Maxim’s Movie Reviews and Opinions Blog

Few movies don’t have songs in them. Music and songs convey strong emotions and set or help to set the mood for a particular scene. Many bands and artists propelled their popularity when their songs were played in movies. Who have ever heard about Goo Goo Dolls before “Iris” was played in “City of Angels”? Who heard about “Phoenix” until “I’m too young” was played in “Lost In Translation”? Many movies would not be the same without music in them or without this particular music. Then again, how many movies we’ve seen where the plot and music don’t connect at all… Anyway, AOL Radio compiled a list of top songs from movies and this article on their blog shows top 10 songs as chosen by their users. http://www.aolradioblog.com/2009/06/23/top-10-movie-songs/ (0)

At first, Apple promised shipments of new iPhone 3G S to start by June 19th to people who pre-ordered online, and now it had shifted to “delivery by June 22″. I bet those customers whose orders got delayed are pretty anxious now. The new iPhone is a true 21st century device. However, for me the anxiety is going to last much longer. I bought current iPhone 3G in January, so I have another year before I can upgrade it with AT&T wireless at discounted price, by which time there’s probably going to be a newer updated version of iPhone. If not, I’m still looking forward to the new iPhone 3Gs for the following reasons: One. 32GB space is finally enough to put my music library onto it (still doesn’t leave much space for pics, video or apps, so I’ll be holding on to my 3-year old iPod for that). Two. 3MP camera that can also shoot video and has auto-focus. Video can be trimmed directly on the phone. It can be uploaded to youtube from the phone. Question: does a camera like this require focus? I thought that in short-focus lenses everything in the field of view is in focus… And how do you change focus without having moving parts inside the camera? Three. Magnetometer. It’s going to significantly improve navigation capabilities. Features like voice commands I never cared about. But faster chip-set on the new phone is welcome. More anxiety: Apple promised to release iPhone Software 3.0 on June 17th, and we are 10 hours into it on the West coast, and now they say it will be released at 1pm. However, now I am having second thoughts about downloading it on the first day. What if there are bugs? I don’t want my data corrupted or wiped out (even though I have backups). I’ll let others be test-pilots. If I could wait several months for the new version of software to come out, I can wait couple more days. But I know I’ll probably be refreshing the news RSS every 10 minutes like some people do with their stock prices… AT&T now says it was “listening to its customers” (who had been complaining on blogs and social networks) and is now offering full subsidized pricing on the iPhone 3G S for customers who would become upgrade eligible in July, August, or September starting tomorrow, June 18. =================================== Update. 12 hours later. Couldn’t wait anymore :) I checked for news articles concerning problems with the new 3.0 software. Apparently the most common problem was not with the software but with the download – many servers were overwhelmed with download requests and service was unavailable for hours. The other problem was that some people who lost internet connection during the installation lost all their applications (as I predicted), but in most cases were able to restore them through backups stored in iTunes application. So I figured I’d try. Backed up the iPhone again, “just in case”. Installing new OS took about 15 minutes. What’s new? This update contains over 100 new features, including the following:

• Cut, Copy & Paste with shake to undo
• Landscape keyboard in key applications
• Enhanced Messages application
• Send and receive photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS*
• Forward and delete single or multiple messages
• Added search feature in Mail, Calendar, Notes and iPod
• Spotlight search across iPhone
• Support for CalDAV and subscriptions in Calendar
• Improvements to Safari
• Performance
• HTML 5 support
• HTTP Streaming audio and video
• Auto-fill usernames and passwords
• New Voice Memos application
• Sync Notes with a Mac or PC via iTunes
• Internet Tethering over USB and Bluetooth*
• Browse and download movies, TV shows, and audiobooks from the iTunes Store**
• Stereo Bluetooth***
• Wi-Fi auto login
• Enhanced Stocks application
• More Parental Control options for Apps, Music, Movies and TV Shows
• iTunes account creation and login**
• YouTube account login and access to subscriptions, ratings and favorites**
• Shake to shuffle
• New languages, dictionaries, and keyboards
• Find my iPhone and Remote Wipe via MobileMe (subscription required)**
• Support for more Exchange policies
• Create and send Exchange meeting invitations
• Search mail on server (Exchange Server 2007 and supported IMAP servers)
• Search LDAP company directory
• VPN on demand and VPN proxy support
• Encrypted configuration profiles
• Encrypted iTunes backups
• 1,000 new developer APIs, including:
  • In App Purchases
  • Apple Push Notification Service
  • Accessories support
  • Peer to Peer Connectivity
  • Embedded Maps
  • iPod Library Access
  • Bug fixes

Products compatible with this software update:

• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3G S

* Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S and requires support from your wireless provider. ** Not available in all regions or in all languages. *** Compatible only with iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S. First impressions:

1. If you swipe to the right from the home page, you will find the search screen. It’s pretty neat and quick. Entered a person’s partial name and for matches from SMS, Facebook, emails, calendars and notes within a second.
2. Voice memos app was added to the home page. Quite useful for business, to record lectures and classes or even live music, or to record a reminder where you left your car.
3. The photo app seems to be much faster. The app loads faster, and it adjusts white balance and brightness also faster. When you press shutter button, there’s lesser delay.
4. Now can write SMS and emails in landscape mode. Awesome! So convenient with my fat fingers and poor eyesight!
5. Cut/Copy/Paste – push and hold you finger. A pop-up menu will appear and ask you to copy/cut. Paste works in emails, but didn’t work for SMS. I guess MMS support is not fully implemented or I am doing something wrong.

Stay tuned for more updates later! (1)

The long-awaited sequel to the Terminator trilogy was directed by McG, written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris. Starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter and Michael Ironside. The plot: After the Judgement Day, John Connor (Christian Bale) is now the leader of the resistance. Well, one of the leaders. In fact he is not a leader – he’s a soldier that everybody listens to, but he’s still subordinate to the command center, which is somewhere on Earth, and in hiding. Mostly the resistance is busy shooting at targets of opportunity, but not very effectively. But at least resistance have got a lucky break – a way to disable the machines temporarily, which should give the resistance an edge in fighting the machines. Everything is set up now for a final attack on Sky-Net’s core, but John Connor finds out that Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) is actually taken prisoner by the machines and is held there at the machines’ base. John Connor must save his future father before the imminent attack on the machines, and he gets help from an unexpected friend – a cyborg. The good:

1. Lots of action and chases.
2. Lots of CGI machines that nicely integrate with the environment, and rendered with a lot of attention to detail. Comparable to the Transformers.
3. Yes, they have hot pilot women with long hair and tight leather pants – and not playing hard-to-get either.
4. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton make a brief appearance too… in a way.
5. There’s some suspense there

The bad:

1. Lots of continuity problems.
2. Naturally for the genre problems with physics and logic.
3. Not clear where the cyborg came from – did he just come out of the dirt like Orcs in LOTR?
4. John Connor is listening to his mother’s tapes non-stop every day – looking for something he might have missed over the past 25 years of listening to them.
5. The cold-blooded and rational killing machines, the terminators, love to kill the main character as slowly as possible. Why can’t they just shoot him?
6. Everything was destroyed by the nuclear weapons, but there’s no nuclear fallout, the cars are full of fuel and the batteries are charged. Etc. Etc.
7. Too much growling and tooth-grinding

The summary: This is the least interesting of the terminators – the other ones were basically chase movies, but this one doesn’t have as much chase anymore. (0)

1. “Angels and Demons”, the sequel to the “Da Vinci Code” directed by Ron Howard, is a little better. Professor Robert Langdon is summoned to Vatican where the pope has died and four cardinals were kidnapped by a secret society called Illuminati, which threatened to kill a cardinal every hour and then destroy Vatican city with a anti-matter bomb hidden somewhere under the Vatican. From that point on, just like in the Da Vinci Code, Langdon runs from one clue to another throughout the entire 140 minutes of the movie.
2. Tom Hanks (Robert Langdon) is still quite fit.
3. I didn’t expect to see Ewan McGregor or Stellan Skarsgård in this movie. They were good!
4. From scientific point of view, the anti-matter bomb doesn’t make much sense to me because to make 1 gram of antimatter it years of colliding particles in an accelerator at a price of $20 million dollars per picogram.
5. The scene with papal helicopter annihilated by the anti-matter bomb – entirely down to every screw – nonsense.
6. The cardinals are pretty creepy in the movie
7. I just found out that the true enlightenment comes from religion and science is for ignorant people.
8. Nice to see many familiar landmarks in Rome and Vatican city. However Langdon runs from one to another so fast there’s almost nothing of interest we can find out about these places. In the movie they are reduced to just that – points on the map. But no mention that they are filled with priceless art – Michelangelo, DaVinci, Rafael…
9. St. Peter’s basilica is enormous. Sistine chapel…
10. Large Hadron Collider is awesome. They did create a little bit on anti-matter in there, but because of holidays they had to shut it down and the anti-matter dissolved.
11. The sloppily concocted twist in the end was too predictable.
12. The film is quite thrilling, but not scary in any way. Action flows pretty smoothly.
13. Hans Zimmer should get another Oscar for the musical score.

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