Merry Christmas!

Live from the best city of the world, I wish you all blah, blah, blah, blah and happy christmas!

The city is quiet this morning, everyone is still sleeping and resting after celebrating christmas' eve.
So I've decided to take my camera and walk around town on this cold Christmas morning.

And, in case you still don't know, the best city of the world is Porto ;-)

Ho, ho, ho!

ps: do you know why Santa Claus says "ho, ho, ho!" and pirates say "yo, ho, ho!"? Me neither!

Avatar 3D

This is the real deal for 3D movies! What an experience! Ok, maybe the plot itself is nothing extraordinary, plus the love story. But the movie is worth for the cinematic experience.

The director James Cameron spent years to develop the right technology to direct his "dream" movie, not so much for the 3D but to create his avatars, or virtual actors, in order get them the most perfect as possible.
The first time you see a Na'vi (the people from Pandora planet) you may say "No, you can see it's computer generated". It's true. But as the movie develops you start to notice the small details and the facial expressions. Even if it wasn't perfect all the time, from a moment on I was really convinced that there was a "person" inside the Na'vis.

The world of Pandora is beautifully represented, with amazing landscapes and a very rich fauna and flora.
One problem regarding the 3D, it's colour quality. During the movie I removed my 3D glasses and I saw a significant difference regarding colours and contrast. I plan to watch the 2D version, because I believe the glasses remove part of the Pandora richness.

Regarding the story itself, it's a normal love story (where the guy pretends/fakes to be someone else to infiltrate but then falls in love) and where the hero change sides in order to defend his beliefs. Then, some parts of the plots/characters could have been better, like the typical speech to the "troops" before the battle (yes, in a "Braveheart" kind of way).

I totally recommend "Avatar" in 3D, but at least you should watch this movie on a big BIG screen! You won't notice the 3 hours length :-P

A Christmas Carol 3D

Christmas is already here, so it means the movies for this season have already arrived. Usually I avoid this kind of cliché movies, but this year there was an interesting candidate.

I believe last time I went to a theater for a Christmas movie it was for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"... with Jim Carrey too, yes.
What pulled me to watch "A Christmas Carol" was the technical side, because there's a big improvement from movies like "The Polar Express" or "Beowulf".

The story we all already know: old man, named Scrooge, who hates Christmas, is visited by 3 ghosts and at the end he changes completely overnight... literaly! :-)

The quality of the computer animated characters is very good and we can see all Scrooge's details.
But I was disappointed with the 3D. Honestly this movie could really skip the 3D version because it doesn't bring anything special.

One problem with 3D movies is... the subtitles! Subtitles are rendered in first plan, giving you the idea the movie is playing behind! So it makes very very hard to focus and very hard to notice the movie in full 3D, because you keep focusing at different distances (not to mention the headaches!).

Let's see what "Avatar" has to show... I'm really waiting to be astonished! ;-)

Paranormal Activity

The ultimate horror movie? Well, these days marketing is the best tool to get clients... and audiences (like Microsoft does with Windows!).

I had a strong curiosity to watch this movie: horror movie, home made, unknown actors, a strong online buzz... and it was based on true events. Well... it had "Blair Witch Project" written all over it!

I enjoyed the movie. It stays 95% away from the Hollywood clichés... still, the ending is not the original one. Accordingly to the rumors, director Steven Spielberg suggested to change the ending but to keep the rest of the movie intact. I suppose the original one wasn't a seller.

Is also interesting to watch at the movie theater just to see how people react to the best scenes. Here you don't have music to create suspense, neither a shaky camera running all the time... so the final result can be very thrilling.
The story is told in a slow pace, so we can better know the characters and their beliefs. Every night, when the camera records every minute, is when the anxiety tends to rise. Everyone wonders what's going to happen, in a very natural way without the typical Hollywood tricks.

What didn't I like? Well, the movie trailer shows some of the best scenes and almost shows the end of the movie! I wasn't surprised some of the time "thanks" to the trailer! :-P
And I was also "sad" to see the ending was changed by request! So the concept of amateur/home made movie is lost somewhere.

The original movie trailer show an audience completely scared (read: marketing), but the problem is that audience didn't know what movie they were about to watch. For sure it was more scary for them than for everyone else.

Either way, it's a good movie to watch with popcorns and some scared friends. It was the first time I've witnessed a FULL audience screaming! (no, not me... thanks to the movie trailer! *sigh*). But you still find those who laugh... just to decompress ;-)

The Blair Witch Project is still my favourite one! ;-)

Happy nightmares...

Portugal around the corner

When you're abroad, a good way to find a bar of your preference is by looking at the outdoor beer sign: Guiness stands for irish bar, Foster's for australian, Budwiser for american (yes, it's a "beer"), Corona for Mexican, Franziskaner for German... and if you want a Portuguese bar, well, just follow the red light ;-)

Today I found this one by chance... I think it's a good sign for today. It's the FIFA World Cup 2010 stage draw... and these were the results for Portugal:

Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast and... Portugal!

It's going to be a crazy World Cup! Let the party begin with samba and Super Bock ;-)

Capitalism: A Love Story

After the gun industry, the 9/11 attacks and the healthcare system, the director Michael "Provocative" Moore is back. This time the "victim" is... the capitalism and he takes the subject very personal.

After watching this movie I realized the EUA can be the land of the dreams and the land of the worst nightmares at the same time.
Of course this financial "crisis" problem isn't anything new and we all know the global impacts. The curious thing about this movie is to unfortunatelly see how people are taken care of. On the other hand it makes you guess where the world is heading.

Michael Moore tries to show us the downside of the financial "crisis" (yes, there's a upside but that's for the bloodsucking CEOs).
Do people really need all that money? Like if they're going to live forever to enjoy those stupid fortunes!
How can governments let be played like puppets?

I recommend you this movie, because it's painfully entertaining and you will watch some curious images, like President Ronald Reagan getting orders from Merrill Lynch's CEO at the time!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTcL6Xc_eMM. No comments!

Power to the people! :-)