Much ado About Nothing

As of late i have been inspired by - well, absolutely nothing. Nada /zilch/zero/the amount of awesome in a Michael Bay movie. What to write when you're not inspired? Well, one could just randomly start typing in the hope the something would crawl its out of the keyboard. Not that I'm going to admit to doing that now.

Oh! I bought a tablet. Let's talk about that.

It's an Acer Iconia A 830 slab of pure awesomeness. My primary requirement from a tablet was for it to function properly as a comic book reader. I love comics but living in the third world means that no one except for the filthy rich can support a comic book habit. So us lower life forms are compelled to read e-comics obtained by stealthy means. I previously had a Kindle - which sucked demon eyeballs. Not only is reading comics on a monochrome display a barbaric practice, the Kindle is so small that you have to zoom in on panels to read them. Needless to say that experiment was never repeated. I grew weary of the Kindle as an e-book reader as well - it was so unfeeling - reading a book off this cold lifeless device. For some reason reading books off the Acer is a much more enjoyable experience. It took me a while to get used to the whole 'thou shalt install apps' aspect of it. but once I had my readers up and running the comics displayed like a dream. It's a 7.99 display so a single page fits perfectly and is superbly readable. I'm glad I didn't go for the ipad (a choice I was considering because of the size) because the 'droid is way more flexible; I don't approve of Apple's prohibitive nature anyway.

 I really hope the Acer doesn't go the way of the Kindle and get retired to a cupboard after a few months (my Kindle committed suicide in retaliation). But I somehow doubt it will. I have a feeling it's going to stay shiny. :)

Roll out! (hopefully)

So the third installment of Michael Bays CGIwankfest or, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is being filmed; to be released in July 2011. The cast is plentiful and kinda interesting with the likes of John Malkovich and Patrick Dempsey thrown into the mix. The usual suspects like Shia LaBeouf and Josh Duhamel are also present and accounted for. Some of the autobots are getting a facelift and Bumble is rumoured to be a 2011 Chevrolet Camaro. The most talked about change is of course the non-reappearance of Megan Fox. She’s been replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and I have to agree with the IMDBer who said “she looks like somebody smacked her in the face with a shovel”. It’s like replacing a plank with a piece of driftwood. (On a completely unrelated note, does Megan Fox breathe through her mouth? Or is the weight of all that lip-gloss dragging her lower lip down?)

Anyway, I sense the there will plenty of Transformers-related discussions taking place at the breakfast table. And inevitably at some point I will confess that I thought the first two movies were crap. Every time I say this, I get this whole “you don’t like the Transformers movies because you just don’t like transformers” argument thrown at me from all sides. That’s seems to be the only argument the fan-bots seem to be able to come up with. And this, I fear is neither a valid argument not true.

See, I LIKE transformers. Transformers are beyond cool. And a movie ABOUT transformers had the potential to be a real good time at the movies. This alas, didn’t quite happen the last two times.

In the first movie, Transformers, there was actually some attempt made to come up with a cohesive storyline. Then of course they decided that they need ‘more cowbell’ in the form of lots and lots of CGI and then at this point the movie became incomprehensible. During the awesome battle, I couldn’t make out the autobots from the decepticons and when you can’t tell the good guy from the bad guy it’s BAD BAD movie making. On the whole the first movie left me feeling like a popped balloon. All buoyant and happy at first and totally deflated and cheated at the end.

This brings us to the second movie; Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. This was such a cheese-fest that my cringe levels hit an all time high. I felt acutely embarrassed for the actors hamming it out on screen. (Except for Megan Fox. I have no sympathy for her.) The whole movie was based on an abysmal storyline with a screenplay probably typed out by two twelve year -olds on an endless supply of twinkies.

So do I dare hope for a half-way decent movie in Dark of The Moon? I fear not. All that awesome CGI will just be laid to waste in the bumbling hands of Michael Bay.