What to watch? September - December 2009_part 2

Okay, here's part 2. Check it out!



2012

Like what I'd mention in my post earlier about this movie, I'm still uncertain whether to watch this movie or not since it has that hope-deprivation theme in it. But still, it looks kinda 'fun' to watch. Mmm, I don't know what else I want to say about this movie. Oh, you can click here to watch the trailer.

U.S. release date: November 13, 2009
Malaysia release date: November 12, 2009


The Princess and the Frog

Disney is bringing back the musical theme in its animation, and it's in 2D too. Awesome! I really hope there would be beautiful songs in this movie like what they did with Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. That would definitely brings back the good memories of my childhood. You can click here to watch the trailer of The Princess and the Frog.

U.S. release date: December 11, 2009
Malaysia release date: December 11, 2009


Pandorum

I really, really can't wait for this movie. It has an Event-Horizon feel to it. I know Event Horizon was not a commercial success but it does has an interesting premise. Pandorum is about 2 astronauts who wake up on a space ship with no memory of who they are. To make it worse, there are alien-like creatures with them on the ship, and who knows what happen to the rest of the space ship crews. Together, they must united...and survive. It was produced by the people who brought you the Resident Evil movie franchise, so expect a lot of gory action. You can click here or here to watch the trailer.

U.S. release date: September 25, 2009
Malaysia release date: October 15, 2009




Sorority Row

Who would love a movie about a bunch of college girls being killed one by one in a horrific way? Sounds brutal right? But in reality, slasher films have been around for decades and as disturbing as it sound, there are very popular. So it would be no surprise that another slasher film called Sorority Row would be released later this month. It's actually a remake of a 1983 film called The House on Sorority Row. I do care about the plot when watching movies, and I do want to write the premise for this movie, but I don't think most people care. They just want to see the girls anyway. ;-P

I have here the trailer for Sorority Row courtesy of IGN. Some of the familiar faces that star in this movie are Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung and Audrina Patridge.

U.S. release date: September 11, 2009
Malaysia release date: October 2, 2009

Okay people. That's all for part 2. See you again soon in part 3.

What to watch? September - December 2009_part 1

Goodbye Autobots, see you soon Harry Potter, so long Terminators. It's time for a new breed of movies to hit the silver screens. What can we expect to see in September until December 2009? Here's a list of some of the movies that I think would be interesting to watch. The movies are not listed according to their month of release, so I hope those who are reading would not be confused. Please also note that the release dates are based on many sites and were checked during the posts were written, so it might change in the future.

Are you ready? Here we go!


The Final Destination

The 4th installment in the Final Destination movie series had already been released in the US last week but had just been released in Malaysia (my home country by the way) today. I don't think I need to mention the premise of the movie here BUT for those of you who don't know (where have you been?), it's about a bunch of people who cheated death and then Mr. Death himself come hunting for them to sealed their fatal fates in a most brutal way. Confusing? Just click here or here to watch the trailer.

U.S. release date: August 28, 2009
Malaysia release date: September 4, 2009



Astro Boy

I'm really excited for this movie. The animation looks beautiful and it based on a highly popular manga/anime in Japan. It's about a journey of a robot that had been built by a scientist in the image of his deceased son. Hopefully the movie will live up to the fans' expectation. You can click here or here to watch the trailer.

U.S. release date: October 23, 2009
Malaysia release date: November 19, 2009




Tsunami

Tsunami, released as Haeundae in South Korea, is South Korea's first disaster film, at least according to Wikipedia. The movie, starring Sol Kyung-gu, Ha Ji-won and Park Joong-hoon, is about tsunami (of course! see the title) that hit a popular tourist spot called Haeundae. It already received more than 9 million admissions in South Korea. The film had also been sold to be distributed in several other countries such as Germany, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and United Kingdom.

Malaysia release date: September 17, 2009




The Box

Okay, I love Cameron Diaz. She's pretty AND have good acting skills. I also love James Marsden. But I'm not curious about this movie because of the actors but because of the premise. The Box is based on a short story by Richard Matheson called Button, Button. The story is quite interesting; a couple received a box with a button, they will get $1 million if they press the button but there's a catch, one person they do not know will die. Would YOU press it??? You can click here to go to the official site. I also have the trailer here courtesy of IGN, enjoy!

U.S. release date: November 6, 2009
Malaysia release date: November 5, 2009

I think that's wrapped up part 1. See you in part 2 of upcoming movies in September - December 2009.

Merdeka!

Another quick post.

Today is the 52nd Independence Day of Malaysia, so Happy Birthday Malaysia!

Happy Merdeka Day everyone!

The Freaks are coming!

I love children and young adults novels. Some of the books that I own are from the Pendragon, Septimus Heap, and Artemis Fowl series. While some of the series that I would love to try are His Dark Materials trilogy, Inkheart trilogy and Unfortunate Events series. And as you may already notice, there are many books that were turned into movies. Some of them created interest for me to read the books like the Harry Potter movies and The Golden Compass; but some of them made me uninterested in the book series. So clearly turning books into movies can be quite a risk.

Another book series that had currently been turned into movie is Cirque du Freak. The movie, titled Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, will be released in the US coming October 2009. I had seen the books in stores several times now and wondered if it's as good as the series that I had. Well, even if I'm not interested, milions of others would beg to differ; the series are currently published in 37 countries and translated to 30 different languages. No wonder they made a movie out of it!

Here's the trailer to the movie courtesy of IGN. You can also click here to visit the official movie website.

Happy Ramadhan 1430!

A quick post. Just wanna say Happy Ramadhan to all Muslims all around the world, and happy fasting.

'Selamat berpuasa' everyone!

District 9 ~ review

Before I start this review, I want readers to forgive me for a post I made about this movie a month back. Obviously I wrote that post before the movie was out so there are quite a lot of errors regarding the story. I won't delete it though because there's also a trailer for the movie, so feel free to check it out.

Okay, back to business. From what I've read from the forums on the web, this movie had received mixed comments from viewers. Some love it, others hate it. But the critics sure are loving this flick as most of them gave the movie positive reviews. My review below contains a little bit of spoilers so please skip if you haven't watch the movie.

As you can see from the trailer, the film is shown in documentary-style format. There are several people interviewed regarding the arrival of the aliens and their impacts to surrounding society. The commentators not only giving the backstory for the main plot but also telling us the story as the film moves along. For me, this is quite a fresh approach in narrating a story for a movie, making it a little bit different compared to the handheld cam format such as in Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, or the documentary-style format that's only limited for certain scenes such as the plane crash scene in the movie Knowing.

A little back story for the movie. 20 years prior to the events in the movie, an alien spaceship arrived on Earth. Well, not execatly 'on' but 'floating' on the sky of Johannesburg, South Africa. Humans went on the ship to investigate as it just hovered in the sky with no sign to make contact. On the ship, they found a large group of malnutrished non-humans and helped them settled on Earth. Eventually, the government camps they were set in (called District 9) were turned into slums and a private military-based company called Multinational United (MNU) was contracted to watch a close eye on the non-humans.



The movie follows the journey of Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) as he was selected by his company (MNU) to head on an operation to move the non-humans, nearly 2 million of them, to a new camp called District 10. As he goes around the slum collecting signatures from the non-humans and asking them to evict their house, he come upon a device containing some kind of black liquid that accidentally sprayed on his face. From that moment on, he slowly falls ill and starts to take form of the non-humans. As he now has the hybrid DNA of the human and non-human, he is highly pursue by MNU as he is the key in unlocking the secret of the non-human weapons technology. Only non-humans are able to use the weapons (that had been confiscated by MNU of course) as they somehow can only be operated by those with non-humans DNA.

Refuse to be a lab rat, Wikus escape from MNU and seek refuge in District 9. He then makes a deal with one of the non-human; he will help the non-human and his little son escape to the mother ship and the non-human will help him change back to the human form. And the battle between the two-man team and MNU begins....




I really love this movie for it's approach in storytelling (as I mention before, the documentary-style) and also for the engaging story itself. I really LOVE the story a lot. It's thought-provoking and also quite touching nearing the end. I also like to mention that there are quite a lot of gory scenes involving exploded bodies (definitely not recommended for minors) which I think can be reduced. I'm also impressed with the acting, especially Sharlto Copley as Wikus. I can hardly believe the geeky Wikus that I've seen in the beginning of the movie can end up like...what he end up to be in the end. He's very good for a first-timer (he never acted in a movie before). The special effects were awesome too; the giant floating ship, the believable non-humans and the exploding bodies (yuck!).

In terms of plot, I think the writer should give more info as there are quite a few things that I don't understand about the story. Although the plotholes are quite understandable because there were quite many things that the humans in the movie do not know about the non-humans, but I would really appreciate if they could give some assumptions by the commentators on certain things.

Overall, it's a really good movie with an engaging story, it's fantastic! You can click here to learn more about the movie on Wikipedia.

God of War ~ A tormented warrior

I believe this game needs no introduction. But for those of you who don't know, God of War is a third-person action-adventure game with a story based on the Greek mythology for the PlayStation 2 console. It was released in 2005 and had been praised by the gaming critics and fans alike.

The game begins with our protagonist, the legendary warrior (or should I say villain) Kratos standing on the edge of a cliff with a solemn face. After a moment, he let himself fall in an attempt to commit suicide. Just before he hit the bottom, we are taken back in time, 3 weeks prior to the event to be more specific, to discover the truth about Kratos and his journey that leads to his attempted suicide.

To know Kratos's life journey, we are taken from one epic place to the next; from the Aegean Sea to the burning city of Athens, from the Desert of Lost Souls to the Temple of Pandora, and believe it or not, we even visit the Underworld; all in the name to defeat Ares, the God of War, who is causing chaos in Athens.

God of War is one of the game I've seen on Playstation 2 with such amazing graphics, and I'm not just talking about the full motion videos (FMVs), the graphics were stunning even during gameplay. And it does help in bringing the charm to the game as it was set in epic settings with an epic story. Yes, I know I keep repeating the word 'epic' but I can't help it; everything in God of War is epic. Even the music was hauntingly suitable for the tale.

Personally, I really love God of War for it's beautiful and breathtaking settings. The environments look majestic, and of course it suited the story about a warrior who are in service for the Greek gods. I would be amazed everytime I enter a new place. Some of my favourite places in the game are; the Aegean Sea in the beginning of the game, the challenge of Poseidon with all its water streams, and the challenge of Hades with all its scary burning fire. You will face both the challenges in the Temple of Pandora together with another one which is the challenge of Atlas. Athens also looks stunningly beautiful although some of the buildings are either in ruins or on fire.

As many of you would guess, God of War contains a lot of violence. Blood spraying, limbs flying, that's just a part of a day's work for Kratos. And there's nudity too primarily involving topless females. So I would not really recommend this game for minors.

As a conclusion, this amazing game should be in every house of those who love video games. To learn more, you can visit Game Trailers for the review of the game or just click here to go to the official site.