The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

"Fluctuates between 2.75 and 3 stars"!

Boy did I have fun watching this movie! I can't remember the last time I laughed this much in a theater or any other place watching a movie for that matter! Actually now that I think about it, I do! It wasn't a movie per se but today at gym I was watching Kolah Ghermezi, an Iranian puppet show (and I looked like a retard laughing while looking at the machine's monitor!), which is hilaaarious!

Of course, since I watched the movie with a friend it must have had affected my laughing rate! You know because of the "group watching effect"...you don't know?! Well, probably because I just invented it! But you must have noticed how everything seems funnier when watching a comedy with a group of people. However, when you come to think of it, it is odd how a sad movie isn't that sad when you are with a group of people...like the way I felt watching "Amour" with my friends...or maybe it's just me! Eh...I can't believe I just wrote a whole paragraph justifying why I laughed at this movie so bad! Forgetting that it was probably because it was a good comedy!

The movie starts with introducing Burt (Steve Carrell), the main character, when he was a kid. He was this nerd-looking, loser-type of kid that, of course, was teased by other kids until one day when he receives this magic kit for his birthday and starts doing tricks and soon finds another loser friend who eventually becomes his partner, Anton (Steve Buscemi), in show biz. They start getting famous and get a permanent gig at a hotel in Vegas. (The movie is funny from the start...the kids' scene alone will keep you laughing for quite some time! Don't judge me if you don't laugh when watching this movie! Apparently I must've had a low threshold for "fun"!)
We learn along the way that Burt has also turned into a kind of a narcissist A-hole! Their success keeps running until a competition turns up , Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), who reminded me of Criss Angel, the crazy guy from "Contact", and of course, the ultimate crazy magician, Mr Jesus himself! Of course, what he does is not magic but crazy self-destructing stuff, but as the hotel manager explains to Burt, it doesn't matter if it is not magic because people are always looking for something new, and this is something new. Slowly, their success starts to fade and they start to lose their audience. Along the way, Burt comes to realize the importance of friendship and life while he stumbles on the road of getting back to success.

What keeps this movie from becoming a B or even C class movie is the acting. The actors have done a superb job. Otherwise, it would have been no more than a mediocre movie. I have come to admire Alan Arkin more and more, each time that I see a movie that he is in. The role Jim Carrey is playing couldn't have been played by no one other than himself, with his strange elasticity! This ensemble shows the importance of actors in making a comedy...who can turn a before-seen-script into a wonderful experience for those who go to see this movie.

If you are looking for a movie to go watch soon and have fun, this is the one! I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to those who appreciate a simple funny movie. Actually at this point I am tilting more towards 3 stars!

By the way, stay tuned for a crack-up at the end.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Tennessee Williams who would have turned 102 today.

I am sharing this mostly because I have a stupid confession to make! For some reason, I always thought that he was a she! :D When yesterday I saw this picture of him under the Huffington Post's article about him and for a minute there my mind went blank! it couldn't match the picture with the title! My mind was like "how on earth did she have a mustache?!"!!! But I had to make peace with the truth finally! :p I'm guessing the reason was that the name "Tennessee" always seemed like a feminine name to me! I don't know why! Let's blame it all on the "language barrier"! Now that's better!

Huffington post

Also, today is Quentin Tarantino's birthday. It feels like it was yesterday that he was a young new director with his Pulp Fiction coming out and he had not turned into a sexual nightmare! :D (I will never get over what Amy Poehler said on Golden Globes night!)

Here's a selection of pictures of Tarantino provided by IMDb in honor of his 50th birthday:

Quentin Tarantino

Happy Spring Break!

Hey everyone!

Happy belated spring break!!!

I know you must be disappointed in me...so am I! Everyday I have been thinking about watching a movie and writing here but I had so much work to do, and then came the break and I went on a trip and unfortunately didn't get to watch anything during that time.

I had been begging everyone to go and watch "Escape from the Planet Earth" with me but seems like nobody's into cartoons as I am! And everyone's moving on with their lives and I seem to be the only one sticking to a day-dream and wanting it to become true so bad...and believe it or not, I'm happy with it! But I wish there were more people to go and watch a movie with me at the theater cuz I tried going alone once to a comedy rather recently, to see "This is Forty", and believe you me, it is not fun watching a comedy all by your own in a dark theater, if not pathetic! :p Of course, who cares?! But I have never been a "go alone" person...still working on being independent...but I am too shy! Actually I was talking to my friends the other day about how being shy has affected my personal life. Ah! Enough about me!

Anyway, my point was that I have been trying to get people go see "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" with me, but nobody seems to be interested. All I wanted to say was that I will make this happen, so just stay tuned! ;) That's all! :)

Thanks for your support! (and the crowd cheers and whistles!)

Evita

"3 stars out of 4"

Eviiitaaaa...Eviiitaaa...Eviiitaaa!

These are the sounds of people of Argentina, chanting their first lady's name...and if you only had heard the music of this movie before seeing the movie itself as me, it is the reminder of "Don't cry for me Argentina" from the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber whose "The Phantom of the Opera" was also turned into movie later on, starring (or actually kinda introducing!) Emmy Rossum (you might know her from Shameless).

The music of this movie is mesmerizing and beautiful, as it had drawn a 11-12 year-old kid like me back then. Maybe I'm a little biased for having heard these songs from childhood but now that I think about it, only a brilliant music can attract a child of that age (or maybe I'm just that awesome! :D who knows?!).

I had heard from a relative who had seen this movie back when it was released that they had left the theater in the middle of the movie because it was "boring". I understand and respect that point of view. Musicals are not for everyone especially nowadays. There must have been a reason why the industry turned from musicals back in late 70's. The people demanded something else. Although we owe a lot to that era that gave us classics like West Side Story, Singin' in the Rain, the Sound of Music, and Grease (later down the line) to name a few. I would never understand what happened! Maybe the visionary directors who had made such movies were not around anymore...maybe it was the people...maybe both! But what a shame!

When the musicals had a come back in the early 2000's with Moulin Rouge and Chicago, I was ecstatic! Evita is more like Les Miz, though I prefer Moulin Rouge to all of these recent ones, but still...Evita is a memorable one, at least music-wise, among these and I definitely preferred it to Les Miz that I have recently seen as well...probably because of its music because considering production design and acting, Les Miz was definitely way ahead of its counterpart.

I had heard that people of Argentina were against the choice Hollywood had made in casting Madonna as their beloved first lady and always asked myself why such a respected woman was played by someone like Madonna! :D No disrespect! :p But my question was answered when the movie began! Eva had not always been respectable...but as I always say there is no such thing as a"bad person" and whatever that Eva did was circumstantial...I might have fallen in the same path as she had if my life was like hers.

The movie starts with showing Eva as a child and her mother and sisters being denied to her father's funeral, apparently because they were his illegitimate children. She had then  become a waitress and in hopes of becoming famous one day had become the lover of a famous singer who had come to their village for a performance at the place where she worked. But little did she know that she was being used by a married man. She then left for Buenos Aires and became an actress, who was soon to be discovered talentless in the profession! But with her charm she continued to be in the spotlight.

When Juan Peron, a military officer running for president (apparently after a Coup D'etat), met Eva,  he fell for her instantly, who supported him until the end of the way and helped him be released from prison and come to power and be popular by Argentine people.

They soon became very popular among the nation, though being under pressure from the opposition party, by providing the nation with services like tap water (I wonder if it would have done by anyone else at some point back then when nations were developing and they were getting access to such technology!).

Music is much more than that of Les Miz (in my humble opinion at least!) and the movie is definitely worth watching once. After that, you can only remain addicted to the awesome music! Eva's role was not a challenging one but Madonna was surprisingly good at it.

The story is not an extraordinary one...almost the same as the next princess/first lady story! It is built in a way to only tell the overall story of her life without getting into any agenda or anything, with no special event that would make it memorable...but still...pas mal!

Amour

"4 stars out of 4"

Is it possible to give a movie more than 4 starts? 'Cause this movie totally deserves an extra, or half at least! I mean WOW!

I am just speechless. I am trying to think of something to write but my mind has gone all blank on me! It is THAT good!

It's a beautiful movie about love. That simple (and THAT obvious!). You can see the love from the very start. It engages you so deep in the movie. You don't expect it from a movie that is not that dynamic or dramatic. When watching this movie you can see how beautiful love is.

I started to write a summary about the story, in case you didn't already know it, but I deleted the whole thing mid-writing it. You would have to see this movie. No summary will this movie justice and actually there is no summary! So, I beg of you, watch this!

Unfortunately, I haven't seen any other movies from Haneke (yet!) but I absolutely loved this movie and should start putting his movies on my watchlist. The long non-stop shots you see in this movie are risky shots. Not everyone can take them and not lose their audience. This shows his brilliance. I have talked about long shots before in Woody Allen's movies but these are different. No movement of the camera and only dialogue. I didn't see this day coming (anytime soon at least!) but I've gotta say, his are even better than Allen's!

Not only would I, the avid Argo supporter, have given the best picture award to this movie, but I would have also, at least, chosen Emmanuelle Riva as the runner up for best leading actress (I wanted to say announce her the winner, but Jennifer Lawrence's performance in the clip they showed as the nominee kept coming to my mind so I think it was fair to give her the award).

This movie will take you by surprise and shake you to the very core. When seeing the trailer I thought OK, this is a story about a man who loves his sick wife and takes care of her, blah blah blah! But when the movie ended, it was like someone (probably the director!) had said "HA! In your face! Simple love story...HUH!"

Not only didn't I see this coming, but there is also more to this movie than that.

And as we come to my favorite and most critical part of the movie, the ending (!), I've gotta say juuust perfect! I kept saying in the last shot that he should end this movie now, if he knows anything about movies he should end it now, don't you dare ruin this for me! And guess what?! He didn't! :)

(Gotta go check what Ebert has to say about this! I know he, too, gave this movie 4 stars but I didn't read his review so that I can be unbiased when watching it. I will get back to you about his review later.)

Aladdin- the adult version!

I'm a man of my word (actually a girl if you may)! I watched Aladdin again after a long time and boy it seems that I had missed a lot, whether for poor English skills or being a kid, I don't know. But seems like I should start watching all the cartoons I had watched when I was a kid again! Of course, now that I think about it, Aladdin may be an exception. As Robin Williams has said, it is more like a Warner Brothers cartoon disguised in Disney!

Anyway! So I watched it again and came across some funny things that I had missed that I wanted to share with you (in case you had so too):

One of the funniest lines was when at the beginning of the movie, Jasmine has just turned down another suitor and the Sulton thinks with himself "I don't know where she gets it from...her mother was not nearly so picky!" :D

The other one is when Genie is about to get them out of the cave and says "in case of an emergency, the exits are here, here, here, here, everywhere!" I burst into laughter! I had never thought about what he had said before!

One point that I had missed was when Genie wants to turn Aladdin into a prince and takes out this cook book-alike "Royal Recipes" book and starts looking through different "kings" and "princes" and when getting to "Ceasar salad" says "haaa, et tu Brute?!" which is a pretty sophisticated joke for a "cartoon", which actually makes this cartoon even more awesome and more age-appropriate for us! :D

The last, and dare I say the best, one that I had missed is a line Genie says right after he rescues Aladdin from drowning: "I am getting kinda fond of you kid...not that I wanna pick out curtains or anything"!