Fantastic Four (2015)

A mixed bag of groundbreaking comic-book visuals, subtle mood shifts, and incomplete storylines that suggest a lack of clarity in the overall vision of the film.

There’s a good Fantastic Four movie – and the skeleton of a greatFantastic Four movie – residing in the patchwork quilt director Josh Trank has assembled from the materials provided for a 2015 origin story for Marvel’s “First Family.” Unique casting decisions, an updated source, and some unexpected tonal choices prove Trank was an interesting selection to follow up his homegrown Chronicle with an actual superhero film. Only, a few headscratchingly ill-advised decisions threaten to outweigh the positives in Trank’s first Fantastic Four story, guaranteeing that comic-book fans will spend more time debating what might have been instead of appreciating what the movie actually delivers.

Fantastic Four is an appetizer, teasing a meal that doesn’t actually come. It is a true origin story, and that fact alone may frustrate audiences who are tired of returning to square one every time we’re reintroduced to a superhero or comic book team who we’ve seen on screen before. And yet, I’d argue that a complete slate wipe is necessary for Trank’sFantastic Four, because he’s coming at the team from a completely different angle than was utilized in Tim Story’s two family-friendly, jokey and overtly campy FF movies from the mid-2000s. This is a palate cleanser, and one that establishes a darker Fantastic Four universe I’m honestly hopeful we can continue to explore.

Pulling, instead, from the Ultimate line of Fantastic Four comics – a modernized retelling of the super-team’s origins – Trank wisely begins with a young Reed Richards (Owen Judge), an avid inventor whose high school Science Fair project on teleportation catches the eye of Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), head of the Baxter Foundation research facility. Reed (now played by Miles Teller) is offered a scholarship and teamed with the equally intelligent Sue Storm (Kate Mara), Franklin’s adopted daughter, on an experimental venture initially launched by Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell). Reed’s scientific breakthroughs allow Storm’s team to finally complete Doom’s preliminary attempts at interdimensional travel. Even casual fans know that an predestined journey to a realm now known as Planet Zero will bless (and curse) Doom and the four Fantastic members with their extraordinary powers.

There is a lot of ground to cover in this retelling, and Trank’s pace is speedy, touching on events that should be significant milestones while only hinting at proper character development. In addition to the three key figures I’ve already mentioned, we also meet hotshot Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan), Franklin’s arrogant son whose motivations to join Reed’s team are admittedly thin. We get a better sense of commitment from Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), Reed’s childhood best friend who agrees to accompany the squad on their maiden voyage to Planet Zero, and will ultimately regret this decision with every fiber of his being.

Here’s where Trank’s Fantastic Four gets really interesting. Continuing a conversation he started with Chronicle, Trank posits that the transformations undergone by the Fantastic Four aren’t wondrous and magical. They’re terrifying and unbearable, with Fantastic Four suddenly shifting into a body-horror dilemma instead of a conventional superhero story. Johnny, for example, can’t understand why his body’s engulfed in flames. Sue keeps shifting in and out of an invisible state, and her father is petrified. And when Ben reaches out to Reed for an explanation as to why he’s suddenly made out of large, orange rocks, there’s a stark and bone-chilling terror in his voice that has roots in early David Cronenberg horror films. Yes, Fantastic Four actually had me thinking about The Fly, in the best ways possible. This is the approach that should be taken with The Fantastic Four, and while “gritty” and “grounded” were buzzwords used by the cast to prepare audiences, “realistic” and “scary” equally apply to the vision that Josh Trank started.

It doesn’t last. A title card dropped around the hour mark reduces some of the movie’s momentum (and raises an army of questions), and while I can mention it, I want to stop diving into specific details so that you can experience Fantastic Four for what it is. Right when the movie brings inevitable team leader Reed Richards to a pivotal crossroads – where he is asked to choose between assisting the military or escaping to possibly cure his friends – we jump ahead one full year… and speculation begins to run rampant. What happened during this crucial timeframe to important characters like Reed, Victor and the rest of the team? We are given minor answers, but they don’t fit with the previous narrative. Plots that were developed up to that point radically shift. Doom is brought back into the fold (because he is the most important antagonist on the Fantastic Four’s landscape), and the hints of his power are terrifying. But they remain only that. Hints. The movie’s conclusion is abrupt, and the overall film is incomplete. From the moment the movie leaps forward in time, Fantastic Four feels like a movie that was tinkered with in post-production, and too much of what I enjoyed out of the first two-thirds is sidetracked in favor of reaching a different goal.

Did Josh Trank allow this to happen? We may never know. Fantastic Fouris a rare example of a film that arrives in theaters with sizable baggage, whether earned or not, and it’s very hard to silence that buzz while watching the actual finished film unfold. Fantastic Four disappoints because it gets several significant elements correct – The Thing is a masterful on-screen creation, for example, and Michael B. Jordan shows real potential to be a scene-stealing Johnny Storm in future movies – but drops a few too many balls when trying to deliver a movie that can stand on its own. The movie keeps promising us that something really cool is about to happen, except we probably have to wait for the already announced sequel (which isn’t guaranteed).

It’s important to note that I do want to know what happens to this team next. But that doesn’t nullify the issues I had with this introductory chapter in the new legacy of the Fantastic Four. Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four ends up being a mixed bag of groundbreaking comic-book visuals, subtle mood shifts (that frequently benefit the film), and incomplete storylines that suggest post-production tinkering and a lack of clarity in the overall vision of the film. It is haphazard enough in its second half to be disappointing, yet spot-on when it comes to creating a foundation on which a new Fantastic Four can be built. I genuinely liked a lot of what Trank tried with these characters, while admitting that there are some glaring issues that plague the movie, overall. As schizophrenic as this is to say, this is the best version of the Fantastic Four we’ve seen on screen, though yes, I understand the backhanded nature of that sincere compliment.

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Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters 2 Might Actually Be Happening

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters had some seriously mixed reactions from its viewership. There were horror-comedy fans out there, who absolutely adored it, while on the polar opposite side, many critics called it a flop. Either way, talk about a sequel has been going on since the first film’s release in 2013. Last year, word came out that we’d be seeing a Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 2 hitting theaters sometime in 2016, but a couple months later, the project took a huge blow when filmmaker Tommy Wirkola walked away from the sequel. Now, word on the block is that the sequel is back on with a new helmer at the lead, French director Bruno Aveillan.  

The news is still currently being treated as rumor as The Tracking Board is claiming to have exclusive info from a source close to the project. According to the publication, Paramount is looking to add some more excitement to the franchise, and is currently searching for a new writer to pen the Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton sequel. But, they have apparently added the renowned director Bruno Aveillan to the project, and the sequel is moving forward. No further plot details have been shared, but it will continue to follow-up with the witch-hunting brother/sister duo, most likely going up against an even greater threat. The studio apparently wants a rewrite pumping up the excitement in Tommy Wirkola’s script, so we can’t be sure how different it will be than the original helmer’s intention. 

Bruno Aveillan seems like an odd choice to attach to the comedy-horror franchise. The renowned director no doubt has a hefty creative resume, but is far more recognized for his experimental art/directing, and work in the fashion industry as well as with many established international stars on commercials and advertisements. Aveillan was originally set to break into the studio feature world with a Universal fairy tale spin. The Cinderella feature, with a script written by Ann Peacock (writer of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe screenplay) didn’t move forward. Now it sounds like he may be getting another shot in the fairy tale film genre which happens to be increasingly popular these days.  

Though there’s no official statement that the stars will return, last time we chatted with Jeremy Renner several months back, he implied that there would definitely be a sequel to the witch hunting adventure but he was not signed on with the project, implying that they were probably just waiting for the script to be written to reach out to the stars. If the latest news proves to be true, the ordered rewrite should hopefully be done in due time, and while we aren’t looking at the 2016 release date previously promised, at least things are moving forward. It sure will be interesting to see what this prominent artist's take on the supernatural duo will be, especially as his feature film debut.

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Who Pacific Rim 2 Will Bring Back, According To Guillermo Del Toro

When giant monsters clash with skyscraper tall mechanical creations in heavily populated areas, there are going to be casualties. Such is the case with Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim.This high body count mean a lot of characters aren’t coming back for Pacific Rim 2, also known as Pacific Rim: Maelstrom, but del Toro just said that we’ll see a number of familiar faces.

Del Toro was pumping his FX vampire drama The Strain at the Television Critics Association press tour, and Slashfilm was able to get in a question about who will return, to which he responded:

I think that everybody or most everybody that survived is back. The rest we killed. We killed half the cast.

If this holds, that means when Pacific Rim 2 stomps through theaters in 2017, we’ll likely see characters like Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) return as Jaeger pilots, the giant mechs created to battle the vicious Kaiju, the massive creatures that invade our world through an interdemensional rift at the bottom of the ocean. We’ll also get more from Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), the borderline mad scientists obsessed with the Kaiju. Hopefully we’ll also see more from Ron Perlman’s seedy black market merchant Hannibal Chau—we thought he was dead, but as it turns out in the post-credits stinger, he’s very much alive and kicking and wants his shoe back. Too bad, however, if you were hoping for more Stacker Pentacost (Idris Elba), he’s dead as hell.

This is, of course, assuming that the actors sign for another go round, which does seem likely, as many still have a working relationship with the director. Both Hunnam and Gorman appear in del Toro’s haunted house film, Crimson Peak, set to drop later this year. Hunnam has, however, expressed hopes that Pacific Rim 2 will focus more on storytelling and character development than mammoth CGI spectacle—those elements were not exactly the first film’s strong suits.



Del Toro has said that Geiszler and Gottlieb will be the main characters in Pacific Rim 2, which marks a substantial shift from the Jaeger pilots who were the heroes the first time around. He did say, however, that Charlie Hunnam also has a great character and that he’ll be given a fair shake.

What little we know about the plot is said to examine how the people of the world cope now that the threat of giant monster attacks doesn’t constantly loom over them. What becomes of the Jaegers? How do the pilots move forward now that they’re no longer needed? These are questions that need to be answered. You can also rest assured that the movie will find some way to get the Kaiju back, and if I was a betting man, I’d wager that Geiszler and Gottlieb play a part in that. Maybe they try to peek into the alternate dimension to see what the creatures are getting up to and things don’t go as planned. That’s just an idea.

However this all plays out, we have some time to wait. Pacific Rim 2: Maelstrom is scheduled to shoot later this year, but it isn’t scheduled for release until August 4, 2017. Unless it gets pushed back again, which has already happened several times.

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Cities As Platforms

Take a look at the last decade’s fastest-growing companies. You’ll notice they have one thing in common: They’re all platforms.

YouTube was not the first video-hosting site, but it was the first to disrupt the stagnating online broadcasting model, creating a platform with digital engagement at its core. And the catalyst for Google’s exponential growth trajectory was when it opened its core search function to let people bid on keywords.

Facebook was not the first social network, but it was the first social network to view itself as a foundational digital platform, opening its APIs for apps and creative re-imagination.

If proved to be effective, innovation spreads like wildfire. Take the rise of the data scientist. Once only valued by a handful of Silicon Valley startups, Chief Data Officers are an integral part of today’s C-suite executives, found everywhere from the White House to Burberry.

It’s not uncommon for the public sector to look to private companies for inspiration, so what does this trend teach government? Can cities be viewed as platforms? Can they, too, be digitally disrupted?

Technological progress means cities and their corresponding governance structures are no longer untouchable entities. They must be connected to their citizens directly, seamlessly.

They are not intangible composites of capital, steel and glass.

Of course, cities like London and New York encompass physical objects like Buckingham Palace and The Empire State Building, black cabs and the subway. But more significant perhaps, are their digital footprints. Cities exist in our phones and laptops, and within the urban wisdom we share over digital networks. Increasingly, our urban environments are facing unprecedented challenges.

With more people now living in cities than ever before in history, we are placing ceaseless demands on public transportation, housing and public spaces. Far from alluring sites of opportunity and cultural exploration, the cities we inhabit are becoming microcosms of the most extreme impacts of human activity.

With digital innovation spreading like a creative pandemic across the globe, we must harness its potential for radical reinvention.

To evolve, cities must be viewed as platforms, with populations encouraged to utilize technology to creatively disrupt and redefine core functionalities. Every digitally enabled citizen living in a city is a hub of real-time data. When analyzed in isolation, there’s no actionable intelligence. But when you view the data we produce on a macro scale, the possibilities for radical inventiveness are endless.

Much like the iterative approach adopted by trailblazing software companies, citizens and city officials will have to shift their focus into a new default position: constant reinvention.

How would this look in practice?

Like the digital powerhouses of San Francisco and London’s rapidly expanding list of unicorns, let’s think of the city as possessing its own complex but penetrable API.

We must start with the recognition that, like its physical architecture, we can augment our city’s digital foundations; building sustainable solutions from the data we collectively produce.

Here’s a simple analogy for how to think about this more disruptive urban paradigm. If you take a set of encyclopedias and ask, “How do I make this digital?” you will get Microsoft Encarta, an encyclopedia on a disc. Remember those?

But if you ask, “How can digital change our engagement with encyclopedias?” you get Wikipedia, one of the largest publicly accessible knowledge stores on the planet with which we all can engage.

Along the same lines, we could take a city and ask, “How can we make it more digitally responsive?” and we would most likely end up with is a list of inane and oft-cited “smart city” solutions. Think smart toilets, bins and elevators, and you’re close.

But if we ask, “How does digital change our engagement with our city?” we get closer to exploit its full potential in a dynamic and civically minded way.

Waves of digitally astute cities are setting the pace, including Singapore, Panama, Seoul and Tallinn. They’ve all created spaces for digital disruption, opening data sets and convening citizens to challenge the digital architecture of the city and engage in direct democratic dialogue with officials. The more that we get into the mindset of a city as a platform, the easier it is to set virtual terms of service between citizen and city.

How could this be implemented systemically?

There is potential for what I’m calling “a Digital Social Contract” between city and citizen, built around the mutually accepted and shared understanding of rights, responsibilities and delivery.

This Digital Social Contract is premised on the agreement that the city will do more for us in exchange for our active and passive contribution. It’s a quid pro quo model. For the provision of our data, we get real transparency and the promise of greater urban efficacy.

The more we feel engaged with our city, the more we will feel collectively responsible for it; it’s a virtuous circle, with technology supplying the fuel for acceleration.

All of us need to recognize that putting our data to use in a meaningful way can improve our lives. But city officials have a part to play. They must create the appropriate systems and publicly accountable spaces to ensure measurable and effective use of data.

Think about how much we trust Facebook with our personal thoughts, locations, images and feelings. Yet we seem to balk when we think of public institutions housing far less emotive, but in some ways more important, information.

To evolve, cities must be viewed as platforms, with populations encouraged to utilize technology to creatively disrupt and redefine core functionalities.

That has to change if we want to make our city move from something that’s out there, to something we can mold, reshape and creatively re-imagine. Actionable intelligence has to move from the cloud into the hands of the public and City Hall.

This can be a nuanced and inherently complex interrelationship, I know. To illustrate it, let’s take a great example.

In my home city of London we’ve witnessed how transport can be massively improved through the use of smart data. We’ve gone from printed schedules on bus stops to SMS messaging and the latest incarnation, the CityMapper app.

Through CityMapper, we engage in a social contract of digital trust with the provider. You know where I am; in return, you provide me with actionable intelligence on the quickest and cheapest route to my destination.

These GPS-enabled applications are made possible through the use of datasets opened by the Greater London Authority and Transport for London, as well as Placr, who are running the transport API.

Two cities adopting the platform approach are Reykjavik and Tel Aviv, as signposted by Nesta’s recent CITIE initiative. The Icelandic capital opened datasets and worked with civil society activists to create a platform so that the public can propose and prioritize new ideas for the city. More than 60 percent of the population has participated already, with 257 ideas formally reviewed and 165 accepted and implemented since launch.

One example is where neighborhood organizations have been empowered to use public funds as they see fit, based on their allocated budget — participatory democracy in motion.

Far from alluring sites of opportunity and cultural exploration, the cities we inhabit are becoming microcosms of the most extreme impacts of human activity.

Similarly, in 2013, Tel Aviv launched a digital residents’ card that enables the beginnings of a two-way relationship between the citizen and the municipality so the city can become the creative vision of the people who inhabit it. It’s a centralized hub for Tel Avivans to get the most out of their city, from paying bills, to engaging representatives and finding out which movie theatre isn’t sold out of tickets on the opening weekend of the latest blockbuster.

On a micro scale, when the UK experienced some of the worst floods in its history in 2014, Tech City UK convened the renowned UK Government Digital Services team (GDS) and the Government’s Environmental Agencies and private sector developers in a hackathon at Google Campus in East London.

The agencies at the time released new datasets, so the community could build new apps and solutions. The impact was not just inspirational, but it also helped launch a number of new solutions to help flood victims, such as Flood Beacon.

London, already home to the internationally acclaimed Open Data Institute, has taken further brave steps with the opening of the London Data Store, one of the most extensive publicly available data banks of any city in the world. But it must go further as the urban infrastructure buckles under the weight of its growing population.

The process will only work if there is political will and a culture of citizen empowerment — prerequisites for an empowered disrupted democratic approach. In addition to thinking of cities as platforms, capable of generating and sharing data to create a laboratory for change, city officials must have strong representation from across the technological spectrum to make the Digital Social Contract a reality.

This must include everything from a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) responsible for the strategy, to a head of data, responsible for generating actionable insights and trends, to the need for developer relations, featuring a team of evangelists, promoting the use of data, to programmers, designers and businesses, and the people who are interested in building applications and services to plug gaps.

With digital innovation spreading like a creative pandemic across the globe, we must harness its potential for radical reinvention. It’s timely and it’s necessary — let’s take back the city.

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Visit Indonesia 2015 "Papua Is the Black Pearl of Indonesia"

Travelling adalah salah satu hal yang lagi hype banget. Siapa sih yang gak suka jalan-jalan dan mengeksplor tempat baru? Yaaa minimal biar ada cerita buat anak cucu nanti lah. Negara kita ini memiliki lebih dari 13.000 pulau dan 34 provinsi, hemmm, rasanya gak puas kalau ingin berwisata tapi tidak mengetahui info dari tempat wisata tersebut. Nah kali ini saya akan memberikan info wisata ke wilayah Timur, yaitu Papua. Bagi kalian yang suka jalan-jalan, menjajah pulau dan hobi berwisata, cobalah untuk pergi ke tempat yang satu ini guna melihat keindahan alam bawah lautnya. Banyak sekali yang akan kita temui disana, karena menurut penelitian, setidaknya ada 155 spesies ikan dan 95 koral dan terumbu karang yang ada disini merupakan yang terindah di dunia.

Biak merupakan nama salah satu pulau kecil yang berada di Teluk Cenderawasih, Provinsi Papua. Letak kabupaten ini sangat strategis karena berhadapan langsung dengan Samudera Pasifik. Pantai Bosnik, Air Terjun Wafsarak, Taman Burung dan Anggrek merupakan sebagian destinasi wisata dari sekian banyak destinasi menarik lainnya di kabupaten ini. 

Yang dapat di Kunjungi di Biak

Jika ingin mampir ke Kampung Amoi yang berada di Biak Utara untuk melihat perpaduan keindahan hijau perbukitan dan biru lautnya. Sementara di Museum Cenderawasih Anda bisa menikmati indahnya arsitektur bangunan museum ini dan koleksi benda-benda peninggalan Perang Dunia II yang tersimpan di dalamnya.Masih ingat tentang tas tradisional Papua Barat bernama noken ? Nah, salah satu lokasi yang memperlihatkan bagaimana noken dibuat adalah di Kampung Wisata Sauwandarek. Kampung wisata ini terletak di Distrik Meos Mansar, Raja Ampat, Papua Barat dan menawarkan berbagai hal menarik untuk dijelajahi. Raja Ampat terkenal dengan keindahan bawah lautnya.

Pantai Sauwandarek
pantai Sauwandarek khususnya kawasan Selat Dampier juga tidak ketinggalan. Ada beberapa lokasi untuk snorkeling dan menyelam (dive site). Penyelam bisa bertatap muka dengan kuda laut mini (pigmy seahorse), udang mantis, blue ring octopus, ikan mandarin, kakap (schooling snapper), gerombolan ikan tuna, dan barakuda. Kita bahkan bisa menyaksikan atraksi memberi makan ikan di pantai.

Telaga Yenauwyau

Selain wisata air, kita bisa menikmati keindahan darat dengan treking ke Telaga Yenauwyau. Keunikan telaga ini adalah airnya yang asin. Rupanya dahulu di telaga ini ada sebuah goa yang menghubungkan telaga dengan laut. Itu sebabnya air Telaga Yenauwyau asin. Menurut cerita setempat, telaga ini dihuni oleh seekor penyu putih. Tidak banyak orang yanb bisa melihat wujud penyu tersebut. Itu sebabnya siapa yang kebetulan melihat penyu di telaga keramat ini dipercaya akan mendapatkan, keberuntungan.Kalau belum beruntung melihat penyu putih tidak perlu berkecil hati.

Raja Ampat

Kita masih bisa melihat burung Maleo Waigeo (Spilocuscus papuensis), burung endemik di wilayah Sauwandarek. Kalau kamu tertarik berkunjung ke kampung wisata Sauwandarek, kamu bisa berangkat dari kota Sorong ke Ibu Kota Kabupaten Raja Ampat, Waisai. Dari Waisai kamu bisa menggunakan perahu ke Sauwandarek. Perjalanan ini memakan waktu kurang lebih 7-8 jam. Oleh karena itu kalau mau berkunjung ke Sauwandarek, jangan lupa siapkan bekal yang cukup untuk perjalanan.

Goa Lima Kamar, Biak

Sesuai dengan namanya, goa ini memiliki lia rongga atau kamar yang diduga dipakai oleh tentara Jepang sebagai tempat penyimpanan obat dan perawatan, karena masih terdapat sisa-sisa dan bekas obat-obatan. Waktu yang tepat untuk mengunjungi goa ini sebaiknya siang hari karena masih terang sehingga jelas untuk melihat keadaan sekitar. Kita juga bisa lebih leluasa melihat stalagnit yang indah dan mempesona.

Yang dapat di lakukan di Biak

anda dapat melakukan diving maupun snorkeling untuk menikmati keindahan surga bawah lautnya.

Akses Transportasi 

Untuk bisa mengunjungi Biak kita bisa melalui jalan udara di layani oleh Bandara Frans Kaisiepo.
Frans Kaisiepo Airport (BIK) adalah sebuah bandar udara di Biak-Papua, Indonesia, dikenal juga sebagai Mokmer Airport, ada beberapa maskapai airline yang beroperasi di bandara ini seperti Garuda Indonesia, Sriwijaya Air, Lion Air, Expressair, Susi Air. Bandara ini diberi nama setelah Frans Kaisiepo, Gubernur Papua ke-4. Mokmer Airfield adalah bagian dari kompleks lapangan udara yang dibangun di Pulau Biak oleh Jepang (Mokmer, Borokoe dan Sorido). Airfield Mokmer atua Bandara Frans Kaisiepo terletak di barat desa Mokmer di Biak, sejajar lurus dengan garis Pantai Japen. 

Bandara Frans Kaisiepo terletak 3 km sebelah tenggara kota Biak di Papua. Kamu dapat menggunakan taksi untuk ke kota ini dengan biaya sekitar Rp. 80.000. Tetapi ada juga transportasi umum yang tersedia, seperti minibus yang dapat mengantarkan kamu ke mana saja dengan harga Rp. 3500.

Nah itulah rekomendasi saya untuk berlibur ke Surga lautan Indonesia, yakin bakal rugi dengan alam Indonesia.

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

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