Sunday, July 04, 2004
Happy Independence Day, Spiderman!
Alright! It's Sunday night, going to bed in about 90 minutes. What's up everyone? How was your long weekend? Anyway, to celebrate the long weekend, here's a long post! It's long because of several reviews..
So, first, I'll do the random stuff, then I'll go over Spiderman 2 and some other stuff, and then go over what happened this weekend, and how it's looking for next weekend.
(edit) - This update has been broken into two updates, for easier reading
-------- RANDOMNESS -------
I like the Beastie Boys, but they're not exciting to watch live. Vocals are okay, but they don't do much performing live, other than yelling into the microphone and hopping around on stage like a bunch of fools. Their random music videos are much more interesting.
About a week ago, during lunch time, I was flipping through channels and I started watching T3 again on TMN. First and foremost, David should never watch T3. NEVER. Anyway, in T3, the TX model, the badguy, she arrives into the world in a lingerie shop, so technically, it blew up. When I made my campaign, I just chose that at random, but... wow, maybe I apparently took it from T3. But I didn't. But I could've.
Damn pokerchips sellers... for some reason, since I'm an international (non-US) customer, they won't let me pay via paypal, although it shouldn't really matter since Paypal works in 38 countries and such. Anyway, they're forcing me to pay via money order, so that'll take a bit longer to prepare, but eventually it'll all work out.
A couple months ago, I was reading Penny Arcade, and they mentioned signing up with Square Enix, and getting a free Front Mission 4 Demo Disc for PS2 mailed to you. I'm not sure why, but I decided to sign up with Square Enix, and now, I have my demo disc for ps2. I hear it's pretty good, at least from what Penny Arcade has told me. Anyone wanna borrow it? ^^
-------------- HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, SPIDERMAN!2! ----------
Alright. Spiderman 2. After seeing Spiderman 1, I was thinking, that was a pretty good movie. Spiderman 2 should be pretty good too. I must say, while I was looking forward to it, I wasn't looking forward to it as much as, say, I was looking forward to Return of the King. Then again, maybe nobody else was too. But anyway, long story short, Spiderman 2 R0xx0red my B0xx0rs. Definately worth $9.25.
I must admit, for some reason, I didn't really like the first, say, 20 minutes. Might've been partly the commercials fault... like, I know what was going to happen, but it took a long time to get there. But, I digress, the movie was spectacular. I still don't want to say it was amazingly spectacular, just pretty great. It was better than Spiderman 1, but that doesn't mean Spiderman 1 was bad.
It's like how Return of the King is better than Fellowship of the Ring (to people like David, I mean, LOTR3 is better than LOTR1), but that doesn't mean LOTRFOTR was bad, or had something wrong with it. It was a perfectly good movie, as was Spiderman 1, but Spiderman 2 felt better.
There's something about Sequels for me... even though American Pie was probably better than American Pie 2, there's something about the comfortability of American Pie 2 that I really like. I mean, in AP1, the story was new, you had to introduce the characters to everyone, etc, etc - in AP2, you already knew most of the characters, so all the introductory character development was out of the way, and better character development and better story improvement can follow. And the comfort level of everyone knowing everyone, and I knowing everyone is there. It's like AP1 was your first year in highschool, getting to know everyone, having a blast, and AP2 is your 2nd year, where it's not as crazy, not as interesting, but you already know everyone and it just feels... right. Feels comfortable.
Anyway, I'm amazingly offtopic. In Spiderman 2, introductory character dev has been done, and now they can go into the core of Peter Parker's character, with his struggling life as he juggles *work* and school and love-life and other work and everything. As Penny Arcade briefly mentioned, the movie describes how human he is; how he is just like each and everyone of us, which allows us to feel for him and understand him.
Funny! Well, in Spiderman 1, Raimi had to establish the credibility of the movie - that is, he wanted to show the spirit of the movie, that it was an epic story, etc. - so I'll say he didn't have much space to be creative, to experiment. In Spiderman 2, the franchise has already proved its worthiness, so it felt like Sam Raimi had more space to experiment with. What I mean was, the movie was funnier. It had distinct moments where it was meant to be funny, something which wasn't seen much in the first movie.
Another thing I loved was the villain, at least, in comparison to S1. In S1, the villain was pretty much, ALWAYS a bad guy. He was an evil businessman who turned into an evil villain, and died an evil villain. In S2, he started as a loving scientist, who was driven mad and turned into a villain and then... well, no spoilers for now.
What fun is a secret if you're the only one who knows? Well, in S2, Spiderman reveals to some that he is in fact, Peter Parker. Once again, that level of comfort is there again, and it's nice... takes a load off of Peter's mind, makes him feel much more comfortable.
And it also sets a nice setting for a sequel. I heard from some friends the next villain is Venom, but even if it was another green goblin, there's a huge different this time - The villain and the hero will know each other, so that'll be... much different... and very awkward... it'll be interesting to watch.
The movie had some parts I didn't like, but that will be saved for another blog post as it ties in with other movies.
So, all my movie reviews come with the question "Will David like it?" - I'm not so sure why I do it. Maybe it's like a game, or a science experiment, but here it goes.
My general answer... well, he should watch Spiderman 1 first. He'll like that too. He'll like both for the same reasons, and dislike both for the same reasons. Both have the overlying theme of Responsibility - Peter Parker's responsibility to use his powers for good, etc... David seems to like character-struggling-with-changes, trying to fit in, trying to adapt to survive and help others around him, and this one's no different. And the fact that Peter Parker is pretty much like us (not us like humans, but us like... well, nerds, and the same age :P), makes it all the much better.
That being said, there are action sequences here and there that David can skip. Nothing overall offensive, but nothing too special. But overall, S2 is a great theme, and I recommend everyone to watch it.
On his blog, Wen mentioned/implied that there was *some* fantasy-feeling in S2 (and S1). That is, while the characters are pretty real-life-like, there's a bit of feeling of fantasy... over-the-top drama, a bit unrealistic, etc - and it is in the movie. So... if you really can't stand it, then maybe you shouldn't watch it. But other than that, it's a great movie.
--------------- INDEPENDENCE DAY ------------
Uh oh! This blog post is about to get a wee bit longer. Today is July 4th, Independence Day, and on FOX, Independence Day was on. So, as a family, we sat down and watched it. Well, a bit into the movie my sister and I had a little bet on what the dog's name was, so to verify it, we stopped watching the movie on Fox and watched it on DVD with subtitles instead. Well, neither of us won the bet, cuz she thought it was Barbar or Bubba, and I thought it was Rover, so nobody got it correct.
Anyway, after watching it again, I remember that I liked the movie. It felt a bit cheesy here and there, since it's not really a focused movie in any genre, but overall a feel good family film.
Since this is a rather old movie, we'll just skip forward to the David Section. Will David like it?
Well, there's the drama. The emotions, the feeling of despair, people trying to cope with a situation (like in Speed, which David liked for that very reason), people interacting with different things as their environment changed. Love this, love that, people doing this, people doing that.
Then there's the action and special effects sequences. Again, nothing offensive, just lots of explosions and special effects, but nothing to write home about.
Taking that into consideration, David will like exactly 50% of the movie. And the way the dvd is set up, it'll be easy to watch if he ever wants to give it a go, since the movie is separated into maybe 30 different chapters, each 3-4 minutes long. So it's easy to skip whole action sequences while not miss any non-action. But anyway, I think it was a pretty good movie.
Haven't seen the movie for a while. Brought back some memories of memorable lines. Some parts made me a bit teary... I get teary sometimes. I don't cry, but I do get teary for some reason. Got some good touching moments here and there, even if you know what will happen.
---------------- 2nd UPDATE in a few minutes ----------
On second thought, I'll end the update here, and post the 2nd half of the update in a few minutes. Makes it easier to reply to. Should've put the random stuff in the 2nd update. Oh well.
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So, first, I'll do the random stuff, then I'll go over Spiderman 2 and some other stuff, and then go over what happened this weekend, and how it's looking for next weekend.
(edit) - This update has been broken into two updates, for easier reading
-------- RANDOMNESS -------
I like the Beastie Boys, but they're not exciting to watch live. Vocals are okay, but they don't do much performing live, other than yelling into the microphone and hopping around on stage like a bunch of fools. Their random music videos are much more interesting.
About a week ago, during lunch time, I was flipping through channels and I started watching T3 again on TMN. First and foremost, David should never watch T3. NEVER. Anyway, in T3, the TX model, the badguy, she arrives into the world in a lingerie shop, so technically, it blew up. When I made my campaign, I just chose that at random, but... wow, maybe I apparently took it from T3. But I didn't. But I could've.
Damn pokerchips sellers... for some reason, since I'm an international (non-US) customer, they won't let me pay via paypal, although it shouldn't really matter since Paypal works in 38 countries and such. Anyway, they're forcing me to pay via money order, so that'll take a bit longer to prepare, but eventually it'll all work out.
A couple months ago, I was reading Penny Arcade, and they mentioned signing up with Square Enix, and getting a free Front Mission 4 Demo Disc for PS2 mailed to you. I'm not sure why, but I decided to sign up with Square Enix, and now, I have my demo disc for ps2. I hear it's pretty good, at least from what Penny Arcade has told me. Anyone wanna borrow it? ^^
-------------- HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, SPIDERMAN!2! ----------
Alright. Spiderman 2. After seeing Spiderman 1, I was thinking, that was a pretty good movie. Spiderman 2 should be pretty good too. I must say, while I was looking forward to it, I wasn't looking forward to it as much as, say, I was looking forward to Return of the King. Then again, maybe nobody else was too. But anyway, long story short, Spiderman 2 R0xx0red my B0xx0rs. Definately worth $9.25.
I must admit, for some reason, I didn't really like the first, say, 20 minutes. Might've been partly the commercials fault... like, I know what was going to happen, but it took a long time to get there. But, I digress, the movie was spectacular. I still don't want to say it was amazingly spectacular, just pretty great. It was better than Spiderman 1, but that doesn't mean Spiderman 1 was bad.
It's like how Return of the King is better than Fellowship of the Ring (to people like David, I mean, LOTR3 is better than LOTR1), but that doesn't mean LOTRFOTR was bad, or had something wrong with it. It was a perfectly good movie, as was Spiderman 1, but Spiderman 2 felt better.
There's something about Sequels for me... even though American Pie was probably better than American Pie 2, there's something about the comfortability of American Pie 2 that I really like. I mean, in AP1, the story was new, you had to introduce the characters to everyone, etc, etc - in AP2, you already knew most of the characters, so all the introductory character development was out of the way, and better character development and better story improvement can follow. And the comfort level of everyone knowing everyone, and I knowing everyone is there. It's like AP1 was your first year in highschool, getting to know everyone, having a blast, and AP2 is your 2nd year, where it's not as crazy, not as interesting, but you already know everyone and it just feels... right. Feels comfortable.
Anyway, I'm amazingly offtopic. In Spiderman 2, introductory character dev has been done, and now they can go into the core of Peter Parker's character, with his struggling life as he juggles *work* and school and love-life and other work and everything. As Penny Arcade briefly mentioned, the movie describes how human he is; how he is just like each and everyone of us, which allows us to feel for him and understand him.
Funny! Well, in Spiderman 1, Raimi had to establish the credibility of the movie - that is, he wanted to show the spirit of the movie, that it was an epic story, etc. - so I'll say he didn't have much space to be creative, to experiment. In Spiderman 2, the franchise has already proved its worthiness, so it felt like Sam Raimi had more space to experiment with. What I mean was, the movie was funnier. It had distinct moments where it was meant to be funny, something which wasn't seen much in the first movie.
Another thing I loved was the villain, at least, in comparison to S1. In S1, the villain was pretty much, ALWAYS a bad guy. He was an evil businessman who turned into an evil villain, and died an evil villain. In S2, he started as a loving scientist, who was driven mad and turned into a villain and then... well, no spoilers for now.
What fun is a secret if you're the only one who knows? Well, in S2, Spiderman reveals to some that he is in fact, Peter Parker. Once again, that level of comfort is there again, and it's nice... takes a load off of Peter's mind, makes him feel much more comfortable.
And it also sets a nice setting for a sequel. I heard from some friends the next villain is Venom, but even if it was another green goblin, there's a huge different this time - The villain and the hero will know each other, so that'll be... much different... and very awkward... it'll be interesting to watch.
The movie had some parts I didn't like, but that will be saved for another blog post as it ties in with other movies.
So, all my movie reviews come with the question "Will David like it?" - I'm not so sure why I do it. Maybe it's like a game, or a science experiment, but here it goes.
My general answer... well, he should watch Spiderman 1 first. He'll like that too. He'll like both for the same reasons, and dislike both for the same reasons. Both have the overlying theme of Responsibility - Peter Parker's responsibility to use his powers for good, etc... David seems to like character-struggling-with-changes, trying to fit in, trying to adapt to survive and help others around him, and this one's no different. And the fact that Peter Parker is pretty much like us (not us like humans, but us like... well, nerds, and the same age :P), makes it all the much better.
That being said, there are action sequences here and there that David can skip. Nothing overall offensive, but nothing too special. But overall, S2 is a great theme, and I recommend everyone to watch it.
On his blog, Wen mentioned/implied that there was *some* fantasy-feeling in S2 (and S1). That is, while the characters are pretty real-life-like, there's a bit of feeling of fantasy... over-the-top drama, a bit unrealistic, etc - and it is in the movie. So... if you really can't stand it, then maybe you shouldn't watch it. But other than that, it's a great movie.
--------------- INDEPENDENCE DAY ------------
Uh oh! This blog post is about to get a wee bit longer. Today is July 4th, Independence Day, and on FOX, Independence Day was on. So, as a family, we sat down and watched it. Well, a bit into the movie my sister and I had a little bet on what the dog's name was, so to verify it, we stopped watching the movie on Fox and watched it on DVD with subtitles instead. Well, neither of us won the bet, cuz she thought it was Barbar or Bubba, and I thought it was Rover, so nobody got it correct.
Anyway, after watching it again, I remember that I liked the movie. It felt a bit cheesy here and there, since it's not really a focused movie in any genre, but overall a feel good family film.
Since this is a rather old movie, we'll just skip forward to the David Section. Will David like it?
Well, there's the drama. The emotions, the feeling of despair, people trying to cope with a situation (like in Speed, which David liked for that very reason), people interacting with different things as their environment changed. Love this, love that, people doing this, people doing that.
Then there's the action and special effects sequences. Again, nothing offensive, just lots of explosions and special effects, but nothing to write home about.
Taking that into consideration, David will like exactly 50% of the movie. And the way the dvd is set up, it'll be easy to watch if he ever wants to give it a go, since the movie is separated into maybe 30 different chapters, each 3-4 minutes long. So it's easy to skip whole action sequences while not miss any non-action. But anyway, I think it was a pretty good movie.
Haven't seen the movie for a while. Brought back some memories of memorable lines. Some parts made me a bit teary... I get teary sometimes. I don't cry, but I do get teary for some reason. Got some good touching moments here and there, even if you know what will happen.
---------------- 2nd UPDATE in a few minutes ----------
On second thought, I'll end the update here, and post the 2nd half of the update in a few minutes. Makes it easier to reply to. Should've put the random stuff in the 2nd update. Oh well.