The title of this blog post is not for this movie. With us celebrating our Independence Day, we had an extra day for a movie and I chose Step Up 3. Not only that I took it one step further and went with 3d as well because I heard it was quite good.

Forget about the plot, the script, the acting (although Moose was still quite good and funny) and just go watch it for the dance moves. It was great in Step Up, Step Up 2 and Step Up 3 was no different. And the 3d was actually quite fun and definitely I felt it was worth my money. At least it wasn’t just like crappy 3d subtitles like a certain movie I know.

The title of this post was meant for this movie. And we survived. Barely. All I can say is:

DO. NOT. WATCH. THIS. MOVIE. EVER.

The night before, King of Fighters was so bad I had to make sure we watched something to recover from it. Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, Kevin James and David Spade was the perfect choice. Grown Ups is like pretty much every Adam Sandler movie out there. Lots of jokes, some slapstick and a message driven into the story.

The good thing about this movie is that they have so many one-liners which will definitely make you laugh. If you are stressed at work at this busy period before Raya, then go catch this movie. It will put a smile to your face.

I didn’t think of it much when I saw the Nippon logo on the movie poster. After all, it is common to see brands paying huge bucks to be some sort of exclusive sponsor/ partner and getting their logos plastered all over the place. But this is probably the biggest ad I have ever seen in the movie.

They pretty much had a Nippon ad in the video where Phua Chu Kang (PCK) went to buy paint, and then they worked it into the script to talk about odorless and some other paint. Frankly speaking, I felt a bit annoyed at such blatant advertising.

But how was the movie? Well, it was PCK without Chu Beng and his wife. Somehow, having PCK alone only without the interaction with his brother doesn’t seem to work too well. I didn’t watch a single episode of PCK since they had that season in KL, and this seems like it was a continuation from that side.

It wasn’t too bad, lots of the typical PCK jokes but if PCK the series gave you in half hour dosage, this one was 3 times longer. And it felt longer than it need to be at some point. I would love to recommend this but only if you are a really, really huge fan of PCK. Else, you can spend your RM10 elsewhere.

Some of you may already know but I started a videocast (or vodcast) with Mark Leo called The Ninja Report. It is a show that will focus on photography and we hope to make it light, entertaining and informative as well. With the help of the folks at Redninja.tv and Satoo.tv, we finally got it live!

With so many talented photographers around, I am sure we won’t run out of content anytime soon. If you have any feedback, feel free to do so. After all, the only way we will improve is when people tell us where we went wrong.

Enjoy episode #0!

Judging from the title, I am guessing that it was a giveaway as to what movie I was going to review this week. While I was busy with WPPM over the weekend, I managed to sneak in a movie on Friday night and it was a major dose of testosterone.

With Sylvester Stallone as director (and the lead), Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crew and cameo by Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke, this movie pretty much screamed no brains needed.

True enough, like a tribute to the 80s, the plot was simple, the dialogue was corny, it was always about saving a girl, and action aplenty. This is like A-Team without wit, and 10x the muscles and action. Sylvester also probably watched a few gore movies when he decided to mutilate random soldiers during the action scenes.

Since this is pretty much a “no brain needed” movie, I am not going to talk about the plot or the script because well, they were not meant to be very good. However, there is one single thing that is not working for this movie. There were too much dialogue and too long of a build-up.

Other than that, it was all good. The action scenes were quite awesome. If only they didn’t take so long to reach there. Luckily I managed to wake up in time just for it.

So, if you want to see the glory days of the old action stars, then Expendables is one movie you shouldn’t miss.

Oh and I am also loving this new censorship style where 18+ movies are pretty much uncensored these days! Kudos to the Censorship Board for finally realising why we have 18+ movies in the first place.

Sorry for the 1-week absence in blogging but it has been really hectic. I will definitely try to blog more often from now on. Even with the busy schedule, I still managed to catch two movies on the big screen. As per the title, there was the good… and the bad.

I think we could all do with some positive news so let us start with the good. If there was one movie which was unfairly ripped off its right to use the name Avatar, The Last Airbender was it. After all, it was supposed to be based on the cartoon named Avatar: The Last Airbender. Too bad James Cameraon decided to go use it for his stupid blue people movie.

The Last Airbender is directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan and that might not be entirely good. His last few movies haven’t really been great, and probably the only great movie he has under his name so far is The Sixth Sense. This was probably his most non-artsy-try-to-be-different movie ever.

The action scenes were good, the effects were good, the bing-bang-boom! was good but the plot was draggy at times, the acting was rather bland. He even managed to throw in a nonsensical romance twist in the middle of it all. The kid that acted as Aang was probably shoo-in for lookalike contest but too bad his acting chops weren’t up to the standards. And I think he probably obtained his facial expressions from the lady in the second movie I will be reviewing.

Overall, it is another great popcorn movie and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

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The second movie features the sifu for Aang in the category of “one expression” only. I present to you Miss Angelina Jolie. I fell asleep in this movie. Even with all the car crashes, the gun shooting left-right-centre, the bombs, this movie couldn’t keep me awake.

The plot was predictable from the word go. You knew where the twists were coming from, and the acting by Angelina Jolie was simply, simply horrible! If this was acting, I probably could give it a go myself. If you have RM10 (or is it RM11 these days?), and you are thinking of spending it on SALT, you can do better than that. Keeping in your wallet and letting it rot is probably better.

I have made that mistake, don’t make the same one as I did. And that is it! We will be back with more Monday Movie Review next week!

I’ve got WPPM to attend, and an event to shoot but I am sure I can squeeze in the time to catch a movie or two.

I think from the title of the post, you pretty much know which movie I was going to talk about. Two movies last week and both were equally good in their own rights. I don’t know how hyped Inception was before it was released but I certainly knew nothing much about it. All I knew was that Leo Di Caprio was in it, and that it was directed by Chris Nolan.

If I had a choice in giving out movie awards, Inception would bag them all at the next Oscars.

The movie is about a bunch of people getting in your head to steal ideas, and their last job is to implant an idea. That’s the basic of it. Think of Ocean’s Eleven (Twelve, Thirteen etc), mix it up with some mind games (literally!) and you get Inception.

Excellent script, excellent cast and excellent effects contribute to the final product – an awesome movie. If there was one thing I had to pick on, it was probably some of the slower moments. It felt a bit long drawn but it didn’t distract too much from what was going on.

Inception is probably not going to be a movie for everyone. If you thought Avatar was thought provoking (or too thought provoking), then stay away. This movie will probably whoosh past your head.

Well, after Inception, I thought I would go for a different sort of fun. One that won’t mess with my mind. Luckily Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer had something on the screen so that was the perfect fit. Wasn’t too sure about Nicholas Cage but he did well in Bad Ass, so was hoping this was not another Bangkok Dangerous.

Luckily it wasn’t. Nicholas Cage actually carried out his role rather well and Jay Baruchel is fast turning out to be a favourite actor of mine for these kind of quirky, geeky, geek-turn-to-hero kinda roles. This is definitely a popcorn movie. No brains required, just sit down and enjoy the ride.

It was also based on a book, but I haven’t read it so my expectations weren’t high. But it was an enjoyable movie, funny and the plot moved so fast that you just kinda ignore the details. Of course, I’ve never tried to question too many things when it comes to movies like these.

Definitely one to take your kids too. They can ooh and ahh at the special effects. There you have it, a pretty enjoyable movie week for me.

When Sharon is out of town, it means I don’t catch movies on the big screen either. But that doesn’t stop me from catching other movies which I have missed previously. One such movie is Gamer starring that 300-fella, Gerard Butler. I remembered not reading really good reviews about it, and the plot itself sounds kinda silly.

And this movie is not the hot tub goodness. That comes later.

Gamer is pretty much a movie that wanted to cash in on gamers. Creating a real life FPS scenario where well, real people are controlled by real people elsewhere. Didn’t take more than two minutes to realise that the movie will then be about a man going all out trying to break control and take down the evil fella who created the system.

From then on, it was just a question of how, how much violence we will watch and who else will die before the final showdown. The only good thing is probably Michael C. Hall who carried out his role as the psycho rich villain quite to perfection. The rest of the cast was pretty forgettable.

This was a movie that I did not quite expect to watch but when superlatives like “funniest movie of the year” gets thrown about, I was convinced. It was actually quite hilarious. Judging from the amount of 18SX moments, I doubt the local cinemas will screen it, and you will probably have to find alternative means to watch it (not that it is that difficult in this country).

The movie is about 3 old friends and a err, nephew to visit a ski lodge that was happening back in their heydays. They went into a hot tub and they traveled back through time. And that is basically the plot. Do they try to change their future or do they go through the events to make sure their future stay the same?

The dialogues can be pretty funny, and some of the in-your-face jokes are pretty nice, without going into the “lame” mode. So, if you can find this movie, give it a go. It is bound to bring some chuckles.

Yes, I know it is a Tuesday but I was on leave yesterday and it wouldn’t be right to break tradition that the first post of the week for my blog should be a movie review. And it is usually a Monday, and it is my blog! Therefore, Monday Movie Review remains.

The first movie I caught late night on Friday was Despicable Me. It was a cartoon that I was really keen to watch but either I was really tired or the movie was just not that great, because I fell asleep 3 times during the movie. Think of this cartoon as a version of Spy vs Spy except this is Villain vs Villain.

You have the cute Agnes, the cute minions, but the two main characters just didn’t seem that funny. Again, it seems like the best moments were already in the trailer, and all I was watching was the fillers in between. Many have said it was a great movie and I don’t think it was a bad one, just didn’t stand out compared to say, Toy Story 3.

Let’s make this quick and hopefully painless.

1. After three movies, I have the right to call Bella a bitch for playing with the feelings of others. This movie reaffirms that point of view.

2. Why are there so few female werewolves? Sexist genes?

3. The only interesting plot of the series is probably that V group, Vultari or Voltari or Vulgarity or something like that. Yet it takes a back seat to the obviously boring love triangle.

4. Robert Pattinson still can’t act, Taylor Lautner probably can’t as well, and Kristin Stewart also belongs to the “can’t act” category.

5. I will probably sit through Breaking Dawn, mainly because Sharon likes the series. She has already told me the possible plot and already I gave it a big WTF. So, the review for that is probably along the same as this one.

And finally, we managed to catch the Ip Man without Donnie Yen. And it turned out to be alright. I don’t know about the actual history of Ip Man but this one seem more realistic compared to the first two movies.

Even without Donnie Yen, the fight scenes were still awesome and the appearance of the real Ip Chun showing some moves was pretty cool as well. I am beginning to wonder if all plot for Chinese martial arts movies are the same. I could certainly see Bruce Lee movies following such a storyline, and since he was a student of Ip Man, I wonder if he was influenced by the stories he heard from his master.

I had doubts about the movie since Donnie Yen wasn’t involved but I must say they did well without him. You should certainly catch it on the big screen if you like the first two Ip Man movies.

The World Cup matches over the weekend threw my movie schedule off but I still managed to catch a movie on Sunday. With quite a number of choices, She’s Out of My League finally got my vote, mainly because Ip Man Prequel didn’t have good seats and I wasn’t in the mood for J.Lo or Tom Cruise.

The movie plot is simple, guy likes girl, thinks girl too good for him, and then mess it up and you know the rest of the story. While the formula is nothing new, it wasn’t too juvenile and the jokes wasn’t overdone. In fact, at the end of it all, there was even sort of a moral of the story. A lesson that everyone can make use of.

I have something for comedies that puts a cast of relatively unknown people. And the cast for She’s Out of My League fits the bill. At least they weren’t the A-list stars that I am used to watching. They got their act right and it turned out to be a hugely enjoyable film.

Not only that, the Malaysian Censorship Board decided that it was a good time to practice a real 18+ movie. F-words weren’t censored, and there were even scenes with butt shots! Finally, they realised that we can be matured. So, if you just want a fun movie, you can give this a try.

I don’t have kids, but if I have kids, and I wanted to go to the cinemas and watch movies, last weekend was a good weekend. First up was Toy Story 3. The Toy Story series has always been my favourite cartoon on the big screen. Somehow, I feel connected to the movie, I can relate to it.

Maybe because I’ve always imagined the toys being alive, but not in the Chucky creepy way.

I was eagerly awaiting for Toy Story 3 and while I have been disappointed with movies I had high hopes for, Toy Story 3 didn’t. It was…. AWESOME! You have the same familiar cast (minus one) and while the general plot is largely the same in all three movies (involving lots of escaping and getting home), it is believable and it is not boring.

The pacing is great, and the script is hilarious. Watch out for Spanish Buzz because I enjoyed that scene.

The other movie is the remake of the classic Karate Kid. They totally missed the ball on the title, since it was about kungfu but I guess I’ll let it pass since they did it quite well. No surprise on the ending, which was the same as the original, except this time the kick seems a bit more stylo.

Jackie Chan wasn’t that bad, he was not Miyagi-san though, but he held his own and created his own character. Fans of the original will also appreciate some of the minor things they change, but retained the message of the original. The build up in the movie was a bit slow and I found the romance between the 12-year olds a bit difficult to watch but I guess they had to work it in somehow.

But the best part of the movie came right at the end, when they showed still shots of the movie and the making-of scenes during the credits. Now those were awesome photos.