Cinematic Concerns

People, I have been raving about this film for 8 months.

But you probably did not hear it.

Because why? Because I am one person. And there are 27 million people in Malaysia ... roughly. Out of which, only a matter of 300,000 or so are regular movie-goers .... which is still too many for one person to connect to. And no, one person cannot do enough Facebooking, blogging, pay-it-forward schemes, etc to reach all of those people.

But tried I did.

What was the message?

That Sell Out! is the best damn Malaysian film I have ever seen without having to tack on the clause "for a Malaysian film". Sell Out! is the first film that I'm proud of to see come out from our film industry. Yes, the first.

That Malaysians MUST watch it, because this is the direction I hope to see our films move towards. What direction is that? Better quality. Better acting. Better ideas. Better scripts. Better dialogue. More sophistication. More maturity. More honesty. Less naïvete. Less stupidity. And I don't care if the film doesn't yield to considerations of the conservative Malay crowd or the government about what is a worthy Malaysian film (i.e. a Malay film or a film that makes its Malaysian-ness obvious). All I care about is a good story, done well by us.

Guys, I'm tired of seeing yet another Malaysian movie which settles for 'just okay' - which, when compared to many other regions of world cinema is downgraded to 'crap' or 'sleep-inducing'. No, I'm not saying making good movies is an easy job - because I'm in the film industry, I know better than most of you reading this that it's bloodsuckingly hard. But what we have before is paltry and pathetic. When it comes to Malaysian films, things are slowly changing for the better over the past decade. But EVERY SINGLE TIME I am disappointed, one way or another. I am tired of being disappointed.

And then this film came along.

Let's get this straight - this isn't the best film ever made. And not everyone who sees the film will think it's the best Malaysian film ever. People will say, how about Yasmin Ahmad? Or P. Ramlee? How about Saiful Apek? How about Geng? Didn't you know Jangan Pandang Belakang made such and such amount of money? How can you make such a blanket statement? How come this film isn't completely in Malay? Don't everyone have different tastes and --

Just ... stop. Listen.

Let’s get this straight. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a reaction to a Malaysian film like the reaction of the [Singapore International Film Festival] audience to Sell Out!. “Riotous” is a huge understatement. They didn’t just laugh. They literally stomped their feet and screamed. I’m not making this up. You know what’s the sign of a good comedy that works a crowd really well? When, during the quieter, not-so-funny moments, there are coughs all around, people clearing their throats for the next round of gags. And that happened a lot with the crowd at the sold-out SIFF screening.

1. Sell Out! is quirky, weird, rather strange. For the first 15 minutes, you’d be forgiven for wondering what is really going on, even though you find yourself laughing uncontrollably at the jokes. The film seems to take its own sweet time to find comfortable footing, but it really does let loose from the get-go.

...

8. Even though the film is largely in English with a small percentage of Cantonese, it’s a very Malaysian film which smartly addresses a lot of what Malaysians experience on a day-to-day basis:

a. silly phone calls from people who just don’t get it when you say “Wrong number” or “This person isn’t here”
b. unscrupulous doctors out to make a quick buck and will diagnose you with anything even when you’re not ill
c. the mentality that if she or he is Eurasian, she or he must be good at ... something
d. fights over taxis which can go to really ridiculous lengths
e. department store staff who are everywhere but don’t seem to be around the moment you need one

9. Even though it’s partly a musical where characters suddenly break into song, that aspect of the film is really self-aware of a musical’s potential of becoming unbearably silly or maudlin, and so it even pokes fun at musicals. And the songs are incredibly catchy. You really wonder how director Yeo Joon Han did it, writing, directing and producing the film, while also composing the songs.

...

12. Sell Out! is the anthem for the underappreciated, and the creative soul that is increasingly losing its way in our modern world.

The above excerpts are taken from Machine Girl's review of Sell Out! in Twitch.com. But I urge you not to read the full review until after you see the film.

Sell Out! will be on general release in both Malaysia and Singapore on May 7th.

I say it again. Watch the film.

It was odd that for the average Malaysian cinema-goer, their most anticipated summer films are Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen and Terminator Salvation. Few if any talked about Star Trek - if they've heard of it at all. As recently as three weeks ago I've had friends who said, "What? There's a Star Trek movie coming out? Eeeyerh, who wants to watch it?"

Yes, exactly, and I would have agreed - a Star Trek film sounds utterly boring, and only those idiot geeks, these trekkies would want to watch it.

Except ... the director is JJ Abrams, who has a brilliant mind for turning story plots and the film story structure around to shock the audience into submission as a writer and producer - and, as evidenced in his debut work in Mission: Impossible III, is just as creative and intense in making commercial films smarter and classier than its peers.

Still, having Abrams doesn't change the fact that this is a Star Trek film.

And then came the trailer, which was released, oh 8 FREAKING MONTHS AGO AND SOMEHOW MALAYSIANS ARE IGNORANT ENOUGH TO MISS IT. Anyway, the trailer was mindblowingly awesome, and those of us who knew anything worth knowing about film immediately targeted it to be the film of the year*. The eclectic cast is a major intriguing factor as well. John Cho! Chris Pine! Zachary Quinto! Zoe Saldana! Eric Bana! Karl Urban! Simon Pegg! Anton Yelchin! Winona Ryder! It's at least half as interesting as the casting of Danny Boyle's Sunshine. Add to that the special effects which look astounding due to the level of realism it achieves in creating the futuristic world.

This is expected to be the Dark Knight of the year (and Malaysians have no clue, coz they're like that), except not so serious, and except that it won't be as memorable.

So, I can't wait to watch it at the AMBP First Contact at Studio V gathering on May 1st.

* At least until James Cameron's Avatar is released.

Actually, just Best Short Film In A Long, Long, Long Time. But that would've been clunky.


I'm always on the lookout for good short films - because they are short, and because they are good. Which means most short films - and virtually ALL Malaysian short films, not least because so many of them try so hard to be abstract - fail, and fail spectacularly. And when I do come across a good one, I remember them, and I want people to see them.

This short, I really think, will be a major contender for the Best Live Action Short Oscar - but only if the fact that it played out over the Internet didn't ruin its chances. Many nominees and most winners of this category tend to be comedies, and they are also very much simple stories, often with a major punchline at the end. Another consistent criteria is that the shorts should be shot on film.

Signs is wonderful because it is short; because the two leads are perfectly casted (face-wise); because the way it uses non-dialogue is totally functional to the story; because the pacing is virtually perfect*; because it doesn't stick the camera to one spot, but knows to use slow zoom-ins and multiple camera angles when needed; because its twists and turns are constantly surprising; because despite its one-note concept it still manages to magnetise audience attention; because it is so focused on delivering a good story to the audience. By not trying to put some artsy, stylistic directing style in it, the director's brilliance becomes that much more apparent.

The irony is: this is an Australian short.

* A few people earlier questioned my statement that Malaysian films should have faster pacing (because Malaysian films tend to be too slow). The example of this short is what I mean by great pacing - not too fast, not too slow, but giving information to the audience at the right time and moving along before they have a chance to get bored.

Go to end of article for why the Anti-PPSMI people should be ashamed of themselves, compared to what I saw in India.


When informing people that I was to go to Hyderabad for company training, and even after I got there, the one ridiculously constant response I get is "Don't drink the water there!" or "Be mindful of hygiene!" or some such other advice. This is from parents to friends to relatives to mere acquaintances. Well, I have survived completely unscathed, and I don't see the Indians worrying about it. As long as one drinks from bottled water.

I thought it worth pointing out because of how consistent it was. I mean, you tell people you're going to, say, Italy, and everybody will have different things to say about it, no?

I have come to Hyderabad with a new colleague to attend training and orientation to prepare for our new jobs at Rhythm & Hues Studios, which, some of you would have read in the news, is setting up a new facility in Cyberjaya. Now, Rhythym & Hues is a Los Angeles-based visual effects studio, and they have been responsible for some of the CGI in films such as The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, Happy Feet, Superman Returns, Night At The Museum (and the upcoming sequel), Alvin & The Chipmunks (and the upcoming squeakuel), etc. R+H has also won Academy Awards for Babe and The Golden Compass.

And they did that opening chase sequence in Fast & Furious. (Which every single Malaysian audience member erroneously calls "fast and the furious 4".) Oh yeah. I saw it with the bunch of CGI artists who did some of the work here in Hyderabad; they screamed and whistled whenever their shots came up.

Malaysians beware, because that will be happening soon at one of our cinemas. And if any audience member dares to say, "shut up can or not?", we will retort back, "YOU shut up, we made that film!"

Anyway, Rhythm & Hues will soon be in operation, employing Malaysian CGI artists to create Hollywood spectacle.

Hyderabad is not very well-known among Malaysians (or indeed anywhere, I suppose), and after being here for two weeks I can sort of see why. Hyderabad doesn't have anything sufficiently distinctive about it, unlike Mumbai or Agra. What is interesting, and it's something I noticed immediately after landing, is the amount of huge boulders (we're talking the size of houses) peppered all over the city. Some of it is broken down, either to use the landspace underneath the boulder or to use as building materials (probably both). But there's still lots and lots of it.


Foodwise, Hyderabad is famous for its Hyderabadi biryani, which is mostly rice with piece of chicken or mutton buried inside it, but the rice is spiced with some sort of spicy chili concoction, so it gets spicier as you eat. There are probably other food that Hyderabad is famous for, but to a newcomer to India every food is Indian food. The locals were telling us about how the people of the south eat rice while the north prefer naan and roti - though mobility is such that anywhere in the cities you'll get both. There's also difference in the level of spiciness preferred by individual states - apparently Hyderabad/Andhra Pradesh belongs to the spicier side.

There are 14 main languages in India, and Indian rupees are imprinted with a column displaying all 14. Andhra Pradesh speaks Telugu. However, Hindi acts like Tagalog or Mandarin, being the monitor of the class when it comes to Indian languages; but actually Indians speak English to each other at least half the time (at least among the middle classes and higher).

Oh yeah, remember the part in the song "O... Saya" in Slumdog Millionaire where you hear children sing "ek do teen char panch chey saat arth nao dus gyarah barah terah ..." in between M.I.A.'s lyrics? Those are numbers in Hindi, 1-13.

The Indians themselves are generally friendly, though almost always with a shy expression. The number one distinctive characteristic they have (that I'm surprised no one has mentioned before) is their tendency to jiggle their heads left-right-left-right while speaking. They do this A LOT, and it's their way of indicating a meaning that's somewhere between "yes", "good", "understood", and "that's fine".

Indian roads - or, at least what I've seen in Hyderabad - contain a traffic light every square kilometre. I'm not kidding, they're basically non-existent. But, and Malaysians will find this remarkable, that completely supports the way they get around on the roads. I say 'get around' because the roads belong not just to cars and buses and auto-rickshaws (in Thailand they will call it a tuk-tuk; here referred to either as 'ricks' or 'autos'), but also pedestrians, cattle, and other human-pullcart-type vehicles. The way to drive in India is to swerve and cut in all the time, honking all the way. The amount of honking will frazzle the nerves of the average Malaysian, but the honks are not saying "get off the road you slow driving bitch!" or "eh don't hog the road can or not!" or any other annoyed warnings that a road user delivers to another. Indians honk to indicate "I'm here, please let me pass". They drive at very close proximities and are used to if cars and ricks get within inches of them, and drivers do not get annoyed at seeing people walking on the road or crossing the street. And we have not seen a single accident so far. I don't know what the accident rate is here, but I'm willing to gamble that despite the relative chaos on Indian roads, the Malaysian road accident rate is higher than that in India. Yes, that's how useless Malaysian drivers are.

Oh, and ricks are kinda fun. Felt like a roller-coaster at times. I should have brought a camcorder along.

Another thing they don't have: street lights.

Things not so fun about Hyderabad: the frequent power cuts, which sometimes affects the entire city at night and one can see grey silhouettes of buildings into the distance while hearing the car honks both near and far. To those of us not used to even a major power cut a year, there's an almost apocalyptic feel to it. Families will congregate in the living room with candles. The reason we were initially given was that it was the general election campaigns which suck up that much extra power, which seemed half-believable; later we were told that it's more likely the rapid growth of Hyderabad which means that their hydroelectric-powered electricity supply couldn't keep up. Speaking of which, HITEC City, the equivalent to our Cyberjaya and where R+H is situated, has grown so much that the whole place is positively busy all the time and is totally filled with IT companies, as intended - this is in contrast with our Cyberjaya which is still relatively quiet after more than a decade of boastful promises. The other inconvenience are the security checks, which are everywhere, including restaurants and shopping centres. I forgot to ask whether this has been the norm or whether these measures came after the Mumbai terrorist attacks.



As for my colleagues at R+H Hyderabad, as promised by my new manager Mandeep (sweet Punjabi guy who's almost single-handedly manning the Cyberjaya office at the moment), everyone's nice and friendly and there are no hierarchy protocols between managers and employees. R+H worldwide prides itself as being a company that "does quality work while providing a great place to work for employees". (Paraphrased.) This is in contrast to some stories about how artists in the visual effects industry tend to be severely overworked - do understand, however, that visual effects is A LOT of work. Pranks are constantly being played (we are told that forgetting to lock your computer session while not at your desk is a fatal mistake; and Photoshopping each other's personal photos remains a favourite past time ... you can just imagine the quality of their work). The R+H office space is designed to be welcoming and uncubicled, so that it is as far away from a corporate office as it can be. People are encouraged to take breaks, with more than a few rooms to lounge and relax and even play some games. And there are NO dress codes. (A niggle of an idea: I should try and implement pyjamas day at the Cyberjaya facility; if nothing else, just to unnerve other employees and students in Cyberjaya.) That is not to say that it's all play - the workflow demands a high level of efficiency and every part of the process is streamlined and designed so that it can be done in the most problem-free way possible. Even ordering stationery for your desk has a well-defined procedure.

In short, R+H has that feel of the perfect workplace - it's serious work, and good work, but it's also a workplace that you want to come to every day.

We've learnt a lot in just two weeks - while I've spent time in Hollywood I never did delve into special effects, so I started at basically zero. I won't talk about how CGI images are created and inserted into films, because it is just far too complicated - suffice it to say, it is MORE work than YOU think. It is not a matter of "just drawing into the film".

It is definitely a great advantage for Malaysia to inherit the skills and knowledge that this company will bring. (Singaporeans lost out, woohoo! They can keep their Lucasfilm Animation.) Note that R+H will not be involved in Malaysian film productions, for a few obvious reasons: R+H have their hands full with just Hollywood projects; R+H is probably too expensive for any Malaysian film project; and Malaysian films still suck so bad that I personally do not want to see any Malaysian filmmaker naïvely doing special effects films until they improve their storytelling.


Now, about the Anti-PPSMI people. I have two words for them: SHUT IT!

You see, in India, many of its young students learn two or three languages as well (English and Hindi, and maybe their state language). What's different is that the Indians have no hang-ups over which language should be used to teach this or that. From what I understand, there is a choice: one can choose to study school subjects using English or Hindi as the primary language. And they are not unduly worried about how studying English and using English primarily as their everyday language will destroy their Indian culture or historical significance or whatever. These people are clearly Indian, and they practise their Indian cultures and values and traditions (by God do they practise them ... haven't you guys seen a stereotypical American or British Indian family comedy?). Speaking English doesn't make them less Indian, doesn't make them forget their Hindi or Telugu or Marathi or Punjabi or Malayalam, doesn't denigrate their literature (they even study Sanskrit for goodness sakes!), doesn't mean they're unpatriotic or disloyal. Instead, India has an entire generation of young adult Indians who are perfectly ready to integrate with this current stage of advanced, globalised civilisation, but who remain distinctively and individually Indian. Malaysia is doing that pretty well now, but risks turning the clock back on itself.

And by the way, speaking as a Chinese, this also goes for those Chinese parents insisting that their children 'have to have to" study Science and Maths in Mandarin.

UPDATE: There was a bug, but it's fixed now.

I was procrastinating by doing some of the Flixster Movies quizzes in Facebook, and the thing is, I've always found most of them ridiculously easy; what's the point of EVERYONE getting 75% and above? No fun.

So I set up my own one, and it's fun to see even my film school teacher getting below 50%. (So far the average score is 45%.) Now I'm testing out an online quiz setter, so I've placed it here.

It's a bit unfair since the film-related questions are more obscure than those asking you to guess the film title from the movie poster, but hey, TRY IT and see where you're at. I've set the Grades to mirror our SPM Matematik Tambahan grade breakdowns (where to get A1 you just need to get more than 60% or something). Besides, you'll learn a thing or two about movies (I hope!) once you see the answers.

Cheerio!

[Lots of people seem to be quitting halfway. If it's any consolation, my Hollywood friends aren't doing much better either, coz just as you guys don't know Hollywood trivia, they don't know that much about Asian films or foreign films either. The point is to get to the answers once you're done - the 'marks' just aren't that important.]