vinyarb

like, what is legit anymore?

M Night Shyamalavengers

Jul
23

via GIPHY

If you recall the 90s and early 2000s, you’ll remember that that narrow time window was a great time to be M Night Shyamalan.

It seemed like he could do no wrong, with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and The Village.

After a while, it became apparent he was a one-trick pony, relying on the plot twist, a roughly last minute-ish reveal that totally re-framed the entire movie you’d seen, and forced you to confront it in a very different lens.

Well, after languishing in disappointing films like Lady in the Water, The Happening, he’s kinda back on track with the better reviewed The Visit, and Split, whose reveal was that it’s actually residing in the Unbreakable universe.

And when Split didn’t suck, he was suddenly in possession of (gasp!) a superhero franchise??!

So while Split’s twist was that it was a sort of sequel to Unbreakable, we now have the trailer to the trilogy to cap it off, Glass.

Is the trailer good? Well, it’s… interesting.

But perhaps, what’s more interesting is reading the comments, and seeing how the readers are chiming in on what they think the twist for Glass would be.

What are your thoughts on Shyamalan? Too far gone?

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Thor Ragnarok

Nov
08

Being a father of 2, it’s getting very challenging to get snippets of time to be able to do proper movie reviews (I know, the irony being how come I have time to watch the movie then? Well… okay, i’m being lazy).

So here’s a micro review of Thor Ragnarok.

If you love the clip below, you’ll love the film.

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Wonder Woman

Jun
16

It’s been ages since I did a movie review, partly because of the greatly reduced number of movies since #dadding, and partly because there are chores to be done, instead of whimsically going over the movie details, plot and stuff.

But I watched WonderWoman, and it will be a disservice not to document it. The DCEU movies have been known to be grim, dark and depressing, with marked changes to characters’ very core personality and beliefs.

So it’s a refreshing change of pace to see Wonder Woman having a pretty decent dose of humour. Gal Gadot is perfectly cast as Princess Diana, something we already knew in BvS but reaffirmed with aplomb here.

The film is bookended in the present day, but all of the action really takes place in WWI era, and kickstarted when Steve Trevor’s (Chris Pine) plane crash lands in Themyscira, a hidden island inhabited by the Amazonians, a race of warrior women created by Zeus to protect and guide Mankind.

Told about the ongoing War, Diana decides to follow Steve back to the real world to help stop the war from escalating by stopping Chief Chemist Isabel Maru from developing a new and deadlier form of mustard gas for the German forces.

Steve rounds up a ragtag group of friends and off they go on Wonder Woman’s maiden adventure. It’s a fun ride, and definitely a very worthy addition to the superhero film basket.

Rating: 8/10 

Wonder Woman Got Your Back, But You Still Probably Shouldn’t Try This At Home (Or at a Prom)

Now, in one of the scenes, Wonder Woman had to infiltrate a ball to try and kill General Ludendorff. But she was wearing a dress, so there wasn’t a lot of space to hide her sword. But she improvised well.Wonder-Woman-Sword-In-Back-Wallpaper-05338

This scene has since inspired (and probably seriously injured) a whole bunch of ladies to try the same thing, together with the hastag #WWgotyourback.

Seriously, look at this:

wwgotyourback

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Even Sony staff hates Adam Sandler films

Dec
17

By now, you must have heard of the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack back in November. Sure, a lot of personal information like salaries, social security numbers, and very very personal emails were leaked.

But enough of the superficial stuff. Here at vinyarb, we’re concerned with the hard hitting, impactful news, like how Adam Sandler is universally disliked, even by the very studio that ships his films.

In a file innocently titled “Soney_2012_Comments”, a raw dump of employee feedback contains these gems about Adam Sandler, and the movie making decisions backed by the Studio in general:

“In TV and Theatrical, I hope management looks closely at the money spent on development and term deals to ensure efficiency. There are a lot of term deal personnel as well as creative personnel, yet we only release a dozen or so Columbia Pictures a year, for example. And will we still be paying for Adam Sandler? Why?”

There is a general “blah-ness” to the films we produce. Although we manage to produce an innovative film once in awhile, Social Network, Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films.

 

Ouch.

Here are more details on the hack.

Also, if the Sony staffer thinks that films adapted from novels represents innovation, I think we all have the answer on why Sony is on the outs.

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A new most retweeted image is born

Mar
03

Before today, the record for most retweeted image was held by Barack Obama’s “four more years”.

But today, that record has been bettered. And then some. By who else but the darling of talk shows, Ellen DeGeneres. In between hosting duties at the 2014 Oscars, she palled with A list celebrities, and rallied them to take a selfie.

In under a day, that fun image had over 2.4m retweets. Contrast that to the “Four More Years” tweet that currently stands at 780k. That’s the power of celebrity.

Or should I say celebrities.

Also, Leo DiCaprio got snubbed again for his performance in Wolf of Wall Street. What must this guy do to get an Oscar? Which prompted mrbrown to quip:

And then Jennifer Lawrence fell. Again.

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Just keep flapping

Feb
12

Have you heard of Flappy Bird? Of course you have. That annoyingly simple to play, yet improbable to master gameplay is really what makes it super addictive.

Tap a flying bird to keep it in the air and navigate through broken pipes. How difficult can it be? Millions have tried. Many have failed.

But what really makes this an incredible story, is the sudden rise of the app, and fall of its creator. As the game rose in popularity, all eyes fell upon creator Dong Nguyen, and he started getting comments and tweets at him, both positive and negative.

Initially, he’d reply to the feedback and tweets gamely, but as time wore on, and the media picked up on his story, he started feeling frustrated by all the media attention and the negative impact his game was having on millions of players.

The game, designed to be a simple time-waster while waiting for your commute, instead turned out to be night-stealer, its addictive nature wiping away hours on end. It was meant to bring joy to our lives, instead, we alternate between love and hate of it. That, was the reason Nguyen decided to pull the plug on the game, removing it from the Android and IOS Appstores.

When he first announced that the game would be pulled, many thought it was a prank. Afterall, according to the Verge, he was raking in $50,000 per day serving up in-game ads. Why would anyone in their right mind do something like that? Well, don’t worry. He’s not crazy. In fact, he is rather brilliant, in my mind.

You see, while the game is no longer available for download on the stores, those who’ve previously installed the game would still have access to it. And with the supply now suddenly gone, demand for the game has in fact increased, and those who’ve already downloaded the game (50 million at last count) will no doubt be playing it even more, and passing the phones around to compete with friends who don’t have it.

The ads are still running on the already installed phones, so in my opinion, Nguyen has just nailed the perfect passive income for at least the next couple of months! His $50,000 per day (probably more) continues to flow in, while he no longer has to deal with queries, comments and vitriol (real or imagined) about the game.

Here’s an exclusive interview he did with Forbes regarding his decision to remove the app.

As long as we keep flapping, he’s going to be able to keep sipping mai tais on the beach. And if you were late to the game and desperately want to flap some birds, my phone is for sale for $6,888. Call me.

You can also download a flood of copies currently on the appstores, but Flappy Bee just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?

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Fuck Yeah! Chuck Norris!

Dec
20

Because doing an epic split between 2 airplane wingtips in mid-air, is not enough.

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Backstory of Doraemon

Nov
17

I have no doubt many of you would have seen an episode, or at least a snippet of the popular Japanese anime, Doraemon.

Typically, it involves Doraemon and his owner Nobita Nobi, getting into a spot of trouble with friends, bullies or going through a series of unfortunate circumstances, but almost always ends up resolving the issues while learning (implied or otherwise) about certain values like friendship, perseverance and honesty.

But how many of you really know the backstory behind Doraemon?

What exactly is he, and why is he here?

Well, it turns out that the story has a very interesting parallel with The Terminator. (Or should I say events behind The Terminator could be inspired by Doraemon, given the manga was first published in 1969!)

Doraemon is a robot cat manufactured in the year 2112, and came to be in the possession of a little boy named Sewashi Nobi. Sewashi sent Doraemon back in time to improve the life of his Great Grandfather, Nobita, so that in the future, his descendents may enjoy a better life.

In the original timeline, Nobita was frequently bullied, and led a sad, miserable life with poor grades. This resulted in a eventual burning down of the business Nobita had set up, thus throwing his descendents into a financial rut. Sewashi initially wanted to send a super robot to protect Nobita, but could only afford factory reject, Doraemon.

So despite the light hearted tone to the series, it actually underscores a very moving story of attempting to alter history to better one’s predicament.

Fun fact

Doraemon’s ears were eaten by robotic mice. Although he can still hear perfectly well, it has given him a series-long phobia of the creatures.

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