X People 3

Hmm, oklah, they haven't stooped so low as to make the title politically correct. Heck, even in the film the government has a Department of Mutant Affairs as opposed to the Department of Genetically Different, Diverse, Enhanced, Differently Able-ed People's affairs.

Anyways....

I enjoyed the film. Alot

Got action, adventure, a bit of suspense, a bit of weak romance, drama, excellent effects. Entertaining and well paced.

Director Brett Radner was smart enough to go with what Bryan Singer had laid down in the past 2 movies and not try to leave his 'mark' on it. So it works well. No need to 'keh gau' here.

Famke Janssen is still a babe. Even if half the time, she's like scary Phoenix.

Don't want to give away the story, but......


Got people die lor.

Some sooner than others. Some have more spectacular deaths.

But since this is a comic based story. Death is never permanent.

Stupid line from movie. "They have plastic guns!"
Doh! After the first two movies, you think people stupid ah?

Moral from the movie:
Next time if your son grows wings, don't try to get rid of them. It may just save your life one day.

I'm off to KL tomorrow for a day. Work thing. bleh. :p

Over the hedge

I like this movie. Its funny, entertaining, doesn't drag and the Dreamworks has finally figured out what Pixar has know all along: The onscreen characters do not have to be personifications of the the actors doing the voices. For example, a ant does not have to look and act like Woody Allen, a Donkey does not have to be Eddie Murphy in the body of an ass, a zebra doesn't have to be as irritating as Chris Rock, a giraffe doesn't have to be as neurotic as Ross on Friends, Well, you get the idea.

The movie is also based on a comic strip of the same name. Check it out at:
http://www.comics.com/comics/hedge/index.html

What the..........

Someone commented that I haven't blogged in a while. I think I've gone longer with no entries, but here we go.
Warning! Meaner than usual post ahead:

I was in line at the ATM in a mall last week.
A tourist is trying to withdraw money. Unsuccessfully.
This mat rock type with requisite tight jeans, cap and metal t-shirt jumps in, tells the tourist to press cancel.
Bewildered tourist wanders off. Then Mr. 'I'm so helpful to tourists' cuts into the queue.
So 3 of us in line do what most other Malaysians would do. We just collectively glare at him. Which is so chicken, but I figure we don't need to introduce ATM rage to the current Road Rage. He ignores us, of course.
Mr, 'I'm too sexy for my t-shirt' proceeds to stick in his atm card, key in his pin, then presses withdraw and then keys in something in the 6 figures. Presses cancel, retrieves his card and then walks off.
I'm like, 'What the.......'
He cuts the queue to press some buttons?
Show off to his gf that he has an atm card?
Fantasise that he has money in his account?
He has no life?
Trying to impress his friends?
Can't afford to play video games?
Is a L O S E R?
Hmmm.

Alias the Movie

[Spoilers below.]










Actually it was Mission Impossible III. The absence of Jennifer Garner was a dead giveaway. I'll take Jenn over Tom anyday. Jenn's absence compensated by Maggie Q.:D
It looked, read and felt like an extended episode of Alias, which is not necessarily a bad thing I guess. Same plot points of: some device needing to be stolen, gadgets, disguises, random gun fights and chases, the threatend love one, the traitor within the ranks, the whole 'things are not what they seem' thing, the geeky looking evil bad guy. All essential ingredients in the average alias episode.
JJ Abrams does pretty well for his first big feature film. There are lots of on the edge of your seat moments, which don't always deliver though. The first half of the movie is very fast paced, almost chaotic with lots of camera movement and fast cuts.
Things actually slow down towards the climax of the movie. They gloss over the whole 'steal the rabbits foot' thing. A victim of budget overruns and threats from the studio boss to cancel the movie? Perhaps.
The explosions, chases, etc are front loaded into the movie with the final showdown taking place in a dentist's office. Some fistfight and some shots fired (and by the hero's wife, at that) I mean, the evil bad guy gets run over by a truck. That's it.
At the end, the Super secret organisation that's so secret that they will disavow you if you're caught, lets the hero's wife run around the super secret office. What's next? She joins the team? Hmm, sounds like...... Alias?
A watchable movie at the end of the day.
Now for XMen III, sans director Bryan Singer. Hmmmm.

The iPod is dead

Well, my ipod is dead anyway. Sigh... :( Out of warranty by 6 months some more.
On the upside, I bought the new Mercy Me CD.

Just move on.... Nothing to see here.

Well, the movie has hit 999 views this morning, now that bandwidth has been restored. I'm quite amazed, (hehe) at all this. I still need to convert and upload the new title. I think I'm going to try H.264 encoding and see how that looks.
Kit and Clive's debut edits where shown over the past couple of days. One had the DVD player playing about halfway when the switcher was switched, the other was let down by a fairly fuzzy PA along with less than good dialog recording on some bits. I figured out the problem. Just difficult to take care of everything on a day long shoot with a totally new crew where I have to show them everything. And I mean, everything.
Still got lots of projects to convert to DVD for distribution and need to train a new editor this week. Hmm, sunday's 5 days away....
Young adults had the ball last night. Good to see everyone all dressed up. Overall, I think the girls did a better job of dressing up than the guys.
Apparently, the mere act of me combing my hair results in a whole new look. The whole change tables to meet more people thing left some people looking lost and clueless. This isn't exactly the most sociable bunch. By the time people are halfway warmed up through the course, its time to move on again. There was no structure to the moving that I could tell, which resulted in some guys looking totally lost and trying to find a new table to sit in while trying to be not too obvious in wanting to sit next to a pretty girl.
In all, the evening wasn't too bad. I guess its what you decide to make of it I guess.
Note to self: dry clean suit and get cuff button replaced.