Friday, August 27, 2010

Off to the Fan Expo

FanExpo Hey guys. I’ll be heading down to the Fan Expo this weekend.  For those that don’t know the FanExpo is a large comic book, Sci-Fi, Anime and Gaming expo that takes place in Toronto each year.  I’ve been going there now for maybe close to 10 years and I’ve watched it grow from a much smaller convention to the massive convention this year.

For those that are interested there are a great number of guests coming down from Felicia Day to Stan Lee to Adam West will be down there this weekend and I hopefully will get the chance to meet some of these people. 

In any case I hope to put up a post next week about what I saw down at the Expo.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Scott Pilgrim vs. The Matrix

I must say I like these Mash-Up videos.

For anyone wondering, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is actually a pretty good movie. I few weeks ago, I was a bit sceptical that Scott Pilgrim would be any good, but all of the reviews gave it good reviews. So I went last week to see it and it was quite funny.

So if you haven’t yet gone out to see Scott Pilgrim, make sure you see it before it leaves the theatre.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Do We Need Another Indy?

71indianajones I think so.

Last weekend, IGN put up an article questioning if we need another Indiana Jones film? I happen to think so, but I do have to agree with this line of questioning. Let me explain.

As the post points out, the last Indian Jones wasn’t exactly the greatest of the series. In many ways the film did not live up to the Indy name. Sure as an action film it was ok, but given the high standard set by the original Indy films, Indian Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fell short of the series expectations. And so it’s reasonable for anyone to ask if it’s a wise idea for Spielberg and Lucas to continue making Indy films if they don’t live up to the originals.

Certainly, George Lucas and Spielberg do have the right to make Indy films, I just wonder if it would be a better idea to do a reboot and reinvent the character. By doing a reboot the fans that grow up with Indy can have their series of films and the new generation can have their own series of Indy films.

But I must admit that I would love to see another “good” Indy film. What about you?

Monday, August 23, 2010

Apple Patents New Security Software

iPhone Don’t you feel safer?

Over the weekend, Engadget reported on a new and disturbing security software that Apple has filed a patent for. According to this new patent, Apple’s new security software is aimed at protecting consumers phones that have been stolen. Apparently, this new security software will be able to detect unauthorized users by detecting if there is a different face or voice using the phone, etc. Carriers using this new security software will be able to perform a remote wipe of a phone or shut it down.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the new security software will be able to detect if the phone is jail broken. Now I find this to be a little interesting given the timing of this new security software. Recently, it was declared to be legal to jail break your iPhone, while previously Apple threatened those who jail broke their iPhone’s with legal action, as they said it violated the DMCA copy right laws. Could Apple be using this new “security software” to prevent people from jail breaking their iPhones? The truth is we can’t be certain.

All in all, I find this new security software to be a bit creepy. Hopefully it will be strictly opt in and won’t be forced onto iPhone users. Since I can’t help but feel that this new security software will lead to some abuse by the carriers using it.

What do you think?

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Has M. Night Become a Joke?

As some of you may know, I haven’t really been a huge fan of M. Night Shyamalan as of late. The truth is I haven’t really been interested in many of M. Nights films and those that I might go out to see, were severally slammed by critics and from friends that had seen these films, and so the end result was I haven’t seen many of M. Night’s films.

Other than The Sixth Sense, Signs and Unbreakable none of M. Night’s directed films have done well critically, which is kind of sad. M. Night has had a ton of upfront success critically and then has been slowly sliding off into obscurity.

This brings me to yesterday, were I finally had a chance to sit down and watch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which by the way is a great movie. As is the custom, before the film started they showed trailers for upcoming films and the trailer for “Devil” came up. Devil’s trailer started off interesting enough, but as they went into the concept of the film, I started to hear people heckling or laugh at the trailer, someone behind me said the film was garbage. As the trailer went on and they dropped M. Night’s name as is the custom with all of M. Nights films I found myself losing interest. Which lead me to the question of whether or not M. Night’s career was over? Or at the very least, over in the eyes of the audience?

The truth is, M. Night still has some box office numbers, but you can see a bit of a downward slide over his last several films, other than The Last Airbender which came with a built in audience. M. Night is still profitable, but his profitability is declining.

Personally, I think M. Night needs to take a break and do some smaller films and then come back and do a big budget film.  Then again,  I could be wrong. So what do you think?

Monday, August 16, 2010

Expendables Rule the Theatres

the-expendables-2010 Yes.

As many of you already know, this past weekend saw the release of “The Expendables”, “Eat, Pray, Love” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”. All of these films were, at least I thought, quite high profile films and thus I assumed that by the end of the weekend it might be kind of close in terms of which film would win this 3 legged race. But clearly things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would.

When the dust finally settled this weekend, The Expendables clearly cemented themselves at the top of the Box Office with an estimated $35 million followed by Eat Pray Love with $23.7 Million. Yes the men have reclaimed the theatre, or so I think. The weird thing about this weekend is that none of the women I know went to see Eat Pray Love, all of them saw The Expendables so maybe us men aren’t quite as victorious.

The big surprise of the weekend was that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World bombed with about $10.5 million. I seriously thought that Scott Pilgrim would win this weekend, since Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was the film that a lot of people were talking about. Scott Pilgrim even had midnight showings at a bunch of theatres. The fact that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World only brought in $10.5 million is a big disappointment. In any case, I feel that once word of mouth about the film gets out the numbers will pick up.

So what film did you see this weekend?

VIA

Friday, August 13, 2010

Tonights the Night

Calling all men.

Tonight's the night we begin to take back our theatres. Many of you may remember the challenge that The Expendables put forward in the trailer I posted above. This weekend we’ll finally see if that clever piece of marketing will pay off.

But, there will be some steep competition this weekend from Eat, Pray, Love and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Personally, I think that Scott Pilgrim will take the box office this weekend, but I want to see The Expendables beat Eat, Pray, Love this weekend, so I’ll be heading out to see The Expendables.

So what will you be seeing this weekend?

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Is the Superhero Genre Dead?

The truth is I don’t know.

As many of you may have heard Matthew Vaughn, the director of the upcoming X-Men First Class, has publically stated that he believes that the Superhero genre is near death. As you can see from the above video the panel feels that Matthew Vaughn is wrong. But perhaps, Matthew Vaughn is right. Let me Explain.

Matthew in his statement said that he felt that he would probably only have the opportunity of directing a Superhero film about “2 or 3 more times”. Considering the fact that many of these big budget movies usually require between 2 to 3 years to produce were are talking about a time scale of about 6-9 years. In such a time scale, a lot of things could happen. Well that is assuming that Matthew doesn’t work on films concurrently. If that were to happen, we could be talking about a death in maybe 2-5 years.

Could the Superhero genre be dead in 2-5 years? The truth is I find it hard to believe, yet I feel that it could happen. In the land of Hollywood they have a habit of beating things to death. Superheroes are hot in Hollywood right now and so there is a ton of Superhero films coming out each and every year. With so many films in this one genre it could possible happen that people will get fatigued by these films.

Now mind you, many of these Superhero films have been pretty good, and in general good films can keep an audience. If the Superhero films were to go the way of say the 3-D films were there are a lot of bad films released, I could believe that the Superhero genre could die, but until then, I think the Superhero genre will be around for a little while longer. How much longer will be determined by whether or not Hollywood continues to produce good movies in the Superhero genre.

So what are your thoughts on this? Do you think Superhero films are dead?

VIA

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Christoph Waltz is a Lizard

spiderman-lizard Well that is if the rumours are true.

As many of you already know, Spiderman under the helm of Sam Raimi was cancelled earlier this year, and the decision was made at that point to recast and start the Spiderman series over again. If the rumours are true Dylan Baker has been a casualty of this great fall out. You may remember that Dylan Baker played Curt Connor, Lizard’s alter-ego in the 3 previous Spiderman films. And there was speculation before Raimi’s departure, that he would in the fourth film finally become the Lizard.

But alas, according to the new rumours Christoph Waltz is now in talks to play Curt Connors. Which by the way, I don’t really mind? I think Christoph Waltz is an amazing actor and he would definitely be a great addition to the Spiderman franchise. It just sucks for Dylan that he won’t get a chance to play the Lizard. But I guess that’s just Hollywood.

Whatever the case, we’ll just have to wait and see if the rumours are true. After all, 9 times out of 10 these casting rumours turn up empty. Let’s just hope they are true this time.

VIA

Will Killer Croc be in Batman 3?

Killer_Croc I’ll admit it’s a very small chance.

The Movie Blog is reporting that Batman 3 could possibly be shot largely in New Orleans. According to CinemaBlend, there is a deal in the works to have a large portion of the Dark Knight sequel shot in New Orleans due to the tax incentives that New Orleans is offering for film productions.

Now this I know doesn’t mean anything, since if they chose their locations right, they can make New Orleans seem just like any city. But I was just wondering if Christopher Nolan might make the decision to through in Killer Croc as a villain for the third Batman film? Personally, I think it would be kind of cool to see just how Nolan would handle a character like Killer Croc. But alas, if the rumours are true The Riddler may already be on tap as Batman’s next villain, and so Killer Croc may not make a good fit.

Then again, I guess will just have to wait and see.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Is Apple Patenting Third Party Apps?

Gizmodo is reporting that it appears Apple has filed for a number of patents for applications that seem oddly similar to Third Party Apps they already carry in their App store.

whereto-patent

Above you will see a picture of a side by side of the “Where to” App from Apples app store, with a picture from their patent filling. Looking at this with the naked eye it seems that they are pretty much the same application, so one has to wonder why Apple would try to patent an already existing application made by a third party? Is it simply a case where too people thought up the same idea around the same time? Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be the case that Apple slipped up.

In an update to the article, Gizmodo referenced a TechCrunch article in which they found that Apple had done a similar thing for another App called “Guide You Amsterdam”. Hopefully this is all some huge misunderstanding by some tech journalists, but personally this does look a little suspicious.

So what do you think?

8 Year Old Explains The Expendables

I guess you can tell it’s a bit of a slow month.

The truth is it’s kind of been a slow uninteresting month, so as you can kind of tell I’ve been slowing down here over on this blog. Other than simply being short on time, there hasn’t been a lot of news to be impressed about lately. A lot of the big films are already out and a lot of the big tech conferences are over.

I guess it is to be expected, after all its summer.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

The Wave has Ended

google_wave_logo Does anyone care?

Yesterday, Google announced on their official blog that they will stop development of their Google Wave service. For most of you, you probably never even heard about this Google service and you probably won’t care to much that it’s gone. So I’ll try and describe just what Google Wave was. Google Wave was a Twitter like collaboration tool that Google created and released last year, which allowed its users to have conversations in real time, as well as share videos and collaborate on documents, etc.

Google Wave for the most part, suffered from the fact that it mostly misunderstood by its users. For those that got what they could do with Google Wave there was nothing but praise, but for most of use, including myself, we really didn’t find much of a use for it.

Personally, I believe that if Google did more to educate people on the benefits of the service, more people would use it. But alas, I guess it’s too late.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Update: E-mail banned in UAE

images Well that’s for BlackBerry anyways.

Do you like using your BlackBerry? Do you like how it pushes out your e-mails and messages to your phone? If you do, don’t travel to the UAE or you may be a bit unhappy.

Engadget is reporting that United Arab Emirates’ Telco overseers have decided to ban RIM services. That’s right, no one in the UAE will be able to browse the internet, send messages or e-mail on their Blackberry devices effective as of this October. And for those of you that like BBM, it will be banned as of the end of this month.

By now you’re probably asking yourself why the UAE has decided to take this step. Well its actually quite simple. The UAE currently can’t monitor their customers activates on a Blackberry, so they have decided to ban the services in order to try and pressure RIM to divulge user’s activities when needed. So because the various overseers can’t spy on BlackBerry users, they have just decided to ban their services.

I really feel sorry for the people of the UAE. Personally, I hope that RIM puts down their feet and decides not to hand over user data. I don’t know much about the laws in the UAE, so it would be awful if someone was punished due to breaking some strange law.

Update:  It appears that Saudi Arabia doesn't want to be out done by the UAE and will be implementing their own ban on RIM Services.

Mark Ruffalo is the New Hulk

ruff2 I don’t know what to think about this one.

Many of you might remember me reporting a few of weeks ago, that Marvel had decided to drop Edward Norton as the Hulk due to his less than co-operative nature. Well over the weekend it was announced that Mark Ruffalo will be replacing Edward as Bruce Banner, but I’m just not sure what to make of this.

Mark Ruffalo isn’t exactly a lead actor. He probably could be a lead, but everything I’ve seen him in had him in a supporting role. So does this mean that there will be no more Hulk films? There doesn’t seem to be any news to confirm this, either way.

Whatever the case, I guess we’re going to have to wait to see what happens. Personally, I would love to see another Hulk film, but I have doubts that it will happen.

VIA