THE FOREST

http://bit.ly/1NaSd8V

STEALING CARS

http://bit.ly/1SSAK9O

OBVIOUS CHILD

http://bit.ly/1USvxBP

CHEWIE, WE'RE HOME ! (SWTFA)

http://bit.ly/1Rgva1B

CHURCHILL'S SECRET

http://bit.ly/1QP5U2e

REVIEWED
From title we know right away its about the former premier of Britain Sir Winston Churchill. The secret is nothing sinister that he had multiple strokes near the end of his career. The movie showed his courage to survive due to the support from Clemy his wife. Equaly important was the nurse that attended to him during the trying months.

I guess the movie didnt have much to tell so it also included the squables of his 4 children. Due to that the focus on the man went side tracked. So watching this movie rather than expecting it to be about Churchill vs Stroke and his career plus the help from his nurse Millie, it also incuded his family which I was not interested to know. If the movie had concentrated on how Millie got him well again (never mind if over dramatized) it would have been better. Maybe too little plot to just do that. Or the movie might stressed the timeline a bit to include what he did for Britain and the man he was when in office rather than sticking to tell his bed side victory.

How Millie looked back as her achievement in nursing back to near normal with some nice motivating (and suspenseful back ground music) was good. Thou from the timeline when Churchill left the house and arrived to make the speech which was hours way did not synschronise with Millie depature from the house. She even had time to listen to his stammering on radio. Anyway it was for dramatic purposes which formula was used by a lot of films.

See this if you a fan of SWC and wanting to know the man a bit closer at least during his vulnerable time.

IP MAN 3

 

http://bit.ly/1TQKTqL

REVIEWED

This is the 3rd installment of the IP man. It started with a confrontation from Bruce Lee who wanted IP man to teach him Wan Shu but he was still reluctant. Nevertheless, somewhere in the movie, IPM asked a favor from BL which I think have some effect why IPMan finally agree to teach Bruce Lee. I reckon if there is an IPMan 4, it'll be about Bruce Lee and IP Man. But this story has got nothing to do with Bruce Lee but something else. Mike Tyson showed his boxing skills with IP Man but I doubt if a boxer can be in the same ring with a Martial Arts expert. However, the film didnt want to belittle MT even though he is now a has been. Fatty Sgt Po is quite a familiar face in Hong Kong film circuit.

I like this film. Too bad its in Chinese with subtitles for I have to read the subtitles to understand and this took away the concentration on the acting which is actually good. Donnie Yen can act as the "couldnt care less" Martial Arts master. You can feel his character even when he is with his wife who is taller than him in the movie. Maybe the film dont want to hide the height difference as its according to real people or simply dont have the incentive to do it. 

The background music is also commendable. Its not totally chinese flavored but very soothing when the scenes warrant it. Also effective during the fight scenes.

The strength of the film is definitely the fighting and there are lots of em (including with Mike Tyson of course). What make the fight "pleasant" is that its not superficial with less use of ropes, adequately use of slo mo with excellent editing and camera angles. Its even better than Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger 2 which I saw recently. Perhaps the artistry of the fights lies in Wan Shu itself. But superbly done bravo.

Dont forget the love and family elements of the film. Donnie Yen pulled off as being one cool very committed husband and father. 

See this as its good but ensure you have the subtitles on unless you know chinese. 7.9 on IMDB very appropiate.

AUTOMATA

http://bit.ly/Automata_14Br

REVIEWED

2 robot movies in a row is not good for ya ?

Thats what I felt watching this. Its just too slow. If robots were made to help humans but why do they make them so damn slow and sluggish with no defense mechanism at all ? They look very efficient when building or repairing their own kind (other robots). But the scene when they virtually drag Jack (played by Antonio Banderas) from the wrecked car through the desert was pointless. Why dont they devise some sort of cart with wheels from the car wreckage ? 

This movie stars Antonio Banderas (baldy) his wife Melanie Griffith (plastic surgery?), Dylan Macdermont (unrecognizable) as the bad guy and 1 familiar face. The voice of robot Cleo is of MG, very cute indeed. She also played Dr Dupre.

This suppose to happen in 2044 when the some anomalies occurred with the sun causing 97% of human to perish. Whats left is about 20 million people. There's no crops or trees as the earth had turned to wasteland with miles and miles of desert. Apart from that, radioactive level are harmful in most areas. So for human to survive they build robots. They are built with protocols not to harm humans and not to modify themselves. But some manage to fool this and they became unwanted like homeless people. Yes now you have homeless robots. But they are smart and so they manage to sustain themselves.

These robots are not like Hot Bot robot rather than close to Voltron but very sluggish and mechanical.

I just dont quite get the message of Automata. What were the renegade robots trying to do ? With such proactive attitude, they cant get anywhere when the humans came and searching for them. But lucky you have Jack (AB) to save them more of returning the favor that they did for him.

The movie was trying to be abstract but it failed to me. On a budget of $7mil, what can you do right ? Not much action is what you get and the movie become dragging. But in the end I dont get what was the whole point of the robots running. What are their plans ? There may be a concept here but having a bigger budget with more robots doing it rather than the 4 hopeless ones, could help the putting the idea through.

So to me, the movie failed in delivering what it suppose to.

 

MONK COMES DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

http://bit.ly/1QOoW5B

DADDY'S HOME

http://bit.ly/DaddysHome_15Br

REVIEWED

Just finished watching this movie and honestly I expect this to be a letdown, but it aint !

First Mark Wahlberg and Will Farrel had been paired before in a cop comedy movie which I think named Hard Cop. I remember Dwayne Johnson was also in that too and thats how MW teamed up with him in Pain and Gain. Anyway it was just pure coincidence that this is again another movie produced by Red Granite which was also behind The Wolf on WS. So Najib's step son is in this too.

This movie nearly get a 2 thumbs from me if not for the slow start which plot is far too familiar in other movies of this nature. But through this movie you will see some real stunt just for seconds but brief enough to bring the respond - did that happened ?

Beside MW and WF, Christen Hayden Church and Bob C who acted as the son in that Pacino's Collins movie were in here. Also stay right till the very end because there is another familiar face, you dont want to miss this for it got me laughing out loud literally.

Like I said, the rivalry of the biological and adopted dads took a different turn and thats what made the difference than other movies of this type. Sure enough, if not for both the main actors the movie may not be as good. But its depend on individuality of course.

Fun with  family value morale in this one

 

INTERSTELLAR

http://bit.ly/Interstellar_14Br

JURASSIC WORLD

http://bit.ly/JurrasicWorld_15Br

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

http://bit.ly/TheWolfOfWallStreet_13BluRayr

REVIEWED

 This was a replay of the movie as I need to absorb whats in it the 2nd time as the movie is after all about Trading. Its based on the book by Jordan Belfort whom LD Carpio played. The real person JB who appeared very briefly at the end of the movie looks nothing like LDC. And I dont think the character was played exactly to the JB's mannerism. But like M Fassbender who played Steve Jobs, but looks nothing like him, was also able to carry the movie well.

Viewing this for the 2nd time, in Blu Ray, give the Thumbs up emoticon above. I dont think I like it at the first viewing. And this is a long movie of just 1min less than 3 hours. Mostly comedic the movie is fast paced with many tried but good camera techniques. And it is narrated also so it makes story telling very easy to understand. 

This version was not censored, so now I understand why some people term this movie close to being a porno movie. There are adequate number of scenes where we are feasted with bare naked ladies (and men too). If you are dying to see Margie Robbie naked, look no further, this shows her in full frontal. Lots of LDC's butts shots too.

Some of the parts are really funny for me. One particular scene was at the Club house. Directed by veteran and acclaimed director Martin Scorsee thats why its good.

Why I was interested was how Trading Brokers earn their living. Unlike Fund Managers, they are not responsible on thier investors' money. Like one scene when Mathew (all right all right allright) explained to young JB, that Brokers earn cash while thier investors loose or win on paper money (unless they are cashing them). Commission on Wall Street on Blue chips is only 1% that means that for a $10,000 their comm is only $100. So the fate of the investors money is not their responsibility but they earn their commission already. Now as you can see their job is to sell thier product which is the potential of making money. If their clients keep on losing money, not that they have to pay, but their reputation will be dented. So brokers must be good sellers rather than good traders. Being good at both is a blessing. But they dont trade as they only placed investors' trade which was based on the brokers' recommendation.

So thats why the baldy thumbs up as this movie showed me something. BTW, the movie was made due to the hardwork of our own PM's step son in getting $100Mil to fund the movie possibly from 1mdb.

CAPTURE THE FLAG

http://bit.ly/CaptureTheFlag_15Br

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS : THE ROAD CHIP

http://bit.ly/AlvinAndTheChipmunksTheRoadChip_15Br

AMY

http://bit.ly/Amy_15Br

KILL YOUR FRIENDS

http://bit.ly/KillYourFriends_15Br

REVIEWED

This is a British production movie stars Nicholas Hoult (Ex Jessica Lawrence BF ?), young Mr Beast (X men) and also played one of the baldy guy in Mad Max. He is the main character playing an executive guy in a Record production company by the name of Unigram. As this was supposed to happened in the 90s when Musicians really depend on on these guys to be somewhere. Also in this movie was James Corden, the fat British host of an American Talk show. Also new transporter, last seen in Deadpool, is here not a significant role thou.

I have a problem in trying to get what the Brits are talking although with the headphone on. Sometimes I could not completely comprehend what they are talking to one another. I guess the mixing may not be that good or simply they are simply hard to understand. Not because of vocabulary or Slang, simply their resonance is hard to catch unlike Americans. I did had that problem when trying to understand what some Expatriates were talking when working in real life.This is one of those film when I wish it had subtitles but it did not.

The film has its plot and it was narrated so it made the story line more easier to understand and flow easily. One of the narration which i like was when Steve (NH) asked what currency pair a Forex Trader loves. The answer are those pairs that are making profit. Very good answer.

Its about trying to get to the top of the ladder and trying to be on the top and doing the whatever things have to carried out just to be up there. How Steve did this was very smart he already thought ahead of things. And talking about killing in a British movie, you will not be disappointing thou very few in this one.

Watch this to understand how making superstars or an albums work. How demo CD (and not Youtube) was everything back then. Thinking about that, how do they musician survive these days ehhh ?

Stay right till the end to see who was actually the smartest guy in the room was.

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES

http://bit.ly/IBelieveInMiracles_15Br

 REVIEWED

There is a song of the same name came out the same time (in the 70's)  "I believe in Miracles" . Sung by Stylistics (a black group) a very drooling romantic song. However, it did not appear in this film.

Why the satisfied smiley up top ?

Well I like the the craftsmanship in making the documentary on how it is presented and the editing. It made a subject like this quite engaging for 1hr 40min film. Its just footage of interviews and old TV coverage of matches played in the 70's and 80's of Nothingham Forest (An English football club). How they came from being nobody to somebody winning the European Cup twice 2 years in a row. Its all because of 1 man, Brian Clough, a former English player himself. The film is well made.

When it shows the present players, how old they have become when compared to their hey days of the 70's. Those that I still remember during my school days of quite following the English football in this documentary is Peter Shilton and Trevor Francis who played for England too. The rest, I dont quite know, maybe they played for other British Isles rather than England.

Sadly the main star of the film Brian Clough had died way back in 2004. Reaso is typical. Too much drinking spoiled his livers. Liver replacement only allow him 2 years to live. Thats a pity.

You like this piece of film if you are a football fan and particularly fan of Nothingham Forest. If not what you will see will be meaningless.

To me, the director/writer had managed to bring a story to life from interviews and old TV footages. Good marks in IMDB too, which it deserve. Smiley agreed.

LOOPER

http://bit.ly/Looper_12Br

REVIEWED

I have seen this movie long time ago in 2012 when it first came out. Cant remember was it at the cinema or home. Most probably the later as I remember the quality was not that good, must be DVR or something but not toilet video copy. Why watching this again ? Well the director Rian Johnson will be directing Star Wars 8, so just to see if he is qualified or can I enjoy watching this again.

This movie has Joseph G Levitt and Bruce Wilis acting as the young and the older one. JGL had to do a bit of make up to look like BW when he is older and it was a great  from the face job. And the mannerism is very good too. I think if I were the director I would ask BW to act the part where JGL would act in. So JGL just follow how BW did it. But since he is good that was no problem. Even the talking sound the same. Well done ! Anyway JGL is one of the producer so he could be the one to pick BW to act in this. Guess who am I gonna pick as my older self ?

Other notable actors are Emily Blunt and Jeff Daniels. The boy Sid was in Extant the TV series but a bit older then. 

So as expected I cant remember the movie. I know that its about time traveled where the older Joe (BW) traveled back in time to correct what could happen in the future. This concept of time traveling is much different than others. Its ok for them to touch and punch one another unlike "TimeCop" a slight touch could spell disaster.

The movie is Ok i guess not because I have seen it but because of the suspense element and why is it happening. Putting the future and the past and intermittent between them was nicely done. It wont have audience in confusion except the part when young Joe actually killed old Joe when the loop occurred the 2nd time. Still cannot comprehend that. But it had to be a Bruce Willis movie the massacre at the Loopers den was typical Bruce.

There is a morale of this story. A person will become what he or she was experiencing in the past. If that is changed for the better the future will be better too. At least that is what young Joe believe in. Pity to what happened in the end.

CUT BANK

http://bit.ly/Cutbank_14Br

THE SPECTACULAR NOW

 

http://bit.ly/TheSpectacularNow_13Br