loki_niflheim

Terminator Salvation was not as bad as I thought it would be. The preview they show when we watched Star Trek was barren and unexciting that many of our gang decided not to watch but I needed to kill time on Friday nights, so I went.

It was probably because I watched after working from 6am (woke up at 4am), stayed at work after work and watched it from 7pm to 9pm. My brain has by then switched off and I was happy I didn't fall asleep.

( Imminent Spoilers )

And vote for Survival of the Hottest 'Ship!

After a month of having two ten-day weeks, sleep-ins feels like heaven. Also managed to slip in a movie marathon before going back into end-of-financial-year madness at work, providing data for audits left and right on top of the job I'm hired for. Moving right along...

I'm back to watching movies lately, started from watching Star Trek, X-Men: Origins, Angels and Demons then the movies I missed: The Day The Earth Stood Still, He's Just Not Into You, Bride Wars, Marley & Me, Sunshine, The Curse of The Golden Flower, Bedtime Stories and P.S. I Love You.

Yeah, I've been watching more chick flicks than usual. The verdicts:

• He's Just Not Into You makes me think I really don't know anything about men and women because they're absolutely clinically insane.
• Bride Wars is heart-warming, funny and Anne Hathaway always makes me swoon. However the theme and plot was nothing new.
• Marley & Me made me cry, it's a story about building a family and about the things you do for family and I can relate to that.
• I fast-forward most of The Curse of The Golden Flower, the story gives me a headache.
• I liked The Day The Earth Stood Still, I think it's the shiny ball. The whole "US got whumped for treating the unknowns with 'shoot now ask questions later'" makes me feel strangely happy. Keanu's acting in this movie is really worrying me for his role in 'Cowboy Bebop'.
• Sunshine was really better than I thought, it's a bit (really, a smidgeon) trippy, but it feels real. I don't know why a lot of people gave it bad reviews. Oh, someone should really slash Mace and Capa. My brain was running its own 'production' all through the movie.
• Bedtime Stories is a typical Adam Sandler 'diamond in a rough character finally shines' comedy. Loved Russel Brand in this one.
• P.S. I Love You is a lovely love story. Hard to understand at first why Gerry seems to make it hard for Holly to let go, but I can understand how you treat a deep wound by curing it over time for it to heal completely than quickly and leaving a scar. My biggest surprise was seeing Jeffrey Dean Morgan (John Winchester, Supernatural) speaking in sexy Irish accent in this movie, so I finally looked up his filmography in IMDB. Wow, the dude is in Grey's Anatomy these days. Crap >.< I don't want to watch that show!
• Star Trek, love the meaningful looks between Spock and Kirk. Ah, budding love.
• X-Men: Origins suffers from either bad editing or directing. What with the different directors for different locations anyway? The scenes doesn't quite work so the messages they're trying to imply about Wolverine's character (yes, I feel that they were trying to imply Wolverine's character through the scenes they picked. Stop laughing.) feels weak.
• I haven't read the book, so I found Angels and Demon pretty good though I spotted the supposed 'twist' coming, I think they intended to though because Ewan's line, "It's him! Look, he has a gun!" is very revealing. Also, it was worth it to watch Ewan McGregor in priest collar.

I'm aiming to watch all the movies in The Movie Guide to Surviving The Apocalypse and Your Favorite Movie Badass. I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Watched The Plight of Clownana, what isn't available on YouTube these days? It's supposed to be available on the official website as well, but I can't access it. It was pretty funny, I can't help chuckling through the whole thing despite the predictable plot.

The Movie Show was promising prizes for movie reviewers (something about free movie tickets—I'm a sucker for those stuff), but since I was only half-listening to the TV when they were blahing about it, I ended up At The Movies where I found Brokeback Mountain beat the Oscar movies at the 2006 Viewers' Poll. That list is seriously weird, no pattern whatsoever can be found in it, although some logic makes sense if the poll takers were Arthouse movie viewers. I didn't even know The Cock and Bull Story was shown here (and I've yet to see that, curse heavenly_rain for introducing me to the wonders of Stephen Fry anyway).

Anyway, so I found my way to The Movie Show, registered and raised my eyebrows at the rating stars. Starship Troopers is a 5? Robocop is a 4? Black Sheep is a 5? Hot Fuzz is a 3? Casino Royale is a 3?! Talk about skewed.

Some of the concepts in PoTC 3 is just confusing to me: What is the whole point with having multiple Jacks? Why can't Governor Swann grab the rope and go on the Black Pearl? I mean, why introduce that concept that way at all? Why not introduce an element that made them unable to touch each other? The bit with Calypso freed and... that's all? Dude, it was a big thing, freeing Calypso, almost a third of the movie is about freeing Calypso and whaa...?

The movie has a whole of hotchpotch of materials that can be used, but even at three hours running time, they didn't manage to use them all. I heard that they did the third movie without a finished script, I'm thinking that's probably why.

Other than that, it's a good one. Except for what happened to Norrington. Gaaah! There goes my Sparrington fantasies! Geoffrey Rush plays Barbossa beautifully. I love how he deliver the lines, they all sounded so dramatic. You'd think Captain Sao Feng, as one of the captains depicted in the posters, would be more significant in the story line. I wanted that woman, one of the two who were serving Sao Feng in the beginning of the movie, to kill Mercer or wounded him. That'll just be cool, because if you see the look on her face, you know he's gonna get it. I'm also glad that after not appearing in the second movie, they brought Lieutenant Groves and his quiet admiration of Jack Sparrow back.

The scene near the end where Cutler Beckett met his end is just really dramatic and beautiful. All those sequential explosions, the shower of wood splinters as he walks down onto the deck. I feel sorry for ships in the old times, all those wood, sanded, painted and built to beauty only to be filled full of holes with cannonballs. The same feeling I'll get seeing a sterling silver Wedgewood bottle opener used to open a bottle of Coke.

I like the ending, it's a bittersweet ending that fits with the whole second and third movie storyline. Really don't want to think about what happened when Elizabeth grows old and Will... well, doesn't.

Again, not excellent, could be done better, but a good one nonetheless. I can totally agree with firelle about not enough Jack Sparrow, which I think is mainly due to the amount of material they're trying to stuff into the movie.

Previews seen:
- Transformers—Looks... really cool...
- Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix—I'm just wondering what'll be like for him (the guy who play Harry Potter) in five, ten years from now being recognised as 'the face of Harry Potter', kinda like Christopher Reeve and Superman. But... never mind that, where's Snape?
- Die Hard 4.0: Live Free or Die Hard—Wow, um... looks good?

There's a list of 100 Most Memorable Film Moments in the Guardian which brought back memories, and underlined the fact that I needed to watch some more classics.

And Oh God! Depp is going to be playing Sweeney Todd with Alan Rickman!

I said it before, I'll say it again: Silver Surfer is t3h cool! Man, I want Silver Surfer/Human Torch slash. I love the chase scene between Silver Surfer and Human Torch, it's just so cool.

One of the few things I noticed was of course, the appearance of Gonzalo Menendez as Major Cruz, who most CSI: Miami fans would recognise as Clavo Cruz, the resourceful villain son of a general. I also found it ironic that apart from the middle part of the movie after he was blasted by Silver Surfer's molecular power, Victor Von Doom looked like he needed a nip and tuck himself. In fact I was getting Senator Palpatine flashbacks.

The CGs are pretty good, some parts are impressive while others could do with a smoother blending. I like Reed and Sue's interaction, it feels true to character, but a certain chemistry is missing from Johnny and Ben. And I don't mean that kind of chemistry. I think it's mainly to do with them no longer surprised of what they're capable of anymore and what it meant to their lives, while Sue (and by extension, Reed) are dealing with the fact that they are not living a normal life.

All in all, it was a good movie, not excellent but a good one to watch if only just to see the cool CGs, like the whole Silver Surfer VS Devour of Worlds scene.

Previews seen:
- Surf's Up—another penguin movie *sigh* Think they're overworking the idea too much?
- The Golden Compass—SO seeing this!
- The Simpson's Movie—ROFLMAO, gonna see this.
- Nancy Drew—looks really interesting.

This week (until next Thursday 27 June, that is), Hoyts and Village Cinemas has Pirates of The Caribbean 3 on Special $9 offer. Anyone interested to watch it again? I'm going on Saturday, most probably to Hoyts Melbourne Central afternoon session (either 10.10am or 1.40pm).

If you're watching at Village cinemas, bring your VMCs, or if you're watching at Hoyts, print a voucher. If you give me a head's up before Saturday morning, I can print one for you. I generally carry two with me anyway.

And Fantastic Four is out!! *Fangirlish screams*

Tari took me to watch Music and Lyrics on Chinese New Year's day while we were hiding out from the heat, in Crown Casino. It's a fairly good movie, romantic and with a happy ending. The last romantic movie I watched and classified as good, was Love Actually, so I'll take a gander from that point.

I'm pretty sure I snickered more than the other people in the theatre. It's a good thing that we sat right at the very back of the cinema. I pretty much snickered everytime Hugh Grant appeared on screen in his Pop persona with the whole 'bad hair' British band hairdo and the swivelling, jerky hip movement. The hilarity rivalled Bill Nighy singing Christmas is All Around. Of course, let's not forget the kind-of freaky housewife-types fangirls that are still crazy about him. I think I'm starting to understand that my mother may not be the only old gal out there who sometimes went on about how oh-so-handsome Tony Curtis is.

Different from Love Actually, Music and Lyrics is through and through a fairy tale romantic story where everything ends in happiness and they live happily ever after. I'm usually a fan of instrumental music, ever since I found that a lot of songs either have good lyrics but bad vocals or good lyrics but sung in music that is a copycat of other popular music, this movie taught me to appreciate music-writing and how along the way the message may have gotten lost in translation.

A good movie to spend a relaxing afternoon.

Please bear in mind that I'm 20+ years old. Considering that the target audience of this movie is... I assume kids to adolescents, I don't necessarily get what makes them tick.

First of all, there's a certain wrongness in watching penguins singing gospel, rap, blues and other black music genre (I don't mean to be racist by using the term 'black'). I assume it has something to do with the fact that penguins are primarily black in colour. Nonetheless, for the first 10 minutes of the movie I can't connect the audio to the video that I'm watching. It's like watching an artist lip-synching. I can relate to it better if the music is the usual classic musical number.

I started thinking, "Oh man, it's the old Disney 'I'm an outcast and I'll come out helping all of you in the end' tale." and settled for a mediocre plotline enhanced in 3D and penguin cuteness. But then, Rámon and the gang appeared, I got too busy laughing my ass off afterwards I didn't really care about the plot. Rámon stole the show, totally.

The message of the movie, if there is one, is rather... misdirected and I sure hope that if the kids watching this movie dreams about being an activist in the future, that s/he does his/her research on the reality first. The killer whales, for example, were a couple of Dreamworld escapees with their acrobats. I couldn't stop laughing at that one.

Happy Feet is an okay movie, it has it's precious moments despite the oft-used plot(and hey, it's for kids, they might not have seen this plot before). If you have one of those $8.50 movie booklet from Hoyts, it's worth watching but I wouldn't pay full price to watch it.

Wedding Wars is a romantic comedy, gay and straight. I have to applaud John Stamos and Sean Maher for acting so naturally as a gay couple, and the great cast. This is a feel good movie, definitely worth a watch if you turn into goo at the sight of cute gay couples being all domestic-like.

( Spoilers )

Let's hope we get to see Wedding Wars sometime soon. I got all giggly watching Sean Maher (Firefly) and John Stamos (Full House) rubbing each other's arms. There's supposed to be a kiss in the movie between those two, I'd spontaneously combust if I see that. "Cast and Characters" clip has the most Maher/Stamos scenes (no kiss though, d'oh!)

You can see some short clips of the movie from the website (I'm happy they're not localizing the website, like Dexter).

I trawled through Amazon.UK websites for some DVDs on sale, and I saw they have "Gay & Lesbian" category, so I thought "O! Let's see what they have." I'm quite surprised at the amount of DVDs under this category, and some of them aren't new, which I presume is a movie with a hint of lesbian relationship considering gay issues were taboo in those days. Some are fairly corny and racy, but what surprised me was to find a Van Damme (Jean-Claude) movie in the category (o.o!) I'm not much of a Van Damme fan, but I honest to God can't figure out how that movie falls under "G&B" (Apart from the fact he often wears lycra tight pants).

Eating Out sounds fun, but nothing else caught my attention (got Brokeback Mountain already).

Watched The Prestige on Friday with half the people in my Friends list and others who aren't. Objectively it's a fairly good movie. The storyline is set like a puzzle, where you are given a bit of fact, the story progresses with flashbacks to add another bit of fact to the current storyline. Hugh Jackman acts brilliantly (as always) and I'm sure many would agree with me that he just looks oh-so-good in period clothing. The 'magic tricks' in the movie were rather simple and easily guessed, but it was entertaining nonetheless. Some of the twists are rather obvious, but in the end you can 'hear' the pieces all falling into place.

Subjectively—well, you know how people have certain dislikes that applies generally without being able to explain why s/he doesn't like it? For me, one of this dislikes are stories about friends who becomes enemies. The main reason why the current plotlines in Smallville bothers me so much that I decided to stop watching it. It's one of those intense dislikes because it just felt 'wrong' to me and I can't explain it any more than that. Added to that, the scene with the bird cage where an innocent bystander got hurt in the process just... make me want to smack someone. Hard. So, definitely a movie I'd never want to see again, despite all the 'they die together in the end' slashy angle.

I'd recommend watching this movie :D, even if you have my aversion, you might not watch it again, but it was worth watching at least once (even only for Hugh).

I'm a retard.

I watched Brokeback Mountain three times and not shedding a single drop of tear, but I bawled watching King Kong. Bloody hell. The movie itself wasn't stellar, it has a very comic feeling to it and the proportion of the King Kong confuses me from time to time since it seems bigger when it first appears and gradually gets smaller. Change in psychological perspective? I have no clue.

The largest part of the movie walks like Jurassic Park and talks like Jurassic Park, except that you add a big monkey in the middle of all the 'saurs. Leave scientific knowledge at the door, and just take it as they are presented. If you're fussy about details like these, don't watch this movie, it'll leave you ranting. Jack Black does a great job being the devil that never dies, his role in the movie reminds me of his music video when he was singing (as Tenacious D) "Tribute", meeting a demon down the road.

The Aussie actress Naomi Watts does a very moving job, considering she's acting against a CG (done mostly with props in Real Life) for most of the movie. Her blonde hair and expressions reminds me a bit of a younger, softer-looking Nicole Kidman. I think her acting and the CG Kong was the reason for the all the waterworks, even though I have this uneasy feeling that her relationship with Kong smells faintly of Stockholm Syndrome. *sigh* Then again who says human's psyche is simple?

The SFX were rather well-done, I like the way they tried to remake New York in 1933, and after much wincing at wrecked antique cars, I decided that most of them are CGs too. It's a movie where you should not be thinking about logic much, just enjoy the carnage, the love story and a big ape waving it's fist on top of Empire State building.

This movie is also a great reminder of human being's reaction towards the unknown (and more than once I was so happy that Australia has such tight Quarantine laws) and 'freaks of nature'. Nowadays, if something like it happens in US, you'll hope Bush steps down and let Animal Control takes care of it.

CLARK KENT IS A DUMBASS!!!

I thought I'd just share that. Watching Smallville is a dirty secret of mine, although the series went downhill after season 2. I didn't watch season 3 and 4 entirely, now up to season 5. Episode 12 of season 5? Starts off as the BEST episode for the first half and ends up as the WORST episode that I had to replay it from the start again and stop in the middle just to erase the memory. I wanna strangle and bitch-slap him (CK) to Kingdom Come.

*grumbles*

Watched Underworld:Evolution today, plotline is simpler than the first one although some of the scene shots are just downright artistic. Made simpler because of the existence of one powerful character that's terrorising and killing everyone (instead of the power struggle we see in the first movie). Many characters' histories are unfortunately not rehashed very well before they're dead in the hands (or wings) of this one powerful character. It's like, book open (by Celine), book close (by said powerful character). One of the very few movies I don't mind seeing the girl and the guy kiss over and over (well, about two occassions), 'cause I think they look good together (Yes, I was 'awww'-ing there). Definitely a must-watch for those with leather fetish, platform boots and jumping off heights in said garments. The fighting sequence are not as impressive as the first one and with the deaths of many vampires, you notice a decrease in both vampires and lychantrophes protagonists. Pretty much a story about Celine and... whatshisname, the hybrid. Unfortunately, although I see an opportunity for them to do so, even after the hint that a hybrid's power may be limitless, they only really reveal one possibility in this movie... I really only can think of one since he seems to be almost always outmatched in his battles.

This narrows down my "To Watch" list to: Chicken Little 3D and Valiant.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!! Hope you've stuffed yourself silly with great Chinese New Year's food and enjoying merriment for the Year of the Dog. I forgot about the Chinese New Year until yesterday so I'm still defrosting the food I prepared *sigh*

Watched "Brokeback Mountain" yesterday, and I was surprised that many people balked at watching the movie. Mostly because of the gay thing, apparently *blink*.

Well, I'm going to watch the movie again, because I think between the southern drawl and some unexpected elements that you don't usually find in an Ang Lee movie, I missed a few details. The movie itself is fairly good, I like it. It's definitely not hardcore, more of the emotions and a tad of desperation. It's not a "Wow, that was GREAT!" kind of movie, but more like... chicken soup compared to caviar. It's simple, subtle and not over-the-top.

The movie depicts sprawling sceneries and mundane everyday lives in his movies, until an event happens to break the cycle. Coming from an Asian country, I find the everyday lives of country USA fairly interesting. It was a rough life for farmers then, mortality rate is still fairly high, many lived in mobile homes and there's the dry fields with the rugged shack. Because of this, despite of the 134 minutes running time, I didn't even yawn.

At first I tried looking at the movie without looking at the gay thing, because as a yaoi fan, the gay thing is an unfair advantage. As the movie progressed, you can't really look at it without looking at the gay thing because the story is addressing the issues faced by the gay people in backwater USA in 1963. The fears, repressions, the barriers, the prejudice for a man to be with another man and the lynching. It's definitely different from gay people nowadays in western cities. It's the story of forbidden love, like Romeo and Juliet, without the family feud. I think if you don't feel too strongly against homosexuality, you will enjoy this movie.