2014 Movie List.

[After using exclamation and question marks in past years, I'm working my way through punctuation. Next year, I think I'll use a comma.]

Only release months (Malaysia-relevant) are below because it's September and we're down to our last one/two movies.

1. I, Frankenstein (January) 
2. The Lego Movie (February)
3. Robocop (January)
4. 300: Rise of an Empire (March)
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (March)
6. The Amazing Spider-man 2 (May)
7. Godzilla (May)
8. X-Men: Days of Future Past (May)
9. Maleficient (May)
10. Transformers: Age of Extinction (June)
11. Guardians of the Galaxy (July)
12. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (August)
13. The Expendables 3 (August)
14. Sin City: A Dame to Die For (donno; probably nevar in Malaysia)
15. Dumb and Dumber To (November, but probably nevar in Malaysia to)

If I remove Maleficient (which is a movie I didn't want to watch after I read its Wikipedia entry), then I'll get 14 movies for 2014 woooo. But I won't.

I should get started on my 2015 one now, no? Okay, I'll take my own advice.

Read More......

2013: Movies I Could Be Bothered To Watch.

[And I finally could be bothered (screw grammar!) to release this post. Soooo overdue; includes some movies I didn’t get around to reviewing yet.]

I'm actually pretty proud of myself, when it came to watching movies last year. Out of the 16 on my list, two (#13 and #14) got pushed into 2014, and two others (#2 and #10) I did not watch.

2013 Movie List

1. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
2. Warm Bodies
3. Jack the Giant Slayer
4. Oz: Great and Powerful
5. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
6. Iron Man 3
7. Star Trek Into Darkness
8. Man of Steel
9. World War Z
10. Monsters University
11. R.I.P.D.
12. The Wolverine
13. 300: Rise of an Empire
14. Sin City: A Dame to Kill for
15. Thor: The Dark World
16. 47 Ronin

The only movie not in this list that I watched is Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, and it's not in because I didn't even know it'd be out in 2013.

So 12 above and 1 outside of list, and I watched 13 movies in 2013 ohwowaccidenttotesneat.

2014 movie list will be up in a bit (and by 'a bit', I mean 'tomorrow or something').

[Blogger's note: This post has been so delayed that I finally saw Warm Bodies and Monsters University on pay-TV. Reviews eventually! And no, this doesn't count as meeting the list; meeting means going to the theatres or at least, watching it in the year it's released in.]

Read More......

#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly Faves!

[Splitting posts is not cheating. Not really, anyway.]

Here are some of my favourites from this hashtag; click for pictorial spoilers/answers. If there are no pics, well, you can read.

Racially diverse group journeys to a volcano to destroy jewellery. #explainafilmplotbadly pic.twitter.com/6te03PczbI
— LOTR Reactions (@LOTRReactss) September 6, 2014

The most detailed, concise, thorough and relevant review of the Les Mis movie I have read, #dear #lesmis pic.twitter.com/BMjnjYWP
— westendproducer (@westendproducer) January 12, 2013

A man finds out that his entire life has been a TV show. The show gets cancelled. #explainafilmplotbadly
— Michael Blackman (@paracomedian09) September 7, 2014

The Truman Show. Surprisingly good film.

A death row inmate teaches Tom Hanks how to pee. #explainafilmplotbadly
— Michael Blackman (@paracomedian09) September 7, 2014

Haha! The Green Mile.

#explainafilmplotbadly A baby is put in a corner but not for long.
— Lincoln C. Chinnery (@lincolnwrites) September 7, 2014

Obscure = better. Dirty Dancing.

Hockey player falls into a lake, finds a machete, harshly reprimands teens for hooking up. #explainafilmplotbadly pic.twitter.com/1TEuvrLj8M
— Mark Winslow (@WinstonUK) September 7, 2014

Naive girl spends 5 movies choosing between a corpse and a dog who's sexually attracted to her infant. #explainafilmplotbadly
— Geované M. (@KingOfHearts_II) September 6, 2014

Very apt. One of the last Twilight movies.

A guy lies to the police for an hour and a half, then leaves. #explainafilmplotbadly
— CT (@HockeenightsCT) September 6, 2014

He lies brilliantly, in fact. The Usual Suspects.

And a special shout-out for:

It's the one where Sean Bean dies. #explainafilmplotbadly
— Mata Haggis (@MataHaggis) September 6, 2014

Going through hashtag search showed me QUITE a number of repeats, though from different people. I hope I've gotten all original ones.

Read More......

#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly

It’s purely by accident that I discovered this trending Twitter hashtag.

And I’m very glad I did.

One of my major, major loves (aside from bitchin’) is movies, and I’m having a huge blast going and guessing my way through the tweets. For some reason, Titanic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Star Wars and Forrest Gump are very popular choices, although I did see some good ones relating to Captain America.

This hashtag adds to the long list of things that make me want to get Twitter, but I’m still resisting! But I can’t help but participate in this one, though. In keeping with tradition, my contributions are below 140 characters. Answers are below each description line, blacked out, so please highlight.

• Surfer dude carries out father’s legacy, targets matricidal detective. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
  Frailty

• Batman and Wolverine try to one-up each other while Alfred and Black Widow take sides. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
  The Prestige

• Extraterrestrial securing preservation of own species, constantly thwarted by humans using time travel and plot holes. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
  Men in Black 3

• Buddy cop movie perpetuates stereotypes of blacks being really, really loud, and of Chinese doing kung-fu. Does this three times. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
  Rush Hour films.

• Aliens make old people young again or something. #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
  Cocoon. Okay, maybe I jumped the shark with this one.

Argh, temptation! I'm seriously pumped about this one :P

Edit: Updated to include link to posts hashtagged https://twitter.com/hashtag/ExplainAFilmPlotBadly?src=hash. Enjoy!

Re-edit: To black out answers in points 4 and 5. Sometimes HTML is sucky.

Read More......

Godzilla (2014)

[Watched it on my birthday. Four months late. Spoiler warning still needed? ]

Godzilla was surprising on so many levels:

1) Juliette Binoche

2) Her being in the movie for 10 minutes

3) Bryan Cranston’s very un-Malcolm in the Middle performance (we don’t get Breaking Bad here)

4) Him being in the movie for 20-25 minutes (I wanted to see more of him being serious!), and

5) Godzilla is the freaking good guy!?

Spoilers aside, I was expecting an hour-and-a-half of a dinosaur stomping on a city and puny humans trying to stop it. Yannoe, stereotypical monster movie fare (or as I like to say, an Ultraman movie sans Ultraman).

What I didn’t expect to see was TWO OTHER monsters, and that Godzilla would be the one to take them DOWN!

All this came to me in the scene where Ken Watanabe says that Godzilla was listening in onto the MUTOs’ (I can’t remember what it stood for, but fun fact: this guy from Adventure Time, Adam, has that as a surname) radar pingings / communication / whatever.

Coolest. Realisation-setting-in-halfway-through-the-film. Ever.

I watched this movie with the giddiness of someone discovering everything for the first time, having not seen the Godzilla film from the 90s (but having this vague impression that it was like Jurassic Park). I also slightly overexcited myself by mistaking the first MUTO to be Mothra, just because it took flight. I also got a kick out of seeing Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen together as husband and wife in this film. They’re gonna play brother and sister in the second Avengers movie! Ooooo!

But I’m getting sidetracked.

The great Godzilla reveal was grand, coming out of the water, causing a tsunami, and to see his chunky legs stomp past buildings in Hawaii. There’s a bit of a slow burn until we get to see him in his full glory, but I didn’t notice it much as I was still reeling over the number of monsters in the film and Godzilla being the good guy.

The movie tries to balance a nature vs nurture message (the MUTOs only wanted to breed), but no one really gives a cow when three monsters are duking it out and causing the same level of destruction as Superman and Zod did.

[Reminder to self: Settle Man of Steel review.]

And with a far cooler Fatality take-down! I mean, pry open mouth, breath nuclear down throat, anyone?!

Short review is rather short. I enjoyed this movie a lot.

Read More......