Yowazzup: A Directory of Happening Things

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a movie starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner in which McConaughey plays a bachelor who is haunted by the ghosts of his past girlfriends at his younger brother’s wedding. The movie will be released on May 1, 2009.

Popularity: 2%

Juno is an American/Canadian comedy-drama film that revolves around a 16-year old pregnant high school girl. The film has been raking in some USD $120 million up to the time of writing and has earned many positive reviews, making many critics’ top ten lists for 2007, as well as receiving four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. And guess what? The budget for this film is only $6.5 million.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Juno meets the parents who’ll adopt her baby

It all started with a chair. Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) is convinced she’s more than two months pregnant after taking three pregnancy tests in a convenience store. The father-to-be is her best friend and long-time admirer, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) whom she has sex with on the “chair”.

Initially, Juno opts for an abortion, but after some thoughts as well as seeing Su-Chin (Valerie Tian) anti-abortion calling outside the clinic has made her change her mind. She later decides to have the baby for child’s adoption. With the help of her hot friend, Leah (Olivia Thirlby), Juno searches the Pennysaver and finds a couple she feels will be perfect for the baby. Together with her father, Mac (J. K. Simmons), Juno meets the couple, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), in their luxurious home and finalizes the adoption arrangements.

Juno is not just an ordinary 16-year-old like her other school mates from Minnesota. Her conversations has shown she’s as smart as any other adults. When the cinemas are showing movies about war, aliens attack, ruthless zombies and vampires flicks, meaningless basketball “slam dunk” movie, Juno is the only film that stays in touch with the reality and ordinary life issues as it touches sensitive issues such as teenager pregnancy and the way she copes with it. The movie even has a 93% rating from RottenTomatoes. Simply brilliant.

My ratings: 9 out of 10.

FirstShowing.net has hinted that there may be possibly a sequel for Juno.

Popularity: 1%

The Kingdom is not just a movie about the terrorists, as there are more elements in this movie than just dealing with terrorists. Though the movie portrays the location as Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the actual shooting location was in Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates. Mind you the movie is more of an action-flick film than a political movie as it shies away from focusing on the political parts throughout the entire movie.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The world’s top oil producer is Saudi Arabia while United States of America is the world’s top oil consumer. Being that, the United States also happens to have an oil production company in Saudi Arabia and that’s where thousand of Americans are living in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To protect the Americans living and working in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, they have created a secure American compound with Saudi police and armies protecting the check points of the compound.

The Americans are out enjoying themselves playing baseball when suddenly two terrorists breach the compound and begin shooting everybody in sight. The terrorists have earlier overtaken a police car and are dressed in police uniforms in disguise to be able to get into the compound. Though these terrorists are eventually gunned down by Sergeant Haytham (Ali Suliman), a suicide bomber follow suits by killing himself and others around him. This itself has attracted the attention of the FBI and group of investigation teams in Riyadh who all gathers in the crime scene when all of a sudden, a huge explosion takes place, killing hundreds of Americans, including women and children and an FBI agent, Francis Manner (Kyle Chandler). It is clearly that the incident is well-planned and executed by the terrorists.

The bombing has triggered an international incident where diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism. Knowing that sending troops of Americans is not the most ideal thing especially when they know they are the target of the terrorists, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) quickly assembles an elite team and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the man behind the bombing.

Ashraf Barhom, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, Ali Suliman and Jason Bateman in The Kingdom

Once in Saudi Arabia they find themselves isolated and unable to investigate the crime scene by orders from Saudi officials. The governmental bureaucracy and cultural differences cause conflict between both of them. However, a Saudi police officer, Colonel Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) is helpful all the way, and has contributed a large part in their investigation.

As the movie develops, the special agents and Colonel Al-Ghazi manages to crawl closer towards finding the location of the terrorists. While at that, expects plenty of action-packed shooting and killing and blood-spilling.

Though the movie portrays the terrorists belong to a Muslims group which hates foreigners invade their “Kingdom”, the good side of the movie shows Al-Ghazi’s having an ordinary day with his family – having dinner and a prayer.

Overall, The Kingdom is a superb action-packed thriller that lacks nothing but romance. If you are dying to watch Jennifer Garner’s sexy side, then I’ll suggest you to rent Elektra’s DVD instead.

My rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Popularity: 1%