Review: P.O.V (A Cursed Film)
[inSing.com] The Story: Two Japanese teen idols host a recorded television show on paranormal sightings captured on smartphones. While the girls were presenting a prepared list of submitted videos, an unknown footage began to play unexpectedly on the monitors. Familiar to Haruna –both using their actual name for the film—the video showed a segment of her school where a ghostly urban legend was seen. The girls, their director and producer set out to the haunted school to investigate only to discover a frightening truth.
inSing.com thinks: Well, the frightening truth for us is how this might perpetually ruin director Tsuruta’s curriculum vitae. He had a good run with ‘Ju-On’; an average run with ‘Premonition’. That and the sad fact that horror flicks based on “true amateur recorded footage” had us fooled once too many.
Review: House of Pleasures
[inSing.com] There’s rarely a film that weaves the most awful stench of man’s degrading sexual fantasies and crippling feminine doctrines and delusions in such a cinematic visual grandeur – both in a frightening and gripping spectacle.
Writer-director Bertrand Bonello “House of Pleasures” resides in the colourful time-period of “Moulin Rouge!” and fringes on New French Extremism, a term coined for the genre of French transgressive films, where no topic is ever taboo and no subjects unexplored.
Review: Madam Butterfly 3D
[inSing.com] Liping Zhang is in the “zone” as Butterfly. Breathtakingly beautiful and resonating the melodies of an angel, she plays her role next to perfect. James Valenti complements Zhang briliantly. However, sporadic Royal Opera House branding throughout the film does feel like a cheap shot.
Review: Naruto Movie: Blood Prison
[inSing.com] For some of you (like me) who have no idea what Naruto is all about, here’s the nutshell. The popular Japanese manga tells the story of teenage ninja Naruto Uzumaki, a Hokage — the crème de la crème of all ninjas — wannabe. He has been battling demons and other ninjas since 1997. 59 manga issues, 478 animated TV shows (258 from the series sequel, ‘Naruto: Shippuden’) and eight big screen films later, the ninja warrior is still at it.
Review: Trespass
[inSing.com] This film is about desperation. We are not talking about the core of the film; we are talking about the studio’s decision to even release this film in the first place. The “family held hostage by violent robbers” model rings so many predictability bells, it’ll deafen your senses right in the first few minutes of the film.
Review: The Lady
[inSing.com] Luc Besson, best known for “La Femme Nikita” and “Leon”, here directs an admirably earnest biopic about Burmese political activist and global icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The film is a real change of pace for both Besson and his leading lady Michelle Yeoh, who swaps her usual high-kicking woman-of-action persona for something much subtler and more affecting. “The Lady” has its flaws but nevertheless manages to be a worthy and often moving account of a remarkable life.
Bar Review: B28
[Time Out Singapore] After Malt Vault’s closure, serious dram-sippers are no longer stranded. The Vault’s owner, Mike Soldner, has moved a few blocks south-east to the basement of The Club hotel at 28 Ann Siang Road (hence the name). The result: a whisky encyclopedia of a bar.
Bar Review: Tree
[Time Out Singapore] We got lost trying to find Tree, and no wonder – the signage is way above eye level on the pillar next to the establishment’s black-matted front, and the windows are so small you wouldn’t realise a restaurant and bar reside within. There are two entrances to the establishment – it’s the red door you want to open for the bar.
Review: J.Edgar
[inSing] Relentless in his pursuit for lawfulness and abhorred for his hardliner ways, America’s first and longest serving Director of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover’s battles for justice in the mean streets of the early 20s and struggles with his own dark alleyways is dramatized in this biopic directed by Clint Eastwood.
Review: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
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[inSing] “Who’s up for an adventure?” asked a beaming Alexander Anderson (played by Michael Caine who can still run at his age). That question heard in trailers - and asked about three more times throughout the film - set the premise to what is to be an action-packed journey through an island where the only mythical thing about it is that its ecological system is flipped—small animals are huge and vice versa. And as the credits rolled, we caught ourselves asking, “What adventure?” Honestly, without the ingenious idea of changing the ecological system, the film would have been over in 30 minutes.
