Film Review: Citizen Kane (1941)

If one talks about Citizen Kane, one question is bound to rise. Is it or is it not, an American Film Institute's greatest American film of all-time? I, personally, refused to answer that question albeit that i liked this film in its earnest. Thus, i wouldn't give any final rating to this film. My rating: ***1/2 / ****

The film opens in a spooky and grim tone that perfectly sets my mood. With carefully constructed shot (the light at the window ALWAYS at 1 o'clock position even if the shots were taken from different angels) way ahead of its time, the film opens with one word that voted as #17 quote courtesy of American Film Institute. "Rosebud". The film then spools in a flashback fashion as we follow a reporter sniffing his way around to look for the meaning of a "Rosebud". The "Rosebud" word was uttered by a prominent figure, the main character of this film, Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper mogul, with powers and wealths a man could ever wished for. That word was uttered at his death-bed, in his fortress, Xanadu.

The story was engaging enough as our reporter asks people around the live of Charles Foster Kane about his life and "Rosebud". We see him as a child, abandoned by his family, takes a small newspaper company, and raise it and himself to a new height, his marriage life, and his political life. Well, actually, the story was an o.k. and by the time we arrive to a conclusion (some called it, a twist-ending) of what was "Rosebud" was, it took a little more time thinking about what "Rosebud" really was. Of course, i won't spoil it to you here.

Aside from the story which i took as nothing special nor spectacular about, Citizen Kane has more achievement in technical aspects. Now, i'm probably just guessing since i had no background knowledge of cinematography and all, but for a film that's made in 1940s, the shots and images were unique in its time. The characters reflect themselves on mirror, trailing shots, orderly chaotic movement, and the way the camera only took prominent characters such as Kane from bottom looking up and lesser characters from up looking down. Example to this technique was quite observable from the poster i attached to this blog. In the poster, you see Kane looking down, and you see two women looking up. That's what happened on screen. Kane (prominent characters) looking down on camera and on us, and these women (lesser characters) looking up on camera and on us. Magnificently breathtaking. And like many other has been observed, Orson Welles acting as Charles Foster Kane was at its best when he doesn't say anything at all.

I liked this film. But to name it as the greatest film of all-time? I don't know. Orson Welles wrote, direct, and star at this film, and receiving 4 Oscar nominations for this film at the age of 24. Damn.

I'm planning to see these films this week at cinemas: Mr.Bean's Holiday, Naga Bonar 2 , and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Again, have a great weekend, and hopefully i could meet the plan and publish the reviews on the next following week.

Film Review: The Good Shepherd (2006)

Many said that this film is a jumbled of confusing sequences which betrays its true purpose. I say, "you're not paying attention". In my opinion, eliminate Angelina Jolie, and this film would be perfect. Don't get me wrong, in this film, she delivers more acting capabilities than i had seen in years. But, taking a role where she was a lonely, and desperate housewife, she was too .. um, what word am i looking for? um .. voluptuous. Yes, voluptuous.

The backdrop of this film was 1961, around the event which later produced counter-intelligence in CIA. It's an ambitious story to tell, and Robert De Niro (director) give its due. The event in question was the Bay of Pigs debacle which at the time, was a highly classified mission with only a handful of highly placed CIA officers knew of its existence. But when, the mission failed, provided that there was a mole in the CIA, everyone's in a hot seat. Including our protagonist, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon).

Know this, if you had expected a full-throttle action spy-game a la James Bond or Jason Bourne, you're wrong. Our protagonist was an everyday man, driven to his work by his sense of patriotism. The Good Shepherd told in a flash-back sequences, back-and-forth narrative which introduces us to many-many characters intertwined with Wilson, and further introduced us to Wilson's character. We follow Wilson but not necessarily involved with him emotionally, since, as you may observed, he's not the most sympathetic individual that held the title of 'protagonist'. This was his journey through the emotionally and morality decisions. We follow him through a secret group initiation in Yale, his involvement with Clover (Jolie), OSS (Office of Strategic Services), his ascension of power, double-crosses, triple-crosses, it's a spy game at its best, CIA, and most heart-gripping of all (at least from my point of view) his 'duel' with his KGB counterpart, Ulysses.

The film runs long, almost three hours, it's a thriller, but a slow one. It could either results in two kind of reactions once the end-credit rolling. You quickly picked up your stuffs and leave the theater, or you sit a while contemplating the end scene in which Wilson walk to his new office, undoubtedly conceal his moral weight that had cost him a lot, and questioning whether his decision would made him happy or not. Which ironically something that his father all really wanted from him. To be happy with his decisions.

Aside of Matt Damon, this film also features many prominent names, Robert De Niro, Alec Baldwin, Joe Pesci, William Hurt and my personal favorite underrated actor, John Turturro.

Again, i've been using this word rather often lately, "This film is not for anyone". It's a slow burning thriller which would please a spy-game novel lover who valued conspiracy and double-triple-crossings more than bullet-dodging or bare-knuckled fights. But, it's almost three hours running time would be a drawback. Made sure you pay attention to details when you watch this movie. Cause after all, attention to details is what made a good spy.

My Rating: ***1/2 / ****

Preview: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2007)

Talk about nostalgia. I used to love these pizza lover green thingy ninjas as a child. Oh, probably, still loving them as now. But, heck, it's been a long-long-long time ago since we see any of these green things (my personal favorite was of course Raphael since his name begins with an 'R' and his eye fold was colored red) in an entertainment media be it films, cartoons, or comics (don't know if they still around in some part of this world, though, i based my opinion from what i saw in Jakarta). Now, they were back on screen, and unlike some other franchises which revamped its original conception, the four ninja pupils and their master are on for another story, another arc-enemies, and another new look.

From what i could compiled from reviews, the four ninjas went their own way after the defeat of their arch-enemy, The Shredder, which of course implied that the masked villain won't be in this film, or so i thought. I still don't know who their enemy would be in this film, or whether The Shredder would make any appearance at all. But, one of the review i read, apparently written by a fan, consider that the change was pleasant, acceptable, and it was the best film on the franchise, by far! He even went as far as recommending that TMNT wasn't a mere film that need to be seen, but it was a film that MUST be seen. We'll see about that.

TMNT hit the North American theater this weekend. No info of when the film would hit locals.

On the other hand, Blitz Megaplex has finally open in Jakarta. Located at Grand Indonesia 8th floor, it's only few hundred steps away from my office. I planned to see The Host later this evening at Blitz, and The Good Shepherd afterward. Expect the reviews on Monday, have a nice weekend.

Pengkultusan Individu

Pengkultusan Individu or literal-translated as To Make Certain Individuals Holy or Closer to Being a God. I've seen a lot of cases and practically detest each and every one of them. Alas, as a man myself with certain preference, likes and dislikes, i had individuals whose could be safely be said as my own version's of Beings Closer to a God.

Dream Theater's ninth studio album, currently titled Systematic Chaos was due on June. I wonder if Mike Portnoy would continue his Alcohol Anonymous saga in this album. Can't wait

Motivation +1

I've learned. In order to move a step further beyond the comfort zone to pursue a fabled happiness, one need a certain urges, a certain needs that pushes him to the edge, thus, unleashed powers that need be.

Today, i had another needs. Another reason to put up a fight.

Film Review: 300 (2007)

Finally, i could use the word 'style over substance' into a good use. The film, which features 300 or so six-packed bare-chested men wielding spears and shields, one uber hot Oracle with artsy dance, and your typical strong wife as a Queen would please it's original comic fan. The comic itself however was short, hardly ever thrust to a three-dimensional characterization, yet full of style, images, and most prominently, testosterones. Yes, surely, if one could love a comic with such approach, i couldn't think any sane reason for not loving this film.

Zack Snyder brought forth all the conception of the still images into a large screen with style and passions. He knew that his viewers would only expect more testosterones than characterization. And he doesn't disappoint. The necessary 'political' aspect was introduced as necessary but not overly lest it become the source of a boredom. The main course to this film was of course the three-days Battle of Thermopylae where the King of Spartan himself, along with his estimated three hundred soldiers held the Persian Army in size of hundreds of thousand. Heralded as one of history's best known last stand, the battle itself was a solid proof that the terrain knowledge, tactics, and valor were major facts to determine the outcome of a war. Any war.

Further, the film emphasizes the mythology of a battle, with heavily laden special effects, we see people slain, elephants fell, and a charging rhinoceros all for the purpose of this film which in result, felt like an overlong Battle of Helm Deep from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers which an overstatement really, because once you sit at the theater to watch this film you'll find yourself yawning whenever the scene shifted from the Hot Gates to Sparta. Well, at least, i was.

Anyway, the battle was well choreographed, some part i enjoy the most, the use of slow-motion and stop-motion allows more style as we see the Spartan hacking through throngs of Persians, sending limbs and bodies flailing about which further put the film in a context.

This was not a film meant to had a thought over, just sit there in the dark and enjoy the scenes. Be wary that this film came directly from a comic book, and there were nary a drama quality dialogs between the image frames. Hence, no point in expecting one from this film.

My Rating: *** / ****

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Is it just me? or the above promotional poster would look very good on my bedroom's wall?

300: In Preparation to Dine in Hell

If you listed "Watching Movies" as one of your hobby, and yet, you had never heard about "300" lately, you need to reconsider by naming "Movies" as your hobby. Because certainly, "Movies", "Films", "Moving Pictures", was not your hobby at all. It was either that, or you live in someplace where internet was an unknown force of evil.

Anyway, i had mentioned about 300's director Zack Snyder on one of my post in this blog sometime in October. My expectation was high since. Because i had liked Zack Snyder's work since that yummy Dawn of the Dead remake up to now, and eagerly anticipating for more.

Now, 300 opens to a massive US$ 70 million weekend opening, thus becoming the highest grossing-film opening in March of all-time, and become the third highest grossing R-rated film (behind The Matrix Reloaded and The Passion of the Christ) to claim the North American top box-office. Surely, i think, i had securely made my point when i said that you should reconsider to give-up the title "Movie lover" or the likes if you haven't heard about "300".

The film was based on a Frank Miller's book. Call me if you need to read the comic, i had one. Not merely based, but from what i've seen in the trailer, the scenes in the film were literally picked-up from the comic. The scene with the wolf, the scene with the Persian ambassador, or even the already infamous scene with Gerard Butler screamed in anger. All of the scenes that i've already seen from the trailer, were literal translations from comic book panel to moving images. The resemblance was made even more uncanny with extensive uses of stop-motion and slow-motions.

I had secured a plan to watch 300 this weekend. From the news i gathered from 'ever trusted' (notice the sarcasm hint on the single quote) 21Cineplex, the film should be open this Saturday.

The further great news about the success of 300 was the possibility of Zack Snyder to secure a funding for his next project, Alan Moore's magnum-opus, Watchmen. The only comic book to received Hugo Award, the only comic book to appear on Time Magazine's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present, the comic that arguably coined the term "graphic novels", and surely the most weighed, dark-themed, most personal superhero comic book that i've ever read. Alan Moore was that British guy who also wrote V for Vendetta by the way, and he was a hard man to please. Zack was rumored to work on Watchmen for couple of years. And as a one-time comic fan, i was more eager to see how Watchmen translated into moving pictures rather than seeing a six-packed guy full of testosterone slay each-other. Hopefully that after the financially successful 300, Watchmen would had a green-light. And he has confirmed that Watchmen will be his next project. However, he should be cautious, because, not every comic-geek loved him (and his works) the way i do, and one little misstep with Watchmen, would be a blasphemous act to many.

JInternalFrame title background color

I decided to add new labels for this blog, conveniently named "Tech". Posts under this label would serve as my documentations, my bread-crumbs would've been a more proper name which i had left on my ventures to the depth and dark cave called Software Engineering. I would've logged all interesting facts (by interesting means, facts that piqued my interests, obviously), new experiences, and most of all, stupid mistakes which i have stumbled upon during the process.

This morning, i had spent a good part of my morning coffee trying to figured out how to put a custom color to my JInternalFrame title background. My client wanted to put a red color to indicate the frame associated with "Buy" business process and blue color to indicate the frame associated with "Sell". By default, i had wrote this code:

UIManager.put("InternalFrame.activeTitleBackground", new ColorUIResource(Color.RED));
UIManager.put("InternalFrame.activeTitleForeground", new ColorUIResource(Color.WHITE));
UIManager.put("InternalFrame.titleFont", new Font("Dialog", Font.PLAIN, 11));
updateUI();

The code compiled fine and should have been worked fine. I had tested it using different component on the same frame, and they worked like a charm. However, in this JInternalFrame case, the only thing that worked was the titleFont which changed to small script quite different from the defaults. The color, was the same light blue as common to Metal Look and Feel - which i loved the most, by the way.

After mulling for about a couple of hours googling here and there, i found an explanation to this 'bug' here. Based on that article, i should able to overcome this problem if i used Windows Look and Feel. So, i added these lines of code prior to the lines above, and tested it:

try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
}
catch (Exception e) {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel("javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel");
}

When i executed it, i had this result:


which doesn't actually satisfy my needs. But something was right. The title foreground color was exactly what i had wanted. White. It led me to a simple conclusion, i changed my window theme to windows XP's Silver to Window Classic's and voila.


The color was exactly what i had wanted. But, my homework still remains that i had to be able to enforced the color i wanted regardless of the theme on the client's Operating System that runs my application.

Song of the Day

Fly Away To A Rainbow In The Sky,
Gold Is At The End For Each Of Us To Find.
There The Road Begins, Where Another One Will End.

A million mark (fictitious, of course) f you could tell me whence the quote above was taken. I heard the song for the first time when i was 15. A friend of mine lent me an album which includes the song. This song hit me the most. And has been on my wanted list ever since.

Film Review: Rocky Balboa (2006)

For all the formulaic theme, Rocky (1976) was one of my favorite underdog-themed film. Even for more than once occasion you'd hear me whistling the infamous tune from the film whenever i felt like i was an underdog bound to a win. Now, thirty years later, when i first heard that Stallone was about to do a sixth sequel to Rocky, my immediate response was, "What?". It just felt like he was trying to grasp a buoy of fame when he was drown in a raging storm. But, of course, when the film opened to a lukewarm positive reviews and doing surprisingly good at the box office, my curiosity aroused.

To be quite honest, my curiosity wasn't at all satisfied. The film was repetitive to its formulaic predecessors. To be quite fair though, this film (if Stallone true to his words that this was the ultimate final Rocky film despite of the box-office success) was a perfect closure to a legacy of a legend. In the original Rocky we see a young unknown working-class immigrant turn into a legend and in this film we see the legend struggle to get from his past after his wife died, and his only son estranged himself from his dad's looming shadow of fame. And it worked. In Rocky II, III, IV, and V, the only thing that i remembered was their respective boxing match. It seems that all the story in the sequels were meant to brought the audiences to a boxing match. In Rocky and Rocky Balboa however, the boxing-match was not a mere means to justify the end.

Some characters (despite Rocky himself of course) returns as well as new faces - who had a considerable screen-time - in the hand of Milo Ventimiglia as Rocky's son and Geraldine Hughes as Marie, Rocky's anchor (not love interest mind you, just an anchor). Note that if Marie become Rocky's love interest, this film wouldn't achieved its status as it is, it could've been worse. But thankfully no, Marie was just there to remind Rocky of what he was back then.

Well, anyway, despite there was a single scene (if you had watched the original Rocky, you'll know the scene) where i cringed and say to myself out loud, "oh, no, don't, don't do that". The film was a OK, like i told you before, it was a perfect closure, a magnificent bow-out from the Italian Stallion.

Anyhow, Stallone also had one franchise on his belt that he wish to resurrect in a similar manner with what Rocky did. A final Rambo sequel, and it was properly named "John Rambo".

My Rating: **/****

Classical Films Theater

It has become one of my dream that someday i would have my own theater building in which i would have played classical films which agreed to certain theme. A Stanley Kubrick retrospective, for an instance. I've heard that in some other part of the globe, Australia, for example, US, most definitely, there were some theaters that dedicated themselves to that purpose. In Indonesia, however, there were no such thing. Even Blitz Megaplex which was scheduled to open in Jakarta on October 2006, still only had its sole theater in Bandung - to think that you guys who live in Bandung could had an opportunity to watch The Host in a big screen still infuriates me.

Well, anyway, on a lesser level, some of my acquaintances had realized my dream.

Scheduled to start this Sunday afternoon at some certain restaurant at Pondok Indah Mall II, we'd have a 'theater' that played classical film. Until now, the event originator still discussed what to play during the first month (March). Some titles already being mentioned, such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Du rififi chez les hommes (1955), and Les Diaboliques (1955). And if judging by the film selection, i figured that this month's theme would be a 'noir'. And of course, i would be there should the event really get started.