Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen Review

People sometimes wonder why I angrily bash some bad movies when they're not meant to be taken seriously anyway. The fact is, I do not care about bad movies, I watch a few, shrugs or chuckles and move on. It's the worst films that get to me. Films that are so bad they provoke some unpleasant feelings from you, making you want to beat some people up (probably the director). Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen is one such films.

It's hard to see how this film could go wrong. I rather liked the first film, it was one of those guilty pleasure films that has great special effects (one of which is Megan Fox) and awesome moments; as long as they continue to do more of the same, it should be fine, right? Turns out whatever good things that happened on the first film was just happy accidents. The sequel is like a repeat of the first film without the things that make it good and for that, director Michael Bay has to absorb all the blame because there's no mistaking from that this is the film that he wants to make. There's a good reason that I wrote in my review of the first film that "A Michael Bay film" is one of the scariest four words ever and this film only drives the nail to the coffin for that. This is probably the last Michael Bay film I will ever see.

Another GM Car Commercial funded by taxpayer bailout

The plot, if you can call it that, is of course about a new battle that pit the good guys Autobots vs bad guys Decepticons. We learn early that The Transformers have visited Earth in 17000 BC when one of them, The Fallen (voice of Tony Todd), attempted to destroy the earth but were banished by his better brothers. Fast forward to the present day when we learn that The Fallen is the mastermind of the attack of the Decepticons on the first film. This time, he's planning another assault, by first resurrecting his apprentice, Megatron (voice of Hugo Weaving), to find a device called "The Matrix of Leadership" to finish what he started. The location of The Matrix is unwittingly placed onto the head of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), the accidental human protagonist who accidentally acquired it by touching a small remaining piece of Allspark from the first film. So begin the race between The Autobots lead by Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen) and The Decepticons to find Sam and The Matrix, and this is only the first half of the film.

I wasn't really sure why I like the first film but after watching this film, the reasons dawn on me. Transformers is just another Michael Bay film with a few elements of a good, enjoyable film. To understand why, one needs to understand Michael Bay.

Michael Bay isn't seeing what the audience is seeing

Michael Bay is often criticized for making mindless action movies, but many critics fail to take notice that there are many directors who blow stuffs up and make mindless blockbusters but only Michael Bay can make a Michael Bay action film. His works are easily identifiable by watching them; just as easy to identify a Kubrick's or Scorsese's. In other words, Michael Bay is an auteur director, an artist, except one whose work express so much hatred and contempt at the audience. Rarely a scene goes by where any of these things don't happen: 1) a bright/orangey oversaturated cinematography, 2) Camera that spins round and round characters when talking or posing, 3) Disturbing fetish of female babes physiques, 4) Disturbing fetish of macho male characters (usually cops/military) usually through the use of slow motion, 5) Sickeningly excessive worship of the US military 6) Characters that talk too loud, too dirty or are too retarded for no apparent reason. All these often occur unnecessarily and worse, hinder any possible chance of character or story development because any attempt to understand or enjoy what's going on is lost in the mayhem. Is it too much to ask for a simple, coherent story, a camera that doesn't move, likeable and identifiable characters that don't talk like they're retarded? These are not hard when an overwhelming majority of films have them, even some of the worst films. Michael Bay isn't interested in those things, he's only interested doing things in his own twisted, fucked-up way. The only way to enjoy his films is to turn off your brain and be completely mindless. In a way, he is the anti-storytelling filmmaker, a dangerous one.

More US Military propaganda than Optimus Prime in the movie.

The first Transformers possess all the hallmarks of a Michael Bay film but it also coincidentally have got some basics right: The Autobots, despite their shabby treatment, are basically a likable, underdog protagonists* who are inferior and always behind the Decepticons, and Megatron is only shown in the beginning and the end and prove to be a menacing presence that makes the final showdown between him and Optimus Prime worthwhile despite the chaos. This film has none of that to redeem any negativity created by Michael Bay. A key protagonist robot* dies halfway through and he's replaced by 2 new annoying robots who talk like offensive black/mexican gangsta stereotypes. Megatron, so menacing in the first film, was resurrected only to play a 2nd fiddle to the new villain, The Fallen, who actually don't do much and gets killed off way too easily in the end. There are some things that defy common sense (not that films like this demand them, but nevertheless) like the destruction of many cities in the world halfway in the movie and yet the world carries on like it never happens (contrast this with Michael Bay's Armageddon) and the shabby treatment of a potentially awesome villain: a multiple transformers combining into one giant mega robot like Voltron, Devastator; he shows up, do some awesome stuffs only to get shot down by a US Warship (victim of Bay's relentless US Military worship). Speaking of US Military worship. many scenes of fights are not even between the robots, but between 2 sides and the US Military who are capable of shooting down the robots, I don't know if Bay is aware, but if the transformers can be defeated by the US Military, then they lose their awesomeness. I know, what you're thinking, there's still Megan Fox, right? Guess what, she only have 1 brief clothes changing moment of hotness early in the movie, the rest she just spend running and running around fully clothed. What's left is just endless Michael Bay's regular bashing of the audience running for 2.5 hours.

Some reviews have called this film racist, misogynistic and obnoxious. As a tried and true Michael Bay film, it deserves to be called all of them. I don't think Michael Bay intends to change soon and so there's no point for me watching another contemptuous work of his. I'm done with Michael Bay.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Ramon Rodriguez, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

Voice Cast: Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving, Tony Todd

Directed By: Michael Bay

Written By: Ehren Kruger & Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci

Star Trek Review

Prologue:

One of my most unforgettable movie watching memories when I first lived in United States was watching the reaction of the audience to the Star Trek: Nemesis teaser trailer - the cheers, claps and hollers at the trailer not only showed me how enthusiastic american audience can be when watching movies, but also how enthusiastic americans are to Star Trek.

Besides seeing a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 90s, a couple of the STNG Movies (Generations and Insurrection) as well as having a certain fondness of the bald Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, I am hardly a Star Trek fan. In fact, by the time I watched the original Star Wars trilogy and got won over by the spectacles and the drama, I can't see how people could sit through so many episodes of what basically amount to scenes of officers working in a spaceship or stories of alien races resolving their differences diplomatically. Granted, this impression was only created by my limited exposure and I'm surely going to be bludgeoned by the devoted Trekkies who read this. But nevertheless, I am not alone in having that view: Star Trek: Nemesis flopped in 2002 and by the time the last Star Trek TV Series, Enterprise, went off air in 2005, the public no longer cares about Star Trek.

The only party who really miss Star Trek, besides the zealously loyal Trekkies, is Paramount Pictures who own the rights. Unable to just let this cash cow sit idle, Paramount hired the hot mega producer/writer/director of the moment, JJ Abrams (TV's Felicity, Alias and MI:3, Cloverfield), to revitalize the series. In order to revive the franchise, JJ Abrams and co decided to reboot the series and tell the story of Star Trek right from the very beginning - a prequel on how the original crew from the original 1969 series got together - with a fresh, modern approach and casting new, upcoming actors in the iconic roles that many original fans worship (and to appease them, Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, also appears).

Review:

The result of JJ Abram's take, on the surface, appears to echo the reboot of James Bond franchise in Casino Royale: a bold, new, more action, more kick ass fresh take on an aging franchise. One of the biggest complains about the old Star Trek films are that they look like TV movies that with a higher budget. This film definitely has no such syndrome: JJ Abrams and co have spared no effort to make this film as slick and exciting as a modern summer movie can be. It has much more spaceship battles than its predecessors that would give the recent Star Wars prequel trilogy, the cast are young and definitely sexier and even the command center receives a white, slick, almost-sterile makeover. However, unlike Casino Royale, the new Star Trek movie does not have a compelling or original story that matches its ambitious intent and the worst outcome of this is we never really know or care about the characters*.

The acting and depiction of the iconic roles have been widely praised but that's because many praises come from the loyal fans who know these characters by heart and compares them on how faithful they are to their original counterparts. Unfortunately for those unfamiliar, the results can be underwhelming. This reboot feels just like as if JJ Abrams has given a fresh paint onto a cracking wall, but whatever praises you can give to the paint, the wall is still cracking.

Star Trek opens in the year 2233. A Federation starship USS Kelvin encounters a hostile Romulan ship commanded by Nero (played by Eric Bana), and the temporary Captain George Kirk had to sacrifice himself along with the ship to rescue everyone, including his newly born son, James T Kirk (adult played by Chris Pine). While Kirk grows up as a fatherless and rebellious kid on earth, a half vulcan and half human boy on another planet called Vulcan named Spock (adult played by Zachary Quinto) struggles to fit in with his fellow vulcans who values logic above emotion. 25 years later both of them would end up on the same Starship USS Enterprise together with familar faces like medical officer Bones (Karl Urban), communications officer Uhura, lieutenant Hikari Sulu (John Cho) and ensign Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin). On their fateous first mission, they encounter Nero again who still harbours an unfinished business with the Federation and "Spock" and plans to destroy them. A disagreement caused Spock to eject Kirk from the ship into an unknown planet where he encounters an old Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from the original series who explains to Kirk how a great conflict between him and Nero from the original universe brought them into the current universe and that he has to reunite with the crew to stop Nero. With the help of another familiar faces, engineer Scotty(Simon Pegg), can Kirk get back to the crew and unite with them to save the day?

Perhaps the biggest (and most ironic) problem of the movie is that in order to modernize the story, it borrows so much from Star Wars that it almost becomes another Star Wars clone. This problem does not just extend to the space battles and some of the creature designs (Scotty's best friend embarassingly resembles a Wookie), but to the important character Kirk himself. In the original series, Kirk is depicted as a brash, cocky captain. Here he is depicted as a young, brash, cocky captain whose such nature emerge as a result of daddy problems. In fact, nothing can emphasize it any heavier than in the scene where he meets the old Spock and ask if his father has survived in the original timeline. The similarity is so startling, collegehumor makes a video about it. This, of course, actually emphasize how poor and boring the original concept of officers working in spaceship is. But given the film's success, the audience can't tell the difference and don't mind really.

Other problem include Zachary Quinto's depiction of Spock who channels his famous character from Heroes, Sylar whenever he gets emotional. JJ Abrams directing of action was inept when he made MI:3 and is still inept here by employing a lot of fast cuts that end up more distracting and exciting. The best thing about this film is perhaps the return of Leonard Nimoy as the old spock. Even if I have not watched a single episode or movies of the original crew, I felt it was a great performance filled with dignity and affection. Overall, this is just a cosmetic reboot by JJ Abrams and perhaps best of all, I'm still unconverted to the cause.

Rating: 3 out of 5

* (SPOILERS) - this is especially true when we learn the events that set the plot of the movie in motion. In the original Universe, Spock promised to save planet Romulan from destruction by a supernova but he was too late. A surviving Romulan, Nero sought revenge on him and while they were chasing each other, they got sucked into the black hole where they get thrown back earlier in time. Nero arrived 25 years earlier than Spock and meanwhile he planned to destroy Spock's home planet for him to witness as well as plotting to destroy the Federation. Okay, it's this kind of scifi plot that is grand but possess quite shallow emotional resonance. Losing your planet is a huge deal, but it's not something we see happen everyday and the film fails to convey the scale of the pain to the audience. That's why Nero and his plot are initially interesting but they end up just like another excuse to get the Enterprise crew to save the day. Just like any other Star Trek episode.

Sell Out! Review

Sell Out! opens with an art show reporter Rafflesia Pong (played by Jerrica Lai) interviewing Yeo Jun Han (director of the film!), whose short film just won some random award from some obscure European film festival. While Rafflesia questions why "boring", "arty" asian films like Yeo's could win international acclaims and wonders if it's the westerners' tendency to view unfamiliarity as a sign of quality, Yeo (wearing nothing but shorts) rants back about the lack of realism in films like actions and musicals and that he makes films only to reflect the reality. This is immediately followed by a shootout scene and Yeo himself bursting into songs. With this opening this Malaysian film signals its no holds barred intention at satire early. Too bad that while the film's bold, saturated attempt at satire is worth praising, it is too in love with its own jokes and agenda that it forgets how to tell them well. As a result, many of the jokes that work well on paper end up flat and unfunny onscreen, making this film a missed opportunity.

The plot, or something that resembles it, tells the story of 2 employees of a big corporation called FONY Conglomerate. One is Rafflesia who's in danger of losing her show and job because she is losing ratings to a competing reality show hosted by the latest Eurasian "it" girl. The other is Eric Tan (Peter Davis) an idealistic engineer who pitches an efficient, reliable soy bean machine product to the FONY corporation executives, but they refuse to release it unless Eric dumb it down (or build a failure mechanism that activates after warranty expire). When Rafflesia's interview of her dying boyfriend raised ratings and inspired her to start a reality show about interviewing dying people and Eric literally develops a second personality who encourages him to commercialize his invention, both start to "sell out" as the movie starts to break into musical segments and karaoke interludes too.

One thing that Sell Out! cannot be accused of is lacking ambition and targets. Sell Out! ridicules everything from the titular tendency of people to sell out (whether they like it or not), to the profit driven practices of corporation, overworship of exotic asian movies by western film festivals, the popularity of Eurasian personalities in Southeast Asia and last but not least, the government. However, Yeo is more interested in using the jokes to get his points across rather than letting them work on the story. As a result, the movie bombards many jokes left and right but most of them fall flat because they don't have enough buildup and context besides the director's points. It also doesn't help that most of the characters are caricature including the leads . Worst of all, while Yeo may be a great satirist, he is a terrible songwriter (his lyrics are mostly the rhyming "break my heart, tear us apart" boyband songs variety) that the movie suffers when it switches gears to its musical segments.

One of the best thing about this movie is actress Jerrica Lai who brings a spirited portrayal to what amounts as a chess pawn character for the director. She also has a wonderful voice, the best among all the singing cast, to overcome Yeo's terrible songwriting; it's too bad that her first song arrives at the latter half of the film. Peter Davis, on the other hand, is really lifeless that makes one wonder if he's truly bad or he's part of the joke that satirize Eurasian celebrities.

It's encouraging to see more full satirical films like this coming out of Asia, especially Malaysia. However while the effort is certainly admirable, it's certainly preferable to see a film that actually succeeds at delivering both the laughs and a good story. Let's hope that we'll see films like that in the future, but Sell Out! is definitely not it. But perhaps the best compliment that can be given to Sell Out! is despite everything, it never actually sells out at all.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Sell Out!

Written and Directed by: Yeo Jun-Han

Starring: Jerrica Lai and Peter Davis

Trailer:

Terminator Salvation Review

As Terminator Salvation ends, one can't help but witness how far something great has fallen. Nothing, not the film's much higher budget and production values than the original film, not the attempts to inject quality by involving Christian Bale and Jonathan Nolan (as an uncredited writer) from last year's The Dark Knight, can disguise the transformation the films have gone through from something fascinating, human to a cold, soulless, moneymaking entity, somewhat like the adversarial Machines depicted in the film.

Terminator Salvation opens briefly in 2003 where a San Francisco death row inmate called Marcus Wright (played by Sam Worthington) volunteers his body to Cyberdine for research. Fast forward to 2018 where humanity is at war with The Machines. The now adult John Connor (Christian Bale), the prophesied saviour of humanity, leads an assault onto an enemy post where he discovers a weapon to kill The Machines for good as well as a plot to assasinate him and a person named Kyle Reese (for reasons familiar only to those who have watched the first film). Meanwhile, Marcus wakes up in the enemy post, unaware of where or when in time he is and unsure of how he survives his execution. As he wanders, he meets Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) who accompanies him back to San Francisco to seek answers. But San Francisco is now The Machine's headquarter which John Connor plot to destroy and their paths will cross with surprising results (or maybe not, if you have seen the trailer).

The main problem with the film is that it has nothing really new or interesting to add to the existing storyline. All the previous 3 films have more or less the same plot of a good guy and a bad guy being sent to the past to change the course of the future but each film as its own compelling ideas that develop their materials into something better*. This film is more concerned instead about adding more details about the series main players and fan services that are often unnecessary; things like how John Connor got his scar, how Kyle Reese got his jacket and becomes a warrior and Sarah Connor's voice tapes (Linda Hamilton reprising her role). All these, at best, only serve to only explain further what we already knew from the previous films without giving anything new or compelling. At worst, however, the additions ruin the memory of previous films, like the use of Sarah Connor's voice tapes whose voiceover is so crucial in T2 but here she is reduced to a few meaningless sentences along the line of "I don't know what else to say, John, the future is in your hand." While there are attempts to be deeper through the new character of Marcus when we learn who he truly is, but whatever little success the character provides gets lost when we reach the chickened-out ending** whose sole purpose is to continue to another movie and pleasing the fans at the same time.

Like other Summer blockbusters, this film has high budget to bring the best action and spectacles to rival the series benchmark T2 as well as acquiring quality actors like Christian Bale whose presence is much needed to make up for the absence of series stalwart Arnold Schwarzenegger***. However, like a typical summer blockbuster today, higher budget and production values work against the film's success. For some perspective, consider the first Terminator film - it was a product of its time and works splendidly because of it. It benefitted a lot from its low budget, lots of night scenes and 80s setting to create a bleak apocalyptic techno-noir atmosphere. Terminator Salvation, on the other hand, attempts to create a bleak future by showing a lot of desolate desert landscape through a desaturated lens to create a grim, gritty look but it comes off like the prettiest looking apocalypse instead. The first film's Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton and Arnold are hardly award winning actors but they did effectively with their characters to create sympathy, dread and fear. This film has Christian Bale who, to the dismay of many who wants to see John Connor comes of age, rants and rants and shoots stuffs and then rants some more. On top of that, there's the character, Blair, a resistance pilot played by Moon Bloodgood, who is one good example that symbolize what's so wrong with this film. She is a confident and sexy character but that's the last thing a film like this needs and yet she's there. This film has all the money to buy the best special effects, actors and writers but it cannot obtain its heart and soul.

Perhaps this film and the franchise has become a victim of its own success. The first film is strong  enough to stand on its own. However, Terminator 2, as good as it is, was such a success that it made Terminator a franchise that demands more movies and merchandise and therefore money to be made. Over the last 20+ years since The Terminator was made, the rights to the franchise have changed hands to different owners who only want to make more money out of this franchise. Therefore, it's only fitting that the series sunk this low. In fact, with a planned Terminator 5 coming with the story having John Connor travel back in time, The series starts to resemble another series that stars Arnold Schwarzenegger's rival: Rocky. However, unlike that inspiring underdog series, there's perhaps no redemption for this one.

Rating: 2/5

Terminator Salvation

Directed by: McG

Written by: John Brancato & Michael Ferris

Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Moon Bloodgood, Common, Michael Ironside and Helena Bonham Carter

Footnotes (SPOILER):

* - The first film story cleverly explore the idea of whether fate is in our hand or predetermined. The 2nd film successfully develops the relationship between the child John Connor and the robotic T-800 as a father figure that pays off in an emotional ending. The 3rd film doesn't add anything new but at least it explores the existing themes and in an interesting way: John Connor's complicated relationship with the new T-800 who does not remember him and John's journey and acceptance to be a reluctant hero that mirrors his mother in the first film. 

** - In the original intended ending for this film, John Connor is killed and the resistance asks Marcus to be "John Connor" by planting his face onto Marcus' cybernetic body to keep the legacy of John Connor alive. This would have made a much more interesting ending that explores what it means to be a legend and under such circumstances, whether the difference between human and robot still applies. Alas the ending was leaked online before the movie goes on production and the ending got changed to the current one that is safer but shallow.  

*** Arnold Schwarzenegger is the most crucial part of the Terminator series. His casting against type as a villain in the first film works spectacularly as his indestructible persona os turned against the audience. The T-800 character mirrors the actor in some way - around the time of T3 release before Arnold becomes the governor of California, Arnold's star has waned and T3 was his last swansong. This adds a lot of unexpected poignancy when seeing an obsolete T-800 model getting its ass kicked by a younger, more advanced T-X model and still carries his mission dutifully to the bitter end. Arnold's absence is so deeply missed that Terminator Salvation best moment is when his CGI cameo comes out for a few second to fight John Connor. Too bad the filmmaker ruins the moment totally by having both characters fight so quickly as if to ignore the bond that has been formed by John and this model.

Thoughts on 2008 Films

This is bittersweet. Since I am no longer living in US, I no longer can watch films on the same day they are released in the US and therefore making me unable to react to most of the annual Best-of lists written by the critic. I usually do this lists closer to the Oscar ceremony rather than in end of December since I can't watch all the movies unless I live in LA/NY. But this may be the last list whose entries I watched in US. I watched 44 new films released last year and looking at the list, I should have watched many more knowing that it would be my last year living there.

These are my list of thoughts on last year's films. I'd keep it simple this time, starting with the bad going to good.

BAD:
Worst Excuse For a Film:
Sex and The City: The Movie - This film has no story whatsoever. In other movies, some of the "major" plot points would be resolved in a few minutes but in this movie, they drag on for the whole 2 hours. It's a shame because the original series was actually a good show. But this film is just an excuse to get this 4 women back together again and do their stuffs as well as showing some product placements for its target audience.
Mamma Mia! - This goes back to the original musical which itself was an excuse to have ABBA songs staged. Except the original musical doesn't have Pierce Brosnan terrible voice.

Most Overrated:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button peaked emotionally halfway throughout the film. After that, the film goes downhill. It's not a bad film but the central romance which anchors the 2nd half of the film is unconvincing and that proves to be the film's undoing. Also, the film seems to show that lessons from life aging backwards are more or less the same with normal life aging forwards, which makes the whole idea that drives the movie somewhat pointless. Lastly, Brad Pitt is really flat here, especially towards the end of the film. Given the # of oscar nominations this film has including Brad Pitt as best actor, this film is the most overrated film of the year.

Biggest Disappointment:
Quantum of Solace - Casino Royale was a great success because it treated James Bond seriously and make him more human. Ironically, Quantum of Solace fails because it tried to replicate Casino Royale without adding anything fresh to it.
Pineapple Express - 2007 was Judd Apatow's year with the success of Knocked Up and Superbad. But 2008 proved to be a dud with the failure of Drillbit Taylor and this film, which fails to mix humor and action effectively. Plus, Seth Rogen starts to show quickly within 1 year how little range he has. He better improve fast or else lose his career.
The X Files: I Want To Believe - It's fine if Chris Carter wants to just do a supernatural story rather than continuing the mythology for the 2nd film. But when the reunion of Mulder and Scully has been long awaited for years and all you've got is just a lame supernatural story that sounds like a bad episode, you're wasting all the goodwill that have built up for this moment.
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull - one weakness of the Indiana Jones films are that they never set any rules for the supernatural happenings in their universe; anything can happen. When the aliens show up in the end, you just can't help but shake your head. But the worst part of the film is that the feeling that Lucas and Spielberg makes this because so many fans ask for it, not because they have anything new and exciting to show.
Be Kind Rewind - Michel Gondry is a talented visionary director, but he's a poor writer. His story has poor structure and the dialogues have bad timings. He needs to work with good writers like Charlie Kauffman so that we can see more Eternal Sunshine than another interesting failure like this.

Worst Film:
21 - turns a fascinating true story into a boring cliched film complete with the main character narrating everything. But perhaps the worst part of the film is that there's no way the characters in the film can get into MIT in the first place given how stupid they can be.
10000 BC - An epic movie that's part boring and part the funniest unintentional comedy of the year.
Hancock - A film that doesn't know what it wants to be - a superhero dark comedy or a tragedy - that results in a tonal mess. Part of it is because the film feels like it has been edited by the studio not director Peter Berg. Lastly, like Hitch, Will Smith has again shown how afraid he is to tackle the subject of mixed-race romance head on in exchange for making the film more commercial.
The Happening - I commented on the first draft of the screenplay that M Night needs to make improvement on the romance aspect of the script. He did improve on that but he also chickened out and removed some of the best things that made the story scary. Plus the acting from Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, and John Leguizamo is surprisingly terrible. The worst part is, this time around, even M Night's directing has let him down.
Eagle Eye - A preposterous, ridiculous high tech thriller that thinks it's smart when it's actually so implausible and absurd.

... and the worst film of the year is ...
Righteous Kill - how can a film with De Niro, Pacino and written by the writer of Inside Man be so bad? We should have suspected given that no big studio wants to distribute this and it's produced by Millenium Films and directed by Jon Avnet who also made the Pacino stinker 88 Minutes. But still, I expected some decent film at least. What I've got here instead is a sleazily made cop film with dialogue and acting worse than any cop show on TV. Some of the dialogue and acting by Pacino and De Niro are very embarassing and I sure hope that they paid well for this gig. But the most embarassing thing in this film is that the best performance in this film that has Pacino, De Niro, John Leguizamo and Carla Gugino is perhaps given by 50 Cent.

and now, THE GOOD

Most Overlooked Villain:
Prince Nuada in Hellboy II (played by Luke Goss) - it's rare that we see a good villain in superhero films. Luke Goss' Prince Nuada is a great villain with a great commanding presence and a great martial arts ability. It's too bad that he's overshadowed by The Joker in The Dark Knight. While The Joker is an exceptional villain in an exceptional film, we need to see more Prince Nuada in other films that can gamely oppose the heroes. Nuada puts the villain in the first Hellboy, Rasputin, to shame.

Most Overlooked Performance:
Aaron Eckhart (as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight) - another actor overshadowed by Heath Ledger's performance as the joker, Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent has perhaps the biggest character arc in the film, more so than the batman and the joker and given the importance of the character - he's what batman and joker are fighting for. his performance shouldn't be ignored.
Adam Sandler (as Zohan in You Don't Mess With The Zohan) - puts on a fake accent and attempts a Ben Stiller-like fake persona in Zohan, an Israeli super commando who secretly wanst to be a hairdresser, resulting in perhaps his funniest comedic role since The Wedding Singer
James Franco (as Saul in Pineapple Express) - This is perhaps the most criminally overlooked performance of the year. James Franco, previously known as a serious and moody actor who unfortunately always appear in more bad movies than good, gives a career changing performance as a stoned weed dealer in Pineapple Express which is surprisingly very effective. He's perhaps the best thing that happened in the film. Had this been shown in any year except 2008, perhaps James would have perhaps gotten a best actor nomination for this role.

Most Underrated:
Speed Racer - I'll admit that Speed Racer isn't a great film and for a family film, the plot could be simplified. However, the criticial drubbing and the failure of this film was highly unfair. The Wachowski Brothers managed to successfully bring the anime eye candy to live action but they don't forget the heart in the family story either. I'm happy to see that it has already become a cult film with some fans (including Richard Corliss in Time Magazine who names it in his top 10 films in 2008). I hope that time will give this film a chance to be recognized.
Sex Drive - In a year where Judd Apatow sex comedies flopped, suddenly a great teen sex comedy film that wasn't made/produced by Apatow came out of nowhere and was missed by everyone. Sex Drive has many characteristics of good Apatow movies - funny sex jokes, romantic storyline that actually has real heart - but it doesn't feel like an Apatow film (none of the apatow regulars show up, for one). Plus, this films is perhaps the first film to integrate the recent web activities like chatting, blogging and youtube successfully into the film. The film deserves to be found by more audience.

Best Pics:
The Dark Knight - An almost perfect film in every way. Nothing more needs to be said about this film. The Academy snub for Best Picture and Director will haunt them forever.
Slumdog Millionaire - It's a great year when of the 2 best pictures of the year, one is very dark, somber affair and the other one is an inspiring, underdog fairy tale. Make no mistake, Slumdog Millionaire is not one of those false, schmaltzy Hollywood fairy tale, but a truly wonderful one that gives fairy tale a good name. All thanks to director Danny Boyle who kept things authentic as much as possible by shooting in India and writer Simon Beaufoy who adapted the plot brilliantly from a book by Vikas Swarup. This is the film that will win the oscar this year.
Cloverfield - It's a divisive movie because of the overhype and because when it showed up, the Blair Witch handheld style pissed off many in audience (and sent some vomiting). But when the hype settled, Cloverfield is a successful experiment. The handheld style was utilized effectively to generate tension and despite the "real time" nature of the handheld film the filmmakers still managed to tell the whole story in a typical story arc of a hollywood film. Lastly, kudos for the filmmakers for having the guts to put the ending there. This film has successfully deconstructed and revolutionized the monster movie genre at the same time.

Doubt
Milk
Traitor
Definitely, Maybe
The Incredible Hulk
Wall-E

Best Film To Talk About:
Doubt

Most Pleasant Surprises:
Definitely, Maybe - Best surprise of the year. It's a film that starts like any other romantic comedy but morphs into an insightful film that examines about the choices that we did and did not make in life and how much we regret them later in life. The film defies many romcom cliches and keep the audience guessing. The casting of the girl who have a great chemistry with Ryan Reynolds that it's obvious she's "the one" but that only serves to better the film
Rambo - when Sylvester Stallone made Rocky Balboa, people laughed and were surprised it was good. When Sly announced he was making another Rambo, people naturally laughed harder. Unlike Rocky, the character Rambo has become a joke over the years. That's why everyone who laughed would find themselves even more surprised by how good the final product was. The fourth Rambo film is a straight old school action films with guns and violence and a lot of excitement. But most importantly, Sylvester Stallone has done the impossible - bringing back respectability to the classic character.
Valkyrie - It stars Tom Cruise. The ending is already known even before the movie was made. Yet, Bryan Singer still managed to make a tense and ultimately sad tale of people who sacrificed their life to do the right thing.
You Don't Mess With The Zohan - Adam Sandler ditched his typical childish humour and went for something that Ben Stiller would do: create a fake persona and lampoon it by living and breathing it. When Sandler puts on a fake accent and bad hair to play a macho israel commando who secretly wants to be a hairdresser, the result is comedy gold.

Why Americans don't love soccer ... and why I don't love their sports* either

* - NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NASCAR

I read this article, 7 Reasons Why America Will Never Embrace Soccer, long ago. Go ahead and read it, the author is pretty reasonable and thoughtful (this isn't another why soccer sucks/is gay article). Funny enough, some of the reasons listed are also the same reasons I don't embrace the american sports (or at least the way it's organized, viewed and worshipped in America). Reasons like:

Americans Don't Have The Attention Span and Low Scores - just too bad, it's their loss. Especially when it comes to low scores, how American Football artificially inflates its score by awarding a touchdown by 6 points. bah.

Lack of Statistics - The author mentioned that "Being able to rattle off batting, FG, or QB ratings bring joy to millions of Americans. In soccer, the only real stats are passes, tackles, goals, and saves ... the stats simply aren’t as meaningful nor interesting as other mainstream American sports." This is the same thing that frightens me whenever I tried to take a look at a popular american sport. I mean turnover rates, rushed yards - what the fuck is that? It's like every single player is measured by the statistics of their performance, it's scary. That's why I love Soccer because the statistics don't matter. Heck the only numbers that matter is the number of goals and who win or lose, that's it, simple.So instead of statistics, I can enjoy the performance and artistry of players like Messi, Kaka, Ronaldo, etc. That's why it's called the beautiful game. But I guess many typical american sports fans can't appreciate the beauty of the sports, confuses it with "gay" and would rather spend their time obsessing over meaningless statistics.

But other than that I'd also like to add a few more on why it's hard for me to embrace the american sports.

Franchise - the dreaded, ugly F-word by many soccer fans everywhere. There's a good reason why many soccer teams are called Club, that's because most soccer club are indeed started as community, local based sports club. With that, it brings a sense of loyalty and belonging for many local communities. Even big clubs like Barcelona and Bayern Munich are owned by fans. In america, most sports teams in NBA, NFL, MLB are owned by some rich billionaires or corporations and they are always operated as a money making machine first and a sports team second.

While most of them are rooted in their host city long enough to form strong local attachments and identity, it's possible and perfectly acceptable to see teams move around from one part of the country to another, as can be seen from the recent move of Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma or even the fact that SF Giants were originally from NY, just because the Franchise or its owner needs it (usually for monetary reasons). Just to illustrate the difference, recently English club Everton FC which is based in Liverpool had a very hard time convincing its supporters to move to a new stadium to just outskirt of the city even though the move is necessary for the club growth; that's how strong the local attachment is to the club. Attachment is important, I know people who have been supporting Liverpool non-stop since their 70s/80s glory days even if they have never been there. How could that happen? That's because Liverpool has a long and glorious history and part of that history is always rooted locally in Liverpool even as the name grows more and more global. Could you imagine Liverpool FC moving out of city of Liverpool and taking their history with them? It would be unthinkable and would cause a great uproar. Speaking of Liverpool FC, it's owned by 2 american owners who have tried to operate it like a franchise and look at how they're treated by the fans.

That's why it's so hard for me to root for any sports team in America. Last time I supported a team was The Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era and once he's gone, I'm gone too (and so does many other s0-called "fans"). The only team I can support is my college teams (Go Bears) because that's where I went to school and I have attachment and I know that Cal has been around for 140 years or so and won't move anywhere, that's probably the closest to a US sports team that I can support.

Salary Cap and Draft - Two things that stereotypical americans love about their country is 1) it's a Free country and 2) Football. Yet, ironically, the rules of players transfers and salaries in NFL (and NBA, MLB, MLS) are designed to make each franchises in the league more or less "balanced" to prevent a dominant team and to prevent players salary from spiralling out of control. The way they do that is by making a needlessly confusing draft and salary cap system that would impress Communists (and americans who love statistics). In soccer leagues in europe, it's more like a free market capitalism where the richest clubs can buy whatever talents it wants and therefore we always see the same group of clubs win the trophies each year. Now of course, as I mentioned earlier, there are pros and cons of both systems which are almost opposite of each other. But I just find it ironic that the current transfer rules and regulations in NFL etc is far less "free" than the soccer ones in europe. But hey, don't take my word for it, in 2007, Nick Saban, then head coach of Miami Dolphins in NFL moved to coach University of Alabama in college football. One reason for his switch (besides being made the highest paid college football coach) is that the recruiting system is more free in college. In a recent Forbes magazine article, he's quoted as saying: "You were almost penalized for success," he says. A good year meant lower draft picks and a more difficult schedule. "In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you're lucky," says Saban. "You couldn't really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year." Again another plus points for college sports system.

Now, I'm not saying that soccer leagues are always better. There's a lot of grey areas. There are fan owned sports team in US too like Green Bay Packers. Given the recent takeovers of English Premier Leagues clubs by rich peoples like Roman Abramovich (Chelsea), Abu Dhabi Group (Manchester City), Gillet and Hicks (Liverpool FC) and given the spiralling wages of many top football players, the top soccer clubs start to look more and more like american style Franchise as well. But I still can't embrace the US sports after living there for over 6 years. I guess it's just down to the way the world thinks vs the way americans think. I still refuse to change from Metric system to US measurement units (miles, yard, foot, pound etc). As long as this differences in thinking exist, I probably will not embrace the american sports and americans will never embrace Football.

Zohan Review

I reviewed this 2 months ago, but left it dusted. So I'm publishing it now

1. You Don't Mess With The Zohan

Other than romantic comedies with Drew Barrymore and occasional non-comedy forays like PT Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, I usually skip Adam Sandler movies. The guy's comedic persona (especially ever since The Waterboy) is too crude, annoying and childish (only Will Ferrell can top him) for my taste. However, after seeing the trailer for "You Don't Mess With The Zohan", it becomes the first Adam Sandler movie that I anticipate for a very long time.

Why the anticipation? Zohan is probably the first time Adam Sandler created a new comedic persona since The Waterboy and it's also probably his first attempt at doing a good spoof/parody ala Ben Stiller or Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G and Borat. Of course, it also helps that it has a killer premise: Zohan is the best commando Israel has ever seen (by the best, I mean he can stop bullets in real time kind) whose lifelong dream is only to become a hairstylist. Last but not least, Judd Apatow of the 40 Years Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad fame help co-write the script. Does the end product live up to the potential? Not quite, but there's still good time to be had.

First, let's make one thing clear, Adam Sandler of the old is gone. Gone are the crude shouting, toilet, gross jokes. In are broad, cartoonish, nonsensical gags that Stephen Chow could do (or used to be able to) in his sleep, and Sandler is better for it. It's also great that the writers and Sandler embrace the cartoonish, nonsensical comedy to their heart and pull it on their sleeves - with gags like grenade ping pong, Zohan's physical abilities - they're not always successful, but they're more often funny than what Adam Sandler used to make. But credit has to go to the Zohan character and Sandler himself, from The Zohan's masculine, oversexed persona to his fake accent and to his Chuck Norris-esque ability to be immune from any physical harm. I believe this is a character spoof is quite accurate, even if I have never met/known an Israeli before. After all, many cheesy Chuck Norris action films used to be produced by Israelis producer Menahem Golan and Goram Globus and you could probably see the striking similarity between Zohan and Chuck Norris.

Then, there's there's the issue of this movie being a message movie. Sandler's last film, I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, had this sincere but ultimately hypocritical attempt at a homosexual tolerant message. This movie does have some preachy messages about the Israel-Palestinian conflicts. But unlike Chuck and Larry, this film is smart enough to be a cartoon that the messages don't come accross too forcefully. After all, only in a cartoonish movie like this can we see a man capable of stopping bullets with his bare hand and an immigrant community of Israelis and Palestinians living together.

Rating: 3.5 /5

Warning on M Night Shyamalan's The Happening

This friday, M Night Shyamalan's next movie The Happening will open in US. I'm here to warn you to consider not watching it.



Now, I'm a big fan of M Night, every single movie after the sixth sense. But his last movie, The Lady In The Water, was so terrible I named it the worst film I've seen in 2006. But I still have faith in him; so when I heard that he was going to make his next movie, The Green Effect (it's been retitled to The Happening) with a story about nature turning against mankind, I become interested and was hoping that it would be his comeback to goodness.

But I was impatient. Last year, after much searching online, I found the first draft of the script (titled The Green Effect) and read it.

It was bad. It wasn't as terrible as Lady In The Water, but make no mistake, it was bad.

The script has some good parts (which involves wind blowing) that would give M Night some cool and terrifying directing set pieces. but that's about it on the positive. The story is interesting but characters are not. But the worst part was the ending.

Now, I know many people are incensed by the ending of Signs. I happen to be one who don't mind because the movie was solid enough that by the time the ending comes, I didn't even notice the plot hole. Why do I mention Signs? Because for those people who hate Signs, the ending in the script is even more stupid than the Aliens whose weakness is water in Signs. It's really that bad (it explains what "the green effect" is so cornily).

Well, it's only the first draft and the script has been rewritten numerous times for sure during the production. But having seen the trailers for the film so far, I must say that many elements in the first draft have made it into the film. I just hope, for the sake of Shyamalan's career, that the ending doesn't make it.