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ChristopherMcBreen
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Name: Christopher
Country: United States
State: Pennsylvania
Metro: Lansdale
Birthday: 8/3/1978
Gender: Male
Interests: Computer games (lots of fun), reading a vast multitude of books, writing (or at least trying to), trying very hard to work out my walk with God, lots of stuff.
Expertise: I don't think I'd call myself an expert on anything.
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  YLChrisMcB
Member Since:
6/16/2003
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| In case anyone was wondering, I still exist. | | |
| Avatar Review:
So all the hype and hoopla this weekend, if it isn’t about the nor-easter battering the North Eastern United States, it’s about James Cameron’s new film Avatar. As a devoted internet reviewer that appreciates and respects his readership, I felt compelled to brave the storm out to the IMAX theater in KOP to catch a matinee showing in 3-D. As I try to do with most of my reviews, I will start with the GOOD points. 1. The digitally created Naa’vi people was flawless. They looked REAL and when I say real, I mean PERFECTLY real. The problem with digitally created characters in the past has almost always been shown best in the eyes and the hands (which as artists will tell you are two of the most difficult body parts to recreate). Prior to this, digital characters have not been able to convincingly convey emotion in their eyes. Now I don’t entirely understand what it was that made the digital characters in THIS movie different but they noticeably were. The only predecessor I can think of to the technology I saw today would be Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies but even with Gollum, there was something just kind of off about how he looked. With the digital characters and environments in Avatar, everything looked perfectly real. 2. James Cameron’s new 3-D filming method fulfilled the promise of 3-D movies more then any movie I’ve ever seen. There were very few gimmicky moments where the main character is throwing things at the audience or fireflies are jumping off the screen but instead, there is a layering effect that just makes the movie seem even more real. Now, I’d seen this effect before, last year in the Disney Animated movie Bolt and this past summer in the Pixar movie UP. However, in Avatar, the same believably layered environments was populated not with animated characters but real actors. If you are going to see Avatar, spend the extra couple bucks to see it in 3-D because you’ll be taking away one of the two best things about the movie. And now, the BAD stuff, and it’s at this point that I’ll issue my obligatory Spoiler alert so as not to annoy anyone online. I will endeavor not to reveal any information about the plot but if you feel that I’ve said too much, please accept my apologies. The biggest and baddest thing about this movie, was the plot. Essentially, this is a story that’s been told numerous times before. If you’ve seen the last 45 minutes of Return of the Jedi, you’ve seen the climactic battle sequence in Avatar. If you’ve seen Kevin Costner’s, Dances With Wolves, then you’ve seen the plight of the noble warriors, the Naa’vi as they struggle against the oppressive and cruel hearted capitalists as they try to rob their home world of a precious element called “unobtainium”. And finally if you’ve ever seen the animated movie from the late 80’s / early 90’s called Fern Gully the Last Rain Forest, then you’ve seen about 85% of Avatar but in a hand drawn animation form (thank you Jennifer McBreen for pointing that out with one of your status updates earlier this week). There’s very little of this story that is imaginative or new which is a shame. As I was walking out of the theater, I was running down a list in my mind of technological advancement movies that while showcasing a new technology also had a decent story to show off the new technology. For example, Jurassic Park with its digitally created dinosaurs; what sold that new technology was the story (written by the late Sci-Fi author Michael Crichton) and the believability with which the human actors interacted with the digital dinosaurs. The Matrix, which showed off a new way of filming called bullet time which allowed the film to stop an object in motion, move to a different angle and then resume its previous motion but once again, the bullet time sequences were integrated into a solid story. And finally and possibly the best example of a technological advancement movie was also a movie from director James Cameron… Terminator 2. Terminator 2 showed off the liquid metal effect and facial morphing technology in its villain, the T-1000 while also telling a better story then the original (and in my opinion, surpassing the original). So in conclusion, Avatar looked AMAZING and the 3-D effects were AMAZING but it would’ve been a much better movie if there had been an equally AMAZING story to go along with James Cameron’s new effects. For technology alone, Avatar gets 2.5 stars out of 4. | | |
| I may not have mentioned to everyone but my parents went on a bus trip to Washington DC today as part of Glenn Beck's 9/12 project. The full story is here : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/12/tea-party-express-arrives-march-washington-protest-government-spending/
I chose not to go with them, for a few reasons but really my reasons don't matter. As I've been watching the news coverage I felt compelled to type up my thoughts on the march on Washington so here goes.
The reason today was chosen for the march was because, similar to how everyone remembers where they were and how they felt, 8 years ago yesterday, a lot of people also remember how they felt, 8 years ago today. I remember watching people come together to help those in need. Nobody had to tell them to come together. No one had to compel them to or inspire them to. People across the country saw that there was work to do and we collectively pulled up our trousers and got to work. Most notably, were the stories coming from New York and North Jersey where ordinary folks were finding ways to be heroes.
I'm sure most of you know that I'm a fan of comic books and super heroes. I enjoy those stories because they show a world where people with power use it selflessly. Where power comes with responsibility. Where good guys sacrifice of themselves for the good of everyone else. And I remember thinking on September 12th 2001 that this was the kind of thing that I enjoy reading about so much, but instead of people in masks and capes and spandex jump suits, these were people in uniforms, police officers, fire fighters, EMT's and even ordinary folks chipping in to help people in need, not in the idealized world of the Marvel or DC universes, but in this one. That's something I found encouraging 8 years ago today. Now a lot has been said in the last year about our President and how he too grew up reading comics, specifically, my favorite ongoing series Spider-Man, and I find that encouraging as well. But, I'm left wondering, what happened? The big idea behind Spider-Man was always "With great power comes great responsibility," and over the years, I've tried to take that to heart (on a side note, this idea I learned, literally the very day that I gave my life to Christ is also a biblical principal. Matthew 25:14-30 if you're interested). I ask you Mr President, have you taken those things to heart? The American people have trusted you with a lot of power and yet you seem to be continuing in the same irresponsible spending of your predecessor. Didn't the American people elect you because you were different and had different ideas? If the people elected you for change, why are the actions of your predecessor used as the precedent for your irresponsible spending? Why is it that my nephew (just older then 1 year) will be left with the bill to pay for the spending of you and your colleagues in Congress and the Senate?
That all being said, my thoughts on today, really have nothing to do with the President so I'll just stop that line of thinking right there.
Eight years ago I was encouraged to see people come together, regardless of background or skin color to get a job done and help people in need. Similarly I did find it encouraging to see people come together in that park in Chicago on election night, regardless of background or affiliation. And today, I find it encouraging today to see people come together regardless of background or political affiliation to say to the government that they are in power because of us, and if you disregard what the people want, if you ignore the voice of the Americans, we will remember your name, and what seat you occupy in the Senate, the House or even the Oval Office. Whether you have a little R or a little D next to your name on the roster, know that if you ignore the voices of the people, you will not occupy your seat beyond your current term.
Now I know many people are going to comment that I'm going on another Republican rant here, but I need you all to know, I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN. I am an independent. For the most part, the Republican party is just as backwards and bankrupt. I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh because I find him to be an obnoxious loud mouth. I don't read Anne Coulter because I think she's crazy and I am uncomfortable with people thinking she speaks for me. For the same reason that I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh and dislike Anne Coulter, I also don't watch MSNBC and I ignore Bill Maher and Michael Moore. I have a lot of respect for Glenn Beck for being a libertarian and sharing my distaste for both parties but I also hope to vote for Mike Huckabee in the 2012 election (similar to how its encouraging to have a comic book fan in the white house, let's put some rock and roll in the white house now).
That's all I have for tonight people. Please be kind in your comments. | | |
| I'm gonna try and recap these in the order in which the ended.
Cold Case - The Season Finale was told in hallucination form, after head detective Lilly Rush was forced off the road into a river (which river... not sure). The case wrapped up with her solving it in a concusion induced hallucination. Also her estranged Dad was sitting beside her hospital bedside after she was rescued from the river. The whole hallucination thing was a twist I didn't see coming.
The Unit - President Palmer's wife is divorcing him which is a real shock because she's always been the one holding the unit member's wives together.
CHUCK (Current Reigning Champ for the title of ChristopherMcBreen's Favorite Show... AND RENEWED FOR NEXT YEAR! WOOHOO!) - Our boy quit his lowly job at CompUSA/Circuit City/Best Buy/Buy More after having the intersect removed from his head by his computer genius father/estranged time traveller Scott Bakula. After quitting the lowly job, Chuck was offered a REAL job with the CIA as an analyst on the NEW Intersect project which he stupidly turned down without even thinking about it (bad move) and he was then issued his payment for services rendered. We never actually get to see HOW MUCH the government paid him for carrying around all of their secrets in his head for two years. Cut to Ellie and Awesome's wedding, previously Captain Awesome AKA Devon Woodcomb walked in on some stuff he shouldn't have seen and Chuck told him his big secret about being a CIA agent and after a little drinking, was surprisingly cool with it. Chuck asks Sarah to go on vacation with him and she promptly shoots him down saying that she's running of with Bryce.  Chevy Chase/EEVIL Steve Jobs showed up the wedding to exact vengeance on Chuck and his Dad for ruining his EEVIL plans. Chuck calls Casey who's already in the air with his old special ops team and alerts Sarah and Bryce. There's a big shoot out in the reception hall and Casey and his team jump in at the last minute to save the day and arrest Chevy Chase. Ellie cries over her ruined wedding. Chuck uses his government check and all of his resources to pull a beach wedding out of his ass and there's a happy ending for the happy couple. During the wedding Bryce is talking to Sarah in her earwhig and guesses that she's not going to join the new Intersect project. She nods yes and ther nerds CHEER as this is saying "Nerd Charm trumps Suaveness and Danger"... Reception in the condo complex central area and everybody's there, Chuck and Morgan have a tearful goodbye as Morgan's going to Hawaii to be a chef, Chuck and Sarah have a romantic dance and she gives him a believe in yourself pep talk. Bryce shows up to the party to talk to Scott Bakula (cause they knew each other all along) and The Bakula has an intersect flash on the agent escorting Bryce. "Oh SNAP! He's got a computer in HIS brain TOO!" gasps the audience. Not really. I predicted this a week ago. He tells Chuck and Sarah, and Chuck starts feeling his Wheaties and says he's gonna run off to save the day and to call Casey. The Bakula gives him his weird computer thingy on his arm and they rush off to save the day. Meanwhile, Chevy Chase was killed by one of Casey's team. Casey confronted the rogue team member and got tranked for it. Sarah and Chuck find him on the floor and they all rush off together. Cut to secret government facility... Bryce has caught on that the guys he's with are fishy. He goes all kung fu on them and locks himself in the secret intersect room after he's been shot. He leans up against the white wall of the room and prepares to die. Chuck drops in through the ventilation shaft! YAY! Bryce gives him a super secret PCI card that he says will destroy the new intersect. Chuck goes over to the terminal and, still feeling his wheaties, downloads the new intersect, thus preserving the premise of the show. Room gets stormed with gun toting thugs who've captured Sarah and Casey. Chuck has a NEW type of flash that enables him to kick the asses of their attackers... to be continued...
Heroes - Keeps getting more and more confusing but this is what I was able to understand, Sylar is still alive even after having a bout with MPSD and an uncontrollable shape shifting ability, he slipped into a power induced coma. BUT, not before killing Nathan Petrelli and making creepy googley eyes at Claire. After Nathan's death, Matt used his ability to imprint Nathan's Katra (Vulcan for soul) onto Sylar and since Sylar had the shape shifting ability, he took on Nathan's form.
Fringe - Leonard Nimoy does a favor for his new BFF, JJ Abrams by guest spotting on his struggling new Sci-Fi show. A lot of weirdness lead up to Leonard's appearance. Apparently the guy that beamed out of prison a few months ago is trying to make a gateway to an alternate dimension and he needs mad scientist man's help to do that. At the end, strangely attractive FBI agent Olivia, goes to the other dimension and meets Leonard Nimoy and Mad Scientist Walter is left standing at the grave of his son, who it says died in the late 80's. "WTF!" says the audience, except for me who predicted this when the idea of alternate dimensions was first mentioned.
LOST - After A LOT of time jumping this year, Season 5 came to explosive close (literally). We finally got to meet Jacob, who it turns out is a pretty nice guy. We finally got to see the intact statue on the island (it's of an alligator man). A lot of crazy stuff happened that would take far too long to explain it all. Rose and Bernard are ALIVE and have been hiding out in the jungle in the 70's with Vincent (Whosagoodboy!?). Jack continued to be an ass face, Sawyer became more likeable and much to my dismay, Kate did not get eaten by fire ants. Ben killed Jacob but at Locke's request BUT maybe it WASN'T really Locke after all!? Meanwhile, back in the 70's Dr Jack dropped his bomb down the shaft with the EM disturbance at the bottom but it didn't explode. Useful girl, Juliette, gets sucked down the hole as well by the EM disturbance and hits the bomb with a rock when she reaches bottom. Season goes to white and we're meant to think the bomb went off.
The Big Bang Theory - Our nerd friends are offered the opportunity to spend their summer off at the North Pole doing research. Leonard is reluctant to take the job because he doesn't want to be away from Penny but also wants to go to see if she will miss him. Penny buys him a Snuggie, gives him a big hug and once back inside her own place, admits to herself that she doesn't want him to go. The nerds go anyway and the season ends with them at the North Pole looking for ice.
24 - Jack is captured by the bad guys and they want to use him to reconstitute the deadly pathogen. Tony's REAL motivation is revealed (he wants vengeance for Michelle's death) but when push comes to shove, he's denied the vengeance that 4 seasons ago, Jack got to have when he killed Nina Meyers. Kim escapes from custody and also helps the FBI find where Jack is being held. (AWESOME! Way to go! You show that mountain lion what's up!). Special Agent Walker (Renee) comes to realize that kicking the bad guy's ass is totally justified... and we're meant to think she did just that. Jack is left in a chemically induced coma at the end of the season, when Kim rushes into the hospital and tells the docs that she wants to try the treatment that will save his life. We don't get to see if it was successful but we're to assume it was because Jack, Renee and the President are all signed on for Season 8.
NCIS - Tony killed Ziva's b/f, the Swarthmonster, and now has to face the music in Israel for it. It's learned that Ziva's pop is a pretty creepy guy and in the end, she quits the NCIS team and stays in Israel. Cliff hanger ending, she's very quickly been kidnapped and tortured by some bad guys and she's expected to tell everything she knows about the NCIS team.
No Finale yet for Ugly Betty so that's alls I got, so far. | | |
| Epsidode 5.8 - LaFleur OR Jack AND Locke are gone so let's give Sawyer a shot at head islander Previously - Some of our friends got off the island, while some other of our friends didn't. The people still on the island were led by a commanding John Locke while the people that got off the island have been led by a disenfranchised and increasingly unlikeable Dr Jack. Dr Jack comes up with an elaborate lie that everybody else buys into and coroborates. But in the back of their heads, they all know it's a lie. Meanwhile, Locke and the people on the island are adrift in the time stream, hopping willy nilly, wherever the gods of quantum physics might send them. Locke gets a vision telling him, "Go here... Do this... Get everyone that left to come back... and then the quantum physics gods will be appeased and the time jumping (that is killing people, starting with the most attractive and ending with the ugliest) will stop. Well Locke goes off island to round people up, he finds ALMOST everybody, with the exception of Sun who he promised Jin that he would not bring her back and kept his promise (Good boy Locke) but, low and behold, their all wrapped in their own normal lives and think that Locke is lonely, angry, crazy and obsessed. "I'll show them who's crazy..." says Locke as he ties a noose for himself. At the last second, Ben rushes in to the hotel room and says "Stop Locke! Your crazy rantings weren't in vane after all. Jack's starting to go crazy too!" Locke stepped down and talked to Ben for a few minutes about who he'd been working with and who could bring them back to the island and after some bad name dropping, Ben strangles Locke. Meanwhile Back on the Island - Sawyer and our other cast away friends are waiting near the entrance to the well where they last saw Locke, rushing off to save the day. They time shifted and looked around to see when they were and in the distance they saw a giant INTACT statue (remember the statue that we saw all the way back in Season 2... the one that there was only a foot left of) Not Jin says "Wow, we must've REALLY jumped far THAT time." then they time jump AGAIN! This time to the early 70's when the Dharma initiative was running the show on the island. After that last time jump, Locke has then does HIS thing and fixed the giant wheel (for some reason, some of the stuff on the island reminds me of the old Monkey Island video game where you have to do seemingly ridiculous things so that you'll have other meaningless items in your inventory that become useful much later on) so now the time jumps have stopped. Sawyer leads the crew back to the beach. Not Jin bitches about that and Sawyer promptly says "Shut up!" and he does. They find Dr. Daniel in the jungle acting all sad. "What's up," Sawyer asks, "and where's Red?" (red hair making her the most attractive of the islanders and thus the first to die due to time-skip-aphasia) Dr Daniel promptly responds with "She's dead... Jim." Sorry to hear that, now let's get this party moving, Sawyer responds. They happen upon two guys attacking a woman and a dude that already appears dead. Sawyer shouts "STOP!" and the two attackers turn and start shooting at him. Sawyer and Juliette both raise their rifles and shoot and kill the two attackers. They go up to the woman, take the sack off her head and who is it but... Michelle Dessler from CTU... Last we saw you Michelle, you and Tony were getting all blowed up in your car. Good too see your MIRACULOUS recovery. Michelle leads our friends back to her camp, surrounded by the sonic fence. Juliette tells her "Turn those thingy's off... they look like some kind of sonic fence, especially with those EardrumBleeder 10000 pylons with Probulator 15 headers." Michelle looks curiously at Juliette, pretends to turn the fence off, then walks through herself. Everyone else follows through and then falls over shaking. Michelle turns around and takes her ear plugs out, then gets some help from one of her cohorts to drag them back to camp. Our friends wake up and are like, "What, what..." They are greeted by the chubby guy that greeted Ben and his Dad when they arrived on the island. Sawyer, being the accomplished conman that he is, makes some stuff up on the spot and everybody falls in line. Chubby guy is concerned about having broken a truce with "the hostiles" and is also concerned that his buddy (and Michelle's hubby) is dead. Richard "No such thing as too much eye liner" Alpert has arrived to discuss the broken treaty. Sawyer, apparently having read the interwebz and their commentary, nicknames Richard accordingly and says, "Lemme handle this!" which he does by... here's the turning point of the episode and in Sawyer's character arc folks... TELLING THE TRUTH! He explains the situation to Richard, Richard believes him and peace is restored. Now Chubby guy had been insisting that our friends leave the island ASAP and Sawyer was hoping to stick around and wait for Locke to return but after smooting things over with Richard, Sawyer and our other friends were allowed to stay. However, Juliette wants to go home NOW, so she goes to the dock and acts all forlorn. Sawyer goes down and sweet talks some sense into her and she agrees to stick around for A LITTLE while. Three Years Later - Chubby guy is caught on video blowing stuff up with dynamite and acting all drunk and crazy, while Michelle is having his baby. Some Dharma people go to the service shack looking for Mr LaFleur and what do they find but a hippie attired Sawyer. He goes out and gets Chubby guy and takes him back to the house to crash, he goes and gets a hippie attired Juliette to deliver Michelle's baby, C-Section. Chubby wakes up a couple hours later and finds Sawyer sitting in the living room with him, waiting to talk to him about what's been bugging him. Apparently, Chubby found a memento that Michelle had saved from her first hubby's dead body and it upset him because he knows he was her second choice and he was in a sense filling in for his dead buddy. Sawyer has a manly moment with Chubby guy and tells him, that he was in love with a girl 3 years prior and hardly ever thought about her anymore, so yeah, it was totally possible to get over someone in just 3 years. Sawyer goes home to his own cabin and gives Juliette a big smooch (as apparently they are either married or hutting together). We go to commercial thinking "Awww... Sawyer and Juliette made a happy home for themselves and Sawyer grew up to be the good man that we all knew he was." BUT, that can't last... or else there would be no conflict and no drama and no reason to watch the show anymore. It's the next morning, Sawyer is leaving the cabin to get breakfast and Jin runs up to him telling him, "There's something you have to see!" They go off into the jungle and find a nauseatingly teal jeep rolling up the hill with Hurley and Jack... and Kate "Can't make up her friggin mind" Austen in it. Oh SNAP! Next Week - Will Sawyer be a big giant jerk wad and get sucked into the Kate drama machine again? Will Juliette give Kate the bitch slap she has deserved since Season 1? Where's Locke, Sun and Sayid? What about all those other people that Locke was palling around with at the end of last week? Oh Wait! TWO WEEKS! WTF! | | |
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