Review: Tampopo

Someone once told me that Tampopo is a great movie for foodies. It definitely has a lot about food, especially Ramen.

The plot revolves around Tampopo, a widow struggling to learn the true art of making good ramen, so she support her child. The camera does pick up and follow random side-plots, however, some of which are good, and some of which are distracting and take away from the movie's theme. Most of them are never fully exposited, which makes you have to fill in the blanks yourself, though one of them is ridiculously far fetched.

There are fabulous food scenes in the movie, one of which involves food as foreplay. However, these scenes aren't as common as I was led to believe. I think the movie could have been far more tightly edited and plotted, which would have kept it from dragging in places. Mildly recommended.

Movie Review: 非诚勿扰

非诚勿扰 2 so caught my attention that I checked the prequel from the library. Sequels are rarely better than the original, so if I liked the second movie, 非诚勿扰 should have been even more impressive, right?

The opening sequence was indeed funny, but not in the way the sequel was. Then the initial half of the movie degenerates into a sequence of "in search of the right woman" dating scenes. While these are entertaining enough, and even cleverly written (there's one scene where a friend introduces our lead actor to a recently widowed woman that just had us giggling), at this point we're introduced to the lead actress.

I was quite puzzled as to why I didn't like the movie as much, but I think I know why now. The protagonist is extremely smart and observant: he sees what's wrong with his leading lady right away, and walks out on her multiple times. Then we are led to believe that he's willing to take a trip to Hokkaido, treats her cruelly, and then becomes devoted to her? Nothing adds up. Ok, human beings don't always add up, but as someone once said, the difference between real life and fiction is that I expect some consistency from fiction. One theory could be that the sequel had a larger budget than this movie, and hence the sight-jokes could be better implemented. Thinking over the script though, I don't see how a bigger budget would have made this movie better.

Is the movie worth watching? Yes. It's still better than expected for a romantic comedy. But the sequel was definitely much more impressive in terms of writing. The photography is nice, but it's quite clear that the director did not make full use of Hokkaido's gorgeous scenery, which properly belonged to the characters. It's just that if I had watched this movie first I probably would have waited to watch 非诚勿扰 2 on DVD rather than seeing it in the theater, and that would have been a loss. Nevertheless, recommended.
[Note: I watched this movie with only Chinese subtitles turned on, so I can't speak to the quality of the English subtitles. One of the coolest things about the movie is that it makes no compromises about languages. The Japanese people speak Japanese, the Chinese people speak Chinese, and the one non-Asian with speaking parts speaks in both English and Japanese. Hence turning on subtitles is useful even if you are fluent with Mandarin.]

Movie Review: 非诚勿扰 2

I'm really skeptical of romantic comedies. They tend towards cliches, and when I see the "2" which means it's a sequel I'm doubly skeptical. Yet the movie theater I was in at 1:00pm had nearly every chair filled on Christmas Day! Granted, Cupertino has a large Chinese population, and it was a rainy day, but that drew my attention.

I'll try not to spoil the movie, but if you are the type who's easily spoiled, don't read any further.

The opening sequence is a surprise: a divorce ceremony, complete with all the pomp and grandeur devoted to wedding ceremonies in other romantic comedies. Then the next sequence is a little confusing to those who did not watch the prequel, despite the opening "catchup" exposition. The meandering plot features not very much by way of surprises, or even character development, but smack in the middle is another great sequence featuring a wake for someone who's not dead (it is a fantasy of mine --- why waste all the good things you'd say about someone for only after they're gone?). The script's dialogue is fast paced and fun, but I'm not sure how the English subtitles were translated: I was too busy with the dialogue and scenes to pay attention to the subtitles. There's definitely a healthy amount of cynicism and snide remarks in the movie, which earned it my respect despite the genre.

All in all, I guess I'll have to find the prequel and see if it's just as entertaining. Recommended, though if you were to wait for it to come out on DVD, there's nothing that requires watching it on a big screen. In fact, in some scenes the cinematography and photography seemed to be overly grainy, which is a surprise in this day and age.

Review: The Social Network

Between Scott Adams' review of the movie and Steve Grimm telling me that teenagers were considering becoming computer scientists because of the movie, I had to see it in the theaters. Unlike other movies based on books, I did not read The Accidental Billionaires since the book had so many negative reviews.

Well, the movie should also be considered fiction, and most likely the real story wouldn't be as exciting to tell, but what the heck. I enjoyed the depiction of someone who could (and did) flout social convention and hacked his way into greatness. I certainly didn't think the movie was wholly negative about Facebook (if anything, I think Facebook will probably get more signups because of the movie), and the plot was at least interesting, if not quite "edge of your seat" gripping.

There is one section of the movie that does ring true though, which is to come to Silicon Valley if you're a geek and building a startup. Earlier this year someone asked me for advice, since he was contemplating a move to China. I told him in no uncertain terms that it would be a mistake for his career. Sure enough, by the time the summer approached, he had quadrupled his income, gotten a job he was much happier with, and things had dramatically improved. If you're a computer scientist/software engineer, being anywhere else is probably a mistake. The movie does a good job of depicting this as one of the Facebook co-founders chose to go to New York instead of moving out to Silicon Valley with everyone else.

Regardless, I thought the movie did do a good job of at least showing perl code. And seriously, I don't think it's any worse a portrayal of geeks/engineers than The Big Bang Theory. I would feel sorry for anyone who does become a computer scientist because of the parties as depicted in the movie though! I wouldn't call the movie a total waste of time, but I certainly wouldn't be as glowing about it as Scott Adams was. I'm glad I did not pay full price and saw it on a rainy day.

Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinthis a very dark fairy tale. Most fantasy movies are for kids, and this one breaks the mold. My parents have taken me to more scary movies when I was a child, but I don't think most American parents will be willing to subject their kids to that kind of horror.

The story is set during the Spanish Civil War. The protagonist of the movie, Ofelia and her pregnant mother travel to join her stepfather who's job it is to wipe out or contain the rebels in the forest. During her travels, she sets off a chain of events that lead to a visit by a fairy and a troll who tells her that she is a fairy princess trapped in the human world and must do three tasks in order to return lands of the fairy.

The first task seems in keeping with the traditional fairy tale. At the same time, we are exposed to the clashes between the rebels and the soldiers, and the cruelty of the war between them. Ofelia's mother takes ill, and the troll gives her a solution to help make her mother better. Ofelia fails at her second task. However, she is given one last chance by the troll, and her world falls apart while attacks between both sides of the war are in progress.

Filled with allegory, horror, and unflinching realism (yes, there's lots of blood in this movie, and I jerked involuntarily during a few scenes), the ending is both unexpected and entirely in keeping with the movie. The actors/actresses are very well done, and the cinematography captivating: it is clear that Guillermo del Toro put a ton of work into imagining every aspect of the movie, from color to costumes.

I enjoyed the movie, but I waver between thinking of the ending as a cop-out, and considering it a smart twist on the audience's sensibilities. The psychological tricks the movies plays on you are also not what I consider fair. Having said all that, I don't regret the time I spent watching the film at all. I just wouldn't show it to anyone squeamish.

Review: Moon

I heard all sorts of things about Moon over the last year or two, and deliberately kept myself spoiler free until I found some time to watch it, and what a worthwhile 93 minutes it was!

The premise of the movie is that mankind has developed a usable fusion process that requires helium 3 from the dark side of the moon. All action in the movie itself happens on the moon base that processes and ships helium 3 back to Earth. The movie quickly establishes what normal routine is in the base, and then quickly dives into the plot involving the lone operator of the base, Sam Bell. He's not alone, however, and has a robot assistant, the Gerty 3000, which is used to excellent effect in the movie, constantly confounding audience expectations.

To say more than this will spoil the plot (in fact, you are advised not to even read the Amazon.com reviews). Suffice to say the mystery is interesting and fair (you could figure it out with all the clues), and the resolution satisfying. Highly recommended. While the movie is rated R, as far as I can tell the only reason it got the "R" was for a very innocuous shower scene with Sam Rockwell (shot entirely from the back).

Pixar Visit

Pixar

Lisa, her friend Tammy, Ellie, and an unnamed Googler and I had a wonderful visit to Pixar yesterday, hosted by former Googlers Matt and Tashana. The central exhibit outside of the main lobby was devoted to Toy Story 3, which unfortunately none of us had yet to get a chance to see except unnamed Googler.

Tashana was the production manager for Toy Story 3, so she answered all our geeky questions about the show, including:
What was the hardest part of the movie to do? It turned out to be the day care center cardboard box. We spent so many meetings discussing its attributes and spent so much time on it that the team thought we should make a T-shirt with just the cardboard box on it. I'm being a little facetious here. The garbage dump was also really hard to get right.

How many movies do you usually have in the pipeline at once? Do any of them ever get cancelled? There can be as many as up to 5 movies in the pipeline at once, and yes, some of them do get cancelled. It's rare, but it happens.

Do you ever have to redo movies because of story changes? Yes. It varies dramatically from movie to movie. Toy Story 3 was pretty stable, but Ratatouille, for instance, had a director change. The characters went from being able to walk only on two legs to being able to run on four as well, and that dictated changes everywhere.

Did you do the story first, and then try to get licensing rights for Toy Story 3, or did it go the other way around? We do the story first. For Toy Story 1, we tried to get rights to Barbie, but Matel refused. For Toy Story 2, they OK'd the scene. For Toy Story 3, they asked us to get more of Barbie in, because they realized it was good for the business. For toys that we designed, lawyers look through the design so as to avoid infringing on other company's rights. Cars, for instance was a headache because of all the stripes, logos, and other designs that showed up on the cars. We had to avoid any designs that could conceivably have started a lawsuit.

What about merchandising? Does Pixar do them in house? Disney has an entire department whose job it is to set up licensing and merchandising. That's what really pays our salary. For Cars, for instance, the merchandising revenue was $3B. John Lasseter took a personal interest in the toys produced from Cars, so for instance you can buy every character in the movie. That was a big help.

There was much much more, including character sketches, model packets, color keys, and other pieces of the process which wouldn't make sense without the exhibits. We were not allowed to shoot photographs of those, so I'm afraid you're going to have to pay a visit to Pixar yourself if you want all the details. On the drive home, Ellie, Lisa, and I resolved to watch Toy Story 3 when we got a chance, I think I definitely have to see The Incredibles again.

Review: The Aviator

The Aviator is Martin Scorsese's movie about Howard Hughes. I didn't know much about Howard Hughes the man, but the movie at least seemed to do a good job portraying important moments of his life, from movie-making to making aircraft, this seemed to be a man truly larger than life, able to do whatever he wanted, but subject to a dreadful mental illness that DiCarpio depicts well: at one point we see him covering his mouth to keep himself from repeatedly saying the same words that he knew he would loop into if he were not to stop himself.

Cate Blanchett won an Oscar as Katherine Hepburn, but I really did not like her in this role. Her acting seemed really contrived, and even her laughs seemed fake. It could very well be that Katherine Hepburn was really like this, but I found it really difficult to watch any segment of the film with her in it.

As far as the story goes, Scorsese avoids trying to make any editorial comments about Hughes, and I think he succeeded in this case. We learn to feel sorry for him, but we also get to see the ruthlessness and shrewdness needed to dominate an industry the way Howard Hughes did. About the only thing I dislike was that Hughes was such a penny pincher he had his aircraft company turned into a charity to avoid paying taxes, but the movie portrays him as a profligate spender, risking all in pursuit of a goal. It would have been interesting to delve into these contradictions.

It's a long movie, so it's best watched at home so you can pause it to go to the bathroom. There aren't very many action sequences, so it's not a movie where there'd be any problem pausing (or even stopping) the movie and then resuming it later. Despite the movie being on Blu-Ray, I can honestly say that this was one Blu-Ray that didn't give me the "wow, I'm watching in HD!" feeling --- the subject matter really wasn't subject to high definition, and the transfer was nothing special.

I can say I enjoyed the movie, but not enough to give it a recommended rating. I guess I'm just not enough of a Scorsese fan.

Review: Battle Royale

My review of The Hunger Games drew comments from both Hang and my brother about its similarity in plot to Battle Royale, a Japanese movie from 2000. My understanding is that works in the television industry, and so might well have had exposure to Battle Royale since it was such a well-known movie. But there are significant differences between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale:

• Battle Royale's backstory and plot is pretty unbelievable. The title sequence doesn't even provide any attempt to rationalize what the "game" was about.
  
• Battle Royale had no elements of a reality-TV show whatsoever. The opening sequence hints at it, but nowhere in the movie is there even mention of an audience, and there is not even the hint that audience participation could affect the outcome.
  
• The game setup is extremely unfair. I don't see any reason why the first guy with a ranged weapon wouldn't immediately camp out and snipe everyone else.
  
• The reactions were extremely unrealistic. At one point a bunch of girls are camped out together but they suddenly turn against each other. The lone survivor commits suicide.
  
• The one group that was smart enough to try to meta-game the situation and get everyone off the island alive was ignominiously killed off without even being allowed to execute their plan. So all that set up was wasted?!!
  

The movie wasn't a complete waste of time, but the Hunger Games is definitely a far better plot and character study than this movie.

Not recommended.

Review: Insomnia

I am slowly working through Christopher Nolan's movies. Insomnia [Blu-ray] was his first major film after Memento. It is so far my favorite Christopher Nolan movie.

The movie is a remake of a 1998 Norwegian film of the same name. However, the plot and characters were apparently substantially changed, so I feel justified in treating it as a completely original movie. The film features an all-star cast, with Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hillary Swank headlining the film.

The plot revolves around a girl who was beaten to death in the small Alaskan town of Nightmute. Two policemen are sent up to town from Los Angeles to assist in the investigation: Dormer (Pacino) and Eckhart. Swank plays Ellie Burr, who is the bright-eyed young cop who hero-worships Dormer.

I love the way the cops are portrayed: these aren't incompetent bumbling cops who blow the investigation and have a hard time figuring out who did it. They figure it out, and they figure it out fast. However, Dormer and Eckhart come with a history of their own, and there's definitely tension between them. In a particularly intense moment, things start to go wrong and it feels like Dormer starts to fall apart, not just from the tensions carried over from LA, but also from Insomnia from the midnight sun. I won't spoil the plot for you here, but yes, Robin Williams does play a very important role, and it is played completely against type for him, which I quite enjoyed.

The DVD by the way has a short feature about insomnia featuring William C. Dement, who wrote The Promise of Sleep. It's good to be able to attach a face to a name. Dement says that the movie is accurate in its portrayal of insomnia and its effects.

Needless to say, this movie comes highly recommended. It is rated R (mostly for language), however, so parents take note.

Review: The Prestige

I first read the novel The Prestige some time around 1998 or 1999 through a friend I met on the train. When I heard that Christopher Nolan had made The Prestige [Blu-ray]into a movie, I made up my mind that I would like to see it. But things being what they were, I didn't get around it until now.

Most movie adaptations of novels are lackluster. I wondered how the movie would do in this case, partly because the prose of the novel was turgid because the novel also aimed to pull one over the reader's eyes as well, while remaining fair enough an intelligent reader could figure out what the Prestige was. (The prestige is the final act of a magic show, where the magician produces whatever he made disappear) And yes, I did figure out what the prestige was, so it was fair.

Well, the movie does reproduce the novel remarkably well, and once again, an intelligent viewer who pays attention will definitely has all the clues he or she needs in order to figure out the trick. The actors are great, and I definitely loved the portrayal of the rivalry between Jackman and Bale's characters. There are a few changes from the novel, but none of them are outrageous.

I think the biggest problem deciding between the novel or the movie is that you can only experience the reveal once, in whatever form. Once you've read the novel, then the movie won't hold any mysteries for you, and vice-versa, so you have to be very careful in deciding which you should sample first. Given that the prose of the novel was deliberately turgid, in this case I recommend that you watch the movie first, which will likely motivate you to spend the extra time required to read the novel. If you think that means that I have high praise for the movie, you're right. I'm quickly becoming a Christopher Nolan fan!

Review: Up in the Air

Ok, so this review is actually a bait and switch. Last night, Lisa wanted to watch a movie. I had neglected to sign up for Netflix, but then remembered that the PS3 had on-line movie rentals through the Playstation Store, so I fired up the game machine and looked through the store looking for something to watch.

It wasn't hard to find something to watch, since Up in the Air [Blu-ray] was a movie that everyone on our St. Vincent Trip talked about. It felt odd not to have the Amazon reviews available while browsing, but I got over that since we wanted to watch the movie.

Purchasing is a bit of a snag, since you can only buy Playstation Store dollars in units of $5 at a time, but I could see myself making regular use of this feature, so there wasn't a lot of resistance on my part. Once the download started, I could see that my WiFi connection while good, wasn't going to instantaneously download the movie for me to watch right away. However, once the PS3 had downloaded about 5% of the movie, an option appeared to watch the movie while downloading. It took no more than 3 minutes to get to this point, but getting Lisa ready to watch the movie took at least 10 minutes, so it was no big deal.

The nice thing about watching the movie this way, as opposed to say, Redbox is that there are no ads. You click play, and the movie immediately starts. No trailers, no menu, nothing. Just what all online rental experiences should be like. The picture quality is absolutely amazing. As mentioned before, the PS3 upscaling works smoothly and magically, and Up in the Air wasn't the kind of movie that needed HD anyway.

Twice, however, the playback stopped when the playback went faster than the download could handle. Each time, we'd stop and do other stuff for a bit so that we wouldn't get stuttering. I think if I had about 30 minutes of buffer time before watching the movie, I don't think we would have even gotten a pause. I would certainly do this kind of rental again, as opposed to renting from Redbox or paying a monthly fee to Netflix (though as a cheapskate, I would of course get a free trial from Netflix first). For HD movies, however, there's some planning needed since it would take quite a while to download the entire movie to disk. That's probably better done through a regular Blu-Ray rental or Netflix.

As for the movie itself: I liked it. Unlike Hollywood movies, there's a plot twist that doesn't end happily for the protagonist, which I thought was unusual. Worth the rental, but I don't think we needed to see it in the theater.

Movie Review: Catfish

Disclosure: I saw this movie for free at a Google-only screening.

One could be forgiven in thinking that Google and Facebook sponsored this movie, because their properties feature so heavily in it. Yet, unlike, You've Got Mail, this is a documentary. It actually did happen to one of the film maker's brother. I guess when you're a film maker in New York, you get material whenever you can.

The star is Nev Schulman, a photographer in New York who gets a photo published in the New York Times. He receives fan mail from an 8 year old artist in the form of an oil painting of his photograph, and begins a Facebook based correspondence with her. In very little time, he becomes inter-twined with her entire family, including her older half-sister Megan.

Yet everything doesn't quite adds up, and the movie comes to a climax when Nev and his brother decide to pay a visit to Abby's family. The movie obviously comes from home-video quality cameras: everything's shaky, hand-held, and grainy. But the story is king here, and it holds up and is especially compelling. By the time we get to the climax, the film-makers believe they have a real movie, and suddenly everything becomes much higher quality. The movie is quite predictable, but just like a train wreck, I couldn't stop watching...

I got a kick out of seeing many Google products in use. Gmail, Google, Youtube, Google Maps, Google Earth and Streetview. What a riot! If you're a current or ex-Googler, watch this movie. Oh yeah, if you're a Facebooker, watch it too! Recommended, but won't lose anything if you watch it on the small screen.

Review: 9

I will admit that Up disappointed me, and though I liked Wall-E better, I felt that Pixar had not really delivered since The Incredibles. I saw 9 at the bookmobile at the same time as Sweeney Todd, and since they both had Tim Burton's name on the box, decided to pick both of them up.

I didn't like Sweeney Todd very much, so put off watching 9, but that would have been a mistake. Visually, 9 is stunning. The animation, the colors, and the tight control of palette just jumped out at me. In many places, it felt as though I was drawn into the world, since the rendered images were so real. The story is dark, set in a post-apocalyptic world and has obvious plot holes you can throw a rag-doll through, but is no worse than the typical Pixar animated movies. The characters are great, and well-acted by the likes of Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly. It is largely on the strength of the characters and their reactions to the world we explore with them that makes the movie tick. I especially love the design of the rag dolls and their weaponry, built out of scavenged office supplies.

If you're tired of the bright-cheery world of Disney/Pixar animations, take a look at 9. You will find it a worthwhile antidote. Recommended.

Review: Baraka Blu Ray

This is the fourth time I've seen Baraka. I don't make it a point to see movies more than once as a matter of course, but when I first saw this movie in 1992, it blew me away. A film without dialogue, conversation or plot, yet telling a story with gorgeous, glorious cinematography, this movie captivated me for the entirety of 90 minutes. The next time I saw my parents, I took them to the movie. Then when Lisa and I had some time, we saw the movie on DVD.

Much has been written about the transfer process used to capture Baraka on blu-ray discs, and while critics usually succumb to hyperbole about it, I have to say in this case they are correct: the transfer is immaculate, and will provide as close to a 70mm film experience as you can expect. This is definitely a disc that will show off your home theater system if you've built one, or expose faults with it if what you've built is inadequate.

The extras on the discs are as long as the movie, and show how the film was made: the film-makers built their own equipment, and shot the whole thing mostly with 5 people. My respect for the makers went up: these weren't people who shot a ton of film only to throw most of it away; their budget was so low that they had to make every shot count.

Needless to say, this movie is highly recommended. If you haven't seen it before, make sure to see it with the best home theater set up you can get. It will blow you away.

Review: Dark City, Director's Cut

I was first introduced to the movie, Dark City by Steve Grimm, who told me that it was one of the best movies ever made, only marred by the movie studios who stuck in a narration at the start that spoiled everything. He loaned me the New Line Platinum edition DVD, and told me to stick it into my DVD player and skip the first chapter.

I went home, and did exactly that, and my brothers and I were captivated by the movie. The story was well-told, the actors portrayed what felt like a very real world but in a surreal environment, and the visuals quite unlike any movies I had seen up to this point. When I saw that the director's cut was out, I bought it, despite my fear that somehow knowing the plot would make the movie less watchable.

It turned out that the director's cut is only very subtly different from the original theatrical release. The opening narration is gone (a mistake admitted by the director), and some scenes have been extended for more character development, but to be honest it was so long ago since I saw the theatrical release that I no longer remember what scenes were there as opposed to not.

Regardless, the story is still compelling, moving forward quickly enough to keep your interest, but not so fast as to lose you. William Hurt plays his role with verve, and Jenny Conelly has a luminosity in her scenes that has only grown since. All in all, 90 minutes very well spent.

Highly recommended. (Note: this movie is R-rated, not for any particular scene, but the intensity might be a bit much for young viewers. Lisa had a nightmare afterwards)

Review: Virtuality

Virtuality was Ron Moore's post-Battlestar pilot. It provides an interesting view of space travel, and characteristically enough, uses known technology to portray an exploration of the universe --- no obvious laws of physics were broken in the movie, which by itself makes it almost unique!

As with Battlestar Galactica, the use of negative spaces in the movie is prevalent --- reality-tv like filming techniques are used throughout the entire movie, which lends the movie a very immediate experience. What's fascinating to me is that the traditional movie-making approach is only used inside the virtual reality-experiences, heightening the viewer's dislocation and discomfort with distinguishing what is real and what is not --- which is probably one of the points Ron Moore is getting at.

I think this movie's very much worth watching, though it does (like any good TV pilot would) leave you wanting more.

Iron Man Movie Review

So, it might show up once in a while on these blogs, but me and my brothers are all pretty big comic books fans. It might not show up as the majority of the reviews, but its definitely a guilty pleasure, and in terms of pages read, probably almost equals the amount of pages read from real books.

Suffice it to say that we have a very very good background when it comes to comic books and their super heroes. The past few super hero movies though, have been a bit of a disappointment, Spiderman 3, X-men 3, Superman....I won't even mention Fantastic Four 2. With that pedigree, all from the last year or so, I wouldn't blame anyone if they chose to skip Iron Man. I mean, one of the middle known super heroes, and not particularly the most beloved.

Well, I just finished watching it, and its probably one of the best super hero movies out there. Its up on par with X-man 1, Batman Begins, and Spidey 2 or 1.

First of all, the casting is amazing. Robert Downey Jr as Tony Starks. The real life embodiment of Tony Starks (minus the mechanical genius), playing himself is nothing but sheer genius. He gets the character down to a T. Gwyneth Paltrow as a supped up Pepper Potts was nothing short of amazing as well.

As the rest of the characters are fairly bit players, I won't mention them, but suffice it to say that they're fairly good in their bit parts.

Secondly, the dialogue is incredible. Beyond casting the characters well, they wrote lines that are realistic, witty, funny, and something that just fits the movie perfectly. Its irreverent when it needs to be, its witty when it needs to be, and its completely relevant when its necessary. Never have I enjoyed a super hero movie from beginning to end and looked more forward to the interaction between characters more so than the action.

Thirdly, the movie is very very well updated and the plot is mostly believable (80% or so) =). No longer is Starks a prisoner of war in Vietnam, but a prisoner of war in Afghanistan...Pepper Potts is no longer just in the background, but shows up in the foreground with lines and roles that are every bit as powerful as the titular charcter's repulsors.

I won't go into the plot here, you can google it if you want to, and there's really nothing to spoil, but I'll still leave that as an excercise for the readers.

The action is there, and its great, and its perfect, but in the end, I think whats incredible about the movie is how well its packaged together. The dialogue, the casting, the action, the CG....I guess having good directors do make a difference huh, Marvel? =) Its also surprising seeing as how its only John Favreau's (click for an article on him directing Iron Man) 4th directed movie. I'll be watching out for more of this works from now on.

In other words, highly recommended, definitely at the matinee price, and probably even at full price. It didn't get a 94% at Rotten Tomatoes for nothing!

Outsourced: The Movie

This is the third movie I've seen at Google as part of a special engagement...The previous two being King of Kong, and the other A Moment with You.

This movie deals with outsourcing as its main topics and the very first few minutes of the film sets it up. A manager of a call center finds out that his group is to be laid off and he is to go to India to train his replacement. He goes reluctantly, and eventually integrates into the society that he's supposed to train to at least sound more American.

Its a romantic comedy, and it doesn't fail on either the romance or the comedy. The movie works quite well on both levels and the pacing was just right. At about 2 hours, the story, though simplistic has enough meat to make you feel satisfied without boring you at any point.

The producer stayed at the end of the movie for questions and to relay several cute statistics:

1. They spent 30 days in India, and 2 days in Seattle. They also apparently didn't run into many production problems other than a few times when the cops said they couldn't film for a particular day.
2. They invented a name for the city the outsourced call center is based in because Indians are very particular about the correctness or incorrectness of an accent. So if they had said the call center was based in Mumbai, folks in Mumbai would watch the movie and deride the inaccuracy of the accents. So they invented the name of the city, thus disallowing this criticism. =)
3. The producer did this film because of his time spent as a student in India. His wasn't a story of a job outsourced, or a romance struck up while in India. He was just a foreigner who was fascinated while he was in India and decided to make a movie out of it to explain to people asking "just what is India like?" and this was the result.

As a freshman effort, I must say I'm very impressed at this film and certainly recommend people either catch it in theatres if they can, or buy the DVD. Its certainly worth the time!

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters Movie Review

ust saw King of Kong a week ago, and thought it was a great documentary.

For those who don't know what the documentary is about, here's the official website:

http://www.billyvssteve.com/

It is a great documentary in the sense that it has compelling characters, a story you'd imagine only exist in fiction, and a very satisfying resolution to the entire film.

And its about video games, albeit, not really the type of games folks play here, but really, classic gaming is one of those things that folks who've been around long enough look back with fond memories of. I hope anyway =).

This is a documentary, so there's very little to spoil..it basically talks about one man's quest to break the donkey kong world score record and all the difficulties he faced OUTSIDE the game to get his score recognized.

spoilers below, so skip if you want to watch..

The movie starts off talking about the current holder of the record and gives you an interesting perspective on his personality....he's quite a bit of a character and along the way you find out about his philosophy on life, among other things. For those of you who's read http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-David-Sirlin/dp/1413498817]David Sirlin's Playing to Win[/URL]

it then introduces the challenger, and although not a very strong character, is immensely more likeable than the current holder of the record.

The movie then goes on to talk about the challenger's road to getting his record recognized by Twin Galaxies, the official record keepers...of which the record holder is a judge of. Many problems ensue, where the validity of the machine the challenger plays on, the bias towards "their own" that twin galaxies has, and the no-show'ness of the champion to defend his record live.

All in all, its much less of a movie about video games as it is about competitiveness and what people will do to be #1. Some of the interviews come off as disparaging video games and video gamers, but more often than not, its the video gamers themselves that does the most to shoot themselves in the collective foot (they had the most outrageous and...funky quotes).

The documentary ends with the community finally accepting the newcomer into his clique.

Spoilers End

There was a little Q&A with the producer and director of the film later, and when asked why there seemed to be so much bias towards the current record holder, they said it was because he shut himself off from their interviews...he had all sorts of conditions for interviews on him to happen and part of one of those conditions is never mentioning the challenger's name or his feats! They also said as much as possible, they did not put anything they showed on video out of context.

I have to highly recommend this film because I think its a great human story first of all, enjoyable by all, and secondly, because i think its on a topic that all of us on this sub-forum can relate to. =) Great humorous movie too, and when you laugh its because you can relate to whats being said as much as the situations you see.

Go see it if its showing in your hometown!

New-Line's already picked up the movie to be fictionalized (although with the same producer/director, and they already said they're going to stick to the facts as much as possible, recreating stuff that was spoken instead of shown), so it'll soon be mainstream soon enough...a few years maybe!