Horsemen
Jonas Akerlund
The Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports could consider promoting this movie. After all, the message here is: spend more time with your children.
But this message is hammered into the viewer in a sensationalistic manner with a series of horrific killings in which the victims are hung from assorted contraptions with industrial-strength meat hooks.
Seldom has the dangers of parental neglect been spelt out so gruesomely.
Dennis Quaid is the detective in charge of the case, oblivious to what is happening under his own nose, while Zhang Ziyi plays the adopted daughter of one of the victims.
Big-time Swedish music video director Jonas Akerlund’s overwrought second feature piles on the religious associations. The movie title refers to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The effect, though, is hokey rather than genuinely unsettling.
He tries to dodge the tag of exploitation by turning this into a cautionary tale, but the moral lesson just feels hastily slapped on.
(ST)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Traitor
Jeffrey Nachmanoff
The story: Devout Sudanese-American Muslim Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) has attracted the suspicions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for being in the vicinity of several terrorist bombings.
Agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) heads up a task force investigation to link the former United States Army Special Forces explosives expert to these attacks and to stop him from striking again.
The political thriller is a tricky genre. Too much background information and the film risks getting bogged down in a morass of details; too little and it turns into a run-of-the-mill action flick.
This film, for the most part, is a smart, nuanced take on a current hot potato – the issue of international terrorism. While the hit television series 24 is a non-stop adrenaline pumper, Traitor’s writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff has sought to balance both the action and plot elements.
The scenario here is America’s worst nightmare, the activation of dozens of sleeper cell agents to carry out a coordinated terrorist attack, also explored in Showtime’s drama Sleeper Cell (2005-2006).
Even though the villains here are Muslim terrorists, the audience is presented with an even-handed treatment of religion that illustrates the fact that extremism is not a failing exclusive to Islam.
Agent Clayton says at one point: “Where I grew up, the Klan burned crosses in front of people’s houses and called it Christianity. Then my daddy and the folks from the church would drive over and put them out. Seems every religion has more than one face.”
Traitor also points out the irony that those who pursue the terrorists can end up echoing their rhetoric.
An American agent declares: “This is a war. You do what it takes to win. We’re the good guys.” The wry response: “You know who you sound like, right?”
It poses the prickly question of whether the means can ever justify the end, an issue that has been hotly debated after the curbing of civil liberties in the United States and the setting up of Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in which those deemed to be “enemy combatants” were detained without trial and allegedly subjected to torture.
The central character of Samir Horn is an enigmatic one, and the excellent Don Cheadle draws you in and keeps you guessing his intentions. Inevitably, when his true inclinations are revealed, the tension slackens though Cheadle keeps you watching.
The actor has proved his versatility since his electrifying supporting turn as the unhinged Mouse in Devil In A Blue Dress (1995), going on to win an Oscar nomination for the genocide drama, Hotel Rwanda (2004) as well as delivering turns in more commercial fare such as the ensemble crime caper Ocean’s Eleven franchise.
He is well supported here by Pearce as the persistent and fair-minded Clayton, Jeff Daniels as an amoral Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor and French-Moroccan star Said Taghmaoui, now appearing in Lost, as a charismatic Muslim leader.
The movie sometimes threatens to slip into generic cop thriller territory but manages to steer just clear of it. A pity, then, that the resolution of the sleeper cell attack feels too rushed and convenient.
Still, you will not want to turn your back on Traitor.
(ST)
Jeffrey Nachmanoff
The story: Devout Sudanese-American Muslim Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) has attracted the suspicions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for being in the vicinity of several terrorist bombings.
Agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) heads up a task force investigation to link the former United States Army Special Forces explosives expert to these attacks and to stop him from striking again.
The political thriller is a tricky genre. Too much background information and the film risks getting bogged down in a morass of details; too little and it turns into a run-of-the-mill action flick.
This film, for the most part, is a smart, nuanced take on a current hot potato – the issue of international terrorism. While the hit television series 24 is a non-stop adrenaline pumper, Traitor’s writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff has sought to balance both the action and plot elements.
The scenario here is America’s worst nightmare, the activation of dozens of sleeper cell agents to carry out a coordinated terrorist attack, also explored in Showtime’s drama Sleeper Cell (2005-2006).
Even though the villains here are Muslim terrorists, the audience is presented with an even-handed treatment of religion that illustrates the fact that extremism is not a failing exclusive to Islam.
Agent Clayton says at one point: “Where I grew up, the Klan burned crosses in front of people’s houses and called it Christianity. Then my daddy and the folks from the church would drive over and put them out. Seems every religion has more than one face.”
Traitor also points out the irony that those who pursue the terrorists can end up echoing their rhetoric.
An American agent declares: “This is a war. You do what it takes to win. We’re the good guys.” The wry response: “You know who you sound like, right?”
It poses the prickly question of whether the means can ever justify the end, an issue that has been hotly debated after the curbing of civil liberties in the United States and the setting up of Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in which those deemed to be “enemy combatants” were detained without trial and allegedly subjected to torture.
The central character of Samir Horn is an enigmatic one, and the excellent Don Cheadle draws you in and keeps you guessing his intentions. Inevitably, when his true inclinations are revealed, the tension slackens though Cheadle keeps you watching.
The actor has proved his versatility since his electrifying supporting turn as the unhinged Mouse in Devil In A Blue Dress (1995), going on to win an Oscar nomination for the genocide drama, Hotel Rwanda (2004) as well as delivering turns in more commercial fare such as the ensemble crime caper Ocean’s Eleven franchise.
He is well supported here by Pearce as the persistent and fair-minded Clayton, Jeff Daniels as an amoral Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor and French-Moroccan star Said Taghmaoui, now appearing in Lost, as a charismatic Muslim leader.
The movie sometimes threatens to slip into generic cop thriller territory but manages to steer just clear of it. A pity, then, that the resolution of the sleeper cell attack feels too rushed and convenient.
Still, you will not want to turn your back on Traitor.
(ST)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Magique!
Philippe Muyl
The story: Ten-year-old Tommy (Louis Dussol) lives with his mother Betty (Marie Gillain) on a honey farm in rural Canada. He has never known his father and imagines him to be an astronaut.
When a kindly doctor tells him that his mother is suffering from melancholy, he is determined to cheer her up. He invites a travelling circus to their farm and embarks on a search for something or someone that would make her laugh.
With Magique!, French writer-director Philippe Muyl is out to prove that the well-received The Butterfly was no mere sleight of hand.
While he once again takes on a familiar subject matter – a young child learning the lessons of life – he also takes the film in a different direction.
Inspired by the number he wrote for the closing credits of The Butterfly, Muyl has included a lot more songs here.
But instead of having the actors belt them out in Broadway-musical style, the singing here is low-key and naturalistic.
It is part of the charm and whimsy with which Muyl imbues this simple story of a boy who just wants to make his mother laugh.
The film-maker seems to have a knack for working with children and the bright-eyed Dussol is endearing as he earnestly and doggedly embarks on his quest. When the travelling circus sets up shop on their farm, a colourful cast of characters befriends Tommy.
While the idea of kooky big-top folks borders on the cliched, the proceedings are handled with a light touch and are too good-natured to be grating, especially when set against the gorgeously coloured backdrop of rural Canada.
Tommy’s search proves to be more daunting than first imagined. At the same time, a romance begins to develop between Betty and the clown Baptiste (singer-songwriter Cali in his first big-screen outing).
Cali and Gillain, the Belgian actress who turned heads with her debut in the comedy My Father The Hero (1991), share an easy chemistry and make the connection between two lonely people touchingly believable.
When Tommy stumbles on both of them talking in bed, he is upset, not by the fact that his mother is with someone, but by the revelation that his father was a musician.
Ah, the worldliness of the French, even at such a tender age.
Magique! is a movie for children but it is mercifully free of the condescension family films often strangely display towards their target audience. And adults too might just find themselves falling under the spell of Muyl’s appealing escapade.
(ST)
Philippe Muyl
The story: Ten-year-old Tommy (Louis Dussol) lives with his mother Betty (Marie Gillain) on a honey farm in rural Canada. He has never known his father and imagines him to be an astronaut.
When a kindly doctor tells him that his mother is suffering from melancholy, he is determined to cheer her up. He invites a travelling circus to their farm and embarks on a search for something or someone that would make her laugh.
With Magique!, French writer-director Philippe Muyl is out to prove that the well-received The Butterfly was no mere sleight of hand.
While he once again takes on a familiar subject matter – a young child learning the lessons of life – he also takes the film in a different direction.
Inspired by the number he wrote for the closing credits of The Butterfly, Muyl has included a lot more songs here.
But instead of having the actors belt them out in Broadway-musical style, the singing here is low-key and naturalistic.
It is part of the charm and whimsy with which Muyl imbues this simple story of a boy who just wants to make his mother laugh.
The film-maker seems to have a knack for working with children and the bright-eyed Dussol is endearing as he earnestly and doggedly embarks on his quest. When the travelling circus sets up shop on their farm, a colourful cast of characters befriends Tommy.
While the idea of kooky big-top folks borders on the cliched, the proceedings are handled with a light touch and are too good-natured to be grating, especially when set against the gorgeously coloured backdrop of rural Canada.
Tommy’s search proves to be more daunting than first imagined. At the same time, a romance begins to develop between Betty and the clown Baptiste (singer-songwriter Cali in his first big-screen outing).
Cali and Gillain, the Belgian actress who turned heads with her debut in the comedy My Father The Hero (1991), share an easy chemistry and make the connection between two lonely people touchingly believable.
When Tommy stumbles on both of them talking in bed, he is upset, not by the fact that his mother is with someone, but by the revelation that his father was a musician.
Ah, the worldliness of the French, even at such a tender age.
Magique! is a movie for children but it is mercifully free of the condescension family films often strangely display towards their target audience. And adults too might just find themselves falling under the spell of Muyl’s appealing escapade.
(ST)
Monday, April 20, 2009
If There're Seasons...
The Theatre Practice
Drama Centre
Last Saturday
One of the early xinyao tracks written by Liang Wern Fook asked the question: “Where Are Our Songs?” Happily, one need not ask that of the composer whose name is synonymous with the Singapore folk music movement which took root in schools here in the 1980s.
Hong Kong playwright Raymond To has stitched together a musical tale based on Liang’s songs and the result, If There’re Seasons, was a 19-show sell-out hit when first staged by The Theatre Practice in 2007.
The restaging of the three-hour musical follows a young Singaporean A-Le (George Chan) as he leaves for America after the death of his girlfriend Xiao Jing (Sing Chew Sin Huey).
There, he meets his fellow countrymen chasing after dreams of their own. There is A-Qiang (Jeffrey Low), also a budding musician, and Rose (Joanna Dong), an aspiring actress whom A-Le is attracted to.
A recent point of reference would be Mamma Mia!, which is built around existing pop hits by Abba. The challenge is to weave together a coherent work from songs which were not specifically written to be parts of a whole. Not surprisingly, the plot can sometimes feel like a mere ploy to shoehorn as many songs as possible into the proceedings.
While Mamma Mia! has laboured multiple storylines, it does preserve the giddy joy of the Swedish group’s infectious music.
Raymond To had a more difficult task with Liang’s works, which have diverse themes, including those of school life, friendship, love, growing up and Singaporean identity. To his credit, he did not take the obvious route – portray school friends who embark on different paths after graduation.
But the end result did not always work and was head-scratchingly baffling at points.
The love triangle with A-Le, Xiao Jing and Rose was never very convincing. It was hard to understand why A-Le was so conflicted over his affections for Rose and it was hard to accept that the sassy modern miss Rose would fall for the indecisive and reserved A-Le.
Setting the action in New York for the large part was also a strange choice which made the songs about identity seem more removed, despite the notion of homesickness being added to the mix.
It certainly did not help that the production’s risible idea of SoHo was Rent’s lower east side by way of Miss Saigon, a lawless neighbourhood thronging with street musicians and Asians.
With the exception of this glaring mis-step, some thought and money had clearly gone into the effective, handsome set.
More importantly, given that this was a musical, the saving grace was that the key leads were competent singers.
Dancer-actor Chan had a bright, pleasant tenor that was a good fit for the xinyao vibe, though too often in solos, he would lapse into the same stance – body facing the audience, head tilted upwards.
Singer-actress Dong handled the part of Rose well, and even turned her into the most sympathetic character as she juggled love and career.
Project Superstar alumnus Sing Chew seemed to be nursing a sore throat and had some trouble with the high notes. Unfortunately for her, she was also stuck with the ghost plot device which quickly became cloying.
Low as A-Qiang could belt it out and he would sometimes slip into exaggeration, but it worked when his intensity matched the lyrics on the track In The End.
A-Qiang’s strained relationship with his boyfriend, which earned the show an advisory for mature content, gave a gender twist to xinyao classics such as As The Night Falls Gently.
For fans familiar with Liang’s works, such moments of genuine surprise were, alas, few and far in between.
An early ensemble number, One Step At A Time, was nicely executed and included a well-choreographed sequence with pizza boxes.
When A-Le sings A Break From Love to a drunk and tormented A-Qiang, it was the perfect choice of song with its lyrics of drowning one’s sorrows in drink.
While the idea of putting together a musical using Liang’s songs is an excellent one, you cannot help but feel that his thoughtful, poetic and incisive works deserve a better vehicle.
(ST)
The Theatre Practice
Drama Centre
Last Saturday
One of the early xinyao tracks written by Liang Wern Fook asked the question: “Where Are Our Songs?” Happily, one need not ask that of the composer whose name is synonymous with the Singapore folk music movement which took root in schools here in the 1980s.
Hong Kong playwright Raymond To has stitched together a musical tale based on Liang’s songs and the result, If There’re Seasons, was a 19-show sell-out hit when first staged by The Theatre Practice in 2007.
The restaging of the three-hour musical follows a young Singaporean A-Le (George Chan) as he leaves for America after the death of his girlfriend Xiao Jing (Sing Chew Sin Huey).
There, he meets his fellow countrymen chasing after dreams of their own. There is A-Qiang (Jeffrey Low), also a budding musician, and Rose (Joanna Dong), an aspiring actress whom A-Le is attracted to.
A recent point of reference would be Mamma Mia!, which is built around existing pop hits by Abba. The challenge is to weave together a coherent work from songs which were not specifically written to be parts of a whole. Not surprisingly, the plot can sometimes feel like a mere ploy to shoehorn as many songs as possible into the proceedings.
While Mamma Mia! has laboured multiple storylines, it does preserve the giddy joy of the Swedish group’s infectious music.
Raymond To had a more difficult task with Liang’s works, which have diverse themes, including those of school life, friendship, love, growing up and Singaporean identity. To his credit, he did not take the obvious route – portray school friends who embark on different paths after graduation.
But the end result did not always work and was head-scratchingly baffling at points.
The love triangle with A-Le, Xiao Jing and Rose was never very convincing. It was hard to understand why A-Le was so conflicted over his affections for Rose and it was hard to accept that the sassy modern miss Rose would fall for the indecisive and reserved A-Le.
Setting the action in New York for the large part was also a strange choice which made the songs about identity seem more removed, despite the notion of homesickness being added to the mix.
It certainly did not help that the production’s risible idea of SoHo was Rent’s lower east side by way of Miss Saigon, a lawless neighbourhood thronging with street musicians and Asians.
With the exception of this glaring mis-step, some thought and money had clearly gone into the effective, handsome set.
More importantly, given that this was a musical, the saving grace was that the key leads were competent singers.
Dancer-actor Chan had a bright, pleasant tenor that was a good fit for the xinyao vibe, though too often in solos, he would lapse into the same stance – body facing the audience, head tilted upwards.
Singer-actress Dong handled the part of Rose well, and even turned her into the most sympathetic character as she juggled love and career.
Project Superstar alumnus Sing Chew seemed to be nursing a sore throat and had some trouble with the high notes. Unfortunately for her, she was also stuck with the ghost plot device which quickly became cloying.
Low as A-Qiang could belt it out and he would sometimes slip into exaggeration, but it worked when his intensity matched the lyrics on the track In The End.
A-Qiang’s strained relationship with his boyfriend, which earned the show an advisory for mature content, gave a gender twist to xinyao classics such as As The Night Falls Gently.
For fans familiar with Liang’s works, such moments of genuine surprise were, alas, few and far in between.
An early ensemble number, One Step At A Time, was nicely executed and included a well-choreographed sequence with pizza boxes.
When A-Le sings A Break From Love to a drunk and tormented A-Qiang, it was the perfect choice of song with its lyrics of drowning one’s sorrows in drink.
While the idea of putting together a musical using Liang’s songs is an excellent one, you cannot help but feel that his thoughtful, poetic and incisive works deserve a better vehicle.
(ST)
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Taken
Pierre Morel
The story: Retired CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) wants to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) but finds it hard to compete with her rich and generous stepfather.
When she is abducted on a trip to Paris, Mills hunts down those responsible and rescues her.
This is the big screen knock-off of the popular TV series 24. Instead of 24 hours, it is 96. Instead of terrorists, there are Eastern European human traffickers as the scumbags. Instead of Kiefer Sutherland as superagent Jack Bauer, you get Liam Neeson as superdad and superagent Bryan Mills.
Given the similarities, Taken has enjoyed an impressive run at the American box office. It opened at No. 1 and has shown strong legs by remaining in the top three for five weeks. The sleeper hit, directed by Pierre Morel, has grossed US$140 million (S$211 million) to date.
But unlike each season of 24 which always begins with a bang, Taken starts somewhat slowly.
The film first establishes the prickly state of relations between Mills and his ex-wife Lenore (X-Men’s Famke Janssen) as well as the tenuous connection between him and his daughter Kim (coincidentally the name of Bauer’s daughter in 24).
Having been an absent father to Kim (an oddly unrecognisable Maggie Grace from sci-fi drama Lost) while she was growing up, Mills now has to compete with her stepfather for her affection.
But when she and her girlfriend Amanda are abducted in Paris, Mills’ skills as a CIA agent prove vital in tracking down his daughter. He will stop at nothing to save her and woe betide anyone who gets in his way.
The prolific Neeson has taken on roles ranging from the Oscar-nominated Oskar Schindler in the Holocaust drama Schindler’s List (1993) to Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) and can generally be counted on to deliver solid performances.
While the stoic and single-minded Mills is not much of a challenge character-wise, the film makes good use of Neeson’s imposing 1.93m frame as he despatches baddies in smooth-flowing, hypnotic action sequences in small enclosed spaces.
The well-choreographed fight scenes are stylishly filmed but they do not quite reach the heights of aesthetic grace served up in Quantum Of Solace (2008).
Neeson barely breaks a sweat moving from interrogation to unarmed combat to shooting sprees. And the film is so keen to keep up this unrelenting pace that it does not pause to ask about the morality of the violence and torture Mills is inflicting.
What Taken, produced and written by French film-maker Luc Besson, does to alleviate any niggling of the conscience is to give us one-dimensional villains who, clearly, deserve their fates.
The worst of the lot is a suit-clad creep for whom human trafficking is merely business and not personal. Mills snarls: “It was all personal to me”, kills him and then pumps a few more rounds into his body to vent his hatred and disgust.
On the big screen and small, vigilante justice rules.
(ST)
Pierre Morel
The story: Retired CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) wants to reconnect with his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) but finds it hard to compete with her rich and generous stepfather.
When she is abducted on a trip to Paris, Mills hunts down those responsible and rescues her.
This is the big screen knock-off of the popular TV series 24. Instead of 24 hours, it is 96. Instead of terrorists, there are Eastern European human traffickers as the scumbags. Instead of Kiefer Sutherland as superagent Jack Bauer, you get Liam Neeson as superdad and superagent Bryan Mills.
Given the similarities, Taken has enjoyed an impressive run at the American box office. It opened at No. 1 and has shown strong legs by remaining in the top three for five weeks. The sleeper hit, directed by Pierre Morel, has grossed US$140 million (S$211 million) to date.
But unlike each season of 24 which always begins with a bang, Taken starts somewhat slowly.
The film first establishes the prickly state of relations between Mills and his ex-wife Lenore (X-Men’s Famke Janssen) as well as the tenuous connection between him and his daughter Kim (coincidentally the name of Bauer’s daughter in 24).
Having been an absent father to Kim (an oddly unrecognisable Maggie Grace from sci-fi drama Lost) while she was growing up, Mills now has to compete with her stepfather for her affection.
But when she and her girlfriend Amanda are abducted in Paris, Mills’ skills as a CIA agent prove vital in tracking down his daughter. He will stop at nothing to save her and woe betide anyone who gets in his way.
The prolific Neeson has taken on roles ranging from the Oscar-nominated Oskar Schindler in the Holocaust drama Schindler’s List (1993) to Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) and can generally be counted on to deliver solid performances.
While the stoic and single-minded Mills is not much of a challenge character-wise, the film makes good use of Neeson’s imposing 1.93m frame as he despatches baddies in smooth-flowing, hypnotic action sequences in small enclosed spaces.
The well-choreographed fight scenes are stylishly filmed but they do not quite reach the heights of aesthetic grace served up in Quantum Of Solace (2008).
Neeson barely breaks a sweat moving from interrogation to unarmed combat to shooting sprees. And the film is so keen to keep up this unrelenting pace that it does not pause to ask about the morality of the violence and torture Mills is inflicting.
What Taken, produced and written by French film-maker Luc Besson, does to alleviate any niggling of the conscience is to give us one-dimensional villains who, clearly, deserve their fates.
The worst of the lot is a suit-clad creep for whom human trafficking is merely business and not personal. Mills snarls: “It was all personal to me”, kills him and then pumps a few more rounds into his body to vent his hatred and disgust.
On the big screen and small, vigilante justice rules.
(ST)
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog
By P. Robert Smith
It is an art really. Coming up with snappy titles and attractive cover graphics to entice the unsuspecting consumer into parting with his cash.
So we have Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog, which seems to promise madcap humour, or at the very least, an interesting account of how things lead to the titular situation. No such luck.
A more accurate title would be Up The Creek With A Self-absorbed Two-timing Scumbag, but that is probably the wrong approach to landing a book on the bestseller charts.
Benton Kirby is dating Cassie and is having an affair with Cherry, his Korean student. Somewhere in his past is a fiancee, Georgia, who dies in a freak accident after losing her keys on her hen night.
Up A Tree is P. Robert Smith’s debut work and he seems to think that stringing together what he imagines are hilarious scenarios add up to a novel.
At least Georgia’s death is edged with black humour. Elsewhere, Smith is content to recycle not very funny anecdotes for no apparent purpose other than to recount them.
Things get really dire when he attempts the comedy of humiliation popularised in movies such as There’s Something About Mary (1998) by the Farrelly brothers.
When a piece of “souvlaki-sized turd” stubbornly refuses to be flushed away, Benton feels the urge to cover up by squirrelling the offensive evidence away in his pocket. Right. Sure.
How someone like him is able to attract a succession of women is an absolute mystery. This is something that Benton himself questions, marvelling at his ability to land “the kind of catch that you want to both eat and mount”.
And Smith’s description is the kind of writing that is both crass and repulsive. Give this artless offering a wide berth.
Try this instead: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (2007, $18.95, major bookstores). For a portrait of people behaving badly that illuminates rather than infuriates, turn to this seminal tale about youthful excesses.
(ST)
By P. Robert Smith
It is an art really. Coming up with snappy titles and attractive cover graphics to entice the unsuspecting consumer into parting with his cash.
So we have Up A Tree In The Park At Night With A Hedgehog, which seems to promise madcap humour, or at the very least, an interesting account of how things lead to the titular situation. No such luck.
A more accurate title would be Up The Creek With A Self-absorbed Two-timing Scumbag, but that is probably the wrong approach to landing a book on the bestseller charts.
Benton Kirby is dating Cassie and is having an affair with Cherry, his Korean student. Somewhere in his past is a fiancee, Georgia, who dies in a freak accident after losing her keys on her hen night.
Up A Tree is P. Robert Smith’s debut work and he seems to think that stringing together what he imagines are hilarious scenarios add up to a novel.
At least Georgia’s death is edged with black humour. Elsewhere, Smith is content to recycle not very funny anecdotes for no apparent purpose other than to recount them.
Things get really dire when he attempts the comedy of humiliation popularised in movies such as There’s Something About Mary (1998) by the Farrelly brothers.
When a piece of “souvlaki-sized turd” stubbornly refuses to be flushed away, Benton feels the urge to cover up by squirrelling the offensive evidence away in his pocket. Right. Sure.
How someone like him is able to attract a succession of women is an absolute mystery. This is something that Benton himself questions, marvelling at his ability to land “the kind of catch that you want to both eat and mount”.
And Smith’s description is the kind of writing that is both crass and repulsive. Give this artless offering a wide berth.
Try this instead: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (2007, $18.95, major bookstores). For a portrait of people behaving badly that illuminates rather than infuriates, turn to this seminal tale about youthful excesses.
(ST)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Unborn
David S. Goyer
There is dialogue here to chill the spine. Lazy lines such as “I’m not crazy” and “Do you believe in ghosts?” are enough to send any self-respecting horror fan fleeing in terror.
Multi-ethnic babe Odette Yustman is the luckless Casey Beldon, targeted by a malicious spirit who likes to make strange thumping noises and possesses an eerie-looking four- year-old boy.
Her friends are even more unlucky since they get only second billing and primarily serve as sacrificial fodder.
Keep an eye out for Gary Oldman, who has gone from playing the undead in Dracula (1992) to exorcising the unborn here, in Hebrew no less.
The longer the movie plods on, the more ridiculous it becomes. And weren’t they already spinning heads around in 1973’s The Exorcist?
This does not bode well for X-Men Origins: Magneto, which writer-director David S. Goyer is attached to. The thought is enough to send another chill down the spine.
(ST)
David S. Goyer
There is dialogue here to chill the spine. Lazy lines such as “I’m not crazy” and “Do you believe in ghosts?” are enough to send any self-respecting horror fan fleeing in terror.
Multi-ethnic babe Odette Yustman is the luckless Casey Beldon, targeted by a malicious spirit who likes to make strange thumping noises and possesses an eerie-looking four- year-old boy.
Her friends are even more unlucky since they get only second billing and primarily serve as sacrificial fodder.
Keep an eye out for Gary Oldman, who has gone from playing the undead in Dracula (1992) to exorcising the unborn here, in Hebrew no less.
The longer the movie plods on, the more ridiculous it becomes. And weren’t they already spinning heads around in 1973’s The Exorcist?
This does not bode well for X-Men Origins: Magneto, which writer-director David S. Goyer is attached to. The thought is enough to send another chill down the spine.
(ST)
Fanboys
Kyle Newman
The story: Eric (Sam Huntington) has lost touch with his high school buddies and fellow Star Wars devotees Linus (Chris Marquette), Hutch (Dan Fogler) and Windows (Jay Baruchel) after graduation.
When he finds out that Linus is dying from cancer, the gang, including Zoe (Kristen Bell), decide to embark on one last hurrah – to sneak into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch and steal a first peek at Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).
Fanboys is a reminder of a more innocent time when everything was still possible and Jar Jar Binks had yet to taint the Star Wars universe. In short, it was 1998.
A little background on the significance of the date. The original Star Wars was released in 1977 and re-released on its 20th anniversary in 1997 as a special edition titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
This heightened anticipation to fever pitch for the prequels, of which Episode I: The Phantom Menace was slated for release in 1999.
As card-carrying, or rather, lightsaber-wielding fanboys of the space opera, Eric and gang have fantasised from an early age about sneaking into Star Wars creator George Lucas’ workplace, Skywalker Ranch.
But life drives a wedge into their friendship after graduation, with Eric working at his father’s car dealership and drifting apart from his friends.
When he discovers that Linus is dying from cancer, he rallies the gang to realise their unfulfilled dream and be the first to watch The Phantom Menace in the process.
Actual fanboys will get the biggest rush from the film as the characters argue passionately about Star Wars and have their credentials as fanatics tested with obscure trivia questions.
They will also get a kick out of the cameos from Star Wars actors Carrie Fisher (who played Princess Leia) and Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), as well as William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk in the rival sci-fi series Star Trek.
Even casual fans with some basic knowledge of the franchise will enjoy the flick, which includes references to lightspeed, Darth Vader and a funny showdown between the Star Wars enthusiasts and the Star Trek groupies.
Unfortunately, the force is not strong with the film and it has earned only US$600,000 (S$905,000) at the American box office after seven weeks.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that this is 2009 and not 1998.The film ends with the ironic question about The Phantom Menace: “Guys, what if it sucks?”
Knowing with the benefit of hindsight how disappointing the prequels were and how it soured fan expectations, it would take more than a Jedi mind trick to turn Fanboys into a big hit.
(ST)
Kyle Newman
The story: Eric (Sam Huntington) has lost touch with his high school buddies and fellow Star Wars devotees Linus (Chris Marquette), Hutch (Dan Fogler) and Windows (Jay Baruchel) after graduation.
When he finds out that Linus is dying from cancer, the gang, including Zoe (Kristen Bell), decide to embark on one last hurrah – to sneak into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch and steal a first peek at Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).
Fanboys is a reminder of a more innocent time when everything was still possible and Jar Jar Binks had yet to taint the Star Wars universe. In short, it was 1998.
A little background on the significance of the date. The original Star Wars was released in 1977 and re-released on its 20th anniversary in 1997 as a special edition titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
This heightened anticipation to fever pitch for the prequels, of which Episode I: The Phantom Menace was slated for release in 1999.
As card-carrying, or rather, lightsaber-wielding fanboys of the space opera, Eric and gang have fantasised from an early age about sneaking into Star Wars creator George Lucas’ workplace, Skywalker Ranch.
But life drives a wedge into their friendship after graduation, with Eric working at his father’s car dealership and drifting apart from his friends.
When he discovers that Linus is dying from cancer, he rallies the gang to realise their unfulfilled dream and be the first to watch The Phantom Menace in the process.
Actual fanboys will get the biggest rush from the film as the characters argue passionately about Star Wars and have their credentials as fanatics tested with obscure trivia questions.
They will also get a kick out of the cameos from Star Wars actors Carrie Fisher (who played Princess Leia) and Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), as well as William Shatner, best known as Captain Kirk in the rival sci-fi series Star Trek.
Even casual fans with some basic knowledge of the franchise will enjoy the flick, which includes references to lightspeed, Darth Vader and a funny showdown between the Star Wars enthusiasts and the Star Trek groupies.
Unfortunately, the force is not strong with the film and it has earned only US$600,000 (S$905,000) at the American box office after seven weeks.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that this is 2009 and not 1998.The film ends with the ironic question about The Phantom Menace: “Guys, what if it sucks?”
Knowing with the benefit of hindsight how disappointing the prequels were and how it soured fan expectations, it would take more than a Jedi mind trick to turn Fanboys into a big hit.
(ST)
Sunday, March 22, 2009
malacca, eaten
we've only just begun
this is pit stop no. 1
went to the loo
at pit stop 2
satay spree
pit stop 3
we roared: 'give us more!'
it was only pit stop 4
gula melaka glaze does thrive
on the donuts at pit stop 5
cold drinks and verbal tricks
at pit stop no. 6
bite-sized snack heaven
is pit stop 7
it was a full meal that we ate
at memorable pit stop 8
rise and shine
pit stop 9
can we do it? yes we can!
forward march to pit stop 10
almost extinct but not quite forsaken
tai bak at pit stop no. 11
into teochew cuisine we did delve
it was penultimate pit stop 12
what a great trip this has been
made it to pit stop 13!
we've only just begun
this is pit stop no. 1
went to the loo
at pit stop 2
satay spree
pit stop 3
we roared: 'give us more!'
it was only pit stop 4
gula melaka glaze does thrive
on the donuts at pit stop 5
cold drinks and verbal tricks
at pit stop no. 6
bite-sized snack heaven
is pit stop 7
it was a full meal that we ate
at memorable pit stop 8
rise and shine
pit stop 9
can we do it? yes we can!
forward march to pit stop 10
almost extinct but not quite forsaken
tai bak at pit stop no. 11
into teochew cuisine we did delve
it was penultimate pit stop 12
what a great trip this has been
made it to pit stop 13!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Detroit Metal City
Toshio Lee
The story: All Soichi Negishi (Kenichi Matsuyama) wants to do is to sing his sweet, twee songs about love. But he ends up spewing dark fantasies about rape and murder as Johannes Krauser II, the lead singer of a heavy metal band called Detroit Metal City.
The increasingly frustrated singer runs away from Tokyo just before a hotly anticipated showdown with notorious death metal singer Jack Il Dark.
Music soothes the savage beast. But in the case of death metal, music is the savage beast.
Mild-mannered Soichi Negishi gets more than he bargains for when he unwittingly ends up as the lead singer of Detroit Metal City in this comedy based on a best-selling manga. To his horror, the heavy metal band grows ever more popular while there is barely an audience for his cutesy romantic songs.
His monstrous boss (Yasuko Matsuyuki in a total about-turn from her role as the damsel in distress in Suspect X) gives him hell and is so tough that she puts out cigarettes on her tongue.
Wedged between his demonic alter-ego Johannes Krauser II and his unlucky- in-love troubadour self, Negishi ends up bolting for home.
Last seen as the title character in L: Change The World, a spin-off sequel to the popular Death Note big-screen adaptations (2006), Matsuyama carries the film here with his hilarious performance. He convinces you that he is both Negishi and Krauser, alternating between an awkwardly shy geek and a snarling devil spawn.
When the worlds collide, hilarity ensues.
There is the priceless sight gag of Matsuyama running down the chic shopping street of Omotesando in full death metal get-up. He comes to a stop in front of Cute Music Studio, beats his fists against the glass wall in frustration – and succeeds in scaring the little tots inside.
And in the final showdown with Jack Il Dark (Gene Simmons of the metal band Kiss, whose song Detroit Rock City inspired the title of Kiminori Wakasugi’s manga), Detroit Metal City fans stoically endure the melding of the worlds of twee pop and death metal.
Negishi comes to realise that his mantra of “No music, no dream” applies even to death metal. As his mother puts it: “No matter what you look like or how you say it, helping someone dream is amazing.”
Still, you have to ask, what kind of dream exactly?
The reconciliation between pop and metal might not be fully satisfactory, but director Toshio Lee has delivered a funny, riotous and sometimes riotously funny film.
Detroit Metal City is an adaptation that works because it preserves the out-sized drama of manga which death metal, with its make-up and pageantry, is tailor made for. And which Wakasugi would have you believe is all bark and no bite.
(ST)
Toshio Lee
The story: All Soichi Negishi (Kenichi Matsuyama) wants to do is to sing his sweet, twee songs about love. But he ends up spewing dark fantasies about rape and murder as Johannes Krauser II, the lead singer of a heavy metal band called Detroit Metal City.
The increasingly frustrated singer runs away from Tokyo just before a hotly anticipated showdown with notorious death metal singer Jack Il Dark.
Music soothes the savage beast. But in the case of death metal, music is the savage beast.
Mild-mannered Soichi Negishi gets more than he bargains for when he unwittingly ends up as the lead singer of Detroit Metal City in this comedy based on a best-selling manga. To his horror, the heavy metal band grows ever more popular while there is barely an audience for his cutesy romantic songs.
His monstrous boss (Yasuko Matsuyuki in a total about-turn from her role as the damsel in distress in Suspect X) gives him hell and is so tough that she puts out cigarettes on her tongue.
Wedged between his demonic alter-ego Johannes Krauser II and his unlucky- in-love troubadour self, Negishi ends up bolting for home.
Last seen as the title character in L: Change The World, a spin-off sequel to the popular Death Note big-screen adaptations (2006), Matsuyama carries the film here with his hilarious performance. He convinces you that he is both Negishi and Krauser, alternating between an awkwardly shy geek and a snarling devil spawn.
When the worlds collide, hilarity ensues.
There is the priceless sight gag of Matsuyama running down the chic shopping street of Omotesando in full death metal get-up. He comes to a stop in front of Cute Music Studio, beats his fists against the glass wall in frustration – and succeeds in scaring the little tots inside.
And in the final showdown with Jack Il Dark (Gene Simmons of the metal band Kiss, whose song Detroit Rock City inspired the title of Kiminori Wakasugi’s manga), Detroit Metal City fans stoically endure the melding of the worlds of twee pop and death metal.
Negishi comes to realise that his mantra of “No music, no dream” applies even to death metal. As his mother puts it: “No matter what you look like or how you say it, helping someone dream is amazing.”
Still, you have to ask, what kind of dream exactly?
The reconciliation between pop and metal might not be fully satisfactory, but director Toshio Lee has delivered a funny, riotous and sometimes riotously funny film.
Detroit Metal City is an adaptation that works because it preserves the out-sized drama of manga which death metal, with its make-up and pageantry, is tailor made for. And which Wakasugi would have you believe is all bark and no bite.
(ST)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Tale Of Despereaux
Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen
The story: Despereaux, a tiny mouse with oversized ears, is born into a kingdom which has been plunged into unhappiness ever since the Queen died of a heart attack. When the Princess ends up in the clutches of the dastardly rats, it is up to Despereaux to save the day.
Rats. After having their dubious reputation rehabilitated in the animated Pixar feature Ratatouille (2007), they once again have their name dragged into the sewer.
Even though the title points to Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick) as the hero, the tale actually begins with the sea-faring rat Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), who finds himself in the kingdom of Dor where soup is revered.
His pursuit of fine dining lands him in hot soup when he drops into the Queen’s bowl and triggers a heart attack.
Driven by grief, the King outlaws soup and rats, and Dor is plunged into a grey pall of misery. This is the kingdom that Despereaux is born into but there is more to come.
And that is part of the problem with this adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s award-winning children’s fantasy book. There are simply too many ingredients in the pot.
There is the lonely Princess Pea (Emma Watson); the piggish-looking maid who longs to be a princess (Tracey Ullman); Roscuro’s search for atonement; Despereaux’s search for his place in the world; and a race to save the princess from bloodthirsty rats in the finale.
Yet for all the plot developments, directors Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen cannot quite grasp the art of pacing and the film often feels draggy.
A pity really, for it has a few things going for it. The visuals are lovely and given a fairy-tale feel with soft lighting. The worlds of humans, mice and rats are all depicted with great details and are carefully differentiated.
There is wittiness in the use of a snarling cat in a Ratworld stadium as the equivalent of a lion in the Roman arena.
The film also deals with several themes, almost as many as there are plot strands.
One of the key ideas is that of identity. Despereaux’s parents worry that “he doesn’t scurry, he doesn’t cower” and want him to fit in with all the other mice. Yet, it is his fearlessness and his curiosity, which set him apart and lead to his encounter with the Princess and his subsequent adventures.
The film ends with a too-neat homily about the circle of pain that only forgiveness can break and, ultimately, it feels like a missed opportunity. Rats.
(ST)
Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen
The story: Despereaux, a tiny mouse with oversized ears, is born into a kingdom which has been plunged into unhappiness ever since the Queen died of a heart attack. When the Princess ends up in the clutches of the dastardly rats, it is up to Despereaux to save the day.
Rats. After having their dubious reputation rehabilitated in the animated Pixar feature Ratatouille (2007), they once again have their name dragged into the sewer.
Even though the title points to Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick) as the hero, the tale actually begins with the sea-faring rat Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), who finds himself in the kingdom of Dor where soup is revered.
His pursuit of fine dining lands him in hot soup when he drops into the Queen’s bowl and triggers a heart attack.
Driven by grief, the King outlaws soup and rats, and Dor is plunged into a grey pall of misery. This is the kingdom that Despereaux is born into but there is more to come.
And that is part of the problem with this adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s award-winning children’s fantasy book. There are simply too many ingredients in the pot.
There is the lonely Princess Pea (Emma Watson); the piggish-looking maid who longs to be a princess (Tracey Ullman); Roscuro’s search for atonement; Despereaux’s search for his place in the world; and a race to save the princess from bloodthirsty rats in the finale.
Yet for all the plot developments, directors Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen cannot quite grasp the art of pacing and the film often feels draggy.
A pity really, for it has a few things going for it. The visuals are lovely and given a fairy-tale feel with soft lighting. The worlds of humans, mice and rats are all depicted with great details and are carefully differentiated.
There is wittiness in the use of a snarling cat in a Ratworld stadium as the equivalent of a lion in the Roman arena.
The film also deals with several themes, almost as many as there are plot strands.
One of the key ideas is that of identity. Despereaux’s parents worry that “he doesn’t scurry, he doesn’t cower” and want him to fit in with all the other mice. Yet, it is his fearlessness and his curiosity, which set him apart and lead to his encounter with the Princess and his subsequent adventures.
The film ends with a too-neat homily about the circle of pain that only forgiveness can break and, ultimately, it feels like a missed opportunity. Rats.
(ST)
Race To Witch Mountain
Andy Fickman
The story: Seth (Alexander Ludwig) and Sara (AnnaSophia Robb), teenage visitors from another planet, have crashlanded on Earth and need help getting home. Enter cab-driver extraordinaire Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) and UFO expert Dr Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino).
Look out, Brendan Fraser, ex-wrestler The Rock is attempting to muscle in on your territory.
Fraser, the go-to guy for family-friendly adventure fare, racked up three movies last year alone: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor and Inkheart.
But perhaps there is room for another player in this lucrative box-office genre. After The Game Plan (2007), about a football player bonding with his eight- year-old daughter, Dwayne Johnson is ready to step up and help shoulder the weight of PG-rated heroics.
In Race, he happens to be in the right place at the right time and reluctantly picks up Seth and Sara, whom he thinks are teenagers on the run.
Here, the plot police would like to pull over this vehicle for a serious infraction. Seth is able to manipulate his molecular make-up and pass through solid surfaces, and Sara is able to move objects, including controlling the steering wheel and shifting gears, just by thinking about it. And yet, they are happy to sit in the back of the cab until Jack Bruno turns up.
But Race has already sped on, leaving logic and reason behind in a cloud of dust.What follows is a standard chase movie as the government goons and an assassin from another world go after the conveniently telegenic aliens while Jack drives like a man possessed in the sturdiest cab known to man.
Then, as if having decided that, oops, some kind of female star is needed to serve as a foil to Johnson, Seth and Sara pinpoint Dr Alex Friedman as the one person who can help them locate their ship, which has been confiscated by the military.
You have to wonder if the budget ran out at this point, or if they overspent on that miraculous cab, because the flying saucer looks like a leftover prop from the 1970s. The ship in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) looked more impressive. So much for progress and advanced alien technology.
Johnson has a natural charisma and an easy grace, but he needs stronger material if he is serious about challenging Fraser.
As a reminder of the fickleness of the showbusiness, Tom Everett Scott pops up in a minor role as a government agent. Yes, that same actor from the candy-coloured musical That Thing You Do! back in 1996.
He is a stern reminder to Johnson that if the wrestling star wants to remain a contender in the entertainment ring, he will have to step up his game.
(ST)
Andy Fickman
The story: Seth (Alexander Ludwig) and Sara (AnnaSophia Robb), teenage visitors from another planet, have crashlanded on Earth and need help getting home. Enter cab-driver extraordinaire Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) and UFO expert Dr Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino).
Look out, Brendan Fraser, ex-wrestler The Rock is attempting to muscle in on your territory.
Fraser, the go-to guy for family-friendly adventure fare, racked up three movies last year alone: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor and Inkheart.
But perhaps there is room for another player in this lucrative box-office genre. After The Game Plan (2007), about a football player bonding with his eight- year-old daughter, Dwayne Johnson is ready to step up and help shoulder the weight of PG-rated heroics.
In Race, he happens to be in the right place at the right time and reluctantly picks up Seth and Sara, whom he thinks are teenagers on the run.
Here, the plot police would like to pull over this vehicle for a serious infraction. Seth is able to manipulate his molecular make-up and pass through solid surfaces, and Sara is able to move objects, including controlling the steering wheel and shifting gears, just by thinking about it. And yet, they are happy to sit in the back of the cab until Jack Bruno turns up.
But Race has already sped on, leaving logic and reason behind in a cloud of dust.What follows is a standard chase movie as the government goons and an assassin from another world go after the conveniently telegenic aliens while Jack drives like a man possessed in the sturdiest cab known to man.
Then, as if having decided that, oops, some kind of female star is needed to serve as a foil to Johnson, Seth and Sara pinpoint Dr Alex Friedman as the one person who can help them locate their ship, which has been confiscated by the military.
You have to wonder if the budget ran out at this point, or if they overspent on that miraculous cab, because the flying saucer looks like a leftover prop from the 1970s. The ship in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) looked more impressive. So much for progress and advanced alien technology.
Johnson has a natural charisma and an easy grace, but he needs stronger material if he is serious about challenging Fraser.
As a reminder of the fickleness of the showbusiness, Tom Everett Scott pops up in a minor role as a government agent. Yes, that same actor from the candy-coloured musical That Thing You Do! back in 1996.
He is a stern reminder to Johnson that if the wrestling star wants to remain a contender in the entertainment ring, he will have to step up his game.
(ST)
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Oscar-bashing is a hobby for many at the start of every year. Nothing the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the United States do seems to please anybody.
Yet they have almost never found themselves in the conundrum of nominating a movie that enjoyed neither boxoffice success nor some sort of critical acclaim, even if they cannot always decide which they prefer.
Just like the people behind the Oscars, the organisers of the inaugural Singapore Film Awards cannot make up their minds either. Some of the odd choices on the nomination list suggest that neither popularity nor quality was a determining factor.
The nominees in the Best Film category are Royston Tan’s 12 Lotus, Han Yew Kwang’s 18 Grams Of Love, Cheng Ding An’s Kallang Roar The Movie, Tony Kern’s A Month Of Hungry Ghosts, Kelvin Tong’s Rule #1 and Lucky7 by Sun Koh, K. Rajagopal, Boo Junfeng, Brian Gothong Tan, Chew Tze Chuan, Ho Tzu Nyen and Tania Sng.
Kallang Roar, which is about Singapore’s legendary football coach Choo Seng Quee in the 1970s, received middling reviews and earned only $90,000 at the box office. How exactly does the film fit into even the most generous definition of the word “best”?
You could also argue that there is a vast difference between Tong’s polished Rule#1 and the experimental Lucky7. To lump them together does neither film justice.
The new awards come under the umbrella of the Singapore International Film Festival’s Silver Screen Awards, which were introduced in 1991 with an Asian feature film component as well as a local short film competition.
To qualify for the Singapore Film Awards, the films must be feature length (at least 60 minutes in duration), shot mostly in Singapore and with a Singaporean or permanent resident holding a major creative role as director, producer, writer or actor. They also have to be completed and screened in the previous calendar year.
The inaugural nominees competing in the categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Performance and Best Cinematography are a hodgepodge group that gives little indication as to what exactly the awards are meant to honour.
Are they an unabashed popularity contest along the lines of the MTV Movie Awards, whose categories include Best Kiss and Best Fight? Clearly not, since the experimental anthology Lucky7 received three nods for Best Film, Best Performance and Best Cinematography.
Maybe they are meant to reward quality? After all, they are associated with the Silver Screen Awards, which has tended to shower accolades on arthouse offerings such as Indonesian film-maker Garin Nugroho’s Ramayana-inspired Opera Jawa (2006).
In that case, one wonders if the bar has been set too low. Of the 20 entries the organisers received, six are being considered for Best Film. That 30 per cent of the local films released last year were deemed good enough for that category is just way too generous by any yardstick.
The powers-that-be should take a leaf from the committee behind the Singapore Literature Prize, which is held once every two years, to maintain the quality of the picks. Even then, there were only three nominees for the English writing section in 2006.
In fact, why have a separate category for home-grown films in the first place and risk having the Singapore Film Awards seem like a poorer cousin to the Asian Feature Film Competition?
Local films have been nominated and even won when going head-to-head against regional entries. In 2006, Tong was named Best Director for Love Story.
This year, Singaporean Alec Tok’s A Big Road, about the lives of three women in Shanghai, is among the Asian Feature Film Competition nominees. His film has not been released here, so it is ineligible for the Singapore Film Awards.
If the Singapore Film Awards are intended to encourage film-makers, then one has to ask: How much back-patting and hand-holding do aspiring film-makers need? The Singapore Short Film Competition’s list of past winners already reads like a who’s who of Singapore cinema today.
Eric Khoo won the main prize that first year for August; Tong, Sandi Tan and Jasmine Ng’s A Moveable Feast was named Best Short Film in 1996; Jack Neo won for Best Director for Replacement Killers in 1998; and Royston Tan’s Sons picked up two awards in 2000.
To their credit, the organisers of the Singapore Film Awards are not unaware of some of these pitfalls.
Ms Yuni Hadi, one of two new directors of the Singapore International Film Festival, said: “Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey and even Thailand have their own local film awards, but the question always is ‘Will a Singapore Oscars work?’ We don’t know.
“But I think we have to take a chance and begin this movie journey for Singapore cinema. The Singapore Film Awards is a chance for us to celebrate our local talent.”
Celebrating local talent is a laudable sentiment, but an award with questionable standards and one unclear about what it stands for does neither itself nor the films it is supposed to honour any good.
(ST)
Yet they have almost never found themselves in the conundrum of nominating a movie that enjoyed neither boxoffice success nor some sort of critical acclaim, even if they cannot always decide which they prefer.
Just like the people behind the Oscars, the organisers of the inaugural Singapore Film Awards cannot make up their minds either. Some of the odd choices on the nomination list suggest that neither popularity nor quality was a determining factor.
The nominees in the Best Film category are Royston Tan’s 12 Lotus, Han Yew Kwang’s 18 Grams Of Love, Cheng Ding An’s Kallang Roar The Movie, Tony Kern’s A Month Of Hungry Ghosts, Kelvin Tong’s Rule #1 and Lucky7 by Sun Koh, K. Rajagopal, Boo Junfeng, Brian Gothong Tan, Chew Tze Chuan, Ho Tzu Nyen and Tania Sng.
Kallang Roar, which is about Singapore’s legendary football coach Choo Seng Quee in the 1970s, received middling reviews and earned only $90,000 at the box office. How exactly does the film fit into even the most generous definition of the word “best”?
You could also argue that there is a vast difference between Tong’s polished Rule#1 and the experimental Lucky7. To lump them together does neither film justice.
The new awards come under the umbrella of the Singapore International Film Festival’s Silver Screen Awards, which were introduced in 1991 with an Asian feature film component as well as a local short film competition.
To qualify for the Singapore Film Awards, the films must be feature length (at least 60 minutes in duration), shot mostly in Singapore and with a Singaporean or permanent resident holding a major creative role as director, producer, writer or actor. They also have to be completed and screened in the previous calendar year.
The inaugural nominees competing in the categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Performance and Best Cinematography are a hodgepodge group that gives little indication as to what exactly the awards are meant to honour.
Are they an unabashed popularity contest along the lines of the MTV Movie Awards, whose categories include Best Kiss and Best Fight? Clearly not, since the experimental anthology Lucky7 received three nods for Best Film, Best Performance and Best Cinematography.
Maybe they are meant to reward quality? After all, they are associated with the Silver Screen Awards, which has tended to shower accolades on arthouse offerings such as Indonesian film-maker Garin Nugroho’s Ramayana-inspired Opera Jawa (2006).
In that case, one wonders if the bar has been set too low. Of the 20 entries the organisers received, six are being considered for Best Film. That 30 per cent of the local films released last year were deemed good enough for that category is just way too generous by any yardstick.
The powers-that-be should take a leaf from the committee behind the Singapore Literature Prize, which is held once every two years, to maintain the quality of the picks. Even then, there were only three nominees for the English writing section in 2006.
In fact, why have a separate category for home-grown films in the first place and risk having the Singapore Film Awards seem like a poorer cousin to the Asian Feature Film Competition?
Local films have been nominated and even won when going head-to-head against regional entries. In 2006, Tong was named Best Director for Love Story.
This year, Singaporean Alec Tok’s A Big Road, about the lives of three women in Shanghai, is among the Asian Feature Film Competition nominees. His film has not been released here, so it is ineligible for the Singapore Film Awards.
If the Singapore Film Awards are intended to encourage film-makers, then one has to ask: How much back-patting and hand-holding do aspiring film-makers need? The Singapore Short Film Competition’s list of past winners already reads like a who’s who of Singapore cinema today.
Eric Khoo won the main prize that first year for August; Tong, Sandi Tan and Jasmine Ng’s A Moveable Feast was named Best Short Film in 1996; Jack Neo won for Best Director for Replacement Killers in 1998; and Royston Tan’s Sons picked up two awards in 2000.
To their credit, the organisers of the Singapore Film Awards are not unaware of some of these pitfalls.
Ms Yuni Hadi, one of two new directors of the Singapore International Film Festival, said: “Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey and even Thailand have their own local film awards, but the question always is ‘Will a Singapore Oscars work?’ We don’t know.
“But I think we have to take a chance and begin this movie journey for Singapore cinema. The Singapore Film Awards is a chance for us to celebrate our local talent.”
Celebrating local talent is a laudable sentiment, but an award with questionable standards and one unclear about what it stands for does neither itself nor the films it is supposed to honour any good.
(ST)
Monday, March 02, 2009
Audition
By Ryu Murakami
Those who watched Takashi Miike’s hair- raising, nightmare inducing film adaptation (1999) would have had the experience seared into their brains.
The book is less showily creepy. Instead, it creates a sense of niggling unease, slowly letting the tension tighten and grow taut until it snaps in the horrific ending.
Since the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary film-maker Aoyama has not dated. A remark by his teenage son gets him thinking about remarriage.
His best friend Yoshikawa hits upon the idea of holding fake film auditions as the best way to meet prospective brides. He has reservations about taking advantage of a system where “the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being” but goes along with the idea.
When he meets the beautiful ballet- trained Yamasaki Asami, he falls head over heels in love. There are hints that there is more to her than meets the eye but he is too obsessed to see or care.
Without giving anything away, let’s just say that things end badly.
Early on, Murakami makes a point about modern malaise: “People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety, people turn to extreme sex, violence and even murder.”
One could also read Audition as a feminist fantasy about wreaking vengeance on men who abuse their power. But Aoyama, while flawed, does not strike one as a bad or evil person. Does he deserve to be punished? Or was he culpable the moment he agreed to the auditions?
Whichever way you slice it, Audition has been executed with bone-chilling flair.
If you like this, read: Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami. His debut novel about a group of young people who dive headlong into sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll won the country’s top literary accolade, the Akutagawa Prize, and established his reputation as the bad boy of Japanese fiction.
(ST)
By Ryu Murakami
Those who watched Takashi Miike’s hair- raising, nightmare inducing film adaptation (1999) would have had the experience seared into their brains.
The book is less showily creepy. Instead, it creates a sense of niggling unease, slowly letting the tension tighten and grow taut until it snaps in the horrific ending.
Since the death of his wife seven years ago, documentary film-maker Aoyama has not dated. A remark by his teenage son gets him thinking about remarriage.
His best friend Yoshikawa hits upon the idea of holding fake film auditions as the best way to meet prospective brides. He has reservations about taking advantage of a system where “the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being” but goes along with the idea.
When he meets the beautiful ballet- trained Yamasaki Asami, he falls head over heels in love. There are hints that there is more to her than meets the eye but he is too obsessed to see or care.
Without giving anything away, let’s just say that things end badly.
Early on, Murakami makes a point about modern malaise: “People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety, people turn to extreme sex, violence and even murder.”
One could also read Audition as a feminist fantasy about wreaking vengeance on men who abuse their power. But Aoyama, while flawed, does not strike one as a bad or evil person. Does he deserve to be punished? Or was he culpable the moment he agreed to the auditions?
Whichever way you slice it, Audition has been executed with bone-chilling flair.
If you like this, read: Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami. His debut novel about a group of young people who dive headlong into sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll won the country’s top literary accolade, the Akutagawa Prize, and established his reputation as the bad boy of Japanese fiction.
(ST)
Slumberland
By Paul Beatty
It's official. Berlin is hip.
It is not just that this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, that symbol of the Cold War. It is also the fact that the city has been steadily making its way into the cultural zeitgeist.
The New York Times picked it as one of the 44 places to visit this year, it was one of the key settings in the critically acclaimed 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange, and here it plays a central role in the story of a man on a quest while navigating the cultural burdens of being black.
Ferguson Sowell, or DJ Darky, has come up with the perfect beat. After listening to it, one of his mates declares that “anything I have heard on pop radio in the last five years feels like a violation of my civil rights”.
All he needs now is the kiss of approval from a credible and influential source. This leads him to seek out the mysterious Schwa, a little-known avant- garde jazz musician, so nicknamed because “his sound, like the indeterminate vowel, is unstressed, upside-down and backward”.
The only clue to his whereabouts is a videotape of a man having sex with a chicken featuring the elusive one’s music, mailed to DJ Darky from a German address. Which is how the DJ ends up at the Slumberland bar in Berlin as a jukebox sommelier.
More than just a setting, the city is a character. And the pivotal moment of the fall of the Wall is beautifully described from an outsider’s point of view.
The themes of identity and the weight of history culminate in the erecting of a new Berlin Wall, a wall of sound that is “inspiration, encouragement, and hope” heard from the western side, and a “wailing wall” when heard from the east.
Beatty’s razzle-dazzle prose-poetry is energetic and rhythmic, and it approximates a free-form jazz piece transcribed to the page. The writing can be dense with obscure name-dropping and slang but just hang on for the ride. It's an exhilarating one.
If you like this, read: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. A funny novel about heartbreak, growing up and music – listening to it, arguing about it and obsessing about it.
(ST)
By Paul Beatty
It's official. Berlin is hip.
It is not just that this year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, that symbol of the Cold War. It is also the fact that the city has been steadily making its way into the cultural zeitgeist.
The New York Times picked it as one of the 44 places to visit this year, it was one of the key settings in the critically acclaimed 2008 Broadway musical Passing Strange, and here it plays a central role in the story of a man on a quest while navigating the cultural burdens of being black.
Ferguson Sowell, or DJ Darky, has come up with the perfect beat. After listening to it, one of his mates declares that “anything I have heard on pop radio in the last five years feels like a violation of my civil rights”.
All he needs now is the kiss of approval from a credible and influential source. This leads him to seek out the mysterious Schwa, a little-known avant- garde jazz musician, so nicknamed because “his sound, like the indeterminate vowel, is unstressed, upside-down and backward”.
The only clue to his whereabouts is a videotape of a man having sex with a chicken featuring the elusive one’s music, mailed to DJ Darky from a German address. Which is how the DJ ends up at the Slumberland bar in Berlin as a jukebox sommelier.
More than just a setting, the city is a character. And the pivotal moment of the fall of the Wall is beautifully described from an outsider’s point of view.
The themes of identity and the weight of history culminate in the erecting of a new Berlin Wall, a wall of sound that is “inspiration, encouragement, and hope” heard from the western side, and a “wailing wall” when heard from the east.
Beatty’s razzle-dazzle prose-poetry is energetic and rhythmic, and it approximates a free-form jazz piece transcribed to the page. The writing can be dense with obscure name-dropping and slang but just hang on for the ride. It's an exhilarating one.
If you like this, read: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. A funny novel about heartbreak, growing up and music – listening to it, arguing about it and obsessing about it.
(ST)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Kung Fu Chefs
Wing Kin Yip
As the title implies, this combines chop-socky action with chopping board exploits.
Wong Bing-Yi (a solemn-faced Sammo Hung) is cast out from his village after his dish makes everyone at a banquet ill. It turns out that he was set up by his vengeful nephew, though it seems strange that a supposed master chef like Wong would not be able to distinguish salt from poison.
No matter, it creates the chance for Wong to cross paths with promising chef and martial arts fighter Jung Kin-Yat (a cheeky Vanness Wu), whose love interest is the cutesy spunky Shen Ying (Ai Kago, a Ryoko Hirosue lookalike).
Mix in a cooking competition whose outcome is never in doubt and cheesy lines such as “Cooking is easy. Being a man is hard”, and voila, a bland blend.
(ST)
Wing Kin Yip
As the title implies, this combines chop-socky action with chopping board exploits.
Wong Bing-Yi (a solemn-faced Sammo Hung) is cast out from his village after his dish makes everyone at a banquet ill. It turns out that he was set up by his vengeful nephew, though it seems strange that a supposed master chef like Wong would not be able to distinguish salt from poison.
No matter, it creates the chance for Wong to cross paths with promising chef and martial arts fighter Jung Kin-Yat (a cheeky Vanness Wu), whose love interest is the cutesy spunky Shen Ying (Ai Kago, a Ryoko Hirosue lookalike).
Mix in a cooking competition whose outcome is never in doubt and cheesy lines such as “Cooking is easy. Being a man is hard”, and voila, a bland blend.
(ST)
Marley & Me
David Frankel
The story: As readers of the 2005 best-selling memoir of the same name know, Marley is the world’s worst dog. Bought by American journalist John Grogan (Owen Wilson) soon after his marriage to fellow writer Jenny (Jennifer Aniston), the labrador retriever shares in the ups and downs of their lives and becomes an integral part of the family over the years.
They should have been tipped off when Marley was the only one in the litter of yellow labrador retrievers which came with a discount.
The Grogans soon find out why as the pup goes berserk during thunderstorms, chews through partition walls and does not understand the command “heel”.
Marley’s refusal to follow commands even gets him kicked out of obedience school after he shows up an uptight dog trainer (Kathleen Turner in a cameo).
At the same time, his shenanigans prove to be rich fodder for John’s increasingly popular newspaper columns for the Miami Herald.
As much as this is a story about a rascally dog, the film is also about John’s journey through life, from marriage to career developments to fatherhood.
While he has a good friend Sebastian (Eric Dane), whose swinging bachelor lifestyle is a pointed contrast to his own, Marley is often the one he would talk aloud to and is more of a constant companion.
Mostly, Marley & Me plods along in a not unpleasant, genial manner. The light-hearted tone, though, jars with parts of the film which delve into the bumps on the road that the Grogans face.
For example, John and Jenny do not have a perfect marriage. They go through a rocky patch when she has to deal with giving up her career for the sake of their children. And John, despite a successful column, is restless and wants a change in the direction of his career.
But somehow, watching the beautiful blonde and blonder movie stars deal with ordinary, real- people predicaments makes the issues less compelling.
One also cannot help but be distracted by the thought that this is the first film Wilson made after his suicide attempt in 2007, reportedly over the split from actress Kate Hudson.
To his credit, the actor, best known for his laid-back comic roles in films such as Wedding Crashers (2005), seems to have moved on from the incident and is amiably low-key as John.
There isn’t much for Aniston to do here in what is essentially a supporting role. Still best known for her turn as Rachel in the popular sitcom Friends, the actress has shown that she can do interesting work in offbeat films such as The Good Girl (2002). Too often, though, she seems to settle for more conventional wife/girlfriend roles that do not do her any favours, as is the case here.
As the film moves to its conclusion, the focus shifts back to Marley. Animal lovers, be warned, the ending is a teary one.
Perhaps what makes animal performances in films touching is the simple fact that animals do not act. You would not tell a dog to emote sadness, but instead you instruct it to paw at the door and whimper. In a way, that removes a layer of artifice from what we watch on screens.
Or perhaps here, it merely proves the old adage that a dog is a man’s best friend, even when the canine in question is the world’s worst.
(ST)
David Frankel
The story: As readers of the 2005 best-selling memoir of the same name know, Marley is the world’s worst dog. Bought by American journalist John Grogan (Owen Wilson) soon after his marriage to fellow writer Jenny (Jennifer Aniston), the labrador retriever shares in the ups and downs of their lives and becomes an integral part of the family over the years.
They should have been tipped off when Marley was the only one in the litter of yellow labrador retrievers which came with a discount.
The Grogans soon find out why as the pup goes berserk during thunderstorms, chews through partition walls and does not understand the command “heel”.
Marley’s refusal to follow commands even gets him kicked out of obedience school after he shows up an uptight dog trainer (Kathleen Turner in a cameo).
At the same time, his shenanigans prove to be rich fodder for John’s increasingly popular newspaper columns for the Miami Herald.
As much as this is a story about a rascally dog, the film is also about John’s journey through life, from marriage to career developments to fatherhood.
While he has a good friend Sebastian (Eric Dane), whose swinging bachelor lifestyle is a pointed contrast to his own, Marley is often the one he would talk aloud to and is more of a constant companion.
Mostly, Marley & Me plods along in a not unpleasant, genial manner. The light-hearted tone, though, jars with parts of the film which delve into the bumps on the road that the Grogans face.
For example, John and Jenny do not have a perfect marriage. They go through a rocky patch when she has to deal with giving up her career for the sake of their children. And John, despite a successful column, is restless and wants a change in the direction of his career.
But somehow, watching the beautiful blonde and blonder movie stars deal with ordinary, real- people predicaments makes the issues less compelling.
One also cannot help but be distracted by the thought that this is the first film Wilson made after his suicide attempt in 2007, reportedly over the split from actress Kate Hudson.
To his credit, the actor, best known for his laid-back comic roles in films such as Wedding Crashers (2005), seems to have moved on from the incident and is amiably low-key as John.
There isn’t much for Aniston to do here in what is essentially a supporting role. Still best known for her turn as Rachel in the popular sitcom Friends, the actress has shown that she can do interesting work in offbeat films such as The Good Girl (2002). Too often, though, she seems to settle for more conventional wife/girlfriend roles that do not do her any favours, as is the case here.
As the film moves to its conclusion, the focus shifts back to Marley. Animal lovers, be warned, the ending is a teary one.
Perhaps what makes animal performances in films touching is the simple fact that animals do not act. You would not tell a dog to emote sadness, but instead you instruct it to paw at the door and whimper. In a way, that removes a layer of artifice from what we watch on screens.
Or perhaps here, it merely proves the old adage that a dog is a man’s best friend, even when the canine in question is the world’s worst.
(ST)
If You Are The One
Feng Xiaogang
The story: Qin Fen (Ge You) places a personals ad for a wife, and to his surprise, the beautiful Xiaoxiao (Shu Qi) responds. They form a tentative friendship which grows into something stronger.
After a detour into the genre du jour of historical epics with The Banquet (2006) and Assembly (2007), director Feng Xiaogang is back doing what he does best – gently skewering modern society and making you laugh in the process.
The template here is taken from Taiwanese writer-director Chen Kuo-fu’s The Personals (1998), in which singer-actress Rene Liu was a single professional woman seeking a husband. This was the set-up for a wry look at love and life in modern Taiwan.
In If You Are The One, which Chen produced, it is a middle-aged man searching for a wife on the mainland.
Released in China on Dec 22 last year, the film struck a chord with audiences. It has earned 350 million yuan (S$78 million) at the box office, one of the highest-grossing Chinese films, and also set off a trend of people looking for spouses online.
The succinct, funny and poignant ad written by Qin Fen (a homonym of the Mandarin term for hardworking) is destined to be a classic circulated through e-mail messages and online forums.
He is realistic: “If you’re an angel, I won’t be able to handle you. I don’t expect you to look like that girl on the magazine cover, scattering souls with just one look.”
He is detailed: “I like a woman who knows how to fold clothes such that when you finish washing, ironing and folding them, they will look exactly like when you bought them from the stores. Specific enough?”
He is honest: “My character’s a 50-50 split and I’m not exactly an honest man. But I was born timid, even if it is not illegal to kill, I wouldn’t kill anyone. My conscience will be tortured by guilt if I do anything cruel to others.”
Yet who should walk into his life but the gorgeous Xiaoxiao, who responds to the ad for reasons of her own. Shu Qi downplays her natural sultriness and is a good foil to Ge, making it one of those rare odd couple pairings which actually seem plausible.
Feng and Ge have worked together in several films from the hit comedy Be There Or Be Square (1998) to the infidelity drama Cell Phone (2003) and the loose Hamlet adaptation The Banquet. They have a good thing going and Feng knows how best to showcase his leading man’s charms.
The genius of Ge’s performance is that he underplays the scenes, remaining unflappable and genial even when presented with increasingly unusual respondents to his ad.
The meetings with prospective partners are milked for laughs but are also a sly comment on society today. There is the grave plot saleswoman, the trader who likens picking a mate to betting on stocks and even a man who nurses a crush on Qin.
Feng riffs on anything and everything from China-Taiwan relations to materialism to the preferred frequency of sex in a relationship.
Unfortunately, the film is marred by the final act which takes place in Hokkaido.
Qin and Xiaoxiao, the not-quite-couple, go on the trip as she intends to make a symbolic clean break with her married lover where it had all started. Some forced dramatics are thrown in and derail the film.
But overall, this is an enjoyable film largely buoyed by Ge’s deft performance.
(ST)
Feng Xiaogang
The story: Qin Fen (Ge You) places a personals ad for a wife, and to his surprise, the beautiful Xiaoxiao (Shu Qi) responds. They form a tentative friendship which grows into something stronger.
After a detour into the genre du jour of historical epics with The Banquet (2006) and Assembly (2007), director Feng Xiaogang is back doing what he does best – gently skewering modern society and making you laugh in the process.
The template here is taken from Taiwanese writer-director Chen Kuo-fu’s The Personals (1998), in which singer-actress Rene Liu was a single professional woman seeking a husband. This was the set-up for a wry look at love and life in modern Taiwan.
In If You Are The One, which Chen produced, it is a middle-aged man searching for a wife on the mainland.
Released in China on Dec 22 last year, the film struck a chord with audiences. It has earned 350 million yuan (S$78 million) at the box office, one of the highest-grossing Chinese films, and also set off a trend of people looking for spouses online.
The succinct, funny and poignant ad written by Qin Fen (a homonym of the Mandarin term for hardworking) is destined to be a classic circulated through e-mail messages and online forums.
He is realistic: “If you’re an angel, I won’t be able to handle you. I don’t expect you to look like that girl on the magazine cover, scattering souls with just one look.”
He is detailed: “I like a woman who knows how to fold clothes such that when you finish washing, ironing and folding them, they will look exactly like when you bought them from the stores. Specific enough?”
He is honest: “My character’s a 50-50 split and I’m not exactly an honest man. But I was born timid, even if it is not illegal to kill, I wouldn’t kill anyone. My conscience will be tortured by guilt if I do anything cruel to others.”
Yet who should walk into his life but the gorgeous Xiaoxiao, who responds to the ad for reasons of her own. Shu Qi downplays her natural sultriness and is a good foil to Ge, making it one of those rare odd couple pairings which actually seem plausible.
Feng and Ge have worked together in several films from the hit comedy Be There Or Be Square (1998) to the infidelity drama Cell Phone (2003) and the loose Hamlet adaptation The Banquet. They have a good thing going and Feng knows how best to showcase his leading man’s charms.
The genius of Ge’s performance is that he underplays the scenes, remaining unflappable and genial even when presented with increasingly unusual respondents to his ad.
The meetings with prospective partners are milked for laughs but are also a sly comment on society today. There is the grave plot saleswoman, the trader who likens picking a mate to betting on stocks and even a man who nurses a crush on Qin.
Feng riffs on anything and everything from China-Taiwan relations to materialism to the preferred frequency of sex in a relationship.
Unfortunately, the film is marred by the final act which takes place in Hokkaido.
Qin and Xiaoxiao, the not-quite-couple, go on the trip as she intends to make a symbolic clean break with her married lover where it had all started. Some forced dramatics are thrown in and derail the film.
But overall, this is an enjoyable film largely buoyed by Ge’s deft performance.
(ST)
Suspect X
Hiroshi Nishitani
The story: The body of a man has been discovered, his face pulverised and his prints removed. Police officer Kaoru Utsumi (Kou Shibasaki) is assigned to the case and she enlists the help of brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama), also known as Detective Galileo. His suspicions come to rest on a former schoolmate, the highly intelligent mathematician Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi).
Suspect X is a crime thriller but it is not one of the usual suspects.
It has an impressive pedigree, based on the award-winning mystery writer Keigo Higashino’s popular Detective Galileo series and it reunites the principal cast from the hit TV adaptation.
Like the compelling Korean hit The Chaser (2008), we know who the killer is from the start.
We are witness to an act of violence that takes place when former hostess Yasuko Hanaoka (Yasuko Matsuyuki) receives an unwelcome visit from her loutish ex-husband.
After she and her daughter Misato (Miho Kanazawa) unintentionally kill him, things take an unexpected turn when her neighbour Tetsuya Ishigami knocks on her door and offers to help her out.
Knowing whodunnit in no way diminishes the pleasure of watching Suspect X. We watch with rapt attention as the neighbour constructs an alibi for mother and daughter, coaching them on how to stay a step ahead of the police.
Too many Hollywood cop flicks have a fetish for stylish and glamorous violence, and it is deeply satisfying to have a back-to-basics thriller which is all about the battle of wits between two superior minds.
The film signals its intentions early on when Professor Manabu Yukawa delivers a lecture on cause-and-effect rationality to detective Kaoru Utsumi, who is seeking his help on another case. The kicker though is the seemingly throwaway comment that love is irrational and cannot be resolved in an equation.
Suspect X pivots on a few of these little scenes which take on greater significance at the end of the film.
Cast-wise, pop singer-actor Masaharu Fukuyama imbues the cerebral physicist Yukawa with a light touch of playfulness while Kou Shibasaki has less to do in the role of earnest cop Utsumi. As the beauty in trouble, Matsuyuki brings together vulnerability and a streak of steely defiance.
The revelation here is Shinichi Tsutsumi. As Ishigami, he is calm and collected throughout, his eyes droopy, his movements slow and deliberate, yet he is able to convince one that the mind of a genius lies behind that misleading facade. His performance only serves to increase the power of the emotional wallop that hits you at the end of the film.
Not only is Suspect X a fine thriller, retaining the ability to surprise even when it seems that the case is closed, it is also, movingly, about the small acts of kindness which can sustain someone’s life and how love can be both a redemptive and destructive force.
Police procedurals such as Crime Scene Investigation may wow you with technical wizardry but such gizmos are useless when it comes to plumbing the unfathomable depths of the human heart.
(ST)
Hiroshi Nishitani
The story: The body of a man has been discovered, his face pulverised and his prints removed. Police officer Kaoru Utsumi (Kou Shibasaki) is assigned to the case and she enlists the help of brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama), also known as Detective Galileo. His suspicions come to rest on a former schoolmate, the highly intelligent mathematician Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi).
Suspect X is a crime thriller but it is not one of the usual suspects.
It has an impressive pedigree, based on the award-winning mystery writer Keigo Higashino’s popular Detective Galileo series and it reunites the principal cast from the hit TV adaptation.
Like the compelling Korean hit The Chaser (2008), we know who the killer is from the start.
We are witness to an act of violence that takes place when former hostess Yasuko Hanaoka (Yasuko Matsuyuki) receives an unwelcome visit from her loutish ex-husband.
After she and her daughter Misato (Miho Kanazawa) unintentionally kill him, things take an unexpected turn when her neighbour Tetsuya Ishigami knocks on her door and offers to help her out.
Knowing whodunnit in no way diminishes the pleasure of watching Suspect X. We watch with rapt attention as the neighbour constructs an alibi for mother and daughter, coaching them on how to stay a step ahead of the police.
Too many Hollywood cop flicks have a fetish for stylish and glamorous violence, and it is deeply satisfying to have a back-to-basics thriller which is all about the battle of wits between two superior minds.
The film signals its intentions early on when Professor Manabu Yukawa delivers a lecture on cause-and-effect rationality to detective Kaoru Utsumi, who is seeking his help on another case. The kicker though is the seemingly throwaway comment that love is irrational and cannot be resolved in an equation.
Suspect X pivots on a few of these little scenes which take on greater significance at the end of the film.
Cast-wise, pop singer-actor Masaharu Fukuyama imbues the cerebral physicist Yukawa with a light touch of playfulness while Kou Shibasaki has less to do in the role of earnest cop Utsumi. As the beauty in trouble, Matsuyuki brings together vulnerability and a streak of steely defiance.
The revelation here is Shinichi Tsutsumi. As Ishigami, he is calm and collected throughout, his eyes droopy, his movements slow and deliberate, yet he is able to convince one that the mind of a genius lies behind that misleading facade. His performance only serves to increase the power of the emotional wallop that hits you at the end of the film.
Not only is Suspect X a fine thriller, retaining the ability to surprise even when it seems that the case is closed, it is also, movingly, about the small acts of kindness which can sustain someone’s life and how love can be both a redemptive and destructive force.
Police procedurals such as Crime Scene Investigation may wow you with technical wizardry but such gizmos are useless when it comes to plumbing the unfathomable depths of the human heart.
(ST)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Chong Feng 7
Esplanade Concert Hall
Last Saturday
Chong Feng means “to meet once again” and this seventh installation of the popular concert brought together local and Taiwanese singers crooning hits from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The event was in many ways like a school reunion. The pleasure of meeting old friends you grew up with was, at the same time, tinged with anxiety. How have they changed? Will they still be recognisable?
These questions were particularly, and poignantly, relevant to Hee, who had not performed live in Singapore in eight years. At the height of her popularity in the mid-1990s, she was out-selling albums by the Hong Kong heavenly kings but faded away from the music scene in the early noughties.
In June 2006, she hit the headlines when she was arrested for harassing two guests in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, yelling at them to “Call me God”. She was the final act in the three- hour-long concert.
The 34-year-old appeared in a dark pink top, patterned pants and a sequinned cap. She seemed a little nervous, but smiled widely, clearly happy to be back on stage again.
She did not say much, preferring to let her music do the talking. She performed three songs, Regret, Sunshine Always Follows The Rain and her best-known hit Moonlight In The City.
It was a pleasure to hear the mellow honeyed warmth of her voice once more though it seemed to have narrowed in range and the lowest notes on Regret were now a bit of a stretch for her.
If Hee played the role of comeback kid, then Jiang Hu was the one-time class heart-throb whose gentle, lilting tenor was tailor-made for ballads. He still had it but the voice was a tad more fragile.
He said: “I’ve lost 70 per cent of my prowess, only 30 per cent left to fool you guys with.”
The clean-cut boyishness of the 1980s had given way to a look that would not be out of place in a hip-hop outfit. Jiang sported a dog-tag and wore a sports zip-up over army fatigue pants.
Clad in matching black suits, high achiever Su Xinquan, a doctor of 18 years, and xinyao singer Hong Shaoxuan, entertained the audience with a specially arranged medley of four songs, switching with ease between Mandarin and English numbers.
The class clowns turned out to be the even more linguistically talented TCR Acappella. The five-member group was a crowd-pleaser, hamming it up in Cantonese-accented Mandarin, Japanese-accented English and Thai-accented English.
They delivered two Chinese hits back to back with their original versions in Japanese and Thai and even showed off some smooth moves on the Grasshopper track Shi Lian Zhen Xian Lian Meng (Broken Hearts Club).
Chong Feng 7 also featured Taiwanese acts Kay Huang Yun-ling, Tseng Shu-chin, Nan Fang Er Chong Chang (Southern Duo) and Mu Ji Ta (Wooden Guitar).
It was a treat to have Huang, these days a judge for singing competition One Million Star, playing the piano and delivering tracks she wrote in her slightly husky vocals.
It was even better to hear that she was working on an album of new material.
A reunion need not be about simply reliving the past, it can also be about forging new connections and looking to the future.
(ST)
Esplanade Concert Hall
Last Saturday
Chong Feng means “to meet once again” and this seventh installation of the popular concert brought together local and Taiwanese singers crooning hits from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The event was in many ways like a school reunion. The pleasure of meeting old friends you grew up with was, at the same time, tinged with anxiety. How have they changed? Will they still be recognisable?
These questions were particularly, and poignantly, relevant to Hee, who had not performed live in Singapore in eight years. At the height of her popularity in the mid-1990s, she was out-selling albums by the Hong Kong heavenly kings but faded away from the music scene in the early noughties.
In June 2006, she hit the headlines when she was arrested for harassing two guests in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, yelling at them to “Call me God”. She was the final act in the three- hour-long concert.
The 34-year-old appeared in a dark pink top, patterned pants and a sequinned cap. She seemed a little nervous, but smiled widely, clearly happy to be back on stage again.
She did not say much, preferring to let her music do the talking. She performed three songs, Regret, Sunshine Always Follows The Rain and her best-known hit Moonlight In The City.
It was a pleasure to hear the mellow honeyed warmth of her voice once more though it seemed to have narrowed in range and the lowest notes on Regret were now a bit of a stretch for her.
If Hee played the role of comeback kid, then Jiang Hu was the one-time class heart-throb whose gentle, lilting tenor was tailor-made for ballads. He still had it but the voice was a tad more fragile.
He said: “I’ve lost 70 per cent of my prowess, only 30 per cent left to fool you guys with.”
The clean-cut boyishness of the 1980s had given way to a look that would not be out of place in a hip-hop outfit. Jiang sported a dog-tag and wore a sports zip-up over army fatigue pants.
Clad in matching black suits, high achiever Su Xinquan, a doctor of 18 years, and xinyao singer Hong Shaoxuan, entertained the audience with a specially arranged medley of four songs, switching with ease between Mandarin and English numbers.
The class clowns turned out to be the even more linguistically talented TCR Acappella. The five-member group was a crowd-pleaser, hamming it up in Cantonese-accented Mandarin, Japanese-accented English and Thai-accented English.
They delivered two Chinese hits back to back with their original versions in Japanese and Thai and even showed off some smooth moves on the Grasshopper track Shi Lian Zhen Xian Lian Meng (Broken Hearts Club).
Chong Feng 7 also featured Taiwanese acts Kay Huang Yun-ling, Tseng Shu-chin, Nan Fang Er Chong Chang (Southern Duo) and Mu Ji Ta (Wooden Guitar).
It was a treat to have Huang, these days a judge for singing competition One Million Star, playing the piano and delivering tracks she wrote in her slightly husky vocals.
It was even better to hear that she was working on an album of new material.
A reunion need not be about simply reliving the past, it can also be about forging new connections and looking to the future.
(ST)
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