Tale n Time

Dear Blog,

.Home is where the heart is.

Had a whole night out with Anis, Fatin, Shamil and Temoh (alphabetical order). We went for a movie at Mid Valley and ate at Murni over at PJ last night. But, those places are nothing compared to Toks' place. After throwing my junks on the floor, I tip-toed up the stairs to see who was awake. It was 4am++, of course no one was awake, duh~. So, the house was rather silent. I went to check on Toks' & Ritz at their room, Mommy at her's and Sarah. All very sound asleep. I cherished the silence for a moment and felt overwhelmed with relief that everyone's there and well. I had a wide smile in my heart. So, afterwards I slipped on my jammies and did my night routines then later had a fright when Sarah had a fright - seeing me illuminising her vision as a distant shadow. So, I borak-borak with her for awhile. Minutes later, Mommy woke up astonished to see me and asking for the time, saying she didn't solat Isyak yet. A few moments after that, Ritz woke up asking when and where did I come from and had a welcoming smile on his face.

.This was home.

OK, about last night's movie. We watched Talentime, a local movie written and directed by Yasmin Ahmad. So, all in all this movie earned a 5 out of 10 from me. (BEWARE! SPOILERS UP AHEAD!)

TALENTIME REVIEW

From what I saw, it was basically about what normal people go through in their daily lives - Pain, suffering, love, happiness, death, hardship and the importance of family. But it's relation to the talentime show I didn't quite get. Maybe the talent show was just a medium to connect all those emotions of all those characters in the film. I don't know.

Sharifah Amani was initially casted as Melur, but couldn't commit due to clashing of her schedules, but became 3rd assistant Director.

Instead of the Islamic verse "Bismillahirahmanirrahim" they opened the movie with a verse that meant similar to the arabic script.

Tamil - பிஸ்மில்லாஹிர்ரஹ்மானிர்ரஹீம்

THE GOOD

• Mahesh was hot, attractive, cute and CUTE!
• Jaclyn Victor proved she is worthy to be both on screen and on stereo. KUDOS!
• I admire the flare and passionate performance by Mahesh's mother. I felt her pain.
• Hafiz's mother's death was expected, but sad nonetheless.
• I loved the fact that Melur and her 2 sisters had British accents and not a confusing mixture of both American and British slangs, or what my sisters and I would like to call the "Ameritish" accent.
• The songs featured in this movie were nice to listen to. Clair de Lune - Claude Debussy, Just Hold On - Azhar
• The movie had upcoming talents, still fresh from nowhere land. Not bad, but they may need to polish their acting skills more.
• There were some nice scenes and transitions. I liked the beginning where they switched the lights on at the dewan and the ending where they switched it back off. That was sort of an illustration of a beginning of a tale, and it's ending. A very dramatic feel, cool.

THE BAD

• The actors in it were mostly amateur
• The storyline was somewhat OK if you see it in an artistic point of view. However, there were a few failed attempts in the context of camera angles and transitions between different scenes. Some people might not even get it. There was one part, during the talentime where there was a scene taken at the door. Just the door. It was weird and unnecessary.
• There's a huge gap in between scenes that lack comprehension. For example, the mom dying after eating the strawberry part. I didn't quite get it. Was the fruit contraindicated for her disease or medications? Was she allergic? I might be dumb enough to not understand, but what about other viewers?
• There seemed to be a lot of irrelevant scenes. Like the half-naked infants dancing around on the grass while both Mahesh and Melur were dating.
• In my opinion, the movie looked more like a homevideo rather than an effort to produce a blockbuster. Most scenes were mono. What they should've done was to add different angles to a few scenes. I pity those who had shots of the posterior surface of their heads. Pity, pity.

I seriously have more to say, but I guess this pretty much says it all. It's a slow movie in the beginning, but Mahesh sets the pace after a bit past the middle..thanks to his innocent good looks, haha. It even occured to me, "what a waste of 10 ringgos" but then again, what the heck. I rarely watch local movies anyway. Maybe coz I prefer to compare them with Hollywood movies, which is like, totally an unfair battle, I know. But who's to say? I paid for my ticket, and I expect to be satisfied with the amount that I paid for. I'd say, this movie is worth only half of my RM10 and a quarter of my attention. Fatin fell asleep at the beginning, haha. Hmmm, then again I do praise Yasmin Ahmad for trying something different, something other than the cheap-cheap lawak tak jadi movies.

I experienced a weird sense of Yin and Yang when I saw this clip. Notice their fingers touching at a safe and uncontroversial distance? Pretty cool, though. Btw, Melur is Pamela Chong, sister to Vince AF1 and Vanessa. Both sisters were in the Amazing Race. I knew I recognized her from somewhere. Awesome.

.a dissatisfied customer l e n a.