A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away (Well actually it was 30 years ago)

Today is 30th anniversary of the premiere of Star Wars, my favourite of all time. WHICH Star Wars, some of you may inevitably ask. Well, if you know your movies, there was always ONE film titled Star Wars. :P

Anyway, as some sort of tribute, please click here for a list of 30 most memorable quotes from the film.

Review: Black Snake Moan

Director : Craig Brewer
Main Cast : Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake

Okay okay, I confess. The only reason I wanted to see Black Snake Moan was to see (an unrecognisable) Christina Ricci chained to a radiator in various states of undress. However, the pleasant surprise is that leaving the cinema, the thing about the film that sticks to me is not Ricci, but Samuel L. Jackson. He personally carries the film through 2 hours of what is otherwise a slow-burning film about redemption in a typical Southern kampung ala Slingblade.

Yup, this is a tour de force from Mr Jackson, bringing back memories of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, and he even sings the blues for a considerable portion of the film. Worth the ticket price alone. Enough even to make me forget the TERRIBLE Snakes On A Plane? Errr.. actually no.

Horrific Fun!

Above is a scene from the upcoming Black Sheep, which features murderous sheep (seriously!). This and other horror films are featured in firstshowing.net's Guide to Summer 2007 Horror Movies.

Review: Shooter

Director : Antoine Fuqua
Main Cast : Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, Danny Glover

Latest film from Fuqua (Training Day, King Arthur) about ex-Army sniper Wahlberg on the run after he was framed for attempting to assassinate the US President.

Enjoyable film, though a bit predictable and with gaping plot holes that you wouldn't miss with a bazooka from 10 miles. Wahlberg to me can't shake off his innocent/stupid/funny Marky Mark and Dirk Diggler look, and is not suited for Arnie and Stallone-like one-man-army action roles.

Shooter still thrills when it matters, and it's pure unadulterated sniper porn for the Counter Strike generation.

Review: 300

Director : Zack Snyder
Main Cast : Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham

I’ve read some nerds on the net ranting about how 300 exaggerated things and did not depict what really happened 2500 years ago. Thing is, I DON’T CARE. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a fictionalized tale based on a comic, and I treat 300 no different than Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings.



So anyway, 300 is yet another Frank Miller comic/graphic that has been converted to the big screen. Really loved and enjoyed the last two, Batman Begins and Sin City. And like Sin City, 300 was filmed entirely against green screen, with the background in every scene added digitally. Also like Sin City, the director went out to replicate the look and feel of the source material. It was a real visual treat, with scorched out bronze/brown the main theme - the contrast slider gleefully pushed all the way to the right - and dabs of bright crimson for the blood.

And man, was there a lot of blood. This is violence at its glorious, arty-farty best. Other films may rush through the really bloody scenes, leaving the worst to our imagination. Not 300 though. Every single thrust of the spear, every single limb cut off, is shown in slow-motion. It really is a film for the boys, a genre action film where instead of having one-man-armies such as Rambo or Conan, here we have a whole troop of them, with more six-packs on show than in your local 7-Eleven. So much so that the sub-plot involving the Queen and the Senate back home proved an annoying distraction, something that the director wrongly decided would give the film more character.

So is the film any good then? Well, it’s got great visuals and probably the best sword-and-sandal battle scenes ever – some of the specific scenes would undoubtedly be parodied in the likes of Shrek for years to come. However, I really feel sorry to say that it’s all just a bit too much style over substance. Not enough time was spent developing the main characters, to the point that we didn’t really care when they all eventually perished. And it all felt a little bit too similar to Gladiator, especially the scenes in the barley field with the haunting soundtrack. Gerald Butler, last seen singing his lungs out in Phantom Of The Opera, did a passable if hysteric impression of Russell Crowe. But then, 300 never set out to be a critically acclaimed film. It set out to thrill, to excite, to entertain. And entertain it certainly did. Just do me a favour and catch it in its full glory at the cinema while you can, rather than a bad copy downloaded off the internet on your laptop.

Review: Apocalypto

Director : Mel Gibson
Main Cast : Rudy Youngblood, Jonathan Brewer

Mel Gibson's latest is a beautiful, kinetic, edge-of-your-seat, harrowing and gruesome tale set during the last days of the Mayan empire, cast entirely by locals speaking the ancient language (with subtitles of course).



Though the opening scene ends with the gory killing of a tapir for food, the next 20 minutes shows the humanity, love and laughter of the people in the small village, showing they are just like any other people in any civilisation or time, despite their very agressive and scary appearances. Until disaster strikes, that is. In the most harrowing and grim scenes I have seen since Hotel Rwanda, a rival group of tribesmen invade the village, brutally murdering half the villagers, and tying up the rest and forcing them on a long trek through the jungle.

Much has been said about the violence in Apocalypto, and though it is quite gory in parts, most of the really terrible stuff happens off-screen. But then, I've been used to a diet of B-Grade slasher and horror flicks, and I've seen much worse.

So is Apocalypto a fictionalised documentary of the Mayan empire? Does it, as the name suggests, discuss the reasons behind the fall of one of the greatest ancient civilisations? Well, not really. Take away the loincloths, spears and rainforest, and Apocalpyto is your typical action flick. And a very good one too.

Review: The Number 23

Director : Joel Schumacher
Main Cast : Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen

Actually the number 23 itself has personal meaning for me. I was born on 2nd March (2/3), and the number of letters in my full name (Mohammad Ozairi bin Othman)? You guessed it right - 23. That fact, an intriguing teaser trailer, and the involvement of one of my favourite actors made me look really forward to watching the film.



Sadly, all the hype, all the excitement came to nothing. The Number 23 aspires to be one of those much-discussed about films of mystery and mystique. But the end result falls as flat as a burnt piece of roti canai. Jim Carrey does his best to play a man slowly losing his sanity while burying himself ever more deeper in his obsession with the cursed prime number. For you anti-Carrey people out there, this is him in his "serious-pity-him-loser" mode, similar to his role in the great Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. For a truly magnificent piece of acting in a similar role though, you can't beat Richard Dreyfuss' in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.

Agent Dana Scully look-a-like Virginia Madsen is passable as his supporting wife, though The Number 23 essentially hangs on the strength of Jim Carrey, being present in almost every scene.

The Number 23 does not have much substance in plot, and relies on unnecessary stretching of "flashback" scenes and Da Vinci Code style step-by-step explanations to the viewers to pad out the film to its measly 96 minutes, a movie length usually reserved for cartoons that serve ADD-suffering 6 year olds. Oddly, it still felt too long - by 23 minutes, I might guess.

Finally!

So the Oscars are finally over. No real surprises in the major honours based on pre-Oscar forecasts and awards shows in the last month or so. My only disappointment was that Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Foreign Film, despite winning Oscars in other categories.

Scorsese finally won his first Best Director gong, though by my guess more on a kesian basis. Don't think that The Departed is as good as The Aviator or Gangs Of New York, let alone seminal classics like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Liked it when the great Lucas, Spielberg and Coppola presented his award though.

Review: The Holiday

Director : Nancy Meyers
Main Cast : Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, Rufus Sewell

Supposed to be a nice little family-friendly romantic comedy made for the holiday season, about two women on opposite sides of the Atlantic swapping houses for Christmas. In fact it turned out to be a dreadful film.



The worst mistake made was having two separately independent storylines. If ever it were possible, it made the film feel both too short AND too long at the same time! You are sat there in the cinema, PRAYING for the film to end, looking at your watch every 5 seconds or so. However, each half of the film is given so little time to have any sense of development of plot that it leaves it feeling rather hollow.

A shame though, considering the likes of Winslet and Law, both underused and a waste of their respective talents, and though I am a BIG fan of Jack Black, I honestly think that he was horribly miscast and proves that no way can he repeat Jim Carrey and do "serious" roles. Don't get me wrong though, I do enjoy the occasional schmoozy holiday romantic comedy, and really liked Love Actually, and not Crap Actually which The Holiday is.