Movie Review - Grown Ups

A short warring before I begin. For about as long as I can remember Adam Sandler has been a personal hero of mine. To me he can't do anything wrong so my review of his latest movie my be a little skewed but I will try to be a little objective. The plot, in short, is about a group of five friends who reunite after the death of their much loved high school basketball coach. With their respective families and 'baggage' the friends return to the place they grew up for the funeral and use the event as an opportunity to catch up and reminisce about old times.

The cast line up is great and so promises a lot, probably too much. That's not to say the film is pants. It's not by any stretch of the imagination. Did it have me crying with laugher and wetting my seat? No, but I did have lots of fun watching it and there were plenty of laugh out loud moments. The humer is a little more subtle than I'm used to with Adam Sander movies but thats to the benefit of the story as it complemented the mood of the film. I really did feel like I was watching 5 best friends hanging out together taking every opportunity to take the piss out of each other. I found myself a little envious that they had such good friends to hang out with.

The story wasn't the most original tail but was a well thought out, amusing and has a happy ending. With each of the friends having their own individual tail to tell. We see that all the buddies have there issues at home but nothing that can't be sorted with there friends around them for advice and inspiration.

All in all a good, funny, lighthearted, sometime cheese (watch out for nanna), feel good movie. Defiantly worth a watch.

A strong 3/5

As always please leave a comment bellow I want to know what you though of the film.

Enjoy G

Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Every year there's a movie that comes from left field and make you fall completely in love with it, partly because you didn't see it coming and partly because it captures something that resonates with you. It wount be a big budget movie like Harry P or Avatar, you wont know much about it until it's close to release time and even then you don't quite see it's potential.

For me Scott Pilgrim vs the World is one of those movies. I was always looking forward to seeing the movie since I first heard about it a few months ago but I had no idea how much I would be into this movie. Then one night at 1am in the morning  a sleepy me got the chance to see it for the first time and I love it!

There's so much to say about I don't know where to start or how to articulate what it was I enjoyed so much but I'll give it my best shot...

There's plenty to say just on how the films sounds along. The sound track capture the look and feel of the movie perfectly serving only to enhance the experience, I can see fans scrambling to their itunes accounts to download it, I admit I will probably be one of them. The sound effect do the same too bring little gaming audio treats from all sorts of video games.

Visually is where the film truly got me. It just looked truly amazing, everything just looked right on the money. They did a perfect job of taking the video games world and bringing it into the real world. I really can't think of one way I could have improved it. Fight scenes were bad ass, I can tell you how good it was to finally see Michael Cera do something than play the socially inept drip. Not only did he do something different he did it brilliantly showing he isn't just a one trick poney.

The only little grip I had was that all this crazy stuff starts happening like evil ex's with super powers start showing up to pick a fight and no-one seem to be surprised by all this. then Scott starts kicking more ass than a showlin monk and no one I really shock. The point i'm trying to make is that there is no kind of backstory or explanation behind all the surreal stuff that happens in the film. Having said that you can easily get over that fact.

This movie goes on the must see list for 2010 without a doubt I have to give it 5/5! Go see it as soon as possible. 

Let me know what you think in the comments bellow

G

BTS Domino's Pizza

Sorry I know just one more from Fstoppers.com. The pizza maker is great!

Enjoy

G

BTS Funny shoot

v

In my bid to learn more about photography i've been following a few websites to gleen info. One of my favourites is called fstoppers.com which is an online resource for professional photographers. You'll find loads of info on the site such as photographer profiles and product reviews but also they have lots of behind the scenes video's (BTS) of photo shoots submitted not only by the founders of the site but its users to. There's a ton of video's to watch here covering just about any type of photography you could want so dip in and enjoy.

I don't want to make a habit of just posting video's that are put on Fstoppers.com here, that would just be pointless however I had to post this one for two reasons. 1) The video has some great basic info on lighting and 2) Klaus is hilarious, although I suspect he's not real and maybe not even a photographer.

If you're into photography and looking for inspiration or just want to see how other photographers do it I would suggest you take a look at Fstopper.com

G 

Video - FStoppers, full photoshoot on an Iphone 3GS

Check out this video on Fstoppers.com where photographer Lee Morris proves that you don't need a fantastic rig to get great photo's buy using an Iphone 3GS to do an entire fashion shoot. There was some retouching done after the shoot but the photo's look great and spurs me on as an Iphone photographer. Read the original article here and the how the images came out. My favourite are then two with the lights behind the model.

While your on Fstoppers.com take a look around there's some interesting video's to watch.

Happy Snapping 

G

A snapping I will go, but it's all about the composition baby!

Earlier this year I decided to take up photography. Let me be clear... Before I made this life changing decision I knew very little about taking pictures, all's I was concerned about was weather or not the photo was blurry. I'm still very much in the early stages of learning about photography but I thought I would share some of what I learn as I go, maybe you may find something useful for when you are taking your snaps and I will have some 'study notes'.  

Unfortunately i'm not exactly cash rich at present so I can't run out and buy myself a nice SLR camera and start shooting. However i'm not going to be letting that stop me. Fan's of my personal blog will have read that I recently got my hands on the Iphone 4 which, as part of its many excellent features, has a very nice 5mp camera. The added benefit of using a low end camera such as this or a 'point and shoot' (none SLR camera's or pocket cameras) is that I can focus on one of the most important elements of photography... Composition.  

Composition, the best way I can explain it, is how you line up and frame your shot. In photography there are many rules which can help guide you, but it is important always remember that these are NOT set in stone and when taking some photo's these rules will not apply. The 1st rule I learnt is arguably the most important and has had a dramatic impact on how good my photo's look. The rule is called the rule of thirds. Put simply it explains that as you are getting ready to take your photo and you are looking through the view finder or screen imagine it is split up into a grid of 9 squares. Then you use this to frame your shot. Rather than me attempt to explain this further and probably confuse you more I would suggest you google it, there are a crazy amount of articles on this and the rule of thirds is such a big topic you could talk for hours about it and when and when not to use it. By using the rule of thirds you photo's composition will look 10 times better without the need to run out and buy any expensive camera's or equipment, cool ay? I'm still very green in the world of photography but if there's one thing i've learnt it's that no matter how good your equipment is if you can't compose the shot your photo will look like you handed over your camera to a 5 year old to take the picture.

So there you have it, my 1st lesson in photography. As I go I'll share good sources of info that i've learnt from. To kick you off i'd like to direct you to where I started, it was a podcast on the pixelcorps.tv network called This week in photography. I started from the very 1st episode, each focuses on a different topic, I leant a lot from listening these and i'm only through about 20 shows.

As i'm mainly using an iphone to take photo's i'll also be using a number of iphone apps to aid my photography so keep an eye out on this blog for my reviews on thoughts and I'd love to hear if you are finding any of this usefully or if you have any hits or tips please comment bellow...

Happy Snapping

G

Movie Review - Killers

I was late to see Killers and I very nearly didn't see it at all, inicial reports I was receiving weren't good but I'm a strong Ashton Kutcher fan and I love Katherine Heigl too so I decided to put my trust in them.

I'm soooooo glad I ignored the critics and went to see Killers for myself. What a brilliant onscreen matchup, the hilarious and slightly daft acting style of these two compliment each other greatly and the result is a very fun movie to watch. Both these very established actors play their parts fantastically with the perfect level of whit, charm and humility we've come to expect and as sure as night follows day laugh out loud moments are certain. I have to say I really enjoyed seeing Ashton play the part of a government agent with a licence to kill, he really did kick some ass I wonder if we are to see him in more action movies to come? The Heigl's character was a hilarious to watch especially seeing how she reacts to the news that her Husband, to whom she has been married to for 3 years, used to kill people for a living. Of course in true Heigl style gun fire, car chases and dead bodies doesn't put a dampener on her appetite as 80% of the movie has her eating something, now thats my kinda girl! Together I could really believe they were a married couple who were completely in love with each other, they really sold their relationship the the audience and as a result they provided some heart warming moments.

Killers is defiantly not going to win any critics choice awards but i'm not claiming to be a critic. I like what I like and on the whole I like fun, enjoyable, feel good movies that I can enjoy with my girlfriend I don't need elaborate plots which twist and turn and immaculate continuity. This is defiantly a fun movie to see. Go see this and I guarantee you will leave the cinema feeling good.

Grab the other half, head to the cinema ask the girl behind the counter for 2 tickets to she Killers and have a good time. Don't forget to tell them I sent you...

Graham

BTW: I'd love to hear what you thought of the movie so please leave a comment bellow.

Trailer - Green Hornet

This looks like a lot of fun though for me it still remains to be seen if Seth Rogen can pull this off. Judging by this trailer i'm going to be a happy chappy.

MMORPG - Star Wars: The Old Republic (Cinematic Trailer)

I've been thinking about getting into MMORPG gaming for a while now but World of Warcraft really doen't do it for me. However for the past year i've been hearing whispers of the Star Wars univers coming to this game genre and it's grabbed my attention big time. The game is called Star Wars: The Old Republic, the above video is a teaser trailer for the game and I should point out it is not in game graphics. However f*cking awesome does it look even if I don't play the game I could watch these video's all day! When SWTOR come out I'll will defiantly be thinking about getting involved in this one (if it's Mac compatible).

I don't know when the game is released, I believe that there is no official date yet but best guess is early next year. You can find out more info on the game and see more video's like this one at http://www.swtor.com

Trailer - Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Official Trailer

Theatrical Trailer

How bad ass does this film look? Very much looking forward to it