Tuesday, January 31, 2017

(TV SERIES) Quantico - Season 1

This is another series that caught my attention when I saw the trailer to it more than 1 year ago. A story involving an FBI Agent who seemed to be framed for a bombing in New York city seemed interesting. So after I watched the series Blindspot and thinking which series I should see, I decided to watch this one. And boy was I delighted that I saw this. So what's it all about? Let's move on to the more interesting part. As usual, since there is mystery element in this series, I would try my best to avoid any spoiler and hence, I would put emphasis on the story in pilot episode rather than the whole series.

Brief Story Line

The first episode started with the scene of a woman lying in the debris of what seemed to be a result of a bomb that exploded in the city of New York. Then it flash back to the time of 9 months earlier with the introduction of the characters preparing themselves to go to Quantico, the place where FBI trainees went for training before they could become Agents and assigned to the various FBI headquarters all across the US. The first main character introduced was Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra - Bollywood mega star with Indian movie hits such as Krrish and Don) who was the woman shown in the early opening scene. Alex seemed to leave her mother without her knowledge of her going to Quantico. On the way there, she met with a charming guy on a plane named Ryan Booth (Jake McLaughlin - Safe House, Crash TV series etc). 

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter - Or is it???

Resident Evil has been 1 of my quite favorite action movie with the war between human and zombies. So when I heard there was going to be another movie in the "series", I did not hesitate to decide in seeing this one when it premiered yesterday. As usual, for a weekday movie premiere, my wife was kind enough to spare some time to buy the tickets for me (thx honey). The time was 7 PM and it was in Lotte Avenue with the Dolby Surround 11.1 system which would quench my thirst for a good sound system when watching this kind of movie in theater. After having our light dinner, we arrived at the studio at almost the start of the movie.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with few minutes of background story of how the zombies were created, which kind of summed up the entire 5 previous Resident Evil series and continued with our main protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich - Ultraviolet, The Three Musketeers etc) who arrived at Washington DC only to find out that there was no one to save. After fighting off a very large monster, Alice reached an Umbrella corporation old office where the computer was switched on, and the Red Queen (the hologram of young Alice) informed Alice that the cure to the T-Virus was already created. She convinced Alice that the cure should be acquired in 48 hours otherwise it would be released only to the Umbrella Corporation executives. The location of the cure was none other than the underground headquarters called the Hive in Raccoon City where it all started.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

(TV SERIES) Blindspot Season 1 - The Mystery Surrounding A Woman with Body Full of Tattoos

It has been a while since I last posted a review of a TV series. In fact, the last time I posted was back in 2016, so this is my first post of a TV series in 2017. It was not the first series that I completed this year, but it is the first one that really made me want to complete it very fast and write it immediately. I think I saw the trailer of this new series in 2016 and it really intrigued me. So after some weeks of watching other series, I was looking for new series that I can enjoy, and I remembered about this one. Well let's find out what the story is all about. What I will write below was a brief story involving the pilot episode and few other subsequent episodes which I hope would not reveal too much spoiler.

Brief Story Line

The series started with the finding of a large travel bag in the middle of New York Times Square with lots of people walking around. A team of bomb squad had emptied the location and when a soldier was going to check on the possible bomb threat, something was moving inside the bag and it was opening from the inside, where a naked woman whose body was full of tattoos came out of the bag. She claimed that she did not know who she was or how she got there.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Hacker (aka Anonymous) - A Hackers Movie Without A Lot of Hacking

UPDATE on 29 May 2026 for post published on 22 January 2017:

Someone claimed that he was the right owner of this content which is ridiculous. My post was very specific related to my experience and I even took out the picture in case it was the part he was referring to. But somehow I still got same response and this post was put in Draft again by Google. This is a very strange decision and no one would be willing to write in personal blog if anybody can just easily claim that he/she is the rightful owner without providing any evidence. Anyway, I am going to repost this again, but if it is taken off again, I will just take put this forever in my draft.



This week, it was quite surprising that only 1 major movie premiered in Indonesia which was xXx: Return of Xander Cage and I already saw and reviewed it earlier. There were actually 2 or 3 other movies that premiered on Friday in Jakarta but I decided to watch this one on my Saturday. I went to Cinemaxx Plaza Semanggi around 11.30AM and just I predicted, the cinema was packed with a lot of people. Reason was Cinemaxx theater was having free tickets giveaway unconditionally to audience only for the shows before 3 PM. I was actually waiting for my wife to complete her food tasting event but she told me she would not be able to make it for the 2.30PM show. So I took 1 free ticket for myself and I was really grateful for Cinemaxx for having this wonderful giveaway. 

Thursday, January 19, 2017

xXx: Return of Xander Cage - Another Franchise Revival Emphasizing on Mind Blowing Action

Finally after many years, a sequel to xXx had come back to the cinemas. I was excited to see this one as I remembered that the earlier movies were full of action and therefore should provide an exciting change to an otherwise months filled with more serious/heavy movies in theaters. Since my wife had returned from her trip on Tuesday night, she would be able to accompany me to see this on its premiere date yesterday. She even helped me to buy the tickets at Kota Kasablanka which was my first experience watching movie there. My wife had a friends gathering there and I thought it would be a good experience to try a different cinema for a change, especially since the 7PM show was in a cinema with Dolby Atmos. Alas, before the movie started, it showed that the sound system was Dolby Surround 7.1. I was a bit disappointed as the 21cineplex website clearly indicated that the 7PM show was in the cinema with Dolby Atmos. If the cinema operator could not show movie using such system, the website should not have put up this info. I know that most people do not really care for such things, but it mattered to me. Anyway, let us move on to the movie.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Patriots Day - The Horrifying True Story of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing

This movie already premiered in Indonesian theater on last Friday and I was tempted to watch it on that day itself, but I changed my mind as the time did not really suit me. Then I wanted to watch it on Sunday, but the appeal of spending my off day just to sleep around all day was too tempting and so I did not go out that day. I continued watching a TV series (which I may write about it sometime later) till completion and only finally did go to see the movie last night. It was quite a long movie with over 2 hours length and hence it started not the usual 7PM but at 6.35PM instead. Since my wife was still in Singapore for her vacation trip, I went to Setiabudi and bought the ticket for myself. There were still a lot of empty seats despite I reached there at almost 6PM. Not sure about the reason coz I strongly believe the movie would be attracting lots of attention. Anyway their loss was my gain as I still managed to get quite a nice seat. Well, enough of my rambling above and let's get on to the movie.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Live By Night - Not Your Average Gangster Movie

It was a week full of work in my office and I was very busy even after office hour that I was unable to spare time to see new movies premiering during this week. There were 2 movies that premiered on Wednesday (if I am not mistaken) and this was one of them. The other one was a huge winner in Golden Globe Awards earlier, but since I was not a fan of a musical film, I chose to concentrate on this movie instead. I am sure you know which movie that I was referring to. Anyway, after I finished doing something relating to my work at around 3 pm today, I went to the cinema in Plaza Semanggi by myself (as my wife was having few days vacation trip to Singapore) and bought the ticket for 4.45PM show. Not a lot of audience to see, which was understandable as the movie did not get a lot of hype in Indonesia. So let us move on to the story. As I am unable to provide the brief story line without revealing the plot, I would advise you to skip this part and go direct to my conclusion if you are like me who despise the facts or spoilers shared by "irresponsible" persons. 

Brief Story Line (spoiler warning!)

Sunday, January 8, 2017

The Girl on The Train - An Interesting Movie of A Mystery Seen from The Moving Train

After playing in Indonesia for over a week, I finally got the chance to see this movie yesterday. It was playing only in 2 cinema chains, so it was a bit challenging to search for cinemas that are still playing. Even in Cinemaxx, it is currently playing only in 1 theater in Plaza Semanggi and just 1 show per day. Anyway, my wife who was having an unusually free Saturday wanted to accompany me for the movie. So off we go and see it at 1.45PM. Let's find out more on the movie now. I will try my best to keep the story line as brief as possible and avoid any chance of spoiler. However, if you are worried of such risk, and just want to know my views of the movie, then you can just go direct to my conclusion below the End of Brief Story Line.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the introduction of Rachel (Emily Blunt - Edge of Tomorrow, The Huntsman: Winter's War etc) who always commute from her house to her workplace on daily basis. From her narrative, it was revealed that her train always passed a house lived by a young couple who seemed to lead a romantic lovely life. She even imagined many good things about the couple. It was revealed later also that she ever lived in a house 2 doors next that couple's house. During these introduction scenes, we would see that Rachel was an alcoholic and unstable woman, with highly active imagination and was having too high curiosity, especially towards this young couple.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Arrival - An Unusual Story of the Arrival of Aliens On Earth

It was a bit late for Indonesians to see this movie as it had already played in the US for quite some time. I was not sure for such delay as normally movies would start to premier in Indonesia same day or sometimes even earlier than in US. But anyway, it was a good thing that it still premiered in January 2017 (rather than say mid of the year), since we had the chance to see it before the Golden Globe award was announced. Yes, this movie was nominated in Golden Globe. So should be good, right? Anyway, let's get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Louise Banks (Amy Adams - Enchanted, Man of Steel etc) was a very good linguist who taught at a university. One day while she was giving a lecture to her class, news were spreading around about some Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) which landed in the Montana, US. Apparently there were altogether 12 similar UFO in other countries like China, Russia, Pakistan, Sudan and so on. Class was then dismissed for security reasons.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

The Great Wall - The "Legend" Behind the Wall's Creation

This movie was one of my most anticipated movie for the early 2017. Its trailer had been shown many times in previous weeks and the movie itself started to have the midnight show on the New Year's Eve. However, since my wife and I had a weekend staycation and wanted to enjoy our room for the night, we decided not to see the movie then, but on its premier date yesterday. So off we went to see it in our usual favorite cinema location on a weekday, i.e at Lotte Avenue at 7 PM. Well let's get on with the movie, shall we?

Brief Story Line

A group of European mercenaries were circling around the desert in the North of China while looking for the rumored black powder which supposedly can create explosions. After escaping from the chase of the local tribe, they were spending the night at a hidden place while determining their next action plan. During their rest, they were attacked by something in the dark where William (Matt Damon - The Bourne Identity, The Martian and so on) was able to kill one of it and asked his friend Pero (Pedro Pascal - The Adjustment Bureau, Game of Thrones TV series) to bring along the remaining hand of the monster.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Why Him? - A Comedy of Overprotective Father Relationship With His Daughter's Boyfriend

This movie looked to be very hilarious from the trailer that I had seen in the past 2 weeks or so. And I needed to see something funny to lighten my mood, so my wife and I decided to see this on the first day of the year 2017. The fact that it was the only movie playing in Lotte Avenue which we had not seen, certainly made the choice easier. We went to Lotte Avenue since on the new year's eve, we spent another weekend staycation at the Ascott hotel in the same complex. They had this nice access door direct from hotel to the mall. Anyway, after our lunch with my brother in law's little family, we watched this movie at the 2.30 PM show. Well, let us get on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston - Godzilla, Get A Job etc) was a middle aged family man who started and built his own printing company to become quite a success for many years. He was adored and trusted by his employees that included his right hand man Lou (Cedric The Entertainer - Barbershop, the voice of Maurice in Madagascar trilogy etc) and Kevin the IT guy (Zack Pearlman).