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.