Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Ned Benson
Cast: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Isabelle Huppert, Ciarán Hinds, Bill Hader, William Hurt
RunTime: 2 hrs 3 mins
Rating: PG13 (Coarse Language)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: http://eleanorrigby-movie.com

Opening Day: 1 January 2015

Synopsis: With his unique vision, writer/director Ned Benson ambitiously captures a complete picture of a relationship in the beautifully relatable portrait of love, empathy and truth that is THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY. Once happily married, Conor (James McAvoy) and Eleanor (Jessica Chastain), suddenly find themselves as strangers longing to understand each other. Told from two perspectives appropriately named, HIM and HER, the film opens a window into the subjectivity of relationships by exploring both sides of one couple’s story as they try to reclaim the life and love they once knew.

Movie Review:

From the ‘Him’ and the ‘Her’ perspective, first-time writer/director Ned Benson had an ambitious proposition to explore the collapse of a marriage from two different points of view. His diptych hasn’t been seen outside of film festivals no doubt due to its length; instead, what is making its rounds is a more theatrically and commercially friendly version which combined aspects and scenes of these two separate films. No wonder then that ‘Them’ lacks a distinct narrative on its own, lurching unevenly between scenes of Him (James McAvoy) and Her (Jessica Chastain) before finally concluding on a bittersweet note that is truer to its title (i.e. Them) than the rest of the movie.

A prologue establishes the freely flowing chemistry between Conor and our titular character Eleanor – “Would you still love me if I can't pay the check?”, he asks her, before both of them make their respective stealthy exits from a New York bistro and end up running down the street to evade the maitre d'. The very next scene marks a decidedly change in tone. Walking along a New York City bridge in daylight, Eleanor hurls herself off over the railing in a suicide attempt, but survives it and ends up in hospital. When she is discharged, she goes to recuperate at her parents’ home in Westport, Conn., under the care of her NYU psychology professor father (William Hurt) and French violinist mother (Isabelle Huppert).

Meanwhile, Conor has retreated back to his struggling restaurant/ bar business, while moving back in with his father (Ciaran Hinds). Conor’s dad runs a much more successful up-market NYC fine dining place, but some lingering tensions relating to Conor’s mother and his dad’s ex-wife mean that Conor is still reluctant to associate too much with his dad, other than staying together under the same roof. Instead, Conor’s interactions are mainly with his best friend Stuart (Bill Hader), who happens also to be the chef at his restaurant, as well as the bartender (Nina Arianda), who has a soft spot in more ways than one for the fellow. And outside of opening hours, Conor spends his time trying to track down Eleanor, who has since disappeared from his life.

What unspeakable incident that happened between Conor and Eleanor to cause their estrangement is held from us as a secret right till the very end, but there is no mistaking that these are two depressed people whose lives have been struck by some profound tragedy and are now trying to regain their balance. While Conor tries to reach out to her, Eleanor finds comfort instead in a world-weary professor Lilian (Viola Davis) whose class she enrols in thanks to her father’s professional connections. Lilian is both blunt and cynical, but Eleanor prefers such refreshing honesty compared to her father’s didactic words – “Tragedy is a foreign country,” he intones at one point, “We don't know how to talk to the natives.”

Thankfully, Benson approaches his story with the same candour as Lilian. There is plenty of sorrow and secrets, but Benson keeps a close watch on the melodramatic quotient of the movie and never lets it get too weighty. Rather than pummel his themes too hard, he focuses on making the characters and their circumstances real, infusing the dialogue and the scenarios with a refreshing sincerity and authenticity. It most certainly helps that he has McAvoy and Chastain as his leading actor and actress – even though they spend a good part of the movie away from each other, their performances are sensitive, nuanced, and played with touching conviction. And when it matters, McAvoy and Chastain step up with incredible ease, enjoying a rapport next to each other that few pairings have.

Though its structure is high concept, the most admirable thing about ‘Them’ is its lack of pretension. Too often, first-time directors get too caught up in needing to prove themselves with their very first feature film. If Benson had such ideals, it doesn’t get in the way of his storytelling. Careful never to let art get in the way of life, Benson nonetheless employs Chris Blauvelt’s cinematography to evoke a French New Wave artistry, but at no point do the emotions portrayed become less real, raw or compelling. Brought intimately to life by McAvoy and Chastain’s persuasive acting, it is the reason why ‘Them’ gets under your skin despite its flaws.

Perhaps the most appropriate praise we can bestow on ‘Them’ is how it makes us want to watch its parents ‘Him’ and ‘Her’. It isn’t near perfect by any measure, but there is something fascinating about Benson’s honest down-to-earth exploration of grief and reconciliation, of tragedy and suffering, of letting go and moving on. If you’re a Beatles fan, you’ll no doubt notice that the title is also that of a Beatles song. Paul McCartney asks in its chorus ‘all the lonely people/ where do they all come from?/ all the lonely people/ where do they all belong?’, but if there is one thing we’ve taken away from ‘The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby’, it is that loneliness is a state of being that no one, not even the most vivacious among us, can ever be immune to. 

Movie Rating:

(Raw, poignant and haunting, this flawed but nonetheless captivating portrait of love, loss and grief rides on James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain’s pair of compelling performances)

Review by Gabriel Chong

And so for one last time, we travel to Middle Earth with Bilbo and Company for the final installment of The Hobbit trilogy. The score by Howard Shorefor both this film series and The Lord of the Rings trilogy has been nothing but spectacular – a definite classic which will be remembered for generations. If there’s any way fans can fondly remember the final cinematic chapter in this film saga, it will be best to do so through music.

This two disc special edition of the soundtrack contains two bonus tracks “Dragon-sickness” and “Thrain (from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Extended Version)”, as well as five extended tracks. In addition, fans will adore the accompanying booklet which expanded liner notes and a collection of gorgeous stills from the movie event of 2014.

Kicking off Disc One is the ominous “Fire and Water” (if you remember how The previous movie ended, Smaug was on his way to destroy Laketown – while Bilbo and the Dwarves could only helpless watch the disaster happen from the Lonely Mountain), a track which wastes no time into conjuring images of the destruction that will follow. You will hear the haunting Smaug theme from the last soundtrack, as well as a gentle theme representing Bard’s family. The sorrowful “Shores of the LongLake” is up next, before gloom becomes omni present in “Beyond Sorrow and Grief”.  This disc also contains gems like the folksy “The Ruins of Dale”, the disastrous “The Gathering of the Clouds” and the epic “Battle for the Mountain”.

Moving on to Disc Two, “The Darkest Hour” seems to spell trouble for the gang, while the ethereal “The Fallen” takes on a dark tone which fans of the soundtrack series will be familiar with. “Ravenhill” is an action cue which sets off a heart thumping battle cry, and “To the Death” brings the action to a climax.

Things then get a little emotional and nostalgic with “The Return Journey” and “There and Back Again”, reprising well loved themes from the film series. Billy Boyd, the Scottish actor who played Pippin in The Lord of the Rings movies, performs “The Last Goodbye”, an aptly penned song to round up the films, as well as the soundtracks. It is a good time to revisit the previous five albums and embrace the sounds from Middle Earth once again. 

ALBUM RATING:

Recommended Track: Disc 2 (9) The Last Goodbye - performed by Billy Boyd

Review by John Li

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Director: Jake Paltrow
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Shannon
RunTime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 8 January 2015

Synopsis: YOUNG ONES is set in a near future when water has become the most precious and dwindling resource on the planet, one that dictates everything from the macro of political policy to the detailed micro of interpersonal family and romantic relationships. The land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. The hardened survivors of the loss of Earth's precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome (Kodi Smit McPhee)and Mary (Elle Fanning). He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary's boyfriend, Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), has grander designs. He wants Ernest's land for himself, and will go to any length to get it.

Movie Review:

A mix of post-apocalyptic science-fiction, stripped down Western and Greek tragedy makes writer/ director Jake Paltrow’s (he’s the younger brother of Gwyneth) sophomore feature an interesting genre experiment but nothing more. Set in some unspecified time in the future when water is scarce and the land has been decimated by droughts, it follows a group of characters whose fates become intertwined with each other in increasingly melodramatic fashion – Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon), his daughter Mary (Elle Fanning), his teenage son Jerome (Kodi-Smit McPhee) and Mary’s boyfriend Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult).

Narratively, Paltrow divides his film into three distinct acts named after each one of the primary male characters. The first kicks off with Ernest, a former alcoholic whose reckless driving left his wife a hospitalized paraplegic, and who now spends his days selling bottles of liquor to the men who work the supply lines that deliver water. Besides establishing Ernest as a hardworking man who tries his best to make ends meet for his family, it also sets in place their family dynamics – while Jerome is in thrall of his father and follows him around all the time, Mary resents her father for the accident that made her mother a cripple. In between the deliberately paced scenes, Ernest acquires a robotic mule called the Simulit Shadow, a curiously designed device that becomes crucial to the storytelling later on.

We’ll let on a mild spoiler for discussing the rest of the plot – Ernest dies at the end of the first chapter. With his passing, Flem moves into the Holm family home (verbal pun not intended), and proves himself to be quite the manipulator, blackmailing who is necessary in order to get the supply lines to irrigate the barren fields and restore agriculture to the land. The third and final act shifts the focus to Jerome, who towards the end of the second act begins to wonder why Flem lied about the whereabouts of their Simulit Shadow and suspects that he might somehow be involved in the disappearance of a fellow family friend Robbie (Christy Pankhurst) and his infant son and worse in the death of his father.

While one may be tempted to read deeper about Paltrow’s intentions for casting this family drama (not unlike this summer’s ‘The Place Beyond the Pines’) against a dystopian setting, the fact remains, however unique the blend may be, that the characters and consequent narrative are largely under-developed. Amidst the three male characters, Ernest is the most fully-formed of them, labouring to be the father figure to two teenage children in largely honourable fashion – no matter that he has barely enough, he asks Jerome to give what they have to Robbie and wife Sooz when he spots them begging under the shade of a huge billboard along the dusty highway. In contrast, there is hardly depth nor motivation to Flem’s character; and the same goes for Jerome, whose final transformation into his family’s keeper hardly bears any resonance.

Yes, Paltrow’s intention to explore themes of family, vengeance and fate is noble, but his method strains to catch up with his ambition. Certain scenes betray his amateurish tendencies, bleeding into each other and fading out slowly for no apparent reason. Some good ideas, like a back brace which Ernest’s wife wears that is attached to overhead lines like that of a tram or gas stations that pump water, are never developed fully and remain the occasional bright spark in an otherwise dully filmed and drearily paced film. The cast make the best out of their respective roles, but are ultimately undermined by the one-dimensional nature of their characters.

And so, while the blend of genres and stylistic touches may be interesting to watch, the film on a whole ends up as a hodgepodge of good ideas with bad execution. Key to Paltrow’s dystopian-set family drama is a character-driven narrative, but sadly that is precisely what is missing here no matter what the character-based three-act setup may imply. At least the picture looks pretty though, benefitting from Giles Nuttgens’ widescreen lensing to evoke a George Miller ‘Mad-Max’ feel to the barren wasteland that the characters inhabit. 

Movie Rating:

(An intriguing conceptual blend of science fiction, western and Greek tragedy family drama that is undermined by weak characterisation and amateurish execution)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Director: Brian A. Miller
Cast: Bruce Willis, Thomas Jane, Ambyr Childers, Bryan Greenberg, Johnathon Schaech, Charlotte Kirk
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 29 January 2015

Synopsis: Julian Michaels (Bruce Willis) has designed the ultimate resort: VICE, where anything goes and the customers can play out their wildest fantasies with artificial inhabitants who look, think and feel like humans. When an artificial (Ambyr Childers) becomes self-aware and escapes, she finds herself caught in the crossfire between Julian's mercenaries and a cop (Thomas Jane) who is hell-bent on shutting down Vice, and stopping the violence once and for all.

Movie Review:

Its poster proudly touts it as of the pedigree behind ‘Lone Survivor’ and ‘Escape Plan’, but really what it should be saying is that ‘Vice’ is from the writer and director of ‘The Prince’, which was a D-grade ripoff of ‘Taken’ and one of the worst action movies we’d seen last year. If there was ever such a thing as foolish consistency, then ‘Vice’ is utterly guilty of it. Indeed, its writers Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore as well as its director Brian A. Miller have not learnt anything from their previous debacle, and this piss-poor attempt at a science-fiction thriller is cause enough for some audiences to turn away from the genre.

The title in fact refers to a pleasure resort, where human-like “artificials” – made up mostly of beautiful women – serve their depraved customers’ most depraved and illegal fantasies, whether raping or killing without any consequence. As an early bad sign, look out for the strip club-like design of the place, which is so unimaginatively designed that it looks like the movie was filmed on a leftover set of 90s sci-fi fare. As another bad sign, look out for how Miller cuts awkwardly between a haggard detective Roy (Thomas Jane) shoving his way into the resort to pick up a suspect for which he had just been granted an arrest warrant and two women (Ambyr Childers and Charlotte Kirk) who are making their way to work on what is ostensibly the last day for the former.

As the story goes, Roy is convinced that the place breeds criminal activity by blurring the line between fantasy and reality. He cannot wait to shut the place down, and he is convinced that his captain is on its owner’s payroll. The latter happens to be an entrepreneur named Julian Michaels (Bruce Willis), which the script depicts as an utterly ineffectual corporate type who does little but stand behind his technicians and engineers in a so-called control room and asks them inane questions when one of his androids becomes self-aware and escapes from his facility. There are no twists and no turns to what comes next – the android named Kelly (Childers) is hunted by Julian’s SWAT-like minions as if he owns the city, and finds some unlikely help in Roy as well as her original designer (Bryan Greenberg).

One could think of many a sci-fi classic from which scriptwriters Fabrizio and Passmore seem to have ripped off, but certainly the least they could do is to make a decent job out of it. Instead, we get some hint of themes like A.I.- exploitation that are never fully developed, and suggestions of corruption hinted at but never go further than that. The character fare no better, and what we are left with is a generic chase movie that is so poorly filmed it only accentuates the story’s shortcomings. Yes, we know it sounds harsh, but Miller is a hopeless director who can’t seem to shoot a decent action sequence as well as a colour-blind one who covers his muddle of shoot-outs and chases in an inexplicable blue tint – indeed, only such a terribly inept director could imagine Kelly escaping from Vice’s well-armed security detail under hails of machine-gun fire without even a single bullet or scratch.

Of the cast, only Willis seems to put into perspective his motivation for appearing in the movie. Yes, his perennially bored and uninterested look says more than enough about how this – as ‘The Prince’ – was a mere paycheck for him; still, fans of the bald-pated actor should nonetheless lament at how he has sunk to never-before lows. Thomas Jane desperately needs a career revival, and at least seems to try to make the movie better than what it is, but a severely underwritten character renders that moot. And Childers… well, let’s just say that she is well-cast early on when playing the part of the self-unaware android but not so much when her android supposedly wakes up.

There’s no other way to say this – ‘Vice’ is a terrible movie, from idea to concept to execution, an unabashed embarrassment for everyone involved, and a sure-fire contender for the worst film of the year. It is a travesty of the sci-fi genre, a dystopian sci-fi so dull and lifeless that it is truly a sin that it even exists. 

Movie Rating:

(Utterly devoid of any redeeming qualities, this bargain basement sci-fi thriller will surely be one of your worst films of the year if you allow yourself to see it)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are bigger and better than ever in this blockbuster hit loaded with nonstop action and laughs! When New York City is in trouble, it’s up to these four ninja-fighting, pizza-loving brothers to save it. Aided by determined reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) and their wise master Splinter, these unlikely heroes must face their ultimate nemesis - the evil Shredder.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Produced by Michael Bay and directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Battle Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the latest revival of an old comics/animation property. So instead of transforming talking robots with Mark Wahlberg or talking blue creatures with Neil Patrick Harris, we have talking Kung Fu fighting turtles with Megan Fox.

Presented in live-action hybrid format, four relatively unknown young actors did the motion capturing performance for the four wisecracking turtles and together with a television reporter, April (Megan Fox) and her lusty cameraman Vern (Will Arnett), they are on a mission to save New York from the mysterious Foot Clan which has been terrorizing the city. 

The story on the whole is half-hearted and despite the sheer amount of reference material the writers could have accessed to, the three credited writers cooked up a story that they themselves have problems believing in. Try believing the fact that Master Splinter became a ninja master by learning his skills from an abandoned manual in the sewer and a corporate head, Sacks (William Fichtner) is actually the adopted son of Shredder! Bearing in mind that Shredder appeared for less than 20 minutes and he worn a suit more powerful than Robocop.    

But I guess it comes with the package when Bay is onboard and Liebesman even faithfully replicate his signature moves and trademarks liked slow-mos, lens flare and shots that swirled and turned faster than a Ferrari. Still, if you don’t have any qualms on the above, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is actually a tolerable affair given that nearly every minute onscreen is peppered with silly one-liners, explosion and photo realistic visual effects from ILM.     

The biggest credit has to go to the four actors for giving life to Leonardo, the all-so-serious leader, Michelangelo, the clown of all, Donatello the gadget guy and Raphael the emotional one. Not only we don’t get to see their faces and in Leonardo’s case, we don’t even get to hear the actor’s voice.

Generally speaking, this is another product done for the most part on a computer by the wizards at ILM. Audiences sick with the latest Transformers instalment should stay clear otherwise, families with younger kids should love the mutated reptiles.   

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Digital Reality takes a 17 minutes in-depth look into the motion-capture process, visual effects and other technical aspects of the movie.

The various key actors talk about their own memories of the turtles in It Ain’t Easy Being Green.

Evolutionary Mash-Up offers some fun facts about turtles and ninja weaponry.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Any movie associated with Michael Bay triumphed in the audio and visual department. TMNT is no exception. Visually stunning with picture perfect presentation and a dynamic Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, this is yet another strong reference title.  

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

SYNOPSIS: Starring Academy Award(R) winner Helen Mirren (Best Actress, THE QUEEN, 2006), produced by Steven Speilberg, Oprah Winfrey and Julia Blake, and directed by Lasse Hallstr-m (CHOCOLAT), this uplifting story bursts with flavor, passion and heart. When the chill chef proprietress of a Michelin-starred French restaurant in southern France (Mirren) gets wind of a culinary immigrant opening an Indian restaurant just 100 feet from her own, her icy protests escalate to all-out war between the two establishments. It's a celebration of triumph over exile as these two worlds collide and one young man tries to find the comfort of home in every pot -- wherever he may be.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Call it sentimental, schmaltzy but The One Hundred-Foot Journey is one of the must-watched movies of 2014.

The Kadam Family decides to uproot to Europe after a tragic incident back home in Mumbai. When the brakes on their old van broke down in a quaint little French village, Papa (Om Puri) settled on opening an Indian restaurant, Maison Mumbai opposite an upscale French restaurant, Le Saule Pleureur owned by the snobbish Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren).

As fate would have it, the second son, Hassan (Manish Dayal) is a talented cook and before long, he is working under Madame Mallory. At the same time, he is romancing the sous chef of Le Saule Pleureur, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon). With his career taking off, will Hassan chose the latter or Marguerite?

The screenplay written by Steven Knight known for Eastern Promises and Redemption and adapted from the novel by former Forbes correspondent Richard C. Morais is largely a predictable and feel-good affair. Ultimately, it’s a journey that takes you from point a to point b without much fanfare liked many of director Lasse Hallstrom’s (Chocolat, Safe Haven) recent movies. However in the case of The One Hundred-Foot Journey, the journey is a crowd-pleasing one with a few surprises.

How about Linus Sandgren’s (American Hustle, Promised Land) lush cinematography for starters? For main course, it’s inevitably Dame Helen Mirren sashaying effortlessly across the kitchen in fluent French. Not that Puri, Dayal or Le Bon is bad but Mirren is simply breathtaking in every scene. A.R. Rahman, the acclaimed composer for Slumdog Millionaire provides the often-stirring score, very much the sweet dessert.

Despite all the fanciful gastronomic culinary dishes on display, The One Hundred-Foot Journey is pure comfort food for people looking for a no frills viewing experience. Cultural clashes has never look so good on the big screen. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Recipe, The Ingredients, The Journey is a 16 minutes feature that takes viewers behind the process of creating the sets and food for the camera with also the cast and crew discussing the story and characters. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The movie is rich with ambient sound effects and absolutely gorgeous visual images.  

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Eduardo Sanchez
Cast: Dora Madison Burge, Samuel Davis, Roger Edwards, Chris Osborn, Brian Steele, Denise Williamson
RunTime: 1 hr 22 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language And Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/existsmovie

Opening Day:  22 January 2015

Synopsis: When brothers, Brian and Matt Tover secretly sneak out to their Uncle's long abandoned cabin in East Texas for a party weekend with their friends, they find themselves stalked by the legendary Sasquatch. Cut off from the world, and knowing help isn’t coming, the kids must try to make it out of the woods alive while hunted by a creature that’s smarter, stronger, and more terrifying than they would have ever believed exists.

Movie Review:

Before ‘Paranormal Activity’ made the found footage format cool for the horror genre again, one particular movie almost a decade before it first established the paradigm in popular culture. We’re talking about ‘The Blair Witch Project’, which became a phenomenon from the moment it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival by flirting with the boundaries between fact and fiction. Countless other copycats followed in its wake, but not a single one – up until ‘PA’ – could match its hype nor its success in translating a micro-budget of $50,000 into a US$250 million total gross. Neither for that matter has its directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, been able to replicate their winning formula, consigned instead to straight-to-video features that you probably haven’t even heard of before.

It comes as no surprise that Sánchez would be keen to return to the found-footage genre, and while that may seem a convenient move, one cannot deny that he does have a knack for the format. Yes, much as it will still rile detractors who have never liked the fractured handheld visuals associated with such found-format footage, ‘Exists’ is one of the better ones that uses the technique to maximum effect, tapping that first-person perspective to place its audience front and centre at the heart of its thrills. The result is still gimmicky (and nausea-inducing, we may add), but at least is executed with enough finesse just so it doesn’t get on its audience’s nerves.

Like ‘Witch’, ‘Exists’ finds a group of young people confronted with some horror in the woods, in this case, the deep Texan woods. There are five of them – camera-obsessed Brian (Chris Osborn) who is responsible for the recording equipment and from whose perspective we largely observe the action; his younger brother Matt (Samuel Davis); Matt’s girlfriend Dora (Dora Madison Burge); Matt’s friend Todd (Roger Edwards); and Todd’s girlfriend Beth (Denise Williamson) – who as we soon learn, intend to stay at a “cabin in the woods”. Not only does the cabin turn out to be rundown, it also happens to be abandoned and decrepit. That could have something to do with a hairy oversized beast which they glimpsed on Brian’s camera on their drive there, right before hitting an animal which they presume was a deer.

The opening title card informs you that “since 1967, there have been over 3,000 Bigfoot encounters in the U.S. alone; experts agree that the creatures are only violent when provoked”; notwithstanding the sheer ludicrousness of what and who may claim to be a Bigfoot expert, you can pretty much guess that our quintet have somehow provoked the beast to bring on its subsequent confrontations with them. True enough, the Sasquatch comes looking for them at the cabin in no time, but instead of a lumbering beast, this one can run surprisingly fast – as evinced in one of the film’s more effective sequences where Matt is pursued on his bicycle by the half-human half-animal in a Herculean rage. There is no pussy-footing here; indeed, the rest of Matt’s company find themselves at his mercy in no time, who first traps them in the cabin and then after being injured by them with a shotgun wound, hunts them in his very own backyard. 

Whereas other filmmakers tend to use the format as an excuse to withhold from their audience a full view of the terror afflicting their characters, Sánchez holds no such qualms here. While it is true that the beast is initially more heard in moans and groans from some indistinct place in the trees, it doesn’t take long for audiences to be satisfied with a complete head-to-toe sighting of Bigfoot. It is quite an impressive creature design we must say, played imposingly by the 6-foot-7 actor Brian Steele with a King Kong mug and as much visible emotional range in close-ups as the apes in the latest two ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies. Sure, the beast does tease to pad out the running time of the movie, but for the most part, Sánchez doesn’t hold back in portraying its ferocity, so there is no doubt just why the characters are so terrified.

If there is one area that Sánchez has compromised, that is in convincing his audience that all that we see could have been recorded through every melee. The GoPro solution is established very early on, but even then it is a stretch to think that with everything going on, there is still a camera from a bike or a helmet or in one of the character’s hands that is recording what is happening. Purists may chaff at Sánchez’s lack of authenticity in this regard (if you recall, there is never any doubt at least in the first few better ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies just where and why the cameras are located), but those who are simply content to sit back and enjoy the thrill ride will probably not bother.

And yes, for a found-footage movie, this one unfolds with an unusual briskness that holds you in your seat from start to finish. Sánchez doesn’t bother much with character, giving us just enough to acquaint ourselves with the people we are watching but never with the intention of garnering any sympathy for them. Indeed, this is and delivers as a lean but effective thriller that unfolds with immediacy and urgency; it is one of the better uses of the format we have seen so far, and a welcome return for Sánchez to the genre he helped popularise in the first place. 

Movie Rating:

(A lean and effective thriller based upon an encounter with Bigfoot, this return to the woods for ‘Blair Witch’s’ Eduardo Sánchez is one of the better uses of the found-footage format)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: Two desperate dads compete in a no-holds-barred battle in this heartwarming and hilarious holiday comedy! Fun-loving Larry (Larry the Cable Guy) is having a bear of a time finding the perfect Christmas gift for his 8-year-old daughter, Noel. The season’s hottest toy, The Harrison Bear, is all sold out, but Larry will stop at nothing to make his little girl happy and get her the toy of her dreams. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

Larry the Cable Guy who replaced Dwayne Johnson for the direct-to-video sequel to Tooth Fairy is now standing in for Arnold Schwarzenegger in Jingle All The Way 2. Quite an achievement for a guy who is more popular as the voice of Mater, that silly tow truck in Cars.

The almost twenty years old movie received a sequel starring Larry the Cable Guy as Larry (no one bother to come up with a better name?), a divorcee who struggles to keep his daughter, Noel (Kennedi Clements) happy after Noel’s mother remarried the local rich man, Victor (Brian Stepanek). The overzealous Victor on the other hand tried every means to win over his stepdaughter during the Christmas season.

When Larry and Victor unwittingly found out that Noel’s wish is to have Harrison the talking bear as her Christmas present, Victor decides to sabotage Larry’s attempt in getting the bear for Noel. A war is unleashed and who will emerge the winner?    

Jingle All The Way 2 is a kids-friendly title that is filled to the brim with silly sight gags and one-liners that hardly crack you up. Larry the Cable Guy is perfect as the bumbling idiot since his character is always stuck in some ludicrous situations liked getting himself electrocuted, being sprayed all over with fake snow and being prank by a kid. By the second act, you probably would have given up on this Wile E. Coyote.    

Since this is a WWE co-production, it’s obligatory to include at least one wrestler in the movie. And this time it’s Santino Marella who bites the bullet starring as the buddy of Larry, a role that is best described as a piece of floating deadwood. 

You can choose to watch Elf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas or Home Alone for the umpteen times but seriously, Jingle All The Way 2 should be buried down the chimney.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

There are 7 minutes of Deleted Scenes not that we need a second more of it.

Christmas Catastrophes focused on the Larry character getting into trouble.

Christmas Wishes has the cast and crew talking about Christmas wishes.

Santa Santino takes a look at wrestler Santino as an actor.

Reindeer Riding at Roosters Tavern takes us behind the scene of making the reindeer riding scene.

Harrison the Bear: An Exclusive Interview, Harrison the Bear TV Commercial andBlack Friday PSA are three silly promotional spots. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Imaging details are sharp and dialogue is clearly presented for this direct-to-video title. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Comedy/Romance
Director: Mez Tharatorn
Cast: "Ice" Preechaya Pongthananikorn, Sunny Suwanmethanont, Popetorn Soonthornyanakij
RunTime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 22 January 2015

Synopsis: “Pleng” (Ice- Preechaya Pongthananikorn) is a charming and beautiful English tutor. Her ordinary life takes an unexpected turn when she is asked an extraordinary favor; to help one of her students dump her Thai boyfriend named “Gym” (Sunny Suwanmethanont). Unfortunately, Gym doesn’t understand English so Pleng’s student records her voice message and asks Pleng to translate her message to him.

When Gym realizes that he is being dumped, he pins blame on Pleng for his girlfriend leaving him being that Pleng taught his girlfriend the English to pass her US job interview. It is at that moment Gym persuades Pleng to teach him English too, hoping to go to the US to reconcile with his girlfriend. Pleng has reservations but agrees.

Gym’s English is very basic and he’s such a slow learner. He works as a maintenance engineer at a factory. Pleng does her best to teach him. She lets Gym read children books to get started. Gym tries very hard and Pleng sees his effort and begins to sympathize with him.

At the same time, Pleng has fallen in love with another one of her students, “Pruek” (Two- Popetorn Sunthornyanakij), a handsome guy from a good family. He is a hopeless romantic who always find the way to surprise Pleng and eventually they become a couple. “I Fine..Thank you..Love You” is a grammatically incorrect love story that illustrates the beauty of imperfection over perfection.

Movie Review:

Here’s one thing we’ve learnt about love from ‘I Fine… Thank You… Love You’ – you don’t need to speak the same language to be in love with someone, so long as you can communicate with that person through sex. And here’s another thing we’ve learnt – once you’ve spoken to someone in that language, you’ll be pretty much willing to do anything just to be able to talk to that someone in the same way again. In director Mez Tharaton’s new movie, that is exactly what motivates maintenance engineer Yim (Sunny Suwanmethanon) to pick up the English language, just so he may have a chance to be sent to the States and along with that to be reunited with his Japanese girlfriend (played by Japanese AV star Sora Aoi).

The person Yim hedges his bets with just happens to be Pleng (Preechaya Pongthananikorn), his ex-girlfriend’s materialistic English tutor who had agreed to help her break up with Yim for a shiny new Louis Vuitton handbag. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Yim will, through the course of his language lessons with Pleng, fall in love with the young and beautiful tutor, who also happens to be the poster girl of her language centre and the target of a seemingly much more eligible suitor, Pruek (Two- Popetorn Sunthornyanakij). We don’t for a moment buy their animosity at the beginning; indeed, their antagonists-turned-lovers narrative is quite a familiar one in the rom-com genre’s playbook, and Tharaton, who co-wrote the movie, largely plays by the rules in the storytelling department.

Yet there must certainly be something else in this slick GTH rom-com offering that has enabled it to not only become one of 2014’s biggest local hits but also since then the number one rom-com of all time in its home territory. To be sure, some of its appeal will surely be lost on any audience who doesn’t understand the film’s native tongue, as a good part of its humour stems from Yim’s poor grasp of English and his concomitant tendency to misinterpret phrases and sentences spoken in that language as something aurally similar in Thai but utterly ridiculous in meaning. Thankfully, Tharaton doesn’t simply rely on linguistic puns for laughs; instead, ‘I Fine… Thank You… Love You’ actually plays as one of the best screwball comedies we’ve seen in a long while, propelled by the excellent chemistry between its lead stars.

Just as an action movie revolves around telling a story around various setpieces, Tharaton sets the romance between Pleng and Yim around a number of well-staged gags. The prologue leading up to the opening credits is one such example – Pleng simulates the drill where an airplane is about to crash among a group of young children, complete with exaggerated mannerisms and all, while Tharaton’s camera moves in a deliberate fashion to simulate the steep drops for his audience’s point of view. Our lead couple’s meet-cute encounter is the next such setpiece, the first of many scenes in and outside a Coffee Bean outlet where Pleng and Yim meet for their lessons, where Yim interrupts a tearful parting message from his girlfriend played over Pleng’s laptop with a sharp and hilarious retort. It is at this same place that Yim would teach a teenage schoolboy he catches for taking an underskirt photo of Pleng a painful but mostly embarrassing lesson. Some of the verbal gags survive the linguistic barrier though, including Yim’s pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet, but largely it is the screwball antics between the couple that will leave you in stitches.

Admittedly, the two-hour film does lose some momentum as it tries to get serious in the latter half. Tharaton paints the class differences between Pleng and Pruek as the reason for their mismatch, but the divide – nor a recurring analogy about moles (yes, the ones you find on your face) and destiny - aren’t as convincing as they ought to be. Ditto for Yim’s bumbling housemate (played by So Cool’s Joke) as well as his girlfriend, whom we are supposed to believe has a longstanding rivalry with Yim; a particular scene which is supposed to establish this, after Yim discovers that his housemate had given a key of their apartment to his girlfriend, feels forced and ultimately falls flat. Despite its ostensible flaws, the film is held together by Sunny and Ice Preechaya – the former never overdoing its cool get-up at the start before revealing a softer and more sensitive side later on; and the latter a vivacious complement both earnest and effervescent – whose excellent rapport gives each and every one of their scenes together that added zing.

It’s no wonder then that their comedy has endeared the hearts of many back in Thailand, and even though some bits will inevitably be lost on an audience who can’t recognise the aural similarities but meaningful differences between the two languages, ‘I Fine… Thank You… Love You’ remains a mighty fine enjoyable rom-com that should transcend any language barrier. It is a farce no doubt, but one that isn’t afraid to be fun, sweet and silly at the same time; that, and the indelible chemistry between its lead stars, is why you’ll find its appeal to be universal. 

Movie Rating:

(Sweet, funny and affecting, this screwball rom-com farce is ‘I Fine’, ‘Thank You’ to the cast, and a sheer delight that you will ‘Love You’)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Comedy
Director: Matt Chow
Cast: Sandra Ng, Louis Koo
RunTime: 1 hr 23 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Sexual References)
Released By: Shaw & Clover Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 19 February 2015

Synopsis: Chow Sum knows the art of wooing and pleasing the ladies since young. He lives off his female companions and leads a lavish lifestyle. Things are good until he is cheated by an ex-love. Soon, Sum ends up with a huge debt and flees to Thailand. Desperate and without any support in Thailand, he ends up working as an escort in a bar. Unwilling to live his life in the limbo in a foreign land, Sum summons his courage and looks set to work his mojo upon returning to Hong Kong!

Movie Review:

Louis Koo, Nicholas Tse, Simon Yam, Joey Yung, Anthony Wong, Vicki Zhao, Eason Chan, Chrissie Chau, Michelle Chen, Dada Chen, Joyce Cheng, Fiona Sit, Isabella Leong.

If you are a fan of any of the abovementioned celebrities, you wouldn’t mind catching this Lunar New Year movie directed by Matt Chow, which happens to be the one with the highest classification rating amongst the lot. Rated NC16 (Sexual References), this is a spin off from the popular Golden Chicken franchise where the very hardworking Sandra Ng plays Kam, a prostitute with a heart of gold.

From what we’ve been reading, Ng has many friends in Hong Kong showbiz, which explains why you’ll be served with a generous serving of cameos in this movie. Koo is a hunky gym trainer, Tse is a suave businessman, Wong is a magnanimous gentleman and Chan is a lecherous hairdresser.

Not that these characters matter, because the star here is obviously Ng, who plays a gigolo named Future (really?) who had his way with women during his younger days. When his charisma fails him in the economic downturn, it is up to him to lead a motley crew of three other gigolos (played by Philip Keung, Wilfred Lau and Babyjohn Choi) to tease and entertain their female clients.

Whoever came up with the concept for Ng to play a man should be given credit for, err, arousing attention. Complete with a prosthetic chest and sculpted abs, the veteran Hong Kong actress pulls off the role well. Seeing Future strut his stuff on the big screen is enough to draw guffaws. In fact, as the 83 minute movie progresses, this reviewer found it a little disturbing to repeatedly see Ng’s (realistically made) manly torso and nipples. Film festival juries, please take note to give the makeup team some credit during the award season.

While the previous Golden Chicken movies (2002’s Golden Chicken, 2003’s Golden Chicken 2, 2014’s Golden Chickensss) had an impressive dosage of heart, the filmmakers seem to be more focused on playing up slapstick jokes and exaggerated performances. The movie also suffers in the “lost in translation” department, like many other Hong Kong movies which would be better appreciated in their original Cantonese dialogue.

While this movie doesn’t touch the heart, standout performances come from Ivana Wong (it’s still quite difficult to understand how a hilarious performer started out in the industry as a singer with an angelic voice) as a Thai speaking mama san for gigolos, as well as veteran actor Lo Hoi Pang as a gigolo who compares himself with heartthrob Eddie Peng. It’s also heartening to see Yam as a retired gigolo who dresses himself up in flashy outfits – fans of Hong Kong cinema would know that in his heydays, the actor was a regular in “duck” movies.

There are a few noteworthy touches in the movie worth mentioning: a homage to Koo and Carmen Lee’s roles as Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nu in Return of the Condor Heroes, a jibe at Hong Kong TV channels TVB and ATV’s viewership ratings and the industry’s obsession with charity shows.      

One doesn’t step into the cinema expecting high art – this comedy does its job to entertain, and it accomplishes its task adequately. 

Movie Rating:

(Sandra Ng and her friends manage to ramp it up to deliver an adequate dosage of fun in this serviceable comedy)

Review by John Li