Warner Bros., what is wrong with you? Trick 'r Treat has been on their shelves for the past 2 weeks, in distribution limbo, but it'll finally come out next week on DVD. So what is it?

The movie is a collection of four different horror stories, all revolving around Halloween. There's a story about a disgruntled school principal, a story about kids with an urban legend about a school bus massacre, a story revolving around a bunch of party girls and lastly it caps off with a story about a grumpy old man who doesn't like Halloween.

Trick 'r Treat works like Crash or Traffic in that there are four stories interwoven together. The stories cut into each other where sometimes dead characters will show up again. It's a nice stylistic choice in telling the different stories.

This is a really fun movie and has a great 80's kind of feel to it; an homage to 80's style anthology horror. At 82 minutes, it's not a particularly long movie either. The only thing that didn't really work for me was the comic book like in-between scenes. It threw me off as this movie wasn't about comics at all.

The movie was produced by Bryan Singer and was directed by his frequent collaborator, Michael Dougherty. I'd say that this movie was a success being that this is his first big feature.

Trick 'r Treat first played at AICN's annual Butt-Numb-a-Thon late in 2007 and since then, has made its rounds at various horror festivals (including Toronto's own After Dark Film Fest this year). It's received almost unanimously positive reviews from horror hounds and geeks alike, so at least the diehard geeks were pleased.

For whatever reason, Warner Bros. delayed the release date of this movie over and over... it was in limbo for 2 years! And it made no sense to me. I mean, given the nature of this film, you'd think that releasing this movie around Halloween would have been a surefire deal; it would have been a cash cow.

Even more inexplicable is their decision to release this movie straight to DVD (October 6 this year). I mean, I would understand their decision to do so were this a bad movie, but it wasn't. It was really fun and entertaining. Warner Bros., you missed the mark more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbour (anyone know this reference? *High five* if you do).

Check it out when it hits shelves, it'll be a fun time! Later geeks!





Categories: horror , movies , trick r treat

I've finally uploaded and captioned (sort of) all my pictures from my trip to New York. If you're interested, you can find them in the following link (here).

I also made a short slide show video that you can see below. It basically summarizes the trip if you don't wanna go through 300+ photos :) Later geeks!





Categories: new york , travelling

Day 6:
-when I left the house this morning, my aunt handed me $100. I'm confused. But maybe it's a sign that I should get that jacket.
-6 train to 53rd St. for MoMA (Museum of Modern Art).
-well this is disappointing... MoMA is closed on Tuesdays.
-gonna explore midtown instead.
-there are a shitload of cops, securities and barriers on the street. Streets are totally gridlocked.
-no wonder. There's a UN conference, apparently Obama is lurking.
-stumble across 666 5th St. It wouldn't surprise me if Satan set up office in the heart of midtown. It's a posh, chic and rich area, the perfect disguise.
-I'm at Madison Square Gardens. Massive line-up stretches around the block. Thought a pre-season Knicks game was going on. It's not. They're lining to get in a job fair. 10% unemployment here. Shit.
-back at Century 21. The jacket is gone. Today is full of disappointments. Looks like the jacket regret will continue for another year.

Day 7:
-10:00am bus ride home.
-there's this dude that looks exactly like my friend Skylar, except he's a bit thinner, has a tattoo, and curly hair. Hard to decide who's more bad-ass.
-iPod full of podcasts makes an enjoyable ride home...
-...until the batteries die. Oh well, only 1.5 hours from home anyways.

Categories: new york , travelling

My second last day here:

-visited grandma at nursing home =/
-morning dim sum with aunt, Millie, Stephen.
-headed to Broadway to pick up where I left off last week.
-zigzagging through streets, I find Soho.
-at the famous Pinkberry for yogurt.
-the first time I've ordered yogurt before (not a big fan, but this was good!)
-I tried their original w/ strawberries and raspberries.
-after weaving through Soho, I end up in East Village and NYU.
-found my favourite place of last year: Union Square.
-hopping on 5 train to check out Ground Zero.
-stopped by Century 21. Found a jacket I wanted but it's $70... NO BUYS~!

Categories: new york , travelling

I'm a day late, but hopefully not a buck short.

Day 3:
-outlet mall shopping at Woodbury Commons (outlet mall).
-this place is a sinkhole for your money.
-women beware of their fabulous prices.
-went to Uncle Sik and Aunt Gigi's home. Huge like a mansion. Steep hilled backyard.
-went to local Italian restaurant for dinner. Waitress caught someone trying to dine and dash. Culprit caught by waiter and chef. He threatened the chef afterwards. Scared my cousins.
-1.5 hour drive back home.

Day 4 (WEDDING DAY):
-wedding of my cousin Eileen and Dr. Victor Yim.
-venue: country club on Long Island (I forget the name), 1.5hr drive from Brooklyn.
-...so this is what a 6-figured wedding looks like... $1,000 centerpieces. Shit.
-Eileen looks drop dead beautiful and both seem extremely happy.
-early reception @2pm.
-video montage of their engagement... it took place underwater while scuba diving!
-so sleepy.
-wedding ends super early, 5pm.
-I'm not hungry, but apparently we're headed to dinner now, this is new.
-enough time to catch 2/3 of TNA ppv.
-talked to Stephen til 1 about cooking, music, highschool. Wow, nostalgia.

Categories: new york , travelling

More manual tweets:

-I guess I was tired. Ended up sleeping for 12 hours... longer than anticipated.
-dim sum lunch with family.
-headed for Guggenheim
-I feel like Clive Owen in The International.
-place is big, but The International made it seem bigger.
-feature artists is Kandinsky. Today is the first day of his exhibit. Packed place.
-interesting to see how his work evolved over the decades.
-my non-artistic interpretation: literal -> abstract -> scientific/geometric -> poetic/romantic
-heading to Broadway for a short stroll.
-got lost for 5 minutes after the train skipped a stop. Found my way not too long after. Thank you sun.
-spotted a store made for Vicky: Shoegasm.

Categories: new york , travelling

I don't have a Twitter account, but if I did, the following would have been my tweets for the past 24 hours:

-bus ride will be long, 11 hrs.
-trying to sleep, but hard. Dude in front of me has his chair all the way back... my poor knees.
-arrive earlier than ETA, 7:00am.
-dim sum for breakfast with aunts and uncles. Mom seems lively and happy.
-aunts and uncles said they could drive me to Woodbury on Sat. for shopping? Maybe. Cheap shopping for cheap man?
-tired as shit, but sticking to the plan: American Museum of Natural History.
-this C train is being very M.F.
-okay. this place is big.
-marine life exhibit. so many fishes. so many fears.
-5 hours in and i concede, this museum owned me.
-walking through Times Square before heading back.
-only walked thru Toys R Us. I tap out. Too tired, maybe I'll come back later in the week.
-hung out with my 11 year old cousin Travis. He teaches me to play Halo 3. He's such a kool young dude, I need to pray for him more.
-cousin Millie and her boyfriend Stephen are pretty kick-ass.

Categories: new york , travelling

As part of my Campaign of Cheapness, I've been starting and finishing books off at the bookstore. This is the third book that I finished in the store over the past few months and I can't believe I never did this before. Combined, it's saved me over $50. I know, I sound like a cheap sonuvabitch, but were my employment situation any different I would of bought all of those books.

Which brings us to Yes, You're Pregnant, But What About Me. Over a year ago, Kevin Nealon was on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and I remember he was there to plug this book. I usually enjoy his brand of humour and the title of the book made me laugh, so I added it to my "To Read" list. For those of you unfamiliar with him, he's most known for being a cast member on Saturday Night Live from the late 80's to 90's. His Hans and Franz sketch with Dana Carvey is probably his most famous bit. Also, he has a recurring role on the show Weeds and is in just about all of Adam Sandler's movies.

The book is a biographical account of his journey into fatherhood. Being a celebrity and a first time father at such a late age (in his 50's), he shares his perspective on the whole experience leading up to the birth date.

Nealon regales the readers with stories about past relationships, family, his previous marriage and his current marriage. The story that stuck to me the most was about his current wife. At the time they were dating, she was in her early 30's while he was in his early 50's. They had been dating only a week or two when one day he had a constipation problem. It was quite an emergency and he was in horrendous pain. So he called her to ask if she could go to the pharmacy to pick up laxatives and what not. So she goes, picks up the goods, and races back to his home while he's dying on the floor. Problem: she picked up the wrong goods. So she races back to the pharmacy and gets the "right" stuff this time... except no... she gets it wrong again. Kevin, dying on the floor sends her off again and FINALLY gets it right. The whole time he wonders what she must be thinking about her new boyfriend. At such a young age, how many of them suffered constipation problems. What would her friends think?

It's not all full of silly stories like that. He also shares insight on what sorts of duties we as men should take as husbands and fathers. Sometimes he reminds me of myself; when asked to do something he doesn't want to do, in his head he'll be thoroughly convinced that he won't do it but he ends up doing it anyways. But that's a universal truth amongst us men right?

It's a silly book and more heart-warming than I expected. It wasn't as laugh out loud as I had hoped it to be, but it was still entertaining. I think I would of enjoyed it more were I a father or an expectant father, so maybe I'll read this again years later when having a child becomes more of a reality.

Later geeks!

Categories: books , campaign of cheapness , kevin nealon

Some of the minds behind the Final Fantasy series have come together to bring an RPG epic to the Xbox. Produced by the Final Fantasy master mind Hironobu Sakaguchi, Lost Odyssey is one of the few large scale Japanese RPG productions for the Xbox.

The story follows an immortal warrior named Kaim who is a soldier for a nation named Uhra warring against a neighbouring nation, Gohtza. Kaim, who has lost all of his memories, becomes a pawn to the nation until one day he starts recovering some of his memories. On his adventures, he is joined by three other immortals who have also suffered similar memory loses and a band of ragtag humans. The story follows the party as they seek the mystery behind their vanished memories which unravels a larger political scheme behind it all.

From a technical standpoint, the game is very polished; from the designs of the areas and characters to the music. Spanning 4 DVDs, the game is beautiful in high definition. Everything is colourfully painted and rendered. The music is composed by Final Fantasy mainstay Nobuo Uematsu and I'd say that his orchestral pieces were some of my favourites from this game. The music really drove the emotion and made it feel like a grand adventure even the n00b beginning battles. However, not everything is perfect; there are a few scenes that seem out of place such as a Barbara Streisand-esque musical interlude in the middle of the game. It weirded me out. Even my brother who was watching was like "what the hell?".

The combat is turn based and allows you to have five members in your party at once. I really appreciated this. I like having five membered parties, which Square-Enix seems to have done away with in the last batch of Final Fantasies; three seems to be their number now. The skill set system is a hybrid of something between Final Fantasy IV and IX. Your mortal characters learn a set number of predetermined abilities and skills based on their level number; pretty standard affair. Your immortals however have to equip items which have abilities on them. But you have to gain a certain amount of skill points to fully master them which you gain from battling. In addition to items, you can link a skill off of your mortal teammates in order to learn abilities off of them; abilities that you might not find on items. This can take a lot of time as you have to micromanage your items and skill links every battle or two.

What keeps this game from being great is that it's so vanilla in terms of the storyline and especially the character development. The game opts for the tried and true formula of two warring nations and one man's rise to power. The members of your party are even more one-dimensional with the worst being the main character, Kaim. He's too stoic and too unemotional that it gives you no reason to get behind him. I can't remember a more boring main character. I think the Goombas in Super Mario have more charisma than this guy. However, the saving grace comes in the form of this wizard character named Jansen. He's the only character that shows an ounce of emotion and humanity and he's the only character I really got behind. At the same time, he's also a polarizing character; it's a love hate situation on gaming forums. To me, he's the most real character in the game.

The number of save points can also be irksome. Generally, each dungeon has a save point at the beginning and at the end just before a boss. The problem is getting from point A to point B often takes an hour and a half. Sometimes when you get into battles you have to really pray that the enemies to KO you or it's back to the start for you. Could be a pain in the butt if you were an hour and twenty nine minutes into the dungeon. A bit more nitpicky is the status ailment effects. Maybe it was lost on me but I had trouble figuring out what some of the effects were (well, I also never cracked open the manual). Whenever an enemy casts something on you, all you get is a coloured orb beside your character's name, no words or descriptions of what you're infected with. A bit annoying in the heat of combat.

The game is a solid playthrough and in the end is good but not great. With a minimum of 35 hours to completion, you really get the bang for your buck. If you're looking for a nice long journey then you can't go wrong with Lost Odyssey. The game doesn't really seek to reinvent the wheel, it just tries to make a nice sturdy wheel. That's about it for now. Later geeks!

Categories: gaming , lost odyssey , xbox 360

Well, I've been reading this on and off for about 4 months, but last week, I hunkered down and finished off the series. Yes, the critically acclaimed Preacher. The series was originally released 1995 under the Vertigo imprint (probably my favourite publisher I'd say). It was written by Garth Ennis with the artwork by Steve Dillon.

The story follows a southern preacher named Jesse Custer who becomes possessed by a spirit called Genesis; an ungodly creation through the mating of an angel and demon. Because the being is composed of pure good and pure evil, there is a fear that it's stronger than even God himself. Upon it's conception, I guess God was pissed and just left Heaven. Jesse is joined by his assassin girlfriend, Tulip, and an Irishman vampire, Cassidy, who embark on a journey across America to find God. Of course, being the most powerful man on Earth, many people are also after Jesse for their own nefarious purposes.

What Ennis does good in this series is developing the three main characters. We're given a lot of insight into their characters as well as their histories. The characters are very rich and varied. I think the problem I had with this series is the plot. As you read the series, there's a sense that it's building up to this huge event, but at the end there is no real payoff. Stuff kinda happens and becomes quite anti-climatic. I think what hurt was that there wasn't really an adversary to Jesse Custer that was an equal. There were some bad guys, but you always knew that Jesse would kick their butts which defeats the point of a conflict.

I guess because of the nature of the story, sometimes as a Christian, it felt offensive. Not the WHAT-THE-FUCK-type of offensiveness, but more of a WHY-WOULD-YOU-DO-THAT-type of offensiveness. Mostly it's due to Jesse's "fuck you, God" attitude and his trying to intimidate God that threw me off. But I wasn't offended enough to stop reading it, so maybe it's just a minor concern.

The way that the story plays out is very cinematic and not too over the top for a comic book. Ennis himself has stated that this could easily become a movie or a TV series of some sort. And for the past 10 years, that's what studios have been trying to do. One of the biggest proponents for this project is Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) who was trying to create the series for HBO. The deal unfortunately fell through late last year because they found the material too dark and religiously controversial... I thought anything goes on HBO?

Now that I'm done Preacher, I started reading the ongoing Wolverine Origins series. It's okay so far. One crazy thing is that the artist on that series is also Steve Dillon. What the heck were the chances? I'm reading two series back to back by the same artist and completely unintentionally.

That's it for now. Until next time. Later geeks!

Categories: comics , garth ennis , preacher

Today I learned something new about myself. I can be threatening when I'm scared. Case in point, I started playing Bioshock this weekend and I had no idea it was going to be a creepy game at all. Today while playing it, I got to the first boss, a fellow by the name of Dr. Steinman. He was behind a window muttering to himself, so I ignored him because I didn't know he was a boss. All of a sudden he bursted through the window guns a-blazin' and it startled me. I started to yell at the game verbatim, "Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?!?! I'm Jeff Lam! Who wants some? Who's next! WHO'S NEXT!!!". Well, after I beat the boss, I had to pause the game and laugh at myself, realizing I sounded ridiculous. Well, it's random, but I just thought I'd share.

Also, 1 vs 100 on the Xbox is a great party game. Some friends were over tonight and the game was full of moments of intensity and laughter.

In other news, I'm going back to New York next week, this time for a cousin's wedding. I'm pumped! But also, I have a shit ton to review (4 different things right now), so I'm going to try to pump them out before I leave.

Good times ahead, peace out geeks!

Categories: gaming , i'm smoking crack , life stuff , new york

Yesterday, our church small group took a trip down to the Canadian National Exhibition, or The Ex as it's more commonly known. They had a wicked deal this year; between Monday to Thursdays, if you go after 5pm, entrance was only $5, compared to the regular $15. This worked well for our group since most of us worked until 5pm.


The Ex is Canada's largest fair and actually the 4th largest in North America (I guess it'd be something like America's state fairs... although I've never been to one of those). There's lots to do there like losing your money to the carny games, wasting your money on expensive carny food, some shopping, some live music, and so forth. It takes place every year for two weeks at the end of summer and completes on Labour Day.

It's been a number of years since I was last here and nothing much seems to have changed. I paid $8 for some "Kentucky Style Chicken" combo that came with 2 pieces of chicken and some fries. It was okay, but it wasn't $8 okay. Maybe $6 or $7 if they push it. My goal during this visit was just to have a Beaver Tail, and I did, so I felt accomplished. If you've never had a Beaver Tail before, just ask Barack Obama and he'd tell you. It's a deep fried piece of dough that you can put different sweet toppings on. I opted for the cinnamon and sugar topping which seemed to be the popular pick. It was delicious.

Our young friend Kevin (who works at a carny game in the park) had a day off, so he came with our small group for the visit. He amused me more than once. If I didn't know him, I would of thought that this 15 year old owned the park. Well, I laughed.


Our friend Linda (Kevin's older sister) was working the carny game and actually let a bunch of us give it a try. It's one of those games where they have a shit ton of cups on the table and you have to throw a whiffle ball into certain coloured cups to win a prize. I think Kevin was saying the odds were 1 in 240 or something ridiculous like that. My friends one small prizes, I think a little plush turtle and a flower. Linda gave me Sonic the Hedgehog stickers as consolation. Score :)


We then checked out the Direct Energy Centre which housed hundreds and hundreds of vendors. This all seemed like another carny act to me though. Many of the vendors were like those TV infomercials trying to shill you their crap. Case in point, there was one woman selling these brooms with rubber thistles for $20. BUT WAIT! She brought in 12 extra ones, so the first 12 people to buy one would get another FREE! Oh the suckers that fell for this carny act, I was surprised. But then again, I'm not. There were some good deals on clothes if you wanted them for cheap, it wasn't all carny tricks. I bumped into my friend Ben from University, it was an awesome chance meeting, he's a solid dude.

Well, it was quite a fun night. I was tizired as shizit when we left. That's it for now. Lizater gizeeks!

Categories: life stuff , the ex , toronto

Last night I attended the CD release show for Andrew Huang under the name Your Heart at St. Stephen in the Fields church (home of Freedomize Toronto). The album is called "Summer" and it's his goal to release one themed album for each season, with this being the first one.

In the promo flyer it said that there would be cookies, farm animals, and Barack Obama. All three were promised and delivered. It was a nice intimate atmosphere capped off with candlelit tables which gave off a great romantic mood even if you're not romantic.


In addition to releasing his CD, it was also the debut of the music video for his song "In the Sun", which opened up his set. The set was an eclectic mix of upbeat songs and more mellow tunes. About half the songs were performed with a full band, while the others were filled with selective instruments. The show ended off with a live performance of "In the Sun", to which a fair group of dancers filled the front stage area, I guess the crowd favourite.

I'd say the only thing that hampered the show was the balancing of levels on the mix board. The instruments came through fine, but the vocals sounded a bit muffled and it was difficult to make out what the lyrics were. However, it was a fun show, and hey, it was free cover, can't argue that!

Check out his website (here and Myspace). Below is a preview for the music video. Later geeks!



Categories: concerts , music , your heart

If you've been watching the business news or geek news the past 2 days, then you've probably heard: Disney is buying Marvel Enterprises. For how much? A whopping $4 billion (full story on CNN).

I seriously don't know what to think. A list of pro's and con's about the deal comes to mind. On the plus side, much like DC Comics being owned by Warner Bros., now Marvel has a huge financial backer for any endeavours that they couldn't pursue before eg. cartoons or movies for less famous characters. Any failures that they might incur would be absorbed by the pockets of the big Mouse. Also, this opens up the doors to much more geek-centric films, like Pixar created superhero movies (like The Incredibles, but with more known heroes!).

But at what cost? Will the mature content and subject matter be toned down in the comic book stories? Will we see no more rated-R superhero movies a la the Blade franchise? [note: on a messageboard, someone assured me that if they did produce R-rated features, that it would probably be released through Miramax Films, also under the Disney umbrella].

As you can see, I'm on the fence about it. I guess we'll have to wait and see how everything pans out. Just as long as they stay away from stupid crossovers in the comic books, then I'll be fine. Least of what we need is Goofy joining the Avengers at this point.

Later geeks!

Categories: comics , disney , marvel