Kitty Love

Just got back earlier in the evening from having a second viewing of Shrek 2 at the nearby SM Mall in our area of Bicutan. Seems I couldn't get enough watching the film just like how I did with other films that catch my fancy. One of the obvious things of note in that film is when Puss-In-Boots uses his "cutey-eyes" trick that is so disarming and so cute. This cat definitely earns the descriptor "kawaii" indeed. ;) This is what I mean:


Awwwwwww...nice kitty
Blog writer's note: I'll keep this image up for a while since the method done is rather...questionable to say the least. So this image will have a limited engagement.

Alternate link to seeing the kitty's pic is here.

The majority of the review on this movie is done by my friend Vinnie's blog. It a good watch I definitely say.

Another Update (Sort of...)

The home comp's OS is starting to succumb more to entropy as the damage done by this malware over two weeks ago. My plan of initiating a restoration was a failure since I haven't figured out how to manually initiate it.

Still able to run the usual functions, although with crippled shortcut functions still happening. The IE browser is giving me slight problems. It keeps crashing when I do some editting on my blog. Some program conflict or other doing it. *Sighs* I had to break out my sis' laptop to go about the job of doing the online blog edits. I just hope the window of opportunity presents itself in order to remove the comp problems once and for all. For the meantime I have to bear with this.

Blog Update

Decided to try out a new template on this blog here. I was held off trying a new one from some outside site due to some coding incompatibilities. I'll make do with this one since Blogger happens to have some new ones. I'll still have to consider doing some minor tweaking when time and creative allows. Also tweaking some settings on this thing. *Sounds of drills and hammers emanating from the doghouse.*

Genre Clichés List

Did some amusing digging on reading mention of a list of Science Fiction Clichés that was posted from Dean's blog. That prompted to look up for other cliches of a similiar vein. Just found handful that can illustrate what cliches are seen in movies or books for that matter. These are:

Horror Movie Clichés

Another Horror Clichés List

The Grand List of Fantasy Clichés

Movie Clichés

Detective Fiction Clichés

Have fun reading through these lists. ;)

Condensed Cyberpunk Cinema Classics

Decided to put in this list of articles that illustrate a select few movies that evoke or depict aspects of cyberpunk beyond the immediate view of it. Its an interesting read.

The movies listed are:

Escape From New York, Blade Runner, Tron, Videodrome, The Terminator, Max Headroom, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Robocop, Predator, Batman, La Femme Nikita, T2: Judgement Day, Sneakers, Nemesis, Leon, The Crow, Strange Days, City of Lost Children, Escape From LA, The Crow: City of Angels, Dark City, The Matrix, Unbreakable, The One

The above list and articles were taken from the R. Talsorian Games Website.

Reading these articles also puts some interesting facts to light on some matters of these movies' stories which were editted out due to some consideration or other in those times during production. It really puts whole new spin at looking for research material for a cyberpunk atmosphere or plot ideas.

Hijacked!!!

This problem on my comp has been attributed to an infamous culprit, a browser hijacker. Its basically a nasty piece of malware that attacks your browser by exploiting the known weaknesses of Microsoft's security holes in its browser and OS. These nasty digital landmines happen when one access websites of questionable nature. Whether out of curiosity or accident, its bound to lurk somewhere to assault an unsuspecting websurfer.

Secondary possibility is that a program I recently downloaded and run planted the malware and browser hijacker and screwed up some aspect of the comp's OS as well. At least the comp is not totally rendered inoperable just takes a lot longer to access the application programs directly since the shortcuts to them are rendered useless.

Still looking for ways of fixing this program monkeywrench out of my comp. I'll keep posting away as I can.

Slow...(Part 2, I think..) AKA Carded

Not much to post but was supposed to post some stuff I planned on posting but the recent week or so have been sidetracked by the file catalguing for burning into CD backup prior to restoration measures to the hard disk.

Another sidetrack consideration is my niece's recent acquisition of a YuGiOh PC game where she goes about playing it for about hours on end, if she can. She even goes about begging me to backup the game data since she didn't want to lose the data where she already acquired one of the five cards that summons Exodia, most powerful monster in the YuGiOh, besides the so-called "Lord of Cards" monster cards that was revealed on the local TV before it got rescheduled and restarted.

I'll get around to more posting any more entries when ideas and time will allow soon. Next time.

Monster Mash

Just got back from watching Van Helsing a bit after lunch time. The online reviews I read about this movie is pretty mixed for opinions about the extensive amount of CG used, mention of lack of character development, the usual cries and groans synonymous with a recently released movie Hellboy in terms of such failings.

Enough on the possible slew of critique that possibly color this review. In spite being a loud, 2 hour view, it was quite a ride as I would put it. Some of the scenes and characters on the screen would be screaming or moving towards the viewers head on, hence the mention of calling it a ride.

*Spoiler mode on* The movies starts off without any opening credit or intros and straight to the opening scene with Castle Frankenstein and its residents to be lynched and sieged by angry Romanian villagers. The following scenes in it would be all to familiar to most monster movies fans. The slight twist is that the main bad vampire, Dracula was the sponsor to Dr. Victor Frankenstein's project. The story of the movie gets set a year after the destruction of Frankenstein's Monster on the burning windmill.

Scene shifts to Van Helsing in Paris, he was on the hunt for Dr. Hyde. (Strains of LXG anyone?) Van Helsing go through a failed round of negotiating with the brute which escalates to the use of gun, tojo blades and a grappling hook pistol. After the botched bounty on Dr. Hyde, Van Helsing returns back to report to the Vatican. This little scene reflects that Van Helsing is actually a field operative for some covert arm of the Vatican that operates in secret. It kinda have the strains of LXG, given a slideshow briefing for Van Helsing and workshop area filled with gadgets and stuff being crafted and tested. Its like a late 19th-century equivalent of Q's department from 007 fame. Speaking of tech, there is some toy factor in the movie for Van Helsing to use. An autofiring crossbow for starters, the concealed Tojo Blades (Looks like flywheel operated mini-buzzsaws) and the usual standbys of twin revolvers and shotgun.

Van Helsing and faithful tech-support Friar Carl (Feels the a synonymous strain with regards to a certain espionage agent and optech person from a certain TV series. ;) ) head over to Transylvania to assist Anna Valerious in overcoming Dracula's scheme.

The rest would be left little to explain. One scene involving the masquerade ball in Budapest shows something reminiscent of Blade II, the use of a powerful "light" bomb of sorts, intense enough to illuminate the entire castle the ball was held. Said castle filled with vampires. No need to figure what happens.

The climax of the entire ride so to speak is the mano-to-mano fight between a Wolfed-up Van Helsing and Dracula in his hybrid human bat likeness. Of course, the familiarity of Wolverine comes to the fore in this movie, given Hugh Jackman played the feral Canadian mutant in the past two X movies. Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious shows a tough yet vulnerable heroine slightly different from her previous vamp movie, Underworld. Of course, Ms. Beckinsale also seems to join along Keira Knightley, of Pirates of The Caribbean fame, as a recent corset-wearing beauty.

Basically another high-octane, SFX/CGI-fest of a "check-your-brain-at-the-door-movie". Don't expect any high value in terms of characterization, plot or development. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Data Backup in Progress

*Advisory Mode* Just have to let my readers know that I'll be initiating a long period of cataloging and archiving of the computer's files I have residing in the hard disk. Some program I downloaded and used rendered all shortcuts inoperable. I had to do a period of catalog and archiving. After that, files are to be backed-up into CD since the CD-writer software wasn't affected. This problem reminded me of a previous problem many months ago which required a lengthy transfer of data since the Win98 OS was rendered inoperable due to registry problem issues. I'll just post along as to new development until I get the comp's hard disk restored.