let's derive.

What drives you most?

What excites you?

What leads you?

What thrills you?

What have you done to achieve those?

What?

Nothing?

Or a little something?

What if you fail?

What if you succeed?

What if you finally quit?

What if you decide to march on?

What happened?

Who knows?

Where else can you go to make your passion your profession, at last? At the very last?

But, what if you realize that you are best left out being appreciators rather than the main players in that field of your interest?

What if you realize that if you don’t have the cut there?
The persistence?
The resistance?

What if your admiration has to stand quite afar from the spotlight?

What if you’ve been right all along?

What if your sacrifice fails to bloom?

Mark that word. Sacrifice.

The Dorm.

There are many good things to talk about The Dorm. Apart from the hardly arguable fact that they make the film compelling to watch, they lead to one obvious matter: the film stays away from the horror genre, and plunges to a terrifyingly good dramatic works.

Gone are the mindless, often numbing, creature-filled horror Thai films, which actually revive the film industry in the country to be one of the most sought after in the world. Yet, the director Songyos Sugmakanan, who was also on the board with My Girl a few years back, chooses to follow the path of his fellow comrades whose penchant over crafting a masterful storytelling win over predictable shocking values often way too much to see on any horror films.



Instead, Sugmakanan cleverly presents the film more as a father-and-son story, a theme often reliable to provoke thoughtful minds, like The Return. Indeed, it is interesting how the overall plot is triggered from a coming-of-age endurance the main character has to go through while he is facing obstacles from somewhat a full-of-misunderstanding communication between him and his father. And once we are settled in this dramatic territory, we will forge the temptation to get silly scared over the creepy background, which in many surprising ways, never overwhelms the film’s tender, touching story.

Alas, if we think that Thai film industry is at the brink of overexposed tiresome, perhaps this film in spotlight is a rejuvenating, and outstanding, work the industry should be proud of.

makin' whoopee

Let’s just say we make love.
Once, twice, thrice a day.
Even more, even less.

But do they mean anything to you?
The stroke of whoever fingers on the back
The sweet tender words whispered through our necks
The gentle tap on whoever shoulder

Let’s just say I have enough of that
Yet I yearn for more
Let’s just pretend we never endure deeper than that
Yet we constantly, religiously, and tremenduously embark on it all the time

Maybe you never get to experience our sensuous sessions
You go for quickies, I go for embraces

But today
I think I tickled your senses.



PS: what would it be if I kissed you back at that time? Will it be a greater love than ours? Will it be an eternal regret?

Cut Sleeve Boys

Beauty pageant. Colorful furs and wigs. Steroid bodies. Hunky studs. Fashion equips.

Just every common stereotype labelled to the campiness of gay life is mentioned, we’ve got to see all of them in Cut Sleeve Boys, the title itself refers to a slang, sort of, used to describe gay Asian male in UK. Whereas the premise of cultural clash of East vs. West has been brought up to the big screen through a hardship look (Yasmin), or a bone-tickling manner (East is East, Bend it Like Beckham), here the first-time director Ray Yeung chooses to focus instead on the ‘fabulous’ side of gay, leaving the cultural distinction of the characters being both Asian and gays at the door.



Which means, while the film does an almost knock-out premise, it never takes itself seriously. The film opens with the story of Gavin, a closet gay working menial jobs, who encounters death while involving in a slightly unfavorable sexual intercourse with a stranger. From this point on, the story begins, and we are required to determine ourselves how the death makes an impact to Gavin’s two best friends, Mel and Ash. Their lives as two Asian gays revolve around the listed words right below the title above, and more. Yet, they remain within the jovial side of the chosen life, while the enduring part of their cultural lives remains a yearning for us wanting for more.

As such, who can’t resist watching a maniacal ego man is having a silly catfight with a beauty-pageant-obsessed balding guy? Yet, while its fun lasts for a good an hour and a half, one can’t help looking beyond the horizon as often inserted in a few scenes of the main characters making out with their Caucasian partners: that above every campy life, there’s substance to make everything becomes contentment.

What's A Marriage To You?

from a conversation with two women in their mid-20's who soon are going to attend another friend's lavish wedding, and all of them happen to be my dear darling friends, it is decided that:

a marriage is a state of mind.

regardless your age, your mind-blowing independence, your financial security, or your maniacal family intrusion, you'll never be able to force a marriage into you, unless your mind says "i do."

wholeheartedly.

peer pressure? now that's something.

what's your take?

Lentera Merah.

Any afficionados of Asian horror films, particularly from Thailand, will quick to notice that Lentera Merah feels like a second-rate material from the factory. Thus, when Hanung Bramantyo, the director, tries to make the film to be in par with other films from that particular genre grouping, the result is somewhat confusing.

Why so? While it wishes to reach the maturity of thrilling horror, influence of Indonesian-style horror films, as seen on the penultimate scene, bogs down the intention carefully crafted from the beginning of the film. The premise of the film, which revolves around the publication of a campus magazine aiming to reveal nothing but the truth, is intriguing enough, as seldom we see horror and political-themed story match into one. Yet, this plot is twisted into another creature-filled horror films, and instead of beguiling audience with thoughtful lines, the film quickly chooses deus-ex-machina solution, by resoluting the problems through religious intervention.

If that sounds familiar, because it has been used way too many times. While Bramantyo clearly has reduced its presence, yet it has become pivotal enough in the whole structure of the storyline. It might be interesting to see how Bramantyo polishes his future thrilling horror films, if he will make any, because what we get on the film, at least, shows an interesting start.

a few certain characters.

In writing a screenplay, a screenwriter is constantly told by his or her own consciousness to define characters on the written screenplay through their actions. How one behaves or reacts to situations surrounding them truly reflect their truest characters in real life.

Point taken.

Yet, knowing that bad screenplays come out more often than the good ones, what we often see on both big and small screens are passive (main) characters who do not create anything to happen in their lives. In screenplay-writing terms, this kind of unfortunate mishap is better known as “off-the-page”. The passive characters are the kinds that seem to stand or look still, and having their presence reduced to minimum throughout the storylines, usually we hardly relate to them, making it hard to create sensory connections, be it empathy or hatred.

Such a numb experience, leaving a devastating effect in a long run.

Why these passive characters exist? A simple and quick answer to this question would be to provide a counterbalance for the active ones, in order to achieve that stated ‘status’. By any means, the kind of mindless response is perfectly fine. However, if we are willing to dig deeper, we might be able to retrieve many more possibilites why they have to exist. Or rather, we might want to derive any possible causes why they exist on the first place.

Let’s see.



Passive characters wait for some things to happen. As stated above, they’d rather wait than create. They believe that they will cause things to happen around them through their minimum act of doings. Of course, the means to achieve whatever intentions they have might be some intangible tools we are hardly aware of. Mantra, prayers, these kind of things have greater chances to be perfectly abused of from their holy initial usage.’

If waiting is not vivid enough in depicting the characters, perhaps it is best to say as well that the passive creatures carry too much pride within themselves. So much so with this pride emblem applied inside their heads and minds, this elite club will remain elite eternally, because they will go to the distance in preserving the pride. Stooping low to get to the dirty core of life is strictly a no-no option, because pride, or often disguised with another word called ‘dignity’, is something too fragile to gamble.

In other words, that particular famous Jane Austen’s novel should be re-titled as Pride and Patience, and what we get to see is a novel resembling the line shown in a monitor next to a dead patient. Straight. Linear. Freakingly straight line with no dynamic movement.



Thus, no matter how we dress up these characters, they are bound not to create any spark within us to notice. They choose to hide themselves under the thick particle of dust, while looking at better things ahead from a faraway place, and binoculars are not a must option in this session.
And they will keep thinking:

“Maybe it’s better to stay this way. Maybe this is the good thing to come. Maybe, I have become way too comfortable in this.”

Maybe. But at the moment, my question to myself on being the kind of people I’ve uttered for the previous 500 words so far is:

“Have you been right all along, that some people are best left to be appreciators rather tan doers, because they’ll never be good in doing what passionate them most?”

I can’t face the answer.

Stoned!

Who is Brian Jones?
He is one of the founding members of The Rolling Stones in 1962.
Okay, and what made him matter most?
He died at the age of 27, believed to be suffering from overdosed drug and alcohol consumption.
Okay.
Hold on a sec.
You said, ‘believed to be’?

And that’s how the film is intended to be, which also explains why Paddy Considine has a strong presence, despite not being the title role. Playing a supporting character which soon becoming a pivotal one as the story progresses, Considine shows a remarkable intensity that it is always pleasantly intriguing to see him chopping the scenes with his grit. The film relies heavily on him.



Does this mean Stoned fail to capture ‘the wild and wicked world of Brian Jones’, as the secondary title suggests? Stephen Woolley, the director who reportedly spent not less than a decade researching materials for the film, manages to lift the film above any other biopics with too much to tell and too much to show. However, the choice to trace down the remaining days of Jones, with not much activity to show in a big screen, leads the focus seemingly shifting to Considine’s character, leaving Leo Gregory, who gives an equal marvelous performance as Jones, does his acting to his own good.

As such, the film might be less wicked, yet what remains on a big screen is purely nostalgic for those living in the heyday of swinging ‘60s.

Transamerica.

After ‘turning ugly’ has become a major staple for any gorgeous Hollywood actress to impress critics with their acting skills and a sure bet to, at least, get a nod in Academy Awards, soon another trend will emerge: being a transvestite.

Thanks to prosthetic penis and Adam’s apple, these two latest invention in acting make-up will give a chance to any aspiring thespians out there to prove their ability to bring them in within themselves, and we’ll see how far they can go with those tools. But let me hold my reservation and doubt, whether any of them will up to the par set by Felicity Huffman in Transamerica.



Playing as Bree whose days of becoming a complete woman are marred with a life-changing road trip, Huffman is far cry from being a frantic housewife we see weekly on television. Instead, she not only lowers her voice to match a man’s tone, but she goes to letting her character’s ambiguity becomes her drive for every gesture she makes. From flinching when she tries to embrace her son, or fidgetting when a cowboy made a pass on her, these are the moments to show Huffman’s triumphant performance that will surely be remembered for years to come.

As such, deglamorized oneself is a matter of inner strength. That leads to a fine, exemplary performance.

Ekskul.

Excuse me.

The first ten minutes watching Ekskul, I began making this mental note: style-over-content. The stylized editing, the glorified violence, the overwhelming scores, the move has been used in many John Woo’s films, or Quentin’s, and the most recent film that sticks to my mind most is Running Scared by Wayne Kramer.
Call it MTV-style, this is the platform any young filmmakers these days find themselves at their utmost ease. They can show(-off) their apt skills in filmmaking, and that is as far as they go.
Story-telling wise, usually they tend to complicate otherwise simple narrative story, and again, we can see how far Pulp Fiction has influenced filmmakings for the past decade.



For all the influences, the film we observe here may still be trapped under those overwhelming look of a music video taken fresh from MTV. Yet, the same quality actually makes the film gripping enough for one to sit throughout the film, without at once flickering or despising, and this is despite some undeveloped characters, such as the annoying headmistress of the high-school where the story is built, or one particular girl who does not rise beyond glancing empathy look to the main character.

Excuse these few minor undamaging problems, then this film is a thriller for teens worth watching.

The River Queen.

There’s gotta be something about New Zealand and epic.

It seems that in recent years, any films from the country, made in the country, and created by its native residents do have a certain epic quality which make them hard to ignore amidst the crowd of CGI-ridden films in recent years. The sentence actually leads us thinking, what is it with New Zealand filmmakers who can turn otherwise mindless films heavy on visual effects into something of, say, award-winning works?

Peter Jackson gives his emotion to The Lord of The Rings trilogy, and even King Kong is considered one of the greatest dramatic achievements in this time. Andrew Adamson gives a life to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, making the film a pleasant to watch despite the heavy-handed action sequence. Not to be left behind with these two fellow New Zealander, Vincent Ward ambitiously embarks on a project of bringing up a story about a heroine who challenges the race diversion between the white and the Maori tribe in the late 17th century.



The River Queen tells the story of the heroine in a poetic way that often feels like a bridge between Jackson’s usual sweeping action scenes and John Huston’s Western-hearted films. The latter influence could not be more mistaken as the main character, Sarah O'Brien, is given a large portion in handling her emotional conflicts, torn between her Irish heritage, and her enduring motherhood, which eventually led her becoming a Maori herself. The kind of character who faces psychological obstacles in a physical struggle could be played by Humphrey Bogart or Gary Cooper in the past, and this gives Samantha Morton her own edge.

Already known as an actress with skillful talents, Morton gives a daunting performance in such a difficult role like this. Fearless and emotionally naked, she injects the film with her unmistakably commanding presence, making her stands tall above the rest of the cast, as her role is intended her to be. It is simply hard to see anyone else is up to challenges she clearly has gone through in inhibiting her character here.

If only the promotional material is daring enough to put ‘Samantha Morton is The River Queen’.