Category: Movies

Yesterday I went to the movies with a bunch of friends including Marzouq, Nibaq and K.theKuwaiti. We went to the Al Fanar movie theater to watch Die Hard 4.0. After watching the movie I’ve realized that people will either love it or hate it, I am the later.

The movie is high budget so no where in it does it ever end up looking cheap or fake… except when it comes to the story. You can’t get a more 1990’s cliché styled plot then this one which is the main reason I think people will love it or not. If the movie was released in 1998 it might have been cool but today with great TV shows like 24 which are similar in idea (1 hero kills 2 million bad guys) the movie didn’t it cut it for me.

In fact I found the movie long and boring. It was over 2 hours long which is great if you’re watching an epic but an action movie? It should have easily been under an hour and a half thats for sure. Bruce Willis was great in the movie though. For some reason I’ve always wanted to see him in a movie matched up against Sylvester Stallone, the same way Al Pacino and Robert Deniro were matched up against each other in the movie Heat. Maybe they should have made Bruce Willis the bad guy in the upcoming Rambo 4. My favorite scenes in the movie were the ones that involved Kevin Smith since. they were funny and a change of pace from the rest of the movie, mind you it was Bruce Willis that made me laugh here more then Kevin Smith. Bruce Willis is like Will Smith when it comes to humor in the middle of an action movie. Since both were comedians before its easy for them to be serious through out the film playing a tough guy and then suddenly be funny without looking out of place. They are naturals and now that I think of it, maybe if Die Hard 4 wasn’t made to be taken seriously, and was more of an action/comedy it might have been more fun. Kinda like how Feast is a horror/comedy combo.

I personally didn’t like Die Hard 4.0 and don’t its worth going to the movies for. But, if you really want to go and watch something then just wait a few more days till Transformers gets released. I give this movie a 3 out of 5.

Michael Moore’s new movie, Sicko is on Google Video. Its the complete movie, over 2 hours long. Sicko is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth. [Link]

update: It seems Google took down the video since the link is now dead.

Blades of Glory
There wasn’t anything else better to watch at the movies so I watched this. It turned out to be cool and funny. Great cast, Will Arnett was the movie.

Ghost Rider
Sucked big time. I couldn’t even finish the movie because it was so bad. Big budget but B-rated acting and story. Nicolas Cage should have retired after Face/Off.

Wild Hogs
Its a cheesy family/children movie. I personally watched this movie because it starred William H. Macy but sadly he wasn’t at his best here. Some funny moments here and there but overall just cheesy humor.

Vacancy
The movie stars Luke Wilson who is incredibly funny, his last movie I watched, Idiocracy was hilarious so watching him being serious in this thriller was weird. The movie was fairly decent, its your everyday cliché slasher put together nicely.

Mr. Bean’s Holiday
I am a huge Mr. Bean fan but this movie was trash. It got so boring that I actually started forwarding the movie until I got to the good parts which was mostly near the end. The movie starts nicely and ends nicely but everything in the middle was just dull. It should have been a short sketch instead of a full length movie.

Perfect Stranger
I never paid attention to Halle Berry’s acting before, but after this movie I realized its not any good. She needs to act topless, thats the only way you won’t notice her acting. Bruce Willis was cool in the movie, he’s always been cool in his movies except in Hudson Hawk. Giovanni Ribisi wasn’t as annoying as he usually is. Sadly since the main star of the movie is Halle Berry, her acting skills killed it.

Picture taken from USA Today’s article “First look: ‘Speed Racer’s’ demon on wheels” [Link]

Looks like its going to be fun. [YouTube]

Cinemagic who are entertaining people every Wednesday night with movies have now created a Documentary Night which is going to be held every Tuesday. This week they will be playing Al Gore’s controversial Academy Award winning Documentary about Global Warming, “An Inconvenient Truth“. The location is the same, Bait Lothan in Salmiya and the movie will run from 7:30PM till around 9:30PM.

As always, attendance is free of charge and they encourage you to invite guests. Seating is limited, so make sure you come a little early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

I was at Virgin here in Lebanon checking out the Ingmar Bergman special edition DVD collection when I noticed the box looked like it was missing a DVD. I then noticed a warning label on top which said:

This box set is missing item(s) that were confiscated by the general security for censorship reasons.

So it happens even in Lebanon although DVD censorship here is not as common as in Kuwait and is usually left to really controversial stuff.

Might be the best Star Wars yet… [YouTube]

Thanks Digi!

I watched the movie Shooter earlier today, it was long, boring and didn’t have enough snipping sniping. Maybe I should just download the 1993 movie “Sniper” and rewatch that.

I got the following email from Cinemagic:

Dear All,

You are invited to attend “Short & Sweet”, Cinemagic’s weekly screening event. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, on Wednesday 9th of May, and will run between 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

This week we will be screening “Children of Heaven“, a 1997 Iranian film that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes, while also touching upon the more serious subject of the political situation in Iran as well as class differences between the rich and the poor and daily urban life.

In 1998, the film was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.

It was successfully shown on numerous film festivals and won awards at the Fajr Film Festival, the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Jury’s Grand Prize at the American Film Institute’s festival.

For its part, Cinemagic Kuwait, is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by Increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of filmmaking.

As always, attendance is free of charge and you are encouraged to invite guests. Seating is limited, so make sure you come a little early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Yazan Al Ghazzawi
PR & Marketing Manager
Kuwait Cinemagic

Tel: (+965) 574 3253
Cell: (+965) 722 2416

www.cinemagics.com

I started watching this documentary/movie called The Last Flight to Kuwait which talks about the British Airways flight 149 that landed in Kuwait just as Iraq was invading back in 1990. I don’t know how accurate it is but it looks like its based on facts.

There always was a conspiracy surrounding the reason the BA flight landed in Kuwait. According to Wikipedia the flight landed after the invasion had begun but according to the documentary it landed just before. In any case, the documentary talks about the reason the plane landed in Kuwait which was because there were eight MI6 (the British secret intelligence service) agents that the British government wanted to position in Kuwait. It sounds very plausible especially since there is no other reason why BA didn’t cancel the flight like every other airline that night.

If you can manage to get a hold of the movie its definitely worth watching. The movie is a combination of real footage from the war, reenacted scenes and interviews with some of the passengers and crew of that flight.

Yesterday night I watched a movie called Smokin’ Aces which is kinda like Ocean’s Eleven except bigger, meaner and a lot cooler. The movie has a huge cast and I mean HUGE! Here is a list of some of the most recognizable ones:

Ben Affleck
Jason Bateman
Common
Andy Garcia
Alicia Keys
Alex Rocco
Wayne Newton
Ray Liotta
Ryan Reynolds
Jeremy Piven
Peter Berg
Martin Henderson
Christopher Michael Holley
Maury Sterling
Curtis Armstrong
Matthew Fox
Nestor Carbonell

Full list of cast is [Here]

So you can see the cast list is just awesome, even Jack from Lost is in this movie.. even Herb from the old TV show Moonlighting is in this movie! The movie is about a mob guy who turned snitch and now has a 1 million dollar bounty on his head to whoever can kill him. Different assassins try to get to him and it becomes a race to see who can kill him first.

As I mentioned earlier the cast in the movie is great but the best part is a lot of the actors are playing roles that we usually don’t associate them with. For example, Ryan Reynolds plays a very serious and dedicated FBI agent but he usually plays the role of a funny and silly guy in various comedies. Nestor Carbonell, the hispanic guy on Suddenly Susan, last time I saw him he was playing the role of Batmanuel on the short lived comedy series “The Tick“. In Smokin’ Aces he plays the role of a psychotic torturer / assassin. These role changes make the movie a lot more enjoyable because its really twisted and unexpected.

The movie is a lot of fun and even though its nearly two hours long it never gets dull not even for a single second. On IMDB it got a raiting of 6.5 out of 10 but I really don’t understand why. I personally give it a 4.5 out of 5. Its loaded with action and it stars some of my favorite actors, its the perfect recipe for a successful movie.

Check out the official website [Here]

I haven’t posted a movie review in a while because as usual, most of the movies I watch turn out to be average. Big Nothing on the other hand surprised me because it actually turned out to be really cool and absurd.

The comedy stars David Schwimmer the guy from the tv show Friends and Simon Pegg, the guy from Shaun of the Dead. David plays the role of unemployed teacher who goes to work at a call center where he meets Simon who convinces him to join him in a simple blackmailing scheme. The scheme turns out to be anything but simple with twisted murders and lies.

Simon Pegg as expected is extremely comical while this is probably David Schwimmer’s best movie yet. The movie takes a lot of unexpected twists and turns that you spend the whole time laughing because you can’t believe what just happened. The way their simple plan falls apart over and over and over is just ridiculous! It was really entertaining to watch and isn’t long clocking in just 86 minutes. So for the final score I give it a 4 out of 5.

Delta Farce looks like its going to be the funniest movie of the year. Actually second funniest, the funniest is still Black Sheep. [Trailer]

I just found out about this famous Filipino midget action star called Weng Weng from BoingBoing, and I watched a few clips and they are unbelievably ridiculous!

Weng Weng Beats Guys Up… Again!
Weng-Weng Fight Lunacy
Weng Weng Kills Samurai’s
Weng Weng as Agent 00
Weng Weng Uses His Poisonous Darts
Weng Weng Kicks Ass