Movies I've Seen Recently...

the Machine Girl (2008)  B

Outrageous, unbelievable, campy, ridiculous, disgusting, gory, violent, funny, sexy, tragic, action-packed, and entertaining, "the Machine Girl" is pretty much a revenge story anime done in live action. The son of a Yakuza family kills the little brother of Ami Hyuga, and she goes out to avenge his death in very bloody and twisted fashion. The Yakuza does end up cutting her left arm off, but she later gets to use weaponry like a machine gun as an alternative. The key to enjoying this movie is to not take it too seriously, because things are simply so over the top. There is one scene where Ami shoots out a large hole in a ninja's torso, then afterwards sticks her machine gun arm through it, and proceeds to shoot another ninja's face off. Yup, this is not for everybody, but for it's target audience, this was pretty damn fun to watch.

The Wackness (2008)  B-

A coming of age story about a lonely teen who sells pot for a living, and yet is actually more responsible than his peers or the adults around him. "The Wackness" follows Luke Shapiro who falls for his psychiatrist's daughter, and finally learns what it feels like to be in love, in a world that seems to be at odds against him. The standout role here is by Ben Kingsley who is having fun acting as the odd psychiatrist who clearly seems to be in a mid-life crisis. The story takes place in the mid 1990's, which isn't an issue if it wasn't for the fact that the movie crams it down our throats by constantly pushing 90s pop culture references, at times when it feels completely uneccessary. There are also some visual tricks that had promise, but underwhelmingly wasn't used as much as they could have been. When the movie actually focuses on the actual drama of the three main characters though, is when "The Wackness" really works.

Step Brothers (2008)  C+

Rude, crude, juvenile, slapstick, and some outrageous moments sounds like the winning formula for a Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly film right? It would be, if we were more "in" with the jokes. Seriously, as fun as "Step Brothers" can be to watch, I had this feeling like I was just watching these actors play out some inside jokes of theirs. The concept itself seems a little too unbelievable in how 40 year old men are still acting like 8 year olds living with their parents. Sure there are still many funny scenes that warrant a viewing of the movie, but I felt that this overall isn't up to par with their stronger works. Still enjoyable, but only to a certain degree.

Holy Crap! EEAARRTTHHQQUUAAKKEE!!
"Approximately at 11:42AM, there was a 5.4 earthquake, and the epicenter was about southwest of Chino Hills." I live no more than 7-8 miles away from that city, so you know I really felt that. I was asleep at the time when the bed just started shaking like crazy. Half asleep, I hear the loud rumbling, the house shaking, and I could hear stuff falling to the floor. That lasted maybe a good 15-30 seconds or so. I live in a two story house, so my bedroom was affected the most.

One of the first things I did, was call my wife, and then my Mom.
Cellphone was down, probably dude to traffic, so I actually had to use
the landline phone. All the little ornaments and figurines that my wife has all over the room fell. Drawers opened up, but thankfully no huge items like cabinets tipped over. Three particular things that I thought may fall during an earthquake,
thankfully did not fall; my CD and DVD collections, and my HDTV. My dogs were scared, and stayed with me all the time, as I checked the rest of the house for any significant damages; which I did not find any. Although checking out the backyard, it looks like the house either moved or the yard did, because the boundary of the grass next to the back patio is about two inches away from each other now. Apparently my neighbor's house got a huge crack on the wall to the ceiling, so we got off luckier than he did.

I'm hoping that this earthquake is not a foreshock, as there is a 5% chance that it is, with that dropping to 1% after 24 hours from the time. Imagine if it was, and something much stronger than a 5.4 earthquake was still going to happen. Scary. So far, I've only felt one small aftershock, so I'm hoping the worst has already passed. Man, imagine if this happened while Comic-Con was going on....

I guess it's a good enough time to point out this link below.
http://www.shakeout.org/
November 12-16, 2008
The Great Southern California ShakeOut is a week of special events featuring the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history, organized to inspire Southern Californians to get ready for big earthquakes, and to prevent disasters from becoming catastrophes

Comic-Con Sunday July 27 recap

Sure enough, Saturday exhausted me out, and it's effects took a toll on what I could handle on Sunday. I woke up a little later than I wanted, checked out of my hotel, did not get to eat breakfast and took off to the last day of the San Diego Comic-Con. Originally, I was going to go to the Smallville and Supernatural panels, but since I got there so late, it was already full and I couldn't enter. I decided that this is my opportunity to finally finally walk through the whole exhibit hall, and so that's what I did. I took more photos of cosplayers and booth displays, and even bought a few things. I couldn't go through a day without at least going to some panels however, so back to the panel rooms I went.

I caught the second half of the Harold & Kumar panel, with John Cho and Kal Penn present. Questions were mostly about the future of the franchise, and it's state as a "stoner movie."

Did you ever want to see a reboot of the Friday the 13th movie? No? Well you might change your mind if you saw the trailer that we saw here at Comic-con. The main stars, writer, director of the upcoming new Friday the 13th movie, were there to talk about it. I'm telling you, this has potential to be really good.

The Rogue pictures panel had Director Wes Craven present the movie "25/8." They showed a teaser trailer and it looked interestingly scary. Next up was David Goyer and the main cast presented "the Unborn," and the trailer they showed for it was definitely freaky.

That's it. I went back to the exhibit hall to look around some more, and even though I still had about two hours left before Comic-Con is officially over, I decided to go ahead and left for home. I was tired and sleepy, which isn't the best state to be in when driving over 100 miles, as I almost hit a car when I dozed off on the wheel. I know, a bit irresponsible of me, but that woke me up for the rest of the drive.

The San Diego Comic-Con International now has a lot of "casuals" showing up, which also brings in the female fans that normally would not go to something like this. On the flip side, it's now so crowded, it's hard to move around and freely catch everything you want to see and do. Plus, this has also resulted in the extreme for some of the fanboys, who actually camp out at night just to be first in line for certain panels. In addition, hotels are booked up months in advance of the event, which means that there are "hotel-less" people who are actually willing to just sleep in hotel lounge areas, and unfortunately means that there is an increase of un-bathe attendees.

So another year, another Comic-con gone by. I can't believe it's already over. I can't believe at the transformation that I've witness just these past years, of this convention growing from something specifically targeted to a niche audience, into one that's become something for all of pop culture. This "secret" that I've been a part of for something like 15 years now has gone mainstream, and there doesn't look to be any sign of things going back to the way it was.

Comic-Con Saturday July 26 recap

Thanks to my friends, I did not have to deal with the trolley in the morning, as we drove to the convention center. We got there at 8AM, and the line to "hall H" for the "Heroes" panel was already all the way out to the back of the building. Apparently people have been waiting in line over 12 hours already! Crazy ey? By the time I got in, the whole hall H was probably about 2/3rd full.

This would be the first time for comic-con to hold a TV show panel in the very huge hall H, and it was a wise decision because the "Heroes" panel was fan service worthy. The creator, writers, artists, and the whole main cast of the show (and that's a lot of them) were present. They showed a webisode, and they actually showed the first episode from the upcoming season. They probably could have used another half an hour more for the panel, but they ran out of time.

"Lost" had a rather unusual panel. It starts off with videos of a faux documentary about the "Oceanic 6," another one introducing the new regular cast members, and a clip "taken four years from now." Creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were on stage, and they had this "fake" Dharma  initiative representative, talking about this recruitment thing that they are doing. The panel was primarily a question and answer session, and it was funny that they had different specific prizes based on the question that were asked. Matthew Fox then made a surprise appearance. Afterwards there was a sequence where one of the "recruits" went rogue and wanted to "spill the secrets." They then showed a video of the guy walking through the actual exhibit hall of comic-con, as if it was the Dharma Initiative building. Highly entertaining.

I was going to the "Attack of the Show" panel next, but it was completely full. I took that as an opportunity to walk the exhibit hall. I'm glad I did that, because I was able to get a lot of photos of cosplayers. It reminded at how many cosplayers there are roaming the floor on Saturdays, considering that normally it would be a day I would be stuck inside the panels.

Universal pictures had their panel promoting several movies. "The Mummy : tomb of the dragon emperor" had their main cast from Jet Li, Brendon Frasier, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, etc show up, as well as showed a scene from the movie. "Death Race" had Jason Stathan, Ian Mcshane, Tyreese, etc, as well as showed a scene from the movie. Director Sam Raimi made an appearance for his new movie "Drag me to hell," with Alison Lohman and Justin Long, and the clips they shown were oddly scary and funny at the same time. Finally they had "Land of the Lost," and humorously they had what I'm sure was a fake video conference with Will Farrell who "claims" that he couldn't hear the questions well.

Sony pictures started off their panel with the more "edgier" version of the "Quarantine" trailer. Then "Underworld : rise of the lycans" had it's main stars present, as well as gave us a taste of an unfinished trailer for the movie. "The Pineapple Express" had a great panel, and showed scenes from the movie that proved that this will be an entertainingly hilarious action / comedy. Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny Mcbride, etc, made the Q&A section hilarious. Seth Rogen in particular has a future at comic-con as a new fan favorite panel to go to.

So off to the masquerade photo area, to take more pictures of costume folks. There's definitely more people taking advantage of this option, so I wonder if this will be a problem in the future as space will be an issue.  It's fun to take pix of the cosplayers, especially the costumes that are really really well crafted, but sometimes i'm still shocked by how near naked some of the females can get. Wooh! Speaking of which, after all these years of me doing this, I still have an issue with something about the photo area. Now, this is the impression that I get, but the "director" in the photo area that tells the cosplayers how to position themselves on stage, needs to be a little less obvious whenever he is telling the female ones to specifically stand, kneel, or whatever, when clearly it's just an attempt to put them in a more "exploitative" pose. Ah well, he is a guy afterall.

As it usually is every year, the masquerade contest started and ended well past it's schedule. By the time I was personally done taking photos from the masquerade ball, it was already pass 12:30AM! Since I had to take the trolley back to the hotel at that kind of hour, I did not get back to my room until about 2AM. I still needed to update this blog and upload the photos I took from the day, which by the way was over 850 pictures taken just from Saturday alone! I'm going to have a lack of sleep and be really tired for Sunday.

Comic-Con Friday July 25 recap

The trolley system was nuts in the morning! It was ssooo packed , that I missed two trolleys. Then when I got into Hall H to wait for the "Watchmen" panel, the place was near 3/4th full already, which is crazy considering it was about two hours before the thing starts. I'm kinda concerned about how saturday morning is going to go.

The "Watchmen" panel was one of those that really worked for the fans. Director Zack Snyder, the main cast starring Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and the graphic novel's artist Dave Gibbons were present. They also showed a trailer for the movie that was all sorts of awesome.

"Trailer park" was next, but it's a far cry to how it was years ago when they would actually show stuff you haven't seen before. Now it's all commercialized with typical trailers that are already available out there.

Universal's "Wolfman" had their panel, showing the trailer, with actors Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro, as well as creature creator Rick Baker, making an appearance. Looking good so far.

Director Frank Miller, actors Samuel L Jackson, Jamie King, and Gabriel Macht had their panel on "the Spirit." The theatrical trailer and scenes from the movie were shown. I think I'm sold to see it, but it might be too stylized for the casual audience.

The Star Wars Spectacular panel showed several clips from the Star Wars : the Forced Unleashed, the Clone Wars video games, and The Clone wars movie. The biggest treat was them showing a whole first act of an episode from the Clone Wars TV series.

Entertainment Weekly had their Vissionaries : Filmmakers panel, which included Frank Miller, Zack Snyder, Judd Apatow, and Kevin Smith. It was primarily a question and answers discussion panel, and it was very entertaining. Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow were the funny guys, while Zack Snyder and Frank Miller were more in the insightful opinion range.

Last but certainly not least for my schedule of panels for the day was the "Zack and Miri make a Porno" presentation. Writer / Director Kevin Smith, producer Scott Mosier, actors Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, Jason Mewes, Traci Lords, Katie Morgan, Justin Long, Ricky Made, and , were present. They showed a hilarious clip from the film, but right before that, Kevin Smith once again had some really funny "pre-clip captions" about telling comic-con attendees not to film the video. Once again as it normally goes with a Kevin Smith panel, it's all primarily questions and answers. Smith was always hilarious with his answers, but the other cast were also funny and entertaining.

I was going to go to a free screening of the movie "Sexdrive," but since I planned to wake up really early Saturday, I decided not to go. I even gave away my ticket to somebody, just in case I get tempted to do it anyway. So Friday was all done, and it ended up becoming "Hall H day" for me. Being in one room, from 10AM to 8PM, and I did not even eat anything in between. I don't intend for a repeat on Saturday, but it looks like my chances of getting back into the exhibit hall is getting slimmer and slimmer.

Comic-Con Thursday July 24 recap

Argh, I overslept a little in the morning by a couple of hours! The problem was that I turned off my alarm clock so quickly because I didn't want to wake up the neighboring hotel rooms, that I ended up falling back to sleep.

After I got to the convention center, first thing I did was go stand in line for the Fox studio panel. My friend was already in line, so that helped my avoiding to go to the end of the line (especially since the panel room holds 6500 people). There was some kind of incident in the room though (somebody got hurt by a falling curtain), which delayed it for 30 minutes. It was hella hot standing outside for a long time, but I saw G4's Adam Sessler passing by (and yelled out his name), so that was kind of cool. Fox studios had "The day the earth stood still" presentation, and actors Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connely were present. For "Max Payne, actors Mark Walberg, Mila Kunis, and Ludacris showed up. Both movie presentations also showed several scenes from the films. To top this off, Hugh Jackson made a surprise appearance and showed the trailer for X-Men Origins : Wolverine.

Summit entertainment had their first ever panel at comic-con. The "Push" presentation showed scenes from the movie, with Djimon Honsou, Chris Evans, and Camilla Belle making an appearance (Dakota Fanning would have been there, but was stuck in freeway traffic). Director Alex Proyas was up next to promote "Knowing" and showed the trailer, which seemed interesting. Next up was what a lot (emphasis on A LOT) of the girls & women were there for; "Twilight." The main cast and director for the movie was there, as well as the creator of the book, and the audience treated them like rock stars. You should hear how loud they got from their excitement. It was like every little thing about the movie got lots of noise out of the girls in the audience, especially when lead actor Robert Pattison was involved. The clip they showed from the movie looked pretty good too.

Afterwards I bought my 4 day pass for NEXT years Comic-con ($65 July 22-26, 2009), and also got my photo pass for Saturday's masquerade ball. I then dedicated some time to try and walk through the exhibit hall, where I ended up breaking my rule by splurging a little bit on dvds and books. Once again I was distracted enough that I still did not completely walk through the whole dealer's room.

Dark Castle pictures and Joel Silver had their panel promoting several movies and their comic-book line. The trailer and cast members from "The Hills runs red" were present. They also had what I think was the first ever for "Hall H" to show a trailer and hold a panel for a comic book, "Ferryman." Next up was "Ninja Assassin," and along with the trailer, the cast made an appearance and in particular; to the delight of the many female fans, Korean pop star and lead actor Rain was there. "RockNRolla" topped off the panel, which was also fun because of the constant questions by the women for Gerard Butler, and he was very entertaining with his answers. Director Guy Ritchie, Ludacris, Jeremy Piven, were also present. Looking up at the monitor screen, I noticed that one of the questions was being asked by Lisa, who is that one cosplayer I see every year at Comic-Con. She wasn't in a costume however, so it looks like we won't be able to keep our yearly tradition.

Ending the day, I went to the "Video Games Live" show, by the San Diego Symphony at the Embarcadero Marina Park, which was just a block away from the Convention Center. I've seen this show once before, and it is still very fun to watch. At the intermission, I even ran into another friend of mine who lives in San Diego, so that was a pleasant surprise.

All in all, Thursday felt like a full day for me, that it's more like what "Comic-con Saturdays" used to be like years ago. I can only expect things to be even more eventful in the next few days.

Comic-Con Wednesday July 23 recap

Despite my lack of sleep (2 hours), I was able to make it to San Diego and to my hotel with no hassle at all. I was literally in "the zone" just driving down there, since there was no traffic. I was a little bit concerned about the place I'm staying at; The Town & Country Hotel at Fashion Valley, because it actually had horrible ratings online. To my surprise however, it didn't seem bad at all. I actually like the way the place is laid out, and while looking dated, it feels like staying in a cozy small town community.

Instead of driving 7 miles to the San Diego Convention Center, I opted to try out the Trolley, since one of it's pickup/drop-off stations is exactly where I'm staying at. For a very decent roundtrip ticket, and two transfers later, I was able to make it to my destination in a little over 30 minutes. Not bad at all. The trolley was a bit crowded though, but that's to be expected from a weekend like this one.

After getting my attendee badge, I met up with a friend of mine who was already there, and we waited and waited for the doors to open up for "preview night." We were loitering nearby one of the entrances downstairs, even though we were suppose to stand in the "official line" to get in the dealer's room / exhibit hall. A couple of times we were told to leave the area and go upstairs to where the line is at, but we just opted to move ourselves to another area of the floor. This happens every year.

Once inside, I had all the intention in the world to do a run-through of all 52 aisles of the whole exhibit hall, since preview night is only open for three hours. However I was distracted by another line for some Paramount pictures SWAG t-shirt. You stand in one of these lines, and you expect to lose about 30 minutes to an hour of your time. For some reason though, that did not deter me, and I waited and waited for my free shirt. We had a choice between various different Paramount properties, so I opted for the Transformers 2 movie shirt.

So afterwards, did I continue to do my trek through the exhibit hall? Nope. I ended up getting distracted by the video game booths nearby. First I almost almost ended up singing a song on "Singstar" at the Sony booth, but I chickened out. I then stood in line once again to get a chance to play Street Fighter IV, which was awesome. I got to try two of the four new characters, C.Viper and Abel (I liked playing as this guy). What boggles my mind is that a lot of the attendees still opted to play the standard Ryu and Ken match ups, even though they have this opportunity to try something completely new. I then went to try my hand at the new Bionic Commando game, which was kinda fun, what with all the bionic swinging and all. Next up was the Konami booth for some drum action on "Rock Revolution," which wasn't bad, but I prefer Rock Band still. I got to take a look at a demo of "Mirror's Edge," which is now one of my more anticipated games coming out later this year. Finally I played "Naruto : Ninja Storm," which looked great but had very simple game mechanics.

"The exhibit hall is closing in 15 minutes," says the announcer. I've only walked through 10 out of 52 aisles in the almost three hours I was here, so I had to at least do something I intended to do before it closed. Buy a couple of books that I'm collecting, so that I don't have to worry about doing that in the next few days. I walked pass 30 aisles or so, to get to this one booth that I always get my books at every year from comic-con. I made it in time to purchase two of the books I was looking for, before the closed the dealer's room. This ended up to be the first year that I was not able to walk through the whole exhibit hall on preview night.

After dealing with the even more packed Trolley, I ended up back at Fashion Valley. I decided to eat at the Terrace Cafe for a late dinner. It turns out that they only had one server, one waiter, one host, and one cook at that time. They were completely unprepared for the amount of customers they were getting past 10PM, because I guess they weren't aware about how Comic-Con was going to impact their operation? They were very courteous and apologetic though, so I give them lots of props for dealing with their situation professionally. Back at the hotel, I turned on the computer to try their wi-fi connection. Last year's hotel had terrible horrible speeds for their wi-fi internet, but to my surprise this hotel has got it going strong. I looked at the program guide to plan out the rest of the weekend, and now here I am. I'm waking up in about five hours from now, but so far it's been a good start for Comic-Con 2008.

The San Diego Comic-Con International starts tonight, and I'm completely not ready to go yet! I still haven't packed and compiled the things I need to bring. Heck, I just got off my graveyard shift, I still haven't slept yet, and I was planning to leave for San Diego in five hours! Talk about procrastinating. I've gone to this how many years now?

All the same though, it's going to once again be fun going to the one place where the movie industry, television industry, video games industry, anime industry, toy industry, art industry, plus oh yeah the comic-book industry, and many more converge into the San Diego Convention Center. With an expected attendance to run over 125,000 people, things are going to be even more hectic than ever. The things I'm looking forward to are the free movie / TV show preview screenings, the panels discussing movies / TV shows, celebrity appearance, SWAG (stuff we all get), costumed attendees, and many more. I am going to try and minimize spending money on things though, as I have to be extra picky of what to buy this year.

p.s. I do plan to post more comic-con vids online again. However I just found out that my youtube account got suspended due to the copyright infringment thing (again). That's exactly 200 videos GONE. I'm going to have to start a new account (again), but I still haven't figured out what username to use this time (again).

Do you remember the Superbowl Janet Jackson "Wardrobe Malfunction" debacle back in 2004? How after that happened, the Federal Communications Commission became the media's number one nemesis by passing on fines to TV, Radio, etc... for acts of questionable indecency? Well recently a panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed the $550,000 indecency fine that the FCC gave to CBS for that incident. Finally, finally, some people in power actually has some sense in them.

The whole issue about what happened after the "Wardrobe Malfunction" was that things that were not considered indecent twenty years, ten years, or even one year prior to that incident, started to get banned from the media for fear of an FCC fine. Was that right? It was like a form of "Big Brother" was in effect. What's worse, a very brief nipple slip or a governing body overreaching their power on what you can or cannot say? What's really damaging to the livelihood of the kids?