Movie: Mukhsin

The second in a series of three movies that I watched was Yasmin Ahmad’s Mukhsin. So here’s what I think….

Mukhsin
I always look forward to watching films by Yasmin Ahmad. I like her style; clean and simple. Her stories are a sheer pleasure to watch.

Mukhsin is the tale of Orked, at age 10. We already know Orked from Sepet and Gubra. Here she is the younger version of the intelligent witty girl that we’ve grown to love.

Mukhsin relates the story of Mukhsin the new boy in the village and his friendship with Orked. Mukhsin first sees Orked as a replacement player in a traditional game of galah panjang. He is then intrigued by this girl, who does not act like the other girls in the village. She doesn’t enjoy playing house or masak-masak, but enjoys reading and watching football. And before he knows it, Mukhsin is in love with Orked. This is after all, a tale of first loves.

I am sure Mukhsin brings back memories of the things we used to do when we were kids; the tree climbing, the bicycling, the galah panjang games. Mohd Syafie Naswip and Sharifah Aryana both did a fantastic job playing the parts of Mukhsin and Orked. I love their acting, I love the sceneries, and I love the music…. Especially Nina Simone’s Ne me quitte pas… so sad and haunting… so so sad…..

Watch it, as it’s one of the best movies that I am proud to call Malaysian….

Movie: 300

I watched three movies recently. Well, not so recently… Sometime back…. Anyway here are just my opinions on them. I wouldn’t exactly call them reviews, just opinions, ok. We’ll start with this one.

300
Frank Miller’s 300. The first time I saw the trailer I was actually not at all intrigued to watch the movie. After being badgered repeatedly by them on tv, my husband suggested we go watch the show. I agreed albeit a bit reluctantly. After all, it is Frank Miller’s comic turned movie, and since we enjoyed Sin City, we thought we should give this movie a chance.

300 tells the story of King Leonidas of Sparta, who fought in the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans went up against the Persian King Xerxes and his army of a million. This battle of epic proportions shows the 300 Spartans choosing to fight to the last man rather than having Sparta submit to Xerxes and the Persian Empire.

Putting aside all the controversies that surround the movie, the historical inaccuracy, and the negative depiction of Persians, I must say that personally 300 was actually very enjoyable. The battle scenes though bloody and gory were intensely appealing. Surprisingly, I was looking forward to all the battle scenes and was quite bored with the story of King Leonidas’ wife, Queen Gorgo who was back in Sparta rallying for support for her husband.

The landscape (though CGI) was beautiful, the images were arresting, and the Spartans…. *sigh* well… the Spartans were just beautiful. Let’s just leave it at that.

The story was ok, but the battle scenes…. the battle scenes were what made this movie so appealing to me. I loved it.

Hotcakes? Yummmm....

Ok ok, I now I haven't been updating. Blame work, blame tv, blame social life, blame Second Life....

The good news is I have been reading my books. The bad news is I haven't found the time to write the reviews....

Anyway, I want to dedicate this post to McD's hotcakes, which I had about a fortnight ago. This reminded me of the time when I was at the airport in Sydney, when I first had them. That was like eons ago. Yummy....

I really enjoyed the three hotcakes, with the butter and syrup. McD's is kind enough to give two packs of butter for three hotcakes, but I forgot to take a picture and only took these after my first bite. Couldn't resist....

And thanks to McD's also for providing a generous amount of syrup to drown my hotcakes in. See the buttery syrupy goo that my hotcakes are in? I'd definitely go back for more. Yumm....

Till next post, mudslinger says have a great weekend!