Corpse Bride

This is the second Tim Burton movie I watched this year. Being an acclaimed director, I do go to his movies with some expectations for some movie magic.

I could not remember much about his last stop-motion movie 'Nightmare Before Christmas', but I assume it must have been great seeing how people tend to talk about it rather fondly.

Without the above said movie for comparison, I can't say for sure whether 'Corpse Bride' fared better.

Both share some similiarities, be they in presentation style, theme or spirit. Some may complain about the apparently more musicals-cum-dialogs in this movie, but some may like it as they think the musicals are smartly written and fit the movie just nice.

One thing I do have to say about the musicals is that sometimes I couldn't catch the lyrics clearly, but thank god the cinema version has Chinese subtitles and the 'occasional' Malay subtitles.

While I do find the story a bit simplistic and the characters a bit stereotypical, in whole it does result in an easier to digest movie experience, and call me wimpy all you want, but I easily shed a tear or two in the final scene :-P So I guess it does have some magical moments, and to me that is all that counts.

"All this has happened before, and it will happen again.."

Last night I finally done it, again, just like history repeating itself.

It was very difficult, and I have been struggling for some time to make the decision. But I guess the decision had to be made sooner or later, thanks to him, I can finally let go.

Well, just another step closer for me to that ever welcoming 'Old Single Gay Man Land'.

So say we all.

Doom

Actually caught this movie sometime back, but somehow didn't have the courage to admit that I went to watch it, so only writing this review now, lol.

My god, Mr. The Rock never looked more animated, playing the commander role in this movie.

The movie isn't really that bad, I mean it does have the somewhat hot Rohirim guy and the somewhat cool Bond girl to serve as eye candies :-P And not to mention the somewhat Asian looking Mr. Hottie Guy who erm..


*** SPOILER ALERT! ***

...ended up "on the floor" after saying his very few dialogs in the movie.

*** END of spoiler ***

The rest are just.. not really nice. The whole movie felt like a B grade with limited set locations.

In the end, I justified myself for watching this flick by claiming that there was really no other SF flick on in the cinema at that time..

Damn I'm pathetic :-P

Battlestar Galactica S1 & S2

Just finished watching this SF series until it's season 2 finale. I have not watched the old original series before, so I cannot make any comparisons how this new one fares compared to the old one.

But just based on this new series alone, I have to put it up there right next to 'Lost', cos seriously this show is some great frakking show.

It's a very different show from 'Lost', cos this is a very classical SF space opera setting, something akin to 'Babylon 5', which is another all-time favourite. However this show, in my opinion, is even better than 'Babylon 5', cos it has so many things done right - the drama, the action, the story, the acting, the special effects, the good looking actors/actresses (yummy indeed)..

It is so good in every way that it has now become one of my favourite show. Drama, which it is has in bundles, really fleshes out the characters.

What I like best about the show though, is that it tells of a story that shows many facets and qualities of humanity, be they good ones or bad ones. At the end of the journey, I find myself thinking..

Thinking of this life I am living, thinking of the purpose we go through in this life, thinking of the many little things.. The show is also somewhat philosophical in nature, with themes that touch on our system of belief, like the existence of God.

And I must mention the soundtrack, not only does it fit the show nicely, it is also very atmospheric. Absolutely great stuff.

There are so many things in this show I could brag on and on about which will probably bore any reader of this 'diary' to death sooner than he/she can click on the nearest hyperlink. So I'll just spare you my BSG fanboy enthusiasm and let you decide for yourself whether you would like to venture into this highly-recommended-and-one-hell-of-a-remarkable-SF series.

And from me to the BSG Gods (read: Producers): Please deliver me soon from the agony of waiting for season 3! :-P

The Skeleton Key

Usually I don't go for horror or sad movies, but sometimes I think walking out of the cinema watching such movies actually make you appreciate more of the simple and possibly happy life that you currently have.

However this is not such movie..

*** Possible SPOILER below !!! ***

After watching this movie, I walked out of the cinema slightly disturbed. It kinda felt like what happened in the movie was injustice, and I'm a person who really can't stand seeing innocent people getting the bad ending, regardless of how fictitious the characters are.

*** End of SPOILER ***

As interesting as the plot is, and as cute as the actor and actress are, only watch this movie if you can stand injustice in a fictitious movie being served to fictitious characters, and there's no sign of 'Sky High 2' anywhere :-)

The Jacket

Caught this on DVD, was interested after hearing my friend who watched it basically re-counted back the whole plot to me over a dinner..

I gotta say, the cover image for this DVD is kinda disturbing, motion blurred eyes = creepy!

Of course I won't disclose the plot here, it's supposed to be a 'thinking' movie with it's twists and turns, which thanks to my friend, totally ruined the experience for me having told me basically EVERYTHING.

The movie's cinematography is kinda psychotic, you have to watch it to understand what I meant by 'psychotic', or maybe it was just me watching it at 2 am with barely enough sleep the few nights before..

I believe this movie would give a stronger impact to those who didn't know about the story beforehand, because me having known the plot, everything seems so predictable when I watched it and it was less engrossing, but the performance was good enough to warrant my interest.

This movie also reminded me of one other movie which I liked, 'The 12 Monkeys'. I was totally blown away when I watched that movie last time, and I could still remember the song 'What A Wonderful World' being played at the end when the credit rolls. A classic in my book, because it delivers such a strong aftertaste of irony.

Sky High

Have got to say, this movie exceeds all of my expectations, and then somemore :-)

The reasons why I like this movie so much:

1. Beautiful casts, especially the oh-so-ordinary-yet-extremely-adorable Will (who curiously looks like a very young version of Scott Bakula).

2. My kind of humour.

3. Hovering school with flying buses - I would be so looking forward to going to school everyday if we had these!

4. Hunky daddy.. (or is it more like grand-daddy?)

5. Secret dungeon.. uhm, I mean sanctum :-P

*** SPOILER below !!! ***

6. Fireball-throwing arch-enemy turned best buddy.

and the list goes on..

And yes, Walt Disney can have my money when this DVD comes out :-)