There is a reason why “Last King of Scotland” recieved no nominations for best film, and that’s because it’s really just an above average movie at best. Forest Whitaker however, deserves every award he can get his hands on for his bravura performance as the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. That alone is worth the price of admission.
You know how we would always bitch about how it’s taking so long for lasers to be deployed on the battlefield? Turns out we were just being a wee bit impatient, because the US Navy’s developed a Duke Nukem type Railgun and researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have put together a laser that’s nearly capable of doing enough damage to be useful in battle.
I’m still waiting on them to start working on a light saber though.
Far too much emo for the average joe to consume.
I’ve been on a stenciling rampage for the past couple of weeks, when I figured out that I fanlly have enough money to buy a decent cutting board and exacto knife. The result? A semi-decent Star Wars : Republic Commando jacket, from one of my favorite FPS’s of all time.
Still haven’t got the kinks worked out yet, but it’s semi decent, if I do say so myself. My next project? A “Heroes” themed shirt, in honor ofmy favorite Japanese time-bending nerd.
I’ve always been a fan of the steampunk genre of fiction (or rather, art), and this little robot totally blew my mind. Well, it’s not much to look at really, and it’d probably get beaten up by Bumblebee, but it runs on steam, for chrissakes! How cool is that? Very cool.
Oh, and for more steampunkery, click here.
My creative Zen Vision:M player came with decent earphones, but I’ve always beent he type to want to get something a little better. When foam cover of my zen got lost I figured it was a sign for me to finally get new ones, as my earholes are so big that with the foam the earphones have a tendency to just fall off. I’d always wanted to get in ear headphones, so my first choice of budget earphones were the cheapest in ear headphones on the market, Genius HP-02 live earphones, which promise “Superior bass and crystal clear treble”, like most off the shelf earphones will.
Genius HP-02 live earphones
In ear headphones can take a little getting used to when making the switch from regular earphones. When you put them on, it sort of feels like you’re in a vaccum, or like you’re walking around with your hands over your ears. When the music starts playing, it’s as if it’s playing right in your brain, which can be a good or bad thing for you.
Genius is better known for it’s mice than its earphones, and it becomes very apparent with this accessory. Some songs will sound crystal clear and much better than with regular earphones, but others will sound awful. It’s very disconcerting for me, as i’d rather have a balanced ser of earphones, especially when I’m walking around in shuffle mode.
What ultimately made me give up on the phones however, was that I was getting a little dizzy after listening to music or playing on my DS for a while. At first I thought it was just the weather or something, but I tried it again and again and the resutls were the same. My theory is that my inner ears are a bit sensitive, and that the balance controlling part is getting affected by the vibrations of the music.
My advice is to find a shop that allows you to return an item a day or two after using it despite there being no damage, or at least allows you to exchange it for something else. I’m not sure if the store I bought it from allows for that, but there really wasn’t anything else I wanted int he store, and it’s been almost a week since I got them.
Having decided that I couldn’t live with earphones that made me dizzy, I made my way to the power mac store in GB3 to see what they had on hand…
Sennheiser MX350
Sennheiser has jumped in popularity in the local market recently, as an alternative to the overly priced Sony or average quality Philipps earphones. The MX 350 sits just above Sennheisers’s lowest end earphones, the MX250, but at an additional cost of only 100 pesos (MX250 = P550, MX350 = P650), it’s almost ludicrous for you to buy the 250s. The 350s supposedly add a little more bass thrugh a certain “air vent” at the top of the earphones, and since earphons are traditionally weak in that aspect I figured, why the hell not?
At 650 pesos, The MX350 earphones are THE budget earphones you should get. Solid, balanced sound all around, I daresay these are the best earphones you can get at that low pricepoint, and they’re just that much better than your generic earphones to make them worth the purchase. I fell in love with my earphones so much I used them almost all weekend while playing on my PS2, turning down the TV volume so I cold enjoy my new headphones.
My only complaint with the MX350 is that the cable is oddly made, with the left cable almost half the length of the right after they get divided somewhere in the middle of the cable. I don’t quite understand the point of this, since it just makes getting the wires tangled up so much more frustrating than it normally is. I’m told by a friend that it’s done with other earphones well, but I still fail to see the point of doing that. Then again, maye I’m just a stickler for these sorts of things. I’d still highly recommend these senns for the budget minded consumer.
I’m glad Nick Cage is a comic geek, I really am. Hollywood stars that reveal themselves to be comic geeks give the medium mainstream credibility, and takes it from the hands of pimply fanboys. I’m glad Nick Cage got to do a comic book movie, because he’s desperately wanted to do one. And I’m glad he did Ghost Rider, because there would have been riots in the streets if he’d done Superman.
Cage is horrible in this movie, absolutely horrible. It may have been the direction, or it may have been the writing, but once Cage turns into ghost rider everything goes downhill. I didn’t walk into this movie expecting to see an Oscar worthy flick, just a cool action movie with cool special effects. I didn’t care that the plot barely made any sense, or that Nick Cage does this incredibly awkward and stupid “pointing” pose everytime he wants to look menacing. I just wanted the action to be good.
But it wasn’t, and it just compounded the lameness of this movie. None of Ghost Rider’s enemies felt like they were threatening at any point, and for a hero, he certainly does a lot of collateral damage just riding around on his bike. Collateral damage bothers me a lot, I don’t know why. I mean, sure I’d expect it if there was a huge fight going on and buildings were being destroyed in the process, but when your superhero destroys stuff just by riding around on his bike…I dunno, I’d be pissed if I lived in that city you know?
Oh, and the one time, the one time that things looked like they’d get exciting, the movie just drops the ball completely. Spoiler Alert! So Cowboy ghost rider and Nick Cage have both turned into their flaming incarnations, one on a horse and one on a bike. They ride off together in what is meant to be the final conforontation, and we have a long scene of them riding into the desert. Finally, I think, here’s the good part. Then they get to the edge of a deserted town and cowboy ghost rider “flames off”, gives his shotgun to Nick Cage, and tells him to “stick to the shadows”.
WTF?!??!?
I wanted to see both ghost riders kick the crap out of the bad guys!!!!! What is wrong the writers of this movie? That was perfect popcorn action flick material. But nooooooo, Cowboy ghost rider had to run out of juice and go home. Here’s my gun, I just rode with you so the movie could have a cool special effects extravaganza, I have to go now because I was too stupid to conserve my ghost rider energy to help you with the fight. *sigh*
The only thing worth the price of admission, if you’re a guy or a lesbian, is the close ups of Eva Mendes’ bursting, barely buttoned cleavage. I swear to god they did that on purpose, with a matching flesh colored bra. Otherwise, the movie’s total crap.
In a bit of lighthearted Valentine news, it seems that I was mistaken in my previous apprehension for robots, because they can be a force for good, just like the man-bot 2007. Not only can the man-bot replace the men in women’s lives, they can also be switched to “gay-mode” for the times when women just need a little understanding.
What I wanna know is, when are the fem-bots coming out? You know, the anatomically correct fembots that provide constant companionship, aren’t schizophrenic crazies for a week every month, can actually make up their minds, can be one of the boys but at the same time be a smoking sexpot in bed?
I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later, but just how soon kinda threw me off. I mean seriously, the iPhone came out like, a month ago, and now Meizu’s throwing this out in the wild while Apple fanboys wait patiently for Stevie J to release the iPhone to the masses.
I swear to god this was so priceless I couldn’t help but post it. I always wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. To me, they’re the equivalents to the knights and explorers of yore. The best, brightest, and toughest of the human race chosen to go where no man/woman has gone before.
So it’s just a little bit hilarious to find out that a female astronaut has been arrested for the attempted kidnapping of a romanatic rival. It seems Mrs. Lisa Marie Nowak tried to kidnap and threaten her rival for the affections of Astronaut Bill Oefelein, but failed miserably. Yes, that’s a Mrs. She’s married with three kids but I guess the astro-allure was just too much for her to handle.
It’s sort of comforting that even the best of us fall prey to this sort of thing.
Just so ya’ll don’t think a playa be hatin’ on the ladygeeks up in hea, I gots somethin y’all might be interested in, ya heard? These bags be coming up in yo ass from microsoft baybeeeeeee!.
OK I’ll stop now. Ladies’ laptop tote bags, because your Targus messenger bag is so not hot. I’m not sure how much of a hit these’ll be, but hey, at least Microsoft, of all companies, is starting to notice that a huge swath of the laptop toting populating is women. Ladies in the house, what do you think?
The Samsung YP-K5 is an interesting mp3 flash player that’s been getting a lot of publicity lately in the form of music videos. I’ve seen it in Fergie’s Fergilicious(?) video, and the Pussycat Dollz latest offering as well (the one with Timbaland, who seems to be just about everywhere these days).
Aside from the sleek exterior and touchscreen controls, this player’s claim to fame is the slide out speaker that instantly turns it into a mobile jukebox whenever you feel like sharing (or forcing) your tunes with other people. Price still seems a little vague at this point, but I expect it’ll be in the $250 dollar range, at 4GB. A little steep, but if you factor in the speakers, it’s not too shabby a deal.
Mel Gibson likes gore. He liked it in Passionof the Christ and he likes it in the Atzec adventure movie Apocalypto. Make no mistake folks, that’s all Apocalypto is. This is no sweeping epic, no in-depth exploration of the Aztec culture and civilization. This is an out and out action flick set in an era where men wore thongs and ate tapir balls.
And as an action film, it works. Mel Gibson, jew hating prick that he is, is a still talented filmmaker who deserves all the praise he gets for his craft. It’s barely noticeable, but it struck me right away just how clean the film was and I knew something was up. Apparently Apocalypto was filmed using the Panavision “genesis” digital camera, the same one used to film “Superman returns”. I can’t say exactly what the advantages were for shooting in digital, but at least there were no negative effects.
Seeing as how parts of Superman Returns were ported to imax, I wonder what the chances are of an imax version of Apocalypto sometime in the future? The sheer amount of gore in the movie makes it a long shot, but if it ever does happen I’d be first in line to watch it.
One last thing, if you ever, ever have to jump off a waterfall, don’t go head first.
I often lamented (lamented wtf?) the fact that Philippine cinema and TV was just a bit too escapist. Most of our TV shows and movies reflected the worlds of the elite, the rich kids and fairy tale stories of the amo and the maid getting it on. I wanted a bit more realism in local cinema, and two films gave me that during the bagong agos indie sine film festival (wow they should really shorten that).
Kubrador
Kubrador is a movie unafraid to show the Philippines for what it is, a dirty, stinking cesspit of corruption where desperate people give up whatever money they have in order to get a shot at winning a small fortune via jueteng. The film itself focuses on Ami, a “kubrador” or bet collector, and follows her as she goes about her rounds, henpecking people to bet on their lucky numbers. The film is well made, but what strikes me is that nothing really stood out for me. The movie flows well until the rather open ended finish, but there’s nothing striking about it at any point. Nothing that really pulled me in.
Gina Pareno (who incidentally was at the screening I watched) gives a bravura performance as Ami, and so does the rest of the cast.
But the most astonishing acting came from the local folks, who managed to subsume their natural Filipino tendency to mug for the camera at every chance they get. Props to the filmmakers for managing to pull that off.
ICU Bed #7
If Kubrador was a slice of Class E life, ICU gives viewers a glimpse into the middle class of Philippine society. What the movie does right is that it manages to squeeze in every bit of melodrama the average Filipino family encounters without feeling too schizophrenic. Teenage pregnancies, drug use, getting kicked out of school, second families, it’s all here, and none of it feels forced in any way.
The only thing that really annoyed me about this movie was the guy they cast as the “son”. Damn he’s annoying. I mean, he’s supposed to be seventeen but his voice cracks up every 5 minutes or so, he can’t act for shit (and when he tries I want to slap him upside the head), and he just looks…retarded. I dunno.
Lastly, Eddie Garcia’s being in the hospital was the key to holding all of the disparate stories and drama together. Once he was out and about, it sort of felt anti-climactic, and I was itching for the movie to end as soon as possible. Still, it’s worth a watch, and since there were around ten people watching with me in the cinema it’s safe to say that you’ll have your choice of seats.
Right. So I haven’t been able to update lately for a host of reasons, one of which is space invaded dot com. Yes, it’s my newest blog. I’m such a hard working lad am I not? Blogs here, there, and everywhere. My boys over at intendo are already getting steamed cause I haven’t really been contribting as much as I used to but…ah what the hell.
Space invaded is part of the BBN. What does BBN stand for? The Bayanihan Blogging Network. Yeah I know, they’re better off as just BBN. But hey, they’ll be the ones paying me so maybe I shouldn’t bitch too much about the name. But duuuuuuuuude. Bayanihan? So 1950s. Anyway. Check them out, there’s a couple of good blogs out there, and there’s more to come!
