November 07, 2006

6 movies, 2 days, 1 me.

Jarhead
Based on former Marine Anthony Swofford's best-selling 2003 book about his pre-Desert Storm experiences in Saudi Arabia and about his experiences fighting in Kuwait: end quote.
Brilliant movie. Utterly, beautifully, simply brilliant. Watching this movie, you forget all about who's acting (Gyllenhaal and Foxx were the most recognizable. Kudos.) The movie is so realistic, there's nothing to not to like. Beautiful camera works. Fantastic sequencing. It's all so believable. This is a movie that would make you laugh and observe and cringe and educate. This is a movie, so effective in telling it's story, that would make you think. The best thing I could say about this movie is that: it is an original. The director managed to put aside all political persuasion (it is about the oil war in the Middle East) and presents merely the very sentiments of war. This movie emotes. The futility, the cluelessness, the injustice, the treasures, the hopelessness, the frustration, the truth, the ugly, the stupidity, the manipulation, the human.
Go watch. Even if war movies is not your cup of half decaf, vanilla soy milk, dry latte; go watch. I'm so serious.

The Marine
Starring John Cena, the K-Fed of wrestling minus the trailer park wife. That on its own should have told you all you can expect from this sorry piece of crap. Remember Hulk Hogan's movie career? What movie career? Exactly.
But after The Rock, I was foolishly inflicted by temporary lapse of optimism. And thinking that since Cena is the most popular WWE champion after The Rock, I said, why not?
Thus I observed the total wreckage that is The Marine. A grisly attempt at recreating the glory days when Van Damme and Seagal was king, I spent most of the time shuddering at the weak plot line and lame dialogs to snorting at the cliche action sequence and pathetic, pathetic ending.
Cena is a hotshot marine, fresh from protecting Bush's investment in Iraq. Came home to a pretty, blond wife-bot. They are happy. Cena would be happier if he has a job. He messed up first day of work and got fired for being a good guy. Cruel world. Wife-bot and Cena decided to take a break (from what?) and stumbled across the merry band of ruthless, merciless but always ready with a witty one-liner, diamond thieves. In true desperate attempt to establish a plot (or to find a reason for Cena to document his wrestling moves and take off his clothes) wife-bot got stolen by baddies, Cena goes in hot pursuit; utilising all the skills he learnt from being a marine, how fortunate.
I was a comatosed (mutant lobster) zombie 5minutes into this horror spawn but prevailed so that I could personally deliver a precise, concise report to my little brother about how his (my brother's) wrestling idol inaugural acting foray is : He sucked dude, big time. He effing sucked. Woot.
Verdict: Oscar bait, this. Cena is the next James Dean, you mark my word.

Click
I was severely Walken-deprived. Last I saw him was in Stepford Wives, where he was most ultimately awesome as usual. Click is an acceptable source to end my Walken drought. For the time being. I enjoyed this movie. Sandler is coming back from his 'what the fuck is he doing?' aberration for doing Spanglish. He's not Happy Gilmore-Billy Madison back back, but at least he's at the right wing of the airport.
101 guide to watching a Sandler: disarm your brain. Click was a light-brained-hearted affair for me. I watch, I was entertained, I moved on. Do not expect any grey matter revelation from this movie. It's decently funny and amusing, at the same time doing it's community service through the moral of the story.
Click is about Sandler who was given an universal remote control by the most excellent Walken, ended up missing most of his life because he fast forwarded all the bad things he rather avoid (which at the end appeared to be the good things instead) It's an original Sandler movie, meaning that it has a) Sandler being childishly mean to obnoxious little 5 year olds b) Sandler being a well-meaning but misguided family man. Loving to his kids and parents. c) Sandler is normal but surrounded by some weird shits of friends/employer/employees d) Sandler scoring the hot cicadas (lush locks Kate Bekingsale plays wife in Click. Smoking) e) a happy ending.
The cast also includes David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff, Rachel 'SNL' Dratch, Harry 'Fonzy' Winkler and Sean 'Frodo's Sam' Astin. Solid comedy cast, made the movie more watchable, methinks.
Made me realised how OLD I am though, the couple has 2 kids and their theme song is Linger by the Cranberries. I sang that song in high school, I mean, it cant be an oldie already. Surely.
The moral of the movie : Watch the movie and don't forget to love and cherish your family afterwards. Or shag a toy duck. Whichever.

note : My all time Walken favorites to recommend (with my out of 10 ratings). The Prophecy (10), True Romance(9), Biloxi Blues(9), Pulp Fiction(7), The Deer Hunter(8) and The Rundown (6). And of course, the Fat Boy Slim vid clip (10).

Underworld Revolution
I barely watched the first installment, I'm glad to say the same about the second. I don't like this movie because
  1. Bekingsale was in a similar, suckier movie not too long ago. I cant be bothered to remember the title, Wolverine was in it. They both blow.
  2. No hot guys. Nope, Michael didn't cut it. He wasn't even hypothermically warm.
  3. The old, great, original Vampire and Lycan wasn't all that. Even their sire was a pussy. Take away the awe factor of the old families in vampire slash werewolf movies and all you have left is mutant pets on a rampage stories.
  4. The final fight scene was not long enough, not gory enough, not CGI-ed enough, not multi-martial arted enough, not violent, not anything enough.
  5. There was zero chemistry between the couple. They could have been siblings. So if you're into incest, which I'm not.
But I especially love the part where Michael kills the lycans by ripping their jaws off. Extremely graphic. Well done. And how hot is Kate's body in vinyl? Scorching. Her hair is a big, boring, tangled no-no but awesome body.

John Tucker Must Die
Oh yes. I'm very indiscriminate in my movie options. Remember all the high school flicks: She's All That, 10 Things, American Pie, the more recent Mean Girls, etc etc - all the movies you swore you don't watch but you could sing along to their theme songs lyrics? Yeah, those. Here's another.
Starring Jesse Metcalf (mostly shirtless, how suprising), Ashanti, Sophie Bush and some other less known actors (less known for a reason, apparently).
Plot: Popular guy cheats on high school theme-Barbies, Barbies get together to get even, justice is served. Insert several random teen movies cliches (e.g. unpopular girl make-over into Glam Queen, creepy, misunderstood, artsy but diggable 'other boy' for girl to fall in love later, major high school sports event, most popular boy effortlessly to fall in love with the girl as soon as she got made-over, synchronized dance performance, no real life responsibility like homework or curfew or classes to attend, plan backfiring when girl falls in love with the inner side of boy she discovers, big party slash prom scene climax). Yawn.
I cant stop thinking that for a high school movie, the collective age of the main casts is like, 310 years old. Boring and lame. No suprise there. Oh, Jenna Jameson also stars, she's an android, right?

V for Vandetta.
Its shocking how severely outdated I am in joining the rest of the free world in watching this great movie. I absolutely adore this movie. V cooking in the red, frilly apron is priceless. Oh my lord Elrond of Rivendell, you had me at "Mister Anderson," .. now you have me forever.
Trivia : The forehead space between V and Evey (and me) amounts to the square meters of Amazon jungle being destroyed annually by illegal logging. It's true. Check it out.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

yeah...i told you so....V rocks...

But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona.VoilĂ ! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.