Burn After Reading

This is a story of nothing at all. It's a mish-mash of confusion, secrecy and jumping to conclusion.

The plot starts with Osbourne Cox, a CIA analyst, who resigns from this job. He forms a new goal in life, and starts a memoir of his work with the bureau. His wife, Katie, immediately seeks the help of a lawyer to proceed with a secret divorce case and made a copy of important information off Osbourne's computer onto a CD.

Making matter worse, this CD is misplaced and accidentally lands in Hardbodies Gym. Chad is a typical brainless instructor while his colleague, Linda is obsessed in wanting to undergo plastic surgery to improve her look which she hope will in turn increase her chances of seeking a soul mate. Both decided to blackmail Osbourne thinking that CD contains top CIA information. When the blackmailing fails, they presented the CD to the Russian Embassy.

Making matter worse, Harry who has been sleeping with Katie, also begins to date Linda. While he was at Katie's house one day, Chad happens to have broken into the house hoping to steal more information off Osbourne's computer. Unfortunately he gets killed by Harry.

At this point Harry's paranoid has gotten worse. He started to attack a guy whom he has been watching and observing him for a while. He then discovers that his wife has arranged with a legal firm to file for divorce with Harry.

Complicated plot and sub-plots but pieces of the puzzles eventually falls neatly into one another at the end of the movie. There are many good actors this film, which makes it rather entertaining. But the real story is really no story at all. It is just plainly a lot of misunderstanding and guessing of are these people really up to. Each of them have their own agenda, and at the end, no one really wins from this twisted adventure except for Linda, who got CIA to fund her plastic surgery at the end of the day.

Rating: 3 out of 5 fairy clouds. I expected more from this movie, thinking that the crew is a group of cool and excellent actors. But it has failed to amaze me mostly.

Red Cliff

I never say no to free movie... at least most of the time. This afternoon I watched Red Cliff (Part I). The blockbuster movie is the latest of John Woo's film. It is a rather ambitious movie as it tried to emulate the grandiosity of Lord of the Ring, in terms of CGI animation.

The story of the Three Kingdom is fascinating as there is already a well developed depth and personality to each of the key character in the original story. The movie has an easy job of just adopting and scripting the important scenes to make the complete movie. However, I feel that the director focused too much on the costumes and martial arts effect, which I do agree that it is rather excellent. You can feel the war and you can feel the characters while watching the movie.

Though it is an entertaining movie, I'm disappointed with the animation. It is just too reelistic, failing to demonstrated the real natural beauty of those supposed landscape. A bad CGI animation is still capable of destroying a good movie, which is what I feel towards Red Cliff.

Only one complain, I understand many feel that Tony Leung has a sexy appeal. But please spare me and try not to overdo on the seduction scene between him and Lin Chi Ling. I felt rather turn-off by two intimate scenes between these 2 actors as it is simply nothing more than just a brainless teaser that doesn't add any value to the movie.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 fairy cloud. A decent movie to watch if you are a fan of the Three Kingdom. Otherwise, nothing much to miss about this film. There are many other more well-done films like The Last Emperor which has wonderfully weaved art and film-making into one solid end product.

Pathology

This is a freaking scary thriller! I'm still shivering with goosebumps after watching it.

Starring the cute Milo Ventimiglia as Dr Ted Grey, he is a top student, graduating from Harvard Medical School. He joins the most prestigious Pathology in the nation and meets Dr Jake Gallo.

Dr Grey is very brilliant and analytic, as such the elite group of interns in this programme takes an instant dislike for him. However spotting his talent, Dr Gallo invited Dr Grey to their little elite game.

The question Dr Gallo poses is, "If you can kill anyone, who would you kill?". Their little game of fun and thrill soon turns dark and spirals out of control. Turning against each other, who is really the brightest of them all? Who can solve the mystery of death when you know that no body is safe anymore.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. Not a typical movie I would like to watch. But it is still fascinating. If an option, I prefer CSI over pathology for a simple reason - less dark and less gruesome. Then again how can I resist the charm of Milo. What a piece of ass!

Gia

Gia, or more correctly Gia Marie Carangi, is a young girl from Philadelphia who was talent spotted by a photographer at a tender age of 17. The HBO movie is about her life as a supermodel.

Gia moved from Phili to New York and was signed up by a powerful model agent Wilhelmina Cooper. From a unknown little girl, Gia was thrown into the spotlight to become a supermodel. In fact, she set the standard of the highly profile life of a supermodel.

Life is not a bed of roses for the glamorous one. Her loneliness and constant fear of being abandoned by her loved ones caused to her to heave into the arms of drugs, which eventually led to her downfall. She passed away with AIDS at a young age of 26.

The movie is very well-scripted, tantalising, erotic as well as emotional. You go through the motions of Gia's high and low of her career as a model as she parlays the moment. Angelina Jolie who played Gia has done a darn good job. She has the wild side as well as the feminine side of Gia. The only disappointment I have will be that Angelina look a little too old for the role of a teenager and at the same time, she doesn't have the innocent charm of a young girl which Gia possessed.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. This 1998 HBO movie is still its punch. A pretty decent girl's movie as they will sympathise and empathise with Gia while the guys will probably enjoy the tantalising erotic seduction of Gia.

Charlie Wilson's War

The Charlie Wilson's War, a cunning and yet down right to earth movie of a Texas Congressman in this fight towards the end of the Cold War between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in the late 70s to 80s.

Allied with the sixth wealthiest woman in Texas, a friend and also romantic partner, Mrs Joanne Herring, Charlie finds himself in the heart of a new covert operation in ending the war between Afghanistan and Soviet Union. From a simple US$5million project, the operation becomes appropriated to US$1billion. He is very lucky to find capable team with the help of Gust Arvakotos who has been fighting the Russians.

His effort is most definitely commendable. Only in the presence of the suffering and seeing with their own eyes will people come to realise the real danger and harm of a war. I salute these people for the effort they have made. As disappointed as Charlie has been portrayed in the movie, I personally share the sentiment that the next generation is most particularly vulnerable and should be given the right education and attitude.

And most importantly, war is not the ultimate solution. Destroying homes, killing innocent people should never be the way to promote a cause. Let's all make love, not war people. Spare the young from further agony and fear of uncertainty. Let them lead a meaningful and peaceful lives.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. This is an excellent and brilliant movie. Good depth and humour while man-handling the serious issue of war.

Accuracy of Death

The movie is a lovely story of a grim reaper who appears 7 days before the person is to die. He will observe and decide of the appropriate judgement and manner of death. The movie is a great match to my home-made salsa dip and coke with real lemon!

Our good looking Archangel of Death, Azrael is gently introduced into the movie with the death of a 10 year old little girl. To Chiba, death is nothing special, beautiful or spectacular. It is just the way the universe works and functions like the earth's rotation around the sun. In another word, mechanical. The only thing he enjoys most is music.

His next assignment is to a young girl, Fujiki. An ordinary and meek girl who feels that everyone she ever cares about will always depart from her life, from her parents, to her foster parents and lovers. She thinks about death in ending her senseless and pointless existence. Chiba feels she has yet to live her purpose and gave her a chance to find the new purpose in her life.

Next he is tasked to judge a mafia and a young boy whom is desperately trying to protect the mafia from seeking his own death. Oh Takashi look so damn cute here. Ahem! Follow by the next assignment to a grandmother living in beautiful hut near the coast. This granny is one interesting character as she saw through Chiba's real identity as a reaper and requested for him to help her fulfil her last wishes before dying without regrets.

What is amazing and lovely about this movie is that Chiba has probably gone through a decade without understanding the real meaning of life and death, till he meets with granny who helps him realise the beauty. Granny is also none other than Fujiki and the young man is her son. With Chiba finally sees the magic of universe, he also sees the clear blue sunny sky for the first time in his existence. This scene is such a simple and yet power analogy.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. It is a well-done and scripted movie, quite worth my tortilla chips!

Closer

I decided to catch up on my 'to-watch' list of out-dated movies before the list becomes longer. This evening I chose Closer. It is an amazing movie which you love to hate. It fully explores the selfish nature of human emotions of love and lust. When is the moment that you know you must say no to temptation or should you follow your heart before you regret walking away from someone who might possibly be the love of your life?

When Dan meets Alice, it is love at first sight. He is an obituary writer while she is a cute young American girl who has came to London to escape from a bad relationship. A year later, Dan meets Anna, a beautiful American photographer, whom he lusts after. Anna is separated from her husband then, and she doesn't want to get involved with Dan who is in a relationship with Alice.

Later, Dan meets Larry on an online sex chat. He pretends to be Anna, has a steamy conversation with Larry and continues to play a practical joke on him by asking Larry to meet him at the Aquarium. Incidentally the real Anna happened to be there. Anna and Larry hit it off really well. Dan has accidentally played the role of cupid in matchmaking Anna and Larry.

While Dan and Anna leads separate lives, each of them continues to see someone else they fancy. Yet their lives cross and feelings grow deeper. One year later, Dan decides to come clean with Alice with regards to his feelings towards Anna. At the same time, Anna is being grilled by her current husband Larry when she reveals of her relationship with Dan. It isn't a happy ending for all four of them. They are all entangled up in a messy pot of emotions filled up with love, hatred, desire, lust, forgiveness, deception, etc. At the end of the day, they are all cowards of love. Neither has the courage to face love and grab happiness by the neck.

What the four individuals have gone through is such a common everyday event in our lives. We have seen friends, family and even ourselves in similar or exact situations of being messed up when a third party enters into the sacred space between two persons who are supposedly in love with each other and have implicitly and mutually agreed to be exclusive to each other.

Commitment is so rare these days, and this is exactly what the film speaks of. No one understands what love is anymore, yet we all know exactly how the pain feels like. Isn't it interesting to understand how well we remember painful memory?

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds.