Mini Movie Reviews

CX provides quite a lot of choices for us captive audience above the sky as far as on board entertainment is concerned. This time around the seat is not exactly wider or provides more leg room for us Economy flyers but it has better designs; it has wide screen, power outlet, and above anything, a non moving recline design that only moves the seat forward without tilting the back to inconvenience the passenger sitting behind you. A design that prevents Economy travelers pretending to be in Business class at other's expense. So that's some great new designs there. I believe there might even be free wi-fi actually on board. I was able to pick up some signal from some seemingly onboard ESSIDs called "US Airways Free WiFi" and "Free Internet Access." Both are peer-to-peer with weak signals and no DNS. I was able to connect intermittently but no browsing. I wonder if I know the exact IP would I be able to browse. Anyway, here are the mini onboard entertainment reviews.

Onboard Movie Mini Reviews
Gran Torino (2008)
It shows Eastwood still got it both as a director and an actor. Eastwood plays a newly widowed bigot who are greatly disillusioned with lives and finally comes to accept his Hmong neighbor after some pulled pork and whatever Asian cuisine his neighbor offered. It comes to a sad but not totally unexpected ending as old Eastwood goes one on many with the neighboring thugs in the final show down. In one movie, Eastwood takes on race, bigotry, religion, immigration, aging, and hence dying with great fair and success.

親密 (2008) or Claustrophobia
I thought it was a horror movie just looking at the English title, Claustrohpobia. The Chinese title is vastly different though they are related in the sense that one can certainly lead to another. Apparently, due to their long hours at work in a cramped remote office and the long car ride together after work (work is practically slavery in corporate HK I suppose), the characters kind of fall for each other even the guy is married with a young daughter and the wife is expecting. Cheng Ekin provides his ever reliable wooden performance as Tom the office manager whom Lam Kar Yan as office lady Pearl somehow falls in love with, rather involuntarily, naturally and somewhat inexplicably. This is writer director Ivy Ho's ambitious directorial debut, a non-drama drama that trys to elevate the everyday mundane into something arty farty. This feature shows flashes of brilliance in story telling and directorial talents which are a breath of fresh air to and a great departure from your usual Hong Kong movie-scape. A promising debut indeed.

賭神 (1989) or God of Gamblers
Director Wong Jin shall make no apology in making this movie totally silly and thoroughly entertaining without any self-effacing irony. An earnest attempt to just being funny. The actings and actions are grossly and excessively over done. Just the costume of the 80s is entertaining enough, both Andy Lau and Joey Wang have jeans that practically go up to their chests. Chow Yun Fat was more enjoyable before he became all that serious and internationally acclaimed.

The Reader (2008)
How do you humanize a Nazi SS prison guard and make her sympathetic? You cast Kate Winslet to play the leading role of this female cougar Hanna Schmitz who preys on a teenage boy for sex and for reading her books. Schmitz didn't learn to read or write until when she was in prison for the war crime that she did off camera before the beginning of the movie. Winslet gives a solid performance and so is David Kross who plays the young Michael Berg, Hanna's love or sex interest. Ralph Fiennes plays the middle aged Berg and looks kind of constipated throughout the movie, perhaps that's what's required of the role. As an aside, I am pleasantly surprised numerous nude scenes are preserved, I mean CX is a British company so I guess they are not afraid of nudity like we Americans do.

Watchmen (2009)
One word. Unwatchable.

如果。愛 (2005) Perhaps Love
This is not part of the onboard movie I saw. Rather a DVD I saw at home.
This movie is about a tragic love triangle among a director, an actor and an actress. It's a musical and yet a movie. Never mind, it's all about showcasing how good looking 金城武 Takeshi Kaneshiro is, his eyes, nose and above anything else his hair. And his penchant for swimming with his pajama and night gown on in the middle of the night in slow motion. That's pretty much about it. The movie is a high value production with a very contrived love story that really amounts to nothing much. (update: the sheer mention of the name Takeshi Kaneshiro has drawn search traffic no wonder people hire him to appear in movies, though my visitors have to be disappointed as there aren't much information and hardly any pictures of Takeshi Kaneshiro here at all.)

7/29 UPDATED FROM COMMENT RESPONSE TO EXILE
Duplicity (2009)
I forgot to mention Duplicity. I had high hope for the movie because of Bourne Identity and Michael Clayton. But this one is just bad or I was too tired. I don't know if I bother to watch it again just so I am sure it's not all that bad. It got some serious coverage from The New Yorker. But it is bad. It's like what was going on, the plot line is unnecessarily convoluted and uninteresting and in the end I just couldn't care less about what's going on.

The International (2009)
Also, International. Another feature starring Clive Owen. The guy looks good in trench, well he has to be. This one, at least you got more actions as the story progresses. The gun battle in New York Guggenheim is just as ridiculous as anything you find in a Hong Kong action movie a la John Woo. But at least it's pretty entertaining.