Coming to Cinemas (21/2/2013)

Excuse the lack of updates for the past two weeks, as I found myself without any internet connection while I was away on my Chinese New Year holiday. Although there were some Chinese New Year releases that had caught my attention, I ended up taking a short break from visiting the cinemas while I stuffed myself with glorious food.

But it was a break worth taking because if I had to force myself to watch any of the last few remnants of the slow January release season, I wouldn't be able to make up my mind which one from this beautiful selection of movies that are coming out this week to watch.

With the Oscar season coming to an end by the end of this week, I'm glad that we have two more nominees to catch up before the awards night. But even if you are not chasing Oscar contenders, there are still a couple of movies for the more casual crowd.

Let's watch the trailers for what is going to be a busy weekend.

Beautiful Creatures

Director: Richard LaGravenese
Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Viola Davis, Jeremy Irons, Emmy Rossum
Running Time: 2 Hours 3 Minutes
Language:: English
Classification: P13
Synopsis: Based on the young adult fantasy novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, "Beautiful Creatures" is set in fictional Gatlin, South Carolina. Protagonist Ethan Wate lives with his writer father and housekeeper Amma who is more like his grandmother. On the first day of Ethan's sophomore year, he wakes up from a recurring dream he has been having about a girl he does not know. He also finds a song called Sixteen Moons on his iPod and also notices the smell of rosemary and lemon but he has no clue why. At school Ethan find out there is a new female transfer student and hears her playing Sixteen Moons in a band. When Ethan drives her home he almost runs over Lena looking for someone to help with her broken down car. It is when Ethan notices that she smells like lemon and rosemary he realizes that Lena is the girl from his dreams, and that they are connected through years of Gatlin and Caster history...

Trailer Impression: As the trend of female-targeted young adult novel adaptations is on the rise, trust me that there is more where this came from. The easiest way I can describe this is a gender-reversed Twilight with witches. Instead of a female character for the female audience to emphatise their angst with, we have a male character, but I don't know how would this go with its target audience. That is probably the only thing that would make me a little curious to watch it if it was a slow release week, but this is not a slow week. Next!

Cloud Atlas

Director: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Cast: Tom Tykwer, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw
Running Time: 2 Hours 52 Minutes
Language:: English
Classification: 18
Synopsis: Everything is connected: an 1849 diary of an ocean voyage across the Pacific; letters from a composer to his friend; a thriller about a murder at a nuclear power plant; a farce about a publisher in a nursing home; a rebellious clone in futuristic Korea; and the tale of a tribe living in post-apocalyptic Hawaii, far in the future.

Trailer Impression: Released much earlier in the States last year around the time of Ang Lee's Life of Pi, this was adapted from another of those 'unfilmable' books, so already that is saying whether you should go for this or not. Unlike Life of Pi however, Cloud Atlas had a more divisive reception among critics that place it either as being too pretentious or remarkably profound. I suspect Malaysian audience would go for the latter or come out not knowing why they spent their time watching this 'crap'. I don't think it's worth sitting through this almost 3-hour movie if you are just here for the effects and beautiful CGI. Cloud Atlas wasn't nominated in any category of the Oscars, even for the technical awards, despite being one of the most expensive indie movie ever made, so unfortunately this one goes lower on the watch list. But still, this one needs to be watched on the bigscreen.

Flight

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Denzel Washington, Kelly Reilly, Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, Melissa Leo
Running Time: 2 Hours 20 Minutes
Language:: English
Classification: 18
Synopsis: Robert Zemeckis' first pure live-action film since 2000′s "Cast Away", "Flight" charts the complicated, mostly post-crash life of an airline pilot played by Denzel Washington, with a twist. When a pilot manages to save at least a 100 lives on a flight headed for a crash landing with his cool head and expertise in the cockpit, he is made a hero by his actions. However, investigations into the mid-air crisis reveal a troubling find: the heroic pilot's blood tests positive for alcohol, which alone could get him life in prison. Worse, did the booze in his system play any role in the plane's mishap in the first place?

Trailer Impression: If you are a frequent moviegoer, you probably have seen this trailer put in front of many shows for the umpteenth time since last year. The return of Robert Zemeckis to live-action since Cast Away received strong buzz when it was released, but in the end it only has one Oscar nomination for Denzel Washington as Best Actor. That's reason enough for me to go watch this one, especially when I get to watch it back-to-back with another Best Actor nominee.

Gangster Celop

Director: Ahmad Idham
Cast: Kamal Adli, Syamsul Yusof, Hanis Zalikha
Running Time: 1 Hour 20 Minutes
Language:: Malay
Classification: P13
Synopsis: Ex-gangsters Aman and Adam are both determined to change their ways after being released from five years in prison. Their first task is to take care of Suzana, the daughter of Mat Jambu, a gang leader who had once offered them protection.

Lincoln

Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gulliver McGrath, Tommy Lee Jones
Running Time: 2 Hours 30 Minutes
Language:: English
Classification: P13
Synopsis: Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln", a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

Trailer Impression: Spielberg's next attempt of winning an Oscar after realising that the Academy didn't like silent horses as much as silent actors from a bygone cinematic era. Instead of World War I, Spielberg goes further back in time to the American Civil War and puts the pedestal on an American president. That's definitely one way to win votes from the aging Academy. Still, Lincoln has come a long way, especially when Spielberg almost couldn't get Daniel Day Lewis to put on the beard, which could have significantly changed its frontrunner status for the Best Actor, among many others, at the Oscars. Sentiments are very strong that Lewis is going to clinch that award with this one, and I'm just happy that I can be the judge of that myself before the awards night.

Pada Suatu Cinta Dahulu

Director: Hashim Rejab
Cast: Intan Ladyana, Nizam Zaidi, Zalif Sidek, Aren Yunus, Wawa Zainal
Running Time: 1 Hour 24 Minutes
Language:: Malay
Classification: P13
Synopsis: Director Hashim Rejab provides MIG with their 77th film, the romantic comedy "Pada Suatu Cinta Dahulu". Zainal, a man feeling pressured and dissatisfied with his current marital life, thinks back to his past when he was a mischievous student who fell in love with Azura, a girl like him whom he betrayed.

Spiders

Director: Tibor Takács
Cast: Patrick Muldoon, Christa Campbell, William Hope
Running Time: 1 Hour 28 Minutes
Language:: English
Classification: P13
Synopsis: The New York Subway system has been recently invaded by a colony of poisonous spiders causing havoc underground. To stop the menace from spreading, an expert is called in to handle the situation.

Vanayudham

Director: A.M.R. Ramesh
Cast: Kishore, Arjun
Running Time: 2 Hours 45 Minutes
Language:: Tamil
Classification: 18
Synopsis: "Vanayudham" depicts the rise and fall of forest brigand and dreaded sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, who oversaw a reign of terror in the forests of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

FilmBah's Pick of the Week 

Since I did miss a couple weeks worth of movies, I'm treating myself into having a movie marathon to make up for it. The top choices are obviously going to be Flight and Lincoln, and if time permitting I will watch Cloud Atlas. This is going to be a great week.

 Releases according to CinemaOnline.