3 March 2020

Sweet
Metallic
Bitter
Tastes
Heart
Pain
Stomach
Bloat
Dreams
Anguish
Confusion

15 Shorts commissioned by NVPC

The Brown Dog
By Eric Khoo with Jerrold Chong
Animation with real life scenes about a three legged brown dog who was abandoned and rescued by the founder of this no-kill animal shelter. The direction is good and I was gripped by the suspense of loud noises.

Under The Same Pink Sky
By Gladys Ng
About a Mandarin-speaking support group for breast cancer survivors

The Listener
By Kelvin Tong
Tinker Friend, a hotline for distressed kids. It is directed well. Shows the life of a latchkey boy whose neighbour passed away. Distressed, he doesn't want to confide to his mum. His mum had to call him in her day-job voice as a volunteer of Tinker Friend to find out. It's quite touching. They receive prank calls and genuine calls.

Majid the Legend
By Jianhao Tan and Ridhwan Azman
About this guy Chee who coached the national football star and this dude goes on to coach Fandi Ahmed.

Still Standing
By Kirsten Tan with Tan Wei Ting
About this aspiring architect who dreamt and built Pearl Bank apartments with a developer who believed in the vision of community living. In current time and in his ripe old age, he advocates conservation. Sadly, Pearl Bank Apartments was en bloc after 4 unsuccessful attempts.

Honey

Turkish film fest

Yusof's dad, Josef, is a honey collector. He goes out in the morning to collect honey from hives high up in the trees. Due to shortage of production, he goes to another place to collect. The scene begins with him trying to climb up to the branch but it gave way and he dies.

We only know about this later.

Yusof's jealous that his dad made a ship for his classmate but not for him. He has a nightmare and whispers it to his dad. An eagle guides him to school. He is never able to read and stammers. He covets the reward - a red pin which all this classmates have received except him.

The eagle guides his dad to search for better honey. They long and yearn for his return but he never did. They look for the eagle but it never came back either.

Yusof hears the eagle cry on the day of his dad's death. He runs into the first to look for his dad and falls asleep in there. It is also the same day he got the reward for reading.

Terminator: Dark Fate

Opening scene of Sarah being interrogated for warning people about something bad that's going to happen.

Next we see this Mexican brother and sister, Diego and Dani, going to work in a factory. A bad robot disguised as their father who was murdered by this robot, Rev 9, came to the factory to kill Dani. Another good enhanced human with robot powers, Grace, saved them and they escaped via a car. While being pursued, they were cornered and almost going to die when Sarah helped them escape by dealing with the bad robot with crazy big explosives. Dani and Grace escaped to a motel with Sarah finding them. Grace needed to rest and replenish. Sarah says every time something big is about to happen, she'll get coordinates for that location signing off with "for John", her dead son who was murdered by Arnold Schwarzenegger. They trace the coordinates to a cabin where they meet Carl, Arnold Schwarzenegger who has now adopted a family and developed feelings. He confessed that he regrets killing John and has been trying to make amends. He bids farewell to his family to join them on the fight and they go look for power weapons from Sarah's friend.

The bad robot catches up and they flee in a van. Grace says Dani cannot die cos in the future world where it's overrun by bad robots, Dani is a leader who saved her. They get into a huge airplane and drive off but the Rev 9 hangs onto it and they are forced to land on some turbine factory area.

They fight until Carl is out cold, Sarah cannot move and Grace is on the brink of death. Grace asks Dani to retrieve the power source from her heart and to use it to stab Rev 9. Sobbing, Dani did this and Grace dies. Carl wakes and they stab Rev 9 with the power source. Carl pushes him into the turbine and gets in with him to hold him down so it cannot resurrect. Before Carl dies, her announces "for John". Sarah and Dani looks on.

Few years later, Sarah and Dani drives to a school to see young Grace with her family. Dani vows to protect her at all cost. They set off to prepare and drive away.

Weathering with you

Director: Makoto shinkai

The colours are beautiful

Boy runs away from home and tries to make a living. He helped a person on the train who turns out to be his benefactor later by giving him a job as a weather reporter. He and the man's niece go in search of the girl who can control weather.

When he was really hungry, he went to Mac's and the nice staff gave him a burger. His best meal in Tokyo. She was fired for doing this and forced to prostitute. He saves her in time from the lewd act. She invites him home and they go on a date. He took 3 hours to pick a ring for her for her birthday. Worried that she'll not like it, the saleslady said she thinks she will since he spent so much time looking for it. On her birthday, he and her and her brother bunk in a love hotel. They sing K all night and by then she was doing too much weather control as weather girl. She was turning translucent and she showed him her body. It had been raining non-stop. 

She asks if he wants the rain to stop. He said yes and the next day, the sun is out but she's gone- lost to the rain clouds. The ring is gone- it had passed through her fingers. Frustrated, he searches for that Shinto gate which she walked through when she was praying for her mum to get well. It made her the weather girl. He had to dodge the police who wanted to send him back to his hometown. He picked up a lucky gun and fired at the police. The niece helped him escape using her motorbike. He finally found the gate on top of a high rise building and makes a wish with all his heart to meet her when he stepped into it. 

He did it- found her on cloud land and brought her back to Earth. Ever since then, it has not stopped raining and it had been raining in Tokyo for three years since then. He had to go back home and finish high school. He came back to Tokyo to look for her and visits his benefactor, who now runs a good print business. He looks for her and found her praying at the bend. They are reunited.

We are little zombies

dir. Makoto Nagahisa

Four children turned orphans at the age of 13. They met at the crematorium and formed their own band. Hikari - parents killed in car crash while they were otw to strawberry farm to pick Wild strawberry on a group tour. Rich kid with many material things but no parental love. He went back to get his ammunition- game boy.

Fatso - parents killed in blaze when their house caught fire. Dad taught him to make his own decisions. He went for karate and came back to no house. He went back to get his wok.

Cute kid- dad is a wife beater. He went to beat his dad up but lost. He came back one day to find that his parents had hung themselves. His two younger siblings no where to be found. He has a gift of music - playing guitar.

Chio girl- she instigated her creepy piano teacher to get rid of her parents. He was hitting on her and asked what she wanted. He did and was put behind bars. Her dad wants to marry her. Her mum wished she was not born because it makes people around her weird. She has 4 fingers on the right hand but plays the piano.

They go on an adventure and met some homeless people. Recorded The Little Zombies and it was a hit. Their manager, a kiddo security guard where the homeless people lived, took all their $$$. Their sold out their tickets and realised 2 other songs, inspired by the game boy, 8bit pixel. 

Through social media, the bus driver was driven to commit suicide as he was filled with remorse. So sad.

They were forced to cancel their gig by the adults. Hikaru (meaning light) has no choice but to go stay with his aunt and uncle. He ran away to Fiji with his friends. They bumped into all this people in the Metro who are like zombies carrying mobile phones and starring at the black screens. It's very real in describing today's world.

They ran into the train and stole a van by clobbering the people to death. These guys spoke about being hot just before a marriage but after marriage it's not anymore. The other guy rebuts that marriage is like an onsen. Love is represented by a heart icon- giving your organ to someone else. You must love the person that much. 

They reach Fuji along the road hikari parents died. Ran out of fuel, they have to walk. Akin to Kafka's Castle in the Sky where one never gets to her/his dream.

Along the drive they met with a car crash. Hikari initially chose to die but changed his mind. They broke out of scary octopus land. He remembered the day he was born and the joy of his parents. And cried.

The boys all dream of kissing the girl. Actually it's more like figuratively they were bitten (by a love bug) and girl kisses them. Next they say she's the embodiment of their mums. 

They all go back to being normal children. The camera pans out and we hear the changing of sutras and hikari snapping out of his day dream. It's merely just a dream!

Parasite

At The Projector

Family of 4- dad, mum, bro, sis. Really poor and live in the semi-basement at the bottom of the valley in South Korea.

Bro has a college friend who introduced him to tutor a rich family's daughter while he is overseas. He gets his sis to forge credentials and wins the mum's approval to tutor the daughter by talking about nonsense shit about valour. Of course the student likes him a lot and they kiss & make out.

He gets his sis in as art therapist for the younger brother. She wins over the mum by enforcing her rules-no mum supervision on first visit. She sees through brother's fake attention seeking ways and goes into bullshit talk about interpreting the drawings. Apparently he was scared in grade 1 because he has seen a 'Ghost' in the house. (This ghost turns out to be the one hidden downstairs in the basement). Sis is hired.

As she gets sent back home, she pulls out her panties and leaves it in the car. Driver gets fired because the parents buy the bullshit assumptions that the driver was having sex in the backseat. Dad gets hired as new driver.

Next they devise a plot to sack the longtime helper, an ajuma who also worked for the previous family and architect of the house. They plant into the head of the wife that she's got TB by scattering peach dust on the helper so she will get an allergic reaction. Wife witnesses her coughing and the driver throws in ketchup 'blood' when retrieving the tissue. She is asked to pack up.

After they have had some status, they throw water at the guy pissing outside their door when previously they always kept quiet. Sis does cool slow mo video of it. The poor can also have eye for art. The somewhat richer people have the guts to kick out the poorer people.

The family goes camping for kiddo's birthday and this poor family hijacks the home to eat and drink and sleep and roll around on the parquet and lawn. Mum makes dad a laughing joke by saying he will scatter like a cockroach when trouble arises. In his fit of anger to this truth, he thrashes all the liquor bottles but laughs about it with wife as a joke. Wife is bitter but plays along for the sake of the children.

Previous housekeeper wants to be let in because she forgot something. That scene was so scary because she looked somewhat crazy. She went in to the basement for a long time but didn't come up. No choice so mum goes down and finds her trying to push open a door. She helps and find a deep deep basement where her husband is kept.

Husband's pineapple business went bust and he can't pay the debts. Now he's hiding here for 4 years 3 months. It's the same company dad worked at before. They get caught in their lies here and are held hostage because of video evidence. Hostage becomes powerful people because of this and poor family is held captive. Couple can relax and do massages and eat and sing songs in praise of North Korea Kim ideology.

Poor family makes a dash for video and ties up the couple in the basement. Rich wife says she's otw home and wants ram-yon with sirloin steak cubes. In 8 mins they'll be home. They do a mad rush to pack up. Boy goes under the bed of daughter and the sis is under the coffee table. Dad is in the basement tying them up. The former maid is pushed down the stairs and injured. Together with her allergy she eventually died.

Boy, sis and dad hides under the coffee table. Kiddo camps on the lawn and rich couple makes love on the sofa. After they have fallen asleep, they escape home to find their home under water. Dad rescues his Sports medal and bro the wealth stone which college student gave. At the refugee camp, dad says the best plan is to have no plan at all.

They are called to the kiddo's birthday party. Owner reminds dad he is paid overtime so he just needs to be a Red Indian role and not step his boundary by questioning his love for his wife. He's using money to exert his power. Sis brings out cake and mad man escapes from basement after dragging the brother around like a dog. The bro went underground with wealth stone maybe to give it to the couple for luck. But crazy man smashes his head with it. He stabs sis, kiddo. Family rushes to help sis. Driver is summoned but he dumps his role to save his family.

When asked to give his car keys, rich Dad looks down on the mad man with utter contempt. Poor dad's saving grace is stabbing the rich Dad after he had stabbed mad man. 

He really runs like cockroach after that and went back into the basement to hide. 

Bro and mum gets away by warning and probation. Bro woke up laughing at all this joke-Sis died, dad missing, a doc who didn't look like one, a policeman who didn't look like one. Bro returns the stone to its rightful place in the river. Maybe the stone didn't bring any wealth but trouble? Bro receives the messages from dad via Morse code and vows to earn a lot of money to buy back that house. 

Parasite roles keep changing in this show. Even the rich are parasites. They leech on the poor to ascertain their self-worth. They are also using each other to fill that void of emptiness and try to be a loving family- husband to wife, husband to son.