30 Songs - Day 5

Day 05 – A Song That Reminds You Of Someone



Strangers In The Night will always remind me of my dad. He seemed to be forever whistling or humming it while working in his shed when I was a kid. I haven't heard it on his lips in some time, but whenever I hear Frank, it reminds me of Dad.

My mum hates Frank Sinatra though!

WHY I LOVE LEONARDO DICAPRIO?

ONE of the most important elements in a movie that usually influences me to enjoy and like the movie or not, besides 'the story' and 'the direction', is 'the characters'. With the right conflicts in the story, 'the characters' can play and manipulate your emotion the most. Happy. Sad. Angry. Fear. Bravery. Coward. Smart. Idiot. Arrogant. Greed. Paranoid. Crazy. The more you carried away with a character, the successful the actor who played the role. Actually, watching a great actor playing a great character is like having a great feast that you will never forget.

There were so many great male actors that has come and gone in our movie history, who has successfully played their characters in the movies of their times (or they themselves were the characters in their real lives). Many of them has even become the legends and the icons of the industry. A few of the greatest that has shared a lot of joys to many people through movies before our time, or even now, are (in honoring them): Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Clark Gable, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy, Laurence Olivier, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Orson Welles, James Dean, Jack Lemmon, Charles Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Buster Keaton, Edward G. Robinson, The Marx Brothers, Robert Mitchum, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, and Marlon Brando. Our cinema would not be the same without these wonderful actors. And their names, with many others that I have not mentioned here, shall be remembered forever in the movie history.

Every year, many new actors come to the industry to catch the Hollywood dreams. But after years of fierce competition in Hollywood, only a few of them that will survive and really shine. Even less will mark their names with golden ink and will be remembered until their old age because of their greatness.

So, when thinking about the actors in their 30's (the years usually the actors start entering their mature stage) who will become the next big thing, I think of someone who can draw a big box office success like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and Johnny Depp, all from one generation older. Or maybe like Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson, who used to be a box office drawer. Or Harrison Ford, who has his glorious years with his icon role, Indiana Jones (anyway, who doesn't like Indy?). But besides as the box office drawer, that actor should also possess great acting skills, who in another 30 or maybe 40 years, we can imagine his achievements in par with the character-actor living legends, such as Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino. And don't forget also other big living legends' names, Kirk Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Sidney Poitier, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Peter O'Toole, Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins and Dustin Hoffman, who have given us so many great films, some even as great directors.

Even though there are many potential actors in their 30's now, I didn't find it difficult to pick a name that I think will become the most successful actors in the future among his generation, as a very strong name quickly popped in my head (actually it was already there for quite some time). And I only have one name. Leonardo DiCaprio.

So, why Leonardo DiCaprio? And why do I fall in love with this (wonderful) actor?

1) A very talented actor with great acting skills.

REMEMBER how he played Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island? How he expressed his frantic and paranoid feeling trapped in a no-way-out island?

And how he played Frank Wheeler in Revolutionary Road, as a husband who torn between his wife's dreams and their reality?

How about Danny Archer in Blood Diamond, as an ex-mercenary with a strong survival instinct, that caught in the middle of the diamonds business and political chaos in Sierra Leone?

You must remember him as Billy Costigan in The Departed, as a tortured soul undercover cop who infiltrated into the mob's lair, but just didn't know how to quit the game.

Or as an eccentric Mogul, Howard Hughes in The Aviator, who thirsted for power, but suffered an obsessive-compulsive disorder that brought him to madness.

Leo has grown to become a solid actor these days. And he is getting better and better, especially after his collaboration with one of the greatest directors of our time, Martin Scorsese, in so many films (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed and Shutter Island). This director seems to have put him in the right track as a matured actor.

But, if you happened to follow Leo's career from the beginning, you will find that he was a very talented actor from the start. As people first widely knew him as Luke Brower in the popular TV sitcom "Growing Pains" (he played in 1991-1992), Leo quickly knew that his place was actually on the big screen. And if we notice his choices of roles in his earlier career, we could see that Leo was an actor who was not afraid to take big risks. And he already gave very good performances in his earlier big screen movies.

Leo was impressive as Arnie Grape, Johnny Depp's little brother who suffered from autism disease in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), which got him nominated for Oscar's Best Supporting Actor the next year at the age of 20. He also was good as a drug-addicted teenager in The Basketball Diaries (1993) and as a mental instability son of Meryl Streep in Marvin's Room (1996). He even took the risk to play a homosexual poet in Total Eclipse (1995), a film of him that I believe not many people know (I have not yet watched This Boy's Life, 1993, a movie that collaborated him with Robert De Niro for the first time, before they met again in Marvin's Room). So, he was not just a spoil brat with a cute face that didn't know how to act at the beginning of his career, as he has already shown what a big potential he has in his very young age.

Recent years, his other two Oscar nominations were for Best Actor in The Aviator (2004) and Blood Diamond (2006). He has also won and nominated for quite handsome awards for his acting achievements in various Festivals and Awards events for his movies What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Marvin's Room (1996), Titanic(1997), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Blood Diamond (2006) and Revolutionary Road (2008), including winning the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in The Aviator. And I believe, it is only time that separate him from his first Oscar.

I don't think that the peoples disliked Leo in Titanic really hated him for his acting. Were you thrilled when watching the scene where Jack (Leo) has to drag Rose (Kate Winslet) running all the way for their lives when the water started to flood the ship? When Jack was being handcuffed in a pole and Rose has to break it with an axe? Or when Jack has to open a locked-gate while the water kept rising through his head, and he suddenly dropped the key? Or when Jack and Rose on top of the sinking ship, ready to jump and swim, just before the ship sinked? Or when Jack said his final words to Rose while he was suffering in the cold water that slowly killing him? I call that a very good acting (from both Leo and Kate), that thrilled us. I agree that Titanic was such a huge success, both at box office and various award events, because of the brilliant direction from James Cameron, the impressive visual effects of the sinking gallant ship, and the theme of the movie itself, as one of the biggest disasters ever happened in the history. But do not forget that Titanic will also always be remembered for its two great leads, Leo and Kate, whose chemistry and actings really made this movie work and unforgettable. And I think that the casting of Leo and Kate in Titanic was one of the perfect castings in the movie history.

2) A successful metamorphosis of an actor.

LEO has gone through several stages in his career. From a teen star playing in TV series, he quickly jumped to the big screen with several teen roles, then he suddenly became a Hollywood heartthrob in Titanic. After that, his star seemed to dim for around four years, but he made a successful comeback with Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese) and Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg) in 2002, and since then, his star began to rise and shine again. And everybody loves a success comeback story. In Hollywood, it is very difficult for a kid or teen stars to become really success when they reach their adult age. We know so many famous kid and teen stars whose names were slowly vanished as the time went by. But Leo could overcome that. When I imagined him again as the kid in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and compared to his last appearance in Shutter Island (2010), I was really amazed by how Leo has changed as an actor. He has gone through a metamorphosis that changed him from a very talented teen star to become a very fine actor now.

Many peoples said that Leo owed Martin Scorsese for who he becomes right now as an actor, because since his first collaboration with this great director in 2002 and many other collaborations afterwards, Leo has continuously raised up his bar as a serious actor. His acting also improved significantly and he slowly shaped himself as a great character actor. So, Leo did owe Scorsese for bringing back his career.

But, actually I have a slightly different thought about this matter. Martin Scorsese is a very smart director. He didn't just pick any actors to play in his movie, especially the one that he planned to have a long-term collaboration with (like the sweet one he has with Robert De Niro, with whom he made 8 films together). Scorsese surely needed a good actor that possessed good acting skills, with a box office potential drawer, the actor that he needed to fine tune and polish a little in order to bring that actor right on track, and then run together with him. And he knew Leo was like a raw diamond that needed to be polished and has a huge potential to be big (the same as James Cameron, another very smart director, who saw the potential of this actor before he brought him and Kate on board in Titanic).

So yes, Scorsese has polished Leo to become a fine actor. But on top of that, their collaboration is actually a mutual relationship, since Scorsese also found back his rhythm (since his highly acclaimed Goodfellas, 1990), after his successful collaboration with Leo (maybe a slightly new rhythm at the box office success for Scorsese, if you do not totally agree with me). Just compare the box office results of Scorsese's last four films before he collaborated with Leo and Scorsese's four films after he collaborated with Leo, and you will know what I mean.

3) A high star power & a bankable actor, with a generous heart.

EVERYBODY will agree that Leo has a high star power as an actor. He possesses a charisma to be big in this industry (somebody may call it an X-factor). And needless to say, he definitely is a bankable actor, as he is also one of the most highest paying actors now. After Titanic, he has not yet played in another very big budget movie, since he has been a very selective actor for some years after the huge success of that movie. But as his star continues to shine now, many producers are hunting him again for playing in their movies, because they know Leo is a guarantee for success.

Leo is one of the busiest actors in Hollywood nowadays. If you check in IMDb (The Internet Movie Database) at this current moment (around May'10), then you will find that his total film projects (whether it is in "pre-production", "in production" or "in development") are almost the same amount of those of Will Smith and Brad Pitt, slightly more than those of Johnny Depp, and much more than those of Tom Cruise. And if we compare him with the other actors of his generation, then his total film projects are much more than those of Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Ryan Reynolds and Sam Worthington.

Besides as a busy actor, Leo is also a committed environmentalist, who concerns a lot about environment preservation and global warming. He has received praises from environmental groups for his concrete actions and he has also inspired other celebrities to do the same. In 2007, he co-produced a documenter film about global warming, The 11th Hour, which he also acted as a co-writer and a narrator.

Leo is also known as an actor with a generous heart. In 2010, he donated US$1,000,000 to relief the sufferings and efforts in Haiti after the big earthquake.

After Titanic, which was 13 years ago, Leo just needs another big vehicle to shoot his star right up to the sky and to bring him into another level as the box office ruler. And then, he will become very big and unstoppable. And if my prediction is right (as I believe many peoples must have expected the same), that vehicle will be the INCEPTION (2010). If Christopher Nolan did not somehow mess the story of this movie up (and I really-really doubt that he would, since he's a hot young good director with a very impressive track record), this movie will become a very big hit for both Nolan and DiCaprio. And you will soon see Leo becomes a household name again.

***

MAYBE you have a question, when did I actually start to love Leonardo DiCaprio as an actor. In What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), when he got his first Oscar nomination? Absolutely not, because I just watched this movie recently (with other three of his earlier movies), while I was preparing this article. Titanic (1997)? I have to also say no. Gangs of New York (2002), when he first collaborated with Scorsese? No. The Departed (2006), the movie that won Oscar's Best Picture. No either. My first encounter with Leo was in Romeo + Juliet (1996), a film that I did not really like. But it was in the Revolutionary Road (2008), that I was really hooked by Leo with his brilliant performance and awesome acting (together with his film soul mate, Kate Winslet), even though I have accumulated to like him more and more since the Titanic. I also really liked him in Blood Diamond, but Revolutionary Road was definitely my most favorite movie of him so far, period.

I am not trying to compare Leonardo DiCaprio with other great legends that I have mentioned in the beginning of this article, because he is still young and still has a long way to go. But, I strongly believe that he possesses more than huge potentials to become one of the greatest actors in our movie history. And I think he is already on his way. (MJ)

Leonardo DiCaprio
Born: 11 November 1974, Hollywood, California, USA

Selected Filmography:
1) This Boy's Life (1993) - Tobias 'Toby' Wolff - N/A
2) What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) - Arnie Grape YYYY
3) The Quick and the Dead (1995) - Kid - YYY
4) The Basketball Diaries (1995) - Jim Carroll - YY1/2
5) Total Eclipse (1995) - Arthur Rimbaud - YY1/2
6) William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) - Romeo - YY
7) Marvin's Room (1996) - Hank - YYYY
8) Titanic (1997) - Jack Dawson - YYYY1/2
9) The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) - King Louis XIV/Philippe - YY
10) The Beach (2000) - Richard - Y1/2

11) Gangs of New York (2002) - Amsterdam Vallon - YYY1/2

12) Catch Me If You Can (2002) - Frank Abagnale Jr. - YYY
13) The Aviator (2004) - Howard Hughes - YYYY
14) The Departed (2006) - Billy Costigan - YYYY
15) Blood Diamond (2006) - Danny Archer - YYYYY
16) The 11th Hour (2007/D) - Narrator/Producer/Writer - YY1/2

17) Body of Lies (2008) - Roger Ferris - YYY
18) Revolutionary Road (2008) - Frank Wheeler - YYYYY
19) Shutter Island (2010) - Teddy Daniels - YYYY 1/2

20) Inception (2010) - Dom Cobb - YYYYY + A CROWN

West - Justice

Fans of westerns, comics, and western comics will be on cloud nine over Boot Hill at high noon over the release of Andrew Cheverton and Tim Keable's first hardback collection. Bringing together the first five adventures of mysterious cowboy Jerusalem West in an enviable package, this is one further example of small press comics made good.

I could spend hours constructing a critical review of why you should buy this book, or I could just let Chev do the hard work for me...

A name heard in stories, breathed in whispers.

In some tales, he's a lawman who stands for what's right and fair.

In others, he's a killer - bent on revenge.

Yet more tell of a man wronged by evil and denied his true love, or a brave Union soldier and a true friend.

Some say he fought ancient spirits and killed dead men, shot down the righteous and stood alongside the underdog. Some claim to have killed him, or lost loved ones to his gun.

His name, though, all men can agree on. Told around campfires in the cold prairie night, in the candlelit backrooms of low-rent saloons.

His name was Jerusalem West and these are his stories.

West - Book One: Justice is available now from The Angry Candy Store. While you're there, why not treat yourself to a copy of the first issue of the new West mini-series, Distance, while you're at it? They can't shoot you for it.

Four Lions

My friends didn't really like Four Lions. Well, they can go write why on their own blogs, because I loved it.

I've been a Chris Morris fan since The Day Today and his cry-laughing (often banned) Radio 1 show. I loved Brass Eye too, though after that I found his humour getting a little more esoteric and hard to follow. Jam and Blue Jam contained moments of genius, yet also a fair bit of sneering and navel-gazing. Nathan Barley, the media-savvy sitcom he worked on with Charlie Brooker, proved a little too vicious and 'in'. And when I heard he was making a film about Islamic terrorism, I expected something razor sharp, searingly controversial, and perhaps too clever for its own good. What I didn't expect was Four Lions.

The most surprising thing about this movie is how warm-hearted it is. How completely uncynical. It features the classic British sitcom premise - a group of lovable idiots on a sliding scale of stupidity trapped in impossible situations of their own devising. It's Father Ted, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Only Fools And Horses and 'Allo 'Allo... but most of all - as everyone keeps pointing out - it's Dad's Army... with suicide bombers.

Which still makes it sound more controversial than it actually is. Together with co-writers Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain (from Peep Show), Morris here uses humour as a wonderful levelling device. It's not so much a cry of "terrorists are people too!", more of "terrorists can be bumbling idiots just like us!" And it's not just a film about finding humour in fanaticism and fundamentalism either. It's also about finding humanity there. The Four Lions themselves are more than just cartoon caricatures, they're fully rounded and hugely sympathetic characters. Riz Ahmed in particular gives a star-making performance as their slightly less dim leader Omar, a young family man with a playfully devoted wife and a strict, traditionalist brother. There are some hugely moving scenes here, scattered amongst the slapstick, verbal idiocy ("Fuck Mini Baby-bel!") and explosions. Actually, the explosions were the one thing I felt didn't quite work. Or rather, they worked for me - I took them as the affecting moments of seriousness and shock that Morris I think intended... but much of the audience took them as further fodder for laughter. Morris says he didn't set out to make fun of people dying, but when so much of his film brings the baw-ha-has, I suppose it's easy for your audience to confuse dramatic punctuation with slapstick. Which is perhaps why I'd be more likely to recommend watching this film at home. The crowd I saw it with spoiled Four Lions slightly by laughing too much. Raucous and over-the-top guffawing at every gag - I was starting to wonder if they were pissed. Particularly the girl who had to nudge her mate and repeat every funny line, and after one particular gag was heard to remark, "ohh, I just proper pooed myself now".

Lovely. While Chris Morris is doing his best to use comedy to convince us we're all the same and blowing people up is wrong, I'm imagining lobbing a stick of gelignite into the row behind. "Fuck Mini Babybel!" indeed.

One Day

One Day is a truly great novel. It's a high concept pitch - a friendship / potential romance that spans twenty years, with each chapter following the events of one specific day on consecutive years (July 15th; St. Swithins Day) in the life of its two protagonists. It begins in 1988 when Emma and Dexter meet and almost get it together on the night of their graduation. Though romance doesn't immediately follow, they do become friends whose lives are inextricably linked over the course of the next two decades, as Emma pursues a frustrated career as a writer via McJobs and teaching, and Dexter becomes a minor league TV star and falls under the wheels of life in the fastlane. Much of the fun is seeing where they end up as each year goes by, the ups and downs of life we can all appreciate - especially those of us who grew up in the 80s, then had to grow up some more in the 90s, and might still be at it in the new millennium. Only once does writer David Nicholls (Starter For 10, The Understudy) slip up, opening the chapter on the year 2000 with a recap of the previous few months, rather than leaping straight in to the day on question then gradually revealing how we got there. It's easy to forgive him this one tiny indiscretion though, especially when you read what follows...

Which I can't write about. I won't write about. I won't even allude to. Suffice it to say, this novel doesn't always take the path you'd expect. Which is, ultimately, what sets it far apart from your average romcom. It's also what raises it above your average Nick Hornby relationshipper - and there's no higher praise from a Hornby fan as big as I am. Days later, these characters remain alive in my mind, like friends I saw only last week. I wish I could go back and see them again. One Day deserves to be read by everybody.

No, this, she felt, was real life and if she wasn't as curious or passionate as she once had been, that was only to be expected. It would be inappropriate, undignified, at thirty-eight, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour and intensity of a twenty-two-year-old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry, crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photo booths, taking a whole day to make a compilation tape, asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or T.S. Eliot or, God forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step backwards, and who would blame them?

ROBIN HOOD (2010)

MyRating: YY

Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Oscar Isaac, Kevin Durand, Scott Grimes, Mark Addy, Alan Doyle, Matthew Macfayden, Danny Huston, Douglas Hodge
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violence including intense sequences of warfare, and some sexual content

An expert archer, Robin Longstride (Crowe), who serves as an army under the British King, King Richard the Lionheart (Huston), finds the way out of the army and becomes a free man, after King Richard died in a battle against France. But when Robin saw an ambush by France's henchmen, masterminded by Godfrey (Strong), an Englishman but a traitor, towards a group of British soldiers led by Sir Robert Loxley (Hodge) with a duty of returning King Richard's crown to London, and the whole British soldiers were wiped out, Robin puts himself in the position to finish their duty to return the crown by admitting himself as the late Sir Robert Loxley.

Together with his friends, Will Scarlet (Grimes), Allan A'Dayle (Doyle) and Little John (Durand), Robin goes to London to return the king's crown to the new king, Prince John (Isaac), King Richard's brother. He also travels to Nottingham to return the sword of Sir Robert Loxley to his father, Sir Walter Loxley (Sydow). There, Robin meets with Robert Loxley's widow, Marion (Blanchett), a woman who doubted his motivation at the beginning.

However, England is not getting better under the new king, King John, as he rules ruthlessly by raising taxes to his countrymen, and if they do not willing to pay, the soldiers will rob from them. This creates suffering and unsatisfaction among the people and King John soon makes enemies with many of his country's knights and noblemen. A civil war is on their sights. And while the British has to face a chaos within their country, the French quietly sneaks at British's doorstep with full armies, ready to attack them. In this situation, Robin and his friends should stand up to fight for their country and expel the enemies from their land.

This is the kind of movie with a story that the more I be patient, the boring I am. It's called "what you expect is not what you get" syndrome (at least for me). The movie begins with a promising battle where British armies attack a France's fortress. But then, the story just slowly fell flat with a long introduction to the legend (and this is again another version of Robin Hood's background). When I was halfway through the movie, I said to myself, "Well, this is a long introduction to the Robin Hood character they give." And when I was somewhere near the end of the movie, I again said to myself, "Hmm. This whole movie is the introduction of Robin Hood!" And it was confirmed when the end title showed up. Somehow, I don't think it was necessary to take such a long retelling of the background of an already very popular legend such as Robin Hood. Introduction is okay, but not the whole movie, because people just want to see Robin Hood and his actions as the heroic thief, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, not the one that leads British armies in a battle against French. Maybe if I just knew that this whole movie was merely a prequel to the legend before I watched it, probably I might not have been this disappointed. But the fact is, majority people do not read the plot of a movie in the media before they watch it, they just know that this is a Robin Hood movie.

The movie was also lack of actions. There was a big battle scene at the end, but by that time, I have totally lost my patience towards this movie. That battle became nothing more than just people fighting people for me, and I didn't seem to care what was the result, because I didn't get the connections with the characters. Russell Crowe was find as Robin Hood (and I like Russell Crowe). I think he did his job well (except he mumbled a lot), the same as the other actors who gave quite good performances. But the tiring script somehow made me lose my interests to them (If you want to make a big impact battle scene at the end of a movie, then you have to make maximum connections between your characters and your audiences, only after that you will see the audiences jump in their seats because they care about the characters and the battle they are in). This was the feeling that I didn't get from this Ridley Scott's version.

One funny thing is, the Sheriff of Nottingham (Macfayden) did not have an important role here. He sort of played hide and seek with me in the entire movie, as I tried to find him all the way. Indeed, he was the supporting of the supporting casts in this movie.

If the main character of this movie was not named Robin and his love interest was not named Marion, and the movie was not titled Robin Hood itself, then I think I would never know that I was watching a Robin Hood movie at all. Actually if the filmmaker wants to be (brutally) honest, I think they should title this movie as "The Chronicles of Robin Hood" or "The Introduction of Robin Hood by the Great Ridley Scott" or "The Day Robin Got His Nickname, Robin Hood" or maybe "Robin Hood Origins: Chapter One" or just simply "Robin Hood Begins" (with a result maybe less people will come to see the movie).

I happened to enjoy Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). Don't care some people said that it was a very cheesy film, because in my opinion, it was a very good, total fun, and highly entertaining movie, with its memorable soundtracks. And I loved this Kevin Costner's version very much.

If you are a fan and love Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, then I doubt that you will like this new version of Robin Hood. (MJ)

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

MyRating: Y1/2

Director: Samuel Bayer
Cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz
MPAA: Rated R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language

A bunch of teenagers living in Elm Street, Dean (Lutz), Kris (Cassidy), Jesse (Dekker), Nancy (Mara) and Quentin (Gallner) are terrorized by extremely terrified nightmares over and over again. In their dreams, they are hunting by a scary and ugly man with burned-scars all over his body and face, wearing a red and green striped sweater, a fedora hat, and a glove with long-sharp razor-knives in his fingers. Once they fall asleep, that boogeyman will appear in their dreams and ready to kill them.

When one of them died tragically in his dream, the four remaining friends just realize that they are actually having the same dreams and being hunted by the same man in their dreams. And they start to uncover a very dark secret kept by their parents for years, that links all of them together in the past, when they were kids, with a man named Freddy Kruger (Haley). Freddy was brutally killed by their parents and their society because of the wrongdoing that he did. Now, this man comes back to take revenges, in their dreams. And the way to stay alive, is to stay awake.

I am a person who do not mind for a remake at all, since we have seen many remakes that have proved to be enjoyable and good in quality, as long as the filmmakers do not just copy the exact storyline and then put it scene by scene in the new movie just exact the same as the original. And it will be much better if they take a totally different approach to the remake, so that the film may look fresh. The easy one is the last reboot of James Bond's Casino Royale (2006). That one is a very good and highly entertaining movie with a daring new approach, and the result was, everybody just loved and talked about the movie. I happened to like and enjoy the latest remake of Friday the 13th (2009) too, not a totally different approach from the original, but the storyline somehow excited me.

This new A Nightmare on Elm Street was surely did not fall into the category of copying the exact storyline from the original. It did use a slightly different story with new characters, even though the background of Freddy Kruger was still the same. Anyway, it should be the same, because we definitely do not want our lunatic Freddy suddenly turns into a not-guilty person who was wrongly punished by the people, and then he comes back for a revenge after he died, right? So, what went wrong? The script. The story was just not good enough, very predictable, and somehow felt stale. You just knew what will happen next, and the tension did not really grip you at your seat. All the scary moments were like deja vu of what you've seen before in the past. Actually, I felt boring halfway thru the movie.

Now, about Jackie Earle Haley as the new Freddy. I must admit that Robert Englund has a great charisma as Freddy Kruger, with his iconic ugly-sinister smile and a slightly scary-comedic approach, that will be difficult to be replaced in our minds. The new Freddy of Haley's version is more serious. His face is even nastier and messier. But I think that was also the reason why the aura of Freddy Kruger (that we loved) did not really show-up and shine in this movie. Haley did not play the character bad actually, but with his new ordinary approach, somehow it seems like this character can be played by any other actors with antagonist faces.

So, how to play the character without copying Robert Englund? Actually it can be done. Remember Heath Ledger with his approach to Joker's character in The Dark Knight? He played the character brilliantly, even though he was overshadowed by Jack Nicholson's version of Joker at the beginning. And that was the performance of his (Ledger's) lifetime. This is actually the job of the actor to find the creative way to play his character as something new and fresh. But of course, he should get a good script at the first place. It's just hard to beat the already great predecessor.

This is not a good remake as what we expected. (MJ)