Kingsman Makes Spy Movies Rollicking Fun

Sometimes you'd think Hollywood has already done its bit in stretching the spy genre yet they still come out and produce stylish, funny and cool spy movies with dashing heroes that will make you forget, at least for 2 hours, the mundane problems of your life.

Of the 20+ or so movies I've already watched this year in theatres, Kingsman is the most insane fun I've seen! It covers all the cliches of spy movies and adds its own sense of humor to it. I'm not exactly a dog lover, but that "Shoot your dog" scene was heartbreaking to watch.

Taron Egerton is another name I have to add to my new hunks list of 2015. Sometimes cocky, sometimes nerdy, he has just the right British sex appeal which should help this franchise. I don't know how the movie has done in the US and the UK, but it's doing healthy business here in Manila. This is a great date movie because you can just lie back and relax and maybe laugh here and there. Sometimes, that's just what good movies have to do - entertain us!

Giddy Eddie Redmayne Was A Refreshing Sight to See!

Who would've thought that the guy who seduced Marilyn Monroe (onscreen lang guys) a few years ago, would win an Oscar a few years later!

Buti na lang Eddie Redmayne won for The Theory of Everything.  At least, when the movie screens here in Manila this Wednesday, I won't be watching in an empty theater - like Birdman, Whiplash, The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Wild.  The Oscar taste this year has really veered away from what most Filipinos like to see.  Or Americans for that matter.  (No Titanic or Avatar crowd-pleasers this year.)

Anyway, Eddie looked so cute when he acted so giddy holding his Oscar. He probably had the most refreshing and most honest reaction among the four thespians who won today - and even if  he's a Brit - who are very good at being poker faced - he couldn't hold back his excitement - which was great to see!  Yun lang, by winning so young, he and Jennifer Lawrence might wait till their 60s before the Oscars give them another statue.  Or not!!

Fine Win for Alejandro!

OMG! Second year in a row that a Mexican wins the Best Director award, and the films they've made do not even have anything to do with Mexico!  Just shows to you how globalized the film industry has become!  

Last year, Alfonso Cuaron won for Gravity, which was a breathtaking film in space, while this year, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won for Birdman, which is about a has-been box-office actor trying to prove he's really an actor, by doing a difficult play in Broadway!

Inarritu's film canon is also one of my favorites, from Babel to 21 Grams to Amores Perros - this guy has done an amazing range of films that to win an Oscar for a dark comedy, does not even paint a picture of how good he can be at any genre.  

Loved his acceptance speech as well, for Best Picture.  I really hope in the future, Filipino-Americans can take the cue and excel as well on film!

My Two Favorite Scripts of the Year Wins!

Ever since I covered the Oscars in 1983, the two screenplay categories are usually the ones I closely watch simply because it's the one closest to my heart. Writing for the screen takes a different skill since it involves a great ear for dialogue and a lot of great punchlines. So I've decided to place below the best lines from the two movies that won today, first for Birdman, then the other one for The Imitation Game -

Actually, andaming magaling na one liners from Birdman because it's written like a play, and its future Broadway adaptation (I'm sure it will have) should benefit from it -

"Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige."

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Jake: Oh my gosh! How do you know Mike Shiner?
Lesley: We share a vagina.

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Lesley: I wish I had more self-respect.
Laura: You're an actress.

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Mike Shiner: Does she speak?
Sam: She does. Yeah, she can sit, stay, and roll over if you have any treats.

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Riggan: Why did we break up?
Sylvia: Because you threw a kitchen knife at me. And an hour later you were telling me how much you loved me.

And these are the ones from The Imitation Game, very poignant, very elegant writing.

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Joan Clarke: Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

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Alan Turing: Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes... hollow.

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Alan Turing: When people talk to each other, they never say what they mean.
[pause]
Alan Turing: They say something else and you're expected to just know what they mean.

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Final quotes: His machine was never perfected, though it generated a whole field of research into what became known as "Turing Machines". Today we call them "computers".

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Joan Clarke: I know it's not ordinary. But who ever loved ordinary?

So This is the Guy who Made Edward Norton's Bum Look Good in Birdman

So this is the guy responsible for the in-your-face camera shots of Birdman! I was in seat Letter D in Trinoma and his shots were so tight that when Edward Norton stripped to his skivvies, I swear I could reach out my hand and touch his naked bum!! When Emma Stone ranted in that famous scene, you can actually feel she was talking to you (and not to Michael Keaton!).

That he also got an Oscar for the breathtaking Gravity, wow, such groundbreaking work for both films! Unfortunately, if you watch Gravity and Birdman in your phones or laptops, you won't get the same experience as I had when I watched it in a large theater.