American Made - The Biography of Barry Seal's Unique Life

When I saw the trailer to this movie few weeks ago, I was not so sure if this would be interesting. As my wife had mentioned it, it looked a bit like B class movie. However, since the main lead character was Tom Cruise, we decided to give it a try as usually his movies were generally good or full action. So when it premiered on Friday, we immediately bought the tickets. One interesting fact was the movie would only play in US cinemas in 4th week of September which was quite unusual as in the past few months, most movies were playing in US first before playing in Indonesia. Anyway, we should move on to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Barry Seal (Tom Cruise - so many movies to his credits) was a pilot in the TWA airlines who flew to various countries from 1970s. While going through those trips, he was also doing some petty smuggling. But it was found out by a CIA agent named Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson - The Revenant, Star Wars: The Force Awakens etc) who decided to recruit Barry and use his wit and exceptional ability of flying various airplanes to do some reconnaissance work on South American countries. Barry was told by Schafer not to share what he was doing for CIA even to his wife Lucy (Sarah Wright - Walk of Shame). 

The Dark Tower - An Adaptation of Stephen King's Famous Novel Series

Last night, this movie premiered in Indonesia in all the cinema chains. I had been eyeing to see this one after I saw glimpses of what seemed to be interesting from its trailer. However, I was a bit worried whether I could make it to the theater on time, as I was late in the previous day when I went to see the abduction thriller movie Kidnap. In order to avoid this, I went back from my office at 5.15PM with the thought that I should have plenty of time to reach Lotte Avenue which was only less than 5KM distance. But ended up, I only managed to arrive there at 6.30PM. Still tight but at least I had time to have very quick dinner that my wife had ordered for us. Bottom line, if I have to see a movie at 7PM, I may have to leave exactly at 5 PM or see it in easier location such as Setiabudi or even Epicentrum. Well enough of that now, let us move on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) was a young boy who had been having dreams where he saw a tower being attacked and he felt that it was linked to the earth quakes that some countries were experiencing, including New York where he stayed. He also believed that his dreams which also included a Man in Black and a Gunslinger and ruined worlds were all real. Jake's mother Laurie (Katheryn Winnick - Vikings TV series) and step father Lon (Nicholas Pauling) thought it would be best for Jake to be treated due to this.

KIDNAP - A Rather Suspenseful Thriller Movie

Yesterday, a new movie premiered in Indonesia. Surprisingly I had not seen the trailer to this film earlier and if I remember correctly, it already played once during midnight screening last week. It played around 2-3 weeks ago for the first time in US, but did not get a lot of promotion in here. When I read the brief synopsis, I thought why not try to see and find out if this movie was good. Well here goes.

Brief Story Line

Karla Dyson (Halle Berry - Monster's Balls, X-Men series etc) was a single mom working as a waitress in a small restaurant. She had a young boy from her previous marriage named Frankie. One day Karla had promised to accompany Frankie playing in the park after her shift end. While playing there, Karla received a phone call from her lawyer and had to take it a little bit further from Frankie. Despite every few seconds checking up on Frankie, when she finished the call, Frankie was nowhere to be found.

Cars 3 - A Wonderful Third Installment of the Cars Series

Yaaaa, this movie was a bit late coming to Indonesia. It was already playing in US theaters from mid of June, and we only got the chance to see it since mid August. But the good thing was that the movie still played here rather than being skipped, so we can still see in the large screens. As I mentioned in my previous post The Hitman's Bodyguard, I went to another movie marathon with my wife yesterday. This was my second movie of the day and we saw this one in Kuningan City at 5PM where due to the Independence Day holiday, all the school kids seemed to be somehow watching the movie together with us (even including some toddlers where the parents left their stroller in front of the cinema). Anyway, let us move on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson - The Royal Tenenbaums, Wedding Crashers, Shanghai Noon etc) was a legend in the Piston Cup racing. However, in the latest season, he got a very strong competition from a rookie car Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer - The Lone Ranger, Mine etc) who was using a new technology to practice and increase his capability. With more and more of these younger generation racers, the more veteran ones were slowly being replaced by them.

The Hitman's Bodyguard - An Endless Fun and Full of Action Movie

During the Independence Day holiday, I managed to persuade my wife to accompany me on another movie marathon. Yes, it was our second marathon in a row and this time it was really worth it as both the movies we saw were very good (more on the other movie later on). For now, I want to share my experience on the first one, a good old fashion fun action movie. It was actually a bit of a surprise that the movie premiered yesterday in Indonesian theaters since it was never really promoted (I only saw the trailer once few days earlier) and suddenly it played even before in the US, which was a very rare moment nowadays. Now let us move on to the movie, shall we?

Brief Story Line

Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds - Deadpool, Definitely, Maybe etc) used to be a highly rated professional bodyguard who specialized in guarding high profile clients and usually the very powerful & rich but from shady background. After some incident 2 years earlier, he had to lower down his standard of clients. He even got his relationship with his girlfriend broken off as a result of that incident.

Atomic Blonde - A Unique Female-led Ultra Violent Action Movie

This was the second of our movie marathon experience yesterday during my leave day. Surprisingly this movie did not play in all cinema chains and therefore the options to see it was rather limited. As it happened, it was playing also in the location where I saw The Battleship Island. So it was very convenient to just continue watching this. Well we shall move on to the movie itself now.

Brief Story Line

The movie was set in the year 1989 during the time when Germany was still divided into East and West and Berlin was having a large wall separating both sides. It was also a time of the cold war between the US and its allies with the communists represented by the Soviets and its allies. During this time, lots of secret agents were working both sides and becoming spies in different parts of the world. A secret list of these information was kept in a microfilm inside a watch by an East Germany official with code name Spyglass (Eddie Marsan - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Ray Donovan TV series etc).

The Battleship Island - A Korean Emotional & Patriotic World War II Survival Movie

With a record of ticket admissions on its first premier day in South Korea on the last week of July 2017, it was certainly an easy decision for my wife and I to see this movie when it officially premiered in Indonesia today. As it happened, we were having plans to have another one of our staycation, but due to some reasons, it was cancelled. Since I already applied for 2 days leave earlier and having lots of free time, we could see this one in the afternoon which was nice as the cinema was not too full. So what made this movie so appealing to audiences? Let us get on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Movie was set in the year 1945 during the era of Japanese occupation in Korea. The Japanese military was having a location on Hashima island where the Koreans were forced (or conned) into working as labors to mine coals. The situation was very bad for the workers as even though they were being paid some small salary, there was never enough balance due to various deductions. The work conditions were also very bad for them as the mines were dangerous with leaking gas and lack of healthy food, while the women were forced to become "working ladies" to serve the Japanese.

The Hunter's Prayer - A Pretty Standard Hunter Being Hunted Movie

This was the movie that I was thinking of watching when it premiered in Indonesia last Friday, but I decided to see Annabelle: Creation instead. However yesterday as I was not having that many things to do related to work, so I was able to go home quite soon and it so happened that my wife got nothing on her schedule at night. We bought the tickets for 7.15 PM show at Setiabudi which was very close to our home. Now what was actually the story about? Let us find out, shall we?

Brief Story Line

A junkie hitman named Lucas (Sam Worthington - Avatar, Terminator Salvation, Hacksaw Ridge etc) was given the task of murdering a young girl named Ella Hatto (Odeya Rush - The Giver, Goosebumps etc). However, Lucas was not able to bring himself to kill her, since Ella reminded him of his own daughter about the same age. Due to this decision, Lucas was caught in the crossfire while protecting Ella from other assassins hired to kill her. Meanwhile Ella also very scared of Lucas and worried for her life.

(TV SERIES) Outcast Season 1

After I finished watching the series Colony, I was going to start seeing another series that was having high ratings and sounded interesting, but as it turned out, after watching the pilot episode, I struggled to continue with the second episode and so I decided to browse through other series when I stumbled into this one. I remember seeing the trailer to it in cable TV earlier and was amazed with how scary it seemed. Yes, this was a supernatural horror series. So better be ready with some scary scenes. Now let us get on with the series.

Brief Story Line

In the small town of Rome, a man named Kyle Barnes (Patrick Fugit - Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant) had returned back to his home town and staying alone in his old house. His adoptive sister named Megan (Wrenn Schmidt - 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi) felt that it was time for him to start getting out of the house. It would be revealed later that Kyle was having a dark and brutal history involving his ex wife Allison (Kate Lyn Sheil) and his child Amber which made him felt miserable and afraid of going out in the open.

The Emoji Movie - A Light Movie that did Not Deserve the Negative Review & Publicity

Yesterday, there were 2 movies premiering in the cinemas. One was an action movie that premiered in the US sometime in June 2017 and this movie that had premiered 2 weeks earlier. With the very low rating critics gave, it made me wonder how bad the movie was. So I decided to watch this movie first. As my wife was in the Mega Kuningan area, we decided to see this one in Lotte Avenue as it was very near the location. When we were in the theater, we were quite surprised with very few audience inside despite it was the first day the movie was shown in Indonesia. I guess people were still more interested in seeing Annabelle: Creation. Anyway let us go on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Alex (Jake T. Austin - Wizards of Waverly Place TV series) was a high school student who had a crush on a fellow student named Addie (Tati Gabrielle). After receiving a text from her, Alex was thinking of responding to the message by sending a "meh" emoji but to his surprise it showed a totally different expression. This created confusion to Alex and he was thinking that there might be something wrong with his smartphone. He even think of going to the mobile phone store to have it repaired by formatting the phone.

Annabelle: Creation - The prequel to That Scary Doll in The Conjuring Series

This movie despite being in The Conjuring universe (one of the scariest movies I have ever seen), was not one that I looked forward to. I used to like watching horror movies but since my wife's rather traumatic experience of watching The Ring (the original Japanese movie, not the Hollywood remake version), she was not that into seeing supernatural horror movies anymore. For me seeing a horror movie in the cinema by myself was not a real favorite activity. The last time I did that before was in previous year when I saw Lights Out. But yesterday it so happened that I got lucky when trying to get a free movie voucher that I had to claim on the same day. So off I went to the cinema and used the voucher immediately to see this one. Better use it to watch something new, right? My wife preferred to do her blogging work (a decision that I am glad she did due to the nature of my experience later on). Well let us move on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

A Catholic orphanage led by sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman - Once Upon a Time in Venice) had to be closed due to some financial problems. It was a good thing that the orphanage was given a lifeline to stay in a very large house owned by Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia - Without A Trace TV series, Autumn in New York etc) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto - The Lord of the Rings 2 & 3, What Lies Beneath etc).

Overdrive - A Lighter Version of Fast and Furious Series

On Wednesday, there was a new movie playing in Cinema 21 chain which was about heist of antique sports car. Sound interesting right? So despite not seeing it in the list of summer blockbuster movie of 2017, I decided that it would be nice to see this one in the theater. I was unable to watch this one on the premiere date and I was not even sure if I can make it yesterday due to the heavy traffic. But it turned out that it was lighter than usual and I arrived quite in time to buy the ticket, have some dinner and see the 7.15 PM show. This time my wife was not able to accompany me as she had food tasting event. Now let us get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Andrew Foster (Scott Eastwood - The Fate of the Furious, Suicide Squad etc) and his half brother Garret (Freddie Thorpe - The Head Hunter) were a pair of professional car thieves. They were quite notorious for stealing exotic antique cars all across Europe. One day they managed to steal a classic 1937 Bugatti sedan through quite awesome stunts in the roads of France. Andrew had a girlfriend named Stephanie (Ana de Armas - Knock Knock, Hands of Stone etc) who seemed to be always worried about Andrew's job.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - An Ambitious Attempt of Luc Besson to Create a New Space Adventure Movie

Again another movie that played a bit late in Indonesian theaters. It was already playing in the US almost 2 weeks ago but only premiered yesterday. I was not even aware that it had played had I not seen the tweet from Cinema XXI (the movie only played in this cinema chain). As my wife was having a function last night, she was unable to accompany and I had to watch by myself. I chose to see this one in Epicentrum mall with the aim to enjoy the better quality sound system. I will just continue to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

This movie was set in the very distant future (28th century) where Alpha, a space station originated from earth had grown into a place where many species across the galaxy lived together in harmony for many years. It would later be called a "city of a thousand planets" due to its nature. The human species was the leader of the alliance. Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan - The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Life etc) and his partner/love interest Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne - Paper Towns and as the enchantress in Suicide Squad etc) were 2 special agents of the humans.

(TV SERIES) Colony Season 1 - A Unique Smart Alien-ish Series

After I finished watching the series Grimm (marathon of the last 3.5 seasons) for the past few weeks, I was thinking of completing other series that have ended, but then I thought why not I see something else that was not too long before I do that. So this series fit into that category which only had 10 episodes in the first season. I was able to finish this in few days only and just completed it last night. Now I can share my views of this series.

Brief Story Line

Series started with the introduction of Will (Josh Holloway - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Lost TV series) and his wife Katie (Sarah Wayne Callies - Prison Break and The Walking Dead TV series) with their children, a high school student named Bram (Alex Neustaedter) and his younger sister Gracie (Isabella Cramp). They were all living in Los Angeles at the time where earth had been invaded by some aliens (this event was referred to as "the arrival"). The city was now circled by a huge wall where nobody can go out of the city without proper identification from the authority which was called Colony Transitional Authority.