When people are asked about this film Jaws nowadays, most will respond with “It’s about this shark...” Next thing they would reminisce would be the unforgettably chilling soundtrack, and then would finally say that it was directed by this man called Spielberg. It should be the other way around. When Jaws will be mentioned, it should be Spielberg at the top of the line, creating a solid monster movie that landed him into the entertainment masterclass. He made this “shark film” so great that even though there was the B-movie written all over it, now decades later film associations are considering it one of the best movies of all time. Of course, it became a landmark in cinema history; it’s the shark movie that launched a thousand other shark films.

The plot is simple. Even the little kids would find this too easy to comprehend. Amity town is located near the beach and tourists flock to the wonderful sands. However, something was plaguing the waters; there were series of attacks of swimmers involving a great white shark. As the film starts, we see camping teenagers in the beach and two lovers running after one another into the sea. In both such a stunning and brilliant shot, one of the most creative scenes in the film, was when the girl swam into the deep and then we, the audience, sees her shouting for help, being carried away by something under that got her feet (or the whole half of her body). This was where Spielberg knows how to create tension; if he was to make a monster movie, he should have made that shark emerge and swallow the whole girl whole – but he didn’t; he must have understood that it’s not only a shark movie he was making, but a kind of uneasy thriller that would make audience grip their seats while they’re at it. The whole Amity town was scandalised to find out that a girl was missing, and Brody (Roy Scheider) the local police chief reckons it was a shark that killed her, ordering the whole beach to be closed from public. The beach resorts thundered, not agreeing to the fact that their businesses would be on hiatus in the eve of summer holidays. In a blend of comedy, great sense of humour, action, adventure and thrilling fun – Jaws becomes an epic splash of townie adventure movie brilliant for the whole family. The fantastic chase of the three men, Brody, Quint (Robert Shaw), who has personal grudges with sharks including his foul-mouthed nature, and Hooper (the most likeable and entertaining performance by Richard Dreyfuss) as the rich-kid arrogant oceanographer.


The characters were all wonderfully caricatured, and the dialogues between them were very playful. Dreyfuss was the one that really brings the laughs, watch out for his child-like tongue-out expression on his face when he was annoyed by Quint. But it was Brody in which we normal people could connect to; he’s terrified of the sea, doesn’t like to go swimming into the deep and easily troubled.


More importantly, Spielberg knows how to use his camera. One of the most amazing scenes in the film was when Brody was sitting in the sunbed, looking over the sea while a man was talking in front of him. The camera blurs the man in front of him, and focuses into the sea, as if we the audience could actually take a glimpse if there’s something swimming around aside from the town folks. Which leads us to the shark; it would have been more graphic if we the shark always, tearing people apart, but Spielberg reduces the shark’s appearance by sticking into his storyline and the events above the sea level. The shark was never overused, and the most brilliant thing was, we absolutely know that there a shark swimming around somewhere only that we need to wait for its next feeding.


I love Jaws, and it’s one of those films that would stay with us as we grow up. Until now, I’m still fascinated by John William’s scary musical score, not easily forgotten. Aside from the fact that even adults are entertained, it’s a kind of film that we must let the children see while they’re still young, for in memory it will remain and when they grow up and asked about the brilliant movie they had seen as a child; they would say “Yeah, I’ve seen Jaws.” And what’s more even brilliant when a kid doesn’t first utter that it’s a film about this shark, but rather say it was made by this guy called Spielberg.



Rating: A

More than six decades ago, Warner Brothers along with auteur Michael Curtiz shot a film with a script that doesn’t have an ending. And then they ended up with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman acting on set without any clue what would happen to their characters in the camera’s last roll. If we talk about Casablanca’s history and how it came to be, it would be as interesting as the film itself. Now decades later from script-dilemmas and production-hubbubs, Casablanca turned out to be the world’s most beloved screen romance story. Not only that but it’s also considered one of the finest screenplays in movie history, winning Oscar Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, one of the very few movies that garnered the three awards all at the same time.

There are many different things happening in Casablanca, both the place and film. In the place, many people flee from the famous city of Casablanca in Morocco to other countries undisturbed by war, and since it was occupied by Nazis, the atmosphere was ridden with uneasiness. No one was allowed to leave the country without permission, and as shown in the start of the film, local policemen were shooting a man with illegal papers. Other people who feared of fretting for their lives go into Rick’s nightclub to escape the worries as the world outside fell into chaos and corruption. However in the film, there were more underlying themes that support a major platform; politics, government, war, crime and corruption, all remained subplots to Casablanca’s noble story of love and sacrifice. At its core, there’s a heroic deed in Casablanca about how sometimes people sacrifice love for the greater goodness and nobler purpose.


Humphrey Bogart plays as Rick Blaine, owner of the renowned nightclub where the famous steers into and even the cowards hide. When we first see him, he was in an immaculate white suit with a cigar in his hand (a legendary movie icon); he was tough, determined and “doesn’t stick for anybody”. But when an escape Czech Victor Laszlo enters the bar, he brings along his wife Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). She asks for Sam, the piano player, to play “As Time Goes By”, and along the tunes, she falls into a deep reminiscence with tears in her eyes. Rick, on the other hand, hears this and stormed into Sam “I told you not to play that song here again!” then suddenly sees Ilsa in front of him. This movie moment is shared not only between these two people, who had a common understanding, but with the audience as well. We discover that both Rick and Ilsa were once lovers in the sweeping landscape of Paris. Ilsa was married to Victor Laszlo but she believed that he was killed by war and fell in love with Rick. But at the last minute they were leaving Paris when it was captured by the Germans, all Rick received in the train station was a note from Ilsa saying she was sorry, she couldn’t make it, and found out that her husband was alive. It was Rick who was tormented, standing in the rain, feeling foolish and destitute.


And there was the line “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine” was uttered by the hopeless and disappointed drunk Rick; an alter-ego of what we have seen in his common self. Ilsa comes back for comfort but Rick yelled at her and she runs away. He learns then that she still loves him, and him on the same state to her. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Evidently, he utters this three times in the film, and his love was much greater than the way he looks at her.


However such a melodramatic love story was stifled for a bit to give way for an interesting mixture of comedy, suspense and drama, with Rick acquiring a transit paper that permits two people to leave the country without question from the black-marketeer Ugarte (played by Peter Lorre). Officials were hunting against the person holding such illegal papers, and Rick had a clever plan. In order to run away together with Ilsa, he would surreptitiously give the papers to Laszlo to put him into blame. But the question of who ends up in the plane doesn’t matter in this film, for Casablanca is more than that. We are supposed to ask they why’s: why Rick let go of something he ever craved for long, why Rick chose not to go to that plane, why Rick told Ilsa that he couldn’t be with her. When Ilsa told him “We don’t have each other”, Rick told her “We always have Paris”. For this film serves a purpose of something nobler, a love that’s selfless. The makers could actually choose to make Ilsa and Rick go together happily ever after, but Casablanca is a choice to make. This is not a tragedy, nor a tragic love story; it glorifies in tears and the ideology that sometimes we have to let go of some things we love, not because we’re tired of them but because there is a thing called sacrifice. Rick never followed his idea to put the blame to Laszlo, he gave it to Laszlo for them to escape Morocco with Ilsa. Rick remained in Casablanca to face the Nazis.


It’s absolutely no doubt a great film. Probably only a very few knew at that time they were making this that someday, this movie would become something that the world would truly treasure – a gem of rarity, complexity and difficult to overcome; a picture that would resonate to the ages. Maybe this film was so great because in the first place, it never thought to be great. Like the performances of Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, the hard-drinking but vulnerable when it comes to the heart owner of nightclub, and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund, the captivating portrait of perfection troubled by the remnants of an old flame; both of their performances were so complex that one could actually tell that both the characters and actors don’t know how was it going to end, and who ends up in the plane away from Morocco. It suddenly felt real when Ilsa heard from Rick about his decision, the emotional intensity in her face as though Ingrid Bergman couldn’t accept the fact that she had just received a script that tells her character wouldn’t end up with Rick at all.


Not a single scene is wasted, also the film enjoys the fact that it’s one of the most well-made movies of all time, probably goes up to all top five’s of every critic in the whole world. The melodrama is flawless, the restoration of black and white picture to digital clarity is astounding – Casablanca is that rarity that couldn’t be found during these days. An elemental piece of classic cinema-making where every line uttered is quotable, every single scene is iconic, and the storyline transcends amongst the decades. Whilst everything else in it is movie history.



Rating: A+

As usual, the Potter posters are all very formative. But I sure liked the simplicity of this new poster, and it proves that Order of the Phoenix is much darker than the predecessors (sure, until the seventh movie, it'll be too dark that we couln't see anything at the screen at all).


This rebellion is gotta be good.


This is the SECOND official trailer for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Watch it and drool. Can't wait for July 13. While the international trailer first offered the incredible rush of excitement, the domestic trailer gives us a more nuanced summary of why Dumbledore is building up an army, and that Harry wants to fight as well. This rebellion is gotta be good.


"Every great wizard in history had started out as nothing more than what we are now. If they can do it, why not us?" Brilliant line by Harry in the trailer. One thing that's not present in the international trailer as well.


If you're not satisfied with this blemmin' blurry YouTube vid, click here to see Phoenix New Trailer in full glory of HD. Thanks to Yahoo! Movies for being so wizard-like. And if you can't see the trailer in this post, click here for Youtube version.



When Warner Bros. had announced that they will be releasing the International trailer for Order of the Phoenix on a Sunday, April 22, 2007, I was the one of the billions of people who was very apprehensive. To say the fact that the last HP trailers had been good (but not astoundingly great, except for the Azkaban and Goblet trailers which are good enough), and that it usually shows tidbits of excitement and all that jazz. But here, Order of the Phoenix NEW TRAILER proves that the darkest is yet to come.


I opened it up on Mugglenet.com, and I was staggered. By far, this is the best-made Harry Potter trailer yet! Completely mouth-gaping and will leave you senseless, shaken and horribly craving for more. This is the most different Potter trailer; for the first time, it gives us the real essence of how a Potter trailer should be, not a glimpse of bits and pieces, but straightforwardly direct and blunt to the point that it pierces the eyes. Wonderfully done. The trailer doesn't go along winding roads but directly shows us that Harry's world right now is not the same and is more difficult to comprehend with Voldemort back on business. I like the way how tension was built in the trailer, judged from the first second it starts, drums rumbling, and showing that even the Muggle world has changed, clouds shifting and darkness seeps in. Harry wakes up anew but definitely terrified of what would happen.


This has not happened for the first time, but before when I saw Alfonso Cuaron's rendition of Azkaban into a trailer, I felt excited and confident that he would do justice, as well as Newell for Goblet. Now I'm crossing my fingers that Order of the Phoenix will be the best one yet, proving that the new director who sat in the chair of wizards, David Yates, shows an utterably different reel of scenes that surmounts the battle that is yet to befall in the Ministry of Magic. Umbridge [that evil horrid toad-bitch] was introduced with pinks and cardigans, and as Harry walks into the train platform, he sees Voldemort in a black Muggle suit, blending with the community, the curtain rises to reveal the real event. And the whole trailer ensues like a fantastic climax of battles, wand-waving, and brandishing of spells.


"Tyranny will rise, and the rebellion begins." One of the lines I like in the trailer. Therefore now, I'll start looking at my calendar for the month of July. Let the Harry Potter Month come, July 13 for Order of the Phoenix movie, and July 21 for the Deathly Hallows book. Then it's "au revoir" for Potter.

CANDYMAN by Christina Aguilera

It's very rare for musical artists nowadays to look back the face of history and actually see the once glittering-glitzy gloriness of the good 'ol days. Christina Aguilera, who now wanted to be called "Baby Jane", here brilliantly induces deligthful 50's boogie-and-jive melody. Candyman succeeds with its vintage-looking reel and the oldie-feel beat of old-school music that you can't help thumping your foot along with. Featuring old-school pilots, navy men, ice cream bar ladies, and three Christinas (a blonde, brunette, and redhead) perfectly harmonising in a tasteful choreography. Cleverly done. A music video for the ages. And oh boy does Christina looks so hot in her vintage look, especially those curves in the final two-piece stewardess blue-suit. She absolutely looked like that girl which advertises airplane companies in billboards 50 years ago. Candyman is a trifle to behold. So much for Britney whom we thought was the sane one when Christina became "dirrty" and the roughly and gritty "fighter". Now where's she? Rehab. Bald. Doomed. Christina proves to be the sane one after all and going back to basics with her new album proves that she's here to stay for a little longer as a real musical artist.

Grade: A-



READ MY MIND by The Killers

After the fantabulous Innaritu-esque video of When We Were Young, and the Burtonian escape of Bones, here's a laid-back Tokyo escape of The Killers in their new soft-rock Read My Mind. Video-wise, it's nothing new. I'm not boasting but I could probably make a better music video than this. But I like the idea of The Killers going into a very Eastern sort of escapade after the past Western cowboy-like treadings. Sort of Lost In Translation drama, perhaps. Anyway, very good song. One of my favourites in Sam's Town album.

Grade: B



BEAUTIFUL LIAR by Beyonce & Shakira

Alright, fight is over. Let's put Beyonce and Shakira together in a music video. And it doesn't means it could become great, after these two uber-hot, super-bombastic ladies canoodle in the scene, shaking their bon-bons, pouting their lips and doing the drama. But Beautiful Liar is more of a showcase than a good music video, featuring marquee-names of two singers. The song is a pile of burning rubbish. Horribly written and the tune is just alright. Not the one you would want to hear, especially when you feel so bad or so angry, that you don't want to hear anymore Beyonce's and Shakira's for the rest of your life. What amazes me in the video was that the makers didn't put the two ladies in a rivalling note, but instead, they looked like as if they're enjoying their company in the video, which is fun to watch. And the rest of it goes to the dump, except for the hotness they exude. Uber-hot but prettily forgettable.

Grade: C


2007 (c) J.S.Datinguinoo

When your idea of proving one's manhood is going out to the world, spreading violence, and joining an underground gung-ho fighting society, then this film is just right up at your alley. But if your idea of a correct film should be both politically and sociologically upright in its context, then Fight Club is your worst enemy.

However, one's critical viewing shouldn't be only biased on the message but in general, should be on the whole film itself. I actually liked Fight Club, for its daring cinematography, clever, witty dialogues, impressive performances, and even for its head-scratching message to the audience, I find it likeable that it makes me want to up there, shed my shirt away and dig in for some hard-knock blood-splashing punching-the-gut as well as the face. Films had never been tougher than this.

It starts off with an exciting premise, one that you will surely know you're watching a really good film. Edward Norton stars as a depressed insomniac, whose life and job easily bores him to death, and his nights of sleeplessness doesn't help him in any other way. He brilliantly narrates the world around him in a form of a social satire; the way people behaves as if director David Fincher wanted to tell the story through the movement of cameras. Back to Norton, in order for him to ease pain, he joins a group counselling (for the testicular cancer patients even though he isn't one, as well as the tuberculosis meetings). Good for him, he discovers all of this to help him sleep. Until he meets Marla (played darkly but humurously by Helena Bonham Carter with a sniping tongur), who gets in his way and messes his life more.

Another key encounter was in an airplane, where Norton meets the character of Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden. The most funny thing was, Durden sells soap, and minutes later as Norton arrived outside the building of his apartment, he saw it was all in burning rubble. He called Durden, and so everything ensues from that meeting as Durden speaks "Hit me hard", apparently wanting to be hit across the face. They had a fight, and thank God, says Norton, he's cured of his insomniac nature - but only to get worse in the later parts.

Plot-wise, it also gets worse. This was where Fight Club starts to lose its fine grip. Somehow I did not understand Fight Club, it's satirical philosophy, or even Durden trying to amass his own army to become men of the world - by what? Blowing off buildings and causing havoc all over the place? Tyler Durden is such a mystical and mysterious character and Brad Pitt's embodiment is overwhelmingly appreciated, but his reasons are too inconsiderable in our just state of minds. We know Fight Club is a study of dual personalities, and let's face it because I think almost all people are familiar with the story or even seen it once or twice. Durden is everything that Norton's character isn't. He's the completer polar opposite; brave, tough, fit-abbed, egotistical, world-conscious and mouth-talky. Of course, Durden also gets the women while Norton's character doesn't. What Fight Club really pulls down its punches was in its final message that a man's worst enemy is one's self, but along the highway of men fighting each other, celebrating the glory of blood and open wounds, we just don't understand why it wanted to promote violence in the streets as if they were billboard ready to be ogled at.

Otherwise, it's a brilliant film. If you're definition of coolness is fighting, ass-kicking cinematography, quirky movie script, neurotic Edward Norton and the macho-mucho Brad Pitt punching some hooligans - then Webster would be really proud of you. I dig the line by Edward Norton, "This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.", and Brad Pitt's "How much do you know about yourself when you haven't been into a fight?" - absolutely true addages. Anti-society and mayhem-incued it may be, but it's never anti-coolness.


Rating: B+

Once there was a film that became a landmark in American cinema that sparked the future eruption of a new genre: the romantic comedy. Brilliantly directed, influentially made, and performances that echoes throughout the history of film, The Graduate is that fine gem in a king's crown, surely making Mike Nichols still smirking in pride until today.

It's a witty, stylish, and straightforward cinema-making, this one. If you have seen Nichols's latest Closer, then you would be no longer wondering how he managed Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Natalie Portman and Jude Law give out the performances of their lives and utter as many swearwords as they can while holding their breaths. Here, with Dustin Hoffman, juvenile and charming, gives out a stunning performance as Ben Braddock, a recent graduate but a perfect epitome of human imbalance and imperfection. He's an absolute innocent-freak to the world, inexperienced and oftentimes desperate. On his graduating day, instead of smiling, he was looking morose in his room and struggle to pull out a grin while facing his visitors and relatives congratulating for his job-well-done. But as he started to question his own future, his own job, fate had thrown him into a situation that most people wouldn't want to encounter. An affair - with a married woman. Mrs Robinson, aged yet sexy, little-wrinkled but sultry, and wife of Ben's father's friend, had seduced him all plunging into a further ironic twist in life. There are a lot of satirical and funny scenes in The Graduate as Ben tries to shake off the idea that a married woman was seducing him, while his own body and mind was betraying him. He's one of those people that even though how many times they say "no", at the end of the day, "yes" would still be the answer. Their affair, a premature one, was indeed a funny thing to watch and you can't help but shaking your head in disbelief yet at the same time can't help to be entertained by the whole thing. However, the affair turns unexpectedly as Ben discovers that he's falling in love to Mrs Robinson's daughter, in Mrs Robinson's disgust.

Let us remember that this film kick-started Mike Nichols's directing career, as he won the Academy Award for Best Director here, and also Dustin Hoffman's career. It's just so amazing how they made this film, no-nonsense moviemaking, intelligent and crafty script, filled with dialogues that are often brutally truthful, blatant, sometimes embarassing to hear yet honest to the very core. Such a simple line from Ben's character when he asks, "Are you seducing me, Mrs Robinson?" and she replied in a soft purr, "Do I look like seducing you, Ben?", comes with a very intellectual premise that this film is such a curious study about a man's ineffectual certainty of his ego. Because even though Mrs Robinson wasn't really seducing Ben, it's still obvious that Ben wanted to be seduced, no matter how hard he fights the notion that he's got to face a clean and healthy life in the future. An paradigm of most people today, confused, utterably misjudged as well. Anne Bancroft as Mrs Robinson was an uber-fine actress here, and she made a wicked job of painting Mrs Robinson a brush of sensuality and sense. She looks like she's unintentionally manipulative, yet enjoying every minute of her adventures while forgetting the sadness of her life. One that really haunts society today that even the most perfect wedded couple, there are skeletons to be pulled out from the closet.

I love The Graduate for its honesty. This is a very good film, finely crafted and unforgettable. Judging from the ending itself, a very satisfying one, where Ben rushes to the cathedral to save his loved one from being wedded to somebody else and managed to escape out of there a bit unscathed, when the both of them sat at the back of the bus - both of them sniggered, smiled and then looked at each other seriously, as though their eyes were asking "Now what?". Yes, they would surely face everything ahead of them, and they're bound to as well.


Rating: A+

Not for the first time I felt cheated by a supposed-to-be moving story of love and loss since there had been a lot of films who had done the treachery. Especially if one of those film had amassed seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, and starred two of Hollywood's star-power. Out Of Africa, is for instance, a great film with breathtaking cinematography, one that's a landmark back in the good 'ol 80's, and dazzles an epic scope of love story against lush landscapes but instead of moving us at the end of the film - well, it left me motionless.

Based on the true story of Karen Blixen (an intentionally good performance by Meryl Streep), a strong-willed woman who married his lover's brother due to his former lover's total indifference, and moved to Kenya, Africa whom she always insist "I had a farm in Africa" over and over again. She became a Baronness since she married a Baron, but notwithstanding, instead of feeling free in Africa, she still felt imprisoned by the life she chose to live with her philandering husband. She takes care of a coffee plantation and became a social friend to the local tribes, and peerless amongst the foreigners that settled in the place. Until she discovers that she was falling in love with Africa, the people, the tribes, the lands and most of all, the mysterious hunter Denys (Robert Redford).

No doubt, this is one of cinema's gorgeous-looking epic romances, using the verdant exotic sceneries and the wildlife of Africa as a medium to tell the story of Blixen, her causal life and her misgivings and misfortune. But if you would compare the landscapes to Meryl Streep and Robert Redford's performances and chemistry in the screen, the beauty of Africa is no match for them. It's the burning power of these two actors that make this film a wonderful watch, sidestepping the flaws of the film because if you try to deconstruct while watching the film, it's overly long and a bit tedious at times. Old age people might find this a really introspective love story of the decade but younger audiences would surely fall asleep and snore out of their senses.

Director Sydney Pollack knew his material and served it with dignity and pride, and probably went through an arduous process to bring this film to the screen. Anyway, he proves he's a skillful director and knows how to squeeze magnificent acting from his actors.

Out Of Africa is bound to be a superbly great film, but through the tortuous road it travels, it stumbles a bit. But thanks to Streep and Redford's presence, they saved the fall. It's a good story about founding love in such unexpected places in the world, and the loss of such priceless treasure of the hearts. It's an epic motion picture, but instead of being moved at the end, there's this hanging-at-the-edge feeling. Otherwise, it's a gorgeous picture.


Rating: B+

Which is more horrific: being chased by a man possessed by a ghost, or being chased by a man in which you truly know that he wasn't possessed by any entity but himself alone? Both Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick posed to ask the questions in this adaptation-to-big-screen horror classic The Shining. It's such a shame, and an embarassment to frustrated movie critics like me for not having watched this film an earlier time (especially during those childhood years when we're easily spooked by horror tales), that I have seen this in a such an age unfitting for horror-movie viewing. I'm not easily spooked anymore, and if I watch a horror film, it should be at least hardcore enough to scare the wits out of me, or even make me jump a bit. Slasher flicks don't appeal to me anymore, and I find recent remakes so rubbish that they belong to the dump and not to the theaters. However, The Shining, is an exception. It's not a physical screaming type of film, as though you're shivering in fright and real, unadulterated terror, but more on the psychological distress that only a few horror movies succeed to bring to the edge. The Shining is disturbing not by the fact that a kid and his mother was stuck in a big empty hotel on a winter night being chased by their own father with a big pick-axe supposedly possessed by a ghost, but by the idea of stripping the ghost story from it and just leave the scene with the father possessed by no one and butchering his family to death.

This is where Stanley Kubrick deliberately succeeds to the triumph slot in creating this film. He had filmed one of the most disturbing horror epics ever, and scares viewers not of chases but in moods and very scary atmosphere of the haunted Overlook Hotel. If I've got to compare it to the book, I have to say I prefer the film although I feel thankful for Stephen King's story. Kubrick amazingly stirs blood and raises the hairs by putting sets and scenes that are not distracting to the eyes but chilling to the mind. From the eerie corridors and the expanse of the empty hotel, Kubrick uses slow-moving camera to expose the deafening silence of the scenes. He also wanted to expose the doubt whether what really possessed Jack Torrance, was it ghost, or was it his past?

Jack Torrance is a man with a horrible past, alcoholic and physically brutal teacher in a secondary school, who wanted to change and accepted a caretaking job in the Overlook Hotel. Although he was warned that sometimes too much isolation could unscrew rational screws in the brain, he disses them off and say it would be perfect for his writing career. But as he slowly realises the unearthly echoes of the hotel, especially at night, uninvited guests, masked people in the elevator, the lady in the room 217 and the voices in the corridor - a ghost in him was also resurrected. He was blamed by his own wife for hitting his son, and by this, as what Sigmund Freud once said that man is stripped off with consciousness and left with the id and nothing alone, he's the most savage animal alive.

I completely bow down to the performance by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Nicholson is magnificent and so extraordinary that you adore the talents of this man, and also to Shelley Duvall for her understated performance. She once said in the interview that most people give their appreciation to Kubrick and Nicholson, leaving her under their massive shadows, and completely forgot about her performance in the film. It's supposed to be her, in which we should thank for also, for this energy-draining performance from her. Imagine that bathroom scene where she locked herself up while Jack Torrance was smashing the door open with an axe, she did the screaming scene for 117 times. Imagine that, how cruel Kubrick could be. And Shelley Duvall said she hates Kubrick for being so perfectionist, but loved him at the end for bringing out the best in her. And halfway in the film up to the end, her character had been crying most of the times and screaming, what an unbelievable performance from you Ms Duvall.

The Shining is that classic most people are still willing to revisit even today. In fact, it's one of the very best horror films ever. Bo-hoo to this latest deluge of B horror films.


Rating: A

If The Golden Compass felt like a game of loyalty and betrayal, the tests of friendship and free will, and The Sutle Knife was a maze of interconnectedness, family and the marks of destiny - The Amber Spyglass at its core is a poignant, moving story about sacrifice, the need to fight for what we believe in, and the cruelest things that we need to do in order to heal the common good. Philip Pullman's final tragic book in His Dark Materials trilogy is one of the most powerful books I've ever read in my whole life. His impressionistic vision and re-vision of Milton's Paradise Lost in his majestic finale will impale a great thorn in your heart that for weeks, this series ending would still haunt you. If you are reading this book, make sure you grab some tissues because by the time you will finish it, human as we are, it might move you to cry.

From the start of the book, we are plunged directly into Lyra's world where she was captured by Mrs Coulter. I would no longer further explain the events for it would spoil the whole story, but what's necessary was that we are forced into thinking if the one holding Lyra was either a friend or foe. Will, on the other hand, also forced to continue his journey, was accompanied by two angels, Baruch and Balthamos, after the demise of his father. His objective is now to try and go to Lord Asriel's camp and offer the Subtle Knife which would serve as a great weapon to the Authority. However, Serafina Pekkala had also started gathering masses of witches to aid Lord Asriel's crusade, as well as one of my favourite characters in the face of literary history, the polar bear king Iorek Byrnison, had fled from the melting Arctic ice to wage a battle alongside Asriel's army.

All of them especially Lyra and Will are plunged into a crisis in which they are fighting a battle without any hope, any inkling of winning, for they are going against the great Authority that holds all the cosmos. Both of them have to go through the world of the dead, to make an opening to another world that would reach Authority's realm. What astounds in the book was the gripping, uncompromising finale with Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel proving their worths, forced to give the cruelest sacrifice any human can give.

The Amber Spyglass, like Lord of the Rings's Return of the King, served as the most important book of the trilogy. It's harrowing, intelligent and impressively written. Here, Pullman tries to pull out the threads that he had laid out since the first book. He answers questions and clears our doubts, and here also created a chilling allegory to the recent world that we live in now. Needless to say, it's the characters that truly shines the most. Mrs Coulter is probably one of literature's most multi-layered villain, and she will surely make you doubt again and again whether she's for the good or for the evil. Her bearing is as fluid as ever, and as Hollywood is planning to bring the trilogy to the big screen and Nicole Kidman is already slated to play Mrs Coulter, I am sure she will bring justice to the character.

It's incomparable to any book: you can't say it's like Harry Potter of a bit like Lord of the Rings because His Dark Materials stand on its own. It transcends into literature as a fantasy great alongside Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Narnia. It's just so startling because this trilogy is supposed to be for children, but its narrative and elements that it talks about were so effusively adult. Religion, theology, science-fiction, and magic, it talks like a fantasy with a bit of sci-fi.

It just really puts something on me, after reading the final page in the book that destiny absolutely plays a big role in our lives, and that's something not human that we could control on our own. The ending is touching and very emotional that one could not help but shed tears, giving our sympathies to Lyra and Will, two people who fought bravely together for the common good yet not destined to be together for the rest of their lives. This majestic, poetic ending itself is worth reading the book throughout. Now I am holding my grips to the ending of Deathly Hallows of the Potter saga for I am always predicting for a while now that it will be a tragic one.


Rating: A+

The second book in Philip Pullman's highly-engrossing fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials is a great big slap to most sequels, especially in literature (oh yes, not only in Hollywood do sequels exist - in books too you numbskull sequel-mongers). Continuing from the first one, Northern Lights (UK edition original title) and The Golden Compass (from the American title-changers!), The Subtle Knife is a wonderful staging for the bigger event for the last and final part of the trilogy. As The Golden Compass served as the very foundations of the story, introducing us into Lyra Belacqua's parallel Oxford world, this second one laid out the whole plot that there are other worlds aside from our own and served as an entrance to another protagonist aside from Lyra which is William Parry.

All the characters are back, but the start of the story focused on Will as he try to escape the murder he had committed in order to protect his mother. With the mystery of his father's disappearance in the Arctic as an explorer, he discovers a small opening to another world, leading him to Citagazze, a Meditteranean-esque world near the sea where the city was plagued with Spectres that haunts all the adults. He and Lyra Silvertongue met and as they formed a special bond of friendship, they also discovered and fought to get hold of this specific knife that could cut windows between worlds. With Lyra's determination to find a confidante to tell all about the dark matter, she finds Mary Malone, a scientist in our own world, and proved that there is another matter existing.

If The Golden Compass was very adventurous and had the makings of an all-time classic, The Subtle Knife is more laid-back kind of adventure as Pullman tries to introduce to us the different worlds that are important in the last and final book. The magnetic and majestic multi-layered villain Mrs Coulter is back as well, manipulating a lot of events in the book.

I've got to say that His Dark Materials is a very intelligent series. Pullman transcends into the Tolkien, Rowling, Lewis subterranean fantasy levels, and it's very evident that he deftly mixes fantasy, philosophy, theology, science-fiction and children's literature all abound together. What really haunts me was that Pullman was really brave of writing such a book that would defy a child's imagination because in fact, the plot elements are very adult such as religion and the question of faith. Great as he was, he does not want to patronise the intelligence of a child. It's very evident as well that Pullman wanted to personify that ultimate battle between good and evil. While some will ask whether he's anti-Church, he's not necessarily anti-Church, nor anti-religion, but he's more against of authoritarianism and tyranny.

Let your buckles hold you because after reading this cliff-hanger of a book, your eyes will crave for the final event, The Amber Spyglass.


Rating: A

Impressive book! Philip Pullman's first part of His Dark Materials trilogy contains the elements that make a great classic. Majestic and grandly written, filled with gripping moments and entertaining imagination. Northern Lights is one of the very rare 21st century books that could edge out fantasy legends like Tolkien, Lewis and Dahl. Imagine dark fantasy, an advanced children's literature, then throw in some fantastic adventures, a feisty and witty heroine, a sturdy Polar Bear King, nasty evil villains, edged with a twist of the recent religious issues written in a very gripping and hard-to-put down style, Pullman's book had suddenly become a J.R.R. Tolkien-J. K. Rowling-Dan Brown masterpiece. Of course, this was compared to history's most successful literature, a personal favourite of mine, the Harry Potter series. I'd like to clarify this: Northern Lights isn't a Harry-Potter-kind-of-read, but it is as great as J. K. Rowling's craft. I would say more realistic than the Harry Potter series. OK, so stupid of me to compare since I really hate to compare things, I mean, why would I compare Harry Potter with His Dark Materials when they're two different stories altogether? Please do excuse my silliness, but I do believe that like Harry Potter, Pullman's book dwells not really on the face of children's literature but more on the young adult field. This is a very dark book. There are murders, blood, PG-13 bear against bear fights, witches against Tartars, children mutilation and so many perilous moments that an eight-year old kid might find horrifying to read. Also, it's a kind of novel that would spark the inevitable questions of 'what-ifs'. If in Harry Potter you would ask, what if there are really wizards and witches hiding from us Muggles, living a completely different lifestyle full of magic and spells? What if there's really a school of witchcraft and wizardry disguised as a ruined castle in the remote mountains of Scotland? What if there's really a magical barrier in King's Cross Station between Platforms 9 and 10, and that Muggles are just to indifferent to notice it? Those are the questions one might ask after reading Rowling's book. But in Pullman's, you'll ask entirely different kind of questions, such as, what if there are other universes existing beneath the world that we know? What if there are windows in our world that could open into a completely unusual place? What if the church was hiding a significant truth from us human beings and why did they silenced so many theologians and scientists from the past who suggested about other worlds? What if there is really another world existing beyond the Northern Lights? And why, of all places, the Northern Lights only shimmer in the North Pole? The book tries to ask so many questions that are most left unanswered, until you hurry into Book 2, The Subtle Knife, the pivotal part of the trilogy. But of course, this is a work of fiction, I'm just too astounded to dwell in the real world right now because I was engrossed by such a magnificent work of literary art. And so far, it's one of the most ambitious work since Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Since this book is one-liner for movie adaptation, I say, this would make a great film too, if properly made stripped out of Hollywood's subservience. However, such a great ensemble of actors will play the characters: Nicoel Kidman as Mrs Coulter, Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala and the newcomer Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra. It will open December 7th, this year.

The things that really made this book shine are the characters. Totally unforgettable, especially the young feisty heroine, Lyra Belacqua, or so named Lyra Silvertongue for her intelligence and wide grasp. It is very rare for books to have such a solid character as this, so opinionated, so witty and so determined for a 12-year old girl. I also love the way prophecy was foretold and that innocence itself would fulfill every marked event that the Magisterium was fearing to befall. Lord Asriel also was a very mysterious icon. This aristocrat is so ambitious that you really feel some kind of hatred for this guy, of course I wouldn't give out why. It highly connects to the plot and to Lyra's adventures. There so many amazing characters, and my favorite would have to be the wondrous Polar Bear, Iorek Byrnison. Such a spiffing bear! He's like Aragorn of the Lord of the Rings turned into a mighty polar bear.

Apparently, a novel wouldn't work without a very good story, and I shall say it's one of the most unique I've read so far. Cleverly plotted, filled with astounding images. It's one of those books that reminds me about my love of writing, about my dreams of becoming a writer and all that stuff (of course that would happen by the time Mars and Pluto would switch places, haha!). Audience might expect it to have a fairy tale ending, but sad to say no. It's a cliffhanger, and after you flip the last page, like me, you'll surely have your hands itching for the 2nd book. Harry Potter fans would love this, and if you're also itching for the 7th and last book of the wizard boy saga, then Pullman's His Dark Materials would be an awesome read for a long wait for Rowling's final epic.
Lastly, the best thing I like about this book is that it's a children's novel that's truly intelligent. It's a dark, almost gothic, vivid fantasy literature for children - for imaginative, clever, and bright children, that is. In fact, it's not only for children, it's actually for everybody from 10-80 years old who enjoys adventures, some nifty twists and turns, mighty battles, flights and magic.

Northern Lights is such a bloody good book. It's one of the works that most writers dream of having and dream of putting in history - immortality. Like Harry Potter, Northern Lights would surely be around and be read in the next generations to come. Now, excuse me while I scurry into the next book of the trilogy, The Subtle Knife.


Rating: A+

A book studying one man's dementia will only lead us asking something: will the writer also be possibly prod with dementia while writing the book? The Shining, written by one of America's best fiction writers, Stephen King, is a massively popular ghost-horror story and was adapted into screen by Stanle Kubrick and turned out to be one of the most haunting and well-made horror movies in cinematic history - and if you haven't known what The Shining is all about, then you have probably never existed in this world or was located from Mars, or maybe as far as Uranus.

When you hear the name Stephen King, the word "horror" would inevitably rush to your mind. It's inexplicable how this guy manage to be so obsessed with horror stories that probably ninety-five percent of his books was horror novels. However, this 1980 book is quite scary indeed, not physically (as though you were shaking with terror while reading it) but psychologically. It's a spine-chiller, but not as scary as his masterpiece about domestic vampires Salem's Lot that after reading that such-hell-of-a-book, you would surely get away from windows at night and close the curtains as much as possible. The Shining would leave you, well, haunted and at the same time make you wonder with unflagging curiosity about history and past-stories when you check-in in hotel rooms, about what had happened in the bed you were lying down in years before. Murder? Rape?

I think the book succeeds at studying Jack Torrance, as a struggling writer and alcoholic, managing to apply as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Along with his family, his wife and his son, they spent looking over the hotel for six months being snowed in. There they not only discover ghosts, but also ghostly-memories of the past that haunts Jack Torrance leading him to murder his own family and threatened their existence.

It's a good Stephen King book, but as I watched the film version, I'm glad to say Kubrick scared me more.


Rating: B+

When one tells you that a movie is made based on the olfactory sense of humans, I was in doubt. But after watching Perfume the film, it satisfied my nosetrils and the whole darkly rich but sinister effluvium of the craft of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the survivor, the genius, the perfumer, and the murderer. But my curiosity left me craving for more and left me with one singular question: what would it feel like reading a book based on scents and fragrances? Would the writer be able to convey and tickle the olfactory sense through the use of words? And so it was, I ogled at the book in which all the sensation was all about.

Perfume: A Story of a Murderer by German author Patrick Suskind is a wonderful piece of craft, one that is terrifyingly novel and at the same time a masterpiece worth to be inhaled as if the words are made out of incenses. It's a very interesting book, asdie from the fact that it features such an original character, so despicable yet hauntingly mysterious in the form of a misanthropic peerless freak which was Grenouille, its startingly exciting narrative stimulates the sense indeed with a kind of prose both gruesome yet poetic. This is a beautifully and darkly written book. Never in my life have I read a book that is filled with words that could transport you into another dimension where imagination is suffused with scents, fragrances, odours both putrid and lovable.

Of course we all know the story; about an orphan who was blessed with an incredible (a bit messianic) talent - his ability to perceive the different smells of the world. He grows up learning different odours and materially dividing them into components, that it helped him to speak words. His ultimate goal was survival, and as he entered into the once horribly smelly city of Paris, he was hired as an assistant to the renowned but losing-touch perfumer Baldini. There he proved himself that his nose was "the best nose all over Paris" and concocted the very difficult to breakdown "Amor & Psyche". But his manipulation was clever, he was obsessed with capturing every scent there is available in the world and when he succeeded, there was one scent he could not capture - the smell of pure, unadulterated beauty. He discovered his maniacal obsession to the scent of young virgins. His crisis lead him to travel into the mountains and detached himself from the world, also learning that he, himself, has no scent which means his existence was unimportant. But this drove him to the town of Grasse where he fulfilled his wrath of a masterpiece, collecting essences of virgins, killing young women and capturing their very cores, serving as bases on his perfume. Also in Grasse, there was this woman whom he was obsessed with, with a scent that was most beautiful and haunting that even the Gods would kneel for it, and he had done everything to capture this very last scent, this very last note to perfect his ultimate masterpiece.

It's a very bizzare book, probably read by only those who are patient and are attracted to novel things such as poetic proses and captivating stories. No doubt, Perfume is a tour-de-force; it's diabolical, gruesome and a significant character study about ambition, obsession and one's dream to prove one's existence to the world. It's also very unique because in a world that's full of literary heroes, here's Grenouille who broke the rules: he's an anti-hero, and never in the face of fiction had a villain been put so brilliantly in the protagonist position since the deliberate and chilling study of Hannibal Lecter. A must-read, this one.


Rating: A

For thousands of times, I have been trying to define what romantic comedy is really all about. It's boy meets girl (or girl meets boy), try to hate each other at first, say silly words at each other and then at some point in the film, they will realise that they actually like each other and that they share a bit of understanding. So by the end of the film, romantic comedy trademarks, there should be a rushing scene or somebody running catching another i.e. in a train, in a subway, or in an airplane - and the kissing part ensues... awww, group hug. Notwithstanding, it's all pretty predictable.

However, this film Secretary directed by Steven Shainberg breaks the rules. Yes, at its core it's a romantic comedy, but its cleverly veiled by another genre that our mothers and fathers would have been yelling to us not to watch 10 years ago: porn movie slash sodomasochism. Heck yeah, it's not even for minor audiences.

It starts as an angsty nobody-understands-me drama, except for the brow-raising and kinky prologue with Maggie Gyllenhaal in handcuffs in the office, with the character of Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who just got out of a mental institution. She was a misunderstood teenager who had the habit of self-mutilation. Because of her neurotic family, who care less about her especially her father whose attitude seemed to prod into the realm of indifference, when she feels the emotional pain inside her, she usually grabs hold of sharp objects and mutilate herself with it. It's her only outlet for her pain to build up in her physical world, for the amount of pain inside her was already unbearable for her. Her mother had even started to lock the knives away from her. But when she finally wanted to break free from her own tormenting world, she learns to become a typist (and becomes good at it), and applied for a secretary for an uber-demanding lawyer named Mr Gray (James Spader) whose all "do this and do that". One of the funniest (and weirdest) scenes in the film was when Lee was interviewed for the post, Mr Grey told her blatantly, "You are going to be bored with this job", she replies straightly "I wanna be bored". He again snorted in disbelief, "But all these typing, it's a dull job,", Lee replied without fuss, "I love dull jobs".

She started becoming a very submissive secretary and all his boss's demands, she cooperated without any shifts of brows. We might think that she has some screws loose in her head, but we soon realise that her boss too had some screws loose in his own head as well. This time she lets go of her childish habits, and suddenly turns into a woman - a horny one in fact. She always displeases Mr Grey by doing some deliberate errors in her typing job so more spanking ensues, kinky sexual innuendos, masochism, and masturbation happens, I tell you it's not a film for kids.

That is why this film is very weird, and very originally made at that. Secretary is a witty movie; it plays on its characters and situations, and the film lets these two elements breathe on their own. Maggie Gyllenhaal does an incredibly unbelievable performance as Lee Holloway; at first she astounds us with the amount of angst she was ale to show, and then finally stuns us with gaping mouths with "what-the---??" moments. Secretary is well cast; James Spader creates a very masochistic boss character of Mr Grey, yet not knowing his very potential of masochism. His dominant figure was both strong, and vulnerable at some times. Now you gotta be some actor to pull that off.

Speaking sincerely now, psychologically speaking, Secretary is a film for open-minded people. If you're totally against it, tough. It's a close observations on human behaviour and uses S/M as a dynanism towards these two characters. One might never get the whole idea why the secretary wanted to be punished by spanking, and why the boss wanted the secretary to bend over the desk, and could be oversimplified just to sex. There is more to what meets the eye between these two characters, because between such deliberate (and sordid) acts, they find common understanding in each other, about their wants and needs. He's a boss with an obsessive-compulsive behaviour and loves to torment secretaries without even thinking about it, but she's a girl who wanted to be dominated with, to be spanked in the butt, to be roughly treated. S/M might not have worked for other people or might find it disgusting, but hell it worked for these two characters so why don't we let them?

It's a very funny film as well, a dark comedy about office affairs. It's just so fresh, so original, that never in a film before had this type of combo had been played so playfully. It's far from a perfect film, in fact, but even though I have tried hard and hard enough to define this film, it's a romantic comedy at the end of the day - but a good one.


Rating: B+

Many films nowadays strive to encompass the fantastic breadth that was Lord of the Rings, some nearly came close and some shamefully fails. One perfect example is this one, and it's named Eragon. No, it's not a name of a dragon, and yes it involves a dragon in it. Funny how things work in this film adapted from Christopher Paolini's youthfully-written first part of his Inheritance trilogy, just like the way how he named the heroic "chosen one" boy Eragon, a wordplay from Dragon without the E. Nonetheless, this is fantasy without any E, which stands for Epic.

I feel sorry for Christopher Paolini who had written Eragon when he was 15 years old and came to the publishing world three years later. With such a young age, he must have been a young boy himself following his dream of becoming a writer and no doubt, wanting to establish his name beside fantasy giants with the likes of Tolkien, Rowling, Lewis and LeGuin. Such an inspiration comes very hard into one's life that it compels a young mind to think and write, brewing a story half-boiled and then picking from different sources and called it his own. Without a doubt, as I have read the book Eragon and now finally watched the film, it is obvious that this world was created by a young boy whose imagination ran wild in the fantasy land and meeting in the road Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Dragonheart.

Eragon is fit for much younger audiences, the children might enjoy it for it felt like a Disney production rather than a 20th Century Fox. On the other hand, accompanying adults may find this a long torture, probably expecting this to be the new face of fantasy films. Aside from the fact that it brings nothing new to the genre, like the cheesy "chosen one" prototype films, the reluctant and almost foolish hero with a mentor sidekick, a king or dark lord who rules a kingdom for a long time and all that tosh, Eragon feels like it wanted to be Lord of the Ring's brother, and Star Wars's cousin, but expectedly falls into the bottomless pit of lava in Mordor. It tells the very conventional story of a local farm boy who discovers a great blue stone in a forest, in which its appearance was still confusing although Aria said "it chooses its rider", so fair enough, no explanations needed. He then discovers also that the blue stone is not actually a stone but a dragon egg, and when it finally hatches, thank God it's way cuter than Norbert, Hagrid's little dragon in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Too bad it came from a computer-animated creature a performance worth watching for. It was the graceful but steely eyed blue lady dragon named Saphira (rendered with the beautiful voice of Rachel Weisz) whose performance overshadowed the human counterparts of the film. She is a perfect paradigm that sometimes in films computer-generated creations can deliver more powerful performances than a human does. One failure was its casting. Newcomer Edward Speelers couldn't blamed for his lousy performance as the title hero Eragon; he lacked the gravitas that the film needs, and whether you call frowning brows or staring hard into a distance as acting, then you might have probably never saw what acting is really all about. Jeremy Irons, even with a sword and conviction of Shakespearean lines, feel incompetent as Brom. Heck, his character even felt as if Paolini ripped him off from Obi Wan Kenobi, Skywalker's mentor. Another two big mistake about casting was 1) putting John Malkovich as the meanie King Galbatorix, because he's too laughable at his character as though he had though he thought he was in a spoof film, and 2) casting pop-star Joss Stone as the blind fortune-teller was an utter mess. She feels so anachronistic in an age of dragons, when all we could think was seeing her in a music video or something. Robert Carlyle succeeds a bit in playing the evil henchman Durza, which makes me laugh because he's more a believable evil king than Malkovich as Galbatorix.

Technically speaking, Eragon satisfies with its visual effects. Its luscious landscapes and shooting sceneries served as eye-candy, but it's still haunts me because its cinematography is redolent of that of Lord of the Rings. But the rest of the aspects of the film was just - bad. The plot felt queasy, the dialogues are too cheesy, the script felt roughly written, and this is fantasy with epic hilarity proportions without any trace of depth and texture. I snorted many times while watching this film, not in thrill but in disbelief. It's just silly, laughable. I would be really amazed when a 10-year old kid would say it's a bad film because it's made for them.

Now I wonder if they're going to helm the sequel Eldest. They have ruined the first one, I wonder what doom they will bring to the second. For fact, except from the soulful dragon Saphira who spreads her wings and captured this movie as her own with the serenity of Rachel Weisz, Eragon in general never soars.


Rating: C

I have to admit: Stanley Kubrick's films are head-scratchers. Some of them may be classics, some stupefying, others plain greats but the rest are like numbness to the cerebral cortex. Despite of that, odd and eccentric Kubrick may be, I still adore his craft which heightens into the order of uniqueness and individuality. He has his own style, and when you see a film, you will surely know it's in the "Kubrickian" stratosphere.

However, after "viddying" A Clockwork Orange, pardon my jargon, but bet my droogs and guzzballs, it's no 2001. Although brilliantly portrayed, Kubrick dives into the Orwellian prescience that society in the near future will be encroached by a severe hold of the government, that ultra-violence will be wiped out of the streets and that new rehabilitation treatment will be imposed forcing violent individuals to be cured. This is in fact an ideology, and while the film's message is a bit messy, it's visuals and imagery haunts truly.

It starts off in a weird milk bar (probably Kubrick's vision of the future clubs and nightbars where women strips and alcohol is drunk instead of the milk) with mannequins of naked women all fours in the floor. Alex, the head of a demonic gang, sits comfortably staring at the camera holding a glass of milk against his mouth. This iconic scene, must have been imprinted in almost all kinds of mediums like handbags, shirts, badges and else, although shown very early in the film, is an important one. Alex's gang rests in the bar, taking a break from roaming the streets, and drinking milk. After that, they roam again and continue their spree of violence, rape, murder (even beating a helpless old man in the alleyway). But they weren't drunk, the only thing they drunk was milk. This was where we know that their violence wasn't caused (they don't have any boozed intake) but rather exists naturally in their nature.

They kill people, harass women especially in front of their husbands, break into houses and fulfill the oath of the "old in-and-out". We might ask ourselves, what were the reasons why these pack of droogs were doing such abominable things? This was where Kubrick fails, he never explains, and all he wanted to portray was that these droogs find pleasure in the attempt of violence towards other people - which is downrightly inhumane and almost shamelessly pitiful.

We are also introduced to Alex's home in the hope that Kubrick might shed some light on the cause of such violence. Was it childhood, or maybe parenthood? Alex's parents, although a tad careless, give everything to their son. But teen rebellion succeeds more. Alex had also an intense liking to Beethoven music, and Kubrick again never explained why. It must be the fact that Kubrick just wanted to stylize his film with classical music, and he felt like he blames the character for liking it.

Then we are thrown to the second act of Orange. Alex was betrayed by his droogs after betraying them first, and was caught by the police then putting him into prison, under government surveillance. Kubrick's government is severe, brutal and almost scientifically-ruthless. It strives to wipe all ultra-violence out of the streets that it obviously wanted to impose the same kind of violence but in different form on these criminals to cure them, to make them reformed. In one of the most horrifying scenes of the film, one that makes your eyes squint, was when Alex was forced to viddy or watch films with his eyes forced open with metallic equipments with the doctor dropping medicinal liquid in his eyeballs.

While the first act of the film undoubtedly stuns, or even gobsmacks, innocent-movie watchers, it has a potential of a great artistic film with lots of sexual imagery and violence. Never has a film become so controversial that possibly, even your grandmother wouldn't want to see it again. The scenes itself rattles nerves and terrifies, as though Kubrick has stage a real creepshow full of killings and rape serenaded with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. But the second act drags, filled with political questions and ridiculous innuendos by Kubrick. This film is basically a suggestion that violence is not to be forced down. It's supposed to be a choice between what is moral and immoral, therefore letting a person of free will stand whichever side. So what did Kubrick mean when he shows the government imposing violence to this rapist, murderers and criminals that at the end of it all - violence is also the solution? And that if a person choose violence over education, it still makes him human or rational?

At the end of the film, which is also a head-scratcher actually, it shows Alex seemingly cured from the treatment he went through but imagines of a rough rape-act in his brain. Kubrick then initially tells us that Alex is not cured, and that he's implying that violence cannot be cured. I will go bonkers first if this film doesn't promote violence as a good thing.

Many call this a masterpiece, some call this a holy mess - I call A Clockwork Orange an artistic mess. It's like looking into a painting with full of brilliant colors in it, but you can't decipher or understand its potent message because of the many strokes, lines and misgiving brushes all over it. It is a good film, in fact. Unforgettable, riveting imagery, seminal filmmaking, haunting score that startles, and innovative script and language, but what good is a film that has the artist himself confused on what his portrait portends. Or if he understood his message, well it must have been absurd.


Rating: B-

I feel satisfied with the decision of Warner Bros. to slate the fifth film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix towards a July 13th opening. One thing, it sidesteps the waging summer-movie war of Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, Die Hard, Transformers and Pirates of the Carribean 3. All of them are released around April, May to June. Or maybe Phoenix is the climax of this summer-hype films? Hopefully yes. Anyway, enough of my nuttiness. Here are the new pics of Phoenix.




"Look, don't punish me for having a new haircut, alright?"


"It's a bird! It's a plane! No - it's the Thestrals!"


"Harry, proof-read my letter please. I'm a no-brainer when it comes to grammar."


"We're a bunch of rascals pretending to be rebels."


"Forget that I appeared naked on stage, or I'll jinx you!"


"I am not Nicole Kidman. I am not Nicole Kidman. I am not... OK I wanna be her."


"Call me monkey, and I'll turn you into one."


"Who says I am not cute? Who says? I am cute and my wand is pointing at you."


"I don't care about Cho Chang. That beyotch. I'm Harry's girlfriend on the 6th film anyway. Bo-hoo."


"I want to be famous. Being loony is the first step."


"Forget Mrs Trunchbull. I'm the new bitch in town."


"For God's sake, I'm not Paris Hilton's uncle."

If you're wondering what the hell is The Golden Compass, or what the heck is His Dark Materials, then you are too far-flung from the world of literary greats. Absolutely one of the best fantasy books ever written, or I have ever read (as I have not read every single book in the fantasy genre for the sake of goodness, His Dark Materials is a masterpiece by Philip Pullman, a trilogy that would satisfy your imagination, your soul and mind. In fact, it's more clever than Narnia and more reality-bound than Lord of the Rings.


Now Chris Weitz had been starting to helm the first book of the trilogy, Northern Lights (the orginal UK title) or The Golden Compass (the US title) - why in the bloody hell do they always change titles anyway? After that Philosopher's Stone to Sorcerer's Stone confusion in Harry Potter. I still prefer calling it Philosopher's Stone because it's more proper.


The Golden Compass sizzles with an amazing all-star ensemble with Nicole Kidman, looking gorgeous, splendid and villainous as Mrs Coulter, Daniel Craig as the burly-looking but highly intelligent and ambitious Lord Asriel, and Eva Green as the sultry Serafina Pekkala, Queen of the Witches. Dakota Blue Richards, a newcomer to the face of cinema, stars as Lyra Belacqua, the courageous protagonist of His Dark Materials series.


Many says this is the new Lord of the Rings. I can't say that for sure 'cause I doubt anything would surpass the Rings glory. But I can certainly say that if Dark Materials would be properly done, it has a great promise of an endearing and magnificent fantasy piece of cinema.


This is not the final trailer, this is just a first look of the film, which means some effects are not yet hundred percent done. Enjoy. It will open December 7th this year.



In a tale of obsession, usually there's the initiator of dark and twisted desire and the end-receiver who naturally suffers the consequences of being the apple in the Garden of Eden. But what if there's a third party involved in such tale? Just like you're talking to someone in the phone without you realising that there's somebody else furtively listening to your voice, every whisper, every sigh, every word. In Notes On A Scandal, the school grounds served as the Garden of Eden; there's Eve, there's the apple, and of course the inevitable - the snake.


Barbara Corvett (played magnificently by Dame Judi Dench) is a History teacher in a British state-run secondary school, and just like her teachings her life and the school itself are on the verge of breakdown. But everything changes when a new teacher comes in, the fresh and fruitful Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). As the story happens in surmountable speed, art-teacher Hart, who has got a family of her own, a husband (Bill Nighy), a daughter and an autistic son, fell to a scandalising and illicit affair with her 15-year old student. So to continue with the tale of snakes and apples and this damn silly Eve, the third party belonged to Barbara, a miserable old lady who owned nothing else in life but a cat named Portia, who was demented enough to seize the opportunity right in front of her, taking advantage of another person in the brink of madness.


The question is then thrown right in front of our feet: what does Barbara want? She's a old teacher who doesn't care about anything anymore, and feels that her world is slowly deteriorating around her. And when she took a glimpse of this kindred spirit that was Sheba, white and lovely, she wanted something else. Friendship, perhaps? Or maybe a little tinge of hopeless romance. She has the quietness of a feline herself, but when she strikes, she pulls out claws of a leopard. She comes to the rescue of teenage boys fighting, in which Sheba couldn't stop, and effectively shown her sense of command and in a blip, the boys stopped fighting and she delightfully mutters "They respect me."


Then they started becoming friends. Barbara, at first, despised her for being so careless and so weak-willed, and slowly Sheba spills her secrets to her. And while Sheba talks about her past, Barbara carefully listens, sometimes distracted by the sight in front of her and when she comes home late at night, she also spills secrets of her own in a little diary written in black ink encrusted with gold stars. But there's one secret Sheba hasn't told: she's having an affair with one of her students. This made Barbara felt infuriated, disgusted but intoxicated. She set her claws on Sheba, and for one thing, she never lets Sheba go for her secret was in a hidden confidence. Knowing that Sheba is in Barbara's debt, Barbara surreptitiously manipulates that if they're not to be together, the secret would be out to her family and to the world.


This film for sure is not everybody's cup of tea. As for people who are easily disgusted by such unbelievable relationships, leash yourself away and keep your opinions on your own for Notes On A Scandal doesn't need your objections; it needs your ears. Although the film is about homosexuality, about an old lesbian who's greying away falling in lust with her co-teacher, it's a brilliant move for the film not to inform the audience straight away about the unforgiving relationships and gender confusions. We are told that Barbara is just a lonely old lady whose teaching life doesn't help her anymore, and that Sheba is confused soul wanting to set free to the world. But people wouldn't understand why such a person would want to have a sordid affair with a 15-year old boy. As she spoke with urgency and sigh, "I have never been followed like this in my entire life." Sheba has her reasons, it maybe stupid, daft or adulterous, but her reasons make her Sheba, not somebody else. After all, Notes On A Scandal isn't really about human scandals, but about human frailty.


Dame Judi Dench justifies that she could steal one whole show. It's her merciless, ruthless performance as Barbara Corvett that kept the whole film in breathless pace. She may be old, but her talents are skin-deep, and playing this manipulative old bitch makes you say, "Damn this woman!" It's as effective as that. But what beguiles me was that she doesn't only demands hate and loathing to her character, at the end we feel sympathy for her soul. Also, Cate Blanchett amazingly nailed Sheba Hart to the ground and even with Dench's intimidating presence, she delivers the exact amount of fragility to Hart. Even though we must consider to also hate her for being so impetuous, for going to bed with an underage student, we feel sadness in her character which also generates sympathy. Bill Nighy, who plays as Sheba's husband, was corporeally amazing as well. It's a wonderful understated performance by one Britain's greatest actors alive.


Kudos also to the blatant and sharp-edged script by Patrick Maber (who had also penned Closer) and the musical score by Philip Glass, very ominous and adds to the eerieness of the film. Notes On A Scandal succeeds in its genre and Richard Eyre directs with fluent grace; his shots were incredible, if not indelible.


If your not into this kind of film, your tickets are still worth to witness superb performances by Blanchett, Nighy and most of all, Dench for playing one of cinema's most horrifying, most psychologically unnerving and manipulating spinsters. This is the only performance, whom I think, that would make Helen Mirren run out of Oscar gold.


Rating: A-