Could Sequels be Better?

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

★☆☆☆☆ High School + Vampire + Romance = A Brand

"Let's face it: I'm hotter than you." Jacob (Taylor Lautner) said this to Edward (Robert Pattinson) when their beloved Bella (Kristen Stewart) shivers in the cold. This line woke me up from my coma. No, not this line. But I woke up to the immense laughers and giggling from the audience that are invoked by this line, which is the smartest joke played on by the actors themselves.

While watching this third installment of the fantastically popular teenage series, Director David Slade knows exactly how to sell a brand and serve his fans. The out-of-left-field moments are expected, not required by the plot, yet very much expected and necessary for the fans. Fans want to see shirtless Jacob, so you see shirtless Jacob (easier transition as a shape-shifter? yeah, right...) as a service for the fans. But after doing it already in the previous New Moon, Eclipse is in a rather delicate position and things are a bit trickier this time.

Sure, there are other things. There's the battle scene with the vampires, werewolves, and the "newborns" (don't ask!). There's the highly frizzy chase scene of Bryce Dallas Howard as the red-haired villain. There's also an all grown-up Dakota Fanning! But Twilight devotees couldn't care less. They just want to watch the film repeats the overwrought romantic triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob again and again and again...


There's nothing wrong with the direction but the transition from the 629 pages Stephenie Meyer's novel into a 2 hour blockbuster proves to be a murky task. The characters are all crowd-pleasing dolls. So what if Bella goes to Edward to lose her virginity immediately after confessing to her Dad that she's still a virgin? So what if she is in love with both Jacob and Edward? Like the graduation speech given by Jessica (Anna Kendrick), everyone makes mistakes and when Bella tells Edward that "I'm not normal", every contradiction is justified.

Oh, and the painful expression on Edward's face. We love seeing our sweet R-Patz suffer in pain. And also Jacob who repeatedly walks around shirtless and convinces Bella of their love (until she thinks she is too). Watching Bella agonizing back and forth between two studs, over her stupid choice to become a vampire or to give into the hypnotic adolescent werewolf, and that's all the fans need. Muse's soundtrack is just a surprise and I feel, at many points, like I just saw the same action and scene few minutes before. Count how many times Edward proposes to Bella? And how many times Jacob said to Bella "I know you love me" and you have the whole movie. No, this is no repetition-variation either. It's just simply--the same thing.

After three films in the same franchise, no progression whatsoever is present in the sequel but definitely a lot of fun for the fans. And that's enough. Don't bother if you aren't a fan because Eclipse is defined as a fetish object now, made up of iconic scenes rather than any contextual plot. The silly flashbacks lack any delicious length and offer nothing new to the series. Everything remains still in the struggle between the civilized and primitive, the suppressed and transformed, sex and purity, but the themes are never explored in the movies like what Meyer has envisioned in her novels. Now, Eclipse is strictly business. Let's hope Breaking Dawn won't be.

(USA, 2010)

watch it if you hate nicolas cage, it will change your mind

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

★ ★★ ★ ☆ "My friend is a fish/He live in my room/His fin is a cloud/He see me when I sleep"

There is just so much to write about this highly unusual film. One question stays in my mind: Do fish have dreams?

Bad Lieutenant was originally a 1992 career-turning film directed by Abel Ferrara about an extremely corrupted cop (played by Harvey Keitel) who redeems himself when he investigates a rape case of a young nun.

Even when German New Wave director Werner Herzog is not remaking the film, the title is so awkwardly long. Striping off the tacky religious theme, transporting the setting from Gotham city to New Orleans, and adding racial elements, the new version of Bad Lieutenant is fun-filled with a titular hero played by Nicolas Cage.

No more Christian subtext, a Black family massacre happens. But the case is not central. Cage's solo performance takes centre stage of the film, with his shoulders hunched, face contorted. Is this the 21st century idea of American hero? The titular hero's name is Terrence and he takes drugs and has a hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes), a former alcoholic father, and a series of back pain from the injuries he inflicted as a Katrina casualty.

Set in New Orleans, it all began with the storm when Terrence gets injured from saving the prisoner from a flooded jail and consequently develops an out-of-control dependence on drugs. His raunchy attitude and violent manners do crack open when a frail innocence seeps in: a poem, or a silver spoon, reminding him of his long lost naivety, and his good nature. The object is almost like the "rosebud" in Citizen Kane, calling for him from the bottom of his heart and soul. In the end, his true salvage comes from the prisoner whom he has rescued. No wonder he laughs at his own fate.

After working in a documentary career for 10 years, Herzog returns to fiction film and he is still a master in telling stories. You will be amazed by the vision Herzog has. We all become witness to the character's personal salvage as well as the sorry state of post-Katrina New Orleans. The (super)nature comes into play with perspectives of animals looking at the world, crocodile crying, iguana singing, and even the soul of the devil is dancing, waiting to be shot down. Energetically and enthusiastically, Herzog turns a simple story with his serpentine narrative and re-imagining of a distorted world along with Cage's craziest performance into a masterpiece.

Who would have thought Herzog still have the "it" in him at 67 years old? The city, half-ruined, partially empty is metaphorical of our broken hero waiting to heal, physically and mentally. The end shot when he laughs at himself into the camera, does it come from Terrence mocking his fate or is it Cage reflecting on his career?

Do fish have dreams? It doesn't matter anymore as long as we still have one--one that Herzog just subjects us to.

(USA, 2009)

ode to the end of endings

Chloe

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ You, you, you are so beautiful...

"I try to find something to love in everybody" says Chloe when asked how she was able to do what she does. Could we find something to love in Atom Egoyan's latest film?

Sex is what shapes the entire movie. The opening shot introduces the boobs of our titular child Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), and immediately, we hear Catherine (Julianne Moore) explaining the biological process of orgasm which is plainly put as "just a series of muscle contractions", and then cut to David (Liam Neeson) who is professing to a group of undergrad about his interest for Don Juan, which is synonymous to a "womanizer". But more poignantly, Moore's personal emotional crisis and sexual journey are what drive the whole film forward, but what if it is not what it all seems to be?

The story is a simple thing: successful gynecologist Catherine suspects her professor David (Liam Neeson) is having affairs with his students, so to get the goods of him, she hires an escort, who calls herself Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) to entrap him. And things get out of control, as these things always do,when Chloe reports back to Catherine stuff she and David did together in an PR maneuver. Ah--how sexy.

The first 60 minutes of the film was captivating and enigmatic enough for you to keep watching, but the twist finale was tantalizing and his focus on nudity and sex deviates disastrously from the original point of the film. The plot becomes impossible and ridiculous because Egoyan just brings forward all his favourite themes: sex, desire, relationship, family problem, examining the boundaries but wait--he doesn't go further! In the end, Egoyan wraps everything up conveniently as if he is done manipulating with the plot twist, turns and finally gives up because he is not interested after all, he has shown off enough eroticism and sexuality, and now he has nothing more to say so he leaves us in a jarring position.

The outlook of the film is cool, posh and captivating, but nothing like Egoyan's early distinguished works that define and earn him a Canadian auteur status. By the end, you walk out and feel like you don't know any of the characters. Why is that? There's obviously nothing wrong with the acting. I could answer that: Egoyan's creativity is fully exhausted in his earlier works and now he had to borrow material from Anna Fontaine's marital thriller Nathalie, and tried to Hollywoodize it, push up the erotic actions, and transposed the story's attraction to Canada (where Neeson's wife Natasha Richardson injured from skiing and died subsequently).

Chloe's voice-over is there at the beginning but is gone forever later on. I can't help but thinking if the narration is told from Chloe's point of view, instead of Catherine's, would Egoyan finally be able to Canadian-ize the French adult fairy tale and ultimately overcome the problems he has had in his recent works since Where the Truth Lies?

The hairpin in the last shot isn't a symbol of love, but only a vision. A vision of an Egoyanian ending. Everything that seems but isn't. You think you are watching an Egoyan film? Think again.

(Canada/USA, 2009)