The Anime! Not the Live Action piece of Crap!

Watch it here. And save yourself 10 bucks and 2 hours of your time, not to mention the utter disgust and nausea that Blood’s Live Action movie provided.

To call itself ‘inspired’ by Production I.G’s Blood: the Last Vampire would be a great injustice.

A Review:
The girl who plays Saya absolutely do NOT resemble her, either in the animated movie or the anime series. But I’ll give it a chance. I know the movie will face a great challenge to be on par with the great animated movie. But I came in the theatre with an open mind, thinking, “Let’s see what they’ll come up with.”

And boy do they come up with utter crap. The kinda crap that makes you writhe in your seat. The kind that makes you wanna throw up. That makes you wanna find the writer, director and everyone who’s agreed to give a green light to this kinda shit of a movie, and punch em in the face.

Ok seriously, the review. The first 5 minutes, my hopes were raised way up high. The reason: They’ve followed the anime, or what I can recall from it, scene by scene. Then, the scene at the high school, where the innocent girl watches Saya kill the two demons… very Buffy-esque. And there’s always something about that dumb little show that appeals to everyone. So that’s kinda nice too.

But that’s about it. It went totally down hill from there. And it came an extremely painful, screeching halt.

All in all, I think it’s a great comedy. It’s a joke of a movie. And we did laugh about it for a good 20 minutes after the movie. Not many comedies can have that effect.

So, if you’re looking to be either disgusted or be in a state of beyond disgust, that it becomes hilarious, then by all means, watch Blood: The Last Vampire.

Otherwise, here is the real shit. Parts 1 to 5. Load em up, play em in HQ, and enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

The title intrigued me. And when I saw that the genre was horror, I knew had to watch it. I had no idea what it was about though. I’ve always wanted to watch horror stuff late at night to get the full effect, but I decided to just watch it on a Saturday afternoon. Procrastination no good no?

This movie is in Swedish. It has a very slow start, like one of those art central film art stuff. Ok now they call it OKTO right? Anyway, I’m not a fan of artsy-fartsy movies as some people have observed, from my choice of movies. In fact I hate ‘artistic’ stuff that try too hard to be artistic and have the message of ‘if you don’t understand my art, you’re not artistic’. But movies like Let the Right One In, goes beyond that. I mean there are no rules on ‘artistic films’. If a movie is good, its good.

Basically, Let the Right One In is a ‘romantic’ horror film about a bullied boy falling into a relationship with the vampire next door. Interesting right? There are some aspects of his life that made him kinda screwed up as it is. Then he met this Vampire girl. They started becoming friends and slowly they helped each other out on their individual needs and problems. There aren’t any twists and stuff, just good storytelling.

Other than the slightly slow pace, the movie is up there with the likes of El Orfanato, Exorcist, and other kick ass horror movies which I can’t remember. Haha.

Ok the stuff I LOVE about the movie.

• The awesome music. Totally suits the mood. Fantastic score.
• Eli. The Vampire. She’s a damn good actress. Comparable if not better than those other child actors like Dakota Fanning or that 6th Sense Kid who sees ghosts.
• The subtle hints of gore. It makes it even more scary.
• Sticking close to the vampire lore. With none of the fancy cool shits. Damn Buffy.
• Good cinematography. Good camerawork with little or no obvious in-the-face stupid scare tactics.

One really eye popping scene for me is how they answered the question of why Vampires can’t enter any house or room without being invited. Heard it first from Buffy. Damn Buffy. Then everywhere else. But I have no idea why they can’t go in. Is there an invisible wall? That would be lame. Will they just burn up and die? That’s also lame. But in Let the Right One In, it gives a perfect freaky answer. Watch it to find out OR… I’ll just say it here.

*SPOILER*
Eli (the vampire) told Oskar (the boy) she can only come in if he invites her. Oskar playfully refuses to invite Eli and waves her in. Eli, after a short pause, enters. Nothing out of the blue here. Then Eli’s face starts to go all screwed up. She looked incredibly sick. Then blood start to appear from her back. She began bleeding profusely. Blood oozes out from her eyes, nose, mouth, ears and every orifice of her body. Oskar got extremely freaked out at the distance Eli would go to prove her point to someone she likes. He cried, “Stop! Please Stop! You can come in!” And he hugged Eli.

Eli looked something like this.

The whole thing is just awesome.

Then of course. I love the last part. When Eli saves Oskar.

So you see, sometimes special effects overuse isn’t the way to go. Although there were some efx in Let the Right One In.

I’d give it a “Go watch it when you have the time to focus on the movie. Otherwise, don’t bother.” rating.

Don’t even think of messing with him. Well, not him, but his character, Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent who’s daughter is being kidnapped by some bad guys dealing in the sex trade.

The movie is extremely awesome to the core. I don’t say this often for a lot of movies. This one ranks among the top movies. And I’m saying this pretty close after watching Quantum of Solace, which I find very cool.

I don’t know why its not being shown in Singapore cinemas. But its a great miss if they don’t show it here. I’ve got nothing but praises for this film. One thing people MIGHT complain is the rather slow start. But I find it ok. If you come in to an action film which jumpstarts with all action and no buildup, you know the story’s gonna be averageish.

Liam Neeson in Taken. Very spy-movie poster.

And this movie is a great example that shows that shaky camwork does NOT make an action sequence more … action-packed. It’s stupid. Shaky cam done on purpose thinking the audience will feel like they’re a part of the action, is stupid. Luc Besson is a director who’s got things right when it comes to action. I think he did The Professional and La Femme Nikita. Both great French action films. Great.

Anyway, first you get to watch the solid build up of characters, introducing Bryan Mills as a retired agent and his failed marriage and his attempts to get closer to his teenage daughter. Then his daughter gets kidnapped and you see a whole new side to him which kicks so much ass so painfully that bad guys having intentions of going into the sex trade is gonna feel it.

Speaking about ass kicking, the fight scenes were exceptionally well shot and fully immersive. And its not one of those Steven Seagal style shits. His methods were really brutal. Or at least, it looks damn hard core.

The story is simple yet powerful. And then Holly Valance is in it. Man, this review’s all over the place. The movie is a fine piece of work and I’m still in awe at how damn cool he is. Oh and I think the Bogaman is the one who told me about this movie. Finally watched it dude, it’s bloody awesome.

He takes no shit from no one. Seriously. Watch the movie!

update: I forgot about Bogaman’s review on his site. So I actually watched the movie forgetting who recommended me. That was my unbiased review. Read his here. And yeah, I’d agree with Taken ranking right up there with THE DARK KNIGHT. Yeah. That GOOD.

After watching this video, I knew I had to write a quick post on this movie which I caught few days ago. WATCH THIS!

QoS is, to me, a good movie. I’m not really a Bond fan. I never watched the earlier films fully. I’ve never read a single Ian Fleming book. And I’ve only known about James Bond properly since its reintroduction by Pierce Brosnan.

But the latest reboot, with Daniel Craig, is simply the best. The first movie, Casino Royale, proves that Craig’s Bond is up there with the best of the Bond actors, and QoS just confirms that his depiction of James Bond IS the best.

The action is way more intense than the first, in that Bond finds himself caught in chase scene after chase scene. The fight scenes were really raw, sort of unrehearsed. That could be a good thing, or a bad thing. Good, because it looks really brutal and fierce. Bad, because the shaky camerawork makes you dizzy.

James Bond is the first of its kind. Spy movies. Its been around since the early 60s with Sean Connery playing the role, if I’m not wrong. After that, so many spy movie/series came about. Some are really good, like Mission Impossible ONE, and Bourne Identity, but nothing beats the original. Although its been rebooted more times than any other movie character, the personality of James Bond is still unique.

In Quantum of Solace, you’ll see Bond to be one of the coolest badass characters EVER. All the moves he makes, all the lines he said, all freakin’ cool. Gives you the wow effect on every single thing he did on the movie. From his awesome fights, down to the hard cold stare he gives. All cool.

The only thing I couldn’t really follow is the storyline. Yes, it IS the most important thing in the movie, but, I realise that not fully understanding the story does not make the movie a shitty one. Sometimes the audience couldn’t catch it the first time round. Take Mission Impossible ONE for example. I had to watch it twice to fully understand it. First time round, I only took in the awesomeness. I know all sorts of shit and backstabbing is going on but I dunno what or who is doing them. Only after watching the second time, do I fully realise the awesomeness of the movie. Likewise with Quantum of Solace. I basically follow the story, but I have questions about a lot of the details.

Then there’s Olga Kurylenko! Yay for her for keeping her clothes on this time. Yup, she took em down in Hitman, and almost every movie before that, I think. Even did it in Max Payne, except you don’t see anything. The role is pretty similar to Hitman, except she’s of some use in this movie.

Whoever says the movie sucks because the story isn’t clear, maybe its you who can’t grasp a slightly more complicated movie plot. You can go back to watching super simple storyline movies like umm… Max Payne.

I’m gonna watch it again. Most probably not in the theaters though.

An alternate title to this post would be:

The shit of a movie that is Max Payne.

It is an extremely boring movie. I think we can classify boring movies as the worst type of movie ever.
Because, for a movie that is super shitty bad, there’s at least some entertainment value from laughing our asses off at the stupidity of the writer, director, actors, or whoever’s involved in the production. But for the incredibly boring movie, you have to sit through a dreaded 1 and a half hours. Even a time that short felt like 3 hours.

Why is Max Payne an extremely boring movie?

It revolves around a typical hero who’s faced a great injustice. In this case, his whole family got murdered. That made Payne a brooding detective bent on getting revenge on whoever’s responsible. Usually, when this happens, the protagonist becomes all superpowered (or at least supermotivated) and goes on a kick ass rampage. That would at least be decent enough for me.

But not for Max Payne… the movie is slow in trying to discover who the bad guy really is. Revelations aren’t at all dramatic. The effects, while cool, are totally spent unecessarily and at pointless occasions.

If I’d remember correctly, the Max Payne game is one of the pioneers of in-game bullet time.

But here in the movie, the only bullet time action we get is a cheap crappy shot of him doing some sort of back flip and shooting the bad guy in the most unrealistic way. Or that’s the only one I can remember from the super boring movie.

I’ve been warned not to waste my money on this movie. And I’ve read almost in every trusted website that the movie sucks. But I had to see it for myself, didn’t I? Oh well.

Olga Kurylenko and Milla Kunis. Two reasons that might list Max Payne as a watchable movie. But then again, it’s too boring to be watchable.

If it weren’t for the Natasha character, one might consider putting a gun to his head and blowing his brains off halfway through he dreaded movie. She’s the one from Hitman, and will appear again in James Bond’s new film. Pretty much the same character throughout these movies. Who knows what she’ll play in Quantum of Solace.

Then there’s her in-movie sister, played by Mila Kunis. I thought she looked familiar. I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall quite recently, and it’s the same actress. And then I realised she was that irritating girl from 70s show. Also, she played Meg in family guy. Why did she suddenly get hot? The answer is plastic surgery. Yup.

Even so, the characters are so weak, and pointless. Including Payne’s own character. Poor Marky Mark, first the Happening. Now Max Pain.

Don’t watch it. Save your money for something else.

The movie starts off with ACDC’s Back to Black song playing in the background. That itself is a great start. Every second after that has been an awesome feast of the sights and sounds.

Iron Man is one hero which I’m least familiar with. Yet the movie delivers in so many levels. I could identify some references to the Marvel universe while some more knowledgeable friends alerted me to other minute hints of coolness.

Spoilers below. Stop reading if you haven’t seen the movie… ah what the heck, read on, so that you’ll notice these cool stuff when you watch it.

1. War Machine hints: The supporting actor, the air force colonel who works closely with Stark, kept me guessing if he’s gonna be War Machine. As the movie progresses, I began to realise they won’t be including War Machine in the movie. Then there was the scene where Iron Man had left to fight and this guy’s standing around, saw the Mark II armour, and I got really excited. He IS gonna be War Machine! Then he said, (almost to the camera) “Next time baby…” That’s it man… Geekgasm…

2. References to Mandarin
I didn’t notice this at ALL. But zero 12 alerted me to what the terrorist organisation’s name is. Ten Rings. I didn’t really pay attention to it. Then looking back, I realised, the terrorist leader kept playing with the one weird looking ring on his finger, and Ten Rings… well, the MANDARIN has Ten Rings. Oooh…

3. SHIELD
Some nerdy agent guy kept bugging Stark and Pepper for an important ‘debrief’. He said he worked for an organisation which has a very long name. And everyone kept telling them that they need a new name or something short to call themselves. Towards the end of the movie, they told Stark they did settle on a name. An abbreviation… SHIELD.

4. The Post Credit scene.
Won’t say anything here. But Marvel comic readers MUST stay till the end. Ultimate Geekgasm.

Iron Man marks the beginning of this year’s superhero movie fiasco. Next up… Batman, Hancock, Hellboy, and many many more! (except Superhero Movie, that’s just lame)

I will say it. Guillermo Del Toro is the master of Horror. Not just cheap thrill shock therapy horror, but really freaky, disturbing, ‘haunts you in your sleep’ kind of Horror.

At first I knew about him as the director of Hellboy, which was cool and all, but the movie’s not really into the freaky business. Then came Pan’s Labyrinth, which deserves an award for being freaky. Del Toro’s twisted take on fairy tales has made Pan’s Labyrinth a movie I will never forget.

And now, I have just watched The Orphanage. Another spanish film produced by Del Toro, and with honourable mentions to the director Juan Antonio Bayona. You can read a good review of the film here from IMDB.

El Orfanato is seriously one of the best Horror movies I have ever seen, regardless of language. I get multiple goosebump sessions throughout the movie with its excellent camera play, teasing you with possible ’sightings’, and not to forget its freakishly superb sound arrangements, edging you all through the movie.

The story’s fantastic. And there are really no plot holes left uncovered. Everything pieced together perfectly, and it has a good reason to. Unlike most other horror films which try miserably to put a weak story to an otherwise scary situation, where they try to explain stuff but end up spoiling the entire mystery/horror effect.

Unlike Labyrinth, where there’s quite a number of freaky monsters/creatures and quite a bit of gore, The Orphanage has a minimal amount of such things, but they are used to maximum effect. And I really like that in a horror movie. You can take something so trivial… so simple… and if you add the right amount of twist to it, you could create something of unimaginable… freakiness.

All, and I mean ALL horror buffs should watch the movie. And I wish I had a brain like Del Toro’s. And Neil Gaiman. And Jhonen Vasquez, just for the kicks.

Let’s end the post with a hint of the one freaky thing from the Orphanage.

Say hi to Tomas. He’s your friend. You can see him, right? Heh heh.

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 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.