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And the nominees are…

Last week on From Floor 7…

I don’t know how many Academy Awards this movie will win. Only that it’s going to be a lot.

There’s a chance this movie could bag 10 Oscars…

It got 9 nominations…

Avatar is boiling right now…it wins every category possible…

To be continued, on March 7.

In the meanwhile, here’s the list of categories Avatar was nominated in…:
Best Achievement in Art Direction – Best Achievement in Cinematography – Best Achievement in Directing (James Cameron) – Best Achievement in Editing – Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score – Best Achievement in Sound – Best Achievement in Sound Editing – Best Achievement in Visual Effects – and, of course…Best Motion Picture of the Year.

And a hidden tenth category: Best Yoinking of Name From Movie Based on Cartoon Which Will Be Nothing Like Cartoon – an offspring category from last year’s Movie Based on Cartoon Which Will Be Nothing Like Cartoon, which “Dragonball Evolution” won in a landslide. Before it even came out.

Movie review: Avatar (2009)

I don’t go to the cinemas very often nowadays. There might be a few movies interesting enough for me to actually head to the cinema, buy a ticket for 100 Kronor, and then watch 10-15 minutes of commercials (I thought I paid for the damn movie already?) before the main feature begins. I was hoping to catch the Astro Boy flick, but it seems that movie will go direct-to-DVD here in Sweden. I did get to see Dragonball Evolution, only because I’m a fan of Dragonball and I knew this movie was going to be nothing like the original manga. I simply wanted to see how bad it would suck. And I saw Terminator Salvation, which features an actor from the movie I’m going to review:

Sam Worthington.

Off the two movies I’ve seen in Malmö’s latest cinema, SF Entré – located inside a shopping mall that opened in March last year – Sam Worthington has been in both of them. The first one was Terminator Salvation, the fourth movie in the Terminator series. Eventhough a lot of the limelight was shining on Christian Bale, having starred in “The Dark Knight” the year before, Worthington’s performance as the Terminator Marcus Wright was impressive. The movie was an improvement from Terminator 3 – which I’ll admit I haven’t seen, but Linda Hamilton’s abscene from that movie pretty much tells that movie sucked. On the other hand, it did have the ungrateful task of being the sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which quite simply is one of the most awesome movies ever made. You’ll watch that movie, and its two-and-a-half hours in length just flies past like nothing. But I digress; the first movie was Terminator 4 with Worthington. The second movie, which I got to see last week, is a milestone in visual effects – much like I said “Waltz With Bashir” was a milestone in animated cinema. Plus, this movie has beat “Titanic” as the highest-grossing movie EVER.

Avatar. It’s all that. OK, truth to be told, I wasn’t all that excited when I saw the movie as that guy in Taiwan who suffered a freaking stroke during the movie. I was very sleepy at the time, and it had nothing to do with the movie; and yet, it still kept me engaged in the storyline and the graphics almost reminded me of Lord of The Rings. OK, this movie’s advantage on LOTR is that it marks the revival of 3D movies. Remember the good old days, when you would put on a pair of glasses and get a whole new dimension into the movie you are watching? Avatar has led the way in bringing back those days, and also inspired movie trailers to play in 3D as well. People in the cinema were gasping in horror during the trailer for “Cloudy with Meatballs” as pieces of food were flying towards the screen. Or, if you are wearing the glasses, towards the audience. Eventually, the movie begins. And this is where I would give away half the plot already…

…but seeing how it’s only been one month since the movie came out – and there are still a lot of people heading to see the movie – I’m not going to give away much of the plot. I’ll do the standard format for the reviews below the fold, but I WILL STILL ADD LOTS OF PLOT SPOILERS FROM THE MOVIE. So if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I just might reveal that part of the plot that you’ve been waiting to see without me telling you about it.

Letterman back in the days

Looking back at the week, there have been two dominant news stories in U.S. media. The first one is obviously the tragic earthquake in Haiti, causing wide-spread destruction across the already-suffering nation, and the second story has been the NBC talk show fracas between Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. Now, one can’t compare an argument between two talk hosts to an earthquake that have killed tens of thousands, so I’m not going to make a comparison here. Only that I support Coco.

But this talk show fight has inspired me to find a video clip from way, way back. It doesn’t include Jay or Conan, but rather David Letterman – who also used to work at NBC, before switching to CBS. The following clip is from his Late Night show on May 14, 1986; just one day after I was born. I don’t know, I just thought it’s interesting to see what TV looked like at that time, when I had just arrived and everything.

Before and after

The Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Before:

After:

I’m well aware that I’m sugar-coating this by just putting up two pictures of the presidential palace before and after the devastating earthquake in Haiti.
But let’s face it: Haiti needs our help right now. The capital city has been utterly devastated by the quake, with several landmark buildings destroyed from the tremors. The death toll is right now still unknown, but it is feared that thousands – perhaps even HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, according to the Prime Minister – may have died.

If you want to do your part to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake, you can get in touch with the Red Cross and other relief organizations to help provide aid to the survivors. If you’re in the United States and you want to help, text HAITI to 90999 to make a $10 donation. More links to help can be found here, via HuffPo.

My games on Facebook

The explosive growth of Internet during the past decade has inspired the creation of large social networking sites, where you can connect with your entire family through the Internet. You got your Facebooks, your MySpaces, your YouTubes – and of course, the blogosphere, where you can write your opinion on anything. Personally, I created a Facebook account in 2007, though I didn’t find much use of it. I then re-activated the account in the summer of 2008, and saw a flurry of activity everyday. New friends, invitations…and games. Lots of games. Despite the big collection of games on Facebook, I’ll come out and admit that I only play a handful of games on the site. And I’d like to write a few words about the games I’m playing.

2009 (*Jan. 01 †Dec. 31)

It’s the end of 2009, the end of a year and the end of a decade. I don’t know what will happen during the following decade, but I’m hoping the next year will be better than this one. Good New Year’s Resolution: Blogging way more often here.

And finally, the best sports moment of 2009; Usain Bolt wiping out his own world record from Beijing on 200m in Berlin.

Like I said, I don’t know about the following decade – only that Usain Bolt is going to kick ass. With that, I wish you and yours a Happy New Year.

See you next decade!