Movie Review: 3:10 to Yuma

Movie Title: 3:10 To Yuma
Starring: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben Foster, Peter Fonda and Gretchen Mol.
Directed by: James Mangold
Genre: Western/Action/Adventure
My Rating: 9/10

Yee-haww! What happens when you take an Australian/New Zealand Oscar Winner and a Welsh born substance actor and put them both in a remade Western movie set in the post-cold-war southwest? Well, 3:10 is a great example that this mixture of imported heroes does work well for almost any genre now. Add the director of Walk the Line and you've got yourself a strong entertainer!

Bale plays with expertise and dignity a family man + financially struggling rancher + former Union soldier who volunteers to escort an outlaw to the nearest train station to be sentenced as a federal prisoner in a bigger city. This outlaw is brilliantly portrayed by none other than Crowe. Take his bad-ass and no-BS attitude from L.A. Confidential, gallantry from Gladiator and improve his gun slinging from Quick and the Dead, you have the character Ben Wade in 3:10. Both these actors displayed near perfection as men on opposite sides of the law, yet managing to earn respect for each other half way through the movie (and not keep it cliched for the end, thank God, we don't need another buddy-cop-cowboy flick).

Peter Fonda plays a bounty hunter leading the pack to escort Wade to the train station, and shows his veteran status well even though he was almost forgotten before he reappeared on the silver screen in Ghost Rider. Gretchen Mol plays Bale's gracious wife, mothering two sons. The elder son is some 14 year old loose canon who can't wait to get his hand on the trigger every time. At the same time he wasn't shown as a spoilt teenager of the 20th-21st century, interestingly.

Robert Foster wins the award for creepiest character of the movie, as Wade's super-attached yet heartless sidekick. I understand he's trying to grow out of the high school boy image, but whoa - this is quite an extreme. Not the first, I'm sure.

The scenery's and set up were all done excellently. The screen color and free language is one of the few things that remind us that it's not just another classic western we're watching. Even though this movie is a remake of a 1957 movie with the same title and starring Glen Ford, many reviewers have praised the 2007 version to be an improvement over the original. I personally haven't missed too many classic westerns, but the '57 version of Yuma just happens to be one of them I need to add to my netflix queue for comparison. Comparing The Departed to it's HK-Chinese original Infernal Affairs was a lot fun alright.

Back to Yuma '07, it's an enjoyable flick whether you like westerns or not. The acting, set-up, direction are all great additions to the simple story. 9/10 - probably the last movie of the summer/fall to get such a rating from me :-)

Movie Review: Superbad

Movie Title: Superbad
Starring: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, Martha McIsaac, Emma Stone and Seth Rogen
Directed by: Greg Motolla
Genre: Comedy
My Rating: 9/10

Attaboy! This is how you make a hilarious movie with a bunch of talented yet relatively unknown young actors. I usually avoid listing unknown actors, but they all deserved the credit here. Seth Rogen has scored once again as a writer and supporting actor.

Arrested Development's Michael Sera and Accepted's John Hill play a pair of high school misfits who want to party it out 2 weeks before graduating. Sera plays the brain and Hill plays the obnoxious, and their weakness is that they're heterosexually inseparable. In trying to get the girls of their dreams, acquiring alcohol with the help of a greater nerd in the form of McLovin (Passe) who has a fake-id, running into fun and unrealistic loving cops (Knocked Up's Rogen and SNL's Hader) and crashing at a grown up party to steal booze before landing up at a high school party to which they got invited to for the first time ever - summarizes their unlimited adventure.

The girls, for a change, looked like high school girls, and not like 25-30 year olds who must have failed too many times to still be prom-dreaming. The cops were the funniest part of the movie, with their Star Wars references and power abuse. More detail could lead to spoilers. I'd suggest you watch this movie unless you're a lightweight and have absolutely no sense of humor. Superbad surpasses all high school comedies ever, ever made. Forget Fast Times, forget American Pie. It could compare to The New Guy only because the music in the soundtrack was very retro - funk and classic rock.

9/10. Enjoy! Not a family movie, but fun for all at the same time.

Movie Review: The Bourne Ultimatum

Movie Title: The Bourne Ultimatum
Starring: Matt Damon, Joan Allen, David Staithairn, Julia Stiles, Edgar Ramirez and Scott Glenn.
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Genre:Action/Thriller/Mystery/Adventure
My Rating: 9/10

This just might be the first time in film history that a threequel (part 3 of a franchise) is the best one of the trilogy! Ultimatum's predecessors The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy were brilliant action movies as well, but part-3's depth and execution ruled them all. By this third movie we've come to accept the movie will be different from the book (again) - to suit current political conditions and aftermaths, as well as technological advances. The first movie disappointed many fans of the book due to the story change, despite the kick ass action. The second movie had better locales (Goa in India to start with, thank you) and a smoother progression. Yet Ultimatum has to be the best entertainer of the summer this year, and I'm glad for the same.

While attempting to minimize spoilers in this post and others to come, I'll still say that the movie starts not after where the last one ended, but 10 mins before the ending of Supremacy. Jason Bourne (Damon), the ex-CIA hitman who's conscience had him fail a mission and woke up with amnesia after floating in the Mediterranean sea for a little while, starts to remember his training days and induction into the "Treadstone" program of the Agency. Information of Bourne's background gets "leaked" to a British journalist and lands up on the papers in the UK, which awakens Bourne from his exile once again, as well as the CIA guys working on Treadstone's upgrade, called "Blackbriar." The cat and mouse game between the agents, headed by Vosen (Straithairn, another great performance) and Bourne. BUT - it continues to be confusing who the cat is and who the mouse is. If Bourne is the mouse, he's the Jerry to Tom. After a failed attempt to capture Bourne, Pamela Landy (Allen, who made Supremacy better than Identity) is called upon to advise them on Bourne's moves and signals.

The chase continues to Spain and Morocco, with great cinematography and car chase scenes. Bourne runs into his old colleague at Treadstone, Nicky (Stiles, wooden as ever) and she surprisingly ends up helping him.

The two hit-men sent to get Bourne were nothing short of bad-ass. Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez (from Domino) was way colder than Clive Owen in the first movie, and Joey Ansah played the Moroccan operative like the hero of a B-grade martial arts movie. Veteran actor Scott Glenn played the CIA director, and fared decently in his short role, so did Albert Finney as Bourne's old trainer.

Matt Damon just established himself an ideal action movie star. I did miss Franka Potente and Julia Stiles was the only actor that didn't impress me much. However, I say thank God for Joan Allen being in this movie. If Damon was the protagonist, she was the backbone of the entire movie, best support an action movie can get.

Okay, I better cut this short before any more potential spoilers. Go watch it if you haven't yet. I'm going to buy the DVD, for sure. Maybe all 3 now. Hmm..

9.25/10 - my Nestle frozen chocolate drink went very well with that! :-)

Comedy Reviews: Chuck/Larry and Simpsons Movie

Movie Title: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, Dan Akyroyd, Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames.
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Genre: Comedy
My Rating: 7.5/10

James and Sandler play two straight firefighters in NYC who decide to fake a marriage to benefit widower James' children as far as insurance etc goes. The marriage is real, the gayness is not. Don't ask. They're advised to do so by their lawyer, played but eye candy Jessica Biel. As Adam Sandler gets older, the heroines in his movies keep getting younger. Not a bad deal. Happens in other parts of the world, doesn't it?

The supporting cast is praiseworthy. Dan Akyroyd as their fire chief, Ving Rhames in a very unusual role, Steve Buscemi creepy as ever, and Sandler's entourage that appears in every movie of his all did a decent job. Only actor missing was Rob Schneider, but not terribly missed.

7.5/10. Funny movie, not for the terribly homophobic. It'll satisfy hard-core Adam Sandler fans, and moderately amuse King of Queens fans. Sandler is back to his old ways, less of a super goody goody smart ass and more of an apathetic clown. Chuck/Larry will make a good rental with some buddies on a Saturday evening when you don't feel like going out.

Movie Title: The Simpsons Movie
Directed by: David Silverman
Genre: Animation/Comedy/Family
My Rating: 8/10

Quick review. Great movie, amusing, watchable by all ages. I stopped watching Simspons almost a decade ago and still enjoyed this flick. It was much better than 2 hours of Simpsons episodes at a strectch. Also a group movie.

Movie Review: Live Free Or Die Hard

Movie Title: Live Free or Die Hard
Starring: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Cliff Curtis.
Directed by: Len Wiseman
Genre: Action/Thriller
My Rating: 8.5/10

Bravo! Who would have expected a part-4 (or a fourquel) would be this good? I mean, it wasn't as amazing as Die Hard 1 or 3, but better than 2 and good enough for a summer action entertainer.

Willis reprises his role as bad-ass NYPD cop John McLane, divorced and estranged from his kids. But still a cop, and not seen with the bottle this time around. For better or worse, none of the characters from the previous DH movies return, and Willis stands tall and alone around characters much younger to him. Assuming the last minute 2 AM job of escorting a hacker (Long - the "mac" guy) from NYC to DC as a favor to the feds is a one-off thing, turns out to be another save-the-day task for the aging and balded cop. Former Secret Service whiz Thomas Gabriel (Deadwood's Olyphant) decides to teach the US government a lesson by exposing all the open holes in the federal computer system and creating a fire sale as a whole.

The action is great! A good change from the sci-fi overdose these days, old school unrealistic stunts worked well in this movie. What I missed is the lack of swearing. Yes, this movie is rated PG-13, WTF? I understand it's releasing in the summer and would be nice to attract more teenage crowd, but still. A Die Hard movie is incomplete without the overdose of foul verbage. John McLane hasn't gone all that senile, has he? Hope the DVD is uncut. Oh, spoilers aside, he does say what he say at the end of every DH movie before killing the villain. Thank God for that least.

Willis excels in the role he knows best. The character and the actor both have aged well in this movie. Justin Long deserves praise as well, being the spokesperson for Apple's Macintosh computers on TV commercials establishes his image as a computer guy well. Timothy Olyphant, well this is not the first time he simply plays a baddie, and does ok. Maggie Q did a decent job as a kung-fu assistant of the villain. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Willis' daughter who gets kidnapped when the veteran cop gets too hard to handle.

8.5/10. Best actioneer of the summer so far. Enjoy this dude flick.

Velvet Revolver: Live performance on myspace.com

Velvet Revolver will be playing live on myspace.com on Tuesday, July 31st 2007 at 6PM Pacific Time/8PM Central/9PM Eastern.

Requests will be taken via myspace IM's, which I may just skip. But won't miss this show for the world!

If you can't watch this, but are still interested in seeing what VR is like when live, check this out:
    Velvet Revolver live at MSN Music in Concert

Update: 7/31/2007 10:30 PM, The e-concert was awesome! A very interesting novelty indeed. Looking forward to seeing VR in October.

Here's their bassist Duff McKagan promoting the e-concert.

Hey, Play This!

I'm going to hopefully see these guys live in October, with Alice in Chains.

Movie Trailer: The Darjeeling Limited

I may not have mentioned this before on blog; I happen to be a fan of Wes Anderson movies. His next film, The Darjeeling Limited is about three estranged American brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman) travelling through northern and eastern India by train. Looks like an interesting and mellow comedy like other Anderson flicks.

Check out the trailer:

Trailer on Apple.com

If I were a Simpson's character

I'm not the biggest Simspsons' fan, but I found this to be hilarious!

Go to http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/avatar and make your own avatar. If I were a Simpson's character, I would be Apu's nemesis from back home, named Babu and this is what I'd look like:


Click Here to View Image!

Movie Review: Transformers

Movie Title: Transformers
Starring: Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro and Jon Voigt
Directed by: Michael Bay
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Comic-based
My Rating: 7/10

Great special effects, clichéd storyline, strong supporting cast and 144 minutes in length would best summarize this movie. The love story starts when a high school geek (LeBeouf) tries to impress his class-mate hottie (Fox) and buys a car within his miserly daddy's budget, the car starts playing herbie for the first half of the movie at least. The action starts when a U.S. Military base in Qatar (which is in the Middle East for those who don't know, a U.S. friendly nation near Saudi Arabia) is attacked by a huge machine with a brain of its own and acquires intel from the servers there. Valiant survivors of this attack (Duhamel, Gibson) decide to take the probe of this attack into their own hands when they return home.

These brained-machines are a species from another galaxy's planet and are called auto-bots or transformers as humans like to call them. There are bad auto-bots on earth since their planet was destroyed, so the good ones arrive as well to protect human-kind, in good faith.

How does the kid get involved in this? His car is not just a love-bug, but also an auto-bot itself assigned to protect him and his family. His ancestor was one of the first to find an auto-bot on earth in the Arctic ice. So now it's more than just the car that impresses the hottie.. Hmm...

Despite the special effects, the fights between the good and bad auto-bots are sometimes too fast for live-action, and would have been better when animated. CGI can't always make everything real and visually appealing. The supporting cast carried the movie throughout. Rachael Taylor, the young Australian actress, impressed as a Department of Defense intern who finds the code and assesses the intent of the bots. The accent was definitely a plus.

Otherwise, I would have probably enjoyed the movie better if I was 15. I did enjoy the cartoons around that age and before. Despite the PG-13 rating, I felt too old to appreciate the movie too much, even thought I haven't hit 30 yet!

7/10. Maybe 8/10 on DVD, or if you take your kids/nephews/nieces.

Smashing Pumpkins' Tarantula Video: Re-edited by some Genius!

Smashing Pumpkins recently re-united, well... with only 2 of the old band-members and 3 new ones, and have just released their new album called Zeitgeist and it so far sounds awesome! Very typical 90's Alternative Rock brought back to life.

Their first music video from this "Tarantula" was re-edited with a different background by a genius on youtube, and now the video's theme is American foreground, European background. Kudos to Rev-24for the good work!



Watch it here.

In other news, I hope to be seeing the Pumpkins in concert on October 25th, but hope to see Velvet Revolver on Oct 9 first! WOOHOO!