What would one of Indonesia's most promising directors do when there are no taboos left in our culture to exploit? This weekend will see the premiere of Nia Dinata's latest film, Berbagi Suami (Sharing a Husband). This time Nia tackles the issue of poligamy, commonly practiced but often ignored.

The story follows the life of three women from different backgrounds culturally, socially, and economically but shared a similar life, having to share their respective husbands. Salma (Jajang C. Noer) was an ob-gyn struggling to keep her marriage afloat as her husband married another woman, a younger woman. Meanwhile Siti (Shanty) came to Jakarta from a little Javanese village for a better life. She lived in a small house with a family acquaintance who already had two wives and turned out to be interested in making Siti his third. A young woman of Chinese descent, Ming, has a different story. Everybody acknowledges the beauty that waits tables at Koh Abun's roast duck place, including Koh Abun himself, the owner. Even though the restaurant owner was old enough to be Ming's father, she accepted his proposal for the "security" he offered. But later on when her boyfriend became a movie director and offered her a starring role, she began to realize her own potential and desire of freedom. Neither Salma, Siti, nor Ming known each other nor ever met each other but in Jakarta's crowded public space they never realized that they're sharing the same problem.

The French co-produced movie is arguably Indonesia's first film to put poligamy in the spotlight. But coming from Nia, it is hardly eye-popping. Actually, the Indonesian public expects something controversial if Nia's name is on the billboard. Her last two feature films were about a concubine (Ca Bau Kan) and homosexuality (arisan!). Both were met with acclaim critically and by the public which was phenomenal especially with arisan! considering homosexuality's place in modern Indonesian society.

If People Magazine has a poll on celebrity you most likely to love/hate, Aaron Eckhart would definitely win by a landslide. Well, him or at least his portrayal of Nick Naylor, the lobbyist for the big tobacco industry — the main pro-/antagonist from Jason Reitman's ensemble satire, the cheekily-titled Thank You for Smoking.

TYFS follows the story of Nick Naylor as he juggles co-parenthood of his son with his ex-wife while working as Big Tobacco's lobbyist. The movie was ninety minutes of 100% pure satire meaning nothing in it was not hilarious while taking a jab on society and a mean hook from time to time. Aaron Eckhart managed to carry off the persona of someone you'd easily love one second and want to kill the next, but even while you're plotting his murder you won't be able to help being amazed at how ingenious he is.

Mr. Eckhart might have a been a dead-on perfect casting decision, but he was not the only one. The cast harnesses the combined acting pool of TV series, past decades of movies, and theater. From Rob Lowe's kimono to Katie Holmes' tits (glorious tits, to quote one of the characters), it was as if the movie was half-done based on just the castings. And it was based on a novel, so it's not like the story's not done yet. The screenplay could've been a piece of junk and the movie would've still be passable. Luckily, that wasn't the case. Most satires have a bitter aftertaste, but I left the theater with a chuckle.

...the fifth of November. Well, it would've been easier to remember had gradeschoolers around the world learned about Guy Fawkes, the Roman Catholic Brit who tried to blow up the Parliament but later caught and hanged before the plan was carried out. He was a well-known figure in the UK and most citizens of the British Commonwealth have heard of him, but the average American sure has not. That's why it is quite phenomenal for the comic-based flick to open at number one with a little bit over $26 million over the weekend. The timing is not the best one either (or it actually is?), but there's nothing like controversy to catch people's attention. The protagonist of the film, V, is in fact a terrorist albeit he's more in the camp of Robin Hood than Osama bin Laden.

V for Vendetta opens with Evey (Natalie Portman) at the hands of the fingermen — state-sanctioned watchers who caught her for being outside when curfew was already in effect. As Evey was helplessly struggling to break free, V came to the rescue, billowing cape and all. Thus begins the uneasy yet dependent relationship between the two.

There was no single frame in the film that wasn't amazingly cool: from the swashbuckling action to the near-futuristic london to Portman's bald head. Granted the story was a bit verbose for lack of better words. To its defense though, V for Vendetta was not an action flick nor is it scifi. Well, perhaps it has some scifi and action element to it, but first and foremost it's a drama, a philosophical drama about the "power" of the people against a totalitarian regime. Fans of Orwell's 1984 would be hard-pressed to resist swooning over it. Fans of the Fast and the Furious, on the other hand, would be hard-pressed to keep their eyes open through the opening sequence.

Russia's first blockbuster, Night Watch — or Ночной Дозор [Nochnoy Dozor] in its native tongue, finally opened stateside in February. Timur Bekmambetov's first installment of the dark-vs-light trilogy lured Russians to the theaters propelling the film-noir-inspired saga to the top of Russian Box Office with 464 million Rubles (US$16 million).

The movie opens with a short introduction to the mythological universe where the stories would take place. We then follow Anton Gorodetsky as he discovered his true identity and his adventures with the Night Watch keeping their eyes on the Dark Others.

One could argue that the plot is a bit loose and that Bekmambetov's slogan has got to be fashion follows function instead of the other way around. One can't be more right! It seems that every turn of plot in the story was designed to enhance the cinematic visual pleasure that is Night Watch.

Now, does that mean it was a bad B-movie flick? Definitely not! So the storyline could've been tighter but stunning cinematography coupled with the visual effects and jawdropping fight sequences made way up for it.

The only real downside to it was the blatant product tie-ins. After seeing the movie, no one could be blamed to think that Moscow is a Nokia-sponsored city. Perhaps in the future the Russians could learn from Hollywood that subtle product tie-ins work better than putting billboards on every cityview frame.

I think a team of researchers should study Shakira's hips. I'm very curious if she has an extra set of bones separating her hips from her upper body thus allowing the hips to move independently from the rest of her torso. That said though, those belly dancing movements don't seem to fit in place with the carnival theme of the video. It really didn't help that she had Wyclef Jean guest starring in the song bringing in some hip-hop which clashed even more with the already confusing middle-eastern carnival.

Don't get me wrong, I think the song is superb. I totally dig it. Plus, I'm a big fan of Shakira and those hips gyrations alone made the video watchable. But it's just a bit of a let down that such the combination of a great song, great performers, a great director (Sophie Muller), and great art direction sums up in such a chaos.

This is what I think the story was: A belly dancer well known for her unique ability of break dancing got kidnapped by a circus troupe which then forced her to be part of their show at the carnival. There, a Jamaican hip hop rapper was so enraptured by this Spanish-speaking hipshaker. They then proceeded to pay tribute to bollywood by chasing each other among pink tulle sheets. And at the grand finale everybody was out for Mardi Gras!

How to sell shetloads of records in three simple steps: (1) Go to war (Street cred is essential) (2) Write sappy songs about an ex-girlfriend that you've lost (For guidance, check any Westlife song) (3) Strip naked while crying your hearts out in the middle of the rain for your first video (This is where those military-trained pecs and abs will come to use)

I don't usually check the Billboard Hot 100 Singles anymore other than just to find out who's number one. And even that is not very interesting anymore since the chart seems to be as dynamic as the Japanese Tea Ceremony. But today, when I took a quick check while expecting Beyoncé's not-quite-as-catchy-as-Dangerously-in-Love single to hold on to the top spot, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. James Blunt is actually at the top spot with two millions singles sold. That intrigued me to check the rest of the top 10 and there were even more surprises. Jamaican Sean Paul is at the third spot with his new single "Temperature," fellow Brit Natasha Bedingfield is at numéro ocho as she sells a million pieces of "Unwritten," and the most unbelievable surprise of them all is Cascada's "Everytime We Touch" at the last spot. I think I'm not the only one caught by surprise since the Billboard website itself doesn't have the single cover to go with the entry. Well, well, if this is the way things are going, yay for the American music industry!

Of course the rest of the chart are filled with the usuals, Beyoncé, Chris Brown, and Mary J Blige plus some more R&B crooners. But still... 2 Brit popsters, a Jamaican dancehaller, and a German trance group in the top 10? What next? A non-English song? Well, Macarena did happen...

One thing about DC that most people don't know about is that it has a sizable deaf population. Especially those of secondary education age. DC happens to host the only university in the world for the hearing-impaired, Gallaudet U. Obviously they take hearing students as well, but they'll need to be able to sign and understand ASL to follow the classes. I suppose that might be one of the reasons why the deaf population is quite large around here compared to other major cities in the States (or even the world for that matter).

As a self-declared armchair-linguist, I can't help staring at them signing... just like I can't help eavesdropping at people speaking in languages that I have no idea about. LOL, I hope I haven't offended anyone in the trains as I stared in fascination of the sign language.

Anyway, the main idea of the post is... tonight, in Chinatown, as I was having dinner, there were two groups of deaf kids. They're either highschool seniors or college freshmen. I suddenly came to a realization that for some reason, most of the deaf people I saw in DC were goodlooking and quite stylish as well. At least the ones that I saw looked like they could have come out from an H&M or Urban Outfitters catalog. Hmm... was it just my post-yoga hungry stomach playing tricks on me or does anyone notice it as well?