Trailer of Big Bullet

Doing one of my favorite past times which is watching trailers and as far as trailers go, Big Bullet's trailer is pretty decent ... check it out ...




Big bullet stars Lau Ching Wan and has been hailed as a smart cop movie in Hong Kong. I can't tell you, coz honestly I have not seen this one yet. Looking around to get it.

Funny People (2009)

Funny people is the latest offering from the Apatow team. This is actually my second viewing of this movie. Frankly I really did not like it the first time I saw it. "Funny people is not very funny" was my initial conclusion to Funny People. I really did not like Knocked Up (Unrated Widescreen Edition) as much as some other people I know. Just thought it wasn't that funny and a bit long winded. Judd Apatow must have run out juice finally I thought. So, I chucked the movie in favor of something else. That was until I heard the guys at Filmspotting.net doing their take on Funny People and viewing it from their perspective, I realized I was watching the movie from the wrong angle. I watched it expecting a simple slapstick comedy but this is not even just a comedy. It's really a comedy about comedy, about the inner workings of the comedy industry. First time around I thought that Adam Sandler in the role as George was a bit of an ass. No one really watches a movie expecting Sandler to be ass so it was understandable I got put off.

So did I like it the second time around? 100% yes! This is a great movie! I like it much more than Knocked Up and I have to say this is the most mature offering from team Apatow as well as from Sandler. He serves up a great role here as George Simmons and really puts up a convincing performance as George Simmons the mega comedy star. The aloofness and the misuse of stardom goes a lot into making this character come alive. I wonder if Sandler did much acting at all but here it's not in a bad way as his performance was just what this movie needed. It harkens a bit to the other movie Tropic Thunder's protagonist Tugg Speedman where both the movie is a movie about the movie industry, but there is where the resemblance ends as this movie is a much better movie in terms of a realistic look behind the comedy movie industry.

Roughly the plot is about George Simmons a jaded mega actor who just got diagnosed with a form leukemia. There is a great scene lauded by Adam and Matty from filmspotting of the scene where George is leaving the clinic after being told the news of his mortality. He is met with a bunch of reporters and even with news on his head he puts up a 'movie face' which mirrors real life exactly. A performer's life does not end after the director yells cut. Scenes like this lends this movie a realistic feel and lifts it above Apatow's other offering in my eyes.

Anyway, George then meets up with Ira Wright (Seth Rogan) and employs to write a few jokes for him, in which Ira ends up being much more of a Personal Assistant to George. George confronted with this new reality begins a journey of reexamining his life and trying to mend his fences with his fiance (very well acted by Leslie Mann). Halfway through he discovers that he might actually have a chance of beating his fate. Now the question here is would the lessons he learned still have the same meaning or would we witness a reversion to the old ass George we see at the beginning of the movie.

Do not watch this movie expecting a rehash of the character from "Water Boy" or the "Wedding Singer". This is a very sombre and aloof Adam Sandler. I like this. It shows a depth to Sandler's acting ability that is not usually there in his other archive of work, though one might argue how hard exactly it is to be yourself on camera ... In terms of direction, I wished that Apatow was tighter with his reigns as some scenes could have been shorter. The Eric Bana character I wonder was absolutely necessary and while it wasn't bad it remains the weaker side to the plot as well as the movie. In summary though, I like this movie a lot and now it has become the best Apatow movie I have watched now. I think I have seen nearly all of them, Knocked Up (Unrated Widescreen Edition),The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Unrated Widescreen Edition),Superbad (Unrated Widescreen Edition) and some other movies where he was involved in other roles such as Talladega Nights - The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Unrated Full Screen Edition) and Forgetting Sarah Marshall [Blu-ray].

This one gets a 4.5 out of 5 for me and is a very very good movie. Watch out also for the multitude of cameos in the movie ... highly recommended!

The Chaser (2008)

Haven't written for quite some time, but after I saw this gem of a Korean movie, just felt so compelled to write so here I am. This is one good movie! Whether it's taken as a cop movie, a movie of redemption, a sarcastic look into the Korean police system, this movie excels in all departments! I was kept glued to my seat right from the beginning when one of Joong-Ho a cop turned pimp goes in search of the person he suspects of selling his girls. Check that out for the part of the protagonist. The movie brings you on the ride as Joong-Ho tracks down the killer and arrests him, but all is not over ...

With a lead role like that one could have easily gotten it wrong by either making the switch of caring pimp to hero either too easy making it unbelievable, but here I bought it totally. Given the background of of Joong-Ho and his relationship with his girls and the relationship he builds with with Mi-Jin's daughter his transition from bad-pimp cop to the only cop capable to bring down the killer is deliciously good. The normal dependable police department here is seen to spot a clown's mask and there is even a scene during interrogation of the main suspect one of the policeman is standing on top of a desk in his pagodas!

The pace here is tight and the pace frantic as Joong-Ho unrelentlessly finds his target battling his cops ex buddies getting to his man ... not giving anything away just to say the climax of the show might be too devastating for some (it nearly was for me) ... The final fight scene while nothing as fanciful as Jackie's romps is some one the most memorable one for me. I nearly wanted to jump out of my seat and help Joong-Ho deliver the killing blow! Trust me, no matter how hardened you are on the US action movies just watch this last fight scene and tell me you feel nothing. I went in to it that way and I found myself wanting to participate in the last fight! That is how good it is! Kudos to the powerful action sequences. For the squeamish among you, you might want to give those last few scenes a miss as it gets really painfully bloody to watch. Here the excitement is not so much watching the choreography rather these are real action sequences and something you would expect to happen in real situations.

Also, here I would like to add I really enjoyed how the direction of the movie seems to challenge the audience about the stereotypical ending and proceedings of events in the movie. Everything from events happening to even the main characters themselves. The killer once caught initially appears to be this mild mannered good looking young guy who wouldn't or couldn't even hurt a fly given the chance, and at a lot of points the audience is sort of left wondering if this could be the killer while the protagonist in this movie is a good hearted pimp. The message that heroes in this day and age are flawed individuals who chooses to do the right thing effectively sent here and never heavy handedly shoved down our throats instead the situations presented here forces the audience to re-evaluate the role of hero and villain. This 'encouragement' of the audience to think outside of normal stereotypes kept me constantly on the edge my seat and elevated the movie from a normal cop or cat and mouse movie.

Reminisce of oldboy the cinematography here is beautiful but has a certain bleakness to it which beautifully accentuates the main characters plight and fight. It's great. Checking on imdb, the director Hong-Jin Na has another show in pre-production called Yellow Sea. I will be eagerly waiting to check that out. The Chaser has made me a fan!

Check out the trailer !



Easily ... 4.5 out of 5 stars!