Trip to Hong Kong Update 1

Well, I'm all packed for my trip to Hong Kong. All my clothes and my toiletries are all tucked inside my new Tumi Luggage.

In a few hours, I'll be leaving for Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the primary international airport here in Manila. Our flight leaves at around 3PM so I hope I get some reading done.

I brought two books for reading on this trip: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Love Walked In by Marissa De Los Santos.

I hope I finish these two books before I come home.

Vacationing in Hong Kong

Hello readers (all 1 of you and that's being generous)! Tomorrow I will be off to Hong Kong for the Holy Week break vacation. I, with my family, will be gone for about 5 days and will be returning on Saturday. I don't know if we will be having an internet connection (that's free) where we'll be staying so I don't know how often I will be able to post, but I will if I can.

If not, I will be posting when I get back, thoughts and impressions as well as reviews and other helpful information along with pictures and maybe video (although the quality won't be great as it will be from my point and shoot Sony Cybershot DSC-W130.)

Hopefully, though I can post on Twitter and Facebook when I can find Wi-Fi hotspots (I'm not lugging around my laptop everywhere.) My Twitter handle is KC_Tan, my facebook profile is here.

So happy Holy Week!

Movie Review: How to Train your Dragon

I didn't expect much from this movie when I went into the theater and sat my butt down on my seat. I told myself, "Well, it isn't Pixar...". But I was very impressed with the movie overall and I was pleasantly surprised by both its story and the action scenes.

How to Train your Dragon is the story of a boy who befriends a dragon, a dreaded Night Fury, which no one has ever seen or heard of. This boy's name is, strangely enough, Hiccup. Oh, and he's a viking. And the movie's vikings see dragons as their nemeses. To top it all off, Hiccup is the son of the Chieftain of their village.

There are plenty of sub-plots within this story: the relationship of Hiccup and his father, the budding romance between Hiccup and the girl he has always liked, being an outcast from other kids his age. But the story is essentially the relationship between a boy and his dragon. How our preconceptions about something lead us to assumptions that can wholly be wrong.

That's why this movie works, everything is else is like whipped cream, nice but unnecessary to the main plot of how two different beings can overcome their differences and forge a lasting bond.

Of course, this being a dragon movie, there are a lot of action scenes. There are a lot of dragons that breathe stuff: both on-camera, fire-breathing dragon, fire-breathing dragon that is on fire himself; and off, dragon that can spray scalding water that melts people faces off.

There is also, near the end of the movie, a gigantic dragon that looks like Godzilla with wings and is pretty cool. I was amazed by how such a large creature could fly, even if it is just a movie, and an animated one at that.

As I was writing this and referencing IMDB for some names, I noted that Hiccup was voiced by Jay Baruchel, who is a frequently staple in comedies especially the Judd Apatow version. Although the entire voice cast was good: America Ferrera as Astrid, Gerard Butler as Stoick, Hiccup's dad, in particular, I thought that the standout was Hiccup.

Jay Baruchel really nailed it with his performance of Hiccup. Initially he had this whiny, grating voice perfect for a whiny, weak boy. But eventually, he turns into this man who is brave and willing to do anything to save his friends, particularly his best friend, the Night Fury, Toothless.

So, How to Train your Dragon is pretty good for an animated movie, although there are some scenes that maybe the kiddies would get a little scared of. Especially, at least to me, near the very end where a main character loses a limb. I can imagine the questions children might ask about like, "Mommy, where did the leg go?"

Also, the other stories feel tacked on, like the relationship between Hiccup and Astrid and the outcast subplot. The father-son relationship works better though and is a key factor in developing the story.

Also, I watched the non-3D version. I don't know if the 3-D version is any better, but I was satisfied with the non-3D one. I feel that most 3-D feels tacked on and isn't real 3-D anyway, just depth of field.

Anyway, if you're looking for your animated movie fix this first quarter of 2010, How to Train your Dragon is a pretty good pick.

No Movie Review for Hurt Locker Today

Didn't get to watch the Hurt Locker this Saturday. I was accosted by an insurance salesperson and was detained for two hours. Maybe I'll watch it this Saturday if it's still playing or on DVD at a later day, in which case my review will be forthcoming then.

Joined Foursquare

I just joined Foursquare yesterday and to my not-so-great surprise none of my friends were on it. Checked my e-mail contacts, Facebook friends and Twitter followers and I got nada, zip, zero and nothing. My joining was accelerated by almost everyone talking about it on podcasts due to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

I had to choose between it and Gowalla, but it seemed that foursquare was more popular, so that's where I went to.

Still I wanted to try it out for myself this weekend when I go out to watch the Hurt Locker. Gonna be posting my review of that movie probably on Monday.

I'll also be getting my PS3 back from the shop today after it Amber Light of Death'd on me. Hopefully I will get to finish Star Ocean: The Last Hope International and share my thoughts about it.

Getting back to foursquare though, I won't be delving into it very much because I haven't played with it extensively, but I feel that it could be a very popular tool, but only in certain uses. Most commentators and pundits have talked about location-based services especially in the context of social experiences and marketing.

I agree that these are two use-cases where this service has the highest probability of succeeding. Another I think would be Augmented Reality. Foursquare, Gowalla and other services could integrate augmented reality services or have built-in augmented reality features in the future with their services thus opening further potential to monetize not only though advertising, but interactive experiences that allow easy ordering or perusing of a menu or check item availability.

Still, that is still far off into the future (5 years maybe? Funny how short the future has become with technology developing so fast.) and for now, I am satisfied to get maybe at least one of my friends to join.

Movie Watch: Crazy Heart

Last Saturday, I watched Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall and directed by Scott Cooper and I found it to be absolutely fantastic.

Jeff Bridges was nominated and did win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in this movie and it was completely well-deserved. He turned in an unbelievable performance as Bad Blake, a down and out country singer who seems perpetually drunk, perpetually jaded and perpetually hard-assed.

But despite all that, you can see him as a real person. If you didn't know Jeff Bridges and if you didn't know that this was a movie, you would think that you would be watching a brief snippet of the life of some real country singer. Jeff Bridges was that good. He makes people forget that he is an actor playing a role. He becomes his role and owns it completely.

Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall were also great as the girl Bad Blake falls in love with on his one-man tour and as the best friend that stays with him throughout all his ups and downs. Colin Farrell was less so because... well he's Colin Farrell, playing a country music star, words that don't seem to fit well in a sentence at all. But it was refreshing to see the protege not stabbing his mentor in the back like in every other movie. Tommy Sweet, Farrell's character, seemed genuinely grateful for the start that Bad Blake gave him years before.

There are a lot of things that are unsaid and unseen in this movie, but they aren't really necessary. We can somehow see it in the way that Bad Blake moves, the way he talks and acts. The history is in the atmosphere of the film, and even without it being explicit, there is a kind of understanding that takes place between the viewer and the film. At least for me, there was.

That being said, Crazy Heart is a movie that is propped up by the strength of its actors, or in this case, actor. And while that might be said of a lot of movies, this is one of those times where if you change the actor, the film just doesn't work.

So congratulations to Jeff Bridges, you deserve it, and then some. Fifth time's the charm right?