In January I promised I’d take Irfan this month to watch Geng: Pergembaraan Bermula (The Gang: The Adventure Begins), a new computer animated, feature-length movie which also features the hyperactive preschooling twins Upin and Ipin from their eponymous computer generated TV series on TV9. Little did I know that I was about to behold THE best Malay movie I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in my years of being sort-of alive in this particular corner of the multiverse. The overall story was great. The little character moments were great. I laughed dozens of times throughout. And every technical aspect of the filmmaking is leaps and bounds better than 99 percent of any other Malay movie ever made. [[image:gengthemovie1.jpg:The dramatis personae on Sapy’s bullock cart. Sapy! GO!!!!!!:center:0]] The story begins with teenaged friends from the city, Badrol and Lim, who returns to Badrol’s kampung to visit his grandfather during durian season. […]
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Shenanigans on Christophsis and Teth – A Clone Wars Review
I finally saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The short version of it is this: I went in expecting three episodes of a Saturday morning cartoon series jury-rigged and strung together to form a 90 minute movie. And I got what I want and a bit more. I loved it. If you didn’t already know, the movie is actually that: three episodes of the cartoon spliced together for a theatrical showing after George Lucas saw the episodes on the big screen during meetings with the production team. And I can’t wait for further episodes. The story is nothing heavy or dramatic. Amongst the many battles of the the Clone Wars, Rotta the Hutt, Jabba’s infant son has been abducted and the Jedi assigns Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to investigate, pick up the trail and return the Huttlet back to its parent. In return, the Grand Army of the […]
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Burtt At His Best – A WALL-E Review
WALL-E, directed by Finding Nemo‘s Andrew Stanton, is indeed according to Ben Burtt, “R2-D2 the movie “. And as any Star Wars fan knows, Burtt has been the Academy Award sound designer for all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, as well as a writer for the Droids cartoon TV movie The Great Heep which featured R2-D2 and C-3P0. So, there is no one more skilled than him in crafting mechanical sounds that elicit emotions in viewers. WALL-E is the acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth-class, a trash management robot designed to clear the immense volume of garbage from an uninhabitable Earth, and left behind when all Humans have evacuated into ships in space. We also see two WALL-As – Axiom-class robots later in the movie. However, it’s been seven hundred years since he first started his job and all the other WALL-Es are damaged beyond repair […]
Continue readingThe Clown Prince of Chaos – The Dark Knight Review
[[image:darkknight01.jpg:Dunno why’s called the Batpod, but it’s hella cool:left:0]]No. The Joker is not the Clown Prince of Crime in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the sequel to his 2005 movie Batman Begins. Crime is just a tool and a means to an end. And that end is a total breakdown in the order of Gotham City. Not just anarchy, but absolute chaos. Heath Ledger is for me now the best Joker actor around (or not any more, as the case may be), edging out Mark Hamill’s performance who was previously in my top spot. He is a frightening character, not because he’s creepy or insane, but he seems to be the one most in control of everything, did the best planning, execute his plans, keeping everyone on their toes by constantly hitting them with his machinations left and right at the same time Even if he aims to create chaos, […]
Continue readingJust Two Short Movie Reviews
Hooray for Cheap Ass Wednesday. Because of Cheap Ass Wednesday, it’s cheaper for Irfan, Ain & me to catch a movie than it is for me to buy one novel to read. That stinks to high heaven but it’s a rant for another day if I’m bothered to do it. Ain didn’t feel well enough to get to work that morning. So I picked up Irfan after classes (so he skipped daycare) we went to Cathay Cineleisure where a lot of movies await us. Some really good ones are out cause we’re smack dab in the middle of the summer movie season. I chose two movies for us to enjoy. No spoilers ahead! A Non-comic Book Comic Book Movie: A Hancock Review [[image:movie_hancock01.jpg:Aw hell naw:left:0]]Hancock is a study of the Superman-type superhero template, with a twist. John Hancock is the only super-powered human around. He has the power of flight, […]
Continue readingNot So Jolly Green Giant – An Incredible Hulk Review
[[image:hulk01.jpg:Holy crap! It’s Bill Bixby’s Zombie!:left:0]]The new movie from Marvel Studios entitled The Incredible Hulk has been released. The movie is about a man who has been altered by an overdose of gamma radiation causing him to transform into the nine feet tall, green-skinned monstrous creature known as the Hulk. The movie is directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Academy Award winning actor Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt as General “Thunderbolt” Ross, Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky and Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns. Ty Burrell also makes an appearance as psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson. Oh, who am I kidding. This isn’t really a review for the unwashed masses. This is me hulking out comic book geek style over an awesome comic book-turned-movie, which is in my opinion, a hundred times better than the 2003 Ang Lee movie only entitled Hulk which I […]
Continue readingIt’s Still The Milage – A Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Review
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shows that Henry Jones, Junior has been busy for the last 19 years as it’s now 1957. Has it been almost 20 years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Man, I feel old. Apart from giving a straight review, this movie requires a bit of dissecting and we shall now dissect in SPOILER territory. SPOILERS! Avert your eyes, like this Russian chap below! Indy’s helping him avert his eyes, even. [[image:indy01.jpg:This seems to be an unfinished FX shot :center:0]] Indiana Jones is George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s love for pulp movie serials of the 30s redone using modern filmmaking techniques. However with the fourth installation of the series, our intrepid hero, now about the same age as him father as played by Sean Connery in The Last Crusade, has entered the B movie era of the 1950s as we will […]
Continue readingSome Good Saucer Men News
[[image:indy00.jpg:Take that, commie reviewer bastards!:left:0]]This summer will see a whole lot of nerd rage with wave after wave of nerds complaining to the tune of George Lucas screwed the pooch with the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Why? Because, yet to be released are The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, X-Files: I Want To Believe, Punisher War Zone, The Dark Knight, Star Wars Clone Wars (Yes! There’s a Star Wars movie coming out in theatres this summer and it’s not being overly marketed by a juggernaut on steroid, thank you very much! A heartfelt hurrah!) and of course next week’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yes, a lot of nerd rage has been directed towards Kingdom of the Crystal Skull because of… well, nerd reasons. (And Speed Racer will probably tank badly because of horrible marketing strategy and bad word of mouth from people who […]
Continue readingNonja-busting Action – A Speed Racer Review
[[image:speedracer01_copy1.jpg:Mach 5 vs the Shooting Star:left:0]]I never saw a lot of the Speed Racer toon (Japanese title: Mach! Go! Go! Go!) on TV while growing up, but I did promise Irfan to take him to watch the new movie adaptation, directed by the Wachowski brothers. I saw the trailer weeks earlier and went in with Irfan and Ain expected a dumb storyline with epilepsy-inducing special effects. I mean, how can you make a meaningful story with the protagonist’s younger brother who was always climbing into the trunk of his car (with a monkey for a best friend) and getting into screwball adventures, as his elder brother races in dangerous car races. And “Speed Racer” was his actual name, not just his job? I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there is a solid, entertaining storyline with twists embedded satisfactorily within the movie, with just the right amount of drama […]
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Wait! WHO Wears Ten Rings? – An Iron Man Review
I don’t monitor Iron Man as close as say Spider-Man or the X-Men growing up. However, I do know what he’s all about. I’ve checked Armor Wars out of Perth Library (again, that’s Scotland and not Australia) and read it entirely. Two of the most iconic Iron Man cover for me is the “Demon in the Bottle” cover and the one where “Stark” in the Stark Enterprises logo is replaced with “Stane”. Earlier tonight, we went to catch Iron Man (on opening day) at Cineleisure. I’m not going to talk about the plot of the movie. It’s a basic origins movie with a battle with a bad guy. It’s not high literature, but it’s a great action movie with lots of fun moments throughout. The Iron Man origin in the movie is transplanted from the original comic book location of Vietnam to Afghanistan. So, I’m just going to list out […]
Continue readingHorror Tag
Since Simple American tagged me for this Horror Movie meme, here we go! Sorry for it being a few days after Halloween but my days have been pretty hectic lately! In all honesty, I’m seriously a coward when it comes to horror movies. The supernatural just freaks me out for some reason! I mean, give me a good old blood and gore flick, and I’m totally fine, but throw in any element of the supernatural (ghosts, ghouls, ESP, whatever) and I’m outta there. I used to have nightmares when I was little, so I stopped watching horror movies. I can’t even be the last person downstairs and walk upstairs turning the lights out as I am convinced “something” will jump out of the darkness and get me, or that if I look back, I will see red eyes shining right back at me. But, since Jerry wanted to know what […]
Continue readingTen Terrifying Tales of Terror: A Tag
Thanks to Jerry of Simple America for this tag. To find ten tales of terror I’ve isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. I’ve seen very few horror movies when I was younger, and I found out in my late teens that horror doesn’t really affect me as much as I thought it did. Not to say that I’m totally impervious to them. I still do flinch when gore catches me by surprise. But to determine which movie actually causes you to feel horror, to have an unsettling thought form in your mind while watching the movie and stay with you for years on end, now that is something to write about. I’ve seen a lot of supposedly horror movies, but they just don’t affect me because they’re too focused on gory deaths or has a premise that is clearly too far detached from reality (as opposed to suggesting it, […]
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No Sacrifice, No Victory – A Transformers Review
First of all, I along with a couple of other pals, were the dudes who taped the Transformers episodes when the first aired (long before they were known as G1), to try to identify all of them. So yeah, even after more than 20 years later I can still name all 18 of the original Autobots who crash-landed on Earth on the Ark. So this movie is a big deal for me. The idea of seeing photorealistic giant robots prance on the screen, firing missiles at and beating the crap out of each other, transforming into cars and burning rubber on the highway…. is sort of a holy grail. Walking up the hallway to the escalator in Cineleisure that will take me to the Cathay Cineplex (with Irfan in tow), Remembering the first time I heard they were going to produce the Transformers movie, I told Awie, “I’ve been waiting […]
Continue readingSea Turtles, Mate – At World’s End Review
[[image:awe00.jpg:Jack Sparrow vs Davy Jones:center:0]] Spoilers ahoy! Cast away your eyes if you haven’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End. Based on the reviews I’ve read thus far, this movie is something that you either enjoy or you don’t. Do you like adventures and treachery in the high seas? Do you like pirates of the olden days of sailing ships? Do you like boardings and broadsides? Do you like tall tales of swordfights, sorcery and magic of the ocean? Davy Jones’ Locker? Pieces of eights? Shrunken heads? Parrots? Monkeys? Cannons? Monkeys shot out of cannons? [[image:awe01.jpg:Leaving Singapore for World’s End:left:0]]Well, if you like all of the above, human nature being human nature, you might still not like the movie. But I enjoyed it! At the end of the last movie, Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship the Black Pearl, was consumed Davey Jones’ pet squid the Kraken. […]
Continue readingVillain-o-rama – A Spider-Man 3 Review
[[image:dualityspidey01.jpg:The black costume:center:0]] As previously reported, we caught Spider-Man 3 at Digi IMAX theatre on opening night. But first a non-spoilery rundown of the movie based on early press releases and trailers. Peter will be asking MJ to marry him, but before that there are a few small problem. First, of course, is continuing the tale across the last two movies is Harry Osborn’s desire for revenge against Spider-Man for his father Norman Osborn’s (a.k.a. the Green Goblin) death. Then there’s Eddie Brock, a rival photographer who will stoop to nasty methods to frame Spider-Man for a position as the Daily Bugle’s staff photographer. His character starts out as a nice guy but a series of unfortunate circumstances slowly strip away the guise and finally reveal himself for what he truly is. In the midst of it, Flint Marko an escaped convict on the run who unwittingly finds himself in […]
Continue readingSunburn Is The Least Of Your Worries: A Sunshine Review
[[image:sunshine01.jpg:The shieldship with the bomb:left:0]]I just saw this movie on a THX screen and it was quite a ride. I liked it very much. Absolutely no spoilers ahead. Danny Boyle directs this movie and what he did was create an atmosphere that doesn’t not really accentuate claustrophobia or xenophobia. What Sunshine has instead is a layer of despair and hopelessness which barely registers but hangs over the proceedings like a thin film. You can almost feel the despair being radiated by the characters and the situation mounting as the movie progresses. Sunshine gets right to the point with Cilian Murphy’s voiceover. It’s 50 years in the future and the sun is dying, and with it the slowly-freezing Earth. The crew of the Icarus II (a shieldship right out of the pages of Dark Force Rising, heh!) has been tasked with the delivery of a Manhattan Island-massed bomb which would theoretically […]
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