End of an Era

As a child, I loved Star Wars. I'm referring to episodes 4, 5 and 6. When Episodes 1 and 2 came out, I was largely disappointed. Yes, its nice to see lightsabers and aliens and droids and spaceships and all but there was little else other than the effects and geeky cool. So now with episode 3, Revenge of the Sith, we can finally conclude the saga that is Star Wars. None too soon as well. As a movie, Sith is relatively entertaining, engaging, full of action, suspense and humor. Yet, at this point in my life, I think I've long grown out of thinking that the Force, lightsabers and Stormtroopers were cool. I think I've finally grown up and I can no longer watch Star Wars and enjoy it purely for the action and pretty lights. The super ultra corny lines and terrible acting were just really cheesy elements that don't make Star Wars anything more than a kiddie movie.

Looking back, I remember I used to put Star Wars as favourite movie alongside Trainspotting right up to when I was 21 or something like that. Now, I'm thinking that its embarassing that I used to like Star Wars. Ok, back then I suppose I easily glossed over the bad acting and stuff, summed up by the out of work Mark Hamill, whose best performance in recent times was a cameo in The Simpsons as himself trying to get over being Luke Skywalker. The cheesy lines were also more acceptable back then. "You scoundrel." But oh how I cringe when I see Ewan McGregor, pivotal in the aforementioned Trainspotting, fall to new depths when he says things like "But he is like a brother to me, I can't!" or "He killed... younglings...". I used to think Ewan was cool and he still is mind you, despite singing gayly in Moulin Rouge and appearing 3 times in 3 Star Wars movies as an actor with a good reputation acting bad almost on purpose. Acutally, his acting is fine in Star Wars. Its more of the pathetic scripting and puke worthy lines.

I really wonder why I used to love Star Wars so much. Lightsabers probably. X-Wing fighters and Wookies, funny droids and Yoda. Chewbacca, Han Solo. Boba Fett. Stormtroopers. AT-AT Imperial Walkers. TIE fighters. I suppose the old movies had lovable characters, lots and lots of cool stuff. The new movies seemed focus on effects and gasp! a plot. When I learned that the original Star Wars, A New Hope was really gleaned off of an Akira Kurosawa movie, I realised that George Lucas had stumbled cleverly upon the first blockbuster ever. He copied the basic storyline as well as several characters. Plus its hardly a stretch to see where the mysticism, which seems so blaise and anglicised, and the lightsabers came from. The jedi costumes. Amidala's make-up. The brilliant bit about Lucas was he borrowed Japanization. He Lucasized a Japanese movie, The Hidden Fortress. Which basically means he beat the Japanese at their own game. The Japanese took the Western movie and the noir aesthetic and put it into their samurai films, which Lucas stole back to make a tour de farce that was to become Star Wars.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing Star Wars. It still remains a brilliant film. Back when I was young, in my memory, where it will remain, beatified. I just don't want to erase the beautiful, if exagerrated memory of how brilliant Lucas' work was in my youth. If I were to say rewatch the entire 6 movies, I'd probably lose that spark of childhood, where impressions were fresh and my mind hadn't been tainted with the adult world. Yes I am bashing it.

The other day, I had a small conversation with Flo about the new movie. An avid Star Wars freak, Flo sticks to his t-shirts and various memorabilia with pride. He hated the first 2 movies. Episode one had the fearful Jar Jar Binks whilst Episode two "de-mystified" the force with its scientific explanation of Jedi blood. I was trying to tell him how the show just had loads of shit lines. But he went on about how you know, anyone could control the force, therein lies its mystery. Which I suppose was the magic element that made the film stick. There was this invisible force that moved both in and out of the movie to immortalise Lucas amongst nerddom.

I think I read some review somewhere that mentioned how people watched the film and got the feeling like there was a relation to the existing American president. Whilst the issue of how Senator Palpatine turns the Republic from a democracy into a Dictatorship may perhaps draw some parallels with the current political state in America, its hard to see that buffoon quite as devious as Palpatine. The public stupidity in accepting Palpatine, Anakin's stupidity in falling for his bad acting may perhaps stir chilling similarities with voting habits in the US but still, if anyone wants to draw this political backline into the front, it just serves as some cheap, pathetic way to market the film as being deeper than Padme's make up.

It is finally the end of an era, where I have lost my innocence when watching films at last.

Drought?

Been watching a few movies in recent times, including some really crap shows like Divergence. Benny Chan helms this Police thriller/comedy which stars Daniel Wu, Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok. Its a thriller because Kwok's character struggles to get people to believe him and find the killer of an important witness, whilst longing for his missing girlfriend in Angelica Lee. Along the way, he discovers an exact replica of his girlfriend in Ekin Cheng's lawyer character's wife, as well as get help from Daniel Wu, the guy who shot the witness and started it all. Subplots are mashed in at every turn and you never really catch on to each one as they never fully develop. Its just like several pieces mashed together. In the end, there's a predictable twist as to who the real villain is.

I also mentioned that it was a comedy because I felt it was easier to take if you put it that way. Wenhui came out of the cinema laughing painfully as I asked her what she thought. With Aaron Kwok "emoting" rather often, these form highlights of the funniest moments. Look out for that amazing scene where he screams like he's constipated with the car he's in rolling down the slope and every other car amazingly manages to avoid him! Also, there's a ridiculous looking businessman's son who's supposed to be some famous singer. Its obvious his popularity is enforced by his father's money but still, rather farcical when you compare him to current HK stars and realise... they're the same~!

In the end, I struggled to watch the film. At some points, I was hoping for Infernal Affairs-esque intrigue and suspense. Perhaps I was being unfair in comparing or hoping that it match up to the dizzy heights that Affairs had reached. Yet, I was feeling very divergent as to the several subplots which were loosely interlinked and a general storyline that cannot be followed at all. At the end, I was feeling very flat, with that predictable twist and just overall confusion as to what the fuck was going on. The film was nicely shot but it hardly serves as any saving grace. So it scores 5 for a comedy and 0 for thriller. So that makes it about 1 overall since it was supposed to be some suspense/thriller/drama.

Ahhhhhhh~! - Aaron Kwok


Fortunately for me, I didn't just watch the one terrible movie but also caught 2 parts of the 3 colours trilogy, namely Red and White. First off the bat, the films are shot greatly and probably have got lots of subdued meaning hidden within the mise-en-scene, dialog and storyline. I wasn't really feeling up to watching heavy movies like these though. Red was an awfully sad film whilst White was a sad-ish, dark comedy. Of the two, I obviously prefer White. Red just felt like it kept focusing on the sad sad sad bits about life and was rather depressing if I recall correctly. White was the quicker, more jovial and very Eastern Europeanly distant. It wasn't a laugh fest which I was hoping for, which probably results in my slight disappointment but it was rather interesting overall. Strange and intruiging ending which was the strongest point that I remember. I'm most probably never going to appreciate this series (because I'm unlikely to watch it again) and I'm not particularly looking forward to Blue. Maybe just a bit too Frenchie snobby arty movie for me. Maybe I just need that laugh fest. Not going to score them either.

OK, so then we watched Episode 3 but I'll detail that in the next post.

Its best to watch movies with low expectations. Its hard to pick a movie to watch without hearing something about it first which means that you are going to be tainted with someone else's impression in some way or other. The alternative is picking random names and plopping yourself down for 2 hours to watch something which you have scant idea about. Given the dearth of decent films, thats just a freaking waste of money. Sometimes, Wenhui just wants to watch something, anything. So we decided to watch Monster-In-Law one day. I read the review in the papers and 8 days for this one so if I remember they got 3 stars each. I wasn't impressed at first that J.Lo was starring in it with her rather bad rep in some recent films. Still, the most possibly predictable but hilarious topic of mother-in-laws provided a glimmer of hope that I'd enjoy myself. Which I did. Both leads were hilarious. I lurved Lopez's flutterring eyebrows in one scene. Jane Fonda carried herself superbly and was the consumate meanie. Although I think I probably felt Meet The Parents was slightly better, Monster-In-Law was different. MTP was about a son-in-law vs the father, whilst it was wife vs mother-in-law in M-I-L. Which meant the stuff was different, like the preps for the wedding and the hilarious scene in which Miss Lopez stuffs herself into an undersized dress. She even turns her back on the camera so you can see her gigantic bottom for a while. Hahaha. Then, there's the politicking between the two ladies, which is far removed from the obvious bickering in a male fight ala MTP. Here, the fighting tends to be subdued and hidden but deadly and vicious, so it makes for bigger laughs when everything comes out into the open. Michael Vartan also turns in a decent performance as the clueless groom, who is miserable at asking women out and can't pick the right moment to pop the question. I give this 3.5 or 4 stars as a comedy. It turned out to be the right antidote to the crap I've been watching and pepped me up.

The most recent film I've watched was Madagascar, Dreamworks' latest animated feature. With Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and amazingly, Ali G. I'd watch it for Ali G alone, who turns in a lovely vocal performance as the King of the Lemurs. Wenhui was whispering that he had a silly Indian accent. He did a good job saying just dumb, dumb, dumb lines. Stiller as the Lion was a perfect fit. It felt like the show was scripted with him in mind. The show wasn't brilliant overall and in parts, I forced myself to laugh just to cheer up Wenhui, who was getting very irritated with the partisan toddler crowd and the inept jokes. Some bits were funny, like a tanning bed for the lion, which seemed like it was plucked out from a toaster as well as the penguins and the serious/silly pairing of the lemur king and his advisor. Probably 2.5 or 3 stars.

I'm suprised that the best film I've watched in the last month or so turned out to be a Jennifer Lopez vehicle. Yes its better than Revenge of the Sith. So I guess, it wasn't an entire drought this "summer".