Les Miserables

In last week’s post I promised to tell you my story about the “Les Miserables” movie. So here it is:

A few years ago I was living in London and if you’ve been there or live there, you know that London is big on musicals. There’s a quite a diversity for you to see and Les Miserables is one of them.

I remember seeing the posters in the subway and wondering what it was all about. But it was only when one of the songs from the musical became very popular that I became interested in watching it. But I never did.

After I moved from London I found out that there was a Les Miserables book and movie, but it was old, so I didn’t want to watch it. But then a few months later a trailer was released with the new “Les Miserables” and it had a great cast. So of course I was going to go see it!

When it finally came out, my husband didn’t really want to watch it but I insisted. Then one of my friends tweeted that it was beautiful, that she even cried, so I insisted with him some more. Then another friend also watched and said I should go, that I would love it. So after that I convinced him to go with me J

There I was, early as usual so I could watch the other trailers, sitting comfortably on my seat, eagerly waiting for the beautiful and moving story of the Les Miserables.

But…

I didn’t like it. AT ALL!!

It was a musical, so of course I already knew there would be a lot of singing, but I didn’t expect THAT much of singing. I had watched a movie/musical before and I loved it! Sure the actors sang quite a lot, but they also spoke. In this movie, they don’t speak. EVER. They just sing!

They sing and sing. From beginning to end. All the time. The whole time.

So yeah… not my kind of thing. I like music and I like musicals but I found this one very boring. You leave the theatres feeling quite miserable indeed.

If you ask ME if this is a nice movie, I’ll say no, I don’t think it’s a nice movie. If your taste in movies is similar to mine, then you will probably not like it either.

But hey, my friends liked it and I’m sure many other people did too. So it really depends on what you are into ;)

Oh and remember I mentioned last week, that I only watched “Die Hard” because of “Les Miserables”? Yes, after making my husband watch such a boring movie, he decided that he would choose the next one, so guess which one he chose?

Die Hard O_o

But if I had to choose between one and the other, even though I liked neither, I’d choose “Die Hard” hands down. This is for you to see how much I “liked” Les Miserables.

A Good Day to Die Hard

Remember my review about “Jack, the Giant Slayer” last week?

You haven’t read it yet? Ok, so read that one first before continuing with this one.

Think of everything I said about “Jack”. Now imagine the complete opposite…

That would be my review on “A good day to die hard” lol.

I have not watched the previous “Die Hard” movies, but this one… is something else.

It has no plot whatsoever, the acting is quite poor and the story just doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s just… I have no words.

There is however, something you will find A LOT in this movie: Destruction.

From beginning to end.

There are a lot of explosions, fights, people going through windows, falling from the highest buildings but never dying, more explosions, gunshots, buildings getting destroyed, more explosions and the main characters still come out of all that alive!

I guess that’s why it’s called “Die Hard”, because no matter what happens, they just don’t die!

So to summarize: “A good day to die hard” is not a movie worth spending any money on. I would not watch it again. I wouldn’t have even watched it if it weren’t for “Les Miserables”.

Oh I haven’t told you about my “Les Miserables” story, have I? Come back next Friday and I will tell you all about it. Oh my! 

Colombiana

This is the story of a woman who witnessed the murder of her parents when she was a little girl. Her father had crooked business with a crook in Colombia and after some business that you don’t really understand in the beginning, her father’s ‘boss’ comes after him and kills him and his wife but is not able to kill her, because she escapes.

And here’s where the movie started stinking for me.

Cataleya (the girl we are talking about here, played by Zoe Saldana) couldn’t have been more than 10 years old, but she manages to escape a gang of armed and trained men. She is very clever and finds a way to get to the United States and although she had never been there before, she easily finds her way to her relatives’ house… Come on! I know that movies are fictional, but they have make up better stories than that!

Upon arriving at her uncle’s house, she says she doesn’t want to study, she wants to become an assassin, because… you guessed it, she wanted to avenge her parents’ death.

From then on, the whole movie is very predictable.

She grows up, becomes this super woman who fights and kills all the bad guys who cross her path, and on she goes with her vengeance. She lives her whole life to get revenge and all her efforts are not able to make her happy. This is what happens when you seek revenge; you may even succeed but it doesn’t make anything right, it doesn’t fix things, it doesn’t bring you peace or makes you happy.

But going back to the movie, all I can say is that you don’t really need to watch until the end to know what happens. And if you don’t need to watch it until the end, you don’t need to watch it at all.

I do not recommend it :(


Don't forget to vote for next Friday's movie review.

In Time

As per my dear follower Nubia Onara's request, here is the review about the movie In Time.

Didn't like it. lol

But before I get to that, let me tell you a little bit about the plot.

The story is set in the future, 2161 to be more exact and everyone is genetically altered to stop aging at 25 years of age and then die one year later. So far so good.

People don't work for money anymore, they work for time. They are paid with time and they pay everything with time. They have this clock on their arm that tells them how long they still have to live.

The main character Will Salas (played by Justin Timberlake) is poor and has to work for the hours he wants to live and so does his mother until something happens that make him go crazy, not accept anymore the fact that the rich people had centuries to live and the poor had to work everyday to earn miserable hours at the end of the month.

But some of the rich people who had 'eternity' to live were not really content with never dying, so a rich guy kills himself and gives Will all the time he had on his clock.

Will then starts enjoying the living-like-you-are-never-going-to-die kind of life and teams up with a rich spoiled/prisoner-of-her-own-time chick. And now they are out to save the world... well, the poor side of the world.

It's kind of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Yeah... repetitive... we've seen that kind of story before.

You don't really sympathize with their cause, the movie doesn't really end, or maybe it ends like you think it will. And that's it.

It's the kind of movie that when you start watching you think it's going to be really good. It starts really strong but then it's like the writers didn't know how else to finish it.

It's like a modern Robin Hood. Not horrible, but not excellent either.

P.S.: Now you can decide which movie review I should post here on Fridays!!! Please go to the poll on the side bar and vote :))

Immortals

I hope you have been enjoying all the movie reviews I post here 

I really enjoy talking about the movies I watch and one other thing I like to do is reading. I really like the written word, sometimes more than watching movies and so I wanted to let you know that I will very soon be posting about the books I read.

Now back to this week’s movie review.

What can I say about Immortals?

Maybe the best thing I could say is, DON’T WATCH IT! The best way to describe the whole movie is CONFUSING.

When you see the trailer, you see the guy finding a bow, right? And then you think, ‘this guy was chosen and now he has found a source of power’. But you are wrong if you though that… He only uses the bow once in the whole entire movie, so it’s not about the power of the bow.

Another impression you might have upon watching the trailer is that amidst all the fight, the guy finds the love of his life… nope. He has a night’s stand with the girl but he doesn’t love her (which is very unusual nowadays right?) and the girl does not love him (again, very unusual nowadays for people to sleep with each other and not have any feelings for them, isn’t that true?).

Then you think it’s about divine powers… no.

About the guy making any kind of difference in the world perhaps? Not really.

About overcoming your battles? Umm… I don’t think so.

So, what is this movie about? Who knows!! I certainly don’t!

It’s one different story after the other. One time the guy he is fighting, another he hates the other guy, then he has his ‘time’ with he girl, then he is commanding an army… The stories have neither beginnings nor ends. It’s quite tiresome, I must say, even for people like me who like the 300 kind of movie.

There is a lot of blood everywhere, heads been smashed every five minutes, people being cooked to their deaths inside a silver bull (yeah, I know)… Let’s just say that this movie is REALLY R rated.

Do not recommend it at all.

Incepted Saga - Something Borrowed Part II

Continuation from yesterday…

From the beginning, you root for Rachel, after all she is the one who met the guy, she had everything in common with him and Darcy comes along and just kind of steals him from her.

Although Dex is engaged to Darcy, he really likes Rachel. But wait a minute! What are you doing getting engaged to someone if you really love someone else? Well, this movie will give you the idea that it’s ok, it happens. Right.

Then, after a shared ride on a taxi, Rachel and Dex end up declaring their love for each other and guess what else? Sleeping together. Now there is this big problem: Dex betrayed his fiancée and Rachel betrayed her best friend. If you are a true friend, then you know that you NEVER, EVER even look at your friend’s boyfriend or husband in any other than just as your friend’s boyfriend or husband! That is, if you ARE A GOOD FRIEND.

But Something Borrowed hints that in this case it’s no problem and here are the ideas they use in the movie to justify and make you agree to this:

Rachel saw him first and Darcy ‘stole’ the guy from her – Give me a break! If the guy really wanted to stay with her, he would have, despite of what Darcy did or didn’t do. It was his choice to stay with Darcy.

Darcy is just spoiled – Again, no reason to sleep with her boyfriend, after all Rachel continues to be friends with her in spite of her being spoiled.

They were meant for each other – That’s all well and good, but it was no reason for her to just go and be with a guy who had a commitment with someone else.

He loves Rachel, his friend, not Darcy, his soon-to-be-wife – So, what would be the right thing to do? Break up with the girl he ‘just realized’ he doesn’t love and stay with the one he does love. Don’t stay with both!

 Darcy doesn’t love him – Same as above.

Darcy cheated on him – They paint this really ugly picture about Darcy, that she doesn’t deserve him, that she cheated on him, that she is selfish, arrogant, backstabbing etc, which might all be true, but it does not justify what happens in the movie. Yes, you would like Dex and Rachel to end up together, but not by doing all the wrong things and not going about it the wrong way.

Do you want to know the ultimate lesson in this movie?

If you love someone and you feel you are meant to be together, you should do anything in your power to get the guy… even if he is somebody’s husband.

Now, you don’t realize that when you are watching the movie, do you?

THINK or someone else will do it for you!

Incepted Saga - Something Borrowed Part I

After many changes I had to make in my daily to-dos, here I am! I’m back and have many things to write about… I just didn’t get the chance to actually come here and post them :( How bad is that?

So, continuing my ‘Have you been Incepted?’ Saga, I want to tell you about yet another movie that falls right into the category of these kind of movies. In case you have no idea what I am talking about, please read my previous posts here.

The movie Something Borrowed is about this girl called Rachel, who has had this friend called Darcy, since her childhood. They did everything together and really loved each other, but had very different personalities.

Rachel goes to university and there she finds this guy called Dex, who is just like her, they become friends and soon she falls in love with him. Then, one night she wants to introduce her new friend to her life-long friend Darcy, but Darcy, with her charming manners, start taking over the conversation and Rachel’s new friend. So Rachel never gets to tell him how she feels about him and their relationship remains just as friendship.

A couple of years later, guess who Darcy is engaged to? Dex; Rachel’s love.

Ok, now that you understand a little bit of the story, let me tell you why this is NOT a good movie.

To be continued tomorrow…

Incepted Saga - Crazy Stupid Love Part I

Continuation from ‘Have you been incepted – Part II’

Where did the idea of the groom holding the bride in his arms and carrying her over the threshold on their honeymoon come from?

I remember seeing it in the movies and finding it extremely romantic. I also remember wishing that the same could happen to me on my wedding night. Although this is not exactly a bad thing, you will have to agree with me that if it weren’t for the movies, that idea would probably never have even crossed my mind.

If such a small, unimportant idea can be planted in our mind by the movies we watch, do you think that big, life-changing-for-the-worse ideas can also? I believe so!

In fact, I dare say that some movies are made with exactly that intention, to alter the way people think, feel and behave in general... and not in a good way.

One of these movies is undoubtedly ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’. 

Let me give you a brief summary of what the movie is about:

A woman married to her husband for more than 20 years decides to divorce him. She claims that there is no connection between them anymore, that the spark is gone and that they can no longer make each other happy. This is a very common thing nowadays right? But wait…

She slept with someone else. That's right, she wasn’t happy with her husband, he didn’t understand her anymore and so she cheated on him. The movie clearly sends the message that ‘If you feel your husband is insensitive, distant, distracted, doesn’t pay attention to you, it’s ok to cheat on him… after all, he left you with no other choice’.

Now tell me, SINCE WHEN?? Since when is it ok to cheat on your spouse? Since when has cheating become acceptable?

But this movie will tell you that it is! That it's just the way things are! It will tell you that the ‘poor’ wife was never at fault for the disintegration of the marriage and that the husband is to blame for everything. 

But that's not all! Here are some more indirect messages this movie sends: 

“It’s ok to be dirty, to have dirty thoughts and act upon them. As long as you are teenager... you’re good. Parents who know their 12 year old is watching porn on the Internet, should just laugh and do nothing about it. There’s nothing to be done…he is just a teenager after all.”

 “Wives, if you are not satisfied with your man, just find another one and make sure you sleep with him. You don’t even need to divorce your current husband before doing that.”

“Husbands, if your wife left you, please delude yourself into thinking that you can behave as a complete irresponsible single man. Sleep with as many women as you can… now is your chance.”

“If you are a handsome guy, you would be stupid to settle for only one woman. Just be a player and get as many girls to sleep with you as possible, if you can get a different one every night, even better.”

“Teenage girls, it’s ok to fall in love with a man 30 years your senior. If he thinks you are too young, just send him a picture of yourself naked and your problem is solved.”

I'm not exaggerating!!! This is exactly what you get from this movie... IF you are paying attention.

To be continued tomorrow...

Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon

This is one of the things I have in common with my husband, I really enjoy watching super-hero movies or graphic novels made into movies, or anything of the sort. If any super-hero kind of movie comes out in the theaters, there we go watch it. However, when the third installment of the Transformers came out, I couldn’t go and so I had to wait for the DVD to be released, which happened last week here in Houston.

If you are also into these kind of movies and are thinking of watching this one, you should watch the first and second Transformers so you can really understand where the whole story is coming from and also understand how thankful I am for not spending 10 bucks to see it in the theaters.

The movie starts by showing a girl going up the stairs of her house with a white bunny in her hand and wearing what seemed to be a man’s shirt and nothing but underwear on the bottom. Yeah, you can see a little of the girl’s butt… So, these are my thoughts right in the beginning of the movie: ‘Excuse me, I’m here to see robots or whatever it is that the Autobots are and NOT half naked girls! What does it have to do with the whole plot?’ Well, later on I find out the answer: NOTHING!

The character replacing the one Megan Fox used to portray seems to have been put there just to decorate the movie, it adds nothing to the plot or to your entertainment. She’s just there. And you know what they say, if it doesn’t add, it certainly takes away… at least that’s what they say in my country…

Shia’s character, Sam, is portrayed as a weak, unintelligent and uninteresting person, whose only mission in life now seems to be to make sure he stays with his girlfriend aka the girl with the butt showing in the beginning.

The whole plot is very weak, repetitive, confusing, predictable… which is very odd compared to the first Transformers. If you watched the first one, you might agree with me that the whole robot-could-turn-into-any-eletronic-and-cars-thing seemed to make a lot more sense then. The fact that Sam was just an ordinary guy, who didn’t fit with the other guys in school and could never do anything to impress the girl he liked, but who at the same time was chosen to do something very important, made the whole movie worth watching.

I can’t say the same about this last one. The second one wasn’t as nice as the first but it was still ok, but the third one? They failed miserably at it. Sure the Autobots fight quite a lot and there are lots explosions and things breaking everywhere, but I must say that although I do like to watch the fights and the action, I prefer movies with interesting plots and this one DOES NOT HAVE IT.

So, are you thinking of renting a movie to watch this weekend? Skip Transformers – Dark of the moon and choose The Lincoln Lawyer instead. Here’s a great movie! I will be writing about it on my next review. Come back soon so I can tell you more.

Contagion

When I saw the trailer I thought it was just another movie about a virus, where a lot of people die, the whole world is at the point of extinction... will they find a cure, will they not find a cure, blah blah blah... 

And guess what? I was right, that's exactly it! I just described the whole movie to you! 

You see these great actors, the scary trailer and you think they must have come up with something different, but no, they just cast the famous actors to get you to watch their ridiculous movie. 

So to summarize, this is what I have to say about Contagion: 

Great cast, non-existent plot, pointless movie, waste of time and money. 

Do I need to tell you NOT to watch it?

Tron: Legacy

I know, I know... I put on my sidebar that I want to watch Narnia, but here I am talking about Tron. Sorry! The plan was to watch Narnia first and then Tron, but the circumstances changed, so here we go...

The first time I watched the trailer, I have to admit, I was impressed. Like I said, I am very much into the action stuff, so when I saw the effects, the motorcycles and the music, I thought 'This movie will be fantastic!'

So, last Monday, there I go to the cinemas with my husband and a couple of friends from the YPG. We were very excited, especially because we were going to watch Tron on IMAX. Big screen, incredible sound system... this was going to be a good experience!

The excitement died a little bit when we got to the auditorium. It was packed and we had to sit on the right hand side of the second row. As soon as the trailers started we were all crossed eyed because of the 3D glasses and simply because we were too close to big screen.

Anyway, the movie started and my immediate impression is that the movie was going to be awesome, the first scenes are very good! However, 30 minutes later I began to wonder, 'where is the story going? Where is the plot? Ok, is there anything else? Is anything else going to happen here?'

The answer is NO! The movie had no plot whatsoever, no story, no sense, no point! What the guy does at the end, he could have done in the very beginning!! He didn't change anything, didn't accomplish anything really. Up to now, I don't know where they wanted to go with the story... Was Sam supposed to reconcile with his father? Was he supposed to find himself? Find a purpose for his life?

Who knows??!

The whole movie seems like a video game, the dramatic music is good, the effects are impressive, but that's it. There is nothing more to it really.

So, my advice to those who are planning to watch Tron: Legacy is this:

Don't waste your time or money! Go watch Narnia instead.

If the first two are any indication, this third one is sure to be an incredible movie. That's the next review I'll be posting here, so make sure to watch this space next week!