Sex and the City 2 (2010)

Roll over, Bond! The modern production placement movie is the grrls movie. Or more precisely, Sex and the City and its sequels.

Aside from a cameo by Liza Minnelli singing Single Ladies, the rest of the film is only good enough for a debauched "spot the shameless product placement" drinking game.


Find out how fun this movie still is in my full review at Fridae, first published on 27 May 2010.

Echoes of the Rainbow (岁月神偷) (2010)

Perhaps Hong Kong's cinematic answer to The Wonder Years, this film revisits the colony in the 1960s, offering a joyous nostalgia for the good old days that still acknowledges how bad the good old days were.

True nostalgia, as envisioned by the film's creators, is a song of experience as much as it is a song of innocence.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 27 May 2010.

Prince of Persia: The sands of time (2010)

Jerry Bruckheimer's first post-Pirates film. Will this herald another box office franchise?

It'll have to depend on whether the director can get generations of fans to trust his big screen vision of their favourite PC game...

And whether the film manages to take itself not so seriously.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 27 May 2010.

Unmistaken child (2008)

Tibetan Buddhism teaches the transmigration of souls and more specifically, the reincarnation of its high lamas. It falls to the task of every high lama's most favoured disciple to seek out his reincarnation.

Yet who knows if reincarnation even works?

We find out from the point of view of the Tenzin Zopa's favourite disciple at the point of his death, the institution of the search committee, and various points of his search.


Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 26 May 2010.

Ghost Writer, The (2010)

The Ghost Writer combines 2 parts roman a clef and 1 part revenge fantasy, finding a thinly veiled Tony Blair figure guilty of abetting the US war on terror and exposing his part in its campaign of probably illegal extraordinary renditions...

But given we know its politics and moral stand, does this film have any thriller or mystery left to entice a viewer?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 May 2010.

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)

There are two ways of making a documentary. One is to present a balanced case with point and counterpoint, to arrive at some sort of an objective truth. The other is to present the case for one side so clearly that one would be forced to agree with it.

This documentary makes the case that a man whose guilt was never in doubt in a statutory rape case was a bigger victim than the girl he had relations with.


Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 May 2010.

Robin Hood (2010)

Well, that's one way of telling the Robin Hood legend.

Here we go again! Another Ridley Scott 'historical epic' that has far more politicking and fantasy than actual history. Not that the Robin Hood legend is based on any true history, mind you.

But if you really want to know what modern political agendas Scott has Robin Hood fight, you'll have to read my full review at Fridae, first published on 12 May 2010.

Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos) (2009)

This is a riddle wrapped up in a mystery in an enigma...

Why would a successful director land up as a blind writer working and living under an assumed name (“Harry Caine”)?

What happened to the bombshell actress from his last and greatest film, whose photo is kept in a dossier in his desk drawer?

Who is the mysterious stranger who commissions him to write a screenplay that he rejects, and what does that screenplay and that mysterious stranger have to do with the first two mysteries?

Unravel the mystery by reading my review at Fridae, first published on 12 May 2010.

Mother and Child (2009)

I'm not a fan of Latin/South American fatalism. That's why I steer clear of melodramas from R Garcia Marquez and the team of Innarritu and Arriaga.

But when Mother and Child is the creative love child of the son of Garcia Marquez and Innarritu, I threw all caution to the winds and entered the cinema...

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 5 May 2010.

The back-up plan (2010)

Yes, I know. It's probably a bad idea...


The Back-up Plan is a perfect date movie if you believe that Species was a perfect Valentines movie.



But if you're thinking along these lines, you can read my full review at Fridae.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

What OS would Tony Stark use?

Isn't Robert Downey Jr the go-to guy for action hero movies these days?

Can he save the Iron Man series from the law of sequels?

Can Mickey Rourke survive the curse of Best Actor Oscar winners and lackluster summer follow-ups?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 29 April 2010

How to be (2008)

Everything feels better when you're sharing your woes with people who have it worse

What if perpetually mopey Edward Cullen were just an average, real-life 20-something?

What if you could tell Edward Cullen that he's a self-centred narcissist and an emotional hypochondriac?

What if you could cast Robert Pattinson in this?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 April 2010.

Ip Man 2 (葉問 2) (2010)

He wished then that he didn't have that itchy spot on his nose...

Which unsuspecting hoodlum will Donnie Yen beat up and maim this time round?

What's the moral of the high-falutin' speech that will accompany the beating?

Can Sammo Hung still fight, and without using wire-fu?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 April 2010.