A Nutshell Review: Hairspray
Teenager Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) has a dream, and that is to join a group of hip teenagers in a dance programme on television called the Corny Collins (James Marsden) Show, especially when she has a crush on the show's heartthrob Link (Zac Efron). But as you know, despite being pleasant, blessed with a good voice and groove, possessing a wonderful never-say-die attitude and positive demeanour, television's all about glamour, and being plump means she's out of place, especially for TV producer Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer) who sees her as a constant thorn undermining her and her engineered-for-success daughter Amber (Brittany Snow).
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/08/hairspray.html
A Nutshell Review: Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp is a horror movie. And the horror is real, not made up, doesn't rely on cheap special effects or tried and tested techniques to make your heart jolt. What's horrific is the systematic brainwashing of children, to have them believe something so abstract, by using devices such as toys, and fear. Children are highly impressionable, and watching the little ones put through a regime of highly charismatic thought processes, and perhaps even empowering them, what you get are little monsters. Angelic faces, but with hearts so demented, they are children no more.
Continues at: http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/08/jesus-camp.html
A Nutshell Review: Contract Lover
Kate stars opposite Richie Ren (or Jen, depending on what rocks your boat), as couple Rachel and Fat. They're the atypical modern day couple living it up in Beijing, though the latter is suspect of the former's promiscuity. He loathes the time when he has to bring his girlfriend back to the village to meet his parents, and to get the stamp of approval from his father (played by Yuen Wah). So they device a plan, and that is to look for a substitute girlfriend (hence the title Contract Lover), whose mission is to be as disgusting as possible, so that Dad will tell Fat to find anyone else better than the current beau, and hence, for Fat to introduce Rachel.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/08/contract-lover-hup-yeu-ching-yan.html
A Nutshell Review: Blood Brothers
Inspired by John Woo's Bullet in the Head, Blood Brothers ventures into the tried and tested boys in the hood gangland story about honour and comradeship, only to find out that there's a little more to girls, gangs and guns. The movie looks great with beautiful sets, costumes, props, but there was a general sense of being emotionally empty beneath the shiny looking veneer.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/08/blood-brothers.html
A Nutshell Review: 1408
If you believe in urban legends, there are some pretty nifty ones out there regarding hotel rooms. You know, the ones about not requesting for a room with a double bed when you're alone, or to check under the bed, cupboards for erm, extras, or the golden rule to knock before entering. Pah! you may say, but some deem them standard operating procedures as you just do not know the history behind the strange room you're going to spend the night in.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/08/1408.html
The Asian Film Symposium is back! Click on http://www.substation.org/afs for more details!
A Nutshell Review: Evan Almighty
Surprisingly, Evan Almighty is not a comedy per se. A sequel to the Jim Carrey movie Bruce Almighty, where Steve Carrell played a television journalist Evan Baxter - the one with the rubbery face giving Jim a run for his own money, this movie is sans Jim, and Steve is thrust into the leading role, with writer Steve Oedekerk (the one who gave us androgynous Barnyard cows) providing Evan Baxter a fast track in his career, to that of a newly elected Congressman.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/evan-almighty.html
A Nutshell Review: No Reservations
No Reservations is a remake of Bella Martha (Mostly Martha), a German movie made way back in 2001. The premise is entirely the same, and I thought the local distributors were sly enough to hold back the release of this movie to coincide during the time of the local premiere of Ratatouille. I suspect it's to rub off the Pixar animated movie's successful telling of a story set within a kitchen, to orientate moviegoers to the various roles and functions within the restaurant kitchen, so that we're all ready for this when we're in the mood for some love.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-reservations.html
A Nutshell Review: The Last Legion
There are many adaptations and versions to the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, with Merlin the sorcerer, and of the magical sword Excalibur, some versions which set it into stone, while others, handed out by a lady in the water. The Last Legion is essentially touting a story about the beginnings of Excalibur and how it took to the former. However, it took a long route to tell this story, going all the way back to 400-something AD, a time where Rome is in turmoil.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/last-legion.html
A Nutshell Review: The Home Song Stories
The Home Song Stories made its debut at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, and I've waited a long time for it to come to our shores. A joint Singapore-Australian production, it's an autobiographical story of writer-director Tony Ayres' childhood, of what he remembers about his mother, a songstress who uprooted her children and migrated from Hong Kong to Australia, and their struggles to etch a living surviving in a strange land.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/home-song-stories.html
A Nutshell Review: I Know Who Killed Me
Maybe because it's Lindsay Lohan's way of telling the cinematic world she's grown up now and would like to be cast in more mature roles, with her taking on dual characters here as all American rich girl next door Aubrey Fleming, and white trash stripperella Dakota Moss. Like Anne Hathaway before her who had shed her clothes to announce her arrival (in both Brokeback Mountain and Havoc), Lohan prances around in skimpy costumes, gyrating on a dance floor showing off her pole moves, but yet stopped short from showing what she has already exposed in real life.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-know-who-killed-me.html
A Nutshell Review: Arctic Tale
In 2005, March of the Penguins brought us to the Antarctica, and introduced the life cycle of the emperor penguins to the mass audience. And Happy Feet was quick on its erm feet to seize the initiative and make an animated feature on our non-flying friends. Now, we journey to the opposite pole to visit Polar Bears and Walruses, but somehow, the former proved to be a logical choice for promotional posters. Having the worlds #1 brand use them in their advertisements, and as I recall one cheeky ad involving a bear shaving excess fur, you would have thought that this would make another documentary worth sitting through.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/arctic-tale.html
A Nutshell Review: Rogue Assassin aka War
War undergoes one of those unnecessarily title changes for this part of the world, naming itself after Jet Li's assassin character Rogue. Billed as "The Ultimately Martial Arts Duel of the Year", the person who wrote that blurb for Rogue Assassin obviously hasn't seen many movies, or martial arts ones for that matter, or is plain lying through the teeth. You'd half expect that pitting two action stars against one another will instantly mean box office success by pulling in fans of both Jet Li and Jason Statham, but it's a downright insult as you don't see any punches pulled between the two for 99% of the time.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/rogue-assassin-aka-war.html
A Nutshell Review: Waitress
The late writer-director Adrienne Shelly's Waitress is a fine quirky film. But I have to admit one of the prime reasons for my catching this movie, is that it stars Keri Russell. Somehow I didn't find her all that attractive during her Felicity days, but my, how have things changed, and her very short role in M:I:III was somewhat a pity. Here, she plays the lead role as Jenna, a waitress at a pie diner, who's secretly wishing to save enough money to get away from a miserable life.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/waitress.html
A Nutshell Review: SiCKO
Won't we like to visit a doctor, and be provided preventive advice during a regular checkup. Or how about instead of worrying just how much those consultation charges are going to be, we get a world class doctor who basically just cares and is genuinely concerned with our well-being, and getting us cured of our sickness?
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/sicko.html
A Nutshell Review: The Invasion
It seems like Nicole Kidman's The Invasion is something like a tit-for-tat response to ex Mr Nicole Kidman's War of the Worlds. Aliens from outer space, check. Estranged spouse (the cinematic one that is), check. Cute toddler kid, check. Being the only one who figures what could be going on, check. Lots of running, check. Single parent power, check. Having people clamour on your escape vehicle, check. Cop out Hollywood styled ending mocking the aliens, check. Pointless remake? Probably not, and that's its leg up against the tripods.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/invasion.html
A Nutshell Review: Planet Terror
I am a fan of Tarantino, though I'm slightly disappointed with his portion in the Tarantino-Rodriguez Grindhouse partnership. It's classic Tarantino with the excellent dialogue, but Death Proof seemed to be lacking something, and seemed more like a Tarantino movie done Blaxploitation style. Now Rodriguez's offering with Planet Terror is the bomb, and it is miles better than Death Proof in containing the spirit of Grindhouse, and that it doesn't seem to have his fingerprints and stylistic references all over it, making it a truly wicked grindhouse experience.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/planet-terror.html
A Nutshell Review: Balls of Fury
Balls of Fury is a movie that takes the mickey out of martial arts movies, throwing in a few cheap laughs, and nothing more. Like bad movies with plenty of cheese that adopts martial arts like Mortal Kombat and DOA, Balls follows the usual formula of having a prodigy fall from grace, only to be thrust into a mission that involves prior intense training, and meeting with an adversary who in turn is skilled by the same martial arts teacher, so that the finale is a fight of values.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/balls-of-fury.html
A Nutshell Review: Shoot 'Em Up
Shoot 'Em Up is a guilty pleasure in watching a souped up modern day Western, where a stranger rides into town, minding his own business, but his innate qualities of helping the meek and the downtrodden almost always brings him adventure uncalled for. Trouble looks for him, and he has the opportunity to show everyone, and the audience, just why he's so damn dangerous.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/shoot-em-up.html
World Cinema Series Presents - Cairo Station by acclaimed Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chihane on 9th Oct Tuesday
For ticketing details, please check the National Museum website at http://www.nationalmuseum.sg
A Nutshell Review: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Folks would have remembered Kevin James as the affable guy who needed help from Will Smith to hook up with girls in the romantic comedy Hitch. Which I thought was a little strange, because, and I'm not gay, James comes across in likeable terms. In Chuck and Larry, he's the latter, again looking for help as his job as a firefighter puts him in considerable risks, and wants to ensure that his children's welfare is taken of in the unfortunate event that he goes.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-now-pronounce-you-chuck-and-larry.html
A Nutshell Review: Truth Be Told
Truth Be Told (TBT) is set in an HDB estate. Wait, before you roll your eyes at yet another local movie set in the HDB heartlands, or having its story dwell on the down and trodden, I've got to echo a sentiment made by a local short filmmaker that I agree with. HDB is very much part of our landscape, like it or not, so why shouldn't we have more stories coming out of the estates? Besides, if I put it in a different way, behind every closed door of an HDB flat apartment, is a story waiting to be told. It might seem that these stories are trivial ones that you get to read about in the press, but when in the hands of a creative writer, you get a succinct story that on its own, could stand and engage an audience for 90 minutes.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/truth-be-told.html
with Pics from the Blog Aloud event!
A Nutshell Review: Joshua
There are kids who are adorable, and kids who just gets on your nerve. Joshua gets filed under the latter, with a creepy look to boot. No offense to child actor Jacob Kogan who gets the titular role, but when he's brooding with that psychotic glint in the eye, you just want to throw him into a cage and toss the key out of the window.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/joshua.html
A Nutshell Review: The Nanny Diaries
Given the dual income generating parents these days, most children are brought up by domestic help. They rarely see their parents on the weekdays given that they're out bringing the dough back to feed their lifestyle, so most of the chores of child raising are left to the maids or the nannies. In Singapore, this phenomenon continues to grow, and in New York, it becomes a fictional social study, where you have a best selling novel turned into a movie (what else?).
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/nanny-diaries.html
A Nutshell Review: The Dead Girl
The story brought memories of an old television cult series called Twin Peaks. A dead, blonde girl's body is being discovered in the grasslands of an idyllic village, and this provides the catalyst for the movie as the plot unravels to tell of the stories that centers around that discovery. In summary, it had a total of 5 short stories all interweaved through a fragmented timeline, and a host of characters in those stories who have one way or another, played a part in the girl's life, during when she was alive, and after.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/dead-girl.html
A Nutshell Review: Death at a Funeral
Funerals are serious business, where the mood is usually grim and sombre, and friends and family come together to commemorate the passing of their loved one. The proceeding is usually prim and proper, with some protocols to adhere to, for fitting tributes given in a dignified manner.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/death-at-funeral.html
A Nutshell Review: Cheaters
And speaking of fragmented timelines, they don't get presented as strongly as that in Cheaters, a Korean R21 movie. It's a modern day tale of relationships, and it actually has a very bleak and pessimistic outlook, in that everyone's trying to get into everyone else's pants, and nothing, not even marriage, is sacred anymore, but only the gratification of lust and the flesh is.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/09/cheaters-nae-yeojaeui-namja-chingu.html