Category: Movies

Been wanting to watch this movie for awhile. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t too impress with it given that I had high expectations of the movie. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was good, but I don’t think it’s really telling a story more than just stringing a sequence of random events together which really didn’t have a beginning nor an end.

Officiate Site
IMDb: 7.2/10 (13,725 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 73% / Average Rating: 7/10
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So the story sorta has 4 simultaneous storylines.

One involves a economics advisor who tries to persuade the Emir what the best solution to handle things are. They were throwing a party and he brought his family along, since it was his son’s birthday. Somehow, his son gets electrocuted to death in the swimming pool (is that possible? a lot of voltage has to be going through the swimming pool, I’d assume). Somehow this lands him his offer and he’s like “$75,000 for my son. How much for my other one?” Anyway, he becomes the advisor of the son of the Emir who hopes to bring good things to his country, but the Americans are always interfering. Like when they decided to give the project to the highest bidder and when the Chinese took the highest bid, the American media was calling them terrorists and communists. Meanwhile, Americans have begun chatting with the 2nd son (I’m guessing 1st born is not always the next in line to become king). The 2nd son was much more ambitious, and didn’t really think much of his people, but the Americans gaurantees he’ll become the next Emir in exchange for cooperation of course. This ended up with the death of the 1st prince.

That brings in our 2nd storyline. A CIA agent messed up a mission and lost a missile. He was later reassigned to kill the 1st prince, but somehow his intelligence was incorrect and his inside source betrayed him and started to torture him trying to find out who he was working for. It was actually that the torturer mentioned methods used by the Chinese to torture Falung Gong, forcing them to recant their belief. He keeps on listing them until he gets to the part where they pulled out fingernails, which was exactly what he did. I won’t get into the details on how he escaped death, but after he was released, the FBI begins to do an investigation on him and the CIA basically shuts him out as if they never knew him. I think at the end he was trying to warn the 1st prince, but who knew that both he and the prince went KABOOM!

The missing missile comes back into the story and you learn about suicide bombers and the teachings of anti-western culture. This seemed like the reenactment of the fishing boat bombing the U.S. battleship, but I don’t think the ship they bombed this time was a battleship. Looked more like an oil tanker.

The final story line involves the Amercians who are trying to take control of the oil in the middle east. 2 major oil companies had recently merged (I’m guessing similar to Exxon and Mobil), but there was an investigation into if any foul playing went on. Indeed there was, but even government was into this as they really need a few scapegoats, because they also believed this to be in the best interest of the country.

As the quote says: Corruption is government intrustion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That’s Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm! Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the street. Corruption is why we win.

Watched this movie last night, but I got too tired to post it. Didn’t really give the movie much of chance as I was multi-tasking as it was being played on the background. The movie if you see it as a pure action movie wasn’t that bad and there was Kate Beckinsale, but overall the storyline was pretty lame and stuff just happened without much logic.

Also I just realized if my iTunes/Quicktime doesn’t allow simultaneous audio streams or maybe there’s a bug with their Mozilla plug-in because distinctly remember multiple trailers being played simultaneously. Anyway, I have my iTunes playing when I’m typing up this entry, and suddenly I hear screeches and audio not music related. I switched to the Apple Trailer tab and the trailer is playing, but no audio. I pause my iTunes and the audio from the trailer immediately comes on. Just thought it was interesting because it reminds of the old days where you can’t have multiple audio streams being played at the same time or your sound card goes crazy.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.6/10 (10,421 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: D+ / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 15% / Average Rating: 3.8/10
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So the movie was a sequel to the original Underworld (which first of all wasn’t that great). The sequel attempts to tell the true story about vampires and werewolves and how the original vampire wasn’t Viktor, but was really Marcus. Marcus had granted the King Viktor and his knights immortality on one condition that they stop his twin brother (the original werewolve), but not harm him. There was also an extra note where if the original vampire dies, then all his descendants will too. Viktor didn’t really believe it, but he wasn’t willing to put it to the test.

With Viktor killed in the previous movie, Marcus is awaken in this one and attempts to unravel the history. I’m not even sure what the point of having Michael (the hybrid vampire and werewolve) in this movie was, besides to have a leading male role to have sex with Selene (which does happen). I guess that was the point huh? Anyway, they bring Alex the father of the both Marcus (original vampire) and William (original werewolve) into the movie. Turns out he’s immortal too and is the clean up person that fixes the cleans up the mess his two sons leave behind. He knows his sons are evil, but doesn’t have the heart to kill them. Didn’t parents back then know anything about discipline? Sigh…

Anyway, as the story reveals more, it turns out Selene’s family was actually murdered by Viktor because her family was the one who built the prison which holds William. Selene has this in the back of his memory, but doesn’t really recall it because she was still young.

Marcus also has this magic ability to see into someone’s memory by sucking on their blood. Never really heard about that, but it gave Marcus an amazing advantage.

So the story goes on and somewhere along the line, a historian is brought into the picture (so conveniently Selene was the one who exhiled him long ago) and he talks about the key and the dungeon.

The final battle occurs with Selene having sucked on Alex’s blood and now has mysteriously become SUPER STRONG and able to hold back Marcus. And Michael suddenly got strong enough to battle William and tear him apart, but back then, he couldn’t even run away from regular vampires. Guess something just “conveniently” awoken in him. Later as it turns out, Alex’s blood also gave Selene the ability to walk in daylight, now making her a daywalker (did I just mix Underworld and Blade?).

The movie just had way too many convenient things happen which basically ruined the plot.

The movie started out promising, but the ending was just so out of the blue and horrible, it looked like the script writers ran out of ideas (or money) and just hurriedly up and finished it. The movie had potential, but came off rather weak.

Official Site
IMDb: 5.7/10 (3,051 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 18% / Average Rating: 4.6/10
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The movie is about a gang of bank robbers trying to bypass security by holding the software security guy’s family hostage. It started off with finding out every piece of information about Jack (the software security guy). Then they created an online gambling account and made Jack lose $95,000 and debt collectors actually came to his work place and summoned him to appear in court.

Story continues and his family gets held hostage and depsite Jack’s attempts to undermine their authority, seeing his kid almost dying from an allergic reaction made him give in for the time being. The scheme actually seemed well planned out, until Jack told them that the security mechanism have been changed because they were being merged with a bigger bank. The gang leader seemed distraught, like he didn’t have a plan B and demanded Jack figure a way to do it. What they ended up doing was taking apart a fax machine and using the scanner hooked up to an iPod Mini to scan all the account numbers which they then parsed into their system using an OCR software. WTH!?!?! That was the lamest plan ever. The movie sort of started going downhill from this point.

The scheme was to transfer $10,000 from the top 10,000 accounts with the highest balance to a cayman islands account yielding the robbers a total of $100,000,000.

Chloe from 24 was Janet in this movie and she wasn’t as annoying as she usually is in 24. Then there was Bobby who just randomly was the guy Jack decided to pick on and use his camera phone. Just luckily enough, he had a crush on Janet and Jack was able to use Janet to get Bobby’s cell phone.

Jack made the reversal of the transfer like a snap. I didn’t know once a transfer was made, you could actually reverse it unless it was initiated from the other side… If I were the robbers, I would’ve immediately transferred the money around to other Cayman Islands accounts a few times.

The plot then got a bit more elaborate as they tried to frame Jack for murder and forced his wife to leave a message that she was cheating on her husband on that guy’s answering machine.

Jack managed to track the robbers using his dog’s GPS collar. I think the only reason why that was added was because they wanted to show off Windows Local Live.

This movie had tons of product placement ads. Starting with the iPod Mini Jack used to store the the account numbers. His work desk contains 2 Dell 20″ LCDs. His partner Harry has a Dell 24″ LCD. All the systems were using Windows XP and they were also using Outlook for email. And of course, the GPS dog locator is using Windlows Live Local to track the dog. There’s probably a bunch of car ad and servers and cell phones which I probably missed, but you get the idea.

The ending was completely horrible. Jack manages to find them, they get into a fight, and Jack manages to take out 2 of the men. WHAT?!?!?

Apparently a ringer can mean a contestant entered dishonestly into a competition. Movie was pretty silly and I probably could’ve spent my time elsewhere. I sort of started multi-tasking midway through the movie.

Official Site
IMDb: 5.5/10 (2,055 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating 41% / Average Rating: 4.9/10
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Movie’s about a guy who’s been looking to get higher up the ladder, got it, but his first assignment was to fire a janitor. He didn’t have the heart to fire him, so he told him that he could help him mow his lawn for $400/wk + health benefits. But then Stavi (the janitor) accidentally chopped off 3 of his fingers and Stevee (or Steve) felt so bad that he said he was going to come up with the money ($28,000) somehow to get his fingers stitched back.

Somehow it ended up his uncle came in and he planned to rig the special olympics. At first he was totally against it, but when the guilt of Stavi not ever getting his fingers back started to weigh on him, he caved. Of course the pretty lady volunteer also helped him make the decision.

Life was difficult trying to make friends with “special” people, but after they figured out he was a fake, and he explained why he was here, they became friends. Everyone also seemed to have a grudge against Jimmy, the consecutive gold winner for the past 6 years, but why they didn’t like him was never really explained. One can just assumed because Jimmy was a show off.

You knew the ending was either going to be whacked or sad, since I found it ultra difficult for the Stevee (or Jeffy – his “special” name) to come back from being special and lying to the girl and being able to get her to like him in the end.

Welp this movies turned out to be whacked anyway, but I’ll let you watch it to figure out how the ending turned out.

What never got explained was how he was able to take a week off from work to enter the special olympics. Also, how much was he making to be able to pay $400/wk ($20,800/yr) to some janitor to mow his lawn, but not enough for him to come up with $28,000 to help stitch the fingers back together.

Just watched this movie since the trailer looked hiliarious. The scores it got was pretty bad. I actually found it pretty funny, but maybe because it had a lot of geeky stuff in there and the main character is a video game tester.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.4/10 (1,311 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C- / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 17% / Average Rating: 3.6/10
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So the movie overall is about video games, testers, and pot. I could’ve added virgin to that list, but video games sort of implied that.

Our main character goes through a sequence of hilarious events where his old roommate spent all their rent money on hookers and they get kicked out of their apartment. The pot dealer was also a great character. He sleeps over at a co-worker’s/friend’s place and he still lives at home with his parents in a racecar bed. Some how in the middle of the night he decides to jerk off and his co-worker’s mom walks in just as he *coughs* and can’t stop.

The story continues when he moves in with his grandma and a new hot woman is hired as the project manager. This guy is a video game tester. The movie was a blatant advertisement for the Xbox (not 360), but there were other product placement in the movie. This guy of course brags about how he’s living with 3 female roommates (grandma + 2 friends).

Story continues. lalalala. And you meet JP which is a Neo (from The Matrix) wannabe and he makes robot noises and movement. He does have an awesome office and room.

There’s a lot of funny moments scattered throughout the movie and maybe because I’m a geek, they were pretty darn funny.

Didn’t have a particular reason to watched this movie, but I guess I was just curious. 9-11 occured on a random morning while I was still in bed in my dorm room on my freshman year. It was quite a shocking event, and at first I didn’t even know what to think. Anyway, the movie was quite touching, and is worth watching to see the brave men and women of flight 93.

Official Site
IMDb: 8.1/10 (2,642 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: A- / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 93% / Average Rating: 8.4/10
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There’s no real reason why the summary should be considered a spoiler. Everyone knows the story, and if you don’t, than you better have a good reason. The story revolves around Flight 93 of United flying from Boston to San Francisco. Flight 93 just lifted off when the 1st plane crashed into the North tower of the World Trade Center. The 2nd and 3rd crash (South Tower and then Pentagon) occured after the Flight 93 was already hi-jacked. The passengers onboard called home and found out about the events as they occurred and decided to try to take back the plane. This resulted in the crash landing of the plane.

Something I didn’t get was why the terrorists allowed them to make phone calls. Maybe the movie didn’t depict it out as well, but they were making phone calls initially in secret, but later in the open. I guess since they couldn’t utilize the bomb, and razor blades don’t exactly have long range, the guy merely tried to stop them from entering the cockpit.

The story was touching and it felt painful to see that happen again.

During the movie, the 1st officer was shouting mayday into his headset and that got me thinking about where the term mayday came from. From Wikipedia: Mayday is an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure communications, derived from the French m’aider. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many groups, such as police forces, pilots, the fire brigade, and transportation organizations. The call given three times (mayday, mayday, mayday…) in a row indicates significant danger (for example, a threat to life).

The true story of Red Riding Hood. This movie basically took a 15 minute fairy tale and made it 80 minutes. The animation was a bit weak compared to Pixar and Dreamworks, but once you start getting into the storyline, you enjoy the little magic it brings out and the craziness when they turn the story inside out.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.8/10 (1,953 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C+ / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: RATING: ROTTEN / READING: 46%
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The way they managed to extend the story is to actually hear the different sides of the story. You have the main story from Red (Riding Hood), then you get to hear the Wolf’s story, followed by the Lumberman, and finally the Granny.

The main plot of the story now resides in the fact there is a criminal mastermind called “The Bandit” who has been stealing all the recipes from goodies (sweets) shops. And the other versions of the story revolve around this.

Not wanting to spoil too much more, lets just say the wolf isn’t the bad guy in this story.

Saw this movie earlier last week. You can watch the trailer by clicking on the Official Site link below and then Media > Trailers. The movie I thought was only decent. The storyline was cliché where a kung fu expert only learns that being winning is not always the greatest, and sometimes losing is the ultimate move. The martial arts was also a bit weak, but I guess that was trying to show 霍元甲 (Huo Yuan Jia) was more human-like, then the normally invincible Jet Li.

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The movie made me think of Fist of Legend because apparently 霍元甲 (Huo Yuan Jia) is the founder of 精武門 (Jing Wu Men) and In Fist of Fury, Jet Li plays the role of 陳真 (Chen Zhen), a student of 霍元甲 who was studying in Japan. He learnt about about his master’s death, and immediately returned to Shanghai only to discovered his master was poisoned. This sort of spoils the ending of the movie for you, but that’s what you get for reading spoilers right?

霍元甲 apparently was a real person and so is his school: 精武門. However, I don’t know if 陳真 is a real person or not, or if it was ficiticious story created by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury. In this movie, Chen Zhen wasn’t really mentioned and they only briefly touched upon his school.

The story is about how 霍元甲 came about to learn kung fu, how he suffered from his arrogance, and how he was able to raise his head once again with the help of his friend. At this time, the european imperalists have found their way to China and so has Japan. They were making fun of the Chinese for being weak and no one was able to defeat their warrior. 霍元甲 showed them the true meaning of strength and even accepted a challenge for 4 on 1 where it was the best British, French, German, and Japanese warrior against 霍元甲. Of course you already know the ending.

Saw this awhile back actually, maybe even over a month or so, but just noticed it was on my queue of blog entries that haven’t been published yet. This movie was excellent. Philip Seymore Hoffman gave an excellent performance, though it was confusing to tell what Capote was really feeling, though I’m pretty sure that was part of the amazing performance he put up.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.8/10 (10,845 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: A- / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: RATING: FRESH / READING: 91%
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Story is pretty straightforward. It’s the story of Truman Capote and how he came about writing In Cold Blood. What was amazing was the performance by the actors and how they were able to express the confusion and inner turmoil so well.

At times, you think Capote was only helping the killers to get his story. Other times, you feel that Capote is really trying to help them from the bottom of his heart. I think Capote himself didn’t know what he was trying to do and to actually see the men hung in front of his face must’ve been devastating.

One of the interesting facts was that Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) was Capote’s research assistance for this book. From Wikipedia: Capote was a lifelong friend of Monroeville neighbor Harper Lee and was the inspiration for the character of Dill in her best-seller To Kill a Mockingbird. Capote frequently implied that he himself had written a considerable portion of her novel; some even say he ghosted the entire novel. At least one person — Pearl Kazin Bell, an editor at Harper’s — has gone on record as believing his assertions were true. It is widely asserted, however, that Capote would likely have been much more aggressive in claiming credit for the novel’s Pulitzer Prize had he been the real author. Capote never achieved a Pulitzer for his own work. His persona was far more flamboyant than hers and their writing styles reflect this difference. New evidence, in the form of a July 9, 1959 letter from Capote to his aunt indicates, however, that Lee did indeed write the entire book herself and that any claims to the contrary are false.

Despite the movie being hilarious, it was quite disturbing to see Pierce Brosnan act feminine, though I guess that was one of the things that made the movie so funny. Saw this movie earlier this week and the ending sorta surprised me. See spoilers.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.3/10 (3,526 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: RATING: FRESH / READING: 75%
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Movie is about Julian, a corporate hitman, who’s skilled at taking out the competition against the people who hire him. Then comes Danny, a troubled businessman who may lose his job to a local competition. Julian was a lonely man, and Danny was stressed. Julian needed a friend, and Danny needed someone to open to. In a way, they sorta complimented each other.

I mean, with that starting plot, one sort of must assumed what was going to happen…

So story goes on, they split up. Julian continues his assigments and Danny got the job. But Julian began to have 2nd thoughts. He was burnt out and his mind was starting to play tricks on him. He keeps seeing himself on his target’s face. Soon he wanted out, but his boss won’t let him and decides to kill him.

Julian can now only turn to his one and only friend: Danny. He tells Danny that his boss said if he’d do one more job, he’d let him go. Danny was reluctant to help him at first, but Julian yells, “You owe me one.”

So one must wonder what he meant by that… And who’s this last guy Julian has to kill? You’ll find out if you watch it.