At a glance: recent movies I've watched

2012: Cliche and loud regurgitation of "The Day After Tomorrow" by the director of The Day After Tomorrow. Jaw-droppingly spectacular disaster sequences but that's about it. 6/10

Inglourious Basterds: QT made another hit movie with just about all the witty and well-written dialogue you'd expect from his films. Solid A+ film. 10/10

Pandorum: Nice back story & set pieces, but bad dialogue, jarring, haphazard editing, and lame monster designs undermined what this film was marketed to be. 4/10

Martyrs: Words can't really describe how fucked up this horror flick gets, it gets under your skin, it's way grotesque, gruesome and disturbing than Hostel or Saw, a torture-porn at best, and an excruciating, fatalistic filmmaking at its worst. Not for the faint-hearted. The last 20 minutes of the film just gets you thinking, "who in their sane, rightfully human mind would come up with this shit and allowed it to be filmed for the silver screen?" 5/10

Funny People: Funny people isn't very much a comedy, let alone being funny. Those parts that were funny were mostly shown in bits from trailers or TV spots. I wondered whether this is an Apatow-comedy (with the usual crude sexual humour), or a soap drama with a ton of f-words in it. 7/10

Observe & Report: This film isn't like Paul Blaut Mall Cop as the publicity material would have us to believe. It's about a mall security guard who doesn't do his job and instead decides he wants to be a police officer, drifting away from the crux of main plot. There's also a reason why this flick was rated R21 in Singapore: full-frontal male nudity of a flasher, like the film itself, it ain't a pretty sight. 4/10

GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra: been there, done that. Haven't we seen this show before? 6/10

Surrogates: Oh man, this film could have so much potential, it's a futuristic sci-fi film with Bruce Willis in it, what could have went wrong? 6/10

Up: Really touching animation that manages to bring out heartfelt, human drama than other animated flicks out there, plus it has scenes and characters that are funny and loveable. The companion short "Partly Cloudy" that came with Up's also a lovely film that explores the interesting idea of "where do babies come from"? 8/10 for both.

Visitor Q: A really unusual, some say disturbing film involving a disgruntled TV reporter and his prostitute daughter,  and a mother abused by her son. It's more about perversion and dysfunctional characters made for comedic effect, or more so sadist humour. 5/10

I Love You Man: Surprisingly good comedy with great drama about platonic friendship & marriage. 8/10

Role Models: this is a stupid movie with stupid characters revolving around a stupid make-believe fantasy world of role-playing; It's detestable how Paul Rudd could have a great role in one movie (I Love You Man) and a bland one in another. 2/10