Flipped - A Lovely Romantic Coming of Age Movie Set in 1960s

During my latest weekend staycation in Karawang last Saturday (more on that in my wife's blog), I was waiting for our dinner time at 6PM and stumbled into this movie playing in HBO Hits. I was not really interested to see this one at first but since there was no other movies that I have not seen at that time, and seeing the start which seemed funny, I continued watching this till finished. So what was the movie about? Let us get on to it, shall we?

Brief Story Line

It was the year 1957 when a very young Juli Baker met with her neighbor Bryce Loski for the first time. She immediately "fell in love" to Bryce. Few years later, Juli who was now already in the 8th grade (Madeline Carroll - The Spy Next Door, Machine Gun Preacher etc) was still having a major crush on Bryce, but Bryce (Callan McAuliffe - Hacker, I am Number Four etc) was always trying to avoid her. He felt that Juli was a bit too pushy and he also shared this with his best friend Garret (Israel Broussard).

War for the Planet of the Apes - The Third and Final Installment of Caesar's Story

This was one movie that I had been waiting for since few months ago after I saw its trailer. I thought this would be a wonderful movie and it showed signs of going to be a movie with epic battle. Due to some reasons though, Indonesia was a bit late to have the movie's premiere. The film only played starting yesterday (almost 2 weeks latter than the U.S). It was a bit disappointing for Indonesian movie goers that some summer blockbuster movies are now playing few days or weeks late, even months (such as Cars 3 which would only play in August or Baywatch that only played last week and few other examples). Well at least they still played in theaters though, rather than having them completely bypassing us and we had to see those movies in cable TV or live streaming. Anyway, let us get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Story was told few years after the story in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes where the Ape leader Caesar (Andy Serkis - as Gollum in Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit trilogy etc) was hiding in a secret cave with his tribe. Caesar always tried to avoid confrontation with the humans due to the previous war ignited by his friend Koba (Toby Kebbell - Kong: Skull Island, A Monster Calls etc). However their peace was short lived as they were attacked by a military team who was supported by few of Koba's former team who refused to follow Caesar.

DUNKIRK - The Amazing Story of Soldiers' Evacuation from the Battle of Dunkirk in World War II

I have heard about this movie for few weeks now and at earlier stage when I saw the trailer to the movie, it felt like a war drama movie. Then I did not see anyone that I knew off in that trailer. So I had to admit that it did not create an excitement to see this film, apart from the fact that it was directed by Christopher Nolan who was famous for directing amazing successful movies such as The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar and even the low budget but fantastic movie Memento. When the movie finally premiered in Indonesia last Friday, I did not go to see it since my wife and I already had plans to have our weekend staycation (also to celebrate her birthday). We only saw this one yesterday after we checked out from the hotel and had our lunch. And we decided to see this one in Epicentrum due to the cinema having large screen and also nearby our lunch location. 

Brief Story Line

During the World War II, the British and ally troops including the French army lost to the Germans in the battle of Dunkirk. More than 400,000 soldiers were stranded in the island with the Germans on their tail and were sometimes attacked by the German bomber planes. Dunkirk was not too far from England and even the soldiers could see the islands, but because of the condition, they could only wait for the British army to evacuate them.

Baywatch - The Movie Version of the Popular 1990s TV series

After few months already playing in most other countries, finally this movie premiered in Indonesia 2 days ago. I was not sure that this movie was going to play here due to the nature of the movie and because even though the poster was shown in some of the cinema websites, but they seemed to have gone in the past month or so. Until 2 or 3 weeks ago suddenly it popped again. The movie was something that I looked forward to since it was one of my (and my wife's) favorite TV shows many years ago. Especially when the movie was having few famous stars playing in it. Anyway let us move along to the movie.

Brief Story Line

Mitch Buchannon (Dwayne Johnson - Moana, The Fate of the Furious etc) was a lieutenant of an elite team of lifeguards in Emerald Bay, Florida called Baywatch. He was well known to the people of the area since he had saved a lot of people there and even solved some cases around the beach. During one of his usual morning run, he found a small bag of drugs that was pushed ashore and realized that someone was distributing this in the area.

Filosofi Kopi 2: Ben & Jody - The Sequel to that Wonderful Movie about Coffee Philosophy

This movie was already promoted since few weeks ago in the theaters through its trailer. As the sequel to a very good movie, obviously it was intriguing to see if it can continue or be even better than the original one. The film had premiered since 2 days ago but my wife and I already set our mind to see Despicable Me 3 then, so we planned to see this in next available time. Luckily my wife and I won tickets for the movie from a quiz held by news portal Merahputih.com and Overdoze Coffee shop (one of the sponsor of the movie). With my wife's 2 nephews and her younger sister who also won a ticket from another quiz, we saw this one at Plaza Senayan last night at 6.15 PM. Now let us get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Movie started 2 years after the original movie left off, where Ben (Chicco Jerikho - Bukaan 8, Surat Cinta Untuk Kartini etc) and Jody (Rio Dewanto - Surat dari Praha, Modus Anomali etc) went around Indonesia in their kombi van to introduce and "give away" their best coffee. After doing the same stuff over and over again, they realized that they were going nowhere. So they decided to return to Jakarta and re-opening their Filosofi Kopi coffee shop.

Despicable Me 3 - When Gru Meets his Long Lost Twin!

It was a bit late for Indonesians to enjoy this movie as when it premiered in the US, we were in the period of hiatus from Hollywood movies due to the Eid Al-Fitr holiday for 1 whole week. Nevertheless, a week late is better than few months late or even over a year like movies such as The Whole Truth or The Neighbor. Although to be fair those movies were not exactly blockbuster materials. Anyway, I was unable to see it on Wednesday due to my office was having foreign guest whom I had to accompany. So my wife and I only saw this film last night. Well let us get on to the movie then.

Brief Story Line

After the events from Despicable Me 2, Gru (Steve Carell - The 40 Year Old Virgin, The Office TV series etc) and Lucy (Kristen Wiig - Ghostbusters 2016 version, Bridesmaids etc) were already married and became a couple of agents in the Anti-Villain League. During a heist of the largest diamond in the world by Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker - Co-creator and voice actor in South Park TV series) on the ship in the middle of ocean, Gru and Lucy were the nearest agents on location and tried to capture him. Gru was able to save the diamond but Balthazar managed to escape.

Spooks: The Greater Good - Another British So-So Spy Movie

I saw the tweet yesterday from Cinema 21 that there was a new movie premiered at some of their cinemas. I looked through a bit of the info that it was a spy movie which could be interesting and the main character was played by none other than Kit Harrington, well known as Jon Snow from Game of Thrones TV series. It may not be a major blockbuster movie, but it certainly nice to see a different movie in theaters especially with most of them still showing Spider-man: Homecoming. So let us get on with the movie then.

Brief Story Line

A joint forces of MI-5 unit and CIA were tasked to do a transfer of high value terrorist leader named Adem Qasim (Elyes Gabel - Scorpion TV series) to USA. Things went awfully wrong with the escape of Qasim, so the head of the operation Harry Pearce (Peter Firth - Mighty Joe Young) were put to blame by the Director General Mace (Tim McInnerny) and Deputy Director Geraldine (Jennifer Ehle - Zero Dark Thirty, Fifty Shades of Grey etc). Harry Pearce was forced to early retirement but he later went off grid to try and find Qasim by himself. 

As the Light Goes Out - Story of Fire Fighters in Hong Kong

As I had to go for a one day meeting in Singapore yesterday, my office had booked me ticket for the 2nd earliest flight with Batik Air which lucky for me had an inflight entertainment. I browsed through the limited options available due to the short duration of the flight and could only found 1 movie interesting in the Chinese movies section as the rest were either watched or pretty low standard. So I chose this one which ran almost 2 hours and I was able to finish the movie during my departure flight due to its delay for almost 1/2 hour. Anyway, here is a more complete view of the movie.

Brief Story Line

This movie was telling the story of a fire fighters unit in one of Hong Kong's district led by Yip Chi-Fai (Andy On - New Police Story, Blackhat etc) who was going to be promoted to a new position in the head office. His successor was a humble & calm officer named Sam (Nicholas Tse - From Vegas to Macau, Beast Stalker, Dragon Tiger Gate etc). There was also a very veteran officer named Lee (Simon Yam - Sa Po Lang, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and many more) who was giving physical training to new recruits. And another senior officer named Yau (Shawn Yue - Infernal Affairs trilogy, Dragon Tiger Gate etc) who was very supportive of Sam. The unit just received few new recruits with two notable ones named Ocean (Hu Jun - Red Cliff, Body Guard and Assassin etc) a veteran from mainland China and Cheung Man-kin (William Chan). 

Spider-Man: Homecoming - The 2nd Reboot of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

After taking a break from the cinemas for exactly 2 weeks (the last time a major Hollywood movie that I watched was Transformers: The Last Knight), finally a superhero movie from Marvel premiered yesterday which my wife and I obviously allocated our time to see it. It was rather tight timing for me since the tickets available via advance purchase was 6.05PM in Epicentrum as other cinemas nearby my office were playing either too early or too late. Anyway let us move on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

After the events of Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker aka Spider-man (Tom Holland - In the Heart of the Sea) had been waiting for his chance to show what he could do and to become an Avenger. However Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) felt that Peter is too young and he also felt responsible to keep Peter out of trouble due to his promise to Peter's aunt May (Marisa Tomei - What Women Want, Anger Management etc).