Genre: Action
Director: Lin Oeding
Cast: Jason Momoa, Stephen Lang, Zahn McClarnon, Garret Dillahunt, Jill Wagner
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 22 February 2018
Synopsis: When Joe Braven (Jason Momoa), a humble logger residing along the U.S./Canada border is confronted by a group of deadly drug runners who have stashed heroin in his secluded cabin in the mountains, he must do everything in his power to protect his family. Little do the elite drug runners know the unassuming man they’ve encountered has an impressive bite colliding two dynamic forces – one fighting for the lives of his family, the other for the love of the kill.
Movie Review:
In between reprising his role as Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe, Jason Momoa seems all too willing to demonstrate that he is perfectly capable of playing ordinary real-life heroes that do not have any superpowers. His latest, which he also produced, sees the hulking actor assume the titular role of a hardworking logger, who is forced to defend his and his family’s lives against a band of ruthless drug traffickers up in the snow-covered woods of rural Newfoundland.
Contrary to expectation, Momoa’s Joe Braven isn’t possessed with a very specific set of skills with which he dispatches his enemies; instead, veteran stunt coordinator turned first-time director Lin Oeding takes care to maintain his lead character’s Everyman persona, relying solely on the strength of his bare fists as well as his quick-witted ways to take down his opponents. That’s not to say the action isn’t exciting; in fact, the stripped-down fights and run-and-gun clashes feel like the real deal, upping the stakes involved for both the performers and us alike.
Just as surprisingly, the film doesn’t rush into the action without first properly setting up its characters or the circumstances they find themselves in. The first act clearly establishes Joe as the caring owner-operator of a lumberjack business, who offers up his mountain cabin to his co-worker Weston (Brendan Fletcher) if the latter needed some place to sit out an oncoming winter storm in the middle of a logging run. Alas Weston turns out to be a drug runner, and after skidding off the road at night during a snowfall, he decides to hide the bags of heroin he’s been transporting in Joe’s cabin.
While Weston is off on the drive, Joe returns home to find his father Linden (Stephen Lang) exhibiting growing signs of dementia after a workplace accident a year ago: more than losing track of day-to-day tasks, Linden wanders into a local bar in town and mistakes a female stranger for his late wife, getting into an altercation with the lady’s husband and her other male friends. On Joe’s wife Stephanie’s (Jill Wagner) urging, Joe brings his father out to the cabin to talk about getting proper care at a nursing home, although that sojourn proves complicating for two reasons – one, Joe finds out at the cabin that his young daughter Charlotte (Sasha Rosoff) had snuck into the back of his truck and followed them up; and two, a group of armed men are closing in to retrieve the bag of drugs stashed away in the cabin shed.
It’s not difficult to guess how things go down after that, but even so, Oeding and his screenwriter Thomas Pa’a Sibbett stage the proceedings with clarity, confidence and even panache. Refusing to reduce their movie to a ‘home invasion’, they have Joe break out on an ATV after the first shootout, and with Charlotte along for the ride, split the subsequent action into three theatres – one with Joe on foot in the deep snow, one with Linden keeping watch at the cabin, and one with Charlotte making her way to higher ground in order to get outside help. Except for the finale involving a bear trap and a cliff, each one of the fights is choreographed and staged with utmost attention to realism, especially as Joe and Linden depend on their resourcefulness with axes, metal rods, hunting bows and red-hot tongs to overpower their foes.
As throwaway as it may look, ‘Braven’ is indeed a surprisingly solid, satisfying genre picture whose plotting gets you invested in its characters before unleashing the mano-a-mano action you’re probably expecting. In turn, Momoa gives a compelling performance that neatly balances strength, vulnerability and resolve, while avoiding the sort of macho posturing that he tends to do in his superhero alter-ego. Momoa has a wonderful supporting act in Lang, who gives a raw, vivid portrayal of a strong, silent male type struggling to come to terms with his deteriorating mental state. And though it is all too obvious why the filmmakers had chosen such a grammatically incorrect word for the title of their movie as well as the name of their characters, it is testament to their achievement that ‘Braven’ actually ends up sounding a lot more convincing after the movie than before.
Movie Rating:
(Jason 'Aquaman' Momoa makes a convincing and even compelling Everyman in this brutally efficient survival thriller that is surprisingly character-driven)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Fantasy
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer
RunTime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene And Nudity)
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/theshapeofwater/
Opening Day: 1 February 2018
Synopsis: From master story teller, Guillermo del Toro, comes THE SHAPE OF WATER - an other-worldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.
Movie Review:
You won’t find a more visually inventive filmmaker in the world today than Guillermo del Toro, but the Mexican auteur hasn’t always found the right terms of expression for his boundless imagination. Some like his Victorian gothic extravaganza ‘Crimson Peak’ are sumptuous to watch but hardly engaging; some like ‘Pacific Rim’ and ‘Hellboy’ have struggled to marry his artistic sensibilities with commercial appeal; and then there was ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, which fused mythic archetypes and real-world cultural history into a spellbinding fable. His latest doesn’t quite dethrone his 2006 Oscar winner as his crowning achievement, but it is easily his best since.
Like ‘Pan’s’, ‘The Shape of Water’ is a period piece fairy tale, though this time the setting is at the height of the Cold War. This was a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a battle for space supremacy, a time when Soviet spies were stealing secrets from within the US Government, and a time when those who were different in society – whether by abilities, skin tones, or sexual dispositions – were regarded as misfits. Each one of these themes feature in del Toro’s film, and the way they have been so seamlessly woven together in the same narrative is a minor achievement in itself.
True to its title, the shape of the movie tends to follow that of its references. It is firstly a monster movie, most obviously referencing the Cold War-era camp-horror classic ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ about a strange part-human part-fish beast that was discovered in the rain forests of the Amazon. Here, a similarly humanoid amphibian (Doug Jones) has been brought into a government research lab to be studied and then destroyed. It is secondly a spy thriller, as a group of Soviet operatives in the United States – including the lead scientist at the lab, who is revealed early on to be an empathetic double agent – plot to assassinate the creature before the Americans learn too much.
But perhaps most fundamentally, it is a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ love story between the so-called ‘Asset’ and a mute young woman Elisa (Sally Hawkins) who works the janitorial night shift at the facility where it is held. In fact, this is what Richard Jenkins’ voiceover prepares us for at the start, describing ‘the last days of a fair prince’s reign’, ‘the princess without voice’ and ‘the monster who tried to end it all’ amidst an arresting image of a seemingly ordinary apartment completely submerged in water. Elisa comes up close with the priscine captive on her cleaning rounds, and her fear is quickly but surely replaced by curiosity as she senses a kindred spirit in the Asset. Before long, she is playing jazz records for him and feeding him hard-boiled eggs she brings in from home, and it isn’t hard to guess that she soon finds herself falling in love.
Her feelings for the Asset compel her to try to break him out of the facility when she learns that he is about to be destroyed, enlisting the help of her best friend and next-door neighbour Giles (Jenkins) for the audacious rescue mission. To be sure, the lovelorn, toupee-topped Giles isn’t just some convenient supporting act; on the contrary, the first act conscientiously establishes him as both a repressed gay man (whose attempt at romantic affection with a waiter at a neighbourhood diner is met with sharp rebuke) and a struggling commercial illustrator (whose meticulous paintings are gradually being replaced in ads by photography). Later on, Giles also happens to be the only person to witness the full extent of Elisa’s coupling (and by this, we mean both emotional and physical) with the Asset, and his own affinity with the Asset reinforces how his situation is also intended to represent yet another form of discrimination that Elisa and her band of outsiders face.
That del Toro should show such sympathy for those living on the fringes of society should come as no surprise, but his empathy for them has rarely been as keen or muscular as it is here. Together with his co-writer Vanessa Taylor, del Toro demonstrates emphatically how each one of his characters fights against the forces of fear, conformity and even subjugation. As much as he offers a distinct embodiment of these in the Asset’s cruel handler Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon), del Toro also intends for his audience to confront their own unspoken prejudice – hence the scenes of Elisa pleasuring herself in the bathtub before she goes to work every evening, or that of her and the Asset making impassioned love in the bathroom of her apartment, that may seem surprising to some and even shocking to prudes, but underscore just how Elisa is no different from any other person except in speech.
Yet even though it is intended as modern-day allegory, ‘The Shape of Water’ is first and foremost an ethereally beautiful film in more ways than one. There is beauty in two lost souls finding kinship in each other. There is beauty in the combination of period accuracy and make-believe fabrication that del Toro melds with meticulousness and fidelity. There is beauty in del Toro’s love of cinema itself expressed in no uncertain terms here (from the widescreen double bill of ‘The Story of Ruth’ and ‘Mardi Gras’ in the cavernous movie palace beneath Elisa’s apartment, to the reruns of musicals like ‘Hello, Frisco, Hello’ on Giles’s black-and-white TV). And last but not least, there is beauty in the outstanding performances – whether Hawkins’s galvanising performance through gesture and bearing alone, or Jenkins’s understated one full of longing and heartbreak, or even Shannon’s darkly comic villainous act delivered with sneering menace.
Visually, emotionally, thematically and stylistically, this is a rapturous delight that confirms del Toro as one of the most creative filmmakers today. Due credit also belongs to his technical team – including Paul D. Austerberry’s production design of kitschy nostalgia and retro-futurism, Dan Lausten’s kinetic lensing, Sidney Wolinsky’s graceful editing and Alexandre Desplat’s resplendent score – which have helped bring to life del Toro’s singular vision. In ‘The Shape of Water’, del Toro has combined his love of Old Hollywood, monster movies, outsiders and love itself into a fascinating original period fantasy that is warm, romantic and thrilling. It is easily one of the very Best Pictures of the year (as its number of Academy Award nominations will attest), but even more, it is by far the Best Picture in terms of beauty, novelty and humanity.
Movie Rating:
(Brimming with imagination, emotion and compassion, this is easily the most beautiful, original and even romantic film you’ll see this year, and is also del Toro’s very best since his 2006 masterpiece ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama
Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Lois Smith, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Odeya Rush, Jordan Rodrigues, Marielle Scott
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: M18 (Nudity and Sexual Scene)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/ladybirdmovie/
Opening Day: 22 February 2018
Synopsis: In LADY BIRD, Greta Gerwig reveals herself to be a bold new cinematic voice with her directorial debut, excavating both the humor and pathos in the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) fights against but is exactly like her wildly loving, deeply opinionated and strong-willed mom (Laurie Metcalf), a nurse working tirelessly to keep her family afloat after Lady Bird's father (Tracy Letts) loses his job. Set in Sacramento, California in 2002, amidst a rapidly shifting American economic landscape, Lady Bird is an affecting look at the relationships that shape us, the beliefs that define us, and the unmatched beauty of a place called home.
Movie Review:
“Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento” – so goes the Joan Didion quote that fills the opening screen, right before we see our titular character (played by Saoirse Ronan) sleeping face-to-face with her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf). They are in a motel while touring college campuses, and the next scene has them sharing tears over an audio version of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ while Marion is driving, right before getting into a heated argument that culminates in our Lady Bird throwing herself out of the vehicle.
There is something delightfully honest and humourous about those first few minutes of writer/director Greta Grewig’s filmmaking debut, and aside from a somewhat unfocused first act, ‘Lady Bird’ largely manages to remain genuine, funny and poignant throughout. Inspired by Grewig’s own memories of growing up in Sacramento, California, the film is a coming-of-age story of its teenage protagonist whose real name is Christine McPherson, an artistically inclined 17-year-old going on 18 determined to assert an identity separate from that of her parents. She’s therefore invented her own nickname, claiming that it is her given name because she gave it to herself.
It’s not difficult to guess that Lady Bird’s relationship with her mother is the core dynamic of the entire film. To put it simply, they argue as fiercely as they love each other, and that push-pull dynamic is evident in every single encounter they have. Most crucially though, their quarrels revolve around which college Lady Bird should go to the following year: whereas she wants a place at an East Coast liberal age college, her mother has her set on attending a local community college in order not to put further strain on their family’s finances. To be sure, Marion isn’t being selfish – she’s had to work double shifts as a psychiatric nurse, especially since Lady Bird’s dad (Tracy Letts) had recently been let go and struggles to find employment.
Her family’s financial situation casts a pall over her self-image at the Catholic school she is attending senior year in. While her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) comes from a similarly humble background, there are the wealthier, and seemingly much more popular, kids at school around whom she feels embarrassed about living on the literal wrong side of the tracks. As per convention, Lady Bird will at some point trade Julie for one of them, Jenna (Odeya Rush), and even commit the classic mistake of thinking that one of their company Kyle (Timothee Chalamet), a charismatic brooder who’s a drummer, truly loves her and therefore is the right one to lose her virginity to. As you probably might expect too, she’ll realise the folly of her ways by the time high-school prom night comes along.
So really, ‘Lady Bird’s’ narrative follows the usual arc of missteps, regrets and learning, but what makes the film stand out is how Grewig respects that experience and portrays it as authentically as it is lived. Obviously influenced by the style of other generational chroniclers that she’s been worked with – most notably Noah Baumbach, with whom she co-wrote his ‘Francis Ha’ and ‘Mistress America’ – Grewig films this in a low-key style that hardly plays up any day-to-day events for more than what they would be worth. To be sure, it does take some getting used to her loose structure, given how quickly scenes change especially in the first half of the movie; but once it settles down into a less harried rhythm, you’ll warm up to how she keeps the proceedings and emotions real and mostly unvarnished.
Grewig also has the support of an excellent ensemble, led by Ronan’s marvellous transformation into a Sacramento teenager circa 2002 when Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette and clove cigarettes were retro-cool. Her portrayal of Lady Bird is brash, brazen yet unexpectedly touching, and draws you in to fall in love with her character’s anxieties, insecurities and independence. Just as flawlessly cast is stage and TV actor Metcalf, who turns in an extraordinary big-screen performance that perfectly captures the grit and vulnerability of her character. Ronan and Metcalf are dynamite together, reflecting the tense but tender connection between mother and daughter that Gerwig has described as the “love story of the film”.
Truth be told, there’s been much praise lavished upon ‘Lady Bird’ that will certainly raise expectations of how good it is – which arguably after all that hype, left us a tad underwhelmed. It is undoubtedly good, but those looking for it to be refreshing or be swept up by it will very likely be left disappointed. Ultimately, the turns it takes are familiar and it lacks any standout heart-rending moments. But it isn’t farcical, doesn’t have a false note, and is anchored by a fabulous lead performance by Ronan, so even though the specific experience may not be the same, you will identify closely with its portrayal of adolescence and its turmoils. As a first feature though, it is indeed impressive, establishing Grewig as a filmmaking ‘lady bird’ whose voice, style and identity is uniquely distinctive.
Movie Rating:
(Delightfully honest, humourous and heartwarming, 'Lady Bird' is an impressive writing-directing debut for Greta Grewig)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, Michael Stuhlbarg, Bradley Whitford, Zach Woods
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/ThePostOfficial/
Opening Day: 18 January 2018
Synopsis: Steven Spielberg directs Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in The Post, a thrilling drama about the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post's Katharine Graham (Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), as they race to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades and four U.S. Presidents. The two must overcome their differences as they risk their careers - and their very freedom - to help bring long-buried truths to light.
Movie Review:
The press is a fundamental institution of American society/ politics, and lest you forget, Hollywood takes it upon itself every now and then to remind us just how important the news media is to the preservation of truth and transparency. It isn’t hard to see why one of the most venerable filmmakers of our time, Steven Spielberg, has taken it upon himself to do so now – after all, most, if not all, major newspapers, magazines, cable news networks and major broadcasters of the United States will claim that they have come under unprecedented attack by no less than their President, who further legitimizes these assaults by calling them ‘fake news’.
As it turns out, this isn’t the first time that the press has found itself at odds with POTUS. Based upon a true story, ‘The Post’ recounts the twists and turns leading up to the Washington Post’s publication of the bombshell known as the Pentagon Papers. For the uninitiated, these papers revealed the lies that consecutive US Presidents (from Truman, to Eisenhower, to Kennedy, to Johnson, and now to Nixon) had told the American people about the war in Indochina, particularly that it could be won when it was clearly a losing battle all along. A disgruntled Defense Department contractor had smuggled the top-secret government study out, provided excerpts of it to The New York Times, who was the first to break the story. The Post subsequently got its hands on the same report, but had to weigh not only the threat of legal action from Nixon’s White House but also possible penalties from contempt of court.
The outcome is no secret; and we also know that the Supreme Court eventually ruled 6-3 in favour of the newspapers’ right to publish. But Spielberg isn’t so much concerned with what the Post did than the circumstances under which it came to that monumental decision, and by doing so, upholded the sanctity of an independent free press. His movie therefore finds its lead in the paper’s executive editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), who had endorsed its reporter Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk) to hunt down the contractor and was unwavering in his commitment to see the papers published. Cinephiles will remember that this is a role immortalized by Oscar-winning Jason Robards in ‘All the President’s Men’, and despite playing against type rather winningly, Hanks never nearly comes close to that iconic performance.
Hanks does however have a fetching chemistry with Meryl Streep – who plays the Post’s publisher and company president Katharine Graham – and their back-and-forth scenes together brim with gusto, verve and poise. Compared to Bradlee, Graham is the more interesting character here: whereas Bradlee was through and through an old-school newspaper man whom you can bet on to defend the integrity of the newspaper institution, Graham was a socialite who only became boss because her husband committed suicide. She was also at the cusp of taking the newspaper public, and had to consider the cost and consequences of violating the court injunction on the business. There was also the fact that she was good friends with the person who had commissioned the report in the first place, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood). It was a professional coming-of-age for her, and Streep is magnificent portraying Graham’s fears, qualms and eventual resolve as she stared down the possibility of jail time to stand up for the constitution of her paper.
Not surprisingly, Graham was the subject of first-time screenwriter Liz Hannah’s earlier draft, and the other credited screenwriter Josh Singer was later brought in by Spielberg to largely pump up Bradlee and the rest of the newsroom staff. Spielberg is too skilful a director to let the movie become an odd amalgamation of two separate stories, and indeed the push-pull relationship between Bradlee and Graham becomes the very emotional centre of the story. Together with his regular cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and co-editor Michael Kahn, Spielberg navigates effortlessly between Graham’s story and her newsroom’s with an appealing urgency, before finally converging on that fateful evening when the decision to publish came down to the wire.
Oh yes, that final act is an absolute nail-biter, but the parts before are somewhat underwhelming. In particular, the earlier two acts fail to find a comfortable middle ground between depicting the intricacies and the bigger picture, resulting in multiple related subplots that sit rather awkwardly next to one another – there is a fair bit of detail about how Ben tracks down the Times’s source and transports the manuscript back to the Post, but much less detail about the calculations that led to Graham taking the company public or say how the Post managed to make sense of pages and pages of the Papers in such a short period of time. In order to underscore the relevance of the story, there is also a fair bit of preachiness in the exchanges between the characters, but that distracts from the overall storytelling which is structured almost like a procedural.
One can certainly admire why Spielberg decided to rush ‘The Post’ into production and complete the film within a year – “I realized this was the only year to make this film,” he said to the Hollywood Reporter. And there is no doubt the movie has real and immediate parallels, relevance and significance to the crisis faced by the news media in America today. Putting aside our reservations about how the media are somewhat themselves to blame for the position they find themselves in today, ‘The Post’ belongs to the list of good, but not great, Spielberg films that are immensely watchable yet ultimately unremarkable. There is polish and finesse in the storytelling, but not quite enough poignancy for the film’s over-arching theme (of the importance of a free press) to truly resonate or for its heroes celebrated here to feel genuinely inspiring. It’s no ‘All the President’s Men’ for sure, but for what it’s worth, it’s still among one of the best of the year.
Movie Rating:
(It isn't one of Spielberg's best, but this timely story of journalistic bravery is still an engaging, entertaining and enlightening watch)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Drake Doremus
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Laia Costa, Danny Huston, Courtney Eaton, Matthew Gray Gubler, Pom Klementieff, Jessica Henwick
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Rating: R21 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 11 January 2018
Synopsis: In contemporary Los Angeles, Martin and Gabi, two unacquainted millennials, spend their weekends as so many of their generation do… “swiping” on the dating app WINX. The options are endless, but tend to be less about connection and more about hooking- up. When Martin and Gabi meet, however, they find themselves talking into the early hours of the morning. Connecting. It’s exciting. It’s new... Exhilarated by each other, they rush into a relationship; hoping to perpetuate the feeling of that first night. They go out on dates. They move in together. They skip work to make love... But is this love?
Movie Review:
The way we meet new people may have changed with social apps like Tinder and Coffee Meets Bagel, but the way we stay with someone in a relationship remains the same. That’s the central message at the heart of Drake Doremus’ ‘Newness’, which follows the ups and downs of a young couple who meet through a fictional app called WINX, decide that they want more than just a one-night hookup, and then have to contend with the challenges of staying true, transparent and committed to each other.
When we first meet Martin (Nicholas Hoult) and Gabi (Laia Costa), both are thoroughly engrossed with the possibilities that the app offers – more specifically, each one is swiping and screwing his or her way through an array of gorgeous partners night after night. But when the pair first meet, they find themselves pleasantly surprised by how much they genuinely enjoy each other’s company, so much so that it is a good few hours before they do have sex at Martin’s place. A couple more meet-ups later, both of them decide to delete their respective WINX accounts, and even more significantly, Gabi decides to move in with Martin.
Alas that stretch of giddy passion is only the start of a relationship, and after seemingly coming off that high of ‘newness’, Martin and Gabi have a brief falling-out that leads them both to cheat on each other one fateful night. Thinking that the problem might be their mutual desire to continue meeting new people, both go for couples’ therapy and agree that they will be in an open relationship, which means that they can continue to date and even have sex with other people as long as they are completely honest and transparent with each other. Not surprisingly, it is hardly as simple as it sounds; while Gabi gets cosy with an older, wealthy man Larry (Danny Huston) whom her friend Blake (Courtney Eaton) works for as a paralegal, Martin starts to get emotional over his ex-wife he learns now has a kid, pouring his heart out subsequently to Blake after a couple of drinks at a bar one evening.
Will they or will they not choose to work through the complications precipitated by their somewhat misguided choices around their relationship? Or will they decide to simply call it quits and start it over with someone else? Doremus and his frequent writer/ collaborator Ben York Jones tease this out over the course of two hours, but it really isn’t difficult to see where their relationship is headed or what they will have to do in order to stay together. Just as you’d expect therefore, Gabi’s time away with Larry causes her and Martin to drift away from each other – which is partly the reason why Martin ends up telling Blake about how much he’s still hung up over his ex-wife – and Larry’s gifts to Gabi end up making Martin jealous and angry despite their earlier agreement. Similarly, when Gabi ends up moving in with Larry, you can probably also guess just how that is likely to end up.
That it remains old-fashioned in its depiction of relationships isn’t a bad thing in and of itself – after all, generations of wisdom and experience can’t be wrong – but what truly brings the film home are its actors Hoult and Costa. There is rawness, honesty and intensity in their portrayal of Martin and Gabi, beginning from how much they can’t seem to get enough of each other to how much they can’t seem to be with each other. As is typical of such indie romances, Doremus brings the camera right into their presence, so you’ll feel right up close and intimate as they fall in love, fight, and even f**k with each other. The chemistry between them is quite remarkable, and the intimacy you get with their characters makes you root for them to finally realise that all they need is each other, even after the novelty of being together wears off.
On his part, Doremus builds a visually mesmerizing world around them, accentuating nighttime hues and daytime cools. He has also assembled a kick-ass soundtrack, including cuts from Nouvelle Vague, Jim James and legendary pianist Nihls Frahm. But ‘Newness’ doesn’t just engage you sensorially; it does so emotionally too, and in a manner that is personal and passionate at the same time. Ultimately, its truisms about fidelity and truthfulness ring deep, and though it may be set in the context of dating amongst millennials today, these lessons will resonate with anyone who’s ever been in love and in a relationship. It may sound like a paradox, but its old-fashioned ways make ‘Newness’ even more refreshing and appealing.
Movie Rating:
(Intimate, intense and invigorating, this love story set in the age of iPhone dating offers heartfelt lessons on the importance of fidelity and transparency)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama
Director: Tan Seng Kiat
Cast: Sylvia Chang, Jack Tan, Angel Chan, Jack Yap, Justin Lan, Gan Wei Yan
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language)
Released By: mm2 Entertainment
Official Website:
Opening Day: 25 January 2018
Synopsis: Ah Qiang lives in the big city and struggles to take care of his mentally-unstable mother and his 5-year-old sister, Hui. When a speeding car kills Hui in an accident, Ah Qiang is desperate to claim his sister’s body. Unfortunately, he can’t prove his relation with Hui as she was never registered at birth. Ah Qiang’s mother is no help either given her condition, and Ah Qiang is forced to face this predicament on his own.
Movie Review:
‘Shuttle Life’ begins with the brother-and-sister pair Zhi Qiang (Jack Tan) and Hui Shan (Angel Chan) scouring for water for their household – first, Qiang climbs up several storeys to a decrepit water tank, only to find that it has dried up; then, he camps out with Shan in the cubicle of a public toilet to wait for the cleaning lady to deposit a huge bucket of water meant for washing hands. Such are the protagonists of director Tan Seng Kiat’s feature filmmaking debut, an intimate, spare and often unflinching family drama grounded in the grind and grime of daily life for the lower-middle class of society living in and around the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
As it turns out, Qiang has assumed the role of caretaker for his family after his mother Li Jun (Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang) was diagnosed with mental disorder. In the only scene with all three of them, Qiang prepares a simple dinner at home with three red eggs to celebrate Shan’s birthday, and it is clear just from watching them at the dining table alone that Shan – played with just the right balance of innocence and maturity by Chan – is the very spark that lights up their lives and even the glue that holds the whole family together. Qiang brings her out after to continue the celebration with his do-no-gooder buddies Fei and Bao Tou, but before the night is over, both of them will end up in a hit-and-run with a car.
Most of the story is told through Qiang’s point-of-view, but in one of the few scenes with Li Jun alone, we witness the extent of her mental dysfunction as she is literally dragged by the police to the hospital as Qiang’s only living kin. Qiang wakes up to find his mother sitting blankly by his bedside, but she doesn’t answer where Shan is when he asks. There is no melodramatic hand-wringing over her heartbreaking demise; rather, first-time Malaysian director Tan Seng Kiat (who co-wrote the script with Chris Leong) focuses on how both mother and son re-adjust their day-to-day reality around the void of Shan’s absence, or more significantly, the loss of that one thing which had brought hope and happiness to their somber lives.
The ensuing narrative is held together by Qiang’s dogged determination to claim Shan’s body from the hospital morgue, a usually straightforward process that is complicated by the fact that Li Jun cannot produce Shan’s birth certificate. After a run-in with the hospital staff and the obligatory police officer on duty, Qiang pins his hope on a referral running a small-time printing shop who is able to produce a counterfeit at a fee of $1,800. To Qiang, it is a hefty sum he doesn’t have readily, so in addition to trying to break open his mother’s safe box where she keeps what money she apparently has, he will even approach his former car workshop boss whom had fired him for stealing spare parts and selling them on the side.
Lest you’re wondering, Tan isn’t out to milk his audience’s sympathy at Qiang’s predicament; instead, what he does is to show us how the odds tend to be stacked against those who live on the fringes on society like Qiang, and therefore why such individuals therefore feel tempted to simply break the norms or even the law. To be sure too, Tan doesn’t cut Qiang any slack – for instance, when he tries to jump the queue at a drug store, the counter staff refuses to serve him unless he takes a number and waits his turn like everyone else. Tan also makes it amply clear that there are consequences to Qiang’s actions – in particular, a chance encounter with the car which had collided with his scooter sees Qiang unleash his pent-up anger on the stationary vehicle, which gets him arrested for vandalism.
Like most such life-based tales, this one doesn’t have or try to find neat closure – heck, we’ll even tell you that Qiang doesn’t manage to forge Shan’s birth certificate or claim her body by the time the credits roll – but it does find a fitting ending perched on a realistically hopeful note. As depressed as his characters’ circumstances may be, Tan never lets his film become depressing. Even during the more trying moments, there is always the distinct sense that Qiang and Li Jun do sincerely want to get by, and by extension, Tan refuses to let either of them wallow in self-pity or anger. It is a delicate tone to strike, but aside from a couple of unnecessary detours (such as the imminent bulldozing of a shantytown that takes potshots at the empty promises made by politicians during their election campaigns, or a visit to a parliamentarian’s swanky party that is only meant to underscore the class divide), there is discipline, focus and purpose in Tan’s storytelling.
Besides being an impressive debut for Tan, ‘Shuttle Life’ also boasts an outstanding naturalistic performance by actor-singer Jack Tan. There is no artifice at all in his portrayal of Qiang, but both realism and emotional rawness that makes his character truly pop off the screen. And even though we haven’t seen that many Malaysian films (partly because not many of them get a big-screen release), we dare say that this is the best among them in 2017 and/or even 2018. It’s tender, affecting, even poignant – and the fact that it is set up north brings a cultural affinity that makes its emotions, its themes and its story even more keenly experienced.
Movie Rating:
(One of the most impressive feature filmmaking debuts we've seen in recent time, this intimate, spare and often unflinching family and social drama is tender, affecting and deeply poignant)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Comics/Action
Director: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis
Runtime: 2 hrs 15 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: The Walt Disney Company
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/MarvelSingapore/
Opening Day: 14 February 2018
Synopsis: Marvel Studios' Black Panther follows T'Challa who, after the death of his father, the King of Wakanda, returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation to succeed to the throne and take his rightful place as king. But when a powerful old enemy reappears, T'Challa's mettle as king -and Black Panther- is tested when he is drawn into a formidable conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire world at risk. Faced with treachery and danger, the young king must rally his allies and release the full power of Black Panther to defeat his foes and secure the safety of his people and their way of life.
Movie Review:
Just when you thought Marvel has nothing new to offer anymore after 17 MCU movies. Guess what? They are still more than capable to make you, for a lack of a better word, marvel at their latest outing.
Black Panther begins right after the events of Captain America: Civil War. If you need some sort of quick refresher, this is the one where Captain America and his followers went rouge and the character of Black Panther aka T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) makes his debut. With the death of his father, its time for T’Challa to make his way back to his kingdom, the reclusive but technologically advanced Wakanda to assume the throne.
But as most comics go, with all great power comes great responsibilty. T’Challa must first battle a fellow tribe member, win back his former lover, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), capture an arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkins) before discovering a deadly secret that might trigger a world war and the loss of his throne in this tight tale spinned by director and writer Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed).
It’s a surprise that Coogler is given much free play with the movie that Black Panther stood proudly as a Ryan Coogler movie than just another forgettable Marvel entry in the immensely popular MCU universe. It’s the same feeling you get when you watched the first Iron Man and Captain America, the kind of electrifying feeling of something cutting-edge and revitalizing in terms of storytelling and execution. Coogler successfully created an entire new world filled with various African cultures in a fictional part of Africa, Wakanda from glorious display of colorful costumes to out-of-this-world architectural wonders.
Despite the often-lush visual effects and fascinating production values on display, Coogler’s main aim however is to tell a story that contains lots of heart, espionage and messages. With a slight detour to Busan where a long chase after the villainous Ulysses Klaue happened, we don’t really see much of the movie’s ultimate antagonist, Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan) until the middle. We know Marvel has a long-standing issue with their movie’s baddies but the character of Killmonger actually has a genuine purpose to confront King T’Challa. Be it their past feud or the desire to open up Wakanda to the world who only knew them as a third world country.
The superhero flick is also not without any humour. Most of the hilarious one-liners come courtesy of T’Challa’s playful sister and inventor, Shuri (Letitia Wright). And just when you think that all the female players here are just for show or to make up the cast members, Shuri amazed everyone with her clever use of vibranium, the intriguing powerful element only available in Wakanda. The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira shines as a kick-ass head of the royal guards while Nakia is no simple token female lead either.
Of course, Black Panther does have its fair share of flaws for fellow loyal Marvel fans if you love all the mayhem displayed in Thor: Ragnarok or the second Guardians outing. Likely the lack of thrilling action sequences (beside the above mentioned chase) and some less than convincing CG in the finale battle between Black Panther and Killmonger might be a tad too disappointing for some. At times, it doesn’t even fare like a movie belonging in the MCU universe or trying desperately to shoehorn into Infinity War that any non-followers can enjoy the movie without worrying about the fate of the other superheroes.
Basically, Coogler has made a compeling big budgeted movie empowering females and African-Americans as a whole even though many might just dismissed it as a mere superhero flick. There’s great acting from Chadwick and a great uplifting screen presence by Jordan, lots of great performance by the supporting cast including Martin Freeman returning as CIA Agent Ross. Most important of all, an action superhero flick that contains meaningful messages for all and an obvious jab at President Donald Trump in the mid-credit scene.
Movie Rating:
(Kowtow to the King of Wakanda and be spellbound)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Christopher Plummer, Romain Duris, Timothy Hutton
Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Some Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 25 January 2018
Synopsis: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD follows the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother Gail (Michelle Williams) to convince his billionaire grandfather (Christopher Plummer) to pay the ransom. When Getty Sr. refuses, Gail attempts to sway him as her son's captors become increasingly volatile and brutal. With her son's life in the balance, Gail and Getty's advisor (Mark Wahlberg) become unlikely allies in the race against time that ultimately reveals the true and lasting value of love over money.
Movie Review:
Christopher Plummer has become the oldest person to be nominated for an acting Oscar for his latest role. At 88 years old, Plummer received a Best Supporting Actor nod after replacing the disgraced Kevin Spacey in Ridley Scott’s latest movie.
If you haven’t already heard, Plummer was convinced to be part of the project after Spacey was slapped with allegations of sexual misconduct.
With so much hype surrounding the film, is it actually good? Fortunately, 80 year old Scott continues to show the world what he is capable of after directing The Martian (2015) and Alien: Covenant (2017). The 132 minute thriller is a pulsating drama about evokes thoughts about the true power of money.
Based on John Pearson’s 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty, the movie dramatises the story of how Getty (1892 – 1976) refused to cooperate with the extortion demands of a group of kidnappers who abducted his grandson in 1973.
To understand the how rich the founder of Getty Oil Company was, he was named the richest living American by Fortune magazine in 1957, and the world’s richest private citizen by the Guinness Book of Records in 1966. In 1996, he was ranked as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the gross national product. The catch? Getty was infamously pennywise.
This sets the stage for the movie, providing the well executed drama between the characters. After the poor boy was kidnapped, it is up to his mother (Michelle Williams) to persuade Getty the billionaire (Plummer) to pay the ransom. In the mix is Getty’s advisor (Mark Whalberg) who becomes torn between both the devastated woman and her seemingly harsh ex father in law.
Despite running more than two hours, the well paced production manages to balance heart stopping action sequences, gripping dramatic showdowns and quieter scenes that leave viewers thinking about the brutality human beings can resort to. Does love overcome challenges at the end of the day to give audiences a decent closure? Yes, but at a heavy price.
David Skarpa’s screenplay explores the dark side of morality, and it won’t be a surprise if much of the dramatised portions are inspired by real life happenings. Yup, there are bad people all around us and things ain’t always pretty. Although entertaining, this is essentially a feel bad movie about how the very rich can be very unkind people.
In the spotlight is, of course, the performance by Plummer. At such a grand old age, the three time Oscar nominee (he won for his portrayal of a cancer stricken father in Mike Mills’s Beginners), the veteran is clearly the star of the show. Although it is inevitable to wonder how Spacey would have fared, we are pretty sure Plummer was a good replacement choice. Williams (Manchester by the Sea) does what she does well – a grieving woman. Her portrayal of an angry yet helpless mother is heartbreaking to watch. Wahlberg (Daddy’s Home 2) does not particularly impress (we aren’t going to discuss the news involving Williams and Whalberg’s wage disparity for the reshoots), but Romain Duris (Mood Indigo) turns in an empathetic performance as one of the kidnappers.
This is a movie that has gotten a lot of attention, (no) thanks to the drama behind the scenes. Thankfully, the result is a compelling film well worth your time.
Movie Rating:
(Christopher Plummer delivers a gripping performance as J. Paul Getty in this compelling morality tale based on a true story)
Review by John Li
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TRAILER WATCH - AGENT MR CHANPosted on 19 Jan 2018 |
SYNOPSIS: Determined to make it big in America, Polish-born band leader Jan Lewan draws his fans into a Ponzi scheme in this comedy based on a true story.
MOVIE REVIEW:
With such a cheesy title, you might wonder what exactly is The Polka King all about? Well, just think of it as a milder, kid-friendly version of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Polish immigrant Jan Lewan (Jack Black) believes anyone can make it in American, the land of dreams. He makes his living mostly by touring with his ever-growing band doing polka music to the elderly crowd and he also runs a modest gift shop selling polish souvenirs. As his dreams grow bigger and his expenses increasing, Lewan hatched a scheme to lure the rich old folks to invest in his company by promising an attractive 12 percent returns compared to a measly 3 percent from the banks.
Directed and written by Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky (Monsters vs Aliens, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days), The Polka King is more of a screwball comedy than a fully developed biography of a real-life criminal. It’s hugely entertaining and perhaps it’s the ongoing funny music that keeps your toes tapping from start to finish that you forgot there isn’t much elaboration on how Lewan’s Ponzi scheme actually works.
To be fair, Forbes and Wolodarsky is no Martin Scorsese and definitely, they don’t really need to mimic the master and most important of all, they have Jack Black the ever-consummate actor and comedian. Black easily commands the screen with his charm, flawless song routines and accented English. Maybe it’s the wafer thin script or maybe it’s Black’s talents that make the character of Jan or Yan Lewan more sympathetic than awful.
Though it’s hard to upstage Black in the same screen, he is joined by a superb Jenny Slate (Gifted) who plays his wife Marla, a woman who desires to be known more than just plain Mrs Lewan. Notably later on in a stand out, laugh-out-loud sequence, we see Slate parading clumsily in a beauty pageant contest. Other familiar faces include Wes Anderson’s frequent collaborator, Jason Schwartzman playing Lewan’s co-musician, Mickey “Pizzazz” and a fantastic Jacki Weaver playing Lewan’s no-nonsense mother-in-law.
The Polka King is no in-depthlook into the character of Jan Lewan though he certainly led a colorful life including being nominated for a Grammy for best polka album. The fast-paced comedy does its obligatory bits to deliver but the performance of Jack Black, for better or worse becomes the soul of the entire movie surpassing the fact that it’s based on actual events and a real person.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
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