[Movies] Back to the Future (1985)

So this week we had a repeat of the "future is today" meme where the image of the time-traveling DeLorean depicts the present date - something that happened in July 2010 and again yesterday on June 27, 2012. We're funny that way.

But more importantly that post reminded me that this particular movie franchise is one of the many great movies that I've seen in my life and yet haven't gotten around to posting reviews for here on the Geeky Guide. That's what make these Friday posts a bit more fun - it's always a chance for me to revisit older movies and celebrate what made them great.

And this is definitely one of those movies that helped introduce some rather geeky concepts (e.g. the complications of time travel) to a wider, not-quite-so-geeky audience. And that takes quite a fair bit of writing skills and of course masterful direction, both of which I think we clearly experienced with this movie.

[Theater] Rock of Ages (Atlantis Productions)

Musical theater is such a wonderful, well, experience is the best word that comes to mind, quite frankly. It's more than just a movie or a TV show. Because you have the actors performing right in front of you, it adds a certain degree of, well, realism and greater interactivity of sorts. It's hard to explain unless you've been to a professional theater production.

But that's the thing - no matter where you're seated in the audience, the mere act of being there allows you to connect more directly with the actors. I guess the best way to describe it is that it's similar to what people experience when they watch a band perform live at a concert and other things of that nature.


It probably doens't help that when you mention musical theather, people think of the much older players that at times are indeed a bit more difficult to appreciate or even relate to. But thankfully playrights are a lot more flexible than some people give them credit for and we end up with fabulous shows like this one that manage to connect with a wider audience range.

[Games] Zombie Cafe (Android)

I've only recently started to explore the Google Play Store and the various applications available for the Android platform. And that naturally leads one to explore a variety of Android games, which is the common distraction for mobile devices including tablets.

Now I only downloaded this game for two major reasons. The first is the fact that it was listed as one of the featured games in the Google Play Store. The other reason is that it was a free game, which is probably the most common reason any of us make the decision to acquire an application. Such "freemium" games rely on such a low barrier to entry in an effort to hook more players in and eventually get them to spend real money on bonuses in the game.

I wasn't exactly hooked.

[Books] Star Wars: Betrayal (Legacy of the Force Book 1)

The transition of the Star Wars novels to the Ballantine Books imprint under Del Ray also included a shift to larger-scale, serialized story telling as what we saw with the New Jedi Order series of 19 full novels and related short stories / novellas. Legacy of the Force was the next big story arc, and one that I waited a bit before getting involved with.

On the one hand, I wanted to make sure that I first finished the New Jedi Order series. On the other, I also wanted to make sure that I had all 9 books in the Legacy of the Force before starting to read - it's sort of a thing. And note, I started gathering these books before I acquired my Amazon Kindle 3, so the ebook option was not something that I was aggressively pursuing just yet.

I appreciate how challenging it is to manage the work of several different authors into a single cohesive narrative flow like what they've done here. It's hard enough for one writer to wrangle together even just a trilogy of books. So what more when you bring together a team to work on a 9-book series that affects many different characters, plot points and other critical incidents that will send ripples throughout the established continuity?

If anything though, I'm glad that they opted to limit the story to just 9-books instead of how expansive the last big series had gotten. As much as I enjoyed the last series, it was a tad long even for me and towards the end it felt too much like it had a bit too much fluff filling in the gaps. Let's hope this next series goes better.

[Movies] Kimmy Dora and the Temple of Kiyeme (2012)

Three years after the surprise hit comedy Kimmy Dora, the folks at Spring Films finally decided to release a sequel for the 2009 movie. And I have to admit that I really enjoyed the first movie given how it was a lot smarter (or at least wittier) than I expected. And so I was rather looking forward to this sequel to see what it would be all about.

Plus I really love Eugene Domingo. For far too often her talent gets wasted on some pretty stupid roles in local movies.

One of the things that made Kimmy Dora so hilarious was Eugene's amazing depiction of both titular characters - the twins Kimmy and Dora. In addition, the first movie had quite an interesting twist that had the respective sisters imitating one another several points in the movie. So naturally I wondered how they'd take things to a new level with this sequel, and the final result was rather interesting and yet not exactly as jaw-achingly funny as things were the first time around.

[Technicolor Musings] What Makes You PROUD?

In many countries around the world, June is often celebrated as LGBT Pride Month or something along those lines, a time to celebrate the joys of diversity as experienced through the LGBT community. And whether you're going to the "official" White Party or the O Bar Pride Parties, a lot of us in the pink community are going to celebrate Pride one way or another.

But before we get drunk beyond belief or other crazy stuff like that, allow me to ask this question this lazy Sunday - What makes you PROUD to be LGBT? What about your life as a member of the pink community (even if you're still in the closet) makes you feel good about yourself?

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the comments or just use it as a point of reflection for today.


But seriously, I love to hear your comments. *grins*

[Movies] The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990)

It's funny what we remember from our childhood. Case in point, I remember this movie a lot more than the original NeverEnding Story. Of course you can naturally blame age (or the lack thereof) for the fuzzy memories, but for one reason or another this sequel stood out a bit more in memory.

Or so I thought.

When I finally found the time to re-watch the movie again, I realized that even more supposedly stronger, brighter memories weren't all that great either. I certainly remembered significant scenes and of course there are the stuff of nightmares that will never leave you even as you grow into adulthood.

So now that quite a number of years have passed, I do recognize that I may have crafted a somewhat idealized version of this movie in my head over the years that didn't quite match reality. This is not to say that this sequel is all that bad, but it wasn't as good as the first one either.

[TV] The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2010 Micro-Series)

I have to admit that I've given the DC Universe animated movies a lot of love on this blog. You can't really blame me - a lot of their releases have been pretty impressive depictions of different DC characters and key events in DC comic book history as well. And that's nothing to feel bad about.

On the Marvel front however, my experience with their cartoon work has been rather mixed over the years and I've given some not-so-great reviews to a few of their direct-to-video features as well. And you can't really blame me - that Doctor Strange movie was pretty BAD no matter how you look at it!

But this new series has been getting some positive reviews, which has given me cause for hope. Sure, we all know it was put together to capitalize on the buzz that led up to the Avengers movie that came out earlier this year. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good series on its own.

So I finally gave into my curiosity and invested some time into watching the micro-series to see what they had planned.

[Inforgraphics] The World Without the Internet

I received another heads-up for this nifty infographic that tries to tackle the impact of the internet on us as a whole by discussing its absence. And quite frankly, I personally cannot imagine life without being connected anymore. My way of dealing with things ranging from work to personal communication and even shopping has become definitively tied to the world wide web.

So check out the full infographic after the Read More link and let me know what you think!

[Books] Double Dead

I'm not exactly big on horror, but my partner Tobie is while my other partner Prince does have a thing for vampires. But one thing that has helped me expand my horizons a bit more is getting into tabletop game primarily through White Wolf.

And when I found out that Chuck Wendig, one of those folks who have contributed to enriching the White Wolf mythos over the years, is also a published author, well, I had to find out what was going on. and beyond his association with White Wolf, the premises behind his books are such powerful geek bait that it's hard to even contemplate not trying his books out.

And this first venture - a mash-up of both a vampire story and a zombie story - was certainly a surprise. Beyond the somewhat humorous premise and the often irreverent manner of speaking the protagonist happens to have, the book is quite the fun read with little bonuses for those who might have played some of the White Wolf games associated with Wendig.

[Movies] What's Your Number? (2011)

Romantic comedy movies occupy a special place in our hearts when you really get down to it. The reason they're so successful has more to do with the fact that at one point or another we all wanted to fall in love with the perfect guy or girl. But as much as the more realistic and dramatic representation of this part of the human experience can be emotionally fulfilling, more often than not we'd rather be able to laugh at our humanity. Thus the continued power of comedies.

To be fair, a lot of romantic comedies tend to be rather well-written and are highly witty compared to a lot of the more slapstick, gross-out humor that we see in most conventional comedies these days, so that's another point in favor of these movies. The only real thing going against them is then tendency to go for tropes and cliches and the fact that a lot of guys (straight or whatever) frown on these movies as "chick flicks" and leave it at that.

Now this movie was yet another adaptation of a popular book that tried to involve fairly familiar stars in order to get some mileage. Like most movies in this genre, it could have been a lot better, but I guess we should just go with what we can get, huh?

[Pink Scene] Celebrate PRIDE at O BAR!

I had previously expressed my concerns related to this year's White Party Manila as organized by Mentorque Productions and despite initial comments from the organizers themselves, they did little to assuage my unease regarding the arrangements and the fact that they're charging a full P150 for entrance to the street party alone.

Thankfully, it looks like the folks at O Bar Philippines have been feeling some of the same concerns and have put together their own gay pride festivities for this month as an alternative to the "official" White Party for the year. As is tradition here in Manila, O Bar's gay pride festivities are scheduled for the last weekend of June. And we all know how O Bar can put a good party together complete with dazzling poi performances, hot ledge dancers and fabulous drag queens, so this is bound to be good!

For those traditionalists who feel that no Pride celebration is complete celebrating at Malate, pretty much the heart of the gay scene in Metro Manila, then O Bar Malate will have a Pre-White Party celebration on June 29, 2012! Bar entrance will be FREE before 12 midnight and they've promised additional promotions on the night itself!

And for Saturday itself, the gay pride celebrations make their way to O Bar Ortigas with an official Pride 2012 on June 30, 2012! Details haven't been released in terms of the entrance rates for the night, but I'm sure that they are going to be some great deals as well that should ensure more folks can join in the celebrations and marking how important gay pride is!

So now you know where I'm going to be celebrating Gay Pride - feel free to join us for the fun! And should you see me or either of my partners, feel free to say hello so we can toast a glass to the joys of LGBT PRIDE in the Philippines!

[Movies] Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

It was a bit of a surprise to me that I had never realized prior to this week that I had not seen Star Trek: Nemesis completely from start to finish. Don't ask me why, I wouldn't be able to give you a halfway decent reason. All I know is that when I loaded the DVD and started the movie, it had dawned on me that I couldn't remember seeing any of the initial sequences at all. Life is funny that way.

Although now that I have in fact watched the whole thing from start to finish, I see that I wasn't missing all that much. There are just so many things that felt, well, wrong about this movie when compared to what we have come to know and believe in with regard to the Star Trek universe. The movie just had all these elements that had me scratching my heading wondering, "What the hell were they thinking?" when they put this movie together.

But it exists and so I watched it in order to get this particular item off my to-do list. And thus we come to today's movie review, which also wraps up my reviews of all the existing Star Trek movies to-date.

Yay me.

[TV] Young Justice: Season 1

When Young Justice had first come out, I had to admit that I was a tad skeptical. There was that instinctive (yet always incorrect) urge to compare the story with comic book canon (and with DC that can me a heck of a lot of versions) and resolve their differences somehow. It's never a good idea since they are in fact two separate entities in the same way that movie adaptations are often terribly different from their comic book versions.

But this does not make them bad per se - and thus they should be judged on their merits alone. Such was the case with the old Batman cartoons that gave us the "non-canonical" character Harley Quinn, who has since then moved on to become an official character in the DC universe complete with back story, multiple versions of her origin tale and of course multiple incarnations across comic books, TV appearances and even video games.

And quite frankly, it's not like we have a lot of other options for animated entertainment of this caliber. And once you get past some of the initial awkwardness, the story does turn out to be a rather impressive one.

[Internet] The Oatmeal vs Funnyjunk = AWESOME

Inman's response to the lawsuit

I love The Oatmeal - the plucky and often uncouth (yet often informative) webcomic and not the breakfast option. Matthew Inman, the 29 year old behind the site, rarely minces words when he deals with the idiots of the internet - and you can imagine there are a LOT of them.

His most recent battle of sorts came in the form of a threat of a lawsuit from Funnyjunk.com in response to a blog post Inman wrote last year complaining about Funnyjunk's continued hosting of his comics without attrition while generating advertising revenue. After that initial complaint there was a bit more back-and-forth name calling, but in the end Inman decided it wasn't worth the hassle of bringing to court and just left his comments online as his final word on the matter.

So instead of preparing to go to finally go to court, Inman created the afore-linked blog post and started a fund-raising campaign for the National Wildlife Foundation and the American Cancer society cleverly called BearLove Good. Cancer Bad. The initial goal was to match the $20,000 lawsuit demand in charitable donations and it has already raised over $100,000 in the first day alone.

In response, FunnyJunk's lawyer Charles Carreon has tired to get the fundraiser shut down for some inane reason and the internet continues to rally against the site.

Let's face it - FunnyJunk is a content aggregator. The Oatmeal is a content generator / creator. They are two very different beasts. It's impossible to prevent someone to post images to other sites yes, but at the very least ensure that proper attribution is made. The DMCA is a weird legal device that sort of works for big content owners like the record labels who spend all day looking for illegal copies of their content online but not so well for smaller folks who don't have legal armies at their beck and call.

We need to develop a middle ground solution that protects free speech, allows for content aggregation and distribution while still giving credit where credit is due. Going in the extreme in any of these directions just won't work. Doing nothing won't help either.

But in the mean time, it will be interesting to see how far FunnyJunk is going to fall given the continued support being rallied in defense of The Oatmeal.

And yes, that includes this blog post.

[Books] Blackout (Newsflesh Trilogy Book 3)

Mira Grant's Newsflesh Trilogy of books and some of the supporting ebook novellas have certainly been an interesting read for me. As much as the whole zombie apocalypse sub-genre of books has become more popular in recent years, the Newsflesh books have maintained a rather distinct tone that has helped set the series apart from other zombie-centric titles. The decision to go with a focus on bloggers as a way of looking at journalism and the pursuit of truth as a whole is a noble venture that speaks to our ideals as both media consumers and potential content creators. And that's the brilliance of the world that Grant has created.

This last book wraps up the series (for now?) in a manner that is just as well though-out and certainly provides a logical conclusion of the entire narrative flow. And like the prior books, this means that you can get a healthy dose of both intellectual discussions and zombie-killing action. It's really just a question of who's doing the shooting and what is truly motivating them this time around. And if you thought the twists and turns of Deadline were surprising and shocking, this book has even more in store for you.

And yes, I do realize that I somehow missed out on posting a review for Book 2 and I'll try to rectify that by next week.

[Movies] Prometheus (2012)

It has been over 30 years since Alien first appeared in theaters in 1979. Since that time, quite a number of movies had enriched the overall universe of this story as handled by various directors across different movies and even a number of novels and comic books.

But all that time, director Ridley Scott had never returned to his creation despite the amazing fan following it has developed over the years. So naturally a lot of fans were excited when news broke out that Scott was interested in working on a prequel to his initial masterpiece of science fiction horror.

Now prequels (and sequels for that matter) tend to be quite the mixed bag in terms of quality and it's not often the case that all these additions to the story really help things along. But I think it's fairly safe to say that Prometheus is a pretty powerful piece that does well to stand on its own and yet still contribute to the original franchise.

Do you need to see the original Alien to enjoy this movie? Surprisingly my initial answer is no. You're good enjoying this movie on its own and focusing on the implications of this one story alone.

[Pink Scene] Mentorque's Comments on the White Party Manila 2012

So last week I wrote about this year's White Party Manila and expressed my general disappointment with the increasing ticket costs for the street party. I'm still unable to comprehend fully why this is so, and thus the reason for my posting a blog.

Since the campaign started, feedback on social media has been  mixed and Mentorque Productions, the group who is organizing the White Party this year, has been trying to respond to the criticism in various ways.

It started with their official statement on their Facebook page:

Mentorque Productions Official Statement:


Guys, for the past years we only aim to deliver the best for everyone who patronizes the events of Mentorque Productions.


We are thankful for those who continuously support us. Amidst the issues, we can't please everyone. We have chosen not to speak further on the mudslinging that is happening. We only want to give you the best, and for the upcoming 11th White Party Manila we all have made sure that it will be worth it.


Happy Pride!


Thank you,


John Bryan Diamante
Managing Director
11th White Party Manila

But I was more surprised when my blog post last week merited an individual comment from Mr. Diamante as well...

[Movies] Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

And now we get to this weird movie involving the cast of Star Trek: the Next Generation. My general dislike for this movie is primarily based on the merits of the movie on its own. I do my best to ignore the fact that this movie can be counted as the ninth movie in the entire franchise, thus making it part of the "unlucky" odd-numbered movies that tend to do worse at the box office compared to the others. At least that's how the fan theory goes at times.

In many ways, the story at the heart of this movie felt a lot like one of those weird TNG episodes that just didn't quite go well. It's the same situation with any long-running TV series - what more one that lasted 7 years on television. And given all those episodes, you're bound to come across some pretty lousy ones that just don't flow well.

For now I'll defer from citing additional one - at least for now...

To be fair though, it was nice to see the new Enterprise in a heck of a lot more action compared to the last movie. While I did enjoy the whole Borg aspect, we have to admit that the ship itself became little more than a part of the scenery, which kind of sucked. But even the fun moments weren't enough to fully save this movie.

[TV] Glee: Season 3

The third season of the hit show Glee may be the last one I'll ever watch. I've been struggling to stay interested in the show ever since the plot lines started to get crazier and crazier come Season 2, and not in a Community is Meta Cool kind of way either. Thus by this third season my sense of interest was just hanging by a thread and the show didn't do much to help me in this regard.

It's just as well though - this season had a lot of the "seniors" finally graduating, thus paving the way for other characters to take up he reins. Of course many bloggers out there have postulated that just because the characters have graduated doesn't mean we're not going to stop following them around. Now that feels like a lousy plan for me since it'll mean more and more characters muddying the waters to the detriment of everyone involved.

But that's always been a problem of this show, one that it clearly does not want to leave behind just yet.

[Games] Casual Arcade-Style Games by Game Circus (Android)

My continued explorations of the Google Play Store for interesting Android apps does lead me into weird directions. Case in point - as much as I enjoy challenging, though-provoking games, there are those times in the day when your brain just refuses to function and you can't imagine surviving another Tower Defense style romp.

So I ended up with a bunch of these free old school arcade games by a company called Game Circus that turned out to be surprisingly entertaining despite their simplicity. They take advantage of the feature of a larger screen tablet fairly well (in contrast to a mobile phone) and they do provide for quick entertainment in a pitch with little commitment. Almost all of them rely on time-delayed regeneration of energy, balls or whatever else drives the game, thus you are eventually forced to stop.

Here are a few games of particular interest:

[Books] A Storm of Swords

With the second season of the HBO TV series having wrapped up this week, it seems almost timely that I also finally finished reading that rather epic-ly long A Storm of Swords. I totally get why some markets opted to split this massive book into 2 and even 3 separate titles given just how long it runs and how much action takes place. But man, it was totally worth the read indeed.

As I progress through the books while the TV series also continues on, I can't help but wonder how they'll manage to adapt each book into another season of the show. And this is especially true for this rather thick addition to any George R. R. Martin bookshelf - it'll take at least two seasons (at least!) to capture all the plot points contained here. At least that's my working theory.

And this book would certainly deserve the added screen time. Seriously, one would be hard-pressed not to enjoy this particular addition to the overall narrative given the many twists and turns that the plot takes. This title probably stands out for the number of character arcs that finally reach a point of general fulfillment while still giving us more questions to ponder over for future titles.

[Movies] Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

So apparently the good detective Sherlock Holmes was recently named by the folks behind the Guinness Book of World Records as being the most portrayed human literary character across both movies and television. This is somewhat an achievement when you really think about it since we never seem to tire of seeing this man solve crimes and mysteries primarily with just the power of his mind and his discerning intellect. Good job, old chap!

And so the irony is not entirely lost on my that we finally got around to watching this particular adaptation recently, although it's actually a sequel.

Now I have to admit that I really enjoyed the 2009 movie that preceded this one and so I was relatively excited when news of a sequel broke out. And the trailer seemed fun enough, although a lot of it involved slow-motion action sequences, which did concern me just a wee bit. But then I figured I was probably being paranoid and perhaps this sequel will live up to the hype of its predecessor.

Or maybe not.

[Pink Scene] This Is Supposed To Be The White Party Manila 2012?

So the first poster images for the 11th White Party Manila have finally hit the social media networks and we get this:

So it looks like we don't officially have a "theme" yet (as if people follow) and I have no idea who these people are supposed to be. Oh well.

What strikes me as somewhat odd is the fact that this is the first time that none of the Malate bars appear on the poster - take a close look and all you'll find are sponsors and a few advocacy groups like LADLAD and Taskforce Pride. Beyond that, it's all corporate sponsors and of course a glaring SM Tickets image. And that's a weird change to see - the bars have always been the primary drivers behind Pride events like this. If the bars aren't fully participating, then who is? Or are they just not getting the benefit of advertising - which feels wrong to me as well.

Then the poster lists the starting time as 09:00pm. Who the heck hits the local queer scene at 09:00pm? Or is this them banking on Filipino time? Whatever.

I headed over to SM Tickets to check out the pricing for this event and was surprised to see that the "entrance" for the street party is already P150. Seriously. What used to be the year's annual celebrate of PRIDE now includes a charge of P150 just to get into the venue. While I don't expect it to be free, but I think I didn't mind the P50 cover to help pay for the "permits" to have the event. I could sort of tolerate P100 given how big it has gotten. But P150? Does anyone actually care about the derivative drivel that passes for a "program" at the street event any more? And here the event supposedly starts at 10:00pm. Thus things continue to get more and more annoying confusing.

And yes, I'm the type of person who'll prefer to celebrate Pride inside the comforts of one of the bars (who am I kidding - we'll be at O Bar of course!) that means that patrons like me would have to pay the P150 street entrance for a show I won't watch them the door charge for the bar, which will be above P300 for a special Saturday night like this. Whoo boy.

And again we have the ridiculous P500 rate for a "VIP" section. Let's say that one more time - a VIP section at a STREET PARTY. Even if you did have a table, I doubt you'd be seated very long once all the other queers arrive and the street turns into a stampede waiting to happen. If it's anything like last year, then all you'll get some pseudo fancy drink for your table on top of everything else, but that's about it.

The event is being managed by a group known as Mentorque Productions, the same geniuses who managed the post Pride March party last year that included the need to send the Pride marchers out of the event area right after the march so that they could pay entrance once they had everything set up. Good job Mentroque for continuing to capitalize on our desire to celebrate gay Pride by finding new (yet highly unimaginative) ways to take more of our money.

So this is Pride, huh? Absolutely brilliant. /sarcasm / snark

[Movies] Star Trek First Contact (1996)

The Borg have generally been one of the more interesting alien races introduced during the television run of Star Trek: the Next Generation. In fact, they went on to feature prominently in Star Trek: Voyager and even managed some appearances in the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise.

I will admit though that the role of the Borg got a little hokey towards the end of their TNG run as they seemed to lose focus and drive. So it was nice to see them back in action in this second TNG movie, and we were also introduced to the concept of the Borg Queen. At first it seemed like too much of a contradiction to everything that we had learned about the Borg in the TV series but in time it made a lot more sense. And her function played  key role later on during Voyager.

The old belief about many Trekkies is that the even-numbered movies tend to be the better ones, and this may be one of the movies that helps support that little theory. I'm not saying it was the greatest one under any circumstances, but it certainly had a solid enough plot and a good amount of humor to boot.

Or maybe it was the whole time travel bit. That seems to go well with audiences, right?