Quantum of Solace and Olga Kurylenko

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Alist

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Latest James Bond movie: Quantum of Solace is worthed watching I told ya. Pack of action scenes, with simple story, bring a realistic spy movie. Yes, I prefer Daniel Craig to Pierce Brosnan to star 007 franchise series.

This movie is as good as Casino Royale. While previous movie brought us to beautiful city like Venice, Quantum brings us to some exotic but remote palaces like Haiti Port-au-Prince, La Paz Bolivia, and surely Europe cities like London, Tosca, and focus on Siena, Italy.
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Movie Review: The X-Files 2008 – I Want to Believe

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Alist

My Rating: 8 of 10

For X-Files fans out there, I strongly recommend this movie. Don’t bother with other reviews and critics. This movie is realy an X-Files, bring back your memory of watching X-Files TV episodes, but this time in longer format. I cannot tell more about movie synopsis cause it will ruin your expectation, just sit and follow the plot.

This is a standalone plot apart from conspiracy and alien abduction, telling a story about pursuing an FBI agent that was kidnapped misteriously with help of a Catholic Father. Fox Mulder continues his quest for the truth, and Dana Scully, an intelligent physician, remains tied to Mulder’s pursuits.

It will satisfy your old school dream about Fox and Scully relationship, also suspense in its investigation as well as enough time to introduce Fox and Scully to younger generation of non X-Files tv series watchers.

Unlike the first movie in 1998 about conspiracy and some confusing plots, this movie only bring back Fox, Scully and Skinner in a simpler story, like a detective movie with mistery and suspense but starred by X-Files casts. No Cigarette-Smoking man and no Well-manicured man appeared in this movie. I guess after six year of putting this movie project in the shelf, 20th Century Fox didn’t give enough big budget for creator and director Chris Carter to shoot.

And again, just watch it.

Movie Review: Red Cliff

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Alist

This is my first post after upgrading my wordpress to 2.6

My Rating for this movie : 7.5 of 10

From Wiki: Red Cliff (?? chi bi) is two-part movie directed by John Woo to bring back story on the Battle of Red Cliffs and events during the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. stars Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Hu Jun, Lin Chi-ling and Zhao Wei. With an estimated budget of US$80 million, Red Cliff is the most expensive Asian-financed film to date.

I can say that story telling is superb and describing war strategy in quite a good way. This movie first part is pretty long: 2 hours and 10 minutes, but all casts are in there in their own enough screen time. From perspective of non-Three Kingdoms-novel-reader, I think you will not get lost in the story, it describes each character quite well until you can learn them more from wiki or history book. Some parts of this movie has subplot you can watch in Three Kingdoms movie about General Zhao (played by Andy Lau).

What a failure of this movie is at its cast. Besides Tony Leung, Zhao Wei, and Chang Chen, I think cast for Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), Guan Yu and Zhang Fei is disappointing. I prefer cast at Three Kingdom (Ressurection of the Dragon) as it is more realistic. Also this movie stuntmen are all not screen friendly, fighting scene also lose to some other epic movie. Another lack is music, as far as I know there is no themesong in this film.

Just cannot wait for the second part of this movie, which is expected to screen on January 2009.

Living in HD World

Posted on July 15, 2008 by Alist

A Samsung LCD TV and HD-Upscale DVD Player Review.

It’s been more than one month I bought a new tv set into my house. The desire to watch Euro 2008 Football in LCD urged me into electronic shop to find LCD TVs. My favourite brand for LCD TV was 3S: Sony, Samsung, and Sharp. So couple weeks before Euro cup I finally grab Samsung LCD TV LA32R81 from Electronic Store (ES), interest free for 12 month installment. The price was IDR 6,300,000 (just divided by 12 for installment), but using BCA Credit Card it gave us cash back IDR 200,000 into card account.

samsung LA32R81 Samsung LCDTV LA32R81 Bordeaux design is very excellent. It gives a bit impression of a wine glass by putting a glowing light at the bottom of the LCD screen. Contrast Ratio is 8000:1 with 1360×786 pixel resolution and it is more than enough for daily tv or dvd watch. The remote control in my opinion is too long but slim. With HDMI-CEC technology, we can control other devices connected to this LCD using TV remote. By programming the remote, we can even use this remote to control major brand VCR, DVD Player, cable box, etc. Smart enough.
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Movie Review: Three Kingdom – Resurrection of the Dragon

Posted on April 5, 2008 by Alist

My Rating: 8 of 10

No need for synopsis. All people know Romance of The Three Kingdom is very complicated story. This film starred by Andy Lau, Sammo Hung, Maggie Q, tries to present one part of the story, that is General Zhao Zilong (Zhao Yun). Although there are still Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, but the focus of the movie is in Zhao Zilong.

Andy Lau stars as Zhao Zilong, a top general of the Kingdom of Shu who takes a last stand against the invading forces from the Kingdom of Wei. Maggie Q is fictional Cao Ying, a granddaughter of Wei warlord Cao Cao, whose eldest son Cao Pi becomes the first emperor of the Wei kingdom.

Yep, there will be another movie titled ‘The Battle of Red Cliff’ that will be launched later this year.

Story is good, actors are good, so there’s no reason not to watch it.

You can check the movie website at here.

Movie Review: Ah Long Pte Ltd

Posted on March 24, 2008 by Alist

My Review: 9 of 10

Finally come again film by Jack Neo, a reputable film director as well as great comedian from Singapore. It was released on W2 March 2008 in Singapore and Malaysia and quickly became a box office on the two countries. Although many viewers seems not to cheer this film, but I can say that this movie is a kind that ‘don’t bother any critics and just watch it’.

Played by Mark Lee and Fann Wong with plot similar to “My Wife is Gangster 3″, sissy man with a gangster wife, almost 2 hours of film packed with full laugh and singlish words. Movie in 5 language: Singlish, Hokkian, Mandarin, and a bit of Cantonese and Malay. I don’t think it will available in Indonesia, so I just luckily enough to watch it on KL Golden Screen Cinema last week.

“Ah Long Pte Ltd” is a light-hearted black comedy about the triad world and the money-lending business. Following the retirement of her triad leader (Richard Low), a young lady, Li Hua (Fann Wong), tries to restructure her money-lending triad into a professional and ‘loving’ triad that stands against the use of violence. She also suffers a nagging mother and gets involved in a romance with Mr Fang (Mark Lee), an effeminate dance instructor cum image stylist.

Movie Review: CJ7 (Chang Jiang 7) by Stephen Chow

Posted on January 26, 2008 by Alist

My Rating : 8 of 10.

CJ7 is a science-comedy kind of movie. You can expect have big laugh in the cinema but since it is created by Hong Kong movie industry, it would be the biggest achievement compared to Hollywoord productions’. Not so funny for adults but a great pleasure to bring family and kids to watch it. Its about alien, small creature but cute alien is very similar to chicken little character.

Previewed in Hong Kong on 23/1 but international premiered including Hong Kong should be 31 jan 08. Released in Jakarta(indonesia) and Bangkok(Thailand) on 6 Feb 2008, in Singapore and Malaysia on 7 Feb 2008. But the question is Who will watch it on chinese lunar new year date actually? Well, we’ll see.

Chow plays a man who lives in a partly demolished house. He takes in a homeless boy (who is actually played by a girl, Xu Jiao). Whether the semi-demolished house and the homeless boy are on Earth, or on the alien planet is not clear. As Chow’s character can’t afford to buy a toy for the child, he finds a makeshift toy in the garbage and brings it back to his “son”. The toy is actually an alien and the aliens are desperate to get it back.

Watch CJ7 movie trailer in official site produced by Sony at http://www.sonypictures.net/movies/cj7/

In Jakarta, may be you have noticed many big signboard promoted by Sony Ericsson mobile phone with CJ7 wallpaper in its phones.