The Brothers Bloom
Rian Johnson
The story: Brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) are con men who are aided and abetted in their schemes by the laconic and capable Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). They set their sights on the wealthy Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz) for their last job, but things get complicated when Bloom falls for her.
This is quite a line-up of actors assembled here. They are not your typical blockbuster A-listers but instead, have won critical acclaim for memorable roles in feted films.
Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for the titular role of Jewish-Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s World War II drama The Pianist (2002).
Rachel Weisz won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as an activist who uncovers a pharmaceutical conspiracy in the political thriller The Constant Gardener (2005).
Mark Ruffalo won the New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for his portrayal of the ne’er-do-well brother in the family drama You Can Count On Me (2000).
Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her turn as an alienated deaf teenager in the ensemble drama Babel (2006).
Inevitably, this creates certain expectations even before one steps inside the cineplex. It is a pity then that writer-director Rian Johnson’s second feature after the well-received teen crime drama Brick (2005) never quite pulls it together.
The elaborate con at the heart of the film is less than compelling and invites too many questions of the “Why?” and “How come?” variety.
Johnson’s ambitious attempt to craft a whimsical crime caper/romance anchored by the fraternal ties that bind and suffocate is let down by the lackadaisical pacing, uneven tone and the weak story.
Still, there are some pleasures to be had in observing Brody’s hooded eyes and sad-sack face and watching Ruffalo playing against type as the roguish elder brother. Weisz also raises some smiles as the awkward and eccentric heiress.
Kikuchi is mildly amusing as the enigmatic Bang Bang, but she will need to brush up on her English if she is to have a viable career in Hollywood that goes beyond niche roles.
As the film keeps telling us, in a perfect con, everyone gets what he wants. The Brothers Bloom draws you in with an intriguing set-up and a promising cast, but in the end, it is a con that turns out to be far from perfect.
(ST)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
I Love You, Man
John Hamburg
The story: Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is getting married to Zooey (Rashida Jones) but he does not have a close friend to be his best man. He is not bothered by it until he overhears his fiancee’s conversation with her girlfriends who wonder if that is healthy.
In walks Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) to a house viewing held by Peter, and it proves to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
How did the male friendship end up in this fraught state?
Just because this movie’s protagonist Peter Klaven does not find gross-out porn hilarious or drink lots of beer – which the film insinuates are what most straight guys are like – he does not find it easy to make male friends.
After overhearing his fiancee’s conversation, he embarks on a determined search for a guy friend, which hilariously turns out to be not too different from looking for a girlfriend.
A big reason why I Love You, Man works is because of Paul Rudd. It has taken way too long but the likeable charmer who broke out in 1995’s Clueless finally makes it to leading man status with last year’s comedy Role Models and this film.
He bounced around in supporting roles after Clueless, including a turn on the sitcom Friends. More recently, he seemed to be in danger of being permanently cast as the funny sidekick in comedies such as The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Knocked Up (2007).
He proves here that he can carry a movie on his own and he is helped by a smart, breezy script.
In his search for a friend, Peter goes on the Internet to check out prospects, gets referrals from his helpful family and has to figure out what to do on a man date.
Having had a lot more experience in this respect, his gay brother Robbie (Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg) advises him: “Casual lunch or after work drinks. You’re not taking these boys to see The Devil Wears Prada.”
If Hugh Grant was the master of the stammered apology, then Rudd is the king of cringe. When Peter gets nervous, he shoots off his mouth and says something stupid. Then comes the perfectly timed acknowledgement that it was a lame remark. Rudd never overplays it, so his reaction is endearing rather than annoying.
There is also a believably touching odd-couple chemistry between the straight- laced Peter and the sloppier, slobbier Sydney (Segel, most recently seen in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as they navigate the awkward waters of platonic male-male affection.
Considering the subject matter and the fact that Rudd and Segel have both worked with Judd Apatow previously, it is a bit of a surprise that this is not the latter’s enterprise.
After all, the writer-director-producer has had a hand in recent bromantic comedies such as Pineapple Express (2008), Superbad (2007) as well as Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin.
But perhaps the seeds of the film had been sown much earlier.
Co-writer Larry Levin also had a hand in two episodes of the classic TV series Seinfeld. In The Boyfriend: Parts 1 and 2 (1992), Jerry develops a man crush on baseball player Keith Hernandez after bumping into him at the gym.
From getting a man crush in the early 1990s to going on a man date in the late noughties, the friendship that dares not speak its name is slowly but surely coming out into the open.
(ST)
John Hamburg
The story: Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is getting married to Zooey (Rashida Jones) but he does not have a close friend to be his best man. He is not bothered by it until he overhears his fiancee’s conversation with her girlfriends who wonder if that is healthy.
In walks Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) to a house viewing held by Peter, and it proves to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
How did the male friendship end up in this fraught state?
Just because this movie’s protagonist Peter Klaven does not find gross-out porn hilarious or drink lots of beer – which the film insinuates are what most straight guys are like – he does not find it easy to make male friends.
After overhearing his fiancee’s conversation, he embarks on a determined search for a guy friend, which hilariously turns out to be not too different from looking for a girlfriend.
A big reason why I Love You, Man works is because of Paul Rudd. It has taken way too long but the likeable charmer who broke out in 1995’s Clueless finally makes it to leading man status with last year’s comedy Role Models and this film.
He bounced around in supporting roles after Clueless, including a turn on the sitcom Friends. More recently, he seemed to be in danger of being permanently cast as the funny sidekick in comedies such as The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Knocked Up (2007).
He proves here that he can carry a movie on his own and he is helped by a smart, breezy script.
In his search for a friend, Peter goes on the Internet to check out prospects, gets referrals from his helpful family and has to figure out what to do on a man date.
Having had a lot more experience in this respect, his gay brother Robbie (Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg) advises him: “Casual lunch or after work drinks. You’re not taking these boys to see The Devil Wears Prada.”
If Hugh Grant was the master of the stammered apology, then Rudd is the king of cringe. When Peter gets nervous, he shoots off his mouth and says something stupid. Then comes the perfectly timed acknowledgement that it was a lame remark. Rudd never overplays it, so his reaction is endearing rather than annoying.
There is also a believably touching odd-couple chemistry between the straight- laced Peter and the sloppier, slobbier Sydney (Segel, most recently seen in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as they navigate the awkward waters of platonic male-male affection.
Considering the subject matter and the fact that Rudd and Segel have both worked with Judd Apatow previously, it is a bit of a surprise that this is not the latter’s enterprise.
After all, the writer-director-producer has had a hand in recent bromantic comedies such as Pineapple Express (2008), Superbad (2007) as well as Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin.
But perhaps the seeds of the film had been sown much earlier.
Co-writer Larry Levin also had a hand in two episodes of the classic TV series Seinfeld. In The Boyfriend: Parts 1 and 2 (1992), Jerry develops a man crush on baseball player Keith Hernandez after bumping into him at the gym.
From getting a man crush in the early 1990s to going on a man date in the late noughties, the friendship that dares not speak its name is slowly but surely coming out into the open.
(ST)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Mark Lee Rally 2009
Drama Centre Theatre
Thursday
You wonder what it would have been like to be in the shoes of Mark Lee’s wife Catherine as she watched the performance.
The undoubted highlight of the 100-minute stand-up show was when the comedian regaled the audience with the long and torturous odyssey the couple underwent in their attempts to have a child.
After several years of trying, he got advice from friends who were proud fathers of broods of tykes.
One proposed that he lift his wife’s legs up after sex, another advocated flipping the legs over the head using the wall as a support, and yet a third advocated an alternative position.
The 40-year-old’s delivery was well-paced and he punctuated his storytelling with generous gesturing.
The segment played to his strengths as a comedian and the fact that the material was personal helped to create a strong connection with the audience.
He knew it was the best part of the show, which was why he saved it for last. It earned the biggest laughs of the night.
That sketch was also the best answer to the prickly question that he himself had asked in an earlier interview with Life!: Why pay to watch him when viewers can see him for free on TV?
It was an opportunity to witness him sharing his private life in a cheekily entertaining manner.
Alas, the rest of the evening was fairly ho-hum.
As promised, he took on government policies on issues ranging from language education to the certificate of entitlement for cars. However, the writing by stage and TV writers Soo Wei Seng and Boris Boo was not particularly sharp.
One could also have done without the constant reference to the political Lees and a lame attempt to milk some laughs by calling himself Performer Mark Lee or PM Lee.
He fared better when riffing on Ah Beng culture and how that is different from the way gangsters behave, including an amusing bit on swearing with hand gestures.
Drawing on recent headline-grabbers, he also took some barbed digs at veteran show host Marcus Chin’s tabloid-worthy relationship with his much younger female assistant as well as the recent brouhaha over lip-synching in The Little Nyonya musical.
The show marks Lee’s 20th year in showbusiness and serves as a reminder of how far he has come with his Ah Beng persona. But it will not have new fans rallying around him.
(ST)
Drama Centre Theatre
Thursday
You wonder what it would have been like to be in the shoes of Mark Lee’s wife Catherine as she watched the performance.
The undoubted highlight of the 100-minute stand-up show was when the comedian regaled the audience with the long and torturous odyssey the couple underwent in their attempts to have a child.
After several years of trying, he got advice from friends who were proud fathers of broods of tykes.
One proposed that he lift his wife’s legs up after sex, another advocated flipping the legs over the head using the wall as a support, and yet a third advocated an alternative position.
The 40-year-old’s delivery was well-paced and he punctuated his storytelling with generous gesturing.
The segment played to his strengths as a comedian and the fact that the material was personal helped to create a strong connection with the audience.
He knew it was the best part of the show, which was why he saved it for last. It earned the biggest laughs of the night.
That sketch was also the best answer to the prickly question that he himself had asked in an earlier interview with Life!: Why pay to watch him when viewers can see him for free on TV?
It was an opportunity to witness him sharing his private life in a cheekily entertaining manner.
Alas, the rest of the evening was fairly ho-hum.
As promised, he took on government policies on issues ranging from language education to the certificate of entitlement for cars. However, the writing by stage and TV writers Soo Wei Seng and Boris Boo was not particularly sharp.
One could also have done without the constant reference to the political Lees and a lame attempt to milk some laughs by calling himself Performer Mark Lee or PM Lee.
He fared better when riffing on Ah Beng culture and how that is different from the way gangsters behave, including an amusing bit on swearing with hand gestures.
Drawing on recent headline-grabbers, he also took some barbed digs at veteran show host Marcus Chin’s tabloid-worthy relationship with his much younger female assistant as well as the recent brouhaha over lip-synching in The Little Nyonya musical.
The show marks Lee’s 20th year in showbusiness and serves as a reminder of how far he has come with his Ah Beng persona. But it will not have new fans rallying around him.
(ST)
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Blood: The Last Vampire
Chris Nahon
The story: Saya (Gianna Jun) is a 400-year-old half-vampire, half-human. She kills vampires for a shadowy organisation in return for their help in tracking down Onigen (Koyuki), the powerful demon who killed her father.
Sent to an American military base in Tokyo by her handler Michael (Liam Cunningham), Saya takes on the identity of a 16-year-old schoolgirl. She protects a general’s daughter, Alice McKee (Allison Miller), from some nasty fiends and discovers a vampire nest.
Let the bloodbath begin.
If you have haemophobia, you would do well to stay away from this film as blood is undeniably a star attraction here.
Sharp gleaming swords slice through flesh with no resistance and blood spurts and erupts beautifully all over the screen, every last drop rendered in loving detail.
Yet, for all the blood-letting, the violence does not feel real and oppressive because of the stylised visuals. The aesthetics point to its source material, the 2000 hit anime film of the same name.
Like the anime, the film is primarily in English rather than Japanese. Gianna Jun (the actress previously known as Jeon Ji Hyun), best known for the Korean romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), turns in a credible English-language debut, sounding more at home in the language than Zhang Ziyi did in the thriller Horsemen (2009).
In the fight sequences choreographed by go-to action guy Cory Yuen, she also makes for a believable killing machine, hell-bent on seeking vengeance and drained of all other impulses.
Actress Koyuki (who appeared in 2003’s The Last Samurai) fares less well linguistically. The final showdown between Saya and her character is marred by her thick Japanese accent. The dialogue was incomprehensible at points.
Plot-wise, monster-slaying schoolgirls are nothing new in Japanese anime. But it remains relatively rare in Western fare even after seven seasons of the hit TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it is nice to see the damsel in distress being rescued by another damsel.
The film also attempts to create some mystery over Saya’s parentage but the big reveal comes as no surprise.
And after all the build-up, the climactic battle falls short though the ending cannily leaves the door open for more blood to be spilled in a sequel.
(ST)
Chris Nahon
The story: Saya (Gianna Jun) is a 400-year-old half-vampire, half-human. She kills vampires for a shadowy organisation in return for their help in tracking down Onigen (Koyuki), the powerful demon who killed her father.
Sent to an American military base in Tokyo by her handler Michael (Liam Cunningham), Saya takes on the identity of a 16-year-old schoolgirl. She protects a general’s daughter, Alice McKee (Allison Miller), from some nasty fiends and discovers a vampire nest.
Let the bloodbath begin.
If you have haemophobia, you would do well to stay away from this film as blood is undeniably a star attraction here.
Sharp gleaming swords slice through flesh with no resistance and blood spurts and erupts beautifully all over the screen, every last drop rendered in loving detail.
Yet, for all the blood-letting, the violence does not feel real and oppressive because of the stylised visuals. The aesthetics point to its source material, the 2000 hit anime film of the same name.
Like the anime, the film is primarily in English rather than Japanese. Gianna Jun (the actress previously known as Jeon Ji Hyun), best known for the Korean romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), turns in a credible English-language debut, sounding more at home in the language than Zhang Ziyi did in the thriller Horsemen (2009).
In the fight sequences choreographed by go-to action guy Cory Yuen, she also makes for a believable killing machine, hell-bent on seeking vengeance and drained of all other impulses.
Actress Koyuki (who appeared in 2003’s The Last Samurai) fares less well linguistically. The final showdown between Saya and her character is marred by her thick Japanese accent. The dialogue was incomprehensible at points.
Plot-wise, monster-slaying schoolgirls are nothing new in Japanese anime. But it remains relatively rare in Western fare even after seven seasons of the hit TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it is nice to see the damsel in distress being rescued by another damsel.
The film also attempts to create some mystery over Saya’s parentage but the big reveal comes as no surprise.
And after all the build-up, the climactic battle falls short though the ending cannily leaves the door open for more blood to be spilled in a sequel.
(ST)
Monday, June 01, 2009
Aaron Kwok De Show Reel Live In Concert 09
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday
That old chestnut from the musical Chicago – Give ’em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle ’em – seemed to be Hong Kong entertainer Aaron Kwok’s mantra during his three-hour-plus concert last Saturday.
While the 43-year-old had been anointed one of the four Heavenly Kings of Chinese entertainment, putting on a concert today must still present a peculiar kind of quandary for him.
While acknowledged to be an excellent dancer, he is not the best singer. He has not had the most memorable hits and his album sales in the noughties are not what they used to be in the 1990s.
The solution? Put on a heck of a show.
Even though it is hard to figure out how it adds up to 450 degrees, the much-vaunted revolving stage was indeed a spectacular spectacle.
The rectangular five-storey-high block was set on a turntable platform. At the same time, the entire block could pivot 360 degrees vertically, flipping Kwok and the dancers within it through one revolution after another.
Earning a Guinness World Record for the largest revolving indoor stage, the contraption was imported from Hong Kong along with a 150-strong crew.
It even had another trick up its sleeve. The two faces of the five-storey block could be lowered like drawbridges, leaving the metal skeleton standing and was used for an effective role-playing segment with Kwok storming a castle.
And that was just part of the show.
Another highlight was the water dance in which he gleefully frolicked in a specially constructed four-sided water catwalk. Fans in the rows nearest the stage donned ponchos thoughtfully provided by the organisers, and they squealed in delight as their idol splashed them.
The razzle dazzle applied to the star’s shiny, shimmery outfits as well, each one more outlandish than the one before.
The opening costume flaunted Kwok’s taut and toned body as he danced in a cloud of glitter. In subsequent ensembles, he was the leader of an athletic alien race; a warrior king sheathed in silver; and also took the stage as what appeared to be a human-lobster hybrid.
The tireless showman confidently commanded the four-sided stage and the near-capacity crowd of over 9,000 showed its appreciation by applauding, screaming, whistling and stamping their feet.
Eighty per cent of the singer’s repertoire was in Cantonese. This was a wise move as he was clearly more comfortable in his native tongue than in Mandarin, and he sounded his best on the Cantonese ballads such as Why Did I Let You Go? and Divergence.
Engaging his fans at one point, he said that his costume was so heavy it was like lugging around two sacks of “mei” (beauty).The crowd delightedly chorused back the right word, “mi” (rice), at once.
His Cantonese accent was also apparent on numbers such as Endless Love To You. This was his first Mandarin single and while the huge hit had been given a makeover with a new remix, it was still performed with the same cheesy hand gestures from the 1990 music video.
Only towards the end of the concert did he seem to relax and enjoy himself. The first few numbers in particular were performed with a look of intense, almost grim, concentration.
Still, you cannot help but admire Kwok for his stamina and the sheer hard work put into the high-energy show.
By the time he sang his final song of the evening, Should I Leave Quietly?, the answer was a clear and resounding no.
(ST)
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday
That old chestnut from the musical Chicago – Give ’em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle ’em – seemed to be Hong Kong entertainer Aaron Kwok’s mantra during his three-hour-plus concert last Saturday.
While the 43-year-old had been anointed one of the four Heavenly Kings of Chinese entertainment, putting on a concert today must still present a peculiar kind of quandary for him.
While acknowledged to be an excellent dancer, he is not the best singer. He has not had the most memorable hits and his album sales in the noughties are not what they used to be in the 1990s.
The solution? Put on a heck of a show.
Even though it is hard to figure out how it adds up to 450 degrees, the much-vaunted revolving stage was indeed a spectacular spectacle.
The rectangular five-storey-high block was set on a turntable platform. At the same time, the entire block could pivot 360 degrees vertically, flipping Kwok and the dancers within it through one revolution after another.
Earning a Guinness World Record for the largest revolving indoor stage, the contraption was imported from Hong Kong along with a 150-strong crew.
It even had another trick up its sleeve. The two faces of the five-storey block could be lowered like drawbridges, leaving the metal skeleton standing and was used for an effective role-playing segment with Kwok storming a castle.
And that was just part of the show.
Another highlight was the water dance in which he gleefully frolicked in a specially constructed four-sided water catwalk. Fans in the rows nearest the stage donned ponchos thoughtfully provided by the organisers, and they squealed in delight as their idol splashed them.
The razzle dazzle applied to the star’s shiny, shimmery outfits as well, each one more outlandish than the one before.
The opening costume flaunted Kwok’s taut and toned body as he danced in a cloud of glitter. In subsequent ensembles, he was the leader of an athletic alien race; a warrior king sheathed in silver; and also took the stage as what appeared to be a human-lobster hybrid.
The tireless showman confidently commanded the four-sided stage and the near-capacity crowd of over 9,000 showed its appreciation by applauding, screaming, whistling and stamping their feet.
Eighty per cent of the singer’s repertoire was in Cantonese. This was a wise move as he was clearly more comfortable in his native tongue than in Mandarin, and he sounded his best on the Cantonese ballads such as Why Did I Let You Go? and Divergence.
Engaging his fans at one point, he said that his costume was so heavy it was like lugging around two sacks of “mei” (beauty).The crowd delightedly chorused back the right word, “mi” (rice), at once.
His Cantonese accent was also apparent on numbers such as Endless Love To You. This was his first Mandarin single and while the huge hit had been given a makeover with a new remix, it was still performed with the same cheesy hand gestures from the 1990 music video.
Only towards the end of the concert did he seem to relax and enjoy himself. The first few numbers in particular were performed with a look of intense, almost grim, concentration.
Still, you cannot help but admire Kwok for his stamina and the sheer hard work put into the high-energy show.
By the time he sang his final song of the evening, Should I Leave Quietly?, the answer was a clear and resounding no.
(ST)
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