The Anti-Hero

The Good: Captain America: The Winter Soldier Trailer 1

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 10:01:00 +0000

The first Captain America trailer was released last October 25. The first movie took a blast from the past showing the origins of Captain America and his adventures from Word War II. After 70 years frozen in the ice, Captain America struggles to keep up with the modern times. After the events in New York with the Avengers, Captain America joins S.H.I.E.L.D. yet he is confused who to trust.

Here are the good things we loved from the trailer:

Captain America's new suit

After two movies, Captain America finally got a suit upgrade and it's an awesome one! Cap finally ditched the star-spangled outfit. Since he joined S.H.I.E.L.D., he must have asked them to make a new suit for him. This is time when Bruce Wayne says, "Does it come in black?".

Old school

Cap may have a modern outfit in a modern world but he always keeps his sentimental side. Always going for the old school: the bike and the clothes.

We can also see Captain America wearing his old suit from the first movie.

Black Widow!

Who doesn't like Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow? We will be seeing more of her in this movie. We saw how she has grown from Iron Man2 to the Avengers and looks like this time we'll get to know here better. One thing we obviously know about her, she loves to change her hair styles. She started with the long curly hair in Iron Man 2 then cut it short in the Avengers. This time she straightened it out and she now looks more red head.

The Falcon

When I heard that the Falcon will be finally joining Cap, I didn't expect much. When the trailer landed, my jaw dropped when Falcon unleashed his wings. They did a great job with it just like Hawkeye's bow/arrows and Black Widow's bracelet that discharges the Widow's Bite.

Good thing they didn't went with Falcon's red/white feathery costume in the comics.

Cap and Black Widow relationship?

Captain America and Black Widow's relationship have grown from fighting side by side in the Avengers to their missions together in S.H.I.E.L.D.

This must be too early for spoilers but Cap and Nat shared a kiss. But we all know in comics that Black Widow ends up with Bucky and Cap with Sharon Carter.

More Helicarriers

In the Avengers we got to see one helicarrier. This time around we can see a lot of them. Is S.H.I.E.L.D. preparing for a war having all those helicarriers?

The helicarrier used in the Avengers almost fell from the sky. Now, we can see it going down in flames.

Politics

Kevin Feige, Marvel's president, described this movie as a "political thriller". There is just a new authority S.H.I.E.L.D., Alexander Pierce, who is played by Robert Redford. The question here is that, is he someone who can be trusted by Cap or is he one of the villains? There are rumors that he is the Red Skull. In the comics, Alexander Pierce was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who worked against HYDRA.

Captain America even argues with Nick Fury on how S.H.I.E.L.D. operates. Cap is a man of ideals and S.H.I.E.L.D. is contradicting on his ideals.

The shield stomp

These guys should have gone out when Cap gave them a chance. They thought their numbers will outlast a supersoldier. The best part is Cap stomping his shield and it just automatically slid into his hands.

WINTER SOLDIER!

The Winter Soldier definitely looked bad ass. Marvel has done a great job on how the villains look in their Cinematic Universe Phase 2 (The Mandarin and Malekith). The villains was supposed to be a strong character just like in the comics yet they didn't quite shown in the movies. We're all disappointed that the Mandarin was just a homeless psycho and Malekith was not that challenging for Thor. They should make the Winter Soldier a villain to be feared.

The Winter Soldier is Captain America's best friend, Bucky Barnes who is played by Sebastian Stan. In the first movie, Bucky fell off the train in an icy mountain and was presumed dead. In the comcs he was found frozen and missing his left arm by the Russians. He was then revived and gave him a bionic arm that granted him superhuman strength. He was brainwashed and trained to be super assassin for the Soviet with a code name of "Winter Soldier".

Will Captain America bring his best friend back to his consciousness and will Black Widow be knowledgeable of the Winter Soldier since both of them have have been trained by the Russians.

The shield catch

There's no need to explain this. Just like the shield stomp, this is self-explanatory. Pure awesomeness.

Captan America: The Winter soldier will be showing on April 4, 2014 and is directed by the brothers Anthony and Joe Russo. Hopefully get more trailers and clips by the end of the year.

The Best Moments of Thor: The Dark World

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 11:15:00 +0000

I just saw Thor: The Dark World last October 30 and just what I expected, it was awesome! It is far better than the first. It had a much serious and dark theme but it didn't neglect humor in between. Here are the best moments:

~~WARNING: SPOILERS!~~

Odin, as usual, giving an introductory history lesson

In the first movie, Odin narrated the story of the Frost Giants. This time around, he explained how his father defeated Malekith and the dark elves from unleashing the Aether to put darkness in the universe.

Odin giving the sentence to Loki

Loki who is shackeled, was being escorted by the guards and brings him to Odin. Odin talked to him of his crimes and sentenced him to be imprisoned in the dungeons.

Jane Foster on a date

Jane having a terrible date in order to move-on with Thor. Then Darcy came to save her from her date.

Playing with the portal

Darcy hired an intern making an intern's intern. They discovered a some kind of portal. They played with it by putting different stuff and it keeps coming back. However somethings just doesn't come back. Then the new intern dropped the car keys which didn't came back.

Jane getting the Aether

Jane went into a dimension where the Aether was being hidden. When she touched the Aether, it so what possed her with it. That's why Malekith went after her.

Thor joining the battle against the Marauders

Thor swinging the hammer on the stone giant

Odin giving a fatherly advice to Thor

Odin appreciated how much Thor has grown and matured and he got weary of Thor thinking about Jane. He told him that there are other who are far better in which he is referring to Sif.

Thor leaving the celebration early

It was pretty unusual for Thor to leave the celebration early. He then talks to Sif and she said that he usually celebrates for weeks. They then talk about how Thor misses Jane.

Frigga trying to talking sense into Loki

Frigga visited Loki in his prison and tries to comfort him. Loki then gets mad when Frigga mentioned about Odin and shouting: "He's not my father!". She then told him, "And I'm not your mother?". There was just this sadness in Frigga's face when looked into Loki.

Malekith's awakening

Thor coming back to Earth and brings Jane to Asgard

Heimdall can't see see Jane when Thor talked to him to check on her status. When Jane woke up, Darcy told her that she was gone for 5 hours and she called the police. It suddenly rains and with a few roars of thunder and after two years, Jane and Thor are finally reunited. Thor explained why he was gone for so long. The Aether within Jane releases a force when Jane is threatened. So Thor brought Jane to Asgard to be examined.

Heimdall jumping over the dark elf ship

I don't get it why Heimdall didn't saw the dark elf ships coming. He has the power to foresee events even on other worlds. He senses the dark elf ship and he came running on the rainbow bridge and jumps over the ship and destroys it. He looks back and see more ships coming.

Thor jump-and-fly sequence

This was just awesome. Thor showing off his flying skills with Mjolnir.

Sif's glare over Jane

Frigga bringing the fight to Malekith

Frigga hides Jane from Malekith since she has the Aethe within her. Frigga fights Malekith and disarms him but Kurse grabs her and stabs her from the back. We can also see where Loki got his magic when Frigga creates an illusion of Jane.

Frigga's funeral

It was a dreadful death yet Frigga's funeral was a wonderful sight. Alan Taylor did bring some of "Game of Thrones" into this movie with arrows being shot at boats to burn the body. This was the same with what happened in Game of Thrones Season 3 when Catelyn Stark's father died.

Thor asking for Loki's help

Captain America cameo!

One of the funniest scenes is when Thor got Loki out of the dungeon then Loki was being playful with his magic. He first turn into of the guards to avoid getting caught. Then he turned Thor into Sif. Then the unexpected, Loki turned into Captain America giving a Chris Evans cameo.

It's good to see two of the prominent Avengers reunite even it was just a few seconds.

Jane slapping Loki

Jane does a lot of slapping in this movie. He slaps Loki for the damage that he and the Chitauri did to New York.

Sif, Volstagg and Fandrall threatening Loki

During the escape of Thor, Loki and Jane, there are sequences of threats from Sif, Volstagg and Fandral with the phrase: "If you betray him..."

Sif making the first threat putting her sword on Loki's throat

Volstagg going for the second threat

Thor and Loki's escape on Asgard

The inevitable Stan Lee cameo

We see Dr. Erik Selvig explaining the convergence in a room from a home of the aged. He explained that two worlds are aligned with two different shoes then we see Stan Lee and he asks if he can get his shoe back.

Loki cutting off Thor's hand

When Loki and Thor landed on Svartalfheim and had a sight of Malekith, Loki pushes Thor down the ravine and kicks him. Thor tries to get Mjolnir and Loki instantly cuts Thor's hand. Loki told Malekith that he brings a gift, the Aether within Jane. He has one condition, a sure seat to watch Asgard burn.

Loki was helping after all

After the Aether was extracted from Jane and thinking that Loki finally betrayed Thor, Loki removes the illusion of Thor's amputated hands. Thor immediately struck lightning to the Aether in an attempt to destroy it.

Thor vs Kurse

Malekith finally have the Aether and he left Kurse to finish of Thor. Kurse who is like a super soldier of the dark elves, gave Thor a difficult time.

Loki dies

Just when Kurse is pounding Thor, Loki stabs him with one of the dark elf blades. As soon as you think the fight is finished, Kurse dragged Loki into him and got stabbed. However Loki implanted one of those black hole grenades into Kurse's back leading to his demise.

We see this precious face of Thor when Loki was stabbed by Kurse. We can see that Loki was turning into his natural blueish frost giant skin. He told Thor that he didn't do it for Odin.

Jane and Thor's journey back to Earth

Jane discovered a portal that leads Svartalfheim to Earth, when her phone rings when his date earlier in the movie called her. She then finds the keys that the intern lost. They were back on Earth and Thor hardly fit in Jane's car. When they arrived, Thor hanged Mjolnir and it didn't fall.

Erik Selvig happy about Loki's death and apologizes

Erik Selvig was happy to see Thor again but he was worried that Loki was back on Earth.

Selvig: "Is your brother here?"Thor: "He's dead"Selvig: "Oh, thank God

Final battle between Thor and Malekith

With the convergence taking place, the battle between Thor and Malekith reached new heights by taking place in Greenwich and into to other worlds. Thor countering Malekith's Aether with his Mjolnir.

Thor riding the subway

With the Mjolnir on the other dimension, Thor don't have a mode to fly. So he had no choice but to take the subway back to Greenwich.

Odin turns into Loki

After the battle, Odin and Thor talked about the throne and Loki's sacrifice. Thor told Odin that He would rather be a better man than a better king and swore to protect the 9 realms. As soon as Thor walked out, Odin turned into Loki. This was the greatest twist in the movie, knowing that Loki didn't actually die. Loki must have killed the guard who checked the events that happened in Svartalfheim then he transformed into that guard and reported to Odin what happened. With this big revelation, we must expect a Thor 3 for the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 3.

The Guardians of the Galaxy mid-credits reference

Sif and Volstagg bring the Aether to the intergalactic museum of none other than The Collector, played by Benicio del Toro . The reason for this is that the Tesseract is already on Asgard and they should have no two Infinity Stones in their possession.

The collector then said, "One down, five to go". This is a reference to the gems that can be found in Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos was featured in the Avenger's end credits and will have some part in Marvel's upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy which will be released on July 2014.

Thor going back to Earth in the end-credits

Thor returns to Earth and into the arms of Jane Foster and they share a passionate kiss. Then we can see the beast from Jotunheim, who came to Earth through the portal in the convergence.

Over all it was a great movie. For me, I think it has the same level with Iron Man 3. Chris Hemsworth did a great job portraying Thor but I gotta say that Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, carried the movie from his hatred to his playful side. I strongly believe that there will be Thor 3 but I'm not sure with Loki's stand alone movie. We'll see more of Thor in the Avengers: Age of Ultron.

What to expect from Thor: The Dark World

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 03:05:00 +0000

Marvel's second installment from it's Cinematic Universe Phase 2 — Thor: The Dark. World, will be released in a few days. It will be released here in the Philippines on October 30, 2013 and in the US on November 8, 2013. The first Thor movie was quite a success with Chris Hemsworth playing the God of Thunder. Now we will see Thor battle an enemy who is out for revenge, intending to plunge the universe into darkness.

Here are some things we expected to the sequel Thor: The Dark World.

~~WARNING: SPOLERS AHEAD!~~

More screen time for the other Asgardians

The first movie focused more on Thor and Loki. This time around we will see more action from the Warriors Three and Lady Sif.

Girl Power!

This may be Thor's movie but the women characters will play a pivotal role. We can see Frigga joining the action and Jane Foster using her knowledge and intelligence during Asgard's war with the dark elves

We will also see more action from Lady Sif proving that she is the goddess of war. She even told Thor that she is completely under control of the battle.

More scenery of Asgard and the other realms

From the trailers, we saw that Thor brought Jane Foster to Asgard. Unlike the first movie which was mostly on Earth setting, we will be seeing more of the kingdom of Asgard.

A challenging villain

In the first movie, Thor only conquered Loki's envy of him and to show that he can be the rightful ruler of Asgard. This time the villain will be Malekith The Accursed which is played by Christopher Eccleston. Malekith is the ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim. He is seeking revenge and he want's to put the universe into darkness. In order to accomplish that he will need to unleash the Aether which is an all-powerful weapon capable of triggering mass annihilation.

Battle sequences

Thor: The Dark World may not have the same level of battle sequences in Avengers or Iron Man 3, but it will have more action than the first movie. We only saw 3 action scenes from the first one: battle with the frost giants, Thor ramming S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Thor defeating The Destroyer. This time around we will see the Asgardians battle an army of dark elves.

Thor will prove to Loki that hitting will always solve anything.

Thor and Loki working together

Loki may be adopted, but Thor always treated him as a brother. With all Loki's mischief, Thor still believes that there is a glimmer of hope. Now he is asking for Loki's help and threatened to kill him if he betrays him. Loki looks cooperative yet will he still betray him or will he finally show the good side of him?

Loki: "You must be truly desperate to come to me for help"

End credits! ~~SPOILER~~

This is what we love about Marvel movies, the end credit scenes! For the first time, Marvel will be having two end credits in a movie. The first one will be a mid-credits scene and it helps set the stage for Guardians of the Galaxy:

“After the Aether is back in the hands of the Asgardians , Sif and Volstagg bring the item to the intergalactic museum of none other than The Collector, played by Benicio del Toro . The reason for this is that the Tesseract is already on Asgard and they should have no two Infinity Stones in their possession. When he is alone with the Aether, The Collector utters the phrase, ‘One down, five to go.’”

The second one occurs at the end-credits:

“Thor returns to Earth and into the arms of Jane Foster, and they share a passionate kiss. The God of Thunder clearly chooses to be with her. In last scene, a beast from Jotunheim pops up in London, having previously passed through an interdimensional passage during the Convergence during the final battle.”

Credits to brainfreeze.be

Thor: The Dark World has all the hype. All it has to do is deliver. I have a very good feeling that this will be a great movie especially for those Marvel fans. Let's see and find out. Let me know what you think once you watched it!

BBM - A little too late

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 07:46:00 +0000

After the roll out of the BBM App a few weeks ago, Blackberry finally released it's BBM App for iOS and Android. Blackberry is on a downside and can the BBM App push them back? With all of the messaging apps that came out for the past months, does the BBM App stand a chance? Here are some features lacking from the BBM App:

1. Video Chat

All of the instant messaging apps out there have video chat. Did Blackberry just wanted the app to be exclusive for messaging? Even though it has a voice call feature, we still expect something more.

2. Stickers!

What makes messaging more fun and interactive? STICKERS! This is the one feature that instant messaging apps are battling on. Line, WeChat, Viber, KakaoTalk, etc. has their own line of stickers. They even offer in-app-purchases for more stickers. Blackberry just stick to it's simplicity with a few emoticons.

3. User Interface

Speaking of simplicity, BBM really made the design plain and simple. You have 5 buttons at bottom: Chats, Contacts, Groups and two side menus.

The left most button opens up with Chats, Contacts, Groups, Updates and Invites. This left side menu can also be accessible by swiping to the right.

The right most button opens up with Help, Settings, Invite to BBM, Create New Group and Join Group. However, this is not accessible through swiping gesture.

They should have removed the buttons for the side menus and replace them with Updates, Invites or Profile. Then they should just merge the side menus into one and make it accessible with the swipe gesture.

The BBM App is on it's new born stage so it still has more room for improvement.

4. Device Portability

Your BBM Pin is only exclusive to your device. Unlike other instant messaging apps which binds your phone number, email or Facebook to your account, BBM is only bound to your registration details and doesn't allow multiple device log-ins simultaneously.

Missing features of the new iPad Air and the iPad mini 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 11:05:00 +0000

Apple released a new line of iPads last October 22, 2013: the iPad Air and the iPad Mini 2. The 5th generation full-sized iPad has been branded as the iPad Air. It has a new design making it thinner and lighter. The iPad Mini finally have a retina display. Both have the new A7 64-bit chip processor which is also in the iPhone 5S, however the iPad Mini doesn't have the M7 motion co-processor. Both tablets are now pretty powerful yet Apple missed some features to wow us with.

1. No Fingerprint scanner and TouchID

We have all been amazed when Apple introduced the fingerprint scanner and the TouchID in last month's iPhone 5S keynote event. Since then we have also been expecting it to be included in the new iPad and iPad mini. Too bad it wasn't. The fingerprint scanner adds more security and the TouchID give more accessibility especially in downloading from the App Store. This is a very much needed feature for those who use iPads in the corporate world. Looks like Apple want's this feature exclusive to the iPhone 5S.

2. No GOLD!

You gotta admit that you drooled and your eyes popped when the iPhone 5S was announced. Just like the fingerprint scanner, we have all expected that gold will be added to the line of colors of the iPad. But another disappointed that it wasn't. The iPhone 5S is quite a rare to find the gold iPhone 5S. Did Apple run out of gold tint for the iPhone 5S?

3. Still no 8MP camera

We all love taking pictures. Even if it is quite awkward to take pictures from the iPad, Apple should have upgraded iPad's camera to 8MP. If they want to get up a notch at the table race, they should dump the mediocre 5MP camera. They even fail to upgrade the iPhone 5S to a double digit MP to get in par with Samsung Galaxy S4.

4. More storage!

With all the games and apps consuming so much memory space comes the demand for more storage. If Apple wants the iPad to be one of the gaming consoles, they need to add more storage! Games like Infinity Blade automatically consumes more than 1GB. Let's say you have 10 of that kind of games, then add all of your photos, videos and music and you're almost max out of storage. Apple released a 128GB version of iPad 4 earlier this year. But you think the 128GB is enough for all your games and media? Even Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak wasn't impressed with the new iPad Air because he wanted more storage. He even said the following:

"Yes it's thinner, but I wanted storage. I don't have broadband at home, so I carry all my personal media in the iPad. So I was hoping Apple has a 256GB iPad."

Since the bigger iPad changed it's name to iPad Air, there have been rumors that Apple is planning for a iPad Pro in the near future. Would they be upgrading the storage by then?

5. Much bigger iPad?

All of us have their own preferences when it comes to gadget sizes. That's why tech companies are providing us their products in different sizes: their flagship product (phone/tablet), a mini version of the flagship and a bigger size of the flagship wherein in phones we have the phablet. Just what I said in the previous item, there are rumors of having an iPad Pro since the full size iPad became the iPad Air. But will Apple increase the size of the iPad to 11 inches to compete with the Microsoft Surface? Increasing the size is most likely for corporate uses and will it replace the laptop? If Apple will push through the iPad Pro they better come with great accessories such as cases and keyboards.

So do you agree with the missed features from this year's batch of iPads? Are there still other features missing? Let me know!