Movie Weekend

Saw four films this weekend... okay, okay, one was on Thursday... there was like a drought for the past couple of weeks, and now we're bombarded with a lot of movies...



The first one I saw was Shutter Island... at GSC Pavilion... this is like the fourth Scorsese-DiCaprio pairing... the first one was Gangs of New York in 2002, followed by The Aviator in 2004 and then The Departed in 2006... a collaboration that has resulted in an Oscar nomination... for The Aviator... and he would have gotten a nomination for The Departed but he got it for Blood Diamond, imho... and I am predicting this performance will also go down well come award season...

Shutter Island tells the story of US Marshall Teddy Daniels, along with his partner Chuck, going to Shutter Island, a prison/treatment facility for criminals who are mentally unstable... The reason they are going there is to investigate the disappearance of one patient from the facilities...

Unfortunately, the longer they are there, the weirder things get and somehow things all point out to Daniels who are close to blowing the lid on the facility's mistreatments of the criminals/patients...

Also, a side plot is Daniels searching for his wife's murderer who was committed to Shutter Island... but things are not what they seem on Shutter Island...

It's a nice movie... complete with twists and turns that confuses and adds depth to the story... I really enjoyed the movie and was pleasantly surprised at the acting and the all star cast that included Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Michelle Williams and Mark Ruffalo.

Next up, Date Night and When In Rome... I was at Times Square for the Gatsby Street Fair thingy and I don't have any other plans later so I decided to catch a movie... or two...

Wanted to catch Date Night and Kick Ass but Kick Ass wasn't showing at Times Square so I looked at the showing times and decided to catch Date Night at 1.40pm, after lunch, and then When In Rome at 4pm...

Date Night has one of my faves in it... Tina Fey... that lady is awesome... she created 30 Rock and she was responsible for one of the most entertaining Weekend Updates on SNL ever! Also, she wrote Mean Girls... she is my idol... but her movies so far have been a swing and a miss... so I was hesitant to go see it... plus I am not really a Steve Carell fan... he is one of the ones that I really don't get, like Will Ferrell... until this blogger said it was good... so I put it on my to-watch list...

Date Night stars Tina Fey and Steve Carell as a married couple who are stuck in a rut with their lives and even the one thing they had going for them, their date night, is also in a rut.

One night, after hearing about their married friends getting a divorce, they decided to spice things up. Taking someone's reservation at a chic NY restaurant, a pair of hooligans mistook them for another couple and demanded a flash drive at gun point.

After that, the Fosters went through a bunch of misadventures to save themselves and hilarity ensued...

But if you really wanna laugh out loud, don't leave the theater as soon as the movie's done... watch the bloopers... :)

When In Rome stars another fave of mine... Kristen Bell... who was awesome in Veronica Mars and Heroes... Bell plays a girl who has been hurt and is gun shy about love... she goes to Rome for her sister's wedding and met handsome Josh Duhamel... but then she sees him smooching someone else so she went into the Fountain of Love and picked up five coins.

Legend has it, the owners of the coins will fall in love with her... and sure enough, they do... and wacky hijinks ensues... until she realized that the guy she's falling for is actually one of the owners of the coins she took from the fountain...

The movie is lightweight and breezy and fun... Kristen Bell is always good... Josh Duhamel surprised me in this movie... he made his name in Transformers... but he showed that he could be like a romantic lead and physical comedy actor as well...

To complete the movie weekend was Kick Ass on Sunday... at Cheras Leisure Mall... this film is about a guy who dresses up in costumes and tries to stop crimes... without having actual powers... or basic martial arts skills...

Kick Ass is the name of the main character... after a while, other normal heroes were introduced, including Nicolas Cage's Big Daddy and a very kickass Hit Girl, who was about 11 years old...

It was like Batman Begins/The Dark Knight meets Watchmen plus a bit of Mystery Men, then add a sprinkle of Kill Bill...

The story's gory and real... but there are hints of comedy and also a bit like old school comics... nice blend of all genres... I really enjoyed the movie...

Guess Hollywood finally got it right after botching it up slightly with Watchmen...