The Simpsons rocks

Old school toons rulez!!!

I couldn’t stop laughing in the cinema yesterday, sorry Shirley. Its a hilarious movie, exceeding my expectations in just about every way. You have to be familiar with life in the US midwest and American partisan politics to catch all the jokes but even if you’re not, its still worth every cent.

The movie itself is a social commentary about traditional American values – family, church, the environment, the government, and business. There are deeper layers to appreciate like the love between a son and his father, a husband and his wife, a man and his pig. All in all it gives it a meaning that’s hard to find in other toon movies.

The patently funny moments I find hard to forget are Bart skateboarding thru town naked, Moe losing his bar, the Inuit boob lady, and of course my favorite, SPIDER PIG. Who says imbeciles don’t have a life.

A warning though. If you queued up for tickets expecting to see state-of-the-art eye candy, you’ll regret it. This is no Pixar or Disney production and purposely too I understand. You won’t find the crisp-clean smooth flowing images that you see in Shrek, The Incredibles or Ratatouille. That’s because the entire show is hand drawn, produced the old fashioned way.

But the movie more than makes up for it by encouraging the audience to engage in life’s challenges (like relationships) rather than escape from it, and presenting in a way that makes it real, complete with imperfections and silly people. Better that than having an indestructable mouse or ogre teach you the finer values in life don’t you think?

I absolutely love the movie and I think everybody should watch it.

4.9 out of 5.

(I would have given it a 5/5 if I knew what happened to SPIDER PIG).

Movies I want to see

The Simpsons have a movie.

Not fair. I want movies for these other favorite toons of mine too.

Hooray for my hero Spongebob!

Wait a minute that’s not Spongebob?!

Movie Review: Die Hard 4.0

Geeks will rule the world!! That’s Die Hard 4.0’s message and you know what? I agree!

Consider this. We’re all served by the Grid. Everything from financial transactions to power generation to telephone systems are managed by computers that are connected together by networks. Take control of the Grid and you take control of the world. In theory at least.

You can already guess how tech geeks fit into the story. A bunch of them pushes America to the brink of armageddon with a “Fire sale” cyber attack, nuking the infrastructure of the entire county with a bunch of computers. Enter wacky John McClane (Bruce Willis) to save the day with the help of hunted hacker Matt Farrell.

While DH4 is just a movie, the message is real – its pointless to spend all your money guarding the front door when you ignore the back door. If you think that’s far-fetched, CNN ran a story last week about terrorists using satellites networks and the Internet to do their work so I wouldn’t underestimate what people can do online.

DH4’s fast-paced action scenes will not disappoint. You got huge trailer trucks that do wheelies, cars that kill helicopters and the way-cool F-35, a warplane that’s supposedly not in service yet. We also learn that the powerful FBI is so poor they can only afford Huey helicopters from the Vietnam war to ferry SWAT teams and what looked like AS-350’s (television news choppers) as attack helicopters. Guess all the Blackhawks and Apaches are busy in the gulf.

Sure, McClane’s indestructible but he’s not the first and the last hero in moviedom to have buns of steel so deal with it. Regardless I think he’s hilarious and this sequel rocks. My recommendation? Go see it!

4 out of 5.

Lord Voldemort looks like a turtle.

And I bet I know what show he’ll be appearing in soon.

Speaking of which, if you could be an animal, what would you be? Something big and strong? Small and cute? Or smart and resourceful?

My number 1 choice would be an eagle. Well, maybe a vegetarian eagle cuz I don’t like killing. I like the thought of being able to fly where I want to when I want to. I like the sharp eyesight to be able to see things coming. And I’ve got great weapons – my sharp beak and talons to kick some serious ass.

But I like the freedom part mostly which sort of explains the frequent flyer miles I’ve earned since 3 years ago. There’s only one continent I’ve yet to travel to – South America. I hope to some day.

But maybe my choice of an eagle is also indicative of something else. Unlike pigeons, eagles are not terribly social, except for a few good friends. They are territorial, maybe part of the struggle to be on top of the food chain. I think they’re loyal creatures too, I don’t know, but they have a certain proud and tough look about them like the American bald eagle, my favorite eagle species.

What about you, what animal would you be?

Movie review: Harry Potter, Order of the Phoenix

I managed to catch Harry Potter’s latest installation Order of the Phoenix with some friends after finishing off my errands early this afternoon.

I found this episode to be a little different than the previous ones. You would have heard about the main cast – Harry, Her Hiney Hermione and Ron – growing up. Harry’s no longer the innocent bungling-but-lucky boy he used to be. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t stopped bungling. He’s just taken on the new aura of a rebel pushed to the edge by confusion, frustration of a smear campaign and painful memories. Trust Harry to always be the most clueless of the lot.

The story starts off in a surprising setting – in modern London complete with highway traffic, grafitti and skyscrapers before it predictably went underground to the usual Gotham-like hamlet. In the past the most modern thing you could find in a Harry Potter movie was a 1965 Ford Anglia or a WWII-era double decker bus. Not this time.

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Potter movies is the scenes of the old train station and especially the ride to Hogwarts. I was a model train freak in case you wondered where the connection was but I’m disappointed this time. They rushed thru those scenes in hardly 2 minutes. Damn.

In Hogwarts be prepared to see Dumbledore, Hagrid and the gang get their asses kicked by Dolores Umbridge, the evil pink lady sent by the Ministry of Magic to tame Hogwarts. I was surprised to see Gary Oldman in the movie, the guy who played chief baddie in the movie Air Force One. How the hell did he get on this show? Seeing him try to speak like an Englishman was funny. Depp’s better, lots better.

For a story that I thought would climax in a titanic clash between Potter and evil numero uno Lord Voldemort, there was actually very little contact between the two save a rather lame 5 minute fight scene near the end. That was when it dawned on me that this is actually a story of Potter’s struggle with himself (yawn) and the formation of Dumbledore’s Army. A tip-off for what’s coming in the next installation The Half Blood Prince (Nov 2008)? Maybe, maybe not.

Yes, Potter did kiss but I’d hardly call that a climax. Everyone’s performance was lukewarm including Voldemort’s. The ending was most unmemorable. There was no huge sigh of relief, no feel-good cheer characteristic of other Potter flicks. In the end I think Dolores the evil pink lady saved the movie. Remove her and you’d be left with no one to hate, no one to get even with, nothing to make things exciting. Even Lord Voldemort couldn’t muster enough suspense to command that respect. That’s was how pathetic it was.

2.5 out of 5.

Transformers sighting

The real thing.

Movie Review: Transformers

Warning: No spoilers ahead. If you are a die-hard Transformers fan you might want to skip this review.

I did it. Went to see the movie last night, with Shirley as usual. We queued up for tickets at GSC 1U an hour before the show and lucked out – got seats like 5 rows from the back. Hurray for booking cancellations.

Anyway on to the movie. Storyline? What storyline? Its the usual good guy-bad guy bash-o-rama. Autobots versus the Decepticons for this little cube thingy.

It started ok but they lost me about halfway into the show. That’s when the top-secret but idiotic Sector 7 people came into the picture and everything rolled downhill in a non-stop blur of moving metal, screaming, gunshots, explosions and loud rock music in the background. Now imagine a solid hour of that.

Maybe I’m lost on the more subtle nuances of the characters since I never saw the Transformers anime on TV nor had a Tranformers toy but if you ask me, I’ll probably remember the show for these few things:

1. Sam Witwicky, the main kid in the story, has a standard line. He goes “No no no no no no no no no no no…” like a machine gun everytime something goes wrong and he repeats it like a hundred times in the show. Ok not a hundred, maybe 20 times. He deserves a tight slap.

2. The same idiot who, when Bumblebee’s legs got torn off his body after a building came down on it, bent down to ask him, “Are you ok?” Duh!

3. Everyone’s faces are covered with a layer of sweat and oil from the beginning till the end of the show. Even when they’re in bed.

4. Tough talking robots that whimper like dogs when they get their asses kicked. So cheap.

5. There’s this very irritating character, a tiny Decepticon robot whose specialty is to hack into computer systems. His character is a mixture of Jar Jar Binks (ugh), the tiny mechanical 2-legged helper robots in Star Wars Episode 1, and the Gremlins. Spielberg couldn’t resist putting in a tiny voiceover yammering away non-stop in every scene it appears. Hello… which retard unleashes a noisy spy robot on a stealth mission when it can’t stop talking to itself? Are the Decepticons really that dumb?

6. You can cram an object the size of a 10 story building into a package the size of a sports car, with room to sit inside some more. Amazing.

Alhough there’s literally tons of impressive eye candy, I find the whole story rather lame.

2 out of 5.

(Shirl was more generous. She gave it 4 out of 5).

Spiderman 3: My Review

[Don't worry no spoliers ahead]

Cross Spiderman 1 & 2, Mask and the Powerpuff Girls and what do you get? Yep, Spiderman 3.

For a Saturday night, the GSC at 1 Utama wasn’t packed as it normally would be and I had no trouble smuggling something into the cinema. Not a video camera obviously but a can of Pringles potato chips since there was nothing at the popcorn stand that could last me through the 2.5 hr show. Shirley carried the drinks.

The movie started with a few flashbacks to serve as useful reminders as to why the story developed the way it did. As far as the action scenes went, there was nothing new. Its the same old swinging around and bashing people up.

But if you can see beyond simply action, you’ll find where the gem truly is. I only realized about an hour into the show that a message slowly was sinking in – that while its easy to get mad and destroy the things we hate, forgiving ourselves and our enemies is a tougher yet more noble way of solving conflict. For me the story unravelled itself as one about friendship, betrayal, anger and forgiveness and ultimately about how to get peace.

The fact that a movie like this had a message at all made it superior to the 1st and 2nd installation of Spiderman. And for that I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.

So why do I compare it to the movie Mask? Well, when Peter Parker was under the control of the alien black thing, his persona took on dark side. He then got aggressive and started kacau-ing the girls, danced on countertops and generally made an ass of himself on the streets of NYC. That was a mirror of Jim Carey’s trademark character in the Mask.

And the Powerpuff Girls? Well, look at how Spiderman and Green Goblin Jr tried to take on the gigantic Sandman, then look at how Blossom & Buttercup try to take out a monster attacking Townsville. Then you’ll see what I mean.

But that doesn’t change my view that this is one of the better Spiderman installments so far. My recommendation: go watch it.

Would you go to the movies alone?

I would and I have, and some of my friends think that’s being a loser.

But I think I know why. Its all to do with the reason why we go out.

When I do go out alone (and that’s not very often), I have a clear mission and my mind is focused on that. It may to buy a remote controlled car, a CD, or a movie. Bumping into a friend is a bonus.

But my friends are different. They’re the type that would only play their video games when their friends are around. Going out is not just to see but to be seen. Its a social experience.

Well to me its not good or bad, just different. I may be a loser to them but I don’t see them as losers. Only afraid of their own company.

Superheroes

I don’t know if anyone noticed but there seems to be a rash of superhero shows of late. What started off as a trickle about 20 years ago with early versions of Superman and Batman has steadily grown with latter-day versions of X-Men, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider and Heroes the tv series.

Personally I can’t wait for a real life movie of the Powerpuff Girls. I’m curious to see who will play my favorite hero – Mojo Jojo.

Some say comic-book superheroes first appeared at a time when the world suffered great conflict – world wars and dreadful crime rates – to fulfill a need. People were feeling lousy about life because the good could not defeat the bad. That was the time when the cities were controlled by the mob and people from strange foreign lands were killing their servicemen. The constant bad news was more than they could bear.

Because you couldn’t simply go out and buy hallucinogenic drugs like today, minds took off on their own and began to fantasize. Some of the more talented took a step further to literally draw out their fantasies, what became feel-good artwork portraying how villains were taken down by righteous people who wore their underwear outside and had out-of-this-world powers. These unusual men and women would set the wrongs right again. They will save the day.

The symbol must have been so appealing that people just ate it up. As a superhero all you needed was a strong righteous identity. Mystery was a big thing then so any uniform will do as long as you had a mask and cape. Oh you also need a dark origin, a notorious villain, incredible powers and a storyline and you’d have a hit. I’ve lost count of how many superheroes there must have been from Hulk to Captain America, their special powers as varied as the uniforms they wore. You could never run out of comics in the 40’s -50’s.

Well 50 years later the superheroes are still alive and well, outliving four generations of Star Trek captains. They are upgraded to include issues of the day of course. TV series Heroes for example makes mention of global warming and terrorism. Nice touch.

Superheroes will rule the world because people know conventional weapons don’t work against the bad guys. We need mind readers, laser-shooting eyes, indestructable bodies, hands that turn water to ice, people who can fly in the air. Even James Bond will die off because he is not super enough.

Malaysians are not spared – we also need superheroes to make life bearable. So will Cicakman save Malaysia? I dunno but I’m betting we’ll be seeing a few more in days to come.