Major happiness this weekend as I finally got myself a copy of the final chapter to the seven-part witchcraft & wizardry adventures of Harry Potter!!! I didn’t pre-order the book, I didn’t camp outside bookstores, I didn’t fight with anybody and I didn’t even queue to get my hands on ‘Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows’!!! That was because I knew going to major bookstores like MPH or Kinokuniya at places like Damansara, KL and Subang Jaya were impossible to get a copy, so I drove all the way down to place where readership of the Potter books may be a little less enthusiastic. I went down to Ampang instead, and hearing that hypermarkets were selling them at a cheap price, I quickly parked my car at Tesco Ampang and within 10 minutes, the book is in my hands ready to be caressed and molested day through night by my eager hands and eyes. But what was interesting was not how I got the book, but what happened instead prior to the high-profile launch of Book 7…
The next day we went to Times Square to watch Transformers on an IMAX theatre (coz most of the Swedes haven’t seen it yet). I was the latest to arrive due to work, but I bought the best ticket among them bwwaaahahahaha. The rest of them had side seats and I had a middle seat. To be fair, one of them suggested we have a lucky draw to see who gets the middle seat, but, naaaaaaaahhh. Screw morals and screw fairness, it’s the freakin’ ‘Transformers’. I’ll smack an old lady for freakin’ ‘Transformers’ dammit!!! As for the movie on IMAX, all I can say is that it’s HUGE. So huge in fact, everything seems distorted and I was like watching a tennis match as my head was turning left and right just to see the screen in its entirety. And during the scene where Bumblebee ‘lubricates’ on the Sector 7 guy, that ‘pipe’ of Bumblebee’s sure is impressive. It will haunt my nightmares forever. Anyway, here’s a few snapshots I took secretly under the cloak of darkness:
Bumblebee. I want him as my pet...
Optimus Prime. I want him as my father...
Man Vs. Machines. I want to be that soldier...The horniest of the 2 Swedish Contingents, Jason and Daryl demanded we all go clubbing and feast on the offerings of KL night life. I suggested a few places to romp, but they decided on the Loft so went there, opened a bottle of Smirnoff and went crazy until 3am. Well, not that crazy ‘cause the place is kinda crappy nowadays, full of parasites feeding on the rich and lots of snobbish pricks. Sigh, there were crazier nights. God I miss them.
Sportsplanet @ Ipoh
We all went back to Ipoh to attend a very special dinner to mark the 100th birthday of my grandpa, but we (me and the couzies) decided to play futsal in the afternoon. It sounded like a very good idea at that time but things slowly turned sour as the futsal match progressed. I knew the dinner was merely hours away so I intentionally played the game at a slow pace and did not bother to run around the futsal court like a mad chicken on steroids. Ok, I admit there’s some laziness involved somewhere but mainly was I playing it cool. The Swedish contingent however must have mistaken this for the World Cup Finals and they rocked the court with energy and goals. Without proper warm-ups, they are just waiting to get injured, I thought. But I was wrong, it wasn’t them that got injured but instead it was our very own Malaysian version of Peter Crouch: Philip Crouchan. I did not see what had happened but I guess he was attempting to do Crouchy’s trademark scissors kick but instead of slicing the ball into the net, he sliced on a puddle of water on the court and immediately he was awarded the ‘Footballer of the Year’. He twisted his ankle, but initially it seemed like a minor injury. So we stopped the game and later went for food. He was all cool with the injury, drinking cold water (which I heard an injured person should not do) and putting his injured leg up on a chair, chillin’ like nothing had happened. But from the moment he got up from his chair, he was nothing like Peter Crouch but instead more like Michael Owen with his twisted knee. He was wobbling and from a small problem now turned into a big dilemma (and shit, I mean big). Check out the injury below:
Before: left leg. After: Right leg. Looks like an alien egg about to explode...
No way will this go well with the parents and no way is he going home without seeing the doctor. Took him to the doc and throughout the dinner later that night, I bet he was on Cloud 9 with the painkillers.
As for the dinner, here’s some highlights of the night:
Me and relatives with Grandpa. Happy 100th birthday Grandpa!!!
Me and family. Grandpa is about to collapse already ... hang in there Grandpa!!!
Me and Grandpa. Look at his hands!!! Enjoying a pleasure not felt since 1969? Wakaka !!!
Thats' it for part 1....
Peekaboo.
An early poster of the movie. Note the date which was the original release date in the US 
Another early poster of the movie. "Coming Soon", it says....
Latest official poster. So cool. It will grace by room wall soon...
The main setting of the wedding.
Siva seated. The man with the plan.
With old friends, the best friends.
At Sunway's 'Q-Bar'
I can’t wait to talk about the ‘Transformers’ movie which I saw last Sunday, I’ll skip Saturday and go right to Sunday!!!
had successfully brought back the feelings of wonder and spectacle of those days of childhood and for that 2 hours or more inside the cinema that day, I was not seeing the world through the eyes of a grown-up, but as a kid of the 80’s. All life troubles and tribulations slipped away, and the worry-free days of childhood took its presence once more, days of being wide-eyed with wonder and innocent with stories of good vs. evil. No movie has successfully transformed me to those days before. ‘Star Wars Episode 1’ was a shameful attempt, ‘Superman Returns’ never even attempted and ‘Batman Begins’ was very close, but not yet there. ‘Transformers’ was not perfect, but it achieved what it needed to be done to bring back the feeling of wonder and awe, and it will be thoroughly remembered for what it did to me in this phase of my life as how the cartoon did for me in my days of childhood.
1.) Special Effects - One word - OMIGOD. The company appointed for the effects, ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) again proved themselves to be the masters of digital wizardry as the bar for special effect standards has been raised yet again. Only a few months ago that ILM astonished us with ‘Pirates 3’ and now ‘Transformers’ can be permanently regarded as the benchmark for future movies to refer to for digital excellence. I read that when at any time a full frontal Transformer transforms, almost 1,000 parts need to be animated per frame as there are so many moving parts. I just can’t imagine the time and effort it took to bring sequences of transforming to life. Pure craftsmanship. Comparing movies that have strong presence in special-effects, i.e. Star Wars, Pirates and Spider-Man, I believe that these movies did not manage to bring a sense of awe and did not transmit a ‘wow’ factor to the viewer. As these movies unfold, the special effects slowly become mundane and looked more and more just like some nicely rendered wallpapers. But for ‘Transformers’, every time you see an Autobot or Decepticon on screen, it never fails to amaze and astound you. IT IS THAT GOOD. From the very first scene of Blackout attacking the American base in Qatar, to Starscream’s airbourne battle sequence with a squadron F-22, to the all-out skirmish of robots in the city and everything else in between, every frame and every second is a beauty of masterful digital artwork. If only I can press a slow-motion button to admire things frame-by-frame in the cinema…if only. The scene that captured the essence of ‘Transformers’ was right at the beginning of the movie when Blackout attacked the American base in Qatar for re-con purposes. With Blackout giving hell on the base, one scene showed Blackout from afar, tall above the landscape, and it was unleashing hails of rockets with smoke trails leading to massive explosions all around it. Its torso was turning from left to right, its legs moving forward in search of death and its arms and body was bombarding everything around him with rockets and EMP pulses. This scene showed the viewer what the ‘Transformers’ really are: they are here on Earth and it is larger than any life on Earth. I believe this scene is important, especially when it was shown at the very beginning as it helped to set the tone of the movie and it gave preparation to the viewer of what is in store for the later parts of the movie. Witnessing this scene right before my very eyes, it set my imagination wild on fire, set my addreline pumping and all those goose-bumps running all over me.
ngs for the viewer to be fond of and be emotionally attached with. From his painful capture by Sector 7, his excruciating injuries in combat and his humorous endeavors with the humans (“Bumblebee, stop lubricating on that human!!”) Bumblebee will be remembered and loved for all the best reasons. Although I was a little troubled with the rest, such as Ratchet, Jazz, Ironhide, etc which has little connection to the original (probably due to the little screen time they had), but once you see them as a group, the teamwork and get-togethers (i.e. outside Sam’s home), they are a joy to watch and they gel effortlessly. Overall, the Autobots rocked.
3.) Shia Lebouef - Shia was good, played the kid role very well, very convincing and very humorous. What a year for this guy, I mean, he is already cast in the next ‘Indy 4’ movie, starred in a major role in the superb movie called ‘Disturbia’ and had a major voicing role in ‘Surf’s Up’. I mean, can anything be better than the year he is having now? This guy’s going to be a major movie star, unless he screws his life up (like Britney and the clones). Hat’s off to you, Shia. Oh and by the way, he is the guy from the TV series called ‘Boy Meets World’. Now you know why he looked so familiar.
Yes, no one does explosions as beautifully as Michael Bay and no one does action as grand as Bay himself. Especially in the last 30 minutes of the movie, you will experience action pieces that only lived in the fantasy world of imagination and being brought to life by Bay and Spielberg, it will take your every breath away…
1.) The Decepticons – I was disappointed that they are not as prominent as the Autobots in the movie, as in they wasn’t given proper characterization and wasn’t given proper chances to build an emotional connection with the viewer. I mean, they are there just to be bad guys and are there for the Autobots to trash up, nothing more. Starscream could have been so much more, considering that in the cartoons he is a very major character in the ‘Transformers’ universe. At least he spoke, as in just one line, but for the rest of the Decepticons they were just given subtitles (“Devastator, rolling out”). The bane of all disappointments with the Decepticons is with no doubt Megatron. I mean, he is completely different from the cartoons, from the design to the voice. If Optimus Prime can have an original voice, then why can’t Megatron get a voice that at least resembles the original? And why in God’s sake is he an X-Wing from Star Wars? Fine, there may be problems being a gun like from the original cartoon, but why can’t he be a bad-ass canon, i.e. like those from warships and he can shoot down the Autobots from a far distance for example. Wouldn’t that be cooler than an X-Wing?? They should have at least given him some kind of resemblance to the original; at least have his arm mounted with a gun. But he has it only for a one scene in the movie I think, which is disappointing. I see Bumblebee’s arm with a gun more often than Megatron. Why Michael Bay, WHY?? You screw up Megatron dammit!!! Other than Megatron, Frenzy the data infiltrator, in my opinion is the Jar Jar Binks of the ‘Transformers’ and could have been done much better.
3.) The Storyline – If you think for one minute that you bought tickets to ‘Transformers’ to enjoy the storyline, you are absolutely freakin’ mad. The story is paper thin, and it only serves as a guide for us to get from one action set piece to another. It is an excuse for Michael Bay to blow things up with bigger, badder and harder explosions than any explosions you have ever seen before. No complexities, no major plotlines, only good carnage whipped in Michael Bay style. Don’t be deluded, enter the cinema with your brain at the door, and enter the cinema with full amounts of geekiness and kiddiness and the ‘Transformers’ will overwhelm you in full disbelieving vigor.
Looking around the café, I found that the décor was alright, the service is ok but the food is surprisingly good. I mean, not fantastic but good for a café. The price however is a bit on the up side, so just be careful what you order!! They serve the usual western Pastas and steaks, but the Asian dishes caught my eye as the ‘Nasi Kerabu’ I had was unexpectedly delicious. Friends ordered the Pastas and Chicken Chops which were good as well.
Me and an uncle with a full stomach wakaka....
