I admit I am shallow. I bought this movie because of the cover. I just finished it.

There is less blood in this than you would think. Much as the cover hints at, there are some Lolita moments to this film. Not many mind you. I don’t think I have ever seen a Korean horror film, but it is much in the same vein as many currently popular Asian horror films. The thing is this does it right most of the time.

The movie throws you into a very strange situation which sets you up for the rest of it. It starts in a mental institution; the patient is being asked if she knows who she is. This is our protagonist.

Through a series of scare moments, where you never quite know what is happening, you can start to piece together bits and pieces of the confusing back story in this film.

Most plot points are predictable, or unimportant to the point they did not need to be explained in the detail they are. You eventually get so many different confusing things revealed that it takes a good portion of the end of the film to tie up all the plot holes. Either the writer or director was not sure how to do this, so he laid everything out for you to see. The film “ends” about 4 times before it does end, and each time you don’t really think there is much more to add to the now fully explained plot.

I was creeped out. At many times I was unsettled. This film does something right where any other movie borrowing this heavily from other films would have put me to sleep or back into the IRC channel. I think it has something to do with the set designer and the cinematographer.

The color pallet used on this film is flamboyant at times. The blood is too red, the carpet too green, the walls too white. Well I guess saying too, is too much. It was just right, enough to set the mood perfectly. The settings, wonderful; the sets, gorgeous; the camera angles, mostly perfect. This movie makes more of an art show of the Asian horror film genre than any other I have seen, and the mysteries behind the confusion are well hidden until the director wants to let you in.

It worked, well. If the cover strikes your fancy check it out. Let me know what you think.

So I just got back from dropping Sara off at the airport. I am running on about 4 cups of coffee and 2.5 hours of sleep.

Last night was hell. After Sara’s brother realized that her suitcase was over the maximum weight allowance it took about an hour to repack her. He realized this about the time that we were heading to bed to wake up at 4:30 in the morning. Fun.

So we head to bed about 11:15. not too bad, about 5 hours of sleep.

I could not sleep. It was horrid. I would just lie there, staring. Usually at the walls. I was dead tired when I laid down, then my wife said the thing that would keep me up: “I will miss you.” That put the nail in the coffin. The feeling of sleeplessness you get the night before Christmas, going over in your head all the things that asked for and all the things you might get, that was last night. See I have a problem going to sleep anyways, this just made things worse. The last time I looked at the clock it said 1:30…

Last night was the anti-Christmas.

So she is in Illinois until the evening of July 5th. I have the magazine (which I have neglected for the last 3 days, and for good reason), a few movies, and a backlog of video games to keep me busy until then. Still, I can’t help but be a bit sad.

So after Ep. III not being terrible it made me remember how much love I have for the original trilogy. So I am really debating on playing KotoR for the Xbox. Hell, I will play it probably. Is there any reason to play 1 and not skip straigt to 2? Aside from price that is.

Hey if you are borrowing my God of War, please get it back to me. I want to trade it in.

Expect to hear very little from me here until mid-June. I will still be reading and responding to other entries, but I have a ton of work to do both job related and magazine related. I also have Sara leaving for over a month on the first, and this week my brother-in-law and his wife will be in town. Fear not faithful readers, I will return.

Well I am off to see Episode 3. In other things related to 3, I found more E3 images of the iBoy.

I am back to the whole “I won’t buy this system.” Well I mean, an NES faceplate and a nice bling-bling chain with it around my neck might be… intersting, but these new (well not too new) images have made me decide I would never* want to play this system.

I had purchased The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou on release day. By getting it at Suncoast I managed to get the official Steve Zissou red cap. It is silly, and I might wear it when I go back up north (as there is no reason for it here in New Orleans). Nonetheless I saw it in theatres and now have watched it twice. I really enjoyed it both times and recommend it if you like deadpan humor. I am still amazed at the characters Bill Murray has been doing lately. Very excellent stuff.

EDIT: New icon too

Lets do this.

PS3/360 look boring. MGS4, has Kojima back and will continue where MGS2 left of, pretty much promisies that I will one day* get a PS3. Hopefully some substance can hold me up. The USofA will be getting a game from Konami that may or may not be beatmania IIDX and has me confused. Ninty is going after the Apple** crowd with what I deem the iBoy. It will come in hidden colors. A NES style faceplate will put one in my pocket.

PS3, Revolution, or 360?

*Shortly after MGS4’s release
**OMG!?! Technology has to look sexhay.

If you do not know PS3 and Xbox specs and screen shots are up. It just does not really excite me. The PS3 has the Spiderman font for the logo of the system and the controller looks like shit. The 360 I have actually used in a sentence twice. It sounds really silly/stupid to say “The Xbox 360″. Those will be my biased arguments on these two systems as all their specs are other wise either similar or excessive*.

So I was talking with my wife in the car this morning after hearing another videogame report for the Xbox 360. I will wait until after the first price drop for the PS3 and 360. The only system that has a hope of interesting me into a pre-order or early adaptation is Nintendo (who I have not been interested in since the GBA was announced) so my expectations are low. Good luck Nintendo.

*PS3 I expect to drop at least a few features that interest me when the release comes up much like the PSX did.

EDIT: Well I guess that Nintendo… is a pretty standard release as well. At least it is small. At lease emulation and back catalogs will be standard.

So I hear this: Bill Gates has announced that Halo 3 will launch on the release date of the PS3. So Bill pulled out his gun, who did he shoot, and how many bullets did he use?

His targets:

- The developers of Halo 3
- Sony

Sony is the obvious one, but did Bungie catch a bullet in the frey? Are they put under a crunch that will spell doom for the Hand of God game series for Microsoft?

Time will tell.

Side not, on NPR this morning thelead developer of Gamespot was interviewed. He was actually asked: “What the halo is Halo?”

EDIT: Holy shit, am I now excited about KOFXI. Duck is back. . . but even more… OMG: Kyo / Iori / Shingo as a … TEAM?!!?