Have you ever seen The Raid: Redemption? It’s one helluva action movie! The main star looks so bad-ass, he’s making Van Damme, Seagal, Stallone and Schwarzenegger look like a group of circus clowns. For real! Check out the trailer below:
The movie was very well done, GREAT fighting scenes (notice I capitalized the word great), not too much dialog – it’s more like 99% action! It has all the right ingredients to make an action movie. There were a few times where I literally hold my breath because the movie was pretty intense. Even when the good guy was beating the shit out of all the bad guys, I was also holding my breath. I think it’s been a long time the last time since I saw an extremely awesome action movie (couldn’t even remember the last time I saw a decent one……maybe Rambo 4? Naaaw…Stallone looks so damn old. I was having a hard time believing he was actually doing all those action scenes).
Hollywood definitely needs someone like Iko Uwais (the main star in the movie). If he was up against either Seagal or Jet Li…or even Van Damme, I would probably put my money on him. He might be a few inches shorter than those guys (except for Jet Li since he’s practically a midget), but he can definitely take them out anytime, anywhere. So bad-ass!
Whoaaa I just realized I’ve been neglecting this blog for more than a year! I believe my last post was back in April, 2010….Holy cow! Well, it’s not like I haven’t watched a lot of movies, I actually have and have probably seen way too many movies since my last posting. I don’t think I’d be able to catch up with the writing if I had to write a review for every single movie that I’ve seen the past 12+ months.
Anyways, this past few days I’ve been trying to find some good Indonesian movies. Good things about Indonesian movies are they’re not too heavy (meaning it’s more like pop-corn type of movie, easy to digest) and the good guys always win. Oh and also, they’re free (thanks to YouTube). The only problem that I have now is to find a really good Indonesian movie. To be honest with you, I don’t really keep up with Indonesian movie industry at all. Too much drama..more drama than Hollywood, I’d say. So for me to find the latest Indo movies, I really have to depend so much on YouTube. The weird thing is, so far the ones that I’ve found are Indo horror movies. Somehow people are starting to obsess with horror movies, so the studios are trying to feed the masses by making as many horror movies as they could. The result is we now have a bunch of really bad quality horror movies that don’t even make any sense whatsoever!
Here are some of the ones that I’ve found recently:
Anak Setan (Satan’s Child or maybe Evil Kid – really depends on the context of the movie)
Arwah Goyang Karawang (The Karawang Move Spirit – honestly I don’t how to properly translate “Goyang Karawang”. I think it’s some sort of traditional dance move)
Dedemit Gunung Kidul (The Kidul Mountain Big-Fat Ghost – I think that’s the correct way to translate “Dedemit.” They say “Dedemit” is some type of a ghost, only bigger and fatter)
Dikejar Setan (Chased by the Ghost)
Hantu Biang Kerok (The Troublemaker Ghost – What the hell….?)
Hantu Binal Jembatan Semanggi (The Semanggi Bridge Slutty Ghost – this is even worse)
Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan (The Menstruated Peak Ghost – never knew ghosts could menstruate, too)
Jeritan Kuntilanak (The Screaming Female Ghost)
Kuntilanak Kamar Mayat (The Mortuary Female Ghost)
Kuntilanak 2 (The Female Ghost 2)
Kuntilanak 3 (The Female Ghost 3 – OK seriously, I don’t know what the obsession is with this female ghost. They even made the sequels and spin-offs of these female ghost movies…my God)
Dendam Kuntilanak (The Revenge of Female Ghost – oh here’s another one)
And last but not least, the Pocong series:
Pocong Jum’at Kliwon
Pocong Kamar Sebelah
Pocong Keliling
Pocong Ngesot
Pocong Rumah Angker
Pocong Setan Jompo
Pocong 2
Pocong 3
I honestly don’t know how to translate “pocong” in English. Pocong is basically the soul of dead guy trapped in their suit – which happens to be shroud. They cover the dead body with white fabric and tie the clothing over the head, under the feet, and on the neck, and that’s what “pocong” looks like. Somehow any movies about pocong always make so much money in the box office, and that’s the sole reason why the Indo filmmakers keep making movies about pocong…in addition to “kuntilanak”, the female ghost.
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.
After having waited for 5 long years, I finally got a chance to see Avatar, a James Cameron’s movie which supposedly is the next generation in 3D technology. I have to admit, the movie was just incredible. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of 3D movies before, but this one is literally at the top of my list. I could see the attention to detail that James Cameron put so much emphasis on in the movie, starting from the moment both characters were walking in the woods – whenever they stepped on the grass or something, the grass would light up under their feet. Little things like that really made so excited like a five-year-old sitting in the theater, watching his first movie. I felt like I was trying to open my eyes wider so I wouldn’t miss anything on the screen.
I was so amazed seeing the floating mountains, the bio-luminescences plans in the woods, the six-limbed horses (all animals in Pandora have six limbs) and the trees (they’re all weirdly shaped) in the movie. I could definitely tell James Cameron really thought everything thorough when creating the world of Pandora. Even the concept of six-limbed animals – I believe I read it somewhere that in Pandora, even though it resembles Earth, but the gravity is much lower. That’s why all animals in Pandora have six limbs in order to be able to support their weight.
The movie was pretty long – almost 3 hours. But honestly, I was so glued to my seat that it didn’t feel like 3 hours at all. In fact, I was secretly hoping it would keep showing for another 2 hours hahahhaaa.. I just loved everything about it, even the storyline – it was one of the best that I’ve seen by far.
Check out this clip about the world of Pandora that I found on Youtube.
I seriously can go on and on writing about the movie, but I feel at this point I’ve already revealed too much about it hahahaa.. Sorry peeps! Seriously though, the movie is sooo well worth sitting for almost 3 hours in the theater. In fact, I wouldn’t mind watching this again. Make sure you see this in 3D. Better yet, go to Imax to see it.
One more thing, there was a scene where two Na’vis were making out in the middle of the woods. When they kissed, I couldn’t believe they actually kissed like human. The kiss felt (looked) so real and convincing, and I didn’t even realize I was actually looking at two digitally-made characters kissing each other (NOT two people in a Na’vi costume and makeup). Too bad that particular scene wasn’t extended for a few more seconds.. I wonder if they actually “mate” like human too.
I knew this movie was gonna be terrible since it was directed by the one and only.. Uwe Boll!
First of all, if you’re into video games, you’ve probably heard of Far Cry, a first-person shooter game about an ex US Special Forces who is searching for a female journalist in some South Pacific island full of mercenaries. Supposedly it’s a very interesting game since it was sold over 730,000 units within four months of release.
A couple of days ago I was browsing my Netflix queue until I saw Far Cry on the list. I was like, wait a second.. I didn’t remember adding this to my queue? So then I checked the movie casts and director to see if there were any A or B-list celebrities (since the guy in the movie poster who was supposedly the main character was sorta considered a C-list celebrity), turns out the movie was directed by the infamous UWE BOLL!
Let me tell you a little story about Uwe Boll. This infamous German director is specialized in movies based on video games and so far he single handedly destroyed every single one of them. I don’t know how he was able to convince movie studios or producers to finance all his movies. I honestly think he has no business directing any more video game movies and needs to be banned for life from directing movies. He would take good video games and turn them into horrible movies. He’s like Osama Bin Laden of filmmaking. Seriously! Click here if you want to read more about him.
I should’ve checked the trailer first. That way I wouldn’t have bothered adding this to my Netflix queue. From the trailer alone, you could honestly tell this movie looks cheap and would be one of the worst movies ever. But you know what, at least they got the Hawaiian shirt part right (in the game, the character wears a Hawaiian shirt all the time – not some army camouflage or something). But it was worn for only the first 10 minutes of the movie.
The movie started off with a group of mercenaries stuck in the middle of the jungle at night. All of sudden someone/something started attacking them, killing every man in their group one person at a time. I couldn’t really see who was attacking them since the camera was only showing from the attacker’s point of view, and all I could hear was him breathing heavily with steam coming out of his nose. At that point I said to myself okay, this looks kinda promising. A monster comes out of nowhere and starts attacking a group of fully-equipped mercenaries.. Reminds me of the movie Predator (the one with Arnie though, not the one with Danny Glover).
A few minutes later, I finally found out that this “monster” was supposedly a soldier who was genetically engineered by a crazy scientist to be a super soldier/killing machine. Turns out there wasn’t just one super soldier, apparently this crazy scientist created a bunch of these mofos. When I saw these guys – well I don’t know if it was just a bad makeup – but I thought they didn’t look scary at all.. They looked more like a mime troupe (minus the hair, dark lipstick, funny hat, silly costume and gloves). Not only they have super strength, but these mofos were also bulletproof. Haha yea how about that, huh? A bulletproof-mime-lookin-super-killing-machine. The jokes were awful. The fat guy in the movie (who was supposedly the movie’s comic relief) wasn’t funny at all. In fact, I kinda found him annoying and was hoping someone would shoot him with a bazooka or something. He was loud, too fat, really annoying and was too much into his foot-long sandwich. I pray to God someday people would stop funding Uwe Boll’s movies so he’ll be forced to work as an ice cream street vendor in Berlin.
