From The New Yorker, the most damning, irreverent review of Revenge of the Sith.

I wish I could write like that.

Penguin Remixed -

Just got back from the Star Wars Ep III premiere! Much better than I and II, chiefly due to the lack of opportunities for Lucas's characteristic horrid romance dialogue. There were two scenes, and the lines were so bad that my brain just refused to memorise them even for future ridicule.

I thought of Phuong just because of her complete absence. So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.

--- Graham Greene, The Quiet American

40 reasons to dislike Star Wars:
Guardian Unlimited Film | Features | Space invaders

Geoffrey Rush's impersonation of Peter Sellers in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is excellent. His Dr. Strangelove in particular is flawless.

Look out also for a very hot Charlize Theron.

The film portrays Sellers as more child than adult through his life, but doesn't really go any deeper than that. So if you prefer your biographies to provide some kind of psychoanalytical explanation -- troubled childhood etc -- then this one will leave you dissatisfied.

In all, a clever film about a lost, lonely man.

While I was away, the MDA announced that it wants to manufacture its own film festival to go with its Asian Film Market.

TODAY, 27th Apr 2005: A First for budding Asian film talent

TODAY, 28th Apr 2005: So happy together?

Kenneth Tan isn't too convincing here. There are many small film festivals held throughout the year, but these are usually country-specific and have very limited runs -- usually about 1 week. They are also heavily supported by the respective embassies and high commissions, since these organisations consider them extensions of their diplomatic responsibilities.

The AFFF will be completely different from these small, "localised" film festivals, and will compete with SIFF in principle -- premieres are a key feature of SIFF too.

(There's also a conflict of interest. Kenneth Tan is on the SFC, which is part of the MDA. Why did Today let that slide?)

What I see here is wasted opportunity. Another one! Why is the MDA not working with SIFF? Is it MDA's highhandedness? Or is SIFF not willing to bridge the gap? Both?

Back from Cambodia. Heartbreaking. 

Off to Cambodia, to whisper my secrets in the cracks of Angkor.

Petals Around The Rose. Enjoy!

On the bus, I suddenly thought of the Daicon opening animations. Why do I not have an MP3 of Electric Light Orchestra's Twilight?

This is how Gainax begins: three students attending the Osaka College of Art move into the same cramped apartment in Osaka, enduring each other's smells and revelling in their shared passion: anime. The roommates, Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga, and Takami Akai, buy an 8mm camera (a Fujica ZC-1000) and begin filming a short animated film, drawn by hand and shot frame by frame.

This short, five-minute film was shown at the opening ceremonies of 20th Japan Science Fiction Convention, nicknamed Daicon, in 1981. Set to a soundtrack of snippets from famous anime shows, Daicon III narrates the tale of a young school girl given a mysterious glass of water by two travellers from outer space. Sci-fi creatures and a giant robot are determined to steal the little girl's glass, but she fights them off with inexplicable super-strength and the help of her schoolgirl's backback, which doubles as a jet-pack and missile launcher.

The animation is crude, but crackles with the enthusiastic creativity of youth. In the film's final minutes, the little girl launches an all-out missile barrage that destroys not only Godzilla, but the spaceship Yamato, USS Enterprise, and a Super Star Destroyer! These three smelly otaku had thrown down the gauntlet, declared war on the entire history of sci-fi with this little homemade anime, Daicon III.

Also take a look here.

Consoles from all of video game history come together to save their world and their future from the evil clutches of... PSP.

SEGA Fantasy VI

As the title indicates, this is really a tribute to Final Fantasy 6 but it's funny for non-fans too. There's also a dash of commentary on the state of the gaming industry today.

Watching this animation was great. Uematsu Nobuo's classic score stirred up many fond memories of playing FF6 and other classic RPGs.

Just let me... let me find my voice first.

park life 

Music overload. and I haven't even gotten to my CDs yet...

I would be given the "the blues," blue-and-gray first runs of what would later be glorious color spreads of the said naked women, and I would tack them on the cork-lined walls, and I would strive to have fantasies about them. For it was all a fiction, all that stuff; their names were made up, their biographies, their likes and peeves. It was whole cloth, like the letters to my editor. Someone made it up, and that year, that was my job.

I think my personal best was "Katya with her pants down"; and there was also "Anna is a palindrome," but I'm not sure if that was mine.

I did write: "Tolstoy said that a nap after dinner is silver, a nap before dinner gold. Gretchen prefers a nap to dinner altogether."

Workmanlike, as you see.

-- David Mamet, "Girl Copy" in Make-Believe Town: Essays and Remembrances

Posterwire.com, a movie poster blog.

I now have More Songs Than I Need In This Life... But Fewer Than I Want. Luckily I have an (used) iPod now.

You are the rare, the overlooked, yet incredibly useful dodecahedron: the d12. You are a creative, romantic soul. You often act without thinking, but make up for your lack of plans with plenty of heart. You easily solve problems that stump others, but your answers tend to put you into even deeper trouble. You write long, detailed backgrounds for all your characters, and are most likely to dress up as one or get involved in cos-play. You can be silly at times and are easily distracted by your own day dreams, but are at the end of the day you're someone who can be depended on

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

New Order's latest album Waiting For The Sirens' Call has appeared in music stores here. Like most people, I like some tracks more than others. My favorite track right now is the fourth: Krafty.

Here's the slightly annoying bit: I never really know why I like a particular song more than others.

In this case, I do think that Krafty is a bit too pop. The lyrics are a bit trite (e.g. But out there the world is a beautiful place / With mountains, lakes and the human race), but the tight rhyme scheme is throwing me off. Even so, I still like it -- my favorite bit is the bridge before the second verse.

Is it that I heard this song first before all the others? Krafty is the first single from the album. I liked it right off the bat though.

Is it the music video? I've linked to it before, but here's the link again. If I was positive about a song's music video, I'm likely to be positive about the song itself. The 360 degree rotating camera is a very cool effect, and the content is.... romantic to a straight male in his mid-20s, even if it's over-romanticised.

Is it that the lyrics resonate with my present circumstances? People enjoy songs whose lyrics "speak to them" somehow. (Whether or not they read too much into those lines is another matter...)

I like the title track too, but there's an inherent bias there -- most albums are named after their most appealing track -- so I'm not too curious about that.

I can't bring myself to take Krafty off repeat though. Actions speak louder.