bridesmaids (2011). directed by paul feig.

i am used to judd apatow's man-boy movies. it is funny in an infantile way, somehow i can imagine that most men out there are like that anyway. but i am not used to woman-girl movies. it's something else to watch women shit their pants (or in the street, could it get any worse?), or taking a dump in the sink or throw up on top of each other. are women an embodiment of insecurities, petty jealousies, rivalries that knows no end - and grown up women at that? i find the woman-girls of this movie unattractive and least of all funny. not that i can't laugh at the indignities we common people often find ourselves in - it is at best tragic-funny. 

there must be a line between funny and gross.

devil (2010). directed by john erick dowdle.

it feels like shyamalan but it is not shyamalan. the opening sequence is interesting because the shot was taken upside down, a prelude of something nasty is about to happen. the movie is pretty good only that it doesn't quite hit the climax, i find the ending not very satisfying. when i checked again, shyamalan is one of the writers, not the director. 

i am not quite sure whether it is the story, or characterization or direction that makes me feel the story is a dime short of a dollar. i feel the same way about lady in the water (2006) too.

and that's shyamalan directing his own movie.

oldboy (2003). directed by chan-wook park.

my brother had been urging me to watch this movie for years but i always have a reason to deflect his request. one of them is that, i associated korean movies with the k-pop phenomenon which i find inanely tasteless. i am past people dancing together in bright clothes, whatever. but he kept asking me, let's watch oldboy this saturday that i can't say no anymore.  

on the fly, i don't get the title. oldboy? means what? an old man? the film opens with a scruffy man, drunk on a work day  with a gift for his kid in his hands - the kind of losers you spot in offices that irritates the hell out of you. he didn't manage to pass the gift to her when he found himself locked up in a strange room, in a strange building, and who could have a problem with this blessed fool? he didn't expect to be imprisoned for 15 years and slowly lost his mind. while watching the movie, the question that kept popping in my mind is this - oldboy?

and the movie unraveled. of a taboo subject matter i hardly seen discussed in movies except for auteur european films that border pornographic (urgh, i've watched leos carax's pola x (1997) and hated it). who could have thought that incest, revenge and violence makes good drama, it takes this korean director to tell it as it is. the direction and characterization is great - you feel the pain of the imprisoned loser and the guy who imprisoned him. 

this film should not be shown as a saturday night family fare. you've been warned. 

happy together (1997). directed by wong kar wai.

i watched this movie years ago in the middle of the night, alone. it is one of those nights in which i can't sleep and the only way to pass time is to watch something that would put me to sleep. happy together (1997) ain't that kind of movie. 

i watched my own break up, in motion. painful shit, i tell you. once upon a time. 

 i've bought it for a long time knowing it was wong kar wai's work but i just couldn't find the right time to watch it. it was an absorbing film - while the protagonists are gay men (tony leung and leslie cheung) it is not so much about gay men per se, it is about two people trying to save a disintergrating relationship. they moved from hong kong to beunos aires looking for a reason to fix "them" - from the look of it, a new environment, or rather a change of something external is not exactly the stimulus for an internal change in a relationship. they drifted apart, leung met someone new who is far more stable than cheung. but they are still together, waiting for the final break and nobody wants to call the shot. 

a friend of mine called the end of a relationship as sweet sorrow. this is what it is. when there is no reason to stay, but you are still in it, anyway.

in the mood for love (2000). directed by wong kar wai.

my brother is currently hospitalised on a case of a nasty eye infection due to unhygienic use of contact lenses. his left eye was swollen red and there was pus behind the iris. seriously, yuck. i told him to do away with contact lenses for the rest of his life.

we were talking on the phone as he is convalescing in the hospital and had to be treated with eye drops   every 4 hours. he told me he finally got around to watch wong kar wai's in the mood for love (2000) and he was in awe at how beautiful the film is. it is sadly beautiful, the helplessness of the situation filmed intimately to mirror the inner sorrow of a wronged partner. i love the colours, the music, maggie cheung's flowing red cheong sam - is it a symbol of her anger? tony leung's reticence complements cheung's pain, and they walk hand in hand, paralyzed by their common heartache.

if it's raining outside and a thought of a lost loved one occurs to you, perhaps you can share the feelings here. i can't vouch that you'll feel any better about it, though.

drive (2011). directed by nicolas winding refn.

he reminds me of travis bickle from taxi driver (1976). this is a violent world, the city that eats from the inside out, he rolls into town unnamed with no history, he drives through the city alone looking for something that shocked him, and he found none. the thing that pulled him back into the familiar territory of feelings is a single mother with a boy, who is patiently waiting for her husband to return home from prison. she is his next door neighbour. 

the girl next door. 

he hangs around the married woman, he relished being the step in father figure to the boy. he enjoyed the vague notion of having a family, people he has to look after, a woman who loves him. he who lives from one hotel room to another, living out of a suitcase. that is the whole world to him, or used to be. for once - he understood why people have families. this is happiness. 

but it is only wishful thinking. it all ends when the husband returns and got all of them in a bandwagon of very, very bad people. instead of fighting for her love, he stepped away. he helped her husband, vaguely knowing this ain't going to end well. from where does this self-righteousness comes from? 

anyone who can turn ryan gosling into a raging maniac that walks around town in a bloody white jacket with a fist or a hammer ready to strike deserves a round of applause. i love the shots taken in the movie, the whole 1980's vibe is permeating the atmosphere right from the start, like credits written in bright pink. i like the simple story line that tightly bounds the characters in this universe of violence. i am impressed that the director didnt even try to distract the story with cheap sex scenes and focused on gosling's character as a man who is looking for something bigger than himself. 

i must say, so far this is the only movie that i can rate as good. i like it for all the right reasons - because it is a good movie worth spending time and buying tickets for. 

don't be afraid of the dark (2010). directed by troy nixey.

shoot, i made a mistake of thinking this movie is directed by guillermo del toro of the famously macabre pan's labyrinth (2006) (el laberinto del fauno (original title)). it wasn't him, he wrote the script though however even him, the master of horror, can not salvage the tiresomely overused plot of a haunted house haunting its occupants. i've seen it before so many times that i can't remember a good version of the story. i don't like the cartoonish violence in this movie with scissors and blades sticking out of people, i think it is simply unnecessary. there is not enough back story to it to make me care for the characters, by the end of the movie katie holmes got herself stuck in the small hole in the basement which she then got violently sucked in and eaten by nasty looking fairies. do i care? nahhhhh. never has been a movie whereby guy pearce is totally forgettable.  

fordson: faith, fasting, football (2011). directed by rashid ghazi.

if you have a statement to make, make a movie. in the wake of the recent 10th anniversary of sept 11th, the arab muslim community of dearborn, michigan released a movie to fight the bigotry and unfounded hatred for muslims and islam for the past 10 years. the movie focused on the local high school football team who on the surface is all-american - they look american, they play football - but they pray, they fast, they rebuild dearborn and kept it from becoming a ghost town like so many others in america - how does that conflict with being american? it is persuasive in highlighting problems the community had to face for the past 10 years, having to defend its existance and justifying "i am as american as the white man with blue eyes standing next to me". 

if you like sports documentary coupled with social commentaries, this is a good treat. 

laurel canyon (2002). directed by lisa cholodenko.

this film is dreamy but do not be misled by the apparent calmness. a clash of opinions and divergent lifestyles is simmering underneath - christian bale and kate beckinsale as the buttoned down ivy league doctoral students, the wonderful frances macdormand as the hedonistic-devil-may-care-record-producer mother to bale, alessandro nivola as the opportunistic vocalist of the band macdormand is producing and natascha mcelhone as the seductive israeli doctor where bale is interning. five characters - and yet so much tension undulating under the surface which is more than i can gather for all final destination movies put together.  

in this movie, bale was raised by his mother in the entertainment industry which he perceived as self-destructive and vowed to get away at all costs. he went into medicine and met beckinsale, a doctoral student who is finishing a thesis on genetics. failing to get an apartment in los angeles where bale is interning, they decided to stay at macdormand's house in laurel canyon. once again bale encountered the "aimless-musician-types" he had loathed so much as his mother is producing a record of a rock band, and as numerous times before, she is sleeping with the band's vocalist many years her junior. beckinsale who was not exposed to the lifestyle in the entertainment industry is curious of bale's mother and her much younger lover. 

like in real life, climax of events are very much understated. life goes on as usual and people try to pick up the pieces of the aftermath. i don't know if the characters are much changed after that - nivola will always try to take advantage of young women's naivety and fascinations with wanna-be-rock-stars, there will always be another beckinsale who wants to get sucked into the blurred morality of being in a so called creative environment (that is demanded by the entertainment industry?), there will always be a bale who knows the whole deal but can't do anything about it, and lastly, there is always be a macdormand who can't see anything wrong with having a little fun. 

welcome to laurel canyon.