Muffins and Dreams

"Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange."

Dom Cobb in Inception (2010)

I feel spent. I think my life is slowly spiralling out of control, drifting off into the deep space of adulthood. Weekends feel shorter while the noose of medical academia feels tighter around my windpipe. I'm in someplace I want to be, but I'm stepping into someplace I fear I might never leave. Sunday is still sunny, but the menacing overcast of Monday drew ever closer.

And muffins are still fattening as heck.

Begone, ye little temptresses!

My willpower gave up the ghost today at the La Boheme bakeshop in that new colossal Jusco. What's a man to do in the face so much warm, fluffy oven-fresh goodies? And at just a buck each! The plan was to go to the shopping centre to replenish my store of Nissin instant ramen, but I returned instead with four muffins in a bag. Oh, I feel like such a woman.

The queue to the payment counter was so long that it snaked right out of the shop, and I found ample time to do a bit of eye-shopping in the place. I did not realise that La Boheme has such a great selection of baked goods! There was a pile of Danish Chocolate Something there which were just screaming at me to pick one of their number up, and they have just carted out a whole mountain of steaming, sugar-dusted, mini dough nuts (the space between dough and nut was intentional). There was also a Bon Odori special going on for whole matcha-and-azuki cakes at RM 30 apiece, and boy, was I glad that I didn't have that much legal tender on me at the time. The confections looked like the bastard love children of sunbeams and unicorns, and I fear that the sight of them have punched a cake-shaped hole in my soul.

I got sesame, blueberry, walnut and toxic coconut.

While I was lost in my temporary kid-in-a-candy-store reverie, a fat middle-aged hausfrau have covertly insinuated herself by my side in the line with half a dozen muffins and a substantial pile of dough nuts on her tray. I have no idea if she used to be behind me or if she thought she could cut in beside me, but I was peeved. Did she think she could quietly cut me off while I was lost in a haze of floury thoughts, and that I wouldn't notice her doing it?

The Malay man and junior in front of me (chocolate covered doughnuts for the most part) shifted as the cashier finished off another customer. I took a step forward, and the infuriating woman followed suit - placing herself beside me again. This happened every time the queue moved, making my hands itch more and more to smack her with my tray. What? Did she think if she's persistent enough, I'd let her move in ahead of me?

Get back in line behind me, lady, I did not say. You are fat and you probably shouldn't be eating that many muffins and doughnuts, I also did not say. I did, however, shoot her some of my patented poisonous looks, but her pachydermal skin proved to be quite impenetrable.

What is it with people who act like total smegma-coated cockheads in queues? You know what else pisses me off? Those twits who stand far too close behind me in lines; so much so that I could feel their breaths on the back of my neck as their cheap parfum invades my nose the same way they invade my personal airspace. I hate to break it to you, pal, but the fucking queue won't go any quicker no matter how eager you are to occupy the same timespace as I am.

Anyway, the woman finally relented when we reached the cash counter. Good for her because I was quite prepared to publicly humiliate her had she dare to make an attempt at paying first. I actually got a speech ready. I am NOT a nice person, let me tell you that.

Moving on to pleasanter things: I also saw a pretty cool truck outside of Jusco today,

Yes yes yes!

In a few short days, I would be in a theatre watching the unveiling of Christopher Nolan's magnum opus, Inception. There is no director alive today whose body of work I admire more, and a dreamscape mind-bender blockbuster starring my favourite young thesp, Ellen Page? Words are such inadequate little constructs when it comes to explaining how I feel about it. Right now, I am dead certain that it will be the best movie ever made in the history of cinema. Is there a possibility that I might be disappointed? Am I over-hyping the film for myself? I don't fucking care. I just want to revel in my stuporous, fanboy excitement for now and drown in the buzz.

The other side of it.

The driver wasn't there so I'm not sure if I could walk into the back of the truck to look at more promo material. It belonged to one of those newfangled advertising companies called Imej Jiwa (not a very avant-garde name, if you ask me) and what their website says about the truck is,

Beneath the three gigantic high-quality tempered glass on Mobile Truck lies Imej Jiwa's own in-house designed State-of-the-Art Scrolling Billboard. It is capable of housing five different advertisements on each side.

Mobile Truck delivers advertisements during peak hours in high traffic areas, thus providing advertisers with a wider audience. At night, Mobile Truck is backlit, making it a moving light box!

In short, Mobile Truck stands out from conventional advertising mediums and delivers high impact advertisements.

High impact, eh? It certainly got my attention alright but then again, I don't exactly need any more convincing to go see Inception in the cinema.

I like how black it is.

Because I already know it's going to be EPIC!



Don't pinch him,
k0k s3n w4i

Sakura House of Taman Desa Duyong

"Eating sushi has become the new Russian roulette."

Eli Saddler

Yesterday, I rounded up enough colleagues to fill a car and struck out into the Great Malaccan Wilderness of Bad Japanese Restaurants, and I do declare that we have found their king.

Welcome to the Sakura House in Taman Desa Duyung,

Yeap, it's literally a house.

Now, I've found a pretty decent number of blogs which agreed that this place is certainly one of the best places to get Japanese cuisine in Melaka, and considering my previous experiences with a certain other house-type Japanese restaurant, you couldn't blame me for being as optimistic as I was. I've been hunting for a decent place in my little ol' town for ages, let me tell you, because driving up to KL every time I feel a craving for sushi simply isn't going to work out very well for me in the long run.

What I learn from Sakura House is that bloggers, by and large, have shitty tastes. And I've decided that this place needs a counter-review to all the positive sparkly rainbow lip service that this place has been unduly receiving - y'know, to prevent future foodies from coming here pregnant with unrealistic expectations.

The decor theme is "jaundice".

Now, I always give credit where it's due. Dining here was indeed something different. Every room in this place was stripped down and outfitted with dark, vaguely Japanese stools and tables. The way the house was sectioned also granted some degree of privacy for every party of guests but mind you, voices travel well through the rather small house - so try to refrain from saying anything bad about the place till you're safely outside. Also, their menu is pretty helpful for people unfamiliar with Japanese food (which I assume makes up the majority of their patrons) as colour photographs of every item were displayed on it.

Green tea is both free and free flowing, but it's of the cheap, Chinese, supermarket variety. I suppose the best possible thing I can say for this place is that you are unlikely to find another Japanese restaurant that charges quite as cheaply as Sakura House. The majority of their menu items fall far beneath the RM 10.00 mark, with the absolutely priciest dishes topping off at RM 15.00.

The question is, is the fare here worth even the low, low prices they charge? The long answer is: if you're really strapped for cash and wanted to eat something that's just barely reminiscent of how Japanese food tastes like, this is most certainly the place for you. The short answer is "no, just no."

I ordered two items from their à la carte menu; chuka kurage or seasoned jellyfish, and a pair of tobiko gunkanmaki (listed simply as "topiko" in their menu). The jellyfish was chewy, a sensation very alien from the usual fresh crunch I've come to expect from the dish. For an appetiser, it's quite a turn off.

Chuka kurage, RM 3.00. I did not photograph the tobiko gunkanmaki.

The tobiko (flying fish roe) sushi was, at best, subpar and forgettable. I blame it on the rice they use, which isn't the sticky, fluffy short-grain Japanese rice I know and love. I downed the second piece with a lot of wasabi.

Sake nigirizushi, RM 3.00.

Yew Kong ordered a pair of salmon sushi. He thought that they were not as fresh as he thought they should be.

Agedashi dofu, RM 4.00.

Yin Yee ordered their agedashi dofu (or simply, deep fried tofu) which I thought wasn't too shabby but it's not something I particularly go for when I go out for Japanese food. I fancy that she meant to order a simple inarizushi instead, but I might be wrong. I'd definitely go for an inarizushi over this myself. That's the one with a sweet beancurd skin pocket, in case you're wondering.

Sakura House's okonomiyaki, RM 5.00. Partly eaten.

Their okonomiyaki (a Japanese-style savoury pancake) is a decent enough snack dish if you don't have much in the way of taste buds. Yin Yee reckoned that the okonomiyaki at the Friends Cafe in Melaka Raya is better but it's been practically aeons since I've had one there so it's not fair for me to make that same comparison.

The absolutely biggest moan I have about Sakura House is their bento lunch set, particularly their kabayaki (grilled freshwater eel; unagi) one, which I ordered,

Kabayaki bento, RM 9.00.

I can only imagine what sort of costs they had to cut to price it that low. It contained a sickening amount of what was definitely NOT Japanese short-grain rice, an iceberg lettuce salad side, and some limp gari and wakame tsukemono (ginger root and lobe leaf seaweed pickled in sweet vinegar respectively). And like any self-respecting human being, I prefer my unagi with a proper crisp exterior and a tender, savoury-sweet center - quite unlike the squishy strips I got here at Sakura House. Then again, a pair of unagi nigirizushi will set you back nearly ten bucks at Sushi King while the same will only cost you RM 3.00 in Sakura House, with no additional government of service charges to boot. They taste about the same too, in my opinion.

Possibly the least disappointing things we ordered there were their homemade black sesame and green tea ice-creams,

Kurogoma (black sesame) aisu kurimu, RM 1.50

The one I had was the black sesame one, so I shall comment on that. I think the taste itself is pretty good. The bitter black sesame fragrance wasn't too overpowering and the wispy sweetness proved to be a good counterpoint to it. Unfortunately, they have fallen into one of the most common pitfalls of making ice-cream at home; the texture was seven kinds of fucked up. Too much ice. Too little cream. The moment I dug my spoon into it, I can feel (and hear!) ice crystals crunching beneath the pressure. C'mon now! Don't scrimp on the ingredients! I'd pay twice what I paid for something a little smoother and richer.

Yin Yee thought the green tea one was tasteless.

Matcha (finely-powdered green tea) aisu kurimu, RM 1.50.

I guess the worst sin this place commits is that their stuff is actually worse than Sushi King. It's been years since I've stepped into a Sushi King outlet because I felt that they grossly overcharge for their mostly crappy and generic assembly line Japanese food. Sakura House's standards lie somewhere around the level of food court imitation Japanese food stalls (and these stalls usually have the decency to use Japanese rice, at least). And no, I'm not exaggerating at all. Right after eating there, we all simultaneously felt like going to someplace else and have a do-over lunch! True story. I honestly have never reacted that way to any eating place before.

It's probably because our expectations were simply raised far too high by all the good things we've been hearing about it on and off the web. If this review can offer a much more realistic perspective for other food-hunters looking for a bite of Nippon in Melaka, I'd feel I've accomplished what I set out to do here.

The bottom line is this: Sakura House is very affordable, true, but their food is barely worth what you pay for. It's kinda like Sushi King scaled down in terms of both taste and price. Grossly overrated, if you ask me.

For those who are interested, you can find Suckura Sakura House at,

24, Lorong 8,
Taman Desa Duyong,
75460 Melaka,
Malaysia.

Basically, if you're coming from the old JUSCO Melaka, just drive towards the Pantai Hospital Ayer Keroh crossroads. There, turn right. Drive past JPJ Melaka on your left and till you see a BHPetrol Station on your right. Turn right at that traffic light junction into Jalan Bukit Katil. Drive down till you reach another traffic light. Here you turn left into Jalan Duyong. Next, make another left when you hit yet another traffic light. Then, turn right immediately after the row of shophouses on your right ended. Sakura House is near the end of that lane on your right.

Their coordinates, according to Google Earth, are 2°12'22.89"N, 102°18'16.07"E.

Many bloggers would advice you to call ahead to reserve a table before going to spare yourself the disappointment of not having a table when you get there (not true, because you'd still be disappointed even if you manage to get a table), but I felt a bit stupid when I arrive to find that I have reserved a table in a totally empty restaurant. Still, in their defence, it was a Monday afternoon after all. Their numbers are +606-268 1271 and +6019-687 1468. Ask for Mr John Chong.

They open from 12:30 to 2:30 pm for lunch and 6:30 to 10:30 pm for dinner.



P.S. Does anyone have any decent Japanese restaurant to recommend in Malacca aside from Wa Zen in Melaka Raya and Kokiya beside the Plaza Jaymuda?



A disappointed lover of Japanese food,
k0k s3n w4i

A Study in Kicking Ass

"I can't fly. But I can kick your ass."

Tagline for Kick-Ass (2010)

That's right, bitches.

It's official. Kick-Ass is my most anticipated comic book film of 2010. Watch this teaser right now and tell me you're not completely hooked too,

I'm a huge fan of the ongoing Mark Millar comic series that this movie is adapted from, and if you don't already know, Mark Millar is also the mind behind the Wanted comics which indirectly spawned the unholy 2008 flick of the same name starring Some Guy McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. While the Wanted film was an enjoyable summer popcorn fare, it's completely missing the point of its source material - which is about a world in which all superheroes were either defeated or dead, and the supervillains are in control of the world behind the scenes. The film is about a fraternity of assassins killing people on the orders of a glorified sewing machine to keep the balance of the world or some shit.

The impression which I got osmotically through the Kick-Ass teaser is that it's going to be helluva faithful, and boy, it's going to piss a lot of sanctimonious moral guardians off (giving all of them fatal cerebral aneurysms, I hope). I saw Chloë Moretz in (500) Days of Summer last year as an unlikely relationship guru for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, and I see her appearance as Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl in this film to be the logical next step in her acting career. Do not question my chain of reasoning.

Another genius casting decision was Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Red Mist. I've liked this guy ever since I saw him in Superbad as McLovin, and he was arguably the best thing about that film. I can't say much about Aaron Johnson though since none of his previous acting roles have been memorable to me at all, but hey, I think he warranted a mention here since he's playing the eponymous Kick-Ass in this film.

This is going to be so so so mind-blowingly AWESOME!

Totally geeking out,
k0k s3n w4i

The Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter: A Review

"Severus... Please..."

Albus Dumbledore

Now, entirely spoiler free!

I exited the theatre after the credits have finished rolling and found myself unready to return to the real world. Good fantasy feels like a narcotic high. Great fantasy - if I may be so bold to claim - is a transcendent religious experience. I left with the awe of discovery and the chills of true magic still clinging hard to me, and I felt what I can only describe as a form of withdrawal. There was a suffocating sense of dread that I might never ever get the chance again to be an audience of such a stupendous work of art, and I say this without irony or hyperbole. It was so unbearable that I had to stuff my headphones into my ears and put Hedwig's theme on loop just so I don't crash too hard back into my physical body. That is what a genuinely good cinematic experience is like, you know. The comfy seats and optimal air-conditioning, the minimum of intruding noises and errant lights, and most of all, the dark - they summarily serve to dissociate your eyes and mind from your body, and to immerse them right in the Story. A fantasy story demands this far more than stories from any other genre because the minute you remember that none of its elements are feasible or logical, the spell breaks utterly.

Before I proceed any further, let me just put it out here that my acquaintance with the Harry Potter books to be quite irregular. I started by reading the 4th book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, first - disastrously spoiling fan favourite, 3rd book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, for myself. Resultantly, I simply cannot appreciate the genius of Prisoner of Azkaban which the majority of the fandom opine to be self-evident. Also, I hate the main character, Harry, and tended to pretend that Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape are the true centres of these novels instead. All these factors ultimately predisposed me to consider Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to be best book of the seven - which I do (you'll know why if you know your Harry Potter mythlore well). So, do not expect any critical objectivity from me.

That tagline is absolutely perfect.

Daniel Radcliffe has always been adequate at playing the Boy Who Lived, but he has to stand in the shadows of actors and actresses far more talented than he is. The movies were exemplary studies in casting. Alan Rickman was the perfect Snape, despite being far older than the character he's suppose to play, and his portrayal inadvertently cemented the sallow Potions Master as my favourite character in the series, both in print and on celluloid.

There are misses, of course, and the furthest miss in the cast was the portrayal of Hogwart's Headmaster, Professor Albus Dumbledore by Sir Richard Harris in the first two films. He is far too elderly and decrepit to live up to the character's reputation of being the only wizard Voldemort ever feared. After the passing of Sir Richard Harris (rest his soul, but glad he's out of the picture), they brought in Michael Gambon to fill the beard and half-moon spectacles. Gambon possesses the kindliness and authority of Dumbledore's voice, the grace and vigour of Dumbledore's movements and most importantly, the twinkle and steel of Dumbledore's eyes. And in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, he finally brought the character to life for me. It was a privilege to have met the real Albus Dumbledore. Give the man a Best Supporting Actor nomination, I say!

"Being me has its privileges," says Dumbledore. That's a crowning moment of awesome right there.

This film also brought us Jim Broadbent in the shoes of Professor Horace Slughorn, who was enticed out of retirement by Dumbledore to return to Hogwarts as Potions Master. He taught Lord Voldemort when he was still Tom Riddle, and also Harry's mother, Lily. Now, I will not reveal too much about this character for the benefit of those who have not read the book or watched the movie but I'll say this; he is a deliciously complex character and moral study, and holds much of the same appeal to me as Snape. Horace Slughorn is a coward who wants no part at all in the wizarding war at large between Voldemort's Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. All he wants to do is profit from befriending Hogwarts students who he believes will one day be in positions of influence and fame. Beneath this character, however, is a man with a bent back carrying the weight of a tremendous guilt. The object of his guilt, coincidentally, is yet another aspect he shares with Snape. I will not reveal to you whether Slughorn managed to find absolution or not in The Half Blood Prince, but it suffices you to know that the end of that particular plot strand was heartbreaking. I credit Jim Broadbent's stellar acting for this. Unfortunately his stellar acting talent also showed me just how lousy an actor Daniel Radcliffe really is in their final scene together.

Slughorn handing Harry a plot-important item.

The essence of the story of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is tragedy, make no mistake about it and I have an unhealthy fascination with tragedies. Happy endings tie up stories in neat little bundles and let everyone forget them with a smile. A sad end makes one pensive and thoughtful, sometimes for weeks. The moment of peripeteia in Half-Blood Prince is quite possibly the most memorable tragic turn in recent fiction so much so that even people who haven't read the books know about it (thanks to that pernicious "X verb'ed Y" meme). The anagnorisis of the titular Half-Blood Prince's identity, in my humble opinion, was the highest point of the entire Potter series. It endeared Rowling's books to me and made me a late but no less enthusiastic participant in the fandom (prior to that, my interest in Harry Potter was pedestrian). The equivalent scene of peripeteia in the film matched my expectation, though it did not exceed it. The anagnorisis, however, fell starkly short. I blame this on the screenwriter. He thought it was okay to cut out all the bits in the book about Hermione's investigations into the man behind the moniker, and it severely undermined the bludgeon of the eventual reveal. The 'I AM THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE' line in the film just failed to raise any goosebumps.

Also, It pains me to say that Alan Rickman wasn't as impressive as I expected him to be this time, but it's probably because Gambon and Broadbent were so damn good.

Draco Malfoy was handled surprisingly well in this film. I like how this promotional poster paralleled Harry and Dumbledore's one.

The commonest complain I hear about the Harry Potter movies is the non-inclusion of certain plot elements which will later become very important to the overall mytharc. They say that moviegoers with no knowledge of the source material will be baffled by the events in the later films. I fully agree with that, but since I have already read all the books, I would subconsciously insert all the missing details as I watch the movies and will not even notice any gaps in the story at all. Therefore, I watch the Potter films for the characters (and the magic, of course) almost exclusively. Director David Yates did the right thing by me when he chose to invest most heavily in bringing the characters to life. Incidentally, I can finally see why the fans wanted Harry and Hermione to end up together so badly, and Yates really loves rubbing salt in that wound with a wire brush over and over again in Prince. However, as much as I applaud the makers of Half Blood Prince for most of their artistic decisions and directions, I think it's criminal that they did not include a certain funeral at the end of this film. It was not only deserving for the character in question, but it's also quite important to the plot. I fear that they have taken a gun to their own feet.

The cinematography and visual effects in this film is by far the most impressive of the 6 Potter films released so far. If I have any say at all, I'd nominate it for an Oscar in both categories. Harry's ink-in-water visitations into Dumbledore's and Slughorn's memories of a young Voldemort was breathtakingly beautiful in their execution, and so was the concept of Apparition. That scene in which Dumbledore stirs a massive inferno above him in the seaside cave totally made this movie for me. It's easy to forget that you're seeing something extraordinary when you've been exposed to so much of it. Magic has been incrementally relegated to the role of a plot device with each successive Potter film. Half-Blood Prince, I feel, have brought the wonder and magic back into the series. It was promised in Harry's face at the start of the film, when Dumbledore restores a thoroughly wrecked Muggles' house with the merest flick of his wand - and I deem that promise fulfilled.

This is the point when my jaw fell right off my skull and rolled down the aisle.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince equals the book it was adapted from. With Yates still at the helm, I am expecting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the two-parter adaptation of the last book to be superior to its source material in every aspect (though that's not saying a lot since I personally consider Deathly Hallows to be a terrible novel). I truly believe that something incredible can be salvaged from it.

We should be so lucky to get another repeat of the performance we saw in the Half-Blood Prince. Whether you like the Harry Potter series or not, you can't deny that it's one of the most influential monuments of modern literature. Its finale deserves a bang like no other. I like the depth of the darkness of Deathly Hallows to be plumbed completely, as David Yates demonstrably proved he could do in Half Blood Prince. There are moments in Prince which truly scared me. I would very much like to find myself experiencing nightmares after watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, please.

It's a good time to be alive, and a lover of the fantastic.



P.S. Best movie of 2009 so far! Suck it, Transformers.



Dumbledore's man through and through,
k0k s3n w4i

Koumpounophobia: A Review of Coraline

"It's Coraline. Not Caroline. Coraline."

Coraline, in Neil Gaiman's Coraline (2002)

I like the tagline on the earlier teaser posters better. They read; "Oh. My. God."

I read Neil Gaiman's novella, Coraline, almost 3 years ago in my bedroom during a rainstorm at 5:00 am in the morning. I heard it was a children's horror story which scares adults more than it did the kids so I was only trying to get my buck's worth by picking the creepiest time possible to dive into it. It was, how do you say it? A disappointment?

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad book or anything. It's like every other novel written by Gaiman I've read, and my opinion of each one of them is the same; "Great concept. Lacklustre writing. Cool visuals, though. Wish they'd make a movie out of it." I felt that way about American Gods. I felt that way about Neverwhere. And I most certainly felt that way about Stardust.

Luckily for me, they did make a movie adaptation of Stardust and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked it far more than I liked the book (and I almost never think this way of screen translations of novels, particularly if I have read the books before I watch the movies). So, when I heard that they are making a Coraline film, I got pretty excited about it. And when I read that Dakota Fanning is going to voice the eponymous heroine and that it's going to be a stop motion feature (first time ever in 3-D!) directed by The Henry Selick of The Nightmare Before Christmas fame, I was so mind-blown that pieces of my brain matter could be found in orbit, going splat on the windshields of passing spaceships.

Pictured: Stop motion awesomeness from the set of Coraline.

I just watched it this morning, by the way. And I watched it again just a couple of hours ago.

I think it's the best stop motion animated film I've ever watched. Dare I say, it's better than The Nightmare Before Christmas? Why, yes. Wait, I'll say it again in a sec; YES! FUCK YES!

At any rate, it's an awesome movie many times better than Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, which I liked in a mildly interested sort of way, or the frankly banal Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which won the 2005 Oscar for Best Animated Feature. I'm thinking if W&G could win at the Academy Awards, Coraline should be a shoo-in for the honour. However, it'll still have to contend with Pixar's Up (not to be confused with Russ Meyer's 1976 soft core porno, Up!) which will be debuting very soon.

Alright, without further delay, I shall review Coraline now, spoiler free (or at least till I indicate otherwise). Folks who have read Gaiman's novella have absolutely nothing to worry about at all. You guys already know all the reels and reveals.



The Story.

There is something very wrong in this picture. See if you can Spot the Nots.

Coraline have just moved into the Pink Palace Apartments with her two boring, boring, BORING, and neglectful, work-consumed parents and she is not a happy girl at all. Upstairs lived a Mr. Bobinsky, a big blue Russian acrobat who claimed to be secretly training a jumping mice circus and is evidently two warheads short of a nuclear holocaust. Inhabiting the lower floor is a pair of retired actresses (broadly hinted to have been in the burlesque business) who lived with three yappy Scottish Terriers and more than a dozen other stuffed ones. The only person of her age around is a nerdy African American kid with scoliosis (wasn't in the original story), and even he doesn't pay Coraline much attention. In fact, with the exception of her parents, no one even got her name right.

Then, while exploring her decrepit new home, she discovered a little door hidden behind the wallpaper in an empty room. After pestering her Mom to unlock it, she discovered, to her disappointment, that it had been bricked up.

Later that night, after being awakened by a jumping mice, she followed it to the little door and discovered a glowing passageway which wasn't there before leading to a near-identical version of her apartment. There, she met her Other Mother and Other Father which were identical to her own parents except that they are much more loving, more attentive... and oh, have black, shiny buttons for eyes.

Everything in the Other World seems more interesting and exciting compared to Coraline's own mundane reality, and she loved it there. Need I say that things quickly turned real awry from that point onwards?

This is Alice in Wonderland with a malevolent fae spin - a surrealistic nightmare version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It's the classic children story of a fantastic journey into another world, only darker and very much scarier.



The Look.

I shall not mince words. This movie is gorgeous.

The thing I admire most about stop motion animation, aside from the massive amount of expertise, talent and patience required to produce a full-length feature, is the screen presence. When we see Coraline, we can see that she has depth, weight and volume, and it certainly didn't hurt for me to know that when they shot the scenes, there's an actual model of Coraline in teeny tiny clothes on an actual set. With the exception of the sky, the ghost children and a few little other things, everything in the movie is very much real. There's a degree of richness evident in this sort of film that conventional CGI has yet to match. While there are still some wrinkles here and there in the method that they have not ironed out completely, they came very close to perfection with Coraline.

Coraline in the Other Garden.

Aside from looking good, the nature of the medium is also very much suited to represent the uncanniness of the Other World and its inhabitants. There are parts which I think were made intentionally slightly more unrealistic and jerkier compared to others to signal to the audience that something is a little off in those scenes.

There was a scene where little swirling paper cutouts of jumping mice emerged through a pinhole in the bricks into Coraline's real apartment at the beginning which I thought was made using CGI because it looked so organic and complicated. A little clip at the end of the end credits showed how it was actually done, and yes, I was wrong. It's all stop motion. Bloody impressive, I must say.



The Feel.

Coraline coming out of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's apartment into the mist.

Do not bring any children younger than 10 to watch Coraline. You will give them enough fuel to power nightmares for many months to come. The film achieved - in broad daylight no less - what the book did not. Yes, I'm admitting it. A kiddie movie frightened me.

Wait, I take back what I said about not bringing kids to the movie. Bring them. Traumatise them. It builds character. All those feel good cartoons with zany animal sidekicks are making our kids soft.

Now, I personally divide the horror genre into two broad and highly subjective categories; high horror, and low horror. You know those movies which relies heavily on cheap shocks, gory images, scare chords, body horror and Things Leaping Suddenly at the Audience? Those are strictly low horror to me. They work on an animalistic level depending almost solely on every sentient being's instinct to run away or recoil when surprised by the unexpected.

High horrors, like Coraline, plays on our fear of the unknown and uncanny, and disturbs us by the force of its story alone. It engages us and crawl beneath our skins. It grabs us down inside where it's dark and lonely. And it lingers long after the show ended.

Warning: Spoilers begin here. Do not read on if you don't want to have the story spoilt for you.
Do not even look at the following pictures. Go away, or skip right down to the Last Words.

Take the Other Parents, for example. They would have been exemplary parents if it wasn't for their button eyes. It's that little other-worldly something which simply unsettle all of us when we look at it. Every subsequent time Coraline visits the Other Place, everything changed subtly, becomes slightly more unfamiliar, slightly more wrong. When the Other Father started to lose his shape and his voice started sounding lower like a record played slow, I could feel my insides curling up in horror. I'm not even going into the details of the Other Mother's ghastly final transformation. Teri Hatcher was simply pitch perfect in the role with her soft, chilling voice - reassuring yet alarming all at once. I also think it's ironic that she's playing a literal desperate housewife in this film.

And this movie's for kids, you say?

Also, I'm pretty sure that I will be dreaming about several of the other nightmarish elements in this movie for the next couple of nights at least. The scariest one has to be the part where the Other Mother banging on the door on the Other's Place's end of the tunnel screaming, "DON'T LEAVE ME!!! DON'T LEAVE ME!!! I'LL DIE WITHOUT YOUUU!!!"as Coraline was making her escape and the door started chasing her, moving closer and closer to her every time her Other Mother hit it from the other side. It made me want to go into fetal position and whimper.

Henry Selick: Yeap, it's for kids. Why did you ask?

The soundtrack to this film, mostly composed by French composer Bruno Coulais, complements the tone and atmosphere beautifully while sounding very different from the usual fare we get in films like this. Coulais' songs are mostly choral pieces sang in a nonsense language (I thought it sounded French, but I was wrong). My favourite song has got to be the one they play over the end credits sang by the Children's Choir of Nice. I feel that it has a nice balance of playfulness and breathy creep to it.



Last Words.

Coraline far exceeded my expectations of it and I recommend it to anyone who would enjoy a smart and good-looking children horror film. While there are differences between the film's and the book's stories, I felt that the additions have made the movie a better experience than it would have been had it stayed overly faithful to the source material. Henry Selick's own spin of the story elevated Coraline above its printed counterpart, lending it a much needed charisma and lustre boost - but don't worry, the essence of Gaiman's story is still very much all there.

And no, you don't need to read the book in other to enjoy the movie. In fact, reading the book would actually be detrimental to your enjoyment of it. I'm sure that I would have enjoyed the movie better if I didn't already know every turn of the story.



Score: 10/10




P.S. It's a pity that I would have to wait till August before I can see Caroline (3-D!) playing in Malaysian theatres, but on the up side, Phoebe would be back by then and she'd want to see this film too.



Is waiting to see what Selick will do next,
k0k s3n w4i

Please Boycott X-Men Origins: Wolverine

"The day my father Odin banished me from Asgard, I was bitten by a vampire and had radioactive waste dumped into my eyes. To make matters worse, my mutant ability to control weather activated just as I was hit by a blast of gamma radiation. Nah, actually, I got this way by volunteering for the Weapon X program. They promised to cure my cancer. And they cured it all right, by giving me an outrageous healing factor. Then they labeled me psychotic and tossed me into a prison lab. So I escaped and became what some people might call a 'mercenary'. I prefer the title 'cleaner of the gene pool'"

Deadpool

This is going to be a quick one because I am massively occupied by that portion of my life and persona which is trying to be a doctor (some exam is coming up, see), but yet, another aspect of my self - my pop-culture geek side - insists on getting the word out on the most recent screen reincarnation of Marvel's most ludicrously popular anti-hero, Wolverine, just in case there's anyone who haven't watch it yet. That word, dear readers, is "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Yeap, there are spoilers in this article somewhere, but they don't really matter. Who cares if a lousy movie is spoiled?

Posturing since 1974.

Now, I'm not a Wolvie fan by any stretch. I personally find the character bland and somewhat repugnant. And I also imagine that he smells bad for some reason. The number one problem a lot of people have with his characterisation is that he is far too civilised in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, having almost no problem at all in keeping his bloodthirsty side in check. Now, remember that this is suppose to be pre-X-Men Wolverine. He's suppose to have this long dark history of bloodshed and carnage prior to joining the X-Men, and he only became more tempered and less savage in the timeframe of the three previous X-Men movies.

So, why is Wolverine in Origins more civilised (read: such a big pussy) compared to the Wolverine in X-Men 1-through-3? I call character derailment on this.

Also, what the fuck was up with the CGI? Did they let the interns do Wolvie's claws for a lark and a laugh?

I don't mean to be Captain Obvious here but...

There's heckuva a lot of shit I can dump too on the frankly ridiculous storyline, like the almost campy brother theme with overt homoerotic undertones between Wolvie and Sabretooth. The quality of the script is frankly appalling. Let's take for example that scene when Stryker spoke within earshot of Wolvie about how he had tricked our gruff anti-hero into joining the Weapon X program and how he plan to eventually betray him (which naturally led to Wolvie escaping from the Weapon X laboratories in a one of his berserker moments). I ask you, is there no other way of letting Wolverine know that he's been screwed without having the Stryker accidentally tell it to his face? This is plain bad writing.

Then, Stryker sent his prodigous marksman/assassin Agent Zero after Wolvie knowing full well that nothing Agent Zero shoot, launch or lob at Wolvie can kill him, while withholding the DAMN ADAMANTIUM BULLETS FROM HIM, THE ONLY DAMN THING THAT CAN HARM WOLVERINE AFTER THEY GAVE HIM AN ADAMANTIUM SKELETON AND MADE HIM INVINCIBLE. It's like Stryker didn't want Agent Zero to succeed at all. Laughable. The entire Wolverine movie is a montage of such bad screenwriting practices.

I have also lost count of how many times they made Wolvie fall on his knees and howl in anguished rage at the sky. Veeery emotionally moving indeed, Hollywood.

Now, I can go on and on about how sucky the script is, how uninspired, bland and generic the action scenes are, and how badly they violated the comics' fans anuses - but I simply don't have the time. So, I'll just concentrate on my pet peeve, my number one beef with this Hugh Jackman star-vehicle groan-fest. Let's look at Deadpool.

Ryan Reynolds is... DEAD-FUCKING-POOL! Fox is finally doing something right!

I am a DC Comics fan mostly. I'm a fan of Sandman, the Joker (from Batman) and Watchmen, and I admit that I don't read a whole lot of Marvel's stuff. There's only one character I like in the entire Marvel universe, and that's Deadpool. When I first heard that he's appearing in the Wolverine movie, and that long-time fan of Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds, was going to play everyone's favourite Merc with a Mouth, I was almost beside myself with nerdgasm.

Then this happened,

Which part of "Merc with a Mouth" did you not understand?

It's bad enough that they fused the characters Weapon XI and Deadpool into this weird shit mutant, this absolute pinnacle of lame (more on that) but why the fuck did they take away the single most defining characteristic of a fan favourite character? He's called the Merc with a Mouth for a reason, okay! The thing that made him so popular is his hilarious, childish, ADD'ish banter which he wouldn't stop, even in the middle of all-out fights. In the entire Marvel universe, I doubt that there's a single character which has a higher laugh to speech bubble ratio than ol' Deadpool.

Classic Deadpool.


Pop-culture savvy Deadpool.


Fourth-wall breaking Deadpool. The man knows he's in a comic book, bless 'im. Since he's also suppose to be completely insane, people just assume that he's talking nonsense when he talks about it.

Fox and its nimcompoop screenwriter and retard director thought that it's okay to trade Deadpool's trademark wealth of conversational funnies for a single, throwaway "finally shut him up" gag. Sure, we got a small, tiny teeny taste of the true-to-character Deadpool back when he's still just Wade Wilson in the movie, but that only served to remind us how much character potential they have stomped and shat on.

Now, Weapon XI (which is apparently Deadpool in this travesty of a film) is the Big Bad that Wolverine has to fight, and he's basically Wade Wilson tanked up with Wolvie's healing factor, Cyclop's optic blasts, and John Wraith's teleportation powers... and the lamest possible imitation of Wolverine's retractable claws,

How did he bend his elbow when the fucking katanas were in his forearms? Wait wrong question. Right question: Where the fuck is our Deadpool?!

The original Deadpool is already a sufficiently cool character to begin with. Making him a dorkier version of Wolverine isn't going to help one bit. God, I can totally imagine some rich, fat, out-of-touch Fox executive at some pitch meeting going, "Hey, kids like Wolverine and his claw things right? Let's graft Deadpool's katanas into his arms too! It's a brilliant idea, I tell you. Now if you gentlemen would excuse me, I got to go piss on some homeless orphan's face."

Technically, Weapon XI in thi movie is a living amalgam of powers from a bunch of kidnapped or killed mutants in the Canadian Weapon X program, which supposedly gives this movie's edition of Deadpool his name. He's a "Pool of powers from Dead mutants". Geddit? GEDDIT?!

By my count, only one of his powers actually came from a dead guy, rendering his name practically meaningless. See, this is what happens when you're trying to shoehorn some character into a role he's not meant to play, Fox. Read the damn comics. The reason for his name in them is a whole lot more cooler, and makes good sense too.

This is how he looks like. Learn how to trace, you Fox fuckheads.

IN MY HONEST AND HUMBLE OPINION, this movie isn't very hard to make at all. It's going to star one of Marvel's most popular character - Wolverine - and also introduce two fan favourites on the big screen for the very first time; Gambit and Deadpool (with perfect casting choices, if I may say so myself). No fans want the characters reinterpreted or revised in anyway, and people who aren't familiar with the franchise aren't going to know any better. All 20th Century-Fox need to do is get some of the peeps from Marvel for a bit of consultancy work so they don't go off the tracks - or if they are that cheap, they can probably get fans to do the consultation work for free. Heck, I'd pay to do that job just to make sure they don't screw up Deadpool!

Fox just has this vile agenda to trash everyone's childhood fantasies. I'm convinced of that now. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it's like they took Deadpool, sit around a table and had a brainstorming session just for the singular purpose of thinking up the most effective ways to ruin the character. There's no possible way anyone can unwittingly make such a big mess of it. Fuck you, Fox. FUCK YOU!

Just a few days ago, Fox just announced that Deadpool spinoff movie is in currently in the works, and that Reynolds is going to reprise his role.

... aaand it's going to suck. I just know it. And after Fox ruin it but good, no studio would want to touch the character for at least a few decades or more, till people forget how horrible it was and are ready for another Deadpool outing. There is a distinct possibility that I might not live long enough to see a GOOD Deadpool movie made.

I hope Marvel can somehow reacquire the filmmaking rights to Deadpool from Fox, like what they did with Iron Man. There's a reason why Iron Man did so well, made so much money and made every fan thoroughly satisfied with the faithfulness of the movie to the source material while managing to rope in busloads of new fans at the same time.

For the sake of better movies for our children and the future generations, people, stop watching movies made by Fox! Don't watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine if you haven't. We need to bankrupt those motherfuckers.



P.S. There's suppose to be two different post-credit scenes inserted at the end of the Wolverine movies, depending on which version of the reel your local theatres received. One shows Wolverine in Japan, hinting at his Japanese storyline in the comics and a sequel. The other shows the decapitated body of Deadpool reaching for his severed head. He opened his eyes, showing that he's still alive after all with his mouth mysteriously restored. And he shushed the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall. They got that part right! So, maybe there's still hope that they'll do the Deadpool movie right?

P.P.S. Damn, I keep raising my own hopes. Someone please stab me.

Related post: How the Dragonball Movie Nearly Did Not Suck (and Why It Sucked Anyway).



Incensed Deadpool fan typing furiously,
k0k s3n w4i

Christmas Came Early This Year

"Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born king."

Charles Wesley

Of course, those aren't the original words of his song. The old lyrics started with "Hark! how all the welkin rings."
Now you know why they changed it.

Yesterday, I was at the Bread of Life Ministry on Yin Yee's invitation for an extra early Christmas bash this year at their new church over at the Trade Centaur (yes, you read right, - it's spelt that way),

Indian Engrish.

I can think of a couple of reasons why they have decided to celebrate Jesus' birthday on the 1st of December instead of on the good ol' two five. Considering that the party slash variety concert theme is 'Real Christmas', it might very well be an indirect subversion of all the secular and commercial "traditions" that have sprung up globally over the centuries (a big, fat, jolly man in Coca Cola colours comes to mind), and an attempt to bring back the real reason for the joy of the season; the Birth of Christ. After all, why not rejoice His coming onto planet Earth on any old day everyday if he's that important to you, right? The second reason is less to-save-the-world-from-its-stupidity-ish - the KMC students won't be around for the regular winter solstice Christmas.

Oh incidentally, I took my very first elevator ride this year with Hua Min - a lamb from the Bread of Life's flock who I met on the ground floor of the Centaur - because I didn't know which floor the church is on. It's just some stupid vow I made at the beginning of the year to get more exercise for myself. But it got stuck at the floor we were suppose to get out. The doors opened an inch apart, and stopped abruptly - along with the warm hum of the machinery.

Getting stuck in an elevator in the first elevator ride I took in a year - God must have assigned some really lousy, third-rate screenwriter to do my life story. The intercom and the distress bell were both out of order. I actually laughed out loud because the whole series of coincidences was, frankly, quite hilarious to me. Hua Min was not amused.

Fortunately, it started moving again to the ground floor, where more church girls got on in spite of Huamin's and my warnings. One girl simply said, 'It works fine. It just doesn't open on the second floor. You just need to ride it up to the third floor and then hit the stairs. Some Satanists sabotaged the works.' I made up the last bit, of course. For some reason, I really did half-expect her to add something like that. Sigh, people are just not fun these days.

I also wonder just how often Hua Min goes to church to not know about the elevator glitch.

Her name is Lemon. Addendum: this is a picture of her before we got together.

At the entrance, I ran into Phoebe and she was giving out some... err... tinselly, glittery... thingies to arriving guests. It was the first time I saw her in a saree.

Cute, ain't she?

Jolly St. Nick.

Things kicked off with Nickson and the church band performing a few Jesus songs - and damn, I didn't know that Nick can sing so well!

Well, actually I did know. Every night when I walk past his house, I can hear him singing and playing his guitar. It's his way of praying, he told me.

You'll have to excuse the quality of the pictures in this post. They tend to be somewhat grainy and messed up chromatically, because I didn't want to use the flash and disturb the performers. Photoshop can only salvage so much.

Flute dude and flute chick.

The thing I really didn't know was that Yin Yee can play the flute. And afterwards, Yin Yee stepped back and flute dude launched into an amazing Amazing Grace solo.

Next up was a slightly-revised skit by Lester based on the Parable of the Prodigal Son by Jesus (Luke 15:11-32), and the actors were that-batch-17-guy-whose-name-I-don't-know - and our very own Microbiology lecturer, Mr. Anand,

Mr. Anand plays God/Dad.

It's a pity that I already know which parable they were talking about right after I've heard the first line - it's kind of like watching the same movie twice, but it's worth the price of admission just to watch Anand freak out and go "MY SON!" at the prodigal son returneth bit of the skit. Not that I had to pay any admission, of course - the Bread of Life Ministry paid for everything, fruit cake, drinks, tinselly glittery thingies and all (I'm eating the candy they gave out yesterday right this moment as I write). I simply must ask them where they bought those butterscotch flavoured ones.

One thing I did realise was the number of hot chicks affiliated with the church,

Holy Thriller.

Almost made me want to renounce all my pagan ways and embrace God right there and then. Same reason why I attended my first ever camp at the local Seck Kia Eenh, and subsequently became a practising Buddhist. Like I always say, if you must have motives, have questionable ones. I am still in my early twenties - I still retain my teenage right to remain stupid.

Of course, no Christmas themed shindig is ever complete without breaking out the choir,

"Joy to the world, tra-la-la-la..."

One of the things I often do is watch other people's expression when they are singing hymns in church, and watch the conviction and passion written all over their happy faces. There's a secret joy, a happiness, a sense of being of free from all the doubts, disbelief, insecurities and semantics (well, maybe not semantics) the rest of us are saddled with.

Oh well.

And finally, an exit performance by the church's rawk stars!

Lester and That Other Guy. That's not a red thong Yin Yee was holding. Or was it?

La décoration intérieure.

I was told that the volunteers worked way into the night glitzing up the simple, little church in anticipation of the big bash, not to mention all the time they spent rehearsing for the awesome performances of the night - all to spread a little bit of that cheer and joy that I see so often on their faces. There's something quite moving about their willingness to try and share, and spread the love.

Anyway, before I end this post, there's just one more thing,

Reverend Edward Francis.

Midway through the night's programme, the pastor (and founder of the Bread of Life Ministry) took to the stage to speak to us on the subject of Christmas, and shared a verse with us from the Book of Luke chapter two that went something like this,

"... the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I am bringing you good news that will be a great joy to all the people. Today your Saviour was born..."

He started off by letting us identify with him, telling us the story of how he used to be an idealistic young man who thought that Christianity is a whole lot of hogwash - until he discovered the great joy of accepting Christ into his life. He related his efforts to us, about how he would talk to anyone who would listen about the Good Word everywhere he went (which apparently included speaking at train stations and inside the railway cars too). He described the hardships of people ridiculing and even hating him for his choice of faith, and how most of his relatives do not share his beliefs.

Next, he tell us about how Christianity is for everyone ("... to all the people...") and that it didn't matter if you aren't Jewish, American, English or any of the races which us Asians typically associate with the religion, citing an example of the opposing view of a scientifically-inclined individual who would think that Christianity is 'for people that aren't intelligent', to quote the good reverend. He went on (quite to my surprise) to allude that intelligent people think that they should believe in the theory of evolution because it reinforces their identity of being smart.

Then, at the crux of his speech, he pulled out a shocker. He said that Charles Darwin himself converted to Christianity and recanted his ideas on his deathbed.

It's not a red thong after all. Sheesh.

Or at least, it would have been a shocker if I haven't already heard that nigh a thousand times by various people who were - shall we say - disapproving of my belief in Darwin's theory? What the reverend referred to was the infamous Lady Hope story, which have, by large, been discredited. The strongest evidence against it, in my opinion, is the dismissal of the story as pure fabrication by Henrietta, Darwin's daughter who was present in Darwin's last days (in spite of her being a Christian herself and was pained by her father's irreligious ideas), and that view is shared by the other members of the household. Not that any of this matter to me, of course. Whether Darwin believes in his own ideas or not does not subtract anything from the fact that it's still a damn good theory.

The pastor's speech started off great, and he was pleasant to listen to. He was earnest. He shared with us his experiences. He told us about his beliefs. He expressed his opinions of human nature. Then, he recounted a story that has been universally considered to be false (or disputed - whichever floats your dinghy) - and that, in my opinion, casted a hue of questionability on the other things he said before that. I'm sure that in debators' and speech-makers' lingo, that would be termed as "Stravovaski's Blunder" or "Demosthene's Oratory Suicide" or some other equally cool names.

I have nothing against the pastor, nor do I think that his integrity is suspect - I am quite sure that he merely repeated the story after hearing it from someone else and neglected to check its veracity. It's like how some of my Muslim friends always tell me that Neil Armstrong converted to Islam after he heard the Azan from the moon (he personally denied it publicly), and how a few of my Christian friends said that national hero Datuk Azhar Mansur converted to Christianity and moved to the Land of Auz (publicly denied too last year by the Datuk, who's in Langkawi right now). I've decided to write about this because I simply have quite enough of that Darwin myth rearing it's ugly head up again and again in Creationism vs. Evolution debates - even though it really shouldn't have any pertinence on either ideologies' proponents' opinions.

I really did enjoy the way Pastor Francis talked though. His intonations and inflections in speech was reminiscent of the popular stereotype of TV evangelists that go, "Belieeeeeve in Jesus-ah, and you shall be saved-ah," and I would certainly love to hear him speak again someday. I've heard a lot of nice things about him before this - and after meeting him for real and shaking his hand, I find that I couldn't help liking the man too.

The Christmas Tree.

Anyway, thanks for having me over for the Christmas bash. Here's a shout out to all the people over at the Bread of Life Ministry for working so hard to make this pah-tay such an awesome success!

Happy birthday, Jesus.

And Merry Christmas, y'all.



Sincerely so,
k0k s3n w4i