Wayang

Let's be shallow and unimportant today. It's Saturday lah!

I'm losing it with my movies. The last two movies I went to sucked big time. The first was Hero. Aiyoo, Jet Li and Maggie Cheung, Zhang Yimou, Chinese martial arts and flowing costumes with all the terbang-terbang, should have been a good time right? Should bring you back to all those cerita Cina pukul tiga on a Sunday afternoon, right? No!!! Complete waste of time.

By the end of the first half hour, you're saying to yourself "Well, that was completely unnecessary." Oh it was beautifully shot, the art director really outdid himself, very symbolic with all the strong colors and all but the storyline is like "wha?"

Saving grace: an almost unrecognizable Tony Leung. Or maybe he was only unrecognizable to me because it's been a while since I watched a Hong Kong movie. I thought he killed himself? Or was that somebody else? (Nate will tell me, won't you Nate?) The man was yummeh, but not worth your 9 bucks.

The next one was last night's The Forgotten. Julianne Moore, Gary Sinise, Anthony Edwards and that dude from The Wire. After 14 months, Julianne Moore is still mourning the death of her son but suddenly everybody's telling her she never had a son at all, every trace of her son's existence had been erased and she has to find out why. Ooooohh..very intriguing, yeah? Is it a conspiracy, is she really crazy, is her son alive? I watched it and I'm rolling my eyes. If you watch the trailer, know that you're watching the best scenes the movie has to offer. That's it, all 30 seconds of 'em. I came out thinking "That was an hour long what-the-fuck moment." I expected more out of Julianne Moore, seriously. She should stop taking all these mother-in-distress roles.

The only movie worth mentioning is Garden State. Natalie Portman, that dude from Scrubs and a sorta guest appearance by Bilbo Baggins Ian Holm. It was sweet without being too saccharine, although I didn't really like the ending. It should have ended with him on the plane, but maybe that's just me.

You can tell this was a first time effort by Zach Braff, Variety called it a "sophomoric debut", and that he really took the time and effort in writing and directing this one. It has plenty of quirky details, the ones writers would notice and sounds so good at the Intro to Screenwriting reading: Kindergarten kids crossing the street in one long holding-hands line, the Keeper of the Infinite Abyss, the adopted brother from Africa "He's studying Criminal Justice at Rutgers. Ten years ago he was one of those kids with flies in his face!", his old high-school friends and the strange and funny jobs they now have. At least it kept me entertained. And it has shots of New Jersey like you've never seen before. Made that place almost look like Ann Arbor. But then, most American towns look the same, anyway.

Oh but I was so distracted by Zach. The dude looks exactly like Ray Romano. I kept expecting him to whine out "Maaaaaa!!" and slouch around all over the place.

So when you're browsing your friendly neighborhood VCD dealer, pick up Garden State. If nothing else, it'll make you believe in Natalie Portman's talent again (after the whole Star Wars thing).

Another thing. (When I'm shallow, I dig deep) I saw Britney's My Prerogative video on Launch (tak de masa lah nak tunggu keluar kat MTV). Why the heck did she choose to cover a Bobby Brown song? Was it because she wanted everyone to know she can correctly pronounce an SAT word? And it didn't sound much different than the original, suara pun sengau sebijik macam Bobby Brown. The vdo has her being a "bad girl", writhing around on the bed in her undies, walking down the aisle in a black dress, kissing kissing Kevin Federline (who looks like he could be a Backstreet Boy).
Peh. Self-glorification to the max, man.

Okay. Back to your lives, folks. I have a football game to cheer.