Straw Dogs (1971)

While reading a review for one of John Woo's film, I chanced upon a director I have never seen before called Sam Peckinpah. According to the site, John Woo in his movie 'Better Tomorrow' pays homage to Sam Peckinpah's films and has been an inspiration to Woo. Woo's inspiration? This is something I have got to watch I thought. So ... enter Straw Dogs.



Dustin Hoffman plays a bumbling professor type husband with a repressed wife spending the weekend over in the country to get inspiration for his work. Sticking out like a sore thumb among the locals, the harrasment slowly gives way to all out violence.

Just when everything is going to hell in a handbasket, the last man you would expect to play the hero Hoffman toughens up and deliver's his own brand of pay back. Was it as good as Chow Yuen Fatt's slo' mo' action scenes in Woo's classics? Hell yes! Even better in some respects. I cheered out lout when Hoffman's character fought back and single handedly defended his whole family in the film's climax. Good stuff!

I credit the great editting work here, for without a two megaton bomb about to go off, helicopter exploding on top of a train or plane exploding in a tunnel, Straw Dogs managed to keep me at the edge of my seat. You action writers wannabes out there sit up and listen up! Take a lesson from Mr. Peckinpah. You don't need 7 digit budget or nuclear devices going off to make a decent or good action thriller. All you need is the basics. A decent story line with good editing and believable acting.

The acting in this movie is good too. Hoffman's protrayal of a bungling David Sumner turned hero when forced into a corner is believable and cheer worthy. Try not standing up and cheering for him at the end when he finally confronts the ruffians which has been torturing him throughout the whole film. The can of whoop ass built up from the beginning of the movie which he finally opens up on these thugs at the last 10 to 20 minutes of the movie is satisfying and exciting to behold!

Reading about what some people seem to think about this film, they say it's not as good as Peckinpah's other classic 'The Wild Bunch'. Waiting to check that one out. One more thing that I should mention here too is that the rape scene in this movie is well quite disturbing. Disturbing as in it borders on the fine line between just a rough session of sex or a straight rape. Just check out the mixed signals given my Mrs. Sumner during this scene. Definitely something that will stay with you. Reminisce of the emotional wrench that movies like the Chaser or Oldboy puts you through. It forces the viewer into an uncomfortable state. I love movies that forsake a comfortable tied up knot of a resolution in order to push the envelope of how far a scene can go. Very good!

A point too about the action sequences, here while it could have been shot straight like the scene where Hoffman is carrying two pots of boiling surprise for the interluders to his house, how it unfolds is not straight action. One would argue here whether Peckinpah is deliberately denying his audience the straight action scene they are expecting or is just bad in setting the scene up. Using the rest of the film as a yardstick of how good / bad Peckinpah is I would give him the benefit of the doubt here. Action in real life is most of the time messy and not as clear cut and as choreographed as a Jackie Chan flick. I think Peckinpah was aiming for that here.

Check out the original theatrical trailer ...



4.8 out of 5 stars! Yee haw!

Next movie ... The Wild Bunch!

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!

World's Greatest dad (2009)

Trailer: World's Greatest Dad trailer

This for me is Robin William's comeback. He is funny here without trying to be funny which is the main point. It starts out with a look at Robin's dysfunctional relationship with his son. He is your typical loser late middle age dad trying to relate to his son which of course tries at every chance to resist or turn down his dad's attempt at being close.

All seems lost when an "accident" occurs in which Kyle (played by Daryl Sabara) which is this shallow teenager which is only interested in sex and getting laid dies. Lance (Robin Williams) is heart broken until an unlikely turn of events causes him to benefit from his son loosing his life. The not-so-hot father son relationship is examined here, Lance trying to decide whether it would be right to benefit from the perception his son's death. I will not reveal here what the turn of events are as I think it would be better for you to watch it yourself. Lance is less than conflicted here as the relationship with his son was not strong to start with and justifies to himself that his son's is better off dead.

To me Robin William's performance here is touching and low key, which is what I like about it. You don't sense his trying too hard and what comes through is truly one of his strongest performance till date. Alexie Gilmore, too as the unfaithful source of his attention turns in a passable performance but the thing that sealed this movie for me was Robin's performance. I heard that Robin took a 2 months hiatus after the movie August Rush, if that be the case welcome back Robin!

rocknrolla (2008)

This one I truly enjoy! I have since watched this movie a couple of times and it really stands up to repeat watches. Like many of Guy's movies the gangsters theme is built around a story of recovering of a precious item (Snatch comes to mind?). I like the breezy story telling and the creative ways in which visuals are used to aid story telling. There are no spoilers as I really recommend those who like gangster comedies to catch this one.

Scenes to watch out for: The scene where Bob (Tom Hardy) finally confronts his best mate (Gerald Butler) about his sexuality. The setting of everyone supposedly being tough gangsta guys makes the eventual punch line ("I want you") hillarious! It was so good I almost fell off my chair! Good stuff!

I thought Tom Wikinson's character as the aging gangster had a few good lines and he carried his character well. Nice to see an actor of his caliber still in action ... Well enough of reading this review go and watch the movie already!!

A bit of preview ... check out the opening scene ....

Score: 8/10

UP

This year, forget about the highly anticipated Transformers 2, or the dissapointing GI Joe, which only saving grace is the chase in Paris, if you want to watch a movie which has a soul and heart and all the hilarity that one can get from a movie, then you MUST watch UP.

Pixar have proven time and time again that they are the best in the business of computer animation and dare I say movie making itself...(except maybe a little mishap which I am calling it "CARS")

It started off funnily with the shorts like in the normal tradition of Pixar called "Partly Cloudy" That already started the ball rolling to what's to come. That already has heart in it.

Then we moved on to the main story where we met the protagonist (Carl Frederickson) as a kid who meeting his soul mate, Ellie by chance and we see their life story unfold upon us as they dreamed to go on an adventure in South America. Although no words was utterred but the scenes in itself was moving, as Ellie moved on leaving old Carl behind.

The adventure begins when Old Carl took off with his house with thousands of balloons and with the reluctant boy scout Russell in tow. I won't go much into the story or else it would be spoiling readers enjoyment of their adventure in the wilderness.

All I can say that this is one adventure that is worth tagging along with and it's simply a deligthful movie that will appeal to everyone regardless of age.

9/10