Review: Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

Rating: 9.5 of 10

I've never really admit it before but I've always loved kid-becomes-spy movies like Spy Kids (2001), Agent Cody Banks (2003), and Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (2006), even if quality is sometimes secondary. For me they're the ultimate wish-fulfillment: to be young with a very cool secret, gadgets, weapons, the ability to kick ass and escape from our boring lives, and maybe even get a pretty girlfriend along the way. And in Kingsman: The Secret Service, we could be very, very British too—which is always a code for being damn classy.

Before we start, although I did mention the (family-friendly) movies above, I have to remind some audiences that Kingsman is in fact closer to Wanted (2008) and Kick-Ass (2010) (fun fact: all three were based on Mark Millar's graphic novels but I won't open that can of worms), with the latter also directed by Kingsman's and X-Men: First Class (2011)'s director, Matthew Vaughn. If you are not familiar with those films, basically what they have in common is that they all have genuinely fun, inventive—borderline wacky but definitely cathartic—action and violence. It's not overly bloody or anything (most of them consist of quick-cuts or scenes that are so stylized they're beautiful) but it does require you to at least crack a smile when people's heads are blown off, otherwise you're missing half the fun. But don't worry, they're the bad guys.

The kid in question is Gary or Eggsy (Taron Egerton), whose father trained to become Kingsman but died when he was little. Agent Galahad (Colin Firth) is grateful of Eggsy's father for saving his life and wanted to return the favor by taking Eggsy into Kingsman too. And hence began young Eggsy's training to become a proper British spy.

And when I say British, I really do mean British. I don't know what it is about England (maybe a leftover from the popularity of James Bond), but the best fictional spies are frequently from that side of the pond. With Kingsman it's easy to see why. There's something reassuring (and effortlessly cool) that our hidden saviors are good-mannered gentlemen in exquisite suits with respect for top-shelf bourbon and impeccable gunwork. They have Arthurian code-names and weapons disguised as umbrellas, it doesn't get much more British than that. Colin Firth, our resident dapper Englishman, is surprisingly badass as Agent Galahad. Egerton is also brilliant as a working class kid trying to survive in the streets of London—also quintessentially British, in another way. 

The movie (and Matthew Vaughn himself) states its love to "old" spy movies before the dark, grim, and gritty era: back when those movies actually had fun and less tortured, complete with its trademark crazy villains with crazier plans. The villain in this movie is Samuel L. Jackson with a lisp and name like Richmond Valentine, accompanied always by his false-legged killer butler/bodyguard. If that's not an old-Bond movie logic, I don't know what is. While expressing its love to old movies, Kingsman always felt new and shiny. It doesn't bow down to tropes and it really is a testament to the strength of the script that I never once felt like anyone is save, ever (and people do die in this movie). The action sequences are as exciting as they are beautiful, and they also have good use of music in action scenes, not unlike Kick-Ass whose soundtrack I loved.

TL;DR All in all, if you like good action movie, or just plain fun movie, you owe it to yourself to see this film. Just look at those gifs (or trailer). They're glorious.

Review: Whiplash (2014)

Rating: 9.8 of 10

A story about how one young ambitious jazz drummer Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller), captured the attention, and then some, of a talented but ruthless teacher Terence Fletcher (JK Simmons), Whiplash is one of the most electric and intense film about music.

Partly inspired by its writer and director's, Damien Chazelle, own experiences as a jazz drummer at school, the movie defies every stereotype one might expect from such film. Pursuit of greatness is such a prevalent theme in movies about music/dance/sports/whatever to the extent that the trope becomes boring, but Whiplash managed to find a fresh new angle to the trope with refreshing complexity. As we see Fletcher barking orders to his scared students, and as we see him encouraging a little girl to keep playing music; as we see Andrew practicing his beats over and over again through the night, and as we see him having dinner with his loving but unappreciative father, we understand them better as we see different sides of them, and we appreciate them as morally grey characters that they are. JK Simmons stole the show as Fletcher--but with every smirk, every twinkle, and every glance, Miles Teller successfully conveyed Andrew's drive, his humiliation, and his ambition through silence. He also played a convincing drum on screen (for non-drummer like me) too, which always help elevate a movie.

Whiplash is also an extremely intense movie, like you wouldn't believe. With tight shots, sweat, blood, pure determination, strive for perfection and no tolerance for anything less, watching Whiplash is like an endurance sport for your heart. TL;DR Filled with more thrill than any of recent action movies combined (okay, maybe not Mad Max: Fury Road), Whiplash is an experience like no other--and with good jazz music, too? You can't lose.

First Impressions: Garuda Superhero (2015)

Just a few weeks ago I mentioned the significance of having a genre project at Indonesian cinema, how few and sparse, when Supernova: Ksatria, Putri, dan Bintang Jatuh came out. And now I just found out that we have another one, titled Garuda Superhero. It is a proper sci-fi/superhero/genre movie, whatever you wanna call it, but you know Indonesia haven't produced anything like this before in recent memory (if I miss anything, let me know) especially at the big screen. Indonesia did have a brief love affair with the superhero genre back in late 90's but only in the television, when shows like Gerhana, Saras 008, and Panji Manusia Milenium were on air. The last superhero movie made, I believe, was Gundala Putra Petir 34 years ago (which I never saw).

Here is the latest trailer of Garuda Superhero, scheduled for January 8th 2015:

I'm gonna be completely honest with my first impression of the trailer, but I'm not gonna lie that I am excited. Every small step in the name of sci-fi culture is worth something, and I largely appreciate the effort and the passion behind this picture. But let us say in unison, because I know you're thinking what I'm thinking: It looks TERRIBLE! Hell yeah.

If Hollywood made this kind of trailer, I would laugh at it and walk straight into another movie's theater. But because it is Indonesian, I have no choice but to see it first row at the theater (probably the only one there). Call it patriotic, call it stupid, call it blind admiration for sci-fi, but I'd apologize for nothing. I'd also add that what I write below is just a first impression and I had not seen the full movie. 

So let's talk CGI. Bad, bad CGI. So, so bad. I'd give it a pass because I know the film's budget must be not that big, maybe not even in national standard. I am somewhat amused by the heavy amount of green screen they used. Like, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow level, even in a restaurant scene. Maybe they did it because they wanted to achieve not-quite-this-world look, which I actually appreciate. 

But Garuda Superhero also looks derivative in every which way. They seem to pick up a million storylines and every single trope then blender them into a trailer. Visually, too. In fact, let me count the ways (it's actually quite fun). Left are screenshots from Garuda Superhero trailer, right are pictures from other movies (sorry for the wonky pictures, some just aren't available in the right sizes).

You like Marvel movies, right? Because apparently they like them too.

a) Leviathan! Are we gonna have The Hulk too? What we're gonna have though, are the Chitauris. Sorry. b) But we do have Black Widow! But I'm also partial at calling out Ultraviolet, and it may be worth mentioning that the female character seems to be a villain not  a protagonist. c) Some Tesseract level item... d) I have to give them kudos for taking cues from an unreleased movie... Does the design look a lot like Ultron to you too? e) He looks too much like Ivan Vanko for me to be comfortable.

They've done Marvel, so why shouldn't they do DC while they're at it? 

a) I think they're obviously going for a Batman vibe here (and a dash of Marvel's The Falcon), but I'm definitely getting more of a Watchmen's Nite Owl instead. b) But they do have a batarang. c) ...and The League Of Assassins. d) It may not be unique, but gratuitous exercise seems awfully like Arrow, right? e) I'm undecided whether he looks more like a Bond villain or Lex Luthor. Since we're in a DC mood, let's go with Lex Luthor.

And there's other stuff...

a) The Incredibles exercise (patent pending). b) Wait, why do they have an asteroid? c) Oh okay, so they can have the obligatory doomsday roundtable..

Basically, this trailer exist to show us that this is where we're at. This is the level at Indonesian sci-fi culture is currently working, and this is why I advocate more and more sci-fi, always, because basically the only thing to learn to do something properly is by doing. We're gonna stumble, and there'll be a lot of misses, but we're getting there.

Disclaimer: This is not intended to offend or put anyone down. If this article sounds a lot like nitpicking, I maybe am, but I'm doing it because I love the craft and I believe that honest, well-intended criticism will propel us forward. Also because this is a commentary on a trailer, I have no idea how these tidbits would fit into the context of the film.

TV Shoutout: Orphan Black

Of course I had to do a Shoutout for Orphan Black, I don't know why I haven't done it yet!

What it is about: A streetwise con-artist, Sarah (Tatiana Maslany), witnessed a woman who looked exactly like her committing a suicide, and subsequently stole her identity as an opportunity to get away from her own life. (And it turns out, the woman was her clone. Oops.)

Why you should watch it: Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany. Seriously.

As already stated, Tatiana Maslany plays the central character, Sarah, who was just one among a set of clones, all also played by her. She was able to play so many different women in one or separate screens, and still be instantly recognizable as different, consistent characters with their own personality and personal lives. There really is no way to accurately explain the kind of acting that she does, other than: just watch her performance. She would, on consistent basis, make you forget that basically half of the regular cast were played by a single actress because each of them were all just that different. Fun fact: Maslany's mother, at one time, actually verbally asked the crew, "When is Tatiana coming back?" all the while watching her daughter filming as another character. She, literally, didn't recognize her own daughter in front of her eyes while acting. That's the kind of acting that Maslany does.

(This is actually a behind-the-scenes video, but I think you can get a pretty good grasp of Maslany as the 3 main clones: Sarah, Alison, Cosima. It's also a very interesting to see the technicality behind it.)

The fun really starts when you see her playing a clone pretending to be another clone (for example, Sarah pretending to be Alison). You can clearly see it was not Alison, but rather Sarah trying her best to be Alison—which is really an almost impossible feat considering they look exactly alike. Really, by that time, you might think that she's just showing off (and you'd still be totally impressed).

Enough about Maslany, now about the actual story. If you're intimidated by the word "clone", don't. The clone thing is just a setting, but the core is really about sisters and family. After accepting their unique bond and condition, they found solace in each other and ended up protecting each other at all costs. Orphan Black is indeed a very suspenseful show as the clones were hunted and monitored, but it is also a very fun one. Characters like Felix, Vic, Donnie, even suburban-mom Alison give plenty of comic relief—not to mention Helena's neverending quirkiness. It's actually a little bit cheesy and soap-opera-esque (in the best way), but it's also suspenseful as heck with a good amount of action and detective work. In short, Orphan Black is the best of both worlds, in terms of (the absurd) masculine vs. feminine dichotomy on TV.

Who should watch it: Due to its inclusion of many genres, I think everyone, men and women will enjoy it, but maybe not for kids because there were some, sparse partial nudity.

Where you should start: If you don't mind missing things out, you basically can start anywhere. Otherwise, you should start from the beginning because it's fun anyway.

Status: Season 3 running.

(all the Felix gifs! Because why not!)

Music Shoutout: Mark Ronson - Uptown Special

No one could escape the popularity of Uptown Funk. No one. Hand delivered to us by featuring artist Bruno Mars, it was one of those popular singles that came out of left field--entirely unexpected in today's music climate, but devoured by all.

English musician, DJ, and record producer Mark Ronson is the man behind the album, Uptown Special. And Uptown Special is nothing if not a groovy work of art.

In actuality, Uptown Funk is my least favorite song of the album (I know, right?). Not because it’s a bad song--it’s an excellent song--but because for me, that particular song aims for “flashy” in the ways that the other songs from the album don’t try to be. The rest are less flashy (but in absolutely no way are less funky) and they show how meticulous the actual production were.

A smoothie of R&B, funk, and soul with contemporary touch, Uptown Special is filled with guest stars of famous and lesser names alike: Bruno Mars, Stevie Wonder, Mystikal, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow, Keyone Starr, Jeff Bhasker, and Ronson treated each of them as crucial ingredients in each of their songs--but never outshines the song itself. 

Highlights of the album, excluding Uptown Funk. for me are I Can’t Lose (ft. Keyone Starr), In Case of Fire (ft. Jeff Bhasker), and the many versions of Crack In The Pearl. While the album was definitely derived from aforementioned genres, it’s amazing how versatile and ageless the album is, but I definitely think the album is best consumed in its entirety. Basically if Mark Ronson is a curator of talents, then Uptown Special is a museum that you can dance into. Weird analogy, I know, but I’m perfectly okay with that.

So. Excited.

Teaser for new season of Orphan Black, BBC America.

4.18.15

Save the date, #CloneClub.

Review: The Martian (2015)

Rating: 9.5 of 10

Space is dangerous, but it's also endearing.

Never the fact has ever been more apparent in the movies, than in The Martian. Set in the near future, The Martian is about a group of astronauts in the early days of human exploration on the Red Planet who were forced to leave because of a heavy storm--leaving one of its members, Mark Watney (Matt Damon), on the surface. For months, intelligence and ingenuity were the only things keeping him alive until he could be rescued.

The Martian, for me, was an important movie because it showed what being an astronaut really is about. Space is a dangerous thing, and the movie never downplay on that, but The Martian also puts space in an endearing light that makes us never wonder why did we ever go to space in the first place. Because the answer will always be: why not? Why not be the first? Why not find out, for the greater human race? For anyone intimate with space travel, when Watney gave lecture about being an astronaut and basically says, "When you're up there, at some point you're gonna think you're gonna die and maybe you will," you know that it's 100% true but you also know that doesn't mean you don't wanna go up there in a heartbeat. It's hard to depict a balanced portrayal about the dangers of space, but The Martian nailed it.

Science is also definitely the hero in this film, which is a surprisingly rare occurrence in popular fiction. Not only did Watney repeatedly was shown applying basic science concept to solve his problem, the film also pretty accurately depicted the workings of NASA; how astronauts, ground control, and teams of scientists work hard and thoroughly to reach a common goal. Aside from being very capable, scientists and astronauts in this film were also pretty humorous--and it's important because real scientists love their jokes too, but are almost never depicted as such. It's a very science-positive movie and I appreciated it.

At one point in the movie, Matt Damon's character, who was a botanist exclaimed, "Mars will come to fear my botany powers!" asserting his conviction to grow food on the surface of Mars--something that hadn't been done by any humans before, ever. That, among many other scenes in the movie, was a clear example of the giddiness, humor, and determination of scientists existed in the film.

But in the very core of the movie, The Martian is about human’s determination to live, that everyone can relate to.

The Martian also nailed it with the casting. Matt Damon has the perfect charisma and cockiness about him, but I mostly want to commend the casting choices for the other characters. The most prominent members of the space crew were women (Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara), and at least half of other supporting characters were of minorities (of African, Chinese, Mexican, and Indian descent). Hollywood movies about space can too frequently feel a bit jingoistic (with NASA obviously being an American organization), but The Martian never felt like that the slightest. From the start, The Martian is a humanistic effort.

Directed by veteran director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus, Black Hawk Down), The Martian looked beautiful, and the movie flowed beautifully as well. The threats were terrifying as hell, and there were no fake or newfangled technologies so everything stayed grounded. But despite all the hardship Watney was against, it’s a strangely hopeful film.

TL;DR The movie is an obvious bait for people like me--who loves movies, space, and science in the equal amount--but it's also a damn good thriller about survival that everyone could enjoy.

Rant: What prevented Glee from being a truly great television.

I have a love/hate relationship with Glee. It's one of my only guilty pleasure in the true guilty-feeling sense (I also love some non high-brow TV shows like Teen Wolf, but my love for them is always unashamed), but Glee is the only show which I might feel like scrubbing my brain afterwards and just pretend I didn't watch them.

I think Glee had bad reputation just because it's set in high school and it features singing pop songs (or in some cases, butchering songs) in ubiquitous environments. It just seemed so uncool for people above 20 y.o. who are finally capable of making well-reasoned decisions in life (unlike 100% of the characters in Glee), but Glee's downfall for me is not even about trademark Ryan Murphy's lightning fast nonsensical plots and antics—I've taken it as part of Glee's charm even though it is an acquired taste—but because for me Glee was always just so damn close to being truly compelling television. In its heart, Glee is about outcasts finding their way in the world, following dreams, overcoming odds, tolerance and equality. And Glee was always great at telling compelling teenage-related stories when it remembered its heart. When it’s bad it’s bad, but when it’s good it’s really good and I think a lot of people missed it because of the stigma that the show carries.

First season was generally loved by critics and fans, and it remained its best season. It was a unique blend of a teenage dream—a dream that we can all fit in, and we can reach greatness—and a brightly-lit, tounge-in-cheek satire. Rachel was the epitome of Glee: talented, driven, and misunderstood. Others fit in nicely too, from a jock who struggled to not be the mean bully that everybody expected him to be, a stuttery gothic girl, a church girl overlooked but destined for stardom, a kid in a wheelchair, a closeted gay, and even jocks and cheerleaders who eventually found home in Glee club and in each other. The interactions between the losers and the popular, and how they later overcame their differences was what Glee is all about. They felt like family and it was all that mattered. Glee was never without its more questionable aspects however, like Will's wife faking her pregnancy, but hey it's Glee we're talking about so it comes with the territory. Things got rocky later on, as second season rolled and it started to pay more attention to elaborate popular songs, and less on actual storylines. It never quite reached the heights of season 1 again, but Glee always had its moments of brilliance. And then sometimes it threw it all away, then found them again, and lost it again, then it came back—you get the gist. Glee always trailed the line between greatness and awfulness, and maybe there's no place it rather be.

Disclaimer: I do watch Glee from time to time but I am in no way religious about it, so I haven't watched every single episodes of Glee but I watched quite a lot of them. And yes, sometimes I skip some episodes on purpose because some of them are just bad and I just can't with it. And I critic because I love them, so please don't be mad at me for being passionate! These opinions are my own, and this rant is always intended to be a mere opinion piece. Also, spoilers ahead.

I have a list in my mind of things that prevented Glee from reaching its true potential. I try to keep them broad and general, because there were always a thousand plots going around Glee at any one time (good and bad) and it's just counterproductive to complain about them all. So here it is:

1. The Rachel Berry Problem. Glee loves Rachel Berry. I have no idea why. I did say that Rachel Berry is the epitome of Glee, and at certain level it was true, but it quickly went out of hand. Glee gave Rachel everything. She was selfish, and everybody shone a spotlight on her, said she was special, pat her in the back, and handed everything to her in a silver platter just because she demanded for it. It happened over and over again it was not even funny, and in the last season she was only worried about her future for a few minutes and guess what: eventually the only choice she had to make was between accepting a Broadway part that she forgot she auditioned for, or coming back to NYADA that accepted her again just because she asked for it. In the end, I don't even think Rachel learned anything at all aside from how amazing she is and how she deserves everything in life.

2. The Asian Girl Problem. I feel sorry for Tina. Remember that storyline in season 2 in which Tina wanted to be the lead but everybody's like, "Let Rachel have it. She's in senior year and she needs it more than you, you can have it next year," but guess what? The time never came. She was always sidelined in favor of the other girls until the end. It always seemed odd to me because she seemed to have, "I'm not gonna put up with your s**t," attitude. She's a true team player and the show rarely rewarded her for it. There was also rarely an episode in which her ethnicity isn't mentioned in one way or another, that you start to think that maybe it's part of why.

3. New kids of season 3: The Glee Project winners a.k.a extras. There was a show called The Glee Project and yes, I watched 2 seasons of them. It was a reality-show/competition type spin-off series that aimed to find the next star to appear on Glee. They were told that the winner would get 7 episode arc on Glee (that's A LOT) and maybe a gateway to stardom. It was not. Technically they weren't wrong, because they pointed out that the show wasn't technically a competition but rather televised casting process. And they get their prizes alright, but they never got the chance to really shine on Glee. Most of their roles involving being a walking label who spouts one or two sentences each episode and smile while other people sing. You definitely started to feel sorry for the winners because they were basically glorified extras. Other non-winner new kids on Glee were also treated barely as part of the group that it becomes useless fare to talk about them.

The reason I talked about The Glee Project was because they quite made a big fuzz about finding new kids but ended up not using them as much at all. Also, by that time I was a bit frustrated with Glee that the thought of having fresh infusion of blood excited me, but sadly I was misguided. It was such wasted opportunity.

4. Old kids of season 3: Living In New York Watching the series finale, it was pretty clear that the show was always about the original kids (unless you're Blaine, because Glee loves them Blaine too). At season 3, it wasn't extremely clear to me what the show was trying to be after the big shake-up of graduating kids. To be fair, I guess the show itself wasn't sure either. I'm pretty sure the only reason we get to NY was because the show was afraid of letting Rachel Berry go.

I think the show suffered because it tried to tell 2 stories at once: the new kids (the ones haven't graduated) and the old kids. The fact that it couldn't choose hurt its chances at telling great stories on either of them, and left me disappointed with both.

6. New kids of season 4: What's up with the triangle? Glee came back with 4 new kids: Marley, Ryder, Jake, and Kitty. Three of them were in a love triangle (or love "square" if you count Kitty's deviousness as real love), and it was unengaging. I shouldn't complain about the new kids when I crave for them in the previous season, but the problem was that these kids weren't very good characters and were downright boring by Glee's standards. I quite like Ryder (played by Blake Jenner, winner of 2nd season The Glee Project) and his dyslexia, but for the most part they were normal kids pretending to be outcasts (trapped in a boring love triangle) and they never really gelled with the show.

7. New kids of season 6: Too little too late, The disappearence of Jane Hayward, and Are we a team with The Warblers? If there was one thing that Glee season 6 pulled off, it was the new kids. They embody the wide-eyed hopes and dreams that the original kids of Glee used to have, and it was fun to watch it all unfold all over again. The only regrettable thing was that we only had such a short time with them (6th season is a shortened season of only 13 episodes, and even then the kids didn't get legitimate storyline until halfway into the season). Roderick-Spencer bromanship was nice, so was Mason's coming of age and Madison's blessing and serenity, but it was a little bit too little too late, especially when we talk about Jane! Jane started off the season with guns blazing and winds blowing: she fought her way into Dalton Academy and The Warblers, lost, but rose again and get herself transferred to McKinley to join the New Directions.... only to not be heard of again. She was such a fighter in the first episode, but she was never given her own storyline to showcase herself in later episodes, not even when The Warblers joined New Directions (her reaction was limited to a quick one-sentence remark).

And speaking off The Warblers, the joint New Directions-Warblers came soooo far from the left field that it had not one iota of believability. If it were given time to build up and develop across several episodes of the season, it would be a marvellous arc, but the actual execution was pretty bad. It took place in exactly one episode, I believe? The Warblers were even barely in frame whenever they were in a group together, that it never felt real that they actually joined. And are we pretending that no former members of The Warblers sang anything at Sectionals and were okay with it? I know that the show is about New Directions, but the show just threw any sort of believability out of the window by that point. The heart was in it in season 6, but the execution was lacking that it left me wondering how a perfect season would be like.

8. Old kids of season 6: We never let go of anything. I was tired of the old kids by this time, I even skipped the wedding episode because I just don’t want to see them again. For me, their arc already ended and there were not much that can be gained by revisiting them. It was only by the time its 2-part finale aired that I understood that the show was never about the new kids, or even the club. It was about several kids and one teacher who happened to find their way to each other's life, and changed each other's life. The finale was pure nostalgia and wish fulfillment, but by that time it wasn't even a negative. It was perfectly sweet and bookended the series nicely. Glee is the world where the people you meet in high school are the only people of worth you'll ever meet in your life: it maybe not the most realistic, but it was the world that it lived in. In Glee, nobody’s ever has to let go, and who doesn't want to live like that?

Glee may have lost its steam. By this time, most people maybe don't know or don't care that the show has shown it last episode (it actually has the lowest rating of Glee's season finales), but for me Glee will always be remembered as that show that was always almost on the verge of greatness. Farewell, and good riddance (I never know which one to choose).

Review: Earth To Echo (2014)

Rating: 8.0 of 10

A group of kids on their very last night together (because they were about to move and the neighbourhood about to be torn down to create a freeway) happened to find a crashed alien, and went on an overnight adventure to get him home. If it sounds like a mixture of E.T. and The Goonies, that's because it completely is, but Earth To Echo managed to stand its ground instead of simply being an inferior mimic.

The plot itself wasn't revolutionary--and frankly wasn't that different from E.T.--but what elevated this movie was how genuine the friendship was. The kids, all played by "unknown" child actors (Teo Halm, Brian Bradley, Reese Hartwig, Ella Wahlesstedt), were very natural and felt like real friends. They also acted exactly as kids and not act how sometimes Hollywood thinks children act like. That was the appeal of The Goonies, and that was the appeal of Earth To Echo. A lot of the performances in Earth To Echo were actually improv, so that helped a lot in making sure the scenes play as naturally as possible.

Earth To Echo moved at fairly fast pace and that helps a lot, but the film also packed a lot of genuine emotions. Each of the kids had their own backstory that shaped who they were, and the looming dread of future separation felt real enough and added a layer of poignancy to the story. While the film clearly had connections to 1980s through its spiritual predecessor, Earth To Echo felt very now and didn't try invoke 80′s nostalgia (that could be overbearing in some movies); it had cellphones, GPS, and Google Maps, and a cute little alien with Minority Report-esque aesthetic. Actually, Earth To Echo reminded me of Chronicle more than anything (probably because I’m not a generation of E.T. and The Goonies), and here might be my obligatory mention that Earth To Echo was shot in found-footage style--but for me it wasn’t annoying or overly shakey and it actually had some neat trick regarding Echo's vision.

TL;DR Once you get past the obvious (and lazy) comparison, Earth To Echo is a sweet little movie about kids and friendship--with surprisingly good acting and genuine emotions.

Review: Rise Of The Guardians (2012)

Rating: 9.5 of 10

From Dreamworks and the group of people who brought How To Train Your Dragon to life (according to the poster), here comes another animated tale called Rise Of The Guardians. And it was just as brilliant.

Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine), is a menace. He is a far cry from Santa Claus a.k.a. North (Alec Baldwin), Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and Sandman who each did hardwork and vowed to protect and care for the children for ever. But somehow, when a new threat in the form of Pitch “Boogeyman” Black (Jude Law) came into town, Jack Frost was picked to help the rest of The Guardians.

The premise is not exactly new, and the choice of characters are definitely not new. Santa? Easter Bunny? They each have been portrayed in stories hundreds of times before (or thousands in the case of Santa Claus), but not quite like this. Santa, or North as the movie calls him, is two-parts Russian/one part biker/one part pirate/one part handicraftsman. Bunny is the ultimate macho-man, Tooth is a woman-bird-dragonfly hybrid with tiny little helpers, and Sandman is the cutest mute sandy being of all time. Jack Frost is a punk, and Pitch Black is a skeevy, slithery villain in black robe who turns dreams into nightmares (I’m amused that he’s Jude Law, in a role I always imagined him to be). Every hero (yes, because they’re basically superheroes protecting the children) and villain is definitely fully inspired by the myth and lore we are familiar with, but with clear enough twist to make the universe felt new, exciting, and lived in. Did you know that Yeti, not elves, is the one that makes toys for Santa? 

And more importantly, they built on the characters. Each of the characters have their own backstory but when you realize that each of the Guardians used to be living, breathing humans it all became that much more poignant. 

Leaving out of the theater, I started to think that maybe the biggest message from the film is not for the kids but for the adults. Sure it teaches kids that the world is full of wonder and possibilities, or that bad things might exist but we need not fear them—it even teaches self-worth and sense of duty. But we, the adults, are also reminded that the world is a magical place and we need that wide-eyed attitude in life. When North told Jack about his Matryoshka doll, or Tooth explained why she always collects children’s teeth, you start to understand the importance of childhood. Hence, it is not a coincidence that this movie is one of the most magical children’s movie I’ve ever seen.

The genius thing is, while Rise of The Guardians is not a properly holiday movie (unless you count Easter as a proper holiday—I don’t) it felt absolutely festive. It has genuinely exciting action sequences too, and in general the animation is absolutely beautiful. We slide and fly along with the Guardians and it gets ever more exciting each time. Yes it does not have an absolutely unique storyline (it follows the general trajectory of a “rise to a hero” story), but it pays its existence with a genuine heart, a sense of wonder, and believable characters.

TL;DR With its plentiful action sequences and a hint of darkness it imparted at some places, Rise of The Guardians is a magical ride perfectly suited for bigger and more cynical kids—kids, being “real” kids and the kids inside all of you.