Movie Review: The Nanny Diaries

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My Rating: 3Stars

This evening I saw the movie “The Nanny Diaries” at JP Theatre, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

A present little movie. I really did not like Scarlett Johansson in “Lost in Translation” or “The Island“. I wanted to watch “The Prestige“, but had yet gotten around to it so I could not say if Johansson was any good in it.

Many believed she’s sexy, but I do not share those opinions. In this movie she played a young university graduate who was a bit misguided as to what she wanted as her career, and stumbled into a profession that she had not have any pervious experiences, nor what her mother had hope for her. It proved that sometimes it paid to be in the right place at the right time.

Of course, there was a love interest for Johansson’s character, “Annie”, and of course he was the Abercrombie & Fitch type, played by Chris Evans.

Overall this was a fun entertaining movie that worth going to if you could not think of anything else better to do.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

Movie Review: The Brave One (2007)

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My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “The Brave One (2007)” at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

What can I say, but yet another great performance by Jodie Foster. I had always like Foster’s movies. For some reason she always plays a strong independent female character in her movies.

In this movie, when it first began, Foster’s character was made up to not look like the way Foster normally looked. Giving the character a chance to show the audiences how her appearances and character changed as the movie progressed.

Foster’s character made me think twice about walking into a dark alley. In normal times dark alleys of any city are usually places one should avoid; especially alone. Here it proved that there’s still no reason to go into a dark alley with more than one of you. The best option was still to find another way to your destination.

Simply it was a movie about getting even and revenge, and the consequences of these actions and how such actions will change one.

Although, the plot was quite straight forward and did not have any of the twists and turns I normally liked in a movie. I still gave it a 4 Penguin rating for Foster’s performance.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

iPhone Hacked in Hong Kong on Three

Last week I unlocked an iPhone and tested it with a SIM card from Smartone-Vodafone. Today I unlocked another iPhone and this time using a SIM Card from Three (2G service without Data plan).

Next I will be unlocking my own iPhone on Smartone-Vodafone. I have commented on my article last week, regarding the most appropriate data plan to choose from Smartone-Vodafone for iPhone use in Hong Kong. I have copied the comment here for my readers’ convenience. Continue reading “iPhone Hacked in Hong Kong on Three”

iPhone Hacked in Hong Kong on Smartone-Vodafone

Many of you know that I was in North America this past two weeks and was also in New York City.

While at NYC I spent some time at the 5th Ave. Apple Store gaining some hands on experience with the iPhone. This was the first time I saw the iPhone in person and played with its applications and Multitouch interface. I will talk more about this in a separate post.

Getting back to the topic in question. While in NYC last week much had transpired regarding the unlocking (release of the lock down of the iPhone to the AT&T carrier). End of last month iPhone SIM Free announced that they had a software to unlock the iPhone from AT&T iron fist. They said that they will be selling the software on a per user (iPhone) license within a few days. Weeks had past and no announcements. Continue reading “iPhone Hacked in Hong Kong on Smartone-Vodafone”

iPod Touch Making Its Appearance

iPod Touch
Have been in New York City for the past 3 days.

Today, while going into the Apple Store on 5th Ave. for a friend of mine who wants me to help them purchase an iPod nano in Red.

I notice something very odd. There were a table of iPod Touch set up for people to play with. They sat among the a bunch of iPod Classic (aka. 6G iPod) and there was no fan fare or poster advertising the fact that they had arrived.

According to Apple’s original information the iPod Touch was not to be available until September 28th in United States. I wonder if they have also arrived early else where around the world.

Will this mean that the iPhone v1.0.3 firmware upgrade, that rumors to enable the WiFi iTunes Store on the iPhone is also imminent?

If you are located else where other than United States, please comment to this post to share your findings.

Movie Review: War (2007)

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My Rating: 3Stars

This evening I saw the movie “War (2007) (aka “Rogue Assassin”)” at Cinepex, Market Square, Markham, Ontario, Canada

Having been away from North American cinemas for some time. I wanted to watch a movie while I was in Toronto. Unfortunately, due to the amount of time I had, I was not able to find a movie that I want to watch at one of the better cinemas.

I had always like Jet Li movies, when combined with Jason Statham and John Lone I was expecting a great movie with many amazing fight scenes. This was where a mistake, since it placed my expectation for the movie quite high. In foresight it was too high.

I think this is the first movie in which Statham had a lot of dialogue. For some reason I find that every time Statham spoke in the movie I had a real difficulty hearing what he was saying.

Fortunately the fight scenes were great as typical Jet Li movies, this may be because its martial art directions were by Corey Yuen, the fight choreographer of most of Jet Li’s previous movies.

The car driven by Li’s character was very nice. It is a Spyker C8 Spyder. It it was not for the twisted plot and the cars in the movie I would have given it a even lower Penguin rating.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

China’s Virtual Police

China's Virtual PoliceBeijing, China today introduced the new “Virtual Policeman and Policewoman” cartoon figures who will constantly monitor the web sites Chinese citizen visits. At the moment the Virtual Police is only monitoring 13 Chinese web sites and will eventually covers every domains registered in Beijing, China.

These Virtual Police would periodically appear on Internet surfer’s browser window reminding surfers not to visit porn sites, illegally download music and applications. If the surfers need further assistance, they just have to click on the Virtual Police figure and the surfers will immediately be redirected to the Beijing Police web site.

This is a perfect example of the cultural difference between mainland China and other western countries; particularly United States.

If this sort of government monitoring happens in Canada, United Kingdom or United States there will be a major up roar and citizen revoke. Of course, this is not to say that these government (particularly UK and USA) are not currently monitoring what their respective citizens are doing. In most cases, they are doing it much more subtly. It is well know that United States’ NSA (National Security Agency) monitors Internet traffic. In most cases, they justify the monitoring as domestic security reasons.

I think people, particularly governments, need to stop forcing their own principals onto other countries. Instead they should learn how to work with the local culture and improve the respective lives of their citizens.

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