Movies

  • December 31, 2010

    Favorites of 2010

    Happy New Years Eve! As tradition for the last couple of years, here is a list of my favorites from 2010.

    • Favorite Tech Toy: Amazon Kindle. Competition was pretty stiff this year with all of the new gadgets I got- an iPad, a new Macbook Pro, and most recently, the HTC Incredible. I also broke from choosing my cell phone as my favorite tech toy. I got the Kindle for Christmas last year and love it. I’m including it in the 2010 running because most of the use came in 2010. The reading experience is superior to the iPad, the book selection is huge, it’s lightweight and very portable, and I love that you can make notes and annotations on it. I feel like I read more in 2010 because of the Kindle.
    • App/Website: Dropbox. This is another thing I had in 2009 but didn’t start really using until 2010. Dropbox makes it amazingly easy to sync across all of my devices (Mac, PC, iPad, Android Phone). I’m considering upgrading so I can try some of the neat advanced things you can do.
    • Favorite Book: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My friend Katie recommended it, and even though it’s a fairly long book, it’s a quick read because of the fast pace of the story. I highly recommending it. I’ll be starting the next one soon!
    • TV Show: Dexter. I was lucky enough to start a series this year that I’ve been missing out on. Dexter is an awesome show about a good guy who’s also serial killer. The show is thrilling and intellectually stimulating, and the acting is rock solid. I highly recommend it if you’ve never watched it.
    • Movie: Inception. Leo DiCaprio had a great 2010. For a while, I though Shutter Island would be the best movie of the year. Then Inception came out and blew my mind. Cause for a lot of discussion and speculation, it’s a movie that keeps on giving, and an original idea at that.
    • Music: The Gaslight Anthem. My brother Phil and friend Danny told me about them in August/September and I’ve been listening to them daily since. I love their classic alternative rock sound (non of this new-alternative Nickelback crap) and the lead singer’s vocals are awesome. I highly recommend them. As far as new in 2010, Mumford and Sons is pretty awesome. You should check them out too.

  • October 31, 2010

    Links Round Up for 10/31/10

  • July 1, 2010

    My Thoughts on Hulu Plus

    When it came out some time last year that Hulu was going to start charging for their service, people were up in arms about it. I decided to wait it out to see how they would do it, stating that if they kept their then free service and charged for value added stuff, it wouldn’t be at all bad. Well, Hulu Plus was announced a few days ago and they did just that.

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  • June 14, 2010

    Couchcast

    My friend Nick and a couple of his friends set up a new podcast called Couchcast. From their About page:

    “Couch-Cast” offers a unique look into the minds of studio executives, Academy-Award winning actors, and the minds behind some of Hollywood’s biggest successes and failures.
    Or, at least it would, if we could get any of those people on the show. Strangely, none of them returned our phone calls. So, we’ll do the next best thing: make fun of them. Hardcore.

    Check it out- it’s pretty funny and these guys know a lot about movies- so if you’re in to funny and movies, check it out!

  • September 27, 2009

    Movies I need to see before I turn 24

    In less than a month (23 days, actually), I will turn 24 years old. While I tout myself as being a pop culture nerd, there is a list of classic movies I still have not seen. A few weeks ago my friends and I set out to change that. Here is the list of movies I need to see before I turn 24, or at least very shortly after.

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  • July 21, 2008

    The Dark Knight

    Why So Serious?

    You didn’t think I’d let a movie like The Dark Knight slip through the cracks on this site, did you? Admittedly, I haven’t reviewed a movie on here in a while, that’s usually because what I have to say about a movie can be found on my Flixster profile. But The Dark Knight is different. The Dark Knight managed to trounce it’s predecessor in action, story line, and acting while also continuing to reveal the story of why Batman is the way he is.

    Spoilers to follow

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  • May 13, 2008

    Busy May

    Wow. I just realized I haven’t posted here since the end of April. And really, I have some ideas for posts, but no time. I am in the midst of finals week, projects, and getting ready to go out to San Francisco for Google I/O. I also have some ideas for projects I want to do over the summer. So in light of that, here is a “Random Thoughts” post to hold you over until I have time to write something more substantial.

    • I finished A Confederacy of Dunces. It was very good. I am now reading Bringing Down the House, the book the movie 21 is based on.
    • Iron Man was an awesome movie. Go see it. Take me with you.
    • I am using a new system to keep track of invoices and expenses for my business. That will be my next big post.
    • Google Reader integrated Notes and the ability to share websites not in your feed reader, as I requested in my last post. It’s like they are listening directly to me!

    I frequently have random thoughts that I will post on Twitter, if you’d like to follow me.

  • July 8, 2007

    Transformers Movie

    Transformers Movie

    Some would say I’m stubborn. OK- a lot of people would say that. When I have an opinion, I’m pretty dead set in it. But my mind can be changed. Going into Transformers I wasn’t expecting spectacular. I wasn’t expecting crap either. I was expecting mediocrity. Boy was I wrong. The Transformers Movie was awesome in a lot of ways. There are some things you need to ultimately need to get past, because it is a cartoon turned movie, but overall it’s a great movie.

    I think is is mainly due to the fact that the plot is fairly complex and it all comes together in the end. There are 2 major story lines with sub stories in each: The Military encounter with a Decepticon, and our main character, Sam Witwiky’s encounter with the Autobots. The movie doesn’t just focus on the kid’s overcoming whatever he needs to overcome to make things happen. It’s focus is on the greater story of everyone helping the Autobots save the Earth. And the back story of why they came to Earth isn’t half bad either.

    The acting was good. My benchmark for this usually is how emotionally invested I am in the characters. If I don’t really care what happens to them, I’m probably not that into the movie due to bad acting. Not the case here. From the moment the movie starts, we are introduced to Captain Lennox of the US Army, played by Josh Duhamel and I was hooked. This guy was a bad ass. Duhamel did a great job of playing him. Of course, Shia LaBeouf also did a great job as Sam, an awkward high school student who gets thrown into this mess. He was also pretty funny. Megan Fox was also great as the leading lady in the film.

    I don’t think I need to mention the visual effects, but let me say that they are stunning. The robots looked awesome, the fight scenes were really cool. These and the aforementioned are the reasons I could overlook the somewhat lame or over dramatic parts of the movie. I’ve also read criticism that all this movie amounts to is a ‘pro-military, pro-car’ film. I see nothing wrong with that. The movie shows how brave our military can be, and even though this is a fictional story I think the underlying message is still there. And what reasonable person is anti-military? Or anti-car for that matter? I like both of those things.

    All in all it was a very entertaining film, full of explosions, hacking, a couple of beautiful girls and giant robots. There is really nothing more you could ask for in a summer movie.

  • June 13, 2007

    Flixster

    Flixster

    You might have noticed I recently added a “Movies” box to the sidebar, with a flash object showing recent reviews from social networking site Flixster. I started using the site a couple of weeks ago through Facebook, and I’ve got to say it’s a pretty awesome website.

    I’ve been meaning for some time now to make a movies page, much like my friend Stephen at Mekosh.org. I figure I review enough, so why not make my own page for them. However, using Flixster, I get what I wanted and so much more. I can easily review movies on a 5-star rating system, make my comments, see what friends think and even create lists of movies I want to see. Not to mention it keeps the average rating I have for all of my movies, how many I’ve rated and how many I’ve reviewed.

    My Profile Page organizes that information quite nicely, with customizable skins and a number of other modules I didn’t mention above, like favorite actors, photos, etc. I don’t use too many social networking sites regularly, but Flixster is definitely added to that list.