Spiderman is in Black

Let me remind you folks that this is not a fan-made poster. This was picked out of the url http://spiderman.sonypictures.com.

Looks like Spiderman will be wearing black in the upcoming Spiderman 3. With all the villain announcements like Venom, it looks like this could be very very interesting....


Props to The MovieBlog.

My Coolest Movie Weapons

Some of the best characters in movies aren't actors. It's that thing that they hold in their hands that wreaks havoc and makes the movie all the more entertaining for the rest of us movie idiots.

Without much ado, here are my Favorite Movie Weapons.

The Throwing Star

Krull


Ever since I was a kid, I've always wanted one of these. Sure it's aerodynamically impossible to hurl, it being made with heavy brass and all, plus the contours of the blades don't really genreate maximum airlift...but hey its magical and can choose what to hit, where to hit it, and fly back to its owner after dodging 134 different arrows!

Wolverine's Claws

The X-Men Movies



Adamatium claws that retract at will may not be for everyone, especially if you don't have the superhuman power to heal your self (like i do).

Nameless' Sword

Hero



Jet Li's sword with a wedge shaft in the middle was the best sword idea since the light saber. Imagine being able to dislodge your opponent's sword from his hands by letting the sword wedge through the hole and twisting it out of your enemy's grip! Brilliant. You will, though need to have surgeon's hands to pull off a trick like that.

Blain's Gattling Gun

Predator



Jessie Ventura's character Blain was one of the more likeable gung ho ones, and he had the biga** gun that sprayed the entire perimeter aroud the platoon before they pressed forward. Although Blain was killed, he is forever immortalized by this obnoxious weapon the buzz left by the machine after he ran out of bullets.

The .44 Magnum

Dirty Harry



I heard this gun doesn't actually cut a big, gaping hole in your head when you get shot with it. It turns into tomato paste.

"Go ahead, punk. Make my day!"

The BFG

Doom



Playing the game, the BFG is what you wanted to get so you could coast through the game and cut through your enemies like butter. The BFG in the move was used only once, but oh boy did it make a lasting, gaping impression.

The Hammer

OldBoy (Thanks to jegs)



I cant believe I left this out. Once jegs reminded me about this. It reminded me of the dreadful scene in OldBoy involving this hammer and a jailkeeper's front teeth. Truly a milestone in the field of Dentisty.

Thanks again dude.

The Hattori Hanzo Sword

Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2



"...If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut."

Hattori Hanzo's statement that "without ego, this was his finest sword" is enough for all of us to be convinved that this is one bada** samurai sword. Come on, it can cut other swords in half!

The One Ring

The Lord of the Rings Movies



Probably the most powerful weapon on the list. It's pursuers die and generations of humans, elves and dwarves have suffered great losses because of it. Whoever wields it becomes corrupted and turns into a prune after its lost. Even a pure hearted Elijah Wood was barely able to destroy something so powerful yet so small.

The Light Saber

- The Star Wars Movies



Probably the most original, innovative and culturallly impactful movie weapon of all time. Despite numerous filed attempts at copying it for the past 30 years. The Ster wars patented light saber continues to be the global favorite among 8 year old boys and 40 year old virgins.

I have left the number 10 slot for you and your comments. Please fell free to give me your own favorite movie weapon. (Im out of ideas, I took some very powerful anibiotics last night.)(Update: spot was filled in by the Oldboy hammer)

Korean Films Face Film Quota lift

Members of the Korean Filmmaking community protest against the lifting of a so called screen-quota. Other artists such as Choi Min Shik and An Sung Kyi have voiced out their disgust in the Korean government for their decision. Above is OldBoy director Park Chan Wook displaying his stand against the move.

Man, just when things were getting really good. They pour cold water over these guys.

Movie Review: "Munich" (2005)

Steven Spielberg is a hit and miss director. There are times when, usually in more of his more lucrative, comercially fuelled, souless endeavors, he falls flat on his gray-bearded face, and there are times his work is astonishingly brilliant.

Munich is one of those movies where Spielberg cuts his affiliations, disregards popular opinion and goes apolitical, something I thought for the longest time, he is no longer incapable of. In Schindler's List, he ruffled some conservative feathers but gained the love and respect of the general public and the Jewish people. After seeing this movie, I wonder if he still has the same number of friends.

Munich is about the events that happened after the gruesome kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics. Israel, infuriated by the terrorist act initiated by a rogue groupe of Palestinian terrorists called Black Saturday, assemles a special team of counter-terrorists, not to ascertain the whereabouts of the terrorists (they weren't exactly hiding) and put them to justice, but to retaliate and and avenge the death of their fallen countrymen.
Avner (Eric Bana) is chosen to lead this 'unofficial' detail. Although reluctant at first as that his wife is expecting, he skillfully leads his team (which includes future James Bond Daniel Craig) to murder the leaders and proponents of Black September. Their targets are solely based on a primary list provided to them by their sponsoring government contact. Which composed of many unlikely characters scattered all accross Europe. Avner's main pickle is where to find these people. he comes across a contact that is non partisan and apolitical... very risky considering that they are equal-opportunity informants and can be as much trouble as they are help.

Avner and his team run into numerous operational screw ups and blunders and continue to question the validity and nobility of their operation despite acting their duty out. Which is very difficult considering that they as Jews cannot afford collateral damage as that the blood of the innocent will be in their hands.

The deepening 'moral quicksand' that they were thrust into takes its toll on most of the team members and turns the movie from a prime suspense thriller into a study on a moral conundrum experienced by Israeli soldiers.

Spielberg effectively uses most of the tricks up his sleeve in delivering the most suspenseful scenes he's made since Saving Private Ryan. There is a scene with a bomb set in a KGB operative (a target)'s telephone meant to go off as the target answers. Although, to their chagrin, the dutiful daughter forgets her purse and walks past the phone as it rings...

The shots in this movie are what impressed me the most. Not since Michael Gondry's Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind have I seen such an authentic rendition of '70's flavor in a movie. All though it's not really scratched up or all lens-filtered. the long shots and manual zoom ins create the feel of watching classics like Midnight Cowboy and The old Italian Job.

However, the best part of Munich is the writing. Kudos to Tony Kushner and Eric Roth for their deserving Oscar nomination for this category. Although much of the film focuses on the Israeli revenge squad, it does not portray the Palestinians as one-dimensional bad guys. Their plight to be acknowledged as victims of an oppressive Israel and their crusade to reclaim their 'homeland' is one of the movie's most riveting sublets. The deepening futility of the squad's search coupled with the frustration of their cause is very accurately documented and portrayed and is only intensified by the volatility of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the universality of their ancient feud to the bombings in the streets of Tel Aviv as we see it in CNN in our homes.

A daring project by a director with EVERYTHING to lose. It took a lot of balls for ol' Stevie to pull this off.
Anything less of this masterpice would have been career suicide. A american jew revealing the darker side of the Israel we know and acknowledging the plight of an angry Palestine. One of the best films of the year.




Rockeboy's Rating:*****(5 out of 5)

My Special Valentine Girls Part 2: The Asian Invasion

Here's part 2 of my valentine girls series. Enjoy.

Chiaki Kuriyama

Who could ever forget Go Go Yubari? That feisty little sadistic schoolgirl/bodyguard in KillBill Vol. 1. Althouhgh already established as a J-pop idol since her early teens, she has become the fantasy of many a fanboy accross the world.
Sweet and innocent looking, set she kan stab you in the kidneys whithout hesitating, getting all your blood to spurt out on her like a street kid on broken pipe in a Manila sidewalk.

Cute.

More pics here, here and here.

Jun Ji Hyun

Jun Ji Hyun earned worldwide popularity for being the boyfriend-abusive girlfriend with a lot of inner pain in My Sassy Girl. A complicated story told in a simple format...a romantic comedy. her popularity continues to skyrocket as a commercial model for stuff such as makeup to cupcakes to digital cameras. But she will always be 'sassy girl' to millions and millions of fans and to millions more lovestruck boys.

More pics here, here and here.

Lee Na Young

If you have seen Please Teach Me English, you'll know who Lee Na Young is. Although almost unrecognizable as the nerdy public servant with horn-rimmed glasses and bangs in "Please Teach Me..." (check out pic number 3) Her gorgeous eyes give her away as the more popular commercial model for Laneige, a Korean cosmetics company. What's cool about Korea is that their actors can act, and so can their commercial models.

More pics here, here and here.

Cecilia Cheung

She made my eyes wet with tears in Failan. Because of her I fear death more now than I did before. Maybe because I'm getting old too. Your heart would break if you saw a face like that and knew she was gonna die.

More pics here, here and here.

Aya Ueto

Another a**kicking, high flying samurai wielding chick. She was awesome as the samurai warrior Azumi and was squally stunning and fierce in Azumi2: Death or Love where she shared the screen with Chiaki Kuriyama. What is it about hese japanese chicks that makes them so cute?

More pics here, here and here.

Vicki Zhao

Vicki Zhao is that younger sister of Shu Qi in So Close, another movie full of asian eye candy. What makes her so unique is her eyes. Very rare for chinese to have large eyes like hers and almost gives her an western like quality. I didn't like So Close that much...well, it was ok at best, but I could stare at Vicky Zhao all day even if she were just a video of her sleeping for 8 hours straight.


More pics here, here and here.



More to come my babies....

Firecracker Article on Philippine Cinema

I came accross this article from the web Magazine Firecracker, a mag focused on Asian Cinema and found it to be a very interesting read. It talks about the current status of Philippine Cinema. I like how it sublty explains (courtesy of filipino maverick filmmaker Quark Henares)the difference between The Philippine Film Industry and Philippine Cinema. The former being the machine that drives, produces and distributes the movies we see today ( i. e. CRAP), the latter being the force that keeps the spirit of film making alive through the production of independent features based on ideas that normally would be rejected by the producers of the industry (i. e. movies that have been making modest success locally, but are making waves abroad like "Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros"). Veteran indie filmmaker Lav Diaz, who is reknowned for being a staunch enemy of the 'industry' hit the nail on the head with a very straight shooting quote.

“I want the ‘industry’ to die, so Philippine Cinema can live…"

Intense words from an intense man. Somehow, I agree with him. A revamp seems to be the only solution for an artisrtic rennaisance to happen. What do you think?

Props to Twitch.

My Special Valentine Girls Part 1

Today is a special day because today is when I kick off my special valentine girls entries.

Aside from the fact that I'm a lonely fanboy two steps awayfrom being a pervert, I have been a great admirer of the female aesthetic. I have listed down a number of women whom I have found to be the mos beautiful in the world. And believe me, I've been around the world (wide web) and I have seen what the world can offer,a nd these girls are what its all about.

I have also posted a few pics along with the ones in the site. All of thema are clean. there are a lot of mothers and close relatives monitoring this site, along with special agents of the FBI (I think i'm being tapped. Shhhh. Don't make a noise)

Anyways, from the dark depths of my basement office in the heart of Manila (or a Makati callcenter) here come my favorite girls...ever.

Click on their pictures to view their sites.

Piper Perabo

What I find very irresistably appealing about Piper is that she comes across as a complete nerd. Which I like very very much. Her transition from innocent, bashful country girl to sexy, outgoing bartender in Coyote Ugly kinda shows you the extremes of her personality.

More pics here, here, and here

Hillary Swank

I'm fascinated by this lady because is so good at shunning her Hollywood image. A simple girl with a dream come true and one of the hardest bodies I've seen on such a fine lady.

She is more well known as the woman who disguised herself as a man in Boys Don't Cry and as the female boxer with a dream in Million Dollar Baby The Oscar best actress hasn't come out with anything so far this year, but you can be sure she'll be part of something special again.

What gave her primo points in my book was the picture of her gorging down a burger with the Oscar sitting right beside her.

More pics here, here, and her munching on the burger here.

Julia Stiles

Julia is the thinking man's poster girl. She's that girl you crave talking to out after hanging out with a lot of girls who like to ask you how their hair looks and whether their nails look better painted in mauve or burgundy.
Doesnt every guy want a girl who can keep up with sports talk, hike in the mountains and still have the charm for you to want to snuggle up with her in a sleeping bag? Where are all the Julia Stiles's in the world?

More pics here, here and here.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Previously labeled as one of the two hottest pices of a** about five years ago (Liz Hurley was the other one) she has laid low a little bit since the early 2000's.
What's really appealing about Jenniffer is her geekiness. She's got the body of a cheerleader and the mind of that little dorky girl with glasses, knee length socks and a knitted sweater.
She is most popular as one of the sisters in Party Of Five and has been in many forgettable movies. I particularly liked her more when she was filling in her blouses a little better rather than her current anorexic look. But hey...still hot.

More pics here, here, and here.

Movie Preview: "Nacho Libre"

This just in. The Nacho Libre website is now up and it is chock full of cool pics and three versions of the theatrical trailer. First big surprise of the week for all of ya!

I've said it before...Jack Black is freakin' hilarious. Add that to the genius of the eccentric director Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite, and we've got ourselves a winner!!

This movie also has got one of the hottest nuns I've vever seen. I bet the priesthood has never been this hard.



Props to Twitch via AintitCoolNews.

Movie Review "Welcome To Dongmakgol" (2005)

My fixation for Korean movies has a reason. To me, it just seems that they are much better in making movies than the western world. While most of the asian stock of movies that actually reach the US are either marketed as Kung Fu or Extreme Cinema, they neglect the really great stuff that Asia has to offer.

Welcome To Dongmakgol! A small village in the mountains in between the city of Pyongyang in the north and the pressing forces of the Democratic South and their American Allies. Nobody really knows about it except the few hundred who live there, and of course there's village idiot, Yeo-il (OldBoy's Kang Hye Jeong). One day a plane crashes into the mountains, which bears an American UN trooper(Steve Tashcler). After a few days, two 'lost' South Korean troops Pyo (Sympathy For Mr.Vengeance's Ha-kyun Shin) and Moon are led into town. Later yet, the remaining men of a platoon for the red army led by High Comrade Lee (JSA's Jae-yeong Jeong) run into the troops as they pass through a village resulting an a hilarious standoff where neither party...well... don't know exactly what to do.



The troops are caught in quite a pickle until one of them accidentally drops a grenade and blows up the village's food stock for the year. The troops of both parties then agree to replenish the destroyed stock by helping the villagers re-harvest their food...entirely abandoning the war and their political affiliations.

The troops and the villages grow close from a series of encounters and happy mistakes that lead people to miss each other when they eventually leave. And as all this is happening, the Allieds press to search for the missing joe's plane, who unbeknownst to them, is partying with the Dongmakgoleans. they asume that his location was hostile territory an prepare to launch a full on assault.

A beautiful movie worth watching again and again. What really got to me is the nostalgia provided by the sprawling scenery of Dongmakgol which is reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle. And the music (apparently from the same guy who does Miyazaki's movies), my goodness, is the music great!







I could go into detail about how great this movie is, but I'll just leave it to you. But all i can say is, If you have P70 bucks to spare, and you're planning on getting the clear-copy version of Brokeback Mountain, do yourself a favor and go get this one instead.

Rocketboy's Rating:*****(5 out of 5)

Movie Review;"Memoirs Of A Geisha" (2005)

When the reviews first came out for Memoirs Of A Geisha, I was very dissapointed. The 35% Rotten rating from RottenTomatoes.com kinda gave me the impression that Rob Marshall (Chicago) didn't really do a bang-up job directing the film adaptaion of the immensely popular Arthur Golden Novel. Well, I saw it the other day, and I can honestly say, it wasn't all that bad.

Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo, Zhang Ziyi) was sold as a little girl to a geisha house. She and her sister were both taken away because their father could no longer support them and take care of their sick mother at the same time. Chiyo worked as a slave in this house and was exposed to a world she would, in the future, be a very significant part of. the world of the Geisha.

In her youth Chiyo meets a suave older man known only as The Chairman (Ken Watanabe)on a bridge and instantly falls in love with him, affirming her life goal to become a popular Geisha "to have a part of his world".
Chiyo is then taken under the tutelage of Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) and is trained in the ways of the Geisha and soon metamorphosizes into the most sought after Geisha in Kyoto. much to the dismay of her rival Hatsumomo (Gong Li). Chiyo's name is changes to Nitta Sayuri, and her goals in life are fulilled. She still longs, however fro the man who inspired her to be a Geisha in the first place, The Chairman. Unfortunately, a Geisha is not to fall in love.

Many critics flame this movie essentially for one reason. It's a movie set in Japan where the dialogue spoken is English...with a japanese accent. Also, apparently the Chinese community is furious of the part taken by their countrymen (Zhang Ziyi, and Gong Li specifically) in a movie glorifying japanese culture as that Japan has long been in Chinase pet peeve list(with Japan having a history ofinvading their country, destroying their villages and raping their women and such, including in World War II). This movie had been under fire even before it got released. Ultimately The film didn't get much box office moolah simply because it wasn't really that good.



But don't get me wrong. I liked it. Aside from the fact that I want to marry Zhang Ziyi, there are a few aspects of the movie that were overlooked or perhaps, ignored. I may not be a professional film critic, but I think most people including a lot of the critics forgot one really simple detail, that perhaps would be crucial to the overall judgement of the film... Its an American movie.

It is not to be compared to the works of Yoji Yamada and Akira Kurosawa. They were very good film makers who made movies with Japanese sensibility and the japanese audience in mind. The world market is all just an accidental market. they did not intend on making it so that Finnish, Norwegians or Americans (or Filipinos, for that matter) would like it, much less relate to it. Then again their movies are critically accepted and lauded simply because they cross territorial boundaries and are 'unique' to foreigners sick of their own movies.

Geisha was, in the first place, written by a man from Chattanooga, Tennessee.Teh director, from Madison, Wisconsin. Which I may add, are places very culturally different from early 1930's Kyoto. Im not saying Mr. Golden and doesn't know his stuff. he may probably be one of the worlds foremost experts on the geisha culture out of Japan for all I know. But the point is. They're American. He wrote the book from the perspective of an outsider. Mixing American sentiments of having a dream and doing what it takes to make it come true, and living it, with a culture that is both mystical and romantic. Its an American movie set in Japan with English dialogue. A movie about American sentiments set in japanese conditions in a tone which can be considered Western-friendly.

Now, if viewed in this context, you would probably enjoy it about 45% more. It may not be breathtakingly brilliant, but it gets the job done. Plus, I think the scene where Chiyo suns through a corridor of orange arches is classic and is one of my favorite scenes of the year.



Rocketboy's Rating: ***(3 out of 5)