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.

Save Speed Racer

... or just save it as much as you can by watching it now if it's still playing. By missing this movie, even if it isn't a great film, you might have just missed a truly good movie there.

By now, if you had not seen Speed Racer, you'd probably know that it's a big box office flop. Reportedly made by Wachowski Brothers who made The Matrix films for a budget of over 100 million (typical for a summer blockbuster type), it has only grossed a puny $40 million so far in US. Not to mention the usual negative bashing towards the film and its makers. Which is too bad, because this is a genuinely good film that deserve more.

Now, before I start defending this film and The Wachowski Brothers, I'm not going to be like other apologists who keeps overpraising this film as great or perfect because this movie isn't. This films has its flaws. Actually, its only flaw is its overly complicated story and running length. The Wachowskis clearly intended this film for kids and to be watched with the family with its unapologetically cartoonish (in a good way) visuals; however, they should have the common sense not to make a plot so convoluted that it encompasses over 2 hours (and the kids won't understand the corporate manipulation and betrayal anyway). The Wachowskis should have just simply made a simple good guy vs bad guy story with a strong identifiable villain which the movie lacks.

But besides that, I don't understand some of the hatred regarding this film. When the first trailer come out, I was impressed by its unapologetically cartoonish and colourful visuals as well as the outrageous and but wacky fast racing action that recalls video games like F-Zero series and Mario Kart series; I thought it was great and revolutionary and it could to to anime what Sin City did to its comic book counterpart. But alas, it wasn't to be. Although I never experience it for myself, I'm aware that there are strong reactions against the visuals. again, if people can embrace Sin City, why can't they embrace this?

Sometimes I can't help but think that some people are just against The Wachowski for some reasons. It probably started since The 2nd and 3rd Matrix films (which are admittedly flawed and polarizing) and it continues on to V For Vendetta (and to lesser extent, last year's The Invasion). People have been waiting for this Schadenfreude moment to come and of all time, it has come for this movie. I'm not sure why Wachowskis brothers are hated. Sure, they're eccentric (on of them had sex change operation) and mysterious (almost never does publicity). But after seeing this movie, I'm convinced that they're one of the better filmmakers today who not only make films with distinct and boundary pushing visuals, but most importantly also know how to tell a story. It'd be sad if they lose total creative control because this movie flopped.

Take for example the opening race scene. It was a gorgeous, fast paced scene, where we see Speed in a race, it's intercut with crowd, commentaries and scenes from Speed's childhood where we see that he's close with his older brother, Rex. Speed easily leads the race, but he's chasing against a "ghost" red car - his brother's car. As more flashbacks appear, we know that his brother would meet a tragic fate later, and at the same time, we finally know that Speed's goal for this race wasn't only to win it, but beat his brother's record. and when he finally reached the finished line, he did something that really revealed a lot about his character. It was just so elegant and exciting, with no Michael Bay style rotating camera bullshit, with fast cuts - but not distracting, which is refreshing, if you think about it, because Wachowskis have reputation as visual director, but they still care about plot and character development.

Then, there's writing and acting. Yes, the plot was unnecessarily convoluted, but when it comes to emotional scenes, the wachowskis really hit home run. There are 2 scenes where first, the older brother left the family and has his last talk with the dad and a similar scene years later when Speed tries to do the same. It was simple, to the point and yet poignant. The actors are also great in this one. When you have good serious actors like Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, Christina Ricci and Emile Hirsch doing a cartoonish movie like this, it usually ends more often bad than good. But thankfully, the actors know the material really well enough to strike the right tone for the characters. Emile Hirsch was particularly not as bad as I thought he would be after I saw his wooden performance in the trailer. But the best surprise come from John Goodman; I remember seeing him in a lot of movies in the 90s and he somewhat disappeared since early 2000s but it's really good to see him back here with a strong performance. Oh, and then, there's the korean superstar Rain, he's okay, his english is not surprisingly accented, but he definitely doesn't ruin the movie.

At the end of the day, it's normal to hear people complain that summer movies aren't what it used to be, that they're rubbish made for the dumbed down teenage audiences, and yet when the right movie come along that has good fun and and good story for the whole family, it gets ignored. Speed Racer, is one of those movies, and you definitely owe it to yourself not to miss it.

Rating: 3.5 /5

Tropic Thunder Red Band Trailer and The Real Ben Stiller

This red band trailer for Ben Stiller's upcoming comedy Tropic Thunder (coming out August 15), has been online weeks ago. But I'll highlight it here:



And here's the link for high quality version (Quicktime and iTunes required):
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/tropicthunder

and why do I post this?

well what do you think is the one movie I anticipate most this summer?

What is that I hear you say? The Dark Knight? The Incredible Hulk? Bah, none of them. Excites me as much as Tropic Thunder.

Why is that? Well, for starters, the Real Ben Stiller is finally back. Forget about Meet The Parents movies, forget about the Night At The Museum, forget about Dodgeball , forget about Along Came Polly and heck, forget about the great There's Something About Mary (which is more like a Farrelly Brothers movie). The Real Ben Stiller is perhaps the best spoof artist working in hollywood right now, who spoof stuffs so funny, the makers of *whatever genre - Scary, Epic, Date whatever* Movie movies should be put on death row. I mean after all, this is the guy who made Zoolander in 2001, the comedy masterpiece that sends up male models. I can't think and recall fondly a funnier, smarter spoof movie, and one which I can watch repeatedly and still laugh at the same jokes, than that. I mean just look at the quotes from the title character, Derek Zoolander:



"Rufus, Brint, and Meekus were like brothers to me. And when I say brother, I don't mean, like, an actual brother, but I mean it like the way black people use it. Which is more meaningful, I think."

"Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?"

"At the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, we teach you that there's more to life than being really, really good looking."

and those are just a few of my favourites. and also, don't forget the walk off scene between Zoolander and Hansel (played by Owen Wilson), refereed by David Bowie, set to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". That was brilliant. Whoever came up with the idea of putting those guys, David Bowie and "Beat It" should win a Nobel Prize.

Still don't believe me, here are some works Ben Stiller had done in the past:

Backstreet Boyz, a spoof of Backstreet Boys


Mission Improbable - Sending up Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible 2


Heat Vision and Jack. A 30 minute pilot about an austronaut and a talking motorcycle made in 1999 that didn't get picked up. Featuring Owen Wilson and Jack Black before they became super famous.


and look, the original Zoolander short skit:


What you don't find them funny? Dude, something is really wrong with your sense of humour. Just kidding, hahaha.

But seriously, I hope you can see that Ben Stiller doesn't just randomly spoof stuffs or randomly creates jokes; when he spoof something, he creates really well made characters and/or situations that closely mimic (but not too close) the real things he's trying to spoof. He's a great writer too (or helped by great writers). In some ways, his method is like the works of method actors who usually research on the characters they're playing. That's why the works of the real Ben Stiller is memorable, funny and not cheap.

and Tropic Thunder reflects that. Just so you know, it's about a bunch of famous actors making a troubled war movie who gets thrown into a real warzone and realize that they're not making a movie anymore. It's trying to spoof grim epic war movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon. But don't just look at the story. Watch the trailer I put above and can you see what the characters spoof?

Ben Stiller's Character - The Action Guy - spoof Arnold Schwarzenneger

Jack Black's Character - The Comedian - spoof Eddie Murphy and his unfunny fake suit movies

and best of all, Robert Downey Jr's Character - The Award Winner - about an award winning method actor so serious about his craft that he undergoes a skin colour change operation to play the african american character. just read that!
I guess it spoofs Russell Crowe and serious method actors like Daniel Day Lewis

and if you notice, there's a black guy character in the trailer too. you know what's the character's name? Alpa Chino.

So, yeah, I hope you guys will watch this movie and make this movie do well in box office this august. If it does well, that means Ben Stiller can make more movies that's closer to his spoof sensibility than the usual Night At The Museum craps. It's been 7 years since Zoolander and that's really long. So yeah, I hope it does really well and I pray one day, Zoolander 2 will come out.

Thoughts on The Indiana Jones Movies

Just finished watching Indy 4 on a company sponsored screening. Some thoughts:

First, Arnold came back from the future as The Terminator in 2003



then, Sylvester Stallone came out of retirement in Rocky Balboa in 2006



... followed by another adventure in Burma in Rambo this January



and don't forget Bruce Willis also returned for another yippee kay yay mother-(PG13 censored)-ing time in Live Free or Die Hard



Now the return of the 80s Action Heroes come in full circle with Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.



(... as of this writing, there are plans to bring back Eddie Murphy for a 4th Beverly Hills Cop movie. I guess a 4th Godfather movie with Al Pacino can't be that far behind either)

Before I start talking about the movie, let me just go over briefly my thoughts on the franchise. Until about 3 weeks before the movie opens, I have sadly, never watched a single Indiana Jones movie. I remembered watching the 3rd movie, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, in theaters when I was a kid and got freaked out by it I asked my dad to leave the theater.

So 3 weeks before the movie opens, I finally netflixed the 3 movies. However, I could only watch the first 2. So here's what I think:



Raiders of The Lost Ark: Many people, filmmakers, critics consider this movie as one of the most beloved film of all time. I mean, if a film is so powerful that it inspired 3 kids to spend 7 years of their life making their version of a shot-for-shot remake, it must be something so god damned special right?

Sadly, no. Like another popular film made by George Lucas, the very first Star Wars movie, I just couldn't bring myself to love and worship it like many others. It's a good movie for sure. On the outside, yeah it has an ingredient for a perfect movie: adventure, romance, comedy, various exotic locales, nazis as villains. But somehow I felt that I've seen these stuffs before. Which bring me to my next point, this movie has aged, become a victim of its own success and a formula of its own. Films like this probably didn't exist before 1981, that's why the audiences who watched it for the first time remembered it so fondly. But it spawned endless imitators that's still going until now. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing (after all, many good movies and characters owe their existence to Indiana Jones, including Die Hard's John McClane, I can't help but observe), but it's hard to love and appreciate this film after you've seen the stuffs that come after it first, just like Star Wars.

But let me just mention the good stuffs: Harrison Ford is just iconic as Indiana Jones. Then, Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, is probably the only romantic foil that should complement Indy, no others. And the truck chasing action sequence is still very tense and exciting as ever; and interestingly, it wasn't shot by Spielberg but his 2nd unit director Vic Armstrong. Other than that this movie has aged. you're welcome to see what it's all about and if you could experience it like those who saw it back when it played the first time, then you're one lucky person. (rating: 3.5/5)



Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom: I'm going to bring up a Star Wars again. I love the Star Wars trilogy even though I wasn't impressed by the first movie. That's because the 2nd movie, The Empire Strikes Back was just a great movie that has this great story that makes the whole Star Wars saga more than just another space adventure story. The 2nd movie was so good that it made the first movie better too.

Now for Indiana Jones, the 2nd movie made me think about the first movie better too, but for totally different reason: The 2nd movie is just bad, so bad it makes the first movie looks good.
The first movie, even if it has aged, does so many things right that the 2nd one doesn't: establish the characters, story and mythology well. In the first movie, Indiana Jones together with Marion Ravenwood, who have a history of a love/hate relationship, chase after The biblical Ark of The Covenant against The Nazis, who is helped by the only man who could equal Indy, Belloq. In the 2nd movie, Indiana Jones get stuck in India with an chinese kid sidekick and an annoying damsel in distress and have to help a local village recover a magic stone from an evil cult. Can you see the difference? I don't know how the idea brainstorming goes for this movie, but it probably goes like this:

===

Spielberg: How can we top the first one?

Lucas: You know what would be a great Idea, let's make it a prequel so that we don't have to feel like we have to top the first one.

Spielberg: That's great. We need an exotic setting, so where should we put Indy this time?

Lucas: I don't know let's see ... I just read about these magic stones and cult stuff in India ... That's it, let's set it in India with those magic stones and cult there.

Spielberg: that's cool, what about Marion and the others?

Lucas: This is a prequel, remember? We don't have to care about Marion. In fact, I just have a great idea again, let's start the movie in Shanghai where Indy picks up this beautiful club singer damsel in distress and a sidekick who's a chinese kid and they go to India!!

Spielberg: Let's do it!

===

That's totally imaginary. But that's how I felt about the 2nd movie, things happen arbitrarily just to get Indy to an adventurous location and do his stuffs and both the annoying sidekick and damsel in distress are just there to fill the space. The only good thing about the 2nd movie is the action scenes in the mines. But that's about it, everything else is a waste of time. (Rating: 2.5 / 5)

I haven't watched the 3rd movie. So, onto the 4th film.



Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls: I understand that people have been waiting a long time for this, about 19 years since the last movie came out. It's understandable if people have great expectations for this. However, just don't expect this to be a great movie. The motive of this film is only to give a final farewell gift to the fans (just like Rocky Balboa), perhaps. So everything plays out straight like the previous movies, with not much messing up, nothing less, nothing more. Because of that longtime fans will probably love everything here. But for other people like me, maybe not so much, as the movie even show how much the action adventure formula created by the first movie, like its star, has aged.

(SPOILERS ALERT)

Good stuffs about this movie: Harrison Ford is still as good as ever as Indy, although he does show his age. Shia LaBeouf isn't as bad as people thought he'd be, he's actually quite good in it. Best of all, Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood and (like i said, this is a movie for fans) get to finally marry Indy this time around.

The bad stuffs: there are a lot of actions towards the end, but they are not as exciting as the set pieces in the previous movies. That's due to the lack of good villains. The communists are actually dangerous in the first half of the movie, and actually that's where the movie's best moments are, but they become less dangerous later on. and what's up with the aliens? I understand Indiana Jones have dabbled in supernaturals before but putting aliens there is just stretching it.

(End of Spoilers)

Rating: 3/5

So there you go, my thoughts on the Indiana Jones movies. I enjoyed, but don't love them. Lastly, Harrison Ford is the one and only Indiana Jones. So I hope that there will be no Shia LaBeouf Indiana Jones movie.

Quick Review: Iron Man

It's  a good movie, with a good story. Stays pretty faithful to the origin story in the comic as far as I know.

Robert Downey Jr is great as Tony Stark. He's a great actor, but I doubted he could pull off Tony Stark because he lacks "star power" to pull off such flamboyant character. But Downey really nailed it, make him very human even.

Iron Man suit is awesome.

However,  for a summer movie, it's somewhat really lacking in awesomeness. Lots of explosion, but not enough action. and the final battle really blows. (Spoiler) It's Iron Man VS War Monger, another robot vs robot better that was done better last year in a certain sucky michael bay movie (end spoiler)

Let's expect more awesomeness to come in the sequel. See below

Rating: 3.5/5

(Possible Spoiler)

For the sequel, please do the following:

- bring a powerful villain

- James Rhodes, War Machine - makes it happen

- It's not so secret that Samuel L Jackson filmed a cameo for this film as Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD. I was waiting for him to appear. But instead, SHIELD is only mentioned in passing in the movie. Bah, so please bring him in next time!

UPDATE: Nick Fury does appear! wait until the end credits finish

- and another marvel superhero crossover, come on, we know Tony is going to be in the upcoming incredible hulk film

Thoughts on last night's Oscar, 2008 version

13 / 21 = 61.9% correct. An improvement over last year's 55% accuracy =)

Thing's I am happy about last night's oscar:

"Falling Slowly" from Once won the Best Original Song category. It is without question not only a great heartfelt song, but the only worthy nomination in the category, really. The rest are just typical disney crap mainstream songs. Many have thought this is the worst Oscar category that should be removed and had "Falling Slowly" not won, I'd have joined the agreement.

The Bourne Ultimatum won The Best Editing. Wow, I was pleasantly shocked about this. The Bourne Ultimatum was the best action film last year and huge credit goes to the watertight editing of the "shakycam style" of the action and chase scenes that makes them fast-cut and yet coherent. I thought that the Academy would normally ignore action movies but kudos for them for recognizing this one. Now, if only Michael Bay would work with this editor.

Ellen Page did not win Best Actress. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Ellen Page and Juno very much. I love Ellen Page for her talent and natural sassiness so much that I wish for a great acting career ahead for her. Winning an Oscar at this point when she's still so young would put so much expectation and pressure that her career could be in danger of collapsing if she's not careful. The last thing I want to see is Ellen becoming another Lindsay Lohan. Hopefully, Juno is only a sign of more wonderful things to come.

Things that puzzled me:

Tilda Swinton won for Best Supporting Actress in Michael Clayton. Tilda Swinton is a very talented actress with an interesting body of work. But her work in Michael Clayton certainly isn't her best and she wasn't in it much. It was really something out of the blue. Great acceptance speech though, no matter. Speaking of which, George Clooney/Batman & Robin jokes are getting really old.

The Golden Compass winning Best Special Effects over Transformers?!?!? wtf?!?! Man those scenes of Nicole Kidman and her monkey pet sure is a phenomenal achievement in special effects.

Transformers also lost the sound categories. I'm not a big fan of Transformers, but I thought that film was loud and boy the sounds created for the robots stood out. Note to self: louder doesn't mean better.

Miscellaneous:

Jon Stewart was meh as a host. Totally mediocre. It wasn't all his fault though. The writers' strike was only over recently and I guessed there wasn't enough time to make the jokes. There's also the factor of the current media climate where playing safe and not having controversy dominate live shows, especially award shows like Oscar. But Jon Stewart himself isn't really funny All BY himself. If you watch The Daily Show, the show is funny because the politicians are already making a fool of themselves in highlighted footage and Jon doesn't really have to do much to ridicule them. It also seemed that he was only capable of making political jokes. For an occasion like Oscar, film jokes would be very welcome too.

I watched the Oscar with my girlfriend. She asked me why the guy who won the best editing seemed indifferent when he made his acceptance speech and then left. I explained to her that people who work behind the scenes in filmmaking (such as editors, cinematographers, art directors etc) tend to be more humble since they work from job to job and need to work their best to keep getting hired. They tend to be more passionate and value their professions highly and therefore it's in their best interest to be unfazed by the glitz and glamour of the industry and just keep doing the best job they can. This is unlike actors or directors who usually get emotional when they win, partly because the spotlight is always on them.

This is also another year where the best pictures of the year don't get seen by many. Of all best pictures nominee, I saw No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Michael Clayton last week few days before the ceremony. As good as they are, they aren't really mainstream friendly (Only Juno has grossed over $100 million). Also, if you read entertainment news a lot, u know it's not hard to guess which film has the momentum to win best picture: No Country For Old Men or that Daniel Day Lewis would win the best actor. I really missed the days when Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan won or were nominated. Oscar seemed more unpredictable and audience friendly then.

80th Oscar Prediction

Here's a quick prediction. Some selections, like Bourne, are made by me not because i feel they will win, but they should win.

Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Best Art Direction: There Will Be Blood
Best Cinematography: Atonement
Best Costume Design: Atonement
Best Documentary Feature: Sicko

Best Film Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Best Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters
Best Makeup: La Vie En Rose
Best Original Score: Atonement
Best Original Song: "Falling Slowly", Once - this one has to win, given how crappy the other entries in the category.

Best Sound Editing: Transformers
Best Sound Mixing: Transformers
Best Visual Effects: Transformers

Best Original Screenplay: Juno
Best Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Best Actress: Marion Cottilard, La Vie En Rose

Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men
Best Picture:No Country For Old Men