The Taking of Pelham 123

Directed by Tony Scott. Since the movie has been released in the big screen it has earned $25,000,000 in total and is #3 of the top ten movies of the week by BoxOffice.

In my 2009 must see movies I have talked about this movie already that this is a remake of the 1974 film with the same title. So since this movie is part of my must see movies list of 2009, I called up my bestfriend to watch it with me. She personally have been to NY and has rode the Pelham 123. She told me its really exactly the same.

So, the movie started like its just an ordinary day in the subway. And Gruber played by Washington started his ordinary day as well. I think my bestfriend was right this is the first movie where denzel played a role as an underdog.

Now Ryder (travolta), and his men took the train in just one minute and no one even noticed it. When they went to the tunnel that's when they separated the passenger trunks to the main trunks. (sorry i don't know what they call that, so i call them trunks). The hostage terms were pretty simple. $10million in an hour and every minute that is pass one hour hostages starts to die. It is pretty interesting that the mayor of new york city is riding the subway train in this movie. Makes me wonder if the real NY mayor rides the train for real. So anyway back to the movie. As the movie unfolds we learned that Ryder is a former Wall Street Banker.. or so it seems to me. He keeps on monitoring the stock market and bringing down the dollar value against gold. Apparently years back before he was put to jail, he had like court hearing regarding his business that he appealed for and was only granted $2 million from the government and was given only $1million. Well that's what I understood since I failed my corporate accounting in college. The plan was so clean and sure, if Graber wasn't playing hero. Ryder could have gotten away from it. But in the end I think Ryder wanted a death sentence anyway. Now I wonder where his $300million stock will go now that his dead.

Over all the movie is great, but it kinda made the NY government look bad. And also there's the issue of Graber taking a $3500 bribe that cost his demotion coz he needed it to pay for his children's college. Which he finally admitted when Ryder was about to shoot a teenager.

Travolta hasn't lost his touch in acting. He is still good at it. So is Washington. The movie is worth of p160 I paid for for seeing the movie in the big screen. It doesn't have much action but its good.

10th Annual Golden Trailer Awards

Now this is a new added information to me. We all know about the Oscars (Academy awards) where they award movies not only with popularity but in terms of the quality in every movie aspects. Then there's the Golden Globe Awards, Actor's Guild Awards for actors in there movie performance. Tony Awards, MTV Movie awards that is based on popularity of the movie being nominated and voted by the fans never mind the quality of the movie. But never have I heard about an award show solely created just for movie trailers. In my quest in traveling into the vast network we call the internet. Moving from one domain to another nameservers within the network I stumbled into the URL of http://www.goldentrailer.com/. It is the home of the Golden Trailer Awards. Now, I love watching trailers. I even want to go in the movie house 30 or an hour earlier of the movie I am watching with reasons that I want to watch the trailer that they will be showing before the movie. But never did I realize that there are awards for this things. According to goldentrailer.com;

"Movie trailers play an increasingly important role in entertaining us and helping us determine where to spend our leisure time. The best trailers are works of art in their own right, expertly blending elements of cinema and advertising. "

Which is true, how many movies have we watched because the trailer intrigue us or the trailer looks interesting enough. (which is sometimes the trailer are more exciting compared to the actual movie itself. lol) It also makes sense since trailers are advertisements for the up coming movie and we all know that there are also advertising awards given out each year in the advertising industry.

So three days ago the 10th Annual Golden Trailers Awards was held in Director's Guild in America Theater Complex in 7920 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046. And here are the winners.

Best In Show
Star Trek, Aspect Ratio, Paramount Pictures

Best Action
Fast and Furious, AV Squad, Universal

Best Animation/Family
WALL-E, Craig Murray Productions, The Walt Disney Studios

Best Comedy
Bruno, The Ant Farm, Universal Pictures

Best Documentary
Man on Wire, The Editpool, Icon Film Distribution

Best Drama
Frost/Nixon, Empire Design, Working Title Films

Best Horror
The Unborn, Buddha Jones, Rogue Pictures

Best Independent Trailer
The Wrestler, Mark Woollen & Associates, Fox Searchlight

Best Music
Where the Wild Things Are, The Ant Farm, Warner Bros.

Best Romance
(500) Days of Summer, Mark Woollen & Associates, Fox Searchlight

Best Thriller
Angels & Demons, Trailer Park, Sony Pictures

Don La Fontaine Award for Best Voice Over
Tropic Thunder “Hollywood Legend”, Buddha Jones, DreamWorks

Golden Fleece
The Spirit, Seismic Productions, Lionsgate

Most Original
My Winnipeg, Kinetic Trailers, IFC Films


Summer 2009 Blockbuster
Star Trek, Aspect Ratio, Paramount Pictures



Trashiest Trailer
One Eyed Monster, The Refinery, Liberation Entertainment


if u want the full list of winners in this award show just click here

If u asked me I have no disputes with the winners. Not like the MTV Awards. I didn't like the results in MTV Awards this year. So I'm not writing any reviews in that show.

Drag me to Hell?

I wasn't planning to watch this movie with reasons that I find it corny and I'm not really a fan of Hollywood horror (coz hollywood horror are either gruesome or noisy full of screaming nonsense). But according to Box Office (the magazine that monitors profits in the movie industry), Drag me to hell as a earned $1,505,555 daily since its opening and so far $17,331,035 in total since its showing date gaining #4 in the BoxOffice Ranking since June 1st of 2009. So I went ahead and watch the movie out of curiousity.

Okey, here's the story line of the movie. Christine, is trying to win a promotion to be the new assistant manager that she is working. She's a loan officer in the bank. One day, a gypsie old woman requested for an extension for her loan. Apparantly she wasn't able to pay anything since she was sick and right now her house is in repod already by the bank. Since Christine wants this assistant manager promotion so bad, she decided to turn down the old woman's request even though she can still approve an extension to the mortage. So this creepy old woman cursed Christine to go to hell, in this story... literaly. LOL

I thought it would be a non-sense horror movie about screaming and body parts being sliced out from the body. But I guess I was wrong, its more like swallowing a fly why you were sleeping. Able to drink bodyly fluids with a corpse that fell on you or had a nose bleed that you ended up spraying your boss with blood. Just like any cursed horror movie, christine went out and seeked for a pyschic to help her with her troubles. Her boyfriend is so supportive as well. Although at first he was a bit pessimistic about the idea of Christine seeking for a psychic. One thing is this psychic was asking for $10,000. o.0 wow! that's a lot of money. I mean if your the real thing you don't price yourself let alone accept any payment for your services. So, anyway, boyfriend remembers his promise to Christine the day he fell inlove with her. I find it the most romantic time in the movie. I mean, your boyfriend was all the 100% supportive with you for going to see a paranormalist. C'mon guys admit it... 99.9% would think thier girlfriend is already coo-coo in the head and would either dumb them or advice them to seek help with the likes of Dr. Phil. lol.

Cinematographyis ok. There was the time, in the scene of the round table calling forth the spirit, on the birds-eye-view shot they forgot the goat beside Christine. lol. I guess the editor didn't notice that. :P However, in the ending I somehow able to guess how the movie ends. The scene where she accidentaly lost the envelope in her boyfriend's car. Yeah in that one, my guess was right, She got the wrong envelope. The real one that contanied the cursed object was left in his boyfriend's car. But the movie is OK, not an oscar kind of movie but its ok. Now I rate this movie OK, because It has a lesson learned. "Loan Officers? Don't be selfish. You never know the person your kicking out their house will DRAG YOU TO HELL in 3days." ROFL.

Seriously, the moral stoy of the movie is do not be selfish when it comes to personal gain. Trust me, nothing good happens if you do. Everything has a price.

It's COraline!!!

There are a lot of Niel Gaiman's book turned to movie that wasn't shown in our theaters. For example, Mirror Mask. But we are not talking about MM... I will be talking about Coraline. "Not Caroline. It's COraline!"

I remember back then when I was starting up here in manila. Living alone, no cable no radio... so I have grown to a habit in buying books to read. One day I saw NG's Coraline book and back then it was just for only p150, Cheap for a Neil Gaiman book. So I bought it. I read it and it was fine for a children's book. Not so confusing as some of his children's book. But I won't be talking about Coraline as the book coz that will be over BookWench and this is MovieWench Blog.

So the movie started with a nice childreyny (if there is such word) song. All through out the movie it seems like they have followed the book, but I don't remember Wybie... Coraline's noisy annoying neighbor. But anyway, movie goes like this. Coraline and her parents just transferred to the pink castle and she discovers this little door behind the wallpaper and met her other mother and other father. It looks like this place through the little door is a parallel universe which has everybody in Coraline's life has an other self. And with this other parents she has she gets to do everything she wants and everything her real parents are not able to do the other parents can. Then there is the catch, like them which has button eyes, Coraline needs to have buttons sewn into her eyes in able to stay in that world and that would be forever. So she ran away from the other mother who eventually is a kind of spirit who eats little children's life force. Only to find out that her real parents was abducted by the other mother. Well to cut things short, Coraline ended saving her real parents and forever shutting the other mother out and dropping the key to the small door to the well.

Story is like the alice in wonderland if Gaiman was the one who wrote alice. Its quite easy to know the moral story, "Children, do not be fooled from people who gives you everything you want. Coz REMEMBER! Everything has a price."

In terms of Cinamatography... good, its animation anyway so they have done it well enough... Although it could have been nice for Tim Burton to have directed it instead in producing it. The animation style is close to Burton's Animaion style. (think Nightmare before christmas and Corpse Bride). Soundtrack is excellent perfectly fits the storyline and the atmosphere of the animation. This is a good children's movie perfect for the family to watch it together in the big screen.