Category: Movies

Just watched a really cool movie: Revolver. The trailer itself is located on the website. I think if I say anything here, it’d ruined the movie, so if you want to find out more, read my spoilers. The cinematography was great and so was the storyline. However, there were several mysteries left unsolved. In simple terms, it’s a movie about chess and cons. Some gambling, drugs, and guns were involved, but just remember: chess and cons. After looking up imdb after the movie, I realized why the main actor looked and sounded so familiar. It was Jason Statham from Transporter, but with hair. Another thing to note is that there’s a gangster in this movie that only speaks Cantonese. It’s hilarious to see the translations because 90% of the translations didn’t match what he said. Though both added information to the movie.

Spoilers:

I really really don’t want to reveal much of the movie, but lets just say it’s a movie about the mind and playing tricks with people’s mind. Here are some great quotes:

• The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look – Julius Caesar 75 B.C.
• The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent – Fundamentals of Chess 1883
• First rule of business, protect your investment – Etiquette of the Banker 1775
• There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy – Niccolo Machiavelli 1502

The movie starts out with Jake Green leaving jail, and in 2 years he’s made bank. However, he seems to have some grudge against some Casino owner and he was able to exact repayment on him. The story really begins when that Casino owner wants revenge for the humiliation and he sends out a hit order on Jake. However, some loan sharks came in to help Jake on 2 conditions:

1. Jake must give them every single penny that he owns.
2. Jake must follow every instruction given.

Jake had no choice but to follow (it’s a bit complicated on explaining why, so that’s why you should watch the movie instead of reading my spoilers). And from that point on, it’s been a mind trip. Delving into the past and the introduction of a master chessplayer and a master conman who were jailmates located on the left and right of Jake’s cell. The reasoning for the loansharks actions were always iffy. Later, drugs were involved and Mr. Gold…

MAJOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!!!

I was able to predict who the 2 jailmates were, but I’m still not certain about who they really really are, and the ending left it as a toss up for the viewers to decide. I also couldn’t figure out who Mr. Gold was, but my only guess was Mr. Gold the voice inside Jack Green’s head, but that didn’t really make sense either. Or could Mr. Gold be involved with those 2 jailmates.

So I watched Fantastic Four the movie a few days ago. Don’t ask me why, I was bored. You can watch the trailer here. The movie was pretty bad as everyone said it was, but it was a mindless movie that didn’t require much thinking, though I did get irritated on changes from the original comic book series.

Spoilers:

First of all, Dr. Doom was never exposed to radiation. All his super powers were derived from his scientific researches. He did not have natural super powers like the Fantastic Four. Second, I don’t think Ben Grimm (The Thing) ever got to change back. In the movie, he changed back to human form and changed back to The Thing after realizing his friends need his help. If that was the case, I’d transform when I need to be The Thing and transform back when I’m not in need. Though it was pretty sweet to hear him say, “It’s Clobbering Time!“. Another thing that was unclear was the usage of Invisible Girl’s forcefield. I don’t remember her ever using it to attack much with, but that was basically all she used it for. Also to enclose the fire to keep it from spreading, which brings up another interesting point: Does her forcefield allow oxygen to go in? If it doesn’t what kept the human torch’s flame on (at the end of the movie). Given it’s a comic series, I guess there are laws that can be broken.

Two interesting quotes from the movie included when Dr. Doom ask Reeds (Mr. Fantastic) if he knew what happened to rubber and super cool temperatures. The answer was obvious where it cracked easily. But then at the end of the movie, Reeds returned with a question asking if Dr. Doom knew what happened to hot metal cooled a rapid speed. My question is where there be a different between hot metal cooled rapidly or hot metal cooled slowly? I couldn’t imaging that rapid cooling would do anything much like exploding (which didn’t occur). Did he mean that the shape would change? But that only really requires the metal to be really hot. Why was the cooling involved. To ruin the ending, it turned out Dr. Doom got stuck in a position and couldn’t move anymore. But given enough time, that was going to happen no matter what.

Watched a taiwanese cartoon today (was going to call it anime, but I’m not sure if they’d feel insulted or proud of that, so I’m calling it a cartoon): Fire Ball – 紅孩兒大話火焰山. It’s based on Journey to the West – 西游記, a very old chinese folk tale. It’s a really long and interesting story, but Fire Ball is only 1 section of the story of the many many compilations. The story took a very different look at the story and the animations were really cute and drawn really well. Too bad it’s in Mandarin only for now, though the trailer they have is in English.

Spoilers:

The story is about the party trying to cross the Mountain of Fire and needs to borrow Steel Princess’ Banana Fan. Fire Ball is Steel Princess’s and Demon Cow Emperor’s daughter. The overall story stuck to that theme, but the director added a bit of his own story to it, though it maybe that I’m just forgetting the original story. Was the Spider Demon part of this story or the Toad Demon? I think that part of the story was actually from some other section and had no relationships with this story, though please do correct me if I’m wrong. There was an introduction of a new character, a dragon that Fire Ball plays with, once again I’m only pretty sure it’s a new character. Though the origination of the Mountain of Fire did bring back some memories. I had almost totally forgotten it was because the Monkey King kicked down that big stove of fire that created the Mountain of Fire in the 1st place. I was sad that I couldn’t see Monkey King enlarge or shrink his golden stick (no pun intended) which always stayed in the same shape and length (no pun intended again). We did get to see him bust out the flying cloud and blowing his hair to create many more Monkey King clones, which totally reminded me of Naruto. Haha. The fight scenes were okay, but the story was pretty good. I guess it’s pretty hard to ruin a story from Journey to the West.

So I just watched My Date with Drew. Starting the movie, I wasn’t expecting much. It sounded like a interesting documentary that was just had an interesting idea, but that was all that it had going for it. The only reason I even gave it a try was because it got a rating of 6.3 on imdb and usually things with a rating of 6 or higher, I’ll give a quick skim. But guess what, I manage to watch the entire movie and enjoyed every bit of it! It’s been a very long time since I’ve had this much fun with a movie. I was excited and actually squeezing my chair arms as it got to certain parts where the anticipation just kills you. I think my heart was beating really fast because I’m still trying to catch my breath. Truly an inspiring movie and there’s a ton of stuff to get you laughing. There were also points I felt really sad and my heart really ached, though no tears came out this time. You can watch trailer here (Click “Watch Theatrical Trailer” and then select a size).

Spoilers:

It starts out with some guy telling you how he just won a gameshow playing some sort of variation of taboo and now has $1100. The word he won with was Drew Barrymore. Then he goes and tells us how he’s had a crush on Drew Barrymore since he was 10 years old and actually joined the Drew Barrymore fan club when he was small. So he decides to take this journey and use the money that he won with Drew Barrymore being the answer to get 1 date with Drew. However, no one had a camcorder and the camcorder itself was going to set him back probably most of the money. But then they came up with the Circuit City plan where you can return any item within 30 days. So that’s why he has to get a date within 30 days. And the journey starts off! They whole movie consisted of following different leads and different connections and how many degrees of seperation Brian (our main character) is from Drew Barrymore. Tons of interviews, tons of hope and also tons of disappointments. The amount of stuff he got for free was also amazing. One of the hilarious parts was they put an ad to a have a test date with a Drew Barrymore look-a-like. Haha. That scene was so hilarious! When almost all hope was lost, Drew was there again to inspire him to continue. A really touching and inspirational story. I don’t want to spoil too much, if I hadn’t already, but I have to say, I OWN ONE OF THOSE SNOOPY SNO-CONE MACHINES!!!

Watched War of the Worlds this weekend. You can watch the trailer here. The movie was pretty bad in my opinion. The whole movie starts out by telling us aliens were jealous of us and wants to exterminate us. That was the point when I knew the movie was going to be pretty stupid. Then there were those two kids I found utmostly annoying…

Spoilers:

The movie starts off showing Tom Cruise as a crane operator. He drives a pretty sweet ride and seems to have an easy going life. Then you find out he’s divorced, his ex-wife is dating some guy named Tim and she’s pregnant and that Tom Cruise has 2 kids, a teenager son and a elementary school daughter. The son’s a rebel and the daughter has some problems with dettaching with reality. All over the news were reports of lightning strikes and that’s when it hits Tom’s hometown. Welp, they made a play on the “lightning never strikes the same place twice” and lightning actually stroke the same place 20+ times. Suddenly these mechanized robots came from below the ground and started disintegrating everyone by shooting laser beams. Tom Cruise runs home and gets his kids and drives away as quick as possible, however these robots are appearing everywhere. The son continues to rebel, wanting to join the army to help, and not following his father’s instructions. The daughter on the other hand is losing her grip and screaming and going crazy. Apparently these robots have some sort of force field around them. Also, it appears the aliens are traveling along these lightning bolts into the ground where these robots have been stored for thousands or even millions of years. Pretty absurd I must say. Later on, you find that these aliens are eating humans and are actually drinking our water supply. Tom Cruise gets caught, but when he’s about to be eating alive, he throws a grenade into it’s mouth (or whatever you call it) and it explodes freeing him and the other captives. Later on, you find that all the alien robots are slowly dying one by one and the narrator tells us because the human body has adapted to our world, we’ve had antibodies to fight off common germs and diseases, however an alien race has never build up any immune system to combot earthly germs and fell victim to them. What a pretty shitty way for aliens so powerful to die… It was truly a crappy ending and I don’t really mind spoiling it for anyone. It wasn’t really worth it. Plus guess what, the son that went off alone BECAUSE HE JUST NEEDED TO SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH HIS OWN EYES, ended up living. Sigh… He was suppose to be DEAD! One thing I never got was the purpose of those veins lying everywhere. What were the aliens planning to do with those veins lying everywhere.

If you didn’t see Surviving An Alien Attack, there was a little parody plug regarding this movie, which I found hilarious.

Watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) today. You can watch the trailer here. The movie was very pretty and beautiful, but yet Johnny Depp’s performace scares me. I really didn’t like the whole vibe of this movie and the old version made in 1971 had a more cheerful feeling to it. Since most of you guys already know the storyline behind this book and movie, I’m not going to bother explaining that.

So immediately I noticed many discrepancies between this movie and the 1971. I went ahead and IMed a lot of people (you may have been a victim of the IM and I thank those who were able to give me a response). I have read the book actually back in grade school, but I no longer could tell what was from the book and what was made up in the 1971 movie.

Spoilers:

First thing you notice is that there’s no spy telling Charlie to try to steal the secret recipe of the everlasting gumdrop, or however you say that candy. Nor does he get mentioned in the end that he was Willy Wonka’s assistance. So my first question to everyone was if they remember if this character was in the original story. According to most accounts I got back (ignoring the “I think he was in the book” replies), Snugworth (as I later found out what he was called) was only mentioned and played no big role in the book.

Second thing I noticed was instead of geese that laid golden eggs and sending the girl off as a bad egg, they had squirrels sending the girl off as a bad nut. Apparently the book used squirrels too.

Other small things you noticed included removal of the Fizzy Lifting drink which got Charlie in trouble in the 1971 movie. They also had a side story about Willy Wonka building a chocolate castle for a prince in India.

One major difference I also noticed was that they delved into Willy Wonka’s past when he was a kid and his father was a dentist. As you can imagine, having a father who’s a dentish doesn’t exactly make eating candy easy. Apparently this was a made up character and in the book there was no mention of such father.

One thing that I must say was that without Snugworth’s part in this movie, it didn’t seem whole. The moral story just wasn’t there and the only reason why Charlie was chosen to take over the factory was because he was the last one standing. According to the book, that’s how Wonka chose him too.

According to several accounts, this 2005 movie is in fact more accurate to the book than the 1971. I later found this Table of differences between the book and film adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which explained the differences between the book, the 1971 movie, and the new 2005 movie. Quite an interesting read. One thing they did do right was at the end, you actually get to see the kids leaving the factory. Mike Teavee, the guy who shrunk in the TV teleportation, actually got stretched. I guess with computers nowadays, doing that wasn’t too hard. One thing I do miss are the oompa loompa songs. Though they did have songs sang by oompa loompas in this movie, I miss the jingle. Those were classics! One thing they did bad, in my opinion, was that Willy Wonka came out as a crazy guy who makes candy. He would have these random flashbacks, not sure what he’s doing, making illogical statements, and basically acting like and immature kid. Though this might actually fit better with the original book.

So I finally got around to watching Stuck On You. You can watch the trailer here. It’s actually weird to Matt Damon in this type of comedy, but I thought the movie overall had a lot of good lines and funny movies. Fun and light, that’s what I like. If I had to put the movie in 1 sentence, it’s the funny version of Forrest Gump, but Forrest Gump is a conjoined twin.

Spoilers:

The story’s about a conjoined twin played by Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear and how they’ve gone through life together. What they’ve accomplished is amazing, but not quite yet at Forrest Gump level. Then Walt wants to go to Hollywood to pursue his acting career, Bob has his reservations. However till then, they’ve never held each other back, but always supported each others dreams and goals and have always suceeded. So their adventure continues to Hollywood and that’s when Walt sees the reality of it, but Bob on the other hand makes fun of Walt for giving up so fast. So the struggle continues and the story brings in brotherhood, girl friends, career successes and failures, and finally the finale where they… I won’t ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it. If you have, you shouldn’t be reading this.

Went to watch tony takitani (トニー滝谷) with CDMCC and Elizabeth tonight. Movie was beautifully shot and the storyline was pretty interesting. However, the movie moved awfully slow and what was only 75mins seemed like 2 hours. I actually fell asleep for a small chunk of the movie.

Spoilers:

The story starts off with some World War II background info, but it wasn’t really that important. The story really begins when a Japanese couple has a boy and mom dies a few days later. The father decided to name him Tony believing an American name will make it easier for him to survive in the new world after the World War. However, this actually made him an outcast, since many still had a grudge against the Americans for their nuclear bombings. So since early in life, Tony was secluded and alone. He was an amazing drawer and when he grew up, he ended up as a technical drawer, specialized in machines. The story then moves on to his meeting of a woman, who was obsessed with buying clothings. He really liked how the clothes complimented the woman and after a few dates, he proposed. Initally she rejected because she had already been seeing someone else and their age were 15 years apart, but she finally accepted when Tony told her what made her so special. In the beginning, Tony was fearing for life. He was no longer alone, and can’t bear to see him ever returning to that state. The wife was very content and happy with her husband, but her obsession with buying clothes continued. Then there was a accident and the story becomes extremely depressing from that point on.

It’s not a movie I’d recommend if you’re looking for something fun and light. This movie’s pretty heavy and I would suggest that you watch it when you’re not sleepy cause it’s definitely a sleep inducer if you’re even a bit tired.

So I went to watch THe Constant Gardener today with CDMCC and Elizabeth. Movie depicted Africa and its story really beautifully. The movie was pretty good, but moved a bit slow and there really was no suspense overall, though it was supposed to be a “thriller”. Maybe the book did a better job. You could’ve pretty much guessed the entire movie within the 1st 30 minutes. The trailer basically tells you everything you need to know. SPOILERS! The movie begins with murder of the main character’s wife and the rest of the story is the husband trying to figure out what his wife did and why she was killed.

There was a major plot hole that we were arguing over after the movie. You may want to skip the following block if you don’t want to be spoiled. I found some reviewers of the book on Amazon.com and emailed them the following message:

BEGIN SPOILERS

I noticed you read the Constant Gardener after seeing your review. I recently saw the movie, but there seems to be a major plot hole which I’m hoping you can help me answer.

How exactly were the pharmaceutical companies planning to make money? From the movie, it sounded like the companies did not want to spend more time and millions more dollars in research because they were expecting an outbreak of TB soon and research might take another 3 years which will cause them to lose their leading edge because other pharmaceutical companies were already developing TB medicine. So in order to cover the side effects, they were hiding bodies who died using their medicine. But if they were planning to introduce the medicine into European countries or even America, if people die from the side effects of using the medicine, you can be sure they’d be sue big time. Also, how were they planning to bypass the FDA and get the drug approved.

My friend argues that what they meant by research was that they didn’t want to start from scratch, but continue testing it on humans and refining it until its ready for mass distribution to the people who could pay for the pills.

Since you’ve read the book, I was wondering what your opinion on this is. Thanks!

END SPOILERS

So I watched Stealth today. movie was okay. nothing much happened, though I sorta had a completely different idea of how the movie was going to be. From the trailer, I thought the AI plane was going to attack America and that was why they had to put it down at all cost. There was way too much going on for the movie to do much 2hrs. The trailer basically gave away most of the movie. SPOILERS! A short summary would be an AI fighter jet is introduced to the navy, hoping to learn and one day replace the top pilots. However, a lightning strikes the airplane and instead of frying it, it rewires the plane and now it and feel and think on its own. The AI plane starts to disobey orders and selects a specific target to attack. Their goal is to get the stop the plane hopefully get it back in one piece.

While watching the movie, they had this implosion missile/bomb weaponry. I took a guess implosion was the opposite of explosion and instead of blowing outwards, it would suck stuff in. But that sounded like science fiction and was wondering if they were pulling my leg. To verify the definition, I looked it up on wikipedia. Implosion is a reverse explosion that concentrates matter and energy. Buildings are colloquially described to implode when demolished through explosives, causing them to collapse on themselves. Implosion is the inward collapse, the opposite of explosion. I also googled it, but it only seems implosion is used during the process to create an explosion, never really to cause something to collapse among itself.

So my LCD didn’t come today, so I’m sad. Hopefully, it’ll come tomorrow since that’s the “new” expected delivery date. So my Fable isn’t on steroids yet, but it’s still just as fun. I’m still trying to figure out how to put the 2 speakers behind me. Was thinking of putting a small table there or something.

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Random crap:

Mark Newport has 2 galleries up which I found interesting: Lyons Wier Gallery and Greg Kucera Gallery (from /.). They’re hosting comic book character costumes and woven comic book covers. The costumes weren’t that interesting and looked quite odd, but I thought the woven comic book covers were pretty neat.

Think of it like this. Microsoft has, for two decades now, shown itself as the bright younge upstart. But the truth is they are coming to maturity now. They aren’t “cool” anymore. iPods are “cool”. Facebook is “cool”. Google is “cool”. Microsoft is like the youngest uncle at the family renions, too young to know that he’s too old to be hanging out with the kids anymore.
– quote from /.

Parishioners see the light — eventually – artile wasn’t that interesting, but I like the last quote: “When I was a young monk. I climbed up a ladder to have a look at something and two girls whistled and said what good legs I have. I haven’t climbed up a ladder since,” he told Wednesday’s Daily Mail.

VirtualWiFi (from /.) – VirtualWiFi is a virtualization architecture for wireless LAN (WLAN) cards. It abstracts a single WLAN card to appear as multiple virtual WLAN cards to the user. The user can then configure each virtual card to connect to a different wireless network. Therefore, VirtualWiFi allows a user to simultaneously connect his machine to multiple wireless networks using just one WLAN card. This new functionality introduced by VirtualWiFi enables many new applications, which were not possible earlier using a single WLAN card. Basically if you have 10 wireless networks around you, you can log on to every one of those networks simultaneously. Someone did comment that this page doesn’t look like Microsoft at all. It seems it was a project done by a cornell student, most likely funded by Microsoft.

From pya!:

Ｊｒ. – Spiderman Jr. – wearing costumes do give you powers!
ぽけっとまねー・・・ – Pocket Money – the guy bootlegging (is that the correct term) Pokemon/Pikachu t-shirts must’ve been daydreaming.
立可尿 – Pee Standing Up – a device allowing woman to pee standing up.