vip in the city

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks

Two weeks before Christmas. The photos speak for themselves, I think.

Should I give up trying to be original? Or should I just try to be more timely with my posts?

This year the NYPD began employing these bright-orange mesh banners for better crowd control at the busy Midtown intersections, similar to those used for rounding up demonstrators during the Republican National Convention in 2004.

Saturday in the boroughs

On the 7 out to Queens, and an alternate view of Midtown and the 5 Pointz “Institute of Higher Burnin” in Long Island City.

I headed back home in the late afternoon — ah, so this is what it feels like! — to throw together Bobby Flay’s Smoky Red Pepper and White Bean Dip before dashing off to meet SYB for the ride to MC’s holiday party. We hopped off the L at Bedford and emerged at the epicenter of hipster Williamsburg.

Despite getting to MC’s about 45 minutes after the appointed party start time, we were among the first guests to arrive. Her loft was welcoming and warm with the scent of mulled wine, a.k.a German Glühwein, French vin chaud, Scandinavian Glögg… whatever you call it, the brew is one of my favorite wintertime drinks.

Mulled wine takes about as much effort to make well as to make poorly. At its worst, the taste can be reminiscent of Robitussin: sickeningly sweet, over-spiced — those supermarket spice bags are best left for potpourri — with a harsh sting of alcohol. At its finest, the wine is warm (not boiling), modestly sweet, lightly spiced and faintly fruity. A splash of brandy, port, or cassis liqueur finishes things off nicely. No need to break out the most expensive bottles either; as with sangria, the cheap stuff will do just fine.

The guests began rolling in, adding their contributions to the groaning buffet table. ‘Tis the season to reunite with old friends and to re-introduce myself to not-so-new friends (whoops). Also to make some new acquaintances, while bonding over mutual love of 5-star samosas and Chelsea galleries.

Organic burgers and banned films

Back at Chelsea Market for dinner before Asian Cinevisions 2006 at the MoMA.

The Green Table‘s wonderful hamburger, made with Lewis Waite grass-fed beef on an Amy’s roll (natch — see bakery photo above), served with housemade tomato relish and pickled onions:

Lelaki Komunis Terakhir (The Last Communist) is the latest film by Amir Muhammad, one of Malaysia’s leading independent filmmakers. He has described the unconventional work as a “semi-musical road movie documentary,” based on the life of onetime leader of the outlawed Malayan Communist Party Chin Peng, tracing the towns in which he lived from birth until national independence in 1957. The Last Communist was to have been the first local documentary slated for theatrical release in Malaysia. Instead, two weeks before its May 2006 opening, after conservative Malay-language daily Berita Harian published a series of articles denouncing the film as a glorification of Communism, it became the first Malaysian film to be banned by the Malaysian Home Ministry.

Previous bans had earned the censorship board a reputation for being overzealous: Daredevil was banned for its satanic-sounding title; Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers for seeming to promote an illicit (if naturally occuring) drug. (Never mind that both were wretched films anyway.)  Episodes of Friends  have been censored for portraying “casual sex, promiscuity amongst youth, pregnancy outside the institution of marriage and prostitution.”

Three months earlier, the Malaysian Film Censorship Board had passed The Last Communist without cuts, despite the potentially problematic title; the subject of communism is taboo in Malaysia, a legacy of the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), when British, British Commonwealth and Malay forces battled the army of the Malayan Communist Party. One Malaysian government minister defended the ban, claiming the film was not violent enough and therefore, a misleading representation of both Chin Peng and the period. The saga was the subject of much media coverage, including the New York Times feature story, “Your Film Is Banned. There’s Not Enough Violence.”

Amir published a long and detailed defense of his film, including a summary of the campaign that was launched against him, on the film’s blog. While local production company Red Films and the filmmaker have attempted to appeal the Home Ministry’s decision, the ban remains enforced in Malaysia, where possession of the film constitutes a criminal offense.

Lost in all of the controversy is whether The Last Communist  is actually any good. Certainly as a “multilingual documentary that explores the diversity and plurality of contemporary Malaysia” (Amir’s words), it shows a facet of the country that few get to see in the KL-centric media. The specially-composed cheery songs about such topics as malarial renal failure and government issued identification cards are an amusing parody of popular propaganda anthems. Chin Peng himself is conspicuously absent — never appearing in film or photograph, and mentioned by name only once. What remains behind is a quirky (and until the end, not particularly political) record, offering a slice-of-life portrait of how ordinary people live in modern-day Malaysia.