Too cliché and laughably bad plot. This movie must have been written by a ten-year-old! Within the first 15 minutes (keep in mind this movie was long) you knew everything that was going to unfold. Not only did this predictability hurt the movie but because it dragged on and on so slowly it made it almost unwatchable at times.
To make matters worse there was every cliché movie scene imaginable: from the comical spider man getting fed cookies from the girl next door to the overly insightful advice his aunt gives him. There were too many forced comical scenes which took the movie down a huge notch and made it hard to take any of it seriously. This was especially true when they took 30 seconds during a key battle to cut to Peter’s boss bargaining with a little girl for a camera. It was even worse that their was a whole sequence involving song and dance.
Still, the movie had great action and special effects, which helped, overcome some of its shortcomings. I wasn’t enough to make it good, but it was watchable. The acting was so-so, not nearly the best I have seen from Tobey Maguire.
The question I asked myself at the end of this movie was, “Is this really Spiderman 3?” It just seems like they could have made a good movie but chose to sell out to appeal more to kids and everyone else that wants a laugh.
Check out other's reviews.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Punishing Iraq
Throughout the was in Iraq one must have to wonder whether what we are doing is helping or punishing the Iraqi people. Recently a BBC article approached the topic of the mandatory curfews that were in place and how it makes thing even more difficult for the residents of certain city's to live their day to day lives.
In one city, Samarra, the 300k residents have had a curfew for only two weeks because of a bomb that killed 12 police officers. In this two week time frame hospitals are already reporting 3 infant deaths and 2 elderly deaths because they do not have the fuel to keep the incubators and other medical devices going. This is completely absurd! Terrorists kill 12 people so we step in and cause 5 more deaths because we are afraid they may kill more people. Things like this are happening everyday and who is it that is being punished, the Iraqi people not the terrorists.
You can't lock down a country for years and expect things to get better. The human spirit can and will be broken and the same people that you set out to help will snap and join the other side. Stop the war before more of them despise us.
In one city, Samarra, the 300k residents have had a curfew for only two weeks because of a bomb that killed 12 police officers. In this two week time frame hospitals are already reporting 3 infant deaths and 2 elderly deaths because they do not have the fuel to keep the incubators and other medical devices going. This is completely absurd! Terrorists kill 12 people so we step in and cause 5 more deaths because we are afraid they may kill more people. Things like this are happening everyday and who is it that is being punished, the Iraqi people not the terrorists.
You can't lock down a country for years and expect things to get better. The human spirit can and will be broken and the same people that you set out to help will snap and join the other side. Stop the war before more of them despise us.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Search engines are frauds
Search engines are supposed to give their users the best matching results, right? Wrong! Most search engines nowadays give results only to the highest bidder. This makes starting a new website and getting traffic very difficult. This was never more apparent to me than right now.
I manage a site that was in the top 10 of yahoo for 5 of its keywords which we thought was great. We recently decided to stop advertising with Yahoo marketing and just let the search results take care of it. The week after this happened we were no longer in the top 10, top 100 or even top 1000 for those search words. We have now vanished from Yahoo’s radar as if we never existed. All this for not paying money to advertise with them.
Other search engines, such as Ask.com and Fetch.com use the advertised links from other search engines as part of their actual results. So you may end up clicking on an advertised link instead of real results without even knowing it. Google does a pretty good job keeping things fairly even except for the fact they put too much emphasis on website’s ages. So you may never get into the top 10 with a new site even if your content matches the search the best because of websites that have been around for 5 or even 10 years. This proposes a problem for users and web designers alike.
It is clear that a new system of search engines is needed.
I manage a site that was in the top 10 of yahoo for 5 of its keywords which we thought was great. We recently decided to stop advertising with Yahoo marketing and just let the search results take care of it. The week after this happened we were no longer in the top 10, top 100 or even top 1000 for those search words. We have now vanished from Yahoo’s radar as if we never existed. All this for not paying money to advertise with them.
Other search engines, such as Ask.com and Fetch.com use the advertised links from other search engines as part of their actual results. So you may end up clicking on an advertised link instead of real results without even knowing it. Google does a pretty good job keeping things fairly even except for the fact they put too much emphasis on website’s ages. So you may never get into the top 10 with a new site even if your content matches the search the best because of websites that have been around for 5 or even 10 years. This proposes a problem for users and web designers alike.
It is clear that a new system of search engines is needed.
King Kong - 2006 (3/4 stars)
I really liked this film but am hesitant to watch it again but the first hour was so slow. Adrien Brody kept this movie going once they hit the island and although I liked Jack Black his character still reminded me to much of his comedies and that wasn’t what this movie was about. Still the special effects were great and it was nice to see most of the old scenes done in the new movie. This was especially true with the battling of the dinosaur, even though Peter Jackson had Kong fight numerous ones to make it more action packed.
Another benefit of the special effects was that Kong was able to have more of a personality mostly due to having pronounced facial expressions. This really helped drive the “beauty and the beast” drama home and made me feel for him more.
It has been almost two-years since I have seen this movie and so many scenes have stuck with me which is what makes a movie great. Still, I also remembered being bored off my ass for almost and hour at the start of the movie. Watch it for yourself and decide.
Check out other king kong reviews at filmcrave.com
Rules of Attraction (4/4 stars)
This is a classic tale of college students and how their lives intertwine with one another. James Van Der Beek is great in his role of playing an "Emotional Vampire" or simply put an asshole. He isn't inherently an ass, he just can't seem to figure things out for himself so he gives up and feeds on other's feelings to figure out how he should act. He thinks he has fallen in love, but it is not with the right girl and becomes more of a infatuation.
The other characters: the rich prick, the slut, the openly gay, the closet gay, the drug dealers and the posers all have a great part in showing the college experience. They each have something in common: none of them know what is really going on but they all think they know everything.
Aside from a great plot and good acting, the movie has a very memorable soundtrack. The soundtrack is very important to this film because it ties in so closely with the directing. So closely that when the movie is going back in time the music is playing backwards with it. Roger Avary who hasn't directed much shows his tallents with a very unique style of camera work. He breaks the typical mold and uses odd camera angles, split screens and a host of other interesting but effective techniques to bring the audience closer to the characters.
Simply a great film, and I hope that Roger Avary has more movies to direct soon.
Check out other Rules of Attraction Reviews.
The other characters: the rich prick, the slut, the openly gay, the closet gay, the drug dealers and the posers all have a great part in showing the college experience. They each have something in common: none of them know what is really going on but they all think they know everything.
Aside from a great plot and good acting, the movie has a very memorable soundtrack. The soundtrack is very important to this film because it ties in so closely with the directing. So closely that when the movie is going back in time the music is playing backwards with it. Roger Avary who hasn't directed much shows his tallents with a very unique style of camera work. He breaks the typical mold and uses odd camera angles, split screens and a host of other interesting but effective techniques to bring the audience closer to the characters.
Simply a great film, and I hope that Roger Avary has more movies to direct soon.
Check out other Rules of Attraction Reviews.
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