The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

And as it’s becoming typical, another Marvel movie has opened up the summer movie season. Yes, Thor , the movie about our favourite God of Thunder. But will it be up there with the likes of Iron Man , or lower like the second Iron Man , or worst, X-Men Origins: Wolverine ? The movie starts off with a brief history lesson on Asgard, and its relationship to Earth and the rival kingdom, Jotunheim inhabited by creatures called the Frost Giants. The Asgardian King Odin, defeated the Frost Giants, and established a peace with the warring kingdoms. The story then refocuses on two brothers, Thor and Loki, the sons of Odin. One of the brothers is destined to become the new king, and as such, they are destined on a path of rivalry. After an attempt on their kingdom, Thor, both rash and impulsive, gathers his friends to make an attack on the Frost Giants. Nearly suffering defeat, the team is saved by Odin, who in anger, banishes Thor to Earth, sans all the cool powers. He lands in the des...

I probably should have written this a week ago, but man, it’s been a busy few weeks and I’m admittedly behind on many things. But hey, better late than never! And what a movie to talk about... Fast Five ! The movie starts off as we see Dom being hauled away to prison, for crimes from the previous movie. He’s taken away in cuffs and placed on a prison bus, as his friend and sister, O’Conner and Mia look on. A high speed chase ensues as O’Conner and Mia chase after the prison bus, attempting to free Dom. They speed in front of the bus and grind to a stop. The prison bus hits the little sports car, sending the bus flying and flipping through the air. Yet somehow, the sports car is umoved and undamaged! Cue opening titles. The opening scene pretty much tells you where the rest is going. The movie then fast forwards to Rio, where the rest of the movie takes place. To avoid arrest in the US, the band is in Brazil conducting small heists to get by. Unfortunately, they steal a car o...

The movie going public can sometimes be frustrating. We cry about the lack of originality and complain about the onslaught of prequels, sequels, spin-offs and what-have-you, yet when we’re finally given something new and original, we don’t go out and see it. And that’s exactly what happened with Source Code . Source Code , which received a whopping 90% on RT opened with a measly $14 million on its debut weekend (second only to Hop which did a ridiculous $37 mil despite being slammed all around). Which tells me one thing – our western nation is full of idiots. Moving on. Source Code follows Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) who wakes up one day on a train in front of a complete stranger. He has no idea what’s happened or how he got there and has no idea why this woman in front of him is calling him Sean. After a bout with confusion, he winds up in the washroom of the train. When he looks into the mirror, it’s not his own face he sees but the face of a man he doesn’t kno...

World Invasion: Battle L.A. Oh no. This was not a good movie. There isn’t very much to the story. The movie takes place in August 2011, when one day aliens decide to invade our world. As it goes, the aliens have pretty much taken all over all of the major cities on the west coast… all save for Los Angeles. The movie follows Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) and his platoon of grunts as they look for a way to save the city and any civilians that they come across. Battle L.A. is a lazy man’s Independence Day , without the fun or the tongue in cheek smarminess of Will Smith (awww hay-llll naw!). The story moves A to B without any feeling or emotion. What also hurts is the lack of a climax that is almost pivotal in big action blockbuster type movies. It lacks the sense of direness that one would associate with a world invasion. So the story doesn’t give you anything worth buying into and what’s worse is that they don’t give you any characters worth investing into either. Eve...

I love movies where the title describes what you’re going to get. Like Snakes on a Plane . Or Hot Tub Time Machine . There’s no ambiguity. Here you have a hobo. You give him a shotgun. Hobo With A Shotgun ! Of course!!! The math couldn’t get any simpler. Hobo With A Shotgun follows an unnamed hero/hobo as he lands in the town of Scumtown (or was it Fucktown?) after hopping from a train. Upon arrival, he quickly learns that the narcissistic Drake, along with his sons Slick and Ivan, run the town after witnessing a literal blood bath in the middle of the streets. The town is infested with drug, violence and heinous crime in general not unlike that of the Detroit depicted in Robocop 1 to 3 . The Hobo sees it all and watches with a sick sort of disbelief. What the fuck is wrong with this town? After saving a prostitute named Abby from Slick, Hobo experiences his first run-in with the corruption in the town. Abby befriends the Hobo, and it’s not long before he shares with her h...

Batman: Arkham Asylum . What an epic game! Never has there been a Batman game, or superhero game in general, that has made you feel more like the titular character. For the first time in my life, I lived through Batman’s shoes (or boots) and I loved it! The game starts out with a long sequence that sort of maps out where the rest of the game is going. You (playing as Batman) arrive at Arkham Asylum with a delivery on hand: the Joker. You escort him with the police as they transfer him through the prison. In this sequence you get a peak at some of the different rooms and corridors that you will be battling through and also glimpses of some of the foes that you will be encountering, including a hulk like Killer Croc. Before long, something goes haywire in the transfer and the Joker is freed, and assumes control over the asylum. The dastardly Joker conceives of a plan to create an unstoppable army of juggernauts to reign upon the city via prison inmates and a growth serum called th...

From around Christmas time, I had a good momentum going in terms of reading the stack of books I’ve got lying beside my bed. I knocked out 3 titles in the span of a month, which for me, is a fast pace. But when I started reading Torsten Krol’s Callisto , the pace grinded to a near halt. It’s not that it’s a bad story, but I just never felt that connection with the characters as I had with the last book I read (that being Slam by Nick Hornby, love, love, love). Callisto follows a big lummox of a character named Deefus Odell (an astute individual, as you can tell by that name). Deefus is from the south and isn’t the brightest crayon, but somehow he manages to get by. Without a clear direction in life, he decides that the only thing to do is to join the army and serve the country. He drives across Kansas to hopefully do just that. Unfortunately, his Chevy breaks down in the middle of this small town called Callisto and it’s here where all the fun begins. He meets a local yokel nam...