BOLT by jaiskizzy

the gist: bolt is the dog superstar of a tv show, the success of which is built upon the fact that the dog believes everything is real. bolt's person is a girl named penny and he is highly devoted to protecting her. when he is accidentally shipped to new york following an episode cliffhanger of penny being kidnapped by their arch-nemesis dr. calico, the green-eyed man, bolt travels across the states to save her, picking up a sardonic alley cat named mittens and his number one hamster-in-ball fan named rhino along the way. can disney make a great cgi movie without using pixar powers?

well, looks like they can, folks. not all cgi films are rendered equal. many have tried to top the home of luxo jr. the jumping lamp, but most have failed (shark tale, robots, the shrek sequels), only cashing in on the darn kids who'd throw tantrums just watch them. the throne still belongs to pixar but disney was able to deliver a 3d animated film almost at par with their sibling company's brainchildren. almost because, it has quality and great story, the characters are cute and memorable, but it's a traditional disney yarn for the family just woven in glorious cgi. it's exactly what you would expect from a disney movie. not that it's a bad thing per se, i like most of disney's stuff, it just doesn't break the old mold. the moment you enter a screening of a cookie-cutter disney flick, you know that there'll be tearjerking and heartstring pulling, that everything's safe for kids to see and that it's gonna end happy no matter how dire the situation would get. so, yeah, no old yeller ending here.

i really liked the character designs. im always for uniqueness. they're pretty simple--white dog, black cat, furry hamster--and yet they bear no resemblance to anything done before. i dont know, but i just found it cute the first time rhino releases himself from his plastic ball. my favorite though were the pigeons with various accents. they oughta have a spinoff movie. anyways, also, the singularity of the characters owes partly to the voice talents, i guess. john travolta as the voice of the heroic hound was glove. also, i've always been fond of the way the animators incorporate the celebrities voice actors' features to the their animated counterparts and in this case, bolt had john travolta's mouth. cant say the similar to the cat and the hamster because i have no freakin idea who voiced them. mittens kinda sounded like zoeey deschanel but older. whoever did rhino did great in capturing the orgasmic glee of a fan thrust into a once-in-a-lifetime dream adventure.

this film reminds me a lot of an old tv movie entitled c.h.o.m.p.s., about a robot dog (anyone else seen that?!). always liked it when the guy opens up the dog to check the stuff inside. anyways, like a lot of the good stuff from days of long ago, it should never be raped(remade). just watch bolt. and its sure-as-pups eventual sequel.


the good: story, characters
the bad: predictability
the ugly: that penny was voice by bucktooth cyrus
the verdict: 8 sicilian pigeons


dr. calicot, the green-minded man.

kicking it again

i was listening to some music on one of my burns when i heard the mp3 song lifted from a classic flash animation which i have embedded below. i first saw it and downloaded through dial-up internet about 10 years ago. man, i am old.

*might not play properly on slow connections...

hi, blood.

you know you are surrounded by idiots when:

you're working your buttcheeks off in order to leave on time and then your coworker messes around with the router because the connection on her side is slow and then the device falls to the floor and everyone's internet is gone and you stand up from your seat and exit the room because you're knot-pissed that they'll obviously turn to you once again when avoidable shit like that happens and after spending a long time outside, you come back to find them standing around and the connection's still busted. idiots, i tell you. people who'd drink the kool-aid no question. they're everywhere and i have more than my allocated share.


anyways, same day this happened, i headed straight to ayala after shift. i wasnt actually planning to buy what i did eventually buy. merely i was there to check its current price out. i hopped from shop to shop and happened upon this normal-looking dude with a normal, non-sales talky attitude. he spoke the same way a friend would talk to you about shit and stuff, unlike the others i passed through because they sounded like bored robots with their annoying rehearsed lines and weird you're-not-gonna-buy-anyway demeanor (i think probably it was because i looked worldwide angry). this guy, however, had the nice buddy approach. with the lowest package-wise pricetag in the area, i was sold. so, a couple of long-queued atm machines later, a wad of paper pesos migrated from my wallet to his hand, and in turn, he endowed my mitts with this electronic encasement of ecstasy:

blood.

my personal goddess and i have played need for speed: undercover against each other through ad hoc and i have had her dust for breakfast, lunch and dinner so far. no surprise since im still using my pathetic 1 hearsepower two-bit starting car and still learning the ropes of psp gaming (it isnt quite the same with a ps2). pretty soon, blood will be kicking that cute little pink butt off the curb.


p.s. will somebody please stop giving atm cards to idiots?
p.p.s. i love you, love. let's do that thing that we did the other day again some other day.

cgi jai

thanks to my girlfriend who spent enough time and effort to make a nigh-exact digital replica of my ugly mug. the one thing wrong with these renderings is...

...i don't do this in front of a mirror like that. i never spend more than 3 seconds in front of a mirror and that is only to see if my hair is messy the way i like it.

MADAGASCAR 2: ESCAPE TO AFRICA by jeeanfoxy

it was a battle between James Bond and Alex the Lion. the latter won and the decision was made. it was madagascar day today.

oh boy, do i regret it.

my ass was practically bouncing up and down my chair when ferb called to say we were going to watch madagascar 2. well i saw the movie trailer a week ago i swore to myself that i will watch this movie as soon as i get the chance. ferb knew how much i wanted to see it so he invited me to a movie date on the first day of screening (today, 11-7-08). he meant well, but the movie itself disappointed me.

it disappointed me.

the movie takes place immediately after the ending of the previous installment so you can expect that the beginning was rushed and the rest of it dragged. the comedy was cliche and the usual slapstick antics brought in the yawns. there were too many dull moments and in every one, all i could think of was "where are the penguins? penguins! more penguins, goshdarnit!" sadly, it was only the penguins that kept me awake.

has it ever happened to you that while watching a movie, you can easily point out where the story shifts chapters? like for example, it's happy singing dancing lollygagging time, and the next thing you know, the characters are fighting and suddenly turn emo. well you can find many scenes like that in this one. it's like manic-depressive chaos.

or maybe i just expected too much out of it?

i might be ranting too much about an animated movie supposedly made to satisfy the expectations of children, but it's a FAMILY MOVIE, and family movies are supposed to hit the mark for adults as well. madagascar 2 didn't do much for me.

here's another thing that bothered me: the Lion King flashbacks. i had them while watching this. there were too many details close to the lion king that only a kid who watched the original lion king movies would understand. maybe the creators were too lazy to make up a more interesting and original storyline took inspiration from that, perhaps?

madagascar 2's animated animals sure know how to move it. they had their chance in the first one and now in the second one. they're just made to be party-happy i guess, so be it. but then here's madagascar 3 in the works right now and i don't think another serving of dancing lemurs and bipolar animals would be necessary. could someone in the creative team take that story board to the atlantic ocean and let it float away to africa? thank you.

oh my God. the movie is so bad i forgot about the weight of moral fiber.

i've lost my faith in alex, gloria, melman, marty, the annoying lemurs, and even my beloved flightless penguins. they gotta prove me wrong in 2011.

THOUGHT:
a star studded cast doesn't always mean it's a good movie, especially if things aren't executed right.

xoxo
JEEAN

TETSUO by angel

". . . I enjoy being raped by the machine but at the same time I want to destroy the things that are invading me, the human being."

——Shinya Tsukamoto

Completely insane, unpleasant, visually stimulating oddities and bizarre as hell - TETSUO is a high speed surreal chase that Shinya Tsukamoto pulls off Hollywood mediocrity, he created a film that's both accessible and also capable of showing you things you've never seen before.

The movie begins in an abandoned factory where the metal fetishist is hit by a car driven by a businessman with his girlfriend then dumped the victim into the woods then escaped. The next day starts the telepathic bond between them and the radical grotesque body transformation into a pile of metal junk. Watch out for the disturbing yet funny "erotic" scenes though, it is hard to watch depending on how dark your humor is but still, I’m inclined to laugh don't ask why :P

My only complaints would be Tsukamoto's complete lack in-depth characterization and confusing plot that went on unfortunate directions that makes me scratch me empty head, but in the end, it's primarily a brain teaser, obtuse and makes you squirm.

11/11

last night...

• a woman in her late 30s who had sworn to keep her virginity intact until she was married to the right man was mugged and raped by three men in a dark alley
• an overseas worker secretly came home to surprise his family only to find out that his wife had been cheating on him
• a bum, that had spent hours in several garbage dumps to find food, lost his dinner to a bunch of stray dogs
• a car veered off the road and fell off a cliff, killing all of its passengers, a family of four that had bought it a week ago
• a high school girl who had just broken up with her older, womanizing boyfriend of two weeks saw that her pregnancy test was positive
• a kitten that could not follow when its mother left because it had a broken leg drowned in the flood
• a child with brain cancer who had spent half her life in the hospital, died in her sleep hugging her teddy bear

if any of these did happen last night, then i am sorry because...

last night was the greatest happiest awesomest bestest best night of my entire life!