Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Vantage Point
Vantage Point, directed by Peter Travis who brought you "The Jury" in 2002. This movie started with the President of United stated went to the Salamanca, Spain, where he is holding an anti-terrorism summit. In 23 minutes period there is an assasination attempt to kill president. This movie is very unique because in one hour running time, you just have to catch the story in this 23 minutes with different point of view. This film loops through this 23 minutes over and over and over again with different point of view and different person. There are 8 point of view in this movie. This movie is fast, fun, and breezy entertainment, if you go cinema you just buy for the entertainment but not the final twist. The actions are quite intense especially the car chase scene. It contain abit shaky camera style like the movie in "The Bourne Ultimatum" (Maybe they're trying to replicate). The thing which less entertainment is the story, the story started off well and contain good final twist, but the whole movie didn't fully explain the whole story, so after watching it you will ask yourself why they do that, why they do this. So the good thing inside this movie is you watch the 23 minutes over & over again plus the action scenes but not the story. Overall it is still a good old fashioned political conspiracy thriller.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
No Country For Old Men (2007)

No Country For Old Men, directed by Coen Brothers who brought you "Intolerable Cruelty" in 2003. This movie won 4 awards in 80th Academy Awards, and it adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. This movie tells the story of a drug deal gone wrong and the ensuing cat and mouse drama as three men crisscross each other's paths in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. In this movie, there is few scenes that contain blood and gore, and some scenes are very intense where Llyewelyn Moss(Josh Brolin) who accidentally found a satchel contain 2 million dollar, and has been chasing by the an evil assassin(Javier Bardem) who want to retrieve the money back and there is few shootout between both of them. For acting, both of their acting is great especially Javier Bardem character. His acting is great, from the beginning of the film, it shows the characteristic of this character, his act just like he is really an assassin in real life. Besides that, in this movie he has an extraordinary moptop haircut. Because of the haircuts, he is very badass in this movie. I'm glad he won the Best Supporting Actor in Academy Awards. The plot for the film is great, and explain to us that this place is increasingly violent and the story is easy to understand or follow. This movie is my 2nd best film in 2007.
Monday, February 25, 2008
80th Annual Academy Awards
Best Picture
Best Director
- Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
- Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men (Winner)
- Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
- Jason Reitman - Juno
- Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Best Actor
- George Clooney - Michael Clayton
- Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood (Winner)
- Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
- Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah
- Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises
Best Actress
- Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
- Julie Christie - Away from Her
- Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose (La môme) (Winner)
- Laura Linney - The Savages
- Ellen Page - Juno
Best Supporting Actor
- Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men (Winner)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
- Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
- Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton
Best Supporting Actress
- Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
- Ruby Dee - American Gangster
- Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
- Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
- Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton (Winner)
Best Original Screenplay
- Juno - Diablo Cody (Winner)
- Lars and the Real Girl - Nancy Oliver
- Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy
- Ratatouille - Brad Bird
- The Savages - Tamara Jenkins
Best Adapted Screenplay
- Atonement - Christopher Hampton, from Atonement, novel by Ian McEwan
- Away from Her - Sarah Polley, from "The Bear Came over the Mountain", short story by Alice Munro
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Ronald Harwood, from Le scaphandre et le papillon, memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- No Country for Old Men - Joel and Ethan Coen, from No Country for Old Men, novel by Cormac McCarthy (Winner)
- There Will Be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson, from Oil!, novel by Upton Sinclair
Other awards
Best Animated Feature
Best Animated Short
Best Art Direction
- Arthur Max and Beth Rubino - American Gangster
- Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer - Atonement
- Dennis Gassner and Anna Pinnock - The Golden Compass
- Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Winner)
- Jack Fisk and Jim Erickson - There Will Be Blood
Best Cinematography
- Roger Deakins - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Seamus McGarvey - Atonement
- Janusz Kaminski - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Roger Deakins - No Country for Old Men
- Robert Elswit - There Will Be Blood (Winner)
Best Costume Design
- Albert Wolsky - Across the Universe
- Jacqueline Durran - Atonement
- Alexandra Byrne - Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Winner)
- Marit Allen - La Vie en Rose
- Colleen Atwood - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Best Documentary Feature
- No End in Sight
- Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
- Sicko
- Taxi to the Dark Side (Winner)
- War/Dance
Best Documentary Short
Best Film Editing
- Christopher Rouse - The Bourne Ultimatum (Winner)
- Juliette Welfling - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Jay Cassidy - Into the Wild
- Roderick Jaynes - No Country for Old Men
- Dylan Tichenor - There Will Be Blood
Best Foreign Language Film
- Beaufort (Israel) in Hebrew
- The Counterfeiters (Austria) in German (Winner)
- Katyń (Poland) in Polish
- Mongol (Kazakhstan) in Mongolian
- 12 (Russia) in Russian
Best Live Action Short
- At Night
- The Substitute
- The Mozart of Pickpockets (Winner)
- Tanghi Argentini
- The Tonto Woman
Best Makeup
- Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald - La Vie en Rose (Winner)
- Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji - Norbit
- Ve Neill and Martin Samuel - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Best Original Score
- Dario Marianelli - Atonement (Winner)
- Alberto Iglesias - The Kite Runner
- James Newton Howard - Michael Clayton
- Michael Giacchino - Ratatouille
- Marco Beltrami - 3:10 to Yuma
Best Original Song
- Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - "Falling Slowly" from Once (Winner)
- Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted
- Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - "So Close" from Enchanted
- Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - "That's How You Know" from Enchanted
- Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas - "Raise It Up" from August Rush
Best Sound Editing
- Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg - The Bourne Ultimatum (Winner)
- Skip Lievsay - No Country for Old Men
- Randy Thom and Michael Silvers - Ratatouille
- Matthew Wood - There Will Be Blood
- Ethan van Der Ryn and Mike Hopkins - Transformers
Best Sound Mixing
- Scott Millan, David Parker, and Kirk Francis - The Bourne Ultimatum(Winner)
- Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter Kurland - No Country for Old Men
- Randy Thom, Michael Semanick, and Doc Kane - Ratatouille
- Paul Massey, David Giammarco, and Jim Steube - 3:10 to Yuma
- Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, and Peter J. Devlin - Transformers
Best Visual Effects
In my opinion
In my opinion, i'm quite dissapointed in this year Academy Awards. Some movies that should win the awards but didn't win. For example award for best visual effects. Based on the expert voting from Yahoo, they voted "Transformers" will win the awards but end up with "Golden Compass". It is unreasonable....Based on the yahoo users voting, "Golden Compass" only get 13% for the vote, wherelse "Transformers" is 48%. The reason that "Golden Compass" won this award because maybe the visual effects usage is more than "Pirates Of The Caribbean" and "Transformers" it is about 80% of the movie using visual effects, that's why the budjet of this movie is very high, is about 180million USD. Other than that, for the Best Song Award, three songs from "Enchanted" nominated this award but end up with others movie. Then for the best actress, Keira Knightley didn't even nominated. With such a dissapointment, there's also some happiness in this Academy Awards. "The Bourne Ultimatum" won three awards, which are Best Film Editing, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. "The Bourne Ultimatum" is a very nice show, it is the best action film of 2007. Other than that, "Atonement" won the Best Original Score. The score using in this movie is very unique. It using the typing machine to compose the score....it just feel good when you listen to the score. It is fit to the movie.....the score is like....ta ta ta ta.... ta ta ta ta....------. It really feels good.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Meet The Spartans
Meet The Spartans, directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer who brought you "Epic Movie" and "Date Movie". When I see the first trailer for this movie, I thought this movie will going better than "Date Movie". But after watching it, I want to vomit. The story is just a copy cat from "300". So, I encourage you not to see this movie, you rather watch "300". The whole movie is pointless especially the joke, and the acting is sucks like hell. This movie can't even make the fart joke funny. When I watching it, I didn't feel like want to laugh. All I do is said "WTF....". The part which make me want to vomit is the GTA part which is the Leonidas become the GTA character. That part is the most stupiest part in this movie. I think both of the director should attend the college class which teach all the director "What things you should not do in a comedy" by showing this movie. This movie will be my worst movie in 2008/ all time. I think the director should prepare to be the next razzie awards winner.
Overall: "Simply the worst movie in 2008."
Atonement (2007)
Atonement, directed by Joe Wright who brought you "Pride And Prejudice" in 2005. This movie is based on the novel by Ian McEwan. This movie is starring by Keira Knightley, James McAvoy etc. This movie is one of the few great adaptation along this few years. This movie contain old fashioned love story with modern psychology and storytelling. This movie also using alot of flash back. The movie shows the flash back after the point of view of the person and the flash back shows you the exact meaning of that scene. The acting is perfect especially Keira Knightley and the newcomer, Saoirse Ronan. Their acting is totally fit to their character, so I'm sure both of them will win for the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in Academy Awards. When you watching this movie, there isn't have the meaning of atonement until you reach the ending. The full meaning of atonement is clear at its conclusion, this kind of ending is very unique and is good by putting it in this film.
Overall: "One of the best drama/film in 2007"
Monday, February 4, 2008
Rambo (2008)
Rambo, written and directed by Sylvester Stallone and it is a sequel of "Rambo III"(1988). This movie is following the events of Rambo III, Slyvester Stallone return to Thailand then resides to Burma. Then there are a group of missionary approached him and ask him to take them to a village for a mission. At the village, everythings going well but suddenly the Burma army came and kill everyone except the missionary. Then their pastor comes to Rambo and want him to guide the hired mecenaries to rescue the team. In this movie the story is very simple, so I think Slyvester Stallone can be very smart (Rocky) and sometimes can be very dumb (Rambo). The acting also not really good but atleast greater than acting in "Rambo: First Blood Part II" (I think he must prepare for getting another Golden Raspberry Awards). In this movie the only thing that I envy the most is the action sequences. By using the aid of visual effects, the action sequences are very eye candy and it looks very real especially the blood and gore parts. This movie probably has enough good action, blood and gore. When you watching the last fighting between the mecenaries, Karen Rebels and Burmese Army, you will cheer up untill the end of fight. Besides that, 61 years old Sly still very active and as tough as before. So this movie isn't very good but it's still worth to go cinema to see the action.
Trivia: This movie holds the record with the most kills out of the entire Rambo series, with 236 kills. That's mean it is an average of 2.59 kills per minute.
Overall: "A great sequel in Rambo series!", "Rambo is a very intense, blood and gore action movie! I like it!"
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007)
This movie is directed by Tim Burton who brought you "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory", "Batman (1989)" etc. This movie is about a grisly revenge by Benjamin Barker, who imprisoned by a lecherous judge. 15 years later, Barker return as a barber Sweeney Todd and exacts revenge. This is a performe arts/ musical featured film, all the actor/ actress really can sing in this movie especially Johnny Depp and Sacha Baron Cohen who act in "Borat". This is a dark movie because it is about revenge and the songs they sang also a very dark song. The lyrics of the song is very simple but meaningful. The acting was good. This movie is a perfect fit to Johnny Depp. In the movie he heart is full of vengence and pain. When he sing, he sing with his heart, when he act he act with his heart. Other than that, this movie contain alot of graphic bloody violence. Barker kill alot of people in this movie just using a razor. This movie is very special and unique because there was very few musical featured film which have blood and gore genre. This movie is simply one of the best musical featured film in 2007. Besides that, this movie recieved three Academy Awards for Best Actor, Best Achievement In Art Direction, and Best Achivement In Costume Design.
Overall: "One of the best musical featured film in 2007."




