City of Men

After I had watched City of God a few years back, I naturally assumed that City of Men could potentially be an interesting movie.

The movie tells the story of two best friends, Acerola and Laranjinha, before they turn 18. Laranjinha is determined to locate his father while his family discourages his search. Acerola, an orphan, supports Laranjinha and starts the search and to help to identify Laranjinha's father.

The friendship suffers a huge break when Acerola discovers that he has been an orphan because Laranjinha's father had killed his father while trying to rob a restaurant. Together with a war between the rival drug lords for a hold of the hill, their friendship becomes compromised.

Rating: 2 out of 5 fairy clouds. While the movie makes reference to their childhood and strong bonding, I find it hard to totally comprehend with dire exasperation of people living in the slum. You feel pitiful and sympathize with their hardship, hopelessness and chaos living in such an environment. You leave the cinema feeling sad instead of inspire by their perseverance to keep trying for a better life. It is a real shame.

My Lovely Bones

I watched My Lovely Bones after finishing up on an event over the weekend in March. The movie has a very strange poetic rhythm and captivating charm. You either love it or hate it, I don't think there is much of an in-between.

Her name is Salmon, like a fish. First name, Susie. She is a 14 year old and her life is only just beginning when it is taken away from her. Taking a short cut through the corn field, Susie meets a neighbour, Mr Harvey, who coaxes her to see an underground den which he has built for the children. From that fateful day onwards, Susie watches her family and her killer from an in-between world.

She watches how her death tormented her family and she desires vengeance from the man who has taken away all her hopes and her future. Slowly over the years, her family starts to heal and her killer has been discovered. Together with the other young victims, Susie is able to finally move on to heaven and let go of her final wish.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. The movie has done rather well to bring across the emotional pain, the horror of death and all the things which were considered unbelievable in the 1970s where people trusted each other, especially neighbours. Quite a lot of depth in the seemingly simple and straightforward movie.

Agathe Cléry

Oui! Elle est blanche et elle est raciste. C'est vrai. Elle est Agathe Cléry.

Agathe Cléry is hardworking and capable marketing manager of a cosmetic company which promotes fair skin. She is also demanding and henceforth dislike by her subordinates and colleagues. With the success in the marketing of the new product, Scandinav, to the Belgians, Agathe is promoted to marketing director.

While she is celebrating her new career development, she becomes devastated to be diagnosed of Addison Syndrome which causes her skin to darken. She always feels queasy towards coloured folks, so it is rather hard for her to accept her condition. She is unable to accept herself as a coloured person and to make matter worse, she turns completely black, loses her job and loses her man.

She learns to make peace with coloured folks when she starts to work for a black boss, in a company which doesn't hire any white person. She is happy and she is in love with her boss. But her happiness did not last too long as she starts to revert to white again.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. The movie has a simply plot and humour which is quite in your face. The saving grace is the whimsical musical song and dance which makes the movie more entertaining and fun.

Law Abiding Citizen

Is justice really just? What if the laws fail to protect the innocent? Clyde Shelton is a brilliant engineer and inventor. He is a happy family man until a pair of robbers come to his house, brutally murdered his wife and daughter. He survives the misfortune but he becomes a different man.

Ten years after the main culprit walked away free from killing Clyde's family, he meticulous plots against the whole justice system. Starting from the two criminals who killed his family, to the judge, district attorney and and more.

Rating: 3 out of 5 fairy clouds. Not my cup of tea. I have strong distaste for such genre of movies. No war, violent or vengeance theme for me please. No explicit violence is showed in the movie but the act of it is sufficient to let your imagination goes wild. The whole movie is wrapped up quite hastily so that the mass market can accept the film with the good triumph over the bad.

Alice in Wonderland

If you are expected a simple adaption of Lewis Carroll's novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, you are in for a surprise. Directed by Tim Burton, the movie Alice in Wonderland is quite a different experience altogether.

Alice first fell through the rabbit hole at a age of 6. Now that 13 years have passed, she is once again led the by White Rabbit into the very same hole which she thought it was a dream. Down the rabbit hole Alice falls once more, into Underland. Almost similar to her first adventure, she crosses path with Absolem, the smoking caterpillar, Chessur, the smiling Cheshire cat, the Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse, and of course the Red Queen and White Queen.

This adventure is twist from her first trip. As the journey brings her deeper into Underland, she learns of her destiny on Frabjous Day, that is to slay the Jabberwocky as the forces of the White and Red Queens converge on the chessboard battlefield.

Rating 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. While the animation and imaginative world of Alice in Wonderland is sufficiently captivating for more audience. It is sad that the 3D does not add to the enjoyment of the film. 3D effect from A Christmas Carol and Avatar fare much better. Still, Alice in Wonderful is quite an enjoyable movie if you are into mythical and riddleful world.

Naked Kitchen

Marriage is a bliss when it is filled with love and romance. The declaration of love. The celebration of love. The taste of love. And so the the lust of love.. and forbidden love in Naked Kitchen.

Mo-rae and Sang-in are celebrating their first anniversary. She goes to a ceramic gallery with the intention to buy gift for her husband. There she meets a complete stranger and has sex with the strange man. Thinking it is just an isolated encounter, she confesses to Sang-in during dinner. Sang-in forgives her and requests to put the incident away.

When the stranger shows up at their home, she realises that Du-re is the chef whom Sang-in has invited to help him with his restaurant venture. While Mo-rae and Du-re find it harder to stay away from each other, Sang-in starts to sense something between the two. The trial of love taunt these 3 individuals.

Rating: 3 out of 5 fair clouds. Love and romance sometime just isn't the same though it grows from the same seed. Life is trying. Love is trying. The Koreans seem to have a enjoy pain of almost everything in life. The least to say, its a a painful movie to watch unless you simply love to torment yourself.

The Wolflman

"Even a man who is pure at heart and says's his prayers at night, may become a Wolf, when the Wolf bane blooms, and the Autumn moon shines bright". Man fears none other than the foul creature which roams the moonlit trees.

Lawrence Talbot returns to Blackmoor upon the plead of his brother's fiancee Gwen Conlife. His brother Ben has been missing for weeks now and Gwen fears for the worse. Truth unfolds for Ben's body to be found in a ditch, mangled and torn by an unknown beast. Lawrence decides to stay at his ancestral home to uncover his death.

He discovers a sickly truth of his traumatic childhood and death of his beloved mother. His father, Sir John Talbot, is none other than the cold murderer and wolfman of the town. Sadly for Lawrence, he too becomes infected by the beast and turns into a werewolf himself. Will be inherit his father madness or seeks vengeance for his mother and brother?

Rating: 2 out of 5 fairy clouds. The story is slow and dark, failing to capture my interests barely 15 minutes into the movie. Highly predictable plot and commercial shots. A disappointed and not worth the time or money to watch.