Author: Jason

Movie Round-Up: December 11th, 2009

Reviews

The Princess and the Frog:

Pass.  I mean, the trailer for this didn’t exactly excite me.  It is more for kids, more for girls I think, and I just didn’t really seem to care for much of what I saw.  Maybe I’ll see it on DVD or something eventually.

Invictus:

I was completely unaware of Nelson Mandela’s attempt to utilize the South African Rugby team to unify his country behind a common love.  Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon are both incredible, and not knowing how things turned out made the sports parts exciting.  Thumbs up.

Me and Orson Welles:

Not a wide opening, but since I did see a screening I wanted to mention it.  Set during Orson Welles’ production of Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theater, Zac Efron plays Richard Samuels, a high school kid who dreams of acting, who runs to the city and talks his way into a small but important roll in Welles’ production.  Welles, played fantastically by Christian McKay, runs roughshod over his company to get the vision he wants.  Richard falls for Sonja Jones, played by Claire Danes, a production assistant, but she has her eyes on a future career in theater and movies.  There isn’t a lot of action here, but there is a lot of heart and humor.  However, the real reason to see this film is to see McKay playing Welles.  Completely worth the price of admission if you are in to that sort of thing.

Soon I Will Be Invincible

Reviews

Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible is an interesting read.  It is a story set in a world where superheroes exist, but the two points of view you are given are that of an evil genius super villain and a female cyborg fledgling hero.  The story begins with our villain escaping from prison where he had been incarcerated after his twelfth attempt to take over the world.  You get to see behind the veil most comic books keep in place as Doctor Impossible tries to contact old allies and track down supplies and avoid detection while he pieces together his latest scheme.  On the other side, the cyborg, Fatale, has been invited to join the reformation of The Champions, a superhero team that broke up years ago, whose main priority is locating a missing hero, CoreFire – who also happens to be Doctor Impossible’s nemesis.

I found myself excited and entertained throughout the book.  I was amused quite often by the situations and interactions.  Dragging comic books closer to reality isn’t something new, but the humorous touch in this book makes it well worth the read.  I’d recommend it to just about anyone.

Left 4 Dead 2

Gaming

I loved the original.  Loved it.  I carved its name and mine into a tree in the backyard with a heart around it.  We, however, refused to get married until gays can also be married.  This turned out to be a good decision because if I had gotten married, I’d be an adulterer.

Left 4 Dead 2 is all that and a bag of chips, so to speak.  More weapons, more special infected, more events, and a story that flows through all five campaigns to make one complete story, though each feels perfectly fine playing it alone.  I’m not done with the original though.  As much as I like Ellis, I miss Francis.  The Coach is cool, but Bill had a certain flair.  Plus, you know, I’m still missing some achievements.  But overall, the sequel is a better game in just about every possible way.

Movie Round-Up: December 4th, 2009

Reviews

I missed last week because it was Thanksgiving and I was sick, but enough about that and more about this week’s movies…

Brothers:

The cast looks good with Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman, but I’ll be honest and say I know nothing about this movie, so let me look it up.  One moment please… hmm, sounds depressing.  Maybe I’ll watching it when it shows up on Netflix or something.  Pass.

Everybody’s Fine:

I went to a screening for this, we arrived early as usual, but the line was so huge that we didn’t get in.  That happens sometimes.  I really do want to see it and might go this weekend.  I love me a good holiday movie about family.

Armored:

So, I saw this last night at a screening.  The short of it: six employees of an armored car company decide they are going to rob their own hauls and things don’t go according to plan.  The thing with a movie like this is that it has been done before.  A lot.  So the point here isn’t really to be original, especially since crazy originality in heist movies tends to lead to implausible stretches of believability, but to simply do the story well.  Armored starts a tad slow, mostly because the movie wants you to be introduced to the characters, their environment, and to almost painfully lay out exactly the reasons why the heist is going to happen now and point out all the reasons why it has to be done this way.  For example, the man in charge of the officers explains that next week they’ll be getting new trucks with GPS, informing you that right now they rely on radio contact and so are blind between scheduled check-ins.  However, once they get the money in the trucks and begin to commit the theft, the movie really picks up, and it does everything from that point on fairly well (except this one chase scene which if I had been the writer I’d have done without and put in a different tension element).  No, Armored probably isn’t worth the full price of admission unless you’ve got the spare cash to burn, but it was fun and well done.  Worth seeing.

Movie Round-Up: November 20th, 2009

Reviews

Not only am I under the weather, but its November and I’m trying (and failing) to do the NaNoWriMo… but enough about me and my lack of posting, on to the week’s releases.

New Moon:

I’ve never read the books, and doubt I ever will.  The first movie was horrible, and I suspect this one will be horrible too.  You would have to pay me to see this in the theater, my rates begin at $30 per hour.

Planet 51:

It looks like a fun family movie… and that’s all I have to say about that.

The Blind Side:

A better family movie, if you are inclined to see one, would be The Blind Side.  It follows the story of Michael Oher, a boy who is taken in by a wealthy family and plays football.  Based on a true story, it is funny and heart warming, and frankly I enjoyed it far more than I expected to.  I can’t say for sure if I would pay full price to go see this in the theater, but if you are already taking the family out to see a movie, already willing to pay money for a couple hours of entertainment, you can do much worse than this inspiring tale.

Movie Round-Up: November 12th, 2009

Reviews

2012:

Let’s face it, I’m a Roland Emmerich fan.  His movies are usually slightly (highly) absurd but they all end pretty much the same way: the triumph of the human spirit.  Plus, the special effects in this film look pretty damn awesome.  Some people will complain that its just “CGI vomit” but seriously, how else would you show the destruction of the world?  Do it for real?  Anyway, I’ll be making a trek to the theater to see this on the big screen, because that really is how these sorts of films should be seen.

Pirate Radio:

This movie is fictitious tale about the pirate radio stations broadcasting rock ‘n roll to the UK in the late 1960s.  None of it is actually true, but it is based on real elements (like pirate stations running from boats off-shore and the Marine Offenses Act).  Don’t go here looking for facts.  But for some good music and fun about a group of guys blasting rock music for the people of the UK in defiance of the government, this movie is where it’s at.  Well written, well acted, and well filmed, this movie is fun and funny through and through.  The box office for this film is going to suffer opening opposite 2012, but perhaps after you’ve seen the awesome FX laden destruction-fest you might consider seeing this one for a good laugh.

Movie Round-Up: November 6th, 2009

Reviews

The Men Who Stare At Goats:

This movie looks bizarre enough to make me laugh. Seriously, a movie about a secret military group trying to kill goats with the power of their minds? I may not rush to the theater to see this one, but it is definitely on my must see list for the future.

A Christmas Carol:

Again?  I suppose Hollywood needs to trot out the Dickens classic every now and then, but I haven’t been a huge fan of the dead-eyed uncanny valley motion capture Zemeckis films so far, perhaps this one will change that.  It is in 3-D, and I love me some 3-D.  However, I might want to wait until a little closer to Christmas to see it.  I just hope its not gone by then.

The Fourth Kind:

I like movies about alien abductions. Fire in the Sky, Communion, and so on. So I am predisposed to like this movie, however, after seeing a screening I found I only sort of enjoyed it.  It was interesting, but felt more like a documentary than a movie.  On the other hand, as a film making experiment I think the movie does very well. Writer/Director Olatunde Osunsanmi used a mixture of “filmed” footage starring Milla Jovovich and “raw” footage consisting of audio and video tapes of the true events the movie is based on.  In addition to that, the majority of the “filmed” footage, taken almost as re-enactments, played in simple stereo sound and had a tinny quality, as if we were listening to the sound through a tape deck, but when important “action” scenes, those concerning contact with aliens, the theater would flood with full high quality surround sound.  It made an impact on the audience, the switch from stereo to full surround, and heightened the experience.  While overall I was a little disappointed in the story of the film, I would definitely recommend seeing this one in the theater if you are at all interested.

The Box:

With the success of I Am Legend a little while back, it was inevitable that other Richard Matheson stories would get to the big screen.  This one, originally titled “Button, Button”, was also previously an episode of the 1985 run of The Twilight Zone.  A half-hour or hour long show seems the right length for the content of this story.  Matheson’s original differed from the Twilight Zone episode, and so this movie differs from both.  It was too long, too slow, and for something billed as a horror and/or suspense film, it lacked both.  The real problem with the film is that it telegraphs its only punch and then never deviates.  If you pay attention in the beginning, after the short conversation with Mr. Steward after Norma Lewis presses the button, you have all the information you need to know how this is going to end.  Sure, the movie throws a few red herrings at you to try to fake you out, but they are all hollow elements, and in my opinion would have been a far more interesting story than what we got if they had been fleshed out.  So, my recommendation, pass on this one.  In fact, don’t even bother with it down the road when its on DVD or cable.

Olatunde Osunsanmi

Left 4 Demo 2

Gaming

If you are a Gold Member on Xbox Live (and seriously, if you are planning to play Left 4 Dead 2 as single player or local multi-player only, you are missing out on the best parts of the game), the Left 4 Dead 2 demo is out.

Personally, I’m not going to bother.  To me, a demo is something you play if you are not yet decided on purchasing in order to see if you enjoy the game.  For example, I played the demo of Mirror’s Edge because I wasn’t sure of the game, and I’m glad I did because it saved me money.  But from all accounts, Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be Left 4 Dead only with more awesome.  Considering how much I love the original, there isn’t a chance in hell I won’t love the sequel.  Valve just doesn’t make crappy sequels.

As a birthday gift this year, I was given a pre-order of Left 4 Dead 2.  So I will happily wait for it to show up and not spoil any of the game playing a mere demo.  But I won’t judge you if you do play the demo.  Have fun!

The Road to Fit

Random Thoughts

I am no longer doing 100 push-ups a day. The reason I began doing them is because I recognized that the first step to getting fit is actually starting. Honestly, getting started is usually the hardest part of almost any project.  For me, anyway. I’m not an amatuercrastinator, I’m a procrastinator. So to get started on the road to fitness I needed an easy way to get into the habit.  Push-ups are simple in that practically anyone can do them, even if you have to start on your knees instead of your toes and it takes you all day to do the whole hundred. Eventually I did get myself down to being able to do the hundred, on my toes, in under ten minutes.  But the real achievement was that I was doing this (nearly) every day.

The second phase of my journey was portion control. One of the main issues many people face in getting thinner is that they overeat. And I’m not talking about sitting down with a bucket of chicken or a tub of ice cream and polishing it off. I’m talking about eating a little too much at every meal that adds up over time. Before starting this road to fitness for real, I wrote about cutting my morning cereal down to one cup. I started doing this again, and limiting my lunches, and watching out for sizes of dinners, and cutting out extra snacks. I also switched to drinking mainly water except for special occasions and sometimes for meals. And I also trained myself to order smaller when we eat out, or order with the expectation that half the meal is going home in a box for another time. Eating at restaurants is really bad for you when it comes to portion control because they often won’t let you control the portions, you just get the plate of food they serve and it is left to you to stop eating. Of course, having a spot of unemployment and being broke really helps here since eating out is one of the first things to go. Fast food is also a pain here since many places have eliminated their old “small” size and made “medium” the new small, “large” the new medium, and the bucket of soda with a barrel of fries the new large. If you are in the habit of ordering the large or medium combos, you might need to reevaluate and switch to the small, or even start ordering off the kid’s menu.

Following these two phases I was able to reach one of my big goals: 200lbs. Phase three is now in full effect.  What is phase three?  Realistic expectations.

Look, I didn’t get up to 250lbs overnight, or even in a couple months, not even a year.  It took a long time for the weight to creep up on me. With that in mind, I don’t expect to lose it all in a short period of time either. I’ve seen tons of propaganda for diets and exercise plans that claim I can shed thirty, fifty, even a hundred pounds in a matter of weeks or months, but the largest problem with losing weight fast is that you usually lack the discipline to keep the weight off. The “crash” in most crash diets isn’t the sudden loss of weight but the crash of depression when months later you find you’ve gained most or all of it back.  With that in mind, my current goal is to lose just one pound a week.  That seems very small, and it is, purposefully so. Each pound that goes away I am determined to keep gone.

I’ve stopped doing my push-ups and sit-ups routine. It served its purpose of getting me in the habit of exercising and now it is time to move on. I was a big fan of the idea of the Wii Fit, but the implementation was lacking. Since I already owned the balance board, buying Wii Fit Plus for under $20 was a no-brainer. Having used it for a month now, I can say that this sequel successfully fixed all the issues I had with the original. The main fix being that I can build a workout, not have to stop between exercises to choose another and also not have to see the scores and rankings which I really don’t care about. The best part being you can simply select an amount of time, select a type of workout (yoga, strength, or a mix of both) and hit start. I now do a random selection of yoga three days a week, and a random selection of strength exercises two days a week, each workout for thirty minutes. Of course, I continue to examine what I eat, making small changes as I see places to improve without throwing out all the foods I love just to see an improvement in my waste line.

If I can maintain my goal of one pound a week that is fifty-two pounds in a year.  148lbs is my new goal for October 2010. I’m looking forward to it…

Happy Halloween!

Pictures

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

A little more than a doodle, but a doodle just the same.
A little more than a doodle, but a doodle just the same.

Finally back for another Saturday doodle and it being the day that it is the doodle fits the theme.  I limited myself to black and orange, and I’m not 100% happy with the moon, but it is what it is.  I even messed around with some layering and putting in a border.

Trick or treat!