1. No more McDonald’s.
2. Facebook only TWICE a day.
3. Daily breakfast in the morning.
4. Daily shower in the morning.
5. Sleeping before 1AM.
6. Waking up before 8AM.
7. Less procrastination.
8. Less outrageous purchases at Chapters/thrift shops.
9. Save money for that Macbook you’ve always wanted.
10. Say “No” to unnecessary hangouts.

The film industry and entire process of producing a film fascinates me. Some people say that because you pay attention to too much of the movie, you get less out of the experience because you aren’t suspending your belief as much, but I’d like to think otherwise. Knowing technical aspects (lighting, framing, color correction, effects, sound recording) as well as the acting side of things (character development, writing) intrigues me greatly and I can hardly begin to fathom how challenging it must be to make any feature-length movie on any scale.

I’ll say it now that it is a personal dream of mine to participate in the movie-making industry. Perhaps it’s a good idea to move to Vancouver.

You can crunch numerical data and figure out how much you might’ve spent, or calculate the total time you’ve spent (or wasted, depending on how you’re looking at the glass) watching films. Aside from the numbers you can look at other kinds of information like trends in the choices of genre of film.

A movie where nothing really happens?

Or a movie where too much happens in three seconds?

Consider this list-taking to be a sort of a diary, only with movies in the spotlight. I can distinctly remember the circumstances when I watched most of these films.

If you just like watching movies for the sake of watching movies, you can just keep a list to show off to your friends that you saw 20 action flicks, 15 rom-coms, 10 dramas, 2 Oscar-nominated films, 5 Brendan Fraser excuses-for-films and the such.

Anyway without much further rambling… let’s dive into the details!

So here are some of the details (some more trivial than others):

• Number of movies watched: 97
• Number of movies watched at the theatre: 26
• Dollars spent at the theater: ~$200 (I rarely buy ‘popcorn’)
• Movies seen at theaters more than once: 3 (Inception, Toy Story 3, The Social Network)
• Movies that were screenings for university classes: 18
  
• Korean films: 3
• Japanese films: 1
• Filipino films: 0
  
• Actor who I saw most: Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Lost In Translation)

And while I narrowly missed the 100 mark, if I had the opportunity to watch three current movies, it would be:

1. Somewhere
2. Black Swan
3. Tron

Missed Opportunities:

1. Piranha 3D
2. Scott Pilgrim vs The World
3. The Expendables (yeah, I did want to watch this)
4. The Human Centipede (yeah, not sure why I wanted to watch this)
5. Paranormal Activity 2

Best Moments:

1. Sneaking in to see Machete
2. Watching The Room for the first time
   

   Good ol' Tommy Wiseau

3. Getting free advance-screening tickets for Kick-Ass
4. Taking home the poster for I Am Love, and now I wake up to Tilda Swinton’s vacant stare everyday
5. 127 Hours AND Rabbit Hole on the same day (see: December 29)

Worst Moments:

1. Having to go through mild motion-sickness again for Avatar
2. All movies in November were for a class
3. Watching Feed while eating Kraft Dinner

I enjoyed all the movies I watched this year and am looking to viewing a similar total of films for 2011.

An nyoung.

Listening to “Vuvuzela Beat” over this… and words cannot express….

In fact, watching this guy bust out over anything you listen to will probably make you laugh.

While some women become cougars in their 40s, some adopt a moniker after a table-condiment and triple-cross major nations rivaling each other with a gun.

Anyway, Salt was fun.

No spoilers abound here.

There was little calm in the movie. Once the action started, that was it, you either followed it or got left behind. Watching Angelina exert herself in the chases while managing to remaining calm AND thinking 2 steps ahead of her predators was astounding. I did have a bit of problem trying to follow the plot because there was so much twisting involving Russia, parents, car crashes, and Lee Harvey Oswald. Lost looked like a straight-edge ruler in one corner compared to this. But in the end, I got it. Thankfully.

But here’s what I took from the movie:

• The beginning of the movie shows Salt being tortured in North Korea. Stripped to her underwear, the closeups of her body reveal what has been done to her. She’s been battered, bruised, re-brusied for who-knows-how-long. She’s later forced to swallow a strange liquid (probably some sort of gasoline cause that probably hurts like hell, I imagine) by the prison guards. The brutality of the torture has so much gravity that at the end of the ordeal, you’ve already been pulled to her side and you’re with her 100% of the way regardless of her motivations. You rally along with her and await for her catharsis even though you have no idea who to antagonize.
  
• Aside from the action, I really appreciated that Evelyn Salt was not overly sexualized and objectified. Angelina Jolie’s sexiness (which usually draws hordes of men to her films) is really downplayed in Salt. Aside from what I mentioned above, she is never in a state of undress. Her wardrobe is conservative and mature (plenty of drab shades). We don’t see her removing/donning clothes in a sexualized style. No shots of her behind filling the frame. Or shots of her cleavage from perverted eagle-eye view. OK but there’s this one time she removes and uses her _____ to cover the security camera lens. Run your imagination train here, if you haven’t seen it. In the end, she never utilizes her sexuality/body to get her carry out her plan, which probably makes sense because her predators want to beat solid answers out of her. But it’s surprisingly refreshing to see a woman with a history of sexiness not banking on her body to draw numbers to the theater.
  
  In comparison, you see cleavage galore from Megan Fox in super-slow-motion in Transformers 2: Kling Kling Klang Klang Boomz!. And a lot of us know how Transformers is living proof that slow-mo cleavage cannot cover up how overboard your film is with noise/CGI and whupwhupwhup sounds.
  
  

  Another rough day with Michael Bay.

Angelina did a lot of her own stunts for this film. Her running looked like sprints. Her jumping looked like leaps. And when it looked like it was supposed to hurt, it really did. The action is at times over-the-top but never gratuitous. Not like a car slamming into a mid-air helicopter or flying from a motorcycle onto the windshield of a helicopter kind of gratuitous. I look forward to Jolie reprising her kickass role for the Salt franchise.

I enjoyed this movie. Great pacing, but why is Russia still America’s enemy? Can’t we pick on… Canada for once? They could send their moose. Or is it mooses? Or Moses. Whichever. The movie isn’t perfect, but was definitely worth my money.

I assure you that when Salt out on Blu-Ray I will be editing the chase scenes to some fast-paced drum-n-bass. Now that’s my perfect action movie.

An nyoung.

ps. If you look at the two pictures of this post, you notice that Angelina Jolie appears to be shooting Megan Fox. Purely intentional.

Thanks for the memories, Michael Scott. They really were so great.

As much as I will miss seeing his management antics and dating faux pas unfold on weekly TV (or eight episodes a day through the Internet, shh), he’s already had so many memorable moments in seasons past that to try and outdo himself would seem very – how do I put this – ‘try-hardy’ (Sarah Palin will make this a word).

The decision that Steve Carrell and his Michael Scott character leave ‘The Office‘ receives nothing but my approval. I believe that the rest of the veteran cast Jim, Pam, Dwight, Andy and the others, and even cutiepie Erin can carry the show on. The writers will have to work their asses off extra hard to make sure that the 8th season won’t suck like Scrubs did after Zach Braff and the others left.

In fact I would be completely comfortable for the series to wrap up as well. The ideas are feeling recycled (Dwight planning to take over the company, relationships blossoming/keeling over, etc.).It doesn’t have anymore momentum to keep me anticipating the next episode.

I feel like they should’ve ended the show after Jim/Pam’s wedding. That was the only thing most fans were waiting for. That event was a very emotionally heavy moment for all if not most followers of the show. Everyone was there, everyone danced, and everyone was happy. And Jim and Pam exchanged those ‘oh well’ faces at each other. Precious.

That’s how they should have ended it. That’s how all ensemble cast shows should end; everyone together in the final postcard picture (here’s looking to you, Lost).

But for fans of  The Office, this will remind you of the good (if not better) times of not only Michael Scott, but everyone else in the brilliant ensemble cast:

Spoiler alert: Erin and Andy get married in Season 8. Show ends after shortly after that and Subtle Sexuality stop performing. Kelly

An nyoung.

An nyoung.

Visual ipecac.

Here’s the films that unintentionally offended me:

1. Cloverfield [2007]
   The experience was horrible. I found myself nearly on the verge of vomiting just 30 minutes into the movie. I had to walk out to re-orient myself and grab some air before walking in again and repeating the process again. I stomached the whole movie through and through but losing the dizziness after the movie took about 2 hours.
2. District 9 [2009]
   Towards the end of this movie, I ended up moving about 10 seats behind away from my friends.
   
3. Paranormal Activity [2009]
   Now this movie didn’t offend my senses completely. I only felt sick whenever the main character ran around the house looking for his girlfriend in the middle of the night. And as I type this without the lights on, I am completely letting my imaginations run in the horror playground and scare myself.

The one string tying these movies together is the intentionally crappy camera-work. These movies rely on shaky, amateurish camera-work to achieve the effect of realism and authenticity. I’ve come to accept the fact that movies with excessive shaky-cam are not for me. The game Mirror’s Edge also has the same effect on me and guess what, I enjoy that game too.

Although I walked out of these movies ranging from slightly dizzy to vomit-ready, my sentiment remains that I enjoyed these movies, and that any shortcomings that I have as a human being shouldn’t get in the way of how I rate the movie.

But this doesn’t count: Pursuit of Happyness [2007]
My friend and I arrived 10 minutes into the movie on it’s opening night and we were relegated to the worst seats in the house; front right corner seats, 10 feet from the screen. There we were watching a large Will Smith cry in a bathroom. The awkward viewing angle increased for my nausea and I walked out midway the movie.

Come to think of it, I’m the only one I know with this problem. I’m just not built to handle these kinds of movies. In fact I was the only one from all these experiences in my group to experience motion-sickness. Guess it’s time to hit up the Goog and search for some cures, if any.

An nyoung.

Before heading diving into the post I’d like to thank Rob Cauchi for showing this to me.

THE SET UP

Side A:

Ke$ha released her infectious (albeit wildly successful) trashiness upon the world many many months ago with her hit song ‘Tik Tok’. It’s a very simple song that’s well produced (produced, not sung). I’m truly amazed how quick this song embedded itself permanently into pop culture. It freakin’ made it into the opening sequence of The Simpsons.

Side B:

Katy Perry on the other hand recently released ‘California Gurls’, a so-called west-side summer anthem and response-song to Jay-Z’s ‘Empire State of Mind’. The video doesn’t relate to anything California at all, I find. And Katy Perry had to do the ‘shooting-stuff-from-her-boobs’ thing to try and solidify herself as the next Madonna (cone bra, 1980s), but we all know Lady Gaga already took that title this month (machine-gun bras, 2010).

Simple, yet so successful:
Tik Tok was wildly successful the first quarter of 2010 and I refuse to remember how many times girls came up to me at the DJ booth asking for Tik Tok. I’ll explain why I dislike Tik Tok some other time (from a purely musical standpoint).

California Gurls is already on it’s way to be that summer radio monster and disgusting earworm that you hate but end up singing in the shower.

If you listen to both these songs, you’ll notice that they’re somewhat similar. You’ll notice similar synths. Similar drum kicks. Similar breakdowns. Similar everything. But you wouldn’t believe how similar these two songs are.

THE BRILLIANCE

Some genius (DJ Placeboing) on the Internet masterfully crafted a wicked mashup that has Tik Tok and California Gurls playing at the same time, but shifting between the songs to show you how similar they are in key and phrasing. Here’s the result:

Amazing isn’t it. They’re pretty much the same song! Play this in to your friends and you’ll have them amazed (for 10 seconds at least)!

CLOSING COMMENTS

I actually like the mashup. It works very well but it definitely does say something about the pop industry; formulaic. But then again, you need formulas to maintain or energize an industry. So to each his/her own. But if you want better music, go and look for it.

I wonder what would happen if I played this to an unsuspecting crowd at the club.

Don’t stop, hip hop, keep it up we’re unforgettable
Tonight, dee dukes, till we see the on top.

Grab an mp3 of the mashup here.

An nyoung.