Ultraviolet and Driving
just caught this at the theaters tonight. so what happens is that a good number of the human population has now been infected with a virus that causes them to become sorta super-human. this virus was first an experiment for the government to form an army of genetically-modified stronger and swifter soldiers, but it kinda spread to the civilians by accident. this infected subspecies of human are now called the ‘haemophages’, and are hated and discriminated against by the rest of the ‘normal’ human species. humans walk around wearing masks for fear of contracting the virus from the haemophages (though this baffles me .. why wouldnt anyone want to be superhuman?), and the human government are going to all lengths to kill any haemophages they see.
Milla Jovovich is our heroine - a hot, ass-kicking haemophage with issues. she hates the humans for the prejudice and alienation towards haemophages, and when she and her buddies find out there is a weapon being made by the humans to effectively wipeout the entire haemophage species, she stops at nothing to obtain and destroy that weapon. when she finds out what that weapon is (JENGJENGJENG..), her life as she knows it sorta spirals out of control, and she finds herself protecting the weapon instead of destroying it.
overall, i thought this show was okay. it’s a very typical Milla Jovovich flick - Resident Evil, The Fifth Element - action action action and a hot girl in a hot suit. the fight scenes, especially the one at the end, were amazing, i totally loved them. her inventory and fight moves are just wow! visuals were 5-star as well, and projected the atmosphere of a soulless futuristic world (think Minority Report) very well. i cant say so much for plot though. development was kind of sucky for a platform with such potential. Jovovich cant really act, and the screenplay (or lack of it) didnt help her out at all. you’ll see what i mean when you catch this show - she’s supposed to have a major personality shift, but it came out very unbelievable and insincere. i was like, *rollseyesohplease!*
besides yummy fight scenes, the only thing left to be desired for is the sociopolitical subtext. at first i thought the whole discrimination against haemophages was a commentary on racism as we know it today, but all the religious icons and imagery in the movie kinda made sense after a while. humans = Church, haemophages = infidels. kinda brings a new light to the fervor at which the humans were stooping to eradicate the haemophages. also sorta explains why in this movie, the human civilians were so afraid of the haemophages even though they were harmless (well, at first) … it was really just a product of mass fear-insertion cos the government was afraid of being overthrown by the haemophage community.
i’d say Ultraviolet is a 2/5. for you if you like action, good fight scenes, Aeon Flux, comic books and a hot girl in tight clothes.
actually, i was gonna review Lucky Number Slevin and Inside Man as well (both very good shows!!), but i’m so tired i could die. it’s been a long and busy week and the weekend doesnt look like it’s gonna gimme any rest either. i’m good, though, cos it’s EASTER WEEKEND!!! whoo hoo!!
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How To Know You Take Too Many Cabs, And Should Start Learning How To Drive
1. Radio cab receptionists have memorized your phone number
2. Some cabbies have nicknames for you
3. Some cabbies know where all your boyfriends live
4. You hail a cab from somewhere far away, and when you get in, the cabbie says “what are you doing in this side of town??”
5. You know how to glance at the cab meter via the backseat window
6. When cabbies are paged to pick you up, they know to take their time getting there because ‘this girl is always late wan’
7. You can accurately rattle off the taxi fares to every damn place in KL
8. Some cabbies say your home address even before you give it to them
okay no more.
today’s cab story - i was taking a cab to KLCC. i got in, made myself comfortable, and stared out the window. after a while, the cabbie looked at me and said in Chinese, “you’re always sick.”
“huh??”
“you’re the girl who studies in Maluri right..? you cannot remember me ah? you used to page for cabs to go to school, right?”
“hahaha .. yea that would be me”
“well, everytime you come in my cab you’re sniffling or sneezing. even today.”
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anyway, the above list will soon be obsolete, because su ann has finally taken the first step towards obtaining a driver’s license!!!
i signed up the other day for the Undang (Highway Code) seminar thingy, and oh. my. shitadilly, it was seriously the worst 5 hours of my life. i kept fidgeting, twitching, playing with my hair .. basically everything except listen to the speaker. he wouldnt let me read my Murakami novel (felt like school all over again) and so i settled on working out my schedule for the week as well as next week. and zoning out. and fidgeting. and twitching. and playing with my hair.
then came a moment where he decided to test the students. and if you care, btw, they were all very enthusiastic about being in the class. laughing and joking and shit!!! i just sat there being very bored while Speaker Dude made lame jokes and said the word ‘fuck’ three times. but despite that, for a slight moment, there was a noticeable decline in Total Attention Paid among the room’s inhabitants that day. it could have been due to the insanely warm sluggish weather or it could have been due to the fact that, oh i dont know, maybe this guy is BORING?!, but either way, Speaker Dude realized this and so he decided to ask us a question to bring us back into the zone, the bloody attention-seeker.
“Macam mana nak mengenalpasti bahawa seseorang pemandu sedang membawa kenderaan di bawah pengaruh alkohol?”
(How do you determine if a driver is driving under the influence of alcohol?)
i was doodling in my notebook, but i heard his question loud and clear. and i knew the answer. so automatically and almost instantaneously, i looked up and blurted out :
“Potassium dichromate.”
everyone turned around and looked at me weird. i wanted to say, what?? half of you people are older than me and must have taken SPM Chemistry! surely you know this!!!
after an awkward two seconds passed (i swear i heard crickets), Speaker Dude cleared his throat and said, “Um, the answer is, through his breath, blood and urine.”
ohmygawwwwd.
saja nak memalukan me. why couldnt he have just said, yes yes potassium dichromate is the chemical that we use in those three methods!
bastard.
AND THE CATALYST IS ARGENTUM NITRATE.
Comments April 15th, 2006
