Step Brothers

Two single parents with sons the same age experience love at first sight. They tie the knot and merge the two households into one. The two kids are forced to share a bedroom and their toys, and natually have trouble accepting the new parents/rules/arrangements. As the story develops, however, they make a 180 from archenemies to best friends. All in all, a fool-proof plot to a Walt Disney summer flick. The only quirk is that the kids are Will Ferrell and John C Reilly.

If you think 14-year-old boys were bad, try watching a couple of 40-year-olds act 14 and take obnoxiousness to a whole new level. You really have to be sick in the head to find some of these things funny (spoilers alert):

• One of the first things they discovered they had in common: favorite non-pornographic magazine to masturbate to.
• Ferrell ignores Reilly's warning about touching his sacred drumset, chips one of the drumsticks, denies it, then goes on to vow and make good his promise to put his nutsack on the drumset. As much of Will Ferrell's ass I've seen on SNL and Old School prior to this, I was NOT prepared to see nutsack in this movie, rubber or otherwise.
• They pass by an elementary school and not only get bullied and beaten up by the kids on the playground, but were also forced to lick white dog poop off the ground.
• They go to a job interview together, during which Reilly lets out the longest streak of fart. The interviewer tastes it on his tongue and asks "Is that onion? Onion and ketchup..."
• Ferrell's brother played by Adam Scott leads his model WASP family of four to sing "Sweet Child of Mine" in perfect harmony in the car.
• Scott provokes Reilly and gets sucker punched in the face and falls off the treehouse. Scott's wife played by Kathryn Hahn gets aroused by Reilly's gutsy endeavor and finds the opportunity to hump him in the man's bathroom, then goes on to take a leak at the urinal with one leg up on the wall.

The worst movies deserve a happy ending. The stepbrothers go on to form their own music group, with Reilly on drums and Ferrell in vocals with his "angelic voice like a combination of Fergie and Jesus".

Shut Up Already

Kudos to the Golden Horse Awards committee for the generally convincing results this year (Aaron Kwok finally didn’t win best actor and, despite all the hype, Tang Wei didn’t get anymore than best new actor). Then again, the climax of the event was, sadly, marked by the few tricks of Japanese street magician Cyril, which have been seen millions of times on YouTube but still proved to be enough to wow the crowd.

I can’t recall ever having seen the live broadcast of Taiwan’s Oscars on TV before this past Saturday. But I pray that the next time I see it, whichever broadcaster airing it would get it right. I’d like to know which dumbass at aTV thought it was okay to have viewers switch back and forth between its two channels to watch what one could only hope to be a bona fide live coverage with minimal interruption; and which other dumbass thought it was a good idea to have two unattractive “hosts” narrate the Mandarin award show in Cantonese by reading of uninspiring tidbits from cue cards and blocking out what witty comments the Taiwanese emcees had to make.

Since when do award shows need narrating? It’s not like viewers are getting immediate interpretation of what was being said by the emcees, presenters or winners. When nominations are being announced, the narrators are merely reading the names of nominees and films that are already appearing on the screen in Traditional Chinese characters.

The funny thing is, when the live broadcast was aired on aTV World, viewers with Nicam facilities could choose between Mandarin and English narration. Thank God the Mandarin narrator kept her mouth shut for most of that hour and a half. That makes one person at aTV who understands the stupidity of narrating a Mandarin show in Mandarin.

It seems to me that aTV will never be able to pull off “grand”. For something as prestigious as the Golden Horse Awards, they decided to have Patricia Liu and Vinci Wong “host” the live broadcast, neither of whom showing any improvement from their days as disenchanted TVB staff. To go with the cheap cardboard backdrop, Liu wore what looked like a Statue of Liberty costume made from the backside of grandma’s old drapes.

My guess is that an award show of this scale brings aTV more viewer numbers than any of its regular scheduled programs could ever hope for. Yet aTV’s regular scheduled programs are apparently too important to be preempted to make way for an uninterrupted live coverage. The fanciest logo change can’t fix what stupid decisions like this break.

***

On a different note, does anyone else think Tang Wei’s become a big fake? She’s given nothing but model answers to every question in every interview I have seen her in since Lust, Caution was released. You don’t have to be charismatic to be a good actor, but she tries so hard to speak with her eyes every time she’s in the presence of a camera it’s just uncomfortable to watch. When Lust, Caution won best film and the cast was invited to accept the award on stage, Tang Wei said, with tears rolling down her face mid-way, that she made a wish on her birthday that they (the cast and crew) would remain like a family forever.

And that makes her the best actor of the night.

Lust, Caution

Forget the Chinese Communist Party Congress, or the infamous haircut Anson Chan ditched a democracy rally to get. Besides that 30,000 mark the Hang Sang index wouldn't stop flirting with, Tony Leung's balls are the talk of the town.

I've always liked Tony Leung, not just for his looks, but because he's one of the very few in Hong Kong who manages (in most films anyway) to convince me to really see him as the character he's playing and not the actor who's trying so hard to do his job well.

Seven years ago, I took a summer job in Central. On my way back to the office from lunch one day, I stopped in front of The Galleria waiting to cross the street. The traffic was always a little congested on Ice House Street, and thank God that it was. There, in front of me a black Mercedes came to a stop. The window was rolled down on the left side of the back seat. Looking out the window, or staring at the blank while facing out rather, was Tony Leung. For a few seconds, just until traffic moved again, I was no more than two feet away from Tony Leung, whose eyes, without even trying, were more mesmerizing than I've ever seen them again.

So despite what J thinks, I didn't watch Lust, Caution to see Tony Leung's balls. It's his eyes that are like no others'.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

On my Rome-to-Hong Kong flight, I watched the "Straight Guy in a Gay World" episode of 30 Days, where they sent homophobic Ryan to San Francisco's rainbow village—the Castro District.

That the Christian conservative's homophobia would somewhat subside by the end of his stay was expected. What amazed me was that as accepting of gay people as he'd become by the end of the 30 days, he held on to his conviction that homosexuality is a sin and a choice.

It's always upsetting to see protestors with signs and slogans condemning homosexuality as a monstrous sin; the words they use convey so much hatred that it makes anyone question just how much of Jesus' preaching they really understood. It's quite another level of frustration to see kids as young as six or seven participating in these rallies. You know their "beliefs" are spoon-fed to them by ignorant parents.

Teaching children to hate—that's a monstrous sin.

As much as I enjoy watching Adam Sandler and Kevin James, I can't say I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was anything more than a cheesy good laugh. But I do appreciate such a comedy touching on the gay rights subject matter, hence giving an introductory lesson to their mainstream audience who could otherwise be uninformed.

I wish guys like J who've had little to none encounter with gays could have something more profound than an Adam Sandler flick, perhaps a similar experience as Ryan's, through which to learn once and for all that aside from homosexuality, gays and lesbians look for the same things in love and life as the next straight person.

And to the many a straight guy who thinks he's once been come on to by a gay guy, please. Just because a man across the bar so much as looked at you, it doesn’t mean he's gay, and it certainly doesn't mean he wants to hump you.

Seriously

Finished season 3 of Grey’s Anatomy this past weekend. Sadly, I think this is where I’ll stop. I was hooked on the show for the doctors' passion for saving lives and the pretend doctors' eagerness to learn (I’ve had enough first-hand experience to say that interns are NOT real doctors). I remember watching some of the first episodes and wishing I worked with people like that. But having become the hit series it is, the producers just had to throw in the complicated love/lust relationships and pollute what sheer adrenaline the show used to bring. So it’s goodbye to the Nazi and onto the next TV series.

I’m hoping to get answers to at least one of these questions:

1. How does one avoid becoming a DVD junkie in a place such as Hong Kong where there’s no good TV to watch and even less good bad TV?

2. What’s a good series to watch after Grey’s Anatomy?

TV Guide

The first week of the newest season of American Idol proved to be the simple no-thinking-required entertainment it set out to deliver. If only Starworld hadn’t been pulling the 12-hour marathon of non-stop reruns everyday, I might actually want to see more of it.

It would seem I'm already a blessed one to get "free" "cable" TV. But with a measly 17 channels in total to choose from, I find myself still stuck attacking the remote control with no good reason to stop.

My choices include:

• Three American news channels featuring very loud anchors making supposedly witty comments at each other in between news pieces that too often have to do with their supposedly not retarded president;
• Two Chinese movie channels that have been rotating between the same handful of Steven Chow movies from the last decade morning and night since 1999;
• An English movie channel that would once every two months highlight a worthy old film like Jumangi, which will then be shown four more times before they find the next good film that's old enough to fit their tiny budget;
• The four local channels 95% of Hong Kong is watching everyday, featuring either poorly done local productions or ratings boosters purchased from either Japan, South Korea or Taiwan, otherwise from ABC, CBS or BBC;
• Starworld, who has sadly stopped showing Friends and The Simpsons but fortunately continues to show Seinfeld everyday, though in repulsive picture quality; plus a whole bunch of mediocre series and sitcoms I can never find the patience to sit through;
• ESPN, in Chinese! Having to figure out which long string of meaningless Chinese words refers to which NBA player is very exhausting;
• National Geographic, but there's only so many devastating moments of wild animals getting devoured on or men living through excruciating pain from life-threatening injuries captured on film I could bare to watch a day. Really. Think again.

Paris Je T'aime

Minus the segment on Frodo meets Dracula, Paris Je T'aime was nothing short of charming. Though I must say Christopher Doyle's work was rather embarrassing. His representation of—by the looks of the happenings—a drugged China Town consisting of women and monks left me très très puzzled. He relied too much on his fancy camerawork and completely failed to take advantage of the beauty of the city on which the whole film is based. The segment could've been shot in Sheung Wan for all I know. And as much as I appreciate Faye Wong's music, it just did not go with the rest of whatever the hell it was that went on in those five dreadful minutes. Seems like Doyle's still entangled in the Wong Kar Wai's doodle.

But don't get me wrong though, I think this film is very much worth watching, dare I say even more so than A Night in Paris. Overall, the two hours of love tales in the city of lights was heart-warming. Excluding the aforementioned, even the bad parts were good, and even the melancholy and bitterness portrayed were pleasant. A background in the French language is not necessary to enjoy Paris Je T'aime, except maybe to grasp why Margo Martindale's accent was funny. In fact, the sans-subtitles segment with Steve Buscemi proved to be one of the best by putting the non-French audience right in the perspective of the apprehensive tourist he plays, no less.

Anchors, Hosts, etc

Is it just me or do both Pearl and ATV need to reconsider who they put in front of the camera? News on Pearl anchored by Denise Tom reminds me of highschool English class, where students would take turn reading out loud from novels. Being literate / having a knack for news / looking good doesn't mean having the eye-lip coordination to read out loud. She focuses so hard on not stumbling she ends up stumbling and sounding robotic. The only smile cracked out of her pretty face is at the precise moment she lets out that sigh of relief as the newscast comes to an end. ATV news with Edna Tse is more pleasant; she throws in humanistic intonation and facial expressions and all. But her somewhere-between-Brit-and-Aussie-plus-unmistakable-Canto accent is still less than natural. Whatever it takes to get CCTV-quality female anchors, apparently neither major Hong Kong television broadcasters think is worthy.

Of the handful of locally produced English programs, Pearl's Dolce Vita got my attention from early on. Lifestyle in Hong Kong, especially expensive lifestyle in Hong Kong, is one of the topics that seem to only appear in magazines nobody in the right mind would pay to read. As much as the content of the program still gets my attention, however, I'm very reluctant to support it. The three program hosts have a very similar manner in presenting the material, which is much like elementary school drama at its worst. Makes me wonder if the restaurants they visit are so bad that they must force such phoney mmm faces for the camera. And the girl they so like to put in control of most parts of the show, the one with the killer body, sadly does not have the face to match it.

I miss good TV.

To be Fair, I was Dead Tired

Never had I fallen asleep in the movie theater, until I saw Miami Vice. It's not like the film was terrible; it just wasn't…good. Kind of like Paris Hilton's debut album I guess. The Miami-based story's about two cops going undercover to crack a multi-gazillion drug deal without a scratch, in the meantime pretending to look hot in expensive suits and sunglasses.

The teaser trailer that played over and over again on MTR platforms was what got me to see this film in the first place, though the "No. 1 in US box office" claim was not as appealing for me as the background music. (Yes, Linkin Park tricked me into this one!) And nowhere on the trailer did it mention what would've been my other reason to watch Miami Vice—Gong Li. Her mesmerizing beauty makes up for most things, but speaking English with a Spanish accent was just too much to ask of her. She must've spent long hours rehearsing her lines for them to have come out that stiff, that poor girl. It's a good thing her eyes can talk.

With Colin Farrell looking too old for his age, Gong Li being too old to play his girl (which made the supposedly hot sex scene that much less convincing), and Jamie Foxx just not doing much, the two-and-a-half-hour film was as mind numbing as it was ass numbing. I must have been asleep for some 20 minutes, yet I still saw more than I cared to.

Match Point

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward and you win…or maybe it doesn't, and you lose."

I was never afraid to admit how great a part chance plays in life. But I've also long accepted that luck is simply lacking in mine. I was never handed anything without hard work. And all the pulling through I've done, I didn't do it with luck. It was only recently that I realized how much luck I actually have. Apparently, I only never noticed it because instead of small doses throughout, my luck had been accumulating all this time until it's presented to me in a big chunk.

Match Point is a story of love vs. lust; all vs. nothing; and truth vs. deception. The match point is not when attraction turns into obsession, but when this obsession conflicts with ambition.

The way Jonathan Rhys Meyers played the greedy and lustful Chris Wilton reminded me of Dan in Closer. His seeming devotion to Chloe and his desire for Nola—two women of contrasting qualities, very much mirrored Dan's feelings for Alice and Anna. Here's how Rhys Meyers summed up his purposeful and callous character: "He's like every man out there. Given the right situation, any man would be tempted to cheat on his wife or girlfriend if the woman of his dreams walked in. Most guys wouldn't think twice about it; they would just go and then suffer the consequences. You know if you go to bed with her, you're in for a world of pain and guilt and lying…and eventually, you'll be found out. You can't get away with it; at some point, it's going to come back and bite you in the ass. But you do it anyway, because your animal instinct wants what it wants. It's like man's morality versus man's nature."

I didn't think Lost in Translation was all that. But Scarlett Johansson managed to make a mark in the role of Nola Rice, whose sensuality is only a performance to mask her insecurity. And her neurosis is ultimately uncovered by her fixation on the wrong man. "There is a certain desperation in a person who is unable to live in the moment, but is always wanting more. When you're in that kind of situation and unsatisfied with your life, it can be a dangerous place to be, mentally and emotionally."

The irony is that despite all the complications between Chris and Nola, the presumed victim Chloe Hewett remains unharmed. Being oblivious is what kept her confident and happy. Woody described it as the arrogance of class. "Nothing has ever gone wrong in her life, so she doesn't expect it ever will." In fact, the entire Hewett family was untouched by the tragic events.

A side note: It took some time to adapt to a Woody Allen film being set in London with a cast that spoke a whole different set of slangs with heavy accents. But the newly added Chinese subtitles to HKIFF films were just impossible. I basically missed all the good quotes at the climax of the film because the audience wouldn't stop whoaing and wowing and applauding at what they read. And the whole time I was making a conscious effort to not read the subtitles in order to truly appreciate the film as all Woody Allen films are meant to be appreciated—for the brilliantly written dialog. HKIFF has clearly made extra efforts to draw in a local audience this year, making it that much less appealing for the rest of us.

If You Ask Me...

Today's the big night. (Please excuse the lag, as there's 16 hours' time difference between Hong Kong and the Kodak Theater.) Fortunately, I will get to see the primetime telecast of the Academy Awards tonight. Till then, must make conscious effort to avoid seeing any Oscar updates on the net.

Managed to see Munich, Brokeback Mountain and Capote over the past week. And thought they were okay, good and great respectively. If Munich is given all the attention because it's based on actual events, and Brokeback Mountain is worth all the hype because of its controversial theme, then Capote really should've gotten more nominations because it's all of the above. Philip Seymour Hoffman played a much more convincing arrogant gay (very Elton John) than Heath Ledger played the hesitant closet gay (very George W Bush).

A look into my crystal ball tells me the Oscar goes to:

Performance by an actor in a leading role: Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Capote"
Performance by an actor in a supporting role: Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain"
Performance by an actress in a leading role: Felicity Huffman in "Transamerica"
Performance by an actress in a supporting role: Michelle Williams in "Brokeback Mountain"
Achievement in directing: "Brokeback Mountain" Ang Lee
Best motion picture of the year: "Brokeback Mountain"
Adapted screenplay: "Brokeback Mountain"
Best animated feature film of the year: "Howl's Moving Castle" by Hayao Miyazaki
Original screenplay: "Match Point" written by Woody Allen

And the Oscar Goes to

Gotta admit, I wasn't really interested by the idea of a film about gay cowboys, no matter how cute they look. But with eight nominations, there's no way I could not watch Brokeback Mountain before Oscar night. All the hype has me believe that this film is Ang Lee's sincerest form of comeback since the green giant tragedy known as Hulk. From what I heard, there's plenty of superb acting to watch for in Brokeback. If the panel of judges doesn't deprive these new actors of recognition just because they're new, I say the film could very well land six of its eight nominations, including best directing, best motion picture, and best screenplay.
I also can't wait to see Munich, Transamerica, Match Point, and Crash (not sure if the latter three would actually makes their way to Hong Kong cinemas).

Perhaps, Love didn't make the foreign language film nomination. No surprise there. A musical by a successful Hong Kong director called for great expectations. He got the city's best singer/actor Jacky Cheung, one of our motherland's best actresses Zhou Xun, the world's hottest Asian man Takeshi Kaneshiro, and an intriguing storyline. He had all the elements to make it work, But it just didn't work. The final product wasn't bad in any way, it just wasn't good enough. Even I expected more from Peter Chan.

Ziyi Zhang (the "westernized" name Zhang Ziyi now goes by as a step into Hollywood) didn't make the best actress nomination. No surprise there either. She simply wasn't put to good use in her role, other than by looking pretty. (For what she's capable of as an actor, please refer to 2046.) The major elements that made up Memoirs of a Geisha are outstanding in their own rights. Best-selling novel, director of Chicago, kickass actresses Zhang and Gong Li, Japanese setting that offers endless possibilities for art direction and costumes (which I say would probably bring in a win for either art direction or cinematography). Yet put together, the equation was a failure. The film was beautiful, and beautiful was all it was. I really hope the Japanese would make their own version of Memoirs--with Japanese cast, Japanese dialog, and filmed in Japan.

March 5...

On Other Matters - the explanation

Stating the obvious:

Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle was nominated for 16 categories in the Hong Kong Film Awards earlier this year and nailed six of them, despite its lack of a credible plot and only passable acting, because:

1. Though the year’s not over yet, it’s pretty damn clear that it holds the record for the year’s box office. It’s also safe to say that it created one of the few glimpses of something remotely close to a high point in our film industry for years to come;

2. This is a Sony Picture Classics film, and has been released in numerous major cities worldwide throughout the year. It was clear from day one that having “Best Film—Hong Kong Film Awards 2005” in large print on the movie poster would've been the single driving force behind the possibility of a US$100 million gross income;

3. Hong Kongers literally watched Chow grow up from when he first started as an extra at TVB some 20 years ago. And he has made many very memorable comedies over the years, for which he’s been crowned “Jim Carrey of the East”. It will take many more mediocre films before we stop being proud of him;

4. Kung Fu Hustle being mentioned in the same breath as Wong Kar Wai's 2046 is nowhere near as baffling as any one of the three other nominees for best film being mentioned in the same breath as the word “best”. Chow beat Wong to the pulp because while they may spend similar amounts in production, our city’s dying film industry can’t wait another five years for the next box office generator. And let’s face it, the once prestigious ceremony is but child’s play in the eyes of Wong, who’s long moved on to big-boy international film festivals.

The thing is:

1. Kung Fu Hustle may not have been a brilliant film, but the fact that something created in a dot on the map mushroomed to the extent it did makes it deserving of a whole lot of accolades.

2. A buck-naked emperor is better than no emperor.

3. The Hong Kong film industry cannot rise from the ashes anyhow.

So there you go.

On another note:

Wyman Wong once said he’d rather have people feel bad that he didn’t get an award he deserved than to have people think he wasn’t deserving of an award he received.

I haven't even seen Election yet and I know this year’s Golden Horse Awards left Tony Leung Ka-fai feeling plenty more contented than Aaron Kwok ever will in his entire career as singer and actor combined.

HKAFF

So concludes the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. If I had it my way, I would’ve checked out the schedule earlier and scored tickets to NANA and Survive Style 5+, and the three films that form Park Chan-Wook's trilogy of vengeance would’ve been screened in sequential order so I could’ve seen all three of them instead of none.

Can’t quite complain though. Compared with the HKIFF (archive: April 2005) six months ago, this experience yielded greater enjoyment.

Jump! Boys: I highly recommend this Taiwanese documentary to anyone who’s once been seven years old. As an ex-teacher, I love observing young children (some more than others, I admit). And I was fascinated to see how amazingly these kids coped with the strain of training and the stress of competition and still let their innocence glimmer sans video games or happy meals. Children can do remarkable things on their own if parents would just let them. Sadly, most kids I see here nowadays aren’t able to do much without a domestic helper at the side.

Crying Ladies: Simple black humor, in the absence of a meticulous storyline and exceptional method acting, is almost foolproof. You need not to be a professional mourner, a single mother, or even a Filipino woman for that matter, to be touched by these tears of joy and sorrow, and to identify with these ladies and the reasons behind their wailing, whether it be lost dreams, forbidden love, or helplessness in its simplest form.

Three Times: Three times may just be too much to ask of me. This is the second Hou Hsiao-hsien film I’ve cursed myself for watching. The good news is that the 131 minutes are broken up into three doses. The bad news is that the first dose, with under 30 lines of dialogue, wasn’t strong enough to stir up the audience; the second dose, featuring a poetic love affair depicted in the era of silent films, was so remarkably weak that it drove away part of the audience. Nonetheless, Chang Chen was absolutely delectable.

Now Showing

The bad:

Looking at Jim Jarmusch’s filmography, there isn’t one film I’ve even heard of. But this is a name worth remember, if only to avoid going through another one of the type of dreadful cinema experience this film proved itself to be.

A mysterious letter leads a middle-aged man to go on a voyage reuniting with ex-girlfriends and uncovering the possibility that one of them had a 19-year-old son with him. Under such simple plots, it was up to the characters to shine through. Sadly, none of them did. Each ex-girlfriend had a strong character that was clearly built by writer but not fully portrayed by the actress. It’s debatably part of the character work to make Sharon Stone look like a porn star from the 70s, but the extent to which they had Frances Conroy looking like a senior citizen is puzzling. Tilda Swinton’s performance would’ve been more memorable than Stone’s if her character wasn’t so especially forgettable.

And connecting every encounter with the color pink is juvenile. Reminds me of the kind of symbolism I came up with in grade school English.

The film wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for its pace. Oh my god the pace! I’ve watched and enjoyed my fair share of Wong Kar Wai films in which he’d force-feed whole-minute shots of Tony Leung doing much of nothing at all. Well, Leung is just that much better an actor than Murray, and way more pleasing to the eye.

The best part of the 105 minutes was the music. The smart move would’ve been saving the ticket money and buying the soundtrack instead.

I give Broken Flowers 2 stars.

The better:

The multifaceted Teddy Chan took a break from Jacky Chan action films and presented our city with this no-less-money-making tale about growing up, suffering, forgiveness and more.

Once again, Andy Lau is applauded for his painstaking efforts albeit his debatable talent in acting. His enduring seven-hour makeup sessions at the start of each day of filming and another several hours removing the makeup afterwards brought out one of the themes of this story. His supportive coworkers did everything they could to alleviate what sense of imprisonment he must’ve felt under all the silicone facial molds, but none of them could truly understand what he was going through.

The plot is no newfound concept: A 12-year-old boy embodied in an adult lived through his whole life in four days. Perspectives were forced to change in mere moments; and maintaining innocence becomes the biggest challenge. The moral: time is not a restraint when you use each moment to its fullest. Chan in an interview said: “When you can't forgive, forget.”

Easier said than done, obviously. And what if you can’t forget?

I give Wait 'Til You're Older 3.5 stars

Closer

For those of you who haven't yet seen it, it's about falling in and out of love, and just how brutal that can be. Here's a few memorable lines to sum it up:

"Hello, stranger."

"I love you. I love everything about you that hurts."

"Don't stop loving me. I can see it draining out of you. It’s me, remember?"

"I don't love you anymore. Goodbye."

“Why isn’t love enough?”

Moving closer can be fearsome. For being closer to one thing inevitably means being farther from another. And it seems in the game of "love", when you gain some, you usually lose more. And too many times we wind up thinking "why do we do this to ourselves?" To pour oneself wholeheartedly into a relationship is very Shakespearean. But highschool English taught us that many a Shakespearean romantics die very tragic deaths. In fact, pouring oneself wholeheartedly into anything is a risk too great for the modern heroine.

Tragic enough, this fear continues to be easily justified, time-after-time. And one becomes overprotective of herself.

Mike Nichols tried to portray love as an accident waiting to happen. The problem is, playing safe tends to keep accidents at bay.

Let's Movie!

The 29th HKIFF was a disappointment. With $290 I got tickets for five films. In return I got to watch four films and enjoyed one and a half of them.

A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche de Fiancailles): I had a thing for Amélie and hence Audrey Tautou and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I wouldn’t go as far as saying AVLE was a disappointment, but it just wasn’t what a die-hard Amélie fan would’ve been fully satisfied with. Plus I was tired that day and my eyes were somewhat reluctant to follow the subtitles on the screen. The film is now showing in theaters around the city. The only perk about watching it at the HKIFF two weeks ahead of time was that we caught a glimpse of the director. He, in his broken English, told us nothing about the featured film, but an anecdote about one of the film’s guest stars—Jodi Foster.

Monster: Ticket misplaced, film missed. But again, it’s coming to a theater near me soon enough.

Melinda and Melinda: The brilliance of Woody Allen at what must be one of his bests. I can’t remember how many times I’ve looked back and regretted letting a potentially comical situation take a tragic turn. This film tells us we are the directors of our own lives. From now on I will try to focus on the comical possibilities of potentially tragic situations. As Wallace Shawn says at the end of the film: “Life is short. We shouldn't see it in a pessimistic way, because that doesn't lead anywhere, nor in an exaggeratedly optimistic way. We just got to accept it and enjoy it, because it can end...like that.”

9 Songs: Sex, drugs, Rock & Roll. Michael Winterbottom was accused of making pornography. My observation gave a clear verdict and says he’s guilty as charged. Intercutting bold sex scenes with performances of some of Brit Rock’s biggest names and scenes of Antarctic landscapes was no adequate alibi. But even as pornography 9 Songs is a failure. For me, the single hottest scene in the entire skimpy 65 minutes was Franz Ferdinand on stage performing Jacqueline.

Café Lumière: Japanese film by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. As I can recall, this is the first time I ever considered letting myself fall asleep during a movie.

Fever

I’m scheduled to watch Finding Neverland next week. I can’t wait to lock eyes on the ever-delicious Depp. After kicking myself for catching Pirates of the Caribbean too late last year, this time I’m making a conscious effort to ensure that I would’ve seen what kind of performance my man’s nominated for before he loses the award to Foxx.

If time permits, I will also have watched Ray before the big night. And Sideways, and The Aviator.

God knows when we’ll get Million Dollar Baby on the big screen here. And why isn’t “million dollar” hyphenated? Or was the title actually meant as “It’s a million friggin dollars, baby!”?

Anyway, I’d really like to see Before Sunset win for adapted screenplay.

Numb-Ass Generators

Front-page news on today's Apple Daily told Hong Kongers how poorly our film industry is performing. Once reputed as the Hollywood of the East, Hong Kong is coming to face a train wreck not far ahead in the industry that used to generate HK$600 million a year. This year, only one local film is scheduled to show during the once much-sought-after Christmas slot. Even the upcoming CNY slot has seen nothing more than two low-budget productions so far.

Industry personnel are putting the blame on illegal downloads, saying the global trend has even put a cap on the boom of the sector for pirated videos. Paradoxically, these same personnel have no doubt that the single film scheduled to show in December will achieve favorable box office records.

What's not being said is that while we have more or less resorted to more money-saving and disputably illegal movie experiences, certain Hong Kong-made films have still been doing well in theaters. Take the trilogy of Infernal Affairs for example. There's at least a dozen people I know personally who had watched all three in theaters, some more than once. Wong Kar Wai's 2046, as with any other one of his films, was another full-house generator.

In short, moviegoers have gotten choosier. I know I have. Movie tickets can cost as little as a pack of cigarettes to as much as a week's lunch in this city depending on the cinema chain and location of your choice. I'd usually shell out no less than a pack and a half of cigs each time I go to a cinema, if at least to ensure the popcorn is fresh and the couple sitting behind me isn't putting on a show of their own. In recent years though, I've simply found no reason to spend any money, or time for that matter, on most of our local films—films with no plot, no storyline, and no other cast members than the bunch of Twenty-Something-with-Zero-Talent "artists" which, sadly, happens to be all our entertainment sector has to offer nowadays.

The city that gave rise to bona fide actors like Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Carina Lau and Anthony Wong now cultivates singer-actors who can't sing nor act, most of whom were discovered by modeling agencies for their half-pretty faces, then fitted into target-audience-specific packages and introduced to the market as merchandise. I not only deem watching the performance (if you can call it that) of these TSwZTs a waste of my time, I also believe moviemakers' choice to cast these TSwZTs for their films is a waste of money, and the fact that the film industry is expecting these mind-numbing films to sell is outright insulting to moviegoers and the label for the Hollywood of anything.

Hopefully, film piracy and illegal downloads will continue working together as the sieve that filters out all the crappy movies Hong Kong has to offer, and eventually leave behind only high-quality films that are worth getting numb asses for.

May I Recommend...

Sound: Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand (Brit rock. If you don't like their music, you can at least appreciate their wardrobe by Dior Homme.)

Big Screen: 21 Grams by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (This movie left me feeling like shit coming out of the theater. Yet I couldn't get enough of it and got the DVD.)

Small Screen: Coupling by BBC (I think this is the first BBC show I truly enjoyed.)

DVD: Sex and the City by HBO (now that all six season are avail, there's really no excuse to not watch them.)

Read: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (it's been a while since I'd willingly read a book cover-to-cover. I'm kind of looking forward to a this novel being put on the big screen.)

US Presidential Candidate: Kerry for President by John W. Kerry (Oh, please!)