⇒ mixed reviews

movies released this year that should have been awesome but ultimately ended up mediocre:
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Forbidden Kingdom should have been a HK production directed by the likes of Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo Ping, Corey Yuen or Tsui Hark. It should have been wall to wall Jackie/Jet double teaming/battling. The end battle should have been more difficult/epic. It should have had Jackie's insane stuntwork, and been made over 10 years ago, while both were still in/close to their prime. And it should have been planned, filmed, completed and done in a ridiculously short time-frame, like the rest of Jackie and Jet's great movies. I felt that getting peed on was extremely disrespectful to Jackie. Almost as much as having a white, no-kung fu chump babysit two grandmasters of asian kung-fu cinema.

For the record, I do like Jackie more than Jet (not that I don't like Jet). It's because Jackie is creatively superior--he choreographs, directs and stars. He's come up with insane/unbelievable and physically real moves no one's even dreamed of attempting. He invented Kung Fu comedy. And he made Armor of God, Million Dollar Heiress, Police Story, Dragons Forever, Young Master, Drunken Master, etc. Jackie is the Man!

another rivalry I called:
Michelle Williams def. Katie Holmes (began with Dawson's Creek, concluded with Williams' Oscar nod)

about Indiana 4--someone said it first, and said it best:
I tried to like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, really, I did. But in the end, I just couldn’t do it - my nostalgia was no match for George Lucas and his stupid sci-fi storyline. You won’t get any spoilers from me if you haven’t seen the movie yet, but even though Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford tried to give you everything an Indiana Jones fan could want some 20 odd years later, they ultimately missed the mark.

Sure, there were moments when Harrison’s easy charm made you forget all about the alien mumbo-jumbo (seriously, half my problems with the movie would’ve been solved by taking this crap out), and a few scenes that would have definitely given my 10-year-old self nightmares (hey, I scared easily). But after it was over, I just wanted to go home and watch the original trilogy again to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. Because when a simple adventure with all our old pals would’ve done the trick, the Big Three tried to do too much, and ended up giving us too little instead. What a shame.
source:http://tunaflix.com/?p=1819

main things I disliked about Indy 4:

• CGI animals. WTF?!?!? Monkeys? Gophers? Ants? Aliens? Don't gimme that sh!t about not being able to do it practically...Spielberg would have found a way!
• Tarzan mode...you'll know what I mean. So what, is this a Spider-man film? How'd he keep up with the car?!?!
• Somewhat weak script/dialogue.
• time period. The 50s ain't the 30s. The result is movie that is similar, but just not right.
• Lame villains. It's not the same without a Nazi scum throwdown.
• No Jones senior or Marcus Brody. Had the filme been made in the early 90s, this would have been possible, and likely.
• Not enough whip cracking.
• Sci-fi over mysticism. I personally feel that the Holy Grail and The Ark of the Covenant trump the Crystal Skull. Come on, these were gifts from God!

Not enough trademark Indy grouchiness/fallibility

A lot of these problems feel like a (George) Lucasian decision (same guy who wrote all that 'memorable' dialogue in the Star Wars prequels).
Mutt Williams. Pair a dog-name with a generic white name. Real clever. How about Rover Jennings? Fido Smith? Sparky Hayes?

Things I did like:

• really felt like the final journey for the man in the hat. And he got a happy ending.
• Some of the humor is still there
• It's Harrison Ford

For me, the true (spiritual) sequel to Indiana Jones and the Last crusade? The Mummy, with Brendan Fraser. I knew it in 1999, I know it now.

It should also be noted that Jackie's character in Armor of God was very Indiana Jones like (purposefully so?)

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⇒ zombie/computer

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Apple Science: Inside the Image | Penny Arcade take the Zune down (another) notch. I love those guys. |

Zombies! I salute thee! I'm down with most-things zombie. George Romero, Resident Evil (the games, not the Godawful movies), ... of the Dead, 28 ... later, Slither, and all that jazz...Dawn of the Dead (1978) imdb listing. THE mind-blowing original | Dawn of the Dead (2004) imdb listing. Check it out, it's pretty good. wiki entry | Tom Savini. He's great in From Dusk til Dawn | Zack Snyder did good on his first go. Edgar Wright went one better. British humor and zombies. A winning combination--Shaun of the Dead |
Actually, I dig most horror movies now. I used shat my pants whenever they were on but now I get a big kick out of watching horror (good horror, not that Hostel sh!t).

NAS' Illmatic wiki entry. listen to it | Iron Butterfly's In-a-gadda-da-vida | Greek cuisine |

Intel Core 2 | Comparison of Intel processors | Multi-core computing | SLI | ATI crossfire | NVIDIA Quadro | NVIDIA Quadro Plex | Dell's Quad SLI. Crazy | Radeon R600 | Wii. Already sold a million | ATI FireGL | Pentium D | Overclocking a Dual-Core to 4.1Ghz and getting stable performance. Here | Itanium 2 | Xeon | Netburst | MAC Leopard. I eagerly await | Supercomputer | IBM POWER | Hybrid Kernel | Embarrassingly parallel |

Australian Open started today (hell yeah!). Here's a pic of young Federer (ha-ha!)

read the article. Interesting, Federer first clashed with Hewitt at 15 and had a big losing streak before his ascension |

Galatea: the statue brought to life by the gods in the Pygmalion myth

Wheels on Meals (1984). I love this movie. Sammo's double sword action kills Attack of the clones, while JC shows off his fighting and acrobatic talents again. The movie's also frickin hilarious with cameos/support from Lola Forner (Miss Spain '79), Richard Ng, John Shum, Benny 'the jet' Urquidez and Keith Vitali. The final battle goes right up there with Project A, Dragons Forever, Young Master, Drunken Master, Armor of God and City Hunter. JC back in his prime was King of the mountain. When you ignore the silliness/comedic elements of his work, you realize he kicked serious ass! The scene in the middle of Legend of Drunken Master, add that to the list.

to cap off this post, here's a pic of my lone wolf collection, all in near-mint condition (and that's the way I likes them!)

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⇒ video day: donnie yen edition

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tiger cage 2



kung-fu bike tennis!

donnie vs. JC (twins effect 2) | mistmatched couples scene 1 Donnie used to be all goofy. Who knew? Now he's full-time badass. | mismatched couples scene 3 | SPL triple kick | mismatched couples opening scene |

console launch averages | list of 100 whatevers | Public domain Bram Stoker. YES! | xbox360-ps3 comparison | kenwood's 10GB DAP. need babelfish | the Best Worst game ads from 1UP.com part1 | part2 | part3

haven't posted in sometime because...what have i been up to? nothing really. no really, i just stay at home most of the time, wallowing in something. I watch a fair amount of telly now (upto 5hrs a day). Bought that gym and swim membership for 3 months. I intend to average the price down to about $3 per visit...more as it happens.

final vid: fun xbox360 ad. *,*

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