I watched 881 today. I heard it was doing much better than another local movie I watched recently, Gone Shopping. The cinema we were in, at Great World City, was about half full on a Monday night
All this while, it didn't occur to me why the movie was named that way. Even though I saw the trailer and knew there were Papaya sisters. Literally translated, Ba Ba Yao = 8 8 1! Duh.
What's it really like to be a tai-tai (rich housewife), with shop assistants at your feet, a nice house and limitless credit?
What's it like to shag a Cosplay chick who calls herself Princess Hayumi?
What's it like be abandoned by one's parents while shopping at Mustafa?
You will get the answers at Gone Shopping, one of our latest Singapore-made movies showing in cinemas now. The movie, directed and written by Wee Li Lin, focuses on three seemingly different characters who hang out in shopping centres, each out of loneliness or desperation.
Foreigners may think it strange that we made a movie on the theme of shopping. But shopping is often cited a favourite pastime among Singaporeans (particularly females). I wonder what that says about us as a people, though!
I sat through a good part of the movie, feeling obstinately unable to empathise with Kym Ng's tai-tai character who tries to deal with her loneliness as a second wife by buying lots of things. I am not a frequent shopper myself. I often feel pressurised when my girlfriends are buying clothes, shoes, handbags and accessories but I am not. I am usually the one sitting outside the changing room waiting for them. But I like shopping for gadgets, so I'm not entirely immune either!
There is a complicated depth to all the characters. The other two intertwining stories are about a young man who spends his time with another dropout instead of going to work, and a child who gets lost in the toy department and witnesses a strange crime taking place everyday in Mustafa. I won't tell you the whole plot or the ending...
What the film actually shows is that while you can get temporary relief from all your troubles by buying things you feel you want, in the end these material goods cannot act as a substitute for broken relationships in your life. At least, that's how I interpreted it.
With a mix of veterans and promising new actors, the movie is not bad at all for a homegrown production. I would give special mention to Sonya Nair, the 7 year-old girl who put on a moving performance towards the end. The GV Grand cinema was almost empty this afternoon though. Support our local industry!
Watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Monoceros and Overacuppa, and it was smashingly good! I'd watch it again. And perhaps one more time! And I'd buy the DVD too. I'm not even a rabid Potter fan but the movie captivated me from beginning to end.
Apparently the movie kept mostly to the book (which I have not read) with minor changes. I didn't find this to be the creepiest Harry Potter movie though. I'm already used to seeing that You Know Who without a nose, and expected dark wraiths doing nasty things. Pity Harry's Godpa had to die, though. He was one of those guys I expected would always be around. I'm beginning to like Snapes, who, in this movie, sides with Harry against the new annoying headmistress who's a smiling tigress.
The hormones get pumped up a little more in this movie. You'll get to see Harry engaging in a nice long Frenching snogging scene with Cho Chang. There's a little bit of flirting at the end of the movie with Luna Lovegood who I think is really quite cool. Nice to see Harry's group getting bigger and stronger, though the core three characters still remain. Ron tries to impress Hermione but the two aren't anywhere near first base. Ginny kicks some real ass when it comes to the crunch. That's another cool lass.
Check out this BBC interview with the actresses who play Ginny and Luna, aka Bonnie Wright and Evanna Lynch. Move over, Bond girls!
We interrupt this busy schedule (of mine) to announce that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson will collaborate to produce and direct a series of Tintin films! (alerted via Digg; go vote)
Fans of the French reporter and little white dog, rejoice! Billions of blue blistering barnacles! This calls for a glass-shattering operatic song of joy. I'm curious to see how they'd adapt the characters from comic book to real life.
Technorati tags: Tintin
We just watched Paris, Je T'aime, a French movie that recently featured in the Cannes Film Festival. It was delightful, and romantic as you can expect, but there were scenes that were quite out of the ordinary.
The whole movie is actually made up of 'short stories' from various districts, or Arrondissements, in Paris. Each district has its own personality, along with the people based there.
There are stories of lonely people who do find love, eventually, in Paris. Some involve couples who are renewing their romance. Some fear they are losing their loved ones - in more ways than one. Some make you guess what's going on, then you realise it's not quite what you think. I shan't elaborate more because this will become a real spoiler.
Popping up every now and then are more well-known actors such as Elijah Wood (who does come across as a bit Hobbit-like, with his backpack), Natalie Portman (who plays an actress in love with a blind young Frenchman), and Gérard Depardieu who is the manager of a restaurant where an American couple are discussing their impending divorce. Rufus Sewell looked a bit like Jude Law but after checking his filmography on IMDB I realise why he looked familiar. It was nice to see a 'guest appearance' by Oscar Wilde, who teaches Sewell's character to be more charming towards his fiancee.
The film touches issues such as racism, bullying, homosexual love, working class versus upper class, love across religious lines, extramarital affairs, crime and aspirations. Not every story has an entirely happy ending. Actually it feels very much like the other movie 'Love, Actually' in the sense that it's a combination of stories around the theme of love.
If you're watching this in Singapore, there are subtitles in English and Mandarin, but it helps if you know a bit of French. For instance, in one short story, a lonely, middle-aged American woman narrates her experiences in Paris in poorly-pronounced French. If you read the subtitles alone, you wouldn't find it funny at all. However if you know how words should be pronounced in French, you will realise she mispronounced many of them with an American accent, sometimes completely switching back to her natural vocabulary.
Obviously the audience around me were quite familiar with the French language. There were a number of Caucasian students in the audience but the locals also understood the nuances of the language. I bet we were all French language students at one point or another. Looking at everyone's faces as we emerged from the cinema hall, we all enjoyed the movie.
My overall rating: Tres bien!
'Watched Pan's Labyrinth at Vivocity today. I had been warned that it had elements of horror and fantasy, and that it was set during the Spanish Civil War.
Prior to this movie, my only exposure to the Spanish Civil War was going to the Musee Nationale Picasso in Paris half a year ago and looking at abstract paintings depicting the conflict, usually in a scene of desolation. I gathered the war had evoked a lot of anguish among the artistic community.
The show begins in a way that indicates what the ending will be - or does it? It then goes back to the beginning, when the girl and her mother travel to live with her new stepfather, a Fascist captain who could very much be equated to Hitler. Along the way, the little girl discovers an alternative world living parallel to the cruel, real world. She believes she has to perform a few missions to go back permanently to her fantasy world.
In real life, the rebels are consistently portrayed as the 'good guys' who can't quite seem to get their act together most of the time. The fascists don't come across as all evil as that seems to be the main occupation of their captain. Among the adults there is the constant theme of betrayal, a refusal to believe in miracles, and a sense of defeatism on both sides. For the child, there is the feeling of loneliness, helplessness, wanting to go back to her original home, and being unable to communicate her exact feelings to the adults.
In the fantasy world, she grapples with a huge, slimy frog and a monster with eyeballs in his palms who behaves like the beast in Jeepers Creepers. At some points I was thinking, "You foolish child! Why did you take the bait?" But then I realised everyone falls prey to the simplest of temptations. In fact the things that seems the most harmless and easy to get away with, are the most insidious of all.
I kind of expected what the ending would be like. Even with the violence, though, you would feel justice has been done.
This movie's up for 6 Academy Awards. I don't think it will sweep everything but perhaps it could be a strong contender for Best Foreign Film. It is not totally fantasy, like Lord of the Rings. It could be a 'period drama' but in the most recent sense, so I'm not sure how it will do in the Best Makeup and Art Direction categories. Best Original Score is a possibility as the main theme is very memorable, though that's all I can remember. The cinematography was fine but there weren't huge, vast landscapes because everyone was enclosed in a forest or labryinthe. As far as I could recall, there were no wide-angle shots (if that's an important criteria).
It felt very much like Cave of the Golden Rose as it captured the fighting spirit, innocence and fragility of youth, in a fantasy world where you couldn't be entirely sure who your allies were. In such desolate moments, you can't blame her for escaping into her fantasy world and imagining 'life is beautiful'.
Now, excuse me while I go and play some Second Life ;-)
Technorati Tags: Pan's Labryinth
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