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Fridae Movie Club: Singapore 8th July 2009 / Issue 278

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Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Beyonce are all wonder women in their own way.

But when it comes to movies, Amy and Emily are true actresses who can breathe life into almost any role they take on.

Meanwhile, Beyonce is a razzmatazz stage performer who struggles to convey the subtle nuances of human emotion on screen. Seriously, she should just stick to singing.

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In the best movie of the week, Sunshine Cleaning, Amy and Emily play two sisters who take on the work of cleaning up crime scenes and houses of dead people who die alone. Exuding chemistry in every scene theyre together, Amy and Emily prove once again why theyre two of the most talented new actresses in Hollywood today.

On the hand, Beyonce gives a stiff and one-note performance in Obsessed. She plays a married woman who must to stop a sexy single woman from stealing her husband. Lame and laughable, Obsessed is easily the worst movie of the week - if not month, or year.

 

 



Fridae Movie Club Preview

Movie: Frozen Flower

Date: 14th July 2009

Time: 7pm

Venue: Orchard Cineleisure Hall 7

To request for a pair of tickets, go to Fridae Agenda for details.

Homosexuality is no longer a hush hush topic for Korean filmmakers. This period drama is set in the Yuan Kingdom, where the King of Goryeo is pressured to produce a successor to the throne. But the king is in love with his loyal general Hong-lim. After seriously pondering the issue, the king asks his lover Hong-lim to sleep with the Queen, with unexpected consequences.

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highlights
 

Sunshine Cleaning

Director:

Christine Jeffs

Cast:

Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Steve Zahn, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Clifton Collins Jr., Jason Spevack

 

TrailerWebsiteReader's Comments

A must-watch especially for lesbian viewers, Sunshine Cleaning is a beautiful indie movie about finding the meaning of life when you’re surrounded by death.

Amy Adams and Emily Blunt play sisters who are, well, losers. Amy was a former school cheerleader and popular It-girl who is now in her thirties, working in lousy jobs, and struggling to raise a young boy on her own. Meanwhile, Emily is a rebellious hard-partying punk who keeps losing her job and has to live with their cantankerous father (Alan Arkin).

Desperate to make more money, Amy considers taking on the job of cleaning up crime scenes. It pays a heck of a lot more than cleaning houses because few people want to wash up after dead people. She ropes in her jobless younger sister, and the two start work on cleaning blood-drenched, foul-smelling houses. Slowly and unexpectedly, the sisters find renewed hope for their dysfunctional lives

Written by Megan Holley and directed by Christine Jeffs, Sunshine Cleaning may be classified as a chick flick by some. But its a chick flick with more heart, soul and intelligence than most. Both Amy and Emily are talented actresses who bring out the comedy and poignancy of the script in surprising ways. The scene where the sisters come to terms to their mother’s death is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in recent memory.

For lesbian viewers, there is also the added treat of a lesbian subplot between Emily and a lonely woman (Mary Lynn Rajskub) whose mother’s home Emily cleaned.

Though the film errs somewhat on being unfairly anti-men, Sunshine Cleaning is still a lovely picture that deserves to be seen by all.

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opening this week
 
Obsessed
Director:

Steve Shill

Cast:

Idris Elba, Beyonce Knowles, Ali Larter, Bruce McGill, Jerry O'Connell, Christine Lahti

 

TrailerWebsiteReader's Comments

As many gay men would know, Beyonce’s album I Am Sasha Fierce comes in two discs. The first has heartfelt ballads like Halo and If I Were A Boy. The second has fast fierce numbers like Single Ladies. Beyonce said she split her songs on two discs to reflect the many sides of her.

Her new film Obsessed splits her into two as well. At the start of the film she is a sweet and obedient wife, incapable of hurting a fly. By the end of the movie she is Sasha Fierce, punching her enemy in the face and smashing planks on her. You can imagine Beyonces fans snapping their fingers and going: You go, girlfriend.

But only Beyonces fans. For everyone else, Obsessed is more likely to draw groans and yawns than finger-snaps. Yes, it’s that bad.

Beyonce plays a good and gentle woman who loves her husband (Idris Elba from The Wire) very much until a single white female (Ali Larter of Heroes) gets the nerve to try and steal him from her. Nobody steals Beyonce’s man from her! The claws come out, the feathers fly.

Directed by Steve Shill, Obsessed is a poor copycat of films like Fatal Attraction, Crush and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, all centering on psychotic women trying to steal another woman’s man. In those films, the characters were convincing and compelling. In Obsessed, everyone behaves in cartoonish way that defies belief. As much as we love Beyonce’s music, her role and her acting (and her saying yes to such an awful script) get a straight F.

We wouldn’t recommend this to anyone except diehard Beyonce fans.

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