justin_guber - @ 20six.co.uk

You mean the person looking for the killer IS the killer?! How original!

Yes, the title has just ruined the so-called 'twist' of the movie 'Hide and Seek', but believe me, you're all the better for it.
So yesterday I trekked off to Times Square with my girlfriend to pick up a DVD player. I was sick and tired of having to carry the DVD player from the Taman Tun house (which no-one lives in but I put all my DVD's/comics/guitars/computer stuff there to keep it safe from curious lil' bro) to the Damansara house (where my parents and bro live and I... sleep in). Let the parents keep the Elba, I'll buy some no-brand DVD player.

And what a no-brand piece of shit it is. The tray where you put your disc in is plastic (and I'm not talking plastic made to look like something harder, I mean see-through baby-blue plastic) and when I first switched it on the tray kept opening and closing and opening and closing and opening and closing.

Aha. A haunted DVD player.

But for RM180 you can't really complain. It plays DVD's, and after watching my choice for the night ('Not Another Teen Movie', because I needed a dose of the funnies) we popped in 'Hide and Seek', starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning.

And all I can say is, "damn, that sucked".

Everything was kinda ok for the first 3/4's of the movie, albeit slow. Then they killed a cat, which pulled my emo-strings a bit (don't fuck with the kitties!) and an effective (though basic) scare invoking the rule of 3 involving a closet.

But when it turns out Robert De Niro, the father trying to figure out who's doing all this, is the killer all along, you could hear my girlfriend and I both exclaim in a collective sigh, "ah, fuck."

The twist killed it for me. It really did. When the first 3/4's of your movie is a slow build in tension and suspense your money shot better be on the fucking money. I personally wanted it to be some kind of spirit, or the neighbour (a red herring that never goes any-fucking-where), hell, even the sherriff.

Or Dakota. Why couldn't Dakota have just done it all? That would've really fucked with everyone. That would've been a kick-ass 3rd act freak session, a little kid with a machete ready to hack De Niro and Famke Jannsen (is that right? I don't know how to spell it!) to ribbons.

What's annoying is the 'it was me?!' twist has been done before, and better. And it works best when the clues are not so fucking obvious. Check out Fight Club - once the twist is revealed, it puts an entirely new spin on everything we've just seen, begging for re-watches. We accepted what happened before the twist as the gospel truth, and when we get the twist the whole cinema exclaims collectively, "no-fucking-way-!"

But this (and 'Secret Window' for that matter) does the opposite: we watch the first 3/4's of the movie wondering "why's this like that?" and when the twist comes it answers everything. It doesn't twist up the story, it answers everything we didn't quite get before, making the final quarter of the movie nothing more than a hack n' slash.

And you'd have thought it'd be fun to see Robert De Niro go nuts with a shovel and a blade, right? Wrong. Come on, Bobby!

In fact, it makes you wonder why the entire cast did this movie in the first place. You've got Robert De Niro (a man permanently etched into the collective conscious of movie-goers for Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, hell, even Meet the Fockers), Elisabeth Shue (a chick who went from being Marty McFly's girlfriend to Nicolas Cage's prostitute pal) and Famke Jansen (who not only squeezed 007's ribs but will forever be glued into all comic-geek minds as Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix). Do any of these people really need to do shit to make ends meet?

And Dakota. Dear sweet Dakota. Is she always going to be the girl on-call when it's time to put a little girl through unholy hell? She's put up with aliens (not once, but twice), a retarded yet loving father and Brittany Murphy. And now her mother's slit her wrists and her dad's a schyzophrenic psychopath. In the real world, all the characters she's played would need serious therapy. Or a gun.

For some reason watching (and being dissapointed by) 'Hide and Seek' reminded me how I still haven't gotten round to writing that horror movie I've got written out as an idea sheet at the moment. I wonder...

1.8.05 05:06

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On-Line Relaxation Exercise Experiment

Today, I'd like to try something different. I went to the doctors the other day and she recommended this for relaxation and stuff. Supposed to clear your mind, help you get through the day, whatever. It may seem a bit weird, but just bear with me for a minute as we try this out. Just read the words and follow the instructions carefully. I want to see whether this works by just reading it (P.S. Don't forget to tell me whether it works).

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we'll begin.

Now, first off, I want you to close your ears. That's right. Shut out all the distractions and noise. Stick your hands on your ears. Try and shut out as much sound as you can. If you need to scroll down, try and be quick about it, or use some other limb or maybe an elbow.

Close your ears and slowly, ever so slowly breath in a relaxed fashion.

...got it? Good. Keep those ears closed. Don't let the outside world fool you. This is a test. Please bear with me, you'll love it.

Now, keep your ears closed, keep breathing very slowly and relaxed. In through your nose, out through your mouth.

There you go. Forget about the outside world. Forget about work, parents, responsibilities, the phone. Forget about the people around you, make them dissapear in your mind. All you have are THESE WORDS. These are the only words that are important now. Keep breathing. Keep shutting out the world.

Now, slowly tilt your head up and down, very slowly. Up when you breath in, down when you breath out. Up when you breath in, down when you breath out.

That's it. That's it. Very good. Now, keep doing that.

Ok. Here's the tricky bit. Whilst your doing that, repeat the words below. Not loudly, just under your breath. Nobody needs to hear you, but you can't just say it in your head, your lips need to move, in time with your breathing. The first line when you breath in, the second line when you breath out. And repeat.

SHAMASTIKA
HADRASTIVA

SHAMASTIKA
HADRASTIVA

SHAMANTARA
CHARANKALA

SHAMANTARA
CHARANKALA

RASTANDIVA
SANTANIKA

RASTANDIVA
SANTANIKA

AYAMLYKA
EVENLEEFA

AYAMLYKA
EVENLEEFA

Congratulations. I've just made you do a bunch of stupid shit simply because I said it'd be good for you. You probably look a right fucking tit right now, don't you?

1.8.05 08:40

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Trailer Tuesdays

All this while, I thought my subscription to Double Agent was pointless. Little did I know they had trailer sneak peeks uploaded.
Doom
I like the Rock. In the two movies I've seen him in ('Rundown' and 'Be Cool') he's surprised me. All this while I expected him to go down the path Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper did in movies, but instead he's pulling it off well. Prefer him as an action star to Vin Diesel anyday. And 'Doom' is one of those games everyone in my generation played as a young teen. It's etched in our heads. To me, more so than Quake. Sure, there's a chance this could turn out as shit as 'Resident Evil', but I'm crossing my fingers for violent, yummy goodness.
The Fog

When I was a kid, if there was one movie that freaked the unholy fuck out of me, it was John Carpenter's "The Fog". This movie is permanently implanted in my childhood memories of being eight or nine and scared shitless, and what makes it even scarrier is that I've never seen the ending (I should remedy that, must be a DVD around somewhere). Now they're remaking it with Selma Blair and it's so early to tell I can't even find a screenshot or movie poster for the remake. I don't know about you, but I like the recent wave of remakes of old horror films. "Dawn of the Dead", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", hell, even "The House On Haunted Hill". Hope this one's a blast, too.

2.8.05 06:57

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One hell of a disclaimer...

If you're into horror movies, check out Horrorwatch for it is filled with horrific nutrition. I was surfing around reading movie reviews when I came across this quote which is too funny to not put it up here...
"Do not watch this movie if you have an aversion to any of the following: vomit, poo, poo-eating, blood, sex, cigarette burning, rape, penises, vaginas, sodomy, stabbings, axings, shooting of the wang, out of shape naked people, and the gratuitous use of a broom handle for sexual pleasure and pain. I’ve probably just made sure most of you will be seeking this film out."

Taken from a review for "I Spit On Your Corpse, I Piss On Your Grave".

2.8.05 07:18

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Fear

Ok, another favour this time. A real one. Call it... research. It'd be really helpful if everybody who reads this replies in the 'comments' section. Are you ready? Here we go. The question is:

What do you fear?

Pretty simple. I'm just curious. What freaks you out, scares you, what elements? Ghosts? Goblins? Silence? Rats? Weird noises? Being alone? Tell me tell me tell me. I'd like to know.

Please.

2.8.05 08:40

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No-thang.

Ok. It's ranting season once again. Open up your eyes and unzip your flies, lads n' ladies!

This is fucked.

Whilst emotionally I've recovered quite a bit from the mild depression that was Thursday over my inability to be creative, the problem still persists. I can't write. At least, not well enough to make me feel it warrants paying for.

Did I spell 'warrants' right? 'War... rants'. Warrr.... ants'. Shit.

I'm not sure what it is, but it sure is bugging me.

Add to that my constant lethargy. I've been experimenting with my hours of sleepage and it still doesn't make a difference. No matter how early/late I go to bed/get up I still feel the same during the day: dead. My motor functions in sunlight are completely dependent on caffeine.

My 'ad writing' skills are getting stale. This may or may not have something to do with my servicing departments dodgy briefs. Or maybe I'm just getting bored here and need rejuvination. Colleagues have been e-mailing me word of jobs available elsewhere. They pay more, but don't look too enticing.

Then there's the 'music'. Saiful just came back last week with a list from the guy mastering it on what I need to do to make the mix better.

It's a fucking long list.

The mastering master in Indon also said that it's not a good idea for the musician to try and mix the music because the musician doesn't focus in on tiny details when it comes to his/her own music, but the big picture.

Either way, even though all the points were valid, it did make me think "great. I can't mix for nuts".

I'm also a bit wary of passing the material to someone else to mix because I fear that once they hear the raw files they may turn to me and say "holy Jesus! What the fuck do you expect me to do with this turd?!"

Harumph.

Then there's the 'movie' thing. The precious 'movie' thing. My 'Celup' movie, as you all know, is on the backburner for a bit after strange producer issues reminscent of my first bands untimely demise. Whilst my short film is gonna earn me a cool RM$1000, I'm stuck wondering, "what next?"

My parents asked me this same question. They are interested in my movie movements. By the end of this month they'll see their sons first publicly aired short film and will probably bludgen me for the movie's content.

Meanwhile, Kit Ong (who I met when he was CD at FCB) has a two page spread in KLue about his filmmaking activities and is quiting his job to do a feature. Yasmin Ahmad is doing her 'Gubra' movie (I think that's what it's called) and Pete Teo's doing the music whilst also appearing in a movie financed by Andy Lau and directed by Ho Yuhang. Amir Muhammad will finally have one of his movies screened nationally (although I can't remember the name for that one).

Reading about these guys and seeing the whole 'local-industry filmmaking wave' reaching a higher and higher crest and gaining more attention and buzz does hit me with a pang of "when the fuck are you gonna get your act together and make your Magnificent Octopus!?"

...

"...sorry. I meant Magnum Opus."

I have apologetic pangs.

But yeah. All my filmmaking heroes did their thang in their twenties. All the guys (and gals) doing it here are in their thirties, presumably because by that age they have enough financial security and connections to go ahead and do their thang.

My mind's a bit on the different. I don't want to wait until my mid-thirties to do my thang (from here on in, filmmaking endeavours shall be named the 'thang'), I want to try and do everything I've always ever wanted to set out and achieve before I'm thirty so that if it works out I can spend the rest of my life doing my thang (or other 'thangs', wherein 'thang' can also be used to characterize any other creative endeavour besides film) and if my thang don't work out I can at least resign to the fact that I tried to do my thang(s) and won't die regretting I never did my thang.

Y'all un'nerstang?

You may ask, "Is the Guber jealous of all these other guys making movies?" and the Guber would reply, "Fuck yeah!" It's petty, yes, but why lie? They're making movies. I'm not. Of course I'm fucking jealous. I'm not in a position where I have to watch every word I say just yet. Yes, I'm jealous of the fact that all those people are making movies the same way pencil dicks are jealous of African tribesmen.

More importantly, I'm jealous because they have an idea, and turning the idea into a thang. An idea is required to make thang, it is the essence of thang.

But I'm forcing it. I'm forcing out ideas for the thang, and you know when you're forcing the thang 'cos it's never as good as a natural thang. You force the thang out, and the thang don't like no forcin'. I'm trying to figure out any ol' thang, anythang I can pull of, but there ain't no thang.

I need thang.

Something also appeals to me about being the young punk who went out and did his thang as opposed to the middle-aged guy who's comfortably well off to pursue thang-ing and such.

But what thang? Hence the question below about what scares you: to try and formulate a horror thang. Other thang's in mind are comedy thangs and talky-introspective thangs. Any thang doable within the limitations of my thang. But no strong enough idea to turn into a thang.

There's too much mention of 'thang' in this here thang. Dang.

2.8.05 10:27

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Sorry about all the movie references...

...but I'm on a roll, here. Whilst surfing Amazon I found a couple of cool lists of music based movies. If any of you have ANY of these movies, PLEASE let me know. Preferably on DVD. I've already got 'Ray', 'Almost famous', '24 Hour Party People', 'Spinal Tap' & 'The Doors'. The ones below are a little tougher to come by here since they're not too recent. God, why didn't I think of this when I went down to London...? Most of these I only caught on TV. I wants them!

The Little Richard Story - I caught 3/4's of this on Astro. Sure, it's not the most accurate of biopics, but I love Little Richard's stuff, and watching this was super cool, especially the kick ass ending when Little Richard pops out on stage after he's found Jesus, dressed in his preacher clothes and everyone's booing him, yelling for some rock n' roll. Little Richard faints and falls to the ground, everyone panics, when suddenly... "Wap babaloobop, a-wap bamboo!" he jumps up, rips up his clothes to reveal his glittery suit and breaks into song. Kickass!

Other key moments would be the bit where he writes 'Tutti Frutti', and the moment when he realizes Perry Como is covering his songs in a slow hokey fashion, much to his annoyance. His response? Why, make the songs more 'Little Richard', by singing them wilder and faster than Perry ever could. Dope.

Interesting fact: did you know one of Lil' Richard's guitarists for a while was a young left-handed dude named Jimi? Yup. Even got the bootleg CD to prove it.

Hail, Hail, Rock & Roll - When I went down to London in 2003 I caught this on Channel 4 on my last night there in a hotel. Why this movie isn't available on DVD I have no idea because it is is super-cool. Part a look at Chuck Berry's life, part concert directed by Keith Richards. And that's where the best moments are. Nowhere else are you going to find Chuck Berry and Keith Richards arguing over amp settings and how to bend the opening note of 'Oh, Carol'. Their dynamic practically begs for a comedy series: Chuck is the over meticulous, raging perfectionist whilst Keith is the easy going Brit who won't take no shit, not even from the true king of Rock n' Roll.

That's right. I said true King. Elvis was great, but he wasn't this great.

There's also great interviews with a who's-who of rock n' roll, with appearances by Eric Clapton and even Lennon's son (I think Julian) singing with the great Berry. Sure, Berry comes across as a bit of an asshole at times, but he's Chuck Berry, godammit! He can do what he damn well pleases!

Two Of Us - No, it's not a Will Smith biopic.

Izuwan is the one (hehe, geddit?) who reminded me of this movie, of which I caught only ten minutes on HBO (I think), centering on a fictional meeting between John Lennon and Paul McCartney in New York just before John got shot. I'm intensely curious about this movie. I have heard many good things. Especially about the Lennon actor.

One moment in particular (which I was only told about) features two old biddy's telling John how much they loved one of 'his' songs (I can't remember which), which so happens to have been written by Paul. In not so many words John tells them to fuck off. Brilliance!

Backbeat - What pisses me off is I used to own this on VHS and I have no idea where the fucker is.

I loved this movie when I was in my A level college. This and "That Thing You Do" we're regular movies to watch with my band at the time. This was the first time I'd seen the Beatles as something other than those guys that wrote Strawberry Fields and Yellow Submarine. In this, they were young, brash, trying to make a dream come true, and most importantly, cool as fuck. Especially Lennon. Damn, Lennon's a bad motherfucker.

Sample scene: Lennon's on stage in a tutu, arsing about. Some guy tries to harrass a girl. Lennon jumps off the stage and confronts the German.

"If you wanna fight someone fight me. If you don't wanna fight, sit down, drink your drink and listen to the band. If you don't wanna drink, then fuck off!" says John.
"I cannot fight you, you are wearing a dress," the bulky German promptly replies.

Great Balls of Fire - Another movie I only caught half of on TV, but cool as fuck nonetheless. Dennis Quaid is brilliantly OTT in this movie, although I saw some actual photos and the underaged cousin Jerry Lee Lewis married was nowhere near as hot as Wynona Ryder.

What I remember liking most about this movie were two things:

1. How mad Jerry Lee Lewis was. I thought Kurt breaking guitars was excess, but destroying piano's? Madness!

2. The way they made it seem like if Lewis hadn't married his cousin, the mantle for white boy rock n' roll king would never have gone to Elvis. In fact, the whole Elvis/Lewis thing was a nice touch, regardless of whether or not it's true.

God, he married his 13 year old cousin. Ew...

La Bamba - I can't believe I never saw this movie, especially considering when I was seven this was my favourite song of all time.

Everyone I've talked to says this movie is great and I actually saw it in the DVD store but I was broke. Plus I always thought Lou Diamond Phillips was cool as ice. Even in 'The Big Hit', although more so in 'Young Guns'. Last movie I heard he was in was 'Bats'. That was a while back.

Boy, did that suck.

Apparently Brian Setzer's in the movie too. Sweet! And Los Lobos. Super sweet! Very curious about this, must give it a go.

The Buddy Holly Story - I have heard nothing of this movie. I don't even listen to much Buddy. But I do like rock n' roll, and reading about how this movie was made, with Gary Busey performing the songs live instead of overdubbing it, and reading the rave reviews, I'm intensely curious.

Apparently the movie doesn't even look like a slick biopic, but very real. Have any of you guys seen this movie? Tell me, people, tell me!

And how the fuck is Gary Busey supposed to be Buddy Holly? That's what I'm really curious about.

That Thing You Do - Ok, it's not a great movie, but it sure is fun. More than that, it's a landmark movie for me in terms of personal history.

The first band I was in, 'Crap Budget Tattoo', were a covers band, straight up. We recorded one original track, but for the two (and a half) gigs we played at Concord College, we played covers, and if there was one song we'd always cover, it was "That Thing You Do". I've only got this movie on VCD but I really want a DVD copy.

So, yeah. I'm also curious about Quadrophenia, Ziggy Stardust & Tommy, but we'll save those for another time.

And why is this post in the 'Random Research' section? Hmmm...

3.8.05 07:42

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A New iMac at last...

...and I'm still dissapointed.

Sure, it's "technically" better than my previous iMac, but it's still a Mac, and I have an aversion to these things. At least it's an OS9, so I'm not completely trapped in the goddamn stone age.

Memory's still crap, too.

I just understand PC's better, I guess. They feel like machines. They whir and beep and a good thwack can keep it running. All these Mac's are... pretty. Cute. Ew. They feel like a toy.

And whilst adjusting to my new toy I discovered a few things about the two previous owners (hehe...), like the last owner who seems to have a thing for Kal Penn (the Kumar of Harold & Kumar), babies and belly dancing. The owner before her was one of the ex-copywriters in Grey, a guy who liked to fuck around with all the 'possibilities' a Mac provided for silly foolishness.

Like recording the sounds of man-love and making his computer profess it's love for cow-fucking (yes, Ed, it's Prem's computer, and he never deleted those files).

In other news, I got home last night to find two letters from Panglobal's Musiccanteen. Inside these two letters were two cheques for downloads of my many musical acts. One was for Triple 6 Poser for the grand sum of RM$1.50 (hey, Ed, you want your cut or should I just buy you some Hacks?) and the other was for A Girl Named Jane for a total of... RM$9.00? People are actually downloading my dance-y shit? Cool. I should do more tracks.

And some wonder why organizer's would rather bring Judge Jules than Iron Maiden to Malaysia...

4.8.05 09:04

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The Fourth Fever

Naren e-mailed recently and asked whether everything is ok and whether or not I got my mojo back considering I hadn't posted anything since Thursday. Well, there's a reason for that.

On Friday morning, with only two hours sleep, I made my way to Port Dickson with my colleagues for an intensive training course. Very intensive. The second I got there we were ushered into the room so from 9 to 5 I was sat 'studying', if you will. Then, from 8 to midnight, 'homework'.

Shit, even school wasn't this bad. By 12.14am, I received an SMS saying it's free flow at the bar, courtesy of the HR department.

"Screw you guys, I'm getting drunk," was my message to the team. They followed suit.

On Saturday, our 'homework' won us a RM$50 gift voucher at Isetan each. Whoopee. I also won a rubber ducky, which I treasured a lot more than the gift voucher, but ended up giving it to my bro, who had been ill the whole week.

Saturday was also the day we noticed the haze. The very bad haze that has lasted till now. For those unfamiliar with haze, imagine a dense fog made of dirt and soot. That's haze, and it sucks balls.

For starters, it gets a lot of people ill, myself included. I should've seen it coming. Already on Friday at least five people were ill. One person almost passed out at lunch, another had stomach pains, headaches and migraines all 'round.

It was just a matter of time.

By Sunday I had a gig and was feeling the effects of haze and exhaustion, passed out on the floor of Paul's Place, weak and ill, desperately in need of sleep. I played my set and rushed out as soon as I can to rest and eventually edit my short film for television (which sucked balls. I felt like I was butchering my baby. Every 'bleep' and pixelation of cleavage made me wince).

By Monday, even though I shouldn't have, I went to work, ill as hell, and by evening the fever was breaking through and my nose kept bleeding and throughout the day I shat out liquid poop.

By Tuesday morning, I couldn't go on.

At the clinic I asked the doctor why I kept getting fevers. She said I probably have low immunity or something, I couldn't really make her out in my fever induced daze. She stuck a needle up my butt and gave me a ton of pills.

What I do know is this, though: four fevers in eight months. That's an average of a fever every two months this year. I have never gotten this ill this often, it's freaking me out.

So are the nosebleeds. Eddy says I should check it out, that blood should stay in the body. I have a phobia about doctors when it comes to nosebleeds, though.

Just nosebleeds.

9.8.05 15:40

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Punk Rock A-Go-Go-!

Got a punk rock gig coming up with Y2k, for all you guys who like to bop about.

Go to FYI Entertainment for the maps n' shit.

9.8.05 16:35

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