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Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Music. 2013. Another List...


(because I'm a lisztomaniac)

Best 10 Live Performances I've Seen in 2013:

1. fun. (Future Music Festival Asia)
2. Circa Survive (Rockaway Showcase)
3. Of Monsters and Men (Laneway Festival Singapore)
4. The Killers
5. Ellie Goulding
6. Backstreet Boys (Twin Towers @live)
7. Tame Impala (Laneway Festival Singapore)
8. The Prodigy (Future Music Festival Asia)
9. The Vaccines (Upfront @ The Bee)
10. Paramore

Monday, September 16, 2013

Video: My Friend Looks Like Me


Made this video earlier this afternoon. And from this video, I already got an idea for another video=) Soon...

Sunday, September 15, 2013

2013 Oscar Contenders?


1. American Hustle

2. Captain Phillips

3. Her

4. Out of the Furnace

5. Rush

6. 12 Years a Slave

7. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

8. The Counselor

9. The Wolf of Wall Street

10. Dallas Buyers Club

Friday, September 13, 2013

Coldplay - Atlas



Sounds like heaven T_T

Rebiu: Psiko Pencuri Hati (2013)


Sinopsis:

Ada 6 karakter dalam filem ni;

Sidi - penulis novel misteri
Man - kawan serumah Sidi
Wani - Isteri kepada Khai.
Khai - Seorang doktor dan laki Wani.
Pak Abu - Pengusaha resort tanpa TV
Siti - bini muda Pak Abu yang cun.

Sidi sedang menghabiskan penulisan novel misteri terbarunya namun mengalami writer's block ketika hampir di garisan penamat. Ini membuatkan Sidi yang memang jenis meresap tekanan sekeliling, semakin tertekan. Man, kawan karibnya, mengajak Sidi untuk lari dari tekanan tersebut dengan bercuti di sebuah resort tanpa televisyen.

Pada masa yang sama, Wani, bekas peguam (peguam conveyancing rasanya), sedang mengalami depression memanjang dan asyik duduk di rumahnya sahaja. Dr. Khai yang sangat risau dengan keadaan Wani mengajak isterinya itu keluar bercuti untuk mereleasekan tekanannya itu. Cuba teka di mana; resort tanpa televisyen yang sama!

Wani juga peminat novel-novel yang ditulis oleh Sidi. Kebetulan atau...

Maka, bertemulah Sidi dengan pasangan suami isteri ini di resort tersebut. Di sana mereka bertemu dengan pengusaha resort tanpa televisyen, Pak Abu serta bini mudanya, Siti.

Pada suatu hari, kejadian yang tidak diingini berlaku...

Dah tu je boleh cerita. Tengok sendiri kat wayang.

Rebiu:

Aku suka filem ni.

Genre sebegini tak banyak keluar di wayang. Kalau ada pun mesti akan jadi agak bodoh sebab ada unsur mistik atau komedi. Filem tempatan genre psycho-thriller yang terakhir aku tengok rasanya ermm... apa yek? Bunohan kot. (Tu psycho-thriller ke?) So, Psiko Pencuri Hati ni sangat dialu-alukan walaupun aku tengok promosi dan sambutan penonton kurang.  Terima kasih kepada pandangan Sofia Jane yang dikongsi kat Twitter yang jadi main reason aku nak tengok filem ni kat wayang. Berguna jugak Twitter ni.

Kenapa aku suka filem ni? Pertama, filem ini lebih kepada character-study jenis punya cerita. Kita kena nilai setiap karakter dari awal sampai habis untuk betul-betul 'dapatkan' keseluruhan jalan cerita dan apa-apa yang kita nak cari daripada filem ni. Macam baca komik Detektif Conan atau Penyiasat Remaja, tapi penonton sendirilah yang jadi Conan atau Hajime Kidaichi. Kena fokus sikit. Aku ni suka jawab teka-teki, so...

 Tak boleh tidur. Baru lepas tengok The Conjuring.

Kedua, hampir kesemua pelakon dalam movie ni berkesan dalam setiap karakter yang dibawa, terutamanya trio utama; Bront Palarae, Syarifah Amani dan Syed Hussain. Lain-lain karakter pun at some point buat aku terfikir, 'eh dia ni bla bla bla ke.' Contoh. Direktor pandai guna dan eksploit karakter la senang cakap.

Ketiganya, the ending. Okay, ada sesetengah benda yang aku dah boleh expect dari awal lagi (mungkin ini masalah besar filem ni) dan ada sesetengah plot penting yang agak typical. The execution by the director on these could be better. Tapi babak yang paling penting sekali yang terletak kat the very end of the movie dirasakan sebagai pembalance keadaan. Babak inilah yang akan buat kita appreciate more dan akan buat kita berfikir lepas habis tengok filem ni. Susah nak dapatkan elemen ni dalam filem tempatan yang lain.

Secara keseluruhannya, Psiko Pencuri Hati tidaklah sempurna tapi tidaklah teruk. Sebuah filem yang bagus untuk ditonton oleh mereka yang mahukan kelainan dalam local movie scene dan untuk mereka yang mahukan sesuatu yang boleh mengasah kebolehan analytic thinking atau menyerabutkan minda secara sukarela.

Kepada Nam Ron, terima kasih. Sila buat filem macam ni lagi.

3.5/5 stars.

Asal ada scene camni je aku teringat 500 Days of Summer.

(Untunglah Pak Abu...)

A Typical 12-Track Music Album

I have a lot of music CDs and cassettes. Sometimes I analyze the listing of the tracks and try to guess which song from which track will be this or that, when I first buy an album. So this is what I can generally (and loosely) describe as for the track-arrangement/positioning in a music album.

Track #1: An intro with an instrumental-driven goodness.

Track #2: The crappy and generic first single off the album

Track #3: The much better-than-first-single second single.

Track #4: Filler. Skippable.

Track #5: Third single off the album. Sounds okay.

Track #6: Filler. Going to stuck in head for awhile but then easily forgotten

Track #7: Slower tune/acoustic/totally sounds different from other songs in the album

Track #8: Filler

Track #9: Filler. And the worst song from the album.

Track #10: Filler. yawnnn

Track #11: The greatest and the most epic song in the album that should have been a single.

Track #12: Another epic melancholic song. Probably 5-7-minute long. Fade out or finished sweetly.

Owh... a Bonus Track: WOW! THIS IS BETTER THAN OTHERS! Going to stuck in my head for weeks. And it did.

Agree? hehehe.

Later~

Monday, September 9, 2013

Saturday, September 7, 2013

10 Songs of John Mayer I Love


10. Dear Marie. Why? The cute and funny lyrics.

9. New Deep. Why? The intro. Like it was meant for a movie or something.

8. Something Like Olivia. Why? John Mayer beautifully described Olivia as a gorgeous woman I really want to meet one day.

7. Half of My Heart. Why? Honestly a beautiful duet with... Taylor Swift. Hmm...

6. Bigger Than My Body. Why? One of John's radio-friendly upbeat hits which I love.

5. Daughters. Why? The guitar-solo.And the calmness within.

4. Gravity. Why? The guitar works.

3. A Face to Call Home. Why? The epic build-up to the outro.

2. Queen of California. Why? The guitar works throughout and that 'western/cowboy' feeling.

1. Why Georgia. Why? EVERYTHING about the song is awesome! Forever my favorite John Mayer's song=)

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Review: KL Zombi


Synopsis: Klang Valley has been invaded by zombies. And it's up to Nipis (Zizan Razak) and the gang to stop it from getting worse.

Review: I've read few Fixi novels now, but both 'Pecah' and 'Zombijaya' are not on the list. I think it's quite an advantage for me to walk into cinema hall without zero knowledge of a movie, in term of not knowing the entire storyline from the source/book, any twist or the ending. Thus, the element of surprise (and maybe the excitement) is preserved during the view. And I knew that both novels are getting good reviews based on what I read online and heard from friends so that's why I expected a good watch from both movies.

Movie 'Pecah' was... okay.

And yesterday, I decided to watch KL Zombi, an adaptation from the novel Zombijaya. What did I expect? I expected an average Malay comedy, after watching the uninteresting trailer, but a convincing and interesting story's development throughout.

I was right! It's another average Malay comedy. And I was wrong. It's an unconvincing story about zombies wandering around the dirtiness of KL (of course it's not caused by the zombies! haha). I was left disappointed overall. We can say it's not an original because there are already a lot of zombie flicks made before. But why didn't try to make it a bit special or different from others. I noticed it 'copied' Sherlock Holmes'; the slo-mo pre-fighting scene, Guy Ritchie's style. Completed with the familiar narration.

KL Zombi's bonus scene: Shirtless Robert Downey Jr.

And the most obvious movie I can relate KL Zombi to is Zombieland. Duh... And a little bit of Warm Bodies (Faezah Elai in this scene rocked, though). Okay, put aside the originality of its direction. Let's go to...

The casting; Zizan Razak made a decent Nipis. But man, at least contain his antics. It's like I was watching Zizan, not Nipis. Others like Izara Aishah, Zain Hamid & Faezah Elai were good too. Siti Saleha? Emm... okayla. Comel. The downside goes to that kid. No further comment. He's just a kid. Reserving my ill-feeling towards the ones who cast him.

 
The most focused zombie.

The major problem of this movie is the plot's continuity accompanied by some unnecessary scenes and loopholes. What's up with that exaggerating 'rempit' scene at the beginning? The illogical scene when Nipis played hockey with 'friends' without noticing that they were actually zombies? I know it's a zombie comedy and logic shouldn't count or prevail over laughters. But come on! Please put some intelligent display and handling over these illogical stuffs, so ALL kind of viewers would appreciate it and not be laughing for the wrong reason. Owh, whatever happened to that school-bus driver? Just a cameo? And that 'colorful' ending?

WHY???

Few positive things about this movie are the cinematography and the color tone. Kudos to that. But it can't save the laziness in producing this movie as a whole; from the trailer and poster to the exaggerating slapstick performance and location selections. Again, I didn't read the novel but I have a strong feeling that it doesn't do justice to the book. My review may vary if I'd read the book itself but as a stand-alone movie, KL Zombi was nothing more than a mere guilty pleasure to enjoy Zizan's performance with some other good-looking supporting cast.

I rated it 2/5 stars.