On the Town With Aubrey Reuben
Where All the Stars Shine Brightly!
July 5, 2014
07-03-14 Director Lee Su-jin "Han Gong-ju" at a reception for the
2014 New York Asian Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater. 165
West 65th St. Wednesday night. 07-02-14
American
Ballet
Theatre (ABT)
presented The
Dream,
choreography
by Frederick
Ashton,
music of Felix
Mendelssohn. Cory
Stearns replaced David
Hallberg,
who was
injured, as
Oberon, and
was superb.
With a
delightful Gillian
Murphy as
Titania, and
a scene
stealing Herman
Cornejo as
Puck, it was
a joy to
watch. The
program also
included The
Tempest,
choreography
by Alexei
Ratmansky,
music by Jean
Sibelius,
with Marcel
Gomes as
Prospero and
an
enchanting Sarah
Lane as
his
daughter.
The eight
week season
at the
Metropolitan
Opera House
was a
resounding
success.
The Film
Society at
Lincoln
Center is
presenting
press
screenings
of the
13th New
York Asian
Film
Festival,
June 27-July
14. I
attended a
reception
for Umin
Boya,
the director
of Kano,
at the
Walter Reade
Theater..
Another
reception
was held for
director Lee
Su-jin Han Gong-ju and
actress Lee
Eun-Woo Moebius.
Both
receptions
were
delightful
events,
and the
directors
and actress
were
charming.
As I
attended a
press
conference
featuring Sandra
Ng, considered
the Queen of
Comedy in
Hong Kong, I
went to see
her film Golden
Chickensss,
by Matt
Chow,
Hong Kong,
2014, which
she
produced.
Since she
knows all
the famous
stars of
Hong Kong,
they all
appear in
cameos in
the film.
Although Ng
plays an old
madam in
this tale of
prostitution,
it is
neither sexy
nor sensual.
It is
supposed to
be a comedy,
but it is
not funny,
just silly.
I was deeply
disappointed.
R100,
by Hitoshi
Matsumoto,
Japan, 2013,
is another
comedy,
whose humor
escapes me.
A lonely
father, who
has a dull
job as a
furniture
salesman,
joins a
bondage
club, which
provides him
with
sado-masachistic
dominatrixes.
The constant
torture and
beatings do
not
represent
entertainment
to me.
MoMA is
presenting: ContemporAsian. Han
Gong-Ju,
by Lee
Su-jin,
South Korea,
2013, is
based on a
true
incident, in
which two
young girls
were gang
raped, and
one died.
The surviver,
played by a
wonderful
young
actress Chun
Woo-hee,
is
transferred
to another
school and
is boarded
with a
former
teacher's
mother. The
hardships
she suffers
in the
aftermath of
the
atrocious
attack makes
for a
powerful and
sad film.
The film
shifts from
the present
to the past,
where we are
appalled by
the
brutality of
the young
men involved
in the
crime. The
acting by
the entire
cast is
excellent.
The film is
also being
shown in the
festival.
.
.
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The
Film Society at Lincoln Center
is also presenting press
screenings of the
15th Annual Latinbeat July 11-20. Casa
Grande, by Fellipe
Barbosa, Brazil, 2014, is a
penetrating view of a
dysfunctional upper-middle-class
family in Rio. Thales
Cavalcanti gives
an astonishing performance as
seventeen-year-old high school
student struggling with his
sexuality, the pressure of
university entrance exams and
his discovery of the father's
financial problems. It also
examines racism in the country.
The acting is first rate, and
the story is realistic. With
wonderful photography, it will
be one of the highlights of the
festival.
Natural Sciences (Ciencias Naturales),
by Matias
Lucchesi, Argenina/France, 2014, is an
unusual film with a remarkable performance
by Paula
Hertzog as
a 12-year-old student in a boarding school,
who wants to find her father, whom she has
never known. With the help of a sympathetic
teacher, they begin a journey to find him.
The film leaves a deep impression on the
viewer, and is another fine film in the
festival.
The Man of the Crowd (O Homen das
Multidoes), by Marcelo
Gomes and Cao
Guimaraes, Brazil, 2013, is a film about
a lonely train driver. We watch him at home,
where he does his morning exercises in a
miserable apartment, and at his job, where
he becomes friends with a fellow worker, who
asks him to be a witness at her wedding.
They are, without doubt, the two most boring
and dull people to ever appear in film. The
film will bore the spectator.
All About the Feathers (Por las Plumas),
by Neta
Villalobos, Costa Rica, 2013, is, I
assume, a comedy about a security guard
obsessed with cockfighting, who buys a
rooster to make him money and become famous.
He has three friends. One is a an overweight
maid. Another is an overweight teenager, who
wants to learn about cockfighting, and the
third is another security guard, who spouts
what little he knows about Christianity. The
four actors are the most boring people in
the world, except for the two in the
Brazilian train film above. The rooster is
more interesting than the people.
The Searches (Las Busquedas), by Jose
Luis Valle, Mexico, 2013, is a very low
budget film, about an unemployed man, whose
wallet is stolen on the subway. For two
years he searches for the thief. It is also
the story of a widow, whose husband commits
suicide, and who begins to give her dead
husband's clothes to the man, when he
delivers bottled water to her home.
Apparently, they fall in love and marry. The
film is slow moving, the dialogue is banal,
the thief and the man's friend are
singularly unattractive, and the story is
totally unbelievable and boring. Films
should be entertaining, or, at least, be
about interesting characters. I rarely use
the adjective boring, but in the case of the
three films above, it is necessary.
07-03-14 Actress Lee Eun-Woo "Moebius" at a reception for the 2014 New York
Asian Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater. 165 West 65th St. Wednesday
night. 07-02-14
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