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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What does this mean?

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.

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What does this mean?

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.

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What does this mean?

Before I start writing my review, I’d like to say one thing: I’m not into the Twilight Saga.  I saw the 1st movie, and really hated it.  I thought it was extremely cheesy and was definitely a perfect movie for pimpled teenage girls.  I felt like I was in pain hearing some of the dialogues in the movie.  I’ve seen a lot of cheesy movies before, but that one was literally at the top of the list.

So now you’re probably wondering, if I hated the 1st one so much, then why did I even bother to see the 2nd one and basically let myself endure the same pain and suffering for nearly 2 hours?  Well the answer is, I have no idea.  I kept asking myself that question over and over, from the moment I bought the ticket until the time the movie began..  I kept wondering what the hell I am doing here and still had no clue why I was there.

A few seconds after the lights turned down the girls started screaming.  I looked up only to find the movie was still showing the opening credit.  I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me.  Neither Edward or Jacob was in sight and they already started screaming?!  Some were clapping their hands.  I was sitting there, torn between whether I should scream my lungs out like the girls in the theater, or start clapping my hands like a crazy person.

I honestly don’t understand what’s so hot about this Edward guy.  He’s too skinny, too pale and not so good-looking.  Heck if I were a girl, I don’t think I’d be into Edward.  Even for a vampire, he’s too damn sensitive.  Too goddamn soft.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a vegetarian and drove a station wagon before he became a vampire.

The girls started screaming again at the sight of Edward coming out of his car..  Oh god.  But this time, they would also scream at the sight of Jacob’s sick puppies (a.k.a. Jacob’s six pack).  I could honestly tell that the director intentionally had his screenwriters write a lot of scenes where Jacob would show up with his shirt off, flaunting his rock hard abs.  Either they’d scream or I’d hear occasional gasps with eyes staring intently at the screen hahahhaaaa…  Ahh teenage girls, they’re so easy to please.

I honestly thought this movie was so much better than the 1st one.  There were a few action scenes – my favorite one was the one where this pack of wolves running after this black vampire and finally ripped him apart.  That was pretty cool.  I kinda wish the director would have done it Tarantino style though.  More blood and gory.  Oh my other favorite scene was the one where Edward fighting against this club bouncer-lookin vampire in Italy..  He basically grabbed Edward and tossed him around like a rag doll.  That was pretty fun seeing Edward being tossed around left and right and wasn’t able to do anything about it.

Overall, I think this movie was made only for teenage girls.  It’s definitely not a date movie – believe me, I don’t think you can get any action after seeing this movie.  The Edward guy – totally not hot.  That Jacob guy on the other hand, he was alright.  I could see why girls would drool over him.  Edward’s dad needed to have more lines, and possibly his own action scenes.  It would’ve been awesome if Blade had all of sudden come out of nowhere and started slaying the vampires hahahaaa..  Oh one more thing, if I get the question again (that’s been going around on Facebook): “Whose team am I on – team Edward or team Jacob”?  I’d say I’ll be on team shut-the-hell-up-I’ve-had-enough-of-Twilight.

IndoDONKEY Alert!

What does this mean?

A couple weeks ago I was dragged to see Paranormal Activity, a low-budget horror movie that was supposedly one of the scariest horror movies of all time…  Well that was the hype at the time.

Personally, I hate watching horror movies.  Why?  It’s because: FIRST, I’m such a chicken shit.  SECOND, I can scream like a 7-year-old girl in the middle of the movie.  Trust me, you wouldn’t want to have me sitting next to you while watching a horror movie.  I honestly couldn’t remember how I was convinced to go see this movie.  All I knew was I found myself sitting in the theater and looking up to see the lights as they were being turned down because the movie was about to start.

The movie was shot in documentary style (the camera was carried around by one of the main characters).  So there were a lot of movements, camera being jerked around and held sideways, etc.  It got to the point where I felt the camera was being jerked around too damn much and really made me feel extremely dizzy.  It was like The Blairwitch Project, except that this movie was 10 times scary.

The movie started really slow – the first few minutes it was only showing how the boyfriend was gonna try to catch “the ghost” with his new big-ass camcorder and (maybe) try to whoop his butt.  Then it was showing how they went about their business everyday but nothing really happened.  Finally after the 4-5th night they stayed in the house, things really started happening.  That’s when the movie started scaring the hell out of me.  They heard someone stomping up and down the stairs in the middle of the night (but nobody was there), another night their bedroom door started swinging by itself, and then the following night the girlfriend all of sudden woke up in the middle of the night and and walked to the backyard, sat on the swing and started humming (then afterwards she realized she had no idea why she was there), etc..  Seriously, if it hadn’t been because of freakin headache, I would’ve probably scared shitless.  There were a few times where I had to shut my eyes for a few seconds – NOT because I was scared to watch – because of the unbearable pain in my head caused by the camera moving around too damn much.

Personally, I think the movie was very well done, considering it was made with only a budget of $16K and somehow found its way to the box office.  The screenplay was very good, both the stars (“the boyfriend” and “the girlfriend”) really nailed the characters down and even though it started really slow at first, I think it was intentionally done that way in order to build the suspense.  And there was barely any special effects in the movie.  Seriously, if I see any 3D ghost in a horror movie, I’d literally walk out of the theater.

IndoDONKEY Alert!

What does this mean?