Sunday, November 9, 2014

a most wanted man (2014). directed by anton corbijn.


not a bad spy movie. i quite enjoy it, the story unfolds as the many hidden motivations of various parties going after the most common scapegoat of our times, though i do find it a tad lazy that the portrayal of muslims as the uncontrollable maniacs under the watchful eyes of western spy agencies hell bent to protect their "innocents". 

come on, man. no mentions of foreign policy, of racism, of immigration, of war, of poverty, of inequality - heck, the list goes on and on. but hell, watching "them" and expecting them to tell the other side of the story, i might as well expect for the ocean to turn purple. 

what if (2013). directed by micheal dowse.


ah, the stuff you watch on the plane on a very long flight. this movie is cute, in a way when your brain is too tired to think. 

i think daniel radcliffe should try another hair cut if he wants to be taken seriously. 

Sunday, October 26, 2014

what maisie knew (2012). directed by scott mcgehee and david siegel.


some people don't have what it takes to be parents and yet that's exactly what they end up with - a child that they are not capable to take care of. in the case of maisie, her self centred parents are too busy doing the stuff they want instead of coming to some sort of amicable solution as to how a raise a kid even though they can't live with each other. she's pretty much neglected, if not for the nanny and her mother's boyfriend who are forced to be surrogate parents to the girl because deep down they know this is straight up child abuse, without bruises. 

by the end of the movie, i am just glad her mother walked out on her for good. 

sorry, haters (2005). directed by jeff stanzler.


9/11 has been used as an excuse to vilify muslims. it is actually ok to think that muslims are violent people without pausing if that assumption is true, or not. here abdellatif kechiche (of blue is the warmest colour (2013) fame) who is a taxi driver trying to make a living in a country that scapegoats him for his religious identity, and robin wright penn playing the seemingly harmless, if not slightly unstable woman pining for some male attention, or is she looking for something more? something like revenge, perhaps? but why? she's a nobody - perhaps that's all that she want - riding on hatred for a little 5 minutes of attention. 

as far as indie movies go, the same rule applies. be patient. 

Saturday, October 25, 2014

blue jasmine (2013). directed by woody allen.


apparently this movie is supposed to be a comedy, i guess it is in a sad way, or if one finds selfish, hopeless and in denial characters amusing to watch. no doubt cate blanchett played this very well, and the film is all around woody allen, though i find it predictable that i should watch yet another film of his fascinations with people falling out of the bourgeoisie lifestyle.  

it is a hard fall, especially when one is not used to do any sort of work in their lifetime. 

the grandmaster (2013). directed by wong kar wai.


i am a fan of wong kar wai. so it is perfectly ok with me that a kung fu movie has very little fighting scenes, in fact what he did was trying to show that martial arts is about self restraint and not about using the fighting ability for self interest. i haven't seen wong's work for a while, i think the last was re-watching ashes of time (1994) with my brother a few years ago. so it is nice to be taken into wong's universe again - the place where people say very little but their facial muscles and manners convey the opposite, haunting music follows through the characters' raging emotions with period colors during the war years. 

that floats my boat.  

lust, caution (2007). directed by ang lee.


i love it when spy movies do what it suppose to do - when it treads on secrecy and subtleties, not explosives and all those silly things that is the antithesis of being a spy. though in this case, despite wong chia chi's ability to seduce stiff, emotionless high ranking official mr. yee, nicely played by tony leung chiu wai, she miserably falls in love with him as much as she struggled against her own unhappiness of being abandoned by her father. 

the film is beautifully shot, of how war is an irritant for the rich but the ugly realities for the poor. you will hate the game of power that countries play, a burden that women like wong chia chi had to bear. for all the men that plan and plot, it is the woman who carry the covert mission, gambling her sanity and dignity. 

you will ask, all for what exactly?

Friday, October 24, 2014

like father, like son (2013). directed by hirokazu koreeda.


what i like about this movie is how subtle it is, the fact that it tries so hard not to do something out of what ordinary people would do when they are caught up in a weird situation, such as when your child was intentionally changed at birth by an unhappy nurse.  i also like how the difference in culture plays a huge role in storytelling, that i (a viewer from malaysia, who is used to watching hollywood crap and some good ones) instantly know that certain reaction emoted in the film is purely due to japanese people being japanese - because i know such a thing would not happen in a film made in hollywood. 

and, even if you are not a parent, you will shed a little tear. i teared up, damned it!

saving mr. banks (2013). directed by john lee hancock.


i don't usually watch pg-13 movies, or disney movies for that matter. they are boring for being too sugary sweet. however, i gave this one a shot. doesn't really stray from the happy ending disney formula, but i enjoyed the performance of emma thompson and tom hanks, and also that of colin farrell, i think i haven't seen him a while (i haven't been watching a lot of movies). 

killer joe (2011). directed by william friedkin.


if you like dark comedies, you will enjoy this one. otherwise it would just disturb the hell out of you. a policeman dabbling as a killer for hire resembles more like the angel of death, he frightens people who are ten cent short of a dollar and angry dogs. which is something he underestimates, despite sensitivity and intelligence, that hell is more like being trapped with a bunch of stupid people. 

great performance by the actors, i would say, a must see. 

Saturday, September 27, 2014

rush (2013). directed by ron howard.


i enjoyed this movie a lot, and it's been awhile since i watched anything. i like the colours and the feel of the film, so 1970's. both chris hemsworth and daniel bruhl are great as the competing racers with very different personalities, driven by each other's competitiveness. i like it that the movie is not apologetic like most oscar movies (which ron howard have directed a few). the camera shots of the F1 cars racing at 170 km/hr is amazing. my brother said they sound better in the movies.  

Sunday, September 7, 2014

locke (2013). directed by steven knight.


for a movie with only one person, with a phone in a car for the whole one hour and a half, it is a gripping watch. as a viewer, i was locke-d on tom hardy - trying his best to do the right thing in a bad situation that he himself had created. i questioned his motive of setting things right - the woman that he had an affair with, his wife and sons, his boss and co-workers. while he tried to justify his actions by measuring them against his father's failure to turn up, he created a web of hurt and sickness around him while staying calm, if not feeling satisfied, at how well he is handling things. 

a good movie on how one tricks one's mind into feeling good despite the bad consequences of one's selfish actions. i have to say, it was great acting, great script and a very tight direction. i expect nothing less from a guy who wrote eastern promises (2007)

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

the fifth estate (2013). directed by bill condon.

i was expecting something like the insider (1999) or state of play (2009). it could have been that - at the hands of better scriptwriters and directors who understand the pace of investigative journalism. 

but not this one. 

instead of focusing on wikileaks' revolutionary achievements (the afghanistan & iraq war logs, cable-gate), the movie chose to nitpick the odd personality of julian assange and how combative, if not monomaniac obsession on controlling wikileaks on his own. he finds the reasonable voice of close associate daniel berg too conservative for a whistleblowing organization - and the story thereafter aligns itself on how bad assange's PR skills - that at times i feel like watching a movie hell bent on character assassination. so the guy dyed his hair white because of his cult childhood - how does that impact the evolution of wikileaks is hardly relevant. another thing that i find unsatisfactory is how flat it feels, as if there is no suspense as the united state's government secrets were about to be revealed. 

big deal.

i feel benedict cumberbatch is a miscast. his accent was a weird mixture of british, australian and somewhat midwestern too. perhaps due to no fault of his own (blame the bad script) - his portrayal of assange is one dimensional as the geek with a bad childhood and won't settle for anything less than revenge. 

and that still doesn't explain the evolution of wikileaks. i think this could be one heck of a story in the hands or micheal mann or david fincher. 

Monday, March 24, 2014

august: osage county (2013). directed by john wells.


with this kind of violence, one would think there will be blood spilled. and that's the nature of verbal abuse and emotional manipulation, everybody's hurt but no one can see the scars. 

the patriarch of the weston family had killed himself, leaving his widow and 3 daughters to pick up the pieces of their estranged life. violet, the mother, is an unpleasant person - the remains of an older generation who had it too hard that her meanness is the only way to survive in an unforgiving environment. her daughters can't bond with her - barbara openly rebelled against the emotional abuse and left, middle daughter ivy cowed into being passive to take care of her ailing parents and karen escaped her mother by trying to figure out life as it dealt its cards. they are all so mean to each other, that one can understand why the adult children can't live closer to home should one day they themselves turned into their parents. 

a great assembled film about inter-generational conflict - that one is forced to remember that the past is not always the best place to dwell in, and that the future doesn't have to carry the sins of their forefathers. 

no matter hard things get, but hey, easier said than done. 

captain phillips (2013). directed by paul greengrass.


suspenseful. tom hanks delivers a good role (as usual?). i expect nothing less actually. what i like about this movie is that it shows the social circumstances that gives rise to piracy - and it is extreme poverty. the poor people of somalia would do anything to feed themselves and their families, and this also begs the question as to what the government of somalia is doing to take care of its people. do they have a government?

saturday night fever (1977). directed by john badham.


this movie is more than just john travolta gyrating his sexy hips. the guy can really dance by the way. i haven't watched a lot of movies from the 1970's this past few years, so it is always refreshing to see a different way to tell a story. it is about a young man trying to escape the lack of opportunities in his italian american community, the fact that he doesn't have college education and yet can't see himself working in the hardware store his whole life, the lack of direction of his friends due to social stagnation. 

dance movie? nah, social critique more like it. 

cuak (2013). directed by khairil m. bahar, lim benji, manesh nesaratnam , shamaine othman & tony pietra


i think it is good that malaysian film makers are moving out of the tried and tested themes of "malay movies" and are racing to "malaysian movies". this film tells the story of a cold feet couple on the verge of marriage, told by 5 different directors from 5 different perspectives. that's all good - i think the plot is interesting with lots of quips on social issues, however, i wasn't able to fully enjoy it because the lighting and more importantly the audio - was so bad! i watched it on astro first, i had to turn up the volume so high but still can't make what tony eusoff was mumbling about. ok i could be a bit deaf but i can make out hollywood movies on normal volumes so i think they really need to work on that. 

it is actually important to have good audio so that audience can understand the story line. 

Sunday, March 9, 2014

pariah (2011). directed by dee rees.


a story of alike, a 16 years old lesbian teenager who is facing trouble at home for not conforming to the idea of being feminine. her struggles to hide her sexuality from her family, while navigating teenage relationships - ends in heartbreak and the eventual banishment from home. it is a lot for a kid, tough that she is - when we think of our young - our brothers and sisters and cousins and friends - have we no heart that we must decide to leave them on the street while they are trying to find themselves?

inside job (2012). directed by charles ferguson.


technical and highly understandable - this documentary is about the US housing bubble burst in 2008 that leads to the financial meltdown infecting the world over. riveting, and totally unscrupulous. 

cloudburst (2011). directed by thom fitzgerald.


i don't watch that may gay films, what more gay films with old people in it. this movie is about an old couple well into their 70's, stella and dot - stella is butch and is constantly cursing, dot is her other half who is sick and blind. having been together for 31 years, dot's grand daughter is relocating her an old folks' home while telling stella to find another place to live. this road trip movie is hilarious - when stella decided to kidnap dot from the home and take her to canada to get married - with the intention that they won't be separated as spouses, while picking up a virile male dancer along the way. 

there were lots of genuine funny moments in the film, but i can't help feeling a tad sad - that even after 31 years, their relationship is seen merely as friends as opposed to life partners. dot's grand daughter refused to imagine her grand mother is a lesbian - telling her police friend that "she got my mother through heterosexual means". 

that is why - any sort of legal protection is important - something as equivalent as marriage - to protect lives that has intertwined together such as this two ladies. 

mama (2013). directed by andrés muschietti.


i won't say it breaks new ground in the horror film genre. lots of morose colours and techniques typically employed in horror movies, and the plot is not entirely new either. 

so so watch. 

the journey (2014). directed by chiu keng guan.


despite the indie feel (was it indie?) the movie feels good to watch. exploring the themes of the differences between the young and the old, the clash of traditions and the sacrifices parents made that sometimes is completely alien to us. there is a hunger for movies rooted in malaysia, telling malaysian stories. i never know how interesting chinese new year is in penang, until i saw this film. 

Saturday, March 1, 2014

philomena (2013). directed by stephen frears.


self righteous religious pricks always think of themselves as god's representatives on earth, and thus can punish others whom they see as straying from the path of god, all on behalf of god. and includes separating mothers and children - as a way to pay their penance for engaging in consensual sex.

i like the story. and i love judy dench as the makcik who is wide eyed about everything, never forgetting her little boy who was sold away by the church to american clients.  

more importantly, as a mother of an absent child, she wanted nothing but happiness for her son. she was cool when told that her son was gay, she was happy that he had a good job and had someone who loves him. her only regret was not meeting him before he died. 

now, how many parents really want that for their children?

Thursday, January 2, 2014

the secret life of walter mitty (2013). directed by ben stiller.


i thought it was pretty good. i like the fact that the movie is genuinely feel good, there is no cliched characters that i feel like smacking the hell out and the photography direction is just gorgeous. what's not to like? after watching films on slavery and grief, i do want to be carried off to fantasy land, and this does the job nicely. 

rabbit hole (2010). directed by john cameron mitchell.


grief is no laughing matter. losing a child isn't either. it changes the house, changes the relationships of people left behind - at times taking a turn for the worse. how do people get from grieving, to a stage where it is bearable?

great watch. don't expect happy endings, but expect good acting of people trying to move on from losing something so dear to them.