Oglin' October, Oracle!

추격자 (The Chaser)
Ever watched a movie where almost from the get-go, you feel your whole body tensing up, and you await each development with bated breath, your heart in your mouth? If so, congratulations: Such experiences are few and far between. And if not, go watch The Chaser. Tension-filled and taut as hell, this is a whopper of a crime thriller, with (amazingly enough) none of your usual stereotypes and clichés. Yet it also eventually becomes something more - a story of one man's fight for his own humanity and redemption against a hopelessly inept justice system. It's not without its flaws, but apart from a few missteps here and there, novice feature director Na Hong-jin shows masterful control and vision far beyond his years.

Le Dernier des fous (Demented)
This is another one of those movies that make me not want to attend any more festival screenings. Part of some French film festival or other, it's yet another snobbily detached, emotionally barren European arthouse film. For a movie that tells its story from a boy's POV, it does a good job doing so, but the strong performances are lost underneath the pointed detachment and self-satisfied ironies of it all. When I can't get attached to the characters and feel for them, I can't get into the movie and enjoy it, no matter how technically accomplished it is. And so, I couldn't care less. Cool poster, though. A kid with a gun is always cool.

Burn After Reading
OK, fine, I didn't really get emotionally attached to any character here, I think. But I still love this movie, because it's fast-paced and entertaining as hell - but not in the usual sense. Think about it. A comedy with no "punchlines" and no "funny music", but is hilarious precisely because of that. Only from the Coen Brothers could this little gem of a black, black satire come. Two of the funniest scenes, in my opinion, have a man getting shot in the face, and another man shot, then axed in the head. It's a tone that is unbelievably difficult to achieve - just look at all the Tarantino wannabes - but the Coen Brothers do it seemingly effortlessly.

RocknRolla
Speaking of Tarantino wannabes, Mr. Guy Ritchie isn't technically one of them, although he's similar. He has his own English-crime thing going on, but the only person he rips off is himself, essentially making the same movie over and over again. He tries very hard to make it work this time, but overstuffed characters and plotting drag what could've been a fleet and entertaining crime caper down. It's still entertaining in bits, though I really couldn't care less about any character. Which, as I've mentioned before, almost automatically makes me dislike the movie (unless it's made by the Coen Brothers).

風雲決
(Storm Rider: Clash of Evils)
Any attempt at making sense of the plot will be in vain, if you're not a fan of the long-running martial arts comic series in question. Elements - mythology, characters, histories, etc. - are packed in willy-nilly, and the whole thing still makes time for a whole bunch of cliché-ridden events like a pointless love subplot and annoying child sidekick characters. The fight scenes are energetic and interesting enough, if I could only tell what they were fighting over. Too bad the incomprehensible story denies me that. Also, the animation is at times prettty bad, going from rather amateurish 3-D establishing shots immediately to 2-D characters moving stiffly across the screen in extremely jarring edits.

G.P. 506 (The Guard Post)
This has an intriguing premise, which, while not the most original, is at least handled well in the suspense department. The problem it has is one it has in common with many other Korean movies - a flaccid second act that feels more like padding than actual plot advancement. The big revelation, when it comes, also feels rather anti-climactic, but at least from there on it leads to a respectably exciting climax. All in all, it's still a decent enough suspense-thriller-horror.

保持通話 (Connected)
A Hong Kong remake of the very watchable B-grade Hollywood thriller Cellular, this is competent enough on its own terms, but sacrifices the original's taut pacing at the altar of additional action movie thrills. These sequences detract, though, because they make it all less believable, and makes the pacing sag as well, because, honestly, they're not all that spectacular. Louis Koo and Barbie Hsu do well in the lead roles (she still can't beat Kim Basinger though), but awful over-the-top acting by the villains turn what should be an exciting climax into a gigglefest instead.

Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis
(Welcome to the Sticks)
It's not difficult to see why this was the domestic hit that it was - most of the comedy is rather broad, and translates well regardless of language. It's a light and affable, if rather obvious culture-shock/fish-out-of-water comedy. If you don't know French, all the language/accent jokes will probably fly above your head, as they did mine. However, this might actually work in its favor for me, because I think the wordplay is pretty unsubtle, and if I did know French, I'd probably have a lower opinion of it (much like how I think Jack Neo comedies are pretty damn unfunny - even though this is miles ahead of Neo's ilk). Still, it's an enjoyable time to be had at the movies, and some of the farcical scenes are really quite hilarious.

20 世紀少年
(Twentieth Century Boys)
I've never read the manga series before, but from what I hear, it's plenty confusing, what with it's huge cast of characters and multiple timeline-jumping. I took a deep breath and leapt right into the movie with no prior prep work, and came away not a little confused, but enjoyed the ride nonetheless. The intricate building of the world and its multitude of characters make this quite engrossing, and the premise is, of course, intriguing. Still, as expected, the huge cast and the frequent timeline switches often get confusing, although by the end you kind of get the drift of things. The visual effects, though not wall-to-wall, are well done and technical aspects are solid and kept interesting, especially in the sound department. I'll be there for the second instalment. I won't be the first to see it, but I'll be there, and that's good enough.

슈퍼맨이었던 사나이
(A Man Who Was Superman,
a.k.a. If I Were Superman)
This will go on my Worst-Of List for sure; it's one of my most hated movies of 2008. There are many reasons why, but I don't want to waste too much time and effort on it. Suffice to say that it goes from insufferably annoying (the delusional antics of "Superman") to hard-sell sappy - which is a slight improvement. The comedy doesn't work, the whimsy is painful, the social commentary is clumsy, and the drama isn't well-earned at all. Nothing works, and it's all so horrid that it often made me want to throw my shoe at the screen.

The Princess of Nebraska
There's a very telling shot which encapsulates pretty much the whole movie: A close-up of Li's navel. 77 minutes of cinematic (or not-so cinematic) navel-gazing and whining is 77 minutes too much. It might've made for a decent 15-minute short, but drawn out here to (barely) feature-length and shot on ugly DV, it's a painful affair. What the hell's the big deal about Wayne Wang anyway? How deluded do you have to be to think that this is good cinema? It's nothing but wannabe-pretentious indie crap.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
After sitting through the torturous The Princess of Nebraska, this almost seems like a masterpiece... well, I did say "almost". Henry O is very good, even if the script is at times forced and overly familiar (Ooh! Inter-generational conflict! How novel!), and the supporting cast is often painful to watch. Yes, I know it's low budget, but does it have to extend to the cast too? Also, why is it that even movies about minorities have other minorities in stereotyped roles? Do these hyphenate-Americans have such big chips on their shoulders that they are blind to other hyphenate-Americans who aren't of their race?

Tokyo!
As is usual with anthologies, this is a mixed bag - one good, one bad, and one decent. The first is Interior Design, which is typical Gondry - fun and quirky, with enthusiastic and highly imaginative visuals. But then again, would we have expected anything less? It's the best of the lot, that's for sure - in fact, it's so good, it should have its own poster. Oh wait, it does.

Immediately after that, though, Merde, with its ironically apt title (it means "shit" in French), brings it all to a crashing halt with its self-indulgent nonsense and hateful characters and situations. You do not, I repeat, do not, have extended courtroom scenes where people are translating from a make-believe language to a real one. That's just way too much grunting and growling to bear. Finally, Shaking Tokyo attempts to salvage the situation, but unfortunately the damage has already been done. Too bad, because it's really quite decent and suitably whimsical, and even kinda sweet.

Tropic Thunder
I've been waiting for this movie for a fucking long time, and it doesn't disappoint. Much. Yes, it's a little too long, and Ben Stiller and Jack Black aren't in top form. But damn, is it funny, right from the first fake trailer shown. It's rare to see a Hollywood satire of itself at every level that's so vicious, you'd almost believe it was British. There's so much that works here, you can easily overlook the stuff that doesn't. How good is it? It's so good that I actually preordered the DVD from Amazon, and I never do that.

Sizzlin' September, Commissioner Gordon!

Yep, comparatively, September was truly sizzlin', with two of my favorite movies of the year. If only every month had such quality!

Oh yeah, and since it's already 2009, I should really try to rush through the rest of the year.

犬神家の一族 (The Inugamis, a.k.a. Murder of the Inugami Clan)
This is an old-school whodunit in the very best sense, and it's also quite literally old-school - the director's remaking one of his early movies and uses the same lead actor in both. There's no updating in this remake, and everything still feels nice and quaint, like an old leather-bound library book. The performances are great, if stylized to the point where they might become targets of derision for modern audiences. But what really works is the slow-burning suspense and delicious twists and turns of the plot - a plot that always plays fair and isn't stupid (a real rarity these days).

Изгнание (The Banishment)
This award-winner from Russia is chock-full of religious symbolism, which feel too in-your-face for comfort. The somewhat over-meticulous shot compositions also add to the level of detachment of the audience, making the characters all seem very distant and vague - people that we are observing from afar with all the emotional involvement of a laboratory scientist. Still, it does look gorgeous and is well-acted. Too bad the overlong running time make it a real pain to sit through.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The Apatow factory produces another romcom that both guys and gals will enjoy, tempering the sweetness with their trademark brand of raunchy humor. As usual, the pacing's a little too loose for comfort, and the film meanders quite a bit all over the place. However, the main characters are all well-drawn and multi-faceted, and the supporting cast is fantastic. Especially hilarious is Russell Brand as the barmy British rock star. One sour note is the film's treatment of Kristen Bell's character, which borders on misogyny.

歲月 (The Days)
A rather weak debut from a local filmmaker, this coming-of-age tale is full of gangster clichés and raw acting. Some of the cast, though inexperienced, have charisma and are inherently watchable, but the stilted dialogue tests one's patience sorely. There's plenty of pointless animated sequences to string everything together, and even a plot twist in the secret ending that seems to exist for no real narrative reason at all. Sigh. When will filmmakers learn that plot twists that exist for the sole purpose of being twisty is meaningless and does nothing but annoy their audience?

Mamma Mia!
If Speed Racer is cotton candy for attention-deficit adolescents, then this is the equivalent for middle-aged women. Well, except it's a lot more sedate and unimaginatively shot and staged. There's nothing more pathetic than a movie that relentlessly tries to convince you that you're having a good time. In fact, it's downright sad and desperate, just like the needy middle-aged women that populate it's visually boring musical sequences. But the power of nostalgia is not to be scoffed at, for it's rare that a musical this thoroughly unspectacular makes so much money. Oh, and Pierce Brosnan. Cannot. Sing. At. All. Ugh.

Boy A
It's a lot harder for me to write a rave about a movie than a rant. Ranting and coming up with fresh insults is easy. But it's a lot more difficult to come up with reasons why I love a movie, because they're usually the same for every one - compelling writing, fantastic performances, stunning cinematography and/or visual effects, delicate nuances and subtlety in all areas. So let me just say that all of the above apply to Boy A, which is an absolutely brilliant drama that practically demands you soak in all the subtle nuances of the storytelling and the top-notch acting, and in exchange, leaves you with a beautifully tragic emotional experience.

WALL·E
Argh. Another wonderful film that I don't know what to write about. Suffice to say it fully deserves every accolade it receives. This is a fantastic work of artistry, full of stunning visuals, masterful storytelling, genuine laughs and lots of heart. It's so good, takes my breath away; it's probably the best Pixar film ever made, and that's really saying something.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
A beautiful animated work of art is followed by... a hideous animated steaming turd. The rubbish plot jumps from video game scenario to video game scenario, decorated with bad dialogue (well, that's one thing about the live-action movies they're faithful to), lame jokes and awful character animation. I thought Lucasfilm was state-of-the-art? Why, then, does everyone move like they're marionettes? The busy battle scenes just manage to scrape by with a passing grade, but everything else around them is a waste of time and money and the efforts of hundreds or thousands of people who worked on it. When will Lucas stop plundering the corpse of the franchise?

Youth Without Youth
There's one thing you can't accuse Francis Ford Coppola of, and that's lack of ambition. His first film after a long hiatus is one with a pretty good sci-fi concept - only it resolutely refuses to be a sci-fi flick and obsessively heads down the other, "artsier" path. Unfortunately this results in a schizophrenic movie in more ways than one, and while there are stunning visuals aplenty, none of it makes very much sense at all. But hey, at least it's not boring. I'd rather see this over Mamma Mia! any day.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen's latest is a marked improvement over Cassandra's Dream, and one where he abandons the heavy drama to make a simple, fun and breezy movie. There's not much substance to it, but it's all very entertaining nonetheless, watching the leads go through the revolving doors of their relationships. Penelope Cruz, especially, is fantastic and hilarious; pity there's far too little of her. Everyone looks like they're having a blast, even the director (who knew he'd be capable of having fun when he whines in all his movies?), and you will, too.

畫皮 (Painted Skin)
This is a confused mess of a movie, with silly jokes, slapstick, heavy drama, romance and martial arts all rolled up together haphazardly. Thank goodness for its female leads Zhou Xun and Zhao Wei, who elevate their roles above and beyond the thin caricatures on the page, providing a compelling emotional hook. Too bad that only comes to the fore in the third act, far too late to rescue the thoroughly mediocre fare that's around it. The movie tries too hard to be too many things, and fails at every single one of them - even Donnie Yen is wasted - and he's not that easy to waste; you just need to throw a few decent fight scenes in for him. Scarily enough, this was Hong Kong's pick for their Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination - and in a year when I can easily name 5 Hong Kong films off the top of my head that were better.

My Magic
I've usually been able to find something I like about all of Eric Khoo's movies (well, except One Leg Kicking), and this one is no exception. Sure, it's slow-moving and sometimes feels repetitive and disjointed, not to mention exploitative - did we really need so many close-ups of the main character piercing his body with random objects? What's the point of making your audience squirm so much in their seats, and so many times too? But thankfully, the genuine emotions and real chemistry between the father and son come through without once slipping into melodrama, and the ending is beautifully moving. Oh, and it also has a really cool, retro poster in the style of old-school local cinemas, painted on canvas. Check it out:

Aggravatin' August, Bat-Hound!

This month saw a huge deluge (comparatively) of Singapore film in our cinemas, possibly due to the National Day spirit of local pride, etc. The big question is: Were they any good? Well... at least they weren't all bad...

錢不夠用 2 (Money No Enough 2)
I have no qualms about making this public - and in fact, probably everyone who knows me is already aware of it - Jack Neo is my most hated filmmaker ever. Believe me, folks abroad, you have no idea. Uwe Boll and Michael Bay may be hated by multitudes, but at least they receive almost universal derision and scorn. Mr. Neo is the box-office champion in Singaporean terms, and over here, that means that everyone kisses his ass and sings praises of him, even fucking government officials. This has had the effect of expanding the guy's head to grotesque proportions, such that he's constantly in danger of floating away in a cloud of self-praise. He's been rated No. 1 most influential person in the local industry, awarded a Cultural Medallion, mentioned in National Day Rallies, and so on. All this, despite the fact that he does not know how to make a decent movie. There is no artistry, there is no subtlety, the dialogue is riper than a decomposing rat in the middle of the street in summer, and the jokes are recycled probably from Biblical times. How is it possible for someone to make movies for over 10 years without learning anything? When everyone around him fails to point out his mistakes (compare the Variety review, linked above in the title, to this local one, and see what I mean).

But I digress. We're talking about this specific movie. I wasn't intending to see this, but thanks to circumstances beyond my control (someone visiting from abroad wanted to see a local movie, and this was the only one available at that timeslot), I found myself paying weekend ticket prices for what I was sure would be painful at best, and suicide-inducing at worst. I was wrong. It was worse than that. It was so unbelievably fucking painful, I actually wanted to go out and gun down everyone I saw. I was hitting myself, I was hitting the chair beside me, I was hitting the person sitting in the chair (who luckily was my cousin) - all from the unbearable agony of watching this fetid turd of a movie.

His is an aesthetic born of cheap soap operas and a general cheapness of character. The cheapest people to hire are people fresh out of school and interns, and so it seems as though he staffed his crew with just these folks. The camerawork is amateurish at best, downright awful at worst, often with shot selections that just leave you asking, "Why?" The editing is pretty much incomprehensible, and the music choices bash you over the head with their obviousness and mawkishness. The montages... oh, the montages that pop up every 5 minutes to scream at you: "LOOK HOW AWFUL THE OLD WOMAN'S LIFE IS! OMFG HER KIDS DON'T CARE ABOUT HER!"

The CGI is... well, I haven't seen CGI this bad since... well, never. Honestly, it's bad enough to rival fucking Sing to the Dawn. It looks like it was done by a monkey with one arm. And there wasn't even any point to the CGI scene, either. The scripting is clockwork melodrama that has far too many threads to keep coherent, at least in the hands of such a hack. Which isn't surprising, considering he wrote it himself. And the product placement... let's just say it wasn't so much "placement" as "shoving in your goddamn face". It makes Sex and the City looks positively subtle. Shameless is certainly not in the man's dictionary.

Oops. I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant. Let me just give one or two praises (!) and call it a day. The old lady Lai Meng is actually really decent and convincing in her role. She was able to arouse a certain degree of sympathy from me, right up to the point where I realized the movie could only end with her death - then I was just hoping she would fucking die already. Also, Mark Lee proves that he's pretty much the only one among the 3 male leads who can actually act, leaving the abilities of his "teacher" Neo in the dust. His performance is biting, funny, and surprisingly tender - it also helps that his character is the only one who seems to have any sort of arc at all.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe
I remember when I was but a wee mite, eagerly awaiting each adventure our intrepid paranormal investigators would embark upon every week on the goggle box. Aliens, bizarre creatures, mysterious killers. It was intriguing, it was spooky, it was mind-boggling, it was great. I Want to Believe that this is equally good, but I cannot lie. This feels like a mediocre episode in the series, expanded to feature length. There's never any sense of urgency or momentum, and the mystery is never compelling (ending with a whimper, in fact). Like George Lucas with his Star Wars franchise, Chris Carter needs to stop flogging a dead horse. The X-Files should never be this criminally boring.

The Midnight Meat Train
This is based on a Clive Barker short story (I'm pretty sure the original story would've been better), and the problem with adapting short stories for the screen is that more often than not, short stories are pretty skimpy on stuff happening. So in order to fill up a feature's worth of time, the writers have to think up other stuff for the characters to do. The problem here is that most of the stuff they think up is really nothing but time-wasting. People just wander around and nothing happens for a really long time in the second act. This exploitation splatter flick is, unfortunately, not bad enough to be hilarious and fun, but still pretty bad (that's what happens when you take yourself too seriously, kids). There's a final twist that could've been interesting, but it's all spoilt by the Stupid, Stupid Lead Characters and the mediocre execution (no pun intended).

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
I have nothing against brainless popcorn flicks. In fact, I enjoyed movies like The Transporter and its sequel, and you really can't get much stupider than that. However, the reason I enjoyed them was this: Because they were so over-the-top and ridiculous, they were ridiculously entertaining. Come on, Jason Statham drives his car up a ramp, flips it around in mid-air, and makes use of a crane that's conveniently nearby to remove a bomb from the bottom of his car! However, I hate a brainless popcorn flick like this Mummy sequel, because it's not entertaining in the least. In fact, the biggest crime this brainless summer movie is guilty of, besides mangling the Chinese language, is being incredibly boring.

A Month of Hungry Ghosts
This local documentary definitely has an interesting subject - the Chinese festival of hungry ghosts, where the Gates of Hell open annually to give its many inhabitants the equivalent of a month-long vacation in the human realm. There are so many traditions associated with the festival that to discuss them all in-depth would probably take a miniseries. Too bad this doc only skims the surface when it comes to them, preferring instead to look at it through Western eyes, content to just go, "Ooh! Isn't that quaint?" The lack of insight, coupled with a rather messy structure, result in a rather unsatisfying documentary that squanders the potential of the subject matter. Also, the less said about the laughable "paranormal investigators" and their pseudo-scientific bullshit, the better.

Malos Hábitos (Bad Habits)
Going by the poster, the film appears to want to discuss both eating and religion - in fact, might "Habits" be a pun on the article of clothing worn by nuns? - and to be fair, it does present the dangers of excess - both over- and under-eating, as well as eating driven by religious fervor. Unfortunately, it also has a whole bunch of tedious subplots that only serve to muddle whatever arguments it might have had, and which never really gel into a cohesive whole. In most films, the final act is usually the most fast-moving, as threads are tied together and everything reaches a high at the climax. This film bucks the convention, for not only does the pacing not get any quicker, it actually slows down until it eventually just gives up and dies. Not a good way to end your movie at all.

12 蓮花 (12 Lotus)
Royston Tan revisits the world of getai (open-air concerts put up during the Hungry Ghost Festival - there it is again!) after his box office smash 881, but lest he be accused of retreading familiar territory, he decides to go for hardcore melodrama as opposed to a song-and-dance extravaganza like before. The end result may be mixed, as he can't resist slipping into a mishmash of tones sometimes (without the dexterity that made that so enjoyable in 881), but it is never boring to look at. And as usual, there's always something interesting about his films, something that gives me a surprise, and that's reason enough to watch anything, given how jaded I am.

สี่แพร่ง (4bia)
A portmanteau film comprising four horror shorts (hence the rather forced pun in the title), 4bia ostensibly showcases the most popular and skillful Thai directors working in the genre. Not that you'd know it, from the lackluster quality of most of the works on display. As typical with anthologies, it's tremendously uneven: Only one out of the four is good; the rest range from mediocre to jaw-droppingly bad. Let's go through them one by one, shall we?

เหงา (Happiness) - Right off the bat, this looks decent. A slow-burn chiller that doesn't lack for tension, it involves a bored girl who's stuck in an apartment from an injury, who sends a text message to a random number - and gets a reply from an unknown boy. From there, the buildup is effective and well-executed... until everything comes apart in a shitty "shock" twist that's completely pointless and squanders everything that's come before.

ยันต์สั่งตาย (Tit for Tat) - After the terrible ending of the previous short, we come to, well, the worst of the lot, really. This high school black magic revenge fantasy is shot in a frenetic handheld manner, which was probably meant to help disguise the fact that the writing and acting is so uniformly shitty. It's stupid and juvenile, with laughably awful CGI that actually had me in giggles. Also, when will filmmakers learn that annoying characters are useless as horror movie protagonists, because audiences simply don't give a shit about them - and how do you feel fear when you're in fact rooting for their demise?

คนกลาง (In the Middle) - This is a tongue-firmly-in-cheek short that's hands-down the best of the lot. The scenario involves four friends who go camping in the wilderness. Being fans of horror movies, they toss around tons of references (even to the filmmakers' earlier movies), and good fun is had by playing with the conventions of the genre. It's witty, funny, and highly entertaining, but at the same time contains adequate chills. Just this short alone is worth the admission price; too bad you have to sit through such crap to get to it (that's what DVDs are for!). In fact, it's so good, it deserves its own poster here!

Last Fright - This director is supposed to be the mentor of the others. Well, at least some of the students seem to have exceeded the master. It's got a nice setup and concept: A lone air stewardess has to accompany a corpse back to its home country; too bad she's been having an affair with the dead woman's husband! Again, this has sqaundered potential written all over it, as the film falls flat from an over-reliance on cheap shocks and, worse, becomes unintentionally funny when the corpse rolls around all over the place due to turbulence. Oh, and enough of the bad puns in the titles already.

Mad About English
I admit, I'm something of a cultural hypocrite. I don't find Caucasians struggling to speak Chinese funny at all, despite the alarming regularity at which these scenes crop up in local variety shows. However, for some strange unfathomable reason, I do find Chinese struggling to speak English pretty amusing. As such, this breezy comedy-documentary hybrid was a joy to sit through, even though it kind of flounders around after seemingly exhausting its subject about two-thirds of the way through. It follows several ordinary Beijing citizens in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, and their struggles with learning English. Of course, it also presents the larger context, where every single person in the city seems to be, well, mad about learning the language - it's a matter of national and cultural pride to them. You may not agree entirely with their reasons for learning it (China is, after all, a communist country, and the subjects are almost all unabashedly nationalistic), but you gotta admire their grit and determination.

Kallang Roar: The Movie
If I had a cent for every aspiring filmmaker who sacrifices his debut film at the Altar of Good Intentions, I'd... well, I'd probably have enough money to make a movie myself. This is but one of those films, where a writer-director's (now, there's a dangerous combination for a debut filmmaker!) heart is in the right place, but his tragic lack of experience and ability (not to mention funding) cripple the final work. The movie traces the rise of Uncle Choo, the inspiring coach that took Singapore's national football team to glory in the early days, but in over-glorifying its subject, it fails to make him a compelling character. Couple that with some pretty bad direction, clunky and groan-inducing dialogue, and laughably bad sports action scenes, and you end up with something that looks and feels like a very raw student film. Well, you wouldn't be far from the truth. The material is something that should only be handled by an experienced professional; perhaps 5 or 10 years down the road, Cheng Ding An might like to take another stab at it. It'll probably be a helluva lot better.

Jestin' July, Alfred!

These monthly (well, not exactly but you get what I mean) movie posts are getting really old and stale. And not just in the sense that the movies I now write about were all shown a really long time ago. I need to shake things up a little - but how?

A question for another time.

The Happening
As with most Shyamalan flicks, the premise is interesting. And like most Shyamalan flicks, he fucks it up - only this time, he fucks it up way before the obligatory betcha-never-saw-that-comin' plot twist. The opening scenes are great, and there's one where construction workers jump off a building en masse that's terrific and terrifying. Then it quickly becomes simply terrible when nothing much really happens besides people standing around talking pseudo-scientific/religious gobbledygook and trying-very-hard-to-be-ominous shots of something that's patently non-ominous. Throw in one of the most ridiculous plot twists since the beginning of film and you get something that might work better as a comedy than a thriller, something that's quite frankly, not-happening (pardon the pun, it was begging for it).

Wanted
Compared to the self-important stylings of Shyamalan, this almost seems like a breath of fresh air. Almost. Normally you'd think that I'd hate dumb movies. And you wouldn't be wrong. But sometimes something comes along that's so utterly, thoroughly, spectacularly dumb and is so much fun because of it that I cannot help but have a good time. Now, I never read the comic book, but it's obvious here that every single person involved in the making of this movie knew they were making something completely ridiculous. So they simply decided to go all-out, balls to the wall, and make it as entertaining as they can. Hence we get bending of bullets, lots of gratuitous slo-mo violence, preposterous plot developments (including my personal favorite jaw-dropper of a plot twist - The Loom of Fate), Angeline Jolie strutting around dressed only in tattoos, among other such delightful idiocy. It's pure over-the-top dumb fun - and how gloriously dumb it is.

The Strangers
This home invasion thriller has got the scariest trailer I've ever seen - a real little masterpiece of perfect editing timed for maximum creepy effect. Such a stunning trailer, while luring audiences in, inevitably also disappoints, because the actual movie can't help but be a letdown in comparison. Thankfully, the degree of letdown is rather small in this case. There are some missteps here and there, particularly with an unnecessarily protracted ending and an at-times annoying score. But, like the trailer, it is scary, almost masterfully so. The control of tension and dread is fantastic, and really so much more effective than so many stupid movies out there with bigger stars and bigger budgets. Hooray for awesome B-movies.

The Dark Knight
In short: A Shakespearean tragedy/crime epic in the guise of a summer blockbuster, with an unbelievably menacing Ledger as the Joker. Hands down, the best comic book movie ever, bar none. I award it "Movie Of The Year". In long: Read my earlier post.

幫幫我愛神 (Help Me Eros)
Good Tsai Ming-Liang films, while boring and repetitive at times, still have a certain lyricism to them and compelling characters that somehow manage to transcend their onscreen banality to draw you into their sad lives. Bad Tsai Ming-Liang films are messy and incoherent and frankly, off-putting. And worst of all are the Tsai Ming-Liang copycats. These are sad, pathetic movies populated by sad, pathetic people going about their sad, pathetic lives in a sad, pathetic way. It's all of the negative descriptions above without any of the good ones. It's overlong and pretentious, filled with blatant motifs that scream out at you but are ultimately as hollow as the characters' lives. It's the cinematic equivalent of the performance studies undergraduate. It's a waste of celluloid, a waste of money, an even bigger waste of time. It's this movie.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Del Toro revisits the weird and wonderful world of Hellboy, which means that we get to ogle at lots and lots of his crazy creature creations. With probably a bigger budget for effects than for the entirety of Pan's Labyrinth, he really gets to indulge his imagination, and we get a veritable orgy of spectacular creature designs. But he knows enough to keep everything pacey and entertaining, and improves upon the first movie, delivering an enjoyable fantasy-action flick that's loads of fun while keeping some delicious quirks. My personal favorite example is the drunken singalong scene - you gotta love that, even if you don't like anything else.

Hancock
After the not-so-Happening, we get another wasted premise this month in Hancock, but at least this has a lead with more appeal in Will Smith. A drunk bum with superpowers? Sounds good to me. Unfortunately the screenplay suffers from multiple personality disorder and seems like a patchwork of wildly contradictory ideas stitched together. It tries to do so many things that it ends up not knowing what it is, straining both the seams of the story and the audience's credulity, as we're asked to swallow one world-changing revelation after another. If you thought I Am Legend was bad in that respect, well, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

赤壁 (Red Cliff)
What is this, the 69th Chinese war epic to hit theatres this year? Joking aside, while not exactly the most original concept, this is still better than most of the recent deluge of such films, despite needing a more vicious editor to trim out the fat. The war scenes are presented well, with minimal "artistic dirt" that seems to substitute for "realism" in these flicks, but with actual strategems and military movements that are really quite fascinating to watch. Compare that to the rampant stupidity and incoherence present in, say, Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon. The worst aspects are probably Woo's treating the audience like idiots, ramming his metaphors and points home repetitively.

Case in point: Before setting out on the climactic battle, the heroes go hunting - just like they're about to go hunting for the villain Cao Cao. OK, I'll bite, that's an acceptable metaphor. Then during the hunt, there's dialogue along the lines of, "Cao Cao is like a tiger. Vicious, cunning, etc. etc.". I groan and think, "Oh, I wish they hadn't done that." But wait, there's more. One of our heroes chases a tiger on foot and loses sight of it. Then it sneaks up on him. He hears a sound. Spins around, arrow at the ready. The tiger leaps - and John Woo fucking superimposes Cao Cao's face on the snarling face of the tiger.

Let me take you through that process again. After presenting the metaphor to us, he has the characters talk about it. Thereafter he fucking superimposes Cao Cao's face on the fucking face of the fucking tiger. What the fuck.

True, one doesn't go to a John Woo movie for subtlety, but I still wish he didn't lean quite so heavily in favor of the stupidly literal. We're not all fucking morons, you know. Despite all that bitching, I still think it's a decent movie. Really. Here's hoping the second act of this two-parter will be less... well, I'll just settle for less.

Joustin' June, Bat-Mite!

Sex and the City
Let me preface it all by saying that I don't much like Sex and the City, the TV show. While I do find the sexventures of Samantha pretty funny, and I like the attitude that Miranda gives to everyone, I find Charlotte incredibly boring, and I simply abhor Carrie. Whenever the girls gathered in my living room for the latest episode, I'd launch into a rant about her ugly horse-face, her horrendous and ridiculously impractical wardrobe, and her twee narration with the most fucking lousy excuse for wordplay in the history of television. So what made me think the movie might be any better? It's simply an episode of the TV series, stretched out to beyond epic proportions, with a plot thinner than the sheerest lingerie on the show. But what makes me absolutely hate this is how insulting it is to women, depicting them as nothing but shallow caricatures who'd sell their mothers to a whorehouse for an LV bag - but worse, how blind most women are in not seeing this and loving this crapfest so much. Why four ostensibly intelligent women would persist in fucking up their lives in the stupidest, most unbelievable ways imaginable is beyond me, as is the popularity of this shitty-even-for-TV movie. I can't say it any better than this, so I'll just shut up now. (Please read the article I linked to. It's really fucking amazing)

Kung Fu Panda
Usually non-Pixar animated flicks feature movie star voices, bad scripts, terrible lines and pretty damn ugly animation. But this is the rare exception. While it doesn't have the best script in the world, it's surprisingly decent, and really quite entertaining. I was worried that it might be insulting to Chinese culture and martial arts in general, as The Forbidden Kingdom was (unintentionally, I'm sure). But again, it wasn't, and in fact seems to be a homage of sorts to classic kung fu flicks. Jack Black provides lots of energy, and there are some genuinely funny moments and gags, especially those that play on genre conventions. It does get a tad too slapstick for my liking in parts, but I can live with that since the rest of it's so much fun.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
When the first Narnia movie came out, I wrote a parody essay of it entirely in Singlish. I'm not even considering doing that for any future entries; the entire franchise isn't worth the effort. The direction is rote and yawn-inducing, and the pace is plodding, save for a rather nice night battle. The action seems to be a really dumb PG-13 type of thing, where you can hack at a person and he can fall down dead, but you can see any blood at all. The title character is shallow and one-note, and the actor in question can't act to save his life. Also, Christian allegory is fine for Christians, but for other people, it means that there are huge gaping What The Fuck moments abound. But this is true of anything to do with organized religion in general. (Re-reading my thoughts on the first instalment reveal that the main issues I had then still persist in this one - only this one's worse because of the distinct un-Swinton-ness of the endeavor)

Angel
Went to see this with Angeline, and it was one of those times where we had completely differing (and mutually antagonistic) opinions of a movie. Is it because she longs to be a romantic writer and feels for the protagonist's struggle more? I don't know. What I do know is that my thoughts can be summed up with the lines below:

Q: How does one empathize with a completely self-delusional, needy and annoying heroine?
A: One doesn't. One just wishes the movie would end sooner.

Really, I was simply angry with the movie for wasting my time. And I also wanted to smack the protagonist for being a pretentious, annoying little bitch. Also, why on earth did Ozon want to do a movie in English?

Shine a Light
I'd never really been into The Rolling Stones and their music - I mean, I actually Wiki-ed them before watching the film so I wouldn't go in completely blind and ignorant. Still, a Stones fan or a fan of rock in general (like Glen, who I saw it with) would probably get a lot more out of it than I did. My main thoughts were that it looked fucking amazing (for how can 18 top cinematographers go wrong?) and that The Stones, even at their age, have incredible energy and stage presence. It's a real blast, for sure - and now I even know a few Stones songs!

The Incredible Hulk
After the surprise phenomenal hit that was Iron Man, Marvel can't help but disappoint slightly in their next movie outing. It's by-the-book, nothing like the risk-taking but rather uneven Hulk of Ang Lee, but it's still a decent popcorn flick, if you can turn your brain off. While the action isn't anything mind-blowing, at least it's comprehensible (unlike Michael Bay's), and the pacing moves along briskly. Marvel must be doing something right; its movies are a lot better than they used to be. Norton, always dependable, and Tyler add a nice human touch to all the smashing - it says a lot when the best scene is simply a half-whispered conversation between the two of them in a doorway.

Penelope
Angeline and I agreed on this one, if I recall correctly. The modern-day fairy tale (which is a genre I enjoy a lot - I do love Neil Gaiman's writing, you know) is very charming and full of whimsy, even if it's less funny than what the trailers seemed to indicate. The Moral Of The Story, when it came, was rather heavy-handed, but overall it's still a very enjoyable movie that's carried on the able shoulders of Christina Ricci and her prosthetic nose (or, rather, snout).

Get Smart
I wanted very much to like this, and I must admit I did laugh - but too rarely for me to really enjoy the movie. Carell is very good, but I'm not such a big fan of the update, for somewhere in the action-movie bits, the old-school low-tech charm of the original series is lost. Neither does all the humor work; sometimes, the lamest old jokes are still the funniest. Still, there are worse ways to spend your time and money, and I'd rather give it to Carell than to fucking Adam Sandler.

文雀 (Sparrow)
Tim now has a good review of this on his site, having watched it at the Chicago International Film Festival while I sat on my ass for months and didn't blog. I don't need to say much more, other than I thoroughly enjoyed this delightful caper through the streets of Hong Kong, lovingly sketched by director Johnnie To. It's paper-thin and ultimately doesn't mean anything, but his enthusiasm and playfulness leap out at you from every frame.