Orius

I was foolish enough to sell my XBox 360 and my NDS back then. Boy, do I regret it now. I needed the money then to buy other stuff I liked. And, being the reckless thick-head that I am, I didn't think of anything else other than the money at the time. Money's a rather precious resource around here... I still have a good old tech around here, but I have a harder time selling them now because I don't have a cellphone. Usually, I would post my number online for them to get back to me if they're interested in the offer. Now, without a cell, it's awfully inconvenient. And besides, I don't really have as many worthy goods to sell besides my Blue Yeti microphone. I also have a digital camera, but apparently, it's old enough that the 'pixel resolution' is outdated in this day and age; no one's interested.

Agreed. While Disney had some good runs lately (like Wreck-It-Ralph and Tangled) thanks to John Lasseter from Pixar taking over the creative team, it never really broke away from the dated formula of true love and naive princesses. Frozen actually had the potential to be the first to break the mold by having Elsa be the first Disney Princess to become a pragmatic 'villain' (naturally using the term 'villain' loosely here). She questioned the idea of marrying someone you just met, she found the "Disney Princess" behavior of Anna naive and childish. But instead, they chose to turn her into a pro-true love left-winger. Oh my god... What is this, the '60s? Peace and love save the world? I'm not asking for Dirty Harry here, but c'mon. A little modern realism here, huh?

I was actually thinking of Orion's Belt at the time, from "Men in Black". But I figured "Orius" sounds cooler than "Orion".

Procrastination is practically my bedfellow. I lost count how many times I get distracted while on the Internet. I don't really have a specific technique to deal with it, but it doesn't affect me too badly. I do enjoy just going with the flow and enjoy procrastination, moving through my life at a relaxing pace. I mean, just take your time. Life is not short; it's long. It's long and hard. So enjoy it.

Django Unchained Often, when I talked about Marvel movies, I would mock that, "I'm a little past John Wayne riding into the sunset with the girl by now." Surprisingly enough, Tarantino would prove me wrong by painting a black John Wayne with such style. And fun. For once, I had fun watching a movie without thinking too much. Tarantino fights the racism here without ever becoming preachy, and that's the way movies should be for this ain't no politics. While the first 20 minutes were rather mediocre by Tarantino standards, when the ride finally kicked start with the appearance of "Monsieur" Calvin, it became one hell of a ride. Leonardo DiCaprio gave his best "Where's my Oscar?!" performance I've seen in the past ten years, one that far surpassed his later role in The Wolf of Wall Street (I still liked him better in The Departed). Unfortunately, he ultimately faded in comparison to the absolutely wonderful Samuel L. Jackson (oh god, I love him in this movie), whose charisma made it difficult to hate him. But of course, the most fun part of the ride is watching Jamie Foxx lay down some good ol' vigilante justice on them white folks. It's refreshing to see a black hero among western tales of derring-do, even though the difference in race shouldn't be anything special. But it is that freshness that made this little adventure exciting, making me want to see more of Django in future escapades. Alas, the movie ended on a note too short. I wouldn't mind seeing the Freeman kicking more white ass. 8.5/10 The House of the Devil There's a scene in this movie where the protagonist, Samantha Hughes (played by Jocelin Donahue), dancing without a care just moments before, goes downstairs for no reason and sees a suspicious RV parked outside the mansion. This is one of the few moments in the movie where plot was sacrificed for forced suspense. From the first 10 minutes of the movie, you could tell what kind of movie Ti West was trying to make - a slow-crawl thriller that hearkens back to the days of John Carpenter's Halloween. Everything here is so retro that you would forget that this is a film released in 2009, from the film grain to the cassette player to the rotary phone to the old-fashioned clothing. Even the opening credits itself (which included freeze-frames and giant font) is a throwback to classic horror title sequences. And for 30 minutes, the slow build-up worked. The dialogues and characters, though nothing impressive, remained quirky enough not to be generic. I wouldn't go so far to say I cared for the main character, but I at least found her relatable. There's none of the hackneyed family drama many horror movies tried to force in the first act, and instead, the spotlight is always focused on the main girl and no one else. And of course, the camera work is great and is the best part of the movie. There's a number of references to classic horror movies here in terms of camera angles - again, imitating Carpenter's style. However, once I've actually got to the main plot of the movie - the house itself - things started to fall apart. The main problem with this movie is that Ti West mistook what is humdrum and mundane for suspense. Samantha's exploration of the mansion was honestly one of the dullest moments of horror movies I've ever seen, such that I had a difficult time staying awake. The only interesting part of this scene was the children's bedroom where toy soldiers and cowboy paintings were about, giving us a deeper insight to the family. I applaud Ti West for that, but most of this build-up just didn't have any kind of payoff in the end. That's the disappointing part of the movie. For every realistic teenager like Samantha and Megan, there's at least one cartoonish element like Mr. Ulman (played over-the-top by Tom Noonan) that takes away from the experience. I almost thought I was watching Goosebumps when I saw Tom Noonan's performance. The rest of the Ulman were more believable as far as cultists go, but still merely functional characters. There's also one terrible scene where the true nature of the mansion's inhabitants is revealed way, way too soon, when a bunch of shriveled corpses are shown as clear as day in a wide-shot. It just immediately ruined any tension I might have had up till that point. I wish Ti West had kept it more ambiguous to keep me on my toes, because this is amateur filmmaking quality at best. Then there's the ending. The consensus from Rotten Tomatoes claimed that the movie's underlying themes are familiar, and it was right. Satanism just isn't scary anymore - not the way it's presented here in this movie. On the other hand, I could rewatch the possession scenes from The Exorcist and still be thrilled by that. Right before the final scene, there's also a frustrating strobe-light effect that will hurt your eyes, though it passes relatively quick. When the satanic ritual is revealed, it was uninspired and typical, with your usual blood pentagrams and blood-drinking - nothing I haven't seen before from past movies about the Devil. There's no fancy camera work here that makes you feel disturbed about the ritual or the cult, no disturbing imagery other than a cheap monster mask, and by the time Mr. Ulman prophesied about Sam giving birth to the Antichrist, I pretty much just stopped caring at that point. In the end, The House of the Devil was a nice attempt at rejuvenating the suspense-building of classic cinema, but its execution was unfortunately amateur and taken in the wrong direction, much like Ti West's other works, V/H/S and The ABCs of Death. 6/10

Watching the second season now. It's just as good as the first one.

Mushishi Special: Hihamukage. Finished. It's a nice little special episode to the first season. Oh, how nice to be back to the world of Mushishi. There's just no anime like it.

I used to stream anime too, but my superficial tastes required me to search for only high-quality graphics, so 480p anime just don't look as impressive as 1080p ones...

Just finish watching... Bakemonogatari Not just another harem anime Bakemonogatari is one of those anime that didn't leave me a good first impression. While not nearly as bad as Naruto or Pokemon, I wouldn't recommend this to someone who's already had cynical views about the anime medium. The first episode is hardly the most interesting one of the series. It features a stoic, emotionless girl who's super-badass and wields a killer-stapler around. Not a good start for people who thinks anime is about ridiculous, over-the-top characters that make no sense. Worst of all, it has these flashing words that pop up every 10 minutes or so. Very pretentious, and certainly another bad thing for newcomers, especially when you consider that some of these flashing words actually add context to the story, thus requiring the audience to pause every so often. However, if one has enough patience to stay for another episode, episode 2 gives a little surprise to the audience. It has a nice mix of Japanese mythologies the likes of Mushishi and some good ol' fashion action and suspense. The blood is not gory, the action is not over-the-top, and the drama is not hammy. It has a well-balanced enough script to entertain most demographics, and it even goes into dark territories sometimes that are unlike your average light-hearted harem. Best of all, its characters are fairly interesting. At the very least, the avoidance from exaggerating their personality leaves a kind of charm in them. They are very relatable, and even the pacifist of the story is not unrealistically naive. I also like how the anime subverts certain anime tropes. While it's not an outright deconstruction like Bokurano, and it does have certain predictable moments, I enjoy how it plays certain stereotypes a little bit differently, just applying subtle differences to them. The stoic's unrealistic lack of emotions was explained away with a story element, the existence of a harem became a self-aware topic, and certain famous lore like the monkey's paw are given a twist. Much of the story is played around with a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek comedy, but this doesn't distract me too much from the tension and the drama. And speaking of tension, this isn't an action anime. It's a slow-crawl drama comedy with moments of suspense and well-written characters in it. The little quirks each character has are interesting enough that when the disturbing backstory is revealed, you'll forget that this is a comedy. While it usually has a relaxing pace in a slice-of-life fashion, but it's way too dark to be considered a realistic slice-of-life, and that works in its favor to keep things from becoming too dull. The series also becomes better with each story arc, with the final climatic arc being my personal favorite. The vicious twist at the last episode was so good. Even though you might be reminded of School Days, the twist wasn't anything clumsy like that, and it made me excited about the next season of the series. I give Bakemonogatari 7.2/10

Oldboy (2003) Oldboy is one of the lighter versions of art house movies. A pseudo-art house movie, if you will, that real art house lovers will laugh at you for calling it an art house movie because your mainstream mentality isn't advanced enough to comprehend what they considered a simplistic plot. Needless to say, repeated viewings are needed for myself. Nevertheless, I do understand the general concept director Park Chan-wook was going for, especially with the aid of other reviews. The revenge flick wasn't a fresh idea, even back in 2003. What made Oldboy different was its deeper exploration of truth and freedom. Does the truth set you free? Constantly throughout the film, the protagonist, Oh Dae-su, was taunted by the antagonist, Lee Woo-jin, about how he had merely moved from a smaller prison to a bigger one. Woo-jin's ultimatum was that, without learning the truth of why he was imprisoned for 15 years, Dae-su will never gain true freedom. Moreover, at the start of the film, while Dae-su was imprisoned, he was even brainwashed into smiling instead of frowning, a foreshadowing of how ignorant bliss might be a better choice than staying angry and vengeful. By less than two-thirds of this film, Dae-su would have gained the opportunity to kill Woo-jin, so the story is not exactly just about petty revenge. However, one might be fooled if he's watching this for the first time, as Dae-su is presented more as a generic badass who punches and tortures people throughout the film and not so much as a victim haunted by PTSD. The dragged out gratuitous violence and the inclusion of Park Cheol-woong as a significant character weakened the film somewhat, though not enough to diminish its brilliance. The best part of the movie, the consequences of learning the truth, came in the second half of the movie, when Dae-su remembers accidentally witnessing the incestuous encounter between Woo-jin and his sister back in high school. The way truth is painted as a binding curse is very well done, although I felt it didn't fit well with the theme of revenge. I get that the extreme violence was needed to push the point that Dae-su was desperate to learn the truth through any means necessary, but I felt that the fight scene with Park's men just seemed like a tacked-on extra, a scene that should have been in the "Deleted Scenes" section of the blu-ray. Another point to note was how awkward Dae-su and Mi-do's relationship felt even before the truth about Mi-do was revealed. Their romance never felt natural. And no, it's not due to the hypnotism, because Woo-jin said it himself that the "falling in love" portion of his plan could not be controlled; it had to be done through free will, not through the hypnotism. The way Mi-do quickly accepted Dae-su after being molested by him, a stranger she had just picked up, just left me rolling my eyes. Aside from the few flaws it has, Oldboy is a disturbing thriller that questions the validity of "ignorance being bliss". It provokes the audience to asking controversial questions, and that's certainly not the first time a South Korean film has done so for me (watch I See The Devil for another example). 8/10 Birdman Several hours after watching this film, I'm still wrecking my head trying to figure out what it all means, if there's a deeper meaning to it all. Birdman has a simple enough story that this shouldn't be the case on face value, yet when I consider the subtle symbolism, the ironies, and the reflections of real life the movie presented, I couldn't dismiss it as merely a pretentious film with nothing to say. Or perhaps the praises by critics everywhere have tricked me into fooling myself. That's one virtue of such ignorance though, isn't it? One thirsts for knowledge when he's ignorant. Had Riggan accepted the truth that he's indeed a washed out actor, he would not have the motivation to make his struggle back to glory. Had Mike acknowledged that he's just a pretentious douchebag rather than deceive himself, he would not return to the stage he love. Why return to the theater at all if Tabitha Dickinson was so sure that the play would be terrible? My belief has always been that art is subjective, no matter what critics or naysayers like myself say about the latest Transformers movie. As can be seen from Birdman reviews, there are many perspectives one would gain from watching this film. There was one review I came across that even called it a mocking of art and art lovers, that it's a a lecture on the sentimental values given to 'artsy' products and the derision given to blockbusters, when in the end, we are all just pretentious pricks like Dickinson who thinks we know better. Naturally, that became one of the more unpopular reviews out there. That's the fascinating thing with art - nobody can ever be objectively accurate. I'm sure there are some standards set by 'experts' and 'professionals' who are no less flawed and human than the average viewer, but one could enjoy Transformers or even Marvel movies his entire life without watching a single movie from the Criterion Collection and he wouldn't lose the chance for an equally happy life watching movies he love. While Robert Downey Jr. is making millions with his superhero franchise, Riggan Thomson is trying to stay relevant with the more 'sophisticated' theater community by reviving a story 60 years old that only "a thousand rich old white people worrying about cake and coffee" would care about. Worst of all, his idea of success was one accomplished through a potential suicide that some snob critic pretentiously sugar-coated as "super-realism" and "a new form of method acting". Despite Riggan's wooden performance on stage (as opposed to his more emotional expressions off-stage), Dickinson awarded him such compliments. Virtues of ignorance indeed. The real suicide, some speculated, took place when Riggan fired that gun, not after he jumped out that window. The contrast between the more realistic point-of-view camera shots before the gunshot and the more superficial cinematic cuts that took place after hinted that everything that occurred after he fired the gun was just Riggan's idealism of what success looks like. If that is truly the case, then that's a pretty pathetic end for the character, and such desperation to stay 'deep' and relevant can only be summed up with the overused word, "pretentious", once again, for no fancier word is needed to describe those who pretend to be more than who they are - ignorant daydreamers who imagine things bigger than they really are. And yet, that's merely one interpretation of Alejandro's true message. I might be wrong for all I know. There's a certain comfort in ignorance that drives us in a world that might not have any deeper meaning, probably because we fear that the truth might not be as satisfying. Riggan certainly preferred to think he could soar above mankind, while Sam preferred to think that his father didn't become a red blot on the street. 9/10 Jurassic World I'll admit - the start of Jurassic World was promising. Back when this movie was first announced, there was a very interesting talk from the producers or director about the script. They mentioned "technophobia" and the over-reliance on technology. You could see some of the cleverness of that idea in the first 10 minutes of the film, where Claire Dearing (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) talked about how people are getting tired of the old dinosaurs, that they lacked the 'wow factor'. So they needed to splice a newer, a much flashier version of what used to mesmerize us back then... See where I'm going with this? I thought it was pretty clever, the self-awareness of the movie knowing that it's a reboot of something great. Unfortunately, that didn't go anywhere... for the most parts. The comparison of 'old vs. new' and 'artificial vs. nature' only existed at the beginning of the film and the ending of it. It's largely just shoved to the ending, to be specific. Most of what goes on in-between is just filler to get you to the destination. Much like Terminator: Salvation and Die Another Day, there are a lot of homages paid to the original movies beyond the obvious 'park gate opening'. A dinosaur attacking the kids behind a glass barrier, the tall-grass raptor attack from The Lost World, the swiping of the dusty advertisement for the park as done by Vince Vaughn near the end of The Lost World, the quote "Welcome to Jurassic Park/World" (Hammond's version is better by an entire continent, naturally), the T-Rex neck-snap of Jurassic Park III (done in a more epic way this time round), the raptor-pushing out of its eggshell, and of course, the two kids who are homages to Tim and Lex. There are probably others that I've missed. I'm surprised, however, that there's no homage to the impact tremor... What the hell. Anyway. Needless to say, a lot of the characters here are forgettable cannon-fodder that we won't care about because we just want to see people getting killed by dinosaurs in a desensitized manner, kinda like The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Not the first one though, because almost everyone who got killed in the first one was either memorable or had a meaningful death, even "Hold on to your butts" John Arnold, even the blood-sucking lawyer. None of their deaths were boring cannon-fodder that one would yawn at. It also helped that not a lot of people died in the first one. To be fair, however, the military featured here is a little less dumb in terms of their military prowess and tactical thinking, at least compared to other generic blockbusters. The way one soldier got killed when a blood dripped on his hand? The one you saw in the trailer? He didn't die the way you would think from seeing the trailer. It was pretty clever. Speaking of trailer-trolling, the raptor-taming isn't as cartoonish as the sound of the idea. It's actually made quite believable here, and the raptors are not one-dimensional allies who comply to the humans' every command, so that's a plus. However, I do think the raptors were getting a little stale by the time Lost World came around. Jurassic Park III tried to make them more intelligent, but ruined the whole thing by making them vicious murderers who would snap people's neck for no reason. By the time Jurassic World came along, I'm just not frightened by raptors anymore, nor find them interesting for that matter. They are like miniature versions of the Indominus Rex. Yes, that's the name of the newly bred dinosaur because they wanted a 'cool' name... not because it's a scientifically-accurate species name... Sigh. Whatever. Back to the characters. I actually thought Chris Pratt is pretty good here. I still dislike his witty persona from watching Guardians, but at least he has moments of drama and emotions here. Claire is as forgettable as the family drama she's involved in, so let's skip her. Vic Hoskins (played by Vincent D'Onofrio... waitwut? VINCENT?! KINGPIN? WHAT?! No wonder I found him so familiar!) is a military a**hole like every other kind you've seen in other movies... what a waste of his talent. And as for the two kids, Gray and Zach Mitchell, all you need to know is that Gray is a science nerd, and Zach is an edgy, angst-ridden brat who bullies his little brother. I found them annoying, naturally, and I don't really know why I favor Tim and Lex over these two (Tim and Lex had their 'annoying children' moments too, but I guess not as much as Gray and Zach). Speaking of Gray and Zach, they are involved in this dull family drama that resembles the one in Jurassic Park III. Now I'm not saying human or family drama can't be interesting, but the kind of drama portrayed here is so trite. It's the kind of drama you would find in a monster B-movie, not in a multi-million blockbuster. It makes me want to watch the Hallmark Channel to look for a much better written drama about children dealing with parental divorce. This sub-plot takes up about 25-30% of the movie. There's also a scene where the pterosaurs attack the guests in the park. They tried to build suspense in this scene, but the pterodactyl scene in Jurassic Park III was much better; the pterosaurs here aren't as frightening or interesting. The thing that truly bothered me, however, was that pterosaurs don't eat bipedal creatures, just like Spinosaurus isn't proven to eat anything other than fish. I know this is just a movie, and I shouldn't base scientific facts on this, but it has always bothered me how they portrayed these pterosaurs to be these killers who would attack humans (in Jurassic Park III too), because I have never seen a pterosaur in any of the many documentaries I've watched attacked a bipedal, human-sized dinosaur like a young Iguanodon. As a dinosaur-fan, I found this scene kinda hilarious, really. The rest of the film is basically one long hunt for the Indominus Rex. There's some exposition about the raptors at the beginning of the film, but the film is quick to jump into the New-Rex conflict and start the action. No suspense, no build-up. Like loose cannons. The revelation of this new hybrid dinosaur is a mess, as the I-Rex appeared to be just another random bipedal dinosaur when we finally got to see its face. There's none of that 'wow' factor that was spoken of, unlike the revelation of the T-Rex in the first movie... and that might just be the point director Collin Trevorrow was trying to make in a meta-sense. Trevorrow has stated before that it was meant to "embody humanity's worst tendencies", and that the message is that "we're surrounded by wonder and yet we want more, and we want it bigger, faster, louder, better." Like I said at the beginning, the cleverness of this idea was present at the beginning and the ending of this film, and I love it for that. It's just too bad that most of this film is just focused on getting from Point A to Point B, with almost its entire focus on hunting the I-Rex and nothing else. There's very little exploration of the theme that Treverrow mentioned. There's one scene where Gray and Zach lit up a torch like cavemen exploring cave-paintings and I was quite excited about that, and then we saw those old jeeps from the first Jurassic Park and I became even more excited. But that's all to it, just a little homage and reference to the first movie. And by the end of the movie, the message we finally get is pretty superficial. Here's how the movie explores the theme at the end: Yeah. It's a simple and forced "old is better, new is evil" message. To give Treverrow credit, this final act was a lot of fun, simply because A) the T-Rex has finally taken back its throne by killing off a knock-off, unlike in JPIII, and B) the raptors teamed up with T-Rex, bringing the franchise to a full circle from when they were against each other in the first movie. So yes, I have to admit, I had fun watching this scene. But it's not enough to rectify the entire hour and a half prior to this scene (in fact, as fun as it is, this felt as superficial as the San Diego scene in The Lost World). It actually felt like a really short movie because of how little that happened throughout this rushed movie. I wish there were more arguments and discussions on Treverrow's theme, on how "bigger is not necessary better", just quiet window-character moments where people just sit down and talk about flea circus and rape of the natural world, or about the illusion of control and life, uh, finding a way. There wasn't even a "I told you so" or "Now you're John Hammond" scene. Chris Pratt and Bryce's characters had a few glimpses of these at the beginning before the inevitable rush to the end, so I guess I can't complain too much (even though none of the dialogues were more memorable than even those of The Lost World and perhaps even Jurassic Park III). Overall, I give Jurassic World a 5/10, which is an average rating for an average movie, not a terrible one. Oh, and another thing - Dr. Wu is back. He's an evil scientist here who helped created the I-Rex. Way to utilize good use of an old character.

Probably an anime that deconstructs multiple tropes, kinda like Madoka on steroids. I like surprising people with my stories like that, take them on an unexpected trip. I don't know if there will be action and guns, but I wouldn't mind if my anime has some of that, as long as the action doesn't become the story. A good story is still a must, and good characters are even more important. No stereotypes or cliches, or if there are stereotype personalities, there must be a twist to that personality, a subversion. Oh, and it's going to be depressing. Think Bokurano manga (not the anime). Existential nihilism and all that. Something like Aku no Hana will do.

Tomoya from Clannad. Rebellious, anti-social, parental issues, lazy. Sounds just about right. Still haven't met my Nagisa yet.

I think it's kinda like the D&D morality system; you can't really categorize real life personality to any one trait. Though I would have to say I'm closest to being a tsundere, and maybe a little bit of dandere on the side. I'm kinda bi-polar like that.

Don't remember that many quotes that well, but there's one that still remains in my memories... Coming from a detective who depends on logic for his line of work, that is such an epic quote. Very naive and idealistic, but still one of my favorite quotes.

It depends on which of them is more well-known. Since I don't know Japanese myself, I have no attachment to the language, thus I'm more comfortable with using the English versions more often than not. Writing "Jigoku Shoujo" is a lot more troublesome than writing "Hell Girl" anyway, so there's also the convenience factor to consider about. I dislike inconvenience and see no purpose for inconvenient idealism when more practical things are about. That said, there is no way I'm using "My Romantic SNAFU", because that just sounds stupid and is an insult to the anime and the culture.