Freedom Writers

The story is based on a true story and it is about how a new teacher's innovative teaching methods helped her class get good grades. She asked her students to keep a daily journal and this helped her to better understand them.

Very impressed by the teacher's dedication to her work and how she managed to help the students work together as a team! I also liked how the film presented each student's journal with voice narration in the background! They sounded very sincere and personal!

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Nine Lives

The story is about the lives of nine women described separately in different short segments. Each segment is filmed in a single shot and some women appear in more than one segment as their lives intersect.

Liked the natural dialogue and how the different roles played by women are presented! Each segment provides a sample on a typical mother, wife, lover or daughter through basic daily activities.

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McDull, prince de la bun

This is a sequel to "My Life as McDull" which is an animation about the life of a family in Hong Kong. In the first movie, McDull, who is a little pig, studies in a kindergarten and trains hard to be an athlete. The sequel presents the life of McDull's parents as a bedtime story told by the mum to McDull.

Liked the film's distinctive Hong Kong flavor that came out through the social issues discussed and the realistic 3D cityscape! The bedtime story is also very interesting and meaningful!

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Hula Girls

The story is about how a small town in Japan transformed from a coal mine place to a Hawaiian tourist attraction in the 60s. Part of the plan was to train the miner daughters to be Hula dancers.

Liked the interesting dance moves and the pretty costumes! Was caught a little off guard by the melodramatic moments but they were pretty well executed and not too over-the-top.

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The Old Man and the Sea

The story is adapted from a novel by Ernest Hemingway and it is about how an old fisherman battled a big fish out at sea.

Liked the narration that describes the old fisherman in great detail! Great action at sea too!

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Osen of the Paper Cranes

The story is about how a servant girl, Osen, befriended a penniless young man and how they escaped from their household headed by an unscrupulous antiques dealer to lead a new life.

Was really impressed by the scene where Osen whipped out a crane from nowhere and blew it towards the sky! Didn't really understand the first part where they described how the bad guys cheated other people and felt quite puzzled. Liked the special effects and the exciting finish though!

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Nightly Dreams

The story is about how a waitress worked very hard to provide for her son and how she reconciled with her out-of-job husband but things didn't turn out as well as expected.

The husband looked like the landlady's husband in "Kungfu Hustle"! The director would suddenly zoom very close to a character's face for several scenes and I didn't really like the effect as it made me dizzy. The storyline is quite good though!

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Woman of Tokyo

Saw three silent films at one go at the NUS Arts Festival organised by NUS. The first film is a family drama about what happens when a brother learns about another side of his sister from his girlfriend.

The story telling is very well done and everything falls in place nicely! Liked the tense "face-off" among the chracters towards the end! The girlfriend, played by a young Tanaka Kinuyo, looked quite pretty! Only seen her in later films like "Life Of Oharu", "Flowing" and "Equinox Flower" and she looked a little bit older in those films. Hmm, those films happened to be one Mizoguchi, one Naruse and one Ozu too, similarly to what is featured in this film festival!

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The Pursuit of Happyness

The story is about how the life of a young father, Chris Gardner, changes after he started attending a stockbroker course.

Really impressed by how Chris Gardner manages his time and his skills as a salesman! Would have liked the film even more if it was more compressed it is quite longwinded with multiple chase scenes of a similar nature.

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The Sun

The story is about the life of Japan's Emperor during the end of World War II focusing on his everyday life and the interaction with General MacArthur from the US.

Liked the claustrophobic feel of the underground bunker and the interaction between the Emperor and General MacArthur! The animated dream sequence was very nicely done too!

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Pan's Labyrinth

The story is about a little girl's adventure in her garden's labyrinth towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. Her mother remarried a Captain whose job is to eliminate the freedom fighters in the woods.

Very nice visual effects but it was more violent than I expected! Liked the green dress that the little girl was wearing and the interesting tasks that she has to complete! I was very worried when she took her time on one of them!

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The Lives of Others

The story is about conditions in East Germany during the mid 80s seen through the eyes of the Stasi (secret police). A captain's life changes after he starts monitoring a playwright for illegal activities.

Nice plot and the film explains the work of the Stasi pretty well! Quite scary to see the things that people do when they have a lot of power in their hands! Realised that one always have a choice on how he leads his life even under very trying circumstances!

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Casablanca

The story is set during World War II where refugees were trying to escape to America via Casablanca. An influential saloon owner, Rick, meets a former lover, Ilsa, unexpectedly and has to deal with both the police and the black market as events unfold.

An exciting story and great acting by the leading actor and actress! The actress, Ingrid Bergman, is very pretty too! I also liked how Rick manages the bar! He treats his staff well, drives a hard negotiation with his stakeholders and goes out of his way to help his customers! Interesting to note that most of the cast were real life refugees who escaped from Europe! No wonder I felt a genuine sense of patriotism when they sang the French anthem!

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Miss Potter

The story is about the life of a famous children's book author from England, Beatrix Potter. She wrote "Tales of Peter Rabbit" and does her own illustrations using water color!

Liked how the film showed the little things that happened in Miss Potter's life that helped her to become a good writer and the nice use of animation to make the animals in the illustrations come alive!

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The Birth of a Nation

The story is about the life of two American families during and after the Civil War. The film is made 50 years after the end of the Civil War.

Not too familiar with the historical events depicted in the film at first and felt it dragged a little bit but the pace picked up towards the end! Learnt how the Ku Klux Klan came about and how people coped with the racial tension that was present at that time.

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Notes on a Scandal

The story is about the friendship between two teachers in school and what happens when they attempt to cover up a scandal.

Great acting by Judi Dench! She can look lost like a kitten or fierce like a giant tiger in a split second! Liked the voice-over narration as well!

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World of Geisha

The story is about the life of a group of geishas during the time when Japan wages war against Russia in 1918 and has trouble within the country itself as well.

Thought I could learn a bit more about Japanese history from this film but it only made use of several newspaper cuttings to describe the major events of that era so I didn't learn as much as I hoped to.

Pretty comprehensive coverage of the different types of geishas! There is an apprentice undergoing on-the-job training, a geisha with her first client, a popular geisha doing a show for a group of clients and an obnoxious aged geisha who spends her time sucking flies from the ceiling with a special gadget. Didn't like the blatant use of gigantic words written on the screen to convey the so-called "principles" though.

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Employee of the Month

The story is about two guys competing to become the employee of the month at a megamart store and to capture the heart of a fellow colleague.

Pretty interesting look at the life of the people working in a supermart! The competition at the end was very well thought out and tested the skills of the cashiers to their limit! Hmm, maybe someone should organise a cashier competition inviting NTUC, Carrefour and Giant to take part!

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Babel

The story is about how families from different parts of the world have trouble communicating with each other properly. A Moroccan family, an American family, a Mexican family and a Japanese family are featured and they are interconnected with each other.

Liked how the director cleverly linked the different stories together and showed how each family unite in the face of crisis!

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Bobby

The story is about a day in the lives of the people in a hotel during the Robert Kennedy election. Something shocking happened in the end but I won't spoil it for you here by revealing what it is.

I liked the documentary clips that were inserted into the picture! The film dived directly into showing the thoughts and actions of the ordinary folks with a brief overview of the era of that time. Lots of big stars in this film but the small characters were interesting too! Thought the girl working in the F&B outlet and the reporter from Czechoslovakia looked quite cute!

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