The Da Vinci Code

Saw this movie awhile back. The movie was fun and you know how I like detective stories (points to logo above) and puzzles. You probably know it was originally a book written by Dan Brown. Since I never read the book, I had nothing to compare it with, so I thought the movie was enjoyable, but I’ve heard from those who have read the book, the book was a lot better. But just like the Harry Potter series, I find the movie enjoyable, and that’s why I don’t read the books. Interestingly enough, the soundtrack was don by Hans Zimmer.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.5/10 (40,436 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C+ / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 24% / Average Rating: 4.8/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com Book
MY RATING: 7/10

the da vinci code posterthe da vinci code posterthe da vinci code poster

Spoilers: (Show)

The Lake House

This movie should’ve deserved a 7/10 from me, but they screwed up the ending and broke the main rule of time distortion. There’s something about time distortion movies that always gets screwed up. The only one I can think of that worked pretty well was Terminator and Terminator 2. The main rule that time distortion movies need to follow is that if the past has changed, the future can not have occured. I never analyzed the 3rd Terminator movie, but the 1st 2 kept stuff in check where the means may have changed, but the end results remained the same. There was an alternative ending to Terminator 2 which would have broken this rule, but like I said, it was an alternative ending.

The Buttefly Effect didn’t break this rule, but they did cheat by magically adding different ways to change the past at the end and added a memory that was not shown before in order to make it a “somewhat” happy ending. Speaking of which, it appears The Butterfly Effect 2 is out.

The story was originally a Korean film called: il Mare and have been adapted by the directory as an American story.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.9/10 (7,552 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: C+ / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 36% / Average Rating: 5.1/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 6/10

the lake house poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Over the Hedge

Saw this movie a few days ago and it was fun. The animals are so cute, especially for the little spiked ones. What are those called? Porcupine! Apparently the movie is based on a comic strip by Michael Fry and T Lewis. In this comic, Verne, the turtle, even has a girlfriend named Velma. (For some reason, throughout the movie, I thought his name was Bern).

Official Site
IMDb: 7.2/10 (7,221 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 74% / Average Rating: 6.8/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 7/10

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WarCraft III

Ever have the munchies for a game? Last week when I’ve been migrating part of my old blog over, I hit the days when I got WarCraft III when it was first released.

Well, I went searching for the game and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t on my bookshelf and I search in every single box I thought it could be in. Finally I shoot a email to Liam and turns out its at his house in Berkeley. Oh well, I thought and hoped my munchy would go away. But it didn’t unfortunately. Would it be unethical to download a game that you already own? Well, that’s what I ended up *whiste*.

I never completed the series and never got around to finish it. Plus back then, my computer was barely good enough to run it at 1024×768. Now I can run at 1280×960 (the highest wide screen setting they allow) and I’ve set all the quality settings to high and it still runs really smooth.

Well, yah… that’s what I’ve been doing instead of blogging this past week.


Random Crap:

Official in S.C.: Sterilize bad parentsA City Council member, reacting to a video store holdup believed to have been carried out by children, says parents who can’t properly care for their kids should be sterilized. Haha!

Man wears cardboard box at Pa. hearingA man accused of theft arrived for a preliminary hearing Thursday wearing a cardboard box on his head in an effort to conceal his identity. … “I’m trying to think outside of the box, so to speak,” Leonard said. Isn’t that the opposite? I’d think he’s thinking “inside” the box.

Are burglars these days just getting dumber?

Seven-metre fingernails win place in book of recordsLee Redmond soaks hers in olive oil. Aaron Studham lathers his in hairspray. They both say it’s worth it. Redmond, 65, earned an entry in the latest edition of Guinness World Records with the world’s longest fingernails that have now reached a resplendent 24 feet 7 inches (7.51 metres). Studham, 17, joined the ranks of the weird, wacky and wonderful with the tallest hair on the planet.
lee redmond - longest fingernailsaaron studham - tallest hair

Dry cleaner finds note about ‘murder’Dry cleaners find all kinds of things hiding in the clothes of their customers — but probably nothing quite like what some employees stumbled across recently. A note found in a customer’s clothing read, “You have committed a murder, but no one believes it. All I can do is kill myself, then everyone will see what you have done.” It was signed: “Your wife, Alice.”

Robot Chicken: Inspector Gadget (from RayAlome) – A hilarouis video parody of Inspector Gadget mix with Terminator.

Beijing’s penis emporium – An interesting read on Chinese delicacies made with “animal penises”. Did you know that snakes have two penises each?

PARK(ing) (from /.) – PARK(ing) is an investigation into reprogramming a typical unit of private vehicular space by leasing a metered parking spot for public recreational activity. An very interesting project. Do check out the photos and video.

Art teacher’s naked lecture denouncedThe naked lecture made many of the 30 or so students feel “uneasy”, the paper said. “Some kept their eyes trained on the ceiling, some awkwardly bowed their heads and stared at the ground“. Why is that? If this was in America, everyone would be staring. As kids, my parents told us to look away whenever there was a sexual scene in the movie. I guess we were just “trained” to do so.

Files.to – a similar site to RapidShare and MEGAUPLOAD, but so far, this new site beats both hands down. I’ve gotten consistent 500KB/s download with only ~10second wait. I can have 2 simultaneous transfers at the same time too.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (from Cari) – a rather funny comic strip on how to cure AIDS.

Ten Most Used BitTorrent Sites Compared (from /.):

When I first began to use BitTorrent in 2004 there was little question as to which indexing site to use. Today, Suprnova is long gone and we are left with an array of diverse options. This is a comparison of today’s ten most used BitTorrent sites according to Alexa.com.

Ten Most Used BitTorrent Sites:

Man with faulty implant may not get cashThe implant has caused Lennon to have an erection for 10 years.

Man who pawned rifle as boy gets it backIt was a ricochet nearly 50 years in the making. At age 8, Terry Jackson gave up his prized .22-caliber Winchester short-barrel rifle to get his grandmother a washer. Recently, the 57-year-old got the gun back through a series of chance encounters and conversations. One of the few articles that I actually read all the way through. Story is quite touching.

So Smooth (from RayAlome) – a hilarious video of some guy arguing who’s better by making “I’m so… you’re so…” punch lines with a hint of geekiness. RayAlome tells me there’s more at: Barats & Bereta Productions. They were also the ones that did that auto insurance video I posted the other day.

GrandCentral (from B$) – A pretty neat service which provides a local phone number and then forwards your calls to your home phone, work phone, mobile phone, etc based on time and the caller. The free service gives upto 100 minutes of voice time a month and afterwards forwards your calls to an voice mailbox. You get to try the premium service free during this beta period. It even allows you to choose your own ringtones which you can upload your own mp3s.

Mega Man Powered Up (from Tera) – They’ve completely redone the original Mega Man game and gave it a new skin. The characters are so cute and adorable now! Do check out the videos. I’d recommend the Official Trailer Extended.
mega man powered up

The Genius of George Bush (from RayAlome) – The Genius of George Bush, funny montage of priceless Bush in action.

Guy gets a rocket to the crotch (from DeadLock) – title explains it all.

The Package (from MS newsgroup) – a pretty interesting game. Requires a bit of computer/programming knowledge. Only took me 3 minutes to solve this puzzle.

Gentlemen, stop your engines (from /.) – EEStor’s device is not technically a battery because no chemicals are involved. In fact, it contains no hazardous materials whatsoever. Yet it acts like a battery in that it stores electricity. If it works as it’s supposed to, it will charge up in five minutes and provide enough energy to drive 500 miles on about $9 worth of electricity. At today’s gas prices, covering that distance can cost $60 or more; the EEStor device would power a car for the equivalent of about 45 cents a gallon.

Ice Age – The Meltdown

Animation was pretty good, but not superb or beyond my imagination. Seemed like a decent upgrade from the 1st Ice Age, but I didn’t notice much spectacular. Plus the storyline for this one pretty much stunk. No surprises at all.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.9/10 (12,414 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 58% / Average Rating: 6.1/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 6/10

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Spoilers: (Show)

I always thought male elephants were the only elephants with tusks. But according to Wikipedia: Both male and female African elephants have large tusks that can reach over 10 ft (3 m) in length and weigh over 200 lb (90 kg). In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks. Female Asians have tusks which are very small or absent altogether. Asian males can have tusks as long as the much larger Africans, but they are usually much slimmer and lighter; the heaviest recorded is 86 lb (39 kg). I guess Ellie having tusks isn’t that weird anymore.

Thank You For Smoking

A extremely funny movie. A definite must watch if you haven’t seen it. Talks about the spokesperson for the tobacco industry and brings in other MODs (merchants of deaths). Apparently, the movie is based on a novel by Christopher Buckley.

Official Site
IMDb: 8.1/10 (8,949 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 88% / Average Rating: 7.4/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 8/10

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Mission Impossible III

Movie had tons of action and storyline was pretty good, but nothing spectacular and out of the ordinary. I think this is the 1st Mission Impossible movie I’ve seen, because I just realized at the end of the movie, IMF stood for Impossible Mission Force. Movie was somewhat easy to guess as I had a pretty good hunch halfway the movie who the real mastermind is.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.8/10 (23,209 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 71% / Average Rating: 6.7/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
My Rating: 7/10

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Spoilers: (Show)

The best line in the movie:

Listen, man. I don’t mean to cross the line, but was there something going on between you two? You and Lindsey.

Lindsey was like my little sister.

And you never slept with your little sister, right?

Curious George

He’s so cute!!! A lot cuter than he was in previous cartoons. The movie was a lot of fun, basically a kids movie. And did I mention how cute he was!?!?!

Anyway, I have like 20 movies to review, so I’ll try to zoom past these. I’ll also start giving my rating (Xyon’s recommendation), though I’m not going back to update all the previous ones.

Official Site
IMDb: 6.7/10 (1,426 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B- / Yahoo! Users: B-
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 69% / Average Rating: 6.2/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 7/10

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Spoilers: (Show)

Cute Bunny

My queue just keep getting bigger and bigger. I have like 20+ movies yet to be reviewed.

I also spent sometime this weekend migrating my old site’s blog over. Seems to be a long and arduous process. Only got a couple months in 2002. It’s hilarious seeing how my blogging (writing) style has evolved.

I was also burning off a bunch of watched “stuff” to free up space. While browsing for stuff to burn, I remember I haven’t watched the AIR – Summer Special yet. Unforutnately, Potato (the cute puppy) didn’t show up. This special was more about the past between the journey to find the little girl’s mom. However, they did introduce a cute bunny. Click the following images to watch the videos:

air -summer special - cute bunnyair -summer special - cute bunny


Random Crap:

What if Tequilla was a Prescription Drug? (from MS newsgroup) – hilarious advertisement/disclaimers for Tequilla.

Alan Cox’s ThinkPad battery explodes – For a moment, I thought IBM had fallen into the bunch of manufacturers with bad batteries. Fortunately, the title was very misleading and I quote: Telsa does note, however, that the battery was third-party and was bought on eBay, so it may not be an authentic IBM pack at all.

Polish woman caught growing marijuana for cowA Polish woman who grew marijuana to calm the nerves of her cow has been charged with cultivating a narcotic by police in the western town of Lobez.

Court says $32,000 is too much to fondle bosomA fee of 25,500 euros ($32,000) is way too much for a woman to charge a man for fondling her bosom, a Finnish district court ruled.

White & Nerdy (MS newsgroup) – “Weird Al” Yankovic’s new music video, from the album “Straight Outta Lynwood” (in stores Sept. 26) Hilarious music video once again! However, as Weird Al notes on his blog:

I’m very sorry to say that the AOL “First View” Premiere of the “White & Nerdy” video has been cancelled.

Apparently, the video has already leaked online, and AOL doesn’t feel comfortable doing a “World Premiere” promotion for a video that a number of people have seen already. (I can understand songs leaking, but a video? How’d THAT happen?)

Anyway, it’s really a bummer… it would have been great promotion for the album… but hey, life goes on.

So…

I’ll be uploading the video to this page shortly. Tell your friends!

You may also want to check out his other music video (animation) for Don’t Download This Song.

worlds yo-yo contest 2006 1A 1st – Hiroyuki Suzuki (mickey) (from Tera) – I’m not sure if the title implies he won first place, but he was awesome. I obviously don’t know how hard some of these tricks are because there were certain parts in the oooohs and aaaaahs that I didn’t see to be that complicated. Then again, I probably couldn’t do 99% of what he did. The song in the background was actually rather amusing. I had heard the Korean and Japanese version by 이정현 (Lee Jung Hyun) called ワ-come on-. Then Mechy told me about the Cantonese version called 獨家試唱 by 鄭秀文. Now it appears there’s a Mandarin version too!