Whiplash (2014)

The inspirational music teacher you’ve never had before

The Giver (2014)

In the future, there is no racism, sexism, inequality, or discrimination of any kind. Look what we did to eradicate all these evils!

Hateship, Loveship (2013)

The post-feminist age bottles up Cinderella as a suburban wish fulfilment fantasy for all the Mary Sues out there

Chef (2014)

America... on the road Again

Noah (2014)

Visionary auteur meets studio, agrees to make the ultimate disaster movie. Hilarity ensues.

Gravity (2013)

Gravity is easily Sandra Bullock's best action film to date. Okay, make that her best film to date.

The World's End (2013)

No one expected The World’s End to cap off the Cornetto Trilogy this way.

Ilo Ilo (爸妈不在家) (2013)

Ilo Ilo is the proverbial swallow that may or may not signal a coming of age of Singapore cinema

Jesus Henry Christ (2011)

The scoop: Dennis Lee, like his elder brother Ang*, continues the trend of Asian filmmakers producing quintessentially American films.

Imagine The kids are all right done and C.R.A.Z.Y. with far younger, irresistibly cuter kids. And directed by Ang Lee. You’d come close to Jesus Henry Christ, an affirming alternative family film by Dennis Lee. The writer-director’s creative output may well lead many to question if he is indeed Ang Lee’s younger brother. After all, they are both Asian directors who understand American culture and family better than most Americans, and make gently humorous prestige indie films about dysfunctional American families.

A thematic follow-up to his debut film Fireflies in the Garden, Jesus Henry Christ again explores the themes of genius and dysfunctional families. Henry James Herman (Jason Spevack) is immaculately conceived in a petri dish and brought into the world by his feminist, hardline liberal soccer mom Patricia (Toni Collette). Blessed with a photographic memory and a genius only seen once a century, if at all, the precocious 10-year-old embarks on a quest to find his biological dad – who turns out to be Slavkin O’Hara (Michael Sheen) one of those nutty professors who has raised his daughter Audrey (Samantha Weinstein) to be free of society’s gender codes and norms and wrote a book about it and went on Oprah to promote it.

In the hands of a lesser director, this maelstrom of liberal bait would be a recipe for disaster, or a very annoying film. Dennis Lee however manages to mine great comedy from this material. Beneath its twee Sundance veneer and collection of self-parodying liberal stereotypes (there’s a clearly Caucasian man who speaks, dresses and thinks like a stereotypical angry black man!), there’s a fine family film which pokes gentle fun at a parade of families conservative and liberal, mainstream and otherwise, while at the same time celebrating the good intentions behind every family unit.

That he manages to achieve all this while delivering some very dark comedy where people often do mean things to each other for the laughs, where often bad things happen despite or maybe because of our good intentions, is a sign of Lee’s growth as a director since his debut feature. The cast too is to be commended for their very rare chemistry, which brings out the positive side of a difficult script with very offbeat humour.

Reviewer's note: I watched Jesus Henry Christ in June 2011 when it had its world premiere in Singapore as part of the (failed) ScreenSingapore festival. The film was not released commercially in this territory or it seems in any other, aside from a very limited Stateside release followed by an immediate DVD and Netflix launch.

*: Ang Lee. Well, that's a running joke I kept going with Dennis in our interview in 2011. Which I'll post here one day if my readers (whoever they may be) insist.

Young and Dangerous Reloaded (古惑仔:江湖新秩序) (2013)

Teen recruits to the Hong Kong mafia find themselves embroiled in a triad's power struggle.

The gimmick: It's a straight up remake with smart phones, DVD monitors, and flash drives while characters spout 80s lingo and act out 80s gangster film character arcs.

Not postmodern and anarchic anachronistic enough to justify a remake.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 9 January 2013.

Chasing Mavericks (2012)

Biopic of one Jay Moriarty, who was the best extreme, record-breaking surfer who lived clean, had a big heart, and died young.

Michael Apted (7 Up) makes up lack of dramatic tension in Moriarty's rise to greatness by applying the structures of the inspirational film.

We think Gerard Butler's turn at The Yoda helped as well.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 November 2012.

Where the road meets the sun (2011)

Four international character types and indefinite stayers in a Los Angeles motel find themselves improbably paired up, held up, and recombined as each other's theoretical antithesis in Flaubertian fashion by their first-time Singapore director.

As artificial and uninvolved as it is derivative and trying way too hard, the film suffers from a vast ambition that's all too pedestrian, and an execution that's undercooked.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 November 2012.

Soar into the sun (R2B: 리턴투베이스) (2012)

In the Korean peninsula, the Cold War never ended. That makes this Korean retread of Top Gun and Iron Eagles strangely appropriate despite how the rest of the world has moved on.

Rain plays: the rookie genius fighter pilot who... Well, you know the rest of the story already.

Watch for: an unironic third act which has men saluting each other, saluting into the sun, saluting at fighter planes, and crying manly tears as they carry out a final mission.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 17 October 2012.

Wolf Children (おおかみこどもの雨と雪) (2012)

Like Mamoru Hosoda's previous work in The girl who leapt through time and Summer Wars, this is another socially conservative animation...

celebrating the bonds of family and community, the selflessness that a healthy community showers on individuals, the selflessness that parents shower on their children, and how individuals grow up and find maturity when they find their place in the larger community.

Watch for: the Miyazaki-esque ecological message, which makes the preachy moralising easier to swallow.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 5 September 2012.

The Secrets (Ha-Sodot) (2007)

A god-fearing girl in a religious boarding school for the Ultra-Orthodox meets her universe's version of Winona Ryder. Things get really from there in their boarding school/coming of age story.

The concept is quite standard but the director has other ideas. Namely casting 3 very dramatic actresses in a film that's secretly an existential comedy. And they're not in on the joke.

It's a great introduction to the ultra-orthodox, as well as a divinely written comedy.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 5 September 2012.

Ted (2012)

Aside from the man-child, the other 21st century innovation to the romantic comedy is the bromance. The gimmick in Ted is the bromantic triangle involves a foul-mouthed magical talking teddy bear, voiced by Seth MacFarlane.

The gimmick kind of runs out of steam halfway, and MacFarlane's schtick for pop cultural references takes over.

Watch for: Not MacFarlane's schtick, not the gimmick, but the evocation of 80s children's urban fantasy movies.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 5 September 2012.

Step Up: Revolution (2012)

The first Step Up film where the protagonist doesn't explain that his passion for dance is part of youthful rebellion and/or a search for self-identity and actualisation.

Also: the first Step Up film where the crew dances not because they want to express themselves. They're just internet pranksters who want to win a $1 mil. contest.

Damn right, this Step Up is revolutionary.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 29 August 2012.

Girl in Progress (2012)

An annoying precocious, socially awkward girl in a Gilmore Girls relationship with her immigrant mum decides to accelerate her road to adulthood and independence.

The Wrong Genre Savvy comedy does require you to have a taste for very nonsensical schemes that result in very obviously telegraphed, debasing punchlines.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 22 August 2012.

Magic Mike (2012)

Channing Tatum, real life former stripper, is a male stripper in Magic Mike.

It's a typical coming of age story - the newcomer is initiated, discovers possibilities, as well as the dark edges of the strip business.

Watch for: male eye candy performing striptease acts while dressed like every macho male stereotype popularised by the Village People.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 15 August 2012.

Bel Ami (2012)

A penniless man claws himself to the top of French society in the Belle Epoque by playing the game of love (and being played by it).

This adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's social realist novel manages to fit everything into the 100-min runtime of a feature film without feeling too hurried.

Watch this: with an open mind. Despite the stunt casting, the cast including Pattinson is more than up to the task of serious drama.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 28 March 2012.