THE ISLAND of marketing... what's wrong with movies today!!!

Okay, so before, after i saw a good movie at the theaters, i left the place feeling good, analyzing all the cool details of the story, putting pieces together about the surprise ending or just relaxed that i spent a couple of hours watching an entertaining movie. So why is it that now, especially with my most current visit to the movies I left the theater wanting to look up Cadillac cars and Nokia phones in MSN SEARCH and thirsty for a Michelob Light, or maybe just Aquafina, and wanting to buy some white Puma tennis shoes and one of those new plasma monitors from Apple ! ! ! ...., wait, what!, why aren't i talking about the premise of the movie??? Oh, that's right, cuz all the product placement got in the way of a good story!!!

So, what movie am i talking about? it could be mostly any studio movie that comes out, but I haven't seen it with such cynicism as with Michael Bay's "THE ISLAND". But let me point out the good in this movie first (and it IS actually a good movie). The premise (which many critics thought was too confusing to explain, but it's not) goes like this: In the near future there is a company that has a facility in the middle of the desert where they made up a world for Clones to live in. These are clones of other people that paid to be cloned in case they ever need an organ or any body part replaced. The clones live in this facility with no knowledge of the outside world, they are taught that they live in a post-apocalyptic era where the earth has been contaminated and there is only one place that is clean in the outside, which is THE ISLAND. Every now an then they have a lottery and the supposed "winner" gets to go to THE ISLAND to live free forever, that lottery is their purpose in life, they only want to prepare themselves for when they get to go to THE ISLAND, but basically when they "win" it's because their original self, or "sponsor" as they call them, is in need of one of their parts. One of the clones, Lincoln 6 Echo (Ewan McGregor) has a feeling that something is wrong with the way they live and plans an escape from the facility and chaos ensues.

For what it's worth, it actually is a good premise, the way they explain the situation with the clones is very interesting and believable. The facility itself is quite interesting too, the way they present futuristic technologies to regulate the clones is also interesting, because they have to keep them healthy and well preserved so their "parts" are useful for their "sponsors". They even use some women just for the purpose of breeding. And then, as every single Michael Bay film, it turns from a suspense drama to an action thriller when the two main characters (McGregor & Scarlett Johanson) have to escape and are facing the actual real world (which is not that much different from current life) and are being followed. So this film actually has two different feels to it which is somewhat interesting to see and hard to connect.

Now, besides the "suuuure, like THAT would happen" moments all action thrillers have, you just get a slight feeling that they needed loads of money to make all the action sequences. From the start of the movie you see in plain view (on purpose of course) like 10 pairs of PUMA tennis shoes that the "clones" wear. Then it's just one thing after another, they go to a bar and there's a "MICHELOB LIGHT" right in the middle of a shot, AQUAFINA is placed by a bartender right in the middle of the screen. They need to get information and they go to a booth with a HUGE MSN-SEARCH logo (which is the same logo they have now. If it's right, MSN will keep this butterfly logo for the next 20 years!!!!, that's bad marketing!!!). Ok, so i get the purpose of Product Placement, it's just that now they take advantage of us viewers by being so cynical, i mean, if the product is used randomly by the characters, ok, it makes it more believeable for them to be drinking a MICHELOB LIGHT than to be drinking out of a bottle that says BEER, but to actually make a shot where the product is the focus of the whole thing, and not just once, but like 8 or 9 times throughout the movie!, we get commercials everywhere we go, billboards, magazines, tv, radio, even before a movie at the theaters, but to even have them inside the movie! that's just insulting! And Hollywood wonders why people aren't going to the movies that much anymore!

But basically i DID like the movie, i'm just pissed that they had to resort to THAT to get cash. Bad news for them and all of the sponsors, because they had a really BAD marketing campaign for the movie and it ended up TANKING at the boxoffice!

So for all the product placement and for two characters to fall of a 50 story building and survive! (that's just wrong!)...I give you:

My Grade: B

Oh! the complexity of gambling...

Ok, so I get together with a bunch of friends each week for "POKER NITE", we normally start the nite with a friendly game of Black Jack in which one of us is the "house" and the rest play against the "house". Then it's our weekly "TEXAS HOLD-EM" tournament, in which everyone except one loses so we have the big winner of the nite, and then if it's not too late and if people wanna continue we play another round of Black Jack.

Ok, so this past tuesday was our poker-nite, and at the first Black Jack game i lost, but the "house" was winning a lot, because the "house always wins". So then we went to the poker and i left in fourth place, then it was more Black Jack and i decided to be the "house" for the first time.... Can u imagine that the HOUSE ALWAYS WINS EXCEPT WHEN I'M THE HOUSE rule fell into place!... daumn!.... let me tell ya.... when you really wanna win you won't!, that's what i've come up with, cuz when i just go to relax, have a good time and have loads of fun, i don't necessarily win but i don't lose either, but daumn! i hadn't lost that bad! not even in Las Vegas, where you can get easily hooked on $1 blackjack and $0.50 roullette!.... oh the memories of the VEGAS!...

So yea, just wanted to rant a lil bit about how you can get so easily hooked on gambling that it's wrong, maybe that's why its illegal in mostly everywhere!. Here's my advice: take it just as fun and games, not as a means to earn cash, cuz that just curses you, jinxes you!.... but oh the pleasure of winning never hurts, i've won twice in the poker tournament!... ok, so i'm happy now that i lost cuz it's past and i'm looking forward to just have fun next week... no more easy money for me!...

does summer tv suck or just suck you in???

Ok, so i'm sitting here, watching tv and there's nothing good on!, well... i downloaded last nite's episode of "Entourage" which is actually good, but haven't gotten around to watch it yet. But there's this show on the WB that started last Summer about a group of kids that their parents died in a car accident and they go off to live with their aunt in a beach house in California, sounds interesting doesn't it?, well it was, until they decided to make every single cliché possible a reality in just a couple of months in this show's last run this summer. So i wonder, does summer tv suck or just suck you in?, cuz here i am, watching what i already knew was gonna be the very last episode of this show cuz it's already been cancelled, and i can't believe i've wasted one hour of my past few Mondays watching this crap but knowing that it's the last episode ever makes me not want to miss it!!....

So really, lets see what's on the tv right now...summerland = crap, new summer reality shows = crap, reruns = crap, nites of the week i'm watching tv = all!!!..... wait! that's not right!, if everything's crap how can i have something to watch every single nite!.... Ok, so the run of Summerland is finally over, but ROCK STAR INXS just started, and then I'm a big fan of the US version of Big Brother, which has only been on the air for a week and a half, and then there's Entourage, that little known HBO show about a group of guys living it large in Hollywood, which is by far one of the best comedies i've seen in a while, right up there next to Arrested Development & Scrubs. So Summer tv doesn't necessarily suck, it can just suck you in (cuz let's face it, Big Brother is not quality television), too bad there isn't much to choose from, it's just a time to fill while we wait for the greatness of the full season television shows that are true quality, i really can't wait to see what happens next with LOST, Arrested Development, 24, Alias, even the Desperate Housewives (which is completely overrated, but i still watched it).

So there you have it, i can't wait for the summer to be over. but can't wait to see how this summer season ends, confusing as it is, i love tv, so for me there's always something to watch!

charlie VS wonka, round 1

ok, so i have to admit it, i had to go see 'Charlie & the Chocolate Factory' the weekend it came out, cuz well, i'm a HUGE fan of the original one, and have been following the production of this version since like 3 years ago!... so here i am, opening weekend, and Adrian's in La Paz, JP is not wanting that much to see the movie, Eduardo wants to see it with the gf, and me, i'm all alone working with my parents for the weekend and i just said, f**k it, i'm goin to the USofA and see this darn movie by myself!!!.

Ok, so for the actual review of the movie.... right....first of all, this is my first review in this blog thing, so lemme tell you one thing.... i'm not a spolier person, i don't like it when people 'spoil' stuff for others, so i'll give my honest indepth spolier-free review of all the things i review here (except for a few little things that may slip out, but don't hold it against me), my rule for reading reviews is that if you really want to see a movie go see it and then read the reviews, cuz then you can form your own opinion and then read what others thought...

Let me start off by saying that this is basically the same story, a few changes here and there, but if you saw the first movie or read the book you know what happens at the end, so there's this feeling of "I already knew that was happening" that lets you down just a bit, it's not as exciting as it should be, but i take it that if it's your first 'chocolate' fix then you'll simply fall in love with it just like many of us fell in love with the original pic.

Ok, so the title in this one is different, because, well, it IS a movie about Charlie Bucket and not necessarily about Wonka. The story follows young poor Charlie who lives in the town where the famous Wonka Chocolate Factory is, and his dream is to be able to see it from the inside, because the factory has been closed for years. One day the owner, Willy Wonka announces that 5 children will be allowed to enter the factory, the ones that find Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars. All the winners are spoiled brats who don't desserve to be there and are met with their wrongdoings inside while Wonka doesn't really care. Speaking of Wonka, this one (played by Johnny Depp) is not necesarilly creepier than Gene Wilder's Wonka, but more 'weird'. The character of Willy Wonka in the story is a selfish goon that doesn't give a damn about anybody, especially the people that come into the factory as the golden ticket winners, all he wants is for it to be over so he can reward one of them with the 'ultimate prize'. The main difference between Wilder's Wonka and Depp's Wonka is that Wilder played him as a serious, no bullshit, arrogant fool, while Depp plays him as a loon, a weird, excentric, creepy, don't give a shit, loon, which both fit the Wonka character perfectly.

The story is first how each Golden Ticket is found, until they get to the factory and then the story shifts to go into the factory to see all the fantastic elements where the chocolate and candy are made, from edible 'everything' (with my favorite quote of this movie from Wonka: "Even I'm eddible, that is called cannibalism, but that's not a very good idea, in some places it is frawned upon"), to the invention room with the 'everlasting gobstoppers', the television room, and the nut-sorting room (it was the golden geese room in the first movie), and the mutli-button glass elevator. Which takes us through the great world of Wonka.

As for the differences in the story, there's no creepy tunnel in the chocolate river, just a very fast one, no "Umpa, Lumpa, Dumpa-di-doo!", and my biggest surprise was that there was no Mr. Slugworth (which i don't know if he was made up for the first movie or if he really is in the book or not). But overall, a good adaptation and re-imagination of a classic children's film/book that will soon hit my DVD shelf.

My Grade: B+

let's get it started (in here)

ok, ok, so here i go.... en ingles porke se me hace mas facil, or in spanish too, depending on my mood!... jejejeje

bueno, pues, aki voy, ya habia empezado un blog en otra parte pero no lo segui despues del primer post porke se me olvidaba, pero ahora si kiero llevar una relacion de lo ke hago en mi vida y quiero por lo menos un ratillo cada dia o cada tercer dia escribir algo.

To start off, yea now it's in english, you see... depends on the mood...., ok, so this has been ONE SHITTY WEEK!!!, man, oh, man!..... one thing after another that just doesnt cut it.... from leaving way too late to VEGAS last weekend to getting a quota wrong for a client and almost loosing money because of it, to the CLIENT FROM HELL (which i've had worse before, but this is the worst one now) calling me day and nite to make "changes", i mean, why the hell hire a graphic designer if you're not gonna even listen to the advice of the graphic designer and makin him do whatever the hell you want because that's what you were told is the right thing to do! (did i make any sense???)

Anyways, here i sit, after working a lot with the family business, and cleaning my car and cutting my hair, and wanting to do NO WORK at all, but i have to, i promised myself i'd work on Sunday and do all the things i've put off all week on Sunday, but look at this! it's 8 pm and I haven't started mostly anything.... it's not a good thing to work at home cuz u get accustomed at doing nothing while at home.

And to top it all off, the freakin internet service is crap as hell too, it's been disconnecting and reconnecting every 15 mins for this whole week!, the cable guy was supposed to come over and change my modem on friday morning and exactly the only 20 minutes that no one was at home he came (which was at freakin 5:30 pm!!!!!, notice that he was supposed to come in the MORNING!!!) I furiously called and he was to come over on Saturday then, but we were busy with the family business all Saturday, so again he came with NO ONE HOME!!! so here i am, praying to the internet gods to get me my connection up and running so i can click "PUBLISH ENTRY" and finish this damned blog for today and get to work.... oh, believe me, it's an interesting life this life of mine, even if people say I don't have a life, but we'll get into that a 'lil bit' later (wink, wink)...

Oh, this was a personal post, i'm gonna try to post some of the other stuff i like here like reviews of TV SHOWS, MOVIES, MUSIC and stuff like that...., like maybe later tonite or tomorrow, i'll be posting my review of "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory", which i went to see on Saturday....