The trailer for Ponyo has been released!

I can't wait to see this movie! Coming out in August, Ponyo is the next full length feature done by the legendary Japanese animatot, Hayao Miyazaki. You may be familiar with some of his work such as Spirited Away or Princess of Mononoke. I've got almost all his full length movies on DVD, I just love his work. There's a certain magic and innocence to his movies that American animated movies can't seem to capture (although Wall-E was a step in the right direction). His movies are rarely about good guys and bad guys; they are more about innocent characters falling into strange situations.

The plot on IMDB reads: "An animated adventure centered on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human." It's got quite the star studded cast too, with the likes of Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson and even Betty White!

Check out the trailer here (Quicktime / Youtube).

Later geeks!

Categories: animation , hayao miyazaki , movies , ponyo

I'll admit, I'm not that huge of a Megan Fox fan. Yes, she's a babe, but the looks can only go so far. If she were a more talented actress, then I guess would feel otherwise, but she's not (at least not yet). However, assuming the following article is true and not fabricated by sweaty palmed geeks, then her street cred is going up in my books.

In an interview with What They Play (credit Kotaku), Fox talks about her gaming life past and present. It's not the generic celebrity answer of "I play Super Mario", or "I love Tetris", or even the more generic "I play solitaire". No, she speaks more truthfully about her geek life. Her first game was Disney's Aladdin for the SNES. But the game she's loved the most and still plays nowadays, is Mortal Kombat (and it's various incarnations). She says that right now she's playing through Mortal Kombat VS DC, and she even goes further to say that she hates playing as Superman, because his combos "were so weird".

What a babe eh? It's too bad that I don't like Mortal Kombat... but I'd kick her ass at Street Fighter IV... in my dreams.

If you want to read the original articles you can find them here (What They Play / Kotaku).

Anyhow, I leave you with this gif that someone posted on the F4W board. Later geeks.




Categories: gaming , megan fox

Hey friends. My first review for Attack This! is up and running. In this month's edition, I take a look at Jean Claude Van Damme's latest, JCVD. Is it a hit? Is it a crapshoot? Only one way to find out! Have a look see (here)!

Later geeks!

Categories: action , attack this , drama , jcvd , movies

I passed by the CityTv building last night to see that they were making some last minute preparations and some rehearsals for tonight's event. It's the Much Music Video Awards tonight; a time where thousands of pre-pubescent teens will fill the downtown core of Toronto in hopes of catching a glimpse of such media mongrels as the Jonas Brothers, actors from Twilight and The Hills. Anyhow, here are a few pics of their setup before it gets wild tonight. There are also some surprises in the last two.

When I past by again much later in the evening, I was surprised to see some acts rehearsing their parts for tonight's show. In the pic below, amongst the orgy of people are in fact The Black Eyed Peas, who were singing and practising their dance routine for that Boom Boom Pow song (unconfirmed if that's the actual song title, but they sing that line). There was quite a pack of people watching them do the whole routine, but probably not even a fraction of how much people will be their tonight. Beneath that picture is the band Rise Against on the John St. stage, playing their song over and over. Anyhow, both groups were a welcomed surprise.



Categories: music

(This post goes out to Skylar, who loves tech stuff.)

In random news, my dad bought me a new monitor earlier this week. He was looking at different monitors for the past 2 months or so, but I kept telling him not to because the ones he was looking at were too big for my room and my 19" Samsung was more than fine. Well, he bought it anyways and now I have this massive 24" Samsung widescreen on my desk. He told me afterwards it was my late graduation gift, to which I thought the Xbox was, but apparently that was a Christmas gift. I'm a spoiled son of a bitch, right? So I accepted, although with a massive amount of guilt (I don't feel I deserve this).

So what do I think?

The Goods: This fucker is massive. I'm no longer maximizing the windows because it's too much for my eyes. I like how there are multiple input options. Currently my computer is hooked in through the DVI, but there is also HDMI support. A light bulb went off in my head when I saw this. I immediately brought up the Xbox from the living room to test it out. It performs really beautiful and really sharp! Another bonus is that it has speakers within the monitor, so you don't have to re-route speakers if you want to game. However, I didn't want the Xbox in my room as it's a clutter already so it's relegated back to the living room. I like that I can adjust the stand's height, so no longer do I have to slouch my neck while I'm on my computer.

The Not-So-Goods: Instead of buttons on the bottom corner of the screen, this monitor has touch sensitive areas, so to switch between inputs, adjust any settings, or to turn it on/off, all you have to do is touch the right area (that's what I tried to tell her). Unforunately for me, the lighting in my room is pretty dim at night which makes it hard to see the little symbols for the different functions. I find I'm touching all over the place and adjusting stuff, when all I want to do is turn it off. I realize this is all a preference thing, but I wouldn't of minded normal buttons.

The Neutrals: If for some reason you wanted to, you can rotate the monitor so that instead of landscape you can have it oriented portrait-wise. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but the option is there if you do. There's also USB ports on it.

Anyhow, I'm enjoying the new monitor. It's been great for watching movies and TV shows, and especially great for playing Team Fortress 2. My dad is nuts sometimes, but I do love him for this. If you're interested in specs, you can check them out (here). Well, until next time, later geeks!

Categories: computer related , tech

The original Final Fantasy IV (II in the US) has always been my favourite Final Fantasy game of all time. My love is so deep for this game that about 10 years ago, I made it a yearly tradition to finish this game (and Chrono Trigger too), albeit with the ROM version (thanks speed button!). But now with the advent of this remake, I guess I can continue on this tradition with the DS version.

I still remember my first experience with the game. I was 9 at the time and my dad borrowed the game from his friend at work. But my brother hogged all the play time and I was relegated to the backseat, where I watched him play through the game. Even so, the diverse characters, the wacky dialogue, the epic storyline and the harmonious soundtrack all worked together and gripped me that first time I laid eyes on it.

When originally released on the SNES, the difficulty was taken down a notch (dubbed Easy Mode) to try and accommodate the American audience who at the time were RPG noobs. The Japanese version was a much more difficult version which required you to rely on some semblance of strategy, opposed to the American versions hack n' slash/grinding methods. In this remake, Square-Enix smartly chose to keep the difficulty setting on the Hard Mode much like it's Japanese counterpart.

The game is remade in the exact same fashion as FFIII, giving the game a complete make-over and rendering the whole bloody thing in 3D. They redid the majority of the dialogue from the SNES english version, which contained a lot of wackiness. As great as the soundtrack was before, it's even better now that's it's free from the limitations of the SNES. This is one DS game that you should play with headphones on, if only to fully hear all the music. Instead of using FMV scenes, the game opts for standard in game cut scenes, except the dialogue in these scenes are completely done with voice-overs, which are pretty great in themselves.

I had a fun time with FFIV, but alas, my opinion is deeply biased in this regard. If you're a Final Fantasy fan, then you're already familiar with its greatness. People often city FFVII as their favourite in the series, and they're right to do so; that game really brought console RPG's into the mainstream. I, however as a loyalist, will still claim FFIV as my favourite. Later geeks.

Categories: ds , final fantasy , gaming

My friends, Mike from Attack This! has recently invited me to be a guest contributor for his blog. As you can see from the picture above, Attack This! features all sorts of geekery; from the wide world of video games to the wacky world of cosplay, Attack This! has it covered. I've been asked to help out with movie reviews whenever I can.

Fear not fellow geeks, I am not abandoning this ship. Every month I'm going to do a review or two on his site, but of course, my main focus is here. I'll put an update on my blog when I post a review on AT! just to keep you folks up on what's going on. But hey, you should check out their site anyways!

Check out the post Mike wrote about me (here) and also, I wrote a bio for the page found (here).

Stayed tuned friends! Fun on the way.

Categories: attack this , other

It's great to see Sam Raimi back in his form with his latest entry Drag Me To Hell. Simply glorious, it is a horror geek's dream. This is the Sam we all know and love from Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, before he got all caught up in the comic book geek universe of Spider-Man. After 10 years (from the first time I watched Evil Dead 2), he has remained my favourite film director... although he did try my patience with Spider-Man 3. I know this euphoria that I'm feeling now will be short lived, as even as I type this review, Raimi is already at work on the pre-production of Spider-Man 4 (yay?).

So what is there to say about Drag Me To Hell? This is the way a summer movie should be, touching on all those senses that make movie going an actual experience. There were thrills, chills, laughs and cheers; the way things should be!

Drag Me To Hell tells a story of a young loan officer named Christine, who in an effort to advance her own career, has to turn down an old gypsy woman's request of a loan extension, thereby evicting the woman from her home. Needless to say, the grotesque old woman is not happy and curses Christine with a demon called the Lamia, who after three days of stalking and taunting, will come for her soul and well... drag her to hell! We follow Christine as she's terrorized and as she seeks of a way to rid herself of the cursed demon.

The movie was filled with tons of scares and lots of grossness. If you hate those jump-scare moments, then steer away, because there are tons of them in this movie. I'm still desensitized from them, but they are still fun to see if only to see everyone else's reactions. Most of them are pretty fun but some were ridiculous; I think the handkerchief was responsible for 2 jump-scares. Like I said, there's also a lot of grossness throughout the film. There's tons of sight gags, from oozing slime to creepy crawly bugs. You can't help but to dry heave during some of the scenes as poor Christine is physically tortured.

Amidst all the frights in the movie, there were also lots of moments of comedy. It was done perfectly to alleviate the tension between scenes and thankfully, it was never too over the top (well, except for one scene that was damn hilarious... bah-h-h-h-h! *wink*). If I had to rank it, I'd say it was funnier than Evil Dead 2 but less slapstick and over the top than Army of Darkness.

Alison Lohman does an exceptional job playing Christine. It's a role that required a high degree of boldness, playing someone being terrified to near loony at parts. She's a brave girl for enduring all the physical torture that Sam must have put her through. I can't count how many times something slimy and/or disgusting was thrown into her mouth. But my favourite scene of her's was one scene near the end that I thought really solidified her performance. It took place at a graveyard and I thought that it really channeled Bruce Campbell's performance from Evil Dead 2.

Justin Long plays her boyfriend Clay and I have to admit, I didn't hate him in this role; I'd even go as far as to say, I liked him in this role. I'm not a big Justin Long fan at all, but he does a fine job of playing the faithful boyfriend. He's the foundation in the relationship; even when Christine's chips are down, he's there to support her 100%. In a typical hollywood horror flick, he'd be the skeptical dick boyfriend who doesn't believe a single thing she says, but Raimi is smarter than that, and keeps him as partially skeptical, but mostly supportive. One thing that I thought was funny was how his office was littered with Apple products. I wonder if it was intentional.

What helped this movie experience was the enthusiastic audience that I saw this movie with. The theater was packed and throughout the movie, the audience reacted at all the right spots; there was laughter, cheers and screams (of course). I was saying to my friend afterwards, "I've never been to a movie that had this much applause throughout the movie". It really helped create an exhilarating movie-going experience, the way summer blockbusters should be.

I'm saddened that the movie is doing so poorly at the box office, despite almost unanimous critical acclaim (on RT, 156 positive reviews out of 168). I can't recommend the movie enough and hopefully if you do catch it, you'll get a theater with an excited audience which will surely help the experience.

Until next time! Later geeks!

(P.S. To my fellow Raimi-geeks. Rest assured, the beloved 1973 Oldsmobile Delta, otherwise known to us as "The Classic", makes it into more than a few scenes!!!)

Categories: drag me to hell , horror , movies , sam raimi

As part of my "campaign of cheapness", the past 3 months I've been going to the Indigo bookstore downtown about twice a week to read Chris Jericho's autobiography A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex. I'd park down for about 1.5 to 2 hours per visit and it took 3 months to do, but I finally finished it.

Let it be known, that Jericho was my favourite wrestler from 1997 to 2002 (it only lasted this long because from 2002-07, I stopped watching/following wrestling completely). I learned of him during my junior high school years when me and my friends would watch WWF and WCW programming religiously. I knew there was something that stood out in Chris, it might have been his style of fighting, his comedic arrogance on the mic or his boyish good looks. Well whatever it was, I believed in him. My friends at the time were skeptical, but I would argue with them why he was so great. It was during his cruiserweight feud with Dean Malenko that really brought out his character to us. It would only be weeks later that they'd open their eyes and see his greatness, and soon after they were right on board the Jericho-train as I was.

The only other wrestling biography I've read is Bret Hart's, which between these two I'd say is my favourite (one of my favourite books in general), but that's not to say Jericho's book isn't entertaining in itself.

The story is a telling of Jericho's rise to wrestling fame. From the get go, he's always wanted to become a wrestler. When he was in highschool, he and his friend would trick the janitor in letting them use the gym and some mats to create their very own wrestling federation. Soon after high school, he joined the Hart Brothers School of Wrestling, in hopes of getting trained by the famous Hart brothers. The book follows his humble beginnings, from wrestling in bars and school gyms around North America, to his adventures around the world, notably Mexico, Germany and Japan.

Jericho makes the interesting choice of ending the story at the moment where he makes his debut in the WWF/E, leading us hopeful Jericho-holics to believe that there could be a potential second biography that will detail his career after his debut.

A Lion's Tale was a joy to read. Jericho did a good job of keeping things serious when they're serious and humourous when they're humourous. If you're familiar with Jericho's brand of comedy, then you'll know what to expect in this book. The book is also noob-friendly to those who might not be familiar with wrestling concepts and he does a fine job of trying to explain what things are to newcomers (ring rats come to mind, try explaining that one to your mom).

One thing that I learned about Jericho was that he's a Christian.. It's how he came up with the name Jericho (his real last name is Irvine) for his character. He doesn't talk about it too much, but makes mention of it early in his career and also later in his career (when he was already in WCW). I found the stories of how he'd try not to fool around with girls entertaining. It seemed he managed pretty well earlier in his career but the temptations got tougher as he began travelling around more. "The road will own you".

I liked the book because I learned not only a lot more about Jericho as a man but also of the wrestling world and how things work in general. Here are but a few things that I learned:

-it's customary for a wrestler to introduce himself to the entire lockerroom if he just joined the company.
-there's hardly anyone you can trust in the wrestling world, everyone's out there to make a dime (although from what I gather, there's more trust as you move to bigger leagues, but still, you can't trust everything everyone says).
-on that note, promises are almost worth nothing.
-at least in the independent wrestling companies, it was the babyfaces job to service the ring rats, as it helped keep a good flow of cash coming from ticket and merch sales.
-strippers really do have this strange relationship with wrestlers (so it wasn't just some symbolic relationship created for the movie The Wrestler).

and my favourite fact:

-if you have sex with a girl and at the end of the 30 seconds she giggles and pats you on the back, it's not a good thing.

So if you're a wrestling fan, I definitely recommend Jericho's book. A really fun read all around. If you're not a wrestling fan and have nothing else to read, it's not a bad one to pick up either. Maybe it'll make you a fan. Jericho makes me proud to be a Canadian. Later geeks.





Categories: biography , books , campaign of cheapness , chris jericho , wrestling