Lady Vengeance Movie Review ..

Lady Vengeance is the third and final installment in The Vengeance Trilogy, written and directed by Park Chan-Wook, a Korean director. The story begins by focusing on a young woman named Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young Ae) leaving prison, having served a lengthy sentence for the murder of a young boy. When she was accused of the murder, Lee Geum-ja was young, beautiful and completely innocent, but her kind and gentle nature didn’t help her when she was forced to confess to a murder she didn’t commit by the real criminal: Mr. Baek (Choi Min-sik), a teacher.

She’s released early for good behavior, but the moment that she leaves prison grounds her actions take a far from positive turn. In prison Lee Geum-ja befriends most of her inmates, forging bonds, friendships and debts that benefit her when she goes in search of her former cellmates upon release. However, on the outside she dons startling red eye shadow and high heels and her focus narrows to her sole objective: taking her revenge on Mr. Baek.

There’s a theory that housing criminals together with little to occupy them except the stories and experience of people who have committed even worse crimes isn’t exactly the best way to rehabilitate them, and Lee Geum-ja is the perfect example. Over her incarceration she’s plotted every last detail of her impending revenge, including how to find the daughter who was taken from her and adopted when she was arrested. Her plans take on a military precision as all the debts in her favor that she’s accumulated over her thirteen years of prison are called up to help her revenge.

Possibly my favorite thing about Lady Vengeance is the cinematography. There are two versions of the film, one of which begins with bright primary colors and gradually loses the vivacity and warmth of them as it fades to monochrome. Each of Park Chan-Wook’s trilogy has moments that can shock in a completely original way, such as one of the sex scenes involving one of our heroine’s cellmates, or the calm and orderly way the parents queue in the climax of the film. While Lady Vengeance has been released in the U.S., fortunately it hasn’t been dubbed, which allows audiences to enjoy Lee Young Ae’s brutally graceful performance as Lee Geum-ja.

It’s impossible not to compare Lady Vengeance with the respectively more popular film Oldboy. The latter takes a more humorous route (but if Park Chan-Wook had tried to introduce comedy into the story of child murder it probably would have been a mistake) with the dark comedy of the protagonists unusual personality and his even more odd approach to his situation.

Lady Vengeance is much darker (although at times still funny), and unfortunately slightly less accessible. While Lee Geum-ja is likeable, it’s hard to completely trust her because of the grey area around which of her personalities – brutal and focused or kind hearted – is actually her own. Of course, she’s much more complex than that, but it’s far from a reassuring watch, especially when she reaches the point where she had to decide whether or not to take her revenge.

If you’re choosing between them however, and you’re discouraged by the bloody violence of Oldboy and some of the Park Chan-Wook’s other forays into direction, Lady Vengeance is hardly as pure as driven snow but there’s significantly less onscreen violence than the aforementioned films. There’s also the fact that it’s much more moving than both Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, making it the most sentimental of the trilogy. If you can get hold of the fade to black and white version, you can watch one of Korea’s best directors at the peak of his creativity.

All of this makes it difficult to decide between Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, but fortunately you don’t have to. It’s up to you which you start with, but both films share Park Chan-Wook’s brilliance but excel in very different areas, all while taking on complex and emotional themes such as incest, child brutality and the division of families. With both, you’re watching one of the movie masterpieces of this decade.

Lady Vengeance Movie Trailer

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Movie Review …

Caught in a lucky coincidence, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is an unsuccessful thief who darts into a casting for a Hollywood film production while on the run from the cops and manages to land the part. Harry is whisked away to Los Angeles and paired with a private detective named Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) by the director to get some firsthand experience to help him get into his role, but things quickly turn sour when the pair witnesses the dumping of a dead body while on what should have been a simple reconnaissance job.

When they run into an aspiring actress named Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), Harry finds himself playing the part of a detective a little too well and becomes drawn into her desperate search to find out what really happened to her missing little sister.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is based on a book named Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday and has stayed faithful to the beautifully written original plot and narrative style. It shows in the winding and complicated story, which has witty, fast-paced and dark humor. Both the film and book are a tribute to the pulp fiction paperback detective novels which authors used to churn out in their hundreds, equipped with complicated twists and turns, a hero, a sidekick, a girl and several separate cases which eventually diverge and solve each other.

Both Harmony and Harry have grown up with these stories and they launch themselves into the world of espionage and murders with a series of beat-up paperbacks as their bible and guidance.

Despite the unusual combination of Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. in the two lead roles, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wasn’t a hit when it was first released but has become an underrated cult favorite since. There’s a lot to love in this film, but for me it’s the rapid fire humor that finds its best laughs in the darkest of moments, the stellar performances by all three of the lead characters who become utterly loveable and multilayered within their first couple of minutes on screen, and the absolutely unique approach to a film carried off by the script and directing that presents a style of story telling you won’t have seen before.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang repeatedly breaks the fourth wall as our awkward narrator frequently checks himself and questions his story telling technique, often forgetting to reveal important pieces of information and reassuring his audience that the story is going somewhere. Harry is charming in his own way, a career thief turned actor who isn’t cut out for either and finds the morals and sexual promiscuity of the residents of Hollywood appalling.

He’s a nice guy who’s trying to fit into a world that doesn’t need nice guys anymore, and Robert Downey Jr. gets the balance between all these characteristics perfectly. Hollywood is depicted as dark and cynical; it’s a scarred and lurid place where everything seems to be up for sale, and Gay Perry spends a lot of his time babysitting Harry, who for a career criminal has absolutely no street smarts whatsoever.

Harmony is no better, who is another of the swarm of young attractive women who believes that they will ‘make it’ based on her one successful appearance on a beer commercial years before.

While Robert Downey Jr. excels himself in an unusual kind of leading role, Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan are just as impressive. Val Kilmer’s miles from his usual ass-kicking muscle-bound comfort zone as Gay Perry, but the chemistry between him and RDJ works like magic and he almost steals the show as the slightly camp private detective who is repeatedly required to keep Harry from ending up at the bottom of a lake.

At first Harmony appears to be a vapid character who ticks the sexual equality box for female stars, but it becomes quickly apparent that she’s clever – probably more so than Harry. She’s following a clichéd dream for clichéd reasons, but she does more of the detective work than Perry and Harry combined and Monaghan shows talent that she deserves much more recognition for.

Like most people, I caught on to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang late, but since the first time I watched it and the many times since, it’s remained at the top of my favorites movies list. It’s one of the cleverest films that I’ve seen, and so packed full of comedy and plot that there isn’t a dull moment – something that I rarely say for a film. Shane Black was unlucky not to get the praise he deserved for adapting and directing Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so the best that I can do to make amends for that is to urge you to see and enjoy this film. Just make sure that you pay attention!

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Movie Trailer

Serenity Movie Review …

Based on Firefly, Fox’s cancelled television sci-fi series, Serenity tells the story of a mismatched crew of mercenaries who are persuaded by their onboard doctor (Sean Maher) to rescue his little sister from the government. Unfortunately River’s (Summer Glau) absence does not go unnoticed and soon a ruthless assassin (Chiwetel Ejiofor) with an army under his command is chasing down the crew of the Serenity space ship to get her back. However, it’s soon apparent that the little girl might be more of a threat than they first assumed as the chase forces them into dangerous space territory.

Serenity is part spaghetti western and part science fiction, with a sprinkling of oriental culture thrown in. Similar environmental arrangements have been tried before, but never with the success of Serenity, where the true magic has been worked by adding a rustic charm to the hi-tech machinery. Most fictional space age environments are spotless, white and clinical, but this universe has had time to mature and get worn down beneath the daily grind, leaving the machinery rusted and battered.

In a clever two fingers to the FCC, the characters of Serenity swear like sailors but only in Cantonese and Mandarin which maintains the relaxed atmosphere and strong bonds between the characters. With the exclusion of high class escort Inara (Morena Baccarin), the crew of Serenity isn’t anything like the well mannered officers you see on Star Trek.

Ship’s captain Mal (Nathan Fillion) and his first officer Zoe (Gina Torres) are soldiers; bitter about having joined up to the losing side of a revolution against the governing force, but most have stumbled upon the Serenity through luck and the fact that they have nowhere else to go. Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite and Alan Tudyk are excellent comic relief as Jayne, Kaylee and Wash of the ship’s crew; however one of the flaws of Serenity is that it thrusts so many primary characters at you almost immediately that it’s a little hard to keep up.

Unfortunately the TV series Firefly was yet another instance where Fox demonstrated their ability to cancel a good quality show with a decent plot instead of giving a little more advertising and a second chance to see if ratings would go up. Created by Joss Whedon – whose name you may recognize from the credits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel among other TV series he’s had a hand in – Firefly may not have had great viewing figures but possessed a hard core group of fans who campaigned vigorously for the season to be allowed to complete rather than cancelled three episodes from its finale.

Whedon didn’t succeed in his attempts to get another network to finish what Fox had abandoned, but he did manage to sell the idea of a one off film to Universal Pictures with the condition that he wrote the script to appeal to both fans of the show and audience members who didn’t know the back-story.
I have since watched Firefly purely based on how much I enjoyed Serenity, so it’s safe to say that Whedon managed to pull off the trick of writing a good script that didn’t require in depth knowledge of the universe he’d created.

The film thrives for the same reasons that most of his concepts do – because it approaches a familiar genre from a different perspective and peppers it with plenty of humor and action. The jokes in Serenity come thick and fast and the characters are easy to relate to, because they’re down to earth despite spending most of their time floating around it in a space ship.

Although their fugitive (played by gymnast Summer Glau, who manages to use her tiny, lithe frame with such lethal grace that at times she’s genuinely vicious) is one sandwich short of a picnic basket, the rest of the crew run rings around each other trying to escape the forces of the Alliance and happen across ‘Reaper’ territory, which is supposedly populated by horrible, self-mutilating creatures that find nothing more enjoyable than destroying any humans they come across.

The Reapers are terrifying. It’s not so much their appearance as what they represent, which is a race of beings that live solely to destroy and debase without any motive other than rage. You have to wonder how they’ve managed to take time out of all their burning, stealing and pillaging to learn how to fly advanced space craft, but Serenity cleverly avoids too much contact with them to allow the element of mystery to keep them scary.

Serenity is more than a movie for Sci-fi fans, because there’s no talk of finding flux capacitors or rerouting the main power supply into whatever. It’s crosses several genres, but essentially the fact that it’s set in an alternate world to our own shouldn’t put you off from a movie that ticks horror, comedy and drama boxes with equal success.

Serenity Movie Trailer

This show won’t teach you how to cook. It will though teach you to not settle for mediocre, even if you’re not a restaurant owner. It will teach the value of “keep it simple stupid” ideas and of constant bettering of oneself.

Each episode starts with a presentation. Of a sinisterly badly run restaurant, with horrific food, with bad manager and disgustingly filthy kitchens. And then he enters the show, ripping menus to shreds and making them short and sweet, teaching people to focus on the local produce and stop dreaming of fancy schmancy recipes, when they can’t even boil an egg, throw everything out and restock the pantry and then teaching the owners the lost art of cleaning those stinky floors.

Gordon Ramsey is the same as we know it from Hell’s Kitchen. Says the “f-word” 10 times a minute, curses them, yells, throws a fit. But all within reason. When you’re going bankrupt because you’re an idiot who cannot manage a restaurant and you have someone who’s a Michelin awarded chef, a multi-millionaire who grew his empire with sweat and tears, then you listen and do.

The show  is just amazing as the very down to earth ideas he’s instilling:

• keep the kitchen and pantry CLEAN (of course the rest of the restaurant too)
• don’t cook frozen food. Buy fresh local produce DAILY
• don’t have 300 items on the menu. Keep 20 but make them delicious
• be very organized. Don’t keep clients waiting.
• keep decent prices and try to make it worth for the client
• don’t cook gourmet when you can just cook some locally inspired food that’s super tasty and fresh

And many others.

It’s almost inspirational to see this guy talk with so much passion about his business, giving so many details and hints to the people asking for help. Of course he’s the abusive guy we all know, but he does make a sense. So, even if not too sweet, he means business and teaches it to those who want to listen.

I have enjoyed the series a lot (have seen the US version too, you can also watch it) so I am recommending the show

Since we’re always interested in actually relaxing not thinking about even bigger problems than ours, it was clear we’re not in for a drama, but a comedy. After refusing to watch or re-watch some stuff, we settle for ‘Grey’s Anatomy‘ and she’s letting me know some friends told her it’s good.

The lasagna is ready now, so we’re keeping our hot meal under our noses and start eating, while watching the beginning.

In few minutes we realize this is not a comedy, as we wanted, but we’re so caught in the action, we can’t be bothered to push the stop button. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is waking up after a hard night of boozing and some more. The gentleman who helped with the “some more” thing is still sleeping. She’s waking him up, scared she’s gonna be late for her first day at work.

We find out where she’s working immediately. She’s an intern or, as her resident Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) would say: “You’re grunts, nobodies, the bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop. And you don’t complain.”

We also meet her brothers in misery, the other interns: George O’Malley (T. R. Knight) – the cute guy who’s got a crush on her since day one, Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) – the former kid having to deal with his father alcoholism – now a grumpy mean guy still with a good heart,  Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) – the beautiful blond who’s paid her medical school studies by posing semi-naked in a magazine and Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) – the Asian girl the overachiever Beverly Hills kid, top of the class at Stanford.

All these “puppies” need someone to guide them, so, one level above Miranda even are the attending physicians Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) and Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) who is, you might have guessed, the cute naked guy she kicked off her apartment few hours ago.

The entire plot is filled with ‘surprises’, just when you are getting comfortable with a “setting”, there’s something new. You will face a lot of mind blowing life situations, there’s quite some drama in it and, just when you’re wiping your tears, there’s some scene that makes you laugh yourself senseless. Comedy and drama are so well woven in this show, that you’ll never be too sad or overly amused.

From all the series I have watched (from what you’ll read here I kinda saw a lot of shows) this has been one of the best, if not number 1. At least for me, this has been an amazing way to spend some time. The soundtrack is sublime, I am using many of the songs in my car’s audio system. The acting is top notch, the plot is always interesting and unpredictable, the scenes are superb. I am sure it’s a series that “ate” a lot of money, when ABC aired it, but, with all the awards and hype it’s been a very lucrative project.

Many of my friends have watched this series, if you are from the few ones who never cared to give it a shot, please reconsider.

This is another “Big Brother” in the kitchen, or better: American Idol (again in the kitchen) without Simon Cowell. Ramsey is despicable, blunt, mean, anything you want, but the guy does know his stuff. This is not a famous “can cook some stuff” guy, it’s a Michelin star awarded chef and these stars are really not being given like candy.

His constant bickering and cursing makes all his shows, even if some feel it’s too extreme.

Each season starts with a bunch of aspiring chefs, some with diplomas and experience, others just with the passion. All of them are treated equally bad in the beginning, the first episodes showing an enraged Ramsey who’s close to burning them alive, not only kicking their behind from the show.

What I like a lot is that all the “weaklings” are thrown away from the contest pronto, while the ones who don’t have the experience, but have proved to be serious and passionate are taken from the show after a very kind comment from Ramsey. There was one case of a woman who lacked any specialized schooling and he offered the money and chance for her to get a diploma, that will surely help her secure a career as a chef.

As foul mouthed and mean as he appears in the first 6-7 episodes of each show, Gordon Ramsey seems FAIR and even kind, when the weaker contestants are no longer there and the ones remaining start working closer to his super-high standards. I have to say this is something to admire. In the end, it’s a show and he’s giving it all for it, but can’t say I’ve seen him compromise his integrity.

Another aspect I like is that, even if some contestants seemed to “weird” to me, as a very conservative person, their quirks had nothing to do with them being kept in the contest and even winning it, based on their constantly improving performances.

So, if you can handle some swearing and heat, this is surely worth watching. I can say my interest for cooking started after seeing these episodes, so there’s an added value to it.