Month: March 2009

Watchmen

“Watchmen” turned out to be quite a disappointment for me personally. Maybe that’s because I am not much into comics and maybe because I don’t know who watchmen are and how they came about. But still…

The poster was sort of speaking for itself, and film’s opening credits were pretty cool. It started pretty well. But then it went into a totally different direction. Instead of being your regular comics-based story with a bunch of good and bad guys, and a fight between them, this time it was all about the psychology and drama of a superhero. There were quite a few superheros, who, for some reason, didn’t seem to be really superheros, but rather a bunch of guys in weird costumes. They didn’t do anything superheroic, didn’t have any tricks up their sleeves, didn’t care much about anything else.

The visual effects were excellent, but with no base for those effects, no action, they started to grow pretty boring. And the film went on and on and on (almost 3 hours), and by the time of it I myself was almost falling asleep. I pulled it through, but barely.

If you are into superheros and everything that surrounds them, then you’ll probably enjoy this film. For me though it was somewhere on the scale of 3 out of 10.

Killshot

The other day I went to see “Killshot“. Enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s not the movie that you’d want to buy on DVD and see a few times, or be much interested in the “making of …”. But it makes for a good movie time in the cinema.

The film is an interesting mix of crime and drama. Crime movies are well known for the “easy kills”, where people die during the course of the film with audience not paying much attention to it. Every dead person is just an obstacle on the way – gone when dead. In “Killshot” it’s different. People, both good and bad, have lives, have their own ways to live them, solve their own problems. And they all of them get into this situations where they don’t necessarily want to be. And those situation change them, affect the way they live their lives…

It’s nice to see Mikky Rourke on the big screen again. Joseph Gordon-Levitt played really well too. The rest tried but dialogues were a bit setting them off.

Overall, a 7 out of 10.

WRC 2009 – FxPro Cyprus Rally : SS6

Yesterday I went to see WRC 2009 FxPro Cyprus Rally Special Stage 6. It’s a 30 km long stage, which pass by the famous Kelefos Bridge. Usually it’s packed with spectators, and once the stage was even cancelled because the proper safety level could not have been achived. Instead of watching the rally at the Kelefos Bridge view point, we went to the Finish of the stage and walked down a few turns from there. It was an asphalt road with a few patches of gravel. Weather conditions weren’t the best from the spectators’ point of view – cold, windy, with occasional rain drops. But that could not have stopped true rally fans.

As always, I made a few pictures and uploaded them to my Flickr photostream.

WRC 2009 – FxPro Cyprus Rally : Open ceremony

Yesterday I attended the official opening ceremony of the WRC 2009 FxPro Cyprus Rally. It was a pretty big event with TV coverage, cars passing the podium, FxPro girls, and a concert of Sakis Rouvas – some kind of Eurovision star.

I didn’t take any good pictures, but the FxPro press center were kind enough to share. Click here to see more.

The surprise of the evening was that FxPro is not only sponsoring the Cyprus Rally, but also an FxPro Rally Team.

Disclaimer : FxPro is trade mark of EuroOrient Securities and Financial Services Ltd, the company that I work for.

WRC 2009 – FxPro Cyprus Rally : Shakedown

This year, World Rally Championship is back to Cyprus after a long break. I’ve been at the shakedown stage today and made quite a few pictures.

There are much less teams this year due to tough financial times, but those people who I wanted to see – Sebastian Loeb and Peter Solberg are here. Solberg represents his own team and drives Citroen instead of his usual Subaru Impreza. Subaru World Rally Team has a new car for this season, which is a hatchback. If I remember correctly, they are the last major team to switch to hatchbacks. Pity, as these small cars are not as impressive as the larger ones.

Tomorrow the special stages start. They are further away than in previous years, and further apart, but should be fun to watch. Tickets are 5 EUR per stage or 20 EUR (not completely sure) for the pass to all stages. Don’t forget to grab some warm clothes for the mountain stages as it is pretty called up there.