World War Z

This review is a little late considering the movie was released more than a month ago. I watched it today and it was superb! So, here’s my review, better late than never.

Many of you may have already seen the movie by now but for the sake of those who haven’t seen it I’ll try not to write any spoilers.

World War Z is an end of the world/horror film. The world gets over run by zombies and the story followers the life of Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his family as they try to survive.

I’ll break down into points what I like about the movie.

1. First of all the plot was great. The story was good and it was fast. The movie does not slow down at any point and they have done a really good job by not including scenes that seem out-of-place.

2. The revamp of our ideas on zombies. The ones in this can run really fast and jump and break down doors and that makes them extra scary.

3. The suspense. I haven’t seen any movie in a while that has so many points where it makes you think “OMG,Whats gona hapen now!! ”

Here’s a short outline of the story. Gerry Lane, a former UN employee gets stuck in middle of traffic along with his family when the outbreak hits the city. The number of infected rise rapidly as each person who gets bit turns into a zombie. The family escapes to Newark and later gets rescued and is taken to a fleet of US Navy vessels. Gerry is asked to accompany a scientist to find the source of the outbreak.

They travel to South Korea and are attacked by zombies.They get rescued by survivors in the base. Gerry learns that he needs to go to Jerusalem because it looks like the people there knew about the chance of the outbreak beforehand. The safe zone there also comes under attack a short while after Gerry gets there.He makes it out on a plane but is injured when the plane crashes. Okay. That’s all from me. One last line for the outline – they find a way to fight back.

It was a really, really good movie to watch and I loved the suspense. Those of you who haven’t seen it yet put it on your list and watch it soon.

Will read the book soon and I’ll a review of that too.

Various Faces Of Hannibal Lecter

As far as disturbing characters go, Hannibal Lecter deserves a definite spot on the Top 5.  No one can forget the face with the mesh mask over the mouth(to keep him from tearing people up with his mouth).  Silence of the lambs came out in 1991, the year I was born, and it was only in 2006 that I watched it for the first time  and absolutely loved the movie. Since then I have watched all the movies  in the series(except manhunter) and have read all the novels.

The first season of Hannibal, the new TV series, is what made me write this post.

For those of you who don’t know, Dr.Hannibal Lecter  is brilliant psychiatrist who is also a cannibalistic serial killer. He only became a main character in the novels in the third book, till then he only had a small part.

The same can’t be said for the movies. Anthony Hopkins did absolutely brilliant performance as Lecter in Silence of the lambs making sure that he became a main character from the start itself.

Remember this line from Dr.Lecter?
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

In all four different actors have played the role of Dr.Lecter-
Brian Cox( Manhunter),
Anothny Hopkins(Silence of the lams, Red Dragon, Hannibal),
Gaspard Ulliel ( Hannibal Rising) and
Mads Mikkelsen ( Hannibal: TV series) .
Even though the character is the same each actor does it a little different, as expected.

Anothny Hopkins is so far the best in portraying Lecter. Mads Mikkelsen comes second as far as I can tell. He does good job of acting but his version of Lecter lacks the creepy undertone. That might be because the first season didn’t show much about Hannibal’s side of story instead focusing more on Will Graham.

The first season of the new show finished last week and I thought it was  good but the pace was a little slow . Probably a 3 out of 5 rating from my side. There isn’t that many disturbing scenes from Lecter as I thought there would be.  Even though the show is called Hannibal the part I liked the most was Hugh Dancy as Will Graham. Will wait for the second and I hope they pick up the pace.

 

Warm Bodies (The Movie)

I had written about the book last week.I planned on writing about the movie on the same post but decided to do a different one instead. Since the story is the same please go here to read an outline of it. 

The movie was hilarious. From the first lines in the script to the end they were able to keep it interesting,romantic and funny. They have cut a few parts of the story that was in the book which needed more explanation but these parts were not really necessary to the basic plot. On the whole great work of converting the book into a movie.

On the book review post fellow bloggers who had already seen the movie had mentioned that the it can be described as a zombie chick flick and that it’s a lot like Romeo and Juliet, I totally agree with that. Some scenes are actually too similar to Romeo and Juliet, like the balcony scene.

The acting was very good. Especially that of Nicholas Hoult who acts as the main character R. Other favorite for me was Rob Corddry who acts as M/Marcus. They manage to do an awesome job even though they don’t have much talking to do in the movie. Both of them are creepy as zombies and at the same time perfectly delivers the comedy in the lines .

I would suggest that you watch this movie. The plot is new and you may think it’s strange but it’s definitively worth watching.

Three Current Favorites On TV

I read a couple of blogs today where people wrote of favorites. Favorites movies, music, etc. So I thought I’ll join the club and write about the my three favorite guys on television right now. These guys have remained my favorites for some years now and will probably remain so for some more years. Continue reading to see the names and what I found to be the best character they portrayed. 

So without further ado, here’s the guys :

1. Norman Reedus
Character: Daryl Dixon
Show: The Walking Dead

I liked watching Boondock Saints, I know it’s a terrible movie but I just couldn’t stop watching. The plot is so ridiculous in it and even though it’s supposed to be an action movie it felt more like a comedy or spoof.Even so I did like Norman Reedus in the movie and he’s the reason why I started watching The Walking Dead. It turned out to be the best show I’ve seen, other than Friends. The show wouldn’t be the same without Daryl Dixon. Who would thought a character like that would create such a big fan base. Credit for that goes to Reedus for doing a terrific job of bringing to life the zombie a** kicking, crossbow-wielding bad a**. Eagerly waiting for the next season of the show.

2. Tyler Hoechlin
Character: Derek Hale
Show: Teen Wolf

Okay, so this guy’s acting like a werewolf/tough guy is great but whether he can do other roles is left to be seen. I haven’t seen him in any other movie or tv show so I can’t tell how good he can act in a-normal-person role. Good actor or not this guy makes my list on looks alone. 😉

3. Matt Bomer
Character: Neil Caffery
Show: White Collar

You have probably seen the show or seen him on Magic Mike or in Glee, and there’s no lack of talent he can act, dance and sing. Being the art thief turned CI on White Collar is what I believe his best acting. I haven’t seen him in any other movie or show than those mentioned above. But judging from White Collar we will probably be seeing more from him in years to come.

 

Feel free to let me, and everyone else who are reading, know who your favorites are.

Second Movie Of The Week: Premium Rush

I have a backlog of movies to be seen and I’m playing catch up. The weather is making me stay indoors  so going to do just that with some good movies to keep me entertained.

Ticked off Premium Rush from the list yesterday. Didn’t have much hopes for this movie. I mean its  guy on a bike, how exciting can that get? I was completely wrong. I had great time watching it. There is some series bike riding in this movie!Hmm.. May be I shouldn’t have sold my bike.

Reasons I like the movie:

1. Joseph Gordon Levitt. I liked this guy’s acting when I saw him in 10 things I hate about you, he was good in Inception and he’s great in this one. Will be watching one more movie of his( 50/50) next week.

2. The action. It’s not the crazy, unrealistic stunts like the ones in Die hard and all, but its good. There is some insane bike riding and cool stunts.Never thought bike riding can prove to be an adrenaline rush. The guy is driving through streets of New York on a bike with no brakes, I wont survive a drive down the street if there wasn’t any brakes. Okay, that’s  exaggeration, I’ll survive but might have to say goodbye to my front teeth and rock a cast while my bones mend.

3. The pace.  There are no points on the whole plot that slow it down. The movie starts, picks up pace, gets even better and has a good finish. There are a lot of movies that disappoint by having scenes in the middle that bore you, this isn’t one of those.

4. The direction of the movie.The plot is simple the bike messenger gets a package that somebody else wants and gets chased through the streets while he tries to make the delivery. They way they tell the story is what makes the movie awesome.

To wrap it up, I thought it was great. Good thing I had it on the list.

Pitch Perfect

I had seen trailers of this movie on Youtube but completely forgot that such a movie exists. In fact I even forgot the name of the movie so when a fellow blogger suggested it I didn’t know it was this movie. I ended up watching it yesterday. One of the few perks of being jobless – watch movie at whatever time I want.

I thought the movie was great. I mean not like the big scale movie but it was kind of more real than others like High School musical. It’s hilarious, has nice songs and definitely more fun to watch!

So the movie is about a college accapella group, The Barden Bellas, trying to win the Nationals. Yes that’s right! They wrapped up the story in under two hours while Glee took three seasons to get there. The songs and mash-up  choices are great and with perfect timing so the story is not slowed down. It’s not exactly a new story line- girl with issues, group of singers trying to win a competition and a little bit of romance mixed with it, but even so the movie isn’t boring at all! I liked Rebel Wilson the most followed by Anna Kendrick. The other cast members are pretty good too.

I’ll probably watch it again and will be adding the soundtrack to my playlist. Thanks to KC (http://feelininfinite.wordpress.com/) for making me watch this movie.

Movie Titles And Imagery

I hear a word and the first think I remember is some scene from a movie.
The first reason someone somewhere decided to make a movie using that word as the title. The second reason I watched it.
Now when I hear the word somewhere I always remember something from the movie first even though the actual meaning is in my head.  It can be a bit of problem sometimes, like when giving some exam. Most entrance level exams have an English paper with a vocabulary part. I can’t really write “Blue people with tails” when they ask meaning of Avatar, even though that is the first thing I remember. Add to that the fact the my mind has a tendency to wander. So I think of blue people with tails, then I would start thinking about the planet created by James Cameroon, then flying, etc,etc. You can see how that can be a problem right?

Here are some examples of words that pull up images in my head:

Serendipity
Actual Meaning: The occurrence of events by chance in a happy way.
What I remember: John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale finding each other at the end of the movie.

Insidious
Actual Meaning:Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.
What I remember: Ghosts/spirits/demons waiting to take over your body when you sleep.

Inception
Actual meaning: Starting point of something; the beginning.
What I remember: Leonardo DiCaprio and/or creating dream worlds.

Madagascar
What I remember: The lemur singing “I like to move it, move it”.

Ghosts/demons,etc
What I remember: Linda Blair as Regan after she got possessed in The Exorcist.

Hostel
Actual meaning: Establishment that provides  food and lodging.
What I remember: People getting tortured.

Avatar
Actual meaning: An incarnation, embodiment, or manifestation of a person or idea.
What I remember: Blue people with tails!

Is it just me or are there others out there who do this?