Scribblenauts Unlimited :: Where Your Dreams Come True

Imagine a world where all you need to do is write some words and they will become real-life objects. Not only that, you can write any adjective and attach it to any objects you created and they will become exactly like you write them to be. Welcome to Scribblenauts Unlimited universe!

You will be playing Maxwell, a boy and a big brother to Lily, who was given a magic notebook by their parents. The magic notebook allows Maxwell to write any things and it will turn them to life. After playing a prank by giving a rotten apple to a hungry old man, the old man placed a curse on Lily that will turn her into stone if Maxwell doesn't put his notebook to good use. Maxwell has to find Starites, the only thing that will free Lily from the curse. To obtain Starites, Maxwell has to help people solve their problems and make them happy.

One of the most awesome point in the game is that it has very vast choices of words that player can use. The choices range from everyday objects, households equipment, various weapons and armory, living organisms, magical creatures, game characters, fairy tale characters, literally almost anything you can think of can be realized in the game. You just need to write it in your notebook, and voila!

Beyond object's creation, you can also define the existence of an object by attaching an adjective or edit the whole appearance of that object. You will meet all of Maxwell's brothers, and you will be able to play as each one of them. You can also change their appearances as your Avatar. You can change the build, colors, body parts' position, height, weight, et cetera.

Scribblenauts Unlimited doesn't provide much difficulties and challenges. Based on its images' style, simple gameplay, and level of difficulties, I think Scribblenauts Unlimited is a most suited for children. More over, it successfully touches our inner child so that we enjoy playing it a lot.

AMC's The Walking Dead (2010 - present)

It's the fourth season of AMC's hit series, The Walking Dead, and yesterday the series finally release its mid-season finale. In a sentence: It's a war of power between Rick and The Governor, resulting in multiple deaths on both fronts. (Oops, spoiler alert!)

I've enjoyed watching The Walking Dead, simply because I love to watch gore movies. But in this post, I will try to delve deeply to the show; and I will put my conclusion as to why The Walking Dead is so popular. TWD is a show that's set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies are the main cause of the apocalypse. Up until its fourth season, we still don't know what's the cause of this zombie outbreaks in the first place. I am curious, I don't know about others, but it would have been relieving to know why.

Contrary to popular belief, TWD is NOT a show about zombies. The zombies aren't the main characters, they're just means to tell a horrific story. They are tools for us to understand why the characters did what they did. But they are created and developed in such a great way that when they appear on the show, you know things are about to get bad.

TWD starts as a survival story, it's about a group of people who survived the virus' spread and try to live a safe life. But life loves its irony. As it turns out, they didn't escape the virus' effects, they merely delay it. They are not survivors, they are just another undead-to-be. When they die, no matter how they die, they will turn into one of the undead.

I'm quite excited to see how things are going to end. As it appears now, there seems to be no happy ending to the story. I can only imagine if there's a cure since the cause and the patient zero remains unknown until now. But, you don't know what these crazy creative guys will bring in the next episode.

FEZ :: A new dimension for 2D platform game

...ABOUT FEZ...

• Title  : FEZ
• Genre  : puzzle/platform
• Developers  : Polytron Corporation
• Publishers  : Microsoft Studios, Trapdoor
• Designers  : Phil Fish
• Platforms  : Xbox 360, Windows, Linux, Steam OS, PS4, PS3, PSVita
• Release Date  : April 13, 2012 (Xbox)

...THE STORY...

FEZ take place in a 2D platform world where the main character, Gomez, was given a magical hat ('fez' means 'hat' in Turkish) by a magic mysterious artifact called Hexahedron. Using this hat, Gomez is able to perceive a third dimension in his flat, 2D world. But something went wrong and the Hexahedron explodes, causing glitches in Gomez' world. Now, Gomez' world is in 3D and he has to find all the fragments of the Hexahedron before his world collapses.

...THE GAME...

The objective of the game is to collect all cubes and cube fragments simply by touching it. There are also anti-cubes and treasure maps to collect. Collecting cubes and anti-cubes helps player to unlocked new areas. To obtain cubes, player has to solve various puzzle. Some of them contain encrypted symbols that need to be analyzed.

...THE REVIEWS...

One of the most interesting thing about FEZ is the world itself. Although it is shown as a 2D platform world, player can manipulate the world by rotating the camera 90'. By doing so, player will be able to see doors and passage that won't be shown in the first perspective.

Not only that, player can manipulate the distance of platforms by rotating the world to the correct perspective. Then, he can jump greater distance than when he is in only one perspective. For the lack of words, I'm quoting the example from Wikipedia:

For example, while standing on a floating platform, shifting the perspective 90 degrees allows Gomez to jump to another platform that had previously been on the opposite side of the screen. Rotating back to the original perspective after the jump reveals that Gomez has moved a great distance.

Another thing that makes the game interesting, is that the Gomez character is very cute. Even when it falls and dies, it's still cute. The music sounds like a monophonic ringtone, which brings a lot of memories because it's similar to Mario Bros theme music. The dialogues between player and NPC are heard using some alienated words with cute sounds, adding more cute elements to the game.

There is no limited number of life in game, player can play for as long as he likes. Gomez will die if he falls from very high places, and will soon be re-spawned. Some of the areas are above the water; Gomez can swim, but there's nothing to do underwater so it kinds of unimportant feature. The scenes, however, remind me of some Mario levels and I think it's what the developers want to sell to the audiences. The memory of playing 8-bit games.

FEZ brings new experience to user in the world of platform game. We used to play 2D platform games such as Mario Bros or Megaman, now we can play 2D platform game with the ability to shift perspectives. It is a new experience for me, and it is awesome!

ABC's Castle (2009 - present)

So, after watching the shows up until its 6th season, I finally decided to write up a review. This is my first TV review, so bear with me if my judgement is still a bit bias. :)

Castle is one of the most popular TV shows on my list. I love the genre, the casts, the stories, the adorable-but-kind-of-dysfunctional family elements, every little thing of this cute show. The show was premiered on March 9, 2009 (see here for more details about the show) and has reached its 5th episode of the sixth season last Monday. It got 9 out of 10 stars from TV.com, so apparently I'm not the only one who is in love with this show.

...The Story...

Castle is of crime-drama-romantic-comedy genre. It tells the story of a crime-fiction novelist, Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), who runs out of ideas for his novel series Derrick Storm and decided to kill off the Storm character. When his writer's block has reached its limit, he met with Katherine "Kate" Beckett (Stana Katic), a beautiful, energetic, bossy homicide detective with a distraught past. Castle, being a rich well-known man and also a friend of the mayor, struck a deal with NYPD so he can shadow Beckett in the name of research for his new novel series about the captivating female detective character. This deal agitates Beckett a lot, but there's nothing she can do since the orders came from the mayor himself. From the first episode, we already know that there will be a love line between the two. What makes the story more interesting is the combination of Kate's dreadful past and Castle's dysfunctional family. 

...The Characters...

Oh yes, our handsome and charming millionaire has two ex-wives and a very smart 15 years old daughter who seems to be very much mature than her father. Castle's mother, Martha Rodgers (Susan Sullivan), is a very talented actress at her time. However, she is now bankrupt and live with his son and grand-daughter. Alexis Castle (Molly Quinn) is a straight A's student with surprisingly wise and mature thought. She always become the responsible one in the family despite her very young age.

Inside the NYPD homicide department, there are Kate's partner: Det. Kevin Ryan and Det. Javier Esposito, each portrayed by Seamus Dever and Jon Huertas. Ryan transfers to homicide from narcotics division. His character is less-manly, compared to Esposito's character, however it is later shown in the show that he is an honest, romantic, and faithful kind of person. He has a girlfriend named Jenny that he eventually marries.

Esposito comes from the 54th precinct, but it is also shown that he has served in the army for some time and some episodes indicate that he was in the special forces. He is fluent in both English and Spanish which has been proved helpful in some investigations. His character is described as somewhat a playboy, he has this boyish charm alongside his great abs that make him look dreamy. However, we see in the show that he is not the married type. Both Ryan and Esposito are quite protective of Beckett, despite their constant tease to her and each other.

Other than the detectives, we also have a beautiful medical examiner. Dr. Lanie Parish  (Tamala Jones) is the main medical examiner in most of Beckett's case. Contrary to Beckett, Lanie always prefers her social life than her police work as shown in some of the cases where she is called straight from one of her dates and therefore still wears her date-dress. She is also Beckett's best friend who really knows the chemistry between Beckett and Castle. She is often push Beckett to be honest and just get in a relationship with Castle.

It is a pretty close-knit group in the 12th precinct. :)

...The Reviews...

There are many things I love about this show. What amazes me the most is that even after 5 seasons, I still wait for the new episodes every week, just to see what will happen to Caskett (Castle and Beckett as in Brad and Angelina become Brangelina). The mystery of will-they-won't-they is strong and it is still interesting even after they finally get together. There seems to be a lot of problems surrounding their relationship, but all of it just seems worth it to watch. The murders, I admit, are far from reality. Since I am an avid watcher of crime shows like Criminal Minds, Hannibal, or The Following, I find most of the cases are just so surreal. These cases are way too creatively thought that only Castle who can be able to break it because the guy has very wild imaginations. But, the cases being surreal are also one of the reason I love the show. It has all kinds of murders. There are fashion week murder, comic-con murder, zombie murder, The Ring-like 7 days video murder, Ghostbusters murder, vampire and werewolf murder, and many more. The complications on each murder are also varied. From melting bullets to missing bodies, also the standard crime show problems: terrorism and bombing.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

It has been a while since I first watch Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. I remember that it's a great movie, and decided to watch it again last week. My memory doesn't dissapoint me. The movie is as good as I remember. Since last year, I already followed Kat Denning's hit series "2 Broke Girls" so it's kind of funny seeing her young self acted as a high school senior. As for Michael Cera, I haven't seen him for a while since "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" but I don't see him age much since Nick and Norah.

Nick and Norah is a story about Nick (Michael Cera), a high school senior in a band with two of his gay friends. Nick has an on and off girlfriend, Tris, portrayed by Alexis Dziena. The Nick character is sweet, romantic, and nerdy, which is weird because high school band personnels are supposed to be cool and popular. But his band, The Jerk-Offs, is consist of him and his two gay friends so maybe that's why Nick is not popular. Michael Cera is the perfect cast for Nick character, he is able to bring Nick's unique characteristic to life with his cute, kind of timid appearance.

In the story, Nick is still hung up from his break-up with Tris and keep sending her mix CDs, which Tris ignorantly threw out to the dumpster. Norah (Kat Dennings) is Tris' classmate. They have a mutual friend, Caroline, who likes to party and getting drunk. Norah always pick up Nick's thrown CDs because she likes the music. She is also the daughter of Ira Silverberg, a famous record producer.

Norah shows up to a place where Nick's band perform with Tris and Caroline. Provoked by Tris, Norah come to Nick and kissed him to prove that he's her boyfriend, not knowing that Nick is Tris' ex-boyfriend. Norah goes to find Caroline, who is now super drunk and unconscious, and with Nick's help they bring her to the car. From there, the adventure begins. Starting with Nick's friends who think Nick and Norah are perfect for each other, Caroline who gain her consciousness and think that she's kidnapped, all the way to their journey to find where "Where's Fluffy" will be performing later that night.

Overall, I think the film is great. The story it presents is nice. High school seniors, in their pre-university vacation, decide to go around town chasing a famous Indie band who tells them where they will be performing through secret codes? It's exciting. They are playing decent songs, with many great actors. They manage to portray the party-side of a high school students. Tris' jealousy towards Norah when she know that Nick likes her, it's a perfect picture of a high school drama queen.

Der Untergang / Downfall (2004)

I'm a curious person, and I'm most curious about controversial things. Nazi-themed movies are one of my favorites because it opens my mind about what actually happens during those horrible World War II. I've watched Schindler's List, The Pianist, and the more recent, Inglorious Basterds. All have similarities about the explicit violences and the portrayal of the victims, be it Jews or Polish. Downfall, however, chooses to portray the man behind the war, The Fuhrer himself.

The movie takes place in Fuhrerbunker, underneath Berlin, where Hitler and his followers hid during the Soviet Army attacks to bring an end to World War II. From this bunker Hitler and his generals are still able to send orders and attacks to the Soviet Army via telegrams or telephones. The film has grim ambiance because many of the scenes happens in the bunker, with narrow hallways, closed rooms, thick iron doors and dim lights. It certainly fits with the war theme, where an explosion sometimes would happen and shake the bunker.

During this dreadful time, Hitler's generals have known that the war is lost. German troops everywhere have been cornered or killed by the Soviet Army. They can't mobilize enough troops to make a retaliation, many of the troops and civilians have been evacuated out of Berlin. The Fuhrer chooses to stay. He insists that he will fight, or face his downfall. But he won't surrender. To him, surrender is a treason to his 'superior' descent.

In many of the scenes, we can see that at this point in the war, Hitler doesn't seem to care much of the civilians. He only cares about his Reich and what may become of it. He doesn't mind sacrificing his civilians as long as he can keep his Reich.

Bruno Ganz's dramatic acting deserves a standing ovation. Through his acts, we are able to see Hitler's vulnerable state. He is angry, he blames his generals and his troops, he punished everyone who suggested him to surrender, he is desperate to win this impossible war, he is illogical at his final hours. He keeps talking about the troops that no longer have neither power or units to attack. He can't accept the fact that he already lost the war. He commits suicide with his recently-wed wife, Eva Braun, in the bunker.

The Goebbels family

Despite all the atrocity Hitler did, there are a lot of people who are faithful to him until the end. His generals, his troops, his secretaries, are gladly die for him. In his final days, a lot of people persuade Hitler to leave Berlin because they don't want to lose their Fuhrer. It's amazing to know that there are people who actually believe in The Reich and Hitler's government. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, was ordered to evacuate by The Fuhrer but he refuses and choose to die with him. His wife, poisons their six children, and they proceed to commit murder-suicide because they can't stand the thought of living without national socialism (Nazism). In some of the scenes, the Goebbels children are shown to be very close to their Uncle Hitler. They even sang for him on his birthday.

It's interesting to see a different view of the Nazi and World War II. This movie is based on 'Memoirs', a book written by The Fuhrer's secretary, Traudl Junge, who was with The Fuhrer at the bunker but then evacuates minutes before Soviet Army breach the bunker. It's a different view of The Fuhrer, and to me, it's exciting.

You probably know this particular scene, it has been parodied so many times for so many events in so many languages. I'm just saying, it's worth it to see the actual movie.

The Man From Earth (2007)

I watched this movie based on my work mate's recommendation. This is one of the movies that contains 95% of dialogue in it. I feel rather odd by the fact that I don't lose my interest to the movie, because I mostly do. Maybe because the discussions is intense with emotion and scientific possibilities that I ended up excited during the whole movie.

The Man from Earth brings out a thought-provoking idea. The main character, Prof. John Oldman is actually a prehistoric caveman who has lived through all process in human history. He moved around every ten years or so to avoid society's suspicion that he doesn't age. When his colleagues grinds him to tell the real reason he's moving away, he decided to tell them his story. At first he discussed his story as a scientific theory, saying hypothetically that human can regenerates their cell perfectly so they can live forever. His friends: Harry, a biologist; Edith, an art history professor and devout Christian; Dan, an anthropologist; Sandy, a historian; Dr. Will Gruber, a psychiatrist; and Art, an archaeologist starts to discuss the possibilities from their own field's point of view.

The whole movie is basically a scientific forums. A discussion between scientists from their own specialties about human existence and evolution. It's interesting to watch if you like thought-provoking movie. I would suggest you see this with friends or family who share the same interest because there's a certain aspect of the movie, like when the characters discuss about religion, that might frightened or maybe anger the unintended audiences.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012)

Right after Harry Potter franchise came to and end, I saw this movie trailer starring Emma Watson and I fall in love instantly with the movie. Back then, I was still pretty much interested in indie-like movies like Juno, Paper Heart, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. When I saw the trailer of The Perks of Being A Wallflower, I noticed the camera, the light, the mood, it was so high-school-project type of film, I had to watch it.

My snap judgement didn't fail me because this movie is as awesome as I thought it would be. After seeing Emma as Hermione Granger for almost 10 years, it is refreshing to see her act as a senior high school with bad grades and a reputation. It is surprising, but she manages to capture the soul of Sam very well. Watching Ezra Miller didn't hurt one bit. He is charming, handsome, and a talented actor. Kind of like Neil Patrick Harris with a tad more fabulous-factor. The Charlie character has an interesting personality to watch. He is an outcast because he has very low self-esteem and very shy around people. I would say he is introvert at first glance, but there is actually more to the stories than just being introvert and shy.

The story itself is also interesting. We have seen a lot of high-school themed movies. We have the love story kind like High School Musicals and the naughty kind like American Pies. However, The Perks of Being A Wallflower opens a whole new dimension to the high school world other than pretty girls/boys and famous sorority parties. Audiences are presented with friendship, love story, high school drama, rebellious students, unique talent shows, prom dances, late night adventures, and even graduation ceremony. The whole high school experiences that most of us seems to forget are shown here from Charlie's point of view.

For me personally, it's not a family movie, so I wouldn't want to watch this with my family. Not because there will be an awkward scene to share with parents, but mostly because it speaks more to young audiences. I would recommend watching this movie with your friends because it might spark some high school memories. :)

Despicable Me 2 (2013)

After waiting for almost a year, finally these little yellow creatures came to see us on July 3rd, 2013. I was waiting for it so I watched it on the next day because the premiere tickets were already sold out. :(

In this sequel, we can see how Gru has changed to be a better father for his three girls. He is officially an ex-villain with an unbelievably high-tech laboratory which is now used to produce jams and jellies, the most un-evil things there is. The movie presents a story about how Gru, the now ex-villain, is asked to save the world by the Anti-Villain League (AVL) against an unknown villain who stole a dangerous virus sample from a research laboratory in Russia.

In his new mission, Gru is accompanied by an easily excited and easy going female agent named Lucy Wilde from AVL. We can easily predict the love line between Gru and Lucy since it's already shown before that Gru is in a series of dates, kind of. :) What I didn't expect was the portraying of the love line. We've seen a lot of scenes where actors are imagining his life with the actresses flash before their eyes. Despicable Me 2 has a specially unique scene by making Dave, the minion, has a crush on Lucy and therefore imagines his life with her.

In order to figure out which villain has the virus, Gru poses as a cupcake store owner in Paradise Mall. Then come Eduardo, a friendly Mexican restaurant owner. Gru thinks that Eduardo is actually a ruthless villain by the name of El Macho who was thought dead in a volcano while riding a shark. Later in the movie, we can also see a short love line between Margo, Gru's first daughter, with Antonio, Eduardo's son. Gru reports to AVL, stating that Eduardo is actually El Macho and told them to arrest him. Out of his worry as a  father, he accuses Antonio as the mastermind and get laughed at by the director of AVL. We can see that Gru actually cares for his daughters and acts as irrationally as many fathers would do when their daughter starts dating.

Surprisingly, despite the facts that this movie has more lovable minions, it lacks creativity and originality in the stories. Despicable Me 2 is somewhat disappointing. There is nothing new in the story, the characters lack many background stories, and the plot are moving way too fast between Gru, Lucy, and the girls. Its predecessor, Despicable Me, scores a lot more points in the creative story with entertaining and strong built characters. It also has perfect plot. Sadly, it seems this movie depends too much on the minions, which we can see from the many minions scenes (almost 85% of all scenes) in the movie. It's funny and certainly brings a lot of laughs for children but there's really not much for me.

The story is dull and the supporting characters lack their background stories. It really feels like I'm coming to see the minions in action. On the other hand, the minions are animated perfectly. They dance, they sing, they brings most (if not all) laughs from the audiences. It's a pretty good movie to watch with family and kids.

The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008)

I watched this movie at about 2 years ago, when I was finishing my studies in university. I find it interesting, mainly because it brings up such enclosed culture to the big screen. It is also said that this movie is based on true story, which interests me more to watch. The movie tells us about a foreign journalist (Freidoune Sahebjam, portrayed by James Caviezel) who have a car troubles in a remote Iranian village called Kuhpayeh. While waiting for his car to be repaired, he was called by a woman named Zahra. This woman asked Sahebjam to tell the story of her niece's stoning, which has happened the day before.

Stoning is a form of capital punishment carried by a group of people by throwing stones at a person until the person is dead. The Penal Code of Iran mentions detail processes of stoning, which would be carried out to a person convicted of adultery. In this movie, Soraya was stoned to death from a wrongful accusation of adultery by her husband. Soraya was slandered by her husband, Ali, because she refused to divorce him. Ali wants to marry a 14 year old girl and needs Soraya to grants him the divorce. He also manages to turn their 2 boys against Soraya. Ali wants to marry the 14 year old and keeps his sons, but he refuses to pay the monetary support. Which is why, together with the mayor (mullah), they plot an adultery accusation so that they can get rid of Soraya.

In this remote village, I can feel that there is a cultural pressure around the villager's development. Each and every villager abides to certain rules, which I find very patriarchal. I can see the men in the movie acts rather unpleasant and seems like they can do whatever they want, while the women mostly stay at home and raise their children. Like many other closed neighborhood, gossips travel faster than the speed of light. A rumor can dramatically changes into accusation in a blink of an eye. I can also see the corrupt figure of authorities who push and bully their way to get what they want.

Whether or not the story is true, the fact is there are corrupt governments, even in a village scale. And I think this movie succeeds to present reality to the audiences. It has domestic violence, patriarchal community, corrupt public figures, and other good villager who tried to help but failed because they are not strong enough to stand against authority figures. There are regrets of course, after knowing that they have stoned an innocent woman. But there's really nothing they can do, and the people responsible are trying to cover up their messes. Even though in the end, Zahra manages to reveals this horrible story to Sahebjam and the world now knows what exactly happen to Soraya.

The stories are complicated, but it's interesting enough to watch. Unfortunately, the blue and grey-ish ambiance bring certain depressed environment, which I'm not a fan of. The actors' pronounciation are a little bit difficult to understand since it's middle-east English pronounciation, but with a little subtitle, everything is tolerable. The stoning scene is excellent. The blood and the dramatic effects are perfect. It makes me wonder how to create such a scene.

Monster University (2013)

I watched 3 great movies this weekend, one of them was Monster University. Monster U is a prequel to the previous movie, Monster Inc. (2001). It tells us the life of Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan before their days as Scarers in Monster Inc. The story mainly tells about Mike's dream to become a scarer. It all started when 6 years old Mike was on a field trip to a scaring company, Monster Inc. and saw what its like to be a scarer. One of the scarer gave Mike his Monster U hat and told them that it was the greatest university with the greatest scaring program. So there will Mike go, to the Monster U.

In the movie, we can see a typical university settings. There are many clubs to join, many student with different personalities, big and wide campus, sorority houses, et cetera. The only difference being, there are no human. All of the students and faculty members are monster. These monster are creatively and uniquely design, usually combining two or more animals into one creature. One thing I find interesting and awesome are the commitment these studios show to the audiences about their movies. We have known dedicated websites built specifically for a movie. But Monster U take a bolder step to built an entire university websites for this movie. You can access http://monstersuniversity.com/edu/ to see what its like to enroll in Monster U, who are the faculty members, what majors are offered in Monster U. All little details you can find in any university websites are there. Before the movie premiere, there is a website that allow you to create your own Monster U student card with your own monster avatars. You can visit http://disney.go.com/monsters-university/create-a-monster/ to create your monster avatar or http://www.pixarplace.com/mu-id-maker/ to create your Monster U ID using your own picture.

Furthermore, the stories presented in Monster U are a combination of a typical university movie story with different endings. We have seen nerds trying to be popular, we have seen popular kid joining with nerd to be better in school, we have seen unpopular sorority house ended up popular because of these team of nerd-cool kid students. Monster U combines all of these stories to show friendship and hard work beat popularity and great descendants. The ending is perfect, because most of these movies presented the audiences with happy endings which can only happen in the movies. Monster U brings out the not-so-bad ending because it might happen in real life. This is a fantastic movie to enjoy with family and friends.

P.S. One thing I like about 3D animation movies is the stories they presented are different with other live-action movies. We we can still enjoy the whole story even without the presence of a love line between any of the characters. 3D animation movies are free to explore different stories because they already have a different and unique creatures to present.

Here's an official trailer for Monster U.

Memento (2000)

About 2 weeks ago, I re-watched this movie and just realized that Memento was one of Christopher Nolan's early movies. This is one of the movies that successfully made me fond of psychological thriller genre. The movie is centered around Leonard Shelby (portrayed by Guy Pearce), a man who developed anterograde amnesia (the inability to create new memories) since a traumatic event happened to his wife. He found a way to recollect his new memories with tattoos, hand-written notes, and Polaroid photos.

The presentation of the movies are unusual and unique. The stories are described in two ways: one, chronological black-and-white scenes and the other, full color scenes in reverse orders. The black-and-white scenes represents Shelby's previous stories. By the end of the movie, the audiences will be able to have figured out what exactly happen to Shelby. The first time I watched it, it was very mind blowing that I kept remembered the title after more than 10 years. Other people said it took them twice or three times to understand the movie completely.

This 113 minutes movie is a peek at how fragile one's memories are. Shelby couldn't remember what happen to him 10 minutes after it happened. Even his tattoos and hand-written notes weren't going to help if he met the wrong person. Furthermore, he couldn't remember his own decision and why he decided to do what he did. It sounds frustrating, but the way Nolan developed the ambiance for the movie is perfect so that the audiences didn't feel frustrated watching it. Instead, I am very pleased with the stories.

The stories are complicated, yet I didn't feel tired watching it. The plot was planned perfectly, not too fast and not too slow either. The characters are well built  that I didn't know who is the true antagonist till the end of the movie.

Here's a trailer of Memento.

Man of Steel (2013)

I watched Man of Steel about a week ago. I was never a fan to superhero movies, but my colleagues had a spare ticket so I decided to tag along. The movie gave me a fresh perspective about Superman. To  Superman fans, the story is not that different. They said it's like watching the short version of Smallville. I was impressed since the first time I sat on my seat. I remember thinking, "We've come a very long way to make this kind of effects in a movie." The first scene depicts Superman's home planet, Krypton. The CGI was extraordinary. The creatures, environments, and all alien technologies are drawn beautifully.

Despite all of the computer graphics, Man of Steel tells the very basic story of Kal-El (portrayed by Henry Cavill). How he was sent to earth, how he grew up differently from everybody around him, how he learnt to control his power to hide his identity, and so on. Unfortunately the 2 hours and 28 minutes movie barely covers all of Superman's stories. Half of the time is used to portray the epic battle between Superman and General Zod's armies, causing the plot for the initial story to move faster. It felt like I jump and skip a few chapters in a book.

I noticed a cooler ambiance in Man of Steel due to the blue and grey color tone that were used in the movie. It felt familiar with the ambiances of Nolan's other movies like The Dark Knight Trilogy. It was probably Nolan's style, but it certainly triggers gloomy and sad feelings from the audiences as the movie moves forward. Building to the last scenes, there were quite a lot overkill in the CGI effects. It felt unnecessary to bring out all of the effects for some simple character movements. Other than that, everything turns out great.

Man of Steel ends rather sad for Kal-El. He was the only Kryptonian who can build a bridge between his race and human race so that they can live side by side, but because of General Zod's selfishness he was forced to bring an end to his own race. Cavill successfully bring the human side of Kal-El when he screamed in frustration and sadness after he killed General Zod and realized that he is now alone in the whole world.

Totally worthy watching it in the theater. There aren't that many 3D effects, so I would prefer the 2D version.

Here's a trailer of Man of Steel.