Monday, September 04, 2006

I watched Monster House on Thursday morning. It was a pretty enjoyable teenage animation pixar flick. I honestly think this is one of the better Hollywood animation around, not because it is high-tech, whatever, because it actually has a half-decent story to tell. It was important that I did not allow the "realism of the human features" get in the way of the enjoyment of the animation. I guess it helps that this film is meant to be a little scary and spooky, it being based around Halloween. The metaphor of the monster house itself is an interesting one, on how everybody around it, whether it is the parents, babysitter, the policemen, the other children, the three main children, and finally, the old man who had been trapped in it for so many years ... deal with this house, is quite fun and entertaining. Do catch it!

Thursday evening I attended this talk at the National Museum called Violence, the Supernatural and Exoticism in Singapore Cinema. The speaker, AP Kenneth Paul Tan, used 5 local films to illustrate his points. They are: Tan Pin Pin's Moving House (I wanna catch this), Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys (I don't like him but I admit this and Mee Pok Man are good), Jinn's Return to the Pontianak (hmmm), Victor Khoo's Tiger Whip (if we all need a good laugh ... at ourselves) and Kelvin Tong's The Maid (hmmm ...) From his points of views, I got two points out of it: 1. Local films with a supernatural / exoticism slant are indeed interesting, but whether it is a good reflection of our local Chinese / Malay / Indian cultures / heritage, is debatable, or whether, especially in Tiger Whip's case, it is a sell out of the mystical orientalism that Singapore (supposedly still) has, in the eyes of the West ...; 2. Singapore films are obsessed with / still stuck with the problems / concerns of the heartlanders, the marginal characters of society, while Singapore (English) theatre has moved to issues of the middle class. From another point of view, middle class film makers chose to look at the working class for their inspirations, while middle class theatre practitioners are not afraid to look into themselves for inspirations ... frankly, I think this has a lot to do with economics, because the majority of cinema goers are ... working class, while the majority of theatre goers are ... middle class, so you should do works that reflect, and affect, your audience closely. No?

I watched a Murakami doublebill yesterday morning at the Picturehouse, A Girl, She is 100% and Tony Takitani, organised by Film Society. The first film was a student's production, and I guess if you read the story carefully, it is not difficult to imagine turning this into a screenplay. Evidently, for a student's film, they will always try to throw every technique they studied in the textbook, into the film. Hence the final product is very jarring, very haphazard, and totally comical. I guess since the play is such soap opera material, it really doesn't matter too much. The ending is very anti-climax. Spoiler: So, is the ending for Tony Takitani ... This got me wondering, how come we don't see more local short films / student films being screenplayed from local short stories? Wouldn't that be mutually beneficial?

As for Tony Takitani, well, its the second time I'm watching it, so I believe I had blogged about this before. Nevertheless, I can say that this film is all I like about Murakami, in other words, poignant, slow, sentimental, slow, 100% Japanese. Hah hah ... Of course, Rie Miyazawa is, once again, gorgeous and ageless. The music is by that genius, Ryuichi Sakamoto, slow and contemplative again, I like ...

♥ 12:37 am