Angels & Demons Impressions

Ron Howard really did Dan Brown's best-selling novel a complete injustice this time around, as opposed to the great injustice he did to the Da Vinci Code. I mean, the film isn't even set as a prequel! Rarely do I see such a popularity siphoning move. Just because Da Vinci Code is a bit more recognizable doesn't mean that Angels & Demons can't hold its own. I personally prefer it over the Da Vinci Code.

Now, even if you are somehow able to look beyond the many major differences between the film and the book (if you read the book , that is), this film flies through important plot points without stopping for air and then just keeps on flying to the very end. The film flies so quickly, in fact, that you would probably be hard pressed to catch the majority of the character's names. Angels & Demons never allows the viewer to form a connection with anything that is going on because the characters just seem to be jumping from event to event. The downside to this? For all of the chaos, you will still feel every second of this 140 minute disaster.

I am awarding Angels & Demons one star out of five. Not even Tom Hanks could save this mess. The film was a pain to watch and an utter waste of time.

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

When I first saw this trailer, I honestly thought that it was some kind of joke. Hopefully that's what "they" are going for. If that isn't the case, I really don't see this becoming a sleeper hit. Maybe some things should just stay buried?

AWA Follow-Up

So yes, another AWA (apparently I did a blog entry last year? Wow.) has come and gone. This year I brought my Hufflepuff robes out of retirement, which apparently makes me Cedric Diggory, so the convention was considerably more enjoyable than last year. Everywhere I walked I kept getting "Hufflepuff!" shout outs and I even scored six or so high fives and a few hugs (yes, from girls) so that was cool too. I got photos taken, as well, but that is kind of implied. There was also a Harry Potter photo shoot on that Saturday and it went really well! About twenty or so people showed up (which is pretty huge) and I was the only Hufflepuff so I got my own photo segment when we went by sections. I will refrain from posting pictures from the shoot here, but you can see the full album on my facebook page. Just comment here if you want the link and then friend me. My roommate went as Scar again this year so he got a good number of photos too (but no hugs so I win, haha).



Moving along, beyond taking pictures (photo-shoots and otherwise), the airplane hanger sized Dealer's room, and the equally large Artist's Alley there really isn't much to do at AWA. There really aren't very many notable guests and the panels are kind of dull. The video rooms are fairly interesting, I suppose, but why go to a convention for that? Anyway, I didn't make any purchases this year, which was kind of disappointing because I really wanted a new messenger bag, so walking around the Dealer's Hall about fifteen times got a bit stressful. Oh, and I got pulled over to the MomoCon table (because I'm Vice President of Anime O-Tekku now and I have "responsibilities" and such) for about an hour and a half to sell things and give out fliers so my feet never really got too much rest.



So, that's it. AWA was much more fun than usual for this year, mostly because I didn't bother with any panels and I dressed up, so I will probably go again next year. I want to try to do some kind of cosplay from now on, though, so I am already working on something for MomoCon and beyond. It is a little ambitious, mainly because I am not too sure how many people watched the show, but hopefully it works out. I will reveal the cosplay when I have more things finalized (I want my roommate to dress up as another character from the show).

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin: Viva Pinata

"Fathers can game too!"

Haha, I don't quite know what "season" this belongs to. It was good to see an episode completely devoted to Papa Burch though... even if it was kind of lame.

"9" Impressions

Sorry for the staggered posts. These past two weeks have been hellish.

The thing that hurt the most about "9" was that I was really hoping that it would be good. It had me truly interested from the beginning and it just kept looking better and better. Unfortunately for me, it was terrible. Awful. "9" felt more like an experiment in design than an actual film. It honestly felt like Shane Acker was more interested in how things looked than whether or not his story made any sense. I heard beforehand that the story was muddled, but I had no idea that it was going to be as a bad as it was. At the end of the film, I honestly wondered why any of the main characters ever existed at all. Everything just felt utterly pointless.

I am awarding "9" one star out of five for having good voice acting and decent animation but lacking pretty much anything else. If you're absolutely dead set on seeing this excuse for a film, I suggest you wait for the rental.

Lost at Sea

Acrostic: "A poem or series of lines in which certain letters, usually the first in each line, form a name, motto, or message when read in sequence."

This is the sixth entry in my Acrostic Adventure series. Is she real? Only time will tell, I suppose. Start running.


Lost at Sea

Cold and hapless bodies
Adrift in sea of apathy.
Steady and unyielding
Tides of anguish and suppression.

Numb souls silently wading towards
Obvious oblivion.

Sudden warmth violently snatches
Him out of this bleak undertow.
A vision of pale beauty slips
Down an alleyway and out of sight.
Open your mind to new possibilities.
Wishes are only as unrealistic as you make them.


Copyright © 2009 Jarred Lee

New Moon Trailer 3

Not really in the mood to write my impressions on "9," so here's the latest trailer for New Moon. While I already have plans to "enjoy" the film, I have to admit that it doesn't look so bad. From here at least. And yes, that is Dakota Fanning playing one of the "vampires." I'm sure I wouldn't have been surprised if I had given this film any research time, but hey, it IS the "Twilight Saga." Ah well, just see for yourself.

Astro Boy Trailer

Honestly, I would have posted one of the earlier trailers for this film if I was more interested in it. Don't get me wrong, it looks like it could be good, but I just have my reservations. Anyway, this trailer seems like it is going to be the last one before the film's release, and it's just over two minutes long, so I suppose if there is any one to post then it should be this one. Enjoy.

Portfolio Going Down

So my web portfolio is going bye bye come September 15th. Bravehost is basically obliterating their free hosting service (we were only allotted 50 mb of space and now their cutting it down to 5 mb!) so until I feel motivated enough to move it to another host I'm just going to let it go. I can understand where the site is coming from, I guess they aren't all that popular and storage is expensive, but this reduction is kind of ridiculous. 5 mb isn't enough to do anything with. So yeah, sorry guys (especially those of you who messaged me about starting up your own page).

Dragon*Con '09 Follow-up (Kind Of)

So here it is, my D*con follow-up. There was fun, celebrities, and lots of food (most of which was being served to other people). So yeah, I'll start with the staffing portion of the con because that took up most of my time. Well, since I chose a morning shift (7 am - noon) I had to wake up at 6 a.m. each of the days (except Sunday because I stayed up all night at the con) and walk all the way from my dorm to the convention. Now, google maps tells me that this is normally a 45 minute walk... but I did it in about 25 minutes each time. I walk too fast! Anyway, I was on staff for the ConSuite so I basically had to serve food to hundreds of people every morning. On Friday I made about 400 peanut butter and jelly , on Saturday tuna sandwiches, Sunday scrambled eggs and hash browns, and Monday I served old spaghetti and spam. Fun! So that's pretty much it for the work part. Now that I have paid my $20 and worked my designated 25 hours, I am eligible to staff for free at every Dragon*con for... ever? It's a lot of work, but a lifetime pass is pretty much amazing.



Now on to the actual Con part. The biggest pull this time around was without a doubt the celebrities. Friday morning I got the chance to pop in to the Shatner/Nimoy panel it was amazing. You could definitely tell that they are great friends. Anyway, I saw more celebs in the "walk of fame" area (Lou Ferrigno, Tom Felton, Felicia Day, Charisma Carpenter, Julies Benz, etc) and it was pretty awesome seeing them in real life. I know it's cliche, but you never really think about celebs as being real people, which I guess can be blamed on the media. So yeah, saw the celebs, looked at lots of merchandise, sat in on an amazing Buffy/Angel panel, and fell asleep at 4:20 a.m. during a rave (dumb, I know). There are plenty of other stories here, but I'll just keep them to myself for now. I included a little bonus photo at the bottom of this post so I'll just let you enjoy that. I'm already psyched about next year and I can't wait to see everyone in the ConSuite again! Later all.

Surrogates Trailer

So Dragon*Con '09 finished up Monday and I have to say, it was awesome. I got to meet a lot of celebrities and generally awesome people. I'll make a follow-up post tomorrow or something (I'm still tired!!), but for now just enjoy this trailer.

I don't know how I let Surrogates slip off of my radar! I remember seeing a trailer for it a while back but for some reason I just forgot about it... maybe it was in the despair of the many lackluster films on the horizon. Ah well, Surrogates is expected to open September 25th of this year and I definitely plan on giving it a good watching.

Dragon*Con '09!

So Dragon*Con 2009 starts tomorrow! And better yet, I am working as a staff member this year! It's my sixth consecutive year attending so I thought I'd step it up a notch. So yeah, the con runs until Monday evening so needless to say, there won't be any updates this weekend. Enjoy your Labor Day (U.S. readers) and if you're going to the con then feel free to stop by the consuite in Hyatt 223/226 for food stuffs and Pepsi products.

If you don't know what Dragon*Con is (and you didn't click the first link and figure it out for yourself) then go to the wiki page and read up.

P.S. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Patrick Stewart are going to be guests this year (among some really great other guests). Can you say death match?

9 Trailer

I must admit, I am kind of excited to see 9. Regardless, of course, of the fact that I still dislike Tim Burton (even if he is only co-producing this particular film). Anyways, 9 looks like it has a lot of potential (it isn't going to continue to abuse "3D") and the voice acting cast has a lot of big names scattered here and there so that should be interesting as well. I thought I'd use Apple's trailer page because it has all the nice quality options. Expect to see this film in theaters on 9/9/2009 (which is also, coincidentally, the release day for The Beatles: Rock Band if you're interested).