Gamercyrus’s Blog

Transformers 2, intense yet empty

Yes, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen has even more explosions than the first film.

In what is sure to be one of the biggest blockbuster movies of the year, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen is bigger and more intense than the original film while also carrying over some of the same issues as well as adding a few new ones.

The major issue with this movie is the way the plot is handled. You never really get a clear understanding of what is going on. Director Michael Bay needs to learn that you can’t just mash up a bunch of action scenes with a series of close-up shots, slow-mos, and one-liners and call it a complete package.  You need to have a functional story too.

There’s no real emotional connection to the characters in this movie either. The new ones are only there to fill some stereotype whether it’s the frantic womanizing panic freak or the wise-cracking transformer, or the tech geek, it’s all part of a cookie-cutter formula.

Even the returning characters are particularly one-dimensional and shallow.

The two lead characters Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) have lost most of the chemistry they had in the first movie, only to be replaced by a teenaged struggle to say “I love you” to one another.

One of the characters that played such an important role in both films (I won’t reveal who) is sadly not rewarded with an emotionally gripping finale when this person meets their end.

Two new transfomers introduced in the sequel play a comedic role similar to that of Jar-Jar Binks (but not nearly as bad) from Star Wars Episode I. The twin transformer bots pummel the audience with clichés and racial stereotyping antics that gets annoying quite early into the film.

It seems that every major blockbuster action flick has to be ridden with extensive one-liners and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen is no different. You’ll see the typical lines and cheesiness in the action moments but as well you’ll see it used as comical relief. These comedy one-liners are relatively funny yet shallow.

But all that doesn’t really matter because the main reason many people will enjoy this movie is the over-the-top special effects and intense action. The full-on action scenes are phenomenal and are choreographed with some of the best animation and fight scenes ever displayed. It’s truly a sight to see.

If you leave this movie with just one thought, it will be the notion that no other movie will be able to top the excitement and wow-factor that Transformers Revenge of the Fallen does.

Add in the near perfect use of music and sound effects and you get a beautiful display of action harmony—this is what Michael Bay does best.

Overall the movie is slightly too long as it feels worn out by the end. Several scenes could have been cut and it would have not made a difference in the plot.

Nevertheless the movie is still worth seeing if you can forgive the lack of anything but spectacular battle scenes.

See it in theatres because this movie is meant to have a big-screen and high-wattage surround sound.

Even better, see it in Imax.

2.5 Stars

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Dan said he vows to never dance again in the Stony Plain or Spruce Grove area again.

Dancing Dan can now groove to his music knowing that he wont have to appear in court anymore after stunting charges against him were dropped June 17.

The Spruce Grove RCMP met with Daniel Corey Booth, known as Dancing Dan for his performances on the corner of streets, and came to an agreement that saw the charges dismissed.

Booth was to appear on July 23 at the Stony Plain Provincial Court.

“We’re certainly not telling him he can’t dance,”  said Sgt. Jim Martin of the Spruce Grove RCMP detachment.

“We never had any issues with Dan dancing. It just some of the complaints we are receiving.”

Martin said it was never their intent to run Booth out of Spruce Grove, only that they were acting on these complaints including reports of Booth standing on the guard rail on Hwy 16A, which if he were to fall would put him and motorist in danger.

Other complains police received were from passing motorist believing that Booth was having a medical episode when he would do a dance routine lying on the ground, or that he was staged at a major intersection for extended periods.

“He pretty much agreed that those things he would stop doing and still be able to dance and continue what he does, so it’s just a matter of modifying some of his behavior, which really results in the complaints,” Martin said.

Booth’s popularity created a media storm of coverage and support from people who enjoy his dancing antics. The whole issue started on June 5, when Booth was dancing on the corner of Calahoo Rd. and Grove Dr. near the Spruce Grove Composite High School. Police stopped Booth and ordered him to appear in court on charges of stunting, which rules on whether or not someone is a safety distraction to motorist.

After the charges were dropped, Booth wrote on his Facebook page that “it has been thrown out but I know I will never go there again because I have to follow the rules that they told me to do if I’m there but I said no I will not do what they are asking from me so I will only dance in the city for the rest of my life.”

One lingering question remains.

Booth garnered a great deal of monetary support from the public over the fine. In the end however, he was only given a court appearance with no monetary penalty. The question remains as to the fate of the money.

Black and Cera, a great comedy team

Jack Black & Michael Cera play as two members of a primitive tribe of hunters and gatherers who are exiled for eating some forbidden fruit.

As the title suggests, Year One takes you back to a simpler time where humans were crude in behavior and religion and God took centre stage in everyday life.

The plot is simple. The two lead actors, Jack Black and Micheal Cera are two primitive tribe members named Zed and Oh, who are seeking for something grander to life than just hunting and gathering.

The movie is one biblical joke after another. Zed and Oh get in trouble after Zed decides to eat some of the forbidden fruits and are exiled from the tribe.

The plot then follows the two banned stone-aged men as they search for a higher purpose, following spoofs of biblical stories such as Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, the story of Moses and Israelites, and a city called Sodom where virgin sacrifices are made to the gods.

Eventually the two come across several of their once fellow tribe members captured and forced to be slaves. Zed and Oh reunite with a couple beautiful women from their old tribe and set out on a mission to rescue them and the premise for the rest of the movie follows this.

The plot barely has any cohesiveness to it because each of following scenes is really just a different setting and a different biblical stereotype to dish jokes from. But in a movie like this there isn’t much need for anything more.

Depending on your threshold for gross-out jokes, Year One may end up over stepping what is tolerable. It is clear from early on that this movie intends to dish out one disgusting joke after another. It reaches the breaking point when one of the characters decides feces are something you should eat.

These gross out moments will be the deciding factor for many as it goes well behind the antics of what has been done in the past with movies.

That being said, this movie is ridiculously funny at times and treads closely to having just enough toilet humour without being too much, but again that could be a matter of preference to some.

The comedy pairing of Black and Cera is very smooth as the two have great chemistry in playing to each other’s comedic strengths. Constantly Cera’s character gets the short end of the stick and is tortured, mauled and forced to do some very unpleasant things. In fact, Cera’s shy yet babbling witty personality works so well that he upstages Black’s performance as the funniest element to the movie.

There are some scenes with Black that seem as if he decided to forego the script and improv his own jokes. These lines don’t make much sense and are quite awkward, leaving parts of the movie disjointed.

Other than those few instances, Black sets out to tickle your funny bone as the way you expect him to. He is cocky, foolish and dumb so he doesn’t veer off much from his style of comedy and this means some of the punch lines are quite dated and over used.

You will also see the standard fart jokes, women bashing, sexual connotations and just plain stupidity that has been played out in so many other movies like Dumb and Dumber or Land of the Lost.

This movie is not intelligently funny, but the comedy work from Black and Cera does make this movie worth while to see if you’re into gross and stupid humour. Overall it’s a decent predictable story that has its moments of greatness and utter embarrassments.

3 Stars

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Ferrell fills screen with one liner ‘toilet humour’

The cast of the movie The Land of the Lost.

If the box office numbers for Will Ferrell’s latest movie are any sign, you may want to avoid this one. 

Based on a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon show, The Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell as a washed up scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, who through some silly quantum time warp devices, winds up in a lost land filled with primates, giant mosquitoes, Sleestaks (Half-lizard, half-human) and a grumpy T-Rex, as well as iconic landmarks such as the Golden Gate bridge and the Titanic surrounded by a dessert. 

Joining Dr. Rick Marshall through a journey to return back to the normal world is a straight-up stereotype redneck named Will (Danny McBride), a seemly crack-smart research assistant (more on that later) named Holly (Anna Friel), and a primate called Chaka. 

Here’s the basic premise, scene-by-scene Will Ferrell and co. encounter some poorly crafted CG creature, freak out, then run from it, all in the midst of a barrage of offensive toilet humor that can only be amusing to young adolescents and hardcore Will Ferrell fans.

So if drinking T-Rex urine or getting high off of ancient narcoleptics, or jokes that degrade women to no end such as remarks about getting “wet” or sitting on a vibrating crystal sound funny to you then prepare for that and lot more tasteless vulgar jokes.

Yes this movie definitely is not intended for kids even though the plot may seem like it is (especially if you don’t want your kids to see brief flashes of almost near-nudity in a PG rated film).

There is no plot, and if you try to make sense of it all you will only get baffled with the next scene, because literally there is no cohesive connection, it’s just one joke to the next. 

The only consistent plot device is the overly unrealistic T-Rex that chases Will Ferrell and crew because of some remark Ferrell’s character made about its intelligence. Sadly, by the end of the movie the one-on-one battle with the dino and Ferrell completely destroys any merit it once had with some of the worst action scenes ever. 

The movie tries too hard to be funny. It’s full of long scenes where McBride or Ferrell just go on and on cracking one-liners and ‘can they get away with saying that’ jokes until one of them finally jabs at your funny bone. 

And if there’s anything positive in this movie then it’s the occasional line from Ferrell and McBride that is indeed quite hilarious (again, not your traditional funny; stupid funny).

The worst part of this movie has to be the aforementioned only female character. 

You’re led to believe she knows all the answers to the mysteries of this land of the lost, and that she can even speak and understand the primate Chaka, but then right in the next scene she is clueless as to what he is saying; where’s the consistency? 

Add in a scene where she tears part of her clothes off to give the whole sexy adventurous outdoorswomen look, along with the constant sexual connotations the other characters make towards her and it sets the whole women’s movement back an era.

Lastly, you’d expect for a movie in this day and age to have decent special effect and believable CGI, but that’s not the case. 

Maybe it was intentional because the movie is based off of an old TV show.

The Land of the Lost is riddled with one-dimensional characters, a plot that makes no sense, grossly offensive toilet humor, and over-the-top fanatics from Will Ferrell. I would only recommend seeing this movie if you’re a true die-hard Ferrell nut, otherwise stay away and save your brain cells. 

1.5 Stars

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This is my column from the Stony Plain Reporter / Spruce Grove Examiner that I was unfortunately forced to revised literally in the final hours before going to print (it was approved by my editor-in-chief, but not by the publishing manager). Here is the UNRATED version.

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Farmers' Days 2008 Parade. Other events including arm wrestling, pancake breakfast, midway rides, a rodeo, and of course, the beer garden.

For me, Farmers’ Days, along with the Kinsmen Rodeo and the midway rides (I consider it all to be one event) has been an integral part of my upbringing.

As someone who has lived most of my life in Stony Plain, Farmers’ Days is one of the biggest events of the year for me, and as I grew up and my personality changed, so did the event change for me.

I think most of my memories of Farmers’ Days came when I was a teenager. It was all about how much mischief my friends and I could get away with and how drunk we could
get while doing it.

There used to be a hole in the fence surrounding the exhibition grounds and we used to sneak in through that to avoid paying the entrance fee, which is no longer charged.

Once in, it was a game to find someone older we knew to help us get into the beer gardens, or at least get someone to buy us some alcohol. If you were caught, you were made fun of the next day so the aim was to be as sneaky as you could.

We would then take our liquored selves out to the midway rides area and use our new sense of confidence to woo the girls, which rarely worked.

When we got bored with that along with the rides, we would look for trouble outside of the fair grounds and stumble our way through Stony, vandalizing the neighbourhood (which I’m completely not proud of, I’m sorry if it was your property).

I sometimes think the heavy police presence during Farmers’ Days was a result of us doing bad deeds, but then again, many delinquent teens did the same before us, and many still do now.

The annual parade holds a bittersweet memory for me.

My younger brothers were often in the parade riding their BMX bikes with all the tassels and whatnot, and I would be filled with joy as they came around the corner. I would shout, “I know those kids. They are my brothers.”

But it was one particular year that remains at the top of my memories.

One year during the parade when I was a teenager, I woke up late and nearly missed the event.

I rushed out of my home and ran to the corner I knew my mom would be at since my brothers were again in the parade. When I finally found her, I noticed that she was upset.

It was on this day that I found out that my parents were getting a divorce. I’ve yet to watch another parade since. My brothers are too old to be in the parade now so I guess that’s another factor why. Maybe I’ll go this year.

I’m an adult now and I no longer have to be sneaky with my alcohol binging. No longer do the midway rides or the carnie games satisfy me. Now it’s all about the beer garden.

I remember the first year I turned 18, the beer gardens were cancelled due to excessive rowdiness. Disappointed, I returned the next year to finally experience something I once longed for as a kid.

Now that I’ve been to the beer gardens a few times, I’ll admit that I prefer the good old days. I guess the sense of adventure from trying not to get caught with my delinquent ways was the best part.

These days, I’ll just tip my beer back and enjoy reminiscing with old friends and people I haven’t seen for years while I’m at Farmers’ Days.

This year is special though. The earlier date means that the first day of Farmer’s Days will land on my birthday, so if anybody spots me at the exhibition grounds, be sure to buy me a cold one!

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Well after two long years, I’m finally close to graduating from the journalism program at MacEwan College. All that remains is to find some publication that would take me in as an intern for 5-weeks. After spending a couple weeks stressing out about not finding an employer that would take me (um. actually haven’t tried, so it’s my fault), I finally got one.

I will be working with both the Grove Examiner and the Stony Plain Reporter. This works out perfectly for me. Stony Plain is my hometown so I basically know the town inside and out. My brothers and mom still live in Stony so I plan to stay with them for the 5-week period. The only issue and I blame this on the damn economy, is that the position is unpaid. This means that in order to pay for the rent for my pad back in Edmonton, I’m going to have to work both this intern position and my real job; full time. Ack! It’s going to be a hellish month and a bit, but it will be good to be back in my hometown and chilling with my old friends.

So hopefully it wont be too rough of an experience. I’m kind of excited.

POST Excerpt—Usercreatedcontent Blog

OPINION—Apple recently revealed the new 3.0 software update for the iPhone, and with it comes a whole slew of new tools for developer to use with their games and apps, one of those tools being the option to charge for in-app content.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do think that developers/publishers should get paid for the content provided, but some of the demonstrations shown at the iPhone 3.0 press conference suggest the same gouging and ‘testing-grounds’ that gamers experienced with the launch of the Xbox Live for the 360 (then again with Wii and PS3).

Take for example Sims 3 coming soon to the iPhone. Electronic Arts demonstrated the option to purchase in-game furniture for a nominal fee.  EA showed purchasing a stereo set for your sims to enjoy that can play music from your iPhone’s library. Wow! Is this reason enough to charge your consumer? Should be free EA! This instantly struck a chord with me. This is the same kind of crap were seeing in Sony’s social service, Home. In Home, everything is a’la carte shopping. Want a T-Shirt? gonna cost yea. Want to buy some new furniture for your virtual home? Yup! Prepare to dish out the dough. Electronic Arts please don’t follow Home’s lead. Everything in Sims 3 should be free, and then four weeks down the road release an update pack (DONT charge for individual items). The game is not even out yet and EA is already dividing up an unfinished project to be ‘nickeled and dimed’ to death. This is absurd. I hate it when gaming companies take advantage of the consumer and no longer release a complete package.

Tomb Raider Legends and Prince and Persia are two recent games that come to mind that intentionally had content lined-up, more so with Tomb Raider because you’re forced to purchase the DLC to get a fulfilling ending. I can understand partially in this example that levels were cut to make the release date, and it’s still better than buying a lame costume or *cough* horse armor.

Now the news is not entirely troubling.  NgMoco, iPhone developer behind such games as Ronlando, has the right idea of charging for additional levels to their already released games in order extend the life of them. Then again, NgMoco is also considering charging for costumes in their Nintendo Dogs clone game for the iPhone.

Basically what I’m trying to say is I hope DLC for the iPhone doesn’t turn out to be a return to the same stupid decisions developers/publishers made when the DLC started on the current home platforms.

The 3.0 update for the iPhone will bring new features like copy & paste, and picture text messaging to consumers, and new features like, in-app content purchases for developers. So will this update finally be enough to curb people from jailbreak’ing their iPhones? No, but Apple is getting close…

A couple of days ago Apple announced the official 3.0 software update for the iPhone coming this summer. With it brings over 100 new features and more than a 1000 new development-driven software tools. My first opinion on the update is it seems that Apple has taken a lot of the suggestions and criticism with some of the lack features that other Smartphone have, and the feedback they got from the community, because the update addresses many issues that’s been around since day one.

Copy & Paste: First off, I’m amazed that it took this long to get this feature. The demonstration showed that you simply just have to double-tap the text you want to copy and a bubble will appear with the option to cut, copy and paste. Shake the iphone to undo and redo. To copy more text, you take your finger on one of the coordinating pins and drag it over the other text you want selected. Very simple, but I question how easy it will be to accidently copy or cut something you don’t want.

MMS Messaging: The iPhone is very late to implement this since nearly every phone has this option by default.  MSS messaging allows one to send multimedia with text messages such pictures, video, and audio recordings. The update for the iphone will allow iPhone users to send pictures or audio clips with a text message. No support for video because the Apple officially doesn’t allow user to take videos with the iPhone’s camera, one major reason for people to stick to keep their jailbreak iPhones.

Stereo Bluetooth: Okay Sweet!!! This was the one feature I wanted more than anything else. Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) allows the ability to pair a Bluetooth headset and transmit Stereo audio.  Thus someone could listen to music without the stupid wires (Gah! I hate headphone wires). I actually own an expensive Bluetooth headset, and I’ve been waiting for months to get to use it again.

Push Notifications: Apple’s answer to the not supporting third-party background processes. Great for apps like instant messagers, push notification will alert the user of activity even when the app is exited. For instant massagers, you can now receive messages from your friends anytime. A definite must for the iPhone but it doesn’t mean it’s the answer for no background processes.

Search & Spotlight: This new feature allows you to search from the home screen your music, contacts, mail, apps, and more (very familiar for those who own a Mac). For me, this wasn’t a deal breaker. I basically know where to find what I’m looking for and in the end this feature will just drain the battery and strain the CPU.

Those are some of the  big new features, now let’s look at the features they missed and the reason to keep your iphone jailbreak’ed:

Backgrounder: It became apparent that Apple has no intention of ever bringing the ability to run apps in the background while doing something else. They claim that having this option would literally destroy the iphone’s battery life. That may be so, but if the competition has the feature, then it means that apple will lose out on potential customers. You can run apps in the background when you jailbreak you phone and that means I will never give that option up.

Tethering: I blame the service providers for this one. Tethering allows you to use the iPhone’s 3G connection through a computer or laptop. How awesome is that to have the ability to have Internet anywhere on the go? You can if you jailbreak your phone. But the service providers wont like you when you drain their tower’s bandwidth.

Camcorder: Uh, this is just pure lame, Apple!!! Just about every cellphone can take video… only if you jailbreak can you record with the iPhone.

Catogories/Apps in Folders: How many games do you have on your iphone? Running out of room? I think it would make sense if Apple would allow you to group your apps together. Another win for jailbreak’ers.

All these reasons and more keep me from sticking to the legit firmware. But to Apple’s credit, they did still cover a lot of the holes in the iPhone’s array of features. Knowing Apple they’ll just add these features with a new, more improved model. Until then, I’ll just look forward to this big update.

Hello. Okay so it’s been a long time since I’ve had to stop blogging because school was beginning to get overwhelming.  But now I’m almost finished my final semester and I thought it was a good time to return to the blog’in world.

This is actually my third edition. I used to have a blog on Ign.com that was strictly gaming. I’ve now moved my gaming entries onto my podcast’s official blog, but I will also post some related content here.

My first blog site was sadly enough on Nexopia (yea). Actually maintained that for a while until it was hacked and my account was deleted *shakes fist*.

So I am excited for  the ideas I have coming for future blog entries. Ready to begin again.