Today, I’m gonna write two short movie reviews since I watched them recently. Let’s start with Azumi 2: Death or Love first. As usual we get to see the cast from the previous title like Aya Ueto, Shun Oguri, Yuma Ishigaki make a comeback, as well as some new faces like Chiaki Kuriyama and Ai Maeda. The film is fairly short, about one hour and thirty minutes in length, and it’s directed by Shusuke Kaneko this time, instead of the fanatic Ryuhei Kitamura (of Azumi 1, Versus fame) whose crazy shooting styles are something which I’ve come to love with. Action was pretty steady, nothing too crazy this time, no fanciful camera angles or shooting styles, in fact I would call it a pretty normal samurai versus ninja kind of flick, but it’s the characters involved around Azumi and of course Azumi herself too, that makes the story interesting and on-going. Though this time there’s actually quite an imminent and obvious factor that viewers would notice, that is we get to see the entanglement of emotional struggles and the more humane side of Azumi this time, as she finds her stuck in a perplexing confusion as she tries to uphold her responsibility, beliefs and her affections for the one she loves. My verdict? 3 out of 5 popcorns. Gonna love the characters development and plot in the movie, but the action department falls short of expectations. (so for this I believe Ryuhei Kitamura has an upper-hand in the action dept)

And then we have H2G2, which is shortform for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, based on the books by Douglas Adams. A wholesome cast of british actors and actresses, no real familiar faces here. (at least to me) But they have a really cute robot called Marvin in it, and he’s uber cute I tell ya. Programmed and built around a technology called GPP which is also known as “Genuine People Personalities”. He has a informative brain that holds the size of a planet, but seldom gets the chance to use it. Severely depressed, he often procrastinates and whines about his problems, irritating the people around him. Interestingly, some people might recognise the VA cast for Marvin, he’s voiced by no other than Alan Rickman, notably famous for his VA cast in the Harry Potter movie series, as Professor Severus Snape. As for the story, it’s very fantasy-like, as were the fictional books it was based on. But I like how the movie conveyed the sensible and spastic messages about “Life” through the various quotes used, as well as the funny little moments, like vomitting strings, the claymen-like scene, and also how everyone looked upon ‘Deep Thought’ as the ultimate god, forty-two anyone? *laughs* And my verdict for it? 4.5 out of 5 popcorns I say. This is hilariously one of those light-hearted movies you would enjoy any day without too much complexity about the plot, just relax and enjoy the show, good for the laughs and characters in it.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m so damn glad that the air-con goodness is finally back? The air-con system at home broke down somewhere since May, and Dad finally arranged someone to come down to install the new air-con system today, Mitsubishi Electric Starmex series. Can’t believe that I actually lived without the air-con for one whole freaking month, and not to mention the weather was terribly hot these days. Feeling snugged I am, in contentment of solace I feel.

Gonna head down to SLS tomorrow to buy some stuffs for my sister’s PC, the stubborn old system refused to boot up even after I did some troubleshooting today. Freaking problematic piece of crap machine, which is actually not surprising considered that I reused the parts from my Athlon XP system DIYed back in 2001, so all these had to come sooner or later. Time to do an upgrade for it, hrms it’s gonna be a busy Sunday for me.

Can’t wait for next week. My precious baby my Sony NW-HD5 Network Walkman. Oh drown me in the goodness of mellowy music oh please.