Departures

Departures define as the sending off for the departed; a ceremonial ritual to bid eternal farewell to your loved one who has moved into the next realm. The movies has the right mix of respect, love and dignity when dealing with the dead people.

Daigo Kobayashi is a professional cellist till the orchestra is dissolved. He heads back to his hometown under the encouragement and support of his wife. Mistaking a job advertisement for a travel agency, Daigo finds himself starting a new career as an encoffineer, a funeral professional who prepares the dead for burial and the next life.

Earning from the dead is not a respected profession by the community. His childhood friend shuns him and to make the matter worse, his wife leaves him unless he is willing to change to another proper job. In spite of strong objection, Daigo finds himself enjoying his new profession and a deep respect for the living and the dead.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. To be an escort and gatekeeper to the departed is one that takes a lot of courage. While Daigo deepens his respect, so did I. I particular like the scenes where Daigo and his boss prepare the dead for burial. You can feel the love, the dignity that oozes with every step they take to complete the ritual. Amazing and profound!

He's Just Not that Into You

I feel so cliche watching a romance movie on Christmas Day. To make it worse, the movie made me curdle up into a total cheese ball. There is a good lesson to be learnt from the movie (as well as the book) about man. He won't be bother to call you or do anything for you if he is just not that into you. That's a biblical truth which I urge all, let me stress again, ALL ladies to take note of.

The movie starts with Gigi learning about that men act like jerks like they like you at the tender of 5. Her latest blind date is with Connor, a real estate agent, whom Janine set up for her. Connor never calls Gigi after the first date, so she goes to the bar which he frequents, hoping to "accidentally" bump into him. There she meets with Alex and he becomes her Dr Love, advising her about her dates. Eventually he falls in love with her, making her the exception of the dating rule.

Janine and Ben recently gotten married and is renovating their new home. Ben meets Anna at Handy's supermarket and starts to lust after her. He hides this from Janine as well as his smoking habit which Janine's stubbornly objects to. He eventually confesses sleeping with another woman which secretly trying to destroy his own marriage because he isn't ready to commit and has gotten married because he has been with Janine for a long time. They heads for divorce. Poor Anna just happens to be the catalyst for this breakup.

Beth and Neil are happy and in love with each other. The only issue is Neil does not believe in marriage and refuse to walk down the aisle with Beth. She gets upset and frustrated, thinking her relationship is never going to get anywhere. She breaks up with Neil only to discover that he is really who she wants to be with and is willing to compromise her dream. It ends happy with him proposing to her.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. The storyline is alright, focusing on the relationship issues of the couple of friends. Love has a strange way of showing itself and expressing itself at times. The thing to remember might be that he's just not that into you. Don't forget that.

2012

2012 is a movie I would probably have given it a pass since I'm not a fan of catastrophic armageddon. In fact, I honestly dislike such movies as well as those in the war and related genre.

I won 2012 from a game of bejeweled from my bro. And so I gave the movie a chance. The storyline is very typical and predictable. The world is ending, and the people at the top are fully awared. Preparation has been made and it is time to go, forsaking the rest of the good people. Just imagine a modernised Noak's Ark story.

The CGI effect is quite impressive when you watched it for the first time. I'm not sure if I will be equally impressed if I were to watch the movie again. You do expect to get quite an adrenaline rush from watching the world fumbling before your eyes.

But one thing I do find lacking is the madness of people in such a dire situation. Logically, you will expect people to be all over the place to save their own lives. I see none on the streets when the fissures are formed. Strange, isn't it?

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. It is still a decent movie in spite of the gloom end of the world. And somehow somewhere the hero should always save the day. Amen!

Sideways

Sideways is kind of an odd-ball comedy which will grow on you as you watch it. Two buddies take on a road trip as a 'stylish' send-off before the wedding.

Miles is a depressed divorce who has yet to get over his failed marriage as well as failed writing career. His good pal, Jack, is a minor actor who is getting married in a week's time to a rich lady. The two buddies go on a road trip to the California, passing through the vineyards and local girls.

While Miles is planning on giving Jack a proper send-off with good wine and golf to create some buddy bonding time, Jack is only concern to get as much as boning as he can. Along the way, the guys meet Stephanie and Maya. Miles starts to move out of his misery to take the next step forward in his life. Jack, on the other hand, is getting himself in trouble from one woman to another. At the end of the day, the best pal stands by him and rescue him in the true allegiance-way.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. A decent movie to watch. The story-telling is quite nice from the man's perspective without being overly-overwhelming and hard to take.

Humpday

Think along the line of famous annual Seattle film festival, HUMP! and you can pretty guess the storyline of Humpday.

Ben and Andrew are very good friends back in their college days. They have not seen each other except the occasional exchange of postcards. Ben is your typical picket fence man who has a career, a house and a wonderful marriage. While on the other end, Andrew is a vagabond. He travels around from town to town, knowing different people, and never finishes whatever he starts with.

An unexpected visit from Andrew creates a ripple of change in Ben's life. The initial harmless fraternal bonding between two good friends became a dare of two straight man making their own porn as an art film for the HUMP! film festival. Both friends are pushed to their limits in terms of their friendship, sexual orientation and belief.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. Though the movie concept is kind of catchy, the film does not provoke sufficient intensity and curiosity from the audience. The conversation is flat and plot development is average. There is a time and place for things, and that is college.

Astro Boy

I caught a ride to Metro City after leaving the Christmas Carol. Astro Boy is a much more entertaining animation to me.

Toby Tenma is a smart son of Dr Tenma, who is a leading scientist at the Ministry of Science. An experiment goes wrong and Toby who happens to have sneaked into the laboratory, is very unfortunately killed.

Dr Tenma, unable to let go of the death of his son, goes on to create a robot replica of Toby, hence the birth of Astro Boy. He is really the state-of-the-art, one-of-the-kind, super-duper-amazing-funky-real-like android. I guess you got my drift.

Astro, the android Toby, is amazed by his new abilities while Dr Tenma is unable to accept him as his real son. Feeling rejected, Astro leaves home. The power-hungry President Stone discovers that Astro has the blue core and soon starts a hunt to retrieve that energy core from Astro. As Astro left Metro City and made new friends, he starts to realise the meaning of his life and what he is made.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. I quite love the simple and yet charming tune to Astro Boy. Though I am not a fan of Astro, I love the movie, along with the humour. The movie is as cute and as charming as Astro himself.

A Christmas Carol

Year after year, as we approach December, we see plenty of merry-making movies which celebrate the festive seasons. This year, I went to catch a glimpse of A Christmas Carol, aka Jim Carrey style.

As with the Charles Dicken's book, A Christmas Carol is kind of a dark and grimly tale about a Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter and miser moneylender who has not enjoyed Christmas for many many many many... many years.

On this every Christmas eve, Scrooge meets with his former business partner, Jacob Marley who has passed away 7 years ago. Marley, heavily chained in his afterlife, comes to warn Scrooge that he will be visited by 3 spirits - Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present and Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. The encounter with the 3 spirits forever changes Scrooge life, he becomes a new man, embodying the spirit of Christmas.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. A typical sha-la-la merry Christmas movie about giving. The animation is kind of decent, but lacking in a little depth which would have given it a much richer feel. An ok movie to watch, except that I'm not a typical fan of Christmasie movie.

Funny People

Near death experience can at times changes your perspective on life. This is exactly what happens to George Simmons. He is a successful comedian and actor who does not give much of a shit to people around him, essentially he is just full of himself.

Ira Wright is an aspiring stand-up comedian who hopes to make it big one day. During one of his gigs, he meets with George and later becomes his personal assistant and writer. While George faces death daily, Ira hones his comedian delivery skills. Over time, their friendship deepens.

George miraculous recovers from his illness and he falls back into his own ways. He has failed to see why he is lonely and how he has gotten himself trapped in his own depression. His body might has recovered, but his mind has yet to chase up to reality.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. The movie is a little draggy and slow in developing the characters. Though it shares the interesting personal growth experience of George, you can't help feeling that there is still a little bit missing from this whole load of adventure and mishap.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

The weather for today is cloudy with chance of meatballs. Tomorrow, it will be raining cheeseburgers. In the town of Swallowfall, which is under the letter A of Atlantic Ocean on the map, it rains food.

Flint Lockwood, a young inventor, dreams of making a difference to the world. He has invented many things such as spray-on shoes, ratbirds, remote TV with legs, thought translator, and more. The townfolks tend to see Flint's invention to be a nuisance or disaster till his latest invention of the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR for short).

It rains cheeseburgers! Flint programmes the FLDSMDFR to rain different food for each day according to the townfolks' requests. From that day onwards, he becomes the hero of the town. Good moment does not last too long for Flint. Soon, the FLDSMDFR becomes unstable and starts to rain gigantic food. Can Flint save the world? Of course he can, with the help of his sidekick Steve (pet monkey) and girlfriend Sam Sparks.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. Cloudy with a chance of meatballs is a rather entertaining cartoon. There are a couple of twists and jokes which have tickled my funny bone. A great movie for family and especially kids.

G-Force

Can you imagine a new breed of intelligence which the US military will depend on are actually 4 cute cuddly critters, a mole and a fly? Well, G-Force is the new secret agent for the FBI.

The main field team consists of the team leader Darwin, sexy martial artist Juarez, weapon freak Blaster, smart IT geek Speckles and the field vision, Mooch the fly. The team spies on Leonard Saber, infiltrates his home and secures a vital piece of information with regards to his sinister scheme to take over the world.

Unfortunately the obtained information seem to be nothing more than the Saber's coffee maker and hence the facility gets shut down. The rest of the story is pretty much predictable. The animals escape but end up in a pet shop. There they plan their escape route to meet at Ben's house (the project leader). Once they gather at Ben's house, they prove their skills and abilities while saving the world.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. The movie is filled with cute critters and light laughter. I find it extremely suitable for young children. Warning to parents, please kindly restrain your child from buying a guinea pig on impulse because of this movie. Owning a pet is a big responsibility, not a toy which you can stack and store somewhere and be forgotten in time.