My brother invited us all for tea at his house in Putrajaya. Afterwards, Nina and I decided to pay a visit to the new shopping mall in Putrajaya, Alamanda. Man, there were so many people!! It's run by the same people who run Suria KLCC, I think, and the lay-out was similar. Not that many shops were open, but it's your standard shopping mall tenants: England Optical, Guardian, KFC, A&W, etc.

On the 2nd day, we took a boat cruise upriver to have a look at the mangrove swamp. An eagle feeding was also organised, there must have been about 20-30 eagles!!

Didn't do much in the afternoon, just relaxed by the beach and at the pool..

The dinner was a formal affair, I opted for black tie. We had pre-dinner drinks at the Reading Room, followed by a wonderful five-course meal. Main course was lobster!

After dinner, there was a small party and cigars at the Saffron lounge.

All in all I had a great time at Tanjung Rhu. Thanks, Najmin and Adlan for inviting me!!

We went to Tanjung Rhu in Pulau Langkawi for the weekend, for Adlan and Najmin's wedding banquet. VERY NICE PLACE!!

Spent the afternoon exploring the place. Dinner was at a BBQ by the beach.

Collateral is the new movie starring Tom Cruise as Vincent, a cold-blooded killer, and Jamie Foxx as Max, the cab driver he's hired to drive him round LA while he offs 5 people involved in a trial.

It's a simple story, but director Michael Mann (Heat, Last of the Mohicans) turns it into a suspenseful, thrilling and ultimately powerful movie. Tom Cruise is absolutely chilling as the ruthless killer, but it's Jamie Foxx who turns in an Oscar-worthy performance as the harrowed everyman cab-driver who's been thrust into this nightmare and must find a way out.

The story moves along at a steady pace, but you won't notice 'cause you'll be at the edge of your seat most of the time. There aren't too many action scenes, but I thought the disco scene and the finale were great!! On par with the bank robbing scene in Heat.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

P/s As with any movie, people were soon discussing it on the IMDB forums. But check out this thread, which discussed the ending (SPOILERS) in minute detail. One guy watched it 20 times (obviously pirated), and some of them seemed to know an awful lot about guns..

Watched M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie, "The Village", last night with Nina.

It was shite.

Some people told me that it was really scary. P-lease. Just because there's heavily-breathing actress in a shadowy forest with ominous music playing in the background, doesn't mean I will be scared. And sudden appearances (Jeng!) are a cheap tactic, Mr. Night. And what's with the lame dialogue and mindless plot? Oh yeah, Mr. Shyamalan, I think you should stay behind the camera, your "trademark" cameos are beginning to wear thin, especially since you can't act!!

Granted, your "twist" at the end was clever, but what's wrong with having a movie without one? I'm getting tired of trying to block the sense of foreboding that I get, knowing that suddenly you'll drop a little "bombshell" at the end that totally screws up the movie.

Weak effort, totally appalling. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Quote:

If the light is off, Then it isn't on. - "So Yesterday", Hillary Duff

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Today, Nina's family hosted a reception for Adlan (Nina's eldest bro) who just got married last Thursday to Najmin. Congratulations to the happy couple!

I almost didn't make it, cause I was suffering from a bad case of food poisoning (still am ). No thanks to half-cooked meat from the BBQ last night!! But I dragged myself there, 'cause Nina and Nini were going to be MCs, and I couldn't miss that.

Above are the pics.

Once again it's silly season in Hollywood, and we have a slew of big-budget movies headed our way! Sometimes it can seem a bit exhausting, with a new movie being premiered every week. So many movies, so little time!!

Well, if you're gonna watch only one movie this summer, make sure it is Resident Evil: Apocalypse!!! This AWESOME movie is totally gonna ROCK!! Forget your spandex-wearing webcrawlers, snot-nosed magicians and ugly green ogres, the movie of the summer is going to be about a scantily dressed chick kicking zombie ass while saving a whole city from a terrifying virus that turns people into.. zombies!! If that's not enough for you, there will be ANOTHER chick in tight shorts who likes blowing zombies to bits with her big gun. I am of course referring to Alice and Jill Valentine, the two protagonists of RE: A.

OK, I admit maybe not everyone is a fan of Resident Evil, but I actually quite liked the 1st movie (it wasn't that bad!). To recap, in the 1st movie, Alice (Milla Jovovich) was an amnesiac secret agent who gets dragged into a military operation to investigate the mysterious shut-down of an underground lab. Of course it all goes horribly wrong when the team discovers that a deadly virus has been unleashed, turning all the lab staff into zombies. Luckily Alice re-discovers her martial arts and weaponry skills in time to open up a can of whup-ass on the zombies, thereby ensuring her survival (and a lucrative sequel)!!

In the sequel, Alice gets to open up a bigger can of whup-ass, cause this time the whole city's infected! The trailer looks quite decent, with what looks like good action sequences. Of course, the publicity pics also show Milla in various states of undress, but I think we'll have to wait for the DVD for the gratuitous full-frontal shots. . A welcome addition to the cast is Jill Valentine, who was a character from the video game (believe it or not, Alice wasn't!). Always good to have a chick who knows how to use an AK-47 assault rifle!

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is due to be released in Malaysia on 30th Sept. Looking forward to it! (Brace yourself, Nina! ). My only gripe is that the Bourne Supremacy is released on the same weekend.. . They should release that the week before!

Donnie Darko was a movie that had a limited release some time in 2001/2. I don't think it did very well at the box-office, 'cause I never heard of it until I stumbled across it while rifling through my brother's DVD collection. It didn't look like the kind of thing that my brother usually buys, so I guess he must have bought it on the recommendation of the shop-owner ("Boss!! Ini punya cerita baik punye!!").

I put it aside at first, but then I came across a few references to it on the Internet, saying how awesome, cool, mind-blowing etc. this movie was, so I decided to watch it. It's about this high-school dude Donnie Darko (played by Jake Gyllenhaal, pre-"Day After Tomorrow") who's kind of a weirdo, doesn't get along with the other kids, but he's actually quite smart. He starts having these weird dreams/visions and strange things start happening around him. Then an airplane engine (I kid you not) falls on his bedroom, but Donnie survives cause at the time, he was chasing after this giant rabbit called Frank. Are you confused yet? Wait 'til you get to the part about black holes and time travel. .

The film is quite surreal, and very trippy. It's great to watch when you're high . But the ending is a killer, and I'm sure you'll go "What? No way! But...". In fact, they're still debating it in Internet chatrooms all over the world!

Personally, I thought it was all right, but I don't see how it deserves the 8.3 it gets on IMDB. But it sure does have a cult following. In fact, a Director's Cut was released this year, with 20 mins of additional "never-before-seen" footage. But I wonder if it's the same as the extra footage they had on the DVD.. Well, hope that the Director's Cut makes it here to Malaysia.

Nina and I went to Laman Asia, the "international" garden and landscaping exhibition which was held at the Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur. There were a lot of people (Sunday), and as usual, parking was a problem.

We walked around for about 2.5 hrs. Some of the flowers and plants were quite nice. But some of the gardens were so typical of a Majlis Perbandaran (City Council) design. I didn't even bother taking photos, just go to your nearest roundabout.

The photos above are probably the best of what's at Laman Asia.