IndoDONKEY

Mann I gotta tell ya…  This movie has completely surprised me.  When it first came out,  I was like, “Oh great..  Another movie about dogs.  I still don’t understand why Hollywood keeps involving animals as the supporting characters in the movies.  There was one movie where the supporting character was a Loch-Ness monster.  I mean, who the f*** in the world has seen a Loch Ness monster?  They made it look like it was a mix between a sea lion and a dolphin.  The movie came out a few years back, and until now I can’t even remember what the title is.  And now, a puppy.  What’s next?  A porcupine?”

Anyways, so when this movie came out in DVD, I decided to give it a shot.  Hell, if I could survive watching Lassie re-runs for hours when I was growing up, I definitely could handle 2 hours watching another dog movie.  I had a very low expectation for this movie despite all the rave reviews that I had heard from a lot of people.

This movies tells a story about a young newlywed couple who moved to a new city, and tried to adjust their life with the new surrounding and new jobs, and a little puppy in between.  I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked this movie.  It wasn’t just all about dogs, but it was also about a journey of love, romance and relationships.  Marley, the dog, was just too adorable.  Well he looked adorable at first..  But after a while, the dog has turned into a little force to be reckoned with.  He’d be peeing everywhere, ripping the sofa cushions, eating pretty much anything in his sight, pooping anywhere he wanted to, biting and chewing anything, going after the postman and much much more..  He was like a living nightmare, to be honest hahahahaaa..  But beyond that, he was a sweet dog whose loyalty was unquestionable, very affectionate, loving and sweet.  Even for those who think dogs aren’t man’s bestfriend, they would find this movie sweet and enjoyable.

This movie kinda reminds me of our family dog, Sir John.  Don’t ask me why we named him Sir John – my siblings were the ones who came up with the name.  I had always been against having any four-legged animals running around the house as pet.  That’s why all my life I’ve only had 2 very low-maintenance pets, a turtle and a gold fish named Bob.  But when I had a privilege of getting to know Sir John when I went home for my vacation in 2008, I immediately liked him.  He was basically the perfect dog I’ve ever met in my life..  Doesn’t bark, doesn’t lick, doesn’t run around and destroy everything, doesn’t fight with other dogs and doesn’t poop/pee anywhere.  He was just basically a fun, sensitive and loving dog.

Marley and Me is definitely not another romantic, cheesy type of chick flick.  Well..  It still falls under category chick flick, but it ain’t The Notebook or Confessions of Shopaholic – if you know what I mean.  It had a wonderful story, and lots of times I felt the movie played with my emotion.  No, I did not shed a single tear, in case if you’re wondering..  Yes, I’d definitely recommend this one as a date movie.  Just make sure you bring some protection…  And I don’t mean helmet, by the way.

IndoDONKEY Alert!

Ahh another vampire movie..  What else would you expect when Twilight became box office and made a lot of money for Hollywood studios.  All of sudden everyone is into vampires.  There’s a new TV show about teenage vampires coming out (or maybe it already did?), the New Moon came out, another HBO mini series about vampires also came out and became an instant hit, and now… Daybreakers.  Another movie about vampires again?  Geeez..  What’s next?  The Count from Sesame Street gets his own movie deal?

Daybreakers took place in the year of 2019, when a plague has turned half of world’s population into vampires.  Humans still exist in some part of the world; however, majority of them are being farmed for their blood.  Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the vampires were forced to find a blood substitute.  Unfortunately, their effort to find this blood substitute wasn’t as easy as they had thought it would be.

I found Daybreakers a really interesting movie because it was very original, had a good concept and I constantly found myself on the edge of my seat wondering what was gonna happen in the next scene.  Ethan Hawke was awesome; he was really able to portray a vampire character who felt that he had a moral obligation to save the human race despite of his current condition as a vampire (which obviously depends so much on human blood as part of his daily meal) and his job as the Chief of Hematologist (blood expert).  Willem Dafoe was also great in the movie, playing as a recovered vampire (hahaha “recovered”)..  The guy is already skinnier than the rest of the casts and whiter than the toilet paper so he really looked believable playing as a recovered vampire.  I loved the scene where it was showing the “human farm” (see the movie poster), and it kinda reminded me of one of the scenes in the Matrix where Keanu Reeves suddenly woke up after he took the blue pill (or maybe red?) only to find himself in a human farm operated by the “machines.”

Oh there was one particular scene in the movie which I also liked, and it almost made me scream in the theater hahahahaa..  It was when these group of vampire scientists were testing the blood substitute by injecting it into one of the test subjects (in this case, another vampire).  Within seconds, he was screaming in pain and rashes showing up all over his body.  One of the scientists finally injected the antibody into him which immediately made the rashes disappear.  But 3 seconds later, the moment after he said thank you to the scientists, his body blew up!  I almost jumped off my seat when it blew up because I didn’t even see it coming.  I was like CRAP!  Thank God I cursed, not screamed like a little b*tch..  Hahahahahaaaa..

IndoDONKEY Alert!

Whut..?  Whuuuutt?  Yep that’s exactly what I’d say every time Robert Downey said something.  It’s not like he’s a bad actor or anything..  Oh no, he’s a really great and gifted actor.  It’s just that somehow I couldn’t really comprehend his British accent.  I think he was just mumbling throughout the entire movie.  Mumbling in British accent, to be exact.  On the other hand, I found that I could understand Jude Law much better – and this guy is a real Brit!  I guess Robert Downey should’ve practiced his British accent more before filming.  I only hope he didn’t practice it by watching Mr. Bean re-runs.

So the premise of this movie is that Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson, are trying to catch this serial killer/sorcerer who supposedly returns from his grave.  Lots of action, explosion and shooting, Holmes and Watson running around and beating up all the bad guys, etc.  I just loved all the action scenes – definitely give the actions scenes an A+ (although sometimes I felt Holmes was talking a bit too much).  I loved all the scenes that show Holmes’ brilliant deduction techniques as well.  I think Guy Ritchie did a great job at portraying Holmes as the master of deduction.  The mini flashback scenes were also great in the movie, and really helped us understand more about Holmes’ investigation techniques as well as his way of making deductions and arriving at conclusions.

To be honest with you, I don’t think Robert Downey is the right person to play Sherlock Holmes.  He is way too damn short and he doesn’t look quirky enough.  I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes; I’ve read all his books many many times before and honestly, Jude Law should’ve been the one who played Sherlock Holmes.  Robert Downey should’ve just stayed doing Ironman because every time I saw his face in the movie, it’d make me wonder when he was gonna turn into the Ironman and start shooting the crap out of bad guys.

Oh one more thing, Rachel McAdams was just too adorable in the movie.  She definitely was the perfect eye candy amongst the madness.

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I’m not really a big fan of movies about relationships.  Most of them tend to have the same plot, like some chick falls in love with some guy but the guy doesn’t even notice so she proceeds to do any possible silly things to get her noticed.  Or maybe some guy likes his girl co-worker and she always gives him a hard time, so he develops some crazy theories why the girl is doing that to him, etc.  Crappy screenplay, awful dialogs, not-so-funny jokes and extremely good looking stars for main characters are basically the recipes for chick flicks, and they always end with happy ending.

So when I saw the Ugly Truth movie poster and trailer, I completely had zero interest.  OK so it had King Leonidas and sweet lookin Katherine Heigl as the main characters, yea BIG DEAL.  I still wasn’t tempted to watch it.  Until it finally came out in Netflix, I was like hmm OK maybe I should check it out..  At least I wouldn’t have to pay $11 to see it in the theater.

The Ugly Truth is about male and female relationships.  Gerard Butler hosts a TV show that talks about all the ugly truths in male and female relationships, like when a guy sees a girl, the first thing that he’d notice is her boobs and her butt; her personality will come second – which I have to admit, it is kinda true hahahaha..  And Katherine Heigl is a TV producer whose morning show is struggling to keep up with ratings, until her boss finally decides to bring in Gerard Butler and incorporate his show into a  five-minute segment in the morning show.  As a result, ratings go up and everyone is happy but not Katherine Heigl because she thinks he’s the biggest jerk that she’s ever met and she’s just so eager to proves that all his theories are untrue.

To be honest with you, some of the theories and wisdoms that Gerard Butler says in this movie kinda make sense.  For instance, you wanna make your guy happy?  Just show up wearing a tiny little lingerie and he’ll be happy.  Guys are simple, they’re easy to please and they’re very direct.  We’re not melodramatic like the soap opera.  But girls, aww man..  We’re talking about getting a nice bouquet of flowers, going to some romantic candlelit dinner, taking her to see ballet, buying some nice necklace from Tiffany, etc etc etc..  YES, sometimes it really does take a lot of (so much) effort to make a girl happy and it still wouldn’t guarantee that she’ll be happy.

I was pretty surprised when I found myself enjoy watching the movie.  I seriously couldn’t stop laughing at every joke the movie delivered.  Sometimes in the middle of the movie, the image of Gerard Butler as King Leonidas (bearded and wearing the red cape and Sparta red underwear) popped up in my head.  It happened every so often and I wasn’t sure why..  Hahahhaaa..  You know what, I kinda wished that there would be a twist in the movie where Gerard Butler would scream “This is the ugly truth, biatccchhh!” and kick Katherine Heigl down to a dark, endless pit.

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Ahh..  If it isn’t another big-budget disaster movie.  Lots of explosions, earthquake, flood (a huge one!), cars hitting one another and flipping over in the middle of the road, volcanic explosions, buildings crashing down, etc..  Of course as usual, the main characters are able to get away without any injuries whatsoever.

To be honest with you, I knew this movie was gonna be pretty bad when I saw the trailer for the first time.  I mean, I knew the plot was gonna be the same as Independence Day, The Core, Deep Impact and Armageddon (OK I kinda like the last one though because it had a great soundtrack and Liv Tyler was pretty hot in that movie).  Amanda Peet looked pretty damn old and Woody Harrelson was literally annoying in the movie.  He was playing as an underground radio dj who broadcasted his show from his trailer, and his show revolved around how the world was going to end in 2012.  Stupid thing was, when the mountains started erupting, do you know what he did?  He carried all his broadcasting instruments with him and he went all the way up the hill and started broadcasting from there – telling everyone how beautiful it was to see the ground started shaking and cracking, the mountains started erupting and lava spilling out of them, etc.  Seriously..  WTF?!

Not to mention, when everyone clearly knew the world was ending and the great flood was coming to wipe them out, the US President – instead of evacuating to some high-tech vessel which was supposedly built to save humanity (only a handful was allowed to come on board; they charged 1 billion Euros/person for civilians and FREE for government officials) chose to remain in his post, the White House.  Come one, dude…  The great flood was coming and you decided to do something heroic by refusing to abandon your post and chose to stay with your people?  Meanwhile, all the other presidents were happily to come on board on their own vessels..  Aww come on, Mr. President!

As usual, all the main characters – in the midst of explosions, earthquake and great flood, they were able to escape and remain uninjured throughout the entire movie, aaaaand had a chance to get on board without paying 1 billion Euros.  Pftttt..  That’s just so Hollywood.

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