Brick Mansion ..


Among the last film by Paul Walker and this is where the action begins. The most hand combat action movie by Paul Walker .

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Gone Girl - Fincher's better film based on his last few.
Manage to catch this in HK, the first 40 or so minutes felt like a film that does not need the involvement of Fincher's name. When the first twist hits the screen, all the glorious back and forth misdirection relentlessly pounding for your scrutiny. It's exhilarating. It became more than just what he does vs what she does. While the subject of the film is pretty dire, there are few smart scenes will have you burst out laughing because how fcuk-up the story can be.The main star of the film belongs to Rasamund Pike while Ben Affleck's role shouldn't be interpreted as inferior, just how his character should be in order to sell the ending. Great performances from very strong supporting cast members.

As Fincher grew older, his sense of film making became more story-centric and less visual driven like his earlier works. His usual trait of tight editing does felt not a single frame wasted.There's no deadzone from one scene to another.His partnership with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross again hitting the sweet spot of not using music as embelishment but part of the essence of storytelling.There are many nuance film language instances like how the earlier scenes where music being mixed at a higher level almost clashing with dialogues and slowly revert to normal as we get closer to the truth as a mean to set up the disillusion facade. Subtle miniscule details all gels back to the ending.
Apart from being a teriffic thriller, it does a remarkable social commentary on media manipulation and a dynamic of what marriage actually means in reality.
Not quite sure it will be the best picture comes award season as Oscar worthy films just started to come out. Certainly best actress material. Looking forward to Whiplash,Birdman,Inherent Vice,etc...

This post has been edited by 6so: Oct 13 2014, 10:52 AM

Assault on Wall Street (2013) - The rich getting richer, poor getting poorer... no fair at all... Watch it and u will understand..
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) -

Stretch – Reasonably watchable.

NSFW trailer
Joe Carnahan still doesn't get his due break. His career pretty much defined by cancelled and unrealized projects. His personal films like Narc and The Grey are pretty great while his studio friendly movies a bit stale but still above the usual formulaic cash grab. “Stretch” was completed for some time but never got released any earlier because they thought they had a chance to bank on Chris Pine popularity. Nevertheless Mr. Pine did not make it into A-list when his reboot of Jack Ryan tanked. The studio puts this movie up for sale to cut losses, yet no one willing to pick up the distribution tab.
A self-discovery cum redemption tale of a failed actor/limo driver (Patrick Wilson) who thought he caught a break when eccentric billionaire (Chris Pine) offers him a big tip to do some biddings for the night. So we are led to a night of debauchery excess with sex and violence. There are some pretty recognizable face popping in and out of the movie to advance the story. Overall, it’s not a bad movie per se, just felt a little behind to current pop culture taste. It’s an alternative to Hangover Part 1, if raunchy r-rated comedy without going too dumb is your thing. Worth giving this flick a watch.

haha yeah i remember watching that one of the best indie action ever made

I would prefer this movie than Hangover
Not to forget Jesicca Alba

Kung Fu Jungle - Yet another not very good Donnie Yen vehicle.
This one sucks harder than Special ID which already a very bad movie. It's overproduced and overdirected to the 11. Every new plot development swiftly negate by a dumb exposition. The motivation for the so called mysterious kung fu killer is embarrassingly shallow. Also, they are cramming so many cameos of behind the camera personalities in the movie, which sorta a love letter to HK movie industry, but it does not bring any meaning other than being distractions. As not many people will know who they are or their significant roles in the industry. Then the action is pretty much you know the same old same old routine you've seen many times before.
Also the current Umbrella Movement in HK, it's jarring to watch heroic antics of hk police force, especially how they have been behaving when clashing with protesters. It's just a personal opinion as I do go to HK a bit for work hence the chest thumping bravura of HK finest can be cringing to watch.

The Babadook – ba-Ba-dook-dook-dook!

It’s been very long since I watched a genuine horror movie. This one has all the right balance of believable premise and a creepy enough creature terrorizing the family. It’s meticulously made with great care and very well acted. A mysterious pop-up book telling of one Mr.Babadook, it started innocently enough to capture the imagination of our heroine’s son. He can’t stop talking about him until strange things start to befall the household. The film makes use of psychological unease rather than conventional jump scare. It felt more like The Shining where the fright does not come from the spooky side of things, but the out of control actions of Jack Torrance. A rather different take on a conventional genre that don’t see much innovation of late. Highly watchable.

Nightcrawler (2014)

Hello young'uns.

How is everyone.

I have not had a chance to go to the movies for quite some time now...

And to break the "dry spell" I had chose to watch this movie and have to say, I Am NOT DISAPPOINTED!!!

I heard some rumblings of this movie and have to add, did not really read up much about this movie. And I am glad I did not, because this movie kinda caught me sideways, but in a good way!!

I have not "felt" so much whilst watching a movie in a long LONG time!!!

Firstly, I have to rave about how underrated Jake Gyllenhaal is as an actor. Yes, he was in a movie called Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) and have to add, since then he had give us Source Code (2011), Prisoners (2013) and now this.

I am really impressed.

Frankly, I hope he at least get a nomination for this at the OSCARS or Golden Globe, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Just to give you a taste of how dedicated he is to the role Louis Bloom. Louis Bloom is not a rich person. As a matter of fact, he is probably borderline desperate for money.

The first scene you see Louis Bloom, what hits you is how gaunt-like he looks. Seriously, give him a burger, fried and a coke, and super size it already!!

Than you see what he does for a living...

Okay I am really not going to spoil this for you.

I will add this though, the character Louis Bloom is everything that is right and wrong about America/Capitalism....

Really, do yourself a favour, and go watch this. Because of the rating, there seems to be limited screening of this movie.

Seriously, find a cinema that is showing this and go watch it.

Grade A stuff.

Oh, going back to the cinema, I get a dose of reality by having a group of ladies who cannot help themselves and talk amongst themselves throughout the movie...

*Sigh*

Even with that, I really REALLY enjoy this movie.

My Two Sen

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Nov 6 2014, 01:52 AM

kungfu jungle

One of the best Donnie Yen's 2014 movie

Good fighting scene
Plot reasonable ok
Acting is ok

Better than Iceman, Special ID

4/5 stars

IN few days busy with my schedule....

No movie watched but thanks to all you have mentioned a long list of movies, now I will enjoy my weekend..

Interstellar (2014)

Christopher Nolan's sci-fi... well, how should I put it?

It feels a little dry.

That's right. Feels a little dry and I felt a tad cheated after walking out of the cinema hall. This is not a summer blockbuster. This is not an action movie. This is more like drama but the premise is a little weird. Interstellar feels like a movie written by quantum physics undergraduates. Problem is Nolan's no science major and I'm sure a lot of the theories and hypothesis are not even close to reality but that's how the movie feels like.

For the layman, it might be too technical. A little too much science-cy mumbo-jumbo. There's no clear cut answers when the credits rolled but that's what we expect from Nolan. What feels out of place is the slick presentation that is absent from this movie.

Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper more like a western cowboy than an astronaut. We seen a lot of corn fields and dust. Practically the first half of this sci-fi movie is shot on a corn field. We see very little of outer space and what do see is nothing we haven't seen before in some TV science documentary feature. Heck, I would say that some of the documentaries had more glitzy special effects than this film and that's quite disappointing. We get some vague references to some planets that's in another galaxy but when we see those planets, the scenery is just as bland as the shots of outer space. Interstellar is less than stellar when it comes to cinematography.

So what about the story? The story is quite engaging. It held my interest (just barely) and had the signature Nolan twist but for this one, I spotted the twist before it was revealed so it's not that jaw dropping. I felt that the movie was a little too long and some parts just didn't gel very well with others.

Thus I felt Interstellar falls just short of being stellar.

Rating : 3 stars out of 5 ( after 0.5 star bonus added because Anne Hathaway was in it)

Interstellar (2014)



This is embarrassing. I need assistance. Had Christopher Nolan given any interviews in which he had expressed that his is a fan of Stanley Kubrick or Godfrey Reggio?

Why?

Because, by Jove, Interstellar, to me, is a USD 165,000,000 love letter from Christopher Nolan to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (Director by Stanley Kubrick) & Koyaanisqatsi (1982) (Directed by Godfrey Reggio & Produced by Francis Ford Coppola).

The music and dire straits situation is directly from Koyaanisqatsi (Music by Philip Glass. I hope Han Zimmer gives some form of loyalty to Philip Glass).

The the space stuff is directly from 2001: A Space Odyssey!!!!


Okay, Okay, I a really getting ahead of myself...

Do yourself a favour, if you are going to see this movie because you love Christopher Nolan's work in The Dark Knight (Batman Second Trilogy). Do not go see this movie.

1) The is NO Batman

2) This is a WHOLE DIFFERENT GENRE all together. You probably have not seen anything like this before.

Additionally, if you say, I've watched Armageddon (1998) or Apollo 13 (1995) so I should like this (space disaster movie right?!). Again you will be VERY disappointed.

Christopher Nolan, approached this project like... A documentary (drama first). Also, he approached this movie like it is a independent movie... And I have to add, I have NEVER watched an Independent movie, with a budget of USD 165,000,000!!!!

Okay, okay, let me do it this way:

The Good


The Bad


The Ugly...


Okay, in summary, a flawlessly produced movie (Production quality is off the charts). Story quite gripping at the beginning and the middle, I feel that if they tweaked the end part a little, I would appreciate it more...

In truth, I confess, having just watched Nightcrawler (2014) on Wednesday night, I prefer the USD 8,000,000 movie more compared to this... Although they are off different genre.

Just, My Two Sen

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Nov 8 2014, 12:16 AM

Woah! I was planning to watch it with my friends this weekend, hahaha. Can save my money.

Interstellar is not for action movie fans... The story actually twist a lot, but the idea is good, who can think of these 5 dimension things, Christopher Nolan of cos...
I watched in IMAX, picture & sound quality is very good.

I quite love this film. I'll agree that this isn't an action movie and a bit too technical, but some of your points could be countered.
Kip Thorne was consulted for the theories, of course there's no math to prove it (not even Stephen Hawkings has reconciled quantum & gravitational physics), but after watching the film, even Kip Thorne want to use the probability of how the light looks from black holes' event horizon in his future work.
Cinematography doesn't mean wide panning shots of great scenery ... it just mean moving photography, it encompass the setting of lightings and camera setups ... and here it looks great in scenes like the dusty room. The planets look bland and not too alien, coz they're the type of planets that supposed to be potentially habitable i.e. almost like our planet. They could've shown more graphical mapping presentation on the wormhole, the black hole and the 12 planets locations, I supposed.
While Anne Hathaway does look good in the film, I feel she doesn't bring much ... Matthew's and Jessica's acting are moving.

For me, Interstellar is kinda opposite of Inception ... while watching Inception last time, I felt there's too much unnecessary/prolonged action scenes (except the hotel part), I wanna watch more on the 'mind-bending stuff'. Here, there's less time allocated for actions and more to personal drama and 'science-y'/metaphysical stuff.

I'll be heading to imdb to read more after this ... just came back from watching it, but wanna see what u guys think.
From the general reviews, we already know that there's a lot of reference of 2001:A Space Odyssey. Maybe that's why Steven Spielberg skipped it, he don't wanna do another A.I (the 3rd act ... which I feel is appropriate as a tribute to Stanley Kubrick's 2001 as well). TARS humour percentage scenes do provide some chuckles in an otherwise heavy drama film.
All in all, I agree with your review ... was worried that the 'science' part of the story too hard for me to understand or Hans Zimmer might overdone the music like some critics mentioned ... but for casual fans of theoretical physics and philosophical metaphysics, it just uses/validates some of existing theories, nothing much new, just quite interesting to see it in a nice package. And although the soundtrack was loud in some scenes, overall it fits the film.
For the booster rocket ...


No IMAX screens nearby, only watched on normal cinema (the subtitle track was stuck somemore ... permanently at "Do not go gently into the night" .... "Jangan leka something something" ....
Yeah, I like the dimensions thingys, it could possibly actually explain a lot of our real world ... not just Christopher Nolan, the script was initially by his brother Jonathan.
Well, off to read more discussions ... at least this has a 'happier' and less ambiguous ending than 2001:ASO or A.I. ...

I never considered that.

No Escape (1994)

"Don't ever turn your back on me again" a tagline that spinning in my mind after watching this film...
The film stars Ray Liotta, he is great in doing action in the film although he's not categorized in the action genre stars, but I found him can be described as the second Van Damme since I saw this action plus sci-fi film that will keeps you on the seats!

Recommended 6/10, if you're a 90's action film fans, or give a try on Ray Liotta performance throughout this film

Fury (2014) - is definitely worth seeing, world class tank fighting. It look like a true story, but the fact is no, Fury is not a true story. Who like combat action, Fury is for you... go watch it guys...

The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom 白髮魔女傳之明月天國 (2014)

*Ouch*

Really???

Seriously??

Is this a recipe of how to lose USD 65,000,000??? (You read the number of zeros correctly, I've double checked)

The first two acts of the script was actually decent.

Tying it to the Mystery Of The Red Pill during the Ming Dynasty is also clever.

Casting is decent.

And then the end of the 2nd act and the 3rd act...

And the ending!!!! What the...

Also, paying Homage to Leslie Cheung (who was in a pretty successful adaptation of this book in the 90s...) at such an "awkward" spot is no homage...

Disappointing...

My Two Sen

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Nov 12 2014, 04:50 PM