Avatar is not the game changer that is hyped up to be

Avatar is the first movie I've watched in 3D. The hype is that it is made to be watched in 3D, and the 3D is not some afterthought tacked onto the movie like some other 3D movies. But being this is my first 3D experience, I'm unable compare Avatar's 3D to other movie's 3D, but from what I've seen, it gives a different experience, but not really essential. I have to admit that 3D does add something to the experience of watching the movie, but what it adds just isn't enough for it to be something that will change how people go watch a movie altogether.

Apart from adding something, 3D also takes something away. If you're not used to wearing glasses, then wearing those 3D glasses while watching the movie isn't really "comfortable". You never really forget that you're wearing glasses. The feel of it on your face, and the glass itself gives you a feeling like you're watching a movie through a window. And wearing glasses also makes the movie darker than normal. Some dark scenes become just too dark to see what's happening.

But the CG in Avatar really does push the boundaries of what has been done before. What they've really nailed is the facial expressions on virtual characters. That, they got it almost perfect. But as for the human/humanoid body movement, they've got most of it right, but some if it just isn't that good. But one GC element that they made "their's" bio-luminescence. Nobody has done it, and if they have it was never as good as what is seen here. The CG of mechanical things like vehicles isn't the best of what we've seen. Transformers 2 did a way better job of it than Avatar. And the vehicle and mech designs in the movie seems as if James Cameron is stuck in the 90s. They seem dated.

In the end, what makes a movie isn't the CG, it's the story. And the story in Avatar isn't a very original story. It is about humans trying to exploit the riches of a foreign planet at the expense of the aliens living there. Sure James Cameron did a great job of fleshing out the environment of Pandora, the alien planet, but as to what takes place on the planet, he could've done better. The dialog is very simplistic, but it's not as Star Wars prequel bad. There's nothing "edgy" to the story. It's very straight forward ,feels like it's a story made for a kids movie. There isn't any plot twists that turn things upside down.

So it has beautiful CG, but has a mediocre story. It still can be enjoyable if it has great action. But I'm sad to say that the action does not redeem the movie to enter the "enjoyably fun" category. The final battle is a big one, but I never really got into it. Maybe it's the 3D glasses, maybe it's just the direction, but it didn't work for me. What makes an action scene work is choreography and damage. As for the choreography, there isn't really much opportunity to implement cool choreography in the action scenes as most of the action is organism vs. machine. It's organism vs. orgasm is where choreography can shine. And as for damage, in their effort to keep the movie PG, there is very minimal blood splatter, and the vehicular damage wasn't very dramatic.

So there it is. Avatar. A movie that wanted to change things, and change may very well come if enough studios jump on the bandwagon, but if seen as what it is, a movie, it's just mediocre.

Transformers 2 Is Way Better Than The First One

I hated the first Transformers movie. The reason I hated it was because I had very high expectations for the movie. Being a fan of the cartoon series, I expected it to have a serious tone and a coherent story. The movie could have been so much better in the right hands. I couldn't understand at that time why anyone would enjoy the shitty juvenile excuse of a movie. After experiencing the first movie, naturally I decided not to spend money to see the sequel and waited the for dvdrip to be released. The first movie also lowered my expectations for the sequel, and the all round bad reviews that the second movie got when it was released in theaters didn't help either.

Yesterday, the dvdrip was released and after watching it, I am surprised to say that I enjoyed the movie a lot. The silly jokes somehow worked for me this time, and the nonsensical story actually made sense to me. Now it's the opposite, I can't understand why people hate this movie so passionately. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it's a summer action movie that delivers what it advertises.

If you are going to watch this movie, make sure you watch it in HD. One regret I had while watching the movie was not waiting for the HD version of it to be available. I did watch the 3 cd version of the dvdrip, but it just wasn't comparable to the 720p version I saw from the sample I downloaded. This movie is made to be watched in HD. The action and and special effects are what I enjoyed most about the movie and it needs to be seen in all their HD glory. They have toned down the use of the "shaky cam" technique compared to the first movie and as a result, the action was more discernable this time. You actually know who's fighting whom most of the time and which limb they are using to beat each other up. Plus, the use of slow motion for "cool" action set pieces helped too.

My advice for anybody that's going to watch Transformers 2 is to turn off your brain, get in mood to see lots of explosions and huge robots fighting each other with some juvenile jokes sprinkled in between. You'll be rewarded with two and a half hours of pure unadulterated fun.

District 9 Is The Best Movie Of 2009 So Far

Saying this movie is good would be an understatement. The movie has it all, a very intriguing deep plot, good acting and great action. If I was to find a flaw in this movie, it would be the shaky cam technique employed at the beginning part of the movie and also at the very end. The shaky parts are supposedly documentary clips telling the story of Wikus, the protagonist. But rather than add to the feel of it, the shakiness is just nauseating. They just over did it. But after a while into the movie, they got out of the documentary mode and things couldn't be any better. And the special effects in his movie will have you believing that these aliens are real.

It's better that you go into this movie not knowing the deeper plot as a big part of the movie's entertainment value for me is the parts when things look hopeless and you really feel the despair and hopelessness of the characters. The only thing you need to know going in is that there are aliens stranded on earth and they are put in slums.

This is one of those movies that teases you that it's nearing its end, but inside, you go "No, I want more. It can't end like this", and the movie hears you and gives you more. And it's primed for a great sequel. The potential that this franchise has is just enormous. The way they can expand the story is just limitless and all of them can add to it's lore. This is a classic franchise in the making.

Slumdog Millionaire Is A Masterpiece

The latest product from Danny Boyle, the guy the brought us Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Sunshine but Slumdog Millionaire must be his best work yet.

It's not one of those movies that gets critical acclaim for it's great acting, or eyeball exploding special effects, or any of those award show categories. It is great because it does what movies do, and does it in an almost perfect way. It takes the everyday Joe's fantasy, put it in film form, and make anybody who watches it live the fantasy, even if just for 2 hours.

This movie is for the everyday Joe, what Twilight is for unpopular school girls, and Danny Boyle does it without the involvement of sparkling vampires.

Right from the get go the movie pulls you in. It's not one of those slow burning movies. The movie tells about this kid from the slums of India, who goes on the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire gameshow and reaches the final question. They ran out of time before the final question is asked so they have to continue the next day. The police find it hard to believe a slum kid can answer all those questions so they interrogate him and he tells how he got to know the answers. In telling it, he practically tells his life story. And he has been through a lot. However, it is rather convenient that in the movie, the events that lead to him knowing the answers to each question in the gameshow is in the same chronological order to the chronology of the questions that are asked on the gameshow. But hey, it's a movie and I'm not complaining. So it shows how he knows the answer to the first question from events from he was a kid, up to the answer to the penultimate question from events just moments before being asked the question.

One of the things that sets this movie apart is how it shows India. This ain't your Bollywood India. It's the slums and how people go about their lives living there. Some scenes are harsh but at the same time, this is not one of those dark and gritty movies either. It actually is a feel good movie. Sure there are some hard reality shown in the movie but overall the movie is overwhelmingly feel good. It's so feel good that you can consider it to be Bollywood in a way. And that's why this movie is almost perfect. Everything was going perfectly in the movie, but how they wrapped it all up in the end seemed too Bollywood for me. Sure it's feel good, and I admit I did feel good, but I prefer my feel good endings have a bit more believability.

But why am I arguing about believability when I'm an everyday Joe and I had an excellent 2 hours. Plus, the music is great too. A.R. Rahman.'Nuff said.

The Love Guru Is Surprisingly Funny

Even before the movie was released, this movie had bad reviews. I myself thought this was going to be a shitty movie. From the trailer, it looks as if Mike Myers is recycling his old jokes for this movie. The last fairly good movie of his was the first Austin Powers, and every movie after that was terrible. The first Mike Myers movie i saw was Wayne's World 2, and loved it.

So after The Love Guru was released, the critics ripped the movie apart, saying Mike Myers is a "has been" and has lost his magical touch. It currently has a 3.2 rating on IMDB. They complained that he keeps doing the some jokes over and over again in his movies, and they have a point there.

Then yesterday, a screener of the movie appeared on the internets, and being that there has not been any good movies released on the net lately, I figured I'd give this one a shot. So after watching it, I was surprised at how funny I found it. Sure he rehashes some of his old jokes, but the rehashes worked well in the movie. These jokes worked better in this movie than in his Austin Powers movies. In his Austin Powers movies, he kinds of over-do it with his jokes, it's like "yeah, I get the joke already", but he keeps banging the joke on your head until it loses its funniness. It seems that he's learned from his mistakes and the jokes are done very well in this movie. He has learned when to stop.

Plus, compared to his previous movies, this movie is heavier on word-play jokes than physical jokes. And I like it like that.

Definitely, Maybe Is A Recommended Watch

Definitely, Maybe is one of the better romantic comedies in recent times. Just like the poster says, it's from the makers of Love Actually, another recommended romantic comedy. The story is set in the 90s, so there's Nirvana and Bill Clinton references, but they are more than just references, they are an integral part of the story. Instead of a story about one guy with one woman, or 3 guys with 3 women, it's about 1 guy with 3 women.

The story is told through flashbacks, the guy is telling this story to his daughter. The daughter wants to know about how the guy met her mother, so he tells her about the relationships he has had, and the daughter needs to guess which one is her mother. The story is heavier on the romantic side than the comedy side compared to Love Actually, but it's good. A highly recommended watch. And Elizabeth Banks is hot.

A Perfect End To Rambo

I decided to see this in theaters after hearing that it wasn't butchered by the censors. Overall, it was a very enjoyable movie. Over-the-top violence and gore as expected. But the best thing about it was how it ended. John Rambo finally finds peace with himself and returns home. A great way to end the series. After all that he's been through, I'm happy to see him at peace. Good for him.

Cloverfield Sucks

Cloverfield doesn't live up to the hype. They clearly had a sequel in mind when they made this movie. At the end of the movie, I went "That's it?".

It's a love story with the monster as a sideshow. Yes you get to see the monster, but it doesn't even touch on what the monster is, where did it come from, why is it attacking Manhattan, etc. I didn't go to see the movie just to see a monster being hit by missiles, but that's what the movie really is. Who gives a shit about the love story, I want the monster to be the star of the movie, not a bunch of yuppies with relationship problems. I have nothing against sequels but at least make the first movie a complete movie, and not just a jumping point for the real movie. And the camcorder style thing, was okay, it didn't bother me that much, but I prefer normal traditional camera style.

A real disappointment. Not worth my 10 bucks. I hope the movie doesn't do well, so they won't have to make a lame sequel.

American Gangster

American Gangster is a true story about Frank Lucas, a black gangster honcho who was bigger than the mafia during his peak. It's a really good movie.

Enough about the movie, while looking around for pictures of Lymari Nadal, who the lady plays Frank's wife in the movie, another person always crops up beside her in her pictures. That person is Edward James Olmos, the guy who plays Admiral Adama on BattleStar Galactica, and Lt. Martin Castillo (the boss cop) on Miami Vice. It turns out that this old guy is the babes' husband. WTF! Nice.

Lymari Nadal

Edward James Olmos

Married

Other than that, American Gangster is a very good movie, it was really easy for me to "get into" it. It feels long, but in good way. There's hardly a boring moment in the movie. Good editing.

Stardust is a *****/***** (5/5)

Stardust is superb. It's a fairy tale, but unlike most fairy tales, it's not written by some old hack who has died half a century ago, but written in modern times (1998) by the famed writer Neil Gaiman. I admit I'm not much of a novel reader, and I've never read the novel itself, but the movie really is excellent.

It has all the good things you expect from a fairy tale, without the pitfalls of a fairy tale created in olden times. Old fairy tales were made for people of that time. The way its told, the kinds of magic and stuff that are in it, the story elements, all are conceived by by old day mentality and experiences. That's why though some of those stories are good, they never really "clicked" perfectly (for me, at least). You have to condition your mindset to the way the story's needs it to be. But with Stardust, there's no need for that. There aren't any of those little quirky things in the story that you never really "get" just because "that's what people back then used to do". It flows effortlessly without interrupting your enjoyment of the movie.

This Neil Gaiman guy must be really good. I look up for more of his work on IMDB, and found out that he is one the the screenplay writers for Beowulf. I wasn't really interested Beowulf when it came out, but after seeing Stardust, I'll surely make an effort to download it when a DVDRip of it emerges.

Grindhouse

Grindhouse is a mixed bag. Death Proof, the Tarantino half of the movie is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. You can literally fall asleep watching the movie. The dialog is filled so much with "inside" reference, if you're not into the "Tarantino" state of mind, you wouldn't give a shit about what they're talking about. By "Tarantino" state of mind, I mean you're into old vintage cars, and 70s pop culture, and stunts and stuff. I'm not into that stuff, so the only good part of the movie was the lap dance scene by Vanessa Ferlito. Other than that, it just stretches itself with pointless rambling about car stunts. Even the violence isn't that heavy compared to the other half. I'll save you the hassle of watching the whole movie by embedding the only good part of the movie, the lap dance scene, here. Enjoy.




The other half of Grindhouse, Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez, on the other hand, is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's one of those over-the-top ultra violent zombie movies that is fun to watch, and at the same time, it doesn't feel old. They've put new ideas into it to make it feel different from the other similar movies that have been made. I can't even begin to tell how much I enjoyed this movie. A must watch.

If you're going to catch this one on DVD or download it, I recommend Planet Terror and give Death Proof a pass.

New Season

Well, it's time again where good tv shows start their new season. And there're a few new ones too. The new shows that people are saying is good is Pushing Daisies, Journeyman, and Chuck. Of the three, I've only watched the first episode of Journeyman. I'm not sure about Journeyman after reading that the creators are going to focus more on the weekly time travel escapades rather than unraveling the mystery of why he's traveling through time. What got me interested is the mystery, not the lame weekly outings. I just haven't got around to watching the other two shows.

What I'm actually downloading and watching is House, Heroes and Smallville. I know, Smallville is kinda lame, but I'll watch it until 24 or Lost returns, or until one of the new shows really makes a breakthrough. Kristin Kreuk makes it worth the download. If you don't know how hot she is, then you're really missing something. And there's a new set of pictures that show that she is one of those girls who get more beautiful when they're upset. These pics prove it. There hasn't really been any "breakthrough" shows yet this season. Last season's "breakthrough" was Heroes. I don't think there'll be one this season.

Of the three shows I'm currently following, House is easily the best. This season's House is hilarious. I find the chemistry between House and James (James is the friend, not one of those docs who works for him) just perfect this season. The banter between them just hits the right spot for me. And Heroes, the first season wasn't great, it was just good. And this season looks like its going to continue being good, not great. I've figured out a way to heighten my enjoyment of Heroes. The trick is not to take the show as seriously as 24 or Lost. If you do that, you'll just get disappointed. You need to see it as a show like Smallville with a slight touch of mystery like Lost, but not as deep. If you can manage that, you will surely increase your enjoyment of the series.

What I'm really looking forward to is Lost, but it ain't coming until next year. Other shows to look forward to 24 where rumors say there'll be no CTU, and Battlestar Galactica. And the fact that the coming season being the last season of Battlestar, it is surely going to be EPIC. But there are rumors that say that the final episode of the season will be pushed to 2009. It'll really suck if it's true.

Journeyman

There's a new tv show called Journeyman that's going to be shown soon on NBC, but as usual they leaked the first episode on to the internets to get the buzz going. There has been a lot of leaked first episode new series that has come out, but the only one that piqued my interest was Journeyman. I gave it a go, and it was somewhat entertaining.

Basically, Journeyman is Quantum Leap recreated for the 21st century. There's this guy who goes back in time to help certain people. But unlike Quantum Leap, he's not stuck in the past, but goes in and out of it throughout the episode. And to give it the 21st century touch, they added some mystery and drama. First, why he time travels is made a mystery. He has no control over when he leaps into the past and back, so his life is turned upside down, sometimes disappearing from the present for days. And for the drama part, he meets his ex-fiancee who died in a plane crash during his escapades into the past, but he's already married in the present. And to top things off, plus spoiler warning, the ex-fiancee is actually not dead, but is alive and well, and she has something to do with the guy time traveling. He actually met the future version of his ex-fiancee in the past.

But the show has its flaws too. First of all, the dialog/script needs a bit of work. There were too many cliches. I know it's the first episode, you need to introduce the characters, so it's hard not to fill a few cliches in, but there was just a bit too much of it. The acting ain't that good either, but I don't know if it's the actors' lack ability, or the script that made the acting look not so good. The only good acting came from the journeyman himself and his ex-fiancee. The others just weren't into it.

Aside from that, overall, I enjoyed the show and will keep watching it to see how it develops. There needs to be a deeper plot than going into the past saving another person each week. The unraveling of why he time travels should be a good tactic to keep audience wanting more, but it better be a good reason and reasonably paced.

Chain Of Events That Led To Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain and Beyond

It all started with a Digg post about a horse breaking free and joining cyclists on the Tour De France. One of the comments of the post pointed out that the story has already been submitted before and got frontpaged on Digg in this original post. A comment on that original post pointed out that this footage was from a movie called Amelie. Replies to the comment and other comments were in praise of the movie. I became intrigued, and did a search on this Amelie movie that I've never heard of before. IMDB gave it an 8.6, Rotten Tomatoes gave it 90%.

So, I search mininova for amelie, and the torrent of the movie with the highest number of seeds is one with around 70 seeds and 40 leechers. That's a good enough number of peers for a non-mainstream movie. However, none of the torrents from the search results had English subtitles in them. The one with the highest number of seeders only gave a link to an .srt file of the subtitles.

I've never watched a movie with separate subtitles before, so I didn't know what player to use to view it. My google search on this showed VLC can load .srt files with movies, and I tried it, it works, but another player that cropped up in my search was Crystal Player, and there was high praise for this player. I decided to check it out, and managed to find a link for it on IT Hot News. And to my surprise, it is actually a very good media player. Not only can it load subtitle files, but the killer feature of this player is its ability to control the brightness/contrast of the video being played. I've been looking for this feature in a media player for so long, and I finally found a player that can do it. It is very convenient to have this feature, because more often than not, videos that I download, especially tv series like Lost and 24 have very dark scenes where it's very hard to tell whats happening. Couple that with my crappy monitor's low max brightness, it's unbearable.

Now, for the movie review itself. The title Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain more or less translates to The Fabulous Life of Amélie Poulain, at least that's what the subtitles I downloaded said. This film is touted as a masterpiece, as one of the best romantic comedies ever, but for me, it doesn't deserve that kind of critical acclaim. It's good, but not THAT good. It's not a romantic comedy in it's traditional form, because the romance part of the romantic comedy doesn't start until about half way through the movie. Even the guy she's supposed to be romantically involved with appears late in the movie, so I don't think this movie set out to be a romantic comedy.

First and foremost, this movie is about Amelie, and Amelie alone. Even though the other main characters of the movie have their own littles stories in the movie, but the main reason for their character's existence in this movie is to illustrate who Amelie is, what kind of a person she is, and what she is going through.

The movie has an artsy feel to it. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and the camera work complements this approach. And the use of special effects to convey Amelie's emotion was done well too. Audrey Tautou, who plays Amelie is cute. She's the chick who plays opposite Tom Hanks in The DaVinci Code. She looks a lot younger than she did in the Da Vinci movie.

Overall, I feel like the movie lacked focus. There was no pre-destined endpoint to get to. The movie doesn't start out with "Amelie is a lonely woman who's looking for a guy". This is more of a slice of life / coming of age movie. It shows a series of events in Amelie's life that leads her to becoming a new person, and the other characters in the movie are there just to facilitate her (albeit indirectly) to get to that point. The movie itself doesn't stick to me, but the character of Amelie, for some reason, still lingers in my mind.

So, there it is. From a lame story on Digg, to a fairly good movie, to a very good media player.

The Simpsons Movie

I went to see The Simpsons Movie today after finding out that the movie is being shown without any cuts. And the verdict? It was great. It's like a simpsons espisode, only longer, with better animation, and no boring parts whatsoever. The movie is packed with funny bits. Watching this movie, I can see why it took such a long time to make. The time they took certainly was not due to rendering the animation. This a 2-D movie, there's nothing to render. I feel like during all those years of production, they threw in hundreds of thousands of ideas for the film, and finally they filtered it out to only the few best ones to put into the movie, and result was a Simpsons fan heaven.

It's starts off insulting the viewers of the movie, saying they are stupid for paying for something that they watch on tv for free. And in the opening sequence where Bart writes something on the blackboard, He writes, "I will not download this movie". Yeah, like THAT's gonna work. Tom Hanks and Greenday make a cameo, and there's too many funny things to mention, or even to take in for that matter. It warrants a rewatch to get everything.

A Simpsons fan needs to watch it more than once, so for me, I ain't wasting another 7 bucks on it, I'll just wait for the DVDRip and download it. Watching it in the theater kind of spoilt the experience a bit for me.

You see, different people have different kinds of sense of humor. I had the unfortunate luck of sitting beside a girl who thinks every little funny thing warrants a laugh. However, I also have the feeling that her overzealous laughter is because she wants to show her boyfriend that she's having a good time watching this movie with him, while the fact is that she couldn't care less about it. Oh, the things people do for love. And apart from her, the other members of the audience laugh at different times, so throughout the movie, there's constant laughter, and its hard to concentrate on what they're saying in the movie over the laughs. So, I'll definitely need to watch this movie again, alone.

Pink Panther Surprisingly Good

I saw the first few minutes of Pink Panther on a HBO or Star Movies, I can't remeber which channel, but I was surprised that I enjoyed the portion of the movie that I watched. I didn't finish watching it on tv, so I downloaded it, and watched it, and liked it.

I don't usually find these kinds of goofy physical comedies, like Naked Gun, National Lampoon etc. that funny as I mainly watch them for the sometimes-funny parodies that they have. But Pink Panther is not a parody movie.

When it was first shown in the theaters, I wasn't even remotely interested in it, and the trailers and promos that they showed didn't help either. They marketed it as a physical comedy for kids with Beyonce thrown in to bring in the cool factor. I am not one of their target audience.

Sure the movie has some physical gags and fart jokes and genitalia jokes and stuff, but there is something different to it that makes it funnier than usual. And that something different is Steve Martin. The single most outstanding thing that made me enjoy this movie was Steve Martin's silly French accent. From that French accent alone, numerous hysterical jokes is derived. He portrays Inspector Jacques Clouseau excellently. I'm not saying his accent is good, I'm saying it's funny. And he's the only one form the cast that maintains a French accent throughout the movie, apart from Jean Reno of course. The other casts slip in and out of their accents.

Maybe it's just me having a French accent fetish, but this is one of the better comedies I have watched. Almost everybody else hates it, but like it. IMDB gave it a 5/10, and Rotten Tomatoes gave it 24%. If I have to rate it, I'd give it a 7/10.

I've compiled some of the funny moments from the movie to give you a taste of my sense of humor:

Innocent Voices - Good Movie

Innocent Voices

Smack in-your-face reality of the civil war in El Salvador. Though the acting wasn't that good, everything else was perfect, and more than made up for the poor acting. I found it really easy to immerse myself into the story. I think it has to do with setting. The school uniforms, the shanty houses in the village, the mango trees, the communal and family relationships portrayed are all very similar to that of what you will find here in Malaysia. Really good stuff.

Potter and Messi

Just watched the new Harry Potter movie, and I think it's a solid continuation of the last one. It's more focused this time around. Right off the bat, it's about Voldermort, with the lighter macigky stuff being put as a side story. And some cool new characters were introduced too, like Nymphadora Tonks played by the newcomer Natalia Tena, who is hot, by the way (why else would I mention her out of the all other new characters). And like most movies, the fight scene at the end of the movie was awesome. It looks as if they put most their special effects money on that fight scene, because there are some parts of the movie where the special effects looked cheap, but still better than the effects from the first movie. Harry Potter movies ain't all about special effects, the movie is mainly for kids, but there's enough depth to the story that adults can actually enjoy it without the need to turn off their brains.

Messi's goal
Uploaded by charlatecnica

Apart from the movie itself, another awesome thing that I saw today was Loinel Messi's goal against Mexico today. After watching that goal I had to clean the walls because it blew my brains out. The moment he chipped that ball, my brain went, "no way... No Way", then it happened, the ball went in, and my brain exploded. Argentina meet Brazil in the finals, my bet is on Argentina.

Die Hard 4.0 Is Way, Waay, Waaay Better Than Transformers

I watched the 2 movies back-to-back over the weekend, and Die Hard was beyond expectations, Transformers was a disappointment.

McClane's 'Da Man!

At first I thought the PG13 rating was really going to hamper the "McClane"ness of the movie, but I was wrong, and this is one of the rare times where I'm wrong is a good thing. The movie really kicked ass. Its in-your-face action really worked. The tradition that McClane is one bad ass cop that's not invincible but can kick ass when it matters was done really well. And the action wasn't mindless too, it had a purpose. They didn't blow things up just for the sake of blowing things up, it contributed to the story and character development.

The hacker taking over the U.S. plot really looked believable, and they didn't dumb down the computer/hacker thingy like Transformers and so many other movies did. Overall, the best action movie in a very long time. I would happy if there was a sequel if it's going to be this good.

You know why the Autobots' logo is a sad face? It's because this movie sucked.

Then there's Transformers. They claim that there's more than meets the eye, but I say there's not much you can see with your eyes in this movie.

The way they designed the robots, coupled with their choice of camera work (which is usually shaky and quick close shots), it's hard to make out what the robots are doing most of the time. They design these robots to look kind of organic machines with small mechanical parts joined together. That made it hard to make out the the robot's features because everything looked like it was camouflaged. Even when they're not moving if hard to make out where's the head, which limb is the leg, and which is the hand.

Plus, they littered the movie with stupid, Stupid, STUPID jokes that just killed the mood. They made this a fluffy movie. They didn't show any respect. It would've been a lot better if this movie was more serious without all the stupid jokes.

Now I hate Michael Bay. He destroyed what could've been an awesome movie. Transformers got to a bad start, and it's sad that the sequel (I'm sure there'll be one) will as bad or worse. They need to remake it to make good, but that's not going to happen.

I really, Really, REALLY hope they don't mess up the ThunderCats movie.

Season Finales Roundup

I managed to catch up on my tv watching this weekend. Tis time of the year when the good shows have their season finales. I'll start off with Scrubs.

For scrubs, the season finale is a 1 hour episode, and actually the funniest episode all season. They try to add some serious drama element into this episode for the cliffhanger ending, but it didn't matter. I don't watch Scrubs for the drama, I watch it for the gags, and this episode in particular was chockablock full of 'em. And they were even funny too, unlike some of the ones in other episodes of the season.


JD has is getting child, and Elliot is getting married. At this important turning point in their lives, they look for each other for comfort. Yadyadya.. who cares, the important thing is its a very funny episode. If you're looking for a "dramatic" episode, the one where Laverne dies has more impact than this one.

The next one is 24. I've got to say right off the bat, the stupidest ending ever. Oooh.. Jack's all shaken up. Yeah, yeah yeah... whatever. It's like, you've seen one season, you've seen them all. They seriously need to reinvent the show. If they don't show any significant change in the first 2 episodes of next season, I'll stop watching. It's not even worth it. And, the theme of the season finale seems to be: Jack Bauer is always right, everybody else is wrong.

Jack Bauer survives to live another day.

The problem is that each season, they try to make a shocker episode to bring in ratings, and the shocker is always: somebody's gonna die. Everybody dies except Jack. The only character you're allowed to get attached to is Jack. So, if you don't like Jack very much, there's no reason to watch this show. Plus, this season, Jack is extra emo. I don't want to see Jack get all emo. I mean, the girl can walk already, thanks to Linderman. Just move on.

And speaking of Linderman, the next season finale I watched was Heroes. That was the greatest segue ever. I must say, it was great. I was expecting more of an all-out heroes brawl in the middle of New York, but what they did was okay too. They tied loose ends but they created new ones too for next season. I honestly expected more from the season finale. It felt as if they rushed things too much, there was not enough buildup. It would've been a lot better if they made a double episode season finale.

Peter goes BOOM!

Plus, a few things didn't add up in the story. I mean, why couldn't Sylar stop Hiro. Hiro was running towards him, but he didn't do anything. And how come Parkman didn't die immediately when he was "shot" by so many bullets.

Yattaa!

However, it was great, but I expected more. And one more thing, they need to improve the dialogue in the show. Those kinds of dialogues are okay in comic books, but if you put it in live action, it just sounds cheesy.

And I'm saving the best for last, it's Lost's season finale. First off, if there was a Pulitzer for tv writing, the writers of Lost should get it. Lost has consistently been good throughout. Even during season 2 when people start saying that it's going nowhere, I personally felt it was going somewhere, and somewhere great for that matter.

Going somewhere?

And this season proved it. Throughout this season, they've been revealing more and more, and the best one they've saved for last. The previous season's ending (season2), they finally revealed that there was actually an outside world looking for the island, in the form of Penny. For me, that was one of the greatest moments in tv history. I've never felt more satisfied with a tv episode than that moment. This season's finale didn't actually change that. I still feel that the season 2's finale was still better than this one's. But in terms of overall season enjoyment, this season is the best one yet.

Penny makes an appearance, just like season 2's finale.

They did Charlie justice by killing him in a very meaningful and respectful way. One the best main character deaths on tv. But I'm not sure if he's really dead. I mean he (Dominic Monaghan) is getting married to Evangeline Lilly, so he'll still be around the set in Hawaii. It'll be a waste not to bring him back in some way for next season.

Goodbye Charlie.

Another reason why this season has been great - Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is hotter than ever this season. And the amount of skin she has shown throughout this season really contributes to this season's enjoyability.

Somebody's jealous.

Oh, that's why.

And for the first time ever, and the biggest shocker of all, the flashbacks in the 2 final episodes weren't really flashbacks. We find out that it is actually the future after they've been rescued. And future Jack has regrets about being rescued. Is this good tv or what!

Future Jack with future Kate.

But one minor detail that bugged me right from the start of the episode was how terrible was future Jack's fake mustache is. The makeup guy/girl should get fired for this shoddy job. The beard was fine but the mustache really looked fake. And future Kate looks as if she had a facelift with too much lift.

Bad fake mustache.

Overall Heroes and Lost made this a good year of tv watching. Battlestar Galactica was a disappointment, but I hope the next season is the final one. 24 was a disappointment too, but who cares. Lost more than made up for the disappointments. And all the talk about the next 2 seasons of Lost will only have 16 episodes was really disheartening, but you can be rest assured that all 16 will be great. I hope they make some of the 16 episodes a 2 hour one.