May 05, 2006
Original Unaltered Star Wars Trilogy
Oh yeah... I've been betting that Lucas Film will ope day release the original Star Wars on DVD and thus never bought the silly version of the Star Wars DVD with those added scenes. Well I was right! Lucasfilm finally is releasing the original unaltered Star Wars Trilogy.
I can finally rest my original Star Wars Trilogy VHS tapes.
Posted by vhadiant at 01:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 08, 2006
Little Fish
Sets in Sydney's Little Saigon (Cabramata), Litte Fish follows the collapsing world of Tracy (Cate Blanchett) is an ex-Heroin junkie who has been clean for the past 4 years trying to make ends working in a local Cabramata video shop. Tracy brother's Ray is a small time drug dealer, crippled by a tragic accident 4 years ago. Lionel (Hugo Weaving) is Tracy step father whom she loved dearly, an ex-football star who got hooked on the needle. His gay boyfriend, Bradley Thompson, a big time drug dealer is retiring and cutting off ties with him. Soon he will not get his fix for free anymore.
The family survive through the sheer will of Tracy's mum, Janelle (Noni Hazlehurst), who drives her for her morning swim, to work and picks her up. Janelle lives in a constant fear for Tracy to go back in her old way. And rightly so where Heroin is being traded so easily in the street of Cabramata. The temptation is always there and Janelle knows it.
Tracy has been offered a partnership in the shop by her boss but because of her past the banks are turning down her loan. Depressed not being able the secure the money she needed, ex-boyfriend drug-dealer, now suit-wearing, Jonny (Dustin Nguyen) come back to her life after 4 years absence in Canada. Tracy's entire life is put through a whirlwind which can only ends in a tragedy.
Little Fish is a very dark and depressing movie, but at the same time celebrates love, family and survival. This movie is very hard to watch, it's certainly no "Fun with Dick and Jane", it makes no apology in the Heroin trade and usage in Sydney.
Cate Blanchett put out an amazing performance as a bleak but potentially explosive Tracy. Hugo Weaving is almost unrecognisable as Lionel, haggard and rambles. Noni Hazlehurst is superb as Tracy and Ray's mum. While Dustin Nguyen's attempt of Australian accent is respectable although a bit confused. The movie tries to explain this by sending him away in Vancouver for the past 4 years.
It's very hard to watch Little Fish. I watched it at Govinda's where in the beginning a bunch of girls were giggling and were making really loud noise and jokes. All were silenced barely 20 minutes through the movie. It is very heart-wrenching to watch how Tracy and Janelle had to cope with the issues that they are dealing with. In the beginning of the movie, Tracy and her best friend Laura (Lisa McCune) went to the school reunion to the wall of smiling faces title "In Memoriam". Tracy stopped to reflect at the wall, it was never explained what happened to these kids, but it gives the implication that all died in drug related incidents.
It is refreshing to know that some film-makers still dare to touch the drug issue without glorifying nor chastises the drug use. I couldn't ask for a better movie to start the year. Highly recommended 4/5 stars.
Little Fish is still playing at Govinda's, Melbourne's Dendy, and will be shown on the 18th Jan session of Starlight Cinema. St. George Open Air Cinema will also screen Little Fish, but ticket has been sold out.
Posted by vhadiant at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 31, 2005
The Brotherhood of War
I saw The Brotherhood of War, I thought this is one of the best movies that I've seen in a while. It's a Korean movie about the Korean war. The story is pretty much Holywoody where the younger and sickly brother is drafted to join the army and the elder and strong brother enlisted to protect him.
For the first 20 minutes or so I was afraid that this movie will be biased toward the South point of view, well it does actually but not by much. In fact it shows both the atrocities committed by both the North and the South Korean. The production is excellent and the stunts are nothing short of extraordinary. IIRC from the cover of the DVD they used 3000 stunts for this movie.
So in short good story, if not a bit too much cliche, amazing battle scenes not too shabby acting as well. I think I'll give it 4/5.
Posted by vhadiant at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2005
The original backstroke of the west
Found it! More screen caps and hilarity continues.
Posted by vhadiant at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2005
The backstroke of the west
This is fucken hilarious: The backstroke of the west.
If you've never seen this before go now and follow the link. I was laughing my arse off for ages. I think you'll appreciate it more if you've seen a lot of Chinese movies or have seen some of those dodgy pirated DVD from Asia.
Posted by vhadiant at 08:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 18, 2005
Batman Begins
Overall a good movie much darker than all the other modern Batman movies, but dissapointing action scenes. Tries to look like Bourne Identify fight scenes that failed miserably. Hate the new Bat Mobile's look but Katie Holmes is super cute in there. I think Gary Oldman is a miscast as Lt. Gordon (not a commisioner yet) and yet he carries his part the best out of all, he's such a good actor.
Morgan Freeman is charming as always as Lucius Fox and the smarty dude who creates all the Batman gadget. Out of all the Batman villains, Raz Al Ghur is the stupidest one, or at least how he is portrayed in this movie.
Christian Bale, now dare I said the best Batman ever. He has such an angry, miserable, and always in agony look that fits the Batman persona perfectly. George Clooney on the other hand is the worst Batman ... ever. George ... Batman does NOT smile.
Anyway like I said, overall a good movie.
Posted by vhadiant at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2005
Lightsabre duel puts two in hospital
I don't even know how this is suppose to work. Lightsabre from fluorescent tube filled with petrol?
Lightsabre duel puts two in hospitalTWO Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after duelling with lightsabres made by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol.
The pair - a man aged 20 and a girl of 17 - are believed to have been filming a mock fight when one of the devices exploded in woodland on Sunday.
They were rushed to West Herts Hospital before being transferred to the specialist burns unit at Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, in Essex.
Police say a third person present at the incident was questioned.
Posted by vhadiant at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2005
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Last week I accused a couple of my friends being "corporate pricks" because they got free tickets for Episode III from their workplace hahaha. Hmmm I sense someone being jealous - I know ... the force is strong within me :)
Anyway it turned out one of my friend who works for one of the Big 4 offered me a free ticket to last night special screening for her firm, being a total hypocrite, I took the offer with no hesitation :P Her firm booked one of the Hoyts George St. cinema (cinema #8) entirely for their own, it's one of the big one, 600 people all up. After a quick door prize draw (5 prizes in total) the movie started straight away, no ads and no preview, don't you love special screenings :) She hasn't seen Episode I & II and fell asleep during Episode IV, on the queue I did a quick wrap up on the story for her.
And what about the movie? It blew me away :) Even my friend thought it's a good movie. It was soo much better compared to the total crap of Episode I and II. Much better than I expected, or maybe I don't really have that much of expectation. The movie is action packed, full with fight scenes, a tad too much maybe. I remember being bored a bit watching yet another light saber fight. No corny lines from Anakin to Padme, no weird hairdo on Natalie Portman trying distract the movie goers from realising that the movie was crap (Episode I & II) and thank bloody God that there's no (well almost) Jar Jar Binks this time around.
The music is top as usual, John Williams at his best here, and I love the Darth Vader theme slowly coming up when Anakin finally is seduced by the dark side. Very faint in the background, but you can hear it :)
Making a movie where everyone knows how it's going to end is always hard, and in addition to that for Star Wars movie there's a certain expectation to be met. This time George Lucas has done a good job. I would rate this movie probably as good as Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, while The Empire Strikes Back still the best out of all of them. Oh and the ending scene was totally sweet, I think it is the best scene in the movie. If there's a scene that couldn't have possibly been done better, it was the ending scene, fans of the series would know what I'm talking about. I am always wondering how Geroge Lucas would end this movie and avoid reading any spoiler on the Internet, thank god for that or I would be spoiled badly.
This movie paid a lot of homage to the original series. You can start seeing how the space ships starting look like the original series. You can see the base model of the TIE Fighter, the Lambda Class shuttle, the Star Destroyers and other vehicles like the AT-AT for example. Toward the end of the movie there's a scene inside a battle ship who looks like Star Destroyers but inside the bridge it looks exactly like the old Star Destroyer's bridge from the 70s, with the old looking panel, monitor and observation deck. That shot is similar to the first scene in The Empire Strikes Back where the camera sweep the bottom of the bridge looking up toward Darth Vader. Perfect ...
There's a couple of things that bug me though:
* George Lucas still can't shoot a decent space fight scene. The first space fight scene was a bit boring and dragging out a bit
* Hayden Christensen stone face acting.
* Anakin doesn't know about Padme carrying a twin. With all the technology they don't have ultrasound?
* How easy it was to turn the Republic into an Empire, just like that!
* The demolition of the Jedi Order turned out to be a piece of cake, hell they don't need Darth Vader to do that just send the troops and they'll do the job.
And there's a couple of other minor things, but that's nothing compared to the movie in overall. Well done George Lucas, you've returned my faith back to the force ...
Posted by vhadiant at 07:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 08, 2005
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed about it. I think the movie is very shallow, boring and badly done. And what were they thinking about Deep Thought? Making it looks so stupid like that. I guess it's hard to make a movie out of an excellent book like the Hitchhiker. Interestingly, all of my friends who haven’t read the book think it's quite OK (read: just OK not good).
Posted by vhadiant at 11:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
