Movies, Watched.

The Game Plan (2007)

Getting tired of sports movies yet?

Well I'm not, and this is probably the best one I've watched so far. A genius combination of humor, drama and football. I don't watch much real sports, and definitely not any American football, but I love movies like this. The Rock does some great acting, and fits in his role better than any other movies with him I've seen so far. A great story, with good actors, good filming, and a nice happy ending.

Things aren't always predictable either, which is good, wouldn't be much fun if they were. The intro is a pretty interesting one as well, full of strange childish drawings that don't relate to the movie itself at all unless you've read this, read something else, or seen the movie cover (which I hadn't). The plot features a star, on his rise towards glory, and a little unexpected twist to his life. It's different from all other sports movies I've seen, so far. Good stuff, and I recommend it.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

American Dragons (1998)

The story of an American cop and a Korean cop, that coincidentally end up with the same case. The Yakuza and the Mafia families are on the verge of war, and it seems a third party is involved, assassinating different members of the families to take over. Lots of action, good music and typical main characters. Enemies at first, with different religions and personalities, that eventually become great friends. If you love action, you'll love this, it has everything an action movie needs, and is just like all the other moves from this era. The end provides a nice twist to things as well.

 rated 3/5: not bad

Captain America (1990)

Now this is a different movie, and though the idea is, to a non-American like me, pretty stupid, it did the job of entertaining me pretty well. The main character looks ridiculous, and so does the villain. The plot is typical and the jokes are too bad to laughed at. The main character is blond and blue-eyed, the enemy is dark and brown-eyed. The plot is very predictable as well.

It was nicely filmed though, with good angles, beautiful scenery and a final scene was filled with suspense, but the extreme patriotism involved lowered my likings of it.. Great propaganda for the American nation though, and I don't want to judge this unfairly just because of the subliminal messages in it, it's a good movie, amusing despite it's flaws, and easily watchable. I hear a new one is arriving in 2009, which I will be looking forward to.

 rated 3/5: not bad

Another trilogy of movie reviews. If you don't like reading reviews, then don't read them, and don't comment about your dislikes when it comes to reading them, you won't get any +1 comment stats, so you're wasting time and space. For all others, enjoy. :)

Beowolf (2007)

A fairytale for grownups, animated with the most amazing digital animation techniques up to date, at times it looks almost real. The story is a good one, something taken out of ancient adventurous chronicles, a mixture of vikings and pre-medieval madness. Great storyline, with a little bit of everything : Adventure, Drama, Romance. The main character is a real hero, courageous and undefeatable, and the plot takes place beside the ocean, where monsters and dragons roam. It's not one of the best movies I've seen, and i think it's highly overrated, but it was an interesting watch. Very different from all other movies this year. If you like fiction and adventure, watch it.

 rated 2/5: decent

Warriors Of Heaven & Earth (2003)

A nice Asian fictional adventure. Follow the journey of the small group of unlikely warriors sent on a journey to protect a Buddhist and her collection of scrolls. They are family, friends and enemy, all with defined sets of personalities and values. During the way things get out of hand and they have to fight a large band of turks. They all fall, slowly, one by one as they get closer to their destination. Great filming, with decent special effects and varied events. The plot is intense, long, and dramatical. Not anything out of the ordinary, but a good movie indeed. I recommend it.

 rated 3/5: not bad

Rocky 2 (1979)

The legend is back, this time in a battle against the champion Apollo Creed. Sylvester Stallone plays his roll as Italian great, with a good accent and the perfect attitude. Seems like his life is filled with many hardships though, and he faces many different troubles on his journey towards the king title. Very emotional, with grand musical input and mixed events and a stunning last battle. Rocky is a lovable character, and the movie, though without much action or artistic filming, easily captures your attention. A great movie considering how old it is.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Well since it's a new year and all, here's 6 movie reviews for a change :)

Dirty (2005)

The story of two corrupt cops. One with good intentions, in the wrong place. The other one with bad intentions, also at the wrong place. It's a drama, with a little action, and a sad insight in corrupt cop life.

The filming is great. Just the intro is a masterpiece in itself. The different transitions flow together smoothly and the special effects all appear at the right moment. Some of them are so good you almost don't notice when they're cut, must be the best transitions I've ever seen in a movie. I spot Wyclef Jean in the short note of credits and think this movie will truly be great, but it isn't.

The actors or good, the filming is genius and the plot is a smart one as well. All the characters have clear personality displays, the plot is complex, the lighting is always right and theres a sort of brown/depressing color in the whole thing. It really is a great movie, so why don't I like it? It's just not what I like watching. It progresses slowly, contains little action, no beautiful sceneries, no heroes, no anger, no love, just normal emotionless street life.

 rated 2/5: decent

Ong-Bak (2003)

I've only watched two movies from Thailand in my life. I watched the first one, one that I can't remember the title of, two weeks ago. It was good, low budget but funny and well-made, so I looked up another movie, and it was a real goldmine. Never heard of it before, but I'm happy to have found it because it turned out to be one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Read on...

It's Wednesday! So here I am again, with yet another daily post for this week. I've done a month of daily double flashes and audio submissions as well as ALMOST a month of daily deposits and an average of 1 BBS Post, Music Review and Flash Review per day, so a week with daily news seems like an unquestionable follower! Right? Anyhow, I actually had some school today. Woke up early (8) and traveled by train to the university for a semi-interesting lecture on Japanese Tea Ceremonies. I learned how the tea plant was originally developed (it grew from Bodhidarma's ripped off eyelids), how a disciple finally took him out of his trance by cutting off an arm, how the tea tradition was brought to Japan from China, why they had tiny doors you had to crawl through in the early teahouses and much more. Does this sound interesting to you? Maybe you should study Japanese then!

All our lectures so far have been varied and a few legendary Japanese movies have been shown as well. Strangely though, none of Akira Kurosawa's, but the teacher said that he tried gathering a selection of movies we probably hadn't seen already. I haven't seen any of Akira Kurosawa's movies, but I'd like to. A movie that I have seen, though, is Zatoichi, which they will be showing us next week. On Friday this week we're having a lecture on Anime, or more specifically Japanese Animation, something that is today well known around the globe. I feel almost inspired to fetch my external HD and start watching the GITS Stand Alone Complex series, one of the few that I have saved for rainy days and have not yet seen.

It was cold today, ice cold. I had to wear one of my newer jackets, one that's warmer than the current summer jacket I've worn since March. I even had to put something on my head and black leather gloves on my hands, the thermometer displayed -3C this morning but it felt like -30C. The ground has stayed frozen the whole day (even in the city) and the little snow that's left after the past few days sunny melting rampage is still here tonight. After I got home from University I made myself a lunch as warm as possible and sat down by the computer to finish a few website related missions I've set for myself. These missions consisted of a big library update, 100 new games to the games section, round corners on the sidebar and finally finishing the BBGrounds and WonPeace websites, among other things

I took a trip to my buddy Andreas house later on, but he wasn't home, so I came back and watched...

Perfect Stranger (2007)

Perfect Stranger is a movie starring that Die Hard character and that other female figure thats been in a countless number of movies already that I really should know the name of by now. Of course I remember Bruce Willis, who can't remember a name like Bruce Willis? As for the other character it's a mystery. It's a great movie. The main character is a reporter, and a good one at that, trying to uncover the secrets that rich and powerful men hide. In the beginning it seems like just any other romantic thriller, but there's much more to it than that. The main characters aren't always what they seem to be and there are plenty of secrets to be unrevealed. I hope I don't spoil it for you by saying that things won't turn out as predictable as you think they would in the very end. The very very end is also the intro, which connects a couple of dots and makes you say: "Aha - So that's what it was!"

Read on...

Hello World! Day one of the week has passed, Monday. I started the day by going on a quick shopping-spree for Christmas presents and a soft-air Uzi for myself. The mission was quickly accomplished and I traveled back home in time to cut my hair before the sun sank down and the world was once again doused with winter. The mission wasn't a complete success though, two of the items on my well-planned inventory were sold out, so I'll have to return sometime to buy some more. Before most important occasions with giving involved I'm usually out shopping the last few seconds so this is a great improvement since previous years though. Anyhow, since then I've spent my time watching the latest episodes of Mar and One Piece, followed by four movies, for which short commentaries follow below in yearly order (warning, spoilers). After this post I'm on my way to watch an episode of 'My name is Earl' and go to sleep.

BloodMonkey (2007)

Deep down in the jungles of who knows were you'll find a valley, previously undiscovered, that is inhabited by bloodthirsty monkeys never seen before. They lurk in the bushes through the whole movie, and you get to see how they really look like first at the very end. So how do they look like? Just like normal gorillas, except with red eyes, and they're digital as well. Most, if not all, of the filming is "real" material, and at the very end a very digitally animated looking gorilla jumps onto the screen, which I really must say, really is crap. This is another American movie, and as usual without much inspiration.

Read on...

I watched movies this weekend. Lots, of movies.

Yesterday I saw Transamerica - the story about a transsexual man about to undergo an operation when 'he' finds out that he has a son. He sets out to search for him and a lot of things happen. It wasn't really my choice of movie (my buddy Bjorn wanted to see it), I don't like drama that much, but it turned out ok. Later that night in front of my TV screen I watched Jurassic Park 3 and an old thriller from the '80s, which I don't remember the name of. Both movies I surprisingly haven't seen before, and they were good.

Today I watched Babas Bilar and Frostbiten. Both of them are Swedish movies, and they take place in Northern Sweden, during the winter. If you happen to not be Swedish, I still really recommend that you watch these two, they were fantastic. Finding English subtitles might be a problem. Well, to the summaries:

Babas Bilar - A young man is trying to repair his Cadillac and at the same time buy a house that his girlfriend and he can live in peacefully. He doesn't have enough money to buy both the house and repair the Cadillac, so he tries to find some work... and ends up painting the ceiling of his girlfriend's fathers house. Her father, whose name is Baba, has a small business (Babas Bilar, in English - Babas Cars), which isn't completely legal. One nice sunny winterish day he is tricked in to buying a black Cadillac which happens to be "stolen" from a Finnish/Russian Mafia. The Finnish and Russians try to get the car back, but it has already been sold to a Norwegian on his way back to Norway. The whole thing gets pretty complicated/out of hand and there is a lot of humor combined with unpredictable and 'unnormal' traditional 'Norrländskt' action. It's a great movie, really really great. Starts of slow, but it just gets better and better... and better yet...

FrostBiten - The first Swedish Vampire movie ever! And it's a success! Despite what all the critics are writing about it, it's the bast vampire movie I have ever seen. The whole story takes place in the dark winters of Northern Sweden. Strange things are happening here, like people dying. The main characters, a mother and her daughter, move up to the North. The mother starts working at a hospital with genetics, and the daughter starts school. Secrets from the Second World War, that were never meant to be known - are revealed. New genetic discoveries are being made to further evolve the vamperian race... and there's a crazy party going down. Maybe people don't appreciate the humor in this, since it is, despite what people think - a horror movie. However, they really managed to combine humor and horror in a good way. You can't predict the outcome at all, even though you think you already did. I highly recommend this one too.

Alright, I didn't write that detailed summaries now. So you'll really want to see these 2 movies. :P I'm on my way to stare at my TV for a few hours of more movie watching. And tomorrow I'm seeing Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence... and the latest double episode of One Piece if ACD Fansubs have subbed it yet.

BANZAI,
Bob