Fat Bidin

Where does television news sit in the current media landscape? Zan and Aizyl can't remember the last time they actually sat down at 8pm to catch "breaking" news. So should it be done away with or is there some way it could evolve to remain relevant?

Zan and Aizyl review the Turkish rip-off of The Exorcist and they discover that 'Auzubillahiminashaitaniurajim' is not an exclusively Malay phrase! They also discover a ripping-off movement in Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s where the Turkish film industry ripped off Hollywood movies like Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Star Wars, Tarzan, etc!

PAS's annual Muktamar caused a lot of problems for Pakatan Rakyat this year. Even members of the coalition themselves can't tell whether they're still functioning due to the results of one party's AGM elections. So how now brown cow?

We saw on sale a DVD of a local Malaysian indie film we had never heard of before directed by someone we had never heard of either. So we thought, why not? We bought and watched 'Ragut', directed by Razif MT Zain, and it errr... well... errr...

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad recently gave a talk at the Cooler Lumpur Festival talking about his own "dangerous ideas". Zan and Aizyl share some soundbites of what you missed and discuss Tun's relevance in attempting to oust his second Prime Minister.

Feature films and movies used to be the standard long form stories. But now, with the emergence of original Netflix productions and TV shows like Breaking Bad, etc, it seems that season long story arcs with no self-contained episodes are way longer. This synopsis may sound boring, but Zan and Aizyl discuss this with interestingly humorous fervour!

Just like everyone else, Zan and Aizyl are pretty curious about why the Prime Minister Najib Razak cancelled his Town Hall meeting and why former PM Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was barred from speaking. Also in the news, the Sabah earthquake. Even more questions than answers, really...

Zan and Aizyl are old farts (Zan is an older fart by a decade!) and they talk about watching one of the greatest movie series ever made on this planet... BACK TO THE FUTURE! But, of course, being the intellectual geniuses that they are, they are discussing how an audience today would react to a film which was first made in 1985.

Zan and Aizyl discuss the proposal to turn the mass graves found in Perlis into tourist attractions by National Security Council chairperson Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim. Could he actually be on to something?

The Fat Bidin Film Club invites special guest Arif Rafhan Othman (aka Apan) to chat about the new Mad Max film. It is cheesy, but cool cheesy! And remember, it is not a remake of the Mel Gibson version.

What's a shadow cabinet? Zan and Aizyl talk check and balance, establishing public confidence, and male-Malay-Muslim privilege.

It's amazing how the Malaysian mainstream film industry constantly portrays women in films. We speak with sex and gender expert, June Low, who recently went public with her opinion that the film 'Suami Aku Ustaz' degrades women and is peppered with hints of paedophilia.

Zan and Aizyl try and tackle the issue of boat people stranded at sea and the problems that have led to it. Featuring Klang MP Charles Santiago who also chairs ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) to help with context on the Rohingya crisis and ASEAN's handling of the issue.

Malaysian film Lelaki Harapan Dunia, which courted controversy (unintentionally) when it was released in the cinemas in Malaysia, recently won the Special Jury Prize at the Fajr International Film Festival in Iran. We speak to it's director Liew Seng Tat.

Police reports are made every day but Zan and Aizyl talk about the special reports set up to create a media spectacle and the pointlessness of it all. It's been reported that the Abdul Rani Kulup Abdullah led Martabat Jalinan Muhibbah Malaysia (MJMM)has made over 300 police reports since its inception in 2008.

Zan and Aizyl talk about the movies that shaped their childhoods... from the late 1970s right up to the 1990s (they were born 10 years apart!), and from VHS tapes to laserdiscs, and VCDs to DVDs... to err... torrents?

May Day is the day when the whole world protests, demonstrates and rallies against... well... anything they want. And in Malaysia, it was all against GST (Goods and Services Tax). But do demonstrations serve any purpose in Malaysia anymore? Who knows. Aizyl decided to attend the demo in Kuala Lumpur while Zan chose to go on vacation instead. But they discuss it nonetheless.

The Azlee brothers find out more about current state of Malaysian indie cinema. The new wave that came out in the mid-2000s seem to have gone a little bit quiet. But is there a beginning of a revival? They speak to two filmmakers who were part of the early new wave - Tan Chui Mui and James Lee.

What are people preaching when they preach moderation? No, we're really asking here...

Star Wars: The Force Awakens! The Fat Bidin Film Club resident know-it-nones, Zan and Aizyl Azlee, talk about the latest trailer to be released promoting a film that will only come out at the end of the year (and the first trailer was released last year!).

The Malaysian Islamic Development Department's (JAKIM's) recently released its latest edition of entertainment guidelines, which include the suggestion for audiences to be segregated by the gender and for comedy acts to not induce "excessive laughter". Is it a realistic guideline? Does it hold any weight? Zan and Aizyl asks these questions and more on this week's podcast.

So Zan and Aizyl have been hounded by certain listeners to talk about Asian films. And so they do in this episode! It's Big Hero 6!! (The fictional city of San Fransokyo is as Asian as you can get!)

The freedom game just got riskier. The Prevention of Terrorism Act got passed last week, allowing detention without trial and no proper safeguards in place to prevent abuse and unlawful detention. Couple that with the Sedition Act which was amended recently, we better start watching what we say. We also speak to recently detained The Malaysian Insider chief executive, Jahabar Sadiq.

Zan and Aizyl finally find a film that they both can agree is an excellent film... Birdman, starring Michael Keaton and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. However, do take note that Aizyl had not even seen the whole film when this podcast was recorded!

Journalists of online news portal The Malaysian Insider were recently arrested by the police for an allegedly seditious article. Paranoid? Pissed? Zan and Aizyl are feeling a little bit of both. Maybe the scare tactics work?