Tag: Vancouver

What is D-BOX? – A Review

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Hey everyone,

So I haven’t seen movies for a while because school has been swamping me down, but I did manage to catch Thor : The Dark World with one of my friends over the weekend!

When purchasing our tickets, we realized that aside from the usual IMAX, Ultra AVX and regular showings (3D+regular), there was a new option available: D-BOX.

Doing some initial research, we found out that with D-BOX, your seat moves according to what is happening on the screen. We decided to try it out.

Firstly, if you choose D-BOX, you’re still watching a 3D version of the movie– at least that’s what happened to us. Secondly, we realized the D-BOX seats do not get a theatre to themselves like Ultra AVX films. Instead, we get an area of the regular 3D showing sectioned off for us. These seats are red in colour, and you pre-reserved your seats when you buy your ticket (much like the Ultra AVX films). They reserved some of the prime seats in the house for D-BOX viewers (middle section, closer to the back). When you find your seat, you’ll realize that on your right armrest, you get to select how intense you want your seat movement. These seats are also more comfortable and bigger (they fit less of these seats in the typical row than the regular seats).

Red seats = D-BOX seats; Blue seats = regular seats. All in the same theatre.

Red seats = D-BOX seats; Blue seats = regular seats. All in the same theatre.

Now for the experience bit. 
Firstly, if you get nauseous during 3D movies, I’m pretty sure you won’t be enjoying this. Back when I first started watching movies in 3D, I’d get dizzy, and the same thing happened initially with D-BOX. However, my nausea went away after I got used to the moving seat.

The chair doesn’t only vibrate, but it also lifts you up and down, and forwards and backwards. Now, don’t worry about it just throwing you around. These movements aren’t that intense, but are usually gentle. It’s not like those 4-D rides that make you feel as if you’re actually in a spaceship or whatnot– remember, you’re still in a regular theatre where 80% of the viewers there are watching the film in standard 3D. It’s also pretty quiet, so you don’t really notice the sounds from the chair.

During Thor, we would move along to spaceships that flew across the screen, which was cool. There was also this liquid matter that the screen showed, and our seats gently mimicked the liquid’s floating movement, making you feel as if you were a part of it. There were also scenes where when Thor jumped off a building (not a spoiler, because he can jump anywhere. He’s the God of thunder.), your chair raises you slightly so that you can fall with him off the ledge.

So what did I like about it?
I thought that it was a cool experience. It’s definitely differed from traditional methods of viewing movies, and it does add to the movie. You also don’t need to sacrifice the 3D (if that’s your thing– I like 3D only if it’s made well and the film was actually developed with 3D in mind). Having reserved seating meant that you did not have grab a seat early, and the seats were nice and comfortable since they were bigger.

What did I not like about it?
I was a bit nauseous at the beginning, but that eventually went away. There were some unnecessary movements (did we really need vibrations when Thor ran up the stairs? Arguably not.). It also costs more than your regular ticket (made a chart for your reference– Oo! Look at me being all fancy!).

Screen Shot 2013-11-11 at 5.23.08 PM

My friend who went with me also thought it was a good experience. If you’re not sure whether D-BOX is for you, it never hurts to try it. For me, the biggest issue is the cost. I wouldn’t mind having the accompanying chair-guided-movements to movies if it wasn’t for how much more it costs per showing. I guess I would’ve also enjoyed it more if everyone in the theatre had D-BOX seats, but that wasn’t too big of a problem.

For those of you who have tried out D-BOX, what are your thoughts?

-Karen

You wanted a seat? Have knee pains instead.

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Hey everyone,

If you live in Vancouver, you must know TransLink— our trusty public transit provider. And by trusty, I mean that if you happen to leave your house early, the bus will come early, but if you leave late and just missed the previous bus, the next one will come as late as possible.

I know, I know, it’s not exactly the bus or bus driver’s fault when buses run behind schedule. That’s why I’m not here to complain about that today. I have something else to rant about, and it’s how seats are positioned in the bus.

I actually really like how Vancouver buses have the first section of the bus designated for people who need priority seating (e.g. wheelchairs, strollers, and the elderly), because in Hong Kong, it’s not uncommon to see youngster snagging a seat while the older folks are forced to hang on to the poles. However, if you make your way towards the back of some of our buses, you get a cool area of seats that are arranged so:

20131022-015337.jpgIf you end up sitting in one of these seats, and there’s someone in the seat across from you, you most likely will run into one of these scenarios:

– leg between leg between leg between leg

Bird's eye view of how this looks

Bird’s eye view of how this looks

– awkward keencap to kneecap

Photo 2013-10-22 2 10 25 AM

The kneecap to kneecap is usually accompanied by abrupt braking from the driver

– both forced to sit like Mia Thermopolis, making sure to do so in opposite ways

Image

Seriously, these are the worst seats in the house. They definitely did not consider two normal sized human beings sitting across from one another. But I guess it does beat standing if your commute is long.

Thankfully, I saw the new buses that TransLink has rolling out, and they’ve fixed their seating plan. I’ve actually been on one and they look very nice– but that may be due to it being shiny and new. Sadly, there are quite a lot of these old buses that’ll most likely still be in service for the entirety of my lifetime.

– Karen

Moving adventures– yeah, it was pretty touching.

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Hey all!

So my family and I recently moved into a new house. And that’s when I realized something: moving is an awesome family bonding experience.

My dad insists on doing the move ourselves instead of hiring movers. I was alright with the plan until I realized that “ourselves” meant him and I, because really, my sister can barely lift her own backpack and my mom is the kind that would want to help, but is usually told to sit down two minutes later.

We started off in the afternoon, and went into the night. And by night, I mean 5:00 AM. My dad and I would load and unload the rented U-haul truck, and then my mom and sister were assigned to cleaning up the house itself. There was a lot of “HEY! OPEN THE DOOR! THIS IS REALLY REALLY HEAVY.” and other frustrated complaints. But then you get to around 2 in the morning, and you’re ridiculously grateful when your sister or mom grabs a heavy box from you to lend a hand. And then the family sits down for food at 3AM, consisting of a bag of bacon, microwaved corn and spring onion pancakes. I haven’t seen my parents eat bacon in years, so watching my dad gobble up a bowl was eye opening.

Now, my family isn’t the closest of families. I mean, yeah, we eat together, we watch TV together sometimes, but when it comes to getting out of the house and actually doing something together, that’s rare. And the move forced us to physically work with one another, and it was sort of beautiful to see. We really were pushed to our limits, and ached for days afterwards. But we did it.

A portion of the living room turned into a storage area

A portion of the living room turned into a temporary storage area.

It’s been a little more than a month since we’ve moved, but there’s been a lot of improvising. I’m taking the basement, which needs a complete renovation, and my parents told me to take their room for now. Which means they moved their bed to the living room. It’s actually amazing having a bed in the living room, and more often than not, I end up watching TV on the bed instead of the couches.

Since I’ll be getting the basement mostly to myself, I also get to decide on how I want to decorate my living room! I’m thinking of making it into a woman cave, but I’m still trying to get ideas on how I want it to look. But I get a blank canvas to work with and I can’t wait!

So if you’re looking for a good bonding experience, I’d suggest moving. But then again, it could have gone the other way and ended in disaster. So maybe everyone should stick to laser tagging.

– Karen

“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”: A Review

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agents

Hey everyone!

Literally just finished watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I was super excited about this because I’ve always been in love with the Marvel movies and several of their comic series. When I found out that Joss Whedon was writing this, I was pretty happy because he did The Avengers really well– but remembered that Firefly got cancelled in its first season thought it was pretty great. Stan Lee was also listed as one of the executive producers, so that got a squeal from me.

The pilot’s story itself is okay. Not the most exciting in terms of plot, but it does the trick. We pick up where The Avengers left off, and the world now knows that heroes exist. S.H.I.E.L.D realizes that they might have found another one of these heroes, and must get to him before he gets manipulated or killed by opposing forces. There are a lot of tie ins to other Marvel works, and that was brilliant.

Enough about the plot. You can easily just read that up on IMDB. What stood out to me was how many jokes they tried to write  into the show. I laughed, but it got a bit distracting after a while. (“I’ll show you my thing. No, I mean my equipment. I’ll just hang up.”–> will need to figure out what was the actual quote. This was just along the lines of what I remembered)

It was wonderful seeing Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders– Woo hoo! A little Vancouverite love in the house!) again. It actually brought back so many good memories of the previous Marvel films. What else I noticed is that they’re really trying to squeeze in diversity. We got Ming-Na Wen (Chinese) , Elizabeth Henstridge (British), and Iain de Caestecker (Scottish) in the S.H.I.E.L.D team that the story will revolve around. I thought it was really obvious, but well, if this is how we’ll start getting a change from the traditional all American/white cast, I’m up for it. Maybe one day, it won’t feel forced anymore. 

There’s a lot of hints that they drop throughout the pilot for future episodes to reveal. Who is Skye? Where’s Tahiti (though I have a guess that it might simply be the afterlife? Hey, it’s not a spoiler. It’s a guess.)? What are they keeping from Coulson? (Maria mysterious says to one of the doctors that he must never find out about Tahiti…)

Anyway, I’ll continue to watch it. I need to know the answers! It wasn’t the best pilot, but it wasn’t horrible. Oh! And another interesting note that was actually quite smart on their part. They showed Thor: The Dark World‘s trailer during the ad break for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D! Really missed Tom Hiddleston as Loki, so super excited about that!

I’ve never reviewed a TV show before so this was kind of fun! So if you’re up for it, it shows on ABC/CTV at 8:00PM on Tuesdays for us west-coasters– then you’ll get decide whether it’s good or not!

– Karen

“Gravity”: A Movie Review

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gravity

Hello everyone,

So I just came back from an advanced screening of Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Before I knew what this movie was about, I thought that this was going to be some sort of romantic comedy, simply because of the cast. Show how quick I am to judge.

So what is Gravity?

Gravity focuses on Sandra Bullock’s character, Ryan Stone, who is a medical engineer sent to space for the first time. She is accompanied by two other astronauts, one of which is George Clooney’s character: Matt Kowalsky. As she’s fixing something during a spacewalk, they get notice that Russians crashed a satellite, leading to a chain reaction of other satellites and structures to be destroyed from the debris. They had to get out of there. Quick.

Of course, not everything goes according to plan. We see Dr. Stone left adrift in the vast emptiness that is space. She starts to panic, but soon enough, Matt comes to her rescue and tethers her to him. Together, they try to return to their space vessel. This is only one of the first problems to come their way as they desperately try to find a way for them to return to earth.

I watched the whole thing feeling like I was going to have a heart attack at every scene. It was very stressful, but that’s not to say it was at all bad. If I had to name a movie you had to watch in 3D, this would most likely be it. Zero gravity and 3D works amazingly well together.

Asides from visuals and acting, the story itself made you ponder on how small you are. You are so insignificant, especially when compared to the huge unknown void that is space. What is the point?  We see Sandra Bullock’s character going through the same process, and well, I guess you’ll have to see how it ends for her.

Gravity comes out October 4th! If you’re okay with watching something pretty heavy, go watch it. Be prepared though! It’s a beautiful movie, with suspense around every corner.

– Karen