(TV SERIES) Mr. Robot Season 1 - Psychological Drama Thriller of Hackers and Cyber Attack

It has been a while since I wrote my views on TV series as I had been doing a lot of catching up for ongoing series such as Game Of Thrones (season 6) and The Walking Dead (season 6) and also finishing some of the series that have ended such as Justified, Bitten, Glee, Cougar Town, Downton Abbey etc. So now I had the chance to start seeing new series and possibly continue catching up other series that I have not been able to watch for a while. This series caught my attention when I read somewhere that it was very good. The lead actor also had won Emmy awards few weeks ago. So should be interesting, right? Anyway, what was the story all about?

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage - The Unexposed True Story Impacting the End of World War 2

This movie had premiered in Jakarta theaters since last Friday but only in 1 cinema chain. I was not sure whether I wanted to see this one or not since it was not the usual Hollywood blockbuster kind of movie and I am only familiar with 1 name which was Nicolas Cage. But then the movie was playing in the theater nearest our home which added the element of interest. And yesterday was a slow Monday & I had no urgent task at the office, so I was free to see it with my wife who already bought the tickets for 6.40PM show since lunch time. Well what's the story all about?

Bad Moms - When Moms are Tired Being the Perfect Mothers

I have watched the trailer to this movie few times already and was definitely interested in watching it, but did not get the chance to watch until last weekend. When my wife was finally able to accompany me (as I knew she would not want to missed out on seeing this one), we managed to go and see it in a theater where quite luckily, there was a promotion of Buy 1 Get 1 Free ticket in 1 of the cinema chain in Indonesia. And it was even luckier that it applied for all classes, so we were able to watch it in the VIP type cinema with only 12 coupled reclining seats in the whole theater.

The Magnificent Seven - 2016 Remake of 1960 Remake of 1954 Original!

I was not a big fan of Western Cowboy movie nowadays. I am not sure since when I lost the interest, coz during my younger age (while I was still in primary school), I totally loved cowboy movies. I even imagined myself as a sheriff, holding guns to capture bad guys. LOL. But when I grew out of such passion, I hardly ever watched any western cowboy movies, not even the famous The Lone Ranger. Anyway, as I saw the trailer of this movie and since it was having few quite famous actors playing in it, I thought I ought to give it a chance to see it. So here we were (I managed to convince my wife to accompany me, even though she was not really in to such genre) watching it yesterday. So what was the story actually? Let's find out, shall we?

STORKS - What a Cute and Adorable Movie!

Another night of watching the premiere of a new movie in theater awaited my wife and I last night. As the time was a little bit earlier than usual (6.45PM), I had to leave the office quite on time. A funny thing actually happened while we were waiting in the cinema for the start of the movie, as a couple was like choosing the best place to sit. We were both amazed at this "scene" coz it was not the first time we saw this. In fact we also heard that other person had the bad experience of having to politely tell the persons sitting in their seats but instead of getting the apology, they were like complaining for being asked to move. And worst part was they even chose to sit at other places (not their own seats). Anyway, perhaps security in cinemas need to be more proactive to avoid such cases (including to avoid the live streaming from theater that happened during the screening of the most successful Indonesian movies till date, Warkop DKI Reborn: Jangkrik Boss part 1).

Pete's Dragon - Another Lovely Disney Movie

It has been a couple of weeks since I watched a movie on weekday, so when my wife and I had the opportunity to watch something yesterday, it was decided that we would watch this film as it was already playing for a week and it may get more difficult to watch it in our favorite theaters. As usual, the tickets were for 7PM show and I was able to reach location nicely. It was quite odd though that when we were so on time to sit in the theater after it opened at 6.45PM, the trailer only began 5 minutes before the movie should have started. It only made sense later the reason was there was just 1 trailer to be shown. I guess there were not that many family friendly movie playing soon. Anyway let's get on with the story.

Brief Story Line

A very young Pete befriended with a funny looking green dragon in the forest of Millhaven in the US. He named the dragon Elliot as per the name of a dog in the children story book that he was holding. Six years later, a bigger roughly 11 years old Pete (Oakes Fegley) had become very accustomed to the life at the forest. He had built a tree house very high with the help from Elliot, while Elliot himself stayed in a cave inside the forest. The two of them were very close and Elliot was very protective of Pete.

However, their peace was a little bit distracted when 1 day during their trip quite far from their home, Elliot and Pete saw Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard - Spiderman 3, Jurassic World etc) identifying trees that should not be chopped down. Elliot was able to camouflage himself and made him seemingly invisible (just like a chameleon). Pete took away Grace's locket and hid himself when Grace heard something.

The following day, a group of lumberjack crew led by Gavin (Karl Urban - Dredd, new Star Trek trilogy, etc) were chopping down trees and the noise awaken Pete. He was curious and looking from quite nearby. Meanwhile, the owner who was also Gavin's brother, Jack (Wes Bentley - The Hunger Games, Interstellar etc) came to see the location with his girlfriend Grace and also his daughter Natalie (Oona Lawrence - Bad Moms). Natalie saw Pete and was curious so she went to the forest. Like children they were, soon they were running around and climbing trees. But when she climbed too high, she fell down and screamed. Gavin, Jack and Grace immediately ran into the woods and finally saw Pete. 

Grace tried to persuade Pete to calm down, but when he tried to run away, he was accidentally knocked unconscious by Gavin. He was later on brought to the hospital and taken care by Grace, Jack and Natalie, despite Pete's insistence to go home to the forest. He tried to explain that he had to go back to find his friend Elliot, which seemed very much like a dragon after he drew it. Grace was curious and asked her father Mr. Meachem (the veteran Robert Redford) on what he saw years ago. He asked Grace to open her mind about something she had never seen.

Meanwhile, Gavin who got suspicious of the sound in the forest went in and spotted a very big footprint and started to investigate with his crew. It was indeed Elliot who was worried when he could not find Pete after he woke up. He had no choice but to camouflage himself to avoid being seen by Gavin and his crew. 

So what would happen next? Would Gavin & crew able to find what they were looking for? Could Elliot find Pete again? Would Pete return to the forest to be together with his best friend Elliot? Find them all in this lovely & touching family movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As a typical Disney movie, you should expect to see a family friendly story. This one is no exception. It had all the ingredients of a lovely family drama movie, with touching odd relationship between a boy and his friend (who happens to be a dragon) and also family relationship. I quite enjoyed the movie, as apart from having those moments, it also had some funny moments (but not very hilarious ones) and I also enjoyed the good CGI special effect on the creation of Elliot. So please do not compare this with other kids movie where the aim was to make you laugh out loud.

It was a little bit funny looking at Elliot as he did not look like the usual dragon that we have pictures of, but his expression seemed more like a dog, especially when he loved to sniff around. He also sometimes sounded like a horse. At some points I even saw similarity of the popular Shrek's face, especially since Elliot's skin was green. Anyway it was hard not to root for him as the closest thing to a father to Pete and also his loving & caring for Pete. It was no doubt the greatest thing about this movie was their relationship. Elliot also pictured as a dragon in the real world where he could not speak. So this is not one of those movies where the animals can speak.

The movie also had some tension moments, especially in the final third of the story. But please do not expect a story about dragon eating people, or dragon killing people. This is not that kind of movie. Please remember that this is family drama movie. If people are expecting fast paced & many plot twist, then this movie is really not for you. It is a movie that you can sit back and enjoy & watch it together with your family. It is also very safe for kids to watch. 

Enjoy watching it while still playing in theaters.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Note:

I just found out that this movie was actually a remake of 1977 musical animated movie of the same title. That one also received good review and even got an Oscar nomination for the original song titled "Candle on the Water". So this was not an original movie, although it was also done by Disney in the 1977 version. 

Blood Father - The Latest Mel Gibson's Movie

This film premiered in Jakarta theaters on Friday night only in 1 cinema chain. So the option to watch it was a bit fewer than if it's playing in all of them. When my wife and I returned from 1 of her food tasting event in west Jakarta last night, we chose to watch this movie as it was the only new movie (out of 4 that came out this week) which was playing in the theater nearest our home and the only one we had sufficient time to be able to watch it. Well what is the whole story all about?

Brief Story Line

The movie started with the scene of a teenage girl named Lydia (Erin Moriarty - After The Dark, Captain Fantastic) trying to buy some bullets from a supermarket. After that she gave the bullets to her boyfriend Jonah (Diego Luna - Contraband, Elysium, etc) with his gang who were trying to rob a house. Jonah was trying to calm Lydia down for doing the robbery but the robbery soon went very wrong, resulting to Lydia had to get away from the house.

Feeling worried of being chased by Jonah's men, she contacted her father John Link (Mel Gibson - Mad Max, Braveheart, Lethal Weapon and many more) who was an ex convict and making money by making tattoes for people. As he was still in parole, he could not do any crime related activities. John was getting sober from alcohol addiction and grew friends with his sponsor Kirby (William H. Macy - Marmaduke, The Lincoln Lawyer etc) and each of them living in a trailer which were located across each other in a trailer park.

John who had been divorced with his wife had been looking for Lydia who ran away since she was 14 years old and put up advertisement of her as missing person. Naturally he was happy to hear her after few years and immediately willing to help her. But he noticed Lydia was having drug addiction and convinced her to stay at his trailer for 1 week before he let her go with the money she wanted to escape with.

During her stay in that trailer, Lydia kept on receiving messages on her phone from Jonah's men that they were going to catch her. John was also trying very hard to help Lydia on her addiction. Until 1 night, three gang members who were Jonah's men came to John's trailer. They were asking John to give her up. After some heated exchange of words and gunshots, those 3 left the trailer park with threats to John that they would come back.

John who was not going back to prison and was really confused why Lydia was having this kind of problem, had no choice but to leave the park with her. He knew that by doing this, he would be breaking his parole. Kirby who was his sponsor tried his best to ask John to stay and explain to the police he would not do it to protect his daughter. 

So would John be able to save Lydia after all despite his problems with the law? What was Lydia actually doing with Jonah that would make her the target of the mafia who even assigned a very dangerous hit man to catch her? Watch them and find them all out till the end.

End of Brief Story Line

My wife and I did not have a lot of information about this movie. So we did not know what to expect about it. But the movie did have some nice moments in it. Particularly the relationship between a criminal father with his only daughter and also the unconditional love from the father to a child. This film was categorized as action thriller. For me personally I think this movie was more like a drama with some actions. Reason being the actions were not a lot in the film and there were more of dramatic moments. 

For those who want to see different kind of action movie, I think this one can be an option. Remember that the movie itself is only playing in 1 cinema chain in Indonesia. One thing though. The language in the movie was very explicit as there were so many F words in it. Also it had some minor scene with drug use. I really think this movie was not suitable for teens let alone children. So the censorship body got it spot on when they categorized this as mature rating. Hence, it was really amazing when there were parents who brought their very young child to see this (yes in fact there were 2 such parents and 1 of them sit next to me.. What a real shock!). I really think the security or cinema persons should be more proactive in their role of restriction for audience based on the rating of the movie.

Apart from those disturbance from the child next to me, I personally had some fun watching the movie. It has its few bits of fun (scene involving the motel receptionist Jason) and also the action scenes especially in the finale. As I said above, since it was more drama than action, we should not expect so many gunshots or car chases or special effects of things blown away. Although the actions involving Mel Gibson was surprisingly still good. He was after all a 60 year old guy. I got to admit I was a bit amazed with how he was still able to do the stunt on the motor cycle. So if you are looking for a full action movie in cinemas, then this may not be to your liking. 

A movie with the premise of father helping a daughter would be quite a lot, but I could not remember a movie where the father was an ex convict. Anyway, I understand that the movie was playing first at the Cannes film festival and it does not seem to be playing in US. And it also generated a very favorable rating from those. Though I myself did not have the very best moment in watching it as there were few moments that I felt a little bit bored, but overall it was an OK movie. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Paddington - The Cute Lovable Bear Comes to Live

This film had played in the theaters back in December 2014 to celebrate Christmas. I am not sure why I did not watch this movie then, but when it finally played in cable TV, I was still not having the chance to watch it. Until last Saturday that is, when my wife was having another night of weekend complimentary staycation in a hotel and I was lucky enough that spouse was allowed to tag along. As usual I would not miss the chance to enjoy lying on bed and choosing a movie that I can watch on TV when this movie popped up. So I stopped my browsing and continue to watch it (unfortunately I missed few minutes of the beginning). Anyway, I would just proceed to the story.

Brief Story Line

When I started to watch, the movie was showing the scene where a young bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw - Q in Skyfall and Spectre) was staying in the jungles of Peru with his uncle named Pastuzo (voiced by Michael Gambon - Dumbledore in Harry Potter movies) and aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton - The Awakening, Maleficent etc). All 3 of them were quite addicted to marmalade and managed to intelligently create a "machine" that could peel the oranges and produced marmalade in jars for them to eat in the cold season. They were also practicing and learning to become a Londoner so they can go to London and live there.

One night a huge earthquake hit the jungle and they had to revise their plan where only the young bear would go to London. Aunt Lucy dropped him off to a cargo ship travelling to England. After reaching there, he went to a train station and was looking for someone who would find him a home. Unfortunately unlike what he thought about Londoners' hospitality, nobody took the slightest interest of him until Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine, Godzilla etc) a mother of two, took pity on the young bear. She promised to look for the "geographer" who could provide home for him. She offered him to stay for the night at their house, despite the reluctance from her husband, Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville - The Monuments Men, Downton Abbey TV series). Mary decided to name the bear Paddington from the train station's name. 

As Paddington never stayed at a normal house before, he created many incidents in the house to the resentment of Henry. Though his son Jonathan enjoyed his company, but his daughter Judy, being a teenager did not like having a strange bear staying in their house. Things were also complicated with Browns nosy neighbor named Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi) who dislike a bear in their classy neighborhood. After the help from Mary, they found out that Paddington's hat was specifically produced for the Geographers Guild and they should look for Montgomery the Geographer who visited Peru many years ago and was the one advising the intelligent bears to come to London.

Meanwhile a taxidermist named Millicent (Nicole Kidman - Eyes Wide Shut, The Others, The Stepford Wives and many more) wanted to become famous by capturing and collecting exotic animals. She found out about the arrival of smart talking bear who loved marmalade and decided she must do whatever it takes to capture it and put into the museum.

So could Paddington find the Geographer and a suitable home for him? Could Paddington and the Browns be good friends? What would happen to Millicent's "mission" and why was she so desperate to capture Paddington? All of those could be answered till the end of the movie.

End of Brief Story Line

This movie was a family friendly movie. It was aimed to create the feel good factor during the Christmas period and I thought it was quite successful in doing so. It was entertaining and indeed provided the fun satisfaction of looking at various hilarious scenes involving Paddington and his naivety in coping with live at London in a civilized house owned by Henry, especially with his English formalities.

I enjoyed watching this movie and loved the special effect of making Paddington seemed real. I also loved Hugh Bonneville's portrayal of Henry Brown who was originally so stiff but could also become flexible when required. His character here was different compared to the English aristocrat in the British TV series Downton Abbey (which happened to be one of my wife's favorite TV shows).

If you happen to be having doubts of what to watch on your cable tv, then this one can probably be a refreshing option. Even if you have already watched it before, I am quite sure it could still provide you some good laugh. But if you do not enjoy watching movie of talking animal, then perhaps this one would not suit you.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Warkop DKI Reborn: Jangkrik Boss! Part 1 - Reboot of the Famous Iconic Trio Indonesian Comedian

This movie had been buzzing for a while and created a very great excitement among the Indonesian movie goers. My wife and I were also interested in seeing the reboot of these 3 very iconic comedians called Warkop DKI. The trailer that was shown in the theaters were showing several scenes where they referred to some of the titles of Warkop DKI's earlier movies. So the plot of the movie itself was not truly shown. Nevertheless, it did not hold our enthusiasm to watch the movie on its premiere day. When my wife went to the cinema to buy the tickets 10 minutes before 12PM, the queues were already so long despite the selling did not even start until 12PM. Lucky she still got the tickets for 9 PM (could not get our usual 7 PM schedule). Anyway, let's get started, shall we?

Brief Story Line

The movie started with introduction of three good friends were working in a private community force dressed similar to police force called CHIPS, Dono (Abimana Aryasatya - Negeri Van Oranje, Sabtu Bersama Bapak etc), Kasino (Vino G. Bastian - 30 Hari Mencari Cinta, Bangkit etc) and Indro (Tora Sudiro - Arisan!, 3 Dara etc). These 3 were shown to be trying their best in helping police in several matters such as helping kids whose soccer ball stuck in a tree, warning car that went through the bus way lane and even ticketing motor cyclist who was driving against the proper flow. 

However, while trying to help, Kasino mistakenly identified as a provocator and captured by police. After CHIPS boss (Ence Bagus - Comic 8, The Wedding & Bebek Betutu etc) apologize to the police chief, Kasino was released and the 3 of them could continue to work. When Kasino accidentally saw something improper done by the boss, he was able to "blackmail" him using the code: Jangkrik (cricket). Later on we could also see that these 3 were having financial problems and were buying stuffs using credit but unable to pay. 

Meanwhile following the recent robberies in Jakarta, the boss wanted CHIPS to assist police in capturing these robbers called "begal". However, knowing that Dono, Kasino and Indro were incompetent, he enlisted the help from a CHIPS officer from France called Sophie (Hannah Al Rashid - Comic 8: Kasino Kings). She was a professional and experienced in capturing bad guys. Seeing how pretty Sophie was, the 3 of them started to compete and get her attention.

Without adding too much detail on the story, I believe it would be just nice if you continue to watch the film by yourself to find out what crazy things would happen when Dono, Kasino and Indro joined forces with Sophie and trying to capture those begal.

End of Brief Story Line

This movie was very satisfying in term of providing us much laughter. My wife and I laughed throughout the whole film with I think the rest of the audience who flooded the theater (btw it was completely full house which I believe was happening in most theaters in Jakarta). There were few people who were very noisy before the movie started but fortunately with so many funny scenes, those disturbing noises were covered under the voice of our laughter. It had been such a long time since we had this kind of laugh in a movie.

For those of us lucky enough to watch Warkop DKI movies, we would be having the nostalgic feeling of seeing Abimana, Vino and Tora literally re-live our memories of the original Dono, Kasino and Indro. It was like they stopped being themselves and transformed into the late Dono, Kasino and into Indro. I believe they really did a wonderful job on this. Two thumbs up!

The film was also filled with the cameos of Indro, the only remaining actor of original Warkop DKI. There were also some quite well known stars in various smaller scenes such as the senior Hengky Solaiman, Inggrid Widjanarko, Ari Tulang, Nikita Mirzani and few others. However, one performance that really caught our attention was definitely the famous Tarzan from Srimulat. The scene involving him and the trio was my most favorite and memorable moment (among so many others).

For those who love to see the slapstick humor that were like trademark of Warkop DKI movies, you would be satisfied watching this one. It had all those ingredients. Meanwhile for those who are not familiar, can probably relate to smart satire remarks of politicians, parliament and police & quite upto date jokes or meme circling around in social medias. There were very minor vulgar humor, but since Indonesian censorship did not cut it, I guess it's still ok for teens but may not be suitable for children below 13 (hence the rating of R13+)

I realize that movies are really subjective type of entertainment. Some people may find this movie awesome but others may find it awful. However, I am not sure if people could not be entertained with this movie. I truly cannot wait to see 2nd part of this movie. (Yes this movie is 1st part and it had a cliffhanger ending). 

Anyway, this movie is really recommended. If you have time to watch it, please do so. You can watch it with your spouse, your boyfriend/girlfriend, your friends, your colleagues, your families, just do it. It's entertaining even if you are watching by yourself. I personally think this one would be a great hit and I would not be surprised if it would break some records in Indonesian cinemas. Updated Jan 2017, the movie did go on to become the most watched Indonesian movie of all time with > 6 million audience. Great Job to all the team!

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Note:

As mentioned earlier, Warkop DKI was originally consisting of the late Wahyu Sardono (shortened to Dono), the late Kasino Hadiwibowo (shortened to Kasino) and Indrodjojo Kusumonegoro (shortened to Indro. These 3 and other personnels named Nanu Mulyono and Rudy Badil filled a comedy talkshow in Prambors radio during the 1970s. The show was called Warung Kopi (Coffee shop) as the format was supposed to be like when people were having conversation & chit chatting in a coffee shop. Since the show was aired in that radio, they were later on called as Warkop Prambors (Warkop shortened for Warung Kopi). The comedy program was a success and they started to be invited filling in various shows and became famous. Subsequently they changed the group's name to Warkop DKI (referring to Jakarta's identity and also shorten of their 3 remaining personnels Dono Kasino and Indro). Warkop DKI also made numerous films that were very successful in the 1980s and 1990s. After Kasino passed away and later Dono, Indro was the only one left from the group. So it was very cool of him to recreate the new Warkop DKI and his talent for spotting these 3 as the perfect actors filling in their big shoes.

The BFG - Stephen Spielberg's Latest Movie

This movie actually already premiered in limited theaters last Saturday & Sunday, but as my wife and I were engaged in other activities during that weekend, we were unable to watch it until it premiered in all cinemas yesterday. As usual we watched the 7 PM show, though yesterday due to heavy rain poured Jakarta since 5.30 PM, the traffic was much heavier than it used to be and I was almost late reaching the location. Anyway, good thing I could still watch it from the start.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of Sophie (played by British actress Ruby Barnhill) a young orphan girl staying in an orphanage in London who had trouble sleeping. At 3 AM in the morning while she was reading a book, she heard a noise from outside her room full of other orphans. Though she tried her best not to get out of bed and walk to the window, she still did it and saw a giant hand holding a trash can. Feeling scared, she immediately went back to bed hiding in her blanket. But the giant's hand which fit through the window, picked her up and brought Sophie around using her blanket. The giant immediately ran out of London while also hiding in the shadows of houses and trees and reached his house.

Sophie tried to escape from the giant's house. But she was recaptured and put on top of the giant's kitchen table where he could see her. Sophie tried to ask the giant to release her, but he refused since he was worried Sophie would go out and tell everyone that there was a giant and there would be a big giant chase. Despite Sophie's promise not to do it, the giant still insisted her to stay at his house indefinitely.

Apparently, the giant (Mark Rylance - The Other Boleyn Girl, The Gunman etc) was staying in the Giant Country where he was considered small compared to the other 9 giants. Their leader was Fleshlumpeater (Jemaine Clement - Muppets Most Wanted, Rio 2 etc) always bullied the giant who they called Runt. He was suspicious that there was a human bean (what the giants refer to human being) hiding in Runt's house, but he could not find it.

Meanwhile, Runt and Sophie started to have a better relationship and she got to know what Runt do everyday which was to capture dreams in the humans world. Runt also seemed to give affection to Sophie, but he still have some hesitation. After following Runt's mission to capture dreams, Sophie began to call Runt the BFG shorten for Big Friendly Giant. She was very amazed of what BFG did especially where he could also put dreams into people. However, Fleshlumpeater and the rest of the giants found out there really was a human hidden by BFG and they would do whatever they take to find out and eat the human beans. Including to go to the humans city and take children to eat them.

There were other noteworthy characters apart from Sophie, BFG and the giants, such as the queen (Penelope Wilton - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Downton Abbey TV series etc), Mary the queen's maid (Rebecca Hall - Iron Man 3, Transcendence etc) and of course Mr. Tibbs the butler (Rafe Spall - Life of Pi, The Big Short etc).

So how would this story end? Would Sophie be staying forever together with BFG in the Giant Country? You just have to watch it till the end. 

End of Brief Story Line

Well this movie was a little bit different from what I expected. Watching the trailer would somehow create the impression that the movie would be a cat and mouse type where smaller giant would be having to escape from the chasing of bigger nasty giants. However this is not that type of movie. This is a movie about relationship that could develop between 2 very different people. It is a drama movie with some brief adventures and some funny moments here and there.

Watching the movie for almost 2 hours, we would be pampered with cool CGI effects especially the giants computerized animation where they slotted perfectly together with the actual sized persons. However I think the movie lacked a bit of sound effects/music that could lift the mood of the audience. Most of the time, the feel of the movie was a little gloomy. Except for the brief moments involving the queen, her maid and her butler where the mood was lifted high as their characters were very lovable and we were able to laugh at those scenes.

Other than that, I think the movie itself was quite a touching movie. I believe Ruby Barnhill would make a great actress in future and Mark Rylance's characterization was so good that we could truly like him as a bullied kind & loving giant. Stephen Spielberg also did a wonderful job directing this movie, just like what he did on various great ones like Jaws, E.T to name a few.

Overall this movie would be a good family friendly movie. Kids could definitely enjoy it, but for people looking for a very adventurous type of man-eating giant movie, please do not watch this one as you will be disappointed. You might as well watch the much gorier version in the Japanese movie Attack on Titan (available on DVD and live streaming for the animated version). I think this expectation was probably the reason why the movie did not have a great success in US or anywhere. But for my wife and I, we actually quite love it.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Note:

This movie was adapted from a children's book of the same title written by Roald Dahl. It was written in 1982 so it would explain why the queen was portrayed quite young and the US presidents were referred to as Ronnie (Ronald Reagan). I did not notice this part had it not been for my wife's great observation (thanks Hon). Roald Dahl's other works included Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

NERVE - A Modern Day Take of Online Reality Game

I was quite surprised to see in the newspaper yesterday that there was a new movie premiered in the biggest cinema chain in Indonesia. I did not have any information, nor did I ever watched the trailer before. So I googled it and watched the trailer first, while also reading the premise. It seemed interesting enough so I asked whether my wife would be interested to see it. As she was going to watch an Indonesian musical movie which I was not really keen to see, she was ok to watch this movie too. Since the movie would start at 7 PM, I had enough time to be there without such a rush. I guess that would be around the best time to watch a movie on weekdays. Anyway, let's move on to the story.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of a computer screen opened by Vee (Emma Roberts - Nancy Drew, Scream 4 etc) where we could see what she was doing such as looking at JP, a high school jock that she had a crush on but afraid to tell and also rejecting offer to go into arts college. She got a video call from her best friend Sydney (Emily Meade - My Soul to Take, Money Monster etc). She introduced Vee to an online game called NERVE where people can be a "player" and be challenged to various dares and acquire money. Sydney was quite a famous player with many followers and invited Vee to be a "watcher" as she knew Vee would not be daring enough to be a player. 

After disappointed with Sydney for challenging her to get to know JP, Vee was feeling upset and decided to enroll herself to the NERVE game and become a player. The game later easily connect to all Vee's social medias and acquiring her personal information including her friends contacts. Once she become a player, there were 3 rules that must be followed. Players must use their own phone to record, if players withdraw all the money won would be returned and players not allowed to report to the police.

So Vee called her other best friend Tommy (Miles Heizer - Parenthood TV series) to accompany her for her first challenge which was easy enough as she was supposed to kiss a random guy and would receive $100 if she completed the challenge. Tommy who seemed to be having a crush on Vee was not really supportive, but nevertheless he went along with Vee's intent. After finding a guy who was reading a novel which was Vee's favorite, she went ahead and kiss him quite long. Ian (Dave Franco - Now You See Me, Neighbors etc) apparently was a player as well. 

The watchers seemed to like Vee & Ian's chemistry and when the next dare would involve the two of them going to town, Vee hesitantly accept the dare despite the protest from Tommy. But Vee could not be hold down after feeling the adrenaline rush for her first dare and she rode with Ian to the town and further adding to her reward money which were transferred to her joint account with her mother Nancy (Juliette Lewis - From Dusk Till Dawn, What's Eating Gilbert Grape etc). She was surprised to these money coming and asked Tommy's advice about possible hacking. Tommy apparently was a person who also have hacker background calmed her down. But he was suspicious of Ian as he was unable to look for Ian's information in the internet and he sought more info from his fellow hacker friend.

When Vee and Ian's dares were becoming more and more liked by the watchers, Sydney felt a bit jealous and started to find ways to increase her popularity by doing the very high dare. She was aiming to become one of the finalists who would get the top prizes. Meanwhile another very high profile player named JD (Machine Gun Kelly aka MGK) was also aiming to be the finalists. And he was ready to do whatever it takes to become the finalist and win the game.

So how would this game ends? Who would win and go on become the finalists to get all the prizes? What was Ian's background? Would Vee be able to continue and finish all the dares despite her difficulties in getting out of her comfort zone? Find them all in this interesting fresh movie.

End of Brief Story Line

To my surprise, I quite enjoyed this movie. There were few moments that were exciting and quite breath taking to see especially scenes involving death defying stunts. However, the pace were not very fast and did not create the rush that I was expecting for through the finale. Maybe I was having too high expectations after those crazy scenes in the middle of the movie.

The movie was filled with lots of music and have a feeling of teenager kind. There was not a lot of special effects and there were scenes where they were shot as though from the players' handphone to add the feel of what the players were experiencing. Emma Roberts seemed believable as the "good girl" type who in reality would not be able or have the courage to do the crazy stunts. While Dave Franco seemed a little bit too mature in this role. Perhaps because I noticed that Vee's friends looked young enough to be high school students (which is quite refreshing to see since most high school movies were showing students who looked old enough to be in college or even beyond).

Overall though, this movie has got a fresh idea of capturing online reality type of game. It is exciting to see at least some producers willing to take a risk to produce this kind of movie with quite recent & up to date world's reality of online gaming. It also reminded us to be careful on playing this type of game and especially not to reveal too much information on our social media apps. 

So if you are interested to see such movie, then this movie would be to your liking. With so many censors done by Indonesian censorship body, this movie would be suitable for teenagers to see. Since it is currently only playing in 1 cinema chain, and there will be other movies released this week and next week, perhaps you should see it soon before it disappeared from the cinemas likely in 2 weeks time.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Don't Breathe - An Exciting Original Horror Movie

At first I thought this movie would be a supernatural horror, but after watching the trailer few weeks ago, I realized it was more of a thriller horror kind. Hence my wife should be able to watch it as she was more "allergic" to the supernatural type (read: ghosts). So when this movie premiered 2 days ago, we already set our sights to watch this one. Yesterday after her food tasting event, she went back to the nearest mall to our home and bought the tickets for 7.15 PM. This time, I was able to reach home quite fast and was not in a rush to go to the cinema. Well what was the movie about? Let's start with the story line.

Brief Story Line

Three good friends consisted of Alex (Dylan Minnette - Goosebumps), Rocky (Jane Levy - Evil Dead) and Money (Daniel Zovatto - It Follows) broke into an empty rich person's house and somehow able to disarm the house alarm. Alex reminded the other two to only took items where the total would be less than USD 10k as it would make it as petty larceny instead of grand theft. It was clear that Alex was the brain of these three. After finishing, Alex purposely threw a rock to the door, resulting the house alarm to switch on, prompting the idea of the robbery being done by some random outsider.

Rocky was thinking about getting enough money from these robberies so she could get out of their home with her younger sister, away from her mother who had a jobless boyfriend. Meanwhile Money was the one having access to a fence who could buy their stolen goods. He was upset having a very low return of their latest robbery and was offered the idea to rob the house of a war veteran who was given a lot of money when his daughter was accidentally killed in a car accident by a rich person's daughter. He never left the house so the money would definitely still be there. Alex opposed to this idea and rejected it as robbing cash would make it major crime. However, Money was able to convince him to go ahead.

After scouting the house which was located in Detroit for few days, they concluded that the houses nearby were all left empty so they can easily rob the person's house at night. They also noticed that the house owner was actually blind, but he had a dog guarding him. The three of them decided to rob the house that night. They also prepared themselves with a drugged meat to make the dog asleep. 

They managed to get inside and switched off the house alarm despite some difficulties. While Alex and Rocky were looking for the place where the money could be hidden, Money drugged the blind man (Stephen Lang - Avatar). They also noticed a door to the basement where it was locked with a padlock and suspected this would be the place to hide the cash. Money was unable to open it using his equipment and wanted to use a gun to open it. Alex was very upset since bringing a gun would make it a breaking and entering and the crime would be too huge so he decided to leave Money and Rocky. 

When Money finally managed to open the door to the basement after shooting it, suddenly the blind man was there fully awake. And this would be the start of the suspense through out the movie.

So could Rocky & Money got away from the blind man? Could they find the cash and got out of the house safely? Would Alex return to help them? And would the blind man who was a war veteran capture them instead? Find them all in this suspenseful thriller movie.

End of Brief Story Line

After watching this movie for almost 1.5 hour, I believe the general audience were having a sigh of relief when it was finally finished. The movie was having constant suspense scenes where we were literally holding our breath at certain points. The movie premise was so simple that no hard thinking was required. It was a simple game of cat and mouse in a confined space of a large house and mostly done during the night. 

There were quite a number of twists in this movie as well to provide us with some good old surprises. There seemed to be 2 or 3 occasions where we thought the chase was finally over only to found that the story was not finished yet. This is a low budget movie without so much special effect, but without such budget, the movie was still able to provide us a satisfying story and suspense. Having an original story certainly made this movie a recommended one to watch, as it was not the sequel or prequel or reboot/remake of an old movie that had flooded us the past few years. 

I had a totally enjoyable moment watching this. Just like when we were watching Train to Busan (which I posted earlier), the guy next to me was also screaming quite a lot. In fact I think louder than his girlfriend. LOL. But anyway it was a truly enjoyable movie for people who love this genre. You can watch together with your friends, spouse, girlfriend/boyfriend but definitely not with your children except if your children are > 17 years old. Reminder that this is not a supernatural movie, so no ghosts involved. My most memorable moment was definitely the chasing in the basement when the lights were switched off. 

Happy watching and hope you would enjoy it as much as I did!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Train to Busan - A Great Korean Zombie Movie

I was not a big fan of Korean movies or TV series. In fact I only ever watched Korean movies in theaters 2 times (which I could not remember the titles now). However, when I was informed by my wife about a zombie Korean movie, I was like, hmmmm sounds interesting. Anyway, when I saw the trailer, I was intrigued and was looking forward to the movie playing in theater. Yesterday, my wife who had been eyeing to watch this one, told me that she wanted to see it while it premiered. So she went down to Grand Indonesia, bought two tickets for 6.50 PM show. Actually the time was a little bit tight, but I thought should be fine as it was not raining and traffic should be OK. Unfortunately, a big jam was happening near the mall, so it took me much longer. Luckily, I reached cinema at 6.55 PM and the show had not started. Fiuuuh. Well let's get on to the movie, shall we?

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of a small truck driver who was not allowed to go through a location that was blocked with reason of gas leak. He drove away and accidentally hit a deer. Later on, a fund manager named Seok-woo (Gong Yoo - The Suspect, The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince TV series etc) was having phone call with his divorced wife, arguing about accompanying their young daughter Su-an who wanted to go to Busan to see her mother. When he came back home, he gave Su-an (Kim Su-an) her pre-birthday gift (which was the reason she wanted to go to Busan on her birthday the following day). Su-An really insisted on going to Busan despite Seok-woo's reluctance and stalling for another week as he was having a very important task at office. Finally he agreed to it after seeing the video of her recital shown by his mother.

On the morning of following day, Seok-woo drove to the train station with Su-an. They finally got on board the train. A woman who seemed to be sick got on the train without the inspector seeing it. In the train, we would be introduced to the various characters in the movie. Starting from two elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil, a bunch of high school baseball team where Jin-hee (Ahn So-hee - Wonder Girls Korean group band) who had a crush on Young-guk (Choi Woo-shik - Set Me Free, Hogu's Love TV series), and also Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok - The Neighbor, The Unjust etc) with his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi - The Himalayas etc) with last but not least Young-suk (Kim Eui-sung) & the train inspector Ki-chul.

To cut the story short, the sick girl apparently was infected with whatever virus that made people became zombie. She went outside the toilet and started wreaking havoc and bite the train attendant who already informed Ki-chul earlier and was rushing to that compartment located at the back of the train. The train attendant was trying to escape and ran towards the baseball team compartment which created panic as she also became infected and started to bite the team. They tried to run and escape to the next compartment where Ki-chul finally see what was happening and warned the train driver. Everyone in the next compartments started to run towards the next compartments but mostly unable as the zombies were very very fast. 

Su-an who was in a toilet in the middle compartment heard the noises and when she went outside she saw the people running towards her compartment chased by the zombies. Meanwhile Seok-woo who just realized Su-an was missing as he was asleep, started to panic and looked for her. He saw her just in time and ran towards her and ran back to their compartment. Seong-kyeong who was also in the toilet was told by Sang-hwa to run quickly back to their compartment when he saw zombies coming. So he fought them a little bit and almost could not make it to the safe compartment. 

Panic started to come to these passengers and they started to hear the news of "riots" happening all around the city and nation. While the zombies in the next compartment were still trying to bit the healthy passengers.

So what would happen next? How could this virus be spreading around? Can the remaining passengers be saved and survived this terror until their ultimate location in Busan? Find them all in this very much entertaining, pulsating, zombie apocalyptic movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I totally enjoyed this movie. It is one of the greatest zombie movie I have ever seen. Unlike The Walking Dead TV series where the zombies were slow and you can practically "bully" them, the zombies in this one were very quick. Perhaps they were more similar to the Z Nation TV series. This movie has got it all, the tension, the drama, the touching moments, the shocking scenes, even including providing moral message. The audiences in the movie were mostly providing the additional "sound effects" of relief, shocked, cry, laughter etc. I think my wife and the guy sitting next to me were among those who provided such noise. LOL.

This is certainly not the kind of movie for young children. There were a lot of gruesome scenes of zombies eating people, and there were blood all over as well. I think the movie was a little bit like emotional roller coaster where you would be given time to understand the remaining passengers' relationship and actions while other times you would be feeling the worry of our main characters' survival and passion. The make-up effects of the zombies were very good, some special effects were also quite good especially during the scenes involving the trains in the ending scene. My only bit of small disappointment was more towards the cinema as the picture was small and not fully fitting the large cinema screen.

In the end, I think this movie also had its very important message about sacrifices and also a reminder to not being selfish and think of other people as well. 

So if you are interested in enjoying the thrill of being chased by very fast zombies in a confined place like a train, and if you want to enjoy all those emotions I mentioned earlier, then this one is definitely for you. It is not a supernatural ghost movie, so those who do not prefer to watch such horror movie should not worry and I think could enjoy this one.

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Note:

This is the first zombie movie produced by Korean movie makers. I read in the internet that this was a very huge success there and broke the record for most audience watching (> 10 million). I also just found out that there was an animated prequel to this movie titled Seoul Station. Could not wait to look for it and watch it!