Movies on DVD Review

My review of a 1981 French art-pop and 2 animated movies on DVD

RATATOUILLE C
Once again I find myself in the minority who did not like this much-loved animated movie about a rat who loves to cook gourmet food. My question to Disney: WHY A RAT? The symbol of all things foul and putrid: bubonic plague, sewers, garbage, and all sorts of diseases associated with it being dirty. AND WHY A MOVIE ABOUT COOKING WITH A RAT? Unlike cute cartoon drawn mice Mickey and Minnie the rats in this movie are so life-like with their gray fur and pink noses, paws and tails. Eww, eww, eww, yuck! The characters and script did not appeal to me at all. I did not laugh the entire time I was watching because all the characters are repulsive to me specially the young man, Alfredo Linguini, who is so painfully irritating and repetitive. Not a single character is adorable but rather it's full of cliched and overused personalities: the angry strong chick, arrogant critic voiced by a British actor, and the dwarf sinister dark skinned thin mustachioed villain again voiced by a British actor. And I really hated the first 10 - 15 minutes with the crazy woman shooting and destroying her own house. Not. Funny. I was wishing she would accidentally shoot herself or the chandelier would fall on her. There was very little cooking shown so what is the point. The ending was so disgusting with the rats having their own dining room at a mezzanine floor overlooking the main dining room. I do not like to see RATS that look like real rats and not cartoon rats in the same restaurant in a cartoon, ick!

SHREK THE THIRD B+
I have enjoyed the first 2 Shrek movies and I was not totally disappointed with this installment. It is far from flawless, some of the jokes are a little too gross a la Austin Powers but I still liked the movie. Who can resist Puss, he's so cute. The High School scene is a little bit corny, I must admit, but tolerable. Although the movie is a little bit crowded with so many new characters, I love the addition of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Belle. What can I say, the animation and soundtrack are superb. Paul McCartney's Live and Let Die during the king's pond funeral and the women charging to rescue Shrek with Heart's Barracuda as background music are excellent choices and made me smile. Highly recommended if you don't mind a few flatulence gags.

DIVA A++
I am wondering why I have never heard of this 1981 French movie before it appeared in our Netflix recommendation corner. It is such a gem, I love love love it. It has everything I like: comedy, action, suspense, fantasy, romance, bad guys, weird people, fantastic chase scene, and operatic aria.
This is not your average boy meets girl in the romantic city of Paris. It's much more than that. The male lead, a 19-year old postal courier Jules, is in love with an American soprano, the Diva of the title, who in her entire career refuses to be recorded. During her latest recital he recorded her with his expensive recording equipment so he can listen to her whenever he likes which is every time he is home. He managed to steal the dress the Diva wore at the recital, brought it home where there is a large poster of her, and holding the dress while listening to the illegal recording. I know, it seems creepy but I didn't see it in that sense, I can't explain why. Now come the bad guys, 2 sets of them: the hired thugs working for the corrupt Police Chief, and the Taiwanese businessmen who also want to have a bootleg recording of the Diva. One of the thugs is an awl wielding psycho, called Le curé, played by rubber-faced (or to Filipinos mukhasim) Dominic Pinon of Amelie, The City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, A Very Long Engagement, etc. He has very few lines which always start with I DON'T LIKE...cars, car garages, Beethoven, elevators, etc. Jules also befriended the oddest couple in Paris. He is a 30-something male (who is also a master criminal or thief) and his female companion, a young girl, Alba, whose preoccupation is thievery, she stole a music record using photos of herself naked or in sexy poses to distract the store clerk. They live in a very large unfurnished loft apartment with just cushions to sit on, hammocks for beds, and a bathtub on one side of the apartment. But the guy is a gourmet of sorts, teaching Jules the art of making a baguette sandwich, i.e., using a knife that has the precise thinness, how much butter to spread, and so on. This weird couple helped Jules get rid of the 2 sets of villains all at once. All the characters, except the Diva who only has interaction with Jules, crossed paths when the mistress of the police chief placed an incriminating recording she made in Jules' delivery bag. I like the chase sequence which IMHO is second only to Bullitt's. Jules was riding a friend's motorbike going up and down stairs, in and out of the Metro, in and out of the train, the poor policeman chasing him was no match. Spoiler Alert: To make the story short, all the bad guys perished, he became friends with the diva (she sang Bach/Gounoud's Ave Maria and an aria from an Italian opera called The Wally) who forgave him for the recording agreeing to listen to it. I so love this very stylish plot driven movie that I watched it again the very next day.

Movies on DVD

I watched about 25 movies on DVD the past three weeks but will review only the best and the worst.

THE FOUNTAIN A+
One of the best movies I have seen so far this year. Beautiful story, excellent photography (by Filipino-American Matthew Libatique) and soundtrack. Hugh Jackman as Tom tries to find a cure for his dying wife's (Rachel Weisz) cancer, eventually understands and accepts death, helped by the unfinished book that she was writing. I watched it 3 times already and I wouldn't stop raving about it, that my daughter gave me the graphic novel it was based on (probably either to encourage me or to shut me up), both written by Darren Aronofosky (Pi & Requiem For A Dream). I also got the soundtrack CD which is as beautiful and haunting as the movie. Me, obssessed?, maybe...;D

DOMINO D
I found this unopened DVD which was supposed to be my daughter's gag gift to one of her friends. She said it's one of the most awful movies she has seen and proceeded to recite (a la Keira Knightley): My name is Domino, domino, domino... Hahvy, hahvy, hahvy...I'm a bounchy huntchuh, huntchuh, huntchuh...then sneered. She forgot about it and told me to open it and see for myself how truly awful it is. She suggested that I take a shot of vodka or other hard liquor for every stupid/cheesy dialog or scene and I will surely get drunk at the end of the movie, but I'm not into drinking like most young adults so I ignored that. But I can say, the movie is awful. Keira Knightley is not a good actress and she keeps appearing in moan-inducing movies: Bend It Like Beckham, Pirates of the Carribean, and in Pride and Prejudice was the worst Elizabeth ever!!
Also, I viewed for the 5th (or is it 6th?) time a favorite movie of mine: Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf), one of the most awesome movies that came from France. This movie, set in the 18th century French countryside where a legendary beast had been killing villagers, has everything, and I mean everything: action, romance, mystery, beautiful martial arts sequences, mysticism, cultish Christian nuts, crazy gypsies, heaving bosoms, incest, gore, whores, and the most beautiful people on screen: Mark Dacascos (TV's The Crow) and his nice butt, Monica Belucci with her awesome weapon and her real life husband, Vincent Cassel as the incestuous brother. The movie is like a live action anime. Here's a teaser:

Milan - A Most Annoying Movie

Filipino Movie Review

Milan F

I just wasted 90 minutes of my precious time watching this really really really annoying Tagalog movie. This is one of the reasons I rarely watched Filipino movies in the Philippines. Recently, I started watching tagalog/Filipino movies and liked some of them, even the corny but entertaining Enteng Kabisote and Crying Ladies, if you can believe it. The Debut and Pinoy Blonde are very good, I highly recommend them.
Somebody in my house put Milan in our Netflix list and I was also interested because I had a cousin who was murdered a little over a year ago by a fellow Filipino in Italy. He was an Italian citizen, had lived in Italy for over 12 years. He was killed because the other guy was jealous of the success of his business, which was recruiting Filipinos to work as domestic helpers, etc. in that country.

The cheesy opening music was a bad sign that this movie will suck, but I was determined to watch it and give it a chance to prove me wrong about Filipino movies. I did not know IT WAS HOPELESSLY BAD! The movie opened with a shrill nagging voice of a woman, who turned out to be the daughter of Nora Aunor, and the whole movie seemed to have lots of shrill women... AND men. The main character, Lino went to Milan to look for his wife, he did not have her telephone number or address, it never occured to him she did not want to be found, dumb. Lino was so wimpy, kept harassing Filipinos outside subways and on the streets and refused to understand the word NO, that I wanted to hit him upside the head during the entire movie. Near the end of the film the pretty wife turned up with an unbelievably ugly baby, he finally learned what happened to her and he went outside, started hitting the wall while crying (he's always crying) and kept saying "I am not stupid, I am not an idiot", I kept answering the TV hoping he'll hear me "yes, you are too", like a child in a playground, I can't help it because he IS STUPID, AN IDIOT, AN IMBECILE.... Stupid acting, stupid directing and stupid dialog, arrgh! The movie tried to show THE HARDSHIPS OFWs have to endure working abroad, but I remained unsympathetic, I'm sorry to say, but they are there illegally and they chose to work there as domestic helpers, duh! Watch this movie only if you are a masochist.;D

A Rant & A Rave

I have been ill with a mild flu since Thursday, felt a little bit better today and was able to watch 2 movies on dvd (but refused to cook). One is the awful Children of Men and the other is the brilliant The Fallen Idol directed by Carol Reed & written by Graham Greene.

Children of Men 2 Stars
Why do I keep watching movies that have gotten rave reviews only to find out they suck big time. Children of Men is one of them. I was excited when I heard about this movie being made based on P.D. James' novel. I was hoping the movie will be better than the book. P.D. James is one of my favorite authors and I have read nearly all of her mystery novels (Adam Dalgliesh as well as Cordelia Gray) but I did not particularly love her 1993 novel The Children of Men. My main problem with the book is not the plot but the second half and the ending. She seemed to have lost interest and did not know how to end it. Regardless, I still liked the idea of a movie set in the future when men all over the world stopped producing sperm and therefore no babies were born for the past 18 years. I was hoping that the moviemakers will improve on this story and with Clive Owen (I loved him in Croupier and the TV series Second Sight) as Theo I was really looking forward to watching it. Huge Disappointment. The movie is awful: all shades of gray in the entire movie, why? Men not being able to produce sperm would not prevent the sun from rising, so it is so very annoying not to see a little bit of color. The untalented Mexican director Cuaron wanted a certain atmosphere of gloom, with evil terrorist fighting the equally evil government, and illegal immigrants being caged like animals, but what do they have to do with the world without babies? The movie is all about Theo and his charge, the pregnant black woman, running, being chased by terrorists, ducking bullets, having friends who help them get killed unnecessarily along the way; these scenes kept repeating like a nightmare, it kept going on and on and on until everybody they encountered got killed and the only ones remaining are the woman and her child. And, as the movie progresses Clive Owen gets grimier and grimier as he nears his death and the end of the film. The director and the writer spent so much emphasis on illegal immigrants. I do not want certain political agenda being prominently forced on me in a movie that advertizes as SciFi, I want to be entertained, not fed political crap. I could watch politically themed movies and documentaries if I want to. The movie (as in the book, my main complaint, actually) did not offer any hope for the future. Why? Because the father of the child is not known, according to the girl there were several possibilities (sounds like she's a ho) and was never discussed again, in the book P.D. James killed him. THE FATHER is the only hope for the new generation but his character was set aside, and then the baby born they decided should be a GIRL! How will she be able to continue having babies if there are no men producing sperm, dumb, dumb, dumb. Now, if the baby were a boy, then he might carry the father's genes that gave him life and there will be a slight chance of a world with new babies, but no, the baby has to be a girl. Reminder: the title is Children of Men, take your cue from the title, you morons. Just imagine her age at say, 80, when everybody has died including her mother, all alone in the whole planet, isn't that the saddest thing, and this movie (and the book) didn't make any sense at all. One laughable idiotic moment (others thought it's poignant, whatever) in the movie: The soldiers stopped shooting at the rebels/terrorists as Theo, the mother and the newborn child were walking amidst them, they did the sign of the cross, let them pass, then resumed fighting, what the heck is that? JesusMaryJoseph! This is the first child born in 18 years and that's their response to the phenomenon? I would have been stunned at the sight of a newborn baby and would have brought the mother and the baby to the Warden right there and then, yes, that's what I would have done.
The 2 stars is for Clive's crying scene and for Michael Caine being the only person in the whole movie who was happy (his character is an old pot growing/smoking hippy, that's why he's happy).

The Fallen Idol 5 Stars
This black and white 1948 movie is by the same director/writer team of The Third Man, Carol Reed and Graham Greene. The screenplay was written by Greene based on his own short story The Basement Room. The movie is not your typical "the Butler Did It" thriller, it is visually dazzling, and the dialogue and acting are brilliant. The butler, Mr. Baines actually did not murder his wife who is the caretaker of the boy, Phile, who thinks he pushed his wife to her death. The boy is alone in the embassy, where they live, with the couple while his father, an ambassador to England of an unspecified French-speaking country, is out of the country to fetch his wife from a hospital somewhere where she was being treated for the past 8 months. The boy has been drawn to the likable Mr. Baines who indulges him, takes him for walks and to the zoo, and even gave him a box for his pet snake, Macgregor. He also loves to impress the boy and tells him stories of his 'adventures' in Africa, which are all lies. On the other hand, his wife is harsh and stern and terrorizes the child and her husband. Mr. Baines has fallen in love with an employee of the embassy. When the boy followed him one day, he saw him in a coffee shop with the girl, Julia who said she was leaving the next night because there is no hope in their relationship. Phile joined them and had pies and tea with them, which Mrs. Baines absolutely forbids. While the 2 adults are talking the boy hears everything, including the part when Mr. Baines said he will ask his wife for his freedom. To make the story short the wife died accidentally after she and her husband argued about Julia. When the police came to investigate, Phile tried to save his dear butler and friend by lying to the police. But with each lie he unwittingly made Mr. Baines look more and more guilty that you will start to think, what an obnoxious boy, shut up already. But the movie has a happy ending, the police found out for themselves how Mrs. Baines died.
The things I love: the child is wonderfully natural, he is not a professional actor but the son of a French couple immigrants in England. Carol Reed himself enacted the parts for the boy to copy and both he and the boy did an exceptionally good job. I love the simple but memorable story, the intelligent dialogue and the beautiful visuals.

The Prestige vs The Illusionist

I watched THE PRESTIGE yesterday and THE ILLUSIONIST about 2 months ago. I declare The Prestige won by a mile. First, Jessica Biel is no match to Scarlett Johansson, heheh. Seriously, The Prestige is more thrilling, darker, more "magical", and the acting is a lot better and with David Bowie playing the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, how can The Illusionist top that? The Illusionist has Paul Giametti, who is a good actor, but failed in this movie because of his fake accent, Edward Norton was lifeless and one-dimensional, and Jessica Biel with her simian mouth does not look THAT desirable for the men to fight over her, no not believable at all.
Actually these movies don't have the same story line, they are very different and the only thing they have in common is the magicians and their magic tricks and nothing else. So I shouldn't compare the two, I just want to make fun of Jessica Biel.:D

THE PRESTIGE 5 stars
Two illusionists (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) who used to be friends and equal participants in performances when they were younger try to steal each other's secrets and outdo each other that it becomes an obssession for both of them. Christian Bale's character is more gifted and Hugh Jackman's is an excellent showman. When HJ's wife accidentally died during a performance, he partially blames CB and begrudges him for being successful and happy with a wife and daughter. Both of them tried to deceive and sabotage each other and you won't know who the real antagonist is until the very end. This is a very intelligent magic/sci-fi movie that is worth watching over and over again. One negative, Scarlett Johansson is out of place in this movie and should have played an American because her accent was plain awful. David Bowie just for being in the movie saves it from getting a four star from me. I will read the book that this movie is based on, THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest.

THE ILLUSIONIST 2 Stars
A gifted magician who performs in Vienna (why Vienna when all the actors are American and British, some low-class people had cockney accents, in Vienna?) reunites with his childhood love and tries to get her back from an evil aristrocrat by using his magic. ZZZZ. Boring. Bad accents from all performers, except Edward Norton who has no accent at all, baffling. Not recommended.

The Departed - Aaargh!

Can someone tell me why this mediocre movie won many awards and why lots of reviewers gave it a 5 star rating? Can someone please explain to me because I just wasted 2 and a half hours of my life watching Leonardo DiCaprio's lousy acting. This remake of the superb Hong Kong movie INFERNAL AFFAIRS is just terrible. Everything about The Departed is contrived, it is not as taut, stylish, smart nor exciting as the original, and what is up with the stupid ending? The writer and the director certainly in my opinion did not get the original's whole concept and had to rewrite the ending to satisfy the American audience, but it does not make sense. And the overuse of the F-word is simply tiring, if not annoying, and did not work effectively in this movie as it did in the hilarious dark comedy MADE (which has the most number of times the F-word was uttered). I know majority of people will disagree with me but it is MY honest opinion: 1 star. No one deserves any awards in this stupid remake.
Now I have to watch any of the movies in our dvd library that has Tony Leung in it to erase this disappointing movie from my memory. Mm, let's see, HERO or DAYS OF BEING WILD? Oh, I know IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. Happy Valentine's Day!:D