A New Year means...

Lists!

2011 Movies I'll Be Waiting For

#5 Water for Elephants

I hope Robert Pattinson doesn't blow his chance to redeem himself.


#4 Sucker Punch

Through the guns and girls, the storyline of reality vs fantasy could be a really cool psychological action movie. If not, it'll still be really cool.


#3 Your Highness











Looks high-larious.


#2 The Muppets

The Muppets + Ali G's James Bobin? Respek.

#1 The Hobbit
Haha I wish..


Random 2011 movies that I'll watch: 
-The Green Hornet because of all the Stephen Chow drama. I've got to see if his resignment as director and actor is justified.
-The Dilemma since I saw them filming live. Not expecting much, though.

My Favorite Movies of 2010 [so far]

#5 Shutter Island

I love psychological thrillers! Shutter Island kept me on the edge of my seat--and the ending blew my mind. Hmm sounds a lot like Inception.

#4 The Social Network

The Social Network tests the definition of friendship, reflecting on the technology of this era. Mark Zuckerberg, has so many layers to his character--playing a protagonist as well as the antagonist. 

#3 Black Swan

The Black Swan creates a darker world of ballet.  Beautiful and terrifying at the same time, Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman truly display art at its finest (or worst). 

#2 The King's Speech

Inspiring. The King's Speech touched me with a story about friendship and true courage. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush were absolutely enchanting together. Also, the British humor was hilarious!

#1 Inception

I love psychological thrillers! Inception kept me on the edge of my seat--and the ending blew my mind. Hmm sounds a lot like Shutter Island.

From the ensemble cast to the storyline, Inception was unpredictable and incredibly engaging.

I have yet to see more movies from 2010 since I mostly rely on Netflix dvds.

Elf

Happy Holidays, Everyone! My family celebrates with silly Christmas movies and lots of tissues (because I always get sick).

Santa!!! I know him!

Buddy (Will Ferrell) was adopted by Santa (Ed Asner) after he crawled into his present sack from the orphanage. Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) raises Buddy to be an over-sized elf in the North Pole. As Buddy grows up, his size also grows to be a problem with bedding, toilets, and he can only make 85 Etch-A-Sketches a day (gasp!). Buddy overhears that he isn't just a "special elf"--he's a human. He sets out on a journey to New York to find his father, Walter Hobbs (James Caan), who isn't as nice as gumdrops and sugar plums. Buddy's elfish ways clashes with the rush of New York, but he finds his way to his family and Jovie's (Zooey Deschanel) heart.

Ahh...there's nothing better than watching Elf to get in the Christmas spirit. Its hard not to laugh at the charming Will Ferrel in a hilarious elf costume...in New York City. Buddy brings the child out of everyone; from spinning in revolving doors to stashing free handouts, he is easily a lovable character. Pair him up with Mr. Grumpy Walter Hobbs and Cute Jovie and we have a great Christmas movie. The story is gumdrop-sweet and unbelievable, but what the hey--it's Christmas. Anything can happen.

The Karate Kid

Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves to Beijing because his mother's, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) job. Dre experiences  culture shock and even encounters bullies, such as Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), who is jealous of Dre's smooth [American] moves on Little Miss Mei Ying (Wen Wen Han). After a kung-fu-butt-kicking from the bullies, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) saves Dre, revealing his own kung-fu prowess. The bullies are instructed by Master Li, who promises that his boys will leave Dre alone if he or Mr. Han fights them. Dre and Mr. Han work together to prepare for the kung-fu tournament using unusual methods for training. No waxing the car, though. Just hanging a coat over and over and over...

Jaden's character was sheet thin--almost invisible. Jaden was able to rely on his cuteness in The Pursuit of Happiness, but that safety net is taken away in the Karate Kid. We learn a little about Mr. Han; we learn a little about Mei Ying, but Dre is just a kid with fancy poses. Actually, everyone was poorly developed. Mr. Han busted out a tragic car crash memory and reminisced for five minutes. His dispute with Master Li was left unfinished by the end of the movie. Dre's mom has a shady job, if she even has a job in Beijing. Mei Ying and Dre's "friendship[?]" was super awkward. What made Mei Ying fall for Dre? Was it his braids or his embarrassing dancing? Who knows...the script called for some romance and that's that. 

Awwkwaard...

The Karate Kid could entertain little children, trapping them with flashy kung-fu, popular music, and cheesy jokes.For everyone else: If you want kung-fu, watch Chinese wuxia. If you want culture shock, watch Lost in Translation or something. If you want child romance, go hide in a corner. 

I'm going to hang up my coat now. I have some bullies that need addressing.

"Attitude!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are plenty of better alternatives to Turkey...like good ol' toast with butter.

Actors

Isn't it weird how we idolize people that are good at being someone they're not?

But then again, fame comes with a price.

Kick-Ass

Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a nobody in his school. He's the geek that hangs out at the comic book store. He's the weirdo that decided to become a superhero, Kick-Ass, overnight. Unfortunately, he doesn't have superpowers and he ends up in a hospital, stabbed and hit by a car. He gets fixed with metal-reinforced bones and a damaged nervous system that makes him almost invincible...and his ego a bit inflated. Kick-Ass meets Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) when she kills Frank D'Amico's gangsters when they were getting ready to beat up Kick-Ass. Hit Girl's father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), wants to bring Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) down because he framed Big Daddy as a drug dealer (back in the day when he was a cop). D'Amico thinks that Kick-Ass killed his men and goes after him. Kick-Ass meets Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), another amateur superhero, and they team up. Little does he know, Red Mist is D'Amico's son and has ulterior motives to their friendship. 

Kick-Ass Team

What's that about child profanity and violence? Oh that's right...it's awesome. It's a fictional movie and rated R, so little kids wouldn't be running around swinging butterfly knives in the playground (unless their parents are idiots and let them watch Kick-Ass). Kick-Ass was very entertaining with a great soundtrack to match. The comedy kept the more grim scenes in balance, and it got me laughing a few times. The  choreography was fresh and super cool. Honestly, Hit Girl's action scenes blew me away. Chloë was perfect as Hit Girl--a sweet girl and brilliant killer. Aaron Johnson was a lovable dork in Kick-Ass. The storyline gave enough time and thought into Dave's character development, and Aaron was able to bring comedy and seriousness together without shocking the audience with a bipolar movie. I was surprised to see Christopher Mintz-Plasse play a non-dorky role (not that there's something wrong with McLovin). Soo...movie producers: Chris is versatile! Good thing Nicholas Cage had a mask on for most of the movie; his contemplative-eyebrow-face wasn't there to distract. The ending bothered me; Kick-Ass felt like it ended too early. Maybe a little tweak here and there would have made a perfect movie (to me, at least). 

The hovercraft was disappointing. 

Happy Halloween!

Remember, you're never too old to trick-or-treat...as long as you're cool enough to hang with the little kids.

"I got a rock"

The Beatles.

Usher on Justin Bieber: "You haven't seen the best of him. He is a pop craze like The Beatles. They started out as pure pop artists and look what they became over the years."

HAHAHAHA Bieber?? And the Beatles?? You serious?
Bieber will never be nearly as influential as The Beatles' legacy. Case dismissed.

Blue Man Group

They were awesome last night!

I have to rest my esophagus. It hurts from laughing.

Knowing

What a weird movie...

50 years ago at William Dawes Elementary School, Lucindia Embry suggested to make a time capsule with letters to kids of the future. Lucindia fills her paper with numbers and is stopped before she finishes, which ends up in the hands of Caleb (in the present). Caleb starts to hear strange whisperings, but ignores it because he thinks it's just feedback from his hearing aid. Caleb's (Chandler Canterburry) alchoholic, widow, melancholy, etc etc father, John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), finds it and deciphers it. He finds out that the numbers are the date, death tolls, and coordinates of major disasters over the past fifty years. So...what happens when the numbers end? They stalk Lucinda's daughter Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) and her daughter, who also hears whispers, to find out the rest of the numbers, but the future looks grim anyways. Will the whispering "people" save them?

Good alcoholic-widow-daddy

I wish the movie had a better direction. The trailers got me hyped up to see this mystery-thriller, but I ended up disappointed. However, with the brilliant acting from Nicholas Cage, he saved it and Knowing became the best movie in the world...

Brilliant acting--so many different emotions

Just kidding. Nicholas Cage had one face throughout the whole movie. Maybe he is just confused all the time. Maybe his eyebrows are permanently fixed upon his head like that. Whatever it is, his acting made Knowing a little stale and boring. I have got to say that end-of-the-world movies are becoming more and more unoriginal these days. Aliens? Exploding sun? Religion? Weirdo possessed girl? Check, check, check, and check. It was like the writers wanted to squish everything that makes a movie "cool" to make the ultimate movie, but like David and Goliath, less is more. The second half of this movie was surprising and unpredictable, mostly because it's completely outrageous complete with plot holes and raised eyebrows (from me and Nicholas Cage). 

Aaak! The eyebrows are contagious!

Tommy Wiseau: director, producer, writer, actor

Oh Tommy Johnny...

This man's a genius!

मैट्रिक्स (The Matrix)

The Matrix has been sweded!

Oh that's funny...

Inception

Is he dreaming? Is he not? Is the whole movie a dream? My brain!!!

Christopher Nolan probably gets a good laugh from all of these theories and interpretaions of his crazy confusing (but good) movie.

It'll blow your mind

Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an Extractor that searches people's minds while they dream to unlock their deepest secrets. Saito (Ken Watanabe) sends Cobb and his sidekick, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), on a mission to plant an idea (called an inception) into a business rival's mind. Saito wants Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) to break up his dead father's empire, but this is considered impossible to all the extractors except Cobb. Cobb takes the job in return for him being able to live with his children again. Cobb gathers Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao), and Ariadne (Ellen Page) for his mission, along with Arthur and Saito. Yusuf makes a strong sedative for them and Fischer so they wouldn't wake up until the mission is complete. Saito buys the airline that Fischer would be flying on to get all of them in the same room. Ariadne is the architect of the dream to replace Cobb (because his deceased wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), haunts his dreams). They plan to go down 3 levels into the dream (a dream within a dream within a dream) and perform synchronized "kicks" (or feelings of freefall) to wake everyone up in each of the dream levels. But when its too late to turn back, they realize that if they die in the dream, they'll end up in Limbo (wait 50 years to wake up because of the sedative and the dream would feel like reality) , which is like purgatory. With Fischer's armed projections in his dream and Cobb's evil wife, inception does seem impossible.

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

I had to google the heck out of Inception it to understand it. That's what makes the movie so intriguing- how much depth there is. This film is so different- the ideas, the action...the whole concept. It's hard to wrap my head around it, but it kept me thinking after the movie, which is great. I love movies that leave an aftertaste kind of impression on the viewer. The action was very cool, especially Arthur's anti-gravity bit. The humor is very subtle and it is a breath of fresh air in all the seriousness of guns and evil wives. With an awesome cast like Inception's, nothing can go wrong with the film. They seemed to work really well together. Leonardo DiCaprio had a mysteriousness to him (very similar to Shutter Island, actually- rockin' the slick hair look). He had great chemistry with Marion Cotillard, but Ellen Page didn't really fit with him. Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt exchanged some funny dialog- just like a bickering couple. Ellen Page seemed more subdued in this movie (Ariadne isn't a quirky character like Juno), but she still had her likable charm. Oh yeah...killer ending. It's like Shutter Island all over. DiCaprio's messing with my brain again.

So...what do you believe? Is it a dream or reality?

Departures

Simply beautiful. 

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a cellist in a orchestra that disbanded because of its small audience. Daigo  is left jobless and in debt because of the new cello that he purchased. He and his wife, Mika, (Ryoko Hirosue) decide to abandon his impossible cello dream and move on...to Daigo's mom's house (which he inherited when she died) because he is able to live there for free. The house reminds Daigo of his father who abandoned him and his mother, so the hatred comes rushing back to him. Daigo searches for a new job and stumbles upon NK Agency that wants people for departures. Daigo goes to the agency and is hired on the spot.

Boss: Will you work hard?

Daigo: Uh...yes.

Boss: You're hired.

If only it were that easy... Of course, his job comes with a twist: "departures" actually means encoffining dead bodies. Apparently, the dead are a huge taboo in Japan, so people would avoid Daigo like the plague if they find out about his job. To hide this from his wife, Daigo goes to a public bath to wash off the dead-body-stench and tells Mika that his new job involves "ceremonies" (like weddings). Eventually, Mika finds out and moves out of the house. His neighbors find out and avoid him. Daigo refuses to give up his job, though. He is proud of it and finds it rewarding. 

Departures was stunning. I don't think I cried this much for any other movie. Yes, death is a grim situation, but Departures puts it in a different light. Death could be happy and filled with love for the lost. Sometimes, I realized that I wasn't crying because someone died; I was crying because it was so beautiful and happy (I know that sounds corny, but if you watched the movie, you might know what I'm talking about). The encoffiner is also brought to light as a highly respectable job and super satisfying. Departures plays with the meaning of fate. Sometimes, you're so caught up with chasing a dream that you don't realize that you can dream a different dream.
The acting was superb. I loved every one of the characters because they were all so rich and had so much depth to them. They all had their own stories to tell and reasons behind their actions. Masahiro Motoki as Daigo was a great fit. He was funny at times to make the seriousness of death not so heavy.


And...I loved the music. Joe Hisaishi does it again. 

Christopher Nolan sure knows how to make movies...

unlike some people *cough cough shyamalan.

Great cast, great director...it's going to be good! I'll be at the theater this week if you need me.

The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan sure had us fooled...who knew his true calling was COMEDY? The Last Airbender gave me a few laughs because it was like a spoof video of the show. I showed a clip of the movie to my friend and she thought it was a fanvid.

In the world of Avatar, there are four nations: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. The people in their nation can bend the corresponding element if they're born with the ability. The Avatar is supposed to bring balance to the four nations with his powers (ability to bend all four elements). Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) from the water tribe find Aang (Noah Ringer) in an iceberg and free him. They find out that Aang is the Avatar that ran away 100 years ago because he didn't want to be the Avatar (can't have a family) and he got caught in a storm, resulting in getting trapped in the iceberg. Aang is hunted by the Nazi-like Fire Nation, who wants to take over the world with their fire bending with the absence of Aang. Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) is banished to hunt the Avatar in exchange for his fathers acceptance. When the firenation captures Aang, Katara and Sokka decide that it is their "responsibility" to help Aang. They escape with some swoosh swoosh airbending and Aang and his new friends stop by some small Earth kingdom towns to stop the firebenders little by little. He has to learn waterbending as the first step to mastering the elements (he already mastered air) to defeat the evil fire nation.

Oh my goodness! He's bending fire out of nothing! It makes all the other firebenders look like wimps.

People in the theater probably thought I was crazy because I was laughing so much when the scenes were solemn. Aang is only twelve years old, but he acts like his mother beat the childhood out of him or something.   Every single character in Avatar is stripped of his/her personality, which makes the show what it is. There is absolutely no excuse for Shyamalan's suspicious casting. I can act better than Noah Ringer and just use his stunt double to do some cool flips. Nicola Peltz had no emotion. Might as well cast a rock for Katara and invest the money on a better camera (most scenes looked blurry and foggy). Heck, I can write a better script than Shyamalan.
Aang (being a Liberater): "There's earth under your feet!" 
Earthbenders in prison: Really?? Ooh there is!! I can earthbend this earth that has been right under my feet for the past 100 years!
Me: *facepalm*
The bending in the movie reminded me of a video game. Opponent's turn. Fire ball: → O ↓ ↑ X ← Enter. You dodge. Your turn. Rock Throw: ↓ O ↓ ← ← Enter. Opponent defeated. You gain 10 EXP.

← ← ← Run away! Run away!

It takes so long just to move a tiny rock. Why waste your time bending when you could just go up to your opponent and stab them? It would be so much faster. If firebenders need a fire source, why can't everyone put out their stupid campfires? There are so many things in this movie that doesn't make sense. Even though it's a fantasy, Shyamalan's ideas wouldn't even make sense in the Avatar world. I may be a bit biased because I'm a huge fan of the show, but people that don't watch the show have common sense and are probably lost in The Last Airbender's super fast pacing. I can't say that I'm disappointed because I kind of predicted that this would be a bad movie, just not this bad. 1 star for making me laugh sometimes and promoting the show (you should watch that instead). I really hope this isn't a trilogy...

Wanted

Wait a minute...why is Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) only on the tiny corner of the poster? Isn't he the main character? Nope, Fox (Angelina Jolie) stole the show.

Wesley Gibson has it bad. His life sucks. His boss is crazy annoying, his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend, and he has absolutely no search results when he googles his name. It all changes when he meets Fox and gets into a gun fight/car chase. Fox tells him that his father was an assassin murdered by an assassin and introduces him to the Fraternity. The pact leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman) says that he could be a superhuman like Fox if he used his panic attacks to his advantage and ultimately take revenge for his father. He trains and ups his endurance, strenth, etc, etc, and joins The Fraternity in assassinating the people that the Loom of Fate spells out. 

Oh boy. Wesley the Loser has a panic attack again

Wanted was an awesome action-adventure ride. The fighting scenes were very cool and nicely choreographed. Wesley Gibson was great at screaming his head off in the beginning of the film and Jolie had enough kick-butt to cover for that loser. Everything is slick until Sloan introduces the magic loom: total what the heck moment. Stand aside, Morgan Freeman. It's the Loom of Fate's turn to play God. Then came the magic bath..then the magic bullets...then the "I am your father" thing...then the exploding rats. It's a cool concept, but a bit too technical for me. And Mythbusters busted the curving bullets myth.

"This is me taking back control of my life. What the f*** have you done lately?"

Awaiting The Last Airbender

As bad as this movie may be...

 because of Mr. Constipated (Jackson Rathbone) from Twilight as the hilarious Sokka...

or this white kid with a pet Zoboomafoo as Aang and Momo...

 I'm actually kinda excited for this film! I'll just turn my color vision off and pretend they're all asian.

Be sure to check out show beforehand so the movie wouldn't spoil it.