Top 10 Movies for 2013

Since 2013 is about to end and as we welcome 2014, I decided to give you MY top 10 movies for 2013 (in no particular order mind you). This of course wouldn't be possible if not for our friends from 20th Century Fox, Dreamworks, Warner Bros. Pictures, Solar Entertainment and new additions like Captive Cinema, CrystalSky and Axinitte Digicinema. 

10. Gravity 

Nothing can be more compelling than humanity overcoming anything being thrown at them including space debris and burning space shuttles. Add to that some stellar acting from Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and Alfonso Cuaron just paved his way to an Oscar.

9. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 

The continued saga of Thorin Oakenshield together with the rest of his dwarf company and Bilbo Baggins continues and it's being shown in magnificent HFR IMAX 3D. Great adaptation and butchering of the J.R.R. Tolkien classic kids book and great way to give the ladies another fellow to swoon over in the form of Thranduil. 

8. Captain Phillips 

The only 'realistic' movie in my list. Captain Phillips is all about humanity in the face of adversity. It's a play on morals and decisions and compassion and it's got Tom Hanks in it playing the titular Captain Phillips. You'll also be amazed at the military tactics and precision that is the US Coast Guard and Navy Seals.

7. This is the End 

This one's on my list for all the sheer hilarity and dirtiness of the characters particular James Franco. I hated that they were pushing too much of the bromosexuality but that's all forgiven the moment you see the Backstreet Boys dancing in heaven to the tune of "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)".

6. Thor: The Dark World

Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Tom Hiddleston return for another serving of Asgardian goodness. There's so many things to love about this sequel. More humor and more Hiddleston however are the top reasons. And they got the ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston to play the bad guy Malekith the Accursed too.

5. Iron Man 3

Never have I ever thought that Tony Stark could actually be twice as good as the Iron Man armor. Shane Black delivers a really good and solid Iron Man movie focusing equally on the massive array of Iron Man armor as well as the man inside the shell. Robert Downey Jr. truly rocked this performance. Great cast too and despite the debacle of The Mandarin, it's still a good movie to watch.

4. Man of Steel

Director Zack Snyder shows us a radically different Superman in Man of Steel. This man really punches hard and even breaks necks (literally!). The world is different and the acting was OK. Henry Cavill also shows us why he was born to play the role of Clark Kent/ Kal El/ Superman. It sucks though that there's very little chemistry between him and Lois Lane Amy Adams. Still, a pretty great movie. It's like Dragonball Z only with DC's main hero in it.

3. Frozen

A DISNEY MOVIE THAT WILL MAKE YOU SING?!?! How long has it been since that were the case. usually it's just there to make us cry but it hasn't made us sing and hum. Frozen does that and delivers a wonderful story that's loosely based on the legend of "The Ice Queen". It's a love story but it's not played out entirely like that and while the main pull might be a love angle between Christoph and Anna, it's really the sisterly love between Elsa and Anna that gets the main spotlight. Massive props too for the addition of Olaf who's quickly become a favorite character of mine.

2. Mama / The Conjuring

Can't figure which of the two I liked best so I'm chucking them as a special two-in-one deal. Guillermo Del Toro has Jessica Chastain playing a reluctant surrogate mother/ aunt whose kids brought along the diabolical 'Mama'. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson on the other hand are real life paranormal experts Ed and Lorraine Warren. Both movies are scary and both have some sense of royalty among other horror movies that came out this year. 

1. Pacific Rim 

Giant fighting robots? Check! Giant monsters called Kaiju? Check! Two brooding and awesome pilots? Check! 3D monster-robot fights?! Check! Fuck the intricacies of the story and just watch this like 5 year old boy and you will surely enjoy this film. Nuff Said!

So there we go. Here's to more movies for 2014 and many more reviews! 

THIS IS THE END Review

Take five of the some of the most famous Hollywood comedians and place them in an apocalyptic situation and you've got yourself the makings of a great comedy such as "THIS IS THE END" which will be exclusively playing in Ayala Cinemas.

So if you live in a bunker and you're not familiar with who the cast members are, here goes: Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), James Franco (Spider-Man 1,2 and 3, 127 Hours, Oz the Great and Powerful), Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder, How to Train your Dragon 2), Craig Robinson (Hot Tub Time Machine 1 & 2), Danny McBride (Your Highness, Tropic Thunder) and Jonah Hill (Moneyball, 21 Jump Street, Django Unchained). 

There's a number of reasons why I'm putting the film in such a high regard. First, it managed to topple the already high standing of Adam Sandler's LITTLE NICKY. Secondly it's a no-brainer, stoner-friendly comedy starring the same guys from such films as TROPIC THUNDER, YOUR HIGHNESS, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, 21 JUMP STREET and so much more. That alone is worth the ticket price. If you still need a bit of convincing then hold on...

The movie is obnoxious and downright irreverent which makes it much more appealing to watch (well because it's silly and we all get to laugh at silliness right?) From Danny McBride's A-grade performance as a certified asshole to stuff like the two dozen cameos splattered across the film, THIS IS THE END is certainly worth watching.

THE GOOD:

- The main cast is star power enough but check out the cameos and guest appearance. They've got Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, that Indian chick from that drama series, that Indian guy from I think "The Office", a very different looking Paul Rudd and more importantly - RIHANNA. 

- The BACKSTREET BOYS. 

- A potential teaser to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS 2 all taken using the camera that Franco used in "127 Hours". 

- There's also a ton of movie references thrown around the film. One that stood out was the comment hurled about Seth Rogen making a "Green Hornet" movie that did not suck. Oh and they want us to believe that James Franco loves himself so much that he'd keep standees from his New/ Green Goblin days. 

- I hated Danny McBride ever since. And "This is the End" definitely proved why I hate him so much. But with so much hate, maybe he shows that he's an effective actor/ comedian. Still I hate that guy. 

- The music that they chose to use in the film was also great. They've got M.I.A.'s Paper Planes, Dr. Dre and Snoop's Next Episode and my favorite, PSY's Gangnam Style. Used to the best of their abilities. 

- The jizzing jokes were funny and cringeworthy at the same time. 


THE BAD

- Rape jokes. I hate rape jokes. It's improper and just plain bad. Thank goodness they got limited that bit. 

- Forced bromosexual tensions. Not cool. We get that you guys are buds and all but some things are just depicted too much. 

- Demon Dicks. No thank you. 

- There's really something disturbing about seeing Channing Tatum in this film. 

VERDICT: Me and the missues had a grand time watching THIS IS THE END. It's crass and a bit boorish and asinine but there's a lot of redemption going on in this movie (both literally and figuratively). Catch it when it starts rolling exclusively in AYALA CINEMAS starting September 11. 

James Franco Welcomes the Apocalypse in "This Is The End" (Opens Sept 11)

Hip actor James Franco satirizes himself as he plays a Hollywood version of, well, himself, in Columbia Pictures' wacky comedy “This Is The End.”

Says writer-director and co-star Seth Rogen, “The things we mock in James Franco in the movie are real, but Franco in real life is nothing like the way he acts in the movie. He genuinely does like art and weird stuff, but it’s not pretentious and he’s not in-your-face about it. He doesn’t care what others think about his art. He just likes art.”

In “This Is The End,” six friends – who just happen to be James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson – are trapped in Franco’s house as the end of the world begins outside. And we’re not talking about any old California-slides-into-the-ocean earthquake… we’re talking the fire-and-brimstone Apocalypse – the real Biblical deal.

Franco says that he didn’t hesitate to sign on for the project – even though he wouldn’t have even considered the project if it had been with anyone other than the writing-directing team of Rogen and Evan Goldberg. “We’re playing extreme versions of ourselves, and I would really only trust Seth and Evan to depict me in an outrageous way,” he says. “Their take on me is funny – of course, I don’t think I’m really like that, but yes, it’s a version of me, it’s their version, and it’s funny. But going back to `Superbad,' through all their movies, they put in a level of heart, or emotion, that grounds the characters, and that’s in this movie, too. I was game for it because the way they make movies, their sensibility is just so solid.”

“The way my character is on the surface, he’s a pretty shallow person,” says Franco. “He’s a guy who thinks that Seth can’t be his friend and anybody else’s – like sixth grade behavior. So that’s where we took the character deeper. In real life, Seth has been there at important points in my career – ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ ‘Pineapple Express’ – so we took that and decided that the character of James Franco would have this affection for Seth and need to connect with him. Really, he’s obsessed with Seth.”

In the film, Franco’s house is filled with art. Not surprising, in a way, because the real Franco cares deeply about art. However, the filmmakers and the real Franco make it clear that there’s a blurry line between the art he cares about and the art that the pretentious character he plays prefers. “My first conversation with James Franco was about the fact that the character is a ‘version’ of James Franco,” says production designer Chris Spellman.

“People know I’m interested in art,” says Franco. “I just went to school for it and for a while I was collecting art – I sold most of it a while ago so I could go to school and not work so much. So it was kind of a funny idea that the Franco character would be collecting art, and Seth asked me if there was any particular artist that I wanted to have in the character’s house. And I thought, there’s a way to take this to a different level. There’s a painter that I really like named Josh Smith – his work is hard to place because a lot of it has a very humorous feel, even though it’s abstract work. Josh was interested. Not only interested, but wanted to create new work, and it would be special because it would be work that was only intended for this movie. And as Josh and I were talking, we came on the idea that we could do the paintings together. Josh and I spent two days together and we painted a lot, through the night, ten huge paintings and a bunch of little ones.”

Together, Franco and Smith created art that directly references the movie. “The idea is that my character is somewhat obsessed with Seth,” says Franco. “So the subjects of the paintings are shows I did with Seth – there’s a Freaks painting and a Geeks painting, there’s a Pineapple Express painting.”

Distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International, “This Is The End” will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas nationwide starting Sept. 11.

Actors Play `Horrible' Versions of Themselves in "This Is The End"

For a film about the group dynamics among a group of friends facing the apocalypse, it’s no surprise that the characters in Columbia Pictures' critically acclaimed comedy “This Is The End” were tailor-made for the actors playing the roles. They would all play horrible “versions” of themselves, says co-director/writer Evan Goldberg.

In “This Is The End,” six friends – who just happen to be James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson – are trapped in Franco’s house as the end of the world begins outside. And we’re not talking about any old California-slides-into-the-ocean earthquake… we’re talking the fire-and-brimstone Apocalypse – the real Biblical deal.

“Seth isn’t a duplicitous coward, but he plays one in this film,” Goldbrg says. “Danny is a delightful sweetheart, but his character is a maniac. Franco – the things we mock in Franco in the movie are real, but Franco in real life is nothing like the way he acts in the movie. He genuinely does like art and weird stuff, but it’s not pretentious and he’s not in-your-face about it. He doesn’t care what others think about his art. He just likes art. The only exceptions are Jay, who is more like his character than anyone else in the movie, and Craig, who isn’t a jerk like his character, but is a guy who carries a towel around to wipe sweat off his face.”

“People think they know everything about you based on the characters you play,” says co-director/writer and star Seth Rogen. “So we thought it would be funny to play into that – to have these characters that behave in the way that everybody thinks is what we’re like off-screen. There are elements of our real selves, but we all twisted them or exaggerated them to make it funny.”

Playing yourself can be a challenge – even for an Academy Award® nominee, as Jonah Hill says, “I’ve never slipped out of character more than when I was playing myself.”

But it’s more than just a joke, says Rogen. It’s a way of acknowledging the elephant in the room. “Everybody knows that we’re friends and we’re always in movies together. It was almost weirder that the movie wouldn’t acknowledge that in some way,” says Rogen. “So we thought, OK, let’s acknowledge it, and then let’s move beyond it. We wanted the relationships to feel real. We thought that would be the element that grounded the movie if the dynamics between the characters were real and relatable. So even though the movie gets super-crazy – it’s the Apocalypse – there’s a simple idea at the center that I hope is very believable. We never could have written this movie if we didn’t know these guys – and we definitely couldn’t have directed it.”

Distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International, “This Is The End” will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas nationwide starting Sept. 11.

New Poster and Trailer for 'This is the End' Starring Seth Rogen, James Franco and the Gang

James Franco and Seth Rogen headlines a new movie entitled "This is the End" which is basically an 'end of the world' flick featuring other funny men like Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Jay Baruchel and Craig Robinson.

Who the heck is Craig Robinson? 

Anyway, check out the film's trailer and the synopsis after the cut.