Saw III: Man, this movie was disappointing. I kinda liked the first one (I thought the ending was stupid, at best). I really liked the second one but this one really sucked. The use of numerous flashbacks cheapened the value of the first two and while on the subject of flashbacks, the most important character of the first Saw (Dr. Lawrence Gordon) was never mentioned at all (did he die after the first one? Did he get out?)

The acting was really atrocious with the exception of Tobin Bell who played his character with such silent rage and empathy that it's easy why he's considered one of the horror genre's best characters. Another negative about the movie is the death of a character who was in the first two installments. Her character is of such great importance to the entire series and she's killed in the first ten minutes (she should have been the main character this time). This so called "twist" screams desperation on every possible level.

And the ending, wow, it really sucked. Saw III may have one of the worst endings ever. Not only was the ending illogical but stupid as well. If I was that character, I would never do something like that. This is one of the worst movies of the year.

This is for you, boy!

What if those characters from Veggietales were crazy?

Mmmmmeeeeeeeooooooowwwwww!



New Seinfeld standup.

"She's a whore."

The Prestige
Director: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins)
Starring: Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, David Bowie, and Andy Serkis.

The Prestige may be the best film of the year. Only United 93 comes close in being the year's best but the ending in the Prestige is what amazed the most. The film not only contains one twist but four (if you're paying attention, probably even more). The performances are amazing, the cinematography is excellent, production design is exquisite, but above all Christopher Nolan's directing is absolutely superb from beginning to end. The less you know about this movie the more you will love it. Other critics have said the film is slow and muddled. I respect their opinion but this is absolutely incorrect. The tagline says it best, "Are you watching closely?" Every frame, every shot demands your undivided attention. It may be saying a lot for doing so much work but you will be rewarded richly at the end. Again, this is the best film of 2006 yet.

What up me homies.

Lost: I don't know what to say but it sucked the big one today. The flashbacks to Locke's story really sucked and didn't really reveal anything new about his character. It was an episode that led to more questions but again no answers. I prefer the episodes with Jack, Sawyer, and Kate because there are more details revealed about their captors.

South Park: My God, isn't there an episode that doesn't suck? This episode introduces us to Cartman as "DAWG" the Hall Monitor and the Kindergarten teacher who has a sexual relationship with Kyle's 3-year old brother. That's right, a sexual relationship with a 3-year old.

Being a production assistant on my friend's film is pretty cool. I usually just stand there getting focus readings, light meter readings, and other stuff. What sucked though is that I tripped over this cable and now my right ankle hurts. It's not sprained (I know what sprained feels) but it hurts just a little bit. I still need to do a production packet for my second film but I think I'll just do it tomorrow morning. Man, I keep on procrastinating again with these assignments.

When I look at the big picture, I have only two classes with assignments. Science of Acoustics is a class that hands out assignments but it's only one assignment every week with only two fucking questions and I keep on doing it minutes before it's due. Production I is another class and the assignments are fairly easy (draw storyboards, make prop list, shot list, draw shot diagrams) and again, I'm doing it hours before it's due. I really get my in order.

I really need to sleep earlier (I actually sleep when my dad takes a shower at 4 AM). I NEED to make better choices for myself because I think my body is beginning to fight back. I wake all tired with my joints aching (well, after only 4 hours of sleep it tends to do that to you). I really need to sleep 10 hours.

On top of this, I already missed two classes of Science of Acoustics because I didn't want to face the teacher with an incomplete assignment. I already missed two classes of Intro to Audio (which in the first place, I don't know why I miss these).

I really need to step up.

HEROES is the shit. Every character (especially Nikki's) is beginning to get awesome. But best of all, Hiro is the BAMF.



Don't worry you guys in the Philippines, I'm downloading each and every episode for you.

I was shocked when I saw this actor when I was watching the Wizard earlier today.

A reason to quit smoking.

Is my body breaking down?

I recently just noticed this a couple of days ago but I think I'm losing a sense of hearing in my right ear. A few days ago, I noticed that when I was listening to the Heavens' song "Patent Pending" it felt that the vocals were too much to the left. I removed the right ear cup from my headphones and just listened to the left channel. I then removed the left ear cup and just listened to the right channel. I noticed that the left channel was considerably louder. At first I thought it was my headphones but then I switched the channels on the headphone but it was still the same. My right ear is causing a lot of problems. The good thing is that I could just adjust the right channel setting one notch up on the volume control so right now it's perfect.

Another problem with my body is that my psoriasis is beginning to flare up again. Man, I wish I didn't have this fucking psoriasis. Aside from the fact that I'm fat and have acne, God had to give me psoriasis AND arthritis at the same time. My last problem is that my left middle finger is swollen because of the goddamn arthritis. I can't even bend it or it will hurt like hell. I'm even having difficulty writing with a pen or pencil because it hurts so much. Fortunately, it doesn't hurt at all when I type.

On top of all of this, I only have $9 in my bank account.

Other than that, life has been fucking peachy.

The Departed (re-review): I saw this a second time last Saturday to analyze it more thoroughly. The first time I saw this movie, my face was so close to the screen I think I could only see about 3/4. This time I sat all the way at the back and again the movie was great. Yes, it is not close to the original but it did get better on the second viewing. I have to give props to Leonardo DiCaprio though as he gave a magnificent performance. Matt Damon was admirable, Jack was Jack, Martin Sheen was great but underutilized, and Marky Mark was hilarious.

Watching it the second time (this time with a much more mature audience), I could see the film's flaws even more. I think the film's main mistake was casting Jack Nicholson as the main bad guy. Jack Nicholson no longer acts in films, he's just himself. I think Robert DeNiro would have been a great choice (he is half Irish by the way) or a made up Daniel Day-Lewis (that would have been amazing). A lot of film's plot points that were perfect in the original don't click here. Another mistake is the addition of unnecessary exposition. I don't want to spoil anything but this again is with Nicholson's role. More Nicholson = more exposition. As I have written before, the combining of the girlfriend and psychiatrist into one person is a huge mistake because it subtracted from the duality of the two moles. The last mistake is with the elevator scene. I'm not gonna spoil anything but it is indeed laughable. The original film's scene was shot and directed beautifully, concise, and to the point. Here it just goes too overboard.

Even with these mistakes, the film's pacing is absolutely gut wrenching from start to finish. The film is about 150 minutes long but it flies by pretty fast. I would be pretty pissed if DiCaprio was not nominated for his performance here as it is quite good. I also mentioned something in my previous review that I hated the ending. Well, I'm going to change that statement because the ending is here is completely appropriate to the context of the movie. If it was in the original (which it isn't) then it would suck but here it is right.


Flags of Our Fathers: Unforgiven was amazing, A Perfect World was astonishing, and Million Dollar Baby was haunting and stupendous. So why is Flags of Our Fathers so completely BORING? I don't think it comes from the lack of acting talent (only Adam Beach shines here and I mean truly shines), the graceful and minimalist music (composed by Eastwood himself), or the direction (which is excellent). I think the problem lies in Paul Haggis' script. Paul Haggis, the winner of the undeserving Best Picture winner "Crash", who wrote Million Dollar Baby with such uncomprimising intensity and focus loses it all here.

Here, the writing lacks focus and the scenes was haphazardly are all over the map. Instead of being at one place at one time, we have a scene where Ryan Philippe is at Iwo Jima and one minute later he's in Chicago during a parade. This does not happen only once but many times during the movie and it is jarring to the viewer. I began to get so tired of constant jumping of timelines that I got bored. As for the acting, it is merely okay. Again Adam Beach is truly the standout here who plays a flag raiser who would rather fight with his unit in Japan than celebrate the so-called "heroism". His performance shows great maturity unseen in his previous performances such as "Smoke Signals" or "Windtalkers". Ryan Philippe is just decent as "Doc" a doctor, Jesse Bradford is piss poor as Rene Gagnon, and unbelievably Paul Walker, who is in the film for two minutes, is stiff.

I just hope that the upcoming release of "Letters from Iwo Jima" is a better film. The film was also directed by Eastwood but completely acted in Japanese and starring Ken Watanabe. I've heard that the film is the film that "Flags" was supposed to be. The original title of "Letters from Iwo Jima" was supposed to be "Red Sun, Black Sand" but Hollywood being the town that shits on everything decided to crap on the title and release it with a Lifetime approved one.

Of the two films (The Departed, Flags of Our Fathers), The Departed truly deserves to be in the running for best American film of the year. Flags of Our Fathers lacks focus, great acting, and great writing to be called one of the best films of the year. I'd even go to say that it's Eastwood's most disappointing film. It's sad because the trailer made it look so good.

Miami Vice: Michael Mann, what the fuck happened? This movie was trying to look so cool in the first one and a half hours that it bored the hell outta me. Colin Farrell sucked, Jamie Foxx was a joke, and the oh so gorgeous Gong Li was a robot. Yes, that's right. She was a fucking robot. She's considered one of the best actresses in the planet but because Mann wanted her to have a Cuban accent so bad, it fucked up her acting. The only good parts to the movie were the final thirty minutes (the part were the action starts). One of the most disappointing movies this year. I heard this film was made for $150 million. Where the fuck did the money go? I didn't see it onscreen.

The Departed: I'll say it right now "Infernal Affairs" is my favorite movie, hands down. So what of the Americanized remake? Okay, I'll say it, I liked the goddamn thing. To be honest, I loved the goddamn fucker. This is what remakes are supposed to be. But why do I still feel disappointed in the film? I felt that the ending was a bit of a copout. This is not the same ending as the original. The original had an extremely dark ending (yes, even darker than this) and the music that starts the credits is OH SO PERFECT in the original.

There are so many scenes here that are even executed more brilliantly than the original but the result is so lackluster. The centerpiece scene in the original (the 10 minute drug trade scene) is horrible in the remake. The scene in the remake had no intensity in it whatsoever. The original ratcheted up the intensity second by second but here it feels hollow. There are some parts of the movie I disliked. I didn't hate these scenes but I DISLIKED them. The scenes I hated were the goddamn stupid love triangle and the really stupid comedic bits.

The twists and turns are RIPPED from the original. If you've seen the original then you already know the twists in the Departed. The problems with the twists in the remake is that they don't contain the emotional wallop. The twist is just there. This again goes earlier that the scenes are executed so brilliantly that they end so poorly.

The acting well, Leo and Matt are no Tony Leung and Andy Lau. NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE! Tony Leung played his part to perfection, it was like he had a stillness of a volcano ready to pounce. It was like he had a relaxed anger to his character and a level of sadness that Leo couldn't even manage. Andy Lau played his part so amazingly as the villain in the original that you can't even hate the guy. Here in the remake, Matt is through and through a villain. Leo has a great performance but it never reaches the level that Tony had. You could believe that Tony's character really wanted out of being undercover (in the original, he was undercover for 8 years, remake: 1 year ONLY). You feel that he was at a breaking point in his character. DiCaprio's character never had that sense of being broken. Sure, there are scenes were he keeps on saying that he's panicking, shaking, but I never once felt that he was about to implode. I did like Nicholson's performance but I think his character should have player a lesser role. The story is meant to be for the moles and the moles alone.

I think that Scorsese never got right was the issue of duality. What is the price of leading a double life? The question was answered in the original but the remake barely scratches the surface. The original was all about DUALITY. What would it feel to be acting as somebody you're not? That is the question that was never answered in the Departed.

After all my quibbles, I still think that this is one of the best AMERICAN films of the year. I loved the performances (mostly from Wahlberg, Baldwin, and Sheen), the cinematography, and editing but what was missing was the sense of connection to the main characters, the two moles.

Crank: Simply a brilliant film that doesn't stop for its 84 minute runtime. The first true American action film of 2006. Just remember to watch after the credits.

Dragon Tiger Gate: I hated this film. This film is pure suck. Of course, Donnie Yen is the co-producer of the film so it's gotta suck. After starting the first 15 minutes with promise, the film's flaws show through and through and my god IT SUCKS. The characters have no development whatsoever, the villain is written without any motivation, and above all the final fight SUCKED! Director Wilson Yip shows that he cannot direct a film with any substance. One positive is that the villainess is mega HOT.

There's one thing that's bothering me about the reviews of the Departed (coming out this Friday). It's that the reviewers keep on saying that Infernal Affairs (the original film that the Departed was based on) is too confusing to understand. This is what is bugging me. What is there not to understand about Infernal Affairs? It is the first Chinese film that is totally within Western conventions from beginning to end and yet they call it confusing? If you still haven't watched Infernal Affairs, do yourself a favor and rent the goddamn film.