Last Christmas - 去年聖誕節

Last Christmas (去年聖誕節) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding. The supporting cast include Michelle Yeoh and Emma Thompson. The movie was based on the famous song of the same name originally performed by Wham. Andrew Ridgeley of Wham also makes a cameo appearance.



Kate is a choir signer in her native Yugoslavia, the Croatia part. The family immigrated London and Kate works as an elf in a year round Christmas store while auditioning for parts. However, Kate seems to have a self destructive bend and fails all of her auditions. Estranged from her parents, she moves around from friend to friend to spend her nights. Kate than meets Tom Webster one night and they keep bumping into each other. Eventually they strike up a friendship and that leads to a little more. Eventually, there's a love connection. But there are always complications to the connection. Kate in the meantime runs out of places to stay and goes home at Tom's urging. At home, she has to mend relationships with her Mom and Sister. Can Kate get her act together to find purpose in life and love?

This movie was really sweat. I watched it with my teenage daughter whom loved it. I thought the story moved well and I wasn't bored at any point. The movie is not very long and gets through the story quite well. I felt warm and fuzzy as I watched with my daughter. It was also the first week of the California Quarantine and made the time go by fast. I also loved the Wham and George Michael inspired music throughout the film. It was a bit of the time machine.

I loved the extras and their Central London locations. Makes me want to visit London as it reminded me of some the alleyways of old Taipei. I highly recommend this film and have now put it down as one of my favorite 2019 films.

Rambo: Last Blood - 第一滴血5

Rambo: Last Blood (第一滴血5) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Sylvester Stallone in his fifth outing as John Rambo. Rumor is that this will be the last movie of this current franchise. The notable supporting cast include Paz Vega and Yvette Monreal.

John Rambo is now stateside and relocated as a horse trainer in Arizona. He's taken on the mantle as Uncle John to Gabrielle, the grand daughter to one of the workers. Rambo has helped to raise Gabrielle for the past 11 years. Gabrielle has just graduated from High School and set to start college. Gabrielle learns the location of her father whom abandoned her in your childhood and heads to Mexico to find him and get closure. However, the friend that found him for Gabrielle has bad intentions for her. After Gabrielle's father tells her that he does not want her in his life, distraught, she gets hammered at a local club and is sold into slavery. Rambo is worried and make his way to Mexico to find her. But he himself is badly beaten, but manages to free Gabrielle with the help of a local journalist. Gabrielle dies on her way back home and Rambo is dead set on getting revenge. Will this be John Rambo's last stand?

I caught this movie via Amazon Prime Video recently. Am I glad I kinda got it for free. This movie was all sorts of bad. The bad acting and highly stereotyped characters. And I am Asian! Asians are also not in this movie to my recollection. I was not paying attention as I just trying to get through this movie. Luckily this movie was only around 85 or so minutes of actual movie. The first half is character development of the bound that John Rambo has with Gabrielle. You have to build that father daughter bound for him to go risk his life later. Which wasn't bad. But things turned really bad and stereotypical once Gabrielle finds out about her long lost father. The storyline from there to Rambo's revenge was all sorts of bad and hard to watch. I think I managed to make it through this as I washed some dishes and got a snack.

The revenge factor of the second half is really the only reason most of us even considered watching this movie. Rambo 4 was actually good in my recollection. So I was excited to watch this even though I had never seen the trailer. But the Gabrielle storyline was very weak and hard to watch. What I did like was the revenge story of the second half of the movie. That's why I watched this movie.

If you can get through the first half, you'll enjoy the Rambo revenge storyline very much.

2020 May Blockbuster Movie Guide

Here are the movies to look out for this month, US Edition.

In these unprecedented times, the US movie system is currently closed. So have the movie releases. All of the major releases have move to other months.



Sources:
IMDB Coming Soon
Box Office Mojo
Wikipedia.org
Taiwan Yahoo! Movies
WMoov Hong Kong

Gemini Man - 雙子殺手

Gemini Man (雙子殺手) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen and Benedict Wong. The film is directed by Ang Lee. Was glad to see Ang directing again.



Henry Brogan is a DIA sniper that retires from government service. When he does, he notices that he is being monitored. When a friend of his gives him some information, the DIA decide that Henry is an lose end. Henry is now on the run. A clone of him is sent to eliminate him. Can Henry stay alive and clear his name?

This was an interesting film. I am on the fence of if I like it or not. There were parts of the movie that are awesome and other parts that had me scratching my head. The highlight of the film was the partnership of Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Benedict Wong. I would watch a movie with just those 3 running around doing missions. They were that interesting. But the other parts of the film seemed like a weakness in the story. Cloning, but for weaponization? If something that awesome were to exist, it would be a ethical worldwide dilemma. In the end, I would recommend this movie for the action and the partnership storyline.

I got this via T-Mobile Redbox promo.

Updated Disney movie schedule - 2020 through 2021

Last May, I had posted an Disney movie schedule based on its finalized merger with Fox. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has caused the movie theaters to shut down. And with it, the release schedule of many movies were put in jeopardy. Including those of the current biggest movie house, Disney. Disney announced a bunch of things recently on a handful of movies.

2020 Films
"Mulan" (Disney) - July 24
"New Mutants" (Fox) - Unknown
"Black Widow" (Marvel) - November 6
"Artemis Fowl" (Disney) - Going to Disney+ now with no release date
"Soul" (Pixar) - Unknown
"Free Guy" (Fox) - December 11
"Jungle Cruise" (Disney) - July 30, 2021
"The Eternals" (Marvel) - February 12, 2021
"The French Dispatch" (Fox) - October 6

2021 Films
"Shang-Chi" (Marvel) - May 7
"Dr. Strange 2" (Marvel) - November 5
"Thor: Love And Thunder" (Marvel) - February 18, 2022

The New Mutants no longer have a release date as well. This much maligned film's release is once again in limbo. There are a host of other films that have also fallen into limbo as well.

I am also happy to see "Shang-Chi" moved to the opening weekend of the Summer! Traditionally the May date for Marvel has been their big gun of the year. Moving Shang-Chi there means that they really believe in the film. And with all the current Asian xenophobia sweeping the world, this is a bit of welcomed news.