UP
Released May 29th, 2009

A new pixar movie. Do I honestly need to say anything more? 
You will laugh. You will cry. You will feel touched by it.

UP is the story of Carl, an older gentleman whose life dream is to go to Paradise Falls, in South America. Inspired as a child by the idol-some adventurer, Charles Muntz, Carl winds up flying his house to Paradise... with the help of tons and tons of balloons. Whoopsies.. a little snag, young explorer scout, Russell, somehow winds up on his porch. Together, they embark on the journey of a lifetime.

I dare not give away any more. If you loved Toy Story, or Monster's Inc. or even Finding Nemo, then I pretty much guarantee that you will love this as well. As far as this disney/pixar movie goes... well, it's pretty high up on my list already, and I've only seen it once. 

Technically speaking, the animation was pretty spot on for this. Anything with John Lasseter's name on it has my vote. Not that he does the animation, but he's directed a fair amount of pixar feature films *cough* toystory, and he produced this one. So you know it came from good hands.

Perhaps it was just me, but at one point during the film, I had pretty much forgetten that  I was not watching real people, and that they were in fact, merely animated characters. They are so lively. So wonderful and amazing. Voice acting credits go to Ed Asner. Some of you younger folks may not know him, but he has been around foreverrrr, and done plenty that you may know. Batman TAS for example.. Anyhoos. Newcomer Jordan Nagai who voices our young companion does a fine job, considering (according to IMDb) that this is his first forray into the acting scene.

Complete with all the old pixar adages (A113, John Ratzenberger, Pizza Planet truck..), this movie will make you feel right at home.

.... Did I mention that it comes in 3D?! GO SEE IT!!!




Alright, my work here is done.

viennak

PS. sorry I haven't posted anything lately. I missed on I love you Man, Star Trek, Coraline, and Angels and Demons!
(and possibly more but I don't remember what other movies I've seen!)

Chi Bi
[AKA Chek Bik, Red Cliff, or The Battle of Red Cliff]
**Am struggling to find an official release date... So far I have found: January 2009 for China and Hong Kong -- April 10th, 2009 in Japan.**

Well kids, the wait is over! Part Two is finally here! Jump up for joy! Change your underwear - this is no time for an incontinence joke! Sorry....
So I am quite hoping you went out and watched Red Cliff Part one.. or else this entire review is a tad pointless, no? But you may continue to read for the sheer pleasure of pretending that you may someday watch this, or maybe, (dare I say it?) part one...!

Alright. So I re-read the review I typed out for the original Red Cliff. And I don't merely want this to be a suffix to that. Or some appendix. Nope. This baby is a stand-alone. Also, not only did I re-read my review, but I re-watched the first movie immediately before watching the second one.... So here goes:

The move starts off with a very brief, tastefully done intro to bring those non-part-one-viewers (or those of a forgetful mind) up to speed on the happenings thus far. Then, we dive into the story.
Continuing pretty much right where we left off, Red Cliff 2 delivers much of the same punch that the first one did.

(I'm finding it hard not to say the exact same things I said for my review of the first one.... Oh dear.)

The second time round, we see much, much, much more battle than in the first. Any pyromaniacs in the house? Well, you will LOVE this then. I wish not to spoil it, so I will simply say there is LOTS of fire, and leave it to your imagination. *sigh* I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
I find the dialogue not quite up to par with the first, but the truly epic battle scenes more than make up for it. Don't get me wrong -- There really wasn't anything cheesy, it just was not as "quality" as RC1. That's all.

Now for some namedropping... Watching Tony Leung on screen with Takeshi Kaneshiro is simply electrifying. There is just something about the two of them together that just sets off fireworks on screen. What's that called?.. Oh, CHEMISTRY. And they certainly have it. I was doing some snooping on IMDB and apparently Kaneshiro is "Considered by Time Magazine to be the 'Asian film industry's Johnny Depp'". Not too shabby Mr. Kaneshiro. (yeah, he's cute... for an asian guy. hah!)

Next on the roster we have Wei Zhao, playing the cheeky, tomboy princess. Some of you more white folks may recognize her from the movie Shaolin Soccer from way back in 2001. Good movie - check it out if you haven't! Anyways, she is completely kickass in this movie, and has some very funny and heartfelt scenes (not at the same time of course!).

Finally, John Woo.
John my man, you have some pretty impressive titles under you belt; Paycheck, Windtalkers, Mission Impossible 2, Face/Off - to name a few of the Western (and I say "western" meaning NOT Asia... Not "western" like Clint Eastwood cowboy) movies you've done. While I cannot say you've outdone yourself, I can say that you will have one hell of a time trying to stay level with this very grand piece of cinematic kick-butt-awesomeness. Finely paced and well shot, there isn't anything I would change (but of course this is off the top of my head.... heheh). You have a very distinctive style that I think serves you well. Nothing more to say than, "Congratulations on another movie well made. I look forward to your next piece of work, whatever that may be".
As I mentioned in the first review, his foray into Red Cliff was the first time Woo has done an Asian film since 1992's "Hard Boiled". Good Follow up I'd say!

And, as promised, here is my picture for this entry. Took some googling on my part, so enjoy =)


PS. run time is 2hrs21mins.

Until next time kids,
viennak

Watchmen
Released March 6th, 2009

Hailed as the most successful graphic novel of all time, Watchmen finally makes its debut on the big screen. But is it worthy of all its hype? A story in the making for 20-some years, Watchmen ain't nothing to shrug at. So here it is, probably my favorite graphic novel, laid down on the line for you. As non-biased as I can possibly be, delivering to you the need-to-know about this:

Set in an alternate 1985, Watchmen tells the story of a world where masked vigilantes, or "superheroes”, once reigned supreme. A glorified lifestyle until the Keene Act was set in motion; a law declaring vigilantism illegal and demanded all costumed heroes to hang their masks for good, or face the consequences. Fast forward through a myriad of characters. From the first moment of the movie we are immersed into these people's lives: The Comedian, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, and last but most certainly not least, Rorschach.

 The doomsday clock is set at 5 minutes to midnight. The world is tense. Any minute it could end. Nuclear war is a shadow looming over everyone's heads. The future is dark, misty and shrouded in the uncertainty of mankind. The Watchmen are standing guard. But who watches the watchmen?

Watchmen, I think, is a giant question of morality and justice. What is it? Who draws the lines between good and evil? Sometimes it becomes so obscured and blurred by the ugliness of our world that drastic measures need to be taken to achieve that better place. “A world at peace, there had to be sacrifices.” How much is too much? The characters of the Watchmen world are tasked with answering this question, yet in the end, we feel no more resolve than we did at the beginning. There is such an ambiguous air about what the right thing is, and how to stop nuclear war from approaching. I for one found myself so wrapped up in the world that could-have-been, this 1985 that did happen, yet at the same time, didn’t quite make it…

Onto the critical stuff…
So I'm not going to lie, I spent a good 14, maybe 15 months waiting for this movie to come out. Now that I've seen it, I am still a little undecided about how I feel. Overall consensus is that it is a fairly good movie. Clocking in at just under 3 hours, I feel as if it tells a great, sad story about the world. Paralleling so many things that are real in our lives now, this "world" that we claim to be fiction is actually just a satire on our own world. "It's all just a joke" says the Comedian. Well, yes, yes it is.
The pacing of the movie was done fairly well, and pretty in check with the book too, so that will be pleasing for most novel fans. The effects were pretty impressive and graphic at times, thus the R-rating of the movie. One of the best things about this movie, I felt, was its incredible use of music. It just completely set the tone of the film, and it nailed dead on, every single scene, capturing the mood of the people and evoking in us stronger emotions than we would have normally felt. Not only the soundtrack (which used all classics by the way), but also the film’s score. Just amazing.  The acting was mostly fine, nothing too spectacular, but good enough to be believable and get the job done.
 

Lastly, I guess I will make note of what is on every graphic novel loving fan’s mind – the “changed” ending. For those of you wondering how they will be presenting the squid, let me just say there isn’t one. Without giving away the entire ending to those who haven’t read it, let me just say that the ending has the same effects and ramifications as the original one does, but with some added finesse to make it seem all the more sinister. It is of course such a gray area that it is hard to really say for sure if it was “good” or not. In terms of the movie, I thought it was alright. In terms of the graphic novel, I feel they could have come up with something a little better.

So that's all. It's definitely worth a viewing I think if you like history, violence, heroes and moral ambiguity. And make sure you go to the bathroom first, because like I said, it's almost 3 hours long!



Hope you enjoyed it =)
viennak
 

Max Payne
Released October 17th, 2008

First off, I just can't help but state the obvious... Max Payne? More like Max Payneful! Haha, sorry, just couldn't help myself. Moving on...

Now, first off, I know I might get a lot of reaction out of all the videogamers and fanboys of Max Payne, so let me just say up front, that I have nothing against the game. The games were great. They were fun, hard, had a good storyline and all that. But, to be honest, and blunt, and whatever, the movie was terrible.

Mark Walhberg had a nice performance in it as the title character. But, I kind of thought he was playing more Marky Mark than Max Payne, if you get what I mean.

Anywaaays, aside from the obvious videogame fanboys, and girls who love Mark, I'm not really sure who the audience of the movie is supposed to be... which is never really a good thing. You know?

It was okay. But not good. It wasn't great.
The End.

viennak

Righteous Kill
Released September 12th, 2008

What do you get when you cross two of the most amazing actors of our time, with a mediocre story line that was built up? A disappointment that's been done over and over again, that's what.

Righteous Kill had so much potential. People were buzzing about it, hoping for something spectacular to live up to its predecessor, Michael Mann's Heat, released in 1995, where De Niro and Pacino starred together brilliantly. Now, I won't get into just how awesome Heat is, and if you havent seen it, stop reading this immediately and go get yourself a copy. Seriously. Just stop reading right now.

SO! For those of you who have see Heat, and are still reading, you know how awesome that movie was, and you know how full of excitement and anticipation you would have been for Righteous Kill. Now, I'm a fairly open-minded person. I love to give things a chance. But when I watch a movie that I've been looking forward to for ages, and it fails horribly in delivering... well, I get a little upset. So you know. There's that.

Within the first 35 seconds of the movie, the entire story line is more or less clear. The audience can figure out who the real perp is. There's no longer a crazy twist, or a story that needs to be told and explained. All is revealed. Now, I won't spoil it for those of you who still haven't seen it, and wish to go, so I shall silence myself here.

I feel bad for merely slagging this movie. I do praise its actors. I mean Robert and Al did a fine job, with the material they were given - but I still can't let them off the hook for even agreeing to do this movie in the first place. I mean, c'mon guys, did you not read the script before you signed on for the project?! Oh, that was a low blow I know, but it's true. 12 year old kids would probably be amused by this.. or people with the mental capacity of 12 year olds haha.

I suppose that's enough ragging of this movie.

To be fair, it's not a horrible, horrible movie... It's just that I was expecting much more from it than I got. I wanted De Nire and Pacino at their best, and while that's not to say they weren't, it's very hard to thrive in a project that is going no where. Capice?  And the movie did turn out some lovely supporting role performances by our friends Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo, as the cliche strong-headed rookie partners who know more than they let on that they know, but still end up being wrong in the end over whom they suspect. That's all folks.

Fare thee well for now my friends,
viennak

Body of Lies
Released October 10th, 2008

Instantly plunging us into the deep, depressing world of war, secrets and death, Body of Lies delivers what the summer movie line-up was missing - a real gritty hit.

Leo does his turn as the inside man. Working from an array of places, he constantly finds himself getting screwed over by the big man back home, Crowe. There's a sort of friendly hatred and camaraderie between them that just makes all their scenes together explosive. It's also amazingly neat to see the transformation that Leo has made, going from Gilbert Grape, to Romeo + Juliet, to Departed, to this,and it is just downright cool.
Crowe as usual plays his role quite well. I loved hating his character of Hoffman, and his continual use of the word "buddy" all throughout the film. It's quite an interesting film and I think that Ridley Scott did an awesome job of delivering it to us with the gift wrapping sitll on. His last turn with American Gangster was phenomenal, and if I were him, would be proud to follow up with Body of Lies.

I'm not really too sure what to say about this film... I enjoyed it. It had pretty much everything you want in a movie. Action, humor, romance, explosions, suspense, irony, fine acting, great script. You know, the works.

I'm still undecided if I would call this a "must-see" but if you want to see a movie, I'd probably say go see this one. No offense to Hollywood, but there aren't a lot of good movies out right now. . . So you know.

This is just its first weekend out and all, so we'll see what the general public thinks come Monday morning when the official numbers come in on the weekend take. I'm guessing that it does pretty well.....
We'll see.

Until later kids!
viennak

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Released October 3rd, 2008

Ohhhh sweet. Dude, this is totally awesome. Finally a movie that teens can go watch and like, totally relate to, you know?!
... not really.

Though I really wasn't expecting an intellectual film or anything that required much thinking, I was a little disappointed and found myself getting a little squirmy towards the end there.
I mean in all honesty, who in their right mind would let their 17/18 year old children wander the night in New York city looking for some band that is playing in some club?! Okay I know I just totally spat on the storyline, but its not the storyline that I have a problem with. See, if the movie was actually good (ouch! haha) then I wouldn't have been thinking, "gee, why are these high school kids running about in the middle of the night, and where are their parents?!" Catch my drift?

Anyways, enough bashing of the movie. I thought it was a cute little flick that was well played out. The pacing was pretty good, but I did feel as if it dragged during some parts. Some of the humor is a *little* immature, but I guess that's a matter of opinion.... Having said that, I find bathroom humor can only go so far without crossing some boundaries or stepping on some toes heheh.

Michael Cera does a great job at doing what he does best - the awkward, cool guy who gets the girl in the end, but first having to jump through a billion obstacles...
That's not making fun of him or his acting because I think Michael Cera is great... but I'm just commenting on his typecast. That's all. Nothing else to it.
Great chemistry between Nick and Norah. Very cute. Very teen-esque.

Now, this may be my opinion, but I am just thinking that you won't fully enjoy this movie if you are over the age of oh, I don't know, fifteen or sixteen.
Parents who take their children to this won't fall asleep from boredom, but may roll their eyes at certain things.

Anyways. That's pretty much all there is to this movie.... (basically not that much)

viennak

Eagle Eye
Released September 26th, 2008

Wow. Just wow. And no, that's not a good kind of wow. I mean that in the sense of "oh hey, I just wasted 2 hours of my life on this that I could have spent doing something actually productive". That kind of wow.

I know this movie has been getting a lot of great reviews and whatnot, but I'm sorry, this is a terrible ripoff of about 80 other movies. Now, this may sound a little harsh, but just to be fair, it's not that the movie in itself was bad - by no means, the acting was fine, the writing wasn't too cheesy, and the action shots were pretty cool- but the fact of the matter is, if I wanted to watch this, I could have chosen from a plethora (read that again, plethora!) of other movies.
My favorite example is 2001: A Space Odyssey. The eagle eye is such a blatant steal from that, that it almost makes me want to get up and punch somebody in the face.

Sorry. I'm not trying to slag this movie, because it really isn't half bad. I'm just pissed off at the fact that its entire premise has been done countless times before, over and over again, and everyone seems to be praising Eagle Eye as some sort of original work of genius. Wow. How pretentious do I sound right now?! And another thing, how many times have I used the word "wow" in this review?! Holy cow, I really need to invest in a good, new vocabulary.

Anyways, bottom line, Eagle Eye isn't a bad little popcorn action flick. I mean, I feel a little cheated that I spent money to go see it, but if you like any of the actors (or actresses) in the movie, and you like action films, or you haven't heard of or seen any of the movies that it clearly rips off, you'll probably enjoy this movie.

Enjoy children, until next time!
viennak

Burn After Reading
Released September 12th, 2008

Well! The new Coen Brother's movie is finally here!!! And by finally I mean like 2 weeks ago, but you know, whatever.

Anyways... I really don't know what to say about this one guys. I had extremely high hopes for this, and it just kinda fell real flat for me.
Basically, it's just a silly fun story that had a lot of potential that just never really grew. I mean, I had a few laughs and whatnot, but other than that, it was pretty average.
There is one slightly shocking twist near the end, which isn't really that much of a twist because you can see it coming a mile away (if you've been paying attention remotely to the film). And the ending is a sort of tragic, ironic yet somehow depressingly funny conclusion to the journey that we are thrown into.

I really don't have much to say about it, other than, it was good, but the kind of good that you wait to see on dvd good. You know what I mean?!

Peace out for now peeps,
viennak

Tropic Thunder
Released August 13th 2008 (OMG!)

Holy cow! I didn't realize that this movie came out like a whole month ago! Sorry for my late late late review on this. I've just been busy moving to LA and getting ready to start my life haha. I didn't really have time to watch this at first, but I was dying to see it. I must say...

Tropic Thunder is like Zoolander and Steven Segal, or better yet, Jean Claude van Damme all put together into some wholesome laughterful fun. Now, don't get me wrong, I realize that first  sentence may turn a whole lot of people off, but that was not my intent indeed! However, if it does sound like your cup of tea, please, read on! Teeheez. Anyways, you've probably heard a lot about the controversy of this movie, with Robert Downey Jr. (more like robert downey sexy..... uhh... anyways), and with the use of the "R" word. 
HOWEVER! Let me assure you that if you actually take time to watch (and understand) the movie, you will realize that this is not a racist or offensive movie. It's a fun movie with lots of "action" and humor every which way. I can't stress enough that this movie is rated R, and justifiable so! There are a few scenes of "graphic" violence type stuff.... and yeah. Not to mention an opening scene with a song about "lovin' the pussy", which was, don't get me wrong, incredibly funny once you realized what was going on! Oh, and the F-Bombs. And I almost forgot! Pay close attention for Tom Cruise's funny cameo (which is funny because I don't really like him, but in this, he was friggin' awesome haha), and a stealing supporting role by Matthew McConaughey (TiVO!!!!).

Anyways. I saw that this did in fact kill at the box office, so I'm guessing if you haven't seen it by now, well you probably have no interest in seeing it, or are one of those weirdos who wait for dvd.

Uhh yeah. So if you want to go see it, go..? And if not, then too bad for you because you're missing out on a gem of a time.

Looking forward to Burn After Reading and Towelhead! Write you soon....
viennak