fright night (2011). directed by craig gillespie.

two weeks ago i watched a stupid non-gore, non-horror fest in final destination 5. thank goodness fright night is a much better movie. colin farrell CAN act, and deliciously devilish too. it has just enough gore and suspense so i quite enjoyed it. 

final destination 5 (2011). directed by steven quale.

my first final destination movie. ever. my first 3D movie too. this movie is horrendously bad. even the gore is bad. no redeeming feature whatsoever. 

the other woman (2009) (love and other impossible pursuits (original title)). directed by don roos.

hollywood always go for easy endings. or cheesy endings. and easy story line that doesn't hurt the brain. i remember watching step mom (1998) and shuddered at the eventual reconciliation. 

may be it happens in real life. may be. though i think not often. 

the characters in this movie are real people who are pissed off when a husband left her for a much younger woman and she is hell bent to make the other woman pay for it. great performance by scott cohen, natalie portman and lisa kudrow. i especially liked the complexity of portman's emilia greenleaf - the confident young woman who underestimated the nature of being a sudden mother, while battling her own childhood demons of her broken family. the movie has no happy ending, which i liked better, but in the end, everyone grows up. 

that's the point, after all. 

invictus (2009). directed by clint eastwood.

i cried buckets, ok. really, you don't want to let down a man who has gone to jail for you, for your country. i think harimau malaya should watch this. and it got me started to read on nelson mandela. 

eastwood keeps churning great movies at his age. i hope he'll have many years down the road to save me something worthwhile to watch. bravo!

i am number four (2011). directed by d.j. caruso.

the flight to houston from dubai took 16 long, tiring hours in which one has very little space to move. i for one can not for the life of me sleep on a plane. i don't know why. it took 21 hours to get from kl to houston and i failed to get a minute worth of wink. i ended up watching seven movies, back to back. 

this is one of them. 

first of all, i read a really bad review from roger ebert. i decided not to watch it when i was back home in kl. my brother the movie demi-god then said to me that ebert has gone bonkers and no longer reviews movies objectively, and he mentioned, how bad d.j. caruso can get. i've seen one of his earlier movies, the salton sea (2002) and really liked it. so i thought, on the plane where everyone was sleeping soundly, what the heck i am going to give this a watch. timothy "the body" olyphant was in it too - how bad can it be, right?

bad. purely because i am no longer 25 and don't enjoy stories like that - hold on, is there a story at all? i am not going to elaborate further. other than it passed my time on the plane and it could not make me sleep.  

crazy, stupid, love (2011). directed by glenn ficarra and john requa.

crazy? stupid? love?

more like stupid, actually. i wouldn't have watched this movie if not for ryan gosling and his glorious slender body. and the fact he fits seamlessly into that tight fitting suit that could burst any time out of sheer sexiness. this guy really carries it. he's like megan fox, the male version. 

so i endured. despite the bad, if not cliched story line of infidelity and havoc concerning everyone living within the 2 miles radius of cal and emily. seriously i expect more from a movie starring ryan gosling, julianne moore and kevin bacon. the climax consists of everyone ruining the vowing-again party cal throws for his estranged wife moore - i am shocked that it was a tired version of mozart's finale of the marriage of figaro. come on people, mozart had been dead for more than 220 years ago, can't you come up with anything remotely original? 

my first movie in the states, though. i like the movie theater. it was spacey and the seats were good and no one talked or played with their phones. it's like being in a different planet.