Somewhere around November last year, Yasmin Ahmad and I had a small comfortable chit chat session in The Picturehouse lounge, on her movie Muallaf. (I've mentioned in one of my previous
blog article) We had a great time talking to one another, and she was there to introduce her husband and daughter to me. Her warming personality has simply remove any possible obstacles between us to know more about her film.
She passed away peacefully on 11.25pm, 25th Jul 09 in Damansara Specialist Hospital.
The cause of the death was due to severe bleeding in the brain which was believed to be caused by her fainting 2 days ago at a TV station.
Lately, we had been hit by the news on the deaths of celebrities after we woke up every morning. Lightining will never strike twice, but on 25th June, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett had left us. MJ was believed to died of a heart attack, which Farrah lost her battle to cancer.
The world has prepared the worst for Farrah, but not MJ. Exactly a month later, the god of death knocked on Yasmin's door and took the acclaimed director away.
Singaporeans will remember her with some of the ads she made for MCYS (Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports), where you will see how a loving father cares for his daughter, and the Indian wife who remembers her Chinese husband forever.
However, it was the series of ads she made for
Petronas that catches my attention. No commercial hardcore selling, no strong competition on products and services, no cheese fondue type dialogues and cliche plots. All are just simple sights and sounds of what is happening around you and me. Screw the billion dollar hardcore bombarding of trashy ads. Yasmin gives you the real thing that not only satisfy the needs for the occassion, but also carries a strong message behind the ad.
While Muallaf gets a run in Singapore twice, Singaporeans are not fortunate to catch the last movie she directed, Talentime. Before she can direct Go, Thaddeus!, she left the world with incomplete works. She shares the similar fate of Stanley Kubrick and Lee Han Hsiang, two of the greatest movie director of all time. Kubrick wanted to direct A.I, but dies shortly after completing Eyes Wide Shut. H.H Lee died of a heart attack while making the blockbuster historical drama, The Burning of A-Fang Palace in 1997.
Malaysia will always greatly missed the best director of all time.
RIP, Yasmin.
Feels like Zac Efron on the outer surface, but Matthew Perry at heart.
School is a 4 times per week lecture in SIM, taught under the course of RMIT.
Going solo on the projects most of the time, since individual report takes up a high component of the subject grades.
No girls on the house, cute guys alll around. ;)
Friday, July 03, 2009 @ The 2nd Half of The Year...
Finally, the 2nd half of 2009 is here. It seems to be so scary that time flies too fast.
It also marks the new chapter of my life: life as a undergraduate.
Being a student for SIM-RMIT, that old feeling which I had as a TP student is back again. However, before I can fully enjoy life as a student, this is what has happened for the past few days:
30th Jun - got myself a new Billabong pencil case and new stationaries. Waiting and wanting to start for the new school term. Oh yes, was supposed to enjoy myself in the orientation, but unfortunately ends up cancelled due to the outbreak of H1N1.
1st Jul - New school term! Lessons begins....2 weeks later. Postponed due to the outbreak of H1N1. Still went to school to collect my student card. As a student of SIM-RMIT, I will receive 2 student cards: one for SIM, another for RMIT.
3rd Jul - go back to school looking for 2nd hand textbook on sale, and managed to get some details.
Not stepped into cinemas for quite sometime. As a movie buff, I am relying on my supply of movies from
library@esplanade and Video Ezy for DVDs. Anyway, the choice of movies released lately were seriously not meant for my personal consumption.
Terminator Salvation and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were the only 2 movie that I catched with Yaoda in cinemas. My verdict: Terminator seems to be a much more better deal than Transformers 2. Though box office results speaks for itself, I agreed with what one of my friend says: Michael Bay ought to be shot. Transformers 2 is simply a robots battle porn for kiddies and gamers, where so many robots pop out in a sudden to fight. More and more fighting within 2 hours 25mins, and ends up a mental torture for me. Not forgetting that the infrastructre of the movie theatre and sound system also affects the mood for a movie.
We catch the SAFRA free screening of Transformers 2 at GV Tiong Bahru. As there are thousands attending the screening, we got ourselves with nothing but front row seats. (SAFRA is famous for giving early birds front row seats, as they do not know that GV arranges the seats with alphabets beginning from A from the screen, instead of going down from projection room.) As we got ourselves the first 2 seats at row C, 3 hours of viewing (the remaining 35mins goes to advertisments) ends up having 2 giraffes leaving the theatre.
Earlier I told Yaoda do not have a high expectation for GV Tiong Bahru, as 1) it is old, and the movie will only be screen in Dolby Digital, instead of DD + THX (which we enjoyed at The Grand Cathay for T4), so lower your expectation for sound system. 2) Transformers 2 will, unfortunately, screen in 35mm prints only, instead of digital format in Singapore. (v.different compared to the release of Transformers when it comes in both digital and 35mm.), so do not expect crystal clear images compared to T4. And that should answer that the screening is not really ideal.
Moral of the lesson: only go for SAFRA free screening when you feel that the movie is not worth paying a single cent watching it.
Just feel like watching Duplicity in Lido, but unfortunately, it was arranged in Hall 7, which will make you a giraffe again without sitting on front row seats. :(
Back to school again!
Yep, I am joining a 2 year bachelor's degree programme with SIM-RMIT. Focusing on Business Management (HR) and will be spending 2 years in it.
And losing touch with schooling for 2 years leaves me a false impression earlier that I do not have to attend several lessons. After checking the timetable, it is true. I do not have much to learnt.
Now I need to know if tutorials are provided. If not, there will just be too much free time for me...
