enduring love (2004). directed by roger michell.

what makes and breaks a relationship? can two people hold on to each other despite the persistence of a third party who just won't budged? i like the acting and the seamless direction, and this movie always reminds me of how good daniel craig can be, and that his 2011 movies were a fluke that can not be explained.  

adnan sempit 2 (2012). directed by ismail bob hashim.

what a waste of money, people and time. my girlfriend wanted to watch this movie and it wasn't long when she whispered to me that we should go home. we persisted till the movie ended, but i couldn't understand any part of it. it wasn't funny, there is no plot, just patches of slide show put together for the sake of...whatever. this movie shouldn't be made.

bunohan (2011). directed by dain said.

i never thought i would see the day in which malay movies can a top up a bit of glory like it did in the days of p. ramlee in the 1950s and 1960s. there were promises by yasmin ahmad, though her films are artsy by conventional standards.  by the time i finished watching bunohan, i went, wow that was mind blowing, my disbelief tripled by the time i realized that this is a malaysian production. i loved the direction, the colours and moody cinematography, the fact that the actors trained to speak kelantanese for 2 months (effort people, effort! because it shows!), the melancholy of king lear's tale of a father and his three sons, the poverty of kelantan, the passing of tradition that can not stand the test of time.

great work from dain said. i will definitely look out for his movies in the future.

this means war (2012). directed by mcg.

another mcg crap. if not for the occasional laughs, and tom hardy, whom i thought must need money very badly else he wouldn't need to appear in this...well. anyhow, anything that involves two hot men chasing after reese witherspoon is not a good movie. leave your brain outside, and you shall enjoy this. 

the grey (2012). directed by joe carnahan.

for a movie that involved animals and people stranded in the cold, liam neeson held his ground and the movie is actually more interesting than your average men vs wild fare.  

haywire (2011). directed by steven soderbergh.

gina carano hits everyone's ass, hard. nice. short and sweet and no unnecessary drama it knows it can't pull, so the story concentrates on the fight scenes and keeps the rest in the background. i like the atmosphere too, like an old school cat and mouse game. 

hachi: a dog's tale (2009). directed by lasse hallström.

a good movie to turn on the waterworks, and i wasn't even trying to get sad or get anything off my chest. cliche?

beautiful boy (2010). directed by shawn ku.

the flight from dubai to kl was dreary. and i couldn't sleep. i read most of the time and took breaks in between, and in this flight, i didn't watch as many movies as i did in the previous flight. my eyes hurt from the flashing lights of the screen which is less than 2 ft away. 

it's a story of parents which i think should be watched by both parents and children. i wondered, would the boy still went on a shooting rampage and killed himself had he known the unbearable pain he is to cause his parents? and parents, living in a difficult marriage, would it be better for them to walk away than to stay unhappily together for the sake of providing a family for kids? the movie asks tough questions like that - and it is for us to judge, bad things happen sometimes for no reason at all, and it doesn't make misery any more easier to deal with had we known the answer. 

x-men: first class (2011). directed by matthew vaughn.

a less successful effort from matthew vaugh if you ask me. it is cartoonish and i would have turned off the in flight movie if not for micheal fassbender's masochist panache and pained performance. i think the pairing of fassbender and mcavoy doesn't really work - it's like having a grown man acting with a kid.  i find the CGI poor too, and i can't be blamed for seeing inception (2010) that pretty much shows the audience that nothing can't be done out there. however, the story is contemporary as the whole mutant issue is framed as the don't-ask-don't-tell debacle. 

kick-ass (2010). directed by matthew vaughn.

another movie that shatters the superhero myth. superheros are people who refuse to be victims. i like the movie with a little girl that literally kicks everybody's ass, her shiny purple hair and her crazy over acting daddy in the form of nicolas cage. divine.