2012 (2009 film) by Roland Emmerich
Starring John Cussack and else.
on local theater
It is a movie about disaster. Well, just pretty entertaining, but it is typical disaster movie but with more global involvement and grandiose scheme. A lot of inaccuracies in the movie (well, science fiction ya know), and they are so typical Hollywood, just remembers you to the successful Transformers and many other science fiction movies from Hollywood, which contains too much inaccuracies but just entertaining. The explosions are a lot smaller than the actual (guess he never watched real volcanoes erupt, i should know... Indonesia has 1/3rd of the world's total). The plane physics, the natural phenomenon... well, this is not UCLA geology class, it is cinema anyway.
I gave this movie a nice 5.5/10, i increase them a bit, because i am not critics, and i watch movies partially for entertainment purpose, not over analysing it. In addition, it also pass a good message too i guess.
Empires of The Sun (1987) by Steven Spielberg
Starring Christian Bale, John Malkovich, etc
on TV premiere
One of Spielberg's classic masterpiece. Although a bit puzzled by its somehow complicated plot, i quite enjoyed its coherent progression. I like movies with cohesive and complicated plots at once, this one is for example. The story is about a British boy's adventure, separated from his parents in WW2 China when Shanghai was occupied by the Imperial Japanese troops. As a typical upper class boy, he has to endure a lot of typical war situations and a lot of miseries.
My rating is pretty decent 8/10, i love this movie very much. It is one of my favorites when i'm not maniac or such (actually, i love Big Trouble in Little China when i was crazy). Moreover, i am biased because this movie also carried WW2 theme (Pacific particularly) that we all love so much.
The Last Emperor (1987) by Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, and Victor Wong (that Egg Shen guy from Big Trouble in Little China!)
on TV premiere, repeatedly
This is a movie in epic proportion IMO. I like this movie very much, IMHO, the best eastern-themed movie made by the west. The music is so well composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, and Cong Su. The title actually is the main story of the movie, the last emperor of China, who is the last to rule the nearly 5,000 years old empire. It revolves around Pǔyí, the last emperor of Qing (Manchu) dynasty and his journey from throne ascension to his death and its relation with modern China. Of course, as so many Hollywood movies, you still gotta excuses a lot of inaccuracies here and there for dramatisation purpose. But i consider them minor in this movie anyway.
I gave this my highest rating yet, 9.5/10, just slightly below perfect to acknowledge its inaccuracies and typical Hollywood-only added romance. The plot is just as complicated, and some of them are backwards, but it is pretty understandable. No wonder it won 9 Academy awards and BAFTA award for best film. Also, i'm biased in this rating because it depicts WW2.