movie weekend wrap-up

:: MOVIES ::
*Disclaimer: Movies watched during the weekend last, with spoilers galore = so be warned!* :p

: PERHAPS LOVE :

tagline:
"Budgeted with almost US$10 million, Perhaps Love is set in modern-day Beijing and Shanghai of the 1930s, starring Zhou Xun (Baober in Lover, Suzhou River), Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers, Returner) and Jacky Cheung (Jiang Hu, Golden Chicken 2). Director Peter Chan (The Eye, Comrades: Almost a Love Story) said the musical had six dancing sequences, about 30% of the film, which were choreographed by Farah Khan (Vanity Fair, Monsoon Wedding). The project is co-produced by Chan and Andr E. Morgan, who was behind many of Bruce Lee's movies and most recently, Million Dollar Baby."

Peter Chan, most famous (in Asia) for Comrades, A Love Story and (US) The Love Letter, directs this new movie-within-a-movie / "musical-journey" very much like a non-stop-remix-album, meaning rather incomplete songs and a host of other ditties that defers from the central plot (as it were). the inclusion of a singing Jin-hee Ji - appealed to me like chalk-screeches along a dusty-chalkboard, more so his "distinct" massacred (mis)pronounciation of the Mandarin language, than his singing voice, for which Jacky Cheung single-handedly saved the entire flick, IMHO. for sure, Takeshi Kaneshiro's voice ain't too bad (dude had albums out, yonks ago leh!), as sure as Zhou Xu can't really sing to save her lil ass ...

but for sure this was a offering of scrumptious visuals (ala watered-down-Moulin Rouge), marred unfortunately with flippant ('coz the edits do it no justice or effort) dance-routines, the pseudo-circus peppered with a united nation's worth of folks and lottsa emo flashbacks and tears from both leads ... and of unrequited love made real again ...

a recommended flick for partakers of musicals (noticed i didn't mention; "lovers") and for light-watching. i reckon this something to be savoured via the big screen, as opposed to a dvd/vcd ... and make sure you get to watch it ways back in the cinema (we watched it 3 rows from the front, darnnit) to absorb all of it in.

fav moments:
the cassette tape recordings of Takeshi's descend into loneliness and self-destruction, ironically staged when he finally got-it-on with Zhou Xu, with his recorded voice cursing her death ... quite fab actually *heh*

moments of suck:
[1] "narrator" singing and smiling as if he's high on drugs.

[2] final climatic-scene with dubious-CG and blue-screen, like WTF guys? all this effort in the set (good stuff btw), costumes, even dodgy-dance-steps and plot, then you slap the audience with THIS schmuck? *aiyoh*

[3] chicks in the audience behind us laughing and giggling and making jokes at the film's expense, and the uncle-dude sat next to me with his infernal vibrating mobile-phone = shut the fuck-up and switch-off them darn mobiles, muthafcukors!

linkies:
> the official movie website.
> IMDB Credits
> movie images/stills: here, here and here.

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: CHICKEN LITTLE :
i haveta admit, Chicken Little was a guiltless-fun ride. and too often (recently) we had been blungeoned with CG/animation galore of celluloid-offerings, tho this time, the time honored re-telling of the Chicken Little-lore had it's fair charms and comedy-quirks, most times nestled within the FISH (my fav character) and his silent but outrageous antics. even moreso Chicken Little's dad, "Buck Cluck" - who by far seemed to have the more obvious changes in his "emotional arch" ... and we go along for the ride happily and stress-free ... only thing that bugged me slightly, was the voice of Chicken Little; being a tad too "adult" and "jaded" for my own personal tastes ... which i guess sorta looses it's charms when the going gets tough ... but that's just me :p

we caught the Digital version of the flick down at cineleisure, which afforded us a clean and crisp visual treat, so i am happy and satisfied on a weekend-night. :)

fav moments:
[1] the FISH and his antics, notably as King Kong on the building and as the cheerleader at the baseball match - pure cuteness-hilarity-giggles *blush* :)

[2] the "Chicken Little Movie-adaptation" (what's up wif the film-within-a-film-trend, innit? *heh*) at the end. pure fingers-up at the hollywood hyperbole, irony done kiddy-flick-harmless-style, IMHO.

moments of suck:
when chicken little spoke. not that ima gagging for a kiddie-whisper, but at least a semblence of "innocence" (rather than the peppered-"jadedness") that a kid-flick should have ... but maybe that's the way the world is seen thru a kids' eyes nowsadays, innit? *shudder*

or is everyone trying too hard to relate to the "realworld"? tis a cartoon, for gosh sakes! *heh*

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: BE WITH ME :
tagline:
"Be With Me the new film by Eric Khoo (Mee Pok Man, 12 Storeys) is a tapestry of stories woven around the themes of love, hope and destiny. The characters lead separate lives but are bound by one common desire - to be with their loved one. The protagonists in the movie are fictitious bar one - Theresa Chan, a courageous deaf and blind woman whose life story inspired Be With Me"

perhaps t'was the late time in which we started to watch Eric Khoo's Be With Me (via dvd). perhaps we were knackered more than we thought. perhaps that was why i fell asleep a few times while nestledup in bed watching the silence that filled the visuals of the movie.

i am thankful there wasn't much artful-long-pasues admist the story unfolding, three stories, in fact - of an age-old love, an unrequited love and tragic teenage puppy-love, wrappedup in the powerful link that was Theresa Chan. and mayhap that's all it was and should have been, for TC basically both stole and saved the show.

the age-old love offered me silent tears at the end of the movie, whereas the lovelorn security-guard affected me not an iota one bit, except for frustration of how he wallows in his state of life (something which i actually "could" identify with) and of bad acting from his "brother" and "father" ... and for puppylove, all i could say was my girlfren constantly urged me to checkout Samantha Tan's tits (*heh* :p) - Ezann Lee proved to be a actor to content with in the future (commendable subtility), while the highly-touted Samantha Tan (way too subtle) did nothing for me. (besides "eye-candy", which in turn was quite "limiting", as i should say, IMHO anyways)

and at a slugish pace the events unfolded before our limited senses, which is commendable i should say, for let the visuals guide the way and in the end, i was left wanting for more closure, as much as i felt frustrated with the lack of emotional depth with all other characters, except for Theresa's. the interwoven plot-threads reminded me of a dumbed-down Amores Perros, which is sorta complimentary, in a altruistic sense, i reckon ... and while resisting the urge to say; "i could've bought this on the cheaper vcd" - i'd reckon the bumper crop of behind-the-scenes featurettes more than made up for it. (more so coz "local movies" tend to disregard this feature, most times)

and in the end, i do haveta say, tis one of the better flicks that has come out of singapore's scene for quite a while now, along with PERTH and mayhap even the glossy-montage that was Rice Rhapsody (not coz i was involved in the latter two flicks lah *heh*) = a recommended watch indeed :)

fav moments:
[1] when old dude broke down at the end and Theresa hugged him *sobs* ~ truly heartfelt, IMHO.

[2] a Royston Tan boogie-ing away in the clubscene! *aiyoh* hahahahahaha :p

moments of suck:
[1] whenever dialect is being spoken (especially with social worker-dude), quite a trite inclusion if the delivery is such a pain and like chalkboard-etches it doles out the pain in thy inner-ear (altho i do understand the generation-gap issues, if that were ever the case).

[2] whenever security-guy's family interacted (too false to be convincing). and of the blank-ish expressions of Samantha (IMHO).

linkies:
> watch the movie trailer here (WMP / RP) or here (QT)
> support the Be With Me Fund.

._.