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.

Shaolin Soccer

Stephen Chow!! He's such a hilarious guy. This movie is probably one of his funniest.

Iron Head and sing trying to rouse up the Kung fu spirit in gangsters

Fung (Ng Man Tat) used to be a famous soccer player, but because his rival teammate, Hung (Patrick Tse) set up an event that led to his cripple leg, he now is a human foot-stool for Hung. Fung meets Sing (Stephen Chow), who has an amazing "Mighty Steel Leg" and gets an idea to use Sing's Shaolin Kung fu to beat Hung's soccer team and win the tournament. Sing agrees because his ultimate dream is to teach people to incorporate Kung fu into their everyday lives to improve it. After some major encouragement, he gathers his Shaolin brothers to train with Coach Hung. They're a bit rusty on the Kung fu and can't play soccer for their life, but Sing manages to bring their butt-kicking spirit back to fight play against Hung's "Evil Team" (such an evil name).

The Shaolin Bros get their game on.

Now don't let the language barrier stop you from watching this movie. The subtitles are pretty accurate, but I have to admit..knowing Chinese makes this movie perfect. I have watched Stephen Chow's mo lei tau (Chinese wordplay) movies and I understood it like an American: I had no idea what was so funny. Shaolin Soccer, however, doesn't use much mo lei tau. The humor is mostly physical and slapstick, so I kept laughing throughout this whole movie. Having the director be the star of the film really gets things done. There is really no one that can star a Stephen Chow movie than the man himself. He works great with Ng Man Tat and Wong Yut Fei (Iron Head). The romance between Mui (Vicki Zhao) and Sing seemed a little rushed, but Hey, kung fu attracts girls, right? The action scenes were very cool. Even though the CGI isn't as polished as the movies nowadays, the scenes are so over-the-top that they're hilarious. I recommend you see the full 102-minute version of the film (not the Miramax 80-minute version). I don't know why they would cut 20 minutes of great scenes.

This is Empty Hand (Bruce Lee Danny Chan Kwok Kwan)

Filming Cheaters (now called The Dilemma) in Chicago!

I happened to walk by the filming of Cheaters (2011) and ahem...Channing Tatum and Winona Ryder!!

They were filming in Chicago Chinatown's Wentworth Street. The film crew totally transformed one of the gift stores into a movie set! They moved all of the nick-knacks out of the store and put some meat on display and random Chinese candies inside the store. There were extras and cars lined up on the street to pass through the scene at the right time. Only part of the street was blocked for filming, so the lucky tourists that happened to walk by were able to take pictures and watch the magic happen. Most of the Chinese people that lived in Chinatown just wanted to cross the street because they had no idea what was happening. Who the heck is Channing Tatum? I just want to get some bok choy!

Luckily, I lived near Chinatown so I could run to my house to grab my camera with huge zooming lenses to get clear pictures. Other people were caught by surprise and only had their phones and iPods. "There's lots of paparazzi here," the security guard said. Gosh...I'm sure he was just talking about me. The security guards blocked the streets when they were filming and told me that pictures weren't allowed, but someone with more authority told us that pictures were allowed, but no flash. I was going to take pictures anyways- it's much too exciting.

The Hollywood interpretation of a Chinatown store

Here's the scene: Channing Tatum parks his car and gets out, leaving Winona Ryder inside. He walks into the store and buys a roast duck from the Asian dude. The salesman dumps the duck into a plastic bag and gives it to Tatum. He gets out of the store, waving the duck at the woman. Then, he gets back in the car and drives away. They must have done the same scene at least ten times. 

Tatum with duck in a bag

Hollywood is hilarious... in the real Chinatown, the butcher chops the duck up and puts it in an aluminum take out box, all of the drivers aren't white, and the people walking aren't all young and hip.

If I walk around Chicago, I might just end up watching the whole movie!

Curious George

In celebration of Jack Johnson's new CD, I'll review Curious George, which has awesome jams by Jack.

Curious George is brought to life (or animation) from H. A. Rey's classic picture books. The colorful illustrations translate well into the film, which stayed faithful to traditional animation (too much 3D definitely would have ruined the movie). Ted, aka the man in the yellow hat (Will Ferrell), works at a museum that is lacking in funds and the only visitors are Miss. Dunlop and her class. The museum's owner, Mr. Bloomsberry (Dick Van Dyke) wants to close the museum to make room for a parking lot that Bloomsberry Junior (David Cross) has always wanted. To save the museum, Ted accidentally volunteers himself to go to the jungle to search for the giant lost shrine of Zagawa. Junior is jealous of Ted being the "favorite child" (even though Ted isn't even Bloomsbery's son), so he misleads Ted from the Zagawa shrine. But then again, Ted is no adventurer, so he probably would get lost without Junior's help anyways. Instead of finding the lost shrine of Zagawa, a real monkey follows Ted back to the city. Mr. Bloomsberry got the city hyped up about the monkey shrine, so Ted and George has to somehow recreate the shrine or tell the truth. They work together to try stall and think of ways to fix the shrine problem. Instead, they end up on tons of adventures: George's hologram terrorizes the city King-Kong-style, they tour the city with balloons, and they get tons laughs because they're just being silly.

Ivan the not-so-Terrible returns!

Curious George surprised me. I watched it with my little sister, thinking that it was a children's movie like Clifford the Big Red Dog, but it wasn't boring at all. This movie really entertained me. The animation was minimalist, which was fitting for this movie. All of the voice acting was perfect and very comical at times. The dialogue is hilarious, especially with Will Ferrell, and there are so many funny quotes that I got out of it. George, my personal favorite, was super cute. George is the reason why kids ask for pet monkeys for Christmas. Sometimes, there are breaks with the natural laws of physics, but that's the great thing about being a kid. Everything's possible. This film makes me feel like I'm eight years old again. Kids, tell your parents that balloon travel is possible and stop analyzing it. There's some speculation that the "frightening" abandonment in the movie would scar the kids, but seriously, those people should get potty trained and suck it up. Everything doesn't need to be sugar-coated. That's why obesity is a growing problem.

Curious George hangin' with his buddy, Jack Johnson

How to Train Your Dragon

Ok, Dreamworks is no Pixar, but this was a pretty cute movie. The storyline is a little cliché: Hiccup is expected to slay dragons to save his village from the sheep-stealing, house-burning pests. Oh, and did I mention his father is a dragon slayer beast! and the chief of the village. Hiccup's physique isn't quite right for swinging hammers around, so he relies on his engineering to capture dragons instead. Hiccup captures and befriends a Night Fury dragon and names it Toothless. He realizes that dragons aren't the vicious monsters that everyone thinks they are and uses all of the knowledge he learns about dragons to tame them during Dragon training. Actually, the dragons act very much like giant pet cats. Hiccup tells his father and saves the village, blah blah blah. Dragons and Vikings become best friends, but the ending isn't as happily-ever-after as Barbie and Kent. They really went for it, took a risk (I don't want to spoil it), and it paid off.

Love the voice acting (McLovin!), but America Ferrera's voice didn't quite fit Astrid's tough heroine character. Hiccup and Toothless stole the show with their chemistry (which seemed stronger than Astrid and Hiccups). I don't mean to be hating on Astrid, but her sudden change of heart towards dragons and Hiccup seemed unreal. How to Train Your Dragon wasn't as funny as the Shrek movies, but it got me chuckling a couple of times. It was filled with lots of video-game-type action and beautiful flying scenes that reminded me of Avatar--huge complement right there. It's a great family movie, but kids would probably complain about the ending (good luck trying to explain why happy sunshine endings just don't work sometimes).

Iron Man 2

Cue the heavy metal music! It's Iron Man! Two!! Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns with his identity as iron man revealed along with an ego bigger than his new muscles. He's having the time of his life because of his shortened life span due to palladium poisoning. Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) becomes CEO of Stark Industries and Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) becomes Tony's new assistant. Tony also gets a new arch rival, Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who copies Iron Man's arc reactor to make an electrical whip thing. Ivan joins forces with Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), who owns a rival weapons company and gives Ivan materials in exchange for his innovation. Meanwhile, Tony Stark tries to find a substitute for palladium and ends up with a new armor. Tony and Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) become the Iron Men and battle Ivan's robot inventions.

"I want my bird."

Doesn't he look so much more menacing with that bird on his shoulder? He's like a pirate.

I was very excited for this movie. I watched Iron Man 1 not too long ago and that open ending just left me hanging. I was so disappointed with Iron Man 2. There wasn't much plot in it for Tony Stark or anyone, really. The whole movie felt like Scarlett Johansson's character: all glitz but no substance. I have no idea why she needed to be in the movie, to tell you the truth. I haven't read the comics, but I assume Natalie Rushman was more than just someone that looks pretty and flights people with her thighs. Ivan wasn't so terrible (haha). He wasn't much of a threat, especially with that new triangle arc reactor and Mr. Rhodes in Tony Stark's posse. Robert Downey Jr. did a great job portraying Tony Stark again. Iron Man 2 was just a pretty movie to look at. Cool fight scenes and good acting...with an occasional laugh. The first movie was better (it always is).

BFFs 4ever.

I found the distracting spinning thing that was on Pepper Pott's desk on Amazon.com! The comments are hilarious.