A Cure For Wellness - Lonnnnnng creepiness

I'd been looking forward to seeing this since I saw the trailer come out. It's got a funky title, a seemingly interesting premise, and the backdrop looked nice and spooky.

Official movie poster (20th Century Fox)

So, at 2 hours long, this Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean film saga, The Ring, and Rango) movie is not an easy one to stay focused throughout, and it's a bit weird. 

*spoilers ahead*

Lockhart

I'll break the plot down as simply as possible.  Lockhart working for some big business, been promoted to the board, they call him up to talk about a merger with another business in order to save the whole business and make the top tier very rich (including Lockhart - played by Dane DeHaan).  Apparently the top dog (Pembroke played by Harry Groener) who needs to sign off on the merger has gone on a spa break to Switzerland, and sent a letter back saying he's not coming back. Lockhart is accused of dodgy dealings on a previous account he worked on, so the other members of the board send him to Switzerland in order to convince the main boss to come back and sign the paperwork.



Seems a little convoluted, but feasible. 

So off DeHaan goes, the typical swagger-filled arrogant young go-getter, engrossed in his career, thinking it will be a nice trip to Switzerland in and out.

There's a few memorable-ish characters along the way, like the driver who takes Lockhart from the airport through the town to the sanitarium on the hill where the spa and ultimately Lockhart's boss is.

Everyone is looking so happy at the sanitarium having "treatments", DeHaan gets told his boss is busy having one of said "treatments", Lockhart gets snarky, then told to come back at 7pm. He heads out tells driver to take him to hotel, car crash on way back to hotel.

Dr Vollmer

Lockhart wakes up in the sanitarium with a cast on his leg, tries to figure where his boss is. Tries to check out the secret looking areas in the sanitarium, talks to random patients, figures things aren't quite right. Meets a young girl called Hannah (Mia Goth - girl in the poster), as well as the Director of the Sanitarium  Dr Vollmer (Jason Isaacs).

I kind of lost the next hour or so as Lockhart tries to figure out exactly what is wrong, involving some eels, the water, some more eels, some more passive looking people, and some more water and some human experimentation.

Turns out the water is used to help filter eels through people's bodies to produce "the cure" and that is what has been keeping a centuries old baron alive (Dr Vollmer - the Director of the Sanitarium) in order to continue his line by having a child with his sister (Hannah - the young girl). (see I told you this was weird).

Lockhart figures this out, also figures out his leg was never broken, goes looking for Hannah. Turns out Hannah got her first period so is ready to have a kiddo. Vollmer has her in the caves beneath the Sanitarium to rape her and get her pregnant to continue his line of pure blood. Lockhart shows up before Vollmer can do the deed, a fight ensues, and just when Vollmer is about to feed Lockhart to some eels, Hannah smashes him with a spade to the head, he falls in and gets chewed up by those eels. Meanwhile, embers have emerged from the fire that was started during the fight and has set the sanitarium on fire.

Lockhart and Hannah escape, and end up crashing into the other members of the board from his job back home who have come to see what the hell is going on. They try to tell him to go back and help get the top dog Pembroke, Lockhart says "nope", and he and Hannah ride off together. The end.  😐

Confusing as hell, wayyyyyyyyyy too long, interesting concept but tried way too hard to make it creepy. Just ended up being convoluted and I left the cinema thinking "what just happened?"Not worth watching in a cinema, and only watch on Netflix if you're fully awake, have time on your hands and a fetish for eels.

4/10

Ola Beach Club - Hello and goodbye

Ola Beach Club's front facing the sea

The latest players on the scene on Sentosa, I was excited to check out Ola Beach Club one afternoon after work. Nice bar area on the front, storage for paddle boards etc out back, pool, funky seating arrangements out on the beach, this place looks the part for sure.

Strolled up to the place with my partner, and saw around 5 staff kind of joking around with each other at the bar area and none really paying attention to any customers (there were only maybe 3 or 4 sat out on the beach seating area in the first place). I grabbed their attention and asked to sit by the pool where there was a bit of shade as we fancied a bit of food. Waitress kind of threw down the menus and then walked off, only to come back and then ask us if we wanted a drink. While we were trying to give our drinks order she interrupted to tell us that about half of the food menu was not available, hmm ok, just the drinks then. Off she went and gave the order to the bar. One staff member frantically juicing fruits on her own, 3 or 4 stood around doing absolutely nothing. One in particular, literally did zero. I kind of felt sorry for her stood there all the time, maybe she could have been helping with the juicing?  

So we figure what we want to eat, but then trying to get a wait staff's attention was impossible, as they were all just joking around with each other and not paying attention. Finally we get someone to come over and take the order and we sit and wait for the drinks.  Before the drinks arrive, the guy comes over with the bill already.  Seriously? What if we wanted more orders later?  The place was dead, it's not as if it's hard to track our bill. Was pretty annoyed by that alongside the lack of menu items available and poor service.

We had the truffle fries and popcorn chicken (nice and spicy). To be fair, the food was ok, kinda pricey though and I resent having to pay a service charge especially when it was so poor.

I guess this place must be better at night time as a bar?  Or some other time when it's busier?  Who knows, I'm not sure I wanna bother with it again. TBC seems to remain the better Sentosa option...

If you're interested to see for yourself:

Ola Beach Club

46 Siloso Beach Walk

Sentosa, S(099005)

Tel: 6250 6978

http://www.olabeachclub.com

Linx 1010b Windows 10 tablet

Whistlestop review of this product that i've had in my possession for months now...

The Linx 1010b has an Intel Atom Z3735F Quad Core processor, 32 GB storage (with SD card reader), 2 GB RAM, and comes with Windows 10 Home preinstalled along with a Keyboard dock. All available for £139.99 (S$275 approx.)

• Comes well packaged

• This thing is heavy as hell, particularly with the keyboard attached.

• Setup is very quick

• Battery life is excellent initially, but charging the device is very very hit or miss with how long it takes to fully charge.

• Keyboard dock trackpad is poor, but gives a little additional battery.

• Sometimes disconnecting the keyboard and connecting it isn't seamless, but reliable mostly

• Product quality is generally good and performance is more than adequate. Not gonna set the world alight, but for a cheap Windows 10 tablet, what more would you expect?

IPhone 6C, 7, 5Se rumours...

Officially, nothing is known about the next iPhone. For all I know Apple might have decided that enough is enough and they're just gonna focus on cars and new MacBooks. Rumours and speculation are always rife and here's a few I've heard going around which may or may not be true...

iPhone 6c

Basically a plastic 4 inch version of the iPhone 6 with mostly the same internals only a cheaper build, and more budget friendly price point. Seems feasible.

iPhone 5se

Rumored to be an updated iPhone 5s with a 4-inch display, A8/M8 chips, the 8/1.2 megapixel cameras from the iPhone 6, and Apple Pay.

Seems to be a weird name, but maybe it could stick. Perhaps it's a code name. Certainly the premise seems like it could fly.

The end of the headphone jack

A fair amount of rumours out there that suggest the next major release of the iPhone is going to do away entirely with the 3.5mm headphone jack in favour of relying on a new set of bundled EarPods which work wirelessly over Bluetooth.

Sure, why not, right? Except all your existing wired earphone would be rendered useless overnight. 

On the positive side though, the lack of an opening in the iPhone body for headphones could make it easier for....

Dustproofing and waterproofing 

Could the iPhone 7 really be entirely waterproof? It is known that the existing iPhone can resist a fair amount of H20 exposure. 

Could Apple be making this official? It's something that the general public would certainly be looking for. A very very useful feature.

Wireless charging

A technology that has existed for a while, and a chance for Apple to milk it with selling accessories!

Redesigned form factor

As with each major release (ie. Not an 'S' release), this is the norm. Sorry no clue what though. Perhaps slimmer if there's no headphone jack.

Storage starting at 32gb

With Apple's fairly successful foray into the rented and subscription based media scene, users are dying to get that additional storage on the Low range model in order to take full advantage. A 32gb base model seems the logical step.

OLED display

OLED means thinner, brighter and lighter devices. That makes sense. 

Better camera

Some Rumours have emerged that suggest there could be a second rear camera to simultaneously capture pano and zoomed shots. This kind of thing is unseen. Who knows?

That's the round-up anyway. Let me know your thoughts in the comments...

Microsoft Lumia 550 - Windows 10 Mobile on a budget

When I was back in the UK this Christmas, I was doing some supermarket shopping and happened to stumble upon the Lumia 550 on the shelf advertised for £99. I'd already heard of the device, knowing that it would be debuting with Windows 10 Mobile installed on it alongside the higher specced 950 and 950XL.
I asked to purchase one and was told that it was locked to a network and that they have to remain locked for a year before they will unlock it officially.

I went away and decided that I needed to get one of these somehow to try out the latest iteration of Windows 10 Phone/Mobile/for Mobile. Friend of mine was coming over from Chicago, so I asked to pick me up an unlocked version. Retailed at $139 (USD), and came out at $153 after taxes added.


So now I have one in my hands, and I got the chance to start it up, play around with it and use it as my daily driver for a few days. Here's what happened:

1) The device is packaged well, with just a charger. No earphones, no removable USB cable, nothing. But what would you expect for this price. It's a bargain.


2) For the price, the screen on this phone is excellent. Bright colours, not too bad viewing angles.

3) Despite being a budget phone, the performance of this device is not bad at all, and is 4G LTE.

Those three points had me feeling pleasantly satisfied with myself for investing in such a great value phone. Maybe I'd sell my iPhone, maybe I'd subscribe to Groove Music, maybe  I'd consider an upgrade to a 950 or 950XL at some point....


Then, Windows 10 Mobile happened.

I've loved the concept of Windows Phone and their live tile interface since it came out. I had a Samsung Omnia 7 and thought it was great. It really is awesome. However, since the days of Windows Phone 7, things haven't really moved on in terms of the platform. I mean, how long do you want to fill the app-gap? Its not as noticeable anymore, but it is noticeable.

Also, if you're going to release a new operating system, make sure it's ready for primetime. Windows 10 Mobile is nowhere near ready. It had 38 updates waiting for me right out of the box. And those updates took over an hour to download, install and finish. Then after that, there was an entirely new OS update 10.0.10586.29, which took about 2 hours to download, prepare to install, then install. Not good Microsoft, not good at all.

Anyway, I finally got to using the device and it looks very pretty. But, it isn't always responsive, and then there's the settings app which looks much nicer than the settings of Windows Phone past, and matches the desktop settings app, but, still is confusing for finding some things as basic as changing the timeout time for the screen turning off.

Alongside that, I set the alarm to wake me up in the morning, and it just flat didn't work. Didn't go off at all. The settings were right but it didn't go off. Annoying.

Then I downloaded WhatsApp, and tried to use it with my phone on silent. But, when WhatsApp notifications arrived they still made a noise.

I could go on more about irritations of Windows 10 Mobile, it just doesn't seem to be finished. It feels like beta software.


Another slight annoyance with the device is that it is a fingerprint magnet (I believe the white version wouldn't be so much though).

After everything is said and done, even after one or two days I'm longing for my iPhone 6S Plus again. And I will definitely go back to it, feeling ultra disappointment that Microsoft STILL has not got their act together.

Despite this, if you're in the market for a cheap phone that does the basics just fine, then this wouldn't be a bad device to go for, but comparing it to the 640XL of my friend's, I would suggest you go for that at the moment, because Windows 10 Mobile just isn't ready yet.


UPDATE:
Several other reviews suggested this device has all day battery life. I can confirm that for me this hasn't been the case. With intermittent use such as Facebook, Twitter and a few other apps, the battery was down to 5% before 6pm. Whereas my iPhone which had not been charged since the day before was still at 12%.

iPhone 6 Plus - 6 months later

Let's keep this short.

I loved the Lumia 1520, but couldnt wield the massive screen.

Apple come along with another option slightly smaller so I try it out.

So here's the lowdown after 6 months:

'Pluses' (scuse the pun)

Great screen which most apps are now optimised for.

Great camera which takes great shots but struggles sometimes in low light.

Great battery life; sometimes two days of continuous usage.

Great software: I still love iOS for its simplicity.

Downsides

It's tricky to grip the phone without a case, it can be slippy.

Some apps aren't optimised and look silly when scaled up to fit the screen.

As you can see, the positives outweight the negatives. Easily.

I can't wait to see what they do with the 6S Plus in September. I won't be getting rid of this phone until then (which is really unusual for me)

Nokia Lumia 1520 Review

Since Microsoft announced the Lumia 1520, and its awesome specs including a beautiful 1080p full-HD screen, I've wanted one.



Not only for the high specs and Windows Phone goodness (not that Windows Phone needs high specs really), but because i've never partaken in the 'phablet' movement (not quite a phone, not quite a tablet).  I can see the appeal of the phablet with the extra screen real-estate and chunkier battery for extended battery life, and so, I decided to pick up one of the Lumia 1520s.

So. First things first. This phone is a work of art; its absolutely beautiful. I got the white version with 32Gb memory, and I even added a 32Gb SD card to the equation as I figured I'd want plenty space for HD video on that stunning screen.

Despite the size of the 6" screen imposing it's presence on the phone, the phone itself is very slim and svelte, and certainly not too heavy.  I have quite big hands, and I can just about operate the phone with one hand, but realistically I used two hands more often than not. That said, typing on this phone is a joy and browsing the web on the awesome screen is fantastic.

I won't do a review of Windows Phone, but I will mention that even though the operating system is great in my opinion, they haven't really optimised it to take advantage of the phablet form factor. The OS is essentially just an enlarged version. But it still feels very slick like all other Windows Phone devices.  (I had the Windows Phone 8.1 preview installed too)

Speaker quality on the device is excellent, with speakers positioned well on the back at the top and bottom. Equally call quality was great, despite feeling a little weird with holding the device to my ear.

Camera bump

The camera. Ohhhh the camera. It's 20Mp, and is really really really really good. I recommend getting the Nokia Camera app (formally Pro Cam) for free from the store to customise the camera's picture output like a boss.  The camera just protrudes a little from the back of the phone, but not much, and it doesn't affect handling the device at all.  It takes stunning pictures, and you'll wonder how you lived without it.

this is a slim phone

This phone supports Qi Wireless Charging, and with the larger 3400mah battery, it take a while to fully charge (around 5 hours), but then the battery life for usage on this device was phenomenal. With heavy use of installing apps, browsing the web, listening to music, watching videos locally and on youTube, after a full day, battery was only down to 40% and that was pretty heavy usage. I bet you wouldn't need to charge every day if just light use.

Conclusions:
This is a beautiful phone. I love it...   But... for me, I just can't get used to the phablet form factor.  If I were to become more accepting of phablets, this is the one I would go for in a heartbeat.

Lenovo Miix 2 8 - Unboxing

I originally managed to get my hands on a Dell Venue Pro, despite it not being available in Singapore, and used it for a couple of months before parting company with it.  It had a grippy back but didn't feel cheap.  Even so I'd prefer something more metallic.

I was however missing the convenience of a tablet running full Windows 8.1! So I checked out the alternatives from Acer and Toshiba and of course Lenovo.  I managed to get the Miix 2 8 from Amazon.co.uk for £199 and for that price, I thought I couldn't really go wrong, surely?

The item was delivered promptly and came in a neat box which strangely has a different shaped lid so its not easy to open (why do companies do this?). But within the box there was the tablet, the license details for Student and Home edition of Microsoft Office, and the charger/cable.  Pretty plain sailing.



Tried to boot the device out of the box but it was dead, which was unusual as devices usually come with at least 20% for an initial boot. Anyway. I plugged in and switched on and we were away; standard Windows first boot. It took around 10 minutes to get through everything which struck me as slow, but ultimately was not an indicator of the device's actual speed, which we'll address in a future post...

 
 
 
 

Enjoy the pics and a full review will arrive soon!  ?:-D