I, Frankenstein was better than it had any right to be. That said, it was still a long way from "good". Maybe it was Stuart Beattie, who was a second-time director andmaybe unfamiliar with the intricacies of making a movie flow. Or maybe it was just that the movie was too short. Though, as the writer of the screenplay Beattie might also be to blame there.
Too short? Yes. If you take away the story, the action sequences in I, Frankenstein were actually fairly good. As were the special effects. Even most of the acting was fine. If the story had a bit more time to develop, I think the overall film would have come out better. As it stands, you are barely introduced to the characters before epic-scale fight sequences begin and the story starts to unravel.
That story is as follows: Frankenstein, played by Aaron Eckhart is drawn in to a fight between the Gargoyle order (headed by Miranda Otto's Leanore) and evil demons (headed by Bill Nighy, as Naberius). That's basically the end of the plot, other than a few other things that would essentially give the movie away. Suffice it to say that the Naberius really wants to catch and study Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Leanore and Frankenstein are both trying to avoid it.
There's good fight sequences, good effects, and Billy Nighy is amazing as always. He is the best part of the Underworld films, and brings his evil charm to this movie as well. Aaron Eckhart tries his damndest to care, but it's apparent that his heart just isn't in it. He does try to impersonate Christian Bale's Batman voice, but it doesn't come off too well.
This one gets a 2/5. Buoyed by the effects and Bill Nighy-ness of the movie. Had it been a bit longer, and you had a chance to care about the characters, it could have been a fine mediocre-film. Now, it's just a decent film to watch on a slow Netflix day.
This year was my second ever CES, and it was awesome! After my first show last year, I had a better idea of what to expect. One of the things I was hoping for was that the official CES app would be updated. Alas, it was not, but one of the developers did contact me and asked for input, so there might be hope for the future.
Like last time I was representing Backblaze, but this time I didn't come with cupcakes. Instead, I came with a bunch of business cards and my networking hat on. So lets take a photographic stroll down memory lane, shall we?
One of the first things I noticed when I got my bag back. They somehow dented a brand new hard-shell case. I wasn't even mad, I was impressed.
Backblaze at the Showstoppers exhibit. Everything is so yellow, it looks golden.
The bathroom at the Wynn smelled like a lavender field. I don't know how they do it, but I love it.
The new Corvette. I love that they put little cling-wrap booties on it while driving on the Wynn carpet.
Day 1: CES Floor One of the quickest ways to get around, instead of waiting 45 minutes or more in a taxi line is to take a limo filled with a bunch of people going to the same place. Usually this is about $10/person and less than taking a cab, plus it's much more speedy.
There were many Steam Machines there, folks seemed most interested in the Gigabyte and Falcon ones.
One of the first things you notice at CES is dancing booth babes and people taking their picture awkwardly (yes I realize I am also taking their picture, but I asked first).
Robots were really big this year. mRobo would dance around to music.
The C|Net Lounge is one of my favorite places to sit down and do work. Along with charging stations, you can watch them film some shows.
The Jabbawockeez performed at the Hisense booth.
Hello Jabbawockee!
One of the weirdest booths was for USPS. They were there promoting their flate-rate shipping containers. Which makes sense because some of the smaller companies are always looking for cheaper ways to ship things, but for a struggling company, they certainly did have a large booth...thanks taxpayers!
Testing out the Oculus Rift. Works really well with Valkyrie. Can't wait to try other games on it.
Met up with my friend, Sarah Jane Woodall, better known as Wonderhussy (nsfw).
Tiny DJ at the Monster booth. I think he was 11.
Taking a load off. Seriously, walking around for 10 hours is a pain in the ass. Yes, that is Star Trek. Voyager in fact! I am enjoying it about 1,000 times more than Deep Space Nine, thanks for asking!
Day 2: CES Floor and Lenovo Lounge
The Delorean from Back to the Future. The Delorean. Not just "a" Delorean.
A lot of folks at the Gibson tent were dressed as Star Trek folks. Neat.
This is a fun thing! It's a vibrator that you can control with your phone. Perfect for meetings and playing practical jokes on your co-worker/significant other!
Adam Corolla at the Ford booth chatting about the monstrous F-150.
A lot of the booths had the new Corvette that they were showing off. This is still my dream car, the Dodge Viper. This one happened to be an SRT. So beautiful.
My contacts at Vizio fell through, so I didn't get to see their suite this year, but of the TVs that I did see, this curved 4K OLED from LG was probably the most striking TV I saw at the show.
While not as pretty as the 4K OLED from LG, this set up from Panasonic was fantastic. They were showing off how a few 4K cameras pointed at a football field along with Panasonic's tech could show the entire length of a football field with perfect clarity. It was...quite fantastic. I would love to have this shot be a staple for broadcast games, it would be awesome for long runs and pass plays, though would only work with certain set-ups. Still very cool!
Not sure who these DJs were, but they were very friendly and had some good tunes they were kicking out at the 808 booth.
Samsung had a few interesting things, including the "smart mirror". I actually really liked this functionality. You wake up, go to the bathroom, and see your notifications and weather while getting ready. Might prevent folks from taking their cell phone to the bathroom.
The Verge Lounge at the show. Again, finding a good place to work is important if you have to get stuff done at the show. The Verge Lounge will hopefully come back next year. Free coffee and Wi-Fi. Thanks.
Aviate. My favorite launcher for Android. It was recently purchased by Yahoo and I was dreading that it would go away and I would be left with nothing. Fortunately it was prominent at the Yahoo booth and it sounds like they aren't going anywhere. Happy dance.
The Lenovo Lounge party for Social Media folks. I was lucky enough to get accepted in to this one, there is always a lot of interest and it's a pretty great event. Lenovo was showcasing their new hotness, of which I really enjoyed the Yoga Tablets.
Lenovo won a lot of awards at the show (I think they said over 30) and were proudly displaying them.
Because it was such a fancy party, we drank Fat Tire and ate Crab. If I could use a hashtag here it would be "Posh".
John the Jackelope is Lenovo's unofficial party mascot. Unfortunately, he was stolen.
I mostly hung out in the Shapeways 3D scanning room helping my friend Savannah. There was always a line of folks waiting to be scanned. It was quite exciting!
This guy was great! He was on a scooter and needed oxygen, but wanted to get 3D scanned so he chose an awesome pose and held it for 2 minutes. Unfortunately I couldn't catch the pose!
More fun being had with the 3D scanner. This is Peter Thomson. He's a big deal in Toronto.
It was fun as hell to drive and the sound quality of the speakers was impeccable. Unfortunately, it uses recycled plastic in the interior. Is this bad? No! It's awesome, but unfortunately when you're buying a $40,000 BMW, you don't expect to feel plastic on the inside. Great car though, and does some really cool stuff with the navigation and how far you can travel. One of the neat things was a "spider" which showed you how far you can travel based on geography and topography (meaning it knows that hills will lessen your range). It was pretty technologically advanced, and a beast to drive. Very aggressive regenerative breaking as well, once you let off the gas the car tries to stop you as smoothly as possible!
(The audio was awesome)
3D printing was huge this year and a lot of companies were showing off their tech. I'm not sure what the viability of a remote-controlled 3D printer is, but it looked cool!
Basically, you can 3D print anything, and the prints are getting more and more intricate.
Parrot loves their dancing drones. And it's always a fun demo.
This 4K monitor from Toshiba will retail for over $10,000. And it's gorgeous in every way.
You can't have a party without Party Bot.
Robots were huge this year.
Whether it was the Sphero balls or dancing robots. They were everywhere.
Had dinner at Le Burger Brasserie.
My waitress for the evening at Le Burger Brasserie.
Her name was Holly. She first came up to me and said, "Welcome to Le Burger Brassiere". God bless her.
I had room service delivered to my room for the first time ever. It was delicious.
Back to work
My co-workers put up my Social Media Zombie painting in front of my computer. I think they missed me and it was a good reminder of what I do most days.
Fun side-story. The Backblaze shirt I have on is almost the same exact shade as the Virgin America crew uniforms. When I was waiting to use the lavatory at the front of the plane during boarding, folks kept saying good afternoon to me, to which I replied, "Welcome aboard! Thank you for choosing Virgin!". The actual flight attendant thought it was hilarious.
There you have it! My exploits at CES 2014. I'll likely be back next year, come hang out with me!
