Ip Man

Ip Man
The blurb: A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the successful martial arts master who taught the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun to the world.
My rating: 4/5
Tagged: action, biography, drama
Date I watched this movie 03/04/2016

What did I think?I really wasn’t sure what I was going to think about this. Martial Arts movies, although I do karate, have never really appealed to me, but I agreed to let Faisal pick a movie and this is what he chose!

I will still say that this is definitely a slow starter, you have to wait a bit before you really get into it and you have to overlook the bad acting at the beginning. Once the movie kicks in, literally, then you really begin to appreciate it.

I think it tells a decent story of the life of Ip Man and the occupation of China by the Japanese at that time. Obviously I’m not sure how true to real life the movie is because I’m not familiar with the time period but it does add background to the character of Ip Man, so the movie wasn’t just about kicking ass and taking names.

As far as the fighting scenes are concerned, Donnie Yen does do his art justice. I just loved the way the story make him seem invincible and you root for him when he fights the baddie who beats all the other masters.

Surprisingly good and I’m actually looking forward to seeing the rest of the series

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
The blurb: When their relationship turns sour, a couple undergoes a procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.
My rating: 4/5
Tagged: drama, romance, science-fiction
Date I watched this movie 21/02/2016

What did I think?I watched this movie with my dad and Jimmy – my Dad’s a big Jim Carrey film and I’d never heard of this movie until now.

The movie basically tells the story of Joel and Clementine, they had a relationship that did not end well, luckily for both, there is a doctor who offers an alternative to suffering from heart breaking: erase all the memories related to a person. While the premise sounds a little too weird, it establishes a very interesting possibility, what if you could do this? It makes you think about it for a while; yes, we do all have memories we would wish to go away, but would we do it? Is it better to forget than to face and learn from the experience? The `memory deleting’ situation is definitely one of the best moments of the film.

And it is because in Joel’s `memory deleting’ process (which takes the most part of the film), we get to see all their memories together… tender moments that make you realize what a wonderful relationship they had. It is in this moment in which Joel faces that he may not want to delete Clementine from his head. There are other subplots related to the characters who do the `memory deleting’ which are ok but do not add anything of value to the central story of Joel and Clementine.

While it has some funny moments the movie is not a comedy, actually Carrey’s acting is superb in his character of quiet and indecisive Joel, Kate Winslet performs great as supporting Clementine in Joel’s brain while his memories are being deleted.

Do not be fooled by the premise of the film, it is a very serious movie about relationships and what we learn from them.

Carrie (2013)

Carrie (2013)
The blurb: A reimagining of the classic horror tale about Carrie White, a shy girl outcast by her peers and sheltered by her deeply religious mother, who unleashes telekinetic terror on her small town after being pushed too far at her senior prom.
My rating: 3/5
Tagged: drama, horror
Date I watched this movie 14/02/2016

What did I think?Carrie White is regarded as a loser, a loner, a social outcast. She is the daughter of an obsessively religious & overbearing mother. She also possesses the ability of telekinesis, and when Carrie gets upset or angry things around her tend to break, smash or get damaged, so when some vicious school bullies cross the line with their “fun”, Carrie can’t help but get a little angry. This causes Carrie to unleash her full fury at anyone who gets in her way.

Filmmakers can obviously achieve a certain level of effects now that they couldn’t way back in 1976, and there are some pretty impressive effects here. It’s not an effects-laden extravaganza and quite rightly it shouldn’t be as Carrie is story-pushed and not effects-pushed, but some of the effects in the movie are well done and pretty cool to watch.

Chloë Grace Moretz does a really good job of playing Carrie bringing her own believability to the character, and Julianne Moore performs equally as good as Margaret White, Carrie’s mother. The members who played the bullies – especially Portia Doubleday as Chris Hargensen – were also believable in their parts, and when it came to their time I had absolutely no sympathy. I cheered inside when they really got what they deserved.

Beastly

Beastly
The blurb: A modern-day take on the “Beauty and the Beast” tale where a New York teen is transformed into a hideous monster in order to find true love.
My rating: 3.5/5
Tagged: drama, fantasy, romance
Date I watched this movie 07/02/2016

What did I think?So this movie received mostly bad reviews, but who were these reviews written by? Adults. Who is this movie aimed at? Teens. So it’s not wonder it was so critically received, and let’s be honest, most teen movies are, but if all the reviews are written by adults, is this really fair? Yes, usually the standard of acting is not as good, and the plot lines are either cheesy or predictable (or both), but the people who it is aimed at are young people who will watch just about anything for a laugh and won’t read into the deeper meaning of things. I don’t think that these reviews are fair, and the same goes for this movie.

Beastly is a modern retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and is a film adaption of the book written by Alex Finn. Now with two pieces that are distinctly Disney playing major roles in this movie (‘BATB’ and Vanessa Hudgens), I was concerned that perhaps this movie would appear too… well.. Disney.

This movie will definitely appeal to teenage girls who like cute, romance movies, probably not so much to boys or adults. So, being as it’s a modern adaption of Beauty and the Beast, everybody should know how the story’s going to go… give or take an arrogant, loaded, bastard, and a drug-abusers daughter… So I guess the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ doesn’t really fit into the modern world, but who cares? It’s a movie. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. So apparently the acting wasn’t too good, but personally, I didn’t really notice this. I thought that this was a good movie, with an important moral message, that is important is this day and age: look aren’t everything. By retelling this Disney classic that everybody knows the story of in modern times could help us to relate to it and to release the message behind the story.

Room

Room
The blurb:
After five-year-old Jack and his mother escape from the enclosed surroundings that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a thrilling discovery.

My rating: 4/5
Tagged: drama
Date I watched this movie 29/01/2016

What did I think?I found “Room” to be a wonderful movie. It’s the typical story of the teenager who gets kidnapped on the way home from school and spends years locked in a room by her captor. During those years she gets pregnant of her captor and gives birth to a child that becomes her reason to survive. Up to this point it’s a story that has already been told a million times, but, here comes the spark of this movie, this one is told from the child’s (born in captivity) point of view.

From the first scene on, the director takes us on trip inside this little 5 year old kid. How he structures his word, his conception of what the word is, and isn’t. What is real, what is imagination, what is TV, and so. On the side we see an extremely strong Mom who somehow managed to make of that terrible reality a happy one for her child.

And then they finally get out and the movie starts… A wonderful movie indeed. I strongly recommend this movie to all psychology students or those who are interested in such topics. An already told story from a whole different point of view. Totally worth watching!