holiday movie review - golden compass, national treasure, legend, warlords, trivial matters

merry xmas to the alivenotdead community!! and i think a real big hand goes to the AnD team. so very impressive what has been accomplished in less than a year. congrats to rottendoubt, swang, etchy, boon, terence, and many others behind the scenes who i may not have met!!

so i've watched 5 holi movies, and thought i'd give my $0.02 and a few sentences... i'm not very good at writing reviews at all. etchy is the master.

Warlords . this one i personally enjoyed a lot. nothing like dirty grown men beating the crap out of each other. (my all time fav movie is fight club, and i wrestled in high school. i guess there may be some kind of connection. but those who have met me will tell you i'm a really nice and peaceful guy in real life). but i think peter chan really was able to do a great gritty movie and get performances out of these actors without it being contrived. which i think is really really hard.

I am Legend . nah, not my thing. yes, i get it, will smith is stuck in no man's land and we're supposed to feel his solitude. just way too many silent long takes. yes, i get the point, but it gets really annoying when all i hear is the times square air conditioning. and the plot is just overly simple. the last bit of religious part was a tad weird for me too. all that being said, there was suspense and i did get scared a couple times.

Trivial Matters. i am really happy pang ho cheung is back to more "traditional" comedy. his previous "Exodus" 出埃及記 was just a bit too arty. the eason chan, stephy-gillian-juno, and chapman to stories i really liked. i probably liked the stephy-gillian-juno one the most. we need more good comedies in HK!

National Treasure. bleh. not sure how this got to be #1 in the US box office. well, that may be because i've forgotten all my american history from high school... but this is just a re-hash of the first one in a different setting. obscure clues that nicolas cage just figures out since he is a walking wikipedia, chase scenes and precarious situations, token bad guy to create suspense, etc. i guess you can see i'm really excited about the movie.

Golden Compass. Let me put a big fat disclaimer that my company is distributing this title so I'm biased. but this is really an enjoyable film. beautiful sets, polar bears beating the crap out of each other, nicole kidman is still gorgeous, engaging story, oh, and bloodless violence for family and kids too. go see it!!

just so my blog isn't too boring, here's a wintery pic. happy holidays everyone!