Movie Review: Clash of the Titans

On the weekend I went to watch Clash of the Titans with a bunch of friends. The movie is in 3D, but I didn't really notice the 3D aspect of it that much... it was more noticeable in 1 of the ads for some dancing movie that I forgot the name of.

The story is based on the Greek mythology of Perseus. I actually looked up Perseus on wikipedia afterwards and found that the storyline was amazingly accurate on most things, and I find mythology quite fascinating. However, the actual storyline isn't really that great in the movie as I felt it was a bit linear. It was pretty much "we need to go to X" then they reach it and find out that "we now need to kill Z", and its all done without any plot twists or any real dramas.

Perseus was found by a fisherman as a baby inside a coffin floating in the ocean with his mother dead inside. The fisherman raised Perseus as his own, and the story fast-forwards to when hes a young man. One day, they find soldiers knocking down a giant statue, and Perseus' father says that the soldiers are declaring war on the gods. After the statue falls into the ocean, flying demons rise out of the water and attack the soldiers. The demons then combine and form to make Hades, god of the underworld. He dives into the ocean, destroying the boat that Perseus' family is on. Perseus manages to escape, but his family are unable to escape and drown with the boat. The distraught Perseus is later found by soldiers of Argos, who take him to the palace. The king and queen of Argos are rebelling against the gods, and Hades is sent to deal with them. Hades announces that he will unleash the Kraken in 10 days, unless they sacrifice Andromeda the princess of Argos. Perseus is later discovered to be a demi-god, and the only hope that Argos has in defeating the Kraken, and thus he begins a journey to find a way to defeat it.

While the story is ordinary, I still enjoyed the mythological aspect of the movie. I would give it a rating of 7/10 for that reason.

Anime Review: Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail is an ongoing anime, and relatively new. It is about a world where magic is common practice, and many guilds for mages have been created. Fairy Tail is one of those guilds, and there are many others including 'dark guilds' for evil mages. So far the episodes have been mostly introductory, explaining the main characters' pasts and a few adventures take place. It is mostly a comedy, but it adds a lot of fighting elements into it... making it quite similar to the Soul Eater anime. The story seems to have begun to pick up, with the more recent episodes based on a rival guild attacking Fairy Tail.

There are a few main characters;

Lucy Heartfilia - A cute, busty, blonde haired girl. She is a Celestial Mage, who summons spirits from Celestial Keys. The most powerful keys are the Zodiac Keys (based on the star signs). She is the newest member of Fairy Tail, after joining early in the anime. She is very cheerful, but tends to suffer a lot for comedic purposes (usually due to something Natsu, Gray or Happy does).

Natsu Dragneel - He is a Fire Mage, although he uses it as mostly an enhancement to his fighting (such as making his fists burn with fire), and some projectile moves. He was raised by a dragon named Igneel, who he learnt his fire magic from before he joined the guild. He is constantly at odds with Gray, and he also desires to beat Erza in a fight. He suffers from an extreme weakness of travelling, where he gets completely sick when riding any form of transportation.

Gray Fullbuster - He is an Ice Mage that is always at odds with Natsu ever since they were young. He has an interesting habit of taking off his clothes, which even surprises himself when someone points it out. You find out a lot more about his past and why he takes his clothes off later in the anime.

Erza Scarlet - She is an Armour Mage, with an assortment of different armour and weapons that she can switch to using her 'ex-quip' ability. Among the main characters she is the strongest, and one of the top mages of the guild. She seems to have a huge amount of authority in the guild, and is quite close to the guild master. She is the one who is consistently breaking up the fights between Natsu and Gray through sheer fear, as she is quite hot-tempered and fierce. The entire guild treads carefully around her because of this.

Happy - He is a blue cat with the ability to use magic, which so far is to create wings on his back and fly. His flying ability is the only form of transportation that doesn't make Natsu sick. He is very close with Natsu, as you find out that Natsu had raised Happy since he was a baby. He is very childish, makes a lot of random comments (some of which are stupid, but all in good humour), loves eating fish and also tends to say "aye" a lot.

There are a lot of other characters, but they are not as prominent as these 5. The show is absolutely hilarious, and I really enjoy the magic fights. The story so far has been pretty decent, but I think it will get more interesting now that things are beginning to unravel. I'd give the show a rating of 10/10, as I can not find any flaws in the show at all. If you like good comedy, you should definitely check Fairy Tail out.

Below is a pick of the main characters from left to right; Natsu, Erza, Happy, Lucy and Gray

Movie Review: The Swordsman Trilogy

This series of movies are actually Chinese movies, which I had seen a long time ago when I was young. Clearly the best of the series, and also the most popular is Swordsman II which stars Jet Li. You could probably potentially just watch Swordsman II by itself, however it would make a whole lot more sense if you watch Swordsman I (although I didn't enjoy the first as much). The series is now considered a classic, and it renewed the popularity of old-style martial arts films. The fighting is the typical unrealistic type, with people able to jump many meters and also flying through the air while being able to keep yourself afloat by merely lightly stepping on thin tree branches. People also use supernatural powers, which I gather that the idea is they expel their 'chi', and it seems like the person gets hit by an invisible force.

The first film stars Sam Hui as Linghu Chong, who is a senior member of Mount Hua Sect. He is an easy-going guy, who loves alcohol but is also a very skilled swordsman. He is accompanied by Yue Lingshan, who is also a member of the Mount Hua Sect. She is the master's daughter, and has a crush on Linghu Chong. However, her tomboy ways cause Linghu Chong to think of her as just 1 of the other junior members and he calls her 'kiddo', although in Chinese it is also referring her to be a male. They get involved in a struggle to find the Sunflower Manual. The other parties involved include a Eunach General, and also the Sun Moon Sect. Linghu Chong at some point in the movie gets saved by the Sun Moon Sect, and the current leader Ren Yingying falls in love with him, although she tries not to show it much to the amusement of Lan Fenghuang (aka Blue Phoenix) who is her deputy. Whoever learns the secrets of the Sunflower Manual will apparently become the most powerful martial artist in the world, and this is important to understanding the second movie. The first movie also explains a lot of the character backgrounds to help understand the second movie. For example; it shows the significance of a particular song that is song very often and you find out why Linghu Chong cares so much about Ren Yingying.

The second film jumps forward a bit in the timeline (to my understanding). Also the cast for a lot of the characters has changed, which is obviously evident by Jet Li replacing Sam Hui and other changes. In this movie, a character named Dongfang Bubai (aka Asia the Invincible) has taken over the Sun Moon Sect and is conspiring with Japanese pirates. He has also mastered the secrets of the Sunflower Manual, however, in order to learn the secrets of the Sunflower Manual, he had to castrate himself, and his appearance became more feminine (eventually completely becoming a woman). This is why he is played by Brigitte Lin. Dongfang Bubai has imprisoned the previous leader of the Sun Moon Sect, and Linghu Chong attempts to find him.

The third film is kind of ordinary. It is based on Dongfang Bubai after the events of the second film, yet doesn't actually continue of the storyline of what happened at the end of the movie properly. I found the movie to be pretty dodgy and not very interesting, so I would recommend simply not watching it.

I would give the first movie a rating of 6/10, second movie 8.5/10, third movie 2/10. I recommend watching the first movie purely for the story background simply because it will make viewing the second movie a lot better. To be honest, I find the ending of the second movie to be a bit vague and wished the third movie continued on from where it left off. However, the movie itself was quite good and I tend to appreciate the classic movies a lot.

TV Review: Cougar Town

Been a while since I posted, so gonna try to start doing more. I had recently finished watching Cougar Town (first season), so I thought I'd share that first.

When Cougar Town was initially released, it brought back the popularity of 'cougars' in general... with radio shows doing special cougar-related segments and also being a fairly hot topic in the news. Cougar Town is a new comedy show starring Courtney Cox, who most people will know as Monica Gellar from Friends. She plays Jules Cobb, who is in her late 30s and recently divorced. She has a son named Travis, who she raised when she was very young and had to give up her college degree in the process. She is now a real estate agent and running a successful small business, and also trying to get back on the dating scene as well as trying to make up for the time lost in her 20s that were devoted to raising Travis. The first guy that Jules dates is a younger guy named Josh, which, hence the cougar story plot.

Jules' best friend is Ellie Torres, who is also her neighbour. She is a gossip queen and loves to witness drama. She is married to Andy Torres, and they have a baby boy named Stan. She is often at odds with Jules' assistant Laurie, who has very opposing views on how Jules should spend her time. While Laurie is more of a crazy party girl, Ellie is over that type of life and prefers a quiet night at home.

Andy is the stereotypical 'whipped' husband. He is also best friends with Bobby Cobb, who is Jules' ex-husband. Again, he is the stereotypical 'sheep' who follows Bobby around doing strange things. He also has a habit of spilling any gossip he knows to his wife Ellie, and the longer he keeps things a secret... the more he suffers trying to fight off the urge to tell Ellie about it.

Laurie works with Jules as her assistant, and is the main person getting Jules back on the dating scene. She is a fun-loving party girl and tries to influence Jules into her way of life.

Travis Cobb is Jules' 18 year-old son. He is often embarassed by Jules when she does strange things quite shamelessly. They however have quite a good relationship, which is often more like friends than mother and son.

Bobby Cobb is Jules' ex-husband. He is unemployed and lives on a boat. During his marriage with Jules, he was touring as a golfer although he wasn't successful. He is very easy-going and mostly just mucks around doing random stuff.

Finally, Grayson Ellis is another of Jules' neighbours and lives across the street. He is newly divorced, which Jules pointed out when she first meets him and tries to befriend him. However, he begins to date younger women which infuriates Jules because it is so easy for a divorced man to move on, while she has to struggle to try to find a new relationship.

In a way, the show has similarities to Desperate Housewives except with a smaller cast. There wasn't much of a story development in the first season, but it seemed to be a good introduction to all the characters and provides a lot of background. My favourite aspect of the show is the character named Barb Coman, who is a man-hungry cougar. She is very lascivious and quite shameless in showing it, and pretty much hits on any attractive looking guy she sees even if they are actually taken e.g. Jules' boyfriend Josh. The show has some good comedy, so I'm looking forward to seeing the next season, but I hope there is more plot in it. Overall I'd give the show a 7.5/10, and recommend it for anyone looking for a new comedy to watch.

News Watch: Drug Addict Refused Second Liver Transplant

You can read the article here: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/6850483/dying-drug-addict-refused-second-liver-transplant/

So the basic facts of the story are:

1. 24 year old, mother of 2 children (aged 5 and 4)
2. refused second liver transplant
3. was a drug addict, which resulted in her neededing the first liver transplant
4. continued to use drugs after the first liver transplant

Now there are some conflicting issues here. Firstly, since she has been refused the transplant (well, to be put on the waiting list).. she only has 6 months left to live. How can we just let a mother of 2 children die, if there's something we can do about it? But then you have to consider that livers don't exactly grow on trees, hence why there is a waiting list for them. Not only that, but she already received a transplant beforehand, yet she still continued her destructive habit of abusing drugs. To me, that first transplant is already wasted, yet there is a big deal about her being refused a second one?

There are many people out there who need a transplant to survive. As far as I know, it is highly unlikely that all of them will receive a transplant. So I think she was quite lucky to receive her first one... let alone trying to get another. I'm not saying she deserves to die or anything... it takes a lot to say someone truely deserves to die (like a murderer who has no remorse)... but this is what almost made me vomit:

(Quote from the father, in the article) "She now has three to six months to live," he said. "We're very aware that if Claire goes back on the list it doesn't mean she's going to get one and it's not necessarily going to save her life. But everyone deserves another chance."

I truely believe everyone deserves another chance, but it is up to that person to make up for their mistake. In this case, she already got her second chance. She got the liver transplant, and yet she continued to endanger her health again. How many livers replacements does someone need until they finally break their habit? What about all those people still waiting for a liver who will also die if they don't get one? To my knowledge, it's already very difficult for drug addicts to be accepted to receive a transplant... probably the main reason she was able to get her first one, was that she has young children.

He said 19 liver transplants were carried out in WA last year, and three people died waiting for a new liver.

What about those 3 people who died while waiting for a liver? It would not be surprising if there will be a similar number this year. Is she more deserving to receive a second implant than those other people? I don't have a definite answer to that, but it is my opinion that transplants can not be wasted because of stupid reasons like the patient is a drug addict and still doesn't break the habit. I'm not saying it is easy to break an addiction, but you would think they would try really hard considering how fortunate she was to receive the donor liver.

I guess there might be other circumstances that caused the liver to fail, but the only information provided was the continued drug use, and inadequate rehabilitation... but to me, continuing drug use is just plain stupid, whether it caused the liver to fail or not. You should have the decency to try to do anything you can to prevent the liver from failing... first step would be to get rid of any bad drugs like heroin, and having your family ensure you stay away from it (i.e. they keep an eye on you).

Seems like they are going to see a specialist to try to do a live donation, via a family member, so I hope that works out for them, because things that have a very limited supply... need to be very carefully distributed.

Anime Review: Bleach

Bleach is one of the most popular animes/mangas out at the moment, although the anime is probably losing its popularity now. The reason is because there are so many fillers, because the manga is being written too slowly. However, the manga has no fillers so its still very popular.

Bleach is a story about a teenager named Kurosaki Ichigo (Kurosaki being the last name... since in Japanese you saw last name first, but it sounds retarded if you convert it to a proper English way of saying a name), who is able to see spirits. One day an evil spirit called a hollow, attacks his family. A shinigami (death god) named Rukia, comes to save Ichigo and exterminate the hollow. However, the course of the battle forces Rukia to transfer almost all of her powers to Ichigo, who then becomes a shinigami himself.

The shinigami dwell in a place called Soul Society, and they are trained to exterminate hollow and also to help lost spirits move on to Soul Society (so in a sense, its like heaven). The hollow live in a separate plane of existence called Hueco Mundo, and they are created when a soul has died for too long without having gone to soul society. Hollow consume spirits or each other in order to live and evolve. Thus they enter the human world when possible to hunt for food.

The story is set up into major arcs. The first is the Soul Society arc, which starts off with a major intro to the story background, and also to show some of the history behind the major characters. It also introduces an incredibly large cast of characters both from the human world, and Soul Society. There are far too many characters to explain, so I'll just focus in the primary ones from the human world:

Kurosaki Ichigo - as explained earlier, he gained shinigami powers from Rukia. He is an extremely stubborn person, who does everything in his power to protect his comrades (so typical of every anime... I get tired of those sorts of characters to be honest). He is the type that is hard to approach, and early on you find out that it's because his mother died when he was very young, and he blames himself for it (you'll see why). After the death os his mother, he changed from a bright young kid, to a bit of a lone wolf. This changes once he gets his shinigami powers and gets closer to the other characters.

Hollow Ichigo - I don't think theres actually an official name for this personality, but that's what I refer to him as. Hollow Ichigo is the hollow version of Ichigo that resides inside Ichigo's soul. He occasionally tries to take over Ichigo, to fight his enemies. He is far superior to Ichigo in terms of fighting ability, but is also a bit crazy... especially in battle where he'll become quite bloodthirsty.

Kuchiki Rukia - she is part of the Kuchiki family, which is a noble house in Soul Society. She likes to draw a lot for whenever she explains something (abysmally) much to the dismay of Ichigo. She teaches Ichigo the ways of a shinigami early on in the show. As a shinigami, she is very gifted at 'kidou' which is a shinigami's magic powers, and she usually uses a spell that fires a blue fireball.

Inoue Orihime - she is a classmate of Ichigo, and appears to have a crush on him but is too shy to admit it to him. She has inhumanly large breasts, which prompts some jokes like 'the nutrients that were supposed to go to her brain, went to her breasts instead' being the most common one, because she's pretty dumb a lot of the time. However, she is a very caring person and wants to do whatever she can to help. She manifests special powers that are unique to her, that gives her the ability to heal, create a magic shield, and also to attack (though she seldom uses her attack).

Yasutora Sado - sometimes known as 'Chad' because Ichigo calls him that. He is another classmate of Ichigo's. He is part mexican, so sometimes you will hear him refer to his grandfather in mexican, rather than in Japanese. He is very tall and well built, yet he is a very gentle person and dislikes resorting to violence. Like Orihime, he also gains unique powers, where his arm will transform into a strange armour, and it enables him to punch much harder than normal, and he can also fire off some sort of spirit blast.

Ishida Uryu - he is a descent of the Quincy clan, who were a group of humans that were able to manipulate spirit particles to form bow weapons. They used their powers to fight off hollow, but were annihilated by the shinigami. For this reason, Ishida bears a grudge against Ichigo, yet he still ends up helping him and seeming to become friends.


Rating - 8/10. The actual storyline is fantastic, especially when you get to the end of the Soul Society arc, however the fillers have ruined it for me generally speaking. The first filler wasn't too bad, because it began after the Soul Society arc and seemed to fit into the timeline reasonably ok... and it had some nice fight scenes. But the more recent ones which have been occurring during the Hueco Mundo arc, make absolutely no sense because the filler will begin right in the middle of the storyline. So it will be like... at the end of the episode, they're still fighting someone in Hueco Mundo... and then the next ep will start a random filler back in the human world. So it loses points for that... but I really enjoy the main storyline. If it wasn't for the fillers, I probably would've rated it a 10.

Below is a pic of Orihime. I didn't really have time to find a better one, so this will have to do.

Random Findings: Arthur Kade

I was listening to the radio yesterday as I usually do on my way to work, and there was an interview with a man named Arthur Kade. I haven't heard of him before, but he was introduced as the world's most arrogant man... so i thought this would be something interesting to hear.

The following info is taken from both what I heard in the interview + whats on wikipedia: Arthur Kade is an ex-financial adviser, who stopped in 2009 to pursue his dream of becoming an actor and model. He is very self-promoting, and appears like he would do anything to become famous. As previously mentioned, he is very arrogant and self-absorbed, yet he is also very honest about what he wants. This eventually led to the topic of the 'Kade scale', which is his own grading system that he uses to rate women. If a woman scores below a '6', it means he won't have anything to do with them, and that they're not worth his time.

As you can imagine, many female listeners were infuriated by someone who would be so proud to be shallow, and that if he were to come to Australia, no women would want to hook up with him. I find the last to be a bit of a stretch... I find it a bit annoying that some listeners try to speak out for all Australian women, and this is the case for a lot of things.

Despite those negative comments, he did receive some positive responses saying that its good that he is being honest about what he wants, and I think thats very true. I find it strange that many women are angered when a guy judges a girl by their looks, and expect that it should be a social norm to only look at someone's personality. First off, its pretty hypocritical in my opinion because there are girls who judge guys by their looks as well... its not just the guys judging girls. I myself have been rejected in the past because the girl thought I'm not good looking enough for her (its true anyway). It's probably reasonable to say that the majority of guys will judge a girl on looks, and the majority of girls judge a guy on his personality... but thats the point; everyone is different, and thus everyone wants different things. Thus some guys are very careful that they don't make it seem like they primarily care about looks, in case they offend the girls, when they really shouldn't have to be ashamed of it. For this reason, I actually applaud Arthur Kade on his honesty, despite the criticism he receives for it.

That is not to say I like the guy or that I admire him or anything. I still think he's a bit of a douche for loving himself so much, but it's good that he doesn't hide anything. I'm sure many guys encounter the dilemma of their girlfriend/fiance/wife asking them "does this dress make me look fat?" If they answer "no, you look great" she'll think he's lying or just saying that because it's what she wants to hear, or if they answer "yes it does" then the girl will get offended and get angry at him. Either way, it's a lose lose situation, and I think it's good that a guy like Kade can just speak his mind and not care.