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. 

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?

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. 

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.  

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). 

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.