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You may sue me. I am a Robert Pattinson fan. As such, I decided to woman up and accept that his status as current "Hollywood IT Guy" will inevitably pair him with various actresses and he might never star in a film with Kristen Stewart again. (I'm guilty of still not having watched Remember Me though. BUT I *DID* sponsor tickets. So I *DID* contribute to sales! There!) Anyway, that's why I looked forward to Water for Elephants. Weeeelll, also because I like Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz is my new idol villain. I like it. I partially read the book before watching, so I went in the theater with an idea of how the story would be like. (Yes, and I skipped to the end! Guilty.) The backdrop of the movie was the 1930s, when traveling circuses were popular in the U.S. The set production was beautiful. The costumes, the lighting, makeup. It was a wonderful representation of the time period. I have no clue as to how accurate it was, but I definitely felt the fantasy of ...

I did actually go through quite a few movies since my last movie entry. I'll try to catch up. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides I loved the first three films so much (both Paul and I favor the second more), that it was just obvious we'd be so in for this. Who wants to miss out on Johnny Depp as the incomparable Jack... I mean, CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, yeah? And as always he brings it brilliantly. Everyone, in fact, was actually quite amazing. I did think there were some pitfalls. One of the things I adored about the first three films was the dialogue, those snappy comebacks and witty one-liners that even made the lowliest of the supporting characters pop. In Tides, Jack had them, yes, but they were sparsely present. I was laughing and then stopping and then laughing... and I was just expecting it to be more consistent? And the story... I felt like it took them SO LONG to get to the fountain, that when they did, it was deflating. The entire time, I wanted them to just ...

I have fond memories of The Chipmunk Adventure movie when I was a kid, so I was eager to see how they would bring in the Chipettes. They were cute. Part of the draw to this film was also Charice's appearance in the talent show. (I think it's a psychological need to be interested in something that involves Filipino fame and talent. We're a small, so-called third world country, and therefore, quite insecure. We look for pride and significance in the little things.) She felt kind of out-of-place in that movie. But that's just me. Anyway, story was pretty predictable by the time the bad guy (who was also the bad guy from the first movie) popped up. Had to fast forward a couple of times, mainly to see where Charice came in. I'm now missing the Chipmunk movie. Plot was original, all the songs were fresh and fit the standard Chipmunk voice without being annoying. It was very entertaining. (Plus, cartoon Dave was cute! Like a mature, high-strung, regular guy, non-...

A movie I caught on HBO, about a newly-moved fourth grader who starts at a new school and gets bullied by a group of mini-"Mean Girls" in her class. Two of whom are blonde. One is Indian. Guess which one grows a conscience later on in the movie. I didn't watch this thoroughly the first time. Personally, I don't like movies that humiliate the lead characters. It stresses me out, emotionally, so I tend to avoid them. Paul finished watching it though, and he told me how the happy ending eventually came about. So when I switched to HBO a few days later and saw it on, I decided to stick around. I won't talk so much about the movie anymore as I think most of the production values are moot for its type of film. It's a, I'm assuming, made-for-TV family drama. The point isn't how good it is, but how well it delivers its "moral lesson". In this case, the story was about being strong against bullying. I grew up watching American shows, and bullying has ...

Before I start with describing how the movie was, two things. First, this movie was part of our usual Saturday night movie dates. I thought we were going to watch Limitless, the one with Bradley Cooper. I found out about the change the day of, wondering, "What?" because I've never heard of the movie before. Never saw the trailer. Saw the poster when we arrived in Greenbelt, which made me raise my eyebrows. "Why are we watching this? There's Hop on cinema 5 and Source Code on cinema 2 if Limitless wasn't available." But really, my reaction was because of the poster. You know how I tend to prejudge movies by their trailers? I do that, too, on a lesser scale, but with their posters. (I'm a preconceived-notion-bitch. But I'm open-minded. Eventually. I guess that should be contradictory somehow.) Which brings me to the second thing: That poster. I googled that pic for this blog post and imagine my surprise. You see, the one that hung in the theater ad...

Noticed lately how a lot of people seem to be conflicted over Sucker Punch. My two cents... It is visually stunning. The special effects are great, the action scenes are almost flawless. It's complete fantasy. I remember thinking that some of the scenes reminded me of japanese anime or games. There was that aura thingie that surrounded Baby Doll during the fight with the huge samurai that just screamed "Rurouni Kenshin" (particularly his "Ama kakeru ryu no hirameki"... I just really wanted to say that.) Then Rocket's slow motion move while they were on the train felt like something out of Final Fantasy. I seem to recall seeing the exact same move in one of the FMVs. Storywise, I guess it was ok? The plot was simple enough, but I think the movie worked because it wasn't too convoluted. Basically, a girl, to escape the tragic events that have unfolded in her life, escapes into her mind and deals with her real life demons in fantasy. So instead of us watchi...

  One of the first things my husband said when the movie started was, "Jho should really watch this." Rango is the story of a lizard. Well, he's a chameleon, but the point is, he's a lizard. Incidentally, my sister hates lizards. I could probably go on and on sharing anecdotes about all the times she freaked out regarding anything lizard-related--I think our uncle is to be blamed for the trauma--but we'd be diverging too much from what this post is supposed to be about, which is the movie. Anyway, so, Rango is the story of a lizard. Set like a Mexican Western. And voiced by the incomparable Johnny Depp. I heard it was number one in the U.S. Also, our theater was full when we watched. Who KNEW that even looking nothing like himself, and as a scaly, icky, uncool reptile no less, people would STILL flock to watch Johnny. That's real stardom right there folks. I certainly didn't think I'd watch it. Even if it IS Johnny. Going back to my history of judging ...

Never heard of it? Here's a brief history of how we got this movie... My husband, Paul, and I, one day decided that we should collect disaster movies. And not just any disaster movie. We would collect "End of the World" [insert ominous BGM here] movies. So we made a list of the popular ones we've watched so far and bought their original DVDs. While we were in Astrovision, Paul saw these "other" titles, which, very obviously, went straight to DVD. I said, well, why not? It wouldn't be a collection if we were choosy, right? So we bought them. Then last night, I said, "Baby, let's watch one." Ho boy. Did I regret saying that. --- I should have known things would just go downhill when we popped the movie into the DVD player and were treated with trailers of movies like, "Alien VS. Hunter" (a movie that was like Aliens VS. Predator) and "Monster" (a weird mashup of Cloverfield and Godzilla). Needless to say, Paul couldn'...

The things you succumb to because of Twitter. I found out about this from Targrod, a Huff (lol, like David Hasslehuff... *coughcouldn'tresistcough* moving on...) and fellow PHP'er. The challenge is to watch and then document 500 films you've watched since accepting the challenge. More details can be found if you click on the image above. Admittedly, I'm not a major film buff. I'm actually selective with the movies I watch. But, that changed with the presence of my husband, Paul. Where I used to skip meals because of my reading--telling my mom, "I eat books."--he apparently would eat movies. I think if you tell him that if he could have one channel his entire life, he would choose HBO. (Or, *shudders* CinemaOne.) When we stayed in the condo and I decided not to apply for cable TV, we would buy DVDs almost everyday. Plus, our friends have developed a Saturday night habit of hanging out every week to watch a last full show at Greenbelt 3. (If you've ever ...