BRIEF MOVIE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CASUAL MOVIEGOERS
Gurmit Singh, Golden Horse Best Actor Nominee
- Sorry for the long hiatus. Been busy grappling with life issues, but am now back on track, first with the announcement of the nominees for Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards. Click here for the complete list.
- After getting snubbed by some major award bodies (e.g. Oscars) for being neither Hong Kong nor Taiwanese enough (huh?), Ang Lee's Lust, Caution finally gets its day, with eleven Golden Horse nominations including (not surprisingly) Best Feature Film and Best Director. Other than The Home Song Stories, I haven't heard of the other three Best Features. Also, zero Hong Kong films for best pic. Good time for other filmmakers to nab some statuettes before Johnnie To and Stephen Chow dominate the award show next year with Mad Detective and A Hope/CJ7 respectively.
- The big eye-catcher is our very own Gurmit Singh's Best Actor nomination for his performance in Just Follow Law. His movie also garnered a Best Original Screenplay nod, so I guess I'm watching the movie after all. Strangely, the hugely popular 881, which I thought would be the bigger Singapore highlight at the awards, was only acknowledged for its loud, garish costume designs. For a movie about the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival and with Hokkien/Teochew musical numbers, you would think it should do better at a Taiwanese film competition, of all places. Oh well, there is still the Best Foreign Film Oscar...
- Been itching to watch Eye in the Sky, and now its noms for Best Director, Supporting Actress and Film Score may finally make me get off my lazy butt and go rent the DVD.
- Aaron Kwok seems bent on taking over Anthony "the Chinese Meryl Streep" Wong's position as most prolific Golden Horse winner/nominee, nabbing another Best Actor nom three years straight. But he'll need all the luck in the world to win this one, because you don't need to be a detective to know who's more likely to win this year's award (hint: he won Best Actor for Infernal Affairs).
