So many movies, so little time. Every month I’ll suggest the five movies you should catch once it opens in cinemas. Can you catch them all?
Collateral Beauty (5 Jan)
When a successful New York advertising executive suffers a great tragedy he retreats from life. While his concerned friends try desperately to reconnect with him, he seeks answers from the universe by writing letters to Love, Time and Death. But its not until his notes bring unexpected personal responses that he begins to understand how these constants interlock in a life fully lived, and how even the deepest loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.
The premise sounds interesting because it makes us do some self-reflection – what would we ourselves write to these these three concepts if we had the opportunity to? Of course if this were the MCU then you could literally talk to them (and fight them), but this isn’t a fantasy film, so we’re not going to see that. It’s something that’s deeply personal, and to be able to view one person’s mentality and attitude towards these three concepts fulfills this odd voyeurism within us all, as well as giving us fodder to think about should we ever meet the incarnations of these three forces.
Arrival (12 Jan)
Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.
No Superman references, I promise. But the idea of a visitor that you can’t communicate with, who might possibly be hostile, is a little scary when they don’t look like you. This is the basic conceit of all first encounter films. What makes “Arrival” different is that it’s supposed to be as realistic as possible, giving us a truly plausible dramatisation of how we humans might respond to aliens.
The Bye Bye Man (12 Jan)
People commit unthinkable acts every day. Time and again, we grapple to understand what drives a person to do such terrible things. But what if all of the questions we’re asking are wrong? What if the source of all evil is not a matter of what…but who? From the producer of The Strangers and Oculus comes The Bye Bye Man, a chilling horror-thriller that exposes the evil behind the most unspeakable acts committed by man. When three college friends stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man, they discover that there is only one way to avoid his curse: don’t think it, don’t say it. But once the Bye Bye Man gets inside your head, he takes control. Is there a way to survive his possession?
You know how people can make you think of a two-headed purple elephant by simply asking you to not think of a two-headed purple elephant? It’s like how you try your best not to think about horror movies you’ve watched just as you go to bed and they just pop up in your head. Your mind is your own worst enemy in “The Bye Bye Man”. I like seeing people struggle to not get eaten by the monsters of their own minds, heh.
Split (19 Jan)
Kevin, a man with at least 23 different personalities, is compelled to abduct three teenage girls. As they are held captive, a final personality – “The Beast” – begins to materialize.
For me, the thrill of these split personality films is the fact that we all have some aspects of our character that we repress, and we wear so many different masks with people. Wouldn’t it be fun if one day, you didn’t have to repress anything, and just acted however you wanted to regardless of the consequences? “Split” sort of sublimates this urge of mine, with a rather nasty twist.
Just like how we all have a cruel, sadistic side to our personalities deep inside us.
The Light Between Oceans (19 Jan)
“The Light Between Oceans,” an international best-seller, takes place on a remote Australian island in the years following World War I, where a lighthouse keeper and his wife are faced with a moral dilemma when a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a two-month-old infant. When they decide to raise the child as their own, the consequences of their choice are devastating.
Yeah OK I’m a bit of a sucker for tearjerkers and I also kind of want to give Michael Fassbender a chance to redeem himself after “Assassin’s Creed”. Alicia Vikander is a bit poor thing though – why does she always end up with husbands that have such weird inclinations in films? Being torn between two sets of parents has always been one of those timeless issues (I’m sure her mother turns up at some point), and here’s to seeing how it gets handled in the “The Light Between Oceans.”
Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. He’s also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.
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