Tag: movies

Posted on

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is more of Michael Bay’s mindless death, destruction, and mayhem. And less of Megan Fox. In fact, there’s no Megan Fox. In her place is a cocky English girl who doesn’t seem to have any reason to be. And the death, destruction, and mayhem part? Boring boring boring. Reminds me once again these are not your juvenile movies growing with you but rather your juvenile movies being spiffed up for the current generation of juveniles. It’s freakin’ long, too: 157 minutes! I’m sure it’s all of those slow-motion fighting, walking, and kissing. And it didn’t help that the damn cinema seat is so damn uncomfortable.

Rating: 2/5

Posted on

Fast Five

The Fast and the Furious series keep going. This afternoon, Jeanne, Michelle, and I caught a screening of Fast Five. It’s now a heist movie with cars. Think The Italian Job but with American and Japanese muscle cars instead of those dinky little Minis. The gang gets together for a job to steal the money of the biggest drug lord in Rio de Janiero. Assembling the crew for the job became a family reunion of sorts with practically everyone from the previous installments showing up. There is even an attempt to focus on the characters, e.g. someone’s pregnant.

But who am I kidding? It doesn’t matter where they are, what they’re doing, and what the human drama is. The whole point are the cars. And cars are still the best thing about the series and this movie. There are cars aplenty: Italian cars, German cars, Japanese cars, and, of course, American cars (but no Korean?). The stunts are over the top and I sometimes chuckled about the ridiculousness of it all. But by the end of the movie there’s no denying I had fun.

Continue reading “Fast Five”

Posted on

Black Swan

Black Swan is about a Nina, a psychotic ballerina trying to perfect the roles of the white swan and black swan in Swan Lake. As she struggles against the challenge, she is hindered by painful pyschotic attacks but which seems to lead her closer to perfecting the role. As perfection comes within grasp, she realizes that it’s not just her who wants the role.

If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen Pi also from Darren Aronofsky.

Through great movie-making, Black Swan successfully draws you into the pyschotic world of the lead character for a pretty immersive move watching experience, i.e. you will almost feel the full range of emotions Nina felt. Natalie Portman is absolutely brilliant in the move. As a bonus, it has a lot of beautiful ballet dancing and, of course, the much hyped girl-on-girl action with Mila Kunis. Not for the casual viewer as the movie is dark and heavy but if you’re a serious film buff, you will be rewarded.

Rating: 4/5

 

Posted on

Inception and Personal Finance

Here‘s a unique take on Inception relating it to personal finance. Who would have thought? But then the guy is a financial planner. The article is good and is a must read. Allow me to highlight a few statements that really caught my eye:

“…many are also trapped in the world of escapism and succumb to living a life of fantasy they can hardly afford.”

“The average Pinoy changes his cell phone every eight to 12 months; expensive coffee shops are mushrooming all over the metropolis; malls are sardine-packed with people, etc.”

“…the level of savings of Pinoys is well below that of many of our neighbors; consumer debt is rising in an alarming rate; we are not preparing for retirement; the number of people with financial investments or insurance remains to be one of the lowest in Asia—in short, the average Pinoy is not prepared for the future.”

“We need to wake up to our reality that we are responsible for the actions we take in personal finance and in life in general—and that’s the reality! There is no secret to achieving financial freedom and there is no shortcut—it is a process, and we build it little by little by the actions we take. There’s no substitute to industriousness, prudence and discipline. To believe otherwise is foolish.”

Ouch! I feel guilty already :D

Posted on

Inception

Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream, Merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.

That nursery rhyme is very apt for this movie. Inception means the beginning or creation of something. In the movie, inception is the microcosm of an idea that once planted to a person through a dream and accepted becomes the basis of that person’s thoughts, opinion, other ideas, and even his or her personality.

Cobb(Leonardo DiCaprio) is an “extractor”, someone who retrieves information from a person by going into that person’s consciousness and extracting the information. He is hired by Saito (Ken Watanabe) to attempt the heretofore untried inception on a competitor. As in a typical heist movie, he then assembles a crew to do the job and after the usual drama, set about doing it. Of course, since most of these happen in a dream, you definitely can’t expect the usual.

But it is a heist movie in the same vein as The Italian Job and The Thomas Crown Affair. That’s tough company but even if Inception is not one of the best heist movies, it’s certainly one of the more imaginative ones. It has action but it isn’t as edgy as The Matrix, to which it can and will be compared to. It has some twists but it doesn’t attempt to befuddle the user: Whenever things get a little bit complicated, the characters make sure to explain everything (sometimes a little too much). But put together, it’s a well-built, riveting movie.

Rating: 4/5