Tangled (2010)

We grew up watching Disney movies and cartoon (except maybe this person). But as much as we liked Cinderella, Snow White, The Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Ariel Mermaid, Pocahontas, or even Tinker Bell, there were two things:

First, it's hard to put ourselves in their shoes (Ariel and Pocahontas didn't wear any shoes and it might be very hard to wear Tinker Bell's or try to fit into Cinderella's, but that's not what I meant). Let me put it this way: if you're not already a princess, probably you'd never have your prince riding in white horse came all the way from far far away and rescued you from your perils. although probably you're not in any peril anyway at the moment. And for any boy who wasn't already a prince, well, thin chance getting a princess even if you managed to get a white horse. The closest we have in comparison was Pretty Woman (starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere). But even that didn't just happen to anyone. PLUS Richard Gere was already some kind of prince, wasn't he?

Second, no matter whether she's the Beauty or the fairest among them all, no matter if she can swim or fly, and no matter whether she's tanned or pale, we would find it hard to fall in love with the characters in the film. Not that they weren't pretty enough, but we had to admit that the electricity or the chemical or the whatever you name it just wasn't there. But Tangled was different. I fell in love with the princess 10 minutes after the movie started. Her big eyes, her long hair, her sweet singing, her passion for the outside world, her fear of her mother, her agony between those previous two, and all the other things about her, they're just lovable. If you're seven, you'd want to be her or befriend her. You're thirteen, you'd think that you were her (or she was you, whatever). And if you're twenty eight, all your memories of your younger days when you're seventeen or eighteen would come rushing and maybe cause a smile or two. She was just the girl next door that most of us remembered (only that she's not next door, but locked away in a tower hidden behind bushes and thorns).

But enough for the moment about Rapunzel. The other characters were twisted. Yes, she's still a princess but the male protagonist wasn't quite the prince you'd imagine. Well, he's more like the prince of thieves (but unlike Robin Hood, he didn't quite have the sharing spirit). We got a very funny and righteous horse. We also got a chameleon trying to be cute. And we had bad guys and bad guys gone good. And not to forget the evil mother, the standard king and queen and townsfolk, several stupid guards (I'm starting to get suspicious that they're the same in most Disney movies), and a cupid (but from the kind that you didn't hope to see).

The storyline was altered. Not much, but still altered. But the overall story became better (in my own opinion which I wrote in my own blog). And it had the Disney kind of happy ending, that's all that matter. And as a bonus, we're given beautiful and heart warming emotional scenes.

A little note on the dialogues, they're modern. Although the setting took place in far far away (like usual) in a time we couldn't tell, but the dialogues and most of the jokes were modern with a touch of Hollywood here and there. Not your classic Disney kind of conversations, but still very enjoyable.

In short, with the twisted characters, altered storyline, non-classic conversations, and all the others mixed-up elements, there're no other way to call this movie as something other than TANGLED (pun intended). It's the modern version of classic Disney. It's the human version of fairy tale. And it's the you version of Disney. Enjoy the movie. I did.

Ps: For those who're wondering who's this person i was referring to at the beginning, well the story goes like this: He's a self-nominated movie fan who never watch classic Disney other than Tarzan. The end. May he live happily ever after.

Oops and I almost forgotten. I watch, I talk. Feel free to watch and talk by yourself.

Step Up 3D (2010)

It's Step Up. The setting was moved from MSA to NYU but it's still Step Up. And aside from the NYU setting, the rest remained pretty much predictable.

Before I wrote further, I had to say that it's nice that we could see familiar faces throughout the film. We got Moose from Step Up 2: The Streets as the leading actor. We got Camille from Step Up as one of the female protagonists. We even got the MSA crews like Cable, Kido, and some others that I'm sure you'll come to notice if you watched the whole series again.

I believed that I said the word "further" in the previous paragraph. But I guess it's not that much further. The movie was okay. The dance moves were better from the previous two films. I didn't complain for the lack of details or character interaction or storyline because we were served with minutes and minutes of great dance battles. Even Tarantino couldn't do much about it. Speaking of whom, his name did come out in this movie. In short, it's a good watch to relieve stress or just to hang out with friends.

And go get some pop corn when you watch. Some parts are boring.

I watch, I talk. Feel free to watch and talk by yourself.

Rain Man (1988)

I came across this movie by accident. I was dozing off this afternoon and suddenly I caught a couple of familiar faces on the screen. It was the HBO Signature playing Rain Man (1988).

A simple search later provided me with the awards this film had won:
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Picture;
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Dustin Hoffman);
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Director;
- The Academy Award Winner for Best Writing, Original Screenplay;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Art Direction, Set Decoration;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Best Cinematography;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Best Film Editing;
- The Academy Award Nominee for Best Music, Original Score;
- The People Choice's Award as The Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture.

You can find the other information including the synopsis here but believe me, you would want to watch this movie by yourselves.

The plot of this movie was not very complicated. After all, it's family oriented. The story went like this: Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise) was the prodigal son that never returned. Too bad for him because his father then removed his name from his shocking three-million-dollar will. The estate went to Raymond Babbit (Dustin Hoffman), the autistic-(but also remarkably genius)-elder-brother Charlie never knew he had. In a quest to claim his share, Charlie then kidnapped Raymond from his mental facility and took him on a 7-day-road-trip in which both of the brothers developed a connection so much deeper than what the doctors and psychologists had ever developed in the past 20 years.

What happened in the end was predictable although not quite a Hollywood style happy ending.

There are several trivia in this movie worth mentioning:
- In this movie, you can see the young and handsome Tom Cruise dancing with Dustin Hoffman with the ever-wonderful Las Vegas cityscape and lights as the background;
- Raymond had always thought that Charlie called him Rain Man (instead of Raymond);
- Raymond Babbit (like many other autistic children) had potentials. He was a genius mathematician and he had a photographic memory. Find more about autism here.
- Dustin Hoffman's son and the movie director (Barry Levinson) appeared as cameo;
- Again, you can see the young and handsome Tom Cruise (it's freaking 22 years ago after all and he's freaking young and handsome);
- You can find more trivia here, but those only made sense if you have watched the movie.

In the end, I recommended this movie very much. I was so touched by watching it, not to mention my logic was awed by the superb acting of Dustin Hoffman. Tom Cruise was an eye pleaser (I'm NOT gay, friends) and his acting was very good as well. But what's most important was that it reminded me again what family's really worth. As Lilo's father always said, "Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind."

I watch, I talk. Feel free to watch and talk by yourself.

The Inception (2010)

The Inception by Christopher Nolan was very promising at first.

We all know Leonardo DiCaprio.

A very talented young actor from the start, now he's matured and captured the entire world with the many strong characters he has played.

And most of us probably know Christopher Nolan, the director of the new Batman movie series as well as the director of a collection of highly praised movies like Memento (2000), Insomnia (2001), and The Prestige (2006).

When the two worked together, the world was watching. Throw in the beautiful academy award winner Marion Cotillard, the veteran Michael Caine, the most well known Japanese in Hollywood Ken Watanabe, and the innocent looking boy from 500 Days of Summer Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you have it. Perfect and complete casts for a mind twisting movie.

So again, I say, The Inception by Christopher Nolan was very promising AT FIRST. In the end, I say the film was overrated. I didn't say that it's bad or that it's not worth watching. It's just that if you put too much expectation, you might end up disappointed as I did.

For those of you who haven't watched this movie, you can still read the next section. I'll try to keep the spoilers to the minimum.
1. If you expect this movie to be an action movie, you're better off with Nolan's Batman series or Leo's Gangs of New York.
2. If you expect a twisted plot, then Nolan's Memento and Leo's Shutter Island are way better. Not to mention that The Inception has many similarities (but with less impact) with Shutter Island.
3. If you expect a strong drama with a strong acting, then pick Nolan's Insomnia or Leo's The Aviator. The acting here is adequate. Nothing more.
4. If you expect a deep conflict, go to Nolan's The Prestige or Leo's Romeo and Juliet (don't laugh, I'm serious). The conflict here is minimum.
5. And if you're a big fan of pseudo reality movies, then stick to The Matrix Trilogy. Neither Nolan nor Leo has anything close in that field.

The problem here is that Nolan and Leo both have produced wonderful works in the past but this highly rated movie didn't come close to their previous works. A more focused approach would probably be better than this action-thriller-drama-conflictless movie. So here're a list of turn downs that degraded this movie from grandness to pure entertainment and dollar catcher:

1. It needed a more clear focus. 150 minutes were insufficient to cater all the elements shown in this movie in a good proportion. The actions were lame. The dramas were stale. The plots were simple. The conflicts were shallow. The actings were mediocre. The thrills were hardly felt. Even the jokes are not funny. Remind me again, what do we expect from this movie?

2. The backgrounds for this film are weak. Not quite like what we've experience so far from Nolan. All his films I've mentioned earlier had very strong background. In this film, we didn't have any clue. Was it the year 2010? Was it the same world as we lived in or was it a parallel one? Who's Saito and what's the big secret he had that needed extraction earlier? How big was the Cobol Corp? How come The Cobol Corp had one private jet but didn't have the second one? How come a Saito can buy a airline company and NO ONE noticed?

3. The core element of this film, the dream extraction-inception thingy was suspiciously not explained. Was it a science? Was it a skill? Was it something common? Was it chemical? Was it expensive? What's the role of an architect? Can anyone be an architect? Why did it had to be Ariadne?

4. The interrelations between characters are also weak. Who ordered Cobb and the gang to extract the secret from Saito? Was it the dying Fischer Sr.? The clueless Fischer Jr.? The Uncle Browning? The Fischer's nonexistent underlings? Who chased Cobb when he failed the Saito mission? How come the Fischers and Browning didn't seem to care? Who helped Cobb escape from U.S.? Who funded Cobb while he's a fugitive (and how did he market himself)? So many interrelations were only superficial.

5. A very annoying scene was the one where Cobb said that he and Mal had already gone through growing old together in one of the dream layers or more probably in the Limbo. If so, why did they both looked young when they do suicide to escape the Limbo? The whole Limbo concept would've been the foundation of this movie, but it's too vague. Not only because it lacked explanation, but also because it lacked emphasis. Not to mention that Limbo itself wasn't a very catchy word to use anyway.

There were so many questions left unanswered in this film. Including the last question whether or not the top would stop spinning. The disappointing part was that it seemed that the questions were there just for the sake of making this film looked kind of sophisticated and not because they needed to be there. That's called cheating.

Well, in the end, I have to say that actually, the film was very nicely executed. The flow was smooth. The extra layers of dream that wasn't planned from the beginning was actually quite smart. The whole kick concept was out of the box. The casts were interesting. The whole movie was eventually worth watching. It's just overrated. But overrated doesn't necessarily mean bad.

I watch, I talk. Feel free to watch and talk by yourself.