Genre: Drama
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Rosemarie DeWitt, Frances McDormand, Lucas Black, Scoot McNairy, Titus Welliver, Hal Holbrook
RunTime: 1 hr 46 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: http://focusfeatures.com/promised_land
Opening Day: 21 March 2013
Synopsis: In Promised Land, Matt Damon stars as Steve Butler, a corporate salesman whose journey from farm boy to big-time player takes an unexpected detour when he lands in a small town, where he grapples with a surprising array of both open hearts and closed doors. Gus Van Sant helms the film from an original screenplay written by John Krasinski & Matt Damon, from a story by Dave Eggers. Steve has been dispatched to the rural town of McKinley with his sales partner, Sue Thomason (Academy Award winner Frances McDormand). The town has been hit hard by the economic decline of recent years, and the two consummate sales executives see McKinley’s citizens as likely to accept their company’s offer ? for drilling rights to their properties ? as much-needed relief. What seems like an easy job and a short stay for the duo becomes complicated ? professionally by calls for community-wide consideration of the offer by respected schoolteacher Frank Yates (Academy Award nominee Hal Holbrook) and personally by Steve’s encounter with Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt). When Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), a slick environmental activist, arrives, suddenly the stakes, both personal and professional, rise to the boiling point.
Movie Review:
Corporate America gets a small-town wake-up call in Gus Van Sant’s ‘Promised Land’, both a character-driven morality tale as well as a social drama built around the issue of hydraulic fracturing (or ‘fracking’ for short). That subject matter may not sound familiar to the casual viewer – even if it has been addressed before in Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated documentary ‘Gasland’ – but even a neophyte (which includes us) will be able to appreciate this gently absorbing story of individual and commercial greed.
The character at the heart of this tale is Steve Butler (Matt Damon), a corporate salesman for a $9-billion energy business known simply as Global Crosspower Solutions. Steve’s job is to go to small agricultural communities which sit atop gas-rich shale and convince these farmers to sell Global their natural gas drilling rights. He is so good at what he does not only because he is glib, but because he genuinely believes in it, having personally experienced as an Iowa farm boy how vulnerable the economies and livelihoods of small towns are.
Coming off a lunch meeting where he learns of his impending promotion, Steve assumes that his latest assignment at a declining Pennsylvania town will be an easy two- or three-days sales pitch – after all, from his perspective, why would these local landowners refuse a lifeline? Unfortunately, an old-timer, Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), proves to be more learned than he and his co-worker Sue (Frances McDormand) could have imagined, urging caution at a townhall meeting by warning about what ‘fracking’ could potentially do to land, water and lifestock.
Instead of a quick resolution, Steve suddenly finds himself faced with a battle for the hearts and minds of these farmers before a community-wide referendum due three weeks after. What’s more, things are further complicated when an environmental activist named Dustin Noble (John Krasinski) turns up unexpectedly one day with pictures claiming the environmental impact of ‘fracking’ – and besides countering Steve’s PR push with fliers and posters of dead cattle, Dustin seems to share Steve’s interest in the pretty local schoolteacher Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt).
Do things get ugly? Hardly. To be sure, tensions do rise and harsh words do get spoken, but by and large, Damon and Kraskinski (who co-wrote the script from a story by Dave Eggers) keeps everything pretty amiable. Instead of pulling any punches – literally or figuratively – both Steve and Dustin compete to see who has the better charm offensive in relating to the local townsfolk. What is genuinely surprising to watch is how Steve doesn’t seem to have a ready playbook to deal with the types of Dustin, but that loophole is nicely resolved in the context of a last-minute twist that you’re not likely to see coming.
Rather than Hollywood-style theatrics, both the script as well as Gus Van Sant’s direction is deliberately low-key, paying quiet and careful attention to the rural small-town community in which it is set. Ever the watchful director, Van Sant evokes the gentle charm of the place – the tranquillity, the wide open spaces, the mom-and-pop shops, and that one bar in the centre of town where the community congregates. There is a rich sense of place in Linus Sandgren’s beautiful cinematography, and what emerges is an affecting picture of a part of America with an understated beauty in its simplicity.
Despite that, it is an America that is at risk of becoming economically irrelevant and, as we gradually learn, of being exploited by energy companies like the one portrayed here. ‘Think about your bills, your children and your future’, exhorts Steve, who to his benefit seems blissfully unaware of the potentially irreversible dangers ‘fracking’ will ultimately do to the community. The environment isn’t the only thing at stake here; so too is the social compact, as avarice overtakes certain individuals, evidenced by the impulse of one of the locals to buy a flashy sports car with his sudden infusion of cash.
At what cost is the question Steve increasingly finds himself faced with, his rosy illusions of the good his company will bring to the town slowly fading away. In place of the more formulaic corporate villain, we get an earnest but ignorant character that is well played by the appealing Damon. Nuanced and sensitive, it is a performance that qualifies as one of his best. One can understand why this was a passion project for the environmental activist, who was slated to make his directorial debut with this movie before other plans made him turn it over to his ‘Good Will Hunting’ director Van Sant.
And in Van Sant’s hands, this isn’t the kind of corporate thriller a la ‘Erin Brockovich’ but a restrained and ruminative look at one of the hot-button ecological issues in America at the moment. It isn’t advocacy per se, even though it is quite clear where its sympathies lie, but strives to contextualise the very real dilemma facing communities like the one depicted here. Take that easy money for assurance over one’s livelihood or bite the bullet to preserve a way of life that may be forever destroyed? It’s a tough choice to make, but one that should prove enough cause to put the brakes on the relentless pursuit of advancement to ponder about its costs.
Movie Rating:
(Surprisingly low-key and thoughtful, this thematically relevant social drama is quietly absorbing and poignant in its own unassuming way)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Cast: The Rock, Barry Pepper, Jon Bernthal, Michael Kenneth Williams, Susan Sarandon, Harold Perrineau, Melina Kanakaredes, Rafi Gavron, Nadine Velazquez, Benjamin Bratt, Kym Jackson
RunTime: 1 hr 52 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Some Drug Use)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: http://www.snitch-movie.com/
Opening Day: 14 March 2013
Synopsis: In the fast-paced action thriller "Snitch", Dwayne Johnson stars as a father whose teenage son is wrongly accused of a drug distribution crime and is looking at a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years. Desperate and determined to rescue his son at all costs, he makes a deal with the U.S. attorney to work as an undercover informant and infiltrate a drug cartel on a dangerous mission - risking everything, including his family and his own life.
Movie Review:
If you want to see Dwayne Johnson kick ass, you’ll have to wait a few more weeks for ‘G.I. Joe: Retaliation’ or slightly longer for ‘Fast and Furious 6’. Contrary to what Johnson’s seething look on the poster might suggest, this isn’t an action movie; in fact, aside from wielding a shotgun in the finale, Johnson doesn’t even pull a single punch. Instead, ‘Snitch’ showcases what we don’t quite see as much from the charismatic action star – and that is, his ability to pull off a nuanced and thoughtful performance.
Certainly one of his most dramatically challenging parts, Johnson plays essentially a desperate father who will do whatever it takes to get his son out of prison. Inspired by a Frontline news report about the legal injustice of mandatory minimum sentencing laws for first-time nonviolent offenders, co-writer and director Ric Roman Waugh eschews the natural ‘action movie’ inclinations of the premise to spin a quasi-fictional story both terrifying and yet entirely realistic.
The trigger that will set the entire chain of events in motion kicks off the movie in high gear. Framed on a drug-dealing charge by his best friend, 18-year-old teenager Jason (Rafi Gavron) faces the mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. Jason is the estranged son of John Matthews (Johnson), who aside from the pleas of his ex-wife Sylvie (Melina Kanakaredes), takes it upon himself to get Jason freed because he feels he owes it to him for being an absentee parent following the divorce.
With some connections, John gets in touch with slimy district attorney Joanne Keeghan (Susan Sarandon), who tells him that the only way in which his son’s sentence could be reduced is for Jason to rat out some bigger fish in the drug-dealing business. Unfortunately, Jason knows no other dealer than his friend who ratted him out in the first place, so John makes the tough choice of going undercover himself for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to nab some larger fry in one of the drug cartels.
To do that, he enlists one of his employees in his construction business – Daniel (The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal) – with a former drug felon charge to hook him up with one of his past contacts, Malik (Michael K. Williams). One thing of course leads to another, and John quickly finds himself in over his head when he is recruited by the powerful Mexican drug cartel boss himself (Benjamin Bratt) to transport money across the border – the prospect of arresting ultimately proving too enticing for both Joanne and his DEA handler Agent Cooper (Barry Pepper) to give up on account of John’s own safety.
Waugh and his co-writer Justin Haythe flesh out a couple of interesting ethical issues centred around the extent that the law and its enforcement agencies will go just to fight the war on drugs. So the minimum sentencing laws are meant for deterrence and to persuade those arrested to cooperate with the authorities, they ask, but what about leniency for those inadvertently framed? Just how far should the law go in its crackdown – how about to the extent of putting an innocent civilian’s life at risk, using him practically as a big piece of meat baiting a hook? There is both timeliness and relevance in the issues it raises, the tough questions it dares to ask about the legal system and its means thoroughly riveting to watch.
Yet at no point do these concepts get highfalutin; instead, Johnson keeps the film grounded with a heartfelt performance, portraying keenly the anxiety of a father willing to sacrifice his own life in order to ensure the safety of his child. Toning down both his impressive physique and imposing demeanour, Johnson makes you believe in the despair, trepidation and distress of his character clearly in far beyond his capability. Johnson is supported by a terrific cast, in particular Bernthal as a family man dragged back to the life he has so conscientiously tried to put behind him and Pepper as a scruffy DEA agent whose convictions and motivations are questionable.
Thanks to an excellent cast, tight scripting and solid direction, ‘Snitch’ rises above the trappings of its potential B-movie premise to become something much more. Both as a critique of some questionable drug laws in the United States and as a family drama of the extent to which a parent is willing to go for his child, it is a compelling watch that trades easy Hollywood thrills for real-life relevance. It might not be the Dwayne Johnson movie you are expecting it to be, but we believe it is all the better for confounding and ultimately surpassing such expectations.
Movie Rating:
(Built on compelling subject matter, this surprisingly realistic thriller that boasts one of Dwayne Johnson’s most dramatically challenging roles is a riveting watch from start to finish)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Director: Oxide Pang
Cast: Aaron Kwok, Nick Cheung, Jiang Yiyan, Chan Koon Tai
RunTime: 1 hr 44 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures & Clover Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 18 April 2013
Synopsis: CONSPIRATORS directed by Oxide Pang, stars award winning actors Aaron Kwok and Nick Cheung. It is an action, drama, thriller which talks about 2 detectives from 2 different countries investigating the same case. As their investigation brings them closer to the truth, they found out something else. What can it be, and what is the truth that lies within?
Movie Review:
Opting for a less nondescript title than its predecessors – ‘The Detective’ (C+侦探) and ‘The Detective 2’ (B+侦探), ‘Conspirators’ sees Aaron Kwok’s Chan Tam return to solve the mystery behind his parents’ deaths thirty years ago. At first a bumbling and inexperienced private detective whose most outstanding feature was his colourful shirts, Chan Tam had in the second instalment transform quite incredulously into somewhat of a psychic, able to piece together a crime just by walking around the scene or looking at pictures of it. Thankfully, he possesses none of that clairvoyance this time round, settling for a more down-to-earth persona that is admittedly less lively than he was when we were first introduced to him but also more convincing than the last.
Returning to co-script and direct what has arguably been his most successful venture outside of ‘The Eye’, Oxide Pang finally places Chan Tam’s own tragic past – which had been brewing over the past two movies – front and centre here, with the opening scene directly following from the last where he is told to journey to Malaysia to look for someone named Chai (Chan Koon Tai). The latter had apparently been business associates with both his parents a long time ago, and besides getting to the bottom of just who had masterminded their deaths in cold blood, Chan Tam is also interested to clear their names after hearing that they were both involved in drug trafficking.
A twisty but consistently intriguing plot unfolds, with Pang and his regular collaborators – Pak Sing Pang and Wu Meng Zhang – pulling off easily one of their most sophisticated screenplays to date, establishing a web of supporting characters that intertwine in unexpected ways. We won’t spoil the experience for those eager to play detective with Chan Tam piecing the parts of the puzzle; suffice to say that these characters are all connected to Chan’s parents’ – whether as former acquaintances, friends or enemies – and some too to a powerful drug cartel still in operation. There is none of that self-importance from its predecessor to be seen here; instead, Pang relies on some genuine surprises along the way to keep his audience engaged from start to finish.
Yet the single stroke of narrative genius that lets this trilogy capper stand tall above both the earlier films is the introduction of the local Malaysian private eye Zheng Fung Hei (Nick Cheung), whom Chan Tam enlists to help track down a number of people connected to both his parents as well as to Chai. While the story calls for Chan Tam to be stoic (it is his deceased parents he is looking for after all), it does allow for Zheng to be an eccentric character in his own right, someone who proves at certain points to be an even more interesting show than Chan Tam is in the movie.
That’s particularly so because Zheng is played by the versatile Nick Cheung, whose role here is a perfect combination of both his comical and dramatic skills. Better known for intense roles in Dante Lam’s action dramas ‘The Stool Pigeon’ and ‘The Beast Stalker’, Cheung gets the chance to demonstrate his talent for offbeat comedy with his character’s idiosyncrasies – the most fascinating aspect being Zheng’s Wing Chun skills, which look intentionally anachronistic despite how effective they might be. Clearly relishing the opportunity to be in a less demanding role, Cheung plays his character with wry charm, restoring the quirky sense of humour that made the first movie such an entertaining delight.
Cheung also proves to be a more than worthy replacement for Liu Kai-Chi, who in the last two movies had played an informal partner of sorts to Chan Tam. The chemistry between Cheung and Aaron Kwok is palpable in each one of their scenes together, with the former’s drollness and composure nicely complementing the latter’s general sobriety and at times heavy-handed intensity. While Kwok gets the chance once again to flex his acting muscles – without the cringe-worthy overacting in ‘Murderer’ thankfully – this first pairing of the two award-winning Best Actors unfortunately sees Cheung stealing the thunder from Kwok from time to time with a decidedly more subtle and nuanced performance.
No wonder then that the extended ending provides not just a befitting conclusion to Chan Tam’s trilogy with the signature tune from the first movie – ‘Me Panda’ – but also leaves open the possibility for a spinoff with Cheung’s Zheng Fung Hei and his identical twin brother, the latter of whom we are only briefly introduced to during the course of the movie as a drug addict serving his time in prison after being framed by one of the honchos working for the same person Chan Tam is hunting down. Kudos to Oxide Pang for easily his best film to date, giving both Chan Tam the send-off we think Kwok’s character deserves as well as setting the stage for yet another line of grungy but vivid detective thrillers that he seems to have found his knack for. Both as a thrilling whodunit and as a delightful buddy detective movie, ‘Conspirators’ scores an A-grade.
Movie Rating:
(The A-grade capper to the trilogy of Aaron Kwok’s Chan Tam, this gripping detective thriller is also enlivened by a droll performance from Nick Cheung)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Gilbert Chan
Cast: Jayley Woo Jiaqi, Chen Han Wei, Carmen Soo
RunTime: 1 hr 28 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures & Clover Films
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/GhostChildTheMovie
Opening Day: 7 March 2013
Synopsis: Struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother, Kim suddenly has to deal with a new mother in her life. Choon, Kim’s father, brings home a woman one day and announces his decision to marry her. A series of mysterious and terrifying incidents start to occur at the family home after their return. Could it be the jealous spirit of Choon’s dead wife that has come back to show her displeasure at being replaced? Or is there something more sinister? What unravels is a tale of unspeakable evil that threatens to destroy the family. What deep, dark secret is Na, Choon’s new wife, hiding from them? Can Kim help save her family from complete destruction?
Movie Review:
The less you know about ‘Ghost Child’ the better, for the highlight of the film is indeed the twist in its final act, which provides a riveting conclusion to the supernatural occurrences taking place around a teenage girl Kim (Jayley Woo), her father (Chen Hanwei) and her grandmother (Cecilia Heng). Otherwise, “23:59” director Gilbert Chan's sophomore horror outing offers up nothing new for the seasoned horror viewer, even though it does boast of some gripping sequences.
Co-writing the movie with Tan Fong Cheng, a veteran producer of Eric Khoo’s films, Chan spins a familiar horror tale of a single-parent family that is threatened by some unseen spirit with the arrival of a stepmother. That person in this case is Na (Carmen Soo), an Indonesian Chinese whom Kim’s father brings to Singapore after rescuing her from some ruffians during a business trip in Indonesia. The very night she arrives, a strong gust of wind blows an old family photo to the floor, leaving a single wide crack right in between Kim’s father and deceased mother. Kim immediately reads it as an omen, i.e. that her mother’s spirit has returned less than pleased with a new woman in the house.
But of course, if you have seen enough horror movies, you’ll guess that the answer isn’t as simple – for one, this is a movie titled ‘Ghost Child’ and not ‘Ghost Mother’; and for two, because every spooky encounter that takes place hints at a malevolent child spirit rather than a vengeful adult one. To both scriptwriters’ credit, the ambiguous nature of the spirit lurking around the family adds a layer of suspense – on one hand, said ghost seems to be exacting its dislike on Kim and her grandmother; on the other, it also seems to be helping Kim along, assisting her in her examinations in school and punishing a fellow student cum swimming teammate Tiffany (Vanessa Lee) who has been bullying her.
That dual nature gives Chan plenty of opportunities to engineer some spine-tingling moments in the movie, which not only surpass what he did in “23:59” but are by far the best we have seen in any local horror movie. Though most of it does come from the same bag of tricks that horror filmmakers are prone to reach into, Chan effectively contextualises them for a local setting – whether the scratching noises behind a cupboard, or the eerie baby doll with an unnerving high-pitched laugh, or the ‘Paranormal Activity-like’ human tossings – to craft some genuinely suspense-filled sequences. In particular, the climax is especially nail-biting, as father, daughter and grandmother are confronted head-on with the full wrath of the poltergeist.
While Chan gets the otherworldly element mostly right, both him and Tan unfortunately neglect the human aspect of the story. The bond between Kim and her father is hardly developed – especially since we are told at the start that things between them have been strained following her mother’s passing and his physical absence owing to work. Ditto for that between Kim and Na, the expected tensions between daughter and stepmother hardly given much play. Instead, what passes for character development here is some lame conflict between Kim and Tiffany and her gang of friends that plays out as name-calling, some juvenile pranks, and an equally childish dare which lands Tiffany in hospital. Even the relationship between Kim and her mother is given too fleeting a mention, and because of that, we never quite know at all whether she is glad or distressed that her mother’s spirit may have returned.
Forgoing a more character-driven approach to the storytelling that many solid horror movies today adopt has certain repurcussions on the actors. Veteran MediaCorp actor Chen Hanwei’s big-screen debut is really nothing to shout about, having participated in much more intricate and interesting roles on the goggle box. Malaysian actor and model Carmen Soo gives a one-note performance looking helpless most of the time as Na, while newcomer Jayley Woo is credible, without however leaving much of a lasting impression, as the confused and conflicted single-parent teenager who is neither happy at home or in school.
Without characters with whom we can identify with, ‘Ghost Child’ remains at best a mediocre horror with some edge-of-your-seat moments and an interesting final twist. Produced under the banner of Eric Khoo and Mike Wiluan’s genre outfit Gorylah Pictures, you can see the similarities it shares with the company’s maiden film ‘Darah’ in its use of Southeast Asian folklore – ‘toyol’ anyone? Yet without a strong emotional core at the heart of its key human characters, it is only as engaging as its scares, which are good enough if you need a jolt to your heart but nothing more.
Movie Rating:
(Lacking a character-driven narrative, this competently staged horror otherwise boasts some genuinely suspenseful and edge-of-your-seat gripping moments)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: As the Iranian Revolution takes over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, six Americans escape. Now only one man can get them out from enemy lines. Tony Mendez is a brilliant CIA agent who specializes in impossible escapes but his new plan is as daring as it is desperate. Disguised as a film crew, Tony and the fugitives must hide in plain sight where the slightest slip-up could end in instant death.
MOVIE REVIEW:
The 1979 Iran hostage crisis which involved the rescue of six American diplomats from Tehran served as the premise of this gripping thriller directed by none other than actor turned director Ben Affleck.
With the CIA running out of options to rescue the trapped diplomats out of the house of Canadian ambassador, a CIA operative agent, Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) hatched an unbelievable plan by pretending to be a Hollywood producer on a scouting trip for his latest sci-fi movie, “Argo” so as to extract the diplomats who are disguising as his Canadian film crew members to take a flight out of troubled Iran. As ridiculous as it sounds, this is based on a true story and according to Affleck, of course some dramatic license are taken along the way.
Both Affleck and his scriptwriter Chris Terrio bring their talents on the table to create a tight, commercially-accessible political thriller to what one would think at first glance a boring, talky tale of a rescue operation. Sure, there’s a whole lot of talking liked the happenings at the CIA headquarters and the emotional struggles of the six diplomats. At the same time, it sorely lacks the complexity of another politically charged thriller, “Munich” yet Affleck and Terrio did an impressive job of marrying fact with fiction and infusing it with humour as well.
Veterans Alan Arkin and John Goodman stole the show as a grouchy film producer and a Hollywood makeup artist respectively. Arkin is especially godsend with his perfect comic timing and fed with a whole chunk of amusing lines to ease the tension. A fully in control Affleck is remarkable in front and behind the camera just when you thought he was plain lucky with “Gone Baby Gone and “The Town”, the good-looking actor proves once and for all he is not a two-hits wonder. Bryan Cranston provides excellent support as Mendez’s CIA supervisor and the other cast members who genuinely mirrored the characteristics and looks of the real-life diplomats.
For a story set in the late 70’s, the filmmakers painstakingly recreate authentic set and prop details including a vintage Warner logo that opens the movie. There are plenty of thrills and tension despite for the most of the two hours running time, hardly a shot is fired (with the exception of the riveting takeover of the embassy in the beginning) and not an explosion heard. It’s recommended you refrain from going to the washroom in the last 30 minutes as the compelling finale delivers “Argo” to a dramatic climax.
Ranked as one of my favourite movies of 2012, whoever has the audacity to dislike “Argo” can simply Argo fuck yourself. We are watching Mr Affleck’s career with great interest from now on.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Rescued from Tehran: We Were There is a brief feature that has the ‘real’ house guests and President Jimmy Carter recounting the actual event.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
“Argo” appears almost flawlessly on DVD with lifelike tones and detailed imaging while the supplied Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is aggressive when requires and dialogue which play a great part here is clean and immersing.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) has been one of the best scouts in baseball for decades, but, despite his efforts to hide it, age is starting to catch up with him. Nevertheless, Gus-who can tell a pitch just by the crack of the bat-refuses to be benched for what may be the final innings of his career. He may not have a choice. The front office of the Atlanta Braves is starting to question his judgment, especially with the country's hottest batting phenom on deck for the draft. The one person who might be able to help is also the one person Gus would never ask: his daughter, Mickey (Amy Adams), an associate at a high-powered Atlanta law firm whose drive and ambition has put her on the fast track to becoming partner. Against her better judgment, and over Gus's objections, Mickey joins him on his latest scouting trip to North Carolina, jeopardizing her own career to save his.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Only Clint Eastwood can turn an uplifting song such as “You Are My Sunshine” into something so melancholic.
After “Gran Torino”, Eastwood once again reprises his usual stoic, grumpy old man routine in “Trouble With The Curve”, a sports drama directed by his long-time assistant director, Robert Lorenz. Instead of a full-blown “Moneyball”, the movie is essentially a father-and-daughter drama with professional baseball serving as the backdrop.
The ever-sweet Amy Adams plays Mickey, the estranged daughter of Gus (Eastwood), an aging baseball scout who is losing his eyesight soon. At the request of Gus’s old friend, Pete (John Goodman), Mickey temporarily left her busy attorney’s job to check on her father, at the same time attempts to mend their distanced relationship.
While the movie arguably is still about baseball, Lorenz seems to be far more at ease handling the emotionally aspect of Mickey and Gus. Here is a father who rather suffers in silence than open up to his only daughter after the passing of his beloved wife, quite a typical old-school father whom many of us can relate to. The script is filled with predictability and cliché but it warrants enough warmth, sentimentality to connect with the audience. This is overall a gentle movie with the exception of Gus pulling a Dirty Harry on a bar patron.
The sexy, smooth Justin Timberlake plays the love interest of Mickey, Johnny, a washed-up Red Sox player. Timberlake has been trying his hands at movie roles in recent years but Johnny is not a role that is going to win him acting points anytime soon. However, other outstanding supporting performances goes to John Goodman who is extremely prolific in the year 2012 and surprise, surprise Scooby-Doo’s Shaggy, Matthew Lillard is back playing yet another jerk after “The Descendants”.
“Trouble With The Curve” offers a nice modest twist to the subplot involving the scouting of a supposedly talented player in North Carolina. You think those entire road trips amount to nothing especially with Gus’ failing eyesight and quarrels with Mickey but hey when a senior citizen takes cold spam for breakfast, things just isn’t what it seems.
There’s nothing lyrical about this baseball movie in addition, the sweet, all-too-perfect ending might be a little too much for audience to stomach. Still, the fresh combination of Eastwood and Adams generates enough interest and chemistry in this family drama. To me, it’s already a homerun.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
For the Love of the Game is a brief 6 minutes segment that consists of interviews with cast Justin Timberlake and Amy Adams.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Dialogue is clear with immersive ambient effects thrown in. Visual transfer is excellent with no obvious branding or artefacts spotted.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: The Dark Knight, along with new sidekick Robin, have finally reclaimed Gotham City and allowed a ray of hope to penetrate the reign of terror that The Mutants had cast upon his city. With Batman back in the spotlight, the extended media coverage has awoken a far worse evil at Arkham Asylum, The Joker! Forever destined to be mortal enemies, The Joker has a diabolical scheme that may pull Batman down to the darkest levels of insanity. While on the horizon, a global catastrophe races towards Gotham and with it comes a familiar face, The Man of Steel, though this time he has Batman in his sights. Witness as the aging Dark Knight wages a tireless war against crime while proving that courage and will are indeed timeless.
MOVIE REVIEW:
For those who have caught “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1”, here’s the concluding chapter for those Bat fans out there.
When we last left the now aging Batman, he has cleaned up the trouble-making Mutant Gang and getting a new Robin as his partner. But the government isn’t as pleased with Batman’s antics as it is giving the law enforcers a bad name. The U.S. president decides to task everyone’s favourite boy scout, Superman to keep an eye on Batman. At the same time, his long-time nemesis, the Joker is hatching a plan to create havoc once again. Our tortured superhero sure has his hands full this time. Will he overcome these obstacles?
For those who have not read the books by comic maestro Frank Miller might be feeling a bit lost and disappointed while comic fans will surely have a jolly good time watching this adaptation. One of the biggest flaws right here is the inclusion of a subplot that involves the Cold War and Superman. Utterly confusing and makes not much of a sense given that we are now in the 21st century. The only worthwhile moment is watching Superman getting caught in a nuclear blast.
Yet, this is nevertheless a movie about Batman. The first half is definitely intriguing with Batman battling the psychotic Joker and the new commissioner replacing Gordon hot on his heels. It’s brutal, savaging to say the least with the Joker on a massacre. Joker has a horrifying appearance on TV and I won’t spoil it here for those who are non-fans of the books. Just bear in mind it’s pretty baffling this animation escape a higher rating. It’s an absolute blast watching Batman and Joker slugged it out in an amusement park viciously and I’m glad the animators didn’t succumb to a kid-friendlier version.
Despite a slim running time of 76 minutes (another 15 minutes or so wouldn’t hurt), the second half of the story focused on Batman’s epic showdown with Superman though the motive by the latter seems questionable. Like I mentioned earlier, some of the plotlines are either dated or lost during the adaptation making it a tad distracting to follow the narrative towards the end. Throwing in other references and characters such as the retired Gordon, the now bloated Selina aka Catwoman and Green Arrow referred only as Oliver here only makes me nitpick a little more.
To be fair, the two part “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns” remain a worthy DCU’s animation. The voice casting did a fair job but it’s the action-packed sequences and animation that nailed it for a non-comic fan.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Only a preview of DC Comics' Next Animated Movie Superman: Unbound is included.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Images are crisp and detailed while the audio is both dynamic and aggressive during the action sequences.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Director: Steven Brill, Peter Farrelly, Will Graham, Steve Carr, Griffin Dunne, James Duffy, Jonathan Van Tulleken, Elizabeth Banks, Patrik Forsberg, Brett Ratner, Rusty Cundieff and James Gunn
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Gerard Butler, Anna Faris, Richard Gere, Hugh Jackman, Greg Kinnear, Seth MacFarlane, Stephen Merchant, Dennis Quaid, Liev Schreiber, Emma Stone, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Rating: R21 (Crude Sexual Humour)
Released By: Golden Village
Official Website: www.facebook.com/WhatIsMovie43
Opening Day: 21 February 2013
Synopsis: From the twisted minds of producers Peter Farrelly (Hall Pass, Shallow Hal) and Charles Wessler (There's Something About Mary, Dumb & Dumber), comes Movie 43-- the outrageous new ensemble comedy starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Movie 43 is not for the easily-offended and contains jaw-dropping, sometimes shockingly disturbing, but always entertaining intertwined storylines you'll have to see to believe.
Movie Review:
Peter Farrelly must really have a lot of street cred in Hollywood, or he must have pulled one hell of an elaborate ruse, in order to assemble such an awesome array of talent for this hodgepodge of comic shorts bound by the thinnest of premises. Almost as if it were daring each one of its A-list cast members to see just how low they dare to go, you’ll need to see this in precisely the same perspective – i.e. as an experiment of cheap scatological humour aimed at the lowest denominator – in order to appreciate what it accomplishes.
Providing the glue for the otherwise disconnected vignettes is a desperate out-of-work screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) making his pitch to a veteran producer (Greg Kinnear), the latter of whom is supposed to be the only barometer of a normal person’s reaction to the off-colour skits, each one of which tries to outdo the last in politically incorrectness and potential offensiveness. Still, if you know what you’re in for, ‘Movie 43’ does provide some measure of embarrassing entertainment – and we mean embarrassment both for the stars involved in it as well as you, the audience, laughing at it.
Among the collection of 14 shorts, the ones by Peter Farrelly turn out to be the most entertaining. His ‘Catch’ kicks off the series of shorts, in which Kate Winslet plays a single businessman who goes on a blind date with the city’s most eligible bachelor played by Hugh Jackman. The (erm) catch? His testicles are located just below the chin, in plain sight of everyone else, though to her utter horror, no one else in the posh restaurant they meet for dinner seem to notice. Jackman and Winslet play the one-note premise straight for all it’s worth, and much as we hate to admit it, manage to make the gag pretty entertaining.
Ditto for Farrelly’s other short, ‘Truth or Dare’, with Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant playing the game on a blind date at a Mexican restaurant. Needless to say, the stakes get pretty extreme as the game goes on, and we’re talking grotesque plastic surgery that gives Halle the face of a bloated puffer fish and Stephen the look of an Asian. Yet that and Jackman’s dangling neck-scrotum prove to be the milder of the gross-out humour on display here, which is in itself surprising given that the project had initiated from Farrelly’s mind.
In perhaps the most distasteful segment, Will Graham’s ‘Homeschooled’, Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts are parents who go all out to imitate the “emotionally scarring experiences” their home-schooled son would have otherwise gone through – and that includes getting that first kiss on with his mother and having his father come on to him like a gay. Faring no better is Steve Carr’s ‘The Proposition’, where a couple (Chris Pratt and Anna Faris) decide to take their year-old relationship one step further by getting the male to defecate on the female - the act of which is preceded by an equally off-putting conversation where his buddy (J.B. Smoove) urges him to eat Mexican in order to have ‘colourful’ poop.
The rest run the gamut from ho-hum to tired. The former describes Elizabeth Banks’ ‘Middle School Date’ where a bunch of males freak out at a teenage girl’s first period, Griffin Dunne’s ‘Veronica’ where a pair of ex-lovers (Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone) engage in a vulgar verbal sparring session broadcast over a supermarket’s PA system, and James Duffy’s ‘Superhero Speed Dating’ with Robin (Justin Long) trying to score a date while Batman, Supergirl and Wonder Woman defuse a bomb threat; while the latter applies to Brett Ratner’s ‘Happy Birthday’ where two buddies (Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott) torture a leprechaun (Gerard Butler) into giving them a pot of gold, as well as Steven Brill’s ‘iBabe’ where Richard Gere’s CEO has to solve a problem of teenage boys getting their dicks mangled while sticking them into the ‘vagina’ of the company’s product, i.e. a life-sized replica of a nude woman that works as an MP3 player.
And just when you’d think the filmmakers were foolish enough to end the movie on an awful note with Rusty Cundieff’s downright unfunny ‘Victory’s Glory’ -in which Terrence Howard plays a basketball coach in the 150s motivating his all-black team in the locker room to simply believe that their ‘God-given’’ colour will win them their upcoming match against their all-white opponents – they reveal quite simply the best short of the lot. Co-written and directed by James Gunn, ‘Beezel’ plays like a fouler version of Seth MacFarlane’s ‘Ted’, in which a jealous homosexual male animated cat tries to break up his owner’s (Josh Duhamel’) loving relationship with his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks). Mixing live-action with crude hand-drawn animation, ‘Beezel’ is ‘Ted’ without any shred of niceties or humanity, and is a suitably laugh-out-loud short that ends the movie on a raucous high.
Still, when the lights come on, one truly wonders what prompted some of the actors to sign up for this exercise in gross inappropriateness. Producer Charles Wessler and Farrelly’s tenacity could have been one reason – apparently, they took years recruiting the ensemble, and even chased some of them down (e.g. Richard Gere) to where and when they could film. Nonetheless, it’s safe to say most of them probably wouldn’t want this movie listed on their resume; and for the rest of us, ‘Movie 43’ is best seen as an experiment in Hollywood subversion, an exercise to see just how incorrect and offensive Hollywood can get. The only way to appreciate this? Expect nothing and you might enjoy something.
Movie Rating:
(A bold experiment in politically incorrectness and gross offensiveness, this collection of scatological comic shorts will either tickle you or disgust you completely)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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STRATEGIC PLANNING OR MASS SUICIDE?Posted on 21 Feb 2013 |
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel, Tuppence Middleton, Danny Sapani, Lee Nicholas Harris
RunTime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: M18 (Nudity & Sexual Scenes)
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/trance/
Opening Day: 1 May 2013
Synopsis: Simon (James McAvoy), a fine art auctioneer, teams up with a criminal gang to steal a work of art worth millions of dollars, but after suffering a blow to the head during the heist he wakes to discover that he has no memory of where he has hidden the painting. When physical threats and torture fail to produce answers, the gang’s leader Franck (Vincent Cassel) hires hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) to delve into the darkest recesses of Simon’s psyche. As she digs deeper into his broken subconscious, the stakes become much higher and the boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur and disappear.
Movie Review:
In a world where the line between reality and illusion is constantly blurred, it can be hard to tell the difference between friend and foe, or truth and lie. Yes, this sounds familiar, and yes, you've probably seen it before. But we all know Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi mindbender Inception is a hard act to follow. Instead of artificially-induced dreams, hypnotism is the all-powerful psychological weapon for allaying fears and phobias in Danny Boyle’s Trance.
Art auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy) is involved in a heist to steal a Goya painting with a gang of thieves headed by Franck (Vincent Cassel). The inside job goes awry when Simon unexpectedly reneges on the agreed plan by cutting the canvas out and employing a taser on Franck, receiving a violent blow to the head in return. Amnesia results, and Simon loses all recollection of what he did with the painting. They employ the services of hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) to attempt to retrieve the all-important memory that would lead them to the artwork’s location.
Elizabeth’s profession consists mostly of calmly talking her patients through their cognitive struggles, or recreating alternative scenarios to elicit specific pieces of information. As a plot device, hypnotism as a psychological panacea is hard to digest without considerable suspension of disbelief on the viewer’s part. Furthermore, a portion of the population (5%, to be sure) is particularly susceptible to entering a trance-like state under hynotherapy; subjected to it for a prolonged period of time, such people may be manipulated into doing just about anything. Keeping this in mind, you begin to question every scene in the movie, and the implicit assumption is that Simon’s part of the 5%. With each therapy session, his mindscape is increasingly convoluted as the motivations of the three main characters begin bubbling up, spurred by romantic jealousy and hidden histories that need to be peeled back by force. Perhaps the only anchor in the story is that it is clear Simon, Franck and Elizabeth all want the Goya and are actively strategizing how best to win.
When the truth is finally pieced together, it looks simple, despite the complicated journey to its unveiling. It’s made all the more believable by Dawson’s acting. As a conflicted and morally ambiguous femme fatale, her performance goes beyond merely capitalizing on her undeniably overt feminine sensuality and sets Elizabeth as the centrepiece of the story. Meanwhile, the men encircling her pale in comparison. Failing to fully exploit the emotional spectrum of a man who is much more than meets the eye, McAvoy is oddly reminiscent of his role in 2008’s Wanted (the rather stylish action flick where he scored a kiss with Angelina Jolie). Like pulling on a seasoned leather jacket, Cassel similarly slips a little too comfortably into his character of a thief / gangster.
The opening scene of the auction heist is efficient and sharp, timed to pulsating beats typical of Boyle’s eclectic style. While there are strains of Trainspotting’s graphic grittiness and the rich sensory explosions of bright colour similar to Slumdog Millionaire to depict hypnotic haze, Trance is some distance from both. It even lacks the stellar soundtrack that Boyle usually accompanies his films with, feeling instead like an attempt to re-create Inception, complete with a mind-bending plot and open ending.
Although the story is chaotic and its characters possibly more so, Trance is visually enticing, slick and sexy: it should be more than capable of holding your attention for the length of its runtime.
Movie Rating:
(Heavier on style than substance, Trance is a slick thriller that may succeed in being somewhat absorbing, if you care enough to follow it through to the end)
Review by Wong Keng Hui
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