A Beautiful Life 不再讓你孤單 (2011) 3/5 Stars

Starring Liu Ye and Shu Qi, it sets in modern day Beijing “A Beautiful Life” is a Chinese movie that has this delicate story which will make you unable to stop watching it.

Shu Qi plays a very beautiful Hong Kong Immigrant gold digger Li Pei that also worked as a real estate agent. While Liu Ye plays Fang Zhen Dong, a Chinese Police Officer that always become a role-model to his juniors and Colleague, he also has to shoulders a lot of responsibilities.

They accidentally met in a karaoke men’s toilet where a drunken Li Pei mistakenly gets into the wrong toilet and bump into Zhen Dong. Since then, there seems to be mutual interest between the two but with different motives.

In the end, after all the happenings, finally Li Pei is opened to a realization what is the true meaning of Love. When everything does not seems to look fair and ruined, the story came into a fairy-tale like conclusion that makes you as the audience feel the sense of wanting to believe and having faith again.

Shu Qi manages to play this strong girl Li Pei. As a very well experienced actress, she has undoubtedly captured the character and brought Li Pei to life.

Liu Ye a versatile China actor also nicely captured Zhen Dong character with every line in his face in every scene of the movie.

There was also a short appearance of Anthony Wong in this movie.

A Beautiful Life starts very simple and not so heavy but as the movie goes on the audience is brought to different levels of emotional rides and layers. If you like a nicely done movie and not just a time wasting thingy, you have to try watching this drama.

500 Days Of Summer (2009) 4/5 Stars

SPOILER ALERTS starts from here.
Do not continue reading if you do not want to get any spoilers.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel this movie shows upon reality in about that delusional relationship most people have even experienced before.

It is a story that shows us in some relationships they do not always have a good ending. That in some baseless love stories, one person always love more than the other.

Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a guy who worked as a greeting card writer. He has actually always fancied the matter of architecture but never really pursue it. His whole life, he always have a perception that love is beautiful, love is grand, he watched “The Graduate” when he was a kid and therefore he has a strong believe in love and the idea of a soul mate.

When Summer (Zooey Deschanel) the new staff walked in the office where he worked, Tom felt instantly (love at the first sight) that Summer is the girl that he has always dream of meeting aside from her average looking posture.

This movie get a top-notch grasp of some love stories that do not told a lot in movies. We always believed in this fantasy that when we meet our “the one” it will all be like the Cinderella story or at least like Titanic. But no, sometimes we want to believe so much in love that we become delusional and biased, and that is where reality of love is laid down in front of us.

Unless you are a sucker over a total happy ending story, this movie is highly recommended. It has a good script, good actors, nice directing.

It is easily one of the best movies of 2009.

4 out of 5 Stars

Formal article : HERE

 

The Lucky Ones (2008) 2.5/5 Stars

Starring Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams and Michael Pena this beautifully made movie has indeed captured Americans common lives.

The three main actors starred as American soldiers who were serving at Iraq. As fate bring them together on the same flight back to America, the three of them got stuck in the same airport where there was a black-out incident.

Since the three of them are from the army, they have a mutual respect for each other and decided to tag along to rent a car so they can get to the place they want to by driving together.

As the story goes on the road we found out that these characters each have their own problems to solve!

Fred Cheaver (Tim Robbins) has finished his service and is going back for good. Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) is on a 30 days leave and going to deliver her boyfriend’s guitar to his family who died saving her while thinking of living with his family as well since she does not have her own family. Then there is TK (Michael Pena) who is also on a 30 days leave is back to face his girlfriend after getting an injury on his groin area (impotency) that might threaten his relationship.

Tim Robbins as a 40ish Cheaver is very believable with the acting, he manage to bring the veteran soldier to life and is pretty crushing when his character found out that the wife is leaving him and the kid needs USD 20,000 to go to college.

While Michael Pena as TK is hilarious since his character is trying to reveal the reason he wanted to go to Las Vegas to get his “thing” to work back on.

The most entertaining portrayal would be Rachel McAdams’ Colee Dunn who appeared to be very innocent and naïve throughout the movie, her character’s simple outlook on life rewarding her biting remarks from TK, “That girl is living in a dream”. When McAdams’ character found out about her dead boyfriend from his family, her acting is top notch and really felt. The other interesting thing to check out is her southern accent that is so drawly.

Along with these characters road trip we are faced with some Americans life as they are.

This movie is nicely casts and the story which at first seemed common, ended very open-hearted and when we all might think that even though sometimes life is complicated and messy, they always work out somehow when we are open to possibilities and try to help one another.

2,5 out of 5 stars

Formal Article : HERE

Water for Elephants Movie (2011) 3/5 Stars

This movie is set in 1931 in the great depression time.

Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson) raised in a Polish family in America and studying to be a Vet like his Dad. But in the midst of his exam he is informed a shocking news that his parents died in a car accident.

Young Jacob then find himself adrift with no house and no family.

While walking on the side of a train track he jumped into a train for a free ride that he thought might take him to another city. But as faith brought him on board,The train belongs to a second rate circus group filled with circus performers, workers, animals and the boss of the circus group the charismatic August (Christopher Waltz) and his beautiful wife Marlena (Resse Witherspoon).

There is only one thing to say about this movie! It is beautifully made!

Robert Pattinson brought about a nice potrayal of Jacob. A young man struggling for life and love. The shots in this movie is beautiful as well. There are so many emotional up and down felt in this movie. It makes me forget that Edward the Vampire is in the movie. So, kudos for Robert Pattinson for taking it up another level of good performance.

Christoph Waltz and Resse Witherspoon

The talented Resse Witherspoon perform nicely it is hard to tell whether a stunt made that jump up and down the horse and elephant. The chemistry between her and her two male co-stars are blended nicely.

But Christoph Waltz! Oh, Christoph Waltz! Man, this dude sure brings the key performance. As the brutal circus owner and a possessive husband. I love this guy! He's so good. I think he can play any role!

Anyway, this novel adaptation movie itself is worth watching. Francis Lawrence makes it shocking beginning, funny in the middle and tragical and so many other emotions could come up while watching this movie.

It is a suitable movie where you can take your boyfriend and girlfriend to watch.

3 out of 5 stars

For a formal article click:
HERE
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