Shmee.Me

May 3, 2013May 3, 2013

Can you defeat The Man with the Iron Fists?

The Man with the Iron Fists is a Kung-Fu action movie written, directed, and stared in by Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA. He has created sound tracks for several movies, mostly by Quentin Tarantino, but can he translate that experience into successfully creating a full film? It is a valiant fist try, but it comes up a little short.

The movie’s plot is fairly simple. The Governor of the province is shipping gold through a town named Jungle Village. This town happens to be caught between a never ending conflict with its warring clans, so the Governor pays one of the clans to protect the gold, but things go quickly wrong, and soon it is every man for himself in Jungle Village.

This movie starts off great with a Kung-Fu fight choreographed with a killer Hip Hop beat, and if the whole movie would have been like this it would have been an instant action cult classic, but sadly it looses its way. When people are not fighting in this movie it is stilted and boring.

Most of the actors handle the action of this movie well, but once that talking starts they are awful. With the notable exceptions of Lucy Liu and Russell Crowe. They seem to having a great time in this movie being. It is like they are on vacation in a bad movie or something and it is wonderful to watch them. They took on their roles with vigor and kind of just went for it.

The Man with the Iron Fists could have been a great movie, but as it is it is just an amusing movie with Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu having a good time. It is a shame it couldn’t live up to the first few minutes of the movie.

May 2, 2013

Should You Subscribe to Funimation?

I was finding the anime selection on Netflix and Amazon lacking, so I decided to try the one month free trial to Funimation a large anime distributor, and after a month I can tell you that this is one of the worst streaming services out there.

When I went on the site it did look like they had a lot content with some shows I had never seen before, and your supposed to be able to watch it in its native language with subtitles or dubbed in English even as it comes out in Japan, but the problem is that the site is so slow you can’t really watch any of it. It is all stuttery, and the site is super slow to even search the site for shows to watch in the first place.

I love the idea of a good anime streaming service, but Funimation is not it. I hope they can figure it out, and maybe I will try it out again later after they have worked on their service a bit, but for now no one should use their service.

May 1, 2013

Sad To See Eureka Go

I finally started watching the last season of Eureka. I have been putting it off because I didn’t want it to end. For those of you that don’t know Eureka is about a town of super geniuses that are kept in check by an average Joe named Sheriff Jack Carter. It only lasted five season because the folks over at NBC decided that it was to expensive to keep going.

The show had so many great characters and quirky pseudosciencey stories it was like watching a tongue and cheek Sci-Fi pulp novel. If you want to watch some fun light hearted Sci-Fi, then Eureka more then fits the bill. I can only hope the Sy-Fy Channel finds a show worthy to replace it.

April 30, 2013

What Do I Want From Next Gen Consoles?

Microsoft is about to announce its next Xbox on May 21st, Sony already had their announcement, and Nintendo launched their new Wii U, but what do I want out of my next console? From the sound of things Sony and Microsoft seem to think what I want is to get my Social Network feeds streaming to my TV, and that I want to share everything I do with the world, but that sounds awful to me. I am not a huge fan of social media as it is, so to have it bombarding me while I play games sounds like the worst thing ever. So here is what I do want.

I want a platform that is easy to develop for, so that I can get all the latest indie games, and along with that I want an online store that is easy to find stuff in. I don’t want to have to hunt around for the title I want; I just want it to be there at my finger tips waiting for my money. Speaking of the store, I want to not only buy little indie games in it, but also be able to buy new AAA games there, and be able to preload them like with Steam on the computer.

For some the whole reason to upgrade is the graphics, and that is less of an issue for me because the graphics for the most part are pretty good these days, so what I want is for there to less loading screens, and clean up the jagged lines. If the new consoles can do those two things I will be happy.

I would also like more TV viewing options. The current consoles are already great streaming boxes, but I would love to have more choices, and for more TV companies to do what the CW did, and allow people to watch their shows as they come out without a subscription to cable. Nice work CW!

I am excited to see what the next generation of consoles will bring, but I am also scared that they will turn my living room in to a place where people are going to shout their social feeds at me. If I can get what I want above, and be able to turn off the social media I will be a happy camper.

April 29, 2013April 29, 2013

My Favorite Star Trek Movie: First Contact!

Star Trek: First Contact is the first movie in the franchise to only feature the Next Generation crew. It is also the first feature film directed by Jonathan Frakes more commonly known as Commander William T. Riker. How does the new crew do on their first solo voyage? Splendidly.

The movie starts off with Captain Picard dreaming about his time as a Borg which happened six years earlier. He is then woken up by an Admiral explaining the new Borg threat. He will not be assigned to deal with the threat because the Federation is worried his past will affect his actions. Things do not go well for the Federation, so Picard takes the ship to deal with Borg anyway, and when they stop the Borg Cube a Borg Ball ship shoots out from the Borg Cube and travels in to the past. The Enterprise must follow it to save our future.

It sounds like a confusing plot, but it is actually pretty easy to follow, and works quite well. The Borg are my favorite Star Trek enemy, so to have a movie where they are the bad guys is excellent, and it allows Picard to deal with his feelings about the Borg captivity from the show. Their leader the Borg Queen is played excellently by Alice Krige. She gives the Borg a little life and attitude. The rest of the cast all know their characters, and play them well.

The special effects and sets for the most part work very well. My only critique is that the human camp they have to help in the past looks like a good Sci-Fi TV set not an A-List movie set, but it is a minor flaw in an otherwise great movie, but it seems like something they could have worked on a little bit.

This was always my favorite Star Trek movie. It had the Next Generation cast, and it featured a good story with a lot of action and a great villain, and while she may not quote Shakespeare like other villains, she is still quite memorable. Star Trek: First Contact is on the sadly very short list of truly good Star Trek movies.