Took a walk down the walkway, walked the walkway all day
Walked till I got caught and I then I got to jail
Where I got copped and the lot was gray
Just like the pavement when I walked away, I got a

Story to tell and homie this time it's for real I'm
Going through shit I want to tell you all about it
And there aint no mountain taller than I will climb
I'm a climb one right now if you really doubt it

I was going through shit till I started with music
Feels I found the path and I'm not about to lose it
Some people get abusive, they flip out and do shit
But rhythm is enough therapy for me and I fuse with

The rhythm and tune,

My first review for movies of the new year! Vice: a well-filmed but unfortunately not very compelling piece of action starring Bruce Willis and... a bunch of other people. Thomas Jane plays the detective, the hero, and is pretty much the only strong personality in the movie.

If they wanted to make the artificials seem inhumane, they succeeded. The artificials, in particular the main one, all feel somewhat impersonal (so impersonal the names seem irrelevant) and lack that necessary appeal to make you empathize with, or at least sympathize with them - an element that seems necessary to create an interest in their accomplishments.

Ironically, most movies that present artificial beings lacking that core essence of whatever it is that makes us human, still make them feel human, or seem human, or want to be human in some way. Unless it's unintentionally bad acting and script - this movie does the opposite, with interesting effect. Unfortunately, it's also it's big flaw. When it's all over I don't relate. I see the victory but... it doesn't feel victorious, and this not because the big bad Bruce seems to be more inhumane than not. I applaud the new approach, but regretfully conclude that it's not working!

When you delete something form a computer, it doesn't actually delete that information. It just removes your ability to access it.

Flawless logic. The plot twist presents itself with utmost clarity. Vice, a place where people go to live outside of the law, an area populated by cybernetic clones, residents, artificials, who live their days in an eternal loop - day, after day, after day, after day. But what happens when that loop is broken? This happens.

I'd have liked to give this a higher score, but apart from some very nice action sequences and a gritty main character, the movie just doesn't have much appeal. The sceneries are gray and lifeless, the characters devoid of merits, and though the plot seems great at the beginning, the potential quickly drifts away. Worth a watch, but not too raised expectations.

 rated 3/5: not bad

Here's a Tarantino movie I didn't know was a Tarantino movie! Well, turns out it wasn't a Tarantino movie either, it was simply a 'presented by Tarantino' movie, a B movie that builds upon a rivalry between two biker gangs, the Victor's and the Six Six Sixe:es, and a tale of murder and revenge.

It stars some sharp personalities like Larry Bishop, Michael Madsen, and Vinnie Jones, and Eric Balfour as the one particularly memorable one. The characters aren't bad, nor is the occasional brawl or close-up gore (like that one part where Vinny's throat is being cut). The desert is dusty and there are plenty of sexy ladies in the bar, and it has all the potential to be a gritty, powerful Tarantino-style movie... but maybe that's why it falls short. Too much attempting to look like Tarantoni, too little focus on consistent plot development and depth?

It's a shame, because this could have been really good! It could've been on par with the Grindhouse movies. As it is, it's just not bad. The filming's good. The potential's there. The plot's a mess.

 rated 3/5: not bad

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Jack) and Austin O'Brien (Danny) play the slightly comedic adult/kid hero/sidekick combo in this quite spectacular cops and robbers piece of action! It starts as an action movie stereotype, with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Jack Slater, invincible supercop, but soon moves to the movies, with Danny sitting on the front row munching a bunch of early morning popped corns, enjoying the show.

Via a magic ticket, Danny gets thrown into the movie, ends up in Jack Slater's backseat, accompanies him on a grand adventure through a Hollywood-like world of carnage and craze, and then back to the real world after a particular villain snatches the magic ticket and escapes, with a devious scheme in mind.

The filming's great, the plot, dialog; logic is flawless and easy to follow, and it's much more than just a run-off-the-mill action movie about action movies. They handle the stereotypes of the genre with style, all the while providing the creative onslaught of intrigue and action you'd expect, and then move back to the cold hard reality of the real world to show the contrast, the "world in which the bad guys can win"! But of course, this is a movie.

There's comedy and cartoony encounters, there are clichés, chases and showdowns, but there are also twists and pitfalls and unexpected depth for a movie that at a first glance seems to be just your regular family-friendly action flick. And at the end of it all, there's a message too: that the world is what you make it. That if life seems so much better in a movie, it's because you let it be.

The one piece of moral advice isn't the pinnacle of the show though, so I guess I'll type in a few more lines to conclude with what really is. It's the continuity of the plot; the clarity and cleverness with which it all progresses, and a large dose of professionally choreographed action (just don't mind that one bike stunt). Great watch.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

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Random file transfers keep completing at -52 bytes. I wonder why.

(open question)