vinyarb

like, what is legit anymore?

Edge of Tomorrow

Jun
14

Live. Die. Repeat.

Sounds like  something a FlappyBird player goes through every other minute. But this is the tagline for Tom Cruise’s latest sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow. Playing against stereotype, Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a United Defense Forces PR man, who spends his days speaking and recruiting young men to join in the 5 year fight against an alien species known as Mimics.

A coward at heart, he tries to excuse his way out of combat duty when ordered to cover Operation Downfall (their latest and final salvo against the aliens) from the frontlines.

Forced into combat, he dies within minutes of being airdropped, right into a mimic ambush. Right before he dies, he kills an unusually large Mimic, in the process getting acidic Mimic blood all over him. Instead of reporting to the Pearly Gates, Cage finds himself waking up the morning before, and having a really dreadful sense of de javu.

He tries to warn the rest of the soldiers of the ambush, fails and dies. He tries to save another soldier from being crushed by a plane, succeeds and dies. He does this a few more times, getting the hang of rebooting each time he dies, gets a little farther each time, and comes into contact with Rita Vatraski (Emily Blunt).

edge of tomorrow

even though we’re in the midst of losing a 5 year battle with an alien species, my hair still looks perfect

She seems to know why he is afflicted with this ability, and they start training, making use of his new found ability against the Mimics.

Just like playing a game, they learn things the hard way, and improve stage by stage until they complete the tasks required. And just like playing a game, many times when we get to the end, we go “that’s it?”.

Yes, unfortunately, this rather awesome film has a super “meh” ending, which mars an otherwise enjoyable flick with great pacing, humour and action sprinkled throughout.

Rating: 8/10

He ain’t heavy, he’s my battle suit

The battle suits you see Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt wear, weigh an average of 39kg! Between takes, the actors needed to be suspended by chains to help take the weight of the suits off their shoulders.

edge of tomorrow

You don’t happen to have a kitkat, do you?

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Godzilla (2014)

May
24

I’m a huge fan of monster movies. Cloverfield, loved it. Pacific Rim, stupid actors, awesome sequences, loved it. The trick to watching these kaiju films, is really to just embrace the fact that there will be things out there that we can’t explain, and when the time comes when these things come out of hiding, run.

There is no explaining, there is no plotting, there’s just enjoying seeing what monsters do best. Destroy stuff. Stomp on stuff. Without a care to any humans whatsoever.

There are times in the movie where you’ll feel like it doesn’t make any sense. Questions like “Why does Godzilla not eat the MUTOs?”, “Wait, is he really just killing them for us, and then jumping back into the sea?”, and “Is he the… hero?”

There are no heroes and there are no villains. There are just… monsters. And watching it this way makes the movie better.

godzilla attacks

Sorry, need to floss

Watch Godzilla like we’re ants watching a dude hunt a lion

Now let’s put us into the perspective of ants. There we are, walking in and out of our ant mounds, doing what ants do all day to keep busy, harvest nuts and food and aphids, and basically going about securing the mound from what we ants call “floods”. Now, all of a sudden, a monster appears, galloping at high speeds, and destroying many of our surrounding and cities. It bellows a deafening roar, shakes its monstrous head, plonks it’s huge mass of a body down, and destroys 3 more mound entrances. The science ants nickname it a “lion”.

Us ants are all panicky, and totally out of our depths in dealing with this disaster. We can only run and burrow and hope our loved ones somehow make it, and we’ll find one another someday. When from the distance, we spy another strange monster, this one with only two legs and taller. It approaches pointing a long antenna at the “lion”. The antenna emits a searing blast, and the “lion” falls on its back, grunting its last breath.

The new monster doesn’t come forward to eat the “lion”, but instead utters a triumphant roar. It then proceeds to turn its back, make its way into the mouth of yet another mechanical looking monster with round shapes for legs, and goes off into the distance together, never to be seen again.

See, it didn’t make any sense to the ants neither.

Would have loved for it to have more Bryan Cranston though.

Rating: 7/10

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Apr
04

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the second to last film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before they bring down the curtains on Phase II with Avengers: Age of Ultron.

As the slate of marvel films go, this is definitely one of the better films. Capt assimilates into modern life while catching up on the last few decades with the help of the internet, by checking off a list including Star Wars / Trek, Apple, Thai food, Moon Landing and I Love Lucy. Cute.

black widow

Scarlett Johansson has a lot more lines in this movie. A lot more dialogue too!

In between catching up on history, he also takes time out to complete missions for S.H.I.E.L.D, and engaging in idle chatter with Black Widow on potential hot dates within the agency. Alas, this isn’t a romantic comedy, and evil lurks just around the corner. As S.H.I.E.L.D prepares to launch 3 new top of the line helicarrier with pre-emptive strike capabilities (think Minority Report’s pre-cogs, except each pre-cog is a fully weaponised helicarrier), able to predict using algorithms when anyone might turn rogue, or pose a threat to the establishment.

With the possibility of S.H.I.E.L.D compromised, the new weapons landing in the wrong hands become a very real possibility. When Nick Fury is taken out, and hands Steve Rogers with the heavy responsibility of finding out the truth, who can he trust? More questions get unearthed as old friends and foes arise. Who is the winter soldier? What forces are hiding behind S.H.I.E.L.D? Where the hell are his Avenger friends when he needs them?

At least 2 of these questions will be answered by the movie’s end.

And as usual, stay back for 2 stingers after the credits roll.

Rating: 9/10

Winter Soldier, Easter Egg!

Remember the scene where Steve Rogers whips out his notebook and we see the list of cultural references he means to catch up on?

Well, this list is different in different countries!

Check this out.

This is the US version with I Love Lucy.

To do list - US

And this is the UK version with Beatles and the 1966 World Cup Sean Connery instead of Steve Jobs.

To do list - UK

Apparently, the Korean version of the film has the legendary reference to “Old Boy”.

 

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Pursuit of Happyness

Mar
19

Tomorrow (20th March) is the International Day of Happiness. (Yes, there’s actually a day to remind ourselves to be happy. Says alot about how unhappy we are, right?)

Happiness, means different things to different people. Also, at different phases in our lives, our definition of happiness would also ebb and flow. As a child, happiness could simply mean seeing your parents come back from work to spend playtime with you. Or perhaps an ice-cream could have done the trick too.

As we grow up, attaining happiness becomes a lot more complicated. For some, dating, or being recognised as someone of value would bring you happiness. For others, a more materialistic pursuit such as a fancy car, property, or success in the corporate ladder. For yet others, it’s bringing up a family.

To say that happiness is a fuzzy concept is an understatement. No matter what brings you happiness, I hope you find them. After all, reports suggest that happy people live longer lives, with increased longevity of between 7.5 to 10 years.

What defines your happiness?

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We are our own hostile aliens

Mar
09

From films like Independence Day, Battle: LA, War of the Worlds, and even Signs, alien beings have been scheming and traveling light years to our little planet for our precious land and resources.

I’m not sure where they’ve seen the flyers for Earth, but upon arriving, they must have been in for a big shock. If they were expecting lush greenery, unspoilt pristine beaches, bounding deers in forestlands, well, they’ve come to the wrong planet.

Instead, what they get is this:

River Pollution

SG Haze

If we haze up the planet enough, the aliens may miss us!

construction

Well, actually, as I’m typing this, I’ve come to understand what we, collectively as humans, are doing. In contributing to pollution, adding to congestion, dirtying our seas, killing our flora and fauna, we’re actually saving our home.

We’re fucking up our planet, so aliens wouldn’t want to conquer this little globe we call home.

Now I understand.

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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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Before we get to the Internet of Things

Feb
26

Talking about the internet of things always makes me excited, but afraid at the same time. The possibilities it brings to make our lives better are endless, yet at the same time, those wearing black hats will always find a way to hack through things. So as devices start coming alive in our homes, it also means there are more potential loopholes and vulnerabilities people can leverage to “hack” into our homes.

But that’s for another post.

For today, let’s talk about wearables. As of today, there are 127 wearable devices out there in the market. They range from Heads Up Displays like Google Glass, to fitness tracking bands like fitbit and smartwatches like Pebble, with use-cases ranging from fitness to utilities to medical and lifestyle.

ALL of these wearables run on batteries and hence require charging. So imagine today when you get home, you’ll need to charge your laptop, tablet, mobile, glasses, wristband and watch. That’s just today. What about in 2020, when there will be an estimated 30 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things?

Before we get settled in the internet of everything, we’ll first need a charger for anything. I think this provides a really great opportunity for wireless charging pads to really get off the ground in terms of demand. I know I’ll be wanting one.

wireless charging

I will boldly proclaim that in line with innovation bringing about the internet of things, we will finally see the death of cables.

Agree?

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WhatsApp Sold

Feb
20

As with Flappy Bird, when it was announced that Facebook is going to acquire WhatsApp for USD $16B, plus a further $3B retention bonuses, I’m sure there will be a flurry of new messaging copycat apps. With names like ThatsApp, ThisApp, WhatsThat etc.

All jokes aside, before I could unroll my jaw back off the floor at the pricetag, I came across this article from Forbes with the click-baitish headline Why Selling WhatsApp to Facebook would be the biggest mistake of Jan Koum’s and Brian Acton’s Lives.

The author took the examples of the sale of YouTube and Instagram as examples of how founders had sold their businesses, only for it to grow exponentially in value some time later. In the case of YouTube, they sold it off to Google in 2006 for 1.6b, certainly not a small sum, and while YouTube is definitely a big part of Google right now and worth a whole lot more, it doesn’t mean Chad and Steve would have been able to attain the same level of success if they’d stayed the course without the massive resources of Google to back them up.

Another argument he put forth was that entrepreneurs, or anyone really, will have maybe 1 good idea their entire life. WhatsApp seems to be it for Jan and Brian, so they should hold on to it and play the long game. I say $16B is a pretty darn good price for the one good idea in your life. I would go further to say that NOT selling WhatsApp at $16b would be the biggest mistake of their lives.

In this day and age, barriers to entry for any business is getting lower. Anyone can build almost anything and bring it to market at a (more or less) global level, especially when it comes to tech. So yes, Eric Jackson, before you write such headlines, I’d like to see you reject $16 billion dollars.

Congratulations on the brilliant exit. With this acquisition, WhatsApp is now even more valuable than established brands like Campbell Soup, Harley Davidson and American Airlines!

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