Category: Drama

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Drama Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Delicacy (Audrey Tautou) – Love Not At First Sight

In the opening scene, you see the back of a French actress walking down the street of Paris.  The camera stays with her and you wonder, where is she going?  Since you can’t see her face, you further wonder, who is she?  The way she walks seems familiar to you.  You may even recognize her back, her short hair, the back of her ears, and perhaps her rather petite outlook.  Suddenly you gasp, she must be Audrey Tautou!  Seldom have we seen actresses who exude such aura that is instantly recognizable.  Our friend TK recognized the actress before the camera revealed her identity.  He had no idea what movie we have chosen for him.

Delicacy has a slow moving plot.  The overall story is not what I would call entertaining.  It is about coping with losses and starting anew.  Because there is so much realism within, you ought to be someone who appreciates acting in order to enjoy this movie.  If you do, Delicacy is delicious.  Tautou is a talented actress.  We have seen her taking on different types of roles throughout her career.  This time, as a widower, she buries herself in work shutting away from most social interactions.  Can she fall in love again?  As audience, we get to witness how love not at first sight works.  Her counterpart played by François Damiens is worth a mention.  Damiens looks utterly ordinary, awkward in every little move.  He is even balding. And his character Markus has a huge crash on Nathalie played by Tautou.  The way he looks at her, the way he behaves when she is nearby, and the way he spaces out when she is not around – all these moments accentuate how awkward the relationship development is.  But the beauty is that it feels so natural looking at how the two interact and drown in this intolerable awkwardness.  It feels so real.

The soundtrack performed by Emilie Simon is also worth a mention.  The music is dreamy and moody.  It suits the plot well.  Emilie is a French singer who plays electronic music.  If you have a chance to check out her music, I would recommend you to do so.  Her music can be found in SingTel AMPed, arguably the world’s worst designed Android app.  Alternatively, you may check out her official YouTube channel.

Delicacy does not have a thought provoking open ending like many European movies do.  However, it does have a flavor to it.  Perhaps, what the filmmakers want to tell us is that to help someone in overcoming the pain of losses hidden inside, one must relive her past, understand it, only then there is hope to moving on.  On a side note, I think the title is appropriate in every way to describe the movie, especially Tautou’s character.

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Drama Movie Reviews Romance

The Vow – What if One is to Lose Years of Memory?

Woah.  Just imagine.  If one is to lose years of memory, how would that change his or her life and those around?  While facts of life like who the parents are do not change over time, our recent hobbies, our career, love life, recently acquired skills, friends, things that we shouldn’t have done but did, and things that we should have done but didn’t  do.

That’s why my friends, blogging is good.  While one may forget where he or she stores the diary (if you have one), a website is [more or less] always there.  I see blogging as an extension of my memory, as well as the memory of some of those who are around me.

I guess reading recent events that one has forgotten is not the same as restoring one’s memory.  It is not the same as living it, is it?  And here we are, a movie inspired by true events.  The Vow tells a story of a married couple.  After a road accident, the wife has lost her recent memory.  To the new her, the husband is a stranger and her ex-fiance still gives her butterflies in the stomach.  The recent life changing decisions, all wiped off from her memory.  Given this unfortunately event, can the husband win his wife’s love the second time?

All along, I thought The Vow was a romance comedy.  OK, comedy or not, it is a technical definition.  At the end of the movie, inside the theater, TK on my left said, “This is not a comedy”.  Cynthia on the right said, “This is not a comedy”.  Fine.  Cynthia did cry.  It is an emotional drama.  There are tons of on-screen chemistry between the main characters, in a moving plot.  We felt the pain and joy, and everything else in between.

I am a fan of Rachel McAdams.  To me, she could well be one of the most charming actresses in Hollywood.  Cynthia seems quite pleased with the rather handsome looking Tatum, whom I wish he would supplement his acting with some danceing (he is good at it I remember).  The Vow is about seeing a glass half empty or half full.  It is a story of a second chance not to be used to wipe off the past, but to relive the good and the bad once again.

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Drama Foreign Movie Reviews

A Separation – An Iranian Movie

Every country has her unique ways to resolve conflicts and day-to-day issues.  Take Singapore as an example.  If a motor incident involves two cars – front and back, the claim process is straightforward.  The car at the back picks up the bill.  If a motor incident involves three cars in a chain collision – which in my case, it is unfortunately fortunate that I am car #1, the claim process is somewhat tedious.  Car #2 would dispute my claim saying car #3 was the culprit.  Car #3 has no physical contact with car #1 – my car that is – and cares less about picking up my repair bill.  Therefore, as the driver and owner of car #1, I have to make a claim against my insurance policy as though it was my fault, temporarily eating the non-claim bonus as well as the impeding increase in my premium until this rather tedious case is administratively resolved in nine months to more than a year.  All because of a silly incident at the highway during last Friday’s rush hours, when the cars in front of me were stationary, when my car was stationary, even the car behind me was stationary.  Someone else must have fallen asleep or taken her eyes off the wheel and banged onto the car in front, which in turn banged onto mine.  When the officer at the reporting center informed me that although in this case is no fault of mine, I will need to eat the liability first and be compensated later.  Much, much later.  That is how the motor claim framework works uniquely here, in Singapore.  He was half-expecting me to go into flame, raging into a flow blown complaint mode like a true blue Singaporean or a discerning foreigner often does.  My reaction to him was claim and submissive: Can you repair my car asap?

I had no idea on the credentials that come with this Iranian film “A Separation”.  OK.  Now that I read the paper today, I do vaguely remember one Iranian movie has won the Oscar this year, in the category of best foreign film.  I did not know that “A Separation” is the one.  Cynthia chose the title, reminding TK and I that Persepolis that we enjoyed watching is also a movie about Iran.  So the concept should not be too foreign to us.  In retrospect, while Persepolis is a movie about Iran, it is not an Iranian movie.  In any case, I enjoy watching unfamiliar cultures and peoples on a big screen.  So, I watched “A Separation” with a curious mind.

Every country has her unique ways to resolve conflicts and day-to-day issues.  Iran is no different.  This story begins in an Iranian court that resembles an office.  A woman is divorcing her husband in the presence of a judge.  There are no lawyers representing them, just two persons arguing their case in front of an official.  Peeled underneath this truly ordinary divorce case is a husband who devoutly takes care of his father who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, even though his father no longer seems to recognize him, or to speak.  A wife who wants to emigrate with her husband and their daughter.  And a 11-year old daughter who gets caught in her parents’ separation.

It takes a while for me to adjust to the fact that this family is considered as well-to-do family in Iran standard.  Their apartment is comparably larger and they can afford to have cars when some need to spend hours in order commute to work.  The contrast with the scene of the street is striking.  Soon, there is a clash between the two classes.  Conflict gets escalated and the film’s characters spend much time arguing in and out of the courtroom.  Witnesses are being called in and cases are reconstructed at the actual scene.  Everything in Iran seems to be chaotic.  Everyone seems to have different motives.  In this emotional torn environment, truth is hardly black and white.  If the system is not perfect, what does doing the right thing mean?  How far can one pushes the envelop of conscience, especially in a community that is governed by religion?

However way you look into this story, there are different layers to it.  These are real problems with real people.  No one is perfect, neither is the system (or philosophically speaking, neither is the world).  People make do with whatever situation and system they are in and trying to live a life, making the best out from it.  In the end, we the audience are gently reminded by the filmmaker that these are private matters.  As an observer, we have a glimpse into what goes on with the ordinary folks in Iran.  The rest is private.  I love this movie.  Possibly a masterpiece.

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Drama Movie Reviews

Margin Call – “It Is Just Money”

Having worked in the financial market industries for quite some years, both Cynthia and I found the movie “Margin Call” pretty realistic.  There are moments in the movies when we chuckled at the rather private jokes (OK, maybe not that private, but we have not worked in other industries for long to be frank).  And there are many moments we can relate, and are emotionally moved.

Subprime crisis is brutal.  It brought many giants down to their knees.  It is also an humbling experience.   However good the time now is and however successful we think we are, there is always an unknown force out there to hit us.  We could blame the investment bankers for the things that they did leading to the subprime crisis.  But ultimately, it is the greed of the nations that escalate the issue.  We want maximum return with the least investment we put in.  And there are people out there who earn big bucks to deliver just that.  I am often puzzled by how we manage to package financial securities into exotic products that even the distributors may not have a thorough idea on what they are, and sell them.  It seems to me that no matter how much we learn from past lessons, no matter how sophisticated our risk management system has become, greed will eventually find a loophole somewhere.  And the cycle will repeat itself.

While “Margin Call” triggers my thought in the above written paragraph, the movie delivers more than that.  For a start, it takes us all the way to the evening before subprime crisis hit the world.  The filmmakers have brought in a panel of talented actors (minus Penn Badgley from my favorite series Gossip Girl) to fill up the key roles.  It is mesmerizing to watch Paul Bettany, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, and Jeremy Irons playing different roles within the firm.  Each has his or her unique perspective to share.  Some lines can be thought provoking.  In fact, the entire movie is thought provoking.  What am I doing with my life?!

Joke aside, today has been a physically demanding day for us.  We woke up early, on our holiday, and took my mother to Ubin Island.  My sister and her husband wanted to join, so we have a 2-year old baby with us too.  In retrospect, I am not sure if Ubin Island is baby-friendly.  We had a good time nonetheless.  I will share the photos with a write-up once I get down to doing it.

Ever since my mother is in town, Cynthia and I have not caught up with our movie partner TK for a movie outing.  So I picked “Margin Call” to celebrate our year end.  It is the 33rd movie Cynthia and I have watched this year.  And yes, I still want to watch “Mission Impossible”, although Cynthia is not that into Tom Cruise no more.

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Drama Movie Reviews

The Ides of March – Politics, And More Politics

When we told our friends that we have watched “The Ides of March” on November fifth, the most common response would be, “The what?”.  Ides!  Then we added, “That Clooney show”.  Or I think we should have said, “That Gosling show”.  Gosling is involved in quite a few films these days.  He must be one of the hottest actors in Hollywood now.

Ides means the middle of a particular month in the Roman calendar.  Or more specifically, the fifteenth day of March, May, July, or October, and the thirteenth day of the other months.  I am not that into US politics.  I doubt the film title has anything to do with March fifteenth.  I would say that this title may refer to the date whereby Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by fellow politicians in 44 B.C and died.  But who is Julius Caesar in this movie?  I can’t tell.  Perhaps, the filmmakers just wish to associate this film with the brutality of politics.

Gosling plays the campaign manager for Clooney.  While the film is directed and scripted by Clooney, Gosling is the main actor.  I am not that into politics, especially politics that is outside my country.  But I gather from the story that there is no clean politics.  The path to the dark side could well be triggered by a single simple mistake.  Overall, it is a pleasant film to watch.  It was a pity that our buddy TK was not feeling well and had to leave early.  Cynthia and I ended up celebrating our wedding anniversary at Brotzeit German Bier Bar & Restaurant at 313 @ Somerset.

Shock band founder Marilyn Mansion‘s ex-fiancée Evan Rachel Wood is one of the actresses in “The Ides of March”.  Personally, I am happy to finally see her on a big screen.  She gives hope to weirdos and less than handsome men around the world that some gorgeous girls do look pass these attributes.  Not every one is as good looking at Nate Archibald if you know what I mean.  I certainly am not.  If you are interested to see how Wood looked like when she was 20, you can check out this music video with her and her then-boyfriend Marilyn Mansion.  Warning: lots of blood and gore.

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Drama Foreign Movie Reviews Romance

Apple Of My Eye – A Taiwanese Movie, A Nostalgic One For Me

How many of us end up spending the rest of our lives with our school day sweethearts?  Do you remember the time when love was so awkward, so childish?  We kept on reading and sending the signals wrongly, but yet our puppy love affair appeared to be  at the center of our universe, all that we could think about?  Watching “Apple of My Eye” put me right where that piece of my memory has faded.  It reminded me of what love once was.  Not only that.  This movie brought me back to the time before mobile phones were widely used, a time whereby a public phone booth was the only place to make a conversation with someone far away.  Yes, once upon a time I queued at a phone booth to call that special someone; once upon a time I was by a phone booth waiting for that one phone call.  Dating scene was quite different back then.

I cannot recall how many guys in this movie were chasing after the same girl.  Looking at the movie poster, there must have been five.  The background of the story was set in 1994, with boys chasing after girls in school and beyond.  Some of the silly things that boys do are so real that watching them made me cringed (in a good albeit embarrassed way I suppose).  It is a comedy, with tons of drama.  Some bits are quite exaggerated, probably due to the fact that the story was retold from the memory of a first person perspective (boys are really not that gross, at least most of us are not I hope).  These scenes are a good laugh nevertheless.

It is quite rare to see such honesty in a movie.  Cynthia and I enjoyed watching it.  Once upon a time, love was so innocent, so pure.  It is a film about growing up too.  If I am to directly translate the movie title, it would called “Those Where The Years When We Chased After The Same Girl”.  I suppose “Apple Of My Eye” would be a better choice for the English speaking crowd.

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Blu-ray / DVD Review Drama Romance

Watching Break Up Club The Second Time

If you recall, one night I had a terrible insomnia.  And one of the few activities I did awake in my supposed sleeping hours was to watch the Blu-ray version of a Hong Kong movie called “Break Up Club” on my TV (wearing my wireless headset of course).  I love it so much that when the Movie Review Squad could not think of which movie to watch for the weekend, I suggested to watch “Break Up Club” at my home.  I really wanted to watch the new Shu Qi movie in town.  But why would local cinemas think that showing Shu Qi’s latest production twice a day on the smallest possible theater is enough to quench the desire of millions of Singaporeans?  I do not know.  And why would the world wants to see yet another Hairy Porter installment?  That baffles me whenever I think about it.

I like “Break Up Club” because the onscreen chemistry between Fiona Sit and Jaycee Chan – son of Jackie Chan – is convincingly heartwarming and heart wrenching.  As someone who was born in Hong Kong, I can totally relate to the drama and the emotion involved.  Fiona Sit is charming, there is little doubt about it.  I grew to like Jaycee Chan towards the end of the story.  They are both good actors.  This film is directed by Barbara Wong, who was also starring in “Break Up Club” as the director.

The story begins with a director wanting to source for a true breakup story for her next movie.  People are interviewed and are handed with a camcorder to record a story of their own.  Joe (played by Jaycee) has decided to give it a go after his recent breakup with Flora (played by Fiona).  Joe is like your average Joe who has no goal in life, does not have a plan, and he picks up part time jobs as they come.  He is stubborn and is quite lazy at home.  But Joe is a good person with a good heart.  And he loves Flora.  Flora is an ambitious salesgirl who takes up night classes and works long hours for her career.  Time and time again, she is fed up with Joe’s never changing character (and to be fair to Joe, his love to Flora is never changing as well).  After the breakup, Joe has found a website that can break up other relationships so as to reunite his own.  But will that change anything?  Viewers have 104 minutes to find out.

I bought this Blu-ray almost one year ago when I was holidaying in Hong Kong.  Today, “Break Up Club” is showing in Singapore as one of the programs for the Hong Kong Film Festival 2011.  If you enjoy romance and drama, “Break Up Club” is not to be missed.  I would strongly recommend watching this movie in its original Cantonese format, rather than being dubbed in Mandarin like many movies here in Singapore.

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Drama Foreign Movie Reviews

BECK – Something Is Best Left To Our Imagination

Judging by the observation that almost all the audiences in the albeit small movie theater stayed till the very end of the credits – which by the way is rare in the movie going scene here in Singapore – this Japanese production BECK has certainly touched the audiences’ hearts.  BECK is a story about the birth of a rock band, a genre that Cynthia and I in particularly love.  I was expecting BECK to be somewhat similar to Nana, another famous Japanese manga that has turned into a TV series and a movie title.  BECK is somewhat similar to Nana.  The band rivalry is there.  Romance too.  BECK, I would say, is more on music and raw edges such as danger and violence than Nana.  Even though we are a big fan of the Nana franchise, BECK is so much better as a movie.

If you are a music lover, BECK is not to be missed.  The music talent these young actors have exhibited is simply sick.  Jaw-droppingly sick.  A young guitarist returned from US has a vision to form a band, to create music that moves people.  Soon, more talents have joined.  However, like in real life, chemistry, progress, and opportunity has its dramatic cycles of ups and downs.

There is something unique in the artistic setup of BECK.  The second vocalist’s voice that is supposed to move people’s heart is muted.  Instead, the camera is focused on the audiences’ reaction and the dramatic mood change that has undergone in the audiences’ mind.  I think this is brilliant.  Because, something is best left to our imagination.

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Drama Foreign Movie Reviews

Norwegian Wood – A Film Adaptation Of Haruki Murakami’s Novel

Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite writers.  I do not think it is possible to bring any of his books into a big screen.  Because much of the content is based on the characters’ observation and their state of emotion, or even the writer’s observation on the world he creates.  His story tends to get more and more surreal towards the end.  But if anyone would want to make a film out of his books, “Norwegian Wood” is a good candidate.  It is a rather straightforward love story.  I am a huge fan of Murakami and I was curious on how “Norwegian Wood” would look like as an adaption.

I can imagine how lost one may feel watching “Norwegian Wood”.  I have read the book and you may wish to read the review I have written.  I feel that the movie is by and large faithful to the literature, down to the dialog level.  As someone who is familiar with the written content, it seems to me that some of the key essences may have been lost in the adaptation.  A 133 minutes film may sound long to you.  When I told Cynthia and TK at the end of the show that the film felt too rush, they were shocked.  The foundation of the storyline lies in a subplot structure of a trio – be it as 2 boys and 1 girl or 2 girls and 1 boy.  These subplots are linked through a common theme – love and death.  That, I do not think the filmmakers have explicitly brought out.  Some of the subplots have so little air time that I think they may have been overlooked.  I do not blame the filmmakers though.  I even think that the way the subplots are segmented in terms of air time is proportionate to how the book is written (the first subplot has ended on page 31 of 386).  A clearly demarcation of the different segments of the film like a text on timeline and location would have helped the audience in digesting the story’s structure.

The leading actor and actress have done a phenomenal work in bringing the characters alive.  It is heart wrenching to see them cry in pain.  On one hand, this movie thrills me down my spine when some of the key scenes stay so faithfully to the book.  On the other hand, the omission of many of the side dialogs and observations has made part of the film looks like a silly chain of sex scenes.  This film summarizes the book essentially, but not perfectly.  If you have taken the effort to watch the movie – a very slow moving one by the way – you ought to read the book.  If you have not read the book, I strongly recommend you to pick up a copy and finish it in the weekend before watching “Norwegian Wood” on screen.  All in all, I am still thrilled that one of Murakami’s book has made it to the theater.  And I would challenge more filmmakers in the future to adapt his other books.

Related Entry: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami – A Structured Love Story So Dark, So Beautiful

Categories
Comedy Drama Movie Reviews

Morning Glory – She Really Loves Her Job!

Cynthia knows me well.  I think Rachel McAdams is the most beautiful actress on earth.  So when she suggested watching “Morning Glory”, she just needed to say: It has your favorite actress in it, the one you think most beautiful.  Cynthia also likes Rachel McAdams in this movie.  She thinks Rachel is perky.  I like Rachel’s cheerfulness and her being so natural in front of a camera.  I don’t feel like watching a movie.  I feel like watching a part of her life.

In “Morning Glory”, Rachel is an aspiring news producer who gets laid off, finds another job that requires her to save the show.  It is an early morning show and she wakes up at 1.30 am everyday to go to work.  For Cynthia and I who are finding it difficult to even get up at 7 am in the morning, that is an heroic act.  Looking at how happy Rachel goes to work, we can’t help but to wish that we could be that enthusiastic.  Perhaps happiness at work is made of this: fully immersed with what you do, view every obstacle as a new challenge, and reach out to make friends.  In this story, Rachel is a doer and not a talker – a quality I admire in real life.  The downside of Rachel’s enthusiasm to work is that she is a workaholic.  That I do not endorse.

“Morning Glory” is a funny and lively show.  While I have my doubt on how well this movie depicts the media industry, it is more about how people go about doing their jobs and living their lives.  That I can relate.