Starring Keanu Reeves and Forest Whitaker.

What started out as a potentially shitty movie, turned out to be pretty good. Reeves play a Vice cop who is part of a special unit that likes to take matters into their own hands. It’s quite similar to LA Confidential, but at least it’s set in the present day and isn’t quite as draggy.

There’s just one thing I’d like to highlight. I think Street Kings showed Keanu Reeves fiercer and more dangerous than when he played Neo in Matrix Trilogy. Yeah, he really rips people apart in this one.

There’s also several TV actors who play some important roles in the movie. Sucroe (Prison Break) and House (House) is in the movie.

There’s not many good movies showing around this time. So, Street Kings is among the top, for now.

It’s ok if you wanna save up for the super cool movie overload that’s coming soon. Stuff like Iron Man, the Dark Knight and Hellboy, to name a few.

I’ve told so many people about this monster, and being the poor story teller that I am, they ended up laughing at me when I do the actions while describing the monster.

So here, watch it for yourselves, if you hadn’t watched the movie, Pan’s Labyrinth.

It’s not too scary, after all, it’s just a fairy tale.

*Why I chose to show this now is coz I wanted to watch the Nightwish concert I had on DVD. So, after searching for it, I found that it's on the same disc as Pan's Labyrinth. Therefore, I was reminded of this monster. Heh.

I’ve been wondering so long who the hell is the man behind that awesome powerful voice in movie trailers… And how can anyone get to his level…

Don LaFontaine. Awesome Voice.

I finally got a hold of the movie at Mustafa. Yes, I bought it. I’ve been wanting to watch it properly ever since that fateful day back in my NS life.

We were having night duties and the drivers loaded up Kuntilanak on the dvd player and blasted the 5.1 surround speaker with it. Yeah, they have all that shit in camp. With the rumours of a REAL Pontianak going around in camp, especially in level 3, auditorium, I was thinking that these guys are freakin’ crazy to watch it at night. And so the movie started with only 4 of us, if I remember correctly. Two infocomm guys and two drivers. The intro compelled me to stay and watch it through.

But then roughly 10 minutes into the movie, the rest of the drivers who went out came back. They made a ruckus. But after settling down with their food, cigarettes and hanging up their boots, quite a crowd had gathered at the ‘cage’ to watch the movie.

Then everything went downhill. They started pausing the movie, or slowing it down, NOT at the scary parts, but the sexy bits where Julie Estelle showed slightly more skin than usual. The DVD player has a zoom function and the crazy drivers played with that too. Everyone had a laugh now and then, but one thing for sure, the flow had broken, and I ended up not paying attention to the movie. I think I was half-occupied with playing someone’s PSP.

Ok, enough of that story, on to the…

KUNTILANAK REVIEW

I just finished watching it, so the stuff is fresh in my head. Firstly, the hype that made me wanna watch it properly came from several sources, namely Inkblot, who shares the appreciation of horror and scary movies. And a number of people who swore by the scary-ness of the movie.

As I watched it, I was keeping in mind Inkblot’s warning about the last 15 minutes, and how it’ll scare my balls off. But honestly, I found the little hints in the earlier part of the movie being the scariest parts. Albeit not THAT scary.

The parts when Mademoiselle Kuntilanak first made her glorious apperance… the little sneaks of her torso, hair, feet… her freakish movement… her combing of white hair… hints of her disfigured face… those things got me sitting up and watching intently.

As the story progresses, and I couldn’t really understand the language, I began to slouch down again and merely anticipate that last part Inkblot was talking about.

And so everything went on, and the finale came. The full figure of the ghost was seen. And there were even two little ones coming out to play with Julie Estelle.

The way I see it, once you show everything, you’ve got nothing else to show and for me, I’ll be thinking, “Oh, there’s the whole thing? Hmm, that ain’t so bad.”, instead of something like, “oh shit, that’s the freaking ghost, oh but where’d it go? woah shit… that’s scary!”, which happened in the first few appearances of the Kuntilanak.

And the movie closed its story, with Julie Estelle still having relations with the ghost. And lastly, a cheesy scare trick which again, was expected. Sigh. I really sighed at the end of it. I was expecting a sleepless night looking out my window every now and then and finally sleeping in the hall with the lights and TV on coz I’d be too scared. But instead, here I am, half sleepy and writing this review about a movie which is rather well made but just not scary enough.

Oh and I take back that part I said about it being well-made. There were some weird cuts made in the movie. I don’t know if it’s just the vcd but it sure looked like crap.

I just re-read Inkblot’s review on the movie, and I must say, sorry dude, it’s just not scary enough. I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that the crazy driver dudes spoilt half the movie for me, or because of the fact that I’m expecting too much to be scared.

I do like the whole Mangkujowo (spelling?) mysticism and the Indon-Jawa feel to the whole thing. The sets, head on the mirror, art pieces, depicting that ancient Java look is pretty cool.

Well, this has been a really long review. I think I’ll stop here.
Kuntilanak, a movie that may scare some, but didn’t really work for me. I’m still waiting for the one.

I think I can say that this is one of the BEST monster movie I have EVER seen.

Okay, so it’s shot on a hand held videocam, ‘blair witch style’, they say, but still, this movie, or ‘footage’ freaking delivers man. It’s bloody awesome.

And the fact that it’s taken on a videocam makes it all the more believable.

The first part of the movie, which was the party, wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be. And when the shit starts to happen, you really feel like you’re there. Everything is so damn real! Intense to the core man!

Ok, the running while the camera’s on makes people dizzy and wanna puke, but I got to sit at the last seat of the cinema and to me, it ain’t that bad. There were only a few instances of the ‘running with camera’ thing.

Rob, Elena and that other chick.

The actors did a hell of a job. Very believable. And Beth is just drop dead gorgeous. Hudson, the cameraman, is just great, and *spoiler* Elena (dunno the spelling) was cool even as she was bit by the parasites, got infected and freakin’ burst inside out!

As for the monster(s), it was awesome as hell. All that hype and ‘leaked’ concept arts turn out to be fake. So when I saw the monster in the movie, I was taken aback. It was very original, I must say. Freaky too, to a certain extent.

I just love the movie. I just love this kinda things, whether it be ghosts, witches, monsters or aliens, these kinda live ‘real’ footages just really appeal to me.

I remembered I did something like this in JC, with a friend’s video cam, and it really looked real. We were having late night rehearsals and I decided to make this spontaneous and quick horror short film. Come to think of it, I guess it was really the first one I ever did.

Unfortunately, the video has gone missing as it wasn’t compiled or saved. But yeah, you get the idea right… I love this shit.

So, I give Cloverfield 10 stars. Really. I freakin’ LOVE it.

And not to forget, after we watched the movie, we saw two UFOs in the tampines sky. We followed them thinking they were kites, but we found no one manning them. Freaky.

Holy crap. I was reading thru my morning RSS feeds as usual when I saw the news reported on several sites across the net.

The man who plays Joker in the yet to release Batman movie… is dead.

He was found dead in his apartment. Reasons unknown. I know it’s not right to relate such a news to the publicity of the movie but I can’t help but remember some things he did to prepare himself for the Joker role.

It’s probably some other reasons but suicide/overdose seem to be the biggest suspects.

Well, that’s a shock. Damn.

This would be the most recent movie I caught in theatres, and it’s worth every buck.

You know there are some movies which seem draggy and you kept thinking what the hell is the point of showing us mundane conversations or irrelevant scenes? Well, they’re actually to add some realism to the movie, coz it’s probably set in a different time than ours.

We’ve seen it many times in stuff like Ali, Zodiac, Monsters’ Ball. But the effect gets through, coz you do believe that the movie is set in.. whenever the movie says its set.

American Gangster is also such a movie. So you can expect some draggy bits. But if you follow closely and optimistically, you’ll find it to be perfectly harmonised.

Denzel Washington. Every movie this guy acts in becomes gold. It’s either he picks which movie he wanna star in really carefully, or he just transforms whatever movie he starred in to an awesome film. Either way, he’s one of the reasons you gotta catch American Gangster.

Denzel plays Frank Lucas, a black man rising from a chauffeur of a notorious moneylender to a big boss of a massive drug syndicate. I just love this kinda ‘rise to power’ movies. I couldn’t help but compare this movie to greats like Scarface and Godfather. But I think Gangster can stand on its own.

Russel Crowe plays a cop who is as straight as he can ever be. In the time of corruption, he’s the very few who stood for true justice. It’s amazing how he couldn’t be tempted by all that offers.

Armand Assante was also in the movie, as some mob boss.

And all that linkage to Ali vs Joe Frasier, which reminds me of Will Smith’s Ali, is just great.

The movie starts rather messily, and you find yourself asking what’s going on for quite some time. But as the pieces fall together, it’s really an awesome experience.

I’d recommend it, if you got 2 hours 40 minutes to spare. Heh.

Hi all, it’s been a while. I’ve been wanting to write about this, so here it goes.

Stardust is a fairy tale with a very traditional take yet it’s so refreshingly new. I simply love the movie. I didn’t know it was starred by Claire Danes. If I did, I’d made a point to catch it in the theatres. But anywho, here’s some stuff I love about the movie.

1. Ian McKellen, the actor who played Gandalf and Magneto, did the narration of the movie.

2. The storyline, of course, is gem in itself. Seamless progressions and perfect timings of suspense and comedy. The story’s pretty simple. I mean, how complex can fairy tales be right? But its somehow very elegant.

3. Claire Danes. Oh, I’ve mentioned this already right?

4. Michelle Pfeiffer. Did I get the spelling right? But being so old, she’s still got it. But really, you get to see her getting really really OLD in this movie. Kinda gross.

5. When the credits roll, and I was wondering which genius came up with something so original yet so familiar, my question was answered when the name Neil Gaiman scrolled up the screen. Awesome.

6. Robert Deniro plays a very humourous role of the sky pirate. Just shows how great an actor he is.

7. Beautiful music score. It can make or break a movie.

8. Very Funny concept of princes. A screwed up dead king, and hilarious antics all through the movie.

It’s a fun, and memorable movie. I like it.

I don’t know why some of my friends said that this movie sucks. I find it quite good. Not incredibly ridiculously good lah… but it’s rather good. Some parts are draggy reminding me of movies like Castaway. But some parts are superbly thrilling.

There is this one part… I fell in love with its brilliant execution. Its suspense buildup, portrayal of its subjects, the introductory scene of the “dark seekers”, it’s fantastic. I love how the fear grips the Will Smith character as well as the audience. That whole part was superb.

Although the ending didn’t follow the novel’s ending, I think it’s a better finish than the original, which would have been extremely depressing.

I give the movie 7 outta 10. Pretty good movie. Got me thinking about it into the night.

And the best thing is… I get to eat nachos. Finally!

I’ve been meaning to do this ever since the hi def trailer was released. It might be a bit late, but I just wanna point out some goodies I’ve spotted after geekishly forwarding and rewinding the trailer frame by frame.

So, in random order, here they are.

The first thing is this scene before it zooms in to Bruce Wayne sitting on the chair. You can see his armguard thing from the batsuit lying on the floor. *pointed out by Joe Kool.

Then, it zooms in to Wayne, and you can see that he’s in the batsuit, looking at his cowl. I heard and read somewhere that this isn’t even in Gotham City. Hong Kong maybe?

Batman overlooking the city. At this angle, that new armourish suit doesn’t look that bad.

Joker in the police car. Notice that the car is swerving around, even though it’s a straight road. Something must’ve happened to the cops driving the car. And if I can remember, the driver seat is on the left, but looks like it’s empty eh?

I think this might JUST be the modified batcave. Reminds me of the Matrix virtual armory. See the elevator-like thing right in the middle? If it is the batcave, it’s a little too bright isn’t it?

Before the scene where the batsignal got smashed, there was a split second showing who’s responsible for smashing it with an axe. Looks a hell lot like commissioner Gordon eh?

I thought they didn’t put Two Face anywhere in the trailer, but hey, look who’s circled in the picture above. It’s Harvey Dent!

Check it out! It’s Alfred! He got a “oh bugger” look on his face as Joker comes in to crash the party.

Joker is clapping his hands in prison. Ooooh how very psychotic! Look at the sharp, black fingernails.

A shot of the batpod firing a shot into some debris to clear the path.

The scene where Joker is in jail. He’s put in isolation. No one else in the cell but him. And he seem to be taunting the cops, the way he’s sitting and looking at them.

This is the bat signal being destroyed by Commissioner Gordon. Wait, is he commissioner already? Last we saw, he was a lieutenant. Hmmm….

Joker at his psychotic greatness again.

And yes, there’s a Starbucks in Gotham also, even with its corruption and all.

The batpod rolling.

This scene is awesome. Somehow it reminded me of the scene in Tim Burton’s Batman where Batman flew his plane down and tries to shoot Joker while Joker simply stood there unmoved. This time, Batman’s on the batpod.

I shouldn’t have written this when I’m this sleepy. Could’ve made more observations, but if I don’t write this now, I’ll probably not write it at all.

Ok, that’s it, I guess. I can’t wait for more goodies and the movie itself. More entries to come. Stay tuned.

see also:
Batman Trailer Goodies Part 2