Entertainment 2010

Just for posterity: The list of movies/books I watched/read for leisure in 2010.

The Road
Youth in Revolt
The Hurt Locker
Up in the Air
When in Rome
Precious
A Single Man
Ashes of Time
An Education
It's Complicated
A Serious Man
Shutter Island
Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief
Kick-Ass
Iron Man 2
Toy Story 3
Inception (x2)
Berlin '36
Food Inc.
The Corporation
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Green Zone
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
Enchanted
The Kids are All Right
Easy A
Grown Ups
Twilight: Eclipse (on a flight! I love watching brainless stuff on flights!)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Eat, Pray, Love
Killers
Knight and Day
Sex and the City 2
Capitalism: A Love Story
The Social Network
The Tourist
Tron: Legacy

Favourite of the year: Inception (blockbuster as it should always be done)

Special 'Where did it all go wrong' Award: Michael Cera. Poor George Michael. Jesse Eisenberg used to be mistaken for him. But soon he will be the one people mistake for soon-to-be Oscar-nominated Eisenberg. Cera gave strong, and pretty diverse (imo) performances in Youth In Revolt and Scott Pilgrim (which were both at the very least decent films) but still gets panned for doing the same shtick. Plus, both films sadly flopped. What next? Maybe that long-awaited Arrested Development movie will revive his career.

Books (on top of the dozens for school of course):
Alan Hollinghurst - The Swimming-Pool Library
J.D. Salinger - Franny & Zooey
Alan Hollinghurst - The Folding Star
Josh-Kilmer Purcell - I am Not Myself These Days
Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

Yes, Hollinghurst propels himself into the list of my favourite authors! Simply brilliant. Franny & Zooey was wonderful as well.

Why you should care about the success of 'Inception'

The summer blockbuster season is a time of high stakes for film studios. It's obvious why this is so. Since Spielberg's Jaws opened to, well, jaw-dropping numbers (hur hur) in 1975, Hollywood has successfully conditioned audiences to to expect high octane, larger than life, 'popcorn' movies during the months May through to August. From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Pirates of the Carribean, these summer blockbusters have budgets that run in the hundreds of millions, but have the potential to rake handsome, Apple-eque profits (ok, maybe not quite. But you get the point). Summer blockbusters define the term, 'high risk, high reward'.

Because of the risk of massive losses if an expensively-produced summer movie flops at the box office, Hollywood typically tries to play safe in choosing to produce movies that appeal to the lowest common denominator, which has often resulted in the criticism that summer is the time of dumb, brainless movies. To be fair, there have been many a great summer blockbuster - the original Star Wars trilogy, many of Spielberg's works like E.T. or Jurassic Park, and Nolan's The Dark Knight are just some of the few that come to mind. However, it seems that Hollywood has become increasingly risk-averse in recent years in terms of summer fare. Because of ever exploding budgets (Spidey 3's reported production budget was over 250 million, for example), movies' return on investment have continually decreased, and studios are less and less willing to greenlight original ideas, choosing to bankroll blockbusters only if they already have a built-in audience.

What does this mean? You guessed it - Sequels! Let's examine this summer's movie line-up for example: There's Shrek 4, Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2, Twilight 3, Sex and the City 2, Predators (I don't know how many there's been). If it's not sequels, it's movies based on a book/comic/TV series/video game - Again, Iron Man, Sex and the City and Twilight, The Last Airbender, The A Team, Jonah Hex, Prince of Persia. Remakes/'Reimaginations' is the latest low Hollywood has hit - See Robin Hood, or The Karate Kid (except now with kung fu, and a black kid!). Even when ideas seem original, they're not - Knight and Day and Killers both feature the shenanigans between a gun-toting dude (Cruise and Kutcher) and his clueless, klutzy paramour (Diaz and Heigl) Basically, studios are afraid of plunking down the cash, unless a big opening weekend based on a built-in audience is guaranteed. 

I'm not saying that sequels, remakes, movies based on other source material cannot be good. The glowing reviews of Toy Story attest to the fact that they can. It's that this trend has lead to an increase dichotomy where big budgets is reserved for dumb summer fare while quality original material has to be 'indie' and made with about 20 bucks.

Additionally, there's a new trend of 3-D movies. Post-Avatar, studios are hastily converting already shot movies into 3-D ones in post production, resulting in shoddy 3-D productions in The Clash of the Titans (remake!) and The Last Airbender, for example. It's a great excuse to charge higher prices for tickets to compensate for declining sales. Now, I have no problems with 3-,D but the film purist in me does not want 3-D movies to become the status quo for blockbusters. Roger Ebert explains why the 3-D trend is not a good thing here.

This is where Inception comes in. Now the film's marketing has likened it to The Matrix meets Bond, but Inception is definitely an original idea. It's a risky one, what with its high-brow dream-within-a-dream concept, and the only reason Warner Bros was willing to produce the cash for it was Christopher Nolan. Thanks to Batman Begins, and more importantly of course, The Dark Knight, Nolan has essentially become the God of WB, which means he has earned the right to obtain the US$200 million shooting budget needed to realise his vision for Inception. Nolan is also a traditionalist, who refused to release Inception in 3-D because he's not willing to compromise on the loss of certain qualities that would result in a 3-D conversion. Inception is one of the rare summer releases that will screen solely on 2-D theatres.

The film is released this coming weekend and advanced reviews have been more than positive overall. It also has a star-studded cast led by Leonardo Dicaprio. Combine those two factors with the fact that Nolan has garnered himself a legion of fanboys post-Batman (I'm one of them) who will unquestionably support his films and you have a recipe for box office success. Or so WB hopes. Because even with the cachet of Nolan, Dicaprio et al, Inception is still quite a risky venture. Rare is the studio that plunks $200 million in an original summer movie, much less an esoteric one about "dreams states".

This is why you should care about its success. Reviews have not all been published, but I'm willing to hazard a guess this will be a good film. It will most probably end up at 80% fresh on RottenTomatoes.  If that, coupled with the "From the Director of the Dark Knight" tagline, does not entice people to the movie, then I don't know what will.

The Dark Knight's success showed studios that dark, serious popcorn fare can make bank at the box office too. But it ultimately was a franchise based on one of the most popular comic book figures in the world. Inception is altogether a different kettle of fish. If it succeeds, Hollywood will perhaps see that it can be worthwhile to take some risks and invest in original scripts for the summer, and not just rely on established franchises. It will perhaps also stem the tide of 3-D films coming our way, and show that a good film done in 2D can and will bring in a large audience.

The future of Hollywood could very well depend on the success of Inception. Hands up those of us who want edgy, challenging and exciting summer extravaganzas! That is why if you love films even just a little bit, it is your duty to go see Inception!



Postscript: I guess if all else fails, we will always have Pixar.

Crossing Musical Borders

While blogging about the topic of Chinese here, I was reminded of a topic that I've been fascinated by, which is the successful export of Japanese, and to a lesser extent, Korean pop culture to the West relative to the export of Chinese pop culture. Music affioncados in Europe and the States sometimes adore Japanese/Korean pop/rock. Some of my American friends love Korean boybands. Some indie music blogs will post news of Namie Amuro or something. Bascially, one could say that there's some sort of niche audience for J/K-pop in the West, and they've sorta got cult status. It would be 'cool' to like L'Arc-en-Ciel, like how it's 'cool' to like the Animal Collective, if you get what I mean.

It's not the same for movies though. Japanese movies are of course appreciated in the West, with the likes of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai being universally acknowledged as a classic. South Korea's Park Chan-Wook attained cult status too. But Chinese films also get love from the West. John Woo and Ang Lee have crossed over to Hollywood, and directors like Wong Kar Wai, Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao Hsien are respected internationally.

But somehow, that is not the case for Chinese music, which puzzles me. The closest thing I can think of would be Faye Wong when she did 'Eyes on Me' for Final Fantasy. But still, no one was interested in her Chinese work. Even the indie-est of indie music lovers would not be into Chinese music. And I wonder why. Is it the ballad-heavy nature of Chinese music that doesn't translate? Is it that there is more originality to be found in J/K-pop, compared to Chinese pop, which I must say can be highly derivative? Is there some sort of cultural affinity that the West feels towards Japan, and to a lesser extent, Korea? Does Japan's status as a first-world, G7 country have anything to do with said cultural affinity? I don't know. I just feel like there is a lot of good to be found in Chinese music and I'd like for it to gain a wider audience beyond Chinese-speaking shores.

2 for 1

It was movie day last Friday. Caught two movies at the enormous 25-theatre AMC in Times Square. Bought tix for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and after that, snuck into a screening of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. I feel completely justified in doing so because a ticket costs $12!!!
Verdict: Nick and Norah 7.5/10 (Michael Cera = +1 automatically, but a tad underdeveloped)
How to Lose Friends 6/10 (Stick to Brit fare, Simon Pegg)

By chance, both films turn out to be NYC-themed, the former being about a night out in the LES, and the latter about a Brit moving to work in a snazzy NYC mag (based on a book written about a guy who worked at Vanity Fair). Typically, both featured plenty of skyline shots of the city, including a shot of the very street the movie theatre we were in was located. Feels really neat to see that.

A Hair of a Difference

Atonement (good, but not a masterpiece)'s Briony Tallis from young to old.

LOL.

I want to catch Superbad super badly

The Judd Apatow-led team is without a doubt Hollywood's best in comedy right now, with hit after hit like 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, all of which are actually funny. Adam Sandler who? Anyway, Superbad is their latest work, and it looks fuckin' hilarious! Advance reviews have really been strong and it's bound to be a hit.

Story-wise, it's your typical high school graduation party/coming-of-age movie in the vein of Can't Hardly Wait and American Pie. The plot is perfunctory in such movies of course. Two high school best friends who are about to separate after graduation plan one last hurrah to get laid and fun ensues!

Check out these clips. Warning: NSFW due to explicit language.
The first is a R-rated trailer of the movie.


The film is written by Seth Rogen (the dude in Knocked Up) and he has a small part too. And for the 5 people in Singapore (and about 10 in the US, which thus brought about its cancellation, sadly) who are fans of the absurdist sitcom, Arrested Development, Micheal Cera, who played young son George Michael in the TV show, is one of the co-stars of Superbad. I'm a big fan of Cera. He has brilliant comedic timing and the fact that he stood out in AD even with its stellar cast says a lot. He is enacting his awkward kid persona again in Superbad, one which he has down pat. I hope his career goes places. HE is the star of the new "leading men who don't exactly look like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp thus making them more accessible" generation, not Shia LeBeouf, who hasn't 1/4 of Cera's talents.

This second video is a short scene from the movie. Absolutely outrageous!


The movie opens in the US this coming week and hopefully will come to Singapore soon. By hook or crook, I'll catch it in NYC! And when it comes to Singapore, you guys must as well!