The development of an internet filter system a.k.a "Green Dam" made known by our "Culture" Minister, Dato Rais Yatim was quashed hours later by the Prime Minister himself. Cilck
here for the news.
Though the idea is noble that is to prevent pornography from our kids, but it is going to be totally useless, politically incorrect and another waste to the taxpayers's money.
Instinctively we abhored pornography. It degenerate the value of a human being and we tried to prevent our children from getting such materials. And we also know that sex-addicts and sex-offenders are porn lovers.
Nevertheless pornography has been around for thousand of years, e.g. the ancient Romans decorated their mansions and public bathrooms with fornicating men, women and everything in between. Even so the book of Kamastura from India, that's ancient "porn". But this doesn't make pornography acceptable whether in the West or the East.
And today, these images still existed except that they are "motion" pictures and distributed far and wide with the help of the internet, a tool where almost everybody have the access to it.
Essentially this destroys our taboo on sex and I believed almost all of Malaysian teenagers have at least watched a "Blue" or an X-Rated movie once in their lifetime.
So this brought us to some of the most essential questions
1. Should we filter the internet for porns?
Pro:Yes because porn degenerate our minds.
Con:No because it is the basic rights for Malaysians to get what ever information they want. The individuals themselves using their own conscience to choose what information they want.
2. How can we filter porn itself?
Pro: We built a centralised "Mega-super-duper" filter in Cyberjaya that controls the in's and out's of information in the internet.
Con: No we can't stop the porn getting into the country, as technolgy evolves rapidly and once we stop a "porn-material carrier" another system wil replaced it. Thus the filter will be useless and government need to spend some more money to built a new "dam".
3. Will the filter be used just for porns?
Pro: Obviously! That's the purpose.
Con: Once the government started to control what we should watch, think and say through a filter that "we" condoned in the first place, it will eventually moved to other things such as politics, culture et cetera. So better reject it know rather than when it is too late.
The Prime Minister decision to outrightly reject the idea of an internet filter should be praised. Living in a world where information criss-crossed from one place to another in a fraction of a second, I simply cannot understand why Malaysia still need an information cum culture minister, who is still living in the Ice Age.
So what we need now is a vibrant society that discusses on important issues such as education, environment, religion etc. Actually thsi is not so difficult, as more and more of our children are getiing into universities. This I think would probaly make the pornography industry die from a natural death as we are just too busy to surf porns.
I think Rais Yatim should go.
For the last several weeks (perhaps 3 weeks already), I've not been to the GSC to watch a movie. There are several good movies out there like Angle & Demons, Startrek and Night at the Museum; but non of those movies able to entice me to go to the GSC and buy a movie ticket.
Maybe these are the symptoms of a "Movie-Goer Fatigue". After 10 weeks or so in a row, watching every single new movie release on either Wednesday or Thursday with Makdi, I've grown tired of them all. I don't know about Makdi, but the movies today simply can be categorised as overly credited or promoted or some sort of.
Yes there are several good movies like Wolverine, Talentime and Watchmen; but most of the movies that we watched were absolute farce (especially Mall Cop!).
The probable explanation for this fatigue might also be found from my new "habit" of visiting the Biotech Labs after 5 pm to have some chit-chat with Makdi, Ain, Ainil, Azlinah and other frequent visitors.
But one thing that might actually answer this "fatigue" is that I've tried to exit my solitary by spending some amount of money for instant gratification with a best friend. And I found that, it is not the answer.
It was Wednesday, a movie day. Makdi and I went to the GSC to watch a movie and the obvious pick would be X-Men Wolverine.
The movie is about Wolverine, a comic character in the X-Men series. Everything was superb. From the casting to the story-line, the location to the animation.
The best movie we've seen for this year perhaps.
Two Thumbs Up! (Or is it four?)
5 out of 5 stars.
The movie started quite "seriously", with a girl being haunted by voices coming out of no where. The girl was totally being “controlled” by the voice and she suggested to her teacher to produce a time-capsule. This is for her friends and herself to put letters and aspirations for their future generations to open it later.
She then wrote a long string of numbers on a piece of paper and her teacher, perplexed with what she saw, took the paper away and put it in the time capsule.
That was in 1959 and today, in the year 2009, the time capsule was re-opened. Prior to that, viewers were introduced to the Hero of the movie: Nicolas Cage. Old and serious in nature, he is quite suitable for the role as a father, a Physic Professor and an agnostic.
At the ceremony of the time-capsule’s opening, the letters were distributed to the schoolchildren and Nic Cage’s son got the letter with numbers on it. From that moment, the movie has gotten crappier than ever.
Nic Cage, a “professor” by his own right, try to solve those strings of numbers by relating it with accidents that killed a lot of people for example the 9/11, Madrid bombings und so weiter…
Then he predicted that another accident is going to happen and it did. And then another and then another.
The one thing that I like about this movie is its graphics. The plane crash, the subway accident and the earth being eaten up by the sun, excellent works of art!
Long story short, the aliens (where the voice originated) were actually not the bad guys. They were “angelic” in nature and tried to salvage the human’s generations by taking a pair of boy and girl into their large spaceship, in this case, Nic Cage son. And the funny thing is? Nic Cage, who solved the riddle of the numbers was being left behind by the aliens. He almost got into the space ship with his son but the aliens made gestures saying “NO, you cannot come with us, though you solve the problem, but you cannot, maybe because you are so hideous, we don’t like that in the new planet.”
So that’s was it, Nic Cage drove back to his home to be with his family for the last time before being eaten up by flames from the Sun. The End.
Makdi and I laughed away as the movie ended. Poor you Nic Cage. Hahaha..
This movie got 3 out of 5 stars? Hehehe..
Viewed on 11th April 2009
This time around, I am alone in watching the movie and it is a story from our neighbouring country, Thailand. It was about a nation named Langkasuka, located on the northern part of present Malaysia, which was ruled by a woman and her sisters during the 16th century or so. They were typically Malays in outlook but they spoke Siam (I once had this feeling went the last time I’ve visited Bangkok last year, Malay looking but cannot speak Malay, it was weird).
The storyline goes along love, magic and war. The state of Langkasuka were given two large artillery guns from the Dutch but the ship bringing it was sunk after a daring attack by the pirates. The pirates tried to retrieve them from the sea bottom but it was guarded by “magic” obor-obor.
They were also a group of sea gypsies living at the nearby island to the Langkasuka state. They helped the state by fending off attacks by the pirates against the state. In this group of Gypsies, came the hero of the story that was quite an “eye-candy”. He tried to learn the magical art of “Du-Lum”, an art that involved the sea creatures und so weiter. He got married to Bintang and one day Bintang was killed by the pirates and thrown into the sea. That made him “mad” and proceeded by learning the art of Du-Lum, the wrong way from the Du-Lum master on an island somewhere in South China Sea.
One of the surviving artillery guns designers stayed for years with the Sea Gypsies. This Chinese guy was eventually being captured the pirates and helped to them to built a few small powerful cannons. He was saved by the Langkasuka warriors and was brought to the state to built two powerful cannons and some other inventions.
Also throughout the story, there were “skirmishes” by the Langkasuka warriors as well as by the Sea Gypsies themselves against the pirates. One thing is there was no continuation from one plot to another and that sucks. Almost at the end of the movie, the pirates assembled a large army and tried to invade Langkasuka. The Queen of Langkasuka also prepared for a defensive position with her high-walled city. At one point, the pirates successfully destroyed all of the state’s small cannons but the attack was staved off by the two large cannons built by the Chinese inventor. The story ends with the defeat of the pirates after all the magic and bombs being used.
It was a total waste of time for anybody expecting a good Thai movie that involved history and actions.
As a whole 2 ½ stars out of 5.
