moviefreak

Saw the movie (FINALLY!) today and I must say that it’s a very interesting view of relationships between people. I couldn’t guess what the ending would be like or how the story progressed, so it’s not a typical drama. It’s rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality, and smoking.

This time I’m not going to write down the synopsis myself, but if you want to read it, click here.

Would I recommend the movie? Definitely, but not to younger kids (I personally think it should be rated PG-15), since the theme is pretty serious. It involves finding yourself and finding out what you want. It involves finding out whether you’ll be happy when you get what you think you want. It involves commitment versus lust/instant attraction. It makes you think about happiness and relationships in general, what kind of person you’d choose to be your lifetime partner, what kind of relationship you’d like to have with that person, etc.

For that and great acting by all the main characters (Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Rebecca Hall), I’ll give this movie a 7.5 stars out of 10. I think the best acting comes from Penelope Cruz, though. She’s really convinced me that she’s such an unstable, tempestuous, erratic person.

Here’s the trailer:

End note: I must say that after watching the movie, I feel glad that I was (have been) so sure about my relationship with my hubby despite our long-distance relationship and that I’m happy with him. Otherwise life would have been so different for me.

Saw this movie with hubby the other day on TV. It’s a pretty crazy/fun/wacky zombie movie. If you want to see zombies being used as house helpers, then this is the one for you. It’s not scary at all, though there are gory moments, too. Thus it’s rated R for zombie-related violence. I’ll give this movie a 6.8 stars out of 10.

The Story:

In the neighbourhood where most people have zombies as their house helpers (one person even has one as his girlfriend!), Helen Robinson (Carrie Anne-Moss) begs her husband to keep one as a house helper, as well. Since Bill Robinson (Dylan Baker) is a very busy father, his son Timmy Robinson (K’Sun Ray) is left to his own devices. He is considered an outcast among his peer group, so when the new zombie comes to their house, he make friends with him. He even names the zombie Fido (Billy Connolly). In fact, not only Timmy is the one who makes friends with Fido, but Helen also starts to care about him.

How do they control the zombies so that they don’t eat humans? By putting some kind of collar on their necks. The owners of the zombies are also given a remote control to help control them in case they get out of hand. Sometimes the collar doesn’t work too well and the zombie starts to get hungry for flesh. This happens when Timmy and Fido are playing outside in a park. Since Fido manages to kill one old lady, the old lady turns into a zombie and this creates chaos since there are more and more zombies in the neighbourhood.

What happens next? The zombie exterminators take Fido away ‘coz they find out that Fido is the one who creates all the problems. Timmy is also to be blame, but because the leader of the zombie exterminators is his neighbour, then he lets the family get away without any punishment. Timmy is sad now ‘coz he’s lost his friend Fido. However, he finds out that Fido isn’t exterminated. Instead, he’s taken to work in one factory, so off Timmy goes to find Fido.

What happens next? Will Fido be able to be together with Timmy again?

Here’s the trailer:

Last night I saw this 1979 movie on TV. Never read the novel by Thomas Hardy before, so didn’t know anything about the story. Turned out it was a depressing one. The movie was so long, too! Almost 3 hours long! I wasn’t really in the mood to watch a depressing movie, but then again after watching it halfway, I had to know the ending he he he…but I don’t think I’ll ever watch the movie again - not because it’s bad, but because I’m not too keen on depressing stories.

The Story:

Tess (Nastassja Kinski)  is a beautiful young girl from a poor family. One day the father is made to believe that he’s the relatives of a noble family named d’Urberville, so Tess’ parents send Tess away to the d’Urbervilles’ mansion to get a job. There she meets Alec d’Urberville (Leigh Lawson) who seduces her and takes advantage of her. She becomes his mistress for a few months, then she decides to come back home. Turns out she’s pregnant with Alec’s child. She gives birth to a baby boy, but then the boy dies.

She goes away again to find a job as a milking lady and there she meets Angel Clare (Peter Firth). They fall in love and Angel wants to marry her. Tess is dying to tell Angel about her past, but she’s so afraid of losing him. She gathers courage to write a letter to Angel to tell him everything, but the letter gets stuck under the carpet, so Angel never gets it. After the wedding ceremony, Tess tells Angel about her past, since Angel also tells Tess about his past relationship with an older woman. However, Angel is so shocked that he can’t forgive her.

Unable to stand being in the same house, Tess decides to go back home. Angel promises her that when he can forgive her, he’ll go back to get her. Tess says that she’ll wait for him. Life becomes tough again for Tess as she has to do farm work for Alec to help feed the family, especially after her Dad dies and her family loses the house.

Mini Movie Poster:

Spoiler:

Alec manages to persuade Tess that if she wants him to help her family, she has to be his mistress again. So they live together in a huge mansion. Meanwhile, Angel finally realizes that Tess does love him so much, so he tries to find her again, though it’s not easy since Tess’s family has lost their house and they’ve moved away. After asking around, Angel finds out where Tess lives and their meeting is very painful for both, because Tess keeps on saying to him that he’s too late and that Alec has been taking care of her and her family very well.

Angel leaves the house in a sad state and goes to the train station. Tess cries her heart out while Alec tries to annoy her by asking her questions about whether or not she’s crying because of Angel. In a fit of anger, Tess kills Alec and runs out of the house to go to the train station to catch Angel. She gets on the train on time and confesses to Angel about what she has done. The police are now after them. They try to get as farther away from them, but to no avail. In the end, Tess is hanged due to her crime.

This 2007 Taiwanese movie was really not what I expected (in a good way). The other title is also “The Secret That Cannot Be Told”. At first glance, I thought it was just a regular boy/girl love story in an arts school. After the plot progressed for a while, I thought it was a love story between a boy and a ghost. Boy was I wrong!!! But I won’t say anymore since it’ll ruin everything he he…

The Story:

Ye Xianglun (Jay Chou - a famous musician who’s also the co-writer of this movie) enters Danjiang Secondary Arts School to study music. The first day he comes to school, he meets the mysterious Lu Xiaoyu (Kwai Lun-mei). He heard her play a beautiful piece of music, so he’s very curious about her. They fall in love at first sight and they keep meeting each other. They’d play the piano together and he’d take her home with his bike and she teaches him how to play the pieace of music that he had heard the first day they met. One weird thing about her is that sometimes she doesn’t come to school for days. Every time Xiaoyu throws a disappearing act, Xianglun misses her more.

There’s another girl in the class who also likes Xianglun. Her name is Qing Yi (Alice Tzeng). So in the beginning it seems that there’ll be a love triangle. One time after Xiaoyu disappears from class for days (she claims that she has asthma, so sometimes she has to rest at home), she gets more and more jealous of Qing Yi.

One day Xianglun passes a note to Xiaoyu in the middle of a lesson, but the note actually reaches Qing Yi. So Qing Yi comes to the music hall to meet Xianglun and since Xianglun thinks that she’s Xiaoyu, he kisses her. Xiaoyu, who’s standing outside the room, is angry and she runs back home. She also refuses to meet him when he waits for her in front of her apartment’s gate. Xianglun keeps on waiting outside for days, but to no avail. One woman who lives in the same apartment complex tells him that Xiaoyu has quit going to school, so Xianglun doesn’t bother coming to wait for her anymore.

By now five months have passed by and it’s graduation day. Everybody in the school knows that on graduation day, the old music hall will be demolished and they’ll build a new music hall there. What happens on graduation day? Will Xianglun meet Xiaoyu again? Why is she so mysterious? What kind of secret does she have?

Here’s the piano battle between two students in the movie. It’s HOT HOT HOT!!!!

Note:

This movie actually reminds me of “Somewhere in Time“. I think the first half of the story was rather puzzling (it could have been made more engaging), but after I got more explanations on what had happened and the tension kept on rising until it reached the peak and at the end of the movie, I felt a HUGE SURGE of relief. For that and also some beautiful special effects and WONDERFUL piano performances, I’ll give this movie a 7.5 stars out of 10.

I watched this movie here, though the quality isn’t perfect, but at least I got to watch it for free ha ha ha…

Renny Harlin’s 2004 movie has a very fast tempo. It’s like chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. Very entertaining for me personally as it doesn’t leave me enough time to think. But that’s the idea: to make you experience what the characters are experiencing. The characters don’t have enough time to think before they’re hunted and killed, either. I’m satisfied with this movie and also the ending. I’ll give this movie a 7.5 stars out of 10.

P.S. Sorry if I can’t drop Entrecard too much these days as we’re moving to a new place and we’ve been exhausted!!! Btw, don’t forget to join my Guessing Game!!!

The Story:

In the beginning of the story you’ll learn that there are several FBI agents on training to be the best profilers. Mostly they’re taught to catch serial killers and to read their minds. Jake Harris (Val Kilmer) is their tutor and he’s sending 7 FBI agents on training to a remote island to do a case simulator. They’re given clues and together they try to find out who the killer is.

Problems start as they realize that somebody’s haunting them in the island. When they’re trying to track the many clues, one by one they are killed or they get injured. How? Apparently somebody has set up traps connected to the given clues. As usual, they start to suspect one another as they try to find out who the murderer is. Things are getting more and more tensed as there is a stranger among them in the form of Gabe Jensen (LL Cool J), whom nobody knows nothing about. He just appeared in the island to be involved in this case simulator. Once they try to get out of the island, but the killer has thought that out, so the boat is destroyed by a bomb. 

So who is the killer? Will they be ALL killed by the killer? The killer is actually a master profiler, since that person is able to set the traps after profiling all the victims’ personalities and characteristics. What’s the killer’s motive? You’ll find out at the end of the movie.

This is the second Hungarian movie I’ve seen so far. It’s a mixture of many things (humour, thriller, horror, drama) and it’s very symbolic. Hubby and I watched it yesterday. We laughed at some scenes and we also felt some terror about some scenes and we were left wondering who the perpetrator was. It also shows a kind of job I’ve never seen before on TV: a group of ticket control officers in the underground metro station. VERY interesting!!!

However, at the end of the movie I was left with many questions. I’d love to have some things explained to me, but I guess the point of the movie is for you to think about it yourself. I’ll give this movie a 6.6 stars out of 10 as I’m not really a fan of this type of symbolic movie. This 2003 movie is rated R for language, some violence and brief sexuality.

The Story:

There are many groups of ticket control officers in the underground metro station. Other than the fact that they have to check that each passenger has tickets or passes, they also have to watch out for weird incidents as there have been many jumpers lately. Jumpers = people who jump from the platform and kill themselves. It is clear from the start that there is such a tight competition between each group of ticket control officers.

One group consists of 5 people with the leader named Bulcsú (Sándor Csányi). The weird thing about Bulcsú is that he has been sleeping on the platform after the last train is gone, so he’s like a homeless person. His group members are the Muki (Csaba Pindroch), Tibi (Zsolt Nagy), Lecsó (Sándor Badár), and Professor (Zoltán Mucsi). Every day they have to handle passengers without tickets who are sometimes aggressive and each of them has an interesting personality.

Other than that, after a while it’s found out that the jumpers aren’t people who commit suicide. There is somebody who pushes them from the platform to their deaths. Who is this killer? Why is he doing whatever he’s doing?

Bulcsú once sees this hooded perpetrator pushing an annoying passenger to his death. Trouble comes after this event as Bulcsú is thought as the killer by his boss. He’s seen to have been chasing the annoying passenger and then the next thing shown on the recorded video is the flying passenger going to his death. Is Bulcsú the killer or is there somebody else who does it? Meanwhile, Bulcsú also manages to fall in love with the daughter of a metro driver who dresses in a bear suit since it’s her job.

What will be revealed in the end? Will Bulcsú and the girl get together?

Note:

It seems to me that it’s up to you what this movie means and what the symbols are, so don’t worry even if you feel that it’s about something whereas somebody else thinks it’s about something else.