Star Trek (2009) – I was really looking forward to the Star Trek reboot given the raving reviews stateside and I must say I wasn’t disappointed. J.J. Abrams imbues this 2009 version with great energy less all the cheesy dialogue that made the previous movies quite cringe-inducing at times. Without any A-list stars in the leading roles works in the film’s favor and in fact the relatively unknown cast delivers solid performance – we can see how they grow into the characters. The movie never really slows down as crisis after crisis hits the crew of the Enterprise and I must say the space fleet battles are the best yet in any of the Star Trek series. My pick for the best blockbuster for the summer so far! Highly recommended.

Terminator Salvation – many film buffs probably squirmed at the idea that McG was going to direct this 4th installment of the Terminator franchise but the casting of Christian Bale in the leading role as John Connor gave some hope. Terminator Salvation isn’t as hopelessly boring as Terminator 3, but fails to generate the excitement of T2 or the original. We’ve seen robots bashing each other around in the Transformers two summers ago, there aren’t any new jaw dropping special effects … and the plot fails to deliver any surprises either. The film remains a passable popcorn movie but won’t be crowned top dog among this summer’s blockbusters.

Duplicity – Hollywood has run out of ideas (and new stars) for successful romantic comedies so they created a new genre – the romantic thriller. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star as ex-CIA and ex MI6 operatives who have fallen in love, and given up their secret service jobs in order to make a quick buck in the world of corporate espionage. Alternating between romance and thriller, Duplicity should provide enough serpentine plot twists and romantic interludes to keep both guys and chicks happy. Recommended.

Night And Fog 天水圍的夜與霧 – I found Night And Fog a disappointment as part 2 of acclaimed Hong Kong director Ann Hui’s probe into life in the working class Tin Shui Wai 天水圍. Her earlier film followed the mundane life of a blue collar mother working to support her son – that movie never succumbed to melodrama and delivered a slice of life about making a living in one of Hong Kong more troubled neighborhoods with honesty and a lot of heart.

Night And Fog, however, although based on a real life tragedy, quickly falls into genre movie territory with Hui adding an overt layer of social commentary on top of the proceedings. The film focuses on an unemployed construction worker played by Simon Yam – his distrust of his significantly younger Szechuan wife ultimately leads to the tragic slaughtering of his wife and two children. Although Yam has really blossomed into a subtle actor in many of Johnnie To’s movies, here he is reverting back to the “madman pervert” role he played so often in exploitation movies back in the 1990s.

Willie Dixon’s 1988 Hidden Charms was one of the first non-compilation blues CDs I bought and I have a great fondness for the album. Although a prominent bassist and producer at Chess Records, Dixon is more remembered as the composer of many blues classics like I Can’t Quit You Baby, Little Red Rooster, Hoochie Coochie Man, I Just Want To Make Love To You and many more tunes covered by late 1960s bands from Led Zeppelin to the Rolling Stones (check out Wikipedia’s article on Willie Dixon).

Generally not considered an essential or great blues album by diehard blues fans, the music on Hidden Charms is nonetheless very listenable and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Recording in 1988. The songs on the album aren’t of the more popular blues rock variety but all the tracks offer a groovy sound. Featuring an all star band of Chess session musicians Dixon had worked with from the 1950s and 1960s mixed with some newer talents like Sugar Blue (on harp), the performances on the songs are understated but very tasteful. In particular, one can hear great rapport between guitarist Cash McCall, pianist Lafeyette Leake and Sugar Blue on I Cry For You (the highlight of the CD for me) and I Do The Job.  Jazz bassist Red Callender provides classy bass lines that provides tracks like Don’t Mess With The Messer and I Don’t Trust Myself with an old school swinging big band sound.

It is also worth mentioning that the sound quality on the Hidden Charms CD is excellent. Highly recommended.

Sandra’s In The Heat Of The Night was a big hit in the 1980s – the Cantonese version of the song 將冰山劈開 was sung by Anita Mui and was extremely popular in Hong Kong. Recently I came across a cover of the song by a Finnish gothic metal band called To Die For. Enjoy.

I have been fiddling around with 2D barcodes for a little over a year and recently came across Microsoft’s offering known as Microsoft Tag (Beta).

Microsoft Tag is a high capacity color barcode that uses triangles instead of the more common squares used in other 2D barcodes including QR codes. Not unlike other 2D barcode solutions, the tag is essentially a web link; the reader decodes the Microsoft Tag, sends the URL to a resolution server that returns a URL containing the content, which triggers the mobile phone’s browser to load the page. Microsoft Tag seems to be proprietary technology.

Common issues facing 2D barcode solutions provider are :
- size of the code itself
- decode accuracy and speed
- speed of resolution server in returning content URL
- system compatibility of client software on a wide range of mobile handset models

I started by downloading the client reader onto my iPhone and had no problems. I then proceeded to creating a code for testing, which again was problem-free (see issues about this below). I launched the app on my iPhone and the reader automatically detected and decoded the 2D barcode without having to perform the normal i) frame, ii) take snapshot of code, iii) decode, and iv) resolve process. This is not unlike i-Nigma’s client reader on the Symbian S60 platform. The decoding and resolution were both speedy. The reader was not fussy about framing, lighting or size of code within the reader’s window. I was impressed with the overall performance.

Generating the code from Microsoft’s website was simple and quick but the output options are limited and odd I would think. The website offers exporting the code as either pdf, wmf, or xps format with sizes ranging from 0.75 to 120 inches. I would have preferred saving the code as either jpg or png – this is much simpler and more direct for majority of users.

My preliminary experience with Microsoft Tag was promising. Microsoft’s website offers users to the ability to create tags quite easily, and provides graphic reports on how many times the code (i.e. Microsoft Tag) has been clicked on / decoded.

According to Microsoft’s website, the client reader supports a wide range of devices including iPhone, Symbian S60 3rd edition platforms, phones supporting J2ME, Windows Mobile 5 and 6 as well as a few Blackberry handsets. I suspect the user experience on J2ME phones will be different.

Currently, Microsoft Tag’s reader can only decode and process Microsoft Tags. If Microsoft expands its website service and reader to include creating and decoding for other public domain codes like QR and Data Matrix, it could become the de facto service for 2D barcodes.

The eagerly awaited Watchmen finally hit the screens in Hong Kong on 12 March in 2 versions – an edited cut for normal screening and a category III cut for IMAX at MegaBox. I actually did not realize that 2 different cuts were being shown as the publicity material never highlighted this and ended up seeing the shorter version at Pacific Place on Saturday morning.

Watchmen is adapted from a graphic novel largely considered to be seminal and one of the best graphic novels ever written. Created by the highly regarded UK writer Alan Moore, the graphic novel is bleak, plot-driven, and plays down standard action based heroics. Moore became disillusioned with Hollywood adaptations of his works after the disappointments of the atrocious League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V For Vendetta and disowned this project. Zack Synder’s film, however, remains close the spirit of the graphic novel and is the best cinematic version of Moore’s work to date.

Set in 1985, the film starts with imminent nuclear war between the US and USSR. Watchmen features an alternate history where Nixon won the Vietnam War with the help of superheroes and even changed the legislation to allow for his running for the presidency after his second term. After winning the Vietnam War, masked heroes are forced to retire. With the doomsday clock countdown looming in the background, former masked heroes are being assassinated and a plot to change the course of human history takes place.

As can be expected from a blockbuster movie these days, the special effects are excellent and the largely un-famous cast all seem perfectly cast for their respective roles. The use of these lesser known actors works well and we focus on the characters’ development – a crucial aspect of all of Moore’s works. An A-list star might have easily ruined the project. There really aren’t too many action set-pieces but the fist fights are brutal and violent. The soundtrack works less well in my opinion: the use for overly familiar music comes across like clichés. A few of the songs are heavily associated with other iconic films – their use here seem like afterthoughts and diminishes the impact in my eyes. I can understand the use of 80s pop music in the film, but blasting Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along The Watchtower, a classic 60s rocker in the climatic scene, felt out of place.

I mentioned earlier that I saw an edited version of the film – the one I saw had approximately 4 minutes shaved off. It was extremely evident that the major scene that was cut was the steamy sex scene between the Night Owl and the Silk Spectre. The full frontal shots of Dr Manhattan were not cut and while his genitals were clearly visible I would say they weren’t prominently displayed. Still, I was extremely annoyed by the fact that I did not see the full cut for the movie. What’s worse is that the cuts were done haphazardly, and it was impossible to NOT notice the jumps visually and in the soundtrack. Shame of the Hong Kong distributors!

Overall, I would say that Synder’s Watchmen is an excellent addition to the recent crop of comic book adaptations. I personally prefer his previous movie, the rowdy adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300. Many people consider Watchmen un-filmable and the project did go through alot of legal wrangling; the finished product, fortunately, is a respectable film, which while not be as polished and mainstream as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, deserves to be seen.

Recommended!

For those interested – the song featured on the Watchmen trailer is actually an alternate version of The Smashing Pumpkin’s The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning. The original version of the song features a faster tempo, rocks harder, and was used in Joel Schumacher’s film Batman and Robin. The alternate cut of the song slows down the tempo to create a much moodier and depressive atmosphere.

Both versions of the song can be found on the soundtrack of Batman and Robin, but NOT on the Watchmen soundtrack CD.

After years of deliberation, I finally bought Boy Child, the compilation CD of Scott Walker’s late 60s music. Even on the first spin of the disc, I immediately came to love the music – I can even say this is the most interesting AND listenable CD I have bought in a very long time.

Scott Walker has a great reputation as a singer-songwriter musicians’ listen to and cite as influences. Often this means the music is not very accessible. But Scott Walker’s early albums covered in Boy Child is an odd mixture of 60s pop that sounds like pop yet is more. Walker’s baritone vocals remind me on Tom Jones, and so does the orchestration of strings that create the unique atmosphere of much of his music. Yet, the music is not quite as timid or chart friendly as this makes it seem.

As this is my first Scott Walker CD, it seems I will definitely be acquiring more of his catalogue – probably Scott 4, Tilt and The Drift.

Verdict : highly recommended!

Ever since I started using Twitter, I have wondered what the best Twitter app on iPhone is. Turns out Gizmodo covered this in a great article in late Jan 2009. The article reviews both free and paid apps for iPhone. It seems I am already using the best free Twitter app already as I am using TwitterFon . . .

Click on the link below for the full story.

iPhone Twitter App Battlemodo: Best and Worst Twitter Apps for iPhone.

I’m always immensely curious what hardware and software other people use on a daily basis. Today I happened upon an interview on Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani covering her gear and ideal set-up at Waferbaby.

Interesting! Gina Trapani on waferbaby.

Lately I have begun using Twitter.

Micro-blogging, and Twitter in particular, is already immensely popular in the west, but still in its infant stage in Hong Kong. Personally, I find it requires quite a bit of work to get started – it demands more active participation than say Facebook.

I was also alerted that the basic web interface of Twitter’s own page does not begin to reveal the ways it can be used to share information. As a result, I have installed Twitterfox as an add-on in Firefox, TweetDeck as an app on the desktop, and TwitterFon onto my iPhone.

I have to say I am still experimenting with Twitter and my experience is still rather mixed. As times, the blurbs that I upload seem totally random and meaningless to anyone but me; I don’t see the reason why anyone would want to read my tweets at all!

Lately, Gmail has been rolling out quite a few exceptional new features – of these, I find the improved contact management and multiple inbox particularly useful.

Gmail’s contact management used to be pretty basic and of the new enhancements, the merging of contacts should prove to be a welcome addition. Now I can easily clean up my contact list – and then eventually sync them to my iPhone.

Gmail’s multiple inbox is simply a godsend. I used to have to search again and again for archived emails and attachments despite having a decent labeling system. Now, with multiple inboxes, I can see my inbox together with key projects I am currently working on all on one screen! Absolutely brilliant. Multiple inbox can be enabled in the Gmail labs tab, and further customized within the regular settings tab.

For the longest time, the only Creedence Clearwater Revival album I had was their greatest hits album Chronicle, Vol. 1 – this excellent disc contained their hit singles and the songs are mostly tight and staples of classic rock radio.

I was aware of John Fogerty’s reputation as an outstanding guitarist, but there are only glimpses of his fretwork on Chronicle, Vol. 1. So a few weeks ago, I went out and bought the band’s first 2 albums.

CCR’s self-titled debut album finds the band still performing cover songs – the band already sounds tight but lacks the confidence that emerges on their second album, Bayou Country. CCR finds it definite sound on Bayou Country and the mixture of hit singles with more adventurous extended jams makes it one very enjoyable album. On these 2 albums, Fogerty’s guitar work is looser and more creative than on the later albums, where he focuses on creating more simple but catchy songs at the expense of musical experimentation.

I heartily recommend Bayou Country as an top notch late 60’s classic rock album!

Chinese Democracy was never going to live up to the all the media hype – but one can hear Axl Rose trying hard to do something different, branch out and incorporate newer elements into this album. So the irony is that most of the tracks sound very much like the bombastic epics on the Use Your Illusion albums. I’m not convinced the fret-shredding guitar work compliment the songs, and to be honest, on the ballads, Buckethead even sounds like Slash (I’m referring to the guitar tone).

Oddly, while I really would not call this album superior to any of Guns N Roses’ previous releases, I find myself listening to it quite often. I wouldn’t call Chinese Democracy great, but it isn’t bad either. While nowhere near the greatness of Appetite for Destruction, it nevertheless presents itself as a solid rock album.

A solid but not exceptional hard rock album Probably too many ballads. Still, recommended for fans of Axl Rose.

Korean blockbuster The Chaser hit the screens in Hong Kong recently but seems to have failed to garner interest on the level of Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy. A big winner at the 45th Daejong Awards, The Chaser took home the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor awards earlier this year. It also made a decent impact when screened at Cannes this year, and a Hollywood remake is already in progress.

The Chaser’s premise is quite straight-forward : a call girl is missing and her pimp is out looking for her. The pimp used to be a cop and he finds and catches the psychotic man who has killed a couple of his girls. This happens pretty much in the first third of the film; the remaining time is spent trying to find where the criminal has locked up the call girl as she may still be alive. On one hand, our protagonist pimp is trying to save the call girl, and on the other hand, the policemen struggle to find enough solid evidence to put the serial killer behind bars for good.

The Chaser’s so-called originality is in its focus on finding the victim and not on catching the killer and explaining his psychology (though there are one or two brief scenes about this). The film is director Na Hong-jin’s debut and it lacks the strong visual pizzazz. of his compatriot Park Chan-wook’s works. The only scene that stuck in my mind was the brutal fate of the call girl.

Reception of the film in the west has been mixed so far. Some critics don’t see what the fuss is all about while others praise the film as a refreshing take of a tired genre. Personally, I found the 120+ minute film enjoyable and it is a solid film if stylistically unsophisticated (which I think works in its favour).

Recommended for fans of serial killers and Korean blockbusters.

Recently, I patched up an abandoned PC sitting in the back of my room and ventured into my first experience of a Linux distro.

Half a year ago, one late night, while surfing the web, my PC beeped, the screen went blank and the computer failed to reboot. After much trouble-shooting, I discovered that the SATA controller on the motherboard was fried. I ended up building a new PC around a more modern dual core CPU, and my old AMD single core system was left abandoned.

Fixing The Hardware
2 weeks ago, a friend of mine threw out an old PC. I promptly took that machine apart and salvaged the PATA hard disk. My guess was that the motherboard in my old PC was still functioning fine apart from the SATA controller, and I could probably get it to work with a older PATA drive connected to one of the IDE controllers. This turned out to be case and I now have a spare PC to play around with – so I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron onto this system.

Before installation, my prime worries were whether Ubuntu would recognize all the hardware – which included an AMD 64 3200+ CPU, an ATI X700 series video card, and an Asus A8N-E motherboard – and difficulties in configuring the installation.

Installing Ubuntu 8.04
I am glad to report that my first experience of Ubuntu was a very pleasant one. Installation went without a hitch. Loading the OS via an installation DVD, I was taken through a simple 7 step guided process – all of the onscreen instructions were clear and easy to understand. The installation took about 15 minutes.

Upon completion of installation and a quick re-boot, I entered the Ubuntu desktop. Everything was working smoothly: keyboard and mouse were working, monitor was displaying in correct screen resolution, and broadband connectivity was present. As far as I can tell, all the hardware was working properly.

I was then prompted for 2 items : enabling drivers for the ATI video card (when I agreed, Ubuntu downloaded and installed without any problems) and system updates. A total of over 350 updates totalling 360+ MB were identified and this took roughly 40 minutes to download and install.

Next I launched Firefox 3.0.3 and was checking my mail in no time.

Overall, I am impressed with Ubuntu 8.04 and had decided to delved more into the OS.

My first Ubuntu Desktop : with Cairo Dock and Rainlendar