Yesterday, myself and a close friend attended Concours D’Elegance, Australia — a prestige motoring event which has rare and exotic cars displayed (more than $100 million worth!)
October in Sydney has quite unpredictable weather. Luckily for yesterday – 10/10/2010, the weather was bright, warm and sunny – simply a perfect mix. On display were hundreds of cars; all unique marquees, shapes, designs, styles. Simply an automotive enthusiasts dream. I won’t bore you with words, just check out the pictures for yourself.
Photos taken with a Canon 450D and Canon 10-22mm wide angle lens.
View the set on Flickr
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Currently, Predators is rated 6.7/10 on IMDb. I’m stumped as to how this movie even got past 5/10.. Yet, there are even positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, surely I can’t be that wrong?
To put it bluntly, this movie was crap. I can hear it now, fanboy cries of “omg, wtf r you on about it was awesum!!1″.. Yeah, perhaps it was if you’re a 14 year old who has never seen the original or one of those real die hard Predator series fan. After I finished painfully watching Predators, I decided I’d put on the original and cult classic: Predator.
So, what did I learn? I learned what 23 years difference makes. Back then, you were given a classic, a franchise maker.. now you’re a given movie that milks and butchers franchises. This movie is B-grade, and if you thought otherwise – you’re wrong. The movie is labelled a sequel, yet it stinks purely of an adjusted remake.
I thought I was totally wrong in my diagnosis of the movie with all the positive reviews I saw on Rotten Tomatoes, until I found quite a few which I could relate to:
“This small-minded reshuffling of the “Predator” franchise that began in 1987 is little more than a modern sci-fi B-movie filled with more plot holes than you can count.”
“A stolid, uninspired imitation of the original… “
“An unnecessary reboot of the 1987 cult movie. Quite literally every image, every idea in Predators, is a straight steal from another film.”
And they are correct. The plot is all over the shop, the actors are so-so, they obviously didn’t have to deliver much – was Adrien Brody bored? The lines were average, heck – they could of almost made the movie without any. Lawrence Fishbourne made a cameo, perhaps to generate some buzz? The only real interesting and most exciting scene was towards the end when Hanzo, (a Yakuza killer) took on a predator in a sword fight. Apart from that, I was bored shitless.
Comparing this to the original which had a decent soundtrack (including a memorable theme tune anyone?), good action scenes, memorable lines such as (but not limited to) Dillon! You son of a bitch! Runnnn, Gooooo, Get to the chopperrrrr! and some plot credibility, Predator should started and finished in 1987.
comments made, view | Filed in Delayed Movie Reviews
I was unaware that This Is England had been made into a mini-series. Unfortunately, it was only a 4 part sequel, but damn it was worth the watch. Shane Meadows is genius.
If you have seen This Is England, then you know what the movie is about. If you haven’t, check out my previous post on the movie.
This Is England ’86 revisits the main characters of the movie, Shaun, Woody and Lol. Based in 1986 and corresponding events of that year, the mini-series takes a look at Shaun, who has just finished his last school exam and now must find his own way in the world. Meanwhile, his old group of friends are all looking for different things in life including love, employment and fun.
For a 4 part mini-series, it was an enjoyable watch. There were quite a few funny bits but also some quite powerful ones. Especially in episode 4, far out – that had me speechless in some parts. I hope in 2-3 years time the series can be revisited again showing us how each character has grown up and how life has affected them.
comment made, view | Filed in TV
I was wondering what all the fuss was about with Angry Birds, so I decided to try it and find out. Soon enough I bought the full version of the game..
.. and damn it’s addictive. It’s a very simple game where you catapult different types of birds into structures which vary from ice, rock to wood trying to strike out pigs. With some levels there are some mechanics involved where in order to strike out a pig, you need to knock something over or out. The sound effects of the birds are pretty amusing, they do seem angry and ready to go.
Hopefully the game will have it’s graphics updated for the iPhone 4, but I somehow don’t see it happening anytime soon. Update 1.4.2 brings retina graphics!
For $1.19, it’s a fun time passer.
comments, add | Filed in Games, iPhone
Yesterday’s conversion with a friend of mine went something along the lines of me telling him that I had come back to my roots and got an iPhone. His reply was a simple one, “hahaha, they all come crawling back..”
Sad, but true. But perhaps it doesn’t apply to everyone. In the past I considered myself an Apple Mac fanatic, however my friend which I broke the news to has taken over the reigns in that department. In his case, fanatic would be an understatement – obsessed would be more fitting.
Moving on. So, why did I jump ship back to the Apple iPhone you ask? Well, I guess one of the key things here was friends and family having this device and letting me play with it for a bit. When the iPhone 4 was launched, I wasn’t really phased by it one bit. Steve Jobs went about his way announcing all the features, gadgets and gizmos that the iPhone had and all I had to say was meh. My mind was made up at that stage and I wanted to try the Android platform.. and I lasted about 2 months or so on it.
Apps
I should have realised browsing the Android Market that the Apps were shit – and they are in comparison to the quality of those in the AppStore. Almost every App on the Android platform I came across had ads embedded with a poor UI, or they failed in the usability department. In the end, the AppStore is far superior to the Android Market and I missed the Apps I had on my iPhone 3G, so this was one of the deciding factors.
Display
The display on the iPhone 4 is quite awesome I must admit. I found the display on the HTC Desire very good, but the iPhone’s display is easily a few notches ahead. The text is very crisp and easy to read with the colours vibrant.
Network
This was probably the only thing I was skeptical about. From general use so far, I feel the HTC Desire wins in this department. I was expecting web browsing (although Safari and Androids browsers use different rendering engines) and the AppStore to be faster on the Optus network now that the iPhone supports additional mobile frequencies. But this doesn’t entirely seem to be the case. In general it is much faster than the 3G.
Also, I’m not quite sure what this nonsense about the death grip was. I haven’t experienced any signal problems or calls dropping due to holding the phone in a certain way. Perhaps the Americans have issues with their networks over there. I noticed with the Desire that the data connection would drop every once in a while, the iPhone doesn’t seem to do this at all. I couldn’t find out why the Desire did either.
Camera, Video
I’m not quite sure about this one. In terms of raw picture quality, the iPhone and Desire camera seem pretty on-par to me. What I do like about the iPhone is the HDR setting which makes photo’s just that little bit better. Although I do miss the FxCamera App on the Android which offers some cool on the fly post-processing. With Android 2.2 came “720p video recording” which wasn’t too bad, although I feel the iPhone wins in some environments.
Battery
The iPhone’s battery is kick-ass. So far the longest I’ve gotten out of it is 2 days, 8 hours stand by with 7 hours, 54 minutes of usage which included gaming, phone calls, web browsing and using the AppStore over WiFi/3G. With the Desire, I was lucky to get just over a day with it, it just seems to be a battery hungry thing. Charge times seem to be similar (correction, the iPhone also charges faster here too) between both devices whilst using the wall charger, however via USB the iPhone wins hands down. The Desire could sometimes charge for hours on end, but perhaps I was using some rubbish USB cable?
20 Oct - Taking another look at battery life a few weeks later – On average I manage to get 5-6 hours of mixed usage and 2 days+ standby, — the highest being 5hrs, 3 days standby. This leaves the Desire in dust.
Overall, I enjoyed using the HTC Desire, but I must say my heart definitely belongs to the iPhone, I simply missed it too much. Apple has done a superb job with the iPhone 4, it is a great product.
comments, add | Filed in iPhone
