Category / Writings

by Eternality Tan

Outguess ET 2019 – Oscar Prediction Contest

The 6th Outguess ET Oscar Prediction Contest is back!

I will share my predictions on the weekend of 23-24 Feb. The Oscars ceremony will be shown live on the morning of 25 Feb (SGT).

Instructions:

  1. Open to people residing in Singapore only.
  2. Copy and paste the below categories onto a Word document.
  3. Indicate clearly for each category whom you think will win the Oscar (‘Will Win’) and one dark horse (‘Dark Horse’).
  4. Submit the Word document to eternalitytan@gmail.com with the subject header ‘Outguess ET 2019’ latest by 22 Feb, 11:59pm.

How to win:

  • Predicting correctly ‘Will Win’ earns 3 points
  • Predicting correctly ‘Dark Horse’ earns 1 point.
  • Score more points than me. A tie doesn’t count.
  • If there is more than one winner, the participant who submitted his or her predictions earlier (based on email time-code) will win.

If you win, choose one of the following prizes:

  • Prize A (worth USD20) – 1x Amazon Gift Card
  • Prize B (worth SGD30) – 1x Criterion Collection Blu-ray
  • Prize C (worth SGD25-35) – up to 5x DVDs from my Carousell page

Here are the categories in contention:
Best Picture
Best Foreign Language Feature
Best Animated Feature
Best Documentary Feature
Best Director
Best Leading Actor
Best Leading Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Best Original Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Film Editing
Best Production Design
Best Costume Design
Best Hair & Makeup
Best Original Score
Best Original Song
Best Sound Mixing
Best Sound Editing
Best Visual Effects
Best Live Action Short
Best Animated Short
Best Documentary Short

Have fun and good luck!

by Eternality Tan

Waltz with Bashir: An Inquiry into Reality

(Written in 2009, and first published 25 Dec 2009)

The Film
First premiered at Cannes in May 2008, Waltz with Bashir subsequently won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and earned an Oscar nomination in a similar category.

Directed and written by Ari Folman, an Israeli who is not exactly prolific in his work, Waltz with Bashir is only his third film in 12 years after Clara Hakedosha (1996) and Made In Israel (2001).

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by Eternality Tan

Musings #2: 5 Great Singaporean Films of the 2010s (so far…)

(This article was first published for CatchPlay on 7 Aug 2017)

The 2010s has been a strong decade for Singapore cinema, with the emergence of younger talented filmmakers, and established voices holding the fort. We are probably witnessing the biggest wave in recent years, not just because of the work of one or two trailblazers, but a group of directors whose eclectic output suggests an assured future for our country’s increasingly vibrant film industry. This article traces five key Singaporean films—and great ones to boot—of the 2010s, well, so far…

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by Eternality Tan

“Hero”: Placing Asian Cinema Within National and International Boundaries

(Written in 2013, and first published on 1 Jan 2014)

Zhang Yimou remains to be the most famous of mainland Chinese filmmakers working today, yet his greatest works were made during the early phase of his career in the early 1990s with critically-acclaimed sociopolitical films such as Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and To Live (1994).

In 2002, two years after the international success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Zhang released Hero, his first-ever martial arts film starring some of the biggest names in Chinese cinema, including Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi.

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by Eternality Tan

Musings #1: Commercial Censorship of Movies in Singapore

This personal opinion piece was first published on 10 February 2018.

UPDATE (as of 13 February 2018): Lady Bird will be released theatrically in M18 (Nudity & Sexual Scene) – Passed Clean

There are two main kinds of film censorship – artistic and commercial.  In Singapore, whenever there is Artistic Censorship (AC), we are happy to push the blame to our local classification (read: censorship) body. 

Almost all the time, the censors get it wrong.  There had been so many cases – too many to name.  Some cases were very infuriating, not least because it conflated political censorship with AC.  The most recent example was Radiance of Resistance (2016), pulled from the Singapore Palestinian Film Festival last month.

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