You should never be purely retarded

Just came back from watching tropic thunder with my colleagues, and i must say i am truly disappointed. It was a cross of 21 and Austin Powers 3, dodgy comparisons but let me explain. They had a perfect premise for LOL and if you didn’t already know, its about three actors (played by three actors) shooting a war film and was accidentally put into a real war scenario. Things started of real fun, and how wouldnt it be with these 3 awesome comedy actors put together? But when the freshness of the premise starts wearing out…it just became mediocre. They couldn’t maintain the momentum throughout the whole 120 minutes (aka 21) and it was disappointing because the first half an hour or so generated a generous ammount of giggles.

Another thing that was completely unnecessary was the huge ammount of cameos. I never knew what was the deal with cameos as they rarely add anything to the movie. I can only recall very few instances where they were pretty good most. On the top of my head i would say recently is Jonah Hill in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the babes (Elisha Cuthbert, Elizabeth Shannon etc.) in Love Actually. In these cases the actor/actresses actually fit the role or fits into the right context. Really, i am not against cameos but this movie really looks like they concentrated too much into including them rather than improving the script etc. The first movie that pops into mind when mentioning this is obviously AUSTIN POWERS 3. (if you haven’t already guessed it)

The final note is about the lameness about the movie. There’s only so much lameness a comedy can take, and this movie crossed that line. With so many talented actors, i wouldn’t expect lameness to carry this movie but it was what they did (which contributed to the boringness at the second half on the movie). It’s ironic too that **SPOILERS…..kinda….*** in one scene Robert Downey’s character said “You should never act purely retarded in a movie, only mostly retarted” (referring the other chars such as Forrest Gump who won Oscars) because that’s what i would describe how they acted towards the end of the movie – purely retarded.

Driving signals

If there's one thing Malaysians lack, its driving courtesy. I mean people here in the UK (and in Aussie too from my experience) almost never fail to stop and give way to other cars or for pedestrians to cross the road. Try crossing the road on a ZEBRA CROSSING in KL and see if the cars stop WITHOUT slamming the horns repeatedly. Hope you don't end up in the hospital.

Interestingly here in the UK, ppl actually flash their lights twice to tell the other car that "hey im slowing down for you so you can cut in front of me". And the other car would say "thank you" by either blinking their harzard lights twice or signal left and right in quick successions (since you can't flash the person behind you). This is stark contrast to our pathetic usage of the 'flash' back home where it means "piss off! you're driving too damn slow!" or "don't cut in front of me yet cause im gonna speed pass you".

I'm gonna try it out when i get back home. Although i'll be expecting more "what the fuck" than "thank you" signals.

Cloverfield joins Top Movies List

By now most of you have already watched Cloverfield, and half you liked it and the rest didn't. This is the first movie i have seen people walking out of the cinema just half an hour into the movie. I even heard from HeXiang that her friend puked after watching it. I did, however had a great time watching this unique film, and has officially become my Best Monster Movie of all time, overtaking the likes of Godzilla, King Kong and Jurassic Park (and many others).

For those living under a shell, Cloverfield is a movie about a monster attacking New York. Its as simple as that. Not much explanation was given as to how the monster came about or whether it was killed at the end. It is, however, filmed from the perspective of regular citizens, not heroes who were trying to save the world. It was what made the movie feel so fresh, and it does make a good job making you believe that you could be the one experiencing all this nightmare and running around the city for your lives while getting chased by some giant ass monsters. I found that this made the movie is more like a ride rather than a film, but it was not a bad thing as it was a very enjoyable one.

Unfortunately, many people could not enjoy the film as much as i did and i perfectly understand why. The camera is very shaky (imagine yourself holding a camera and running your ass off) so it can easily cause dizziness especially people who are sitting towards the front. Its like motion sickness, some people get it some people don't. Another common complaint is a lack of a proper ending but i have to disagree with this. It is a very suiting ending to this kind of film. We are not watching a chick flick where its perfectly predictable and there is always a happy ending.

In conclusion, i highly recommend this to any movie lovers who are open-minded and ready to try something new. There is a chance that it may not be your type of flick, but if it is you will be highly rewarded. 9/10 from me.

Top Movies List:

Best Movie: The Matrix
I remember going to this movie initially to watch all the cool fighting scenes but was surprised to discover a deep and interesting plot that tied the whole movie together. And bullet time was awesome back then. Too bad the sequels were watchable at best.

Best Trilogy: Lord Of The Rings
There is no argument here. Lets move on.

Best Sci-fi Flick: Star Wars Episode 3
Could have dethroned LOTR if it wasn't for Episode 1 & 2. The third installment was basically a Star Wars' fan's wet dream. Features the best lightsabre battles to date.

Best Horror Movie: Sixth Sense
Sorry havent watched that many in this genre but this is the best so far. Had a good story and had a few good frights. Very original at that time.

Best Monster Movie: Cloverfield
Read above.

Best 3d Animation: Ratatouiie
All Pixar movies derserve a nomination except Cars. This was the latest and i think its their best so far.

Best 2d Animation: Lilo & Stitch
Very cute and enjoyable. Why don't they make any of these anymore? 2d art is underappreciated. (I heard Pixar's next film is 2d though so i'm keeping my fingers crossed)

Best Romantic Film: Love Actually, A Walk To Remember
Hard to decide because Love Actually was a light comedy and AWTR was pure romance. I loved most of Love Actually's minis-tories except a few, but very enjoyable overall. AWTR was a surprisingly good performance from Mandy Moore and was very touching and sweet.

Best Comedy: Knocked Up, Wedding Crashers, Shrek 2
Too tough to call considering i watch too many of these, plus we get more jokes as we grow older. These are the recent few on the top of my head that i have personally enjoyed.

Best Chick Flick: 10 Things I Hate About You
My first chick flick turned out to be the best so far. Featured great acting (Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles) and a decent plot and most importantly, a very feel good story.

Best Drama: Forrest Gump
Great story about life and Tom Hanks is excellent. Instant classic.

Best Action: Kill Bill Vol. 1
Very cheesey at times but i enjoyed the art and mindless chopping. (Not to mention showers of blood) Honorable mentions include Die Hard 4 and the Bourne Trilogy.

Best Musical: Grease
King of the cheese. But for some reason the songs are stuck in my head. Hairspray is very good too. I like my musicals to be brainless and cheerful.

Phew, got carried away and the list got longer and longer.

Watching Friends on DVD

After all these years i still think that Friends is one of the most addictive and fun comedy around. Maybe because i grew up with it and can connect to each of the characters so well after watching them for so long. Its amazing when you see the consistency in their characters even after 10 seasons; it almost seems like they already grew into those characters. I remember David Schwimmer once saying that he wants ppl to stop calling him "Ross" but i dont think we can help it. If (very big if) I were to bump into any of the stars the first thing that will pop into my mind is their Friends character. I think even they themselves can get out of it when they act in other roles. Just look at the millions of movies that Jennifer Aniston has acted in and she is basically "Rachel" in every single one of them.

As a side note, i have discovered how to burn videos onto DVDs that can be watched on DVD players. I always thought that i could use Nero to burn these easily and never actually tried but i was wrong. It more complicated than that, you have to first encode the video files into a compatible format and then use another program that allows you to burn these type of files onto DVDs. Thankfully i googled around and discovered DVD Flick which is a freeware that easily does all these for you. Why do i even bother? Despite having a nice 19" widescreen LCD on my comp, theres nothing like kicking back on the couch and watching your favourite shows on a HDTV.

On the down side, a video DVD only holds 120 minutes, whereas a data DVD can store a whole season of shows. It also takes a whole hour to burn one of these babies and they chew up your CPU pretty bad so you are only limited to light activities on your computer.

Casino Royale is the best bond

Few days ago, i rewatched the latest Bond movie starring Daniel Craig with my deedoo (she didn't watch it before) and i still think that it is the best ive seen so far. Keep in mind that i'm comparing it only to those by Pierce Brosnan (haven't watched the old ones) which followed the same style and concept for 4 films straight. Some people don't agree with me though, saying it was quite boring. I guess the argument here is that there was only one true action scene in the movie which was the first 10 minutes of the movie. I didn't mind though, not having mindless gun fights and explosions that dominated the past movies. I thought the story and plot was more rich, and the characters are much more interesting to watch. It felt more like a movie on its own rather than an episode in the series, which i realli liked. There was some down moments though such as the dumb secondary Bond girl and the mushy moments almost at the end. But that will be nitpicking, i though it was a really good movie.

Other movies along the same line includes Superman Returns and Batman Begins, which i thought were very good movies for the same reasons. I guess you can't ever satisfy both mainstream and movie purists. I'm a lil bit in the middle.