Rating: C
After seeing sales from the relic line of Transformers, it looks like Hasbro might be wanting to tap that keg again for Battleship. And from the looks of things, they're going to milk it for all it's worth. I mean, yes, they'll make money from the movie, but there's likely going to be some sort of a multiplier effect in terms of merchandising. Battleship was nothing more than a board game; one with very limited variables and variations. Now, not only can they sell the board game, they can sell a video game, boats, action figures, etc etc etc. So who cares if Rihanna can't act a lick?
Seriously. This girl should NOT quit her day job. Given lots of screen time with very limited lines, you'd think that she ought to be able to pull of keeping a stone face. The few lines she had, it felt like she was reading them for the first time. But, I guess everybody's gotta start somewhere. *sigh*.
The pacing and flow of the movie was choppy, haphazard, and full of holes. It's a wonder why Peter Berg gets so many chances to direct such half baked, barely mediocre, vapid movies. Maybe he should just stick with Friday Night Lights. That seems to be the only thing to his credit that deserves any recognition.
That being said, there's enough bangs and booms to keep this movie at least somewhat entertaining, and it certainly doesn't hurt keeping Brooklyn Decker around. And after John Carter, Taylor Kitsch really could have used something to put him back on the right track. I'm just not so sure that Battleship is that something.
Oh. For those of you so inclined, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to stick around after the credits. Heck, if you stayed after The Avengers, you might as well stick around for this one too right? haha.
Cheers.
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Tuesday 15 May 2012
Movie: Chronicle (2012)
Rating: B
(Blogger's Note: A lot of movies came out during my hiatus from this little blog, but it didn't mean that I didn't watch them. Chronicle is be released today for purchase, so I thought it might be fitting to post a few thoughts to this movie.)
Over the past few years, there have been an inordinate amount of super hero movies. So what happens when you put these powers in the hands of a few teenagers still trying to figure themselves out? And what happens if one of them loses it?
Superman meets Columbine. I think it's an effective look at how different circumstances and different personalities can affect people differently. Especially in those angst ridden teenage years. But they really could have done without so much in-story handycam footage. I can understand that they would want to do that in a few situations, but as far as the entire movie was concerned? It really wasn't necessary and actually detracted from the enjoyment of what was otherwise a very well thought out movie.
What was nice about the way it was filmed tho, was that it did make the story seem more genuine. While the flow was a little slow, it felt like a natural progression to the movie, the friendship, and their burgeoning powers. How it affects them, their friendship, and their outlook of the world; giving the movie real depth and a good look at how perhaps superheroes and their nemeses come to be. That being said, I really could have done without so much of that blasted first person, shaky, handycam footage.
~Cheers.
(Blogger's Note: A lot of movies came out during my hiatus from this little blog, but it didn't mean that I didn't watch them. Chronicle is be released today for purchase, so I thought it might be fitting to post a few thoughts to this movie.)
Over the past few years, there have been an inordinate amount of super hero movies. So what happens when you put these powers in the hands of a few teenagers still trying to figure themselves out? And what happens if one of them loses it?
Superman meets Columbine. I think it's an effective look at how different circumstances and different personalities can affect people differently. Especially in those angst ridden teenage years. But they really could have done without so much in-story handycam footage. I can understand that they would want to do that in a few situations, but as far as the entire movie was concerned? It really wasn't necessary and actually detracted from the enjoyment of what was otherwise a very well thought out movie.
What was nice about the way it was filmed tho, was that it did make the story seem more genuine. While the flow was a little slow, it felt like a natural progression to the movie, the friendship, and their burgeoning powers. How it affects them, their friendship, and their outlook of the world; giving the movie real depth and a good look at how perhaps superheroes and their nemeses come to be. That being said, I really could have done without so much of that blasted first person, shaky, handycam footage.
~Cheers.
Monday 14 May 2012
Movie: Safe (2012)
Rating: C-
There's really only one reason to watch any Jason Statham movie: To watch Jason Statham beat people up. It's your own fault if you expect anything more from any of his movies. If you're able to get anything more from his movies, you should consider yourself lucky. Haha.
Safe is no different. Aside from a few one liners and some fun fight scenes, Safe suffers from an over zealous plot-line that is so poorly executed that no amount of creative fighting could compensate. Why they decided to incorporate 2 foreign speaking gangs to be pitted against each other is entirely beyond me. This is an action movie. It really shouldn't have THAT many scenes requiring subtitles. They could have made this movie with a Jamaican gang and an Irish gang, or a Mexican gang and an Italian gang. Any two gangs would have worked.
And in this day and age, you'd think that there would be a few more actors they could have found that ACTUALLY spoke Chinese. Listening to Reggie Lee attempt to to act in Chinese when he can barely act in English was enough to make me throw up a little inside. And while James Hong's performance was slightly more convincing, they need to stop making him the token old Chinese guy in every other movie with an Asian in it.
Even putting aside the poor choice of language, the story line was made overly complicated and executed with such ham-fistedness, that there really was very little cohesion over the hour and a half movie. And finally. Jason Statham is an athlete with a black belt. Not an actor. Stop trying to make him act. Making him the weepy, soft-on-the-inside-with-a-hard-exterior, 'this isn't what i wanted' hero. Just let him fight already!
~Cheers.
There's really only one reason to watch any Jason Statham movie: To watch Jason Statham beat people up. It's your own fault if you expect anything more from any of his movies. If you're able to get anything more from his movies, you should consider yourself lucky. Haha.
Safe is no different. Aside from a few one liners and some fun fight scenes, Safe suffers from an over zealous plot-line that is so poorly executed that no amount of creative fighting could compensate. Why they decided to incorporate 2 foreign speaking gangs to be pitted against each other is entirely beyond me. This is an action movie. It really shouldn't have THAT many scenes requiring subtitles. They could have made this movie with a Jamaican gang and an Irish gang, or a Mexican gang and an Italian gang. Any two gangs would have worked.
And in this day and age, you'd think that there would be a few more actors they could have found that ACTUALLY spoke Chinese. Listening to Reggie Lee attempt to to act in Chinese when he can barely act in English was enough to make me throw up a little inside. And while James Hong's performance was slightly more convincing, they need to stop making him the token old Chinese guy in every other movie with an Asian in it.
Even putting aside the poor choice of language, the story line was made overly complicated and executed with such ham-fistedness, that there really was very little cohesion over the hour and a half movie. And finally. Jason Statham is an athlete with a black belt. Not an actor. Stop trying to make him act. Making him the weepy, soft-on-the-inside-with-a-hard-exterior, 'this isn't what i wanted' hero. Just let him fight already!
~Cheers.
Thursday 10 May 2012
Critique: IMAX vs. UltraAVX
A little while ago, I wrote a post about UltraAVX. Since then, I've seen a few more films in this format, as you're able to order your tickets in advance and don't have to wait in line for blockbusters on opening weekend. And I did mention that UltraAVX really couldn't compare to IMAX.
For simplicity sake, let's just look at the projectors used for the two technologies.
Name: UltraAVX
Projector: Christie CP2230
Brightness: ~33,000 lumens
Resolution: 4096 x 2160
Name: IMAX
Projector: Proprietary (so far as I can discern...and moving to a Barco later this year)
Brightness: ~600,000 lumens
Resolution: 12,000 × 8,700
So obviously, you're looking at apples and oranges. But it is in its experience that things get rather interesting. The way that IMAX is set up, the cinema room is such that when you look forward, the screen is supposed to encompass your entire viewing area when you look forward. Because of that, IMAX will limit the number of seats in a viewing room to optimise the audience's viewing experience. This is also actually the drawback of IMAX and a point gained for UltraAVX. In order to maximise the number of seats available in an IMAX viewing room, the seats are more packed in. You have less leg room, and also, less elbow room.
Quite honestly, the average person's ear isn't trained and therefore, really isn't that good. For all you audiophiles out there, you know that wattage isn't everything. UltraAVX does boast 16,000 watts vs. IMAX's 12,000 watts. And yet, I personally feel that IMAX's sound experience is more immersive. What makes that even more interesting, is that UltraAVX uses 7 channels vs. IMAX's 6 channels. I think it has to do with the speakers that are in behind the screen in an IMAX viewing room.
Both allow for audiences to purchase tickets in advance and preselected rocker seats.
You WILL notice a big difference between traditional screens and IMAX screens. But the difference isn't so big between UltraAVX screens and IMAX screens. Tickets are $14.99 (plus tax) and $17.99 (plus tax) respectively, versus $11.99 (plus tax) for regular admission. So the question of worth probably becomes the biggest point of differentiation because while per ticket, it doesn't seem like a whole lot, if you're going as a family of 4, it starts adding up.
My personal feeling is that, for movies that require big picture and big sound, UltraAVX will MORE than satisfy the overwhelming majority of audience members. And you're more likely to find a cinema offering UltraAVX than you will for IMAX. But for certain movies, that you just want things as realistic and as vivid and as brilliant as possible, there is STILL no substitute for IMAX.
~Cheers.
For simplicity sake, let's just look at the projectors used for the two technologies.
Name: UltraAVX
Projector: Christie CP2230
Brightness: ~33,000 lumens
Resolution: 4096 x 2160
Name: IMAX
Projector: Proprietary (so far as I can discern...and moving to a Barco later this year)
Brightness: ~600,000 lumens
Resolution: 12,000 × 8,700
So obviously, you're looking at apples and oranges. But it is in its experience that things get rather interesting. The way that IMAX is set up, the cinema room is such that when you look forward, the screen is supposed to encompass your entire viewing area when you look forward. Because of that, IMAX will limit the number of seats in a viewing room to optimise the audience's viewing experience. This is also actually the drawback of IMAX and a point gained for UltraAVX. In order to maximise the number of seats available in an IMAX viewing room, the seats are more packed in. You have less leg room, and also, less elbow room.
Quite honestly, the average person's ear isn't trained and therefore, really isn't that good. For all you audiophiles out there, you know that wattage isn't everything. UltraAVX does boast 16,000 watts vs. IMAX's 12,000 watts. And yet, I personally feel that IMAX's sound experience is more immersive. What makes that even more interesting, is that UltraAVX uses 7 channels vs. IMAX's 6 channels. I think it has to do with the speakers that are in behind the screen in an IMAX viewing room.
Both allow for audiences to purchase tickets in advance and preselected rocker seats.
You WILL notice a big difference between traditional screens and IMAX screens. But the difference isn't so big between UltraAVX screens and IMAX screens. Tickets are $14.99 (plus tax) and $17.99 (plus tax) respectively, versus $11.99 (plus tax) for regular admission. So the question of worth probably becomes the biggest point of differentiation because while per ticket, it doesn't seem like a whole lot, if you're going as a family of 4, it starts adding up.
My personal feeling is that, for movies that require big picture and big sound, UltraAVX will MORE than satisfy the overwhelming majority of audience members. And you're more likely to find a cinema offering UltraAVX than you will for IMAX. But for certain movies, that you just want things as realistic and as vivid and as brilliant as possible, there is STILL no substitute for IMAX.
~Cheers.
Sunday 6 May 2012
Movie: Marvel's The Avengers (2012)
Rating: A+
Unleash the power of the (comic book) geek! Seriously, if this popcorn movie doesn't unleash your inner geek, nothing will. And while the Hulk isn't a man of many words, he totally steals the show.
I was a little worried that this movie was going to be a mish mash of heroes thrown together into a half baked ensemble movie. But man was I pleasantly surprised. The action was fantastic. The visuals were fantastic. And the interaction and chemistry between the characters was absolutely magnificent. Yes, this is a comic book movie, and yes it's larger than life, and absolutely yes, this is fantasy, but for 2 hours and 22 minutes, this was YOUR world. It sucked you in, spat you out, and made you want more. It was action packed, it was fun, and it will rock your world.
The only negative thing that I can say about this movie is that while Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Evans are probably the supposed to be the main characters of this movie, it was Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk that totally stole the show. And really, the show doesn't really start until The Hulk covers the screen...Literally...the whole screen. And after that, the rest of the movie is just an action packed, mixed in with great dialogue and interaction, coupled with copious amounts of total hilarity.
As with each of the introductory movies over the past four years, there IS something to see at the end of the credits. It.....uh....might not....uh....be ....hrmmm....what you were expecting tho. hahaha =)~
~Cheers.
Unleash the power of the (comic book) geek! Seriously, if this popcorn movie doesn't unleash your inner geek, nothing will. And while the Hulk isn't a man of many words, he totally steals the show.
I was a little worried that this movie was going to be a mish mash of heroes thrown together into a half baked ensemble movie. But man was I pleasantly surprised. The action was fantastic. The visuals were fantastic. And the interaction and chemistry between the characters was absolutely magnificent. Yes, this is a comic book movie, and yes it's larger than life, and absolutely yes, this is fantasy, but for 2 hours and 22 minutes, this was YOUR world. It sucked you in, spat you out, and made you want more. It was action packed, it was fun, and it will rock your world.
The only negative thing that I can say about this movie is that while Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Evans are probably the supposed to be the main characters of this movie, it was Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk that totally stole the show. And really, the show doesn't really start until The Hulk covers the screen...Literally...the whole screen. And after that, the rest of the movie is just an action packed, mixed in with great dialogue and interaction, coupled with copious amounts of total hilarity.
As with each of the introductory movies over the past four years, there IS something to see at the end of the credits. It.....uh....might not....uh....be ....hrmmm....what you were expecting tho. hahaha =)~
~Cheers.
Friday 4 May 2012
Restaurant: Allen's
To most people, comfort food is nostalgic and generally easy-to-eat foods that have some sentimental value to them. For me however, comfort food is JUNK. You know, wings, burgers, fries, pizza, chips, etc etc. You know, everything that's bad for you. But unfortunately, I do have a little bit of understanding of my health, so I can't have that stuff every day (maybe every other day is ok. haha). So while I've kept blogto's Best Burger list around for a while, I've only been able to try them sporadically. When a friend invited me thus to try Allen's....? Of course I jumped at the chance!
Ambiance: 2.5 / 5
Cleanliness: 3.5 / 5
Service: 3.5 / 5
Taste: 4 / 5
Presentation: 3 / 5
Price: $$
Overall: 3.5 / 5
So apparently, Allen's supposedly uses fresh, organic beef for its burgers (I don't know for sure, I read it somewhere at some point). And they DO have a fairly extensive beer list. The lighting was VERY dark which made me not want to go through it. It being a pub, I ordered a black and tan. It never occurred to me to take a photo of the beer (whoops), so I thiefed this one off of the internet. I apologise in advance to the person who took the photo for not giving credit.
For anyone who ends up ordering this. Please, I implore you, DO NOT MIX IT! There's a little section in the middle where the two beers connect that's a delectable little sweet spot. Not to be trifled with and certainly not to be ruined.
I was a little disappointed that the burger comes a la carte, but I suppose I kind of expected it. And on top of that, anything toppings outside of lettuce, tomato, and pickle, is also an extra charge. But I couldn't help myself and ordered sauteed mushrooms, and sauteed onions, and cheddar cheese to top my burger off. The burger itself, was ordered medium rare.
Yes....my photography skills are SEVERELY lacking. Plus, I only had my phone with me. The toppings, actually came on separate plates. Even the lettuce that I'd asked for came beside the burger. Anyway, picking up the burger, I found the bottom piece of bread already soggy. That was a bit of a disappointment. But biting into the burger was scrumptious. Nicely seared, perfectly grilled, and nice and juicy.
If you notice in the background of the photo, we did order a side of fries as well. And quite honestly, the fries aren't even worth mentioning. A little bland, a little dry.
If you've never been, I suppose this place is worth a try, but to be quite honest, by the time you top up your burger, and add in tax and tip, you're looking at roughly $20 for the burger all on its own. And while it was well prepared and delicious, I just don't see it being WORTH that much.
Allen's
143 Danforth Ave.
Toronto, ON
416-463-3086
~Cheers.
Ambiance: 2.5 / 5
Cleanliness: 3.5 / 5
Service: 3.5 / 5
Taste: 4 / 5
Presentation: 3 / 5
Price: $$
Overall: 3.5 / 5
So apparently, Allen's supposedly uses fresh, organic beef for its burgers (I don't know for sure, I read it somewhere at some point). And they DO have a fairly extensive beer list. The lighting was VERY dark which made me not want to go through it. It being a pub, I ordered a black and tan. It never occurred to me to take a photo of the beer (whoops), so I thiefed this one off of the internet. I apologise in advance to the person who took the photo for not giving credit.
For anyone who ends up ordering this. Please, I implore you, DO NOT MIX IT! There's a little section in the middle where the two beers connect that's a delectable little sweet spot. Not to be trifled with and certainly not to be ruined.
I was a little disappointed that the burger comes a la carte, but I suppose I kind of expected it. And on top of that, anything toppings outside of lettuce, tomato, and pickle, is also an extra charge. But I couldn't help myself and ordered sauteed mushrooms, and sauteed onions, and cheddar cheese to top my burger off. The burger itself, was ordered medium rare.
Yes....my photography skills are SEVERELY lacking. Plus, I only had my phone with me. The toppings, actually came on separate plates. Even the lettuce that I'd asked for came beside the burger. Anyway, picking up the burger, I found the bottom piece of bread already soggy. That was a bit of a disappointment. But biting into the burger was scrumptious. Nicely seared, perfectly grilled, and nice and juicy.
If you notice in the background of the photo, we did order a side of fries as well. And quite honestly, the fries aren't even worth mentioning. A little bland, a little dry.
If you've never been, I suppose this place is worth a try, but to be quite honest, by the time you top up your burger, and add in tax and tip, you're looking at roughly $20 for the burger all on its own. And while it was well prepared and delicious, I just don't see it being WORTH that much.
Allen's
143 Danforth Ave.
Toronto, ON
416-463-3086
~Cheers.
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