Twilight Review

Twilight is a good example of an unlikely good movie can be made from a mediocre source material when a smart and talented director is in charge. It's easy to dismiss the adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's phenomenally popular novel about the romance between a teenage girl and a vampire as nothing but another laughable, cringe-inducing entry to the teen supernatural genre (e.g. The Covenant). But the decision to hire director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) - along with screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (TV's Dexter), composer Carter Burwell (frequent collaborator of Coen Brothers) and talented young actress Kristen Stewart (In The Land of Woman, Into The Wild) - shows a serious attempt to inject quality to the project . The resulting end product, while unable to overcome the weakness of its source material, is still interesting and watchable in its own right.

The film opens with 17 years old Bella Swan (kirsten stewart) moving to the rainy small town of Forks, Washington to move with her estranged father. While struggling to adjust to life in a new town and high school, she finds herself attracted to a shy mysterious guy, Edward, (Robert Pattinson) who only hangs out with his family members, The Cullens. While Edward initially rebuffs all her approaches, he eventually reveals that he and his family are vampires who abstain from human blood and that he struggles to contain his strong desire for her blood. Amidst all this, a

romance blossom between them that is put to test when a group of hungry wandering vampires come to town and set their sights on Bella.

Oddly enough for a film about vampires, the best thing about it has little to do with vampires. Shot mainly in Oregon, the cinematography by Elliot Davis lenses most of the outdoor scenes through the right amount of blue filter to create a suitably melancholic atmosphere around the small town and its surrounding forests and mountains where rain greatly outnumber sunlight - the perfect place for vampires to hide. Director Catherine Hardwicke also brought her keen insights about high school life displayed in Thirteen to this film, making the high school scenes and its occupants seem real and not just another stereotypical hollywood high school students. Lastly, the awkward relationship between Bella and her father is developed very subtly and effectively despite a limited screen time but culminates in an emotional scene towards the end.

However, the vast majority of twilight's female target audience do not come to watch those things. They come to see Edward and experience the burning romance between Bella and Edward. In that respect, the movie delivers in spades as it spends a lot of its running time showing both Bella and Edwards getting lovey dovey with each other; with scenes of them staring longingly at each other, lying down in the forest and even flying through the trees to the tune of Carter Burwell's soaring piano crescendo. But they're all wasted because we're never convinced why these two individuals would fall for each other. We are supposed to accept that Bella falls in love with Edward just because he shows up for the first time and Bella can't take her eyes off him! This is quite problematic because up until then, Kirsten Stewart gives another fine, reliable performance as a vulnerable teenage girl, but the moment Edward enters the picture, she's forced to overact her obsession/attraction to Edward by shivering a lot and giving a lot of overly serious and nervous glances at Edward and it feels creepy sometimes. Edward, on the other hand is a typical cold and mysterious character that doesn't require Robert Pattinson anything more than looking handsome and brood a lot. Given that the film is about the romance between these 2 characters, it's unfortunate that they're not felt at all except by the built-in fans of the books.

One wonders, given the strength of the film outside the central romance and the vampires, could there be a better movie had the Catherine Hardwicke choose to stray far from the source material? They could have just used the basic story as a metaphor a teenager trying to grow up in a new unfamiliar place rather than focusing the romance itself. But given what she has to deliver to the fans of the series, it's amazing that the film is quite watchable. That's why given that she does not participate in the sequel, the quality of the remaining series remain uncertain.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Twilight

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke

Written by: Melissa Rosenberg based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Kirsten Stewart, Cam Giganget, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Taylor Lautner, Nicky Reed, Ashley Greene, Rachel LeFevre

King Review

During the summer and school holiday period of 2009, 2 Indonesian family films with similar sport themes are released to capitalize on the success of "Laskar Pelangi": Garuda Di Dadaku and King. Unlike Garuda Di Dadaku, King has one unexpectedly original thing going for it: it is maybe the first mainstream film in the world to feature Badminton - a sport popular in Asia, especially Indonesia and China - as its subject matter. Too bad that King squanders this great chance to make a good debut for a badminton film genre and like Garuda, it suffers from script problems with an unlikable main character.

King tells the story of Guntur (Rangga Aditya), a village boy somewhere in East Java who's plays badminton to please his father (Mamiek Prakoso), a big fan of badminton and Liem Swie King (Indonesian and World Badminton Legend in the 80s, whose name the film takes its title from). In the beginning, Guntur plays badly and has to endure numerous punishment by his father, but with the help of his 2 best friends Raden (Lucky Martin) and Michele (Valerie Thomas), he slowly improves. As he starts winning village tournaments, he set his sights to eventually become a member of the prestigious Jarum Kudus Badminton Club, where Indonesian badminton legends such as Liem Swie King and Heriyanto Arbi made their mark.

Garuda Di Dadaku and King never hide their inspiration from the success of Laskar Pelangi. King, particularly takes a page from Laskar's on location shooting and give us beautiful shots of Volcano Crater and aerial shot of deers running through the jungle. However, unlike Laskar, most of these feel like a tourism advertisement rather an integral part of the movie. Why would 2 boys go to the top of a volcano to discuss their problems? We don't know, but the scene's there. But that's the least of the film's problems. Right from the start, King suffers from a messy script that fail to develop a clear journey for Guntur's badminton quest. Sometimes the film feels like a few TV episodes strung together as plotlines of new tournament or badminton club come in disjointed one after another. But King also suffers from one crucial problem: for someone who's supposedly aspiring to be a player, Guntur does not like playing Badminton at all. He spends the whole movie brooding and rarely smiling. We're given copious amount of his voiceover saying he has to succeed because of his father, his friends, his neighbour, his country but we never know whether he's truly passionate about what he's doing. In fact, like Garuda Di Dadaku, Guntur's success are more often due to help from others like a neighbour who lends his racket or his best friend who register him in a badminton club (without his knowledge). But in return, Guntur often lash out at his friends or suffer in silence. The filmmakers might have intended to make something inspirational, but what they've made is more depressing instead. If there's a silver lining, it's that for a while the film is smarter than Garuda Di Dadaku in its treatment of action and consequences of lying, but that plotline is over so quickly and too bad the rest of the film never matches that early good part.



As a rare Badminton film, the film will disappoint fans for sorely lacking any exciting badminton scenes. Most of the badminton scenes are just made of alternating close-ups of each player smashing at each other or shots of shuttlecocks hitting the rackets and floors. Rarely do we get a wide shot of a match going on and in fact, shots of audience reaction far outnumber anything that actually goes on the court! Maybe it's just the short shooting schedule that can't afford the actors to train, but this is such a wasted opportunity because had the filmmakers actually bothered to make the Badminton scenes exciting at least, Indonesia could have claimed to make the first exciting badminton film ever! But instead, what Badminton fans get are glorified cameos of past Badminton stars like Heriyanto Arbi and King himself.

In my Garuda Di Dadaku review, I wrote that god help this country if it becomes a typical Indonesian sports film. King needs to be added too. Let these be the example of films not to make if Indonesia wants its film industry to succeed internationally.

King
Cast: Rangga Aditya, Lucky Martin, Valerie Thomas, Mamiek Prakoso, Surya Saputra, Wulan Guritno with special appearance by Liem Swie King
Directed By: Ari Silahase
Written By: Dirmawan Hatta

Garuda Di Dadaku Review

Title note: Garuda Di Dadaku literally means Garuda On My Chest. It refers to the Garuda Bird Mascot that's attached to the jersey of the Indonesia's Men National Football Team.

Garuda Di Dadaku is among the first batch of well meaning family films in 2009 to capitalize on the success of Laskar Pelangi. This hybrid of well-meaning moralistic family film and nationalistic sports film has its credentials boosted by having the same writer and the same company that co-produced Laskar Pelangi . However, unlike Laskar Pelangi, Garuda Di Dadaku ultimately disappoints as it suffers from script problems that prevent us from caring about the main character.

Garuda Di Dadaku tells the story of Bayu (Emil Mahira) a boy who dreams to one day become a professional soccer player who represents Indonesia. However, his grandfather (Ikranegara, the principal in Laskar Pelangi) has different ideas: he wants to see Bayu succeed in more established fields like painting or music. Plus, the early death of Bayu's former soccer player father makes the grandfather more determined than ever to drive Bayu away from soccer. Luckily, Bayu has 2 good friends who help cover for him while he secretly trains for an audition to join the national Under-13 Team: Heri (Aldo Tansani), the rich but physically handicapped best friend and Zahra (Marsha Aruan), a mysterious girl who lets Bayu practice secretly at her cemetery home. But how long can Bayu keeps the lies from his grandpa? Can Bayu makes it to the Indonesia National Under-13 Team?

Perhaps the most interesting part of the film is how much it is thematically the opposite of the film that perhaps inspired this: Laskar Pelangi. Unlike Laskar Pelangi's earnest pro-education agenda, Garuda Di Dadaku shares some similar themes with Singaporean Jack Neo's I Not Stupid films: that Asian kids today are under pressure to succeed in society that they have to sacrifice their passion for a more secure life path. Unfortunately, the film has one giant script flaw: Bayu is not a character worth sympathizing or rooting for because he doesn't seem very talented and most of his success happen because of his friends' actions, not his.



Remember the soccer film Goal! that tells the story a Mexican-American guy who goes from a nobody to an English Premier League player overnight? It wasn't a very good movie but at least it spent a lot of time showing off the character's football skills to convince us he's the deal. In Garuda, Bayu's skill is only limited to one well placed free kick and a few workmanlike dribbling and nothing more. But bigger weakness lies in the relationship between Bayu and his best friend Heri. Heri is a problematic fairy godmother character because whenever Bayu has a problem, Heri always offers help (sometimes without even being asked) by using his wealth or by encouraging Bayu to keep lying just because he's so nice and he wants Bayu to succeed. Although we're given hints that Heri is also a passionate soccer fan and that his handicap and absentee father crushed his dream, his motivations remain shallow and too good to be true. But of course, Bayu himself is so unmotivated and helpless under his grandfather's spell that he's always on the verge of giving up unless Heri coaxes or forces him to continue. This won't be a problem if this film is about Heri encouraging his best friend to pursue his dreams, but this film is about Bayu and it's perplexing to see the screenwriter forget something so basic: that Bayu has to solve his own problems, not Heri. Still, the worst is yet to come: it the end the grandfather eventually found out about the lies, yet the movie still manages to tie everything so nicely and happily for every character that it feels like a cheat. In an ironic twist, this is a family film that wants to teach good lessons, and yet end up having an unmotivated main character who keeps lying and get a happy ending after all.

In a typical Hollywood sports film, the hero would usually actively fight against all odds by himself before emerging victorious. If Garuda Di Dadaku becomes a typical Indonesian sports film, god help this country because it means more films where the hero is helpless or unwilling to do anything unless there's external help from sources like a rich best friend. Hence, this film shows why the Indonesian film industry, while growing nicely, still has a long way to go before it can be well regarded Internationally.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Garuda Di Dadaku
Cast: Emil Mahira, Aldo Tansani, Marsha Aruan, Ikranegara, Maudy Koesnaedy, Ari Silahase
Directed By: Ifa Isfansyah
Written By: Salman Aristo

Laskar Pelangi Review

In 2008, a box office miracle not seen since the phenomenal success of Ada Apa Dengan Cinta resurrected the local film industry in 2002 happened in Indonesia. Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow Soldiers), an education-themed family film based on the novel by Andrea Hirata and made by the same production team behind Ada Apa Dengan Cinta filled cinemas and caused lines to form for months. By the end of its theatrical run, Laskar Pelangi has amassed a record 4.6 million audience. The film was well received enough to be submitted as Indonesia's official entry to Academy Award category for best foreign film 2008 as well as the official selection of Berlin Film Festival 2009. Thankfully, the film lives up to the hype. Despite the occasional preachiness and the near-propaganda ending, this heartwarming, sincere pro-education parable is one of the best indonesian films ever made this decade.

Laskar Pelangi opens in 1999 with Ikal (played by Lukman Sardi) reminiscing about his childhood as he returns to his hometown in Belitung, Indonesia. In the 1970s, Belitung is a thriving Tin Mining town and Ikal (child played by Zulfanny) is sent to a free local muslim elementary school, SD Muhamaddiyah. On the first day, the school already runs into trouble as it's one short of the required 10 minimum pupils for the school to function until one arrives at the last minute. This is the first among many difficulties that would continuously threaten the school's existence for 6 years of the 10 kids' education, the least of which include lack of money and resources, competition from better local schools. Nevertheless, under the guidance of their caring teacher Bu Muslimah (Cut Mini) and principal Pak Harfan (Ikranegara), the 10 kids (who call themselves "Laskar Pelangi"), including the smart Lintang (Ferdian) and the artistic Mahar (Veris Yamarno) persevere to complete their education and, along the way, winning contests and respect from their peers.

It's easy to see why Riri Riza (Gie, 3 Hari Untuk Selamanya) is considered to be one of the best working film director in Indonesia. By casting local Belitung kids in the "Laskar Pelangi" roles and having all cast members speak in local belitung dialects as well as shooting on location in Belitung, this film ensures authenticity in an industry that rarely values it. The decision to shoot on location in Belitung also pays off in spades as it becomes a rare indonesian film to be set outside of the capital city Jakarta. Furthermore, by using natural filming style that recalls Abbas Kiarostamis' films, we get to see some rare, beautiful sights of indonesia: sandy beaches, cliffs, coconut trees, muddy pathways, villages and factories that give a peek at a working class life. The cast is also bolstered by who's who in Indonesian acting including Tora Sudiro, Lukman Sardi, Matthias Muchus, Alex Komang and Ario Bayu in supporting roles. But perhaps the biggest surprise have to go to Cut Mini who gives a career defining performance as the kind hearted Muslimah. Sporting a Belitung accent, it's hard to believe that this is the same actress who played a frustrated Jakarta career woman 6 years ago in Arisan. So successful is she that she's now reprising the character for free education PSAs playing on Indonesian televisions right now.



The biggest challenge this film faces is maintaining the balance between promoting its pro-education agenda and telling a good story. On the surface, having the kind of story about poor kids struggling to keep their education alive invites temptation for sermonizing and blatant emotional manipulation but credits to Riri Riza and the writers for being smart enough to let the good story do its job despite the occasional but perhaps obligatory preachiness. However, in a regrettable moment towards the end, even the filmmakers cannot restrain themselves enough from loudly proclaiming their message and it almost ruins the movie. At the end of the movie, one important character suffers from a tragic fate that forces him to quit school entirely, and it is immediately followed by Ikal's voiceover saying something "it's too bad a child like ... cannot finish study in this country". That moment of a political advertisement takes the audience out of the story and if there's a big weakness in the movie, that is it.

Laskar Pelangi's is successful enough to warrant a sequel, also based on the sequel novel called "Sang Pemimpi" (The Dreamer), made by the same people behind this film to be released end of this year. While it is hoped that the sequel will be just as good and successful against its now high expectation, there's also a danger that this series (there are 4 books in the Laskar Pelangi series) would turn into another Hollywood style franchise where the films get worse progressively (It is also hoped that films won't get more and more preachy). Let's hope for the sake of the developing local film industry and Riri Riza's talent that the rest of the films will remain just as good as the film that has started it.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Laskar Pelangi
A Miles Film and Mizan Productions Production
Cast: Cut Mini, Ikranegara, Zulfanny, Ferdian, Verus Yamarno, with Lukman Sardi, Tora Sudiro, Slamet Rahardjo, Matthias Muchus, Alex Komang and Ario Bayu
Directed By: Riri Riza
Written By: Salman Aristo and Riri Riza & Mira Lesmana based on the novel by Andrea Hirata

PS: Kudos to the people in Jive Entertainment for making a high quality DVD worthy for this film. The quality of the film's official DVD matches the quality of DVDs produced in Hollywood and overseas with good video quality with colourful and comprehensive extra features. Indonesia's film industry have been making make poor official DVDs for too long and while that's ok for the majority of the crappy indonesian films, some good films like Joko Anwar's Kala get the short end of the stick because of this. That's why it's good to see that the industry is capable of giving a good film the dvd treatment it deserves.

The Ramen Girl Review

"There's something about the japanese and making the perfect bowl of soup ... it's like with each bowl, you try to get closer to perfection ... it's kind of beautiful" - Abby

In spite of having a cringe-inducing corny premise and an unconvincing lead actress, The Ramen Girl surprisingly succeeds as an affecting mediation on the conflict between following well-established tradition and pursuing a personal path. While stories about A Westerner getting lost in an unfamiliar Japan and a westerner learning a new culture (in this film's case, Ramen, a popular Japanese noodle soup dish whose strength lie in the broth) from a Japanese Master have been done many times before, The Ramen Girl still manages to freshly stand out and avoids the stereotypical Hollywood treatment of asian-related material thanks to an unexpectedly intelligent and deep screenplay by Becca Topol.

The Ramen Girl tells the story of Abby (Brittany Murphy), an American woman who goes to Japan to join her boyfriend, only to have him quickly dump and leave her alone. Late one night, while lost in an unfamiliar place and nursing a heartbreak with no one to turn to, she randomly drops by a neighbourhood Ramen Shop that's closing for the day to vent her frustration. Thinking that the petulant guest was seeking food, The Ramen chef, Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) cooked her a bowl of Ramen to make her go away. However, the bowl of ramen was apparently so good that Abby instead went on to beg the chef to teach her how to cook the "perfect bowl of Ramen". Thus begin a journey between 2 mismatched individuals: the old-fashioned, traditional, uptight Japanese chef and the young, spoilt, volatile American girl. Both have to change and overcome their differences, both verbal and mental, in order to get what each want. The stakes are raised when Maezumi made a bet with his rival that Abby's ramen will win the approval of The Grand Master of Ramen, otherwise he will give up his ramen shop entirely.

On the surface, the film seems like an odd mix of Lost In Translation and The Karate Kid. While Robert Allan Ackerman's pedestrian direction (he's a veteran of TV Movies) does not attain the intellectual, esoteric height of the former film, Becca Topol's screenplay is much smarter and insightful than the latter's in its portrayal of The Japanese. Maezumi's training method is so borderline abusive - there's almost no attempt to speak English or hire a translator, Abby has to learn everything without knowing what she was supposed to do - that it makes Mr Miyagi looks like Mr Rogers. But by not softening the character, the film succeeds in portraying the stubborn, perfectionist, samurai psyche of the Japanese accurately.

The film's use of Ramen as a life metaphor sounds corny but the execution is far from that. Through the passing of the knowledge on how to cook Ramen, both student and teacher are each given his/her own meaningful character arc that resonates strongly with each other. Maezumi's approach to cooking a bowl of ramen involve years of experience and endless preparation to achieve perfection. While this samurai approach is tried-and-true and admirable, it makes him lose touch with the modern world, resulting in a sad loss of an apprentice in the past. The sudden appearance of Abby gave him an unlikely second chance of a successor even if she's the last person she wants to teach. For Abby, who's a lost soul in the beginning, what initially starts as a blind pursuit eventually guides her closer to her true self. No matter how hard she try to replicate Maezumi's perfect ramen, she can't and won't be able to unless she finds out who she truly is. While there is a low key showdown at the end between Abby and a rival apprentice, the ending is smart enough not to cheat and conclude both Abby and Maezumi's journey on a gratifying note.

One weakness of the movie is lead actress Brittany Murphy (8 Mile, Sin City). At the beginning, she acts like a typical hollywood rom-com damsel in distress, channeling the worst of Meg Ryan. This nearly derail the movie but fortunately she does catch up as the movie gets better. However, one wonders how much better this film can be with a better actress. As for the Japanese cast and characters, they are filled with familiar faces that populate Japanese TV dramas and movies. There's the stoic samurai like Maezumi and his loyal, unsuffering wife Reiko and even the ramen shop patrons are similar to stock characters from Japanese TV and Dramas. These are not necessarily a bad thing since it shows how familiar director Ackerman and writer Topol with Japan and considering Hollywood tend to butcher them much worse. Toshiyuki Nishida's portrayal, in a way that fits his character, is workmanlike and professional, good enough to make the character work but he won't be the next Ken Watanabe.

The movie has gone Direct-to-dvd in USA and has gotten undeserved negative reviews all over the place. Give this movie a chance and you will discover, like Abby does, an unlikely encounter with a perfect bowl of Ramen in the middle of nowhere.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Ramen Girl

Starring: Brittany Murphy, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tammy Blanchard, Park Sohee, Kimiko Yo and Tsutomu Yamazaki

Directed By: Robert Allan Ackerman

Written By: Becca Topol

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: