Knowing the story where this movie was banned 40 years ago will make you realize how society has changed around us since then. Produced in 1971, this movie is finally screened in Singapore for the first time (I guess) last Friday as one of the movies in Perspective Film Festival, organized by WKWSCI, NTU.
If you are really a conservative religious person, particularly Christian, I do not suggest for any of you to watch this movie (there is one particular scene that might offend Christian people). For the first half of movie, Stanley Kubrick as Writer and Director of movie, will bring you unbelievable scenes where it was something controversial during 1970s (I believe). I believe those scenes are some of the reasons why the movie was banned 40 years ago, because they give some ideas to people for doing crimes that they never think of. But nowadays, such crimes have been replicated everywhere, so those kind of ideas are not really controversial anymore.
On top of that, the movie also told us about changing someone personality and preferences will have drawback to the person, where in this movie, after Alex went thru the treatment trial, he became a defenseless guy. It was shown in few scenes where he cant help himself when he was intimidated by other parties. In real life perhaps, it also applicable to a group of people who want to change those people who are not following current society norms i.e. personality disorder, sexuality, etc. So if you try to change it, please watch the drawback as well, because you never knew what you turned men into when you tried to change them.
Protagonist Alex is an "ultraviolent" youth in futuristic Britain. As with all luck, his eventually runs out and he's arrested and convicted of murder and rape. While in prison, Alex learns of an experimental program in which convicts are programed to detest violence. If he goes through the program his sentence will be reduced and he will be back on the streets sooner than expected. But Alex's ordeals are far from over once he hits the mean streets of Britain that he had a hand in creating.
To be honest, I did not really have time to catch any recent movies lately. Recent here means in the past 2 weeks. Pretty busy juggling of school and work at the same time. And as you can see, this blog has been never updated for quite some times, more than a month.
Back to title of this post, I always wonder, why do some movies need hot stars for their movie. First is Abduction, an action family movie. Girls will agree with me that Taylor Lautner is hot, as he showed of his topless body in Twilight Saga in some scenes. In another hand, Lily Collins is a cute girl, yet she also being portrayed as a hot sexy girl in the movie. Sometimes, I simply get bored with the scenes where they tried so hard to make it as hot scenes, yet they failed to make it hot. So I think, to make the hot scenes not so fail, it is better to use hot stars, so audiences can have their own imagination during the movie or maybe after the movie, no?
Second is Friends with Benefit, a comedy "sex" movie. It is not as literally sex what you can think of, but it is more to the frequency of the "sex" scenes a movie shall have in general. It is sometimes too much, yet entertaining for some people. This movie justified their selves why they chose "hot stars", because they need to show to audiences the sexiness of stars on the bed when they do "the action". Can you imagine if the stars are not hot, maybe we can categorize it as over-weight? Few people might find it nice, but not people in general though.
Okay, let's talk about other stuffs related with the cinemas I experienced. As you can see from the picture, I watched at 2 different cinemas, and among those 2, Golden Village or Cineleisure, Cineleisure won. Why? Let me drill it down later in another post.
Interesting facts about who you going with for watching movie is matters as well. I went with my psychology-major study friend for Abduction movie and my friend analyzed it in the term of psychology point of view I think. You might want to read the synopsis about the movie first as following:
Nathan, a teen, along with his friend, Karen finds a website that has photos of children who are missing or believed to have been abducted. They decide to age one of the photos and discover that is of Nathan as a child. He contacts the person who placed the photo to find out what's going on. The person on the other end only wants to know info about Nathan so Nathan hangs up. The person then contacts someone in Europe and shows him a photo of the one who called. He then heads for the U.S. Nathan then wonders is it true, was he abducted. He tells his "mom" who then tells him she and his "father" will tell him. But before they can, two men claiming to be cops show up wanting to talk to Nathan, and when he isn't found they pull guns and demand Nathan be given to them. His parents fight them but are killed. Nathan runs but remembers that he asked Karen to come over...
And guess what my friend told me after the movie? He said something along these statements:
Actually the movie represents our life. The adopted parents is our parent in the world, while the father is God. We, as the kids, only being "adopted" by our parents from God, while at some points of our life, we must walk away and stand by ourselves from our parents and God will watch over us for what we doing since then on.
Contrast to Abduction movie, I went with one of my female friends from high school from for Friends with Benefits movie. We were laughing and was not really discussing into deep about representation of subtle meaning of the movie. We talked more about the catchy words, statements, brands and so in the movie. Well, it might be due to her interest as well, where she major in marketing for her undergraduate study. For not discriminating Friends with Benefits, let me put the synopsis of the movie as well:
While trying to avoid the clichés of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan and Jamie soon discover however that adding the act of sex to their friendship does lead to complications.
So, have you guys watched those 2 movies? FYI, Friends with Benefits has higher rating than Abduction in IMDB.
Yeah finally I watched the last part of Harry Potter series. It was really satisfying by the end of movie when you know that your since-ever-childhood story finally be completed as movie, although with not totally the same cast from beginning till the end (if you remember the Albus Dumbledore previous cast died few years back).
Then what about the title that I put here for this post? Well, it simply because here is Singapore, Harry first time screening at 14/7 (14 July), which 14 factor number is 7 and 2! And if you do realize, it is from 7th book and it is the 2nd part, well another 7 and 2. And I bought the movie ticket at 14SGD, which also have factor numbers of 7 and 2! Well, maybe I brag too much about number of 7 and 2, but just wonder why my life today is all about 7 and 2. O.o
I will not talk about the story of the movie here, coz most likely everyone knows the plot well or even better than me I guess (I read it few years back and I am the type of person who will not read story book twice or even more). So I will talk about the effects!
Nothing much fantastic effects at this part I think, part 1 has more fantastic effects thats what I can say now. But if you really looking for the effects inside this movie, especially if you are watching 3D or maybe IMAX, you will really looking forward for the part at Gringotts scenes, the Room Requirement scenes, and the initial invasion of Death Eater to Hogwarts. Beside than that I think it is nothing special about it.
I really love how the producer of the movie tells to the audience about Severus Snape story, and even my friend who watched with me and never read the book before said, this movie is the best movie of Harry Potter over all. I guess also they really have nice plot without a confusing story and whatever, and they did not cut the crucial part of the story! So the decision of them divided it into 2 parts is a good choice. Now I wonder what if every Harry Potter series that have similar thickness with the 7th book, being divided into 2 parts! Haha...
Oh, not going to spoil anyone imagination, the last scene when they finally become parents is really funny. But Hermione, seriously? I cant believe it.. :)
Not forgetting also about the scene where Neville Longbottom cut off Nagini head and afterward scenes are EPIC!
For girls who are Daniel Radcliffe fans, well here you can look at his body, 1 to him, 0 to Ruppert Grint at that particular scene after they swim out from the lake. :P
It was Wednesday, when I watched this movie. I was supposedly watching it on Tuesday, but my movie kaki was sick. So we postponed it to Wednesday instead. :)
Initially I wanted to watch Green Lantern, but my friend told me it is not really that nice, so we decided watching this movie instead (not my idea tho, because Mr Popper's Penguins trailer is not that appealing to me).
Well, the phrase "never expected anything" is true and applied to this movie for me! I was not expecting any funtastic, but it turned out to be is. I will not try spoil any people expectation here, so I will not try to give any preview story about it.
To cut long story short, this movie is really good for family outing I think. It is really heart warming. In a way it is funny, but you can feel the family reunion bonding inside the movie itself, and how hopes and second chance in life were happened. :)
Well, for you who have no idea what the movie about, let you watch the trailer first:
Finally, I have my horror movie kaki (means buddy/friend), Dylan! Initially I have no idea that he likes to watch horror movie as well, but was randomly asked and apparently he did not mind to watch Insidious and Laddaland with me. At least if I scream, I will not to scream to random person around me? Annoys random in cinema is not my type. :)
Insidious? Hmm.. This movie is kind of movie when you watch it, you will get haunted at least a night? Especially if you are visual person (because I am). During the movie itself, I didnt get so much of shocking feeling. But the feeling after movie, you shall take a deep breath whenever you want to take a look yourself at the mirror and whenever you will sleep and have a dream as well. The ending somehow they want to make insidious 2 or even more? =.=
Meanwhile for Laddaland, it is more shocking kind type of horror movie. Well, I can say thats what Thai movie style, but you know what? Since I am an Asian, I think I can relate more to this horror movie, well maybe culture that being portrayed also makes difference. But you will not expect the ending, it is totally sweet kind of ending for me at least.
Actually laddaland can be considered as family drama psycho-horror movie while insidious is totally a horror movie! So, which one you think is better? :D
Below are the trailers for you to consider which one to watch first. :)
Yeah! Jack Sparrow, by actor Johnny Depp, is back again to the cinema. Thats the first reaction that I had when heard the news about the latest Pirates of Caribbean movie. But I did not really think about whether it will be a good or bad movie at that moment (a month or two months ago) until I saw my friends negative comments who have watched it (2 weeks ago).
Due to that comments, then I forced my friends to watch it with me as soon as possible, so we decided watch it at Cathay (Map) on 24th May 2011, at 830pm, and yeah we watched it in 3D! My friends kept asking me whether I can reach on time or not, because my tuition usually ends at 730pm at Newton area at that night, but of course I managed to reach it at 8pm. :)
With slightly lower expectation, I watched this movie. Due to my hectic schedule for the past few days before that night, I fell asleep at some boring scenes, when they talked here and there. :(
Overall for me, it is kinda true that the previous sequels are better than the latest movie. I am not sure why, maybe the compositions and the chemistry of cast are not really good enough? I think next time if they want to produce another Pirates of Caribbean movie, somehow they should bring back Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom (I know he only can appears to the world every 100 years, but come on for the sake of nice movie!).
So actually, this time whats the story about? Here is the summary I took online:
Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) crosses paths with a woman from his past (Cruz), and he's not sure if it's love -- or if she's a ruthless con artist who's using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. When she forces him aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (McShane), Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in which he doesn't know who to fear more: Blackbeard or the woman from his past.
It was in the middle of my exams period when my friend, Ayu Dyani, came over to SG with her mom. I surprised with her sudden visit but apparently I managed asking her to get some stuffs for me that I can not get easily in SG i.e. chewing gum. :)
Lucky her, she came when there was public holiday in SG: Deepavali, so we can watch a late midnight movie because I only can watch after my intern work. FYI, currently Indonesia does not show such big Hollywood movies due to tax issues by the companies who hold the copyright in distributing the movies on cinemas (details here).
When we reached Cineleisure Orchard, we saw the only available movie that we wanted to watch is Fast Furious 5. As the title said, it is sequel #5, so I am a bit curious whether there is relation between this sequel and the previous one (Fast Furious 4).
Apparently, there is relations between the latest sequel and the previous one and here we go when I thought I have not watched the previous sequel before! But the fact is I watched it before after I saw the cast faces (I have terrible memory for names, visual FTW!).
Basically, what is Fast Furious 5 about then? Below is the summary that I take online:
Former cop Brian O'Conner partners with ex-con Dom Toretto on the opposite side of the law. Since Brian and Mia Toretto broke Dom out of custody, they've blown across many borders to elude authorities. Now backed into a corner in Rio de Janeiro, they must pull one last job in order to gain their freedom. As they assemble their elite team of top racers, the unlikely allies know their only shot of getting out for good means confronting the corrupt businessman who wants them dead. But he's not the only one on their tail. Hard-nosed federal agent Luke Hobbs never misses his target. When he is assigned to track down Dom and Brian, he and his strike team launch an all-out assault to capture them. But as his men tear through Brazil, Hobbs learns he can't separate the good guys from the bad. Now, he must rely on his instincts to corner his prey... before someone else runs them down first.
With the stars rating 7.7 out of 10 from IMDb website, this is one of the must watch movie in your list for 2011! Especially with their nicer story plot that I think they might be inspired by Leverage TV Series. Yes, they do some kind of con-artist scenes!
For those who would like to check out the trailer:
