Whiplash (2014)

The inspirational music teacher you’ve never had before

The Impossible (2013)

Based on the real life experiences of the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami disaster.

The gimmick: The Impossible is a disaster movie that refuses to step into "triumph of the human spirit" territory. Disaster comes unexpectedly and is an equal opportunity taker.

Watch for: a film that spits in the face of genre conventions and comes out the better for it.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 16 January 2013.

Won't Back Down (2012)

Dissatisfied parents and teachers take over a school, literally.

The gimmick: This movie teaches you how to take over a school. It doesn't focus on what happens afterwards. That's because it's a film backed by the school privatisation lobby, and the lobby either doesn't care about what happens after, or doesn't want you to know that none of such recently privatised schools succeeded.

Watch for: bunch of Hollywood liberals suckered into a right-wing project; an 'inspirational' movie going through the motions; very good but very dishonest scriptwriting.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 26 December 2012.

Life of Pi (2012)

A boy finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean with a zebra, an orang utan, a spotted hyena, and a Bengal tiger. Hilarity does not ensue.

This is an adaptation of Yann Martell's inspirational novel, The Life of Pi. You'll either love the film or hate it to bits depending on how you take to Martell's Orientalist dime store spirituality, and whether it inspires you to take an oppositional reading of the film.

Watch for: Achingly beautiful CGI.

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

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.

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.

Machine Gun Preacher (2011)

A gang member finds Jesus, reforms himself, then smuggles arms and equipment to Africa to save war-ravaged kids kidnapped and gang-pressed into a militia army. By mowing down the army. And its child soldiers.

The premise points towards a very disturbing film but the filmmaker plays it very, very straight.

What you get is an inspirational biopic of a chilling, psychotic character that's good for laughs if you're in on the joke that apparently the director isn't.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 January 2012.

The first grader (2010)

Inspirational. Based on a true story. A story of how one man overcame the odds.

Emotional manipulation, a predictable storyline, and a highly contrived plot manage to come together in The First Grader, thanks to its great script.

That and its nationalist telling of the Kenyan independence movement and critical assessment of post-colonial Kenya.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 31 August 2011.

Suckseed (ห่วยขั้นเทพ) (2011)

Scrappy highschool underdogs with no musical sense form rock band and struggle to succeed.

It's like That Thing You Do!, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, and This is Spinal Tap all rolled into one.

Suckseed is a typical Japanese band film executed in the bold and demented visual style of the Thai New Wave.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 17 August 2011.

Made in Dagenham (2010)

How women got equal pay in the workplace is recounted in Made in Dagenham.

The film mixes the English industrial township comedy genre (workers saving their jobs, factories, and towns) with gender politics and labour union politics.

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

I love Hong Kong (我爱HK开心万岁) (2011)

Sinophone cinema has a unique genre called the Chinese New Year movie.

It's sort of analogous to the "holiday movie" that's set exactly on the holiday itself.

If you're in the market for holiday movies, you'll be able to tolerate, even welcome the waves of nostalgia, pithy depictions of community and neighbours, and the loving bond of families that the film throws at you.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 1 February 2011.

Flowers (花) (2010)

6 short stories about women in 6 decades of Japanese post-war history, filmed in the style and genre that were predominant in the period the stories are set in.

This is as close as you can get to a live action version of Millennium Actress, and just as touching and sentimental a tribute to Japanese cinema.

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 4 November 2010.

Monga (艋舺) (2010)

A true gangster never needs a chair to sit on

What would you get if you crossed the first arc of Godfather with the visual style of City of God, set it in Taiwan, and tell it like an Taiwanese afternoon soap?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 14 April 2010.

A Serious Man (2009)

It was then that he realised he needed to drill a hole into the back of his head...

Think you have a bad day, week or month?

Do you really want to ask "Why me?"

And do you really want to know the answer?

Read my full review at Fridae, first published on 18 February 2010.

Henry Poole is Here (2008)

And all the time, I kept wishing this were directed by Monty Python instead

There's something perverse about Henry Pool is Here. A Sundance film, it technically has the prerequisite traits of a small Sundance indie - a depressed, terminally-ill man (title character, played by Luke Wilson), an assortment of eccentric neighbours with histories, secrets, and private hurts.

What's perverse is its take on faith and the idea of miracles: they do happen, and not in the metaphorical sense. All you need to do is believe. This may be the first ever entry for Sundance which plays like "When you wish upon a star" for adults.

While Henry Poole slowly wastes away from his illness while angsting in self-seclusion (please leave me alone!), a literal miracle happens literally in his backyard. A water stain on Poole’s backyard wall seems to be the face of Jesus, attracting the attention of his neighbours, the local parish pastor, and even more people. As all Henry wants is to be left alone.

If this were an indie film, hilarity would ensue (either in a dark or irreverent style - think of how Kaufman, Monty Python, or Kevin Smith would have approached this material), and a point be made eventually about the human need to believe in miracles.

Except every moment you expect the punchlines to begin, director Mark Pellington decides to play it straight, laboriously and unimaginatively making and reiterating how a childlike, trusting surrender to belief can heal people – both physically and emotionally. And every moment he does that, your bored mind will be rewriting the script according to how you think Monty Python might have written each scene.

By avoiding any critical approach to its subject matter, Henry Poole is a family-friendly, heart-warming film. It is also simplistic and too straightforward to really take on the issues of belief and disbelief. This may be indicative of how fraught with difficulty any discussion of faith is at this point in American history, and the film suffers for it.

While one may fault its approach and predictable script, Mark Pellington's training in making music videos does ensure that at least this film is beautifully shot.

Henry Poole is available on DVD at the Esplanade library as of 25 March 2009.
An earlier version of this review was published at incinemas on 14 May 2009.

Sophie Scholl: The final days (Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage) (DVD) 2005

University students make excellent protesters and activists; Max Weber would have argued that university students, by virtue of their privileged position as state-sponsored intellectuals, are morally bound to be protesters and activists against the state. Yet there exists a problem of evil in academia: Why, if there is a moral duty to protest, do most students across nations and cultures remain largely apathetic?

Such is the uncomfortable position the members of the White Rose society find themselves in, during the final year of World War II. While the immorality of the war and Germany's impending defeat is clear to Sophie Scholl and her collaborators, it is likely that the general silence, fear or even apathy in the German public and their classmates provide that impetus towards their daring acts of resistance. We're not talking about terrorist acts or sabotage here, but a coordinated effort to blanket major German cities with fiercely written, relentlessly logical, and morally couched anti-Hitler missives. (Where else do you think "impeach him, impeach him now!!! came from?)

Understandably, the Gestapo is not amused and when the happy group make a mistake during the dissemination of their 6th pamphlet, Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans are in for a world of pain. To be more exact, the high treason leading to capital punishment type of pain.

Much of this movie is set in the Munich Stadelheim Prison, where criminologist Robert Mohr interrogates Sophie Scholl over many sessions. This sort of set up normally makes for a good play and a bad movie; coupled with Julia Jentsch's too-reverent portrayal of the title character as a diffident and moralistic political martyr, it is a surprise that Sophie Scholl is as watchable as it ends up.

Here's a rule of thumb: political martyrs come across as less sympathetic the more they are self-assured of the justness of their cause. Simply put, the smugness that comes along with young political martyrs barely into their 20s tends to alienate them from the viewer, as well as run counter to good storytelling. And when the Garden of Gethsemane moment comes for the young girl, we feel that far too much of the movie has set her up as a smooth operator and knowing martyr: her self-doubt and true fear ring strangely false.

What saves this movie comes from Gerald Alexander Held as the sympathetic interrogator who seems hell-bent on finding an escape clause for the girl despite having to do his duty as a political officer, as well as betray a certain lack of confidence in his cause. While Sophie Scholl is a known, unwavering moral entity, the movie rides on the shoulders of Held's Robert Mohr, and flies on the wings of Andre Hennicke's very shrill and even more smug high judge Friesler.

As a movie based on historical events and personages, Sophie Scholl: The final days seems to hold its heroine on too high a pedestal to tell a story, and even to attempt a truer story.

The clues lie in the extra features on the DVD, which contain historical interviews with the survivors of the White Rose society, and family and friends of the Scholls. I'll put it simply: there has been a fair amount of whitewashing in the telling of this story. The real Sophie Scholl was a very more humane and human character than the political martyr we are presented with; and contrary to the expectations of Sophie Scholl, the reaction in the universities to the execution of the White Rose society members was that of either apathy or approval.

It's as though these university students and their descendants have a serious case of "let's pretend most of us intellectuals and survivors of that era didn't break out the champagne or continued to be apolitical when the heroes were executed" guilt, and the very turgid political martyr of Sophie Scholl was created.

While acknowledging the problematic concept and storytelling of this movie, I would just like to say that however compromised it is, this movie still shows clearly why it is immoral and wrong for students to resort to violence and terrorism, even to protest against an unpopular and unjust war. Yes, I'm talking to you, Bill Ayers.

Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Laurence Fishburne is clearly eyeing Mr Garrison's role in South Park

I loved the 2002 Oscar-nominated documentary Spellbound, which introduced the sport of spelling bees to a much wider audience than English teachers and their students in the high school spelling club. Jeffrey Blitz had good sense to focus on eight ordinary young competitors from the real world: some are geeks and seen as outsiders by their peers, others struggle with teenage parenthood; some are simply precocious, others have been hothoused by yuppie parents, and still others come from much more humble backgrounds. These children come from everywhere; it seems many are immigrants or children of immigrants. Aside from their parents and coaches, most of these kids take the competition with their heads screwed on, and simply shrug, grin and move on if they get a word wrong and are eliminated. As a sports drama featuring little tykes saying the darnest things, Spellbound works because there are very little dramatics despite the potential for drama.

Yet the success of Spellbound has led to the development of an entire genre of movies, coming under the label of "spellingbeekidsploitation". Last year, we had Richard Gere and Flora Cross in Bee Season. Now, we have Laurence Fishburne and Keke Palmer in Akeelah and the Bee. Here, the director has chosen to create an inspiring film, one of those that are designed to get the heartstrings of the audience in a way that only a film about young children doing their best at sports can. In other words, a dramatic and sentimental (thank goodness it’s not based on any real life story!) account that follows the journey an ordinary girl must take to reach the finals of the National Spelling Bee contest.

Just to let you know, the film does succeed at tugging heartstrings, because it is a filmed as a sports film, albeit with an academic and cerebral sport – and sports films with kids, films about students struggling to doing well in academic pursuits are almost impossible to fail at tugging at heartstrings. The only questions are academic: whether the director was overly and overtly manipulative of the audience.

We understand that there are several rules to follow if you intend to make a sports film. Like having a wise old and cranky Karate Kid style mentor. That would be Laurence Fishburne for this movie. You know, the actor who usually plays the huge black man who looks capable of tearing off your head, whether he’s on the side of good or evil. How much did Atchison have to twist to turn Laurence Fishburne into Dr Larabee, a Chicken Soup for Nelson Mandela quoting professor at UCLA? Turns out Fishburne has to don a pink cardigan sweater, act like a prissy schoolmarm, has a gardening hobby like a grandmother, and come in close proximity to a box of puppets and dolls while coaching Akeelah (Keke Palmer) on spelling techniques. There goes a symbol of African American male virility! Doug Atchison will sacrifice anything just to pull your heartstrings! Not only that, but Dr Larabee is given a tragic past that only bears on the film for a scene that lasts shorter than 2 minutes, and only serves to pile on the heart balm.

This excessive gratuitousness is grating, especially when you consider that Laurence Fishburne does succeed in the rest of the Karate Kid training sequences with Keke Palmer.

The key point in the standard student sports film genre is that the protagonist often has to struggle against their environments. Since Akeelah is African American, it means that she lives in a bad neighbourhood, her brother is a gang member wannabe, and her mum is a single mum struggling to keep everything going, and is firmly opposed to her daughter wasting time on frivolous extracurricular activities like spelling bee contests. And of course, Akeelah goes to a school where being too clever is a death sentence and an invitation for school bullying.

So far, so good? But Atchison veers wildly off when he ditches the emotional and social realism halfway in the movie and begins to shoot with rose-tinted glasses, dropping issues developing in the background. I am of course talking about the problem of the African American race here. The student community’s suspicion of Akeelah isn’t so much a rejection of success than a symptom of reverse racism: Akeelah, by being too good at her studies and winning regional spelling bees, is too white for them. Her mother (Angela Bassett) forbids her from travelling upstate to a posh school not because it is in the suburbs, but because it is really in a white neighbourhood, populated by token minorities like rich Hispanics and overachieving Chinese. It smacks of intellectual dishonesty that Atchison refuses to acknowledge the real causes of the symptoms in his characters, and then proceeds to mow them down as if they never existed. Don’t ask me how Akeelah wins the approval of her classmates and mother – even I can’t figure out a satisfactory answer.

The bad neighbourhood angle turns ever so suddenly into Sesame Street meets Hillary Clinton’s "It Takes A Village" when Akeelah’s coach persuades her to seek the coaching of her own community. How is it that the friendly local gangster in his pimpmobile is so kind as to offer a poem to the girl, and insist that her wannabe gangster brother spend time with her spelling bee preparation? It boggles the mind. What of the friendly Korean grocery store owner who Akeelah also hangs out with? Has he forgotten the rift between Koreans and African Americans in the US, caused by black gangsters murdering Korean store owners in the early 1990s? After the fantastic sequences of the entire neighbourhood chipping in to coach Akeelah, I was expecting Oscar the Grouch and The Count to join in as well.

Atchison did not need to resort to such Pollyannish measures to sell this movie. What was initially a sound movie might, in hindsight, come off as slightly corny. I am betting that local audiences, being less in tune with the cultural milieu of the American that Atchison whitewashes, will be more accepting of its positive message.

First published at incinemas on 31 August 2006