If all else fails, unity works best !

And if the video in the previous post depicts my Literature/Language class, this video is my ideal of a college performance.

The moral of the story ? If all else fails, why wage war ? Unity works best ! While all the individual works were unsatisfactory, the combined singing act turned out to be the best for the night.

This performance reflects the days where there was no racism, where people understood other cultures and lived peacefully.

This is what I yearn to do.

Just so you'd know...

...our Literature/Language class is something like this.

p.s. Damn, I miss "Mind Your Language" ; they haven't even aired it on TV for years. It's probably the best show I've ever watched. It would drill grammatical exercises and questions of vocabulary right into our heads. From what I heard, it was stopped halfway over here. What, I suppose they think their English is too good for this ? No, it needs a whole lot more improvement. Watching this show would enable us to speak far better than we speak now, with proper subject-verb agreement, without confusion of tenses. And even if my English is good, I'd always set this show as a benchmark. If anyone from national TV is actually reading this, my humble request to you is this : please bring back Mind Your Language. PLEASE !

Of Moi Lolita and A Good Year

This is the movie starring Academy Award winner Russell Crowe, and the part in the trailer which has the Moi Lolita soundtrack by (my fave star) Alizée. I haven't watched it due to its release in 2007, while I was still sitting for my SPM exam. And goodness knows if it has ever been screened in Malaysia... No, it had already been screened in Malaysia. And at that time, I was stuck in my room studying, unable to even go to the cinema and catch it.

I recommend you to watch and re-watch 0:20 to 0:29. That's practically my favourite part of the trailer. It's the part where much of the focus is on Russell Crowe, stuck at a T-junction and the GPS says almost absolutely nothing but "Avancez ! Avancez ! Avancez !" (French imperative for "go" or "advance") and yes, had I been in that situation, I'd have been as pissed as he was. I can't help but laugh when I watch those nine seconds of the clip.

And this is the original Moi Lolita video. Alizée sings this :

Moi je m’appelle Lolita
Lo ou bien Lola
Du pareil au même
Moi je m’appelle Lolita
Quand je rêve aux loups
C’est Lola qui saigne
Qu’on fourche ma langue, j’ai là
Un fou rire aussi fou qu’un phénomène
Je m’appelle Lolita
Lo de vie, Lo aux amours diluviennes

REFRAIN :
C’est pas ma faute
Et quand je donne ma langue aux chats
Je vois les autres
Tous prêts à se jeter sur moi
C’est pas ma faute à moi
Si j’entends tout autour de moi
Hello, helli, t’es ah---
Moi Lolita

Moi je m’appelle Lolita
Collégienne aux bas
Bleus de méthylène
Moi je m’appelle Lolita
Coléreuse et pas
Mi-coton, mi-laine
Motus et bouche qui n’dit pas
À maman que je suis un phénomène
Je m’appelle Lolita
Lo de vie, Lo aux amours diluviennes

And this is an approximate translation in English :

Me I’m called Lolita # Lo or just Lola # It’s all the same # Me I’m called Lolita # When I dream (I’m not sure of the “wolf” part, but I know it’s an idiom) # It’s Lola who bleeds # Let them pierce (fork) my tongue, there I have # A crazy laugh, as crazy as a phenomenon # Me I’m called Lolita # Lo for life, Lo for (I’m not sure what “diluvienne” means) love

CHORUS : It’s not my mistake # And if I want to quit # I see the others # All ready to throw themselves upon me # It’s not my own mistake # If I hear everyone around me # Hello, helli, you’re ah – Me Lolita ##

Me I’m called Lolita # A middle school student # (and now, I wonder why she’s mentioning methylene blue) # Me I’m called Lolita # Short-tempered and not # Half-cotton, half wool # (I’m not sure what “motus” means) and a mouth that doesn’t tell (#) mom that I’m a phenomenon # (and again, the same couplet as the one in the first verse, and then repeat chorus)

While watching the real Moi Lolita, do take note of these : Alizée plays Dolores Haze, and it's an evening club not a nightclub - and these aren't sleazy places at all ; it's where friends gather. Alizée was sixteen while filming this video - a direct contrast to our Malaysian scene where the legal age for clubbing is eighteen.

And you know, I finally found the author of the perverted novel, Lolita, which was the subject matter of Moi Lolita.

Vladimir Nabokov.

I remember full well, back when I went for the Forensics Tournament in International School, Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) back in 2006, someone was doing some book review and while my friend, Naomi, chose to go with one philosophical title (I honestly forgot what it was), there was this guy, an ISKL student, who chose the title Lolita. And the way he mentioned it was the exact way Alizée said it in the bridge section :

Lo... li... ta.

It seemed rather perverted to Naomi and me. It had something gotta do with a guy having a sort of sexual attraction towards a young girl named Dolores Haze. But was it really the story of a paedophile, or a sinful person in the shell of a young girl ? Either way, the way the ISKL student interpreted it just sickened me. Two years earlier, i.e. in 2004, when I listened to that song, it didn't have the same effect as that book review. The song is more whimsical.

And the song, Moi Lolita, was chosen for A Good Year.

Oh, pas joli joli.

Pourquoi Yasmin Ahmad est déjà tombée amoureuse des Français ?

Translation of the title : Why has Yasmin Ahmad already fallen in love with the French ?

Here's the reason why. Apparently this short was made by some French guy who was paying tribute to her film Mukhsin.

Qu'en pensez-vous, mes amis ?

Wakakakakakakaka.........

Apparently Pasquale recorded this as a university initiative, and he did it with three kids from St Brendan's Primary School, Brisbane. To two of the students - I think - it was a difficult challenge because English to them was a second language, but well....... I couldn't help LOL-ing at this one !!!!!

Super Birdman ? Bird poo ? Dr Robber smelling really bad ?

PU. I'm digging this one.

Darn, this clip is so random...

This clip was made by my friend Pasquale for a 2D and Alternative Techniques class. Yep, he's an animator. I don't know - I just love his work - especially this one ! It's so random ! Perhaps if Wikipedia has a full article about randomness, this video may just end up there ! :)

The best part ? Go to the middle section where the fat guy takes the N's out of the word "BANANA." What do we have left ? BAAA !

Go see the post here, or view his site at http://darkmotion.com/

p.s. Pasquale has a Favourites thumbnail : just so you'd know - go see the favourites grid. Pasquale's thumbnail is blue and it's a guy with a mask covering his eyes.

Another Deepavali commercial........

This one is by Yasmin Ahmad. Yes, the filmmaker behind Sepet, Gubra, Mukhsin, Muallaf and Wasurenagusa. View the full article at

http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-malaysians-will-see.html

I remember Narin was pestering me to go to Yasmin's Blogspot page and take a good look. I did. And I almost wept.

I can relate myself to the boy who became a pilot.

When mom was alive, and when I was still small, she gave me my very first heartbeats - biologically and musically. She sparked in me this passion for rhythm when I was three - I was with mom, I was silently knocking on the drum ; she took it from me, smiled, and beat her rhythms. I was enthralled. I only spilled my passion for rhythm to her when I was fifteen. Today, I have a constant yearning to excel musically and be who I wanna be.

But, unlike the pilot, whose father didn't know about his passion for flying, mom knew about my passion for the drums and she even did me a big favour a few months before she died - she accompanied me to Yamaha Beatspot Mid Valley and I got my drum kit - on the second week of April, as a birthday present. Unlike the pilot, whose father may have died naturally or during a freak accident during work, my mom was snatched away from me. And it wasn't God's doing. Maybe now, she's up there. I can't say for sure. It's been two months since she died and to this very day, I wish she'd come to me in a dream, and tell me if she's proud of me.

And then, I notice that the star drummer for the worship team's missing today, the backup drummers have taken his place just for today's mass. I'm not one of them, and it's no surprise. I'd really love to have a chance to elevate myself to be who I want to be, but at the mention of my name, everyone disregards me (except for a select few - those people who've heard and seen me playing the drums). Today, after mass, when we were on the way back home, dad asked me, "Who played the drums today ? There was no oomph !" I didn't want to mention names of those who played - because deep down I felt that they could do much better someday; so I just told him, "That's what happens if Uncle Cyril isn't around." And he said in reply, "Yeah, he's good. He's goooooooooooood." I said, "I can only yearn to play as well as he does."

To that, I had no response. Well. I doubt he ever heard me. And I doubt he'll ever hear me. For a second there, I guess it's no wonder that I heave loud sighs these days... I'm in need of someone to listen to my heartbeats, someone whom I can share them with. And dad is so not that person. Mom was that person... at least while she was around. I want them...

I want them to hear the heartbeats mom gave me. I don't want them to be just confined to the room, like they've been all this while.

Yasmin, if you do come across this post...... I don't know if you'll ever say anything. I'm one of those people who seek for a place for their names to be etched, and at the rate things are going, I doubt I'll ever find a place to carve my name. There're many hearts out there who aren't willing to be opened, and the hearts who are really touched by these musings, if not my songs, are few and far between.

The Visitor, anyone ?

I came across this Blogspot blog, Notre Monde Virtuel - and one post contained something on a film called "The Visitor."

Curious, I followed the links. And check out these clips : I took three parts - the official trailer, the drum lesson and the part where Walter visits Tarek in the detention centre.







The synopsis from Overture Films is as such :

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy's follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.

Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Jenkins) is sleepwalking through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn to play classical piano. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him.

Touched by his kindness, Tarek, a talented musician, insists on teaching the aging academic to play the African drum. The instrument's exuberant rhythms revitalise Walter's faltering spirit and open his eyes to a vibrant world of local jazz clubs and Central Park drum circles. As the friendship between the two men deepens, the differences in culture, age and temperament fall away.

After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek's beautiful mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her son, the professor's personal commitment develops into an unlikely romance. And it's through these newfound connections with these virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and a new life.

OMG, I just had to watch the theatrical trailer once just to get touched forever. I almost wept after watching that trailer, but I held back the tears (in case dad were to see me crying).

And it especially touched my heart for the fact that... I'm a drummer myself.

The current rating in American cinemas is PG-13 ; I seriously hope that it gets released soon in Malaysia. While on YouTube I can only watch fragments of the movie (and those fragments alone make me feel warm inside) ; what about the whole movie ?

I had a talk with DK on Thursday and I remember that we were talking about films - how French films were on the decline. But I somehow love them - they haven't got a specific format, and that's how art is supposed to be. The majority of Hollywood films, or films produced in America (i.e. outside Hollywood), have a format - there's always a hero/heroine, there's an evident villain, there's a love story, there's a tussle between the hero/heroine and the villain, and more often than not, there's a happy ending to it - or if the director wants to put in a twist of sorts, maybe he'd kill off the hero/heroine, or something terrible might befall the good guy - but it's always the same thing, at the end of the day.

Films like "The Visitor" aren't French, surely, but never mind - they're the kind of films we need flooding our cinemas. I've had enough of formatted pieces of work. Whoever directed "The Visitor" really did a good job in touching people's hearts. Heck, everyone who commented on the official trailer by Overture Films actually gave good reviews, saying that they were moved. Some of them didn't want to watch the film for fear that they'd end up sobbing in the cinema !

And I too, hope to touch people's hearts in my own way.

I know this review came in like, four years late but...

My most favourite comedy of all time.



I hardly go to the cinema to watch new releases : I get them mostly on DVD but...
for this one, mom and I rushed to the cinema to watch it when it was just released.

And, we got the VCDs on top of that.

I think the trailer should speak for itself. I had a good laugh throughout the show. Good job, Nia Vardalos.

Rating : ★★★★★