Just Acapella it!

So you think you got talent eh? Rest assure, your not the only one with the talent. Here are round of talents that i've managed to gather, thanks to Youtube that had made the talent-sphere more reachable which might inspire you out there to go for extra mile. Seriously, don't hold back, unleash your talent. Who knows you might change the world. ;)

The Acapella.

So it's Merdeka again...

The humidity, the heat, the haze, we are thousands of miles away from all that.

credit: Zaiful

The cramped units of the cheap flats, the perilous hours on the roads; some of us have never seen that, some of us would rather forget.
But come the 31st, we raise our hands chant, 'Merdeka.'

Wanita dalam Pasungan: Some girls just don't get it

This movie was made in the late 70's, we were reminded halfway through the Q&A. 'Women in Indonesia then weren't expected to voice out,' Hendrick Gozali, the illustrious Indonesian producer, said. Male figures were not to be challenged. The thought itself was indecent for women.

So goes the thread in the movie 'Wanita dalam Pasungan' (Shackled Woman), a movie from 1980 screened as part of the Indonesian Film Festival. Fitria, a Javanese girl from Jogjakarta, is put under pasungan by her father to lift her insanity. He locks her away for years until a nosy Jakartan reporter discovers her existence and convinces her to tell her story.

CINtA: Nafsu pintu iman?

Tema Cinta sememangnya tema yang laris didagangkan didalam mana-mana produk baik dari penulisan, komposisi musik maupun filem. Namun intepretasi seorang karyawan dalam mempersembahkan tema ini berbeza-beza selari dengan apa yang seorang karyawan mahu audien mereka rasa.

Lambakan filem-filem yang menjadikan cinta sebagai tema utama dalam penceritaan mungkin kadang merimaskan namun harus kita sedar bahawa ini adalah satu tema yang universal dan utuh untuk dipersembahkan sejak mula manusia bekarya.

CINtA adalah satu filem pendek arahan Steven Facius yang baru sahaja tamat pengajian di Jakarta institute of Art dan karyanya ini adalah projek akhir tahun graduasi. Cinematografi filem ini memang baik disamping warna gambar yang merefleksikan elemen ikhlas dalam menyampaikan karya. Mungkin pembaca terpinga dan rasa seakan pernah menonton filem ini dek kerana terdapat beberapa filem keluaran Malaysia dan Indonesia yang menggunakan tajuk yang sama. Namun karya Steven Facius ini bukan seperti kisah cinta yang lain yang sarat memainkan emosi penonton yang fokus semata-mata pada hubungan antara sang teruna dan dara (Yang berakhir dengan pasangan berjaya melalui lautan duka lara dengan cinta mereka)

Crashing at SoundSekerta event.

Oh My Goshhhh, we did our first international artist interview!! Sorry for being all over excited! Pardon me.
Ok (exhale, inhale) . Last week we TERJAH at our neighbor nation event to see on what is the fuss about it. SoundSekerte as they call it, is a anual event held by PPIA to celebrate the traditional Indonesia culture and the modern indonesian culture.

For a start they have the coolest host ever. Pulling of lots of seriously good jokes that had made the audience laugh their lungs out (though we were having a problem understanding the jokes are). Apart from the traditional performance they also held Awards for the Indonesian studying/living here.

Lets go to best part, they have Ello for the first guest artist performer. At first I was kind of blur on who is this dude that have some kind of affaction with lots of this Indonesian girls. After singing Oasis and Radiohead cover, I have to admit that this macho-like dude is GOOD! I was informed that he was an Indonesia Idol winner, so no wonder. I should have studied his song earlier before coming to the event since most of his Indonesian song I really haven't have heard of. Yeah what a loss.

Right after that, the one and only Sheila On 7 came off rocking the stage. This is my all time favorite Indonesian band which I've listen to over and over during those schooling days. Playing their top-chart songs, they sure knew the audience mood well! Eros couldn't have been better with those smooth lead which I've been dreaming to watch him play live.

Overall it was awesome stuff by Sheila On 7. 14 years and still rocking. The best part is, we got them on ASAMtv!!! which would be at the web anytime soon, kan Mr Editor ;)
Roger and off.

A Pilgrim's journey

It really is a mindless film.

People bursting into coins, vegan super powers, and demon hipster chicks.


No part of the movie makes logical sense. No not even the plot about battling seven evil exes to win the girl.

The damsel here would be Ramona to her hapless knight in glow-in-the-dark armour, Scott Pilgrim. I mean, seriously, are we supposed to believe that Michael Cera is capable of anymore than looking and mumbling awkwardly. Yet here he is, leaping great distances, out-ninjaing his opponents, and other non-loserly activities, which of course includes getting the girl.

Actually, with social convention as a guide, you could say that he's already won the girl quite early on which renders the whole business of fighting the league of evil exes moot. Unless of course, the purpose of the skirmishes is to proclaim ownership over Ramona. For a character that's supposed to strong and independent, it's weird that Ramona would let her exes own her so physically like this.

Too many brain cells at work. Must switch off to enjoy.

Scott Pilgrim against the world is a fun movie that references everything from too cool for you hipsters to 8 bit music, things instantly relatable to the generation that grew up in the 90s. It accurately captures the spirit of these and mines it for hilarious amounts of irony that there is rarely a dull moment in the movie. With great music to go along with it.

So no don't come to the cinema hoping for a paradigm shift after the credits roll. If you need a movie to do that for you, you'd probably need to get a life anyway.

Melbourne Gadoh premier: killing the 1Malaysia fantasy

I wouldn't call it a mixed crowd. I saw many familiar faces, the core group of student activists who inevitably were at every event anyway. Here and there were friends of friends, significant others and the odd Australian who was roped in to watch somehow.

It was a premier, of sorts, a Melbourne premier, for Gadoh, a Malaysian film from 2009. It's difficult to not think of the movie as cliched, and it probably avoided even greater obscurity by it's frank communal dialogue.

The muhibbah-ist that I am, I found little amusement in the strong language used against each other by the opposing races. Melayu and Cina lah. Cina pendatang, Melayu bodoh, Cina pengotor, Melayu malas are all too familiar taunts from my growing up in Kuala Lumpur trying to fit in between groups of friends of different backgrounds that even when used in comic situations, I cannot laugh.

Of course, we Malaysians don't hate each other that much. We love our food irrespective of its origin.

So it was over Nasi Lemak, post-movie, that the conversation turned to hate. 'Is there really that much tension between the races?' asked the innocent. The answers varied: "Yes" "There were fights everyday in school." "Not to that extent." "Not everywhere." The answers were as diluted as the teh tariks.

Very little evidence exists to suggest that Malaysia is a frank and honest-speaking country. Maybe behind closed doors with fellow conspirators we share, but out in the open we live in a constant shade of bland; vague and dull.

So why do we continually put up with the increasing levels of ineptitude, injustices, and unhappiness?

Is the fact that our splintering society still works for us today enough for us to continue to say 'It's still alright.'?

Maybe we need films like 'Gadoh' to jolt us awake, no matter how rudely, and make us realise the dysfunctional relationship we've been sharing for so long. The realisation does not come with a solution, but it can be the start of a process towards a real solution. It can be the spark that makes us want to know the strangers who've been around us for so long, and start to understand them.

Then, maybe, we can actually live with one another under the same roof.

The Cinematic Muslim

It's hard for muslims to find a flattering image of themselves in movies. I'm one of them, trust me, I know. The muslim (or Arab - it doesn't matter really) characters inevitably revolve around terrorists, people oppressed by terrorists, people who want to be terrorists, or people who don't want to be associated with terrorists.

There is some variety, but it just seems a little monotonous.