ZEN Bitchin'

I was at my friendly neighborhood (pirated) DVD store last week to purchase my weekly dose of films and TV shows when I spotted this title. The package stood out among the other DVDs in the rack because the cover was in white and dominating the space was a collage/ mosaic of the sun, consisting of photos of a wide-eyed girl. And of course that intriguing title: (500) Days of Summer. The parentheses are not mine, promise. But I recognized the lead actress Zooey Deschanel–sister to Emily Deschanel of the TV series ‘Bones’, (which I love). Zooey also recently starred with Jim Carrey in Yes Man. I like Zooey; she has a goofy charm about her. She’s like the fun version of Chloe Sevigny. Joseph Gordon Levitt, of course, started out in the sitcom ‘Third Rock from the Sun’. To my gay friends, he’s known as the lead star in ‘Mysterious Skin’, the Gregg Araki film adapted from Scott Heim’s novel. Based on the stars alone, the film had potential. Even if the director Marc Webb is a newbie to feature films (but following the career paths of music video directors David Fincher (Seven), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary), and Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo). However, I passed it on because I had purchased my quota of discs. But I made a mental note of buying it the next time I returned to said shop.

Two days later I got a call from R, asking me if I had seen this film. I told him that I’d seen it at the shop but hadn’t bought it. he then started raving about it and he told me he’d drop it at my house the next day so I can see it for myself. R is not particularly prone to gushing so I thought, there must be something there. However, I also recalled the times when our opinions of films (and music) didn’t really agree so I considered that too.

Nevertheless, I saw the film (in one of my late-night attempts to fight off insomnia) with no great expectations and an open mind. And boy, was I glad to have done so. I found myself smiling within 10 minutes of the film and laughing 20 minutes later. I was in tears in the last 15 minutes of the film and by the time the credits rolled by, my heart was just about to burst. Did I say that I was prone to gushing? My apologies then. But I was genuinely touched by this film. If I remember correctly, the last time a movie made me feel this way was when I saw ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. But of course, to compare 500DOS (pardon the text-speak) with the latter will do both films a grave injustice.

I understand that the film was marketed as a romantic comedy but I don’t think it is. For a romantic comedy it didn’t pack enough rollicking scenes and snappy dialogue. As a dramatic film, it didn’t have enough tension. I think it (safely) straddled the line between a romantic comedy and a light romantic drama. This is no mean feat to accomplish. I mean, look at ‘Lucky You’–that clunky Drew Barrymore-Eric Bana movie that had a serious identity crisis, genre-wise. Like the voice-over narrator said, ‘This is a story of boy meets girl. But let me tell you up front, this is not a love story’.

The narrative jumps back and forth within the 500 days that Tom (Gordon-Levitt) spent with Summer (Deschanel). I guess that explains the title. The premise, however, is simple enough. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. Told mostly from the perspective of Tom, the film shows in both oblique and straightforward manners how mutable our perceptions are of other people. Through Tom’s eyes I see how the same memories can be interpreted and re-interpreted, depending on how we feel towards the object of our remembrance. In one montage of Summer, Tom’s voice-over goes, ‘I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love the heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps.’ Minutes later, the same montage is replayed, but the voice-over has turned to, ‘I hate her crooked teeth. I hate the way she smacks her lips. I hate her knobby knees. I hate that cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck.’

» Read the rest of this entry «

Whenever I travel outside of Cambodia, one of the first things that I do is satisfy my cineaste heart. There are no cinemas in Cambodia that show English films. I have to make do with DVDs that I regularly buy from my friendly neighborhood (pirated) DVD shop. So soon after arriving here in Kuala Lumpur last Tuesday afternoon, I immediately walked to Pavillion Mall to catch some movies (emphasis on the plural form).

‘Terminator Salvation’ was my first choice because it’s been showing for a long time now. I next saw ‘Drag Me To Hell’ but that deserves a post of its own, seriously. I read about the bad reviews on T4 but I was ready to ignore it because I love Christian Bale (since seeing him for the first time in ‘Empire of the Sun’ and then in ‘American Psycho’). Okay, I must admit that a Terminator movie without Arnold is not quite the same. Never mind the awesome array of robots that populated this sequel and the almost gleeful way they destroy everything. The story lacked flesh, so to speak. Chunky, bloody flesh. The washed-out cinematography or the frantic musical score did not help. Neither did Helena Bonham Carter’s cameo (her bald cap & make-up wasn’t up to par, and her CGI version isn’t impressive as the Arnold CGI).

However, I was pleasantly surprised by his co-star Sam Worthington. I read somewhere that Christian Bale was offered the role of Marcus Wright. In the original script, it was the bigger role. But Christian chose to play John Connor and instigated many rewrites of the script that made the role bigger. That is just one of the woes that besot the making of this film. Well, it was Sam’s luck that this role fell on his lap. I first saw Sam in ‘Rogue’, a crocodile-in-a-rampage movie that starred Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black) and Michael Vartan (One Hour Photo). His role was small; he got eaten by the crocodile in the first 30 minutes of the movie, but even then I thought: I’d love to eat him up as well, given the chance.

» Read the rest of this entry «

I read in an interview that Allan Ball (creator of Six Feet Under) first read ‘Dead Until Dark’ at the airport, liked the book so much, found out that it was the first of a series of books (what would came to be called the Sookie Stackhouse novels), and read the series before phoning author Charlaine Harris to discuss the possibility of developing a TV series based on the book(s).

And the rest they say, is TV history. Equally reviled and acclaimed by critics, the series won its lead star (the wonderful Anna Paquin) a couple of best actress awards, one from the Golden Globes.

I saw teasers about it on HBO and Cinemax and I was pleasantly surprised to see it in my friendly neighborhood (pirated) DVD shop. I immediately bought it for an impromptu DVD marathon. I would say that Six Feet Under was much better than this series. However, compared to other non-Alan Ball shows, True Blood is great. There are lots of sex and gore, which made me think it can’t be shown intact on HBO because coming from repressed Singapore, it censors its films (I later learned it will be shown on Cinemax instead, proving my point). But the story is equally horrific, funny, and allegorical–three things I like in my horror/fantasy films. The allegory might be a little obvious (God hates Fangs? C’ mon!) but the whole series was cleverly written and made many surprising turns.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of ‘True Blood’. I heard that the first season was based on the first book. There are 9 in the series, so there. I hope it lasts longer than ‘Carnivale’, another great HBO show that ended prematurely after only just 2 seasons.

Like Alan Ball, I first saw ‘Twilight’ in one of the bookshops in Suvannabhumi Airport in Bangkok. Because I had a long lay-over at the airport, I bought the book and started to read it. However, after about 150 pages, i wasn’t still engaged into the book. So I stopped reading it and got a foot massage instead. I felt the same way when I tried to read a Harry Potter book. For a vampire novel, it was anemic–like a vampire who has not feed for years. And there were 4 in this series of books!

Fast forward to early this year, and the book, like most bestsellers, has been turned into a movie. My hopes for the film rose when I learned that Kristen Stewart would be playing Bella. I loved Kristen in ‘Panic Room’ and ‘Into the Wild’. The guy who was playing the vampire was being hyped as this super-handsome guy, which I didn’t quite buy into. In my opinion, the guy who played Prince Caspian (whose names escapes mo now, sorry) was hotter.

So how was the movie? Well, in keeping with the pun I started in a previous paragraph, the movie simply sucked, and not in a good vampire way at all. For starters, the mythology for me was too convenient. And as the lead, Bella’s character is virtually a damsel in distress who can only be saved by someone who is very strong but very prone to violence. A vampire who hits his girlfriend? That would be interesting! Anything than this chaste, pseudo-brooding mess of a movie. And it was a huge hit! I’m probably not the real target of this movie, having reached a certain age and a certain level of cynicism. FYI, as I am writing this, release dates for the next 2 films have been announced already. (Gasp!)

Just so we’re clear: I abso-fu***ng-lutely love True Blood, and would rather much see Twilight disappear into the night. I especially love the main theme of the show, which I have attached in this post. Hope ya enjoy that song, y’all, as I did. I’m currently reading this book, another bestseller, whose movie version I read somewhere will be released on 2010. So far, it’s living up to the hype. I am so loving this book!