The Billionty-Oneth Geek: Older Than 8 Since 1991

So I didn't know much about True Grit before going in. I saw the trailer once and it didn't tell me too much. All I knew was that: a.) it was a western, b.) that Jeff Bridges looked totally bad-ass as a one-eyed marshall, and c.) it was a movie done by the Coen brothers. I knew not of the story or much else, but I was sold on all those 3 points. True Grit follows the story of a young girl named Mattie Ross who seeks vengeance for her father's murder, a killer by the name of Tom Cheney (Josh Brolin). In tracking him down, she enlists the help of a drunken US Marshall (Jeff Bridges), reputed for being the toughest Marshall in the territory, as well as a Texas Ranger (Matt Damon). The band tracks Chaney down in the Indian territories, but are continually hindered by each other's presence ie. by constantly doing the equivalent of comparing their penis size. The movie is nothing short of amazing, if anything, for the performances of the main players. Jeff Bridges and Haile...

Rottentomatoes isn't always the greatest indicator of when a movie is good. Case in point, Unstoppable . Currently, it's sitting pretty with 86% positive reviews. However, that's a deceiving number. If say, 9 out of 10 reviews gave the movie a marginal thumbs up, it would end up looking like a 90% on RT. Deceiving. However, referencing RT and Metacritic will give a fairer look at the critical reviews. MC gives an aggregate score based on professional reviews, which may give a better gauge on how a certain piece of entertainment is doing. On MC, Unstoppable garnered a 69. I think that's a lot more fair than 86%. Unstoppable is a film by Tony Scott featuring frequent collaborator, Denzel Washington, and the new Captain Kirk himself, Chris Pine. It's as you've seen it in the trailers; there's a runaway train, there's Washington, there's Pine, and they try to stop it. Whatever you think would happen probably did. It's one of those sort of ...

When I got home on Friday night after seeing Black Swan, I texted my friend whom I went to see it with. I was thinking about the array of films that director Darren Aronofsky has undertaken in his film career. I texted my friend, “I don’t think it’s possible for Aronofsky to make a feel-good movie”. It makes you wonder, because as of right now, he’s attached to make the next Wolverine movie. So will it be an arthouse Wolverine movie? An existential look at everybody’s favourite mutant? So Black Swan is not a feel-good type of movie, but it is a brilliant one. The story follows an aspiring ballet dancer named Nina (Natalie Portman) who toils herself in winning the lead role in a ballet called Swan Lake. The lead role requires the dancer to take on two different styles; one representing the White Swan, who dances gracefully and perfectly, the other, representing the Black Swan, who is a more passionate and seductive character. Nina perfectly portrays the White, but has difficulty...

It's been well over a month since my last post, and I was about to post a review of Final Fantasy XIII , but I thought it’d be more appropriate to do a life update rather than a geek update… although, I am a geek, so I guess this is sort of a geek update. It’s been over two months since I started working full time and I think I’m starting to see the life balance. I lamented in a post in October that time seemed to move quick and that there wasn’t any downtime. Since then, I’ve taken a more intentional approach to taking recharge time, even if it meant sacrificing a Friday or Saturday night. But even then, time seems to zip by. Those rare free evenings quickly become coveted once midnight hits. How fast it moves. About three weeks ago, my friend Natalie at church expressed her worry with me. She said that I wasn’t smiling and didn’t seem as joyous as I usually was. I know that during that week that I felt off in someway, but it didn’t really hit me that it was physically appar...