For an avid movie goer such as myself, this time of year can get a bit hectic. The movie studios want to release their "Oscar bait" movies closest to the Academy Awards, but before the year ends, so December becomes the designated month for all those films. The problem is that these good films (or films that look really good) are released at this short period of time, making it hard and very time consuming for me to see most of them. Another problem is that a lot of these movies aren't even on wide-release and are restricted to being limited to a small number of theaters, which means that I'll have to drive as much as 40 miles just to see a particular movie. The reason for those limited releases stems on the fact that all the studios care about is that the movie is released within the year, so that it can eligible for the upcoming Academy Awards. Once the Oscars are closer, those movies go into wide release, with slogans like "nominated for..."  or "winner for..." to add to the advertising, which theoretically should draw in more viewers, which means more money made. More quality movies is a good thing, but c'mon people, spread them apart and make them more available to us who actually do like going to the movies.

Movies I've seen recently...

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)  A-

Have you ever watched some of those TV game shows and go "I know the answer to that!" no matter how supposedly difficult it's suppose to be? Well "Slumdog Millionaire" plays on that concept by having Jamal Malik go for the big win in India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." The movie follows Jamal's life from when he was a child, to his young teenage years, to present time, showing us that his experiences in India have provided him the knowledge to answer the questions. "Slumdog" is a story about overcoming adversity, the sibling dynamics, the different paths life can take you, and the love of a girl that can overcome obstacles. This movie is also great as a peak on how life is in India, from the point of view of people who aren't as well off as others, including some incredible cinematography. Based on the novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup, screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy, director Danny Boyle, and co-director Loveleen Tandan has made a very memorable, adventurous, and dramatic film in "Slumdog Millionaire" despite some moments that does require some suspension of disbelief. I suppose I should also mention that a good portion of the movie is subtitled.

Seven Pounds (2008)  C

Enlightening, tragic, and tearjerker are three words that some people can describe "Seven Pounds." Oh wait, I forgot one other word, melodrama. Wow does this movie want to make you feel sad, that it can't help but hit you over the head with it's sadness and tragedy. From the first minute and some quick flashbacks intersperse throughout the film you should be able to figure out why Will Smith's character is looking to help people. The problem starts with the direction by Gabriele Muccino, who makes all the attempts in the world to try and keep the "why" a secret, even though it got ridiculously obvious. With it's admitedly inspiring message on helping others and a very memorable leading character, "Seven Pounds" is a relatively decent dramatic film that has flaws that includes some plot holes. The movie actually became a drinking game for me, to take a shot whenever somebody cries in this, or whenever Will Smith looks very distraught. In fact that drinking game should be called "The Pursuit of Unhappyness."

Frost/Nixon (2008)  A-
 
For a movie that's pretty much nothing but conversation scenes, "Frost/Nixon" is pretty darn captivating to watch, and it's all thanks to the direction by Ron Howard. As someone who never saw the real life interview between David Frost (played wonderfully by Michael Sheen) and Richard Nixon (excellent work by Frank Langella) or the broadway play this was based off, I was mesmerized at the process of how the whole thing happened. This film really played off like a David vs Goliath story, with Frost literally risking everything he has to make the interview work. Anticipating to see how Nixon eventually admits to being involved with Watergate got pretty exciting, especially since the former President really lives up to the nick name "Tricky Dick."

In Bruges (2008)  A-

Director / Writer Martin McDonagh has got himself a possible cult gangster film classic here with "In Bruges," that will probably bring him comparisons to Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie. This is one of those movies that dares to bring the world of hitmen and the ultra violence that they bring, into a very serene and calm setting like Bruges, Belgium. Brendan Gleeson as Ken and Colin Farrell as Ray are great playing an odd couple type, and Ralph Fiennes stands out as the very angry and incredibly foul mouthed boss Harry Waters. What's so entertaining about "In Bruges" is how casual life as hitmen seem to be, like in some scenes when they actually negotiate where they do their gun shootout because the place they are at is just too "inappropriate" for it. I probably had the most fun listening to the conversations and opinions that comes out of the mouth of the characters because they feel like such non-sequiturs, however the movie holds it's ground from getting to the point of pretentiousness.

My third and last Metallica concert of the year was this past Thursday night, and it was a great way to end this tour for me. Just like Wednesday night, it was still at "The Forum" in Inglewood, CA, but this time I actually showed up early enough to see the second opening act, "Machine Head." They were not bad, but it's not the kind of heavy metal I really listen to, as I prefer more guitars licks and "clean" vocals over what this band was offering. I was kinda hoping to show up early enough to see "The Sword" however, but traffic kind of killed that plan for me. BTW, before I go on, I forgot to mention yesterday that it's a bit much, but parking was $20 (they must make a killing).

So back to being next to the mosh pit again for me, seems to have been the general plan. My two friends who went with me were really into that, so I was once again part of "the wall" surrounding the mosh pit. I was near several cute girls, so that was a plus, especially in the typically male infested Metal concerts. For the most part, everybody was respectable in the pit and tried to keep things "civilized," but I witnessed a fight break out in the mosh pit I was by (when Metallica was playing "All Nightmare Long" too, of all songs). These two shirtless guys just went at it, and got into a fight. Almost immediately right after it started, everybody around tried to break it up, but they got themselves on the ground which made it a little harder to separate them. I was actually right in the thick of things helping to break it up, and at one point right when I got the guy's arm out of the rear naked choke, somebody behind me pulled me out! It was like that person wanted the fight to continue. A few seconds later, a few of the guys grabbed one of the guy's legs and literally dragged him away from the other guy, while others did the same with the other one. Crazy.

The whole concert was great, just like the previous night, and that other night last week. Unlike what I said in yesterday's post, the "floating coffins" this time moved around a lot more than the night before. I wanted to finally get some of the pyro effects on camera this time, but unfortunately my camera-phone can only be so fast in taking pictures. Just like the last two times, those big black balloon balls fell from the ceiling during their last song, and while we wanted to make an attempt to keep one, we were not successful. We tried to catch some of the guitar picks that the band was throwing to the crowd, but we were not successful there either. Oh well, there's always another attempt next time? Unfortunately, with Metallica's touring schedule, I don't think they'll be performing nearby until a year from now at the earliest. Oh well, this has been a great concert filled seven days for me, and what a way to top it off.

This past Wednesday night was my second of three Metallica concerts for this month, and this time it was at "The Forum" in Inglewood, CA. It was similar and at the same time a little different to last Friday's show at the Citizens Business Bank Arena. First and foremost, the floor area was definitely bigger than the other venue, which allowed for more room. This helps because you can easily avoid being "smooshed" with everybody else in what I called "a tidal wave of people." However, unlike last Friday, I was for some reason immediately next to one of the mosh pit areas. There is a "no moshing or crowd surfing" policy here, but the security detail was there pretty much to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand. I think I've only seen them try to stop the mosh pit a couple of times. Speaking of which, I did see somebody jump down from their sectioned off seat area, on to the floor, and security immediately caught and ejected him from the arena (tough luck buddy).

Metallica themselves performed as well as they always do. They still play the standard six songs off the Death Magnetic album, as well as the other regularly played songs, but there's at least six songs different from the previous set list. The laser show and the pyros are all still great, although this time around the "floating coffins" seemed to be a little less active than last time I saw them. Those big balloon balls still falls from the ceiling at their very last song, but unlike last time I wasn't going to bother trying to get one.

Well as I'm typing this, I'll be leaving to go back to the same place, seeing the same band two hours from now. It's always fun going to a Metallica concert, so here's looking forward to my last show of theirs for the year.

The TV show "Heroes" finally finished the story for "Volume 3 : Villains," and I've got to say that it's about freakin time. The conclusion to that story pretty much cemented the fact that I've completely lost interest with the show, and have grown quite dissatisfied with the direction it went.

It started off as a character driven drama that happened to have super powers, to a completely comic-booky unbelievable unrelatable absurd excuse to create so called "cool" dramatic moments of a show. It's like all these ideas they have for the show looked good on paper, but on execution it was simply horrible. Plot holes up the wazoo, and characters that were written completely out of character (to the point that the actors themselves had said the same thing). The problem that I think happened was that "Heroes" was trying to give too much "fan-service" to the audience. It was like they were going "oh oh oh, I think the fans would like this..." or "so let's go ahead and do this thing that the fans are asking for" instead of simply just writing an overall good story.

If what I saw on "Heroes" was a comic-book series, I would have given up on it a long time ago. In fact I've already given up on it by taking it off my DVR's scheduler, and am happy to spend that hour of television on something else. Unlike "Smallville;" which is also a show that's pretty embarrassing on the writing department, "Heroes" does not have the "I want to see what they are doing with Superman" factor that unbelievably still makes me watch that show. The characters for "Heroes" on the other hand have been butchered enough in the writing that I simply do not care what happens to any of them. For all I know "Heroes, Volume 4 : Fugitives" will actually turn out good, but just based on the little tease they showed us, I have my doubts.

Yesterday, I was able to go to the second night of KROQ's "Almost Acoustic Christmas" concert, at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Hollywood (tickets sold out literally within a minute). I was able to go to this last year as well, and as long as they keep churning out lots of bands that I want to see, it will be a yearly thing for me. Once I did get there, I bought a souvenir shirt to commemorate the event, and at that time I had a little over an hour until the first band played. I pretty much just roamed around the place, and also stayed by the KROQ stage where at the time DJ Kat Corbett was doing a live on-air interview with the band "Snow Patrol." After wards I decided to just go in and wait. This year, I was able to get a seat at the lower orchestra section, so this was the closest I've ever been to the stage so far. I got a great view, and I was hoping that there won't be any super tall people that will block my line of sight (it did happen for a couple of the bands).

The first band that played was Vampire Weekend, which was one of the ones I wanted to see. They did a great job being the opening band, and I think they even impressed a lot of the audience who never heard of them before. Snow Patrol was next, and while a good band, most people where there pretty much just to listen to their big hits.

Scott Weiland followed, and unlike the night before when he performed as lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots, he showed up as a solo act. His performance was the one that most of the audience decided to go out for a merchandise / food / restroom break or something, because he just did not have that sound that would have wowed this audience. For one song, he did have Adrian Young from the band No Doubt play drums, so that was cool.

Franz Ferdinand was the band that performed next, and they where phenomenal. Their music is the type that would get people up and about in the first place, and in fact up to this time, most of the audience were sitting down, but once their song "Take Me Out" started playing, the crowd was off their seats. The next band scheduled is Paramore, but to our surprise it was Kanye West that showed up on stage as the secret act. You wouldn't think that a KROQ crowd would enjoy Kanye West, but the audience went crazy and absolutely loved his performance. He was pretty damn good live.

After Kanye finished his short setlist, Paramore took the stage and rocked out like they normally do. Since I'm a fan, I did enjoy their performance, but I've got to be honest in saying that I felt like half the audience were just not into them at all. With Franz Ferdinand and Kanye West, most everybody were out of their seats, but with Paramore, more than half of the audience seemed to have sat down again. Once Death Cab For Cutie showed up on stage after Paramore ended their set, most everybody was off their seats again... well until they realized that Death Cab's tunes are downbeat enough that it eventually got people to sit down again and just listen to their awesome set.

The Killers was up next and they absolutely rocked the whole house. The great vibe was there and everybody was loving it. I believe the majority of the audience were there for the Killers, and it showed. The iconic band The Cure topped off the night as the headliner, and the die hard fans were definitely excited and happy to see them. Like most of the audience, I was pretty much just waiting to hear their big hits, but the songs that I were not familiar with weren't bad at all. It's just that after an upbeat band like The Killers just performed, the night pretty  much ended with calming music. Overall, the night was spectacular and I look forward to next years.

Same Random Mistake

about those ticketmaster fees (audio)

golden globe nominees (link)

Bill Murray's New York City hi-jinks (link)

Prop 8 - The Musical (video)

Uwe Boll's Contra (video)

UFC Broken Leg Kick - not for the squeemish (video)

Motorcycle Jesus! (video)

jizzed in my pants (video)

arrow kite (video)

Shocking Sink Prank (video)

double fall (video)

Toon Tang Ep.2 - NSFW (video)

Jake and Amir: Interpreters (video)

Megaman the Movie Trailer (video)

computer friends song (video)

Robocop Rap (video)

fireball tennis (video)

Chick Pulls Classic Prank (video)

Grains of War (video)

xbox 360 portable (link)

This past Friday night, me and my friends went to go see the mighty Metallica at the newly opened Citizens Business Bank Arena in the city of Ontario, California. The CBB Arena is a new venue and it's actually really nice. It's not as big as other arenas, but at least it looks like the "nosebleed" seats are still close enough to the floor, that you can still get a great view of the concert. Plus it has free parking, so I got to say that I'm impressed.

Due to somebody dropping out from going with us, we actually had one extra pit (Floor) ticket for the show, that we were considering selling it to an interested party. The funny thing was that we kept seeing on the street corners, a combo of one person who needs tickets and one person next to him who is selling tickets. That smells of cops trying to trap scalpers, so we just had to bite the bullet and kept the extra ticket as a really expensive souvenier for the show. In the process of going inside, I could hear people complaining about how cold it was outside, but I was walking in with just a t-shirt and jeans because if you've been to a metal concert before, you know it gets really hot inside. Once we were inside, we stood in the long line for the men's restroom (typical for a metal concert), and then we proceeded to find a spot inside at the same time that Lamb Of God was finishing their set (The Sword played before them). There was a surprising number of people that had pit tickets, that the whole floor was packed. I ended staying mostly by the side rails towards the back, so that I wasn't completely smooshed up next to people.

Metallica started their set a little after 9PM, and they opened with the first two tracks from their latest album Death Magnetic. Just from those two songs I was already head banging like a mad man and singing along as loud as I can until my throat hurts. The song that really got me going crazy nuts however was when they played "All Nightmare Long," which is my favorite song off their latest album. Although I was in the pit and technically closer to the band on stage, I actually did not really see them perform that much, because there were a lot of people in front of me, blocking my view. I may have been better off just having seats to get a good view of the concert. Speaking of views, Metallica really had a nice display going, with some really cool Coffin shaped objects that hung from the ceiling and moved around the place, plus they also had laser lights coming out from them. Man those laser lights that were highlighting the stage were great to look at, I also have to say that the pyro effects were stellar what with the multi-color flames popping out.

The last fifteen to twenty minutes of Metallica's performance was when things really went crazy for me. A friend of my friend convinced us to get much closer to the stage, and pretty much right next to (or actually at) one of the mosh pits. That area definitely had a different vibe from where we were originally staying, because this spot held the true metal fans, the people who look like they were straight from the early to mid 1980s thrash metal days. Mosh pits, crowd surfing, and just feeling like you are in a live tidal wave of people was the norm in that area. I was loving it, although my focus was clearly more towards "surviving" this, more so than I was in the last spot I was in where I was just simply enjoying the music. When Metallica played their last song; "Seek & Destroy" (my all time favorite song of theirs - also my primary ringtone), several black balloon balls with "Metallica" and "Death Magnetic" written on it started falling from the ceiling. At first everyone were having fun just bumping the ball all over the crowd, until people started wanting to keep one for themselves. Me and my friend were able to grab hold of one of those balls, and immediately we were smothered by other guys who wanted that ball for themselves. My friend tried to deflate it so that we can hold on to it better, but then somebody else decided to speed up the process by making it pop with a key. As soon as that happened, everybody quickly grabbed on to it trying to claim it as their own. Me and my friend held on tight however and soon the majority of people accepted that it was in fact ours... except for this one guy. I believe it was just about one minute of time passing, but we had an epic battle of tug of war with this one other guy who was very vigilant in trying to take the balloon from us. I tried to make it much harder for the guy by wrapping a part of it around my right arm. The guy simply would not let go though, and my arm was getting really constricted by that balloon being wrapped around it (I got the bruises to show for it). It was me, my friend, and that one guy tugging on this deflated balloon, while everybody watched us in action. At one point my glasses started to fall off, and with that I had to let go. Luckily in the end my friend was able to force the balloon out of that guy's hands. While the song was ending, and with the balloon that we fought for in hand, we decided to leave the arena so that we can get out of the parking lot faster.

Man, what a night that was. Just from that balloon fight alone I've got to say that this was one of the most memorable Metallica concert that I've been to. To think that I'm going to see them again two more times next week. My neck and throat are going to hate me in seven days.

As I'm typing this it is 4:40AM. You know where I'm suppose to be? At work. Why am I not at work? Well it's because I was sent home an hour ago from my shift, because while I was driving my company vehicle, I hit another company vehicle. BULLCRAP! It has not even been a year since my last incident that suspended my driving status, and THIS happens?! Although I'm tentatively not allowed to drive for the time being until I'm told that it'll be okay again (so back to swing shifts for me), I'm being reassured by management that it'll be okay and I'm not at fault. Honestly though, I don't know if I'm blameless. I think it was my fault, but at the same time, I could actually have been the victim here.

Without giving away too much information that I'm not willing to post here, the way it happened was this... I was coming back from my break to take over for another person. To go back and forth from the office, we have to go through a security barricade. I went through that barricade and parked to the right of it, waiting for the other person to go through so I can put up the barricade again. In the middle of that happening, another vehicle from another department decides to try and go through the security barricade as well. So I'm towards the right of the barricade, the person I was taking over for was at the left of it, and that other driver was in the middle of it. All access to move is blocked at that point. Somebody needed to move, so I told that other driver to stay where they are, so that I can back-up my vehicle closer to the person I was taking over for, which will allow that other driver to go past me, and the person I was taking over for can go through the barricade. When I was backing up my vehicle, I glanced at the my side mirror and noticed that the other driver's vehicle was much closer than I expected it to be, as if it moved forward than where I told him to stay. I moved my steering wheel to avoid hitting the other driver, but instead I end up hitting the vehicle of the person I was taking over for. No one was hurt, because it was just a small fender bender, but I did still hit the other vehicle. While I was looking at the minor damage, that other driver takes off from the scene, even though he was technically involved with the accident. Me and the person I was taking over for wrote our statements of the incident, while that other driver is no where in sight. I swear, if that other driver wasn't there in the first place, I wouldn't be typing this right now...

This BUH-LLLOOOOWWWWSSSSS