Don't Talk to Anyone, Don't Touch Anyone

Plot:

Mitch (Matt Damon) found her wife, Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) fell sick and died with unknown symptoms after just got back from work trip. Soon within the same time line, other people from different locations randomly also died with more or less same symptoms. Afterwards, number deaths are increasing. It is inevitable, a lethal virus breakout has spread throughout the world. An international team of doctors contracted by Central for Disease Control (CDC) to deal with the sudden outbreak. Each person has different agenda but together they are mixed up to survive. 

Review:

Watching the trailer of 'Contagion' brings memories of the 1995 hit 'Outbreak', starring Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman (it was a very good movie). But, Steven Soderbergh provides a different taste, a more realistic and drama, and less Hollywood approach for 'Contagion', compared to 'Outbreak'.  Soderbergh is quite known on assembling A-list cast, remember the 'Ocean's Trilogy' and 'Traffic'? 'Contagion' is a mix of those movies with a mouth-watering cast from Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, and Marion Cotillard. Not many directors who can do this, but Soderbergh always able to bring out the best from his cast selection, and 'Contagion' is a proven one!

 

I can't say 'Contagion' is a thriller; it's a more drama for me, and part semi documentary you've seen on TV, but minus the interviews of course. The pace is quite steady, not too fast nor slow, it was okay for me since I was hooked after the first 10-15 minutes. But the great thing is, 'Contagion' manage to provide the 'fear effect' halfway through the middle. It's pretty scary to see how the virus managed to spread sporadically, without knowing how to contain it. Trust, you'll get paranoid for a while, even I felt uneasy when somebody coughed in the cinema. What makes it even more scary is that Soderbergh put all the plots as if this thing a real deal, talking about realistically creepy. A world-wide scale panics, socialization becomes your worst enemy, people are separated from their lovely ones, and even the President has to go hiding in his bunker.

Laurence Fishburne plays the role of Dr. Ellis Cheever, the head of international team to handle the outbreak. I like the way his story evolves that he’s just a normal human being, not Superman or has special power, but spend most of the time, scientifically, medically, and not to mention politically to put an end to the issue, and at the same time he has to take care his loved ones. As his team member, Kate Winslet has different role as Dr. Erin Mears, who has to go to the contaminated city, collect data, interview patients, and arranging countermeasures to keep the sick people contained. However, dealing with the sick people directly proved to be the most dangerous task she has ever been handed. While Jude Law is Alan Krumwiede, a famous blogger who tries to dig up conspiracy theories about pharmacy industries who tries to hold up the cure for the disease. What makes his role is believable, is that in this modern era where people can be easily connected, it is scary to see how an unknown persona can reach millions of people and could ask them to do stupid things. While Marion Cotillard plays a WHO officer, Dr. Leonora Orantes, who goes to Hong Kong, where it was assumed the location of the ‘first patient’. However, she has to deal with some unrest from local officers, and mixed up in a desperate attempt by these guys, which by the way (no spoiler!) could happened in the real world.

And this brings us to the last main cast, Matt Damon as the husband of the first known body count caused by the deadly virus. Almost half to the storyline tells us about how to deal with the outbreak from the government perspective, while Damon’s character tells us the story from the normal people, how he has to go through daily life activities, and protect his daughter altogether.

 

After a series of bombastic summer movies, it’s nice to see a change of menu, and ‘Contagion’ deserves an appraisal on its effort to bring us a realistic survival story, without zombies or end of the world disaster. It’s damn spine-chilling, thrilling, and makes you a bit paranoid at least (use Purell all the time, and avoid Hong Kong, perhaps!). ‘Contagion’ is perhaps the best epidemic/pandemic movie to date. It begins with a high tense moment, and it stays there right until the end, with no breaks or happy moments in the middle. The downturn, is that, it ends up in a loose end with no clear conclusion or direction, leaving audiences craving for a more definite and purpose. Nevertheless, it is still a great movie, something like an adult movie that makes you not want to touch any adults near you when it’s over. In short, ‘Contagion’ is a disaster movie with brains involved. 

My Rating: 8/10

"The Raid" trailer will blow your mind!!!

It's been some time, or maybe a very long time since the last time I was totally excited to watch an Indonesian movie on the big screen. If I can recall, perhaps "Berbagi Suami" was my last one, and even I watched it on DVD (bought original one, of course).


Suddenly, when I was following the movies screened at the Toronto Film Festival, I read the hype on the web, people claimed that they just saw 'the best action movie' of 2011, and it happened to be....surprisingly,  Indonesian movie...


I immediately gave it a look, and damn man...it was like blew my brains out! Not just that it was cool, but it was ass-kicking altogether....Similarly, I remember I was quite interested also when I saw "Killer Elite" trailer...but this one totally nailed it...


Brought by the same team who created "Merantau" (another martial art / silat fighting movie back in 2009), Gareth Evans and his team (including the main man, Iko Uwais) are back and take it to the next level...


you can check the link below for the trailer...reminder, it's kinda violent, but I guess it's better than to see any  'pocong' or anyone 'ngesot'.

Seriously!? It’s like you’re photoshopped!

Plot:

Cal (Steve Carrell)  just received a divorce request from his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore). Even worse, she even told him blatantly that she slept with her colleague, David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon).  Heartbroken and devastated, Cal has to deal with his marital crisis and manage his relationship with his children. Then, he met Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a super cool dude who is an easy going man with any women he met. For pity sake, Jacob decided to help Cal out of his misery, by changing his looks and alter the personality, and especially how to approach women better. Afterwards, Cal has to juggle with too many balls: handle the new ‘Cal’, get Emily back, grow confidence in his kid, and has to decide which ‘Cal’ is the best for all.

Review:

I used to be big fan of rom-com-cheesy and full of cliché flicks (read: romantic comedy), especially the 90’s ones. I grew up with Nora Ephron’s “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail”, I enjoyed also particularly “When Harry Met Sally”, “Before Sunrise”, ”Before Sunset”, and not to mention, the cheesiest and my favourite, “Serendipity” back in the 2001. But then, I found it difficult to enjoy any rom-com especially for the past decade. Only some titles worth mentioning, let’s say “Love Actually”, “Definitely Maybe”, and “500 Days of Summer”.

Nowadays, there is a new ‘breed’ kind of flick, which is the R-rated one (my favourite would be “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”). Especially in this year, we have seen some of the successful examples, from “Friends with Benefit”,”No Strings Attached”, “Bridesmaids”, and “Bad Teacher”. But somehow, I still miss those 90’s PG-13 rom-com which could be watched by a wider range of audiences. And fortunately, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” happens to be a good one.

Although the whole movie didn’t live up the expectation of the title’s first word, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” is one of the most enjoyable rom-com I’ve seen since “500 Days of Summer”. With a title like that, I was expecting harsh reviews or bashing from the critics. Apparently, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” was reasonably smart, and remarkably sane. Surprisingly, this is a good and enjoyable rom-com flick, with a lot of surprises on the menu which you don’t see in the trailer. Plus point, I’m quite glad to see the ‘cheesy’ level does not go over the top. Plotwise, is kinda similar with things we have seen in “Love Actually” and “He’s Just Not That In to You”, with several plots mixed up altogether to show how different characters are related to one another. Added up with nice soundtracks, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” is a good example how perfect cast chemistry can determine how good your movie is.

Carrell and Gosling are the definitely the frontmen, where each performance is as good as what you expect from them. I really enjoy Carrell’s character, since I think he’s way better to deliver this kind of thing rather than slapstick crap such as “Dinner with Schmucks”, “Get Smart”, or “Date Night”. Although he’s pretty good as Cal, a more rather serious character, he’s still one of the funniest guy alive. On the other hand, Jacob’s character perhaps is an easy play by Gosling, especially after his emotionally drowning act in his previous “Blue Valentine” (it was depressing really) or “the Notebook”. With Jacob, Gosling seems to fit in seamlessly as one hell 6-pack womanizer dude.

For me, the real traits must be the women cast, ranging from my favourite hottie Emma Stone, Julianne Moore and Marisa Tomei, which both seems to become hotter and hotter in their 40s. As Gosling’s love interest, Stone always seems to be a perfect cast in any kinky, independent, and ‘smarter than blonde’ role (although she’s originally blonde). Big green eyes, freckles, sultry voice, and fetching overbite, I simply adore her. Moore did okay as dilemmatic wife who didn’t have any grip on moving forward, while Tomei was involved in a ‘very surprising plot’, which looked nothing in the beginning, but will leave your mouth open halfway through.  

Another scene stealer performance came from the little kid, Jonah Bobo playing Robbie, Cal’s kid, who fell in love with his babysitter, and just can’t stop saying it out loud. For the rest, it was kinda disappointing to see Bacon’s character did not develop too much apart from Cal’s marital threat. But again, I think the cast ensemble worked pretty well.

There’s a lot of great scenes in this movie, and you should watch it yourself, cause I’m not gonna spoil it for you. Some are funny, unpredictable, and some are quite touchy also. There is one memorable scene when Cal was sneaking in into his own home just to mow the lawn, he has to watch his family life without him, when suddenly Emily called her just to say ‘hi’ not realizing that her husband is just about 200 m away.

During a summer when every other rom-coms have R-rated scripts, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” provides a well scripted plot and sensible date-night choice. Overall, perhaps this does not have the same quality than those 90’s rom-coms I mentioned earlier, but clearly it’s a lot better and fresher and most importantly, less recycled than much of the available romantic comedy flicks in the current era. There is still some flaws, especially with the pace and the end conclusion, but nevertheless, it is still enjoyable, and worthwhile to spend this with your dates.

My Review: 8/10

movie trailer (courtesy of Youtube):