A Nutshell Review: Proof
I could begin by telling you that Proof is this year's A Beautiful Mind, but it is going to be difficult to prove that this movie is as good as the Oscar winning film, so I shall attempt to prove that it's not bad.
proof is at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/proof.html
A Nutshell Review: Memoirs of a Geisha
The most interesting would probably be the second act where we witness the meteoric rise of Sayuri. We are introduced proper into the complex Geisha life of rules and protocols, accompanied by the brilliant score of John Williams' and with Yo-Yo Ma on the cellos. The beautiful costumes and rich sets also become testament that the filmmakers spare no effort in bringing Kyoto, and the world of the Geisha, to life.
The complete review at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/memoirs-of-geisha.html
A Nutshell Review: Pride and Prejudice
I'd say I must thank Heavens for bestowing upon me, a second chance to finally watch the most excellent Keira Knightley version of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/pride-and-prejudice.html
A Nutshell Review: Walk the Line
How uncanny. Today is the day that Walk the Line won big at the Golden Globes, winning Best Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy, as well as snagging the Best Actor and Actress - Musical/Comedy for both Joaquin Phoenix and Resse Whiterspoon. Today is also the day that I attended my first GV Surprise Screening, and Walk the Line was shown.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/walk-line.html
A Nutshell Review: Le Grand Voyage
You'd think you're in for some serious sightseeing when the premise of the movie takes place primarily between two characters as they travel 3000 miles or so from France to Saudi Arabia, going through most of Europe - Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, before arriving in the Middle East. But this is not a tour, and there are no stopovers for soaking in the sights.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/le-grand-voyage.html
A Nutshell Review: I Not Stupid Too
No, you need not have watched the original I Not Stupid to figure out what's going on. Gone are the major Khoo Family (with the Hokkien-swearing Richard Low) and the main narrator, Terry Khoo. Instead, newcomer Ashley Leong takes over the narrator's role, as Jerry, the new addition to the Liu Family, with Jack Neo himself, TV actress Xiang Yun, and Shawn Lee as Tom.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-not-stupid-too.html
A Nutshell Review: Match Point
Written and directed by Woody Allen, it surprisingly doesn't feel like what I would have expected from an Allen film, nor did I think that I had the patience to sit through one. However, this movie had converted me to wanna watch what Allen had to say in his earlier movies, not that this movie, in my opinion, is representative of the legendary director's style.
continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/match-point.html
A Nutshell Review: Fearless
The first Jet Li movie which I watched as a little boy, was his Shaolin Temple. Jet next shot to fame and prominence with the various Chinese folk heroes that he played in the late 80s and 90s, like Wong Fei Hong, Fong Sai Yuk, Zhang San Feng, and even taking on Bruce Lee's Chen Zhen role in a Fist of Fury remake called Fist of Legend. In Fearless, he plays martial arts master Huo Yuanjia / Fok Yuen Gaap, whom I presume most who are familiar with Fist of Fury, will know who this chap is.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/fearless.html
A Nutshell Review: Real: The Movie
Goal! probably gave football fans a reason to cheer that there is finally a movie worthy of the sport, nevermind the teams that were featured in it. It got the right moments of excitement, joy, trials and tribulations that most football fans could identify with in players and their clubs. However, Real: The Movie takes the genre two steps backwards, even though you know it's like a congratulatory pat on the back of the club itself.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/real-movie.html
A Nutshell Review: Fun with Dick and Jane
This is a remake of a 1977 comedy of the same name, an update of the same premise of your happily married couple who found themselves in debt and having to rob in order to pay the bills.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/fun-with-dick-and-jane.html
A Nutshell Review: Zodiac: The Race Begins
Since it's the first, perhaps it's expected we go with expectations set real low? Check. But it's really, not good. The animation is rather coarse (ok, so you're telling me we cannot compare with Pixar?), and looks like it's straight out of a bad blocky videogame. There are certain sequences that looked like a cheap ripoff of old puppetry techniques, though I'd like to think of it as an excuse that the filmmakers were being lazy, or in a rush to finish this in time for the lunar new year.
More at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/01/zodiac-race-begins.html
A Nutshell Review: North Country
Based upon the book "Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law", and of course, a dramatized Hollywood version of the first successful sexual harassment case in the US, you might hesitate that this movie might bore you with many of the legal mumbo-jumbo with plenty of objections and sustained motions.
This movie is more than that, and it doesn't overdo its courtroom scenes. Sure, they are there, but it doesn't take centrestage. What is core in the movie, is how relationships amongst the various characters are played out. And the telling of a story of one woman's fight against stacked odds.
Read more at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/north-country.html
A Nutshell Review: The Constant Gardener
Finally! After such a long wait, this movie has finally made it to our shores (I have been lamenting the same fate of other acclaimed movies recently). Directed by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (who did City of God), The Constant Gardener finds itself sandwiched between two others movies released here in the same period, sharing with North Country an aspect about whistle-blowing, and with Syrianna on the corruption of conglomerates.
While Syrianna takes on oil corporations, Gardener tells a tale of clandestine governments, and the morality issues faced by pharmaceutical companies. Adapted from the novel by John le Carré, Gardener explores and suggests what-if scenarios (I say "what-if" as I humbly ask if what was suggested by the film could have been inspired by some form of real happenings), of having human guinea pigs in the testing of new medicine. In contention here is a new drug for the treatment of tuberculosis, though HIV was also briefly sharing the spotlight in the plight of the African nations. The stark question posed, which makes you wonder, is whether it is right to have dying Africans, or those who are already terminally ill, test new medicine, and presenting to them Hobson's choice.
Read more at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/constant-gardener.html
A Nutshell Review: A Season for Love
It's been some time since I've watched a movie with a relative huge ensemble cast (think the last was Crash), and little did I expect this Korean romance movie to boost the same too, with fine acting, good comedy and lots of love demonstrated in various ways.
There are 4 separate stories in this film, and it's difficult for me to judge which of them is superior than the other. Each looked into its niche area, and have ample screen time to develop its story, though the characters do get intertwined in one another's story with little conscious interaction.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/season-for-love.html
A Nutshell Review: Jarhead
Welcome to the suck. 6 months of waiting for 4 days of "battle". Finally a decent yet different war genre movie set during the first Gulf War, which featured what was touted by Saddam as the Mother of All Battles, not. Jarhead is based upon the book by former Marine Anthony Swofford, on his experiences in the Desert Shield and Desert Storm operations.
But we start the journey from the beginning, at the boot camp, and that, to many NS men, will bring back fond memories of the BMT days when nasty drill sergeants rained down vulgarity filled commands, and punishments meted out from whims and fancies. You'll chuckle wholeheartedly, but of course not when you're at the receiving end. The burly platoon mates, the sexual innuendos, the male bonding sessions in the bunks, the various antics, the talk-cock sessions; nostalgic I tell you.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/jarhead.html
A Nutshell Review: Syriana
It's no wonder that many have called this film anti-American, and pro-Arab. But in the way it's presented, you can't help but nod in the film's direction for daring to discuss and suggest what it says at point blank. It's serious, no holds barred, and brilliant.
Read more at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/syriana.html
A Nutshell Review: Casanova
Hollywood has depicted many legendary lovers in one way or another, from Don Juan to Valentino, and this time, Venetian playboy Casanova gets the big screen treatment in the form of Hollywood "It" boy Heath Ledger playing the title role, with much aplomb.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/casanova.html
A Nutshell Review: Brokeback Mountain
Here's my challenge: Watch Casanova and Jarhead (both now showing in local theatres) before watching Brokeback Mountain, to appreciate and to keep fresh in your mind, the acting range of both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. One plays a king of lovemaking, while the other plays an army grunt, in which both are alpha-males roles. Then when you watch Brokeback Mountain, you'll probably be wide-eyed at how these two have a go at each other.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/brokeback-mountain_113962670389282516.html
A Nutshell Review: Mrs. Henderson Presents
Nudity, gratuitous nudity. But let's not get carried away shall we? Mrs Henderson Presents, based loosely on real events, tells the tale of how an English theatre in London's West End called the Windmill was revived, and showcases the people involved in putting on its productions.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/mrs-henderson-presents.html
A Nutshell Review: The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther actually refers to an enormous pink diamond with a flaw in the shape of a panther, and not to Inspector Jacques Clouseau, but because of the iconic pink panther's appearance in the animated opening credits, along with the all too familiar theme by Henry Mancini, it's all too easy to associate one with the other.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/pink-panther.html
A Nutshell Review: Zoolander
I am five years late. Just as I was so prepared to watch a Ben Stiller caper, with the posters all up at local theatres, the movie disappeared from the radar, and was banned in Singapore. Why? Because the plot was about a fashion model being brainwashed ala The Manchurian Candidate to assassinate the Malaysian Prime Minister.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/zoolander.html
A Nutshell Review: Hidden (Cache)
There's a full scene in which a boy hacks up a chicken's head, and the camera lingers until the chicken dies. This is what this movie is, a headless chicken running around in futile, boring audiences until its end. The plot is like Georges' character when he was almost knocked down by a cyclist - exhibiting great bravado with his initial challenge, but when challenged back in return, cowers and wraps up with the tail in between its legs. Pah!
Read more at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/hidden-cache.html
A Nutshell Review: Final Destination 3
I wonder why I missed the first two movies of the franchise, given that I'm a fan of gore (the bloodier the merrier). But you need not have watched the first two movies in order to enjoy Final Destination 3, as it's pretty much a stand-alone movie utilizing the same premise.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/final-destination-3.html
A Nutshell Review: Rumor Has It
Based on a true rumor, the premise of the movie was set up oh-so perfectly, especially if you're a fan of Mike Nichols' 1967 Dustin Hoffman-Anne Bancroft movie, The Graduate (with its immortal line uttered again in this film). It's pretty creative to have that story and characters intertwined with the narrative of this movie.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/rumor-has-it.html
A Nutshell Review: 49 Days
This Hong Kong horror movie has 2 titles, one the Chinese one which means the rhino's horn, while the other in English refers to the seven by seven equals forty-nine days of the initial afterlife, in which the body's spirit will roam the earth before proceeding to the netherland. And this movie actually talks about both in a rather interesting manner.
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2006/02/49-days.html