Toy Story 3

The original Toy Story was made 15 years ago. The many many CGI animations that have come and gone since that monumental first makes it seem like they've been around forever. I was just a teenager when I watched the first Toy Story and I remember being filled with wonder at the fact that it was all generated by computers. Some of that wonder has diminished over the years but what has not changed is the quality of the animation being produced by Pixar.

As the first pure CGI animation studio, inspiring many others to emerge, Pixar has always been at the forefront of the industry not only in terms of animation techniques but also in terms of storytelling and artistry. With Pixar, you get the feeling that these guys really love making animated movies and telling stories that mean something to them. The fact that it earns billions of dollars is just icing on the cake. There's never a sense of commercialization that pervades many other studios. Pixar has never made a movie that I didn't love. In recent years, they seem to be moving away from the very kid-friendly fare like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Cars to more artistic and obliquely adult fare beginning with Wall·E which dared to have a main character who does not speak for the first half hour of the movie. Last year's excellent Up is in my opinion the most artistic and emotional animation ever made by a Western company. It dared to explore such themes as death, miscarriage, the loneliness of a child, and how to realise what is truly important in life. It also had the cutest animated dog EVAH! Maybe I'll review it sometime. On with the matter at hand.

Some spoilers may follow.






Toy Story 3 returns Pixar to its roots as a producer of kid-friendly animation. Toy Story is the only one of its movies that Pixar has made sequels to. As the third and perhaps final installment of the series, Pixar pulls out all the stops to make a thrilling ride for the young and young-at-heart. After an elaborate action sequence which turns out to be Andy's imagination as he plays with his toys, the story begins with the toys stealing Andy's cellphone and calling it to make him notice them and play with them. The thing is, however, that Andy is now 17 years old and about to leave for college. Naturally, playtime ended for him a long time ago and the toys are upset since, being toys, what they want above all else is to be played with.

Having been told many times by his mom to either trash or store his old toys in the attic, Andy chooses the latter. After a wistful look at Woody, he decides to bring him along to college (I imagine that would go down really well with the seniors). Just before putting the other toys in the attic, Andy gets called away by his sister Molly and mom mistakenly thinks the toys are meant to be trashed (to be fair to mom, he did put them in a trash bag). The toys think that Andy has thrown them away, but Woody saw that Andy meant to put them in the attic. He tries to rescue them before they get crushed by the garbage truck compactor, but they manage to escape without his help anyway. Refusing to believe Woody, the other toys (Buzz, Jessie, Rex, Hamm, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Slinky Dog, the Aliens, and Bullseye) sneak into a box of Molly's old toys (including Barbie) bound for donation to the Sunnyside daycare centre. Woody tags along hoping to persuade them to return.

At the daycare centre, the toys think they have found paradise: a place where playtime is every day and kids are constantly replaced by new kids when they grow up. All this is presided over by a purple strawberry-scented bear named Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear a.k.a. Lotso. Woody, however, is still loyal to Andy and escapes the centre. Unfortunately, his bid to get home is cut short when he is found and taken by Bonnie, the daughter of Sunnyside's owner.

Back at Sunnyside, the toys are excited to have playtime once more and Barbie meets her soulmate in Ken, Lotso's right hand man. They soon find out, however, that things are not as rosy as they seem. As the new guys, the toys are placed with the toddlers who play rather abusively in contrast to the far more docile older children. When the toys try to leave, Lotso shows his true colours and puts them in 'jail'.

Meanwhile at Bonnie's place, Woody meets a few of her toys (including some really cute peas in a pod). He then learns the reason why Lotso is so mean and bitter. Fearing for his friends' safety, Woody smuggles himself back into Sunnyside and together the toys stage a daring (and hilarious) escape. Through many perils including almost getting ground up and incinerated, the toys eventually make it home to Andy. The movie ends on a very sweet note with Andy finally letting go of his childhood through a scene which is at once joyous, sad, and uplifting (I have to admit, I teared up a little).

The graphics in this third instalment really showcase how much the CG animation industry has progressed in the last 15 years when compared to the first one. The backgrounds are perfectly rendered and the toys are utterly believable. Pixar once again shows their great understanding of human nature and how to walk the fine line between manipulative and sweet. While lacking the emotional power of Up, Toy Story 3 still manages to illicit a range of emotions without being overly schmaltzy. Interestingly enough, this is the first Pixar film that shows humans in normal proportions drawn without being heavily stylized (as in The Incredibles). I would also like to note that the 3-D effects here are much more effectively used compared to Up (which probably would have looked better in 2-D).

One last thing: They totally need to make a real-life toy of the Peas-in-a-Pod (whose names are apparently Peatey, Peatrice, and Peanelope).

The A-Team

Although I was a child of the 80's, I only have vague memories of having watched The A-Team TV series back in the day. I'm sure I probably enjoyed it a lot then. The movie version of the series however, fails to illicit much from me as an adult.

Spoiler lite review follows.




The opening gambit has Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith (Liam Neeson) escaping from the custody of a couple of crooked cops somewhere in Mexico (really, that's what it said on the screen). On the way to try and rescue Lt. Templeton 'Faceman' Peck (Bradley Cooper) from a dastardly generic Mexican villain, Hannibal commandeers the newly acquired and much beloved van of B.A. Baracus (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson) who is coincidentally a fellow Army Ranger. The duo arrive at the scene just in time to save Face and then go about the task of bringing the aforementioned villain to justice. The three men stop by at a hospital to pick up their pilot, Murdock (Sharlto Copley) whom they soon find out is a certified lunatic. The Evil Villain finds them just as they are about to take off in a helicopter and of course a helicopter chase sequence follows. I will admit that this sequence was quite well done and included a shot of a helicopter flying upside down (which is apparently really hard to do and really unlikely for the old medical whirlybird they were using). After successfully dispatching the Evil Villain, the team remains together for next eight years (I think) and are next seen during the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

A Company man, Lynch (Patrick Wilson), offers them a job recovering US currency engraving plates and a billion dollars which have apparently been stolen by Saddam loyalists. They agree despite the misgivings of their superior,  General Morrison (Gerald McRaney). They of course succeed in recovering the plates and cash but are betrayed when Morrison's vehicle blows up as it arrives to greet them and the plates are taken by some sort of black ops team known as Blackforest (a much better name for a cake than a black ops team if you ask me). They are blamed for the entire thing, assumed to have been in cahoots with Blackforest, and summarily dishonourably discharged and imprisoned.

The second act begins six months later with their escapes from their respective prisons with the help of Lynch who still wants them to recover the plates.  This starts off a series of operations involving lots and lots of explosions until the end of the show which runs rather long at around two hours.

In stark contrast to the other 80's revival movie opening in the same week - The Karate Kid - this movie was shallow and had the barest of barebones plots. With a few (very few) exceptions, the action scenes were nothing to shout about and had too many close-ups and quick cuts for the audience to linger much before being taken to the next explosion. I understand that this may have been a homage to the over-the-top style of the original series. If so, then it must have worked better as a 45-minute TV show rather than a two-hour movie. The acting was pedestrian and stereotypical. Even having Liam Neeson in the cast didn't help much. The movie reminded me a lot of that other elite-military-team-framed-for-a-crime-they-did-not-commit movie The Losers as both of them had highly similar plots and styles. I think the latter did a (slightly) better job in the genre.

There were some amusing moments and some good setpieces, but not enough to raise it beyond the level of disposable summer fodder. Hannibal often uses the line: "I love it when a plan comes together". I guess this movie just wasn't all that well planned.

Lunch at Italiannies

I love Italian food :)

There's no shortage of Italian restaurants here and one of them is Italiannies. Affiliated with TGI Friday's, this restaurant has a nice selection of traditional and modern Italian cuisine at fairly affordable prices.








Before watching Toy Story 3 and The A-Team today, we had lunch at Italiannies at The Curve. I've had these dishes before and I had them again today! As an appetizer, we have Stuffed Mushrooms. These were medium-sized button mushrooms (probably Swiss brown mushrooms) stuffed with chicken sausage, herbs, and cheeses, then baked and topped with a tomato-based sauce. The dish is served with a rich cream cheese sauce. Probably not very healthy, but it is really really good. The stuffing had a rich salty flavour and the sauces went nicely with the mushrooms.



The second appetizer was a bowl Marsala Mushroom Soup. It's a fairly light soup with strong mushroom taste and not really much taste of the Marsala (a wine apparently). Nice soup and not too filling so it's a good appetizer or side dish (available in a smaller cup).



On to the main courses!
The first main course was Grilled Chicken Milanese. It consisted of grilled chicken breasts topped with diced tomatoes and served with a cream sauce and stewed spinach. All the ingredients went very well together and the chicken was tender and tasty.



The second main course was Classic Carbonara pasta. I order this almost every time I go to this place. The dish is a simple pasta of fetuccine with carbonara sauce with bacon bits for added bite. This pasta looks innocent enough but it's very rich and filling (be wary of ordering the large portion). It's also very pleasant to the palate :)



As usual, I had the ice lemon tea with free refills (which the staff refilled with vigour). My dining partner had a Strawberry Fruit Shake. Although it wasn't really a shake (finely crushed ice with what I believe is some sort of strawberry syrup), it was pretty good.

Around RM100 for two persons. On par with other similar joints I should think.

And that's my food posting for this week.
Happy eating!

Never Say Never

A little follow up to my review of The Karate Kid the other day. I found this music video of Jaden Smith rapping with Justin Bieber on the song "Never Say Never" played over the end credits. I find it interesting to note just how much of a miniature Will Smith he is.

Also, I wanted an excuse to embed a video =)

Naptime

I was walking through a small shopping centre the other day when I saw this little guy taking a nap on a goods cart. He looked so comfortable and oblivious to the world. I'm a little jealous (just a little).

Purrrrr....

First Movie Review: The Karate Kid (2010)

The original The Karate Kid (1984) movie stands as one of the iconic movies of the 80s. Having firmly earned its place in my memory, I was quite surprised to hear it would be remade with Will Smith's son Jaden taking the Daniel Larusso role and Jackie Chan in the Mr. Miyagi role. I mean... that's just plain weird...

With an open mind, I went to watch this film and was very pleasantly surprised. Misleading title aside (it's called The Kung Fu Kid in some markets more sensitive to the topic), the film features excellent fight choreography, beautiful landscapes, generally good production values, and adequate to good acting.

Some minor spoilers follow, so beware (although if you've seen the original movie, you already know the story here).



Still here? Ok...

The movie opens with young Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) saying his last goodbyes to his home in Detroit by making the last entry on his bedroom doorframe height chart. The chart also establishes that his father has passed on and that he is moving to China. As expected, he is not too keen on the idea and refuses to learn Mandarin. It seems his mother, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) got transfered to China because they are apparently outsourcing automotive jobs there.

Once in China, they move into a quaint, if crowded, apartment complex. There's no hot running water and Spongebob is in Mandarin, but there's a nice little park and playground and a pretty Chinese girl whom Dre takes a liking to. The girl, Meiying (Wenwen Han), seems to like him as well. Unfortunately, this silver lining in the dark cloud of culture shock is painfully torn by an encounter with the local bully which ends with Dre lying alone in pain on the basketball court. His misfortune spirals further downward when he finds that they all attend the same school and he becomes a marked man (or boy... whatever).

Desperate to learn how to defend himself, Dre tries (poorly) to learn karate through video lessons. He's excited to find a big kung fu dojo but his hopes for some butt-kicking lessons are dashed when he finds out that the bully Cheng (Zhenwei Wang) and his gang are star pupils there (man, this kid's life sucks).

Despite the hurdles, Dre continues to develop his friendship with Meiying while trying (and sometimes failing) to avoid getting beaten up and/or humiliated. The bullying reaches a climax when after a school trip to The Forbidden City, Dre is creeping around trying to avoid the gang and can't resist throwing a bucket of dirty drainwater on them (why why why...). They give chase through the streets and markets before reaching the apartment complex where he is cornered and severely beaten. But lo! A saviour comes in the form of the building maintenance man Mr. Han. The bullies foolishly take on Jackie Chan and are singlehandedly defeated in classic Jackie Chan style.

After getting his injuries treated by traditional 'fire cupping' and 'flaming massage' techniques, Dre begs Mr. Han to accompany him to the dojo to ask the super-mean Master Li (Rongguang Yu) to get his students to stop bugging him. Han reluctantly agrees but the visit backfires somewhat, resulting in Dre getting entered into the upcoming open kung fu tournament. However, the bullies leave him alone to train with Han which lifts his spirits considerably.

What follows is the obligatory series of training sessions and music montages. This includes a fairly amusing variation on the familiar "Wax on, wax off" technique of using seemingly mundane repetitious actions to teach blocking techniques. There is also the visit to a mystical temple where monks meditate and perform surreal kung fu moves.

The film inevitably culminates in the grand tournament where Dre of course advances to the finals against (surprise, surprise) Cheng. Along the way there is time for a little puppy-love romance and a touching scene between Dre and Han which is very cathartic for Han and cements their relationship as true friends. The ending is inevitable but it is handled well and does not seem forced or artificial.

There's a lot to like about this movie. The acting is above par and sometimes even good. Jaden Smith turns in as good a performance as you could expect of him. I'll admit that I really didn't like his performance in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Here however, his acting skills have progressed beyond a surly look. The pained expressions and tears during the emotional scenes seemed quite genuine. The kung fu work is quite impressive especially considering the short amount of time he has been training. Smith is genuinely talented and someday may follow in his illustrious father's footsteps. Much has been said about nepotism involved in this film and it's undeniably true, but the young Smith holds his own in this film. The audience was certainly taken by his charms (he's quite cute when he's not being an annoying brat). He's far from the best actor, but more than good enough for an 11-year old.

Jackie Chan gives a fairly effective performance in a dramatic role as opposed to his usual comedic roles. His character here is quite humourless as a result of a past tragedy. There may be a future for Chan as a dramatic actor now that he's a little past his prime for the kung fu movie business. He doesn't hold a candle to the late Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi of course, but on its own, the character suits him to a T.

As for the supporting characters (whom we see little of), Henson provides the most comic relief. Her lines and actions generated quite a few chuckles from the audience. Wang is over-the-top as the generic bully, wearing a perpetual sneer. The same goes for Yu, playing a caricaturish Mean Coach. But I guess those roles are meant to be not complex (this is a kid's film after all). Han gives a sweet portrayal as Dre's young crush.

The film has some nice locations and would make a great commercial to promote tourism in China. Quaint dwellings, picturesque mountainside temples, the Forbidden City, and even The Great Wall of China feature strongly. The fight scenes were well choreographed but bordering on the brutal side especially in the last rounds of the tournament, so it might not be suitable for the very young or people squeamish about kids beating up each other.

Reading other reviews on the web, I see that this movie has gotten a mixed reaction. There's the usual hatred for Jaden Smith and the cries of nepotism (seriously people... get a life). Then there's the die-hard fans of the original movie who can't bear the existance of a remake. I think the new movie stands quite well on its own. It uses the basic storyline and adapts some of the scenes in its own way. It also pays homage to the original in subtle and not-so-subtle ways (watch for the fly catch and an adapted 'crane kick'). However, the box-office has spoken and it says that the film is a success with $56 million in its opening weekend.

The audience was clapping and cheering in the final scenes and that to me says that the film managed to connect with the audience and that's a good thing. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading this long long review. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to track down a copy of the 1984 film...

First Food Post: Tony Roma's

You wouldn't know it by looking at me, but I love food. One of my vices in life is the consumption of what most of my friends would consider rather expensive food. So this shall be the first of many food-related posts.

I discovered Tony Roma's through a friend about a year back. It's a nice place and the food is good without being too expensive.

We got to the restaurant late for lunch today due to a traffic mishap (see my Twitter stream), so this was a combination lunch/dinner meal for me. It's a good thing as I was more than satiated by the end. We started with a favourite appetizer of mine - the Onion Loaf.

We decided to order another appetizer as we were planning to share a main course. The fried mushrooms sounded nice (you can never go wrong with fried mushrooms) and I thought it would complement the onion loaf nicely. When it arrived, it turns out that the portion is HUGE. There were no less than 20 mushrooms there! I was only expecting around six or so. They were really good and a nice value for the asking price of RM16.90.

The main course arrived soon and it looked good. They called it Chicken Alfredo Florentine. It was linguini pasta in an alfredo sauce served with baby spinach and grilled chicken breasts. The chicken was nicely prepared and not too dry and the sauce was pleasantly light for an alfredo sauce. Sorry for the slightly unfocused picture... phone cameras aren't all that good.

It took some time, but we finished it all :)

Special mention goes to my dining partner's drink (I just had the refillable ice lemon tea... I was really thirsty). She was driving, so she got a Virgin Strawberry Daiquiri. I didn't try it, but she said it was only fair, not exceptional. It sure did look nice though.

And that concludes my first food post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it (and eating the food of course).

First!

Greetings O Denizens of the Internet.

Welcome to my little corner of the world wide web.

This is my first post, so I guess introductions are in order.

Hello Gentle Reader, my name is Jason. I am what would commonly be known as a nerd or a geek - take your pick. I grew up in a really boring town before moving to the big city. I've been an engineer since I graduated college seven odd years ago. My first job was at a local manufacturing firm. I toiled for almost five years before the company went under and we were all fired. On the bright side, there was a generous settlement which gave me time to find a better job. After successfully navigating the job hunt and interview gauntlet, I now find myself at a large multinational engineering firm. So life is fairly good for the most part.

I've used the internet long enough to recall the beep-hiss of the dial-up modem mating ritual but I've never been overly fond of social networking or contributing any sort of content to the Web. After all, it's not like anyone would read anything I put up.

What changed my mind? Well I recently got a 'smartphone' that enables me to access the internet (almost) wherever I am. This has changed my outlook on the whole social aspect of the internet. So I got a Twitter account and I've enjoyed the whole microblogging experience. Now I think I'm ready to make a full blog and so here we are - my very own "I was here" for future anthropologists to bore themselves over. My nerd guru assures me this will make me more modern.

I'm pretty sure no one will read this, but I'll give it a shot anyway. The big question is what to post. I think I'll just make it up as I go along. In the words of Jean-Luc Picard, let's see what's out there.

 
Engage!