BURN AFTER READING

MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence.
Run time: 96 min

Having seen No Country for Old Men, most people, including me, have high expectation on the latest Coen flick. However, anyone seeks gore and shocking scenes will be disappointed but still, zany characters are abundant here. It is slightly below Fargo but not as good as Miller's Crossing or No Country.

As always this film is difficult to classify, is it crime? Drama? Thriller? Comedy? or amalgamation of any well defined genre? Greed is the major theme here, apart from alcoholism and bizarre coincidence.

C.I.A. agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), is being demoted for being an alcoholic and perhaps having a temper as hot as boiling pasta. His wife, the icy bitchy Katie (Tilda Swinton), doesn't like this at all. Meanwhile, her lover, ex-secret service agent/federal Marshall, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), is trying to decide whether to request a divorce from his wife to be with Katie while still browsing internet for blind dates. That's how Harry meets a gym worker named Linda Litzke (France McDormand), who thinks that inner beauty is only some bullshit therefore needs money for some cosmetic surgical procedures. With her accomplice, Chad (Brad Pitt), three steps away from having a naivety of Forrest Gump, has the leverage, a copy of Osborne Cox memoir he accidentally found on his gym.

Both had tried to blackmail Osborne to no success and then try to sell the secret to the Russian. Now if I have to tell the bizarre coincidence and the plot that goes round and round, it would be a very bizarre review.

The shock came after 60 minutes as one of the character "accidentally" died/killed (very difficult to determine which one really happens).

George Clooney and Frances McDormand has the most interesting chemistry as for John Malkovich, there's no explanation why he is so hot headed.

What really bothers me is the satellite image at the beginning and end of this film. What was that all about? This film is about bizarre and witty coincidences paired with quirky characters, incompetent agency, affairs and human greed, does it need some zoom out/in of a building from space? Shouldn't the money for that shot directed to pay another character in this movie to keep things stranger than ever? Like hiring Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan for instance?

MAMMA MIA!

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sex-related comments.
Run time: 108 min

Who hates ABBA? Nobody, even those who used to listen to black metal/punk/underground music has been caught whistling Dancing Queen in their respective toilet, no matter how old they are. For millions of people, ABBA has been the synonym for guilty pleasure.

As a fan of Bollywood movies, the plot aren't as difficult as Matrix:Reloaded and occasionally, the characters cut from dialogue to dancing and singing, dangling from ladders, magically jumping on the roof and keep dancing until the music stops.

With Disney type of plot, even telling the whole story would be a spoiler. Donna (Meryl Streep) has a tourist villa in a remote island in Greece. She has a daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) who will be married to Sky (Dominic Cooper), kinda weird name to invent huh? Sophie doesn't know who her father is. From his mother diary, Sophie had a clue and invited three men who used to be Donna's love interest, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) and Harry (Colin Firth). From there, you can follow the cheerfull story easily and enjoy the tops songs of ABBA weaved into the storyline. This is, by far the best antithesis for The Dark Knight.

Now put your intellectual mind to a holiday in this beautiful Greek island and try not get caught by your peers whistling Fernando in the public toilet while having a Gothic make-up or secretly digging your parent's basement to find ABBA cassettes or LP.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Run time: 106 min

After the credits rolled I read the caption "James Bond will return". Well, he surely has to return since after the hard action and fast pacing chase I was left with the most nagging question I ever pose for any Bond franchise ever: "What is Quantum organization anyway? What do they want, and, what happened to Mr. White after he escape?"

The plot is okay, the action scenes are superb. I can understand the twist and subtle sarcasm at imperialism and hypocrisy aided by powerful countries, the double standard of the U.S. and A, the transformation of Bond from a darker spy to a...well....more darker than ever as he finally shut his emotion. After all of that, still, the audience was left dumbfounded trying to figure out why does there is no explanation on Quantum organization.

Am I dreaming, or this Bond franchise has transform itself too hard until there's no Bond element left at all and only leave us with Bond himself (and he didn't even say his famous catchphrase at all, in case you waited for that magic moment). No Q, no fancy gadgets, no vodka and martini, plus he didn't sleep with Camille (shocking eh?). Don't even mention the end, it was an anti climax.

However compared to Babylon A.D. High School Musical trilogy or Hannah Montana concert videos and tons of Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan interpretation of 007, this one stand above all and manage to inject some dry and bleak humor between M and Bond plus a certain degree of realism by fast pacing edit which remind us of Jason Bourne (Coincidence? Not really, the producer use the same person who choreographed Bourne in this film), although not above Casino Royale.

Hint to audience, better watch Casino Royale first to understand what is going on here. I already watch Casino twice on the DVD but still doesn't feel satisfied with Quantum. Are they planning for another sequel?

What about the theme song? Gosh that was awful, it felt as if Alicia Keys is shouting to a wall and Jack White tries so hard to pound the wall. Definitely unmemorable.

Gosh, even the melancholic Casino Royale has an open climax ending. Perhaps years from now, people will like Quantum more and they should make another sequel to this, the first Bond trilogy!

TROPIC THUNDER

Run time: 107 min
MPAA: R for pervasive language including sexual references, violent content and drug material

The movie they think they're making... isn't a movie anymore.

Gosh, has Hollywood has run out of idea so the only way they can draw a laugh is to mock themselves to the limit? However it really works, for those movie buffs and Access Hollywood viewers this film is an amalgamation of Russel Crowe's antics, A-List star with an ego the size of Texas, Belgium and California, Rapper with explicit lyrics, another version of Eddie Murphy and a Shia LaBeouf lookalike. Somehow it felt like an overly glitter version of The-A-Team with Tom Cruise adding the fun mocking studio executive.

The actors are, Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) a rapper with "explicit" hit song, "I Love Tha' Pussy". Geeze they surely push stereotypes too hard for this character, then there's the A-list action star, Tugg Speedman's (Ben Stiller) and funnyman Jeff "Fatty" Portnoy (Jack Black), who had a very valuable talent, farting in a movie. Then there's Russel Crowe incarnation, Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), five time Oscar winner who takes acting too seriously.

These Hollywood bunch were thrown in Vietnam making a war movie and a expected the shoot went into a mess, they even has to encounter a real drug smuggler cartel somewhere in Laos in an unbelievable act reminds us of The Great Escape.

Forget logic, every aspect of this movie seems to drag people out of their senses, it seems, even in the most chaotic scene, that even bullets doesn't want to hit them at all since any death will ruin the humor of this film.

With lots of cameos, even Lance Bass make a parody of you-know-what-but-I-shall-not-make-spoiler and John Voight desiring an Oscar is a breeze of nice chuckle for me. It even spoof Apocalypse Now and war movies. Overall, if you want a non stop humor that will tickle your belly, this is the right movie for you. The more you know Hollywood, the more you will be amused by this flick.