Which musical was transformed into a movie that has been screening in theaters non-stop since 1975 and has a box office revenue of well over $140 million dollars?

Answer: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

It was fresher week in Manchester University when I was first introduced to The Rocky Horror Picture Show complete with live props and impromptu singing. My new English friends could not believe that I had never seen this show before and really "encouraged" me to watch it. I must say, my jaws must have dropped to the floor but the show was indeed an eye opener and I had never, ever seen anything like it in my life. And this was made in 1975, when Susan Sarandon is a young hot babe! It was a side of western culture that I had never even imagine existed, and yet once I saw it so many things about western culture clicked into place. Benny Hill, Monty Python, Black Adder, Mr. Bean, Little Britain, oh my!

For me, I'm comfortable enough in my sexuality that I can watch it for what it is, a fun and tongue firmly in cheek show that's meant to be laughed with and at. Just enjoy the ride and be entertained. My first impressions of Rocky Horror was that its quirky, wierd, strangely interesting, and that if my mum ever saw it, she would decry it as a prime example of depravity in western society and immediately suffer a heart attack.

Indeed, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a western world cultural icon that most Asians probably have never heard or even seen. Or, maybe not...




Anyway, with Glee's special "Rocky Horror" Halloween episode, I'm sure many young Asian kids will go out to the web and discover "RHPS" for themselves. I have to wonder, what would they make of it?

The first time I took notice of Carey Mulligan was in the acclaimed Doctor Who episode, "Blink". For those who do not know, Doctor Who is a critically acclaimed and wildly popular ratings hit British science fiction series. For this particular episode, the regular lead actors David Tennant and Freema Agyeman were busy shooting the season finale and so the lead character fell on to guest actor Carey Mulligan.

Initially, I thought the producers were taking a very risky move of letting a young and unknown guest actress to fill the lead role in a multi-award winning television series, even if it was only for one episode. However, by the end of the episode I had been won over. The unique story of "Blink" combined with Mulligan's portrayal of Sally Sparrow was simply brilliant. This particular episode has gone on to win multiple awards including BAFTA Best Writing Award and the Hugo Awards. The episode is also considered by fans to be a classic, must see episode of Doctor Who.

So when I learned that Carey Mulligan is starring in An Education, I simply had to watch it. Here in Singapore, the movie is only aired at one cinema (GV's Cinema Europa), at one time every day (4:50pm). Despite the lack of accessibility and strange time, the theater was half full when I caught it today. The subject matter of An Education was pretty tame, mundane, boring and in no way climatic. Yet, it wasn't a boring movie because the stellar cast carried the movie very well. I know I sound like a fan boy now, but Carey Mulligan really pulled off a very nuanced, well beyond her age performance.

The rumor mills have it that An Education would get a nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. And that Carey Mulligan would not only get a nomination for Best Actress, but that she stands a high chance of winning the award itself. Only time will tell, but I wish all the best of luck to her.

For those who don't know, I am a die-hard Trekkie. I have seen every single episode of every single Star Trek series as well as every movie. I own two shelves full of Star Trek novels, the entire Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series on DVD. I also have all collector's edition DVD of all ten prior Star Trek movies. So do not expect this to be an unbiased review of the 11th Star Trek movie.

The aliens, spaceships, lasers and explosions are exciting but that is not what I liked most about Trek. After all Star Wars has all these but I do not like Star Wars. The best of Star Trek is its roots in Science Fiction. Science Fiction that talks about the human condition. The best Trek stories reflect issues we humans face as civilization and Star Trek movies tend to be the largest mirrors of society at large. For example, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was a look at Life, Death and how we Live. In 1986 movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, was a story about environmental conservation 20 years before Al Gore sounded the alarm about Mother Earth in 2006. Stories like these get me excited.

The new Star Trek movie is certainly a blockbuster, guaranteed to make at least 200 million for Paramount Pictures. And as a blockbuster, it has its share of spiffy starships, computer graphics and action sequences that make it a spectacular to watch on the big screen (and as a Trekkie I have duly watched it twice). Sadly, the new Star Trek movie is missing the most critical aspect of Star Trek, it did not hold up a mirror to the human condition.

The review by Christopher Orr of The New Republic sums it up well:

Yet, for all the amusement Star Trek provides, it's hard to shake the sense that something has been lost in translation. Abrams's film is in some ways a throwback not to the original series, but further still to the pulpy exploits of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, in which sneering villains were forever threatening to blow up the heroes' home planets. Gene Roddenberry's original "Trek" aimed higher than such space opera, toward the moral, political, and technological sophistication of Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. It didn't always succeed--and, when it did, it wasn't always terribly exciting--but it was something new, and important, in the pop-cultural universe. For his rookie outing at least, Abrams has focused on simpler cinematic diversions. There's no question that his Star Trek radically revitalizes the franchise; but it does so in part by setting aside what distinguished the show in the first place.

In Quantum of Solace, Bond learns that Mr. White's (Casino Royale) unknown organization is called Quantum, and that it has people in very high places all over the world. People including MI6 agents, presidential assistants, even advisors for the Prime Minister. Not only that, the Quantum leadership is comprised of highly influential businessmen including one Dominic Greene, who is planning to buy most of the water in Bolivia.

On its own, Quantum of Solace doesn't seem like a good Bond movie. However, Quantum of Solace continues the story started by Casino Royale and leaves enough questions unanswered to feel like the middle chapter of a much larger story. It is thus too early to rate Quantum of Solace as its final rating will depend on the next two movies.

Focusing solely on Quantum of Solace, the main villain Dominic Greene feels more like a minor pawn. Still, this is a pawn who is capable of planning a coup in Bolivia, snatch most of the country's water resource and earn a quick buck through this endeavour. Despite the weak villain, the payoff for Daniel Craig's Bond is huge. Casino Royale left Craig's character as BINO (Bond In Name Only). By Quantum of Solace's ending, this BINO finally takes control of his raging anger , desire for vengance and finally focuses his attention on the big picture, stopping Quantum because it is a menace to the world and not chiefly because the organization killed his lover. Craig truly takes on the role of James Bond and the signature gun barrel shot right at the end of the movie seals the deal.

As for Quantum, is a large and deeply entrenched hydra. A hydra that has a lot of unfinished business with Bond. One of the hydra heads I'ld love to see is the person who "oiled" Ms Fields. I get the feeling that Craig's James Bond will take all four contracted movies to uncover and take down the entire Quantum operation. Lets hope the final payoff would be good.

In 1975, way before the term "Karaoke" was even coined, a pair of British producers created a musical sci-fi/horror film parody called "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Due to the quirky and wildly strange nature of the show (even by today's standards in many parts of the world), it was met with a bad reception by the critics. Despite being given bad reviews and a cold opening, this quirky little musical gathered a sing-along cult following that has endured to this very day. In fact, the movie has grossed almost 140 million to date and the show is so in-grained in Western culture that just about every caucasian I know have at least heard of Rocky Horror and the Time Warp dance.

Fast forward to 2008's Screen Writers Strike.

Josh Whedon, the producer of such television shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, wanted to make a statement about the writer's strike. Since the strike was largely about writers not being paid a single cent for anything shown on the Internet, Josh and his friends decided the best way to present their case is to make an Internet-only show. A show that uses Hollywood talent, is done professionally and show Hollywood top management that the Internet is a very viable medium for Hollywood media.

And thus Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was born. Here's the trailer:

Since its Internet-only screening in July, the show is rapidly gathering a cult of its own. In fact, the very first sing-along session has recently been held at a full-capacity screening in Dragon-Con. The show's now being sold on iTunes for $3.99, and a DVD is being produced.

Personally, I hope this little show gets to be as popular if not more popular than the Rocky Horror Show. It deserves to be, as it is one of many milestones to show big media corporations that the future of media is on the Internet. A Rocky Horror Show of our generation.

In conclusion, Iron Man beats Speed Racer at the box office. However, things aren't as clear when we take other criteria into consideration. The visuals of both shows are on par and it really boils down to personal preference of special effects style. It is the story that separates the man from the boys, and Iron Man is not the man. So folks, it is a one-one draw. There are things to love and hate about both shows. If you have the time, watch both and decide for yourself. If you don't have the time, I suggest skipping both shows and watch Indiana Jones instead.

Pseudo-Realistic vs Psychedelic
As with all summer blockbusters in recent years, the main reason for watching them is to gawk at the special effects and both shows have excellent effects. As with past movies based on Marvel comics, Iron Man's special effects follow in the footsteps of Spiderman and X-Men in the use of pseudo-realistic, computer generated imagery. Being a computer graphics buff, I have always been interested in watching the evolution of such techniques over the years. And of course, the graphics is top notch and blends so well with the actual footage that we, the audience, can never really tell what's real and what's not. Perhaps it is a case of over dosage, but with just about every blockbuster using realistic computer generated effects, I have become numb to such effects. As a result, Iron Man's effects felt... ordinary instead of spectacular.

Speed Racer on the other hand, is produced by the infamous Wachowski Brothers. For those who have forgotten, the Wachowski Brothers are responsible for creating "The Matrix". Unfortunately, they are also responsible for creating the dismal sequels "Matrix: Reloaded" and "Matrix: Revolutions". Despite all their faults, the Wachowski Brother's have always been pushing the boundaries of big screen visual effects. They have applied their creativity and hunger for innovation to Speed Racer. The end result, is a shockingly psychedelic splash of brilliant colors that is totally different from any other movie in existence. Speed Racer is also the first movie to incorporate Kill Bill-esque elements, mixing together different visual and genre styles. These are very risky moves that definitely will shock the conservatives and has impacted Speed Racer's box office figures. However, I have to give the Wachowski Brothers some kudos for having the balls to do something different and very memorable.

Stark Industries vs Royalton Industries
Interestingly, the villain in both Iron Man and Speed Racer is the big bad corporation, personified an evil Executive as the head of the company.

In Iron Man, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is a brilliant scientist/engineer/playboy who inherited his daddy's weapons manufacturing mega-corporation. After escaping from terrorist kidnappers who forced him to build weapons of mass destruction, Stark decides to turn his company away from producing weapons. Nobel intentions indeed. If I were a determined chief executive seriously wanting to turn the company around, I would hide in my multi-million basement designing a suit of high tech battle armor. Huh? I wonder hallucinogen Tony Stark is taking there.

Meanwhile, his number two executive decides Stark has finally gone too crazy (I don't blame him, Stark IS crazy) and decides it is time for him head the company. Like any good number two executive, he decides the best option is to kill Stark. I guess the number two is also taking hallucinogens, because he too creates his own high tech battle armor and both executives slug it out metal-o-metal like two cavemen.

Speed Racer is the story about a boy (Emile Hirsch), his family, and his dream to become a professional racer. The only problem is, he discovers that the world of racing, and every single race result is tightly controlled by automobile conglomerates who only care about how race results affect their company revenue. If he discovers that if he does not race for his would-be sponsor Royalton Industries, then he won't even be able to race at all. "What can I do? I only know how to race", ponders Speed Racer who is blocked at the driveway.

I won't go into details as to how Speed solves his problem and bring down the evil Royalton Industries, save to say that it is a story about sticking to his dreams, believing in himself and having strong family values. If this type of story appeals to you, then ignore the badly done psychedelic trailer and do give Speed Racer the movie a chance. The movie itself may just surprise you.

Introduction
Today, I am going to attempt something difficult. I will not only review two movies (Iron Man and Speed Racer), I will do so with an unconventional format. The reason for doing so is because I have been inspired by one of these movies. I hope when you reach the end of this review, you will know which movie I am refering to. So without further adieu, here goes... wish me luck!

While The Forbidden Kingdom is no where near the calibre of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" in terms of story telling, the movie is still a must watch for several reasons. For one, it stars both Jackie Chan and Jet Lee in their native Martial Arts genre. This only means one thing, superb fight sequences that have been sorely missing from both Eastern and Western cinema screens for many years. After a long drought, it is refreshing to once again see good old martial art fights that do not use quick film cuts and special effects to disguise the fact that none of the young and famous actors/actresses have any physical proficiency, much less any background in Martial Arts. And like Crouching Tiger, the fight sequences are spectacular indeed.

Another reason to watch The Forbidden Kingdom is the mythology. For Eastern audience, especially us Chinese, the story is bizarre mix of several familiar, centuries old stories mixed in with modern elements. To a Western audience, the movie serves as an introduction to centuries old classic Chinese myths and folklore such as the Monkey God, Sun Wukong (Jet Lee).

The Forbidden Kingdom is a fusion of Eastern and Western elements. In terms of story, the movie reminds me of two old TV series Hercules and Xena, which uses mythical characters in a heavily adapted version of the original story. The adapted story in this case is an early tale in Journey to the West (西游记). Specifically it is the story of 孙悟空大闹天宫, where Sun Wukong the Monkey God (Jet Lee) wrecked havoc the Heavenly Kingdom (or as the movie calls it, The Forbidden Kingdom). The Forbidden Kingdom, for those who do not know, is home of the Gods and Immortals. It is largely analogous to Mount Olympus of Greek mythology. In the original story, the Monkey God could not be subdued by heavenly troops led by Heavenly Marshal Erlang Shen (二郎神). It took The Buddah himself to finally subdue the naughty Monkey God and thus Sun Wukong the Monkey God was imprisoned for centuries under the Five Finger Mountains (五指山).

The difference in The Forbidden Kingdom is that instead of winning the fight against the heavenly troops, the Monkey God was tricked by the "Jade Warlord" (an evil version of the Heavenly Marshal Erlang?) and is turned into stone. Just before that happens, Wukong manages to cast his magical staff out into The Middle Kingdom (China) where it awaits a mysterious traveller who would eventually return the magical staff back to the Monkey God. If you have seen the trailer, you would know that the traveller is a young American called Jason Tripitaka (Michael Angarano) who acquires Wukong's magical staff in 2008 and travels back to medieval China, where he meets the Drunken Scholar Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) and Little Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei). Thus begins the adventures of an American boy in medieval China, learning kungfu whilst trying to return a magical staff to a stone monkey statue.

It is a classic tale of good vs evil, but then again the plot doesn't really matter. The Forbidden Kingdom is enjoyable simply because it a mish mash of classics such as The Karate Kid, The Drunken Master (醉拳), Warriors from Mount Zu (蜀山劍俠) and more.

Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about digital information, the music and movie industry and their tussles with digital music/movies and P2P networks.

What I have been trying to think of is a win-win solution for all parties involved. That is, to come up with a digital information distribution business model that enable the music and movie industry to earn a good profit, to ensure producers such as musicians, actors, directors, writers all get a fair share of their cut and of course, that we as consumers still continue to get what we want (high quality music) at what we believe is a fair price. The result, is this series of articles examining what's wrong with the current model and what needs to change to create a robust entertainment market.

Today, we focus specifically on why the Internet marketplace is so different from a normal brick and mortar market place that the entertainment industry is used to.

One Cent Storage, Reproduction and Distribution

As I have mentioned in the first article, the main difference between a typical brick and mortar Economics and Internet Economics is that digital storage, digital reproduction (or copying) and digital distribution are so cheap that its total cost is still less 1 cent per product sold. This is very different from real world storage and distribution where materials, manpower, warehouses, ships, trucks and store space all costs a significant amount money.

In fact when producing a digital product, there are only three substantial financial costs involved:

1. The one time cost of creating the first copy of the digital product.
2. The cost of marketing and advertising.
3. The cost of per-unit-sold royalties, licenses and residuals.
   

The first two costs are largely fixed and from a basic economic perspective, would mainly influence when a product breaks even. The third cost is going to be the bane of companies trying to enter the Internet with digital products as all other per-unit costs such as manufacturing, distribution costs drop to zero, these per-unit royalties to third parties become major factors in the final cost of these digital products. I believe the television and movie industries and to a lesser extent the music industry suffers from cumbersome per-unit costs that prevent them from selling their digital products at low prices.

Unfortunately, this is something the entertainment industry will have to solve through legal re-negotiations. However, once it is done the entertainment industry will be able to leverage the tremendous economies of scale advantages that the Internet brings.

The Long Tail
One of the well documented effects of having near-zero cost storage, reproduction and distribution is popularly called the Long Tail effect. The idea is that an "Internet Store" is able to stock up several orders of magnitude more songs/videos/movies than any brick and mortar stores can ever imagine stocking up. For example, if the operating cost of a HMV superstore allows it to stock 10,000 unique titles, then an Internet Store with the same operating cost can probably stock several million unique titles. The impact of having such a huge stockpile of music and video is that only half their revenue comes from Blockbuster Movies and Billboard Music. From another perspective, they effectively doubled their revenue by selling non-Blockbuster/Billboard products.

If you are really interested in how businesses can leverage the Internet or just how the world works, I seriously recommend reading the book "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson, current Wired magazine's editor-in-chief. The book is written for the layperson and reiterates its main points through different viewpoints that you get a pretty good understanding of why the long tail effect is so critical to Internet businesses.

The entertainment industry in particular, needs to get away from thinking solely about Blockbuster Movies and Billboard Songs and focus on serving up on the Internet everything they have produced in the past century. The entertainment industry should aos start promoting themselves with themes such as "The Place for Music" or "Where Movies Live". The movie industry, for example, can adopt genre specific promos such as Romantic Comedy/Sci-fi Month. In fact, this is exactly what Amazon.com has been doing for the past decade.

Most importantly, the entertainment industry must realize that they have always been a long tailed business. There is still a significant audience who still watch "Gone With The Wind" even though it was produced nearly 70 years ago. Even today, I frequently see posts made by teenagers who have just discovered Star Trek for the first time and are hungry for more. There are many more "long burning" products that continue to sell years and even decades after their initial release. The entertainment industry has largely neglected these "long burn" products over "flash burn" products. For the first time ever, the Internet Store offers an opportunity to stock both types of products without worrying about the cost of retail space.

In the next article, I will cover the entertainment industry's misteps with digital rights management and detail a digital copyright management scheme that both consumers and the industry can accept.

Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about digital information, the music and movie industry and their tussles with digital music/movies and P2P networks.

What I have been trying to think of is a win-win solution for all parties involved. That is, to come up with a digital information distribution business model that enable the music and movie industry to earn a good profit, to ensure producers such as musicians, actors, directors, writers all get a fair share of their cut and of course, that we as consumers still continue to get what we want (high quality music) at what we believe is a fair price. The result, is this series of articles examining what's wrong with the current model and what needs to change to create a robust entertainment market.

The Entertainment Industry As It Is Today, Is Flawed
I do not need to repeat what just about every blog and news article is saying, that the entertainment industry's current view of their own industry is seriously flawed. For example, the four major music distribution companies, Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner, think they are selling music but actually they are only selling a specific type of music that I call "Billboard Music". Likewise the movie industry is currently mostly only interested in selling "Blockbuster Movies".

The entertainment industry cannot be blamed for selling Billboard Music and Blockbuster Movies because they are only following the brick and mortar Economics: Sell as many of the most popular products. It is a good model that has worked for decades, so why change to something new? One reason is that the assumptions made by Economics about brick and mortar businesses changed when a company moves to the Internet.

This change in Economics is somewhat similar to the situation in the early 1910s when Einstein discovered the Theory of Relativity. Relativity did not prove that Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is wrong. Newtonian gravity continues to be accurate on Earth even today. In fact, the only difference is that Newton assumed the force of gravity is constant throughout the universe whereas Einstein showed that the force of gravity is different at different locations in the universe. The result is that as long as we stay on Earth, both Newton as well as Einstein's formulas work equally well. When we move into space, Einstein's relativity formulas are much more accurate than Newton's.

The entertainment industry faces the same issue today. The laws of brick and mortar Economics would continue to work so long as the entertainment industry stays in the brick and mortar world. If the entertainment industry decides to move (and has to move) into the much larger universe of cyberspace, then it better be using the laws of Internet Economics and not the laws of brick and mortar Economics.

Like Newton's Laws, the brick and mortar laws of Economics makes the assumption that every resource, every step, every process used to bring a product to market costs money. It takes money to buy raw materials, hire people, store stuff, transport stuff, buy machinery. Yet strangely in the laws of Internet Economics, there are certain resources and certain processes that are so cheap that they are essentially do not even cost a cent per product sold. This might seem like a small difference between brick and mortar Economics and Internet Economics, but as we will see in the next article, the implications are huge.

No Country for Old Men is an captivating movie with little words but a lot to show. For me, the movie asks a question: How much control do you really have in your life? And I am sure that if I watched this movie a year later, and a decade later, the movie will ask different questions. In a way, I think you get a lot more out of this movie the older you get.

On the surface, No Country is like an "action movie" where Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon 2 millon in drug money and as a consequence gets hunted down by a psychotic killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who wants the money for himself. Meanwhile, the star of this movie Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) tries to stop Chigurh.

At least, that is what happens when you look at the actions of these men. When you look deeper and actually listen to what these characters say, you would realize this is not an action movie. It is a movie about living. Throughout the movie, these men never agonized over what to do nor look back and ponder if they've made the right choice. No, these men are experts in their respective fields. Moss is a Vietnam war veteran who has seen more than his share of action in the past and it shows in the way he cunningly avoids Chigurh and figures out how he was being tracked. Chigurh is a masterful strategist who is able to anticipate what his prey would do, although he is not as sure about non-experts. Sheriff Bell easily anticipates both hunter and prey's moves. Watching No Country is like watching a trio of warriors in their dance of death, where every move is precise and accurate. And with warriors of this calibre, only one thing separates them; random luck.

The ending of this movie is anything but conventional. I wish I could reveal more but I'm afraid this would spoil the ending. And it is what happens in the last 5 minutes of this movie that turns it from an "action movie" to an introspective movie worthy of at least a few awards. Javier Bardem's performance as Anton Chigurh should easily earn him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The Coen Brothers also stand a good chance of winning Best Director or perhaps even Best Picture, although I think Best Picture is a long shot.

Jumper tries to follow in the footsteps of great movies such as The Fugitive and The Matrix. According to RottenTomatoes's 94 critics, it tries but ultimately jumps short of its targets. I tend to agree with them, but my verdict probably isn't as harsh.

I will use The Fugitive to explain why. One famous scene midway through The Fugitive a small showdown between Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) and United States Marshal Samuel Gerard inside a storm drain. Kimble holds his hands up high as a sign of surrender and tells Gerard, "I didn't kill my wife". Gerard replies with an unsympathetic "I don't care". On hearing this, Kimble escapes by jumping off the storm drain and falls a hundred meters into the freezing midnight water. Now imagine how you would feel if the movie ended right there, with promises that the story will unfold in the next part of The Fugitive movie trilogy.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

That basically describes what happens in Jumper. Haden Christensen stars as David Rice, a young man with an extraordinary ability to "jump" across vast distances in the blink of an eye. Samuel L. Jackson stars as Roland Cox, an uncaring NSA agent slash "Paladin" with high tech toys tasked to bring down Jumpers by any means necessary. Oh yes, Cox also has a personal vendetta to kill all Jumpers. All Jumpers as criminals and Cox often spout the lines "You'll eventually kill someone. It always ends up the same way" before ritualistically unwrapping a large knife and kills the captured jumper in cold blood. And now Cox has caught a new Jumper scent, Christensen's David Rice. Thus begins a relentless chase across the world. This naturally leads to a series of showdowns and narrow escapes at various locales by Rice who ultimately ends the movie with the declaration, "I'm different, I won't kill", and leaves Cox stranded in a mountain cave. End of movie.

Jumper basically sets the stage for a much larger story to come and for all I know, the entire story could be as good as The Fugitive turned out to be. On the other hand, it could end up like The Matrix trilogy. There's no way to know now. All we know now is that the visual effects are weak. The fight sequences essentially comprises of splicing together one second footages of London, Tokyo, the Sphinx, London again, some desert, Chetchnia, some river, Tokyo again, ad nauseum.

So there you have it, Jumper is the first third of a longer story arc which could literally go anywhere, with effects that definitely pale in comparison to The Matrix trilogy. In other words, it is a weak start. And if the Jumper trilogy follows the usual trend of weaker sequels, then it is a movie trilogy not worth watching.

As usual, there are several Hollywood blockbusters to watch out for this year. Batman returns in The Dark Knight, James Bond returns in Quantum of Solace, Harrison Ford returns to the big screen as Indiana Jones in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, comic book fans can look forward to Iron Man and Hell Boy and trekkers all look forward to the eleventh Star Trek movie.

I am not going to talk about blockbusters today. I mean, what is the fun of having every other blog out there covering the exact same blockbuster movies? So today, I figured I'll cover a few non-blockbuster level movies to watch out for in 2008. To kick things off, here's a musical to watch out for.


Mama Mia!
I love 80s retro music, especially from unconventional sounding bands such as Abba. I also love movie musicals such as Annie, Moulin Rouge and the more recent Enchanted. So what could be better than a musical turned movie chock full of Abba songs? Lets see... I can top that by adding well known actors such as Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth. What you end up with is Mama Mia! the movie.

I have not seen the musical, but I have only heard good things about it. Scheduled to be released in July in the United States, I anticipate this movie will be a big hit and earn another heapload of royalties for Abba.

Sex and the City - The Movie
I know right now, the guys are groaning while the girls are swooning at this piece of news. Yes, the popular HBO television series Sex and the City is coming to the big screen. Most of the female friends I know absolutely love Carrie Bradshaw and her three best friends, conservative Charlotte, sexually aggressive Samantha and the slightly neurotic working mum Miranda.

Not much is known about the movie right now, other than the fact that it takes place four years after the end of the HBO series. Oh, and apparently the producers are so confident about the success of the movie that they already have plans to make a sequel movie. I would not be at all surprised if this movie turns out to be a sleeper hit. Sex will hit the big screen in May in the United States.

Jumper
I saw an early trailer for this movie when I was in the cinema a couple of months ago and the premise intrigued me. With a production budget of $100 million, this movie is not exactly a sleeper but it isn't exactly a blockbuster level movie either. I guess I'll call it a blockbuster wannabe. From the look of the trailer, it certainly has the required amount of action and special effects. Having Samuel L. Jackson in the cast and director Doug Liman (who also directed the Bourne trilogy) certainly helps with the street cred too.

Watch out for Jumper, for it could be the start of the next movie franchise in the coming years.

As some of you might know, I am a huge fan of Star Trek. So it is no surprise that I am happy Star Trek is once again returning to the big screen on Christmas 2008, thanks to producer and director JJ Abrams, producer Damon Lindelof as well as executive producers cum writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. These four people combined, has over the decade produced some of the top hit television shows such as Hercules, Xena, Felicity and Lost, as well as movies such as The Island, The Legend of Zorro, Mission: Impossible III and Transformers.

So far, what is known about the movie is that it features a completely new cast of actors portraying young versions of the original Star Trek characters such as Captain Kirk, Spock and Doctor McCoy. However, the quartet has kept all other details about the movie under a very tight security. Some of the measures they've taken include using fake scripts in the audition process, only giving out real script fragments to the production crew on a need to know basis and requiring all actors and extras to walk between shooting locations under either a huge black cloak or be ferried around in shrouded golf carts. All this security has piqued the interest of the Star Trek community, and started an intense competition between the various tabloid papers and websites to get the largest Star Trek exclusive/scoop they can. As a result, all sorts of rumors are flying all across the web.

Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban are respectively cast as young Captain Kirk, Spock and Doctor McCoy

For example, a late 2007 news leak claimed that The Guardian of Forever (a huge fan favorite) is in the movie. The very next day, an angry Harlan Ellison who is creator and rights owner of The Guardian responded, demanding to see the quartet over the use of his creation in their movie. A few days later, someone posted very blurred, long distance spy shots of young Spock and Captain Kirk at some unknown shooting location.

Just yesterday a popular rumor mill website, Ain't It Cool News, claimed to have inside sources who have not only read the entire script, but went further to describe the writing as lackluster and that the character of Kirk were written as if young Kirk was "a dumb after school special".

Comedian Simon Pegg as Scotty and Zoe Saldana as Uhura

Of course being rumors, this information could very well turn out to be unfounded and downright false. However, I do believe that there is a slight element of truth that the script writers, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, are not exactly well rounded writers. Don't get me wrong, I think they're excellent at writing action oriented movies, which is no doubt why all four movies they've written thus far (The Island, Legend of Zorro, Mission Impossible: 3 and Transformers) are all action flicks.

Kurtzman and Orci's main weakness is in writing characters that the audience would care about. All you need to do is compare the 2007 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) movie with Kurtzman and Orci's 2007 Transformers movie. Both movies essentially took popular children's comic book/toy characters from the 1980s to the big screen. TMNT was decidedly true to its roots in depicting the four turtle brothers, their camaraderie as well as internal conflict with each other. In other words, the turtles felt very human and by the end of the movie the audience were rooting for them.

John Cho as Hikuru Sulu and Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov

Transformers on the other hand, does not even focus on the Transformers. Sure, the movie contained Transformer-specific words such as Autobot, Decepticon, Optimus Prime and Megatron, but you would be hard pressed to identify who's who given that (a) the transforming robots looked visually different and (b) most of them barely said a word. Any "script line" given to the transforming robots were largely comedic one-liners or classic "must have" speeches like Optimus Prime's classic declaration, "One will stand and one will fall". The audience is simply expected to assume that some of the robots were bad guys because they looked menacing or made evil sounding noises while the other robots were good guys because they took on the form of cool cars or ambulances. Even human characters suffered from bad writing as many of them were no more than clichéd, two dimensional caricatures.

While this level of characterization would be grudgingly acceptable for a summer blockbuster flick where the plot is simply an excuse to setup scenes with huge special effects, explosions and car stunts, it simply would not be sufficient for a Star Trek story. A Star Trek story, particularly one about the original Enterprise crew, is a story about humanity driven by characters that are larger than life. The kind of one-liner filled scripts written for Transformers or even Mission: Impossible 3 simply would not be sufficient for Star Trek.

Having said all this, I am ultimately still a fan of Star Trek and still hope that the new movie would be a success beyond my wildest dreams. I put my faith in Leonard Nimoy (the original Spock), the only remaining Star Trek elder whose judgment I still trust. If Mr. Nimoy believes Star Trek XI is going to be a great movie, then I believe it too.

The Man From Earth is what I would call a classic Science Fiction movie. The movie contains no special effects, has no action sequences nor any does it contain any fighting scenes. The movie is set in the current era rather than some futuristic setting. So what qualifies this as a science fiction movie? Well to me, a science fiction movie has to ask a "What if" question and explore the consequences of asking that question. The Man From Earth asked, "What if a man can walk the earth for the past 14,000 years?". This question naturally leads to many other questions. What would such a man be like? How does he survive? What has he done?

Meet John Oldman (David Lee Smith), a college professor with a 10 year tenure who surprised everyone by suddenly resigning for reasons unknown. His concerned friends and colleagues drop by his house to find out why, only to get the big surprise. John's friends and colleagues, who are professors in the fields of Biology, Archaeology, Anthropology and Psychologist all try to poke holes in John's claim of being a 14,000 year old man. To find out what happens next, you'll have to watch the movie. It is an intellectually exciting movie that is definitely worth watching.

Before I close, I'ld like to point out a few connections this movie has with Star Trek. The cast of Man From Earth features Trek alumni actors Tony Todd, John Billingsley and Richard Riehle. Tony Todd has played Worf's brother, Kurn, in several TNG and DS9 episodes but is probably best known for his portrayal of an adult and senior Jake Sisko in one of DS9's best episode, "The Visitor". Richard Riehle likewise played the role of Captain Picard's best friend Batai in one of TNG's best episode, "The Inner Light". John Billingsley starred as Doctor Phlox on the fifth Star Trek series, Enterprise.

Tony Todd, John Billingsley and Richard Riehle in their Star Trek roles

It is certainly interesting for me to see guest actors from some of the best Star Trek episodes starring in The Man From Earth. However, what is more interesting is that the script was the lifework of Jerome Bixby, who also wrote classic Star Trek episodes "Mirror, Mirror" and "Requiem For Methuselah". "Methuselah" also features a 6,000 year old Leonardo/Brahms but is ultimately a love story. In a way, what Jerome Bixby did was to write write two completely different but equally compelling scripts starting from the same premise. Amazing stuff.

After Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix: Revolutions failed to meet the audience's expectation, the name "Wachowski Brothers" didn't have the glamor and audience draw it used to have. This is possibly why the Wachowski Brother's next film, V For Vendetta, did not do so well at the Singapore box office.

It is a pity, because V For Vendetta is one of the better movies released in 2006. It is a movie that explore timely themes I never thought Hollywood would ever dared to touch with a 10ft pole. The plot is almost a Star Trek-esque allegory of current world affairs, that is, if one ignored V's vengeful motivation for murder and revolution. For that, I give it kudos.

The movie revolves around a masked man who calls himself "V". Who is V? I'll let him introduce himself.

V calls himself a victim and villain. His vendetta is vengeance against the dystopian Big Brother government in England. Naturally, he is called a terrorist and murderer by the nation's leaders for bombing Old Bailey, the capital of England's judicial system as well as for murdering high ly prominent party leaders. Yet V is also the anti-hero of this movie, a lone man fighting against a government with a terrible, dark secret. As you can imagine, this is a movie where no one is truly good nor truly evil. V for Vendetta is like the visual tone pervasive throughout the movie, sheathed in so many shades of shades of gray. Yet somehow, V for Vendetta ends up shining a spotlight on both the black and the white.

For those of you who think that this is only a dark and gritty story, fear not for the movie is also replete with oddball comedic gems like the short video segment you see above. For those of you who are familiar with Benny Hill, watch for a signature Benny Hill sketch, which in my opinion is worth its weight in gold.

In all, V for Vendetta is a superb mix of action, satire, social commentary and all round good acting from leading actors Hugo Weaving (V) and Natalie Portman (Evey) as well as the entire supporting cast.

Today, I'm going to talk about an ice hockey movie. Not the Mighty Ducks, the other ice hockey movie. You know, the movie written by David E. Kelly who is well know for his works in Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal and more.

The movie is "Mystery, Alaska", released 8 years ago in 1999. Yeah the movie was made in the last century. Yeah I'm an old fart, grow up.

Actually I need to make a correction. Mystery, Alaska is not really an ice hockey movie. In fact, I'm not even sure if it is really a movie at all. You see, the thing about any show written by David E. Kelly is that it is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Mystery, Alaska is shot like a movie, is as long as a movie but what movie has a main cast of about 20 actors, opens up a dozen plot lines and doesn't end most of them?

The modern equivalent to Mystery, Alaska would be Friday Night Lights, the movie. As you may know, Friday Night Lights the movie sort of became the pilot episode and basis of Friday Night Lights, the television series.

Like Friday Night Lights, the movie revolves around a small Alaskan town of Mystery. The town lives and breaths ice hockey, ritualized by their weekly "Saturday game". In fact, the town believes that on their hockey pond, they cannot be beaten. The town becomes involved in a publicity stunt for the New York Rangers when their hometown team was featured in Sports Illustrated. This ultimately lead to a match between the underdog team from Mystery, Alaska and the professional New York Rangers. Sounds like a hockey movie doesn't it? Well, no because the Mystery team lost.

So what exactly is Mystery, Alaska the movie? It is a movie about good, earnest small town folks, their lives and their situation. If you like a good character driven movie, this movie's got it.

After reading some positive reviews about Disney's new movie, Enchanted, I decided to give it a shot. So this afternoon, I dropped by Junction 8 to catch "Enchanted".

I liked it.

Overall the movie is not meant to be spectacular nor noteworthy, but it doesn't need to be. Enchanted is one of those movies that perfect illustrates what the power of a simple but well written story can do for a movie. And that is what Enchanted is, a boy-meet-girl love story with a Disney cartoon twist. The production values are extremely good (afterall, this is a Disney movie) and the actors are great. What I like most of all are the little references to past Disney classics crammed into this movie. Everything from Giselle singing to forest animals and birds, the use of the poisoned apple, a ballroom dance like the one in "Beauty and The Beast" and a whole lot more!

James Marsden really channeled a very believable Prince Charming um... Prince Edward. And of course who can forget Amy Adams as the ever lovely soon-to-be-Princess Giselle? I have always had a soft spot for musical numbers in movies, especially romantic movies. Enchanted has several so it naturally has a spot in my heart. Here's a sneak preview of one of those musical pieces.

Enchanted is definately one of the rare movies that I find worth keeping as a DVD.