oscar award: 79th edition

The movie industry's most prestige award - the Academy Awards or also known as the Oscars shall be named on 25 February 2007. [5pt/8et local time].

Here are the nominees for the 79th edition Oscars:-
Actor in Leading Role
Leonardo DiCaprio [Blood Diamond]
Ryan Gosling [Half Nelson]
Peter O'Toole [Venus]
Will Smith [The Pursuit of Happyness]
Forest Whittaker [The Last King of Scotland]

Actor in Supporting Role
Alan Arkin [Little Miss Sunshine]
Jackie Earle Haley [Little Children]
Djimon Housou [Blood Diamond]
Eddie Murphy [Dreamgirls]
Mark Wahlberg [The Departed]

Actress in Leading Role
Penelope Cruz [Volver]
Judi Dench [Notes on a Scandal]
Helen Mirren [The Queen]
Meryl Steep [The Devil Wears Prada]
Kate Winslet [Little Children]

Actress in Supporting Role
Adriana Barraza [Babel]
Cate Blanchetti [Notes on a Scandal]
Abigail Breslin [Little Miss Sunshine]
Jennifer Hudson [Dreamgirls]
Rinko Kikuchi [Babel]

Animated Featured Film
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

Art Direction
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Prestige

Cinematography
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
Pan's Labyrinth
The Prestige

Costume Design
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Marie Antionette
The Queen

Directing
Babel [Alejandro González Iñárritu]
The Departed [Martin Scorsese]
Letters From Imo Jiwa [Clint Eastwood]
The Queen [Stephen Frears]
United 93 [Paul Greengrass]

Documentary Feature
Deliver Us from Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country
Documentary Short
The Blood of YingZhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands

Film Editing
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93

Foreign Language Film
After the Wedding
Days of Glory (Indigènes)
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth
Water

Makeup
Apocalypto
Click
Pan's Labyrinth

Music (Score)
Babel
The Good German
Notes on a Scandal
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen

Music (Song)
An Inconvenient Truth ["I Need to Wake Up" Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge]
Dreamgirls ["Listen" Music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler; Lyric by Anne Preven]
Dreamgirls ["Love You I Do" Music by Henry Krieger; Lyric by Siedah Garrett]
Cars ["Our Town" Music and Lyric by Randy Newman]
Dreamgirls ["Patience" Music by Henry Krieger; Lyric by Willie Reale]

Best Picture
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Short Film (Animated)
The Danish Poet
Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts

Short Film (Live Action)
Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
Eramos Pacos (One Too Many)
Helmer & Son
The Savior
West Bank Story

Sound Editing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Sound Mixing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest

Visual Effects
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Borat Cultural Learning of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen

For more details on Oscars, click here to access the official website.


" Side Note: Babel, starring Brad Pitt and Rinko Kikuchi, is coming to Malaysian cinemas 1 February. I think this should be a nice on. Click here for the official synopsis from the movie's official website. ALSO, I'm lazy to link all the movies mentioned liao, not this time round. "

Love & Joy Through Music & Dance

Love & Joy Through Music & Dance is a charity concert jointly organized by Lions Club of Kuching IXORA and International Music House.



It was held in Kenyalang Theater, Kenyalang Park, Kuching.

Worth mention: The Halili-Cruz School of Ballet troupe, which was regarded as "The Most Outstanding Ballet School in Asia", was featured as special performance guests.



The followings are the preview for the night's beautiful sight.

Juniors playing the instruments.


Conductor at work with the junior musicians.


Choir + 2 solo singers = Great music!

More updates to come, very soon! (I hope)

movie review: Pathfinder

Official website: Pathfinderthemovie.com

Pathfinder: The poster looks great, the trailer looked interesting (Don't most trailers look nice? They're meant to be nice right?). However, the actual movie didn't meet my expectation at all. Not even near.

Before I could watch the movie, I have heard negative feedbacks from the others. Those who told me that the movie wasn't nice were almost all female movie goers. Only a handful have had better return, citing that the movie was okay, not too bad.

So, I decided to go for this instead of The Guardian, starring Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner, partially because my cousin had got the DVD.

You can get the official synopsis from the official website - here.

Pathfinder's time set 600 years before Columbus set foot to America. At that time, Vikings set shore to the land of America, and tried conquering the land. Then, there was a boy being left behind by his own kind. Despite his lineage, the Indians (the Dawn clan) raised the boy.

The story started there 15 years after the Viking first raided the Indians in the land.

Vikings, also known as the Dragons by the Dawn, are portrayed to brutal and savage. They staged barbaric raid in attempt to settle in this new found land. Live by sword, and die by sword, that is what they believe in. They are born to be warriors.

The Scandinavian were naturally bigger in the physical size, and are equipped with proper armor and weapons. The Indians on the other hand, equipped with only wooden spears and knives, were no match to the Vikings in head-to-head battle.

Pathfinder lacks emotion, and chemistry. It may be clear where this movie may lead to - rage, vengeance and brutality, but it never reached that level.

When the Vikings raided the first village in their return 15 years later, Ghost (played by Karl Urban) had their family and whole tribe wiped off in a massacre. Here comes a scene which was supposed to feel the empathy for our hero, who just had his whole adopted family including his young sister. But, you just don't feel the sadness. The music score and the screen play couldn't bring out the emotion to the audience. I hardly felt a thing there. Neither you could feel the rage, fear, love or hatred. Nothing.

I know the movie is categorized as action-adventure, but it was really bad that the whole movie was over-dominated by action scenes only. You see more sword-swinging than people talking throughout the movie. Even when they speak, most of their speech are merely one liner. Nothing more. When they do speak more than two lines, we don't understand their language, and had to read the subtitles instead. The Vikings talked more!

The movie's saturation was reduced in the whole movie-length in attempt to create the post-winter, or spring feel. Whole movie is pretty dull in color, and it's boring. The only movie which had success in shooting the whole featured in about 70% saturation was Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. That was truly and exception. A classic!

Overall, I wouldn't recommend you guys to watch it in the cinema, especially in Malaysian cinema. The movie was made to be brutal, hence under firing shots from Malaysian censorship board's uzi. Many scenes were censored off. It's quite a disappointment for myself. The movie could have been better.





Verdict: 6.5 / 10


" End Note: Lead Actor Karl Urban was featured in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as nephew of Theoden from Rohan, Eomer; I couldn't remember Karl's character name until the credit shows in the end; In Pathfinder, the Vikings are portrayed to be brutal, savage, cruel and silly (referring to the iced-lake scene). "

football update

I heard this over the news on radio.

I came back and check on Soccernet.

I got a confirmation on this.

Chelsea, backed by Russian rich from Roman Abramovich, are in crisis now. It is proven that money can buy stars, probably short-term success, but not in long run. Chelsea, recently lead all sort of headlines on the papers, are seemingly falling apart now.

Earlier, speculation surrounded the Blues Manager - Jose Mourinhno, after their dip of form. Now, their star recruit over the summer had publicly stated that he had chosen wrong team during the summer move. Weeks ago, it was reported that Chelsea's tactics favor Frank Lampard more than German Captain - Michael Ballack.


German captain, Michael Ballack, in Chelsea color.

He should have joined Manchester United instead.

At the same time, it was reported Jose Mourinho have had enough of Arjen Robben's attitude in the club, reportedly on course falling out of favor in Stamford Bridge.

Money buying long-term success? Think again.

Follow-up: Curse of the Golden Flower 《满城尽带黄金甲》

It's almost a month since I last wrote on review for Curse of the Golden Flower 《满城尽带黄金甲》.



And now, there are some updates which I'd like to share. I came across this report in Sin Chew Daily. It drew my interest, as well as confirmed my verdict on the movie. Here's the extract of the article.



If you can't understand Chinese, I'll try best to translate them.

The headline reads - "Due to commanding demand, Curse of Golden Flower set to show Mandarin version on cinema next Thursday"

The movie was screened with Cantonese as the language, it was a disappointing decision for me. I personally was expecting a Mandarin one, as I always opt for the original voice/sound, preferably not the dubbed ones. As for this one, even Chow Yun-Fatt's voice wasn't his own.



Instead of translating line by line, I'd just summarize what this report is about:

• Due to overwhelming demand, the movie distributor had finally decided to release the Mandarin version (isn't it a little too late?), which is due to show on cinema on 25 January 2007 onwards.
• Malaysia - as the only country in the world to screen Cantonese version.
• It is confirmed that Curse of the Golden Flower 《满城尽带黄金甲》 would not make it to the nominee list for the 79th Oscar Awards.

Movie goers are complaining about the dubbed version being screened in Malaysia, mainly because none of the characters in the movie are dubbed by the actual actors themselves, including Chow Yun-Fatt. It just don't sound original.


Translation: Malaysia is the only country in the world to screen the Cantonese version, hence drawing criticism, plenty of readers had lodged complaints to the daily.

So, who is in for the Mandarin version when they show it again this Thursday (25 January 2007)? For sure, I am not going to pay MYR8 or 9 for that movie again. I may consider a bootleg DVD though. Anyone has the DVD?



*MYR: Malaysian Ringgit