Oldboy and Mallrats

Whenever I see notable movies I like to discuss them. I just finished the latter moments ago, but Oldboy was far superior so I'll start with that one. I'm always attracted to foreign movies that come stateside because that usually means that they're something special if a distributor was willing to sell it over here. Oldboy's sense of irony and storytelling definitely possesses that quality. Oh Dae Su gets drunk the night of his daughter's 3rd birthday and is taken into a police station for being so inebriated, and so a friend comes to bail him out. However, he disappears soon after and ends up being held prisoner for 15 years. In that time his wife has been killed and he was framed for the murder. Now his focus is on revenge, and the movie goes all kinds of crazy from there. Don't let having to read subtitled deter you from this movie because it's hard for me to compare it to any other movie I've ever seen and is probably best described as a psychothriller. I highly reccomend checking this one out at a dollar cinema or get it on DVD with an A rating. There's not a whole lot to say about Mallrats, one of Kevin Smith's earlier movies. It's much in the same vein as Clerks and revolves around two guys who loiter around a mall after being dumped by their girlfriends and try to get them back with the help of Jay and Silent Bob. It's a fun movie, but with many distasteful moments so I give it a C+.

So what's going on in technology? Well, a couple of students at a Chicago high school got caught stealing social security numbers, kinda. The funny thing is that they got caught months after, and the kids say they did it just for sport. I can see trying to access the files for sport, but copying them to incriminate yourself? Moving on though, it seems like OpenOffice has heard complaints about the Java trap and is now fostering discussion about how they're trying to avoid it. There's also a project called Harmony that proposes to make an open source version of Jav, and I wonder if the increased support of it sprung out of the OpenOffice issue. There's a new Firefox extension called Greasemonkey that allows client-side modification of webpages. Of course this is only for the true nerds so if you are one then read all about it here. Now for a couple of silly things. There's an odd gun shaped mouse that you can see here, and I just bring it up because it's a quirky way to play FPS games. And finally, there's a nifty article here about the worst foods to eat in front of your computer, and thank God I haven't eaten any of those near my keyboard except for the rice, which I haven't had an incident with as of yet.

There's a healthy amount of Batman news today. You can see a new Batman Begins tv spot here, and it's a different style from the others in being narrated by Bruce Wayne himself. There's a comprehensive article up on the history of the upcoming Bat-flick, and I knew about the later stuff but not all the earlier information so it's definitely a worthwhile read if you like Batman as much as I do. If you're really impatient you can read a spoiler-filled review here along with another review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You can also see a very early review of Mr. and Mrs. Smith over here, and it sounds like a slightly better than action movie so that makes it even more likely that I'll see it. If you can't enough action then check out the French trailer for The Transporter 2 over here (click the obvious link in the middle). If you need more for for you multimedia fix you can check out the fascinating trailer for the murder mystery thriller November featuring Courtney Cox, which is not to be confused with that crappy movie Sweet November. One of my favorite bands, Incubus, has recorded a few tracks just for Fantastic Four and it includes their first duet! This may be my only reason for seeing that movie. Lastly, IGN is doing a feature on the lamest Star Wars characters and it's surprisingly accurate.

All this E3 fever gives me the urge to blab about video games. There's an article here about cell phone video games getting bigger for those interested, but I'm more interested in the unveiling of the PS3. So what does it look like?



Clearly they've lost their damned minds. I like the sleek look of the console itself (which also comes in white and black), but why a boomerang controller? It has all the same buttons and is likely wireless, but it's not going to feel right. It will be out in the Spring of 2006 (just in time for my first paying internship most likely), it is going to be backwards compatibly with PS2 games, and has raked in 3rd party support. Games to be developed include Devil May Cry 4, another Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid 4, another Final Fantasy, and Fight Night 3 among others. Part of the reason I'm posting so late in fact is because I've been reading more about it including the specs, which do beat the Xbox 360. It has many features to rival the Xbox 360, include HD standard on all games and Bluetooth support and a hard drive, and you can host your own radio station (with video actually) from your console! I'll bring you more as it develops.

Now to end this obese post with some Monday Madness:

How much do you think is the most you would pay for...

1. ...a loaf of bread?
$2.00 if it's that high quality Golden Wheatbury
2. ...a gallon of gas?
$2.50, but do I really have choice?
3. ...a pair of jeans?
$25.00
4. ...a computer?
$1000
5. ...a camera?
$400
6. ...a pair of shoes?
$30 for tennis shoes, probably like $80 for real nice dress shoes
7. ...a television?
$2000 for a really nice one
8. ...a recliner chair?
$1000 if it was really really comfortable (I <3 recliners)
9. ...a month of 'lightening speed' internet service?
Any more than $40 is a rip
10. ...a cell phone?
$300 for one of those keyboard ones