When you are lazy and you know...
... you use your friend's article. Here's what my man,
Keith wrote about his choices of movies in the year 2003. What I've always liked about his leanings, be it musical or cinematic is that his tastes lie in those which are thought-provoking and heartfelt. Usually, his articles are much more well argued than mine. You can call my style of writing stream-of-consciousness but it is usually just sloppy.
Here's his article:
BACK IN SPADES
I do wonder myself if it’s really a case of economic constraints (something I had used too often as an excuse), or actually down to a dwindling interest in films that I had been going to the movies much less frequently of late. A generous estimation would be that I went to the theatres about 20 times last year – which is a paltry estimation considering I used to watch films on almost a weekly basis. But then again, that was back when I was still contributing film reviews to a local rag and able to command a level of concession for film screenings.
On that note, I should mention too that I haven’t attempted at writing a movie review or anything about film culture for more than a year now – whether that long sabbatical from a genre of writing I had so enjoyed, as an amateur, was self-imposed or otherwise, I would leave to your own conclusions.
It’s hard for me to put a finger on why I decided to stop writing, for the past year had been just a complete fog of confusion and frustrations. Pride and ego probably had much to do with it, for I recall being discouraged after one of my editors complained that I did not know how to organize my ideas – which is a more than valid criticism, I must say. But in a sense, I had never been away from the business of film critique, literally speaking, for it’s all too frequent that I’ll leave halfway through a screening fuming about how awful a particular movie was in arcane (and embarrassing) streams of consciousness like I was putting together a review in my mind.
But I think I really stopped giving a shit about the movies when I realized how much it was becoming such a fashion thing to sprout one’s haughty appreciation of films supposed with artistic merits, fashionable not only to turn up at film festivals but to air out pretentious opinions freely like dirty laundries too. Each time I turned on to a movie on Arts Central and hear some camp joker offering his half-assed plug for some ‘art film’, I’d immediately switch to another channel. It is for the same reason too that I made a conscious effort to avoid movies that solicits for audiences with that bonehead ‘art film’ tag – films like Francois Ozon's 'Swimming Pool' and 'City Of God' by Katia Lund and Fernando Meirelles, or even Royston Tan's 15 – probably much to my own disadvantage because I believe that most of them are good and interesting films. Still, it’s all a heap of hype as far as I’m concerned.
A recent, and relevant, anecdote I would like to share is this occasion when I went to watch Quentin Tarantino's latest film, 'Kill Bill Volume One', and left with my friend’s shocking dismissal of the director as ‘someone who I cannot take seriously as a film lover’, or something to that effect. What’s really shocking about my friend’s remark isn’t so much that it revealed his affected pretensions – as if admitting to enjoying something as B-movie trashy as Tarantino's films is a high crime and so unhip – but it’s more shocking for me personally because it’s a remark that I can certainly imagine myself making a few years ago. Here’s my real confession: I realized that I am so easily susceptible to being a fucking pretentious asshole too. And this much I know, I didn’t want to be that guy. Maybe that had a bit to do with why I stopped writing as well, for it pained to read my own crap.
So this Masked and Anonymous column can be viewed as a rehabilitation, and perhaps these sporadic writing about film – more salt-of-the-earth stuff, I hope – are aimed at renewing a genuine appreciation for the movies, at my own snail pace and apocalyptic grace.
It probably would seem a little old hat in January, but what better way, I thought, to inaugurate the column by reviewing the films I had enjoyed in 2003. To go for a top ten list seems a little generous considering I had only viewed some 20-odd films last year, so I’ll plunked down for five, with room for some other mentions.
The best film I had the chance to view last year was, hands down, 'Unknown Pleasures'. This third film by Jia Zhangke, from China’s sixth generation of filmmakers, is a certified masterpiece that critics had already compared with Robert Bresson and Hou Hsiao Hsien – though its portrayal of social alienation reminded me of Michelangelo Antonioni, and I was enthralled by its improvised fury. Spike Lee's '25th Hour', my second favorite of films I saw last year, is hardly short of ferocity as well, if only for the incendiary references to 9-11. Todd Haynes’ 'Far From Heaven' (which I caught, fortuitously, at the final run) and Atom Egoyan’s 'Ararat' are both thought-provoking in their own way – though I felt Haynes’ film was a little overrated while I went away feeling like I haven’t really understood Egoyan’s film and its negotiation with history, or at least his motivations, completely.
Unexpected pleasures could be found in the following three films. Gregor Jordan’s 'Buffalo Soldiers' is an uneven work but I appreciated its acid black humor. 'Seabiscuit', a Gary Ross-directed film that entranced me in the same way his previous film 'Pleasantville' does, despite its cornball sentiments. And the otherwise conventional 'Dirty Pretty Things' is surprisingly rendered with skills and subtlety by Stephen Frears. Honorable mentions (for strictly entertainment value): Michael Moore’s soapbox politics on 'Bowling For Columbine', Billy Crystal’s baseball drama '61*', and, ahem, Paris Hilton’s sex tapes.
Well, for me, I don't really have a favourite movie for the year 2003. It was more like there were a lotta popcorn movies I watched and enjoyed on the whole, forgetting the whole thing when I walked out of the cinema. One of the last few movies which really struck a chord with me was 'Book Of Life', a 60 min movie about the second coming of
Jesus. I watched it in 1999 if I remembered correctly. The setting was in Manhatten, NYC where the millenium was approaching.
Jesus came down to Earth, accompanied by a chain-smoking
Mary Magdalene, played by
PJ Harvey to bring about Judgement Day. The J-man, dressed in a sharp Hugo Boss/ Armani/ whatever suit, had to obtain all 12 Books of Life to unlock and unleash Armageddon.
There were many modern twists to the biblical fable. For one, these 'books' were all laptops, running on Windows 95 for starters. Second, the bulk of them were stashed away in some lockers in some airport, the JFK International Airport? LIke some spy thriller. When
Jesus opened the laptop, the Book of Life, there'd be a Windows message box prompting him to open the program, 'Famine', 'War', etc. Y'know the whole shebang. The 2 buttons were 'Yes' and 'Cancel'. Hehehe, very cheeky of the director. Funny as well.
Anyway, the mascot of the death-country band I play in,
Satan himself was having a beer with the J-doode (ehhhh... membersss), trying to persuade
Jesus not to bring about Judgement Day. The thing was that the J-hunk himself was totally unwillingly to do it as well. Cuz he would have to judge and decide the 120,000+ souls that he could allow into Heaven. He was griping to
Lucifer about how he didn't want the whole thing to happen but his old man didn't care. And he had to carry out his father's wishes. The J-man was pretty pissed that he could only choose that amount of souls and screamed out in frustration, "Who the hell those Christians think they are!?!?" At this point, quite a number of people in the audience was cheering and clapping.
Satan didn't give up persuading the J-man to change his mind. He claimed that what he had been doing all this while to change the fact that Armageddon was coming. He tried to convince
God that it was a bad idea and all. That was while he was the angel,
Lucifer Morningstar. However, he was unable to change the creator's mind so he resigned from Heaven's administration. "No, you didn't resign; you were fired,"
Jesus shot back.
Later in the movie,
Jesus had to give
Satan the last Book of Life in order to swap the souls of a couple who lost to my band's mascot earlier in the film. "Take it. Just take it and do whatever you want with it. Saving souls are more important than some stupid Armageddon," said the J-doode. However, the Book of Life that
Lucifer took had crashed. Though he wanted to reverse the whole Doomsday process, he was computer illiterate and had to seek out a computer repairman. The repairman took a look at the laptop and told
Satan that the model was obselete and there were no available parts anymore.
Defeated,
Satan decided to join
Jesus,
Mary Magdalene and the couple in a hotel room, getting drunk and waiting for the inevitable which would come at midnight. The last scene was of them taking a ferry across the famous New York river which I dunno the name of, to see the world's last sunset.
It was an amazing film and the first one that I watched that the crowd was so engaged and involved even though the director and any one of the crew or cast were present at the screening. So, the whole Matrix trilogy which everyone was orgasmic over is just simply pissed over by a short film. Wanna do a movie about a Messiah? Do one about THE Messiah. I really hated it when everyone was going around reading connotations about the whole series. It meant jackshit to me. It was just another summer blockbuster action movie which pretended to be something it wasn't. It had some really nifty action sequences and that was it. And I really mean, it. I think time will show how flawed the movie is to even the most hardcore fans. It's just like 'Infernal Affairs'; the sequels spoilt all the fun and good karma the original movie built up.
By the way,
Keith, can pass me the
Paris Hilton tapes?
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