quiz show (1994). directed by robert redford.

Tagline: Fifty million people watched, but no one saw a thing. 

i have been wanting to watch this movie years ago but couldnt lay my hands on the dvd anywhere. it was on hbo yesterday afternoon and i was transfixed. directed by robert redford, it was a tale of a rigged nbc show that fed answers to its contestants in order to keep the ratings high. if only we have that kind of legal system here, i wonder...

there will be blood (2007) directed by paul thomas anderson. death proof (2007) directed by quentin tarantino.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

tagline: when ambition meets faith.

indeed. a tribute to the oilmen of the 20th century who scoured the land for oil, men who learned about drilling, derrick and drainage by mistakes they had to do and lives paid on it. men who are engineers before the word engineers was invented. men who are focused because they are lonely. men who love but do not know how to show it. men who hurt others because they themselves are in pain. daniel day lewis (1.87 m) is in a class of his own.

great cinematic experience. kudos to paul thomas anderson (dir).

Death Proof (2007)

directed by quentin tarantino (1.85 m), it is only fair to expect some sort of comedy from this road bully movie gone wrong. you dont want to go around terrorising people on the road after watching this one, i assure you.

chaplin (1992). directed by richard attenborough.

captured the life and times of the great silent comedy star, charles chaplin. after watching this movie do i begin to appreciate the seemingly unfunny slapstick moves of chaplin, that it was hard work to create all that. that he sacrificed his personal life through various divorces because he was addicted to working and a perfectionist when it comes to film making. it is particularly interesting that the movie touched his technique of improvising-as-you-film, which would definitely run for a much longer time and at higher costs.

whlist RDJ is a good actor and i love the man since heart and souls (1993) and have loved him even more ever since, i find him a tad too young for the role eventhough he was 27 at the time. but that by no means disparaged his talents and wealth of sensitivity in bringing chaplin alive to the big screen.

after the wedding (2006) (original title efter brylluppet). directed by susanne bier.

this is the reason why sometimes you have to watch other than hollywood crap feeding you more hollywood-crap-like-values. the scenes in this film will never be found in hollywood movies, to the very last detail, when jorgen was bowling his eyes out to helene, it occured to me, a scene from stepmom (1998) in which they all gathered during xmas and then susan sarandon shortly died after that, that people dont die like that. unless you are a cow about to be slaughthered during aidiladha, even them go beserk after seeing their frens bleed. people grieved deaths and the impending ones. they are in pain when they have to make difficult choices like that of jorgen and jacob.

may be much less movie-like drama, but life's like that, not the other way round. may be a bit of realism doesnt not hurt. and mads mikkelsen is hot.

tropic thunder (2008). directed by ben stiller.

this film is incredibly funny-stupid. or stupid fun. some things that blows me over are

- the fact that the black RDJ stayed in character at all times

- RDJ sported blue contact lenses

- RDJ sported fake oz accent that sounded totally shit but that's the whole point

- the satan's alley trailer and calls for it to be turned into a proper movie (and i havent got around watching happy together (1997) whlist my sister frowned upon looking at the cover: 2 guys rolling on the floor, you get the drift)

- tobey maguire and RDJ - hot

- tom cruise as the jewish head of studio muthafucka

- the fact that ben stiller got around to make this

brilliant.

the dark knight (2008). directed by christopher nolan.

the pay off is huge, i felt like it surpassed what a comic book tale should be. i felt like watching m night shyamalan and other great drama directors like micheal mann rolled into one. it blew me away, a story almost reaching that of shakespearean proportion.

this is the dark knight. read more at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/usercomments

the village (2004). directed by m. night shyamalan.

have you heard of the track from the village (2004, dir M. Night Shyamalan) called "the gravel road"? that piece of music was on when Ivy Walker was walking fast, away from the village, after she unknowingly killed noah who tried to scare her, donning the "those we do not speak of" costume. and another, "the vote" is played when noah's family agreed to keep the secret going by accepting his death and reinforcing the belief that the village will stay pure, undisturbed by influence from the outside as "those we do not speak of" shall stay to be the barrier, or buffer.

(August Nicholson, in a meeting discussing whether or not to let Ivy go): We cannot run from heartache... Heartache is a part of life. We know that now.

best listened in classical mode. the echo is beautiful.

unbreakable (2000). directed by m. night shyamalan.

unbreakable

a lot of people i asked, didn't expressed a liking for this movie. they remarked that it was too slow, dead slow. perhaps it's the fact that bruce willis was extremely toned down, which does not mean underused, but not a maniac whose illusion of grandiose is to save the world. samuel l. jackson is spectacular as elijah price, hands down.

i like shyamalan's idea of debunking the myth of superheros. comics are not complete without them, but we could never recognised one in real life. nobody flies around in red underware to save maidens in trouble, nor do we see any one climbing walls and towers sticky webs of a spider. in comics, for this to happen, several elements need to exist:

1. a catasthrophe

2. the effect of the catasthrope and why one must prevent its reoccurance

3. a superhero, the person who would prevent the catasthrope

4. a fantastic ability, in which all superhero got to have one

5. a villain, all out to defeat the superhero, sometimes a motivation is not even needed, because we are allowed to assume that the villain is evil

enter david dunn, a security guard who used to be a college star footballer, now a married father with a little boy. he was never sick as far as he could remember, but that is not his special ability. on the far end of the universe is elijah price, who spends his childhood on the bed due to a rare bone disease that makes him susceptible to multiple bone fractures and breakages. dunn recently survived a train crash in which he was the sole survivor.

the similarity the two shared is that both desperately need something to believe in. price was disillusioned with the disease he was forced to live with, and dunn regretted his decision to give up football for a marriage to the woman he loves, only now he is not sure if football is worth giving up in the light of his troubled marriage.

the dynamics between dunn and price gives us a an insight of what the universe of superheros and villains colourfully painted in comics is consist of, and it is infallibly human. i won't give away the story, but it is definitely a good piece of cinema. i personally think it is shyamalan's best work.

oh, the soundtrack is something the story can not be complete without. 

days of glory (2006). directed by rachid bouchareb.

i wasn't in the mood for movies yesterday but i thot my bro gonna put up something english. he did not, instead showed a movie about the french resistance by the 7th algerian infantry division during the second world war. the movie was a close up of 4 arab algerian men fighting along side the french army to liberate italy and southern france from nazi occupation in circa 1944-45. each of them brought their dreams of greater acceptance and equality from their colonial master, as well as riches and a sense of belonging. this proved to be the things that even a so called civilised nation, france in this case, has a real trouble giving. and the shame, on top of the obvious inequality and discrimination of the soldiers from french colonies, was the fact that france have continually refused to award pensions to the native soldiers who had fought for her during the second world war.

ashes of time (1994). directed by wong kar wai.

wong kar wai shot this film in a time when pantene was nay impossible to be fund in the age where the sun, the desert, camels, renegades and travelling swordsmen were a norm and there was no place for silky, straight flowing hair was at all possible. casted with leslie cheung, the two tony's (leung ka fai and leung chui wai), jackie cheung and female heavyweights such as maggie cheung, carina lau and brigitte lin. everybody is reflecting of what they used to have, yearning for the past to be the future, regretting the past for the time they can not turn back.

life is now. not tomorrow.