Margaret (2011)

"Because this isn't an opera! And we are not all supporting characters 
to the drama of your amazing life!"

Anna Paquin

At a glance:

If you're wonderin why Anna Paquin and Matt Damon look so young in this movie, look no further than the production dates. Margaret is indeed the troubled project that was filmed way back in pre-True Blood 2005 and went through the post-production hell of havin a director (Kenneth Lonergan, usin most of the cast from his 2000 debut You Can Count On Me) who reportedly couldn't be happy with whatever cut he came up with, thus suspendin release for years and got himself embroiled in multiple lawsuits. I've seen the 150-min studio version and it's rather drainin, to say the least, so God knows what's in the 186-min Blu-Ray extended cut release. On the surface, it's a drama about a disaffected young woman (Anna Paquin) who unintentionally distracted a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) and contributed towards a fatal traffic accident, thus bein thrown into a frenzied state of self-reflection and bizarre catharsis. After about an hour in though, you get the feelin this is almost a Mike Leigh movie about guilt, atonement and brokenness, not to mention other darker aspects of the human condition, built on the back of post-9/11 anxieties in Manhattan. Movie title is a reference to a poem read out to the main character - Gerard Manley Hopkins's Spring and Fall: To A Young Child.

"We do the American thing. We sue!"

Bad news on the doorstep:

Variety's Justin Chang impressively summarised it as a "time-capsule that arrives bearing all the scars of its difficult gestation... hyperarticulate but rarely eloquent, full of wrenchingly acted scenes that lack credible motivation or devolve into shrill hectoring" and also that it's an "angry, cacophonous storm of a movie, and like the horrific bus accident that sets it in motion, hard to turn away from, though only self-selecting pockets of the arthouse faithful will likely strap themselves in to begin with." I have more sympathy for the movie but it's still a muddled picture that asks too much from an audience. Man must have thought it was a theatre play. Oh, no surprise - I just read that his background is in theatre!

Perennial wonderment:
It's heartenin to see Anna Paquin return to the kind of angst that made her a record-settin young Oscar-winner in The Piano (1993). Since then I've only seen her hammin it up for inconsequential roles like Rogue in the X-Men movies but I do remember her memorably seducin an older man in The Squid And The Whale (2005). She's always playin angry characters, so perhaps there's a range limitation here? I don't watch TV so I don't know about how she is in True Blood. In any case, she's a mum now, so let's hope that will add some depth to her future roles.

Reminds me of:

Why is Mark Ruffalo always playin a reckless killer driver? I'm thinkin Reservation Road (2007). Are there more? Let me know.

Watch out for:

J. Smith-Cameron (Man On A Ledge, 2012) offers a wonderful, layered performance as a detached mother with her own relationship issues while Jean Reno, Matt Damon, Allison Janney and Matthew Broderick play out some half-significant support.

Most memorable line:

No spoilers now.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Next Projection's Kevin Ketchum went through the DVD specs and ultimately found the extended movie to be a resoundin masterpiece, callin it a "transcendent... once-in-a-generation distillation of an era". That wonderful, huh? My review is based on the 150-min version that I watched and on the strength of that, I'm not about to see the full intended film to find out. ★★1/2

The Dead Girl (2006)

Rose Bryne plays a long-grieving sister in The Dead Girl (2006).

At a glance:

Kerry Washington plays a lesbian hooker.
Not a very flattering shot, though.

Sometimes when I'm reminded of Brittany Murphy's sudden demise, I think of two things. One would be her boinkin Eminem at the car factory in 8 Mile (2002). The other would be her titular role in The Dead Girl (2008), somethin that will forever be a chillin irony after her tragic death in December 2009. Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl is a disturbingly powerful vignette piece about a dead girl and five women who are connected in some way or another to her. The Stranger (Toni Collette) is the awkward daughter of an abusive mother who finds empowerment when she finds the titular corpse. The Sister (Rose Byrne) is a depressed forensics student who tries to find closure by insisting that the corpse is that of her lost sister. The Wife (Mary Beth Hurt) is the thankless murderer's wife who almost reports her husband to the authorities but for a change of heart. The Mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is a clueless middle-class woman who cannot understand why her dead daughter left home even before she was killed; and finds some answers via a whore who used to live with her daughter. Lastly, The Dead Girl is a young woman who is shown to live a blameless life just days before she meets her grisly end. No - it's not a horror. It's not a murder thriller either. It's a beautifully restrained character study that benefits from a stellar cast and their solid performances. Flyin in the face of the adage ‘the dead tell no tales', this movie asks the questions nobody likes to hear; all through the cinematic device of a motionless corpse. Contrasted against a wasteland of a backdrop, we see characters and their motives - some noble, some ugly; but always unflinchingly realistic. It's the sort of movie that finds appreciation only through what we want to understand and derive from it.

Marcia Gay Hayden

Bad news on the doorstep:
Of course, what we understand and derive from it will always be contingent on the emotional force that drives it. Herein The Dead Girl suffered from the age-old censorship bug when I first viewed it in 2008 under Cathey-Keris' banner in Malaysia. The full texture of the film has been compromised by the cuttin of scenes instrumental to conveying the bleakness of the subject matter at hand.

Perennial wonderment:

What did happen to Brittany Murphy? Widower died at the same house, too. It had somethin to do with toxic mould, they said.

Mary Beth Hurt

Reminds me of:

Jindabyne (2006), The Invisible (2007), The Burning Plain (2008) and Brick (2005).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Thankfully, the strength of its performances survives this. I cannot think of a single poor movie with Toni Collette in it - this one just improves the statistic. Hers is just one of five characters and the rest of the cast are, pardon the pun, dead solid. Permeatin the emotional undercurrent is also a well-chosen music score to bring out the best in that sun-bleached, dry discomfort of L.A. backcountry. There is little more you can ask from The Dead Girl, except maybe another five stories from this excitin director. Maybe this time we could be spared the veiled feminism though, eh?★★★
The day the music died:

R.I.P. Brittany Murphy
(November 10, 1977 – December 20, 2009)

Brittany Murphy at The Dead Girl World Premiere and AFI Special Presentation
at AFI FEST 2006 / The Loft in Los Angeles, California.

Maut (2009) @ Malaikat Maut

At a glance:
Earlier this year, a new Malay movie played. It wasn't about petty love triangles, haunted houses or MTV mermaids. Three hurrahs for hope! From past movies such as Gangster, Castello and KL Menjerit, we know director Bade Azmi is obsessed with dark elements of social disintegration. However works such as Syaitan and now Maut hint towards a fascination with the supernatural as well, a sort of ponderin on religious anxieties. Kudos to Bade for keepin up! A throwback to almost 50 years ago in the Jamil Sulong's black-and-white Isi Neraka, this Maut studies Man and the afterlife through a three-part story punctuated by months of the Moslem calendar. Chroniclin the twisted destinies of a stranger on a bus, a sinful air stewardess and an angry youth obsessed with gothic black metal, Maut plays judge, jury and executioner; deliverin a compellin story beyond today's industry norms. Well, that's how they sold it anyway.

Que Haidar. Euww.

Bad news on the doorstep:
In all three vignettes, the element of death is obvious but the strange character arcs leave the audience no chance to emphatise with them. Maybe the director intended to neglect this aspect to further stress the malang tidak berbau theme.
Perennial wonderment:
When we learned that the original title was the much more intriguin Malaikat Maut, one can't help but wonder just how far we've come in terms of creative license vis-à-vis the Lembaga Penapisan Filem, the vanguard of our Malaysian moral fidelity. It's almost as if the compromise instantly changed the texture of the original film. What's wrong with the title and which one better describes the movie's content? The director's wish to create a fiction that's meaningful and true to its concept met many marketin problems, leadin us to believe that this finished product isn't the masterpiece he had in mind.
I can't remember if I cried:
An invasive disclaimer appears in the middle of a scene to lecture us on faith when we're busy watchin Sabrina Hassan bein chased by a CGI cobra. Is this the compromise reached just to satisfy the 'U' classification?
Watch out for:
Que Haidar. Really startin to rise heaps and bounds above what we know as local standards of talent. Even his face brings to mind memories of the late Sudirman. We also learn that Fouziah Ghous can do natural. Meanwhile, newcomer Sabrina Hassan plays a lead role for the first time and is still findin maturity - she needs to be seen and not heard in this movie.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Bade Azmi may have hurled a Waja into the Sentul drain for action but Maut has lost some of the supernatural elements that we were promised as a drama. Then again, the plot structure and the religious elements are somethin you don't get to see every day. That oughtta knock some sense into those recent New Year sex party revellers who were arrested. ★★ 1/2

Miracle: Menantang Maut (2007)

"Kill me. I cannot live with the shame of having starred in this movie."

At a glance:
Just caught The Final Destination at Cathay Cineleisure and I thought about this derivative crap I watched a year or two ago. If you missed Helfi CH Kardit's previous Lantai 13 (2007), this is your chance to watch an Indon horror-thriller not directed by Rudi Soedjarwo and associates.

Death by volleyball net.

Bad news on the doorstep:
Don't get your hopes up - it ain't a good movie. Within 15 minutes, any self-respectin horror-thriller fan will scream "remake". Sadly, that's precisely what it is. Havin gotten that out of the way, the film becomes easier to enjoy. However the lack of any original content puts the film among one of the most inconsequential movies you'll ever see in your life. With its pop-rock feel, I would've expected some savin grace. It has a good openin sequence and its tech aspects aren't too embarrassin. There's the wonderful opportunity to invent the latest, most interestin ways for someone to die, as you would any Final Destination rip-off. Fat chance. The only non-generic gruesome death sequence involves a volleyball net; and even that wasn't very good.
Perennial wonderment:
Is it so difficult to film new ways of dyin horribly? I could think of a few. Chokin on taufufa with a syphilitic whore suckin on your knob. Bein impaled by a dildo-shaped USB pen drive. Or a USB pen drive-shaped dildo. How about the syphilitic whore forcin the USB drive through the eye of your knob, post-coitus? Fuck me I'm a genius. How do I send this to Spielberg?
Watch out for:
Lead actress Keira Shabira doesn't really impress me, Arabian-Sundanese blood or not (supposed to spawn very beautiful people). Some of the male cast in this movie are also quite terrible. Might even make you laugh out loud. If only the pretty Nadila Ernesta (Hantu Jembatan Ancol, Kereta Hantu Manggarai) was given a bigger role, this might have worked on sex appeal. I suppose the biggest letdown here is the cast. Most of them are new and can't really act, and only half of them look good for the screen.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Wouldn't recommend this to anyone because it's a completely forgettable film with few advantages. At least Kereta Hantu Manggarai (2008) had girls in skimpy outfits!★
Bonus material:

Departures (2009) @ Okuribito おくりびと

"What kind of job is this?!?!"

At a glance:
Well I can sing this out to be a profound, pompous study about the livin and the dead (NOT life and death, I insist) or I could just tell you that it's an overlong piece of very ordinary but very precise Jap pleaser. It's about a bloke who lands himself the socially stigmatic profession of a nokanshi - the man who makes a livin prettyin up corpses before plonkin it into a coffin to be whisked away by the undertaker, who in turn makes another cut (seriously, the more I think about it, the more I think sudden, spontaneous combustion is the best, most economical way to die). Discussions on redemption and dignity imbue the film with its silent charm, as we follow the poor guy around for more than two hours while he comes to terms with a stinkin job and also deserters, in his father and his wife.

Bad news on the doorstep:
Havin not heard or seen any of the other nominees for Best Foreign Pic at the Oscars just gone, it's hard for me to gauge the worthiness of this win (and yes, it did) even after watchin it. That's because we all know the Yanks love mystical Asian or Oriental shyte like a fat boy loves cake. After all, that's why they gave eight Oscars to that populist bollocks of a film Slumdog Millionaire, innit?
Perennial wonderment:
Do they really have to make every scene so long and score it so unsubtly? Ingmar Bergman makes a point when he makes you look at someone's face so long. This director dude probably just wants you to admire the porelessness of Nippon skin. And yes, the score - it's annoyingly like the one in that Julianne Moore movie with Ralph Fiennes, The End Of The Affair.
Reminds me of:
Friend of mine who died in a hit-and-run in Penang. I remember the stench of her body when they lifted the lid because she wasn't embalmed well. Breaks my heart. Wished these folks worked on her.
Watch out for:
The job interview. Fuckin funny.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Lovely but too damned emo. Never did like films with understated conflicts that resolve 'satisfactorily' by the end credits. Good addition to the Japanese catalogue of travellin films though.
★★★1/2