Lelaki Komunis Terakhir?

I'm gonna be putting my recent reading mood to good use: I did tell Kevin I was interested in submitting some book reviews for his Fun With Dead Trees site. Will churn out a few based on these recent reads, once I'm done with that magazine article thingy.

And speaking about books, reading, and stuff...

So Amir Muhammad's film, Lelaki Komunis Terakhir (The Last Communist), which got though the Censorship Board with no cuts, no nothing, has been banned "... as many Malaysians are still hurt by the brutality inflicted by Chin Peng's Communist Party of Malaya...", among a variety of reasons that don't *quite* make sense to me in this day and age.

The Censorship Board approved the movie, for heaven's sake! That used to be the be all and end all, right? Now, it seems that one or two influential small-minded people (influential precisely so many people in this country CAN'T THINK FOR THEMSELVES??!!) have judged this movie without even seeing it first, the powers that be have decided to ban the film. Read more about it on Jeff Ooi's place here, pay attention to the comments.

But this is the best, to me:

The movie was inspired by Chin Peng's memoirs My Side of History, which is available in local bookstores. According to the Information Minister, Datuk Zainuddin Maidin, the book is full of lies, "... but there is no need to ban the book. Only a handful of people read books but films are watched by many and can easily influence people..."

Wow.

That, coming from the Information Minister.

Hmmm... lemmie guess, you don't do much reading, do you, Datuk?