[Movies] Wait Until Dark (1967)

Hot on the heels of watching the Repertory Philippines staging of the play that this movie was based on, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity with regard to this particular adaptation. Admittedly I had never heard about the movie prior to watching the play, but knowing that Audrey Hepburn was involved was enough to get me racing to find a copy.

Audrey Hepburn was an amazing actress and one who certainly had a degree of class and regality that few other actresses (past and present alike) are able to match. And to find her playing the lead in a suspense thriller was admittedly a bit of a surprise. Let's face it, there are those who sort of dismiss such movies as not being serious enough or something like that. And thus you tend to get newer talent involved in such productions. And by this time Audrey Hepburn had already starred in movies like Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady.

This movie was quite brilliantly done and I have to admit that I enjoyed it a lot. I know I usually talk about how I don't typically like scary movies. But this one was scary in a smart way, and in the end came out to be quite enjoyable indeed.

[Theater] Wait Until Dark (Repertory Philippines)

Since my partner and I had rather enjoyed the experience of having season tickets for Repertory Philippines, this year we decided to invest in getting the new Year Pass option that offers a bundled rate for all five Repertory Philippines production for the year. Spending P2,400 for 5 plays is a pretty sweet deal no matter how you look at things.

The first straight play for the season was Wait Until Dark, which is a play that was also adapted into a movie starring Audrey Hepburn. Admittedly I had never heard of either the play or the movie - it just happened to be part of the bundle.

 I haven't seen too many plays that tried to capture the suspense thriller genre - it's something that we more commonly expect from movies these days. But I can totally appreciate the greater challenge there is in orchestrating the kind of emotions needed for a play that wants to scare its audience. And in this regard I think that Repertory Philippines did a pretty decent job of bringing this show to life and kicking off their 2014 season in a rather grand way.

[TV] Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light

The 1980's is celebrated for a variety of reasons - sometimes even the crazy, pattern-overloaded fashion of the time. But for those of us who grew up during this very colorful years, there will always be something about the cartoons of the period that will remain with us forever - usually in internet memes.

Most cartoons of the period were pretty much just half-hour commercials for their respective toylines. And when toy sales didn't pick up, shows got cancelled pretty quickly. But that doesn't necessarily mean these shows were quickly forgotten.

A great example of one such beloved show is Visionaries, which quite frankly was a cartoon that was way cooler than the toys that spawned it. The series featured an almost post-apocalyptic reality mixed in with some magical high fantasy. The toys relied on a single gimmick - hologram stickers. Otherwise, the figures were more boring that G.I. Joes or something. And yet I'll proudly admit that Visionaries made a heck of a lot more impact on my childhood than G.I. Joe ever did.

[Games] Reus (PC)

With a new gaming-capable laptop now in my possession, I'm glad that I'm finally able to explore all these colorful, crazy games that I've acquired through the Humble Indie Bundle. And say what you will against DRM, there's a lot of beautiful convenience that comes with all your games being linked to a Steam account. Thus it makes it easy to travel from one computer to another.

I always had a thing for god simulation games. The very first one that I had played was Populous and one of the more memorable ones remains to be Black & White. Reus seems to have echoes of both those games, without explicitly claiming that you're a god. But it certainly touches all the right buttons as far as god games go.

And it's quite fun to watch as well.

[Comics] G.I. Joe/Transformers - Volume 1

The 1980's was particularly remembered for the fascinating rise of 30-minute advertisements for toys disguised as cartoons. But beyond merely being shown on television around the same time, the two franchises of G.I. Joe and The Transformers are a bit more memorable since the toys were manufactured by the same company.

Over the years the Transformers brand has explored many different avenues of storytelling. One of the more interesting mediums that both the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises have utilized rather heavily over the years is comic books - and more often than not they've shared the same comic book publisher.

And that brings us to this interesting collection - a quirky depiction of what things would be like should the two fictional universes overlap. Crossover stories have always been a bit of a gimmick, but it's one that we've all come to enjoy to one extent or another. And this series of IDW Publishing collections gather the different crossover titles between G.I. Joe and Trasformers released over the years by those who previously held the license to create such stories in comic book form.

[Movies] Frozen (2013)

Things have been shifting around at Disney in recent years - something I'd like to attribute to the creative leadership of Pixar's John Lasseter. He was named Disney's Chief Creative Officer back in 2006 when Disney acquired Pixar. And yet despite this shift, there's still a difference between Pixar movies and Disney animated features that keep both distinct and entertaining in their own ways.

Frozen is the latest feature that was released during the 2013 Thanksgiving season. I initially wasn't expecting too much from the movie since the core story didn't particularly excite me for one reason or another. However, the movie's popularity, as uniquely driven by how viral the song "Let It Go" has become, reached a point where I couldn't ignore the movie any longer.

Okay, maybe ignore is too strong a word. More of the movie's success forced me to bump it up in my movies-to-watch queue quite significantly - which proved a wee bit of a challenge given the fact it was no longer showing in local theaters. But hooray for the internet!

[Movies] Walk A Mile In My Pradas (2009)

During odd moments at home, I've been trying to work my through the hodgepodge collection of LGBT-themed movies that I've downloaded over the years in an honest effort to support the LGBT movie industry and hopefully find some genuine diamonds in the rough. But the search is a challenging one that requires one to first go through quite a number of really bad ones.

And this one was pretty annoying.

Walk A Mile In My Pradas is an LGBT comedy that is built entirely out of stereotypes about both heterosexuals and homosexuals, and not in a fun way. The only other element that seemingly ties all this together is probably the presence of Tom Arnold since the plot alone wasn't much to speak of. The movie doesn't even offer interesting eye candy - instead you just have to deal with a lot of drabness and some less than ideal acting.

And I'll stress, so many stereotypes! It's crazy! And oftentimes annoying to the point of being hurtful already.

[Movies] Ink (2009)

I'm pretty sure that I've already alluded to my partner Tobie's collection of somewhat unusual movies. I never really know how he finds these things, but one thing just leads to another and he ends up collecting more and more films of interest that I had never heard of before. But to be fair, Tobie has great taste and more often than not these movies do have points of interest that we share a liking for.

Ink is definitely one of those movies. It's definitely the kind of movie that fits the term "cult classic" given how it was both produced and distributed independently. And while the movie has never seen a proper commercial theatrical release, enough people have managed to see it in one for or another.

And to be fair, this movie is visually impressive, to say the least. And I'm not just saying that the movie has great effects considering the budget - I'm saying that the movie has great visuals, period. The team behind it had a pretty clear vision of what they wanted to put together and managed to do so for just $250,000.

[TV] Face Off (SyFy)

I rarely indulge in "reality" television when it comes to figuring out what to watch. Don't get me wrong - I can understand the entertainment value these shows bring. I guess I just prefer my shows to be more open about the fact that they're scripted - and yes, I say this in jest.

The few shows that I do watch from time to time focus on actual merit or achievement more than anything else. And I guess that's why I was drawn to SyFy's Face Off, along with shows like Project Runway. They're not about a person looking good or managing to be on the winning team. They're (theoretically) about the quality of the creative output of the various contestants under fairly high pressure situations.

And the fact that we get to see a lot of geeky characters brought to life is pretty fun, too.

[Games] Broken Age - Act I

So I finished the first act of Double Fine's new adventure game, Broken Age, in about 4 hours. And that's not a bad thing at all - if anything the whole experience felt almost religious at times. I was actually back in one of the amazing stories crafted by the mind of Tim Shafer - and it was like being home again.

The signs were everywhere - the design of the puzzles, the way the different dialog trees touch on clues that become important later to finding more solutinos. And of course there's the humor - the quirky, oddball jokes and puns that are pretty much a signature of Tim's creative efforts.

I can't really say that this is a formal review yet - we only have one half of the game after all. But I do have some things that I want to say about this game now that I've come this far.

[Comics] Adventure Time Vol. 2 - Pixel Princesses

At first I sort of expected that future Adventure Time graphic novels would focus on expanding on the whole Finn and Flame Princess dynamic or something like that. The way the first volume ended, it felt a lot like it was just the start of a larger tale.

So I was pretty surprised when the next book was announced to be about several other Princesses of Ooo. So I guess it appears that these graphic novels are going to tell independent stories, thus further expanding what we know of the Adventure Time world. And this isn't a bad thing at all - we can already trust the Boom! Studios on-going comic series to tell stories that span several comic book issues. These books have a completely different focus entirely.

I'm still on the fence about the whole decision to focus on releasing strictly black and white comics. And I really felt this way given this book was focusing on several Princesses - many of which don't get as much spotlight time on the television series. But of course, we just have to respect that the aesthetic that the creators were aiming for in this regard and see how things flow.

[Movies] Switch (2013)

The Hong Kong film industry is a factory that spews out movie after movie after movie. There will be the great ones, the good ones and the inevitably bad ones. And I honestly thought that this might be a good one when I loaded it into the plane's in-flight entertainment options, but sadly I was mistaken.

Andy Lau has made over a hundred movie over the course of his lengthy career and he's quite the superstar in this market. And to be fair, he does have some pretty great movies ranging from intense dramas to quirky comedies. I honestly enjoy watching his movies when I get the chance, and thus my optimism when it came to this particular movie.

But in the end it was a rather confused mess - a spy thriller of sorts that contained dated elements from 1960's movies of the same genre. And this wasn't some brilliant homage or something - it was just a tired and rather disappointing experience overall.

[Technicolor Musings] Should LGBT Couples Bother Buying Property?

Rainbow over the house in the sugar cane fields by B.navez via Wikimedia Commons

I'm one of those people who dream of owning property. And I'm not talking about some condominium - that feels like a lie. I'm talking about an actual house standing on a plot of land - even if it's just a townhouse or something like that. I guess I'm a little old-fashioned that way.

A friend had once argued that it's a more practical to just rent a home versus buying one for various reasons. But eventually, the argument sort of boiled down to the fact that home ownership for LGBTs may not be the most practical thing, especially since it's not like we can get married and such.

My recent house-hunting efforts sort of revived this particular memory. And thus today's blog post.

[Movies] Batteries Not Included (1987)

In trying to figure out what movie I wanted to review today, I ended up digging through my childhood to see what would come up. Friday reviews are always meant for older movies and for this one to come up was certainly an interesting bit of mental randomness.

I used to have a copy of Batteries Not Included on VHS - and this wasn't even an official copy but merely a version that we had recorded from a rental tape. When you're a kid with limited rights to use the VHS player, movies like this become part of the "safe" titles that you're allowed to watch over and over again - and I did just that.

I think the core reason why I liked the movie so much is tied to my love of robots (read: my life-long obsession with the Transformers). And while these the little stop-motion UFO characters weren't officially robots, they certainly seemed like constructs that demonstrated some form of an artificial intelligence indeed. Then again, the logic of a family of sentient flying saucer creatures may seem ridiculous as a whole, but then again we're pretty much ready to embrace almost any truths as kids. That's precisely the magic of a kid's imagination.

[TV] Smash: Season 1

For those of you who haven't been taking notes, let's establish the fact that I'm pretty into musical theater. And no, this is no passing interesting or kind appreciation for the genre - I'm really, really into musical theater. You can call it one of my obviously gay traits or something, but a good show tune is sure to brighten up my day when I need it.

So when they announced that Smash would be a television series all about a musical theater production, you'd think that I could have been more excited about it. And I was - at least initially. I watched the show from week to week, eager to see what Broadway cameo would take place next.

But the pacing of the show sort of dragged for me across the first few episodes and I ended up prioritizing other shows of greater interest over watching this one. Thus it was only during this past holiday season that I finally found time to sit down and catch up with the series despite the knowledge that it had already been cancelled. Thus the particular delay in getting this review up, but hopefully it was worth the wait.

[Games] Doctor Who: Say What You See

One of the many game apps released around the time of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who was Doctor Who: Say What You See. This little puzzle app was initially a paid app, and admittedly I wasn't too keen on the gameplay mechanic to want to invest. Thankfully the reverted to a free model later on and also ensured that the game was accessible to all regions. So yeah, free is always good.

The game is interesting enough, but very finite in it's enjoyment level. It combines the fun of a scavenger hunt game with visual word puzzles. Oh, and since it's a Doctor Who related game, then it's also quite the trivia piece as well.

[Comics] Adventure Time Vol. 1 - Playing With Fire

The "expanded universe" of the Adventure Time franchise is proving to be a rather interesting one. As much as the various video games don't exactly expand on our concept of "canon", the comic books are doing a tremendous job of developing more back story for the existing cartoon universe of the show. Whether or not we can take all comic book stories as true canon will always be a tricky thing, but for now I'm definitely enjoying whether the comic is going.

But here we have the first of a new series of titles - these being distinct graphic novels whose style seems a lot closer to Japanese manga compared to anything else. I say this because of their slightly smaller size format compared to conventional comics (although still larger than true manga) and the decision to go strictly black and white. As much as the Boom! Studios comics are lovely full-color spreads that help bring the Land of Ooo to life, these graphic novels still manage to tell pretty compelling stories without the need to resort to colored panels.

How they plan to continue to explore the Adventure Time universe in this comic format is a bit of an interesting mystery in itself, but for now let's just enjoy the ride.

[Movies] Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

I had rather enjoyed the quirkiness of the first Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs when it came out a few years ago. It wasn't exactly the most life-changing movie out there, but I do rather enjoy food being crazy. And this movie certainly pushed the limits of where food could go - at least until the sequel came around.

Then comes the most unexpected sequel Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. Immediately it was pretty obvious that this was a safe, money-driven sequel given the the first movie had already taken extreme liberties with the source material (which to be fair, was a children's book so that's really not much material to work with) and they didn't even bother to give the movie a clever name. Instead they just tacked a 2 at the end of it and left things at that.

I finally caught this movie as part of the in-flight entertainment features on my way home from Singapore over the holidays. I wasn't particularly concerned that I was watching this potentially vibrant and visual movie on the limited screen nested into the seat in front of me (and and a slight angle at that) since I didn't really have high expectations for the movie. But I was curious enough to invest my flight time into following this little adventure.

[Movies] What Happens Next (2011)

Many times I wonder what motivates people to put together an independent LGBT movie. Clearly it's not for the money since there's a very limited market for these movies and thus ticket sales aren't something to look forward to. I suppose something inspired them to put these movies together - maybe a personal experience that they wanted to use as a story or just a personal yearning that they wanted to address.

When it comes to movies like What Happens Next, I really can't help but think that the folks behind the movie have some sort of a message that they want to convey. Whether this message is just a noble one or perhaps one derived from personal experiences is not for me to say.

This is but one of many movies that I ended up watching one after the other over the holiday season to help build up my review queue. It certainly had its nice, poignant moments, but it also had a lot of confusing bits, as is typical for many movies of this nature. I watch them so all of you can have a better sense of what the movie might be like before you plunge in head first.

I'm on the fence about whether or not I want to endorse this one.

[Movies] Rock of Ages (2012)

In years prior, the easiest way to catch a Broadway musical outside of visiting New York was by catching a movie adaptation of the show. And movie studios were pretty keen on adapting all the great stage plays to film since they were an easy formula for success during the MGM era.

These days movie musicals feel like a horribly diverse bag that leans more on the side of being bad than being great. You have really fun ones like Mamma Mia! and barely passable ones like the adaptation for RENT. And call it a bit of personal bias, but I have to state that Rock of Ages didn't come across as one of the better ones out there.

I have stated repeatedly on this blog that I do my best to separate the source material from its various adaptations when I write my reviews. I'm not sure how well I can do this given this movie is meant to be a film representation of the same musical. But given the many changes to the story, I suppose it's still a valid argument that this is a completely different creative endeavor. I will have a bit of a commentary related to the differences between the movie and the original musical, but my final assessment (I hope) will be focused more on the movie alone. At least that's how the theory goes.

[TV] The Newsroom: Season 1

Over the holiday break, I decided to finally sit down and watch The Newsroom after all the good press it had gotten in the past year or so. Yes, I'm aware that the second season of this show is already over and I'm a little late to the game. But hey, one can watching only so much television at once, right? If I could watch TV shows and movies for a living, I'd so go there.

You'd think that with the premise behind The Newsroom that I would have gotten into the show sooner. I guess I put up a little resistance at first for no truly rational reason - something like not watching to fall into the HBO trap right off the bat. But the extra free time over the holidays meant that I was out of excuses.

The show is certainly an interesting look at the role of media in terms of current events. As much as we'd like to think that it should be a simple process of tracking down news stories and reporting them to the public, there's definitely been a shift in the way the news is handled and how the various networks factor in audience views and the overall entertainment value in terms of how they put their news broadcasts together. That that changes the entire flow of national discourse on major issues more than you realize.

[Games] Doctor Who: Legacy

The recent celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the science fiction television series Doctor Who certainly resulted in a lot of interest in the franchise as a whole. At the same time, this also resulted in a lot of different Doctor Who related books, toys and even mobile games all tied into the celebrations.

Doctor Who: Legacy is one of the those games that actually got a  huge boost of interest in the weeks after the 50th anniversary. The game became available for downloading in the region by December, which was just in time for their big advent promotion.

On the surface, the game seems to be little more than just another match-three type of game that we've been seeing time and time again over the years. But in truth, it's a nice spin on the classic game genre and it offers a very nicely integrated Doctor Who experience for all you Whovians out there. The game isn't exactly a cake walk either - you will need to be pretty strategic in how you deal with each stage and its various Doctor Who enemies. And that's where all the fun lies.

[Books] The Measure of the Magic (Legends of Shannara Book 2)

As a fan of both the Shannara books and the Word & Void titles, I've been pretty interested in seeing how Terry Brooks would bridge the two franchises together. The results have been interesting but not overwhelmingly brilliant and I'm not sure if that's because my interests have moved on from Shannara or perhaps I'm expecting a lot more from Brook's writing now that I've been exposed to so many different authors.

However, The Measure of the Magic does appear to be the more interesting half of the Legends of Shannara duology. A lot of times these two-book stories fall into the trap of following the pace of a trilogy in the first book and rushing to finish everything come the second book. This novel didn't come out that bad and actually had some good plot points to cover in the second half of the story.

I'm sure there are more stories to be told in this early period just after Word & Void  and before the proper run of Shannara, but this book does leave you with a decent level of satisfaction regarding how the two worlds have been married together. I guess it will all depend on whether or not Brooks decides to explore this period more.

[Movies] Blind Detective (2013)

My recent trip to Singapore has rekindled my interest in Andy Lau movies for one reason or another. I guess credit needs to go to Singapore Airlines for including two of his recent movies as part of their in-flight entertainment selection.

Blind Detective was certainly a lot more of a story than I had initially expected - and I'm not exactly a stranger when it comes to Hong Kong movie sensibilities. The comedy bits were already fun to begin with, but at its core there was a deeper story at play

I don't often have time for foreign movies since reading subtitles means that I can't multitask other activities when I watch them at home. That's a good and a bad thing given my fairly busy life since deciding to watch one of these movies requires me to fully dedicate some time to the experience.

And to be fair, this was indeed a movie that was worth sitting down for.

[Movies] Weekend (2011)

The world of LGBT movies is a weird one filled with some great stories and some really sad attempts at the same. LGBT movies really shouldn't be a single drama all lumped together, but until views advance this is the reality that we face.

This movie got a lot of buzz when it first came out but it took me this long to get around to watching it, which is sort of a shame. Weekend is definitely one of the better ones out there, even though it does sort of borrow from drama movies of a similar tone, I feel. But this does not take away from the brilliance of the experience, and so I'm glad for this being one of the first LGBT movie reviews that I'm posting for the year.

This movie is a bit of a talkie, which I suppose is also typical of may gay drama films. But at least the writing is strong enough to really bring the characters to life and give the story some real substance overall. And that's what really carries this movie - the skills of the two actors and the chemistry that they are able to portray on screen.

[Movies] Casablanca (1942)

Since my partner had to be with his family during New Year's Eve, I found myself loading movie after movie to help kill the time. And one thing led to another and I found myself watching the timeless classic Casablanca well before it was time for fireworks.

This wasn't my first time to watch the movie, but it has been quite a while since I had last seen it in its entirety. I still almost random memories of different parts of the movie but no coherent flow for the whole story. So I was definitely due for a refresher in order to make sure I had the story straight in terms of my memory.

A lot of folks list this as one of the greatest movies of all time, and I can totally respect that. The movie is certainly a great piece of work - one that nicely uses the rich setting of World War II in order to craft a story of romance, drama and intrigue that stands the test of time.

I could be so lucky to craft a story with this sort of narrative strength and cohesion.

[TV] Leverage: Season 5

Across the seasons, I've come to enjoy Leverage as TV series. There's something about the whole caper-mindset that has kept things pretty compelling plus some pretty well-written characters to keep things going along smoothly. The show certainly had its ups and downs, but on the whole you could trust Nate Ford and his Crew to get the job done.

But like many other shows, it's hard to maintain the consistent level of quality that you get when the production really hits it big. Then again, I guess that's the challenge of any good television show - to find ways to continually elevate the narrative to new heights while still keeping things generally consistent and familiar to audiences. You want to give them something new but also not too radical to scare them away. And there's no easy way to get that done.

With this being the final season of the show, it's clear that the writers were somewhat grasping for ideas during the development of the stories this time around. It's not that they were particularly bad, but they weren't all that much better than what we had seen in years prior. And with shows like this, viewers and critics alike tend to expect the show to always be amazing - otherwise things are horribly bad or something.

[Games] Pocket Mine (Android)

Over the holidays, my sister got both me and my brother to play Pocket Mine, which is a quirky little procedural runner game that uses mining as a primary theme. I didn't expect to get into the game so quickly but after roughly a week of play I'm already at level 39.

It's a simple enough game that relies on a lot of the classic elements that we've seen in many other procedural runners. But for some reason I find myself enjoying this way more than the likes of Temple Run - and this may be more due to my personality than just the game in itself.