Beyond the Trailer ~ Exciting YouTube channel

I seldom watch channels on YouTube, but early 2012, I found this great channel called Beyond the Trailer. Created, produced, written and hosted by Grace Randolph, it featured a lot of great stuffs about movies.

The episodes were divided into several categories. On Monday, usually they have Movie Math where the box-office performances are analyze. Then on other days they have Movie Bytes where movie news are discussed. While Friday usually they will have Movie Review either by Audience Reaction or by the BTT (Beyond The Trailer) Crew, although review by the crew are rarely done. Other than that, they also have latest movie trailer with Trailer Review right after the trailer, interviews and special episodes like interview with screenwriter on how to make a good screenplay.

I like the show a lot because unlike the entertainment news I usually watch on TV, Beyond The Trailer is less on the glamour and more on the art and business aspect of making movies. The show is very informative and educational, and takes viewers into the gritty world of movie business in Hollywood.

You can try and check out the channel by clicking here. I hope you will find it very useful and entertaining like I did. Enjoy!

My 2012 Top 10 Films ~ Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my Top 10 films of 2012. For those of you who had missed out my previous post, you can click here for Part 1 where I revealed number 10 to number 6. In this second part, I present you my top 5;

5) John Carter

John Carter is a great sci-fi / fantasy / adventure film that fills with wonders and amazement not just with the visuals, but the story as well. It is a live-action debut for director Andrew Stanton who previously directed Pixar's animated films Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Unfortunately, eventhough the film grossed more than $250 million worldwide, it is still considered a box-office failure due to its high production and marketing budget. Personally, I think it is one of the best movie that I've watched in 2012. It's epic, action-packed and emotional in certain parts too. Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins were great as John Carter and Dejah Thoris respectively. Since it is based on A Princess of Mars, the first book in the Barsoom book series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, there are sources for Disney to do more sequels but with the box-office records, sadly to say that any hope of sequel is now gone.

4) The Avengers

This film is definitely one of the most fun movie to watch in 2012. When you get Iron Man, Thor, Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye in one film, what could be more interesting than that? The Avengers not only bode well with film critics, it also well-received by audiences and currently is the highest grossing superhero movie of all time. That's an impressive record! It's a light, action-packed and, at times, humorous movie that almost everyone (old and young, comic book fans or movie fans) can enjoy. Although Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man steals the light everytime he's on screen, but my favourite character from this film has to be Hulk played briliantly by Mark Ruffalo. With an impressive box-office numbers, the superheroes will definitely team-up again in a sequel set for release in 2015.

My 2012 Top 10 Films ~ Part 1

It's that time of the year again when almost everyone on the web came out with their Top 10 films for 2012. Well, so do I. I watched a number of interesting films in 2012, from action-adventure to drama, from horror to animation, with a total of 25 films. I know it is not a lot but since I love most of the films that I had watched, it is quite a challenge to come up with this list. So here I present you my Top 10 list of films that I had watched in 2012. In the past years, I usually listed them in no particular order but this time, I'm going to rank them properly. For Part 1, here are number 10 to number 6;

10) Rise of the Guardians

We start off this list with one of the best looking animation of the year, Rise of the Guardians. It packed with action and some interesting fight scenes (The Sandman vs Pitch was a really good scene). Add that with colourful and magical visuals of the animation, you have one of the best animation that Hollywood could offer. Sadly to note though that the film suffered a lackluster performance in the box-office. I personally feel that Rise of the Guardians is a high-quality animation movie that have good moral values and great visuals, so it is sad to know that people are not responding well to the flick, or at least not as well as the studio might have hoped for.

9) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This film would be the first entry of a new trilogy from Peter Jackson about Middle-earth set around 60 years before the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's a great fantasy film with fascinating tales and mythical creatures, and who would not love a little dose of Gollum. Although it is more light compared to the dark-themed of LOTR trilogy, it is still a fun movie to watch for adults. I do feel that it was a bit slow in the beginning but fortunately it became better in the middle and ending parts. Two more sequels; The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again, would be released in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Happy New Year 2013!!!

I want to wish Happy New Year 2013 to all readers! May this year brings a lot of fortune and good luck to all of us. Also wishing that we (the world population that is) can work together in bringing peace and joy to the world. Together, we are stronger! :-)

Happy New Year!!!

YuYu Hakusho Volume 14 ~ review

Here's my review for the manga YuYu Hakusho Volume 14. Spoilers alert! If you haven't read this, please be aware that this review will contain spoilers.

A lot of revelations in this volume of YuYu Hakusho. First, readers were re-introduced to the people that abducted Yuusuke in Volume 13; Asato Kido, Mitsunari Yanagisawa and Yuu Kaito. They are not the bad guys and it was actually Genkai (Yuusuke's mentor) who asked them to abduct Yuusuke to test their powers. Then it was revealed that someone had been trying to break the spell surrounding the borders between the human world and the demon world and create a hole between them. If the spell breaks and the hole was created, then demons can easily enter the human world and create chaos. Then Yuusuke and the team found out that "someone" who was trying to break the spell is actually a group of 7 people. Yuusuke team managed to defeat two of them; "Doctor" who can infect other people with deadly virus, and "Seaman" who can manipulate water with a drop of his blood. Finally, it was revealed to Yuusuke team that the leader of this group (and the main villain of this story arc) is Sensui, the former detective of the Underworld, which is the role that Yuusuke currently held. In the last chapter of this volume, Yuusuke finally came face-to-face with Sensui but can he defeat him? The last 3 members of Sensui's team were also revealed with code names "Sniper", "Gobbler" and "Game Master" (another member "Gate Keeper" had been introduced to readers in the first chapter of this volume).

I was satisfied with this volume of YuYu Hakusho because it was balanced between dialogue scenes and action scenes. I like the fight scenes between Yuusuke's team and "Doctor" who seems a bit psychotic. I also like the introduction of a video tape called "Black Chapter" which Sensui used to recruit members to his team. The story behind the video tape brings a bit of a dark aspect to the manga which I love. Another scenes that I love is the backstory of Sensui told by Koenma and why he changed from being a good guy into a bad guy. It somehow made readers sympathetic towards Sensui and shows that he is not just a regular villain who wants to take over the world but someone with a dark past that somehow changed him into who he was today.

It will truly become more intense in Volume 15 as Yuusuke team try to find out the location of Sensui's hideout. Can they defeat him and prevent the hole between the two worlds from being created? All will be revealed in YuYu Hakusho Volume 15.

Image from Amazon.