Watching this little preview prepared me for the movie, I’ll just go watch the robots kicks some ass. The guy is right about Michael Bay though. But isn’t Michael Bay films about the effects and the fast action?

Transformers (2007) Movie Preview Review

Posted Jun 13, 2007

A mega in-depth review of the new live action transformers movie.

Holy Fucking Shit That Looks Awesome!

Well, I’ll tell you more next week.

Related posts:

1. Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
2. vista//preview
3. flock//preview

Ouran High School Host Club is about the gathering of a bunch of super rich kids studying in Ouran High School which is an exclusive school for wealthy families. The main characters are from prestigious families, think along the lines of F4 just that they don’t really hang out, act cool and be gay enough to all like one same girl. In Ouran High School Host Club (hereafter refered to just ‘Ouran’), the super rich kids are hosts for women. They entertain their fantasies of perfect romance. There is no ero-ero in it. The host club was doing great until someone came in and knock over their 1 million yen vase.

No, Ouran is not about the vase; Ouran is about the person who broke the vase – Fujioka Haruhi. The vase smashed onto the ground and Haruhi has to work to pay of the debt. Haruhi, a commoner, begins serving women.

The twist? Haruhi is not a guy. She just has short hair. Her petite looks and beautiful skin is an attraction to many school girls. She dresses up as a man and the Host Club gang taught her how to be a host. And Haruhi, who enjoys instant coffee and street shopping, help the Host Club guys learn more about themselves.

Ouran has 26 episodes, not awfully long. The pace is just right and it’s quite enjoyable to watch. Ouran gets 4 stars out of 5 for having a dynamic set of characters, good story and pace. Minus half for the fact that the girl-mistook-as-guy thing – well, it’s done over and over again. Minus another half for the Host Club guys being too rich.

You can find more screencaps in BasuGasuBakuhatsu Anime Blog, I gotten the above screenshot there too.

Related posts:

1. Why I did not join a uniform group in secondary school
2. Review: Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)
3. Review: Midori no Hibi

I ran for 200 metres and stopped. Jon plugged in the iPod to the Mac and iTunes is launched. It automatically uploads the running data from your iPod to your computer and up to the internet. Yup, it goes to the internet where you can share your runs with other Nike+ users.

(Click to enlarge.)

Now here comes the fun part, you get to monitor your runs. It connect to the Nike+ servers using your iPod receiver as your unique identifier. That would unfortunately mean that losing your receiver mean bye bye statistics. Here are some screenshots of the Nike+ interface, it’s something runners would find useful. It tells you the distance, the time, the pace and the calories burn out of your run. It’s the feature I love most! It charts your progress.

(Click to enlarge.)

See how you perform in each run. It tells you where you use your PowerSong. It’s always fun to return home after a run and plug in your iPod to your computer to check out the statistics.

With such comprehensive statistics for the runner, running will never be the same again. The whole interface is well thought and easy to navigate around. If you have Yahoo! Widgets you can download a widget to your desktop. It is compatible to Windows (including Windows Vista) and Mac OS. It monitors your goals and you can even challenge friends to runs!

(Click to enlarge.)

I am not really a runner but many people already are, about a thousand odd people are using Nike+ and they upload their route online to share. You can scroll to Jurong East and see what routes people are running. It’s a simple idea but it’s ingenius. When you get bored with your own running tracks, you can try nearby locations. You can plot your own track too and it will measure the distance as you plot. Really cool stuff.

Nike+ Apparel

(Click to enlarge.)

I previously mentioned the problem of iPod ear phone wires jumping around when you run. It wouldn’t happen if you have one of those tops above. Nike+ apparel holds your ipod Nano in a snug fitting, water resistant pocket right in your shirt or shorts. In addition Nike+ apparel comes with a wire management system that lets you loop your earphone wires through a network of holes to hold the wires in place. This prevents irritation and more importantly abrasion. Men and women designs are available. You can enlarge to view a larger screenshot.

Conclusion

Overall the Nike+ online experience is just awesome. I absolutely love the social aspect of the tool, you get to interact with friends and look at their runs too. It’s most rewarding perhaps to monitor your own statistics knowing how much better you are running today, as compared to say – two months ago. Nike+ is definately a must get for iPod Nano owners who loves their runs, it makes a great gift for a friend too!

I get into the Nike store without knowing much about this product and my experience has been a positive one. It’s fun knowing and blogging about it too, I thank Jon for the opportunity.

Find out more information at Nike+.

Related posts:

1. Review: Nike+ Part 1
2. Nike+ DJ Challenge Daniel Ong vs Carrie Chong
3. ipod//nano

Last Saturday, Jon gave an opportunity to try out one of Nike’s new product – Nike+.

In case you haven’t heard, Nike teamed up with the great guys from Apple to build a device that can monitor runner’s pace and distance through Apple iPod and a sensor.

(From left to right: Nike+ shoes Moires, Apple iPod, Nike+ Sport Kit and Nike+ Armband.)

You’ll need the following:

• Apple iPod Nano – The most common digital music player of today!
• Nike+ Shoes – Nike rolled out a whole line of shoes designed by Bill Bowerman (co-founder of Nike) that supports the Nike+ device.
• Nike+ Sport Kit – Comes with the sensor and receiver, to be attached to shoes and iPod respectively.
• Nike+ accessories or apparel – The armband secures the iPod to your body. Nike+ tops are also available, I’ll show you more later.

These Nike+ enabled shoes includes a special compartment that’s located within the sole of the shoes that allows you to slot in the sensor. You can remove the insole of a Nike+ enabled shoe to insert the sensor. It rests under your feet, measuring your acceleration as you move your left foot during a run.

Jon picked a pair of Nike+ Triax X for me to try, it looks a little like the main shoes in the picture below. I’ve got slight flat foot and Triax X is designed to give better stability. Walking around felt comfortable and light and I instantly for in love with the pair of shoes. For years, I’ve ignored my foot condition and go those normal foot shoes! Oh, Nike hasn’t forsaken the female jogging lovers too; Nike has shoes that you’ll love.

(Main feature: Men’s Air Structure Triax+ 10. Bottom, from left to right: Women’s Air Structure Triax+ 10, Women’s Air Zoom Vomero+ 2, Women’s Air Span+ 4 and Women’s Air Zoom Moire+.)

The left shoe insole is removed to reveal a tiny compartment to fit the Nike+ Sensor. The iPod Nano is then plugged in with a receiver. I wore the Triax again and it didn’t feel heavier on the left, the sensor weighs around 10 grammes only! The iPod Nano knows what to do once you plug it in and the Nike+ menu is revealed. Here a Basic Workout is selected:

The iPod provides information all runners will love to have, your pace and your distance traveled! I tried moving my feet around, stepping around without really moving. Seem like the sensor’s actually smart enough to detect I’m just cheating around. The sensor is an accelerometer and not a pedometer so it does not measure the number of steps you run and convert it. Instead, it calculates your speed (miles or km per minute) & distance based on the interval between each footstrike. You may have to calibrate it a little to increase the accuracy.

(Nike+ Armband Monty.)

After explanation of the technology involved, I got on a treadmill to test out. It’s been half a month since I last ran and running in front of restaurants makes me hungry. I didn’t have an armband and running with the iPod wires didn’t feel enjoyable. Once I press the center button, the iPod narrates out my pace and distance traveled. I don’t even have to look at the screen! The voice didn’t sound like a crazy female robot too by the way.

I watch the numbers increase magically on the iPod. It tells you almost everything you want to know, playing your favorite tunes. Music keeps me going in a run. It’s just like in the army here they force you to sing crazy shit as you run, now you can listen to whatever you want! What’s really cool is when you’re feeling a little tired, you can hold on to the center button and iPod will launch your PowerSong! PowerSong is a special song that you preset to come on when you’re in need of some encouragement! The one at Wheelock Place just Justin Timberlake’s Rock Your Body as the PowerSong.

My Nike+ running experience is great. It’s fun and iPod’s interface is easy to use. The narating is a great feature. Nike+ doesn’t take your heart beat and it is quite expensive to start your run:

• A pair of Nike+ shoes is about SG$150
• An iPod Nano goes from SG$248 (2GB) to SG$428 (8GB)
• Nike+ Sport Kit cost SG$50

They all add up to SG$448++ if you don’t have any of the items. If you already have an iPod Nano, you can get a pair of Nike+ shoes once your shoes wears out. Because the real fun part is behind – monitoring your statistics.

Related posts:

1. Review: Nike+ Part 2
2. Nike+ DJ Challenge Daniel Ong vs Carrie Chong
3. ipod//nano

What is new?

In the new version, your reports have been redesigned for clarity, greater visibility of important metrics, and ease of use. Here are just a few of the features you’ll notice:

• Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.
• Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.
• Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.
• Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.

The new interface has everything the previous interface had and more. In addition, links within reports make it easier to navigate related information and explore your data. (The above is from an email that Google sent me.)

Anyway, let’s take a visual tour of the new interface.

The interface undergoes a tremendous update, first of all. It looks much cleaner, much sleeker and feels faster. I’ll share with you some site statistics meanwhile.

From the above chart, you can see where my visitors are coming from. Not many people come from Asia and the reason is that most people come to this blog for images. I mean, they even took image of my brother’s birthday cake and post it on blogs to wish their friends happy birthday, wish they at least link back sometimes. I don’t block hot linking but I discourage hot-linking by placing a watermark on all my images.

Setting date ranges are a lot easier now. And the charts look so pretty!

These are my top 10 referrers excluding Google, it shows me where most people come from asides Google images.

What’s really surprising is that more people use Firefox than Internet Explorer to view my blog. I thought it would be the other way round. Personally, I use Opera and it amounts to only 3.3% of the visitors, of which 2.8% is probably just me. I love the pie chart view

And everyone’s favorite search engine is the number one source of my blog.

Google Analytics is the best site analytical tool that’s free. It’s looking better and easier to use now. I also use AWStats to view my statistics but Google is able to look at my blog statistics a lot better. AWStats just show the combined statistics of every things on my website, including this blog. What made me go back to AWStats is the bandwidth tools, it can analyze how much MBs are consumed per day. And I can tell you that AWStats report browser statistics different, AWStats thinks Internet Explorer is number one. I’m not sure who is right though.

With all the cool tools for site analyzation, Google Analytics is the best free product around, I give it a 4.5 upon 5. I couldn’t give full marks it keeps popping up with random errors when I go around testing it.

Related posts:

1. may//statistics
2. google//notebook
3. google//rank

The above is the all-famous Digg.com.

Here is the similar Mallr.com.

Mallr.com has a similar interface to Digg.com, just uglier. The developer has to work on the colors (just like I have to work on my blog’s colors) and resolve some bugs. If you try to vote with Mallr, Mallr throws you an error while Digg actually gives you the field to log in.

Mallr has a tiny community and viewership is crucial to the success of these social bookmarking websites. And they need a bunch of people who love to bookmark. It needs to position itself different from Digg to be successful or it would be just the Mallr of nobody-knows-where. Perhaps promoting tagging in the website may help.

The ability to blog from Digg is great too, although I always edit my post after I blog from Digg to add the categories and pictures and stuff. Mallr could have something similar.

The great thing about Mallr is that it is quite regionalized (or perhaps localized). I see local (Singapore) websites and news more which is a good place for Singaporeans to gather. The problem with Digg is that it’s just too American and I wish there were more news about Asian regions too. I will definately keep Mallr under my radar for a while.

The sign-up process is easy, the profile update is quite user-friendly but not as friendly as Digg. There’s a lot of work to do and it’s sinful to copy too much from Digg. It might be successful in the future. I haven’t got a chance to find out more about Mallr. Do comment here if you have more information about Mallr.

Related posts:

1. Interview: Derek talks about Mallr and more
2. Which host can survive the Digg effect?
3. Where are the Singapore websites?

As usual, we’ll let the pictures do the story-telling.

Nacho is raised in a Mexican monastery orphanage and he is quite fat.

Loving God and the children, Nacho works in the orphanage to cook food for the kids.

He likes wrestling and decided to give it a go at Lucha Libre – a wrestling tourament – to earn some money.

Sister Encarnacion looks pretty here. Nacho seems interested.

Well, unfortunately not all his co-workers think highly of wrestling as it is considered sinful. Would Nacho be able to convinced them and make the kids at the orphanage happy again? Likely.

Anyway, I like Nacho Libre, it’s fun to watch, I haven’t gotten sick of that loser-to-hero formula. The plot is straight forward, predictable and at many times nonsensical. Sister Encarnacion (played by Ana de la Reguera) is perhaps the most beautiful nun that you’d ever see. Nacho Libre deserves 3.5 upon 5 for all of the above.

[Just a month to ORD! Finally leaving the crazy place.]

Related posts:

1. Review: School of Rock
2. Review: Night at the Museum (2006)
3. Review: Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)

What made Spider-Man 3 different from its predesesors is that this time they have 2 instead of just one enemy. It makes things a lot of interesting. The whole romance between Mary-Jane and Peter Parker reaches a new low, I am starting to get sick of their romance honestly. In the middle of the movie, I secretly wished Peter Parker is gay or something and just get one with the bloody plot.

_(Venom in Spider-Man 3.)_

Spider-Man 3 has fast-paced actions and a rather slow movie plot. Either that or I was unable to savor the beautiful plot slowly. I love the graphics and sound, but the movie moves too slow for me. I’ll give it a 3.5/5.

Oh by the way, Spider-Man 3 broke all time weekend gross record at $148 million.

read more | digg story

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And they brought all the donuts home and I tried a few. They’re nice but then… Well, I guess I’m not too into donuts. I don’t find them particularly special. (Yes, I followed the instruction to microwave them for 8 seconds.)

Oh no, the donuts are half eaten before I can take a picture of them! The others seemed to appreciate the donuts. (Oh man, I think I microwave 10 seconds, I knew it – must be the 2 second difference!)

The donuts are good, but not worth queueing for 5 hours. The longer people queue, the more they would buy to increase the ‘worth’ of their purchase. Maybe one day, I would too open a donut shop. Any name suggestions? I was thinking of something original like iDonut, Donut King (just afraid of the Donkey Kong association), McDonut and Donut 360. Other suggestions welcomed too.

Okay – 4/5 happy? I would queue for it still though. Haha!

[By the way, something unfortunate happened. One of the boxes got invaded by this donut-loving lizard. My mum threw away the box, much to my brother's dismay.]

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2. Coca-Cola Happiness Factory
3. Review: Alien Versus Predator

Taiwanese drama Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu (花样少年少女) is based on Hisaya Nakajo’s Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (花ざかりの君たちへ イケメン♂パラダイス, For You in Full Blossoms or Hana-kimi). I picked it up after I see the box lying around. And once I start watching it, I just couldn’t really stop. I took me about 16 hours to finish the whole series. Well, the story goes this way.

Lu Rui Xi 盧瑞希 (Ella Chen) lives in America and falls in love with high jumper Zuo Yi Quan 左以泉 (Wu Zun) she saw on television in a news segment. Determined to meet the man in the television, Rui Xi went on a strict diet regime and flew all the way to Taiwan and enrol herself in the same school as Yi Quan (AKA Quan).

It is an all-male school. Yeah, she blended in by disguising herself as a boy.

Rui Xi met the slightly off-frequency and comical Jin Xiu Yi 金秀伊 (Jiro Wang) who eventually got fiercely attracted to Rui Xi and starts to doubt his sexuality.

Of course, Rui Xi falls in love with Quan.

Rui Xi’s brother (Lin Jun Jie) came to visit her in Taiwan without knowing her sister enrols herself in a boys school. Would she be able to continue the clearly forbidden relationship?

Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu (HYSNSN) is one of the teenage idol drama churn out by Taiwanese media companies to bank on or increase popularity of the cast. It’s not the first time I watch these idol drama (’cause it’s actually my second time), it’s got the usual romance, comedy, ridiculous plot and manga origins. What that makes Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu stand out is the comic relief provided by Ella Chen, Jiro Wang and the wacky classmates. The overly-exaggerated acting is quite hairstanding at first, but things got better after watching about 5 episodes.

The pace of the drama is just right although I felt that the ending is slightly rushed with unaddressed issues after watching the whole series. I rate HYSNSN 4 out of 5. I quite enjoyed it but thought Wu Zun’s (吴尊 Wu Chun or Wu Zun is born in Brunei) acting has room for improvement.

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1. Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu pictures
2. What am I doing these days
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Her dysfunctional family includes her mother who’s often stressed up, her father who’s a failed motivational speaker, her gay uncle Frank, her silent brother Dwayne and her heroin-addict grandfather.

Her family travels to California to participate in the beauty pageant.

Unfortunately, their vehicle broke down and they all had to get down to push it.

There are down moments during the trip. The family stood by each other making it an enjoyable and touching film to watch.

Little Miss Sunshine has a simple and beautiful plot, good dialouges and acting. The film also won 2 Academy Awards – Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. I think it deserves 4 out of 5 stars. It’s certainly a nice break from watching action films.

[Another milestone - //beconfused just hit the 1,200 posts mark. Very nice.]

Related posts:

1. Review: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
2. Review: Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)
3. Review: The Prestige (2006)

But when WordPress 2.1 is officially released, I upgraded it within an hour. There are some admin interface upgrades, it now has a more Ajaxy interface and seems to load faster than before.

What that makes me really happy is how easy uploading images actually gotten. I organized my images files in /images/2007/01/image.jpg manually in the past. I upload it with an FTP client (Filezilla) and link it manually. The builtin image uploading tool makes blogging so much more enjoyable for me.

The Users page is updated too, it is currently still a little buggy but I can live with it. I can add users easily. It’s very useful for a multiuser web site. The other feature that I really like is how links can now be assigned categories. Categories are not just for posts now.

Version 2.1 also introduce privacy options which would be helpful for people who don’t wish their friends find their blog. It tells the search engine not to index. I don’t really use that feature but it’s still worth a mention.

My only wish is that tags can be supported in WordPress together with categories. Most of my plugins still work in WordPress 2.1.

I don’t face any problems after the upgrade. But I did do my usual back ups before attempting to upgrade, you should too. Now, WordPress 2.1 is powering this blog nicely.

Blog Stats

There are currently 1,137 post and 4,194 comments, contained within 266 categories. Akismet has protected your site from 54,493 spam comments.

Still running well with more than a thousand posts in the database.

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1. Wordpress 2.1 released, upgrading //beconfused now
2. Upgrade to WordPress 2.1.2
3. WordPress 2.7.1 released!

_(Poster for Pan’s Labyrinth.)_

Pan’s Labyrinth is the work of Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. Set after the Spanish civil war in 1944, it’s an adult fairy tale of a girl who kinda lives in her own imaginative world. She believes in fairies and a faun tells her that she is a princess and she has to complete several tasks before she can become one. Her fantasy world and the reality contrasted a lot.

It’s a beautiful film but perhaps a little overhyped due to their Golden Palm win at Cannes which received a 22 minutes applause. I mean I never even clapped for more than a minute; my hands would be so tired clapping for twenty two. It’s nominated for a Golden Globe.

I rate it 4/5. It’s good and has this artsy feeling. And there is a lot of debate going on after the film. I keep thinking about the film and trying to link things up after watching the film. I think I’ll have to watch the film a couple of times more to further understand the plot.

That’s about all I can tell you though without revealing spoilers.

Related posts:

1. Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
2. Review: Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)
3. Review: The Prestige (2006)

In the end, it is best to just stay home and do some work. I’ve been helping out with some web design thing and I just completed it. It was quite tiring for me editing Blogger layouts all of a sudden. I had a lot of things to learn and it’s just so confusing designing a theme around their widgets and stuff.

Blogger’s widgets are a great improvement, I love the new labels thingy that they provided too. Labels are basically like tags and Blogger done them right. You just have the type a few letters of the tag and you’ll see a Javascript hint at the bottom for a tag that you have already. My problem with WordPress is I accidentally created new categories like ‘Photo’ when I already have a category called ‘Photograph’ – that sort of thing. So Blogger’s labels are really neat as you won’t be making such silly mistakes. My only complaint about tags is that it lacks a method to manage your tags, you can’t really change your tag names all at a go. There are still quite a lot of limitations.

Widgets certainly gives the blog owner more power to change the theme and you can add your favorite lists and even customized HTML and Javascript easily. I love how they implemented it. Blogger has limited widgets currently. And designing for widgets is quite a horror initially. It isn’t very flexible for the theme designer.

Perhaps I’ll have an easier time in the next Blogger layout. But meanwhile, let me just take a break and rest for a couple of days. My gums are kinda bothering me. It felt uncomfortable with the stitches.

And for those Blogger users who has yet to upgrade to the new out-of-beta Blogger – it’s worth doing so for the widgets and labels. Theme design is harder, you’ll need decent knowledge of CSS if you want to manipulate the looks of widgets especially.

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2. Upgrade to WordPress 2.1.3 – it’s so tiring
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(Poster for The Host or Gwoemul.)

So I sat through the 2-hour movie wishing it was just an hour. The Host attempts to incorporate several genres. It has action, comedy, science fiction, thriller and possibly more. The actors are quite good, but I am not really comfortable with their facial expressions sometimes, they seem too exaggerated in a couple of scenes.

The plot is almost terrible. The Host is based on an actual event, I shall quote directly from IMDB.

Did you know?

The event described in the beginning of Gwoemul is based on an actual event. In February 2000 in a US military facility located in the center of Seoul, US military civilian employee Mr. McFarland ordered to dispose formaldehyde into the sewer system leading to Han River despite the objection of a Korean subordinate. Korean government attempted to prosecute Mr. McFarland in Korean court but US military refused to hand over the custody of Mr. McFarland to the Korean legal system. Later, a Korean judge convicted Mr. McFarland in absentia. Public enraged at the Korean government’s inability to enforce its law on its own soil. In 2005, nearly five years after the original incident, Mr. McFarland was finally found guilty in Korean court in his presence. He never served the actual prison sentence, however. No sighting of mutant creature has been reported in Han River, yet.

Source: IMDB

The chemicals caused a mutant and led to this gigantic mudskipper-kinda creature. It’s huge and it grabs the main character’s daughter. Believing that his daughter is still alive, the family went to look for her in hopes of saving her.

What is commendable is the computer graphics. It is one of the better ones in an Asian film and it actually didn’t look that fake. It is overhyped, and I have to admit that I’m disappointed. For bad plot and surprising graphical achievements, I rate the movie 3 out of 5 stars.

Related posts:

1. Review: Ouran High School Host Club (2006)
2. Review: Night at the Museum (2006)
3. Review: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Taxi 2 isn’t the newest of movies certainly, it’s filmed in year 2000 on the streets of Paris. It is in French and we watched it with English subtitles. The movie started off with Daniel (performed by Samy Naceri) driving his taxi for a lady who is giving birth. He arrived in the hospital just in time but was late for his meeting with his girlfriend’s parents.

(Taxi 2 poster.)

A series of events then led him to be involved in saving the Japanese ambassador from the Japanese Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia equivalent). It’s a good script with ridiculous plot but we certainly don’t mind. We laugh the whole time. There wasn’t a moment of dullness in the installation we did.

My only complaint is that the movie somehow ended abruptly. There wasn’t a proper conclusion.

The movie deserves 3.5 out of 5. It was funny but plot could have improved.

Related posts:

1. Review: Spider-Man 3
2. taxi//talks
3. crazy//taxi

Night at the Museum depicts a father (played by Ben Stiller) who works in the museum as a night shift security guard. He soon realized that he’s job is, well, challenging. The exhibits come to live at night.

(Poster for Night at the Museum.)

It’s an amazingly simple plot yet so fun-filled. It’s like watching sitting through a roller coaster ride – just sit back and enjoy. It’s not a smart movie and you get to see Ben Stiller doing not so smart things. Still, I had a good laugh while watching. Look out for the dinosaur bone, Attila the Hun and the Easter Island creature.

Night at the Museum deserves 3.5 stars out of 5 for laughter and creative side plots.

Related posts:

1. Review: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
2. Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
3. Review: Gwoemul [The Host] (2006)

And this secondary school kid just walked in front of me, “you want free tickets?”

“Huh?”

“We can’t watch the film because it’s M-18.”

“Oh okay,” I was confused for a while. He hands out two of his five tickets and thanked me. “Thank you so much,” I said to them as I was handed the tickets. “Wow, that’s really nice of you.”

I looked at the tickets and they were complementary tickets to the film:

(Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny)

I know seen the poster of Tenacious D before but had no idea what it’s about. I do know Jack Black from School of Rock though. Anyway my cousin and I watched Tenacious D without any idea what it’s about…

And realize that it is about rock music. It starts off with a blast, we really enjoyed the humor at the beginning but things went down slowly. It seems to be about two losers trying to win an open mic contest. Their journey is interrupted by the satanic Pick of Destiny which is this guitar pick made of the devil’s tooth. It supposed to let you play great music.

I don’t quite get the humor of the film later on and probably enjoyed the Ben Stiller and Meat Loaf cameo more than watching the long and nonsensical history of Tenacious D. The music is nice but it almost seemed like it is forcefully fit into the movie. It’s as if they had to create one whole scene just for the song. Sorry, in short, the film is not good. For the great cameos, okay humor and its vulgarities, the film gets 2.5 out of a maximum of 5 stars.

Sorry, I just don’t get it. Not a movie that I would have paid for. Not that I did of course.

Related posts:

1. Review: School of Rock
2. Review: Swing Girls
3. Review: Alien Versus Predator

(The Prestige 128 x 128.)

The Prestige is about 2 rival magicians (performed by Hugh Jackman and Christopher Bale), when one manages to perform an amazing trick, the other struggles to find the secrets as to how the trick is done. The struggle to find out secrets are costly and that is pretty much all I can tell you without review much of the suspense.

Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called “The Pledge”; The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”; The magician makes his ordinary some thing do something extraordinary. Now if you’re looking for the secret… you won’t find it, that’s why there’s a third act called, “The Prestige”; this is the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, and you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.

I like the way the story plot jumps around to reveal itself. The Prestige is, to a certain extend, made to reveal itself in the form of the magic trick. I kinda felt it follows the Pledge-Turn-Prestige path which makes the show rather interesting. It’s great to discuss about it after your movie with your friends too.

And look! I even make a The Prestige Live Messenger display picture. I really enjoyed the film and it deserves 5 stars out of a total 5 for being such an excellent movie. It’s probably not in the theatres already since I forgot to release this post. Get the DVD soon perhaps?

On a side note, take a look at Windows Live Messenger:

(Look you can create so many types of display pictures, so confusing.)

Okay… So you can make a lot of different display pictures, but this is just too much right? All the Kiwee, Meegos and Quebles… I have no idea what they are at all. And you can click on the tile on top or the link below. Aren’t they repeating information too much? It’s a waste of space and doesn’t look pleasing at all. Perhaps Microsoft can remove those links at the bottom. I’m using the Aussie Windows Live Messenger by the way.

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My only problem with this film is that sometimes I don’t get the show. References seem to be made to the previous film but I just can’t remember much of it to find it funny. I’m confused a quarter of the time. I don’t have that fantastic memory, my girlfriend still remember the name of this and that person. I only remember the characters as that Johnny Depp, that Orlando Bloom and that Keira Knightley. Oh Bill Nighy’s inside too by the way.

Pintel: You don’t even know how to read!
Ragetti: It’s the Bible, you get credit for trying!

From Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

The movie is unconclusive too by the way. You need to wait till 2007 to watch the sequel and conclusion. They left this really big cliffhanger and I finish watching the film wondering, “er… it’s done?” I was kinda hoping they come to, at least, a semi-conclusion. But there was none. So basically Gore Verbinski (the director) is there thinking, “hey we can earn twice as much if we split the movie into two!” If this continue on, we’ll just have lots of blockbusters doing that and soon the entire series of Desperate Housewives would be in the cinemas.

I rate the movie 4 upon 5 stars. I watched the digital version at The Grand Cathay, The Cathay. It’s pretty good there, a smaller theatre may just have better sounds. I didn’t hear people crunching popcorn this time. Good theatrics there. I advise you to rent Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl from your local DVD rental store and watch it first. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it much more.

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