My Second Church

I'm going to confess a little here. However, if you're some kind of authority, please feel free to look away and forget about this blog, like normal people do. Having living here in Japan for about 17 months, with the stupid rules about films shown on cinemas, I usually download films. To catch up on the films that are not shown or shown late in Japanese cinemas. And considering that a ticket in Japan cost about 4 times than Indonesian movie ticket, I would go to the cinemas as an act of absolution. Going to the cinemas and spending 1000 yen for 2-hour-worth of time, is my sacrament. I need that to make someone forgive me about the crimes that I have done, which is downloading films. But, on second thought, is it really my fault? Is it only me who downloads a lot of films while the Japanese box office revenue decreased in 2013? For Japan, it is time to change this ridiculous rules so that people would still go to the cinemas. In short, you simply can't make barriers on the Internet and prevent people from downloading films. It's a brand new world.

Anyway, this weekend I managed to catch up on Thor: The Dark World and The Wolf of Wall Street. Thor is my second ridiculous movie-waiting after last summer's four-month-wait for Star Trek Into Darkness. My initial plan was actually to have a hardcore marathon of three films, adding American Hustle to the mix too. But I had no money, and I'm going back to Indonesia in a couple of days as well. I could catch up with David O. Russell's film easily.

Thor: The Dark World
Thor is one of my favorite MCU film entry, and this film was a lot of fun. However, the story was incredibly bland. The supposedly main baddie, Malekith was horribly shoved to the sidelines, effectively wasting Christopher Eccleston's skills by making him only project Judge Dredd face and reading mindless alien dialogue. The film was in tone with the first one which is funny and not that serious. Chris Hemsworth is forever Thor and he's swell in his role. Natalie Portman is super gorgeous it makes me want to quit uni and move to a science faculty. But the real treat here is Tom Hiddleston as Loki, he's just superb. He practically saved this film from being a total mediocrity. Loki is MCU's best villain and asset, period. Apart from Chris Eccleston, Jaimie Alexander and Rene Russo, respectively as Lady Sif and Frigga, are grossly underused. Bottomline, the film was just pleasant. Not brilliant, but as a whole, a little bit better than Iron Man 3. Thor: The Dark World: rated 3/4.

The Wolf of Wall Street
I thought for sure Matthew McConaughey deserves that Oscar on the upcoming March 2 ceremony. I thought Jordan Belfort was just a simple character for DiCaprio to tackle. I was wrong. Give the gold to Leonardo DiCaprio. Martin Scorsese's latest 3-hour film of sex, drugs and money was unexpectedly funny and brilliant. The film follows the life of the wolf of wall street, Jordan Belfort as he cheats, makes, inspires people to make money. With Scorsese's surefire direction, the film couldn't go wrong. Add that with the actors' brilliant performances and you just got yourself an Oscar worthy film. This film is an acting masterclass material. Belfort's speeches scene or the drug paralysis scene are amazing. The dialogues are superb because for this kind of talky film, it sure didn't feel like three hour. It's one of my favorite film of the year. The Wolf of Wall Street: rated 4/4.

See you on my two-month, Indonesia-based post!