Our City Dreams

Recently I've been more open to the idea of documentaries, as long as they don't have that History Channel Narrator in the background talking in that voice that makes me want to kill myself, over and over again.

Filmed over the course of two years, OUR CITY DREAMS is an invitation to visit the creative spaces of five women artists, each of whom possesses her own energy, drive and passion. These women, who span different decades and represent diverse cultures, have one thing in common beyond making art: the city to which they have journeyed and now call home - New York.

Sugar

for many dominicans, baseball is the pathway from poverty to wealth and glory... this movie is an example of a gifted player who gets called up to the american minor leagues and the challenges he faces in a foreign country...

what i understood from the reviews is that this is not a sports movie... baseball is just the backdrop to a bigger story that explores themes like alienation, exploitation, struggleation and determination... as one reviewer put it, this movie is about baseball the same way that 'Million Dollar Baby' is about boxing...
i'm looking forward to watching this film as it seems to provide documentary caliber insight on what latino recruits face in the usa while presenting it in an entertaining movie format...



release date: 3 april 2009 (limited)

Guns, Violence, and Explosions

the following two movies are epic tales of bravery, integrity, and vengeance... and awesome... and vengeance.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird
a remake of the Sergio Leone classic, The Good The Bad, And The Ugly.
release date: 17 july 2008 (South Korea)



Give 'em Hell, Malone
a private detective gives a lot of hell to a lot of people.
release date: 1 april 2009 (USA)



i'll never doubt that action movies are the highest form of cinema and entertainment ever again.

Zozo: a Review

Zozo (2005) is a swedish-lebanese film based on the swedish-lebanese director's experience immigrating to sweden during the lebanese civil war.



considering the setting of the movie, this is obviously a sad film... so watch it alone if you have ever promised yourself you'd never let them see you cry... or you can desensitize yourself beforehand by shooting a bunny rabbit in the face... with a rocket launcher...

thankfully the director does inject some humor into the film... the grandfather is hallaarious every time he opens his mouth and the scenes with Zozo and the baby chick would always leave me wanting more...

SPOILER ALERT. to read text, highlight the space below:

immediately after watching the film, i was not satisfied with the ending... i felt it was very abrupt and that it left a lot of issues unresolved... after a few minutes though i began to think that the point of the film was not the specific struggles that Zozo faced in the movie or to answer the question "what will happen to Zozo?"
instead, the point of the movie for me was to show how Zozo's experience of losing his family and witnessing the horrors of the conflict in his homeland has affected him... specifically how he deals with the conflicts he faces in the present and will face in the future...

two more things i want to say about this movie... one: the events in the movie are seen from the perspective of Zozo who is still only about 10 years old... therefore, you won't learn much about the history of the war... and two: i was really impressed with the production value... a lot of effort has been put into this film and it shows...

so bottom line, i recommend this movie for people who enjoy sad movies and care more for interesting characters and character development than they do for plot...

thanks to danabananana for the recommendation... danabananana also recommends taking prozac and watching a movie like Yes Man immediately afterwards...

Franklyn

I literally 'Stumbled Upon' the trailer of Franklyn couple of months ago and right away it grabbed my attention. I did not blog about it for several reasons; first this blog was not born yet, and secondly I was preoccupied with real life, as some of you might know.

Aaaanyways, Franklyn follows the tales of four characters that somehow intertwine. Ryan Phillippe, who is awesome, plays a masked vigilante (mask looks awesome -check trailer). Also starring Eva Green (Casino Royale), Sam Riley and Bernard Hill (LoTR trilogy).

Oh yeah, its a British movie, which I've always liked.

Medicine for Melancholy

not quite sure what it is that makes me want to watch this movie... maybe it's that one of the stars is Wyatt Cenac, a correspondent on the daily show... and subconsciously i believe that anything remotely related to that show is automatically brilliant...
or maybe cause the movie is set in San Francisco, a city i've recently become infatuated with since there is a possibility that i'm going to work there for a year...
or maybe cause it seems like the movie has an meaningful message that makes you think...
or maybe i'll just stop here and let you decide what you think...

"Medicine for Melancholy is a love story of bikes and one-night stands told through two African-American twenty-somethings dealing with issues of class, identity, and the evolving conundrum of being a minority in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco—a city with the smallest proportional black population of any other major American city."



release date: january 30th, 2009 (limited release)

"The Fall" Review

What “The Fall” promised the viewers with its amazing trailer (shown below) was a one of a kind experience taking you to a fantasy land that you cannot even dream of. What director Tarsem did was just that, he redefined the word cinematography in this movie with the most vibrant colors and the most alive pictures you have ever seen in film. After watching the movie you realize that taking him 4 years to finish it was justified. The movie was shot in 24 locations in 18 different countries (or was it 16?? I’m not sure, but you get the point).

The acting was superb and went hand-in-hand with the out of this world story. I really hope Tarsem gets the recognition he deserves that will give him a chance to create more masterpieces.
Not your everyday flick but still a must see. However, don’t be surrounded by other movie goers who didn’t appreciate art when they see it, they will ruin the movie for you.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

I have been wanting to watch this movie for two years; I actually bought it on DVD and never got around to watching it. At first it looks like your everyday love story, set in 1958, in New York City, between an unhappily married woman, Nicole Kidman and her neighbor from upstairs Robert Downy Jr. , one of Walle3a’s favorite actors.

Add to the story the fact that Robert Downey’s character has the very rare disease hypertrichosis (a.k.a. werewolf syndrome, a disease that causes excessive body hair) without giving anymore, I give you the trailer. We will hopefully write a review about it once we get around to seeing it.

Jackie Chan

i miss the old Jackie Chan movies. drunken master II, rumble in the bronx, first strike, etc. i miss the comedy, the crazy stunts, the nonstop action, and the bloopers real at the end. a Jackie Chan movie was a feel good package (TWSS) that was guaranteed every year.

but now Jackie is 54 years old and he can't abuse his body as much as he used to so the style of his movies has changed considerably. all good things come to an end i guess but hopefully newer better things take its place.

i hope his latest film, Shinjuku Incident, does just that. the movie is a crime drama that steers clear from the typical Jackie Chan comedy/action genre. Jackie plays an illegal Chinese immigrant in 1990s-era japan. he gets involved with the local yakuza and is forced to commit crimes against his conscience in order to survive.



official website: shinjukuincident
release date April 2009 (Hong Kong)

what else has Jackie been up to? why looking for a disciple of course. apparently he's found one too.

Coraline

even though it'll be a while before i get to see it, i'm still very excited about the release of Coraline in theaters tomorrow. the stop-motion animation is based on the children's book by Neil Gaiman and is directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas).

Fighting Spirit

Fighting Spirit (aka Hajime no Ippo) the boxing manga returned to television this month in a new anime series.

the original 76 episode boxing anime (released in 2000 through 2002) tells the story of Ippo Makunouchi. a shy high school student who helps his mom with the family fishing business and gets frequently picked on by a group of bullies. Ippo joins a boxing gym and becomes awesome. i know i got lazy with that last sentence but does it really matter? the new series will pick up where the previous one left off.

two Fighting Spirit movies were released as well. the following clip is a recap of the last round of the fight between Sendo Takeshi and Makunouchi Ippo from the movie 'Hajime no Ippo: Champion Road'
WARNING: the level of awesome found in this video may be too much for sensitive viewers. do not view if you have heart disease, high blood pressure, malaria, typhoid fever, or difficult urinations due to an enlarged prostate gland.

House of Saddam

House of Saddam is a four part HBO/BBC miniseries depicting the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein.
released in 2008.
official site: houseofsaddam