Up

One of my most anticipated movies in 2009. Heart this movie since I saw the teaser poster. I thought, this one has got to be a good one! And it turned out to be...

AWESOME!!!

There's Carl Fredricksen, a grumpy old widow, lives alone and has no interest to mingle. The man loves his late wife very much, he always keeps their dreams, to have a great adventure and to have a house near the Paradise Falls. Bothered by the construction workers, who eventually gave him court summon to leave the house, he chose to refuse by floating his house with hundreds of balloons. Accidentally, he brought Russel with him. Russel, an elementary boy scout who has a dream to become a Wilderness Explorer. With Russel, Carl began a new adventure.

UP IS ABOVE!!

Please allow me to say, WOW!
Up is not only an original idea with charming story and hillarious jokes, but Up, is one of the few best animated movies with a beautiful point of objective, 'just don't lose your sense of adventure, guys'.

Started with a short movie, about clouds that create things, it's about love and trust Oh, it's just funny, but wait.. it's also very touching in the end. Short and sharp!

The film itself brought very a deep and memorable scene, in my opinion. Oh, how much I cried on the flashbacks scene of Carl and Ellie. With beautiful theme song from Michael Giacchino, the scene was able to touch deeply and simply describe the meaning of togetherness in happy and sad, in sickness and health, the meaning of love.

When it comes to the adventure, people were laughing hard. Heck I laugh so hard till I had a sorethroat last night. So funny and thrilling, people were not just laughing, they even screamed. Ovation were heard many times. Russel's behavior, he is so cute, I just wanna keep him in my closet! Those stupid dogs, dogs that talk! What's up with dog and Squirrels anyway? "LOL*

Watchout people, they are funnnnyyy!

Up is the best animated movie since a very.. very long time.

Satisfaction Rate: 95% (seriously)

public enemies

John Dillinger, one of my childhood heroes.

Mafia, and gangster movies are totally my genre. When I found out that it's Johnny Depp, there's no other movie I waited for in this summer season. Not a big fan of Depp, though I always think of him as a brilliant and one of a kind actor, but Depp is perfect as Dillinger.

A brilliant Public Enemy in a brilliant movie.

For almost 2.5 hours, we were brought to the 30's. Feels like the 30's tho (love those times, mafia era). Since the first 10 minutes, we were spoiled with action, strong drama, and details. The Dillinger's escape legends, the robberies, even the hostages method, all there (well, not everything of course). Michael Mann succesfully arranged the balance between action and drama so that no moment is a dull moment. Mann's habit to use minimum background score is at an almost perfect level (well, nothing's perfect, d'oh!). Felt like experiencing the real event, for example, the gunshot scene in the villa, it was tense.

Now the weakness. Well let's see. One thing I felt while watching this, is the lack of description why on earth was Dillinger admired by people? Wasn't explained enough. Also, Melvin Purvis character somehow drowned by the charming of Mr. Wiensted, the Texas Officer. Purvis was seemed so mediocre here.

As for the cast, Marion Cotillard delivers quite a charming performance as Billie. Christian Bale, he is no disappointment also, the southern accent of his, knowing he's originally a Brit, is considered perfect. In acting wise, he is above his standard level, and way better than in his previous film, The Terminator. But apparently Bale is over-shadowed by his co-star, Johnny Depp. Well, for sure, Depp dominates almost all the charmingness in the film itself. a perfect cast for the character. His performance? nuff said!

Many people only give 3 stars for this film, but I'll give 4.5 stars, and I'll stick to my opinion. Heck I haven't seen such movie in a long time. This is absolutely My Best Summer Movie in 2009.

Satisfaction Rate: 93%
Depp Rate: 99%

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince

Never read any Potter book. Never really care about the story. I watched all Potter movies only because of one thing, and one thing only....Alan Rickman.

The 6th movie was delayed twice for its release since summer 2008. When it finally arrived on July 16th here, in Indonesia, the people were like.. going nuts! Most theatres were fully booked for the whole weekend. It's Harry Potter phenomena all over again.

Well, is the movie itself a phenomenon? In my personal opinion, it is the most boring HP movie. The story itself is dark enough, so it's an absolute teenage to adult movie. Too bad, it is not wrapped good enough. No memorable action scene, not thrilling enough, too many teenage love story, even the ending is not strong enough. It should bring tears even to the people who didn't read the book. Well, friends who cried at the end admitted that they remember their feelings when reading the book, not because of the movie scene...oh, well.

The actors are not bad at all, except one, Daniel Radcliffe! He still can't act!! Please Lord help us who stuck with him for the next movie.

But I'm proudly say, I don't give a damn about all of that movie weakness. It's Alan Rickman that I had waited for. His sexy accent, cold expression, everything! Been a fan since Die Hard.

So, the bad thing about this movie is a lot of things but.. Alan Rickman.

Satisfaction Rate: 72% (helped by Alan Rickman)
Severus Rate: 101%

The Soloist

At last, after waiting for a long time, after almost each week I desperately became quite an annoying person for the dvd store people, asked the same question over and over again, "Is The Soloist availabe yet?", after once a week I googled the download link. Finally!

Steve Lopez, an LA Times journalist is running out of ideas for his weekly article, when suddenly he met Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless, playing a two-string violin. Steve is instinctively interested in Nathaniel who turns out to be a Schizophrenic also. For his article, Steve tries to approach Nathaniel which ended up in friendship.

This two-hours duration film, apparently failed to fulfill my personal-long time-expectation. The drama itself, I have no idea why, is kinda...flat, with no emotional roller coaster. The story is very much focused on Nathaniel's Schizophrenia and how Steve fought to approach and understand Nathaniel. The only entertainment here is Steve's funny scenes (Downey is so smart!).

Just to be honest, besides the anxious and desperation to see Downey's performance, I was hoping to see how genius Nathaniel or The Soloist himself, or at least his extraordinary cello ability. Well, automatically, I did not feel the importance of Nathaniel that has to be fought by Steve.

On the other hand, IMHO, Downey's performance is way better than Foxx's (always Downey ;p). Not as good as his performance in Tropic Thunder, but he's still good tho, above his own average. Foxx is not so bad himself, but for some reasons, I feel that Foxx didn't deliver something special with Nathaniel's character.

Oya, btw, Downey is also the narrator in this film (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang all over again). I always admire his style in reading narration, very lively and funny! His speaking style is an entertainment for me (I'm so a Downey defender ;p).

Satisfaction Rate: 68%
Downey Rate: 87%