Howdy, folks!

So, the weekend was awful tiring. One of my sisters got married last Saturday, and the whole time spent on preparations was both time consuming and back-breaking. Ever tried stringing up yards upon yards of silk-like drapes along all four walls of an inside a church basketball court, not to mention having even more stream from the room to the walls, with some Christmas lights added for effect? Not. Fun. At all. The wedding itself was great. Too bad the reception was very much dead.

And to add insult to injury to mind-numbing weekend, the laptop gave me the middle finger and my hard drive got corrupted. Luckily, everything important was already backed up, but this has been the second time when a month that this laptop had to be wiped clean.

So, with that, things are going back up to speed, as far as getting everything reinstalled and updated on that end.

Anything else on my mind? Oh. Went to my local library for the first time in a very long time. Is it me, or could these libraries use more graphic novels?

Hey guys, just another pointless blog entry.

Film reboots - taking an established franchise, rebuilding it from the ground up with a new team with new ideas - has been taking Hollywood by storm. This is more apparent to film that have been met with high box office sales but receive lower critical acclaim and more fanboy/fangirl rage with each new sequel. While it's easy to see this as the major studios simply recycling old films in hopes to gain some revenue; the practice, surprisingly for the most part, has paid off.

Take Batman Begins, The Incredible Hulk, and Predators as a small example of films that have taken the reboot plunge, and have more or less fared rather well. Now even Superman and Spider-Man are getting reboots, hoping to revitalize each franchise.

But films that have been released could also use a reboot? Who could benefit commercially and/or critically from it? Here's a few that I think that could use a re-do.

FANTASTIC FOUR
This has already been announced being in the works shortly after the Marvel/Disney merger, but after the last two films, I think the dynamic quartet could use a second chance. The prior two films mainly focused on tongue-and-cheek gags and rather silly melodrama, straying somewhat very far from the spirit of the source material. Not to mention the film version Doctor Doom was a joke of a villain. And no, almost seeing Jessica Alba in the nude twice does not make up for it.

TRANSFORMERS
While both films made bank at theaters, both films were an utter disappointment. While the gags in the two Fantastic Four movies were cheesy as you can get, the Transformers movies took to a whole new low, and then some. But what can you expect from a director that apparently has little to no respect for an otherwise well-liked franchise? Explosions, sex jokes, racial stereotypes, shaking cameras, convoluted or dump plot devices, overdose of Bay's American patriotism, Megan Fox and Shia LeBouf's "acting" up the yin-yang, among other things. Granted, there are robots in both films. Awfully designed giant robots. Sigh...

ERAGON
When reading the first book of then-young Christopher Paolini fantasy epic, you can't help but feel that the world you are reading about is a fantastical one. While borrowing heavily from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, the books had their own majesty about it. So it's understandable how the very thought of a live motion picture being filmed by 20th Century Fox could make fans of the saga drool. Too bad the end result was, in order to best describe it, half-baked. Save for Jeremy Iron's performance of the Obi-Wan-ish character Brom, the rest of the film was a bland concoction of over-the-top corny acting, paper-thin dialogue, and a production value that would have a major TV show laugh at. It's probably no surprise why after the film was released that Fox has not even go as far as to announce any possibility of sequels to follow. Having read to a bit of the book myself, it comes across as a shame.

VIDEO GAME MOVIES
This doesn't count movies like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and Resident Evil: Degeneration, which were made by their respective creators. Much like early comic book films, video game based movies have experienced a rocky transition. From the Super Mario Bros. movie to Alone in the Dark, from Street Fighter: The Movie to Doom, there seems to be little chance for such movies to achieve a critical high - the closest being the box-office bomb Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within with 48% on RottenTomatoes. But who's to blame for the poor adaptations? The producers? The writers? The directors? Not enough filmmakers who respect the source material, or in that fact, video games? Should filmmakers strive to make a great video game movie when many video game titles are arguably delivering epic stories that can make film plots blush? As long as there is a prospect for revenue, Hollywood is going adapt it into a film.Why not make one that was...I don't know...Really good! An actually, I thought Spirits Within was pretty good. Everything else? Meh.

Now, before you start asking...

No, I have not seen the movie, yet. And believe me, I have been kicking myself for not doing so yet. No, I have also not read any of the comics. Yeah, I can already imagine the shocking appall emanating from many of you out there. In my defense, I haven't read or bought many comics recently. Not by choice, mind you.

But I have been playing the demo (because the ability to accumulate any form of income to buy the full version eludes me at the moment) of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. And boy, I tell you, it really brings me back to the arcade-style beat-them-ups of the 90s -- tickling my nostalgia and love for retro 16-bit era of gaming. Playing much like every beat-them-up in the industry, it delivers from what you'd expect from the genre. There is one exception. The music. Is. Kick-ass! Techno-esque classic gaming music at it's finest, friends.

For those curious, you can download the demo from the X-Box Marketplace and the PSN Store, and the full game is roughly ten bucks. Totally worth it, I think.

So, by now most of you have probably been hearing about a certain film that's been getting quite some buzz lately. And no, if you guessed Despicable Me (which I have not seen), you might need to either get your head checked or crawl out of your shell and get some sunlight for a change. :D

Okay, seriously.

No, I am referring to The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan's latest mindf*ck Inception, a science fiction thriller -- although it's not as science fiction as you might believe. Without giving too much away about the film, you can expect something out of the film somewhat crossed between the Matrix and the Bourne series. Anyways, if you have yet to see the film...

...Hell, just see it! It's awesome, plain and simple. A rather smart, well-directed, and quite an accelerating adrenaline rush. Although, if you are one of those people who couldn't wrap their head around the story and technicalities of the Matrix's universe, Inception will be a bit confusing. And it's quite easy to find yourself lost if you don't pay minute attention first way through. But don't let that discourage you from watching it.

If you ask anyone that know me well, you would learn that I can be quite the film critic at times. And if there is one thing that I find myself sighing over is when unnecessary sequels are announced. Too many times I have seen sequels to otherwise great series and took everything about it that was grand and crushes it underneath it's heel - all for the sake of some extra box-office revenue.

Naturally, there are many great exceptions to this often-committed-too-many-times travesty. Some of the greatest and most successful films are indeed sequels, themselves. And like those that often defied the formula of the typical sequel, Pixar proved that their tale of toys that come to live when we do not see them would be just as great as the first time around. Although, I, myself, didn't find Toy Story 2 too much an improvement from the first movie, what Pixar offered in that film was a well-rounded and well-executed movie. And then, after what considered forever, fueled with the speculation created from the 'bloober reels' from Toy Story 2, the third film was announced.

While I have rarely questioned Pixar's ability to deliver excellent grade movies, I found myself feeling awfully skeptical about the project. One change that made me feel a little uneasy was the absence of John Lasseter from the director seat, who took the helm of the previous two films. A change of directors from one film to it's sequels is usually the first sign that the film has the potential to suck. And considering that this was the third film, very rarely does the third entry make par to the quality of the previous two films. But, since this was Pixar we are talking about, I decided to have faith that the film would deliver. And deliver it did. In fact, I found Toy Story 3 was my favorite of the trilogy.

I won't get into details of the story's plot for the sake of those who have yet to see it in theaters, but everybody who is familiar with the fantastic work with Pixar should see this. Hell, EVERYBODY should see this! I can promise with utmost certainty that you will not regret it.

So I saw Ridley Scott's adaptation of Robin Hood over the weekend, visiting my folks. I always thought of Mr. Scott as a top-notch director, and one of Hollywood's best.

Alien was, well, pretty awesome, Gladiator was awesome, I couldn't get too much into Blade Runner (as hard as I tried) but I thought the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven was epic. However, I could never see Scott actually directing a Robin Hood film. For one, the adventuress of the classic heroic outlaw and his band of merry men, robbing from the rich to feed the poor has been (I felt) one of fancy and grandeur, rather than a more gritty version that Scott has decided to present with us, trying a more realistic approach. Another film, King Arthur, has tried this method before, with less than likable results. While Scott directs the film, both in the action and drama, rather good (but don't expect Kingdom of Heaven levels), I could never shake the feeling that the story felt more like Kingdom of Heaven than what I would consider a Robin Hood film. Not to mention that the whole film is treated as a prequel of Robin Hood's legacy (which could really confuse folks) It is this lack of focus (and charm) that many would want of a Robin Hood film that Ridley Scott's version can easily be discarded as a big disappointment.

Personally, I found the movie pretty enjoyable for the most part, Scott's edge is not it's sharpest here. Also, the ending, if anything, was probably one of the most anti-climatic and worst thought out and rushed I've seen in a while. Hopefully, if an extended cut were to be released, that this could be easily remedied, as Scott's edits seem to be too long for theaters, apparently.