I don't know if it's just me, but this summer has been a very big letdown in terms of movies. Every year, there's at least one or two movies that I get really pumped for in the summer season, but this year is the first year in a long time that nothing has really piqued my interest. I mean, there were/are movies that I wanted to see but nothing to go completely geek over. The ones that did come out never fulfilled the geek expectations (Terminator, Transformers, Wolverine... I'm looking in your direction).

I blame the studios for pumping out so many family oriented movies this summer. They've infested the cinemas with PG-schmuck. Oddly enough, I think much of the blame has to go to Paul Blart: Mall Cop. When Blart first came out back in January, I don't think anyone anticipated how successful the movie would turn out to be. On a modest budget of $26 m, the movie went to gross $180 m worldwide (about $140 m domestically) which is quite a high grossing movie for that time of the year. This surprised many analysts, who came to the conclusion that people want to see light-hearted/family friendly movies during these bad economic times.

Now look at the number of family-friendly movies released this summer: Night at the Museum 2, Up, Land of the Lost, Imagine That, My Sister's Keeper, Ice Age 2, G-Force (I may be forgetting some). And you can even add in the chick flick-ish movies like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, The Proposal. Totally nothing to go geek over. There were a few diamonds in the rough though, notably Star Trek and Drag Me to Hell.

August is usually seen as the cooldown month, where the high profile releases slow down, and studios tack on lesser hyped films. But actually, I'm looking more forward to August than any other months this summer. Next month we'll get to see G.I. Joe (the last huge release for the summer), District 9, Final Destination 4, Halloween 2 (remake), and most important QT's The Inglorious Basterds.

Anyhow, in conclusion I'm disappointed at this summer. I don't remember going to the theaters so few times in a summer. But on the brightside, at least there's a few titles to look forward to in the next month. Later geeks.

(Edit: add to that list of family friendly movies, Aliens in the Attic, which opens this weekend. Another reason to stay away.)

Categories: movies

Ring of Honor Wrestling returned to Toronto and put on two shows in a row at Ted Reeve's Arena.

Leading up to this weekend's events, fans were unsure what was exactly going to happen. You see, right now Toronto city workers have been on strike for well over a month, with no garbage pick-ups since it began. Instead, certain city owned parks and parking lots have been made temporary dump sites for people to dispose of their garbage. Ted Reeve's Arena was one such dump site. The parking lot is filled with so much garbage that they had to close it off to dumping (it's maximum allowable capacity is at 1,250 tonnes). So we had a stinky arena and all that garbage outside of it. THANKFULLY, and I don't know how they did it, but the arena inside did not smell as bad as it did last year (when there wasn't all that garbage).

The fans packed the arena on both nights to see some of their favourite indie wrestlers grapple and fight their way to victory. Some wrestling veterans even made special appearances on behalf of Ring of Honor, such as Ric Flair, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, and Lance Storm (who competed on both nights). It was really great seeing these guys and hearing them speak (even if it was for a short period). I got to see my favourite wrestler, Tyler Black, wrestle both nights too, so I went away happy.

I sent in the results of both nights to Dave Meltzer and he posted them up on F4W. If you'd like to view the results you can see night one's (here) and night two's (here).

I've included a few pictures that I took below. You can check out the rest of the pictures (here).



Categories: roh , toronto , wrestling

My review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is now up on Attack This! The short and skinny: I didn't hate it as I thought I would of. You can view the full review (here).

Categories: action , attack this , movies , summer blockbusters , transformers

I finally watched Star Trek, over 2 months after its release and at the behest of my friend Ally. So Ally, if you're reading this, this review goes out to you, and you can now stop asking me if I watched it yet (Tootsie LOLLs).

I guess the benefit of watching a movie so long after its release is that you get your pick of the litter in seats. The theater was mostly empty, except for a dozen or so Level 10 Geeks, who no doubt were watching this for the 56th time (side note on Level 10 Geeks: the geek beside me did the vulcan hand sign every time Spock did it onscreen). I was never a big Star Trek fan at all, which is probably why I didn't feel pumped to see it when it came out in May. But after watching this, I feel excited for a sequel.

So what can I say? This movie pretty much ruled.

Most of you probably have watched this already, so there's no need to really go over the plot. But in short, it's a prequel to the old school series as we see how the main Enterprise crew is assembled. Cue in alien race who threatens the existence of mankind (and Vulcan-kind). Young Kirk goes through a life lesson learning process including a short stint on what appears to be Hoth! I was seriously hoping for a Wampa to pop out. It would have been a geekgasm overload. Instead, they opted to use other strange new creatures.

The movie was all around entertaining with lots of action and humour. I watched the original series when I was 7 and 8 years old, so my memories of what the original characters were like are a bit fuzzy. But from what I can tell, the actors this time around bring their own essence to the characters, breathing new life into them instead of making a parody or caricatures of the originals.

I gotta hand it to JJ Abrams for making this an enjoyable experience. I wasn't a big fan of the Mission Impossible series, but I found he was able to turn it around and make it edge of your seat entertaining with his entry Mission Impossible 3. And just like with MI, he did the same thing here to reinvigorate the Star Trek franchise.

The writers did a clever job of making sure not to get the geeks all too riled up by playing the time-travel/alternate-reality card in order to explain any discrepancies there might have been in the continuity in this movie and the original episodes.

I haven't seen Chris Pine in anything before, but he did a fine job playing the brash and smug young kirk. Zachary Quinto was pretty damn awesome as Spock. I'm glad to see him on the big screen and hope he continues to after Heroes flounders. Karl Urban's Bones McCoy was probably my favourite character. I've always wondered why he was such a grumpy guy and I guess now I know. Urban continues to be one of my geek favourite actors. I mean, check it out. He can add Star Trek to a list of movies that include LOTR, Doom (well...), Chronicles of Riddick, and Bourne Supremacy. I think he resembles the hunky Brad Pitt circa 1994, but some of my friends think otherwise. That brings us to Zoe Saldana who plays the leggy Uhura. This woman, I tell ya. One word: blacklicious. Anytime she was onscreen, I ignored everything else. But I do have one question. How exactly did her skirt pass Starfleet uniform regulations?

My only complaint about the movie was lack of depth given to the Nero character. As the saying goes, the hero is only as great as his villains. Sure we see the Romulans wreak havoc, but there wasn't enough build to why they are the way they are... save for a 1 minute flashback scene. That is my only gripe and even then, I can forgive them as they are trying to reboot the franchise and their concern is more about building the Enterprise crew.

Anyhow, fun movie, like I said, I can't wait for the sequel. You've probably seen it already, but now you know how I feel about it. Until next time, later geeks!

Categories: movies , sci-fi , star trek

Last week on Gizmodo (one of Kotaku's sister sites) they posted a contest where you had to use Photoshop to recreate a 70's version of a current gadget or a 70's ad of a current gadget (see the post here).

With my limited Photoshop skills, I took some time this weekend to recreate a gadget and send it in. I made a 70's ad for a 70's version of the Sony Playstation Portable.

Today they posted up their results but reneged on their original post. Instead of posting the top 3 results, they just posted 64 different gadgets and didn't even rank them (sad face). Some of the creations are damn 1337. I wish I had those kinds of skills.

Worst for me, there's a handful of images that won't load for people, and one such image is mine (more sad face). But I've attached it below so you can at least see my creation. You can check out the rest of the results (here).

Later geeks!



Categories: gizmodo , random , sad face

In another effort in my "Campaign of Cheapness", I purchased Dead Space brand new for $7. Now, before I actually talk about the game, I'd like to preface it with a story. If you want to skip the story, just scroll down past to the bold where it says 'End Story'. Well...

Commence Story!

For my Canadian friends out there, you may know of this website called RedFlagDeals. It's basically a message board where users can post up any hot sales or deals going on at the moment, in an effort to share the glory of saving money. Anyhow, last month someone posted up the deal that Dead Space along with a few other games (eg. Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, etc.) were going on sale for $10 at Futureshop the coming Friday of that week. It was such a hot deal because regularly the game retails for $40, the game is only 8 months young and it was a well reviewed game. However, a deal so hot catches the eyes of a group of rabid shoppers that RFD boarders have dubbed "hoarders". The "hoarders" would latch on a deal and buy out a product in bulks. With gaming, because the deal is so low, they then can go to a store that does trade-ins (ie. EBgames, Blockbuster Video, etc.), unload their spoils and reap in the profits through the higher return prices. The downside is that for people who actually want to purchase the game to play, it becomes a challenge of tracking down the game where it's available.

So on midnight of the Friday sale, the hoarders were hard at work, clearing both online stock and store stock by "in-store-pick-up". That afternoon, I scoured Toronto for 3 hours looking for this game. I was hindered with two obstacles, a.) my parents took the car so I couldn't drive around easily to the various destinations, b.) I was relegated to using my sister's bus pass, but I had a time limit of 3 pm because she had to go to school in the afternoon. So I left my house at noon, and store after store, they were out of stock. Finally I was told at one of the Best Buy's that they still had tons of stock at the Best Buy in Scarborough. So it was a race against the clock. I had 45 minutes left and I estimated that if the bus came exactly when I got to the bus stop, I'd make it home right at 3 pm. Well, the bus didn't come exactly on time and when I got to the Best Buy it was even more sketchy. Apparently they did have stock the young woman told me, but I had to make a request for any games, and they would retrieve them at the back ( I guess they were curbing hoarders). So I did, and some dude eventually came out with the game. She price matched it to beat Future Shop's $10 down to $7. But it wasn't without hesitation. I heard her ask the cashier if she wanted her to call the Future Shop to see if they had stock. If she did in fact call them, and FS told her they had stock, I would have been fucked out of the deal. And FS probably would have told them they had it "in stock" because I checked websites and their stores did list them as having it "in stock". But when I went to the 2 FS's that afternoon, none of them actually had them even though their records say they do. In the end, it was worth it though. I got home at 2:57, 3 minutes to spare! And I got the game for $7. Some of McDonald's combos cost more than that.

On a final note, on the Friday of the sale, EB Games was offering $15 in trade-in-value for those games mentioned before (profiting you $8 to $10). However, word on RFD was that they blacklisted some customers because they were exploiting the system. Saturday hits, and a memo is sent throughout EB to lower the TIVs to $7, thus kiboshing those hoarders (no profit for you fuckers!). I don't like EB, but good for you!

End Story!

Anyhow, Dead Space! Are you still interested? I'll keep it short then!

I mentioned in my review of Drag Me to Hell that jump scares don't get me anymore, that I was desensitized to them. Well, as I have recently discovered, the aforementioned holds true for movies, but in video games, it's a whole different ball game. There's many jump scares in this game and they all had me screaming, swearing, and otherwise, jumping. I think it gets me because I feel fully immersed into the game that when things happen to the main character, I feel as though it were me. Otherwise I don't know. I mean, the game used all the same tricks that movies do, yet movies don't get me.

In Dead Space you play as an engineer (!) named Issac Clarke, who with a small crew, are investigating a vessel called the USG Ishimura who had sent out a distress signal. Issac and co. soon find that the ship is void of any crew but is full of undead creatures called Necromorphs. What at first seems like a rescue mission quickly becomes an escape mission, with all sorts of twists along the way.

Dead Space plays as a third person shooter, with an over the shoulder style approach. Because you play as an engineer, instead of being armed with regular guns and explosives, your relegated to futuristic mining equipment like plasma cutters, saws, and the like, but aside from their names, they all pretty much are guns. The gameplay is relatively linear, requiring you to solve simple puzzles before moving forward. If at anytime during the game you find yourself lost, all you have to do is give your right analog stick a click, and your suit will project a beam showing you which direction you need to go next.

As you're playing the game, you can't help but notice that the game incorporates elements from famous sci-fi horror movies (eg. Aliens, The Thing, Event Horizon, etc). From the designs of the corridors and rooms, to the aliens, and even to the story, EA Games did a great job of incorporating all these modern classic horror ideas.

The best aspect of this game is the atmosphere. Specifically the sound design. It's done so well that it keeps you on the edge of your seat. Throughout the game you'll hear tons of background noises. Often you can hear aliens growling or dragging their bodies across the floor, but you never see them. It keeps the suspense level on high as you never know if they'll pop out of a wall or not. It also helps if you play this game with 5.1 surround sound. One of the cooler sound designs is whenever you go into outer space or any area with no air. Because you're in space, everything sounds muted and all you can really hear is your own breathing and gasping. It makes it all the more freaky when an alien lunges at you in these moments... you never hear them coming.

Another cool aspect is that instead of having a HUD, everything you need to know is integrated into the game. Your life bar is on the spine of your space suit, your ammo is shown atop of your weapons, and any menus are displayed as 3D projections in front of you produced by your suit. This was quite a great design and made the gameplay seem seamless, never taking you out of the experience.

The game was relatively short and easy, clocking in 13 hours at completion on the middle difficulty setting. It would have been shorter had I been not so cautious about all the jump scares. You're given a run button, but I hardly used it, in fear that a necromorph would pop out in front of my path.

This was a fun game, and worth more than the $7 I paid for it. If you love the survival horror genre, there's no reason not to pick this up and give'er a try.

Until next time, later geeks!

Categories: campaign of cheapness , dead space , gaming , xbox 360

I was going to do a quick review round-up to take care of a slew of movies I've seen recently, but after some reflection, I decided that a movie with the caliber that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has warrants it's own separate review. I mean Street Fighter was an institution during my childhood, I couldn't just gloss over it.

I don't remember the plot exactly, but as I recall, it was a revenge story. Chun-Li, a musician turned martial arts expert, is after M. Bison, an evildoer Irish crime boss who was adopted at birth by Thai people. Somehow he was able to embody himself with pure evil as he injected the pure goodness in him to his daughter. Anyhow, Chun-Li is after Bison for the kidnapping and eventual killing of her father.

This movie was no good. The fighting was okay and it was unintentionally funny likely because the acting was so bad. Those are the only two reasons I could come up with for not falling asleep during the movie. At least the '94 Van Damme version was so shitacular, that somehow it became cheesy good for its campiness.

One of the strange things was that we see Chun-Li in the beginning as a little oriental girl, but through the quick martial-arts training montage, we see she eventually evolves into a eurasian girl. Weird? I thought it was strange that she turned eurasian, and then they revealed that the mother was of some sort of european descent. So I guess it wouldn't have been a problem except that through some miraculous birth, she was born a chinese. Another peculiar thing is that somehow Chun-Li is able to grow up in China and have the worst possible chinese accent yet at the same time have a completely fluent english accent. I'm no expert of the Mandarin language (cantonese is my first language), but even I could tell that she was butchering the language. On the brightside though, it caused intense laughter for me. I guess for someone who is totally unfamiliar with the language, this wouldn't phase them at all though.

There's also a supporting crew of other Street Fighter characters, but other than through name, none of them really seem like their video game counterpart (okay, except for Vega who had a mask). The worst was Charlie Nash, played by Chris Klein of American Pie fame. There was a lot of bad acting in the movie, but his was the worst! I had no idea what he was trying to do or go for.

The movie is out now for DVD if for some reason you want to see it. There's nothing I can recommend about this movie unless you relish in self-torture. I will say that this movie was bad, but it was slightly more entertaining than Dragon Ball Evolution which is the bottom of the barrel bad (alliteration!).

You know, we're halfway through the year and I'm finding that it's easier to compose a worse 10 movies of the year rather than the best (which only has 2 titles so far). Here's hoping for the next 6 months. I leave you with one of my favourite cinematic moments of all time. Later geeks!






Categories: action , movies , street fighter

First of all, happy late Canada Day to my Canadian friends, happy early Independence Day to my American friends and... happy days to my international friends!

Last week, the weather in Toronto was amazing. We officially entered into the summer season and it kicked off with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s. Simply great.

Knowing ahead of time that it was going to be blazing hot, I planned a few trips to the beach. Lake Ontario is about a 25 minute walk from my house, so I decided that this would be a good opportunity to catch in some sun, meditate and re-focus myself as the summer season begins. So I walked down by myself on Monday and Thursday, with a backpack that contained a towel, a book, a water bottle and my iPod. I got to the sands, laid down, napped, woke up, prayed and just thought about life. On my iPod, I was listening to the sermons of one of my favourite preachers. I reflected on the message and prayed some more. I left each time feeling so much more rejuvenated and motivated, not for myself, but for Him.

Sunday came along and I went to the church service that evening. I don't believe in luck or coincidence, so it was even more interesting that the topic of the sermon was on solitude and Christ. The basis of the sermon was on Mark 1:35-39.

I think going away from the city and away from our everyday lives are important things. It's such an innate desire, that being Christians or not, we love going away on vacations or taking weekends off at the cottage. It's just a good way of clearing our minds of all the crap in our lives sometimes. Jesus especially knew that this was important and you can easily find instances where he'd tend towards a solitary place for prayer. As Christians, it's important for us to make and find the time to spend alone with God, to refocus our minds and our goals on Him, and away from the distractions of the normal life.

But sometimes when we say to ourselves that we're going to spend some time alone from God, how truly alone are we? Are we alone enough that we're free from stuff like cell phones, Blackberries, emails, and text messages? Or are we lying to ourselves?

There are 168 hours in the week. If you sleep for 8 hours a day and work 40 hours a week, you're left with 72 hours of free time. So I ask you, how many of those hours are you spending alone in Christ and in prayer. I challenge you my brothers and sisters, to make the time. We can't be so caught up in our every day lives. We do need to make that time to adjust ourselves back on God's path. And when you make that time for Him, make it really for Him. Don't anchor yourself down with cell phones or other communication devices. I know it's tough, but I don't think it's impossible if you really want to make the time. I know you'll be better for it and I know that God will bless you for it.

Categories: christianity , religion