High Strung

For F*** Magazine

HIGH STRUNG

Director : Michael Damian
Cast : Keenan Kampa, Nicholas Galitzine, Jane Seymour, Sonoya Mizuno, Richard Southgate, Anabel Kutay, Paul Freeman, Marcus Mitchell
Genre : Dance/Music/Romance
Run Time : 97 mins
Opens : 14 April 2016
Rating : PG

Dextrous fingers and fleet feet work in concert to create something magical in this dance movie. Ruby (Kampa) is a dancer who has received a scholarship to study at the prestigious Manhattan Conservatory of the Arts. She befriends her outgoing roommate Jazzy (Mizuno) and runs afoul of the catty April (Kutay). One day, Ruby comes across a hip hop violinist busking in the subway station. This is Johnnie (Galitzine), a brooding young man from England in search of a Green Card since his Visa has expired and there’s nothing for him back home. Johnnie draws the ire of Kyle (Southgate), a classical violinist and Ruby’s schoolmate at the conservatory. Ruby proposes that she and Johnnie jointly enter the Peterson Strings and Dance competition, in collaboration with a hip-hop dance crew headed by Johnnie’s downstairs neighbour Hayward (Mitchell). However, this burgeoning relationship begins to distract Ruby, with her teachers including contemporary dance instructor Oksana (Seymour) and respected ballet teacher Kamrovsky (Freeman) pushing her to up her game.

            High Strung is directed by Michael Damian, who co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Janeen. The couple have created an incredibly cheesy affair packed with very familiar story beats. It’s the streets vs. the conservatory, the cool kids vs. the snobs, and the realisation that the two worlds need not be discrete. The production values definitely possess a satisfactory degree of polish, and one would be hard-pressed to tell that the film was also shot in Bucharest, Romania in addition to on location in New York. The camerawork and music production is slick and Dave Scott’s dance choreography is dynamic if not spectacularly inventive. However, it’s hard to shake that “student film” feeling, primarily owing to the predictability of the plot and the clunkiness of the dialogue. While most of the cast are talented dancers, it looks like acting comes second (or, for some of them, third).

            When we first see Johnnie he’s shirtless, tattoos and abs on display, sitting on the edge of his bed playing the violin as sunlight streams in through the window. “The music is always there, burning inside me,” he says dreamily in voiceover. “I don’t know where it comes from. I only know that if it stays trapped, I will be consumed.” This is a character that seems like the result of a group of 14-year-old-girls holding hands around a pentagram drawn on the floor, summoning some improbable dreamboat who is tormented, but sexily tormented. Galitzine has wannabe-James Dean written all over him, but it’s easy to see why the ladies will swoon. He does look great playing the violin though, and does an excellent job of approximating some complex finger placement – though those in the know will be able to spot a few spots where the finger placements don’t match up to the notes being played.

            Kampa is a professional dancer who was the first American to join Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet in 2012. After several injuries and feeling overworked, Kampa moved back to the U.S. The film is it its best when it simply allows the dancers to dance and does not demand that they act. Therefore, the plot proceeds on autopilot, hitting dance sequences that are as varied in styles and settings as possible. Ruby is very much a tabula rasa character for young female viewers to project themselves upon. As the requisite best friend, Mizuno’s Jazzy has few defining qualities, other than she likes to party. Southgate’s Kyle is intended as a foil and romantic rival for Johnnie, but he stays in the middle of the dial, failing to make the audience feel conflicted about whether they want Ruby to end up with Johnnie or with him. Freeman and Seymour, somewhat recognisable names (he was the villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark and she was the Bond girl in Live and Let Die) are on hand to lend authority, but they mainly stand by the piano and shout orders to the class.

            High Strung is as paint by numbers as they come, but then again, people don’t go to dance movies for the plot. Director Damian is well aware of this and delivers several lengthy dance/musical sequences, the most memorable being an Irish jig and a duelling violins set piece. Instead of moving the formulaic plot along though, it feels like the story is put on hold for these scenes to dutifully unfold. The film’s corniness and stubborn refusal to rework the shopworn tropes that it piles on thick are the equivalent of tying a ballerina’s legs together with violin strings.

Summary: Laughable dialogue and stiff acting detract from the strikingly performed dance and music numbers in this generic dance movie.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

By the Sea

For F*** Magazine

BY THE SEA

Director : Angelina Jolie Pitt

Cast : Angelina Jolie Pitt, Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Melvil Poupaud, Niels Arestrup

Genre : Drama

Run Time : 132 mins

Opens : 31 December 2015

Rating : M18 (Sexual Scenes and Nudity)

Brangelina are back together on the big screen for the first time in ten years, after continuously teasing – or threatening, depending on your point of view – the possibility of doing a movie as a couple again. Alas, it’s not Mr. & Mrs. Smith 2: Little Smiths, but this romantic drama instead. It is the mid-1970s, and Roland (Pitt) and his wife Vanessa (Jolie) are holidaying in a French seaside town. Roland is a struggling writer and Vanessa is a former dancer, and after 14 years of marriage, the couple have grown apart. In the hotel room next to theirs, newlyweds Francois (Poupaud) and Lea (Laurent) are having their honeymoon. Vanessa becomes envious of their wedded bliss as both she and Roland become increasingly frustrated with each other, unable to work things out. The fairy-tale setting’s there, now all they need is that happily ever after.

            Jolie is By the Sea’s writer and director and, alongside her husband, its star. There’s no point denying this isn’t a vanity project; it’s pretty much the dictionary definition of one. The foremost task any vanity project has to accomplish is that of convincing the audience that there’s a point or at least some semblance of value to the enterprise beyond a vigorous ego massage. There’s not even the faintest attempt at such justification here. The film has already been roundly savaged by critics, so excuse us for picking at its carcass. Jolie and Pitt are movie stars and where movie stars go, their egos are wont to follow. An ego is not necessarily a bad thing; some might say it’s an integral ingredient in the “star quality” cocktail. What Jolie and Pitt have done here is assume that the very notion of the two of them on the screen is enough to send audiences into a tizzy, and that there doesn’t need to be anything more than that. It’s ShamWow levels of self-absorption.

            Yes, By the Sea is pretty to look at. Then again, most people would like to have Christian Berger or a cinematographer of his calibre film their honeymoon in Malta as a keepsake if given a chance. Then again, most people wouldn’t foist it upon the movie-going public under the assumption that anyone other than themselves would want to watch it. There’s a good deal of style, with Jolie going for a 70s-type laid-back romance vibe. The climate may be Mediterranean, but the pace is glacial, with very little actually happening over the course of the film’s 132 minute duration. There is meant to be a sense of mystery as to why exactly Roland and Vanessa are so unhappy, with fleeting, initially indiscernible flashes serving as clues to what that is. When the root of the couple’s discontent is finally revealed, it comes across as little more than contrived and clichéd.

            Both Jolie and Pitt are talented and have delivered entertaining performances before, but their delusions to arthouse-ness do them no favours. When we first meet these characters, they’re charmless, and they pretty much stay that way right up until just before the very end, maybe. In her third film as director, Jolie has yet to find a distinct voice. That wild child streak, the fiery unpredictability and the brazen sexuality, qualities that made her such a magnet for fascination in the beginning of her career, are all but absent here. We have to make do with traces of it. The frank nudity in the film, including from Jolie, appears to be an attempt at honesty and intimacy, embracing a more European sensibility instead of mass-market Hollywood prudishness, but it is largely superficial. With the sun hats and the sunglasses, Jolie does pull off the classic Sophia Loren thing. There’s the feeling that this would work a lot better as a photo spread in a magazine than with any attempt at a plot tacked onto it.

            Jolie and Pitt leave little room for the supporting players, but they aren’t bad. Poupaud and Laurent are the frisky younger couple, whom Vanessa and Roland voyeuristically observe through a peep hole in the wall of their room. It’s a decent idea, one of a yearning for blissful days past, but because there’s so little to Roland and Vanessa and even less to Francois and Lea, it’s difficult to be affected by the sentiment. There are traits of an erotic thriller creeping into the film at times, but in Jolie’s attempt to be as tastefully arty as possible in the film’s depiction of sex, the film avoids straight-up appealing to any base instincts. Veteran French actor Niels Arestrup is wholly believable as Michel, the aging restaurant proprietor who is mourning the recent death of his wife, but his dialogue contains little more than vague aphorisms about marriage.

            By the Sea may boast the wattage of a Hollywood megastar couple and it might have an air of class about it, but when it comes down to it, this film is a great deal like those Adam Sandler movies that he’s admitted are basically paid vacations. Believe it or not, Jolie and Pitt were not the only things that made Mr. & Mrs. Smith enjoyable. It was a tongue-in-cheek action comedy that was buoyed by their undeniable chemistry and boosted by the swirling rumours of romance on the set, rumours that were soon confirmed. Ten years on, now that the pair are officially married, it’s not scandalous or even particularly romantic, just moderately aggravating. It’s odd, but seeing Jolie and Pitt in a relationship that has lost most of its spark is even more cloying and cringe-inducing than seeing them all lovey-dovey.

Summary: Spectacularly self-indulgent and utterly pointless, By the Sea is ample proof that a real-life relationship alone is a very flimsy foundation on which to build a romantic movie.

RATING: 1.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Focus

For F*** Magazine

FOCUS

Director : Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Cast : Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro, BD Wong, Robert Taylor, Adrian Martinez

Genre : Romance/Drama

Run Time : 105 mins

Opens : 26 February 2015

Rating : NC-16 (Scene of Intimacy and Coarse Language)

In Batman Begins, Henri Ducard had this piece of advice for Bruce Wayne – “always mind your surroundings”. In Focus, Will Smith plays Nicky Spurgeon, someone whose stock in trade is preying on those who don’t mind their surroundings. A seasoned, talented conman, Nicky is skilled in the art of persuasion and deception. He’s prepared for everything – everything except Jess Barrett (Robbie), an attractive young woman eager to learn the tricks of the trade and become a grifter herself. Nicky has never let down his guard and let his feelings get the better of him, but Jess gets closer than anyone else does. While Nicky is in the employ of billionaire racing team owner Garriga (Santoro), Jess’ presence threatens to throw him off his finely-honed game.

            Escapism is a large part of what makes going to the movies appealing and there’s an undeniable allure to movies that offer a peek into worlds only the privileged few have access to. Focus very effectively seduces the audience, beckoning them into a dizzying, dazzling world of lies and shiny objects. There are certain dangers associated with the subgenre of conman movies – the audience should feel like they’ve been taken on a ride, but not for a ride, the difference almost imperceptible. Nobody likes the feeling of being invested in a film for two hours only to feel played out by the big reveal. Writing-directing duo Glenn Ficarra and John Requa manage to quite masterfully negotiate that, having a firm grasp on the film’s tone throughout. It’s funny and playfully sexy, but there are stakes and the thrills click right into the proceedings where they could have easily felt out of place.

            The other danger of conman movies is that they can often come off as smug, as if the filmmakers are taking particular delight in feeling smarter than the audience. There is a little bit of that in Focus, to be sure, but that’s definitely better than if it were an altogether dumb affair. Real-life sleight-of-hand artist and “deception specialist” Apollo Robbins serves as the consultant on the film, choreographing the elaborate pickpocketing sequences which are very exciting to watch. While most of the jokes do work, there are a few too many at the expense of overweight comic relief sidekick Farhad, played by Adrian Martinez. The character also supplies more crass sexual innuendo than is strictly necessary.

            Remember how Will Smith tried to play against type as a stern, emotionless father in After Earth, to disastrous results? Focus is far more in his wheelhouse and absolutely plays to his strength as an actor. Three parts charming, one part goofy, it’s very easy to buy Smith as the shark with a heart of gold. He’s also the kind of guy who could go out with a woman 22 years his junior and it really isn’t that creepy because he’s that likeable. Margot Robbie, who impressed in The Wolf of Wall Street, is excellent here as well. Jess is simultaneously an ingénue and a femme fatale, Robbie nailing both aspects of the character. We can’t wait to see them together onscreen in next year’s Suicide Squad. At one point, Ben Affleck and Kristen Stewart were attached to star – I think we can all agree that would have had, uh, markedly different results. The devilishly handsome Rodrigo Santoro makes for a sufficiently formidable romantic rival to Smith. B.D. Wong threatens to steal the show in his one scene as an overly-excited high roller.  

            Ficarra and Requa’s previous film was the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love, which is considered one of the better examples of the genre in recent memory. With Focus, they have crafted what is almost the ideal date movie. Romantic comedies that crowbar in elements intended to appeal to men have often fallen flat on their faces - This Means War or Killers, anyone? Focus does more than serve up a shirtless Will Smith and Margot Robbie in a bikini, it attains an admirable balance of sexiness, laughs and intelligence and features a central romantic pairing that is unique and happens to really work.

Summary: Focus is sharp, slick and sexy, gliding along on the chemistry of its leads.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Crossing - Part 1 (太平轮： 乱世浮生 –上)

THE CROSSING - PART 1(太平轮： 乱世浮生 –上)

Director : John Woo

Cast : Zhang Ziyi, Song Hye Kyo, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Huang Xiaoming, Tong Dawei, Masami Nagasawa, Hitomi Kuroki, Lin Mei Hsiu, Jack Kao

Genre : Romance/Drama

Run Time : 129 mins

Opens : 5 December 2014

Rating : NC-16 (Battle Scenes)

It’s been five years since the release of Red Cliff – Part 2 and director John Woo is back with the first film of another two-part historical epic, albeit one of a different stripe. It is 1945 and Chinese general Lei Yi Fang (Huang) defeats the Japanese troops, resulting in the capture of Yan Ze Kun (Kaneshiro), a Taiwanese doctor working for the Japanese army. Lei falls in love with Zhou Yun Fen (Song), who comes from a wealthy Shanghainese family. After Yan is released from the prisoner-of-war camp, he discovers his girlfriend Masako (Nagasawa) has been repatriated back to Japan. In 1948, as the Chinese Revolution begins to take shape, Lei is thrown back into the thick of battle. In the meantime, signaller Tong Daqing (Tong) has a chance encounter with volunteer nurse Yu Zhen (Zhang), with whom he is immediately smitten. Unbeknownst to him, Yu Zhen has to moonlight as a prostitute in order to make ends meet. We follow these three couples as their paths converge, leading them to the Taiping, a Chinese steamer bound for Taiwan, a last ray of hope as the Revolution heats up.

            Everyone has been referring to this film as the Chinese equivalent of Titanic. Well, that will have to wait until Part 2. First, we have to sit through what can be described as the Chinese equivalent of Pearl Harbour, a big, tragic wartime romance. Just as Michael Bay, a filmmaker known for bombastic action films, struggled with the hokey romance in Pearl Harbour, John Woo seems to have difficulty reconciling the tender love stories with the battlefield carnage in The Crossing – Part 1. The film lurches awkwardly from bodies being blasted apart in combat to lovers casting longing glances at each other, without ever really gelling. This is a decidedly unsubtle film and to call it “overwrought” would be an understatement. Every last wartime romance cliché in the book is flung into Wang Hui-ling’s screenplay – there’s even a “wife writes a love letter as we cut to the husband caught in battle” scene. This isn’t just cheesy, it’s cheese that’s set on fire and one can almost hear director Woo exclaiming “Saganaki!” in the background.

            Yes, this can be called “lush”, with faithful period recreations of post-war Shanghai and explosive battle scenes, but the beautiful cinematography by Zhao Fei is undercut by stilted editing and transitions, not to mention gobs of slow-motion even where it’s plainly unnecessary. The film’s pacing suffers in places and it is often painfully obvious that things are being padded out so the story can be split into two films. This is a war movie that features a subplot in which a woman struggles to compose a song for her husband. While it is evident that this is a big-budget production (by Mainland Chinese film standards), there are lapses in production values such as some unconvincing digital seagulls. We saw the 2D version but even then, a moment in which a tank hatch hurtles straight at the audience is embarrassingly gimmicky. If you have a thing for trucks flipping over as they explode, then the climactic battle between the Nationalists and Communists will leave you satisfied.

            The three male leads are appealingly charming in their own ways. Huang Xiaoming is classically heroic and dashing, Takeshi Kaneshiro has the sexy/vulnerable thing down pat and Tong Dawei’s goofy earnestness does provide welcome respite from the heaviness of the rest of the film. Unfortunately, the female characters are somewhat side-lined and mostly relegated to the role of “pining for significant other while he is out at war”. Of the women in the film, Zhang Ziyi has the most significant role, paring down her usual glamour to play the poor, illiterate Yu Zhen. Of the three central relationships, that between Tong Daqing and Yu Zhen is the most interesting – having never met before, Daqing takes a phony “family photo” with Yu Zhen and a random baby so he can be granted extra rations. It’s a shame that Lei Yi Fang and Zhou Yun Feng’s love story is downright dreary in comparison.

            The Crossing – Part 1 is a better war movie than it is a sweeping romance, and even then it isn’t an outstanding war movie at all. Constructed as a crowd-pleasing historical epic, the film’s transitions from brutal war violence to soppy sentimentality are jarring to say the least. John Woo is in his element for less than half the time here and at least there’s an all-star cast to enact all the shop-worn tropes. Here’s hoping Part 2, centred on the sinking of the Taiping itself, is more focused.

Summary: The Crossing – Part 1 is unsuccessful at being a passionate romantic epic and fares only slightly better as an explosive war movie. Also, you’ll have to wait until May 2015 for any actual “crossing” to happen.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

But Always (一生一世)

For F*** Magazine

BUT ALWAYS (一生一世) 

Director : Snow Zou

Cast : Nicholas Tse, Gao Yuanyuan, Du Haitao, Alice Li, Luo Shi, Qin Hao

Genre : Drama/Romance

Opens : 4 September 2014

Rating : TBA

Running time: 106 mins

 

         Paris may be the city of love, but many find New York pretty romantic too. Well, parts of New York, anyway. In this romantic drama from director Snow Zou, long-lost childhood sweethearts Yongyuan (Tse) and Anran (Gao) find themselves reunited in the Big Apple – she studying biomedical engineering in Columbia with a restaurant dishwasher job on the side and he branching out his self-made textile manufacturing business to the States. The film tracks their childhoods in rural Beijing in the 70s and early 80s, to when they journey separately to America in the 90s. Of course, it’s far from smooth sailing for the couple – having parted on less-than-amicable terms, Yongyuan arrives in New York to find his long-time paramour in a relationship with struggling artist and restaurant co-worker Michael (Qin). With the support of his friends and business partners (Du and Li) who have accompanied him to New York, Yongyuan sets about winning Anran’s heart once again.

            The subject of childhood sweethearts rekindling their romances has always been a popular one; the upcoming Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Best of Me revolves around this too. Writer-director Snow Zuo adds to this formula the element of lovers reuniting in a foreign land, but this is hardly the first film to do that either. But Always is pretty to look at, cinematographer Li Bingqiang favouring lots sunlight streaming in through the windows in soft focus. Its opening scenes, which feature moments like young Anran buying young Yongyuan a stick of haw fruit candy, are cute but also most certainly cloying. It’s all very earnest and innocently cheesy.

However, as But Always progresses, it wades into ever-deepening pools of melodrama – cue the maudlin pop ballad montages. Things go from being merely hokey to emotionally manipulative and actually kind of tasteless by the time the twist ending rolls around. It’s not even that shocking, given that the movie telegraphs this with its in medias res prologue. Very few films can open with a scene from its conclusion without giving the whole game away – Inception is the only one that immediately comes to mind. We’re probably going into mild spoiler territory so skip past this paragraph if you wish, but we’ll pose this question – remember the ending of Remember Me and how it was called “borderline offensive”? Yeah, you can bet But Always is going to ruffle at least a few feathers, particularly since it will also be released stateside.

But Always marks heartthrob Nicholas Tse’s return as a romantic leading man after spending the last several years of his film career in period pieces like Bodyguards and Assassins and The Bullet Vanishes and action flicks like Invisible Target and The Viral Factor. He is suitably dreamy here, whether he’s serving breakfast in bed like all fantasy boyfriends do or when he’s chivalrously sheltering his gal in the rain. We also get to glimpse those rippling abs and there is a rather amusing moment during a love scene when the camera seems like it’s about to get lost in his scapulae. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to muster up the necessary chemistry with Gao Yuanyuan. She puts in a bland performance; all those distant forlorn glances not quite enough to sell the yearning and passion that is central to the story.

But Always tries to use its New York setting to distinguish itself from the other romantic dramas that come out of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Well, New York is just about the most-filmed city in the world. We get our main characters strolling through Central Park – which isn’t all that exciting, really. For the most part, anachronisms are avoided, but a few inevitably pop up. Speaking of the 90s setting, the flavour of that decade never really permeates the film, TV news coverage of the Hong Kong handover ceremony and of Princess Diana’s death being the most specific references we get – until that cringe-worthy ending. That’s when But Always crosses the line from being mawkish to being shameless.

Summary: It’s pretty to look at and Nicholas Tse turns up the charm, but this is a movie that gets cheesier and cheesier until it smacks the audience upside the head with its overwrought ending.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Begin Again

For F*** Magazine

BEGIN AGAIN

Director : John Carney

Cast : Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Mos Def, James Corden, CeeLo Green, Catherine Keener

Genre : Drama, Romance

Opens : 3 July 2014

Rating : NC16 (Coarse Language) 

Running time: 104 mins

Lovin’ a music man ain’t always what it’s supposed to be, and that goes for the music men behind the scenes as well. In this musical romantic comedy, Mark Ruffalo plays Dan Mulligan, the down-and-out exec of music label Distressed Records, who has an estranged wife (Keener) and daughter (Steinfeld). While drowning his sorrows at a bar one night, British singer-songwriter Gretta (Knightley) catches his attention and he immediately sets about getting a hold of her so they can collaborate on a record. It turns out that Gretta’s long-time boyfriend and songwriting partner Dave Kohl (Levine) has strayed after letting stardom get to his head. Gretta tries to leave Dave behind as she, Dan, her best friend Steve (Corden) and a motley crew of session musicians embark on recording an album on the streets of New York, guerrilla-style.

            Begin Again, formerly titled Can a Song Save Your Life?, is written and directed by John Carney of Once fame. The micro-budget Irish indie flick became a cult favourite after netting a Best Original Song Oscar for Falling Slowly and was adapted into an acclaimed musical running on Broadway and the West End. Begin Again can be seen as Carney “going Hollywood”, trading in a cheap video camera for a fancy Red Digital and having Hollywood names and pop stars in the cast. While Begin Again is certainly a glossier, slicker affair, it still retains a good measure of earnestness and sweetness and is sure to appeal to fans of music movies. In what might be somewhat meta commentary, the theme of “indie vs. big record label” crops up. There’s also a rather surprising bit of anti-product placement: Dan takes a sip of Pepsi and wonders aloud “God damn, how do people drink that?!”

            Many of the elements in Begin Again can be described as “formulaic” – there’s the maverick music producer who has been reduced to an unkempt mess but who gets a second wind upon discovering an ingénue, the disapproving ex-wife and the rebellious daughter and the ingénue’s unfaithful rock star boyfriend. An early scene has a frustrated Dan tossing demo CDs out of his car window, fed up with inane pop and in search of “real music”. However, the film does possess enough self-awareness such that it doesn’t drown in a morass of clichés and that there’s a still a soul to it. Carney also has a little fun with the structure of the first half of the film, starting in medias res before rewinding to the start of that day, telling the story from Dan’s point of view – and then rewinding further and telling it from Gretta’s. There’s also a wonderfully whimsical moment of visual invention, when upon first hearing Gretta sing, Dan begins to imagine possible arrangements for the song; the piano, drums, cello and violin sitting on stage suddenly playing by themselves in his imagination.

            Mark Ruffalo is pretty much scruffy-sexy incarnate. Once again, he looks like he badly needs a shower and a shave, but perhaps that is part of his charm. He convincingly essays a man who has fallen on hard times but who clearly once had drive and inspiration, and when that returns to him he comes alive again. Keira Knightley’s role was originally intended for Scarlett Johansson – while we don’t get the Hulk and Black Widow making sweet music together, Knightley is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Her singing voice is very pleasant and she consciously avoids turning Gretta into an idealised “manic pixie dream girl” type. When she says “I’m not Judy Garland off the greyhound bus looking for stardom”, this reviewer believes her – but wants to see her make it in the music biz all the same.

            When it comes to the casting of established singers like Adam Levine and his fellow The Voice coach CeeLo Green, it’s a Catch-22 situation: on one hand, having actual musicians in your music movie gives it credibility but on the other, it can be distracting enough to pull one out of the experience. Green’s appearance in the film is more tolerable because as hip-hop star and old pal of Dan’s nicknamed Troublegum, he could well be playing himself. However, Levine is not a brilliant actor and this reviewer happens to find his high-pitched whine of a singing voice somewhat grating. We’re also 90% sure that the name “Dave Kohl” is some kind of a dig at the similarly-named Foo Fighters frontman.

            Begin Again is a great date movie because it isn’t yet another a production line rom com and it never becomes unbearably cheesy and sappy. It won’t redefine the music flick genre, but it does have its share of sweet moments. The songs, co-written by New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander with Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, Rick Nowels and Nick Southwood, Once star Glen Hansard and Carney himself, are all very listenable if not especially memorable or catchy. And this is quite possibly the first movie to make splitter cables seem like very romantic objects.

SUMMARY: Begin Again’s formulaic elements are offset by its measured sweetness and charm.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Teacher's Diary

For F*** Magazine

THE TEACHER’S DIARY (คิดถึงวิทยา Khid Theung Wittaya)

Director : Nithiwat Tharathorn
Cast : Sukrit Wisetkaew, Chermarn Boonyasak, Sukollawat Kanaros
Genre : Romance, Thai
Opens: : 15 May 2014

Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met? Why yes, this reviewer is convinced he and Kate Beckinsale will someday find true happiness with each other. Okay, so that’s not what The Teacher’s Diary is about. In this Thai film, Song (Wisetkaew), a former competitive wrestler, becomes a teacher at the houseboat branch of Bann Gaeng Wittaya School. Located in a rural community, lacking running water and electricity and attended by just four students, this wasn’t quite what Mr. Song imagined when he signed up to teach. He discovers a diary belonging to Ms. Ann (Boonyasak), the teacher who preceded him, and after reading of her time with the students and of her personal struggles he quickly becomes enamoured with this woman without even knowing what she really looks like. He continues to earn the respect, trust and friendship of his young charges as he dreams of Ann, embarking on a quest to find her.

Director Nithiwat Tharatorn took inspiration from two unrelated true stories, one of a producer’s friend who had fallen in love with someone after reading the diary she had left behind in an office desk drawer (the two eventually did get to know each other and marry) and the other of a teacher in a houseboat school in Chiang Mai. This is an amalgamation of “inspirational teacher” tale and star-crossed romantic comedy drama, and it’s a mix that pays off. Sweet, moving and gently funny, The Teacher’s Diary has a very charming earnestness to it. Oddly enough though, there are a few bits reminiscent of horror movies, including a jump scare during a dream sequence, but these are done playfully and infrequently enough. It’s beautiful to look at too. Cinematographer Naruphol Chokanapitak serves up vistas of a remote idyll far from the maddening crowd, with lush greenery, mist-covered mountains and lots of pretty sunsets.

       Most romances tend to go like this: boy meets girl, boy and girl initially don’t like each other, then it grows into mutual toleration and later affection, there’s a misunderstanding, they break up but then get back together again and stay that way. Here’s a movie in which our male and female leads spend pretty much the entirety of the film apart, its unconventional structure having Song’s time at the school in 2012 unfold parallel to Ann’s in 2011. The alternating timelines are presented coherently and there’s a montage juxtaposing Song interacting with the kids with Ann doing the same, featuring some pretty slick, elegant transitions. The bonds that Song and Ann each form with the kids are given as much attention as the “someday” wishful romance, and one boy even gets an arc about how he plans to follow in the family fishing business and is therefore reluctant to continue school.



Sukrit Wisetkaew, known by his nickname “Bie” in Thailand, brings a wide-eyed, wistful, “aww shucks” appeal to Song. The way he becomes enchanted with Ann after reading the entries in her forgotten journal is genuinely endearing, and not once does his infatuation become creepy or unsettling in that stalker-y manner because he consistently conveys such pure intentions. Actress and model Laila Boonyasak (formerly known as and credited here as Chermarn Boonyasak) brings an assertiveness to the part of Ann, a passionate educator who favours an interactive approach to teaching instead of rote memorisation. In the opening scene, we learn that she is reassigned to the houseboat because she refuses to remove a tattoo of three stars on her wrist. She is spirited and dedicated but never an overly-idealised “dream girl” caricature, the relationship troubles between her and her boyfriend Nui presented compellingly. All the kids in this are great too.



While The Teacher’s Diary might be a little too cloying and twee for some and features a good deal of slapstick humour, it never overdoes the melodrama or the silliness and we get pulled into this unique “relationship” between two parties who for the bulk of the film are unaware of the other’s existence. Some of the jokes are Thai language puns, the subtitles valiantly offering some kind of an interpretation. For a film that sounds like it would consist mostly of the male protagonist moping about pining for some girl, there’s a good deal that happens and there are several unexpected turns in the narrative. Thsis reviewer found himself rooting for Song to eventually find Ann and did shed a tear or two. Kate Beckinsale likes sensitive guys, right?

Summary: Romantic, heartwarming and gorgeously filmed, The Teacher’s Diary is at once old-school and unconventional, sweet and compelling instead of mawkishly sentimental.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Best Offer (La Migliore Offerta)

For F*** Magazine

THE BEST OFFER (LA MIGLIORE OFFERTA)

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Sylvia Hoeks, Donald Sutherland
Genre: Romance, Mystery
Run Time: 131 mins
Opens: 3 April 2014
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Nudity)

The closest most of us hoi polloi will get to the thrill of an auction is outbidding some dude for second-hand electronics on eBay, so there’s an undeniable mystique and attraction to the glamourous upper-crust world of fine art and antique auctions. The Best Offer is a romantic mystery film set in that world, starring Geoffrey Rush as respected auction house owner Virgil Oldman. He’s hired by enigmatic young heiress Claire Ibbetson (Hoeks) to conduct an appraisal of the collection bequeathed to her by her late parents, and he becomes more and more preoccupied with the woman – who refuses to see him face to face - as the days go by. Adding to the mystery are odd gears and cogs scattered around Claire’s villa, which Virgil brings to gifted mechanic Robert (Sturgess) to piece together. The few who are close to Virgil, including his accomplice in acquiring a secret stash of master works, Billy Whistler (Sutherland), notice the usually immaculate man begin to fall apart, his life thrown into disarray by his obsession with Claire.

The Best Offer is a film of a most vexing sort, constantly on the brink of developing into something truly delicious yet refusing to take on a satisfying form at every turn. It is a particularly handsome movie to admire, cinematographer Fabio Zamarion casting a refined eye on various fancy European locales while the exact location in which most of the story takes place is left deliberately ambiguous. Living legend Ennio Morricone provides an expectedly seductive musical score as well. Writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore, of Cinema Paradiso fame, plants the seeds of a compelling mystery, but while he wants to root The Best Offer in highbrow territory, it often veers into slight luridness. It is almost as if the film is a step away from full-blown giallo hijinks, though this certainly wasn’t Torantore’s intention.

Virgil Oldman fits the archetype of a snooty, stuffy wealthy gent who is particular about his tastes, knowledgeable about his chosen field and who eats off plates and drinks out of champagne flutes monogrammed with his initials. Of course, he’s very lonely and inexperienced in the ways of romance. This reviewer found it difficult to get invested in Virgil’s relationship with Claire, whom Hoeks portrays as a fragile, troubled damsel, the self-imprisoned princess waiting for a knight to free her. There’s an element of leery voyeurism in Virgil trying to catch a glimpse of Claire, which makes his pursuit of this much younger woman all the more unsettling (note the unsubtle surname “Oldman”). Still, Rush is a commanding presence who gamely fleshes out the foibles written for his character.

Sturgess’ role is probably analogous to that of the geeky tech expert/comic relief in a conventional blockbuster, Robert helping to piece together the mechanical doodads Virgil discovers in Claire’s home. In addition, he coaches Virgil in the art of getting the girl, the young man becoming a mentor to the older one, and Sturgess is sufficiently charming. Donald Sutherland seems to have shot his part in his off-time from the Hunger Games films, still sporting President Snow’s mane and beard. As Billy Whistler, he’s meant to serve as a less cultured counterpoint to Virgil and to highlight Virgil’s dishonesty, seeing as Billy is there to help him “save” the best pieces for himself. Sutherland is well-cast in the part, even if it’s a relatively minor one.

The film’s dialogue is often laboured and verbose, lines like “everyone has moments where they prefer solitude to the multitudes” unnatural yet oddly poetic and not entirely out of place in the film’s milieu. Tornatore’s insistence on keeping the mystery inscrutable and denying the audience closure into which they can sink their teeth may make the film “arty”, but ultimately renders it less enjoyable than it could have been. We’re also going to gingerly roll out the “p word” that’s tossed around a lot when discussing films of this type – “pretentious”. To be clear, The Best Offer isn’t an annoyingly obnoxious affair and it’s a beautifully-made picture, but by wrapping its innate pulpy thriller aspects in layers of hoity-toity self-importance, it misses out on making the winning bid.

Summary: While elegant and initially beguiling, The Best Offer is also cold, stilted and not fully-formed. This reviewer is not quite sold.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Her

For F*** Magazine

HER

Director: Spike Jonze
Cast:  Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Spike Jonze, Sam Jaeger, Katherine Boecher, Rachel Ann Mullins, David Azar
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Run Time: 126 mins
Opens: 16 January 2014
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene)

A good forty-ish years ago, few imagined that a sizeable portion of the world’s population would have a personal computer on their desk at home, let alone one in their purse or pocket. And yet here we are, with cell phones that also function as cameras, day planners, maps, compasses, media players and any number of other things. There’s even an “intelligent personal assistant” in the form of Apple Inc.’s Siri (who is aware of the existence of this film, and is not entirely fond of its portrayal of artificial intelligence, in case you were wondering). Writer-director Spike Jonze asks the question “Could you fall in love with Siri?” Okay, that doesn’t do this justice, so read on.

It is the not-too-distant future and Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) is a writer living and working in Los Angeles. He is employed at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, where he helps clients express their feelings and emotions for someone in the form of computer-generated letters designed to look like the genuine article. Going through the final stages of divorce with his wife Catherine (Mara), Theodore is morose and lonely and gets himself the O.S. 1 – “It’s not just an operating system, it’s a consciousness”. The O.S. is configured into Samantha (Johansson): friendly, chirpy, helpful, efficient…one might almost forget she’s not a real person. Over time, this strange and wonderful relationship blossoms, and Theodore finds himself falling for his operating system and stops to consider the myriad implications of that possibility.



Like Jonze’s earlier works Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Her is destined to be analysed, dissected and keenly examined by many a curious film student. Movies that fit this description tend to be impenetrable and inaccessible, functioning as examples of that maxim “true art is incomprehensible”. With Her, Jonze has crafted a film that doesn’t come across as lofty and high-falutin’. He has managed to marry a heartfelt tenderness with keen, astute social commentary, all wrapped up in a beautifully-photographed sci-fi package.

There are a flurry of thematic elements and ideas presented in Her. Has increased connectivity resulted in a lack of human connection? What constitutes a relationship? Can one enter into a romance with an intangible entity? Why do we need physical intimacy and does it matter from where it’s derived? Why do we try to emulate artifacts of a bygone era with the technology of today? Must we really conform to the roles society expects us to? Jonze doesn’t merely list them as this writer just has, he orders these thoughts elegantly, framing them within a well-realised near-future milieu created by production designer K. K. Barrett, costume designer Casey Storm, art director Austin Gorg and other crew members. It’s certainly more Shanghai than it is L.A., but there are delightful little design touches that ensure it’s “just futuristic enough”.

Praise has been lavished upon the performances in Her and it is well-deserved. Phoenix has gained a reputation as a capable, serious, extraordinarily intense and unpredictable performer, not your garden-variety movie star, as evidenced by incidences like his I’m Still Here social experiment/bizarre performance art piece. Here, Phoenix plays an everyman, Jonze refusing to turn Theodore into a stereotypical “loser” the way many other directors might. He is sweet, sympathetic, unsure of himself and still very wounded from the dissolution of his marriage. A lot of screen time is dedicated to close-ups of Phoenix’s face and seemingly inconsequential moments like a casual expression of being slightly disturbed during an off-kilter phone sex session are carefully realised by the actor. Theodore is not as unstable and discombobulated as the protagonists of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, both artists like Theodore, but in Phoenix’s hands, he is by no means less interesting.

Johansson goes from being Black Widow to an amorous J.A.R.V.I.S., replacing the actress initially cast as Samantha, Samantha Morton. Johansson is known for her sexy voice, husky yet distinctly feminine, and with that voice and that voice alone, she gives one of the greatest performances of her career. Samantha comes across as cheerful, curious about the world, cheeky and playful, opening Theodore up to the simple joys of his existence, a ‘manic pixel dream girl’ if you will. However, Jonze in his writing and Johansson in her portrayal make Samantha far more than your average example of that trope, approaching “What is this thing you call love?” in the most compelling of ways and eventually subverting what might be an eye-roll-worthy character type. Show us a movie where Zooey Deschanel tangles with metaphysical transcendence.



The discussion of her eligibility come awards season can be seen as an extension of one of the themes in the film: does a voice-only performance qualify for an award as much any other type of performance?  Can an artificial construct ace the Turing test to the point where it’s indistinguishable from a person? There’s a crucial scene in the movie in which this idea is cleverly played with. The screen goes black, and for that brief period, it seems as if Samantha is physically interacting with Theodore as we can only hear both their voices and the chemistry they generate together is through the roof.

The rest of the cast is good too, Amy Adams playing the diametric opposite of her American Hustle role, largely make-up-free and recalling Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich. Chris Pratt is gently funny as Theodore’s colleague at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com and Mara is suitably frosty as his soon-to-be ex-wife, short flashbacks showing how rosy things were to start with. Olivia Wilde is only really in one scene but she is effective as Theodore’s blind date. Jonze himself gets a small role, entertainingly voicing a foul-mouthed alien child in a video game Theodore plays, quite possibly a spoof of many a Seth MacFarlane-style character. Listen out for vocal cameos from the likes of Kristin Wiig and Brian Cox, too.



Her has been compared to largely-forgotten 80s comedy Electric Dreams but perhaps it’s more like S1m0ne (also largely-forgotten), in which a desperate film director fabricates an A.I. actress that he tries to pass off as the real deal. Her handles the idea with far more wit and sophistication, delving far past the surface of its high-concept premise, and yet admirably avoids coming off as smug. Jonze’s screenplay is, on the surface, a less-complex affair than any of the scripts written by oft-collaborator Charlie Kaufman, but it is by no means poorly-written and Jonze’s command of character, emotion, tone and subtext is nothing short of masterful. Her is an “examination of” and a “meditation on” increasingly pertinent issues in the way we lead our lives in today’s “smart”, hyper-connected world, but it is far from clinical and sterile – as that description might suggest.

SUMMARY: Spike Jonze brings a deft intelligence and a disarmingly personal warmth and vulnerability to one of the best cinematic romances in recent memory, if not ever.

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong