Blue In The Face

This is what happens when you make lavish claims about your upcoming film. Ridiculous comparisons now abound between James Cameron's 3D extravaganza Avatar and the animated flop Delgo. That Movie Line article holds no water at all. What they claim to be "7 Eeriest Parallels" between the two films seem to be in a hundred other films too. Need we, for a moment, revisit that YouTube comparison between the trailers of Tim Burton's Batman and The Dark Knight? That comparison - same refuse, different garbage bag.

Same goes for this frame-to-frame comparison.

Calling Avatar a potential turkey just based on these comparisons smacks of a desperate attempt at being clairvoyant. One thing Cameron always delivers on is a good story. And that itself is a promising detail.

The question is: how do you edit and do post-production and effects work on a 3D movie? How do you make sure it all looks great in 3D? Because so far, the 2D images haven't been very impressive, but feedback from those who saw the pre-released 15-minute footage say the film lives and breathes 3D wonder and awe.

Hummingbirds

"Some people are born to sit by a river ... some get struck by lightning ... some have an ear for music ... some are artists ... some swim ... some know buttons ... some know Shakespeare ... some are mothers ... and some people ... dance."

My favourite movie of last year. Life is one big, curious case.

A River Runs Through It

I'd forgotten how scary this movie really is. A story about the environment, the follies of man in trying to control nature, most of all, a cautionary tale about arrogance. The best, most moving scene for me is at the dinner table, where Jon Voight's character breaks down.

Here they are, the people you thought you were better than, providing you the warmth, comfort and safety you so dearly needed.

Aliens Resurrection

It's a great, not-to-be-missed and very original and imaginative piece of scifi. It's got exciting action set-pieces. It's moving and emotional.

Yes, we are starved of good mainstream action movies, but do we need to go that far as to heap over-praise on Neill Blomkamp's watchable but ultimately a little disappointing movie about an alien apartheid? Really, despite being mildly entertaining and more engaging than today's (below) average scifi action movie (TF2: ROTF, anyone?), District 9 dares not venture further than its initial premise, a premise laid out more than carefully at breakneck pace and in a mockumentary style. But in trying to streamline the story and focus in on the two main characters, the movie then starts to lose the poignancy, built up in the first half, by filling up the spaces with said action set-pieces and shoot-em-up, chase-and-run moments, and stumbles towards more mediocrity by employing the oft-used shaky cam sensibilities. The only thing that keeps us interested is not the big apartheid allegory but the almost voyeuristic and fetishistic need to find out what will further happen to Wikus, or rather, what other parts of his anatomy would rot off.

While its nuts and bolts are fashioned after the likes of Independence Day (hovering spacecraft, also TV series V), Brundle Fly, ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Aliens (the robot suit) and Alien Nation, the theme is just another incarnation, most notably of the rarely-mentioned Enemy Mine, starring Dennis Quaid as a human and Louis Gossett Jr as an alien.

Unlike Enemy Mine, in the end, Wikus doesn't really reconcile with the aliens through better understanding of who they are and what they do.

The Return

I think it's time to revive this blog. It's been too long a break.

The posts will be shorter, more concise, more to the point.

Starting All Over

First of all, Sell Out! is currently going through its opening weekend. Personally, and I think a lot of other people, filmmakers and cinemagoers alike, would agree, I feel that Sell Out! is a good, refreshing change for the industry and worth the support. Otherwise, I don't know how long we would have to wait before another film like this will come our way and give us an opportunity for change.

Secondly, as some might have noticed, I've removed my last blog entry. That was written in haste and in anger and heartbreak, but that doesn't mean I've changed my opinion too. I stand by what I said. It's just that I now feel perhaps there is a nicer way of dealing with this whole issue. Antagonism never solves anything anyway (well, OK, sometimes it does, when push needs to become a shove, but ...).

It's easy to lose sight of the Big Picture. And it's even easier within the routines of revenue-generation that occurs over the span of many years. Same thing with the filmmakers themselves, in the haste to get out there and be known. But if everyone could work together in an honest, sincere way, I believe great things could be achieved. But the first and foremost element that should exist is a real passion for film. And that is what's sorely missing, from the business side of film right to some filmmakers themselves, and even to the support side of things.

The amount of complaints I have heard from various people will make anyone throw in the towel. And most of these problems can easily be solved if the right people were put in the right positions - ie, people who are passionate about film. Unfortunately, this is "mutually exclusive" territory - people who love art won't care about money, and people who only want to make money don't give a hoot about art.

Yes, this is also an irony, because this is exactly the issue addressed by Sell Out!. Strange but true. This is also another reason why I love the film. What is in the film is immediately right in front of you in real life.

I admit, the night I visited the cinema a couple of days before the film's release, I experienced an incredible heartbreak at what I saw. There really wasn't any anger, but a very heavy feeling in my heart that things weren't going to change for the industry anytime soon. A feeling that all our efforts came to naught, wasted away.

Still, I came to realise that the most important thing is to not lose hope. Also to not give up the struggle. And so, I do still hope that someday, somehow, a miracle will happen that will change everything overnight.

Otherwise, let's just take one step at a time, and don't stop walking till we get there.

Peace and hope to all.

Excerpt from the last deleted entry:

All this while, I've been supporting and publicising good Malaysian films in the hope that our industry can change for the better. South Korea's mainstream cinema got a boost after Shiri smashed box-office records years ago, and look where they are today, internationally recognised for their mainstream films. Taiwan recently got its own boost with Cape No. 7, not a great film but a really entertaining, feel-good movie that drew audiences in droves.

So far, we've not had anything like that in Malaysian cinema. We had high hopes for Puteri Gunung Ledang some years ago, but that was not the Great Change we had hoped for both in box-office and artistic terms.

And now comes along a really good crowd-pleaser, and what happens? Some cinemas can't be arsed to promote it. It's no surprise, really, because the general consensus among cinema operators would be that Wolverine and Star Trek would make more money, and therefore should be given priority and more visibility.

But this is our own cinema, our own film. If we do not give it a chance now, when would be a good time? Personally, I think Sell Out! presents probably the best opportunity for a booster shot to the arm of our industry. If we miss out on this one, it will take some years before the next one will appear.

Return From The SIFF

This blog has been deathly quiet of late. Apologies, but it's been a whirlwind of a month at the day job, while preparing for a week-long trip to the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nice to be back at the SIFF after missing it for so many years, although the festival isn't quite the same anymore. I did feel a certain lack of excitement now, and the programming in the last, maybe two, years had been less exciting too. After all, this was the festival where I saw my first Kurosawa Kiyoshi film (Kairo) and first met Tsai Ming-liang. If anything, this year's edition, the first post-Philip Cheah festival, seems a little more nationalistic, what with a plethora of Singapore films making their world premieres and sorts, and the Singapore Film Awards.

I saw two Singapore films this year - A Big Road and White Days. Both were disappointments, the former a bigger letdown. A Big Road treads the fine line between unadulterated emotional wringing and artsy pretentiousness, and falls over into the latter more often than not. Ever since Vive L'Amour, everyone's been trying to copy the minutes-long take of a woman crying or engaging in some overly emotional cinematic exercise. A Big Road has such a scene, of a woman trying on clothes in front of a mirror, which started out as having a surprisingly effective context in the film, but soon degenerates into yawn-inducing, artsy static-cam stunt show.

White Days is even more of a Tsai Ming-liang copycat, albeit married with a Kevin Smith sensibility. I mean, how many films do we need to see in which young people drift aimlessly through life, ranting and yakking their way through the runtime? Clerks has done it much better, so does anyone else really need to make another film like that? Admittedly some of the dialogues were fun and entertaining, but they ultimately lead to nothing, and probably says nothing about the reality of youth in Singapore. They felt more like American versions of Singaporean youths, or rather, Clerks and Slackers transported into the heart of the Lion City.

I missed Blind Pig Who Wants To Fly and Rainbow Troops, and a few others, because tickets to those were sold out fast. But the best film I saw at the SIFF was a Malaysian one. I'll write about that later.