As the end of any years draws closer, you inevitably get into that weird movie phase when all the movies hitting the theaters seem to be aiming for Oscar nominations. You know what I mean - the serious dramas and the art films, the amazing character performances and the special effects bonanzas. End of year means end of movie season, and thus the studios move away from just releasing the movies that are sure to draw in the crowds, but instead move on to the films that might just win all the different awards and thus have to be paid for by the more mass market appealing movies released during the summer. It's a vicious cycle, I know.
Still, there are some decent bids out there and I guess we do need to give them a fair shot. Then again, you also get those actors who are clearly making Oscar bids, but in order to do so rely on the types of characters that may have garnered them critical acclaim in the past. You get for some pretty heavy stereotyping or typecasting, but that's Hollywood for you, eh?
It's interesting how directors and pretty much anyone in the movie industry develop over time. As much as we always remember them for their landmark works that change the face cinema as we know it, you won't necessarily find similar styles, themes or techniques in their earlier works when they were still honing their craft. Thus it becomes quite the interesting experience to go back into their movie history to see how they were like before they hit it big and really started to define their art style or niche.
Oh My God...it's the last week of 
Ninja hold an almost mythical status in terms of popular culture for pretty good reasons. Let's face it - the idea of various orders of covert assassins, spies and generally secretive warriors can blow the mind sometimes and many movies and TV shows have taken advantage of that support to help cement the ninja's place in our shared social consciousness.
Whether we like it or not, there are certain stereotypes that we've all come to accept in terms of mainstream Hollywood cinema. We know exactly the kind of stupid things action heroes do time after time after time, we instinctively react to the incidental mood music in romantic pieces and so on and so forth. 
Good grief, we're past the half way mark and it's already the start of the third week for 
There are those elements of your childhood that you'll always remember. There are those toys that you'll always look for in bargain bins or the TV shows that you enjoyed. One of the more major parts of my childhood are all the cartoons that I used to watch, and believe me there were a lot of them.
I love 
Quentin Tarantino has become known for his violent yet quirky movies that are not quite like anything we've seen in a while and yet they're also very, very familiar. He has a passion for classic film genres and he celebrates a lot of the more eccentric movies as seen in the homages he manages to insert into his productions.
I'm really not good with 
A good game becomes such because it has a great hook - something that draws in players, and ultimately a good game engine upon which the entire gaming experience is built. An ever better game gets players to learn something new or use parts of their brains that they don't normally get to exercise without taking away from the whole "fun" aspect of the game. 
I've always been a bit of a sucker for independent films - you know, the kind that try to compete in international film festivals. I'm not talking about the local indies that have a 85% chance about practically being homosexual exploitation films but more those movies not from around here that try to address subjects in interesting ways. I'm not saying I'll automatically like any movie that is featured in a film festival either, although there's a decent chance I'll at least give it a shot.
I've always had a passion for writing, and this everyone can probably determine based on the volume of entries that I post here and on my personal blog, 