Our beloved leader's last dancer

Loving summer in Sydney!!! Especially the outdoor movies.

Watched "Mao's Last Dancer" this evening at the Centennial Park with about 500 other people and a well equipped picnic basket (chilled beers / cheese / crackers / nuts / pizzas) in 24 degree pleasantness!

Brilliant film!!! It's directed by an Australian - Bruce Beresford (only other film of his that I know is Driving Miss Daisy - won 4 Oscars). The movie is based on the real story of Cunxin Li - now a renowned ballet dancer and stock broker who lives in Australia.

It's an inspirational story - Cunxin was born in a far flung Chinese province to peasant parents. He was selected (fairly randomly according to the movie) to learn ballet at Chairman Mao's wife's dance institute (would she be called chairwoman Mao then?). He grows up at this school and impresses a visiting US delegation who subsequently invite him to come over.

While he blows everyone away with his dancing, he also meets a white American girl, and marries her (was a marriage of convenience - else he would have to leave for China - and by then he didn't want to!). So he went to the Chinese embassy to tell them he wasn't going back and was held against his will. With some political pressure he was released and continued dancing. In the meanwhile, his marriage broke up.

Eventually he meets another dancer, marries her. China forgives him and he returns. Finally settles down in Australia! Happy ending.

The story is an inspirational one and makes the movie worth watching. The dancing is intense - I'm not into ballet and even I was impressed. The camera-work and casting (especially his mother) left a bit to be desired, but all in all - it's a must watch! Trailer below:

Vantage Pointless

Watching Vantage Point was a painful experience.

It's like this - some guy got his hands on a story. Wasn't sure what was the best way to shoot it, so he shot it from 8 different perspectives. Put all of those together and created a full length feature out of it in the hope that one of them will go down well with the audience. Unfortunately not.

Directed by Pete Travis (who has made nothing noteworthy and probably never will), it has a pretty solid looking star cast which flatters to deceive - Dennis Quaid (a washed up bodyguard of the American President in a very washed up performance), Forest Whitaker (random American tourist in Spain who looks like a Japanese tourist with his HD Movie Camera and bandies about Spanish in a completely over-acted role), Sigourney Weaver (basically doing nothing but being a bitch for the few micro seconds she's on screen). The movie is about the American President in Spain and facing an assassination attempt followed by many attempted twists and turns via showing the whole story over and over and over again from 8 different people's perspectives.

Basically, it all falls flat and they lived happily ever after. Give it a miss.

Trailer looks slick... don't be fooled by it!

Requiem for a Dream

When a dream comes decisively crashing down, it's one of the hardest things to deal with. This movie is about 4 dreams that 4 different people chase and in the process self destruct.

Requiem for a Dream is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr. Directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Batman Project, The Fountain), it's an Academy Award nominated film (2000) starring Ellen Burstyn (Exorcist, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood) - playing the widowed mother, Jared Leto (The Thin Red Line, Fight Club) - playing the junkie son, Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Blood Diamond) - his also junkie and artist girlfriend, Marlon Wayans (Above the Rim, Scary Movie series) - their also junkie friend.

The film opens with Sara (the mother) who lives alone, is a TV junkie, loves her food and dreams of one day appearing on TV. She gets her opportunity in the mail and she starts preparing by going on a diet so she can fit into "that red dress". She ends up taking diet pills which are actually an upper (and therefore a diet suppressant). The starts doubling her dosage, hallucinating, taking valium, hallucinating some more, only to end up with psychosis.

The son and his girlfriend, in the meanwhile, are in love and dream of a life together where they open a shop for her to sell her sketches. One small problem. They love their heroin and need a fix every now and again. They go to great lengths to finance this bad habit. They start dealing (with their friend), and when that dries up, she even sleeps with her shrink to score some. When that doesn't work anymore, she even sleeps with another dealer to score some.

The movie climaxes hauntingly with all 4 of their dreams meeting a tragic and decisive end.

The photography is outstanding. The music score is hair-raising. The acting is stellar. But most of all, the directors treatment - especially the devices he uses for drug addiction - is absolutely stunning.

Check out a tralier below:

Juno Reviewed

Rarely do you walk out of a film feeling light, refreshed, optimistic, touched and poignant at the same time. And Juno did that to me.

Oscar nominated and beautifully written, Juno is a dramatic yet comedic portrayal of a 16 year old high school girl who gets pregnant and then deals with it. She has a geeky boyfriend who "tries very hard" to be cool and gets her pregnant in the bargain, a loving father, a rock steady step mother who are all very well written characters. She tries suicide and fails. She tries abortion and fails. She finally settles on finding parents to adopt the baby and she does. Well almost.

The parents she finds are another story altogether. A rich couple - a controlling wife and a really cool, easy-going husband who is in the process of realizing he doesn't want to be in this marriage.

One of the beauties of the way the film is written is that as you go through it, at various points, you expect the plot to end up being just another film.. and then it surprises you.

It's excruciatingly funny as well. The writing is crisp, witty and laugh-out-loud funny without a single slapstick moment through the entire movie.

Oh and I LOVED the soundtrack.

Check out the trailer below:

Kite Runner - Reviewed

If you've read the book, watch the movie only if you're able to watch it as yet another film (not a book adaptation). If you haven't read the book, watch the movie and THEN read the book.

I'd read the book. But I watched the movie for what it was worth as a film. And I was not disappointed.

Kite Runner is a poignant story about a young Afghan boy who is raised by his rich anti-communist, mustang-driving father in the pre-Russian invasion days (think late 70s, early 80s). They have helpers at home who've worked with them for 2 generations. The child of the helper and this young boy are the deepest of friends until one day, while exercising his loyalty to his friend the poor helper boy gets raped. The rich boy is a silent witness but is afraid to intervene. Plagued with guilt, he cooks up a story to get the helpers driven out of their home so he doesn't have to face up to his guilt of being a silent spectator to an inhuman act on a friend who was standing up for him.

Years go by. The Russians invade Afghanistan, the rich boy grows up and his father grows old in the US. Circumstances bring the rich young boy back to Afghanistan - back home where he is forced to deal with the past he so avoided.

It's a must-read and should-watch.

The cinematography is outstanding. The acting, brilliant. The locales - heart breakingly beautiful (note that the film was shot in China given the security hazards in Afghanistan) and the kite flying scenes - stunning.

Check out the trailer below...

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Reviewed

Recently I was having a discussion in a large group where we agreed that a good work of art (including film) is one that moves you. That evokes some emotion. It could be anger, happiness, love, sadness, awe or anything else... but the important thing is that it evokes an emotion.

Tonight I went through one such piece of art. In the form of a movie titled "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". It's a French film, an adaptation of the memoirs of Jean-Dominique Bauby - former editor of Elle magazine in France who suffered a massive stroke at the age of 43, was paralysed from head to toe, but still managed to write a book with only one functioning eye lid, a vivid imagination and lots of guts.

The film is directed by Julian Schnabel who, reportedly, had to resist the producers who insisted that the film be made in English because he thought it would lose a lot of it's authenticity. Also, Johnny Depp was to star in the lead role. That fell through because of scheduling conflicts with the most recent edition of the "Pirates of the Caribean".

Instead of Hollywood glitz, in the main role he casted prominent French actor-director Mathieu Amalric (who, incidentally, will also be the villain in the next Bond film - "Quantum of Solace". He was fantastic. He played the former editor of Elle magazine, whose life nosedives when he suffers a stroke and turns into a "vegetable". He uses his only eye (the other was sewn up to avoid infection) to communicate via blinking. And that's how he wrote this book. An entire book by blinking his eyelids.

The director is an absolute genius. His visual treatment is amazing - a large chunk of the movie is shown as if from inside Jean-Dominique's head. A lot of movement (like a hand-held camera), in and out of focus, blinks. And then the voice in his head. This guy can't talk, but you're hearing his thoughts (kinda like the baby Look Who's Talking). And he's amazingly funny. While going through all of that, he sees the funny side of things. He's cursing people, mocking their sorrow at his condition and even poking fun at himself.

The director has also done a great job with snippets from his past life as a happy man, his relationship with his ex-wife and kids then and now when they visit him. His relationship with people around him who're helping him in the hospital. All of this has meant truckloads of awards for this film (including best foreign film at the Golden Globes and a nomination for best director at the Oscars).

And the fact that this is a true story will tempt even the most cynical of us to, just for a moment, a fleeting moment, be inspired. Be uplifted. Be put to shame about our everyday squabbles about this, that and everything.

Jean-Dominique Bauby died about a week after his book was published.

The film is currently showing in Singapore. Don't miss it. Please.

The Not-So-Good German

I was asked yesterday by a very intelligent person why all the movie reviews I post are glowing. They're all "FABULOUS" or "A MUST-WATCH!". Well... that's 'cause I don't waste time writing about movies I don't like!..... UNTIL NOW!

The Good German, starring George Clooney (Ocean's 11/12/13, Michael Clayton), Cate Blanchett (LOTR, Babel, The Aviator) and Tobey Maguire (Spiderman series) is directed by the ultimate George Clooney fan - Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's series, Michael Clayton). Soderbergh has experimented with this film by shooting in "Film Noir"... which is a cool way of saying Black & White in 40's crime movie style.

The Good German is set in post war Berlin where George Clooney, a journalist arrives looking for a story. Instead, he meets his ex-secretary-with-benefits (Cate Blanchett), her new boyfriend (Tobey Maguire) who gets killed, her husband who was supposed to be dead and it's all a hash of political conspiracy from there.

Now - the plot outline is engaging enough. Visually, he's been successful in reproducing Film Noir from the 40s. He's paid attention to other details like the poster (the visual here) is a homage to Casablanca and so is the last scene at an airport. So it's pretty and everything.... But he forgot to make the film!

The characters are undercooked... he gets too busy making sure the film looks great and the plot comes together. George Clooney is same old - suave, unflustered, composed - think Oceans 11/12/13, Michael Clayton and any other movie he's ever done. And Tobey is wooden without his spidey costume that covers his facial expressions.... or lack thereof!

Moral of the story - Mere art direction dost not a movie make.

Cate Blanchett is brilliant though.

PS: The intelligent person also told me my spellings suck! So I ran Spell-Check for the first time with this post.

Sweeney Todd - The Johnny Depp show

Watched Sweeney Todd tonight. The movie that just won the Golden Globe for Best Picture and is widely tipped to win the Oscar as well.

It is a FANTASTIC film. Tim Burton, who has to his credit other fantastically weird Johnny Depp films like Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow among others, has forayed into musicals for the first time... and he's a genius.

The movie is set in victorian London where men considered long hats, tail coats and carriage rides as run of the mill. Johnny Depp plays the role of Benjamin Barker, a barber who was imprisoned on a false charge by an evil judge (Alan Rickman - Snape in Harry Potter) so that he could get his hands on the barber's wife (which he does). Years later, Benjamin, now known as Sweeney Todd, comes back for revenge. There are a couple of other very interesting twists to the story but won't spoil it for you.

The movie is grand without being Moulin Rouge. It has a haunting score (I think Moulin Rouge and Chicago would be better scores though). But the aspect of the film that took the cake for me was the use of color, light and shadows. It's a dark movie without trying very hard to be (unlike so many other movies - where dark means I need to shoot in low light!).

Johnny Depp it amazing. The man is Jack Sparrow and so so much more! Alan Rickman is amazing as well (at times very Snape-ish in the film).

I doff my hat to whoever wrote the Broadway musical in the first place. Who would've thought of putting a story about a serial killer in a musical format!!!

THIS IS A MUST WATCH!!!!!

Sexy Lucia

Over the last few days I have been watching a film called Sex and Lucia in installments. Installments because I've been watching it on my laptop on flights, at airport lounges, in my hotel room and so on.

At the outset, I wouldn't blame you for wondering what I'm doing reviewing porn here. Sex and Lucia is NOT PORN! It is a very intense Spanish film by Julio Medem (a very significant Spanish director) and features Paz Vega (very very hot - also starred in a serial that was billed as the Spanish "Friends") in the lead role as Lucia.

Now... the film is about Lucia (a waitress), her boyfriend (Lorenzo), a girl he had a one night stand with (Elena), their daughter from that one night stand (Luna) and her baby sitter (Belen). The film opens on the one night stand that Lorenzo and Elena had (at this point I'm thinking.... porn). And then the plot thickens. Elena has Lorenzo's baby. Lorenzo is a writer and is in Madrid and has no clue. Lucia and he are totally in love with each other (he met Lucia after that one night stand with Elena). Eventually, an interesting turn of events leads Lorenzo to discover that he has a daughter called Luna. He finds her and gets to spend time with her by getting on with her baby-sitter, Belen. Somehow, he ends up responsible for his own 4 year old daughter's death. From there the movie spins to a fantastic climax with Lorenzo being depressed and attempting suicide. Elena and Lucia meeting by some strange coincidence and believing that Lorenzo is dead. And then finally the return of Lorenzo to their lives.

It's an intensely intricate plot. It's beautifully shot. Poetically told.

Paz won a Goya (Spanish version of the Oscar) for Best Actress apart from the film also winning for Best Original Score and having 10 other nominations in 2001. Also won 3 awards at the Seattle International Film Festival, including Best Director.

I have the DVD if you want to borrow.

The lost moon and the trippy subtitles

Watched a very very interesting Hindi film today... Khoya Khoya Chand (lost lost moon... or as the subtitlist - is that what they're called - would translate it - fucking lost bastard).

Directed by Sudhir Mishra (of Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi fame), one of the new generation of directors in tinsel town, it's a great film about Bollywood in the 1960s, telling a story of deceit, illicit affairs and a hunger for money, fame and success... and love in this complicated backdrop.

The biggest reason I loved the film was that this was the first time in a Hindi movie where I felt I didn't know who the good guy is and who's bad. It's not black and white. It has lot's of shades of grey... and then some! The characters are richly brought to life in a complex and intricate story. Everyone has layers upon layers to them... Very evolved, very beautiful.

My guess is that the average hindi film watcher will reject this movie on the pretext of it being too slow and boring... but it's not a film for the masses.

Soha Ali Khan (I want to marry her) and Shiney Ahuja (I think the biggest barrier to him being one of the great actors of our times is his name!) are simply fantastic with very powerful performances.

As a side note - I'm willing to bet that the guy doing the subtitles was high on something very illegal while translating the movie. I'm not sure how "Uske dil mein suraag hai, Zafar" became "She has a fucking hole in her heart, bastard".... when it should be (for those who don't understand Hindi) "she has a hole in her heart, Zafar (name of the guy)".......

But it's a good watch. Check out a ripped trailer below...

Lust, Caution... Awe!

Watched Lust, Caution last week. It's a film in Chinese and is an erotic espionage thriller (as described by Variety), directed by Taiwanese, Academy Award winning director, Ang Lee (he's made a very diverse collection of films - Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Wedding Banquet). The film is based on a short story of the same name published in 1979 by a Chinese author and has already won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Personally, I back it for an Oscar...

Which brings me to the movie itself. OUTSTANDING FILM! It's set in 1940's Shanghai in the time of Japanese occupation and is about a group of patriotic Chinese students plotting to kill one high ranking Chinese official in the collborationalist government. Their plan is to penetrate the blanket of security around this official by using a young girl (one of the students) as a lure for him.

The story portrays the struggle of this young student as she gets more and more involved with this official. In the backdrop, the leader of this student gang is also in love with this girl and is torn between love and duty. The climax is gut wrenching and leaves you with a lot to think about.

The story telling is fantastic. The mood and pace of the film is perfect.

Note - Lots of explicit sex scenes, but all very tastefully done. No Brokeback scenes (I personally thought that was a bit much - but that's just my opinion). My only grouse was the armpit hair... watch the movie and you'll know what I'm talking about.

It's a winner. Check out the trailer...

The Pillowman - Not quite pillowtalk

This weekend, I watched one of the best plays I've seen in years. Seriously.

It's described as a "Viciously funny psychological thriller" - and it doesn't disappoint.

The humor is dark. Very dark. The plot is twisted. Very very twisted. The play goes for 2 hours and 45 minutes. But those minutes pass very quickly.

It's written by an Irish playwright called Martin McDonagh and the Singapore crew is directed by Tracie Pang. It features Adrian Pang (a big name in Singapore theatre circles), Daniel Jenkins, Michael Corbidge and others with fantastically powerful performances.

I honestly don't know how to describe the plot but here goes: The entire play is about the interrogation of a short story writer... the allegations against him are not revealed early in the play (so I won't reveal them either). His mentally retarded brother is also involved in the interrogation. The play goes into gruesome murders, social experiments, torture (including chopped up fingers that fell off the stage during our show!). And yes - there's a connection to a pillowman... and what a connection it was.

It's sick and exhilarating and really really funny all at the same time. Anyone who likes movies that shake you, will love this play. So if you like Crash, Usual suspects, anything by Quentin Tarantino, Butterfly Effect and the like - you'll LOVE THIS.

I strongly recommend a watch. It's playing in the DBS Arts Center, Singapore until the 25th of Nov.

The numbers game

Watched "The Number 23", Jim Carrey's latest flick that didn't do too well at the box office. Well - I liked it!

It's a dark psychological thriller featuring William Sparrow (Jim), an animal control officer, and his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen). He has a fairly ordinary life until he chances upon a book called the Number 23. He is amazed by how similar his life is to that of the character in the book, leading him into an obsession with the number 23 and the fate of the main character in the book. A sinister sequence of events follows and his obsession deepens. The only way out is to find the author of the book and ask him some questions. Therein lie the twists and turns in the story.

Wasn't necessarily one of my favorite movies, but I thought it was well made (Directed by Joel Schumacher - Batman Forever) and told a dark, albeit not necessarily original, story very well.

And so another weekend goes by!

James Bourned - Action packed weekend

This weekend I watched 3 movies - This post is about 2 of them - Casino Royale (the latest Bond flick and Bourne Identity - the first edition of the Bourne trilogy). Review of the third one (Lost in Translation) to follow.

Growing up, I was always a James Bond fan. Liked some of the Bonds better than the others... Sean Connery > Pierce Brosnan > Roger Moore > Timothy Dalton > George Lazenby..... and too early to talk about Daniel Criag and I've liked all the films. Really liked Casino Royale as well, although many elements of the movie surprised me.

It's been 45 years and 21 films since the first edition in this epic series and the character of Bond has never changed - he's suave, stylish, very British, drinks his martini shaken (not stirred), drives fast cars, sleeps with hot women and doesn't fall in love. Until now.

James Bond, with Casino Royale, has gotten just a little more soppy (falls in love with a woman who actually dupes him. Even worse - he's still moony eyed in love even after he discovers that). He's gets beaten up a couple of times and has had to perform rigorous action scenes to earn his bread like any other action star today.

Therein lies the problem (and the connection with the other film I watched this weekend). What makes Bond, well, Bond is the unbelievability of the whole thing with all the points I mentioned above. Now when you depart from that, Bond is like any other action star - like Jason Bourne!!

This past weekend, I also watched Bourne Identity (I guess I was catching up with a new breed of Hollywood action blockbusters which everyone in the world bar me seems to have watched... next up is the Oceans series). Really liked this film as well. Great plot - fast and fantastic - very Robert Ludlum. Jason Bourne is this super-human-esque secret agent who has lost his memory and the CIA is trying to kill him off as they think he's a rogue agent. In the meanwhile he's just trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

Now there's nothing wrong with being Jason Bourne (heck, he makes a lot of money and is very very popular among the girls), but when you're James Bond, you don't aspire to be Jason Bourne. Jason Bourne aspires to be you. Put differently, its kinda like Jason Bourne aspires to be you. Jason gets the girls, James gets the women.

My opinion - Let Bond be Bond. James Bond.

On a not so separate note, after watching Casino Royale, E, V, L and I were pondering the possibility of creating local Bonds for the subcontinent - (a) Joginder Bhogle from Bhatinda, India, (b) Jeetu Bandaranayake from Colombo, Sri Lanka. That's work in progress. Will post a more fleshed out email once we copyright the idea... NOT.

The Shining - One helluva scary flick

I'd always wanted to watch this but just never got down to it until last night.

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980) is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King and stars Jack Nicholson at his twisted best and Shelly Duvall (this was probably her best film) who fits the bill of panic-stricken mid western housewife to the tee. And it's one scary film. Not in your usual Ramsay (Indian's will know this) or even Evil Dead / House of Wax kind of way. The plot itself is scary to start with.

It's about a lovely family of 3 - Jack, Wendy and little Danny Torrance - who take up the responsibility to watch over an isolated hotel during the off season (think winter storms). Now this hotel has a bit of a history with a past caretaker who went crazy in the winter isolation and killed his family. The rest of the plot is predictable with Jack going crazy and Wendy and Danny left to protect themselves from someone who should be loving and protecting them.

Now this movie could so easily have been botched into another scare-a-minute-run-of-the-mill isolated hotel film, except Stanley Kubrick was directing it. As it turns out, he made yet another masterpiece. He handles been-done-before subjects like telepathy and dead people appearing very seamlessly and naturally. Surprisingly, that adds to the spook factor big time.

Jack Nicholson is clearly fantastic. Shelly Duvall was the perfect choice for the role. But the show stopper was the kid - Danny Lloyd. He's done an absolutely fantastic job at a very young age. Apparently the kid didn't know it was a horror film until years later when he was legally allowed to watch it (I don't buy this story, but what the heck... wiki says so!).

There are two scenes in the movie that are VERY memorable... "REDRUM! REDRUM!" and "HEEEERREEEEES JOHNNNNNYYYY"...... Click on 'em to watch the clips (you've gotta love YouTube)!!!

Check out the movie trailer here.

If you've already seen the movie, you'll love this...

Un film Je t'aime

Another movie review... Paris, Je t'aime. I'd give it 4.3879 stars out of 5.

Brilliant concept. Its a collection of 18 short stories (they had planned 21 but 2 of the stories didn't quite "fit in" and one guy just didn't show up to shoot his story!) told in French by internationally acclaimed directors (including Gurinder Chada of Bride and Predudice and Bend it like Beckham fame, Gus Van Sant - Goodwill Hunting, the Coen brothers - Fargo, Tom Tykwer - Run Lola Run and other big names). The cast is about 50 strong with big names like Steve Buscemi (Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs), Juliette Binoche (Bleu of the Trois Coleurs trilogy reviewed in an earlier post), Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood and a whole bunch of others.

The stories are based in different districts of Paris which combine to form a brilliant ode to the city of lights. The stories are very wide ranging - right from inter-racial love (white man / muslim girl angle as told by Gurinder Chada) to vampires and from gay relationships to lonliness! Each of them is about 10 mins long - some bizarre stories told with a dose of the grandoise, others - simple and told intimately. My favorite ones were the ones directed by Gus Van Sant - high on irony and simplicity and also because it has Steve Buscemi and another one by Vincenzo Natali about Vampires starring Elijah Wood because it's just... really weird!

All in all - a brilliant composition of short films directed by some of the best contemporary directors around with some of the best contemporary actors around. It's a DVD you want to own.

As a parting note - I wonder what would happen if they tried a similar concept with the top directors of India and made a film on Bombay... Mani Ratnam, Vishal Bharadwaj, Kaizad Gustad, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Dev Benegal and Nagesh Kukunoor along with Karan Johar and Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrown in for good measure!!? Would love to see that some day!!!

A tale of 3 films

Watched 2 very interesting films and one utterly disappointing one over the weekend.

Started with A Scanner Darkly. Now what got me interested in the film were a couple of things - (a) its an indy film which is sorta semi reality, semi graphic novel. Its animated, but not really. Was shot in digital with real actors and then animated using a special technique called cel-shading with an interpolated rotoscope (thanks Wikipedia for making me sound smart). (b) It has a great cast - Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr and Rory Cochrane. To add to that, George Clooney is one of the executive producers. The movie is based on a novel by the same name by Philip K. Dick and is set at a time in the near future - "7 years from now" in a society that has gone downhill from where we are (surprise surprise!!). The scourge of life then is substance D - a drug that has taken over the city. Bob Arctor (Keanu) is an undercover narcotics agent who, in the line of duty, gets hooked onto the substance himself. He is then put into rehab. As the plot unravels, it gets more interesting (I'd kill the movie for anyone if I said more than this about the plot). All in all, a very interesting watch if only for how the movie has been shot.

Next up was the utter disappointment - Stranger than fiction. The movie was even stranger than that. It has Will Ferrel and Dustin Hoffman - a great cast doing a shit film. Harold Crick (Will Ferrel) is an IRS agent who is kinda obsessive compulsive (interesting angle, but the movie does nothing with it... unlike "As good as it gets"). He suddenly starts hearing a voice in his head narrating his life (interesting angle again - could have gone down the psychological path a la "Being John Malkovich" but doesn't). 2 things happen - (a) he meets a chick and falls in love with her, (b) he discovers he is about to die, (c) he meets a literature expert (Dustin Hoffman) who does.. well... nothing. This movie peters out to a lame ending and is eminently forgettable. It's kinda caught between a chick flick and a hard place.

Last was a breath of fresh air. A Singaporean film - Mee Pok Man. This film was made in 1994-5, directed by Eric Khoo - a nascent Singapore film industry's leading light. Its about a.. well.. a Mee Pok Man (Fishball Noodle Seller) who falls in love with one of his frequent customers - a prostitute and goes on to paint a beautiful collage of their touching, sometimes-funny-sometimes-bizzare love affair. The film deals with the little known seedy underbelly of Singapore and is full of surprises. Its been shot in 35mm, so don't look for a full on gloassy film. It has a very short film look to it. Definitely worth a watch if you live/have ever lived in Singapore.

21 Grams is a heavyweight

And the movie spree continues. Got home early from work today and watched 21 Grams. It's the kind of movie you want never to end.

Written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - the same team that made Amores Perros (Spanish - 2001 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film) - another film I really want to watch.

21 Grams stars Sean Penn (one of the best actors - watch I am Sam), Naomi Watts (2003 Oscar nominee for Best Actress), Benicio Del Toro (2003 Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor). The film centers around a car accident, has a lot of parallel stories, cuts from past to present to future and back seamlessly and finally brings it all together, making you want to watch more of the film. It deals with a grieving wife and mother (Naomi Watts), a reformed and religeous ex-convict (Benicio Del Toro) and a dying man waiting for a heart transplant (Sean Penn).

Apparently, the film was shot in chronological order, but they mixed it up on the editing table. The film is called 21 Grams after some experiments that have proven that we lose exactly 21 Grams in weight when we die - this is assumed to be the weight of the soul.

Another must watch. Head to Amazon!

Black Friday.... follow up...

Following my thoughts about the ticking time bomb of the racial divide in India, check out this speech by Robert Kennedy after the assassination of Martin Luther King.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPYNb4ex6Ko

Bob baya - thanks for sending this through.

Also - In connection with this, try and watch Bobby. It's a story about the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the events leading upto that. It's unique in that it takes us through the life events of a bunch of disconnected ordinary people around the time of the assassination. Very nice film. Apparently it got a 7 minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival last year!

Trois Couleurs - Review

Continuing with my movie spree this weekend, watched the French trilogy - Trois Couleurs (Three Colors). All three films (Bleu, Blanc and Rouge - Blue, White and Red) are true masterpieces.

The trilogy is the work of Polish-born director Krzysztof Kieslowski (any relation with Rafael Scislowski has yet to be established!).

Bleu deals with liberty. It's a story about a famous composer who dies in a car crash but left a major musical piece commissioned by the European Council incomplete. The wife (Juliette Binoche - English Patient, Unbearable Lightness of Being) sets about completing the piece. In the course she has to deal with a discovery about her dead husband's long standing mistress and his assistant's love for her. Brilliant film. Beautiful art direction.

Blanc deals with equality. It's a dark comedy about a hairdresser (Zbigniew Zamachowski - Proof of Life) whose life falls apart when his wife (Julie Delpy - Before Sunset, Before Sunrise, An American Warewolf in Paris) leaves him. He sets about putting things back together while plotting an outrageous revenge. Super narrative and brilliant casting on this one.

Rouge is about fraternity. It's about a young woman (Irène Jacob - Incognito) who runs over a dog, returns it to it's indifferent owner (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a retired, lonely, voyeuristic judge and how their unique relationship develops.

All in all a must watch. In Singapore it's available at HMV. Otherwise you can get it from Amazon.