a bittersweet life (2005) (dalkomhan insaeng (original title)). directed by jee-woon kim.

after watching such a breathtaking direction and intense acting as in this film, i often wonder, will we ever get there? kim soon-woo is a thug who is loyal to the bone to his sadistic boss. one day, the boss offered him to look after his young girlfriend as he is going to be away on a business trip. kim is shy and appears to have no life outside managing nightclubs and beating people to a pulp. little did he know that the 2 days errand of watching over a young girl would make him question the price of his loyalty and set off an catastrophic chain of events that will kill them all. it could have been simpler, had ego and jealousy; the beasts of the human heart, could be tamed. alas. 

the beautiful thing about this film are the subtleties - the direction, the acting. it makes me understand without telling me directly. it respects its audience because we are all human, and despite barriers in language and culture, the human heart is the thing that all of us share. 

redbelt (2008). directed by david mamet.

great movie. mamet didn't disappoint and chiwetel ejiofor of kinky boots (2005) fame delivers one of life's biggest ironies - how do one stay true to oneself and vocation in a world hell bent to be wrong.  

scoop (2006). directed by woody allen.

i can stand anything with hugh jackman in it. and i can stand woody allen movies so long he's not in it. unfortunately woody decided to star in his own film in his characteristically annoying manner. i also enjoy the fact that scarlett johansson looked very plain in this movie. 

the king's speech (2010). directed by tom hooper.

i caught up with a lot movies on my flight back from khartoum. the king's speech, the social network, the fighter and all good things. with the exception of the fighter and the social network, the other two movies are best described as about individuals who benefit from bad parenting. now benefit doesn't seem like the right word to use. damage is the word, perhaps. damage by unrealistic expectations, discouraging remarks, the constant putting down and difficulty in showing love.

parenting isn't about making adults out of children. parenting is about growing children into confident, humane adults. else they won't grow as a person, they merely become older and live in adult bodies, but really the frightened child they have always been.

you gotta show your little ones all the love you have for them in this world. 

this film is gorgeous, beautifully shot and graced by a very able-d cast. i like helena bonham-carter who brings so much strength to the movie in a very restraint manner. 

a golden rule. less is more. 

the fighter (2010). directed by david o. russell.

i know christian bale walked off with the best supporting actor oscar, but my surprise-good-acting-award goes to amy adams.

all good things (2010). directed by andrew jarecki.

i like kirsten dunst in this movie. this film has a documentary feel to it, unlike the drama and exaggerations in the social network (2010) and the king's speech (2010). that's the point of movies, to make life larger than life.

i like the first 16 minutes of this movie, before it turned into a world of total nightmare. the movie is not that bad that the word nightmarish is used - but - how things could change in a blink of an eye. 

the social network (2010). directed by david fincher.

 Marylin Delpy: [Last Lines] You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be. 

the lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring (2001). directed by peter jackson.

Bilbo: [voice] It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no telling where you might be swept off to.

what a movie. it's 10 years old, this year. 

tell no one (2006) (ne le dis à personne (original title)). directed by guillaume canet.

french movie with hollywood direction. it works, and it will strings your heart hard because it is a love story, amidst the veneer of thriller and hectic run-arounds and whodunnit. how would you feel if you are made to believe that your other half is dead, and your other half is made to believe that you are dead?

you would want to know the truth. 

stay (2005). directed by marc forster.

honestly, i was blown by this movie. blown at how effortlessly good it is. i wished i had seen it earlier, and since in my home we are having a ryan gosling marathon (my film critic siblings and i, 6 of us so that's a lot of opposite opinions) my brother offered to show this movie from his collection. 

wow. the kind of cinematography i see in photographs being put in moving pictures is just exhilarating. seriously i've never seen anyone do this, not even david lynch or guillermo del toro. i love the seemless transitions between scenes (i saw a bit of such transitions being applied in sliding doors (1998)), the details, the effortless acting that makes the movie flow despite the audience being presented with contradictions one after another.

dreams, or the last seconds in our lives, that fleeting moment before the lights go out, when that is all the time we have to make sense of our lives. this is not a must watch, rather, a-please-watch. it is so good.

i am pleased that hollywood still makes movies like this, in between the litter of action crap  and unfunny romantic comedies we are being bombarded with everyday. 

snatch (2000). directed by guy ritchie.

first of all, thank god for putting quentin tarantino and guy ritchie here on earth. we need film makers who make their own genres undefined by other people. unconstrained. i watched this movie many, many years ago and had the chance for a re-watch last week, my god, it was as funnily crazy as the first time i watched it. how great is that. hail to the master of losers-finish-last-but-will-definitely-win!

watch out for brad pitt as the pikey who speaks incomprehensible english. i always thought pitt is naturally funny. 

pineapple express (2008). directed by david gordon green.

 james franco was definitely high during the oscars because that's what he looks like in this movie. i can't tell you how crazily funny this movie is because it will knock your socks off because that kind of antics can only come about by people who are high and the stoned drug dealers they hang out with. a must watch. 

possession (2009). directed by joel bergvall and simon sandquist.

i wrote about this last week however it got deleted as blogger server was down due to reasons unknown. let me rehash this quickly. i watched this movie because i have a thing for lee pace. he looks british, sounds vaguely british but isn't british. hotness scale - yeah that's hot to me. i like actors with good mannerism that works well in dramas. however this movie offer neither scope for mannerism-demanding-acting nor it is a drama. it is not a thriller. it is lazy. plot-wise, the film is similar to birth (2004) starring nicole kidman and danny huston. the difference between birth and this movie is that it seemed the people in birth were serious about their silly predicament and the camera work was nice and luxurious, which can't be said about possession. the dead-coming-back-to-life-via-another-body is probably an overused idea by now, and this film should have a tighter editing and sarah michelle gellar's character need to be more involved than just pouts as a way of showing emotions. 

blue valentine (2010). directed by derek cianfrance.

blogger must have a server outrage or something because they were down today and i could not recover two posts that i wrote yesterday. ah never mind, just my luck.

anyhow, i found an alternative view of the film blue valentine (2010) from imdb.com

I came away from this film more wary of love and relationships than any film I've ever seen. You look at Dean's character (Gosling's best role to-date) and wonder what it is that he did wrong. He fell for a beautiful, young woman (Williams), stepped-up to care for her and her yet-unborn daughter, and shifted his life to focus entirely on being a good husband and father. He was so charming in his interactions with his daughter, and was also loving towards his wife enduring more rejection from her than most could, trying to breathe love back into the relationship. Even his outbursts seemed attempts to give her what she wanted.

So many reviews talk about this being a story of falling in and out of love. My response is surely subjective, but I don't feel Cindy ever loved Dean. She was desperate, pregnant and facing life as a young parent, and Dean was there to hold her. As a mother and wife, I found her to be unlikeable and selfish, cold and unloving. Cindy was probably not intentionally manipulative, but from her initial reluctance to tell Dean about her pregnancy, to her secrecy around her job offer or the encounter in the grocery store, these are all subtle manipulations and lies, hiding the truth (and her true self) from Dean.

I heard the director say he was sympathetic to both characters. Any sympathy I had for Cindy as a young woman caught in a relationship and family she did not hope for was overshadowed by the fact that she made the choices that led her there, and dragged others in with her. I did not sense any growth in her character to indicate she'd move on to create a brighter future for herself and Frankie.

Dean, on the other hand, was a good person, eager to love, and all-too-willing to devote his life to Cindy and daughter Frankie (a sparse, but strong, performance by Faith Wladyka), and in the end, he's left with a broken heart and a broken home. I'd love to feel he's better-off without Cindy, if only it weren't so heartbreakingly clear that he loves her and her daughter immensely. 

To me, the film served as a warning in love to be careful where you put your energy.

gone baby gone (2007). directed by ben affleck.

my brother had been egging me to watch this movie, since i think last year. i resisted. actors turned directors? ok i give credit to clint eastwood but can't say much for the rest, though i like nick cassavates' works. this is ben affleck's directorial debut, directing this brother casey affleck as the (anti)hero patrick kenzie. the movie is based on a dennis lehane's novel, the same guy who wrote shutter island (2010) and numerous other succesful book-to-movie adaptations. 

boy, for someone who doesn't expect much, i am impressed with ben affleck the director. he has a great material in hand, makes full use of it, and has the eye for directing. and the casting is top notch - morgan freeman, michelle monaghan, ed harris and titus welliver in the supporting roles.

lately i have been watching movies about people who has an unweilding sense of right and wrong. my brother calls such characters as "humphrey-bogart-in-the maltese falcon (1941)" . it is not necessarily about being just, but about being right. in this movie, patrick kenzie is a small time private detective who becomes involved in a missing child's case that turned out to be more complicated than just a junkie mother, a dead drug lord, a concerned relative and seemingly dirty cops. while his sense of purpose is unchanged and that he must save the girl at all costs, the choices he makes by the end of the movie makes me question - what is the point of all that purpose and integrity and intelligence if it is only to prove one point - that he is right? 

to me, it is useless. being right doesn't change anything especially when it comes to the well being of a child, who depends on others to take care of them. adults should suffer for their wrong doings should they come due, but not kids.

like all good things, great movies trigger the audience to think.

memories of murder (2003) (salinui chueok (original title)) . directed by joon-ho bong.

i am not into feminine korean guys, k-pop parties and full house. just so you know. in the midst of all that fluff, i must say that the korean film industry is thriving and progessive having produced films, which at times, surpass that of hollywood.

this is one of them. great actors, sublime direction, subtle acting, expressive cinematography that captures the korea in mid-1980's - squeky clean while trying to keep it together despite the emergency drills and bombs landing on one's home.

which gave one sick motherfucker the perfect timing to murder women walking home alone - bound them hand and feet, their panties changed anatomy to their heads and the final act of humiliation - stuffing cut fruits in their vaginas.

i feel sick. it happened, though. a must watch. bilalah kita nak pandai buat cerita mcm ni?

shutter island (2010). directed by martin scorsese.

some people i just do not find watchable especially when they are bankable megastars and have a film out every year. it's them, again, and again, and again. boring is an understatement. unfortunately, for the talented leonardo dicaprio, is exactly that in my book. 

however shutter island is full of twists and turns worth the amount of frowning dicaprio was aiming for in the movie. i like the sombre mood, the gray colours, the perpetual rain, the word play. and i like the tortured dicaprio forever falling down for not ever wanting to let go. memory, is indeed, a hateful thing.

i am going to be up all night downloading mahler, for free. tonnes of them are available at 4shared.com. this movie introduces me to mahler's melancholic quartet in a minor. a sorrowful song to a sorrowful story of a man in war with no other but himself.

blue valentine (2010). directed by derek cianfrance.

Dean: I feel like men are more romantic than women. When we get married we marry, like, one girl, 'cause we're resistant the whole way until we meet one girl and we think I'd be an idiot if I didn't marry this girl she's so great. But it seems like girls get to a place where they just kinda pick the best option... 'Oh he's got a good job.' I mean they spend their whole life looking for Prince Charming and then they marry the guy who's got a good job and is gonna stick around.

i like this kind of movie. a movie that tells a story, because a movie is not about showing events like power point slides. and i watched like a bystander how two poor souls yearned for love, found it, lived it, only to lose it. 

how do you lose the connection you once had? or thought you had? was it just a dream? the film is surreal, the only reality is now, the eventual break up. but the past, the sweet young things they once were - even to them it sounded like a dream, fleeting to be true.

i read reviews offering explanations for the disaster waiting to happen, how different they were, how unambitious and a simple guy he is, how she resents being denied of her dreams for a marriage and the child she didn't plan to have, the endless hows. i am only sorry for one thing by the time the curtain drew to a close - how they didn't try harder, and chose to give up.

top notched acting by michelle williams and ryan gosling. this guy is definitely filling bigger shoes, a long way from the scrawny wannabe i saw in hercules (1999).