I attended a “live” screening of Academy Awards at GV Grand this morning!

This was the invite:

To be honest, I’ve never been interested in the Oscars. I’m interested to know that a movie I watched or an actor I like has won an award, but I wouldn’t sit down for four hours to watch it happen. I’m happy to hear the news if someone tells me, but I wouldn’t actually go find out myself.

So why did I attend this event?

I dunno. I guess I thought it sounded glam and fun, something different.

Also, I wanted to see Avatar win awards.

I’m sad it only won three, but I suppose The Hurt Locker is a worthy contender even though I haven’t watched it.

I want to watch it now, though. I liked Kathryn Bigelow when she was giving her acceptance speeches for Best Director and Best Picture. Very real and humble.

Actually, many speeches were very real and humble. I enjoyed Sandra Bullock’s (Best Actress) speech. Moved me to tears!

By the way, Ben Stiller went on stage to present an award looking like a Na’vi. He was so funny!

I was a bit stressed about the dress code today. It said “Hollywood Glitz” but I really didn’t think Singaporeans would dress in Hollywood Glitz on a Monday morning (9 am).

But I feel that it’s important to follow dress codes to respect the event. Yet, I don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb. So I compromised today by doing casual glitzy.

Actually, bluff you one. I did casual glitzy cos I don’t have anything full glitzy to wear. Haha.

I know the pants is really wrong. I really would have preferred to wear a skirt, but I don’t have any appropriate ones. And I only started deciding what to wear half an hour before I was due at the event, lol.

I had thought to wear a certain black dress I have, but realised this morning that it was crumpled and there was not enough time to iron it!! What a catastrophe.

Anyway, beside me is Fish Chaar, my actor friend, who has played my screen partner in films about four times or more, I can’t remember.

He’s working in Universal Studios Singapore this year. SO COOL RIGHT! If you visit the Donkey Island or something like that, see if you can spot him!

So, when we arrived at the event 20 minutes late (thanks to my wardrobe emergency), we found that 85% of the guests had gone in very casual clothes (like jeans and tee) or work wear. No one was even near Hollywood Glitz lah what is wrong with Singaporeans??!!!

Pictures of the breakfast reception. We were served champagne with breakfast.

We also got a goodie bag consisting of a magazine, some perfume and skincare samples, and tons of vouchers.

Okay, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because it’s a good thing when people give stuff to you and you shouldn’t complain. But I really think goodie bags ought to have real stuff in them, not samples and vouchers, which really just come across as disguised advertising.

Well, to be fair, samples and vouchers aren’t that bad since you can actually use them. I have received goodie bags that come with advertising leaflets and brochures. Seriously, where is the “goodie” in that?!

Alright, done ranting.

Okay, not really ranting, more like observing, since I enjoyed myself today and am in a happy mood. And I realise that the Oscars is a really entertaining show. Guess I’ll be watching it yearly from now on.

If I can wake up.

I watched Avatar in 3D with my friends at Lido last night. We each received good quality 3D specs at the door.

There were repeated reminders outside the cinema, as well as on the cinema screen, as well as audio messages, for us to return the specs in good condition at the end of the movie, failing which we would have to pay $10.

All good there.

We watched the movie and immensely enjoyed three hours of a gripping story set in a fantastic, vibrant world.

And then the movie ended and the credits started.

Accompanying the initial credit roll were awesome 3D footages of the world of Navi accompanied by awe-inspiring music.

Unfortunately, we never got to enjoy it. Two seconds after the credits rolled, lights flooded the cinema, the music was muted and a recorded announcement came on, reminding us to return the 3D specs, failing which we would have to pay $10, blah blah.

I was annoyed.

The movie had ended too soon and I craved more of it. I was sad at having to say goodbye to the world of Navi and I wanted to enjoy the ending music and footages to continue the illusion of still being immersed in the world.

The recorded announcement and muting of the music shocked us out of our immersion like icy cold water to the face.

We endured the announcement for about 20 seconds, waiting for the music to come back. The screen was still showing footages of 3D scenery but it was hard to watch since the lights were all on.

Then the announcement ended but the music didn’t come back.

Three seconds later, the announcement started again. The same damned announcement all over again.

I was very, very annoyed. By muting the music, turning on the lights, and playing the stupid announcement, Lido had robbed us of our final few minutes of enjoyment of the movie, an experience which would have given us the closure we needed to wrap up our otherwise impeccable experience of the movie.

It’s like sex without a proper climax.

Did they really need to remind us to return the specs over and over again? After all, there were two guys collecting the specs outside a very narrow exit doorway.

No one could possibly escape.

We left the hall and the Goonfather demanded to see the manager.

We were shocked at what the night manager had to say.

He said we weren’t the first people to complain. Unfortunately, he can’t do anything about it because he is only following orders.

The management of Shaw Theatres had ordered the recorded announcement to be played before the movie officially ended. And even with repeated complaints and suggestions to play the announcment later, the management refused to budge.

The answer was, “Don’t care them lah.”

The manager also said that, by right, it wouldn’t hurt to allow patrons to take the specs home. After all, we paid extra for them. The tickets cost $14 each.

But Shaw wants to make more money, so the specs are collected back and recycled.

The manager also told us that care is taken to wash the specs thoroughly before they are reused, but he was probably lying. When we collected our specs, they were all greasy and covered with fingerprints on the lenses.

In the end, there was nothing we could do. Nothing he could do. He told us to complain directly to the Shaw Theatres management and, maybe, if more people complained to them, they would take notice.

This is very disappointing. Not only did they rob movie goers of the last few crucial minutes of enjoyment, the management of Shaw Theatres also showed great disrespect to filmmaker James Cameron.

To truncate his movie like that!

How grave is the insult for a pioneer of Singapore’s movie industry (Shaw made movies in the early 1900s) to disrespect a film like that, and all for the fear of losing a few plastic spectacles?

I am deeply disappointed.

Be warned. If you’re going to watch Avatar in 3D (and I absolutely recommend that you do), don’t watch it at Shaw Theatres.

My first encounter with Darah was the little trailer reminding cinema-goers to turn off their handphones.

The short features a psychotic person with long dishevelled hair, looking like a cross between a drag queen and a pontianak, screeching hysterically as she swings a blade at an off-screen victim.

Big red bloody words appear on screen:

TURN IT OFF OR
SHE’LL CUT IT OFF

I rolled my eyes when I first saw it. It was the epitome of cheesy. It gave me the impression that Darah was a B-grade comedy horror.

Weeks after I saw the trailer, I met with Eric Khoo and learnt that he’s the executive producer for the film. I was surprised and a little disturbed.

Subsequently, he invited me to a special Darah screening. He said it’s a good movie so I decided to suspend all expectations and believe him.

The screening was held at the old Thumper Bar at Goodwood Park Hotel, which is currently undergoing major renovations so it looks really grungy and creepy.

It was quite dark in there. I didn’t even realise while I was there that the projecter was sitting on a blood-stained sheet.

Yes, even though I took this photo. And even though I actually sat in the front row that night. I didn’t notice the blood-stained sheet until I went home and saw my photos.

I did notice this blood-stained sheet covering the entrance to the bar, though.

I’m not blind. Really.

That night, I learnt that the lead actress in Darah had won an award for the film, which made me more curious to watch it. It was hard for me to reconcile the comically-crazed pontianak in the cheesy phone trailer with award-winning.

Eric Khoo gives a short speech before the screening.

Well, now that I’ve seen it, I’m declaring that the film is so far from being B-grade that I would give it a few extra As for good measure.

AAAA.

Darah follows a group of six friends who stumble upon a damsel in distress in the middle of nowhere, while on a road trip. Being do-gooders, they offer to give her a ride home.

Home is a big old creepy house in the middle of a thick, isolated jungle.

What follows is a prolonged night of senseless slaughter, sometimes in explosive carnage, sometimes in exquisite detail. The plot is not particularly unique and realistic, but I like how the film was executed.

Let me first say that Darah is possibly the goriest movie I’ve seen (I don’t see too many of them, though). It’s not for the weak-stomached. The lady next to me had to cover her eyes half the time. Me, I was clutching onto my handbag and jacket too tightly for the whole 90 minutes, making valiant efforts to stifle my screams.

The suspense build-up and roller-coaster teasing are chilling and thrilling. The cinematography is dramatic and artistic enough to prevent the film from being simply a gratuitous bloodfest. There is a lot of blood in the film. More than you can bear.

The actors are all brilliant. I can’t understand why they didn’t all get awards. I also learnt that the makeup and special effects were done by just one person, which makes it inexpressibly remarkable.

As an objective critic, I really, really liked the film.

As a scaredy cat, I was totally pulverised.

Darah is an Indonesian film (with English subtitles) by newbie filmmakers Mo Brothers. It’s called Macabre in other parts of the world. I think it’s only called Darah (which means blood) in Singapore because they found that too many Singaporeans can’t pronounce or doesn’t know the meaning of macabre.

It’s rated M18.

I want to talk a bit about my movie, Female Games, today.

Here’s my sinema.SG interview:

Click to read.

Female Games is now showing at Sinema Old School, and will run till end August. Showtimes here.

After finally seeing it, I suppose I should warn you that it’s not for everyone. But then I was prepared for that. Kan (our director) told us from the start that his films have always been polarising. You either love them or hate them.

His films are the kind that win prestigious art film awards but the man in the street hates.

It’s a little different for Female Games. I think the word is: confusing. Confusion clouded my head the first time I saw it because the final edit changed everything I knew about the film when we were filming it.

I had trouble answering questions at the Q&A after the show because I was as shocked (and possibly dismayed) at the outcome of the film as the audience.

Photo from JayWalk’s blog.

There still is, of course, the expected love and hate reactions. But I get the impression that, on the whole, people don’t know whether to love or hate it.

Whatever the case, I don’t regret being in the film. Experience is priceless.

Animal activists might cry foul at this and I suppose I do feel a little sorry for the cows, but I can’t deny that I was quite delighted to see cows at the temple.

This photo was taken last Sunday night at Loyong Tua Pek Kong, where me and my friends went to start our Chinese New Year celebrations.

A pair of cows were brought in to usher in the Year of the Ox. (They do this every year, bringing in different animals each year.)

The temple was so crowded this year I almost hyperventilated.

The above photo is the only clear one I managed to snap of the cows before the crowd pushed in and blocked my view.

I think they were a bit traumatised. I mean the cows.

The crowd totally owned me.

The smoke from the joss sticks, too. I couldn’t stop crying.

Here’s the God of Wealth by proxy:

We kinda missed the deitifying ritual because it started early this year. It was total, total madness. Here’s the queue of people waiting to shake hands with the God of Wealth:

I didn’t hang around inside for too long. For some reason, there was no concert and no countdown this year, like they have every other year. So, after paying our respects in the temple, we escaped outside to eat ice cream.

That’s my favourite part of the celebrations every year. There’s always at least one ice cream man outside the temple selling traditional “home made” ice cream, the no-brand kind we used to eat when we were kids.

After the temple visit, we went to watch Ip Man at VivoCity.

Ip Man is really, really good. I never used to like Donnie Yen but now I do, although I think his hairstyle in the show is super dorky.

I feel the urge to learn Chinese martial arts all over again. Except I still don’t have the time to. =(

The movie ended at 4:30 am. I went to bed at 6:30 am. Fell asleep maybe 7:30 am.

Slept all the way till 3 pm!!

Haha. Did my first CNY visiting at 5:30 pm.

Except for the temple visit, CNY this year is pretty quiet for me.

Nine more days of Chinese New Year to go!! Still got chance to collect ang pow!

By the way, tomorrow is 人日, which is supposed to be everyone’s birthday. I can never understand this concept, but who cares. It’s the day when we are supposed to celebrate by eating yu sheng. Anything that involves yu sheng works for me!

So, happy birthday to you and me!