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Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Saw a lot of movies last week. Some old, some new, some borrowed, some bought from the Alabang market but aren't worth my money. Anyway, to know which ones fit the descriptions, read on. I'll start with the first that I saw.
Must Love Dogs
Nothing very special here, except that it was hilarious. Screenplay was very very good that it made the movie good, even if the story was nothing out of the ordinary. I don't know what the creators wanted to show, exactly. That people can meet nice people through personal ads posted on the internet? That you shouldn't ever give up on love even if you're over 40, divorced and is used to living alone? It all seemed pretty normal stuff, like, assuming it didn't star John Cusack and Dianne Lane, it would really seem like somebody's home video. So it was lucky, really, that the dialogue was witty and the guy in the grocery who sold the chicken was really funny.
Recommend you to watch it if you're looking to kill time and is sick of seeing Mean Girls and other chick-flicks alike.
The Truth About Love
I want to say that this movie had some redeeming factors, but even though I thought about it real hard, I came up with nothing.
For a romantic comedy, this sure wasn't very romantic, and nor was it even the least bit comedic. This movie was boring, boring, boring, from beginning to end. And there weren't even any cute guys that would make the hour and a half duration seem shorter.
I can't believe the creators had the nerve to title this film, "The Truth About Love", when it doesn't say anything even remotely profound about love. The only thing I got was that some guys are the lowest kind of scum and they'll eventually get what they deserve. But that last bit is really only true for movies, so the only message is really more just, "guys are scum," and isn't that something we all already know?
Sad to say, but Jennifer Love Hewitt does not redeem herself from her last supposedly flopped If Only. Maybe she should just go back to teen movies, or those closer to the likes of Heartbreakers. Now that was a romantic comedy.
Sky High
For a movie with a bunch of no-names as cast (except for Kurt Russel (who I never really liked), Kelly Preston, and Lynda Carter), the actors did a good job on making the movie worth watching.
And I say that because I paid P150 to see it, because I was supposed to watch something else, but that other one ran out of tickets, so, it was really lucky that this movie didn't suck. In fact, it was kinda really good.
The characters were all well thought of. The Commander being all conceited and arrogant was great--it made you feel more sorry, but at the same time prouder for Michael Angarano's character, Will Stronghold. Jetstream was pretty mom-ish, and that was nice too--explaining why Will was still pretty down-to-earth despite his Dad's being a jerk. I liked the whole hero-mom, villain-dad dichotomy thing with Steven Strait's character, Warren Peace (Cool name!), and Layla's individualistic views were pretty cool.
Knowing this was a Disney movie, and so implied lessons were to be expected, I didn't expect the moral of this one to actually be new to me. Or, maybe it wasn't, but it was cool the way they told it.
Super powers were also way cool. The whole glowing thing was hilarious, and the guinea pig was cute.
All in all, I think this is one of those movies that makes a good foundation, to make a sequel on, but since it's so good, the sequel won't be able to surpass the original.
Gakko no Kaidan (Haunted School)
Eiga Sai is the best. I mean, watching movies for free is already paradise, so watching Japanese movies, selected by professsionals and such in the Japan Foundation, for free is just, well, it makes me high beyond words. Even if the theme for this year is mainstream horror, and I don't appreciate the crowd in Shangri-la who are all expecting to be scared and stuff and were disappointed when they didn't get scared, I had fun anyway because I liked this one movie, that I was able to see (because they already ran out of tickets for the 2nd film, and the 3rd film was starting too late).
With that out of the way, I'd like to say that this was a nice, funny, and cute movie, even if it is supposed to be a thriller.
A horror movie for kids, is what I think best describes this film. It's really the first time that I saw kids below teen years be the lead characters in a horror movie, and to have their teacher be the helpless one was just, well, it was great.
Although the ghosts weren't that scary because they looked more like monsters rather than the Sadako-type of spook, the other stuff that made the school haunted were great--how the rooms looked weird, and strange things would come to life... I'm sure that if I saw this movie at the time that it was made (1995), and I was in 5th grade, I wouldn't have been able to go into our science lab without those frogs in the jars giving me the creeps.
It's just too bad that the cute guy, who was around 12 when this movie was filmed, Nakamura Kensuke, played by Atsuta Hajime (who would be around 22 years old at present, and therefore older than me), has no other movies except for The Last Bullet, where he didn't even play a leading role, and so there are no pictures of him anywhere. DX
And by the way, Kensuke's idea of what to do with the skeleton he found in the lab--to put it on the principal's chair, was just so creatively funny. I think it was when he said that particular line that I labeled him as my favorite character. XD
Going back to the topic of Japanese movies, I'd just like to mention that I have yet to see one that I would not like so much, or that I would find completely sucky. Because I realized, that even the semi-boring black and white ones we used to see in class were interesting, and hardly any of the movies have obvious plugging for its sponsors, like most Filipino films, or too much banking on its actors skills, like in Hollywood movies. Maybe I'm just real lucky, but I still think it's likely that I would most probably love all the Japanese movies I see.
I'd have written more, because I also saw Ice Princess and Wicker Park last week, but they're pretty old movies, and I really only saw them on TV via Star Movies and DVD player, so... Anyway, in case you're curious, they're both pretty good.
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