Clerks 2 (2006)

As Dante is about to find out again, working life is hell...

In the entire history of great movies, one rule of thumb exists: the sequel is always inferior to the original great movie. The only exception? Godfather Part II - Francis Ford Coppola's film is in fact the only sequel to make it into the AFI top 100 films list. This is something that we need to keep in mind when we think about Clerks II. The original Clerks in 1994 launched Kevin Smith's career as a director, and remains his best work to date (with the possible exception of Dogma). The movie may have been about a day in the almost-meaningless life of a couple of 20somethings working at a record store, but it captured the exasperation and nihilism of many a GenXer stuck in mind-numbing, soul-destroying dead-end jobs during the economic downturn, with virtually no avenue for escape. The resulting comedy ensues only because there are only so many ways overeducated (Randall Graves gets the best lines) and frustrated (Dante Hickes shares the profanity-ridden dialogue with his fellow actors) underachievers who have all but given up on the rat race can entertain themselves. The result: an instant classic that not only made Kevin Smith US cinema's equivalent of Douglas Copeland, but also created some of the most profane and perverse dialogue and scenarios ever seen on screen at that time.

Sure, Adam Sandler and the makers of the Scary Movies have tried to outdo Smith in tasteless jokes, but what they do not get and have never been able to replicate is the width and depth of social satire and commentary that accompanied the jokes in Clerks, or even the sense of dark brooding malaise behind every genuinely funny gag. As a member of the office comedy, Kevin Smith's Clerks took the "working life is hell" motiff, adapted it to the real life experiences of a new generation, dripping midnight paint into the genre with the bleakness of the mid-90s economy and at the same time sharpening to a knife's edge the keeness of the satire. Now, what on earth could Kevin Smith do with a direct sequel to Clerks? How on earth would he avoid making a sequel that would be a pale shadow, a weak imitation of the groundbreaking original?

Let me just say that it certainly is possible for any audience to enjoy Clerks 2 without even watching Clerks as its jokes and dialogue are as profoundly perverse and profane as the original's, but what makes Clerks 2 a worthy sequel is how it really relates to the original movie. I'm not really refering to the references and visual parodies to the original movie (although they are there), but to what Kevin Smith has done to the original premise. "Reprisal" would definitely be wrong, and a mere "development" would be an understatement. It's more like Kevin Smith has discovered a whole new dimension to Clerk's comic premise: take the same 2 dead-end workers from 1994, imagine that despite the roaring nineties, fate has conspired to keep their lives in the same job and the same store from Clerks, with the duo dully, sullenly, accepting that fate yet half-hearted hoping for the chance to escape.

And of course, Clerks 2 of course chronicles a day in the lives of Dante and Randall, but what a difference 12 years make. Once more, as they say, with feeling - and Clerks 2 is even bleaker, edgier, and angrier than its predecessor, while being more resigned at the same time. Of course, being 12 years older, the characters are tinged with a sense of futility and desperation... Here, fate plays a joke on the duo: Randall may just have gotten his once-in-a-lifetime chance out of a life of mediocrity with his marriage to a hyper-motivated girlfriend (who obviously was the one who made the marital decision), but can he survive his final day at work? Clerks 2 moves the action from the convenience store to a fictional fast food restaurant, but Kevin Smith's joke is that work is hell, wherever you go, and the only thing to look forward is the collective hilarity and pranks you play on your colleagues and friends.

Kevin Smith has clearly outdone himself with Clerks 2. The satire is even more biting, the sense of despair deeper (and mind you, Clerks was an allegory of Dante's Inferno), and the jokes way funnier. There's a frightful amount of pop culture jokes in them, with pointed comments at Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and even the Transformers, as well as organised religion, Silence of the Lambs, and more. Either way you will laugh. And either way, you will weep. And either way, you will shudder to think what Kevin Smith can conjure up if he decides to make Clerks 3 in 10 or 12 years' time.

First published at incinemas on 1 February 2007

Miss Potter (2006)

So are we going with 24-bit colour or 16-bit colour, ma'am?

We remember Beatrix Potter as the author and illustrator of the Petter Rabit books, as well as other children's stories involving the adventures of an entire menagerie of sometimes mischievious but always endearing animals, all dressed in human clothing. It is a little known fact that prior to her publishing career, Ms Potter was an amateur scientist who was the first to painting the appearance of lichens under a microscope, and amongst the first botany scientists to suggest that lichens are formed as a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae - or that she had presented a couple of scientific monographs at the Royal Society. It is also a little known fact that Beatrix Potter became an expert breeder of sheep when she retired to the Lake District after the death of her fiance. I mention all this because you will not learn of these from the Miss Potter movie, which concerns itself with the years between her first Petter Rabbit book to shortly after her move to the Lake District.
More importantly, I mention all this because both director, screenwriter, and Rene Zellweger have managed to form a rather fun and quirky impression of Beatrix Potter in this movie, quite unlike her serious and some say dour self. And what a fun movie it becomes too, as Zellweger plays Beatrix as a loveable eccentric with an almost-permanent crooked smile, silly pinched face, and indeterminable broad accent that makes her look and sound like a younger and taller version of Linda Hunt. Zellweger's Beatrix Potter is somehow both of this world and not of it - a 30something spinster determined to publish her book and willing to get her hands literally (and metaphorically) dirty in the process, as well as a childlike woman who insists the illustrated animals are her friends, has individual names for each of them, and imagines they can come alive (i.e. move and run about) on the page. Now, usually you would either be freaked out, or end up viewing such a person as a curious psychological study ("An iiiiiinteresting person", the doctors will put it. Even most adults in the movie don't quite take her seriously), but with Zellweger portraying Beatrix with such zest, you'll just have to adore her, quirks and all.

Over the course of the movie, audiences will have a chance to look at how Beatrix Potter developed her skill and love for storytelling and illustration during her childhood, while the main story in the movie concerns itself with the straightforward tale of how Beatrix built her career as a children's author, as well as her relationship with her publisher from the company, Norman Wayne (Ewan McGregor), and his freespirited family. This movie would indeed by straightforward and hardly outstanding if not for the playful and eccentric portrayal by Rene Zellweger, the lighthearted and quirky script, but more importantly, the numerous animated sequences that show just how strange and charming Beatrix's imagination can be.

As far as biographical movies go, Miss Potter does tell the most important years of the author's life, is frank about the many quirks of her personality while making them understandable and even sympathetic to modern audiences, and shows a wide range of the author's inner emotions. Even though one suspects Rene Zellweger plays her parts for laughs at times (like her perpetual grin, pinched face and strange accent!), one also suspects that the real Beatrix Potter - not one to conform to the crowds - would have approved of this movie's irreverent and quirky tone.

First published at incinemas on 1 February 2007

Half Nelson (2006)

Finally, a teacher turns troubled students around movie that isn't patronising or disconnected from reality!

"Idealistic teacher turns troubled (or terminally bored) students around": hardly a year goes by without some new member of this film genre hitting the cinemas, and older members getting shown on television every Teacher's Day. Traditionally, it is expected that the teacher will have some form of eccentricities, most notably deviating from the prescribed course materials (Robin Williams notably demanded his students "Rip! Rip! Rip!" the introduction to their literature study guide in Dead Poets Society, Julia Roberts forces her young conservative charges to look at nude art in Mona Lisa Smile). It is sometimes expected that the teacher will modify their pedagogical methods to suit the students (Danny DeVito tries to get his underachieving class of army recruits interested in Shakespeare, in Renaissance Man, while Richard Dreyfuss and Jack Black turn kids on to music in Mr Holland's Opus and School of Rock respectively). On the other side of the equation, the students are always expected to be a sort of challenge to the teacher; they are either underachieving, bored, hostile to new methods, or very occasionally disadvantaged urban poor predisposed to gangfights and other self-destructive behaviour (e.g. Michelle Pfeiffer's students in Dangerous Minds, or the students in the early, pre-censorship crackdown episodes of Moulmein High).

Yet nothing has prepared us for Ryan Gosling's turn as Dan Dunne, an excellent and eccentric history teacher in a decaying inner-city school. Yes, he does depart radically from the course material (the naughty teacher secretly unloads the students with Engels, Hegel and Foucault hrough the Black Panthers, the civil rights movement, and the everyday life of the students!), is close to the students in a kind of hip manner (teacher is also a very zen-like basketball coach who isn't scared of abusing kayu referees), and has to deal with the behavioural problems of some students - but really, nobody expects that a model teacher like that would have any real problems. Like a barely controlled drug problem. This sort of complication is - despite the more 'realistic' entries in this genre - competely unthinkable. But if you notice, only in films do teachers face no psychological problems aside from the problem of being rebels, whereas reading the Straits Times or just by a simple street poll, we know that one of the perils of teaching in schools is mental instability, depression, and the development of bizarre habits (not necessarily drug abuse, mind you).

So Half Nelson is the most realistic entry of the school drama genre film, and its strength is to show how an individual with a severe problem can still be motivated enough to teach, and how he manages to be an excellent teacher in spite of (or maybe because of) his problems. Intensely psychological, the movie doesn't shy away from the realities of life, refusing to validate the fairy tale that perfect and blameless people walk around in schools, or that teachers have the power to change every single life in the classroom. Dunne is a realistic idealist who will be happy if he manages to change just one student's life, but his entire project enters difficult territory once that student, a promising student (played by Shareeka Epps) who is in danger of joining a gang, discovers his drug habit. How do you inspire and guide a student when you expect them to follow your teachings, but not your actions? Half Nelson explores this intiguing question, and also comes very close to answering how real life, flesh and blood all-too-human teachers work out their ideals and flawed reality in their lessons.

Half Nelson is a testament to the struggles we all have to go through in our lives, and to the noble instinct to reach out to others no matter how flawed we are at the moment. As a school drama, it also comes close to be the most realistic of the lot, with its emotionally and spiritually-struggling teacher, and its lack of a simplistic fairytale ending. Acting-wise, Ryan Gosling fleshes out this very difficult role with ease, bringing out his character's inner turmoil in a sympathetic manner. His Oscar nomination for Best Actor is a recognition of his performance in this movie, and I was also impressed by Shareeka Epps, who is able to measure up to Gosling's intensity.

Despite its very realistic portrayal of school life and subversive teachings, Half Nelson is an inspiring school drama that I hope will be run on televsion on Teacher's Day some time in the future, uncut.

First published at incinemas on 1 February 2007

.45 (2006)

Two words why you’d watch this: Milla Jovovich

When they stumble on the remains of our civilisation, aliens from a distant world or scientists from a distant time will have to unravel the mystery that is Milla Jovovich. They will have to explain the rise and rise of the model-turned-actress, whose movies consist of her appearing in skimpy clothing (bandages in The Fifth Element, a leather suit in Ultraviolet and the Resident Evil series) and a breathtaking hairdo, and kicking the ass of assorted characters (alien invaders, the English army, infected zombies) in the same movie.

No doubt alien visitors will be wiser beyond our comprehension, and no doubt scientists from the future will be laughing at our primitiveness, but one thing they will never get is Milla Jovovich’s movies. You see, there are movies where people watch Milla Jovovich. Then there are movies where people watch Milla Jovovich act. The second category is of course a null set... but .45 comes very close to a well-written movie that is far less ridiculous and no less entertaining than most of Ms Jovovich’s movie appearances.

A very short .45 Milla Jovovich cheat sheet
Milla is Kat, a hot and smart chick who: sells guns to gangsters with Big Al, her lover and partner in crime.
Her unique look in this film is: battered girlfriend with chopped up hair and black eye
She kicks the ass of: Big Al, who creates her unique look in a fit of jealousy
And so you better look out for Milla is out for REVENGE!

As you can tell, .45 is a neat little revenge film that is typical of its genre, with a simple premise, and uncomplicated setup. What makes it fun to watch are (as you may have guessed) the gratuitous amount of fanservice involving the physical charms of Ms Jovovich, as Kat slowly persuades and seduces her friends (some female!) and colleagues of Big Al to exact her vengeance. Here’s the not-so-simple premise of .45: you know that she succeeds in her revenge when the first opens, and the question is how did she do it, and who did the dirty deed in the end? You’d also admire the director’s effort in his not-so-straightforward telling of a straightforward story, mixing in expletive-laden interviews with Big Al’s neighbours, families and friends after his imminent demise (apparently even his mother wants him dead!) as the movie ambles from a Bonny and Clyde style love affair to its eventual breakdown, and then to Kat’s vengeance arc. If anything, this method of storytelling gives the film a sense of fun and tells a very familiar story in an unexpected manner – setting up audiences for a few surprises along the way.

I like genre films, because this is where directors hone and sharpen their writing skills by applying and stretching the genre formula to create something that is unexpected despite its familiarity. With .45, Gary Lennon, whose last directorial effort in a movie was in 1995, proves that he can turn out a great tale, and tell it well.

First published at incinemas on 1 February 2007

Once in a Summer 그해 여름 (2006)

Those who forget history are doomed to make period tearjerkers!

There’s something strange about asking a 36 year-old man to play a high school student. Yet for his first tearjerker romance, this is precisely what romantic comedy director Jo Geun-sik resorts to. Lee Byeong-heon – whose claim to fame rests on the Joint Security Area movie – is an aging professor (who looks like a 36-year-old with a grey wig and stage latex around his eyes, but none on his wrinkle-free hands) who disappeared completely from public view after a sudden resignation, and one of his former students tracks him down in order to do a television programme, which you never get to see or even figure out what it’ll be about, because it’s a plot device to get the prof to launch the movie into a huge flashback to 1969, which forms the meat of this tearjerker romance. As our young intrepid reporter leans forward in earnest attention, the old prof begins to tell of his first romance as a young college student.

Summer 1969. Retired general Park Chung Hee forces a charter change to allow himself to serve for an otherwise unconstitutional third term as president. The actions of the general (who promised not to run for presidential elections in 1963!) is deeply resented, causing widespread student unrest. Our future prof joins his classmates, who either defy the street curfews or escape them by roughing it out with farmers at a remote village. Perhaps this movie will be something like "Love During South Korea’s Great Leap Forward". Since this is a tearjerker, give yourself 1 point if you guessed that the prof’s going to fall so deeply in love with a villager, yet have the romance turn out so badly or tragically that he never remarried, and this romance is somehow linked to his eventual voluntary seclusion from society.

But then as you watch the movie, it becomes apparent that Jo Geun-sik really wants to do is tell a straightforward love story set in a rustic place, and that the political background and implications are pretty much tossed out of the window once boy meets girl. In time-honoured romantic comedy fashion, boy takes a dislike to girl due to a poor first meeting, but both gradually fall in love with each other as they tease each other while working together at the village. All this is scripted very competently, even though it seems that not enough was made out of the apathetic boy and the girl whose parents actually defected to North Korea. But then, given that not enough was made out of the political background of the story, or from the modern-day introduction and bookending of the story (why did the boy not search for the girl? Why is the television station interested in him, given that it knows nothing about his story? What did he do for the 50 years after the end of the romance? And why?), one can’t really expect much beyond an average romance.

Even then, you can’t expect much of this average romance when the political reality of 1969 catches up with the lovers. I’m depressed enough to report that during the most preposterous interrogation scene in a Korean movie starring Lee Byeong-jeon, which involves him and Su-ae weeping as they communicate their loves through their eyes while managing to fool their secret service interrogators that they don’t know each other, I was hoping that the director had stuck to a straightforward, apolitical, ahistorical romance instead.

Who is to blame for all this? I can’t tell since there are 8 (EIGHT!) credited writers for this film, which probably explains its multiple deficiencies. This movie does start out well with an interesting premise, an uncommon setup , and a promise of mixing politics in a tearjerker, but develops none of the premises, and fulfils none of its promises. Taken by itself, Once in a Summer is a decent romance, but falls behind the well-established Taiwanese and Chinese political weepies genre. One hopes Lee Byeong-heon lands better projects than this in the future!

First published at incinemas on 1 February 2007