Box Office

This animated movie knocked the vampires and the werewolves off of the top spot...

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7019252947

Ninebreakers

Nine is a Rob Marshall musical based on a Broadway musical.



It tells the story of Guido Contini, an Italian director whose facing a midlife crisis and writer's block. He needs to come up with a script for a movie that's shooting in a couple of weeks but he got nothing.

So he turns to the women in his life for inspiration: his mother, his wife, his mistress and his muse. Other women who have a hand in his life include his colleague, a journalist and a hooker from his childhood.

The truly standout performances came from:

Marion Cotillard as Luisa Contini, the long suffering wife ...

and Penelope Cruz as the mistress...

Kate Hudson has the most fun song sequence in the entire movie...

Basically, Nine is in the vein of Chicago but somehow it's a lot darker, maybe because of its somber storyline? It is not that bad... definitely watchable but I got this sneaky feeling that Nine is better than it actually is mostly because of the supporting performances by Marion Cotillard and Penelope Cruz and Kate Hudson's sequence...

This movie opens tomorrow... I've seen it on DVD already coz I love vampires. And the cast intrigued me. Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill.

Daybreakers is about the world being overrun by vampires and there's only a handful of humans left. The vampires need human blood to survive so they are hunting humans and also trying to come up with a blood substitute.

Meanwhile, the commoners are getting hungrier and had to resort to feeding on their own blood, which resulted in the mutation of the vampires into some sort of primal vampire, complete with bat-like limbs.

The premise is interesting but the movie failed to utilize on it. If only the remaining vampires and humans have to band together to defeat the primal vampires, then it's probably gonna be better....

The movie itself is not that bad. The pacing is a bit slow and there's no real danger posed from either the vampire camp or the human camp. Not even from the Primals. So you don't really have a sense of who's the bad guy. Of course we can tell vampires are bad but in a world where vampires are outliving humans, vampires are now the humans yes?

Anyway, the acting's decent. And the introduction of vampirism cure is neat. But then again, they never follow through with it. Maybe in Daybreakers 2?

In the Making

Two new movies in the making... supernaturally themed of course...

The first one is about Dracula... "The Last Voyage of the Demeter" is named after the ship that carried Dracula from Transylvania to London in Bram Stoker's classic tale. In that novel, it washes up on the shores of England with one raving mad survivor.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com/counterfeiters-director-eyes-maritime-horror-reuters

The other one is about Abraham Lincoln...the Vampire Hunter... based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith...

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com/abraham-lincoln-hunts-vampires-film-adaptation-reuters

New Moon

Finally saw New Moon yesterday! It was released last Thursday but that was the day before Raya Haji and I was leaving town that night. Did not get a chance to watch it in Kuantan...

Anyway, my colleague asked me to go and watch it with her so we went.

For those who haven't seen Twilight, here's a brief recap of the movie (courtesy of Wikipedia):

Bella Swan moves from Phoenix, Arizona to live with her father in Forks, Washington to allow her mother to travel with her new husband, a minor league baseball player. After moving to Forks, Bella finds herself involuntarily drawn to a mysterious, handsome boy, Edward Cullen. She eventually learns that he is a member of a vampire family who drinks animal blood rather than human. Edward and Bella fall in love, but James, a sadistic vampire from another coven, is drawn to hunt down Bella. Edward and the other Cullens defend Bella. She escapes to Phoenix, Arizona, where she is tricked into confronting James, who tries to kill her. She is seriously wounded, but Edward rescues her and they return to Forks, having killed James.

So now, in New Moon, the story continues as Bella is dating Edward... but during her birthday celebration, she got a cut and the scent of her blood caused one of the members of the Cullens family to attack her. However, she was saved... but Edward now thinks being in her life is/will cause Bella harm so he packs up his family and left. Bella, in all kinds of hurt, turn to Jacob Black, for comfort.

Jacob Black

In the mean time, the surviving vampires from James' coven, Victoria and Laurent is back and trying to take revenge on Edward and Bella.

Lucky for Bella, Jacob also happened to be a werewolf, or in this case, a shapeshifter that turns into a wolf. The wolves in Forks have been guarding the land from invading vampires.

Also, with her recklessness, Bella sees Edward's spectre so she decides to do all sorts of dangerous stuff just to see him again. This leads to a misunderstanding with Alice, Edward's vampire sister who gets premonitions. Alice thought Bella had committed suicide and so did Edward. Edward decided to die because Bella's dead.

Enter the Volturi, like vampire royalty or vampire police. Apparently, there are rules to vampiredom. The number one rule - vampire's existence must be kept a secret. Edward has broken the rules and Bella was ordered to be killed or turned into a vampire. A fight ensued for Bella's life but Alice settled it by having a vision that Bella would be a vampire in the future.

Also, here is where Bella's powers are further explored. She has the ability to resist most vampiric mental powers, which makes turning her into a vampire all the more attractive to the Volturi.

That's basically the movie. Phew!

So, here's the breakdown... New Moon is slightly superior to Twilight. Yes, not a lot of sequels are superior to the original movie (which should be a post on its own)...

Twilight did not have much to offer, except to introduce us to the characters and the courtship of Bella and Edward. It was a good movie, but the lack of vampiric action was its ultimate downfall. Plus, The Twilight Saga actually deviated from the popular vampiric lore AKA cross, stakes, garlic, holy water, sunlight... Twilight vamps do not burn in the sun, they just glow... which turned off a lot of people... :P

Anyway, New Moon has shapeshifters and the shifters brought in the action. Edward was missing for much of the film but it did not make a difference. Guess the movie is really about Bella... and although some say the scenes between Jacob and Bella's too long-winded, I enjoyed watching the two of them... which makes me officially Team Jacob... hehehe...

So, the bad... some of the acting could have been better... Taylor Lautner is definitely the breakout star of New Moon and his body is near perfect but his acting is sometimes off and it's not good when the wolf's emoting better than the actor... same goes for Robert Pattinson... Kristen Stewart's acting was not bad... but some of her dialogues are very corny...

The Volturi's Jane as played by Dakota Fanning had a very interesting power... but watching her in this movie made me realize something about Dakota Fanning... don't get me wrong... I am a huge fan of hers, ever since her I Am Sam days... she was excellent in that movie but in all her other movies, she's basically portraying the same person but with a different name... that's not exactly acting... hmmm... maybe it's just me...

Anyway, I am super excited for Eclipse, part 3 in the Twilight saga... which would be released June next year...

Which are you? Team Edward...

or Team Jacob...

The full scoop on Twilight at Wikipedia