There is one secret the universe does not know about. But to find out what that is, you have to ride a somewhat uneven MIB3 all the way to the end. At times MIB3 is funny and exciting, at times it is boring, and at times it is poignant.
An escaped prisoner travels back in time to kill Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). Agent J (Will Smith) then has to travel back to 1969 to stop this from happening and, thus, save the world. Hmmm, that is pretty much the plot.
Lots of fun dialogue and action in the first 45 minutes or hour. The story drags in the middle, then picks up at the end when the final battle takes place at Cape Canaveral. I was hoping for better, but, maybe I had my hopes too high.
OK for the kids but the violence may be too intense for the little ones. No f-w0rds that I recall.
It occurred to me that Carol, Kristen, Carol’s Mom (Chau Hong), Lori, and I all like(d) to go to the movies or watch them on VUDU , Netflix, Blu-Ray, or regular DVD. Why not do movie reviews? The movie reviews will come from either of us, some of us, or all of us.
We will include a trailer for each (if available). Comments welcome, and guest movie reviews are welcome!
A quick note from Caitlin Dong, our first Carol Phan College Scholarship recipient!
-
D-O-N-E. I’m donedonedone. My freshman year of college is over and it definitely feels
surreal. I remember thinking at the beginning of the school year that time could not pass by any slower. In retrospect, the year seemed to fly by. However, I don’t think I could be more ready for summer. Now it’s time to find a job and help fund some of my college expenses!
High school graduations are quickly approaching and I’m sure that all of the seniors are ready to finish off their high school careers. I remember how excited I was to graduate, enjoy the summer of freedom, and start college. Don’t forget to enjoy yourselves, freshman year will pass you by faster than you realize.
Thank you again to Mike Pihlman & all of his efforts and dedication toward the Carol Phan College Scholarship program, as well everyone else who help make it happen – the scholarship money undoubtedly helped out this past school year. Congratulations and best of luck to the new scholarship recipients.
For more about Seokho and the other scholarship winners…click here.
-
-
Seokho Hong, Tracy High, 2012 Carol Phan College Scholarship Essay
My passion in life is computer programming. It’s not simply what I want to do for a living in my future; it’s something I’ve done for many years. I have worked on dozens of major projects not to mention countless smaller ones. I’m quite proud of my programs, some of which I have spent hundreds of hours on. I made a video to showcase a few of the more recent ones (see above).
My first inspiration to program was in fourth grade. I was playing a video game on a Nintendo 64 when it first occurred to me that someone had to make these games. I wanted to try. Unfortunately, fourth graders barely have the ability to program, let alone code entire games. I was mostly reduced to poking at programs, unable to do much until sixth grade. During middle school I wrote in the DarkBasic language, which was simplified to the point where I could create reasonably sophisticated games. I started with 2-D games which included simple puzzle or arcade style games, then expanded later into 3-D ones including a Real-Time Strategy and a First Person Shooter. Of course, the graphics weren’t stellar, but it was good for the work of a lone middle school student. I would perhaps have included pictures here, but the programs were wiped with the loss of the computer holding them. At least I learned to keep copies of them.
By high school, I felt that programming was something I’d continue in the future. I switched to the Java programming language, a professional language that is considered mainstream. I continued to write games, but while coding a strategy game, I was particularly interested in making an intelligent opponent. I found it fun to try to make the computer intelligent enough to defeat me consistently. I didn’t succeed, but I was inspired to switch paths from writing games to creating artificial intelligence, or AI.
Since sophomore year, I have created different sorts of intelligent programs. Games have always been a good arena for intelligence, and a few of my programs are written to play them strategically. I also have worked in the area of computer vision, or teaching a computer to see and identify objects in a picture or a video feed. In particular, I am interested in machine learning, which is essentially writing programs designed to improve and teach themselves.
The programs I have written are obviously not going to change the world. To many people, my programs are perhaps “cool”, but that’s about it to them. In the back of their heads, there’s always the question of: “so what?”. But they are perhaps valuing a program based on what it can accomplish, a standard not always applicable to AIs. At their cores, my AIs perform the same function as any other intelligence, not simply artificial intelligences: to make sense of data. Whether the input is a few numbers, a picture, or a vast database, the task of the AI is the same. The program exists to interpret the information. So I evaluate the success of a program not based on how useful it is, or how complicated the task is, but how well it does its task, how much sense it makes of its data, even if its task is very simple. I’m still in the stages of infancy in terms of creating intelligence, so I’m focusing on creating intelligence, rather than applying them. My hope in the future is to improve my ways of teaching programs, and then put these AI’s to work solving problems in our society.
Artificial intelligence has captivated me from the moment I started working on AI programs. It was one thing to learn, educate, and become intelligent myself, but a whole new challenge to pass this invaluable ability to a computer. As the programmer, I was the teacher of a cold, hard, unthinking machine, to learn to think and make decisions. And while my programs are far from being anything human, there are times when my AIs surprise me, thinking in ways that even I, as its creator, never expected. These moments are the joys of programming intelligence, the moments I live for.
Lori watched the original TV show religiously, I watched it occasionally. Going to the movies to see “Dark Shadows” was a no brainer for us.
Johnny Depp (as vampire Barnabas Collins) teams up with Tim Burton once again….and what you expect, is what you get: A somewhat restrained Tim Burton for most of the movie, then vintage, weird, scary, Tim Burton for the last 20 minutes (or so).
Wow!
Jilted lover, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), works for the Collins family, and practices dark magic. She is a witch. When she gets mad at someone, they die…or worse. Her anger towards Barnabas Collins for not loving her ends up with him turned into a vampire and placed in a coffin for 200 years, until a construction crew unearths the coffin.
The mistake the construction crew made was opening the casket. They all died as a very thirsty Collins quenched his thirst with their blood.
A blood drenched Baranbas rejoins the nearly broke Collins family at Collinwood and vows to return them to the wealth they once enjoyed.
“Dark Shadows” is not for kids. Very disturbing scenes of vampire violence, fighting, and wild sex (that looks like fighting) are comic book fine for teens, but, could give the little ones nightmares. There are no f-words, but, there are two s-words.
If you like Tim Burton you will like Dark Shadows.
Tapping an unlimited power source being investigated by scientists at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) evil ambitious brother, Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston) joins forces with a powerful alien world to attack Earth via an access portal.
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) gathers various super heroes to fight Loki and his evil army, but, not before Loki forces Hawkeye (local Modesto native, Jeremy Renner) to join his side.
The remaining super heroes form a loose, sometimes contentious, team that is not really effective….and are getting their asses kicked.
A cry worthy event happens (yes…I cried) which finally forces the super heroes to put aside their egos and work together under the command of Captain America (Chris Evans).
Robert Downey as Tony Stark / Ironman is terrific. His one liners are very funny and the whole theater laughed several times during the movie. Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk is great, as is my favorite actress *sigh*, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow. Clark Gregg returns with his terrifically understated performance as Agent Phil Coulson.
OK for kids, no f-words, in fact, no cursing at all. The action, after a slow start, comes fast and furious, but, is of the comic book variety ok for the whole family. Very funny one liners caused the whole audience to laugh out loud several times….very cool.
Stay all the way through the credits. You will LOVE the very end.
Go to IMDb for more information. We watched “The Avengers” at the Tracy, CA CineMark where our poster is STILL UP (look UP when you leave!). :-)
Did I mention that Scarlett Johansson is in this movie, yup, Scarlett Johansson. :-)
Gotta say this movie was much better than I thought it was going to be. The audience in the theater was small but vocal (turns out our friend Melanie and her friend were cheering, laughing, and interacting as much as we were…how funny).
Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) and Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt) are engaged to be married. Problem is: Life gets in the way…..multiple times.
First, Emily’s sister gets knocked up and another wedding has to take place. Then Emily is accepted to a post-doc opportunity at the University of Michigan and she and Tom decided to hold off the wedding for two years.
Emily does well at Michigan and now the wedding is put off for three more years! Tom, in the meantime, is floundering in Michigan.
They finally decide to just get married and not wait any longer. Geezzz, that took a long time! BUT….Emily’s drunk boss decides to kiss Emily deeply (tongue and all) on the lips and Tom could not handle this. He then does the nasty with a coworker from the Deli. Whooops. Break up time.
BUT….do they get back together? You will have to watch the movie to find out.
“The Five-Year Engagement” is not for kids. F-words and sexual situations abound (for example, Tom is “raw” thanks to his new 23 year old girlfriend, hmmmm, lucky guy). This is a surprisingly good movie. It is a very funny, low key, the writing is terrific, and the acting equally as good. Jason Segel is a real talent (having also written and produced this movie…I think), and Emily Blunt is…well….WOW!
Go see it! I doubt it will win the box office, but, it is really fun.
Go to IMDb for more information. We watched this movie (with 8 or nine other people, including Melanie and her friend)) at the Tracy, CA CineMark where our poster is STILL UP! :-))))
*Useful, for our purposes, is defined by majors most likely to lead to less unemployment and higher earnings, and which are in industries projected to grow in the next decade according to research from Georgetown University and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.