Before I Wake ~ movie review

Before I Wake is a movie directed by Mike Flanagan, the mastermind behind 2013's Oculus, and starred Jacob Tremblay, Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane, Annabeth Gish, Justin Gordon and Dash Mihok. As someone who adores Oculus, I was super excited to watch this because I wanted to see what the man behind this movie has more to offer. Mike Flanagan not only directed it but also co-wrote this movie with Jeff Howard. After struggling to secure a release date after it's distributor, Relativity Media, filed for bankruptcy, Before I Wake was finally released in Malaysia (although I'm not sure if it is under the same distributor for release outside of United States).

This is my review of Before I Wake. It will not contain spoilers (at least not any major ones) so feel free to continue on reading my thoughts on this movie.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ~ movie review

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a movie that was involved in a lot of conversation lately. Is it a good movie? A bad movie? Can it be considered successful? Or is it a failure? Why people hate this movie? Can anyone even like it? So much discussion surrounding it and the movie, directed by Zack Snyder, certainly had divided the fans. Some people love the movie, some people hate it, while others were in the middle and thought it was just okay. Most critics were unapologetic when giving it negative reviews but was it really that bad?

I'm one of the people who loves the movie and I even saw it twice at the cinema but not for the reason people would think. After the first time I saw it, I had mixed feelings about the movie. There are so many scenes that I love and the discussion the movie was trying to raise about a god-like being living among us and the world reaction to him is very fascinating, but at the same time if people would have asked me then how I feel about the movie, I couldn't say it was a great movie. The best I could say was "I kind of like it, it was okay", which I find odd since I love a lot of the scenes in this movie like I've mentioned. Then why did I watched it for the second time?

It was because I thought I had an info-overload kind of situation. There was too many things to think about, so many layers of story the movie was trying to tell me, and I was overwhelmed by it. I had the same kind of reaction after I watched Man of Steel and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire for the first time at the cinema. But after the two movies were aired on TV and I watched them multiple times, I love both of the movies now! So I thought that was the case for me for Batman v Superman too. I'm almost certain I would fall in love with it once I saw it multiple times on TV, but before it hit the small screen, I wanted to have another look at the movie at the cinema. Although I could still end up having mixed feelings about it after my second time watching it, I knew I love so many scenes from the movie that I thought it was a risk worth taking. Fortunately for me, my instinct was right and I did fall in love with the movie and appreciate the scenes even more than before. I even thought the movie wasn't long enough!

Before I discuss more about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, let me put a warning here that this movie review will contain spoilers. If you don't want to be spoiled on details of this movie (even minor ones), I would suggest you to leave this page and read something else. If you don't mind though, well, you're more than welcome to read on.

What to watch? ~ 2016 movies: April

Zootopia and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice were smash hits at the box-office. I wonder which movies will open big at the box-office next? Usually I will follow the US release dates for my What to Watch post but this time I will include some of the release dates for Malaysia. There are quite a few movies scheduled to be released in April that I'm looking forward to, so let's check them out now.


1) Hardcore Henry

Release date: April 8, 2016 (7 April 2016 for Malaysia)
Cast: Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky, Haley Bennett, Andrei Dementiev, Tim Roth

This is a very unique film as it is in first person view, like playing a video game! I remember watching a teaser video of the film a few months back but I didn't think it will be released so soon. It looks fascinating and inventive although I'm not sure whether mainstream audience is ready for this type of film. It kind of similar to the handy-cam style of shooting when you think about it so it isn't too out-of-the-box after all and could find its own audience. One thing I'm curious about though; does the main character speak?

Watch Hardcore Henry trailer here!


2) Before I Wake

Release date: April 7, 2016 (Malaysia)
Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane, Annabeth Gish

I'm so happy when I found out that this movie will be released soon. I've read before that the distributor for the film, Relativity Media, had filed for bankruptcy and the film had been pulled from the release schedule. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes but it seems that things are getting better now and the film is ready to be released, hitting cinemas in Malaysia in April 2016 and scheduled to be released in US in October 2016. Mike Flanagan, the director of the movie, had also directed Oculus before which I absolutely loved, so I'm really looking forward to Before I Wake to see what else he has to offer. In Malaysia, it will be released in the same week as Hardcore Henry, 10 Cloverfield Lane (yup, we got that one late here) and The Jungle Book, so it's quite a competitive release date.

Watch Before I Wake trailer here!