Movie Review. Shoot 'Em Up

This is the first celebrity guest blogger we've had on TheRoaringLyon and I hope it's not the last.

I present to you a movie review by SnowMongoose:

Film Review: Shoot 'Em Up

This movie delivers. The title fully expresses what the film is about: over the top, out of control gunplay. Carrot toting bum Smith (Clive Owen) (And yes, he does quote Bugs Bunny) is sucked into a mysterious tumult of bullets and death, obtaining (delivering!) a newborn and ending up at odds with the sadistic and ruthless Hertz (Paul Giamatti). Monica Bellucci reprises the role of ‘hooker with a heart of gold,’ providing extra impetus for Owen as his conscience forces him to protect her and baby Oliver every turn. (More importantly to the plot, Bellucci’s specialty in the world of prostitution is defined by her lactation, making for an atypical heroine)

Owen touches on familiar territory, as an aggressive, very angry, one-lining version of his character from “Children of Men,” and as Smith, he can be summed up in one line: He cuts Oliver’s umbilical cord… with a bullet. Come on, how badass is that?! Seeing Giamatti in such a bizarre role, after growing to appreciate his work in “Sideways” and “Cinderella Man,” was a treat, and provided much of the initial draw for me to see “Shoot em Up” in the first place. (And incidentally redeemed the damage he may have done to his reputation incurred by his role in “The Nanny Diaries”) Combining cold cruelty with quirks (a scarily analytical mind, a brief brush with necrophilia, and recurring cell conversations with his nagging wife) has been seen in the past, but not with the feel that Giamatti accomplished here.

The tempo never wanes, staying redlined for the vast majority of the movie, with only an occasional detour for halfhearted attempts at plot turns. (Intrigue involving the firearms industry, presidential candidates, and harvesting bone marrow, to name a few)

My only regret involving this film is that I only watched it with a handful of buddies, at home… I feel that the combined oohs, ahhs, and “Oh my god, that just happened” type laughter from a full theatre would have been worth every penny of my eight or so dollars. Only if one decided to view this film without taking the title seriously, or had an overt sensitivity to violence could one walk away from it with a bad taste in their mouth: in either case, no amount of changes could have redeemed the experience. I’ll give this one an easy 8 out of 10, crisp, brutal-yet-playful action, inventive shootouts, a uniquely evil villain, and an interesting spin on the obligatory hottie costar.

IKEA Taking a Poke at Lasse Viren?

It may be coincidence.

It may be that after naming hundreds of thousands of affordable Swedish furniture, food, and nick-nacks, the branding people at IKEA are at the end of their ropes.

But naming a toilet brush/holder after four-time Olympic gold medalist Lasse Artturi Viren whose past is spotted with allegations of reindeer milk and more troubling accusations seems a little too ironic.

Then again, the universe has a way of making sure that these kinds of coincidences happen...

Evolution of Tech Company Logos

Logos.

Very cool.

Here's a little trick I learned in the CIA...

On YouTube.

Get the full article here.

It's not surprising that the intelligence community is monitoring user-generated content for important intelligence. While some people might think that monitoring such seemingly innocuous lines of communication is a waste of intelligence dollars, I would simply point out that gambling on the average human's stupidity is usually a good bet and that there is probably some extremely sophisticated screening and searching technologies and techniques available to these analysts to separate the wheat from the chaff in regards to credible intelligence.

I wish there was more information on how exactly the CIA is leveraging social media in the intelligence war on terror.

Lies, Damned Lies, and...

This graph on Valleywag would be far more informative if it indicated how large each of those markets is.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

While Google search is clearly dominating the Australian market, because the graph doesn't tell us the size of the market, we don't know if Google's far smaller market share in Japan is in fact a less substantial market for it.

I'm not saying that the graphs isn't useful and interesting. It is extremely important to know how much of the market each company controls and it is one of the only objective ways to tell which search company is "winning" in those places. I'm simply pointing out that the raw numbers are essential to a full grasp of the relationships between Google, MSN and Yahoo.

I will try to find the raw numbers as to the size of these markets and post them later...

Off-Brand iPhone

Thanks to TechCrunch for the tip:

Get them while they're hot...

Super Tuesday Nerdiness

Even if you don't have Twitter, this mashup is flipping sweet.