Movie Review : Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray Love (EPL) is another movie adapted from a book (seriously, it's an epidemic now..... run for your life while you still can) by Elizabeth Gilbert . I haven't read the book yet, so I can't really comment about the differences. But all my friends who have read the book say that the book is not so good.

The story is about a successful writer who suddenly realized that she is not ready to settle down in her marriage (then why did you get married in the first place??? Women! *sigh*). So she ended her marriage and accidentally (yeah right) find a cute younger man that she screws likes. However, she still finds herself unhappy and so decided to took 1 year off to travel around the world and "find herself again". She decided that she would spend 4 months in Italy (EAT), 4 months in India (PRAY), and ended the year in Bali (LOVE). 

I have just found out that it is actually based on a true story. However, in real life, the trip was sponsored in return of her writing the book.

OK first of all, before I even begin to review the movie, take a closer look at this sentence : 4 months in Italy, 4 months in India, and ended the year in Bali. Notice anything stupid?? Well, for those of you who flunked geography in school, let me tell you Italy and India are countries, but (surprise surprise!! *rolls eyes*) Bali is NOT a country. It is an island located in the country INDONESIA. Seriously, how stupid can you be? Nevertheless, the movie still generates quite an interest for Bali, and ultimately Indonesia. So I guess it's not that bad. But please... get your facts right next time.

Now, on to the movie..... I think it should be called Eat Sleep Love rather than Eat Pray Love. Or better still, we can just skip the whole middle part and call it Eat Love :P. That way we can save about 30 minutes of movie time (btw the movie is quite long..... 2 hours and 20 minutes... but then again, I think it's kind of hard to document a year of life in 2 hours 20 minutes).

Anyway, the 'pray' part, where she travels to India, is just boring. She went to a kind of monastery where people chants, meditates and try to find their spirituality. Over there she met an old dude from Texas, who is just annoying and rude to everyone, especially her. I don't like this guy at all. Towards the end of her India trip, the old dude started crying and tells his story (why he ended up there blah blah blah). I think it's supposed to be an emotional scene, but sorry I just don't get it. I can't even understand what he's saying, and I almost fell asleep.

Also, the Italy and Bali scenes are beautiful and showcases the beauty of the places. It does make you want to go there someday. But in India, they are showing the dirtiness and crappiness of the places.

OK let's move on to the Bali scenes. Hadi Subiyanto, who plays Ketut Liyer (the 9th generation medicine man who prophesies about Liz's return to bali),  is quite funny and convincing as a medicine man who talks cryptically. But I doubt the audience can really understand what he's saying, especially with his thick Indonesian accent. Christine Hakim, who plays Wayan (Liz's friend while she was in Bali), is great for the role, except for the fact that she's not Balinese. But nobody really cares anyway, especially when they don't know where Bali really is :P

Liz's love interest is played by Javier Bardem (a.k.a Mr. Penelope Cruz). I don't know much about this guy before.... I don't think I have ever seen any of his movies. But suddenly here he is, and he will be guest starring on Glee as well. To be honest, I'm not really impressed by his acting in this movie. 

So, overall I think this movie is pretty to look at (Italy and Bali only, please), but the story doesn't have much depth into it. It's not really a comedy, nor it's a chick flick. Julia Robert shines (as always), but she's the only anchor to the whole movie. 

Movie Review : Charlie St Cloud

Another movie that is adapted from a book (The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud by Ben Sherwood). The story is about a young man who is living with his mother and little brother (their dad left them when they were little). He just finished high school and is about to go to Stanford on a sailing scholarship (is there really such a thing?), but his dreams were crushed in a car accident, in which his little brother died.

He then takes the blame for it and could not let go of his dead brother. He gave up all his dreams, works in the cemetery where his brother was buried and "play baseball" every day with his imaginary dead brother for the next 5 years. Until one day a girl comes along, they did the nasty (well, sort of.....), and he decided that sex is more fun than playing baseball with his brother's ghost. 

This film is THE make or break movie for Zac Efron. Previously he is known as the "high school musical boy", and now he's trying to take on more mature roles. Well, I guess his acting is not bad, but the whole story is quite boring and there's really nothing much to explore. So, I'm quite disappointed and should have just waited for the DVD to come out. I give it 2 out of 5 stars. 

The only memorable scene was "making love with the ghost of a semi-dead girl in a cemetery". Now THAT'S original! ;-)

Combo Review : The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor)

Ever since I got my iPad last month, I have been trying to maximize using it (biar gak berasa rugi gitu loh). One of the application that I have been using quite a bit is iBooks, which is a fantastic e-reader. I really love the built in features, such as auto orientation, the option to change font type and size, sephia mode, and not forgetting the built in dictionary. So while reading, if you don’t know the meaning of any word, you can just tap on it and the dictionary definition will pop up. NICE! :)

Anyway, the first book that I load into the application is “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”. It is a fiction novel by Swedish author / journalist Stieg Larsson. There are 2 other books in the series, making it a trilogy, often called the Millenium Trilogy (which refers to the publication company that the main character worked in)

Honestly I haven’t heard much of this book and author until recently. It turns out that the author is actually deceased in 2004, and he was more of a politican rather than a fiction novel writer. The books were written in his past time, and he only wrote them for himself. He did not attempt to publish it until shortly before his death. That is why the first book was only published in 2005, one year after his death. It become an international phenomenon, and by March 2010, the series have sold 27 million copies in more than 40 countries. He is also the first author to sell more than one million e-books on Amazon.com.

Anyway, enough with the introduction. Let’s get on to the book review….

The two main characters in the book is a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, and a peculiar girl named Lisbeth Salander. At the beginning of the book they are two strangers, and I feel like I’m reading two different story, jumping back and forth between one another, and I must admit the first few chapters of the book was quite boring. But, looking back now, it does provide key background information that helps you to understand why the characters behave in a certain way later in the story.

Anyway the main plot revolves around the disappearance (and possible murder) of a young girl (Harriet Vanger) that happened 40 years ago in an isolated island at northen Sweden. Harriet is the niece of a very powerful and successful businessman named Henrik Vanger, previously head of the Vanger corporation. He is now a retiree and have passed on the corporation to Martin Vanger, his nephew (and also Harriet’s brother). There are also other characters, mainly from the Vanger clan.

Henrik asked Mikael to help him with the investigation, but before he does that, he asked Lisbeth (who is a part time private investigator) to do a background check on Mikael. Lisbeth became aware of Harriet’s case and was intrigued. And so she did some investigation on her own. In the middle of the book, Mikael’s and Lisbeth’s paths crossed again, and they combine their efforts and in the end managed to solve the mystery. Along the way they uncovered some terrible secrets involving rapes and murders. I won’t spoil too much of the story here. Pokoknya seru deh! :)

Overall I think it’s a great book with gripping storyline. As mentioned, the beginning was quite slow, but as I get into the main storyline, I’m totally hooked. Now I can’t wait to start reading the 2nd book “The Girl Who Played With Fire”.

OK now moving on to the film review…..

Following the success of the book, it was adapted to a film Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women), released in 2009. The main story is the same as the book (ya iya lah, masa beda? Hehehe). The main characters were played by Swedish actors and actresses, with Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist, and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.

There have been many movies that are adapted from books, and most of them failed miserably. The problem with this kind of movies is always the same : if you read the book first, then you will feel that there is a lot of scenes missing (it’s difficult to cram 600 pages into 2 hours of movie). But if you don’t read the book first, you would probably be confused by the characters, because the movie skips the introductions and often goes straight into the main plot.

Here’s my thoughts of the film adaptation : (WARNING : SPOILERS AHEAD) 

• 
  
  It’s nice to finally have a visual of the scenery, although it’s not as pretty as I imagined it would be.
• 
  
  Noomi Rapace is perfect in portraying Lisbeth, while I think Michael Nyqvist is just OK. I imagined Mikael Blomkvist to be more handsome and not so fat :P
• 
  
  Harriett Vanger is just as I imagined, but my imagination of the other characters are way off (Martin Vanger, Erika Berger, Cecilia Vanger). I imagined that they are good looking people, and not so old.
• 
  
  The “torture chamber” is also not like what I imagined at all. I thought it is a dark and dirty dungeon, but in the movie it is an all white room with bright lights (reminds me of an operating theatre in hospitals).
• 
  
  As expected, a lot of the side stories are changed or not even mentioned, which includes

                o Blomkvist relationships with Erika Berger and Cecilia Vanger. I guess with all the violence in the story, adding adultery and casual sex partners was a little too much, even for Swedish people.

                o The cover up (in the book, only Henrik, Frode, Mikael and Lisbeth know that he is actually working on Harriet’s case. They told everyone else that Mikael is working on a biography for Henrik, which is a perfect cover up for allowing Mikael to ask everybody about their past)

                o How Henrik convinced Mikael to work for him (in the book, at first Mikael was not interested to work on the case, but Henrik promised him some key information that can clear Mikael’s name in exchange for the work). In the film, Mikael suddenly agreed to work on the case, which is a bit weird, in my opinion.

                o How Mikael discovered the connection between the writing in Harriet’s diary with the bible passages.

                o The timeline is changed quite a bit (in the book, Mikael went to jail in the middle of the investigation, but in the film he went after the case is finished).

But anyway, overall I think it’s a good movie. Now we just have to wait for the Hollywood adaptation of the movie. The main characters will be played by Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara; and the movie will be released in December 2011 (gile lama ajeeee…)