Recently I had this kick where I wanted to play all of the old NES games that I played as a kid. I also decided to do little write ups for some of them in a new segment I'd like to call Retro Rebound! I took some screenshots of my adventures too! Consider these posts an homage to my friend Dave's site, 8-Bit Memoirs, who's site is purely dedicated to old school gaming.
In Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, you play as an adventurer named Simon Belmont who was cursed by Dracula. He learns that he will die unless he finds five different body parts of Dracula in order to resurrect him and seal the curse.
Castlevania II was one of the first games to allow free-roaming, incorporating an action/adventure gameplay and adopting some RPG mechanics. (remember those annoying games that only let you progress to the right and not left?). Every kill garnered you experience points and with enough points you'd gain a level, extending your life bar total. If you're familiar with Castlevania titles, you'll know that the whip is your best friend. As you travel to new towns, you'll be allowed to upgrade your whip, strengthening the hits that you deal out. As you do more exploring, you acquire an array of new weapons, some which are more useful than others. The game also incorporates a night and day system, where enemies are easier to kill during the day, but at night, a curse empowers them making them a lot tougher to kill. To top it all off, the game included multiple endings depending on the time it took for you to finish the game. I don't know if this is the first game to adopt this idea, but it must be one of the first at least. Keep in mind, this was all done in 1988!
Don't mind if I do! A townsfolk lends me a tip. Notice that he says, I "must" not that I "should" rest in the church.
My dad bought the game for us when I was 6 years old and I remember some parts of the game freaked me out. I know it's hard to believe, but when I was a kid, I was terrified of anything horror or horror-related. As I grew up, I started to appreciate my fears more. Anyhow, this game is littered with all sorts of scary beings like skeletons, mummies, zombies, werewolves and of course Dracula. The one thing that scared me the most were these green ghoul type creatures who would dart fast from left to right. They weren't hard to kill but were just scary to look at.
The aforementioned green ghoul!
Thanks to the password save system and a generous life bar, the game is not too difficult. The game is pretty great but it does suffer from a few drawbacks. The poor translation job from Japanese to English left American gamers with only cryptic clues to guide you along your adventure, making it easy to get lost or confused on where to head next. It's still a fun game and I'm still amazed that this was made in 1988.
First of all, holy crap, I have so many different posts going on at the same time. I think I have enough content for 2 weeks, which gives me a short breather. I've got a few fun things with end of year and beginning of year stuff as well as some retro reviews ;) Anyhow!
It's sort of funny. I think I've seen at least a dozen different football movies and I don't think there's one that I didn't enjoy. I say it's funny because I'm not a football fan at all and in fact, I hardly know how the game is played (catch the ball, don't trip, run to the other end?). So I went into this thinking that it was going to be a football movie (see picture on left), but was surprised to find out that it was more of a human story with hardly any football in it at all.
The Blind Side is the true story of a young man named Michael Oher, who both lived in and out of foster homes and was also homeless. Seeing his athletic prowess, a coach at a private Christian high school convinces the school board to accept him as a student. Still homeless and dejected, he feels left out in the "white walls" of his school. One night, Leigh Anne Tuohy and her husband, catch a glimpse of Oher walking out alone in the freezing rain, and invite him to stay at their home and its here that he begins to open up and make a recovery.
What makes the movie is the contrasting lifestyles of the Tuohy's and Oher. The Tuohy's, I believe are millionaires or at least close to it, while Oher has lived in poverty his entire life. It's a pretty powerful decision for the who Tuohy's take him in under their wing, help him get back on his feet and eventually become his legal guardians. I've pretty much talked about the full premise of the movie and I haven't even mentioned the word football once in the plot. Football does become a plot point, but it is secondary to the core of the story told here.
The most remarkable thing about the movie is that the whole thing is a true story. SPOILER: at the end of the movie during the credits, it cuts to real clips of Oher getting drafted in the 2009 NFL draft to the Baltimore Ravens. We also see a montage of photos of the real Oher and the Tuohy family together. It's pretty crazy because all this happened pretty recently. Six years ago, he was living on the streets with not a dime to his name, and now he's signed a near $14 million dollar contract to play football. It's just amazing how this all changed because one or two people saw something good in him and raised him with real love, something he was lacking his whole life.
My only complaints with the movie are really minor in the grand scheme of things. I really didn't like the score by Carter Burwell. And its a shame because he's done fine work in the past, but the score just didn't seem to match the movie. The music it what helps reinforce, if not create, the atmosphere, and there are some parts where I just felt the music would have been better off in a sitcom than a movie like this. The second thing is Sandra Bullock. I had trepidations about this movie because of her involvement. I mean look at her repertoire of films. She plays the same character all the time. In fact, she basically reprised her role as Miss Congeniality with this movie. Who walks into the ghettos in a tight little summer dress? BUT, I do forgive her and will let it pass in this movie only because at the end of the movie when it showed photos of the real Leigh Anne Tuohy, Bullock looked exactly like her and so I guess the real Ms. Tuohy is like a real life Miss Congeniality. I firmly believe that the real Ms. Tuohy walked into the ghetto with said dress. This is the second time that Tim McGraw has played a football dad. The first time was in Friday Night Lights which he was pretty damn awesome in, but this time around, he could have been interchanged with any ol' actor. He did nothing special with what he was given, but his role was underplayed as well.
This is safe recommendation and its a good movie to watch for the whole family. The story is wholesome, touching and it does make you think a bit. The fact that it's a true story is a great triumph in human kindness. Til next time, later geeks!
Starcraft within Warcraft + playing World of Warcraft + Aliens (the James Cameron one) + An Inconvenient Truth + the BBC Planet Earth series = Avatar.
That ain't a bad thing at all.
I'm going to skip talking about the story because basically that's the way I went into the movie (knowing pretty much nothing) and I recommend the same thing for you if you haven't seen it yet. I pretty much avoided all the reviews on AICN, but I did skim over Roger Ebert's who gave it an resounding thumbs up.
I will say this though, while the storyline doesn't really reinvent the wheel, it still makes for a pretty damn nice looking wheel. While not completely original, the story is quite layered and allegorical, and I'm sure there's many different aspects that can be singled out that could be related to past, present or possibly future social conflicts.
I saw the movie on IMAX 3D and the word 'beautiful' doesn't begin to describe how the whole thing looked. It's interesting because as the movie started in the space station and battle station, I thought to myself, "wow, that is pretty cool, but not mind blowing". It's not until 15 minutes later when the crew lands in the jungles of Pandora that my jaw just dropped. It is gorgeous! The world of Pandora is lush, seamless and teeming with life. All the bright colours of the different vegetation in the green backdrop was absolutely stunning in 3D. Anytime the movie switched back into battle station scenes I got antsy for the movie to switch back to the Pandora scenes. I seriously would not mind watching an hour of the Na'vis running around the forests in 3D if only just to see more of their world.
All the actors who played the Na'vis and all the computer geeks that rendered them into life have to be given much of the credit for its success. I don't think the movie would of had such a strong emotional connection if we couldn't believe that the Na'vis were real and so the geeks and their computer powers really brought them to reality. Digital characters have never seemed so good.
It might sound a bit silly, but my favourite character in the movie was the main bad guy, Colonel Miles Quaritch. Of all the characters in the movie, his was probably the most one-dimensional, yet I loved it. He's the stereotypical, macho, bad-ass Colonel character that you've seen in movies before, but I just thought that Stephen Lang (who played him) did a great job of making us hate him (note: I guess it's like in wrestling, I like the bad guys usually more than the good guys). Anyhow, I both laughed and was in awe of his macho-ness in that he'd rather shoot shit down than worry about putting on his oxygen mask or chasing people down rather than worry that his shoulder is on fire. I don't know this for a fact, but I bet if there were cut scenes, we'd see that he bleeds bullets and pisses gasoline. That's how tough he is.
I'm glad James Cameron is back to his geek roots after a 10 year lull with Titanic and documentaries. I can't wait for Battle Angel!
Anyhow, I gotta give special cred to my friend Jeezy for treating me out for this matinee screening. The bromance is strong, LOL. We all loved the movie, so it was good times.
This movie gets a resounding thumbs up and I recommend seeing it in IMAX 3D if it's available in your city. Just make sure you get to the theater at least an hour beforehand to snag good seats. The line-ups were ridick today at the theater we went to.
Ya know, I can't say that I'm a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk, but only because I haven't read much of his stuff. I've read Survivor which was pretty great and also Haunted, which I was hyped for, but disappointed in the end. Aside from that, I've watched Fight Club but never read it. So I'm a fan fo shizzy, just can't claim to be a big fan.
Pygmy tells a story about a young exchange student taken in by an American family. He along with a handful of other teenagers are adopted by families into the same city and are showered with the American ways of living (including handing them T-shirts that say "Property of Jesus" as they board off the plane). Unbeknownst to the dimwitted families is that these cute little foreign students are really military trained secret agents working for their Motherland. The story builds up to a mysterious large-scaled mission called "Operation Havoc" which is almost alluded to in every chapter, but with few details given until the end. Our little hero Pygmy (named that because he is apparently very short) soon wins over the attention of his schoolmates and townspeople, and finds himself leading the charge in "Operation Havoc". But conflicts arise as he gains more affection and adapts to his new found home.
This is likely one of the most bizarre books I've ever read. Because it's written in the point of view of a foreign student, the English we read is broken English... or Engrish to be more precise (check [here] for real world examples). Basically it's written in a manner without any pronouns and also a lack of prepositions. The effect it gives off is a bit daunting at first as it looks more like an orgy of words splashed onto the page rather than cohesive thoughts. This made reading the book difficult at first, but if you gave it a whirl for about 40 pages or so, you'd soon get the hang of the style and the code words that our young anti-hero often uses.
I'll give you an example from the beginning of the book: "Passport man, officer nothing behind bullet glass, open and reading passport book of operative me, matching to paper facts of visa, man down look upon this agent, say, “You’re a long ways from home, son.” Man, ancient penned animal dying of too tall, pooled heavy blood hanging in legveins. Trapped all day, then could be next walk to toilet, pow-pow, clot knock out brain."
For me, this book was love and hate at the same time. The story is written as debriefing reports to his home nation, detailing all aspects of his life and progress in "Operation Havoc" (the reports are classified so often you'll see details blacked out by a marker). It bounces between the present day and time to flashback sequences that he finds memorable or relatable to his current situations. I love the core story and the cartoony style scenarios that Pygmy finds himself in. Sometimes the scenes seem like something plucked out of a South Park episode. It's laugh out loud funny and dark in some parts, but you really have to work your way through and earn these moments. It can be frustrating and difficult to read if you're not in the right mood. Chances are that you will miss a lot of details too.
Pygmy himself is a peculiar, hilarious and an altogether interesting character. Being the observant person that he is, he'll zone in and go into detail about the most mundane of things as it's so foreign to him. A lot of the humour comes from his misunderstandings of the American culture and their way of life. But we also see that he's willing to learn much from his peers and from his family members. I think the most amusing thing about Pygmy is how he'll always refer to different martial arts maneuvers that he learned in training. For example: "Could be twin leg of operative me spring to perform Flying Tree Squirrel, zoom-grab, arrest progress of shadow and prevent from imminent fertility attack upon asleep host sister." There must be a hundred of these moves littered throughout the book, and funny enough, on the back cover of the book are some cartoons demonstrating a few of the moves.
Palahniuk makes another interesting decision in never telling us exactly what country Pygmy and his fellow operatives are from nor their ethnicity. Several times throughout the book, we're alluded to the fact that it could be Korea, China, Russia, a Middle-Eastern nation, etc., but it never gives an exact answer. But it really doesn't matter where they're from. Whichever country it is, they don't like America so they want to hurt America. It's as simple as that.
This is a tough recommend. I'll do this three ways. If you're a casual reader and want something easy and enjoyable to read, then you might want to pass on this one. However, if you're a reader who enjoys something different with a lot to chew on (although you have to work for it) then pick this one up. Lastly, if you're a Palahniuk fan, then of course, pick this one up. Regardless, it's a tough read, that's layered and meaty. If you're like me then likely you'll miss a lot of the smaller details and nuances that Palahniuk embeds into the story. I suppose it makes all the more better for future readings.
When the idea of remaking the first Halloween came about, I wasn't really offended like some of the other fanboys. I wanted to give Rob Zombie the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I really enjoyed The Devil's Rejects and thought he could bring that same brutal element to the Halloween franchise, which was itself dying a painful death (his previous faceoffs in the main series was against Tyra Banks and Busta Rhymes... I rest my case).
Anyhow, that movie came out and frankly, I was appalled. It was just not a Halloween movie nor did it seem like Michael Myers. I understand it's a re-imagining from Zombie's perspective, but still if that's the case, then it was just a bad movie in general, let alone a Halloween movie. Well, that was all 2 years ago.
Like all slasher movies, it's not complete without a/some sequel(s). This year, we were "treated" to Halloween 2 also directed by Zombie. Again, being the fool that I am, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. While, yes, I hated the first one, the trailers for this one made it look like things were on the right track. It seemed like it was becoming its own animal, distinct from the original Halloween franchise.
So having watched it now, it indeed accomplished that. It came into its own. This would be its blessing, however, ultimately it's also its curse.
Although this movie is Halloween 2, it isn't a remake of the original Halloween 2 but rather a new sequel to the series. The movie takes place 2 years after the first, with our main hero Laurie coping with life after the tragedies that took place years prior. She's doing her best to avoid being all emo about what happened and moving on with her life, now that her homicidal brother, Michael, is dead. Key thing to note, they never found his body... so how the fuck do they know he's dead?! Well, it's not long before Michael shows up in town blood thirsty and all. And now he sees visions too. Visions of his mother and a horse (?!?!), who beckon him to kill, kill and kill.
You know, besides the names of the characters and a killer sporting a William Shatner mask, this movie in no way resembles a Halloween movie. Had they left the franchise alone and let this be its own completely original movie/series, I think I would have been fine with it. He tries to add a lot of artistic elements to the movie and it just seems to fall flat. At times, it's more like an abstract, indie horror film rather than a mainstream slasher flick that you'd associate with Halloween.
Instead, its association with Halloween is the main crux of my disdain for the movie. This was a piece of trash! Halloween movie this was not!!! My main problem is how Zombie took three of the most iconic characters in horror movie history (Laurie, Dr. Loomis, and Myers) and completely destroyed who they were. With a remake, you'd think that you'd treat the characters with a degree of respect to the original, but he doesn't. Laurie, who in the original movie, was the quintessential female hero, is an unsympathetic brat in this movie who cries a lot and wants to get drunk. Seriously? Why should we care if she lives or dies, because she doesn't seem to. The original Dr. Loomis was an interesting character, the only real bridge between reality and madness for his infamous patient, Michael. He was always the character that you'd feel safe to have around, only because it seemed like he was the only one capable of calming the beast. Zombie manages to twist his character into some sort of fame-hungry, money-chasing, prima donna celebrity, instead of the good doctor like we knew he was. Shit. It's bad, but I wanted him to die! And I shouldn't have to feel that way, especially not for good ol' Dr. Loomis.
And then there's Michael. Okay, I'm going to try not to swear because it could turn into a torrent of havoc. Instead I'll use initials for swear words and you can guess what I'm trying to say. Basically Zombie B.F.'s Michael's character into oblivion. This is no longer the Michael that we knew from the previous series or even from the previous movie. I don't know what the F happened or what he was trying to do, but Michael got F'd. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you humanize a monster, it's no longer a monster. Whenever we see things from his perspective, we see not only monster him, but we also see child him. Ughh... And oh yeah, spoiler alert.......... we get to see his face at the end, and he talks?!?!!?!?!?!?!???!?!!??!?!!? F YOU ROB ZOMBIE!!!! WHAT THE FLYING F WERE YOU THINKING?!?! HOW THE HELL DID YA THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA!?!?!?! YOU ARE ONE CRAZY A.F.M.F.!!
Breathe Jeff. Pillows. Sheep. Fluffy things. I am again in my happy place. Moving on then.
There were a few good things in the movie though. This is the second movie I've seen this month with geek favourite Brad Dourif and he does a pretty good job as the Sheriff of Haddonfield. Also good was Danielle Harris who was wounded but didn't die in the first movie. She reprises her role as Laurie's best friend Annie, and comes across as the only sympathetic character in the whole movie.
Also, the violence is damned brutal in this movie. The kills aren't exactly creative, but it's made up for in it's brutality. As I was watching the movie, I noticed a general pattern. Every time Michael went in for a kill, what ever action he needed to do, you had to add a plus 2 to 3 times on top of that action.
A few examples. Stomping a guy's face in to kill him, maybe 3 times. Plus 3. Make that 6 times. Smashing a girl's face into a mirror to kill her. It'd take maybe 2 times, given his strength and her brittleness. Plus 2. Make that 4 times. Stabbing a nurse through the back, it'd take maybe 4 times. Plus a billion. Make that a billion and 4 times. You get the point.
So really, there's no reason to watch this movie. It's an abomination to the series. I hope John Carpenter never watches this. That's it for now. Later geeks!
Today is a special post for my friend Skylar and his beautiful wife Sarah. Today, they will be embarking on a journey to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where Sarah has accepted a job in teaching. They're going to be there for the next (undetermined) while, with I'm sure exciting adventures and stories ahead.
Skylar is my Tier 1 friend and probably knows me like no other, even though I don't get to see this dude much post-schooling. Anyhow, I'm gonna miss ya and I just wanted to wish you both the best (I know you're reading this Skylar)! This blog hides my tears, lol. My prayers will be with both of you's! God bless ya!
On the other end of the spectrum from 2012, we have The Hurt Locker. This is action and suspense done great. During its limited theatrical run this past summer, there was early talks of Oscar nods for this movie. Interestingly enough, the Golden Globe nominations came out today, and Locker is nominated in the best drama picture category. A good sign so far!
The Hurt Locker follows a bomb squad who are a part of the U.S. Army's Bravo Company deployed in Iraq. Rather than a central story, the movie opts to show a slice of life within these soldiers. We follow them over the course of the year and see how the hardships take their tolls on these men. At times, what comes across as anger to us, is actually camaraderie to them. At the head of the team is a young brash sergeant named William James, who at times seems to be living more for the thrill of it than as a duty. We see how the decisions he makes affects his two other close squad mates.
The theme of decisions seems to be strong in this movie. When you're charged with disarming a suicide bomber with only 2 minutes to work with, every decision you make is crucial and absolute. We see that for Sgt. James, it's situations like this that give him a real sense of purpose and place. There's a scene near the end of the movie, where we see James in a supermarket and he has to pick up some cereal. We see him stand in the aisle staring at the endless boxes and variety of cereal. Rather than make an executive decision, he concedes. How do these mundane choices compare to the life-threatening choices he had to make?
I have to give all the credit to director Kathryn Bigelow. She does a great job of knitting together scenes with a high degree of suspense. You're literally on the edge of your seat with the tension in some of the scenes. Of her repertoire of work, aside from Locker, the only one I've ever watched was Point Break and I loved that movie when I was a kid. I've seen parts of Strange Days, but never the whole thing. It's interesting because you don't find many women doing action and suspense movies, but Bigelow really nails it here.
I think what also bolstered my enjoyment was all the Call of Duty I was playing the past 2 months. The scenes in the movie looked like something directly out of the game (or vice versa... whichever). It captured the feeling of being in the Middle East; from the desolate desert backdrop to the ominous shouting in the background, all worked well in making you feel like you were right there in the thick of all the tension.
I can't wait to watch this movie again. This is one that would be great on Blu-Ray if you've got a player. I've shortlisted it on my list of favourites for the year, but haven't decided where it will end up yet. That's it for now, later geeks!
It's been over a week since my last movie review, and boy, what a way to get back into things.
LOL!!! This movie SUCKED!!!!#@$!!#$@#!!!!!!
But really, who's surprised? When the trailer first came out, I thought, oh cool, another low thinking, CG-littered, late season blockbuster. It could be fun. I later found out that Roland Emmerich was at the helm and abandoned all hope.
Emmerich doesn't exactly have the hottest track record. His last 3 movies before this was 10,000 BC, The Day After Tomorrow and The Patriot... all of them pretty much crap. In fact, The Day After Tomorrow is almost the same as this movie; a global natural disaster movie. I think the last movie of his that I enjoyed was Independence Day. I should mention though that they were playing it on TV not too long ago, I watched it, and unfortunately it doesn't seem to hold up with time.
In short, 2012 is about the world getting destroyed for whatever reasons. We follow John Cusack's family as they narrowly escape action scene after action scene. There's a happy ending. The end.
I think that's the biggest problem I had with this movie. It's a movie about Earth getting shat on by nature or God and yet it still has the balls to churn out a happy ending. Why couldn't it be a somber or ominous ending? I'd rather leave the movie sad yet contemplative than happy, thinking that John Cusack will one day rescue me if all this comes to fruition. Balls!
My second biggest gripe was how long the effin' movie was! It clocked in at over 2 and a half hours! I was just waiting for it to end but it kept on going. I think after the 1 and a half hour mark, I just stopped caring. Scenes were poorly knitted together with characters I couldn't give a crap about sending my brain into auto-pilot mode. I think I started daydreaming about wrestling storylines as I am wont to do.
Well, that said, I gotta give Emmerich credit; he knows how to throw money on the screen. Like with Day After Tomorrow, the best parts of the movie are when we get to see cities torn to shreds. It's just unbelievable and awe-inspiring seeing metropolises get swallowed up by the earth. But as I recall, the production budget for the movie was $200 million, which I'm sure is more than some country's GDP. Tis a shame. Think of the number of schools that this money could have built in third world nations.
Had this movie been 80 minutes of scene after scene showing major cities getting destroyed, I think I would have been perfectly fine with it. It probably wouldn't have been a great movie, but I think I would have enjoyed it more than the crapfest we were given here. Like I said, give me a sad ending with something to think about, and I'd be fine.
So folks, stay clear! For some inexplicable reason, it's still doing hot at the box office. Ignore all those knuckle dragging, mouth breathers though. You're smarter than that. Save your money. Go see Avatar. Or don't watch anything at all. There I saved you $10... now send me $5. Later geeks!
On Tuesday night, FreeChurch Toronto had a Love Feast to celebrate love as God had intended. Basically it was a big feast to the church members as well as the community at large. The place was packed to the brim with nary an empty seat in sight.
Our new Living Room (small group) was officially inducted this past weekend after completing the 8-week long membership series. As the new members, our group was charged with the task of being the hands on help for the day. Our crew of folks did everything from helping with the cooking, decorating the place, serving dishes and then cleaning the whole place up. I think most of us ended up doing a little bit of everything. It was actual an excellent opportunity to further bond with each other as well as with the existing church members.
What was awesome was the number of people that just walked off the streets, came in and had a meal with us. We were blessed to have them eat with us. I did feel bad about one thing though. There was this group of elderly Chinese people that came in together and I saw it as an opportunity to try and connect with them. I served them some dish and tried talking to them with my Cantonese speaking powers. But alas, it was to no avail... they were Mandarin speakers. They nodded and smiled, maybe they were happy that I tried, I don't know. I wanted to bridge that connection but I couldn't because of the language barrier. It was too bad. I can only hope that next time there would be some Cantonese speakers and I could talk to them.
Balcony view of the festivities below.
Anywho, everything was indeed awesome. The course for the evening was prepared by a sweet lady named Alex, and the meal was actually completely vegan. I'm pretty sure it was my first vegan meal and it was delicious. The other church members were tasked with bringing in the desserts, and boy did they bring in desserts. Let me just say that I am a huge fan of chocolate and there were tons of chocolatey treats! It ruled! (They gave me some to take home :)
The mountains of dessert.
After the clean up and everything, it was after midnight and I just couldn't believe it. Our group was there for about 7-8 hours, but it went by so fast. We group hugged for a night well spent and I'm pretty sure we all left feeling elated. It was an awesome day. Later geeks!
Most, but not all of our new Living Room members. These guys are awesome!
My wardrobe is dying a slow death. I don't buy much new clothes at all. In fact, a good 80% of my clothes now are band related merch, from shows that I've gone to in the past 4-5 years... more than half of these bands which are broken up now. Anyhow! On Threadless this weekend, there was a $12 sale on all their shirts. After going through their catalog and discussing what was good and what was not with my brother, I ordered 3 of them. Lo and behold, yesterday there was a whole different sale, shirts went down to $9 a piece!! You've never seen a man cancel his order so fast! So yes, I did that, and then re-ordered my order plus one more shirt to bring it back up to $36. I'm happy now, I'm in a peaceful state... unless shirts go for $6 tomorrow. The following are the designs I ordered. Later geeks!
I hope this post doesn't come across as preachy. Believe me, that's not my intention. Rather, I felt very convicted of this during the past week and thought that I should put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard I guess).
This past week was a bit of a strange week for me. It's not that anything particular happened to trigger it, but for whatever reason, I was in this quiet, contemplative mood the entire week. I suppose as the year 2009 is beginning to wrap up, I was just reflecting on my life and where this ship's headed.
On Thursday night, during my nightly prayer, something really stuck out and I must have prayed about it for a good 20 to 30 minutes. I kept thinking about the cost that Jesus paid so that we could be saved and live. God, being the Great Purchaser, picked up the tab so that we could experience life. But how do we as followers of Christ justify that price, the ultimate price at that?
To put things into perspective, I thought about an analogy of a dog owner buying a dog. Let's say that you were to buy an expensive dog for $2000 (is that expensive or cheap? I don't know, I never bought a dog before but it seems like a lot to me). You buy this dog with all these hopes and dreams. You wish to teach it so that it will become obedient and well behaved. Maybe like in cartoons, you wish for it to be the kind of dog that brings in the newspaper and grabs your slippers for you; the ideal dog. After all, it's a pet you're buying not a 'pest'. So you lay down $2000 and with it, you've got all these hopes of what this dog's gonna be like.
But what if after receiving this dog, it wasn't turning out as you hoped it would be? It's rambunctious, unruly, it doesn't listen to you, it shits where it wants to; it does what it wants, when it wants and where it wants. In fact, you didn't end up buying a dog at all, you ended up with a mutt! So how would you, the dog owner, feel? You laid down two thousand hard earned dollars, it cost you quite a lot.
And how many times in our lives are we like that dog? We march to the beat of our own drum, we do whatever we want, and we shit where we want (hopefully, figuratively and not literally). Have we forgotten that we too have an owner? In fact, He paid an even greater price than $2000 so that we could live. The cost of our lives was sending down His son on the cross to die. He is the Great Purchaser.
So are we justifying the price that was paid? I write this but at the same time I do understand that we are saved by His grace alone, and not by our works. But we can't cheapen that grace by dicking around and being false followers. How are we living for Him? How are we being for Him? How are we doing His kingdom?
As followers of Christ, let's not forget that we do have an owner. Let's be good and obedient dogs. Later geeks.
(Note: I couldn't find a good picture that related to this post, so the top picture is of me being contemplative on a trip to Dominican Republic last year. Photo credit Ally Chan.)
On Saturday night, the University of Toronto Gospel Choir performed a Christmas concert at the Calvary Church, in the heart of Greek Town Toronto. Apparently they do a Christmas concert every year. They did a number of songs including of course, Christmas songs, as well as a few worship songs. The thing that really stood out to me was the diversity of the choir. Of the 40 or so people that made up the choir, all but 1 were visible minorities. So the minority made up the majority, awesome! It was a very soulful performance overall and you couldn't help but tap your feet at some of the songs. So good music, and fun for all!
Nicolas Cage is one bad assed mother fucker! This is the Cage we know and love. Where has he been all these years?
Let's list all his movies since Adaptation because the list is amusing: Matchstick Men, National Treasure, Lord of War, The Weather Man, Any Bully, World Trade Center, The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Next, National Treasure 2, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing and G-Force. So 2 or maybe 3 'okay' ones amidst the sea of crapfests. Honestly, he's probably one of the best actors working today, yet he subscribes himself to schlock after schlock. But I know Cage is a geek inside and he must be doing those movies to satisfy that inner geek within (note: he named his son Kal-El ie. Superman's real name... I bow down to his geekery, I am humbled).
This holiday season, I haven't really been pumped for too many movies at all, but I was pretty excited to see 3 particular movies which includes Up in the Air, Avatar and this one, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. I was excited when I heard Herzog was first involved with the movie, but at the same time felt a bit wary of Cage's involvement.
I love Werner Herzog. He is such a peculiar man, but a very dark humoured, articulate man at the same time. I love how he bounces between doing visceral fictional movies and more nature related documentaries. I remember seeing him on Late Night with Conan O'Brien last year, promoting his documentary Encounters at the End of the World and I was balling at his strange sense of humour (I can't find the clip, but he talks about getting shot at, and also having to eat a shoe because he lost a bet).
Port of Call New Orleans is not exactly a remake, but more of a movie that pays homage to the original Bad Lieutenant (1992) by Abel Ferrera. At the core of this movie, we follow Cage's character as he tries to hunt down a drug lord responsible for a homicide in New Orleans. But what breathes life into this movie are all the scenes and mini-storylines that depart from the central story. We see Cage and we learn that he is in fact a bad lieutenant. He's constantly snorting up narcotics that he steals from the evidence room, he takes bribes and sexual favours instead of arresting, he blackmails people, he pimps out his prostitute girlfriend, amongst other things. So a colourful lifestyle altogether!
There's a scene near the end of the movie that I can't come to grips with. It's this surreal scene that seems very sugary coated and happy, and I can't tell if it's for real or if everything during and after this scene is just a hallucination from the drugs. Anyhow, it had me laughing out loud because of the absurdity, but maybe that's the whole point, it is more dark humour in a way. We see so much badness and evil then this euphoric scene springs up. If you've seen the movie, I'd like to know what you think.
Overall, the movie was pretty darned good, but it didn't blow me away. If this movie ends up on my top 10 list of the year, it's because of Cage only. Nicolas Cage just flat-out ruled this show. Sometimes it's easy to forget that behind that receding hairline is a brilliant actor. His performance in this movie is maniacal and it gets better as his character descends further into madness and drug dependence. Aside from his performance, all the supporting actors also do a great job, surprisingly, that includes Eva Mendes as Cage's prostitute girlfriend. But almost as much as I adored Cage, I also loved the smaller parts by Xzibit and another geek favourite, Brad Dourif (!!!!). All great across the board.
That about does it for today. Iguanas. Later geeks!
When The Cove debuted earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, it was received with wide acclaim, taking home the much coveted Audience Award, overcoming 879 other movies to take the win. Later in the year, it also took home the Audience Award at the Hot Docs Film Festival. So going into this movie, I had high expectations.
At times, The Cove was tear jerking, at other times, brutal, but in the end, there's a great sense of triumph. The movie follows an activist named Ric O'Barry who is trying to stop the people in the Japanese town of Taiji from hunting dolphins. The dolphins are herded off into this secluded area of a national park, dubbed "The Cove", where they are then slaughtered by the fishermen/hunters. Because the dolphins are worth so much money, the town and the Japanese government protect the hunters from doing their deeds, even prohibiting O'Barry from entering the closed off area.
The irony is that O'Barry who is now an activist was also responsible for the popularity of dolphins, having captured and trained them in the 60's for the original TV show Flipper, bringing dolphins into the mainstream media. He tells a heart wrenching story of how he had a change of heart when one of the dolphins who played Flipper died.
I think the scene where I really got into it was when O'Barry began assembling his unique team for this covert style mission. He described it as his version of Ocean's 11, and truly it was, with each team member skilled in a particular ability or attribute. I found that I was holding my breath a lot during the mission scenes when the team would penetrate into the gated hunting area of The Cove.
There are some pretty brutal scenes with the dolphins, so if you are feint at heart, then beware, otherwise, catch this movie if you can. I'm pretty sure it's a shoe-in for an Oscar nod for the documentary category.
"The dolphin's smile is nature's greatest deception" -Ric O'Barry; The Cove
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Recently I had this kick where I wanted to play all of the old NES games that I played as a kid. I also decided to do little write ups for some of them in a new segment I'd like to call Retro Rebound! I took some screenshots of my adventures too! Consider these posts an homage to my friend Dave's site, 8-Bit Memoirs, who's site is purely dedicated to old school gaming.
Don't mind if I do! A townsfolk lends me a tip.
The aforementioned green ghoul!
