Gol & Gincu

Raya holis means that all the TV stations (TV3, NTV7, 8TV, Astro Ria & RTM) are showing Malay movies, LOTS of them. During the holis I would always find myself sitting down to watch a local movie, and then half-way in the show I will find myself flipping the channels to watch another "can't-grab-my-attention" local movie which is being shown on the other channels.

It's sad to say this, but most of the time i just find that local movies:

1) Stereotypes their characters (Take Cinta Kolesterol. Guy doesn't like girl and the reason HAS to be that she is FAT. And she HAS to be fat because she has low self-esteem and eats a lot and only beleive she can be a better person if she slims down.) But after some incidents guy finally finds out her true inner beauty and they get together. What a typical Pendidikan Moral petikan about not judging a book for its cover yes?

2) The characters are so 2- dimensional. Good guys are good guys, bad guys are bad guys. There is no complexities of emotions, no layers of feelings. You don't understand why the bad guy is a bad guy and likes to pick on the good guy, but at the same time the good guy is so ho-hum boring that you don't feel any emotional attachment to him/her and you don't find yourself rooting for him/ her (hence not waiting for the movie to end before flipping channels).

3) Other useless side stories. There are always some other side stories so that we don't just focus on the main characters. Most of the time the side stories are supposed for gags (more often than not played by the cast of Senario) and add no impact or importance to the movie whatsoever. And most of the time, they're not funny. Now I actually love Saiful Apek and I enjoy Senario, but I just don't find them funny in the movies when they play the lesser characters.

4) Same old faces...Yusry, Erra, Nasha, Rosyam, Saiful Apek, (lately) Waheeda...

5) Same old, boring straight-forward way of telling stories, same camera shots...

..and lots more... I think people who are really into films probably have more to add...:P

Anyway the purpose of this blog is not to bitch. The purpose of this blog is to tell you guys how happy I am that I finally sat through a whole local Malay movie, and it left me with a smile on my face:)

The movie is called "Gol & Gincu".

It's a light romantic comedy, about a girly girl (siap with pink room, pink skirts, bedspread covered with hearts...thinkElle Woods in Legally Blonde:P) who takes up Futsal in order to win her ex-bf back . She puts together a motley crue team of players and they end up winning the Futsal tournament (winning against the other teams whose bitchy captain is the new gf of her ex-bf). In the meantime there are some credible, even considered heavy side stories (portrayed very nicely without giving a real answer, just like in real life), and very good acting from a cast of all new faces. Main role or supporting roles, they all do it very well and you just like them :).

I like the different camera angles, the way the director always films his actors from the mirror (ie shows their reflection in the mirror instead of the usual close-up), I like the way that some scenes don't have any dialogue and yet speaks so much in its silence, I like that the side stories contribute and link to the main story, giving it more impact, I like the appropriate choice of music for different scenes (use of English songs from local acts are cool), I like that the actors sound like they speak English on a regular basis instead of purposely trying to put English into the dialogue in an attempt to sound real but end up not being real, I like that the movie bitch is not such a bitch after all when she helps out the lead in an emergencey in one of the final scens of the movie, and I like the end of the movie with snapshots of the characters and what they do after... that's actually pretty normal, but it wraps up the movie in a nice way (unlike most local movies which probably end up in weddings or something:P)

Ahh...its just good, and I am just glad to see a movie which Malaysians can be proud of:).

P/s; Been trying to find a wallpaper or pic/ stills from the movie, the best free one that I can get is this little one :P.