Cast: Nicholas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, John Voight, Helen Mirren

Director: John Turtletaub

Screenplay: The WIbberleys

Genre: Action/Adventure

Running time: 2 hr 5 mins



CRITIQUE:


The holiness of movies comes from the basic principles of plotting. Let’s amid it, a boring plot more or less bores an audience to death. Such is the case of the second input to the NATIONAL TREASURE franchise named BOOK OF SECRETS, which even sounded more like a Gothic, mystery-adventure actioner than this stilted, slipshod of a film. However, let’s ogle at the fact that Jerry Bruckheimer and John Turtletaub’s intentions were good, that is to make a wholesome family-oriented adventure film. There’s also no denying that beneath that aim, there are cashing cows trying to squeeze some more juice of the fruit they harvested back in 2004’s first NATIONAL TREASURE flick.


The result is almost like a carbon-copy of the first film. Lose the first film’s plot, recycle the template, add in new locations and voila, a sequel. Bankroll pours in. It can be assessed that the scribes of this film have perhaps tried hard to glue the intriguing enigmas together to form a coherent plot, involving Lincoln’s assassination plot, lost assassin’s diary, desks made out of from a ship – while all true, its predisposition of a treasure hunt wallop is just as improbable as it is gimmicky. And gimmicks do we get, when the nationalistic treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) and his cohorts, which comprises of Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha, set the action one after another, along dialogues which are as poorly written as the first one. The Buckingham Palace ranting scene is one perfect example.


Action set pieces are sometimes promising: the car chase around London is a technical wonder (car chases are rarely shot in London due to its narrow and utterly busy streets) but nevertheless pedestrian. Then it all goes INDIANA JONES as the quest for the City of Gold goes on, filled with improbability. Right, the search for the hummingbird mark on the stone is very well, but with the use of four bottles of water? In the film it took them less than a minute to find the clue. Not only that, but TREASURE is a senseless parade of a theorist’s wet dream and a pageantry of actors, Nicholas Cage not really delivering anything other than forced dialogues. Even Helen Mirren as his mum was underused, albeit seeing having fun swinging from a cliff to another.


VERDICT:

Like most sequel, it goes horribly wrong. The intention of ante-upping the actioner potential results in merely a replica of its predecessor. NATIONAL TREASURE is forgettable, with all that tasteless action and forced cleverness that never quite fully delivers.



RATING: C

Cast: Natalie Press, Emily Blunt, Paddy Considine

Director: Pawel Pawlikowski

Screenplay: Pawel Pawlikowski

Genre: Indie/Drama/Romance

Running time: 1 hr 27 mins

Cast: Steven Strait, Camille Belle

Director: Roland Emmerich

Screenplay: Roland Emmerich

Genre: Action/Adventure

Running time: 1 hr 49 mins


CRITIQUE:


With the former efforts of GODZILLA, the silly monstrous monster of a film, INDEPENDENCE DAY, the middle-brow, but famous nevertheless, and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, a superior stab on the global climate effect, ambition seemed to be only natural for Roland Emmerich to undertake anything that concerns either big-scale or blockbustery. So naturally enough, his next venture is the prehistoric epic of skin-clad men battling mammoths, sabretooth tigers, and giant chickens may it be in the jungles, deserts or wintry landscapes. In fact, Emmerich seem to consider it so natural for him that he must have spent his posh time having tea and teacakes, instead of carefully researching and pinning down every minutiae of historical fact. The result is a grandiloquently ambitious film, with an inkling of accuracy as though this was hurriedly researched with a deadline through Wikipedia. We’ve had dumb films already, but crafting a supposedly historical epic, historical, geographical and anthropological aspects are ignored for the sake of Hollywood exploitation – but this is one impossibly dumb approach to its material.


Its premise is promising: it takes us back to when humans wear no Pradas nor Lacroixs, just loincloths in the post-Ice Age world. Mammoths started to migrate across the continents, and civilisations were in the brink of evolution. One tribe remains distant in the cold mountains, as the narrator Omar Charif tells us with his urgent, whispery voice, but when the tribal people started speaking in English language with a Jamaican accent – it is one gargantuan smack-head moment. Realism aside, should these people who come from the time just after dinosaurs roamed the Earth, they would have learnt less than just roars, moans and just basically verbal sounds. But English? And with almost perfect grammar? We never knew the innovators of the English language come from the Stone Age.


What is more, when the character of D’Leh (Steven Strait) embarks on an odyssey to save his loved one, Evolet (Camille Belle), after the ransacking of their tribe, he crosses first wintry mountains, then a jungle, then finally a desert – geographic settings which doesn’t make sense. Whilst geographers laugh their heads off, historians, archaeologists, biologists and paleontologists will be scratching theirs. Mammoths may be acceptable, but giant chicks on a jungle? Emmerich seemed to have taken one step further to JURASSIC PARK. The film’s finale, a big, bombastic, yet spectacular imagery of the building of pyramids and the uprising of slaves, is a visual feast, but one couldn’t quite silence the absurdity of Emmerich’s theory of mammoths being involved in the building of the Pyramids. The period doesn’t seem to fit in the historical timeline. Additionally, the main actors in the film are absolutely miscast, Strait and Belle, as they can be considered too good-looking for their roles, which are fundamentally humans who existed alongside mammoths. Even the humans in Mel Gibson’s incredibly superior APOCALYPTO never looked more or less than savages. Aside from that, 10,000 B.C. supposed to exist in a highly barbaric community, and rarely do blood gushes out from stabs and slashes. There’s nary a form of gore in it.


Even the story is a shameless excuse for an epic adventure. Man travels, gathers followers, deemed as the chosen one, then saves his people and his woman. If it’s not clichéd, then the word does not exist in the vocabulary. This might entertain others, but dumb and dull it could ever be.


VERDICT:

Perhaps one of the greatest bastardisations of historical accuracy in the existence of cinema, that’s the real prize for Emmerich. Oh, and it’s preposterously made, add in some dodgy research, and laughable dialogues. This visually stunning vehicle could serve as an awful relic for those without any trace of intelligence.



RATING: D

Cast: Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Director: Tamara Jenkins

Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins

Genre: Indie Drama

Running time: 1 hr 53 mins


CRITIQUE:


When one thinks of an indie film, chances are a dysfunctional family film is mentioned. Hot buttons are LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and the recent JUNO (although a teenage pregnancy film, it still has family issues flowing in its undercurrents), and they seem to have wholly created a new sub-genre on its own. Despite the abundance of that lately, some seemed to have entirely ignored another American dysfunctional family indie film in the same year a teenager named Juno McGuff became impregnated. THE SAVAGES, a quieter, humbler yet oozing with dignity, is a surprisingly rich film in terms of pathos, quirkiness, and poignancy content. This story of two siblings, forced to return to their roots in the event of the senility and dementia of their father, is witty, often funny, and mostly deep,entirely human narrative. While this was tagged to be a comedy, laughs rarely come, but when they do, they don’t feel pretentious or forced – they feel natural, real and touching.


This is Tamara Jenkins’s take on familial obligations, where after the fathers raise their sons and daughters to grow up as mature individuals, the former, before “popping up their clogs”, tend to end up in elderly homes in the care of other people. The writer/director tackles serious and dark issues of ageing, family dilemmas, childhood crises, and death with such sensibility and without any pretence. Instead she slaps us across the face with cold, hard, bitter truths that unfolds in the eyes of the two lead characters, John (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Wendy (Laura Linney), and along the scenes that are shown, often harbouring a sense of humour but succinctly aligns to the foibles of life.
Both are thirty-fortysomething siblings, and whilst they try to reconnect, they both struggle to pin down the truth of their fathers closeness to mortality. Hence, forcing them to consider the choice of nursing homes. It is in this decision that these characters tend to become ashamed and guilty of their doings, and Wendy cries that they are “so horrible”. That scene where John rages on Wendy about nursing homes in the car park being surrounded by gardens and sceneries which is to basically cover the grimness of people dying inside the building is a powerful scene to watch.


Which brings us to the almost compelling, amazingly nuanced performances of these two actors, Hoffman and Linney, which are both at the top of their games. Both of them, which presumably belong to the elite acting department whose career choices involves either an Oscar statuette or a nomination, epitomised their characters with such careful precision. Hoffman plays John as an offbeat character, a theatre professor who never gets the chance to make it big, while Linney plays Wendy, a messed-up woman trying to convince herself that everything is going to be alright, while being a sideline to a married man and a failure in play-writing. The weaknesses of these characters are necessities to lay bare their imperfections in a world that forces them to be upright.


VERDICT:

A tad humorous film which looks at unsmiling family issues, yet THE SAVAGES is as real and as bitter as the pill you swallow: it’s difficult but a necessity. It finds humour in the darkest of situations, but it is never tactless, and borders on the profound, poignant, and very human territory, which is called life.



RATING: A-

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Brad Pitt, Harvey Keitel

Director: Ridley Scott

Screenplay: Callie Khouri

Genre: Drama/Road Movie

Running time: 2 hrs 13 mins


CRITIQUE:


Ever since BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID hit the celluloid screen, it catalysed a deluge of a whole new genre of Western outlaws and massively influenced buddy movies. People seem to forget that almost all buddy films are made of men, and women are reduced to objects of love and desire, the mere receiving end for some overflowing machismo. This is Ridley Scott’s answer to that genre, and in fact, here, he delivers quite a good bitchslapping to his own male species that he belongs. THELMA & LOUISE holds the record for being the first big-budget Hollywood pic in which there is no leading man, only two leading ladies. It is acclaimed by critics as the ultimate cinematic feminist movement in the 90s. And my word, what a film it is: daring, poignant, funny, honest and revolutionary. It is that kind of film which has the power to change a thing that’s wrong in the world.


This tale of two thirty-something best friends, who want to literally let their hair down on a weekend, engages in a road-trip and after a tragic disaster in a road-side car park, their vacation becomes a nightmarish episode where they accidentally become fugitives. However, Ridley Scott’s approach is not the dark, moody affair we’re supposed to expect. Instead, the material is approached with such fresh filmic vibrancy that crosses the epic lushness of the Western landscape with the equally epic performances of the two lead characters, namely Sarandon and Davis. The road trip never gets cheesy nevertheless, as it becomes something deeper: two women trying to escape their oppressive lives, Louise being a suppressed and neglected housewife, Thelma being an escapist from a fear of a relationship. They both involve in a rapturous, often funny, odyssey into the barren panorama of the dry and hot and results in a daring tale of self-discovery and self-empowerment. By the time Thelma fired a gun to a rapist, their journey turns a hundred and eighty degrees, making them two terrified women. But fear wasn’t their answer, as they succumb to the “call of the wild”.


Nevertheless, this film isn’t without any hint of men. Brad Pitt steps up as the charming yet deceitful love object, the reason that pushes the two gals to rob a shop. Harvey Keitel is also present in quite a polar fashion as the cop which was sympathetic to the lives of the women. The rest are either rude, horny truckers or cops hot on their heels.


But it’s the film’s symbolism of personal freedom that elevates the most. From the two women hollering in the air as they drive the T-Bird, their sense of euphoria away from their domestic mistreatment, it evolves into an eye-opening masterpiece, although a tad violent and radical, but definitely a must-see. It’s also embezzled with laugh-out-loud one-liners, and such hilarious and moving scenes that will both make you smile, laugh, feel and cry. That sublime final shot of the film, as Thelma and Louise commit to complete their bold act, is enough to make the whole film worth watching. It is one of the most moving finales I’ve seen for quite a long while. For a feminist film, it’s not only for women, but in fact, men should watch this as well – to be aware of how a simple thing as respect can change the course of the lives of other people.


VERDICT:

An excellent bow to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, this 90's road movie is perhaps the most impressionistic feminist film brought to silverscreen. It's funny as it is moving, heartwarming as it is inspiring - all confidently handled by Sarandon and Davis' assured performances. And the finale just stays with you - an imprint that leaves a mark to your memory.


RATING: A+

Possibly only very few know that Travis is more respected than Coldplay in Britain. The Scottish quartet had already established a reputation, and that is making "fucking depressing songs", quote Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali-G. They have made 4 albums spanning their entire career, and although not as prolific as they could be, every album release in nonetheless an acclaimed effort. Their 5th album is without any exception. They have still depressing songs, but if one is looking for the greatness of "Driftwood" or perhaps "Why Does It Always Rain On Me" in this album would have to be open-minded enough to fully appreciate their melancholies. THE BOY WITH NO NAME, to say, is an expertly produced album, never drowns in over-sentimentality yet still brims with so much heart, wit and intelligence to be proud for.

Their modus operandi is sticking to what they're good at. One paradigm is "Closer", the album's most beautiful song that sweeps you up in its heights, an epic love-letter to anyone, may it be a bestfriend or a lover. They also pull out their punches and guitar riffs with the upbeat "Selfish Jean", and the whimsical "Big Chair". The album is just a harmony of melodies, from "Battleships", "Eyes Wide Open", and "My Eyes". The last track "New Amsterdam" is even an endearing masterpiece. And for those who buy the original CD, you get to listen to free tracks, one superb example is "River". Fran Healy's vocals is an excellent accompaniment to the songs' simplicity.


VERDICT:

A beautifully refined work of respected music by a much revered Brit band. THE BOY WITH NO NAME is perhaps one of Travis's best albums to date, and thus defining it to be a classic, with a modern twist.


Best Tracks: Closer, New Amsterdam, Selfish Jean, Big Chair, Battleship


RATING: A

There is so much to expect from Mariah Carey's 11th studio album: after a smashing comeback with The Emancipation of Mimi, setting her as the world's best-selling female artist of all time, and now literally surpassing King of Rock Elvis in the record for most #1's at Billboard (she now holds 18 Number Ones), and deemed to be the only artist alive which has the chance to dethrone The Beatles from their 20 Number Ones. Mariah's answer is simple and straightforward: bring out a basic formula of Physics and bolster her emancipation to the second power. E=MC2 is perhaps one of the most cleverly, and aptly, titled album in the mainstream musical industry. And perhaps, even though Mariah admits she flunked Math before, it's never an excuse to perfectly nail her Physics that pulls gravity to her latest effort. Just like Emancipation of Mimi, she follows the formula, and then transcends it into something more liberating.

In a diva fashion, she belts, croons and breathes in this album. It's not really a new Mariah, in fact, it's an evolution of the old "her" from the 90s. People state that she is trying to reassert herself from the Rihanna's and Beyonce's in the world, but sometimes people do forget that Mariah is actually set the benchmark for female-artist-feat-black-rapper collaboration technique circa her influential Daydream album, and the seminal originator that launched a thousand American Idol wannabes. In E=MC2, it's both an old and modern Mariah. Like Mimi, she starts E=MC2 with a bang in a club. "Migrate" fuses heavy synth club-RNB. Although not a T-Pain fan, this should not be the main blockade for judgment for the whole album, because what follows are definitely not disappointing. Her 18th Number One, "Touch My Body" is sexy, sultry and playful - yet never gets serious. She even tries Caribbean-Jamaican patois in "Cruise Control" with Damien Marley, a song that surprisingly works. Of course, it's never complete without ballads, and "I Stay In Love" is a lovely one, definitely a Mariah imprint.

Perhaps one of the album's greatest tracks is the 80s retro-throwback "I'm That Chick", which evocatively captures the feel-good disco vibe in the path of Jackson 5. "I'll Be Loving You Long Time" and "OOC" are also Mariah's way of letting her hair down, invigorating her musical freedom. But it's absolutely outspoken in the superb "Side Effects", actually a supposed-to-be ballad disguised in a very dark fusion of R&B with Young Jeezy, where she sings of "living in a private hell we built", and "still dealing with the side effects" - of course, referring to her ex-hubby Tommy Mottola.

With her success of Mimi's We Belong Together, she tries to reinvent the formula with her ballads in E=MC2, from "Love Story", "Thanx for Nothing", "Last Kiss" and the nicely-arranged "For The Record". However, it's in "Bye Bye" that she finds solace and summit, an amazingly written and sung track that serves as her tribute to the ones she lost along the way - also a universal message for everyone, to "all my peoples who just lost somebody". This is what you get when you cross "One Sweet Day" and "We Belong Together".

Also in Mariah style, she starts singing in a club, and ends in a church. With "I Wish You Well", she belts out her true lungs, almost as good as her old but venerated "Vanishing" in her very first album.

VERDICT:

With E=MC2, Mariah finds herself consolidated, solidified and secured. After almost two decades worth of work, she doesn't need to prove anything more. E=MC2 is better than Emancipation of Mimi, like some sequel goes, and perhaps as good as Daydream and Butterfly, along there at the top as one of her greats.


Best Tracks: Bye Bye, I'm That Chick, I Stay In Love, Side Effects, For The Record


RATING: A-

Canadian indie songstress Feist has a lot to prove. Her former album works were little known, if not mostly unknown in the mainstream, but her latest effort THE REMINDER settles a testament that indies do have the power not just to shine, but literally sparkle. And what a superb album this is. Comprised of 13 amazingly arranged tracks, which are all gems of fine cut and precision, this is perhaps one of 2007's must-own album.

Feist's subtle and seductive voice graces her songs with utter serenity. From the album's opener "So Sorry", it conveys a message that this collection of songs are not for the indifferent. She combines her folk music with alternative and pop-rock, with beats that are difficult to resist: the eccentric yet excellent and successful "1234" is a perfect anthem to teenage freedom and nostalgic memories. "I Feel It All" justifies her playful melodies, and "My Moon My Man" is a superb upbeat. Yet there are also low-key, and beautiful indie synths nevertheless, in the likes of "The Park", which is cleverly recorded with white noise in the backdrop as though it was actually recorded in a park, "The Limit To Your Love, and the sweeping "Brandy Alexander".

This is just an excellent album to listen to, and by this, Feist has reasserted her talent once and for all. Even The Times agrees that "she one of the best female artists working today". It's this collection of 13 songs that will surely stay reverberating in your head.


VERDICT:

Passionate, subtle and masterfully rendered, Feist sings throughout 13 of her songs without signs of weaknesses. A brilliant female artist giving us a brilliant album. It even sounds effortless.

Best Tracks: 1234, I Feel It All, Brandy Alexander, The Park, How My Heart Behaves


RATING: A-

Amid the deluge of relentless British bands that surge both sides of the Atlantic (yes, both in Britain and the land across the pond), New York has its own answer. Strangely, it's tinged with Afro-pop. This self-titled debut by a New York quartet blends ska, African beats, pop-rock with an indie wave lushness is something that is worth the listen. It's fresh, highly likeable tunes is a kind of music that grows on you, and stirs up musical imagery of a perfect road-trip, perhaps a Safari adventure, or maybe an afternoon in a yatch.

But why do four white boys make music with Afro beats? Their answer lies within their songs, which all possess cleverly-written lyrics and intelligent melodies. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" is perhaps the heavily-African tinges tune in the whole album, yet nevertheless a serene, experimental achievement. In fact, they don't sing about Africa, they sing of a hopeless college love emotion in "Campus", and about rain and raincoats in the foot-tapping "A-Punk", bashes grammar elitist-perfectionists in the brilliant "Oxford Comma", and even sings about heartfelt imperfection with the album's most sincere song "I Stand Corrected". These are only a few of the many superb arrangements in the album. And even when one thinks Ezra Koenig's vocals can break, his voice tosses and turns, falsettos and hums, in acrobatic-like boyishness that makes his music nostalgic and a perfect harmony for a feel-good afternoon.

So now, "Who gives a fuck about Oxford comma?"


VERDICT:


A hugely rewarding album for musically open-minded people. An almost-perfect collection of melodies with variation that is as enjoyable as it is promising.


Best Tracks: Oxford Comma, I Stand Corrected, A-Punk, Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa


Rating: A-