Movie Review: "V For Vendetta" (2006)

It was probably the anticipation of a really really great film that killed it for me with V For Vendetta. So much hype and controversy surrounding the filmmaking process just gave it to much attention. From Natalie Portman 's shaved dome to the delay of the release date from the initial November 5 2005 to March 2006 because of 'politics' between the filmmakers and the studio. The attention this movie got was more that it was due. Too bad the movie couldn't deliver (for me at least).

The future is bleak for England. After being seized by a fascist ruler, Adam Sutler (John Hurt), England is now subject to Martial law where the voice of the people is suppressed and the government has a final say in everything.
Evie Hammond (Natalie Portman) lived an ordinary life before V (Hugo Weaving) came into her life. Having witnessed the destruction of a British monument which V had conducted, she is being chased by the authorities and is caught up in a cat and mouse chase between the government and V.
More truths surface about Evies life as with V's and his history with the government. The governments' stronghold begins to weaken as the people are 'inspired' be V's defiance as the 5th of November closes in. A day V has set to make things right for England.



I love movies about rebellion and defiance. I absolutely loved The original Matrix and saw that V For Vendetta had the potential to be in the same league. I wasnt expecting any revolutionary fight sequences nor any spectacular special effects sequences. I was expecting an engaging a convining compelling story of defiance against an obviously flawed government system. My expectations were not met.
I expected myself to be inspired to rebel. I wasn't.

The character V, cartoonish as his character was intended to be, didnt have the credibility to inspire and incite the public to just go out in the streets and take their country back. Also, the portrayal of the government was very one-dimensional and lacked depth. I guess it was intended to be that way. Anyways, it DID come from a comic book. Simply put. I really dont think the movie succeeded in its purpose.

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Rocketboy's Rating: ** (2 out of 5 stars)

Movie Review: "Just Friends" (2005)

Just Friends is funny. Its one of those comedies where you expect it to be just moderately funny and full of mushy romantic dialogue and cheese pop culture references. But wait, Ryan Reynolds is in it!

I have been looking out for this guy since his Two Guys, A Girl And A Pizza Place days. This guy is wicked funny. Then he dissapeared for a while and just comes up every now and then. You can say he's like a pet hermit crab that somehow gets lost in your house but ends up in one of your Nikes. Now he's out with a vengeance with a string of movies ranging from Blade 3, The Amityville Horror, to last year's gross-out comedy Waiting.

Chris Brander(Ryan Reynolds) is a fat high school cheerleader who is best-friends with the schools hottest chick Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart) back in the class of '95. Although he spends enormous amounts of time with Jamie, he is doomes to be within the "friend zone" whare he is no longer an 'date or mate' option.
Today Chris is a big time record executive in LA and Jamie is still back in their old Jersey town. They meet accidentally in a bar back in Jersey whenthe plane Chris and his boss's new starlet Samantha james (Anna Faris) get stranded on the way to somwhere (i forgot...ok?). Chris then rekindles the feelings he had for jamie and arranges to stay longer. Samantha is forced to stay in Jersey and goes into different crazy situations to intentionally (and inintentionally) embarass Chris and keep her away from Jamie , who is being wooed by former high school geek turned Jersey hunk Dusty (Chris Klein).



What makes this movie work is the constant jackassery courtesy of Mr. Reynolds himself. Faris is teriffic in her usual psychotic self, only much more drug induced than her Scary Movie character. Reynold's quips and snyde sarcastic side comments are gold and compare to a more antiseptic version of the maestro of jackassery, Vince Vaughan.

The laugh per second ratio is very high and is comparable to Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin. The 'friend zone' stinks, but this movie doesn't. It may be a simple romcom with very poor marketing, but it will be worth your P80.



Rocketboy's Rating; **** (4 out of 5 stars)

More Updates for March

News about Rocky Balboa has been buzzing through the dialup lines for some months now and I finally gaot a trailer small enough for fit your pocket at 1.60MB. Looks promising. Hope it doesn't turn out like Rocky 5 did.

Click here for the trailer.


Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Memories Of Murder, Barking Dogs Never Bite) has been busy,busy, busy filming his much anticvipated The Host. This looks to be Korea's next big blockbuster. Aside from the trademarked dark storyline Korean dramas are acclaimed for, thi has something extra...a monster living in the Han river. Special effects were said to be employed from WETA, yes. Peter Jackson's WETA. the same company who did the CGI for Lord Of The Rings and King Kong. Plus it has Korean super-bida Song Kang Ho (Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, MoM, JSA and tons more) and the Winona-esque Bae Doo Na.

Click here for the trailer.

By the way, some weird Stuff I found:



Spongeback Mountain(If you dont believe me click on it)




Jessica and Ashley Simpson as kids (this isn't a link, so dont bother)

Props to Twitch.

Thanks to ThatVideoSite.

Movie Review: "Date Movie" (2006)

I thought, with all the new talent, new editing techniques and preview audiences that there was no chance that this movie could be THAT bad. I never realized how unbelievebly crappy Date Movie was until i got to see it myself.

Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan) is fat. She gets help from a midget version of Hitch to get her to woo the man of her dreams.....heck, this doesnt even deserve a synopsis. The jokes were ill timed and stale. The actors weren't even funny.

Don't get me wrong, I love campy parody movies. I love the Airplane! and Naked Gun movies (the Scary Movie series....not so much), I just throught that this would be at least sub-par to what theese movies were like. But you know what ...I was wrong.

Do yourself a favor, go get your 80 bucks somewhere else. If you happen to catch yourself in the theater seat watching Adam Campbell do his Meg Ryan impression at around 5:30pm (like I unfortunately did), get out of the theater, go straight home, becaouse you might miss the first few songs in American Idol.



Rocketboy's Rating: * (1 out of 5 stars)

I couldnt give it less than 1.

Natalie Portman Is Gangsta!

Last week's episode of Saturday Night Live featured Natalie Portman as host.
Sure. Fine. Everybody big gets to host SNL at least once in their career. Well, not everyone gets to gangsta rap their way into internet immortality like she did last Saturday.
Very much like the successfully popular Lazy Sunday by Andy Samberg and the hilarious Chris Parnell, where they rapped their way into everyone's funnybones and iPods/PSPs about the Chronicles of Narnia and wicked-delicious cupcakes, Natalie raps obout how it's like to be Natalie Portman on a daily basis.

Click here for the video. Yes, I host my own stuff now. HAH!

check out for www.rocketboychronicles.com soon...

My Very Late Oscar Entry

Better do this while the boss is out...

Well we all saw the Oscars two days ago. Everything was just same old, same old just like last year except for the almost unexpected win of Paul Haggis's Crash as Best Picture and 36 Mafia's "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" as Best Song, easily the night's WTF? moment. Jon Stewart (who did an 'ok' job . But I still prefer Billy Crystal anytime) put it very well when he said "I believe the tally is, Martin Scorsese=0, 36 Mafia= 1".

It was cool to see George Clooney win. His speech which turned into his obituary was quite the show starter, its sad that people didn't catch up after him...

I would have loved to see Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" win Best Animated Feature, but meh, you cant win everything. It was cool to see March Of The Penguins win though.

In the meantime check out his weird pic of Brokeback Mountain Director and Oscar winnerAng Lee with presentor Uma Thurman and some drunk psycho in the background...



Props to Egotastic.

Movie Review: "Fearless" (2006)

Billed as Jet Li's last martial arts flick. Fearless had to overcome a lot of expectations. In terms of combat wsequences, it doesn't dissapoint, though, however much of what comprises a good movie isn't very abundant in this one, such as a good story.

Fearless is the life story of Huo Yuanjia. The son of a famous kung fu teacher and martial arts practitioner who in the last years of his life, dedicated his work to the developing of Wuxia by founding the world reknowned Wu Jing Sports Federation.
Yuanjia started out as a hothead who just wanted to fight. Although his fighting skills are unparalleled, he lacks patience and is constantly consumed by the idea of being the best fighter in his home town Tianjin. This is to be fulfilled whe he challenges Tianjin's best. However, he loses his family to vengeance executed by the fighter's godson.
Yuanjia trows himself into exile and settles in a village where he learns that vengeance is a bla blah blah blah, you know how it goes..


Fearless is a story told one too many times. If you have seen The Last Samurai and Welcome To Dongmakgol and other movies where the protagonist realizes that his ways were wrong as he lives among simple folk, this movie is no different.
Like I said earlier, fights are abundant as you would expect in Jet Li film. One that stands out is his duel with his childhood rival in an elevated platform with stilts for stairs. other than that, its same old same old.
The story lacks hook and didn't grab my full attention. It was just too generic and linear and, well boring. Its a bit dissapointing that this would be Jet's last hurrah in the martial arts foray. Although, after all that kicking and flipping and consistent risks taken on his life for cheap thrills for the audience. I'm gland he won't end up like old Bruce.




Rocketboy's Rating: ** (2 out of 5 stars)

American Idol: Look Alikes

I have been closely watching this season's American Idol like a dog behind a locked back door (I'm not really sure what that means). Somehow, this batch has the best of both worlds. It has it's share of promising vocal divas, (Katharine, Paris and Mandisa) and some real powerful male voices (Chris, Elliot and my personal favorite Taylor). I know I should root for Sway Penala, but I will have to see him sing more than just Reasons, because I know 7 other male singers in Pampanga ALONE who can sing it like he can, sometimes even better.

I was posting in PinoyExchange very recently and thought it would be a great idea to make a look alike list of some of this year's top 24, you know, to fish out some coments and possibly bring a few smiles to some of my kababayans out there. Being the attention whore that I am, I expected a lot of feedback the day after. Well, to my surprise, the threads have grown several pages and no one has commented on any of them. Not once. My ego bruised, I commented very minimally after that. Why? Wasn't it funny? Have I lost my touch. Were the PeX Idol fans just a bunch of humorless hacks and self proclaimed vocal critics and social deviants who dont have a life and who dont like a good laugh every now and then? Here let me show you what I did...



Taylor Hicks and Michael Mc Donald (Doobie Brothers)- They share the same salt and pepper 'do and most importantly, sound alike (according to Paula.




Lisa Tucker and Rae Dawn Chong (Goodbye, America; ER)- Their resemblance is so uncanny, you'd think they're twins.



Katharine McPhee and Rachel Ray(The Food Network)- Sure she can sing better than the other girls, but can she whip up a Pasta Primavera like Rachel can?




Heather Cox and Kaley Cuoco (8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter, Charmed)Both girls somehow get by with their carrers despite their lack of talent by just looking incredibly, incredibly hot.


And Finally...




"Para sa 'yo, ang laban na 'to..."

Movie Preview: "Sunshine"

Anything that Danny Boyle touches, even if it's crap, turns into gold. After his critically acclaimed children's morality tale Millions, the much revered and director of such critical hits as Transpotting and 28 Days Later, and one of my personal all time favorites, The Beach, he follows up with a promising sci-fi thriller called Sunshine. Boasting a great story premise and an incredibly diverse cast (which includes Boyle pal Cillian Murphy of 28 Days Later ,Chris Evans of Fantastic Four, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada of The Ring and The Last Samurai and Cliff Curtis of Whale Rider). Imagine Chris Evans and Hiroyuki Sanada in the same movie!



Synopsis: Fifty years from now, the sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew is fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

Props to Twitch.