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.