Posts filed under 'movies'
“Match Point” is a smart movie, I especially enjoyed the movie opening, a tennis ball bounced back and force, it finally touched the net and then everything stopped, then you heard the monotone voice of Chris (the bad guy) - “there are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back, with a little luck, it goes forward and you win, or maybe it doesn’t and you lose.”
The start of the movie scared me a bit - I almost suspected that I rented the wrong DVD - the prelude music was like 40’s or 50’s, and as soon as I saw Woody Allen’s name as the writer and director in the openning credit, I was almost determined to let Jane finish the movie alone, but I just couldn’t move my a$$ from the sofa once I started. I was hooked to development of the story, and the end of the story is a total surprise - the bad guy wins.
May 5th, 2006
Here comes Sherwood’s rule No 1 to judge a movie (or DVD): IF at the end of a movie both Jane and Sherwood smiled to each other and said “nice movie”, THEN that movie must suck. The other side of the rule is also true, i.e. if however, after the movie, both of us fighted fiercely to debate on the merits of the movie, rest assured that movie is worth the time (and money) to watch. For example, the movie “Brokeback Mountain” costed us almost two hours to debate, and yet that movie also got 8 Oscar nominations.
Rule 2. If a movie gets both Oscar best director and best movie nomination, you prob need to check movies poiler to confirm your understanding of the movie and usually that movie get 8 or higher on imdb.com. For example, look at this year’s Oscar best director nomination,
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
CAPOTE
CRASH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
MUNICH
and also check the Oscar best movie nomination,
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
CAPOTE
CRASH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK.
MUNICH
Yes, your eyes didn’t cross, they are the same.
now check the imdb score:
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (8.0)
CAPOTE (8.2)
CRASH (8.4)
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. (8.0)
MUNICH (7.8)
which proves my rule No 2.
February 6th, 2006
Dreamworks is playing catch up game with Pixar (still the best in my opinion) and Disney on 3D animation movies production. Seems it is getting closer and they are finally in the game. The quality of the animation and 3D CG rendering is awesome, the texture such as the skin of each character is very well tuned.
Throughout the whole movie, I cannot stop laughing as it is too hilarious, my favorite goes to four penguins which are really side characters in the movies. They played “friends” as to the main characters: the lion Alex (Ben Stiller) and zebra Murty (Chris Rock) after get caught when Alex and Murty attempting to escape from the New York city central park zoo (Murty is like me, a nature freak).
A very funny and entertaining movie for family to watch and laugh is guranteed. After a week of hardwork, this is the perfect material to lighten yourself.
November 19th, 2005
We just finished watching Stealth - I was going to blog tomorrow when I wake up, but I am forced by Sherwood to write this now since my last blog was back in July. 
In any case, I liked the movie - definitely a no-brainer where you don’t have to analyze and pay close attention just to understand what’s going on (don’t like those - I watch movies for entertainment, not to overwork my brain even more!) - so you can actually sit back and enjoy the action.
Guess it was too slow for Sherwood in the beginning because 1/3 of the way into the movie, he told me to enjoy the movie and tell him what happens when he wakes up. However, precisely around this time, the pace begins to pick up. *CAUTION - SPOILER* Before seeing the movie, I thought EDI was bad, but it is not…it was so sweet and sad that it gave its own life to save his “friends’”. Obviously, I don’t believe that in real life since that is what sets us apart - we have a spirit that God breathe into us where as inanimate objects, and even other animals, don’t. Still, the story is touching…
All in all, if you like fighter jet action, this is a flick for you. I personally thought the flying scenes were very real and exciting!
November 19th, 2005
Wow, what a surprise! It is so different from all other Jet Li movies in the past, in a good way! I feel so happy for Jet Li after I finished the movie “Unleashed” aka “Danny the Dog”. This is by far the best acting movie delivered by Jet Li, it totally shattered my “stereotype” that he is just a fearless fighter, and definitely puts Jet ahead of Jackie Chan in terms of acting.
In the movie, Jet Li plays Danny, a very small Chinese guy who was treated, as the movie name suggested, like a dog by his masters. The master fed him, sheltered him, and made him believe only the master cared about him. The master used hime as a pet to compete with other “pet” in order to get money. All of his “normal” life changed after he met Sam (played by Morgan Freeman) and his step-daughter, he got treated like family memebers. This total change helped him found his true past and recovered his true himself.
The fight scene is short but real intense. No too much wire scene that you normally see from normal marshal arts movie. The good story gives Jet Li very good opportunites to show his acting skills, Danny has two sides of personality: cruelty and innocence, a very big contrast and sometimes very humours. We enjoyed the movie much more than any other past pure action movie from Jet Li.
August 13th, 2005
Boo (Sherwood) and I watched “The Island” yesterday and we both thought it was pretty good! I give it a 8; Boo gave it a 7.5 (he’s a harder grader ;P ). It was action-packed, with car chases, things blowing up left and right!!!
Hidden in the action is a deeper side of the movie, which raises the morality of cloning. Being a Christian, I am against it as I strongly believe in the uniqueness of each individual since each of us is created by God’s own hands. In the movie, the cloning is for the purpose of replacing malfunctioning/failing body parts, but since the scientists could not clone the individual parts alone and without the clones actually being in a conscious state, the clones are, in essense, real human beings in every way (they have feelings, emotions, and thoughts). They had a scene where they cut up a clone to take out his liver for his “master”; it was incredibly inhumane!
I don’ t know about others, but if my life can only be prolonged by exchanging someone else’s life for mine, then I would choose rather not live. This movie came at an opportune time, with all the current debate on stem cells - hope this movie will make people think more in the shoes of the person/life that is sacrificing and less of what we can gain at other people/lives’ expense.
July 30th, 2005
As it happened before, once we got new season of TV series 24, we couldn’t stop after we start watching it. We finished 24 episodes within 3 days, we were so addicted that I start to developing acne due to lack of good sleep!
In this new season, the story started with Jack Bauer working at DOD at Washington DC, came to LA accompanying his new girl-friend Audrey and her father, Secretary of Defence Heller (i.e. Jack’s new boss). Then Jack has to return to CTU to fight the new wave of terrorist attack organized by Harbib Marwan. We liked this season better than the previous three seasons, why? simple: because this one has less crap and more actions. It’s more like a movie rather than a TV.
Story-wise, season 4 is not perfect and there are some obvious holes in the plot, e.g. no indication of the fate of some main characters at the end of the thread
July 9th, 2005
Wow, I just surprised myself by watching the entire movie by myself! This being a drama, I was for sure I would not be able to last through the whole movie, but I did and was actually really touched by the movie!
Although I have heard of the play countless times and have a little knowledge of the story, I have never seen the play and/or the movie. As often with romance stories, I was not as touched by the romance as by other “things” - this time, it is the poor Phantom who has never known love in any shape or form in his entire life. The three parts that seem to touch everyone the most are the roof scene, the scene that recounted Phantom’s story, and everything after Christine kissed him at the very end. Even though I didn’t cry, I have to admit I was pretty close. Gerard Butler does an awesome job of playing the Phantom - his eyes and facial expressions reveal such loneliness and sadness it’s heart-wrenching…
If you haven’t seen this movie yet, really give it a chance - you may be pleasantly surprised!
P.S. Another note: I didn’t realize that so many of the famous songs came from this movie/play!
June 8th, 2005
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