The Crazies: Review

Craaaaaaaazy! Craaaaaazy! Crazy... for you baaaaybeeeh.

Aight! So The Crazies is a remake of George A. Romero's film from 1973 and it's about this small town where most of it's inhabitants experience heightened aggressive and violent nature after their water supply gets contaminated with some bla bla bla toxin. The film follows a group of people as they try to survive the infected townsfolk and escape the army who has arrived to exterminate everyone in the town.

I'm just gonna straight up come out and say that this movie is average at best and there's really nothing interesting to watch and nothing I can say that will make you watch this. I don't care how well they dressed this movie up with the gore and scares, we've seen this movie been done a billion times before. But there were some redeeming points to The Crazies.

First of, you gotta understand that this movie isn't a zombie movie. The infected in this don't turn into zombies, they just have a heightened aggressive nature that causes them to act more violently than usual. They are still very much sane people which does give some tension between the main characters and the infected cause these characters know each other.

I also like that the main villain in the film isn't the "crazies" but the government and the army who are sort of portrayed as faceless monsters cause we hardly see any of their faces in them gas masks. To be honest I found the military in this more scary than the actual crazies so I guess this was either a fail or win on the directors part.

But this still doesn't change the fact that this was a really mediocre movie. The writing in this is lazy and average, there isn't any character development nor plot development at all which made the film a wondering pointless piece of video with some good effects and lousy jump scares. Towards the end of the film, I feel no attachment whatsoever to the main characters, throughout the whole film I barely gave a rats ass if most of them lived or died.

The only guy I did enjoyed in this was Joe Anderson from Across The Universe who I think gave this movie another underlying theme without the intention of the director or the writer. His character brings the whole air of paranoia to the group of survivors because he keeps loosing his temper which makes everyone in the group a little suspicious cause let me remind you, the infected in this movie aren't sick.. they're just a little angry. So the moment Joe Anderson starts losing his temper, it really begs the question if he has been infected or not. But sadly it wasn't explored much cause it wasn't consciously written into the story.

And then there's Radha Mitchell. Seriously this girl hasn't gotten enough credit man. She is kind of like the action star for B rated actresses and she's been so good in so many movies but no one ever remembers her. And while I can't say I enjoyed watching her in this movie, I am still a big fan of hers.

Plus she's fine as hell!

Well there you have it. There's nothing great about this film but there's nothing bad about it as well. But would  recommend you watch this? Naw. It doesn't add anything to your life.

RATING: 4/10

Taylor's College Nordic Film Festival

Yo! So people check it out! My college is organizing a Nordic Film Festival featuring foreign films from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The festival started yesterday and will be showing two films a night throughout the week. Admission is totally free of charge, so if ya'll wanna go check out some awesome foreign films, drop by our Lakeside Campus in PJS7.

Here's the official movie line up:

ONE EYE RED
Halim has seen through the Integration plan – a secret conspiracy that tries to turn all immigrants into Swedes. Unfortunately he has also seen through his own father, who has fallen victim to the Integration plan. But Halim has his own plan; he is going to be Sweden’s mightiest sultan of the mind and save his father from forgetting his Arabic roots.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
Oskar lives in the suburb Blackeberg in Stockholm. His parents are divorced and he is being bullied in school, all in all Oskar’s life isn’t ideal for a 12 year old boy. Then one day, a girl called Eli and her father Håkan move in next door. But there is something awfully strange about Eli, she only comes out late at night, she cannot play in the sun and she does not eat food.

The film is based on the book with the same title written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. 

MAMMOTH
MAMMOTH revolves around successful New York couple Leo (Gael García Bernal) and Ellen (Michelle Williams). Leo is the creator of a booming website, and has stumbled into a world of money and big decisions. Ellen is a dedicated emergency surgeon who devotes her long shifts to saving lives. Their 8-year old daughter Jackie (Sophie Nyweide) spends most of her time with her Filipino nanny Gloria (Marife Necesito), a situation that is making Ellen start to question her priorities. When Leo travels to Thailand, he unwittingly sets off a chain of events that will have dramatic consequences for everyone.

DEAD SNOW
With a car packed full of ski equipment and enough beer to fuel their escape from everyday life, eight medical students head out on their Easter vacation. However, isolated in the snowy hills the group begins to realize they came to the wrong resort. What starts out as fun in the snow and sun soon takes a turn for the sinister as the kids find a box full of Nazi gold that definitively doesn’t belong to them. Suddenly, the cabin is surrounded by a battalion of German zombie soldiers, eager to rip them apart. A long night is ahead of them. Can anyone survive this painful ordeal?

LONG FLAT BALLS
Long Flat Balls is a story of six men working together in a garage – the EdGarage, owned by Edgar, the father figure of their brotherhood. All of them except one are big soccer fans. In spite of the garage being threatened by hostile takeover or bankruptcy, they decide to go on a company trip to support the Norwegian national soccer team during the final matches of the World Championship.

FORBIDDEN FRUIT
Two 18-year old girls from a Christian fundamentalist community flee to the city for a summer job. One of the girls, Maria, wants to see what the world is like before going back home and getting married to a boy from the same community. She wants to try out things that are forbidden at home: music, make up, kissing boys and dancing. The other girl, Raakel, is less adventurous and only wants to make sure Maria does return. The summer of temptations changes the life of one of the girls - for good.

FC VENUS
FC Venus is a modern-day romantic comedy of women and men, and the differences between the two. It is a story of success and failure, the joy of winning and the fear of losing – and football. The main characters of the film are Anna (Minna Haapkylä) and Pete (Petteri Summanen), a young couple who live together in Helsinki. Pete plays football in the 7th division, the lowest possible series level, in a lousy but obsessive team. 

KARLA'S WORLD
Karla, 10 years old, has a puzzle to solve: She badly wants her whole family to get together for Christmas. But that's not an easy thing to do, especially when your parents are divorced and on top of that you have two extremely obnoxious and inventive younger brothers who are always acting up.

THE CANDIDATE
Jonas Bechmann, a defence attorney, is a man of the system. Until the day he himself is accused of murder. Taking matters into his own hands, he throws himself into the hunt for a group of blackmailers who threaten to expose him as the killer. But nothing is what it appears to be, and the blackmail links back to his father's death under mysterious circumstances a year and a half earlier.

If ya'll got time, try to drop by and catch these movies lah. Email me if ya'll are interested. Here's the schedule.

5 May Wed

5.30-7.00pm 90 mins Dead Snow
7.30-9.02pm 92 mins Karla's World

6 May Thurs
5.30-7.20pm 110 mins Forbidden Fruit
7.30-9.24pm 114 mins Let The Right One In

7 May Fri 
5.30-7.35pm 125 mins Mammoth

7.45-9.25pm 100 mins Long Flat Balls

I'll be reviewing all the movies, so stay tuned! Muahahahaha.

Toy Story 1 & 2 3-D Double Feature: Review

Now, who the hell in their right mind, that isn't born in the 90's or has kids would not want to watch two of the greatest CG animated films on the big screen again. And only for RM18. Not for each. For both of them combined!

I'm not going to go into the plot talk of both films because we all already know what Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are about. And if you don't, I seriously recommend you hang yourself this instance. But I will talk about this one of a kind cinema going experience. For a limited time only, in build up for the release of Toy Story 3, cinemas are releasing Toy Story 1 and 2 as one movie in 3-D.

And being someone who has faithfully watched the two films several times over the past decade, I was really worried about wasting my money on this. But thankfully this was not the case for the Double Feature. Nothing was changed in the two films but they still remain compelling and vibrant as the day I first saw them in the cinema. But if you still need convincing to go spend 3 and a half hours in the cinema watching movies you already know by heart, read on.

This is the kind of feature you got to watch with a big crowd of people your age who have also grown up with the Toy Story series. I watched it with a half empty cinema but there were people cheering and going, "Oh yeah I remember that!" and "Ooooooooh!" all the way through. Seriously guys, the nostalgia in this is amazing and can only be realized when watching it with a big crowd.

But if you ain't the sentimental type, this is the first time the two Toy Story's are being shown in cinema digital format. “But I already own both of them on DVD!  Why should I pay RM18 to see what I already own!" Fuck you! A TV screen is nothing compared to watching these classics on the big screen. Even the age flaws I picked up from the film was a nostalgic treat for me. Going back to see the first Toy Story after 15 years from it's official release makes you realize how different animation was back then and now and how much the first one pioneered CG animated films today.

As for the 3D, the feature takes note from the 3D usage of How Train Your Dragon and uses it mostly as a tool to provide more depth of field to the movies instead of purposely going for the mindless, unnecessary “Hey!  It’s 3D cominattcha effect" like that piece of shit Clash of the Titans. Look out for the rocket scene in Toy Story and the road crossing scene in Toy Story 2, which were just pure awesomeness in 3D.

But the show does get tiring since it is really long and in 3D. Unlike in Avatar, I guess the old animation style and 3D in the Toy Story feature isn't as audience friendly I guess. The feature really does take a toll on your eyes. Oh and buy lotso food and bring in a sweater cause it was brutally cold in the cinema.

But if anything else, you should go for this to experience the original form of movie going format of having an intermission break. See a long long time ago, movies were hideously and dreadfully long, so there would always be an intermission break for the audience to chill. And I did hear there were some short Pixar films playing during the 15 minute intermission for the audience who stayed in the cinema, but I wouldn't know cause I left to make a PP.

 Seriously guys, you do not want to miss this unique experience. Now.. let's have a triple feature when Toy Story 3 comes out! Muahaha.

RATING: 9/10

Defendor: Review

So okay. With the success of superhero parodies like Kick-Ass, I'd thought I'd go back a few months and review a movie I saw last year that was kind of in the same veins as Kick-Ass but a whole lot more grounded in reality. And the movie's called Defendor by the way.

Defendor is about Arthur Poppington played by Woody Harrelson i.e Twinkie Dude from Zombieland, who is this mentally unstable man but with a heart of gold who comes to believe that he is a superhero named Defendor. Every night, he patrols the streets of his city in search of his arch enemy, Captain Industry; whom he was told is the man behind his mother's death. And along the way, this retarded, sweet guy touches the lives of a young prostitute, his psychiatrist, a crime journalist and his boss.

On the surface, Defendor appears to be very much like the retarded awesomeness of Kick-Ass. And the film does have some really funny comedic moments courtesy of Woody Harrelson and his unconventional methods of vigilantism, be it torturing a bad guy with lime juice, having super hearing abilities through a plastic cone or using marbles for bullets; Defendor is more on the heart and child like innocence of Woody Harrelson's character.

And while I do stand by saying that Woody Harrelson's performance in The Messenger was his best performance to date, his acting in this movie isn't any short of brilliance. If I was to describe Defendor, I would say that he is Forrest Gump meets Batman. We have a superhero who has the mental capacity of a 7 year old, but with that comes a child simple sense of right and wrong. And that is where this character stands out in superhero context.

Woody blew my mind in this. At first I was looking at this character and going this guy's got issues. And I'm all like, "Dude... what the hell are you doing man?" But by the end of the film I was really moved by this character. Woody Harrelson captures the imagination and perspective on the world of a child who is simply honest in every action that he takes. If anything else, you got to watch this just for Woody Harrelson's character alone.

But there were some other great acting in this, one being Kat Dennings who serves as the window for the audience into the character Defendor. She starts out just like us being a little skeptical on this man's mental state but the character slowly grows on her and the audience as the movie progresses. I've always found Kat Dennings super annoying and whiny but it some how works for her character in this movie.

Plus she is just super sexy. Like a Dita von Teese kind you know.

Other honorable mentions, Elias Koteas who plays the bad guy of the film. This dude is so sleazy, bad ass and corrupt but he is so fun to watch because he knows he is all these things and is just having fun with it. For some really weird reason he reminded me of Claude Raines from Casablanca. Sandra Oh is good in this to, thought her character is kinda peppered out through the film only as a transitional segment between two scenes in the first two acts.

Very character driven film, honest and pure at it's heart and has loads of laugh out loud moments. Now, if only they made another film with Defendor meeting Hit Girl from Kick-Ass and all the bloody madness begins. Now that's a fucking movie!

RATING: 8/10

Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones Confirmed For Men In Black 3

Barry Sonnenfield, director of the Men in Black series has confirmed that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will be reprising their roles in Men In Black 3 after years of speculation.

Sonnenfield reveals that Will Smith has been on board for the project for some time now but Tommy Lee Jones' involvement was not so clear, with rumors that Josh Brolin will be replacing him in the third film. Sacha Baron Cohen has also been approached with ideas of playing one of the alien characters in the film, possibly the villain.

At the moment, little is known about the plot of the movie, which Sony will be aiming to get into cinemas by Memorial Day 2011 (that’s May 30, 2011 to the rest of us), but we imagine it’ll involve Agent Jay (Smith) and Kay (Jones) getting in way over their heads with some angry alien beasties.

But Sonnenfeld did drop one more bombshell – MIB III will, like every single film in this or any other post-Avatar universe, will be in glorious 3D.

Source:  Empire Online