Summer Re-cap

I guess summer is done for 2012. It's time for a re-cap of the summer films!

Top 3 Summer Films
1. The Dark Knight Rises
Undoubtedly a satisfying conclusion to Christopher Nolan's legendary Batman universe. An emotional journey for the dark knight himself when he met a physically equal villain, Bane. Tying up loose ends from the previous two films, the film truly ends the franchise in a incredibly high note. Filled with powerful performances from Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anne Hathaway and Gary Oldman, people around the world could only want for more Nolan's Batman films. The film has all the quotable quotes from Bane and also, one of the best film endings in years.

2. Prometheus
Not an Alien sequel, it's a sci-fi film set in the same universe as the Alien film series'. Ridley Scott returns to sci-fi films and the result is satisfying, overwhelming, mind-boggling, puzzling and incomplete. According to me, the film has that unexpected factor and more importantly, one particular stand-out scene that will endure the test of time. Prometheus has an incredible cast that includes Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace and Guy Pearce with Fassbender making this film his own show with his character as David the android. The sequel is definitely waited.


3. The Avengers
A very ambitious project from Marvel that finally comes together after four years. The film is in-every-word spectacular. Joss Whedon has lived up to the promise and this assembly is definitely unforgettable as everyone in this world has already seen this film, judging by the box office numbers. The cast is great although my favorite villain Loki didn't live to my expectations. This film could be more incredible and amazing but the film's marketing hurt the film itself, with too much revealing trailers and clips. There's almost no element of surprise left. Why didn't Marvel learn from Iron Man 2?



Most Surprising Film
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
This action history-fantasy-mashup film is super entertaining. The fictional story did justice to the real history. I was wondering why did the critics were expecting more fun in the story. Director Timur Bekmambetov did a great job at the action scenes and all the action scenes are very exhilarating and edge-of-your-seat interesting. Benjamin Walker also did a great job as Abraham Lincoln and the make-up team are also doing their job greatly. Surely one of the best and exciting action films of the year.



Most Underwhelming Film
Snow White & the Huntsman
Charlize Theron, the dwarves and the designs are amazing. But the overall film, not so much. Especially with the poker face Kristen Stewart as the lead. At first I thought this film could be the film that actually defines Stewart apart from her uninteresting Bella Swan character. Sadly, NO. Also, sometimes the film gets too silent and ultimately, boring. It would not be this disappointing if the lead character herself brought some life to the film.




Here, Kristen Stewart, a lesson from Keira Knightley on how to do inspiring speeches.

Later this week/next week I'll review The Bourne Legacy ;)

Trivia!

Since I have nothing else to do rather than sleep, watch something and eat, I have decided to make my blog as active as possible--but not too active too cos that would indicate that I really have nothing else to do, you know like socializing and stuff.

This post is actually worth skipping. Trust me, this isn't about movie trivia, or pop culture trivia, or even geography trivia. I'm a self-absorbed man (I didn't just write that sentence), so this is a trivia about my blog. HA! I can see people start closing their tabs already. And the trivia is just about one topic: my posts. HA! I can see people start forgetting about my blog already.

for this useless post, i'm not sorry :D

Start the trivia! [game show intro music plays]

- My least interesting post (according to me, of course):
my review of Inkheart, the Brendan Fraser film. The film was not exciting. Completely forgettable.

- My most interesting post:
Sherlocked. It was when I was totally crazy about the BBC Sherlock series (and Lara Pulver), I listed all the episodes from the least good to the best. Unlike the other posts, the pictures in that post were all snapshots by me. Not google image search.

- My highest rated film:
I have more than one full-star review (or A+ from the old system), but from those films, I guess Hugo deserved five stars out of four. The review for Hugo is only a paragraph rather than the usual 3-paragraph-review as in the post I also reviewed John Carter, Woman in Black, and Margin Call.

- My lowest rated film review:
Definitely Abduction starring Taylor Shirtless. It got my rare F which is equivalent to zero stars. Comparison: Even The Smurfs got a D/half a star. Even Breaking Dawn Part 1 got a C or 1.5 stars.

- My most exciting month of posting
June 2011 with 11 posts. Indonesia was suffering the film boycott and I haven't blogged in a while (two years to be exact), so the posts were kinda overwhelming. I posted 7 posts in one day. I even have 3 movie-review-unrelated posts that month.

- My least exciting month of posting
Not counting the months when I didn't post anything at all, of course. February 2012 with only one post which was Sherlocked [link already above]. It was very busy at school and also I was still amazed by Sherlock, I couldn't post about anything else.

- My most viewed post
It was Sherlock vs Holmes where I compare and contrast Benedict Cumberbatch-led Sherlock and Robert Downey Jr-led Sherlock Holmes. I guess the timing was right. People were hyped with the two topics. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows was just released and the Season 2 of Sherlock was just released by BBC. To the greater surprise, both included Reichenbach Fall to their own different renditions. The post gets 133 hits up until this point. Second place and third place respectively with 44 and 43 hits are Strong is the Man and In Response to My Own Wish, both peculiarly features Mark Strong.

- My least viewed post
There are four of my posts that has zero hits, yes 0 hits. Three are from the year 2009 so I will just ignore them. But if you're curious those three are my reviews of Ice Age 3, Public Enemies, and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. And my latest zero-hit-post is my review of the Tim Burton's newest film Dark Shadows, which I regard as my best titled post, Hypnotic.


Thanks for your time and that's all for today's trivia!
I hope that was your time spent well :D

BONUS TRIVIA: all the people in this post's pictures are British.
Still in the mood for Olympics, I guess

BONUS TRIVIA 2: It's a month away from me moving to Japan to continue my education in university. It's a really new experience and environment. Never went to Japan before, no knowledge whatsoever of Japanese except for childhood memories of Doraemon & Captain Tsubasa, no knowledge whatsoever about what I would do there.
Most important note: The city/town I will be staying has no cinemas, which lead to this continuation of my blog might/might not be postponed for an indefinite time being (don't you love it when I use quite big words?). Believe me I will still try to fill this blog as regularly as possible. I will definitely try to post (hopefully) reviews of new films or at least some useless, rubbish post which has nothing to do with movies at all which ultimately will lead to the blog's name change, which will never happen, Thank God almighty.

BONUS TRIVIA 3: Bonus Trivia 2 was written while listening to Taylor Swift's We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and her collaboration with B.o.B., Both of Us, both of em on loop forever.

BONUS TRIVIA 4: Ten is the number of links I attached in this single post. I never attached any links before. Ever. This is also the most colorful post. Ever. "As God is my witness, I'll never use those basic colors again!" Yep that was Scarlett O'Hara, my advisor for Bonus Trivia 4.

Now that you witnessed the topic deviations projected in these Bonus Trivia, that would be examples of my upcoming, Japan-based posts starting from mid-September. Anyway, cheers.

your response after reading this useless post:

 I DIDN'T KNOW WHETHER TO SMILE OR CRY 

FOR THE TIME I'VE WASTED

Five Months Worth of Idleness

"Idleness can destroy him"

That was pretty much a quote from a classic Indonesian film titled Lewat Djam Malam or in English, After the Curfew by a legendary Indonesian director Usmar Ismail. The film itself was recently restored after most of the celluloid was damaged badly. The restoration was made real with the help of various organisations, including Martin Scorsese's, we all know how eager Scorsese is when it comes to restoring classic, culturally important films. Sadly, the film was not a choice for most Indonesian moviegoers since it has to compete with films like The Amazing Spider-Man, Ice Age 4 or The Dark Knight Rises. When I watched it in the cinemas, the studio was only filled with three people. The film was an eye-opener for me as I haven't watched any old Indonesian films before (in black and white and in cinemas too). The film was well-acted and--this is important--culturally significant. To Indonesians, feel free to see it in cinemas while it's still available.


Anyway that was not my main topic for this post.

This post should be titled 'How I Spent My 5-Month-Summer Vacation' to be exact.
Well, for the first two months I was quite busy with making Year-video for my school and classmates. But afterwards, here are my TV series picks (not naming my movie picks cos it would be crazily overwhelming) to battle my idleness during my (up until this point, ongoing) holiday:

In this sloppily-edited picture are (from top left going clockwise) Episodes, Game of Thrones, 

The Legend of Korra, The Newsroom, Tron: Uprising, Supernatural and Homeland.

- Homeland (Season 1)
Starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, the new series is highly engaging, addictive and full of surprises and thrills. The story is about a CIA agent who suspects that an American soldier has been turned to a terrorist and planning an attack on America. The only setback is that it only has 12 episodes.

- Tron: Uprising (Season 1 - ongoing)
Tron: Uprising is everything that Tron: Legacy should be. It tells the story of a whole new character who/which is a program named Beck that has all the spirit and motivation to be The Grid's new salvation, new Tron. Voiced by top actors that include Elijah Wood and Tron himself, Bruce Boxleitner, the series is action-packed and quite intelligent. But for almost a month now, I'm still waiting for Episode 8. Oh and there was Quorra, voiced by Olivia Wilde, in one of the episodes.

- The Legend of Korra (Season 1)
The continuation of the beloved and personal favorite, Avatar: The Legend of Aang or The Last Airbender. I am proud to say that I finished the 12 episodes in such a short time. The new series is set way in the future after the events in The Last Airbender, now focused on a new Avatar named Korra. There are full of new and exciting characters and cool action too. Also the steampunk meets fantasy theme is a pleasure to watch.

- Supernatural (Season 7)
The Winchesters are back again. Now Castiel the Angel released Leviathans to the Earth and Sam & Dean must stop them before their plan to take the world succeeds. I must say Season 7 is quite boring. The series' best season is undoubtedly Season 5. Season 6 is still acceptable but Season 7 is below the sixth. I hope they make the next season more exciting and gripping to watch. After all, this is the only TV series I followed this far and I love seeing Sam & Dean (no innuendos here).
(Fyi, I stopped seeing Smallville after it was unavailable in my local channel; stopped Eureka because it was kinda boring; stopped Gossip Girl because it was a constant repetition of lies and evil plans)

- Episodes (Season 1 & Season 2)
This is a comedy series starring Matt LeBlanc of Friends playing Matt LeBlanc. The story is about a couple whose British hit series was picked up by an American network. But the hit series they once wrote has transformed into a whole new series in the States, to make things worse, it stars Matt LeBlanc. I don't find this series that funny. It was amusing to watch but apparently not good for my taste. Sorry. But I still watch Friends every weeknights. WarnerTV is replaying em from Season 1.

- Game of Thrones (Season 1 & Season 2)
I'm new to Westeros. I guess I have passed that 'not sure if Game of Thrones or porn' moment. Despite of its constant showing of nudity, Game of Thrones is very exciting and interesting to watch. Full of back-stabbing, intricacy and plans that are, to my perverse pleasure, fun to watch. My favorite characters are Lord Eddard Stark (of course) of Winterfell played by Sean Bean, Tyrion Lannister played by Peter Dinklage and Daenaerys Targaryen played by Emilia Clarke. I guess after [spoiler alert] Ned Stark died, Daenaerys Targaryen's story is the most exciting to follow, as you know, she has those, you know ;)

- The Newsroom (Season 1 - ongoing)
The title says it all, it's about people in a newsroom. Written by Emmy-winner and Oscar-winner Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom tells about a news program that decides to go for the truth and only the truth. It stars Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer and also Olivia Munn. The show is based on reality, which makes it even more interesting. Although I'm not that familiar with US' internal problems, like Koch Brothers and that stuff, Sorkin managed to made it interesting and not boring at all. The show is really, really interesting that I once had a dream I was talking to Mackenzie and her senior producer Jim Harper. One of the best dreams I had in August. Would make it even better to meet Olivia Munn's Sloan Sabbith in my dream though.


I also bought a couple of films lately to battle Idleness like The Tempest, Happy Feet Two and Minority Report. But in my emotional turmoil (oh save me and yourself), I found (500) Days of Summer to be the most pleasant film to sit through although I already watched it for the 77th time. Also Knocked Up turns out to be such a nice film; Katherine Heigl kinda reminds me of someone (please ignore this).

Still have a month to go with idleness :) :(

Three-Handed

Last week's pick was the film starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel: Total Recall. I have not watched the Paul Verhoeven's 1990 original, so I'm going to treat this review as a stand-alone film. But I will try to modify this review after I watched the Arghnold film [And yes I have watched it by now!]. Well, from the trailers this film looks like a decent sci-fi/action film and God, it has Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel. I sure think that was quite worth the admission ticket. The director (and also Kate's husband) Len Wiseman proved to be a great action director when he helmed Die Hard 4.0, remember those crazy, over-the-top action scenes?

Adapted from the Phillip K. Dick short story, the story is set in a futuristic world where most parts of the world are destroyed after a great war. Douglas Quaid (Farrell) is an ordinary factory worker whose life had became a routine that he loathed. He went to this place called Rekall where they could offer a dream that could be implanted to the brain as memory. However, it was later known that Quaid isn't the man he thought he should be. He suddenly became chased by his own wife, Lori (Beckinsale) and placed in the center of an ongoing conflict between the current government and the rebellion. 

One thing that was amazing in this film is the concept, the world. To have United Federation of Britannia and also Australia as the colony and have a massive 'train' that connects the both. Those were amazing. The film also doesn't disappoint in terms of action scenes. The magnetic car-chase scenes were amazing and that was one of the best scenes in the film. Colin Farrell should have this kind of film that actually enables him to do lots of action and also possibly, a star. Kate Beckinsale is superb in her action scenes, thanks to Underworld franchise and thanks to Len Wiseman who gave her lots of screen time. However, Jessica Biel is overshadowed by Beckinsale when actually she could do the good parts too like her co-star and also her character is not memorable at all. The girl fight between Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale is one of the things I waited but it was disappointing. It all happened so fast and actually forgettable, unlike Lea Seydoux vs Paula Patton in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. It was clear that Len Wiseman reserved all the great scenes to Kate. The conflict between the government led by Cohaagen played by Bryan Cranston and the rebellion led by Matthias played by Bill Nighy was unclear and leaves you with 'what the hell was that?' Bill Nighy is a wasted talent here. [spoiler alert] he may only had like 3 minutes of screen time. Remember, in Wrath of the Titans he was the one that makes the film live again albeit also little screen time. The film was full of action up until the moment all the action became a bore. The best example of this is The Raid, where there was an abundance of action scenes it actually became a repetition and ultimately a bore in the end. Total Recall was let down by the climax that it became a normal action film with knives and fist-fight. There are also some plot holes like [spoiler alert part2] if Quaid was such a great double agent and fugitive, would anyone recognize him at work, at the Fall, or even his secret agent wife? The face is till the same. Unless you put Ethan Hawke as the Quaid before he had his memory wiped. Fyi, those Ethan Hawke thing was scrapped from the final cut of the film.

If you compared this to the 1990 film, this one is definitely a derivative. Colin Farrell is a better actor than Schwarzenegger yes but the whole 1990 film is rich in story and character. Also there's a twist in the end where Hauser is actually working with Cohaagen. In the newest film, it's not explained well. It's like the filmmakers have ran out of ideas, or ran out of new, original ideas. With the mutants, Johnnycab, Richter and Benny the film has more characters than only Kate Beckinsale. Everything is definitely explained better in the 1990 film although not that perfect. The whole thing about going to Mars makes it kinda badass too. However, final words, if you're looking for a great time at the cinemas, this is it. Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale's appearance is all you need to stay interested and follow the film until the end. OH and that three-breasted woman too! :P Total Recall: rated 2 out of 4.