Reviews

This film truly is an odd affair, though not the oddest that I have witnessed by far. While viewing this work, one can't help but think firstly of an experience akin to the treacherous road one travels while on a quest to mine the holy ore out of the great vaginal canals; trying to overcome the evil mythical beasts around every corner attempting to end the impure quest to penetrate deeper into the magical cavern. The miner speeding up with each step, as each step brings him closer to his ultimate satisfaction. The greed overcoming his emotions, he will begin to foam in the mouth like a psychotic horse about to be shot. He becomes ever more clumsy and vulgar in his work obsessed with his primitive need for gluttony, and soon forgoing all respect and decency for the great spasmodic hole, the vagina.

As the films rolls on, the mind travels to thoughts more relevant to daily existence. More specifically, the role of technology in creating the great divide in interpersonal relationships. The duality of the situation cannot be missed, where on the one hand communication is increased yet true meaningful discussion drowned out to be replaced by talk of absurd and meaningless daily activity. The golden age of knowledge, and the dark age of wisdom. The alienation of one human from another, as well as a human from his own humanity. The contemporary ritualistic tribulation of finding a path for existence in this newfound post-modernist condition now becomes the new daily game. The quest for meaning never ends, as there is no meaning to be found. Like a blind man in a cave we stumble until we reach the limits of our mortality and leave this place. How funny, stupid and worthless this journey is. A journey mirrored in this cinematic work. A work not to be missed and that can be views for free by going

here

For Christmas this year, I got a wired Xbox 360 controller. I had asked for it, so it was not unexpected. I do not own an Xbox 360, but the controller is usable with a pc. I have been meaning to write a review for a while, so here it goes. Microsoft is trying to push the Xbox 360 controller as the new "Standard PC Controller"

Pros:

• Most Comfortable Controller I've ever used.
• Works great with a Dreamcast emulator.
• Supported by newer games with zero configuration necessary. (Marc Ecko's Getting Up, support expected for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion with first patch)

Cons:

• *With Microsoft's driver, the same axis is used for the L and R analog triggers, making using both at the same time impossible.
• *Also, with Microsoft's driver, they use a new system for programs to use the controller, only allowing the newest games to use its force feedback function. So far the only game I've found where the vibrate works is Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.
• The D-Pad is lame, not good for SNES/NES games that need any level of accuracy.
• The Four button arrangement rather than 6 as the N64 controller, makes playing N64 games awkward.

Note on *: There is a 3rd party driver which fixes these problems, allowing older games with Force Feedback support to use the vibrate and mapping the controller differently. It though is simply a hack of a driver for the original Xbox controller, and at least last time I tried it was exceedingly buggy.

Honestly, most computer games are designed to be played mouse and keyboard. I've tried a number of FPS games with it, and quite honestly I won't be trading in my mouse and keyboard anytime soon. However I am looking forward to trying it with Oblivion.
Overall, I give the controller an 8/10 rating. (BTW, new rating system on the way)

Brick is an oddity as it?s a sort of film noir revolving around a group of high school kids. The dialog of the movie is the sort that smacks you across the face and leaves you either loving it or hating it, in that it is stunningly out of place for high school students, and would be far more fitting in a 1950?s crime drama. For about the first third of the film I was sitting there thinking "What the hell is this I'm watching?!" but I soon realized to just flow with it.

The film began with this perfectly fitting kind of indistinguishable yet completely coherent clanging music unlike anything I think I've heard before, as the main character, Brendan, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt of "3rd Rock from the Sun" fame, standing over a dead body in a culvert, who you soon find out is his ex-girlfriend Emily. The film flashes back to two days earlier, where he learns she was in some kind of unknown trouble. He spends the next portion of the film trying to find out where she is and what kind of trouble she is in, until ultimately coming across her deceased body two days later. He decides to get vigilante justice against those who set her up, working his way into a drug ring and putting himself in grave danger on several occasions.

The movie was quite enjoyable overall. As mentioned previously, the language takes some getting past, there are several spots of "extreme emotion" where I couldn?t help myself but laugh at what ends up being very inappropriate times to laugh, similar to that found in the movie Saw

As a side note, the only other song I remember throughout the rest of the film sounds awfully similar to a Joanna Newsom song with a note extended for dramatic purposes, and bothered me throughout.

This is a monster movie more in the way of Alice in Wonderland then Attack of the Giant Sea Thing from Space (It has both a blond in pig-tails and a mad scientist). The story is of an old alcoholic monster who just wants to die and a secretary turned dominatrix(well not really but you'll know exactly what I mean when you see it). The whole movie is about as nonsensical which in my book is a big plus. Now don't get me wrong don't expect Lynch like surrealism. This is a fairy tail for adults. A genre that has not really been explored at all. Now just because it's a fairy tale doesn't mean its at all simple. This is one of those films that you can read into however you can just be content with what's there. I really like this film I saw it on TV and was just kind of pulled in. I liked it more then my rating shows. it's a hard movie to attach a number to because its so different. Many will discount this film because of the deliberate non-acting in parts (think Mulholland Dr.) and the great but goofy sound track (think if Casio made an acoustic violin) but if you want something different pick up a copy.

I've had this movie for a long time, and I finally got around to watching it. From what I've heard it's an episode in a series of films, though I cannot find information on any earlier or later ones on IMDB. When I as in the single sentence summary call this the Japanese version of garden state this doesn't refer to the plot but rather the characters.

In both Stereo Future and Garden State the main characters are aspiring actors, who have girl friends with mental issues. Moreover they have friends making money doing illegal things.

Both movies also have a similar kind of laid back feel and both have great music. Despite the really utter lack of plot, this film did have a great atmosphere.

The movie follows several people including an aspiring actor, Keisuke, a television reporter and a few others lives for the length of the film with the connections not becoming apparent until the last few minutes.

In all honesty it was beautifully done, but came off kind of preachy at times and went nowhere.

If you've got nothing to do, its not bad, its just not good.

On an interesting side note the one American in the film "Dr. Danny Moreno" is in fact the man who choreographed 'Earth Girls are Easy'

When yahoo purchased Konfabulator I was suspicious at first, but then they put out Konfabulator 2.0 which was a great release. I thought I had no need to be suspicious. But now with the 3.0 release Yahoo has decided to show their true colors. They have completely destroyed the website. It doesn't render properly in anything other than Internet Explorer, and the page is as jumbled as Yahoo's home page. Next, they bundled hundreds of useless pieces of software with it, and even if you uncheck everything you get Yahoo Messenger which I don't want nor need.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, they decided to add insult to injury. They took down all the widgets I had programmed.

I am horrified at these turn of events.

Update - It's not as bad as I thought

I was at Best Buy and on an impulse purchase, I bought Oldboy because it made quite clear, all over the box, that it had DTS Audio.

The movie starts out with a man, Dae-su, who has been out for a heavy night of drinking. He?s at the police department, taken in for public drunkenness. His friend comes to pick him up and take him home, but before he can get home, Dae-su vanishes. The next thing he knows he?s in a prison without knowing why or for how long. He stays in prison for 15 years until he mysteriously was released. He then finds out he has four days to find out who imprisoned him and why.

The movie gets a ten for style in my book. It steals a concept from Pulp Fiction in a scene and draws a dotted line between a hammer and where it is aimed. The fight scenes are decent but the ultraviolence is not quite up to par with Audition for instance. With this said, onto the plot. The plot is lacking in the extreme sense, and what plot there is, honestly, is stupid. Overall, it was entertaining to watch, but beyond that not much else.

Sidenote: I recently discovered they are making an American version. Yuck.

Firstly, let me apologize for the low quality of this review, but I promise it is thousands of times better then the caliber of the movie.

This movie had everything, zombies, baseball? wait, not everything, just zombies and baseball. Remember something cheesy you saw in a movie once upon a time? More then likely, it was used in this movie. Cheesy sound effects, breaking out into song, someone punching someone and crappy looking dummy goes flying, the list goes on.

The context of the movie is basically this: a high school baseball team is trying to make it to the finals, they find out they have to play "Gedo High School" in their first game. They are a team of zombies that instead of playing baseball just kill everyone. The principal is not going to let them play, but then sees a new student playing "Baseball Fight" with a local bully, and begs him (Jubei) to play so they can beat Gedo High School. After much begging by the principal and players on the team Jubei breaks into song and tells the tragic story of how he once threw a baseball so hard it went through his father and killed him. He then agrees to play. At the first game, he Jubei does not show up until after the entire team has been killed because he had to break out of prison. They proceed to kill him, but the best part is how they kill him. A bomb explodes; his fake body goes flying through the air, lands, and a tomb stone pops up. Several months later, he comes back to life and seeks revenge. He comes back just in time for the team which is dead to fight them Gedo High School again. He shows up at the game, and they mock him for not having a team, but then about half the dead team comes back cyborgs thanks to as they put it "advanced technologies." Other random people fill the rest of the team and they go on to fight the Gedo High School. They fight until once again no one is left but Jubei and the coach, and after a huge fight Jubei decides to show the coach mercy. But then one of the Gedo high school kids shoots the coach with a machine gun for being weak. Jubei is so pissed off that he hits the kid so hard his skeleton flies out of his body, and then he beats up his skeleton. He then looks around and notices that everyone is dead including the audience, and says some cheesy words about how it is all his fault and he should never have played baseball again after killing his father. He then cries and his tears bring everyone back to life. The End

Besides the fact that this was quite possibly the stupidest movie I have ever seen, it was actually somewhat entertaining. I think it would make a decent party movie as its short, only 1:20 long, and has quite a few things you would only laugh about with other people around. Overall it was OK. I wouldn't watch it again, but I don't necessarily regret watching it.