EXAGGERATING REALITY

MOVIE REVIEW 

-

HITCHCOCK 

by:

G.P. MANALO

Starring:

Anthony Hopkins

Helen Mirren

Scarlett Johansson 

65% of the population may know who (or atleast familiar of )Alfred Hitchcock is, but the question to those 65% is that do they really know the person fully, the way he thinks or do things. With this new film based on the events on how he made his riskiest move in his career? does this offer any details on his persona? 

Hitchcock - Tells how the famous and well known director, Alfred Hitchcock made the riskiest project of his career which is probably the most controversial and game changing movie of all time, Psycho. In making of this project, behind the scenes he have many troubles in his family, close friends and studio executives.

I have not always been a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock but that does not mean i hate the guy, I really appreciate his work even if I watched only two of his works (which is Psycho and Vertigo). But I wasn't very much familiar with Alfred Hitchcock himself, This movie on the other hand I can't really say if this movie really did show the humanity of Alfred Hitchcock, completely. I can't really say that this movie offers anything for people who is very unfamiliar with Alfred Hitchcock's works since it's not really a straight-up biopic that you may be expecting as how the Social Network focuses on how Facebook is made and how the people that  are close to Zuckerberg are affected by it. Like the Social Network, Hitchcock is more on the things he went through this risk and how it affects the people around him as well. That being said, was the movie good on it's own? Even if I am unfamiliar with the man himself or his works that much, the movie on it's own is just good and enjoyable.

It must be difficult for the writers to replicate Hitchcock's persona, because as I've heard is that he was a rather complicated, unusual and sophisticated person, In this movie the way they wrote off Hitchcock having his own sanity where he sees Norman Bates around telling him what to do or giving him ideas of what's going on is more of an odd yet somewhat intriguing choice to do for the writers. Again, I'm very unsure of things if they are making it "accurate"even if some of the things that did happen here did happen in real life like the fact that Alfred Hitchcock ordered every bookstore to take out every copy of Psycho so that anyone won't know the surprises of the movie, or how Paramount rejects his idea of making this movie and ends up financing it himself. But beyond the fact that this is a behind the scenes drama of the making of Psycho it's actually also a romantic drama between Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville, to be honest i didn't see that part of the movie is one of those things that caught me off guard and I was actually interested in watching these two develop their relationship and also seeing those moments that i mentioned earlier after hearing many controversies about the movie. But it felt pretty weird to see these relationship and the Psycho thing to be in the background. that being said, it was more Alma's side of the story of how she is going through with his relationship and how she wants to have a stamp of her name at something. At first I thought that as the movie progresses, all these things happening the film doesn't really know where it wants to go, there wasn't a really good direction to it, things happen and they barely explored some stories and characters here and there. Some of the stories worked out on it's own, some weren't really clear.

The meat of the movie is definitely the cast, the cast made this movie to a performance piece and they are all uncannily cast and formed (with make-up), Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren carried this movie as Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville, delivering charm and cleverness in the movie. Anthony Hopkins was a joy to see as Hitchcock right from the beginning when he greeted the audience, how the make-up was constructed made him (almost) look like the man himself. But to be fair the supporting cast like Scarlett Johansson (Who is having a good year and uncannily cast to be as Janet Leigh), Jessica Biel ( for the little scenes she was in, she was pretty good), Danny Houston, Toni Collette and James D'Arcy (Also uncannily cast as Anthony Perkins) that being said, all of them were able to deliver their A-game.

In the end, Hitchcock is not really for the new but for those who have known the man and his works before, there are bits here and there that will make a Hitchcock fan happy, long time fans of Alfred Hitchcock may find this movie entertaining as the cast deliver their A-game. But I wouldn't really recommend you see this because you may think that this is a bio-pic of Alfred Hitchcock or something that will help you familiarize with the man himself. Getting that away, Stories of Hitchcock and Alma stabilizing their relationship and Hitchcock making Psycho shines on it's own but other stories are left off flat and weren't explored very well. The movie to me was pretty good, it's not the Oscar movie that i was expecting nor is it a bad movie as well.

THE GOOD:

+THE CAST

+THE PERFORMANCES

+SOME STORIES WERE WELL TOLD

THE BAD:

-SOME THINGS AREN'T DEVELOPED OR EXPLORED VERY WELL

MY RATING:

NOT BAD! - 3.5/5 

THE NEW TWILIGHT?

MOVIE REVIEW

WARM BODIES

By:

G.P. MANALO

Starring:

Nicholas Hoult

Teresa Palmer

John Malkovhich 

ever since a sparkling Vampire and a bitchy "werewolf" got paired to an even bitchier human girl, It seems that it is a fad now to have classic monsters to be paired with teenage girls. With that kind of money Twilight gets for every movie, most studios wouldn't say no when money can talk, With Warm Bodies on the other hand; Over the past years there's been a lot of news about Warm Bodies and the initial reaction is obviously a lot of f-bombs and videos linking to various clips of people shouting "NO".  I was pretty much doing both at that time. But hearing that a good director is behind the project I was a bit optimistic about it. Now that we have the movie out in theaters... Is it the NEW TWILIGHT everyone is talking about at first?

Warm Bodies - Is based on a young-adult novel with the same name by Isaac Marion and it takes place years after the Zombie Apocalypse began, It follows a very unusual Zombie (who is meanwhile called "R") who has no memory of his past, he is different from the other zombies as he proves it to a human girl that he is attracted to named, Julie. But as he interacts with this girl further, he finds himself slowly transforming into his human self. But then complications happened between them with her father and a large group of Bonies (Decayed, Skeleton Zombies).

In other words Love is the cure... It sounds silly... But it's actually told well, well enough to get me interested.

Like I said, I wasn’t very happy to hear about Warm bodies at first, especially when I have not read the book of the movie that it is based on, I was half blind going into this movie (since they sorta’ explained the plot in the trailers) I was expecting this movie to be "shitty", to keep that in a G-Rating I had no high expectations for Warm Bodies when i read the synopsis and saw the first photos but when the trailer came out I thought that it may not be shit-fest it may be. Is it really not the shit fest i was hoping it to be at first? (Surprisingly) Not really? Is it the greatest movie? No, not really but I had to say that i actually enjoyed this movie and I actually liked it. I know it's weird for me to say it, but i actually like it, in fact i can see both a man and a woman enjoy this movie (And I was in a theater full of couples).

Right of the bat, Is it like Twilight? Not at all it is far away from having it deserve such a title Sure the way i summarized the plot made the movie sound cheesy and sound like Twilight, but they were actually self-aware of how it is like a Twilight-Ish formula, The flaw of Twilight is that it takes itself way too seriously, up to the point that it ends up as a very badly drawn out, (in a bad way) soap opera type of film. This on the other hand is self-aware of the concept that it is silly but the movie actually made it work as these characters give their charm as they ham the camera. Warm Bodies stands alone as a movie than being called a Twilight rip-off. Director, Jonathan Levine knows how to balance the seriousness and the wackness (if you are familiar with his works you may get the reference) of his movies go, like his recent work 50/50. 50/50 had a very good balance of comedy and drama; it shows in this movie as well. But it wasn't much of a depressing drama like 50/50. And also it does not look cheap like Twilight did (seriously that movie looks like it can be for TV).This movie has more depth than i was expecting it to be in the rom-com side of the movie. You should stop thinking about the fact that this is a Twilight rip-off because it’s not. 

The comparison out of the way, the movie on its own; Going back to the comedy aspect of this movie, the writing for the comedy is not as forced as I was expecting it to be. You can get good laughs out of this movie, especially in the first half of the movie. The jokes are genuine and not forced at all, the movie felt like the movie got in a different way when it comes to it being a zombie film as the film progresses. The jokes were in the movie at the right time, and I like it when comedy movies go that way.  This being a (horror-) romantic-comedy and all, I find the romance… Cute I think that’s a good description for it. The chemistry between Nicholas Hoult’s character and Teresa Palmer’s character is enjoyable and interesting (surprisingly interesting) to watch, more enjoyable and interesting than a sparkling vampire and a human bitch making out in 5 movies. I thought both actors worked really well together on-screen. I thought Rob Coddry as the Bro-Zombie was pretty funny than the rest of the cast, for the scenes he was in. But I did have very few problems with this movie it being under-developed things here and there, The Bonies felt like an obvious plot device than an actual threat in the second half and John Malkovhich is in the movie in very few scenes, for a great comedic actor like him It felt like he was very under-used, but for the scenes he was in he was still pretty good.

In the end, Warm Bodies is a very enjoyable movie. It’s a 2013-released movie where I would highly recommend you see this movie immediately, It’s a very good date movie that I’m pretty sure you and your date will enjoy together this Valentine’s day (or maybe any day in February). Director Jonathan Levine and the rest of the cast were able to deliver a well-handled film as the writer(s) and the director of the film took the genre in a different direction. I had a very good time watching this movie, It is funny,  I found myself laughing (not out loud, but it is surprising that I did laugh and chuckled at some point), the romance is cute and interesting to watch, and I also forgot to say that the soundtrack was very well put together as well.  I liked this movie very much though it still had some of its problems. Again, I would highly recommend you see this movie (not alone, because it felt weird to be alone in a movie like this).

THE GOOD:

+WELL BALANCED TONES

+GOOD PERFORMANCES

+SURPRISINGLY FUNNY

THE BAD:

-UNDER DEVELOPED THINGS HERE AND THERE

MY RATING:

WIN! - 4/5