Overheard

Alan Mak and Felix Chong

The story: Johnny (Lau Ching Wan), Gene (Louis Koo) and Max (Daniel Wu) are a police surveillance team keeping tabs on Feng Hua International which is suspected of manipulating the stock market. When Gene and Max overhear a plan to boost the company’s share price, they decide to cash in on the information. Johnny is dragged into their scheme and things spiral out of control.

With their latest collaboration, film-makers Alan Mak and Felix Chong have delivered a polished thriller that also touches upon the divisive social inequalities in Hong Kong.
The yawning gap between the haves and have-nots is vividly illustrated by the cops’ situation.
They have stressful jobs, work long hours and take home a monthly pay cheque of HK$20,000 (S$3,700).
On the other hand, a security officer in a private firm draws a salary comparable to that of the commissioner of police, as Max’s future father-in-law tells him.
To add insult to injury, the crooks get away with profits of tens and hundreds of millions of dollars simply by manipulating the stock market.
Little wonder Gene is so grumpy and vows to nail these corporate criminals.
But rest assured that this is not some artsy social drama. After all, Mak and Chong are the guys behind the slick Confession Of Pain (2006) and the satisfyingly complex Infernal Affairs (2002).
The opening sequence of Johnny’s team planting the bugs in the Feng Hua office is beautifully choreographed and executed as the team dance around the unexpected return of their mark, chairman Ringo Law (Waise Lee).
There is lots more taut action: a kidnapping, a shoot-out in the carpark and an execution by gunshot.
But you remain invested in the story and continue to root for the cops-turned-crooks.
This is in large part due to the everreliable Lau as the experienced team leader Johnny, who is having an affair with a fellow officer’s wife.
His world-weary charm and flawed good-guy persona draws you in and keeps you watching.
Koo is somewhat miscast as the curmudgeonly Gene who has issues with authority and family health problems to deal with.
Despite putting on weight and colouring his hair white, he still looks younger than Lau even though Gene is supposed to be the oldest in the group.
As Max, a rookie bound for bigger things with a fiancee from a well-to-do family, Wu has the least to work with and the role is not much of a stretch for him.
Johnny is the moral centre of the film. He gets embroiled in insider trading not for personal gain but because it is too late for his subordinates to extricate themselves.
He tries to protect them and discovers that with each lie they tell, the deeper they sink into the morass.
There are shades of Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan (1998) although Overheard is less unrelentingly dark in its outlook and chooses to end on a crowd-pleasing note.
Still, for combining unabashedly commercial instincts with a little social commentary, Overheard deserves to be seen and heard.

(ST)

Sing Dollar! The Musical Comedy About Money
Dream Academy
Esplanade Theatre
Sunday

The topic of dollars and sense is a rich one to mine.
From the succinctly titled Money in Cabaret to the high-kicking exuberance of 42nd Street’s We’re In The Money, pecuniary concerns have made their presence felt in musicals.
With the financial crisis upon us, albeit one mysteriously not reflected in the property market, there is no better time to cash in on money woes. Make a song and dance of the whole sorry business and have a good laugh in the face of adversity.
At least, that seems to be the rational for this new musical from the folks behind the popular Dim Sum Dollies offerings.
But like the awkward pun in the title, Sing Dollar! never quite delivers the goods.
The plot centres on a black trash bag containing $500,000 accidentally discovered by a motley bunch of characters in a hotel room in Geylang.
The operative phrase here being “motley bunch of characters”. There is a China prostitute (Emma Yong), a Bangladeshi worker (Kumar), a Filipino maid-masseuse (Pam Oei), a Malay cleaning lady (Najip Ali), a Tiger beer promoter (Selena Tan) as well as a gambler widower (Lim Kay Siu) and his two sons (Sebastian Tan and Hossan Leong).
There is not enough time to develop all the characters with such a large cast and it becomes hard to care what happens to them or who gets the money in the end.
In place of actual characterisation, co-directors Zahim Albakri and Selena Tan both play into and send up the various national and racial stereotypes. Sometimes, they end up producing caricatures which border on the offensive, such as the money-obsessed China hooker.
Given that this is a musical, the more pressing problem is that the tunes by Elaine Chan and the lyrics by Selena Tan are not particularly memorable.
One would be hard-pressed to hum something from the show which even dipped into tunelessness for some worrying stretches.
Bland couplets such as “You know everything’s not okay/When everyone’s running away” do nothing to lift the score while the beer auntie sounds out of character when she sings that “the money I make is so minimal”.
That is not to say that Sing Dollar! is without value.
The hardworking cast juggle multiple roles and make the most of the thinly written characters’ turn in the spotlight on the effective split-level stage.
Najip’s makcik cleaner got to shine in Keeping It Clean, a number that started off seemingly unnecessary and then blossomed as a bevy of tudung-wearing women mopped, wiped and twirled.
The brash beer auntie’s personality was as loud as her tiger-striped outfit and Tan delivered her lines with well-timed zing.
Kumar played against type by not appearing in drag for his main character but his trademark biting sense of humour survived intact. You wish he did not feel the need to shout into the mike though.
The character Soon Huat was an annoyingly whiny retrenched banker whom Leong redeemed with a smooth routine in White Collar Criminal, a Michael Jackson homage.
The gallery of rogues shimmying away on stage included former National Kidney Foundation chief executive officer T.T. Durai and abbot Ming Yi, currently on trial for financial impropriety.
It was an inspired moment you wish the show had more of. For the most part, it was not madcap or zany enough to justify that exclamation point.
So Sing Dollar! offers some small, scattered pleasures for your buck, but it is by no means the gold standard for local theatre.

(ST)

Jangan Pandang Belakang Congkak

Ahmad Idham

Three young men are summoned to an idyllic village by telegrams after a wealthy old man dies. They learn that they are his grandsons and stand to inherit his wealth and property.
But first, they have to spend three nights in the house without touching anything, especially not the antique congkak. Naturally, they do so and become victims of a curse that causes mayhem.
The film’s title is a mash-up between two previous horror films also directed by Ahmad Idham, Jangan Pandang Belakang (Don’t Look Back, 2007) and Congkak (2008).
All three flicks have been successes in Malaysia, and the 2007 Jangan’s take of RM6.4 million (S$2.6 million) made it the country’s highest-grossing movie of all time.
Regardless, this spoof feels like a variety show skit that has been stretched to feature film length. So what you get are characters – sorry, caricatures – behaving in an exaggerated manner, making clear that the priority is simply to milk laughs.
Except that the humour was not apparent. Either that, or something was lost in translation, since a good number of the preview audience were laughing heartily at the jokes.
Perhaps one needs to have greater knowledge of the cultural context since some of the humour seemed to hinge on the Malay songs performed in the movie. The erratic subtitling did not help, disappearing for stretches for no rhyme or reason.
It all adds up to an experience you do not want to look back upon.

(ST)

Plastic City

Nelson Yu

After deciding to set this film in exotic Brazil, writer-director Nelson Yu promptly ran out of steam.
Anthony Wong stars as Yuda, a Portuguese-speaking Chinese crime honcho slowly losing his grip on power, and Jo Odagiri is his reckless Japanese adopted son, Kirin. But Wong’s weary authority and Odagiri’s nonchalant cool are all for naught.
The two have an oddly touching relationship which is never fully explored and is, instead, buried under incoherent action that lurches from the streets of Sao Paulo to the jungles of the Amazon.
It ends with some Buddhist sayings which are meant to be the philosophical underpinning of the movie, but come across as a desperate last-ditch attempt to grab at some semblance of meaning.
This disaster is a Brazil-China-Hong Kong-Japan co-production; which tells you exactly how many cooks it took to spoil this broth.

(ST)

Murderer

Roy Chow

The story: A serial murderer is on the loose and in the high-rise building where his latest victim is found, the unconscious chief inspector of police Ling Kwong (Aaron Kwok) is also discovered. Ling eventually comes round but he has no memory of how he ended up at the scene of the crime. He starts to dig deeper into the case and finds that all the clues point to him as the murderer.

Welcome to Preposterous City, where the thrills are cheap and the roads are twisty.

The signs, though, point at first to an intriguing mystery where things are not as straightforward as they seem.
At the hospital where the comatose chief inspector Ling and the latest victim, another police officer, are sent, a scuffle breaks out among the waiting cops, suggesting that suspicion towards Ling was already mounting even before this latest strange turn of events.
As the distraught inspector seeks to clear his name, the noose slowly tightens around him. Among other things, he is unable to account for the fact that the murders took place on the days he was away from work.
There are shades of Memento (2000) in this movie’s device of an ambiguously shaded protagonist who is afflicted by amnesia. But Aaron Kwok is no Guy Pearce despite winning back-to-back Golden Horse statuettes for best actor in 2005 and 2006.
It is TV veteran Cheung Siu Fai who puts in a solid turn as Ling’s fellow officer Ghost, torn between trusting a friend and believing the evidence put before him.
But halfway through, the film abruptly veers off course. In the history of plot twists, the whopper unleashed here should rank comfortably in the top three. It will leave you flummoxed, bamboozled and flabbergasted.
The revelation also serves as the signal for Kwok to go into full-blown actor mode as a frustrated Ling is driven to the edge of madness when he is unable to convince anyone else of what he learns about the gory death-by-electric-drill murders.
Increasingly isolated and paranoid, his outwardly perfect life – a beautiful wife and an adopted son, a gorgeous seafront house and an upcoming promotion – begins to fall apart spectacularly.
To convey all this, Kwok mugs maniacally for the camera and seems in danger of popping a vein or two as he goes about in a bug-eyed rage.
In a way, Ling’s utter frustration makes sense because there is no one who will believe the cockamamie truth. The problem is, neither will the viewers.
In the unlikely event that you manage to swallow that whopper of a plot twist, there are other loopholes to contend with, such as the way the victims are linked and how Ling ends up with amnesia in the first place.
If the goal of screenwriter Christine To and first-time director Roy Chow was to frustrate and annoy the heck out of the audience, congratulations on a job well done.

(ST)

The Answer Is... Stefanie Sun World Tour 2009
Singapore Indoor Stadium

Stefanie Sun’s much anticipated comeback concert after a two-year hiatus promised to deliver some answers about where she is headed in her career.
After 10 best-selling albums, the 30-year-old singer has cut herself loose from the record label system.
Visually, she seemed determined to do away with the girl-next-door image that has endeared her to so many fans over the years.
With Hong Kong’s William Chang, best known for his production and costume design work on auteur Wong Kar Wai’s films, as her image consultant, she treated the audience to a series of playful and whimsical get-ups.
She first appeared wearing a platinum blonde bob over a glittery golden outfit paired with knee-high boots. She was like a music-box ballerina twirling to Sleep-walk, from 2007’s Against The Light album.
For Love Starts From Zero, she drifted in on a conch-shaped platform suspended from the rigging. Blue butterflies adorned her head while she was cocooned in a dramatically shaped brown top.
But maybe Sun was not really comfortable in such costumes. She seemed rather subdued for much of the concert. Perhaps it was the killer heels that had her tottering around gingerly. Or it could be the fact that she had not performed on stage here in three years.
It was not until halfway through the 21/2-hour show that she finally cut loose on the rock number First Day and enjoyed herself.
Vocally, Sun proved she had the pipes for a demanding live concert, something she had not always been able to pull off in the past.
She was let down, however, by a head mike that made her sound muffled and over-amplified. The difference was apparent when she switched to a hand-held mike for some numbers.
The capacity crowd of 7,500 was simply happy to have their Sun shine again on stage as she delivered hit after hit from My Love to Green Light to new song Fool’s Kingdom. A group of fans even broke spontaneously into song to celebrate her birthday later this month.
For her special guest star, she invited local musician and Campus Superstar judge Peter Tan, whom she thanked for being a good teacher.
Things then took a strange turn when 17-year- old jazz singer Nathan Hartono, who had also studied under Tan, took the stage and threw off the entire vibe of the show.
Perhaps it was fitting for a concert of contradictions that the highlight of a Chinese pop gig came when she covered singer-songwriter Billy Joel’s And So It Goes. She sang the bittersweet lyrics like she truly meant them and it was the most touching moment of the night.
The performance brought back memories of the young girl who broke out with the distinctively unique voice on songs such as Cloudy Day and Love Document, which have already become classics.
It made one wonder if she would have fared better in a smaller and more intimate setting, stripped of all the extraneous details.The thing, though, is she is now a regional superstar whose status demands a mega stage.
So what next? The answer is not clear.
(ST)

Own Time Own Target
W!ld Rice
Drama Centre Theatre

The double-bill of Julian Wong’s Botak Boys and Laremy Lee’s Full Tank provided theatregoers with much to cheer about.
The former in particular was the most fun to be had at the theatre since the anything-goes manic ball of energy that was Chestnuts, which was also directed by Jonathan Lim.
Let’s just say that audiences will never think of the term “army camp” in the same way again.
The musical looks at the BMT (basic military training) experience, “the curse of being male in Singapore”, as seen through the eyes of Justin (Terence Tay), who has just returned from England, and his motley bunch of section mates.
Besides coping with national service, Justin also has to deal with relationship problems. And he has a secret.
If his section mates seem surprisingly supportive when the cat is out of the bag, well, we are in the realm of the musical genre. Here, characters break into song and dance faster than a sergeant can yell, “Knock it down!”, and idealism triumphs over realism.
Playwright Wong also wrote the hummable melodies and clever lyrics. Sample dialogue: “Will we be punished for wet dreams?” Snappy reply: “As long as you keep it dry.”
Watching it, you get the same frisson of electricity you felt when you caught Beauty World for the first time and thought that was a musical that we could truly and proudly call our own.
Full Tank was more laboured and felt more scattered.
Sergeant Leroy (Rodney Oliveiro) has commandeered a tank and gone missing with his men. In a parallel plot, a terrorist has escaped, sending the authorities into a tizzy.
How the two plots meet, against the backdrop of an imaginative set which used jerry cans and ammunition containers as building blocks, is not particularly unexpected.
But Lee had something more in mind than milking yuks from inefficient bureaucracy.
There was a pointed comment about the collusion between politics and media when the Minister for Internal Security (Brendon Fernandez) threatened a TV reporter (Tay) for making him look bad. But it struck a jarring note because of the generally light- hearted tone of the piece.
The cast, which took on roles in both plays, was excellent.
Oliveiro brought heart to the obscenity-spewing, tightly wound Leroy and in Boys as Justin’s sergeant, he uttered colourful Hokkien exclamations with relish.
Nelson Chia’s roles in the course of the evening included a golf-loving, responsibility-shirking general, an elderly petrol pump attendant and a soft- spoken instructor who turned into Mr Nasty. He made each character stick.
Hang Qian Chou stole scenes in Boys as an excitable recruit who has a habit of flailing his arms about when he spoke.
Tay had one of the more difficult tasks as Justin could be rather whiny and emotional. It was good that he has a lovely singing voice which helped the audience to sympathise with the character.
It has been more than 20 years since Michael Chiang’s landmark play, Army Daze, was first staged in 1987 and it is high time other playwrights tackle this crucial period in many men’s lives.
Botak Boys and Full Tank present different facets of that experience and it is especially heartening that Wong and Lee are first-time playwrights.
There is promise of greater things to come from them and that is the cheeriest thought of all.
(ST)

20th Century Boys 2
Yukihiko Tsutsumi

Wedged between the creepily atmospheric set-up in part one and the big reveal to come, this feels like a 21/2-hour trailer for part three.
At the end of the first instalment, the masked, mysterious and malevolent cult leader Friend had wreaked mayhem and destruction in Tokyo via a virus-spewing giant robot on Dec 31, 2000.
He was bringing to terrifying reality the events described in The Book Of Prophecies, innocently concocted by Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa) and his mates back when they were school kids in the summer of 1969.
Part two focuses on events taking place in 2015. Friend plots to ascend to godhood as events unfold according to The New Book Of Prophecies. Hope for humanity rests on Kanna (Airi Taira), Kenji’s niece and Kenji’s mates who survived Bloody New Year’s Eve.
The source material is the beloved sci-fi manga series of the same name which has sold more than 250 million copies.
With the film trilogy budgeted at six billion yen (S$92 million), there are impressive set-pieces but the overlong part two sorely misses the likeable Karasawa as the reluctant hero. Taira, stuck in a one-dimensional role as the earnest heroine, is no replacement for him.
The good news is that Karasawa will be back in the concluding chapter and viewers still hanging on should finally be rewarded with the unmasking of Friend.
(ST)

No one could ever accuse Dubai of doing things on a small scale.
The most populous city of the United Arab Emirates has the world’s largest man-made harbour and is building the largest airport as well as gunning for the title of tallest skyscraper with the Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower).
Less well-known, though, is the fact that it is also a family-friendly destination with a water-themed park, an indoor ski trail, fun desert activities and massive malls with something for everyone.
The propensity for grandness and the family-friendly vibe come together in one splendid package at Atlantis, The Palm (atlantisthepalm.com).
The US$1.5-billion (S$2.2-billion) resort opened with a bang last November with a fireworks display described by the organisers as “seven times larger than the Olympic Games opening ceremony” in Beijing.
Pop star Kylie Minogue performed in front of 2,000 guests, who included talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey and Oscar-winner Charlize Theron.
You can see for yourself what the fuss is about, with lodging available from 800 dirhams (S$316) until Sept 19. Clad in a coat of cheerful and whimsical pastel pink, Atlantis is located at the tip of the man-made Palm Jumeirah island. All of its 1,539 rooms and suites offer a view of the glistening sea.
Impressive as it is, Jumeirah is the smallest of the three Palm Islands being developed by the Dubai government-owned Nakheel company. Unfortunately, its palm-shaped glory can be seen only from the air.
There are over 30 dining and wining options offered by Atlantis. Gastronomes will be pleased at the prospect of enjoying the creations of famed chefs such as Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, Giorgio Locatelli, Michel Rostang and Santi Santamaria at its restaurants.
Expect to spend about 500 dirhams per person at Michelin-starred Santamaria’s Ossiano, which offers a modern take on Catalan cuisine and tapas. Or splurge US$150 for Nobu’s Chef’s Choice Omakase menu.
There are dining plans available and children six and under get to eat for free. They start at US$69 a day for adults and US$35 for children between seven and 11 for the casual dining plan.
As the grown-ups partake of culinary adventures, the young, and the young at heart, will be more excited by the 17ha Aquaventure, the region’s largest water-themed attraction. Guests staying at Atlantis enjoy free unlimited access to it. Otherwise, it costs 200 dirhams for a day pass and 165 dirhams for those below 1.2m.
The rides at the Ziggurat complex are the main attraction. The near-vertical Leap of Faith slide, which stands more than nine storeys high, is aptly named. Be prepared for an adrenaline jolt, particularly when you feel your body lifting off the slide.
For those who prefer less heart-pounding rides, try the Shark Attack, in which you sit on an air-filled tube and drift leisurely in a see-through tunnel which cuts across a shark-filled lagoon.
When the walkways start to burn the soles of your feet, it is time to hotfoot out of the sun and duck into the cool environs of The Lost Chambers aquarium. The Atlantis theme can get a little hokey but there is no denying the hypnotic effect of a colossal underwater display.
Every time you walk by the 11-million- litre marine habitat of the Ambassador Lagoon, you feel compelled to stop and stare at its denizens, among them graceful rays, circling sharks and slithery eels.
You can sign up for a session at Dolphin Bay to learn more about this intelligent mammal and, of course, to frolic in the water with it. It is located within Aquaventure but separate charges apply. The cost of dolphin interaction starts from 625 dirhams for resort guests and includes same-day access to Aquaventure.
After the watery attractions of Atlantis, head out to the desert, about an hour’s drive away, for a different range of experiences such as bashing through the dunes in a 4X4 vehicle.
But since bouncing around the shifting sands could induce carsickness in some people, settle down in the evening to watch Jumana – Secret Of The Desert, a multisensory extravaganza featuring lasers, pyrotechnics and water screens at the amp- hitheatre in Al Sahra Desert Resort (www. alsahra.com/jumanahome.htm). Tickets for adults start from 150 dirhams, 50 dirhams for children under 12.
If your little ones still have energy to spare, have them work it off at Ski Dubai (www.skidxb.com), the first indoor ski resort in the Middle East. It offers five runs of varying difficulty and a snow park for those inclined to give even the gentlest of slopes a miss. A two-hour session on the slope costs 180 dirhams for adults and 150 for children.
More importantly, the ski resort is conveniently located within Mall of the Emirates, whose enthusiastic tagline is “Shopping is just the beginning”. It features more than 460 international brands, from high-end labels such as Marc Jacobs to mass fashion names such as H&M.
The honour of the world’s largest shopping mall, however, goes to Dubai Mall, which opened officially last November. The US$20-billion project is part of the Burj Arab complex and has 1,200 shops, more than 150 dining outlets and cafes and an adjoining five-star hotel. Oh, and 14,000 covered carpark spaces.
For a taste of local culture, brave the heat and venture into the souks (Arabic for markets) clustered around the north bank of the Dubai Creek for some old-world shopping. The maze of alleyways offer everything from gold to exotic spices to fabrics in every colour and price range.
While some of the malls try to replicate the souk experience in air-conditioned quarters, the sights, smells and sounds are best experienced in the Deira old quarters.
Keep your eyes peeled for gems such as the world’s biggest ring, with over 58kg of gold used, with the certification by Guinness World Records proudly displayed next to it.
Then take a ride on the abra water taxi across the Dubai Creek to the Dubai Museum (3 dirhams for adults, 1 dirham for children, free for kids under five) at Al Fahidi Fort, built in 1787 and the city’s oldest building. Walk through dioramas depicting the lives of the people in bygone days and marvel at how far the city has come.
You can also take in the sights along the Creek in style aboard the Bateaux Dubai as the vessel’s interior is glass-encased. Enjoy your fine dining experience while the city lights up the night and chew over all that you have seen and heard. The four-course gourmet meal is available at 333 dirhams until Sept 30.
This thriving cosmopolitan emirate is constantly reinventing itself and audaciously ambitious projects abound. There is the ginormous entertainment complex Dubailand and The World, a collection of man-made islands shaped into the continents of the earth.
While the pace of construction has slowed as a result of the current downturn, most remain optimistic that Dubai’s onward march is unstoppable.
It would be fascinating to see what the place looks like in five years when the array of mega-projects is completed. But by then, the city could well be off chasing an even bigger, better and brighter vision of itself.

5 things to do
1 Protect yourself from the heat and glare with shades, sunscreen and headgear, and drink lots of water.
2 Take along some warm clothing if you plan to be out in the desert at night. The temperature can fall to a low of 15 deg C in January.
3 Be sensitive when taking photographs of people, especially Muslim women. Ask before you click.
4 Snap some pictures of the Burj Dubai. The world’s tallest skyscraper with 160 floors is expected to be completed by September, but it already dominates the city’s skyline.
5 Visit the iconic Burj Al Arab. Even if you cannot afford the US$1,000 (S$1,400) per night rate for the smallest suite at one of the world’s most exclusive hotels, stroll along the beach next to it to see gorgeous sunsets.

2 don’ts
1 Don’t stress out over changing Singapore dollars into dirhams. You can easily do so when you arrive at the airport in Dubai.
2 Don’t jaywalk. It carries a 500-dirhams (S$197) fine.
(ST)

The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet
Reif Larsen

Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a master mapmaker and he has just won the Smithsonian Institution’s prestigious Baird Award for the popular advancement of science. Based in North Dakota, he decides to undertake the long journey to Washington DC for the ceremony.
Oh, T.S. is also only 12 and he is sneaking off without his parents’ knowledge.
Thus begins a good, old-fashioned adventure yarn as T.S. embarks on an epic journey by train that has close shaves, musings on genealogy, geography and Newton’s laws of motion and a helpful hobo hotline.
Reif Larsen’s debut novel is distinguished by its unusual presentation. Almost every page has a lengthy aside with an explanatory drawing illustrated by T.S. The titles alone – Father Drinks Whiskey With A Sensational Degree of Regularity, When Did A Short Become A Pant? (And Other Modern Dilemmas) – give a sense of their entertaining quirkiness.
While they inevitably break the rhythm of the main narrative, they also offer insight into how T.S. thinks and how he deals with the world at large and with the death of his younger brother through his maps.
There is one grouse though. T.S. does not quite sound like a 12 year old, even if he is a precocious pre-teen. Lines such as “Even now I occasionally wet the bed, and I still maintained an irrational fear of porridge” sound jarring instead.
Larsen adds another voice to the novel by having T.S. read from his mother’s journal in which she imagines the life story of her great-grandmother-in-law. While the tale is compelling in its own right, the voices of T.S. and his mother are not distinct from each other.
The flaws, however, are not enough to derail this unusual, absorbing tale of a young man’s literal and figurative journey.
If you like this, read: Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde. Fforde’s hilarious Thursday Next literary detective series uses footnotes as a communication device (the footnoterphone) between the main character’s universe and the fictional bookworld.
(ST)

The Vanishing Face Of Gaia
James Lovelock

Mother Nature knows best, but what is best for her is not necessarily what is best for humanity. This is the alarm bell sounded by the 90-year-old scientist James Lovelock in his latest book on Gaia.
He first proposed the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s. It posited that the life forms and physical components of Earth form a complex interacting system that maintains conditions on the planet in a preferred equilibrium, one as favourable for life as possible.
In other words, Earth functions as a single organism.
Met with derision then, the theory has gained greater currency over the years. The Briton has been awarded various prestigious prizes, including being made a Companion of Honour in 2003 by the Queen for outstanding achievement in science. This is not some crackpot doomsday prophet.
Lovelock is now seized by the topic of global warming and takes issue with the straight-line projections of models which he says have failed to accurately predict current climate conditions, much less make useful forecasts for 50 years down the road. This includes the model used by the United Nations panel on climate change.
He argues that all these models are flawed because they do not take into account the fact that the Earth is a living thing with complex interacting systems that respond to changes.
At the current rate of global heating, he warns: “The Earth, in its but not our interests, may be forced to move to a hotter epoch, one where it can survive, although in a diminished and less habitable state. If, as is likely, this happens, we will have been the cause.”
He adds that the idea that we can reverse the impact of global heating and go back to our way of urbanised, industrialised living is erroneous. Modern life is not sustainable given the current global population, he proclaims.
Some of the writing can be a bit dense and technical at times but Lovelock’s arguments about climate change, nuclear energy and the green movement are worth reading and thinking about.
If he is right, we will soon have to make some very tough decisions about our survival.

If you like this, read: Gaia: A New Look At Life On Earth by James Lovelock. Lovelock introduces his radical idea that Earth functions as a single organism in this classic tract which was first published in 1979.
(ST)

The Brothers Bloom
Rian Johnson

The story: Brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) are con men who are aided and abetted in their schemes by the laconic and capable Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). They set their sights on the wealthy Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz) for their last job, but things get complicated when Bloom falls for her.

This is quite a line-up of actors assembled here. They are not your typical blockbuster A-listers but instead, have won critical acclaim for memorable roles in feted films.
Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar for the titular role of Jewish-Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s World War II drama The Pianist (2002).
Rachel Weisz won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as an activist who uncovers a pharmaceutical conspiracy in the political thriller The Constant Gardener (2005).
Mark Ruffalo won the New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for his portrayal of the ne’er-do-well brother in the family drama You Can Count On Me (2000).
Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her turn as an alienated deaf teenager in the ensemble drama Babel (2006).
Inevitably, this creates certain expectations even before one steps inside the cineplex. It is a pity then that writer-director Rian Johnson’s second feature after the well-received teen crime drama Brick (2005) never quite pulls it together.
The elaborate con at the heart of the film is less than compelling and invites too many questions of the “Why?” and “How come?” variety.
Johnson’s ambitious attempt to craft a whimsical crime caper/romance anchored by the fraternal ties that bind and suffocate is let down by the lackadaisical pacing, uneven tone and the weak story.
Still, there are some pleasures to be had in observing Brody’s hooded eyes and sad-sack face and watching Ruffalo playing against type as the roguish elder brother. Weisz also raises some smiles as the awkward and eccentric heiress.
Kikuchi is mildly amusing as the enigmatic Bang Bang, but she will need to brush up on her English if she is to have a viable career in Hollywood that goes beyond niche roles.
As the film keeps telling us, in a perfect con, everyone gets what he wants. The Brothers Bloom draws you in with an intriguing set-up and a promising cast, but in the end, it is a con that turns out to be far from perfect.
(ST)

I Love You, Man
John Hamburg

The story: Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is getting married to Zooey (Rashida Jones) but he does not have a close friend to be his best man. He is not bothered by it until he overhears his fiancee’s conversation with her girlfriends who wonder if that is healthy.
In walks Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) to a house viewing held by Peter, and it proves to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

How did the male friendship end up in this fraught state?
Just because this movie’s protagonist Peter Klaven does not find gross-out porn hilarious or drink lots of beer – which the film insinuates are what most straight guys are like – he does not find it easy to make male friends.
After overhearing his fiancee’s conversation, he embarks on a determined search for a guy friend, which hilariously turns out to be not too different from looking for a girlfriend.
A big reason why I Love You, Man works is because of Paul Rudd. It has taken way too long but the likeable charmer who broke out in 1995’s Clueless finally makes it to leading man status with last year’s comedy Role Models and this film.
He bounced around in supporting roles after Clueless, including a turn on the sitcom Friends. More recently, he seemed to be in danger of being permanently cast as the funny sidekick in comedies such as The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Knocked Up (2007).
He proves here that he can carry a movie on his own and he is helped by a smart, breezy script.
In his search for a friend, Peter goes on the Internet to check out prospects, gets referrals from his helpful family and has to figure out what to do on a man date.
Having had a lot more experience in this respect, his gay brother Robbie (Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg) advises him: “Casual lunch or after work drinks. You’re not taking these boys to see The Devil Wears Prada.”
If Hugh Grant was the master of the stammered apology, then Rudd is the king of cringe. When Peter gets nervous, he shoots off his mouth and says something stupid. Then comes the perfectly timed acknowledgement that it was a lame remark. Rudd never overplays it, so his reaction is endearing rather than annoying.
There is also a believably touching odd-couple chemistry between the straight- laced Peter and the sloppier, slobbier Sydney (Segel, most recently seen in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as they navigate the awkward waters of platonic male-male affection.
Considering the subject matter and the fact that Rudd and Segel have both worked with Judd Apatow previously, it is a bit of a surprise that this is not the latter’s enterprise.
After all, the writer-director-producer has had a hand in recent bromantic comedies such as Pineapple Express (2008), Superbad (2007) as well as Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin.
But perhaps the seeds of the film had been sown much earlier.
Co-writer Larry Levin also had a hand in two episodes of the classic TV series Seinfeld. In The Boyfriend: Parts 1 and 2 (1992), Jerry develops a man crush on baseball player Keith Hernandez after bumping into him at the gym.
From getting a man crush in the early 1990s to going on a man date in the late noughties, the friendship that dares not speak its name is slowly but surely coming out into the open.
(ST)

Mark Lee Rally 2009
Drama Centre Theatre
Thursday

You wonder what it would have been like to be in the shoes of Mark Lee’s wife Catherine as she watched the performance.
The undoubted highlight of the 100-minute stand-up show was when the comedian regaled the audience with the long and torturous odyssey the couple underwent in their attempts to have a child.
After several years of trying, he got advice from friends who were proud fathers of broods of tykes.
One proposed that he lift his wife’s legs up after sex, another advocated flipping the legs over the head using the wall as a support, and yet a third advocated an alternative position.
The 40-year-old’s delivery was well-paced and he punctuated his storytelling with generous gesturing.
The segment played to his strengths as a comedian and the fact that the material was personal helped to create a strong connection with the audience.
He knew it was the best part of the show, which was why he saved it for last. It earned the biggest laughs of the night.
That sketch was also the best answer to the prickly question that he himself had asked in an earlier interview with Life!: Why pay to watch him when viewers can see him for free on TV?
It was an opportunity to witness him sharing his private life in a cheekily entertaining manner.
Alas, the rest of the evening was fairly ho-hum.
As promised, he took on government policies on issues ranging from language education to the certificate of entitlement for cars. However, the writing by stage and TV writers Soo Wei Seng and Boris Boo was not particularly sharp.
One could also have done without the constant reference to the political Lees and a lame attempt to milk some laughs by calling himself Performer Mark Lee or PM Lee.
He fared better when riffing on Ah Beng culture and how that is different from the way gangsters behave, including an amusing bit on swearing with hand gestures.
Drawing on recent headline-grabbers, he also took some barbed digs at veteran show host Marcus Chin’s tabloid-worthy relationship with his much younger female assistant as well as the recent brouhaha over lip-synching in The Little Nyonya musical.
The show marks Lee’s 20th year in showbusiness and serves as a reminder of how far he has come with his Ah Beng persona. But it will not have new fans rallying around him.
(ST)

Blood: The Last Vampire
Chris Nahon

The story: Saya (Gianna Jun) is a 400-year-old half-vampire, half-human. She kills vampires for a shadowy organisation in return for their help in tracking down Onigen (Koyuki), the powerful demon who killed her father.
Sent to an American military base in Tokyo by her handler Michael (Liam Cunningham), Saya takes on the identity of a 16-year-old schoolgirl. She protects a general’s daughter, Alice McKee (Allison Miller), from some nasty fiends and discovers a vampire nest.
Let the bloodbath begin.

If you have haemophobia, you would do well to stay away from this film as blood is undeniably a star attraction here.
Sharp gleaming swords slice through flesh with no resistance and blood spurts and erupts beautifully all over the screen, every last drop rendered in loving detail.
Yet, for all the blood-letting, the violence does not feel real and oppressive because of the stylised visuals. The aesthetics point to its source material, the 2000 hit anime film of the same name.
Like the anime, the film is primarily in English rather than Japanese. Gianna Jun (the actress previously known as Jeon Ji Hyun), best known for the Korean romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), turns in a credible English-language debut, sounding more at home in the language than Zhang Ziyi did in the thriller Horsemen (2009).
In the fight sequences choreographed by go-to action guy Cory Yuen, she also makes for a believable killing machine, hell-bent on seeking vengeance and drained of all other impulses.
Actress Koyuki (who appeared in 2003’s The Last Samurai) fares less well linguistically. The final showdown between Saya and her character is marred by her thick Japanese accent. The dialogue was incomprehensible at points.
Plot-wise, monster-slaying schoolgirls are nothing new in Japanese anime. But it remains relatively rare in Western fare even after seven seasons of the hit TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer and it is nice to see the damsel in distress being rescued by another damsel.
The film also attempts to create some mystery over Saya’s parentage but the big reveal comes as no surprise.
And after all the build-up, the climactic battle falls short though the ending cannily leaves the door open for more blood to be spilled in a sequel.
(ST)

Aaron Kwok De Show Reel Live In Concert 09
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday

That old chestnut from the musical Chicago – Give ’em the old razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle ’em – seemed to be Hong Kong entertainer Aaron Kwok’s mantra during his three-hour-plus concert last Saturday.
While the 43-year-old had been anointed one of the four Heavenly Kings of Chinese entertainment, putting on a concert today must still present a peculiar kind of quandary for him.
While acknowledged to be an excellent dancer, he is not the best singer. He has not had the most memorable hits and his album sales in the noughties are not what they used to be in the 1990s.
The solution? Put on a heck of a show.
Even though it is hard to figure out how it adds up to 450 degrees, the much-vaunted revolving stage was indeed a spectacular spectacle.
The rectangular five-storey-high block was set on a turntable platform. At the same time, the entire block could pivot 360 degrees vertically, flipping Kwok and the dancers within it through one revolution after another.
Earning a Guinness World Record for the largest revolving indoor stage, the contraption was imported from Hong Kong along with a 150-strong crew.
It even had another trick up its sleeve. The two faces of the five-storey block could be lowered like drawbridges, leaving the metal skeleton standing and was used for an effective role-playing segment with Kwok storming a castle.
And that was just part of the show.
Another highlight was the water dance in which he gleefully frolicked in a specially constructed four-sided water catwalk. Fans in the rows nearest the stage donned ponchos thoughtfully provided by the organisers, and they squealed in delight as their idol splashed them.
The razzle dazzle applied to the star’s shiny, shimmery outfits as well, each one more outlandish than the one before.
The opening costume flaunted Kwok’s taut and toned body as he danced in a cloud of glitter. In subsequent ensembles, he was the leader of an athletic alien race; a warrior king sheathed in silver; and also took the stage as what appeared to be a human-lobster hybrid.
The tireless showman confidently commanded the four-sided stage and the near-capacity crowd of over 9,000 showed its appreciation by applauding, screaming, whistling and stamping their feet.
Eighty per cent of the singer’s repertoire was in Cantonese. This was a wise move as he was clearly more comfortable in his native tongue than in Mandarin, and he sounded his best on the Cantonese ballads such as Why Did I Let You Go? and Divergence.
Engaging his fans at one point, he said that his costume was so heavy it was like lugging around two sacks of “mei” (beauty).The crowd delightedly chorused back the right word, “mi” (rice), at once.
His Cantonese accent was also apparent on numbers such as Endless Love To You. This was his first Mandarin single and while the huge hit had been given a makeover with a new remix, it was still performed with the same cheesy hand gestures from the 1990 music video.
Only towards the end of the concert did he seem to relax and enjoy himself. The first few numbers in particular were performed with a look of intense, almost grim, concentration.
Still, you cannot help but admire Kwok for his stamina and the sheer hard work put into the high-energy show.
By the time he sang his final song of the evening, Should I Leave Quietly?, the answer was a clear and resounding no.
(ST)

Dance, Subaru!
Lee Chi Ngai

Given that this is supposed to be about the passion of dancing, the film feels disappointingly perfunctory.
Based on the best-selling manga of the same name, this overly familiar tale centres on a gifted dancer with a tragic past, Subaru (Meisa Kuroki).
There is also a competition that brings together and divides three friends and rivals as well as a last- minute development that threatens to derail the foregone conclusion.
Up-and-coming actress- model-singer Kuroki has striking good looks, courtesy of some Panamanian blood on her father’s side. But while you can envision her as a hip-hop street dancer, you do not quite buy her as a top-level ballet and modern dance performer.
And that is something you just cannot dance around.
(ST)

Sunshine Barry And The Disco Worms
Thomas Borch Nielsen

Worms and disco. This could either be genius or merely fish-bait. Unfortunately, fish-bait is about all this bland and forgettable flick is fit for.
Barry is a young earthworm dreaming above his station in life and finds his calling when he chances upon an old disco record. Cue the boogiewoogie soundtrack, glitter ball and audacious afros.
The rudimentary animation throws up all kinds of icky questions about worm anatomy such as why do they wear tops but not bottoms? Really, female worms have breasts?
Wait a minute, aren’t worms hermaphrodites? These are animated wrigglers even the fish won’t bite.
(ST)

The Uninvited
Charles & Thomas Guard

She sees dead people. And that is never a good sign.
After her release from a mental hospital, Anna (Australian actress Emily Browning) returns home to find her father (David Strathairn as the distracted dad) canoodling with Rachel (Elizabeth Banks), the live-in nurse who used to take care of her ill mother.
Having died in a mysterious fire, mummy dearest now appears in visions to Anna, warning her about Rachel. The increasingly distraught Anna’s only ally is her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel).
The British film-makers, the Guard brothers, pile on the cliches, from shadows flitting behind closed doors to the obvious use of minor-key music. Pretty soon, things get boring.
In the final act, the twists come fast and furious. But The Uninvited is never fully convincing.
An uneven remake of the award-winning Korean mystery thriller A Tale Of Two Sisters (2003), it is notable only for Browning’s taut performance as the frightened and seemingly helpless Anna.
(ST)

Dive!!
Naoto Kumazawa

If boys in swimming trunks are your thing, then you need to read no further.
For those who need a less skimpy review, Dive!! is a little smarter than the usual sports drama.
At stake for the boys is the chance to represent Japan in diving in the Olympic Games. There is only one spot left and getting it would also mean saving their modest diving club.
The three archetypes of Japanese drama are all here: the conflicted one with the matinee-idol looks (Sosuke Ikematsu as Yoichi Fujitani, the coach’s son), the brooding rebellious one whose heart is in the right place (Junpei Mizobata as the wild card, Shibuki Okitsu) and the adorably earnest one (Kento Hayashi as the hardworking Tomoki Sakai).
This film is also a coming-of-age drama that covers ground such as doing things for the right reasons, young love and whether the pursuit of excellence is worth the sacrifices it entails.
The real question here, though, is who will be the one to break out as Japan’s next top idol.
(ST)