Support Malaysian Movie!. . . . . . . . .Should I?

Last Saturday I went to Alamanda Shopping Mall at Putrajaya for my weekly ritual Retail Therapy and R&R. Among other shops that I walked into was this local franchise Music & DVD Retail shop on the Lower Ground Floor. I buy Movie DVDs all the times and I just couldn’t resist to just ignore this shop whenever I see one.

In just 30 minutes I already ended up with 4 DVDs in my hand; JAWS-Special Edition, Aquamarine, Coco Avant Chanel and Talentime. I have been meaning to buy Talentime for a long time because I didn’t get the chance to watch that movie in the cinema. The review about Talentime movie was very interesting and good. Arwah Yasmin Ahmad was well known for putting together interracial issues of Malaysia, the cultures and the religions in one movie. And I have seen her previous movies such as Sepet, Gubra, Mukhsin and Muallaf in the cinemas and own the DVDs as well. And so I was so excited to watch this movie in my living room.

Quarter ways down the movie, then I started to realized that I cannot understand a damn thing of what the Indian family in this movie was talking about. I started looking for the Subtitle button on my Pioneer remote control. I checked and checked many times in different ways if I have missed any button or anything that make the subtitle gone missing. Then I realized for real that this movie has no subtitle provided. And it’s a DVD for God sake!

I kept thinking that it would be a real shame if this movie does not provide subtitles. Finally I read on the back cover of the DVD and it doesn’t say anywhere that this movie has subtitles. But it’s written there that the language was Bahasa Malaysia. Even this they cannot get it right! Through out the movie, 3 languages were spoken through; Bahasa Malaysia, English and Tamil. Not just Bahasa Malaysia language. WHY CAN’T THEY GET THIS RIGHT?

It’s a real shame to this movie! Rather than I get annoyed guessing what the Indian Family was chatting about through out the movie, I decided to press the STOP button on my remote control and replaced Talentime DVD with COCO Avant Chanel Movie.

I was shocked and deeply disappointed with this unfortunate issue. Then again I told to myself, this is a very typical problem of Malaysian products in general. There’s always something stupid that would come out from it. It was half way done and I cannot believe that no one from the production of Talentime even care to put the subtitles. This is so sad!

Very little Malaysian speaks Tamil and to convey such beautiful message about how different cultures and religion in Malaysia lives through this movie without subtitles is one STUPID and LAZY move. I don’t think it was that hard to come out with the subtitles as the cinema version already had subtitles. Even the counterfeit DVDs that they sell at Pasar Malam have subtitles. Although most of the times it wasn’t a perfect translation but still they took all the effort to put subtitles anyway in those RM5 Hollywood Movies.

I was very disappointed with this “halfassed” production. Never again I buy a Malaysian Movie that is done to rip me off like this. It’s not about the money. Telentime DVD only cost me RM 19.90 and I buy DVDs that cost RM 59.90 all the times. But the one thing that I expect from a DVD is to have beautiful flawless pictures, a decent good sound, subtitles and maybe some bonus features. That’s all!

I mean, not only they didn’t put subtitles for us to understand the Tamil Language conversations, there were no special features what so ever on top of that. So why should I even bother to buy Malaysian Movie next time? This movie wasn’t that great, but I wanted to support Malaysian Products so every once and a while when I came across an OK Malay Movies, I buy them because I want them to grow and make money for their hard work and make a better productions next time.

But I guess, I better to just stick to Hollywood or foreign movies that has multi-language subtitles and even put a little extra bonus features in the DVD version.

So don’t come complain to me asking why I didn’t support Malay Movies. I did but I got disappointed for one too many!

NEVER Trust Anyone: The Story Of How I Lost My Cat Named Snow

There are numerous occasions that I just forget to be critical of the people that came through to me. I let myself trust these people and I thought that would be good. But a lot of times when I gave these people the one thing that is most important in a friendship, trust! I ended up with a big lost on my hand.

Sometimes in the early December 2009, my friend Sam called and messaged me in my Facebook telling me that his friend named Adam interested to mate his female Black-colored Persian cat named Darla with my White Persian named Snow.

I often put the photos of my 4 cats in Facebook as they are my life and joy. This is how people see how adorable they are. I have been keeping them closer than a family for years and years. Snow is a four year old cat, was born on the 20th January 2006 from a Tortoise-colored Persian name Putri. However Snow did not inherit the color of Putri’s fur, instead he is white as a snow just like his father, a cat that belongs to my neighbor at our previous home at Lavender Heights, Seremban.

Among Snow’s siblings, Snow is the oldest and possessed such a long fur and a tough bone structure. Compared to a normal cat, Snow is quite huge in size.

However, one working day, Sam and Adam came to my office to get Snow back to Adam’s apartment to be living temporarily with Darla, hoping that Darla would get pregnant by Snow. Initially, Adam said that he could just come and take Snow and would not bother me with anything. I thought that idea was quite weird because Adam offered me no invitation to his apartment. So I told him straight that I would be so uncomfortable to just let him take Snow and not knowing where he’s taking him. Just to be safe, I thought!

So I followed Adam and Sam back to Adam’s apartment to see where he lives and so forth. Thinking that should there be any problem later, at least I know now where Adam lives and I could just take Snow back. I thought that should be secure enough for my doubt and skeptical about this whole arrangement.

On the 3rd week of Snow living at Adam’s, I decided to pick him back home. So I SMS Adam and told him my intention. A few days after that on the 30th of December, Adam called me right after 2 pm, told me that Snow is missing from his apartment and feared dead.

He said that his friends wanted to come and see the cats and realized that Snow was not in the room and that the balcony sliding door was slightly opened. With such shocking news from Adam, I called Sam and told him about the situation. I was hoping that I would get some kind of help and protection from Sam. But I told Sam not to come instead. When I got to the lobby front entrance of Adam’s apartment, he was waiting there with his four friends (a girl and 3 guys). I thought to myself, why would his friends be there? Then he explained that his friends were there to help him looked for Snow. Yeah! Whatever! And so I thought to myself!

So we went around the parking lot and concluded that if Snow jumped off from the balcony, he wouldn’t be dead or injured at all as the balcony is only 7 feet high and there are grass and bushes of plants right under the balcony.

Adam said that Bangladeshi’s Security guy said to have seen a huge white cat with blood gushing out from his mouth, dying by the parking lot early that morning. And by around 10am, he said the cleaning lady already cleared the dead cat and threw it in the trash can. By 11am, the trash truck came picked up all the garbage. No trace of Snow ever and all Adam had to prove was this questionable stain of blood which was already dried up and almost clean from the floor behind the parking lot. There is no gushing-blood stain any where. Only trails of stains that could be blood or could be spits of Sirih because the cleaning ladies were Indians.

After searching for nothing in the parking lot, I went to Darla’s room. Adam said when Darla gave birth to kittens later, he will give me two of them to me. I said that would be in the uncertain future and I don’t care for the kittens. I care a lot more for Snow than anything else. I was thinking that if Adam stole Snow from me, would he have the integrity to give me the kittens? I didn’t think so!

I started to feel really sad as I see no evident of dead Snow. My gut instinct told me that Snow is still alive and he could be living in someone else’s living room now. Even to this day, I still feel that Snow was stolen from me and not dead.

After the incident, I realized that Adam offered me no consolation, neither courtesy call nor SMS to comfort for my lost or to apologize for his negligence. Right after I left, he completely shut me out. No communication at all. Based on these facts and after telling numerous cat owners and animal lover, they were all agreed on one thing, Adam is a cat thief! They said that Adam has grown fonder of Snow and couldn’t let him go. So he faked a death, but he has no strong proved of Snow’s Death what so ever. I figured he was afraid that I would take Darla in replacement for my missing Snow, so he brought his “support group” to be around us when we looked for Snow.

The whole thing was really suspicious! Somehow I knew from the start that there was something not right with Adam’s character. And he knew damn well that the sliding door inside Darla’s room cannot be opened when Snow was there because I made it very clear to him about this. But he turned around and made this as the point of reason of how Snow got out from the room. He said his “housemate” opened the sliding door and he didn’t realize it. Frankly, I don’t think his “housemate” was that stupid! Frankly I was the fool for not being able to do anything for Snow.

After a very long while, finally last night Adam MMS me a photo of a dead cat. In the MMS Adam wrote, “Ths pic baby Darla, but sory dh mati. So sad”. 2nd SMS “Sekor..warna htam tu. I rasa tkilan dn sdih..darla x pandai jaga anak”. 3rd SMS “Ari khamis ari tu, I nk beritahu u tapi I krusus”. Last SMS “X..Housemate I ada kat rmh..I blik kg trus..smlm bru blik..dpt mms anak dia? I hanyutkan body kt sg tmpt cat I yg mati”

I sent Adam one last SMS after his 4th SMS, “Hmm! OK lah tu. I think I yg really should be sad n angry in this whole ordeal. Ikutkan rule, u yg kena letak Darla kat tempat I to get pregnant. Tp sekarang kucing I hilang n anak dia pun u x bleh bg kat I pun. Tgk pun x de. You still got Darla n probably more and I end up with nothg. I don’t see u try to comfort me or offer anything for your negligent. Not even sms saying sorry pun x pernah. No coutesy to me whatsoever. But u know what, x pelah Adam. I pun x kenal u lansung. Tulah kesilapan besar I.”

Adam didn’t reply to my last SMS. I also forwarded a copy to Sam. Sam replied this SMS to my Facebook.

Well, after this incident, I have learnt a great deal of lesson. Never ever to trust anyone, not even a friend, let alone a friend to a friend. I thought that if Sam introduced his friend Adam to me, Adam must be a good person. This is a given fact because I trusted Sam. I have no reason to be suspicious of a friend. And Sam would make a good reference to anyone.

Well I thought WRONG. I was so wrong about this whole thing. I lost something valuable because I thought someone would be honoring back my sincerity and honesty to them. I was a FOOL!

To Snow, I am so sorry for letting this happened to you right under my nose. Where ever you are my darling, dead or alive, I believe in Karma of life.

To Adam Kamaruddin, just remember that what goes around comes around!