After Earth [2013]

After Eszopiclone, Ramelteon, Triazolam, Zaleplon and Zolpidem, it was M. Night Shyamalan’s turn to come up with a revolutionary prescription-free drug that will make you fall asleep in a matter of seconds. It's called "After Earth", it has no secondary effects, it does not contradict with the prolonged use of alcohol, recreational drugs or porn. It's available at a cinema nearby and, trust me, the desired effect kicks in 5 minutes after the commercials.

Get your favorite blankets at hand (come on, you do have one) and listen to my soothing voice: "One thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind’s new home. General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) returns from an extended tour of duty to his estranged family, ready to be a father to his 13-year-old son, Kitai (played by Jaden Smith). When an asteroid storm damages Cypher and Kitai’s craft, they crash-land on a now unfamiliar and dangerous Earth. As his father lies dying in the cockpit, Kitai must trek across the hostile terrain to recover their rescue beacon. His whole life, Kitai has wanted nothing more than to be a soldier like his father. Today, he gets his chance."

...what? What happened? I've must have fallen asleep...

Let alone the fact that naming a character "Cypher Raige" is more than transparent to the plot, the "After Earth" pill is effective by its pure, untainted boring essence. There is a plot here, but it's so overplayed that once you understand what's going on you could go to sleep with no remorse. You could remap the scenario, on your own, tomorrow, when you'll wake up or you'll sober. The whole 100 minutes of this movie amount to a pinnacle of boredom, with copycat CGI's and idiotic replies. Neither father or son (Will Smith and Jaden Smith) shows no emotion albeit the main fiber in the plot is the son that needs to prove himself up to his father's expectations.

Somehow I suspect that along the lines of "After Earth", Will Smith was trying to push forward his son's career as an actor. Never gonna happen. Not with this plot, not with this screenp... Good night, kids!

Privacy probing - Facebook's Graph Search

During the Crunchie Awards in San Francisco, at the beginning of year 2010, our little favorite net dictator, Mark Zuckerberg, stated that "privacy was no longer a ‘social norm’ and had just evolved over time".

A Facebook project, initially tossed as garbage code, has resurfaced recently as "Graph Search", a so called "search engine" which is based on a "propagate search code". You don't understand a word I'm saying, right? Ok, let's suppose you have a Facebook account, your privacy is set ironclad and you feel comfy talking to your friends, sharing ideas, photos and stuff. Suddenly, you discover that somebody named I.C.U. (hehe, nice touch, right?) has access to your albums, your photos, everything. How the hell could that have happened? you might ask. Well, it's pretty simple...

I.C.U. has their own list of friends. Those friends have their own friends, so on, and so forth. In the aftermath of this spiral somebody, somewhere knows you, hence giving I.C.U. access - through a very intricate structure of intermediaries - access to your information. And that, my friends, is Graphic Search, the foremost tool to invade somebody's privacy.

Despite all the paranoid instructions that might float around your Facebook timeline ("hover over my name, click settings, uncheck Events..., blabla") there is a simpler way to disable, at least temporarily, Graph Search. Gather around, kids!

By default, when you create a Facebook account, the language is set to English (US). In your Facebook account, go to "Settings" (the gear thingie top right) > Account Settings (from the drop-down menu) and, at the right of the Language line, click Edit. From the drop-down list, next to the Primary Language, choose English (UK) instead of English (US). Click Save and hell, you're "Graph Search" free!

The explanation is that Graph Search was implemented for the English (US) dictionary only and it would take me aeons to explain Zuckerberg that there is almost no difference between the US and the UK dictionary, it's just the pronunciation and a few slang terms that make the difference. Still, I can't argue with a genius, hehe.

For other people, who are partial to their native language, don't be coy! Change the Primary Language accordingly and be assured that by the time Zuckerberg's linguistic team finds a way to implement your language into Graph Search, your grandchildren would have found a better way to override this crap.

Cheers! (English UK) hehe....

Trance (2013)

"Your memory is not destroyed. It is locked in a cage. And with enough force, enough violence, the lock can be broken"

The plot revolves around Simon (James McAvoy), a fine art auctioneer which becomes involved in the theft of Francisco de Goya's painting "The dance of the witches", from his own auction house. A former hardcore gambler, Simon is in cahoots with Franck (Vincent Cassel), to which he owes a great deal of money, so the theft is his only way out.
The theft would go wrong after Simon made an unexpected move towards Franck, trying to zap him. Franck recovers from the shock and hits him with his gun across the head. Simon loses his memory, temporarily and they have to appeal to a hypnotherapist, Elisabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) to bring out the location of the stolen painting.

The whole movie is about the chase for the painting. Does Elisabeth Lamb screw both Simon and Franck in order to control them? Cannot confirm or deny. Is it violence implied in this movie? No, it isn't, it's just make-believe.

However, this movie is something to be watched. It should probably give you an insight of the power that your shrink has upon you.

Olympus Has Fallen [2013]

This movie falls into the "tragicomedy" category, meaning that once the movie is finished and the credits are on you'll weep for your money (the tragedy part) and, in the mean time, you'll laugh at the poor saps that bought tickets for the next show (the comic part). It is so idiotic in all its aspects that it makes "After Earth" an Oscar winner... (We'll deal with the latter in a few days).

The plot unveils like this: ex Special Forces operative and former presidential bodyguard Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) gets to fight to take back the White House from terrorists who have kidnapped the Commander In Chief (Aaron Eckhart). Aaron Eckhart is not the smart choice for a presidential character, but I'm not in the casting team, so what the hell, let's go with him! In the aftermath of a tragic accident involving the President and the First Lady (Ashley Judd, which has about 2 minutes of exposure in this movie) Mike Banning is handed with his walking papers. Fast forward, the terrorists take over the White House, it's a North Korean faction of "United Front of Whoever Gives A F**k" (as they say in the movie). Dylan McDermott, agent Forbes in the plot and co-conspirator, dies by the hand of Mike Banning, not before he gets to spew platitudes, obviously.

With the President taken hostage and the Secretary of Defense, Ruth McMillan (Melissa Leo) beaten to the pulp, but still chanting the pledge of allegiance while dragged across the floor, here comes Speaker Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), who becomes the actual president. Have I mentioned that the characters portrayed by Dylan McDermott and Ashley Judd died already? And here it comes Mike Banning, taking charge, fighting remote machine-guns with a pistol, it was not a Colt .45, I checked it...

Turns out that the terrorists were after the Cerberus codes. You have no idea what Cerberus means? It's the program that launches an all-out nuclear attack. Except this time, when it is contained within the borders of the US. In other words, if you have a nuclear silo within your state limits, Kang (Ricky Yume) plans to make it go boom. 

Still, as Jon Stewart said, "once you have Morgan Freeman playing in a movie, you know that everything's gonna be alright". Airplane bomber with anti-heatseeker tehnology? Fuck it, we'll send two Raptors to be shot down into the ground... Then, as an immediate response, we'll send another Raptor, all by itself, just to be sure. Dylan McDermott's character dies, and even as he dies he's not credible. We get rid of Ashley Judd at the beginning of the movie. Why the hell did Morgan Freeman accept this gig?

This movie is chock full of cliches, from the beginning till the very end. Secret Service Director Lynn Jacobs (Angela Basset) is either cursing or stating the obvious. After 9/11 you would expect some degree of protection over the White House, but not in this movie. The "Hydra Six" thingies at the top of the White House are just anti-aircraft-remote-controlled guns, which, in this case, are not working properly. What the hell was Morgan Freeman thinking when he accepted playing a part in this movie? Despite all the heavy machinery, Mike Banning survives. Dylan McDermott, much like Kerry Washington in "Scandal" has a face that prone him to burst into tears any minute now (Remember "The practice"?)

But, in the end, there is Gerard Butler, who inadvertently saves the day. Probably he has some experience from "300". This was a really bad movie, with a crappy plot. In the year 2100 people would probably study this film as an "peculiar response to human behavior". DO NOT PAY FOR THE TICKET! Buy your children an ice cream...