“Mamma Mia!” is a musical film and romantic comedy. It was released in 2008 and it’s adapted from a Broadway musical of the same name. The film is based on the songs of Swedish singing group ABBA. It was directed by Phyllida Lloyd and producer by Judy Cramer & Gary Goetzman. Movie was filmed in the Greek island Skopelos.

Plot

Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) is a young woman who lives in Kalokairi with her mother Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep). Donna is a single mother and owner of the old hotel. Sophie is about to get married but first she needs to find out who is her father. Sophie reads Donna’s diary and finds out that she has three possible fathers: Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Bill Andersson (Stellan Skarsgård) and Harry Bright (Colin Firth). Sophie invites all the father candidates to her wedding ( without telling her mother) because Sophie is convinced that she will know which man is her real father as soon as she sees them.

All three men arrive on the island before the wedding. Sophie starts spending time with them and realise that she doesn’t have any idea which man is her real father. Sophie is trying to hide all three men, but it doesn’t work very well and Donna sees them. At the same time other wedding quests, like Donna’s best friends Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski) arrive to the hotel and Donna starts to figure out why all the men are on the island.

Soundtrack

The film genre is musical so it is obvious that there are many songs. Overall the actors sing about twenty different ABBA’s song during the film. Many of the actors are not professional singers but most songs still sound good (Especially when Amanda Seyfried and/or Meryl Streep are singing.) Unfortunately all men weren’t so good singers.

The plot is not that amazing but on the whole Mamma Mia is very bubbly and refreshing movie. I recommend it for those who like ABBA’s songs and those who just want to watch some happy and cheerful movie.

Written by MM

Initial D is a movie that based upon a japanese comic. It was released in 2005.

Events take place in Akina mountain, in Japan. Akina mountain is fictional place. Actually it is a real place, but it’s name has been changed for the film.

In the movie cars play a big role. They are not living creatures. but their drivers trusted partners. Main character, Takumi, has an old Toyota Corolla, also known as AE86, which is a respected little car amongst car enthusiasts. AE86 is pictured as the second main character.

The movie tells a story about a boy who has developed to a really fast driver, and also has a very skilled driving style. He has been driving a lot because he has been delivering tofu for his fathers tofu shops customers. He has developed to such a good driver because he wanted to get the job done faster. He does the job by night so no one knows about his kills. Takumi’s high school friends are interested in cars and especially in mountain racing, also known as, touge.

The plot is interesting because Takumi gets drawn into touge, whitout him even noticing it and rises from an underdog to a respected driver.

What makes a movie interesting is the reality of it and the loss of so called hollywood efects. (Explosions, etc.) Exitement is achieved by slow motions and close-ups of drivers emotions and car parts. Kind of comic like. Some of the views on the driving scenes are made digitally.

Mainly the scenes take places between main characters dad’s tofu shop and his day-time job work place at the local gas station.

The movie is kind of touching because Takumi has to make a decision between love and career as a racing driver, like his dad had to made when he was young.

I would recomend this movie espesially for those who are interested in cars and driving.

“Slumdog Millionare” is a British drama movie which directed by Danny Boyle and written by Simon Beuafoy in 2008. The movie is setting and filmed in India. The movie´s starring are Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. The movie has won many prizes, inter alia eight Oscar, seven Bafta and five Golden Globes.

The movie tells about Jamal Malik, who takes part in “How Wants to Be a Millionare” -game. Flashbacks allow him to remember his life and by them, he answers to the questions and progressing in the game. The story starts in Indian slum where young Jamal lives with his mum and brother Salim. Unfortunately the rebels kill their mum and they have to escape. With their new friend Latika, they will see the dark side of India. They will meet the bad people who don´t care anything else except money. They will experience things that anybody shouldn´t. They are forced to experience the prostitution, the violence and unscrupulous exploitation. Kids are driven apart and all of them have to survive now on their own. Jamal has never forgotten love his life, Latika and so he decides to found Latika. Finally he will take part in the very popular television game “How Wants to Be a Millionare” to find her. By his memories of his life, he answers to questions in a right way and proceed towards top price. That causes distrust with police and program makers who believe that Jamal has cheated to win money. This causes difficulties to Jamal, who isn’t interested in money but something totally else.

I think that the movie´s innermost-plot is very simply. The boy fallen love for the girl and the girl fallen love the boy but they can´t be together. Nevertheless the plot contains also many others things. It is a survival-story. The film makes an interesting fact that you can´t find the movie like that in anywhere. It is unique. The film is a thought-provoking storyline and it feels very realistic. Even it is very fast-moving, you can easily understand that and live in it. The end of the story is a little bit too predictable but it is full of plot twists and the end of the story has been succeeded to make touching.

In my opinion the director Danny Boyle succeeded well. He succeeded to create very credible and sometimes unfertile, beautiful and touching movie. He combines India´s different sides of impressive and credible entity. In fact my opinion is that “Slumdog Millionare” –is the best direction which he has achieved so far. No less he won “the best director Oscar” –award for his movie “Slumdog Millionare” and I think that he deserved it.

Dev Patel acts protagonist Jamal Malik. A child actors Tanay Chheda and Ayush Kheder act Jamal too. Both of them make impress me, especially their young age, qualified and credible actor performance. Patel acts very well in the movie but stay still a little bit vapid. He could be more credible and acts braver. Jamal´s brother Salim is acting by Madhur Mittal, Azharuddin Ismail and Ashutosh Gujiwala. Everybody of them acted very well. They look like each other in the film which creates credibility. The film´s beauty and Jamal´s love, Latika is acting by Freida Pinto, Rubina Ali and Tanvi Lonkar. Ali and Lonkar act younger version of Latika and their portion of the film stay very short and maybe that’s why they can´t make a big impress. Pinto makes the impress of her sweetness and abilities. She will stay positively in my mind. 

The film´s music is very inspiring. It fits perfectly almost in every part. It is avid. But on the other hand the dancing and the playing music in the end of the movie are unnecessary and it makes me wonder important of the all movie. And is a big fail for A. R. Rahman, who was responsible for music. 

Corresponds to the description of the movie is Anhtony Mantles, who has worked with director Danny Boyle in previous films. The film describes a lot of the landscape from the slums to the fine palaces. There is not much objectionable about description. It is enjoyable to watch and you can really feel atmosphere of the film.

All in all “Slumdog Millionare” –movie is very emotive, brave movie that everyone should see. Personally, it was one of the best movies I have ever seen and I recommend others also to watch it.

Written by toivonenn

They are here again! Same old figures and the new one adventures in the third Madagascar movie: Europe´s most wanted. Madagascar is an animated comedy made by Dream Works. Madagascar 3 was released in 2012. It’s starred by Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith with many other new actors.

Very popular figures Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria adventures in the most hilarious adventure ever. They are still fighting to get back to their home in New York zoo. The story begins from Africa where they are missing home and waiting that penguins would bring them by plane. Animals get tired of waiting and decide swim to Monte Carlo. Penguins and monkeys are found at casino and escape from there is eventful episode. They are chased by captain DuBois, who is hunting animals. On their escape animals end up in a circus train. The story tells how do a lion, zebra, hippo, giraffe, four penguins, two monkeys and three lemurs travel through Europe and get back to New York.                                                                                                                                                  Animals make friend with circus animals and on their trip they realise the importance of friendship and cooperation. Inside the story there is the thruth that when you belive yourself, you can make the impossible, possible.                                                             Film had a happy ending: animals get back to New York but they still decide stay at circus with friends.

The music of the film was great and riveting. There was well-known music and remixed music and of course the famous, original theme music remixed.

The tecnical fulfilment was also great. Enviroment was diverse and figures was lively. Also 3D fulfilment was good. Voice actors were very good both in english and finnish.

Madagascar 3 is very funny family film witch entertains both young and adults. Even the critics have praised the movie and it has got many stars in reviews.

The comedy called The Heartbreak Kid is written by Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly and Kevin Barnett. It is released in year 2007 and it’s directors are Bobby and Peter Farrelly. Ben Stiller is definitely the leading actor of the film.

The main character Eddie is experiencing a crisis when all of the people who he knows are married and he hasn’t found his soul mate. He meets a blond beautiful woman Lila and they get married after six weeks dating. In honeymoon Eddie finds annoying features of Lila and starts to date Miranda behind Lila’s back. Eddie leaves Lila and wants Miranda who doesn’t want him anymore. Eddie moves to honeymoon destination alone. In the end Miranda comes to vacation there and suggests a meeting which Eddie consents with and does the same thing to his new wife than Lila.

Ben Stiller fits well to his role as amusing and helpless Eddie. He has embraced perfectly his role as cheater who is benevolent man who would’t like to hurt anybody. Malin Åkerman acts Eddie’s first wife Lila. This movie tells that she can really be versatile actress and transform into her role. In the beginning of the movie she has to act innocent and kind girl with no faults and later become loony monster who has nothing but faults.She can act both sides respectable so I’m sure that Malin Åkerman is the right choice to this role.
Michelle Monaghan’s performance as Miranda is not so laudable beside Stiller’s and Åkerman’s. However she acts fine, just not brilliantly.

The sountrack of the movie promotes it’s atmosphere. All of the songs fit to the situations where they have put. There is suitably music in the movie, not too much or too little. You can here quite old but also modern music. The music is often very absorbing and makes even hardest things look not so hard. Without soundtrack this movie couldn’t get the atmosphere that it’s makers wanted. You can notice the genre of this movie also from it’s sountrack.

The plot of the film is not very predictable in the beginning of it. That’s why it is better than many other films. My favourite part of the film is the part where Eddie and Lila are going to the honeymoon (for example Lila sings all the way to the destination and Eddie can’t stand her). The film is quite easy to follow because the plot is very simple. The story is okay but the film is a little too long. I can recommend it for people who like it’s charactors and comedies and don’t suffer from nervous.

The Expendables 2 is an action movie which was released on August 16, 2012. The film was directed by Simon West and written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone. The movie is based on a story by Ken Kaufman, David Agosto and Richard Wenk.

The Expendables is an unauthorized mercenary group whose leader is Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone). The group performs different type of jobs, usually unlawful and violent ones.

The movie begins when the Expendables are on a mission. Their primary objective was to rescue Chinese doctor and bring him back to China. Accidentally the group rescued a rival mercenary, Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger,) who has been taken as hostage. Mission was accomplished and the crew returns home. Suddenly an old employer of Barney, Church (Bruce Willis), appears to collect his share, $5 million dollars, from Barney. Supposedly Ross is pennyless and he has to accept a new assignment to get rid of his debts.

The new missions fails in two ways: The group losts their objective and during the mission the youngest member of the crew, Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), was killed by Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude van Damme). Vilain is an arm trader who wants an access to Plutonium recources which could be used in mass destruction weapons.

The team takes as a mission to revenge the death of the Billy while preventing Vilain in his evil intentions.

The Expendables 2 is a typical action movie where the special effects plays a central role. The sound effects, including gun fire, crashes, explosions etc., are realistic as well as impressive. The visual effects contains a lot of explosions with all the side effects and the film was even criticized because it has caused too much environmental harm in the set in Bulgaria. Also one stuntman was killed and another critically injured during the filming.

Lot of different angles of views are used to create a diverse and rich audiovisual experience. Soundtrack is inferior to the sound effects which suits this movie due to the central role of the sound effects.

In my opinion The Expendables 2 is a great movie for fans of this genre and I would recommend it.

Toy Story (1995) was the first entirely computer animated feature length film which is directed by John Lasseter and produced by Pixar. Toy Story follows the adventures of the toys who belong to a kid named Andy. Andy has lots of toys for instance Mr. Potato Head, Slinky, Rex and all of them are very important to him but his favorite toy is a sheriff called Woody. He is the leader of the rest of the toys. Everything was fine, until Andy got for a birthday present a new toy called Buzz Lightyear. Woody gets jealous to Buzz and he accidentally knocks him out of the window. Feeling very bad about the situation, Woody is going to rescue Buzz and bring him back home to Andy, before Andy’s family moves to their new house.

To me music is an important part of the movie and that’s the reason why Toy Story is a great film since the music of Toy Story is really great. I really like the songs in this film which are composed by Randy Newman, especially the main title song called ’You’ve got a friend in me’  which plays during the beginning of the film. The second thing I like in this movie are the characters. Every character has its own personality. My favorite character is Woody. He is a little bit selfish but after all he is everybody’s friend. Up to this day the animation looks pretty awesome and animators have probably spent hours and hours to make this movie look good and I really appreciate it. And it really was worth it. Thank you! The one last thing that pops into my mind,is the movie’s voice actors. Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and the others did a great job. I also like Finnish voice actors, they were great too.

Toy Story is very big part of my childhood. I have watched it dozens of times and it never gets old. I would give to Toy Story five stars out of five and I really recommend it. In my opinion, Toy Story is one of the greatest movies of all time.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a romantic comedy which was released on October 3, 2008. The film is written by Lorene Scafaria and directed by Peter Sollett. It is based on the novel which has also the same name. Leading actors of a film are Michael Cera (Nick) and Kat Dennings (Norah). The film was filmed in New York.

The film tells about Nick who meet Norah in the club when Norah ask him to be her boyfriend for five minutes. That is when all begins. Actually the whole film tells about one night when Nick and Norah try to find Norah’s drunk friend who is lost and also their favourite band’s secret gig place. At the same time Nick and Norah get to know each other better even though they have just met. After some difficulties they finally find Norah’s friend in some club where someone also starts a fight with Nick. After all Nick and Norah just leave the club and the film ends on the escalator where they share a kiss.

The characters of the film are very different. Nick is very sympathetic and at the beginning of the film he is a little bit depressed because he has just broken up. Norah is from rich family but she doesn’t seem to be ostentatious. Rather she is very sweet but also quick-witted. In turn Norah’s best friend Caroline loves to party and she is drunk through the whole film. There is also many other characters in the film but Nick and Norah are the main characters.

Music is a big part of the film as the name suggests. The songs are mostly rock music and they are played in clubs where Nick and Norah visit during the film. The band called ”Where’s Fluffy?” plays indie rock and it is both Nick and Norah’s favourite band.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a romantic comedy as I previously told. The film contains sensitive moments but also funny and hilarious scenes.

I chose this film because I have seen it a long time ago but I didn’t remember anything about it so it was nice to watch it again and this time without subtitles! I think this film is worth of watching and it’s a good thing that it’s not too short but it’s not too long either. I recommend highly this film for everyone!