Cloverfield

Some Thing Has Found Us

Last Friday I popped in the Cloverfield blu-ray disc with no expectations what so ever, and to my surprise, for what it was (a fictional documentary/sci-fi/monster flick) it was quite good and very enjoyable.

I think the plot is best described as one of those “end of the world” movies shot through the camera of a twenty-something-year-old. I know, first thing that comes to your mind is probably War of the Worlds or the Blairwitch Project (which was terrible), but no, Cloverfield was actually very entertaining and fun to watch. It is short (a mere 85 min.) and therefore does not drag or get boring, in fact, the feature is quite suspense throughout. I especially enjoyed the realism aspect of the film as well as the sincerity of the characters (people my age) in the "situation" they’re in.

Long story short, get some friends together, grab your favorite beverage and enjoy the film. It’s nothing spectacular, but it is a lot of fun!!


* * * (three out of five) – I recommend. Nothing like anything else I've seen this year.


V.

Enjoyed Cloverfield? Viira recommends: War of the Worlds, I Am Legend.


Poster courtesy of http://www.impawards.com/

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10,000 B.C.

Oh boy...I really don’t know where to begin…but I can say this: 10,000 B.C. is probably the worst film I have seen this year, and since I don’t enjoy writing critiques for films I absolutely dislike, I figured I’d make it as short as possible…

Not only that the film was filled with factual errors and anachronisms such as metal working (not mastered before 5,500 B.C.), exploitation of horses for human transportation (started around 4,000 B.C.), pyramids (earliest one erected in Egypt around 2,600 B.C.), and the use of mammoths as domesticated animals (WTF??), the plot (if we can call it that) was just terrible and the acting and the dialogue even worse.

But all the goofs and errors, bad acting, a weak plot and terrible accents (yes, all the characters spoke with really….appaling accents) and computer-game-like CGI effects aside, what this film lacked the most was “suspense”. 10,000 B.C., which was advertised as a pre-historic epic adventure, lacked the suspense we expect from other epics such as Gladiator, Apocalypto, or 300 (10,000 B.C. includes some familiar elements from the three). In fact 10,000 B.C. was so boring that I watched the first half of the film last Saturday, and then took a break for a couple of days, and finally finished it off last night (hoping that it will get better…no, I think the second half was even worse).


* (one out of five) – I’d give it 0 if I could. They ought to ban Ronald Emmerich from making anything new.


V.

Oh yes, you can forget about the saber tooth tiger. That thing gets no more than 60 seconds of screen time, and for the record, there is no man VS. tiger duel. Disappointing, to say the least...

Enjoyed 10,000 B.C.? Viira recommends: Apocalypto, Gladiator, 300.


Poster courtesy of http://www.impawards.com/

Top 10 greatest movie villains of all time...

A few weeks ago a colleague of mine asked who would I rate as the best movie villains of all time, or if I had ever put any thought toward that. I had not. Yet her question intrigued me so I took my time and analyzed several different characters (based on different criteria) and came up with my top 10...

Here it is...(in no particular order)

• Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs).

• Denzel Washington as Det. Alonzo Harris (Training Day).

• Kevin Spacey as John Doe (Se7en).

• Louise Fletcher as nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).

• Heath Ledger as The Joker (The Dark Knight).

• Joe Pesci as the hot blooded mob enforcer Nicky Santoro (Casino).

• Kevin Bacon as the pedophile prison guard Sean Nokes (Sleepers).

• Ralph Fiennes as SS Commandant Amon Göth (Schindler’s List).

• Robert Patrick as T-1000 (T2: Judgment Day).

• Bob Gunton as warden Norton (Shawshank Redemption).
  

Some of the runner ups include: Patrick McGoohan as King Edward the “Longshanks” (Braveheart), Gary Oldman as Det. Norman Stansfield (Léon: The Professional), Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, the emotionless, compassionless killing machine (No Country for Old Men) and Jack Nicholson as the mob boss Frank Costello (The Departed).

V.


Did I miss anything? Go ahead and your thoughts to the comments section!


All photos courtesy of Google Image Search.

Juno

“It started with a chair…”

So I finally saw it. And…I liked it, and I thought Ellen Page once again delivered. Excellent acting, although I think she was much better in Hard Candy, which, according to the director of Juno, earned her the leading role of Juno (I watched the DVD extras). Other notable roles would include Juno’s “destined to be an HVAC guy” father, J.K. Simmons (perhaps more famed for his role as J. Jonah Jameson, the editor-in-chief for the Daily Bugle in the Spider-Man films), and a surprisingly decent cameo by Jennifer Garner as the wannabe surrogate mom.

So this is what I thought: I think it’s fair to say that I liked the film. It was cute, and yes, cute would perhaps be the best word to describe Juno, since it wasn’t really a great (indie)film but merely cute flick. In my opinion Juno lacked the eminent teen dialogue. Jargons like “honest to blog?”, “Phuket, Thailand” or “pork swords”, are not as common as the movie makes it to be. Not common at all actually. Another thing that kind of threw me off was the vocabulary used by Juno. I understand that she was a bright kid for her age (16), yet if she was really that bright, then how come she got knocked up to begin with? Contradicting, I thought. And lastly, the ultimate nerd Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) did not seem to have anything in common with our protagonist Juno, other than their “band” of course. When Juno was witty, funny, and assertive (to say the least), then Bleeker was...just a nerd. Nothing more, nothing less. Make matters worse, I did not see any sparks or affection between the two teenagers. None at all. So how on earth am I supposed to believe that those two even hooked up?

I think Juno is a teen movie made for adults. Come on, I doubt anyone under the age of 21 would even understand the remark “ten-thousand leagues under the sea”. Clearly an adult cutesy flick with vocabulary for a mature audience.


* * * (three out of five) – recommended for adults, but not for kids. Decent and enjoyable, but nothing as spectacular as it was made up to be.


V.

Enjoyed Juno? Viira recommends: Thirteen, Hard Candy, Little Miss Sunshine.


Poster courtesy of http://www.impawards.com/

The Dark Knight

Welcome to a world without rules

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I went to see this summer’s long awaited (and much hyped) sequel – The Dark Knight.

Here’s something about me…I usually give a film a couple of days to sort of sink in and then I make an attempt to recall my memories (if there are any), piece them back together, and try to come up with a an adequate review of the feature.

First of all, let’s get something out of the way before we start dissecting this film. The late Heath Ledger did a phenomenal job as the deranged and psychotic Joker. I’ve got nothing but praise for him. I had heard that he was great, but his performance exceeded my expectations in every which way, earning him a place in my top 10 ultimate movie villains list. Truly an Oscar worthy performance!!

But did the film (Heath Ledger’s Joker aside) live up to its hype? After contemplating over this for quite some time, I would conclude that yes it did, however, it wasn’t as great as I had hoped it would be (I think the hype got the best of me). Why do I say that? I say this because I truly believe that without Heath Ledger’s Joker, this movie would have been merely another summer-blockbuster-comic-book-flick. This is why…

Gotham City. This time I didn’t enjoy Gotham as much I enjoyed it in Batman Begins. Gotham City, which was filmed in Chicago, Illinois, was just too much…Chicago for me. The feel of a dark and gritty metropolis infested with crime was…gone. No vaulted arches, no gargoyles, no rain. Instead we got plenty (and perhaps too much) daylight to make Gotham look like a beautiful place. Just like the good ol’ Chicago with all its glory.

152 min. I did not care for the 2 and a half hour length of the feature. It could have easily been edited into 2 hours. Just take out the over the top (and unnecessary) Hong Kong sequences, and the brief Scarecrow cameo, which led us nowhere.

Two-face. Not only that his face looked a little cheesy and computer animated (I was hoping for something more "real", something along the lines of a napalm victim from We Were Soldiers), but the real bummer is that Two-face is in the film for no more than 20 minutes which after he gets what I call the “Venom treatment” (those who have seen Spider-Man 3 will understand). WTF?

Sal Maroni. I also didn’t care for Eric Roberts as the mob boss Sal “The Boss” Maroni, please, the guy looks more like an abusive husband rather than a mafia don. Roberts’ performance is incomparable with Tom Wilkinson’s Carmine Falcone from Batman Begins.

Batman. Yes…the Batman…well…let me put it this way – where in Batman Begins our hero is portrayed more like a ninja who appears from the dark, kicks some serious ass and then all of a sudden disappears, leaving everyone (including the audience) a little frightened, then in the Dark Knight he isn’t as frightening (whatever happened to the comic book Batman who intimidated his enemies?) as I would have liked to see him. He was solid, but not as great as I had expected him to be.

All this considered I must say that Heath Ledger stole the show and made the Dark Knight truly enjoyable . He basically made up for every shortcoming of this film. This time the joke was on the knight…




* * * * (four out of five) – a must see not only of this summer but of this entire year. And if you don’t care for the genre, you should see it for Ledger’s performance.

V.


Enjoyed The Dark Knight? Viira recommends: Batman Begins, The Prestige, Sin City


Poster courtesy of http://www.impawards.com/

Welcome to my all new movie blog...

Bookmark this site and keep checking back for more reviews and other movie buzz. This is going to be fun!!

Thank you,

V.