Margin Call (2011)

The Wall Street fall that sparked the (still, in 2013!) ongoing financial crisis of 2007 gets the dramatic treatment in Margin Call.

The boardroom drama is how you'd imagine Steven Soderbergh might direct the story as a thriller and crime procedural.

Brilliant, if underrated.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 December 2011.

Petaling Street Warriors (大英雄，小男人) (2011)

Whoever thought that Wong Jing's brand of relentlessly crass comedy and lame jokes would be a model of filmmaking?

I introduce you to the team behind Petaling Street Warriors, a film that features male chastity belts, erections, outsized boobs, characters with speech impediments.

Watch only if you've actually been watching this sort of films for the past 15 years and can't think of how else to spend your money near Chinese New Year.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 December 2011.

The Artist (2011)

Talkies are in and a silent film star finds himself on the way out, just when he spots a talented starlet.

Michel Hazanavicius continues his project of making parodies and pastiches of film genres from the past.

This time round, the director strikes gold because The Artist transcends the story it tells and becomes a tribute to an era of filmmaking that the world has passed by.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 21 December 2011.

Mission Impossible: Ghost protocol (2011)

Possibly the best Mission Impossible film in the series precisely because it doesn't rely on the intense emoting of Tom Cruise.

This is a Mission Impossible film with wit and comedy, and doesn't take itself seriously. The thrills just come far more naturally after that.

Watch this for: Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 December 2011.

New Year's Eve (2011)

If you've watched Valentine's Day, you know exactly what to expect from Rob Marshall's New Year's Eve.

It's an attempt to create a western version of the Chinese Holiday Movie.

You know, where the stories all suck and there's no reason to watch it aside from the fact that the studios put out something for the holidays so you feel obliged to watch as a tradition.

Read my full review of Fridae, first published on 14 December 2011.

The Well-digger's Daughter (La Fille du Puisatier) (2011)

A daughter of a well digger gets pregnant by the son of the local merchant. Oh, the scandal!

Beginning with such a sour note, a sympathetic, even comic story is woven around the provincialism of small-town types and their fiercely held, though quaint, mores and codes of honour.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 7 December 2011.

50/50 (2011)

Up to very recently, a story about someone dying of cancer only means a triple-hanky Hollywood weepie.

Here the entire genre and its conventions (the sufferer becoming more beautiful when slowly dying, etc) are subverted and mocked. It's as close to real life as it gets!

It's highly watchable because of the heroic romanticism of the Hollywood weepie is replaced by real life humour.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 30 November 2011.

White Vengeance (鸿门宴传奇) (2011)

When a despotic dynasty falls, 2 generals come to face to face as they mop up the old country. White Vengeance settles on their fraught peace conference.

The conceit is simple: White Vengeance is to the pre-Han what the Battle of the Red Cliffs was to the Three Kingdoms. Machiavellian politicians abound, trading political strategems with plots and counter-plots.

The premise alas doesn't sell; the script is underwritten, the characters flattened, and the audience trusted to know their history and the film's conceit to do the director's work for him.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 30 November 2011.

Arthur Christmas (2011)

Santa misses a delivery to a very important child one Christmas and it's up to Arthur, his other, undistinguished son, to save the day.

Highly predictable, Arthur Christmas is also highly entertaining thanks to Aardman Studio's detailed creation of a high tech South Pole.

And since it's Aardman we're talking about, the highlight of the film are its visual comedy, madcap capers, and English wit.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 30 November 2011.

Happy Feet Two (2011)

The son of Mumbles the dancing penguin saves the day once more when the colony is threatened by another climate change disaster.

While being a sequel, it's not entirely predictable and manages to subvert the formula. Better yet, it's less shrill and hectoring about ecology than the first film.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 16 November 2011.

Legendary Amazons (杨门女将之军令如山) (2011)

The misfortunes of the military Yang family in the Sung dynasty and its glorious end has been the stuff of legend.

In this adaptation, it's a source of unintended comedy thanks to ridiculous casting, haphazard storytelling, perfunctory performances, and copious yet cartoonish CGI.

If you're into mediaeval versions of "Women keep getting lost; don't let them drive!" jokes, this is a film for you. Otherwise, stay away.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 16 November 2011.

The Rum Diary (2011)

This film may be about the misadventures of an expat abroad, but it's really about the roots of gonzo journalism and the making of Hunter S Thompson.

It provides a glimpse in the heady excesses and rampant plundering of the poor by the rich that provoked Thompson into a life-long rage, fear and loathing of civilised society.

Watch this for: Johnny Depp misbehaving on screen, a psychedelic mood piece, and a depiction of an innocent rampaging capitalism whose period seems to be coming to an end, post 2007.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 November 2011.

The Adventures of Tintin

Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones series owe a literary debt to Herge, and it's only fitting that he direct this adaptation just like an Indy Jones movie.

So: The Secret of the Unicorn, The Crab with the Golden Claws, and Red Rackham’s Treasure are bound together in one film by Spielberg’s action-adventure movie sensibilities.

The film showcases Herge’s art style and his interests in action adventure, mystery, and foreign adventure – though sadly Herge's political and social satire is missing.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 November 2011.

11-11-11

This moody Spanish horror pays tribute to the old masters of the genre.

Without giving too much of the plot away, it’s a mixture of The Number 23 and John Carpenter’s very harrowing The Prince of Darkness, combining the apocalypse with occult rituals, numerology, and modern day scares.

From one of the directors of the Saw franchise, this is surprisingly coherent, full of mythological flavour, and actually frightening.

Read my full review on Fridae, first published on 9 November 2011.

The Ides of March (2011)

Not quite a standard political thriller, the key protagonist (and the one in danger of falling from grace) isn't the candidate for POTUS but his idealistic, fresh-faced campaign manager.

It's like a murder mystery in reverse: you'll be guessing just what will trip him into the Dark Side.

It's a well-written drama about a political coming of age and loss of innocence.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 2 November 2011.

Sleepwalker (梦游) (2011)

The lesson learnt here is: Forget about making horror films in China. They're banned anyway.

One Pang Brother's attempt to make a horror film that won't be banned in China. Instead, they end up making a half-assed psychological thriller that's equally parts half-assed crime thriller and half-assed horror.

It doesn't help that he's a painfully limited horror director in the first place. You can skip this without prejudice.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 2 November 2011.

Tower Heist (2011)

The concierge staff at Trump Plaza plan a heist on one of its more illustrious residents. Sadly it's not Donald Trump though he was slated to play the patsy

Sometimes being stuck in production hell is good for a film. Case in point: Tower Heist, which got delayed so much, the financial crisis, the Great Recession, and Occupy Wall Street happened.

Everything in this heist movie becomes funnier and edgier viewing it through the current social and economic climate in America.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 2 November 2011.

Footloose (2011)

It's a remake but I'll recap the premise anyway. A teen rebel transplanted to a conservative town organises its youths to overturn or at least flout its ridiculous ban on dancing.

On top of being a pointless point-for-point remake, the attempts to set the story in the present day make it feel more ridiculous than the original.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 26 October 2011.

Red Dog (2011)

It's a series of shaggy dog stories starring the same dog, different owners.

It's a rambunctious biopic of a wild dingo who became a beloved mascot of a mining town's inhabitants.

It's also a rambunctious, roundabout celebration of Australia's pioneering spirit.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

The Help (2011)

A privileged white woman with a college degree returns home, plans to write a book about the lives of her town's black housemaids.
It's a feel-good Oscar bait film about the civil rights era which manages to sugarcoat the worst injustices and violence in that period.

You may have objections to the lazy writing, which resurrects an army of stereotypes like sassy African-American nannies who spout homespun truths...

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

Killer Elite (2011)

Jason Statham's casting agent seems to be getting him retro-style action film scripts.

Here, Statham plays an assassin for hire alongside "mentor" Robert De Niro and "cop" Clive Owen.

Watch this film for how its crazy anachronisms: story set in the 80s, the budget and explosion overkill from 90s action films, and visual aesthetic of 70s noir.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

One Day (2011)

The wildly improbable premise has two drunken strangers waking up in bed post-tryst, deciding to be platonic pals, and graduating to best friends over the years - during which they meet up once a year on the same day.

Adapted from a chick lit book with literary pretensions, the movie is actually more fun to watch, the conceit less unnatural and belaboured.

I suppose it's to do with the really great chemistry between Hathaway and Sturgess.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

Woman Knight of Mirror Lake (竞雄女侠秋瑾) (2011)

Qiu Jin, who in real life was a writer, martial arts expert, radical cross-dressing feminist, nationalist, Japanophile, and anti-Manchu revolutionary, gets mythologised here

Veering wildly between biopic, wuxia genre flick, and largely whitewashed propaganda pic, it'll have you guessing what's faithful, exaggerated, and plain made up.

We'd pretty much prefer a similar film treatment for the life and times of Yukio Mishima.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

Life Without Principle (夺命金) (2011)

Big Statements are made in this rare Asian portmanteau film - about the greed for money and the chronic lack of it in modern Hong Kong society
I call this film "Don't!" since it involves a yuppie couple buying a flat they can't afford, a banker who sells investment products to ordinary people, and a punter who bets on the market on the eve of the Eurozone crisis.

 I also call this film "Don't!" since it's very tedious, shrill, and angsty.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 19 October 2011.

Shark Night 3D (2011)

Not content with ripping off Jaws, Shark Night also features possibly inbred locals who apparently get their kicks from watching sharks eat visiting college kids alive.

The 3D in the title is to hint at the promise of bouncy female bodily parts in gorgeous stereoscopic vision.

On all counts, Shark Night 3D is a failure. There's no gore, very little scares, and very little skin. You don't even see the sharks chomp on humans. Watch this only if you like animal modelling.

Read my full review on Fridae, first published on 5 October 2011.