Click #3 - The Home Song Stories

Fellow Chinese reader, please welcome Joan Chen, the "diva" in Chinese film industry context. With so many awards in hand, I'm pleased to see her taking on a role, without famous Chinese directors, or the many stories about war epic that we see amass nowadays. Just a little simple storyline, few characters, portraying the core values keeping a family together, or not really.

The Home Song Stories is one of my accidental discoveries of hidden gems because right from the beginning, I wasn't really keen about watching this movie until I read the line below in IMDB.com

"Australia's official submission in the Foreign Language Film category for the 80th Academy Awards"

Right after that, I headed off to a wild dig for this movie and I watched it immediate after I found it. And 103 minutes later, I was left gasping for air, not because the storyline was suffocating but the details in the scenes, the delicate lines to bring out the characters, and the emotions that were immense enough to keep me gripping tight so that I missed nothing.

In all, the director, Tony Ayres has done a great job of bringing his life story to the big screen and escaping the result of many boring and disastrous autobiographical films ended up as. The movie is about what Ayres remembers about his mother, a songstress who uprooted her children and migrated from Hong Kong to Australia after marrying an Australian sailor, and their struggles to etch a living surviving in a stranger's land. The intensity starts when we see Rose ( the songstress ) succumbed to her weakness for men quite easily, falling fast and hard, switching from man to man, being unlucky in love, and causing embarrassment for her children, who do not know what to make out of the “Uncles” that come through the door or a suicidal mother after each heartbreak.

IMHO, Joan Chen captures the complexity of Rose’s character superbly, one character that I've heard about so frequent since childhood, from gossips, rumours or speculations on certain people you met in the neighbourhood. You just see characters you once heard so much about, being casted on screen alive. The feeling is really immense. Meanwhile, Joel Lok gives a watchful and intelligent performance, as the son, Tom, who worships his mother and must witness her pain, even when blocking his ears and shutting his eyes. It's amazing & surprising that both Joel Lok & Irene Chen are just newcomers, yet able to show such level of maturity and natural flair of acting skills in portraying Tom & May, even as fantastic as the actual Tony Ayres and his sister, Mei.

At its core, The Home Song Stories evokes painful memories, but also brings about the notion of forgiveness, remembering and honouring those memories. A mother’s love knows no bounds, even if she behaves in a manner you cannot quite grasp at the moment.

The one line that moved me was in almost the last few scenes:

“It is extraordinary,” as grown up Tom says about himself and his sister, “that we ended up perfectly ordinary people.”

Note: The trailer might not move you much, but it's definitely a movie I'll purchase the DVD for collection or watch when it's in local cinemas.

Movie Spree of 2 :: Loving Juno

From the remaining few movies I have, my urge of sharing my thoughts on this movie tops the rest of them. Yes, it's the minimal-budget-but-maximum-attention very much anticipated ( at least, I did ) Juno!

Some may feel skeptical whether this will turn out as just another teenage comedy that once flooded our movie screens. The answer is definitely a big NO! Imagine a toned down Katherine Heigl's Knocked Up, blended with a tint of artsy directorial skills, very amusing lines for Ellen Page, and folky soundtrack. In all, that sums up to a consludion: Juno is quite movie of its kind, and definitely not even close to Knocked Up, talking about a quirky-geeky-cool teenage girl experimenting sex and getting pregnant. Skip the disastrous aftermath and drop-dead shock scenes because these did not happen. The storyline could be quite expected since with the word "pregnancy", you can either get a life is killed or saved. However the spotlight of this story is that , but the characters that are very amusing instead. Juno and his open-minded parents with a sense of humour, then her cheerleader friend that is not close to typical dumb-blonde at all: why should you miss this. Last but not least, Juno is played by Ellen Page, the creepy little girl from Hard Candy. You know, "that" girl!

Since this movie is from the director of Thank You For Smoking, we can very much expect nothing less than a good movie, and this time, with a good soundtrack.



Instead of the ordinary Juno's poster, I would rather use this poster that really gives me a laugh.

Let me know if you have watched it. If not, get a taste of it with the trailer here.

Weekly Screenings - American Gangster

I'm in the mood to do some movie screenings this week. Crapping about 5 movies in a week is an underestimation of the actual visual load that comes through my pipeline. And yes, you're lucky. You'll get the fresh stash before you head to the cinemas.

Here's the first click on American Gangster.



I could never have expected Denzel Washington to be playing the villain. And here he is, playing the role of a mafia leader's driver cum apprentice in Harlem. After the death of the man everyone in Harlem looked up to, the underground kingdom crashed. Then, Denzel Washington inherited his mentor's teachings and built his own "company" from scratch. This is quite amazing for a true story and Denzel has done a great job playing the man crashing someone else's head into a grand piano. That is, literally, a cold-blooded man.

Somehow, Russell Crowe's sloppy cop look does not impress me very much. Period. It's enjoyable for 2.5 hours. Then, it's the end of story and nothing much came along. I enjoy myself even more watching the movies I pick at home. Yes, I'm that bit hard to please.

Next in line will be... I have not decided yet.

Kickoff

Of exact 100 RSS sources, including my own's, that I subscribed to, I think my post-holiday syndrome is the most severe. The active contributors in my list such as NOTCOT.org and The Sartorialist have started their first post of 2008 way days back. Me? I'm still a turtle-crawling grass-mowing and beef-jerky-chewing slow.

As a start, I'll write about the two fashion/trend-related feeds that have turned into my daily must-read. Well, it's also because they have daily or almost-daily updates and interesting contents. You've seen them up above ^. Yes, NOTCOT.org and The Sartorialist.

1. NOTCOT.org

I discovered this site when I was surfing Mooie's blog. ( Note: Mooie is a local boutique with a young and funky spirit that reminds me of Palate Palette at Changkat Bukit Bintang. I'm not going to share the link because Mooie's stuffs are more and more disappointing lately!

Back to NOTCOT.org. Out of my 3 months observation, I would say NOTCOT.org seems to be the electronic version of underground trend magazine mogul with various spin-off sister sites such as NotCouture, NOTed, The Gallery, TasteSpotting and last but not least their dot com. Of all these spin-offs, I'm more impressed with NOTCOT.org and Tastespotting for I love pretty stuffs and delicious food however to date, I only subscribe to NOTCOT.org as...come on, do I live it the States? I will not put myself in a situation such as loving a LV Speedy so much and knowing myself will never buy one until my salary really makes me smile everyday.

In short, give it a click. I hope you'll enjoy it.

2. The Sartorialist

Two words.
"Photography" and "posh funky people".

Okay, that's three. But, you get me.
This chap obviously has a link to GQ.com in his blog and such have I wondered one day if he's shooting for GQ magazine. The portraits he took for the street series are very beautiful. Somehow, the bokeh gives the character more personality and the contrast of colors in their clothing just perfects the whole composition of everything. I'm no photography expert but somehow, I know it's not as simple as clicking a shutter and it'll be that good.

Click on it everyday and you'll know how much your wardrobe needs a revamp. Or, at least that is what I feel these days. Urge to splurge, don't you agree?

Anyway, these two are just the tiny bits of the talented blogger pool out there and I'm enjoying reading them these days. I'll see if I smack on anything impressive tomorrow.

Till then, "tank" you.

Solitude

Taken at White Sand Dunes, Muine, Vietnam

Some people commented that the pictures I took at this sand dunes look great. Sometimes, it's the place being so beautiful that, no matter how you press the shutter, the saturation of the sky will always be so perfect in the end. Margie concluded this when she stayed in Europe. I couldn't agree more.

Muine has a stretch of 6km shoreline which gives way to the blooming of development projects for resorts and restaurants. Naturally, tourism will rise to be the major source of income for locals - be it the kids or adults. Fortunately, right after the 6km coastline, all I could see was still the normal fishing village life and stinky fish market. For now, the children are still naive, playful and fun to "hang out with" since they did not request for money after each game we played together or each photograph I took, which was very likely to happen at other parts of Vietnam.

The point is - white sand dunes area is far from other attractions hence is also less desired by the throng of tourist buses. I'm glad this allowed me to take my shots that day, and also ignoring the teases from those that will not comprehend why I rather walk further to explore the possibility of good shots than sledding sand. Even though I could only venture as far as 2 hours' of time could allow me, or the dunes were not in the shape I dreamed of, still, the moment of you standing on top of the dune, looking afar to stretch of monotone is magnificent. Solitude, it is.


I hope the scene will stay how it is for another 10 years. Maybe less.