A Cinderella Story (2004)

No more glass shoe, but a hi-tech flipped Samsung handphone.
No more horsewagon made out of rats and pumpkin, but a boy in a Zorro costume with a Mercedes.
No more fairy godmother, old, wise and fat, but an African-American ordinary-Jane working in a Diner.
No more Prince charming rode in a white horse, but an almost-perfect young man, handsome, head school president, captain of football, crushed by half girls in school, with a little problem of identity-crisis.
The evil stepmother still there, the evil twins are still there as well.
"A Cinderella Story" one of the worst movie of the year.

Starring: Hillary Duff, Jennifer Coolidge, Chad Michael Murray
Directed by: Mark Rosman

For an adolescence Sam (Duff), living with his father was everything a young girl could've asked for. So when an earthquake said to separated them, Sam had to start a new life with her stepmother (in movie, it said that she came shortly before the earthquake) and her twin stepdaughter who happened to inherit all of Sam's dad possession since he -- aparently -- doesn't leave any will.

The movie then jumps in several years ahead when Sam was already in her senior year in high-school. Now the movie then forcefully dragged the classic tale of Cinderella to a modern day high-school. Okay, then it's time to test our virtue of how much had we known about American high-school life as portrayed in movies. Let's see what we've got:
1. A group of annoying teenage queen-wannabe bitches who happened to be de-facto leader of cheer-leader squad. This group usually consists of three. check.
2. A man, a young man, a handsome man, a cool man. He was popular, a head-president school, captain of football team, had a bright future laid ahead of him, and half of the girl in the school fell in love with him. Also known as 'The Prince'. check.
3. An ordinary man, trying desperately to be known but would only humilliating himself in the end. Now this man is real. But let's add the flavor a little bit.. he had no friend. Well, except for Sam, our heroine that is. check.
4. And now! may i present you, our heroine the one and only, an angel in disguise, a hard-work laborer, a straight-A student, working 7 days a week in a diner owned by her step-mother, also doing a house-errands 7 days a week, always seemed get herself in the way for the group of annoying teenage queen-wannabe bitches. Samantha. check.

What else do we got? umm.. we got an evil step-mother which nowhere near 'evil' that i had expected before. A pair of devilish evil twin step-sister.. umm wait, an idiotic moronic so-stupid-that-no-way-they-could-have-been-graduated-from-Junior-High-School pair of movie-bullies shall do, and oh yeah, how could i almost forgotten about her.. an African-American diner manager as a fairy godmother's personification.

Samantha had an internet boy-friend which shares the same interest as her (which was -- as the movie suggests -- going to the Princeton), poetic, almost romantic, not to mention smart. Now they had planned that they shall meet at the Helloween's party. But Sam's evil step-mother forbid her to go and told her to work at the diner instead. Before she leaves though, she said "I shall be back at the diner on 12 sharp". There you go, Cindy, you had your ultimatum. Cindy.. um, Sam.. refused to go to the party, but when her friend -- the one and only friend --, her co-workers (which soon she would addressed them as her real family) insisted that she should go, she decides to go then only to find out that she doesn't have a suit. Now, this is where the fairy godmather comes in. Okay.. okay.. okay... i'll skip the details... so they went.. to the party... prince... charming.. ballroom... outside dance... a twelve o'clock chimes... came at the diner.. barely in time... evil step-mother.... a Princeton acceptance letter.... a hidden will.. and well, Sam and the Prince live happily ever after.

This movie have it all, all that made the movie terrible. A similar kind of theme had been excercised and exploited by many movies before. Altough that it wanted to brings a classic-tale of Sam.. umm, i mean Cinderella to a modern-tale, it still couldn't escape the teenage-flick formula with a high-school life and stuffs. It works best to a 12-14 years old girl tough that i was doubted that it would still works after all this similar kind of movie floating around. The script? umm, no! simply no! Sam's last speech to Austing in a man's locker room was more dramatic visually than it was phonetically. And the ending? like Sam said, "all will fall into place". It was full of coincidence. Almost unnecessary, exaggerating coincidence that it seemed a million light-years away from reality. Ironic as Sam once said, "I'll go back to reality".

Well, i guess that's a wrap.



Rating: 1/2 / **** -- quoting Sam, "I live in an attic!". I'd say, "well at least it had a window, and you've got your own personal computer there".

Upnext: New Police Story (2004)

A Quick Announcement

Damn! I've been so drawn up lately. Barely had time to log the blog nor to surf the net anymore. Meanwhile, i had seen a whole lot of movies lately, finishing three fiction-books (a Stephen King's Misery, Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two and Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity). To sum up, here's the upcoming reviews that would be up soon. Hopefully when Monday arrived some of it will shows up here.

- Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa).
- The Dreamers.
- Flight of the Navigator.
- Bourne Identity.
- Dodgeball: The True Underdog Story.
- White Chicks.
- Pattoon.
- New Police Story.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
- Spider-Man 2.
"What had gotten into you: or why would i spare time to watch these teenage flicks".
- 13 Going 30.
- Cinderella Story.
- New York Minute.
- Raising Helen.
- Alex and Emma.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Barry, Lindy Booth
Directed by: Zack Snyder

Zombie. Gah! I got fed up with zombie in a movie. And after that horrible, un-bearable, so-stupid-it-disgusts-you House of the Dead, a supposedly-a-movie made from the hack / slash game about zombie I got a real low expectancy for films about zombies. And so does my expectancy toward this film.

However, in minutes ahead I shall find myself glued to my chair as the movie rolls by.

As you may have heard, the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead was a re-make to a 78's horror which many would considered it as a classic. I haven't seen the original version though, but I highly doubted that it will be better than the one I had right now.

The movie began slowly. There was a good ten minutes before the actual credit-title rolls up (using the real human blood's splatter they said) portraying a peaceful life of Ana (portrayed below), a nurse on her way back to her home where her daughter and husband waited with arms extended in love.


But then when the dusk gone and the dawn come, Ana quickly found a nightmare right after she woke up when her dead-walk daughter attacked her husband, chewe-off his left ear and subsequently turns her husband into a dead-walk (mind you, that none of the characters in this movie using the word 'zombie' to describe them) who then viciously attacks her (with credit to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining camera shot). Barely able to flee through the window, she found out that the rest of her neighborhood had turns into a blood turmoil chaos full of dead-walks similar to her husband and her daughter. And then the credit title rolls.

The rest of the movie is pretty much the same with the original versions. On her way out of town, Ana (Polley) stumbled into a huge officer, Kenneth (Ving Rhames) and several others survivors. Together they'd hole up and fortified themselves at the mall where lots and lots of dead-walks scouring those who inside in hope to had a touch with a fresh human-flesh.

One thing that satisfied me during the movie was that it doesn't bother to explains hows and whys. It was simply dead-walks, human which more than happy to kill one another. I'd put a 'fun' word to describe the movie. It knows exactly what i want (hence, i want to see some blood, and they gave me just that without any tits-bits about as-a-matter-of-fact details). Some stupidities occures where a particular character without thinking thrown herself to a road-full of gnarling dead-walks just to save one puny dog.

Some quiet drama was also put briefly halfway the movie when Ana, finally having a time on her own remembering her loss and tragedy that had befell her. But quickly enough, she'd found another man to bumped into (yeah! i dont need that kissing-scene, it was sooo stupid).

The characters were okay, though most of them just being there to add the body counts but some of the character had their own sub-plot such as Ana and Michael's intimacy, Andre's concern and love about his unborn infected-fetus, Frank and Nicole's sad farewell and Kenneth's long distance relationship with the man on the gun-store roof. Though we don't need any character development in this kind of movie, the necessity of putting some character development was handled nicely which adds an excellent delicacy for the whole dish.

And finally, the ending. Don't skip the closing-title to get a full ending (my kind of ending). When seconds before closing-title starts rolling, i was actually disappointed. "That's it?", i grumbled to myself. But, i stayed until the closing-title rolling nonetheless. And damn! what a reward, as some footage that inserted between the closing-title (and accompanied by terrific soundtrack) giving me the ending that i had been expected, an ending that satisfied me. Hence, when watching this movie, make sure you dont skip the closing title.



Rating: ***1/2 / **** - The best hack / slash movie of 2004. It also solidified "chain-electric-saw" as my #1 tools for killing. Gya ha ha ha ha ha!

Ikiru (1952)

Starring: Takashi Shimura, Yunosuke Ito, Nobuo Kaneko, Miki Odagiri
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

A sometime neglected drama by Kurosawa. A powerful -- if not masterpiece -- works on humanity was made between the two best-known Kurosawa's masterpieces (Rashomon and Seven Samurai). Probably the very reason of its neglection. But either way, the movie was made at the "golden moments" of Kurosawa if there's any such thing in Kurosawa's life.

Kenji Watanabe (Shimura, you'll see him later as a charismatic, and powerful ronin's leader in Seven Samurai) spent his working-life (thirty-years of working days without a single absent) as a bureaucrat in a city office doing nothing. This fact was emphasized by Kurosawa in a quite humoruous way of how the bureucrates bounced the complaining citizens from a unit to another. At one time (we knew the fact earlier than him, though), Watanabe was diagnosed to have an incurable cancer and had as much as five-months more to live. And then, among his depression he eagered to learns his meaning in his life as the title "Ikiru" (to live) suggest.

But his struggling won't came out easy as he finds himself unable to talk to his family (his son, Kaneko and his wife), spends a night in a debauchet night life with a novelist (Ito), and spends some time with a young woman (Odagiri) from his office, but ultimately decides that he could make a difference through his job which then we learnt from his co-workers' stories at his funeral.

The movie was yet again, clearly divided into two parts, before the funeral which told about Watanabe search of redemption for his loneliness, his struggle to learnt how to live with the death-judgement the doctor gave him, and his connection or how he sees through things with another especially those forementioned (his family, a stranger novelist, and a lively young woman) in process of his search of the meaning of life. Part one ended with the dedication of his approval and his effort to built a citizen-park which request was already declined and showed in brief at the early minutes of the movie. This part is showed superb Kurosawa's work on humanity. We sees how he learnt the surrounding of his character, and let the character (which superbly portrayed by Shimura, it would've been wrong to put Mifune in his place in this movie) moves on its own and intermingled nicely with his surroundings. As a consequence, you'd see more human nature and Japanese culture in this movie than any other. For example, how'd his son reacts to his old-man's behaviour when he caught him holding the young-woman's hand in his room. Quite some art.

But then part two, when his co-workers attended his funeral, gobbling sake and munching some rice-balls, i found that this movie reached its anticlimax. The politically conspiration behind the park, the "hows" and "whys" did Watanabe insisted on built the park, was told in a flash-back fashion. Though it added some spicy ingredients to the main-dish, i personally tought that the second part (nearly 40 minutes) was rather un-necessary. It sort of like an epilogue, a dessert that went sour and washed away the quality taste of the main-dish. I think that it was better if Watanabe's story told in a straight way, hence it would build the climax to the top instead of crumbling it halfway through.

Nonetheless, the final image when Watanabe slowly swinging in the playground he built with gentle snow pouring down in the last night of his life was among the most touching scenes in cinema. It was actually rebuild the climax or returning the quality taste of the main-dish.



Rating: *** / **** - Hail to Watanabe! i would give it four if the story told in a straight-forward way.

The Idiot (1951)

Starring: Setsuko Hara, Masayuki Mori, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshiko Kuga
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

Adapted from the classic Russian literature of the same title written by Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Idiot" told about Kameda (Mori), who had been in Asylum on Okinawa, travels to Hokkaido. Where he then become invloved with two women, Takeo (Hara) and Ayako (Kuga). Taeko comes to love Kameda, but is loved in turn by Akama (Mifune). And when Akama realizes that he will never have Taeko, his thoughts turn to murder, and great tragedy ensues.

Against Kurosawa's will, the film was cut off by 100 minutes by the studio who released it. It shall remembered by the remarks made by Kurosawa who tells the studio to physically cut the film instead of asking him to cut it. That leaves us with a "mere" 2,75 hours movie.

The extensive cutting was clearly visible ultimately at the beginning of the film, when oftenly the scenes keep jumping (leaping is much more like it) to and fro, accompanied by mostly-useless extensive subtitle about who and what was happened between one scene and another. This has made the movie was rather hard to follow. It's like swallowing a bitter pill dry. It's good for your health, but you must endure the bitterness of the pill in order to have it.

As forementioned, the film was kick-offed in a hurry. The characters' introduction seems like overflowing from the screen. All the names, all the events that linked them, and all the relationships between those names. Furthermore, some are still hidden in the hazy-fog, even after nearly 72 hours had passed since i've appreciated the movie. All those haphazardous arrangements ultimately summed-up like all the rivers flowing into the sea into a total confusion, when suddenly after the appearance of a woman (Taeko), all the main casts with some other casts crumpled up together in a melodramatic humor and tragedy with only faint and thin red line that connected them. It's almost unforgivable if i hadn't known that the film (against Kurosawa's will) was extensively edited.

The film itslef was separated into two clearly divided parts. One part consists of introduction to the characters, and the love story between Taeko and Kameda with Akama in the shadows. Here we'd see the powerful Mifune. With his mere presence in the backdrops of Taeko and Kameda he's just like a bomb ready to explode. He's so menacingly powerful here. And he delivers that power smoothly into the screen.

Part two, with slight better narration since the cutting barely touch it, deals with the relationship between Kameda and Ayako. Only this time, instead of Akama stands in the backdrop, Taeko was stands as their shadows with Akama lurking still further behind.

I found that the film is amazingly powerful in term of its characterization. All the casts even the minor roles are powerful and able to deliver the power and the tone which portrayed in its original "The Idiot". It's like watching a silent movie of 20's or 30's instead of a black-white movie of 50's. I could feel Akama's rage and despair, i could feel Ayako's weakness and yet strong determinations, i could feel Taeko's proudness and sadness, and i could feel -- though i found myself hating him in the end of the film -- Kameda's pureness by merely looking at their body languages. Mr. Kurosawa himself was very successful in directing the movie as he superbly smooth translate (if not due to the cut, it may be even smoother) the novel into a portrayed humanity which he is very good at.

With the original 4 hours ++ unavailable to public, if anyone of you, my beloved readers wanted to appreciate this movie should be aware that this film was intended to those who is familiar with Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" or at least had the glimpse of what characters are like in the novel. Since this film -- again, despite of its lack of consistency and coherent logical plot due to the extensive cutting -- was a feast of powerful characters.



Rating: ** / **** - Why two? the rating goes for the 160+ minutes version, when the extensive cutting had diminished most of the coherent logical plot that interconnected the scenes. Especially in the first part where the characters were being introduced. But still, Kameda was my second best character (after Scarlett O'Hara) with his duality (i found my pity for him during the first part, but then my pity grows into hate toward the end of the second part, and at the end of the movie, i couldn't decide whether i should hated him or pitied him).

Dreams (1990)

Starring: Akira Terao, Chisu Ryu, Mieko Harada, Martin Scorcese
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

"Hey, would you hear about the dreams that i had last night?".

If one was asked with that question, the response would be mostly winched and counting the clock or immediately wished to be somewhere else or doing something else. Well, that's not the case when we seen the "Dreams" by Akira Kurosawa.

Composed with eight unrelated short-story, "Dreams" is a voyage to the wonderful imageries, a dream's materialization from Akira Kurosawa's personal dreams that somehow reflected his opinions toward things especially humanity as we often has seen in his previos movies. Dreams that in the unconsciousness level also become dreams to anyone else.

Some say that "Dreams" was over-done and over-rated. Some even say that at the time when Kurosawa is at the dusk of his career had surely lost his touch, the "Dreams" was also lose his usual touch of charms.

But as for me, "Dreams" was as beatufiul as ever. The eight episodes fore-mentioned was clearly stated Kurosawa's conscious mind toward things he love the most, nature. His griveous fear of the outcome of war, and nuclear-power. His view of the inevitability of death. All portrayed in magnificent sometimes surrealistic view with fantastic color that dragged me to the so-called "Fantasia".

The first two-episodes, "Sunshine through the rain" and "The peach orchard" told about the urban legend related to the fox -- the most feared beast-demon in Japan -- and the Doll celebration which had to be arranged in a certain strict rule. Of these two episodes, i was astonished with the color tone he uses. I was quickly absorbed in his world, in his utopia, in his fantasy, with such magnificent view of nature. And we also get to see, the traditional Japanese-dancers and cloths. Very astonishing.

The next two-episodes told about death. "The Blizzard" told about the weary mountain climbers in a midst of snowstorm. The weariness ultimately became unbearable as many of the team members decided to stop lest the group leader keep yelling them to keep moving, since he knew that once they halt to a stop, a certain death would embraced them. When suddenly the leader has also became weary and already in the verge of death, there came a siren encouraging him to stay on. "Yuki wa atatakai", the snow is warm she said. It was a damn cold episode.

"The Tunnel" was the most frightening episode in the "Dreams" and ultimately also became my personal favourite. It told about the military commander who was on his way home thorugh dark hollow tunnel when -- menacingly frightening -- he heard the footsteps that follows. And in the end he had to explain to the third batalyon, the ones who followed him that they're already dead and can't walk with him through the tunnel. He also asks for their forgiveness for being the only one alive. Very touching when he gave the batalyon his last regards.

I didn't like the next episode that follows, "Crows" so i think that i just going to skipped it. It told about a young art student who literally walks through Van Gogh's painting and meet with the artist himself (played by Martin Scorcese) and visually amazing the young student followed Van Gogh by literally walking from his painting to another.

The next two episodes told about his fear in nuclear power, and the outcome of war. "Mt. Fuji in red" portrayed the nuclear-plaint explotion that rendered Mt.Fuji as if the mountain has erupted and engulfed in the bright scarlet color. The message of this episode, which is the danger and the fear of nuclear power was delivered successfully in a most horrific-shots and final sequence that leaves the conclusion of certain death left untold. While "The Weeping Demon" literally brings hell on earth as Kurosawa portrayed the worst possible outcome of war. These two episodes can be regarded as the darkest episodes in the "Dreams", it is tragic, it is horrific, and it is -- of course -- dark.

But the final episode was quickly lift the mood after being stormed by two dark episodes forementioned. "Village in Watermills" told about one hiker ("I" which i then learnt that he was the alter-ego of Kurosawa) who stumbled upon the village which seems so distant from a certain monster called Civilization. While he sat and talks to the elderly man about living in such calm village, we sought the beauty of nature and as for myself, longingly wanted, and missed those kind of lives. This is a great slow-paced peaceful episode that wrapped the "Dreams". A series of Kurosawa's experiment in the dusk of his career of more than 50 years directing movies.



Rating: ***1/2 / **** - I would give the four rating to this movie if Martin Scorcese doesn't play the English speaking Vincent Van Gogh.

Dersu Uzala (1975)

Starring: Maksim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin, Svetlana Danilchenko
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

When Kurosawa's life is at the lowest, when his depression had culminating into a suicide attempt in 1971, an offer came from Soviet Union to finance film on a subject of his choosing, to be shot in Russia.

On this film, Kurosawa adapted the real-life journal by a Russian explorer, Vladimir Arseniev. The story then evolves in and around Captain Arseniev who sent with a team of explorer and cartographer to map the untamed region in the South-West Russian-China border wee-bit North of Vladivostok.

The film was clearly divided in two parts. First part concentrated on Captain Arseniev, a leader of Tzaris expedition team forementioned. On one evening, in the midst of wilderness, almost mistaken as a wild animal in the gloomness of dusk, came out of nowhere as if by apparition the Mongolian tribesman, stout, almost comical but had been known the Siberian wilderness as good as his own backyard. Now this man by the name of "Dersu Uzala", who at first became object of humour by the expedition team, became a sort of tour-guide and quickly achieved the admiration from the team as his extensive knowledge of jungle-wilderness, his deductive prediction upon tracks, had saved their life in many ocassions. Most respect and admiration toward Dersu came none other from the Captain himself as he then stated in his notebook, "Dersu's ingenuity had ultimately save my life from the blizzard-storm on the frozen Siberian lake".

Part two was concentrated on Dersu as his dusk of life approaching. His second meeting with Captain Arseinev then unveiled his corroded ability to stand in the wilderness anymore. We, the audience witnessed through Arseniev's eyes the inability of Dersu to stand in the wild as the dusk of his life approaching, and we felt the same sympathy as Arseniev's was when Dersu denied but inevitably realized that he was indeed grows weak while the wilderness where his life depends on wasn't change at all.

Kurosawa's film was widely known with his deep observation on humanity. On this film, we see the pureness of mutual-friendship represented by Arseniev and Dersu. And of Dersu, we could see the man too noble to stand by as his world is swallowed by the civilization. It also portrayed what men's are against the nature. We see, we may even feel the chillness of Siberian blizzard-storm, the hugeness, the emptiness, the unimportantness of man's presence before nature.

The characters, though natural as it seems were memorable. We soon see the portrait of Dersu in quite the same physical appearance, wisdom, and even the talks in the form of much-better-known Master Yoda in Empire Strikes Back. The Tzarist captain Arseniev though he may seem unimportant, just a little-ingredients to spice up the "friendship" theme brought up by Kurosawa here was like an eye and an ear to me. I see through his eyes, i listen through his ears, i even share the same awe with him as he faced up with the greatness of nature he came upon, and at the same time, as he faced up with the greatness of human represented by Dersu Uzala.

The movie was slow-paced, but well enough -- at least the Boredom Republic is nowhere near your beloved review here -- with long-shots, vivid imagery that overwhelmed the screen. Some say that this is the coldest movie he ever made, and though there's a scene in "Dreams" that may seem a bit colder than this movie, i could agreed that this movie is AMONG the coldest movies ever made. The Blizzard is fascinating.



Rating: **** / **** - Oh yeah, did i already mentioned that this movie won the Oscar for best foreign language film?