SYNOPSIS: The young hero D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman) and three of France's most elite warriors battle their way across Europe to save King and country from a conspiracy led by deadly assassin Milady & the Duke of Buckingham. A modern update to Alexander Dumas' classic story, The Three Musketeers is an explosive action adventure that's fun and entertaining for the whole family.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Director Paul W.S. Anderson doesn’t make movies; he makes extended commercials that charged you a full admission ticket.
In this modern update of the classic Alexandre Dumas’ novel, Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson) plays a young man, D’Artagnan who came to Paris aspiring to be a musketeer not knowing that the original famed three musketeers have been banished to the streets by the Cardinal (Christoph Waltz). A year earlier, the three musketeers, Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Prothos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) have been betrayed by Milady (Milla Jovovich) after stealing the airship blueprints by Leonardo da Vinci. Milady passed the blueprints to the evil Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) who in turn is conspiring to attack France.
Whatever Anderson touches, it quickly turned into cans of ham (watch "AVP") and remarkably cheapens the product even though he makes use of the latest technology that is 3D and assembled a cast that is worthy of an awards ceremony. Things immediately take a downturn when Lerman’s character appears (without much of a reason except he wants to follow his father’s footsteps in becoming a musketeer) with a dopey wig and Milady sliding through a booby-trapped filled corridor Matrix-style in her tight period dress. Laughable is all I can muster. There isn’t a single ounce of imagination left in Anderson but you got to admit the subsequent aerial battleship sequences are preposterously entertaining yet when you think deeper; it’s just a copy of the ones in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise.
The cast members on the other hand are extraordinary. Macfadyen is a good reliable Athos. Stevenson at times is funny as Prothos. Waltz is credible enough as the Cardinal. Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale) is menacing as Captain Rochefort, the lackey of the Cardinal and Orlando Bloom, the biggest star of all turns in a campy, embarrassing performance that you wished for Legolas to turn up at some point and shoot him in the ass.
Besides the above, do we care about D’Artagnan’s love interest, Constance? And do we bother enough for King Louis XIII of France and his Queen? The absolutely disposable plotting makes us care less for this supposedly swash-buckling adventure. The paper-thin exposition and contemporary lines makes us crave for the 1993’s panned Disney version that stars Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris O’Donnell. Lastly, we missed Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting’s “All For Love” as well.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Director Paul W.S. Anderson and Producers Jeremy Bolt and Robert Kulzer contribute a Commentary Track that is worth a listen simply because it’s far more interesting than the end product as they talks about shooting in 3D, location shooting, their cast members etc.
The main cast and crew members received a few minutes of spotlight each discussing their roles and experiences working on the movie in Cast & Crew.
We take a look at the costumes design, CG and real locations in Achieving the Look.
The choreographing of the swordplay takes the centerstage in 17thCentury Action.
13 Deleted & Extended Scenes including a prolonged end fight and other unnecessary dialog sequences might interest you.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
“The Three Musketeers” is visually pretty rich with splendid colours and details while the Dolby Digital 5.1 never disappoints with superb heavy sound effects throughout.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: When the wedding of internationally famous film star Lara Tyler (ALICE EVE) to tweedy English author James Arber (DAVID TENNANT) is sabotaged by a paparazzo, they decide to relocate the event to the one place where the world’s press won’t find them: the sleepy Island of Hegg. However, dilapidated buildings and greedy islanders are the least of the problems that the wedding party and their Hollywood entourage have to deal with, as Marco (FEDERICO CASTELLUCCIO) the ingenious paparazzo tracks them down in his mission to photograph the celebrity wedding of the year. To throw him off the scent, Lara's P.A. Steve Korbitz and his assistant Emma (SALLY PHILLIPS) devise a plan to use a decoy bride and think that local girl Katie (KELLY MACDONALD) will be perfect of the job. But when James meets Katie, sparks fly, dresses get ruined and love gets complicated. Can an ordinary girl fill the most famous Manolos on the planet? .
MOVIE REVIEW:
As trite and formulaic as rom-coms come, ‘The Decoy Bride’ is the reason why movie-goers have turned away from the genre. The premise of the entire movie can be summed up as follows- popular American actress Lara Tyler (Alice Eve) and her fledging author of a fiancée James (David Tennant) sneak away to the remote Scottish island of Hegg to get married away from the media spotlight; only to require the services of a local islander Katie (Kelly MacDonald) when Tyler disappears after spotting her most repugnant paparazzi photographer shows up.
Aside from an accidental legality that sees James getting married to Katie, the other complication is really perfunctory- James and Katie will end up developing feelings for each other. How does it all turn out? Well, if you’ve seen any rom-com, you’ll probably already guess the happily-ever-after ending. Certainly, the two screenwriters (Sally Phillips and Neil Jaworski) shouldn’t be blamed for sticking with formula- predictability is after all what the genre was built on.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t exonerate their culpability for devising scenarios that are neither amusing nor entertaining. Two running themes emerge- the first revolving around Lara’s insistence on acting out James’ book ‘The Ornithologist’s Wife’, ignorant of the fact that he had written it without ever stepping onto the island. Mildly funny the first time it is used, but increasingly tedious with repetition, it rings smack of a distinct lack of inspiration.
Then there’s also some attempt to skewer modern celebrity culture that’s too genial for its own good. Yes, we’re supposed to laugh at the lengths by which said photographer go to just to get that coveted shot of Lara, and the concomitant intrusions and inconveniences it causes in her life- but really, we read enough about that from magazines and newspapers without having the writers to invent a fake movie star just to re-enact that phenomenon.
Saddled with such dreary material, neither the stars nor director Sheree Folkson manage to make the tiresome affair any more exciting. McDonald tries to inject some energy with a slightly off-kilter take as the decoy bride, but she is not matched with an equally charming performance by perpetually perplexed Tennant. And Folkson does nothing to help, letting the movie coast by in just the same lethargic manner as the way life on Hegg presumably unfolds.
Even if you’re looking for some harmless diversion, ‘The Decoy Bride’ offers too little entertaining pleasures to satisfy. In fact you’re better off watching some travelogue on the Isle of Man, where this movie was shot to give it the look of the fictional island of Hegg. And if you’re checking this out purely for the sake of hottie Alice Eve, we recommend you watch her upcoming movie ‘ATM’ instead.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio only uses the back speakers for the soundtrack- otherwise, the rest of the movie is just front and centre. Visual transfer is decent enough- and reproduces the picturesque images from the movie clearly.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Gabriel Chong
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PITBULL GOES "BACK IN TIME" WITH THEME SONG TO "MEN IN BLACK 3"Posted on 01 May 2012 |
SYNOPSIS: The event took place in 1911. Huang Xin and Sun Yat Sen were the leaders of the revolution group - Tong Meng Hui. They fight against the deteriorated Qing Dynasty to achieve better lives for the people. There were 2 uprisings against the royal troops. The first one was held in Guangzhou in April 1911. The revolutionists attacked the Governor's office but faced a total failure due to inadequate supply of ammunition. A huge number of the revolutionists were sacrificed. In October of the same year, another uprising in Wu Chang was set. The royal army rebelled have successfully occupied three towns in Hu Han and seized the control of Hu Bei province. Empress Dowager Longyu appointed Yuan Shi Kai and his best soldiers to fight back immensely. Huang then commanded the Defended troop, resisted for one month before success followed. 14 provinces declared independency. Sun was appointed as the temporary President who alleged to give away the position to the one who convinced the Qing Royal to surrender. Yuan has succeeded to do so and got the authority. It then ended the 268 years of the Reign of the Qing Dynasty and 2000 years of monarchy. The Republic was then founded.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Touted as Jackie Chan’s 100thfilm, “1911” is a futile exercise in showcasing the rebels uprising against the Qing Dynasty when you have other superior Chinese history-related titles such as “Founding of the Republic” and “The Beginning of the Great Revival” in the first place. A personal passion project of Chan which sees him as co-director, actor and lending his face across all media platforms, “1911” moves like a flipping history textbook and pays more attention in laying tributes to all those who lost their lives or in one way or another contribute to the upheaval by subtitles and title cards.
Chan plays Huang Xin, a man who assists Sun Yat Sen (Winston Chao) in the rebellion. Sun is the brain behind the revolution group, Tong Meng Hui while Huang is the brawn, leading groups of young men to fight against the corruptive Qing armies. What follows is several events leading to Sun finally become the temporary President of the Republic of China and ended 2000 years of monarchy.
The plotting for a start is plagued with problems. While most people may assume the story angle is focused on the heroic attempts of Huang Xin because we have action-star Jackie Chan, think again. By the second act, the focus is shifted on Sun Yat Sen as he travels around the globe convincing the rich and gathering funds for his revolution and the character of Huang Xin is faded into the background. Huang is relegated to a mere caricature and his relationship between his wife/comrade, Xu Zhonghan (Li Bingbing) is wafer thin that we find it hard to believe the blossoming romance. Throw in other renowned historical characters such as the Empress Dowager Longyu (Joan Chen) and Yuan Shi Kai into the mix, the end results become disjointed and alarming fleeting despite a running time of 120 minutes. The action sequences are nothing spectacular and I’m sure you have seen better elsewhere.
When it comes to performance, Winston Chao wins hands down with his excellent portrayal of Sun Yat Sen though this ought to be Chao’s umpteenth performances of the famed Chinese revolutionist. The bulk of the relatively unknown Mainland actors are absolutely brilliant and probably you might pick out pretty face Hu Ge as one of the young martyrs who gave up their lives for the cause. HK actors Dennis To, Jaycee Chan made up of the many blink-and-miss cameos and Joan Chen no stranger to playing Empresses remains very much impressive in full Qing costume on the big screen ever since “The Last Emperor”. Chan himself is passable as the stoic Huang Xin but owing to the catastrophic script, there’s little space for the various actors to shine with the exception of Chao.
Is this the untold story of Huang Xin and Sun Yat Sen’s exploits? Or is this mainly a haphazard attempt in telling the world that independence happened in 1911 for China? Overall, “1911” fails to engage neither a non-history fan nor the Jackie Chan’s fanbase. It’s largely a handsomely produced war drama with Chan’s patriotism hanging blatantly on the posters, billboards and DVD covers.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The visual and audio is passable on a basic TV setup though you might nitpick a lot if you watched it on a high-end home entertainment system.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: To plays Cho, a resourceful ex-cop who earns a living by claiming bounties offered for catching wanted persons. His latest job brings him to an isolated island for fugitive robber Fai, on whom the police have placed a hefty bounty of $400,000! During his investigation, Cho takes lodge at the small inn run by quirky innkeeper Suen (Alex Man) and his imaginative and perhaps a little too hyperactive daughter Ching (Fiona Sit), who are curious about this stranger. A series of unexpected and often hilarious events takes place before Ching realizes that the criminal Cho is chasing after is actually a friend of hers!
MOVIE REVIEW:
Probably one of the most ambitious Hong Kong films this year is writer/ director Fung Chih-Chang’s ‘The Bounty’, a light-hearted crime caper that takes after the style of the Spaghetti Westerns. Following the genre formula of a loner who rides into town looking for a wanted someone last seen within that community, Fung effectively blends comedy, suspense, drama and some ‘gongfu’ into a unique concoction that deserves notice for its sheer ambition alone.
In the role of the loner is Chapman To, who plays Cho, a low level bounty hunter from Guangzhou sent by his agent Boss Tony (Wen Chao) to a remote Hong Kong island in search of a fugitive, Lee Kin-fai (Nick Wang), wanted for assaulting a young bride. Kinfai was last seen at the Lazy Inn, and so Cho checks into that very motel, only to be greeted by three oddball individuals – the meddlesome proprietor (Alex Man), his equally nosy daughter Linda (Fiona Sit), as well as a buck-toothed shaggy-looking helper Coconut Man (or Kin-fai in disguise).
What appears on the surface to be a straightforward pursuit turns out to be a lot more with the addition of these oddball characters. Man’s hotel manager is in fact a grieving father still unable to forget the sudden drowning of his daughter ten years ago; and because of that trauma, refuses to acknowledge Linda as his other daughter. And then there’s also the budding romance between Coconut Man and Linda, the latter of which retains a soft spot for the former even after discovering his identity.
Besides these key supporting characters, Fung also adds other colourful others such as a group of local triad members who call themselves the ‘Biting Sugar Cane Gang’ for precisely the habit which the name implies, as well as Cho’s acquaintance (Max Zhang) from his law and order days who turns into an unexpected villain towards the end. Like Fung’s screenwriting debut ‘Shaolin Soccer’, there is a whole host of quirky characters here – though admittedly they aren’t nearly always as interesting.
The fact that most of the supporting characters are only loosely connected to Cho’s pursuit of Lee means that what you may have thought was a cat and mouse game between the hunter and his prey should more accurately be framed as a story of the hunter’s misadventures. Indeed, there isn’t much surprise who Lee is hiding out as in the town, nor for that matter is his capture some well-plotted affair; instead, Fung prefers a looser style than the directors (e.g. Stephen Chow, Johnnie To or even Law Wing Cheong) of his earlier movies, which makes for a more languid pace than some might have liked.
Still, besides the originality of the material, what keeps the movie engaging is the delightful cast performance. Chapman continues to be one of the most underrated comedic actors in Hong Kong, and here his low-key repartee suits the film perfectly. His second teaming with Sit – after Wong Jing’s ‘Mr and Mrs Gambler’ –sees the two complementing each other nicely, not as romantic halves but as jester buddies. Fung also manages a casting sleigh of hand with Alex Man, who has been absent from the big screen for some time – and the veteran actor is suitably garish as the Lazy Inn owner.
At a time when the Hong Kong film industry seems entirely reliant on the kind of period action blockbusters that would sell millions at the China box office, it’s heartening to see something as original and daring as ‘The Bounty’. It’s not as polished as if Stephen Chow or Johnnie To were to direct it, but this is nonetheless a commendable first directorial attempt by Fung. As the industry goes through a critical inflexion point, it is works like this that truly deserve support – lest every other movie that comes out of the territory looks like another ‘Red Cliff’ wannabe.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Just a Photo Gallery and a Trailer.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio is surprisingly robust when projected onto a 5.1 system, delivering good sense of place with dialogue and action sounds. Visuals are clear and sharp, and colours look dynamic.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: David Frankel
Cast: Meryl Streep, Steve Carell, Tommy Lee Jones, Elisabeth Shue, Jean Smart, Susan Misner, Marin Ireland, Ben Rappaport
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Sexual References and Scenes of Intimacy)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films & InnoForm Media
Official Website:
Opening Day: 13 September 2012
Synopsis: Many years of marriage have left Maeve (Streep) wanting to spice things up and reconnect with her husband. When she hears of a famed relationship guru (Carell) in the town of Great Hope Springs, she must persuade her skeptical husband (Jones) to get on a plane for an intense week of marriage and sex therapy. Getting there was hard enough...now shedding their bedroom hang ups, learning some new moves and rediscovering their youthful spark is when the real adventure begins.
Movie Review:
How can a romance movie appeal to mainstream audiences and still attract art house audiences to the cinema in equal numbers? It’s a tricky terrain that studios have been trying to traipse across for the longest time. One side wants a fairy tale washed up in comedy or, as they say, a defy-all-odds tale in which the nerd somehow gets the hottest girl in town. The other demands a more honest portrait of relationships or, so the story goes, a realistic retelling of the joys and pains of love where emotions are laid bare to dry. Here at last is a movie scientifically flavoured to appeal to both tastes, ticking off all those factors dutifully. Hope Springs isn’t perfect by any means, but then few can claim to be as brilliant as it is.
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play Kay and Arnold, a couple whose 31 years of marriage has been sluiced down to a barren routine of silent meals and basic pleasantries. They don’t sleep in the same room or even touch each other anymore, and they give each other cable TV subscriptions on their anniversary. Arnold is slavishly devoted to nightly broadcasts of golf training videos, often dozing off in the armchair, but an embittered Kay is aware enough of the diminishing romance to book a month’s worth of intensive marriage counselling with famed therapist Dr. Feld (Steve Carell). Can counselling really help the couple rediscover the spark in their marriage?
That’s the question that Hope Springs attempts to answer throughout a large part of its duration. Carell, an excellent method actor who has built a career out of playing batty characters over the past decade, pulls off the thorny task of playing the amenable Dr. Feld with a surprisingly controlled performance, remaining calm and sympathetic even as the couple becomes increasingly exasperated with each other. The husband – grumpy, stubborn and insecure – is, of course, played convincingly by Jones while Streep delivers a study in contrast with much aplomb, furnishing a clearly distraught Kay with glimpses of glamour through every hand gesture and facial expression.
Crucially, these outstanding achievements of the leads help Hope Springs become something more special than a dull monologue on the 101 tips of marriage; it’s a genuinely earnest portrayal of the scariness and loneliness of a life inside a failing marriage. Whether it’s an uneasy Kay running her fingers carefully across Arnold’s body for one of Dr. Feld’s ‘intimacy exercises’, or a blustering Arnold embarrassing Kay in a restaurant, or Dr. Feld conveying an unflinching wisdom in the presence of a flustered Kay, the leads handle their roles with a competence that allows the movie to fully exploit the raw emotions streaming between the characters. For this reason, it’s safer to avoid the movie if your marriage or relationship is on a short fuse.
That said, Hope Springs does attempt to break away from its allegorical visions for light-hearted moments once in a while. Dr. Feld sends Kay on a mission to purchase a self-help sex book from the local bookstore after Kay reveals her stress, resulting in a hilariously awkward stand-off between Kay and the bookstore owner when she asks him to help her find the book. A banana also gets to stand in for the male reproductive organ as Kay practices her moves. It’s all very basic stuff and unlikely to ruffle as many feathers as the more serious portions of the movie do. Which isn’t bad, but Hope Springs could certainly have done without the services of the comedy, especially if the aim of the movie is to maintain a more consistent and immersive tone.
With mainstream audiences suspiciously less enthusiastic about the experiences of a pair of senior citizens in a relationship than they are about the fiery sexual adventures of a pair of prepubescent teenagers, Hope Springs is like a jolt from the sky. With all three of its leads coming in at 50 years of age and above, asking for the movie’s success with mainstream audiences is hardly easy. Yet Hope Springs deserves notice not only because it’s actually one of the rare movies tailored for the young and the old, mainstream audiences and art house audiences, but also because its existence is already mystifying. The movie isn’t perfect, but I’ll take what I can get.
Movie Rating:
(The senior citizen version of romantic comedy is more poignant and funnier than it ever sounds on paper. It has its flaws, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying this rare occasion!)
Review by Loh Yong Jian
Genre: Crime/Mystery/Drama
Director: Rob Cohen
Cast: Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Rachel Nichols, Jean Reno, Rachel Nichols, Giancarlo Esposito, John C. McGinley, Cicely Tyson, Chad Lindberg, Carmen Ejogo
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: NC16 (Violence and Sexual Scene)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: -
Opening Day: 29 November 2012
Synopsis: After Washington DC detective Alex Cross is told that a family member has been murdered, he vows to track down the killer. He soon discovers that she was not his first victim and that things are not what they seem.
Movie Review:
‘Alex Cross’ was supposed to do two things – one, relaunch the film franchise of the popular series of detective novels by James Patterson that had the titular character as the protagonist; and two, re-establish Tyler Perry as a serious dramatic actor outside of his ‘Madea’ films. By the end of director Rob Cohen’s film however, this cop thriller would probably have done neither – though the fault is neither Perry’s nor the source novel ‘Cross’ on which the movie is only purportedly based.
First things first, you probably should know why the pudgy yet imposingly scaled Perry got the leading role – after all, he doesn’t possess the stateliness of say Morgan Freeman (who played the last screen incarnation of the Alex Cross character in ‘Along Came A Spider’ and ‘Kiss the Girls’) nor the athleticism of probably half the African-American actors out there. But the stage actor known for his plays proved over the last five years that he is easily one of the few African-American actors who can open a film on his own – hence the decision for him to headline this franchise reboot.
Out of his signature drag character’s wig and sensible shoes, Perry acquits himself reasonably well enough as the forensic psychologist cum homicide detective. Earnest and likeable, he wins you over enough during the sweet emotional scenes at the beginning with his wife Maria (Carmen Ejojo), righteous mother ‘Nana’ (Cicely Tyson) and two young kids to fill you with ire when Maria is killed. His subsequent transformation into a ‘cop in a rage’ is also surprisingly convincing – and even manages to prove himself in the few scenes his character has to exercise his brawn rather than his brains.
Pity then that his screenwriters Marc Moss and Kerry Williamson do him a disservice by taking too much creative liberties with Patterson’s story, turning a straight-up cop story into a revenge melodrama. So while the villain is still a sadistic killer that goes occasionally by the name of ‘The Butcher’, he is more often known as Picasso (played by Matthew Fox of ‘Lost’), a rogue ex-military type that now works as an assassin for hire and has an odd penchant for leaving clues in the form of charcoal drawings on paper. The problem isn’t so much how Picasso has been made to be, but in the intertwining of Cross’ and Picasso’s characters.
Midway through the movie, Picasso gets pissed at Cross’ and his partner Tommy Kane’s (Edward Burns) interference, so he assassinates Maria and tortures Tommy’s girlfriend Alison (Rachel Nichols) to death. That is supposed to mark a turning point for the story, where both Cross and Kane put aside their badges and pursue Picasso in vengeful vigilante style. Notwithstanding that Cross was never meant to be the kind of hero that saws off a shotgun and goes after Picasso outside the law, what becomes of Cross is too mild as a cop on fire and yet too impulsive to be the Cross whom fans of the books have come to love.
In contrast to Cross’ character dilemma, Picasso is much more intriguingly sketched out – though the lack of details of his past is a frustrating omission. With feral intensity, the physically transformed Fox, complete with shaved head and sinewy physique, invests much more in his character than the script does, and is always riveting to watch. Faint-hearted viewers should take note that the murders do get surprisingly grisly, especially when coupled with the images of torture. Perry’s warm demeanour and Fox’s cold-hearted nature complement each other perfectly – and one only hoped that their cat and mouse game could be more exciting.
A veteran of action movies like ‘Fast and Furious’ and ‘xXx’, Cohen does his movie no favours by shooting the climax in close-ups with shakycam, so much so that what thrills which could be had are significantly diminished. More successful is an earlier sequence that sees Picasso staging an assassination attempt atop a commuter train, harking back to the type of big action that Cohen is probably more comfortable with. Too much dialogue has obviously dulled the man, and the scenes with exposition move too languidly that they undercut the tension that is meant to fill the movie.
Yet despite its numerous flaws, not all is lost – there is still a modicum of excitement generated from the cop-killer hunt; both Perry and Fox are solid in their respective roles; and the action in parts is moderately rousing. Still this prequel to Cross’ D.C. days – hence the Detroit locale in which the movie is based – needs to be more in order to launch a new Alex Cross franchise or for that matter a Tyler Perry one. As it is, it ain’t nearly smart nor intriguing enough to be both – but you’d probably already guessed as much from a movie that uses as cheesy a tagline as ‘don’t ever cross Alex Cross’.
Movie Rating:
(Not quite the franchise starter it is meant to be, this Alex Cross reboot is just serviceable despite a good turn by Tyler Perry and an even more memorable villainous performance by Matthew Fox)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton and Whoopi Goldberg head up an all-star cast in a vibrant world where friends and strangers dream, fear, cry, and laugh out loud in an attempt to find their trueselves. Adapted by writer/director Tyler Perry from Ntozake Shange's acclaimed choreopoem, this gripping film paints an unforgettable portrait of what it means to be a woman of color in the modern world.
MOVIE REVIEW:
The film is a reflection of the eponymous certain summer every young teenager experiences. By setting this story of discovery - of parental flaws and infidelities as well as the coming into flower sexually - in the 1980s, before cellphones and emotional isolation crept into our lives, and by placing it in the idyllic setting of the exotic Brazilian seaside, writer/director Heitor Dhalia avoids the gimmicks and interruptions upon which we all new rely and instead allows the story to unfold as a personal journey as seen form the eyes of a fourteen-year old youth. It is a quite miracle of a film.
Famous author Matthias (Vincent Cassel) has brought his family from São Paulofor a summer vacation: his beautiful, alcoholic, frustrated wife Clarice (Débora Bloch), his young son Antônio (Max Huzar), his middle daughter Fernanda (Izadora Armelin), and his fourteen- year-old daughter Filipa (Laura Neiva). The interaction with Matthias and his children is warm and sincere but there seems to be a stress between Matthias and Clarice.
The children spend their days at the beach where Filipa begins to recognize the onset of her coming of age when young Artur (Daniel Passi) comes on to her. Filipa is anxious about the onset of femininity and wonders about the perceived friction between her parents. She discovers evidence of her father's affair with an American tourist Ângela (Camilla Belle) living at the beach and spies on the couple in their clandestine meetings. In response she pays more attention to Artur and to a handsome bartender (Cauã Reymond) whom she has discovered having an assignation with Ângela.
When Matthias and Clarice finally confront their children about the real reason for the summer vacation from São Paulo and their intention to separate, Filipa realizes that her parents' marriage is a mutual sham and finds her own way of escaping the realities she has discovered: she is left adrift on the sea of Life and must find her own choices of how to face her femininity, her concepts of relationships, and fragility of fidelity.
In Heitor Dhalia sure hands this film is a tender pleasure to watch: making the focus of the story center on the relationship between Mathias and his daughter Filipa he allows us to understand the various aspects of the fragmenting family. None of this could happen were it not for the meticulously perfect performances by the entire cast - with special emphasis on Vincent Cassel and Laura Neiva and Débora Bloch.
The cinematography by Ricardo Della Rosa sensitively uses the water supporting bodies as a visual metaphor, from above and from below the surface just as the film reveals the obvious and occult aspects of a failing marriage.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Visual and audio aspects are serviceable in this no-frills DVD.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by John Li
SYNOPSIS: Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton and Whoopi Goldberg head up an all-star cast in a vibrant world where friends and strangers dream, fear, cry, and laugh out loud in an attempt to find their trueselves. Adapted by writer/director Tyler Perry from Ntozake Shange's acclaimed choreopoem, this gripping film paints an unforgettable portrait of what it means to be a woman of color in the modern world.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Though he’s somewhat of a box-office attraction in the United States, Tyler Perry isn’t quite known, if at all, in this part of the world- primarily because his movies are built around and by extension appeal largely to African-Americans. For this reason, ‘For Colored Girls’- the big-screen adaptation of Ntozake Shange's Tony-nominated play- should be right up his alley, seeing as how it deals with a whole host of issues that modern-day black women are facing.
Unfortunately, this attempt at transiting into more mature territory from his usual ‘Madea-an’ comedies is an utter misfire on too many counts, and would have been unwatchable were it not for the stunning performances from the ensemble cast. Whether borne out of arrogance or ignorance, Perry’s ambitions and consequent determination for aiming far and above his filmmaking abilities are admirable, but the end product bears witness of how he is clearly out of his depth.
To be sure, Shange's theatrical poem was not going to lend itself easily to a big-screen treatment. There is neither a straightforward plot nor defined characters in it- rather, the self-dubbed ‘choreopoem’ consists of some 20 poems brought to life by choreographed movement and music, with seven women identified only by the colours of their dresses reciting the racially-charged issues of domestic abuse, rape and abortion.
In his adaptation, Perry has taken these seven ladies, added two, and then given them each a sob story. All but one live in the same grimy tenement apartment building in Harlem, including the sexually promiscuous Tangie (Thandie Newton), her accidentally pregnant younger sister Nyla (Tessa Thompson), their Bible-toting mother Alice (Whoopi Goldberg), a physically abused wife and mother of two kids Crystal (Kimberly Elise), and a dancer Yasmine (Anika Nola Rose) raped by someone she thought of as a close friend.
There’s nothing trivial about what these women are going through, and we are sure that there are real women who are going through similarly depressing circumstances or made to endure similar fates as the characters in Perry’s movie. Nonetheless, Perry does his characters nor his movie any favours by taking a sledgehammer to every emotional scene in the movie. So heavy-handed and melodramatic is his approach that he drains all life out of these scenes, and the effect is akin to hanging a lead weight around his characters as well as his audience.
Worse still, he clumsily tries to integrate Shange’s elaborate emotionally-charged prose into his own naturalistically-written dialogue. The effect is jarring to say the least, when the various characters take turns at bursting inexplicably into allegories that fit in theatre but are completely out-of-place in a film. Most of these interludes also take place with scenes that cut across several characters united in agony or sorrow by their own unique situation, but the editing between the disparate scenes is unwieldy and pronounced to say the least.
The greater tragedy here is the committed performances of his excellently assembled cast. Frequent collaborator Janet Jackson gives a subtle performance as a high-powered magazine executive faced with a crumbling marriage and an awakening to the tragedies of her fellow racial compatriots. Lesser-known actors Elise and Rose are surprisingly good, holding their own with nuanced portrayals of their characters’ horrific circumstances against Perry’s mawkish tendencies.
Pity then that the film doesn’t live up to its potential despite the grade-A acting from some of the finest African-American actresses in Hollywood today. Yes, Perry deserves credit for championing Shange’s play to the big screen, but his over-estimation of his own abilities shows up aplenty, leaving this adaptation a leaden exercise in melodrama. And as a result of his missteps, Perry also misses the opportunity to allow the themes and issues portrayed in Shange’s play to reach out to a wider and broader audience; instead, clumsy as it is, this is yet another Perry movie likely to appeal to his usual demographic- for the lack of a better word, for coloured audiences only.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The Dolby Digital 2.0 audio reproduces the dialogues clearly, which is all that matters for this talky drama. Visuals are ok for a DVD release, but strangely, the movie has been split into two separate tracks at the halfway mark, so don’t be surprised if there’s a slight delay between tracks.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: Ryan Gosling stars a Los Angeles wheelman for hire, stunt driving for movie productions by day and steering getaway vehicles for armed heists by night. Though a loner by nature, Driver can't help falling in love with his beautiful neighbor Irene, a vulnerable young mother dragged into a dangerous underworld by the return of her ex-convict husband Standard. After a heist intended to pay off Standard's protection money spins unpredictably out of control, Driver finds himself driving defense for the girl he loves, tailgated by a syndicate of deadly serious criminals. But when he realizes that the gangsters are after more than the bag of cash in his trunk - that they're coming straight for Irene and her son - Driver is forced to shift gears and go on offense.
MOVIE REVIEW:
“Drive” happens to be one of the most talked about and critically-acclaimed movies of 2011. The whole effort screams arthouse in every shot, in every story turn and the deliberate pacing might turn some away thinking this is in the vein of “Fast & Furious”.
The dashing Ryan Gosling plays a mechanic and part-time Hollywood stuntman by day and a getawaway driver by night. Just give him a time and a place and he gives you a five minute window to do whatever you want. He is a mysterious character, a loner who doesn’t talk much and he works for an old-timer, Shannon (Bryan Cranston) at his garage. He doesn’t even have a proper name; he is just plainly addressed as “Driver”. By falling in love with his neighbour, Irene (Carey Mulligan) who is married to an ex-convict, Standard (Oscar Isaac), Driver finds himself dragged into a violent heist with the mob hot on his heels.
Thanks to cult director Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson) who brought much style to an otherwise pedestrian plotting, “Drive” is full of European arthouse mood including a girlie pink font and the electronic-pop soundtrack is ultra-engaging. The lensing by Newton Thomas Nigel reminds one of a Wong Kar Wai movie and that alone, differs itself from a typical Hollywood big-budgeted action flick.
The few car chases are tastefully choreographed demonstrating the skills of Driver yet never flashy or gravity-defined. The violence starts to get unsettling towards the last act with Driver bursting into anger to avenge those who came after Irene and her son. Prepare for heads being blown, stepped on, bloods spurting and more though Refn never let things develop into some cheap B-grade schlock horror.
Much of the scenes between Driver and Irene linger on without much dialog, the romance is subtly done and the highlight of the movie is one that took place in an elevator where Driver kisses Irene and gracefully turns his back to his assassin disturbingly banging his head against the elevator. Gosling is wonderful as the lead character while Albert Brooks (better known to this side of the world as the voice of Marlin in “Finding Nemo”) plays against type here as a mobster, Bernie.
Exhibiting both artful and commercial values, one of the glaring downsides of “Driver” is the lack of backstories and information on the various characters. It’s frustrating to the casual viewers with the director’s vague approaches to the material but you can’t deny it’s stylishly production values and taut scripting that wastes no time in getting the points across.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Sound and visual is reasonable for a small TV setup.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
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