This week's highlight: Ip Man!

Firstly, it's "Ip Maa-an", as in "bun". Secondly, this is not a superhero movie about a guy who can turn into, or have the power of "Ip", whatever that means. Ip Man was actually the name of the man who taught Bruce Lee how to kick serious ass. With Donnie Yen as the lead, historical accuracy be damned; I just want to see some balletic bone crunching done better than anything Jet and Jackie could muster up in The Forbidden Kingdom. Keep an eye out for another Ip Man biopic in the near future, courtesy of Hong Kong film auteur Wong Kar Wai.

By the way, Happy New Year guys! : )

This week's highlight: Australia!

It's high time we're getting an overblown epic period movie to chew on. Seriously, I want to love this. It's got Wolverine looking like Clint Eastwood in The Man with No Name mode (sans poncho, sadly), the always-game-for-a-sex-scene Nicole Kidman, beautiful cinematography, and probably the entire continent of Australia! But, uh-oh, critics aren't too happy about it. I have a bad feeling about this...

This week's highlight: The Good, The Bad and The Weird!

With a title like that, director Kim Ji-woon, whose last movie was the so-so A Bittersweet Life, is surely asking for it for homaging someone as high up there as Sergio Leone. His recent big win at the Korean Blue Dragon Film Awards helps though. Will catch it this Wednesday.

This week's highlight: Madagascar 2!

Madagascar was one of the few Dreamworks cartoons that wasn't blatantly condescending. The first Madagascar paired up a lion and a zebra as best zoo buddies, but the movie was daring enough to explore the consequences of this unlikely friendship outside of the comforts of their captivity. However, at the end of the day, it's still a Looney Tunes type of cartoon with nary a semblance of logic in its "reality". Let's just hope the second one is even as funny as the first.

This week's highlight: Quantum of Solace!

James Bond returned to our screens via Casino Royale (2006) with extra grit and brutality, probably in response to the increasingly popular Bourne franchise, and all the better for it. Though I missed the uppity suaveness of the earlier Bonds, Daniel Craig's more intensed version refreshes the stale routines of the franchise's fifty-year-old fomula.

Solace offers something rare in the series - continuity. Picking up from clues left over by his former love interest in the last instalment, Bond seeks out the one responsible for her death, and I'm not surprised if he happens to be another megalomaniac hell-bent on destroying the world.

No buts about this one. Go watch it.