Quick Reviews: Movies of the 1st Half of 2013

One of our favorite things to do to distract us from work is to watch movies, whether in the big screen or in our computer monitor. But I've been a terrible blogger and I couldn't immediately review all the movies we've seen this year, after we saw them. Which is how it should be, because movie reviews are meant to help people decide whether a particular film is worth the trip to the cinema or not (or whether it's worth the bandwidth or not, in the case of downloading movies from the internet).

So I'm not sure how these quick reviews can help, but I'm dishing them out anyway. Here are the movies that we've seen for the first half of 2013.


Mama
Genre: Horror
Medium: PC
Verdict: If you want to something to watch for fright night and will make you scream your lungs out or sleep with the lights on, I wouldn't recommend this movie. But if what you're looking for is a sad and grim tale that both tugs at heartstrings and send a few shivers down your spine (although I wouldn't expect much, I thought the scare tactics were just "the usual"), somewhere along the lines of The Orphanage, you may want to consider Mama. The plot is different though: a spirit bound to earth because she's looking for something important to her, intertwined with the story of two very young children who grew up alone in the wilderness. That seemed promising enough. But regardless of the plot and even with great acting from the cast (the two children especially), I still wouldn't classify it as a strong horror movie. For me, it just wasn't riveting enough. It started out nicely, effectively building mystery and interest in Mama and her tragic fate. But when she finally appeared, it was almost funny. And sadly, that's the part I remembered the most.


Hansel and Gretel
Genre: Action
Medium: PC
Verdict: I love Jeremy Renner in Hurt Locker and The Avengers, but outgrew my feelings after Bourne Legacy and this. Hansel and Gretel didn't pretend to be a great movie, although I thought it leveraged on the trend of retelling fairytales and making them dark or serious and at least PG-13, to generate interest. But the original tale of Hansel and Gretel was pretty dark on its own, so all they needed to do was to show blood and some fancy fighting skills. It's pretty straightforward and average, and it offered nothing new or something that will make you go "Wow". Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) looked so old here, older than in the Taken movies. Not that it affected the movie, but I just want to say.


The Haunting in Connecticut 2
Genre: Horror
Medium: PC
Verdict. If you've watched first haunting and didn't like it, don't watch the second. Although the stories are not connected, the executions were both lame. The only thing that kept me watching was Mr. Gordy. But even my curiosity for Mr. Gordy didn't keep me from falling asleep in the middle of the movie. Good thing, I woke up in time to see him save the little girl and her mother.


Dark Skies
Genre: Suspense/Sci-Fi
Medium: PC
Verdict: This was actually quite interesting at the start and got me hooked right away - weird things happening in the house, parents acting possessed - premises that kept me wanting to know more. Until they brought out the youngest son's drawing. That sort of curtailed the fun and mystery for me because clearly you can see from the drawings that there will be an abduction. And I wasn't even surprised who got abducted. It became pretty predictable after that. But despite the effect of the "drawings", I still think this was a decent sci-fi/suspense movie with a bit of drama. At some point, I sympathized with the family's struggle to keep a normal life amidst the weird things happening to them. I was almost wishing that Fox Moulder would come up and sort them out so they can finally live in peace.


Jack The Giant Slayer
Genre: Fiction/Adventure
Medium: Cinema
Verdict: Another fairytale reinvention, although it's not much of a reinvention as the story is fairly the same. They just made it grander, more elaborate and the giants more menacing. But it didn't appeal even to the kid in me.


Oz The Great The Powerful
Genre: Fiction/Adventure
Medium: PC
Verdict: Two things I don't like in this movie: James Franco and Sam Raimi. Two things I didn't like about this movie: everything feels superficial and bad acting (except for Rachel Weisz). Despite the vivid colors, the movie was flat and lifeless. Maybe Oz needs to be told again, by someone who has a better vision of the story. Someone who can give it a heart.


G.I. Joe Retaliation
Genre: Action
Medium: Cinema
Verdict: Read review here.

To be continued (2nd half of 2013)

Quick Reviews: G.I.: Joe Retaliation

I think most of my Quick Reviews will comprise movies. I just don't have the time to digest movies as much as I would like to. And the efficacy of doing movie reviews is in the timing - while the movie is at least being shown in cinemas - so it makes no sense to delay this post.



Some of you have probably seen G.I. Joe Retaliation already but for those who haven't yet, here's my take:

The Good

• Action scenes, lots of them. I like the ninja fight at the side of the snow mountain.

The Bad

• The story (It's flat, predictable, the usual stuff that's already been used in a lot movies.)
• The script and lines (Not witty, jokes not funny, the dialogues for the most of the parts were flat out boring, except maybe the one about "Korea" - just because it's very timely)
• The acting and casting (I just still can't see Dwayne Johnson as an actor. For me, he's still The Rock and his movie acting is as good as his wresting acting. The girl who portrayed Lady Jane was kickass, but not 'kickass' kickass enough. And Bruce Willis, didn't add anything to the cast or the movie. The villians were boring and did not appear as terrifying as they should be for a group who plans to blow up the whole world.)
• No character development (the clash between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, that's a worn-out plot already)

Worth seeing? If you like mindless action-packed movies (where you don't have to have puzzle-solving skills to figure out the plot) and don't care so much about storylines, characters, scripts and stuff like that, then G.I. Retaliation is your movie.

Quick Reviews: Pig Out Halo-Halo Heaven

If only I can blog as often as I want so that I churn out more prompt reviews. But that is not the case for me. Because of work and other things that take up most of my time, and that I like to put out lengthy and extensive reviews, my posts are often delayed by months, lucky if it's just one month. So I came up with Quick Reviews - short, bulleted details of products, foods, places or anything that I'd like to talk about that I feel need to posted right away, or don't have plenty enough details to deserve a full review.

Like this Pig Out Halo-Halo Heaven for example:

• Price is P365
• Good for 5-6 persons or more (there were 8 of us who shared this).
• Watch out for the popping sago (tapioca). The wait staff said it's imported from Thailand.
• Nothing special about the toppings (sweetened banana, beans, langka, kaong, macapuno, garbanzos, gulaman, cereals) but the milk/cream had something else. I can't quite say what it is, probably the ice cream, but it gave a nice 'distinct' sweet taste to the dessert.
• Just the right sweetness that doesn't linger on and hurt the throat.
• I was missing the taste of ube (purple yam) and leche flan.
• There were a few large pieces of ice, would've been better if it was crushed finely.

But this Pig Out Halo-Halo Heaven was super fun to eat with friends and family. A perfect treat for summer. Sulit na din for P365.