I managed to catch the following 3 movies in Singapore during my 3 weeks here. Not many people here flock to the movies quite as much as Malaysia – which I find a little strange considering Malaysia has a much higher rate of movie piracy. Then again, I guess movies in Singapore aren’t particularly cheap either (averaging at around $8-$10)…

The biggest change about watching movies over here is that THERE ARE NO SUBTITLES! Or if there were any, only Chinese subtitles are shown (and I can’t read Chinese). I now have to focus a lot more in order to catch all the words, nuances and names in the movies – not too difficult EXCEPT for those that are heavily accented with lots of slang (affected my Tropic Thunder viewing). Maybe I’m just too used to subtitles – they help me ensure that I don’t miss anything during my movie experiences. But I’m not complaining – looks like I’ll just have to adapt for now.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

• Daniel Craig is without a doubt my favorite Bond of all time. OK, that was a little quick of me to judge, considering I have yet to watch Timothy Dalton in his Bond role (I’m only up to the 10th Bond movie in my marathon list when I caved in to catch this). Anyway, here goes – spoilers ahead – you’ve been warned!
• Seriously, I don’t see how any of the earlier Bonds could be as rugged, as flawed, as ruthless, and as human as Daniel Craig. Taking place merely an hour after the ending of Casino Royale, this is the first true Bond ‘sequel’ and was impressive with its awesome chase and gritty action sequences similar to the Bourne series.
• It is with great relief that they have now removed almost ALL of the outrageous and ridiculous gadgets that populated the previous Bond (Brosnan) era. In its place are more current and plausible technologies – in particular the ‘Microsoft Surface’ multitouch screen desk in the MI6 headquarters, and how geo-location is used extensively in the movie. Although the 3D photo enhancement portion was a little exaggerated, almost everything else COULD work with today’s technology.
• Olga Kurylenko, although not the hottest Bond girl around, played a convincing part as the independent strong willed femme fatale hell bent on revenge. I particularly enjoyed how Bond took affection to her – shared aspirations if you will – yet never consummated their on screen chemistry.
• The plot was also pretty well written, introducing a new covert organization called Quantum – more powerful and plausible than all previous ones (no blood crying dude here), dealing with today’s diminishing oil reserves concerns. Even more so, is the blurred line between what is right or wrong in the eyes of the world, or the countries in which the organization serves.
• And finally, back to the man himself. Passionate, ruled by his own convictions and principles, stone cold when it counts, and down right unstoppable if you get in his way. With an emotional core that is just as real as ours. For the first time, I feel you 007, I really do.

Tropic Thunder (2008)

• If you didn’t already know, Tropic Thunder is a satire about the Hollywood industry. Imagine a bunch of war actors who were sooo bad, the director decided to throw them into a real situation and film reality TV style – but little do they know that things will go awfully wrong. The supposed fun part of the whole thing, is that this is a movie about a movie within a movie. Or in the case of Robert Downey Jr, the dude playing the dude, disguised as another dude.
• Ben Stiller finally made a somewhat watchable movie. At the current moment, Tropic Thunder’s got some crazily positive reviews from the critics. 7.5 on IMDB and a whopping 83% on RottenTomatoes. Can’t say I agree to those ratings though.
• Maybe I expected something a little less slapstick. There were some Golden moments here, especially played by Robert Downey Jr – near unrecognizable as a black man, and Tom Cruise – whom you’ll be hard pressed to identify from the cast.
• Besides that, everything else took quite a bit of downturn for me. Too much high budget explosions that meant little to nothing, events that totally didnt make sense, and was in no way logical, and a whole lot of empty chatter (guess I missed a lot of the Hollywood jabs). I know, I know, it’s actually a parody and satire and admittedly I had a few good laughs – but it STILL felt like a typical stupid comedy to me. I guess I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough.
• Worth a watch lar, if you don’t mind stuff like that. My expectations were probably way askew after having watched Burn After Reading.

Burn After Reading (2008)

• An awesome dark comedy about a bunch of dysfunctional bumbling idiots, each with their own little agendas and motivations, and the tragedy that can occur from when simple things go wrong..
• The Coen Brothers outdid themselves again with this one. I was laughing away quite hysterically. I knew nothing about the movie when I first walked in, and the first 5 minutes was hardly inspiring but the mood quickly settled in. What really helped was the A-star cast in all of the main roles with John Malkovich, Brad Pitt and George Clooney standing out the most.
• Maximum praise goes to Brad Pitt’s character here – you simply have to watch him. He is one of the very few good looking actors with the actual versatility to act in all sorts of roles. If you are a fan of his stuff, don’t miss the chance on seeing him act as a dim witted, gym freak. Malkovich was impressive too, acting as the angst filled ex-CIA officer. Clooney is well, Clooney.
• There are very few intelligent tightly written comedies quite like this one. I’d recommend you give it a shot – especially if you enjoy movies like The Ladykillers, The Big Lebowski, & Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.