Category: Movie Review

GangsteRock ‘Kasi Sengat” : A Movie Review

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A Guest Review by Mogi (Rage)

 

Never have I seen an absolute garbage that is beyond comprehension. GangsteRock ‘Kasi Sengat’ is a movie by Soffi Jikan; an amazing actor but as a director…well. I can’t help but to point out the flaws almost throughout the entire movie. It has a stellar cast of amazing actors, but the film sucked. Why does the film suck? The poster sucks. The trailer sucks. Are they trying to hard or is it just plain lazy suckiness?

The editing was horrible, the cinematography is horrible, not to mention the audio editing is so fail, you can’t hear SQUAT SHIT what the fuck they are talking about. The color grading isn’t even properly done. VFX is so obvious a cut out mess. Things go left and right for no reason because the editing left a lot of plot holes and unresolved situations. The opening sequence is quickly shown in 2 minutes, complete with credits to who directed it. The editing was so fast its hard to grasp what was what. There’s this one moment they went to a mansion, and then they get out, with no explanation why do they went there and do what? Guess what? This is the final cut, it was as is, in frickin DVD, and cinemas.

They have flashback scenes but I can’t even tell if its a flashback, wrong color correction. One time they are at the city, then to kampung, I thought the guy went ‘balik kampung terus’, then they cut back to him in the same position at the city, then I realized, oh, it was supposed to be a flashback.

So what’s the story about? A guy who wants to be a rockstar getting caught in some gangster shit, I do not know why, because I can’t hear the dialogue. The flow was bad, there were scenes that were like non-existent; trying to brain the plot just killed my brain cells. There’s nothing more to say. That’s honestly what I can grasp from seeing it. Oh wait, here’s one, the guy who wants to be a rockstar picks a fight with gangsters, who represent… Jazz music. Um, what? And there’s no Jazz music either. There’s barely any ‘Rock’ singing performances in this movie, despite the title Gangsterock.

Acting wise? Well, I honestly had to say them actors participated in a horrible movie that puts their acting level close to the drain. Its nothing great. No matter how experienced they are, the characterization was too bad to handle. There was a scene where the bad guys firing a gun and the actors reacted with an… ok meh, kind of reaction. ITS A FUCKING GUN, ITS LOUD, act properly damnit!!! The characters also kept jumping from bad to good, I just honestly don’t feel to symphatize with anyone in this film. Oh, they have cameos from Chef Wan to… Zaiton Sameon!? Oh my, she’s a legend and her singing was awesome back in the 80’s 90’s… and it was severely bad in this movie. Its so bad, I don’t even recognize who is this person.

Fuck this movie.

This is the one film I kept putting my hands up in the air going, “What the fuck is this shit?!”. Its so bad and incomprehensible that this review became short because there’s nothing to talk about. In short, this is PURE SHIT.

My ratings for this film? How about buried deep below the crust of earth to the point this film doesn’t exist, that’s like -10 along the y-axis. Yes, a -10 out of 10. That’s how low it can go, it can go deeper of course, any way you want it and it’ll be a zero.

I rate this movie –10/10 overall.

Bravo 5 – A Movie Review

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A Guest Review by Mogi (Rage)

I have been initially skeptical with the poster.

So, it has been a long while since we have another patriotic movie in the form of army movie. We do have some before, the likes of Leftenan Adnan, Bukit Kepong, Sarjan Hassan, Darah Satria, and many more that I haven’t encountered; they may exist…or maybe not. Anyway, this new movie is meant to showcase the struggle of our army in defending our country and for patriotism.

They did mention that this film is also based on a true story. BUT. From the looks of it, I have my doubts. This adds a whole new level of, I quote Hassan Mutalib “F*****G BS”.

Overall? IT FAILED BEYOND BELIEF.

The summary is dastardly simple.

It’s basically ‘The Lone Survivor’ localized; two Malays, one Indian, one Chinese, and one Sarawakian in the Bravo 5 movie. They were tasked to rescue this one Malay soldier from the Communists, and somehow they screwed up big time. In the end…well, why do you think I likened this movie to ‘The Lone Survivor’?

Why does the movie suck to me, you ask?

The movie background is set around 1989 I believe; I’m shocked that Communists are still wandering around and that they are still our greatest enemy at the time. Isn’t that like, the 60’s 70’s problem?

At the start of the film, the characters are established. We have Remy Ishak, a man who left his newly wedded wife because he is needed (get this) by the country. Oh, the wife is played by Siti Saleha, whose role is just… as a wife, and i’ll tell you the other part later. Then we have the Chinese guy, then the Indian, and then the… who is this guy, they obscure the face because he was in a sniping position, then it transitioned to a room where he is presented as a silhouette and we STILL can’t tell who he is. Next, we get cut to Beto’s character, and I was mistaking him as the same character but apparently it isn’t. It’s only until the show all 5 of them Bravo guys, I realized oh they have this Sarawak fella. Where the hell does he come from?

The most baffling thing I’ve seen in this movie is that the communists went HAIL HYDRA pose (the exact damn pose) while shouting MAO ZEDONG. Really, is this what the communists do their salute? Mao Zedong is miles away in China, and Communism doesn’t mean refer to Mao Zedong is the great leader, there’s f******g Russia, f*****g Stalin man.

The cinematography is awful. The camerawork is like, what is its purpose? It’s like the cinematographer had just kept moving the camera to make it alive than static, but he kept dollying around left and right until the shots are all meaningless. The camerawork is a character. It plays a narrative role; but in this film, it doesn’t! Sometimes the soldiers went into the jungle, and for no bloody reason the shot changes from daytime to nighttime. You can tell the difference by the lighting. It’s an awful lot more when they shoot everything in the dark, pitch black, no rim light silhouette and such, this film is so black, its blacker than my coffee, i can’t see shit captain! When they have a shootout scene, it was so dark I can’t tell who shoot whom, who died, what the hell happened here?

Character-wise, not that great. We have Siti Saleha here who ends up getting raped and died. That’s it, that’s her character. The Indian fella has this father, on every f*****g shot he’s in, he always CRY. Then we have this father of Remy, who talks to his kampung friends how sucky the communists are; like it was a forced message and for what purpose? Their forced message conversation acting sucks so bad. During the raping incident, the father managed to intervene against the communists, and he wallop a couple of karate chops at the three of them, I could hear a movie goer shouting, why didn’t the communists just shoot the fella? And he did, he gets shot in the head, after whacking several people in the first run. The Bravo 5 movie shares their stories but I feel its so underdeveloped. The bad guys however are pretty cheesy, especially if one would compare them to the Bukit Kepong movie that was filmed back in the 80’s. These guys made more convincing Communists than this one. MAO ZEDONG? What the hell man?

Plot holes, scenes that doesn’t make any sense at all. For example, when the father stomps the floor (for god knows what reason!), the filmmakers had even made the effect more prominent. Why?

The fighting scenes? They kept playing this ramping 300 slow motion shit to the point it’s annoying. The camera kept moving and shaking around; even with the quick editing it doesn’t make the scenes any better. To me that had probably made it way worse. I can’t tell what’s going on as well. Haven’t they learn what Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen rules of fighting scenes? KEEP IT SIMPLE. This film isn’t. It’s a cluttered mess of shit.

The gore is bad. You see this guy covered in blood. Oh, it’s so painted red like it covers the whole body with red paint. It’s so obvious that it’s paint because it doesn’t look like blood at all. It’s so red, I doubt that the color code in Photoshop can even comply to such colors. There is also a moment where we see bodies of dead communists, where at this one instance they had just Photoshop’ed blood or bullet holes on a person…and it’s clearly obvious that they’re Photoshop’ed!

The film climax pits against the last character against the last communists (he he he). So they have a fight scene hand to hand combat (and awful too) only at the last minute the last dude gets a deus ex machina from… suddenly appearing trap who impales the final villain. Where the f**k does that come from again? Where’s the establishment of that. True story my ass, what a sheer coincidence they ran to this situation by sheer luck.

The forced message in this film just doesn’t make me felt patriotic even, it made me feel moronic.

My ratings for this film? How about a big F**K YOU for wasting my f**king money you fuck.

And to the people who gave it a good rating and say its the best film, F**K YOU too.
You are the scum who made the industry worst. You’re not honest, you’re a lowly shit.

I rate this movie –5/10 overall.

Mr.Holmes : A Movie Review

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A Guest Review by Mogi (Calm)

Who is Sherlock Holmes according to everyone? He is a famous character, a great detective who solves crime by his impressive wit, intelligence, and focus. He also was envisioned as a man who smokes with a pipe and wear a deerstalker hat. Now that is the Sherlock Holmes we all know, a character. Or perhaps the Sherlock we all know is because Benedict Cumberbatch made a lot of raving fangirls who crave for more of his take on the character.

This film is NOT about the ‘character’, Sherlock Holmes.

This film is about the ‘person‘ who is Sherlock Holmes.

Mr Holmes starring Ian McKellen
Photo Credit: Artrix UK

Wondering what I’m getting here? Here, let me explain:

The film focuses on the elderly Sherlock Holmes, the very same person you all familiar with, only with a difference; it’s a take of him as a ‘real person’ who inspires the very ‘character’ of Sherlock Holmes we all knew. He doesn’t wear a deerstalker hat, he doesn’t smoke pipe, he does solve crimes, he is very wit and intelligent, everything here is a subtle take than the exagerration of the character we once knew. Its a very meta approach which puts Watson as the writer of all Sherlock cases that we’ve been exposed to (which is actually written by Sir Conan Doyle) but when writing in paper, fantasies and fiction are there to spice things up from reality. This film is about the reality; we are presented with Mr. Holmes in which instead of staying in-character, it develops around his character further.

The elderly Sherlock is in retirement, away from Baker Street, no more Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and anything else you knew. Here he is away from the town, living in a farmhouse mending the bees and honeys. He has been retired for about 30 after the last case. There he lives with Mrs. Munro and her son Roger. Roger is curious of how Sherlock does his things and eager to know what Sherlock is writing about his last case, a case which he himself writes, not much of fiction and exaggeration as what is dear Watson did in the old days. Sherlock has an issue however, his memory is fading, and he must finish up his writing before he dies or he’ll never be complete. Will he be able to finish writing his last case, what is the story behind it? Roger and Holmes grew closer like a student and mentor, not at solving crimes, but the usage of intellect. Its a mystery film as well, presented are three cases, Sherlock’s last case, what depopulates his bee farm, and why Sherlock went all the way to Japan?

An interesting reference to Sherlock’s character is that a film within a film about Sherlock Holmes dealing with his case, in which Sherlock himself watches it. For those who have watched ‘Young Sherlock Holmes’, there’s an interesting cameo if you can still juggle your memory and notice him. Don’t worry, his role is that obvious.

Though the main character may be an elderly man, which makes it hard to relate because most of us are young and not 92, we relate instead to Roger, a young boy whose curious about Sherlock and we learn the ways and the narrative of the story of how Sherlock came to be. Its an interesting framing of narrative which unlocks the mystery gradually from a perspective of a fresh young man over an experience elderly man.

The film is a story of redemption, we are presented of Mr. Holmes in his struggle to regain his memory and intelligent wit. He also wanted to atone his struggles of his last cases and desire to be the very man he was back then. Its not that depressing, it gives a lighter look in life.

The film is also meta referential between reality and fiction. As what mention, it compares these two to give a certain depth between expectation and facts. Its an interesting discussion that how much fiction can we live in to fool ourselves against the damned reality, but sometimes a bit of fictional exaggeration can be a very good thing. The same message we get from Tim Burton’s Big Fish. Lo may reality differs than what we expect, its better to believe in such fictional imagination and get on with it.

Personally, it gives me a refreshing take to explore a depth of character within a person as if real life, not much of this hollywood bullshit follow the formula, instead we are taken a trip of experience of a famous character like never before. A good 9 out of 10 would suffice, I left the cinema with satisfaction.

I rate this movie 9/10 overall.

He Named Me MALALA : A Movie Review

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He Named Me Malala….WHY?

He Named Me MALALA

First and foremost, thank you groupMAD for inviting me to the private screening of the film documentary “He Named Me Malala”. I admit that I was pretty dubious at first, mainly because I truly am not a fan of any form of documentary films (Sorry, I’m pretty much a cartoon and ‘no-brainer’ movies type of person LOL). However I decided to attend all the same, mainly because the synopsis had caught my attention.

He Named Me Malala - Inspirational Quote
Image Credit: The Legacy Project

About the film

HE NAMED ME MALALA is an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot when returning home on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then 15-year-old was singled out, along with her father, for advocating for girls’ education, and the attack on her sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. She miraculously survived and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund.

malala yousafzai quote
Image Credit: homoeconomicusnet

An Inspiration

As I watched the film, I find myself admiring Malala’s perseverance and humility, especially in regards to her perspective based on her religion: Islam.

With one simple sentence, she had summed up (at the age of 16) what I have been trying to explain to people everywhere (I’m quite dense when it comes to keeping it short and simple lol):

“Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood.”

Short and simple, yes? Well, she said something else after that too:

“[the Taliban] think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to the hell just because of going to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits.”

There are many inspirational quotes that she had spouted throughout the documentary, be in within the four walls of her home in the states or at the UN itself.

malala education quote
Image Credit: ET Online

Family Comes First

Emotions welled up when the filmmaker, David Guggenheim, panned the scenario where young Malala was admitted to the hospital. Her parents were (understandably) frantic with worry, and were bracing for the worst outcome possible. Miraculously, Malala survived the bloody ordeal. Her first sentence when her eyes fluttered open was, “Where’s my father?”.

The father was overjoyed at, but they were too scared to meet his own daughter. He felt guilty, thinking that his daughter would accuse him for being the cause of this unfortunate ‘accident’, as it was due to him encouraging her to speak her thoughts out that this horror had occurred. Malala, on the other hand, was adamant that her father did nothing to push her to speak her thoughts out. Supportive, yes. Never persistent.

Another view of her family was shown when they had moved to the states. How her mother struggled to learn the English language, and while she wasn’t too happy being in the States, she does her very best to adapt in the neighbourhood. How her two brothers show unconditional brotherly love towards her, but are not blind to her faults. How her father is always there right next to her, to guide and support; he is her best friend.


(Hey this was uploaded only a week ago!)

WHY should you watch He Named Me MALALA?

This documentary film has the potential to inspire people. Let the voice of Malala and move you into action to raise the voices of marginalized groups, particularly girls to go to school; i.e. for their right to education. Remember, even one voice will be heard if silence dominates everyone else.
Will you be one of the few to make your stand? Or are you still thinking that women do not deserve these, and Malala ‘had it coming for her’ when she was shot at the head for even daring to stand up and fight for education for girls? Will you side the ones who warned Malala to never step foot in Pakistan again, lest she wishes to put an end to her life? Or would you see to it that children are given equal rights for education?

Noteworthy Articles & Social Postings

How Malala Spends her 18th Birthday

“I am honored to mark my 18th birthday with the brave and inspiring girls of Syria. I am here on behalf of the 28 million children who are kept from the classroom because of armed conflict. Their courage and dedication to continue their schooling in difficult conditions inspires people around the world and it is our duty to stand by them,” Malala said. “On this day, I have a message for the leaders of this country, this region and the world – you are failing the Syrian people, especially Syria’s children. This is a heartbreaking tragedy – the world’s worst refugee crisis in decades.”

A Birthday Request from Malala: #booksnotbullets

“I urge world leaders to prioritize education because education is the only way through which we can defeat terrorism, fight against poverty and bring peace and prosperity. The money that is spent on just a few guns, if given to a child’s education, can change that child’s life.”

Find out more about the Malala Fund on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Author’s Note

Please understand that I am not a feminist. I am never a feminist, and I doubt I’ll ever be one (I’m too cynical for my own good lol). But I do agree that when it comes to education, no one should have their rights robbed right in front of them. Do not keep people in the dark, do not assume that we are ALL happy to be kept in the dark. While I agree that ‘gender equality’ is a warped concept (I see pros and cons in this), educational rights should never be a part of this equation.