Vergilya

Although a little disjointed between scenes, this movie will keep you on the edge of your seat right from the very beginning. If you are looking for a great martial arts choreographed movie this is one of them. Michael Chuah, the director and male lead, can give a good punch where it hurts.

One of my favorite fight sequences is towards the end with the ropes as the backdrop. It was pretty cool and well orchestrated. For comic relief Henry Thia provides quite a handful of them which makes the movie a little lighthearted against some bloody and brutal action.

I would have liked some of the emotional scenes to last a little bit longer but hey this is an action flick. And after such a great and tense finale I thought it wrapped up a little too quick, too soon for me to have something to savor.

6.5

Because of the bad reviews I avoided watching this movie for a very long time until today when I just felt like 'smurfing' around.

It was better than I expected and quite entertaining too. If you have watched the TV series before this movie has a little more substance than the usual run around between Gargamel and the smurfs.

There are a few very familiar faces here especially with the success of some TV series. And it's a pleasure to see them playing roles other than what we know them to be.

Watch it without too much expectations and you may actually enjoy the banter, spoofs and self deprecation and have a smurfy time.

These days Hollywood is either going Kung Fu or Bollywood. This romantic comedy chooses the latter so here's another Holly Bolly hoo. Like it's predecessors The Guru, The Love Guru, Bride and Prejudice and even a wee bit of the Indian culture in Ghost World.

An outraged man Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) set himself out to teach the love counselor Dr. Emma Llyod (Uma Thurman) a lesson when she unknowingly influenced his fiancé to break up their wedding plans. But as you would have it, in the world of Hollywood romance they'd ultimately fall for each other despite the fact that the good doctor doesn't believe in the man of her dreams but the man of her reality and that she herself was about to be married. Colin Firth plays her beau but is lost in his wimpish, awkward world and it's nice to see the gorgeous and elegant Isabella Rosellini again with other veteran stars like Brookes Adams and Sam Shepard.

Morgan seems to be the guy who gets other people's girl in the end even in P.S. I Love You, I wonder what his third romantic comedy would be like. There's some elements of Down With Love but not enough to make it memorable.

You have to watch this movie with no expectations, no analytical mind and no preconceptions before you can enjoy the laughter and foolishness of being in love without reservations.

What's there to believe? Really. The way it was promoted I thought there would be another mind blowing alien extravaganza with chills and spills and thrills. But it wasn't. But like some of the X-Files series, this is just another episode which deals with something more down to earth and gruesome. It reminds me so much of Ed Gein where his grisly lifestyle inspired numerous novels and movies, and he would have been a millionaire if they paid him his due royalties and rights.

On it's own, it's quite a compelling movie with the usual twists and turns but if it is taken as a sequel then it is not. The caption is somewhat misleading and doesn't serve the high expectation-anticipation of what it suggests though there's a faint understanding of it.

It begins with the abduction of an FBI agent which leads ASAC Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) to seek the help of Mulder (David Duchovny). An ex pedophile priest is having visions of the missing agent and soon leads them to a grave find of a human arm. The plot itself feels like a serial killing episode with paranormal activities attached to it, other than that Mulder and Scully are becoming quite tedious to watch, especially in their dramatic upheavals.

There is hardly any wow factor here although it's nice to see the team again. You might just forget you are actually watching a $30 million movie and sit back with the remote in your hand ready to flip the channel if the commercials came on.

I hope Chirs Carter makes the third and final trilogy because the next time round, I really want to believe.

I love Rob Schneider. He is hilarious, he is pretty cool and he has heart, his movies I mean, and this is one of them. But physically he has also tuned up his muscles to play an unlikely role. It may not be his best but it's his directorial debut and it's something different from his previous movies. This time he has gone kung fu, actually so has the rest of the world of late.

Stanley (Rob Schneider) is imprisoned for fraud but is given six months of delay before his incarceration begins. During this period, out of fear of being raped in prison, he finds ways to help prepare himself to avoid the harrowing and torturous experience by making himself unrapeable.

Taking lessons from Master Cho (Simon Rhee, famed for his role in Best of the Best) Stan gets a good thrashing and kicked out when he wanted to handle more than he was able to. And then, out of the darkness, like some martial arts cliché , another master known as The Master (David Carradine of Kung Fu series fame) appears.

Like many of his other films, there is a heart warming and sweet message that makes the entire movie a wonderful journey. Schneider is rather good in showing off his kung fu skills in the fight scenes, quite a remarkable feat for a man known for his comedic roles. His mom, Pilar, also has a cameo appearance like she does in some of his other movies.

If you love Rob Schneider you'll love this. How can anyone not love a guy who was an animal, a gigolo, a teenage girl and an inmate who lived to tell about it?

This movie will make you rip your hair out, will make you question right and wrong and will push you to the edge of what you have always known about values and principles. If you know Dennis Lehane's books, which it is based on, you will know what to expect. He wrote one of the most mesmerizing novels that also became a remarkable movie directed by Clint Eastwood called Mystic River. And two other stories of his Until Gwen and Shutter Island will be out sometime this year.

This movie is directed by Ben Affleck, yes the Ben Affleck, with the starring role given to his brother Casey. Although in his usual murmuring inaudibility, the younger Affleck gives the character role somewhat of a personality which is crucial to the movie, whether he did it intentionally or not.

A simple case of kidnapping launches a massive search for the child when P.I.s Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are engaged to find the missing kid. As the investigation goes deeper both of them discover more than what they expect to find. With twists and lies surmounting from witnesses and authorities, the truth gets grittier and darker with more revelation.

This is an impressive direction from Affleck since this is his second attempt with the first being I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney, yes that's the whole title.

This is also where Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris is Ed Harris the way they are when given the badge.

Ultimately, this movie will make you sick to your stomach when the truth becomes stark naked.

This is the kind of movie you either love or hate, understand what it's all about or have no frickin' idea what made you watch it or take you to a higher level of humor or slap you with a feeling of idiocy. This is, after all, a Coen Brothers film. From The Big Lebowski to Fargo and No Country for Old Men to The Hudsucker Proxy, you either get it or you don't.

This is a very intellectually challenged movie that has made fools of everyone in a subtle comedy that parodies the paranoia of those who believe in conspiracies and give high regards to governments who may not actually be as perspicacious as we like them to be.

With a long list of reputable cast from Brad Pitt to George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and J.K. Simmons they each steal the show with their quirky characters and bizarre eccentricities. This is enough to enjoy for an implied humor that says so much about ourselves when we go overboard with our imaginative theories and this is how we may seem like if we were watched.

It starts off with a simple discovery of a disk that holds secrets that could ruin the US government if it falls onto the wrong hands. Everyone associated with it seems to endanger themselves one way or the other that gets intertwined with a domestic complication rather than a political predicament. Ridiculous as it may be this is the kind of news you would read from funny crime stories or bungling criminals and as they say 'truth is stranger than fiction' and this is what you'll get for your money's worth.

In the formula of Crash, Magnolia and Babel comes a local production known as Sepi. It's another one of those movies where three separate stories are merged into one by a common incident, a car accident in this case. Other than that there isn't much interaction or connection between the characters unlike the other mentioned titles.

The first is a story about love found and then lost and then found again. Namely, the story of Adam, Afdlin Shauki. The second comes a tale of Sufi, Tony Eusoff, the man who lost his love but found another through his grief but he could not have her because of her marital status. The final is Imaan, Baizura Kahar, which is the most bizarre tale of the three about a girl who could not let go of her past and has to learn to hold on to the present through love. The theme of the movie is all about love that comes the second time around.

Though it is plotted for success with a formula most romantic dramas are based on, it doesn't have the appeal as much as the characters could have had. It's hard to get into their shoes or feel what they feel in their times of desolation and loneliness. The heart is lost in the overly dramatic roles without the necessary buildup.

Some scenes are lavishly explored while others remain simplistic and the two creates an imbalance on the entirety. Other than the few glitches the movie is warm and at times comical. It's just pleasant above all, with some lovely songs and scenes but it doesn't leave you much to savor after the credits begin to roll.

I'm not a big fan of Asian horror movies since I have had my share of watching disappointing ones since way back when. I still haven't found one which I could honestly say I enjoy thoroughly in this genre because most of them are predictable and rehashes from the great ones, except for Shutter (2004), The Eye (Gin Gwai - 2002), Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara - 2002) and a few others.

I almost liked Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam until the second half marred what could have been a much better classic horror tale. As for Susuk I liked the overall presentation which I thought was quite a treat but still, it's not all there yet to make it the superb horror film from Malaysia.

Of vanity and the suggestive powers of sexuality, it does bear a stark resemblance to the exploitative movies of the sixties whether intentionally or not. The sensuality that oozes out from the female characters are undeniably blatant, while the rest are like undercurrents of a raging river.

When the movie ended it took me a while more to lock in the jigsaw pieces that makes up the whole story, which takes a bit of mind unraveling effort to completely grasp the plot. There's nothing much else I can say without coming close to exposing the spoilers except the vampire creature-like thing could have been more terrifying in design.

Besides the bevy of beauties all in a row, other stars who made their cameos include Yasmin Ahmad, Yasmin Yusoff, Romona Rahman and also Amir Muhammad, the director and writer, himself.

I thought it could have done without the gore and shock tactics that gives it the essence, but hey, what's a horror movie without them? Susuk is a superstitious believe that gold or silver needles inserted into the body enhances one's desirability and appeal.

Amir Muhammad also has a new movie 'Malaysian Gods' in the process of being released, I'm sure it has nothing to do with Neil Gaiman's American Gods though.

Before I saw this movie I heard and read so many bad reviews about it I wondered why I should watch it in the first place. Being a die-hard movie goer who doesn't rely on ratings I went anyway. After watching it I realized there were a few elements which the Mummy fans were looking for that weren't there that made them curse the movie much more than a mummy can.

First of all there was no Rachel Weisz. Secondly Michele Yeoh and Jet Li stole the movie much more than Brandon Fraser could help save the day. Thirdly, there was more emotion, though not developed very well, than just the usual mindless drivel and madness. In a way, it was kind of like a cool Kung Fu movie with English speaking actors. Other than those flaws I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Jet Li's powerful characterization need no analysis. Brandon Fraser being Brandon Fraser still has his leftover days of Airheads, which he keeps very close to portraying him again and again in his recent films. Michele Yeoh, the Ipoh girl who has rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous and traveled the world over is always that cool Asian chick who knows Kung Fu. Even in Sunshine, without the Kung Fu, she's still the cool Asian chick with her head screwed on when everyone else is going berserk. It would be nice to see her playing a role where she is not that cool to make her even cooler.

That said, Mummy 3 is in the same vein as The Forbidden Kingdom where Jet Li gets fossilized waiting to wreck havoc.

It doesn't have the grandeur of the Egyptian mummy with its mystical charm, lavish costumes and erotic implications but for a kickass (though not as much as before) time with mythical creatures, martial arts extraordinaire and awesome effects The Mummy 3 is all about letting the good times roll. And the best for me is the Yak part.

'I hope you're ready to hear a long and magical tale.' This is what Il Mare or Siworae is about; a slow moving love story that will make your heart ache with pain, joy and inspiration.

This little Korean gem of love and lost is underrated and almost unknown to most. It centers on a tale where two people are connected by a mail box although they live two years apart. With their letter exchange between each other they manage to forge a friendship which later develops into a love stronger than time and space could divide.

Shot is a drab looking place this movie carries itself with the help of a credible cast, a powerful storyline and a wistful jazzy score that will tug on your heartstrings from all directions.

Lovers of tearjerkers, romantic sagas and emotionally charged moments will have no trouble snuggling down with this. It is one of those movies that will make you wonder why your love life is nothing but a mere convenience without so much as a fanfare or a sparkle.

An English version of this movie was remade by Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock call The Lake House. It's hard to compare the two since they are of different cultures, but they're both enchanting in their own right while sharing only similar plot.

Other movies that share similar nostalgic and wistful sentiments are Serendipity, Cinema Paradiso, The Notebook and many many more. Get a shoulder, a hanky or a pet to sit beside you before you start.

This is one of those sweet indie movies that you would enjoy for its simplicity, the small things in life and down to earth realism. Liew Seng Tat, the director, writer and editor, has done a marvelous job in showcasing two young brothers and their everyday antics in an unsophisticated town. The composition is artistic, the acting natural and the storyline flows with ease. It is poignant, funny and heartwarming. And it makes you feel tingly all over.

The boys and their father hardly spend any time together due to the nature of their father's job. This is a movie with a clear message of innocence being scrutinized and misconstrued as defiance by adults. If anything, the director/writer must have had some fairly similar experience or his comprehension of a child's mind is admirable.

Some of the memorable scenes include their friendship with a girl known as Atan who brings them home for lunch one day and how their names are glamorized by her mother, and then there was the fish incident which makes one think of eating fish again and how the two boys prepare their strange concoction which is to be their dinner.

James Lee, a well known director and writer, plays the somber looking, anti-social and overworked father with credible dedication. The three children certainly steals the entire show.

This is one of the best local movies I have ever seen in a long time. By chance I caught a little of the beginning one night on telly and was drawn into completing the entire show. For those of you who loves the moon and gazing at the night skies you'll know what it means when you watch this simple yet enchanting tale of five friends coming of age; the odd one out being a girl.

Childhood stories are always amazing when we look back with nostalgia and reminiscence, unless of course if it was a terrifying one. Even if the past was horrendous it is better to revisit it to find a closure than to bury it alive.

Tentang Bulan, or regarding the moon or about the moon, is a very poignant story of the joys and tears of being friends, being ostracized and being accepted. In a backwater town in Perlis, which is way up north of Malaysia, these five kids go through their trials and tribulations of being bullied, getting infatuated, fibbing to save their skin and simply being kids having the time of their lives.

Though it doesn't come close to the likes of Stand By Me, Fried Green Tomatoes or Not One Less, it is still a great movie, just without something uniquely its own.

The score and soundtrack will help build up the tears and wistfulness.

If you are a horror fan and have never watched the original The Fly then you don't know what horror is. Based on a short story by George Langelaan the first version stayed very close and true to the story of a man who accidentally switched his hand and head with a common housefly when he experimented with his teleportation machine.

Beginning like a mystery and crime movie it gradually dissolves into a horrific one when we learn about the true nature of the murder. It is creepy and disconcerting in progressive doses.

From the time his wife, the accused, Patricia Owens, relates the story to us the hairs on the back of our necks will slowly rise with it. It's the kind of story that is good for a dark stormy night, at the campfire or in the cemetery.

Although this movie doesn't serve Vincent Price as well as his other greats, he still carry that charm and debonair of a gentleman with him. Patricia Owens was very convincing as the wife who witnessed the horror and lived to tell about it.

Not to spoil the most unforgettable ending of the movie to those who don't already know, this is a masterpiece, and a very rare one. What makes it even more unsettling is the love story that revolves around it.

I've always known about Georgy Girl the song by the Seekers but never the movie until recently. Based on a book by Margaret Forster the movie stars a very young Lynn Redgrave, Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates and James Mason. With a pretty catchy tune the movie is a fine example of good acting, simple story telling and a well written script.

Georgy is a big girl in search of love and she finds it in the most unlikeliest of places. This movie also reminds of Angie with Geena Davis and Where The Heart is with Natalie Portman.

I've never seen the zany side of Lynn Redgrave before and I thought she was really funny. At times the movie seems real and at times it seems like a fairy tale but it's entertaining nevertheless.

This is how I remember the English movies those days when the language is spoken with precise intonation and distinction that one can actually hear every single word that is said.

It's a lovely story about life and how we depict it and make it and call it our reality, our hell or our paradise. And the song is so singable you will never have a chance to forget it even if you wanted to.

This is one of the rare few local movies I watched and I found it to be quite a treat. Parodying the film noir of the 40s and 50s, Mengambang opens up with a typical heroic scene of Saleh, Rosyam Nor, an ex reporter, narrating the story of his life. Donning on a P. Ramlee-esquire garb his destination takes a series of turns when he discovered a skeleton with a keris attached to its hand that punctured his car tire.

Everything mysterious, bizarre, cliché and cool can be found in this movie. The humor comes in the form of a Tauke Hotel, David Teo, a bevy of sexy and enigmatic girls and Saleh's personal recount of the town he is stranded in where the disappearance of one too many people becomes too obvious.

Presented in the good old black and white hey days of classic films, with witty scripting and artistic cinematography, Mengambang begins with so much promise of being an excellent movie. What falls short is the anti climax created by the denouement somewhere in the middle of the story. From then on it becomes a little too tedious as though a new storyline has been negotiated in altogether.

Although it did maintain some quirky spoofs which are still hilarious, it could have been a better fare had the second half been considerably edited. Mamat Khalid, famed for his Zombie Kampung Pisang, Tipah Tertipu and Man Laksa, wrote and directed this amusing feature.

With a little bit of Apocalypto, Pathfinder and Emmerich Epic 10,000 B.C. is the product of an adventurous saga about love, perilous journey and deliverance. Set in the time of woolly mammoths, sabre tooth tigers, moas and human subjugation this is a wonderful dramatization of life.

Some may argue that the plot is nothing more than a series of rehash from a common narrative but it is so well executed you would give the similarities a miss to enjoy the movie. Like most of Emmerich's movies this great monumental feature is an achievement in its own right but nothing could match his first, Independence Day (1996), which had the right elements of body, mind and soul.

However, despite politically challenged terminologies, inconsistencies, historical and geographical inaccuracies, this is still one movie to be watched on the big screen for the heck of it whether anything existed or not in that period. If not, we could always turn to One Million Years B.C. and watch Raquel do her thing or turn to the documentary channel to get the facts right.

What's the buzz, tell me what's a happening, what's the buzz ...

To put it simply, Cloverfield is Blair With Project and Godzilla with big budget. Everyone who saw this movie in the cinema either found it very creatively executed or a waste of time. I found it intriguing and engaging.

Although at the beginning of the movie, not knowing what to expect, I felt dizzy after a few minutes into the scenes. I had to close my eyes occasionally to keep myself from getting nauseated. Just as I was regretting a little at this technique of story telling then it got all exciting and I forgot all about the swinging and shaking of the camera.

It was done pretty well and believable throughout the entire movie. The only thing that I expected more of was the monster itself. I thought it could have looked better.

If this had been just another monster movie like Godzilla, War Of The Worlds or King Kong then there wouldn't have been so much hype about it to make it one of the most outstanding creature features for all times.

The Alien (Xenomorph) and Predator (Yautja) designs are the most iconic creatures in the movie and toy universe. Both these personifications of annihilation have created fans who adore and worship the fantastical and unparalleled fabrication of fear.

The franchise for both the characters have been resurrected time and again and it is inevitable that the two shall meet. The first encounter between them was from a comic created by Chris Warner under the Dark Horse comics publication.

With both these superstars of action, suspense and horror what can Alien Versus Predator offer in the second time around? Lots more action, suspense and horror for sure.

Although no one can replace Sigourney Weaver and Arnold Schwarzenegger in their roles as Ripley and Dutch, the creatures themselves are good enough to watch.

In AVP2 the plot is loosely extracted from previous Alien and Predator movies. There are recognizable scenes in which they are lifted off and amalgamated together for the sequel. The only direction different from the rest is the unpredictable lifespan of each of the human characters. Anyone is as easily eliminated as they are unknowns.

At times the movie falls back into an era of B-grade movies with its cheesy dialogs and slash-kill sequences. It also breaks the rule of the killing spree towards every man, woman and child. No one is spared. The Predalien (a by product of the two species) can do some pretty nifty things the previous movies didn't delve into.

For its effects and mindless appeal, AVP2 is as good to watch as any action, suspense or horror movie but don't count on any exceptional acting from the human offerings.

This is the kind of movie that grabs you at your intellectual level and challenges you to come face to face with what you know as the truth. The story could not be any simpler and straightforward than this. With only one location, eight characters and a very intense and profound conversation the good old story telling method is back.

It looks more like a stage play than a commercially embellished feature film. John, a colleague among the other lecturers who consists of a Christian literalist, anthropologist, archaeologist, psychologist and biologist, is given a farewell get-together on his last day in his home. They were all curious as to why he is leaving without saying goodbye and without a credible reason.

After urging him to tell them why he was packing up to go he reveals a secret far greater than they could accept. From an amiable confabulation among friends it gradually disconcerted everyone with the stories of his past and turned the gathering into a debatable contention.

There are no sidetracking to this movie but a wholesome erudition of ideas and theories within the confines of a room. This could have been one of the Star Trek or Twilight Zone episodes where thought provocation is the basis of good story telling.

Although it looks like a low budget movie with mostly unknown stars this is one of the better movies I have seen in a long time. It is written by Jerome Bixby who is famed for his contribution to Star Trek, The Twilight Zone series and the movie Fantastic Voyage.

Rain Dogs is an art film which draws emotions from a profound place somewhere deep inside our being. It is a slow paced drama of the coming of age set against a nostalgic backdrop of small towns and inner cities. Even though the time is not clearly stated in the movie, it feels like the seventies juxtaposed in contemporary settings.

This film is raw and natural. It takes its time to unravel the human nature from a boy's point of view. Snippets of seemingly unrelated scenes are weaved together by a thread of ambiguity, and subtle messages are intertwined to evoke wistful reveries. For those who grew up in small provincial towns, this will draw you back into the hey days of your youth when everything was hopeful and filled with expectations. It is in the understated events that gives Rain Dogs its strength. It leaves you to interpret what you want and not be dictated into swallowing what the director feels you should. The darker side of Kuala Lumpur is featured in a very bleak and somber mood. Although it doesn't represent the city in its entirely, the harrowing reality is that these dreary places still exists even until today.

Wai Hung Liu, a veteran Hong Kong actor, supports an impressive role as the laid back, beer guzzling and unpredictable uncle. Pete Teo and Yasmin Ahmad are also worth mentioning since both their forte are not in acting but in singing-songwriting and movie directing respectively. It is quite a treat to watch them shed away their already renowned image and put on another thinking hat for the movie.

Rain Dogs may not be the kind of movie that storms in like a blockbuster but it will definitely continue to shower on you for as long as you can remember. It speaks to you in ways only an intimate friend can and that's what Ho Yuhang, the writer and the director, does best. In the closing of this esoteric tale the gospel song 'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child' drowns you with an atmospheric after taste of what you can expect of the director in the near future.

Haeckel's Tale is not directed by Takashi Miike as reviewed. It is John McNaughton who brought us Wild Things that did it. Haeckel's Tale, by the way, is based on a short story written by Clive Barker of the same title. If you are familiar with his work you'll know what to expect especially if you remember his one of a kind Hellraiser.

The last episode which was supposed to be directed by Takashi Miike was withheld from being aired by Shotime executives due to some scenes they were unhappy about. At the moment the 13th episode known as Imprint will only be available on DVD.

All in all Masters of Horror is a tour de force of horror on television. If you like a good scare, some laughs, action, nudity, rock music, variety and disgust this show's definitely for you. Lock the doors, turn off the lights and blast the speakers for a fun and thrilling ride.