My Top 3 "Best Movie" pics for 2010

* Twilight Saga: Eclipse (domestically)
* Sammy's Adventures: The Secret Passage (Foreign)

Sammy's avonturen: De geheime doorgang (original French title)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230204/combined

* The Round Up (2010) (Foreign)

La rafle (2010) (Original French Title)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1382725/

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This was the "Home" today question:  Writer's Block: Best movie of the year
Above were my responses. I, however, felt that these selections of mine were not completely represented. So, I'm including
the official/original movie/film covers with a very brief synopsis as given by the IMDB community.



Twilight Saga: Eclipse

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1325004/combined

"As a string of mysterious killings grips Seattle, Bella, whose high school graduation is fast approaching, is forced to choose
between her love for vampire Edward and her friendship with werewolf Jacob."







Sammy's Adventures: The Secret Passage (Foreign)

Sammy's avonturen: De geheime doorgang (original French title)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230204/combined

"A sea turtle who was hatched in 1959 spends the next 50 years traveling the world while it is being changed by global warming...."









The Round Up (2010) (Foreign)

La rafle (2010) (Original French Title)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1382725/

"1942. Joseph is eleven. And this June morning, he must go to school, a yellow star sown on his chest. He receives the support
of a goods dealer. The mockery of a baker. Between kindness and contempt, Jo, his Jewish friends, their families, learn of life
in an occupied Paris...."





These are my selections for 2010, though not in this particular order.
I hope that whoever or if anyone reads this, they may be inspired to view
or purchase these films. Great Watching.

Jerry Zambrano (AKA: Jared Zambrano)

World Economy Dependent on China?

I've already posted this elsewhere about a week ago, so this is a little bit of old news.

China's Central Bank Hits Brake on Hot Economy. Chinese economy expanding while Western economies are failing or on the brink of sliding back into a recession....
Global Business >> NewYorkTimes

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Lately, there has been much publicity on China v Google & Taiwan and threats by China to discontinue diplomatic and trade relationships with the US. Recently economists have predicted (Chinese 10% , Western 12%) that China's economical growth is for the first time in history, acting as a major engine pulling the rest of the world out of recession. "At the same time, if China brakes too hard, it risks slowing global growth overall and throwing other countries, including the United States, back into recession."

I find this disturbing as well as somewhat ironic. European, US, Canadian and other Western countries are depending on economic choices by China. What will this bode for International politics, including human rights issues currently in debate, mostly through Hillary Clinton.

The irony I have yet to mention, is the Western's criticism and seemingly threats to discontinue trade with the "Great Wall" and "Great Firewall" of China, will only tend to undermine our own economy. It would seem that now more than ever, The World is depending on Chinese exports, banking and other economic factors.

At issue here:
1. Western predictions of falling economies and nations sliding back to recession.
2. Accusations of a purposeful attempt by the Chinese government to control World Economy on it's own terms.

I don't think there's much we can do at this point but wait as China continues to move it's resources further and further into the mainland, making it very difficult to impossible for foreign nations to make requests from Chinese banks for loans.


Any thoughts?

Wow - Christian Bale in The Machinist (2004)

Wow. What a performance!



As usual, I had an itch for a good 1080p BluRay movie. I wasn't sure what I was gonna watch. So the first thing I did, was go straight to IMDB and searched their database for "Most popular Sci-Fi" movies. I have no idea how I eventually ended up in the Mystery, Thriller genre. I must have been on one of my insomnia kicks again.

So anyway, after reading the description and viewing the trailers, I decided that "The Machinist (2004)" was exactly what I needed to watch.

First of all, I have to mention that I painstakingly suffer from agonizing insomnia. No joke, and "you laugh because you think that I'm kidding, but I'm not" (credit to Dave Barry for that quote). Reading the IMDB description, I knew the movie was gonna touch some sensitive notes. Movie completely revolves around Christian Bales character who hasn't slept in over a year, trying to find peace of mind to produce sleep. That and trying to find his way through a self-induced psychosis. That was enough to catch my attention.

I don't wanna give away too much or ramble on and on like I usually do. Suffice it to say, that Bales performance and dedication to the performing arts was astonishing. Anyone that watched "Castaway" with Tom Hanks can tell you how much dedication went into to his character development. Gained several pounds of weight, and then lost a phenomenal amount of it for detail.

Exactly what Bale did in this movie, only very much to the extreme. I've got a couple of screen shots I'm gonna share.

Click on image to view the 1920x1080 res. screenshot

1. Healthy Bale.

2. Emaciated Bale. Pretty shocking and almost disturbing.

Funny enough, Sam Worthington of "Terminator: Salvation", "AVATAR' and "Clash of the Titans" commented in an interview on "Rove" talk show, that Bale was a very serious and dedicated professional when it came to his characters. Very funny actually. I'm including the Youtube video of his interview where he comments this.

Opera Wants to Bring Its Mobile Browser to iPhone

Nothing new to some, it's Opera-Mini

I knew that Opera (through it's blogs) had been working on several ideas with it's browser (mini) but it seems that it has caught the eye of some of social-media bloggers. Most likely because Apple offers very little to no support for 3rd party software with functionality that is already provided by it. (Safari in this case)

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Here's an Excerpt:

Opera Mini is a great mobile browser on most smartphones, but we didn’t really expect to see it on the iPhone. The reason for this is twofold: iPhone already sports Safari, which works really great, and second, Apple is unlikely to approve another browser, because it duplicates the functionality its app (Safari) already provides....

Read more....

J.


Follow Me On Twitter, eh. ;)

J.

Iranian Government Bans Gmail (Update)

I'm pretty sure I just finished posting a blog entry on Iran war attack on Twitter. I even included a really nice picture I think. ;) 

Apparently, I'm a little behind the times (about a few hours anyway). In the world of "Real time" information, a few hours is a very long time. So I feel that I MUST correct a previous entry, or at least update it. Here's the latest juicy.

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Iranian Government Bans Gmail

An article written by one of my favorite micro-bloggers and online journalists:
Christina Warren
AKA: @film_girl

As the Iranian authorities attempt to stifle tomorrow’s protests surrounding the anniversary of the Iranian revolution, they are going one step further: Iran is permanently suspending access to Google’s Gmail.

Read more....


J.

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