The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

I caught an early screening of The Crazies last night and was not expecting too much. I figured that even if the movie sucked, I didn't have to pay a cent to see it, so in that sense, it couldn't fail. So when the screen faded to black, I smiled because it turned out to be a win-win situation; it was a free and good movie. Now, apparently the movie is a remake of a classic by horror legend, George A. Romero. I've never seen or knew that the film existed so I didn't have that same baggage going in. But I'm a horror hound so I guess I'm biased as far as that goes. The movie takes place in a small farm town called Ogden located in Iowa state. We follow the sheriff as he tries to unravel three deaths that have occurred in their humble community. All the deaths were marked with intrigue as the killers were found in a zombie-like, semi-conscious, passive state. The sheriff and his deputy discover that a plane had crashed into one of the nearby lakes which serves as...

In case you didn't know, I love bad movies. I hate bad bad movies but I love bad movies. For me, it's difficult to create a scale to weigh out movies that I like or don't. For example, I love good big budget movies but I HATE bad big budget movies. Yet at the same time, I love low budget direct-to-video movies, which in a lot of cases are worst than bad big budget movies, but their lower budget gives them an endearing quality of sorts. Are you confused yet? Let's put it this way, if you're a bad movie but you went straight to video, there's a better chance that I enjoyed you more than if you had made it to the big screen. Which brings me to The Wrong Side of Town (the name of the movie and not the place of course). This was a bad movie, but I found it wildly entertaining. I think a large part of it is because it stars two major wrestlers and as a hardcore wrestling fan, it behooves me to enjoy this tripe. The poster on the left is a bit misleading though...

After watching this movie, it made me wish that I were a black guy in the 70s. Black Dynamite is a throwback to the blaxploitation movies that were popular back in the 70s. This was such a fantastic movie! The story follows Black Dynamite as he tracks down his brother's killer. What at first appears as a low-level gangland crime becomes something more as Dynamite uncovers a giant conspiracy that leads him to none other than The Man. The movie is filled with kung-fu fighting, gun blazing action, car chases, foot chases, love-making and all that good stuff that you would expect from a blaxploitation flick. Despite its limited budget, Black Dynamite succeeds in capturing the look and feel of the 70s. The clothes, the sets and all the music take a page right out of that decade. They even play on its low production value as in some scenes you'll see the boom mic dropping into the screen and Black Dynamite just looking at it. He kills the bad guys and gets the women. Michael Jai...

Last night, FreeChurch hosted a coffeehouse to the community of downtown Toronto. It was an awesome night showcasing some the young and talented musicians of the community. Drew melting hearts on the guitar. My Living Room was in charge of preparing the whole night and it was just amazing to see it basically empty at first, but have it fully decorated and filled with people 2 hours later. We did it all from setting up the sound equipment (phew!), to throwing fabrics around, placing candles around the room and even preparing all the food and drinks. Once the music started, it felt nice taking a step back, surveying the hall, watching people have a good time. Brad's band creating an atmosphere with a post-rock style. There were some good and varying sets of music; starting with more acoustic-y and melodic tunes in the beginning, to some pastor raps, ending with two full band sets. I think there was a little something for everyone. By the way, I learned quite a few things tonight. ...

It has been quite an eye opening few weeks lately, in a positive way though. It's been amazing the way kindness has been shown to me in my life. In some ways its by new friends, in other ways by close friends and in more surprising ways, by people I don't even know. It's been a humbling experience and sometimes I have to take a step back and say "wow". I've been shown so much that sometimes it becomes confusing; why am I receiving all this kindness? I don't truly understand it but I know that God is gracious, that is certain. I was looking through the Bible earlier to find some good words on kindness and I came across this in 2 Peter 1:5-6 where it talks about how we should live our lives based on everything that God has blessed us with. Specifically it reads: "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godli...

Okay, so this movie was bad, let's get that out of the way. It was a waste of time on my part, for taking time to watch it, and on their part, for taking time, money and effort in making it. Three key reasons come to mind. I think it was a mistake to show that the stepfather was a murderer from frame one. Right off the bat, we know he's a killer which takes away from a lot of the mystery that they could have built. I mean, we know from the trailers that obviously this stepfather is an evil dude, but there's no sense of suspense to it. The only "suspense" out of it are all the times the stepfather pops up in random places to scare the kids. It's not scary at all and by the third time, it comes across more as comedy to me. The second flaw, which is closely related, is the lack of motive for said stepfather. He just kills for the sake of killing, there's no rhyme or reason. He's just as mindless as Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th or the birds f...

In celebration of Avatar becoming the largest (unadjusted) grossing movie of all time, I thought I'd go back and review one of James Cameron's earlier works. It's time again to get into the wayback machine. Let's return to 1981; a time before CG in movies, before Aliens and Terminators... to a time when it was possible for James Cameron to make shitty movies. Unfathomable! I watched the original Piranha about 3 years ago and I loved it. It was the exact balance of cheekiness and horror that you'd want in a low budget horror flick. A movie trying to capitalize on the fame of Jaws except with killer piranhas, how could it be bad? It was great. This sequel? It was not. A big problem with the movie was the incoherent story. The way they cut the film made it hard to follow the main story and all the side stories of the supporting characters. On top of that, random characters are introduced, disappear and then reappear much later. As far as I can remember (yest...

This past weekend, Matt from FreeChurch (ie. the nicest guy on the planet) invited a bunch of us for a good ol' poker night at his home in Hamilton, which I dubbed The Summit of Men . It was a good time but probably one of the strangest poker games that I've played in. First, the n00b player of our game tied probably the most pro player of our group for third place. Then there were the number of bad flops that didn't seem to help anyone that much. Thirdly, the dude who looked like he was going to be the first man out of the game ended up winning the whole shebang. And lastly, there were at least 6 split pots throughout the night. Pretty unbelievable. But we all left Toronto as men and returned as warriors, so that was good. It was a good time bonding with my brethren if anything. It's been a while since I've done a movie review, but there are a crapload on the backburner. Really, I just need some time to flesh them out. It's why the past week has seen a f...

Coinciding with the launch of Army of Two: The 40th Day for the consoles was the release of the same title for the Sony PSP. Although they share the same title, the gameplay was entirely different. For the consoles, generally the game was played as a 3rd person shooter similar with Gears of War mechanics, but for the PSP, this game played more as a top down shooter, perhaps akin to something like Smash TV or the downloadable title, Zombie Apocalypse . In this game, you play as Salem or Rios (an AI player will take control of the other) as you infiltrate terrorist operations in Shanghai. Onscreen, the game is beautifully designed with nice detailing done on each of the stages. The game also incorporates comic book style in-game cut scenes which were welcomed. The voice work is also good. That's about all the good in the game. This game was crap. So many technical gaffs kept this game from being any good. The first thing that's wrong with it is its control scheme. To move...

I started listening to Howard Stern Radio again these past few weeks. I used to listen to him everyday when he was still on terrestrial radio, but not so much when he moved to satellite, only because I didn't have access to it. Anyhow, I was playing catch up and listening to Tuesday's show when Robin made a very thought provoking comment. I'm paraphrasing here, but she said, "Why is it that when people from ravaged countries come to America, they see nothing but opportunities? But the people who are born in America see nothing but obstacles?". I'm mulling over this right now, it's such an interesting thought. Later geeks!

The Road was written by author Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote No Country For Old Men which was adapted into the Academy Award winning movie. This is the first book by McCarthy that I've read and the only reason I decided to pick it up is that I wanted to go on a journey. And boy, did he bring me on a journey. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the few survivors left live their lives as scavengers and nomads, raiding each town they come across. We don't know exactly what happened to the world, but we know it's ashen, to the point where the sun is blocked out; darkness is abundant where hope is limited. Throughout the book we follow two characters only known to us as The Man and his Son. They begin somewhere in the middle of America and journey south to the coast. It's a cold world and the Man figures that it will be warmer if they headed south, but not knowing for sure. They journey from town to town scrounging for whatever morsels of food that ...

It was quite a week last week. It started off on a more heavy note last Sunday, but as the week wore on, things became better and more clear. So let's do a little recap. This is going to be kind of long, so if you find this kind of stuff boring I've inserted pictures of funny cats for your entertainment. So... 1.5 Weeks Ago About 1.5 weeks ago, my friend Jon from Living Room gave me the contact info for his uncle. His uncle is an engineer and apparently was looking for new grads and new hands to hire. That week, I gave him a few calls but he wasn't there when I called him and when he returned my calls, I wasn't here either. We were playing phone tag that week *insert schoolgirl giggle*. Sunday Morning So last Sunday morning, his uncle gave me a call at 9 am (The morning! My weakness! HISS!) and we talked about stuff. I was telling him a bit about school as well as elaborating my work/coop experience as he didn't have my resume yet. So he goes on to tell me ab...