MMFF What Is Your Major Malfunction?

As we end the year I want to talk about something that coincide with our local Christmas season, that award festival. The Metro Manila Film Festival or MMFF for short, the so-called prestigious award giving body that kills both foreign films that blossomed anywhere in the planet around Christmas season and well deserved local movies.

The festival has a terrible history of controversies and questionable decisions yet the masses and gossip addicts still embraces the horrible chosen movies every year and not recognize movies that are obviously better.

I still don’t get on how they choose the movies that will compete for the festival. Recently, the committee is quite obsessed including movies that are just rehash of old ones, unnecessary sequels with actors that feeds on the gullible masses and movies that most likely written in a day, shot in a week, and post edited while playing a PSP.

MMFF Guy: Whats a good movie?
Since the festivals main marketed description is prestigious, and as others say the MMFF is in the same level of Oscars, the movie selections should have the following important characteristics, even if the movie is a comedy and horror.

1. The story is good

Sorry, I only came up with one characteristic, but believe me, that is the most important factor of a movie. The story comes first, the actors are just the tools to execute the story, guided by a director that knows what the hell is he or she doing and accompanied by a well-organized crew.

MMFF Guy:What could go wrong?
The big day has arrived, it’s the real awards night, but what’s this, obviously needed stuff is not done… properly? or not done at all?

First and foremost, since they only had a very, very limited selected movies, why the hell they still limit the nominees for each categories? why not have every movie has its own representative? There was a massive backlash when one of the movies that has a female protagonist (I wonder if the committee members knows the word protagonist) that is obviously entitled be nominated in the best actress group, since again she is a female and lead performer, was not included in the nominees.

I read somewhere that the nominees is already pre-selected by the “new and improved” jurors and they only chose 3, among 8 movies, per category. Well that is stupid, there are 8 movies fighting and killing your Christmas movie selections, not 3 films and in this approach, the nominees are stupidly inconsistent.

Other award bodies, especially the foreign ones, release the nominees before the real event to create buzz, even gossips that some of our local country men die for. Here in our dear MMFF, they only show the nominees, fueled with their idiotic nomination process, on the night itself.

Since we are talking about nominations, the festival is heavily promoted and well-funded (they even had a lengthy commercial on theater) yet they can’t come up with decent “the nominees” nomination highlight video. You know, the one they say each nominee, and the video will show something from the nominee. Like if I say nominee A, the video will show nominee A doing something from the movie. God damn, the presenters looks embarrassingly stiff and awkward while reading the nominees one by one like a disgruntled underpaid employee.

MMFF Guy: Our event is awesome
The recent one, oh boy, there are a lot of technical disasters and dumb decisions occurred throughout the night. Even if it is a delayed telecast, they should have done something to redeemed the influx of event related problems which include.

• Few mics not working and no immediate replacement mic was given to the speaker. He has to walk a few meters just to get a working mic
• Lots and lots of dead air (meaning nothings happening)
• Playing the applause music when they show the crowd that only around 5% was actually clapping
• Terrible lighting in some scenes

Lastly, their main animated event ID, the horrible early 90s look video probably rendered in a Windows 95 computer. An arts college student can do better event ID than that crap.

I hope they will do a better job next year, and hopefully, the rumored text to vote scheme is true, at least the choices will be from the people. Then again, a lot of our country men here votes on who and what is popular like in every election.

The only good thing MMFF has done this year is to recognized some indie films. Who knows, these future big time movie makers will offer the MMFF a set of movies that are actually good.

And one more thing, can they move the festival in other dates than Christmas? please? Hollywood always come up with good holiday films and we are still stuck with local MMFF selected movies that are 70%  dreadful and painful to watch.

Thank you for reading my last and a very world saving entry and have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all you again.

Shrek Forever After and Prince of Persia The Sands of Time: Double Humble Movie Review

I watched Shrek Forever After and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time one week apart and both flicks I find them enjoyable and memorable.

First, I am a big fan of the Shrek series, including the third part which everyone hates. The story is quite touching, a little deep and quite refreshing. It is surprisingly the amount of pop culture references the series is famous for is less on this installment. The humor is still clever and the story is predictable, but as a humble movie reviewer, I am easily pleased. The visuals were outstanding especially if you watched the 3D version and the overall presentation is better than the previous movie.

A very good closure for the series, if it is definitely the last chapter that is but the rumored fifth part of the series is currently circulating the veins of the net, but I think this movie is already good to end one of the most interesting 3D animated movie series ever. I give this movie with a shreking score of 4 stars out of 5 stars.

On the other corner we have Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an old videogame franchise with awesome gaming history which consists of old Persian sword fights and acrobatics porn, I mean a prince obsessed with acrobatics.

Majority of videogame based movies were notorious of receiving negative feedback but this movie is one of those which turned out great. The story is loosely based from the game of the same name which I never played before but who cares, the movie was enjoyable and awesome, and to think this is the first time in countless years I watched a live action Disney movie.

All characters did awesome jobs in portraying their respective roles despite all those characterization debacles protesting Gyllenhaal’s being caucasian playing a Persian prince. It’s all about the presentation and how to convince the audience that you are portraying a character.

The story greatly reminds me of the Lion King for some reason where everyone wants to wear the crown and pose like a king, except for the main character named Prince Dastan, since all he wants to climb walls and leap from rooftops to another. Speaking of rooftop leaping, the movies has one of the greatest and creative stunt works ever complimented with stunning visuals especially during the siege of that holy city that houses the Sands of Time dagger.

In the end, the movie is great and the money is worth it, and hopefully they developed film versions of the succeeding sequels Warriors Within and Two Thrones soon. Since I am easily amused and have a great history of watching videogame based movies, even that god awful Postal, I give this movie 3.75 stars out of 5 stars.

Iron Man 2: A Humble Movie Revi… HOLY SHHH IT WAS AWESOME

Me and Rein just watched one of my most awaited movie of all time, which is Iron Man 2, and man, it delivered and so very awesome. But before we watched a movie, a disaster strikes, I accidentally bumped the rear bumper of the vehicle while parking, damn corner wall, anyway lets forget the metal dent and lets the dent the iron… the last line was lame.

Iron Sequel
The movie is just a basic continuation of the first movie and the government, a business rival and an angry tattooed physicist Russian wants to get on hold of Stark. Stark also deals with his own personal survival since the white chest thing that suppose to save his life is somewhat killing him. I won’t spoil much but I guarantee you that this movie will be one of the best movies of the year, probably one of the best comic based movie ever.

Iron Cast
I am a regular movie fanatic but I am quite meticulous and anal when it comes to acting, fortunately, all of the did well. Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark is still remarkable and greatly replicates the comic counterpart. Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash character, he was scary, bad ass and awesome. Scarlett Johannson’s role is also noticeable good, she is subtle but deadly. Both Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle’s performance were astonishing and I think Cheadle did a better job than that the original guy from the first movie. Overall, everyone did  awe-inspiring acting. Captain America’s shield also made its cameo and I just love the way Stark handled the shield, pure hilarity dickness.

Iron Verdict
Like I said the movie is good, the story was well written and the only negative complain that I can say is that there are more talking than action. When you think a super hero movie you will expect 80% of the film consists of mind-blowing CGI action. In the end, I recommend this movie for everyone, even if you don’t religiously followed the Iron Man comics you will enjoy it thoroughly. Have it in your collection once the original home video version is now in the market. I give this movie 4.5 of 5 stars, Iron stars… god the last line was lame, I think I to need sleep more.

Green Zone: A Humble Movie Review

Green Zone is one of those movies where a majority of casual movie goers will enjoy but heavily scrutinize by critics and people who are obsessed of conducting anti-war demonstrations. Again, like always, I am a sucker with action movies and I love this movie.

Green Zone is the story of a group of soldiers led by Matt Damon as Miller, conducting raids to the supposed locations of WMD or Weapons of Mass Destruction, which is the basis of why US and its allies invade Iraq in the first place. Upon discovery of finding nothing on this locations provided by their intelligence he began questioning the credibility of the source, which leads him to his own personal investigations finding the terrible truth of the invasion. The action sequences on were top notched and you will probably think Damon is portraying a younger version of Jason Bourne of the Bourne Trilogy, which he also played. Many online movie goers refer Green Zone as Bourne 4, a prequel of some sort. The only difference between Bourne and Miller’s character is that one is a special operations guy and the other guy is the charismatic chief warrant officer.

The shootout sequence greatly reminds me of Black Hawk Down, complemented with the expected shaky cam. Paul Greengrass, the director should lessen the shaky cam shots because they were excessive. Shaky cams were heavily used during the first quarter and the last part of the movie Thank god they lessen those shots on the majority of the film.

I praised the performance of Khalid Abdalla (Freddy, Miller’s translator)  and Yigal Naor (General Al Rawi, one of the antagonists). Even though they are not Iraqi nationals, I think they were both from Israel, but they pulled off a very convincing Iraqis and you can see in their mindset that they want the Americans give them their most sought complete freedom of their country.

The film highlights all the internal blunders of the government that leads them to an unnecessary invasion and potential civil war. For the past three movies that I watched (Edge of Darkness, From Paris with Love, and now with Green Zone) there is always one bad ass CIA guy and this time he was portrayed by Brendan Gleeson. He is like one of the last guys trusted by Miller and one of the potential instruments of declaring the whole truth of the invasion to the world. Gleeson’s character clashes with the Pentagon asshole named Poundstone, portrayed by Greg Kinnear throughout the movie. As the CIA wants to uncover the truth through the assistance of Miller, Poundstone intervenes and tries to convince the world that the US occupation of Iraq is necessary.

Of course, this leads everybody chasing everyone else, and I love how the main climax ended and how we treated with the epilogue. The movie is good in delivering the conflicts of political bullshit of the war, but don’t expect it as a full on war movie like the Black Hawk Down. Expect very aggressive but few shaky cams and cover your ears due to amount of really loud gun battles.

I highly recommend this movie, have it in your DVD collection later, either pirated or the real original version. I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars of awesomeness.

From Paris With Love: A Humble Movie Review

I am an obvious sucker for action movies, especially mindless action movies that has more plotholes than bullet holes. I am not a typical plothole nitpicker to action movies, but I definitely love Luc Besson’s new juggernaut masterpiece, “From Paris with Love”.

The film’s protagonists James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is your low-level CIA operative who is the personal aide of the US ambassador to France. Throughout the movie, he is learning the ropes of being an in your face CIA operative under the guidance of Charlie Wax (John Travolta), who delivered one of the best anti-hero performance of all time, which consists of kicking asses, knowing 10 steps ahead from his enemies and his extreme obsession with “Royale with Cheese”. There is something about a bald Travolta that exceeds his villain bad-assery in the film Swordfish. He is like a combination of Chev Chelios (Crank) and Brian Mills (Taken), with Meyer’s character greatly reminds me of Ethan Hawke’s character in the Training Day.

As expected, the contradicting duos shown a lot of action mixed with humor, sick humor, especially when Reese gone nuts to retrieve his stolen ring. The major twist near the end caught me off-guard and all the bad guy’s plan went full circle flawlessly, which ended by this unlikely duos of course.

The action sequence were top-notch, the dialogues were witty and overall, the movie is one of those you want to view the action sequences over Youtube over and over again. The professional critics hate this movie because of excessive amount of plotholes, especially the one with a suicide vest and a metal detector. Still, like what I always mention, if it entertains a common movie addict, like me, I absolutely enjoyed it and I personally highly recommend it. The director  Luc Besson is a genius and I can’t wait to see another of his movie soon. I give “From Paris with Love” a 4 over 5 stars.