Elysium - Ack...Poor People!

Neil Blomkamp is a good director. District 9 was a great movie made for practically $0 (in Hollywood standards), and did great at the box office. He was supposed to direct a Halo film, but that never took off, so he spent time directing and writing Elysium. Neil Blomkamp is not so great at writing.

Elysium suffers from a few plot holes that took me out of the movie a few too many times. Normally I can let it slide when something just doesn't make sense, but the holes here are so gaping it made it difficult for me to stay focused on the action, which really was quite good.

Elysium follows Max (Matt Damon), a rehabilitated ex-con who is now working as a low level button-pusher for Armadyne (I really love it when futuristic companies use "dyne" in them) a weapons/robotics/drone manufacturer. Bad stuff happens to Max and he has to get on to Elysium, an orbiting Halo-like object where 8,000 rich folks live away from the gross poor people, and where they have little medusa-like chambers that can heal any ailment, which is what Max now needs.

Armadyne is owned by John Carlyle (William Fichtner, who I continue to love). He hatches a plan with Delacourt (Jodie Foster), the Secretary of Defense to topple the Elysium government in exchange for Delacourt taking control of the government and Carlyle getting all the tasty government contracts that every weapons manufacturer desperately wants. Through some weird brain stuff that isn't really well explained, the plans get in to Max's head and now he has to get to Elysium to save himself, and his childhood sweetheart's kid, who has cancer.

Elysium is where the majority of my continuity issues take place. The world below is portrayed as a huge shit-hole, where everyone speaks Spanish, there are no jobs, and everyone is sick and dying, or on probation. Elysium is a high society place where they only listen to classical music and whenever an undesirable (read: poor person) appears, they freak out and run in to their fancy houses. These fancy houses are where they have their healing pods, which is what the poor folks want as well, because as stated earlier, most folks on earth are sick or diseased.

No one on Elysium has a home defense drone or robot. So when the poor folks break through their glass windows, they just waltz right in and with the help of some poorly explained DNA-scrambler get treatment. Home defense drones are the future. Get a home defense drone. It will prevent poor folks from getting in to your house and using your machines to fix their ailments. Poor people should all die. Duh, they are poor. That's the general consensus on Elysium.

There's also a main character, Spider (Wagner Moura), who I couldn't understand really well, but he was essentially a slum lord down on earth that makes money by smuggling people to Elysium. He helps Max get up there. Personally, if I was writing this thing out, I would have made Spider a former Elysium citizen, outcast due to his gambling habits or other generally frowned-upon activities, who helps the regular poor folks get back up to Elysium to help them and also get back at those no-good rich folks. That would have made for a much more dynamic and interesting character. Unfortunately, Spider isn't. But he's really good at yelling and acting dismayed.

That's really a writing issue though, which is where I had the most problems with the movie. Blomkamp does a decent job of introducing a futuristic world (though I take issue with pick-up trucks and Nissan GT-R's still being serviceable in the year 2154), but he doesn't do enough to flesh it out. Elysium is 109 minutes long. If it had an extra half hour, or even 15 minutes dedicated to explaining how Elysium was built (there were some physics things I took issue with that could have been explained in a few sentences), and giving a bit more depth to the various characters, the film would have been much, much better. As it is is though, Elysium is a decent action movie with good effects, but little else.

3/5 from me for good action, effects, and directing. I can't give it a better score though because the writing did detract from the greatness this movie could have had. I hope there's a director's cut in the future with an hour more of back story, but I doubt that will materialize, which is a damn shame. It's a neat premise.

E3 Keynote Reaction: Microsoft and Sony Both Win, I Lose

I currently own an Xbox 360. After the Xbox One reveal, I wrote my thoughts on why Microsoft was talking about all of the boring bits. It turns out I was right. Microsoft's entire E3 keynote was focused on the games. And there were a lot of them. The item that stood out to me the most was the cloud controlled AI in Forza 5. I liked that concept, it adds a level of "newness" to the normally monotonous racing that comes with that type of game. The thing that captured my imagination the most though, was The Division. That game looked rad.

The console was eventually slated for November of 2013, and available with a $499 price tag. I thought that was really fair, considering the new Kinect was bundled in and a I was thinking the new generation would cost closer to $600, like the Playstation 3 launched at. Obviously Microsoft is focusing on being an all-in-one system for your entertainment center.

Then came the Sony keynote. The only thing that I thought was interesting was Destiny, the game that Bungie is working on.

 I was bored for 95% of the Sony keynote. And this was my reaction to the final 5%.

A $399 price point and no DRM (always-on, or connectivity checking) was absolutely a slap across the face of Microsoft. Sony even released this video:

Them's fighting words! I was 100% going to buy an Xbox One after it's announcement and E3 keynote, having already made peace with the fact that it would require an internet connection at least once every 24 hours to play video games. Sony made it clear that it was focusing on games. After Sony took the stage, I was indeed bored up until the very end. Then they stole all of Microsoft's thunder. 

These announcements are likely going to result in me having two consoles for the first time in my life. Both Microsoft and Sony win in that scenario. But unfortunately I, and my wallet, lose. Something I wasn't expecting going in to today.

What do you think?

Dollar Shave Club - The Truth Comes Out

And the truth is, I'm not really good at shaving.

Last week, after seeing the Dollar Shave Club pop up in my Twitter feed about half a dozen times, I decided to give it a try. This was a bit odd for me. Why was this odd? Well, because I don't really shave often. In fact, I try not to shave at all. Sure I trim and keep things neat, but I think my face looks silly without any facial hair on it (see pictures below for examples). While not having the need or desire to shave often, I decided to join the club to see what all the fuss was about, plus, I figured I'd go clean shaven for the month of June, since it's hot and stuff.

I should say that after I posted that I had joined  the club, I got a lot of folks writing me back and asking me to write about my experience, so here you are!

Everyone loves being a part of a club!

The club has a few different levels of membership. The base level is literally one dollar, as advertised. You do have to pay shipping and handling, but you get 5 2-blade cartridges sent to you every month, plus the shaver itself which you swap out the cartridges on. The second tier is a 4-blade razor, which you get 4 of per month. That level is $6/month but shipping is included and you get a better shaver which pivots real smooth. Tier 3, the final "fron-tier", is $9/month but you get 4 6-blade cartridges and a more fancy pants shaver. Signing up was relatively painless, you select the tier, input your preferred payment method and shipping address, and you're off to shave town!

I went with option number 2, because I'm neither fancy pants enough to get the 6-blade razor cartridges, nor do I trust myself enough while shaving to use two blade, so I decided the mid-tier was perfect for me. I also opted for Dr. Carver's Shave Butter. Mainly because I had no shaving cream and I enjoyed the idea of a butter for my face (I'm a big Paula Dean fan).

My first package! Yummy shave butter.

I got my package about 3 days after joining the club (not including the weekend), which seemed pretty darn speedy. The box was adorable and had some little membership cards and funny placards inside of it, which I really appreciate. A sense of humor is essential when starting an online business, at least one that specializes in funny ads and sending shaving gear to the masses, and these guys have a lot of it. My favorite little quip was on the back of the cartridges, "Patent law is dull, your razor shouldn't be". Nice.

The original Dollar Shave Club commercial.

So how was the actual shave? Well, like I said earlier, I'm not that great at it. It started out fine, but ended in a bloody mess. I half expected this, but I had forgotten just how much the face actually bleeds when you slice it with a sharp (very sharp) razor. For seasoned shavers this will be no problem. They'll get a close shave with minimal blood loss, and they'll love the product and feel of the blade and shaft. I found myself enjoying it as well, liking just how smooth my face felt after each stroke, though I was trying to work around the Quentin Tarantino-esque river of horror running down my face.

So here's the pictures (I didn't post the graphic ones, you're welcome):

The handle/shaft/whatever-you-all-it and razors.

Patent law IS dull.

Before - pretty beard face.

After (so smooth) - Also, holy crap, look at that honker.
(Wait a minute Yev, you lost the shirt...oooh la la!
Yes, too much blood!)

Slightly After-after.

Next Day...notice the cuts.

Is the Dollar Shave Club just for men? No, absolutely not. The razors are so good that they'll work for women, or on any part of the body. Something that the Dollar Shave Club mentions and tries to remind folks of. They even go so far as to say that it's the last time you'll need to buy any razors, and for $6 or $9/month you could share and never run out again.

They do have a new "just for men" product though. Buttwipes. They were announced this morning and I'm keen to add them to my next order.

Buttwipes!

I'm not good at shaving. This might be for a variety of reasons. My childhood left me with a series of scars on my face, and usually they aren't noticeable, since I'm wrapped in beardy stubble. When shaving it turns out that you have to be really careful around scars. This is a fact I shall now take with my on my next shaving adventure later on this week as I continue down my clean shaven June.

Stay tuned for my review of the Dollar Shave Club Buttwipes and comment/share/like if you enjoyed the read!

Xbox One Reveal (My Thoughts)

The Microsoft Xbox One announcement landed with a resounding “huh?” from many folks in my social sphere. It seemed like confusion ran rampant after the announcement and console reveal. Was it going to be always-on? Did every SKU come with a Kinect sensor? Why are they talking about ESPN? Used games?  Is that dog in the Call of Duty: Ghosts reveal trailer going to die? Spoilers: most likely (did you hear how many times they used the words “feeling”? That dog is a goner).  Will it even play games? Why didn’t they talk more about games? You know what’s great? Games…

Xbox One with the new Xbox controller and Kinect sensor.

Even though the press conference started off with a mention of games, it quickly devolved in to television, Kinect gestures, publisher partnerships, and Steven Spielberg. The Spielberg Halo TV show reveal was a bit weird. Halo was a flagship of the original Xbox and arguably helped that console launch somewhat successfully. The Xbox 360 had Halo 3 to help propel sales after that console launched. And the Xbox One will have…a TV show produced by 343 Industries and Steven Spielberg. Weird. Even though Halo 4 launched last year, I’m a little bit bummed out that the new shiny Xbox won’t launch with Master Chief helping it along. A TV show can be announced at any time and get decent press, and although you’ll likely gain access to it directly through Xbox Live regardless of your cable subscription (at least that’s the only thing that would make sense to me), the TV  show announcement felt out of place.

Even though the launch felt a bit disjointed, I think it was the right move for the Xbox team to make. As Microsoft mentioned over and over again, E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is right around the corner. Traditionally E3 is where the games companies and publishers come to play. What Microsoft did here was get the boring bits out of the way. Why do that when debuting the new hotness? I’m pretty sure if the Xbox team came out on stage at E3 and started talking about fantasy football and NFL/ESPN partnerships, the whole place would erupt in a steady stream of boos. 

This was a calculated risk. Show the system (something that Sony has yet to do with the Playstation 4); talk about the specifications a little bit; show a demonstration of the new Kinect and how it works with the dashboard and UI; and then give a taste of what the next generation games can do. Then, in two weeks get on stage at E3, breeze through the lingering questions that folks had after the original reveal, and then smother them with games.

I expect to see quite a few games and release titles announced at E3 for both the PS4 and the Xbox One (I like calling it the Xbone) and I can’t wait to see what some of the biggest game developers have been working on for the last year or so. Remedy showed off a smidge of Quantum Break, which looked pretty damn interesting, and gorgeous. I’m hoping that Bethesda announces a new edition to the Fallout series as well. The E3 conference should be all about games, I’m glad the boring stuff got out of the way early.

Hemlock Grove - Oh Bother.

I like this type of subject matter. Creepy things happening in a small town. Supernatural creatures mingling with ordinary people who have no idea about supernatural elements. Weird scientific experiments. All these things make me happy, and made me really curious about Netflix's new original series, Hemlock Grove.

(NSFW - Red Band Hemlock Grove Trailer)

Unfortunately, Hemlock Grove doesn't deliver, and for some really weird and seemingly "no-brainer" reasons. Specifically, the writing, directing, and acting. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "that's pretty much everything that makes up a movie or TV show!". You're right, which makes it so hard to watch.

Lets start with the acting. You think with folks like Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, and well those are about the only folks I knew from the show, the acting would at least be decent. This might be a directing or editing fluke, but all of the dialogue seems rushed.  The worst offender is Bill Skarsgard. This is Alexander Skarsgard's brother. Alexander is best known as Erik Northman in True Blood. I know they are both from Sweden, and English is not their first language, but Bill is truly painful to watch in the show. Ever seen he had I found myself cringing, wishing for it to be over. The rest of the actors, probably more seasoned seem to be phoning it in. Famke Janssen's main goal in each scene is to look seductive. That's it. For someone who's been around for a while, you'd expect her to do a bit of acting. Nope. The best acting comes from folks that are (spoilers) about to die. And even that doesn't happen horribly often.

The directing choices are equally odd. The cuts to scenic views of the town feel like they are just there to stretch the clock out. Flashing back to previous conversation to help the viewer remember all of the horrid dialogue from before is also an often used tactic. All that does is make me feel stupid. If you need to keep reminding me of what happened earlier in the show, fix your writing.

Speaking of writing, it's very lazy. Characters are written just to exist. One of the sub-plots is Famke Janssen's character Olivia having a drug problem. The drug is one that you use a eyedropper for and administer it in to your eyes. Why is this important? It isn't. And it's never explained throughout the show. You just see her taking it, and then getting a euphoric look on her face. That's it. It's a shame too, because it's almost like there are way too many writers, writing too many parts and plots, and it doesn't come together at all. Some writing shows signs of brilliance, but it's surrounded by disjointed, clumsy plot points. I think the show is a casualty of "writing by committee", which sounds great, because you get a lot of input, but without anyone really overseeing how everything ties together, it makes the show fairly hard to follow.

What is the plot? Well in the town of Hemlock Grove, a pair of gypsies move in. They are immediately despised by everyone, including the Godfrey's, who are the town's rich folks and own a scientific lab (Godfrey Institute) on the outskirts of town. There's a murder most foul, and a rumor spreads that it was done by one of the gypsies, Peter Rumancek, and that he was a werewolf. He befriends one of the Godrey's, Roman, and they make a weird pact based on a dream both of them had to find the werewolf and kill him. Shelley, Roman's sister, is a "Frankenstein's Monster" type character, who can't talk, but has a weird relationship with her uncle, Gordon, who is sleeping with her mother, Olivia. None of this really matters though and serves as plot filler. The town and murders are investigated by some weird church organization who want to stop the killings and destroy werewolves, and the Godfrey Institute is doing weird experiments on people, about something called Ouroboros. Does that play in to the core story? You guessed it! Nope. Are they setting themselves up for season 2? Yup. Is that a good writing choice? Nope.

The season revolves around Peter and Roman teaming up to find and capture the killer werewolf. That's the plot in a nutshell. I wish it was that simple in the show. It would have been a lot more entertaining. Instead it's a convoluted mess. Sad day for me.

If I were to give it a rating I'd say 2/5? It shows flashes of brilliance, but the acting, writing, and directing choices make it a chore to watch. If there's a season 2 I'll give it a chance to see if they've learned anything, but if the producers remain the same, I fear the show is doomed to fail.

Iron Man 3 - Now With More Tony!

The third installment in the Iron Man series contains a whole hell of a lot of Iron Men. However, you get to see way more of Tony Stark in this one, and that's a good thing. The Robert Downey Jr. factor is what made the original Iron Man such a hit, and in my opinion, he added the much needed levity to The Avengers. Having a lot more Robert in the movie is great, though, I've heard some people complaining. Those people are entitled to their own wrong opinions!

Iron Man 3 - Poster

Anyway, I saw Iron Man 3 twice in theaters, in 3D and in regular D. With this particular movie the 3D didn't add anything, just gave a bit more depth, so if you're worried about the shekels in your pocket, go ahead and skip the 3D costlier version, you'll still get lots of awesome explosions.

The plot here is pretty standard for an Iron Man flick, someone is really pissed at Tony Stark. In this case it's The Mandarin, played interestingly by Ben Kingsley. When I first saw the trailer for Iron Man 3 and heard him say, "You'll never see me coming...", I thought the delivery of that line meant that this villain would be like Heath Ledger's Joker, however Ben Kinglsey comes off a bit more like Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, which is great. So, The Mandarin doesn't like Tony Stark and goes after him. That's pretty much the plot in a nutshell, but a few fun twists make the story play out really well. One of the twists is that following the events of The Avengers, Tony is suffering from a bit of PTSD. This makes the snarky Tony feel a bit more human, which is a welcome change from the ever wise-cracking Tony that we're used to.

Fret not, there are still plenty of wisecracks. Don Cheadle plays Colonel Rhodes, the guy in War Machine suite, except this time around War Machine has been re-branded by the United States government to give him a more "fluffy" name, Iron Patriot. Gags like that are plentiful, and Jon Favreau along with Gwenyth Paltrow provide some fun side-commentary as well.

One of the biggest surprises of this film was the writing. A lot of the little sub-plots and scenes get little throw-away lines of dialog to explain them, and I didn't even notice them until my second viewing. It's the little things that matter in big-budget movies like this, and writing one line of dialog that helps guide folks from one scene to another is something that I greatly appreciate.

4.5/5 from me. If you like the first two Iron Man movies, you'll like this one. I enjoyed it a bit more than two, but a bit less than The Avengers (which I think is one of the most well put together super hero flicks ever concocted). Go see it with some popcorn and a soda, and stay until after the credits, there's a fun little Easter egg.

A Day With The One - First Impressions of the HTC One

The One is one of my favorite Jet Li movies, but it’s also a neat phone by HTC. I've been excited about this phone for a while now, and it is turning out to be a great upgrade to my HTC EVO 4G LTE (quite possibly the worst phone name ever, which is Sprint's fault). Full disclosure, HTC did send me this phone to play around with. With that out of the way, how about some first impressions?

I think "quite brilliant would be better"

Right out of the box, the phone is damn pretty. The build quality is outrageous. The phone feels amazing in your hand. The rear of the phone is slightly curved and just feels “nice” in your hands. It is entirely made of aluminum and it just oozes sexy. It reminds some folks of the iPhone and I wager that the build quality is on par with it.

The screen is gorgeous. The HTC One is using a Super LCD 3 screen and does full 1920x1080. The pixel count is high. How high? Well it’s 468ppi. What does that mean? It means that the screen is very sharp. The iPhone 5 is 326ppi while the Samsung Galazy X 4 is 441ppi. Why is pixel density important? It makes things lovelier to look at (more difficult to detect pixels). Do average folks care? Not really, but it makes the display strikingly crisp.

The phone is snappy. The One ships with a Snapdragon 600 processor and it’s a big improvement over the CPU in my HTC EVO LTE. The UI flows more smoothly and the apps seem quicker and more responsive. I’m sure it’s great for games too, but I don’t play many mobile games, so...meh.

In addition to the fast CPU and snappy UI, Boomsound is also present. What’s that? Boomsound is two front-facing speakers with built in apps. What does that mean? It means that if you aren’t careful, you’ll wake up to the loudest alarm clock you've ever owned, as I did the morning after getting this device. It also means that speaker calls and videos can get loud, and with pretty good quality. There’s some distortion at the highest volume depending on the song style, but it’s still head and shoulders better than anything I've ever experienced from a smartphone.

One of the more interesting things that I noticed that was rarely discussed in the reviews I read and the press release was the IR blaster that the phone has in it. What that means is that the phone can control your TV, and it did! Last night I spent the entire evening without lifting my remote control, and it was glorious. The app interacts with most television manufacturers (I have an LG and a Vizio, it worked with both), and once you hook up the provider that you have, it gives you a little breakdown of what’s on television and allows you to favorite shows and set reminders. But wait Yev, I don’t have cable! No problem, neither do I. The channels I set up with the app were OTA (over the air, found via antennas). It still worked like a champ, though took a smidge more configuration as I had to go through many more channels and select the ones that actually appear on my television. The TV app/feature is under-appreciated and I wanted to make sure I gave it a large shout-out.

HTC TV - an unsung hero of the HTC One

Blinkfeed is one of the differentiations that HTC hopes sets the phone apart from its counterparts. Blinkfeed pulls the data from your social networks (Facebook, Twitter) and shows them on one of your “home screen panels”.  Unfortunately, while I believe in Blinkfeed in theory, in practice I found it kind of annoying. I’m a power-user when it comes to social apps and having a central repository for select social updates just doesn't do it for me. I’m always inside the Facebook and Twitter apps anyway, so it didn't really provide any value for me, and not being able to remove it from the panels is aggravating, as that is prime phone real estate. That said, I think a lot of “average” users will enjoy being able to get a random assortment of their social posts in that feed.

Blinkfeed -  posts from all your social channels

The camera is another big differentiation between the One and other phones.  While most companies are upping the megapixels (Samsung Galaxy S 4 has 13MP, the Nokia Pureview 808 has 41MP), HTC is taking a step back and trying to remind folks that it’s not all about the pixel count, it’s about the pixel size as well. The One has a 4MP camera, but the megapixels are 3x as big as “traditional” megapixels. HTC is betting that the images this camera takes will be just as good if not better as the larger megapixel camera phones (especially in low light settings). The problem is, if you use the camera phone as your primary photography device, sometimes having a bit more definition is a good thing, but the One takes great pictures if your intent is to post them to Facebook or Instagram and when you blow up the pictures on a large screen they still hold up pretty well, until you zoom way in.

The other neat thing about the camera is that it can take little things called Zoe’s . What’s that? A Zoe is a collection of photographs that are taken one after the other to create a 3-4 second video that you can pull images out of. The idea is that any frame of the video can be pulled out and used as an image. It also takes about 1 second worth of pictures from before you pressed the button, so if you’re in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, you will still capture a smidge of what happened. Think of the children, doing adorable things, don’t want to miss that do you? Zoe’s can help. Why Zoe? It stands for zoetropic.

It can’t be all good can it? Well, no. The thing is that despite this phone having incredible hardware, great software, and a good camera, some of the missing items really bug me. For example (and this is nit-picky), I got really used to having my phone stay “on” and awake while it was connected to a charger. This functionality appears to be missing on the HTC One. Not being able to remove Blinkfeed is also a bit of an annoyance as I mentioned earlier. There is one other thing that caught me a bit off guard. I cannot re-size widgets, which has been in Android for a while now and was part of the functionality of my HTC EVO LTE, but is inexplicably missing from this device. Additionally pre-installed applications are also a big pain in the neck. A lot of While none of these are deal-breakers, I am hoping that they get fixed in a later update to the phone, which would hopefully bring back some of that functionality.

Overall this phone is awesome, but take that with a grain of salt. I’ve been in love with HTC design and hardware forever now (my first smart phone was the HTC Hero).  If you are up on your contract and are ready for a new device, go for this one. It’s one of the most beautiful phones that I’ve seen, and it flies.  I haven’t rated any tech gadgets on here, but if I start doing that in the future, this one will get a 4.5/5 from me. The only real downside is that the phone does get a bit hot (but it’s aluminum, which is a conductor) when used heavily (streaming video) for long periods of time, and of course the ever-present disappointment of cell phone batteries. Outside of those two things, this phone is amazing, and it makes me happy to put it in my pocket. Now I just need to wait for the version with a kickstand.

Pictures? Below!

For me?

What's in the bag?!

This! And it's lovely!

That phone is pretty.

The HTC One, unpacked, and the case that came with it.

Fits like a glove.

It's Alive!

I'm going to continue enjoying this phone, I recommend you pre-order it ;-)

***UPDATE***

As promised here's some pictures taken with the camera on the HTC One

Lynmar Estates Winery

This is not the greatest wine in the world. No. This is just a Tribute.

Wish ribbons at Cornerstone Winery

Dinner at the Girl and the Fig in Sonoma 

Golden Gate Bridge - Panorama

As you can see the camera takes fine photos. It's not great, and the 4MP becomes a very clear limitation when you try to open the photos on a large monitor and really get down in to them. I think what HTC is trying to say is, this is not a DSLR, you won't be taking this on photography expeditions, but it can replace your point and shoot if your intent is to just post to Facebook or Instagram. It does that very well. Is it on par with the HTC Evo 4G LTE (which used HTC's previous high-end camera tech and an 8MP camera? I think so. And the Zoe's are fun! Is it groundbreaking or earth shattering? Probably not, but if they can fit the same sensor tech in to the next camera, which will hopefully have a few more megapixels, that will be a good thing and will result in more vibrant pictures that stand up and work in larger sizes. However, as a point and shoot replacement, it works well (less things in pockets is a good thing).