Oscar nods

The 78th Academy Award nominations are out! Kudos to Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Pride and Prejudice, The Constant Gardener, Transamerica and March of The Penguins for their nominations!

And thank god for Ziyi Zhang being left out in the cold for her frozen acting (no pun intended) and Memoirs of the Geisha deserving of only technical awards. Though Gong Li would have been deserving for a Best Supporting Actress nod...

The results will be out on March 6, Singapore time!

Where's Golden's Geisha?

Memoirs of A Geisha

Directed by Rob Marshall

Adapted Screenplay by Robin Swicord based on the book by Arthur Golden

The much-anticipated screen version of Arthur Golden's bestselling book opens with much hype. Casting three of Chinese cinema's darlings, the film looks set to be a runaway success.

The film opens with a young Chiyo being sent away to be a geisha. For the next half hour, the girl played by the delightfully wide-eyed 12-year-old Suzuka Ohgo suffers at the hands of big time geisha Hatsumomo played by the lustrous Gong Li. Besides the surreal cinematography, the stars of the film has got to be Suzuka Ohgo and Gong Li. By the time Ohgo's half-hour screentime is up, Gong Li has shown us how she embodies the character of Hatsumomo with aplomb- a woman full of vengeance, contrive and jealousy but with a yearning for love. See her finest at attempting to destroy our poor protaganist.

When Zhang Ziyi's Sayuri appears as a grown woman mentored by Michelle Yeoh's Mameha, you can't help but feel that Zhang's thunder has all already been stolen by Gong Li. Zhang can be seen as struggling with her English while trying to portray the vulnerable Sayuri. While language has proven to be a stumbling block, Zhang's acting feels so distant that it leaves an empty feeling and provides no continuation from the warmth that Ohgo brought to the screen as a young Sayuri. It is a clear signal that in her haste to woo Hollywood's audience (including her attempt at anglicizing her name to Ziyi Zhang), she has sacrificed whatever little acting ability that was more evident in Chinese films like 2046. Yeoh's mentor role is played nicely as it is - a steely woman who's determined to help her protege beat arch rival Hatsumomo.

In adapting the book for the big screen, screenwriter Robin Swicord has left out parts of the book that provides glimpses into the geisha world. Intricate details of how the kimono is worn and traits of a geisha are missing probably to shorten the already lengthy film.

The aim and result is definitely style over substance. If anyone deserves an acting accolade, it should be Gong Li and not the overrated Zhang. (B- because Gong Li was in it, else C)

View from the top

I had an incredible evening atop Mount Faber at The Altivo Bar. A very enchanting and panaromic night view, the night was cooling and interpersed with a heavy downpour. No one else around us so the cosy drinking hole was ours for the night. Had a Heineken and a long chat.

Well, it's certainly life's small little pleasures.

Favorites 05: Books

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, The Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life















Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Favorites 05: Albums/Songs

Albums:

Goldfrapp, Supernature
Choice cuts: Number 1, Ooh La La










Madonna, Confessions On A Dancefloor
Choice cuts: Hung Up, Get Together, Sorry, Forbidden Love, Push, Jump, Fighting Spirit (Special Edition Bonus Track)







Mysterious Skin [Soundtrack]
Choice cuts: Snowfall, Loitering









Brazilian Girls
Choice cuts: Don't Stop, Pussy, Lazy Lover, Sirenes De La Fete









Fischerspooner, "Odyssey"
Choice cuts: Just Let Go, Get Confused, Never Win, Cloud









Röyksopp, The Understanding
Choice cuts: 49 Percent, Only This Moment, Sombre Detune








Imogen Heap, Speak For Yourself
Choice cuts: Goodnight and Go, Hide and Seek, The Walk, Just For Now









Coldplay, X&Y
Choice cuts: Fix You, Talk, Speed Of Sound, Swallowed In The Sea









Sigur Rós, Takk
Choice cuts: Glosoli, Sæglópur, Takk










Emiliana Torrini, Fisherman's Woman
Choice cuts: Heartstopper, Sunny Day, Nothing Brings Me Down










Songs:

• Natahsa Bedingfield, These Words (I Love You, I Love You)
  
• Billy Corgan, To Love Somebody
  
• Brazilian Girls, Don't Stop (Album Version, Riton Re-Rub), Lazy Lover (Album Version, Free Mix)
  
• Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into The Dark
  
• Daft Punk - Emotion, Make Love
• Depeche Mode - Precious (Sasha remixes and Calderone & Quayle Damaged Mix), A Pain I Am Used To (Jacques Lu Cont Remix and Goldfrapp Remix)
  
• Fischerspooner - Just Let Go (Joakim Mix), Never Win (Mirwais Alternate Mix), Get Confused, Cloud
  
• Garbage - Run Baby Run, Why Do You Love Me
• Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (Tieschwartz Mix), Number 1 (Album Version, Alan Braxe and Fred Falke Club Remix)
• Gorillaz, Don't Get Lost In Heaven, Demon Days
  
• David Gray - Life In Slow Motion, Ain't No Love
  
• Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
• Jack Johnson - Sitting, Waiting, Wishing, Breakdown
  
• Madonna - Hung Up (Album Version, Tracy Young Get Up and Dance Groove Mix, Chus and Cellabos Mix)
• Damien Rice - Eskimo, Cold Water, Blower's Daughter
  
• Moby - Snowball, Blue Paper, Chord Sounds
  
• New Order - Krafty (Album Version, Phones Reality Mix)
  
• Novuelle Vague - Just Can't Get Enough, Making Plans For Nigel
  
• Röyksopp - 49 Percent (Album Version, Ewan Pearson Glass Half Full Mix, Angello & Ingrosso Mix)
• Scissor Sisters - It Don't Come Quickly Enough
  
• Gwen Stefani - Cool (Album Version, Video Version, Richard X Mix)

Videoclips (Director):

• Goldfrapp - Number 1 (Phil Heyes)
  
• Madonna - Hung Up (Johan Renck)
• Gwen Stefani - Cool (Sophie Muller)
  
• Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper (David Lea)
  

Favorites 05: Film

1. Closer by Mike Nichols









2. Crash by Paul Haggis









3. Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki









4. Sommersturm (Summer Storm) by Marco Kreuzpaintner








5. La Marche de l'empereur (March of The Penguins) by Luc Jacquet








6. Saving Face by Alice Wu









7. Pride and Prejudice by Joe Wright

AuralAssualt: Goldfrapp's Number 1 EP

Goldfrapp
Number 1 EP

With the stellar first single Ooh La La from Supernature, Goldfrapp returns with #1 and what a deserving title it is.

#1 is a frisky, 80's inspired track with a digitized soundscape that sparkles in all the right places. Moving on with a semi-pulsating beat , the song is draped in Alison Goldfrapp's incredibly sensual vocal. The Alan Brake remix of the track adds a faster beat and extends the #1 goodness to 7 minutes, looping over Goldfrapp singing You're My #1, certainly something to fulfill your craving after listening to the short album version.

Beautiful, a Japanese-only bonus track, is a synth-pop track like it could have been anything from Black Cherry. All Night Operator, a B-side on Ooh La La, is a slow, trippy track that screams beautiful luscious.

And the last audio track is a dub mix of Ooh La La by Tieschwartz which turns the retro-electro track into a monster club anthem.

Finallym the perfect treat to end it all, the very funky video of Number 1 where Goldfrapp gyrates withher brood of doggie pals in an operation theater with ultimate sass and candour, making her look like an irresistable pussy cat. (A)

AuralAssault: Madonna's Confessions On A Dance Floor

Madonna
Confessions On A Dance Floor
22 years after she first graced the dance floor, Madonna is sending you an invitation to get into the groove again. And if Confessions is anything to go, she shows the world that she still can dance as well as inspire us to do what she wants us to...

Working with her new partners, most notably the savvy Stuart Price, Confessions is a 12-track segued mix of dance ecstasy. Lead single, Hung Up, amazingly mixes Abba's 1979 hit Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) with Madonna's and Price's retro-disco fluffiness into a bonafide dance floor anthem. Follow this with the throbs of the electro-futuristic Get Together where Madonna invites you to check it out with her as she really wanna be with you. Then, the song fades cleverly into Madonna saying sorry in a few languages before she indulges you into some more disco with Sorry. On Forbidden Love, Madonna morphs into Giorgio Moroder and creates a superb 80s-sounding yet stylish song of two star-crossed lovers. On the Indian-inspired, beats-driven Push, Madonna pays tribute to the one (presumably Guy Ritchie)
who has constantly pushed her to her best.

On Confessions, Madonna's lyrics are never overly self-indulgent though short of any major revelations that we don't already know. There is self-discovery (How High), enlightenment (Future Lovers), empowerment (Jump), love (Forbidden Love, Push), and lament (How High).

Confessions is a true return to form for the Queen of Pop, something all fans have been eagerly waiting for. (A)

Hung Up Video

Hung Up Video

Tick Tick Tock...enjoy some 80's fabulos-ity!

Visual&MentalAssault: Alice Wu's Saving Face

Saving Face
Directed by Alice Wu

Alice Wu has done what Lee Ang has done for Chinese directors and actors. A poignant tale of cultural clashes versus the fulfilment of traditional Chinese expectations, the film talks about a middle age widow who becomes unexpectedly pregnant much to the chagrin of her professor father who worries about losing face. Meanwhile, her grown-up surgeon daughter is battling coming public of her lesbianism as well as mending the broken fence when she admits to her mother of her socially intolerable inclinations.

Interweaved in between are plenty of East-meets-West humour and impeccably fine acting coming from the stellar cast, most notably Joan Chen's role as the widow whose funny and unnerving ways also show a vulnerable and lonesome side when torn between conforming to her authoritarian father's ways once again and finding the freedom that she's in dire need of. Daughter Wil played by Michelle Krusiec and her lesbian lover played by Lynn Chen also lend great support to the film which is ultimately bittersweet. (A)

AuralAssault: Madonna's Hung Up

Madonna

Hung Up

In the wake of one of the most anticipated album of the year, Confessions On A Dancefloor, Madonna unleashes Hung Up featuring a delectable sample of Abba's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! on the dancefloor.

Hung Up is like Music, a non-song that stomps with a killer hook, a melodius chorus and the electronic blizz courtesy of Stuart Price. The song ups the camp factor of Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) while Madonna sings and gyrates to a worthy creation of her own.

Now, no more preaching! Just keep on dancing! Everyone loves it when Madonna gives a beat to dance to. (A-)

AuralAssault: David Gray and Sarah McLachlan

David Gray
Life in Slow Motion


It seems that David Gray's life has changed for the worse. At least that's what it seems from his music. Life In Slow Motion is an utter heartache.

From the forlorn opener Alibi to the current single The One I Love, Gray displays a kind of helplessness that builds around love. The album the culminates to a high in the middle with the title track Slow Motion,From Here You Can Almost See The Sea and Ain't No Love, the trilogy of songs that express the unexpressed of a draggy life, of unrequited love and of being unloved. The songs are often heavy-hearted, interspersed with one or two more uplifting tracks in between before closing with yet another pair of poignant tracks, the beautiful Now and Always and the aching Disappearing World. (B+)

Sarah McLachlan

Bloom [Remix Album]

It's difficult to associate Sarah McLachlan with electronic, club or dance music. After all, she's a singer-songwriter with the knack for deeply evocative pop rock songs. But in the span of four years, her record company has released two remix compilations of her songs.

2001's Remixed featured McLachlan's hits from her past albums remixed into hard, stompy and club-orientated dance tracks, courtesy of such famed producers like BT, Hybrid and Rollo.

On Bloom, the remix is a little more diverse and elcletic - remixes span from ambient (Dirty Little Secret by Thievery Corp, Answer by Talvin Singh) to reggae (Train Wreck by Sly & Robbie) to funk (Just Like Me by will.i.am) and dance (World on Fire by Junkie XL , Stupid by Hyper, Fallen by Gabriel & Dresden).

Standout tracks include Sly and Robbie's funky remake of Train Wreck, Talvin Singh's Indian-inspired Answer, Thievery Corporation's chilling Dirty Little Secret (better than the original), Tom Middleton's stylish redo of the 90's Vox and Junior Boy's Own's electrolysed Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. The only sore thumb - the horrible The Way I Am where Sarah seemed like an odd misfit with DMC's rapping and will.i.an's erratic production.

Overall, this is a special treat for fans though there's so many remixes from theAfterglow project that's simply missing and never will see the light of the day. (B)

Current mood: Empty

Fairy Tale

Cinderella Man

Directed by Ron Howard

Cinderella Man reunites Ron Howard with longtime collaborator Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger, a star-studded Oscar-winning ensemble that will undoubtedly create a buzz come award time next year. The story of famed 1930's boxer Jim Braddock follows his trials and tribulations from superstar boxer to downtrodden desperado during the Great Depression years. Ousted from boxing prfoessionally and left with a broken hand, Braddock and his family were forced to their unkind fate. The rest of story as you will know is rather predictable.

A fairy tale twist ends their fate. With dexterity and furious drive, Braddock returned to form to beat his deadliest opponent and regained the glory he had lost for so long. Russell Crowe, having put on weight for this role, was characteristically uncompromising and convincing as the boxer, Braadock. However, it's the recently single-again Renee Zellweger who lighted the screen as the unwavering and silent suffering wife who stood by him. Often delicate and conflicted, Zellweger displayed a range of emotions that demonstrated her increasingly skillful versatility.

Ron Howard's direction is starkingly real albeit gory. Boxing scenes are well-crafted and captured on screen to be able to make the audience gasp in aniexty with every blow delivered by Crowe and his opponents.

This is good old Hollywood story retelling. It's the right dose of everything that makes Cinderella Man too much of a winner and a tad bit boring. (B-)

Abosolutely stunning piece of poetry:

Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond
E.E. Cummings

Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
Any experience, your eyes have their silence:
In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
Or which I cannot touch because they are too near

Your slightest look will easily unclose me
Though i have closed myself as fingers,
You open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously)her first rose

Or if your wish be to close me, I and
My life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
As when the heart of this flower imagines
The snow carefully everywhere descending;
Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
The power of your intense fragility: whose texture
Compels me with the color of its countries,
Rendering death and forever with each breathing

(I do not know what it is about you that closes
And opens; only something in me understands
The voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Best-Of: My Favorite Movies of 2005...So Far

1. Closer by Mike Nichols









2. Crash by Paul Haggis









3. Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki









4. Sommersturm (Summer Storm) by Marco Kreuzpaintner









Ticket stubs: Yes, I collect them!








Current mood:

AuralAssault: Mysterious Skin - Music From The Film

Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd
Mysterious Skin - Music From The Film (Soundtrack)

Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie created magic with the score to the film Mysterious Skin. Listened on its own, this soundtrack is the perfect complement to the chilling film. Each track stunning on its own works seamlessly into one another to form a gorgeous collage of emotionally-charged instrumentals that seemingly re-creates every scene of the tragic tale in your mind. At times, the songs leave you feeling chilly and distant like the way it felt in the film.

One of the best scores of the year! (A+)

49 Percent

Math and imagery
Equates cacophony
Multiplies muteness: a sum better disturbed
For silence subtracts
And shadows divide light
less than half is slight
The heat has simmered for a while

49 Percent, Röyksopp

AuralAssault: Björk's Music From The Drawing Restraint 9

Björk
Music From The Drawing Restraint 9

This is a soundtrack composed by Björk with minimal vocals for celebrated contemporary visual artist Matthew Barney’s next film Drawing restraint 9, in which she also appears.

The soundtrack music uses a combination of many instruments such as the harp, harpsichord and celeste, trumpet, trombone and oboe, electronic basslines, and children’s choir. The collection of songs also seems to bring the best of both worlds from Vespertine and Medulla in terms of the whimsical beels of the former (Ambergris March and Cetacea) and the human beatbox of the latter (the Japanese-infused Pearl, Shimenawa and the 10-minute Holographic Entrypoint). On the poignant opener Gratitude, Will Oldham sings with much raw emotion that tinkers.

The songs put together do exude a weird quality but is unquestionably a very accomplished masterpiece, though not music to everyone's ears. Those who get it will be greatly rewarded, no less. (A)

Visual&MentalAssault: Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
Tim Burton (Based on the book by Roald Dahl)

The much-hyped and well-received Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl comes to live in this 2005 update. Staying mostly true to form, Tim Burton infuses much of his trademark direction with sophisticated robotic machinery and semi-mechanic setting in the chocolate factory which showcased what was portrayed in the book itself.

Much credit should be given to Johnny Depp and Freddie Highmore (who incidentally acted with Depp in Finding Neverland) for their roles as the eccentric Willy Wonka and the precarious and wide-eyed Charlie Bucket respectively. Once again, the pair's chemistry was unmistakable. Depp should expect an Oscar nod for his comedic and amusing performance as Willy Wonka (think Edward Scissorhands also helmed by Burton). Also deserving of praise is Deep Roy's potrayal of Oompa Loompa, the quirky little man-like creatures who looked exactly the same.

Perhaps the only flaw in the movie are the awkard song and dance sequence which sometimes fail to be funny. Otherwise, this is a faithful adaptation with a zest of new life. (B+)

Disenchanted Witch

Bewitched
Nora Ephron

Be warned, this retooled version of the old TV series is directed by Nora Ephron of Sleepless in Seattle fame, so don't expect a whole lot of depth. Anyway, the TV series itself was meant to be lighthearted as well, but it seemed that the movie remake drew muck flak, presumably compared to the TV version.

But this remake is slightly different from the original in that in the movie, they were doing a modern day version of Bewitched and they actually cast a real witch. Well, despite to a fluffy storyline without much thought, there were some funny lines though I do agree that Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell has forced chemistry. However, Kidman is actually quite good in her role as Samatha/Isabel Bigelow, an indication that the actress has reached the stage where she could handle any genre with much ease. Her presence and charisma definitely lights up the screen. The other two actors who seemed to have not received mention at all are Oscar winning screen veterans Shirley Maclaine and Michael Caine as Isabel's co-star mother-cum-witch and father respectively. Both actors showed much poise and charm as they worked their screen magic quietly in the background.

This is something good to laugh out to and if you have ever watched the original, don't be too disappointed. (B-)