Movie Reviews: 'Django Unchained' & 'Warm Bodies'

It's the season of movie-marathoning again, and for the past two nights I've been to back-to-back movie premieres -- 'Django Unchained' on Monday, and 'Warm Bodies' on Tuesday. :D

The fact that I needed to blog about them just to release my inner fangirl goes to show how impressed I was.
WARNING: Movie reviews and spoilers below ...


'Django Unchained'

Managed to get passes for the MIX fm sneak preview screening at One Utama, and invited Kids, Hani and Zend to watch with me (being fellow movie buffs and Tarantino fans). I've been following Tarantino's work ever since 'Kill Bill' and 'Kill Bill 2' (which are on my list of Favourite Movies of ALL TIME), so I was anticipating 'Django' for quite awhile now.

But I probably did the 'bad' thing, and watched a downloaded copy of the film before catching it on the big screen (oops). I did this for two reasons: 1) I couldn't wait any longer to watch it, and; 2) I was afraid that Malaysian cinemas would censor half the film (this being a Tarantino flick after all), leaving absolutely no cinematic value :\

So I went into the cinema already knowing the story, the best parts to look out for, and the Tarantino cameo towards the end of the movie (best cameo ever! XD). But the second viewing on the big screen was even more enjoyable with friends and the best thing was, we got the completely uncut version! So all the bloody violence and profanity that's signature for Tarantino flicks were all preserved. Which was awesome, because we got the exact effect and vision the director intended. :)

The story was simple yet powerful, and personally, though I found the violence a bit hard to stomach at times, I honestly thought it was a good piece of cinema. :) Great writing and amazing acting, especially from Cristoph Waltz! I've been not-so-secretly fangirling him since watching 'Inglorious Basterds' and he's brilliant in 'Django'. Well-deserved Oscar win!

'Warm Bodies'

Kids and I went to the 'Warm Bodies' hitz.fm sneak preview screening last night at Paradigm Mall, expecting a trolltastic movie parody of 'Twilight' ("You thought vampire romance was the end of it? Check out our ZOMBIE ROMANCE!"). But I think it's because of my lack of expectations that I was so impressed -- my mind was totally blown by a very well-written, fun, quotable movie with some pretty decent acting! OwO

The story was fun, well-paced and enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised that the lead, Nicholas Hoult is not just some pretty boy actor -- the kid can actually act, and pull off a very convincing zombie! :D The lead actress looked like a blonde Kirsten Stewart, but with more expression and with a more kickass and likable character.

The film is quite well-written and SO quotable, I feel like going in for a second viewing with a pen and paper to note down good quotes (for future use lol). :P My favourites lines so far:

1) "Don't be creepy, don't be creepy, don't be creepy ..."
2) "Say something human."
3) "Bitches, man." <-- best line ever from R's best friend Marcus.
4) "Man, we move slow." (HAHAHAHAHAHA!!)

It's such a hilarious feel-good movie that puts a WHOLE new spin on the zombie movie genre. And there are some surprisingly deep moments that makes me wonder if the writers were using the movie's zombie apocalypse setting as a metaphor for the deteriorating quality of human life ... /deepthoughts /totallyreadingtoomuchintoit

'Warm Bodies' is sort of the 'anti-Twilight' movie -- while the Twilight series preached destructive messages like: "I cannot live without my boyfriend. I'd rather kill myself than live without him. My goal in life is to die and become a sparkly, immortal vampire and live eternity with my beloved", 'Warm Bodies' on the other hand preached a 'pro-life' message -- the main pair kept saving each others' lives even though they knew they couldn't be together, and all the main character 'R' wanted to do was to become alive again. It's like they were trying to say, "There's so much to live for -- there's so much beauty and fun in this world, it's not worth it spending your life as if you were dead."

And yeah, maybe I AM reading too much into it, but personally I feel like I sometimes live my life like the zombies in the movie -- not really dead, not really alive, and just waiting for somebody or something to come along and make me feel alive again. :\ So I have a personal bias for liking this movie; it's somehow a metaphor for how I should snap out of it and 'cure' myself, haha~ XD

Zombies are cooler than vampires now, it's official! :)