姐妹們的男人

　　尼古拉斯·凱奇出演獨立制作驚悚片《窺鏡》(Looking Glass，暫譯)。導演為曾拍攝多部MV及廣告的多里·奧斯科維茲，編劇杰里·萊普、馬修·懷爾德。一對夫婦在經歷生活傷痛后買下了荒郊僻壤一處汽車旅館，他們此舉是為了探秘旅館一個房間內發生的一系列無法解釋的怪事。影片今秋開機。

　　緹娜（安娜·哈金森 Anna Hutchison 飾）帶著十二歲的女兒貝斯（特麗莎·貝特曼 Talitha Bateman 飾）于午夜走在回家的路上，遇見了一群小混混，小混混們強暴了緹娜，貝斯作為目擊證人將施暴者們的面容牢牢記在了心底。在法庭上，貝斯當庭指認了兇手，然而，被告方找來了一位毫無道德底線并且巧舌如簧的律師，他們聯手栽贓緹娜，顛倒是非黑白，而法官也只想息事寧人。　　約翰（尼古拉斯·凱奇 Nicolas Cage 飾）是一名從業多年的老警官，雖然表面風光，但實際上他正在遭遇人生的中年危機。緹娜的案件激發起了約翰內心里熄滅已久的正義感，他決定挺身而出幫助這對可憐的母女。

　　Luna, a cruise ship chambermaid, has to quit her job to attend to her sick brother. While doing so, she discovers that her mother has gone missing and her brother's condition is getting progressively worse. The siblings desperately sneak into an empty condo unit but soon discover that Penthouse 77 is not what it seems.

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.