Sealhat.com » Movies

Saving Private Ryan, Team Fortress 2 Style

Kevin — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:01:56 +0000

This will make sense to you if you play Team Fortress 2:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTGrjcgSeAA

HSX Status Update, Summer 2008 Edition

Kevin — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:32:19 +0000

Ok! It’s been about 2 years since my last HSX update. Since then, I’ve shifted my focus from the micromanagement of many StarBonds to the a few post-adjusting MovieStocks. In general, movies will never fully make it to their multiplier (usually 2.8) in 4 weeks, so it’s almost always around an automatic H$1million profit if you short 50k shares (see HULK2 and HANCK). You don’t even have to pay the selling commission if you hold out until the final delist. The most exciting part of the summer is that we get lots of highly hyped and marketed action (i.e. FRONT LOADED!) movies. So the initial adjust is way way higher than what it will eventually make. So…profit! The key to this strategy is to only go for the big movies that make a lot but have low review scores. Low scores mean short legs and a 50%+ drop week-to-week.

In my personal portfolio, for those curious, my top profiting MovieStocks are: TFRM2, HPOT7, IRNM2, UP, and CAPAM. These total around H$25 million net gain! And here’s my 90-day portfolio movement (heavy changes recently because of BATM2 not exactly going my way…):

I am currently ranked 6532 and in the top 99.14 percentile with a total portolio value of H$260 million!

“The Departed” Movie Review

Kevin — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 05:17:41 +0000

I recently saw The Departed on Saturday, October 28 using one of my free movie tickets. Since I don’t see movies in theaters all that often, I will try to post my reviews of the movies that I do see. First up is The Departed, a gritty good vs. bad flick starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. The movie is based on the highly acclaimed Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, which starred Tony Leung and Andy Lau. I will mention up front that I had already seen Infernal Affairs (but not IA2 or IA3). Although I am not one of the many IA freaks out there, I do believe that it soured my reception of The Departed. Could it be because there was a distinct lack of Asians in the film (I’ll admit that there were a few, but they looked like idiots)? Maybe…probably. On to the review!

Lies. Betrayal. Sacrifice. How far will you take it?

Show Movie Review ▼

Plot via IMDb: Years ago, a powerful Irish mafia figure placed a small selection of his youngest, brightest men into the Massachusetts Police Academy as cadets. Their purpose is to eventually rise within the prestigious ranks of the city’s police department to serve as the eyes and ears of their boss. While somewhere else, a young cadet was assigned with an equally dangerous task: infiltrate the Irish syndicate headed by the man sending in his own to the Boston Police. Now, one cadet is an up and coming police official with a torn allegiance to his job and to the criminal mastermind that put him there. While the other cadet is the trusted number two of that man, only finding his professional duties are becoming blurred with his current state. But new clues have lead to unfortunate discoveries, when both sides realize they’re being watched by the enemy. It’s now all just a matter of time before the men, assigned to find out who’s the infiltrator, could come to a bloody end when someone’s identity may be revealed.

My Thoughts: Pretty good movie despite the fact that I’d already experienced the story. The original story was good and so was this one. No major plot changes. Just different ways of presenting the same core story. The first thing you will notice while watching the movie is everyone’s fake “Bah-stin” accents. No offense to some of you out there but the Boston is accent is one of the worst accents in America–surpassed only by the Southern accent. But I digress. Another thing that annoyed me was the excessive swearing (IMDb mentions the f-word is mentioned 200+ times…yikes!). Yes, the movie is rated R, but so was The Matrix, which barely had any foul language. Combined with the splatters of blood after every gunshot, this isn’t really the movie to bring the kiddies to. I did, however, see more than a few mini kids at the theater for some reason. There were also a few instances of sudden sounds (gunshots) that were completely unnecessary. Look out for this at the end. The crowd literally gasped.

Grade: B+

Assorted Links

Official Site
Theatrical Trailer (YouTube / Apple QuickTime)
Wikipedia
IMDb

The next review I will be posting will be on The Prestige, which I just saw on Sunday, October 29. To my regular readers, look forward to that! For those of you who have seen both The Departed and Infernal Affairs…what did you think?

Blingo Movie Tickets Arrive

Kevin — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:50:43 +0000

My three movie tickets have finally arrived. Time to see Pirates of the Caribbean and other high budget action summer flicks.

PIRT2 Breaks Opening Day Record

Kevin — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 16:58:39 +0000

According to estimates from Box Office Mojo, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (the sequel to 2003′s $305.4 million blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) has broken the opening day and highest-grossing day box office records of 2005′s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith ($50 million), earning an estimated $55.5 million on its first Friday. Weekend estimates as of mid-Sunday are around $132 million. The way things are going for it, it’s almost guaranteed to break Spider-Man‘s three-day opening weekend record of $114.84 million from 2002. #

I will probably be seeing the movie the weekend after I get my Blingo movie ticket from June 18 in the mail.

Update: Weekend total has been adjusted to a whopping $135.6 Million. (!)

A Few Summer Blockbuster Trailers (Links)

Kevin — Wed, 03 May 2006 02:12:02 +0000

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (EyeCraveDVD.com)
Superman Returns (Apple.com)
Casino Royale (AOL.com)

If you’re looking forward to seeing any of these in theaters, try not to spoil yourself on these. Theatrical trailers often give away key plot points (see Spider-Man 2′s trailer).

HSX Status Update

Kevin — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:38:51 +0000

Hollywood Stock Exchange has been quite fun the last few weeks. Take a look at my progress since January:

I believe most of it was the result of maxing shares in OCEN3 (Ocean’s Thirteen), RUSH3 (Rush Hour 3), and WARNE (Will Arnett). While OCEN3 had news of confirmed sign-ons for the sequel, WARNE was simply involved with ICEA2 (Ice Age 2), which just made $70.5 million on its opening weekend (a March box office record!).

I’m closing in on the 97th percentile with H$42,270,144.32 in my portfolio.