Clarence Brown

Oldboy, Oldboy, Oldboy. Yours is a twisted tale. One which can sicken the faint of heart, but bring so much joy to those with passion for a gut-wrenching, suspense filled tale. Oldboy is a winding road of discovery, spattered with action, which eventually brings protagonist, Dae-su, to the realization that is every bit as disturbing as anything I have ever seen, read, or heard.

Background — Oldboy, a Korean film directed by Park Chan-wook, was released in 2003 and is a loosely based film adaptation of a Japanese manga of the same name.

Plot — Oh Dae-su, a Korean businessman, husband, and father finds himself kidnapped and placed in a holding jail that appears to look like a run down hotel room with no access to the outside world other than a television set. After days of yelling and trying to get someone to give him some sort of explanation, he gives up and begins watching his television. Soon after, he learns that his wife has been murdered and that he is the number one suspect. Days turn into weeks, weeks to months, and months to years. The notion that he as been imprisoned for no apparent reason torments him and he often times loses his sanity. Thinking that at some point he may have the chance to escape from this living hell and ensue revenge on his captor’s, he trains feverishly. After 15 long years he is released with no explanation, rhyme or reason. Dae-su begins a quest to find his captors and figure out the reason why he has been imprisoned for the last fifteen years of his life.

The Good —Nothing in Oldboy is taken lightly. The extremeness of the plot and action is the hook. This film will easily have you running the gamut of human emotions. That being said, this movie is also extremely well paced. I often have problems with most action-suspense movies because they contain way too many dead spots, or don’t offer up enough story to keep me glued. This movie has a great balance of action, suspense, and reveals that will keep you on edge and guessing throughout. Ultimately the story is not as complex as it seems, but the mayhem that is distributed to reveal this perceived complexity, is all too appealing.

The Bad — The only bad thing I can see here is the sickness of the plot. Although this is also one of the movie’s strong points. So I don’t know if I can really say if it’s a bad thing. I will say that most people won’t find the scenarios that this movie reveals socially acceptable. But with most movies, how often do we really find the plot socially acceptable? I can’t really go into further explanation here, you just really have to see the movie.

If you read my last review for District B13, then you know I’m strongly opposed to reading subtitles. Fortunately the Netflix version of this movie does offer up an English dubbed audio track. Good that it’s there, but kind of disappointing that it’s poorly done. At first I felt like I was watching an old kungfu movie. Good thing is, as the movie goes on, you barely notice. But as I stated in my last review pertaining to subtitles, I can’t demerit the film for this (albeit the localization staff stands to lose a few points).

Conclusion — All in all, this is a great movie. I absolutely loved it. Because of the plot, I would think that this is not for everyone. But if you love action and have a tooth for good suspense, then this is definitely the movie for you.

Also, there have been rumors of an American-made adaptation of the original Japanese manga for quite some time. Supposedly Steven Spielberg was to head up the project, with Will Smith portraying the role of Dae-su. Seems the US version of the film has been tied up due to legal litigation as explained by AnimeNewsNetwork. Seems the manga publishers and the film makers are at odds over selling movie rights. As of right now, the project is reported to be dead.

A Must See

Two things that I can really appreciate about an action film: authentic fighting and authentic stunt work. You know, fighting that isn’t riddled by camera cuts to make the action seemingly more exciting than it really is, and stunts in which there is no possible way you can tell if it’s real or fake. I know, it seems that these types of films may be few and far between, but every now and then, a film lives up to these expectations. Enter District B13.

Background. District B13 is a 2004 French film, which is widely known for it’s numerous parkour sequences, which were said to be done without any wire or computer effects. Parkour, as stated by Wikipedia, is the physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible, as if moving in an emergency situation, using skills such as jumping and climbing, or the more specific parkour moves. Mirror’s Edge, eat your heart out!

Plot. In 2010 B13, a slum in the suburbs of Paris is riddled with violence and mayhem and eventually a wall is constructed to contain this area. Soon after schools close, there is little to no law enforcement, and all hope is lost. One person, Leito, stands against the terror and soon finds himself on the bad side of the drug lord Taha. Taha kidnaps Leito’s sister, Lola, and after an unsuccessful rescue attempt, Leito finds himself on the wrong side of the few, crooked cops left in B13. Meanwhile an experimental bomb is stolen and taken into District B13. In an effort to retrieve the missing weapon, a hotshot undercover officer, Damien Tomaso, teams up with the detained Leito in an attempt to rescue Leito’s sister, and take back the weapon.

Main Characters. Leito, the main protagonist, is a streetwise acrobatic resident of B13 who knows the district like the back of his hand, and is the one shining light of B13. His character is portrayed by David Belle, who is largely credited as the founder of parkour.

Capt. Damien Tomaso is a star undercover officer who firmly believes and lives by the law. His character is portrayed by Cyril Raffaelli, who is a martial artist and stuntman, and is credited with parkour coordinator on the latest Incredible Hulk film.

The Good. Okay, no need to beat around the bush on this one. This movie is entirely about the action. It makes you appreciate the art of seeing the human body at it’s best. Simply put, Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle are awesome. And although the storyline isn’t the deepest around (and often times predictable), the movie does offer up a plot twist at the end which will keep you on edge through the closing minutes.

The Bad. Subtitles, I hate subtitles. There may be an English dubbed version of this film out there, but the one and only reason I saw this movie, was because it was on Netflix instant streaming. Unfortunately, it was just subtitled, which took me away from all the great action. Says a lot that I still love this movie, even though I had to read the entire time. I can’t fault the movie for that, but it was still annoying. Also, why give a date in a movie? 2010? Really? This movie makes the mistake of giving itself a date of 2010 as the future when it’s really not needed. They could have easily said, “In the not too distinct future”. By giving a date, they age the movie. It was made in 2004, and seeing that it’s 2009 right now, it just seems silly and very unnecessary to give the date in the film. It only adds unnecessary age to the film, which, if it wasn’t for them mentioning the date, I would have thought it was just made.

Conclusion. This movie has more action than you can shake a stick at. Great stunts, great fighting, with an okay storyline. What more do you want? As fore mentioned it’s available for instant streaming via Netflix. So if you can stomach reading subtitles, it’s a go. Next up, Oldboy!

Verdict: Must See

Admittedly, I have had a troubled past with choosing the perfect desktop music application. With products like the iPod and iPhone, iTunes has managed to become the player of choice. But with Apple iTunes continued lack of innovation, I decided to give the Zune desktop software a second try. To my surprise, I was greatly pleased with the new, seemingly small innovations, that have managed to put the Zune software miles ahead of its Apple counterpart. Let’s take a look at what gets me excited about this up and coming player.

Visual Playback Experience

When I say visual playback experience, I mean, VISUAL playback experience. Instead of the out-dated option of only looking at the player software or just looking at visualizations, Zune has really stepped up by providing a rich visual experience. If your music is identifiable by the Zune Marketplace, you will be provided with graphics of the currently playing artist along with dynamically scrolling text with Zune Marketplace stats about the current song (screen shot below). Nice. If by chance your music is not identified, you will still be graced with a nice collage of the albums in your library which dynamically change in and out (screen shot above). On top of that, at the bottom of the player, you are provided with a graphical volume meter.

In Collection/Zune Marketplace

Once again, this is where the Zune team has went the extra step. Like I mentioned earlier with the visual features, this is purely dependent on your music being identifiable by the Zune Marketplace. That being said, if you music is identified by the software, and you browse the Zune Marketplace, all music that you own will show an ‘In Collection’ tag rather than a buy tag. Wow. To know they would go this extra step instead of allowing you to re-purchase content is really satisfying. If you click on the ‘In Collection’ tag, it takes you directly to the music within your library.

SmartDJ

This is obviously the Zune answer to the iTunes Genius feature. And weather their recommendation system is better or worse is yet to be seen. But once again, what is really cool here is presentation. Your Zune SmartDJ playlists are based on artist rather than a particular song. They are presented as a thumbnail with an image of the artist that’s, once again, pulled from the Zune Marketplace database.

The Social

This is a feature that all music players should have. And with growing popularity of services like last.fm or iLike, it’s quite clear that the Zune team is moving in the right direction with this feature. What is the Social? Zune Social is the social networking part of the Zune Software that displays a user’s most-played artists, favorite and recently played songs, and a list of the users friends, in addition to any comments about them. And with the addition of the Zune Marketplace subscription, you can instantly download all the songs from your firends library. What’s so cool about this is that the networked it shared with the XBOX Live friends service. So if your a XBOX Live user, you are instantly connected to all your XBOX live friends via the Zune social network. Also your Zune Card, a mini-representation of your Zune stats, is HTML embeddable. Very nice.

In Closing

Although Zune software has many innovations and features, it’s not without its faults. Often times I found that music that should be recognized by the Zune Marketplace, was not showing up. This all but kills a few of the features I mentioned above. And the lack of an Apple version isn’t helping it win any accolades either. All in all, I would definitely suggest giving this software a whirl. You may find it to be more than worth the price of admission (free).

When Smallville first came out, I was disinterested. I did not really give it the time a day until my brother gave my the recommendation that it was a pretty good show. At first I was more than skeptical, but on that advice, I thought I would give it a try. I put my pretenses aside and began to watch with a bit of enthusiasm, eager to see how Clark Kent would be portrayed as a teenager.

I soon found that this show had irreconcilable differences with the Superman storyline we have all come to know and love. The main being that Clark and Lex Luthor became best friends early on in the show. Yes, this alone would have Superman’s  creator Jerry Siegel doing barrel rolls in his grave. But even with this major flub, the show became very interesting in a way that is kind of hard to explain. Each week delivered a fresh new story that contributed to Clark’s coming of age. The whole meteor rock twist delivered some interesting stories that kept me glued to the TV set.

But, as is the case with this series, they ran the good thing they had going for them into the ground. I found that the repetitive story lines and an unsettled romance would soon lead me to hate the show in many ways. After making it halfway though the eight season, I’m calling it quits, and I hope the production staff at the CW will do the same. Here are the all so obvious reasons why.

The Rehashing of the Clark-Lana Love Story

This plot line has long been the thorn in the side for this show. It also has seem to have been the main storyline of over two-thirds of the show in my opinion. Love gained, love lost, love can’t be obtained, love leaves, love marries your mortal enemy…  WTF? I mean, how many times can you tell the same story over, and over, and over, and over again. Bottom line is, Clark and Lana like each other, but can never be together, we know this. Leave it alone. This is Smallville, not desperate housewives.

Clark is a Wimp

I know that this is supposed to be a story of Clark finding himself and becoming Superman. But come on… really. After eight seasons, why the heck is Clark still such a wimp. Of course Clark/Superman is supposed to have a heart of gold but come on, after all the things he has gone through over the past eight seasons, there is no reason for him to continue to act so wimpy. This dude weighs his feeling more than most teenage girls. He is just as wimpy and naive as he was when the first show aired.

Clark Still Cannot Fly

I mean… really?

No Clear End In Sight

I cannot stand any series that has not clear vision or has a, “We will make it up as we go along” attitude. There is something to be said about a series that has a ending in site and does not just “Milk The Cow”, so to speak. To me ABC’s “Lost” faces this same situation. In Smallville’s case, they have botched up the storyline so much from the classic Superman, that there in no way that they can really save it.

Should they have not ended it when Michael Rosenbaum said he was leaving? When Kristin Kreuk said she was leaving to do a movie? No, they just continued obscurity. By now it’s clear that the writers don’t have a vision, but rather a wealth of DC universe information that they just try to throw in the storyline to drag this thing longer and longer. This show should have ended when Clark graduated for high school. Oh, and is Clark still in college? Seems they just threw that in there to introduce Brainac.

Superman Is Dead

Smallville, while having some high and many lows, has effectively left a distinctively bad taste in my mouth that will not easily be washed away. For every cool thing that was done with the series, there have been five bad things done. This could have been a great thing if only handled properly. How would I have handled it? I think Warner Brothers and the writers of Smallville could have looked at the bigger picture. What if they have only made the show a four/five season stint in which Clark really becomes mature? They could have put writers in there that could really have make this something special. A show in which his powers and characters grow on many levels. A show in which all the cheezyness and rehashed love story telling is left out. As show in which he truly becomes a man. A show in which he learns to fly. They could have easily transitioned the franchise in to a huge box office smash. Instead of the lack-luster movie we had a few years back, they could have had one in which Smallville’s Clark Kent truly becomes a super hero. Just a thought.

But… where there is no vision, or limited vision in this case…