2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003Since I have off from work till Monday due to the Kuwait National and Liberation day, I went ahead and downloaded a couple of movies to watch. Here they are:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Colin Farrell Sex Tape
One Night In Paris Hilton
The New World
The Weather Man
Transamerica
Waiting
Two years ago I was looking for interesting stuff to read for my long plane trip to New York when I ended up finding a website which had tons of articles and stories on terrorists and killers. I started printing some stuff including information on Black September, Munich, Carlos the Jackal and tons of articles on all the terrorist attacks that occurred in the 70s and 80s. Some I had heard of before some were completely new to me. In any case I got the printouts binded them into a book form and took them with me to read during my trip. They stories and articles proved to be very interesting to read and I found the Munich event very disturbing yet very exciting.. it felt like driving by a big car accident. What I found really interesting in the story is how Israel and the Mossad spent years after the event slowly and carefully tracking down every high ranking official that was responsible for the Munich event and assassinating them. When I heard Steven Spielberg was going to release a movie about Munich I couldn’t wait to watch it and two nights ago I finally did.
During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.
Munich was really fun to watch. You always hear about Mossad all the time in the news and stuff but you never really see them in films. You always see the CIA, KGB and MI6 portrayed in movies but never Mossad and so to finally see them was a really nice change from the usual intelligence agencies. The movie takes place after the Munich event and it follows Eric Bana who plays a Mossad agent leading a 4 man team in an attempt to assassinate the masterminds behind the Munich event. The movie started off REALLY good, like I was enjoying it as much I would enjoy an episode of my favorite tv show, 24. The movie has a lot of buildups and they are all to the assassination scenes. Each assassination needs research, a new safe house, planning, a new method of killing etc.. and as a viewer you are taken along to witness these steps up to the “grand” assassination moment. Once one of the targets is killed the process is repeated over again. The problem with the movie is that its nearly 3 hours long. Once again I would like to point out that I don’t have a problem with long movies! I refused to watch any of the Lord of the Rings movies until the extended versions came out which were around 40 minutes longer then the already long regular version. I like long movies.. when there is a reason for them to be long. Munich however didn’t have a reason to be this long. I think 30 minutes could easily have been chopped off at the end when the assassinations were over and things were just dragging. Still though the movie was really great and subject extremely interesting. This is why I am giving it a 4 out of 5.
I just read that Memoirs of a Geisha got banned in Kuwait. I wasn’t interested in watching it, but I am curious to why it got the ban. I am also curious to why it was playing in the movies here for a week now, why didn’t they ban it from the beginning? [Link]
I watched the trailer a few days ago and it looks like Scary Movie 4 is going to be even sillier and funnier then the previous movies. In the trailer they spoofed War of the Worlds, The Grudge, Saw and The Village but the actual movie will contain even more spoofs from more movies. Here is a link to the trailer. [Link]
Update: Qualitynet for some stupid reason is blocking the Scary Movie website. Here is another link to the trailer. [Link]
For some reason I was expecting this movie to be based in a jungle on an island, I guess something like the TV show Lost. I don’t know where I got that visual in my head but it put me off about the movie and I wouldn’t have watched it if Nat hadn’t nagged the hell out of me to get it.
The main star of the movie is Ewan McGregor who I will continue to dislike more and more until he shaves his head and goes back to being the still unknown but really cool actor in Trainspotting. Ewan has become too mainstream for my taste and after starring in Moulin Rouge which I will never ever EVER watch, I have started to think he might be turning soft. In the movie The Island he wasn’t that bad, it suited him more then then his previous roles like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars and Ed in Big Fish. I think when Ewan plays the role of a young carefree guy it suits him the best.
Plot Outline: Lincoln Six-Echo (McGregor) is a resident of a seemingly utopian but contained facility in the mid 21st century. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the “The Island” – reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human clones. Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta (Johansson). Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers.
This movie is an action packed fast moving sci-fi which sounds good until you realize its over 2 hours long. No one wants to sit for over 2 hours watching an action movie with a plot thats so predictable that you just want to get the whole thing over with. I think thats the movies biggest fuck up, if it was a one-hour-thirty-minute in-and-out thank-you-goodbye flick then it wouldn’t have been an issue. The movie does have some really good chase scenes which were really fun to watch and that why I am giving this movie a 3.5 out of 5 instead of a 3.
Seems like Rocky is going the way of King Kong when it comes to pre-movie blogging. The Rocky Balboa blog recently came online and over the next year, Sylvester Stallone and the production team will talk about the making of the upcoming film Rocky Balboa. The site already contains a video and some pictures from the movie and from what I can see Stallone is back in shape but is really starting to look old. I heard that Mr. T is coming back for this Rocky movie, I hope thats true. I also hope that Stallone comes out with Rambo 4 soon, I would rather see Rambo over Rocky any day. Finally I also think Stallone should join Jack Bauer on ’24’, together they can do some serious ass kicking! [Link]
I found a website yesterday that sells pirated DVD’s and CD’s online here in Kuwait.. and they deliver! The website sells DVD’s for KD1.5 ($5) each and they seem to have a decent collection. I don’t know how much the CD’s go for but I am guessing either the same or less. Payment is made on delivery and the delivery is free of charge. [Link]
Update: There is another site that will also deliver DVD’s to your home, but they require you to buy atleast 3 DVD’s at KD2 ($6) each. You also place the order by phone and they seem to have a large collection. [Link]
Serenity
Expected it to be way better. Didn’t like the actors, they felt very B rated. Movie started off slow but got better near the end.
Broken Flowers
Lolita scene was the best. Bill Murray rocked. I liked the movie although the ending could have been better.
Lord of War
Didn’t like it that much. Felt it was too long. Didn’t find it interesting. Production was really good.
Saw II
I preferred the original Saw. sequel wasn’t as freaky or shocking as the original. Some of the scenes were really lame.
Oliver Twist
The original movie and book were really great. I played Oliver once in a play! This remake sucked. They didn’t even have the song “Food Glorious Food”!
The Brothers Grimm
I was expecting it to be more fairytale like and so was disappointed when I saw the movie. It was kinda slow and not as mystical as it could have been. I liked the costumes and settings in the woods though.
City of God
It was enjoyable to watch. Didn’t find it heartbreaking nor life changing. It was a good movie just not as good as some people made it out to be. I bought this movie on DVD.
Over the vacation I watched the movie Jarhead. Its based on a best-selling book written by a marine on his experiences in Saudi Arabia pre-Desert Storm and later his Desert Storm experience fighting in Kuwait. The movie starts of with a famous “Full Metal Jacket” scene but thats as far as the similarities go. The movie isn’t action packed since its based on truth. You see the movie follows a scout/sniper platoon based in the desert outside Kuwait. Desert Storm was mostly fought from the sky and Sea with very little ground work. Since this movie follows foot soldiers they didn’t have a lot to do, unlike the ground soldiers now in Iraq. It takes on a really interesting perspective showing you the emotional side of the war from the side liners view.
Even though the whole movie takes place in the empty desert it was still entertaining to watch even though there was no war action. There was always something going on in the movie. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire originally vied for the lead role in the film and thank god they went with Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) instead. Jake looks like a marine and looks like he can kick ass unlike both Leonardo and Tobey. I actually didn’t recognize Jake until after the movie was over, he looked really different then when he played the messed up kid in Donnie Darko. Overall I give this movie a 3.5 out of 5. It was the best movie I watched over the vacation, the other movie I watched was Oliver Twist and that pretty much sucked.
Yesterday night I watched the new Pierce Brosnan movie called The Matador. In the movie Pierce plays the roll of a hitman who meets Greg Kinnear in a bar in Mexico City. They become friends and the movie takes the viewers along on their strange relationship.
This has to be one of the best Pierce Brosnan movies I have ever watched. The movie visually is very funky and the story itself is very original and entertaining. I really liked it a lot and thats why I am giving it a 4 out of 5. [Link]
I hate paying money and buying an original DVD and then being forced to sit through half a dozen movie trailers which I can’t skip before I can watch the movie I purchased. Just gives me more reason to download movies instead of buying them.
This is a list of the worst movies of the year put together by Rotten Tomatoes: (numbers in brackets are IMDB ratings)
Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2.3)
Domino (5.6)
Doom (5.3)
Into the Blue (5.1)
The Dukes of Hazzard (4.6)
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (4.1)
Supercross (3.3)
Undiscovered (2.4)
9 Songs (5.1)
Stealth (4.6)
House of Wax (5.4)
Guess Who (5.5)
Elektra (5.1)
Hide and Seek (5.5)
Alone in the Dark (2.3)
Ma Mere (5.0)
Aeon Flux (5.3)
[source rotten tomatoes]
I just watched the trailer for Miami Vice and I think its going to rock. I had my doubts before because of Colin Farrell but watching the trailer now I think he fits the part very nicely. The only downside to the trailer is the music, I was hoping for a remake of the original theme, maybe that will be there once the movie gets released. If you haven’t watched the trailer yet you can do so on the official movie website. [Link]
Here is a list by the Guardian Unlimited of the best movies of 2005, I watched three movies, Sideways, A History of Violence and Downfall. I really loved Downfall a lot, one of the best World War related movie I have ever seen but I found both Sideways and A History of Violence very subpar.
January: Sideways
February: The Woodsman
March: 5 X 2
April: Downfall
May: The Consequences Of Love
June: Kung Fu Hustle
July: Dig!
August: The Last Mitterrand
September: Innocence
October: A History of Violence
November: The Beat That My Heart Skipped
December: Lower City
[source Guardian Unlimited]