The movie let us follow 9 (voice by Elijah Wood), a torn and rugged doll created out of burlap and with lenses for eyes. 9 enters the world without any understanding for why he is or when. Soon it become obvious for him that he does have a purpose in the time to come, not alone however. Together with the eight other dolls (voices by Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer and Jennifer Connelly to mention a few) the path clears on the task at hand. The movie has a few parts which may be a bit to strong for the younger audience and it seem that it is created more for an mature audience just as the movies of Tim Burton often are.

A post-apocalyptic wonderland

The first thing that did amaze me was the wonderful but eerie environments created in which the world exist. The destruction of the world just occurred and all that remain is scorched homes and wrecked cities, all entangled by sandbag-shelters and dug out trenches. The destruction becomes almost beautiful even though the entire setting is created out of darkness.

All the characters we meet throughout the movie has an arsenal or personality, which make me as a view to completely surrender the thought on small dolls who can speak to be something out of this world. Not many minutes pass until I can enter into the world which I’m seeing.

The only downside of the movie which I did notice would be a somewhat lack of crescendo. The later part of the movie could be even more dramatic to intensify the feelings of the characters. The movie still make sense but a more intense later part of the movie would have raised it even further.

9 gives us a very good start of the new movie-year and I highly recommend it for the more mature audience. Tim Burton has become one of the greater creators of our time in my opinion.

Resources
9 at IMDb

Todd is a call-center manager who quite frankly do not like his job. Nevertheless he get upset when he find out that his company is outsourcing him and his team to an Indian company. He even get the task of learning his own replacement about what to do. All from his first views of the Indian society to the clash of cultures is coated in a warm and fuzzy feeling as it is a romantic comedy.

So how does the movie compare to my own observations then? Well first of all, there is more people – everywhere. In Outsourced all that was shown was these calm suburban streets found in the US, and those was not the case in the India I was located in. What was perfectly shown though was the amazing warmth and kindness of the Indian people. You did see smiles and colors almost where ever you went which was an amazing experience for me, coming from the cold and a bit reserved Scandinavia.

If you are ot for a general feel-good movie with no real surprises this is a movie for you. Eventhough the movie can be a bit predictable in parts it will deliver a couple of smiles.

Resources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425326/

Knowing is a new movie just out featuring Nicolas Cage. This time Mr. Cage takes on the role of a singe-parent astrophysicist named John Koestler who is struggling to handle his life after he lost his wife. The story evolve surrounding John and his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) who attends the William Dawes Elementary School. At the day when the time capsule is opened Caleb receives Lucinda’s sheets of numbers and brings them home because he think that they have a higher purpose. Drunk and broken down by his loneliness after his wife, John find a pattern in the numbers and the plot takes of.

As the first half of the movie goes the tension really builds up and they hold the audience in a great grip, as a viewer one feel that the story can take many different turns. The problem is that this twist never really arrive and when it does, I think almost everyone in the theater has already figured it out. For some this might actually be a good sign but for most people I think it will be more of a turn off.

Also, the special effects of the movie did halter in a few places which made me question the production a bit. Because at the same time there was other pars of the movie which was incredible in both effect and realism. Especially the part which involves a plane crash which was shown during a full continues two-minutes shoot.

Knowing currently hold a score of 6.5/10 at IMDB, and 33% at RottenTomatoes and a user-score of 6.4/10 at MetaCritic which can be seen as “OK” but nothing more. Personally I’d go for a score of 5/10. I feel the story had a great chance of blowing the audience away but did instead settle for the easy way out.

From the first moment I got the movie in my hands I noticed the obvious references between the story in the movie and the documentary I saw a while ago called Ross Kemp on Gangs. A documentary where the actor Ross Kemp travelled the world to understand the gangs around the globe. In one of the episodes he visited Rio de Janeiro and I got a view of the city that have ever since lingered in my mind. I was surprised on how it was possible for a city in such decay just could go on.

The movie is based on the book Elite da Tropa by Luiz Eduardo Soares together with two BOPE-officers (Major André Batista and Capten Rodrigo Pimentel). The story is about the elite police-squads roaming the streets of Rio de Janeiro trying to keep the druglords of the favelas at bay. The toughest of the squads is called BOPE or Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais and it is the people in this squad the movie follows.

The feeling of the entire movie is about more or less meaningless killing and power-struggles between people that have nothing but their own life. The only way of surviving is to get into the buisness of drugs and violence. Young kids beeing used as runners and lookouts and the older people not yet shoot as soldiers and hitmen. The only thing uniting all these people is the hatred against the police who themselfs is extreamly corrupt. And in some way the corruption feels like the main reason for the entire situation because if the people could trust the police the hatred would never grow as fierce. But as the situation is today it seem that all with a gun can be bought.

The movie is increddible violent and graphical and categorized as an action-movie but I would call it and action-drama due to the underlaying story of the movie. For all that have been reading about the gangs of Rio before it is a quite interesting story to get the words of the police instead of the criminals. The disturbing violence can cause quite some people to look the other way but for me the social aspects of the movie really opened my eyes and I hope to be able to learn more about the situation.

Most of the times I watch movis which I have been looking forwad to for a long time the eyes I see it with gets filled with ever more criticism. This makes movies like these sometimes loose a small portion of their glance because of the expectations that is needed to be fullfilled for it just to reach the surface. I was afraid that this would be the case with Districs 9 but I was happily surprised when the movie really did deliver a great show!

When dealing with aliens, try to be polite, but firm. And always remember that a smile is cheaper than a bullet. –MNU

Sharlto Copley (main antagonist) did an awsome interpretation of his character Wikus Van Der Merwe and the downfall of his personality was beautiful. If Van Der Merwe had been casted using a known actor I think that a great portion of the mocumentary-feeling of the movie would have been lost. The raw gruesome feeling was kept intact by disturbing images of war and terror which also did strengthen the feeling of the “mockumentary”.

I can greatly recomend the movie for all into sci-fi with a twist. A word of warning is needed though for the movie do include some really disturbing images and can be seen as upsetting. Already looking forwad of seeing it again as soon as it is released on Bluray!

Stuff can be insanely expensive on Steam. And here is todays example. Sacred 2 – a cool rpg-game in old time Diablo-style.

Best Swedish internet-price: €7 (boxed-game, shipping included)
Price on steam: €49.90 (digital edition)

So stupid.

Quite easy the discussion gets into a show and tell about what they wanted the game to be in teh time before launch. Metzen tells that during the development of WoW alot of developers were in fact playing EverQuest and even Ultima Online, both which are quite a bit more hardcore and raw then Blizzards game did end up. One quite intresting part in this discussion was that the designers seem to have the game beeing played hundred of years into the future of the world of Azeroth. But that they had to let that idea down because, as Metzen revealed, “It didn’t feel like Azeroth”.

At the exact same time I was reading this it hit me that I just had been told a secret about what the X-team at Blizzard actually is working on. Can it really be that easy that the PR-team let out Metzen and Didier to do what they just did – plant the idea of the crossbreed of Warcraft and Starcraft which is a sidestory of which rumors have been passed around for years. And if we combine these rumors with the second largest one, the Blizzard Sandbox, can it be the future?

Personally I feel that Blizzard is too big to pull of a sandbox-game at this time. They have atracted an audience which will follow into their new MMO almost whatever it may be and from a buisness-perspective that would give us a quest-based, class-based mmo from the studio sometime in the coming two years. If a sandbox was to be released I’m afraid that they would loose a portion of the WoW players (at the same time getting alot of new) and this might be the biggest obsticle for them to overcome.

Fear of not making as much money tomorrow as today is cruel.

Feel free to check out the full article over at Eurogamer.

District 9

Perhaps it’s just me but a movie with aliens dropping in on planet earth always make me become intrested. No matter really what the story is there is something with the thought of the unknown knocking on our door.

Anyhow, there is a movie coming up named ‘District 9′ directed by Beill Blomkamp which I have glanced at for a while. It has a spread out releasedate depending on where you live (full list at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/releaseinfo) between August 13 and October 30. I must admit that the fact that it is promoted as “A Peter Jackson movie” had me a bit worried in the beginning but after I saw the trailer I got my hope back.

Story in short is about a spaceship holding aliens which come to rest over the city of Johannesburg in the early eighties. The inhabitants of the ship is kept in confinement down at earth by the South African government and the story itself feels quite alot like the story of apartheid. The movie is created as an mockumentary or a false documentary which is liked by a few and disliked by almost as many. Personally I can’t wait for it to be released, looking forwad to see how they solved the same old story once again.

More on Disctrict 9 at IMDB

The story has also been made into a movie and whether you read the book or watch the movie I recommend you to do one of them. The story is sad but interesting and deliver questions for you to answer.

More information
Into the Wild at IMDB
Into the Wild at Amazon

Image from Google Image

Mr. Jackson will be remembered for both his massive career and all the allegations sadly. I will not go into whether he was guilty for any allegations or not but these are my thoughts on the matter. I say that the allegations against him have been mostly performed by people looking for a chance against an easy target. Mr. Jackson has been chasing his own youth for the last twenty years, the youth that was stolen from him as a kid. For people watching him from a distance this can of course bee seen as something sinister and evil. No grown man should be friends on a personal level with young kids. Of course this must be the work of all evil. That can be taken advantage of.

I think that Michael Jackson was a very lonely and sad child who were forced to grow up even though he just wanted to be a child. When this childhood was stolen from him he took the chance as soon as he grew out of his parents house to create that childhood in a secure environment which became Neverland. But a grown man building toys for himself, this must be the work of evil!

I think that Marlon Jackson’s speech in the end of the memorial did sum up the life of their brother. It was a life where everyone had an opinion about everything and where ever Michael went, there would be someone chasing him. I too hope that they all now can give the man some peace which he have been looking for his entire life. I think that Michael was a grown man chasing his childhood, just wanting to do the things other children did his age. The world who right now worship the memory was the same world who did chase and point fingers after him the day before. It is the same world who worship him that is standing in the shadows with blood on their hands.

If we for the memory of the artist put everything else aside I think that Mr. Jackson will be remebered for a very long time for his great masterpieces. He did leave us too soon and I think that his shows in London would have been something that would be remembered.