FILMS!

I just purchased Summer IFF tickets for Johnnie To's Vengeance (GOAT HK filmmaker), Away We Goand 500 Days of Summer. I have no idea what the hell Away We Go is about; I'm just attracted to the poster and the mood of the films and I guess that Sam Mendes can direct a film or two haha. 500 Days of Summer was first recommended to me by my friend Marvin "REAL LAKER FAN" Lee, who despite his love of Common, And1 Streetball and Star Trek, has quite the keen eye for good indie flicks. He's the one who first recommended Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine, Garden State, and them Wes Anderson Bill Murray flicks to me.

Then I looked up the trailer and it looked interesting... loved that the main character is a hopeless romantic, wears headphones all the time and listens to rock and roll. Then I check rottentomatoes and it has a 90% rating, then my two go-to site for movie reviews gave it 9 and 9.5 out of 10 respectively. Suddenly I'm in full on "I must see 500 Days of Summer" mode.

Crazy thing is I may be more excited about 500 days than I am for Vengeance, and I'm a huge Johnnie To/Anthony Wong/Lam Suet fan. I interviewed Simon Yam two months ago and he told me that his role in Vengeance is HILARIOUS. He's gonna overact like a crazed lunatic I bet. It's gonna be hilarious.

The thing is, I get to watch all the Summer IFF films for free at the HKIFF office because I'm writing press previews. But I'm gonna pay to see Vegeance and 500 on the big screen anyways because good films deserves to be experienced on the big screen. I saw Taxi Driver10 times on DVD but didn't truly SEE IT until I saw it on the big screen back in 2004.

Now the challenge is I'm gonna try to hold off watcing 500 days and Vengeance at the HKIFF office so I can save the first viewing for the big screen. I can do that for Vegeance, since the screening is in two weeks. But for the 500 Days screening, which is like, over a month from now... I don't think I can last that long. I think I'm gonna have to go into the HKIFF office next week to watch.

Other Summer IFF films worth watching but I didn't get tickets to (I may later, will see cause I may be in LA for most of August):

A City of Sadness.I usually don't like films with this subject matter, but this is one of the early films in which Tony Leung showed his acting skills, and he's now like the most celebrated actor in HK with what, 6 best actor wins?

Limits of Control. Reviews for this are bad but anytime a cool brotha is walking around with a guitar case and looking like he gonna pop someone, that's worth a watch.

Sunshine Cleaning. Unfortunately, Cassidy already told me its not that great. But I'm still gonna watch it cause Amy Adams is worth watching in ANYTHING. She was the second best thing in Charlie Wilson's War (behind Philip Seymour Hoffman of course), forget Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts!

Anyway, I'm also hearing really good things for the local film Overheard. It's the one with Lau Ching Wan, Daniel Wu and Louis Koo. Two very trustworthy sources have screened it and said it's good. Which is a relief because the local films this year has been quite shit, eh? cough Muderer cough.

It's also a relief to see Felix Mak and Andrew Lau, who directed the brilliant Infernal Affairstrilogy, put out a good film again. Their last two film weren't too hot... Confessions of Pain was a mess and that one with Eason and Sammi just flat sucked.