Ice Age 2

As I entered the cinema hall, I saw children everywhere. Well it was a kids’ movie, right? I feared the worst, with kids crying and asking silly questions.

However, thank goodness, the movie was good and captivating enough to shush the crybabies and simple enough that there was only one silly question at the end, by a very silly boy – “he didn’t die?” as the squirrel entered the gates of heaven. Nothing a little religious education can’t fix.

I liked that it wasn’t all about the voice actors (Shark Tale) or how the supporting characters were a lot more memorable (Madagascar). I also liked how it wasn’t heavy, or a preachy, emotional epic, like Finding Nemo, Brother Bear or A Land Before Time. Even Chronicles Of Narnia felt heavy. I watch kids movies to be entertained!

Rojak!

Anyway, on Friday, I headed to KLPAC with Elaine and Bernard to watch Rojak!. A bunch of plays, each with its own message. It was also lighter than The Homecoming, thankfully, and the only play tough on the brain was the one with Rauf, guitarist for Flatline.

They started with sales girls trying to pitch their dresses to a customer. Vicious and vivid? Yes. However, they could’ve slowed down the conversation pacing – they didn’t look like did not have to think of the comeback before reciting the comeback (and I believe that makes a world of importance in making a play believable.) Like not taking a breath before the punchline. An example of perfect comic timing? Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Thankfully, the next one, a conversation at a mamak, was better timed, and didn’t have the pretentious salesgirl accents. The next one, about ah happy family, was very amusing indeed.

Emily KICKED ASS as a prim and proper tai-tai holding a party… where nobody came. The part about RSVPing and then FFKing spoke volumes (since I didn’t originally but the tickets for Elaine and Bernard!)

She played a similiar role on the boat play; always prim and proper and aunty-ish, ironic because I knew she was one of the youngest on the cast.

It was only after the intermission that I started taking flashless pictures. As a challenge, I turned off the live view, so the only light on the camera was the power indicator. I intentionally shot from the hip, just like a lomo camera, so pardon the bad vertical aim! Settings? Manual exposure, 1/30 seconds, brightest aperture, ISO100, and when the actors and actresses came closer to the audience, I had to drop it to 1/60 seconds to avoid overexposing.

The only sound that came out of it was the mechanical shutter, a bit too loud for my liking. A n00bish uncle behind was bip-bopping with his Fujifilm. I almost wanted to offer to silence his camera for him. Elaine wanted to snap too, and I silenced her Fujifilm S7000.

There was a British-like monologue about applying for Malaysian citizenship, another funny one, perhaps magnified in hilariousness by his big glasses.

Then there was the nosy aunty, the mistress and the friend at a funeral.

And oh hello Priya! Ooo, hello nurse!

This was probably the coolest in terms of cinematography, where another actress and a guy act out a flashback. “My father cared for me, I know he did.”

“And then he made love to me.” The nurse recounts a rose-tainted story, but that wasn’t what really happened.

A choral speaking session mocked the Tak Nak! campaign. Reuben (also the producer) was hilarious as the stoner dude.

If I bothered to take pictures as discreetly as everyone else, I’d have better pictures, oh… I know it. Also bumped into Grace the official photographer.

It was only after the show that I discovered why Elaine’s pictures always seemed blurry. Her S7000 was set to manual focus! (And being a big prosumer camera, it remembers the setting because it has its own switch.) I then set it to auto focus. I’d hate to imagine if that thing was on all this while, since she uses Auto mode most of the time! She still posts interesting conversations, so go read her anyway.