a rant/next film/dream come true
So I've been spending whatever free time (free time means instead of writing my thesis, reading material useful for my thesis, or anything related to my thesis) I have been reading some books, a few comics, and (surprise surprise) very few movies.
I...
...read Stardust. The first chapter didn't get my attention. My expectations of Neil Gaiman's novel writing skills dropped greatly after reading Neverwhere two months ago. But once I got to the second chapter, I was hooked, and once I hit the midway point, I just stayed up all night to finish it. It's probably his best novel (okay originally it was a comic). Maybe not as good as American Gods/Anansi Boys in terms of content, but certainly the most entertaining, because... it's ultimately a love story. Yes. Love. The movie is coming out sometime next year. I'm not looking forward to it because I doubt any filmmaker can do the land of Faery any justice. But let's wait and see.
...re-read Beloved. I think the only book that really got me hooked from my Contemporary Fiction class two years ago is this Toni Morrison book. Let me try to remember. I read Nice Work (which was a bore), Memoirs of a Survivor (which was nice at first, then turned out to be a bore), On the Black Hill ( I actually just asked Shi Ying the title, cos I forgot. Boring book) Remains of the Days (which really is a brilliant piece of work, just not quite my type) and Guerillas (which is the worst of the lot. It very nearly single-handedly destroy any hopes that I'll like post-colonial text). But Beloved, my o my. It's good horror/suspense. I didn't reread the entire book, just the bits where the African daughter returns home, and shows signs that she's not... alive.*wink*
...watched The Big Durian. When Amir Muhammad came by to Monash for a talk me and Shi Ying gave him a nice pen as a souvenir, and in turn he gave me the DVD for The Big Durian. It's a rather punchy docu drama about Malaysian racial riots. I just sat in my living room for 75 minutes and didn't feel bored. If you're a Malaysian you should watch this because well, even if you don't laugh out loud, you'll smirk, or giggle on the inside. Because a lot of the show is very true in a very weird sense.
...read Sandman: Endless Nights. It's a collection of 7 short stories about the Endless: Death, Desire, Dream, Despair, Delirium, Destruction, and Destiny. All written by Neil Gaiman, all illustrated by someone different. Not all the stories are good (for example, Dream's story stinks. Destruction's story is pointless. Delirium's story is un-understandable *even though I know it's meant to be that way*) but very very certainly, the comic contains VERY serious art. If you've never encountered the world of Sandman (my sister remarked some time ago that my brother used to read it when he was much younger, and many years down the road I'm a fan too. Sorta like an evergreen and timeless comic.), read the 8 page story of Destiny, and you will be blown away.
...read Death: At Death's Door, by Jill Thompson. It's about the character called Death in the Sandman series. Spinoff of sorts. Drawn in Manga style. In terms of literary value it is close to zilch. But it's good comic relief. Fun. Fun. Fun.
...watched Transformers: Masterforce. I've been downloading many many episodes of this Japanese series of transformers that I remember watching when I was very young. It features the Pretenders (robots who mask themselves as people [autobots] and demons [decepticons]), the Headmasters (kids who transform into heads of big robots) and the Powermasters (the most powerful group of robots. That's why they're called the Powermasters). Every episode ends with Optimus Prime single handedly beating the crap out of the bad guys. Very stereotyopical, but I just love watching those vehicles transform! Yes, I'm a kid.
...watched Transformers: Victory. It's the follow-up series from Transformers: Masterforce. Yes, I waste a lot of time on kiddie things. It's sad how they don't make cartoons like they use to. Sigh.
And in between times I read some good magazines, some bad ones, and listened to Roxette's Crash! Boom! Bang! for the trillionth time now. It's probably in the top 3 of my most-played-song-of-all-time list.
*
So Lov premiered at the Nasi Bungkus event to a crowd of maybe 30 people or so. Standard la for the Journalism Lab. It was fun I suppose. Reviews were mostly lukewarm, but no matter. Sang, the COSTA president and unoffical market-er of my film, started selling my Superratty Films: A Miscellany CD and Dr.Yeoh's Sidewalk Capitalism DVD.
I think in total he sold about 10+ copies of mine, and about 3 - 5 of Dr.Yeoh's. Dr.Yeoh joked with me later that I can make the claim that I'm the bestselling filmmaker in Monash. I told him selling 10 copies shouldn't count. And he said something like 'it's still the best selling one' or something along those lines. So ok, I'll take it. Haha. The perasantedness of it all.
Well, I probably will be burning more since I have *online* orders. Lol. Nonsense la my friends. And because I love them I actually made additional touch-ups just for the 2nd print of the CDs.
*
Back to my free time. So I've been thinking about what to make next as well. Once I finish my thesis I'm going to make something for sure. I cannot tahan already. I must make something, just to make myself happy.
So... I don't know, but tentatively my next film is going to be called Pieces of Light. The earliest thought was that it'd be 3 short stories that has something to do withlight. It's supposed to be abstract art. After a few days, as I tried coming up with more and more stories, I am sad to announce that it is most likely going to be a...
*wait for it*
...love story.
*
So right now, I have 2 hours to kill before seeing my supervisor and let her fold my thesis into various origami thingies, I'm trying to write out a scene here and there. I've not written down much.
So I finally started writing the dialogue. It starts like this.
"Hey, Ah Lien."
*
Sarah Jane, the girl who has played Ah Lien in every film that has Ah Lien in it (The Door, Lov), thinks I should come up with new names. The Ah Lien role is abit more coveted than the Ah Beng and Ali roles. Ah Beng usually is just a cameo here and there. Ali has fewer but lenghtier appearances. But Ah Lien always has a central role. Okay only two. But here's a trivia. When I wrote Captivation last year, I wrote it with Sarah Jane in mind. Had she actually acted in it, I would've named the character Ah Lien instead of "The Girl".
So now, Ah Lien is making her third appearance in this show. Will Sarah Jane be in it again? It's sorta like the 007 of my world. Who will get the job as the prestigious Ah Lien, and who will be Ah Lien's men (ala Bond girl)?
*
OK kidding.
This blog post is one long rant.
*
And yes, I'm back.
*
P/S I also read
13 years ago (1993), when I was still a kid (standard 4. I was 10.), there was news that in the comic world, Superman died. Doomsday, this new alien wrestling kick butt character, killed him. I think my brother was away in university at the time so I couldn't bug him for it (he did get the post-death storyline, though. The one where four new Supermans emerge as new protectors of Metropolis. Very cool stuff.) At the time, that few issues of how Superman died was the best selling comic book of all time. It was massive. Newspapers covered it as well. Superman doesn't die you know, but he did. (of course sometime in the near future Superman came back to life la, but that's not fun anymore).
I remember one of my classmates had it, and he being a snobbish[insert favored insult] worm refused to share it with me. So all I managed to see was a few pages here and a few pages there. At LONG last, I read it the other day, after a 13 year wait. I read the compiled Death of Superman comic, and the sequel series, compiled under the title Superman: Doomsday. I won't tell you how I got to read them. One of my friend knows.
Sounds childish, but my friend didn't notice that at that particular moment when I flipped open the page, it was a dream come true. Right there.
Ding.
I...
...read Stardust. The first chapter didn't get my attention. My expectations of Neil Gaiman's novel writing skills dropped greatly after reading Neverwhere two months ago. But once I got to the second chapter, I was hooked, and once I hit the midway point, I just stayed up all night to finish it. It's probably his best novel (okay originally it was a comic). Maybe not as good as American Gods/Anansi Boys in terms of content, but certainly the most entertaining, because... it's ultimately a love story. Yes. Love. The movie is coming out sometime next year. I'm not looking forward to it because I doubt any filmmaker can do the land of Faery any justice. But let's wait and see.
...re-read Beloved. I think the only book that really got me hooked from my Contemporary Fiction class two years ago is this Toni Morrison book. Let me try to remember. I read Nice Work (which was a bore), Memoirs of a Survivor (which was nice at first, then turned out to be a bore), On the Black Hill ( I actually just asked Shi Ying the title, cos I forgot. Boring book) Remains of the Days (which really is a brilliant piece of work, just not quite my type) and Guerillas (which is the worst of the lot. It very nearly single-handedly destroy any hopes that I'll like post-colonial text). But Beloved, my o my. It's good horror/suspense. I didn't reread the entire book, just the bits where the African daughter returns home, and shows signs that she's not... alive.*wink*
...watched The Big Durian. When Amir Muhammad came by to Monash for a talk me and Shi Ying gave him a nice pen as a souvenir, and in turn he gave me the DVD for The Big Durian. It's a rather punchy docu drama about Malaysian racial riots. I just sat in my living room for 75 minutes and didn't feel bored. If you're a Malaysian you should watch this because well, even if you don't laugh out loud, you'll smirk, or giggle on the inside. Because a lot of the show is very true in a very weird sense.
...read Sandman: Endless Nights. It's a collection of 7 short stories about the Endless: Death, Desire, Dream, Despair, Delirium, Destruction, and Destiny. All written by Neil Gaiman, all illustrated by someone different. Not all the stories are good (for example, Dream's story stinks. Destruction's story is pointless. Delirium's story is un-understandable *even though I know it's meant to be that way*) but very very certainly, the comic contains VERY serious art. If you've never encountered the world of Sandman (my sister remarked some time ago that my brother used to read it when he was much younger, and many years down the road I'm a fan too. Sorta like an evergreen and timeless comic.), read the 8 page story of Destiny, and you will be blown away.
...read Death: At Death's Door, by Jill Thompson. It's about the character called Death in the Sandman series. Spinoff of sorts. Drawn in Manga style. In terms of literary value it is close to zilch. But it's good comic relief. Fun. Fun. Fun.
...watched Transformers: Masterforce. I've been downloading many many episodes of this Japanese series of transformers that I remember watching when I was very young. It features the Pretenders (robots who mask themselves as people [autobots] and demons [decepticons]), the Headmasters (kids who transform into heads of big robots) and the Powermasters (the most powerful group of robots. That's why they're called the Powermasters). Every episode ends with Optimus Prime single handedly beating the crap out of the bad guys. Very stereotyopical, but I just love watching those vehicles transform! Yes, I'm a kid.
...watched Transformers: Victory. It's the follow-up series from Transformers: Masterforce. Yes, I waste a lot of time on kiddie things. It's sad how they don't make cartoons like they use to. Sigh.
And in between times I read some good magazines, some bad ones, and listened to Roxette's Crash! Boom! Bang! for the trillionth time now. It's probably in the top 3 of my most-played-song-of-all-time list.
*
So Lov premiered at the Nasi Bungkus event to a crowd of maybe 30 people or so. Standard la for the Journalism Lab. It was fun I suppose. Reviews were mostly lukewarm, but no matter. Sang, the COSTA president and unoffical market-er of my film, started selling my Superratty Films: A Miscellany CD and Dr.Yeoh's Sidewalk Capitalism DVD.
I think in total he sold about 10+ copies of mine, and about 3 - 5 of Dr.Yeoh's. Dr.Yeoh joked with me later that I can make the claim that I'm the bestselling filmmaker in Monash. I told him selling 10 copies shouldn't count. And he said something like 'it's still the best selling one' or something along those lines. So ok, I'll take it. Haha. The perasantedness of it all.
Well, I probably will be burning more since I have *online* orders. Lol. Nonsense la my friends. And because I love them I actually made additional touch-ups just for the 2nd print of the CDs.
*
Back to my free time. So I've been thinking about what to make next as well. Once I finish my thesis I'm going to make something for sure. I cannot tahan already. I must make something, just to make myself happy.
So... I don't know, but tentatively my next film is going to be called Pieces of Light. The earliest thought was that it'd be 3 short stories that has something to do withlight. It's supposed to be abstract art. After a few days, as I tried coming up with more and more stories, I am sad to announce that it is most likely going to be a...
*wait for it*
...love story.
*
So right now, I have 2 hours to kill before seeing my supervisor and let her fold my thesis into various origami thingies, I'm trying to write out a scene here and there. I've not written down much.
So I finally started writing the dialogue. It starts like this.
"Hey, Ah Lien."
*
Sarah Jane, the girl who has played Ah Lien in every film that has Ah Lien in it (The Door, Lov), thinks I should come up with new names. The Ah Lien role is abit more coveted than the Ah Beng and Ali roles. Ah Beng usually is just a cameo here and there. Ali has fewer but lenghtier appearances. But Ah Lien always has a central role. Okay only two. But here's a trivia. When I wrote Captivation last year, I wrote it with Sarah Jane in mind. Had she actually acted in it, I would've named the character Ah Lien instead of "The Girl".
So now, Ah Lien is making her third appearance in this show. Will Sarah Jane be in it again? It's sorta like the 007 of my world. Who will get the job as the prestigious Ah Lien, and who will be Ah Lien's men (ala Bond girl)?
*
OK kidding.
This blog post is one long rant.
*
And yes, I'm back.
*
P/S I also read
13 years ago (1993), when I was still a kid (standard 4. I was 10.), there was news that in the comic world, Superman died. Doomsday, this new alien wrestling kick butt character, killed him. I think my brother was away in university at the time so I couldn't bug him for it (he did get the post-death storyline, though. The one where four new Supermans emerge as new protectors of Metropolis. Very cool stuff.) At the time, that few issues of how Superman died was the best selling comic book of all time. It was massive. Newspapers covered it as well. Superman doesn't die you know, but he did. (of course sometime in the near future Superman came back to life la, but that's not fun anymore).
I remember one of my classmates had it, and he being a snobbish[insert favored insult] worm refused to share it with me. So all I managed to see was a few pages here and a few pages there. At LONG last, I read it the other day, after a 13 year wait. I read the compiled Death of Superman comic, and the sequel series, compiled under the title Superman: Doomsday. I won't tell you how I got to read them. One of my friend knows.
Sounds childish, but my friend didn't notice that at that particular moment when I flipped open the page, it was a dream come true. Right there.
Ding.
3 Comments:
good to hav u back.great that u made up for the absence with a extra long posting.
remember to reserve my dvd wif the director's cut and cambodian subtitles.
-piao
cheh you said no more love stories for a while.
bluffer.
"...shows signs that she's not... alive.*wink*"
I can't imagine you winking...
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