Archive for January 1st, 2008
Posted by: in Hollywood news
Filed under: Action, Horror, Independent, Killer B’s on DVD
The Shaw Brothers was a legendary Hong Kong film studio known for its many forays into exploitation cinema. Given the large number of kung fu movies the studio put out, I was surprised to find The Killer Snakes (or She sha shou as it is known in Cantonese) has no martial arts action to speak of, though Bruce Lee’s face can be seen on the front page of a newspaper at one point. In fact, this is essentially a Hong Kong set knock off 1971’s Willard, with the titular killer snakes subbing for man-eating rodents.
Zhihong, a lifelong lover of snakes, was traumatized as a child when he witnessed his mother having rough sado-masochistic sex. As a young man he lives by himself in a dilapidated dwelling in an urban area of Hong Kong. His is a lonely existence, and the only friends he has are Xiujuan, a young woman who sells toys in a local street market, and the models in the variouis S & M photo spreads taped to his ceiling. Things begin looking up for Zhihong when he gets a new job delivering for a restaurant and Xiujuan agrees to go to a movie with him (a Shaw Brothers production, of course), but things quickly begin to go wrong. Zhihong is robbed while making a delivery and loses his job because his delivery tray is destroyed in the process. Zhihong stands him up for their movie date, though unbeknownst to him it is because she has rushed to the side of her dying father.
Continue reading Killer B’s on DVD: The Killer Snakes
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Posted by: in Hollywood news
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Sony, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Posters
 Before he was saving humanity, Will Smith was all about the comedy. ComingSoon.net is now hosting the first teaser poster for the superhero comedy, Hancock. Directed and co-written by Peter Berg (The Kingdom), the film stars Smith as a down on his luck superhero with a serious need for an image makeover. Enter Jason Bateman (Juno) as a PR agent who is hoping to do just that. Also starring is Charlize Theron as Bateman’s wife and possible love-interest for Smith — or at least those paparazzi pictures taken back in August certainly make it look that way. The project had been kicking around since the 1990’s and had passed through the hands of some high-profile directors before Berg landed the job.
The first trailer for the film was released earlier this month and other than a slightly re-cycled gag about flinging marine life, it looks like there is a potential for a pretty funny flick. Personally, I’m not sold on the one sheet — for starters Smith’s expression on the poster has the unfortunate look of someone smelling something unpleasant. Not to mention there is the unfortunate choice of a tag line. But, all in all, I guess there is really not that much to tell audiences about the film other than the fact that Smith is the star. Of course, judging by the man’s record at the box-office that seems to be enough to pack them into the seats. Honestly, I’m just looking forward to watching Smith in a comedy that has a little bit of edge — this is the same director who gave us Very Bad Things after all. Hancock is set for release on July 2nd, 2008.
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Filed under: Computers
Not all video games are bad for you. In fact, most video games actually engage different parts of your brain to help develop logic, decision-making, mental speed, and even creativity. Now, a new trend in gaming called “brain games” aims at actually training your noodle to help you improve your mental facilities. Problem is, many of these games require some sort of site subscirption fee or even a Nintendo DS to play “Brain Age”.
Fear not, dear Switched reader. We scoured the net to find 11 of the best brain games — and even better, they’re all free.
1. WordCrunch
WordCrunch is your basic word-search game, but it changes themes on a daily basis. This one is easy to learn but tough to master. This is the ultimate test of your vocabulary, mental speed, and visual acuity.
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Posted by: in Celebrity news
Jennifer Garner has been honoured as 2007’s ‘West Virginian of the Year’ in her hometown.
On Dec 30, the 35-year-old was given the accolade by her hometown paper, Charleston’s Sunday Gazette-Mail.
The Sunday Gazette-Mail said that it chose the ‘Daredevil’ star for her dedication, hard work and service as an ambassador and role model for West Virginia.
For her dedication, work ethic and unique role as role model and ambassador for West Virginia,” People quoted the Sunday Gazette-Mail, as saying.
The actress’ mother, Pat Garner, told the native newspaper that her daughter was pretty passionate about her love of West Virginia.
“She’s pretty passionate about her love of West Virginia. She just considers it home,” Pat Garner said.
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Filed under: Deals and Bargains
 Are you lucky enough to get money on New Year’s? Then waste your money on some of these deals. Amazon.com has the return of yet another Buy 1 Get 1 Free Blu-ray movie sale. We’re personally picking up a copy of Million Dollar Baby and Rocky. And then we’re going to have the two main characters fight each other in our minds. It will be awesome. There’s also a Disney 50% off sale, which has many movies under $20.
A few games are also on sale:
[Via CAG; Thanks, M.F.!]
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Filed under: Videos and Screenshots
Despite the fact that Yakuza 3 appears to have little to do with the series’ previous installments, we’re more excited than ever at the thought of finally being able to play it. And with the game’s release getting closer by the day, Sega has released its first commercial for the popular franchise.
While it doesn’t showcase the massive amounts of blood and limb chopping that other videos have, it appears to introduce its audience to the game’s cast, which we guess is okay. Yakuza 3 is set to hit Japan in March, and we expect an announcement to confirm the game is coming our way in the coming months.
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Filed under: Rumors, Game Patches
 It’s no secret the PS3 version of Orange Box is inferior to the PC and 360 version due to the unforgivable amounts of bugs and bad coding. Many gamers have voiced their displeasure about the game, and one upset gamer, who purchased the game despite the highly publicized problems, posted a thread on Valve’s forums. Soon after, a Valve employee responded to address his complaints.
“I hope that we will be able to correct any major issues in the future,” wrote Burton before wishing him a “Happy New Years.” Now, this can be interpreted numerous ways, however, the most likely scenario is Valve issuing a patch to address these problems.
One thing to keep in mind is that this mess isn’t entirely Valve’s fault since it handed over reigns to EA London for the PS3 port. However, it’s still Valve’s baby, and it’s most certainly in the developer’s best interests to keep the quality of its most-popular franchise as high as possible.
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Filed under: Deals and Bargains
If you’re like us and got some much-needed time off during the holidays, you were probably able to catch up on a lot of gaming. And now that you’ve played all your games and have all those gift cards from Christmas, what is a gamer to do? Well, thanks to CheapyD and speedy1961 at Cheapass Gamer, you’ll be able to restock your backlog of games as they’ve compiled the best deals from this past Sunday’s ads.
Best Buy
Circuit City
This is pretty much the cheapest we’ve seen several of these games, and we’re still surprised at how well Resistance has been able to keep its market value despite it being a launch title. Keep in mind, these deals are good for online and in-store, but you’ll have to pay for shipping, which can ruin the good deal.
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Filed under: Google (GOOG)
I just read an interesting report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Part of the report stated the obvious: Americans are turning to the web more and more to get answers to all of life’s problems. After polling more than 2,790 adults, ages 18 and older, the report found that 58% of Americans that have dealt with issues surrounding things like health, taxes, school, etc. used the Internet to seek help. Pretty expected.
What I thought was actually pretty interesting was a description of Gen Y, those young Americans aged 18-30, and their habits.
It turns out that “Generation Y was most likely to use libraries to get problem-solving information and for general purposes. In their lives, libraries are not losing value. In fact, 40% of Generation Y respondents said they would use libraries in the future to seek information, compared with 20% of those age 30 and older.”
Why turn to libraries when the Internet has so much to offer? Bingo. Gen Y’ers use libraries particularly for the free computer access available. 65% of respondents said a key reason for going to a library for problem-solving was access to computers and the Internet.
So, how to play this? I’ve written before about Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) and its goal of organizing the world’s information and monetizing this process better than anyone around. I’ve also written about Answers Corporation (Nasdaq: ANSW), a quickly growing small cap that’s attempting to do something similar. They’re working on purchasing Dictionary.com to round out their content offering and bolster inbound traffic. Other search engines, while they continue to lose ground to Google, may also take share in an ever-growing pie. The search engine has replaced the traditional portal for accessing the Internet. How many of us have Google.com (or iGoogle, Google’s personalized homepage) as our homepage?
What still kinda confounds me is why Gen Y’ers take to libraries to access computers. Do they not have ubiquitous access at work or on the mobile devices? Is there better software loaded onto library terminals? Or is it the combination of locating via the web and then accessing |
