Shameless Self Promotion

So back in July 31 until August 4, I shot a film with some of my friends. A more mainstream fare than my previous film titled Cops/Thieves. The new film is titled #3, you read it as Number Three. It's about a boy who's trying to win back a girl and at the same time asks, what is the most important thing in your life? So, here's the film, and tell us what you think about it :)

*it's mostly in Indonesian, but we have English or Japanese subtitles for em.

The Struggle

First moviegoing experience in Milan! So it was a Monday and there's a happy monday promo which makes the ticket 3.5 euros, way less than the usual 8.90 euros. My first movie here was Step Up All In, I specifically chose this film because Step Up films has no story, the real spectacle here is the dancing. Why so? Because all the major cinemas in Milan are dubbed in Italian. Yeah. So they released A Walk Among the Tombstones early here but I couldn't watch it. And I don't know how do they decide the seating, because the ticket box person didn't show me any seating arrangements. So I thought it's the who's in first system, like the one I encountered in the Philippines. But no, it actually has a seating number. Another unique thing here is there's a 5 minute break random in the film. It was literally at a middle of a dialogue and bam! Pause to relax.

This fall-holiday season, there aren't many films I wanna watch in the cinemas (a result of 2 years of prioritizing in Japan). My little list of films only consists of Gone Girl, Interstellar, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. These are the major ones. The award-season films are not included. WHICH led to the biggest regret of the month: Birdman was shown here in Milan but I found out a day before the screening in which all the tickets were sold out. And this week, Zurich Film Festival is here. And George Clooney's wedding in Venice. hashtagThepainsoflivinginEurope

Anyway, Step Up All In was pretty bad. The flash mob story was, in the Step Up films scope, revolutionary because it didn't involve some tournament. And the dance wasn't even that cool. It looked cool thanks to the super Briana Evigan. And that leading man looked like Chris Evans' stunt double. On a different occassion, I watched Jeff Bridges-starrinThe Giver. It's not bad, but it has all the potential to be amazing. It should be better than Divergent but apparently not. That's a shame. It could be more epic and more thought-provoking, but it ended up talky and bland. Sorry, precision of language; it's quite boring. But the color scheme thing works beautifully. And that overhyped Taylor Swift appearance is only maybe less than two minutes. Hey but who doesn't love Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep?

Anyway, the only films that I would watch that would be screened here in English next month is only Lucy. So that's pretty retarded. Italy is even worse than Japan in terms of movie going.

Buona Sera!

Hi! I'm very honored to introduce this blog's third base camp which is in--drumroll--Milano, Italy! Unbelievable and crazy right? Suddenly this blog just went places. This boring blog. Anyway, I celebrated by staying at home watching two movies back to back (if you're wondering, they're The Rover and Chef) while also accomplishing my first laundry and eating lunch. I know what you must've been thinking: man, this is one lazy Asian over here.

So, good points: new experiences, new friends, all of those new things right?
Bad points: dubbed cinemas and unfriendly locals.

Say whaatt? Dubbed cinemas?
Yep, while the film distribution is pretty good Italian cinema going is a product of the country's history of anti-English/anti-American. Therefore they dubbed all of English-speaking films to their own proud language. They claimed that they have the best dubbers in the world, and from what I've been seeing from the Italian version of trailers, it's true. But fuck that, come on. We're in one of the most famous cities in the world and you can't find an English speaking cinema? Yes you can apparently, but the movies played in those cinemas are limited and not updated ones. And there are only THREE cinemas playing this lingua originale films. Struggle is not over from Japan, guys. Let me get tickets to Coppa della Stelle or some of that three-worded Italian title of The Fault in Our Stars. There are people who needs to watch Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Guardians of the Galaxy in English here.

Please Stop

Just watched Transformers: Age of Extinction a couple of weeks ago. It was just released on early August in Japan. My expectations were very low. I didn't expect anything. The trailers look okay, but I wasn't expecting much. This is going to be real short.

The story takes place after the events from Transformers: DOTM. Transformers is now branded alien and dangerous no matter whether it is an Autobot or a Decepticon. Now the humans are played by Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz and Jack Reynor--which is less appealing than Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. Transfomers are now hunted but at the same time a company is making a Transformers army with less cool impact. There's also a bounty hunter who wanted Optimus Prime. I don't know, too many stuff going on.

I'll start with the good ones: Optimus Prime and Bumblebee's new design is cool. Okay that's it. The fact that Age of Extinction spent its first 45 minutes for human exposition story is kinda wtf and infinitely boring. It's cute that they think they have a legit human story to tell. We don't need Mark Wahlberg talking to Nicola Peltz for 45 minutes. The story is all over the place. The characters are bad. They actually lost me when Ratchet was brutally murdered and another part of the interest was lost when TJ Miller was Sodom and Gomorrah-ed. Apart from Prime and Bee, the other Autobots are crap. There's this racist Japanese robot whose design is like a samurai with full battle costume and he speaks like a Japanese person even though he transformed into a Bugatti Veyron. The John Goodman-voiced Autobot is basically John Goodman. The bounty hunter named Lockdown is one of the highlights. It's good and scary with some cool weapons. But the KSI Transformers (the manmade ones) are sleek but the way they transform is shit. The much hyped Dinobots is another bad thing, it made the movie weird--like really weird. I'd rather have Optimus narrate the phone book as the introduction than seeing dinosaurs in the first minutes of a Transformers film. And those obvious product placement Chinese drinks. And the racist thing that every Chinese knows kung-fu/martial arts. God. I really wanted to leave this film at some points--plural--of the film. The Bayhem seemed muted by the fact the story is really bad. Please stop making more of this atrocity. Transformers: Age of Extinction: rated 1/4

PS
This will be my last Japan-based post for 2014. Next post will be Italy-based!

In another note, my now 8-year old tradition continues with my second viewing of Godzilla, which with 2nd viewing doesn't get better. I'd give it a solid 3/4 now.

Tommy C in Japan Y'all

So one of my favorite actors, Tom Cruise (I don't need to mention his films right?), came to Japan about one month ago. As a part of his promotion stunt to visit three cities in one day just like he did in the world premiere (NY, Paris, Rome--if I'm not mistaken), he repeated the same thing in Japan by visiting--in chronological order, Osaka--Fukuoka--and finally Tokyo. I was quite blessed to have the opportunity to go to Fukuoka to see him!

It's a crazy day, and the fan meeting event was held in one of the busiest spots in Fukuoka: Hakata Station, one of the central stations in that city. People were already waiting since 9.00 am in the morning for the event on 13.30. I myself arrived at around 11, when people were already lining up like it was a Disneyland ride. It was the most unstrategic place to hold a fan meeting of any scale, let alone Tom Cruise's fan meeting. Take a look at this crazy pic from above.

By 13.30, people were commuting around like crazy as they are trying to join the crowd although they didn't line up since 9 am. Tom Cruise showed up with director Doug Liman and one of the producer whose name I can't recall. Tom Cruise greeted the people above he also looked unsatisfied with the venue. Even though he's on a stage, most people couldn't see him. Then he climbed onto a railing and stood up there and waved to people. The crowd went nuts. Then he gave a short speech about he love coming to Japan and how the Japanese original inspired the Hollywood adaptation. I loved how he's so humble and kind to the fans--or as the Japanese call it 'meccha ii fan sabisu'. One sentence moved me a lot when he said, "it is my honor to entertain you"

not from my iPhone-duh

He was up there for around 20 minutes in total. Doug Liman was asked questions and the producer too. Then the three of them were given a traditional Fukuoka yukata. And that was it. I think there was a special screening of a bit of the film, I have no idea whether Tom Cruise was there or not. I hope not, because if he did, I'd be so pissed that I didn't 'hunt' him.

Here's to more movie premieres in the future.