I was going to do a quick review round-up to take care of a slew of movies I've seen recently, but after some reflection, I decided that a movie with the caliber that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has warrants it's own separate review. I mean Street Fighter was an institution during my childhood, I couldn't just gloss over it.

I don't remember the plot exactly, but as I recall, it was a revenge story. Chun-Li, a musician turned martial arts expert, is after M. Bison, an evildoer Irish crime boss who was adopted at birth by Thai people. Somehow he was able to embody himself with pure evil as he injected the pure goodness in him to his daughter. Anyhow, Chun-Li is after Bison for the kidnapping and eventual killing of her father.

This movie was no good. The fighting was okay and it was unintentionally funny likely because the acting was so bad. Those are the only two reasons I could come up with for not falling asleep during the movie. At least the '94 Van Damme version was so shitacular, that somehow it became cheesy good for its campiness.

One of the strange things was that we see Chun-Li in the beginning as a little oriental girl, but through the quick martial-arts training montage, we see she eventually evolves into a eurasian girl. Weird? I thought it was strange that she turned eurasian, and then they revealed that the mother was of some sort of european descent. So I guess it wouldn't have been a problem except that through some miraculous birth, she was born a chinese. Another peculiar thing is that somehow Chun-Li is able to grow up in China and have the worst possible chinese accent yet at the same time have a completely fluent english accent. I'm no expert of the Mandarin language (cantonese is my first language), but even I could tell that she was butchering the language. On the brightside though, it caused intense laughter for me. I guess for someone who is totally unfamiliar with the language, this wouldn't phase them at all though.

There's also a supporting crew of other Street Fighter characters, but other than through name, none of them really seem like their video game counterpart (okay, except for Vega who had a mask). The worst was Charlie Nash, played by Chris Klein of American Pie fame. There was a lot of bad acting in the movie, but his was the worst! I had no idea what he was trying to do or go for.

The movie is out now for DVD if for some reason you want to see it. There's nothing I can recommend about this movie unless you relish in self-torture. I will say that this movie was bad, but it was slightly more entertaining than Dragon Ball Evolution which is the bottom of the barrel bad (alliteration!).

You know, we're halfway through the year and I'm finding that it's easier to compose a worse 10 movies of the year rather than the best (which only has 2 titles so far). Here's hoping for the next 6 months. I leave you with one of my favourite cinematic moments of all time. Later geeks!

First of all, happy late Canada Day to my Canadian friends, happy early Independence Day to my American friends and... happy days to my international friends!

Last week, the weather in Toronto was amazing. We officially entered into the summer season and it kicked off with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s. Simply great.

Knowing ahead of time that it was going to be blazing hot, I planned a few trips to the beach. Lake Ontario is about a 25 minute walk from my house, so I decided that this would be a good opportunity to catch in some sun, meditate and re-focus myself as the summer season begins. So I walked down by myself on Monday and Thursday, with a backpack that contained a towel, a book, a water bottle and my iPod. I got to the sands, laid down, napped, woke up, prayed and just thought about life. On my iPod, I was listening to the sermons of one of my favourite preachers. I reflected on the message and prayed some more. I left each time feeling so much more rejuvenated and motivated, not for myself, but for Him.

Sunday came along and I went to the church service that evening. I don't believe in luck or coincidence, so it was even more interesting that the topic of the sermon was on solitude and Christ. The basis of the sermon was on Mark 1:35-39.

I think going away from the city and away from our everyday lives are important things. It's such an innate desire, that being Christians or not, we love going away on vacations or taking weekends off at the cottage. It's just a good way of clearing our minds of all the crap in our lives sometimes. Jesus especially knew that this was important and you can easily find instances where he'd tend towards a solitary place for prayer. As Christians, it's important for us to make and find the time to spend alone with God, to refocus our minds and our goals on Him, and away from the distractions of the normal life.

But sometimes when we say to ourselves that we're going to spend some time alone from God, how truly alone are we? Are we alone enough that we're free from stuff like cell phones, Blackberries, emails, and text messages? Or are we lying to ourselves?

There are 168 hours in the week. If you sleep for 8 hours a day and work 40 hours a week, you're left with 72 hours of free time. So I ask you, how many of those hours are you spending alone in Christ and in prayer. I challenge you my brothers and sisters, to make the time. We can't be so caught up in our every day lives. We do need to make that time to adjust ourselves back on God's path. And when you make that time for Him, make it really for Him. Don't anchor yourself down with cell phones or other communication devices. I know it's tough, but I don't think it's impossible if you really want to make the time. I know you'll be better for it and I know that God will bless you for it.

The trailer for Ponyo has been released!

I can't wait to see this movie! Coming out in August, Ponyo is the next full length feature done by the legendary Japanese animatot, Hayao Miyazaki. You may be familiar with some of his work such as Spirited Away or Princess of Mononoke. I've got almost all his full length movies on DVD, I just love his work. There's a certain magic and innocence to his movies that American animated movies can't seem to capture (although Wall-E was a step in the right direction). His movies are rarely about good guys and bad guys; they are more about innocent characters falling into strange situations.

The plot on IMDB reads: "An animated adventure centered on a 5-year-old boy and his relationship with a goldfish princess who longs to become human." It's got quite the star studded cast too, with the likes of Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson and even Betty White!

Check out the trailer here (Quicktime / Youtube).

Later geeks!

I'll admit, I'm not that huge of a Megan Fox fan. Yes, she's a babe, but the looks can only go so far. If she were a more talented actress, then I guess would feel otherwise, but she's not (at least not yet). However, assuming the following article is true and not fabricated by sweaty palmed geeks, then her street cred is going up in my books.

In an interview with What They Play (credit Kotaku), Fox talks about her gaming life past and present. It's not the generic celebrity answer of "I play Super Mario", or "I love Tetris", or even the more generic "I play solitaire". No, she speaks more truthfully about her geek life. Her first game was Disney's Aladdin for the SNES. But the game she's loved the most and still plays nowadays, is Mortal Kombat (and it's various incarnations). She says that right now she's playing through Mortal Kombat VS DC, and she even goes further to say that she hates playing as Superman, because his combos "were so weird".

What a babe eh? It's too bad that I don't like Mortal Kombat... but I'd kick her ass at Street Fighter IV... in my dreams.

If you want to read the original articles you can find them here (What They Play / Kotaku).

Anyhow, I leave you with this gif that someone posted on the F4W board. Later geeks.

Hey friends. My first review for Attack This! is up and running. In this month's edition, I take a look at Jean Claude Van Damme's latest, JCVD. Is it a hit? Is it a crapshoot? Only one way to find out! Have a look see (here)!

Later geeks!

I passed by the CityTv building last night to see that they were making some last minute preparations and some rehearsals for tonight's event. It's the Much Music Video Awards tonight; a time where thousands of pre-pubescent teens will fill the downtown core of Toronto in hopes of catching a glimpse of such media mongrels as the Jonas Brothers, actors from Twilight and The Hills. Anyhow, here are a few pics of their setup before it gets wild tonight. There are also some surprises in the last two.

When I past by again much later in the evening, I was surprised to see some acts rehearsing their parts for tonight's show. In the pic below, amongst the orgy of people are in fact The Black Eyed Peas, who were singing and practising their dance routine for that Boom Boom Pow song (unconfirmed if that's the actual song title, but they sing that line). There was quite a pack of people watching them do the whole routine, but probably not even a fraction of how much people will be their tonight. Beneath that picture is the band Rise Against on the John St. stage, playing their song over and over. Anyhow, both groups were a welcomed surprise.

(This post goes out to Skylar, who loves tech stuff.)

In random news, my dad bought me a new monitor earlier this week. He was looking at different monitors for the past 2 months or so, but I kept telling him not to because the ones he was looking at were too big for my room and my 19" Samsung was more than fine. Well, he bought it anyways and now I have this massive 24" Samsung widescreen on my desk. He told me afterwards it was my late graduation gift, to which I thought the Xbox was, but apparently that was a Christmas gift. I'm a spoiled son of a bitch, right? So I accepted, although with a massive amount of guilt (I don't feel I deserve this).

So what do I think?

The Goods: This fucker is massive. I'm no longer maximizing the windows because it's too much for my eyes. I like how there are multiple input options. Currently my computer is hooked in through the DVI, but there is also HDMI support. A light bulb went off in my head when I saw this. I immediately brought up the Xbox from the living room to test it out. It performs really beautiful and really sharp! Another bonus is that it has speakers within the monitor, so you don't have to re-route speakers if you want to game. However, I didn't want the Xbox in my room as it's a clutter already so it's relegated back to the living room. I like that I can adjust the stand's height, so no longer do I have to slouch my neck while I'm on my computer.

The Not-So-Goods: Instead of buttons on the bottom corner of the screen, this monitor has touch sensitive areas, so to switch between inputs, adjust any settings, or to turn it on/off, all you have to do is touch the right area (that's what I tried to tell her). Unforunately for me, the lighting in my room is pretty dim at night which makes it hard to see the little symbols for the different functions. I find I'm touching all over the place and adjusting stuff, when all I want to do is turn it off. I realize this is all a preference thing, but I wouldn't of minded normal buttons.

The Neutrals: If for some reason you wanted to, you can rotate the monitor so that instead of landscape you can have it oriented portrait-wise. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but the option is there if you do. There's also USB ports on it.

Anyhow, I'm enjoying the new monitor. It's been great for watching movies and TV shows, and especially great for playing Team Fortress 2. My dad is nuts sometimes, but I do love him for this. If you're interested in specs, you can check them out (here). Well, until next time, later geeks!