- Army Daze - Hilarious film on what goes on during the Singapore National Service's Basic Military Training. This was a film that was recommended to me countless times by Singaporeans (mostly guys, not surprisingly) ever since I step foot in Melbourne. The only thing that I was a little unhappy about was the character of Kenny and his predicament. I think it's a pretty important one to address but it felt like it was an afterthought and gone in a flash. Despite the film being over 15 years old, I wonder if the problems highlighted here are still relevant today in Singapore, though I'm pretty sure at least one of them are. Wonder why it took so long for me to watch this.
- Brick Lane - One of those novel to silverscreen adaptations. Like all such films I've seen, I've actually never read the novel so I cannot say anything about its faithfulness to the novel. Very good cinematography and very vibrant although it is meant to be a film about the struggle between what you want versus the reality of things. The married couple here seem to resemble a lot like my family at some point in time. Even the husband acts eerily similiar to my dad and how their children act a lot like my sister and I back then. Lots of issues I see in the film, I can see in my family which makes this film quite relevant to me.
- The Usual Suspects - I am a total sucker for good sting-type films. All I need is a well crafted story that has only one but pivotal plot twist and I'm a happy man. This ticks all the right boxes for me. My brain exploded when the film ended and had to take a moment to recompose myself and analyze it again to make sure I understood it correctly. That's the mark of me enjoying such movies like Memento, Saw etc. Must watch.
- Pan's Labyrinth - When this was first released I was put off by the title and bits of pieces of the trailer which felt like it's another Alice In Wonderland type story. Boy was I wrong. It is still a children's story of sorts but waaaaay darker and quite graphic as well (read: don't watch, children. Until you are older). I guess you can think of it as a mix between Princess Diaries and American McGee's Alice. Great stuff.
- Bambi - One of the few Disney animations I haven't watched. Very little dialogue, lots of orchestral pieces and lots of detail. Quite Fantasia-esque in many ways and no doubt very similiar to a lot of the Disney shorts around that time. This has got to be the bottom of the barrel as far as Disney's reputation for giving unreasonable expectations of love. Anthropomorphized wild animals in love. Even wimpy humans like me are jealous. Damn you Disney. Other than that, if you liked old Disney shorts (and I mean pre-50's) or Fantasia, you'd like this as well.
- Dancer in the Dark - There are very few films that evoke strong raw emotion from me other than the "Hmmm. Interesting." and this has now entered those ranks. I draw parallels with an animation that gave me roughly the same emotions which was Grave of the Fireflies. Both portrays an overall sad feeling to the story but in both cases I didn't see it as sad but rather filled with utter frustration and a bit of anger. Both films' main characters are overly protective to the point where it is blindingly painful to watch their impending destruction. Both highlights innocence in very difficult and harsh environments. And in both films I cannot analyze the films until much later because I was filled with the above mentioned frustration and anger at the characters. This, I think, is what all films should be like if plot is to be the centre piece. That a work of fiction should evoke emotion from the characters and not just the airy-fairy sugar-coated emotions like romantic love. Because it keeps it real even though it's just fiction.
- Traffic - Way too similiar to Babel in its story telling with very minor differences. If you've watched one, there's really nothing new in the other generally apart from the different issues each represents. What is worth noting is the film editing. Traffic makes heavy use of colour temperature and tinting to differentiate between different locations (to be more precise, colour temperature changes as a function of lattitude). Their film effects also make the film have a rather noir-ish feel which fits in with Traffic. Not that Babel should have done these things because they didn't need to. Their respective locations already did that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'd still say watch it though it is about as slow as Babel so stay awake. By the way, Michael Douglas in aviator Ray Bans = kick-ass awesome.
- Needing You - Sometimes we all feel like a brainless TVB-ish rom-com (or is it just me?). This ticked all of the requirements and was okay up till the last half an hour or so. There are like some major holes in the plot just so they can get the guy and the girl together. It's like they ran out of steam (or drunk?) and storyboarded the first thing that came to mind. That just sucks. And this was the highest grossing local film that year contending with John Woo's MI2? Really now. Side note: Sammi Cheng is purdy.
July Camp. Part time. First time.
I'm starting to hate the post-uni mode. With all the residency issues and job search and all my other issues simmering over this pot, I feel like a failure. The only thing that will make me feel good is when I can get a permanent residency or a job. For some reason I doubt the former will come to pass. I should be preparing for the worst where all the hard work of studying the Masters goes to waste and back at square one having "squandered" 2 years and thousands of dollars in money that I don't own. That is starting to look very real to me.
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