Category: Entertainment Bites

I managed to catch 300 yesterday. The cinematography was great, the characters were very well-casted and I absolutely love the whole British dry humour in it. I love the way the story was unfolded by the sardonic narrator and the deliberate but random modern punctuations in the dialogues.

I love how incredibly manly the males were in the film. And it’s not just due to the fact that they were gallivanting half-naked with perfectly sculpted pectorals 99.9% of the time in the film, although it did help. I have a thing for scruffy men. Oooh la la! All the boo needs now is to get rid of the beer belly…woohoot and I can get myself a Leonidas!

I absolutely loved the queen’s comeback to Theron, the crooked politician while she slowly slew him. I love the Queen, she’s exactly the kind of woman I respect and want to be. The kind of women who stand by their men regardless of everything and scheme to help them when the situation calls for it. It reminds me of Laura Linney’s character (Annabeth Markum) in Mystic River.

Annabeth Markum: Celeste called looking for you. She was worried something might happen. She told me about Dave. Told me what she told you. What kind of wive says those things about her husband? And why’d she run to you?
Jimmy Markum: Why did not you call?
Annabeth Markum: Because it’s like I told the girls. Their daddy is a king. And a king knows what to do and does it.

Source: IMDB

(If you haven’t watched Mystic River, please do it!). Errrrr…end of diversion -_-

300 is definitely one of the better films this year. It’s nothing like Gladiator, which was boring as hell. True, there were scenes in 300 that would remind you of that over-rated turkey but both films are set in a similar era and location so it’s not fair to call 300 a copycat.

So go watch it and please do it at the cinema cause the film will be wasted on your tele.

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It’s weird, when I was younger, I could even make a topic out of walking across my college’s car park. Now that I have many more happening stuff to talk about, but I just can’t seem to put them into words. I hope my blog is not dying a slow, painful death. Doesn’t help matter that everyday after work, all I wanna do is shower, have a hearty dinner and watch tele. I can’t even bring myself to surf the net.

There must be a way to get back my blogging momentum. But just how am I supposed to do that?

This is a review from a person who has never watched the anime or manga. Please bear in mind that I didn’t even know the basic premise of the story.

Death Note 2 is by far the best movie I’ve watched since the beginning of 2007, hands down. Of course, to compare Death Note 2 with shits like Cicakman and Forbidden Siren is an absolute insult to the movie. The storyline is so good it’s comparable to bigass Hollywood flicks such as Confidence and Reservoir Dogs. No, Death Note 2 is not another gun-slinging gangster movie, in fact, it’s nothing like that. It’s a film about a notebook that was dropped down onto earth by God of Death, which can be used to kill off people.

Sounds childish, typical and boring? Not…

The twists in the storyline will blow your mind away. You will be kept at the edge of your seat throughout the movie. It is nothing close to bubblegum teen flicks, in fact it is a rather dark story. KY even likened it to The Prestige. The cinematography is pretty good. The CGIs are good too.

It’s funny that a lot of people have been telling me to not watch this movie unless I’ve watched the anime/manga version or the first movie. Apparently the movie is very confusing to people who have no basic knowledge of the storyline. I say, CRAP to all those claims. The movie is actually so complete that a newbie could sit down and understand every single scene without having prior knowledge of the story. Bravo to the screenwriter and director for having the non-anime/manga watching audience in mind.

I don’t want to spoil the movie for you by writing a long winded review. Just go to the cinema and watch it.

Other reviews:

KY
Kelvin

p/s: Thanks Reta for teh tix. Heh, sorry babe I didn’t know they’re from you. Mwahs

I love Penang for obvious reason – food. But this island is not only home to scrumptious RM7 char kuey teow and cendol, it’s also a heaven for movie enthusiasts. Penang has the biggest collection of movies, from the latest blockbuster to the rarest foreign title, you name it and you will get it. And they are literally dirt cheap.

While in Kuala Lumpur you may have to exhaust your efforts merely in explaining to the Ah Beng about the specific movie you want, the Penang Ah Bengs are in stark contrast to their KL counterpart. The former are a bunch of product knowledgeable folks! It was in Penang that I managed to lay my hands on Malena, Irreversible, Thirteen and many more. My most recent steal is Prozac Nation. I’ve heard so much about the movie but have never seen it in KL. It was a pleasant surprise to discover it at a shoddy stall along Ferringhi Beach.

Prozac Nation is a true story about Elizabeth Wurtzel’s struggle with manic depression or bipolar disorder, as it is known now. Elizabeth Wurtzel was a Harvard freshman, a journalistic prodigy, a drug addict and a walking timebomb.

While I think Christina Ricci was a brilliant choice to play Wurtzel, the thing is she really didn’t have much to do aside from looking stoned and uttering intelligent one liners with a hollow expression. However, looking stoned and uttering intelligent one liners with a hollow expression would not have been enough to convince the audience that she was manic depressive. In this case, the director managed to salvage the movie with appropriate cinematography; plenty of spinning scenes, slow-mo and etc.

Sans shoulder pads, I love the 80s costume.

The tension between Wurtzel and her mother was well-captured. The movie was able to convey their big mutual misunderstanding and their even bigger love for each other. It must be pointed out though at times I was more distracted by Jessica Lange’s permanent horrified expression than being engrossed in her emotions on screen. Such is the savage of plastic surgery…

Check out Jessica Lange’s permanent horrified expression.

The final chapter of the movie began with a quiet scene where Wurtzel’s psychiatrist and her daughter accidentally stumbled upon Wurtzel, who was trying to take her own life. Seeing the mother and daughter, Wurtzel experienced some sort of epiphany and decided not to kill herself. After that, Wurtzel recovered her ability to write and attempted to live normally, albeit on medication.

I appreciate the fact that the movie tries to show that depressed people are not shameless attention seekers. That they do outrageous things in order to “just to feel something”. I also like that the movie managed to show why the depressed are usually withdrawn, mostly because their friends and families do not understand their conditions and the fear and resignation of being labelled as attention whores or drama queens.

I give this movie an 8/10.