Friends With Money

It's a relatively short movie clocking in at just under 90 minutes, but it's pretty amazing that each one of the ensemble cast - Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand and Catherine Keener amongst others, have adequate screen time to bring to life their very different characters. It's a story about partners, choices, and life in general, finding familiar ground with all in the way it portrays friendships and the interactions in relationships.

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The Host (Gwoemul)

The Family That Stays Together...

This movie has already been much hyped because everyone is wondering what the Koreans saw in it to make it a resounding box office smash. So does it live up to expectations? Yes, in a different way. What I'll include below will be suitable more for a post viewing read, although most will probably have some prior knowledge about the movie from its trailers and poster. If you don't mind mild spoilers, you can proceed, until the part where I'll warn you about something major.

Watching this film will make you laugh at its comedic moments, feel a tinge of sadness in others and it might make you cry, or pound your heart with suspense, and will even satisfy the action movie lovers with some sequences. It's like a big pot of rojak - different ingredients mashed together, blended perfectly into a 2 hour long journey of pure entertainment with serious messages.

At the heart of it is a tale about family. Here, given its genre, there's no all-empowered super being or man's man who goes on a one man crusade against the beast. It's about what an ordinary family doing the extraordinary by digging deep and finding strength from within. The portrayal by the lead actors are quite believable, as you feel their pain, frustrations and idiosyncrasies as they go about trying to achieve their mission despite the odds. One thing's for sure, family ties run deep, with emphasis on unity, not individuality.

There're some key observations made about the human condition, how naturally curious we are when we spot things not normally seen, instinctively whipping out cameras to take pictures, and how we innocently provoke without realizing. Not too subtle jibes are made at how bumbling authorities are, and on the pompousness of the US forces in assuming control over the situation, sidestepping what they probably know as the real cause with a presentation of a smokescreen.

**Here's where the major spoilers begin**

The monster!! I absolutely have to blabber about it! I was half expecting Godzilla pounding through the streets of Seoul and pulverizing buildings to a pulp. But wait! The Host came up with something pretty refreshing - this monster, is midget! (if compared to conventional notions of what a monster would be). Herein lies one of the breakdowns in genre, but tenacity and nastiness is not measured on size alone - it's menacing and merciless when the time calls for it.

The creation of the monster came from a fictionalized imagining of a real life scenario gone wrong, with regards to the lack of respect to the environment, and on toxic pollution. If Godzilla was created in the nuclear age to highlight its dangers, then this being was created because of mankind's preference for the easy way out - through the kitchen sink.

The bugger looked beautifully ugly, but thanks to its excellent special effects teams (one of which is WETA, yeah, THAT WETA), it moves with slick grace and agility, I would even say it swaggers stylishly, It is so realistic, that never for a moment you'll think you're watching a cheesy monster flick (even though rubber suits are nostalgic).

** Major spoilers end **

The music is yet another plus point as it brought out the mood and plays with your emotions as well. The sound department has its work cut out in designing a unique roar, and you'll feel terrorized as if you're there on location as the creature rampages. For good measure, you might want to stay until the end of the credits for a little easter egg, and especially if you're watching it in a hall outfitted with a decent surround sound system.

All in all, two words: Highly recommended. Goes into my shortlist of movie of the year too!

P.S. I don't know why, but I was swearing at some parts of the movie (eg. "******** RUN!!") together with another group of strangers. We were having a hellishly good, fun time during the screening. Awesome!

Frostbiten

You Must Have Faith For It To Work

To think I was once avoiding horror movies because I thought I was chicken. Hell, I now believe the real reason's cause there are so many bad horror movies out there, that it's just not worth the time and money to watch them on the big screen. This Swedish movie unfortunately, is one of them.

Frostbiten started off promisingly, with a link back to the horrors of WWII, where soldiers were being cut down in size by the enemies. They stumble onto an unused hut, but before they can get a good night's rest, they realize that there is something mysterious about the entire place, and got attacked by strange creatures. It's quite an extended scene before the opening title, but we get fast forwarded to today.

Mother and daughter Annika (Petra Nielsen) and Saga (Grete Havnesköld) come to a new town to start life anew, but before they get settled down, it's a mixed bag of incidents which see Annika uncovering a deep dark secret in the hospital she works in, and Saga's teenage friends getting high on an experimental drug without their knowledge, and get turned into vampires. So begins a battle on both fronts as they fend off vampire rejects from Underworld.

The story is nothing to shout about, being very weakly made up of lame excuses just to feature the vampires in various fang-sinking-into-necks opportunities. Plenty of things went wrong, right up until its ending, which tried to be too intelligent for its own good with a suggestive open ended ending, and it doesn't make much sense. At times, the movie's littered with humour, but in cheesy ways as it wasn't able to decide whether to be funny, or dead serious with the antics. It's nothing scary, but there were copious amounts of blood used to up the gore factor.

Come to think of it, certain production aspects turned out quite childish with its lack of attention to continuity issues, although there were some sparks of brilliance in its special effects department. Other than that, if you really want to experiment with a foreign language horror movie, just wait for the discs to arrive.

On The Edge

You Have The Right To Remain Silent

At first glance, this movie might look like an Infernal Affairs clone, with Nick Cheung declaring he wants to be a "good cop", and with the element of an undercover cop in the triads. Actually, this could have sort of served as a tangent off IA1, with keen observations to how undercover cops find it tough to assimilate back to normalcy, as the movie shared, more than 50% do not make it pass their 3rd year.

Nick Cheung plays Harry, an undercover cop who has just busted one of the largest triad bosses - Don Dark (don't ask, played by the excellent Francis Ng), but so what? One would expect glory, recognition and a fat reward to go along, but surprise, in the real world, things like that go unappreciated more often than not. In most movies, the good guy takes the bad guy down in a blaze of glory, and one would expect the glorious moments to be hailed. Here, it's the exploration of how difficult it is actually to rid yourself of vices that you picked up over the years.

Given 8 years spent in the underworld, friendships are forged, and so that sense of brotherhood and loyalty become fiercely strong. And it is indeed this brand of devotion that casts a shadow on Harry, whether he has actually rid himself of underworld links, or somehow turned tails and is acting like a double agent. But you know you're stuck in a rut when both sides decide they couldn't trust you.

Assimilating back to society isn't always easy, and not having the support from those that matter to you will always make it all the more challenging. In the 8 years you've been living a lie as a different man, how would you expect others to look at you? It actually makes you wonder if it is humanly possible at all, to forget some of the best times of your life, and the relationships you hold so dearly to. After all, no man is an island.

A major plus point is the stellar supporting heavyweights like Francis Ng and Anthony Wong, though they may seem to have superficially replayed their roles from IA2, with a bit of mellowing from Ng and an extra sense of edginess from Wong. Rain Lee as Harry's girlfriend looked a bit out of place though, with her cutie pie looks totally in opposites with her tough-nails gangster moll character. There's also a deliberate contrast between the methods of those on different sides of the law, subtly hinting that in the end, it boils down to basic human principles of conduct.

To round up, the movie may be treading on a familiar genre. The multiple flashbacks are done very nicely as we see the years that Harry spent in the underworld intertwined and contrasting with the normal life he's trying to lead. I suspect it might not last long in its release here given the barrage of films out starting from next week, so you might want to give this movie a shot.

Tony Takitani

I Hope That's Not Designer Lingerie

Tony Takitani is a short film, clocking in at 75 minutes, but it's amazing how so much can be cramped into so short a time for a feature film. Telling the story of the titular character, played by Issei Ogata, we actually go backward an additional generation to learn of Tony's father Schozaburo Takitani, played by the same actor.

The movie had segregated within itself certain milestones of events, with the dad's story first, and It took awhile before Tony took over and moved the plot forward, or should I say, plodded forward. We observe how he meets the love of his life, Eiko (Rie Miyazawa, Twilight Samurai), who, like in a Taiwanese movie The Shoe Fairy (starring Vivian Hsu), has an obsession, not only shoes, but the entire designer fashion wardrobes.

The next half of the movie tells of the sadness Tony underwent when he loses his wife, and tries his best to forget the pain. Hence his weird classified ad he posted seeking someone who fitted his wife's frame, to come work for him, but wearing his wife's clothes, giving him a sense that she's somehow around him. Totally weird, in which he agreed too. But of all the scenes I would love the last one best, as if it served as a wake up call of not living one's life in the past, but to look to the future.

Perhaps the movie has a deliberate dull feeling to it, reflective of Tony's character. As mentioned, a lot of underlying themes and various emotions run through, but ultimately, I felt it was dry and boring at times, because nothing much happens - no big action, everything's pretty nuanced and controlled, so much so that scenes drag. The movie's beautifully shot with pretty images, but ring hollow in me from a lack of emotional resonance.

Effectively, it gave you a sense of loneliness and isolation that Tony goes through when his wife is lost, and the pain that sledgehammers in the silent moments, save for the narrative voice over, done to perfection as it integrates wonderfully with the character's monologue, or conversations. Not to forget too is the pretty distracting technique of having the camera pan from left to right between scene transitions.

Recommended only for art movie lovers, who'll probably have a field day with this slow moving movie.

The Intimate (Aein)

The Morning After

If I were to summarize this movie in a few words, this would be it: Serendipity with plenty of sex.

Telling a story of two strangers who meet by chance in an elevator, The Intimate follows their journey through the day and night (which doesn't seem to end by the way), as they discover about each other, and about themselves in the process. Kinda like Before Sunrise in its treatment, the lovers, nameless except known as Boy (Jo Dong-Hyuk) and Girl (Sung Hyun-Ah), play the usual courtship mind games, playing coy, being aggressive, taking turns to bust each others chops as they fall into each other's arms.

Sounds like your typical romance movie, no? At certain points the usual elements are there, like plot devices romanticizing a bench and hand drawn pictures, and the mushy things lovers whisper to the ears of another. Cliched highlights include one needing to leave the country the next day, and the other being engaged to someone else, and now both of them, by Fate, are presented a chance to do something totally different. But in this story, it managed to take aged old questions of doubt, and weave a compelling movie around them.

The basic question will be what is love. Is it supposed to be long drawn and lasting a lifetime, or is the feeling actually made up of short passionate bursts? And after being with someone for so long, is it a question of being afraid to leave the comfort zone of familiarity, or does it boil down truly to faithfulness? The nagging fear of being about to marry someone, and then you meet your soulmate - what do you do? Blame the person for turning up in your life too late? And it is somehow true that the longer you know someone, the more faults that you will find, and the question is, will you be able to live with those faults, or do you prefer to live in that constant crest of emotional highs and bailing out when the slightest inclination of such faults start to rear its head?

It helps that both leads are eye-candy, as they offer you a chance to answer some of those questions yourself if you were to put yourselves in their shoes and be offered the same set of temptations - here's what you currently have, and here's what someone else can offer. What would you do? If there is a gripe, it'll be the one-dimensional fiance that somehow has to be demonized in order to make the other option all the more appealing.

It's a relatively engaging movie, though watching the out takes while the end credits rolled made you appreciate the movie's direction a little more. While those scenes which were left out may be seen as more interesting, somehow I felt it would have disrupted the pace and dragged events rather than having it all compacted into a screen duration of 24 hours. It would have been a totally different look and feel altogether, but probably not for the better.

Ghost Game (Laa-thaa-phii)

The premise seemed interesting enough - a group of game contestants undertaking the ultimate dare, to rough it out in an unused prison renowned for its haunting given that it was the location of a massacre. The news film reel style at the beginning, without showing much gore, already set the atmosphere and mood, providing much anticipated scares for our 11 contestants. Again I'm sad to say that this horror flick didn't work for me.

It seemed like a bit of Battle Royale meeting Truman Show mixed with Survivor elements. While Battle Royale had a group of students sent to an island for them to whack the living daylights out of each other, in this one our motley crew had to rely more on psychology to outplay, outwit and outlast each other, as well as the supernatural elements. There's something in common though, in that they had ex-winners re-enter the competition. There're plenty of CCTV cameras and public announcement speakers installed throughout where instructions are yelled through, and images are recorded for public broadcast in the show Ghost Game.

Like Survivor, there were plenty of decisions made in the spirit of that game, together with familiar elements of alliances and mistrust, of second guessing good intentions and making wild conjectures, all in the name of playing the game and emerging the winner for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Which actually left the scares wanting. Unfortunately we had to fall back on the usual lame quick cuts, sudden camera zooms, and extreme close ups accompanied by loud beats to race heartbeats. It might even leave you wondering about that aged old saying, that only if you're unlucky, could you see spirits wandering around you. Here, sightings aren't consistent if that aged old saying is to be believed, and that could be a bit frustrating. Setting the game to coincide with the anniversary of the massacre seemed like common sense for television ratings,

As a side, the eleven contestants here are actually from a variety show called Academy Fantasia in Thailand, and in similar fashion, they get "voted off" here too. The gem however turned out to be the scene played during the end credits, where the contestants come out to say a few words prior to being sent to the game location. Plenty of cheese as they ham it up in character, and watching it in hindsight, you can't help but to feel a tinge of despair.

P.S. I've read that the filmmakers had to apologize given the premise of the prison seemed to have cut too close to the Cambodian's Toul Sieng prison during the Khmer Rouge regime, with the depiction of genocide, and the loose reference in the movie in the form of a game show.

Art of the Devil 2 (Long Khong)

You Need Regular Dental Checkups!

I've been intrigued by Thai Voodoo for the longest time, not that I would want to be on the receiving end of it, but it makes you wonder the amount of clout and (real?) ability of these medicine men who put hexes and curses on your behalf, for a small fee. And it always seem that what they do to you, from simple artifacts like a voodoo doll, can inflict so much pain onto your real self with just a simple needle poked on a right position on the straw doll.

Art of the Devil 2 is not a sequel, in that it has no relation to the first (which I am now intrigued to watch as it stars Chai-Lai Angel Supaksorn Chaimongkol), although they deal with the same supernatural forces in Thai lore. It tells a story of a physically attractive model teacher, Ms Panor (Napakpapha Nakprasitte), and her group of students, one of whom she is a stepmother to. However, as with all misunderstandings, it stems off with what the eyes see and the ears here, and the mind believing. With black magic in the works, things are never what it seems, as the group of students revisit their teacher a few years after a tragic and shameful incident happened in school. Why, you'll never understand, but we need something to have them all put together to get something going.

This movie has plenty of gory moments which offers some good scares, given the disgusting things that happen to the victims of the hex. If torture scenes in Syrianna and Hard Candy made you squirm in your seat, then your stomach is up for more churning, given the previous two films did it more psychologically and with off-camera scenes, whereas here you're not spared the visual details, leaving none to the imagination, even if certain shots might look cheap and unrealistic. The gore grips you right from the start, giving you a hint that if you can't stand what you've just seen in the first few minutes, you won't be better off for the rest of the movie.

In an environment where almost everyone is not as innocent as they seem, keeping secrets close to their hearts, and the usage of black magic to achieve their individual desires and objectives commonplace, it perhaps served as a reminder not to dabble in the black arts, either as a practitioner or an end user, as there are always warnings of ill fate that befall upon them.

Unlike the Sixth Sense with its slick execution, script and delivery, Art of the Devil 2 had a rather satisfactory ending, but with the final stroke of the pen in creating the finale, it presented itself with a major loophole that seemed to have glossed over what transpired earlier, which is a big no-no in trying to force audiences to accept the "new truth".

However, if your intention is to get some scares, then this movie still delivers, if you'd be forgiving to the ending.

[DVD] Narco - The Secret Adventures of Gustave Klopp

I wonder how I would live my life if I had narcolepsy, probably I'll fall asleep just about

Anyway this is a fairly interesting movie about a man called Gustave Klopp who suffers from this condition, wrecking havoc into his social life and condemns him to unemployment. Until he conjured up a bright idea to translate his dreams onto paper given his artistic talent. However it's not all bright and sunny, as it explores darker themes as well.

You can click at the movieXclusive logo below to read my review:

[DVD] City Sharks (2003)

Look Who's Driving Ma!

When the movie premiered in 2003, I wasn't interested in the film because it starred Nicholas Lee, whose character I abhorred in Under One Roof. It's nothing personal, but somehow felt that the movie won't be worth my time. How wrong was I, now watching the DVD and looking back. The production's pretty slick and professional looking, with an interesting story to tell - not anything sophisticated, but decently entertaining for a commercial film, which should have done better at the box office if not for audiences like me who didn't lend support back then.

The movie tells the story of 3 orphans, and coincidentally of different races (to highlight our multi-cultural society?) - Mike (Nicholas Lee), Jeff (Sheikh Haikel) and Chief (Hans Isaac). They're losers in life, until Mike chances upon a loanshark's little electronic black book of contacts, and launches into a mini-project with the others to pretend to be the debt collectors, going across the Causeway to reclaim (illegally of course) 1 Million Riggit to save the orphanage they grew up in.

So it's essentially a road trip for this city boys to the kampungs of Malaysia, pretending to be loan sharks (hence City Sharks), and while they go about their collection, they are chased by, check this - the original sharks from Singapore, gangsters in Malaysia for stepping into their turf, and a girlfriend who was dumped.

It's an entertaining movie with a feel good factor, never mind the mild but frequent cursings and swearings. Built on a common theme of adversaries finding brotherhood amongst themselves, it's a simple setup which doesn't try to take itself too seriously, or try to be too sophisticated. There are enough quiet moments to complement set action pieces, and even then, they're usually played for laughs.

While there were a number of female characters, the romance portions were found lacking. Between Sherry (Corinne Adrienne) and Mike, there was little chemistry, and between Samuel and Betty it was too artificial. But anyway the romance entanglement was never the main focus of the story, though I dug Michelle Saram's sado-masochist character called Deanna (incidentally, in Sheikh Haikel's other movie Army Daze, his object of obsession was Deanna Yusoff) who gets turned on with pain.

I thought Nicholas Lee was pretty decent as one of the leading men, with his overacting which suited the movie and story just fine. Haikel was essentially playing a larger than life version of himself as an Afro-Rapper wannabe, while Hans Isaac completes the trio with his brooding angry demeanour. While there is chemistry amongst them, at times it was just a wee bit contrived, but watch the DVD extras where they really ham it up for the camera.

The supporting casts were mainly drawn from familiar TV faces from both sides of the Causeway, with Koh Chieng Mun, Moses Lim, Marcus Chin, Eileen Wee, Keagan Kang (a hoot with his faux pas Aussie accent), Lim Kay Tong, Afdlin Shauki and Zaibo lending their weight to complete the ensemble. While some were bit cameo roles, I thought that it provided some fun in watching them bring their characters to life with limited screen time. If you had watched S11, you might recognize Kevin Murphy too in one of the scenes.

But what really made the movie, is its array of songs, arranged by the talented Don Richmond, and with other contributions from local bands like The Observertory. To me, music enhances the emotions of certain scenes, and here, be it madcap montages, comedy or serious moments, the music is just top notch. You don't have many local films having their own published soundtrack, so this is one gem to look out for at music shops, if you can find it.

Highly recommended, and my opinion was if it's done today, it would probably get a decent audience it deserves, probably even making a box office killing I reckon.

The Code 3 DVD surprisingly contains a whole lot of extras, which makes it worthwhile to own, and makes it one of the better local DVDs out there. There are 3 theatrical trailers, a music video for the theme song Stellarblowout by Skrooloose and various deleted/extended scenes, coming from a first cut duration of about 2.5 hours. It also has a feature commentary by director Esan and film editor Bing Li, together with Sheik Haikel and Nicholas Lee, which is entertaining enough as they recount the set experiences and shared information on the making of.

Deleted scenes - Mike and Jeff in the kitchen talking about collecting debts (extended scene) 3mins, Sherry and Fisherman (Zaibo) in truck (extended scene) 1.5mins, Sharks pick up Al (extended scene) 1.5mins, Sharks in seat covers (deleted scene) 1min, Sharks in trouble (extended scene) 1.5mins, and an alternate ending, which thank goodness wasn't used, because it's kinda choppy and draggy, and quite unbelievable too.

There's also a "Behind the Scenes" segment (13mins 15s) - showing the cast monkeying around the film set, of being "tupperware", having the focus put on the cast in between shoots, and it sure looked hell lotta fun. While the characters in the movie might seem artificial in their interactions at times, you can't deny the chemistry on set, with their incessant crapping.

Also included is a City Sharks Documentary "Heart of Darkness - the Making of a Comedy" (15mins 30s). A mockumentary done in a Survivor reality tv style with plenty of individual bitching sessions by cast and crew alike, as they recount (fictional) experiences like having insufficient film stock, and the cast going on a strike on the set. It plays like a mini short film in itself, and while it's a semi-hilarious documentation of actual events between the cast/crew from both sides of the causeway in this Malaysian-Singaporean joint production, it sure looked convincingly real.

Little Man

The trailer made the movie look kinda fun, but hell no, those were already the best bits in a highly predictable comedy that short on quality laughs.

You can click at the movieXclusive logo below to read my review:


But I'd say unless you're a huge Wayans fan, you'll probably be quite bored from the jokes that you can see coming from a mile away. And that's not quite funny too.

[DVD] Mountain Patrol (Kekexili) (2004)

Band of Brothers

Based on a true story in the late 90s, this movie tells the story of a group of Kekexili (an isolated region in the northwestern part of the Tibetan plateau. China's least, and the world's third-least populated region) mountain patrolmen, their bitter long standing feud with Tibetan antelope poachers, who are threatening the animal with extinction because their skin can be sold for a tidy sum.

Told in a semi-documentary style in less than three reel weeks, the story follows a Beijing photo-journalist, Ga Yu (Zhang Lei), in his quest to learn more about the tribal traditions, and to document the work of these brave men in their thankless tasks. Brave because they are toiling in a career out of sheer passion, despite being paid meagre sums by the authorities, or not being paid at all. They're exposed to real life dangers like enemy fire, as well as challenges from nature in terms of the weather, and unfavourable terrain conditions.

Watching this movie can be frustrating, as you see and learn what the patrol goes through, and with what the poachers do to line their pockets. However, what was more frustrating for me, were the various weak decisions made by the patrol leader Ri Tai (Duo Bujie). As a leader, he's effectively charismatic, but does that alone make a good one? His various calls on the treatment of POWs, of simple logistics in vehicles usage, fuel, food, etc, are weak at best, and probably needs constant reminders of the 36th rule of Sun Tze's Art of War, that sometimes retreating is the best strategy.

Story aside, the cinematography is gorgeous, capturing rarely seen (at least for a city dweller) scenes of the wilderness landscape in Tibet - it gives you a sense of feeling extremely small amongst the giants of mountains and vast plains. And you get a lesson or two in their funeral rites (still can't imagine the vultures and belief of releasing the soul from the body) and various folk songs sung in the local language, which I think the subtitles don't do justice to.

It's a ruthless battle between poachers and protectors, of people who play by no rules, and those with limited power to stamp their authority. It makes good character study too on leadership, or the lack thereof.

Code 3 DVD contains no extras, besides the usual scene, audio and subtitle selection, and some unrelated movie trailers.

Living The Dream - Interviewing Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh

I'd bet almost every netizen in Singapore must know of the TalkingCock website, and directors Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh, who did the movie version of their premier satirical humour website.


What you may not know, and I'm telling you now, is that they have a second feature film out soon at local theatres, called Singapore Dreaming, and it's a brilliant film! Not only did I give a thumbs up, so did many other reviewers too. If I could say so, this is arguably the most accessible local movie to date this year, still in contention for my movie of the year, and please, do watch it, and share what you think!

Overider and I had the opportunity to interview both directors over breakfast last week, and you can click on the movieXclusive logo below to read the interviewing session we had with Yen Yen and Colin


Singapore Dreaming opens at theatres everywhere starting 7th Sep! Make a date, mark it down on your calendars! Also, stay tuned for a potential announcement soon on how you can watch it with the rest of the movieXclusive folks at a special price!

You can click here to read my review of Singapore Dreaming -it's "Just Plain Brilliant!" :-)

[DVD] Pulse (Kairo) (2001)

Something Interesting on the Internet?

I've chanced upon this DVD at the Esplanade Library, and thought that it would be essential viewing before the Hollywood remake descends upon us in September. While the remake's trailer seemed scary enough with its freaky ghouls, I was apprehensive how spooked I will get when watching the original from writer director Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

And surprise, I found it to be palatable. and it confirms one thing though about the limited J-Horror movies that I've seen. There is minimal in-your-face shock-and-awe tactics. In Kairo, the mood and atmosphere is extremely measured with its superb controlled use of light and shadow. Expect things to go bump in the dark, but not too often though.

I believe what makes J-Horror movies a spookfest, is its ability to weave freaky stories from seemingly everyday events and objects. The Ring has its VCR tape and television set, while here, it's the Internet, a website which asks if you would like to meet a ghost, and a computer's ability to dial up on its own. From the start you're presented with a mysterious suicide, before the movie progresses with people in the city disappearing for no apparent reason, and vague happenings with shadows and black stains at spots where people die.

The ideas presented here, on loneliness and that human connection, seem interesting enough to ponder upon, as it questions if the use of technological tools like the computer brings people together, or further isolates us from one another. It also tried to ask a hypothetical what-if question, of what would happen if the other dimension which ghosts belong to, would be finitely occupied by the spirits, and their numbers start to spill over to our realm.

Most of the time, nothing really happens in the movie, which might seem a bore to those weaned on jump scares, quick cuts and actual ghouls and goblins making an appearance to scare the wits out of the leads. I liked the shot where the car roams around an empty streets of Japan, kinda reminds me of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, or even cheesy fests such as Resident Evil.

While I thought it was not scary, my friend warned me about the after effects, which I've yet to experience, not until the sun sets at least. And heck, I'm using the internet right now to write this too. Hope the screen doesn't go freaky on me...

Code 1 DVD comes with the theatrical trailer, which seems scary enough on its own, and a 41 minute long making-of documentary.

Monster House

There's Something Strange In Your Neighbourhood!

In almost any neighbourhood, there is always that one house, or that unit of apartment, which has spiritual connotations attached to it. It could be because of tragedy, or rumours, or just for the simple reason that it's unoccupied, or has some elderly, probably unkindly, strange looking old folk living in it, that gives the creeps to anyone under the age of 10.

In Monster House, it uses a familiar urban legend, and plays up the nastiness associated with such a location. DJ (Mitchel Musso) stays opposite a creepy looking house, and bears witness, through his telescope, of the things that go bump in the night, and the horrible things that it does. Natually, because he's a kid, nobody believes him, save for good friend cum resident fat-kid loser Chowder (Sam Lerner).

The story's kept tight by having set a day before Halloween, and despite the children being stereotyped, Chowder actually stole the show from DJ with his at time innocent, at time crafty and sly antics, and there's a nice tango for attention between the two boys and their crush of the moment - Jenny (Spenser Locke). So while the three of them get set to unravel the mystery of the Monster House, it doesn't disappoint, with the bickering, laughs and budding romance, chemistry like that between Potter, Ron and Hermione. Hmm.. now that I mentioned, it looked more like a Harry Potter clone.

The graphics require some getting used to, given that it's deliberately not done in a cutesy manner, thereby coming across at times as quite stiff. Come to think of it, there isn't an artificially created "cute" character in the movie, as it adapts "real life" as best as it could, in an animated form. And for a horror movie, it put its real life counterparts to shame, especially in its anticipatory build up in mood and atmosphere.

Anyway, the trailer doesn't give much away except to whet your appetites, so I'll keep it at that rather than to inadvertently reveal any surprises. And if you're undecided between the two animated flicks on offering this week at the local cinemas, then my advice would be to pick Monster House over Barnyard. Here, the story is clearer superior. And that's what matters, really.

Stay tuned during the end credits for some scenes which add closure!

Barnyard

The Goofy Animal Farm

Talking animals. Only in animation do you get away with having animals exhibit identifiable human traits, and speak like we do. Of late, with the success of many Disney and Pixar movies, this year alone we'll see a bumper crop of talking animals in animated flicks from successful ones like Over the Hedge, to complete flops like The Wild, and have in the wings, an Open Season Flushed Away with Happy Feet.

And we have here, a George Orwell Animal Farm gone totally wrong. While the animals here exhibit similar traits as suggested in the literary classic - they hold regular town hall meetings, have a system of governance and work ethics, these animals prefer to walk on twos, and have cows leading the pack rather than pigs (and the widely held belief that they are lazy). Best of all, they are the perennial party animals, in both sense of the description. They party all night long in the barnyard, transforming it to their discotheque, and strut around the farm on their hind legs when the farmer goes away.

However, this movie is a lost sheep, meaning baaaad. The story doesn't have a clue to its direction, and because the plot is running around like a headless chicken, the movie, at best, is made up of disparate scenes jointed together rather haphazardly. It lacks a good story to tell, seemingly borrowing familiar elements from The Lion King, and even the weak idea from Chicken Little about the relationship between father and son - here between the Cows son Otis (Kevin James from Hitch) and Ben (Sam Elliot), who heads the farm.

Writer-Director Steve Oedekerk, who wrote the screenplay for comedies like Bruce Almighty and The Nutty Professor, seem to fall short of providing the laughs for the animals. The best bits are sadly all provided for in the movie's trailer with the animals' gags on the human characters, and what's left in the movie are the less than powerful dramatic bits. Every sub theme or sub plot seem to be a quick hack job just to extend the run time, and doesn't add any depth to character or story.

The only saving grace to the Barnyard is the perfect animation, which is pristine, crystal clear, and too polished for its own good, and somehow lacked heart and soul. It is one thing to have excellent art, but it seemed more of a cover for the lack of a sustainable engaging story.

Watch it only if your kids bug you to bring them to the movie, especially since cutesy chick characters are used as bait. And oh, somehow watching cows strutting around on two legs and exposing their udders, seem kinda sick, and especially so when these cows are supposed to be bulls, and are mistaken by kids as "mother cows". Great start for the young ones on gender bending.

Akeelah and the Bee

Stop Trying to Spell It, and Spell It!

There are many competitive sports movies out there, and most of them run common storylines either being pro-underdogs, or running along racial (dis)harmony themes, believing in yourself, mentor-mentee relationships, you get the drift.

Akeelah and the Bee is no different, but like all feel good movies, chances are you'll like this one and would be touched by it too, because it leaves you all warm and fuzzy inside, never mind a repeat of the commonly used themes. It's formula, but with its predictability, brings you just the right amount of ra-ra moments where you root for what's right, and depends a lot on the charisma of the leads to take it to the finishing line.

The U.S National Spelling Bee competition is a cerebral one. Unless your favourite book is the dictionary and you spew Latin and Greek like a first language, you'll be in awe by the vocabulary that these children have to know, in order to regurgitate the right one in front of a national audience. It's the ultimate English Language challenge, and only the best of the best, through a gruelling selection process, get to make the mark to compete.

Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) comes from your suburb school, and has a penchant for skipping class, hence her less than fantastic grades. Her gift and talent is what else, spelling, and it's quite typical of the school to want to milk that talent to bring glory to themselves. While initially resisting that thought, it doesn't take too long before Dr Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), himself an ex-competitor in the game, identifies her talent, and takes her under his wing to train her for the Nationals.

I kinda smiled that Fishburne fanboy smile - it seems that Fishburne's characters can't seem to get enough of mentoring Andersons :-) Anyway his Dr Larabee plays off a bit like his Matrix's Morpheus, with that stern exterior, and that soft interior. He plays surrogate father to Akeelah, and through their relationship, help build the girl's confidence through essays written by literary giants. It's great chemistry which starts off in a rather chilly manner, but you'd know before long that these two will break the ice and come up between themselves, special techniques to train, and through that, build communication.

The movie does fall into the occasional lapse into stereotypes, like the Asian's uber-competitive streak and that strict father you love to hate, the divide between the haves and the have-nots with the rich white kids, and the black ghetto boys. However, these are glossed over too quickly, as we head onto themes like the galvanizing of a community, and the spirit of competition even though it led to an all too predictable ending. Important reminders like relations between family and friends are stressed, and in a way, it made this first Starbucks Coffee (yes, that coffee company) production appeal to a wide spectrum.

The message in the movie is clear, and it reminded me of an old soldier who once told our platoon, and I paraphrase, that one should not let others look down upon you, but more importantly, you should not look down on yourself. Clearly, that's the message here. Go the distance without fear.

Lovewrecked

The Blue Lagoon Just Got Crowded

My friend CK asked me to go along for this movie, as he's a huge Amanda Bynes fan, having followed her television series What I Like About You, and both of us agreed upon her comic potential in She's The Man, which was a pretty fun gender bender movie.

With a title like that, there's nothing too cerebral about Lovewrecked. No, it's not a doomed spoof of the Love Boat, but the teenage romance here is quite as cheesy and predictable. Bynes stars as Jenny Riley, and we're quickly introduced to her character's idol worshipping of screen pop singing sensation Jason Masters (Chris Carmack), going totally bonkers during his concert, much to the detriment of best buddy Ryan (Jonathan Bennett).

During their summer job at a Caribbean resort, she finds herself caught in a man-overboard situation with Jason, and the two of them thus began a Robinson Crusoe life - until of course Jenny discovers that they aren't really shipwrecked on some remote island at all, and keeps this as a secret from Jason. When her love rival participates in her little charade, it becomes like the reality TV series Survivor, where each have to outplay, outwit and outlast the other in order to get the affections of the lone pop star.

Directed by Randal Kleiser of Grease and The Blue Lagoon fame, this movie too had Bynes strut around mostly in bikinis, the apparel of choice for any girl working at a resort / stuck in a desert island. Bynes still haven't lost her comic timing, however here she's let down by an extremely weak story, and an even more disappointing lack of laughs from the stilted comedy. There are comedic situations which either make you laugh, or make you laugh from how bad it is. Sadly Lovewrecked had more of the latter, and for one scene, had to rely on the toilet humour favourite of the fart sequence.

As for the other characters, they're basically all one dimensional. The catty love rival, the handsome scheming nice-on-outside-unethical-on-inside pop star, the pining buddy, the mean resort manager, the horny colleague, the arrogant star assistants and minders, the list goes on. The Riley parents were such throwaway characters that you wonder if their inclusion was for the sake of extending the run time, which clocks in at a short 86 minutes.

So unless you're a true blue Bynes fan, or have that penchant for teenage romance movies, do steer clear or you'll find yourself getting pretty bored at predictability.

Snakes on a Plane

And No, It Doesn't Say Bad M*erF*er

For the record, I hate snakes, and have this phobia of snakes. I can even freeze in my tracks at a bloody picture. And it goes without saying that the Snake House is never a place I'll visit in any zoo. What's my fear about? I don't know, just that I attach this sense of evilness and danger to these slimy (yes I know they're not) slithery creatures that should be condemned to the depths of hell.

Anyway I digress. What compelled me to watch this picture, besides the fact that I'm a sucker for punishment, is Samuel L Jackson. He's THE man! With Sam, you'll always know he'll lift that scene or two, oozing street charisma and attitude like none other. If you think you're in a shithouse, with Sam in the house, you ain't see no shit yet bro, know wha I'm sayin? And when he kicks into mo-fo attitude gear, you know you're in for some serious slaying!

This is a cheesy movie done in a cheesy way but with A list production values, tons of special effects, animal trainers, and yes, plenty of snakes of all shapes and sizes. From pythons to the cobras to the rattlers, I tell you these creatures will chill you at your seats. Thank goodness this ain't on no IMAX or 3D effect, otherwise I suspect many will be reeling their heads backwards, and backwards some more.

The plot's none too cerebral to begin with, so don't bother but accept, go on board, and enjoy the fright, I mean flight. It isn't going all out to scare you, though watching characterless caricatures suffer and die under the most sickening conditions involving all conceivable snake-accessible orifices and sexual appendages, provides some sort of sick pleasure. The usual cliches of thrillers/horrors are milked here as well, like the well used one that those who have sex are usually the first to go.

And there are plenty of victims from where that came from, given the movie's set on a red eye flight in a Boeing jet, offering a variety of passengers like the rap star and his posse, kids travelling alone for the first time, dumb blondes, the asian Kung Fu master, and even the cabin crew, who are put in a better light as compared to another set-on-a-plane movie Flightplan.

If there should be a gripe, then it's the length of the action sequences, most of which are just too short, or unexplained, especially those involving Jackson. I mean, the audience should see how he goes around killing those SOBs, but as mentioned, we don't get to see much. I suspect some scenes will probably end up in an extended DVD version, deleted scenes, or perhaps make their way into video games, fighting his way through with makeshift weapons.

That aside, and if you're ok with the censored bit in this NC-16 movie where a couple joins the mile high club (too bad it's forcibly shortened), Snakes on a Plane is a movie to catch on the big screen for the fun factor, and no, you'll definitely not get to watch this on any inflight entertainment system anytime soon.

The Cobra Starship music video for the movie plays through the end credits. Not too bad a song, think it's becoming a ear worm for me.

The Devil Wears Prada

This is a chick flick. I enjoyed it tremendously without shame. There's always something about the fashion industry portrayed in the movies, and I had a good time with the zany Zoolander. Here, Anne Hathaway shines as the impressionable new hire to Meryl Streep's steely cool industry veteran, and while sparks fly in a different sense, the visuals and the branded clothes, shoes, bags, belts, etc are just to die for, for the women of course.

You can click at the movieXclusive logo below to read my review:


Anne Hathaway looks good, either in frumpy grandmother garb or high chic fashion. Severe eye candy alert!