escapePLOD - Blog of Wade Bowers

Back Again + Movie Review

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:00:32 -060

When I created this blog it was mostly because I knew I needed to learn php. The school I was attending at the time did not have any classes that taught any php. I guess that has changed, but too late for me. I completely stopped posting for a good amount of time because frankly I didn't have anything to post about. Learning php sort of took a backside when I found a few internships in the area. After the internships ended I kind of just abandoned this blog. But have no fear, I intend to start posting reviews. What I intend on reviewing is kind of up in the air, it just depends on what I have at the time. Expect to see a lot of music and movie reviews, but you could see anything from a comic to a new pen I picked up.

Instead of talking about stuff that really doesn't matter all day I'll review a movie that I watched recently. Recently I watched an excellent color noir film called Chinatown. This films stars Jack Nicholson as a private detective J.J Jake Gittes. He manages to uncover some nasty business while investigating an affair. He also manages to get into a bunch of nasty situations. Roman Polanski directs the action in such a way that tension is constantly building. The action isnt the only thing in this film that are tense.

Tension is a primary factor in Gittes relationship with Ms. Mulray. They are constantly biting at each other and it makes for a very interesting love story. Chinatown will have you on the edge of your seat with both action and some romance. This movie is a definite recommendation to anyone that likes the medium.

Also have you seen the amazing cover design for the film? I looked up who designed the poster and Jim Pearsall did the artwork while the design was done by Diener-Hauser.

I just love almost everything about it. The amount of black space at the bottom is so great. It just allows the text to do its own thing. It even invades right into the artwork with "Chinatown" displayed greatly. The artwork itself is also absolutely stunning. Definitely gives you an idea of what the films vibe is going to be like.

2009 Movie Round-up Pt. 2

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:31:55 -050

It's been awhile since the first part of my movie round-up. I have been busy with work and an internship so I haven't really had time to type up my thoughts on the other movies of 2009. In order to keep this somewhat concise I will mostly focus on the best movie of 2009. But before I do that I want to mention a few movies from last year that you absolutely have to see. (500) Days of Summer is an excellent romantic comedy that surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. District 9 is an amazing scifi movie that was crafted with a very low budget, definitely a must see for any fan of scifi or action. Lastly I have to mention Moon because it was one of my favorites of last year. The cinematography is amazing and it is one of the most beautiful films from '09. Sam Rockwell shows that he is an absolutely amazing actor and does it while mainly working with by himself.

Those are some great movies that came out in 2009, but I believe that the best one to grace us was Inglourious Basterds. The tension in Basterds was absolutely insane. There were times where it felt like I was holding my breath until the scene came screaming to its climax. In some of Tarantino's other films the photography seems to be there to make a scene look cool or add style. In Basterds it added a thick layer of tension that made some sections unbearably beautiful.

Here is my Criticker review of Inglourious Basterds:

"Such a great film. The tension throughout this film was really amazing. There were more than a few moments throughout this film where I was holding my breath waiting for the tension to break and the scene to literally snap into action. I was surprised that the title characters weren't the most interesting, that spot is left for Christoph Waltz's character. If you have no interest in this film I think you still should see it for his performance."

To expand more on Cristoph Waltz; I think he was brilliant. He was by far the best acted character in the film. Some could argue that the movie as a whole wouldn't have worked as well if he didn't absolutely nail his part. I really hope this makes his career grow because the man can act. Definitely check out all the movies in this section, you will have a hard time not finding something to like in each one of them.

2009 Movie Round-up Pt.1

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:11:26 -060

2009 Movie Round Up pt.1

I want to briefly talk about the movies I saw that came out in 2009. By no means did I have enough time to see every movie that came out last year, but I saw a good number of them. I will start with the lows of '09 and work my way up to the movies that blew me away. This first part will cover the movies that were either bad or just decent.

First up; X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I came into this movie with extremely low expectations due to X-Men 3 being a complete turd and it still managed to disappoint. Basically I was looking for a mindless action movie, and what I got was an extremely boring movie starring actors that seemed bored.

Observe and Report was a movie that seemed really cool to me from the trailers. It seemed like a Taxi Driver homage with comedy thrown in. I ended up not caring much for the movie. At the start I was having quite a bit of fun, but it just seemed to go downhill fast towards the midway point. The main character SUCKED. That doesn't mean Seth Rogen did a bad job, rather he nailed it. He played a completely unlikable person perfectly.

Next up we have Terminator Salvation which is a movie that could have been so much more. The action scenes were filmed quite well, and were quite fun to watch. The plot was just mediocre and filled with characters that I didn't care about.

If you want to have a fun time watching an action movie check out Taken. While overall not the best movie ever made it still is quite a bit of fun.

The most expensive movie to make on this list is Avatar.

Here is my Criticker review of the movie:

"Avatar is a technical feat and not much else. Beyond enjoying the special effects and cool ways the 3D was used I didn't find a ton of enjoyment out of the movie. The script had me rolling my eyes due to being very predictable and shallow. The characters were all cliche and I didn't really care for any of them. Also, I started to get burnt out towards the end, they could have cut a good helping of stuff. After typing this it sounds like I hated it, but I merely thought it was decent."

Lastly on this side of the list we have Zombieland. This movie is in the horror comedy road trip genre. Zombieland was quite a lot of fun to watch. There were some pretty neat action scenes with some cool special effects. They used a mix of digital and old school effects to make all the zombie slaughtering look sweet.

The comedy surrounding the action was decent, it never really made me laugh out loud (besides one very obvious scene). Overall though, I think Zombieland is a pretty cool movie.

My next update will cover the movies I thought were better than these movies.

Portfolio Open House!

Welcome to the LCC Portfolio Open House!

This site is my content management system. I have designed a back-end in PHP that allows users not familiar with coding a site to update their page. Right now the site is just a standard blog, but the code could be adapted to work with any type of site. If you are interested in demoing the site, just let me know!

New Television

I recently purchased a new Samsung LN46B650. It's my first really big purchase since I've been working for my own money. I have to say, it feels really nice to have your hard work pay off.

I have had about a week to test the tv out and it has some really neat features. Connecting it to the internet gives it the ability to stream from youtube, access twitter, read the news, weather, and a bunch of other unnecessary things. The internet features are really cool, but I just don't see myself ever really needing to use them. Plus they all run pretty slow, because, well it's running off a TV. The LN46B650 also has 120Hz features which I don't fully understand. When I turn 120Hz mode to 'Standard' movies look like they were shot with a handicam, and video games look equally goofy. If I set the mode to 'Clear' everything looks normal. I'll have to research 120Hz a little more, but I think the different settings increase either dejudder or anti-blur, I have to figure out which is the bad setting.

The picture is absolutely gorgeuos and has gotten me back into watching lots of movies. This past week I have watched for the first time Coraline, Point Break, Observe and Report, and Brüno on Blu-ray. Coraline was fantastic I gave it an 87/100 on Criticker:

"I'll start with the obvious. The animation is amazing. If you end up having little interest in the plot, the animation makes it hard to look away. There were some slow sections, but I barely cared. The voice acting was really good, especially Ian McShane as Bobinsky and Keith David as the cat. Lovely movie, worth a watch just to prove that stop-motion is still awesome."

Point break was really goofy, way goofier then I had anticipated. Pretty funny though and overall a fun movie. Observe and Report was really weird and totally not what I was expecting. I knew it was supposed to get serious in spots, but it was just handled poorly. I really enjoyed Brüno, but it definitely isn't for everyone. The movie really does a great job showing how uncomfortable people are around homosexuals. Along with those first time views I got a chance to re-watch A Clockwork Orange on Blu-ray. Holy crap that movie looks great in HD.

New TVs are great for making you spend even more money on stuff to do on said TV!

Uncharted 2

Games have been trying to be movies for years. Most games that attempt this tend to fail. They're able to incorporate the explosions and action scenes from last years summer blockbuster, but most fall short in one area; characters. Most game characters are stereotypical and boring. People that are very hard to care about because you know they would never really exist. It is in this area that Uncharted excels.

The characters in Uncharted are fun, interesting and very real. You care about them because they act like real people. They aren't perfect physically, they stumble and mess up. Details like characters making mistakes and being afraid of getting shot go along way to making them feel real. The voice acting in Uncharted 2 also helps make the characters seem real. The way the main character Nathan Drake grunts and nearly cries when being shot at is great. This is what your average guy would do when being shot at. The characters and voice acting in Uncharted 2 make the cinematic experience very appealing.

Along with the great story and characters Uncharted 2 is a great game to play. The game plays like a 3rd person shooter with and in-depth climbing mechanic. Large portions of the game traversed vertically. The climbing is fun and really smooth. My only gripe with the climbing portions is that you never really feel in danger. Occasionally a foothold will crumble, but unless your really, really slow you probably wont fall too many times. At its core Uncharted 2 is a shooter, and this may turn some people off. The shooting is good, but sometimes it just lasts a little too long. I liked solving puzzles and climbing so much that when a shooting section would drag it would reeeaaallly drag.

Uncharted 2 is excellent. If you own PS3 you have to buy it.

Welcome to escapePLOD

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:04:07 +020

Hello. This space will be dedicated to posting about random crap that I am into.

First off, I like to write psuedo reviews for products I buy. Things like movies, music, and video games will definitely be wrote about here. That doesn't mean that is all I will write about. I like things like pens, comics, and gadgets so maybe I will give my opinion on those things.

Hopefully future posts aren't super boring like this one.