10th – Bad Boys II (2003)

Yup, this is one of two car chases on this list which partially uses CGI, and I have to admit, the destruction caused looks even better when you think about it… Michael Bay sure knows how to cause mayhem.

9th – Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

OK…, not so much a car chase as a bike/truck chase, but still, one of the vehicles has more than 2 wheels, and James Cameron knows how to make the tension work during chase scenes, especially this landmark one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htpL9i5WSp4 (embedding disabled)

8th – The Dark Knight (2008)

The second out of 2 chases that utilises CGI. OK, this one me likey, because it keeps the CGI down to a minimum, the tension is spiked due to the lack of music and Heath Ledger, and the destruction is so awesome, the police can’t do a thing about it. The best film of the decade certainly has something extra to be proud of.

7th – The Road Warrior (1981)

It’s one thing to make mass vehicular damage, it’s another thing if is prolonged greatly. This chase, the climax to the sci-fi/action classic “The Road Warrior” pits a group of scavengers being chased by deadly road punks. It’s lean, it’s mean, and it’s all REAL.

Part I:

Part II:

6th – The Rock (1996)

Another Michael Bay film? This one works, as Sean Connery escapes in a Hummer, Nicolas Cage gives chase in a Ferrari, the police are hot on their heels, and the city of San Fransisco is turned into a giant bumper-car ride, and that’s not even the real threat in the movie. Oh, and it all culminates into streetcar destruction. Need I say more?

5th – The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

“The Bourne Identity” may have had Paul Oakenfold and a Mini-Cooper doing some serious business and “The Bourne Ultimatum” causes the New York traffic to be piled up (literally), but it’s this chase that is the landmark movie car chase of the decade. No other chase has tension, realism and awesomeness rolled into one, and this one (literally) ends abruptly with a bang.

P.S. This is not the full clip and I am extremely sorry for the Low Quality (apparently YouTube has some copyright issues)

4th – The French Connection (1971)

This Best Picture Winner helmed by William Friedkin has an exceptional car chase, it may not be as thrilling as it was back then, but this chase can be called nostalgic in terms. And I agree, a tense, well-crafted, and very realistic chase that pits car against train, all to catch one suspect.

3rd – Bullitt (1968)

Another classic car chase. This one however set the standard for the modern car chase. It has chases through the hills, streets and finally highways of San Fransisco, and ends with a fiery bang. Classic it may be, but that Mustang that Steve McQueen drives is iconic.

2nd – Ronin (1998)

John Frankenheimer proved himself to be worthy of car chases, and this car chase can be close to perfection. The movie has 2 other car chases before this, but none of them as terrific and exciting as this. Granted, THIS is how car chases are made – no CGI, no MTV-Style shaky camera, and no quick cuts. We could do without the sometimes unnecessary explosions though, but all is forgiven as the streets and highways of Paris are thrown into chaos.

1st – To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

You may be thinking, wha-? Yes, I bet you’ve never heard of this film before, because this is a no-nonsense thinking man’s action thriller, that never relents on the grittiness and reality that is L.A. The car chase itself is a mere piece of art, and (although it has crappy Chevy Impalas) tense and gripping throughout. At the end is the icing on the cake, driving on the opposite sides of the highway, and (arguably even higher) chaos is spilled on the tarmac. Again, directed by William Friedkin.

Notable mentions:

The Seven-Ups (1973), directed by Philip D’Antoni

The Hitcher (1986), directed by Robert Harmon

Jade (1995), directed by William Friedkin

The Island (2005), directed by Michael Bay

The Rookie (1990), directed by Clint Eastwood

The Matrix Reloaded (2003), directed by The Wachowski Brothers

The Dead Pool (1988), directed by Buddy Van Horn

Breakdown (1998), directed by Jonathan Mostow

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), directed by Jonathan Mostow

Batman Begins (2005), directed by Christopher Nolan

The Bourne Identity (2002), directed by Doug Liman

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), directed by Paul Greengrass

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), directed by Doug Liman

The Italian Job (2003), directed by F. Gary Gray

Duel (1971), directed by Steven Spielberg

Live Free or Die Hard [a.k.a. Die Hard 4.0], directed by Len Wiseman

Mad Max (1979), directed by George Miller

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985), directed by George Miller and George Ogilve

SO WHAT?? When you see an action film starring Jason Statham, no matter what, you get what you paid for. Death Race is cool, heart-thumping, mindless fun. And it’s proud of it.Ex-con Jensen Ames (Statham) is forced by the warden of a notorious prison (Allen) to compete in our post-industrial world’s most popular sport: a car race in which inmates must brutalize and kill one another on the road to victory.

Tough guys, fast cars, big guns, hot girls, blood spewing, cars flipping, what’s not to like in this film? Need I remind you this is NOT a date film, it’s made by guys and strictly for guys, as the amount and level of violence may turn off some ladies courting you.

Jason Statham is Jason Statham, no comments.

The rest of the cast is good, with hottie Natalie Martinez providing some eye candy for the prisoners (and the audience, for that matter!).

Ian McShane is likable as the gruff Coach.

Tyrese as a psychopathic racer with a grudge can do no wrong.

The scene stealer her is Joan Allen, who, after seeing her act in serious-type movies, is seen having a blast acting as a sadistic warden b*tch. Clearly, it look like she enjoyed the change of pace.

Need I remind you that the film is directed by schlock-master Paul W. S. Anderson, who gave us the disappointing “AvP: Alien vs. Predator”. Before then, his films were just plain mediocre, like “Resident Evil”. Not anymore. I want him to make more films like this. It’s films like this that appeals to the fanboys and make us drooling and coming for more. This is no doubt Anderson’s best film so far. If you are a man, and love action films, see this film at all costs.

So if you like mindless action and mayhem, this film is for you. This film is like “Commando”, you go to see it knowing what it is and ended up walking out satisfied. This is guilty pleasure of the highest order.

Lead actor(s): Jason Statham.

Length: 1 hours 29 minutes

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi / Adventure / Thriller

Year: 2008

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

My rating:
Entertainment: 10/10 [A MUST SEE] (made by guys, for guys)

Overall: 6.5/10

The film is currently showing in cinemas worldwide, here with an 18SG rating. It is rated R in the US for strong violence and language. Here’s the trailer for the film:

Until next time, ciao!

“The creator of U.S. drama “The West Wing”…

…is to make a film about the founders of social networking website Facebook.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who also wrote the screenplay to the Tom Hanks movie “Charlie Wilson’s War”…

…and the legendary 1993 courtroom thriller “A Few Good Men” starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore…

… has even opened an account on the site to aid his research.

Sorkin writes on his web page, “I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page. If anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to answer them as best I can. If anyone has any comments, I’m glad to listen.”

The 47-year-old admits he doesn’t understand Facebook, or “how I’m going to write the movie”, so is relying on fans to help him.

He adds, “I have a fairly specific idea of what the first 15 pages of the screenplay will be and no idea what will happen on pages 16 through 130. I have very strong feelings about the internet and its effect on our national culture, but frankly those feelings are being countered by the sophistication, kindness, curiosity and wit of the posts in this site.” ” - Permalink.

Better add in some ideas to him, if you know what I mean!!

The acting is mostly weak. Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel, no different than that of his previous films (if you can excuse “The Pacifier” and “Find Me Guilty”). He still tries his best to act, but to no avail as the film keeps sinking to new depths. Michelle Yeoh’s case is similar to that of Diesel: both are action stars who seem lost in this cinematic wreck. Their eyes bear a dawning moment of realization that they are in this movie. A bad one at that. Melanie Therry is nothing more that eye candy, as her central plot device is wasted by the film’s end. That having said, she does pull a convincing performance, but that’s all. Gerard Depardieu is embarrassing to watch as a crime lord, why the hell would he mark a long absence to mainstream cinema with this crap? But the real hammy is Charlotte Rampling. My. God. She really hams it up with that queen motherb*tch of hers. Really, what was she thinking?

The direction, if there is any, is empty. Obviously there was a feud between director Mathieu Kassovitz and Twentieth Century Fox, if so you know. There are scenes in which you can tell the direction has no heart and the characters are just boring and flat. And the action sequences, some are laughable (American secret agents with monkey king abilities), some are impressive, some are flat, some are ripped-off, and it morphs into one big mess. Although the cinematography is good, that does not excuses the heartless and weak direction. No wonder Kassovitz disowned the film.

The story seems like it was ripped off from the masterful Children of Men, and they mashed it up with another forgotten cheap action film, Cyborg, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The screenplay is even worse, with laughable dialog in parts. The costume design must also be criticized. Really, biker thugs who look like The Green Goblin Quadbike Fan Club. Or, said American secret agent wearing the power logo you can find on your PC. What the ****? And if it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, than I would not mind, as the living conditions are favorable. What’s up with that? Product placement is funny as hell. New York City becomes Corporate World, where every skyscraper and sidewalk has a giant advertisement/commercial. Or maybe even Coca-Cola Airlines. Yes, it’s true. Only the special effects are good, they are impressive, for a US$ 60 million dollar film. But they’re wasted here.

Honestly, I thought this was worse than “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”. Vin better step up with that Fast and Furious movie on the works, which could very well be his key to reviving his career. As for this film, if it had a director’s cut I would give it a chance, but unless you want a MST3K experience with buddies, avoid this like the plague.

Lead actor(s): Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh.

Length: 1 hours 30 minutes

Genre: Action / Sci-Fi / Adventure / Thriller / Drama / Romance

Year: 2008

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

My rating: 1.4/10 [AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE]

…unless you want a good laugh out of it, it IS an unintentional comedy after all.

The film is currently screening in cinemas worldwide and also right here in Malaysia with a U-13 rating. But don’t say I did not warn you. Here’s the trailer for the film:

Until later, ciao!

Their latest offering, “Burn After Reading”, seems to fall into the last category, with the Coens’ quirky and down-to-earth humor. In fact, they’re like Tim Burton, but more onto the real world rather than fantasy. You never know what you will get from these quirky yet talented duo.

Osbourne Cox is a CIA analyst who quits his job at the CIA after being demoted because of his drinking problem. He then decides to write a memoir about his life in the CIA. His wife, Katie Cox, wants to divorce Osbourne and, at the counsel of her divorce lawyer, she copies all his personal financial files off his computer along with his work-in-progress memoirs. This disk eventually finds its way to Hardbodies, a workout gym. Chad Feldheimer, who works at the gym, finds the disc and intends to blackmail Cox with his former employee Linda Litzke. CIA agent Harry Pfarrer who is assigned to recover the disc is also sleeping with Katie, Osbourne’s wife.

The story is as funny as the cast members. Simply, a cast like these comes together rarely these days. The film stars:

John Malkovich as Osbourne Cox, an alcoholic CIA agent,

George Clooney as Harry Pfarrer, a CIA agent hired to recover Cox’s disc,

Brad Pitt as Chad Feldheimer, a gym employee who finds the disc and plans to blackmail Cox for it,

Tilda Swinton as Katie Cox,

and Frances McDormand as Linda Litzke, Chad’s former employer who conspires with him to blackmail Cox.

The film is rated R in the United States for pervasive language, some sexual content and violence. The film is scheduled for release there on the 12th of September, but I don’t know if it will be released here in Malaysia. I hope it does, because it looks hilarious, as well as interesting, and will surely find an audience here. Why not, you get stars like Brad Pitt and George Clooney playing against type! Anyway, the film is premiered in Venice during the 2008 Venice Film Festival (although it was out of the competition) and it has since received rave reviews.

Also, here’s the trailer for the film, it definitely looks promising.

Until later, ciao!

The Spirit is a American masked crime-fighter, created by writer-artist Will Eisner in 1940, who starred in a Sunday-newspaper comic-book insert. His namesake, seven-page weekly series is considered one of the comic-art medium’s most significant works, with Eisner creating or popularizing many of the styles, techniques, and storytelling conventions used by comics professionals decades later.

The Spirit tells the adventures of a masked vigilante who fought crime with the blessing of the city’s police commissioner Dolan, an old friend. Despite the Spirit’s origin as a detective named Denny Colt, his real identity was virtually unmentioned again and for all intents and purposes he was simply “The Spirit”. The stories ranged through a wide variety of styles, from straightforward crime drama and noir to lighthearted adventure, from mystery and horror to comedy and love stories, often with hybrid elements that twisted genre and expectations.

Down these mean streets a man must come. A hero born, murdered, and born again. When a Rookie cop named Denny Colt returns from the beyond as The Spirit, a hero whose mission is to fight against the bad forces from the shadows of Central City. The Octopus who kills anyone unfortunate enough to see his face who has other plans. He’s going to wipe out the entire city. The Spirit tracks this cold-hearted killer from the city’s rundown warehouses, to the damp catacombs, to the windswept waterfront all the while facing a bevy of beautiful women who either want to seduce, love or kill the masked crusader.

What looks good as well as the plot is that Miller chose an all star cast to be in the film, with an unknown as the lead. Here are the players:

Gabriel Macht as The Spirit / Denny Colt, a rookie cop who returns from the dead to fight crime in Central City from the shadows.

Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus, the Spirit’s arch-nemesis, a villain who plans to wipe out all of Central City and will kill anyone unlucky enough to see his face.
Jackson was Miller’s first choice for the role.

Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss, a femme fatale secretary and accomplice to the Octopus.

Eva Mendes as Sand Saref, Denny’s childhood sweetheart who turned to crime, as well as knowing the Spirit’s real identity.

Sarah Paulson as Dr. Ellen Dolan, the police commissioner’s daughter.

and Jaime King as Lorelei Rox, a modern-day siren with a voice that could kill.

Another aspect of the film is it’s filming process. Like Sin City and 300, the film’s majority will be shot in green-screen to attain the comic-book-like feel of the film and to keep its style intact.

So, there you have it, a possibly kick-ass movie that will appeal to fans of Sin City and 300, as well as the comic book. What is cool as well as the cast is the also kick-ass teaser trailer for the film, which definitely makes the film show a lot of promise.

The Spirit opens up in cinemas on Christmas 2008. Until then, ciao!

“…It was maybe six weeks ago that we found quotes from James Marsters about next year’s long-awaited anime adaptation, Dragonball. Marsters plays Lord Piccolo in the movie and he more or less admitted that there’s a bunch of stuff the movie could never get to, simply because of its time constraints.

What I found interesting about all this was not that Marsters said it or that the filmmakers have decided to cut huge chunks out of the storyline by necessity, but rather the reaction fans of the series have had to the news. Some of our readers claiming to go way back with Dragonball don’t even want the movie for precisely this reason: If you can’t tell the whole story, just leave it alone.

Others agree that the story has to be trimmed but feel that the filmmakers are probably cutting out the wrong things. And still others aren’t as concerned about all that and just hate the cast.”

And, he adds:

“…I barely have to lift a finger anymore to get a conversation started about Dragonball. The consensus – even among its fans – seems to be that there’s no way in hell they can approach all the storylines in a movie, or even a trilogy, and that the big screen adaptation will probably be silly if not worse.

I’m actually surprised by the levelheaded responses of many of its fans. It’s not that I didn’t expect them to be intelligent or thoughtful in their responses, but you know how fans are. After all, it’s short for fanatic. So you expect a bit of grief for suggesting that a movie about it won’t be perfect. I don’t know enough about Dragonball to say one way or the other, so I’m going just by the fan comments to previous articles we’ve published. Most of them are not saying this will be better than The Dark Knight, for instance.

But I’m a little conflicted, because whether or not they got the casting right – which is another sore subject for a lot of you – I totally dig the production pictures and marketing images I’ve seen for it thus far. There’s a quality to them that I just like. Can’t really say why. I mean, for as much of a beating as this project is getting from its target audience, you’d half-expect anything you see from the movie to be a flaming bag of doo doo.”

Ouch! So meaning that they will hack Akira Toriyama’s opus into little pieces means bad news for us. But there are still some of us that have some hope that it will be a hit, and it will, no doubt. Just as long as the fans are happy, I’m happy, but I don’t like seeing something as large as Dragonball end up being the next Battlefield Earth (God forbid).

The story begins with a young humanoid boy named Goku, who discovers that he was sent to Earth to blend in and destroy our population but instead elects to protect it from an oncoming alien onslaught bent on dominating the universe and controlling the mystical objects. He seeks out upon his adoptive grandfather Grandpa Gohan’s dying request to find the great Master Roshi and gather all seven Dragon Balls. Of which he has one, in order to prevent the evil Lord Piccolo from succeeding in his desire to use the Dragon Balls to take over the world. And Goku’s quest is to obtain the mystical Dragonballs before Piccolo does. The film is the second Hollywood big-budget adaptation of a Japanese manga/anime, following the Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer (2008).

The film stars Justin Chatwin as Goku, Emmy Rossum as Bulma,

Jamie Chung as Chi Chi,

Eriko Tamura as Mai,

and Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi.

The film is being produced by Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow, and is directed by James Wong [Final Destination 1 & 3], who is the right guy to direct this type of film after seeing his action film – the Jet Li sci-fi actioner The One. Distribution rights will be handled by 20th Century Fox.

So for now, I guess we’ll just have to keep our fingers cross and hope for the best that this film does not suck. Until then, keep on the lookout for more intersting movies!