This is the place where I put my random thoughts that I like to share with you all. It's also a place where I could post about things that interest me such as movies, TV shows, Games and just anything that's part of the Pop culture that I find necessary to post about.
LOL I found out that someone came to my site while searching for this:
I actually went to Google news immediately to find out whether he really died Haha!
But then I thought maybe he was to referring to his death on screen. Did he ever die on screen? I could only think of one movie where he played a bad guy and died at the end. The hero was an Asian guy and Van Damme played a European villain.
Update: Thanks to IMDB, I found the title of the movie that I was referring to, Black Eagle (1988).
Planning to watch these two polar opposite movies back to back in the near future. One is about the triumph & perserverance of the human spirit through the power of hope and the other just shows how easily we can get f***ed up badly by fear and desperation. Both of these movies were directed by the same man and adapted from books by the same author: Frank Darabont and Stephen King.
(Click the posters for trailers)
**this post contains spoiler from both movies. So if you haven’t seen either of the two movie then it’s recommended that you should not continue. Just go watch the two movies, it’s really good **
Shawshank Redemption (1994) is about Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a hotshot banker sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife. He is actually innocent but this isn’t an action movie where Andy escape and tries to clear his name while being pursued by the police. Instead, he stays there and develop a friendship with fellow inmates especially Red (Morgan Freeman), a man who has lost faith in the outside world and doesn’t believe in hope. Andy’s arrival changed the face of prison and led Red on the road of redemption. The movie was nominated for 7 Oscars but didn’t win any, a decision that many saw as the biggest Oscar snub.
The Mist(2007) is about a town being covered by a mysterious mist that hides many deadly creatures. A group of survivors takes refuge in the local supermarket where they have to fight against any of the deadly creatures (eg. giant bats, poisonous giant flies, large tentacles, etc) that attempts to break in. With each passing moment, hopes of survival diminishes while fear takes over. This led most of the survivors to turn to the religious fanaticism of Mrs Carmody. Some of the survivors found that their greatest threat does not come from monsters but from among themselves as the worst of mankind is brought to light when desperation and fear reached critical level.
One thing I notice is the contrasting relation between the setting and the theme in each movie. Redemption is set in prison yet the characters find hope and redemption within in it. In contrast to the Mist, where the supermarket (a place where you can find everything you need) became a place of chaos.
I see that these contrasting relations between setting & theme reinforce the idea of the strange nature of humanity and civilization. The relation between us and civilization is a tricky one because I see it to be paradoxical. We are a social species and the only way to ensure our survival is create a society/civilization governed by rules. Simple as that, it’s Sociology 101. But here’s the catch, civilization is also the seed of our destruction. What I mean by destruction is not that we’re going to explode and die; it’s more like how we start losing the real strength that’s within us as humans get too dependent on the construct of civilization. What if we took out those things that we are heavily dependent on? People get scared and when they do…well…just watch how things get ugly. Here’s some quote from the The Mist:
Amanda Dunfrey: You don’t have much faith in humanity, do you? Dan Miller: None, whatsoever. Amanda Dunfrey: I can’t accept that. People are basically good; decent. My god, David, we’re a civilized society. David Drayton: Sure, as long as the machines are working and you can dial 911. But you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them – no more rules.
And this…
Ollie: As a species, we’re fundamentally insane. Put two of us in a room, we pick sides, and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another.
Yes, this sounds like JJ Rousseau’s views on Humanity and society. He believed that society corrupts mankind but not along the line of ‘wild man = good, civilized man = bad’. It’s more to do with the difference between a man that strives to survive with the power of reason and a man who are bogged down by ‘artificial’ construct of society. In a situation like the one that happened in the Mist, the later wouldn’t fare well. Unfortunately, most people are in the later group. When the rules change and don’t apply anymore, they seek some other means to make them believe that the normal rule still applies. Hence, they turned to fanatical religion of Mrs. Carmody. She seemed to know better at what’s going on and what to do.
In Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne isn’t bowing down to rules. He did not start a prison riot or anything but discovered something more powerful. He realize that there is something incorruptible within all of us and it’s the endurance of human spirit or hope. Take this quote from the movie:
Andy Dufresne: That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you… Haven’t you ever felt that way about music? Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn’t make much sense in here. Andy Dufresne: Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don’t forget. Red: Forget? Andy Dufresne: Forget that… there are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside… that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. That’s yours. Red: What’re you talking about? Andy Dufresne: Hope.
Red refuses to believe in hope and he has also accepted his predicament as governed by the society he lives. He calls it being ‘institutionalized’; admitting defeat to the labels that you are given by a society. Here’s Red’s explanation:
Red: Would you knock it off? Brooks ain’t no bug. He’s just… just institutionalized. Heywood: Institutionalized, my ass. Red: The man’s been in here fifty years, Heywood. Fifty years! This is all he knows. In here, he’s an important man. He’s an educated man. Outside, he’s nothin’! Just a used up con with arthritis in both hands. Probably couldn’t get a library card if he tried…these walls are funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em. Enough time passes, it gets so you depend on ‘em. That’s ‘institutionalized’…They send you here for life and that’s exactly what they take, the part that counts anyway.
Later, Red finally redeemed himself when he gave a piece of his mind to the Parole guys.
1967 Parole Hearings Man: Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you’ve served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you’ve been rehabilitated? Red: Rehabilitated? Well, Now let me see. You know, I don’t have any idea what that means. 1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, it means that you’re ready to rejoin society… Red: I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it’s just a made up word. A politician’s word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did? 1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, are you? Red: There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone and this old man is all that’s left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.
Powerful stuff!!
Lastly, I want to talk about the ending. Shawshank’s ending is still one of my favourite movie ending, it gets me everytime I watch it. As for the Mist, it’s great!! Giving a happy ending to a grim movie isn’t the right way. You need a big ‘F You!’ type of ending and it delivered.
Never been a big fan of GI Joe but this picture of Snake Eyes (aka ‘that badass ninja from GI Joe’) from the upcoming live action adaptation is cool. He is played by none other than Darth Maul himself, Ray Park.
I was reading my very first post on this blog and I found an embarrassing mistake:
“The idea of creating a new blog have always been in my head for a long time now. Alas, here I am at WordPress publishing my first post.”
LOL, I was suppose to write “At last” not “Alas“, as in, “Finally, I created a blog!” not like ”unfortunately, I created a blog“. It was supposed to be a happy thing! At least it’s better than few months ago when I found out in one of my post that I repeated a paragraph!
I first found out about Arthur C. Clarke when I read about his predictions for the 21st century in an issue of Asiaweek published in 1999 (can be read here). I remember going through this short lived science fiction phase where I would start reading any book relating to space exploration.
Some say his greatest contribution to the world was popularising the idea of geostationary satellites for telecommunication. Some say it’s his short story, The Sentinel which he later developed, with the help from Stanley Kubrick, into a movie called 2001: Space Odyssey, a work widely accepted as one of the greatest Sci Fi movie. For me, his greatest contribution is just the way he asked us to ponder on the big questions. Are we alone? What is humanity’s place in the universe? I guess that’s why I liked 2001: Space Odyssey & Rendezvous with Rama more than their respective sequels because there was a sense of mystery on those two stories.
I just passed the 10,000 views mark LOL Few things I want to note:
Dragon Ball post
Dragon ball casting is easily the most popular post here. When I first posted it, there weren’t many views on that post. Then one day, the stats for that post exploded when it got linked by forums like here, here and here. And it’s still the most popular post with the number of Dragon ball movie related searches increased in Google, Yahoo, etc.
BTW, the movie has been pushed back from August 15, 2008 to April 3, 2009. So let’s hope they’ll use that time to improve the movie for us fans, who have been really hard on the upcoming movie (one guy even searched “Dragon Ball Z will suck” and stumbled upon my blog)
Change in post style
I just finished browsing through all my post since November last year. Wow, I notice how my style of posts changed.
Some of my earlier post were more personal like the one I wrote about my story idea or the recurring dreams. Even the post about Battlefield and WWE were also personal. I think I should do those personal posts more often rather than being preoccupied by movies. My friend even called my site a movie blog. WTF
I also remember how at the beginning, I said to myself that I’m not going to talk about politics. Blah! I guess I failed in keeping up with that promise. Another promise that I sort of broke was the one that I stated in my About page.
…post about things that interest me…..anything that’s part of the Pop culture that I find necessary to post about (no I’m not going to talk about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, you can find that somewhere else)
Recently, I made few posts on my country Brunei. I just thought that I needed to write something related to Brunei or maybe it’s just another way to balance out all those movie related post.
I’ve also noticed how I began to write more episodic posts (eg Part 1, part 2). Several reasons; either the original idea of the post was too long or I was just lazy to finish the post and hold it off for later. Examples of this can be found here, here and here.
Oh and one more thing, I realized that I have only reviewed one book. Man, I haven’t read any novels for a long time. I’ll try posting a review of books that I have read. (fiction or non fiction).
Visitors
Majority of the people here stumbled on this blog through search engines or some other referrers. But are there anyone who regularly visit or lurk here? Sometimes the number of searches/referrals don’t add up to the number in the stats. I know WordPress doesn’t count my visits so it has to come from somewhere else. Maybe its those spammers? I don’t know. So any lurkers want to drop a ’hello’ at the comments? If there are any that is, which I doubt.
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To mark the 10,000 views, I present you this random video which reminds us how nature sometimes work in mysterious ways Enjoy!
Every film genres reaches a stage when people starts making a parody or a discontruction of it. We had Dewey Cox and Bob Dylan’s I’m Not There for biopics, Enchanted for Disney Princesses movie and Hot Fuzz for buddy cop movies. Now it’s the Vietnam War movie genre popularized by such films like Apocalypse Now, Platoon and that Michael J Fox movie.
Tropic Thunder is about three actors (an action star, a comedian & an Oscar winning actor played by Ben Stiller, Jack Black & Robert Downey Jr respectively) shooting a big budget Vietnam War movie. When the director gets fed up and left them, they end up in a middle of a real war while still thinking that they are still in a movie set. Yeah, I think I got the story right.
The main highlight of this movie is that Robert Downey Jr is playing a black guy. No wait, he’s playing a white guy who is portraying a black character. Some people have already called it racist. When black people play white characters (White Chicks), it’s comedy but when it’s the other way around, it’s racist
Watch the trailer below. Robert Downey Jr. is hilarious!!
It was a hot sunny Friday morning and there I was in a booth looking down on a piece of paper trying to make a decision, there were two faces and I had to tick only one of them. Yup, I was voting in an election but the two faces weren’t Obama & Hillary but two respected elders in my village or Kampong. It was a small election to decide the next head of my village/ Ketua Kampong. And wow, never realized how populated this kampong is until virtually everyone crowded into this small hall belonging to a primary school. It was exciting and frustrating at the same time because you know, not a lot of people in my place have done it before, so it’s fun but most of them didn’t know the whats & the hows of the process. While I was there, a topic came to my head: Democracy. Yes, it’s everyone’s favourite word, Democracy with a capital ‘D’.
In Brunei, we haven’t had a major public election since 1962. We’re under a combination of a modern ministerial cabinet and a long held tradition of a monarchy with an addition of a recently reinstated legislative body. Political stability plus oil raised our standard of living therefore we’re happy and peaceful. Not trying to take sides but just stating the facts.
Now back to that word; Democracy – the D word. Bush made it his mission to spread the D word in the middle east. Musharaf has been criticised for not doing the D. So did the Junta at Myanmar and the ruling party at Malaysia who just lost a lot of seats in the recent election because some groups of people, especially non-malay ethnic groups, think that the ruling party did not practice the D. Everybody likes talking about this D word.
The word Democracy comes from Greek; Demo=People & Kratos=Rule/power. Simply it’s power coming from the people. The most common and widely regarded way of displaying this concept is through election where the people vote for someone to represent his/her interest in their government; Representative Democracy.
But Democracy is really fragile. It is really good in theory but it’s proven to be flawed when put in practical use. Why is that? It had the same problem that theory of Communism, it is based on the assumption that people are predictable. We are dealing with human beings and people are highly unpredictable.
Adding to human’s unpredictability is the nature of Power (with a capital P). You vote, you are exercising Power and some groups of people are simply just not ready to for that amount of Power.
For example, a group of people being supressed for a long time and suddenly they get a chance to vote in a big type of election like those in the US. How would they react? They would be emotionally unstable and things go chaotic. Everyone would have an opinion on what to do without thinking realistically what is really good for the community. Instead of being constructive, you have the masses fuelled by complains and grievances but without rational solutions.
Take the post-Saddam Iraq or the immediate aftermath of Suharto’s resignation in Indonesia during the financial crisis. You had three parties and then suddenly you had like hundreds of them with each one having little differences between them. That is the greatest worst case scenario of democracy; volatile masses that acts on emotions.
I remember being dragged into a conversation about ideologies. This friend of mine was talking about various government type/ideologies. Communism, Socialism, Anarchy, Democratic, Dictatorship, etc. He was trying to impress other people by outlining the idea of each one of those ideologies and then he asked me which one I would prefer. I knew what he was doing, I’ll choose one ideology and he’ll shoot me back with the criticism of that particular ideology. Reminded me of my young self who wasted time listing down all the goods and the bads of each ideological type.
I answered his question by telling what I have learned and believed to be a best answer: there are people who are more powerful than you and then there are people who are less powerful than you. This fact can be determined by the constitution or hereditary or military force depending on whatever the ideology of the ruling group. But the simple fact is this; some people are more powerful than others and some are weaker. This basic principle is everywhere; Democratic states, Communist, Socialistic states, dictatorship but the only differences is how the men of power uses its power or how power is distributed. Therefore, it’s not as clear cut as just simply dividing the world with democratic and undemocratic countries; that is just so naive and it’s also a view of the world that seems to drive Bush’s policy.
I’m not against Democracy but just saying that it isn’t as simple as people generally think. Sure, it’s nice to say it and the word gives out this impression of championing freedom, equality, human rights and all that stuff. It’s a good concept but when it comes to putting in practice, other factors needs to be considered such as the traditions of the society, the mindset of the people, the time factor (implementing in stages).
People always point out that it works in USA so it works anywhere easily. Well, USA is different because that nation was built from scratch based on democratic principles. Other nations have long history under a different type of ruling structure. Making a transition to a full democratic system like those in the US takes a long time or impossible, which in that case, a fusion between democracy and traditions is the more likely option to take.
I think my former History teacher said it best during our discussion about Iraq, democracy is something that evolves. I say it is like a plant that needs water to grow rather than a clothing you just simply take and put on.
Few weeks ago was our national day and on that same day, I felt an urge to do something that I haven’t done since started this blog; write something related to my country. I thought it would be easy, just sit down in front of the PC (yes, I don’t have a laptop so I cannot blog anywhere) and expect some ideas for a topic relating to my country would just pop into my head. I was mistaken and this can be seen with this post where it went off topic pretty quickly.
Now, I have an idea. I’m going to write about Radio Television Brunei (RTB), our very own national TV channel. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny it’s one of those things that has a special place in your life as a Bruneian.
So how did I get this idea? One night, it was raining hard and I couldn’t watch ASTRO cable channels. To make matters worse, the living room TV was controlled by my mom and her indonesian dangdut satellite TV channel. So bored, I watched RTB in my brother’s bedroom. WOW! Quite cool Hehe.
I watched the local news for the first time in years and I see all these new young faces reading the news (except for the lady who recently won the best female newsreader award). But I know they’re not new, it’s just that I haven’t watch RTB news in ages thus I didn’t recognize any of the news readers. Gone are the familiar older newsreader I grew up with (the guy with the moustache and glasses, the guy who sort of looks like my friend’s dad, the lady with contact lenses eyes doing the ‘Consumer’ section and THE sports guy…Hj Malik, I think that’s his name..he’s THE MAN when it comes to SEA games or football coverage).
I’ve noticed that the local channel have changed in it’s nature over the years. When I was young, RTB aired sitcoms like Friends and weekly movies ranging from made for TV quality to blockbusters (eg. Sunday matinee, Wayang pilihan). Then there was X-files. That show was the highlight of our local channel in the old days. It made all of us glued to the channel every week. We always talk about it in morning at school after each episode Haha.
Then RTB seems to change its focus towards more of an educational direction. You start having more documentaries (of which most of them are fascinating) and religious shows. I think they try to balance it out between entertainment and educational programmes but found it difficult hence the expansion recently: RTB1 and RTB2
I heard about this RTB2 long time ago but never bothered with it. So I checked that channel recently and I see all these commercials for shows that they’re airing:
The Office?! That’s a really funny show and it’s in our local channel. NCIS?! i’ve seen some episodes of this show and enjoyed it. Bones?! That’s the David Boreanaz show. Everybody Hates Chris?! Wow another good comedy Psych?! Lost?! you mean THE LOST?! my favourite show with that Crazy island, that one?! Every Friday 9pm?! LOL
But let’s not forget about local drama. In the old days, local dramas were kind a fake. You know, the characters talked with Malaysian accent instead of a Bruneian accent. The dialog seems forced. But things have improved. Sure, it’s not top quality but it’s improving and it’s more Brunei-ish. I saw this local drama about the Anti-Corruption bureau and I enjoyed it. The cases looks like something that would probably happened in Brunei. They talk in Bruneian dialect and even the dialog sounds like how a Bruneian would talk. For example, this old boss talks about having a surgery in Singapore. THAT’s so Bruneian. I love little touches like that. I found out later that this show is actually old and it was a repeat telecast. Ketinggalan zaman banar aku ani . The show is called KOD 468 and if only they release it on DVD
Speaking of local shows on DVD, I was a big fan of Catatan Misteri. That show was a big hit few years ago and I want to see that on DVD. Whoever I talked to and the subject of locally produced drama comes up, they always talk about this show. The episodes ranges from frightening (the 1st episode with the Balau ghost and another episode with exorcism), dark humour (the one with young guys playing darts and saw hantu pocong), unintentionally funny (the unemotional reaction of the father who lost his daughter), brilliant (the roti panas episode) and downright stupid (the kung fu scene between two ‘makhluk halus’). Now I want to see that on DVD.
And then there are the commercials. People always laugh about the quality of the local commercial but that’s what makes it memorable. Who could forget catch phrases like “Anu lain mana durang suka tu!” or “Murah kali ah!” from a Sabli sauce and a Pizza hut commercial respectively. Speaking of the Pizza Hut commercial, there was a line where the guy was complaining that he couldn’t a afford the normal price meal because of ‘Bulan tua‘ LOL ‘Bulan Tua’ refers to a period of time between paydays for many workers here. In other words, it’s a time when most people don’t have money. Like I said earlier, I like the little local touches.
So yeah, I’m not saying that I’ll abandon my cable channels forever but it was nice to watch RTB again. Kinda like meeting an old friend you haven’t met for a long time. Like the slogan says, Sentiasa Bersama Biskita/ Always be with you.
I actually went to Google news immediately to find out whether he really died Haha!
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