Went to check out the 5th Star Movie Carnival at the Kuching Amphitheater on Friday. Actually got two tickets from Hassle Free’s promotional booth when I signed up for their card two weeks ago. A total of 9 movies would be showing over a span of three days. I choose to go on the first day with Amiey because I simply haven’t seen two of movies on that particular day.
Basically, the concept of the whole movie carnival is you get to watch movies under the stars. Open air la kiranya. I was kind of skeptical on the sound system because a few weeks ago, when I went went to check out Chill at The Park, the speakers were ‘pecah‘ or, I think you can say distorted.
Anyway, the whole concept of the event is good, but implementation was rather poor. I had two tickets, and I didn’t need the tickets to get in. Security was lacking, and we managed to slip into the amphitheater in broad day light. They had performances before the launch of the carnival, which co-incidentally also came under the umbrella of the Kuching Fest.
In fact, I came early because I was told that they would be giving free ice-cream, and there would be a treasure hunt going on, and some other performances. Didn’t get my free ice-cream, the treasure hunt was difficult because it was dark and I ended up empty handed… and the performances were adequate. Also met Georgette Tan while I was doing the treasure hunt, and she was on assignment, so we didn’t say much to each other. Owh.. the ticket claimed that there would be movie characters, but nahhh.. didn’t see any. Maybe they went into hiding.
The first movie “Sayang You Can Dance” was a Malay movie which was okay. Sound system was fine, and perfect during the whole movie. Second movie was “Knowing“, which was actually a very interesting movie.. but the poor sound system proved to be so bad, I wished I was home. In addition to that, I shared my blood with at least 10 mosquitoes, which wasn’t really pleasing, but the sky and the weather was fantastic for the whole event.
I think, a lot more can be done to make this event better. It’s now in the 5th year, and I wonder what improvements have been done. Frankly speaking, if it was to be like this for future editions, I’d rather spend my time doing something else..
