OCTOBER 15 — After a whirlwind last couple of months finishing and planning the release of my band’s new album Poptimism, which included a lot of touring and other stuff like making music videos and releasing singles prior to the album, it also resulted in a lot less time available for me to go and check out new movies in local cinemas.
How sweet that I’ve finally got some free time to do so in the last fortnight or so.
And what a wonderful coincidence to have that free time align perfectly with the release of so many exciting new films.
I’ve missed a few that I really wanted to see like the Thai kaiju film The Lake which sadly arrived and disappeared really quickly from most cinemas in the Klang Valley, probably due to a somewhat limited release as it might be deemed as a bit of a niche title compared to the usual Thai horror and rom-coms that are more often than not pretty decent hits here.
Halloween Ends arrived here on our shores this week, which I’ll try to write about next week alongside two other October horror contenders, Smile and Jeepers Creepers Reborn, and if I do manage to catch The Lake or See How They Run this weekend, maybe those as well, but for this week, let’s focus our attention on these two very worthy new titles that are now playing in local cinemas near you.
Amsterdam
Due to his presence at the Oscars ever since his fifth film The Fighter first gatecrashed the whole awards season scene, and his films like American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook and Joy also gaining the same number of accolades, nominations and wins, people tend to think of David O. Russell as just another one of those directors who make nothing more than Oscar-bait films.
Having followed his career ever since I first saw the still priceless screwball comedy Flirting With Disaster, which he then followed up with the straight up awesome Three Kings (still one of my favourite films from the 90s), it’s pretty clear that, despite the Oscar flirtations, he’s never forgotten his love for the rowdy and sometimes messy screwball comedies of the 1930s.
And that love is never more pronounced than in Amsterdam, his latest film, which not only takes the form of a screwball comedy, but even takes place in the 1930s.
A plot summary, like a lot of the great screwball comedies from the 1930s, will not suffice because the pleasure of these movies lies in the banter, the chemistry between the actors (and what a star studded cast we have here — Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rami Malek, Zoe Saldana, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Andrea Riseborough AND Taylor Swift!) and the fun that these actors have playing their roles.
Despite the staggering number of stars gracing the movie, this one is Bale’s film, with director Russell and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki luxuriating in the various kinds of emotions that can be conveyed by Bale’s many facial expressions.
And I don’t think I’ve seen a more beautiful Margot Robbie than the one in this movie, and that should already say something about how radiant and joyful this hot mess of a movie is.
Don’t try to keep up with the plot too much, just sit back and enjoy being in the company of these irresistible characters, and you’ll find much to love about Amsterdam.
Shin Utraman
I think most Malaysians will be familiar with the Ultraman character if we had televisions in our homes during our childhood.
Our favourites may differ according to the particular Ultraman series that played during those years (mine was Ultraman Taro), but I’m sure all of us are familiar with the basics of the Ultraman lore, no matter which era our favourite series may belong to.
Continuing their excellent work in the surprisingly great Shin Godzilla (which received 11 Japan Academy Prize nominations and won seven, including Best Picture and Best Director), director Shinji Higuchi and writer Hideaki Anno have crafted another winner with Shin Ultraman, which balances the love and respect that they have for the original Ultraman series from 1966 and the need to actually make a good and entertaining movie out of the endeavour.
Playing almost like four episodes of an Ultraman TV series arranged back-to-back, Shin Ultraman focuses on a team of experts called the S-Species Suppression Protocol, which of course has a member that would go on to become Ultraman.
The first two “episodes” in the film’s narrative may involve the usual Ultraman-fighting-monsters that we’re all familiar with, but the movie takes a surprising and even psychedelic turn with its latter two “episodes” as it introduces a different sort of villain for Ultraman (or more specifically, the human form of Ultraman) to contend with, in the form of aliens named Zarab and Mefilas.
Focusing quite a lot more on the human side of things, Higuchi even manages to tip his hat to Akio Jissoji (most famous for directing the original Ultraman series and his visually stunning Buddhist Trilogy films This Transient Life, Mandara and Poem) in the film’s visual and editing strategy, especially during the film’s many dialogue scenes involving various team members at the same time.
In short, this is a well-crafted and quite astoundingly directed piece of tokusatsu (Japanese “live action”) entertainment, a rare successful marriage between art and commerce that has also proven itself to be a fine box-office hit.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
