Back to Back Neil Gaiman : Stardust and Coraline

I am not sure when was the first time I heard Gaiman’s name but I do remember the first review I read, it was Graveyard Book in both TBM’s blog (50 Years Project) and Caroline’s blog (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat). They were having a readalong. I really enjoyed their review/discussion but still at that point even though I am curious but NOT curious enough.

And then I was quite surprise to find his name as the writer of The Doctor’s Wife, Doctor Who’s Series 6 episode 4. His episode was really good. I like the connection he made between The Doctor and his TARDIS. Upon seeing that, I became more curious on Neil Gaiman…or as Alice would say curiouser and curiouser. Neil Gaiman also writes last week’s episode of Doctor Who called Nightmare in Silver (Haven’t seen it yet)

Then I asked someone who also loves Stephen King as much as I am whether he has ever read Gaiman’s book and he told me that Gaiman is one of his favorite authors.

So…I finally bought American Gods (will read it after I finished my Stephen King’s book) and found 2 movies based on his books…in short, 1 one them blew my mind while the other was just a fun watch.

6 Short Reviews : 5 Movies 1 TV Series

It’s been a while since I wrote a new post here, the last post was on Thursday.

I was actually planning to write a birthday post for Julian Barratt on May 2^nd but I got soooo busy and unable to do it. So I am just going to say it today

Hope you have A healthy and long life…and start writing Boosh again

Today, I want to share 5 movies and 1 TV series…like I said above, I was/am a bit busy so I choose to write these interesting viewings in short review.

Run Fat Boy Run (2007)

Director: David Schwimmer
Cast: Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria, Dylan Moran, Harish Patel, Matthew Fenton
Rating:

Run Fat Boy Run is a fun movie about a man trying to show the woman he loves that he can change. Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg) ran away on his wedding day because he felt that he was unworthy for her. He came to regret that but she had already had new boyfriend now. Doyle wanted to prove to her that he had changed and willing to do charity marathon to show his determination.

RFBR is really funny but the story is rather typical. There are many movies like this and that makes the movie a bit forgettable. I really like the comedy in this one, I had great fun watching it…but I wouldn’t call it great movie.

Napola (2004) – One Beautiful Friendship Under the Doctrine of Nazism

Despite its awful dubbing and terrible subtitle, I still enjoy Napola up to the point that those two deficiencies are no longer bothering me.

German movies aren’t very common here…well in fact almost most movies from Europe aren’t as common as Hollywood’s here. I have never heard of Napola before and most likely would never hear of it if Caroline @ Beauty Is a sleeping Cat never mentioned in her All About War Movies blog. Her review really intrigued me.

I couldn’t find the original DVD (no surprise there!) and finally relied on torrentz. Unfortunately, the file is so bad that I have to postpone watching it for months after I had finished downloading it. It was dubbed in another European language, but I don’t know which country…the dubbing is not a proper dubbing, it was more like a commentary, his words are above the original voice. I was forced to hear 2 different languages spoken one above the other…and that was incredibly annoying. To make matter worse, the subtitle was equally awful. It won’t show up after ¾th of the movie, I have to open the notepad and read it while watching the movie…watching Napola is probably the worst movie viewing experience I have ever had in my entire life.

However…

The movie itself is incredibly heartwarming and beautiful. I love everything about it. The emotion is transparently shown and has one of the most beautiful friendships in a movie. I like it so much that I overlook that dubbing and subtitle problem. I wish I can see a better version of Napola.

From Wikipedia, I found out what Napola is:

National Political Institutes of Education (German: Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten; officially abbreviated NPEA, commonly abbreviated Napola for Nationalpolitische Lehranstalt meaning National Political Institution of Teaching) were secondary boarding schools in Nazi Germany. They were founded as “community education sites” after the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933.

Napola’s storyline (from Imdb)

3 Perilous Movies: The Machinist, Insidious, and The Grey

I have been pretty busy for R.I.P Challenge. I have 3 movies to share now…although they were actually being watched before I published my post about joining R.I.P challenge. These three movies are for my Peril On Screen. You can see more reviews at the Review Site.

 

These three movies have different kind of suspense. Two are psychological thriller and one is supernatural thriller. The two psychological thrillers are also different one another, one deals with a man no one had ever seen and the other one deals with beat in the wild.

Let’s just move on to the movie

The Machinist (2004)

Director : Brad Anderson
Writer : Scott Kosar
Starring : Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Sharian, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Michael Ironside.
Rating:
Story: Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) hadn’t been sleeping for a year and lost weight to a scary degree. He was working as a machinist. One day, he met a man named Ivan who claimed to be as one of the replacement in the factory where Trevor works. The meeting led to a dreadful accident. Trevor was haunted by Ivan.

The Machinist is an amazing movie!! I can’t say much about the story because if you know just the slightest idea of how it is and then you can guess it out from my review…then it won’t be good anymore. The machinist’s greatness lies on the ending and how unpredictable it was. Although I could figure out who Ivan might be but I couldn’t figure out why Ivan showed up. I always enjoy movies where everything was revealed at the end. I give big applause to Scott Kosar for coming up with such story.

Carrie and The Woman in Black – Horrific Ladies From Book to Movie

It’s been a while since I wrote movie review…I don’t know why I suddenly lost interest in writing movie review…but fortunately I gained it back today

After my baby turtle Kame-chan passed away I had no desire to see English speaking movies, I watched Japanese dorama one after another (I haven’t reviewed the other 2 I have watched…soon)…but, the spell finally broke when my friend (@wdachi) asked me to watch The Woman in Black. I am not Daniel Radcliffe fan but I long for a good horror movie. Although I still haven’t watched other English speaking movie again (except for ones by Cillian and Benedict) but the dorama phase has finally broken. I will soon watch and review another English speaking movie while still keeping track with my collection of Dorama

Today I want to share 2 movies I have watched recently…both have something in common that is both are about frightening female and both are originally from a book.

Let’s just get on to it…shall we

Carrie (1976)

I wasn’t even born yet

I have seen this movie ages ago but hardly remember anything about it anymore. I finally read the book on February and I really like it. Reading that book made me wanted to see the movie again. Old movies aren’t easy to come by here so I downloaded the movie (sorry) and watched it somewhere in the middle of February. I was busy and never got time to write the review but I still remember it clearly till today.

Carrie started with her being laughed as she had her first period in the school’s shower room. Their P.E teacher stopped it and helped Carrie. She was sent to her home only to be scolded by her mother. Her religion fanatic mother blamed Carrie for her period, she told her it was a sin…first the blood then the lust.

The P.E teacher threatened the girls who were laughing at Carrie with suspension. Chris, one of the girls, hated Carrie so much and swore to get her back. Meanwhile, Sue, also laughing at Carrie, felt deep regret and wanted to make up for what she had done. She asked her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom.

Monday Movies: Tintin, Buranku, Margin Call, Hanna

I watched quite a variety this past two weeks. I managed to watch 6 movies but I only reviewed 4 movies here because the other two are being be reviewed separately. All these 4 movies are from 2011, quite a rarity as I often watched movies from different years.

Within 2 weeks, I have watched an animated movie of one of my favorite graphic novels I used to read when I was younger; a comic-like action movie; a drama I didn’t quite understand but still enjoy it; and another action that received good review everywhere.

Let’s just cut the introduction and moves to the mini review straight away:)

The Adventure of Tintin

Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish
Staring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Daniel Craig
Rating:

Story: The adventure of Tintin was based on The Crab With Golden Claws, The Secret of Unicorn and The Treasure of Red Rackham. The story was changed quite a lot. Tintin met Captain Haddock for the first time whereas in the book, they have been friend for quite sometimes. The basic story is still the same. Tintin bought a model ship called Unicorn. Buying that ship made Tintin trapped in a revenge that had passed through generations. Ivan Sakharine tried everything to get the paper inside the ship so that he could find his ancestor’s treasure and had his revenge toward Sir Francis Haddock descendent. The adventure led them to Morocco. They continued their adventure in Europe.