savetheempire Reviews

What's Up with Cinta? (2002)

Sheer brilliance

[5 October 2002]

I just watched this film last week as part of the Indonesian Film

Festival in Melbourne - I'm studying Bahasa Indonesia at school

and am doing a project on kebudayaan remaja - youth culture.

Kids, this is a great movie. It's better than any teen flick churned

out by Hollywood in recent memory (it is, I would say, in the 10

Things I Hate About You league). It's not great for a 'foreign' movie

or whatever - it's great in it's own right.

It combines the age-old appeal of teenage romance with enviable

friendship, humour and the poignant sadness of Alya's situation.

Cinta is the kind of character girls aspire to - pretty, smart, gutsy as

all hell - and Rangga is, well, let's face it, he's hot as all get out.

There's some serious messages in this film, about friendship,

about honesty, about violence and trust, but luckily it steers from

being preachy. Maybe it's because the Indo film industry is less

jaded than that of Hollywood, but this movie gets right what so

many Hollywood teen flicks have gotten wrong.

Watch this movie. Fall in love with it. Trust me.

Press Gang (1989–1993)

Defining moment of childhood

[2 February 2002]

I would have been all of seven or eight years old when this aired in Australia - probably a little outside the target audience. Lucky I have an older sister who watched it, otherwise I may never have been exposed to the brilliance that was Press Gang. There's nothing you can say against the show - it was well written, creative, honest and the characters were fantastically developed. They were real, quirky . . . they were *characters* in the truest sense of the word. I purchased one of the Press Gang books (#4 - The Date) years ago, and re-read it the other day, thus reigniting my earlier love for the show. I wonder - do any Australians have any hope that the ABC will repeat it? The storylines were incredible - humorous and thought provoking and unique. I still remember the episodes with the gunman, or the one when the record store collapsed with Spike inside, or the one with Linda and Spike handcuffed together. And who could forget that 'everyone loves a Ping'? I challenge anyone to inform me of a better children's program. This was television at its finest.