Monday, November 10, 2008

No time to write - 2 movies

#43 Quantum of Solace
GV Max
Nov 6, 2008
9.35pm
(Great Action, Thin Plot)

#42 Bangkok Dangerous
GSC Mid-Valley
Oct 30, 2008
11.40pm
(Super Lousy & Boring)

Monday, October 27, 2008

No time to write - 3 movies!

#41 Tropic Thunder
GV Boon Lay 3
Oct 26, 2008
9.10pm
(So-so!)

#40 Eagle Eye
Cathay City Square
Oct 25, 2008
4.10pm
(2nd time!)

#39 Max Payne
GSC Submit 7
Oct 17, 2008
12.45pm
(not Nice!)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

#38 Connected

Been wanting to watch this film for quite sometime, and I finally got the chance (and time) to watch this.




I didn't expect the action sequences of this Asian Version of "Cellular" to be this long. Quite well-cherographed. 


GSC Mid-Valley 17
Oct 16, 2008
2.00pm

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

#37 Disaster Movie



This is really a silly stupid show, but this is actually quite entertaining. And compared to the rest of the spoof movies, this is actually of a better standard.

Taking aim at everything and everyone, from "Indiana Jones" and "Iron Man" to "The Hulk", "Iron Man" and "High School Musical", DISASTER MOVIE lampoons the blockbuster movie, pop culture icons and public figures along the way.


GSC Pavilion 
Oct 15, 2008
2.20pm

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

#36 Eagle Eye





This is quite a roller-coaster ride, despite of the complicated bits and pieces of information. You just need to keep your attention to every single details in the movie and you'll find the enlightment at the end!


GV Marina 5
Oct 01, 2008
5.55pm



Tuesday, September 30, 2008

#35 Painted Skin

Heard that this movie will be representing to be nominated for Oscar Best Foreign Film.

Anyway, watched the second time, but in original Chinese this time round!



GV Max
Sep 29, 2008
9.20pm

Saturday, September 27, 2008

#34 Painted Skin



This is rather a sad story than an action film, if you think it will be (since Donnie Yen is in it). Zhou Xun and Zhao Wei are captivating in their performances. 

Anyway, the story do keep you to the seat; but don't expect an epic story within!

TGV Sunway 6
Sep 27, 2008
9.20pm

#33 Red Cliff



Yesterday I watched 'Red Cliff'. Yes, this is the third time I watched 'Red Cliff'.

I'm in Malaysia for these few days. I just happened to find out on the newspaper that there is this blockbuster re-run at only RM5. And loving this show, I pop into the cinema without any hesitation!



GSC One Utama 3
Sep 26, 2008
9.00pm

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

#32 Babylon AD



What a lousy action comeback from Vin Diesel!



TGV Tebrau City 3
Sep 23, 2008
11.50am

Saturday, September 20, 2008

#31 Mamma Mia!

It's really not easy to shoot a musical. But this is rather a fun movie / musical to watch.



Pierce Brosnan is really not suitable to sing in this musical!!


GV Max
Sep 19, 2008
9.20pm

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

#30 Deception



I must say this is a thought-provoking movie, but ending is poorly structured.


TGV Tebrau 10
Sep 17, 2008
2.30pm

Friday, September 12, 2008

#29 Wall-E

This is good animation feature I had been waiting for.



This does not disappoint, but this may be too mature for the kids.


GSC The Gardens - Premier Class
Sep 12, 2008
5.15pm

Thursday, August 7, 2008

#28 The Dark Knight

I watched 'The Dark Knight' again!

This is good stuff!

GV Boon Lay 1
August 6, 2008
9.10pm

Saturday, August 2, 2008

#27 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I like both Mummy movies - both entertaining films that had a lot of action and a lot of humour.



The third one, honestly.. The action sequences were pretty well done. But the dialogue is boring and that happened in between the action sequences was kind of boring.



GV Grand 6
August 1, 2008
9.40pm

Sunday, July 20, 2008

#26 Red Cliff

I watched 'Red Cliff' again!

By now, you should understand how good this is!


EW Toa Payoh 3
July 19, 2008
9.20pm

Friday, July 18, 2008

#25 Hellboy II: The Golden Army

This Hellboy is visually delighting.



This hero is so different, more human than others (so ironic!). Good never looks so bad!

GSC Pelangi (Johor)
July 18, 2008
11.50am

#24 The Dark Knight

I didn't really like 'Batman Begins' although many movie-goers and critics were giving great feedbacks about it.

But, 'The Dark Knight' is really different. This is edgy stuff. This movie explores the ugliness of human nature and regularity in chaos.



Christopher Nolan (producer/director/writer) is really talented. So is The Joker (the late Heath Ledger). In fact, The Joker really stole the whole show away.


GV Jurong Point 2
July 17, 2008
8.30pm

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

#23 Red Cliff

John Woo is back... He's my favourite director of all time ever since he wnet to Hollywood with 'Hard Target', 'Broken Arrow' and 'Face Off'.

Since then, he had directed 2 not-so-good films - 'Windtalker' and 'Paycheck'. But, like what I said in the first line, 'John Woo is back'.

With all the hype, his latest epic 'Red Cliff' is truly the most anticipated Asian movie this year. Every sequence is designed to interlock the script.

Takeshi Kaneshiro as Strategist Zhuge-Liang and Chang Chen as Sun Quan are not compelling enough, but characters like Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are as good as it gets!



As compared to 'The Warlords', it may not be as good probably because we still have a sequel to complete the whole story of the three kingdoms.


GV Grand 6
July 14, 2008
9.30pm

Monday, July 7, 2008

Some movies I watched recently, but no time to write on them...



#20 Wanted
July 02, 2008




#21 Sparrow
July 05, 2008




#22 Hancook
July 07, 2008

Thursday, June 19, 2008

#19 Get Smart

I have been looking forward to this show since the beginning of the year.

In the tradition of 'Spy Hard', but a bit more serious and well-blended, 'Get Smart' gives the best out of Steve Carrell, Anne Hathaway and The Rock!



Humour, at its stupidity, is not too low-class for the mass to appreciate!

GV Max
June 18, 2008
9.00pm

Sunday, June 15, 2008

#18 The Incredible Hulk

This is much more better than Ang Lee 'The Hulk' After all, Ang Lee is more suitable to do Brokeback Mountain and Lust Caution kinda movies, not so for summer blockbusters like Marvel superhero flicks!



This is good - simply one of the better Superhero movies in recent times! On par with Iron Man!


GV Max
June 14, 2008
11.50pm

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

#17 Speed Racer

What can I say? 'Speed Racer' is visually appetizing.



From start to end, the whole screen is so colourful and things move so fast. Every sequence is well-choregraphed (though a bit exaggerated at times).

This big budget extravaganza is worth all the ticket price!


Cathay 3
May 18, 2008
11.30pm

#16 What Happens in Vegas?

This is good. It has been a long time since I watched a Good Cameron Diaz show. She's still gorgeous and looks as good as she did in 'The Mask' - one of the first English movies in my life.



The plot is well-paced and the love chemistry builds up in a believable manner!


Shaw Lido 2
May 17, 2008
9.30pm

Friday, May 2, 2008

#15 Iron Man

Going into the cinema without much expectation (since the trailer is a bit cheesy), I came out feeling great about the 'Iron Man'.

As the first movie to kickstart this summer season, 'Iron Man' is definitely no Spidey calibre with lesser known stars fronting this tentpole picture. It's not a must see, but it's great fun watching.



Cathay Downtown East
May 01, 2008
7.00pm

Saturday, April 19, 2008

#14: The Forbidden Kingdom

Visually this movie was pretty good, although not as lush and glamorous as you might expect. It felt kind of hazy, almost like the entire thing was a dream sequence (i.e. not very interesting to me).



Anyway, the only sequence that excited me is the 7 minute one-on-one fight between Jackie Chan and Jet Li.


GV VivoCity (GV Max)
Apr 18, 2008
11.50pm

Sunday, April 6, 2008

#13: Three Kingdoms - Resurrection of the Dragon

It's just too close the 3 epic movies came to screens within 6 months (i.e. The Warlords, An Empress and The Warriors and this). And Andy Lau is in 2 of these. Luckily, he's in the better ones out of the 3.



Anyway, the adoption of the 3 Kingdoms story is a moderate effort. It's better than the Empress, but still not anywhere close to the Warlords. Andy Lau and Maggie Q acted rather well too.

I'm neutral on this. I still prefer The Warlords.

Trivia: The Chinese name of the movie is 'Seeing the Dragon taking off his armour'!


GV VivoCity (GV Max)
Apr 05, 2008
9.10pm

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

#12 Rule #1

I normally don't patronize a local production. But, when I was driving to AMK Hub earlier, I heard the 933FM and the review & interview with this director (Kelvin Tong).



Not too bad, but my friend does not like the ending twist... The whole show is quite well-paced and the sound effect is up to the typical standard of the ghost flick genre.

Cathay AMK Hub
Apr 01, 2008
9.10pm

Friday, March 21, 2008

#11 An Empress and the Warriors


Looking forward to Donnie Yen after 'SPL' and 'Flash Point', he steals the whole show (but he looks a bit modern to be part of the show). On the other hand, Kelly Cheng plays the title role (Jiang Shan Mei Ren) - but she simply can't act and speak well. Unconvincingly, she learns the art of war and led the troops to war very soon after. Leon Lai is 'per usual', look like a piece of wood!



Hoping this show will be as good as the recent 'The Warlords', the cheesy and clunky script disappointed me greatly despite the well-choreographed battle scenes and Donnie Yen.


GV Tiong Bahru
Mar 21, 2008
4.55pm

Sunday, March 16, 2008

#10 Vantage Point

What can I say? This is the best movie I watched for recent months...

Shooting from various perspectives, giving the audiences multiple views of the shoot-out... This is simply one of the more brilliant movies in recent history! Frankly speaking, I think the movie distributor under-marketed this movie.

This movie was so well-paced. When pieced together the sum of the parts combines to tell the whole story. The car chase sequence was by far the best scene since 'The Rock'!



You'll get to hear and see the same story from different views. You never know if a character you meet in the beginning of a movie, say a little girl with an ice cream cone, will come back at the end of the film to play an important role.

'Vantage Point' was a thrilling, twister of a ride that will leave you guessing right up until the last moment.


GV Grand
Mar 16, 2008
9.10pm

Friday, March 7, 2008

#9 10,000 BC

I was expecting something like 'ID4' or 'The Day After Tomorrow' from director Roland Emmerich, but 10,000 BC is really nothing close to his previous efforts.

The setting is in 10,000 B.C. and people are speaking English?! As compared to the recent Apocalypto (by Mel Gibson), 10,000 BC is definitely a bigger movie. On the other side, if you are comparing the pace of the movies, 10,000 BC is slightly weaker.


I'm neutral about this movie!

GV Jurong Point
Mar 06, 2008
9.20pm

Saturday, March 1, 2008

#8 Charlie Wilson's War

Instead of watching 'The Leap Year' on Feb-29, I'd gone into 'War'.

Not knowing exactly what the story is about,
"Charlie Wilson's War" is in fact a true story of how a playboy congressman (which happened to be Tom Hanks), a renegade CIA agent and a beautiful Houston socialite joined forces to lead the largest and most successful covert operation in history. Their efforts contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, with consequences that reverberate throughout the world today.



Anyway, there is some nudity in the beginning, then followed by a lot of vulgarities in this entertaining show. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as good as ever, and Tom Hanks really played this playboy very well!

p/s: One line really sunk into my head: "Why is Congress saying one thing, doing nothing? That's tradition, mostly!"

GV VivoCity
Feb 29, 2008
9.45pm

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

#7 CJ7

It's purely coincidence my 7th movies this year is CJ7. Despite hearing many positive reviews about the movie, I was still expecting some slapstick comedic moments from the Stephen Chow film.

I must say this film is way apart from the typical Stephen Chow comedy. You see him preaching and preaching to the son not to fight, not to lie and not to do whatever bad things. And they looked very poor and pathetic (and Stephen Chow looked very old indeed).

If you are looking forward for another Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle, you may be quite disappointed. But if you are going in to watch a good movie, this may be something for you!



Anyway, when you leave the theatre, you will feel the urge to leave something behind you and start working on your family relationship.


GV VivoCity
Feb 26, 2008
12.40pm

Saturday, February 23, 2008

#6 L Change The World

Expecting a battle of wits like what happened in the first two Death Note, and what I see was nothing close. This Death Note spinoff is really nowhere close.



Boring! Draggy! Formulaic. If there is grade A for good and grade L for worst, I'll give it a L!

GV VivoCity (GV Max)
Feb 23, 2008
12.30am (midnight show)

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

#5 Jumper

Despite hearing horrible reviews from the movie critics, I caught Jumper by responding to the slick marketing campaign. The story is not engaging, but luckily the theme is very fresh.



Super-slick trailer, but Hayden Christensen acted badly too! The sexy Jamie Bell saved the show!

---

GV VivoCity (GV Max)
Feb 18, 2008
9.30pm

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Full House on Valentine's Day

I was trying to book tickets for Jumper and the GV website (and in fact, other website like Eng Wah too) was experiencing high traffic. I couldn't get the tickets online and hence, I went down to GV Jurong Point personally with my dad.

When I reached there at around 9pm, all the shows were already 'in red' (selling fast) and the queues were quite long. When I reached the box office guy, almost all the shows were sold out or left with only a single seat.

It's been a long while since I personally queue for movie tickets (since there's Internet purchase) and thus, I ended up heading home since it's too late to get tickets elsewhere.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

#4 Ah Long Pte Ltd

Contemplating between 'CJ7' and 'Ah Long Pte Ltd', we finally committed to watching the latter.

This is is the second time I watched a Jack Neo film - 'Money No Enough' being the first one! And since then, I have not frequent his movies despite of his critically-acclaimed films. I'm kinda anti-Mark Lee, but this trailer interested me where Mark Lee acted as a sissy dancer instructor with a typical Malaysian accent.



I was slightly disappointed as some of the jokes were too childish. I don't give this film a must-see status.

---

GV Marina
Feb 07, 2008
3.10pm

Friday, February 1, 2008

Cathay is increasing the ticket prices!!!


Cathay is increasing the ticket prices, so most probably the other cinema operators will follow suit soon.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

#3 Cloverfield

I just watched Cloverfield not knowing any slight information or read any reviews or synopsis. I just knew from First Magazine that the movie was virally marketed like The Blair Witch Project.

On top of the brilliant viral marketing, the teaser was used as a basis for the film itself and was released without a title attached. As Transformers showed high tracking numbers before its release in July 2007, the studio attached the teaser trailer for Cloverfield that showed the release date of January 18, 2008 but not the title. A second trailer was released on November 16, 2007, which confirmed the title.

I knew 1-18-08 (as previously knew as) was produced by JJ Abrams and the teaser looked good!



The film opens up with a digital message saying that this is a Top Secret tape not to be recopied. And guess what? It's so well-done, I must say after watching! The sequences were well-shot, the storyline is simple and easy-to-understand, the actings were good, the pace was good (though the show only lasts for 75-minutes, excluding the credits), what else can you ask for a saturday movie?

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GV VivoCity (GV Max)
Jan 19, 2008
9.00pm

Monday, January 14, 2008

#2 American Gangster

This is the type of movie that I would watch it alone. Probably I had too much experiences of people (watching this type of show with me) complained it's too draggy or even snoring in the cinema.

You can't possibly get the 2 Academy Award winners elsewhere - Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Pitch perfect for their acting...

While watching the show, I felt like watching 'The Protege' (the one with Andy Lau) and yes, I loved both films. But definitely, American Gangster is a Hollywood movie, so it's much more bigger! During the finale showdown with the Washington and Crowe, this is already a classic scene by itself.



Watch this alone (like me)! Better than No Country!!!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

#1 Le Grand Chef

My first movie of the year!

Maybe I had high expectations from this Korean show. From the TV spot, I thought this will be somehow like 'Da Chang Jin'. I must say the food don't really looked that fabulous, and some of the jokes were pretty lame.



I'm neutral on this show!

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GV Marina 4
Jan 11, 2008
9.20pm

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Best in 2007!

After writing my first post, I'm thinking to honour them appropriately!

Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Best Korean Movie: 200 Pounds Beauty
Best Chinese Movie: The Warlords
Best Romantic Comedy: Priceless
Best Action Thriller: Die Hard 4.0
Best Animals: Alvin and the Chipmunks
Best Fighter: Donnie Yen (in Flash Point)
Best Oscar-worthy: Will Smith (in The Pursuit of Happyness)
Best Actress: Zhang Jing Chun (in The Protege)
Best Actor: Jet Li (in The Warlords)
I-want-to-watch-it-the-3rd-time: Die Hard 4.0


Reason why I watched these movies twice:
- Spiderman 3 (Nothing to do in Genting!)
- Ratatouille (This is nice!)
- Die Hard 4.0 (My favourite movie in 2007!)
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (It's funny!)
- Flash Point (I watched it in Vietnam!)

1st post: My cinematic trips in 2007!

In 2007, I made 61 trips to the cinemas. I'm going to list out the movies that I loved, as follows:

January 2007 - Babel, Blood Diamond





February 2007 - The Protege



March 2007 - The Pursuit of Happyness



April 2007 - Wild Hogs, 200 Pounds Beauty





May 2007 - Priceless



June 2007 - Ocean's Thirteen, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Eye in the Sky







July 2007 - Die Hard 4.0



August 2007 - Flash Point, The Bourne Ultimatum, Hairspray







September 2007 - Ratatouille



October 2007 - NIL

November 2007 - Bee Movie



December 2007 - The Warlords, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Good Luck Chuck







Some movies that I watched twice:
- Spiderman 3
- Ratatouille
- Die Hard 4.0
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
- Fash Point