A Nutshell Review by daface
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A Nutshell Review: Bee Movie
Let's see, we have A Bug's Life, then Antz, then the insect animated films gave way to a host of animal talkies, including dancing and singing penguins, cows with confused genetic makeup, zoo animals thinking they're better off in the wild, and chef rats, amongst an array of hits and misses, recycling the same old tactics and game plan to snare the movie going audience.
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A Nutshell Review: Anna & Anna
Earlier this year, there was a casting call for extras to be in Anna & Anna, with the presence of lead actress Karena Lam, and looking at the film, it would have involved being night club revelers in a darkened pub watching local band Ronin perform. This Singapore-Shanghai co-production, written and directed by Aubrey Lam, is surprisingly full of arthouse sensibilities, but with all the wrong reasons in doing so, making this less than 90 minute film feel like a plodding dinosaur, hinging on the acting prowess of Karena Lam and Lu Yi (Jasmine Women, Seven Swords).
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A Nutshell Review: Saawariya
I had actually asked two friends separately to come along with me to watch this movie, but twice I got rejected. I asked why, and got no reason simply other than the curt "not interested". I guess Hindi movies still get stuck in the old "dancing around the coconut tree" mindset, and trying as hard as I can, my persuasive powers fail me. But that of course can never deter me from watching the movie, and I've not regretted an iota for spending a good 142 minutes on Saawariya (Beloved).
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A Nutshell Review: Doraemon The Movie
You can count on the Japanese to design a character that appeals to all demographics. If Hello Kitty and the Sanrio gang are deemed to girly, and the Ultraman/Power Rangers/Masked Rider et al deemed to manly, then Doraemon is just the perfect creation to appeal to boys and girls. A futuristic cat with more than a bagful of fantastic gadgets springing out from his pouch, my first brush with the character was through the animated television series, and later through translated comics. I still remember vividly the Doraemon gigantic soft toy (comes without the cotton wool/sponge insert, and you have to DIY) was the #1 toy that NS boys bring back from overseas during my time.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/doraemon-movie-doraemon-nobita-no-kyry.html -
A Nutshell Review: Factory Girl
It took me that long to finally watch Factory Girl, a story which tells of a wealthy party girl, a poor little rich kid's trials and tribulations, her parties and the friends she keeps, her influences and vices ranging from hard drinking to drug taking. No, it's not about Paris Hilton (you can wager some money that one will be out in future), but probably a precursor to her, a woman called Edie Sedgwick, who lived and died hard and fast. It's not the first time where we have rich young girls choosing a totally different career path for herself, the other in recent memory being Domino Harvey, played by Keira Knightley in Domino.
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A Nutshell Review: December Boys
The buzz for December Boys surely points to how Daniel Radcliffe will fare sans cloak, glasses and lightning bolt scar on his forehead, to star in a movie that's totally out of the Harry Potter franchise. Gone are the fantastical elements and scores of ready, adoring fans, and in comes a serious dramatic piece about the coming of age, growing up, and raging hormones. Wait, Harry Potter is about that too doesn't it, although it stretches over 7 movies?
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A Nutshell Review: Beowulf
Robert Zemeckis had directed a handful of movie which I have enjoyed over the years, with what I thought to be one of the best trilogies out there with Back to the Future (the Power of Love anyone?), and a couple of Tom Hanks movies like Forrest Gump and Cast Away, and teaming with Hanks to make The Polar Express, where Zemeckis ventures into the territory of motion capture animation. He continues that effort with Beowulf, a take on the legendary warrior now given the spin by writers Neil Gaiman (whose Stardust is still playing in theatres) and Roger Avary.
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A Nutshell Review: The Kingdom
The Kingdom here refers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the world's #1 producer of oil, a commodity that almost every country depend on in fueling their economy. While there are whispers about the Kingdom's role in today's security climate, it itself is not immune to the violance that extremists dish out (the Riyadh Bombings), and here's where scribe Matthew Michael Carnahan adapts from, and makes it the key catalyst in having an action adventure set in the oil rich sultanate. While his Lions for Lambs was mainly a talkie picture painting his current perspective of the war on terror from and on US soil, here he crafts a companion piece for those lusting for action.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/kingdom.html -
A Nutshell Review: Om Shanti Om
Om Shanti Om and Saawariya premiered the same time as the offerings for the Deepavali holiday, and to see how Hollywood money had influenced a Hindi production, I opted for the latter first. In its opening weekend in the UK, Om Shanti Om had trounced Tom Cruise's Lions for Lambs, so OSO went straight to my must-watch list this week. Moreover, while I have watched movies starring Bollywood King Shah Rukh Khan, I have yet to see him in action on the big screen, so this provided the best opportunity to do so.
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A Nutshell Review: Hero
Movies based on successful television series are natural progressions to make a quick buck, mainly because of the more instant box office dollars it gets translated to. But what I apprehend the most, is when the approach is to not worry whether non-television series followers would be able to get it, so it decides not to afford the time to explain matters, expecting the bulk of the audience to be coming with background knowledge from the series. When you are one of the series' followers, you'll make camp on the side to forgo previous cinematic time on explanation so that the pace does not get slowed, but if you are not, then you'll probably cry foul, not that you don't get to enjoy the movie though, but are lusting after a more complete experience.
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A Nutshell Review: Silk
If Fate would have it, I would have the opportunity to go to Tokyo for this year's Japanese International Film Festival, and watched this as the closing film. Initially I had mixed this up with Atonement, also starring Keira Knightley in a period romance story, except that this one had shades of The Last Samurai thrown in, with the love triangle moments with the involvement of a Japanese girl.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/silk.html -
A Nutshell Review: Enchanted
How does she know, you love her?
Probably by bringing her to watch Enchanted, a movie with the words "chick flick" rubber stamped all over it. I've got to admit my friend offered to hook me up on a blind date with a hot chick because she wanted to watch this movie, and I had unsuccessfully persuaded him to bring her out on this movie date himself. Anyway if you're reading this, you should, because it has a winning formula!
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/enchanted.html -
A Nutshell Review: Fred Claus
What if Santa Claus, aka Saint Nicholas actually had a family, and a brother who hates him to the core because of a high degree of envy? The first 10 minutes spend time establishing its version of this "What If" scenario, even offering the notion of how immortality comes to play a part in freezing their ages so as to transplant Fred (Vince Vaughn) the older brother, to Today, while Santa is already operating his Santa's Workshop delivering presents to nice children in time for Christmas Day.
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A Nutshell Review: The Tattooist
Starring Jason Behr, who resembled Lorenzo Lamas in his previous big screen movie outing with the Skinwalkers, he ditches the long hair and beard for a closer crop, and takes on the titular role as a tattooist who is in Singapore for a Tattoo Exposition, held at the Capitol area. Locals will know that no such area exists (Capitol is just waiting to be refurbished/demolished), and the first 20 minutes of this movie actually had a very sexy vibe to how night time Singapore is portrayed, with its beautiful skyline, and many shots that would have made the Singapore Tourism Board give it its stamp of approval.
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A Nutshell Review: 2 Days in Paris
I actually did spend two days in Paris, back in August 2004, and did all the touristy things one could do in those short 48 hours, like visit the unmissable landmarks such as Le Tour Eiffel, visited babes Mona Lisa and Venus at the Louvre, tried to look for the hunchback at Notre Dame, paid my respects at Napoleon's casket, and ended the night partying after a dinner watching a French revue.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/2-days-in-paris.html -
A Nutshell Review: Mad Detective
Mad Detective had been touted as the long awaited re-team of Johnny To and Wai Ka Fai, who together have made Running on Karma back in 2003. The return of Lau Ching Wan to a To-Wai movie (since My Left Eye Sees Ghosts) is also more than welcome, and Mad Detective to me lived up to its hype, despite having certain obvious recycled elements from To's earlier films.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/mad-detective-sun-taam.html -
A Nutshell Review: Hitman
10 years ago, Philip Noyce directed a movie that was based on an adapted character. He put this character in Russia, and got him embroiled in some political intrigue that's way over his head and should not have involved him in the first place. Naturally, our anti-hero (he's a professional thief by the way) bites back, using skills he honed to perfection, and basically relying on his smarts to escape near misses. His charisma ensured he had a beauty with brains tagging along, albeit reluctantly but given no choice with her involvement in the scheme of things, before forging trust, and possible romance.
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A Nutshell Review: 30 Days of Night
While we're about a month away from the season of good tidings and the new year, what we have lined up for the next 4 weeks or so are 4 cinematic releases that deal with zombies, the supernatural and the undead. We have been teased with Aliens Vs Predators again in a town where the humans stand in their way and become sacrificial pawns. We have Will Smith in I Am Legend being the last man on Earth fending off strange creatures in the night. We have a group of shoppers stuck in a supermarket when Stephen King unleashes The Mist on them. And I actually enjoyed the latter 2 trailers for having adopted some bars off Clint Mansell's soundtrack for The Fountain (will we see more, since Requiem's was used ever so often).
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A Nutshell Review: The Heartbreak Kid
The Heartbreak Kid brings Stiller back to the Farrelly Brothers' fold, joining forces again to bring in the laughs in a situation that unmarried guys my age fear. While we may be nonchalant about staying single and enjoying the status to sow our wild oats, there's always this nagging thought about what would happen when we seem to have met that special someone who could be just the very person to spend the rest of our life with. Thinking about "forever", that it's a long time, make us go into weighing in the pros and the cons of giving up our freedom, and we just want to be darn sure (and suicidal) to be giving up our singlehood.
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A Nutshell Review: The Ten Commandments
I suppose Biblical stories will never run out of fashion, though I find it a bit strange that amongst the numerous potential stories for retelling, the story of Moses got chosen again, and for an animated movie no less, although this one's done in 3D. Remember Prince of Egypt? Dreamworks Animation pretty much nailed it, especially when you have a relatively sucessful hit song as a byproduct (played ad nauseam until it became an irritant). Comparisons are inevitable given the content and the form, and unfortunately, this movie with input from IVL Animation (Singapore) didn't surpass the benchmark set by Prince of Egypt, but it's a slight improvement to the local 3D animated movies that have been released to date (that of Zodiac: The Race Begins and Tales of the Sea).
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A Nutshell Review: The Golden Compass
So, does The Golden Compass finally get it right to plug the (industry interpreted) much-needed Christmassy sword and sorcery movie?
Find out at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/12/golden-compass.html -
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A Nutshell Review: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
Dustin Hoffman doesn't really quite marquee a movie now, doesn't he? I still remember one of his earlier classics as The Graduate which still remains one of my favourite films ("Do you want me to seduce you?"), and his award winners like Rain Man, Tootsie, Kramer vs Kramer, or even commercial movies like Hero, Hook and Sphere. Lately though I felt he's relegated to support status and bit roles within ensembles, and even though he's the titular character of Edward Magorium, his screen time is still limited, mirroring Magorium's passing of the baton to Natalie Portman's Molly Mahoney the store manager.
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Originally posted by polarsnake:
yup, was lazy to normalize all the legacy nicks
Does your name happen to be Dick Steel?
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A Nutshell Review: Alvin and the Chipmunks
Or at least that's how the theme song of the cartoon series sounded like, dug out from my subconscious. For those, like me, who have grown up in the 80s watching television cartoons like Mask, Transformers, He-Man, there are those which are less action based, such as Peanuts, and of course, Alvin and the Chipmunks, featuring the trio of Alvin, the de-facto ringleader, Simon the smart one (hence the cliche glasses) and the greedy Theodore.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2007/12/alvin-and-chipmunks.html