Quick Review: Pulse

Posted in movies by - Oct 03, 2009
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This movie could hardly be assier. The screenplay is ridiculous. The acting couldn’t anchor a middle-school production of “Our Town”. Even the effects are slapdash and subpar. There is no reason to see this movie unless you are using the ambient noise to drown out something worse. Like the commentary track.

It’s hard to muster up a good fright for a world where the dead are wasting my toner and the zombies can be stopped by (actual) red tape. Spare yourself or my suffering will have been in vain.

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PS3 Slim in a 17" Laptop / Ben Heck is a Superhero

Posted in gadgets by - Oct 02, 2009
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I don’t even want a PS3 – but you could definitely talk me into buying this one. So far as I know, there isn’t any kind of Nobel Prize for console modding. This oversight must be corrected immediately, and the first few prizes must be handed over to Mr. Heckendorn posthaste. You can check out this particular piece of design genius on the Ben Heck website. I encourage you to snoop around at some of the other ridiculously beautiful gadget mods on the site.

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Quick Review: Capitalism: A Love Story

Posted in movies by - Oct 02, 2009
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Worth seeing. Even if you hate him. Maybe a little more so.

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Quick Review: Last House on the Left

Posted in movies by - Sep 30, 2009
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Watching a scary movie every day is easier when you don’t have stuff going on. Lately I’ve been picking these things later and later at night, and it’s limiting my choices.

This film was rented from iTunes (I’m one of the 6 AppleTV owners out there) and watched starting at about 10:30. I was mostly interested because it’s a recent update of a Wes Craven movie I find genuinely unsettling. It was my first iTunes movie rental that resulted in actual viewing, and I can report that at least that part of the process was painless. The movie …

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Quick Review: Zombieland

Posted in movies by - Sep 24, 2009
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So good.

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Quick Review: Dead and Breakfast

Posted in movies by - Sep 24, 2009
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Very, very bad, it turns out.

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Quick Review: The House on Haunted Hill

Posted in movies by - Sep 21, 2009
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This movie fails on every front. No tension, no plot worth following, no characters who i minded losing. It takes a special kind of flop to make even Geoffrey Rush unwatchable.

I imagined when I started this project that as I went through the exercise, I might get some insight into what makes a scary movie great. That still might happen. But by choosing scary movies sort of randomly I’ve already started to get some ideas about what you need to do to make a scary movie not great.

A couple ways to fail, courtesy of THOHH.

1. Spend …

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Quick Review: Dead Calm

Posted in movies by - Sep 19, 2009
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The slow unfolding of the situation creates suspense that a lot of today’s gadgety directors could learn from.

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The Scary-Movie-a-Day Project

Posted in movies by - Sep 18, 2009
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I’ve decided to watch a scary movie a day until Halloween.

This is partly because I’m a fan of scary movies, both the good and bad varieties. It’s also because there are so many interesting scary movies in theaters between now and then. It may also be a stunt to make my current lack of employment seem a little more fun. In fact, that may be most of it.

Regardless of how this silly idea came about, I’m committed to it. I’ll be using my Netflix account, my Apple TV and the six or seven movie theaters within walking …

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Quick Review: Final Destination 3-D

Posted in movies by - Sep 17, 2009
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This movie was disturbing, but not in the way the director intended.

In the carefully constructed universe of “Final Destination,” death is a vindictive Rube Goldberg machine. When it comes for you, you’re expected to go quietly. When our protagonists have an accidental insight into the machinery and avoid the situation meant to kill them, the machinery of death kicks it up a notch, creating ever-more elaborate mousetraps to catch the cheeky teen death-cheaters.

There is some negligible camp value to seeing the pieces fall into place, but if you can read at grade level you’ll see all of them …

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