Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill is bloody brilliant. This guy is so creative and I adore his style. Kill Bill is a dark comedy with plenty of blood and profanity. If you enjoyed Pulp Fiction (also directed by Quentin Tarantino), you will enjoy Kill Bill. Although the lines aren’t as great as Pulp Fiction, the kung fu fighting and the anime make up for it. Tarantino must be obsessed with Chinese kung fu movies and Japanese anime. Not only the fighting scenes are great, the music is banging and the sceneries are gorgeous.

Kill Bill is the type of film that you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the aesthestic experience. Hot chics kick asses with plenty of blood shed and the word “fuck” is being use thoughout the feature. Speaking of hot chics, Go Go Yubari plays by Chiaki Kuriyama is off the hook. She is mad fly. My favorite scene is the fighting between Uma Thurman vs. Lucy Liu. The snow in the garden is extravaganza. The beats makes you all hype up. The whole shot remind me of Stree Fighter video game. The cool part is where Lucy Lui forehead got chopped off. It’s gluesome but Tarantino made it looks mad cool. Lucy Lui is excellent in her character. Woman in power.

Kill Bill is entertaining but also can make some people feel uncomfortable because of the violence. If you’re into Japanese anime, you will love this film. Although I am not a anime film, I still enjoy every shot of the film. It is exquisite in term of bright colors, special effects, and hip music. Highly enjoyable and purely escapism.

Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River is breathtaking and heartbreaking. The film is so good that kept me focused over two hours. The performances are fantastic. Tim Robbins is phenomenal in his role as Dave. He kept me wondering what the hell is in his head the whole time. Is he psycho or what? Sean Penn is awesome in Jimmy as a tough dad who is emotionally torn by his daughter’s death, especially the part where he breaks into tears. This is one of his best performances next to Dead Man Walking. Kevin Beacon is not bad as a detective but Laurence Fishburne is off the hook. He is the man. All the supporting actors are great too. Mystic River is a very well made film over all. Go see it if you haven’t. Highly recommended. It’s definitely a great escape from whatever stress you have.

Finally get to see Lost in Translation. Bill Murray is flawless in his character. I always see him as a “lazy actor” and this role is exactly that. He is in the midlife crisis and too tired to do anything. Scarlett Johansson is also great with her performance. The film is driving by the relationship between two people who have nothing in common except they are being lost in Tokyo. Their relationships eventually grow even though they both married. Unlike other Hollywood romantic comedies, they communicate with each other without sleeping together. So where does the relationship end up? Sofia Coppola, the director, cleverly let the viewers decide. At the end, where Bob and Charlotte hug goodbye in the middle of the street, he whispers in her ear but the audiences can’t hear what he is telling her.

Beside the storyline, the cinematography is gorgeous. If you think Time Square nightlife is beautiful, check out Tokyo by night. It is amazing how they use the building glass windows as a gigantic video commercial. Of course, there are funny moments in the film. Such as the Japanese hooker in the hotel orders Bob to “lip” her stocking when she actually means rip. The acting part from the Whisky commercial is quite hilarious. The only silly part was when they are at the raw meat restaurant. All you have to do is dip the meat into the hot boiling soup until the meat is cooked and juicy according to your liking. Take it out, dip it in soy sauce and eat. That’s the kind of restaurant I like but Bob said it was horrible because, “What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?” It just shows how narrow-minded some people are. They never appreciate exotic food and the authentic of it. Just looking at the hot boiling soup and the fresh juicy meat make my mouth watery and they just wasted it. Anyway, it’s a great movie though.

Swimming Pool is a suspense that makes you think after watching it. The movie is a little bit slow. The thriller picks up at the last half hour. So what makes you sit through the first one and a half hour? Yes! The nudity and the sex. Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) is either half naked or completely naked throughout the film. Not only she adds so much visual elements to the feature but her performance is exceptional as well. She got a banging body but doesn’t care the type of guys she bangs with. Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) gave a superb performance in her role as a crime novel writer. My favorite moment is when she desperately flashes herself to the old pool cleaner to distract him from …. Sorry, I don’t want to ruin the film. To be honest, I think I know what happened but I am not so sure if I am correct. If you watched this film, I would love to hear your interpretation.

Finally went to see Pirates of the Caribbean after Keish has repeatedly recommended it. Well, I gotta say, the film is quite entertaining. Geoffrey Rush gives a wonderful performance. His sense of humor carries through the entire film. I am suprise to see Johnny Depp pulls it off so well with his character. His Donnie Brasco’s character stuck in my head but he surely impressed me with his ability to take on different roles. Keira Knightley, what can I say? She is blazing. After all, Pirates of the Caribbean is a nice little escape from a long day at work.

Please, please, please! Don’t go see it. Go experience it. Together is a masterpiece that you definitely don’t want to miss. It’s so touching that caused almost everyone in the theater broke into tears. It’s a perfect film with great acting, beautiful cinematography and an inspiring story. On top of that the exquisite musical score provided an aesthetic experience in the entire feature. I am not going to give away any details. You have to experience it for yourself. I haven’t seen a film this great for a while. This is definitely an awarding work of art. Hopefully it will reach all the theaters. Right now it is only showing in selected theaters. It was my first time at Upstate Films. The theater is really different. It’s warm, cozy and friendly. I will definitely come back to it more often to experience great independent films. In fact I am ready to experience Together for the second time.

Just finished watching 30 episodes of Twisted Fate, a Chinese soap opera. It’s a great film. I really like the evil character. She has it all: money, beauty, intelligent, independent and evil. She is currently a top executive for a large firm but her goal is to be the CEO of the company and she is willing to sacrifice everything to reach it (even her love). She is good at hiding her emotional and is best at using men for what she wants and toss them after she is done. She works hard for everything she got and absolutely independent. At the end, she lost everything and even her life. She had no friends or family members left. Even though it’s just a movie, I can’t get her evil character and that pretty face out of my mind.

Yes, you can call me a ‘filmatic’ if there is such a word. I watched 4 movies over the weekend. Yeah! What a life huh? I am going to give a quick review for each of them.

Let’s get the bad one out of the way. Wrong Turn is a horror film starring a group of young good-looking teenagers, which reminded me of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer series. I hate horror films. They don’t scare me and the storyline is so predictable. The reason I watched this film because I missed ‘2 Fast 2 Furious.’ Instead of wasting my time walking around the mall for two hours, I wasted my two hours on this movie; therefore, I am not going to waste my time writing a review for it.

Next, 2 Fast 2 Furious is very entertaining. The storyline is out the window once again. Why would a top dog drug dealer (Carter played by Cole Hauser) hire two racers to deliver his money for 100 Gs each? Isn’t it safer to deliver the money by himself since he is a drug dealer anyway? Beside the storyline the film pretty stands out with hot racing cars and sexy chicks. Racing scenes are great. Tyrese’s performance was quite good with charisma. Monica Fuentes is absolutely sexy. 2 Fast 2 Furious is an enjoyable film after all.

Pixar once again created a masterpiece for Finding Nemo. Wish I could watch this film in an Imax 3D Theater. It’s such an inspirational film with gorgeous colors and fantastic motion. The storyline is very cute also. I was thinking of Sammy the whole time. I will take her out to see this when I go home. She would love this movie. Man, the characters are so real that I felt in love with them. It’s such a pleasure movie.

Lastly, The Italian Job is not that bad. It’s funny and entertaining. Mar Wahlberg and Edward Norton performances are not that bad but they are not that great either. I like the computer genius played by Seth Green. He is so funny and the whole ‘Naspter’ thing is hilarious. It’s not a bad film at all.

Gai Nhay portrays the reality of many young girls in Vietnam. It’s all about sex, money and survival. The film takes viewers into the dark and corrupted reality part of the Vietnamese society. Young girls were getting jacked, busted, and fucked. The film shows the life of the Bar Girls drinking, snoring, sniffing and vomiting afterward. Not only they had to deal with all the shit from the clients but their pimp as well. On top of that they had to battle with AIDS/HIV. I was surprised this film was allowed to screen in Ho Chi Minh City. They usually wouldn’t allow this kind of film to be show to the public. This film might be the birth of the Vietnamese’s movie industry. Although the cinematographic of this film is very poor, the storyline is real. Highly recommended.

If you watch Memento on DVD, you would notice the fascinating motion graphic piece in the interface where a flipping Polaroid photograph fades away instead of develops. I was not exactly sure what happened in the movie because I was drawn into the visual design and the motion graphic throughout the film. Especially the stunning technique in the beginning where the photograph fades to white than a bullet zips out a man’s head and back into the chamber of the gun. I might have to watch the movie again to get a better understanding of the story.

Wouldn’t be neat if you can be like Leonard (Guy Pearce)? You don’t have short-term memory but you can control your memories? You don’t need to remember all the bad ones and just capture and archive all the good and memorable ones. It’ll be cool because you would do things that you would not normally do. For instance, you wouldn’t afraid of embarrassing yourself in a crowd because you wouldn’t remember that embarrassing moment anyway. Overall, Memento is a great film from clever storyline to fascinating motion graphics. As Hillman Curtis describes it, “[Memento] will give you a generous dose of adrenaline, as you take the ride on a psychological roller coaster.”