I tried watching Oculus

I tried watching Oculus with my girlfriend and her sister yesterday night. I say tried because we stopped watching it with 30 minutes to go. The film was 104 minutes long so we had sat through 74 minutes of it so we gave Oculus its chance. The main problem is that we felt the film hadn't started yet.

The film is about a sister trying to exonerate her family and convince the world her brothers actions were not through fault of his own but under the influence of the mirror. This is done by, on the day of the release of her brother from the mental hospital she 'hijacks' the mirror which is in the process of being delivered to a new owner and performs an experiment. Filming her and her brother's interactions with the mirror she hopes to prove people act strange around the mirror before destroying it.

I don't want to go into how the relationship between the brother and sister wasn't believable and the little plot holes and 'why did the character just do that' etc. because all movies have those problems and still achieve a level of watchability (I just created a word I know). The overall direction and pacing of the film didn't engage us. I was liking the progress of the story, how the past and future were parallel with each other, possibly the only thing that was engaging. Ultimately the future was a lot more boring than the past. The 'freakiness' of the mirror was a lot more evident in the past storyline than in the future so when it would jump to the future story the pace would drop right back down as the mirror's powers were just starting to emerge, which heavily damaged the atmosphere.

They were attempts to make these parts seamless as the stories would drift in together but the arguing between the siblings and slowness to have the brother 'realise' what was going on just broke that connection. What normally happens in horror films is there is a believer and sceptic and we are given 'doubtful' information so the believer is ridiculed for thinking there was a ghost. However in this instance we are given irrefutable proof something weird is going on and the sceptic is all like 'Ermegerd you are mad' too far into the film. PLUS the sceptic was the one who went to a mental hospital!

The doctor who let this kid out

really fucked up here

As a Doctor Who fan I was glad to see Karen Gillian in a lead role in America. I was disappointed by her performance though, I do feel like it was the direction she was given. There is a part in the film when she finds 'proof' that the mirror is manipulating and she shouts, a bit like a man YES (goes to another laptop) YES (and to another camera) YES (and finally the camera on the wall) YES. It was very annoying and not the reaction I was expecting (and not in a Sixth Sense kind've way).

That's what you get for

talking like a man

A little problem I have with the film is that I find it annoying. I said I wasn't going to go into plot holes but this one really annoyed me. Albeit I never finished this film so I may be getting myself into trouble, but the brother was sent to the mental house for shooting and killing his father. I think 'The little shit deserved it' at the start but as you watch the flashbacks and Karen's character Kaylie tells us, her father went insane as well as their mother. The mother became paranoid and abusive toward the children and father, so the father locked her up in the bedroom, tortured her and finally shot her in the head. Shortly after I believe he went after the kids, although I never saw this part, so I think why did this kid go to the loony bin. He certainly should have been given a medal. His father had the gun in the first place, already killed his mother, even if he never turned on his children I think the Judge would have sided with the kid here.

All in all the film isn't good, awful pacing, poor direction, wasted potential which is probably the most painful because the film did have potential. Don't watch it as it has just recently been released on DVD/Blu-Ray save yourself $15 (because I'm in America now :) )

The Article by me That Was Banned For Being Too Dangerous

3 Games That Started a Craze

by Peter-Shaun Tyrell

Before I start I want to add this disclaimer - These are the video games that started the craze. Although a video game may have used the things I discuss they never caught on and saw other games repeat their innovations. They were overlooked by the mainstream media and the focus fell on the games mentioned below.

3. Grand Theft Auto: Ignoring Main Missions

Missions or storylines in games entice us to play the next level, without the mission briefing we are lost lambs traversing the land of game limbo. Then Grand Theft Auto came onto the scene. I don’t believe I finished the first or second GTA this was when it was the birds eye view GTA. I would name my character BSTARD which would give me full armour and all the weapons and go nuts. It was enough for me to spend hours looking over the city looking for the tank that had a working cannon. Hours of fun that would normally require a series of completing levels and feeling of accomplishment were replaced with hours of carnal chaos. It was glorious, now we have so many distractions so many games go unfinished as we divulge in our own series of random and pointless quests.

2. Call of Duty: Aiming Down the Sight

Before the introduction of aiming down the sight or ADS, aiming was only done through the cross hairs centred in the middle of the screen. It was such an alien concept that when COD showcased it, it blew our primordial minds away. Ever since this historic day no game which strives for realism would dare to exclude it from the game. It is also safe to assume that ever since this game Hollywood re-evaluated shoot-outs, forcing the heroes to actually aim their weapons. When you watch or play ‘realistic’ games now and ADS is not a factor it feels very weak and loses that realism immediately. Our character would just charge into hordes of enemies like Rambo, hip-firing with deadly accuracy, very cool but not very realistic.

1. Resident Evil: Zombies

Zombies. Zombies. I just love saying Zombies. When I saw the first screenshots of Resident Evil I was overjoyed, the concept of slow moving enemies that could only be eliminated by puncturing several rounds into its primitive, ex-deceased mind send such waves of pleasure through me, few things have been able to top it, it was on my 6^th birthday. Now although zombies existed before this, it was Resident Evil that introduced them as a foe to fear, a game that would centre around the infamous enemy itself. Some may say zombies in games are overused but are they? I ask myself this every time I go to sleep, then I wake up and laugh at my yesterday self and say ‘No we need more!’ The COD zombies for some are more popular then the main game, the Red Dead DLC was huge and very popular. DayZ the Arma 2 mod had people buying the game just for the mod. Although not official Zombies have became a genre upon itself, all thanks to the classic Resident Evil.

What You Don't Like The Same Food As Me? You're Weird.

How can someone not like pasta? Or how can someone not like the film Shawshank Redemption? Or what you don't like The Beatles? You are strange, you should be cast out by society and thrown into the fires in case you waste any essential oxygen.

Oh wait people are unique and like different things? Wow this is brand new information!

If everyone liked the majority then there wouldn't be such a thing as minority, which is cool. Who has ever heard of the film Kids? No one, I know. Well it's awesome it's about skateboarders doing drugs, having sex with underage girls, its amazing! Youtube it:

One of the reasons I like it is that I get to introduce it to other people and they are also as wowed by it as me. They turn to me and say 'Peter-Shaun Tyrell of the Eclectic Geek blog thank you for introducing this film to me, it has changed my life.' If everyone had seen this then I wouldn't get to hear that amazing sentence.

And so what if I don't like tea or coffee, both things taste like shit. When I drink them, I pull a face like this:

And no one wants that. I seriously might changed that picture its making me sick a bit. And you know why I don't like avocado?

Because it looks like:

They're like twins.

So leave  people alone when they tell you they don't like cous cous because people are unique. And if you don't I'll send more pictures like these. By the way that poo is a novelty fake poo so you shouldn't feel sick.

3 Games I Need To Complete Before I Die.

I love my old school games, mainly because of some psychological stuff that I can't be bothered researching. Something along the lines of things looking better when I was little because my imagination was more creative etc. The fact is I love older games, mainly because they presented me with more of a challenge then modern games do. Forget games that have you putting the difficulty up which just makes the enemies tougher, we are talking about a true challenge. Ones that make your head hurt with you trying to figure how to get to the next level, or beat that boss or unlock that impossible puzzle. Games like:

1. Tomba

Look he's about to fuck a pig, that's amazing! All I had of this game was the demo, just the demo and I played on it for hours. Demo's (if you were born after 1994) were designed to give you a taste of what's to come for the game. You would get a disc with 6 to 8 playable demo's with the monthly playstation magazine. Tomba was one of them and it was literally a 1/4 of the game. I recently downloaded the Iso for the game on my psp but the bastard thing had some code missing so when I entered some part of the world it would freeze on the loading screen. But mark my words, as God, Lucifer, Gilgamesh and Kylie Minogue I will at some point complete this game!

Look! He's actually fucking it!

That's how you killed them!

Best game ever.

2. Broken Sword

Another demo that would haunt my dreams! Back when I was 7 the idea of point and click was unknown to me, it was alien, occult even forbidden. I was naturally afraid of such an otherworldy game. But then I was enlightened, I clawed out of the primordial sludge with Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars as my grip that guided me and pulled me out of the darkness. I was awakened to such a colourful, quirky, funny and tense adventure. The playstation demo was only short but it really captured my interest. Alas it was a tale of me finally getting my hands on a copy later in my life. This time for the PC only to be denied by an act of god! My laptop overheated and destroyed my save file. Suffice to say I couldn't be bothered to start again until I had completely forgot the whole adventure and would discover it again at some point were it would be liking playing the game anew. My only worry is will this time come before the icy grip of death...

3. I am ashamed, it's Resident Evil 1.

 Argh! The memories.

I know, I know! Caste your unforgiving looks elsewhere, I have enough shame gorging on guilt-filled heart then to have your stares burrowing into my brain, nowhere else to go except my soul! When I was only a lad, it must have been the first few months since my father bought the playstation and I opened the then current playstation magazine to see a piece on Resident Evil. The idea of the zombie was given to me, like an angel descending from the heavens to impregnate me with God's will. Will being the love of killing zombies that is! I poured over that article for months going onto years the pictures engraved in my mind. I was too young to buy it, and my father wouldn't. Not because of it being too gory or may damage my mental health or anything but because he didn't think it was good...YOU SEE FATHER! YOU SEE WHAT YOU DID TO ME!
Anywhoo. I actually bought it when I was older and super backwards compatibility (fuck you xbox) gave me the chance to complete it. Now unlike resident evil 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 etc. this game was actually a challenge and scary! Obviously the scariness was something attributed to psychological thing I mentioned before. That being said I was never able to complete it because I was afraid of dying, I would get lost in this big old mansion and suddenly a hunter would pop round the corner and PUFF I would have no head, then start the horror again. It just wasn't good for my nerves.

Seriously who was this? It wasn't Chris,

both ID Card Chris and Full Motion Film 

Chris, don't look like him.

 

So in conclusion these are the three games I need to complete before I die. If I don't believe me when I say I will kill myself.

Quickie: 5 Pics To Make You Smile

This whole moving to New York takes a lot of time up, sometimes despair sets in. When this happens simply go on google and search for some funny pictures. I have saved the time for you and here is five little pictures that'll hopefully make you laugh:

The Problem with Todays Children TV

Now even though children's tv of today has less paedophiles then 40 years ago, (that we know of)  it is nothing compared to the shows I used to watch.

My favourites were Fireman Sam, Noddy and of course Captain Scarlet. Now what do all these shows have in common? They were all re-made today but instead of using puppets the powers that be decided to use CGI. When these shows were re-made CGI was cheap and accessible for it to be used openly so it was exciting and cheaper to do these shows with an updated style. I'm guessing the idea was to appeal to the younger generation and attract the nostalgia factor from people like me.

Sadly it didn't work for me. The reason why is when I watched Captain Scarlet, one of the best shows ever to grace the square box, I wanted to play Captain Scarlet. There is an episode were the most advanced tank ever made is being showcased to the Earth's Supreme Commander. You see the tank driving up hills, jumping over ditches and shooting objects to smithereens. I remember watching this and wanting that tank, just like the other Spectrum vehicles, the SPV, the Angel's Jets, even the Spectrum Cloud base.

The reason why it was so great was the puppets and the vehicles are real, they're not some fake computerized image. What I was watching was the setting for my imagination, so when I bought the toys I could re-create what was happening on the scream. It was like someone was using your toys to make a show. The CGI re-makes could never re-create this kind of magic, the same feeling would always escape them. Even if the argument of 'Kid's now-a-days just play computer games' is used why would a child watch a show when he could just control it. On a side note children will always play with toys as well as computer games, the aforementioned argument is 100% wrong.

Now here is the first seven minutes the re-make. Just watch up until the first 1:07 for the opening:

And here is the original:

Now you tell me which one is better. Plus the new one is racist because they took the only black man in the show and changed him into a woman. I don't know if they kept the Angel Melody or not, I didn't want to watch that far to find out.

Toilets + Coat Hangers = Social Reform

Mankind is screaming to another technological age. It is frightening how advanced the human race is becoming. For example the Wendelstein 7-X is a stellarator superconductor under construction. In 2015 it will be able to use electromagnetism to harness plasma as an energy source, the same way the sun use gravity. Considering this I find that this new technological age will never happen because of the the majority of people are being kept away from these technological advances.

The one I am writing about specifically is, as you all will agree, coat hangers in public toilets. If every toilet in the world can't afford to have coat hangers then we will never ever reach alpha centauri. I am one of those people who has recently reached a stage of enlightenment were I am no longer afraid to use public toilets to void my bowels. I feel a stronger, more confident woman with goals who isn't afraid to challenge patriarchal conventions. However when I finish feathering the nest and turn to hang my jacket up on the door and see there is nowhere to hang it an immense anger wells up inside me.

Now it's fact that no matter how clean a toilet floor may look it is actually invest with poo and wee germs and if anything falls on the floor the 5 second rule is void. With no coat hangers I have to find a place for my backpack and coat/jacket. I'm already worrying about my willy touching the basin as I sit down that I don't want to worry about my jacket sleeve touching the floor.

Most relevant picture I could find

Enjoy!

This was the exact reason I didn't like to use public toilets. Poo is horrible, there is very little redeeming qualities about it, unless you are weird or R Kelly. I find myself having to do a recon mission before I can allow my body to prepare for the drop.

Now I'm being forced to retreat from this great social leap I made. It isn't just me, the whole world is being struck with this epidemic. Soon toilets with coat hangers will be overflowing with people and deconstructed matters of waste. There will be a coat hanger tax and all chaos will ensue, riots, wars, fathers turning on sons, starvation, big brother being entertaining. Before we realise all this technological advancement will be rendered void and we will be nothing more then the primordial ooze that crawled out of the sea.