Review Up

When I was little, like most children I loved animation. Animation, unlike live action feature, escorts your mind into the other dimension. All of what you see do not have any counterparts in the real life, as opposed to live action which presents you with on-again off-again journey to the other realm. As a little child, our mind was not a full fledge awareness machine in regard to what is real and what is fantasy. As we grow up, we tend to appreciate reality more because our sense of thought accrues along with our sense of the real world where we live in. But of course that experience as a little one wanting to take a foray into the other dimension to briefly forget all burdens you get to carry over as responsible grownups in your otherwise mundane life is surely not just a good treat. It is plain necessary every once in a while.

After two great films in a row, Ratatouille and Wall-E in two consecutive years, 2007 and 2008, you would be tempted to think that the next feature from Pixar would be nothing but a turndown despite of the title. In the contrary, Up is with no hesitation simply the best compared to the other two, and the best film I have seen so far this year, and it should merit a serious academy award consideration for best picture not just for best animated feature, which I am sure it will win one. It never cease to amaze me how those folks at Pixar keep creating something original, creative, surreal, great and wonderful such as this one. It is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful and magnificent achievement not just in animation industry but in the overall movie making. The movie never fails to amuse me in every scene, the scenes are so ubiquitous notwithstanding. It is in the context of the story, these frames of moving pictures add up to a perfect movie that entertains very exquisitely well from the very beginning to the end. With its Disney Digital 3-D format, the movie has a greater and livelier look.

The story began with a small boy inspired to be a great adventurer befriended a quirky little girl of his age. They would play together and swear that one day in their life to explore the paradise falls in the exotic South America and move their club house there. Then it fast forwarded to times they got married, living life together, when the man worked as a toy balloon vendor and his wife as a zookeeper, saving their money so that one day they will have enough ammunition to fulfill their wildest dream, and finally they got older and the wife’s passing before achieving what they have waited for. This 10-minute non dialog scene was very warm, witty and uplifting simultaneously. Later, the 78-year-old widower live his life on his own and it was not until the conflict between the old man with the contactor company that evicts him out of his own property did he realize that it was a perfect time to revive his long lost dream even without his beloved wife. He then tied thousands of highly pressured Helium gas Balloons to firmly flying his house to travel and begin his adventure. Accompanied by a wilderness explorer boy, who accidentally sneaked up on the porch of the cozy house as it flew sky high, he ventured across the country to South America, hoping he can fulfill his late wife dream moving her clubhouse in Paradise falls. Then the real adventure started for this film, and as he is drawn into this fascinating tour, so are we.

“Up” is not just fun to watch it is sweet and uplifting, it reminds me why I like movie so much. There are a lot of elements to cherish in this film. First and the most significant element is that the story is so simple yet so good and wonderful and very original. Pixar’s animation differs from Dreamworks feature in that they never really need to employ cheesy jokes that ultimately worn me off as in the case of strikingly bad first Madagascar film (2005) which eventually programmed my mind to avoid to see any Dreamworks product unless if it were ‘exceptional’, the information of which I can get from the review and its premise in any online synopsis. Ok, let’s stick to this film, shall we? The second element is they really know how to create embraceable characters that immediately steal the scene, which in this case is a peacock-like giant ostrich with colorful furs that does not even have any single human dialog. But its witty behavior attached itself to all main characters pretty seamlessly and even building a sense of omnipresence to the audience. The third element: they know how to make a comedy, a really funny comedy which in this case revolved around talking and sometime vicious dogs who behave like human with normal human expression. There were several scenes where the dogs laugh and it made me laugh to see how perfect they capture that impossibility as I occasionally wonder why real dogs never laugh. And the last but not the least: they understand the drama element plays an important role to the movie, because when technology behind film industry has advanced so much, movies become more tedious and plain dull when the director recklessly inject a ridiculous amount of spectacularly agonizing mindless scenes (like the case of Transformers) with no real intention to tell the audience a good story.

Back to my original discussion about finding your innocent 8-year-old self every once in a while, the late Walt Disney must had been very proud that the company is able to continue his legacy to entertain and conjure up the world of magic to thousands of audiences around the globe. As you see the opening logo of every Disney pictures zooming out this magical world of wonder emulating Disneyland theme park, combined with a music from “When you wish upon a star” song, you know and realize that they are starting up the process of inviting the inner child inside you to experience the world of magic they have beautifully crafted for 90 minutes or so. But why should you let your inner child enjoy this film more than your current self, when, though little children will surely enjoy “Up”, adults will enjoy it even more?

“Up,” A Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios release, is rated PG for some peril and action. Running time: 90 minutes. Four stars out of four (A)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia -

Review Public Enemies

When asked by a friend, what do I see in a movie before I decide to actually see it? Well, when I was in high school, of course the genre is the main factor of consideration. After that, I began to lurk at the actors starring the movie, because some actors are either just plain good (e.g. Robert De Niro) or he/she always pick to star in good movies despite of his/her average not-bad-but-not-too-impressive-either acting (e.g. Leo Dicaprio). Now, I may add another account, the director of the film. We sometimes or even always forget that the director holds the greatest amount of responsibility to make a movie a successful one.

There are a lot of great directors in Hollywood. Unfortunately Michael Mann albeit is a good filmmaker, is not one of them. He is a veteran cineaste whose body of work includes high profile films such as Heat (1995) and The Insider (1999). Michael’s most recognizable trademark is that his films always focus on two main male characters conflicting to each other, such as Heat (Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro), The Insider (Al Pacino and Russell Crowe), and his 2006 feature Miami Vice (Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell). Now, I have not seen the latter, but it was not well-reviewed by critics and fans alike so it kind of turned me off.

Michael is back with his latest feature entitled “Public Enemies”, rendezvousing two of the hottest stars in Hollywood right now, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. The latter is more likely a reason why I decide to see it in theatre. It turned out that it was a bad decision. “Public Enemies” is a chaos that should have been the other way around. It is a complete misopportunity for Mann and all crews that are involved in this project. The high profile of Bale and Depp did not help one bit to conceal the movie’s strike of bad plot from the second half of the movie to the end. As it opened, the movie was so promising depicting John Dillinger (Depp) virtuoso escape scene from jail. I was convinced that he will be the main character driving this story firmly and enticingly. But guess what, as soon as this character met with a woman played by Marion Cottilard, and he fell head over heel in love with her, the note strikes on a very wrong chord.

Of course I don’t oppose movie romance in fact I enjoy it when it is true and in the right context, but when a movie mixes romance with gangster then you will hear a false note. From that point on, I knew it that Dillinger’s sentimental affection for the girl will be the death of him. Christian Bale’s presence is not really a presence as I felt that his attachment in this film is ironically a detachment of the FBI agent character he is playing, Melvin Purvis. It was as if he was from another movie, and at no point in this movie do I ever really care for his character. There was no strong bound or sense of strong conflict between the two actors like the usual showcase, Mann had successfully performed on his previous films I mentioned above. At the end of the day I do not know which party should I root for, because by the time I still patiently waiting for that affection, the end credit is already rolled.

The movie occasionally preoccupies the audiences with a very noisy and common place gunshot sound with crispy sound effect that was kind of a requirement for any typical gangster movie violence. I admire the effort, but to me it was merely a cheap trick to distract the audience from telling a real good story with good plot. Michael Mann was a fine director, as noted from his previous achievement. Too bad this time, instead of raising the bar, he’s just plummeting his own reputation maybe because he did not have enough preparation when making this film. He did not invest more time to dig a gamut of potential possibilities that this movie truly had.

If you haven’t seen this movie in theatre, spare your time and money and rent it later or better yet rent other movies this very film is trying so hard to emulate and has unsuccessfully done so. If you long to see a real gangster movie, then go and rent the best gangster movie ever made, Goodfellas (1990). If you want to have nostalgic moments with life and crime at the depression era, go and rent Road to Perdition (2002). If you want to see that pretty face Johnny spreading his charm, rent Finding Neverland (2003). If you want to see Michael Mann’s best work yet, please go and rent Heat (1995). And if you want to see Christian Bale’s endeavor fighting misdemeanor mad men and injustice, please go watch again last year’s biggest hit: The Dark Knight. That is all because you won’t find any of those in Public Enemies.

“Public Enemies,” A Universal Pictures release, is rated R, for Gangster Violence and some language. Running time: 130 minutes. Two stars out of four (C)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-

The sense of safety

The more general question to ask is simply “Are we really safe?” because no matter where you live death can strike anywhere anytime. Of course what I mean by death here is one that is caused by terror spree of some reckless and irresponsible party. In America, some people are in constant fear of being victim of murder-suicide type of gunshot massacre where hopeless mad killer posed as normal acting people and then wildly shoot people one by one nearby before ending his/her own life. To me that is actually many times more dangerous than conventional terrorist act because it is quite impossible (at least for now) to detect people seamless intention to spread terror when the perpetrator is one scrupulous guy who has been known for his/her warm virtuosity or gentle act toward others. Take a look atSteven Phillip Kazmierczak, the perpetrator of the Northern Illinois University massacre on February of 2008. He was according to his girlfriend, the nicest person ever and never demonstrated any tendency toward violence. It turned out that he had been lying to everyone about a brief history of mental illness during his childhood. He whacked 5 people and injured 18 others before he met his own demise.

Though there is no national tracking system for murder-suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the US, with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners, males were the vast majority of the perpetrators, and over 90% of murder suicides involved a firearm. Depression, financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators. This is a shocking fact. Before I came back from the United States in the march of 2009, there was this notorious Geneva county massacre in Geneva county in the state of Alabama where one 26-year-old Michael McLendon massacred 11 people in the neighborhood including his mother and himself. I would never be able to comprehend the mind of a person who can really put an end to his own birth giver, burn down her house, shoot the neighbor before ending his own life brutally. It is a sad tragedy and it really happened, not just a movie or a fictional novel story.

It is at times like this, when I long for the fictional pre-crime system depicted in Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report. In Pre-Crime with the help of pre-cogs, we could detect a mass murder or crime before it even occurred and people could be punished for any strong intention with a vivid attempt of hurting other people (which of course only existed in the mind of the pre-cogs). If only that could be concocted, at least my sense of safety would be elevated to a significance level than it is now. But the system has its own shortcoming because I would lose every aspect of my own privacy, for the 24-hour constant surveillance makes me uncomfortable with other people’s tampering my private life only to be reminded by this notion of “We do this for the sake of your own good" excuse. Referring to the movie, there is one scene where in order to track Tom cruise’s character’s whereabouts, the FBI then used spider-like mini robot to scatter around and scan people’s retina when man and wife are shouting at each other, a man is answering his natural call in the toilet, a parent is about to tuck in her children in bed, and so forth. How can you live like this? As much as I desire that sense of safety, I surely would not be pleased if my private moments interrupted in that fashion. Now, I would not be too sure if someday we will have to live like that in the future, but on the other hand, when constructing the world of Minority Report, Steven Spielberg gathered about 50 real scientists of any discipline from around the country to sit together and have a brainstorming to make a raw but realistic projection about what the future would be like 50 years from the year 2001, which is when the movie is produced. Heck that would be eerie.

Back to our initial question: “Are we really safe to live in Indonesia?” The answer would depend on the level of safety in question. If asked would we need a constant awareness over our ambience all of the time and occasionally take a peek if someone intends to hurt us. I would say that is too much. We need not be that alarmed. But that certainly never hurts, because it is always good to practice self-awareness to escape from misfortune. Wherever we are, all of us are inherently unsafe. If you live in the U.S, like described above you might be in constant state of fear of becoming innocent victim of raging gunman. And of course a 9/11-like attack is a latent threat from countries hating the country. If you live in India, you could be a victim of India-Pakistan tension where just last November 2008, ten coordinated shootings and bombings were perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants inside Pakistan across Mumbai, one of the major cities in India where the casualties of the attack claimed the life of at least 164 civilians. So, if you think to live in Indonesia is unsafe, think again. In conclusion, we could never be assured a 100% safety wherever we are and need to realize that life and death is only separated by this invisible doorway between our world and the afterlife. Enough said, forget about death, and get back to your life, enjoy it, and live it to the fullest.

-Mulyadi Tjoa , Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-

Review Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

For those who know me, I have been following the buzz surrounding the newest Harry Potter film in the last couple of weeks. It is fun to read buzz and hype regarding people’s fascination about a movie. Last year, I followed the buzz around The Dark Knight which coincidentally produced by the same movie studio for which I have a weird sense of support. It is the Warner Bros studio. I have an associate who owns stock at Time Warner Inc, which is parent of Warner Bros. So, my sense of support for this company stemmed tacitly from my support for this associate, albeit it unfortunately has no lucrative effect whatsoever on me.

Before reviewing, let me state that that I am by all mean a non harry potter fan and will likely remain so after I actually saw this latest installment. Last year, when The Dark Knight opened in theatres, it was mind blowing and enjoying a several weeks of becoming a juggernaut for other big releases last summer. This year’s Harry Potter unfortunately does not quite live up its hype. One of the best scenes of the film is at the very beginning of the movie, and you know that usually portends a bad aftermath because everything up from that point is downhill. But it certainly is not the case for the half Blood Prince as the adventure progress thru crests and troughs throughout its 153 minutes running time. The tone becomes darker than ever.

This newest Harry Potter clearly exemplifies an excellent exercise of character study (especially true for Jim Broadbent and Alan Rickman) as well as great cinematic artwork. Its dark visual elements divulge the imagination spawned out of the genius head of one J.K. Rowling. The movie occasionally interludes with the teenagers dealing with puberty due to hormonal rage. It was this part of the movie handled wittily and charmingly by director David Yates that I, who normally despise teenage coping with puberty, have a sense of affection for. The commonplace normal teenage upbringing that you read in trashy romance novel is enchanting and effective partly due to the fact that we have built a strong rapport with those kids in the last 8 years or so.

If this film could ever be a great film, it certainly could not be great per se. It has to build on strong grounding bases that were the first 5 chapters on the series. You cannot conjure up the rich world of Harry Potter on this picture sans the knowledge of the previous stories of the saga. The cinematography is a great one. There is one beautiful shot involving dropping a ring and of course the very first scene of the film. This is not a devout film adaptation of the book, so I heard. This might serve well for its own good or not. It is for the fans to judge.

The major drawback of this film is as it moves forward from the two third of the movie towards the end it becomes slower in pace and eventually decaying audiences anticipation built up at the beginning. This is by far the most talkative Potter film and will surely turn off people with high adrenaline. I surely enjoy the slow pace because the director gives more time for the audience to appreciate the story and the character more. However, it might be too slow and too talky that by the end of its running time it annihilates all audience expectation for a thrill ride with a very good story. Don’t get me wrong the story is intriguing and those characters become more embraceable for me as opposed to a more cynical attitude I had before with the previous movies. It is like you are expecting for something that is never quite so delivered. However, according to some associates of mine who are Potter fans, they admittedly were pleased by this latest film.

Harry Potter and the half Blood Prince was meant to be released last November, but was moved to this summer because of some financial reason. The move has driven madness among fans alike and has catapulted its advance ticket sale sky high. Unfortunately, though it is still good, the film does not deserve that kind of privilege. Instead of a super massive black hole that can suck everyone dare enough to walk close to the cinema that plays the film without initial intention, it is just another Potter film with great eye candy and interesting tale to enjoy but just not worth getting into a very long line of purchasing the ticket for.

“Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince,” A Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG for scary images, some violence, language, and mild sensuality. Running time: 153 minutes. Three stars out of four (B)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-