Movie Review of Hitman: Agent 47

 Wow, it's been a while since I've done anything on this blog.  I won't go overboard because I still have lots of movies I'd like to say a few things about, even if I've watched them a while ago and they're not that fresh in my mind anymore.  I'll keep this review simple because I'd like to take it easy.

So in a simple sentence, Hitman: Agent 47 is one of those movies that you would watch to entertain yourself.  With that being said, I'm not about to deeply discuss about the cliches/tropes in this film but I'll mention the biggest ones.  Besides, this isn't a cheap Cinema Sins knock-off, and you, the reader, shouldn't have to read through one.

I knew when I walked into the theater to watch this film that I would be ending my summer with the movie that had the most action and explosion out of any other film (that I can think of right now) in theaters.  I walked out feeling more than satisfied with the action.  Lots of unknown and numerous bad guy grunts in full black body or grey business suits popping up to stop Agent 47 and Katia, the woman he's trying to save.  The trailers collectively did a nice job teasing the complete action sequences of this movie - they showed enough flashy parts to get people's attention as a trailer but saved the parts that were still even better for the complete film.  I enjoyed that aspect of the movie.

When it comes to the story of the film, it's quite lacking but then again, I doubt that anyone watched this movie for its writing.  If you've seen Terminator: Genysis, then you know the idea I'm trying to get at. You didn't watch the newest Terminator installment because it'd have critically acclaimed script writing - you'd have to be kidding for a film where Schwarzenegger says cleverly placed one-liners, twirls a shotgun, and is the original and best Terminator.  In that same manner, no one watched Hitman: Agent 47 for a script that would be better than Titanic.  Even if you haven't watched many movies, skimmed the Wikipedia article on the 2007 Hitman movie, or know the gist of the latest Hitman game Hitman: Absolution; you could still easily predict the ending of this movie half-way through the film when Katia asks Agent 47 a somewhat existential question about whether 47 is human or not.  It's kind of dry on creativity when the phrase "You are what you do" gets used in this film but I'll keep the spoiler-ish details low.  (I only bring some up here and there to make a point.)

There was one disappointment, though.  I mean, it there was this scene from the trailer that wasn't in the film.  The one I'm thinking of is when Katia uses her "ESP" to see that the bad guy goons are bringing in a cannon to blow up a room or building and then both Katia and 47 jump out of the farthest window.  The production crew probably had to use something to catch viewer's attention in the trailer but I guess they had to cut that scene from the movie.  The only way to confirm this would be to check the deleted scenes in the DVD, but until then, this was probably a case of the missing trailer trope.

It also as a few moments of comedy, which were kind of out of place but also were good comic relief.  Also the post credit scene is at the very beginning of the credits, so don't sit around and wait for it after watching all of the credits (even though the credits were rather short, only about 5 minutes).

All in all, Hitman: Agent 47 was a great action movie to mostly end the end of my summer before I start school again this fall.  Despite a weak plot, seeing lots of action was a great way for me to chill out and transition into the fall.  It's one of those movies that if you don't think much about it, then it's lots of fun.

Peace out till I catch up on a lot of movies I meant to write about.
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Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hitman_Agent_47_poster.jpg

A World of Questions Exhibit at the Harbor Gallery

On February 5th, I went to see the current Harbor Gallery exhibit reception at UMass Boston called A World of Questions.  There were 120 posters (approximately about 12"x18") on display by Chaz Maviyane-Davies that dealt with various themes on the human condition, such as: global warming, big coporations, pollution, and Westernization.

The exhibit was pretty cool because I enjoyed how the quotes well suited with the photos or illustrations on the posters.  Also, I was surprised how Maviyane-Davies was able to utilize the question mark (by featuring illustrations or photos that had, or at least help contribute to form, the contours of a question mark) as a motif in every poster without making the repetition redundant and boring.  I don't have any pictures from the gallery, since I didn't have any camera with me and I felt taking pictures of Mayiyane-Davies' photos was copyright infringement.  (He mentioned how some of the photos he used in the posters were hard to compose, hard to obtain the right to use the photo, or wasn't able to pay to use the photo at all.)  Seeing the exhibit long after my classes were over was one of the few hours I'm glad I've spent during my school week.

Here's a link that has more details about A World of Questions exhibit that's currently at the Harbor Gallery: http://www.umb.edu/news/detail/harbor_gallery_presents_a_world_of_questions

Math question

I saw this math problem some time ago and I was never able to figure the problem out.  Here it is:
\begin{equation}
\frac{3x^2}{9^x} = 27
\end{equation}
I was able to obtain the following steps:
\begin{equation}
\frac{3x^2}{3^{2x}} = 3^3
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
3x^2 = 3^{2x+3}
\end{equation}
\begin{equation}
x^2 = 3^{2(x+1)}
\end{equation}
This is where I get lost and can't solve it without a CAS or knowing that the answer is -1.  I hope someone can show and explain how to solve it the "pencil and paper" way.

Testing LATEX

I'm just trying to test out LaTeX on Blogger.
\begin{equation}
\int x dx = \frac{1}{2}x^2 + C
\end{equation}
Hooray, it works!

The Maze Runner - Movie Review

 
I watched The Maze Runner movie about five weeks ago.  Although I was planning on writing this movie review a week or two after watching it, I ended up really busy.  Right now I'm catching up.  Well, that's enough about roadblocks.  Honestly I did not know what to expect from this movie because, in my experience, movies made from books are never that great.  If the book is mediocre, then the movie is usually worse.  I will not dwell too much on the book since the book is not that popular, such as The Hunger Games or Divergent.

As a book, The Maze Runner was a promising start to a trilogy but is not so great by itself.  There were extremely gritty parts in the book that would definitely not make the cut into a PG-13 movie adaptation.  The movie definitely took out those gritty and also rather monotonous parts of the book out.  Surprisingly, the movie ended up better than the book it was based on.  Before sat in the theater, I could already tell that this movie was going to be better than the book from its trailer.  Although this was unexpected, I was glad to discover an exception to the "the books are better than the movies" media trend.

The Maze Runner movie takes out all the (not untasteful but) uneasy parts of the book that take over periods of days or even weeks and condenses them into an action-packed and suspense-filled (almost) 2 hours.  Sure, there are parts that do not make sense because of that.  For instance, there's the part where Teresa throws a Molotov at a Griever when the mechanical monsters first attack the Glade.  One of my friends commented that perhaps the Gladers could have used fire to fend off the Grievers.  There was no alcohol in the settlement in the books, so I guess this was "canon-conflict" if you ask the fanatics of the Maze Runner Series.  Yet this was a viewable reworking of the actual  Griever attack on the Glade that took place for about two weeks (I think, I read the book about two years ago), where 1 boy would be taken every night the Gladers did not get out of the Maze.  The canonical scenes are barely palatable with mainstream audiences - the movie makers were not selling out but I felt that their artistic license actually improved scenes that made me callous to the Gladers' suffering.  Other than that, those little "movie only" errors are something that nitpickers like Cinema Sins do.

I loved the visual effects.  The CGI was just right, it was not over the top or looked like the production hit the bottom of the budget.  The Maze effects were realistic, such as when the Maze moved its walls (which only happened when the Runners were in the locked Glade in the book).  The actors were extremely good and well suited for their parts.  I am not an expert with who in the Hollywood scene would be great for parts (there are not too many teen actors compared to well their established adult stars) but they carried out pretty darn good adaptations of the book characters.  Dylan O'Brien made a great Thomas.  He luckily did not carry over the occasional corniness of the book's Thomas.  Also Ki Hong Lee portrayed Minho very well.  I feel that the movie somehow focused more on Thomas and Minho a lot more than the other characters.  (This interaction between Thomas and Minho really comes out only in The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure.  Teresa had much more prevalent in the book but not a in the movie.)  The innocence of Chuck was perfect in the movie.  The same quality goes to Newt.

There were only two things that bothered me about the movie.  The first was how many times Thomas looked backwards every time Minho screamed, "Don't look back!"  I guess that's something Cinema Sins would catch if that only happened once.  However it happened at least five times, not to mention that Thomas somehow manages to look back at least 3 times yet still escapes peril.  The second thing that bothered me was the ending basically outlined plot elements that are extremely vital to the plots of the next 2 installments, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure.  At the end, the head scientist Eva Paige mentions how there's a virus, the Flare, that ravages the Earth and that the Gladers are in an experiment that will help them find a cure for the Flare.  This seemed like just a scene that was put in just in case the sequel did not make the cut, which reminds me of movies that failed to produced sequels such as The Golden Compass and A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Ironically, The Scorch Trials is being made.  At this point I am cannot be sure if this scene was the result of the production's artistic license to put that "not so great secret" out there that kept the plots of Books 2 and 3 of the Maze Runner series fresh.  This might not be that much of a deal to the movies, however, because this movie creates quick, excellent, and concise versions of what actually happens in the books.

All in all, The Maze Runner is a great movie.  A major note: It is not a huge deal if a movie watcher has not read The Maze Runner series before watching the movie.  However the book series is probably a more realistic version of what would have happened compared to the movies.  The movie was always exciting and had just the right amount of suspense.  Good actors and actresses are also a plus, especially when the movie characters are extremely true to the book's characters.  I look forward to watching the sequel, The Scorch Trials, when the movie comes out.
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Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Maze_Runner_poster.jpg

Lucy - Movie Review

Last Saturday I watched Lucy with some friends, since we were impressed by the trailer that we saw a trailer for it a few months ago before we watched Transcendence.

A funny thing happened before I went to see Lucy.  I thought about how there was Morgan Freeman playing the role of a scientist in Transcendence how he gets tangled up in the affairs of a science experiment gone wrong (in that case Will Caster, the scientist, uploading himself into a computer).  In Lucy, Freeman seems to have a repeat of the same role of a lead scientist - except this time the "experiment gone wrong" is Lucy, a woman who develops superpowers after the bag of drugs in her body leaks as a forced drug mule.  So there how the basic structure of Lucy didn't surprise me at all - I kind of saw what was coming my way already because Lucy turned out to be kind of similar to Transcendence (in some ways).

So anyways, more about what I thought about the movie.  The movie was fun to watch but I tried to ignore what the movie reviews had to say.  I mean, the critics always hate on the Resident Evil movies but I love all of those movies (almost as much as childhood favorites, but not quite there).

There was plenty of action.  Yes, lots of action.  This made the story very fast paced.  It's not impossible to get the story down but if you weren't paying attention, then you could easily miss some minor parts of the movie that will make the movie very strange, such as Lucy is studying in Taipei isn't explicitly stated at the very beginning - it's mentioned very quickly once the story gets going.

The ending was kind of surprising to my friends but I wasn't really surprised - I mean if you see what happened during the whole movie, there's not that many ways that this movie could end.  I thought the ending was appropriate.  It's not quite a cliff hanger but it is certainly a fast paced ending - fitting like how the whole movie was.

After I watched Lucy, I just felt that more could've been done with the movie.  I really thought there would be more instances where Lucy would display and utilize a vast variety powers.  Also the shady drug ring isn't really featured in the movie besides the scenes where they try to retrieve the drug.  The gang could've been something more in the movie - especially with its history or just more information about it.  I don't think it even had a name.

There seems to be some criticism about Lucy as a movie about the brain.  First off, if you knew that "the average human uses less than 10% of his/her brain" was a myth and Lucy is a big budget Hollywood movie, you wouldn't expect much meaningful artistic license concerning the human brain.  So don't expect this movie to be more than what is really is, because otherwise you have an unhealthy outlook on movies in general (especially sci-fi ones) and the only thing you'll achieve at most is hurting your own brain.

As a side note, the best way to watch this movie is to not see many trailers for it beside the brief ones they showed on TV or a while back in theaters before the feature presentations.  If you watch too many trailers on YouTube, you might end up disappointed because collectively all the unique trailers kind of use a scene from every major part of the movie (beginning, middle, and end... without spoiling what's really going on).

Essentially Lucy is a great movie to keep yourself entertained in the summer.  Just don't think too hard about the "real facts" in Lucy, especially about the brain, or else you'll definitely won't be developing amazing with your own brain.

Thinking about: Nice Guys Finish Last?

I'm pretty sure that this topic will come up on my blog in a more coherent and articulate form.  However I've got to get myself started on something - I read that the only way to get better at writing is to write a lot.  The improvement will be an eventual effect of writing frequently and with the right effort.

I've been pondering about how people treat other people and their popularity.  I've noticed that the trashy, "bad" people are the more popular people and how the "good" kids are unpopular and don't get the praise ant attention they deserve.  This is kind of getting trite and corny but I'm thinking of the song "Nice Guys" when I think about this stuff.

Let me explain what I mean.  The "popular" people are the ones that get wasted, party hard, and even brag about those experiences in school during the week.  Those are all the people that get invited to parties and do "interesting," kind of lurid things that are worthy of likes, favorites, retweets, and Snapchat screenshots.  They're out doing all those "bad" and unreputable things yet they don't suffer social consequences - they might even be seen as "cool people."

The "good" kids are the ones that don't do anything that would get them in trouble.  However as a "good" kid, I've always faced a stigma of social isolation.  It's hard to describe but when people look at me, I feel that they don't see a person but something that is worse than empty space - it's like I'm a doppelgänger or made of antimatter.  Somehow I have this general feeling that the majority of people look at me and tell themselves that I'm not capable of having fun or even having small talk.  The truth is that I'd rather do things that have more significance, such as discussing current events, than something grossly mundane, like getting wasted.

It's not like I'm incapable of having fun.  I just can't have fun with just anyone, especially when it's something that's only fun for them and not for me, such as gushing over Hollywood stars after watching movies.  It's just really depressing when you can't be with anyone that thinks like you.  I don't mean clones of myself but people who at least value similar things that I also value.

Although people I'm close with advise me to just really mind my own business and live the life I want, it's hard to stay that focused when you're just with other people.  I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about being a loner but it's rather lonely to maintain higher standards for yourself when everyone else isn't doing the same.  It's not like having higher standards for yourself is a bad thing - it's just that so few people do this (let alone are capable of it) that it's hard to turn to anyone for support when the going gets tough.

I didn't start with a good purpose, didn't have good organization, and wasn't really sure what I wanted to convey to my readers but all I know is that I had some things that were pent up inside of me and I had to get them out of the confines of my mind.

10 Apps That Kill Smartphone Batteries (all running in the background)

My friend and I were talking to each other about apps that would kill smartphone batteries in less than six hours if left running in the background.  We were thinking up of just apps on any platform, not iOS or Android exclusive ones.  All of this was just mere speculation - I don't know how badly these apps actually drain smart devices' batteries in general.  (I mean, I didn't have performance tests and that whatnot.)  Also not every person with a smartphone would likely have all the all apps mentioned below or even use them at the same time.

(*If you really want to be technical, you'd have to let the smartphone get updates while the phone is asleep for the battery drainage to be dramatic, such as pinging for e-mail updates every 10 minutes.)

Without further ado, I present to you: 10 Smartphone Apps That Kill Battery Life

1)  Facebook

2)  Twitter

3)  Tumblr

4)  Pinterest

5)  Vine

6)  Snapchat

7)  Instagram

8)  YouTube

9)  E-mail (any type)

10)  Camera

Honorable mentions:  Weather (any), such as The Weather Channel

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Image credits:
Facebook - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Facebook.svg
Twitter - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Twitter_bird_logo_2012.svg
Tumblr - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Tumblr_Logo.svg
Pinterest - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Pinterest_Logo.svg
Vine - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Vine_logo_green.png
Snapchat - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snapchat_logo.png
Instagram - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Instagram_logo.png
YouTube - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/YouTube_logo_2013.svg
iOS Mail icon - http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/10/tips-mail-iphone-ipad.html
iOS Camera icon - http://tripletsisters.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/ios-7-icons-in-pixelmator/
The Weather Channel icon - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weather.Weather

Edge of Tomorrow - Movie Review

Right now I'm not really in that groove to make a very detailed Edge of Tomorrow.  I saw Edge of Tomorrow with a friend two weeks ago on Wednesday.  It was closer to 2 hours but the content of the movie justified its rather long length.
movie review... However I want to say a few things to say about

(Assuming you know the gist of the trailer...) Despite the repeated "resetting" in the movie, when Cage is thrown to the start of the time loop, the "resets" weren't at all tedious to watch through.  I really enjoyed and appreciated how the movie makers made an aspect of the movie that could've been tedious and redundant to watch the exact opposite.

Also the aliens in the movie weren't that bad.  There's a reason why they don't show what the aliens look like - they're also not all that mind-blowing either.  (Without blowing away the plot aspect that the movie depends on...)  However the aliens also don't appear in the trailers and all because their abilities - let's settle for that - would half spoil the movie.  It's kind of like Kite Runner, where what happens 70 pages and beyond into the book needs to be kept out of the book store's summary or else the whole plot is ruined and no one would bother to read the whole book.

Also the ending kind of felt like a stretch... (If you've watched the movie, then you know what I mean.)  Let's just say that the way the ending was going at first made me thought that the movie was going to start at square one again and that Cage wouldn't have escaped the time looping.

So in short I enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow.  It was a pretty good movie to me.
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Image credit:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/Edge_of_Tomorrow_Poster.jpg

X-Men: Days of Future Past - Movie Review

About two weeks ago I went with a friend to see X-Men: Days of Future Past.  It was a pretty good movie.  The story was intriguing, the plot was well written, and the effects were of excellent quality.  (It sounds like a no-brainer but the effects were also believable - not just some insanely impossible CGI mess.)

The one thing that piqued my interest of faulty was the time travelling.  I mean even after the time paradoxes, I'm not quite sure that the turn of events would turn out just like how things did in the movie... but I'll let the X-Men fanatics figure out any discrepancies in that time sequence shebang.  My friend also had similar thoughts on that aspect of this film, though the thing that bothered him was that the mutants that died would stay dead.  I didn't share those sentiments, though.

Also making Kitty having time traveling related abilities seemed like a bit of a stretch, deus ex machina, or eucatastrophe (whichever you prefer).  I had vaguely remembered that Kitty could phase through objects but my unfamiliarity threw me off when the movie threw that non-canon curveball for this movie's plot.  This brings up how this X-Men film (since it's only the second X-Men movie I've seen for far) took it easy on viewers who don't necessarily have strong X-Men knowledge.

Besides X2: X-Men United that I watched in 2nd grade (back when I couldn't piece together movie plots even after watching movies several times) and the sparse X-Men cartoons from my childhood on Kids' WB TV, I went to watch this movie without all that much retained background knowledge on the mutants.  Despite this I still made the plot of the film pretty well, since apparently Days of Future Past didn't rely that much on the previous movies.

Last but not least, (this isn't really a spoiler, since this scene isn't that essential to the plot) I want to mention the Pentagon kitchen scene with the teenage Quicksilver.  The scene in a sentence is how Quicksilver hilariously disarms a group of Pentagon guards when the mutants are cornered in less than a fraction of a second (thanks to Quicksilver's speed).  That scene was so funny and so well done.  At first the comic scene seems a bit out of place in the overall serious movie plot... although after some reconsideration, it turns out to be much needed comic relief for a ominous plot that doesn't let up until the very last scene.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is a movie that doesn't disappoint.  I'm definitely going to see the next X-Men movie.  Oh, by the way, if you haven't watched the new X-Men film yet, you should be aware that there's some post-credits scene that hints at the next movie.  So don't walk out on the credits - I only did that because my friend wanted to leave right away after the movie.
Moral of my story:  When watching movies from a successful big-budget franchise, watch the credits.  There's a good chance that a post-credits scene will be there to award the tenacious after the credits.  Most likely that scene will hint at the sequel (like this movie or The Avengers) or just be plain funny (such as in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).
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Image credit:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/X-Men_Days_of_Future_Past_poster.jpg