movie review of the month!

Coraline – 8.6
Simply the best stop-animation movie I’ve seen, and it probably has the most imaginatively creative visuals ever in an animation like this. There are plenty of stories about a child who goes to another fantasy world, but Coraline is something very different from the rest, because this movie had all the elements of a good movie right; fantastic animation, superb story, weird and mysterious vibe and above all, one very enjoyable adventure! Even if you don’t like animation, I really recommend this movie! The best movie in 2009 that I’ve watched so far.

Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance – 8.4
This is one pretty wild Korean movie, and it has no mercy on the fate of its crazy but surely memorable characters. The main character cannot speak, but his misery, sadness, loneliness and pain were wonderfully portrayed onto the screen with such brilliant acting performances. I will never forget this movie, as many scenes sent waves of shocking imagery of pain and sadness tattooed onto my brain. Truly a gem in film-making, and I totally recommend this to anyone who likes something different and original in their movie-viewing experience. Now you really HAVE to watch this, don’t you?

Nanking! Nanking! – 8.4
This Chinese movie about the Nanking Massacre is perhaps, the most shocking and painful to watch war movies that I have ever seen. The visuals portrayed in the movie were so strong that the audience would feel the pain and sadness stabbing into their hearts, leaving an uneasy after taste and a reminder of how evil we humans could be to each other. Although extremely heavy and suffocating to watch, the movie has a tight plot development and chock full of contents and stories that made me glued to the screen, not knowing what will happen next. This black-and-white movie has a strong anti-war message, and I totally recommend it to anyone strong enough to take such strong imagery.

A Moment To Remember – 8.5
Holy damn it, this movie managed to get me ALMOST teary-eyed. This Korean romantic tear jerker was pretty good; the hero was good looking, the heroin beautiful and the story-development very interesting as it sets all the elements needed to make you felt attached to the main characters, and then they start the conflicts and hardships rolling. A pretty basic formula for these types of movies, but the director did a fantastic job at it. I don’t watch romance that often, but I really enjoyed watching this one. Highly recommended!

Transformers Revenge of The Fallen – 7.0
Transformers 2 is here! And the story sucked, the humor/jokes felt forced and the acting worse and I left the cinema not really remembering anything spectacular. But who gives a shit about all of that, this movie got the transformers blowing shit up and destroying all sorts of things and that is way too cool! Megan Fox was hot too, and that’s pretty much why she was in the movie. The first Transformers movie was better overall, but if you like that, you’re sure going to enjoy this one. Anyways, to sum it up, this movie got robots that kick the shit out of each other, it got loads of gigantic explosions and Megan Fox wears hot-pants! No young male could say no to that! Micheal Bay has the creative imagination of an 13 years old kid.

Handsome Suit – 7.6
The plot of this Japanese romantic comedy is pretty simple: an ugly guy obtains a suit that magically made him unbelievably handsome! The heroin, Kitagawa Keiko, is ever prettier in this one! I can safely say that anyone could enjoy this light comedy, and if you don’t mind some silliness, why don’t give this movie a try? I enjoyed it!

Happy Flight – 7.5
This Japanese light comedy might have the simplest storyline and plot development ever, but if you take a closer look, you will notice all the details and hard work put to make the movie as close to the real thing as possible. Happy Flight is a movie about ANA’s crew; the flight attendant, the pilot, the tower watch control, ground crew and all the other people that made flying possible. The movie does not emphasize much on comedy, but there were some great comedy moments albeit small ones. Haruka Ayase was pretty cute in this one, and I confess, she is the real reason why I watch this to the end.

Speedy Scandal – 7.8
I enjoyed watching this Korean comedy very much! The casts were cute, the story was interesting and there were a lot of laughs to be had here, and some unexpected sappy moments too. This movie is well balanced with all the elements that made a decent, good movie. If lyou ove love Korean comedy, you’d probably enjoyed this too!

Knowing – 7.2
Yet another sci-fi cum disaster movie that evolves around mysteries of accurate predictions… and of course extra terrestrials! The story was light and easy to follow and I think the special effect was amazing, especially during the intense and dramatic disaster scenes; they really did a good job in making it look as real and as violent as it could be. Nothing special though.

The International – 7.3
An action thriller starring Clive Owen about an Interpol officer who tries to uncover the role of a famous bank in arms dealings, and how they deal with thoso who tries to expose them. The story was slow and convoluted at times, the acting was nothing memorable, the pacing is quite bad and the first half of the movie was pretty boring… but the second half was not so bad and did make out to be a decent thriller. It’s just not good enough.

The Homeless Student (ホームレス中学生) – 7.5
Based on the best selling Japanese novel about comedian Tamura Hiroshi’s life, as a homeless kid, who lives in a slide that looked like a pile of human dung. The acting by the main character was probably the worst that I have ever seen in a Japanese movie, but the story were very easy to follow and the expression of emotions were very clear, making it easy for the audience to sympathize and follow through the story to the end. One Japanese movie worth watching…maybe?

Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li – 3.0
They shouldn’t have made this terrible movie of such gargantuan failure. Based on Capcom’s famous Street Fighter video games, this movie has no resemblance to its original source! For starters, Chun-Li was in the Hong Police force in the game, but in the movie, she’s a Wushu-thought concert pianist! WTF?! The story was terrible, the acting was decent, the fight scenes were boring and even the cute Kristin Kreuk makes this one of the ugliest videogame-based movies out there. How dare Capcom approved such a disgrace to gaming’s first female video game protagonist?!

I.K.U. – 5.0
This artsy Japanese movie is perhaps the weirdest shitty film about sex robots that I have ever seen in my entire life. There is no plot, and each and every scene is filled with the weirdest sex scenes ever, it’s fucking crazy. Might be a good movie to watch when you’re high as fuck though.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets – 5.0
Err… what the fuck just happened? Believe me… don’t waste your time watching this crap.

The Pink Panther 2 – 6.8
The first Pink Panther was a pretty decent comedy, and if you liked the first one, you would know what to expect in this second movie. The ‘idiot french detective’ formula worked on me somehow, and I had some laughs watching this.

Video Games for 2008 Winter Holiday

Yesterday I got my copy of Peter Molyneux’s latest masterpiece: FABLE 2 for the Xbox 360 and I were stoked to play it right away, but I can’t because I got a party to attend to. So I went to the party, do some eating-while-talking activities, trying to socialize with people; and then got home at around 2000 hours.

I immediately wrap-off the plastic cover of the game, put the disc into the console and played the game until I had a headache that I almost puke at 0330 hour the next morning. Then I went to bed, dreaming about fantasy lands…

It has been a while since I got so hooked onto a videogame, and it is for the proper reason: the game is brilliant.

I loved the first FABLE, and this second installation is far BETTER. I know it is not a perfect game; the combat is fun but kinda clunky, the animation is quite stiff and there were lots of other limitations; but all these negatives were so small compared to how much fun I got from playing it.

You got to utilize swords, guns and magic in combat, engage in quests to further the interesting storylines, own a shop or house to lent to make money, get married and have kids, get a job, be a hero or a jerk to the town and so on.

I’m still far from finishing the main quest, and I intend to fully enjoy the open game world by straying from the guided path by doing random jobs and mini-quests scattered all around across the huge map.

The dog companion was a great addition too! The dog A.I. really makes you feel like you’re adventuring out with the real man’s best friend.

And oh, I forgot to mention that I also got Gears Of War 2 and a Space Invaders T-Shirt along with my Fable 2 order. I need to finish Fable 2 first, and then I’ll take my dirty hands on Gears Of War 2. Those 2 games are basically my “Winter Holiday Games” for the year, and I think I picked a good choice.

What about you? What is your “Winter Holiday Games” this year?

buying a new mp3 player

i’m buying a new mp3 player prior to the coming summer break; i’m planning to travel a lot and my 2 years old creative zen v plus looks extremely outdated now. so i’m going to buy a brand new mp3 player and give the old one to my little sister.

after spending some time researching about the current mp3 players out there, i have finally shrank my options of choice to 2: the apple 8gb ipod touch or the new 16gb creative zen.

although the 16gb creative zen does not have the cool new touch screen interface and the wifi capabilities of the ipod touch, it is still a very solid mp3 player and a more-than-capable portable video player with support of countless audio and video format. it is cheaper and the media storage is significantly bigger (16gb against the ipod touch’s 8gb). the creative zen also support sync with windows media player (my main media player on my computer), and divx videos could be moved to the player and be played instantly without the use of additional codec converter; a very HUGE plus!

so what about the 8gb ipod touch? it’s a lot pricier (34960yen compared to the zen’s cheap price tag of 18663yen) but it definitely has the most features with support for additional widgets (if you use hacking software to install 3rd party utilities), the cool touch screen user interface, wifi capabilities, internet surfing etc.

without a doubt, the apple ipod touch is the COOLEST portable audio player out there, but like all other apple products, it suffers from freedom of compatibility and flexibility in moving media files from the computer into the player. it has limited format support, and everything must go through the clunky apple itunes software. the touch screen is a cool feature, but i predict its coolness wears thin quicker than expected.

although at this point, i prefer the more practical creative zen, the coolness of the ipod touch cannot be forgotten. so i’m in a dilemma; should i get the cool and trendy ipod touch, or the more practical and highly cost-effective creative zen?Apple ipod touch

Positive points:
* the touch screen user interface is extremely cool
*the design is more slick
*its an apple product, a branding power that you could use to brag to your friends
* support of additional widget through hacking that could further increase its functions

Negative Points:
*a lot more pricier
* limited support of audio and video format
* strictly dictatorship-style of apple bonding the player with the clunky itunes
* lower storage capacityCreative Zen

Positive points
* a lot more cheaper
* great compatibility with various audio/video format + ease of use in synching
* greater storage capacity
* expandable media storage with the sd card slot
* highly cost effective

Negative points
* not as cool as the ipod touch
* no wifi support
* no widget support
* you cannot brag as much as you could with the ipod touch

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

after setting my priorities straight, i have finally decided to go with the creative zen. i’m also getting the sony headphone with noise canceling technology; and the price of both plus the skin pack is still cheaper than buying a 8gb ipod touch alone. practicality, ease of use and cost-effectiveness wins against trendy coolness.

Finished GTA IV !!!

What a satisfyingly long and fun ride! After clocking 32 hours of running around Liberty City doing errands for mafia bosses, russian businessmen and all sort of crooks, while spending some time shooting cops on the face, buying hookers and visiting the local strip club, finally I’ve beaten GTA IV. Well, at least the main story.

After spending some hefty time with the game, I can safely say that this is the best game that I have ever played, ever! GTA IV is the best game of all time and if you haven’t played it yet, do yourself a favour and go play it! It’s simply amazing.

The story, although not the best out there, keeps you interested all the way through and there were some emotional moments that would make you laugh, angry, sad and happy. Each character in the game has their own memorable unique personalities, especially the main character, Niko Bellic. I couldn’t stop mimicking the way he talks and his accents, it’s so cool!

One of the main fun factors of this game is none other the new physics engine. Your environment and surroundings react realistically, the cars are fun to ride, when you bump onto someone, or if you shot someone’s foot with a shotgun, they’ll react like what they’re supposed to in the real world. The developers had created the most realistic representation of our world through the use of their new graphics + physics engine. Nothing is more exciting than driving in a sports car in a high speed police chase, hit-and-running innocent pedestrians while you try to steady the aim of you machine gun to shoot at the coming swat trucks and biker gangs.

The game is chock full of stuff to do. If you don’t want to do the story missions, you could steal any car, find a good spot with a lot of innocent pedestrian, and let loose on a killing spree, shooting at the virtual men and women of Liberty City. Then the cops will come and try to kill you so you must shoot them too. It’s fun.

The amount of effort put into the sound of the game is also amazing. There were lots of radio stations that you could listen in your stolen car. Cars and guns sound real and brutal. You could hear pedestrian talking on their phone. When someone you kill dies a horrible painful death, they will scream a horrible painful death-scream.

This is definitely a very violent game and not suitable at all to kids. If you’re someone who couldn’t take entertainment-violence, this game is not for you. But if you’re like me, who likes some virtual violence in the safety of your own home, a good story, fantastic gameplay, and an overall entertaining time, GO PLAY THIS GAME NOW!

The game fucking ROCKS!

p\s: The game’s multiplayer component is wicked fun! You could go online and play with other 15 people and wreck havoc in the Liberty City, playing all-time multiplayer favourites like deathmatch and racing, to unique multiplayer modes like cops and crooks. After finishing the main story, I still am planning to put the disk on my 360 for a long time because whenever I got the time, I’m sure using it to play online multiplayer for some crazy mindless entertainment! Totally worth it!

29hb 4 2008

it’s the 29th of april 2008, marking the launch of one of the most anticipated games of all time; grand theft auto IV. i’ve never been this excited for a game release since half-life 2!

i pre-ordered the game months before and i just got confirmation that they just shipped it from the store, going right into my mailbox. i just can’t wait to get my hands on this game; the wait is simply killing me!

although i’ve only finished gtaIII, played half through gta vice city and almost completed gta san andreas, i knew that this is going to be the best gta game yet!

new shooting mechanism, new physics engine with the amazing euphoria technology, liberty city setting with more detail and realism, beautiful graphics, awesome character and storylines; the list of good things to come from this game is getting me all worked up to play.

the new multiplayer gameplay looks totally fun too!

come on sweet little game, come to papa! my xbox360 needs some working up to do!