Little Miss.

I usually don’t buy movies because of a good soundtrack, but there is a first time for everything. When I flew to Australia, one of the in-flight movies was Sunshine, a nice science fiction movie with a spectacular soundtrack and some marvelous video photography even on the crappy LCD screen in the back of the seat in front of me. For some time I’ve been looking for the movie OST, but a little digging around in the interweb has revealed that the soundtrack was never released and probably never will. You can find an unofficial version floating around on the web, but it’s only a rip of the music straight off the DVD.

When I was grocery shopping today, I noticed that they had the Sunshine DVD for sale (grocery shops sell all kinds of stuff these days) and decided to go for it. If it was a good movie on the plane, it’s very likely that it’s a good movie in our living room as well.

6 Movies You Should Avoid At All Cost.

Every now and then I do a Games You Should Play or Movies You Should Watch feature. Now I’ve decided to make a small twist and make a list of 6 Movies You Should Avoid At All Cost.

The reason for this is not that you should stop going to the movies, it’s just that it looks like there are so many bad movies being released in the next few weeks and months it’s almost depressing for movie lovers like myself. For some reason, they are all comedies. Maybe it’s just me that has run out of a sense of humor? Continue reading "6 Movies You Should Avoid At All Cost."

The Simpsons Movie.

I’m a great fan of the The Simpsons cartoon and proud owner of all the seasons released on DVD so far. I’ve seen each of them at least twice, which does not make me their number one fan by far, but I’m at least among, say, the top five million.

If you have seen one of the three trailers for the movie, you have probably noticed that it’s simply impossible to figure out the plot. With some movies you really don’t have to see anything but the trailer to know everything about it, which can be a good thing because you save a lot of money.

So when you sit down to watch The Simpsons Movie you have no idea what to expect and I’m not planning to spoil the fun by telling you about it here. The movie is like seeing four The Simpsons episodes in a row, for me it was quite a few laughs, but I never had any problems breathing at the same time. That said, it’s all good fun, Simpsons style. I’m not sure why FOX let the writers kick them in the nuts so often; but I’m guessing it’s because the family of five is a gold mine for the network.

I’ve read a review where the author complained about the low quality of the animation and compared it to the works of animation studios like Pixar, writing that the animation in The Simpsons Movie far below Pixar’s superior quality. I’m not sure how it’s even possible to make that comparison as Pixar works exclusively in the 3D animation realm and a Simpsons movie made up exclusively of CG graphics would have looked plain stupid. Even though there are some CG in The Simpsons Movie, they are mostly sticking to their faithful Korean 2D drawers and I love it.

This movie can be watched by both hard core fans and people who are not at all familiar with the Simpsons. There is something in there for everyone, but I guess that the fans will be the ones getting the more subtle jokes.

And remember, the movie is not finished before the end credits are over. Sit through it all and you’ll be awarded.

Transformers.

I grew up with Transformers and naturally I was rather excited when the motion picture was announced two years ago. There is a problem with getting too excited about anything, though; the more excited you are, the greater the risk of disappointment.

The plot is not very complicated: Two fractions of autonomous robots, the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons have fought a war over a mystical talisman, the Allspark, that has ruined their homeworld. Whoever controls the Allspark is granted unlimited power. Some time during the war, the Allspark was lost in space. The Autobots are on its trail and has traced it to Earth, but of course the Deceptions are not far behind. Unless the Autobots can stop them, they’ll soon find the Allspark and destroy Earth in the process. The stage is set for some serious monster robot action.

Now, let’s talk about disappointment. There was none. It was quite the opposite, really, the movie was even better than I’d hoped. Michael Bay has done a brilliant job, turning a cartoon into an epic movie. It’s crammed with humor, an extremely hot heroine (not the drug, moron), and of course robots. Literary tons and tons of giant robots, all of them so detailed you almost believe they are not computer generated, but real, mechanical beasts.

You should go see this movie and go home and build your own robot afterwards.

Be warned though, if you had no knowledge of Transformers before the movie was announced, you’re probably going to be left with another impression of the movie when the end credits roll.

Somewhat Incoherent.

Last week was quite productive if you can measure productivity in the number of entries posted. This week, however, you should not expect the same amount of rambling; mediocre project planning at work and important client’s mysterious need to set deadlines at the same time has turned this week into hell-on-earth. I’m expecting to work at least 12 hour days.

12 hours might not sound too bad, and it would not have been that bad if I had the chance to focus on one task at the time, thus being effective. Instead I have to continuously multitask between tasks thanks to the constant stream of incoming e-mails and phone calls. To be able to stay reasonably focused when working with more than one thing at the same time is a challenge and can be quite stressful at times. There is also a limit of how many tasks I’m able to handle at any given time and when I reach my limit, I have to start to prioritize - something I’m not that good at because I try to give every client my undivided attention, which is impossible. Continue reading "Somewhat Incoherent."