quantum of solace (2008). directed by marc forster.

my brother said bond is too dark in this film. why not? he was angry and wanted to vent out. the single mindedness of it makes the character rebellious is definitely more interesting than someone who toes the line after his mother figure boss orders a shot on him. 

please. 

ok the water theft plot is more pierce brosnan than daniel craig, but i like that the movie is engaging and has a good pace. while it is all personal, it's not melodramatic. 

casino royale (2006). directed by martin campbell.

of the three bond movies with daniel craig so far, i must say i liked this one the most. it's balanced in every way, which makes me failed to understand what is so great about skyfall (2012) that people hailed it as the best bond movie ever. ever? too much compliment misplaced. 

the hobbit: an unexpected journey (2012). directed by peter jackson.

good movie, but not as good as the lord of the rings trilogy (2001-2003). some scenes are way too long for its own good that it shifted the focus of the movie. by the time the credit rolled, i was surprised that there will be a part two and three. darn, no wonder it felt so long. 

the woman in black (2012). directed by james watkins.

this story is actually not bad. not a fan of daniel radcliffe (i am too old for harry potter), he doesn't look as clueless as keanu reeves, still, the amount of expressions he could muster for this movie works just fine. it's pretty scary too, as most horror movies opted the violence route so seeing something old fashion like this instill my faith that hollywood hasn't lost it altogether.

sangam (1964). directed by raj kapoor.

it is my ritual that i watched this movie every deepavali. not that i liked the story, but i love the songs. hindi have never sound so good as the songs in this film. my father gets emotional about this movie, because love triangles to him are unnecessary and annoying. why did gopal gave up radha for sunder? why couldn't sunder just left gopal alone and concentrate on married life? why didn't radha destroyed her old love letters only to drive sunder crazy over it?

questions, questions. 

i said aloud, i think there is latent homosexuality between the two. honestly, both of them could do without radha. what they want is each other. LOL. 

skyfall (2012). directed by sam mendes.

i won't iterate the story here because i am sure pretty much everyone had already watched this movie. what i am missing is, how is it that it got hailed as the best bond movie ever? why? is it because people haven't seen much of javier bardem? talking to my brothers about it, they opined that this movie is in between casino royale (2006) and quantum of solace (2008). they don't like the fact that bond is no longer rebellious and willing to sacrifice for queen and country (especially the after fact that MI6 tried to burn him..well never mind). i just find the story straight forward, nothing special really. the action sequences is..err..too much at times. trains destroying tunnels and helicopters crashing into gothic houses are the stuff that could only make one person proud, and that is micheal bay. 

having watched all three movies, i actually liked quantum of solace (2008) better than this movie. 

sarah's key (2010). directed by gilles paquet-brenner.

a little girl locked her little brother in a closet when anti-jews french police force were raiding homes of jewish families. she didn't know that she'll be leaving the little boy for a long time. this is her story of trying to get back to him, predictably to meet with eventual heartbreak. honestly it's totally fucked up, what has happened, and it makes you wonder why the war in gaza is just another day in life. 

silent hill (2006). directed by christophe gans.

horror movie marathon indeed. and this slightly dated film is better than sinister (2012) that i watched yesterday. yeah it was based on a video game, but it has a better story line and make attempts to explains the strange occurrence in silent hill. violence is liberally applied, but it has an interesting visual style and i like the costumes [of the monsters] in the movie. 

my brother said this is one of the better horror movie that he had watched and looking forward to the sequel which will be showing in KL next week. i am not a big fan of violence, i will probably stay off it. 

margaret (2011). directed by kenneth lonergan.

i am a fan of lonergan's works. remember you can count on me (2000) which is heartwarming without being cliche and idiotic which can be challenging to find. the fact that this movie is mostly carried alone by anna paquin as the fast talking teenager who thinks what she feels matters to the world only to find out that she is well on her way to learn why cynicism is the only armour to survive this world when one is older.  not that adults do not care, or young people is more in touch with their feelings, or that sensitivity is lost by age, but this world has this kind of crushing feeling to it if you don't pick your battles carefully. it's survival instinct. 

sinister (2012). directed scott derrickson.

the background to the ghost story is weak. perhaps no explanation is needed in that aspect, but when i think of horror movies that i admire, there must be something that needs to be understood behind all that skin crawling experience. the substitute to a good plot is violence  and in this movie, there is plenty of it that had me screaming due to the sheer amount of massacre committed by children no less. 

i understand sometimes things are senseless, but this one is just sense-less. 

taken 2 (2012). directed by olivier megaton.

megaton it is not. taken i am not. a very poor version that tries to imitate the first movie. how sad is that?

life as we know it (2010). directed by greg berlanti.

what a waste of money. so many rehashed version of this story proves that it is extremely banal no matter the kind of angle you try to twist it because you just can't. i watched this last sunday i ended up running a list of movies that has this plot..really..this monstrosity has got to stop. 

the kids are all right (2010). directed by lisa cholodenko.

i quite like cholodenko's work, in particular high art (1998) and laurel canyon (2002). this movie has laurel's potential, the whole superficially-everything-is-ok-but-not-really BUT it is not actually as good as laurel. i find the story..hmm..how should one put it. i find the story flat. yeah you have a lesbian couple who has half sibling children looking for the donor dad. the one of the partners slept with the donor dad out of the usual relationship boredom. it could have been interesting, domestic unrest, like in we don't live here anymore (2004), but this movie brings nothing new to the table. 

painted skin: the resurrection (2012). directed by wuershan.

there's some interesting visual style, but the story is erratic. the story telling is not interesting enough and i don't find the actors compelling. feels like watching those crap malay movies i just can't get my head around. 

man on the moon (1999). directed by milos forman.

we were tossing between lars von trier's antichrist (2009) and this film. my brother promised to pass von trier's film as he said that movie is no-no for family viewing.  

man on the moon is not an easy viewing either. not that i expected anything vanilla, but still, if not for milos forman (amadeus (1984), one flew over the cuckoo's nest (1975)), it could be more incoherent. 

it is because of the subject matter - the chameleon-like-but-not-really-funny andy kaufman? his kind of funnies is not really funny in the strictest sense - i am no comedian because he seems to have a cult following - the kind of hoaxes he did challenges what funny means - and what matters is that he finds them funny, it doesn't have to be everyone's cup of tea. 

or, it is due to the story telling the story adopts? it is not as linear as the life and death of peter sellers (2004) as we were shown various facets of seller's life - as the gifted immature selfish comedian to the immature selfish son and husband that he was. there's not a lot of air time for andy kaufman as a person outside his comedian role, perhaps not enough his known about his personal life, or that he wears his role outside his professional life. 

my brother, my gf and i were weirded out of our wits. may be that's the whole point - the guy is baffling and there is no keeping up with him. 

the help (2011). directed by tate taylor.

think of mean girls (2004) 60's style. these women are bitchy. a bunch of racists to their maids, and intolerant of others who are a tad different from them. the queen bee's motto, played with malicious perfection by bryce dallas howard, separate but equal. that refers to the outdoor toilets reserved for the coloured maids, which pretty much applies to everything else from cutlery to not being visible at all. 

it's a good story but it's a vanilla way to describe the horrendous treatment received by african americans at that time. and it was the 60's, mind you, which is really not that far off from recent times. 

the ninth gate (1999). directed by roman polanski.

it's a pleasure to see the master at work. by that i mean polanski. good directors don't need stupid shock factors and over the top special effects - they can deliver a good film simply with a good script and good acting. 

this two things isn't to be underestimated. many just can't work with just these two. 

the subject matter could easily become silly and corny at the hands of a lesser talented director, but polanski delivered something supernaturally creepy. there is no apparition of the ju-on: the grudge (2002) kind, but i was genuinely scared. thank goodness i watched it with other people otherwise i would have screamed. the premise is simple, what it takes to be a devoted servant of God is essentially the same qualities required if you were to serve, say, the Prince of Darkness himself. 

are you up for the ride, now?

detachment (2011). directed by tony kaye.

anyone who says teaching is a passion is dead wrong. these teachers are suffering. teaching kids today just isn't what it used to be. they are rude, have no sense of curiosity let alone learning, and to top all that is having to deal with the parents - which is a hundred times worse than the students themselves. this is not an easy profession. 

the last i heard tony kaye made anything remotely famous was american history x (1998). if he got his way like he did with this film, history would be far more potent - and it already is. imagine that. 

batman begins (2005). directed by christopher nolan.

it took a 13 hour flight from hong kong to vancouver to present me with the opportunity to watch this movie. i missed really some good stuff. i actually enjoyed this movie a lot more than the dark knight rises (2012). everything in the right amount contained in gotham city universe. 

quills (2000). directed by philip kaufman.

travesty! i have not write about this until now? i recalled a friend who watched this movie at the cinema in coogee beach dismissing it as having "too much nudity". but nah, that's not it about the movie. 

i found a good review from imdb.com which could not have said it any better...

Quills is a delightfully unsettling account of the demise of the Marquis de Sade and those he brings down with him. The film presents viewers with all the evidence they need to identify the fallacies of society's separation of "good" from "evil" and "moralists" from "sinners." It subtly asserts that the values traditionally used to pass judgment are compromised by convention and religion, and that there is moral danger in accepting these values without question.

During the film, one form of sin is only replaced by another, which defeats its resistors and beguiles the rest by hiding behind a pretentious shroud of religion and convention.

Viewers are horrified to discover that they can actually identify with the marquis, whose name inspired the word "sadist" to describe those who derive sexual pleasure from violence. Most viewers' senses of morality are sullied by the realization that they are hanging on every twist of the plot, desperate to know what will next beset these wretched characters.

you are curious too now, aren't you?

shine (1996). directed by scot hicks.

i watched this movie when i was studying in australia. at that time i was crazy about rachmaninov and in my search for the piano concerto no. 2 in c minor, this movie stood out because it was about a real life music prodigy's obsession for the rach no. 2 - the hopes of his immigrant family and community, his depression and subsequent mental breakdown. you feel the intense pressure when everybody is counting on you, and the worst is you being the biggest critic of all. 

this movie instantly convert to me to a geoffrey rush fan.   

the life and death of peter sellers (2004). directed by stephen hopkins.

i don't know why i have not write about this movie yet. a very good film about the strange personality of famed comic british actor peter sellers, who described himself as "having no personality which then eased him to take on a character". great acting from geoffrey rush, which makes the portrayal painful to watch, i thought, it must be hell to be this guy because i came to one conclusion, this is what happens to guys who never really did grow up. 

sherlock (season 1) (2010). created by mark gatiss & steven moffat.

i spent a good part of my childhood poring over the sir arthur conan doyle's fictional characters, and the recent update in the form of robert downey jr. and jude law was a fun take on the stories but not necessarily an accurate one. pffftt..does accuracy matter at all?

it does when you read the book(s) page to page, in small prints, no less. this sherlock nailed that part. everything is 21st century, but holmes and watson are old souls from the books. he is cynical and unfeeling, the other he is loyal and human. they are two peas in a pod, but they are strictly friends. alright, that is just victorian sensibilities. but who cares, i want the book and i get it!

the casting of benedict cumberbatch is a huge plus since he embodies "the" holmes; tall, moody, calculative, the visage is nothing but a mask. martin freeman as dr. watson is not relegated as a sidekick but a friend who cares a lot about holmes (that part jude law got it right). since it is a mini series, each show takes about 1.5 hours. it is well written and not surprisingly it is engaging. that's the advantage tv series have over a full fledged film - that it has the luxury of time to develop the character and the story, the audience gets to know the characters better and bond. i guess that's why a lot of people can follow tv shows so religiously. 

i'm already on season 2. 

the man from nowhere (ajeossi (original title)) (2010). directed by jeong-beom lee.

i think this is a worthy remake of leon: the professional (1994) if the director/writer ever wanted to admit that he was inspired by the latter. i don't watch korean soaps, i am especially not familiar with won bin of autumn in my heart (2000) fame. he was pretty good as the mysterious pawn shop owner who established a relationship with the little girl from next door, who needed attention from an adult because her mother is busy doing heroin (or crack?). it's a story of urban poverty and desperation seen in pretty much all developed/developing countries - of people who lose hope and live in the shell of their former selves. some lost it all together, others, they need to be recalled of how precious that hope and the will to live can be.  

the bourne legacy (2012). directed by tony gilroy.

i can watch jeremy renner. he can hold my attention. but the story? nah. i find the story silly. there's is no greater aim other than chasing a guy half around the globe, only to introduce a new character. i am sure a new hero can be combined with an interesting story - think of the numerous actors who play james bond at least they try to take a spin on the over familiarity of that particular spy genre. on top of that - i think the good actors casted for this movie, like edward norton and rachel weisz were underused. 

see you at the next bourne..err..aaron. 

animal kingdom (2010). directed by david michôd.

this movie blends a family of gangster with art. young joshua "j" cody is lost, lost his mother to heroin addiction and had to seek shelter at the family matriarch home that housed three of his violent, gangster uncles. joshua is oblivious to the going ons of the family, the show offs and the obvious fear of living by the seconds. this is his coming of age, having to fend for himself from his own family but unable to tear himself from the situation. great performances all around, particularly jackie weaver and ben mendelsohn. a quiet australian film is hardly un-opinionated about the truth of criminal life.  

dragon (wu xia (original title)) (2011). directed by peter chan.

shown at cannes 2011, this film stands on its own despite comparison to cronenberg's a history of violence (2005). i like the fact that hong kong film makers are looking for ways to reinvent kung fu storytelling, and the pairing of kaneshiro and yen work. both men snapped at some point in their lives and looking for redemption. yen, who i think has limited acting range, is pretty good as the tight lipped gangster trying to escape a life of violence and relished being with his small family, living in a nondescript village. the anonymity suits him fine until a city detective nosily pries on his life upon a killing of some bandits. the city detective played by kaneshiro is your typical cynical, self righteous bastard who hunt people down out of a misplaced sense of justice. 

i won't give the story away, because it deserves some watching. 

the dark knight rises (2012). directed by christopher nolan.

my brother dared to say that this is the worst nolan movie he had ever watched. i thought of it as a big clumsy machine trying to wade through too many characters and subplots. the script is problematic, which is a surprise because it was written by the nolan brothers. by the time the movie ends, and i ran a lot of nolan movies in my head, i thought, man you can't out do yourself. but then again, i can't think of a third installment that could top the second - think of the lord of the rings and the godfather trilogies. 

the biggest problem with the movie is the mix of realism and comic book short cuts that nolan doesn't usually use in his previous films. this guy made inception (2010), i can't see why the dark knight rises has to be that clunky. the action sequences are not memorable, i don't care about the characters, bane is an uninteresting villain which means tom hardy was severely underused. his back story and cotillard's talia are unsubstantial (he was her protector? thats all?!), anne hathaway being anne hathaway and has no chemistry with bale's bruce wayne. 

i could go all day. if only nolan is micheal bay, but he is not, so i still think he could come up with something better. 

beginners (2010). directed by mike mills.

a 75 year old father comes out to his son as gay after 44 years of marriage. a son trying to make sense of his disbelief of relationships, fueled by years of watching his parents' passionless marriage. it is a parallel story, of a father who always have faith in finding happiness, and his son's discovery that such a thing exists. in a world where some straight folks think it is alright to deny basic rights to gay people, this story asks many pertinent questions about the nature of happiness - that it is what we make do of what we have, that it needs work to sustain it, that denying something so basic is ruinous to people who are being forced to fit into the "normality". 

christopher plummer is such a pleasure to watch. 

red riding hood (2011). directed by catherine hardwicke.

i do not find any redeeming quality in this film other than the salem-like witch hunt for the warewolf responsible for terrorizing the village. the movie has gary oldman in it and i don't know why he's in it...he played too many baddies perfectly i don't see this is going to add to his reputation.  yeah the movie has nice effects yada yada...but no story, no interesting characters. the trees with thorns are more interesting me thinks. 

another mindless movie on a sunday night. next!

men in black 3 (2012). directed by barry sonnenfeld.

written by etan cohen (not to be confused with the famous ethan coen of the coen brothers) this movie is pretty funny and strikes the right notes. i like it. this is what happens when you watched so many mindless films, that anything that is slightly good becomes a huge relief. 

milk (2008). directed by gus van sant.

doesn't matter if you gay or not gay - i think everybody should watch this movie. it is as inspiring as watching edward r. murrow in good night and good luck (2005) fighting against uncivilized, ignorant majority who insists that what two consenting adults do in their home is the state's business. it is not. the film is very well done, and god, sean penn was so so good i didn't recognized that it was the permanently-irritated-looking penn as the eternally positive harvey milk. in short the cast was great - emile hirsch, james brolin and james franco. 

the film is unapologetic about milk's sexuality, and i like the feel of the film depicting the climate of the early gay movement. 

a must watch, i say. 

abraham lincoln: vampire hunter (2012). directed by timur bekmambetov.

i must be lacking sense of humour to not be entertained by the thought that the great president lincoln deserves a bit of publicity in his honour even through a comical film like this one. i know the film doesn't try to be high brow or anything like that, but still, lincoln axes vampire in his spare time? that the civil war was as much a fight against slavery as well as against a bunch of evil vampires hell bent on taking over the united states of A? you gotta be kidding me. anyway, purely for entertainment value director bekmambetov shows a really agile president with moves unthinkable in the early 19th century. the problem with summer movies like this i often do not find the characters memorable and the story is forgettable too. 

in the context of malaysian audience, i think it is good that they get to see that some people in other parts of the world had practiced free speech hundreds of years ago and it is not dirty to have political conviction and will. 

laugh a bit, will ya? heck, it's summer alright! 

snow white and the huntsman (2012). directed by rupert sanders.

i am not really familiar with the snow white legend and forgot what it was all about. coming from zero knowledge of fairy tales (in the internet world, that is not much an apology) - it is an amalgam of various tales  - traces of sleeping beauty and at times joan of arc. having seen mirror mirror (2012) earlier, i feel i've seen much of the same story again albeit with a bit of difference here and there. doesn't really make an impact to me, i think the natural landscapes of the forest and the sea are more interesting than the characters. fine, evil step mother, step mother kills king, step mother imprisons princess, princess escape and vows revenge. yeah yeah. 

kristen stewart is set to make a career of half frowning, but i like the little people with faces of normal height good actors morphed seamlessly into midgets. now, that's believable.  

prometheus (2012). directed by ridley scott.

i don't know if anyone notices this - but - this film is pro to the idea of god. that the creator is being destroyed by its much advanced inventions, making the creator is the lesser mortal - begs the question that there has to be the indestructible being out there that creates the creator. 

dreams of a life (2011). directed by carol morley.

she was dead for 3 years before anyone discovered her remains. ironic really, the flat she rented was right above a shopping mall. so many people going in and out and none of them knew a dead person amongst them. makes you think, has she no family, no friends, no one who cares at all? the documentary attempts to re-create the life of the wallflower girl by the name of joyce vincent, one minute the centre of the party, in another the girl with no past. we don't know why she pulls back from the company of friends she has and disappear, appearing in times of trouble, refusing to confide to anyone. was she sick when she passed? she was alone. the tv was on when they found her. 

all the connection in the world, it takes 3 years for the county to break down her door for unpaid rents to find a skeleton on the bed. tragic. 

a separation (2011). directed by asghar farhadi.

this story is layered. of husbands and wives who can't/don't know how to show love to each other that they are willing to let it go without a fight, wrongly holding on the principle that if one should stay only if one wants to. are they too proud to admit that they still care for one another but waiting for one of them to say "please stay?". it is not right. in the course of their fights, they put many people in the path of their destruction - their daughter who is staying with the father as a way to keep her mother around, the poor housekeeper who is not willing to lie for the fear of retribution, the unemployed housekeeper husband who is self destructive at how hard life is. we can't fault any of them, but they all have a hand in the mess. life's a bitch? an understatement, really. 

coriolanus (2011). directed by ralph feinnes.

i have a thing for shakespearean drama. and no one is better suited than the regal ralph feinnes. i pity the soldier in him who can't adapt to the treacherous world of politics and the indecisive mob, his honesty mistaken for hate, his revenge thwarted by greater ambitions of lesser people around him.

makes me wonder, how could democracy ever work when it couldn't thousands of years ago.

carnage (2011). directed by roman polanski.

my ability to stay up watching movies during long haul flights is greatly diminished. 12 hours and only two movies to boot. this is one of them. a delicious dark comedy about gender war, class war, marriage war; all disguised under the pretext of reconciling fighting children. i especially like the scene where kate winslet threw up like there is no tomorrow. and christoph waltz has an elegant, baritone european voice.

we need to talk about kevin (2011). directed by lynne ramsay.

a nightmarish tale of parenting, to mothers especially. what can you do with a child like this? it is not your fault that you don't enjoy the pregnancy, that you were a tad depressed, that the child is difficult and refused to bond. that he grew up to be antagonistic, a master manipulator to those who can't see him for who he is - a monster, albeit growing up in the best of environments with loving parents, is a bad seed from good people such as eva and franklin. 

i think it is a reminder how tough parenting could get, and on a more grim note, a reminder of how many criminals and killers were raised but good people. there is only so much that environment can do, for there is something more innate at work. 

the graduate (1967). directed by mike nichols.

watch this movie for 3 things:

anne bancroft

simon & grafunkel's soundtrack

yes, all young people goes through disillusionment like that (i do!)

tyrannosaur (2011). directed by paddy considine.

what a sad movie. anger burning the body and the soul, buried deep inside but it flares high up, destructive at every being. one can be angry at no one in particular, one can angry at being victimized. 

but who is going to save us, if not a little care?

road to perdition (2002). directed by sam mendes.

part gangster movie, mostly family drama told through the eyes of a young boy who was forced to road trip with his distant father. it's heartwarming and the graphics is fantastic. i am sure it is still as good as it was years ago when i watched it. 

american beauty (1999). directed by sam mendes.

american beauty is literally american hypocrisy. or just plain hypocrisy in general. the things we do to keep up appearances. a must watch. 

the good thief (2002). directed by neil jordan.

so many things to like about this movie. underaged prostitutes. badly staged bank robbery. smoke, lots of smoke. aging gamblers who don't know how to quit. and a pissed off gangster that can paint a face cubist. 

the crying game (1992). directed by neil jordan.

this is a strange time to update a movie blog because one i am at work and just finished working on the type curves but two i am bored and need a break. i watched this movie a long time ago in college when i was doing foundation studies to australia. i don't remember much of it and would like to see it again, but i do remember that the soldier fell in love with his victim's girlfriend who turns out to be something else. i don't think neil jordan intended a cheap shock factor here, rather, i think he wanted to highlight the possibility of unconditional love, of what it means to take someone just as they are. 

which we severely lack these days. i definitely need to re-visit this movie again. 

seefood (2012). directed by aun hoe goh.

i am not big on animated movies. perhaps i didn't watch a lot of cartoons when i was a kid and had never fully appreciated the form other than it looks good. this one looks good. i watched it with my gf who fell asleep soon after and my brother who pretty much watches everything. the story is ok but i find at some parts the transition  from scene to scene is not smooth. 

a good start, though. 

the guard (2011). directed by john michael mcdonagh.

anything with either brendan gleeson or don cheadle can't be that bad, what more if both of them are in the same movie. yeah the joke is not slapstick obvious, but it is funny. gleeson is a small town cop who has no love for fancy big city cop cheadle, he tries to be professional in his own way which is hardly professional at all. cheadle is disdainful of gleeson, but he should not have underestimated the depth of someone's provincialism. 

he may look stupid, but stupid he ain't. 

mirror mirror (2012). directed by tarsem singh.

i don't mind simplistic story line. but i do expect out of the world visual from tarsem. in this movie, that's not really tarsem. this is too mild from tarsem. 

badlands (1973). directed by terrence malick.

watching movies is a luxury to me nowadays. with work and everything in between i have not been able to catch up with anything good. i managed to watch this last week, and it is always a pleasure to watch terrence malick telling a story of psychopaths. who is the psychopath here - sweet, naive holly who didn't blink an eye when her murderous boyfriend kit kills her father and pretty much everyone they ran into. based on the real case of charles starkweather and his girlfriend caril ann fugate murder spree in 1958, this story is a canvas of isolation and alienation, where nothing matters and the characters is hardly human save for the human mask that they have on their faces.