In The Loop: Review

Sigh if only Malaysian politics could be as retardedly funny as In The Loop. Oh wait yes they are. The retarded part, not the funny part. Just retarded.Yeap!

 

Okay so In The Loop is one of the 5 nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film itself was based on a BBC television series called The Thick of It. The film is a satirical portrayal of the political events between the British and American government that lead to the decrement of the 2003 war in Iraq. In The Loop cent res around a foulmouthed PR adviser for the English Prime Minister, a bumbling British senator and his novice political aide, the scheming US Asst. Secretary of State and a retired US Lieutenant General.

 

So is this a boring political film you ask? Hell naw! It's a mockery really that In The Loop only landed one Oscar nomination. This film is fruckin hilarious. Every bit of this movie is dedicated to insulting the incompetent administration during the Bush and Blair years and how the war in the Middle East which eventually took hundreds of thousands of innocent lives was the product of a small little hiccup of incredibly baseless evidence.

Peter Capaldi should have been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award for his role as Malcolm Tucker. This guy is the funniest thing I have ever seen in British comedy. And I hate British comedy. His character is the one who has to deal with all the shit Tom Hollander's character and the other US politicians put him through. One after another they keep fucking up and what does Malcolm Tucker do? He goes on a F U rampage with some of the most vulgar and imaginative curse words I have ever seen in my life.

 

This dude spends a good 45 minutes of the film being uncontrollably angry at every single person. And magnificently after foul-mouthing the politicians for screwing up, he miraculously by the wit and greatness of his loins, his character manages to fix everything and save the asses of hundreds of useless politicians who have no idea what their doing. Hahaha this guy should run for President!

 

And just because he is the funniest thing in the film doesn't mean he wasn't the best performance. He was actually. One scene where he found himself really in deep shit because of a backstabbing political aide, his character showed 3 seconds of helplessness on his face and I was like, "Wow!"

 

Tom Hollander was oh so awesome in this to. He plays what I think is a version of Sarah Palin. He is that small time senator that gets pushed into the big pond with other big shot politicians and just fumbles his way through everything. And the greatest thing about it is that he has to much of an ego to realize that he is making an absolute jerk of himself.

 

 

Other than those two, In The Loop is packed full with other comedic moments. Be it the one where senators are balancing a budget using a kids calculator, a senator and his aide sharing a room together, not wearing pants and watching animal porn on Discovery Channel (very Anwar like) or Tom Hollander's character giving Sarah Palin answers to every single question he is asked or how he pretends that he is busy doing "work" when the US Secretary of State passes by. Hahahahahaha.

I love this movie man. You'll love this especially if you have a personal grudge against lousy politicians that screw up everything they touch but are covered up by brilliant PR people. This film will have you laughing the whole way through knowing that there are politicians like these everywhere, not just in Malaysia. Peter Capaldi for President!

RATING: 8/10

A Serious Man: Review

I have always been puzzled by the Coen brothers' films. Sometimes they come out with some great stuff like O Brother, Where Art thou?, Fargo and Burn After Reading. And sometimes they come up with some really weird shit that people mistake for brilliant masterpieces like Raising Arizona and No Country For Old Men.

 

Their latest film A Serious Man is one of the 10 nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars and it is one of the weirdest ones the Coen brothers have done yet. But this time, it's one of the weird ones that I'm actually able to understand. And it is quiet a fantastic movie once you are able to get what they are trying to do.

 

So A Serious Man is about Larry Gopnik, a man who had a relatively good life with his Yiddish family living in America in the 1960's. The film examines his life as it begins a downward spiral almost out of nowhere. Suddenly his wife wants to leave him for his neighbor, he finds out his daughter has been stealing money from him to save for a nose job, his son is a marijuana junkie, his brother who has been living with him is a wanted fugitive, he is being sued for not accepting a bribe from a kiasu Asian student and will be sued if he does accept it, and the Education Board is deciding not to grant him tenure.

 

So basically his quiet charmed life goes from sweet to shit in a matter of days. But Larry perseveres and tried to seek out the council of Rabbi Marshak, a spiritual leader to help him find the answers to all his problems.

 

The cast of A Serious Man comprises of mostly Braodway actors which was really great to see. Michael Stuhlbarg was fantastic as Larry Gopnick. Most of the time I watched this movie just to see if his character is going to go crazy or explode what with all the shit everyone is putting him through. Yeah I felt sorry for him but at the same time it's kinda cool looking at how much problems a person can take before finally losing it.

And my God the entire cast were ugly people. Seriously, these are by far the ugliest group of actors I have ever seen assembled in one film. But in terms of the character development for each of them, the Coen brothers did write a fantastic script that's is really funny but incredibly random for the most part.

But there was Amy Landecker who plays Larry's sexy next door neighbor. Damn I could stare into those eyes for hours hahahaha. She played her character in a really one note way with a very monotonous voice. But it was the deep sassy kind of monotonous voice, you know what I mean?

The premise around A Serious Man is very complicated. There were a lot of things that was going on that made no sense. For one, the opening 10 minutes of the film had absolutely nothing related the overall story. And I was left guessing a lot what the point of the movie was even after the credits ended. But when I started to think about it.. the Jewish themes, the problems Larry faced throughout the movie.. it finally snapped in me!

A Serious Man is a modern adaptation of the story of Job from the Old Testament of The Bible. It tells of a man who had a good life and honored God. But Satan made a bet with God that Job wouldn't appreciate him anymore if he didn't have the good life that he had. So God made job's life hell to prove Satan wrong. All over this film, it had references to various stories from the Bible. Larry Gopnik's shitty life- The trials of Job. The bribe from the Asian student- The temptation of Christ. And there is another scene where Larry watches his neighbor sunbath naked which was a throwback to David and Bathsheba.

I'm not spoiling anything about the movie really. Maybe you'll understand it better now that you know what this film was based on. I still have some trouble figuring out the final moment of the film though and how it related to the stories in the Bible. If you've seen it, could you explain it to me please??

RATING: 7/10

Two New Teaser Posters from The Last Airbender

Two new teaser posters of the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan adaptation of the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender has hit the net! The two posters feature Noah Ringer as Aang and Dev Pate; of Slumdog Millionaire as Prince Zuko. Check it out!

Now I'm still incredibly bummed out that Shyamalan took a great cartoon series where all it's characters were Asian and populated the cast with white kids. And Dev Patel is Indian, his character is a bad ass Bruce Lee Chinese kid.

But I am a big fan of Shyamalan which could be the only reason why this film just might work. The Last Airbender is coming out this July.

The Young Victoria: Review

In the next series of reviews of Oscar nominated films.. I bring you, The Young Victoria starring Emily Blunt of The Devil Wears Prada, Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Jim Broadbent  and Miranda Richardson. The film has been nominated for 3 Academy Awards and..... it was just okay.

 

The Young Victoria is a dramatization of the controversial first years in the reign of Queen Victoria. The film explores the plight of a 17 year old Victoria trying to run a nation, balance unrest in the English parliament and finding a romantic relationship in the "charming" Prince Albert.

 

I'll be honest. This film was not bad. But if you've seen The Duchess or Marie Antoinette, you would have seen this movie. Young Victoria is the typical Tudor age love story centered around boring political dramas between the Duke of Whatsername, the Baron of Bla Bla Land and Archbishop of Coca Cola. I'm really getting sick of these Victorian age royal dispute movies. Didn't the royalties do anything except dispute back in those days?

 

The script was boring. I was barely keeping up with the dialog throughout the film. What with all the Shakespeare language like thee, thy, cometh, bla bla bla. Yeah I get that you're trying to make the film as authentic as possible, but can you do that and not confuse me to death? Maybe these type of films are just too intelligent for me. Heh.

 

But what was great about Young Victoria was Emily Blunt. Her queen is the character Queen Amidala in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace should have been. A young naive girl who is suddenly thrust into the most powerful position in the country and is forced to deal with all this shit other power hungry assholes are giving her. Emily Blunt was absolute class as Victoria. Forget about Emily from Devil Wears Prada, Queen Victoria is Blunt's greatest role.

 

Though she does look too old to be playing a 17 year old girl, everything on the inside of her resembled that of an adolescent woman. Her usual sassy voice sounded like a sweet 14 year old in the movie. And I love her the way her character carries herself. It's kind of like, "I'm trying to show prestige and class but I still want to remain a rebel" type of portrayal.

I really don't see the relationship between Victoria and Prince Albert ever happening. This Albert dude is a straight up sissy. Forget about all the sweet lovely things he whispers in you're ear, this guy has the highest pitched voice ever to come out of a man. And my God was his talking annoying. Usually I like listening to British people talking but Albert was irritating. He was like Michael Cera, who mumbles every line like an insecure timid loser. Oh wait, Prince Albert was German... ohh okay.

 

Like any other Victorian age British film, the costumes and art direction is flawless. But then again.. we've seen these kind of costumes and 1800's type of settings so often in other movies, it doesn't really wow us anymore.

 

While it wasn't bad, it's just the same old period piece film. Queen is young. Queen faces opposition. Queen rises up and beats all odds. Queen becomes the greatest queen to ever rule England. So don't need to go rushing to see this, it ain't gonna add anything to your life.

RATING: 5/10