Anjchang movie blog on blogspot.com

Small Soldiers (1998) was okay. I liked the mischief the soldiers got up to, and I also liked the creativity of the soldiers and soldierettes. I was surprised to see a young Kirstin Dunst in it. Jim didn't like the human bits as much as the toys doing their mischief. Still, it was a good way to pass the time.

50 First Dates (2004) was completely funny. So mushy so funny so cute, I enjoyed the ending. The Hawaiians are way cool, and the acting by Sandler and Barrymore was ultra cute. What a guy, to go through all that for her. Barrymore plays the perfect sweet, innocent, clueless girl. Yay!

Gong fu (2004) was funny. I enjoyed and had a terrific time with this parody of kung-fu action flicks. A good way to pass a saturday afternoon. The buddhist palm move and other kungfu action scenes were novel. I liked the cinematography and also the subplots between the different characters. A nice touch was that the northerners spoke in Mandarin and the southerners spoke Cantonese. The fight scenes were top notch and the ending was very cool!

Team America: World Police (2004) was enjoyable. I really liked that stupid song "America, F*CK yeah!", and all the DVD extras about how the craftsmen made the film.
The film itself was okay, but after I saw the comments from the set designers and engineers, I wanted to go back to look at their handicrafts. It is unfortunate that such wonderful detail go unnoticed because of the poor quality of the script. Hopefully they could reuse those models for a better story that highlights all the special details in the physical props... kind of like Lord Of the Rings.

Closer (2004/I) was interesting, but pretty weird and mean. The story of two couples who swap due to petty, selfish, and cruel reasons is pretty bad. I can't say I understand the psychological motivations of any of the characters. There was practically no character development, so all the drama was very detached from the viewer. All of the characters were people that I wouldn't care to associate with. They had something emotional wrong with them, and they were unable to take joy in the simply being in relationshiops. The way everyone suddenly changes moods is pretty annoying, so perhaps the book was better. Still, I tend not to like plots where the main characters are mean, spiteful people.... definitely not upbeat. My friend Tad said that, "if you want to have an argument with a girl, take her to see this movie".

Blade Trinity was a disappointment. There was barely any cool fighting. The plot focused mainly on two new characters who weren't really portrayed well. Who were these people? One was a smart aleck guy who wasnt really any funny and couldn't really fight. The other was a girl who was supposed to really be a good fighter, but she was not a really strong main character. No great lines, no personality, and no character development. What was her story anyway? Did anyone really care about the little girl they were suppose to rescue, and if so, where was she in the end? What happened to Blade, and why didn't he fight a lot. He only had one really good line. There wasn't even really a plot. Ah well... at least I can say I've rounded out this collection...

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) was pretty good. There wasn't as much zombie dancing, but it was a good way to spend a few hours. My favorite part was when they dumped the smartaleck to the mass of zombies, and then the first zombie to get him was the one he shot. That was zombie justice right there. The action was okay, but it wasn't as much of a horror flick as we had expected. Then again, the humor from the LJ dude was cool "Please, my sh*t is custom!"

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) was okay. It was interesting. I couldn't hear all the stuff that happened because it was noisy. All in all, it was okay, but I bet I would have liked it better if they sped it up a little, and talked a little louder. Jim said there were a lot of interesting tensions in the book, and I agree. ALthough I couldn't really get why they had all these tensions. The characters were good, and we all liked Klaus. :)

OMG is that Orly? I didn't even recognize him in Kingdom of Heaven. I liked the information on the different cultures. I really liked Saladdin. I wish we could have been in his tent more, because the stuff going on inside where Orly was wasn't really that interesting. Saladdin kicked ass, and it would have been cool to learn more about the assassins. There wasn't really any character development, and things progressed .. or should I say, Jumped, to different levels of interaction between characters at breakneck pace. One minute two people are meeting, the next minute, they're intimate, just like that. As Jim pointed out, "condensing a 600-page historical novel into 2 hours is near impossible." Not only was this movie a little jumpy-- but what happened to Tiberius at the end (he was last seen on the donkey)? Isn't that a little important? And what was with the bald guy in the background ruining the serious shots-- was that comic relief!? Or the girl at the end? Anyway, the imprinting of modern day values onto a "historical" telling was also annoying. I'm SO sure they were fighting for freedom of people to live together under different religions during the crusades.... NOT! Lots more stuff to complain about (e.g. the weaponry tactics), lack of real plot, and the waste of good characters. Oh well. c'est hollywood.

Resident Evil was Rocking! We can't wait to get the sequel. At first I was a little fretful that it would be too scary. But when they broke out the Zombie Dancing, oh-oh-oh-OH-oh, even I couldn't suppress a laugh. It was a good combo of unknown: the zombies were suprisingly quick and the Red Queen was sppooookky! The unveiling of the final character was also good. *nice work* A good fun flick. We had heard from Ray that this was good, and we were not disappointed... :) Thanks Ray!