Bad Movies and the 'Plup-plup' Babies

It used to be Sylvester Stallone as a one-man renegade soldier and Arnold Schwarzenegger as an android with a license to kill. Now, it’s Keira Knightley as a bounty hunter and Charlize Theron as a dominatrix assassin. What has the world gone into?

Every Astro viewer would be familiar with the ad of the Taiwanese (I think) musical Perhaps Love because it comes out just about every commercial slot. Anyway, despite the annoyance I think it shows promise. It has that spectacular-ness and splendour of Moulin Rouge and Chicago. I mean, look at me, I can’t even get that ‘Hah-mei-yo, sah-mei-yo’ chant out of my head. It’s disturbingly catchy. But that’s not the point. Good for them, you see, but it’s something closer to home that has me worrying. It seems that musicals are a returning trend in the movie industry nowadays and Malaysia are trying to jump onto the bandwagon. News is, one of the most anticipated one is Divas, starring none other than Ning Baizura. Another is a copycat of Kabhi Kushi. The local film industry tried this musical formula once before and it didn’t catch up. Now they’re trying at it again and I tell you what, the result will still be the same. Well, maybe they’ll earn some worthwhile revenue but I can pretty much assure you, if you’re expecting even a hint of a Broadway quality standard, you will be disappointed. Malaysia is still pretty useless in making movies, let alone musicals. We have such terrible choreographers and I can’t remember the last time I heard a good soundtrack coming from a local film. I just hope they will scrap this idea but I guess it’s a bit too late, isn’t it?

Still sticking with the movie theme, how many of you are excited about Narnia? I’m pretty sure everyone who has seen the trailer would more or less agree that it’s a cross between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Both movies are fantastic so there’s no reason not to be excited. I’m excited about the movie myself. But not for all about the 3 noble children against the bad white witch and the penultimate battle between good and evil. What I’m more interested about was when I saw the trailer, there’s a scene showing two talking beavers at a table, conversing intelligently. I mean, how fascinating is that? Talking beavers! It’s both so disturbing and intriguing at the same time. Can you imagine having them as pets? “Hi, welcome to my home. Would you like to see my pet beavers? They talk, you know. They can even quote Shakespeare.” And they say the young minds of today are twisted. And this book was published in the 1950s.

Okay, leaving movies behind, I want to talk about something more gruesome. Last weekend, after a good kickabout of futsal, the lads went for a drink, as usual. But this time around we had a medic student among us and being boys, we couldn’t help but ask all about the gruesome, disgusting and every sexually inclined stories there is to know. It started off rather lightly with questions regarding the appendix. Then we venture into buasir (I don’t what it is in English). The highlight has to be when we talked about delivering babies. Imagine this, he’s the same age as I am and yet, he has personally delivered 10 babies into this world. 10! And apparently as a med student, this is nothing of a big deal. And this guy has come face to face to a wide variety of female genitalia that I can ever hope for to see in my entire life. And he gets to stick his fingers into them, to know the baby’s position and stuff. Not to play, of course, because that will be malpractice. Though he did mention having a close call with one patient. She was young and it was her first pregnancy so came to see this friend of mine to do the usual check-up and when the sticking-in-your-fingers part came he felt, well, let me quote, “dahla lembut, ketat, panas…huih,”. Of course, being a good doctor and everything he reassigned the patient to a colleague. Did I mention she’s pretty too? Well, she is and that didn’t really help in lessing the discomfort part. Then there’s the plup-plup babies. What’s a plup-plup baby? Well, the term really came about that night but a plup-plup baby is a baby who is the sixth or probably seventh child of the mother. So in that case the mother is pretty used to the birth process and the ‘access route’ is, well, more accessible. So the baby comes out rather easily. And my friend imitated the delivery action while sounding a ‘plup’ sound, hence the plup-plup babies. The opposite, of course, are first time mothers and he further explained that in delivery cases, there’s always a pair of scissors. I wouldn’t tell you what it’s used for ‘cause I know you very much can guess and it’s not just cutting the umbilical cord. And let me tell you the size, is pretty intimidating. Now I can understand why first-time fathers are happy and yet a bit sad at the birth of his first-born. I know I would.

It’s the final month of the year and Christmas is coming soon. A year ago I was pretty much miserable. Well, it hasn’t changed much this time around either. I’m slowly beginning to fathom the harsh realities of living in this unfair and cruel world. It’s only Tuesday and I’m already thinking about the weekend. Ah yes, another disgruntled human being. Oh I forgot to mention Cahaya came by the house recently for a meet-the-parents session. It went well, I guess. It was uneventful to say the least. She was rather tall. But then again, she’s a stewardess, as if I’m expecting something less. One thing I did notice she had a pair of Coach shoes on. That must’ve cost something. But again, she must have bought them somewhere in Paris after having some croissant for breakfast down at a café au lait near her hotel where she was staying. Yet, I find it rather difficult to imagine her as future sister-in-law. I wonder why?