Iron Man - Review (No Spoilers)

Iron Man is one of those movies that has all the ingredients needed to succeed. It’s just how you apply the ingredients to get the best flavour of it that makes or breaks a movie. In the case of Iron Man you’ve a got a cocky play boy who was born rich and successful. On top of being cocky and a womaniser he’s got an awesome sense of humour to boot. Throw in a coming of age story that rivals any other, and great over the top, realistic action sequences that make Autobots and Decepticons look like so 2007, you’ve got summer block buster in the making. But just to make things clear, this is no “No Country for Old Men” nor “There Will Be Blood” like movie of the year material; just a plain old great summer blockbuster. Might probably be the best movie of this summer, but I predict the Joker will beg to differ.

I actually went to this movie with really low expectations. After last summer’s disappointing Spider Man sequel my radar for superhero movies were on the low. Although I must admit Hulk is looking like a really mouth watering prospect, what with Edward Norton donning the fury green and the rumours of Iron Man making an appearance. Not to mention the dark grittiness Joker is bringing to the Dark Knight, this one of those summers that are going to be dominated by superheroes. I digress.

As I was saying after going to the movie with really low expectations I was more than pleasantly surprised after the first few conversations that Tony Stark had with the soldiers. Robert Downy Jr. had me sold from the start. He just seems to thrive on the role of Tony Stark. The wittiness and arrogance he brought to the character was absolutely flawless and completely believable and really darn funny as well. Robert Downy Jr. actually MADE this movie into a hit. I don’t think anyone else could have taken the character of Tony Stark onto the big screen and run with it as well as Downy did. The other actors weren’t any slouch’s either. Gwenyth Paltrow as Pepper Potts was amazing as well; didn’t think she could pull off being a red head. She was soo beautiful in the movie and the chemistry between her and Downy Jr. was unbelievable. There was sexual tension in the air in every scene they had and it was such a pleasant change after all the tragic ‘I’m a superhero and you can’t be my girl friend/wife since you will be in danger all the time’ relationship dramas that we had got so much accustomed to. And Obidiah; he’s just one big scary badass dude, is all that I can say.

The special effects in the movie felt so real. I didn’t even think it was CGI at all when I was looking it, like how I felt while watching some scenes of the Transformers. The scene where Iron Man was fleeing from some Jets was just plain awesome. Industrial Light & Magic is your new go to guys on CGI. Masi Oka probably stopped time to work on the scenes for as long as possible me thinks. =P

Most of the people that I know who has watched the movie was really pleased after watching it. Although I do know some people who didn’t like it at all but that’s probably due to their moods while watching the movie I suppose. There is absolutely no way that you can hate this movie. You owe it to yourselves to watch this movie in the best quality possible. This is one of those rare movies that people of all ages can enjoy due to the witty dialogue and just plain great story telling. So give it a go and don’t forget to watch till the end of the credits.

The only thing I didn’t like about the movie was the movie poster. It’s just so 90’s. Maybe they are going for the retro look. Who knows? Meh..

LOST Producers Interviewed

Some really serious questions were answered. Must watch for all LOST fans. =P

New McGyver Movie ?

Who doesn’t remember the crazy guy who gets stuck in the most impossible situations and conjures up an escape with everyday household items? That guy’s coming back in a high-budget movie sometime in the near future.

I grew up watching McGyver and his crazy antics on TVM Plus. That and the X-Files were the best thing on the TV then. Wonder if the movie will have a new actor. I would prefer the old one; McGyver aged but obviously smarter than before. The dude who played McGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) is pretty old now but if Indie can make a comebackafter almost twenty years why can’t he? I would luurve to see this movie. Strangely enough, a week back, I was thinking why the hell McGyver hadn’t made a comeback in a remake of sorts. I guess I should think about these things more =P.

Enjoy some McGyver goodness in the following video commercial.

Original Story

LOST - Something Nice Back Home

“Wouldn’t you rather be dreaming about something nice back home?” asks a concerned Bernard as he tries to convince the ever stubborn Jack to go under, as Kate looks on with a worried look in her eyes.  Juliet, with her fiery and resilient demeanour, yells at Kate to leave the makeshift OR while Jack quivers in pain as the cold, hard metal cuts into his flesh. Bernard, finally having enough, drugs Jack who growls in pain and slowly passes into future dreams of himself back home with Kate and Aaron.

You think that’s how the script is written? xD

Probably not. Oh and the last line was a lie. He didn’t dream of the future. Well I just like to think of it that way. It’s bittersweet. Well kind of..

This was an emotional episode of LOST, not as emotional as the Desmond episode, mind you, but still up there. We should remember first and foremost LOST is a drama series whistle sci-fi comes second. This was drama played out to its best. And it was pretty good change of pace after that Ben-Centric episode which I didn’t like that much but this episode I loved to bits! You can say that it was a pretty much filler episode, which it kind of was but it did answer some questions that we didn’t know. I actually like some of the filler LOST episodes more than the Mythology ones. The Nikki and Paolo, “Hitchcockien” episode comes to mind.  Loved how Hurley tried to figure out what Nikki said. “Powerlines..oh wait I got it dude..Paolo lies!!” (Well something along that line) while in fact it was “Paralysed”. Great episode. I digress, let’s move on shall we?

Jack finally got to live his dream of spending his life with Kate and Aaron (comes with the package =P) unknowingly to him that fate had other plans. Fate in this case was named Charlie who gave him the message through Hurley that Jack wasn’t supposed to raise Aaron. Jack then goes through the motions, that leads him in into the state that we see him in the third season finale. Now this leads to interesting question doesn’t it? Most of the survivors that have gotten off the island have gone mad; Michael, Hurley and Jack. Now looking at these survivors they have nothing to live for. Michael has fallen out with Walt. Hurley has absolutely no one. Jack has Kate but now that Aaron’s in the mix that doesn’t bode well for Jack. Now looking at the survivors that hasn’t gone mad; Sayid has a mission to kill all Widmore’s lackeys, Sun has Ji-Yeon, and Kate has Aaron and vice versa.

The survivors who go mad see’s apparitions from their past; for Jack it’s his Dad, for Michael it’s Libby and for Hurley it’s Charlie. So are these apparitions only fictions of their imaginations of what they want to see or happen? Or is it Jacob/ Island manipulating them from afar, in order to call them back? Thats a question for another day perhaps.

From what I can fathom from this whole mind bending story line is that the key to all of this is Aaron. Is Aaron the grandson of Jacob? That fits into the theory of Christian Shephard being Jacob, but it’s really too farfetched to my liking. Maybe Jacob takes on the guise of Christian to spread his word since he doesn’t have a body. Or maybe, maybe (I really think I’m onto something here..A light bulb just went off in my head..ok hear me out) Jacob doesn’t have a body. A dead body dropped onto the island on a coffin. Jacob transferred his spirit or soul into that body and is using that body as a conduit to communicate with the people on the island. That would explain why Christian’s body wasn’t in the coffin when Jack found it. And I would go as far out as to say that the coffin that Jack visits in the third season finale contains the body of none other than Christian Shephard. That would totally blow our minds wouldn’t it? Haha..So the new vessel for Jacob would be Locke. 0_o

Ok ok that’s totally crazy. I’ll stop now. So Aaron is really important that we know. Claire disappears into the jungle with Christian/Jacob whoever and leaves Aaron behind. Weird. Is that how Aaron ends up with Kate? There should be a reunion of Claire, Jack and Christian before the season ends me thinks so Claire should pop up once again before they get off the island. I don’t think Claire dies; Claire has to stay on the island for some reason.

Aah now I’m having a headache. Enough LOST thinking for one day. So cheerio until next episode.

Oh and wasn’t there a great moment between Juliet, Kate and Jack. Awwwww ^_^

Thousand apologies for the quality of writing. =P

New MGS4 Gameplay Footage X-PLAY

Don’t watch if you don’t want to be spoiled/spoilt (?) . =P

LOST - The Shape of Things to Come

Here I am sitting near my laptop; nose dripping, ‘insomniacaly’ high on Actifed, listening to Jason Mraz’s crazy tunes , all alone in the apartment and missing my love. It’s the holidays and I’m stuck in the house with the flu and couldn’t even watch Iron Man; was going to write an exclusive review just after I watched it, oh but how plans change. With the last drip wiped from my nose I start writing cursing at Microsoft Word for not making I capital when it should. What should I write about..oh yes LOST; last week’s episode of LOST. I apologize to the people who troll the site for the LOST reviews without leaving any comments (you should be ashamed of yourselves..Don’t you know I need encouragement? Actually I don’t. I’m not in my right state of mind. So just ignore the stuff in the parenthesis =P).I was busy with the assignments and sneaking some minutes of my time to play MGS and to talk to my love.

Anyways let’s get into it shall we? Ben ‘Indiana Jones/James Bond’ Lynus manipulated and deceived his way into Sayid’s good graces in the future; October 2005 to be exact I think. He later visited Widmore in his bedroom and said he changed the rules. What are the rules and who determines the rules? I’ll go out on a limb here and say it’s none other than Jacob. It’s a game between two powerful men to get control of the mysterious island whose real owner is the cabin moving Jacob. While we can contemplate on why Jacob is a person who likes a change in scenery per hour, we should get into more important matters.

Jacob first choses Widmore as his lackey but Widmore betrayed Jacob’s trust by forming the Dharma Initiative and ‘experimenting’ with the island’s properties. That pissed Jacob off and Ben came into the picture. Jacob saw a lot of potential in Ben and gave him the sole reign of island and the responsibility of  protecting it. Smokey is none other than the island’s judge and jury and eliminates any threats to the island including Keamy’s Army. Ben can’t control Smokey but he can call him when needed as seen in this episode. Ben somehow fell out with Jacob and the ownership is passed to Locke temporarily. Due to Locke’s incompetence and him partly going mad Hurley was chosen. And now he’s the only one that can communicate with Jacob. Ben knows if he has Hurley he can get into Jacob’s good graces and we see that he did as he probably with the help of Jacob transported himself off the island in 2005. I don’t think he travelled through time to get there. The travelling and arriving happened in 2005, give or take a few days. Well that’s the theory I’m going with now according to incidents of the episode.

The episode had pretty much a big game changer, with Alex’s death at the hand of a somewhat hesitant Keemy and the death threat on Penny Widmore by Ben. Penny and Desmond better have a happy ending else I would be really pissed off. Desmond’s my favourite character with Ben a little behind, and if anything happened to Penny it would prove that the world is a really frakked up place, and this being a drama show really needs a happy ending.

I was really impressed with Ben’s character development. He’s number one on my favourite Villains in a tv-series list. Lional Luthor, Dan Scott, The Cigarette Smoking Man, Baltar and Arvine Sloane of Alias complete the list. Currently Cigarette Smoking Man and Ben are battling out for Villain Supremacy and Ben is on top at the moment.

The funniest thing that happened in the episode was Sawyer telling the no-named losties to get inside the house when Keamy and Co were trigger happy. Every time he said that one no-name dies and another comes out. That was darn funny. Kind of reminds me of old horror flicks/ and the new bad ones with stupid people dying. If you hear shooting don’t run out to see what’s going on! Stay in a safe place or else you’ll get someone’s foot in your ass! Dumbasses!!! (Oh how much I miss Red..)

I don’t know whose episode tomorrow’s one is. I’m done reading up LOST news; I get spoilt every time. I knew Ben was going to go all out commando on some Arabs and speak fluent inaudible languages. So the episode didn’t impress me that much. Hope tomorrow’s episode can one up this one.

Cya then. Hopefully I’ll be saner, and more coherent, ‘words-written-on-blog-posts’ wise. =P

Cool nifty feature down there don’t you think? Ugly interface but the backbone seems solid now.

Metal Gear Solid + MGS4 Theories

It’s been ten years since I first played Metal Gear Solid for the PSX. Sure I’ve played it for more than enough times than I can count, but it’s been some years since I haven’t played it. Since Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming out in about two months I got a bit nostalgic and thought of playing Metal Gear Solid series once again albeit this time on the PC.

There’s so many things that can change over the years; your age, tastes, views about certain events that happen in your life and obviously you get mature than when you were twelve. But the awesomeness of the game hasn’t changed at all. I didn’t understand the broader meaning or the message that Hideo Kojima wanted to deliver in the game when I was wee old, but now I can certainly say this game was definitely ahead of its time. The concepts and beliefs expressed by the main protagonists and the antagonists in the series makes you really think over the issues that are facing the world today. You feel for the characters, their reasons for choosing the specific path that they end up in. Sure the story gets a bit cheesy with over the top characters such as Psycho Mantis and Gray Fox but it works. It feels like an anime in a sense but it feels almost real as well. That’s the magic of Hideo Kojima, the perfectionist, who is a master artist in creating a cinematic experience that can rival no other producer in the gaming business. I actually think he should be making movies. Just imagine Hideo Kojima teaming up with JJ Abrams to create the rumoured Metal Gear Solid movie. Not sure about a director though but have Admiral Adama of Battlestar Galactica as Colonel Roy Campbell and I’m definitely in.

From the opening cinematic and the eerie music that accompanies the scene I knew that the game was going to be special from the first moment I saw it. I actually got that music piece as my ringtone at the moment. Yes I admit, I’m such a fanboy ^_^.

Now playing it again I notice some of the most subtle things. How Master Miller/Liquid and Naomi acts before their deceptions; the hints were already there down to their expressions on the codec screen. That shows great planning and carefully planned story telling on the part of Kojima once again. Mixing of real history with the canon of the game; the part about the Gulf War being used as an experiment to test the effects of inserting the genes of Big Boss into the soldiers, to create super soldiers in the mold of Big Boss. The use of nano-machines to control the core body temperature so that it can withstand harsh weather conditions is another interesting concept that was used in the game. Since this was in 1998 I don’t think the concept of nano-machines were openly discussed as a possibility between scientists although it was more widely popularised by Michael Chricton in his scientific thriller “Prey” which is a phenomenal book. So kudos has to be given to Kojima-san for his passion for futuristic technology and integrating that into the game. These are only the tip of the ice-berg of the greatness of the game. To experience the greatness you have to play it.

Looking at the game-play I’m actually really surprised about how much variety there is to the game play. Starts out as a sneaking game of just infiltrating a fortress without getting detected; easy enough right? Then there are the lasers you have you have to crawl past with the help of your cigs/thermal goggles. Then collect some mines on the ground, fight a tank, fire a nikita missile and guide it to a destination, fight a person wearing an exo-skeleton, fight a psychic, use a sniper rifle, take down a Hind Helicopter, lay down an angry Shaman and then battle a huge fricking tank that is out of a Mecha-esque anime.  That is how much variety the game has got, which is absolutely amazing considering the games that are coming out for this generation still can’t compete with this amount of variety to game play. I’m looking at you Dante and Altaire!

Not to mention the over the top humour in the game. How many of you were searching high and low for a cd case in the game to get Meryl’s codec number? Come on don’t be shy raise your hands.  What about Psycho Mantis reading your mind? That has to be the most surprised that I had been in a game ever! ; Mantis reading the data in your memory card to increase the tension and then having to change the controller to a second port so that he could not “read your mind”. Genius! That moment will be remembered by gamers till the end of time.

Theories

• I’m currently playing Sons of Liberty and will post some thoughts on it after I’ve finished it. So let’s get into some theories about what the fourth game.
• Well we know that Snake has gotten old over a short period of time due to FoxDie and he has to take injections to incubate the ‘olding’ process. In the trailers Snake is seen contemplating on blowing his brains out; I think this is just Kojima frakking with our minds. Snake is going to live and the aging process can be stopped or reversed by none other than Naomi. That is probably going to be done by with Vamp’s blood, since he is a vampire and vamp’s don’t age, duh!
• Mei Ling will return with her Chinese proverbs; thank god she does as Otacon can never fill that void.
• The last battle will be at Shadow Moses island; where it all started and the battle will be two Metal Gears beating the frak out of each other, with Snake in Metal Gear Rex and Liquid Ocelot in Metal Gear Ray.
• Big Boss will make an appearance in the game and then disappear with the latest Metal Gear data.
• A clone of Frank Jaega, probably in his early twenties, will return with all his memories; if Big Boss was cloned, why wouldn’t the first operative of FoxHound , who earned the honourable code name FOX not? I actually think the next Metal Gear Games will be about Gray Fox with Snake returning in a Roy Campbell role.
• The Beauty and the Beast unit has the memories of their original code name FoxHound operatives.

Well that’s all I got for now, stay tuned till I finish Sons of Liberty. More theories to come.

New MGS4 Trailer

Brand new MGS4: Guns of the Patriots trailer released in Japan with Japanese voice overs. I’ve been playing MGS and MGS2 these days. Will post some stuff that I found interesting while playing the game again as well as some theories for what is going to happen in MGS4. So stay tuned!

Twitter. Give it a try

I’ve been using twitter the past few days and there seems to be few Maldivians using it. Now most of the people who read my blog are almost always online surfing the web and chatting and stuff, so why not ask them to check out twitter I ask myself. But not a lot of people get what twitter is all about. Let me try to explain it in my own way and if you don’t get it I’ve put in a youtube video below which explains it in plain English.

My way: Twitter is just a way to communicate with your friends and family members. Let’s say you live far apart and you’re busy with your work and you don’t have time to call your friends or family. That’s where twitter comes in. You just type in what you’re doing at the moment and everyone on your allow list would be able to see your message. Twitter can be integrated to your IM clients as well as even through your mobile phones.

Let me give you an example; the other day I was hanging out with a friend and he left my place and he was going to take a train. Later I saw that he had been stuck at the train station for almost an hour. Yeah of course, he could have messaged me and told me that, but by putting that message he’s telling his other friends where he is as well. Pretty cool me thinks.

Twitter in Plain English

The video was done by CommonCraft.com. They have a lot of videos of stuff explained in “Plain English” as well.

So if you want to give twitter a try add me on twitter.com/maail. Some of the mvbloggers are using Twitter as well.

David Archuleta is an Actor?!?

I knew there was something fishy about that guy.

You can watch more of Eric’s rants on Eric’s Vlog.