March 2014 - Her

Tadpole thinks:
(30% spoiler, 100% my opinion)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single girl in possession of a good imagination must be in want of Joaquin Phoexin.


In case you have been living under a rock, you know how excited I was for our movie of the month - Her. I even blogged about my anticipation! Not only is that cheesy opening line very applicable in this case, I'm a sucker for pretentious quirky romantic comedies*, such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

* I can go on about romantic comedies all day. Please note that I call them romantic comedies instead of rom-coms, as I fear "rom-coms" may instantly remind you of formulaic chick flicks that I enjoy waaaay too much for my own good. But really, there are wonderful rom-coms out there which appeal to all tastes.

I saw Her a little more than a month ago. I was so excited that I attended a Valentine's Day special early screening. Repeat: Valentine's Day. Essentially a screening for couples? I very much enjoyed my one-on-one date with Joaquin, thanks for asking.

To be honest, I don't think I'm in a good position to discuss or dissect this movie. Before Theodora and me have decided to write about Her on here, I was going to do a review over at my personal blog. But IT WAS SO HARD TO WRITE ABOUT THIS MOVIE. It still is hard, maybe even more so now my hot date was five weeks ago. But I shall try, and persevere...

I like Her. Perhaps because I have to like it? After all, I have been excited for three months. But there don't seem to be reasons to like it other than:

1. JOAQUIN AS THEODORE TWOMBLY
2. the name Theodore Twombly
3. AMY ADAMS
4. pretentious clever dialogues that clearly are Facebook Favourite Quotations material
5. literally laugh-out-loud funny scenes, such as the scene with the foul-mouthed video game alien voiced by the director Spike Jonze and the scene with Amy showing her OS friend the easter egg in her video game
6. the ambient score. Well done, Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett (Y)
7. awesome production design
8. low constrast, paste colour scheme, the cinematography and etc...
9. cool premise... I hate how non-descriptive the word "cool" is but I have recently noticed I use it a lot in real-life conversation...
10. THE MOON SONG, but I was expecting a super romantic scene to go with this song but meh



So there are plenty of reasons to really like this movie. I'm positive that there are plenty more. But I was expecting myself to ADORE it. I hate having expectations. By the end of the movie, I didn't even feel "let down". I simply knew I had been having the wrong sort of expectations.

All along, I had been expecting a romantic movie that would make me swoon and go awwwwww and pretend I'm Samantha and that Joaquin is really flirting with me. But MAN, THIS MOVIE IS CREEPY. If you can look past its creepiness, it's witty, fun and pleasing to the eyes. If only you can. I may not be as open-minded as I would like to think, but there are moments that genuinely made me want to cringe, for example: The first time Theodore and Samantha "had sex". She said "I want you inside me", is that a metaphor or is it really an explicit/clichéd description of the act of sex? I don't know. But the creepy part is that scene was extremely breathy and then the scene went black but the sound was still there.

Then there are other issues:

1. I like an emotional man, but Theodore is too wussy sometimes it's unrealistic.

2. Samantha is a bitch that I couldn't care less for. Is it deliberate that we know she's a computer and not a human being who cares about feelings? But then they made her so sweet at first! Well, I guess there are lots of human arseholes out there who are worse than Samantha.

3. I DON'T LIKE THE ENDING. Why did it get so philosophical towards the end? And so suddenly? I know Samantha befriended Alan Watts but that philosophical twist was really sudden. Not a fan.

4. To get a futuristic cityscape, some parts of Her were shot in Shanghai. This means in Spike Jonze's head, LA will look like Shanghai a decade or so later. I'm rather proud. But this long scene set in the metro/tube/underground really gets on my nerves. On the train, the passengers all happen to be Chinese extras who broke the fourth wall. There are visible Chinese characters in the platform, then BOOM, the next shot it's LA again, with English signs and passengers of various ethnic backgrounds. Inconsistency annoys the crap out of the perfectionist me.

Perhaps if I had seen without any expectation or revisited it with a different set of expectations, I would have liked it more. Or perhaps Her is really just a cool-concepted aesthetically-alluring clever film that lures you into thinking not loving it is a problem. If so, perhaps I should play along...

Dear Her,

You're great. Very well-deserved Oscar Best Original Screenplay Winner. Everybody loves you. But I was expecting something else and you crept me out, even if only slightly.

It's not you, it's me.

Love,
Florence

Letter written by me, not Theodore Twombly from beautifulhandwrittenletters.com

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Fish thinks:

Spoilers. Lots of them.

“It’s like I’m reading a book… and it's a book I deeply love. But I’m reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between he words are almost infinite. I can still feel you… and the words of our story… but it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now.”

This is one of my favorite lines in Her. The script is so beautifully written and deserves recognition. Fair enough, director and writer Spilke Jonze got the candy for his brilliant work.

When Florence first showed me the poster and the synopsis, Her immediately tops my watch-list. The plot sets in 2025 and tells the story of a lonely man Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), who bought an artificially intelligent operation system that has its consciousness and calls itself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). The two console each other and become emotionally attached.

I would like to discuss the two aspects of the plot. First, the fact that Theodore writes personal love letters on behalf of clients for a living is saddening. Although Theodore’s proses are beautiful and this reveals his talented and sensitive character, it brings out the broad message that people nowadays have increased reluctance or inability to communicate. Theodore observes a special thing about his client’s tooth, quote it in the letter that is completed with the stretch of his imagination. Because of technology, the letters could be paradoxically designed as handwritten with a tailor-made font for each letter. Scenes of Theodore walking back home on the skyline and riding the metro are deliberately constituted of mumbling people deep in conversation with their OS or phones, inducing a sense of alienation. This highlights how technology widens the distance between people rather than to facilitate communication between them.

I am not entirely satisfied with the ending of the story. Instead of a revelation of Theodore’s character, it is Samantha who realizes that she belongs to a more profound reality and that true happiness could not be attained for both of them if she didn't leave. The ending features Theodore and his friend Amy (Amy Adams) leaning towards each other and looking at the skyscraper with a sense of loss. If it was Theodore who left Samantha, it would be better for he would have picked up by himself the courage to face his weaknesses and past, and to move on.

However, I appreciate the motif of the film. Jonze gives a revolutionary view on what is a relationship actually is. Love between humans and OS- how would you think about it? Theodore asks Amy if he is with Samantha because he is “not strong enough for a real relationship”. Amy answers, “You don't think it's a real relationship?” I would have perhaps acted like Theodore’s wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), incredulous about the absurd idea of love between humans and an intangible consciousness. Does love really require a physical form? While initially Theodore’s colleague laughs at the idea of love between an incompatible pair, he later supports Theodore and even goes on a double date with him. However, Samantha later finds a surrogate acting upon her will to make love with Theodore, and Theodore feels out of league because that is not Samantha. Jonze would like the audience to reflect upon their own definition of relationships and the constituents of it. Is true love not limited physically, and could succumb the challenges of discrimination, verdict and social norms? Or is it precisely the opposite?

Or, if I should quit romanticizing, Jonze tries highlight the escapist character of Theodore in the film, that he is incapable of “facing the real challenges of marriage”, quoting Catherine. Is he seeking justification from Samantha who would always “listens to you, understands you, and knows you”, according the OS One Advertisement? Indeed, Theodore has phone sex (“now I’m putting the dead kitten around your neck!”) and refuses to have a further relationship with his blind date (Olivia Wilde). When he cannot contact Samantha, he freaks out worrying that she’s gone, and questions her about her new friends. He wants attention but at the same time is unwilling to commit. When the blind date accuses him of being a creep, he almost believed in her. Jonze creates a multi-layered and contradictory character that resembles our yearning yet insecure human nature. We could see some bits of Theodore in ourselves.

The cinematography is, as Florence accurately described, “beautiful graphically”. Many sophisticatedly crafted concrete elements fit together and make the sci-fi film hybrid, with literary sensitivity and aesthetics flowing in its veins. I like the use of colors in the film. Instead of a cold futuristic setting with white translucent light and metallic automatic doors, there are vivid, solid colors flying on clothes and desks in the office, at the same time blending harmoniously with the more monotonous earthy background, creating a colorful and cozy cyber space fit for living.

Costume design – impeccable *dramatic hand gesture*. Theodore’s fashion is becoming an icon- the simplistic two pieces creates a casual yet poetic image with its slight twist of high-waist wool trousers. I am inspired by Amy Adam’s retro tomboy statement. The nude, tight and sleeved vest matched with a nude shirt together with ankle pants, oxford shoes get along very well with Adam’s chic updo hair that finishes with a touch of femininity.

Enough with the fashion blab, let’s get back to the film. Florence and I really like the soundtrack- we couldn't stop humming The Moon Song until one of us started on Let it Go. Florence said Karen O casually made the song up at her dining room table, which makes it more romantic than it is. Photographs by Arcade Fire is another of my favorite- the breezy melody commemorating a relationship that exceeds physical boundary is sad yet beautiful. In the scene on the beach when Samantha again plays another song she wrote for their relationship (Song on the beach which says it all), Theodore surveys the people around him, all of whom have their backs on him- signifying rejection and detachment to the awkward love between them. However, Theodore couldn't care less, and he closes his eyes to fully immerse into the sound.

To sum up, Her is one amazing film that discusses relationships and the desire to connect. My favorite scene is when Theodore closes his eyes and walk around the theme park with Samantha as the guide, where he tastes the exhilarating perspective of another person experiencing the world. He laughs freely and begins to open himself towards Samantha. Throughout the film Jonze tries to manifest to the audience the infinite possibilities of relationships, and in this scene, it liberates. Relationship isn’t just about happiness. It’s about discovery. Her will always be something in my heart.♥

January 2014 - Gravity

Tadpole thinks:
(spoiler-free until I warn you)

What do you think when you think space movies? Gigantic spaceships, alien invasion, meeting extraterrestrial lives… I’m not usually a fan of sci-fi, but Gravity is different. Gravity is an experience. I wouldn’t say it’s the best film I’ve seen this year, but it’s certainly nothing like what I’ve seen before. It will keep you mesmerised for days and days.

I urge everyone to run to the nearest cinema and watch Gravity in the biggest screen available. It's an experience only possible in a dark room with a giant silver screen. Please don’t sue me if you throw up halfway through the film though. Nausea guranteed. (Simmy did really smell something funny in the theatre. Anyone threw up at the 5:45p.m. screening at Palace IFC on 18 January 2014?)

Telling you to catch a movie does not translate into me thinking it’s a perfectly amazing film. I have issues particularly with the plot, or lack thereof. But is plot an essential part of this whole Gravity experience? Maybe not, probably not. The visuals and sounds will keep your senses occupied that it isn’t until you've gone home would you discover the problems with Gravity.

When the lights are off, it’s easy to be drowned in the world created by Alfonso Cuarón. The visuals. The aurals. The alternating action and quietness. Wow, just wow. All of these are so overwhelming that I’ve missed the much talked-about shot in which the "camera" zoomed through Dr Ryan Stone’s visor. When we speak of experimental films, we usually have independent so-artsy-to-the-point-you-don’t-understand films in mind. Gravity has arthouse elements, but there are also plenty of big budget action sequences and CGI, lotssss of CGI. It still feels like an experimental film to me though, simply because it’s so different. It has re-written cinematic rules and marked a milestone in film history.

Yet at the end of the day, movies are movies, a story-telling device. If I want to see something that wows me, I can simply turn on the DVD player and watch The Blue Planet (we happen to have the boxset at home). Penned by Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonás, the story of Gravity is pretty weak. Do they think a stronger and more layered story will shift the focal point from the special effects that they have worked so hard on? Well, at least there’s a story. I should recall my experience with The Tree of Life before I complain.

(SPOILERS ARE COMING!!)

My biggest problem with the screenplay: telling us everything*. I doubt my two years of English Literature have trained me into a thematic point/symbolism spotting machine. If the curtains are blue, I'll say they are blue and not that the author is sad or bullshit like that. Ryan’s daughter died. She had to let Matt go for he was weighing her down outside the International Space Station. We get it. We don’t need Clooney telling us how we should "learn to let go" AND even coming back to life to give us a lecture on moving on.

* Possible display of double standard here, but I think it’s OK for a silly movie to do symbolisms outrightly (actually, do silly movies still care about meanings / moral stories these days?). But for an Oscars contestant, it seems rather silly to have lines like “you have to learn to let go”. That foetus position shot is amazing though.

Now I would like to talk about: the toughest scene in Gravity according to Cuarón:

Throughout the movie, Sandra Bullock’s rather annoying groaning and wailing could be heard. Rest assured, I couldn’t help but giggled a little bit. Though this is funny in a way, her performance is very effective (remember she acted to nothing while being strapped into a box). For a certain scene, at first I thought she was over-acting. But how else are you gonna play a person who was expecting death? Bullock’s portrayal of Dr Ryan Stone in that scene is golden – the ultimate display of sorrow and hopelessness.

Then came the "rebirth" of Matt Kowalski. The dream sequence. I remember in secondary school, our teacher told us to stop writing fantasies and surreal incidents off as dreams. The dreamworld is not an excuse, or so they say. If it’s good enough for big budget Hollywood movies, why is it not good enough for F.1 Creative Writing… ? OK, enough sarcasm. That scene could have been worse… like Matt came back into the pod to give Ryan a kiss?

People seem to have problems with the part when Bullock told Clooney to say hello to her daughter. Have they ever lost someone important? I have. And I know how the day you last saw that person and the things you wanted to say to that certain someone, would replay in your head for four years, ten years or more. I think Bullock nailed that part. And her tears flew out of the screen and towards me in confirmation. LOL. Cheesy 3D.

I would love to see Gravity in IMAX 3D, but I missed it when it first came out. Only the airport cinema has IMAX 3D re-runs. Unfortunately, going to a cinema so far away to catch a film is too much of a luxury for me to enjoy.

Gravity 2. Mission: Bring Matt Kowalski back to Earth.

-------------------------

Fish thinks:

*Spoiler Alert, couldn't help!*

Went into the movies merely holding on a single fact: Gravity’s nominated for the Oscars. Usually, the sci-fi genre isn’t the first that I’d pick from a bunch of on-screens. Romance, comedies or drama have always been my first choice. However, Gravity proved to be something more. Although I'm still Team Star Trek, it is a movie that is worth pondering, a captivating perspective as compared to its neighboring rivals.

The movie didn't seem long: it only occurred to me that the film was ending when Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) arrives the shore coughing and gasping with joy as she caresses the sand as if she’s encountered her lost lover. Then I exclaimed to Florence about the how quick time's passed. I would credit this to the film’s skillful and sophisticated camera shots and scenes, instilling a sense of timelessness into every frame.

While each shot is actually pretty long, I, as an audience, was not bored but, emotionally drawn into the drastic situation Stone and Astronaut Matt Kowalski (the amazing George Clooney) is facing in space.  The cinematography and graphics are so stunningly realistic and beautiful that I was all the way feeling intense for Stone, since she could have missed grasping on the holds on the spaceship and be dragged away with zero gravity to outer space. The 3D effect- stunning. The acrolith debris are very threatening and I held my breath every time they appear on screen. The view of Earth,is of course, breath taking.

“There, you can see the Ganges River. Isn’t it beautiful?”

After sacrificing himself for the survival of Stone, Kowalski speaks to her through the radio as he is drifting away, having his last grand tour around the planet. The audience and the characters then shared a sad yet astounded moment to take in the gorgeous scenery from Space above. I found this bit very magical- to have the capacity to appreciate the sheerest yet greatest beauty from a panoramic angle before death. This gem of wisdom is very hard to attain throughout life, and is perhaps, the most precious of them all.

The long and continuous shots give the audience a broad and clear picture of what was happening, and depicts a sense of urgency.  The scene where Stone discovers fire in the spaceship and then proceeds to escape was so pressing, and I had to praise Bullock for her outstanding act, pouring out a rainbow of internal struggles within one shot.

As the movie progresses, the audience gradually know more about the stories of Stone and Kowalski, both of whom have their astronaut helmets on and the facial expressions barely visible till much later. The voices of the actors and actresses are, I would say, a composition of their fine acting as well, because it is through the voices that we learn about their emotions, and this refreshing perspective draws us closer to the emotional journeys of the characters.

Also, the script is very well written. Because the faces of the characters are mostly hidden, I later realized how brilliant and informative the dialogues between Stone and Kowalski are as they “unpremeditatedly” revealed their personality, backgrounds and sentiments, without being pretentious and retaining a sense of casualness.

However, there are minor details that I didn't enjoy. The monotonous spaceship scenes take up quite a huge portion of the film, and I got a bit too much of it till the end. Moreover, Stone’s conversation with Aningaaq in the Chinese Spaceship is a little creepy, not to mention very odd as well especially when Stone starts to bark. Despite being aware that Stone has been frightened about her fate to a point where she is devastated and loses her mind, the whole thing added up together is nonetheless strange (but overall we find Bullock very charming and Flor and I had a major girl crush on her).

To add on, the continuous accidents and threats rippling throughout the whole film (the debris and the collision, the lack of oxygen, the letting go of Kowalski, the fire, the drainage of the battery, etc.) did keep the audience busy, but it wasn't entirely convincing as they were waived quite with ease and little effort, considering the time Stone used to solve the problems. 

Gravity, in a nutshell, depicts a series of struggles of the humans in Space, with Stone ultimately picking up the courage to fight for life till the end. This gives me epiphany- what is life without constant debates, conflicts and solutions? The simple message could be said as a cliché, but imagine you're Stone, the one who is on the spaceship. This gave me a brand new point of view towards life. The Space itself is an enormous paradox- an area that is incredibly perplexing to the current progress of human intelligence, so perilous yet beautiful, a place where every step could potentially be the path to death.  Should you be in this expansion of wonder, what would you do? What amount of time and courage would it cost to overcome the bewilderment towards the vast power of nature and let faith fill up every pore of your skin, to venture into the haunting unknown?

This is Stone’s choice.

“All right, the way I see it, there’s only two possible outcomes. Either I make it down there in one piece and I have one hell of a story to tell… or I burn up in the next ten minutes.
Either way, whichever way… no harm, no foul!
Because either way…. It’ll be a hell of a ride.”