What a terrific start to 2009!

Milk, a biopic of America’s first openly-gay publicly-elected politician Harvey Milk, opens in Singapore this week. And it’s probably the first acclaimed gay picture to arrive on our shores in a long while.

2008, as many of us know, was a lousy year for LGBT films. The pickings were few and far between. It was a far cry from 2007, where there were 33 gay-interest films, and 2006, which at least boasted BrokebackMountain and Capote. (They were released in 2005 in the United States but only screened in 2006 in Singapore.)

Apart from Brideshead Revisited and Dostana, there were no major titles to speak of in 2008. There were fleeting gay mentions in Mamma Mia!, Tropic Thunder and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. And the Singapore International Film Festival had gems like A Jihad For Love and Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens. But the selection was still paltry.

This week, we have the very good gay drama Milk as well as The Women which features a strong lesbian character played by Jada Pinkett Smith (even though she does play to stereotype). To have two gay-interest movies in one week is something of a miracle in these hard-luck times.

And though we’ll rarely have it this good in the coming weeks and months, here’s hoping we’re wrong. Happy New Year once again!

Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (Gake no Ue no Ponyo)

In Japanese with subtitles

Animation director Hayao Miyazaki has become synonymous with the splendid creation of fantastical worlds filled with myth, magic and madness. From My Neighbour Totoro (1988) to Spirited Away (2001) to Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), there seems to be no end to his wild and expansive imagination.

But with his new cartoon Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, we say: Proceed with caution. The main complaint we have against his latest work is that it seems tailored for very young children – say about 8- or 9-year olds. For the 100minutes of its running time, you may have to force yourself to return to a state of childhood and innocence before you can truly enjoy this little gem.

The story centers on Ponyo (Yuria Nara), a little goldfish with a face of a girl. Ponyo lives in the sea with her many sisters. Though she is happy, she longs to discover what life on land is like. So she leaves her home one day without her parents knowing, and finds herself rescued from shallow waters by a sweet-natured little boy, Sosuke (Hiroki Dori).

She becomes his pet and slowly starts to take on human characteristics. She learns to talk as humans do, and even develops an appetite for ham. However, Ponyo’s formerly human father and sea-queen mother are worried for her and want to bring her home. It’s up to Sosuke to stop them from taking his beloved Ponyo…

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea obviously draws its inspiration from the well-known tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. But director Hayao Miyazaki has upped the stakes with more enchanting, dreamlike imagery than Disney’s last and very popular retelling of the fairytale in 1989. Rarely have ocean waves been so phantasmagorically rendered and reimagined than in this picture.

Beautifully drawn and charmingly told, Ponyo may either frustrate you with its childish flights of fancy, or bring back and delight the child in you.

The best part of historical drama The Duchess is the playful lesbian-like scene between the Duchess and her best friend, Bess. The Duchess had so far only gone to bed with her cold and dispassionate husband, the Duke, and does not know how fulfilling sex can be. Bess tells her, “Intercourse is not just about offspring. In fact, it can be rather pleasurable.” She proceeds to plant soft, sweet kisses on the Duchess back.

The Duchess is played by the beautiful Kiera Knightley, and Bess is played by the full-figured siren Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited). So we’ll be damned if we didn’t recommended this to our lesbian readers.

Directed by Saul Dibb, The Duchess is loosely based on the life of Georgina Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, who lived at the turn of the 18 th century. Her direct descendants include Princess Diana, born Lady Diana Spencer.

Like Lady Di, the Duchess also led a controversial life. She was renowned for being ahead of her time. She was beautiful, fashionable, opinionated and strong-willed, and often spoke up for women’s rights. Despite being trapped in a marriage of convenience with the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), she kept her spirits up, held her head high and had an affair outside of her marriage.

Unfortunately, neither the movie nor the actress lives up to this Lady’s legend. The movie is too conventional for its own good. The script is unremarkable, offering bland lines like, “Change is upon us! We shall not go back to the old ways!” Kiera Knightley is lovely and talented. But she cannot give a powerhouse performance that, say, a younger Meryl Streep or Glenn Close would have delivered.

To sum up, The Duchess is a watchable movie, but it falls short of being great. Still, for lesbian viewers, the presence of two beautiful actresses in one movie about one legendary lady is a sufficient treat in itself.

Lady Cop and Papa Crook is supposed to be Sammi Cheng’s big comeback after an absence of three years from the silver screen. (Her last screen role was the unsatisfying soap opera Everlasting Regret in 2005 by gay director Stanley Kwan.) But happy as we are to see her hamming it up for the screen once more with her impeccable comic acting, we have to report that the film is nothing to shout about.

Lady Cop and Papa Crook is below-average action comedy about Inspector Molline Szeto (Sammi), an up-and-coming police detective who is assigned to investigate the kidnapping of the son of an illegal oil baron (Eason Chan). Though they distrust each other at first, this gradually gives way to friendship…

As always, Sammi is delightful in her role as the quirky Inspector Molline Szeto – the name alone is funny – who is great at solving cases but hopeless at relationships. From the first reel to the last, she proves why she’s still one of Hong Kong’s most popular entertainers. Even Eason Chan, though passable, cannot match her breezy comic panache and effortless line delivery.

That said, Sammi alone cannot salvage the messy script and direction by Alan Mak and Felix Cheong (Moonlight in Tokyo), which frequently meanders into uninteresting subplots and secondary characters. Alan and Felix may be great screenwriters – they wrote the superb Infernal Affairs trilogy together – but they falter when they have to write and direct.

Like Sammi Cheng, Will Smith is one of the most bankable stars in his respective turf of Hollywood. But the film he’s chosen to work on this time is simply not worthy of his talents.

Seven Pounds is a dumb and mushy melodrama about a man who has chosen to devote his time to helping seven strangers, including a cardiac patient (Rosario Dawson), a blind telemarketer (Woody Harrelson) and an abused mother (Elpidia Carrilo). Why is he helping them? Because he wants to make up for the mistake he made years ago – a mistake that involves a handphone. Yes, a handphone. Bleaaarrrhh…

Seven Pounds is directed by Gabriele Muccino, who also directed Will in his previous drama The Pursuit of Happyness. That garnered Will a Best Actor Oscar nomination, which probably explains why Will wanted to work with Gabriele again. Unfortunately, the script handed to them this time has none of the dramatic pull of Happyness. Instead, it is just sappy and plain silly.

Better luck next time, guys.

It’s hard to believe there’s a third Transporter movie – just as it’s hard to believe there was a third Resident Evil and that there’ll be a third Underworld movie. But we’ve been told that straight men enjoy these films very much. And straight men – we’re also told – are very loyal when it comes to movie franchises.

Kinda like kids and their Shrek and Ice Age cartoons. Even Jason Statham’s armored Audi A8 W12 was carried over from the last installment.

Jason Statham, who has perfected the art of looking very believable in cartoonish B-grade action movies, once again plays the transporter whose job is to drive something/someone to a given place. This time it’s a Ukrainian girl, played by Russian actress Natalya Rudakova, who has more freckles on her face than there are stars in the sky. Seriously, freckles do not look sexy when they are anything more than 10.

Transporter 3 boasts some very good car chase scenes as well as terrific fights choreographed by Corey Yuen. But for gay audiences, nothing beats the hilarious moment when Natalya tries to seduce the transporter and he rebuffs her, prompting her to blurt: “You’re the gay!”

The expression on Jason Statham’s face: Priceless.

Ip Man opened last week along with many other titles, so we thought it best to save the review for this week’s edition. We are not surprised to learn, though, that it is No. 1 at the Singapore box-office, making an impressive S$700,000 up to the weekend. Yes, it’s that good.

Donnie Yen delivers a career-best performance as Ip Man, a martial arts legend who popularized the Wing Chun style of fighting in East Asia. He was the sifu (teacher) to actor Bruce Lee, who would later bring kung fu to the world.

The story begins in the mid-1930s in Foshan, Guangdong, where Ip is already recognized as the finest kung fu master in the city despite not having a single student. When a gang of bullies goes around threatening and defeating the other kung fu masters, Ip steps up and beats them down effortlessly.

When war breaks out a few years later, Ip keeps a low profile, taking on menial work just to survive. But when his friends start to get killed by Japanese karate fighters in fights organized by the Japanese army, Ip decides to take part in a fight in order to salvage the pride of his Chinese compatriots…

Directed by Wilson Yip (Dragon Tiger Gate) and featuring fight choreography by Sammo Hung, Ip Man is rousingly good entertainment. The film is surprisingly well-crafted, as it mixes solid action sequences with often heartfelt drama. As Ip Man, Donnie Yen supplies an unexpected dignity and depth to what could have potentially been a caricature role. We recommend this film highly to fans of actioners.

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Frozen Flower

Korea's most talked about movie now is the soon to open Frozen Flower, a period drama about a love triangle involving a king, the captain of his palace guards, and his consort. Dealing upfront with homosexuality, with same-sex bed scenes plus full frontal nudity.  Directed by Yu Ha.

Stars Joo Jin-Mo and Jo In-Sung

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Antique ( Seoyang Goldong Yang-gwaja-jeom-Antique)

Stars: YU A-in, JU Ji-hun, KIM Joe-wook

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I Love you Philip Morris

I Love You Phillip Morris tells the true story of a conman who find love in a Texas jail-cell. Steven Russell is a married man whose many cons and exploits eventually land him in the clink. He ends up in a jail-cell with another man whom he ends up falling madly in love with. When this man is released from prison, Steven Russell does everything he can to escape from jail and reunite with his new flame.

Stars: Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor

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Queer China

Kansai Queer Film Festival 2009

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A multi disciplinary performance that examines "Who am I" through the maternal figure as a point of identification or seperation. Stars Singapore's very own Melissa Quek.

Date: 16-17 Jan 2009
Date: 8pm and 3pm(17 Jan)
Venue: Substation Theatre more>>

A thought provoking performance exploring current issues of Science using digital media and theatrical performance, directed by Alvin Tan.

Date: 7 to 11 Jan 2009
Venue: National Museum Gallery Theatre,
Presented by The Necessary Stage
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M1 Singapore Fringe Fest

A visual narrative of a group of girls who are finding themselves as they attempt to establish familial ties while dealing with adolescence. A production by Genevieve Chua.

Date: 1st Jan 2009 onwards

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M1 Singapore Fringe Fest

The Asian premiere of this threatre performance explores what are the difference between national and private shame to a German and an Israeli? Is a relationship possible with such today's political reality?

Date: 11-12 Jan 2009
Date: 8pm
Venue: Esplanade Theatre more>>

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