DREDD 3-D, R ( 1 hr & 36 min )

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where:  UA EMERY BAY STADIUM 10 in Emeryville, CA
when:  Friday, September 21st, 2012
show:  9:40 p.m.
costs:  $14.50 Ticket + $5.75 Zap Pack ( w/ Diet Coke, no ice ) + $5.00 Carquinez Bridge Toll = $25.25
auditorium:  3
seat:  5th row, 11th column

synopsis/overview:  Judge Dredd ( Karl Urban ) and a rookie sidekick judge, Cassandra ( Olivia Thirlby ), are sent to investigate a triple homicide at the Peach Trees Housing Project, a 200-story ghetto tower run by Ma-Ma  ( Lena Headey ), an ex-prostitute drug lord, who puts the place on immediate lock-down and issues an order to have both judges killed after they take one of her lieutenants into custody.

noteworthy scenes:  1.) Mega City One; 2.) Road chase; 3.) "Hot Shot"; 4.) "The food court will be reopened in 30 minutes"; 5.) "She's a mutant"; 6.) Triple homicide; 7.) Ma-Ma Clan; 8.) "I think a bullet  would interfere with it more"; 9.) "Sir, it's him"; 10.) Control room; 11.) "He just changed his mind"; 12.) Blast shield; 13.) The message; 14.) Gas; 15.) "The sentence is death"; 16.) "There are no sides. You're already dead"; 17.) Woman's apartment; 18.) Sealed; 19.) "What are you thinking about now, huh"; 20.) Machine guns; 21.) Skateboard ramp; 22.) "'Coms are back on"; 23.) Mind read; 24.) "You're the psychic"; 25.) Stand-off; 26.) Captured; 27.) Patched terminal; 28.) "Judgment time"; 29.) Incendiary; 30.) "Call 9-1-1"; 30.) "You're prepared to testify to that"; 31.) "One million credits"; 32.) "Choke on that"; 33.) "That's funny. I was gonna ask you that"; 34.) Slo-Mo lab; 35.) "Lower your gun, rookie. I'm your back-up"; 36.) "Wait"; 37.) "I'm still entitled to dispense justice"; 38.) Rigged with explosives; 39.) "Defense noted"; and 40.) "Your assessment is now over."

favorite scenes: I liked the Hot Shot scene.

I liked the Mind Game scene.

audience reaction:  The audience really enjoyed this. But I didn't hear any "Hands Clapper" during the ending credits, what with the background music dinning in my ears!

recommendation:  I liked this movie, too. If you are an Action Movie fan, and you don't mind seeing blood splashed all over in slow motion, go see this movie.

spoiler alert!  In the car chase, no car go hit by bullets even though the bad guy was indiscriminately spraying bullets everywhere. Being that the blast shield was heavy, there should not have been that much blood flowing underneath it because its weight would have created a near-perfect seal at the bottom. The machine gun rounds didn't ricochet at all. The machine gun rounds should have produced bigger wounds on their victims. When Dredd threw a bad guy over the railing, none of the other bad guys took the time to shoot at him. With the blast shield in place, the fire would have produced a lot of smoke which would have triggered some smoke alarms--you would think! And what about the fire sprinklers? Why did he not kill those punk kids who used live rounds on him and his partner? A bad guy who was burned by an incendiary round in an earlier scene was still standing around, and in flames, during the slow-motion scene near the end of the movie! Why didn't anybody in the Makeup Department pop the zit on the left side of Olivia Thirlby's upper lip--it was too distracting for me to have to see it on the Big Screen!

fyi:  In Greek Mythology, Cassandra was a very beautiful divinely-gifted prophetess whose words eventually fell on deaf ears because her people didn't/couldn't believe anymore of what she said after she rejected the love of a god.

I remember once in my CLEP ( College Level English Preparatory ) Class during my senior year of high school how one of my female classmates told the whole class the origin and meaning of the name, Cassandra. And I quipped, I don't believe you! The teacher asked, "Why?" Nobody got the joke. Sigh ....

word of advice:  What goes around comes around.

tidbits:  After I clocked-out at work today in Benicia, CA, I drove all the way to my friend Hector's place in Oakland, CA, because his son, Isma, called me in the middle of the night last night to let me know that he found his old Netgear wireless router for me to use on my laptop to see if I can get on the Internet that way. I hope that it will work. Otherwise, I will have to switch ISPs--and be ( temporarily ) back on Dial-Up again ( Oh, Lord .... ).

While I was at Hector's place, I accessed his son's Wi-Fi to do some work on my laptop computer. All the while their new kitten, Sylvester, would occasionally pounce on my thumbs as he wedged himself between my legs. It was a funny sight to behold, a plump and hairy little pussy clinging to my crotch on the edge of the couch! Ha, ha, ha. Lucky for him, he didn't scratch my balls or else ....

On my way to the theatre, as I waited for the green light at the Fruitvale 580 on-ramp, some idiot made a left turn on Montana Street, a one-way street. I thought it looked odd, then I realized that he did go the wrong way on that one-way street. Either he was drunk or he was just an idiot! And we could do with fewer of either kind loose on the streets.

After the ending credits, the screen showed a green start button at the lower left corner, making a man in the audience ask, "Was that a Windows XP?" ( Yeah, I wondered why some scenes looked grainy even though the movie was in 3-D. Could it be that we watched a bootlegged copy that was first uploaded to movie2k.to? LOL )

As we all filed out of the auditorium, I overheard a lady behind me say that she "... liked the one-liners."

When I got home, I tried the Netgear wireless router. It didn't work. So, I closed my Internet service because I didn't want to take a chance with my password and other personal information.

I will have to find a different Internet Service Provider, for security and privacy concerns.

*

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION in 3-D, ( 1 hr & 35 min )

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Quickie Review:  Alice ( Mila Jovovich ) awakens deep in Umbrella Corporation's secret headquarters and testing grounds. And as she tries and makes her way out with the aid of some friends, she uncovers certain things about her past.

I went to see this here in Vallejo, CA, after work, at the Century 14 Vallejo, on Monday, September 17th, 2012, for the 10:15 p.m. show in auditorium 14, 5th row, 7th column. 

There were about a dozen people in the auditorium with me for this particular late night show. But I don't think they liked the movie that much.

I didn't liked this movie that much, too. For the most part, it seemed like a "rehash" of bits and pieces from the other four installments in the RESIDENT EVIL franchise. You might want to wait for this to come out on DVD. It's not even worth the I-Max 3-D ticket price.

Here are some things that I found wrong/amusing in this movie:  What was up with those two "hand towels" strategically-strapped ( with clear tape, of all things ) around Alice's mid-section? After all, she was naked in some previous installments. And it was not as if the people who ran Umbrella Corp. hadn't seen her--or her clones--butt-naked before! Those zombie Russian soldiers couldn't hit their targets who were standing in front of them. And, with all of those bullets flying around, why were there no ricochets? The man with a deep slash wound on his left cheek shouldn't have been able to talk in a normal way. The ending scene which showed the White House under attack gave me the impression that it was a massive horde of disgruntled 2012 voters who voted the wrong man into office and wanted him impeached. Ha, ha, ha.

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A co-worker told me to get a trial copy of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Software to scan my computer with. So, I did. And Malwarebytes uncovered five ( 5 ) malwares hidden in my computer on a two-hour "quick scan" and two ( 2 ) more malwares on a five-hour "full scan".  I don't know how and why my McAfee Internet Security missed detecting these!!! And one of them was the Trojan, Reveton Ransomware, that infected my computer last month. I deleted all of them, of course.

But it was already too late as I still cannot access the Internet on my DSL. I have to use Wi-Fi if I want to go on-line. And I don't know when my ISP will be able to fix the problem. In the meantime, I'm considering either getting a wireless router or switching to another ISP altogether--or just buying another laptop. We shall see ....

*

BARFI, NR ( 2 hr & 30 min )

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Quickie Review:  This is a tale of a happy-go-lucky deaf-mute, Barfi ( Ranbir Kapoor ), whose life takes on an added dimension when he is infatuated by two girls who are polar opposites of each other. But which girl is the right one for him?

I went to see this on Saturday, September 15th, 2012, in Emeryville, CA, at the UA Emery Bay Stadium 10, for the 9:40 p.m. show in auditorium 8, 5th row, 10th column.

The audience really enjoyed this movie. And some people in the audience gave it a "Hands Clapper" ending.

I liked this movie, too. Go see this quirky Rom-Com with someone you love for it makes for a good "date movie".

I don't know how it will be played in your local area theatre, but this theatre didn't show this movie with an intermission at all. ( It was the same for the last Hindi movie that I saw here, too, the movie, JOKER. ) I was squirming in my seat, with a full bladder, because of it!

If you've noticed, the grass, hedges and trees are all gone.

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Here's a closer telephoto shot. 'Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. I truly suck at taking night-time photos!

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I'm sorry for the "quickie review" format. I am currently without Internet access. The Reveton Ransomware that infected my computer last month ( see my HIT & RUN blog ) wasn't completely removed by my friend: It stayed hidden, waiting to disrupt my Internet connection. I have been without direct Internet access for over a week because of it. I'm still trying to fix the damage done--my ISP Tech Support is not much of a help, either. In the meantime, I am blogging via free Wi-Fi at local area MacDonald's Restaurants.

And I may have to try Starbucks' free Wi-Fi someday, too, because I'm getting tired of eating burger and fries every time I use Wi-Fi!

*

JOKER, NR ( 1 hr & 42 min )

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Quickie Review:  When the map of India and Pakistan was being drawn during the partition in 1947, the small border village of Paglapur was omitted when its asylum inmates broke loose and drove the townspeople away. The inmates established their own independent "republic" which remained largely unknown to the rest of the world for the last 60+ years, without electricity and other such conveniences taken for granted by everyone else in the modern world.

Agastya ( Akshay Kumar ), a scientist of Indian origin, working on an extra-terrestrial communication device, goes back to Paglapur with his wife, Diva ( Sonakshi Sinha ), when he receives word that his father is dying. Agastya soon finds out that his father isn't dying, that it was just a ruse to get him back to help the villagers get help from the outside world.

But no one wants to help out the isolated villagers until Agastya devices a "UFO-themed" plan to put Paglapur on the World Map once and for all.

I went to see this yesterday, Monday, September 3rd, 2012, at the UA Emery Bay Stadium 10 in Emeryville, CA, for the 9:50 p.m. show in auditorium 4, 6th row, 12th column.

The "Joker" in this movie refers to the isolated asylum village, in a similar way that a non-colored Joker in a deck of cards doesn't belong to any color. In other words, the village is not claimed by any neighboring color, i.e. flag/country.

In the audience of less than a dozen people, some people seemed to enjoy this movie.

I didn't like it that much. It was silly and preposterous. You might want to wait for this to come out as a DVD rental.

Here are some things that didn't make sense in this movie: How could people in that asylum village learn to do a well-choreographed Song-and-Dance number? Why was it that only one person could tell that the aliens were a fake? How come those soldiers and agents couldn't hit their targets at all? And the real alien in this movie was shown butt-naked! ( Why, oh why, oh why, oh why ...? Sigh .... )

You might be interested in watching this documentary on YouTube, instead: Crop Circles: Mysteries of the Fields.

Here are three very intricate crop circle formations that I found on the Internet:

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If any hoaxers out there can make any one of the above-shown designs in the course of just four hours in the middle of the night, then I'll believe that Crop Circles/Formations are ALL FAKE, i.e. not alien but of human origin.

"Bolly, bolly wood. Good, good!" ( gibberish )

*

LAWLESS ( 2012 ), R ( 1 hr & 55 min )

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Quickie Review:  In the 1930s, during the Prohibition Era, three brothers, the Bondurants, of Franklin County, VA, run a successful bootlegging operation on the side. But all that is about to change as an abusive Chicago lawman comes to town to shut down the illegal moonshine business. Based on a True Story.

I went to see this movie today, Sunday, September 2nd, 2012, at the Century 14 Vallejo here in Vallejo, CA, for the 10:05 p.m. show in auditorium 11, 4th row, 9th column.

The audience really liked this movie. But it didn't get a "Hands Clapper" ending.

I liked this movie, too. I couldn't help but root for the bootlegger brothers. Go see this movie.

P.S. I forgot to bring my notepad with me when I went to see this movie, which is the reason why it's in "quickie" form!

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