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Friday, Jun 05, 2009, Page 16

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The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Matthew McConaughey is putting together a lengthy portfolio of pretty but off-putting romantic roles, and this film is at the top of the list. He plays a photographer and professional cad who goes through women like fast food, but this being an American comedic take on Dickens, moral accountability lies in wait — after the audience has got off on a heap of crudity and sexism — in the shape of his once randy but now cautionary uncle (Michael Douglas) and his very first conquest (Emma Stone), both back from the dead. Can these spoilsport specters steer marauding Matthew toward marital bliss with sweetie-pie Jennifer Garner? Who gives a crap?



You Will Be Mine

No less dysfunctional, but more intense, is the main relationship in this lustful psychodrama from France. A university student and musician discovers that her roommate wants more from her than rent and good conversation and that getting sexually involved with her isn’t such a good idea. The French title of this classical music-garnished obsession romp is Je te mangerais, but the delicate Chinese title translates as “You are my lesbian,” which gets more confusing the more you think about it.



The Shonen Merikensack

The title of this Japanese comedy refers to a punk rock band that is brought back from the dead — figuratively, that is (this isn’t Dickens). The three-decade-old outfit comes together after the discovery of a music video by a would-be go-getter in the music industry, but the aging band members are worse for wear after all that time in the real world. Big laughs abound.



Nekonade

The problem with cute animal movies is that in the real world they fuel demand for pets among smitten youngsters — only for a good proportion of the poor creatures to be abandoned by callous parents when they’re not cute anymore. In this Japanese film, however, the protagonist is a crusty, aging middle manager who does the opposite: He takes in a stray kitten, and his life — a mixture of ruthlessness and suppressed emotion — is turned upside down. The Chinese title misleadingly tags this fictional yarn as a sequel to A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies, which was based on a true story.



Home

This environmental documentary offers two firsts: It’s the first film to secure advertising on Taiwanese garbage trucks, and the first film to feature narration by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌, presumably riding on his CV as former head of the Environmental Protection Administration). Neither curio is likely to make this offspring of Powaqqatsi and An Inconvenient Truth a blockbuster in a busy line-up of new releases this week, but co-producer Luc Besson might find solace in an emerging environmental awareness in the Taiwanese market, especially on Earth Day. The overbearing narration in the English version is by Glenn Close.



The Qinghai-Tibet Line (青藏線)

If you loved Trail of the Panda and are blind to politics, this Chinese melodrama about the epic construction of the railway to Tibet may entertain with lots of trains, pretty scenery and dramatic chutzpah. For others, it may be a sickening mask for state oppression and domination of minorities in a propaganda format not seen much anymore. According to the China Tibet Information Center, “It is among the 50 films to be shown in theaters [in China] during September 15 to October 31 [in 2007] as recommended by the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV, the country’s top regulator of the industry.” The icing on the cake? It’s being released here on a key anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

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