The mutated life-size turles are back!

It would have been nicer if Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a 3D version, but still this movie doesn’t fail to entertain. My childhood memories came back in flash upon seeing these well-missed turtles

I know that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went on top of the box-office hit list at its opening weekend (March 28, 2007) and went head to head with the graphic epic 300 but I believe the kids of today are not familiar with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This turtle superheroes belong to the early 90’s as cartoon favorites, went kaput for a while, and now they’re back with a vengeance.

There’s one action scene that I admire in the movie – Leonardo and Raphael (in his Nightcrawler protégé character) squaring off in the rain. I think that’s a certain improvement in animation action scenes. Go watch the movie. And don’t forget to collect the toys too.

 

Monster House is an experiment to merge children’s animation with horror. And it succeeds. This actually is Robert Zemeckis’s follow up to Polar Express, Zemeckis having fallen in love himself to children’s animation, big thanks to the influence of Steven Spielberg. There is one memorable scene in this movie – the liplock between Jenny and DJ who are both still in their preteens. I have seen a preteen girl kissed a preteen boy in a movie (Great Expectations) but that was for a mature audience. This one, however, is a kids’ movie. I think I have some reservations on that. But anyhow, it is your choice as a parent whether you want them to see this movie or not. After all, this is also available in 3D so you may just want to make it a hell of a ride.

It’s kinda abnormal for animals to possess intelligence as humans but that’s the fun in fables where humans are involved, right? And so it is in this movie. The actors are so engrossed with their animal characters that even Nick Nolte had to research his role just as his voice would be that of a bear. But to be “fair” to the animals too, in this movie, they just want to get back at the humans for pursuing a development project in the wilds and creating a hedge between them.

Full riot from start to finish. Fun fun fun, kids will be delighted to watch, grown-ups as well.

 Trivia:

The art department went to a bowling alley to sketch the design of the ‘perfect’ vending machine. They went to various supermarkets to sketch chip bags and bottles. They eventually got kicked out of a Safeway because the manager felt uncomfortable with them being there for such an extended amount of time.

In 1998, A Bug’s Life was Disney’s November answer to the September release of Dreamworks Pictures, Antz. When Disney was still a separate entity from Pixar Animation Studios, the former contracted the latter to come up with another interesting CGI film, as follow up for Toy Story. Yes, Pixar was also the force behind Toy Story phenomenon, which practically started the whole CGI trend.

A Bug’s Life is a funny movie with interesting characters and heartwarming story, typical of a Disney movie. Watching this film will also make you appreciate the musical scoring and the amazing computer animation work of course.

It’s a movie for all ages. Kids will surely love to watch it many times over. By the way, Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet of Heroes) did the voice of DOT. Her voice must be something that grown-ups can look forward to hearing.

Toy Story was the revolutionary 1995 computer-animated hit that started it all. It was Pixar’s first feature film, and it’s said to be the first computer-animated film to be completed. This was surely a new adventure for Tom Hanks, who did the voice of “Woody” the lead character. He was on top of his career (he did the Oscar-winning Forrest Gump and Apollo 13 prior to this.), and doing something new, like voicing a CGI character was a fresh break from his serious acting jobs.

Just thinking of the action sequences in this computer-generated movie brings much grin, and I’m sure that a lot of people who have seen this movie can relate with me. John Lasseter, the director, truly presented cleverness.

This movie goes down in history as one of the best CGI films ever produced. The fusion of Pixar Animation and Disney proved to be a good move. Worldwide, this movie earned $358,100,000 worldwide. It’s time for you to get a taste of CGI greatness. Watch Toy Story, and see what goes on in the toy kingdom when the humans are not looking.

This movie was based from the 1982 novel by Stephen King, entitled “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”. But take note, the late great sex symbol Rita Hayworth was never on the film, but her pin-up served more than just an inspiration (or male energy & imagination inducer) for a guy who’s imprisoned.

It has a very interesting story that all started with a crime of passion. Andy Dufresne, the calm soft-spoken banker (played by Tim Robbins) was convicted of killing his wife and her extra-marital lover. His life in prison was far from good. It’s a good thing that I’ve seen this movie when I was a little older. Had I seen this movie when I was still a little younger, I could’ve been one jaded cynical person. Life in prison was no joke, and this movie clearly depicts the scenario (solitary confinement/ violence/sex), although the sex wasn’t capitalized in this movie.

I don’t watch prison movies, but I don’t know why I was led to watch this movie (including THE GREEN MILE…but that’s a different story). I did not regret watching this film at all. In fact, I have watched this movie over 10 times (several times on VHS, on cable, on DVD) at different stages of my life. I’ve watched it as a budding adult and I’ve seen it as an adult. It just gets better each time. The older I get, the more I appreciate it. It is one great piece of Stephen King work. Inspite the prison scenario, it’s a story of hope, patience, endurance, and friendship. Perhaps what Stephen King wanted to convey is the message that, in every trial and suffering in life, the Heavens will never abandon as long as we hold on to our hope. As the movie’s tagline suggests, hope can set you free.

Tagline: You were warned never to push Carrie to the limits. Now you must face the evil consequences.

Carrie is a 98-minute coming-of-age horror story, pretty much a fusion of the minds of writer Stephen King and director Brian de Palma. Sissy Spacek played the role of Carrie White, and she did her job well. This role earned her an Oscar nomination (a first-time Best Actress nomination for a horror film).

This movie is more than just the story of a girl who is experiencing the fits of adolescence for the first time while her classmates make it even harder by always mocking her. Carrie is a reclusive girl, all the more isolated, as a result of being raised by her ultra-conservative dysfunctional mom. What the girls didn’t know though is that Carrie also has telekinetic powers and the horror started when the girls slowly die one by one. I can say that the cinematography was exceptional, ahead of its time (1976). The horror scenes were somewhat satisfactory, the technical stuff were okay. (Did Sissy Spacek have a full frontal nudity in this movie?? See the film to answer this question).

The Shining is titled as such for it is what the characters (Jack and Danny Torrance) dubbed their supernatural visions of past and future horrific events. The movie revolves around a regular person named Jack Torrance who has evolved into a madman (ably played by Jack Nicholson). The movie was directed (and written for movies) by the late great Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick is really a perfect director, I should say. He made the 70-year-old Scatman Crothers shoot one scene for a whopping 120 times. And he also demanded the same number of shots on Shelley Duvall (who played Wendy Torrannce) in a particular scene.

One funny trivia from IMDB:

Stephen King tried to talk Stanley Kubrick out of casting Jack Nicholson in the lead suggesting, instead, either ‘Michael Moriarty’ or Jon Voight. King had felt that watching either of these normal-looking men gradually descend into madness, would have immensely improved the dramatic thrust of the storyline. Indeed, many fans of the book agreed with King, adding that Nicholson appeared fairly crazy from the very start, thus there was little or no surprise when Jack ultimately went totally overboard.

This story resembles Stephen King’s other work, The Shawshank Redemption, on two points: first, the movie is about a person suffering from a lingering bad situation i.e. she is incarcerated; and second, despite that odd, the person finds a way to squirm herself out of the situation. Well, not literally, because Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates’s character) in this movie was not exonerated of her crime. We tend to believe that she really killed the maid in the movie. But the positivity that came from that situation was it cemented Dolores Claiborne’s relationship with her daughter, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, another beautiful actress who can do strong straight drama. After all, this is one of Kathy’s finest performances in her sterling career.

Trivia:

Stephen King earned US$ 1.5 million when CASTLE ROCK bought the rights to this novel.

Stephen King

Watching James Caan in a seemingly invincible role in Las Vegas transforming into an invalid in this movie seems so breathtaking and pitiful to watch. Here, we see James Caan at the mercy of a woman (played by Kathy Bates who will later win an Oscar for her role here). Misery is actually used as a metaphor here – misery representing James Caan’s character Paul Sheldon’s disbelief in his situation; and Misery being the name of a character that Paul Sheldon has written off. Kathy is a psychotic fan of Misery and to watch her being killed by Paul Sheldon seems unbearable for her. Thus, she desperately forces Paul Sheldon to resurrect her character and Paul Sheldon’s misery begins.

TRIVIA:

Jack Nicholson was offered the role of Paul Sheldon but passed because he wasn’t sure he wanted to do another movie based on one of Stephen King’s novels after what he had experienced with Stanley Kubrick on The Shining (1980)