I Hate Summer Blockbuster Season

The summer blockbuster season brings with it lots of movies specifically designed to get the popcorn-munching, Coke-slurping crowd into theatres. This means that there's a distinct lack of anything decent for me to watch. This phenomenon usually manifests itself between May to August, with the driest month being the school holiday period in June.

Don't get me wrong, the small arthouse releases are still there. It's just that there are less of them compared to other months, and on top of that, the possibility that a major studio release is going to be good drops dramatically.

The converse happens near the end/beginning of the year, where we get a huge influx of films that have been playing in US theatres throughout the year and are generating Oscar buzz, so as to cash in on the Academy Awards in March. Then I go apeshit and hop like a maniac from movie to movie.

Goddamn Singapore distributors. Can't you even it out a little?

Anyway, here are some flicks I caught in the height of blockbuster season, in the midst of all the dreck that was floating about.


Good Night, and Good Luck.
A gorgeous, gorgeous film that finally made it to Singapore theatres like, decades after its release in the US. This was actually shot in the 1950's in black and white! That McCarthy dude is one crazy fucker, and they really don't make newsmen like Murrow anymore. Just look at all the insipid spineless twats that pass for journalists in this fine city of ours. The scare and pressure tactics used by McCarthy are still used today in a certain island in the Asia-Pacific, but no one's standing up to them.

Hey, and I know it wasn't made in the 1950's. I'm not stupid, you know. It just evokes that period so well you can almost believe it, especially with the seamless integration of the newsroom footage. Even though you know the outcome, it's still pretty exciting at times.


Cars
Initially the concept of talking cars seemed freaky to me. But somehow as the movie moved along, that thought was forgotten as the breathtaking widescreen vistas of America rolled by onscreen. I swear, this probably only comes second to Brokeback Mountain in showcasing the sheer spectacle of American scenery. Pixar continues their tradition of solid scripting - even though it's purely functional and doesn't have any surprises, it's still better than most. It got to me at times, and really, that's all I'm asking for.


Slither
A wonderfully guilty B-movie pleasure palace. You want gore? You got it. You want gross-out? You got it. You want killer slugs from space? You got it. You want lots of blowing up of said killer slugs? You got it. Killer one-liners and gallows humor? You got it. Oh yeah, and a hot girl too. It's a celebration of everything wonderful about scrappy horror filmmaking, and the love of writer-director James Gunn shows every step of the way. This is someone making a splatter flick going, "Look at this! It's so cool! And gross! Eww! Whee!"

Sometimes we all just need to chuck the self-important arthouse head-up-the-ass attitude aside for a while and relish the chaos of a good B-movie with drunken glee.


C.R.A.Z.Y.
While pleasant enough, it doesn't really dare to push the envelope enough, but still insists on dragging out the drama to overlong lengths. The music choices are impeccable (Pink Floyd, Bowie, Patsy Cline and The Stones), and the acting competent, but this doesn't make it different enough from all the other "wrestling with alternate sexuality/coming-of-age" movies out there. In fact, as a coming of age movie, it's pretty damn weak, since the main character remains hugely passive for most of the movie. I guess "safe and stale" would be the best description of it.


The Road to Guantanamo
An Important Film that somehow didn't really have that much of an impact on me. Sure, the ill-treatment inflicted on the main characters was pretty bad, but SAF training stories and tales of Japanese atrocities during the Occupation are far, far worse. Also, you couldn't help but feel that part of it was their fault for being so fucking stupid and getting into all that trouble in the first place. Still, I have to admit it's the best docu-drama I've ever seen (unlike all the True-local crap), with the re-enactments blending seamlessly with the interview footage to create a very unsettling feel.


King and the Clown
I was prepared for this to be awful. After all, it did amazingly at the Korean box office, and you know how I hate most Korean movies with a vengeance (except, funnily enough, the Vengeance flicks by Park Chan-Wook). And it had this completely effeminate lead actor who apparently was huge with the fans worldwide. I mean, look at him. He's prettier than some of the contestants in this year's Miss Universe pageant.

Now I do not understand what is up with the female species in some Asian countries at all. In Korea, they're going nuts over this pretty boy - he looks more feminine than most women I know. He's equally popular in every country the film has travelled to. And look at the pop idol market in Taiwan, chock-full of no-talent boys with flowing locks and longer eyelashes than fucking Bambi. What the hell is wrong with all these women/girls? Do you like your men with more oestrogen than testosterone now? Hello, there are real men out there, you know. Men who might actually look worse in your makeup and heels than you do.

That gripe aside, the movie doesn't commit the typical sin of the Korean film - a dead in the water Second Act that meanders around and doesn't quite know what to do with itself. No, this one thunders ahead all through Acts One and Two, pleasantly surprising me. In fact, I was entertaining the thought that it might even be good. The acting was decent enough, apart from the over-the-top snarling of the king character, and the homoerotic currents came through well without seeming forced. Hell, it even had plot developments straight out of Hamlet, where a play is used to force scheming evil-doers out into the open.

But it was not to be. The movie goes straight to hell in the Third Act, with the tension entirely dissipating in a mush of melodrama, with a series of endings enough to make Peter Jackson blush. There was weeping all over the place, there were loving freeze-frames and zooms, and enough corny lines to make you retch. What a colossal waste. The Koreans just have trouble staying away from the melodrama, and rarely is it as apparent as in this movie, where the problematic section just stands out like a sore thumb against the generally competent sections that preceded it.