Acrostic Name Game

Alex Raphael runs a fantastic blog that you can check out HERE! I haven’t gotten around to do the Alphabet Movie Meme that inspired him to do this little Acrostic Name Game but I had to do this one ASAP.  He’s been an awesome guy who has been dropping  lots of awards that being the ridiculous person I am, I’ve fallen WAY behind on responding.  Seeing as its all those #FF going around, I figured I’d give him a nice shoutout.  He did his on TV shows.  I’m going to do mine on TV and for those that I can’t figure out a show, I chose a movie.  A little mish mash 😉

True Blood

Honorable mention for this would’ve been Top Gear (UK)! I like True Blood a lot. I mean, I binge watched Season 1, suffered through Season 2 and fell in love with Season 3 & 4 then got really weirded out by Season 6.  Thats the general recap  of how I felt about it.  Wait, is there only five seasons now? Anyways, I’m lost but I love it for the vamps and werewolves and sex and nudity.  All that stuff, you know? Eric Northman is hot and Alcide is so handsome.  Not such a huge fan of Sookie but thats okay, it always works out in the end 😉

Robin Hood (2006)

I haven’t completely finished Robin Hood.  I’m about a few episodes away.  I love BBC series a lot and this one was pretty fun to watch. Its not just the guy who played Robin Hood but it also introduced to me the very handsome Richard Armitage 🙂 When I first saw him, he looked like Bradley Cooper but with a bit more charm. Honestly, I became aware of him because of Ruth over at FlixChatter. 

Aristocats

The Aristocats is one of my favorite Disney movies.  Its fun and energetic and it features lots of cats.  Everybody does want to be a cat, I tell you.  At least I wanted to be one after this.  Maybe thats why I meow occassionally…*ahem* maybe I shouldn’t have said that.  I just went to another level of weird.

New Girl

I’m slightly behind with New Girl but I have a mega girl crush on Zoey Deschanel.  I have a developing love for Jake Johnson and the whole supporting cast is hilarious.  I love this sitcom to bits.  I really should catch up with this season 🙂

Quill

One of first movies that touched me.  When you give you animals and their bond with their owners and base it on their life (and death), that just tears me apart.  Quill is amazing, touching and so memorable.

Under the Dome

I cannot wait for Under the Dome to come back this summer.  Last summer, this one really ruled my world.  It has a fabulous actress Rachel Lefevre and as I saw more of her movies, I saw just how awesome she is.  Plus, the guy in this is pretty cool.  The whole story is intense and mysterious.  I haven’t read anything from  Stephen King so I know nothing of this going in. This show is all sorts of amazing!

I‘ll Follow You Down

One of the movies I saw in Montreal’s Fantasia Festival.  I hasn’t been released anywhere else but it has an older Haley Joel Osment, Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell.  Its a sci-fi/time travel mystery.  I was intrigued by it and gave this a chance and it turned out to be surprisingly good.  The concept was very well thought out.  You can check out the review HERE!

Lie to Me

I’m still baffled as to why this show was cancelled because Tim Roth kicks some serious ass as Cal Lightman with his lie detecting skills. There’s a good chemistry between the characters and I love that they add real life snapshots of well-known public figures emphasize their point in the cases that they investigate.  Despite the serious material, they still get in some  humorous moments to loosen the atmosphere.

 

Dollhouse

I only saw this one earlier this year and I ended up buying the two seasons afterwards.  Dollhouse was the first thing that made me acknowledge just how talented Joss Whedon is.  I binge watched this and finished both seasons so fast and I was obsessed with not only Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh Penikett but totally fell in love with Topher played with Fran Kranz.  As much as its about giving people what the clients ask for, it takes a play on the end of the world and the double-edged sword with tampering with God-like technology that manipulates human nature, desires and morals.

Resident Evil

Resident Evil and all its movies are my guilty pleasure.  Its simply a fun and entertaining shoot ’em up zombie flick.  I look forward to the new one coming out this year (I think).  Maybe no one anticipates a lot but for me, Alice is my absolute favorite movie character.  I even disguised as her for Halloween two years ago 🙂

Elementary

I just realized that I have a lot of new series on here.  Anyways, I like Elementary. It came as a surprise to me because I’m not particularly a huge fan of Lucy Liu but I found her really good.  Plus, the whole Sherlock in New York with Watson turning into a woman modernizes this classic.  For me, it works out good 🙂

August Rush

Music has helped me through a whole lot of stuff and August Rush is one of those movies that touched me.  Maybe not a lot of people like it.  I know my boyfriend didn’t.  There’s just something really magical about the whole story and I can relate to it in some ways.  I actually wrote a post about it a good while back and you can check that out HERE.  I just love the music and everything.

Moonlight

Another series that got cancelled after only one season.  I thought it was a really good one also.  One of the better vampire series I’ve seen at least.  It made me fall in love with Alex O’Loughlin also. Its only one season and I actually think its time to revisit it 🙂

Sherlock

Another Sherlock Holmes modernized version! As much as I like Elementary, there is something about Benedict Cumberbatch that really makes this one stand out and I like the guy who plays Watson also. I need to start Season 3!

Whew!! That was actually kind of hard to put together. I originally wanted to use just TV series but figured that after Q turned out to be super hard and I modified it to part TV and movies.  Not too bad, right?

Now that I’ve done it! Go ahead and make one of your own! It can be any list as long as its with your blog name! I shared the link up top on the instructions that Alex gives.  Be sure to check out his awesome blog and join into this fun game. I’d love to see what you come up with!

This blog was supposed to go up on Friday but I guess somewhere in the world, some place is still Friday, right? I have some exciting stuff to announce over the next while.  First one will be probably over this weekend since I didn’t get something for today.  Remember to check back, ok?

Fantasia Festival: I’ll Follow You Down (2013)

This is what a World Premiere feels like! I went to see I’ll Follow You Down at the Fantasia Festival with my best friend and it was the world premiere yesterday evening.  One of the actresses, Susanna Fournier was there and the director, Richie Mehta was there also to make an opening speech.  After the credits, Richie Mehta and the producer or production manager (can’t remember which one they said), Lee Kim was there to talk a bit about the concept of the movie and then answered some questions from the audience. The experience was pretty awesome!

Director: Richie Mehta

Cast: Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber, Rufus Sewell, Gillian Anderson, Susanna Fournier

In 2000 set in Toronto, 9 year old Erol and his scientist father (Rufus Sewell) needs to finish off a chess game before heading on a plane to a conference in Princeton for 3 days. However, when Errol and his mother, Marika go to pick up his father, they realize that he has vanished and the last person to see him before the mysterious disappearance was Erol’s grandfather Sal (Victor Garber), a professor at Princeton.  12 years later, Erol (Haley Joel Osment) and Marika both struggle to live after the disappearance.  By chance he learns that Sal is trying to figure out the research that his father was doing before he disappeared on wormholes and the concept that there are many spaces in time and that his father has accomplished going back in time to 1946 to meet Einstein.  He also offered that the only way he can retrieve his father back is to figure out how to re-create the time travel at a certain point in time.

I’ll Follow You Down is an emotional drama sci-fi mystery.  I’m not a fan of sci-fi usually but this one was pretty impressive.  The setting, lighting created a really suitable atmosphere and mood to the movie.  It was paced well and was a comfortable 92 minutes long (rare nowadays that movies don’t go over 2 hours).  To me, that make it effective as they simplified and let certain things be concise and direct, straight to the point.  It kept me engaged and wanting to figure out more.  Plus, there were a few twists that changed from the norm and because of that, it was definitely a good change. Time travel is a really tricky premise to do and it all comes down to whether the audience buys the concept.  In this one, the simplicity among the complex concept of the time travel really helps.  As technical as they tried to make it more believable, it was also explained in a way that it was easy to grasp what they wanted to do.

The cast was perfect in every way.  Although a lot of the actors and actresses are known but not completely active in Hollywood as much, this movie still shows their full potential.  For one, Haley Joel Osment was popular as a young actor back in 2000/2001 with the breakthrough role in The Sixth Sense and followed through with A.I. According to IMDB, he did a lot of voice work for video games and some animations.  Seeing him back on screen is different.  For one, he looks completely different and his acting has definitely matured.  I see him doing really great things if he get the opportunity.  He had to go through a spectrum of emotions in this movie from sad, happy, scared, nervous and being especially smart and perspective and he did it all.

As for the other cast members, they did amazing performances all around. I haven’t seen Gillian Anderson much, especially since X-Files was before my TV streaming days and with bunny ears I think I watched one episode of it and then Rufus Sewell, I only know from The Holiday as that jerk boss that takes advantage of Kate Winslet‘s character.  However, I am a huge fan of Victor Garber so I was super happy to watch him in this.

After movie chat by director Richie Mehta and production Lee Kim

However, just a note that it gave me a bit more to reflect on because I listened to director and production talk about the movie.  However, I didn’t feel the same way as what they said they wanted to portray.  As I think about it more, I understand what they want to portray with the concept of consequences but I can’t really go into too much depth without spoilers.  Lets just say, the director (and writer) of I’ll Follow You Down wrote this for over 10 years.  I applaud that effort because its amazing but however, if he wanted to portray “awareness of mindfulness”, I’m not exactly sure it did that.  Maybe I missed something.

Overall, I’ll Follow You Down is a solid sci-fi mystery drama based on the concept of time travel.  Its story is nicely paced and is not lengthy. It focuses on ideas such as fate and choices, and as the director mentions, consequences. The atmosphere is captivating and the cast acts really well, with special mention to Haley Joel Osment.  I highly recommend this movie! Its definitely one of my favorite movies of 2013 🙂

Are you a sci-fi fan? How about time travel? What do you think about cast in this: Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber, Gillian Anderson, Rufus Sewell? Do you think this might interest you?

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Fantasia Film Fest 2013!

Fantasia International Film Festival 2013 started yesterday!

I wanted to keep this in the down low since time has been scarce and I’m not exactly sure if I can actually to get my schedule sorted out to accommodate it.  Thing is, I just finished looking at the movies schedules and I’m just WAY TOO EXCITED! However, choices have to be made since I don’t have that much time and limited financial resources.  Plus, I’m having trouble finding friends to go with me as I don’t particularly enjoy going to movies by myself.

I’ve been thinking of going to see the Fantasia Film Fest ever since it first came about 10 years or so ago.  Its an international film festival here that focuses on a lot of Asia movies (75% probably) and the majority of them are actually horror, thrillers or action of some sort mixed with drama, romance, comedy, etc.  They also have a good many that are having their premiere at this festival.  I know I don’t seem like the type to like horror.  Fact is, I do love them, especially horror thrillers.  My sleep doesn’t as much.

This coming few weeks, you should be seeing a few reviews of certain movies.  As I type this, I have already planned two Hong Kong movies with my mom.  First one we’ve already bought the tickets for called The Last Tycoon with Chow Yun-Fat last night.  Check out the link HERE!  Seems like I always end up taking my mom to see Chow Yun-Fat movies. At least this time around, its in Chinese so I won’t need to explain it to my mom! SCORE! 🙂

Next one I want to see (probably more than The Last Tycoon) is Saving General Yang on July 29th.  Deal is, its at the 2nd last day before a HUGE work deadline so I’m only buying the tickets depending on how much work I get done in the next few days. I’m going to try to pull lots of overtime to make it happen.  Funny thing is this one actually has a English dubbed trailer which you can find HERE! It has a phenomenal cast and it features one of my favorite historical ancient Chinese families.  I’m totally happy that my mom agreed to go see both movies with me.

My boyfriend is supposed to go with me to at least one as well.  We haven’t quite decided which one yet.  We just need to find out his new work schedule which is supposed to happen but hasn’t been posted up at work yet.  We do have a few on our minds.

Our first choice is Ip Man: The Final Fight.  You can find the trailer and description HERE! We’re huge fans of the Ip Man franchise and even if this one doesn’t have Donnie Yen, it has Anthony Wong and he’s a really kick-ass actor.  One of the best actors in the Hong Kong movie industry.

Another one we were interested in but I’m not too keen on seeing at an international film fest is I’ll Follow You Down since it’ll be accessible on Blu-ray easily afterwards. I almost didn’t recognize Haley Joel Osment.  He does not look anything like he did in AI/Sixth Sense, etc.  Take your pick 😉 If you haven’t heard about it, HERE is the link with the synopsis! I really dig the cast in it though and the story seems pretty intriguing 🙂

Another one I’m more interested than my boyfriend in seeing which is something like a 3rd choice is Lesson of the Evil directed by Takashi Miike.  It looks something like some cool gory fun.  By the way, I’m not scared of that genre of movies too much (with the exception of Texas Chainsaw Massacre) so it should be good. It could get creepy also.  Have you heard of it? The synopsis is right HERE!

Another one that is kind of like a guilty pleasure that looks like a pretty ridiculous horror comedy. I had tweeted about this yesterday as a joke but after I saw the trailer, it could be fun.  Who knows? OH, the title! Its BIG ASS SPIDER! It has an awkward Wednesday night showing so my boyfriend can’t go with me.   So with no one, I will pass since it is a US production so it should be  easier to find 🙂 By the way, Misty, this looks exactly what you’d enjoy 😉 Its not sea creature but spiders could be entertaining too! 😉 Find the trailer right HERE!

When this goes up, I’m aiming to go see this really awesome thriller! It looks so messed up.  Its called Magic Magic and has pretty decent cast with Juno Temple, Michael Cera (who really looks crazy) and Emily Browning! The trailer was impressive 🙂 My best friend to confirm that she will go with me!  The trailer is right HERE!

There are a few more but since limited resources, these have peaked my interest as well! So just some honorable mentions with the respective link below!

1) Taiwan production: When A Wolf Falls in Love with a Sheep–> http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2013/en/films-schedule/48/when-a-wolf-falls-in-love-with-a-sheep

2) Hong Kong production: Drug War –> http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2013/en/films-schedule/214/drug-war

3) Canadian production: Antisocial –> http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2013/en/films-schedule/163/antisocial

By now, I’m pretty much set on going to get those tickets for Saving General Yang if anything 🙂 And I’m pretty sure that my cold will subside long enough for me to go see one this weekend with my boyfriend! A dose of Nyquil should be help 😉

If you are interested, HERE is the movie list at Fantasia Film Festival 🙂 Maybe you’ve seen some of these and give me some recommendations!

Any cool festivals coming up where you are? Have you heard of some (or all) of these movies?