Forever Fever (PG13)
95 minutes
Saturday Night Fever (1977), the Hollywood movie to which this made-in-Singapore drama-comedy pays homage – or rips off, depending on your point of view – has been cited as one of the nastiest movies to ever receive popular and critical acclaim.
Few remember the misogyny, rape or suicide parts of the story though, a testament to the music by the Bee Gees and the sinuous moves of actor John Travolta. The movie is available on Netflix.
Written and directed by Glen Goei, Forever Fever (1998) was among the first films of the 1990s Singapore film-making renaissance to find an international distributor and was released in the United States as That’s The Way I Like It.
Unlike its American inspiration, the local version, which features plenty of Singlish and the acting and dancing talent of Adrian Pang as working-class hero Ah Hock, is infectiously sunny.
This screening, which launches The Projector’s pop-up site at Riverside Point, features the 4K version, restored in 2018 by the Asian Film Archive.
Where: Projector X: Riverside, Riverside Point, 30 Merchant Road
MRT: Clarke Quay
When: July 3 and 11, various times
Admission: $20 a ticket. Tickets are sold in pairs only and include the loan of Bluetooth headsets for audio.
Info: theprojector.sg
Biking Borders (PG13)
90 minutes, available on Netflix, 4 stars
Early in 2018, two German men, Nono Konopka and Max Jabs, set out with the aim of covering the 15,000km distance between Berlin and Beijing on bicycles.
The bike-touring novices covered their trip on social media, urging followers to donate towards building a school in Guatemala, one of the most impoverished nations in Central America.
Moving across the Balkan states, then Turkey, Iran and Central Asia, the cyclists experience spectacular vistas and the kindness and generosity of locals, but also run into bad weather and illness.
This frank and uplifting record of their trip is a bittersweet reminder of what travel and exploration used to be like before the pandemic.
Luca (PG)
101 minutes, available on Disney+, 4 stars
This sweetly nostalgic story born of a film-maker’s childhood memories takes familiar Pixar elements – such as the idea that leaving home is part of growing up – and turns them into a movie aimed at younger viewers, though it should still have plenty of appeal for older audiences.
Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) is a scaly, shape-changing creature living in the waters off the Italian fishing town of Portorosso. His overprotective parents, Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan) and Daniela (Maya Rudolph), want him to stay away from the surface, inhabited by humans who consider Luca’s people beasts.
Luca meets Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), another young sea creature, but one who scoffs at the tribe’s taboos. He ropes Luca into stepping on land, where they magically take on the form of human boys and embark on an adventure in Portorosso.
Director Enrico Casarosa, a Pixar animator who made his mark with the Oscar-nominated short La Luna (2012, also available on Disney+), suffuses every frame of his feature debut with an aching remembrance of a lost age, when a Vespa scooter signified unlimited freedom and children played soccer on cobblestone streets.
