THOMAS PODVIN’S FREELANCE WORK
Freelance writer - translator - Editor

Easy-listening music à la française might be considered a cure for insomnia, but Borel enlivens the mix with her Gallic wit. Featuring acoustic guitar, violin and flute, this release on the Taiwan-based label Hinote Records, just might win over fans in China. And why not? All things French appear to be quite trendy in the PRC these days. Schmaltz included. Indeed, Borel's "Oserai-je t'aimer?" ("Will I dare to love you?") surpasses Hélène's schmaltzy "Je m'appelle Hélène" in the cornball department. But for those of you with no grasp in the language of Molière, Borel's wordy romanticism matters not. A pity, because a close listen reveals more than wistful goo – at times, her lyrics equal those of the late, great Serge Gainsbourg. Indeed, Borel's collaborator, composer Jérémie Lefebvre, who also provides backing vocals on a few tracks sounds remarkably like Gainsbourg. And Borel herself displays the same caustic sense of humor on a number of cuts. Note: this CD contains one English-language track, a sensual cover of Madonna's "Get into the Groove" sung with heavy French accent. Mon Dieu!
Hinote Records

French version/version française
(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

Guanzhou Chief editor: Christopher Cottrell
December 2005 issue

Armed with a new contract with Capitol Records, Faith Evans makes a fresh start with this release. Evans is not a new face, of course; she's worked in the industry for a decade, first as a songwriter and backing vocalist with the famous and infamous (Mary J. Blige, Usher, Notorious B.I.G.), and later as a platinum-selling solo artist. On this, her fourth release, the 32-year-old Grammy winner, has written and arranged each of the 12 tracks and regained control of a career that had seemingly gone sour. In 2004, she was married (and divorced) to the late Notorious B.I.G and arrested on drug charges. Clearly, she's put all that behind her, and the title The First Lady speaks of self-confidence and dignity. The result is an album of her best songs to date, an exquisite collection of warm soul, R&B and funk, with hooks that will reel in the listener. Who says life doesn't offer a second chance?
EMI

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

This Swedish band of four, Caesars, formerly known as Caesars Palace, has been trying to revive 60s rock and retro garage for a decade now, dusting off the sounds of McCartney, Lennon, the Sonics, The Stooges and so forth. In large part, their success depends upon the degree of nostalgia one holds for this period. Listening to the Caesars certainly evokes a sense of déjà vu, though it is difficult to pinpoint the exact source of this queer feeling. The fuzz-box filtered vocals and the retro-psychedelic organ definitively sing of the 60's but there's an element of sound that suggests 'now'. Paper Tigers was mixed by sound engineer Michael Brauer (Coldplay, The Rolling Stones), adding a Brit touch to an already very English sound. Perhaps he's also responsible for the band's modern sound, so modern that Caesars' catchy "Jerk It Out" was sampled for an i-pod TV-commercial. This fourth album, supposedly their most mature, offers a number of potential hit singles, in spite of the fact that each track might have been in the top forty, forty years ago.
EMI

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

Guanzhou Chief editor: Christopher Cottrell
December 2005 issue

Whenever the former Monty Python alumnus and reigning eccentric of the British film industry directs a new project we can expect two hours of imaginative and entertaining fare. The Brothers Grimm is no exception; indeed, it is filled with more bizarre characters and surprising story developments than The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Brazil combined. The real Grimm Brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, were born in the eighteenth century Germany, and at age 20, began collecting and publishing European folktales, including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. The genius of Gilliam here isn't to adapt one of their tales, but to make a fairytale out of the brothers' lives, portraying them in their early years (before they began writing) as con artists, witch-hunters and collectors of odd objects (a red hood, a glass shoe…). All of which, of course, they will later use as source material for their book. Yet there's something missing in the film; it is amusing, at times even silly, but somehow the old Gilliam magic doesn't quite work.
MGM

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

While the English title is Just Friends, it translates literally as "I'd rather we stay friends" -- something you'd say to your partner just before you ditch her to return to the sweet and sour life of a celibate. Indeed, being single is the central theme of this bitter-sweet, urban comedy set in Paris -- the world's most romantic city? The plot centers on two characters, Claude (Jean-Paul Rouve), who hasn't been involved into a steady relationship for some years, and Serge (Gérard Depardieu), who flirts at wedding parties in the belief that 56 per cent of married men meet their wives at such an event, ignoring the fact that in Paris, two out of three marriages end in divorce. Serge is a statistician, not the type who lets fate decide his future. Rather, in his quest to meet his mate, he attends speed dating sessions, group therapy and matrimonial agencies and cunningly involves Claude in the process. Directors Nakache and Toledano show Paris as never before, and reveal the male ego in the funniest fashion possible. Just Friends was nominated for the Golden Goblet at the 2005 Shanghai International Film Festival.
Mars Distribution

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

If you're a baby boomer, then the 1960s TV series Bewitched surely counts as a childhood favorite. Remember the witch Samantha Stephens twitching her nose to cast a spell? Created in 1964, the lighthearted comedy series aired for eight years on ABC – much longer if you include re-runs. In this big screen version, director/scriptwriter Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail) scratched her head and came up with a totally different story. Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman) is an ingénue witch who wants to lead a normal human life – whatever that is. She's cast as the lead for a remake of the TV-series Bewitched opposite has-been actor Jack Wyatt. Somehow this version ended up a messy mixture of reality (within the movie) and fiction. Ephron has stretched the movie concept (a remake within the remake) for more than 100 minutes that lack pace and timing – key ingredients for a successful comedy. Those viewers unacquainted with the TV-series will be left wondering what all the fuss is about. Fortunately, Kidman, more radiant than ever, doesn't need a magic spell to make this flick look cute.
Sony Pictures

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

An airplane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. From then on, it's clear that Lost is surfing on 9/11 sediment – an adrenaline rush that terrorizes without respite. Forty-seven passengers survive the crash and soon embark on a crash course on – what else? – survival. Of course, that doesn't leave any time over for wondering why they crashed, but no matter. The environment is hostile, à la Survivor, and this is actually the show's appeal: reality TV never looked so good. For character development (and to avoid the boring and repetitive sets that eventually sank Gilligan's Island) viewers are offered convenient flashbacks that poke into the survivor's past. If the concept sounds intriguing, well, sad to say, it's ruined in part by cheap gimmicks (music video sequences) which intrude upon and destroy the suspense. The series also suffers from the Matrix syndrome – as the episodes mount up the viewer becomes lost and frustrated by an increasingly convoluted plot. Too many questions are asked and very few answers are given. Our advice, watch this multiple Emmy-Award winner if you must, but don't watch too many episodes in a row.
Touchstone Television

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

"When your city is no longer your city, history can turn the right man to the wrong choice." With its opening sentence, Everlasting Regret hooks the viewer and for the next 115 minutes never lets go. And what a history it is, though the quote is misleading. This is a woman's tale set in Shanghai over a 40 year period, a period of marvelous historical change. Hong-Kong singer/actress Sammi Cheng plays Wang Qiyao, in her best role to date, taking her from a young beauty-pageant winner in the glamorous 1940s to her days as a simple housewife and mother in the post-Mao area. Released in the Chinese mainland as To Live, To Love, the film is based on Wang Anyi's Changhen Ge, an influential, award-winning novel written in the 1990s. Both the movie and the book shine with nostalgia. In the film the city's past is wonderfully recreated by Hong-Kong director Stanley Kwan and production designer William Chang (in large part responsible for the beauty in films by Wong Kar-wai). Everlasting Regret is influenced by both Wong's In the Mood for Love and Zhang Yimou's To Live, but in the end it is a work that stands on its own, an exquisite and bitter tale of a woman, that like Shanghai itself, is like no other.
Shanghai Film Studios

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

In this sequel to 1998's The Mask of Zorro – a vehicle for Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones – little remains of the original legend of Zorro but the title. Zorro was a California folk hero, a noble, yet modest, man who fought against injustice. Johnston McCulley first introduced the character in a serialized story The Curse of Capistrano in 1919. A number of TV-series and films have related his adventures since, including the notable 1957-59 TV-series Walt Disney's Zorro and the 1975 feature film Zorro, starring Alain Delon.
In this version, Zorro is full of himself: macho, arrogant and selfish. As such, Banderas is more exasperating than ever. What's more, the attempts to modernize the myth, however admirable, fall victim to just about every cliché and obvious emotional triggers imaginable. Of course this spoils the pace of an already very long adventure (2:10). Clearly, this movie is aimed at the youth market, full, as it is with too broad humor, a far too predictable plot with childish subplots, a showy hero, a cardboard baddy and overly-theatrical, unrealistic swordplay. Fun for the kiddies, maybe, but no laughing matter for adults.
Columbia Pictures

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

It's been 100 years since China's first film, The Battle of Dingjunshan, essentially a recording of a Chinese opera performance, appeared on the silver screen. In the decades since, the medium has had its share of difficult times, but there is much to celebrate. Tributes have been extensively organized in China and the rest of the world; the 62nd Venice International Film Festival, for instance, opened and closed with contemporary Chinese movies and featured a retrospective of classic Chinese films. And in October this year, the City University of New York organized an international symposium and a retrospective of more than 30 Chinese movies. Professor Ying Zhu, who teaches cinema studies in New York, coordinated the event. The Shanghai-born expatriate, author of Chinese Cinema during the Era of Reform, offered that's a short history of Chinese cinema.

that's: How would you describe the evolution of Chinese cinema?
Ying Zhu: Tumultuous, yet inspiring.

that's: What are the most important periods in Chinese film history?
YZ: Chinese films are divided into six generations. The first generation was the pioneers of Chinese cinema, such as Zhang Shichuan (Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, 1928) and Zheng Zhenqiu (Orphan Rescues Grandfather, 1923). The second generation includes 1930s/1940s left-wing filmmakers who cultivated a realist tradition blending Classical Hollywood with the tradition of Chinese performing arts (Wu Yonggang's Goddess, 1934). The third generation consists of both the second-generation disciples such as Xie Jin (Two Stage Sisters, 1964) and the self-taught left-wing filmmakers of the 1940s.
The fourth generation was the first generation of professional filmmakers, including Wu Yigong­ (My Memories of Old Beijing, 1983). They received formal film training in the late 1950s, early 1960s, under the socialist educational system. The fifth refers specifically to the 1982 graduating class of the Beijing Film Academy and includes Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou; famous for making experimental art films in the early to mid-1980s, they challenged the socialist-realist tradition. Finally, the sixth generation is a group of internationally-known young filmmakers from urban centers who appeared during the post-Mao era (Jia Zhangke with Platform, 2000).

that's: How would you describe the Golden Age?
YZ:Historically, there were two 'Golden Ages', the pre-war 1930s and the post-war 1940s. In the pre-war phase, the emergence of the leftist Lianhua Company revived national cinema and successfully pushed for the industry's early institutional restructuring. Leftist films achieved an astonishing critical and popular success with many classic movies (Street Angel and Crossroads). The post-war phase (1946-9) witnessed an output of films of artistic quality and popular appeal despite ideological divisions (Long Live the Mistress and Crows and Sparrows).

that's: And more recently?
YZ:The arrival of Chinese cinema's Art Wave/New Wave in the early to mid-1980s is certainly a "Golden Age" with the Chinese fifth generation films creating critical splashes all over the world. From the mid-1980s until the early 2000s, the Chinese film industry entered a recession. Several factors contributed to this downturn, including privatization of film infrastructure and competition with cable TV, video and Hollywood films.
However in 2004, for the first time in decades, China produced more than 200 movies and the total industry revenue increased by 66 per cent to nearly USD 435 million. Domestic film production, distribution and exhibition fields benefiting from new government regulations have permitted private and overseas investment in the cash-starved industry. Most significantly, domestic Chinese film receipts exceeded those from foreign films for the first time since 1994. Feng Xiaogang's A World Without Thieves and Stephen Chow's Kung-Fu Hustle earned handsome profits. Despite relatively small film output and rampant piracy, Chinese cinema looks to be at the dawn of yet another Golden Age.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2005 issue

Shanghai, PRC, monthly
Lifestyle magazine
Art, food, fashion, entertainment, travel

Pages: 174
Managing Editor: Steven Crane
Publisher: China Intercontinental Press
Distribution copies: 50,000 (changed to 60,000 as of Oct 2007)
Description: English speaking locals and foreigners alike look to that’s Shanghai to keep up with what’s happening in this dynamic city. that’s Shanghai is recognized for it’s perceptive feature articles, and as a superior source for the latest news in Art, Entertainment, Night Life, Wining and Dining, International and Local Travel, Fashion, Music, Media, Sports, Education, Lifestyle, etc. that’s Shanghai readers are affluent professionals, well educated, active, and cultured.

My contribution (monthly):
-reviews (Music, cinema, Books, websites) 150-180 words
-features: article or exclusive interviews 1450-1800 words
-columns: (music, cinema, books) 300-650 words

Contact:
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Find all that's Shanghai articles

Richard Meyer’s biography of Ruan Lingyu is the first text in English devoted to China’s most famous film-star of the silent era. By the time of her death in 1935 China’s ‘Greta Garbo’ had crammed a remarkable number of 29 films into just 24 years. Ruan specialized in portraying ill-fated characters, most notably The Goddess, in which she played a single mother who turns to prostitution to support her son. As Meyer points out, Ruan’s own life was far from savory. One married lover whittled away her money in gambling dens; another, a violent tea merchant, refused to marry her.
After her suicide in 1935, she became a symbol for women’s liberation and the denunciation of China’s feudal society. Meyer succeeds in painting a portrait of Ruan against the backdrop of the era in which she lived and worked. A good primer for anyone interested in this remarkable actress from a long lost era.
Hong-Kong University Press
Available at www.hkupress.org & www.amazon.com

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
November 2005 issue

Poet Ruth Padel’s remarkable travelogue blends prose with a personal diary, poems, lists and maps. It plays on so many angles that it’s sometimes hard to figure out whether it’s an awareness raising book or a tiger enthusiast’s private diary. Padel’s journey through 11 Asian countries begins in Kerala, India and takes in the forests of Siberia, the hermit Kingdom of Bhutan and the jungles of Sumatra. Central to her journey is her quest for tigers, an endangered species which has captured mankind’s imagination throughout the ages. Padel’s descriptions of her excursions in search of Panthera tigris are both captivating and educational. Not since Sandy Balfour’s Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose has an author so deftly weaved a personal memoir with a leitmotif (crosswords in Balfour’s case, tigers for Padel).
Time Warner Book Group UK

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
November 2005 issue

Classical music is often regarded by the young generation as outdated and dusty. Well, they should listen to multi-platinum British soprano Sarah Brightman. This classical collection assembles an accessible list of tracks culled from her albums Eden and La Luna. Brightman proves that, if smartly produced, time-defying tunes like “Ave Maria” or “Serenade” will appeal to all generations. Indeed, classical melodies are brilliantly and tastefully re-orchestrated with modern beats and arrangements that cater to today’s tastes. Classics proves that any form of music, if well packaged, can be mass marketed, though purists will probably be appalled.
EMI

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
November 2005 issue

Rap’s a very polymorphic music genre. It ranges from raw and minimalist, to well-polished more complex forms, from tunes sung by kids in suburb streets, to ferocious gangsta rap, to songs spit out by young yuppies from downtown. This release is another kind, the very first rap album in Shanghainese. Not only well produced - signed by Sony-BMG after all – it’s also enjoyable at first contact even for those not grasping the subtleties of the Shanghai dialect. Heavy bass, plenty of swear words, cool female vocals and catchy choruses – with odd English bits – Shanghai Rap features an array of talented and young local artists, Bamboo Crew, Blakk Bubble, Pimp Q et al. Heavily influenced by the North-American Mcs (Eminem, DR.Dre, 50cent and the likes), many Shanghai artists copy their styles or sometimes even sample their tunes, yet still manage to deliver sweet, pop-ish rap. It may not be gangsta-style, but its home-style at least.
Sony-BMG
Available at http://shanghaining.com/features/SHrap/


(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
November 2005 issue