Lust, Caution

I'm allergic to hype, so I approached "Lust, Caution" with caution, of course (not to mention I've never been a fan of Eileen Chang). And time and again, my cautious attitude has proven me right. The first half of the film, especially the flashback, is dull and boring. The foolhardiness of the students and the pathos of their failed assassination attempt/spy game are not affecting at all, much of it due to the horrible performance of the actors and pedestrian direction (was it done by an incompetent second unit?) The uninspiring and maladroit art department is also to blame, which continues to plague the film with a sense of shoddiness in the second half. Besides, there appears to be a complete absence of social and political tension of the time period, leaving a gaping hole in the narrative There's simply not enough to anchor the characters in this particular era. The flashback could have been tastefully rendered in a monologue or by some clever editing.

Fortunately the film picks up in the second half. The relationship between the two leads takes an interesting turn as the two souls entwine and eventually being marooned in the cesspool of espionage and simmering sexual craving. The buzz surrounding this film is all about the overt, kinky sex sequences which, to my surprise, are extremely well directed and "choreographed" (they're really pushing the envelop in terms of gymnastic sexual positions and putting karmasutra to shame. There's no telling where Mr Yee's limbs begin and Mrs Mai's end, no kidding). We see two people wrestle and battle with their inner demons, vie for dominance in the physical and emotional levels of being, and tread a fine line between love and hate, loyalty and betrayal, luscious intoxication and maddening sober. The distortion of moral and ethic principles by the sheer gravity of lust underpins the absurdity of human conditions and the ambiguity of human experience. My applause to Ang Lee. Tong Leung's performance is very uneven, most of the time marred by his unconvincing Putonghua accent and a small repertoire of expressions. His character is also in desperate need of more screen time off the bed. If you ask me, he has a very narrow range. Lee-Hom Wang is just bad casting, pure and simple. Wei Tang is a bit stiff at times, but overall she's adequate and shows some promise. If only had Ang Lee cut the first half 30 minutes shorter, portrayed wartime China in greater details and developed the two leading characters more fully, "Lust, Caution" could have been another bullet to his impressive resume. It keeps me wondering: What would Wong Kai Wei have done differently?

Heroes Season 1

Heroes sucks! It certainly has its moments, but the overall quality isn't what the hype machine preaches it to be.

First the storyline is silly. Gene mutation can't possibly allow you to do all those amazing acts, can it? Besides, we do use our whole brain! That crap about using only 10% of it is so out of fashion. I'd rather the writer goes with Marvel/DC's traditions: touched by some sort of space rocks or x-energy or whatever. And how do you track "special" people to such accuracy that you have a list of names! I want to puke everytime that Suresh guy mentioned the human genome project in all sincerity. Since the creator tries to stage a superhero drama in a real life setting, at least you can make your basic premise a little more plausible. Looking serious doesn't mean you're convincing. The major part of the plot is plodding and slow with plot holes big enough for an oil tanker to comfortably sail through and the ending is sort of the pinnacle of its mediocrity.

Another thing that bugs me is the characters. They are so unloveable. Peter is bitching all the time (having his hair covered his forehead means that he's a badass? And then a good guy when it's combed back? come on!) Is Nikki/Jessica simply having multiple personality disorder like the shrink suggested? A dopplerganger you can't control is hardly superpower and how can that be linked to gene mutation? Nathan the flying man, this guy has no principle at all, and the season finale practically doesn't need him to be there (I mean Peter can fly, too, so...) And then there's Peter and Nathan's mother - what a strange character! She's a vulnerable widow who has to shoplift to feel the pulse of life in the first episode but by mid-season, she suddenly turns into this stone-hearted super mastermind behind the biggest conspirancy of all time?! Wow, which planet does this psychotic bitch or, her creator, the writer come from? The rest of the characters are boring, stereotypical and forgettable. The saving grace is the Japanese duo and somehow Sylar the sicko.

The production is good, most of the sfx shots are very well done. I just hope that the writing and acting match the same level of quality. Season 2 is officially a no-no for me.

Inland Empire (A Woman in Trouble)

I'm not overly impressed with Inland Empire. Granted, I was not exactly in my best mental and physical state when I watched it (have been losing sleep over the last few months). Besides, I hate movies shot with HD camera, which's lifeless and doesn't register light very well (or maybe too well). Guess Lynch's inclination to HD has a lot to do with budget. He's not a box-office wonderboy in the eyes of the studio suits, and he has his share of the "clash of the titans" with them. In Mulholland Dr and Inland Empire, his profound distrust of the Hollywood system is evident. HD gives him a lot more autonomy for sure.

Going back to the movie itself. I'm ambivalent about it, a somewhat love-hate entanglement. The first hour is sheer brilliance, loaded with tons of typical Lynchian motifs and build-ups: mystical dialogues (how I love that demonic neighbour of Grace, her thick European accent and the "old tales" she recounted), jumbled timelines, multiple identities assumed by each character, convulsive emotional outbursts, parallel stories, retro set design, the return of crazy close-up shots from Lost Highway, so on and so forth. But the problem is, unlike Lost Highway or Mulholland Dr., they never pay off. It's as if these Lynchian devices buckled under the weight of their own eccentricities. Lynch tries to mesh his short films (e.g.the rabbit family) and half-baked ideas (e.g. a cursed unfinished film) into one package. It works to the extent that his signature style is all over the place, but it fails miserably to integrate everything organically. The film is almost plotless, or simply too fragmented for anyone to make any sense at all. It's like Dr Frankenstein's little experiment went horribly wrong: a mish-mesh of rabbit head, human limbs and donkey torso stubbornly remained inanimated after repeated jolts of electricity. It's a bit frustrating. One can call it an experience, surrealistic for sure, but is this merely an attemp to dress up its shortcomings? The film tries too hard to obfuscate and confuse. As much as I still enjoy the style, I'm disappointed that after a five-year hiatus, Lynch simply decided to pull out all his tricks and served them in one plate instead of coming up with something fresh. The subheading of the film should be changed to "A Director in Trouble" (for Lynch to employ a subheading is quite the telling clue to the state of the film). Lynch probably has little idea about what he's doing. Nevertheless, given his cult status, a sneeze from him is good enough to send his fans churning out film readings and creating myths to the proportion of the Lords of the Ring. I'm a fan, too, but I was sorely underwhelmed. Maybe I'm just a nitpicky curmudgeon.

RIP

Ingmar Bergman, the world of cinema doesn't see the likes of you so often. May you RIP...

The Lost Room, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men & 300

The Lost Room is a six-part Sci-fi Channel mini-series. It's what you'd expect to come straight out of a scriptwriting workshop: let's say there are a key, a clock, a comb, a cop, a pawn shop owner and a couple religious cults, now give me a story. The idea is quite refreshing but the scripwriters haven't done the premise justice or they haven't fully explored the potential of their original ideas. It loses steam towards the end and lacking a good closure is surely its coup de grace. Still, I recommend it to fans of twilight zone/outer limits.

Saw Pan's Labyrinth finally. Don't bother to get the Korean DVD if you can wait (till May for R1 release) coz the making-of only has korean subtitles. Si senior, the prodcution gang speaks Spanish only.

The interwined stories are handled by a deft hand, although there're a few lousy plot devices that have stuck out like a sore thumb (like the maid who let the sadistic captain live when she could have gutted him to death easily; why having the maid to give the resistance the store key when they eventually stormed the mill in full force?) The fantasy part is very enjoyable with top notch art design (that child slaughtering monster is CREEPY!).

Pan's Labyrith is a tale of sadness, underlining the cruelty of fasle hope and the endless suffering belies it. One thing that especially piques my interest is how do we tell something is real or unreal. Is everything Ofelia's imagination? Or is she really a princess of the underworld? What if our experience is no more real that Ofelia's? We can say Ofelia find her escape/salvation through a mental recreation of the world of fairies, but can we also say we, being gluttons for punishment, create a world of cruelty and chaos to deliberately steer away from happiness?

Also watched Children of Men and 300. Children of Men is surprisingly realistic. I thought it was going to be some sort of hardcore sci-fi but it turns out to be more of a 1984-esque social commentary. The scenario depicted isn't so far-fetched in a sense. Inequity breeds human follies which lead to all hell breaking loose. The infertility of human species is more a symbolic representation of the present day human conditions then a mere story premise. I've this unsettling feeling that the film seems to support the notion of messianic salavation, which I can't really blame the filmmaker as it arguably constitutes part of human psyche. We're always waiting for someone (god(s), a supreme power, donald tsang, etc.) to rescue us from the shithole we're in. If we don't see one, we make one up, then keep replacing it with another until it's all too bloody late. As soon as Moses led his people to the wilderness, they started worshipping a golden calf shaped by their very own hands. We don't seem to have outgrown this primitive yet instinctive practice. Nevertheless, sometimes I agree there seems to be no better ways to guranttee the survival of humanity than having something/someone to look up to. Everyone needs a purpose to live, and purpose is a rare commodity to say the least. I've strayed too far. The film itself is rather good with solid acting, and the cinematography stands out conspicuously.

300 is a feast for the eyes. Gore, violence, battle-cry, stylish filmmaking - you got it all. Very enjoyable, provided you like those things. It's pure entertainment, so go get your zen-ish inspiration somewhere else.

Oscar! Oscar!

Time to look into my crystal ball:

Best Picture: Letter From Iwo Jima
The Departed is a decent film but we have certainly seen better, especially from Scorsese. Babel is a sham. I won't be too surprised if the award eventually goes to Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen, but my money is on Eastwood.

Best Director: Clint Eastwood
Many people will go for Scorsese in this category. But let's face it, first it's an adaptation that doesn't stray too far from the original, and second, Scorsese was never the darling of Oscar. The political climate in the US seems to favor our good old Clint to pocket that little gold man.

Best Actor: Forrest Whitaker
Oscar has a soft spot for underdogs these days, not to say anything about peculiar roles. It's Forrest Whitaker's turn to receive the Oscar nod. DiCaprio's performance in The Departed/Blood Diamond is solid but short of outstanding. He'll be a serious contender in the future though.

Best Actress: Helen Mirren
Veni, vidi, vici. Helen Mirren rulez! Her onscreen persona overshadows all the regulars in this category. Now, bow before your majesty!

Original Screenplay: Pan's Labyrinth
Torn between Little Miss Sunshine and Pan's Labyrinth here.

Adapted Screenplay: The Departed
No contest.

Best Editing: United 93
Two serious contenders in this category: United 93 and Babel. Babel feels tedious and jumbled at times, so... Did I mention Babel is a sham?

Best Animated Feature: Happy Feet
Talking cars? Gimme a break. I prefer dancing penguins.

Best Foreign Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Easy one.

Best Documentary Feature: Any film but An Inconvenient Truth
Can you seriously believe a guy who claimed to have created the Internet and failed to spell potato correctly to enlighten you on climatology? Al Gore is a joke, and this fear-mongering, political propaganda branded as a documentary sucks big time. Anyone wants to have a more balanced view on the state of global warming should read Patrick Michaels instead.

Lady in the Water

Lady in the Water is a fairytale through and through. Sorry, no more startling plot twists - what you see is exacty what you get. The story defies logic, it's unreal, and it's absoultely otherworldly or just plain goofy. A savior of the purest intend is here to rescue humanity from utter destruction by inspiring a prophet? A guild, a guardian, a healer and a symbolist are aligned to assist her? Little do we remember it's all the stuff that fairytales and myths are made of (Joseph Campbell will have a field day with this one). Adults find it compulsory to act like one - i.e. to be rational at all time, sneering at the sight of any out-of-the-ordinary propositions and refuse to so much as comprehend anything that are ostensibly childish or freakishly quirky. It's almost like the lost of innocence is a blessing! What have become of us?!

Lady in the Water has sent sniffy critics around the world arching their eyebrows, not least because the only character who gets killed in the movie is one of the jaded, navel-gazing know-it-all colleagues of them. At one point, the audience is led to believe that the critic indelibly portrayed by Bob Balaban is the prophet-in-the-rough. Obviously, M. Night Shyamalan's cutting those stodgy, pontificating critics, who believe themselves to be the ultimate judge of cinematic beauty, down to size. The film has its share of flaws but since when nit-pick gets in the way of appreciation, since when the mere appearance of innocence makes us squint, since when we lost touch with our inner child, and since when being sarcastic and cynical the birthmarks of film critics as well as the badge everyone prides himself wearing? I know it's the cynics not the meeks who have inherited the world, but it doesn't mean we have to be one of them.

Like Hitchcock, MNS enjoys making cameos in his own movies. But this time around, he's not taking some petty little parts. By stepping into the shoes of a prophet destined to be sacrificed for the betterment of mankind (in real life, the film does amount to a career suicide and it does leave MNS's reputation in tatters which is most unfortunate and unfair. I've read somewhere that he's having trouble securing financial backing for his next movie - The Green Effect), MNS is telling us in our face: I mean what I said, don't call me corny! Lady in the Water professes his faith in the goodness of the world, his doubt about the cult of reason, and above all, his calling for the audience to hark back to their childhood when fanatsy tales are their escape and the sources of hope they can tap into. It's a story about having faith in yourself and the people around you, about how everyone is connected(six degrees of seperation, anyone?), about finding your purpose in the world, and about believing. It's a mortal crime to write off an artist who has a few misfires. The same goes with MNS (The Village really sucks!).

After This Our Exile 父子(aka The Complete Idiot's Guide to Child Abuse)

After This Our Exile is a piece of junk. I hate to be a wet blanket, but the geyserlike bursts of enthusiasm for this film, exemplified by the local media, makes my stomach turn. Those who laud this movie as a successful "comeback" of director Patrick Tam are either in awe of his fame as one of the progenitors of HK's new wave movement (which was a long time ago and why do people still care and talk about it leave me cold, especially when the HK film industry is having trouble drawing its next breath) or simply trying to identify with the mainstream critics. I guess it's still considered unfashionable to criticize a so-called cinematic maestro.

Aaron Kwok plays a gormless person and a compulsive gambler at once, who gives little regard for his family. He is such a loser that he doesn't bond with anyone, not his wife, his lover or his son. In other words, he doesn't care about anyone but himself. The same goes for Kwok's wife (Charlie Young), who leaves the scum for reasons good enough but has no intention to care for her son. Even though she's full of remorse, the only thing in her mind, when she's not self-pitying, is to sever all ties with the boy. That leaves the little boy - an extremely underdeveloped character - the only victim of this dysfunctional family. However, the director seemingly doesn't sympathize with him either, for he spent the better part of the movie describing how the boy's ill-treated and betrayed by his father, who, to my terrified eyes, has the last laugh! There's in fact little love lost between the three of them! So tell me, as an audience, how am I supposed to feel for a non-existent father-son relation when you're selling me one?

The script is so prosaic and unfocused that whatever emotional resonance it has comes out muffled, proving an egregious lack of originality. The boy reminds me of the kid in Truffaut’s 400 Blows. Maybe Tam is still living in the past. Technically, it has little to write home about as well. The sex scenes are absolutely gratuitous, out of place and distastefully put together. The direction and cinematography are as old fashion as it gets, e.g. showing Aaron Kwok face down on top of Charlie Young, who is looking sad (or trying to be sad), staring at the ceiling, tears brewing, while the camera outside the window pulls sideway from the scene on a dolly is way beyond pathetic. And all the time, there's plaintive music in the background, which brings me to the score: it is abysmal! When it's not trying too hard to be melancholy, it goes too heavy-handed on its ethnic tracks - to serve what purposes I have no bloody idea. The same story can happen in HK for all I care. Does it make any real difference it takes place in Southern Asia?

A horrid film disguised as art. I heard people praising the film for its editing (again, I bet it's because Tam is an acclaimed editor), naming all sorts of tricks, e.g. montage, parallel cutting and whatnot, as if the success of a film hinges on how many rabbits our figurative conjurer can pull out of his hat! And the funny part is that they always end their comments with a caution: the script is a bit lacking. Now, isn't that hilarious! Aren't films, first and foremost, there to tell us a story? But to many critics, they think films are boxes of assorted candies with wafer bars, cholocate kisses, jelly beans and so on, the more the merrier. When you stand up from your theatre seat and have nothing better to say or reflect than the editing techniques, regardless of whether they work for or against the story, something must be wrong. It leads me to think that movie-going, being an act of consumption, can take many forms, one of which will be a chance for one to make pompous comments using jargons that one doesn't really understand but lends the users a certain degree of authority. It's actually comparable to psychics and fortune-tellers talking about "energy" or "magnetic field". Sometimes, I find these folks quite charming, seeing them enjoying themselves this way.

Elizabeth I

Watched Elizabeth I over the weekend, an HBO two-part mini-series. Helen Mirren deserves all the accolades showered on her in the past year. She gives a definitive portray of the most popular monarch of Britain over the centuries. The indecisive and temperamental nature of Elizabeth I, as well as her legendary (or notoriously known) affairs with the Earl of Leicester and subsequently the Earl of Essex are intimately depicted on the screen, breathing life into an otherwise stern-looking Empress. I have watched more than a few shows/films/theatrical dramas about kings and queens in the last couple years and have come to realize that perhaps taking the throne is the worst profession one can imagine, unless you fancy constantly being subject to usurping plots or having a bullseye trained on you 24/7, or you simply decide to be a tyrant and have a truly great time (who can blame you?!) The direction and cinematography are excellent. The supporting cast (Jeremy Irons, Patrick Malahide & Ian McDiarmid, to name but a few) are equally brilliant.

Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl

Among the books I've recently finished is Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl. His sophomore effort is again a period novel like his debut - The Dante Club, which i enjoyed a great deal and won't hestitate to recommend to anyone interested in mystery wrapped in a period setting and featured real-life literate luminaries such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Wendell Holems. Poe Shadow, in much the same vien, features the famous gothic writer/poet Edgar A. Poe (whose "The Purloined Letter" has been the subject of one of Jacque Lacan's critical analyses. Lacan peeled away the layers of the story to reveal something a causal reader will never see. Extremely inspiring. I would suggest anyone interested to check out "Reading Theory- An Introudction to Lacan, Derrida and Kristeva" by Michael Payne). In Poe Shadow, Matthew Pearl sets out to unravel the mystery surrounding Poe's untimely death (historically, he did die in the most suspicious circumstances). But the characters in it are so not loveable. Mr Pearl protrays a young lawyer, who has obviously caught the Sherlock-bug, desperate to unearth the truth about Poe's death that he's willing to risk it all and eventually finds himself being accused of murder as well as on the brink of losing his estate and a marriage to boot. But I've a hard time understanding his obsession and all the follies he committed in the midst of stopping my mind from wandering from a plot that drags on and on and on. The writing is no comparison to The Dante Club as well. Pearl switches registers so frequently (it doesn't help there're quite a few French characters who tend to be overly ornate and ponderous in their speeches) to the effect that the book doesn't feel whole. The story ends unceremoniously that makes you wonder if it's worth all the trouble to get there. It's a grave disappointment.

The Double life of Veronique

The Double life of Veronique is showing in cinema again, as part of a programme to commemorate the death of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski who died ten years ago of a heart attack. Sadly to say, the movie isn't anyting close to great. It's beautifully shot, the score is absolutely haunting, but other than that, it's empty. The void is so vast that it verges on being pretentious. Kieslowski builds this mordern fable on a weak premise and doesn't care to flesh out the loose narrative with more in-depth characterisations. There're only endless cryptic symbols that tease and taunt but never actually inspire. Ultimately, they can only be regarded as lax, meaningless musings of an artist. This film owes much of its applause to the beautuful Irene Jacob, who later teams up with Kieslowski in Red. But then again, if beauty is a message by itself, it can only be about the emptiness of it. I adore Kieslowski and my eyes were literally welled when he died in 1996. But I can't seem to live with the thought that he's remembered by the indulgently ornate style charactised his later years, instead of the many qualities of his early offerings, namely the spirit of a freedom fighter and the humanistic touch that calms the storm and ease the pain. I still remember the night I went to watch No End with a Polish friend and how he was so moved by the film that he couldn't say anything until we were back at the dorm. The Double life of Veronique is probably the movie that launches him internationally, but it also marks the fall of a great director.

Mrs Henderson Presents

Mrs Henderson's (Judy Dench) husband has recently deceased. Mourning though she is, she can't help blaming her late husband for his "inconsideration" to leave her in the boredom of widowhood. After some painful soul searching and experiments, the restless Mrs Henderson spots a desolated theatre in West End and decides to restore it to its past glory. Oblivious to the theatre business, she entrusts the operation to a Mr Van Damm (Bob Hoskins), or Mr Damn Van when she's crossed. The two then begins a successful yet torrid partnership marked with endless bickers, grudging mutual respect and unspoken love. Windmill Thearter is an instant sensation with its chirpy musical numbers. But its recipe of success is soon copied by competitors, and with the audiences' expectations ractched up, Mrs Henderson decides to put nude performers on stage to spice things up a little! She manages to convert first Mr Van Damm into a believer of all-nude revues, and then cajoles the uptight Lord Chamberlian (who is known for banning the word "erection" to be used in Samuel Beckett's renowned play "Waiting for Godot" when it was first performed in London) into greenlighting her licentious endeavour with her impish sense of humor. As WWII draws closer to home, Mrs Henderson refuses to shut down the theatre for reasons unselfishly noble and simultaneously private. Helmed by Stephen Frears, the film is a joy ride from start to finish. It's shot much like a musical with a string of beautiful songs delieverd by Windmill's resident crooner Bertie (Will Young), but since it's a film rather than a bond-a-fide musical, sometimes the pace feels a bit too brisk that tepid plot devices (especially the death of Maureen, one of the Windmill girls, played by the attractive Kelly Reilly) are thrown in to the effect of being slightly insensitive and reducing the impact of the pathos on screen. Nevertheless, these are just minor gripes. Judy Dench's rapport with Bob Hoskins is palpable and a joy to behold. Recommended.

The New World

Malick is a past master of celluloid poetry. Whoever tries to argue the otherwise should go back to watch The Fast and the Furious. What perfect imagery in this poem of love! His lens bring us claustrophobically close to Mother Nature that our pabulum and quotidian existences seem awfully trifling in comparison. The New World reminds me of Wender's Wings of Desire, only this time the narrators aren't drawling some turgid deep thoughts and the lyrical musings are administered in more manageable doses. Malick's artistic power goes beyond the quality of eyecandy as he touches on the nature of love and the love for nature. I was left speechless by Malick's magic loom as the credit rolled. Seriously though, those who find The Thin Red Line hard to swallow should excuse themselves from this one as the pace is even slower, and with a scarcity of dialogues, i can already hear people snoring.

North Country

North Country is based on a true event in which a group of female miners filed a sexual harrasment class action and won. It's THE lawsuit that gets the whole world busy at plugging holes in company regulations. North Country has all the trappings one can expect from a courtroom drama - the oppressors plunge their claws into the oppressed and the great injustice is not righted until the very end of the 2-hr running time (albeit in reality, it takes a full decade to reach the ruling). Maybe melodrama is the most effective way to rid the insouciance over the perils of others ever so typical of modern people.

But where it lacks in innovation, it more than makes up for with a formidable cast, especially Charlize Theron as Josey. She lives the character, almost effortlessly. The supporting cast is equally brilliant, including Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sean Bean. Richard Jenkins, as Josey's father, is also remarkable. The scene in which he stands up for his daughter in a hall packed to the rafters with male chauvinist pigs is powerful and effecting. Emotional but not setimental. The one thing I don't like is that it protrays Josey and her co-workers as all-round victims of the patriarch. The arguement for female empowerment should not be buttressed by the fact that some of them are sufferers; it's basic human rights, plain and simple. It's what makes the whole feminist movement go awry at times. But I digress. Anyway, a well made feel-good movie without ideas or statements of real significance.

Munich

Munich is inspired by the notorious Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympics and the ensuing aftermath. Avner, deftly played by Eric Bana, was appointed by Golda Meir, the Iron Lady of Israel, the grave task of leading an unofficial death squad on a mission to take out 11 Palestinians condemned by the Mossad as the architects of Munich. Avner started off as an inexperienced assassin who had a hard time firing his handgun. Instead of growing into a surefire executor, he remained jittery and showed a glaring lack of puritanical gusto. By the end of the film, we're told he's being haunted by his deeds, probably for the rest of his life.

Munich doesn't mean to be 100% faithful to history (there're serious doubts about whether the Palestinians assassinated are really the perpetrators), but it manages to re-enact with painful precision the kidnap and rescue debacles. The film is also visually compelling with a robust sense of aesthetic. The assassination sequences are great Hitchcock-esque moments and provide the required narrative urgency. However, with the Oscar looming in the horizon, the film has been showered with extensive critical accolades not for its technical excellence, but for its courage in tackling a matter of great delicacy. But is it worthy of these praises? I doubt it.

Although the story is told from the point of view of Avner, an Israeli, Spielberg has taken painstaking care to make sure the causes of both Israel and Palestine are given fair airtime. Hence Golda's defense for the unspeakable act the Israel government was about to sanction; the awkward conversations between Avner and Ali in the safe house's landing; a constant display of reluctance by Avner and his team, save Steve (played by Daniel Craig; yet another attempt to maintain the balance of ideologies, this time within the death squad); and the rationalization of terrorism by Avner's mother and his boss, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush). The result is a very confused idea about the nature of violence, or at best, a reiteration of its futility.

Sure, violence is a self-breeding monster that eventually is going to take the avenger and the avenged nose-diving in a downward spiral to complete destruction. And it's also true that both sides in this bloody conflict have reasons strong enough to fly the flag for their own prejudices, and their violent acts have indeed put a price tag on peace. But in the course of ensuring even-handedness, violence as a means to an end is never categorically denied (expectedly, it's not reassured as well). If Spielberg hasn't meandered and wallowed like a self-doubting whiner, sweating and panting, but instead charged headlong into making a critique of violence, Munich might pack a stronger punch than it is now. In its current form, it's merely a well shot, griping thriller soaked in wimpy idealism and manufactured sentimentality (speaking of which, having Avner to bang his wife as he relives the horror of Munich is a very lousy try at that - I swear I heard people laughing in the auditorium!).

Maybe I'm overly harsh, but making a film about a conflict known for the brutalities on both sides by applauding and condemning violence at once is hardly exemplary. The filmmaker doesn't go beyond standing on the sidelines, wringing his hands, shaking his heads in regrets and dismay and telling us how ugly this world is. Thank you very much, but Mr Spielberg, what should we do about it? The scene in which Steve and one of the PLO members vied for the control of the radio and finally found middle ground in a channel broadcasting Western music, perhaps, echoes the mentality of the filmmaker - Let's give up violence and start humming candy pop-tunes like the contestants of American Idol so that the world can be one and whole again!

Spielberg is in the habit of dispensing instant catharsis (remember the ridiculous happy ending of War of the Worlds?), so people love him. Many will leave the theatre grinding their teeth at the horrors of violence, vowing their sturdy stance against bloodshed and terrorism. But they'll not lose sleep over it and will merrily go on with their lives, contented that they've already played a small part in condemning the evil. There's a saying: being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals - It's easy because we're not keen deep in blood and guts. But no one describes the apathy and hypocrisy of our generation in a more direct and pithy manner than Jack (Joaquin Phoenix) in Terry George's excellent Hotel Rwanda, "I think if people see this footage [the ethnic cleansing of Tutsis by Hutu militia in Rwanda], they'll say Oh, my God, that's horrible. And then they'll go on eating their dinners."

Is this film daring? No, it's safer than your four-wheel drive. Does it serve the cause of weaning off bloodshed and violence? Hell no. Is it good entertainment? You bet.

Small Crimes, Saturday, Sticklers

Matthew Kneale's Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance is a collection of 12 short stories about ordinary people like you and me drifting in a morally-ambiguous world while being tormented by senses of paranoid, despondency and defeat. The pace of these stories is crisp but never haste, the narrative straightforward but never simple. If you like Kneale's English Passenger, you probably would enjoy Small Crimes.

Ian McEwain's Saturday is a totally different beast. It gives a very initamte look at the post-911 world through the eys of a middle-class Londoner who wakes up one Saturday to a sudden revelation of how close violence actually lurks, and how the repercussions of global events have come to tear his contented life apart. His observations are at times acute and funny, at times sarcastic and insenstive, while always poignant. This is my first Ian McEwan book, and the aftertaste is rather delightful. He'll be on my watchlist.

Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves is next. To say this book is funny as hell is an understatement. Sticklers of the World, Unite!

Perhaps Love 如果．愛

《如果．愛》寫情真摯，試問多少人真的明白愛情的底蘊？愛是方是圓，是悲是喜，沒人可以說個肯定，充其量只能是明心見性。片中三角戀的契機，開場不久便由聶文向監製說的一番話透露了端倪：三人之間的關係，算是一般定義下的愛情嗎？

孫納之於聶文，是一種感情的附庸和寄託，但久而久之， 卻窒礙了他的藝術創作，聶文放手是因為太愛孫納，還是不想再被變成了包袱的愛情所支配？對聶文來說，或許愛情既是一種存放和提取情感的器皿，也是靈感的泉源和墓地－他以戲劇手法終結與孫納的關係，創造力亦隨之從墓地中翻土而出，吃酸辣麵去了。

聶文之於孫納，最初是以情感投資達至互利互用的商業瓜葛，帳面回報一如所料隨時間消逝逐漸見底，本是一單操作純熟的交易，但這次她赫然發覺自己難於抽身，時間長了，共生關係竟派生出真感情來。對孫納來說，或許愛情不只是一種投資；或許愛情，真的存在過，活在那拍不成的青海戀曲中。

林見東之於孫納，是一個大大的心結－這個被自己出賣了一次又一次，利用了一次又一次的男人，始終並非心中所愛，但對他又有一份情感道義上的虧欠。

孫納之於林見東，是最純粹的無添加愛情，融合了熱愛、寬恕、仇恨、堅執等複雜情緒。對林見東來說，或許愛情，最終也應該包括放手，只懇求對方記住北京的往事。

陳可辛善於抓住細膩的情感脈動，戲中三個人物的互動掌握得很到位，惟獨個別場口太刻意經營，以至於犧牲了應有的subtlety (陳可辛就是有種傾向，Love Letter最後一個鏡頭刻意送上床上一枝碩大的vibrator，有如在生日蛋糕上插一枝神檯上的大紅燭，突兀得叫人倒胃)。美指奚仲文主導了影片的視覺風格（馬戲班的設計和人物，靈感顯然來自奚仲文執導的《安娜馬德蓮娜》）；北京部份的攝影亦得力於杜可風恰到好處的發揮。歌舞真的不如理想，首段由池珍熙擔崗的大型歌舞明顯力不從心，太過花巧夢幻，以致觀眾對影片產生錯誤的期望。編排得賞心悅目的大概只有“十字街頭”一段。陳可辛未清楚自己的定位同能力，但最大的敗筆在於以歌舞片的角度做推廣！

2046

周慕雲與蘇麗珍的戀情是時空的一次錯摸，周慕雲自始被困在2046號房間，那裡有他與蘇麗珍最精彩的時光，也有他最深藏的秘密；可以說，周慕雲的心從來沒有離開過2046。為了維繫自己與現實世界的紐帶，他塑造出半自傳式的小說人物木村，讓他帶著周慕雲的秘密離開2046，以謎般笑容睥睨天下間沉淪在潮濕的回憶世界的眾生(包括現實世界中的自己)。但是，這個充滿自嘲意味的人物卻是個不中用的傢伙，他雖然離開了，卻忍不住一次又一次地回去，重複著希臘神話中Sisyphus的輪迴惡夢。「你願意跟我走嗎？」木村一次又一次地追問機械人王菲，明知道她不會有答案、她的沉默也不是一種答案，而更重要的是，這個機械人並不是他所追求的對象！他問的已不再是一條實質的問題，而是一條rhetorical question，因為這條問題的真正對象，也就是《花樣年華》中的蘇麗珍，已經從周慕雲的世界中徹底抹消。

小說中的木村替周慕雲揹上一切感情包袱，令現實中的周慕雲能夠把男女之間的關係蒸餾至僅存情慾。他對白玲的冷漠，並不是為了裝酷而擠出來的，而是他的人生態度。他並不認為自己傷害了任何人。房東大女兒觸動了周慕雲對蘇麗珍的感情，但他不敢造次，躲在暗處偷偷張望，像個生怕被揭發偷腥的和尚一樣踟躕著腳步慢慢靠近，最後還是退下陣來。鞏俐和王菲是《花樣年華》中蘇麗珍的兩個reincarnations，也是在周慕雲的回憶中，對蘇麗珍最印象深刻的兩個側面：前者代表離別時的銘深刻骨，而後者則是交往時的溫馨窩心，也是一個重生的契機。周慕雲選擇了放棄，因此小說的結局改不了，也不知道從何改起。

跟王家衛過去的作品一樣，《2046》的每一格膠片都美得叫人窒息。我相信所有被王家衛拿來當草稿的膠片應有"雖死猶榮"之歎：沒有你們，便沒有《2046》！配樂也是第一流的。《2046》最大的問題是拍攝經年，故事焦點和節奏有欠理想，而且畫外音也用得過火－《重慶森林》那種展現角色內心思想的soliloquy變成了今天喋喋不休的monologue，是向抨擊他的觀眾妥協，還是對自己的表達力產生懷疑－我希望是前者。

Personal History by Katharine Graham

Although lauded for her journalistic integrity during the Watergate fallout, the late Katharine Graham is in fact not much of a hero, or for that matters, someone with particularly admirable traits. In her autobiography, she reminiscences the life of a daughter, a wife, a mother and a businesswoman overshadowed by and overly depended on the men surrounding her. She is constantly looking for a dominant male figure to take her under his wing. She has no strong intention to take the centerstage, not even in the thick of challenges. She's there only for the ride, and so it seems.

Despite a relentless name-dropping frenzy, Mrs Graham comes across surprisingly honest in her book. Her personality literally shines through the pages. She hasn't so much as trying to take undue credits for the Post's achievements (she makes it very clear she has little to do with exposing the Watergate scandal), and has laid bare her own weaknesses to the amusement of the readers (she admits she's eager to please, which is only too obvious, and is haunted by feelings of insecurity, despontency and underachievement).

A few anecdotes about several US Presidents are recounted, but nothing that will make you ooh and aah. Personal History is a well-written and intimate account of a fantastic and eventful life that was hardly the making of the protagonist. Not that surviving the life of a rich parent's daughter, a franatic and suicidal genius' wife and the head of a national media conglomerate anything close to easy, but Mrs Graham seems habitually taking the back seat as if she's a bystander. Success is almost handed over to her. After all, born right is all that matters, at least that's what I have in mind when I turned the last page.

The Historian - by Elizabeth Kostovo

I let out a long exhale after I finish The Historian, not out of the excitement of an enthralling experience but a "thank God I waded it through" kind of relief. The book is dense, plodding, slow, constructed and, the deadliest of all flaws for a counter-factual fiction, far-fetched. Writing in the epistolary style is no easy feat and Ms Kostovo is simply not up to the challenge. All the letters are written in such a strange register inappropriate for the characters responsible for them and the huge amount of superfluous details soaking up every single page have only made the letters all the more plastic. The characters are phony and overly feminine. The ending is one of the weakest in recent memory, too. All in all, this book is hyped beyond belief.

Batman Begins

I was drumming my figures when I started writing this blog ten minutes ago. Do I like Batman Begins? Sure, I'm entertained, to a certain extent, but frankly, I don't like it...or maybe just a little. Yes I'm a nit-picking bastard, but there're too many problems for me to turn a blind eye to. David Goyer's screenplay is weak if not downright bad. All the silly pap about the nature of fear in the first act is so very passé, exactly the kind of material that doomed tons of novels to the bargain bin. The plotline on how and why Bruce Wayne commits himself to a criminal life is also poorly written (and shot). The motive is neither clear nor strong enough, or even relevant. True, his parents are killed before his eyes, but the perpetrator is only a street bum, not the mastermind of a giant crime syndicate or anything of that caliber. No matter how traumatizing the experience is for the young Bruce, it's simply not a reason good enough for him to embark on an anthropological investigation of human wickedness (and risk his life and limb by doing so) and be motivated to commit to the enormity of such an aspirationin as to rid Gotham of evil, instead of a more straightforward response, i.e. an-eye-for-an-eye revenge. Given that he chooses to be a loner hiding in the dark waiting for his prey, it's only too obvious that Bruce is a troubled lad. Avenging his parents is not at the top of his agenda. There lurks something deeper! Disappointingly, the screenplay never tries to leave the comfort zone. Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor depicts a somewhat similar scenario, in which a reporter commits himself to a mental institution, in order to investigate a murder case and hopefully win himself a prize for it. He's also risking his neck in an entirely different sphere, but the motives are much more convincing. Bruce Wayne, by comparison, looks like a melodramatic fool. It's all too old-school and not as biting as it could have been, and I was hoping to see Nolan pushing the envelope. Once again, it proves that gifted director needs to stay in poverty to be creative.

Another gripe I have with Batman Begins is the production design. The look of Gotham City is a far cry from previous outings. The hybrid design of a modern cityscape featuring a comic-tinged ghetto just doesn't cut it. Batman is a larger-than-life character, not someone you'd expect to be living in your neighbourhood, and so the city he strives to protect should also be of striking difference from ours. Besides, Batman doesn't have any superpower. He's all blood and flesh. A realist approach strips him of the air of mystique so important to a masked hero, and turns him into a boy scout or 007 donned in lycra! Darn, he looks fetish! I left my conceptions of reality at the door only to be caught completely off guard by how close the film had stuck to it!

It's a tough act to rescue a tarnished franchise (thanks to Joel Schumacher), much tougher to reinvent without offending the die-hard fans. That explains why Goyer hasn't pulled any stunt with the screenplay. And with a steadfast focus to stay on the safe side, he borrows copiously from another hit in the superhero genre - Spiderman. Bruce stumbles as he takes on his new role as the Dark Knight, and reveals his secret to a girlfriend at the end - it's Spiderman 1 & 2 all over again! And when he's not borrowing ideas, he takes the short cut. So Morgan Freeman is given the role of a Santa Claus handing out candies in the basement: Need a suit? No problem! Weapons and gadgets? There on the shelves, go knock yourself out! A Batmobile, that's new! But I've got just what you need! If this is not lousy, I don't know what is! In fact, ain't Morgan Freeman just another Q?! I'm not going to stop just yet. What's wrong with Nolan when he shot those action sequences? All the tight shots and lightning-fast nauseating quick cuts have left my head spinning!

I try to take the good with the bad. The good being the decent performance of the cast, and the ultra-cool bat cave. But they aren't enough, are they?

Duplex

It's Sunday and I'm feeling lazy. So I switch on Cable and see what's on the movie channel. And there's Danny DeVito's Duplex, starring Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore. I'm not a fan of the duo, but a few chuckles to tide me in till Monday-morning syndromes kick in is not such a bad idea. It turns out to be a dreadful, dreadful experience. I think it's meant to be a satire about how rent control makes apartment owner's life miserable. And it's quite successful at that, but not as a satire. We see how Stiller and Barrymore are tortured by a cunning old witch living upstairs in their newly-purchased duplex and how they come out at the end of the movie penniless, homeless, jobless and remain duped to the extent that they think of their abuser as a cute little lady. The whole movie relies on too many variations of one joke. And that old woman, aptly played by Eileen Essel, is so nasty to the point that I truly believe she's a worshipper of Beelzebul and is breathing fire when I'm not looking! There're a few funny moments but most of the time, I feel like strangling that old bag myself (that stupid couple comes next on my list). On second thought, I guess Danny DeVito should be the guy I go after. He should never quit his day job as an actor. Why I sat through the past 90 minutes is a mystery to myself. I guess boredom has got the best of my judgment again. Avoid this movie if you can!

Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith

It doesn't take a Jedi to sense a great disturbance in the Force. Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith crash lands in the theatre as yet another dumb movie, albeit having a somewhat richer (not better) story than the previous prequels. The first ten minutes of it is an orgy of CG effects as the lousy story struggles to set the stage for Anakin's ultimate transformation. But instead of being awed and inspired, the onslaught of cartoony CG is extremely tiring to watch given the constant sensory bombardment. It's all been that, done that. The mediocrity raises another notch with the subsequent gratuitous fight in the space cruiser's control tower (who in their right mind will bring two mighty Jedis to the control tower if not to let them wreck havoc on you and kick your sorry ass?); the awkwardly choreographed saber duel; and the super-duper cheesy emergency landing. It doesn't bode well for the rest of the movie, and I'm ready to send out my first distress signal.

And then the killing begins. First, the all-powerful Cont Dooku is slain like a little kitty (Christopher Lee must be pissed for his Saruman character was also treated like dirt by Peter Jackson). But, really, he shouldn't get too bitchy about it because Dooku's demise is already decent enough in comparison with our beloved heroes of the Jedi Council-Lord Windu is flung out of the window by Anakin, and the rest fall like flies by the hands of troopers! Lucas must have grown so weary of Jedis' self-righteousness and moral mumbo-jumbo that he decides to get rid of them in the most insulting and humiliating way! Fascinating! A near total absence of character depth has become the signature of the prequels for Lucas dumps characters like used condoms; but then again, they are so corny that you won't care much for any of them. So I bear with it, and wait for THE moment.

Anakin's turn to the dark side of the Force should be the darkest, the grimmest, the most heart-rending moment of the Star Wars saga, right? Unfortunately, it turns out to be a fart of the first degree: We are told Anakin has a premonition of Padme's death by childbirth. And before long, we see Anakin unleashes a killing spree, sparing no one in his path because Palpatine promises to teach him how to raise Padme from the dead, even though that crook never once shows him how exactly is that going to be done. Who wrote crap like this? Are we supposed to feel sorry for such a gullible coward? Lucas must honestly believe that our eyes will get all watery by the time Anakin wakes up in his Lord Vader costume and cries out NOOOOOOOOO!! This scene is destined to go down in the history of cinema as a textbook example of pure cinematic junk.

I don't think the chemistry between Anakin and Obi-Wan, arguably the two most important characters in the prequels, has ever sizzled. The moral cleavage between the master and the apprentice hasn't been satisfactorily explored, leaving two shallow characters no livelier than their CG-generated counterparts dwelling the same scene. And speaking of Lucas' love affair with CG, he may have given birth to this modern cinematic magic that glosses over tons of dreadful screenplays, but his complete reliance on it renders a live-action production such as Star Wars verging on being a cartoon. And to add to the insult, more often than not, the CG backdrop doesn't look that much different from traditional matt painting. I don't want to go into the acting and editing, which are just as disappointing as everything else. Lucas never seems to be able to put two and two together in figuring out the fate of Anakin and the Republic. He churns out one mediocre scene after another and infests them with ear-wilting-ly stupid dialogue. The Force is no longer (if it ever was) with Lucas. May episode 7, 8 and 9 never see the light of day.

Blade Trinity

Blade rides on the good ole theme we never grow tired of - Good vs Evil. But it warrants a different reading. Blade is both a vampire and a human, and he drifts between the human world and the vampire world. Being both at once makes him neither of them. He is a stain in the picture, and it's that very stain that maintains the balance and wholeness of the world. That's the charm of Blade and what makes the first two Blade movies successful.

Sadly, the franchise is fucked in Blade Trinity, to put it mildly. No wonder they have to end it. David Goyer said in the making-of special feature on the DVD that Blade was pitched to the studio as a three-part project which is nothing but bullshit. These days, if a studio or a filmmaker wants to milk a franchise for more bucks, they said all the sequels were meant to be in the first place. And speaking of sequels, I rather appreciate Dimension's honesty in that Final Destination 3 and Scary Movie 4 weren't planned from the get-go, they're just good business!

First the good thing, Jessica Biel is a hottie.

Now on to the bad. David Goyer is so full of shit when he talks about his vision for Blade Trinity, when there obviously is none! Dracula again, you heard me, Dracula! Bram Stoker's Dracula! It's fine if you can add some real twists to this all-too-familiar character (like Elias Merhige's brilliant Shadow of the Vampire which gives Nosferatu a whole new spin) , but a Dracula who talks about honor and knightship is just lame! Vampire as a mirror of human being and their paradoxical nature so well illustrated in the previous two films are ditched in favour of Alien-like monster kill-fest! Goyer even lets a smug psychologist theorize vampirism in the most trite terms at the beginning of the movie so as to discredit any inquiry into vampiric culture, and basically sets the stage for all out bravura and brawn. This is fine, too, if you can make the action right. But Goyer screws it up again! The chase sequences between Dracula and Blade feel like scenes stolen from NYPD Blues (Why does Dracula have to flee from Blade if he's so legendarily strong and invincible?! And why does the vampire king have to hold a baby hostage?!) and the final duel between them is a complete yawn. To rub salt to the wound, Goyer puts in a clown with a silly name: Hannibal King. What kind of handle is that?! Amidst all the ass-kicking and moral ambiguity promised by the Blade franchise, why do we need comic relief and recycled-trillion-time one-liners?

Moral of the story: Writers and directors are not interchangeable. They're two different species! A writer may dream up a lot of things in his mind, but the transformation to the silver screen through a myriad of lens require a completely different sort of mindset, one that can weave ideas into real images under the guidance of a singular vision (I mean what kind of vampire killer would need to listen to her iPod when she laid waste to the undead, huh?). The screenplay of the first two Blade movies are some of Goyer's best works - I'll give him that. And I look forward to seeing his treatment of Batman in Batman Begins (directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, a must-see).

Dogville

Lars von Trier is known for his peculiarity and as a die-hard experimentalist of modern cinema. Dogville brings to the plate just that. It is disturbing, the kind of film you either love it or hate it. Nicole Kidman, in one of her more stellar performances, portrays Grace, a ravishingly beautiful blonde doggedly pursued by mobsters. She bumps her way into a dead-end town under the Rocky Mt. named Dogville. As a fugitive and possibly someone on the wrong side of the law, the honest folks of Dogville greet her with great suspicion. She is granted two weeks of probationary stay and she labors herself to win the approval of the town. Happy times are cut short by repeated visits of the police. People of Dogville consider the risk too high and after deliberations, they reckon it's only fair to ask for a premium. Grace starts to work longer hours with less pay. Then abject humiliation and harassment are thrown in as a total package. After a failed escape, things get real ugly. Chained down like a dog, Grace is turned into a sex slave. It's, to say the least, extremely harrowing. But we wouldn't expect anything less from Trier.

The first scene begs difference from average cinema. There's barely any scenery. Starting with a bird's eye view, we see the doomed town with its plot laid out by chalk lines in a soundstage. Houses are stripped bare of walls except where it's neccessary to show their original purposes, e.g. the town bell, and the shopping window of a small shop. The characters are thus exposed to our naked eyes and so are their lies, cruelty, and bitterness. Later when Grace is raped by Chuck in his "transparent" shack, the townsmen's (or our) nonchalance to violence and injustice is more than graphically illustrated.

The central character is a self-proclaimed aspiring writer who barely writes anything at all, but in an attempt to find excuses for his less than productive writing endeavour he takes it upon himself to hold moral rearmament meetings for his fellow townsmen at the mission house. The unexpected arrival of Grace provides him with the "illustration" for his moral lessons he so desperately needs. He coaxes Dogville into accepting Grace, and that makes him giddy with accomplishment and self-satisfaction. But there's no genuine compassion for the weak. Everybody wants something from Grace, or just about anybody else. No one in this wretched little town is innocent, including the kids. It seems like Lars von Trier has this deep sense of disillusionment with humanity that he has finally had enough. In Breaking the Waves, Bess forgives and endures in order to redeem the soul of her husband. Grace, as we know by the last chapter of Dogville, also believes in forgiveness but this time, she concludes it's a losing game after all. It's not fear, despair, betrayal, pain, indignity or suffering, but grave disappointment that drives Grace to torch Dogville to the ground. She witnesses human souls, like the glassware Mr Henson grinded so thin, shatter into smithereens by their own weight. Her observation leads to a series of revelations which culminate in a violent ending. Violence, as suggested, is the only way to rip open the hypocrisy people rely on to hide their fraility. Both Grace and Bess, and even Selma in Dancer in the Dark, believe in sufferance and forgiveness, and thus have this air of religious martyrs or messengers from some higher powers about them ( even the name Grace is ominous). But this time, judgment has passed.

Some American critics lash the film from the angle of anti-Americanism, which is arrogance in grand display, the same thing Grace and her mobster father accuse each other of at the end of the film. Unembellished arrogance. The story may take place in America but the theme is universal. There's a bit of the Lord of the Flies in it that the real problem of human being comes from surviving each other, not unpredictable natural calamities. Kidman shines, and so is the ensemble cast. Paul Bettany is very convincing as the chicken-feet, pedantic opportunist, and the guest appearance of James Caan is delightful. Dogville isn't for eveyone, but I enjoy the mix of novel production, brilliant performance, old-fashioned melodrama and the unabashed critizisim on human nature.

"Kingdom of Hope" by Ryu Murakami

Ryu Murakami's "Kingdom of Hope" is a tale of decadence, destruction and just possibly, hope. It's my second encounter with Murakami since "Coin Locker Babies". Told from the point of view of a magazine reporter, the story spins around a group of junior high dropouts with a concrete plan to turn the game of adults on its head- innovatively making use of modern day inventions (i.e. the Internet, media, forex etc.) to strip the complacent, smart alec adults of their sense of dominance- and take the future in their own hands. In a way, it's Joseph Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction being played out in a darwinian scenario in which the adults is the dying breed. In a mature capitalistic world where morality and values have been shaken to their very cores and the building blocks of society are crumpling down in an ever-increasing pace, a desire for radical changes is definitely brewing. The problem is who will take charge. As authority-led social transformations tend to reinforce the corrupted power-sects in one way or another, the idea of having junior high students helm the course of social reengineering or even a full-blown revolution doesn't sound so far off the mark. I'm only half way through the book, but I'm hooked and fast becoming a fan.

Closer

Closer is a complete mess. There's nothing so clever about the contrived plot, the characters are abhorrently inconsistent and histrionic, and the transitions are as abrupt as they are unexpected, not to mention the emotions are all wrong. Characters burst into heartrending tears or fall madly in love or give up hopes they so dear at overly dramatized moments that even the most forgiving part of me had a hard time suspending my disbelief. The writer and the director choked the plot with all that have already been said or mused about relationships in an attempt to philosophize sex and love, but they're no philosophers, much less observant persons (heard that it's actually a play-turned-movie, but it is all the same). It's as if they tore pages out of a bunch of pulp romances and stitched them back together on the silver screen. It's such a sore sight!

I know people who cheat in their relationships, some even enjoy playing heartbreakers and all, but they are saints in comparison with the characters in Closer! Their dispositions and actions are just so over-the-top and unbelievable. Some may say the director is shooting for "realism" or "the brutality of truth" or whatever high-sounding gibberish one cares to conjure up, but at the end of the day, Closer's nothing more than a lousy soap opera about four miserable souls: A prick who cares only about sex, a loser who, coincidentally, cares only about sex, a fake who leads multiple lives with a penchant for drama, and a confused who acts now and regrets later. The stereotyping of the two sexes is unrelenting: Men crave sex more than anything and women are victims in general. Dan said, towards the end of the movie, that "without truth, we're animals". But god forbidden, show me a decent human being here! Closer should be renamed as "National Geographic Present: The Mating Urge of Unscrupulous Homo Sapiens", in which nothing gets in the way of a good fuck, not even love.

Performance wise, the cast does bring a lot to the table and is the only saving grace of this piece of highbrow garbage. Clive Owen, shedding his silly Arthurian armor, is definitely in his element playing Larry the misanthropic, manipulative and hotheaded jerk. Natalie Portman brings to her character the complexity required and then some, despite the half-hearted pole dance. Julia Roberts delivers Anna's subdued emotions of a self-victimized woman with incredible restraint and precision that it's almost like music. Jude Law plays Dan, the most uninteresting character in the mix, and thus comes off flat and forgettable (the last time he did a good job is in a brilliant sci-fi called Gattaca, which apparently nobody cares to see). Closer does remind me of one thing: If we admit people fall in love by pure chance (like Dan and Alice, and Anna and Larry in the movie), then whether a relationship can last or not is also a matter of chance or probability. In other words, you can't do much about your relationship. How sad.

Oliver Stone's Alexander

Is Stone's Alexander as pathetic as many said so? I think not. For one, he scores rather high on historical accuracy. There're alternations that I think he does it purposefully and are well within artistic license (e.g. Darius III's family was captured in the battle of Issus not Gaugamela; Alexander got his arrow wound when laying siege to an Indian town not from the battle with prince Porus; and he returned to Babylon not because of his wound but a mutiny, etc.). Stone also pepperes the actual events with interesting titbits of legends, such as the Persian Queen mistaken Hephaestian as Alexander, which touch up the characters nicely. And of course, the battle scenes are breathtaking to say the least. Watching the phalanxes in action is such a thrill! They make all the sword buckling in Troy (one of the worst in 2004) look like child's play. Peterson is no match for Stone-no two ways about it!

What I think are some of the bummers include Stone's fixation on Alexander's "sexuality" (this is in fact not the right word to use, as people in the antiquity didn't look at sex the same way we do today) when it doesn't have a lot to do with how Alexander has come to be. Stone's reasoning for the less than enthusiastic reception to the picture is that people are taken aback by the "homosexual" undertone, but he forgets he's the one who plays it up! The tiring Freudian interpretation of Alexander's insatiable appetite for conquests and battles (yeah, mother again), and the perplexing choices of leaving out some of the important exploits in the early career of Alexander as a conqueror (particularly the atrocity he committed in Thebes and the battle of Issus when he let Darius flee and thus set the stage for Gaugamela) also leave the audience cold. The biggest blunder has to be his shyness in forming an opinion about Alexander when we really expect one from him. Stone does make up his mind on some whodunnit mysteries, such as who killed King Philip and was Alexander poisoned by his Companions, but they're not what we expect from someone who's famous for his propensity to take side on more important issues, such as how Alexander should be remembered. Stone's adviser Robin Lane Fox describes a Homeric hero in his book, but under Stone's lens, Collin Ferral's too busy exchanging seductive glances with Jared Leto that Alexander looks more like a gigolo than hero. Ptolemy's final comments about how great and flawed a person Alexander was is downright cliché and stupid!

Stone does his best in painting a picture of Alexander, a towering historical figure so complex that historians still have a lot to debate and study, and that is truly admirable. Anyone with a passing interest in Alexander should go see it. Stones stretches our attention too thin sometimes with a plethora of Greek names and geographical locations that no sane person can pronounce, least of all work out their relations; nevertheless, it's still good education if you have the patience. You may very well leave the theatre feeling more cultured. Don't get me started on how Alexander will turn out if it falls on the hands of lengend-butchers such as Jerry Bruckheimer and gangs. Why can't people just cut Stone some slack? This is more than a passable job. The Chinese title of the picture defies Stone's intention to tell the story of a person rather than a king, especially when Alexander isn't all that much of a king.