Brett Davis - AsiaLIFE Magazine

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bookshelf
Being Wrong:
Adventures in the
Margin of Error
Fat Vampire: A Never
Coming of Age Story
Kathryn Schultz
Ecco/Harper Collins
Alex Rex
Balzer + Bray
Miley Cyrus stars in the comingof-age
story The Last Song, a
film adapted from the novel by
Nicolas Sparks (The Notebook).
Following her parents’ divorce,
17-year-old New Yorker Ronnie
Miller (Cyrus) becomes
estranged from her father (Greg
Kinnear), who has relocated to
the quiet Southern beach town
of Tybee Island. Hoping to help
her overcome her anger, Ronnie’s
mother sends Ronnie and
her brother to Tybee, where she
learns lessons about life and love
on the brink of adulthood.
Art imitates life in Grown Ups,
as former 90s Saturday Night
Live Cast members Adam Sandler,
Chris Rock, David Spade
and Rob Schneider reunite to
play a group of old friends who
get back in touch 30 years after
winning a junior high basketball
championship. Reflecting on
their deceased coach’s advice
to live their lives like they played
the game, they are forced to
confront their failures and move
opening dates
CINEMAS
C: Cinebox
www.cinebox212.com.vn
G: Galaxy
www.galaxycine.vn
L: Lottecinema
www.lottecinemavn.com
M: Megastar
www.megastarmedia.net
T: Thang Long
www.giaitrithanglong.com/
cinema
forward by re-learning the lessons
of their past.
In Charlie St. Cloud, Zac
Efron plays a young man caught
between a new love and an old
promise. After his younger brother
Sam dies in a car accident,
Charlie becomes reclusive and
gains a reputation among his
small port town as an eccentric.
What his neighbours don’t know
is that Sam visits him to hold him
to a promise: that Charlie would
play catch with him every day
until he left for school. When he
begins to fall for Tess, the new
girl in town, Charlie must decide
whether to let the past go and
sail away with Tess or give up
his future to honour his promise
to Sam.
Following up on his success
with Passport to Love, Vietnamese-American
director Victor Vu
brings suspense to Vietnamese
theatres with the Hitchcockian
thriller Giao Lo Dinh Menh
(Inferno). When Manh (Tran Bao
Son) awakes from a surgery to
September 2
The Last Song
September 3
Grown Ups
September 10
The Runaways
Charlie St. Cloud
September 17
Inferno
Resident Evil: Afterlife
3D
September 24
Devil
treat injuries sustained in a car
accident, he cannot remember
who he is. Taken in by his wife,
mother, best friend and underworld
co-workers, Manh soon
begins to suspect that his reality
is anything but. With a mysterious
stalker on his trail, Manh
must uncover the secret behind
his accident and his reconstructed
appearance.
Based on a story by M. Night
Shyamalan, Devil puts new
fear into a common phobia.
Five individuals find themselves
trapped in an office elevator, but
one of them is not who they say
they are. As a terrifying series of
events unravels in the enclosed
space, it becomes clear that
one of them is the devil himself.
With nowhere to run, the elevator
car is soon consumed with
paranoia.
Based on the memoir by
Cherie Currie and executive produced
by Joan Jett, The Runaways
tells the true story of the
two rock icons and their bandmates,
whose brief career from
1975 to 1977 was as groundbreaking
as it was tumultuous.
Though marketed as underage
sex objects, The Runaways
gain a following on the merit of
their music and become the first
all-girl act to break into the world
of hard rock. The biopic traces
their rise from the suburbs of
California to the arenas of Japan,
serving as historical document
and cautionary tale.
In the fourth film in the series
and the first shot in 3D, Milla
Jovovich reprises her role as
the superhuman zombie-fighter
Alice in Resident Evil: Afterlife.
On a mission to Los Angeles to
find signs of human settlement,
Alice reunites with an amnesiac
Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), who
last appeared in Resident Evil:
Extinction. Together with a band
of survivors, they take the fight
to those responsible for the
zombie outbreak, the Umbrella
Corporation and its mastermind,
Albert Wesker.
The information on this page was
correct at the time of printing. Check
cinema websites for screenings.
Being Wrong, penned by journalist Kathryn Schultz, takes a stab
at unveiling why mankind insists on being right, can’t cope when
proven wrong and feels the urge to say, “I told you so.” According
to Schultz, “We can’t enjoy kissing just anyone, but we can relish
being right about almost anything.” In the first section of the book
Schultz conducts a scientific tour of everyday wrongs, touching on
optical illusions, memory failures, neurological deficits and irrational
beliefs. She then explains how they arise, get perpetuated and
most importantly, why it is so difficult to see them for what they
really are. The second half serves up personal stories as evidence,
including a case study that documents a sexual assault victim
whose mistaken testimony sent an innocent man to prison—an
example of just how serious being wrong can be.
Super Sad True
Love Story
Gary Shteyngart
Random House
Lenny Abranov, a 39-year-old of Russian heritage who has a bald
spot shaped like Ohio, lives in author Gary Shteyngart’s futuristic
America, an image-focused nation crumbling in debt and reliant
on China’s financial assistance. Abranov is what’s known as an
“ancient dork.” He likes books of the non-digital variety, referred to
by his contemporaries as “printed, bound media artefacts.” In contrast
to his health-conscious peers who are in constant search of
immortality, his cholesterol levels promise an early end. Regardless
of his downfalls, Abranov meets and falls in love with Eunice Park,
a 24-year-old Korean American, who’s just graduated from college
with a major in images and a minor in assertiveness. Park does
her best to mould Abranov into a prime specimen worthy of her
attention. However, the pair soon discover that despite the world’s
infatuation with beauty and longevity, there’s still some value in being
a real human being, flaws and all.
Illustrator turned author Alex Ray’s take on the current vampire
craze is a unique one. Rather than a dashing and handsome
Twilight-esque figure, the protagonist of Fat Vampire is a 15-yearold
nerd named Doug, who is turned into a bloodsucker before he
has a chance to lose some extra pounds. As a result, he is forced
to walk the earth for all eternity as an overweight and unattractive
loser. Working with what he’s got, he sets out in search of a gothic
chick keen on the undead, but on his quest falls in love with Sejal,
an Indian exchange student. To make matters even more complicated,
the star of Vampire Hunters—a TV show that finds and kills
vamps—is in hot pursuit of Doug, determined to stake him on air
to boost ratings. Throughout, Doug tries to adapt to vampire life,
with only a copy of Dracula as his guide.
The Fever: How
Malaria has Ruled
Mankind for
500,000 Years
Sonia Shah
Farra, Shah & Giroux
The title of Boston-based investigative journalist Sonia Shah’s
malaria exposé reads like a horror story and it’s not far off. The
Fever chronicles the infectious disease across the ages. It’s a
bug that has killed more people than any other natural force,
and has mutated to the point that it’s become resistant to many
modern medicines. Throughout, Shah details malaria’s many
casualties and, curiously, some of its advantages. While the
mosquito-borne virus claims an estimated one million lives per
year, in Julius Caesar’s time an outbreak on the outskirts of his
empire helped to protect it from intruders. Shah also explores
the disjuncture between the West’s effort to eradicate malaria
and the developing world’s reluctance to consider it as anything
more than a common cold. She goes further, explaining how
insecticide-doused mosquito nets donated from the West are
often used to catch fish. Shah touches on this and much more in
a fact-based journey that is neither dry nor too scientific.
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