Mini Reviews - The Other Guys

The Other Guys

Two mismatched New York City detectives seize an opportunity to step up like the city's top cops whom they idolize -- only things don't quite go as planned.

For the look of the poster and even trailer, you'll think it'll be an all-out action-comedy especially from the likes of director Adam McKay. Sadly the only time you'll get that is when you see both Samuel L Jackson and The Rock having a crazy action scene at the beginning of the film. There are a few chuckles and laughs, though jokes do get reused by the last half of the film and it gets tiresome. And there is nothing to actually care for with any of the characters or anything and you don't get much of this film. Its not bad and Mark Wahlberg proved to be funny alongside with Will Ferrell. Eva Mendes is hot, but her whole reason to be in the film is to be hot. And its nice to see Michael Keaton after a long while. Its not terrible, but its not great either.

2 out of 5 stars

My Top Ten: Most Pretentious Films I've Ever Seen

Its that time of the month where I give my Top Ten on ANYTHING!

In this day and age, we all wanted a different and intelligent film from the sea of dumb-down mindless films Hollywood brings out. But sometimes the sense of intelligence can bite you in the ass by having directors making films TOO smart of their own good. Films that try TOO hard to be different and meaningful and probably can only be appreciative by the pompous and hipsters (I'm looking at you, Armond White...). So here are the top 10 list of the films that tried to be too smart and not in a very good way.


NOTE 1: I’ll give you the honorable mentions of other pretentious films that aren’t part of the Top Ten.

Rachel Getting Married
The Fountain
Shortbus
I’m Not There
Synecdoche, New York
The Gentlemen Broncos


NOTE 2: To cover about The Matrix Trilogy, I’ll say about this:

1 – While the Matrix has that pseudo-intellect philosophy, it really did have a good story and mythology. Also it makes up for great action,

And 2 – The Matrix Revolutions isn’t pretentious. It just sucks.


Lets get on it shall we?

10.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE



This could have been a very nice film with nice visuals, accompanied by the soundtracks of The Beatles. Yet you can sense that its trying to be epic and more meaningful when everything else just falls flat. The story goes nowhere, characters inexplicably go in and out, sense of repetition and all that it just relies on EVERY song by the Beatles. Like the movie is saying "We don't need the important stuffs like story and character development. The Beatles = critical acclaim." Just because you have the Beatles as your soundtrack doesn't mean it'll be a good film. And its not even helping when all the singers give such lame covers for each Beatles song.


9.
DEATH PROOF



Hey, I love Quentin Tarantino and he is still highly regarded as a filmmaking icon. But he can really go off the rail when displaying his own talent and knowledge. Yes, I know you do great writing. Yes I know you know SO MUCH about movies! Get on with the freakin movie! He showed a little bit in Kill Bill Part II, but his pretentiousness went even further in this. Just disregarding the entire subject about making an exploitation film (The compilation is called GRINDHOUSE! Rodriguez had the right idea and this didn't), it was nothing more than a total display of his writing, which is only great for about ten minute before I get really bored. Sure enough the car chase at the end was great, but I had to go through so much dribble for that?!

8.
HULK

As a comic-book superhero film, this is VERY pretentious. Its VERY pretentious when you try to make an intellectual film about a superhero that does nothing but smash stuffs like The Hulk. That can work with other superheroes especially Batman, but not The Hulk. It is weird that I look for films that are ambitious and this is the one kind of film that should not try be ambitious. Well ok, it can be ambitious enough, but not TOO ambitious like this film tried to be. It was too emotional, too dramatic, even too artsy for a Hulk film. I'm a fan of Ang Lee, but this is something he should not try to have his hands on it.

7.
LADY IN THE WATER

Its pretty pretentious when you think a bedtime story you once told to your kids would turn into a good film. Even more if you have yourself in the film and present yourself as the most important character. With an added bonus that you have a "critic" character getting killed off. Surely this film is really a bedtime story... it really put me to sleep of BOREDOM! The film is way too slow and way too convoluted and ridiculous to have your head around. Sadly this is one of first signs of the M. Night Shaylaman's downfall. Poor guy...

6.
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE

The first Ghost In The Shell was truly an animated marvel, incorporating both the right amount of intelligence and action in a nice animated package. And it could have been a one-time thing, but the audience kinda wanted a sequel. So we had both the manga and the well-written TV series “Stand Alone Complex” to keep our interest in the Ghost In The Shell series. Then when the sequel came out, it was completely meh and forgettable. Inserted in are ridiculous amount of philosophy and dead air with nothing much to go for like action or visuals. The first film had the right balance, but this really tipped offside.

5.
DROWNING BY NUMBERS

I saw this in one of my film masters class and I could count the many times I rolled my eyes over. Others would see this as a work of art when I see it as a pompous waste of time. What do you have in this film: characters you don’t really care about, overly-done artsy smartsy narrative/filmmaking, too much intellectual references that are not even fun and that ONE ANNOYING thick-glassed nerdy kid that I just wanted to beat the living crap out of by myself. No wonder he is such a loner and always hang out with older people. Normal kids would get annoyed by him and want to beat him up. I don’t blame them.


4.
BABEL

In the season of Oscars, films would try to be smart by having that “multi-cultural crossing-over lives-clashing” narrative. Crash comes close, but this really takes the cake. At first sight, you’ll think it is a well-made film with a controversial subject. I certainly did so until I look back at it again and realize that it really tried too hard to be smart. As if it was trying to be daring and oh so controversial by having so much sexual and violent scenes especially with one scene involving a horny kid. That made me go “What was the point of that?”And in the end, you end up not caring about any of the characters or the story or even the message behind the film and realize that this film just wanted an Oscar.

3.
PALINDROMES

Yeaaaaaahhh, Todd Solondz is really messed up. Just by looking at him will make you understand why he makes messed up films. Even though I heard some of his films were pretty good, I picked out this film as my first film of his. Bad choice! Now I always end having that bad taste in my mouth every time I get mentioned of Todd Solondz. Including intense subjects like pedophilia, child sex, abortion and crazed religion is kinda dandy until you realize that there is no absolute point of this film. And I'm really that kind of guy that looks forward to messed up movies, but looking at these subjects without a hint of interest or fascination and just being plain disgusting made me wish I never heard of this guy, Todd.

2.
SOUTHLAND TALES

Ok, I'll say this. I LOVE Donnie Darko. Certainly not part of my all-time favorites, but I really do love the film. It was artistic, subtle and meaningful with some great performances. But some people say that the director Richard Kelly was pretentious by making Donnie Darko, to which I reply I disagree. Richard Kelly became SOOOOO pretentious when he made this insanely philosophical artsy smartsy bullsh*t of a film, Southland Tales. He really did made sure that he had all of the ingredients to make a standard pretentious film. 1. Convoluted storyline that tries to be epic, but we don't care at all. 2. Nice, but pointless visuals/images that tries too hard to be symbolic and metaphorical. 3. Too many F*CKIN WEIRD casting! I would be impressed by actors doing something completely different if it was subtle. There is NOTHING subtle for any of the actors and it was done for the sake of being weird. Am I supposed to be fascinated by every single weird and ironic characters that pops up onscreen?! 4. Tries to have a superficial intelligent story/message which really doesn't mean anything in the end. By the time this film finished, I went "Reaaallly Richard Kelly..... REALLY?!"


And my number 1 is...

1.
WAKING LIFE

Like that style of rotoscoping animation, but this film is a GIGANTIC waste of my precious time! How is this actually a film? A film, by my definition, is a series of images that interconnects through with characters, story, narrative and meaning. This doesn't have a story! Or character development! Or a hint of plot! Or any actual point besides from any bullsh*t philosophical discussion the film has. That is what this "film" was. Just a series of scenes with people discussing philosophy. Nothing more! No connection or reason to any of it. It just only use rotoscoping animation to make up for any lack of interest or actual content. PLEASE, if I want philosophy, I would wear a turtle-neck sweater and go to a university lecture class. I'm sorry, but to me, the celluloid and tape could have been used for a film with a much better story and meaning. Instead they were used on this drabble pretentious crap. If there was ANYTHING that would define pretentious, it would be this film!

So that is my top 10 list. What's your opinion?

Mini Reviews - [REC] 2

[Rec] 2

The action continues from [Rec], with the medical officer and a SWAT team outfitted with video cameras are sent into the sealed off apartment to control the situation.

A well-thoughtful and tightly-expanded continuation to the revolutionary hand-held scare-fest. I would admit that the idea of supernatural leap from the first to the next film will kind of throw people off, but no matters as it still provides a damn thrilling ride. Having part of the film focus on the SWAT team can make the narrative a little terrifying as they are more protected and armed and the additional focus on a group of mischievous kids proven to be sometimes pointless in the film. Other than that, it is a worthy sequel to the REC saga.

3 and a half out of 5 stars

I'm now 24... kind of a biggie..

Well in between last year and now, it really has been an emotional and eventful ride with so many changes and phases with many life lessons learned. I have experienced some of the lowest lows in my life while getting over so much hurdles to finally get back on my highest. The past year had forced me to actually do some heavy soul-searching and it is still ongoing. And I wouldn't have go through this with the help of my friends, old and new and good and ex. Its funny that some parts of the past year actually mimics the entire movie of 500 Days of Summer. And now I'm at that point where possibly everything will change for me.

Anyway there is not much to be said except I did have the MOST interesting birthday I had in my life... so far. Its a very funny thing and I'll probably remember this birthday more than most birthdays I had. I will hope that this coming year will be more memorable as the last one and I would like to thanks to all my friends and family who have support and encourage me throughout my life.