February Movies

11:59:00 PM

EEEEEKKKKKK, it's almost the end of the month again >.<!!!

Need to blog about February movies before March is over, let's do it!!!

This movie... Is honestly not something i'd consider watching if hunny didn't ask to. And yeah, i didn't like it all that much...

Vincent Downs is a cop in LA with a dirty partner (for a second i was quite confused if he is also dirty coz he keeps on blowing hot and cold but turns out he's just so deep undercover he looks dirty haha), they decided to steal some drugs that unbeknown to them , belongs to the Novak family who's like... hardcore mafioso. They originally thought that the drugs belongs to Rubino (who's a casino owner) and everything just gets messier and messier by the minute. Rubino's life's also on the line so he abducts Downs' son to make sure Downs returns the drugs, and at the same time Jennifer Bryant (and idealistic and feminist cop) is starting to get suspicious of Downs and trails him to the casino. Basically, they're all sorta trapped in the casino and all hell breaks loose.

OMG, this movie is so.. Messy. *LOL*. It's all over the place, so many things are happening and it's just so.. crude. I dunno, i guess it wants to give the "rough" and "realistic" angle so it's not a popcorn movie as it doesn't have the light entertainment element but it also doesn't have a solid storyline to be a critically acclaimed movie. Get what i mean? It's the kind of movie that i think will get bad reviews by both general viewers and critics alike *LOL*. And i kinda like Jammie Foxx so i am not negatively biased or anything. I would say skip this one for sure...

2. John Wick

Okay, this one is still not my cup of tea-but it's certainly a lot better than the previous movie. I am not a fan of John Wick (i can't remember much of the first movie, it came back in bits in pieces while i was watching this tho) and i never will be, but this is not that bad. It's pretty entertaining and all.

Taking right from where the first movie left off, John Wick returns to the criminal underworld for a revenge but he plans to go right back to retirement. Not so easy because as soon as he gets home, an old acquaintance confront him to repay a debt. He pulls a marker on him but Wick refused, his house got blown to pieces and when he goes to the hotel (the neutral zone for all hitman), he is advised to accept the job because of the marker, otherwise he has to die. Wick reluctantly accepts and finish the job, only to find out that he is now the most wanted by pretty much all hitmen because a huge bounty has been put on his life.

I guess you have to 100% immerse yourself the whole hitman world fantasy to be able to appreciate it. Hunny enjoyed this a lot, i guess this is definitely more of a guys movie-while i didn't mind it and didn't get bored watching it, i wouldn't go watch it if hunny wasn't adamant about it. You need to get rid of all skepticism and immense yourself in Wick's universe to enjoy it, now that i think about it... It's so video game-ish, no wonder hunny is a fan.

3. The Lego Batman Movie

So i kinda liked Lego The Movie, it was cute-not super awesome imma die kind of good, but it was cute so both Little O (who loves lego) and i were very excited to see this movie. Especially because i personally think Batman Lego is hilarious and he kinda stole the show in the movie. But sadly, i don't think he is as hilarious when he actually is the main character. This could just be me because it's got a pretty high rating in IMDb but Little O and hunny didn't seem to love it either. Especially hunny coz his English is not super good so he mostly didn't get all the jokes that Lego Batman utters throughout the movie.

Years after the first movie took place, Batman continues fighting crimes in Gotham City. One day he hurts his arch enemy, The Joker's feelings and that leads Joker to pull the ultimate revenge on him. To save Gotham City, Batman has to learn to work with others and accepts people into his life again.

Actually even in the Lego The Movie there were a lot of slow parts where i got quite bored in, this is amplified in Lego Batman. I just checked the reviews in IMDb and they seem to really love this movie there, i dunno... It just didn't click with me. I think it has some hilarious jokes and funny scenes, but as a whole-it was just not that good for me. I found hunny scrolling through his phone multiple times in the movie-which means he is getting very bored as well. I dunno, i wouldn't recommend this but i do think it can fully entertain some people because clearly a lot of people enjoyed it.

4. Cek Toko Sebelah

Oh gosh, i just realized that again the movies in February were very lack luster for me! The previous 3 movies didn't do it for me, but i actually really like this one! I can safely say this one's my fave movie in Feb and i almost didn't even watch it! I mean, the plot doesn't seem like much, the trailer also looks so so-but so many people were raving about this movie that in the end i got really curious about it.

So Cek Toko Sebelah is about a widowed Chinese Indonesian father (Mr. Afuk) with two grown sons and a shop to take care of. His younger son Erwin is a successful office worker and his elder son Yohan is a freelance photographer with a drug problem past and a Javanese wife that his father didn't approve of-in short, Afuk favors his younger son a lot more than his first born. When Afuk falls ill, he decides to leave his shop in the hands of Erwin-much to Yohan's disappointments. Thing is, Erwin does't even want the shop because he loves his corporate job and is doing remarkably well too.

The plot line seems simple, but the movie itself is far from simple. It is beautiful and i made me bawled my eyes out hehe but it's also totally hilarious too with stellar casts (i am not a fan of Gisel tho -___-, she is simply annoying for me). As a Chinese Indonesian myself, i can totally relate to this movie and that made it that much more special. It also touches on mix race marriage, which whether you want to admit or not, is still quite a controversy in this country. It tells the story about familial bond and how at the end of the day, your family is the most precious thing you can ever have in this life. It's a wonderful, wonderful movie and my hat's off to Ernest Prakasa coz he's done a great job. Highly recommended!

PS : I was also impressed with Dion Prakoso's acting, i totally underestimated him before but i do think he has some serious acting chops now. Have i ever told ya that Dion's elder brother was my cousin L's ex boyfriend? Sadly, even though i don't find Dion particularly good looking but a lot of girls seems to think so, his brother is well... rather fugly *LOLOLOLOL*.

5. Kung Fu Yoga

Okay, from a solid, awesome movie we're back to a cheesy one *LOL*. As you might already know, i love Jackie Chan, and hunny's a huge fan-so whenever he has a new movie, we tend to want to watch it. We've been warned by many but this movie is totally pointless and incredibly cheesy *LOL* but we still want to watch it! I personally think that it's not that bad, it's not good... but it's also not horrible,.

Jack is a famous Chinese archeology professor and one day an Indian professor named Ashmita and her assistant ask for his help to locate lost Magadha (a royal army) treasure. He ropes in his own assistants and also his old friend's son (Jones) to go to a Tibetan ice cave and actually find the remains of the army and more clue to find the real treasure but only to be ambushed by Randall who is the descendent of a rebel army leader. They managed to save themselves but then found that Jones stole the diamond (which is the key to the real treasure) and action it off in Dubai.

Like i said last month, Jackie Chan has two kinds of movies, one that is very good and the other that's totally cheesy and quite pointless-this is definitely the latter. It's very slapstick Asian action comedy (which is very distinguished and if you watch enough then you can spot it from a mile away), very light, very corny at parts but somewhat still entertaining. The end will make you go WTF, but that's really to be expected from Jackie Chan when he's doing this kind of movie. It's definitely not a must watch by any means, but if you enjoy silly Asian action comedy, i don't think you'd be angry after watching this hahaha. It's not the worst movie of 2017 or anything.

6. Rings

I had pretty low expectations for this movie because i do find most Asian horror becomesnot very scary at all when it's been remade by Hollywood. Maybe it's got to do with how different the culture is, so one thing that can be seen as usual in Japanese can seem very ridiculous for Hollywood (well, probably for the world. Japan does have the weirdest ghosts and ghouls IMO). I still went to watch it because i am forever hungry for a horror movie so i simply can't just skip it. I didn't hate it, but it's not very good or scary at all either *LOL*.

Julia's boyfriend Holt's goes to a uni a few hours from home while she stays behind. She learns that Holt is taking an extra credit class by joining professor Gabriel's experiment which turned out to be about the killer video (where you supposedly die 7 days after watching it) and becomes concerned when he pretty much disappears. Julia goes to the campus and tries to locate Holt, when she realized Holt's going to die because he didn't have a "tail" anymore (you're supposed to make someone else watch the movie before your 7 days' up to break the curse) so she decides to watch it to save him. But the video showed her different, more stuffs which makes her believe Samara (the girl who curses the video) is trying to show her something and asking for her help.

Weeeelll.... As i expected, it's not like... a great movie or anything. I suspect it's because in westernized country, it is hard to believe in cursed videos (as somehow Japanese makes it believable), as nobody seems to buy the idea-it's just going to be very hard to make a movie about it and make it good! Plus the Caucasian Ring ladies are simply nowhere near Sadako's level of terror. It's not super bad, but really... I'd rather stick on watching the original Japanese and Hollywood should try to produce more The Conjuring and Insidious instead.

That's all for February movies! Did you watch anything from this list? Is there any movie you're looking forward to this month? I currently have Smurfs, G.I.T.S, and a few Indonesian movies (Danur and Nekad Traveler) in my list!