Despicable Me

I'd seen a few trailers and posters for this animation and was looking forward to watching it, mainly due to the funny-looking yellow dudes in the posters. The show proved to be worth watching beyond those little guys alone.

Spoiler-heavy review ahead...







Sadly, I missed the opening scenes of the movie because I was late to the cinema. I understand it included the theft of a pyramid. The protagonist (sorta) of the movie is a master criminal known as Gru (Steve Carell), or at least he likes to think of himself as a master criminal. He didn't steal the pyramid, but he wishes he had. Seeking his mother's (Julie Andrews) approval his whole life, Gru concocts a plan to STEAL THE MOON. With a plan in place, all he needs is funding from The Bank of Evil (formerly Lehman Brothers) to realise his plans. In the waiting room of the bank, he meets a nerdy criminal called Vector (Jason Segel) who tries to befriend Gru much to his annoyance. The bank manager, Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett) - who looks suspiciously like the PHB from Dilbert - agrees to continue funding him if manages to get the shrink ray gun essential to his plan to shrink the moon before stealing it. Perkins warns Gru that this is his last chance before the bank starts investing in younger criminal minds like Vector who was the one behind the pyramid theft. On the way out, Gru uses his freeze-ray gun to freeze Vector's head... just because.

With the help of the Minions (really, that's what they're called), Gru successfully locates and steals the shrink-ray gun from a Secret Lab in East Asia (we do like tiny things). Unfortunately it's stolen right back from him by Vector who is a little bitter about having his head frozen. Gru attempts in vain to gain entry into Vector's fortress to obtain the shrink ray. He's about to give up when he spots three little orphan girls selling cookies who easily gain access to the fortress (Vector can't resist coconutties).

Gru decides to adopt the girls in order to use them to smuggle cookie-robots (cute) to get the shrink-ray gun. The plan succeeds, although not without a few problems. An amusement park offers Gru the opportunity to abandon the girls so he can get on with his plan. However, as movie convention dictates, Gru bonds with the girls and he grows attached to them. He keeps them on for the time being while he and his resident mad scientist, Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) work on the rocket to bring Gru to the moon.

Dr. Nefario soon finds that the girls are distracting Gru from their plan and arranges to have them returned to the orphanage, breaking his and their hearts. Gru presses on with his plans and succeeds in shrinking and grabbing the moon, despite Vector's attempts to stop him. Going back to Earth to try to make it to the girls' ballet recital, Gru finds out that Vector has kidnapped the girls and wants the moon as ransom. Gru of course agrees, but Vector goes back on his word to return the girls, setting off a daring rescue by Gru. It goes without saying that everything ends well for Gru and the girls.

The movie seems quite derivative of Pixar movies with likeable and cute characters (one of the girls closely resembles Boo from Monsters Inc). Considering it as a homage rather than a copy, this movie executes the familiar formula well and was very enjoyable. It has heart and more than a few laughs. Carell gives a funny performance with a Russian-ish accent. The 3D effects are fully exploited and even includes some in-credits messing around with the 3D effects by the Minions (who are really cute and speak their own pseudo-language).

This show was produced by a company called Illumination Entertainment (apparently their first). It's rare these days to see a good CGI animation not from Pixar or Dreamworks. It's good to know that some smaller players are still in the game and producing good stuff. With this and the recent shows from the big two, the future of CGI animation is looking bright.

I write like...

So apparently, I write like Shakespeare.

I write like
William Shakespeare

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I didn't know Shakespeare wrote about mean wolves, but who am I to argue with a Bayesian algorithm.

Brunch at Marché

Marché is an interesting Swiss restaurant found at The Curve. Its mascot is a green cow and it features a 'market' where you can order food at various stalls and they will prepare it for you on the spot. Last Saturday, we arrived early for the two movies of the day (Frozen and Knight and Day) so we decided to have brunch here as most places weren't really open yet.

After receiving our 'passports' (you get them stamped for each order), we went right to it. For starters we had sautéed mushrooms. These Swiss button mushrooms were really... mushroomy. If you like mushrooms, you'll like this.



Adding to the mushroom fest was a mixed mushroom ragout. This was various types of mushroom in a creamy mushroom sauce (tasted a lot like a very thick mushroom cream soup). It was quite nice but not as flavourful as the sautéed mushrooms.




For a main course, I had grilled chicken breasts with mushroom sauce accompanied by a gourmet mushroom chicken sausage. The chicken was well seasoned and grilled nicely if a bit on the dry side. The sauce went well with it. The sausage was very tasty and had strong flavour. Both very good indeed.



Our second main course was a grilled whole chicken thigh with mushroom sauce and homemade mashed potato. The chicken was not bad, and not great. I've had better...



We had some sides too! First there's the mushroom soup. Sadly, it was quite disappointing. One of the poorer mushroom soups I've had in my lifelong sampling of mushroom-related foods. It was oddly creamy and oily like there was butter in it or something. Oh well...



We finally tried the rosti after having stared at it the last few times we came here. Strips of fried potato made  into a flat bread-like thing. Not bad, but a little plain. Perhaps we'll try other varieties next time.



Our drinks were ice blended hazelnut (lovely) and some sort of pineapple juice concoction (meh).



Last and certainly not least: dessert crepe! Made with hazelnut chocolate sauce on the inside, then wrapped around fresh strawberries. Vanilla ice cream and chocolate sprinkles complete the dish. It was excellent. Highly recommended.



On the whole, it was a pretty good meal. A word of advice when dining here: try not to order everything at once, however strong the temptation may be. It gets cold...

Knight and Day

I saw the trailer to this film and thought it would be fun. I was right.
Minor spoilers follow.






The opening scene has Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) walking through an airport, doing airporty stuff. He seems to be looking for someone and spots June Havens (Cameron Diaz) who is on her way home to Boston to attend her sister's wedding. Having seemingly found his target, he arranges to "accidentally" bump into her a couple of times, all the while flashing a charming Tom Cruise smile. She gets refused at the boarding gate and Roy cryptically tells her that sometimes things happen for a reason as he boards the plane. However, someone is watching them and arranges for her to get on board. Once on the strangely empty plane, they flirt a little and when June goes to the restroom, Roy fights and kills all the passengers and crew on board including the pilots. June is understandably freaked out when she finds all this while Roy tries to land the plane on a highway. After crash-landing, Roy drugs her and she wakes up in bed in her own apartment.

Then things start to get weird.

Federal agents show up to take June into protective custody, telling her that Roy is a CIA agent gone rogue after killing several scientists and stealing government property. Roy shows up to "rescue" her from the feds, despite her reservations. Not sure who to trust, June has no choice but to follow Roy as he tries to protect a McGuffin called 'The Zephyr' and its inventor Simon Feck (Paul Dano) who appears to be some sort of savant. Along the way, some romance predictably blossoms and June finds herself oddly enjoying their life-threatening escapades.

The plot is quite common and fairly nonsensical. This movie banks mainly on the stunts and the star power of the two leads. In that respect, they deliver. Cruise oozes charisma as the wisecracking spy who is always cheerful and nonchalant however dire the situation is. Diaz too is very effective as the reluctant heroine and is very charming as she usually is. They work well together and share a convincing chemistry. The action sequences were frenetic and fun to watch. They don't make lighthearted action movies like this much these days; most films are tinged with a bit of darkness. It probably won't be very memorable, but it's a welcome distraction.

Frozen

I went into this movie never having heard of it before. I'm not really a huge fan of survival horror (or even horror in general). This film was decent enough for the genre, even if there weren't really many surprises or anything new.

Major spoilers follow. Be warned.








The movie is about three college students who are out on a weekend skiing trip. Joe (Shawn Ashmore) and his best friend Dan (Kevin Zegers) have been going skiing together for a long time. This time, they bring along Dan's girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell), to Joe's moderate annoyance. Through a series of unfortunate events, the trio get stranded on a ski-lift chair. At first they joke about it, but soon realize that they are truly stuck there and noone will be coming back to the lodge for a week. As expected, panic ensues, culminating in a (rather foolish) attempt by one of the three to get help by jumping off the chair. The resulting massive (and somewhat improbable) injuries are complicated by the arrival of a pack of wolves and... well I think you can figure it out.

The remaining two brood about it for a night or so, then try to get off the lift by using the (apparently razor sharp) cable to get to a maintenance ladder. As before, the wolves complicate matters further (darned wolves!). I won't lay out the ending but suffice to say, it's quite predictable who does or does not survive.

For a genre film, it was quite good. There were moments that were tense and cringe-worthy, even if some of the injury effects were not done very well and I swear that one body looked like a side of beef. The acting from Zegers (always the Air Bud boy to me), Ashmore (Ice-man in the X-Men films), and newcomer Bell was quite good and effective in portraying the reaction to the situation. The film runs a little short at 94 minutes but the time was well used.


Things I learned from Frozen:

1. Wolves are mean.
2. You should always carry a cellphone.
3. Ski-lift cables are really really sharp.
4. Jumping 50 feet onto a mountain is not a good idea.
5. The mounting screws on ski-lift chairs suck.
6. Ski-lift operators do not perform any checks to see if anyone is still on the lift before closing.

Toy Story 3

The original Toy Story was made 15 years ago. The many many CGI animations that have come and gone since that monumental first makes it seem like they've been around forever. I was just a teenager when I watched the first Toy Story and I remember being filled with wonder at the fact that it was all generated by computers. Some of that wonder has diminished over the years but what has not changed is the quality of the animation being produced by Pixar.

As the first pure CGI animation studio, inspiring many others to emerge, Pixar has always been at the forefront of the industry not only in terms of animation techniques but also in terms of storytelling and artistry. With Pixar, you get the feeling that these guys really love making animated movies and telling stories that mean something to them. The fact that it earns billions of dollars is just icing on the cake. There's never a sense of commercialization that pervades many other studios. Pixar has never made a movie that I didn't love. In recent years, they seem to be moving away from the very kid-friendly fare like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Cars to more artistic and obliquely adult fare beginning with Wall·E which dared to have a main character who does not speak for the first half hour of the movie. Last year's excellent Up is in my opinion the most artistic and emotional animation ever made by a Western company. It dared to explore such themes as death, miscarriage, the loneliness of a child, and how to realise what is truly important in life. It also had the cutest animated dog EVAH! Maybe I'll review it sometime. On with the matter at hand.

Some spoilers may follow.






Toy Story 3 returns Pixar to its roots as a producer of kid-friendly animation. Toy Story is the only one of its movies that Pixar has made sequels to. As the third and perhaps final installment of the series, Pixar pulls out all the stops to make a thrilling ride for the young and young-at-heart. After an elaborate action sequence which turns out to be Andy's imagination as he plays with his toys, the story begins with the toys stealing Andy's cellphone and calling it to make him notice them and play with them. The thing is, however, that Andy is now 17 years old and about to leave for college. Naturally, playtime ended for him a long time ago and the toys are upset since, being toys, what they want above all else is to be played with.

Having been told many times by his mom to either trash or store his old toys in the attic, Andy chooses the latter. After a wistful look at Woody, he decides to bring him along to college (I imagine that would go down really well with the seniors). Just before putting the other toys in the attic, Andy gets called away by his sister Molly and mom mistakenly thinks the toys are meant to be trashed (to be fair to mom, he did put them in a trash bag). The toys think that Andy has thrown them away, but Woody saw that Andy meant to put them in the attic. He tries to rescue them before they get crushed by the garbage truck compactor, but they manage to escape without his help anyway. Refusing to believe Woody, the other toys (Buzz, Jessie, Rex, Hamm, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, the Aliens, and Bullseye) sneak into a box of Molly's old toys (including Barbie) bound for donation to the Sunnyside daycare centre. Woody tags along hoping to persuade them to return.

At the daycare centre, the toys think they have found paradise: a place where playtime is every day and kids are constantly replaced by new kids when they grow up. All this is presided over by a purple strawberry-scented bear named Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear a.k.a. Lotso. Woody, however, is still loyal to Andy and escapes the centre. Unfortunately, his bid to get home is cut short when he is found and taken by Bonnie, the daughter of Sunnyside's owner.

Back at Sunnyside, the toys are excited to have playtime once more and Barbie meets her soulmate in Ken, Lotso's right hand man. They soon find out, however, that things are not as rosy as they seem. As the new guys, the toys are placed with the toddlers who play rather abusively in contrast to the far more docile older children. When the toys try to leave, Lotso shows his true colours and puts them in 'jail'.

Meanwhile at Bonnie's place, Woody meets a few of her toys (including some really cute peas in a pod). He then learns the reason why Lotso is so mean and bitter. Fearing for his friends' safety, Woody smuggles himself back into Sunnyside and together the toys stage a daring (and hilarious) escape. Through many perils including almost getting ground up and incinerated, the toys eventually make it home to Andy. The movie ends on a very sweet note with Andy finally letting go of his childhood through a scene which is at once joyous, sad, and uplifting (I have to admit, I teared up a little).

The graphics in this third instalment really showcase how much the CG animation industry has progressed in the last 15 years when compared to the first one. The backgrounds are perfectly rendered and the toys are utterly believable. Pixar once again shows their great understanding of human nature and how to walk the fine line between manipulative and sweet. While lacking the emotional power of Up, Toy Story 3 still manages to illicit a range of emotions without being overly schmaltzy. Interestingly enough, this is the first Pixar film that shows humans in normal proportions drawn without being heavily stylized (as in The Incredibles). I would also like to note that the 3-D effects here are much more effectively used compared to Up (which probably would have looked better in 2-D).

One last thing: They totally need to make a real-life toy of the Peas-in-a-Pod (whose names are apparently Peatey, Peatrice, and Peanelope).

The A-Team

Although I was a child of the 80's, I only have vague memories of having watched The A-Team TV series back in the day. I'm sure I probably enjoyed it a lot then. The movie version of the series however, fails to illicit much from me as an adult.

Spoiler lite review follows.




The opening gambit has Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith (Liam Neeson) escaping from the custody of a couple of crooked cops somewhere in Mexico (really, that's what it said on the screen). On the way to try and rescue Lt. Templeton 'Faceman' Peck (Bradley Cooper) from a dastardly generic Mexican villain, Hannibal commandeers the newly acquired and much beloved van of B.A. Baracus (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson) who is coincidentally a fellow Army Ranger. The duo arrive at the scene just in time to save Face and then go about the task of bringing the aforementioned villain to justice. The three men stop by at a hospital to pick up their pilot, Murdock (Sharlto Copley) whom they soon find out is a certified lunatic. The Evil Villain finds them just as they are about to take off in a helicopter and of course a helicopter chase sequence follows. I will admit that this sequence was quite well done and included a shot of a helicopter flying upside down (which is apparently really hard to do and really unlikely for the old medical whirlybird they were using). After successfully dispatching the Evil Villain, the team remains together for next eight years (I think) and are next seen during the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

A Company man, Lynch (Patrick Wilson), offers them a job recovering US currency engraving plates and a billion dollars which have apparently been stolen by Saddam loyalists. They agree despite the misgivings of their superior,  General Morrison (Gerald McRaney). They of course succeed in recovering the plates and cash but are betrayed when Morrison's vehicle blows up as it arrives to greet them and the plates are taken by some sort of black ops team known as Blackforest (a much better name for a cake than a black ops team if you ask me). They are blamed for the entire thing, assumed to have been in cahoots with Blackforest, and summarily dishonourably discharged and imprisoned.

The second act begins six months later with their escapes from their respective prisons with the help of Lynch who still wants them to recover the plates.  This starts off a series of operations involving lots and lots of explosions until the end of the show which runs rather long at around two hours.

In stark contrast to the other 80's revival movie opening in the same week - The Karate Kid - this movie was shallow and had the barest of barebones plots. With a few (very few) exceptions, the action scenes were nothing to shout about and had too many close-ups and quick cuts for the audience to linger much before being taken to the next explosion. I understand that this may have been a homage to the over-the-top style of the original series. If so, then it must have worked better as a 45-minute TV show rather than a two-hour movie. The acting was pedestrian and stereotypical. Even having Liam Neeson in the cast didn't help much. The movie reminded me a lot of that other elite-military-team-framed-for-a-crime-they-did-not-commit movie The Losers as both of them had highly similar plots and styles. I think the latter did a (slightly) better job in the genre.

There were some amusing moments and some good setpieces, but not enough to raise it beyond the level of disposable summer fodder. Hannibal often uses the line: "I love it when a plan comes together". I guess this movie just wasn't all that well planned.