Gangster Squad - Like Watching Someone Play L.A. Noire

I went to see Gangster Squad last week and didn't have many expectations going in to the film. I knew Ryan Gosling was in it. I knew Ryan Gosling was pretty. I knew Emma Stone was in it. I knew Emma Stone was pretty. That's pretty much good enough for me (Josh Brolin really isn't my type).

Anyhow, Gangster Squad is the story of how a group of Los Angeles cops go off the clock and take down Mickey Cohen, a notorious L.A. gangster and not a nice Jewish boy like myself. The squad was started by Police Chief Parker (played by Nick Nolte), who selects Sgt. O'Mara (Brolin) to go outside the law and take down Micky Cohen (Sean Penn) by any means necessary. O'Mara selects few folks, including Sgt. Wooters (Gosling), and they go on a rampage taking down Cohen's business'. There's no spoilers in this blog post, but if you click on the Micky's wiki page above, you can see what happens to him.

I was pleasantly surprised by this flick. The cast that they assembled was really good, and it was a pleasant surprise to see Giovanni Ribisi pop up on camera. Emma Stone was gorgeous, as per usual, and Ryan Gosling's accent made me giggle whenever he spoke. I'm not quite sure what he was going for, but it was start contrast to Drive, where he spoke about 3 lines of dialog throughout the film. Drive, by the way was on of my favorite movies of 2011.

If you play video games or know someone that does, ask them about L.A. Noir. Watching Gangster Squad was very similar (in tone) to playing the game. You get a sense in both that the characters are all flawed in some way or another and Sgt. O'Mara specifically reminds me a lot of Officer Phelps from the game. Both come back from the war, and they don't know how to re-insert themselves in to normal, day to day life.

I give this a solid 3.5/5 and one of the only reasons I ding it is because at parts the story sagged a little. I'd have liked to learn more about Micky Cohen's rise to power. Plus there was a part of the movie where it looked like they either changed film types, or shooting styles, and it was a smidge jarring (most of the film looked a bit grainy to me, but the last few scenes were crystal clear).

Anyhow, go see it. It's lovely. And Emma Stone is Emma Stone, or Ryan Gosling is Ryan Gosling, wherever your interests lay.

CES 2013 - My First One!

2013's CES was my first time at the show, and it certainly didn't disappoint. It was busy, loud, educational, gorgeous, and network-y. It started with my mother running the car over my luggage, that luggage contained the handouts that I was flying to Vegas to hand out. Those that know me, will probably not be shocked to hear that I was cool as a cucumber. She thought I was crazy for not killing her and was concerned that I would have a mental breakdown. I did not, and after re-creating the broken handouts, I was ready to deliver the cupcakes and packets that I was dispatched by Backblaze to Vegas to give out.

The cupcakes that I had to deliver.

Once that was done, I was on to the show...

Best of CES -

 I really liked Zuvo Water. It was a cool idea and the way that the filtering works makes it a great water purification system for any region of the country.

I also really liked the Pebble watch, but I backed it on Kickstarter, so I'm excited about it anyhow.

Another really cool piece of tech was Samsung's Curved OLED screen. It was gorgeous and the curved form factor made it stand out as a living room showpiece.

Worst of CES-

iPad and iDevice and Android covers for phones and tablets. It seemed that 70% of the show floor was geared towards things to cover up your mobile gear. The only one of those that was interesting was a skin by a company called ZeroChroma, which had an awesome case. Everyone else...meh. (Full disclosure: ZeroChroma had an RV that gave me and a few others a ride to the show, saved us a 30 minute wait).

The CES app for mobile devices. For a conference about innovation, the app looks like something out of a 2003 feature phone. Total garbage.

The app had to update every time you launched it. Awful when everyone is fighting for bandwidth. Garbage.

The UI. More Garbage.

And here are the pictures of the rest of the show!

My dream car (Dodge Viper). Here's the new one. Yummy.

I found a Backblaze customer at the show! There were more than 1, but he was the first!

This was called the Solowheel by Inventist. This little ditty really captured my imagination.

This was gorgeous. Not the model, but the Hyundai Genesis that she was showing off. So pretty.

Sony's massive circular dome of coolness, showing neat videos above their displays.

Sony's 4K television, playing a Taylor Swift music video. So...half awesome.

Sony's immersion gaming/video set up. You put on the gear and you get 3D/Surround gaming. Pretty neat.

 

Not sure who Konka is, but they had a neat waterfall-writing display.

 

Samsung's framed television display. This one got a lot of attention, and was very pretty.

Samsung was also showing off transparent video glass for store displays. Very cool in person, loses a bit on video.

Another neat little thing from Tat'z. I put my face on my thumb. Folks at my local sports bar hilariously said that now I was actually capable of shoving my own head up my own ass. Hah.

Polar was showing off their heartbeat monitors by having members of the United States jump-rope team perform. They were consistent!

Dropcam was showing off their cameras and was using +Brian Wilson's Oceangaze as a demo! 

Pebble actually exists and now has a release date: January 23rd, 2013! I took a picture with the Pebble CEO +Eric Migicovsky, with a Pebble on my wrist. I can confirm that it is glorious.

And here's the lovely little fellow itself. 

Monster Cable's Awards Ceremonies. A bit blurry, but Alicia Keys performed that night.

Some Alicia Keys singing. She has an awesome voice. I was impressed.

CNET's Brian Cooley and Molly Wood tape a segment.

The Ubuntu phone. Pretty cool! The Ubuntu folks gave me a free copy of Ubuntu! They're too kind!

The Razer Edge, CNET's best of CES winner. A tablet that can run games, and run them very well and with peripherals. It was pretty damn cool, but the controls felt a bit wonky. Hopefully they'll iterate!

Parrot's AR Drone 2.0 demo. They were dancing. Neato.

Cute sign on the Las Vegas strip. Not CES related, but I got a kick out of it.

Stunt and Gimmicks threw what was possibly the most productive and fun party of my first CES and I can't wait for the next one. I got to see some very cool stuff, including the Instacube, Zuvo Water, Agloves, and Kubi from Revolve Robotics.

 A jello bathtub was created.

Bathtub networking ensued. 

LG's OLED TV's. These things were amazingly thin and look incredible. They immediately made me regret not having more disposable income.

LG was also showing off large touch display tech to be used in museums and any place where an informational touch interface would be neat.

3D is dead huh? Tell that to LG and these people all wearing awesome glasses, watching an awesome display. I think what The Verge meant was that companies weren't pushing it as heavily as last year. This year it was all about 4K resolution. Notice the guy on the left trying to touch it.

What you can't see clearly is the 3D image that LG was blasting all over a huge wall. It was very very impressive.

Sony's 8K television. This thing was crazy, you could get about a foot from the TV and not see pixels. The blacks were not very vibrant though, but that's OK for a prototype.

Samsung's curved OLED screen. Supposedly it's more natural for the eye to view the TV with the slight curve in it, but when I asked a Samsung rep why they built it, or what the point was, he just said, "We did it because we could." Well played.

Star Craft 2 player Idra plays against challengers at a demo booth. If you could survive for 15 minutes, you got a power supply.

I went to Evil Dead the Musical in Vegas on my last night there. I took a photo with some cast members...and unexpectedly got drenched in stage blood.

This is what you look like after being drenched in blood. Walking around Vegas looking like this did not give me as many weird looks as I had thought.

That's all folks! It was a good trip and I hope to revisit it next year! 

*Edit* Just for fun, I took all these photos on my HTC EVO 4G LTE. Some pics are gorgeous, others are a bit dark. It worked really well as a point and shoot though.