District 9

Do not let such an uninspiring title fools you, for this movie will definitely put you on the edge of your cinema seat if you allowed it to. Forget about the toilet, just make sure your eyes are glued to the screen all the time. Girlfriend talking to you? Ignore her or - better still - leave her out of the cinema if she is the type that cannot keep her mouth shut while watching movies.

Touted as one of the best movies this year, District 9 is based on the true events surrounding District Six in the past. If you paid attention to your History teacher, you should be pretty familiar with the term apartheid and this movie is a perfect reminder that even after more than a decade since the death of the infamous social segregation, discrimination remains a demon that cannot be easily exorcised from every human being's soul - including those who were once being discriminated upon.

Unlike the other typical movies these days where there is a fine line between good and evil, District 9 will have almost none of that. What were deemed to be the right decisions or things to do in the beginning will not appear to be so when the movie plot starts to unravel itself. I was able to sympathise with the struggle that the prawns have to go through even though they appeared disgusting the first time they came on screen. In a way, this movie managed to successfully reflect the true nature of humanity, which is not entirely all about sunshine and roses.


NON-HUMANS BANNED!

With a mere $30 million budget, this movie has managed to surpass and put Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($200 million) and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra ($175 million) to shame. While some may brand this movie as Cloverfield 2 - especially with the trademark camera shaking and documentary-like footage - I would say that District 9 has a much more human touch to it where viewers would be able to identify with the protagonist, Wikus van de Merwe's ever-changing morality.


Paving The Way To Unity.

The only complain I have is the quality of censorship that was practiced by the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia. Though they did not beep the mass f*cks - suspected to be due to the South African accent which pronounced the word as fock - cutting off scenes of some Nigerians cannibalising the prawns does not prove a single point at all when there were blood and amputated limbs splattered all over the place throughout the movie. Since the movie events took place in Johannesburg, the English was very easy to comprehend so tell me, WTF is the purpose of having large Malay subtitle that covers half of the screen for?

-sigh-

I shall not be surprised if one day, we find ourselves travelling to some nearby countries with reasonable censorship and logical subtitle font size just to watch a decent movie with not much interruption.

The ending is not something that everyone will take a liking to for the movie leaves it to your own interpretation especially when it comes to Wikus' fate three years down the road. I see this as a clever decision on the director's side since he can always use this opportunity to start a District 10...

... or perhaps stop with this perfect ending and never have Christopher Johnson come back again.

Throw me a friendly stone

Mention Penang to your friends - especially those that are not Penangites - and two things will generally come to their minds; food and island. Cannot blame them I guess, since most of the hype about Penang's salivating hawker's cuisine are focused to those on the island itself... and do not even get me started on friends who were under the impression that Seberang Perai is a province under the Kedah Darul Aman state *facepalm*

Unfortunately, the same cannot be applied for Penangites who reside on the island. After years of gobbling down the same food, over and over again, our taste buds have grown numb. I cannot help rolling my eyes whenever I have enthusiastic friends from other states asking for my recommendations on what are the must-eats whenever they come over for short holidays.

Gurney Drive hawker centre? Lorong Selamat char koay teow? Bah, all these famous food stalls are nothing but overrated due to some cheap publicity they garnered when the state was trying to promote Penang as a food haven. While non-locals throng these food joints like crows to carcasses, we Penangites are always on the hunt for authentic, succulent, traditionally-passed-down-secret-recipe food stalls that have somehow remained hidden from public eyes all these while.

-sigh-

Okay, I might be exaggerating, but the point is, all that is gold does not glitter. It is not always necessary to cross the Penang Bridge over to the island side in order for you to enjoy a good meal. Last Sunday, I tagged along with a few colleagues to Seberang Perai for dinner and since Alan took his DSLR there, I shall take advantage of his photos to make glimpsing much more convenient for those who are lazy - but faithful - to read; you know who you are. :P

Our destination was Ah Yan Seafood Restaurant in Batu Kawan, somewhere near Bukit Tambun. We ordered ten dishes but the photographer did not manage to snap a photo on all of them as his mouth had intermittently taken control over his hands after the third dish was served.


Fried noodle to warm up our growling stomachs.


Spicy balitong to improve your kissing skill.


Calamari tentacles.


Edible frogs pronounced as water chicken in Hokkien.


Lala-chais and lala-muis.


Cut the CRABs!


Barry demonstrating methods to masturbate penis easily peel off the mantis shrimp's shell.


Three innocent souls having a hard time mast... removing the mantis shrimps' shell.


FORKing fried ice creams.

Altough I would not rate all the dishes 10 out of 10, I would still recommend this restaurant since the price was pretty affordable. As we were done with our dinner pretty fast and early, we decided to hit Wai Sek Gai in Chai Leng Park for a few bowls of Chinese dessert (糖水).


Spot the odd one out.

There are many food stalls here with lots of variety to choose from. If you think Gurney Drive hawker centre is heaven, then I guess Wai Sek Gai must be heaven's rooftop... unless you are the type that require lala-chais with bombastic hairstyle or lala-muis in revealing dress to gawk at in between each bite.

I do not intend to turn this into a food blog so I shall stop here before I get myself hungry at this ungodly hour.