Four Rooms

 Released Year: 1995

Directed by Allison Anders & Alexandre Rockwell

& Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino

Casted by:

Tim Roth as Ted the Bellhop

"The Missing Ingredient"

Valeria Golino as Athena

Madonna as Elspeth

Alicia Witt as Kiva

Sammi Davis as Jezebel

Lili Taylor as Raven

Ione Skye as Eva

Amanda de Cadenet as Diana

"The Wrong Man"

David Proval as Siegfried

Jennifer Beals as Angela

Lawrence Bender as Long Hair Yuppie Scum

Paul Skemp as Real Theodore

Quinn Thomas Hellerman as Baby Bellhop

"The Misbehavers"

Antonio Banderas as Man

Tamlyn Tomita as Wife

Lana McKissack as Sarah

Danny Verduzco as Juancho

Patricia Vonne as Corpse

Salma Hayek as TV dancing girl

Betty's house

Kathy Griffin as Betty

Marisa Tomei as Margaret

Julie McClean as Left Redhead

Laura Rush as Right Redhead

"The Man from Hollywood"

Quentin Tarantino as Chester Rush

Jennifer Beals as Angela

Paul Calderón as Norman

Bruce Willis as Leo

Kimberly Blair as Hooker

 Story:

The film is set on New Year's Eve, and starts with Sam, the previous bellhop of the Hotel Mon Signor, briefing his replacement, Ted, about the job.

Honeymoon Suite - "The Missing Ingredient"

Written and directed by Allison Anders

Ted assists a number of unusual women with their luggage, which he takes up to the Honeymoon Suite. He learns they are a coven of witches, attempting to create a potion to reverse a spell cast on their goddess, Diana 40 years ago. In order to create the potion, each witch must place an ingredient into a large cauldron in a ritual. However, one of the witches has still to retrieve her ingredient - semen - which she is told she must retrieve in one hour. The witch manages to seduce an initially reluctant Ted and has sex with him in the cauldron. After he leaves, the witches complete the ritual and Diana is seen emerging from the cauldron.

Ted's phone call with the party guest

At the end of the segment, a guest from a hotel room party calls Ted at the front desk to get some ice. He is unsure about which floor the room is on, but eventually directs Ted to room 404.

Room 404 - "The Wrong Man"

Written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell

Upon arriving at room 404, Ted finds himself in the middle of a fantasy hostage situation between a husband and wife. Siegfried, the husband, maniacally accuses Ted (whom he calls Theodore) of having slept with his wife, Angela. At gunpoint, Ted is made to participate in the scenario, with uncertainty about what is real and what is part of the fantasy. At one point, Ted is stuck in the bathroom window and the party guest from the beginning of the episode appears in the window above, uttering the word "ice" and vomiting. Eventually, Ted escapes just as a different party guest appears, looking for room 404 and is greeted by Siegfried in the same manner as Ted was at the beginning of the episode.

Ambiguity of room number

It is not fully clear if these events take place in room 404 or in room 409. The party guests' room is on the above floor, which suggests Siegfried's room is indeed room 404. Adding to this uncertainty, the room door reads "40-", with a faint outline of what appears to be a missing "4" or "9". However, Siegfried answers the phone at one point, which is later revealed to be a call connecting to room 409.

Room 309 - "The Misbehavers"

Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez

A husband and wife go out to a New Year's Eve party and leave their two children, Juancho and Sarah, in the hotel. Ted is paid $500 to keep an eye on the children by the stern father, who orders them not to misbehave. As Ted is responsible for the entire hotel he cannot actually stay in the room with the children, but instead instructs them to stay in the room and watch television. After Ted leaves, the children soon begin to squabble and proceed to both explore and vandalize the room, and manage to explode a bottle of champagne in the process. They call Ted for toothbrushes, at which point he arrives and attempts unsuccessfully to put them to bed by putting ointment on their eyelids. After they wash their eyelids and summon him back to the room once more, Ted arrives at a scene of mass chaos: One painting in the bedroom has a target scribbled on it in lipstick-That Juancho and Sarah use to play darts with the syringe., Juancho has a cigarette in his mouth, Sarah has the bottle of champagne in her hand, the television is set to an adult channel, and the children have found the corpse of a dead prostitute stuffed under the mattress. While Ted tries to quell the chaos in the room, Sarah stabs him in the leg with a syringe when he repeatedly uses the word "whore" and Juancho accidentally sets the bedroom on fire with his cigarette. At this point, the children's father arrives, carrying his passed-out wife, and, looking around the room, asks Ted, "Did they misbehave?"

Ted's phone call with Betty

After the events of room 309, an unsettled Ted calls his boss, Betty, to quit for the night, as his shift has ended. After a prolonged conversation with Margaret, Ted gets Betty on the phone and quits, but a call from the Penthouse comes in. Betty reasons with Ted and convinces him to tend to their needs, due to the importance of continued Hollywood business to the hotel.

Penthouse - "The Man from Hollywood"

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

The penthouse is currently being occupied by the famous director Chester Rush and a group of his friends, which includes Angela from The Wrong Man. The party requests a block of wood, a doughnut, a ball of twine, three nails, a club sandwich, a bucket of ice, and an extremely sharp hatchet (Rush specifically requests a hatchet "as sharp as the Devil himself"). After getting acquainted with Chester and his friends, Ted is asked to take part in a challenge: Chester's friend Norman has bet he can light his Zippo cigarette lighter ten times in a row. If he succeeds, Norman will win Chester's car, but if he fails, Norman's pinky will be cut off. Ted is asked to "wield the hatchet" and cut off Norman's pinky, should he fail. Ted initially tries to leave, but Chester persuades him to stay by offering $100 up front and another $1,000 if he performs his assigned role. Norman's lighter fails on the first try, and Ted chops off the finger, sweeps up all the money, and leaves the penthouse. While the credits are rolling, Chester and company are seen frantically getting ready to take a screaming, agonizing Norman to a hospital.

  L² Scored: 10/10

L² Comment:

 I found it quite weird to watch in the beginning of this movie, but as it goes by... it attracts me and yeah~ i totally love this movie. Not only there are tons of superstars in this movie but the humor parts really gets me and i just couldn't take my eyes away from it :)

Puss in Boots

Released Year: 2011
Directed by Chris Miller

Vocal by:
Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots
Salma Hayek as Kitty Softpaws
Zach Galifianakis as Humpty Alexander Dumpty
Billy Bob Thornton as Jack
Amy Sedaris as Jill
Story:

Sometime before Puss meets Shrek and Donkey in Shrek 2, he arrives at a town while escaping a bounty hunter. There he learns that the outlaw couple Jack and Jill have the magic beans he's been looking for most of his life, beans that can lead him to a giant's castle holding valuable golden goose eggs. When Puss tries to steal them from the outlaws' room, a masked cat interrupts. Both fail and escape, and Puss follows the cat back a club, where they have a dance-off and a sword fight, ending when Puss hits the masked cat in the head with a guitar. He learns that the masked cat was Kitty Softpaws. She is allied with Humpty Alexander Dumpty , Puss' long-estranged childhood friend from the orphanage where he was raised. Overcoming Puss' feelings of betrayal for a youthful misadventure when Humpty tricked Puss into helping commit a crime, they convince him to join them in finding the beans and retrieving the golden eggs.

The trio steals the beans from Jack and Jill and elude the angry outlaws in a canyon chase. As Humpty leads his compatriots to the spot where they must plant the beans, Puss and Kitty's relationship begins to grow from rivalry into friendship. The trio ride the fast-growing beanstalk into the clouds where, Humpty explains, they'll find castle of the late giant. Now, he continues, a fearsome monster called the Terror guards the Golden Goose. When they realize the golden eggs are too heavy to carry, they steal the Goose — which is just a gosling — and escape the castle and the Terror. While celebrating their victory, the group is ambushed by Jack and Jill, who knock Puss unconscious.

When Puss wakes up, he tracks Jack and Jill back to his old hometown, where he learns that the entire heist was a plot by Humpty to lure him home to be captured, as revenge for abandoning him to the authorities when Humpty's youthful heist went bad. Jack, Jill, and even Kitty were involved in the con. After pleas from his adoptive mother, the head of the orphanage, Puss turns himself in to the guards while Humpty donates many golden eggs to the town and becomes a hero.

While in prison, Puss meets the original Jack from the "Jack and the Beanstalk" story who warns him that the Terror is in fact the Golden Goose's mother, and it will stop at nothing to get its child back. A repentant Kitty helps Puss break out of prison. Puss convinces Humpty to help him fight off the Terror, saying he knows Humpty is a good person at heart, and he will be forgiven if he helps save the town. The Terror arrives, revealing itself to be a giant goose. Using the Golden Goose as bait, Puss and Humpty lure the Terror out of the town, but Humpty and the Goose are knocked off a bridge with Puss holding on to them. Humpty knows Puss cannot hold both of them, and he lets go, sacrificing himself to save the Goose and the town. Humpty's shell cracks open to reveal that he was a golden egg on the inside. The Terror then takes the Goose and Humpty away back to the giant's castle.

Puss is forced to flee because he is still an outlaw, but his efforts to save the town make him a hero among the townspeople. Puss and Kitty escape the guards once more, and Kitty says she will see him again soon, showing that she has taken his boots. In the epilogue, Jack and Jill are recovering from their injuries after being crushed by the Terror, Humpty is shown once again in his regular egg form as he rides the Terror into the clouds, and Puss and Kitty head back to dance at Kitty's hideout, the Glitter Box, where they finally kiss.

L² Scored: 8.5/10

L² Comment:

Once a while, an exciting and funny animation movie is a good thing to cheer up our life :) Puss is the spinoff prequel character from Shrek franchise. And the box office earn more than Shrek which is a surprise and good thing for the production team.

Never know that 51yo Banderas & 45yo Hayek is still able to voice for animation, if not because of Banderas has been the original Puss in the the previous movie, i dont think the production team will look for them~ Though they are old, but they are not bad... basically the whole movie is quite fun to watch... but sitting near a bunch of kids in the cinema is always not a joyful things to do... :(

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Released Year: 2009
Directed by Paul Weitz

Casted by:
Chris Massoglia as Darren Shan
John C. Reilly as Larten Crepsley
Josh Hutcherson as Steve Leonard
Jessica Carlson as Rebecca
Ray Stevenson as Murlough
渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe as Hibernius Tall
Salma Hayek as Madame Truska
Michael Cerveris as Desmond Tiny
Willem Dafoe as Gavner Purl
Story:

Darren is an A class student with a good future, his best friend is Steve who is a useless bump. Darren is fancy with spider while Steve fancy the vampire. Steve has been wishing to become a vampire to end up his pathetic life. On one night, they received a brochure from Mr Tiny to attend the freak show.

Despite how the school teacher refuse to let them attend the show, the 2 youngster went on the freak show by themselves. The show was host by Hibernius Tall, all kind of freak person appeared such as the wolfman, the woman who can grown her body again, the rib-man, the man who can eat everything even fire. And Madame Truska who can transform herself by touching whoever feel the future of Darren when she touched him. The final performer is Crepsley who Darren & Steve suspect he is a vampire. Crepsley warn them not to announce his identity or else he will kill them.

The school teacher brought the police to the show and force them to close down. To hide from the school, Darren and Steve hide in the dungeon. While Gavner and Crepsley have their discussion, they discover Steve is there. Steve begged Crepsley to turn him into a vampire, but after tasting Steve's blood, Crepsley state that Steve's blood is not good to become a vampire. Steve is pissed off and swear he will come back to hunt the vampire down. Darren's hideout was discovered too and he ran away by stealing the spider from Crepsley. In the meantime, Gavner inform that vampaneze has sent Murlough to kill Crepsley.

Next day, Steve discovered that Darren got the spider and try to kill it but was bitten instead. To get the antidote, Darren went back to the freak camp and find Crepsley. To take up his wife, Madame Truska's advice, Crepsley decided to turn Darren into half vampire in exchange for the antidote. Darren agree on the deal and promise to guard against Crepsley's coffin during daytime to prevent the attack from Murlough. Darren was found death the next day but actually is a fake death. Later at night, Crepsley come to dig out his coffin and brought him to stay in the freak camp. In another hand, Steve was jealous Darren got his dream and went to work with Murlough to slave the vampires.

Living in the freak camp, Darren was in the same room with the snake boy, Evra. Darren even fall in love with the monkey girl Rebecca. But Murlough brought Steve to attack by capturing Darren's family and Rebecca. Steve offered Darren to surrender and join them but was rejected. While fighting, Rebecca used her tail to open the knots and let go of the Shan's family. Crepsley is unable to fight against the 2 rivals and Rebecca fed Darren with her blood and become powerful to help Crepsley. Mr Tiny was watching all these and finally turn Murlough into a tiny person and went away with Steve.

Finally Darren and Crepsley went back to the Freak camp and other voted and agreed to let Darren stay. Crepsley even offered him a new coffin in the camp too.

L² Scored: 4/10

L² Comment:

This is from Darren Shan's novel series, "The Saga of Darren Shan". How weird, the author used his own name to be the main character, huh?!? The whole movie is not bad, quite good. Just like the freak show in "The Wolfgirl", you can see all sorts of freak showing their freak thing.

But i always thought vampire is monster/creatures but not freak. And both the new actor Chris Massoglia & Josh Hutcherson still need a lot of training on their acting... overall the movie is ok, nothing much excited about it...