The current status of the blog

Howdy there! As you can obviously tell, there have recently been quite a number of missing updates on this blog. This is due to my preoccupation with exams for my final year of school and believe me, it is hard work. So the bad news for anyone who reads this blog is that I won’t be able to make anymore posts for the next few weeks. However, the good news is that I shall return to my regular posting schedule on 22nd November or perhaps earlier.

So while you’re waiting for these posts, enjoy these lovely pictures of me dressed as Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange.

These pictures were taken on a day when we had to arrive at school, dressed up as a movie character. Also, you may have noticed in the first picture that the cane is broken. This is because of an accident involving some idiot. And yes, I am aware that the fake eyelashes are on the wrong side of my face but come on, just enjoy the pictures.

My thoughts on the upcoming A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remake

Well, now that you have seen the clip above, let me share my thoughts on this trailer to the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street remake.

Unlike a lot of Hollywood remakes these days, this one looks like it will be a different version of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street rather than another pointless remake, judging from how they have added a few new sequences. These include a scene where we witness the birth of Freddy Krueger and a few new dream and death scenes. They have also made Freddy Krueger more of a serious character, apparently.  Some material from the original film looks it will be making an appearance in this version such as the bath scene, the bedroom scene where the girl floats towards the ceiling and the children singing the famous Freddy Krueger rhyme.

Whilst the trailer does make this film look generic (the film probably is for what I know), I  do have a bit of faith in this remake seeing how they have added a few new things, but then again they are just a few. But then again, you can’t judge a film just by its trailer.

What do you think?

In other news, I saw Mao’s Last Dancer. Quite a good film but not life-changing.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS review

Pardon me for the delay

Tarantino sets his movie in 1941, ‘Nazi-Occupied France’, where a Jewish girl named Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the murder of her family by the infamous Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), otherwise known as ‘The Jew Hunter’. Years later, Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) is the owner of a movie theatre in Paris where she has an agreement with director Joseph Goebells (Sylvester Groth) to premiere his film about German war hero, Frederick Zoller, starring Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) himself. Several Nazi officers and supporters, including Hans Landa and the Fuhrer himself, will be attending the premiere. Meanwhile, as the news of the event is leaked to the British army and a group of Jewish-American soldiers, known as the ‘Basterds’ – led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) – both groups plot their mission to assassinate the Fuhrer, unaware of the fact Shosanna has plans of her own.

Ever since I saw Death Proof, Tarantino’s second half of the Grindhouse double, I really started to worry about the fact that he was no longer the director we had come to love. Even though the film had a fantastic end, he filled most of the movie with long and self-consciously ‘cool’ dialogue. I got really nervous that the writer and director of such fantastic films as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs had become so self-concious about his ‘cool’ dialogue that he indulged too much in it. It bored us watching him fall in-love with his own writing. And here we have Inglourious Basterds, a spaghetti-Western-styled movie that is filled with heaps of dialogue. So no, it is not the mindless action movie it is advertised as. But does that make it a disappointment? Definitely not. Whilst it may have been a lot different from a mindless action film, it was a lot of fun.

For the most part, the dialogue in this movie is far from tedious, in comparison to Death Proof. As a matter of fact, it’s what drives the film. It’s what makes the movie so suspenseful and, at times, rather funny. And neither, in comparison to Death Proof, does it seem a self-conscious attempt to be overly clever.

But what also truly drives the film is its characters and the actors who play them; Brad Pitt is funny as the somewhat unintelligent Aldo Raine; Til Shweiger is scary as the badarse Nazi killing Hugo Stiglitz (pity we don’t see a lot of him, though); Eli Roth is entertaining, although he does slightly overract as the bat-swinging Bear Jew; and Mike Myers makes an amusing cameo appearance as well. However, probably the most memorable of all the film’s performances is Christoph Waltz’s as the murderous Hans Landa. Waltz acts with such charisma that it really does make his character both funny and menacing at the same time. The character he portrays is also quite a well-written one. In some scenes we don’t always get to know what truly motivates him, which makes his character quite a mystery to the viewer.

But for anyone who walks into this film expecting violence, don’t worry; Inglourious Basterds has plenty of it. The only problem I had with its violence is that it wasn’t exactly clear as to whether it wanted to be shocking, glorified or just not taken seriously. The shootout in the projection room was quite a beautifully executed scene; the scalpings did provide the film with a very dark sense of humour but the scenes like where a Nazi officer gets his head bashed with a baseball bat seemed really unsettling, which says a lot since it is a scene of a Nazi getting killed. He is murdered in a rather nasty manner and it looked too shocking to be seen as something that was either glorious (then again, they are inglorious after all…sorr that wasn’t necessary) or darkly humorous. In other words, it looked quite out of place.

But that’s quite a minor flaw in this film and it was nothing too distracting. It is, overall, very stylish, well constructed and a heap of fun, and I might watch it again, actually. Tarantino has  given us, quite possibly, one of the most entertaining war films to have came out in a while.

By the way, did I mention the film’s great soundtrack?

4.5 Samuel L. Jackson narrators out of 5

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS review – postponed until 11/09

I’ve got a lot of stuff due.

Apologies for last week’s missing update, by the way.

-Max

No post this week

Under pressure because of school.

THE HANGOVER review

‘From the director of Old School‘– if you advertise your movie as this, it is enough to prevent me from watching it. I absolutely hated that movie; it is one of the worst I have ever seen. To the exception of the scenes containing bricks attatched to male organs and a streaking scene involving Will Ferrell, the jokes in that movie were neither memorable nor funny, since they tried too hard to get a laugh out of us. That is why I had strong doubts about this film, especially since it was advertised as another raunchy comedy filled with gratuitous nudity and unsubtle humour. And now that I’ve seen it, is it as bad as I expected? No, because The Hangover is not only a much bigger improvement from Old School – especially because of the fact that it is written by completely different people – but it is also not the silly it is advertised as. It is different. It is a film we don’t get very often these days because it mixes raunchy comedy so well with the genres of mystery, thriller and noir. That is why this film is constantly able to keep us on the edge of our seats, as well as make us laugh at the same time.

As Doug (Justin Bartha) and Tracy (Sasha Berrese) are about to get married in two days, his three best friends, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zak Galifianakis) decide to travel to Vegas for a buck’s night party. The next day, however, each one of them wakes up with a hangover – as you would expect – and without a single idea as to what happened to them the previous night. They find not only their hotel room trashed but that the groom, Justin, is missing. Within the 24 hours they have left, Phil, Stu and Alan must not only try to find Justin but also to try to find out what the hell happened to them during their wild night out.

It might be safe to say that The Hangover may possibly be one of the most entertaining films of this year. It just gets funnier and funnier with each joke it delivers. And rather than throwing them in for the sake of laughs, many of the film’s jokes serve as a purpose towards its storyline, particularly during several of the film’s twists and turns. And as each twist gets more intense so do the jokes, which is what makes them work so well with their cringe-worthiness (if that’s even a term). If Bruno had you gasping over its jokes, The Hangover will have you doing the same, but to a point where you begin to feel exhausted – but in a good way in a good way, of course – as it forces you to watch it take one intense and unexpected step after the other.

In short, this movie is what I call true comedy. Not only does it contain plenty of laughs but it also has a very unpredictable storyline. This is most certainly why I am going to rank it as one of the best and most entertaining films of this year.

4.5 crazy gamblers out of 5

THE HANGOVER review tomorrow (17/08)

There you have it.

-Max

RED CLIFF review

John Woo is quite possibly one of the most influential directors of all-time, particularly in the action movie industry. After working in Hollywood with such movies as Hard Target, Face/Off, Mission: Impossible 2 and more, Woo decided to move back to China to direct what is now known as the country’s most expensive and highest-grossing film. The film is Red Cliff.

It revolves around the historical Battles of the Red Cliffs that occured in 208 A.D., China, where the land of Wu was conquered by General Cao Cao’s soldiers. Sun Quan, the ruler of Wu called for the help of his rival, Liu Bei. But Sun Quan’s armies, however, were still outnumbered. Yet, with the help of Zhou Yu, the strategist of Wu, he discovered the weakness of General Cao Cao’s army – they were not used to sea battles.

Like in almost every John Woo film, Red Cliff has amazing visuals, which are filled with plenty of his notable trademarks such as slow-motion, freeze-frames, doves, Mexican Standoffs, and of course, bloody, over-the-top but well-choreographed action scenes. These scenes are, as you would expect in a John Woo film, beautiful and quite stunning to look at. My favourite scene in particular is the one where Cao Cao’s army are firing arrows at a fleet of ships in the Yangtze River.

The film’s weak point, however, is the storyline, which in my opinion was not very well developed. This is why to me it seemed quite rushed and to a certain degree, it slightly affected the film’s character development. Maybe this problem could have been solved had I watched 280-minute version but apparently that is supposed to focus more on the film’s characters rather than storyline. Still, I hear it’s considered superior to this version.

But nonetheless, from what I saw, Red Cliff is gorgeous to watch. It may not be as masterful as Woo’s previous Asian films such as The Killer or his other war epic, Bullet in the Head but it is definitely worth watching. And sure, the storyline is a bit muddled and it might lack a bit of character development but at least the characters still have their depth and likeability. Furthermore, Red Cliff might do well for the Chinese tourism industry.

3.5 babies tied to backs out of 5

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE review

The Harry Potter books and films have always been quite entertaining pieces of fiction. Whilst I have not been a fan of the books (I stopped reading them after the fifth) nor the films, I have liked them for their engaging storylines and likeable characters. And whilst the sixth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince may not be as good as the second (controversial) or fourth instalments in the film series, it is still quite enjoyable.

As you would expect if you have seen the previous films, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince continues with Lord Voldemort’s henchmen, being the Death Eaters still causing their mayhem and trouble. In the meanwhile, Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), principle of Hogwarts – the school of witchcraft – asks for Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) to come along and meet Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), who will become Hogwarts’ new potions teacher. As Harry now returns to Hogwarts, he obtains a mysterious textbook, which once belonged to the ‘Half-Blood Prince’.

I also forgot to mention that there are a few romantic subplots; Harry’s friend, Hermione (Emma Watson) develops an attraction to Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Harry also develops one for Ron’s sister, Ginny (Bonnie Wright), although I am wondering where his affection for Cho Chang went.

In my opinion, this film should probably be seen more as a companion piece to the sixth novel in the Harry Potter series (albeit the fact that I haven’t read it) rather than a stand-alone installation in the Harry Potter film saga. This is because in this adaptation of it, the storyline to me seemeds minimal. And whilst there was a rather surprising twist at the end, I hate to admit, it did not leave that much of an effect on me, due to its lack of development.

But like all the other Harry Potter films, this one is visually spectacular, the opening scene, in particular, where we see in the points-of-view of the Death Eaters wrecking havoc in London. The performances are also good, my favourite being Evanna Lynch’s who plays the kooky Luna Lovegood. Plus, the tension between the characters of Hermione, Ron, Harry and Ginny are quite entertaining to watch. So I guess these positives do save the film from being an entire disappointment for anyone who has not read the books, especially the sixth.

3.5 Golem-looking monsters out of 5

HARRY POTTER review tomorrow (20/07)

More procrastination! Surprise, surprise.

-Max