rosencrantz & guildenstern are dead (1990). directed by tom stoppard.

hamlet is my fave play of the bard's. i read the story from time to time, watch plays and films adaptations. i must say, hamlet should have been performed this way. the play is so much richer than just a brooding prince plotting to kill his uncle-stepfather-king. it's about word play and the role of language and memory, the question of fate and the ability to change it. i love it that this movie expands the witty language of shakespeare physically which often gets drowned with characters and sets that abridged the great work. and boy, a young gary oldman is cute. 

hilary and jackie (1998). directed by anand tucker.

i watched this movie yesterday and only went to bed at 4am. it was worth staying up for, a story about the famed cellist jacqueline du pre and the intense sibling rivalry she had with her flautist sister hilary. encouraged by their pianist mother, the two learned to get her approval by outdoing each other. while jacqueline went on to be a famous cellist, her sister gave up being a professional musician when she chose to get married and have a family. but music, like all arts, is a demon in disguise. movies like black swan (2010) depicts tormented artists that ultimately derives no pleasure from their beloved art.  jacqueline is unhappy and feels trapped with the constant travelling and performances and is jealous of her sister's simple life. she puts hilary down only to covet the thing that hilary has - which is family and love. it only gets worse when she begins to experience early symptoms of multiple sclerosis that cuts short her music career at the age of 28. 

in one scene when hilary woke up her sister to tell her that she's getting married: 

jacqueline: then why are you marrying him?

hilary: because he makes me feel special.

jacqueline: that's a big swizz, because the truth is...you're not special.

hilary: i thought you'd be happy for me.

i thought, god, i hope i will never say that to my sisters.

the girl with the dragon tattoo (2011). directed by david fincher.

the film is nicely done but it doesn't pull me in. i like the cinematography that depicts a desolate place where everyone has a secret of their own. rooney mara portrays the anti-social lisbeth salander to a t - she has a hard life, constantly being taken advantage by men of authority. a better film for daniel craig this year, his mikael blomkvist works with salander to catch a serial killer who gets his inspiration from leviticus. i find this movie not as engaging as fincher's other films (like seven (1995), fight club (1999), zodiac (2007), the curious case of benjamin button (2008) and the recent the social network (2010)). underneath the gothic characters and place, it is an essence a simple story of whodunnit. i guess i missed the layers and complexity that fincher is especially skillful at weaving.  

a history of violence (2005). directed by david cronenberg.

we are surrounded by violence in our life, whether we are aware of it or not. tom stall (viggo mortensen) is a quiet family man operating a diner is a small town in indiana. he looks harmless, a loving husband and a caring father, and an upright citizen whom the townsfolk take in as one of their own. he seems to come from nowhere, but his wife doesn't mind. things change when his diner is attacked by a couple of ruffians and he single handedly defeated them. it was as if he knows what to do, or had handled this kind of situation before. hailed as the town's hero, more bad people come to pay him a visit, demanding some debts to be paid from an unknown past. 

in the film we will see scenes in which violence is employed in everyday situation. stall's son is bullied at school - at first he got away by being meek and funny, later on he chose to fight the bullies and broke their noses. we resort to violence to defend ourselves in tight situations, and honour people who engage in fights as our heros. sex is a form of violence done in anger, as seen in the famous scene at the stairs. there is no love - but disgust, it was like stall and his wife wanted to hurt each other. last but not least, violence as a last resort for survival. stall had to kill everyone who threatens his idyllic life as a means of self preservation. however violence is in essence nihilist and senseless, shown at the beginning of the film, when two criminals slayed people in a motel...for mere water.  

is it innate, violence? cronenberg is saying, violence is survival of the fittest. not a pretty thing, but necessary, nevertheless. 

sherlock holmes: a game of shadows (2011). directed by guy ritchie.

only in guy ritchie's sherlock holmes that sir arthur conan doyle's beloved detective gets a nickname of shirley. the film is pretty much like the first one, robert downey jr.'s non stop manic energy hit fever pitch that he reminds me of early jackie chan movies. it's enjoyable though, and i especially like the scene between holmes and moriarty dueling over a chess game when they are in fact poking holes in each other's plans - moriarty's war mongering ambitions vs. holmes' i-am-going-to-defeat-you-because-i-can. my only complaint is that i find downey's fake british accent extremely muddled, that at times i could not understand what was he saying. or perhaps i am just a little hard of hearing. 

i don't know if other people feel this way, but i find holmes and watson touchy-feely-boyfriend-ly relationship comical in a good way...heck they could have made a cute, adventurous couple had watson not insist on marrying a woman - in ritchie's universe, that is. 

weekend (2011). directed by andrew haigh.

i watched this film yesterday after finishing runs of simulation which i have been doing for days now. had maggi noodles as i was too lazy to cook. 

and then i watched weekend. this is just my opinion. in general, gay people are divided into two groups:

1. out and proud

2. not out and not proud

here we have two gay men having a fun night out, expecting nothing more than sex. but they had more than sex. they talked. they get to know each other. and it seemed they like each other more than just mere fuck buddies. that reveals the kind of gay guys they are - the out and proud, and the shy not-so-out-and-not-so-proud. the conversations they had could have taken place in any bedroom of any couple who had just gotten to know each other - be them gay or straight - their curiosity fencing off with different personal opinions, trying to convince each other "this is me" but hiding personal anxieties at the same time. 

i think this movie works in portraying how "normal" gay people are. not that they are not normal in the first place. but we live in a strange world that is short of approval of anything less than different. 

wuthering heights (1992). directed by peter kosminsky.

i am still reading the book, about a quarter to go. this is the second film adaptation of emily bronte's gothic love tale that i watched, while running fracture simulations, no less. i must say the book is far superior than both films i've seen, however, feinnes is impressive as heathcliff whose revenge for cathy's love is madness and cruelty personified. 

shame (2011). directed by steve mcqueen.

i find this movie sad and the anti-hero profoundly lonely. dysfunctional people often find the last resort to feel something by having sex. and lots of sex. which makes it even more sad because in the end, even something as intimate as sex, failed to produce the desired result - which is human connection. he is an automaton going through the motions of having sex as natural as sleeping and eating, not because he feels good having it, but because it is time and it has to be done, otherwise he will be at the edge of sanity with raw anxiety gnawing at him. i thought his relationship with his sister is odd - i have siblings and we are close but we don't touch each other that way, which is suggestive of something forbidden that had happened in the past - that defined his stand-offish personality, being there but purposely not feeling it. 

the movie is full of sexual acts but they were joyless. those people looked desperate to me in their attempts to feel something and fill in whatever void they have in their lives. but sex, like drugs and all kinds of addictions we have out there, is a poor replacement for the missing things that we spend the rest of our lives looking. 

the movie, and fassbender, remind me of american psycho (2000) and requiem for a dream (2000), of the painful kind. 

sleeping beauty (2011). directed by julia leigh.

i recalled my student days when i was constantly short of money. i decided to stay on whatever budget i have, focused on my studies so that i could go home on time. i did, and i didn't get into any funny business, the innocent goody two shoes that i used to be. 

i still am i guess, because i have not been forced to explore unsavoury options like the girl in this movie did and then find a taste for it. she works all the time in between classes to pay rent and school at the same time, it is a mind numbing existence but there's nothing else she could do other than dropping out of school or getting thrown out of her room. her expression and manners show her lack of interests other than doing something for money, so it is not a wonder that she would choose to sleep away while strangers do weird sexual acts with her body. i get that - you get paid and sleep at the same time, in her case, she could forget the horrible people and the shit jobs she has to do in order to stay alive. 

there are no shortage of perverts out there with money to spend. and there are no shortage of young women tired of life, either. there are no victims here, just cold hard cash transaction. aren't we all whores, now?

catfish (2010). directed by henry joost & ariel schulman.

the non-stop 16 hours flight from dubai to houston had me watching about 8 movies and i was no longer concentrating. but this one had me perked up as it questioned the social media we are endlessly obsessing and checking a million times in a day - yes boys and girls, we are talking about facebook. honestly i don't know why anyone would go to that length to fool someone even after it was revealed to be an innocent hoax, albeit a tad too creepy and dangerous for anyone rational out there. it gets me thinking, are we that starved for attention that we will quickly believe anyone who pays us a little bit of that? facebook brings the weirdest shit out of people, and i dare bet that this is only a tip of the big, fucked up iceberg. 

give it a watch. you'll know what i am talking about.  

the fall (2006). directed by tarsem singh.

i accidentally caught this movie on astro last year. i came home from kenduri, eating more kenduri food when i saw this gorgeous film on screen. i stopped eating and kept watching and thought, why have i not known about this movie sooner? there was a girl with no front teeth but she has the earnest of all expressions, the kind of wonderment that only children can transmit with the most perfect subtleties that requires no acting. also there was a gorgeous man with a beautiful feminine countenance, i found out later that one of his earliest film he had played a role of a drag queen. but the film itself, shot in 28 countries over the period of 4 years, this proved to be tarsem's labour of love and film making of its essence, where imagination and ideas roam free, and colours replace utterance to depict events and emotions. i will not divulge what the film is about because i think the movie is more than just a story, it is about experiencing it so i hope people will watch it and absorb its beauty. it is a homage to the early pioneers of film makers and actors, people who took the risks out of love and madness, that we have this medium to impart the humanity in us. 

it's a story about falling and giving up, and about getting back up again. 

black swan (2010). directed by darren aronofsky.

i didn't watch this movie until late this year. i watched it with my housemate, and by the time it ended, we were disturbed for many reasons. we were distressed that nina's mother treated her like a child eventhough she is an adult, we were stressed out that she seems to be a child craving for approval eventhough she is an adult and should be confident enough to be who she is. my housemate, not familiar with the rigorous trainings that ballet dancers undergo,was aghast at the level of perfection that they strive to achive in their practices. something so soft and beautiful is all but a veneer of sheer strength and resoluteness. may be nina is too fragile to attend to the demands of being a prima ballerina, but the girl before her was not known for stability either. she puts herself through hours of non stop practice that she begins to see things, and you begin to wonder yourself, at the cost of losing your mind, is this all worth it?

i think it is an interesting take on the risks people take to achieve the highest level of perfection in art. art demands you to be critical of yourself, which means you have to be mentally strong to withstand the burden of creativity. contrasting her character with lily, the free spirited dancer who doesnt seem to think too much of what she does and yet dance with ease and charm; unlike nina's perfect robot like precision. who is the real artist here? the one losing her mind in interminable practices, or the one taking it easy chanelling her calmness in her art?

i think there is no easy answer in this one. 

8mm (1999). directed by joel schumacher.

the story ended with cage sobbing to his wife, saying, save me. i can't decide which one is better, this film or seven (1995) in which both were written by andrew kevin walker. there are so many evils out there that just can not be explained by bad childhood or mental illness, and it manifests itself purely because people can do it. cage's character, private investigator tom welles thought he had seen everything there is to be seen - until he is called by a rich client to handle a case of snuff film that possibly involved a girl being murdered. sick stuff really, old rich men jerking off to simulated rape porn - so he spends a long time trying to understand why people do it. he is too ordinary for this sort of sick pleasures people indulge, he has a wife and a baby and a house with white picket fences. when confronted with the girl's killers, he can't bring himself to kill them. he had to call the girl's mother and asked for her permission. he can't imagine anyone doing this out of sheer pleasure, or just because they can. he has good reasons to kill those men and he still can't do it. 

great performances by nicolas cage, joaquin phoenix and peter stormare. stormare is dangerous as the pornographer who takes private commissions and has no qualms about sacrificing people for money. he meant it when he said, "if there was no honor among perverts and pornographers, the whole fucking business would fall apart." 

i like film noir in whatever forms they come. the slow investigative steps that moved you along the path of destruction, forcing you to face people doomed in a place that has no return. there is a lot of indecency going on underneath that surface of pretentious wealth and civilization.   

the dancer upstairs (2002). directed by john malkovich.

this is one of my fave movies. i like stories about unassuming people who won't change for anything; like they have this stubbornness, this will in them that sets them apart from other people. this is a country where kick backs, rebellions and dirty politicians are as common as people starving in the corners of the andes mountain. this country could be poor, lacking resources - that we don't know, but we see the extreme ends of society - rich politicians playing their dirty political game, and ordinary people trying to survive the harsh economic realities and from the looks of it, the government doesn't give a shit. until a mad rebel philosopher called ezequiel started moving the masses with his incendiary calls to remove the corrupt government. people responded to that - little pipe bombs over here, dead animals hanging off a lamp post over there. enter agustin rejas, played by javier bardem, who used to be a lawyer before becoming a cop because "justice can not be found in the courtroom, that's when i know the law is not for me". 

now, how many lawyers actually say that?

he is a man of few words and more contradictions to speak of. a lawyer turned cop (should be the other way round), married to a glitzy woman who doesn't seemed to have much in common with him, earning so small a salary as a cop that he has trouble paying the rent when he could have gotten more had he stayed on being a lawyer, and worse of all, as noted by one of the sleazy politicians that he met, why are you still here? why aren't you over in miami leading a grand life? more often not, rejas short answers hardly satisfy the ones asking the questions. 

i like it that this film takes its time to tell the story - about rejas and his team, about the un-named latin american country and its vast groups of people, and the investigative mode that doesn't jump to conclusions building up with each failure and victory as they move closer to the fiery rebels. there were no big bombs exploding  and people thrown off helicopters normally associated with political thrillers; everything passed by quietly that at times, nothing stirred. 

that doesn't mean there is no ruffle underneath that surface. 

friends with benefits (2011). directed by will gluck.

what a horrible movie. i don't know how a director can make a story out of timberlake's preppy white ass and kunis' small breasts. there were too much scenes of them supposedly having sex i feel like watching a slide show of soft porn. funny? not really. 

the bad lieutenant: port of call - new orleans (2009). directed by werner herzog.

sometimes i just want a dose of nicolas cage. he reminds me of all the crazy wilderness in all of us, the stuff we do out of desperation despite our good intentions. it's great when all that bad planning works out, but catastrophic when they don't. i haven't seen the original film made in 1992 by abel farrera, which my brother said was really good. this film is good too, i got my satisfaction of finally seeing something worthy of cage's talents (don't ask me of his films after 2003 (ok he made some good ones in between, but...) which i could not bring myself to watch, suffice to say they are undeserving of his time). the film is twisted and herzog put iguanas to show - it is a jungle not a civilization out there! the hero's only redeeming quality is his good intentions...and he was lucky it worked out, however strange it got, in the end. 

bringing out the dead (1999). directed by martin scorsese.

i've watched this movie some time ago and recently felt like watching nicolas cage. i like his manic energy and desperation. the movie is like a documentary instead of a conventional film, determined to show the new york beyond the brownstones, 5th avenue and wall street. all through the eye of a tired medic who had not saved anyone in months, and beginning to blame himself for each death he has to handle. he is their witness, their departing angel. the hospital is a crazy place, doctors and nurses working over time treating the city's down and out selflessly the best they could even though sometimes there is no hope left. people keep on living, no matter how tired they are. some tried to reverse the destructive forces in their life, sometimes they win, sometimes they don't. life in new york is a battle everyday that needs a good fight to deserve a win. 

all the broken people of new york, you gotta be tough, because if you don't, you can't survive this city. the only good thing is, you have each other. 

the descendants (2011). directed by alexander payne.

what's wrong with having loads of money and not wanting to spend it? what's wrong with working to provide for your family, which means there are times you can't see your family as often as you liked it to be? is it your fault if your wife cheated on you because you aren't around a lot? is it fair that friends think you are a sucky husband and it's ok for her to cheat?

if you ask me, my answer is no for all four questions. 

most families tolerate spousal absence in the name of economic prosperity. we let go that our husband and wife has to be away for work, we do the best with raising children on our own, we make do with whatever money available for that month. george clooney plays the amiable father and husband who is thrifty with money even though he owns a large tract of land in hawaii, a working lawyer who travels frequently. he  leaves the household and child raising to his wife and thinks she's ok with the arrangement. suddenly his wife got into an accident, goes into coma, and he is shouldered with the task of taking care of his two teenage children. he is confronted with kids he has never really known, confronted with his wife's infidelity for the first time. you can see life draining out of him, and as he grieves the passing of his wife, he does the best a father of two could do - to just stay strong and be positive. 

george clooney rarely plays losers. so it is good to see him plays an ordinary guy close to buckling but has this will to go on, which is extraordinary. he could have just place his children in a boarding school and get on with his life, but he chose to be close to them and get to know his children. he could have chose to leave his wife behind for the pain she caused him, but he chose to tell her lover that she is dying so that he could say goodbye. he chose to be a better person when everyone thinks he is lame and uninteresting, unfairly taking his wife's side that it is ok to cheat. 

hawaii is such a beautiful place, the story unravels the island's quiet beauty. but even in paradise, pain will find its way to you, and when it does, all you can do is be strong and let it pass. 

trust that some day, you'll be ok. 

my week with marilyn (2011). directed by simon curtis.

michelle williams is glowing gold with that platinum hairdo. the movie is great, the cast is superb. williams is astounding. i watched it yesterday for fear that it will be yanked out of the cinema soon. it is about the famous marilyn monroe, and i love that the story peels the reasons behind her professional life instead of focusing on her personal life like most biopic tends to do. she takes acting seriously despite the dumb blonde look that she has, and actually tries very hard to be a better actress. 

the story obviously is told from the male point of view who can't help but falls under her spell - she is a beautiful sweet girl and a sex bomb full grown woman at the same time, seems worldly even though she is often lost and in tatters when dealing with stresses of the real world - in short, she is the ultimate damsel in distress that triggers the male instinct of protection. and men respond to that - some feel it is too much of a responsibility, like her third husband arthur miller reacted; others feel it is their call to rescue her, like that of colin clark, the 23 year old third assistant director in which the movie is based on. me? i think if i see a woman like that, i'd totally hate her - because she is the total opposite that i could never be, in fact men make it their point to let me do things on my own because i am independent. well, i am, but all ladies want to be treated like a lady if given a choice. 

let me say this again, williams is so good in this movie. she captures the little girl lost of marilyn monroe, the beautiful woman whose insecurities could only be matched with her constant need of approval - she is the woman who only wants to be loved, who puts a picture of abraham lincoln by her bed side table because she doesn't have a father and lincoln is as good as any. which is sad, and i am partially sympathetic to her plight that drives her to act the way she does. 

reign over me (2007). directed by mike binder.

i am not crazy when i said i like adam sandler. i do. even though it is far and between that he does quality flicks, preferring instead to stick to what he does best - the adam sandler genre. which is funny too if you like slapstick and dirty jokes - i like 'em. thank goodness that sandler has the sense of doing something else other than what he usually does - and reign over me is a very good exception. 

don cheadle is a dentist, married with kids and thinks his wife is not giving him space for him to do "man things". may be it is the seven year itch, but he's restless, bored with his ordered life, and looking for a way to let out some steam. he then came across his long lost roommate (adam sandler) from college who initially didn't remember him. sandler is disheveled, constantly renovating his kitchen, always on his music head space listening to rock greats. he spent his nights going around the city on his scooter (i don't know what the thing is called) and i suspect he doesn't sleep much. he didn't seem to remember anything much from his past. at first cheadle didn't mind sandler playing an amnesiac, until he found out the reasons for sandler's insistent pretension to forget. 

sandler's playing the down and out guy who suffers so much that he disconnects from the world is endearing. i am sad for him. if you noticed, he always has this inner desperation going, like he's repressing something and ended up doing something else that is the opposite of what he feels. cheadle is great (played with great ease), the nice everyday man looking for a little excitement at the expense of forgetting the good things he has in his life, which is often taken for granted. by the end of the movie, he realized that he doesn't want to be sandler nor his apparent freedom if that means he can't let anyone into his life. the movie is touching at so many levels, it doesn't get too dark and the ironies of everyday life provide a much needed comic relief which is not silly at all, but true. that is the kind of surprise that i like when i watch a film, given adam sandler is in the movie. 

i especially like the cinematography that shows the beautiful new york city, the city and its people after sept 11 bustling like nothing happened, covering deep scars if only time could heal them. 

shotgun stories (2007). directed by jeff nichols.

i know men like son (micheal shannon), boy (douglas ligon) and kid (barlow jacobs) in my own family. men who can't say what they feel, and when they finally say them, they do that with great violence, often unintentional. it used to annoy me when these men choose to be quiet than act on the issue plaguing our family the way i do - but then i begin to understand, that they are merely trying to contain their anger, doing their best to calm down and say not the wrong thing before taking any action. 

else we have men like son and his brothers. their broken family and harsh childhood make them cling for one another for support - the brothers don't speak much, but they look out for one another to make up for the lack of words being said. their mother is estranged, as son speaks of her as the hateful woman who brought them up to hate their father and his other family. their father is a reformed alcoholic who left them behind for a new wife and new sons, so you know it is disaster when son and his brothers turn up at his funeral, spitting and reminding the new family what a vile man their father used to be. you can sense their anger at being abandoned; their life languishing in a dead end town, uneducated, unloved, unable to escape. they have no one who cares but the three of them. son had shotgun marks on his back, it was from protecting one of his younger siblings. 

i don't know if many people appreciate this kind of story telling, because i must say this story touched me in places most movies hardly make an impact. i was looking for movies with micheal shannon after watching him in take shelter (2011), also directed by jeff nichols. i feel sorry for son and his brothers, and it is especially sorrowful to see bad blood from an older generation who hardly cares about them had son and his brothers wage a war against their step brothers. this movie is a character study excellently portrayed by shannon, ligon and jacobs; i like nichols' deliberate direction that lets the story unfold by implication. adam stone's cinematography shows a sleepy arkansas town that holds nothing for its residents, each day reminding them of the cruel realities that their life is wasting away and that there is no escaping it. the town is a prison, symbolic of the prison they live in their minds. 

for people like son and his brothers - while there is no easy way out, the most obvious has got to be to just let go. 

martha marcy may marlene (2011). directed by sean durkin.

why would it be attractive to anyone to join a cult? if it's attractive to you, then there is something wrong with you. this is the story of martha, who upon joining a cult gets her name changed to marcy may because the cult leader pointed out "you look like a marcy may". the cult has more women than men, their roles are  confined to having sex with the men, cleaning up after them, cooking for them. the women could only eat after the men finished their dinners. the extent of their depersonalization is magnified by the name marlene, the name that the women respond to when answering the cult's only telephone. 

may be those women are lost souls looking for a sense of belonging in all the wrong places. god forbid a girl with daddy issues would come across a man who acts like he cares - because the cult leader in the film is a master manipulator. broken people needs someone who believes in them, and they will re-pay that belief with undivided and fiercely blind loyalty. martha seemed like a smart girl, she must have had more conscience compared to the other girls as she was the only one who managed to escape from the cult. but she has trouble adjusting to the outside world - the grip of the cult leader and its insular life is rooted in her, that she has to fight its persuasive call to come back. 

when we think about it - about how those women could subject themselves to repeated rapes and other forms of degradation without questioning, in fact with pride that they had themselves cleansed by the cult leader, proudly inviting other girls to do the same - we are witnessing an immensely basic human need in action. that people, will do anything to be loved, and that the illusion of it is good enough than having none at all. 

j. edgar (2011). directed by clint eastwood.

for a clint eastwood movie, it is surprisingly bland. neither is he known for insipid story telling, especially when we are talking about the famous j. edgar hoover, the first fbi director who ruled the agency for a mighty 48 years. just when we thought that dictators only exist in backward african countries. 

the film was helmed by good actors. we have di caprio, judi dench and naomi watts to name a few. di caprio did a good job portraying a man in love with power more than anything else in his life. he is constantly scared of losing it, that he justifies spying, planting evidence, making up stories - anything that he could gather to black mail others when the situation demands him to. naomi watts, however, is forgettable. it's not her fault though, the nature of the film that has no real focus, flipping back and forth, loses a lot of details that could have make for a potentially moving story. 

but the film...it is like it has no climax. no punch line. it sort of went on and on without attempting to shed something fundamental about hoover. it is like eastwood had something to say but he decided against it in the last minute. his j. edgar is neither reviled nor admired - he is just another guy with mommy issues and gay but happened to be the most powerful man the fbi has ever had. i don't know why eastwood is so detached - and the absence of his trademark intimate story telling is severely missed in this movie. 

the darjeeling limited (2007). directed by wes anderson.

the flight from houston to calgary was a drag. the plane was very small and the guy who sat next to me was very big. by the time i finished watching this movie, i thought, i can endure this flight only because i have watched a gem that makes me laugh and cry at the same time. 

the three estranged brothers played by owen wilson (eldest), adrien brody (middle child syndrome) and jason schwartzman (youngest) are on a spiritual roadtrip in india, wilson in particular hopes to bond with his younger siblings despite his controlling ways typical of an older sibling that has kept his brothers away from him all this while. far from realizing this, they bicker with each other like kids do, only they are not kids anymore but grown adults with non-unique adult issues. with a dead father and an absent mother, it seems like they are used to not having anyone to depend on, but i think they feel abandoned. the scene of the boy's cremation, they are strangers in the village where no one speaks english and yet they are made to be part of the family, which is what is missing from their own family. togetherness and being there for one another. 

it's a pleasure seeing the trio and wes anderson crafting something from his universe of broken people. the nonsensical situations that they are in, the flaws they can not help but kept doing. some people say anderson's films is an acquired taste, that they are too quirky for their own good. may be so, but i find much realism in anderson's twisted family dynamics. 

inception (2010). directed by christopher nolan.

the first time i watched inception, i didn't like it. there are infinite easier ways of telling the story as opposed to the layered mechanical dreams nolan is proposing. i am a proponent of story first, cgi second. the cgi in this movie is amazing, that at times i feel that it is done at the expense of the story. i don't mind the back and forth story telling, it shows how adriot nolan is in keeping the story tight although it requires audience to pay a closer attention.  

but then again, movies can be about anything. i guess i expect more storytelling from nolan, which is something he is very good at. when i told my brother than i didn't like the story - he merely said, you are getting old sis. 

then i watched it again. i liked it slightly. that was over a year ago. recently i gave it another watch and i began to appreciate the technicality of the story. or rather the stylish pseudo science of dreams (dreaming, rather). the cast is fantastic and it goes without saying that the direction is sleek. i read somewhere that nolan spent about 10 years to make this story, it is indeed a labour of love. 

the singing detective (2003). directed by keith gordon.

i don't normally like musical. though this film isn't strictly one, it has singing, as the main protagonist liked to call it, warbling. this movie happens to be one of my many favourites too. warped inside the mind of dan dark, a small time detective novel writer imagines himself to be the detective of his written invention, investigating a noirish case of a strangled woman left in drain, himself chased after two dubious figures who has a thing for patti page's how much is that doggie in the window?. but then we are presented with the real dan dark, struggling with a bad case psoriasis, close to losing his mind, very much in physical pain, abusing everyone around him, his suspicion of others shoots up exponentially. he is in pain mentally, of past lives unresolved only for him to relieve it again now that he is bed ridden and has all the time in the world to remember every single detail. we don't know if he is at the edge of sanity because of his skin disease, or he is at the mercy of his disease to reflect the burden of (in)sanity that he's been carrying all this while. 

the film is supported by a great cast, i must mention the excellent robert downey jr (who at the time was struggling with addiction of some sort), mel gibson, robin wright penn and carla gugino - in the tradition of great film noir (though this is not strictly one...here we go again) nothing is what it seems to be. 

jane eyre (2011). directed by cary fukunaga.

i watched this movie because i want to see which one of them is micheal fassbender, who has new movies coming out this year touted as a good watch - shame (2011) and a dangerous method (2011). i still find wasikowska too uptight, while i understand her character as an independent woman trying to survive poverty, being single and betrayal of trusts that could turn any woman into an anxious bucket of sarcasm. eyre is witty and smart, but she is poor and by implication, plain. she has many dark episodes in her life but she wants to be realistic about it without being too naive of how scary the world could be or too scared to shy away from experiencing it. i like fukunaga's direction that gives sense of how stratified society of victorian age favours people of money and dismissed people without money like mere insects - like they have no personality, no feelings, no life. and people with money, they get away with bad behaviour, almost as if such a thing is expected if not condoned. 

we, as people, can still be bought with illusions of power and wealth, like those victorians ages ago. 

my son, my son, what have ye done (2009). directed by werner herzog.

this is a curious movie. but i should have known how curious it could be when i see the name werner herzog and it was produced than none other the master of wierdness, famed director david lynch. to be fair, i haven't watch a lot of herzog's work. i decided to watch this movie because i was taken with micheal shannon's acting and wanted to see more of him. when i browsed through his filmography, i was surprised with the number of films he had done and i have watched but nonetheless did not see him. he is the ultimate everyday man, he is there everywhere, blending with the environment, that he is not seen. 

this movie though, has a curious way of telling its story. it started like any regular cop movie, and then it started to go haywire. it was as if the movie (rather, the director) is saying, fuck off to all known cop movie formulas out there. i am sick of people expecting i do what i should do, so let it rip. 

it is a story of suburban hell, of too much fake happiness that homeowners had to paint pink flamingos on their wall. it's weird, when a mother smothers her grown up son with too much affection that she has to give them cookies when he is about to sleep with his girlfriend. shannon's character had probably been unstable for a long time, waiting for the ripe time to explode. it is wierd (again), that his mother, his girlfriend, his neighbours, his theater instructor, his friends - none of them see how mentally fragile he is, perhaps the real danger lies in basking in too much imagined solace that they failed to see a ticking time bomb, living right across the street. 

take shelter (2011). directed by jeff nichols.

this has got to be one of the better movies made this year, though not in the same category as drive (2011) which was more about style than theme. there's nothing wrong with that, movies can be whatever they want to be. a well done movie is not about theme or any particular topic - it's about good execution. take shelter (2011) goes beyond style alone - this movie confronts you with such layered story telling and subtleties that it doesn't need special effects to create tension and suspense. great acting from micheal shannon and jessica chastain, they have got to be my current two favourite actors and i see more good movies coming from them. i like the cinematography by adam stone that presents ohio as a quiet rural place, but not as peaceful as it seems to be. something dangerous is lurking underneath the summer wind blowing the trees. 

the story tackles many issues without confusing the audience, it fact it unites the various elements that by the time the movie ends, the story achieves perfect harmony. shannon is a young husband and father afflicted by visions of apocalyptic storms and mysterious people attacking him and his family. he begins to get very anxious about it as he regularly hallucinates and loses the ability to sleep - all this while trying to hold down a job, pay for his home and car mortgages and find treatment for his deaf daughter. you can feel why this guy is seeing things - while he could be genuinely on the verge of schizophrenia, he has many things on his plate that could make anyone unable to sleep. i like shannon's portrayal of the the ordinary man losing his mind - his anxiety is real and heartfelt as he tries to cope with seeing the unreal while trying to be a responsible father and husband, all at the same time. chastain as shannon's wife provides a good pairing of a couple in love and committed to each other, she is ethereal without being bland, strong without being overpowering, supportive without being dependent. she is the reason why shannon feels he has to get through his difficulties despite all odds. he is strong because of her. this story is about many things - financial worries in times of economic uncertainties and downsizing, the constant enviromental threat (which is a real risk in many countries, such as america and indonesia) and what it means to be committed in a marriage. 

it is about facing good times, as well as real or imagined bad times, together.  this film is must watch, alas it is not widely distributed in the US, i doubt it will be shown in other countries. that's a shame, really. i had to walk 2 miles in order to find a cinema in denver that showed the movies, and it was worth every step i took (disclaimer: i don't have a car here because i am attending a conference, and cabs are expensive. it was a good exercise, i was restless and needed to discard excess energy). 

waiting for superman (2010). directed by davis guggenheim.

the other day on twitter, me and a friend got into a discussion about lousy education systems and predictably, she said malaysia is the worst. may be because we went through the system, and despite being able to go to uni via that system, get a job and earn a reasonably comfortable living, we forget of inherent factors that make or break that system. year in, year out, the education minister reports increasing number of students passing with higher and higher marks in national exams that we are often fooled of the real situation. 

what about the majority that didn't do so well? what will happened to them? why couldn't they do any better? is it fair to say that some kids just can't learn? is there anything we can do about it? is the system at fault? what are the factors that contribute to kids not learning what they are supposed to learn?

these are hard questions that the film is trying to answer, something we all should be worried about too. 

i think whatever plagued the american education system, if looked close enough, we will find an eerie similarity with what is happening in our country. those good marks are nothing but a mask. that is the  topic of interest in waiting for superman, a documentary that follows a father's search and countless other parents for a good school for their kids. i must say, this film is much more suspenseful, engaging and puts you on the edge at the precarious decline of the public school system in america than a lot of action flicks playing out there. it's heartbreaking seeing single mothers working 3 jobs trying to pay for private schools, hardworking children from poor neighbourhoods putting their hopes on lotteries in order to gain entry into a good school. the film explores the issues that turn american public schools into a sinkhole (increasing drop out rates, no improvement in reading and math skills) - a powerful teacher's union that makes it impossible to fire bad teachers (and there are lots of them on the payroll and not doing their job) and complicated management of the school system that makes it inefficient.  the real losers - kids. 

this is a powerful film that educators and parents should watch and understand - for nothing is more impactful to the future generation than quality education. 

food for thought!

dream house (2011). directed by jim sheridan.

the only saving grace of this movie is that it runs for 92 minutes otherwise i would have walked out of the cinema. it's been a while since i watched a hopelessly bad movie (the last one was final destination 5 (2011)) and it is most unfortunate that this one comes second - it has daniel craig, rachel weisz and naomi watts; on top of that it is directed by jim sheridan of my left foot (1989), in the name of the father (1993) and in america (2002) fame. come on! i was angry by the time the film ended - it was flat, no intonation, no climax, the mood and atmosphere is all wrong (thrillers don't work with too much light!) and i don't buy the plot. craig needs to see spider (2002) if he wants to give a credible potrayal of a man who lost his mind. may be the script is weak, that not even a good actor or a seasoned director can salvage the movie.

i am disappointed, and i dare say that was a waste of my 10 bucks. 

the tree of life (2011). directed by terrence malick.

last weekend friends of mine who lived in downtown houston asked me to come along to watch margin call (2011) at river oaks theater located right in the middle of the city. they didn't tell me that the cinema is the oldest cinema in houston, and that it has only 3 screens. by the time we got there, tickets were sold out for all movies (which were only 3). one of them then suggested that we go back to his place to watch the tree of life (2011), him being new to high brow art movies, recommended by his boss, and thinks he couldn't make it watching the thing alone. 

before i say anything further, let me just iterate that in general i like terrence malick films. they are not conventional, lots of people find them too dreamy, slide-showy - i've heard worse - the p-word. pretentious.  

whenever i watched malick's films, the word that comes to my mind is beautiful. the cinematography, the moods, the colours, the fact that it seems to drift in no particular direction often puts in me in awe. but that's me. i am impressed that he doesn't have the need to tell the story like so many other directors might have done, it is like he doesn't care what people think about the film, because his role as a director is to put the story out there as he sees it. it doesn't matter to him if you get it or not. that's just how he sees things. 

which of course, makes my two guy friends who love block buster action franchise squirmed in their seat  in confusion and impatience. but they made it through the whole 2 hours and 20 minutes, relieved that they finally watched "an art film".   

i don't know if it is an art film. it is a terrence malick film and there is only one terrence malick which makes it singular on its own. in a nutshell, the story is about a middle class family in texas, the stern patriarch played by brad pitt and his angel-like wife starring jessica chastain trying to raise 3 boys in the midst of surburban monotony, economic down turns, parental discord and teenage growing pains. the story is told through the eyes of jack, the oldest of the 3 boys and i feel it is imperative that while watching the movie, audience need to assume his point of view to appreciate the movie. i can't be the person watching it from the inside, i need to be in the movie along with jack and it takes me back to my childhood. i can relate to the lazy days, my disciplinarian and moody father, my soothing and full of love mother, and their fights which scared the hell out of me. the movie invokes those memories - and i guess it can't be done without intimately recording the seemingly useless details of those times. i was a child and didn't know what life will be, which i think fits the movie ostensible lack of plot. it is also expansive in its tribute to the mystery of life - right from the big bang through the dinosaur sequence and to the human fetus, wondering at the question why are we here? jack marvelled at the difficult question, as i did, back then. 

this film is not for everyone and many critics praised it for being brave (while failing at the same time) because hardly anyone these days apart from terrence malick and the great dead directors like stanley kubrick and andrei tarkovsky make films like this anymore. nobody seems to wonder about the continous flow of life, endless and has no beginning. the film is not perfect, but it is good that someone out there is praying to this grand monument we call life. 

the machinist (2004). directed by brad anderson.

he is gaunt and too thin for his 6 ft frame. he can't sleep, must have been for a long time now. you will immediately feel sorry for him, something is eating up this man mercilessly, in fact, if this is the price he has to pay for whatever wrong doing in the past, you'll say, enough already. he seems like a regular guy if not for the anorexic body, but something is wrong. his co-workers avoided him, hated him actually. we don't know why. the director is dropping little hints here and there - in his apartment, what about a big guy following him around and he doesn't look pleasant to be with.  the atmosphere is bleak, there is no sun. the only ray of hope comes in the form of a single mother and her son, whom the thin guy enjoys spending time with. something is bothering him though - something. 

director brad anderson weaves a tale of regret that literally eats a person up. christian bale famously lost 63 lbs for the role, and by the end of the movie, you will throw your hands up in the air and cry - for the love of god man, stop punishing yourself. we forgive you. forgive yourself. now eat. and sleep. 

and that's all that he wants. to be free from guilt. to be free from illusions that things done in the past can be fixed. you can only forgive and live with your sins. and then you can sleep. 

such a simple pleasure to earn, isn't it? think again the next time when you can't sleep. it can eat you alive. 

scenes of a sexual nature (2006). directed by ed blum.

i don't enjoy assembled cast hollywood films. i don't remember the last time i watched one and actually like it. i often find it lame, pretentious and worse of all, not funny. personally i think it is a waste of talent pool, but come christmas and valentine's day, there usually be droves of assembled cast feel good films that hardly feels... joyful. 

defeats the purpose, eh?

there are many things i like about this movie. apparently it is an assembled cast film but since i don't know a lot of british actors, it is refreshing to see people who are actors acting as opposed to famous hollywood actors acting. actors should become the part, not the other way round. i don't pay to see a movie to see leonardo di caprio acting to be leonardo di caprio because i want leonardo di caprio to be whoever the script wants him to be. off tangent, my bad. but that's my point why i hate assembled cast hollywood films. 

this movie is about the misadventures people encounter in their search for love, and specifically, sex. i find most of the subplots interesting, for example the story of iris and eddie, the old couple who at last met after 50 years of looking for one another. another one involves pete and molly, the divorced couple who are so happy despite the fact that they are dissolving their marriage. the funniest has got to be noel's persistent bad day when a woman proposed sex to him in the park only to call it off half way through and he was left with his white preppy flat butt in the air, pants in the ankle. he is naive and too honest, and it should not come as a surprise why women immediately take him for a pervert. 

is love about being together while letting our partners do what they like although it is displeasing to us? is love sex, and vice versa? could love come in to our life if only we could stop being defensive and take a little joke about ourselves? could love be paid in money, secret meetings and far away holidays?

louis said it best - it is easy to love someone, not so to like them. 

fight club (1999). directed by david fincher.

i didn't noticed before that edward norton has no name in this movie and i have watched it god knows how many times. david fincher's dynamic direction is still refreshing as it did 10 years ago, putting humour in otherwise a very bland life of an neurotic insomniac who had to be someone else in order to feel free. brad pitt nailed the role of tyler durden, nameless norton's alter ego which is his total opposite - he's flamboyant, smart, outspoken, sexy, opinionated and strong. perhaps the movie is a collection of cool one liners that underscore the anxiety of a generation of men that feels emasculated by the lack of doing anything traditionally associated with being a man. norton is great at playing the hesistant everyday man whose confidence is at an all time low. it is a dark comedy, and after many many viewings, i still find it funny - the issue of emasculation and over consumerism are more relevant today as they did 10 years ago. 

bronson (2008). directed by nicolas winding refn.

after watching several hollywood movies back to back, i was relieved that i finally got to watch something different. i don't know if bronson market itself as a dark comedy, because i was giggling at 1am, at the absurdity of bronson. the guys is stark raving mad. he could be schizophrenic. who in their right mind would pick fights in prison knowing that your stay would be prolonged, and solitary confinement at that?

the good thing about this movie is that director nicolas winding refn doesn't take a linear approach to tell the story. bronson is obviously crazy and suffer from delusion of grandiose, to the point of creating an alter ego called charles bronson because "i want to be famous". tom hardy as bronson is compelling to watch, he brings realism and bestiality to the character. he lacks control and operates by a different logic that is not normal like other people. 

i doubt this movie works for everyone - there's nudity, too much violance, and chaos. but we do need different things, once in a while. 

wuthering heights (2009). directed by coky giedroyc.

a friend of mine turned me into a tom hardy minion. ok the guy is great to look at and i like his acting. i haven't read literature in a long time, and not really the bronte sisters fan. but god, i was shocked when i saw this. not because it was not good, but i don't expect the melodrama to be of hindi movie proportions. tom hardy as heathcliff bowled his eyes out upon finding out that the his lover died. cathy, his married lover went out of her mind when heathcliff married someone else to spite her. it ended badly for all of them since both cathy and heathcliff could not let go of each other and determined to burn everyone who got in their way. 

tom hardy brings a raw animal passion and the bad boy mystery to heathcliff, which according to bronte's enthusiasts is what the book portrayed heathcliff as. at times i find hardy odd in the movie, he is too modern and lacked the sensitivity of 19th gentlemen personified by actors like alan rickman and ralph feinnes. i recalled feinnes in onegin (1999) - he is heartless hiding behind the gentleman facade who destroyed anyone who came into contact with him - feinnes played the character with malicious gentlemanly air. cathy played by charlotte riley is equally powerful in her desire for heathcliff. 

i may not enjoy the story that much given my aversion for emotional theatrics like that, but i like the acting, not conventional to period dramas, but anything different is a good change.