BIG MOVIE FREAK

Monday, February 25, 2008

The 2008 Academy Awards ceremony will start soon, and I still haven't seen all of the Best Picture nominees! I would love to blame that solely on the cinemas, who for example showed Michael Clayton at 12.20pm on Saturday (I was at work) and 8.50pm on Sunday (too late and too far away), but at the end of the day it's really me. I wasn't completely deprived of opportunities to see them, but I guess I'm just not all that enthusiastic about these movies. I have a gut feeling that these'll be those types of acclaimed movies that'll all be well forgotten in the coming years, while movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Matrix will still be the highlights during conversations or blogs about our "best movie experiences ever."

I'll try to catch There Will Be Blood this weekend, because it's showing only at 5.45pm and 9.00pm on weekday evenings in the city, which are impossible timings for me. Inevitably, there will be a delay in crowning the best freakin' movie ever for the year, originally due this Friday. I want to know for sure if Blood is like the awesome Once upon a Time in the West-cum-Citizen Kane hybrid I've been imagining in my head all this time, which may still dethrone Eastern Promises as my currently reigning best movie of 2007.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Post-CNY blabber

Gong xi fa cai, happy lunar new year, and welcome back! It has been more than half a month since the last post. That's because The Big Movie Freak was back at his parents' in his native country for a week-long celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Over here, we call this annual endeavour balik kampung, meaning "to return to our village," although you will be disappointed to hear that my "village" is far from being some idyllic getaway with wooden houses, rustling coconut trees and sandy beaches.

The holidays have provided me with plenty of time to catch up on some movies and for absolutely no cost at all... meaning I've been rummaging through Will2k's DVD stash. There were more oldsies than newsies, but at least I finally got to see Superbad and 3:10 to Yuma without having to take a leave of absence from work and watch its 10am only weekday shows. (It's now off the cinema circuit, by the way.) Managed to do some revisiting on Johnnie To's PTU, Sam Raimi's Darkman, Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven. Also finally saw Tron in its entirety, and got to see Michael Hui's Hong Kong comedy Chicken and Duck Talk. Already halfway there with their reviews. Hopefully I'll be able to catch most of the Oscar pics before they announce the awards next week. No Country For Old Men, Michael Clayton, Juno and Atonement are already playing, while There Will Be Blood premieres this week.

News-wise, X-men's Gambit is finally making his big-screen appearance on the upcoming X-men spin-off, Wolverine, in 2009. New Line gets sued again, this time by the Tolkien Trust, which threatens the production on the upcoming The Hobbit movies. On the same topic, apparently director Guillermo Del Toro still hasn't sign the dotted lines, despite having said yes to directing The Hobbit. And Hong Kong star Lydia Shum has passed away yesterday morning after a long battle with cancer. Although not internationally famous, the rotund Shum has been a prolific, prominent and iconic figure in the Hong Kong entertainment industry, having made her mark in a string of successful local comedies and hosting numerous television events.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Hobbit director CONFIRMED!

Guillermo Del Toro, director of Cronos, Mimic, The Devil's Backbone, Blade 2, Hellboy 1 & 2 and Pan's Labyrinth will helm the two-parter prequels to Lord of the Rings! TheOneRing.Net was the first to break the news (link here).

Apart from the physical resemblance to LOTR director Peter Jackson pre-diet phase, Del Toro is more arthouse than a Spielberg like Jackson. His knack for putting interesting visuals and themes onscreen (and his love for creatures and assorted monstrosities sure helps) usually more than covers for his shortcomings in pacing and editing (exception: Blade 2). I still think Jackson is the better choice for keeping the Middle Earth universe consistent with the trilogy, which is what people loved in the first place. But since it's going to be Del Toro, I hope he's given free reign to do his own interpretation, and not try to ape Jackson, who was already kind of aping Spielberg. Bryan Singer, the very talented director who made two really good X-men movies, tried to ape Richard Donner, and came up with the disappointing Superman Returns (which could have used a little more of his X-men sensibilities in it). I really hope The Hobbit isn't going to be Del Toro's Superman Returns.