August Movie Talk

I will only focus on the commerical movies as opposed to the festival screenings. Also, next to each movie is a quick rating (out of 10). Here goes:

1) Control Room (documentary by Jehane Noujaim): 10/10, A+
This is a really good movie. It shows that despite all the negative media coverage that Al Jazeera might be the only remaining democratic media outlet on the planet. There are two sides to every story. But Al Jazeera has tried to show the story by taking the middle path. In doing so it has drawn criticism both from the Arab World and the Western World. A must-see.

2) Secret Window (*ing Johnny Depp): 5/10
If it were not for Johnny Depp, this movie would be an utter waste. It is a decent movie until the last third. What makes it terrible is the predictable ending. That is not the fault of the director though -- the movie was based on an old Stephen King story. But one wishes that a different take was done on a highly predictable conclusion.

3) Breaking News (Dai si gein) by Johnny To: 6/10
Hong Kong's happening director returns with a bang! Breaking News is dull at the start & the end but strongest in the middle, where the director superbly incorporates some of the cat-mouse-mind-games elements from his earlier work, PTU. The movie is about a few gang leaders cornered by the police in an apartment building. The police were humiliated earlier by the gang leaders, so in order to save face, they decide to control the media information and spin the news to their advantage. Each police officer has a camera in their helmet and the police control room gets to decide what to show. For example, a particular chase sequence ends when the gang members safely run into an apartment and explode a gas tank in the hall, thus keeping the police at bay. But the police only decide to show the sequence where the gang members run into the apartment and edit the explosion scene out making it look like the police won. One of the gang members captured the real events via his camera cell phone & decides to upload the information on the web from the apartment. This results in the media accusing the police of lying and escalates the mind games between the police and the gang.
The most interesting sequence of the movie features the gang leaders cooking calmly while the police await outside -- a stylish scene that will surely be copied by Hollywood in the future.

4) Samsara (by Nalin Pan): 10/10
One of the most beautiful movies I have seen this year!! Perfect. It is a long movie but manages to be entertaining throughout and ends on a philosophical note. 'How do you prevent a drop of water from drying up?'. The entire movie essentially focuses on this question. A Buddist monk decides to renounce his religious life for the worldy pleasures of sex and love. But despite getting married, he begins to realize that satisfying one desire, always leads to other desires. The movie highlights his journey but more importantly, it tackles the spiritual question from a woman's point of view as well. It is always men who are willing to get up and leave for the mountains. But what about the women they leave behind? Did anyone ask what happenned to Buddha's wife?

5) Zhou Yu's Train (by Zhou Sun): 4/10
I was so looking forward to this Li Gong flick but was hugely disappointed. The movie moves backward and forward in time, all the time splicing Li Gong's train travels with the poems of her lover. But I lost interest very quickly. Maybe one day I might revisit this one.

6) Maria Full of Grace (Joshua Marston): 6/10
First time director, Joshua Marston, made a splash with this movie. Maria, won the audience award at Sundance and newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival. Yes, the 23 old Catalina has acted wonderfully. But what about the movie? The story is about drug mules who carry pellets in their stomach from Colombia to the USA. The movie takes a realistic approach showing Maria's life in Colombia and how in order to make some quick money, she agrees to become a mule. Anyway, this is sort of the movie the West loves to applaud and admire. But despite good acting and cinematography, the movie is ok.

7) Les Invasions barbares (aka The Barbarian Invasions) by Denys Arcand: 10/10
This is a wonderful movie by the Canadian director Arcand. It is sort of a sequel to the 1986 movie, The Decline of the American Empire. Having not seen the 1986 movie, I really liked Barbarians. A must see.

8) Drunken Master (by Woo-ping Yuen): 8/10
Jackie Chan established himself as a martial arts legend in this 1978 movie. The martial arts movies in this movie are absolutely amazing. One can see how this movie has served as 'inspiration' for a whole array of movies, including the recent Kill Bill.

9) Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (by George Clooney): 5/10
Maybe I was not in the mood, but I really lost interest in this movie after 20 minutes or so. A failed talk show writer gets recruited by the CIA for assignments around the world. Hmmm...