Julie & Julia

Julie Powell(Amy Adams) is an aspiring writer who never caught a break. And thus she works as a call center customer care person for an insurance company. Not a pleasant job since you're getting nothing but complaints the whole day. At the end of a stressful day, she finds comfort in cooking. One day she decides to try cook every recipe written in the famous cook book 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' by Julia Child(Meryl Streep), and write a blog about it.

As we watch Julie go through every recipe, the movie also shows us the life of Julia Child when she was still living in Paris. A time when she was still learning to cook and beginning to write her cook book.

Though Julie & Julia live decades apart. They somewhat lived similar lives, and both found joy in cooking.

A lot of people may be able to relate to this movie. If you're the type who's stuck in a job that you do because you need to do it and not because you love it. And what thrills you in life are the stuff that you do when we get out of the office. Such us eat, cook, sports, movies, photography etc. Then this movie is for you.

If you can't relate to this movie. Well that's OK. It's is still worth seeing. The story, other than being true, is both inspiring and entertaining. The acting is of course top notch. Plus the food is just mouthwatering. After seeing this movie you may want eat up a feast and even want to learn how to cook. Brace yourselves. Diet's will be broken. I know mine was. :D

Red Cliff

I've been waiting for almost a year for this movie to be released here. And last night, I finally got to watch it.

It's a film about the battle of Red Cliff which occurred during the period of the Three Kingdoms in China. This period was the bloodiest period in the history of China.

Why am I so excited about a movie about this?

Well to begin with. This is the most expensive movie ever produced by China. And the most successful too. It beat Titanic as the highest grossing film in China.

Second, it features some of Asia's finest and brightest actors like Tony Leung(Lust, Caution), Takeshi Kaneshiro(House of Flying Daggers) and Zhao Wei(So Close).


And to top it off. This film is directed by John Woo. Bloody era plus masterful action director, equals a bloody historic action epic!

Well at least that's what I was expecting.

Red Cliff was originally released in China as two movies. Each with a length of about two hours. For the international audience, the two films where combined and about 90 minutes was trimmed off to form just one movie. And this is the version that we got to see.

I was dismayed a few minutes into the film. As it turns out. This version is dubbed in English. And the dubbing wasn't of good quality. Regardless of that, the film still turned out to be alright. It redeemed itself with the battle scenes. John Woo showing us why he one of the best action director in the world. He was able to show us the battle techniques and formations used in those days and still made it look cool.

This is not the best version of this film. But that says a lot. If a downgraded version of this movie came out rather good. Then just imagine just how much better the original version could be. I'm excited to find out.

The Young Victoria

Cza and I we're walking around Greenbelt 3 and stumbled upon Young Victoria which was exclusively showing there. I've always wanted to see a movie about Queen Victoria. So yeah, I asked Cza if we could watch, and I'm so glad she said yes.

I saw a trailer for this film about a week before and wasn't totally excited with seeing Emily Blunt in the title role. Don't get me wrong. I think she has a lot of talent. But playing a Queen, I had my doubts.

As we watched the movie, Emily Blunt proved me wrong. She pulled it off quite nicely. She played the young Queen as being fragile and like your typical teenage girl. But when the time came for her to be strong, she was.

This movie is a bit like Elizabeth. It's a movie about a young lady who ascends to the throne. Except that this one is a rather teen flick version of that film. As the title states, this is a movie about the Young Victoria. The film does focus Victoria's life and struggles before, during and after her coronation. But it also primarily focuses on her romance with Prince Albert, who was played excellently by Rupert Friend. In this movie, Prince Albert is a rather shy and lost for words kind of fellow. But eventually wins the heart of Victoria, finds his voice, and becoming the perfect match for Victoria in ruling the kingdom.

Queen Victoria's life is already a fascinating read in wikipedia. And this movie is about 90% accurate in depiction. So to put it quite simply, this movie is fascinating.