Some interesting things coming up in the future that I’m looking at currently…

Technical specifications for the new Sony PSP (PlayStationPortable?) can be found here. No pretty pictures though, just crude, hard specs. Seems pretty cool – 4.5″ LCD screen, mp3 capability, can play DVD-quality movies (but not actual DVD’s?), and USB and wireless LAN capability, and shock protection! Because I don’t think I’d be able to play Marvel Superheroes if it skips. But gotta wait for E3 2004 for the prototype and a title list – leading to…new PS1 games!?! Hilarious.

Jim Lee on Superman starting March 2004! …uh…woo! And…so on and so forth.

And this last one requires an extra intro bit before I really get into it. I bring to your attention; the chinese movie Shaolin Soccer. First off, if you can speak the China speak, go watch this movie. I don’t care if you have to get steal it off your cousin, or if you have to venture deep within the VCD stores of First Markham or the parking hell known as Pacific Mall. Whatever. Because even speaking as a fairly white-washed chinese fellow, who avoids chinese movies and non-vampire/cowboy animes like they were some sort of insane venereal disease…I gotta say, this movie is hilarious. And when I say “hilarious,” I don’t mean my usual cheap and overused version of the word – but that it is actually in fact, quite literally hilarious. Absolutely nothing in here you could confuse for high-brow thinking humour, but it had me in tears at some point. (Tears of insane, hilarious laughter – just in case you thought I was crying because it was sad or something.) Heck, even if you don’t speak the China speak, find a version with subtitles. It’s great stuff.

So great in fact…that there will soon exist a North American import/bastardization by Miramax. And I have to admit that this trailer…is just not cool. Because not only have they opted against subtitles, but they’re trying to spin it such that it appears as some sort of wonderous action movie…when it is in fact – a mind-blowing comedy of the lowest order. Not to mention, they’ve spoiled every CGI visual bit in the movie by showing them cheaply in the trailer to push this action movie idea. It’s like pressing the A button and using your magic/bombs on minor stage enemies, when you should be saving them for the screen-sized boss later on. Or pulling out your level three Raging Demon, when your opponent is on the other side of the screen, super jumping. It’d be so much more effective if you’d go with another completely different line of thought and did three air fireball supers to chip him instead. So why action?

But I believe it’s still possible for this movie to live. Because I don’t know if it was just lag on my computer or my connection, but the dubbing was absolutely terrible. And bad dubbing…means hilarity. So Shaolin Soccer + bad dubbing…is kinda like hilarity + hilarity…which equals hilarity². Or something. My math’s a little iffy. …but honestly speaking, there is no possible way for this movie to be imported to any degree of hilarity or success. But honestly speaking, I’m still going to watch it, because I’m curious as to how badly they translate the lines and the cultural references. I think this is called rubber-necking or I-can’t-peel-my-eyes-away-from-that-car-wreck syndrome.