The 100th Post

Welcome to the 100th Post on this blog! I can't believe it's been that fast - I guess I really have no life, huh?

Unfortunately I have no amazing insights to offer on any significant events that happened in the world or in my life at this point. I do have some notes on things film-related though.

First off, congratulations to Ms. Yasmin Ahmad on the release of Sepet in the Malaysian theatres. After a long and hard battle, she finally had to concede defeat to the Malaysian censors, who seem to be even more stupid than their Singaporean counterparts. And I thought the local ones were already scraping the bottom of the barrel; goes to show how much I know. Read about the outcome here, and you can follow the entire saga if you look through her previous posts.

Second, I know there are those among you who have professed an interest in seeing the new Ben Stiller movie, Meet The Fockers. Unfortunately, according to The Onion reviewers, whom I trust implicitly, it appears to be a huge disappointment, and completely repulsive to boot.

Here is an excerpt, for those of you who don't like links:

All that really needs to be said of Meet The Fockers is that each of the following things figure prominently in it: a precocious infant swearing and lusting after a housekeeper's massive fake bosom, a crusty old foreskin falling into a fondue set, Robert De Niro wearing a fake breast, Barbra Streisand with whipped cream all over her cleavage, a rambunctious sex class for seniors, graphic talk of Dustin Hoffman's one testicle and Ben Stiller's bris, and a cat flushing a horny dog down a toilet. Needless to say, the film's illustrious, Academy Award-winning cast is a long way from Taxi Driver, The Graduate, Funny Girl, or even Meet The Parents. Meet The Fockers has assembled a historic, once-in-a-lifetime cast, then stranded them in the laziest, most mercenary kind of sequel imaginable.

*Shudder*

Third, my thoughts on Oliver Stone's Alexander.

Alexander is the story of how a great, successful and well-respected man - some say god, even - was finally brought to his knees because of the one human trait that has caused the downfall of so many Greek heroes: hubris. Pride and arrogance blinded him to the truth and his actions, and caused him to make mistake after mistake, finally turning everyone against him.

That man is Oliver Stone.

Oh, how the great have fallen. The director of Platoon, Natural Born Killers, Born on the Fourth of July, reduced to this overwrought, overlong spectacle of boredom. Beginning with an annoying introduction and then narration by Anthony Hopkins, Stone chooses to follow with a long period of intense boredom by telling the story of Alexander's youth. Who really cares? When the action finally comes, it makes things a little more bearable, but everything in between in just plodding along. And it's one thing to make Alexander more three-dimensional by giving him parental issues (check out the heavy-handed Oedipal reference), but to make Colin Farrell whine in almost every scene? Gimme a break.

I liked the battle scenes though. Intense, visceral, bloody. Everything Troy should have been but was not, because Wolfgang Petersen wanted to go for the family-friendly PG-13 rating. The climactic battle was beautiful, with the colors bleached out, then shifting into a startling red tint, and agonizingly gorgeous slow-motion photography. This is Stone doing what he does best, telling a story in the most intense way possible. And it had elephants. The rest of it is so blah, one would think he was on depressants the entire time.

It's unfortunate that the speeches Colin Farrell gives aren't all that inspiring, even though they try so hard to make it seem that way. Putting roars of wild animals in the sound mix sounds cheap here, because there's no motivation for them. Plus, it seems like Stone is ripping his own Any Given Sunday off. And as for inspirational speeches, nothing, but nothing, can compare to the words of The Bard in Act IV, scene iii of Henry V:

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispian's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

The Kenneth Branagh film version of 1989 does justice to the lines, which is as high a compliment as I can possibly give.

The audience in Alexander (yes, we're back on that) was terrible. It seemed the theatre was full of the most homophobic people around, or silly teenage girls. They tittered every single time Colin Farrell and Jared Leto exchanged Meaningful Looks, and every time Farrell looked at a pretty boy lustfully. Granted, the performances during those scenes were a little over the top, but c'mon. Be more mature about it. I mean, it was ancient Greece, after all, where men were expected - no, required, even - to have sex with the teenage boys they took as proteges under their wing. Have a little more respect for history. Then again, these silly people aren't probably the type to know anything about Greek history.

Oh, and mobile phones went off. About three times. Amazingly, after I yelled, "Turn it off!" the last time, there were no more phones going off. Sometimes these people just need to be treated like children.

Next, for the DVD whores (like me) out there - a look at the best DVDs of 2004.

And finally, a little story. To my intense horror tonight, my parents forced me and my brother to stop watching that Stephen Chow classic Royal Tramp because they wanted to watch the atrocious Taiwanese soap opera Fiery Thunderbolt. With its histrionics, ridiculous lines and horrendously overdramatic music, it deservedly makes it onto my Most Hated List. (Not that I'm keeping one. But if I was, it would be there.)

Some sample dialogue, heard tonight:
I heard she may have had an operation in America, called "Face Off", where she exchanged faces with another person.

My jaw hit the floor, and I couldn't help but laugh, both in amazement and disgust.

My mom told me off for being unkind. I told her they were ripping off a John Woo movie. From seven years ago.

"This shows that they're making creative use of things around them," she said.

She actually defended the piece of shit. I fell silent, sledgehammered into submission.

I am so glad taste isn't an inheritable trait.