[Opinions]

I've always been a fan of that famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes -- he has all the trappings of a real man, even if Arthur Conan Doyle first penned him over a hundred years ago. It's just unfortunate that media has so far portrayed the great detective to be somewhat haughty and "above it" all -- hardly a fun character. This season's "Sherlock Holmes" movie should break the stereotype.

After all, Holmes will be played by none other than Robert Downey, Jr. -- and everybody watches Robert Downey, Jr. If the official cinematic trailer is to be any indication, he plays a great Sherlock Holmes -- albeit at a stark (no pun intended) departure from the clean gentleman we've come to know the detective as.

The other half of the equation is Holmes's loyal (?) sidekick, Dr. Watson, played to the hilt by Jude Law. It can be argued that Law's performance by itself will make the movie worth watching -- in one swift swoop, Law destroys the misconception that Watson was simply Holmes's moronic apprentice, and is instead instrumental to the detective's success.

The new movie takes place well into Holmes's detective career, with Watson, fed up with detective work, decides to leave Holmes to get married. But when a closed case gets reopened -- a dead criminal somehow comes back to life and plots the complete and utter destruction of London -- Holmes and Watson are on the case again. What follows is a well-woven, action-packed, hilariously-played mystery story -- kind of like Pirates of the Caribbean in Victorian England.

I can't say enough about how they gave the Dr. Watson character some redeeming exposure in this film. Previous Watsons were portrayed as near-useless, and sometimes bumbling assistants to the great detective -- almost like a foil to Holmes's genius. In this movie, Watson is the smooth English foil to the brash, annoying, very American Holmes. Despite deviating from the Canon somewhat, it still makes for a very interesting chemistry.

Hardcore fans of the original Sherlock Holmes novels will undoubtedly question the authenticity of this movie's portrayal. But many experts are claiming that the movie is surprisingly and refreshingly true to the Canon, even though I'm pretty sure Doyle's Holmes didn't look one bit like Downey, Jr.

The movie's set to open in most places of the world on Christmas Day -- barely two weeks from now. If you're looking for a good mystery movie to drown out the usual holiday hoopla, this one's your best bet.

I'm pretty sure some of you are surprised about Chris Gomez writing with regards to the Twilight saga, especially since I do consider myself the savior of what's left of the world's machismo. Isn't Twilight a girl's movie? Has Chris crossed over to the dark side? Hardly, and I'll tell you why before we head to the cinemas for the weekend.


Besides being overly concerned with the emergence of girly men in the world, I'm equally concerned about the lack of representation that women often get in film and media. I'd wish that such gender bias only existed in the most backwards places in the world, but unfortunately even our beloved movie industry is plagued by it.

Let's take the past two decades, for instance. Most of the great movies we've seen were designed for a largely male audience -- lots of action, explosions, and sex. Movies geared towards female audiences were meanly called "chick flicks" -- by itself a derogatory term in the movie industry -- and were relegated to a tiny niche that doomed them to failure.

You might argue that it's not the men's fault -- after all, "romantic comedy" is an oxymoron that's up there with "clean politics" and "military intelligence" and "Microsoft Works" -- but it's still pretty unfair. While a few romantic movies (Titanic) got lucky and scored big in the box office, others (Pearl Harbor, Australia, and a host of others) failed miserably.

So what about Twilight?

I'm not much for emo/goth romances, but I believe finally giving women a reason to troop to the cinemas is a good thing. Even to me, Twilight can be a refreshing break from too much angst, action, and misguided machismo in the movies. Oh, and there's no denying the guys behind the movies did a pretty good job.

Does Twilight represent a paradigm shift in the film industry? I doubt it -- the upcoming years has a healthy list of male-oriented movies coming our way. At best, Twilight simply tips the scales to the women's favor -- something that couldn't have been done sooner.

The latest Twilight movie, "New Moon," is still topping the charts after two weeks in business. If you're up for something different, give it a try -- but leave your biases at the door if you want to enjoy it.

America is on the tail-end of a their five-day Independence Day weekend, and it's been a blast so far for the movie industry. The biggest winner was still -- what else -- Michael Bay's "Transformers 2," followed closely by "Ice Age 3."

I also got to watch "Transformers" over the weekend (I wanted to avoid the inevitable crowds on the first week), and I enjoyed every minute of it. I think it really did surpass everything the first Transformers movie was. This is why I find it surprising that so many movie "experts" found it a little on the negative side.

Granted, the movie was a little long (150 minutes) and complex for the uninitiated, and bulk of the movie centered on "too much" action -- but that's what you expect from a Michael Bay movie. But it turns out moviegoing audiences don't seem to read reviews anymore.

For some reason though, every place I look I seem to find the same ten people who dislike the movie in the comments section...

Anyway, on to Ice Age 3. I haven't watched the movie yet (it only opened this week where I am), but if the US box office returns are any indication, I'll bet it's every bit as good as Transformers 2. While Michael Bay's movie keeps rolling into the history books as the highest grossing film of 2009 so far, Ice Age 3 seems to be doing a good job of keeping up.

The third "must-see" movie is Johnny Depp's "Public Enemies (directed by Michael Mann)," although I doubt it's going to make a sizeable draw outside the United States -- which isn't what I would say for the NEXT big movie waiting in the wings, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Pixar, on the other hand, proved both movie "experts" and Wall Street wrong with "Up." It made an expectedly good splash in the worldwide box office over the past several weeks, and is currently second after Transformers 2 as the highest-grossing 2009 film. "Up" is also poised to become Pixar's biggest grosser, a title currently held by "The Incredibles."

All said, I can't wait for Transformers 3, the slew of Marvel and DC movies coming up, and the next big thing to come out of Pixar.

I love weekends, since it's the only window of opportunity I get to relax, re-energize, and take in some guiltless good food. But something I saw today just ruined my weekend before it even started.

Is it just me, but is Burger King's latest ad about their Super Seven-Incher Sandwich just plain tasteless? On it, it shows the profile of a woman about to take in Burger King's new submarine sandwich. The setup would've been okay, except for three things:

#1 - The woman in the poster has fake blond hair, black eyeliner, and a lipsticked mouth wide open. The woman has a wide-eyed, expressionless look -- and her open mouth doesn't show any teeth. You'd expect your ad to be tasteless when you make your model look like an inflatable love doll.

#2 - The submarine sandwich, lined up with her open mouth, completes the sexually suggestive look.

#3 - To top things off, the caption read: "It'll BLOW your mind away."

Granted, BK's new sandwich does look pretty good, and it would've been something I'd be willing to try -- but the ad ruined everything. Seriously. I mean, after people see this ad, will they ever think of a submarine sandwich the same way again?

If the geniuses who came up with this ad thought people would find it funny, sure -- I just doubt it'll be popular with their straight male audience. Or if they thought that most people wouldn't get it anyway, well it just shows most people are smarter than they are.

Seriously, dudes, you're in the wrong industry. Quit your jobs. Change your names. Don't have kids.

To the rest of you -- if you want to see what I'm talking about,  click here.



Update:  June 25, 2009, 11:38 PM +0800 GMT
The Ad is on the website of Bon-Food Pte Ltd.
Want to know who they are? Read on.

Found on the company's website (- Link -):
About Bon-Food
Bon-Food Pte Ltd has been the authorised franchisee of BURGER KING® in Singapore since 1982. Since that time, we have served our flagship sandwich, the flame-grilled WHOPPER®, to millions of customers. Currently, all our BURGER KING® outlets are strategically located around the island. Plans are also in place for a number of new outlets that will continue to make BURGER KING® not only synonymous with great tasting flame-grilled burgers, quality and value, but also accessibility.



Update:  June 27, 2009, 10:21 PM +0800 GMT
I'm adding this image here, just in case the link above is removed. I strongly believe this ad should be made available for all to see and ponder over.

I've been thinking (and I really hate it when that happens) about Hollywood's tendency to recycle movies from a few decades ago into totally new, rehashed versions of themselves. They've done it countless times, from superhero franchises like "Superman" and "Spider-Man" to epic dramas like "Titanic." Is Hollywood running out of ideas?   :)

I recently talked to a freelance writer friend of mine and asked him how the global economic crunch hit the freelance writing business. He said that while the demand for freelancers have spiked with the recession (businesses now see hiring freelancers as more cost-effective than hiring in-house workers), the demand for low-cost work has also risen accordingly.

He cited an example: Before the recession hit, he had clients asking him to write totally original articles for their websites and products. But now, with buyers tightening their belts left and right, they're now asking him to rewrite existing private label rights articles (articles whose ownership is shared among the people who buy them) into new, original versions of themselves. There's a lot of work to be done, but at about half the usual price.

Maybe the same thing is happening to Hollywood today -- with budgets getting tighter and tighter, recycling old movies into newer versions of themselves may seem like a good idea to make money. Already we're seeing remakes of Captain America and other comic book superheroes on the table. I guess this is fine to some extent, but there's only so much of Spider-Man saving a beautiful, screaming woman falling from the top of a building I can stomach.

Valerie recently blogged about movies that ought to be remade, and I caught myself laughing at her suggestions for remaking the movie "Forrest Gump." Since the original movie took place in events such as the Vietnam War -- things that most people today can't relate to -- the new movie ought to be a little more updated. Justin Timberlake playing Forrest Gump, winning American Idol and shutting up Simon Cowell with "Stupid is as stupid does?" Genius.

So right off the top of my head, here are some other movies I think Hollywood ought to remake in the future.

#1 - Batman. Yes, yet again -- if only to badger those fools who want the Joker retired in honor of Heath Ledger. (heh heh heh)

#2 - Back To The Future. Now that we have a clearer view of what the future might be, we could have someone like Ashton Kutcher going back in time to save the world from malaria, Facebook, Christina Aguilera and Bruce and Demi's marriage.

#3 - Dragon Ball. I don't care if it's still showing in some parts of the world today -- redo this in animated 3D, and you just might resurrect my interest in Japanese animation.

No. Wait. It's Dragon Ball. OK, perhaps there are some things CG* can't resurrect.



* Not Chris Gomez you quack. I meant Computer Graphics. Chris Gomez can resurrect anything.

If you don't know who Douglas Bowman is, he's been one of the top design guys in Google for the past three years. He redesigned much of Blogger when Google bought it a few years ago, and he also helped in the redesign of many other Google products He recently said a goodbye to Google in his blog, citing how incredibly data-centric their design criteria was, which wasn't a very healthy work environment for a classical designer like him.

In his goodbye note, he verified the validity of a rumor going around that Google couldn't decide between two shades of blue that they're currently testing 41 different shades of blue to see which works best. He was also asked to decide whether a border should be 3, 4, or 5 pixels wide, and to defend his case.

Perhaps sometime in the near future things may be different, but at this point in time, I will say that aesthetics isn't Google's strongest point – everyone knows how painfully straightforward Google's interface is, as well as how painfully ugly the Google Phone was – but was it really necessary to sacrifice good design sense to ensure their products work just a little bit better?

I've written before about the differences between Google and Apple – Google is as much into function and results as Apple is into form factor and minimalism. It's funny how both big names seem to be doing so well despite being somewhat at the opposite ends of the design spectrum.

Bowman's departure sparked debates all over the 'Net, mostly between design enthusiasts who agreed with him and function hardliners who criticized him and sided with Google. I was pretty surprised to see very few people who agreed with Bowman's philosophy – being a classical designer, he believes that form and function should be balanced.

Does this mean that when it comes to these things, there isn't any gray area?

Hardly – I think one of the main reasons why Google and Apple are so popular today is because they make their extreme design philosophies part of their corporate identities. A company that stands in the gray area – think Microsoft, Blackberry, and Palm – has no reason not to do just as well, but stands to miss out on the popularity of being on the end of the spectrum.

What do I think? Well, I suppose I can agree with the man – form and function should strike a balance to deliver the best performance. Google may have the Net statistics and Apple may have the fan revenue to support their design philosophies, but people need to understand that the world consists of black, white, and six billion gray areas in between. All this mudslinging between form and function enthusiasts (...and don't get me started on the trash the people in the sciences and the arts hurl at each other) have left no one but the ones in the middle to suffer.

I'm much more of a movie guy than a TV guy, but I always try to catch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart every chance I get. I swear, he may not know how to dance with the rich snobs at the Oscars, but he sure knows how to poke fun at the world's politics right where it hurts. Last week, though, he also showed me that he's also one of the most knowledgeable media critics in the world today.

A little over a week ago, I wrote a bit about Rick Santelli's infamous “rant of the year,” where he criticized the Obama Administration's efforts to help the poor keep their homes. He went so far as to call victims of the foreclosure as “losers,” that they deserved to lose their homes, and implied that the money should instead go to those who were “smart” enough not to get caught up in the crisis.

I am posting this mostly for the benefit of my readers in Asia and the EMEA.

It's confirmed. We are now, officially, a society of misguided fools. Yeah, those loser homeowners should lose their homes, especially the ones who had added an extra bathroom and therefore, now, can't afford to pay their bills.

Thank you CNBC for helping us figure that out. Thank you Wall Street for doing nothing and still asking all of us for more money.

I've already written about how the Grammy Awards seemed to be losing its luster (and TV ratings) to shows that appealed to a much wider audience, like “American Idol.” I felt the same way about the Academy Awards, especially after the disaster they threw last year (it captured a record-low 32 million viewers). As expected, the Oscars made a few changes to make the show a little more interesting this year – and what we got was something that went surprisingly well.