Well, what do you know? This blog still exists after all. I’m still not in a mood to write a proper entry though, so to wet my appetite a bit, I’m writing this short entry instead.
The 82nd Academy Awards ceremony is on the air as we speak, so to celebrate the occasion, here are my Oscar predictions. Hopefully I will be in the mood to write a full-length entry after we get the full results. My predictions are only for the major awards though, since I don’t give a fuck about the technical awards. But who does, right?
Best Animated Feature – Up
Best original Screenplay – Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
Best Adapted Screenplay - Mary Lee Johnston (Precious)
Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds). Note: If Waltz doesn't win. I WILL FUCKING RIOT.
Best Supporting Actress - Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air). Note: She probably won’t win but she gave a great performance. An actress from Twilight who can actually act. What a strange concept.
Best Actor – Morgan Freeman (Invictus). Note: it’s about time brother gets an Oscar. Best Supporting Actor award doesn’t count.
Best Actress - Meryl Streep (Julia & Julia)
Best Director – Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) OR Katherine Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). Note: I can’t pick either one. They’re both equally good. But the award will probably go to that piece of turd James Cameron.
Best Picture – The Hurt Locker. Note: I’m 90% sure Avatar will win but I pick The Hurt Locker anyway. Heck, I’d pick any other movies except Avatar to win this thing.
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A church in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur was firebombed early on Friday, gutting the first storey of the building in a residential area, amid a row over the use of the word "Allah" for the Christian God.Wow, now THAT's bad ass. Nah..., not really. Haha. Seriously, this is not a laughing matter. Some dudes (presumably Muslims) burned a fucking church. Those dudes got balls. If that's not hardcore, I don't know what is. Can't say I support their actions though. Although I obviously understand why they did it. I really do. I am a Muslim after all. But I can't in good conscience support such blatant display of badassery....err..I'm sorry...stupidity.
This news really paints an ugly picture of Muslims in Malaysia. What, we're like fucking al-Qaeda all of a sudden? Whatever the fuck happen to a good old-fashioned street demonstration? Want to protess the court's decision? Then take it to the fucking streets. We do not, and I mean DO NOT burn a fucking church. Seriously, what are they thinking?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting the integrity of our religion, but there are better ways to do this. People with half a brain can think of ten less idiotic ways of doing just that. Come on people, violence is not an answer. It never is, it never will be. Period.
Holy crap, I should be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for this entry. Obama got nothing on me. Haha.
p/s: Sorry for the misleading title. I've got to catch your attention somehow, right?
Avatar (not to be confused with the cartoon series with the same name) is the latest brainchild of director James Cameron. Cameron is of course the dude who gave use Terminator and Titanic, among others. "You jump, I jump". Remember that line? Cheesiest.Line.Ever.
Anyway, Avatar receives generally positive reviews from film critics, but I don't *quite* agree with them. But why? Continue reading if you want to know.
Plot
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a crippled marine, is working with a team of scientists on planet Pandora to harvest a very valuable natural resource called Unobtanium. Pandora is inhabited by a species of tall blue creatures called the Na'vi. Pandora's atmosphere is not human-friendly, so they build the Avatar which is some kind of human-Na'vi hybrid body that can be controlled remotely by human operators. Our hero Jake Sully is one of the those operators.
Through his Avatar body, Jake joins a Na'vi clan called Omaticaya and ends up liking it so much, he even plotted to betray the humans and help the Omaticayans to fight those Unobtanium-stealing suckers. Jake is joined by Neytiri, a beatiful (I use this term VERY loosely) female Na'vi whom he ends up marrying and several other Omaticayan warriors. After going through some shit and against all odds, Jake and his blue-skinned friends are finally successful in making the "sky people" (humans) leave Pandora once and for all. Jake is too happy with his new life, he even requested the Omaticayans to "convert" him so that he'll be a full-blown Na'vi. Jake presumably lives happily ever after with his new wife Neytiri. The end.
OK, let's discuss the plot. Well, there's not much to discuss, really. Despite having a somewhat interesting premise, Cameron fucks it up big time. The plot is too basic, almost Disney-like. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it takes a decent-to-good writer to be able pull it off. Unfortunately, James Cameron is NOT a good writer. Avatar is almost three hours, and the first two hours is filled with shoddy storytelling and shitty dialog. "I feel you". Come on, really? I mean, REALLY? Not to mention it feels like watching a documentary on National Geographic. Sure, the CGI is fucking beautiful and whatnot but I want some substance, some meanings, some...err..STORY. Maybe Cameron should stick to making CGI and blowing stuff up.
CGI / Special Effects
The CGI in avatar is fucking awesome. The Pandora world is photo-realistic, and the Na'vis looks like real creatures instead of cartoon characters. It totally blows Gollum out of the water. Hmm, what else? Oh yeah, the action sequence. Don't get me started on the action sequence. James Cameron still got it. He still knows how to blow stuff up in glorious ways. I mean, come on, what else can you expect from the guy who engineered the uber-awesome action sequences in Terminator 2 and True Lies? Avatar is worth watching for its action sequence alone. Too bad two-third of the movie is complete and utter bore-fest.
Acting
Sam Worthington gives a good (but not great) performance in the lead role. He has that American Hero qualities that suit his character well. He somewhat reminds me of Josh Duhamel (Captain Lennox in Transformers). Maybe because they both portray military personnel in their films, and they kinda look alike. Zoe Saldana (Neytiri) is also quite good in her role. She and Worthington have some chemistry. Although it's all CGI, but the chemistry is clearly showing, and that's no small feat.
The supporting cast members (Sigourney Weaver, the uber-hot Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribissi, etc.) are also good enough, except for Stephen Lang (Col. Quaritch) who portrays his antagonistic character in a such 2-dimensional way it makes me want to puke. Maybe it's not entirely his fault. His character is just not interesting at all, no thanks to James Cameron.
Overall Impression
Despite my constant bitching, I recommend you to watch this movie. Sure, it has lots of flaws, but it's NOT a bad movie. As a matter of fact, it's a decent movie, although it's FAR from being the GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE, like many of my friends claim it to be. What are you guys smoking? Please pass me some. That has got to be some strong shit.
Final Rating: 2.5/5
White Snake Revolver has been moved to a new domain: www.wsrevolver.com. Bookmark it, memorize it, name your kids after it, I don't care. Haha. I bought the domain from my good friend from high school (Sultan Ismail College KB 2000-2002). Check out his company's site if you ever want to buy a domain and/or webhosting. He got some nice deals on variety of products. Ah, just check it the fuck out already.
BTW, WSR is using a new (free) layout because I don't have time to design a custom one. Ah, this layout is quite nice, what?
Yes, I watched New Moon (so what?). Despite my hate towards anything related to Twillight, I still watched the freakin' movie. But why? Because I fucking can, that's why. Hahaha. Anyway, if you've read my previous entry, you probably would've guessed that I won't be saying anything nice about New Moon. Why? Well, duh, because it sucks.
After realizing that the Cullens pose too much danger to Bella, Edward dumps her (what the fuck, how dare he...!) and leave town. Bella, is of course heartbroken and depressed. After months of weeping, Bella finally gets over it and finds a new love interest in Jacob Black (who is actually a werewolf). Oh, by the way, Jacob is totally ripped now. He must be on steroids or something.
Long story's short, after a series of stupid events, Edward and his family finally returns to Forks. This time, Edwards agrees to convert Bella into a vampire AND proposes to her. Before she can (presumably) accepts the marriage proposal, the movie cuts to black. *Gasp*, cliff-fucking-hanger! How intriguing! Oh, how I love sarcasm.
Great, apparently there's another Twilight movie coming soon. A typical teenage Twilight fangirl probably would say, "Yeay, I can't wait for New Moon. I'm like..., soooo excited. Edward is like...., soooo hot. I wanna like.., be like Bella when I grow up. She's like....". OK, that's enough. I just threw up in my mouth. Let's just get this thing over with. Folks, I present to to you, 10 reasons why Twilight (the books and the movies) suck.
We all know that Youtube videos can be easily downloaded using various services from the web. For example, Keepvid.com is a fairly popular site for downloading videos from Youtube, Metacafe, and several other video hosting sites.
