Which You Are You?

HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HA, HA!!!!!

GOTCHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Hunger Games Was Almost Too Good

The Hunger Games was good; almost too good.

Let me explain.

Lionsgate's film adaptation of the Suzanne Collins book was spot on!  The producers should be congratulated for matching the novel's tone so well.  Every characters was portrayed exactly how I imagined them from reading the story.  Everything was perfect, which is the one problem with this movie.

Don't get me wrong, I loved it!!  The acting, cinematography, writing and directing were all fantastic! It's just that, if you had read the book, there were really no surprises.  I usually complain that filmmakers take too much liberty when converting something from the written page to celluloid, but in the case of The Hunger Games they could have done a little more. 

To us the old "it's not you, it's me" cliché; maybe I'm the problem.  It is possible that I need to stop reading books that eventually get made into movies.  Case in point; the last film I saw was John Carter.  Hardly knew anything of the story and enjoyed it immensely!   

Or, I need a book and movie buffer zone.  I did just finish The Hunger Games a couple weeks ago, so a bigger grace period between novel-reading and movie-going possibly needs to be implemented.

One final possibility is that I should start watching more bad movies, which almost never happens with me.  That way, when a "better" film like The Hunger Games comes around it really stands out.

Again, to be clear, this movie is just about perfect, except for, it's maybe too perfect? 

By the way, I really hope Jennifer Lawrence gets nominated for a ton of awards for playing such a strong female role in Katniss Everdeen.  And that Hollywood finally wakes up and realizes that moviegoers like to see heroic female characters such as this.

So, in conclusion; go see The Hunger Games!  It's exactly the movie you were expecting, if you've read the novel.  For those who haven't, you may like it even more.

Before You See 'John Carter'

I've been looking forward to seeing Disney's film adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story of John Carter for a long time!  As the release day got closer I kept on seeing stories about how the movie was tracking negatively and that it might be a complete failure.  But there were also positive signs, including  reviews about how good the film was.

Now, after finally seeing John Carter I'm happy to report that those in the later camp were right!  It was really a great movie but, before you see it, here's a few things to know.

Keep in mind that I've not read any of the Barsoom series of novels or knew much about the story going into the film. If you want to enjoy it as much as I did, do the following.

Suspend all disbelief.


Forget what you know about science or anything you've ever learned about Mars.  Accept the fact that there is life on the red planet (Barsoom,) and that humans have super strength and abilities more than he or she would on Mars, given the gravitational conditions.

Enjoy the ride.


Buckle up, make sure your hands are inside the vehicle at all times and don't forget to drink the magic water that allows you to understand the languages spoken on Mars.  What I did was accept everything that was presented to me as fact and just enjoy the ride.  The less analysis you do, the better off you'll be.

It's a fantasy.

The filmmakers were smart for not getting too bogged down in details or technobable.  I think if you were to try to explain every little thing it would ruin the magic. And that's why I'm not calling John Carter a science fiction.  It's a fantasy.

Reasons I like the movie.


Okay, now the specific things that I liked about John Carter...

- It was shot beautifully!  From real life sets to the computer generated kind everything just looked stunning.  I even liked the look of the 3D, which it was converted to.

- It was funny!  You wouldn't think it, judging from all of the "action" trailers of Taylor Kitsch fighting the baddies but there were a lot of humorous moments in John Carter.  And, not funny ha, ha either, or pratfalls but comedy that just felt natural.  The characters and actors seemed to have a really good chemistry.

One of my favorite parts in the movie was early on when the Union Colonel (played by Bryan Cranston), was trying to  get the former Confederate Captain Carter to work for the Army.  John kept on escaping, which was presented in a quick series of cut takes.

I was also very impressed with Taylor Kitsch too.  I've been a fan of his for a while from his time on Friday Night Lights and this role really cements him as an action star of the future.

And last but not least, the character of Dejah Thoris (Princess of Helium) played by Lynn Collins was a strong female protagonist who was not only beautiful but also smart (a scientist.)  She is a really good role model for young girls going to see this movie.

So take with you what I wrote here to John Carter!  You'll be glad that you did.

Retro Robots

So, I thought it would be a cool thing to do kind of a follow-up blog to my last entry about retro rockets but this time post some pictures of retro robots.

I think they are equally as cool love the nostalgic feel.  When the singularity finally comes, I for one will welcome our retro robot overlords.

Startling Comics #49 from 1948

Art by Brian Despain

From Robots.net

Retro Rockets and Stuff

One of my favorite things in the whole wide world is retro looking rockets and stuff.  Basically art created in the past depicting what they thought things in the future might look like, especially spaceships and robots.  This post is a collection a few images that I found online.

From vintagefuture.tumblr.com

From darkroastedblend.com

From blog.smithsonianmag.com

From darkroastedblend.com

Greetings From 2112

Hello from the future!  I've commandeered this persons web log to communicate with you, the people of the 21st century to assure you that humans do survive past 2012.  After reading some of the history files of your era that whole Mayan calendar thing seemed like a big deal so I just wanted to put your minds to rest.

Let me back up a little.  The Mayans were right, our world did come to an end on December 21st but luckily there was a fleet of alien ships waiting to rescue us.  The Creeedithoscarlats were a race of creatures that were big fans of the television transmissions that we beam into space from Earth, particularly those of a show called "Jersey Shore." They wanted to meet someone named "Snooki" so we really have to be thankful for bad taste.  The Creeds had heard about the possible end of the world through the broadcasts and thought they should come, just in case the predictions came true.  Wow, what are the chances right?

Anyway, here we are on Earth 2.  Yeah, it's not a very creative name but after the war of 2015 over what to call our new home, the Democrats and Republicans compromised on something simple and easy to remember.  Oh, I forgot to tell you, after the move it was decided that our new world would be governed by the U.S. leaders.  The educations system hasn't been the same since.  

2112 will mark 100 years and we're planning a big anniversary celebration this coming December. The first thing our scientists did, thanks to the mandatory DNA storing bill of 2013, were to clone the members of Canadian rock band Rush, so they could perform their album 2112 in it's entirety.  The cloning process isn't exactly perfect and Neil Pert 2 doesn't keep time as well as the original so his android counterpart is standing by, just in case things don't go as planned.

Speaking of androids, Steve Jobs Mark IV will also be appearing at the anniversary.  Of course he'll be at a different location and it won't part of the official celebration.  He's expected to announce the iPhone 104S, rumored to be even smaller than the iPhone 104 but it may also just be a software upgrade since it was just last year that the device became something that is now implanted in a persons brain.  Of course the Apple faithful will get the surgery again but experts believe most new business will come from people switching over from Windows Phone.

So, there you have it, the news from 2112.  I'd better wrap this up before the singularity I'm using to transmit this back through time closes.  One more thing though, Google+ does survive but now it's called Google Infinity.

Happy New Year.   

Life In A Day

I just got done watching the YouTube movie Life In A Day and all I have to say is WOW! Sorry for yelling but I was blown away by this film.

In case you're not familiar with Life in a Day, it's a crowd-sourced documentary film comprising an arranged series of video clips selected from 80,000 clips submitted to the YouTube video sharing website, the clips showing respective occurrences from around the world on a single day, July 24, 2010.

In my opinion this movie should be required viewing for everyone living on this planet.  Not only because it shows how similar we all are but at the same time demonstrates our differences. For example, one segment featured a wife separated from her husband, who is serving in Afghanistan and at the same time in Kabul a young Afghani photographer gives a tour of his city to show how hopeful he is for the country's future.

The film was put together in chronological order and showed the daily life of people from all across the globe, performing all the same tasks you and I do on a daily basis.

Life In A Day was beautiful and gross at the same time, from the father and child waking up somewhere in Asia and saying good morning then lighting incense for the mother and wife they had lost.  To the killing in the slaughter house of a cow in a scene that seemed to last forever.

It was also both sad and uplifting, from the little boy earning his living shining shoes on a Saturday, to the montage of births, both human and animal.

I believe that if everybody saw this documentary, there would be a little less war and a tad bit more peace in the world.  

Go ahead and watch Life In A Day now below.