our last one, added at hmc’s whim:
The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros Auraeus Solito (Philippines, 2005, 100 minutes)
A gay pre-teen in a Manila slum causes his family of petty criminals grief when he falls in love with the handsome cop next door. This first feature transcends its indie low budget with its humor, gritty drama and charm.
this was pretty cute. i admit i fell asleep during the middle, but i was so tired. and then the movie veered unexpectedly, so i woke back up.
and i also forgot we saw:
All About Love Daniel Yu (Hong Kong, 2005, 96 minutes)
A dreamy doctor falls for the transplant recipient of his dead wife’s heart. Happens all the time, of course, but rarely with such stylistic panache or lovelorn romanticism as in this delirious Hong Kong hit that doubles the trouble and drowns in tears.
when i think of hk cinema today, i think of this. big fat melodramas. either action melodramas or relationship melodramas. big on the music, and then maybe the twist. or maybe the chance to see andy lau play not just one but TWO TWO TWO ROLES AT ONCE! is the the dreamy doctor? or the not-gay hairdresser? and does the woman who has his dead wife’s transplanted heart have some organ sense memory of him? oh, you know that old genre. it’s like 21 grams, but with a much prettier sean penn. the movie was shlock, but the best part was that andy lau was there live to send all the girls screaming towards the stage. we didn’t stay for the q&a because we had to make it to the castro, but apparently they all asked what kind of underpants he wore. and the funny thing is that i read later that during the screening, andy and the director hung out at the peet’s coffee up the street. to think all these people could have had a cup of joe with andy lau instead of watching that pap!
speaking of hanging out, we may have missed tilda swinton’s state of the cinema address, but we did see her hanging out late at night at the kabuki one evening. i do particularly like this bit of her speech:
Perhaps most significant of all, the systematic amping up of the high drama of daily life as disseminated via the “reality” of the news programming must only key up a population to expect and need the adrenaline rush of sensational (result heavy) political action from its leaders, its new bedtime storytellers. When we are used to seeing results of every story arc within 30 minutes, including advertisements, no wonder we get used to expecting a resolution within 90 minutes, including popcorn. Or a matter of months, including collateral damage. The rush for the third act denouement became, somehow back there, a political strategy.
A film like Crash, winner of best film Oscar this year, pleases (if it does), reassures, because of its resemblance to a familiar version of reality, TV reality, shot relentlessly in closeup, its encounters persistently hysterical, high (albeit melo) drama and nothing but, it delivers the punch of any primetime cop show/crime biography/closed circuit, documentary, law-and-order exposé. Its vernacular use of a “real” look at racial tension is fabulous oil for a souped-up old engine: So familiar as to be palatable, but twisted just enough to feel fresh.
alas, i was going to further expound on melodramas and their pervasiveness in cinema today, but that may have to wait for another day. in any case, twenty films in two weeks is pretty good. (although not as much as hmc’s 26!)
Posted at May 4, 2006 10:47 PMDoes this mean Tilda won’t marry me. Because I wass really hoping she would. Seriously.
Posted by: JohnC at May 18, 2006 6:09 PMmaybe it would help if you were a faun. or a lion. or at least a white warlock or something.
Posted by: e at May 18, 2006 10:33 PMi’m looking forward to this indie coming out this weekend in SF. wanna go? http://www.thepeacefulwarriormovie.com/
Posted by: davee at May 29, 2006 12:20 PMsounds interesting. let’s go!
Posted by: e at May 30, 2006 4:14 PMComments are now closed for this entry. Thank you for playing.