Nicola Percorini, director of photography for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, on a conversation between him and Heath Ledger:

"We talked about Johnny Depp's episode on Pirates of the Caribbean. The very first day, Johnny showed up with 40 gold teeth. [Producer Jerry] Bruckheimer wanted to get rid of him. Finally, they said, 'O.K., keep six.' And that's what he wanted, six."

The August issue of Vanity Fair sold itself with the following lead story coverlines:

The Untold Story
of His Breakup with Michelle Williams,
His Emotional Struggles,
His Death, and the Mad Scramble
to Complete His Last Film

Heath Ledger's Final Days by Peter Biskind P. 82

In fancy font, of course. Plus a great shot of Heath Ledger, taken in 2000 for VF, looking happy.

The coverlines reek of tabloid-style sensationalising and the story tried too hard to push it in that direction but it wasn't really convincing.

Still, it's Heath Ledger so I read it. I look forward to Doctor Parnassus.

In the meantime, please watch 10 Things I Hate About You, Candy and Brokeback Mountain.

Do you believe in love?

This looks freaking awesome. Can't wait.

Seen on @themavis, who did not need 140 characters to rave about this. Just, "MUST-WATCH".

The truth is, I love Final Destination and I've watched every one of it. So even though 3 was rather gruesome and 4 looks a little over the top, I'm still going to see it. Opening 27 Aug.



Time Traveler's Wife. I liked the book very much and to me, the trailer has a very different feel from the novel. Will probably still catch it, I like Rachel McAdams. Opening 17 Sep.



The weirdest thing I saw on Yahoo movies page was Lesbian Vampire Killers. Puzzled and intrigued enough to hunt for the trailer.



So now I'm just amused. Immediate thought was of Poltergay which I didn't watch but was amused by too.

Away We Go

Badly want to watch this.

A quick scan of Yahoo SG reveals that it opens October 8. I don't know if I can wait that long.

Stuffed

Domestic Trophies is a collection of knit deer heads by Rachel Denny. Cute, huh? frankie featured it both in the mag and on their site.

She also has these aluminium foil creatures. I like aluminium foil very much.



The truth is, I'm intrigued by stuffed animals. Not the cuddly kind, more the taxidermal, stuffed dead animal variety. They're so... creepy, but completely fascinating. Not just the animals, but also the taxidermists who do it, and the motivations of the people who want to collect such items.

I was so enthralled by the movie Taxidermia. The last part, when he attempted to preserve himself, that was awe-inspiring.

It may have all started because of Roald Dahl and his story, The Landlady. That story left such a deep impression on me when I read it as a kid. I love it.

I love that the dress is named after Cecilia Lisbon.

From Vain and Vapid via soon lee.

Treeless Mountain

I want/hope to see this run in SG.




The director So Yong Kim said in a statement:

Treeless Mountain is inspired by events from my early childhood in Pusan, Korea. My mother divorced our father and left us with our grandparents on a rice farm. She immigrated to America in order to find a better life for herself and to build a future for her children. At the time of these events we were too young to understand and our mother did not tell us what was happening. I began writing the film to search for certain lost memories from this period of my life and also as a letter to my mother.

It makes me think of the film Nobody Knows and the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, both of which are remarkable.

Nobody Knows continues to haunt me to this day because of the terribly sad ending. I can't look at Meiji Apollo Strawberry Chocolate without thinking about the little sister.

好 High

"知道的人會有共鳴
不知道的人可能覺得我們很無聊"



樂魔 / The Negative Effect is a movie documentary about a group of young people obsessed with film photography. I like when the girl says in the video she shoots anything - taps, walls, roads, toilet bowls... Because that's what it feels like. When you pick up the camera you are possessed by this 無聊神/ irrational urge to shoot anything and everything.

There was once I walked past a construction site and took a picture of two men working on a two-storey high bridge. They saw my camera aimed at them and jokingly posed for me. After I took the picture they laughed and said in Hokkien: 吃飽沒事做 (literally, too free after eating).

I deliberated between throwing a rock at them and laughing.

I guess people are generally curious or amused, especially with the more toy-like plastic cameras. I don't encounter a lot of mocking, which is good, cos otherwise I really will start hurling rocks.

東邪西毒

(Shorter version of trailer with Eng subtitles here.)

Cathay will be showing this but the website reads Mandarin with English subtitles. I want to see it in its original language. I hate dubbed films even more than censored films.

你知不知道我很羨慕你
你只要專心的難過就好
我卻要壯壯的活著。

- 電影 拍賣世界的角落

I suppose there's no better day to fall sick than on a rainy day

It really is cold today. Perfect for burrowing into bed, perfect for hot, steaming Milo, perfect for immersing in alternative universes.



I finally got to watch Antique! The movie is every bit as funny as the animation even though it had to gloss over some details. Everything was gorgeous - the shop, the uniforms, the men and the cakes, oh the cakes. I'm dying for a kickass strawberry shortcake right now.

Also watched 渺渺 / Miao Miao. Not exactly original but not bad either.



今天不小心看了兩部跟同性戀與蛋糕有關的電影
大力推薦 Antique
故事有創意﹐人物描寫都很棒
是喜劇但也有溫馨的一面
而且拍的好漂亮。

渺渺還不錯
旅行的意義用的有點過頭
但我喜歡憂鬱老闆的故事。

4:30

Sometimes I badly miss the films I love, as if they're real, living, breathing people.

I suppose they are, alive and breathing and very real, I mean. At times like that, I would head to youtube to watch trailers and some clips of them, because I don't really want to watch the entire film again. Sometimes I just want to feel what I felt when I first caught it.



Royston Tan's 4:30 is a film I love deeply. Not in the it's really good you should watch it category. More like this is sacred and I won't ask just anyone to watch it because I would hate for anyone not to love it.

I want to watch this so bad

Juri Ueno and Aoi Yu. Ah I love them both.

Short synopsis here. Overly detailed but very funny one here (It's actually a review that narrates the story and I stopped reading halfway cos I don't want any spoilers for when I get my hands on this, somehow).

March is the time to...

1. Start filing income tax.

2. Check out the Christian Lacroix exhibition that will take place at the National Museum 20 March onwards.

3. Buy tickets for the Singapore International Film Festival. A shortage of Japanese and Taiwanese films disappoints me. I think it was the same last year but I don't remember that well. I didn't catch a single film last year. It was a combination of film fatigue and the fact that nothing from the selection jumped at me. It's not quite jumpy for me this year as well but I think I'll be going to a few that caught my eye.


Still Walking / Aruitemo Aruitemo
From Kore-eda Hirokazu, the director of Nobody Knows (which was heartbreaking).




Wendy and Lucy




The Black Balloon
Model Gemma Ward's film debut.




How to Be
Pre-Edward Cullen.




Fireflies in the Garden

Girl Inside
Couldn't find a trailer but it sounds intriguing. I get tired of drag queen movies that I don't even watch.

Remember when vampires turned to dust or burst into flames instead of turn "shiny" in the sun?

Let the Right One In feels a little like an old school vampire flick without much fancy gimmicks. But whatever they have is impressive. For instance, do you know what happens when a vampire enters a house without being invited in?

It's not so much horror as a love story between a 12-year-old boy and a more or less 12-year-old girl vampire. It's bare, simple yet emotionally complex and beautiful. (And I promise it's nothing like Twilight if you've been made cynical by that about teenage vampire romance.)

Showing at Cathay only. Trailer below.

Saturday

1. Dark clouds loomed over most of yesterday. The only downpour I was caught in was a good one with fat, angry raindrops splatting against everything. I decided to take shelter for a while because I was getting wet despite having an umbrella. Shared a deserted corner of SMU with an Indian woman in a sari. Leaned against the wall, propped the umbrella on the ground and ate a chicken sausage pastry studying the rain.

I love rain but only of the stormy, heavy variety. I don't like feather-light rain, I don't like rain with the sun still out, I don't like drizzles. I would rather be drenched to the bone than hit with occasional drops.

Still, it was humid as hell and after an entire day of traipsing - City Hall to National Museum to The Cathay to Old School to Middle Road to Burlington Square to NAFA to Cineleisure to Lido to Kino and back to Lido - the shower was a great, great relief.

It's still raining now. But there's no wind. The air is still. I realise I hate that too.

2. I was curious about the Interior Design as a Contemporary Art Medium in Germany exhibition so decided to drop by the museum. Don't think I took away very much except that:

It would be interesting to have these iconic arches as a shelf at home.

I like the combined effect of this curtain plus shadow.



Somehow, I was way more fascinated by this listing of ingredients than the exhibit itself.

3. Cate Blanchett looks absolutely stunning in Benjamin Button.

Can't get over her wardrobe, perfect hair, perfect skin and dancer's grace.

I adore Kate Winslet

I saw the cover and read the whole story standing in Kino, only to come home and find that it's all online.

Bad Hair Days

In Hyakumanen to Nigamushi Onna (1,000,000 Yen Girl), Aoi Yu has this natural and unkempt hair that somehow looks really good. I think I didn't realise how taken I was by it. Subconsciously, for two to three days after watching the show, I made the decision not to condition my hair.

My excuse was simply that I was tired and lazy, but who knows what my head was up to. This small act of rebellion came to a rapid end when I absentmindedly ran my hand over my hair and realised how ruffled it felt. I came to some conclusions, namely, I don't look anything like Aoi Yu. And, while I usually leave my hair a bit ruffled (don't like it too neat) this level of ruffledness is a little too advance.

Anyhow, I rather liked the show. There were some very pretty moments involving blue skies, empty apartments and gently billowing curtains. Check out the trailer here:

おくりびと/ Okuribito/ Departures

Oh do catch this.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and now finds himself without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled "Departures" thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a "Nokanshi" or "encoffineer," a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of "Nokanshi," acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living.

Plot summary via imdb. Showing at GV from 19 Feb.

I love Jap films. There's just something about them.

Will induce hunger and wild desire to own lengths and lengths of gorgeous robes

Was about to watch Hyakumanen to Nigamushi Onna (1,000,000 Yen Girl), which stars Aoi Yu, when I thought about Osen again. Osen is one of the best Japanese dramas I've watched and it's not just because of the story. There is so much gorgeous, delectable food in there. Actually I hesitate to call them food. They look so amazing it feels like no one should bear to eat them but really, don't you just want to ravish all these fine, fine dishes?

(All following images from here.)

Not just that. As the young proprietress, Aoi Yu has an amazing wardrobe. Lots of quirky details in her wearing of the traditional kimono.

What I like most are the stuff she wears to rough it out.

Makes me feel like watching the show again. But life is too short and I can't seem to afford much time to rewatch or reread things anymore.