Friday, January 20, 2017

"Arrival" Short Review



I've watched in theatre some  days ago the Sci-fi movie "Arrival" and i enjoyed it a lot. As you probably know it tell the story of alien spaceships appearing at different places of the planet and although we've seen this before in Roland Emmerich movies i think it's fair to say that "Arrival" is the anti-Independence Day, the two couldn't be more far from each other.

Arrival is by far one of the smartest movie i've seen on the subject, one of the most realistic too. As a matter of fact "Arrival" starts and ends like a Terence Mallick movie and others inspirations include Steven Spielberg "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" although the very talented director Denis Villeneuve took care to stay away of Spielberg masterpiece.

Amy Adams is truly perfect in her role of a language specialist helping to communicate with the aliens and to find why they're here, and Jeremy Renner plays a physicist while Forrest Whitaker plays someone from the army. There is a big big twist in this movie and i take care to really don't tell you what it is, as it is a genius script idea. All i can say is this: if you find the movie slow or if you don't get what's happening, stay and be patient as all the pieces of the puzzle will come together near the end.

Arrival is not a blockbuster movie so don't expect epic battle with the aliens like in Independence Day. In exchange you have one of the smartest sci-fi movie made since decades and definitely one of the best movie of the year. Don't go with young kids, as they probably won't understand the storyline but if you're in the mood to see a smart movie brilliantly played and very elegantly filmed, then you'll be happily surprised and will keep thinking about "Arrival" long after you'll be out of the theatre.




Picture and video: copyright Paramount


Sunday, January 15, 2017

Shanghaî Disneyland Celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year ! Now Edited With New Video of the Full Dragon Dance With Disney Characters !




The 2017 Chinese lunar new year - the most important event in Asia - will happen this year on January 28 and Shanghaî Disneyland is ready to welcome the hundred of thousands of guests that will come to celebrate in Shanghaî during the next three weeks. Christian, a faithful D&M reader, share with us pictures he shot this week at Shanghaî Disneyland!

Before we start, a good news as, on December 31, Shanghai Disneyland had received the visits of 5.6 million guests. It opened on June 16, 2016, this making it one of the fastest Disneyland resorts in the world to attract 5 million tourists. Fan Xiping, president of Shanghai Shendi Group, told on Saturday that SDR survey showed that over 80 percent of tourists were satisfied with the service at Shanghai Disneyland. Occupancy rates of the two themed hotels at the resort have been greater than 90 percent, and the Chinese version of Disney musical "The Lion King" has been performed more than 200 times, Fan added." All this is indeed good, now the question is: how much these 5.6 million guests have spent in the park and resort during the last six months, something we'll know later this year when the first financial results will be released ( if they are ).

Let's have look now at the park with Christian pictures - to which i've added others from Chinese medias like this first picture - from Disney - showing a photo location outside the park, near the entrance.



Let's enter the park where most of the Chinese new year decorations with banners, Chinese lanterns, and more, can be found in Mickey Avenue...









...and the Gardens of Imagination at the beautiful Tea house of Wandering Moon.


Mickey and the gang, dressed in Chinese costumes entertain the guests with the famous Chinese Dragon dance and Chinese drums.
















Not to forget the Mulan float during SDL day parade...



Christian went of course all over the park, in other lands which are not themed with Chinese new year decorations, and share with us the pictures below.









And that's it for today's SDL update, see you soon for a new update on Disney and more!

Pictures: copyright Christian Rafael, Disney, News.cn