Archive for the 'movie' Category

30
Sep

Mama Mia!

By Adrian 0 Comments
Categories: movie and review

mama-mia-poster-3I went to watch Mama Mia! (movie website here) with a friend last Friday, and it practically blew us away. Here is my take on the movie.

The storyline:
20-year-old Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) lives with her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) on the small Greek island Kalkairi, where Donna runs a hotel called Villa Donna. Sophie is planning to marry Sky (Dominic Cooper), and wants her father to be present to “give her away,” but does not know who he is,. After reading Donna’s diary from 20 years ago, she concludes he is one of three men: Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth), or Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgård). Without telling her mother and fiancé, Sophie mails invitations to all three, and hopes to find out which is her father.

The movie continues with the quest of Sophie in finding out who her father is, and the struggle between Donna and her consciousness and the 3 men in her life.

My Thoughts:
Meryl Streep (You know, the actress that played the boss in The Evil Wears Prada, which I wrote about here) is a highly acclaimed Golden Globe Awards and Emmy Award winner, and the truth is, she will blow you away in Mama Mia! She gave a stellar performance and she could sing, and I do mean SING! During the scene where she was going to the altar while Sam (Pierce Brosnan) wanted to give Sophine away during the wedding, she started singing “The Winner Takes It All” and it was so powerful and touching that I think she did better than ABBA (sorry dudes, she’s really that good).

Pierce Brosnan, the still good looking actor, gave one good performance, but that’s acting wise. His singing is terrible and he is obviously the weakest link, so to speak, in the whole show. The moment he opened his mouth, I gasped at his singing, and then we started laughing. I had no idea how he got the role of Sam Carmichael as he got more singing role than the rest of the male crew.

Colin Firth, the actor that played Mark Darcy in Bridget Jone’s Diary, is surprisingly good in singing. I mean, in most of his films, he normally played those stiff and rigid characters, and in Mama Mia!, he played guitar (not sure if he does, but in the movie, he did) and he sang, and man, he could sing! Not spectacular, but at least way better than Pierce Brosnan.

Amanda Seyfried (wikipedia info) is an actress you most probably want to keep track of. She’s only 22, but she can act (still need some seasoning here as I think in certain scene, she overdone the character, and that was way too much acting until it wasn’t that natural). She definitely has the quality to be the next shinning star. She’s beautiful, sweet, and she has this big vocal that could blow anyone away.

My Conclusion:
I am not going to indulge much into the storyline as it is an adaption to the Mama Mia! Musical. But the performances of the actors and actresses were spectacular, and almost all of them can sing very well (note the keyword “almost”).

So will I recommend it to my reader? Well, I am going to watch it again tonight, so I guess that pretty much answer everything.

25
Aug

You Don’t Mess With Zohan

By Adrian 0 Comments
Categories: Entertainment and movie

During the weekend, I went to watch You Don’t Mess with Zohan with a group of friends. It was one of the most anticipated movie from Adam Sandler but I left the cinema unsatisfied and wanting for more.

First of all, Zohan is a really funny movie. But after some of his best (so far) like 50 First Dates, Spanglish, The Longest Yard, Click, Reign Over Me, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Zohan is a bit of a disappointment.

50 First Dates is just pure funny and yet romantic in a way. Spanglish (with the super yummy Paz Vega) is hilarious yet very meaningful, and Click, which has lots of meaning to it and it touched a lot of people’s heart and hilarious at the same time. Reign Over Me is not a comedy, I think, but it was one of the best Adamn Sandler’s performance that showcase how passing of a love one can affect a perfectly healthy person.

But Zohan is based on stupid-nonsense-erotic-cheap jokes where the director and the actors were playing cheap jokes on penises and boobs and vaginas. I mean, at the beginning it was damn funny, but towards the middle of the movie, I got tired of those cheap jokes and wonder where’s the usual depth in Sandler’s movies. Maybe, just maybe, I don’t get the issues about Palestine and Israel and the whole middle east, but I think I do know enough about their political situations that it wasn’t funny as Sandler portrayed it.

I am not going to go into details of the movie, as you can go to the various website or the official Zohan website (here) to get a glimpse of the movie or something because I don’t think I want to spend that time to write about something I didn’t really enjoy (well, to be fair and frank, I did enjoy the company of the friends very much).

Was it worth the RM10 for the movie admission?

There are two ways to look at it. If you are looking for the usual good stuff from Adam Sandler, then no, save that RM10 and buy back one of those older movies from Adam Sandler’s. But if you are bored and looking for cheap laugh, then yes, it will definitely worth that hard-earn RM10 of yours.

24
Jul

Red Cliff

By Adrian 4 Comments
Categories: movie and review

The other night I went to watch Red Cliff with a friend @ Pavillion (yet again).

If you are Chinese educated, you must have heard of “Battle of Red Cliff”. If you are English educated (or something else as long as its not Chinese), you can find out more from those translated story books because it is one of the best ancient Chinese stories around. Or you can simple go here for the Wiki documentation on the Battle of Red Cliff.

I am not going to bore you all with a 1,000 pages long Chinese literature, but I am going to share with you with my views about the movie. If you are interested in the synopsis, go to the Wiki page about the film to read about it.

Red Cliff is arguably one of the most important battles in ancient China that changed the history forever. So far, Red Cliff is one of the best Hong Kong production I had seen in years, if not the best. This is the first of the 2 parts installment for the complete story, and I can’t wait for the second part to come out.

The actors/actresses (except this Taiwanese girl/model. But she’s HOOOOOOT!) gave a splendid performance and the plot of the story is, well, off the book by some margin but it is understandable. Don’t be surprise if you know the story well and noticed that there were some major differences between the storybook and the movie. I guess John Woo, the director, had to edit some of the stories to make it more synchronized with the 2nd part of the movie. Also, who is their right mind would fit a 1,000 pages Chinese literature into a 4 hours movie? At least the crew and John Woo adhered to the major points of the story book.

On top of that, the setting, choreography and everything else was great (learn those terms from my production friend :)) and most importantly, even my English speaking friends (whom can’t understand a word of Chinese) enjoyed the movie as the plot was great, the strategies was awesome and the storyline was interesting.

I would definitely recommend it to everyone. Go watch it, because it is good!

03
Jun

Classic Indie MTV

By Adrian 0 Comments
Categories: jokes, movie and weird shit

Remember that I published some post about Indian movies? [You can read about the articles here]

Now, of all my bad reviews and jokes, nothing can beat this YouTube Indian MTV. It’s beyond classic, it’s beyond words, it’s beyond believe.

Watch it. Remember to turn on the sound (but not too loud, if you are working)

Let me know what you think.

22
Apr

P.S. I Love You

By Adrian 10 Comments
Categories: Entertainment, movie and review

P.S. I Love You is a so-called “chickflick”, but after watching it, I have to give it more credits than calling it a chickflick. I think it is more like drama and romance category movie, which is way better than being called chickflicks.

Sypnosis:
Holly (by Hilary Swank) and Gerry (Gerard Butler, whom also played King Leonidas in 300, which I wrote about here) met many years ago when Holly was on a holiday in Ireland, and they fell in love at first sight. Then they were married when they were both young, staying in New York, but they were constantly fighting because Holly had no idea what she wanted to do in life, so she kept changing job, bitching about idiot bosses while both of them struggling to buy an apartment of their own.

They were very much in love, but at the age of 35, Gerry passed away because of brain tumor. Holly clung on to anything related to Gerry and basically gave up her life. Later, she found out that Gerry bought her 30th birthday cake in advance, and the package contained a tape recorder, telling her that there will be 10 letters from him.

From that moment onwards, Holly became alive and anxious in anticipation of the letters, and lived by the instructions set out by the dead husband. She went to Ireland, the home country of Gerry, to visit the parents-in-law. She went to nightclub to celebrate as per instructed. She went to Karaoke as requested by Gerry.

Finally, the last letter came, and telling her to move on. The previous letters were sent by Gerry to help her to regain her life, to move on from his passing, and to be brave to fall in love again.

Likes:
- The real portray of how one deal with the passing of a love one. If you have experienced this before, you will understand, and reflect back, how on you dug out the drawers and cupboards to find that something to cling on to, and not giving up, afraid of forgetting how the love one feels like, sounds like, taste like, looks like, and etc.
- The plot is pretty good. In some movies, you can pretty much predict what will happen next. But in this one, it is sometimes throwing surprises to the viewers, not knowing what the dead husband will ask the widowed wife to do.

Dislikes:
- Hilary Swank. Don’t be mistaken that she is one hell of an actress, but somehow I just don’t see her in this character. Maybe she has a too strong figure, or she looked too darn fierce, but I think this movie will be much better if the leading actress is played by some one else, like Kate Blanchet, Kate Beckinsale, or even Jessica Alba.
- This is definitely spoiling the market for the men. I mean, a lot of female said, “Oh this guy is so romantic! How I wish my couch-potato husband would be a tad more romantic.” So girls, don’t start to expect us to the Gerry, but you can choose to see us as your Gerry.

Conclusion:
The movie is portraying a very real emotional turmoil of a person when loosing someone we love. In many scenes, the viewers can be touched and some can be reduced to tears. Hilary Swank is a great actress, but somehow she doesn’t fit into this role. Maybe its her men-like feature, her strong jawline, or something. I just think that someone with sweet face, like for example, Kate Beckinsale, or Jessica Alba, or Paz Vega. They would look more fragile and vulnerable than Hilary Swank. For that, I am only giving out 4 out of 5.

Afterthoughts:
Sometimes, even after one person passed away, or no longer with us (like a break-up), we can still feel the person being with us, watching us closely. Sometimes, we would talk to the air, but in our head, we can feel what that person would be saying because we know each other for so long and so well. In this movie, in many scenes, it is either a flashback or Holly was talking to her self, hugging herself while feeling that Gerry was holding her back. That’s very touching and very true of how one would feel.

I like the last letter that Gerry sent to Holly, and here is the transcript of the last letter. I hope that you will find it meaningful as I did.

Dear Holly,

I don’t have much time. I don’t mean literally, but you are out buying ice-cream and you’ll be home soon.

This is the last letter because there’s only one thing left to tell you. It isn’t to go down memory lane or go buy a lamp; you can take care of yourself without any help from me. It’s to tell you how much you moved me, how you changed me. You made me a man by loving me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

If you can promise me one thing, promise me that whenever you are sad, or unsure, or lose complete faith, that you will try and see yourself through my eyes.

Thank you for the honor for being my wife. I am a man with no regrets. How lucky am I. You made my life, Holly. But I am just one chapter in yours, and there will be more, I promise.

So here comes the big one; don’t be afraid to fall in love again. Watch out for that signal when life as you know it ends.

P.S., I will always love you.

And here is the official movie preview.

17
Dec

Movie Review: The Heartbreak Kid

By Adrian 2 Comments
Categories: Entertainment and movie

The movie The Heartbreak Kid is about 40 years old single, unmarried, sporting goods store owner Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller) met Lila (Milan Akerman) on the street mugging, days after being deeply embarrassed during his ex-fiancé’s wedding.

Merely days passed by and they met up again, and they launched into a quick romance. Everything was so fine, so perfect and things went so well that Eddie thinks Lila is The One but he still has reserve as he always has commitment issues.

Then Lila’s company is transferring her to some foreign country because the company’s policy is not to transfer married couple, Eddie made a hasty proposal to Lila,after being pressured by his dad and best friend Mac, so that she could stay in San Francisco and not going oversea for years on business.

Well, they tied the knot and they drove to Capo, Mexico, for their honeymoon. And this is where the disasters begin.

Eddie soon found out the many flaws of Lila, like the way she talks, the way she acts, her irritating behavior of twirling her finger on his nipple, her sordid past, her stubborn I-did-it-because-you-said-otherwise acts and many more.

Well, I don’t want to reveal too much on the hilarious act, so let’s just say that Lila got herself into serious skin problems after her stubbornness so she couldn’t leave the hotel room. Eddie went to the cafe to order food, and that’s where he met Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), a laid-back highschool teacher who is not only pretty but very down to earth, great sense of humor and has the same wavelength as Eddie.

Then Eddie fell in love with Miranda, while he’s on honeymoon with his newly wed wife whom was ill in the hotel honeymoon suite. So he tried to juggle his time around and stuff like that. Of course, a comedy won’t be a great one if the new wife and new girlfriend didn’t find out about the fact that he was cheating on his honeymoon / hitting on the girl on his honeymoon. So all hell broke loose.

Well, I won’t tell you how the movie ends. Let’s just say it is kind of a surprise and the ultra hot Eva Longoria made a special appearance at the end of the movie!

Overall, besides our censorship board constant itchy hands and stuff, this movie is worth your bucks when you are free and got nothing much left to watch (Of course, with I am Legend and Golden Compass out, The Hearbreak Kid won’t be so attracting anymore)

24
Oct

Bollywood Movie Blockbuster

By Adrian 2 Comments
Categories: Entertainment, movie and rants and raves

Last night I was watching TV (actually I wasn’t really watching because I was working on the laptop in front of the TV), and the Cantonese movie finished, so I flipped the channels (there weren’t many channels to start with as I do not subscribe to Astro, the satellite TV in Malaysia) until I reached TV3.

TV3 was showing an Indian flick.

Now, I generally don’t watch Indian flick because (a) I don’t understand the language, and the subtitles were normally in Malay, which in case if you don’t know, my Malay sucks big time, and (b) the storylines are generally sucks as they all looked the same to me.

Anyway, with nothing better to watch, I just left the TV on. I didn’t watch the stuff from the start, but I got the story line that a thief, one of the best, ran off to Brazil and the police from Mumbai went after him. And then the police used one of the hot-chicks to lure the thief into a trap so they could capture him red-handed once he has stolen something.

Okay, I got the story.

But what I didn’t get was why the heck was that when the thief met the policemen during a party, they just somehow started to sing and dance, and then the party-goers started to dance with them. I mean, it doesn’t make sense at all.

And then, when the police finally wanted to catch the thief, the thief ran off but made one phone call to the house where the police just barged in. Now on the next scene, the police was already chasing the thief with a helicopter. Then, when the thief was riding on the superbike and went into the tunnel, the helicopter landed and the two policemen stormed out from the helicopter on their very own superbikes. I mean, who in their right mind would ferry superbikes in a helicopter everywhere when they are actually chasing a thief? And how did the police tracked down the thief when the thief was riding the superbike in Brazil city?

Of course, there are mobile tracking system that they can basically check where are the caller called from based on the mobile number. But the director, or rather the script writer, decided to exclude this part. So there’s less logic behind this Indian flick. Okay, to be brutally honest, most of the movies nowadays do not offer much logic but at least they tried their best. But for a lot of the Indian flicks that I had watched? I don’t know, it just doesn’t make sense.

And this comes the best part. At the end there was a fighting scene and this is always my favorite because I got to see how they get the “punch” each other out. I mean, credit must be given to those actors when they were “punching” just inches away from each other, and that is not an easy feat. And the most difficult part is that the actor being punched will need to synchronize the move as if he was really hit by another dude. The best part is always that the camera captured all the move and it is clear that the fists are always few inches away, sometimes they will miss by a feet or so.

It was rather amusing to watch it. But I was mildly disappointed because gone was the tomato-sauce-add-pinch-of-water-like blood, or more horribly, the Ferrari-red-paint blood that they used to use. This time, the “blood” actually looked pretty much like, er… blood, in that movie.

Anyway, it is highly recommended that anyone feel bored should watch an Bollywood flick. It was fun and I enjoyed every moment of it, except that someone could just use a friggin’ English subtitle or something so I can understand the movie more.

24
Sep

Mr. Cinema

By Adrian 0 Comments
Categories: Entertainment and movie

l_p1004895219.jpg

Recently I just bought some pDVD from the trusted shops and one of the pDVDs were Mr. Cinema, played by Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Ronald Cheng Chung-Kei, and Karen Mok Man-Wai. Well, both Anthony Wong and Teresa Mo are the best actor/actress in their generation, so there is no doubt to question their acting. Karen Mok is good, but Ronald Cheng… Well, I have watched a few of his movies and to be honest, I hated them. That’s why I have doubts when I made the purchase, but Anthony Wong and Teresa Mo clearly outweight the doubts, and I am glad I didn’t put the pDVD back to its rack.

I won’t write about the story here. Instead, you can go here to know the story.

One thing for sure, Anthony Wong, Teresa Mo and Karen Mok delivered stellar performance in the movie. But the biggest surprise is Ronald Cheng. Overall, this movie is spelling “awards” all over so go ahead and buy it and I hope you will like it as much as I do (it is a Cantonese movie though, so if you don’t understand Cantonese, try to find those with English subtitles).

21046poster1.jpg

Also, I am not a big fan of Ronald Cheng’s songs. But after listening to the song at the closing, I felt in love with it and after much digging, I found the song name and I entrusted Baidu to search for the MP3. Unfortunately, all they have was the Mandarin version. I want the Cantonese version :(
Continue reading

21
Aug

Rumor Has It…

By Adrian 0 Comments
Categories: movie

Imagine a guy, a charming, handsome, successful, charismatic middle age guy, has fallen for you (of course now you got to imagine that you are a woman, if you are not one). He is the billionaire who can fly you to some place for breakfast, drive you around in a vintage car, and make the decision to invest USD 100 million in 2 seconds flat.

And you slept with him.

Now the twist of this is that he has slept with your grandmother years before you were born, and he has slept with your mother weeks before she was to marry your father-to-be as well. And now, almost 30 years later, you slept with this same guy.

This is the plot of the movie for Rumor Has It…

Or is it that simple? At first glance, it was that simple. Jennifer Aniston was on a hunt to find the this guy as she found out that her mother got a fling with a guy a week before the wedding, and she thought that guy was real father. She found him. This guy, played by Kevin Costner, was a successful internet billionaire whom started 3 IPO companies in 10 years, and she found out that this guy was sterile, the result of Blunt Testicular Trauma.

So it is obvious that this guy couldn’t be her father. But she has fallen for his charm, and slept with him.

The female of the family has an ill fate to fall for the same guy, and except on little sister that didn’t get to meet with this charming dude.

The plot of the movie seem simple, but it is actually offering more than that. It has a meaning, a good one, so I would recommend this movie to those who has time to spend.

12
Jul

Transformer

By Adrian 2 Comments
Categories: movie

I have only one comment for the movie Transformer.

You must watch it. I am planning to watch it the 2nd time, and I am going to buy the original DVD, and that will be the first time ever that I buy an original DVD.

16/07/2006 - Some of my friends watched Transformer for like 3 times. My girlfriend’s sister actually watched it 4 times. Mahai! I am still waiting for my turn to watch it the 2nd time.

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