Bat Title

The new Batman sequel has a title now...

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/57-the-next-batman-movie-has-a-title-but-no-riddler

Tron Trailer

Tomorrow night! Tron Legacy trailer special preview showing at Pavilion GSC. What's so special? It's in 3D and it's 23 minutes long! Yup, 23 minute trailer! :)

http://www.gsc.com.my/RD1/offersup2.asp?search=tronlegacy_offer

Box Office

Scaring up the competition, one week before Halloween... Paranormal Activity 2.... :)

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-box-office-20101025,0,5064770.story

FFM23 Winners 2

Anugerah Khas Juri FFM23:
1. Cinta Ais Kacang
2. Woohoo
3. Estet
4. Muallaf

Anugerah Lakon Layar Terbaik: Jumaatun Azmi – Haq
Anugerah Cerita Asal Terbaik: Ahadiat Akashah – Lagenda Budak Setan
Anugerah Sinematografi Terbaik: Raja Mukhriz – Niyang Rapik
Anugerah Penyunting Terbaik: Hisyam Jupri & Syamsul Yusof - Evolusi KL Drift 2
Anugerah Skor Muzikal Asal Terbaik: Edry Abdul Halim – Magika
Anugerah Filem Animasi Terbaik: Buas
Anugerah Dokumentari Terbaik: Suatu Ketika Laskar Senoi
Anugerah Filem Pendek Terbaik: Project
Anugerah Pelakon Veteran Lelaki FFM23: Seniman Tamam Idris
Filem Boxoffice FFM23: Adnan Sempit
Anugerah Pelakon Veteran Wanita FMM23 : Seniwati Datuk Sarimah Ahmad
Anugerah Khas Penggiat Belakang Tabir FFM23 : Johari Ibrahim
Anugerah Pelakon Lelaki Terbaik: Bront Palarae – Belukar
Anugerah Pelakon Wanita: Lisa Surihani (Lagenda Budak Setan)
Anugerah Pengarah Filem Terbaik: Shamsul Yusof (V3 Samseng Jalanan)
Anugerah Filem Terbaik FFM23: Magica

Yay Lisa Surihani! :)

FFM23 Winners

These are Anugerah Cipta... announced yesterday...

1. Anugerah Poster Terbaik – Belukar

2. Anugerah Kostum/Busana Terbaik – Hasnan Yaakub (Magika)

3. Anugerah Lagu Tema Asal Terbaik – Edry Abdul Halim (Magika)

4. Anugerah Penataan Bunyi Terbaik – Brian Ng (V3 Samseng Jalanan)

5. Anugerah Penataan Seni Terbaik – Anuar Paharudin & Johan Lucas (Magika)

6. Anugerah Pelakon Harapan Lelaki – Shashi Taran (Estet)

7. Anugerah Pelakon Harapan Wanita – Daphne Iking (Belukar)

8. Anugerah Pelakon Kanak-Kanak Terbaik – Fimie Don (Magika)

9. Anugerah Pelakon Pembantu Wanita Terbaik – Norliana Shamsudin (Adnan Sempit)

10. Anugerah Pelakon Pembantu Lelaki Terbaik – Shaheizy Sam (Evolusi KL Drift 2)

11. Anugerah Pengarah Harapan – Edry Abdul Halim (Magika)

12. Anugerah Filem Komedi Terbaik – My Spy

The rest of the winners will be announced tonite... watch this space... :)

My predix - Best Actor: Bront Palare for Belukar and Best Actress: Lisa Surihani for Legenda Budak Setan... alternates Farid Kamil for Legenda Budak Setan and Maya Karin for Pisau Cukur.

Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity opens this weekend in the States... hopefully it'd reach here soon... the first one was kinda exciting and scary...

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/48-hidden-easter-eggs-give-clues-about-the-spooky-stuff-in-paranormal-activity-2

Meanwhile, I've seen Reign of Assassins, Buried and You Again... waiting to be seen is Jangan Pandang Belakang Congkak 2 (coz of Lisa Surihani and free tickets), Red and Life as We Know It... but it's looking to be a skipped affair for Life as We Know It... despite Josh Duhamel... :P

Trailer - Scream 4

Scream 4's trailer is up... can't wait for this movie... *drools*

FFM23

Magika leads the pack with 12 nominations for FFM23... and my girl Lisa Surihani got two nods! One for actress (Legenda Budak Setan) and one for supporting (V3)... yay!

http://www.gua.com.my/hiburan/berita-hangat/Magika_Dahului_Saingan_FFM_23_Dengan_12_Pencalonan.html

Trailer - Vanishing on 7th Street

Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo... looks eerie and nice... if you can understand that... hihihi

Box Office

Jackass 3D grabbed the lead in the box office race... who knew...

http://www.themarshalltown.com/zine/2010/10/18/jackass-3d-grabs-50-million-wins-weekend-box-office/

Adam Lambert

Did not really care for Adam Lambert when he was in Idol coz he tend to over-scream a lot. Yeah, dude, we know you can reach those high notes.

Still did not care for him when he released his album... but once I heard some songs, I was turned into a fan. So when he was in town for a concert, I jumped at the chance to go.

Concert was great! I loved it! :)

Have a good weekend guys! :)

Review - The Other Guys

I got chosen for the free tickets to watch the preview of The Other Guys via Advertlets --> http://www.advertlets.com/weblog/2010/09/10/advertlets-presents-the-other-guys-preview-screening-this-12th-october-2010/

Had the hardest time trying to figure out what to write. Even contemplated not going at one point. Yup, that was how hard the topic was... anyway, finally got down to it and this is the product of it --> http://moviewritings.blogspot.com/2010/09/other-guys-preview-screening-by-sony.html

Hopefully it would be good enough to get me tickets... and I got the email like Monday nite from Jason, telling me I got the tickets. Yay!

So I set out looking for a friend to go with me to the preview. Was quite hard. Not a lot of people were available and/or free to go. In the end, my colleague saved the day and we went to Midvalley together. Had dinner at Sushi King. It's RM2 per plate week! Yum!

Okay, so the movie... I had very low expectations of the movie. Mostly because of Will Ferrell. He is not funny to me. Quite annoying. In most of his movies.

But it turned out quite well. Will Ferrell was not annoying. Much. But the movie's quite good, with some crazy one-liners and pop culture references. It's not as fast-paced as a cop movie but since the title is The Other Guys, so it was okay that the movie was not rock 'em sock 'em blow 'em up style.

However, Mark Wahlberg was being the annoying one. God, he was overacting a bit. Now I see what people were talking about. That he does overact here and there. His face was in a constant state of "I'm constipated". Reminds me of The Happening... sigh...

On a different note, it's nice to see Vince from Will & Grace and also Michael Keaton. Looks so aged... nice supporting with the funny TLC references...

Oh, forgot to mention... when I was queueing up to get the tickets, they told me I won something, like the last time... I won Nightmare on Elm Street t-shirt... I was excited... but then, he said I did not win anything... April Fool's came a bit too early... :(

But then, after the movie's finished, Josh from Advertlets got up and presented the winning blog posts with presents... I was not bitter, I kinda had to pee... but then I heard my name called! What the... woah... hehehhe... this is what I got:

I placed second! So unexpected! Thanks to Sony and Advertlets.

P/S - Was disappointed You Again got canceled... I love Kristen Bell...

Casting News

Rhys Ifans has been cast as the villain in the new Spiderman reboot but no one knows which villain he is supposed to be...

http://www.screened.com/news/comic-movie-news-roundup-spider-man-the-flash-justice-league/1025/

Also in the news, Matt Damon might not be back for the next Bourne movie... WTF?

http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/43-you-dont-need-jason-bourne-for-a-bourne-movie-apparently

Box Office

Facebook still rules!

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/social-network-repeats-no-1-draw-with-155m-ap

Trailer - My Soul To Take

Seems cool... but it's not on the Coming Soon list of GSC...

Have a good weekend guys! Might go catch Sammy's Adventure this weekend! :)

Casting - Spiderman

Gwen Stacy, and not Mary Jane Watson, has been cast for the new Spiderman prequel/reboot:

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/10/05/andrew-garfields-spiderman-finds-his-gwen-stac/

Superman Director

The Superman reboot will probably feature muscular men fighting in stylish slo-mo...

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-zack-snyder-superman.html

Review - Alpha and Omega

Went to see this with the kids last weekend at Midvalley. Another movie that went under my radar. Not that my radar's all that comprehensive but I do keep up with the entertainment news.

Anyway, I first saw this movie at CinemaOnline.com and then at GSC. Perfect timing to go see this with the kids.

Alpha and Omega is about a pack of wolves and the segregation amongst them. The alphas and the omegas. They can't mix. The lead wolves, Kate and Humphrey, are one such example. Kate's an alpha and Humphrey's an omega. And Humphrey's got a huge crush on Kate.

Also, there are the Eastern wolf pack who constantly barge in on their territory because of the lack of food. Kate and the Eastern wolf alpha, Garth, are supposed to get married to unite the packs

However, Kate and Humphrey was captured and sent away by humans to Canada to repopulate there. Kate and Humphrey rushed home to prevent a war over the land and its bounty. Along the way, Kate falls for Humphrey.

I gotta say, it's a nice enough story but there was something lacking. I am not sure what it was. Coz there's humor. There's cutesy. There's thrills. There's everything. Hmm... maybe not enough antagonism there. Sure, there's the rivalry between the packs but I guess there's not enough of the rivalry or villainy in Alpha and Omega to really pack a punch.

Even the kids thought it was just nice enough and kinda forgettable afterwards.

Oh, there was this one humor thing that nobody saw... I was the only one laughing... some signage about eating and getting gas... hilarious... :)

Box Office

The Social Network rules the weekend box office... Facebook is sure as popular as ever eh?

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2936&p=.htm

Review - Wall Street

I did not really wanna see this movie at first. Maybe just get the DVD, or mooch off of someone who'd downloaded it already. Yeah, yeah, I know. *shrugs*

But it did not seem that all interesting to me, even after I saw the trailer. And Shia LaBeouf? The dude just ruins movies. Well, not all of them, but the most glaring of all is Transformers. Did not help this movie's case... but then again, there's Carey Mulligan, who'd blew my mind with her ingenue act in An Education.

A colleague wanted to see this one and there was nothing else to do so we went to catch it at Pavilion.

Oh, just so you know, I'd forgotten completely about the original Wall Street. Not even sure if I had even seen it.

Anyway, Money Never Sleeps (MNS) started off with Gordon Gekko's (Michael Douglas) release from prison. Then it went on to Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) and Winnie Gekko's (Carey Mulligan) story. But then there's something about Moore's mentor (Frank Langella) and also Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who just happened to be Gekko's old rival that put him behind bars.

Sounds promising eh? But not really. It's fine as a drama but there's something missing. Mayhaps it's because Michael Douglas' role in this one is more of a supporting character, rather than the main protagonist.

Other than enjoying Carey Mulligan's performance as the constantly sad girl, and the fact that Shia LaBeouf isn't as annoying as he usually is in a movie... there's nothing else much to write home about... there's no tour de force acting in this one that would merit awards nomination, unlike the first Wall Street where Douglas got his Oscar...

Third Batman

Christopher Nolan confirms directing the third Batman film...

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-christopher-nolan-directing-third-batman.html

Review - Magika

I saw the trailer for this months back I think. Did not really care for it much, until I saw that it was gonna be a musical and there were gonna be a plethora of Malay lore legends in it.

First of, I love singing and I love musicals. So yay Magika! Also, was curious as to how they were gonna incorporate all those legends of lore into the movie. Quite a big or epic movie, this one.

So when my colleague wanted to catch this, I seized the opportunity to join her.

The story began as we see two siblings squabbling - Ayu, the older sister played by Diana Danielle and Malik, played by Fimie Don.

The news about their mother passing away was not told in details yet, but Malik threw a tantrum saying that it was all his fault and run off. Ayu was forced to go seek him out. Malik fell into a well and was transported to Magika. Unfortunately for him, he was captured by the mean Nenek Kebayan to be used for her potions making.

Ayu jumped to the rescue and wound up in Magika too. Completely lost, she tried getting some help from the locals but they were all kinda kooky.

One by one, she met up with all kinds of Malay lore legends like Puteri Bunian, or at least I think she was one (Maya Karin), Pak Pandir (Aznil), Mak Andeh (Raja Azura), Mahsuri (Vanidah Imran), Awang from the lore of Lembing Awang Pulang Ke Dayang (Norman Hakim), Hang Tuah (Saiful Apek) and the other four Hangs (the Senario crew), Badang (Mawi), who wound up helping her the most.

There are others in the movie such as Awang Kenit, Bawang Putih (Sharifah Amani), Bawang Merah (Sharifah Aleya), their mother (Adibah Noor), Puteri Gunung Ledang (Ning Baizura), Orang Minyak (Nabil) dan Penunggu Tasik Chini (M Nasir) and of course the famous Naga Tasik Cini (digital f/x).

Oh, did I mention this was a musical? Hehehe. So guess that's why most of the actors here are singers eh? Well, the ones with singing parts and meaty parts anyways...

So... did I like it? Nyeh. So-so I think. On one hand, I did kinda enjoyed it. On the other, it was kinda getting on my nerves.

As a musical, it was not bad. It sidestepped the whole Yusuf Haslam convention in the early 90s with a singing montage here and there but it had nothing to do with the storylines. Magika's songs are telling the stories so that one was a plus.

Unfortunately, some of the songs are not exactly catchy ditties and some of the songs were not even necessary. Like the ones sung by the trees. And the songs sound kinda similar to each other. And why did Diana Danielle's pronunciation of some words while she sang sounded pretentious and kinda annoying? But that's just me...

One thing I don't like about most Malay movies are the quality of the dubbing. Most of the time, the characters' expressions and mouth movements do not match the voices. Characters were screaming when they don't look like they're screaming. I mean, is it really hard to record their voices as they act? Especially since most of Magika's scenes looked like they were recorded in front of a green screen. But kudos for KRU Studios for making it look kinda real. Yup, I had to really look hard for quite a while before establishing that those were green screen shots. But I guess it's not that hard to figure out since this was an effects-laden movie.

Anyway, speaking of screaming, why is it that the siblings are always screaming. Hurt my ears larr.

In any event, the script and storylines was not too bad. Sure, some of the dialogues were kinda corny but some parts of it were funny. And the way they unfolded the backstory was quite nice as well...

The acting was not bad as well. Diana Danielle was decent in this but I did not think she could pull off the singing, except for one or two songs. Fimie Don is cute and all, but good God, stop screaming already. Both of them are good together. Quite believable as siblings.

The other people in this movie are barely cameos, except for Ziana Zain's Nenek Kebayan and Mawi's Badang.

Let me tell ya, for all the crap I hear about Mawi, and I am kinda not partial to him anyway, Mawi did a good job with Badang. But then again, Badang was not a hard character to play. Okay, okay, I should just stop at the good job he did portraying Badang. Some parts he was actually kinda funny.

Ziana Zain's Nenek Kebayan was truly annoying. That voice! Guess they were looking to make Nenek Kebayan haggardly and witchy-poo but Ziana dun look like that. And her character is the one with the most dubbing sin!

Guess the movie was aiming for over-the-top. But some over-the-top works like the Mahsuri scene. Nenek Kebayan's? Not so much. Ayu and Pak Pandir's singing/dancing extravaganza looked kinda forced and choreographed. But I get it. They're trying to emulate all those great musicals.

All in all, it's a good effort in bringing all those lore legends to life. I did not feel like I've wasted my time or my money.

Oh, before I forget... the Naga Tasik Chini... doesn't look like that right? Is it me or are the Pahang dragons of the water variety? No wings? I am a Pahang boy and remembering the stories, pretty sure they are water dragons... hehehe....

http://www.krustudios.com/magika