"Kinda Hot?"

Got my cheap thrill of the day: I actually used a quote from Saint Jack at work. The one where Jack Flowers deadpans: "Some people when they're desperate they think about suicide. Me, I'm different, I think about murder."

(earlier post on Saint Jack)

For his presentation yesterday, Ben Slater, author of the book on the making of this 1979 (officially, but the film was completed in 1978), spoofed Ho Tzu Nyen's Utama: Every Name in History is I, last seen at the recently concluded Singapore Theatre Festival. Admittedly, Ho's wry Powerpoint "lecture-performance" is ripe for parodies (which reinforces its point, but that's for another post). However, I couldn't help but wonder if there was some synchronicity between Ho's exploration of how people shape the kinds of history they want, and Saint Jack: a movie made by Westerners about a Singapore that they found alluring and exotic in its own way. There's even a scene where Jack is retelling the Sang Nila Utama myth to William in his own rascally way. (And if you'd bought the book, you'd have known that both men were drunk during that scene too.)

(More about the book Kinda Hot: http://kindahot.blogspot.com/)

Well, that's the 1970s for you. Even so, like Ben I'm hoping for a commercial release of this movie sometime soon - the ban was lifted in March after all. Not because the film's very good or particularly illuminating, but because it's a genuinely interesting character-driven drama shot in Singapore. Besides, if you were born after the 1970s, aren't you curious to see what Bugis Street and Boat Quay and Chinatown looked like then?

SGFilm thread

UPDATE: Corrected the quote, after reaching the end of Ben's book :)

Nokia Starlight Cinema 2006: 20 - 30 Sept

Yes, it's a romantic idea: watching movies in the open air on a giant screen while the stars look on. But this is Singapore, where even the nights are muggy and the threat of rain lingers. The Padang isn't the quietest spot on the island either. And $15 per ticket for repeats of Hollywood blockbusters? You've got to be joking.

6th Asian Film Symposium - 9-17 Sept

Six years already? Kudos to The Substation's "Moving Images" programme! Now, if only they would schedule their lectures and panels after office hours so white-collar slaves like me can attend.

Lots of short films in the programming as usual, and the featured filmmaker this year is Taiwanese documentarian Wu Yii-Feng (吳乙峰). His work about the aftermath of the 1999 Taiwan earthquakes Gift of Life (生命) will close the festival.

Amir Muhammad will also be back in town with The Year of Living Vicariously (Ada Apa Dengan Indonesia?). If you missed it at SIFF '05, now's your chance to catch it again.

Film info isn't up yet, but the schedule and background info are:

6th Asian Film Symposium

Schedule: http://www.substation.org/6afs/schedule.htm

Taipei Times feature on Gift of Life

Kakiseni.com on The Year of Living Vicariously

Violence, the Supernatural and Exoticism in Singapore Cinema - 31 Aug 2006

The Asia Research Institute, for its 2006 series of seminars, has chosen to tackle "Violence in Contemporary Asian Films". Singapore's turn is next, on 31st August.

That such a seminar could take place is a sign that enough material has accumulated over the years for academics to sift through we now have some sort of a film industry. Or do we?

Violence, the Supernatural and Exoticism in Singapore Cinema

Kenneth Paul Tan
Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, National University of Singapore
The Salon, National Museum of Singapore
7pm - 9pm

Kenneth Paul Tan discusses how depictions of violence in Singapore cinema have reflected social-structural modes of violence in Singapore, including themes like urbanization and the loss of organic traditions in Tan Pin Pin's Moving House (2002) and the repressive and destructive power of capitalism in Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys (1997). He also discusses, via Ong Lay Jinn's Return to Pontianak (2001), Victor Khoo's Tiger's Whip (1998), and Kelvin Tong's The Maid (2005), the cultural ambiguities and anxieties of post-colonial modernization that underlie Singapore's struggles and strategies to locate itself as "Western", "East Asian", or "Southeast Asian". (click for more)

Speaking of spooky stuff, Cine Singapore will screen Return to Pontianak on Nov 1 and Medium Rare on Nov 29.

Can "Networked Filmmaking" work?

Jeff Jarvis over at Buzzmachine has a post about how two U.S. filmmakers successfully raised funds for a documentary solely through online contributions.

Read the post here: Networked Filmmaking

The article's here: "His Fans Greenlight the Project", Washington Post, 20 June 2006

Granted, they had a track record, an existing database of contacts and politically charged content. Still, their success suggests that this kind of financing is particularly suited to low-cost films with niche appeal. Certainly a much better alternative to draining one's bank account. Jeff Jarvis calls it "networked filmmaking", but I wonder if "networked financing" might be a more appropriate term. More importantly, can it happen here in Singapore?

"The High Cost of Living" at The Picturehouse

Good to see more local films screening commercially, and this one opens 17th Aug. You can see the trailer here. It's unintentionally funny.

According to the synopsis:

Gid earns a living by eliminating problems for his clients. Terminally. He is a killer for hire but not a very good one. His actions have not gone unnoticed and his latest job has attracted the attention of the authorities. Gid soon finds himself being hunted by Long, a professional government assassin whose marriage to his wife, Sulee, is failing because of what he does. Gid's long-time friend, Aloysius and his girlfriend, Lily, become involved in the mess as he desperately tries to rectify the situation. Gid's only hope is that he can get out before Long catches up with him. A trail of bodies lead all the main players to a high tension hostage situation where they will have to deal with not just the police gathering outside, but also with their own broken relationships inside. When it is all over, none of them will come out the same.

Well well, a "professional government assassin"? If the government has to be evil, it'd better be cool evil, dammit.

"Saint Jack" at The Arts House: Aug 18 & 27 only

The good news first: the authorities have finally allowed screenings of Saint Jack, Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of the Paul Theroux novel, here. The bad news: there will only be two of them - on Aug 18 and on Aug 27, at the Arts House. Miss either, and you'll have to settle for DVD.

As a bonus, Ben Slater, author of a book about the film called Kinda Hot will talk about the movie and his book. Catch him at 4pm on Aug 27th. Earshot, the Arts House bookstore, will probably have copies up for sale as well.

(On a side note: the book itself was never banned here, and has always been available in our public libraries.)

Is the film more of a quaint historical curiosity than anything else? Only one way to find out.

Saint Jack: IMDB entry and Wikipedia entry

SGFilm thread

Article on Peter Bogdanovich, director and film critic, at Senses of Cinema.

Cine Singapore: Second Take

Cine Singapore's far from over. The website's been updated for the Second Wave. Resuming Aug 17 with James Leong and Lynn Lee's political documentary Passabe (above).

Link to Cine Singapore

In your display cabinet, no-one can hear you scream.

Another Kubrick-related post! Part of loving movies is enjoying their associated collectibles. For example, fans of Ridley Scott's classic Alien might drool over this too:


This one in particular is the ALIEN KUBRICK Comic-Con version btw.


So cute it's disturbing. (Link to more pix from Kubism)

Kubrick figures are a line of collectible figures created by Medicom Toy. Named partly in honour of the filmmaker (according to Wikipedia). Most Kubricks milk popular franchises for profit, but they also have tie-ins with some cult classics too, e.g. the original Planet of the Apes, Edward Scissorhands and The Usual Suspects.

IMDB entry on Alien

"A Clockwork Orange" bubble gum cards

Someone's gone and put together some A Clockwork Orange bubblegum cards. Curious.

(From Boing Boing)

A Film Fan in Hong Kong: Part I

The Broadway Cinematheque (BC) is a quiet, unassuming cinema tucked away in Yaumatei, and a boon for film lovers. There's the trendy Kubrick bookstore & café that also houses the BC's members' library of DVDs and film-related books. Inside, past the box office, is a well-stocked shop dedicated to DVDs, film posters and inexpensive chirashi. The BC plays a selection of arthouse stuff interspersed with standard Hollywood fare. In fact we'd arrived at the tail end of a Krzysztof Kieslowski retrospective, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the BC. Whatever screenings were left were pretty much sold out, so Slee and I didn't get to see anything.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we had a cinema like that here?

Broadway Cinematheque's "Remembering Kieslowski" - Link

"Helvetica" -- The Film

I like Helvetica, and I'm excited to see this clean, effective font get its own film: Helvetica

(Pic and link from Typographica)

Short Cuts -- 5 Aug '06

Saturday's session was notable more for being a history lesson than a collection of short films. The theme was early short films from the 1990s. This was before DV caught on, and so 3 of the 4 shorts were shot on film.

It seems almost unfair to criticise Ragged and Sense of Home, because they were such old, rudimentary works. I hope the filmmakers have gotten better. The newer ones have fewer excuses. Absence acquitted itself well. Some awkward dialogue, but overall a sensitive portrayal of how a widow and her son each grapple with the loss of her husband / his father. On the other hand, Datura looked great, and it was interesting for its inclusion of a bomoh ritual, but it was all style without substance. The cliched ending didn't help either. Surely there are better ways to make a short about the transience of material pleasures etc?

Hmm. I really should read the programmes for these things more carefully.

Asian short films at WOMAD Singapore '06

Well, in case you missed those few lines in this earlier Channel NewsAsia article, WOMAD Singapore is including short films as part of its festivities for the very first time. Sponsors include the Asian Film Archive and the Substation, and the selection looks decent.

However, it doesn't look like there're any special (lower-priced) tickets for the screenings -- you'll have to buy regular WOMAD passes. So it seems like the short films are just icing on the cake for those already heading out to Fort Canning for WOMAD. /rolls eyes

The WOMAD Singapore site runs on Flash, so no direct links. Click on "New @ the Festival" to get to the schedule. (On a side note: when will people stop using the @ symbol in place of "at"? It's really not fashionable anymore.)

ASEAN Film Festival 2006

Back from Hong Kong, where we did lots of film-related stuff. If you go there, you must check out the Broadway Cinematheque in Yaumatei. More on its coolness in a later post.


Together with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and other partners, SFS is helping organise an ASEAN film festival this month. We've got our mailer here. The SIIA website has the schedule, a PDF of the brochure, and even a trailer.

If, like me, you weren't one of the lucky ones to snag a ticket to the sold-out premiere of Singapore Dreaming, now's your chance to catch it. I'm also keen on Citizen Dog (which I missed at 2004's Bangkok Int'l Film Fest) and Monday Morning Glory looks interesting.

As with all our film festivals, ticket sales are open to the public (SFS folks get a little discount too). So take a break from Hollywood blockbusters and watch something new.