Not many would understand the joke in the title. Those three are names of pesticides, insecticides and/or herbicides popular with Malaysian farmers.
If you grew up in the rural areas, like I did, you might have encountered these things and I assure you you won't forget their smell. Nothing smells like poison more than those three.
But the most toxic has no smell. It's an illegal Type-1 insecticide called Lannate Malaysian farmers get from Thailand, smuggled through customs and any form of control.
You get Lannate if you have a wild boar problem, like we do in our village. Wild boars are the most intelligent of all animals. They can detect poison and/or traps. Probably due to their superior sense of smell.
But they can't smell Lannate.
So you mix Lannate up with some chicken entrails and you leave them out on the ground. The next day, a wild boar would have all four feet up in the air.
You don't sell any animal killed with Lannate. The toxicity is so potent, if ducks were to spoon for worms at the site where the boar died, the ducks would die. If flies land on the ducks, the flies would die. I saw this, when I was a kid.
You sell the dead boar to people, and you'd be killing them.
Now what does this have to do with a yearly roundup? Well, absolutely nothing. It's not a metaphor or subtext or whatever.
I don't even feel like doing a roundup now because I feel toxic. I was betrayed yet again recently, and it will take time to heal. Meanwhile, I still have loads of work to do and my back still hurts, meaning I can no longer sit down for long periods without taking any rest.
If anything, 2016 saw me embark on a path to reconcile my newfound peace and happiness with my old work drive.
I once did what to me was an amazing amount of work within short periods of time. It nearly killed me, literally, and I was testing if I could go into that mode again these past few months.
I have so many things to do. So much, that I am beginning to feel like I don't want to do them.
I think I'll feel better tomorrow. And I hope going back to my old working habits would not be too similar to drinking poison.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Bebas Hutang PTPTN!
Hari ini, aku pergi bayar baki pinjaman aku dengan PTPTN yang berjumlah RM1962.67. Selepas diskaun 15% (insentif kalau bayar semua baki pinjaman), aku membayar RM1668.61. Sebenarnya, aku bayar RM1669 dengan 39 sen aku wakafkan untuk kegunaan yang baik-baik sahaja.
Maka berakhirlah, aku harap, kisah aku dengan PTPTN yang bermula sejak aku menamatkan pengajian pada tahun 2003. Kisah aku dengan PTPTN bermula dengan maki hamun tidak terbatas. Kemudian masuk mahkamah. Akhirnya dah settle.
Aku masih fikir semua yang pinjam PTPTN wajib bayar balik supaya generasi selepas ni ada duit nak pinjam kalau pergi Universiti. Dan aku tak setuju dengan pendidikan percuma yang akan aku jelaskan di bawah.
Sebelum tu, meh aku cerita pasal kisah drama nak mampus aku dengan PTPTN.
Kisah Penuh Drama
Aku mula bekerja pada akhir tahun 2003 tetapi hanya membayar balik pinjaman PTPTN dalam beberapa kali setahun selama beberapa tahun. PTPTN mula menghantar surat ke alamat aku di kampung. Mak dan bapak aku yang ada darah tinggi, sakit jantung dan kencing manis selalu panik bila ada surat kutip hutang PTPTN.
Surat itu surat firma guaman. Aku difahamkan setiap kali hantar surat mungkin ada cajnya yang dikenakan oleh firma itu. Kalau dia hantar kepada semua peminjam PTPTN, dah berapa tu? Siapa yang bayar? Masuk dalam jumlah pinjaman aku ke?
Jadi, aku telefon PTPTN suruh jangan hantar kat mak bapak aku, tapi begini jadinya:
Aku: Boleh tak jangan hantar surat kat mak bapak saya? Hantar kat saya.
PTPTN: Kami takleh berhenti hantar sebab kena telefon PTPTN pantai timur.
Aku: Bak nombor PTPTN pantai timur.
Aku call nombor yang dia bagi.
Aku: Boleh tak jangan hantar surat kat mak bapak saya? Hantar kat saya.
PTPTN: Kami takleh berhenti hantar sebab kena telefon PTPTN HQ.
Aku: Tadi saya call HQ dia cakap suruh call pejabat ni.
Maka berakhirlah, aku harap, kisah aku dengan PTPTN yang bermula sejak aku menamatkan pengajian pada tahun 2003. Kisah aku dengan PTPTN bermula dengan maki hamun tidak terbatas. Kemudian masuk mahkamah. Akhirnya dah settle.
Aku masih fikir semua yang pinjam PTPTN wajib bayar balik supaya generasi selepas ni ada duit nak pinjam kalau pergi Universiti. Dan aku tak setuju dengan pendidikan percuma yang akan aku jelaskan di bawah.
Sebelum tu, meh aku cerita pasal kisah drama nak mampus aku dengan PTPTN.
Kisah Penuh Drama
Aku mula bekerja pada akhir tahun 2003 tetapi hanya membayar balik pinjaman PTPTN dalam beberapa kali setahun selama beberapa tahun. PTPTN mula menghantar surat ke alamat aku di kampung. Mak dan bapak aku yang ada darah tinggi, sakit jantung dan kencing manis selalu panik bila ada surat kutip hutang PTPTN.
Surat itu surat firma guaman. Aku difahamkan setiap kali hantar surat mungkin ada cajnya yang dikenakan oleh firma itu. Kalau dia hantar kepada semua peminjam PTPTN, dah berapa tu? Siapa yang bayar? Masuk dalam jumlah pinjaman aku ke?
Jadi, aku telefon PTPTN suruh jangan hantar kat mak bapak aku, tapi begini jadinya:
Aku: Boleh tak jangan hantar surat kat mak bapak saya? Hantar kat saya.
PTPTN: Kami takleh berhenti hantar sebab kena telefon PTPTN pantai timur.
Aku: Bak nombor PTPTN pantai timur.
Aku call nombor yang dia bagi.
Aku: Boleh tak jangan hantar surat kat mak bapak saya? Hantar kat saya.
PTPTN: Kami takleh berhenti hantar sebab kena telefon PTPTN HQ.
Aku: Tadi saya call HQ dia cakap suruh call pejabat ni.
So gitulah beberapa kali sampailah aku dah marah, aku call PTPTN.
Aku: PTPTN ni nak kutip bayaran ke, nak hantar surat?
PTPTN: Kami takleh berhenti hantar sebab -
Aku: Camnilah. Kalau tak berenti antar surat, saya akan berenti bayar.
PTPTN: Berenti lewwww.
Aku pun berenti bayar selama lima tahun. Dapat pulak surat suruh aku naik court. Court majistret.
So aku buat dua benda:
1. Aku tengok Boston Legal tentang cara nak fight kat court.
2. Aku jumpa lawyer mahal dan mintak nasihat free.
Lawyer mahal suruh aku buat bank draft 10% jumlah pinjaman aku dan produce in court sambil cakap, "Saya memang nak bayar tapi diorang ni asyik harass mak bapak saya yang sakit di kampung ."
Berbekalkan nasihat lawyer mahal yang diberi percuma dan kemahiran Boston Legal, aku pergi mahkamah majistret.
Masuk mahkamah, aku tidak dibenarkan bercakap, sebaliknya hanya digembala seperti lembu untuk cakap ya atau tidak di depan majistret.
Bank draft yang aku bawak aku koyakkan di luar mahkamah sambil memberitahu peguam yang mewakili PTPTN yang ini semua tidak adil. Pastu aku telefon lawyer mahal cakap nasihat dia tak berguna sebab gitu jelah benda yang jadinya.
Kemudian, aku telefon PTPTN.
Aku: Okay, saya nak mula bayar bulan-bulan ni. Berapa PTPTN nak? Saya patut bayar 120++ sebulan tapi saya sanggup bayar RM500 sebulan sampai habis.
PTPTN: Kami taknak duit awak! Kami nak isytihar awak bankrupt! Kami nak sita harta benda awak. (Yang ni real ni. Almost verbatim. Aku tak buat cerita. Memang pegawai kat telefon tu cakap camni)
Aku: Kak, saya takde rumah, takde kereta. Yang saya ada cuma PC dan meja PC. Nak sita, sitalah!
Bengang dengan PTPTN, aku tak bayar lagi selama dua tahun.
Lepas tu, aku rasa aku patut bayar balik apa aku pinjam. So sebab aku ada banyak pengalaman buruk cakap dengan pegawai di telefon, aku pergi HQ PTPTN masa tu di Wisma Chase Perdana.
Elok la pulak pegawai yang handle kes aku. Siap tolong aku lagi, dan aku bayar dalam RM2,000 pastu start standing instruction dengan bank for RM300/month.
Aku tanya CIMB: "Memandangkan PTPTN ni kadang-kadang walaupun saya bayar dia buat cam saya tak bayar je, apakah kaedah bayaran bulanan yang paling banyak paper trail dalam dunia?"
CIMB menasihatkan aku buat standing instruction pakai cheque. Maksudnya setiap bulan, pada 17 hb, CIMB akan keluarkan cheque daripada akaun aku, hantar cheque tu ke PTPTN. Akan ada TIGA rekod cheque ni - kat CIMB, kat aku dan kat PTPTN. Kos? RM5 sekali keluar. AKu tak tau berapa banyak pokok aku bunuh demi memastikan ada rekod bayaran aku.
Ternyata, pilihan ini tepat sebab dalam dua tiga tahun lepas, masa baki pinjaman aku sepatutnya dalam 6-8K, aku dapat call from PTPTN.
PTPTN: Nak tukar ujrah kewwww?
Aku: Emmm... Taknak! By the way, berapa baki pinjaman saya?
PTPTN: Ada dalam 16k kot?
Aku: Aik? Kalau ikut kiraan saya, patut tinggal dalam 6-8K je. Akak jangan cakap PTPTN tak terima pulak.
PTPTN: Tak tau lewwww.
Aku pun runsing, jadi aku pergi CIMB dan mintak dia print semua rekod bayaran aku pada PTPTN selama lima tahun. Berbekalkan timbunan kertas setebal satu inci, aku ke PTPTN untuk mengesahkan baki pinjaman aku. Nak tau berapa?
RM6-8K. Seperti kiraan aku.
Aku pun hidup seperti biasa dengan kesedaran yang aku akan habis bayar PTPTN pada 2017, sampailah Najib keluar TV cakap, "Sapa bayar abis PTPTN dapat 15% diskaun! Gwiyomi!"
Aku cam, fuck yeah, bitch!
Aku pun tunggu client bayar dan kemudian pagi tadi aku call PTPTN - pertama kali dalam masa 8 tahun kot. ELOKKKK pulak dia jawab bila aku tanya baki pinjaman aku. Makcik yang kurang hajar dulu dah tak kerja kewww?
Aku pun ke Menara AmBank yang kat sebelah Menara PTPTN pastu keluarkan duit kat ATM sebab Menara PTPTN takde ATM rasanya.
Pastu aku settlekan baki pinjaman aku. Pastu aku lunch kat sebelah dengan angin bertiup kencang. Aku rasa macam baru membunuh seekor kerbau yang mengganas. Aku rasa macam baru lepas berak di banjaran pergunungan Alps. Aku rasa macam aku naik kuda di kawasan Steppes.
Kisah Tauladan
Jadi, seperti masa-masa lain aku berurusan dengan ajensi kerajaan, bercakap dengan pegawai di telefon sepatutnya dielakkan. Aku gaduh dengan PTPTN dulu pun sebab bercakap dengan orang di telefon dalam 8-13 tahun lepas. Yang sekarang ni dah okay dah.
Aku syak yang dulu, pegawai kerajaan yang jawab telefon ialah mereka yang bermasalah atau dihukum sebab apa-apa kesalahan. Sekarang ni macam dah meningkat dah kualiti manusia yang jawab telefon.
Tapi paling bagus kalau ko pergi cari sendiri orang yang handle/ada access kes kau. Aku alami benda sama kat LHDN, ASB, FINAS dan PTPTN ni ha. Gomen ni kira manual la.
Lepas jumpa dengan orang yang memang handle kes kau, cepat je penyelesaiannya. Dia bagi ko option yang ko ada, so ko pilih le apa yang sesuai.
Hada Aku Kesah
Sekang pasal bebudak bodoh duduk hisap jerebu tengah padang mintak PTPTN dihapuskan atau nak education percuma.
Kalau PTPTN dihapuskan, sapa punya duit yang hilang? Duit PTPTN datang daripada duit cukai orang yang bekerja/berniaga. Senangnya mak ko teran ko keluar puki, pastu nak suruh aku bayar ko belajar yang takde le pandai mana tu?
Pastu kalau takde PTPTN, mana bebudak ni semua yang rata-rata mak bapak takde duit nak hantar anak dia ke universiti (macam mak bapak aku) nak cekau duit?
Loan PTPTN interest dia 4%. Loan bank, dulu ada education loan dalam 6%. Sekang ni? Ambik la personal loan yang bodoh nak mampus tu, dengan interest 10% hire-purchase (10% atas jumlah asal pinjaman dan bukan baki pinjaman) pastu melingkup la ko nak bayar sampai mampus.
Pastu ada hati nak mintak education free. Negara yang education dia free cam Canada, Germany, tu semua cukai pendapatan dia berapa? 40%? Kita bayar cukai dalam 20-25%, itupun berapa kerat yang bayar?
Semua benda nak free, orang cakap bangsa subsidi marah la pulak.
"Kita tak perlukan subsidi!"
Pastu bila minyak masak dan minyak petrol/diesel punya subsidi kena tarik sikit demi sikit, meraung macam anjing kena jolok jubur.
Ya, PTPTN banyak kelemahan dia, daripada website yang kadang-kadang okay, kadang-kadang tak okay, resit bayaran yang takde nombor pinjaman, dan kelemahan gomen yang memang kita sepatutnya dah maklum.
Ya, PTPTN dulu ada orang tak faham konsep yang jaga telefon. Ya, aku pernah gaduh dengan PTPTN selama beberapa tahun.
Tapi pada akhirnya, PTPTN ialah satu benda yang baik untuk memastikan pengurangan mat rempit dan bohsia di tengah jalan. Sebab kalau berpuluh ribu budak lepas SPM atau STPM tak ke universiti atau kolej, diorang nak buat apa? Hisap kote? Rompak rumah aku?
Najib dan BN bukan PTPTN. PTPTN, sama macam PR1MA, BR1M, dan mana-mana inisiatif kerajaan, diwujudkan bukan oleh ahli politik, tetapi pengkaji dalam kementerian dan kerajaan. Orang pandai-pandai dalam MoF dan JPA yang mungkin penerima biasiswa sebab dah pandai sangat. Atau bapak dia kabel kuat. Whatever.
Ahli politik ni ambik kredit je daripada idea dan usaha penjawat kerajaan. Diorang bukan pandai pun. Aku tengok sesetengahnya mungkin terencat akal.
Dulu ramai marah MACC, pastu puji la pulak. Kimak apa? Ko patutnya pertahankan institusi kita daripada dipergunakan dan dibuli oleh ahli politik.
Kesimpulannya ialah, PTPTN ni walaupun banyak masalahnya, masih lagi langkah terbaik untuk membolehkan orang belajar kat universiti. Kalau nak improve, bukan dengan hapuskan semua hutang PTPTN tapi dengan lancarkan banyak benda yang tak lancar dalam tu. Dan bayarlah balik apa yang ko pinjam. Ko ingat ko boleh lari?
Friday, December 16, 2016
Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
This movie could have been the greatest Star Wars movie of all time. The premise is simple and excellent - a HEIST MOVIE! SET IN THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE!
Imagine The Italian Job or Ocean's Eleven - IN SPACE! With lasers and blasters and crippled Jedi Masters... but no.
And this, to me, is its greatest sin. What it could have been.
Synopsis first. Jyn Urso's mother was killed by some dude in a white cape, so her father goes to work for him, building a Death Star.
Jyn was rescued by Forest Whitaker and then TIMESKIP! We jump from one planet to the other and it's disconcerting. What the fuck was happening? Who is this dude? Is it the same dude? Different dude? That guy's a different race, right? Am I racist? Wait, who's the pilot now? Is it racist to confuse two dudes and not registering their (probably) different ethnicity at all?
I'm confused about Jyn's emergency boyfriend and the pilot dude.
Anyway, it all doesn't matter because they all meet at Forest Whitaker's pad and the pilot gets mind-raped and loses his marbles, but then he isn't because somebody reminded him he's acting as 'the Imperial pilot'.
Pilot: I'm the pilot! I'm the pilot!
*Pushes buttons and shit*
Jyn Urso would have been so good as the character who hates the Empire peeps because they killed her mother and kidnapped her father, while the Rebel Alliance distrusts her because her father is considered a traitor. At least that's what she SHOULD have been.
Some wonky shit makes her underdeveloped even though having most of the screen time. Rey, despite all you haters, have more depth in one stupid scavenging expedition than Jyn.
MAJOR PROBLEM ALERT!
Jyn's conflict and possible anger towards her father was resolved and we see her getting closure when she listens to her father's hologram message.
MAJOR PROBLEM ALERT ESCALATION! MOON PRISM POWER MAKEUP!
So you're Galen Urso and you're telling the Rebels you are not a traitor/Empire macai because you incorporated a fatal flaw in the Death Star. You should lead with that in a short hologram message and not try to reach your daughter whom you haven't seen or heard from in years.
The message could have been like this:
Galen: Yo Rebel scum! I got a flaw in the Death Star bitch! And to my daughter, if you can somehow hear this message, I was never a traitor. Don't you let anyone tell you otherwise.
But no. The message was mostly, "Jyn, I love you honey. Sorry about growing up without me and shit. You did grow up right? You didn't get killed or end up as Bantha poodoo? Stay away from pod-racing!"
Then, Jyn, after years of being told she is the daughter of a traitor, can say, "fuck yeah, daddy-o!"
Imagine the memory Snape showed Harry Potter. Imagine that scene. Imagine if Jyn wanted to go and kill her father to wipe dishonour from her family, and then finding out her father is actually a good guy.
But no. Okay.
Jyn's reaction meant she had closure over her father's death BEFORE he died. So when he died, I didn't feel anything. And neither did Jyn. What a waste of a great actor.
And then. And then!
There was a Rebel meeting. For some reason, Jyn got to the main table. The big girls' table. I know this is the Rebel Alliance, but what?
Fine. The Rebel council rejected her plans. But some followed her anyway. Why? I don't know because these fuckers around me KEPT ON FUCKING TALKING.
If you talk in the cinema, I curse you, your kids, your grandkids, your great-great grandkids. I kill you so hard, your ancestors will die!
Anyway, Emergency Boyfriend dude gave a lame speech about whatever.
Donnie Yen's character, Chirrut KimYe and his Life Partner are a delight, for the most part. They followed Jyn simply because she's 'the Chosen One' in some respects, and that's fine.
So these rebels who rebelled against the Rebels, went on a suicide heist mission to some planet somewhere.
Now this is what this movie is supposed to be - this fucking heist. Imagine if they did the heist tropes - the scouting, the planning, the plans failing and improvisation saves the day, etc. That would have made this movie perfect.
But no.
The heist was as exciting as the infiltration in The Force Awakens, which is the weakest part of that movie. It's still fun, but I had trouble following what the fuck was going on most of the time.
BECAUSE, on top of the heist, was this grand space battle. Now, this is possibly my favourite grand space battle of all time. It had everything in it and for the first time, Y-Wings are important.
Big up to Y-Wing, motherfuckers! Fuck the X-Wing retards. Y-Wing forever!
But where's the A-Wing interceptors? Books no longer canon? Fuck, man. And what the fuck is a U-Wing?
The giant space battle was tactical and great. There's just one problem - its placement in the movie.
We've seen how another movie separated the best spectacle from the climax without diminishing the stakes in the climax at all. I'm talking Captain America: Civil War, bitch!
In Civil War, the airport scene, which is the best fight scene and the biggest spectacle, happened somewhere in the middle. The giant space war should have happened somewhere in the middle and leave the fucking heist alone.
And then the heist was when each of the characters died one by one.
The most pathetic was when Jyn hugged her Emergency Boyfriend as destruction nears. That relationship was as hot as Rey and Finn and a hug was fortunately not a pay-off and nonsensical.
You know, if the two had just scrounged around and found a carbonite thingy and frozen themselves in carbonite and get blown into space so that in Episode 8 or 9, somebody would thaw them and we can have Rey and Jyn back to back as the female Luke and Han Solo, that would have been the greatest thing ever!
But no. They died.
I think.
I don't care.
That's a major problem. I cared about Rey. I don't care what others think, but I like Rey. I thought I'd love Jyn, but I don't.
I wanted this movie to be good. And it delivers great fun at times. But when I think of what it could have been, the only thing I can do is quote Donald Trump. Sad.
2/5 - you know you'll throw your money at it anyway, regardless what anyone says. And it is worth it, for the Y-Wings alone!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
This movie could have been the greatest Star Wars movie of all time. The premise is simple and excellent - a HEIST MOVIE! SET IN THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE!
Imagine The Italian Job or Ocean's Eleven - IN SPACE! With lasers and blasters and crippled Jedi Masters... but no.
And this, to me, is its greatest sin. What it could have been.
Synopsis first. Jyn Urso's mother was killed by some dude in a white cape, so her father goes to work for him, building a Death Star.
Jyn was rescued by Forest Whitaker and then TIMESKIP! We jump from one planet to the other and it's disconcerting. What the fuck was happening? Who is this dude? Is it the same dude? Different dude? That guy's a different race, right? Am I racist? Wait, who's the pilot now? Is it racist to confuse two dudes and not registering their (probably) different ethnicity at all?
I'm confused about Jyn's emergency boyfriend and the pilot dude.
Anyway, it all doesn't matter because they all meet at Forest Whitaker's pad and the pilot gets mind-raped and loses his marbles, but then he isn't because somebody reminded him he's acting as 'the Imperial pilot'.
Pilot: I'm the pilot! I'm the pilot!
*Pushes buttons and shit*
Jyn Urso would have been so good as the character who hates the Empire peeps because they killed her mother and kidnapped her father, while the Rebel Alliance distrusts her because her father is considered a traitor. At least that's what she SHOULD have been.
Some wonky shit makes her underdeveloped even though having most of the screen time. Rey, despite all you haters, have more depth in one stupid scavenging expedition than Jyn.
MAJOR PROBLEM ALERT!
Jyn's conflict and possible anger towards her father was resolved and we see her getting closure when she listens to her father's hologram message.
MAJOR PROBLEM ALERT ESCALATION! MOON PRISM POWER MAKEUP!
So you're Galen Urso and you're telling the Rebels you are not a traitor/Empire macai because you incorporated a fatal flaw in the Death Star. You should lead with that in a short hologram message and not try to reach your daughter whom you haven't seen or heard from in years.
The message could have been like this:
Galen: Yo Rebel scum! I got a flaw in the Death Star bitch! And to my daughter, if you can somehow hear this message, I was never a traitor. Don't you let anyone tell you otherwise.
But no. The message was mostly, "Jyn, I love you honey. Sorry about growing up without me and shit. You did grow up right? You didn't get killed or end up as Bantha poodoo? Stay away from pod-racing!"
Then, Jyn, after years of being told she is the daughter of a traitor, can say, "fuck yeah, daddy-o!"
Imagine the memory Snape showed Harry Potter. Imagine that scene. Imagine if Jyn wanted to go and kill her father to wipe dishonour from her family, and then finding out her father is actually a good guy.
But no. Okay.
Jyn's reaction meant she had closure over her father's death BEFORE he died. So when he died, I didn't feel anything. And neither did Jyn. What a waste of a great actor.
And then. And then!
There was a Rebel meeting. For some reason, Jyn got to the main table. The big girls' table. I know this is the Rebel Alliance, but what?
Fine. The Rebel council rejected her plans. But some followed her anyway. Why? I don't know because these fuckers around me KEPT ON FUCKING TALKING.
If you talk in the cinema, I curse you, your kids, your grandkids, your great-great grandkids. I kill you so hard, your ancestors will die!
Anyway, Emergency Boyfriend dude gave a lame speech about whatever.
Donnie Yen's character, Chirrut KimYe and his Life Partner are a delight, for the most part. They followed Jyn simply because she's 'the Chosen One' in some respects, and that's fine.
So these rebels who rebelled against the Rebels, went on a suicide heist mission to some planet somewhere.
Now this is what this movie is supposed to be - this fucking heist. Imagine if they did the heist tropes - the scouting, the planning, the plans failing and improvisation saves the day, etc. That would have made this movie perfect.
But no.
The heist was as exciting as the infiltration in The Force Awakens, which is the weakest part of that movie. It's still fun, but I had trouble following what the fuck was going on most of the time.
BECAUSE, on top of the heist, was this grand space battle. Now, this is possibly my favourite grand space battle of all time. It had everything in it and for the first time, Y-Wings are important.
Big up to Y-Wing, motherfuckers! Fuck the X-Wing retards. Y-Wing forever!
But where's the A-Wing interceptors? Books no longer canon? Fuck, man. And what the fuck is a U-Wing?
The giant space battle was tactical and great. There's just one problem - its placement in the movie.
We've seen how another movie separated the best spectacle from the climax without diminishing the stakes in the climax at all. I'm talking Captain America: Civil War, bitch!
In Civil War, the airport scene, which is the best fight scene and the biggest spectacle, happened somewhere in the middle. The giant space war should have happened somewhere in the middle and leave the fucking heist alone.
And then the heist was when each of the characters died one by one.
The most pathetic was when Jyn hugged her Emergency Boyfriend as destruction nears. That relationship was as hot as Rey and Finn and a hug was fortunately not a pay-off and nonsensical.
You know, if the two had just scrounged around and found a carbonite thingy and frozen themselves in carbonite and get blown into space so that in Episode 8 or 9, somebody would thaw them and we can have Rey and Jyn back to back as the female Luke and Han Solo, that would have been the greatest thing ever!
But no. They died.
I think.
I don't care.
That's a major problem. I cared about Rey. I don't care what others think, but I like Rey. I thought I'd love Jyn, but I don't.
I wanted this movie to be good. And it delivers great fun at times. But when I think of what it could have been, the only thing I can do is quote Donald Trump. Sad.
2/5 - you know you'll throw your money at it anyway, regardless what anyone says. And it is worth it, for the Y-Wings alone!
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Review: Desolasi
Coming at the heels of Apprentice, Hanyut and Interchange, Desolasi didn't seem like it could gain any attention or acclaim from the more urban crowd.
However, the urban crowd and film buffs would ignore or write off this flick at their own peril. Because despite all its problems - and Desolasi has many - this film firmly cements Syafiq Yusof's credibility as a filmmaker, if his earlier movies haven't already.
We'll get to that soon enough. First, the synopsis.
Time Enough at Last
Desolasi tells of a man in descent. Syamsul Yusof plays Aiman, who was born with a mysterious illness that was not explained at the beginning of the movie. He was abused by his father, and his life went down a spiral of despair.
He often prays to God to take all his problems away, asking, "Why me? Why me?".
One day, he wakes up and finds that he is alone in the world. The whole of KL was empty. Petaling Street, Batu Caves, everywhere Aiman could reach on his motorcycle was devoid of humans.
This was the mystery box - why is he there? What happened? Is it fantasy? A morality fable? Sci fi? A tumor in his brain was my very first guess.
The concept is similar to a Twilight Zone episode - Time Enough at Last in 1959. It's like how Interchange draws from the same vein that inspired another Twilight Zone episode, Still Life.
Unfortunately, the story was not revealed in this linear fashion. It was told in medias res - it starts in the middle. Then we have flashbacks to his birth, and then intercuts between the world with no people and flashbacks to what got Aiman to this world.
A Sermon in Thunder
The main problem I have with the movie, and I'm sure most of my friends would experience the same challenge - is the amount of preaching done throughout the movie.
The first five minutes alone was an indicator to the rest of the movie as Aiman narrates about how humanity is devoured by greed and how we have lost touch with God and prayer.
This is consistent throughout the movie, so if you want to watch it and don't like being preached at, you would need to learn to filter all the preachiness, which is a large part of the movie.
I, for one, do not appreciate any form of religious message anywhere, so I assumed the preaching was not for me.
If you get rid of all that, or if you can tune them out altogether, what remains is pretty good.
12 Angry Men
Aiman demonstrates mostly only two emotions - angry and angrier. This is almost his entire character, but he does it well.
Aiman's confrontations with his father are delightfully visceral and realistic. It is like the villain Keting from the Bohsia movies demonstrating his anger towards an imam in front of the mosque.
Any scenes with anger in this movie feels heightened, sometimes cartoonish, perhaps, but in a good way.
His descent into despair and the fury that he internalises are delightfully portrayed with cuts to what he really thinks versus what's happening in real life.
In fact, this entire movie, and perhaps Skop Productions' offerings in the past 10 years could be summed up with the phrase, "Nah, ambik ko!" and then pressing the face of the audience onto whatever is on screen - boobs, cars, guns, special effects or even religious messaging.
The amount of derivative special effects shots and scenes in this movie is astounding, with no clear cohesion of styles. They had a spaceship, some fish, a fucking dinosaur, Skop Productions stock machine gun effects, and some that look like they were lifted from commercials.
It's as if they just raided the final year projects of students of a multimedia college somewhere and plonked in as many as they could into Desolasi.
It is vulgar, but a vulgarity done in earnest. It's a very vulgar and angry movie - something only young filmmakers are capable of doing.
The anger that we see in Aiman is perhaps compensating for something. The need to fortify yourself or your ego with enough audacity before doing anything artistic can be masked well with anger or other things such as arrogance.
Mystery Box
Anyway, back to the story.
Aside from Aiman berating his father, the thing I enjoyed most watching this movie was guessing where did all the people go?
The movie did a wonderful job keeping me guessing, because I can't dismiss anything. The filmmakers displayed that they were willing to do shit and take the story to parts unknown, and tell whatever fuck kind of story that suits their fancy, with no apologies and I couldn't predict what the was going to happen next.
Nevertheless, I had my theories for the disappearance of everyone and here they are, almost chronologically, while watching the movie:
1. Cancer. Brain tumor.
2. Fable. God REALLY did send him to a world with no one in it.
3. Alternate universe
4. He's part of an experiment.
5. The Matrix
6. Vanilla Sky
7. Sony trying to come up with the next gen VR console and Aiman is roped in to create angry AI, for the boss fights.
Yeah. It's like that.
The answer is, surprisingly, a little bit of everything on the list. It is as silly and dumb as anything Damon Lindelof has ever done. If you hate Damon Lindelof, you will probably hate this as well.
Narrative Momentum
Filmmakers use visuals and dialogue to move the story forward. Using only dialogues is the weaker technique, unless you have really great lines.
Desolasi doesn't really rely on dialogue but each scene carries a kinetic energy that drives itself forward, no matter how silly everything is.
It helps that the filmmakers have balls to do this story, at the risk of alienating their own fanbase and/or receiving ridicule from the more 'cultured' KLites.
Nitpicking
Syamsul Yusof has absolutely dreadful taste in clothes. Everything must have their brands or logos extra large and plastered in front. I think if Ralph Lauren designed a flag with his logo on it, Syamsul would be the first to buy and wave it around.
Also, for some reason, some people hate Syamsul Yusof just for being Syamsul Yusof. Maybe he rubs people the wrong way or there is retribution in effect - I don't know.
I do believe casting an unknown would have been better for the movie.
I also would much prefer if the story had been told in a classic linear fashion, because some of the most interesting parts of the movie is what Aiman does as he discovers that the world is devoid of people.
Conclusion
In the end, Desolasi is messy, preachy, silly and sometimes dumb. Despite all this, and because of its audacity, honesty and earnestness in crafting, it didn't annoy me at all. I can overlook the preachiness and the silliness and the oversized logos because in some moments, Desolasi was fun. It looked like the filmmakers also had fun doing it and that translates better than anything, usually.
2/5
However, the urban crowd and film buffs would ignore or write off this flick at their own peril. Because despite all its problems - and Desolasi has many - this film firmly cements Syafiq Yusof's credibility as a filmmaker, if his earlier movies haven't already.
We'll get to that soon enough. First, the synopsis.
Time Enough at Last
Desolasi tells of a man in descent. Syamsul Yusof plays Aiman, who was born with a mysterious illness that was not explained at the beginning of the movie. He was abused by his father, and his life went down a spiral of despair.
He often prays to God to take all his problems away, asking, "Why me? Why me?".
One day, he wakes up and finds that he is alone in the world. The whole of KL was empty. Petaling Street, Batu Caves, everywhere Aiman could reach on his motorcycle was devoid of humans.
This was the mystery box - why is he there? What happened? Is it fantasy? A morality fable? Sci fi? A tumor in his brain was my very first guess.
The concept is similar to a Twilight Zone episode - Time Enough at Last in 1959. It's like how Interchange draws from the same vein that inspired another Twilight Zone episode, Still Life.
Unfortunately, the story was not revealed in this linear fashion. It was told in medias res - it starts in the middle. Then we have flashbacks to his birth, and then intercuts between the world with no people and flashbacks to what got Aiman to this world.
A Sermon in Thunder
The main problem I have with the movie, and I'm sure most of my friends would experience the same challenge - is the amount of preaching done throughout the movie.
The first five minutes alone was an indicator to the rest of the movie as Aiman narrates about how humanity is devoured by greed and how we have lost touch with God and prayer.
This is consistent throughout the movie, so if you want to watch it and don't like being preached at, you would need to learn to filter all the preachiness, which is a large part of the movie.
I, for one, do not appreciate any form of religious message anywhere, so I assumed the preaching was not for me.
If you get rid of all that, or if you can tune them out altogether, what remains is pretty good.
12 Angry Men
Aiman demonstrates mostly only two emotions - angry and angrier. This is almost his entire character, but he does it well.
Aiman's confrontations with his father are delightfully visceral and realistic. It is like the villain Keting from the Bohsia movies demonstrating his anger towards an imam in front of the mosque.
Any scenes with anger in this movie feels heightened, sometimes cartoonish, perhaps, but in a good way.
His descent into despair and the fury that he internalises are delightfully portrayed with cuts to what he really thinks versus what's happening in real life.
In fact, this entire movie, and perhaps Skop Productions' offerings in the past 10 years could be summed up with the phrase, "Nah, ambik ko!" and then pressing the face of the audience onto whatever is on screen - boobs, cars, guns, special effects or even religious messaging.
The amount of derivative special effects shots and scenes in this movie is astounding, with no clear cohesion of styles. They had a spaceship, some fish, a fucking dinosaur, Skop Productions stock machine gun effects, and some that look like they were lifted from commercials.
It's as if they just raided the final year projects of students of a multimedia college somewhere and plonked in as many as they could into Desolasi.
It is vulgar, but a vulgarity done in earnest. It's a very vulgar and angry movie - something only young filmmakers are capable of doing.
The anger that we see in Aiman is perhaps compensating for something. The need to fortify yourself or your ego with enough audacity before doing anything artistic can be masked well with anger or other things such as arrogance.
Mystery Box
Anyway, back to the story.
Aside from Aiman berating his father, the thing I enjoyed most watching this movie was guessing where did all the people go?
The movie did a wonderful job keeping me guessing, because I can't dismiss anything. The filmmakers displayed that they were willing to do shit and take the story to parts unknown, and tell whatever fuck kind of story that suits their fancy, with no apologies and I couldn't predict what the was going to happen next.
Nevertheless, I had my theories for the disappearance of everyone and here they are, almost chronologically, while watching the movie:
1. Cancer. Brain tumor.
2. Fable. God REALLY did send him to a world with no one in it.
3. Alternate universe
4. He's part of an experiment.
6. Vanilla Sky
7. Sony trying to come up with the next gen VR console and Aiman is roped in to create angry AI, for the boss fights.
Yeah. It's like that.
The answer is, surprisingly, a little bit of everything on the list. It is as silly and dumb as anything Damon Lindelof has ever done. If you hate Damon Lindelof, you will probably hate this as well.
Narrative Momentum
Filmmakers use visuals and dialogue to move the story forward. Using only dialogues is the weaker technique, unless you have really great lines.
Desolasi doesn't really rely on dialogue but each scene carries a kinetic energy that drives itself forward, no matter how silly everything is.
It helps that the filmmakers have balls to do this story, at the risk of alienating their own fanbase and/or receiving ridicule from the more 'cultured' KLites.
Nitpicking
Syamsul Yusof has absolutely dreadful taste in clothes. Everything must have their brands or logos extra large and plastered in front. I think if Ralph Lauren designed a flag with his logo on it, Syamsul would be the first to buy and wave it around.
Also, for some reason, some people hate Syamsul Yusof just for being Syamsul Yusof. Maybe he rubs people the wrong way or there is retribution in effect - I don't know.
I do believe casting an unknown would have been better for the movie.
I also would much prefer if the story had been told in a classic linear fashion, because some of the most interesting parts of the movie is what Aiman does as he discovers that the world is devoid of people.
Conclusion
In the end, Desolasi is messy, preachy, silly and sometimes dumb. Despite all this, and because of its audacity, honesty and earnestness in crafting, it didn't annoy me at all. I can overlook the preachiness and the silliness and the oversized logos because in some moments, Desolasi was fun. It looked like the filmmakers also had fun doing it and that translates better than anything, usually.
2/5
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Review: Interchange
Exiting the cinema after watching Interchange, I was overcome with intense anger. It has been a week and I have calmed down a lot.
This is me being personal: I was cheering for this movie. I wanted it to be good. Dain Said is my favourite Malaysian director for Bunohan, which I think is the best Malaysian movie ever made. So regardless how Interchange was going to turn out, I still consider him as number one.
At least until some other director makes a better movie than Bunohan, which, looking at some of the stuff that will come out, is not that far away.
I also know some personal friends who worked on the movie and I wanted to say nice things about their work.
Plus, 2016 has been a horrible year for a lot of people. The energy I have been sensing is mean-spirited and sometimes stupid or evil, which are basically the same things. I just needed to see some glimmer of hope, and I wanted Interchange - yes, a movie - to show me some hope.
BUT.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Synopsis first. Synopsis first.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
(As if it makes any difference.)
Interchange is about a series of gruesome murders that leave the victims drained of blood, with their veins and arteries on the outside. There are puncture wounds on the bodies, and tribal beads or something beneath their eyelids, plus feathers of extinct birds at the scene of all the crimes.
Detektif Man (Shaheizy Sam) is investigating the murders in his suit, because this is not Malaysia, but a city called Metropolis without Superman, and he ropes in forensic photographer Adam (Iedil Putra).
For a murder mystery, there is only one group of suspects working together - Iva (Prisia Nasution) , Belian (Nicolas Saputra), Sani (Nadiya Nisaa) and a guy running a photo shop (Chew Kin Wah).
Seeing Red
In short, I can say the movie is visually stunning. And nothing else.
There are some shots that are just splendid. One in particular had Adam (Iedil Putra) and Iva (Prisia Nasution) standing on the balconies of their apartments, facing each other. So close (just two elevator rides away) and yet so far. That's just brilliant work from Dain and cinematographer Jordan Wei.
Adam's introduction as he wakes up to a collage of photos he has been taking - all of the people 'trapped' in the modern birdcage that is urban living, the motif of bars and isolation to further reinforce the idea that these people are captive to something. It's just beautiful.
The neo-noir shots are good - the mood is all great and dark and whatever. The tribal stuff is cool. The locations made to look nothing like what they really are. All signs of expert handling of the camera.
There is really a lot of thought, care and effort put into these shots. I almost wish I had watched the movie with the sound muted.
Because everything else sucked. Like, really bad.
The Sound and the Fury
First up, the dialects. Was this supposed to be Sabah? Sarawak? Some weird amalgamation of the two states? Adam talks like a Sabahan with brain damage, which he could actually be. Detektif Man speaks KL BM. Iva and Nicolas Saputra sounds Indonesian, but maybe I'm biased.
Sani, though, sounded like she was channeling Siti Tanjung Perak. A most disconcerting inconsistency of dialects.
The characters are not characters - they are symbols. They don't talk like normal humans, they don't really move like you or me and the acting was stilted and awkward with no chemistry whatsoever. The dialogue was horrible simply because they are not what human characters would say and don't say things how humans would say it. They mouth off these lines because they are merely symbols - puppets for a concept.
This is crucial because halfway through the movie, I couldn't care less if all of them were attacked by Alfred Hitchcock's birds from The Birds or Big Bird from Sesame Street. When the audience can't empathise with the characters - because they are not human - then there's a big problem IF you want people to care about the stakes and the story.
Staking the Plot
Which I suspect the film doesn't want you to. Because there are no stakes whatsoever. And there isn't much of a story. There are so many holes in the plot, it hinders any suspension of disbelief. In fact, the suspension of disbelief was more on how could it be this nonsensical?
There was a scene when Adam first went into the evidence room of Metropolis PD. He just went in and flipped a few boxes over, until the lone security person who was manning the place came back and told him to knock it off.
Really? A police evidence room less guarded than my old high school library? Seriously? I had to do some Jason Bourne shit to steal books from my high school library. Even made some oversized pockets for my bespoke pants early in the year.
Anyway, consider this evidence room scene with the documents room scene in Apprentice. In Apprentice, you feel the fear of being caught, the claustrophobia and whatever intense emotion enclosed in just a tiny space. In Interchange, it was like "what the fuck are these boxes doing here, man?" And Adam did those things with no repercussion.
There are so many things that don't make sense, and it's not just a man turning into a bird like in Manimal.
The reveal was that the 'victims' of these murders were tribal people whose photos were taken by some white dudes. Because they believe that their souls are captured, their souls REALLY are captured in the photo plates and they become immortals.
And after a mere century, they are all emo tribal goths trying to end their lives because life is so unbearable. Really? After a measly 100 years? There are people today who have lived over 100 years. If you ask them today, would they want to die, I predict most would say no.
If it was 1,000 years, then yes, I believe that is plausible but then there would be no cameras back then. But I don't want to live that long anyway, so yeah, let's give that the benefit of the doubt.
And then, if you REALLY wanted to ensure your ritualistic suicide is not interrupted by, say, the police, you can just gather everyone in a warehouse or a secluded retreat and kill everyone, one by one.
Adam was roped in by a femme fatale (Iva) for absolutely no reason. Detektif Man, and Shaheizy Sam gave the most believable performance, also at one point said, "You can take anyone else, but not Adam!"
WHY?
No relationship that would prompt such an outburst so close to the 'climax' was ever hinted at. Was it homosexual? Pedagogical? Financial, maybe? I dunno, man. Seems weird.
I was half-expecting Detektif Man (for mankind, maybe? How the normal man can't possibly fathom the intricate symbolism of these characters) to turn into a tiger and reveal Adam is the Chosen One who could kill immortals like him.
And then we'd have a Birdman vs Were-tiger thing in our hands and I would watch the shit out of that movie.
Some scenes are seared into my brain. Like how Iva awkwardly dropped a tribal knife in front of Adam. It was made to be so deliberate, I just. I just can't. Running out of steam here.
Nitpicking
Talking about steam... never mind. If you have too many plot holes, and all movies have them, the audience will stop focusing on the story and start picking on details. And there were so many to pick.
Iva had this thing about ice. She would chew on them, ask for them but NEVER ran the ice cubes down her body. What the fuck? Was she trying to be sensual? Signifying that she is so organic and passionate inside even though her outside demeanour could freeze your weekly groceries?
Then there's Belian. He's some sort of totem or God and his name seems to indicate him as either a diamond (in the rough?), or a dowry or some shit you buy.
In the end, the story of Interchange could have been about how we are all trapped in modernisation, colonialisation and whatnot, and the only way out is to let a birdman suck all your blood and take you to the skies. Perhaps the skies refer to lofty artistic ideals?
I am left disappointed with Interchange. But that's my fault. I had unrealistic expectations that it could never fulfill. I wanted it to be a movie and not an art-piece that by right should have been muted.
1/5
This is me being personal: I was cheering for this movie. I wanted it to be good. Dain Said is my favourite Malaysian director for Bunohan, which I think is the best Malaysian movie ever made. So regardless how Interchange was going to turn out, I still consider him as number one.
At least until some other director makes a better movie than Bunohan, which, looking at some of the stuff that will come out, is not that far away.
I also know some personal friends who worked on the movie and I wanted to say nice things about their work.
Plus, 2016 has been a horrible year for a lot of people. The energy I have been sensing is mean-spirited and sometimes stupid or evil, which are basically the same things. I just needed to see some glimmer of hope, and I wanted Interchange - yes, a movie - to show me some hope.
BUT.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Synopsis first. Synopsis first.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
(As if it makes any difference.)
Interchange is about a series of gruesome murders that leave the victims drained of blood, with their veins and arteries on the outside. There are puncture wounds on the bodies, and tribal beads or something beneath their eyelids, plus feathers of extinct birds at the scene of all the crimes.
Detektif Man (Shaheizy Sam) is investigating the murders in his suit, because this is not Malaysia, but a city called Metropolis without Superman, and he ropes in forensic photographer Adam (Iedil Putra).
For a murder mystery, there is only one group of suspects working together - Iva (Prisia Nasution) , Belian (Nicolas Saputra), Sani (Nadiya Nisaa) and a guy running a photo shop (Chew Kin Wah).
Seeing Red
In short, I can say the movie is visually stunning. And nothing else.
There are some shots that are just splendid. One in particular had Adam (Iedil Putra) and Iva (Prisia Nasution) standing on the balconies of their apartments, facing each other. So close (just two elevator rides away) and yet so far. That's just brilliant work from Dain and cinematographer Jordan Wei.
Adam's introduction as he wakes up to a collage of photos he has been taking - all of the people 'trapped' in the modern birdcage that is urban living, the motif of bars and isolation to further reinforce the idea that these people are captive to something. It's just beautiful.
The neo-noir shots are good - the mood is all great and dark and whatever. The tribal stuff is cool. The locations made to look nothing like what they really are. All signs of expert handling of the camera.
There is really a lot of thought, care and effort put into these shots. I almost wish I had watched the movie with the sound muted.
Because everything else sucked. Like, really bad.
The Sound and the Fury
First up, the dialects. Was this supposed to be Sabah? Sarawak? Some weird amalgamation of the two states? Adam talks like a Sabahan with brain damage, which he could actually be. Detektif Man speaks KL BM. Iva and Nicolas Saputra sounds Indonesian, but maybe I'm biased.
Sani, though, sounded like she was channeling Siti Tanjung Perak. A most disconcerting inconsistency of dialects.
The characters are not characters - they are symbols. They don't talk like normal humans, they don't really move like you or me and the acting was stilted and awkward with no chemistry whatsoever. The dialogue was horrible simply because they are not what human characters would say and don't say things how humans would say it. They mouth off these lines because they are merely symbols - puppets for a concept.
This is crucial because halfway through the movie, I couldn't care less if all of them were attacked by Alfred Hitchcock's birds from The Birds or Big Bird from Sesame Street. When the audience can't empathise with the characters - because they are not human - then there's a big problem IF you want people to care about the stakes and the story.
Staking the Plot
Which I suspect the film doesn't want you to. Because there are no stakes whatsoever. And there isn't much of a story. There are so many holes in the plot, it hinders any suspension of disbelief. In fact, the suspension of disbelief was more on how could it be this nonsensical?
There was a scene when Adam first went into the evidence room of Metropolis PD. He just went in and flipped a few boxes over, until the lone security person who was manning the place came back and told him to knock it off.
Really? A police evidence room less guarded than my old high school library? Seriously? I had to do some Jason Bourne shit to steal books from my high school library. Even made some oversized pockets for my bespoke pants early in the year.
Anyway, consider this evidence room scene with the documents room scene in Apprentice. In Apprentice, you feel the fear of being caught, the claustrophobia and whatever intense emotion enclosed in just a tiny space. In Interchange, it was like "what the fuck are these boxes doing here, man?" And Adam did those things with no repercussion.
There are so many things that don't make sense, and it's not just a man turning into a bird like in Manimal.
The reveal was that the 'victims' of these murders were tribal people whose photos were taken by some white dudes. Because they believe that their souls are captured, their souls REALLY are captured in the photo plates and they become immortals.
And after a mere century, they are all emo tribal goths trying to end their lives because life is so unbearable. Really? After a measly 100 years? There are people today who have lived over 100 years. If you ask them today, would they want to die, I predict most would say no.
If it was 1,000 years, then yes, I believe that is plausible but then there would be no cameras back then. But I don't want to live that long anyway, so yeah, let's give that the benefit of the doubt.
And then, if you REALLY wanted to ensure your ritualistic suicide is not interrupted by, say, the police, you can just gather everyone in a warehouse or a secluded retreat and kill everyone, one by one.
Adam was roped in by a femme fatale (Iva) for absolutely no reason. Detektif Man, and Shaheizy Sam gave the most believable performance, also at one point said, "You can take anyone else, but not Adam!"
WHY?
No relationship that would prompt such an outburst so close to the 'climax' was ever hinted at. Was it homosexual? Pedagogical? Financial, maybe? I dunno, man. Seems weird.
I was half-expecting Detektif Man (for mankind, maybe? How the normal man can't possibly fathom the intricate symbolism of these characters) to turn into a tiger and reveal Adam is the Chosen One who could kill immortals like him.
And then we'd have a Birdman vs Were-tiger thing in our hands and I would watch the shit out of that movie.
Some scenes are seared into my brain. Like how Iva awkwardly dropped a tribal knife in front of Adam. It was made to be so deliberate, I just. I just can't. Running out of steam here.
Nitpicking
Talking about steam... never mind. If you have too many plot holes, and all movies have them, the audience will stop focusing on the story and start picking on details. And there were so many to pick.
Iva had this thing about ice. She would chew on them, ask for them but NEVER ran the ice cubes down her body. What the fuck? Was she trying to be sensual? Signifying that she is so organic and passionate inside even though her outside demeanour could freeze your weekly groceries?
Then there's Belian. He's some sort of totem or God and his name seems to indicate him as either a diamond (in the rough?), or a dowry or some shit you buy.
In the end, the story of Interchange could have been about how we are all trapped in modernisation, colonialisation and whatnot, and the only way out is to let a birdman suck all your blood and take you to the skies. Perhaps the skies refer to lofty artistic ideals?
I am left disappointed with Interchange. But that's my fault. I had unrealistic expectations that it could never fulfill. I wanted it to be a movie and not an art-piece that by right should have been muted.
1/5
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Hanyut: A Review Before I Forget
I had high hopes for Hanyut, along with Interchange. And we all pay for our expectations.
I mean, with an RM18 million budget, one of the most renowned directors Malaysia has ever seen at the helm, plus one of the best Malaysian actresses to have ever graced the silver screen, what could go wrong?
The answer, seems to be everything.
First, there are vicious behind-the-scenes stories that are even more swashbuckling than the tale and the characters in the movie. The fact that it premiered in Indonesia first despite being made in part with Malaysian taxpayer dollars has always been puzzling to me.
The movie was reportedly:
That's enough money to make 36 bad Malaysian movies or three mediocre ones.
The buzz around the film festivals where it was shown was not that encouraging, and it even had two Facebook pages promoting it. One in English that stopped being active in 2013 or so and another that started right after that. Wonder what's the story behind that.
Anyway, after getting rid of a dreadful early poster and shelving all the backstage shenanigans, the film was finally going to open in Malaysia... to lacklustre fanfare.
Promotions for movies such as The Journey, Polis Evo and Ola Bola were so potent that you couldn't help but notice them. Granted, this cost millions of dollars but for a movie that cost RM18 million, Hanyut didn't even have a premiere or gala night, did they? This is something even small movies like Pecah had.
Anyway, though the tale of the making of Hanyut will entertain and confound humanity for decades on end, let's look at the film itself.
Hanyut is based on Joseph Conrad's Almayer's Folly. An early novel about a Dutch man in a Borneo jungle, looking for gold.
The movie starts quite promisingly, with a scene of Mem (Datin Sofia Jane) having her daughter Nina forcibly separated from her by her husband Kaspar Almayer (Peter O'Brien).
It seems, however, that the character Mem was broken from this point on to become a cackling, mentally-disturbed woman. And that's all she is. A bitter, spiteful hag who doesn't look like a hag because Sofia is a stunning woman.
Her talents are wasted as she gives a performance perhaps more suitable for a stage play rather than a movie. The emphasized words and manner of speaking feels so put on. The fact that she looks to be almost bursting out in tears in most scenes is quite disappointing, having known the actress' capabilities on screen and on stage with earlier roles.
Almayer's quests are trying to find the mountain of gold Mem's father had told him about AND finding a place for himself. Almayer's very obvious longing for home is shown with his constant talk of moving back to the Netherlands even though he has never been there, having been born in Singapore.
This was also represented as the unfinished construction of a grand house he wishes to live in. The house is called Almayer's Folly by some white people - as in it is a folly to try and build something like that in a Borneo jungle. However, this point, that is the title of the book it was based on, is hardly explored further than one or two throwaway lines.
Key to Almayer's plot to find the gold is his dealings with a Malay prince - Dain Something-Something (Adiputra). Now Dain (or Daeng? Ahaaaaa) is also seen as a pirate to some. Almayer needs Dain to go on an expedition to find the mountain of gold
There are other players in the fray - Raja Ibrahim (El Manik) and his deputy Orang Kaya Tinggi (Khalid Salleh), Abdullah (Alex Komang) and nephew Sayed Rashid (Bront Palarae) some white guys (the British) and oddly-enough, a scorned kuih-seller.
When an older Nina (Diana Danielle) arrives from Singapore, things get more complicated as Dain takes a liking to her and arranges to take her away with support from Mem, behind Almayer's back.
Sayed Rashid tried to marry Nina early on but was refused by Almayer. This plot point lead to absolutely nothing and Sayed and uncle Abdullah remains in the story as the designated assholes for the rest of the movie.
Nina is a character shown to have inherited her parents' longing for a home, like her father, albeit for a family with no more fighting as well as a sense of having been betrayed, like her mother.
Diana did a decent job, but there's nothing here to shout about. Dain's character seems intriguing in the beginning but in the end turned out to just be that. He is a schemer shifting between Raja Ibrahim and Almayer and that is good, for a while. His dialogue with OKT and Raja Ibrahim are some of the best in the movie, especially with the use of indirect language.
However, pity Adiputra as the movie deemed it necessary to subtitle his speech in English but not sub any of the white people. His accent is not atrocious or hardly noticeable at all, or the Singaporean education system has failed as much as the Malaysian one. For a movie that shows how Malays dealt with the colonialists in the past, it seems to also demonstrate how we deal with them today.
Back to the story. Throw in a murder, gunpowder, treason and plot, and you have the ingredients for a very good Hallmark movie.
Unfortunately, the movie never managed to harness all these things or even go firmly in any direction for the characters or the story. Almayer's revelations about his motivations are patchy at best, and shifts between going back to the Netherlands and finishing his goddamned house. Decide, man! Or shift and make the shift noticeable. Or show you pivot between the two as a man on the brink of shattering his dreams and losing all hope.
Things are hinted at and not force-fed to the audience, sure, but it is like a run on sentence with no punctuation. Just like most of this review.
It was like the whole project was a nasi lemak with chicken chop wrapped together in banana leaf way too small to contain it. You end up with quite a mess.
2/5 stars.
I mean, with an RM18 million budget, one of the most renowned directors Malaysia has ever seen at the helm, plus one of the best Malaysian actresses to have ever graced the silver screen, what could go wrong?
The answer, seems to be everything.
First, there are vicious behind-the-scenes stories that are even more swashbuckling than the tale and the characters in the movie. The fact that it premiered in Indonesia first despite being made in part with Malaysian taxpayer dollars has always been puzzling to me.
The movie was reportedly:
produced using the accumulation of a RM10 million loan from Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN), a RM6 million grant from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and a RM2 million investment from FINAS.- Source
That's enough money to make 36 bad Malaysian movies or three mediocre ones.
The buzz around the film festivals where it was shown was not that encouraging, and it even had two Facebook pages promoting it. One in English that stopped being active in 2013 or so and another that started right after that. Wonder what's the story behind that.
Anyway, after getting rid of a dreadful early poster and shelving all the backstage shenanigans, the film was finally going to open in Malaysia... to lacklustre fanfare.
Promotions for movies such as The Journey, Polis Evo and Ola Bola were so potent that you couldn't help but notice them. Granted, this cost millions of dollars but for a movie that cost RM18 million, Hanyut didn't even have a premiere or gala night, did they? This is something even small movies like Pecah had.
Anyway, though the tale of the making of Hanyut will entertain and confound humanity for decades on end, let's look at the film itself.
Hanyut is based on Joseph Conrad's Almayer's Folly. An early novel about a Dutch man in a Borneo jungle, looking for gold.
The movie starts quite promisingly, with a scene of Mem (Datin Sofia Jane) having her daughter Nina forcibly separated from her by her husband Kaspar Almayer (Peter O'Brien).
It seems, however, that the character Mem was broken from this point on to become a cackling, mentally-disturbed woman. And that's all she is. A bitter, spiteful hag who doesn't look like a hag because Sofia is a stunning woman.
Her talents are wasted as she gives a performance perhaps more suitable for a stage play rather than a movie. The emphasized words and manner of speaking feels so put on. The fact that she looks to be almost bursting out in tears in most scenes is quite disappointing, having known the actress' capabilities on screen and on stage with earlier roles.
Almayer's quests are trying to find the mountain of gold Mem's father had told him about AND finding a place for himself. Almayer's very obvious longing for home is shown with his constant talk of moving back to the Netherlands even though he has never been there, having been born in Singapore.
This was also represented as the unfinished construction of a grand house he wishes to live in. The house is called Almayer's Folly by some white people - as in it is a folly to try and build something like that in a Borneo jungle. However, this point, that is the title of the book it was based on, is hardly explored further than one or two throwaway lines.
Key to Almayer's plot to find the gold is his dealings with a Malay prince - Dain Something-Something (Adiputra). Now Dain (or Daeng? Ahaaaaa) is also seen as a pirate to some. Almayer needs Dain to go on an expedition to find the mountain of gold
There are other players in the fray - Raja Ibrahim (El Manik) and his deputy Orang Kaya Tinggi (Khalid Salleh), Abdullah (Alex Komang) and nephew Sayed Rashid (Bront Palarae) some white guys (the British) and oddly-enough, a scorned kuih-seller.
When an older Nina (Diana Danielle) arrives from Singapore, things get more complicated as Dain takes a liking to her and arranges to take her away with support from Mem, behind Almayer's back.
Sayed Rashid tried to marry Nina early on but was refused by Almayer. This plot point lead to absolutely nothing and Sayed and uncle Abdullah remains in the story as the designated assholes for the rest of the movie.
Nina is a character shown to have inherited her parents' longing for a home, like her father, albeit for a family with no more fighting as well as a sense of having been betrayed, like her mother.
Diana did a decent job, but there's nothing here to shout about. Dain's character seems intriguing in the beginning but in the end turned out to just be that. He is a schemer shifting between Raja Ibrahim and Almayer and that is good, for a while. His dialogue with OKT and Raja Ibrahim are some of the best in the movie, especially with the use of indirect language.
However, pity Adiputra as the movie deemed it necessary to subtitle his speech in English but not sub any of the white people. His accent is not atrocious or hardly noticeable at all, or the Singaporean education system has failed as much as the Malaysian one. For a movie that shows how Malays dealt with the colonialists in the past, it seems to also demonstrate how we deal with them today.
Back to the story. Throw in a murder, gunpowder, treason and plot, and you have the ingredients for a very good Hallmark movie.
Unfortunately, the movie never managed to harness all these things or even go firmly in any direction for the characters or the story. Almayer's revelations about his motivations are patchy at best, and shifts between going back to the Netherlands and finishing his goddamned house. Decide, man! Or shift and make the shift noticeable. Or show you pivot between the two as a man on the brink of shattering his dreams and losing all hope.
Things are hinted at and not force-fed to the audience, sure, but it is like a run on sentence with no punctuation. Just like most of this review.
It was like the whole project was a nasi lemak with chicken chop wrapped together in banana leaf way too small to contain it. You end up with quite a mess.
2/5 stars.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)