It’s one day before the most anticipated movie of the year. Well, my most anticipated anyway. So what I’m going to do today is review all the movies I’ve watched since the last time, saving two gems for what will come with Godzilla. And just to get them out of the way, they are The Machine and Oculus. They are awesome in their own unique way, so I do recommend that you go watch them somehow, or wait for my review of them along with Godzilla to know what they’re about and why I think you should watch them. Without spoiling too much, Oculus brings a fresh concept out of the old boring recipe of horror films, while The Machine, well, you owe it to your functioning brain to watch it because the movie brings the phrase ‘food for thought’ to a whole new level.
And what about the rest that are not as good, as fresh and/or as thought-provoking as the other two? We start with Need for Speed. The movie, not game. That’s right folks. The most played arcade racer franchise which is widely criticized for trying to have a story with a point in a game that, in the minds of many, shouldn’t bother with. Well, for the most part that’s true, because how deep of a story can you have when you’re trying to have it revolve around illegal street racing? While it is my favourite arcade racer franchise, I have to agree with most critics that if all the main character does is race, there isn’t much story development possibilities, especially when the main character is just a camera giving you the point-of-view of the main character.
So what happens when you turn that into a movie? The same stuff you get from the Fast and Furious series, minus the guns and explosion. Well, most of them anyway. So as you might expect, the depth of the story starring Aaron Paul is just as deep, or shallow, as the one starring Vin Diesel. So how does it go exactly? A racer is set up and incarcerated for illegal street racing, but the guy who set him up and was racing him manages to get away scot-free. After serving his sentence, he comes out hell-bent on revenge, even if it means going to jail again. As you might expect from a movie like this, the final race involves a few of the fastest, rarest and most expensive cars in a sprint race, with the winner taking all of the cars. As mentioned, the story is not bad considering what it’s based on, but there are a few factual inaccuracies, such as the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento being able to match the Bugatti Veyron SuperSport in straight-line speed, and the movie stating that there are only 2 in the world, when in fact there are 20.
It’s a little late for this, but if you are wondering if this is worth watching on the big screens, the answer depends on how much of a Need for Speed fan are you. Suffice to say, if you’re the average movie goer, then probably not.
Next in line is a superhero flick, one which I was rather looking forward to because of the appearance of the titular villain. That’s right, it’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Not much needs to be said about this; the story is based on the comics, with the extra ingredients that make a great movie. Good action, good story progression pacing, good character portrayals. That said, some parts of the plot seem overly convenient (as always), which makes you question the actual plausibility of the characters having the foresight that they do. Is it worth paying for a one-time-viewing-only ticket? Yes. It has its flaws, but they are otherwise negligible.
Another good movie worth watching in the cinemas is Transcendence. Starring Johnny Depp, the movie is more of a social commentary, if anything, but it does ask a serious question through the plot. Very heavily flavoured, but not necessarily delicious, food for thought. A scientist aims to build the perfect computer system which is not only perfect in every single way, but which also possesses a consciousness. A bunch of people (whom you would be forgiven if you consider them cultists) who think technology will be the end of humanity, tries to kill the scientist before that happens, and the scientist’s wife then tries to upload his consciousness into the internet, turning him into the perfect computer system he attempted to create. The plot touches on some things Terminator started, namely the man versus machine theme in a very command-and-control/conquer kind of way. My favourite scene in the movie is when the scientist is giving his talk about this system, which he calls Transcendence, and one of the audience asks “so, you’re trying to create a god?” to which he answers “Isn't that what mankind has always done?”
Of course, the irony is the anti-technology cultists use technology to undermine technology, which makes them fight-fire-with-fire hypocrites who shouldn’t be taken seriously, in my mind. Then there’s the social commentary directly referencing our need to be connected, where people are given cybernetic enhancements and are connected to the internet, which is now the super-system scientist. So they turn into mindless pawns whenever he needs them to. Which, in my opinion, is stupid because that’s what led other, still unaffected people to think that this AI is a threat to humanity’s freedom. Obviously you don’t force people to be connected that way. Sure, most people today rely on connectivity to the internet, emails and social media to live their lives, but we don’t die if we don’t have it the way we die if we don’t get oxygen now, do we? In other words, the AI is a blithering idiot, and serves him right for finally getting destroyed in the end. That aside, it’s a great movie, asking us to seriously reconsider the way we perceive our ability as a species to handle the rapidly improving technology that we come up with.
Lastly, we have Divergent, a movie based on the novel of the same name. The story takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic version of Chicago where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. The main character is warned that she is Divergent and thus will never fit into any one of the factions and soon learns that there are others like her, and that it is an open secret that such people are being hunted down and killed to 'preserve the peace' by eliminating people that do not conform. The basis is good, the action bits are good, the story is also not too shabby. My only complaint with is is that the lovey dovey bits in it, as you would imagine, is a bit too cheesy for my liking. Something about the development of the relationship that irks me, which if I were to identify exactly what, might be the fact that it's the same formula that always works in fiction, but never in reality. That said, it is a good movie that, while I don't recommend, you still won't regret watching on the big screen.
Sadly, not all the movies are great. In fact, there are two which are rubbish, and for the same reason. They are Sabotage and Tokarev. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicolas Cage respectively, these two movies waste their star actors on plot which will not exist if honesty did. In Sabotage, members of an elite DEA task force find themselves being taken down one by one and their money gone after they rob a drug cartel safe house, leading to a wild goose chase of who is responsible for taking the money and killing the members, with a totally anticlimactic reveal and finale. Tokarev, on the other hand, tells the story of how an ex-mobster’s daughter was killed, and him going on a wild goose chase of finding the supposedly mob-related culprit and killing many otherwise innocent mobsters, before finding out that no such person exists before killing himself for starting a major gang war. Both movies had their share of action and gore, with Sabotage having more of those, but they are far from what you’d call impressive. Both are dark, gritty, but otherwise hollow. Not something I’d recommend going to the cinemas for, to say the least.
Which brings me to a point I’d like to make. I find it very revolting if a movie’s plot can be completely taken apart, ripped to pieces and torn to shreds with a single ingredient, especially if every other aspect of the movie wasn’t completely utter shit. That single ingredient is usually either honesty, or simply not being stupid. That’s right. Some stories completely fall apart if the characters are honest, or just not being so calamitously idiotic beyond possibility. This is the problem with Sabotage, Tokarev and, to a lesser extent, Non-Stop. They are otherwise plots with some massive potential, but either completely ruined beyond salvation in the case of the former two, or not reaching its maximum potential in the case of the latter. All thanks to a single factor: dishonesty. Even the most clichéd plot of evil super villain trying to take over the world holds more water if it does not contain any of these plot destroyers.
All that said, these two things do not always wreck a plot. Sometimes they actually add some spice and substance to the whole thing. Unfortunately, such occurrences are few and far in between.
And on that defused bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Monday, March 31, 2014
For Argument’s Sake: a personal reiteration.
I have, just earlier today, watched a TED talk by Daniel H. Cohen about arguing. You might ask, “What is it about arguing that is so profound that it deserved a TED talk?” To which I ask in return, “what is the definition of arguing or being engaged in an argument?” To out-reason our opponents, prove them wrong, and, most of all, to win, some will say. But is that really the point? Arguments are not a zero-sum game where one must win and the other must lose, after all, since the loser learns something new, that there is more convincing evidence contrary to what he or she initially knows.
So essentially, arguments should always end in a win-win situation, where the winner gets their egos stroked and the loser learns something new. Keyword being ‘should’, since, as we all know, that this is rarely the case. People get involved in arguments not only to state their opinion and reasons behind it, or to exchange information and come to a conclusion based on statements and evidence presented by both sides, but to be crowned grand champion of having the most right opinion in the first place even if the opposition presented agreeable points in the process.
This sad scenario happens because of the innate competitive drive in our nature. Or indeed in the nature of everything alive. You want to pummel your competition to submission, willing or otherwise, even when doing so is counterproductive. In the wild, it gives a sense of security (it ensures one’s survival, after all), but in civilization, it just gives you a sense of pride, sometimes unjustified. Another reason might be the fact that people are mostly educated into being phobic about making or having made a mistake, but that just leads to the right thinking that they are superior and the wrong are inferior, which was illustrated by the initial point.
The reason I mention this is because I just had an argument barely an hour ago. With the worst possible opponent – a grumpy old man who is incapable of moving with the times (and the changes that come with it) as well as being pathologically afraid of being wrong. Textbook "short man syndrome” is how one would describe this man, though I honestly hesitate to use the word. The subject of our argument? A Guinness World Record for the highest kick among women. The record, last I checked anyway, was 2.15 meters by the way.
How it started? Well, two people were to kick a small platform with a pin sticking out of the top, which would poke and burst a balloon being held slightly above it when said platform was pushed upwards. Seemed pretty straightforward, didn’t it? Except for the fact that one of them managed to kick the platform without popping the balloon. Said person’s foot only grazed the platform’s surface, as it were. The judges still counted it as a hit, despite the balloon being intact.
So I asked a question – which, to me, was simple and completely justified – “what was the point of the balloon, then?” The record attempt was in front of a live audience so I thought aloud that the effect was meant to for the spectators; probably to excite them or something, the way some spectator sports work I guess – people watching NASCAR for the crashes or rugby or American Football for the clashes and injuries sustained from them. Short grumpy old-fashioned old man then went on to say that the pin and balloon was for an affirmation that the platform below had indeed been kicked. To which I replied by pointing out the fact that the previous attempt was still counted even when the balloon remained intact after the platform was kicked, rendering the pin and balloon redundant. To which he then insisted on his previous point, just adding to the fact that if the balloon popped, it would not require a close-up slow-motion video playback for the judges to consider. I then said it was still redundant because the live audiences were not the judges, and the official judges had access to the video recording which would be working either way, and would still be referred to should the pin and balloon fail to serve their purpose, which they have. In other words, why waste resources, no matter how cheap they may be, in setting up a fallible secondary method of validation when the primary, fool-proof method was already there to begin with? It’s not like watching a video playback would take more than a few seconds anyway.
Instead, of saying “I don’t know,” which was precisely the reason behind my asking the question, or “that was just the decision of Guinness or the organizer,” he uttered his trademark line of “I don’t want to argue with you. You argue for the sake of arguing.” Which I took quite seriously and a bit personally as he says that every single time I succeed in countering an argument of his no matter how valid my rebuttal was. Not being able to take anymore of such bullshit, I confronted him and said that if he had any point to counter my point or defend his, he should just say them until I was convinced, since I was able and willing to do the same. Then came an attack which I can only consider personal: “Before you talk so much, go get a job first.”
Well, what gives? Not only has he failed in in doing his part in the active disagreement, he resorted to personal attacks just to have the last word. Yes, I am currently between jobs, but do I need to have the fact rubbed in my face as retaliation to my argument? By my own father, no less.
This is why if he was to end up in any life-threatening situation, I will do many things – committing suicide included – before I save him. Any anyone trying to convince me that he is a good man with good intentions will be about as successful as anyone trying to convince me that a benevolent monotheistic God exists.
People used to ask me if I had a single most influential role model and my answer was usually ‘no’. In fact, I did and I still do, but for the complete opposite reason. While people try to emulate their role models, I do the complete opposite for the one that has the most influential impact on my moral identity. Which is why anything my father is, I do or try to be as exact an opposite as humanly possible, with the only exception so far is my unfortunate employment status.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
So essentially, arguments should always end in a win-win situation, where the winner gets their egos stroked and the loser learns something new. Keyword being ‘should’, since, as we all know, that this is rarely the case. People get involved in arguments not only to state their opinion and reasons behind it, or to exchange information and come to a conclusion based on statements and evidence presented by both sides, but to be crowned grand champion of having the most right opinion in the first place even if the opposition presented agreeable points in the process.
This sad scenario happens because of the innate competitive drive in our nature. Or indeed in the nature of everything alive. You want to pummel your competition to submission, willing or otherwise, even when doing so is counterproductive. In the wild, it gives a sense of security (it ensures one’s survival, after all), but in civilization, it just gives you a sense of pride, sometimes unjustified. Another reason might be the fact that people are mostly educated into being phobic about making or having made a mistake, but that just leads to the right thinking that they are superior and the wrong are inferior, which was illustrated by the initial point.
The reason I mention this is because I just had an argument barely an hour ago. With the worst possible opponent – a grumpy old man who is incapable of moving with the times (and the changes that come with it) as well as being pathologically afraid of being wrong. Textbook "short man syndrome” is how one would describe this man, though I honestly hesitate to use the word. The subject of our argument? A Guinness World Record for the highest kick among women. The record, last I checked anyway, was 2.15 meters by the way.
How it started? Well, two people were to kick a small platform with a pin sticking out of the top, which would poke and burst a balloon being held slightly above it when said platform was pushed upwards. Seemed pretty straightforward, didn’t it? Except for the fact that one of them managed to kick the platform without popping the balloon. Said person’s foot only grazed the platform’s surface, as it were. The judges still counted it as a hit, despite the balloon being intact.
So I asked a question – which, to me, was simple and completely justified – “what was the point of the balloon, then?” The record attempt was in front of a live audience so I thought aloud that the effect was meant to for the spectators; probably to excite them or something, the way some spectator sports work I guess – people watching NASCAR for the crashes or rugby or American Football for the clashes and injuries sustained from them. Short grumpy old-fashioned old man then went on to say that the pin and balloon was for an affirmation that the platform below had indeed been kicked. To which I replied by pointing out the fact that the previous attempt was still counted even when the balloon remained intact after the platform was kicked, rendering the pin and balloon redundant. To which he then insisted on his previous point, just adding to the fact that if the balloon popped, it would not require a close-up slow-motion video playback for the judges to consider. I then said it was still redundant because the live audiences were not the judges, and the official judges had access to the video recording which would be working either way, and would still be referred to should the pin and balloon fail to serve their purpose, which they have. In other words, why waste resources, no matter how cheap they may be, in setting up a fallible secondary method of validation when the primary, fool-proof method was already there to begin with? It’s not like watching a video playback would take more than a few seconds anyway.
Instead, of saying “I don’t know,” which was precisely the reason behind my asking the question, or “that was just the decision of Guinness or the organizer,” he uttered his trademark line of “I don’t want to argue with you. You argue for the sake of arguing.” Which I took quite seriously and a bit personally as he says that every single time I succeed in countering an argument of his no matter how valid my rebuttal was. Not being able to take anymore of such bullshit, I confronted him and said that if he had any point to counter my point or defend his, he should just say them until I was convinced, since I was able and willing to do the same. Then came an attack which I can only consider personal: “Before you talk so much, go get a job first.”
Well, what gives? Not only has he failed in in doing his part in the active disagreement, he resorted to personal attacks just to have the last word. Yes, I am currently between jobs, but do I need to have the fact rubbed in my face as retaliation to my argument? By my own father, no less.
This is why if he was to end up in any life-threatening situation, I will do many things – committing suicide included – before I save him. Any anyone trying to convince me that he is a good man with good intentions will be about as successful as anyone trying to convince me that a benevolent monotheistic God exists.
People used to ask me if I had a single most influential role model and my answer was usually ‘no’. In fact, I did and I still do, but for the complete opposite reason. While people try to emulate their role models, I do the complete opposite for the one that has the most influential impact on my moral identity. Which is why anything my father is, I do or try to be as exact an opposite as humanly possible, with the only exception so far is my unfortunate employment status.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
When spring is hotter than summer
It’s another slow month, for a number of reasons, chiefly being Sony Malaysia’s unwillingness to release the Xperia Z1 Compact before people completely lose interest. So, to kill time, I have decided to review four more movies that I have watched recently. I know it’s still very early in the month, considering Need for Speed isn’t even out yet, but worry not for I shall work on that when it does go on air. Again, spoiler alert, because some really deserve mention.
First off is American Hustle. A show which starts with the most amazing intro ever: ‘Some of this actually happened’ instead of the usual ‘based on a true story’. A story about how a pair of con artists get pulled into an FBI op to nab as many ‘criminals’ as possible, or that’s how it started anyway. It slowly turned into an operation to arrest as many people as possible, even if it means baiting honest politicians (two words you don’t normally feature in the same sentence, let alone next to each other) into taking bribes. The film ends with politicians being arrested and real criminal masterminds
remaining free to terrorize whoever they thought was born with a wrong face.
This is a good movie, which I like for a number of reasons. The first is that despite the happy-ish ending, it ends with a bitter taste, much like reality, though this may be because of it being based on a true stor… *ahem* because some of it actually happened. Actually, most of which still hold true today; rich criminals kill every man than isn’t a subordinate and rape every woman that isn’t a wife or mistress and still get away scot free while the one politician that actually serves the people among the infinite that lord over the people get lumped together and are treated like scum anyway.
Second is that it touches on the very grey nature of the world, with insights into the life of the nearly non-existent good guy politician and maybe the FBI as well. Now, I’m not sure how the FBI actually works, but in this movie, which I’m going to trust because apparently some of it actually happened, they’re much like salesmen; like how the sales of the salesmen matter while the quality of a product and the honesty of their marketing doesn’t, the FBI seems to work with a similar principle where it’s the number of arrests that count and not who they arrest and the legitimacy of the arrests. And so there’s a very convenient plot: the FBI needs to meet their arrests quota for the year or something, so they go at first aiming to arrest members of the criminal underworld. When they realize that that’s not possible due to insufficient evidence and time to gather them, they turn to arresting politicians, most of which are not clean anyway. When even then they fall short, they resort to baiting the rarest thing in existence – a clean politician that actually serves the people of his constituency – into taking bribes and hence putting some dirt on him to justify his arrest. So yes, this world is very far from black and white, where the supposed good guys do very far from good things to falsely maintain their good image, and the brilliance of one good guy politician getting overshadowed by and lumped together with the rest of the scumbag politicians. And this movie portrays it quite nicely. Almost perfectly, in fact, but that may be due to the fact that some of it actually happened (yes, I absolutely love that phrase).
So yes, good movie all in all, but I will not recommend watching on any of Malaysia’s big screens. This is simply because there are far too many cuts, most of which I would attribute to Amy Adam’s character, who is very scantily dressed at her most dressed moments, to say the least. While this is very much understandable as she has to play a stripper in the late 1970s, what is not understandable is the movie, being rated 18, still has cuts. So what is the bloody point of the bloody age restriction? They might as well give it a 13PG or U rating since they cut all the bits deemed inappropriate for kids anyway despite the 18 rating. Either that, or I overestimated the standards of the horny old geezers at the censorship department; they can probably fap to a female tennis match, when the players’ clothes start to get soaked in sweat and their nipples start poking out of their clothes (this is not meant to be an insult to athletic women, but it is meant as an insult to the horny old geezers at the censorship department and their mind-bogglingly low standards of pornography). So to rectify this problem, there should be two classifications for this movie; 18 for the uncut version and a 13PG or U version where they can cut the whole movie as far as I'm concerned.
With that done, we move on to Non-Stop. If you’ve seen the trailers, then there’s not much more to say, since that’s pretty much the gist of it. Also, if you have seen the trailer, you’ll be able to see the plot twist coming way before it happens. Or at least won’t be surprised when it does. There isn’t much action, but there is a lot of tension. Which is to be expected from that sort of scenario, but a lot of it seemed very unnecessary; nothing good old honesty can’t solve. Because of this, the movie can feel quite draggy. Then you have the clichéd good guy wins ending.
Despite all this, I would still say that this is worth your money. Yes, it is stereotypical without much innovation, but the characters are played so perfectly that the realism alone makes it worth your money. Well, realism of the characters staying in character at least. The major fly in the ointment is that the plot would be dramatically shorter and there would be less tension in the air if the main character was honest from the start, but I still say that this movie deserves a chance to be judged by yourself.
Then we have 3 Days to Kill. This is, to me, a gem in more ways than one. The first being the main character who isn’t the most overpowered character in the story. This is a rare break from the cliché that we are otherwise too familiar with; the main character always has the better technique, reflex, instincts, thinking etc. This time, the main character is strangely overshadowed. Sure he is skilled, but it is strangely pleasant to find that there is someone out there half his age with twice his skill. And while not the first, it is quite refreshing to see a movie that mixes seriousness with comedy, and in this particular film, you see the main character juggling his job with his family as well.
The fly in the ointment, however, can be found at the ending. It’s quite fairy tale-ish when it could have ended in a darker, more realistic tone. That aside, this is a movie that I would really recommend watching.
And finally we come to Philomena. I was initially put off by the title because it sounded like a Malay movie, which meant complete utter rubbish with very, very, VERY few exceptions. As it turns out, that was just my ignorance in action, because it was actually a British-French-American comedy-drama based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. So yes, a based-on-a-true-story movie. Which I loved, because it does touch on some fairly emotional themes.
What I did find strange, however, was that there was a cut or two in this film. With hindsight, this wasn’t strange at all because the film was distributed by The Weinstein Company, which was famous (or infamous) for the production of many anti-Catholic films. This meant that the cut scenes had something to do with the presence of religion-bashing dialogue. What this shows is, the feeble-minded horny old geezers at the censorship department not only have low standards of fappable material, they also have dangerously low faith in the faith of their fellow believers. The bleeding irony right there, ladies and gentlemen.
And so, because of that, this is the perfect movie – with no flies in the ointment – that I will not encourage you to watch on the big screen. Sure the cut dialogue may seem insignificant, but I can’t help but feel cheated. In fact, I don’t even know if it was actually insignificant or not. It might actually turn out to be a big chunk of key plot explanations, for all I know.
Right. Now that we are done with my reviews, I would like to talk about movie reviews. Yes, irony number two incoming. It would seem that the current trend, based on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, at least, is that if there is action, the movie isn’t good. Which is rubbish. Take 3 Days to Kill for example. It has one fly in the ointment. One. But there was a lot of shooting and killing and driving fast sideways. And what rating did it get? 31% based on 64 reviews. American Hustle, with close to no action and no fly in the ointment? 93% based on 240 reviews. So one fly in the ointment, muzzle flash, death and tyre smoke deserves a 62% drop? Really? Seriously? The consensus at Rotten Tomatoes says that American Hustle is “Riotously funny and impeccably cast, American Hustle compensates for its flaws with unbridled energy and some of David O. Russell's most irrepressibly vibrant direction.” Which is fair, except for the first bit, because if American Hustle was ‘riotously funny’, then 3 Days to Kill would give you asthma. American Hustle was funny, sure, but only just, while 3 Days to Kill, on the other hand, was properly funny. You could have a full house watching American Hustle and you would still not get louder laughs than an empty 3 Days to Kill screening, let alone more of it. The only exception to this ‘action is bad’ trend is The Lego Movie, for reasons that will forever remain unknown to the thinking man.
Then we have RoboCop which got a 49% based on 180 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes consensus writes "While it's far better than it could have been, José Padilha's RoboCop remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original," which is to say “it’s as good as the original, therefore it’s rubbish.” I mean, seriously? So filmmakers take a 10/10 film and turn it up to eleven and you call it rubbish. Do they have to make it eleventy one zillion times better before you give it the good rating it deserves?
In conclusion, reviews – including this one – are useless. This is because sometimes you get a reviewer having completely wrong expectations about a movie, getting disappointed when watching and ends up raging about the movie not meeting the initial unrealistic expectations. These are probably idiots who go watching 3 Days to Kill expecting it to be literally 72 hours long, among other things. Although, admittedly, it would be better if they named it 3 Months to Kill instead.That said, some movies really do deserve their low as hell rating, like I, Frankenstein and The Legend of Hercules which got 4% based on 71 reviews and 3% based on 63 reviews, respectively.
So what you should do instead is read on a movie’s synopsis, not review, and then decide if it would be worth your money. Because reviews – which tell you if a movie is worth watching – are unreliable, you will, as I did, just have to make the gamble yourself and see if a movie is really worth your money.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
First off is American Hustle. A show which starts with the most amazing intro ever: ‘Some of this actually happened’ instead of the usual ‘based on a true story’. A story about how a pair of con artists get pulled into an FBI op to nab as many ‘criminals’ as possible, or that’s how it started anyway. It slowly turned into an operation to arrest as many people as possible, even if it means baiting honest politicians (two words you don’t normally feature in the same sentence, let alone next to each other) into taking bribes. The film ends with politicians being arrested and real criminal masterminds
remaining free to terrorize whoever they thought was born with a wrong face.
This is a good movie, which I like for a number of reasons. The first is that despite the happy-ish ending, it ends with a bitter taste, much like reality, though this may be because of it being based on a true stor… *ahem* because some of it actually happened. Actually, most of which still hold true today; rich criminals kill every man than isn’t a subordinate and rape every woman that isn’t a wife or mistress and still get away scot free while the one politician that actually serves the people among the infinite that lord over the people get lumped together and are treated like scum anyway.
Second is that it touches on the very grey nature of the world, with insights into the life of the nearly non-existent good guy politician and maybe the FBI as well. Now, I’m not sure how the FBI actually works, but in this movie, which I’m going to trust because apparently some of it actually happened, they’re much like salesmen; like how the sales of the salesmen matter while the quality of a product and the honesty of their marketing doesn’t, the FBI seems to work with a similar principle where it’s the number of arrests that count and not who they arrest and the legitimacy of the arrests. And so there’s a very convenient plot: the FBI needs to meet their arrests quota for the year or something, so they go at first aiming to arrest members of the criminal underworld. When they realize that that’s not possible due to insufficient evidence and time to gather them, they turn to arresting politicians, most of which are not clean anyway. When even then they fall short, they resort to baiting the rarest thing in existence – a clean politician that actually serves the people of his constituency – into taking bribes and hence putting some dirt on him to justify his arrest. So yes, this world is very far from black and white, where the supposed good guys do very far from good things to falsely maintain their good image, and the brilliance of one good guy politician getting overshadowed by and lumped together with the rest of the scumbag politicians. And this movie portrays it quite nicely. Almost perfectly, in fact, but that may be due to the fact that some of it actually happened (yes, I absolutely love that phrase).
So yes, good movie all in all, but I will not recommend watching on any of Malaysia’s big screens. This is simply because there are far too many cuts, most of which I would attribute to Amy Adam’s character, who is very scantily dressed at her most dressed moments, to say the least. While this is very much understandable as she has to play a stripper in the late 1970s, what is not understandable is the movie, being rated 18, still has cuts. So what is the bloody point of the bloody age restriction? They might as well give it a 13PG or U rating since they cut all the bits deemed inappropriate for kids anyway despite the 18 rating. Either that, or I overestimated the standards of the horny old geezers at the censorship department; they can probably fap to a female tennis match, when the players’ clothes start to get soaked in sweat and their nipples start poking out of their clothes (this is not meant to be an insult to athletic women, but it is meant as an insult to the horny old geezers at the censorship department and their mind-bogglingly low standards of pornography). So to rectify this problem, there should be two classifications for this movie; 18 for the uncut version and a 13PG or U version where they can cut the whole movie as far as I'm concerned.
With that done, we move on to Non-Stop. If you’ve seen the trailers, then there’s not much more to say, since that’s pretty much the gist of it. Also, if you have seen the trailer, you’ll be able to see the plot twist coming way before it happens. Or at least won’t be surprised when it does. There isn’t much action, but there is a lot of tension. Which is to be expected from that sort of scenario, but a lot of it seemed very unnecessary; nothing good old honesty can’t solve. Because of this, the movie can feel quite draggy. Then you have the clichéd good guy wins ending.
Despite all this, I would still say that this is worth your money. Yes, it is stereotypical without much innovation, but the characters are played so perfectly that the realism alone makes it worth your money. Well, realism of the characters staying in character at least. The major fly in the ointment is that the plot would be dramatically shorter and there would be less tension in the air if the main character was honest from the start, but I still say that this movie deserves a chance to be judged by yourself.
Then we have 3 Days to Kill. This is, to me, a gem in more ways than one. The first being the main character who isn’t the most overpowered character in the story. This is a rare break from the cliché that we are otherwise too familiar with; the main character always has the better technique, reflex, instincts, thinking etc. This time, the main character is strangely overshadowed. Sure he is skilled, but it is strangely pleasant to find that there is someone out there half his age with twice his skill. And while not the first, it is quite refreshing to see a movie that mixes seriousness with comedy, and in this particular film, you see the main character juggling his job with his family as well.
The fly in the ointment, however, can be found at the ending. It’s quite fairy tale-ish when it could have ended in a darker, more realistic tone. That aside, this is a movie that I would really recommend watching.
And finally we come to Philomena. I was initially put off by the title because it sounded like a Malay movie, which meant complete utter rubbish with very, very, VERY few exceptions. As it turns out, that was just my ignorance in action, because it was actually a British-French-American comedy-drama based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. So yes, a based-on-a-true-story movie. Which I loved, because it does touch on some fairly emotional themes.
What I did find strange, however, was that there was a cut or two in this film. With hindsight, this wasn’t strange at all because the film was distributed by The Weinstein Company, which was famous (or infamous) for the production of many anti-Catholic films. This meant that the cut scenes had something to do with the presence of religion-bashing dialogue. What this shows is, the feeble-minded horny old geezers at the censorship department not only have low standards of fappable material, they also have dangerously low faith in the faith of their fellow believers. The bleeding irony right there, ladies and gentlemen.
And so, because of that, this is the perfect movie – with no flies in the ointment – that I will not encourage you to watch on the big screen. Sure the cut dialogue may seem insignificant, but I can’t help but feel cheated. In fact, I don’t even know if it was actually insignificant or not. It might actually turn out to be a big chunk of key plot explanations, for all I know.
Right. Now that we are done with my reviews, I would like to talk about movie reviews. Yes, irony number two incoming. It would seem that the current trend, based on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, at least, is that if there is action, the movie isn’t good. Which is rubbish. Take 3 Days to Kill for example. It has one fly in the ointment. One. But there was a lot of shooting and killing and driving fast sideways. And what rating did it get? 31% based on 64 reviews. American Hustle, with close to no action and no fly in the ointment? 93% based on 240 reviews. So one fly in the ointment, muzzle flash, death and tyre smoke deserves a 62% drop? Really? Seriously? The consensus at Rotten Tomatoes says that American Hustle is “Riotously funny and impeccably cast, American Hustle compensates for its flaws with unbridled energy and some of David O. Russell's most irrepressibly vibrant direction.” Which is fair, except for the first bit, because if American Hustle was ‘riotously funny’, then 3 Days to Kill would give you asthma. American Hustle was funny, sure, but only just, while 3 Days to Kill, on the other hand, was properly funny. You could have a full house watching American Hustle and you would still not get louder laughs than an empty 3 Days to Kill screening, let alone more of it. The only exception to this ‘action is bad’ trend is The Lego Movie, for reasons that will forever remain unknown to the thinking man.
Then we have RoboCop which got a 49% based on 180 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes consensus writes "While it's far better than it could have been, José Padilha's RoboCop remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original," which is to say “it’s as good as the original, therefore it’s rubbish.” I mean, seriously? So filmmakers take a 10/10 film and turn it up to eleven and you call it rubbish. Do they have to make it eleventy one zillion times better before you give it the good rating it deserves?
In conclusion, reviews – including this one – are useless. This is because sometimes you get a reviewer having completely wrong expectations about a movie, getting disappointed when watching and ends up raging about the movie not meeting the initial unrealistic expectations. These are probably idiots who go watching 3 Days to Kill expecting it to be literally 72 hours long, among other things. Although, admittedly, it would be better if they named it 3 Months to Kill instead.That said, some movies really do deserve their low as hell rating, like I, Frankenstein and The Legend of Hercules which got 4% based on 71 reviews and 3% based on 63 reviews, respectively.
So what you should do instead is read on a movie’s synopsis, not review, and then decide if it would be worth your money. Because reviews – which tell you if a movie is worth watching – are unreliable, you will, as I did, just have to make the gamble yourself and see if a movie is really worth your money.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
My Valentine this year? Snow Queen Elsa of Arendelle.
So it was Valentine’s Day a few hours back, which coincided with the Chinese equivalent according to the lunar calendar. Big deal for some, not so for others. As for me, today itself was not really special; some of the days before were. And a few days of last week as well.
As most people would, I enjoy going to the cinema with friends. I also enjoy going to the cinema alone, more so than I enjoy going with friends, in fact. This is because I get to watch what I want, (almost) when I want without needing to worry if someone has already watched something. And, if I feel like it, I can watch it again, without guilt-tripping my friends who wouldn’t want to watch something that someone has already watched, even if said someone does not mind – or even actually wants to be – watching it again. So, in light of this, I, Ian Chee, will, for the first time, be doing a brief movie review on a few movies I’ve watched recently. So here they are, in no particular order other than the bad ones first before the good ones (except for the last one, which was kept last for a few reasons). Oh, and spoiler alert. Most can’t be helped because when the shitty bit is the story, it’s difficult to complain about it without mentioning it.
First is ‘I, Frankenstein’. This was one which I looked forward to watching, but left me with mixed feelings as I left the cinema. The movie starts off pretty much where the original novel ended, with some changes. Victor Frankenstein tried to kill his monster, Adam. Adam was not happy, came back, killed Victor’s wife. Victor was not happy, proceeded to hunt Adam. Adam escapes to the cold north; Victor pursues but dies due to the extreme cold. Then it starts to get a little crazy. Demons show up wanting to capture Adam but were stopped by gargoyles. Gargoyles, of all things.
To see why this is a problem, we first need to know what gargoyles are. Gargoyles are originally ornamental drains used to let water flow out of buildings. Because of their beastly design, they are said to either protect whatever they happen to be guarding (or whatever they happen to be on, essentially) and scare off evil spirits, or are evil spirits themselves. So the guys making the movie must have gone with the first idea and then decided to take it up to eleven by making them the soldiers of the archangel St. Michael.
Then there is a major inconsistency in the plot. Gargoyles can only be killed by soulless beings, like demons and living corpses or zombies like Adam. So at some point Adam manages to kill the gargoyle captain. Then further down the plot it is revealed that demons can only possess soulless beings, such as living corpses or zombies like Adam. But somehow Adam survives a possession unscathed. The transition was never revealed; it just sort of happened.
Then there’s the character himself. Adam starts of like any other abomination; self-aware of his unnatural state of being, socially awkward. Then he suddenly becomes a chatterbox.
Other than that, the plot progression was alright, the fight scenes were not too bad and the CG was actually good. Though for those who have not watched it, I wouldn’t recommend doing so; you’re better off spending your money watching something better, like some others in this list of mine. But before we get to that, let’s get another rubbish show out of the way.
And that rubbish is ‘The Legend of Hercules’. Cheap CG, poor characters (especially the main character), and a very draggy story towards the end. In fact the CG is so poor it looks worse than the worst from Hong Kong, and that’s saying something considering the best of the CG bits in Hong Kong movies look like they’ve been done in under three minutes. Then there’s the cheap soft-core porn scene which was not cut, a rare thing in Malaysian cinema. Maybe this was because the movie was so dreary that the old creeps of the censorship department got sick of watching the whole movie that they missed it, hence why it was not cut out and kept for their own pleasure. Bottom line is, don’t watch. If you get a free ticket then watch if you must (personally, if I got one I would burn it), but don’t ever give it to a friend; the only thing crueller you can do to said friend is give them AIDS.
The next one also left me a bit ambivalent. ‘The Monkey King’. Obviously meant for kids, this is another movie with cheap CG (not surprising this time as it is movie from Hong Kong), slow pace and puppy love. Keeping that in mind, this isn’t all that bad. The only problem is the cast. Donnie Yen as the Monkey King (you wouldn’t be able to tell with all that fur makeup anyway), Chow Yuen Fat as the Jade Emperor and Aaron Kwok as the big baddie. Yes, let that sink in: the stereotypical good-guy character as the big baddie. That said, it wouldn’t be a waste of your money if you do decide to watch it on the big screen, although I do maintain that you can do much better.
Then there’s ‘From Vegas to Macau’, your typical Hong Kong gambling flick. It was entertaining, but saying that it’s good is a bit of a stretch. The story, while respectable, is getting too clichéd and overused, and the plot twists, while you may or may not see them coming, you won’t be surprised they happened either. Then there’s the slightly confusing ending, because while Chow Yuen Fat plays the main character in this, another of his character from the ‘God of Gamblers’ series of movies makes an appearance, namely the God of Gamblers himself. All in all, worth your money, but won’t really blow your mind.
Now we come to the gems of the season. The first is one that I didn’t expect to be this great, considering it’s a Malaysian movie. It’s called ‘The Journey’, and it will probably drive you to tears. The story is about a girl who was sent away to the UK by her father when she was eight, and returns with plans of getting married to her Caucasian boyfriend. Along the way the story presents very relatable dilemmas of the modern day population of young adults, with the main ones being the generation gap between the X and Y generations, their different takes on tradition as well as the cultural differences between East and West and difficulties that arise when they come together. Speaking of the generation gap between X and Y, this movie also highlights the problem of how some old folks, in this day and age, insist on staying inside caves and getting water from a river or well instead of a tap, and how some of their peers have managed to move with the times into a modern world.
This is a story too good to spoil, and is pretty much faultless anyway. The only problem is the female lead. Seeing as the character is one that has been in the UK since she was eight, is it really too much to ask to get an actress that can actually speak English? You don’t need someone with an accent; just someone who speaks English! Someone who doesn’t say ‘troubow’ or ‘respek’ or ‘considellate’ or ‘deaw’ or ‘wif’. I could go on forever.
The point is, the perfect Malaysian production movie is potentially spoiled by their inability to find someone who can speak English instead of Engrish to play the female lead. This gargantuan fly in the ointment aside, this movie is not only perfect for a Malaysian production, it is perfect. Period. Full stop. I would recommend you to watch. I would also recommend you recommend it to others. Especially older folks; they can really learn to deal with modernisation from this movie.
This next one is good and not surprisingly so. It is ‘RoboCop’. Slightly different from the classic RoboCop, which might irk older fans (myself included, even when I’m not that old myself), but otherwise, a good modern take. Not much spoiling here since the plot is largely the same as the classic, albeit with a few twists. Characters were good, iconic lines were said (though sadly, only once), story progresses at a very comfortable pace. Massive man versus machine theme, and on a very personal level. What more can I say? Other than ‘go watch it if you haven’t’ that is. Oh wait, there is something else I can say. There is a making out scene between the main guy and his wife, and the part where he takes her clothes off were cut, eventhough she was in her bra and garters. I speculate that there are two reasons why this was so, first is because it was one of the scenes in the trailer, which was strangely left uncut. The other is that the old creeps from the censorship department saw this and decided that it wasn't an appropriate scene for the adult (18 years and older) viewing public, eventhough stark nudity in 'The Legend of Hercules' was. So they cut it out so that they have some fap material when they get home.
Then we have ‘The Lego Movie’, one of the most hyped movies since last year. I went to watch this half expecting to be terribly disappointed, and was pleasantly surprised. The story started off slow, but as soon as it reached the first main plot device, progression became fast in a comfortable and not-too-rushed way. There are some pop culture references as well as multiple cheesy clichés but they all add to the comedic atmosphere of the movie, which is pretty much the opposite of what most clichés do. I won’t mention the main theme as it is a very big part of the story, but I will say this: it is similar to that of ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. This is one I highly recommend to watch, but I must warn you that if you choose to bring friends or any other company with you, please make sure you don’t bring someone that has been living under a rock. While you don’t need to be living in the internet to get the pop culture jokes and references, not getting them really kills the vibe, even if they are few and far in between.
And finally we have ‘Frozen’, the bombshell of bombshells.
Before I continue I need to elaborate on a fact. As far as I can recall, there have only been two movies before ‘Frozen’ which I have actually watched twice on the big screen, even though many, many others were also worthy of another big screen viewing. One was ‘Pacific Rim’, which the second time I watched with a friend because he hadn’t watched it and I offered to go with him because it’s that good (and he wasn’t aware of the fact that I’ve seen the movie). The other was ‘Rurouni Kenshin’, which, incidentally, was aired in cinemas beginning Valentine’s Day 2013. I watched both times alone, mostly out of nostalgia, but also because it was just such a damn good movie. The only problems were the utter destruction of Han’nya and my favourite character, Saito Hajime being quite untrue to the original. ‘Frozen’ is the first movie that I watched twice in the cinema alone for different reasons; the first time for the story and the second for the sake of seeing a single character.
As is the way of Disney, ‘Frozen’ was based on ‘The Snow Queen’, with the typical Disney adaptations which results in the very dark original story turning into a very cheesy and clichéd happy lovey-dovey ending; the same thing happened when Disney decided they wanted to retell the story of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, among others.
Also as is the way of Disney, they make their movies with some of the most extreme polarities, which makes me hesitant to watch some and generally leaves that ambivalent aftertaste. Some of their movies, like the first ‘The Lion King’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Mulan’ are great, while some others like (in my opinion) their version of ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and subsequent ‘The Lion King’s are so bad it’s an insult to the properly bad things like the Black Death and the Holocaust. ‘Frozen’ sits comfortably with the former bunch, but for different reasons.
Allow me to elaborate. The first ‘The Lion King’ was good because it is basically an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, so there is very little where they can go wrong. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was good (to me) because I liked the concept; the Beast as the good guy. Pretty much the same reason why I loved the ‘Devil May Cry’ series of games, excluding that ‘Dipshit may Crap’ by Ninja Theory. ‘Mulan’ was good because, for the first time, we have a Disney Princess who didn’t sit on her arse for the entirety of the movie. Quite the contrary, in fact; she fought throughout pretending to be a guy (feminism right there, ladies and gentlemen). ‘Frozen’, on the other hand, is good because it somewhat breaks Disney’s tradition of cheesy lovey-dovey clichés while still ending on a happy note. How it breaks the tradition, you ask? Go find out yourself. There are two to look out for, the first of which was viral on the internet at some point. The only problem with it was their choice of main character. Watch the movie and it will be instantly obvious what I mean, and I’m not alone with this opinion.
So there you are. A movie which I watched a second time on the big screen (forking out money unnecessarily) just because one of the characters was so perfect. Perfect looks, perfect character growth (but unfortunately not explored in enough depth because she’s not the main character), perfect voice. And yes, it’s a she.
And on that bombshell of bombshells, adieu to y’all.
As most people would, I enjoy going to the cinema with friends. I also enjoy going to the cinema alone, more so than I enjoy going with friends, in fact. This is because I get to watch what I want, (almost) when I want without needing to worry if someone has already watched something. And, if I feel like it, I can watch it again, without guilt-tripping my friends who wouldn’t want to watch something that someone has already watched, even if said someone does not mind – or even actually wants to be – watching it again. So, in light of this, I, Ian Chee, will, for the first time, be doing a brief movie review on a few movies I’ve watched recently. So here they are, in no particular order other than the bad ones first before the good ones (except for the last one, which was kept last for a few reasons). Oh, and spoiler alert. Most can’t be helped because when the shitty bit is the story, it’s difficult to complain about it without mentioning it.
First is ‘I, Frankenstein’. This was one which I looked forward to watching, but left me with mixed feelings as I left the cinema. The movie starts off pretty much where the original novel ended, with some changes. Victor Frankenstein tried to kill his monster, Adam. Adam was not happy, came back, killed Victor’s wife. Victor was not happy, proceeded to hunt Adam. Adam escapes to the cold north; Victor pursues but dies due to the extreme cold. Then it starts to get a little crazy. Demons show up wanting to capture Adam but were stopped by gargoyles. Gargoyles, of all things.
To see why this is a problem, we first need to know what gargoyles are. Gargoyles are originally ornamental drains used to let water flow out of buildings. Because of their beastly design, they are said to either protect whatever they happen to be guarding (or whatever they happen to be on, essentially) and scare off evil spirits, or are evil spirits themselves. So the guys making the movie must have gone with the first idea and then decided to take it up to eleven by making them the soldiers of the archangel St. Michael.
Then there is a major inconsistency in the plot. Gargoyles can only be killed by soulless beings, like demons and living corpses or zombies like Adam. So at some point Adam manages to kill the gargoyle captain. Then further down the plot it is revealed that demons can only possess soulless beings, such as living corpses or zombies like Adam. But somehow Adam survives a possession unscathed. The transition was never revealed; it just sort of happened.
Then there’s the character himself. Adam starts of like any other abomination; self-aware of his unnatural state of being, socially awkward. Then he suddenly becomes a chatterbox.
Other than that, the plot progression was alright, the fight scenes were not too bad and the CG was actually good. Though for those who have not watched it, I wouldn’t recommend doing so; you’re better off spending your money watching something better, like some others in this list of mine. But before we get to that, let’s get another rubbish show out of the way.
And that rubbish is ‘The Legend of Hercules’. Cheap CG, poor characters (especially the main character), and a very draggy story towards the end. In fact the CG is so poor it looks worse than the worst from Hong Kong, and that’s saying something considering the best of the CG bits in Hong Kong movies look like they’ve been done in under three minutes. Then there’s the cheap soft-core porn scene which was not cut, a rare thing in Malaysian cinema. Maybe this was because the movie was so dreary that the old creeps of the censorship department got sick of watching the whole movie that they missed it, hence why it was not cut out and kept for their own pleasure. Bottom line is, don’t watch. If you get a free ticket then watch if you must (personally, if I got one I would burn it), but don’t ever give it to a friend; the only thing crueller you can do to said friend is give them AIDS.
The next one also left me a bit ambivalent. ‘The Monkey King’. Obviously meant for kids, this is another movie with cheap CG (not surprising this time as it is movie from Hong Kong), slow pace and puppy love. Keeping that in mind, this isn’t all that bad. The only problem is the cast. Donnie Yen as the Monkey King (you wouldn’t be able to tell with all that fur makeup anyway), Chow Yuen Fat as the Jade Emperor and Aaron Kwok as the big baddie. Yes, let that sink in: the stereotypical good-guy character as the big baddie. That said, it wouldn’t be a waste of your money if you do decide to watch it on the big screen, although I do maintain that you can do much better.
Then there’s ‘From Vegas to Macau’, your typical Hong Kong gambling flick. It was entertaining, but saying that it’s good is a bit of a stretch. The story, while respectable, is getting too clichéd and overused, and the plot twists, while you may or may not see them coming, you won’t be surprised they happened either. Then there’s the slightly confusing ending, because while Chow Yuen Fat plays the main character in this, another of his character from the ‘God of Gamblers’ series of movies makes an appearance, namely the God of Gamblers himself. All in all, worth your money, but won’t really blow your mind.
Now we come to the gems of the season. The first is one that I didn’t expect to be this great, considering it’s a Malaysian movie. It’s called ‘The Journey’, and it will probably drive you to tears. The story is about a girl who was sent away to the UK by her father when she was eight, and returns with plans of getting married to her Caucasian boyfriend. Along the way the story presents very relatable dilemmas of the modern day population of young adults, with the main ones being the generation gap between the X and Y generations, their different takes on tradition as well as the cultural differences between East and West and difficulties that arise when they come together. Speaking of the generation gap between X and Y, this movie also highlights the problem of how some old folks, in this day and age, insist on staying inside caves and getting water from a river or well instead of a tap, and how some of their peers have managed to move with the times into a modern world.
This is a story too good to spoil, and is pretty much faultless anyway. The only problem is the female lead. Seeing as the character is one that has been in the UK since she was eight, is it really too much to ask to get an actress that can actually speak English? You don’t need someone with an accent; just someone who speaks English! Someone who doesn’t say ‘troubow’ or ‘respek’ or ‘considellate’ or ‘deaw’ or ‘wif’. I could go on forever.
The point is, the perfect Malaysian production movie is potentially spoiled by their inability to find someone who can speak English instead of Engrish to play the female lead. This gargantuan fly in the ointment aside, this movie is not only perfect for a Malaysian production, it is perfect. Period. Full stop. I would recommend you to watch. I would also recommend you recommend it to others. Especially older folks; they can really learn to deal with modernisation from this movie.
This next one is good and not surprisingly so. It is ‘RoboCop’. Slightly different from the classic RoboCop, which might irk older fans (myself included, even when I’m not that old myself), but otherwise, a good modern take. Not much spoiling here since the plot is largely the same as the classic, albeit with a few twists. Characters were good, iconic lines were said (though sadly, only once), story progresses at a very comfortable pace. Massive man versus machine theme, and on a very personal level. What more can I say? Other than ‘go watch it if you haven’t’ that is. Oh wait, there is something else I can say. There is a making out scene between the main guy and his wife, and the part where he takes her clothes off were cut, eventhough she was in her bra and garters. I speculate that there are two reasons why this was so, first is because it was one of the scenes in the trailer, which was strangely left uncut. The other is that the old creeps from the censorship department saw this and decided that it wasn't an appropriate scene for the adult (18 years and older) viewing public, eventhough stark nudity in 'The Legend of Hercules' was. So they cut it out so that they have some fap material when they get home.
Then we have ‘The Lego Movie’, one of the most hyped movies since last year. I went to watch this half expecting to be terribly disappointed, and was pleasantly surprised. The story started off slow, but as soon as it reached the first main plot device, progression became fast in a comfortable and not-too-rushed way. There are some pop culture references as well as multiple cheesy clichés but they all add to the comedic atmosphere of the movie, which is pretty much the opposite of what most clichés do. I won’t mention the main theme as it is a very big part of the story, but I will say this: it is similar to that of ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. This is one I highly recommend to watch, but I must warn you that if you choose to bring friends or any other company with you, please make sure you don’t bring someone that has been living under a rock. While you don’t need to be living in the internet to get the pop culture jokes and references, not getting them really kills the vibe, even if they are few and far in between.
And finally we have ‘Frozen’, the bombshell of bombshells.
Before I continue I need to elaborate on a fact. As far as I can recall, there have only been two movies before ‘Frozen’ which I have actually watched twice on the big screen, even though many, many others were also worthy of another big screen viewing. One was ‘Pacific Rim’, which the second time I watched with a friend because he hadn’t watched it and I offered to go with him because it’s that good (and he wasn’t aware of the fact that I’ve seen the movie). The other was ‘Rurouni Kenshin’, which, incidentally, was aired in cinemas beginning Valentine’s Day 2013. I watched both times alone, mostly out of nostalgia, but also because it was just such a damn good movie. The only problems were the utter destruction of Han’nya and my favourite character, Saito Hajime being quite untrue to the original. ‘Frozen’ is the first movie that I watched twice in the cinema alone for different reasons; the first time for the story and the second for the sake of seeing a single character.
As is the way of Disney, ‘Frozen’ was based on ‘The Snow Queen’, with the typical Disney adaptations which results in the very dark original story turning into a very cheesy and clichéd happy lovey-dovey ending; the same thing happened when Disney decided they wanted to retell the story of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, among others.
Also as is the way of Disney, they make their movies with some of the most extreme polarities, which makes me hesitant to watch some and generally leaves that ambivalent aftertaste. Some of their movies, like the first ‘The Lion King’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Mulan’ are great, while some others like (in my opinion) their version of ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and subsequent ‘The Lion King’s are so bad it’s an insult to the properly bad things like the Black Death and the Holocaust. ‘Frozen’ sits comfortably with the former bunch, but for different reasons.
Allow me to elaborate. The first ‘The Lion King’ was good because it is basically an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, so there is very little where they can go wrong. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was good (to me) because I liked the concept; the Beast as the good guy. Pretty much the same reason why I loved the ‘Devil May Cry’ series of games, excluding that ‘Dipshit may Crap’ by Ninja Theory. ‘Mulan’ was good because, for the first time, we have a Disney Princess who didn’t sit on her arse for the entirety of the movie. Quite the contrary, in fact; she fought throughout pretending to be a guy (feminism right there, ladies and gentlemen). ‘Frozen’, on the other hand, is good because it somewhat breaks Disney’s tradition of cheesy lovey-dovey clichés while still ending on a happy note. How it breaks the tradition, you ask? Go find out yourself. There are two to look out for, the first of which was viral on the internet at some point. The only problem with it was their choice of main character. Watch the movie and it will be instantly obvious what I mean, and I’m not alone with this opinion.
So there you are. A movie which I watched a second time on the big screen (forking out money unnecessarily) just because one of the characters was so perfect. Perfect looks, perfect character growth (but unfortunately not explored in enough depth because she’s not the main character), perfect voice. And yes, it’s a she.
And on that bombshell of bombshells, adieu to y’all.
Friday, January 3, 2014
The Dilemma of an Introverted Gamer
So I’ve spent my first month as a jobless bum (again), with me not being as productive as I originally planned; instead of continuing what would be my novel (or one of, at least) I got distracted by some other life events which inspired another short story. Which is also left hanging because I am (again) facing difficulty organizing the stuff I draw from the pool of infinite ideas that is my own wild imagination, and (I never thought I’d say this) my poor vocabulary makes this harder than it needs to be. While I wait for a response to my next job application (damn you, slow government departments), I have, as you’d expect, spent more than a fair amount of time gaming, the latest heavy investment being Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Online. As a result of this and me poking my nose into somewhere I swore to myself not to, I realize that I face a dilemma which is probably not unique to myself, but few others share.
If you’re one of the few who read this, then you probably have been for a very long time, which means you should know that I consider myself an introvert. If you just happen to stumble upon this page not knowing of its existence until now, well, now you do. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, introverts are generally people who are not socially anxious (needs mentioning, this) but prefer to be alone most of the time, don’t like social situations and are usually awkward or quiet or both when they find themselves in such situations. The only exception to this is when they are hanging out with truly close friends, and even then may seem quiet by others’ usual standards. The reason I’m stating this is because it is one of the two important points that make up the dilemma I speak of.
The next thing you’d know about me (relevant to this dilemma) is that I consider myself a hard-core gamer. While there is no standard criteria to adhere to when deciding what category of gamer that one falls into or indeed an official categorization, I would consider casual gamers not gamers at all; those who play simple games, usually web-based JAVA games such as those you find of Facebook, or other simple, mindless mobile games like Angry Birds and the like for the sake of killing time instead of for the sake of the game itself. Then there are the semi-hard-core who might pick up an RPG or other time consuming game, but put it down the moment they clear the story without replaying for other side quests, Easter eggs or other hidden, unlockable content. Hard-core gamers such as myself pick up a game and don’t let it down for weeks, sometimes months on end, exhausting every bit of feature and content available, especially if I have to pay for it. Now, I’m not making this distinction in a condescending way, just like, say, I wouldn’t be treating sports car owners condescendingly if I had a supercar – neither of which I can afford – or like how I wouldn’t treat those without a degree condescendingly just because I have one nor do I expect to be treated that way by those with masters or doctorate degrees. I’m making this distinction because it affects hard-core gamers more than semis while having no impact on casuals at all, because casual gamers tend to have other things on their mind and only play such games only to kill time while semis play for the sake of story – not unlike why you would read a book or watch a movie – or to kill time in between their other activities, while hard-cores have their games as their activities, and probably do some reading or something in between.
Seems like a perfect match of characteristics to have, right? Being an introvert and a hard-core gamer, one can avoid unwanted company by choosing to indulge and drown in their games. This might be the case before. But surely not anymore. With the new age of multiplayer gaming, many games (or rather, their developers) skimp on single player content and pump out loads on the multiplayer end. Take GTA V for example. 100% completion needs less things to be done than previous GTAs and its online component is treated as a standalone game with its own patches, content updates and all that.
This is my problem. How does an introvert play multiplayer games? Of course, it’s not that hard, and there are two methods – obvious ones, at least – to deal with this. One is just to play said multiplayer game like a single player, and whenever the compulsory multiplayer bits show up, just play with random strangers awkwardly like one would when interacting in real life. This, of course, gets boring after a while and defeats the purpose of playing a multiplayer game. Then there is the second method of playing with friends, the no-brainer solution with no compromises other than the fact that you need to be playing the same game at the same time, which is also easily arranged if you have time to be playing games in the first place.
However, I do have a problem with this solution. Of the handful of friends that I have, only slightly more than 10% of them I can consider gamers, and less than 5% I consider hard-core gamers. And with such small numbers, the chances of so few people having the same tastes in games is even smaller. Thus, I face problems like we don’t like the same kinds of game, we can’t afford to buy games that the other fellas have or not having or being able to afford the console to play the same games on; some of which, like the first, shouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
This is my problem. While I do enjoy playing what games we do manage to play together, I wish we could all be able to play all the games that everyone has together. I also wish more of my friends were gamers. Then these problems of mismatching interests, platforms etc. would be better than they are now, at least.
And I only realized I face such a problem thanks to my sticking my nose in matters not concerning myself, and that I have, with great difficulty and to great lengths, convinced myself that I want to know nothing about anymore. So I guess curiosity can really kill the cat and that the burden of knowledge is indeed a heavy one. No wonder ignorance is bliss.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
If you’re one of the few who read this, then you probably have been for a very long time, which means you should know that I consider myself an introvert. If you just happen to stumble upon this page not knowing of its existence until now, well, now you do. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, introverts are generally people who are not socially anxious (needs mentioning, this) but prefer to be alone most of the time, don’t like social situations and are usually awkward or quiet or both when they find themselves in such situations. The only exception to this is when they are hanging out with truly close friends, and even then may seem quiet by others’ usual standards. The reason I’m stating this is because it is one of the two important points that make up the dilemma I speak of.
The next thing you’d know about me (relevant to this dilemma) is that I consider myself a hard-core gamer. While there is no standard criteria to adhere to when deciding what category of gamer that one falls into or indeed an official categorization, I would consider casual gamers not gamers at all; those who play simple games, usually web-based JAVA games such as those you find of Facebook, or other simple, mindless mobile games like Angry Birds and the like for the sake of killing time instead of for the sake of the game itself. Then there are the semi-hard-core who might pick up an RPG or other time consuming game, but put it down the moment they clear the story without replaying for other side quests, Easter eggs or other hidden, unlockable content. Hard-core gamers such as myself pick up a game and don’t let it down for weeks, sometimes months on end, exhausting every bit of feature and content available, especially if I have to pay for it. Now, I’m not making this distinction in a condescending way, just like, say, I wouldn’t be treating sports car owners condescendingly if I had a supercar – neither of which I can afford – or like how I wouldn’t treat those without a degree condescendingly just because I have one nor do I expect to be treated that way by those with masters or doctorate degrees. I’m making this distinction because it affects hard-core gamers more than semis while having no impact on casuals at all, because casual gamers tend to have other things on their mind and only play such games only to kill time while semis play for the sake of story – not unlike why you would read a book or watch a movie – or to kill time in between their other activities, while hard-cores have their games as their activities, and probably do some reading or something in between.
Seems like a perfect match of characteristics to have, right? Being an introvert and a hard-core gamer, one can avoid unwanted company by choosing to indulge and drown in their games. This might be the case before. But surely not anymore. With the new age of multiplayer gaming, many games (or rather, their developers) skimp on single player content and pump out loads on the multiplayer end. Take GTA V for example. 100% completion needs less things to be done than previous GTAs and its online component is treated as a standalone game with its own patches, content updates and all that.
This is my problem. How does an introvert play multiplayer games? Of course, it’s not that hard, and there are two methods – obvious ones, at least – to deal with this. One is just to play said multiplayer game like a single player, and whenever the compulsory multiplayer bits show up, just play with random strangers awkwardly like one would when interacting in real life. This, of course, gets boring after a while and defeats the purpose of playing a multiplayer game. Then there is the second method of playing with friends, the no-brainer solution with no compromises other than the fact that you need to be playing the same game at the same time, which is also easily arranged if you have time to be playing games in the first place.
However, I do have a problem with this solution. Of the handful of friends that I have, only slightly more than 10% of them I can consider gamers, and less than 5% I consider hard-core gamers. And with such small numbers, the chances of so few people having the same tastes in games is even smaller. Thus, I face problems like we don’t like the same kinds of game, we can’t afford to buy games that the other fellas have or not having or being able to afford the console to play the same games on; some of which, like the first, shouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
This is my problem. While I do enjoy playing what games we do manage to play together, I wish we could all be able to play all the games that everyone has together. I also wish more of my friends were gamers. Then these problems of mismatching interests, platforms etc. would be better than they are now, at least.
And I only realized I face such a problem thanks to my sticking my nose in matters not concerning myself, and that I have, with great difficulty and to great lengths, convinced myself that I want to know nothing about anymore. So I guess curiosity can really kill the cat and that the burden of knowledge is indeed a heavy one. No wonder ignorance is bliss.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Misconception
Or rather, deception. This word defines the world we live in. Think of the most pleasant sounding thing that you’ve ever heard or read of describing something you have no experience with. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? I guarantee you that when you get down to it and get your hands dirty, you’ll soon realize that ‘dirty’ is not what it sounded like, even though it is what it actually is.
I’ll give you an example. People talk about campus life like it’s heaven on earth. It isn’t. I can guarantee that no one can put their hand on their heart and say that it is. Sure, it may be heaven in comparison with working life, but that is like saying the shit in your toilet is gold compared to the shit in the sewers. Those who claim that they can actually honestly say they enjoyed their campus life are liars, and if anyone were to tell me that I haven’t been living my campus life properly or to the fullest, my response to such people is simply that they haven’t been born properly or to the fullest either.
But I digress. Back to deception. This is not seen as a problem by many people, as they’d say “y’know, that’s life. That’s how things are in the real world.” Maybe so, but it shouldn’t be. Why it is so is simple. Being straightforward puts people off. It’s like fast food. Tell them up front that they haven’t been prepared to suit individual needs and are therefore generic and may cause health problems isn’t going to sell the product as embellishing with lies, saying fast food help you make up for lost time, bond with families and all that other nonsense you see on fast food ads, will. And it doesn’t end there. Deception is found everywhere. Get a job thinking the only people you are going to meet are your colleagues and bosses and half the time you get endless encounters with people you don’t care for but have to mingle with anyway for the sake of the company’s profits. Or you get a job thinking you’ll be an artist by the conventional sense and you end up being a photographer and videographer.
In the corporate world, I get it. You need to please the source of income. So you need to be subtle about reality and embellish every single detail to ensure that the first impression people get isn’t ‘shite’ until they really take a closer look. However, there are times when you have to be so subtle that people can’t read between the lines because there doesn’t seem to be any. Then these people get baited and feel betrayed but they cannot blame the source of their feeling betrayed because they’re told they didn’t look closely enough. But that’s fine, because it’s all so that people can make a living, right? Like hell it is.
I remember reading this old joke from an old newspaper column in a museum-ish place in Cameron Highlands. It was generally about the campaigning periods that precede elections. It went like this: a few guys died and were told to choose if they wanted to go to heaven or hell. They checked heaven out and decided it was okay; serene, calm, relaxing but rather uneventful. So they decided to see what hell had to offer. What they saw was unending feasts, booze, flamboyance, extravagance, debauchery and every imaginable pleasure known to man, guilty or otherwise. So the guys chose to go to hell. But when they actually got there, it turns out that they had to do manual labour, had no rest, consume excrements and bathe in fire with oil as soap. In other words, nothing like the impression they were given. They went to the Devil himself to voice their dissatisfaction regarding the deception, to which the Devil replied “oh we were campaigning, so of course we had to seem more desirable.” Moral of the story was simple; know that what you see is not necessarily what you get, so choose wisely. This was a lesson I learned the hard way, which made me understand the need for deception.
But I can’t help but think that this just isn’t the way to do it. Because of that, the company that had my services for three months (bless them) had a half-arsed worker who did things half-arsedly when doing social related work, and being generally enthusiastic otherwise. They could have had someone who was genuinely enthusiastic about the whole package. And I don’t have to deal with social chores that I couldn’t care less about, but admittedly this is just me whining about work.
Speaking of university, recent events have reminded me about how I went in without anyone knowing me and left just as I entered; without anyone knowing or remembering me. However, I do remember a number of people. The nosy fellas, the overly social dudes (neither are necessarily bad traits, come to think of it), the intelligent and analytical one who feigns ignorance, the ladies who can tell the difference between stimulating and revolting drama, and the ones who were there to go with the flow but end up being in the spotlights. These are people who, for better or worse, I would like to remember or don’t mind remembering. Then there are the lying whores, passive-aggressive bitches, ruthlessly selfish and hypocritical pricks and the turncoats that shift every time there is a light breeze. These are degenerate vermin I wish I never met and would love to bludgeon them to oblivion with their own empty skulls. Why do I have such animosity towards them? Deception, simple as that. If only they could comprehend the irony in some of the filth that escapes their mouths. It makes so little sense that it’s funny when I think about it now. Then again, I hope they never will, unless the one enlightening them is one of their own kind. Or an axe murderer. All I know is that I will not be the one to do so, unless I turn into an axe swinging psychopath.
Before I go, I wish to talk about that newspaper column I mentioned. This was written in a time where, I imagine, there was less fuss about political correctness and people don’t look between the lines when there are none. As the local newspapers evolved into the way it is now, I can only wonder how people tolerate, let alone condone, this kind of overly deceptive writing, and how people actually live with it. As someone who reads only the newsy bits and throw everything else aside if it wasn’t written by Jeremy Clarkson, you can imagine how I yearn for such brutal honesty, even if it is exaggerated. But that might not happen because someone politically influential will read between non-existent lines and end the writing or even literal life of the writer.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
I’ll give you an example. People talk about campus life like it’s heaven on earth. It isn’t. I can guarantee that no one can put their hand on their heart and say that it is. Sure, it may be heaven in comparison with working life, but that is like saying the shit in your toilet is gold compared to the shit in the sewers. Those who claim that they can actually honestly say they enjoyed their campus life are liars, and if anyone were to tell me that I haven’t been living my campus life properly or to the fullest, my response to such people is simply that they haven’t been born properly or to the fullest either.
But I digress. Back to deception. This is not seen as a problem by many people, as they’d say “y’know, that’s life. That’s how things are in the real world.” Maybe so, but it shouldn’t be. Why it is so is simple. Being straightforward puts people off. It’s like fast food. Tell them up front that they haven’t been prepared to suit individual needs and are therefore generic and may cause health problems isn’t going to sell the product as embellishing with lies, saying fast food help you make up for lost time, bond with families and all that other nonsense you see on fast food ads, will. And it doesn’t end there. Deception is found everywhere. Get a job thinking the only people you are going to meet are your colleagues and bosses and half the time you get endless encounters with people you don’t care for but have to mingle with anyway for the sake of the company’s profits. Or you get a job thinking you’ll be an artist by the conventional sense and you end up being a photographer and videographer.
In the corporate world, I get it. You need to please the source of income. So you need to be subtle about reality and embellish every single detail to ensure that the first impression people get isn’t ‘shite’ until they really take a closer look. However, there are times when you have to be so subtle that people can’t read between the lines because there doesn’t seem to be any. Then these people get baited and feel betrayed but they cannot blame the source of their feeling betrayed because they’re told they didn’t look closely enough. But that’s fine, because it’s all so that people can make a living, right? Like hell it is.
I remember reading this old joke from an old newspaper column in a museum-ish place in Cameron Highlands. It was generally about the campaigning periods that precede elections. It went like this: a few guys died and were told to choose if they wanted to go to heaven or hell. They checked heaven out and decided it was okay; serene, calm, relaxing but rather uneventful. So they decided to see what hell had to offer. What they saw was unending feasts, booze, flamboyance, extravagance, debauchery and every imaginable pleasure known to man, guilty or otherwise. So the guys chose to go to hell. But when they actually got there, it turns out that they had to do manual labour, had no rest, consume excrements and bathe in fire with oil as soap. In other words, nothing like the impression they were given. They went to the Devil himself to voice their dissatisfaction regarding the deception, to which the Devil replied “oh we were campaigning, so of course we had to seem more desirable.” Moral of the story was simple; know that what you see is not necessarily what you get, so choose wisely. This was a lesson I learned the hard way, which made me understand the need for deception.
But I can’t help but think that this just isn’t the way to do it. Because of that, the company that had my services for three months (bless them) had a half-arsed worker who did things half-arsedly when doing social related work, and being generally enthusiastic otherwise. They could have had someone who was genuinely enthusiastic about the whole package. And I don’t have to deal with social chores that I couldn’t care less about, but admittedly this is just me whining about work.
Speaking of university, recent events have reminded me about how I went in without anyone knowing me and left just as I entered; without anyone knowing or remembering me. However, I do remember a number of people. The nosy fellas, the overly social dudes (neither are necessarily bad traits, come to think of it), the intelligent and analytical one who feigns ignorance, the ladies who can tell the difference between stimulating and revolting drama, and the ones who were there to go with the flow but end up being in the spotlights. These are people who, for better or worse, I would like to remember or don’t mind remembering. Then there are the lying whores, passive-aggressive bitches, ruthlessly selfish and hypocritical pricks and the turncoats that shift every time there is a light breeze. These are degenerate vermin I wish I never met and would love to bludgeon them to oblivion with their own empty skulls. Why do I have such animosity towards them? Deception, simple as that. If only they could comprehend the irony in some of the filth that escapes their mouths. It makes so little sense that it’s funny when I think about it now. Then again, I hope they never will, unless the one enlightening them is one of their own kind. Or an axe murderer. All I know is that I will not be the one to do so, unless I turn into an axe swinging psychopath.
Before I go, I wish to talk about that newspaper column I mentioned. This was written in a time where, I imagine, there was less fuss about political correctness and people don’t look between the lines when there are none. As the local newspapers evolved into the way it is now, I can only wonder how people tolerate, let alone condone, this kind of overly deceptive writing, and how people actually live with it. As someone who reads only the newsy bits and throw everything else aside if it wasn’t written by Jeremy Clarkson, you can imagine how I yearn for such brutal honesty, even if it is exaggerated. But that might not happen because someone politically influential will read between non-existent lines and end the writing or even literal life of the writer.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Reviewing the months
Going through these three months of mine at Write On Media,
which incidentally will be merged into Blue Inc. soon, I discover that, to my
disappointment, as a writer you are still a journalist, meaning you still go
out to meet people you don’t care for for the sake of having something to write
about. That’s a major problem for me as I count myself among the people who
chose to go into this profession to avoid meeting people. A terrible
misconception on my part, caused by the equally bad misleading conception
perpetrated by the Internet. As a result, I am taking an escape route which
leads me straight into the very pit from which I was trying to escape.
Even so, it’s not all barf and crap, as I am a tech writer
to be specific, so there are some benefits, such as getting news of new
headphones, speakers and computer parts entering the market, promising to turn
your entertainment world more real than the real world itself. It’s not all
moonlight and roses either, because, more than anything else, you get news,
most which no one cares for, like some telco having some deal with some other
company for some reason or other; unless you own said companies or have some
major shares with them, I doubt you would have a drop of rat’s piss to give.
Then there’s the next problem I have with this field of
work: photography. What was once a hobby of the rich is now a job of the poor.
Sure, some people may enjoy it, and these people are called photographers, and
are paid to do nothing but that. That’s not the case anymore; with every Tom,
Dick and Harry having a DSLR following the DSLR boom, everyone is expected to
be expert photographers as well, including people like me who couldn’t give a
flying toss about following dumb trends of what’s ‘fashionable’ and believe the
eye to forever be the best camera. And this is a problem because whenever stuff
comes in to be reviewed, we need photos of it to go together with the writers’
opinions of it and since the Internet is as unreliable as it is helpful, we
have to get our own hands dirty and get shots of our own.
Now let me just get things straight: I have no problems
whatsoever with people who are into photography. I believe it can be a form of art
and that photographers deserve their madly high pay because they are artists.
But to force this onto people who are less than uninterested is just too much
for me to handle, not to mention the bandwagon that is the DSLR boom, birthing
twits who claim to have a passion for photography but setting their unbefitting
DSLRs (which deserve better owners) to full auto mode. That is, as I have said
many times before, like having a gaming mouse and playing nothing but solitaire
and minesweeper. I’ll admit to committing the crime of using a DSLR on full
auto, because I simply couldn’t care less and have no choice because I know
nothing about DSLRs when I was being sent away to take pictures during events,
but this sort of thing is just inexcusable for people who claim to be
passionate about something. I mean, wouldn’t you willingly go and find out more
about something you like doing? Sure, people are unwilling to admit that
they’ve jumped on a bandwagon to follow a trend, and this is precisely why they
are twits.
I find trends to be like a pandemic disease; something the
whole world has or is doing, most of which I’d rather not affect or get
anywhere near me. Notable ones were the Sony Ericsson Aino from over five years
back and DSLRs a year later. And there’s the elitist iPhones, which I don’t
remember when it started (somewhere around 2007 I reckon), but is the longest
lasting one I can remember. And Samsung, which started shortly after but is now
competing with Apple to be the longest lasting disease in human history, not to
mention slowly becoming equally elitist as shown by their Galaxy Gear, which
only works within the higher ends of their own range of phones. And I hate them
because people get it because it is ‘cool’ and then drop it a second later.
Sure there are people who pick up a DSLR and keep on learning about photography
and end up being pretty good photographers themselves, but most, like I said,
get them to take hi-res selfies and then leave them somewhere or other to be a
dust magnet. Same with the phones; people pick them up because everyone has it,
then buys a new one whenever a new one is released, even if it is released a
day later, and is the exact same phone as the previous one except in name.
But I digress. Point is that I have to deal with stuff that I
don’t care for, and that just makes me hate them when I initially didn’t, and
other things which I don’t care for but don’t mind doing. Then comes the thing
that I came here for in the first place: reviewing games. Despite only getting
two at most, this is the only thing that’s stopping me from storming out the
front door and never returning at the end of the first month. Some are not
really satisfying (such as F1 2013), while others, like Pokémon X and Y, were a
major source of joy. This is as close to living the dream for me as it gets. Unfortunately,
as always, sweet dreams end abruptly and sometimes you get nightmares instead
of pleasant ones. As mentioned, I only get to do two a month (there are only so
many games being released every month anyway, and I’m not the only writer
around), some of which are crap anyway, and your words do not remain your own
when you have an editor looking through your final product.
Before I continue, let me just say it up front that I respect
my editor. In fact, I respect everyone here, as they really know what they’re doing.
The only issue is that, when two styles do not match, the writer may lose his
at the discretion of the editor, simply because the writer writes his opinion
in his own flair and flavour, while the editor needs to make sure that readers
know what the writer is on about. This is a problem for me because I like to
write in long and convoluted sentences (as you can see) and leave some
ambiguity in game reviews. This is especially so when a game is as good as Pokémon
X and Y where I want to hint on certain features without revealing too much, not
to mention the word limit lest I fill the whole magazine with one game. The editor
does his job and makes necessary amendments which, alas, makes me feel a tad
disappointed because when I read the version ready for print, it feels as
though I didn’t write it, but someone did attempting to mimic my style of
writing. I don’t blame him, but it just doesn’t feel right for me.
Then there's the fact that I only get to caption pictures which I provide myself. Might be because I'm new, but I don't get the full press access to game images, and I'm sure as hell I can't just Google them up, as one does not simply take screenshots of a 3DS. Sure, there are some phone cam pictures, but I can't use them firstly because they suck and secondly the magazine need high res pictures so that the graphic designers have some room to do their job. Not sure exactly how that works myself, but that's the way it is. At any rate, when I don't get to do my own captioning, it is up to the editor to do it and since I cannot know what images he has chosen to use and how they caption them, errors, like in this month's issue where Venusaur has been misidentified as Bulbasaur, are bound to happen. I say that because, after all, you don't expect the editor who watches over the entire magazine to research every single game being reviewed, do you?
Actually I do, and especially when it comes to Pokémon. But then again it can't be helped because as it turns out I'm the most knowledgeable one when it comes to Pokémon in this company, despite my missing Generations 4 and 5. So I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much when I wish that trivial mistakes like this are not made because trivial or otherwise, they are still mistakes, and when you cater for a narrow target audience, they are bound to be nitpickers such as myself and thus do not let mistakes slide.
Then there's the fact that I only get to caption pictures which I provide myself. Might be because I'm new, but I don't get the full press access to game images, and I'm sure as hell I can't just Google them up, as one does not simply take screenshots of a 3DS. Sure, there are some phone cam pictures, but I can't use them firstly because they suck and secondly the magazine need high res pictures so that the graphic designers have some room to do their job. Not sure exactly how that works myself, but that's the way it is. At any rate, when I don't get to do my own captioning, it is up to the editor to do it and since I cannot know what images he has chosen to use and how they caption them, errors, like in this month's issue where Venusaur has been misidentified as Bulbasaur, are bound to happen. I say that because, after all, you don't expect the editor who watches over the entire magazine to research every single game being reviewed, do you?
Actually I do, and especially when it comes to Pokémon. But then again it can't be helped because as it turns out I'm the most knowledgeable one when it comes to Pokémon in this company, despite my missing Generations 4 and 5. So I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much when I wish that trivial mistakes like this are not made because trivial or otherwise, they are still mistakes, and when you cater for a narrow target audience, they are bound to be nitpickers such as myself and thus do not let mistakes slide.
Incidentally, GameAxis, or GAX as it is now known, will soon
cease publication, with the December issue being the last. From then on, it
will be integrated into HWM as a 10-page section, the way the original (Singaporean)
GameAxis apparently did. This saddens me, as the only surviving English gaming
publication is Malaysia is finally dead as a standalone publication and maybe
for good if they later decide to kill the 10-page section altogether, and all
that’s left for Malaysians are English imports, mostly from Britain and some from
America, and countless other Chinese publications from who knows where, and woe
be unto readers if they mirror content from China the way PC Gamer Malaysia did
with the original from Britain. I say this not out of contempt of any kind, but
merely due to the fact that the land of the greatest pirates can really show the
reason behind their resorting to piracy. Keep in mind that they have news mistaking a buried fap tool for a mushroom of some kind so they are evidently not the
brightest bunch, though such gullibility might have something to do with their addiction
to censoring as many things on the internet as they can. Make no mistake,
though, that the brilliant among them can be truly brilliant and are the reason
China is rising as an economic force to be reckoned with.
But I digress. Again. So yes, 2014 will be Malaysia’s first year
of having no more English gaming publications and everyone will be going online
to keep tabs on new developments (which, I guess, everyone is already doing), and with that, my affiliation with Write On Media; it's the sole reason I wanted to be here so badly in the first place, and the only thing that made the other nonsense that no one else cares for even bearable. And
in the process I have reconsidered the possibility of being a shrink. That’s
just maybe. What I do know for sure is that Pokémon X and Y are awesome and I will
be spending some time as a lifeless bum on it the way I did with Emerald, and
probably the first game I will consider properly playing competitively, despite
the amount of luck involved to prepare for such a thing.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
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