Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, and more ...
Director: Peter Jackson
Genre: Action and Adventure
an absolutely stunning movie from start to finish. peter jackson has outdone himself again! the only think i did not like about this movie is that it is the last one. where i knew there would be quality for the last two years, i have nothing to look forward to next year, save the extended edition of course. do not miss out on this incredible conclusion. i for one will have to see it again to take everything in again, in fact, i made a vow to watch it till i can't take them anymore.. hehhe. it is definitely a visually overwhelming masterpiece!
the amazing thing about the lord of the rings films isn't merely the impressive accomplishment of turning three huge, well-loved books into three films, it's how stunningly great the end result is. with return of the king, peter jackson, his cast and his crew provide an amazing final chapter for one of our time's most operatic, pure cinematic wonders. they've brilliantly combined emotional storytelling and fantastic visions for an unprecedented triumph of modern moviemaking. for all the wizardry and dwarves and wraiths and elves, these films are heartfelt and human, with an iron-strong core of feeling to give a firm foundation to all the fantasy.
peel away the computer-generated war elephants and jaw-dropping battle scenes, and return of the king's plot is simple... a group of people do everything they can to prevent the end of the world. as frodo (elijah wood) and sam (sean astin) take the all-powerful magic "one ring" to the enemy's territory to destroy it in the volcanic fires from which it was forged, aragorn (the oh-so-sexy and beautiful viggo mortensen) and his companions stand against the armies of the all-destroying sauron. each group is trying desperately to buy time for the other. …
the set-up (characters, plot, players and stakes) was well established in the trilogy's earlier films, so return of the king is essentially a three-and-a-half-hour big finish. and a hell of a finish it is, filled with the breathtaking visual wonder that's made this series so impressive and the careful nuances in jackson, fran walsh and philippa boyen's screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels that have grown more and more impressive with each film.
without spoiling the story, i find that many supporting characters in the earlier films became surprisingly strong in this last film. i think that's what this trilogy is so good, you can't figure out exactly who is the main character cuz everyone has its big moment. frodo was the center of the attention in the fellowship of the ring, then legolas & aragorn became the hero in the two towers, but in the third one.. it's surprisingly different, although the other previous main characters still shines. most emotionally engaging is sam's part in the task as he gives all and never fails to help his friend frodo and sean astin sells that painful burden to us without a moment of doubt. the other tag-along hobbits, pippin & merry also shine, especially pippin. there are many funny scenes from this "say the wrong thing and happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time" hobbit. peter jackson doesn't gloss over character and personality to get to the spectacles and wonders that a filmmaker like george lucas would sell us as "the good stuff." to jackson, this is the good stuff, and it's very good indeed.
it may feel as if the return of the king is overstuffed with endings, but if you average out the encores over the running time of the entire trilogy, you realize that it's just about right. it may goes on at "the shire" but i think jackson was trying to give way to the next sequel he's working on, appropriately titled "the hobbit". the return of the king isn't just a triumph of fantasy filmmaking.. it's a triumph of filmmaking, period! the perfect finale to a saga that stands as a rich, resonant wonder that impresses right now and, more impressively, will endure as one of moviemaking's true achievements.
quotes? well i won't tell the situation so it won't spoil the movie.. i guess you just have to look for it when you watch it, if in fact you want to read the quotes below...
#1
gimli (mr. dwarf): a certainty of death, small chance of success... so what are we waiting for?
#2
nazgul*: fools! no man can kill me! now.. die! eowyn (maiden of rohan): i am no man
* also known as "ringwraiths" or "black riders". there are nine of them, they wear black hooded cloaks and travel on horseback, sometimes on a flying dragon. they are sauron's messengers.
#3
gimli: i guess this is how it ends. i can't believe i'm gonna die side by side to an elf legolas: how about side by side to a friend? gimli: i can do that
>> rated by :: sLesTa | [
]
>> STUCK ON YOU
Starring: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Cher, Merryl Street, and more ...
Director: The Farrelly Brothers
Genre: Comedy
bob (matt damon) and walt (greg kinnear) are joined at the hip ... literally. as conjoined twins (they prefer this term than siamese), they happily do everything together, even though they're different in every way. bob's a jock, and walt's a show-off. bob's shy with the ladies, while walt gets them in bed in minutes. when walt gets a chance at fame and fortune in hollywood, bob's right by his side, for better or worse.
the farrely brothers do it again. a comedy with none of the gross-out humor in some of their other films, they continue to show people with handicaps in a positive light without trying to embarass the characters or the audience. matt damon and greg kinear do a very good job as conjoined twins, and although they only share nine inches worth of real estate at the hip, the characters are portrayed as exceptional teamates, including some preposterous situations in team sports (they would still count as two players, right?), working in a kitchen (nine burgers in under three minutes?) and separate and unequal sex lives (a flimsy curtain doesn’t provide much privacy). meryl streep has one of the best natured cameos, cher pokes some fun at her diva image and there are no evil villains to be vanquished.
this is an amiable little comedy that really showcases the talents of its stars. this is no "dumb and dumber", this is smart and in a way touching! however, the subtle comedy scenes makes us think that the farrelly boys may be losing their touch! stuck on you, while somewhat entertaining and more than a little touching, is even less of a farrelly brothers movie than shallow hal was. sure, you've got the usual story of the main characters leaving the north east (in this case, martha's vineyard instead of rhode island) for seemingly greener pastures, and you've got your song-a-minute farrelly brothers soundtrack, which really adds nothing to this movie, but there are no gross-out gags whatsoever. that's fine, no one said a movie had to be nauseatingly revolting to be funny, but unfortunately, there are also no jokes that will make you collapse off your chair, clutching your sides, begging for a respite from a laughing fit that won't seem to stop.
well, i'm not saying that the movie has to be over-the-wall funny. i mean it is a good movie with good message. it's more of a drama with a subtle hint of comedy in it. but my point was that the farrellys made their mark in hollywood with "dumb & dumber", a movie that would not have been half as funny as it was without jim carrey's goofy antics. "kingpin" was a gross-out based disappointment, but then they came back with their second best effort, "there's something about mary", a secretion-filled laughfest that somehow managed to snag the female portion of the movie-going world almost as effectively as james cameron did with "titanic" (well, maybe not!). "shallow hal" was the first step in a maturing process for the boys, offering a sentimental, yet warped love story. but "shallow hal" beats out "stuck on you" because, while the jokes don't exactly flow like wine, at least the characters were funny unto themselves. "stuck on you" offers no one interesting other than greg kinnear's and matt damon's jolly siamese twins (oops, i mean "conjoined"). the other characters are as dull as out-of-costume power rangers (note:one of these co-stars IS an honest-to-goodness power ranger!): eva mendes plays a buxom, dimwitted neighbour whose only funny lines come from a few rare display of ignorance, cher plays herself as a real snooch, but not to the extent she should have for pure comedic value, and matt damon's romantic co-star, the beautiful (?) mighty morphin wen yann shih, is about as good an actress as one could expect from someone whose greatest claim to fame so far was a role in a children's action movie; she goes through the film with her eyes on the floor, trying to look timid and shy with her mouth wide open half the time. couldn't they have found lucy liu or someone else?
rhe rest of the cast is your usual assortment of wacky supporters, about half of whom look to be handicapped in some way or another in real life, a commendable farrelly trademark, but a little overdone here. it's at the point now where it looks like they are running a charity for handicapable actors and extras. while the story is a definite original and does raise some interesting points regarding conjoined twins, the movie just isn't THAT funny. i never once found that I couldn't stop myself from laughing. there were absolutely no scenes that caused the audience to break out into such riotous laughter as to cause me to miss the next 30 seconds of dialogue (see there's something about mary's "hair gel") and every joke about the conjoinedness of our two leads that could have been truly funny is delivered with the intention to make us boo the person making the joke instead of truly laughing at the comment. nope, it's sad to say that the farrellys are losing what made them great: their genuine sense of tastelessness and politically incorrect humour.
while the story is a smart yet, touchy light drama, unfortunately, it fails as a comedy movie.
>> rated by :: sLesTa | [
]
>> THE LAST SAMURAI
Starring: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connoly and more...
Director: Edward Zwick
Genre: Drama, Action & Adventure
"the last samurai" is about two warriors whose cultures make them aliens, but whose values make them comrades. the battle scenes are stirring and elegantly mounted, but they are less about who wins than about what can be proven by dying. beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic. Iis power is compromised only by an ending that sheepishly backs away from what the film is really about.
tom Cruise and ken watanabe co-star, as a shabby civil war veteran and a proud samurai warrior. cruise plays nathan algren, a war hero who now drifts and drinks too much, with no purpose in life. he's hired by americans who are supplying mercenaries to train an army for the japanese emperor, who wants to move his country into the modern world and is faced with a samurai rebellion.
the role of the samurai leader katsumoto (watanabe) is complex; he is fighting against the emperor's men, but out of loyalty to the tradition the emperor represents, he would sacrifice his life in an instant, he says, if the emperor requested it. but japan has been seized with a fever to shake off its medieval ways and copy the west, and the west sees money to be made in the transition: representatives from the remington arms company are filling big contracts for weapons, and the U.S. embassy is a clearinghouse for lucrative trade arrangements.
it's at this point that "the last Samurai" begins to reveal itself as more than an action picture. katsumoto, who conveniently speaks english, explains he has kept algren alive because he wants to know his enemy. algren at first refuses to speak, but gradually, during a long, rainy winter of captivity, he begins to have philosophical conversations with the other man about the ethics of war and warriors. some of these talks sound like Socratic exchanges:
katsumoto: "do you believe a man can change his destiny?"
algren: "i believe a man does what he can until his destiny is revealed."
for algren, the traditional village life is a soothing tonic. haunted by nightmares from his wartime experiences, he confesses, "here i have known my first untroubled sleep in many years." he has been lodged in the house of taka (Koyuki), the widow of a man he killed in battle, and although she complains bitterly to katsumoto, she maintains a smiling facade in algren's presence.
algren: "i killed her husband!"
katsumoto: "it was a good death."
"the last samurai" breaks with the convention that the western hero is always superior to the local culture he immerses in. it has been compared to "lawrence of arabia" and "dances with wolves," films in which westerners learn to respect arabs and indians, but this film goes a step further, clearly believing that katsumoto's traditional society is superior to the modernism being unloaded by the americans. katsumoto is the teacher and algren is the student, and the film wonderfully re-creates the patterns and textures of the japanese past; its production design, sets and costumes are astonishing.
watanabe is a deep, powerful presence with great star power. his character and his acting shines over cruise that i just fell in love with him instantly. cruise is already a star, and will be targeted by those predisposed to see him and not his character. from all the reviews i read before i went to see this movie, they were saying how cruise was buried under his co-stars and being outshines by watanabe. they even said that he was miscast for this movie. but after watching the movie with my own eyes, i think he was the magnet of this movie, although, yeah, i agree that watanabe does outshine him.. i just can't get over the wise & handsome samurai god and the fact that he's also good looking, it helps a bunch. :)
the supporting cast is splendid: koyuki quietly stirs as the widow who feels sexual attraction but suppresses it, and oh.. did i mention she is soooo pretty!!! i respect the fact that despite the sexual attraction between the two, knowing that algren killed taka's husband, they never got to show their romantic side, except one small kiss which i think quite appropriate.
if "the last samurai" had ended in a way that was consistent with its tone and direction, it would have been true to its real feelings. but the ending caves in to hollywood requirements, and we feel the air going out of the picture. an art film can trust its audience to follow along to the necessary conclusion. a hollywood ending assumes that the audience caves in at the end, turns dim-witted and sentimental, and must be fed its lollypop. the only thing i thought should change was the fact the the emperor gave his last speech in his thick-accented english. he should've spoken in japanese cuz it would give him more character than just a symbol behind the fighting corrupted council. but in the end, the message was satisfying. we should know where we come from before we want to be like someone else. that's why japan has become one of the powerful country but still look back to the past to always remind them where they are from.
an absolutely stunning movie from start to finish. peter jackson has outdone himself again! the only think i did not like about this movie is that it is the last one. where i knew there would be quality for the last two years, i have nothing to look forward to next year, save the extended edition of course. do not miss out on this incredible conclusion. i for one will have to see it again to take everything in again, in fact, i made a vow to watch it till i can't take them anymore.. hehhe. it is definitely a visually overwhelming masterpiece!
bob (matt damon) and walt (greg kinnear) are joined at the hip ... literally. as conjoined twins (they prefer this term than siamese), they happily do everything together, even though they're different in every way. bob's a jock, and walt's a show-off. bob's shy with the ladies, while walt gets them in bed in minutes. when walt gets a chance at fame and fortune in hollywood, bob's right by his side, for better or worse.
"the last samurai" is about two warriors whose cultures make them aliens, but whose values make them comrades. the battle scenes are stirring and elegantly mounted, but they are less about who wins than about what can be proven by dying. beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic. Iis power is compromised only by an ending that sheepishly backs away from what the film is really about.
