Elementary, My Dear Watson!

If you're a fan of director Guy Ritchie's older movies like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver and RocknRolla, you're in for a treat. Sherlock Holmes has most of his signature moves and with added thrills. Throw in a mystery to be solved and you get quite a hit, literally.

Robert Downey Jr can't seem to shake off the image of being Tony Stark in Iron Man. He is every bit as witty and funny in this one, with a touch or quirky personality. It was enjoyable watching him with the violin, trying to piece together mysteries that he can't understand or solve.

Jude Law had onscreen presence that rivalled RDJ, which made him almost an equal when bringing out Dr Watson, or in some newspaper reviews, Dr Hot-son! Sherlock's ever trusty counterpart and some times faithful companion.

In a good movie, you never have to take off your clothes for the actors to portray their characters. With the exception of the boxing scenes of course! Slow motion moves to disable their opponents brought us back to producer Joel Silver trying to do bullet-time action scenes. It worked better here than in his other movies like Romeo Must Die, which was absolutely horrible. The mysterious man actually turned out to be Holmes arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, of course, those of you who do not know who this diabolical rival is, I suggest you start reading all those Sherlock Holmes books soon, because it sets the stage for a sequel.

Through it all, this action-mystery does have its flaws. I for one do not remember Holmes having eidetic memory, in other words, I never knew he could photograph or remember scenes or events to piece together and solve a mystery, something Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never really revealed. Though it was interesting, it reminded me of watching Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code trying to piece together the riddle to open the cryptex in that movie. Or watching an episode of Psych trying to piece together pieces of the puzzle to get the whole picture, while pretending he's a psychic!

Oh and Holmes does NOT say the famous words, "Elementary, my dear Watson." in this movie at all - a bit of a disappointment there. Perhaps in the sequel, they will remember to add that in!

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and thought that, like some reviewers have said, it was a bold interpretation of one of the most famous fictional detectives in the UK and would highly recommend that you watch it too!

One of Guy Ritchie's better ones!

4 out of 5 stars

AVATAR - Movie Of The Year

Avatar should be watched the way it was originally intended to be watched, in 3-dimension or 3D. This movie will probably win plenty of awards, I find that it's probably the best movie of this year.

The level of detail that went into creating and filming this movie was unsurpassed. I was totally taken in by the detail of every single thing, from the bioluminsence in the forest of Pandora to the HUD or Heads-Up Displays present in all the aircrafts and computer systems on the base. James Cameron has always been known to push the limits of movie-making, merging computer, technology and other forms of digital media and combining it into a blockbuster movie. At the same time, he always manages to combine all these elements into a beautifully woven and very human story.

His fantasy sci-fi terms are not bombastic, they're easy to remember and to relate to, so that you don't go out of your way to try to understand things in the movie and get side-tracked. Using an alien culture to tell a very human story isn't all that different from Star Trek or other sci-fi novels. It always takes something that you need to relate to, for you to actually understand how bad it actually is.

The plot of the movie, a more advanced alien culture sets up a beach-front in your native land. You are one in tune with the land, with tribes and clans still using bows and arrows but giving back to the land in a most spiritual way. This reminded me of native American culture, the red indians, who are in sync with their land and culture, and who had Americans chase them from their land.

However, having said all that, Avatar does have its minor flaws. James Cameron likes to make use of previous actors from his other movies, Sigourney Weaver for example. At the same time, the movie had a plot that was rather predictable, in that, whenever they mention something, 20 minutes later, it became reality, it's almost like foreshadowing events. But these flaws did not overshadow the technologically amazing movie.

Sam Worthington caught my attention in Terminator Salvation. He has reinforced my belief that he will be one of the great and rising actors of our time, on par with all the other Aussie actors like Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett.

Highly, highly recommended movie. If you haven't watched it in 3D yet, make it a point to do so, you won't regret it.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Changing Times Ahead?

A few weeks ago, the people of Switzerland voted to end Muslimisation of their country.

Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets, barring construction of the mosque towers in a strong vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.

It is extremely painful for me to watch the continent become a province of Islam. This news from Switzerland, a nation that hosts so many wealthy sons of Allah, is a prime example of the bold moves that are necessary to protect each country, to preserve its history and keep its rich culture intact.

Finally the citizens of Europe are realising the destructive growth and take-over of Muslims and their “culture.” I always knew that Europe would wake up; I was just disappointed and still am disappointed that it actually took them this long. Thankfully this awakening has led to legal changes against the Islamic infiltration in many countries. In France and Germany they have banned the wearing or use of burqas in schools. As well, mosques and minaret construction projects in Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Germany and Slovenia have been met by protesters who stand firm in protecting their country’s identity.

The citizens of Switzerland have spoken out and they do not want the Islamic barbarians coming in and erasing the distinctiveness of their country anymore. The government and politicians consistently employ their self-serving political correctness at the expense of their people. Government leaders across the globe are acting as mere puppets singing whatever tune the Middle-Eastern countries want them to—simply for oil gains and election wins. But the general public no longer wants to play these games.

I am proud of Switzerland for telling its government and the world that this Islamic invasion must stop. European citizens cannot sit by and watch while Muslim extremists tear down ancient Christian churches to build mosques, bulldozing freedoms to impose their intolerance and corrupting democracy to place Islamic followers above any law and suspicion that they deserve.

Europeans use the word Muslimisation to describe the immigration and fast breeding of Middle-Eastern citizens in their countries. This infestation has led many Europeans to refer to their continent as Eurabia. There is no question why this moniker is used.

In Marseilles, Muslims have immigrated in like a destructive plague to take up over a quarter of the population and they are steadily encroaching on the majority line. A city formerly known for its stunning architecture and thriving culture now boasts a predominate landscape of the intolerant worship grounds of mosques.

Yet in Islamic countries, there is no allowance to build even the tiniest of churches. All non-Muslim countries should forbid the building of mosques until all Muslim countries allow churches and synagogues to be built. Why should we continue to be tolerant to their bullying intolerance? A popular French joke is, "Marseilles is the first Muslim Republic of France.” Well if you stop and think it’s not that funny because statistically in just thirty-nine years France will actually become an Islamic Republic.

Soon Europe as we know it will cease to exist. The next generation will never experience the great and vast cultures of the continent.

The Muslim population in Europe is continuing to rapidly grow at a speed incomparable to the Christian, Jewish and Buddhist populations COMBINED. They are gloriously multiplying with the purpose of overpowering and taking over the population.

The thirty-one countries of the European Union only have a fertility rate of 1.38, meaning that statistically EU couples are only producing 1.38 children together. This cannot sustain the population with the extremely high rate of Islamic immigration and repopulation. In France the fertility rate is 1.8 children per family and the Muslim fertility rate there is a staggering 8.1 children per family.

Germany is the first country to address this alarming fact. The government has stated, “The fall in the [German] population can no longer be stopped. Its downward spiral is no longer reversible…It will be a Muslim state by the year 2050.”

Devastatingly, Europe will be left with only the Islamic “culture.” I use the word culture loosely because where Islam was once a rich culture filled with astronomy, mathematics, art and history, all that is being brought to western countries now are their minarets, the abuse of social security, barbarism, intolerance, forced marriages, polygamy, wife beatings, burqas, gay bashings, female genital mutilations, honour killings and terrorism.

We have created a civilisation that is the opposite of the Islamic society. We went through centuries to create our world. We persevered through the Age of Enlightenment, the Renaissance, through women’s rights, civil rights, and countless liberations. We went through all of this and we cannot let Muslim society drag us back to the medieval era by means of terror, immigration and fighting us with our own system of democracy. I am not claiming our society is perfect but it is drastically different that the brutal inhumanity of Islam.

Europeans want their Europe back. But is it too late? Is Europe to suffer the fate of Christian Lebanon? Before the 1970’s the country was called the Riviera of the Middle East…and then it was Muslimised. The demographics changed and churches were turned into mosques and the once crowded beaches now sit empty. There were tourists coming from around the world to the welcoming nation and now there are none, thanks to the millions of Muslims that settled in invaded Lebanon. The country is now the war-torn nation of Hezbollah.

With Switzerland’s ban on minarets, I am sure that we will soon see hundreds of thousands of Muslims taking to the streets burning cars and destroying anything that they can get their hands on, as they did in the French riots of 2005 and the riots that occurred all over Europe when the Dutch published cartoons that satirised Islamic prophet Mohammad.

But with this ban the turning-point has begun. Europe must hold strong against the forceful Islamic take-over. Not just Europe, each and every country must preserve the uniqueness of their culture, architecture, values and humanity. I am optimistic; it’s just a question of time.

I have nothing against the Muslim community or Islam, in fact, I admired what Islam used to be, but extremists have twisted religion into blind, fanatical devotion, filled with terrorism that scare even their own people, which does not speak for the rest of their religion.

And that to me, is complete heresy!

The Five Greatest Warriors

It was a Matthew Reilly (MR) novel. Those of you who have read MR's novels will understand the kind of action it packs. His novels mirror that of an Indiana Jones adventure story, mixed with Michael Bay's action movies, wanton destruction, multiply that by 10 fold.

The Five Greatest Warrior carried on exactly where The Six Sacred Stones ended, with Jack West Jr falling down the abyss at the second vertex. I never expected him to die, because, most of the time in MR novels, the villains always die a gruesome and horrifying death, whereas the hero always makes it to safety. In this case, a military equipment for all MR's fictional marines carry, help to save Jack from falling into oblivion.

MR has managed to cut down on all the descriptive sounds,and explosions in this novel to a bare minimum. I think it had become really annoying to see all those italic texts describing action sounds like you see in comic books, for example, Shhwwang, which can be used for sound close swinging knife edge, so on and so forth.

This novel was a page-turner, there was no way I could put it down, but I had to, I was seriously losing a good night's sleep in order to continue with the plot. It is a mostly descriptive novel, with intrigue, puzzles, betrayal, bravery, chivalry etc. In other words, it read like an action movie. You didn't really have to think too much, like when reading one of Agatha Christie's murder mysteries.

I would say that this novel did move along nicely. And I have no wish to change anything in the novel. However, I sincerely hope that MR can start writing novels that do not have such predictable scenarios. If you've read his earlier novels, dealing with another of his character, Scarcrow, the hero is always backed into a corner, and always finds a way to escape, even when one or more of his teammates have betrayed him, trapping him in something inescapable. On one hand, it does show innovation to think of a scenario like that where eventually the hero escapes, but on the other hand, it's just recycled ingredients used from a previous novel.

I think being a techno-phile (I love technology), the warblers that MR mentioned inside his novel were something I really enjoyed reading about. It works almost like a personal body shield that confuses and deflects any fast moving metal like bullets, confuses electronics like those present in missiles. However, practicality tells me that it may eventually be developed only if the electromagnetic waves were not so powerful when used as a personal shield, I think all the soldiers who used them would eventually become sterile!

All in all, a fun and entertaining page-turning read. Highly, highly recommended to anyone who doesn't want to read moderate soap like a Jodi Picoult novel, or think to hard on who killed who like an Agatha Christie novel. This will be worth the read, even if you're in-flight or in transit at an airport in some forsaken land. A novel that opens windows into places you've never been, and it's 85% fact mixed with 15% fiction!

5 out of 5 stars

Round The Corner

Click on the posters to get a larger and nicer view!
Two new movies to look out for.
One of them sooner than you think.
A few more days till New Moon.

The Most Annoying Words

"Anyway, you know, whatever - it is what it is, at the end of the day." This is the most irritating sentence in the English language, according to a poll in the United States last month.

"Whatever" or as it is more commonly said, "Whatevvv-urrhhh" or "what-eva" - proved to be the most grating of the five phrases that were thrown up. While I completely agree that these words and phrases all deserve to be eradicated from everyday speech, I must say, I found the poll a bit wanting.

If I had to give a prize to one for (dis)honour of being the most annoying, it would go to the word "anything". Don't get me wrong, it is a perfectly acceptable word when the person who uses it really means "anything". Like, for instance, when I say "I don't have anything to put on".

The word "anything" is more commonly used as a trap that indecisive people actually frivolously use, to lure you into a false sense of agree-ability, and then they slowly kill you with frustration.

For example, here's a conversation I had with a friend of mine - you know who you are. It alternates between me and my friend, starting with me, sentences in italics are my thoughts:

"What would you like to eat for dinner?" Somewhere classy, a restaurant perhaps.

"Anything."

"..." "Okay...how about Thai food, I haven't had Thai food for ages." Please say yes.

"Uhh... I don't really like Thai." Dang it woman, make up your freaking mind!

"Then how about French food?" A nice red wine with a beef steak, is that too much to ask?

"No way, I hate anything French!" Sacre-bleu!

"Japanese sushi?" You love sushi, that's your favourite food! What was I thinking?

"I had Japanese for lunch, something else perhaps?" Do you have Japanese for all 3 meals a day?

"What then?" God created women to annoy men! No wonder men always die first!

"Anything, up to you." Where the F*&k is my stiletto knife I keep hidden near my ankle? Need... to... stab... someone... to... death!!! UGH...

Then there are words that are particularly annoying when used wrongly and utterly frivolously, here are some of them: "Without much further ado..."; "Really?"; "Literally..."; "Basically..." "Moving forward..."; "Whereby..."

Whenever I complain to friends that they're not using the words correctly, they make it worse by saying, "Relax...Chill, these words a new-age!" New-age my proverbial ass, music can be new-aged, but English is English! Even if their words made sense, it would be completely ungrammatical.

Internet chatroom and text messages have shorten the English language to a variety of lingo and acronyms. Some can be useful when writing text messages to friends, but those that aren't useful are those that nobody seems to know, new creations by friends who try to make their acronyms and lingo new-aged.

I suspect that in time, people won't even bother to type anything at all. They'll just send an empty text message to signify consent and hope that you will be psychic enough to figure out what the blank message means. Then again, if that ever happens, I suppose I have the perfect response already:

WHAT-EVA!

Vacation?

This graph neatly and hilariously summarises
your vacation time, versus your stress level and time!

I loved the graph where you try to resist the urge to
check email when you're enjoying yourself
on vacation in another country,
it has happened oh too often for me!

The Plan

The long-awaited tele-movie from Battlestar Galactica - The Plan has finally been released. Ever since the TV series ended in March 2009, I've been getting withdrawal symptoms. The finale was not overly bad, it was actually rather emotional and sad. However, still too many unanswered questions lingered. With The Plan, some of the unanswered questions have finally been answered.

The Plan actually started from 2 weeks before the Fall of Caprica to just around Season 2 of the TV series and not till the finale. I won't spoil it too much, but you do see more of the Cylons, their plottings and plannings that went completely unnoticed throughout the fleet. It was more like they formed a tiny little cult amongst themselves, held meetings within a makeshift chapel, possibly on Galactica and then plotted. Only the No.1, 4, 5, 6 and 8 (Sharon Valerii) were plotting.

The entire Plan tele-movie was John or No.1 driven. He's the leader, leading the rest of his race to destroy the humans. However, his brother model No.1, Brother Cavil, sees things from a different point of view, which he doesn't accept. His vendetta against humanity must be absolute and unquestionably followed, even if resistance among his own model seems forthcoming, he will squash it all the same and proceed with his master plan. The disappearance of Shelly Godfrey was explained, it was rather sad what happened actually, but interesting to watch the banter.

I won't spoil anymore, but let's just say that through humanity's drive to survive and live on, Brother Cavil saw a possibility for peace between humans and Cylons and acted on it with the rest of the Cylons on Caprica. However, John refused to acknowledge peace, he insisted to teach the Final Five a lesson and hope they would come crawling back to him to tell him that he was correct. And so their plan was destroyed, leading to the rest of the season.

I was rather disappointed that Lucy Lawless didn't make an appearance in this series, because she was the driving force behind Season 3, and she had screen presence and could stand up to the No.1s. They did show her in a short snippet here and there, probably taken from Season 3, but otherwise, she had no air time. Dean Stockwell was excellent as No.1, conveying menace and vengeance throughout the entire movie. I will never again see him as Scott Bakula's personal computer from Quantum Leap!

It was also interesting to note that when the Basestars attacked the Twelve Colonies, they turn their top and bottom Y-shaped sections to fit a symmetrical configuration before launching their nukes. Something that was never shown again in the course of the TV series!

Highly recommended to all who followed the entire re-imagined series, and are still suffering from BSG withdrawal symptoms, like me! :P

4 out of 5 stars

Inspiring Paintings

These beautiful paintings inspired me with their color, tone and mood.
I have personally seen the top painting when I was
in Glasgow, it is my favorite!
I actually contemplated purchasing it
and getting it shipped back home!

Top: Sunset on 7th, Madjid
Middle Left: Wang Yehan WS256
Middle Right: Wang Yehan WS524
Bottom: Wang Yehan WS532

Inglouriously Delicious!

Another Quentin Tarantino movie I definitely had to watch. The stars were from all over the globe. A movie involving Nazi-occupied France. Violence. Killing. What more could you really ask for.

I think the more Tarantino makes movies, the more he's able to shift his genre from the violent to the most prolific and sophisticated. It's like an art, making movies, and Tarantino has all the right ingredients when making a brilliant movie.

Without giving too much away - yes, this time no spoilers my friends, you all have to watch it yourselves - I would say that the movie started off rather slowly, but then again it is Tarantino's new way, to have a decent conversation, building up the characters, the suspense, then making you feel at ease with the entire conversation. But by that time it's too late, you are already in the trap, you lie, you cheat, you pretend to wriggle out of it, but you're already ensnared by it and then you're caught in it utterly with no escape. This is when he creates an opening in the trap, in which he gives you a choice of cooperating to live or defying to the bitter end and get your entire family murdered, it's your choice.

The verbal banter is amazingly candid and humorous at the same time. Most of the entire movie is in either French, German, a little Italian and English. I think only about 15 minutes of the movie is in English, the rest are in their native tongue, it is France after all, so you have to be content with reading subtitles. However, the nuances, the punctuation, the curses, all fitted into the movie perfectly. I was laughing at all throughout!

Christoph Waltz who played Colonel Hans Landa gave the best performance I've ever seen. He switched from French to English to German with such ease, it was difficult to catch up. His character was filled with such sincerity that the menace behind it was hidden so well.

Diane Kruger looks excellent in period movies and fitted in perfectly with her role. She looks better with Brad Pitt standing next to her than she did in National Treasure with Nicolas Cage!

I don't want to spoil any more than I should, but the rest of the cast were just stellar.

However, the movie did move at a pace slower than I expected, and I suspect that several more scenes did not make the final cut, because there was quite a lot of unexplained stuff. It will probably be featured in the DVD director's uncut edit or something, which will be available in the next half of the year.

Highly, highly recommended!

4 out of 5 stars!

Rock Scissors Paper

 

When we were kids, we used to play this game. 

I had the same problem understanding it because of the 

stupid dumb hilarious concept of paper defeating rock. 

Thankfully, someone learned to use that to their advantage in 

this little poster for making your own rules. 

Now I will teach my kids the correct way to play 

Rock, Scissors and Paper! 

You all should do the same too!

The Ultimate Prayer

Simple. 

Plain. 

Vindictive.

Evil. 

Powerful. 

Ultimate!

Life In Technicolor II

One of the best music videos I've seen in a really long time! Check out these funnies at the following time indexes:

1) 1.36 and 2.25, the stagehand has his pants hanging off his ass showing butt-cleavage, like in real-life!

2) 3.29 The videocam man mouthing the words "Fucking A" when the 2 motorcycles leap past each other.

3) 2.57 The first time the pyrotechnics go off, people duck and things get broken, but the children are all unfazed.

4) The brunette lady having that "Whoa" and "WTF" look on her face everyone the camera pans to her!

And Coldplay's exit is really, really cool too!

Enjoy!

Computer Expert

Follow this flowchart and you can never go wrong,
especially when it comes to solving simple computer problems,
no matter how duh you really are!

Wait, let's just forget the duh part,
cos there are always people out there who are
even more duh than duh!

Oh you know who you are!

New Movies

Some new movies to look forward to! Yay!

TRON Legacy

Tron Legacy is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that's unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), looks into his father's disappearance and finds himself pulled into the same world of fierce programs and gladiatorial games where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin's loyal confidant (Olivia Wilde), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.

This movie sequel is 27 years in the making! With all the advances in CGI, blue and green screens, I'm sure this will be a hit with not just the older TRON generation, but also with the younger generation of kids and teens.

Something to look forward to in 2010, after some 27 years of waiting!

Harry Potter & The Half-Past Six Film

Maybe my expectations were a tad too high, but then again it's a Harry Potter movie, how can your expectations not be high for such a wonderful series? Although the tone, the gathering darkness and maturity of the movie was good, it was too disjointed, too many scenes were cut out from the original novel to begin with, leaving everything a mess.

I was particularly disappointed that the film didn't unfold itself in the usual way like the previous movies, where they slowly reveal the mysteries and answer them at the end of the movie. There was no mystery in this movie, only a lot of empty space and blanks left empty to be filled in. They just led us by the nose and we all followed them.

I had several friends who never read the book, and said that they didn't know exactly what was going on, but the gathered the story from bits and pieces here and there throughout the movie. I read the novel, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, the development of the characters and how they matured and banded together through the darkness to fight Voldemort and his Death-eaters.

The movie lacked everything, it was almost like a hide and seek game, played in the form of guerilla-tactics. Death-eaters attacked, Order of the Phoenix fight back, Death-eaters retreat, Order of the Phoenix are too disillusioned with their losses they don't even want to talk about it.

Scenes that were missing or lacking or something:

1) Fenrir Greyback, he was just muscle, menacing and opened shirt to show his hairy chest. In actual fact, he was the werewolf who bit Remus Lupin.

2) Ollivanders, the wand maker, getting kidnapped in the beginning of the movie, yes, he was the guy whom the Death-eaters captured in Diagon Alley, the hooded fella. If you didn't gather the details by now.

3) The in-joke of the entire movie was the Millennium Bridge, aka the Wobbly Bridge. A friend of mine from the UK told me about it. When the bridge was completed and opened, and when people walked across it, the entire bridge wobbled and swayed, due to unexpected lateral vibration (resonant structural response). They had to close the bridge down 2 days after it opened and repair it. It reopened again later, but not before they got an entire platoon of military men to march across it, to make sure it didn't wobble and shake again. If any of you have been to London, the Millennium bridge is located near St Paul's Cathedral in the direction of the Thames. Crossing it will bring you to the Tate Modern and the Globe theatre nearby. It was called the Millennium bridge because it was supposed to have been opened in time for 2000, but because of the defect, it was closed and reopened later in 2002. The bridge was not in the novel.

4) I don't remember Bellatrix Lestrange taking on such a huge role in HP6, but Helena Bonham Carter is one fine actress, she did an amazing job of portraying wickedness and evilness throughout the movie.

5) The Battle Of The Astronomy Tower, where all the students were involved in one way or another to hinder the Death-eaters from escaping after killing Dumbledore, didn't happen. That was the ultimate let down in the entire move. Compared to HP5, which had a rather huge duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore, HP6 paled in comparison to having absolutely no duelling at all. Even the Quiddich match was a let down.

6) Felix felicis was not used by Harry to get lucky and get Professor Slughorn's memory, it was used during the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, to protect the students from the Death-eaters.

7) Ginny Weasley romancing Harry wasn't till book 7.

8) Dumbledore had no funeral in the book 6 chapter titled The White Tomb.

9) Bill and Fleur were not present.

10) The backstory on the Gaunt's or Tom Riddle's ancestors was cut out entirely! This made it very difficult to understand exactly why Tom was the heir to Slytherin.

11) The inferi in the lake look like Gollum, the only thing missing was them all saying "My precious" at the same time!

12) The Burrow was burnt and destroyed, probably to garner sympathy for the Weasleys.

God I could go on with this list, but I'll have to stop here.

If you were me, you would go back and read book 6 and enjoy it more thoroughly than I did with this movie. I hope that by doing a 2 parter film to book 7, they would cover all the destruction of the Horcruxes and leave nothing of the original storyline out.

Recommended only for the special effects and fans of the novel.

2 out of 5 stars

The Myth of Leadership

Leadership's a big myth really. That of the heroic leader. One who speaks charismatically, forcefully, drives change, sets the direction, pace, goals. Aren't you wowed by this type of person? If you are not, society is.

But behind the heroism, charms, persuasions, coercions and intellect of this type of leadership, do not be fooled. It's all about the ego! To be sure, all such leaders have noble goals and have achieved much for their flock, but it all boils down to their ego, and personal interests and hidden wantss.

For millennia, we've admired the likes of Alexander the Great, Qin Shi Huang, Genghis Khan, Julius Ceasar and many contemporary more impressive leaders. After all, the military admires the myth of the heroic leader, and rewards those who show it. The answer was provided by Lao Tzu in this definition inscripted on the banner:

"The leader is best, when people are hardly aware of his existence, not so good when people praise his government, less good when people stand in fear, worst, when people are contemptuous. Fail to honor people, and they will fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who speaks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, the people say, we did it ourselves."

What's true 3000 years ago is still true today. In an article of the latest Harvard Business Review of "Managing in the New World", an author contends that leadership today, should really be communityship.

That's right. It's communityship. Not your damn ego, masqueraded as service to the community.

That being said, only 4 people in history qualified. Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Krishna. They were Enlightened leaders.

The rest were all pretenders to the throne!

Torchwood - Children Of Earth

The third season of Torchwood happened over 5 days. I must say that watching the entire season of Torchwood in 5 days was a real treat! It was like watching a DVD collection for all their previous season's 12 or 13 episodes. They should do this for every season!

Let's get to the likes and dislikes I had for this season, and I'm trying NOT to reveal too much because I don't want to spoil it for my friends in other countries who have yet to watch it, although spoiler information is already freely available on many websites.

Anyhow, it started off with the usual intrigue. Children playing and then suddenly coming to a standstill, then they start chanting in a monotonous voice that "We Are Coming". A former group of aliens called the 456, for the frequency they communicate on, broadcast their return to earth through all the children of earth. Because of the frequency in which they broadcast, the children literally stop what they're doing and are words are communicated through them.

A government conspiracy to cover up what they did the last time the 456s were on earth. They demanded a gift of 12 children and the children were given to them, in exchange for an antidote for Indonesian Flu. In order for the present not to know, those previously involved were executed. Jack Harkness was one of them and well, they wanted to kill a man who cannot ever be killed. They also blew up the Hub, which was Torchwood central in Cardiff.

The thing I like is the realism in Torchwood. Emotions are felt, actors actually have tears flowing, or show distinct disgust. No holds bar, they're not afraid to kill of characters, yes, another member of Torchwood bites the dust and I must say, I was disappointed that they got rid of this person. It was rather sad, because although it was not pointless, it appeared so. The writers were not going to give you the Star Trek ending in which time reset and everything went back to the way it was. No, that was not what they wanted, because in real television, if you want impact, you have to either kill someone off or you have to have characters make tough decisions that affect someone else, sometimes even resulting in their death. It's almost like watching Lost, but without the draggy flash-backs or flash-forwards. Morality was tossed back and forth, but when the time came, they didn't have a choice, so sacrifices had to be made, regardless of the final decisions. Kill the one to save the billions.

Also, not to forget, after watching Day 1 of Children of Earth, you would think that Captain Jack Harkness would try to rebuild Torchwood, after losing 2 members in season 2. There were Torchwood potentials like Dr Rupesh Pantajali, Lois Habiba and even Agent Johnson. But by Day 4, I realise that reforming Torchwood will not be happening. It was just too painful to watch the events on how Day 4 ended.

However, through it all, we were strung along through the suspense of having a group of aliens calling themselves the 456 only appear in the 3rd episode onwards. Most of the time, they appeared in their toxic smokey environment, so we never really got a good glimpse of them. I was hoping they came up with something more original, spend less on the number of people recruited for the series and more on the special effects or customes for the alien. And come on, a better name than 456 would have been more appropriate, or maybe because they're drug dealers, they didn't want their species name to be revealed, for fear of the Shadow Proclamation (only the true Doctor Who fans know what I'm talking about)!

Plenty of unanswered questions to go around. Did they just get rid of one of the 456 aliens or the entire species? Where did they come from? How did the aliens arrive, by transmat or by spacecraft, if so, were they destroyed in their spacecraft, or will they come back again? Will we see Captain Jack Harkness again? Will there be a 4th season of Torchwood or is this their last? I couldn't help thinking that they had a low budget and couldn't do too many special effects. Most of the actors were new, fresh faces, but did good debuts, so probably low-budget again. Not too many recurring roles, cos they would be expensive, on top of all the children they had to recruit to say those words, or scream in unison!

We shall have to see what the next season (if there will be) of Torchwood will bring...

3.5 out of 5 stars

Revenge Of The Slapsticks

What can I say? It was action-packed. It was entertaining. There were laughs, some were really hilarious, some were plain stupid. The plot was lacking, it really made me wonder why on earth the Decepticons don't invade in force. The Decepticons were not one who were subtle in the cartoon, but in the movie, they didn't want to reveal themselves to the people of earth till the second movie? On the eve of activating the weapon to destroy the earth?

Some Spoilers Below, Read At Your Own Risk!

You wonder why the running trend of Hollywood: To create prequels within the sequel itself, to fill in the missing backstory, so that the sequel can flow forward. It turns out, much of the Allspark had the history of the Transformers within, which was left with shards. No idea how that last shard got attached to Sam's sweater, clearly Optimus Prime took it out of Megatron's remains in the first movie. Strange that the Transformers themselves didn't know their own history, and how to activate and use the Allspark, other than Bumblebee miniaturising it in the first movie.

If a Transformer is killed, it seems, even with a shard of the Allspark, it will bring him back to life, regardless of how dead he seems. No memory lost, nothing, Megatron awakes hellbent on revenge, almost like he was in cryostasis.

Although Devastator's transformations were spectacular, the robot in itself was kind of a disappointment. The cartoon Devastator was a green robot, more like Megatron's muscle. In this movie, he was this clumsy hulk of a robot, that had the ability to suck stuff through his mouth and eventually break it down and out his back. He did nothing more than to tear the top of the pyramids apart, to reveal the Sun Harvester - how convenient! That and well, watch out for his metal balls, literally gives new meaning to the term bang balls!

The Decepticons are growing hatchlings? Whatever for, it wasn't explained in the movie, all that was mentioned was that without a new source of energon, they will continue to hatch and then die. Are the Decepticons reproducing? Their little hatchery reminded me of Count Dracula's spawn in the movie Van Helsing!

The Fallen, they look more elaborate than having the ability to transform. If the Fallen was the first Decepticon, he was a sad case. Was their base located near Saturn in the solar system itself? Why can't they just mobilize everything and attack earth?

I must say, there was good film editing done, because when Sam and Makaela was running towards the camp, they ran from Petra at Jordan, to the pyramids in Egypt, running through the pillars at Luxor and then trying to make their way to the marine encampment to bring the Matrix of Leadership to revive Optimus Prime! The movie made everyone believe that Jordan and Egypt are in the same garden, just a stone's throw away from each other.

All the transformers, especially the Decepticons, looked much to elaborate. So much so, that I couldn't tell which was Starscream, or whether or not Megatron was hit during the attack. All Decepticons seem to be able to fly, whereas Autobots confine their disguise to cars, trucks, lorrys, pickups and motorbikes! The only Decepticon enjoyable to watch was Soundwaver, he was a satellite and he did all the work!

The twin transformers, they were like that Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks! I couldn't believe they had to provide that sort of slapstick entertainment in the movie. What's more, they made them bling-bling, and did I see correctly, one of the twins had gold teeth. The strange thing is that my colleague who was watching the movie with me, also wondered where they disappeared to. After their Devastator tango, they vanished and were not part of the ending. Something got edited out perhaps, or they finally realized how stupid they were and deleted them!

Overall, fun-filled action-packed, great for the family, good laughs, and oh, almost forgot to mentioned the G-string jockstrap worn by Agent Simmons, that almost blinded me when I saw his ass!

Highly recommended only for entertainment value and tons of kick-ass explosions, and for kids 10 years or older.

3 out of 5 stars