the fifth estate (2013). directed by bill condon.

i was expecting something like the insider (1999) or state of play (2009). it could have been that - at the hands of better scriptwriters and directors who understand the pace of investigative journalism. 

but not this one. 

instead of focusing on wikileaks' revolutionary achievements (the afghanistan & iraq war logs, cable-gate), the movie chose to nitpick the odd personality of julian assange and how combative, if not monomaniac obsession on controlling wikileaks on his own. he finds the reasonable voice of close associate daniel berg too conservative for a whistleblowing organization - and the story thereafter aligns itself on how bad assange's PR skills - that at times i feel like watching a movie hell bent on character assassination. so the guy dyed his hair white because of his cult childhood - how does that impact the evolution of wikileaks is hardly relevant. another thing that i find unsatisfactory is how flat it feels, as if there is no suspense as the united state's government secrets were about to be revealed. 

big deal.

i feel benedict cumberbatch is a miscast. his accent was a weird mixture of british, australian and somewhat midwestern too. perhaps due to no fault of his own (blame the bad script) - his portrayal of assange is one dimensional as the geek with a bad childhood and won't settle for anything less than revenge. 

and that still doesn't explain the evolution of wikileaks. i think this could be one heck of a story in the hands or micheal mann or david fincher. 

august: osage county (2013). directed by john wells.

with this kind of violence, one would think there will be blood spilled. and that's the nature of verbal abuse and emotional manipulation, everybody's hurt but no one can see the scars. 

the patriarch of the weston family had killed himself, leaving his widow and 3 daughters to pick up the pieces of their estranged life. violet, the mother, is an unpleasant person - the remains of an older generation who had it too hard that her meanness is the only way to survive in an unforgiving environment. her daughters can't bond with her - barbara openly rebelled against the emotional abuse and left, middle daughter ivy cowed into being passive to take care of her ailing parents and karen escaped her mother by trying to figure out life as it dealt its cards. they are all so mean to each other, that one can understand why the adult children can't live closer to home should one day they themselves turned into their parents. 

a great assembled film about inter-generational conflict - that one is forced to remember that the past is not always the best place to dwell in, and that the future doesn't have to carry the sins of their forefathers. 

no matter hard things get, but hey, easier said than done. 

captain phillips (2013). directed by paul greengrass.

suspenseful. tom hanks delivers a good role (as usual?). i expect nothing less actually. what i like about this movie is that it shows the social circumstances that gives rise to piracy - and it is extreme poverty. the poor people of somalia would do anything to feed themselves and their families, and this also begs the question as to what the government of somalia is doing to take care of its people. do they have a government?

saturday night fever (1977). directed by john badham.

this movie is more than just john travolta gyrating his sexy hips. the guy can really dance by the way. i haven't watched a lot of movies from the 1970's this past few years, so it is always refreshing to see a different way to tell a story. it is about a young man trying to escape the lack of opportunities in his italian american community, the fact that he doesn't have college education and yet can't see himself working in the hardware store his whole life, the lack of direction of his friends due to social stagnation. 

dance movie? nah, social critique more like it. 

cuak (2013). directed by khairil m. bahar, lim benji, manesh nesaratnam , shamaine othman & tony pietra

i think it is good that malaysian film makers are moving out of the tried and tested themes of "malay movies" and are racing to "malaysian movies". this film tells the story of a cold feet couple on the verge of marriage, told by 5 different directors from 5 different perspectives. that's all good - i think the plot is interesting with lots of quips on social issues, however, i wasn't able to fully enjoy it because the lighting and more importantly the audio - was so bad! i watched it on astro first, i had to turn up the volume so high but still can't make what tony eusoff was mumbling about. ok i could be a bit deaf but i can make out hollywood movies on normal volumes so i think they really need to work on that. 

it is actually important to have good audio so that audience can understand the story line. 

pariah (2011). directed by dee rees.

a story of alike, a 16 years old lesbian teenager who is facing trouble at home for not conforming to the idea of being feminine. her struggles to hide her sexuality from her family, while navigating teenage relationships - ends in heartbreak and the eventual banishment from home. it is a lot for a kid, tough that she is - when we think of our young - our brothers and sisters and cousins and friends - have we no heart that we must decide to leave them on the street while they are trying to find themselves?

inside job (2012). directed by charles ferguson.

technical and highly understandable - this documentary is about the US housing bubble burst in 2008 that leads to the financial meltdown infecting the world over. riveting, and totally unscrupulous. 

cloudburst (2011). directed by thom fitzgerald.

i don't watch that may gay films, what more gay films with old people in it. this movie is about an old couple well into their 70's, stella and dot - stella is butch and is constantly cursing, dot is her other half who is sick and blind. having been together for 31 years, dot's grand daughter is relocating her an old folks' home while telling stella to find another place to live. this road trip movie is hilarious - when stella decided to kidnap dot from the home and take her to canada to get married - with the intention that they won't be separated as spouses, while picking up a virile male dancer along the way. 

there were lots of genuine funny moments in the film, but i can't help feeling a tad sad - that even after 31 years, their relationship is seen merely as friends as opposed to life partners. dot's grand daughter refused to imagine her grand mother is a lesbian - telling her police friend that "she got my mother through heterosexual means". 

that is why - any sort of legal protection is important - something as equivalent as marriage - to protect lives that has intertwined together such as this two ladies. 

mama (2013). directed by andrés muschietti.

i won't say it breaks new ground in the horror film genre. lots of morose colours and techniques typically employed in horror movies, and the plot is not entirely new either. 

so so watch. 

the journey (2014). directed by chiu keng guan.

despite the indie feel (was it indie?) the movie feels good to watch. exploring the themes of the differences between the young and the old, the clash of traditions and the sacrifices parents made that sometimes is completely alien to us. there is a hunger for movies rooted in malaysia, telling malaysian stories. i never know how interesting chinese new year is in penang, until i saw this film. 

philomena (2013). directed by stephen frears.

self righteous religious pricks always think of themselves as god's representatives on earth, and thus can punish others whom they see as straying from the path of god, all on behalf of god. and includes separating mothers and children - as a way to pay their penance for engaging in consensual sex.

i like the story. and i love judy dench as the makcik who is wide eyed about everything, never forgetting her little boy who was sold away by the church to american clients.  

more importantly, as a mother of an absent child, she wanted nothing but happiness for her son. she was cool when told that her son was gay, she was happy that he had a good job and had someone who loves him. her only regret was not meeting him before he died. 

now, how many parents really want that for their children?