself this job! System Engineer, that’s what I am and what I’ll be, for quite a while. Anyway, here’s something I found in The Star newspaper last week:

I didn’t know a cunning linguist is also known as a copywriter. All I know that it’s a little too suggestive to be in national newspaper. It was catchy, though. And oh…

Go watch Transformers, ok? Don’t mind the corny lines (I didn’t notice until angel mentioned!), and you’ll enjoy the movie every single frame. I don’t mind going to watch it again, and again. Ok, thrice is enough.

Have a great week, guys. Don’t mind the slower updates yea… Work is gonna take up most of my time now. (I really need to learn from those who manage to juggle between blogging and working…)

You’ve probably seen Ice Age, Monsters Inc., Shrek and all the other high-grossing 3D animated films and wondered when will Malaysia ever come up with films of that kind. This year, we can look forward to an all-Malaysian production, Geng: The Adventure Begins (although Shrek 3 is also in my must-watch list… hehe), which will write history by being Malaysia’s first-ever full-length 3D animated feature film.

Note: You may also watch its Youtube equivalent here.

The film is well-positioned as the first-of-its-kind in Malaysia with its animation milestone coupled with its showcase of the Malaysian culture in a rural setting. Its main characters are mostly in the younger age group, so it’s not that difficult to portray a muhibbah sort of diversity among them. It’s also a safe approach because I think the main breakthrough here is none other than the 3D animation in the film. The storyline may not be like one of Yasmin Ahmad’s works, but its good entertainment nonetheless with occasional funny bits throughout (as far as one can tell from the trailer), which should appeal to a wide range of audience.

The people behind the film are mostly graduates from the Faculty of Creative Multimedia (FCM) in my university, but none of them are known to me. I was told about this film by a friend, who is from One Academy and an animator for the film. Check out its website http://www.gengthemovie.com/ for more information and background. You may also download a high-resolution trailer of the film there. Geng is definitely a cause for cheer for our local film animation industry, and I hope it only paves way for even more locally-produced 3D animated films in the future. Are you excited yet?

In fact, it may even appeal to any motorsport junkie. We had Remp-it (loosely associated with the term “Mat Rempit”, coined specially for illegal motorcycle racers) some time back. That movie, Remp-it, was about a group of people who was involved in illegal motorcycle races - which itself is a real-life nuisance in Malaysia. Later this year, we will have a new movie based on drifting on four wheels. Here’s the trailer uploaded by a YouTube user yesterday:

The trailer of Impak Maksima (”Maximum Impact” in English) begins with cars zipping and drifting around the KL city center at night. The city roads are pretty flat, and wide too. I wonder if they had attempted to film in Genting Highlands. There are some funny fighting scenes as well - most notable one would be the 360-degrees spinning kick. It’s abit of an overkill (read: unnecessary), but nicely executed nonetheless.

Among the stars of the movie is Tengku Djan’s heavily modified red rear-wheel-drive Proton Waja. That’s probably the only rear-wheel-drive Proton Waja in the world. A yellow AE86 is thrown in as well, otherwise it’s not ‘drift-racing’ anymore. This is of course thanks to the Japanese manga, Initial D, from which the AE86 gained immense popularity despite its age. Other cars in the trailer include Nissan Skyline, Cefiro and Sylvia.

Will the movie impress the Malaysian Censorship Board? Since Remp-it could pass, I believe Impak Maksima will, too. I may even make my way to the theaters to catch it. Here’s a quote taken from the trailer:

Orang nak main kereta, lu pun nak main kereta! Lain kali kalau tak ada duit, jadi Mat Rempit aje lah!

Impak Maksima… coming to a theater near you!

This may not be my ‘very first meme assignment’, but it sure is the first meme on Narrowband.org! Thanks Che-cheh :D. Favourite movies, hmm. Here’s my list (there could be other nice movies which I’ve forgotten):
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