Movie Predictions 2017

So for real I am going to practice brevity here.

Its an easy time to do so though, because 90% of whats coming out is going to fall somewhere on the spectrum of "meh" to "hot, seaside garbage pile."

Basically, there will be a bunch of movies that are ok. Marvel/Disney have ushered us right into the era of the most okayest films of all time. Grand productions that entertain, take no risks, and that typically don't stand on their own but will make you leave the theatre moderately pleased.

Everything is a sequel or remake.

If it is Marvel/Disney it will probably worth the ticket price, but not much more. (Guardians 2, Star Wars VIII)

If its DC (Justice league) its gonna blow, because they have no artists making those movies. Just a board of directors that believe they know what audiences want and consistently prove that they do not.  Also Zach Snyder's horrible taint is too well established in the brand and its too big of a PR risk to do what they need to do, IE break away from any semblance of the Snyderverse.

Also, any movie that is attempting to establish a "cinematic universe" as that is now the go to business model even though its only really working for one goddamn studio is gonna be shit. Its a fundamental mistake to make movies with the intent to make more. Counting eggs before they hatch, carts before horses, completing before sex goddamnit! Its not good for anyone! (The Mummy, King Arthur, potentially every other big studio production. The King Kong verse, the Ghost in the Shell Verse, the Planet of the Apes verse etc)

All the sequels are gonna blow (Just anything with a fucking 2 or 3 in the title besides John Wick 2)

The Nostalgia cash grabs will be the worst (Power Rangers, Jumanji, Transformers which also falls in the universe building category so it will be extra shit)

The only movies that are worth it, the only movies I am going to pay for to see in the theaters are;
1) John Wick 2

the sequel to the best action movie made in the last 10 years. Same team. The only sequel worth your time.

2) Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Luc Besson's return to big budget big vision sci-fi that EVERYONE SHOULD SEE BECAUSE WE NEED TO FUND ORIGINAL CONTENT YOU NOSTALGIA DRIVEN BRAND LOYAL FUCKS!...even though its not totally original as its based on a book...shut up...

3) Geostorm

Haven't heard of this one? Yeah. It was supposed to come out years ago, then it was supposed to come out last year, but it was so terrible they had to spend millions of dollars and hire new directors and producers to try and cobble together something decent. Its probably going to be the most expensive terrible movie released in years, and i'm cynical enough to always want to pay to see a disaster. Especially when the disaster is a movie about disasters.

Thats it. Everything else is not going to be special or worth getting out to share a space with the dregs of humanity for 14 bucks a ticket and 500 dollars per popcorn candy combo.

Also, a desperate message from me, your fearless cultural curmudgeon/leader. DONT FUCKING GO TO MOVIES.

Dont give these movies money. Do you want to see one of the movies beyond the three I listed? Fine. Wait. Wait for weeks after it opens. Hollywood only cares about opening weekend box office. Its the main factor in success. If we stop seeing the shit they have to stop making the shit.

Go to a small theater, see some small movies. They will probably be overly pretentious and self congratulatory because they are so "different" and "independent" despite predominantly relying on the same story tropes as every other fucking indy movie out there
(Im a general every person who has a strange relationship to family blah blah blah) (also most indy movies you actually see in theaters  are projects produced by arms of the studio system so independent isn't really the right word). Still. Stop feeding the beast. Please.

Be a hero and punch these movies in the sternum with the power of your dollarfists! You are a consumer in a capitalist market place. Make the marketplace you punk rock bottom bitch, like this guy!

Remember when movies could take risks? Good times.

Rogue One

Let's start with this. This is the Rogue One review done in the style of Rogue One:

It's ok

Straight to the point, nothing propping it up. You know my general opinion and, if that's all you need in your life, you are good to go.

But really...that's not very satisfying is it? A review so brief, without explanation to back up the claim, kind of defeats the purpose of it being there at all right?

Sadly, Star Wars Rogue One; Star Wars Stories chapter one, the first attempt, went for brevity instead of character building, action instead of substance, and marketing in favor of art.

Rogue One is a Storm Trooper of a movie IE it misses every mark it shoots for (hah, see, referential humor. Isn't that so funny? In a review about a Star Wars I made a reference to a Star Wars thing. References are great. They are all movies like Rogue one needs! Here's a picture of C3P0 and R2-D2!)

What is, in essence, an action war/spy movie never does fulfill the basic requirements for any of the genres it represents, and the reason why is that it all rides on the audience identifying and caring about the characters on screen.

And we don't.

I mean

I don't

Millions of nerds age 20-40 are lapping this movie up because Darth Vader is in it.

In fact the most worrying thing about Rogue One is not it's own inadequacies but the fact that we have gotten to a point with pop art in this country that mediocrity that deviates slightly from the norm is now lauded as something special.

They tried something slightly new with this one (I guess. Not new in media as a whole but new in Star Wars). Problem is, they didn't actually. All the hallmarks of tight studio control and brand retention are there, interfering in all moments that could have truly made this film stand out.

I will try to make this short. Sadly, while brevity is great and all, sometimes things have to go deeper to make sense. Cough Cough Rogueone Cough.

The characters are all one dimensional, with little interaction between them to make them read like people we should care about. The only times we DO get to see them interact are at the movies highest dramatic points, which we would care about if we cared about them going into those moments

But we don't

Honestly, it's been a day since I watched it, and I could not for the life of me name a single character in that movie that was not a pre-established entity. Not a good sign.

Jyn Erso (had to google that one) is a perfect example of this lack of dimension.

-Forced from her Father and Mother (who inexplicably shows up with a blaster so she can get shot. She lives by the old cowboy code I guess; if you are gonna kill a man, try to do it to his face after some dry dialogue) because the empire wanted her father to continue working on the Death Star (which, later in the movie, his reason for doing so was because “they would have just gotten someone else” which begs the question why the empire didn't just do that instead of putting the project in the hands of someone who deserted...I guess... (again we don't know) and probably isn't too happy that they killed his wife and took him away from his daughter…)

-Ends up 15 years later in prison (we don't know why)

-Broken out by the Rebels (why they knew where she was we don't know) and then strong armed into joining their cause with the promise of “her freedom” if she helps. (which it doesn't really make sense for a group of essentially fugitives to have the power to grant freedom…)

-Doesn't want to be part of the rebellion despite being formally one of it's best fighters as established in brief conversation with Robo Forest Whitaker due to the “suffering” it caused her (not established or explained)

-Despite ample time and opportunity to leave the mission, she stays around for no obvious reason (hope to see her father? Not established. Only mention of him was her saying she just likes to think of him as dead) until she meets up with RoboWhitaker, who plays her father's overly complicated message (seriously, the message already says “I intentionally built a flaw in the fucking murder ball.” He couldn't have just said “it's a fucking exhaust port on THIS part of the ship, at which point a hologram of a simple drawing of the death star pops up with a red circle highlighting the area, thus negating the whole “let's get the entire engineering schematics for this thing” mission?)

-Starts getting emotional seeing dad saying “I love you Stardust” etc despite their relationship having almost no context except for a five minute flash back where they didn't interact at all.

-Goes on a mission to find her father with the Rebels (and extra side characters) which is secretly a mission to kill her father. Rebels kill her father and she has a short scene where he says a few lines that would matter if they ever actually built their characters or had them interact at all. She knows Rebels killed her father and figures out that was the point of the mission.

-She becomes all rah rah rebellion and starts spouting off speeches about hope, despite the only thing that has been established about her character is her blaming of the rebellion for her suffering, which she just got a big dose of vis-à-vis her father being murdered by the rebellion.

As for the rest? Well we have Capitan Downer who I guess is troubled by the fact he has murdered so many people for the rebellion in morally compromising ways. Again not well established. He wrestles with killing Jyns father I suppose but that seems more because he actually believes Jyns story not because he gives a shit about killing people.

Blind force sensitive guy...Chicklet? Carrot? Something like that, again not bothering to look this stuff up anymore, guardian of a temple that they....are not really guarding I guess? I get that they are really building up the force and destiny in this but not even a scene where he's bummed out about his life's purpose being nuked into oblivion by the Death Star? No confiding in his new found friends or old friend to bring some depth to the character?

His buddy? Big Mclargegun? Hes grumpy at Carrot Stick because he keeps believing in the force but I guess he also believes or used to believe but they have like 3 lines of dialogue in the whole fucking movie so you really don't know, including a line where he calls Jyn “little sister” even though, and i'm wracking my brain, I don't think they directly communicate in the entire film.

See what I mean? No depth, no consistency, nothing is established.

I bet that if you really counted up all the lines of dialogue that were not there simply to advance the plot you’d have less than 10 minutes of character interaction for a cast of two main characters and sevenish side characters.

If it's not clear from the above ramble, the tone is also all over the place. What is attempting to be the first dark, gritty, hard nosed Star Wars (which was what episode III was also supposed to be and used as it's selling point)  is constantly undermined by the blatant fan service and pointless action scenes.

Yeah, I said it, the action scenes are all pretty much pointless up until the last 20 minutes of the movie. That one is pretty good. The rest don't mean anything because the characters involved are not developed.

Again. For a story like this to work, we need characters that exist in some way that make us care about them. They never establish the characters so the action scenes don't matter because the stakes are not clearly established beyond the assumption that we, the audience, already know the stakes because this is a prequel. The only moment with some true emotional depth is the Death of K2, the fucking robot. The only reason it has emotional depth is that K2 is the only character that continuously interacts with other characters, engaging in dialogue and banter, so we actually LEARN about it (he? Are we gendering robots?) and it's nuances. It is a know it all that doesn't listen and only follows orders begrudgingly. It doesn't like anyone other than Cassian Andor (I decided to look him up given he is a main character). It wants a gun. It is really happy when he gets a gun. It takes obvious pleasure in using a gun. Despite know it all, curmudgeon quality and constant reiteration of statistical unlikelihood of success (REMEMBER WHEN C3PO did that!) it is always there for it's friends and willingly sacrifices itself for them in the end.

With just a few more character interactions, a few more minutes of banter and play between the actors, and a little more room for them to shine, the ending of the movie could have had some real weight. (Oh no wait, Darth Vader is there and makes it stupid...leading to the next point)

And those pre-established entities I mentioned? They do nothing to service the film, and in both cases actually detract from the experience and Star Wars as an intellectual property. Bringing in Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin (thus making it three total main bad guys in all) and due to the fact Tarkin has been established before and Vader has been established over the entire rest of the goddamn movie series, he and Tarkin take away screen time and opportunity to make a central, established villain of new guy in white uniform (i'm tired of googling this shit again). Furthermore, Making Darth Vader a goof ball one liner dropping guy in a film that is supposed to be super duper serious is wrong. I know it tests well with nerds in my age group, but for fucks sake “don't choke on your ambitions.”

Really?

That's where we are at? The movie that the only thing it has going for it is it's gritty dark tone decides to make Vader uncharacteristically silly? You know, one of the best villains in cinema history in part due to his distinct lack of humanity suddenly developing a flair for theatre and wit?

In the end, Star Wars Rogue One: A Star Wars Story about Star Wars: Featuring the War in the Stars; A Vader/Tarkin Joint, is commendable in that if you tweaked 3 things about the film as a whole, it could be a fantastic experience. Instead, we have a film that attempts a lot of different things and succeeds in none of them. It's a fine movie, but we should demand more of 200 million dollar productions than fine. We need to stop accepting mediocrity and art by comity, because if we don't, its all we will ever get from Hollywood.

Cities: Skylines: City-builder nerds may be delivered from SimCity's clutches at last

Hello everyone, Dilly here, back from an extended absence to bring you the good word. Now, you may recall from my previous posts that I am an avid patron of the city-builder genre. If you don't, that's fine, because I never actually mentioned it in my previous posts. But this isn't about what I may or may not have said in the past. It's about how concerned you should be that Steam will most likely become the type of sentient AI that brought humanity to its knees in The Matrix.

"Dilly, you're all over the place, you're going mad," you say? Well you would be too, if Steam was refreshing your quick launch interface every few days to fill it with games you don't own, in the hopes you'll try them and get addicted to them. You would be too if Steam's 'recommended for you' list included titles related to games and software you own separate from Steam (is it scanning me???). You would be too if you put titles on your wishlist, only to find them coincidentally on sale the next day. You would be too if every time you started up Steam, it blasted you with the exact title it knows you will want to buy:

And I do want to buy it. I really, really do. And I'm going to tell you why. But if Cities: Skylines is the quiet, intelligent, rational younger sibling of the city simulation genre, then I feel like we should start by talking about his big, dumb, older brother for a moment. You see, once upon a time in 2013, a game was released called SimCity. This game was unequivocally and decidedly a large, steaming, pile of shit.

Wrought with issues from the get go, and when I politely use the word "issues," I mean "severe game-breaking problems that made the game LITERALLY unplayable," SimCity was for a long time scarcely even fit to be used as a doorstop, or that extra 1/4" you needed under one leg to right that wobbly table. I won't go into why this happened, suffice to say that what was described as an incredible cloud-based calculation program that was supposed to be the bees fuckin knees of modern gaming turned out (rather unsurprisingly) to be a thinly veiled DRM - and EA's servers couldn't handle the amount of traffic they received at launch.

Now, getting past the headaches and frustrations of the initial launch (oh god, the headaches! They're coming back to me) the game itself quickly revealed itself to be a mere shadow of its predecessors SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4, both of which still remain superior in nearly every way. The new multiplayer mode, which was supposed to change the city-sim genre as we know it, ended up being a total flop when it was playable at all, offering little feeling of being part of a community of other cities and other mayors. Gone were the realistic, rational sims that populated the cities of previous titles; actual characters you felt you had some semblance of responsibility for as they drove to their jobs every day and came home to their families at the same house every night. In SimCity 2013 they were replaced by mindless zombies that literally drove to the closest open workplace in the morning, and then drove to the closest available house at night.

SimCity 2013. Stink lines added for effect.

It seemed like EA hoped that as long as the graphics were nice and shiny, no one would notice the laughably small city dimensions and lack of a persistent and dynamic population of sims. This to me was its biggest, most disappointing failure. The essence of any city-sim is the satisfaction of carefully planning and implementing infrastructure for it to be used wisely and thoughtfully by your city's inhabitants. What's the point if the people in your city behave like irrational, brain-dead squatters?

Although it is true I could go on and on, I won't get into the stupidity of the Origin distribution platform, or the pandering apology issued by EA (along with a free game from a limited crappy selection) as a peace offering for subjecting decent people to such a turd sandwich as SimCity 2013, because I want to get into why I even sat down to write this in the first place: Cities: Skylines.

Cities: Skylines comes to us in March of this year from developer Colossal Order, a relatively indie team of around a dozen staff members, who brought us the Cities in Motion series (most recently Cities in Motion 2). CiM2 was one hell of a city-sim...okay...back up a second, it's not exactly a city-sim, since in the game you only manage the transportation system of a city, but it definitely feels like it could become one. And that's exactly what CO has done now. They claim to have always intended to make a true city-sim, and I can certainly say after spending many hours playing CiM2, that they've mastered the transportation side of things (a huge part of any city-sim's gameplay).

Featured in CiM2 is a range of transport options, from buses to subways to ferries, that you must carefully construct and schedule around your city to meet the demands of citizens commuting to work, shops, school, etc. These citizens have persistent jobs and residences; they work on the weekdays and shop and access leisure services on the weekends - and I'm very excited to see this aspect ported over to the new Skylines title.

Cities: Skyline will also take after its transportation-centered counterparts by offering plenty of space for you to build a grow your city (about 36 square km compared to SimCity's bewildering 2 km).

Of course, you'll also be able to do all the other things that come with the typical city-builder. You'll manage taxes, water and sewage, emergency services, and other such hum drum activities that in the strictness of reality are pretty dull but in the freedom of simulation can become interesting and gratifying. CO has noted that they will improve upon the UI from its transportation-builder series - and in this vein, I hope they improve upon the graph and chart system offered in CiM2 to detail the statistics of your city, as these graphs were often confusingly labeled, poorly visualized, and of little use.

The excitement doesn't end there. Players of Cities: Skylines can look forward to two more unique features that set it apart from the EA blowhard competition. One is the intense ability to micromanage several things, all the way down to renaming individual citizens in your town. The other is the promised mod support, which has the potential to be truly heroic. With support from the Steam Workshop and an in-game modding tool (YES!), users will be able to create vast variations of buildings, parks, vehicles - you name it - and share them with the gaming community. This means endless possibilities of dynamic cities of all shapes and sizes! Why don't you put that in your pipe and shove it up your ass, you money-grubbing EA fucks.

Build sprawling farmlands or a towering metropolis...or a quiet suburb.

I have no doubt that EA and Maxis will continue beating their dicks, occasionally ejaculating a discolored discharge that will be another DLC for SimCity 2013. But after that well runs dry they'll probably be hard at work coming up with the next SimCity title to once again corner the market. And until that day comes, let's hope that Cities: Skyline doesn't fall flat on its face too.

2015 movie predictions Part 1

So, using my massive many wrinkled brain I am (again) going to tell you what movies are gonna rock and what movies are going to be stinky piles of discarded wank socks. Last time around (cough, points to old blog posts) I was pretty much dead on minus one GLARING mistake in thinking Prometheus was a guaranteed winner. For that, I apologize and if any of you 3 to 4 people who read that went to see the movie based on that recommendation, I will make you a cookie for reparations. Just one. It'll have a frowny face on it and maybe a gum drop in the center to represent and alien bursting from its chest.

If you pay attention there is a slight break in theme this year. Its not just the usual appropriation of existing licenses or the mindless sequels/prequels that typify Hollywood. No, things are getting worse. Not only do we have a big budget video game movie coming in the form of Hitman: Agent 47, which I haven't see the likes of in awhile but my research indicates is going to be a big trend in the next few years (scheduled projects include Assassins Creed, Sly Cooper, and...ugh...Angry Birds...that one hurt to type) , but we are also getting a full feature release of a Goosebumps movie. You know. Goosebumps. Those scary books for kids. From the 90s. With the bees and puppets and boos.

Yup. Goosebumps. 

Pausing on the Goosebumps front for a moment to let my brain process it. The video game movie thing scares me as well it should. If you look back, can you honestly point to a good adaptation of a game to a movie? I mean, there was Mortal Kombat which was tons of fun but not a good movie by any means. Other than that, the transfer is usually pretty painful, mostly because its licensing. The company making it buys the rights to make a movie and typically only has so long to do it and, because they already dropped a ton of cash on the name, usually make it on the cheaper/lamer side of the coin. These movies are rarely passion projects. They are calculated products to tie in with existing merchandise. But what ho, dear readers! The same could be said for comic book movies not even 5 or 10 years ago. Now look at it! We have four huge comic book movies coming, all of which we can trust to be at least fun because marvel figured it out. So maybe Hitman won't be too bad. I would still be weary of it though, there are still going to be some growing pains, I'm sure. Back to Goosebumps...

I'm gonna watch it. I'm totally going to see it. Jack Black is in it. He plays R.L. Stien in his own horror universe. Its probably going to suck HARD but I'm feeling like its gonna suck just the right way to be worth the price of admission.

For the rest, here's the short predictions:

THE SEQUELS

Monsters: Dark Continent: Sequel to Monsters, a movie that oozed so much stereotypical pretension and hit-you-over-the-head stupid messages that I wanted to punch the screen. (And don't get me wrong, I went to a local non-accredited film school; I can be pretentious to the max, but nothing is worse than super overt masturbatory pretension, which really should have been the title for this movie.) My bet is that since it lost its director to the Godzilla movie, the studio making it is banking on its new found pedigree to sell. Gonna be boring and probably pretty soulless. 

Anything else that's a squeal: I did the looking for you. From a new Transporter and Ted 2 to Paranormal Number-Whatever-The-Fuck to Pitch Perfect 2, you can just avoid all this shit. Except for...FURIOUS 7

Insert flexing and grunting noises here

The first one was fun, the second was shit. The third brought it closer to where it needed to be with the over-the-top insanity, the fourth brought it back down. The fifth got its groove back and the sixth was one of the most inane piles of macho insanity that I have ever seen and I reveled in every moment of it. I think they figured it out, and they are going to go even crazier with the seventh, so its gonna be totally worth it.

THE REBOOTS

A mixed bag this year! Instead of every single one looking like a sad old prostitute with some sweet CG effects projected over her to try and sell her "goods", there are actually one or two that might be worth it! The new Mad Max looks like it was made by someone who actually watched the original movies and it has real cars doing a lot of real stunts which really titillates my tits. Jurassic World also has the potential to be a strong "eh, I'm not upset I paid to see this" so that's good! 

On the other hand, we have things like Poltergeist, a horror movie with a summer release which is never a good sign and, of course, Terminator Genesis. Oh wait. I'm sorry. GeneSYS.

Yeah.

They have 3 or 4 call backs and catch phrases in the TRAILER. This movie is going to be pandering stupid awful garbage. Remember that one kid in high school who tried so desperately hard to be cool he would do and say anything and everything he heard to the point of it just being really sad? Yeah, that's this movie. Its going to be the "well my dad drives a Mustang and totally hangs out with the Beatles and he drove me to meet Paul McCartney in his Mustang" of movies. 

Alright, this is getting long so its time to make this a two-parter! Keep being awesome all you four or five people that stop by and remember, if you give bad movies money they will keep making them. So stop it!  BAD!

Pitches to The Asylum: Titanic 3

IM BACK! Thanks to Erik Hoofnalge being the sexy stallion he is blowing smoke up my ass about this blog I finally got off my ass and finished this entry. BOOM. I hope its good! It probably isnt. FUCK. Well whatever heres my pitch for Titanic 3.

A brilliant red giant star is slowly eclipsed by a procession of asteroid and small plutoid objects. Suddenly a large ship enters the frame, speeding towards the sun to establish orbit. As it turns towards the star, we see its designation, "Titanic III" written in giant slabs of gold inlayed with diamonds.

Asylum calling card #1: Fraudulent sequels and spin offs

The scene fades to black as the words come off of the ship and begin to take up the screen as  a dubstep song begins. the final title reading "Titanic 3D: Terror on the seas of tomorrow" Thats right. This shit is in 3D because its about time Asylum corners that market. The drop hits as the scene cuts to an opulent party on the domed deck of the ship. The party is off the chain as the future financial elite let it all hang out on the maiden voyage of the very first interstellar cruise line as it moves on its tour towards Alpha Centari, all of which will be established by some ham handed delivery between the Captain and main financial backer of the ship, played by someone who is at least 400 pounds and who speaks EXTREMELY moistly, preferably always with a cigar or snifter of brandy, and his son, played by Jonathan Taylor Thomas-

Asylum calling card #2: Out of work 90s actor

Look familiar? Yeah. Thats Urkel. Hes using navy science to kill a Crocosaurus. The other guy was drunk the entire film and its really obvious.

-starry eyed and apparently at odds with his fathers nearly Ferengi level of capitalistic ideals. After some heated and moist debating about something the father says, JTT storms out and bumps into a servant girl/now romantic interest, a green skinned foxy whoman who drama shouts all of her lines.

asylum calling card #3: "hot" "actress" REALLY nailing all that dialogue.
To be fair, Brooke Hogan really managed to let Hulkamania run wild all over Two Headed Shark Attack

Its a classic and oh so culturally hip gender swap of the original plot which is way more in keeping with the terrible values of society (which the Asylum revels in), a poor disrespected woman finding love in an super rich attractive douche nozzle.

From there the plot follows the formula of the first Titanic movie, just condensed down to a cool 85 minute run time not including end credits. They fall in love, the dad is all rich and moistly angry about it, they keep it kinda secret, he paints her naked and we see her quad boobs (did I mention the quad boobs? I mean, shes an alien, so...yeah. Quad boobs) and then they get totally freaky right before the shit goes down. And boy does it go down. A electromagnetic solar doodad temporarily knocks out their long range scanners, which leaves them open to the greatest danger in space...A COMET!
...
See what I did there?
Comets are made of ice
Its like...a space ice berg...

ANYWAYS it hits the ship and all hell breaks loose. The vessel begins falling into the gravitational pull of the star its orbiting, doomed to sink into the abyss of fire. The rest of the movie contains the following.

-People floating off into the vacuum putting their best "I just froze/suffocated to death in the vacuum of space" face on.
-A scene where someone in a panic opens an airlock door and people try really hard to act like they are getting sucked out.
-Seeing as this is 3D, lots of scenes of JTT and his green love interest floating around in space suits pretending like they are dodging debris that are in the foreground.
-A scene of fat dad escaping the ship on an escape pod only to be hit by a stray comet piece and be spun TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE WHOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 3D THE FUCKING FUTURE OF CINEMA!!!! as he is flung wildly out into the depths of space to die.
-A lot of REALLY bad line deliveries
-The inevitable scene where JTT sacrifices himself to save the girl, giving up on his fortune and blah blah love blah blah shes poor and saved etc. The jets on the escape pod dont work so he goes out and fixes them. There is a tender moment as they power up and they both put their hands on the escape pods view port staring into each others eyes before she jets off towards earth, leaving him to float down into the waiting star. Good thing he'll suffocate before he gets there am I right folks?! Ahhh family fun.

Run Credits.

I expect a call Asylum. I just handed you gold. Moist and shiny Jonathan Taylor Thomas  gold.

Blog back! Update!

Been awhile again. But damnit I'm back and I'm staying back this time. Maybe.

So! Heres the news. Fewer reviews, new features, the return of things I said I would do more of, and as always, more ass kicking awesomeness.

The first new feature is me pitching movies to The Asylum.
For those of you who dont know, there is one production company that makes the vast majority of all those awful movies you see on the Netflix instant watch section. You know, all the hollywood knockoffs like "Transmorphers" and "The Day the Earth Stopped", as well as stuff like "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus." That production company is called The Asylum, and they are my heroes. Im not sure how in on the joke they are, and how intentionally bad they are making these movies, or if they are really just as incompetent as they appear to be, but holy crap they are amazing! I mean they have a movie where URKLE uses SCIENCE to destroy THOUSANDS OF CROCODILES! So, if you pay attention to this blog at all, it wont come as a surprise to you that it is my dream job to make movies for this company. This is the first step on that journey. I am going to write pitches for movies that I think they would produce. First up!

Titanic 3

Terror on the Seas of Tomorrow

IN 3D!

Bioshock Infinite: On the fringe

So here we are, not long after the release of Bioshock Infinite, and its seems as though the entire gaming world is in a state of constant praise based ejaculate and orgasmic joy over this game and its nearly perfect execution of all things that is quality in a game. So here I am, freshly finished with the experience in my little, rarely visited corner of the internet, and with a slightly heavy heart I am going to have to break it to everyone that this game, all things considered, really isn't "all that." SO here we go, the review of Bioshock Infinite. I may just be crazy, but I think I have some valid things to say. 

Judging it on its own merits:

So a few hours into this game, I was ready to throw my hat in with the rest and say this is one of the crowning achievements in gaming history. The art direction, the pacing, the character acting, the writing, all amazing. More importantly, in a medium that society as a whole has trouble accepting as an art form because of the admittedly bad image major developers give it (How are we going to advertise X AAA game? THROW SOME TITTES AND EXPLOSIONS ON THE SCREEN! Everyone thinks games are only for constantly masturbating 13 year olds so lets pander to that idea! YAYYYYY EA, Ubisoft and the rest of the gang!) this game takes on subject matter in a way that takes the previously mentioned concept and uses its integrity fueled fists to punch it in the neck. Its rare that a game takes on the concepts of economic disparity, racial conflict, and religion by themselves. Its rarer that a game takes on these concepts and does a good job. Its nearly unheard of that a game takes on all three and does them justice. Because of that and that alone, I was ready to put this game in my top five of all time. Now I've beaten the game, and after some soul searching, I don't think thats really appropriate. That a AAA game is taking on these issues in a way previously unseen doesn't automatically give it a pass into the realm of awesome. There are plenty of examples of art that takes on an issue in a way that conceptually is impressive, but ultimately the product as a whole is pretty lackluster. I mean, Blacula, a blaxsplotation film about a black vampire in the 70s has a lot of poignant messages about race and the status of race relations of the time, but its still a shitty movie. So looking beyond that the subject matter is impressively presented and uncommon, what about the game itself?

Meh train:

So at about half way through the game I started to notice something. I was getting bored. The writing was still great, the aesthetics beautiful, the pacing of the narrative perfect, but the game play itself, the action of experiencing the world and moving through the story, was really dragging. Honestly, by the last couple hours it really felt like a slog. I still wanted to get to the end, to complete the experience, but man I wanted that end to come quickly. I just couldn't get any joy out of any more of the combat set pieces that serve as the game part of the game. I would like to say I had to wrack my brain about why I felt this way, but really, its pretty obvious. Games are interactive media, and the interaction part of Bioshock Infinite is pretty meh. 

Interaction and Bioshock the first:

So lets get right into this. Bioshock the first is one of my all time favorite games. While its similar to its real sequel (We don't talk about Bioshock 2 round these parts) in that it takes on interesting and particularly sensitive issues in its narrative, the whole experience of Bioshock the first is just better all around. To understand why, you have to look at both games and how they deliver on the interactive portion of the experience. First, let's talk about scale, which is where a lot of the problems come in. Bioshock Infinite really does love to show off its grand art assets, and it does so by having most of the combat take place in wide open areas with a potential for a lot of distance between you and your enemies. Now, both of the games in question are first person shooters, but Bioshock the first takes place predominantly in close quarters combat. The problem with opening up the battlefield as they do in Infinite is that it makes it really obvious when the AI is bad, and boy, the AI is pretty damn bad in Infinite. See, when you are up close and personal, the AI doesn't have to be that sharp. Run at, hit, kill the target. It's all it has to do. When you increase the scale of the field and make most of the enemies ranged attackers, there is a lot more that the AI has to think about, and if your AI isnt really good at thinking, it becomes really easy to exploit them for easy dispatch. Honestly, the instant I got access to an accurate ranged weapon, the game may as well have just let me walk through the plot points to the end, because thats basically what I did. With the exception of a couple Handy Man battles, the difficulty of this game is non-existant. Note: I am pretty damn good at videos. You know. Not to brag or whatever. But seriously. I'm really awesome. Still, when a game has portions where I head shot one guy and, without moving my gun, another puts his face right where his now decapitated comrade was just a second ago, allowing me again to get a head shot, followed by another...followed by another. Seriously, four head shots in a row without moving at all. Because of this I hardly ever had to use any vigors, or any weapons beyond the carbine and the shot gun for the rare instance someone got in my face. Speaking of vigors, when I did have to use them I only ever needed three, fire, shock, and possession. All others were essentially useless as they either did virtually the same thing as the others or were generally purposeless (the ability to catch bullets wasn't really necessary again due to the increase in battle field scale) To make matters worse, Elizabeths ability to bring strategic help through tears, replacing the the tactical combat options you had available in Bioshock the first, and her assistance through finding you ammo, salts, and health, ensure that you will never be low on the essentials that may make the battles more interesting (you know, running out of bullets for your favorite gun and therefore making you have to change tactics) and that you will have combat advantage by being able to call up cover, distractions and turrets. 

Now, in both games, you have the ability to grant yourself combat advantage, and the way you achieve  it serves again to show why the interactive elements of Bioshock the first succeeds where Bioshock Infinite kind of flops. In the former, while the hacking game is admittedly repetitive, easy and kind of annoying after the millionth time, to hack turrets and other devices to give you combat advantage, you had to seek them out, disable them or in the case of things like security cameras avoid them to access them, and then actively manipulate them to get that advantage. In short, you actually have get to know the environment in order to exploit it. In Infinite, all the things like turrets and other aid and distractions are just laid out for you to manipulate when you need them. You don't need to explore, you don't need to manipulate your environment beyond simply looking at something and pressing a button, and because of this there is simply not a lot of immersion to be had in comparison. This holds true for a lot of things. In Bioshock the first, exploration and gathering of ammo and health/adam was essential (at least in the first half), in Infinite, you never get the sense that you need to because once you have Elizabeth on your team she generally will hook you up with what you need and if not, there are vending machines EVERYWHERE. 

Finally, while both games are linear, the way its presented in both games serves to show how Bioshock the first is superior to Infinite in interactivity. In the former, you are generally put into an area that you are free to explore and interact with. Combat is generally small scale, only a couple guys to fight every now and then that pose real threats (until the second half) with Big Daddy's posing unique challenges and opportunities. In these areas you could, depending on how you have set up your character (which in the first you are given a great deal more choice than in Infinite) you can scout out enemies, set up traps and hard points to fall back to, go invisible and hack everything so the environment becomes hostile to everyone but you. You know, you got to be tactical. Also, the story is always given in these environments, so there isn't a separation from the dangers of combat and the delivery of the narrative. In Infinite the combat takes place generally in set pieces along the story line, IE you are given some plot and then enter into a fight. The combat areas are not open to exploration as you do not have any tactical abilities like stealth so you merely go from set piece to set piece until the game is over. There does exist the potential for tactical combat, the skyline fighting and the vigors, but because the scale of the battles and the poor AI, there isn't a NEED for it as opposed to the first where it is essential. Again, because of this, the interactive portions of the game are just stale in comparison to its predecessor as well as many other games in the genre. 

The final word:

Shit I have to work on making these things shorter. My massive, many wrinkled brain just has so much to say! If you made it this far you would probably assume I didn't like Bioshock Infinite all things considered. That couldn't be further from the truth. I am throughly thankful for my time with this game and for its existence. This is mostly a reaction to the unfettered praise that the game is getting. While the story was very satisfying and it was probably the most well paced and one of the most well acted games I have ever played, as well as being balls to the wall amazing in the presentation of the issues it's taking on, the fact of the matter is we are working in an interactive medium, and the interactive portions of Infinite were really lacking. It boils down to these two considerations. 

1) Bioshock came out in 2008, and its interactive portions are more advanced, complex and satisfying than its sequel released five years later. 

2) While the story and its presentation is superior in Infinite, and the characters deeper and the social commentary so fucking ballsy and awesome, there is an important consideration. I have played Infinite once, and its probably the only time I will play it. I am actually considering trading it in, though I want to see what the DLC will be. On the other hand, I am on my fourth play through of Bioshock the first. I know all the twists, I know all moves, but I'm still having one hell of a fun time playing it, because the interactive set pieces are so well designed. 

The Star Wars Holiday Special: The Horror

Oh dear readers, I have been all around the world of bad movies, from "Manos the Hands of Fate" to " Cannibal Holocaust", the fist of which is real shitty and the latter involves the filmed, brutal, actual deaths of wild animals, but I have now seen something that by far and away holds the title of shittiest visual experience ever. Ladies and gentlemen, "The Star Wars Holiday Special."

Chet and Star Wars:

So like a lot of people my age, I have had a tumultuous relationship with the Star Wars franchise. As a youth, I watched the original trilogy on VHS in its entirety literally once a week. To this day, somewhere in my parents basement, my massive collection of toys are held, from the entire run of the mighty max esque fold away head play sets, to the big fucking tie fighters and x wings (sadly, no AT-AT walker. Clearly my parents didn't love me all the way). The long and short of it is, I fucking loved Star Wars. Of course, times grew darker. First, the changes began. The special editions began slowly ruining the original, magical films. Then the prequels came. To begin, I suffered from a severe case of denial. Phantom menace was great! Jar Jar oh boy! Man! The kid was such a good actor and OF COURSE the force is little bacteria. I couldn't maintain the denial though. Slowly but surely, I realized that they were some of the biggest piles of garbage I've ever seen in the theatre. (Go here. Redlettermedia.com. They will explain to you why) After the years of abuse and betrayal, I thought that the Star Wars universe (on video) couldn't get any worse. Holy shit was I wrong.

A young Wookie with murder in his eyes

The Holiday Special:

For those of you who have not heard of the special before, there is a good reason. The holiday special aired only once between 8pm-10pm eastern time in the US and Canada on CBS in 1978, following the release and success of A New Hope. Since that time, George Lukas has actively tried to destroy any remnant of what soon came to be known as the worst two hours of television ever aired. Thank god that there were some brave souls who had the very old school, top loading, heavy as a neutron star home VHS players/recorders, because its thanks to them that this piece of media will live on, defiantly, in the face of George Lukas, standing as a constant reminder that he is an idiot.

Two Hours of Terror:
Lets break into this beast. It starts with Han and Chewie in the Falcon running from the Empire. Han is trying to get his ol' pal to his family for life day. And yeah thats the plot, Chewie needs to get home for life day. Thats it. Then we see Chewie's family, his wife Nala, his father Itchy, and his son Lumpy. We see them in their home, for ten minutes, growling at each other. No subtitles. Just Wookies. Growling. What the fuck. After the completely staggering introduction (which includes some of the most psychotic music in the history of film) we are treated to an english language cooking show that is being watched by Nala (I guess cause Wookies prefer non-Wookie tv?),

As horrific as it looks

the virtual reality sexual fantasy of grandpa Itchy (which of course involves a human women. Nothing says holiday family fun times like inter-sepcies romance), and what seems like a never ending onslaught of bad decisions. Bea Arthur sining in the cantina, Art Carney failing miserably at comedy, and animated Boba Fett...

Admittedly kind of cool. For about a minute. 

I just...it defies description. I do not possess, nor do I believe anyone truly does, the capacity for communicating exactly what you will experience with this debacle. The failure in this one runs deep, almost every aspect of the experience is dipped and coated in it thickly like carmel on a apple shaped poop on a stick.

WATCH THE FUCK OUT OF IT!
Do it. Its hilarious. Its mind boggling. Its eye opening. Its culturally important. It has Rifftrax. Its kind of amazing honestly, in a really interesting way. Its amazing because people, people with brains, money, and experience, made it. Its amazing because the original actors came back to star in it at all, even when considering the staggering amount of cocaine they were all doing. If nothing else, you can use it to torture friends with weak constitutions. Go find it, gather those you love, and enjoy the only name in Life Day entertainment.

Gangster Squad: The Review

So I went to see this movie with some bros on a whim because a few of the bros were convinced it would be a rip roaring good time. I saw it, and I didn't really have any intention of writing a review of it but two things changed my mind

1) I haven't reviewed anything made in the last couple...decades... in a while.

2) The local news paper where I live has a terrible person writing the movie reviews, and that person reviewed this movie completely wrong. 

SO here it goes. Gangster Squad, a movie that indeed features gangsters in various squads, as well as other formations. 

Lets start off with the aforementioned review. The reviewer in question, someone who I sincerely believe doesn't watch most of the movies they review, gave this movie  two stars under the premise that it is a "hard boiled crime drama." What? Drama? No no no, Gangster Squad is not a drama, nor would I really call it hard boiled. Heres the thing dear readers. What label we choose to apply to a given   movie/game/whatever stems from the core engagement that we seek or get from that movie/game/whatever. Take two big time AAA games, Halo and Fallout 3. Both have first person shooting as a core mechanic of game play, but they are generally separated into different categories, Halo getting the label of an FPS while Fallout 3 is usually considered an RPG. This is because the core engagement of the game, what you get from the game, is different. Halo your goal is to go from set piece to set piece shooting aliens in the face where as in Fallout you shoot guys to level up and customize your character and the way it performs, thus making it an RPG (for more discussion of this issue I suggest checking out the game gurus over at Extra Credits). So what does this have to do with Gangster Squad and the shitty reviewer? Well the reviewer called it something its totally not. Its not a drama, because its core engagement isn't drama. Its core engagement is balls to the wall action and testosterone at such a high level that I really haven't seen the likes of since The Expendables 2.  

The Review:

So this movie is essentially the A-team circa 1949. You've got Josh Brolin as Hannibal Smith, Ryan Gosling as the face man, and the rest of the team filling the roles of B. A. Barakus and Murdoch. Their mission; Wreck Sean Penn's organization and thus his face. Their method; full force badass tactics. Yeah there are dramatic elements whose level and hardness of "boiled" can be debated but really those bits are there just to launch the next series of double tommy gun wielding explosions. I mean, yeah, a movie that involves grenade fueled car chases, people getting drills in their faces, and a team of bad asses that include a cowboy gunslinger and his mexican pupil, a master knife thrower and Ryan Gosling being silly could be drama but in this instance, no way.

The Good:

This movie is basically an 80s action movie. Its got explosions, guns, babes, and way over the top characters doing way over the top things. The bad guy is super evil, the good guys are super good, and they clash in epic battles. The general aesthetic is good too. Despite being an 80s action movie set in the 40s, and how that would lead you to believe it would be silly/clashing, they do a really good job of making it work. Most of the crap going on is unbelievable to begin with so they didn't have much to worry about but its still nice that they paid attention to the little things in creating the look and feel of the world.

The Bad: 

Not...that much to be honest. Actually the worst part of the movie is two of its main characters. First, Ryan Gosling is supposed to be this suave savvy ladies man but in his attempt to pull off that character he comes off as a silly goober when he's talking normally and when he puts on the drama he comes off like a little bitch. Emma Stone plays the sultry love interest. Her role in the movie doesn't really do much to further the plot, nor is she involved in anything really important. Her existence leads to the death of one character I guess...other than that she is just there to be with Ryan Gosling and have some sex which...yeah...I guess fits in the motif of balls to the wall manly action, but honestly the movie could have been 30 mins shorter without her and wouldn't lose much. 

The Final Verdict:

Go see this movie. Its honestly the best action movie I have seen in the theaters for years. Action as a genre in hollywood has gotten so stale and boring and needlessly serious  that its refreshing to see something like this come along. Its a bit long for what it is and yeah Gosling could have been better but w/e its worth it. Though honestly if you wanted to wait until it comes out on video (look at THAT dated terminology!) totally go for it because 12 bucks for a ticket that allows you to sit amongst smelly fat people who are super rude is just a touch pricy. 

Star Trek Adventures Part 1: Original Series

So everyone, let's rap for a moment.

I've been a nerd pretty much forever, from comic books to video games to miniatures and pen and papers. Through my nerd travels I have befriended many fellow nerds, and through them I have come to know a great deal about Star Trek. I knew all the crew, their stories, their positions and a lot of the other bits an pieces about the universe. Here's the thing though. I never...really watched the show. Yeah I have caught an episode here or there from the original series or TNG and I watched the movies, I even watched the original pilot "The Cage" with a pretty lady who told me it was the best nerd pick up line to offer to watch "The Cage" with them (maybe she was trying to pick up on me....! HINDSIGHT! IT BURNS!) Still, throughout all these years, I have never really taken the pilgrimage, never boldly gone where nobody has gone before. So, at the tender age of 24, I have begun my journey, and I am happy to report that the first leg is done. Star Trek, the original series, has been viewed in its entirety, and I am going to talk about it. 

So prior to this, my exposure has been watching the original movie like 3 times (which became increasingly difficult to manage stone sober the older I got. Holy crap does that movie hang around. Who knew you could get so much screen time out of Leonard Nimoy talking about penetrating alien orifice's) "Wrath of Khan" a shit zillion times (and it still, to this day, almost breaks down my manly visage of stoic badassness and causes tears to well up when Spock goes down) the whale one a couple times and "Search for Spock"once. Beyond that, not really much of the series proper. Boy, the movies didn't really prepare me for what I came across. Lets start with by talking about the conceptions people tend to have going in to the show and how they stack up with reality.

1) Serious Sci-Fi

Oooh boy. So I can't speak for the science of the time because I'm tainted by the science of the now but man, this show doesn't have much to do with science. Apart from the odd episode about a silicon life form and some playing around with ideas in physics, it would be a stretch to classify this show as anything beyond Science fantasy (the old distinction usually used for discussions of Star Wars vs. Star Trek, being applied to the former). Really what this show is, in so far as an intellectual exersize is concerned, is a baby philosophy romp mixed with the stoned musings of a sociology major. In essence, the episodes can be divided into the following two categories.

a) High concept: These episodes are the big brain questions and thought experiments that probably had just a touch of psychedelic influence. Questions like whether or not "Eden" is obtainable, and if it is at what cost (like would you want to live happy for the rest of your life if you came about that state by being sprayed in the face by some crazy plant?) questions about sexuality, gender issues, race, the appropriate use of power and its corrupting force. These episodes tend to be the most...dated, mostly because of the often repetitive nature of the subject matter (there are about four episodes dealing with perfect civilizations and our inability to obtain them) and also due to the really REALLY heavy handed nature of the moral messages.

Like why are these dudes fighting, they are almost identical?
Cause bro, one is black on the right side of his face and the other on the left!
Pfft, why would that make them hate each other? Something so small as color making two guys hate...
OH MY GOD! REVELATION! ITS THE SAME ON EARTH WITH RACE PROBLEMS!
DUUUUUUUUUUUUDDEEEEEE!
Mind blown

b) What if...: These are the big bong hit episodes that tend to be the more entertaining. What would happen if there was a planet who's only social influence was a book about mobsters in Chicago in the 30s? What would happen if they ran into an alien that was actually Apollo, IE the old gods WERE ALIENS! (History Channel, fyi, Star Trek did it first...and better). What if...
Space Rome
Space Hitler
Space Rome again except this time the are all telepathic and make a midget ride Kirk around while he acts like a horse

Space Abraham Lincoln Vs. Space Ghengis Khan

Personal Favorite

And like five time travel what would happen episodes. These generally don't have much in the way of messages, just playing around with some fun concepts. These are the episodes that are the most enjoyable and, as it turns out, some of the more memorable. People I talk to tend to remember the Tribbles episode (what if the most innocent, cute, harmless things turned out to be hardcore dangerous?) that one where the brains are betting on captured alien death matches (10,000 quatludes on the new comer!) and of course, everyone remembers Kirk Vs. Gorn, also known as THE BEST FIGHT SCENE EVER!

So yeah, in the end, not a whole lot of science. More thought experiments there to make a statement about modern society or just to play around with some totally far out concepts man. Like mind blowing.
Oh and I almost forgot. This guy:

Fabulous space criminal, ladies man, and generally great guy. I love his episodes. Thus

c) Mudd episodes, aka, pure awesome.

2) Kirk and space babes
So a lot of people go in to Star Trek thinking, "Man, I can't wait to see Kirk make it with all the weird alien chicks!"
Yeah
Doesn't happen that much actually. At least not till mid-way in the second season. After that, not two episodes go by that Kirk doesn't use his Captain's charm to get out of some situation.

3) Crazy costumes and bad special effects
Oh yeah. Like all over the place. Check it.

Some people wear uniforms for martial combat. Some wear socks
and tights.

Nightmare Fuel

4) Everyones favorite crew palling around and solving problems! You know, Chekov, Sulu, Uhura, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty!
So honestly, based purely on the show, the admiration of Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura escapes me. Yes they all represented huge leaps forward in furthering both the acceptance of race and other cultures on television, and deserve due credit for that, but as characters they just never did much. Like Uhura sings this song once, Sulu gets shirtless and chases people with a sword and Chekov makes some Russian jokes (and gets some ladies of his own) but ultimately they just are not featured that much and when they are they are generally dealing with the minutia of the ship. I mean, the total amount of dialogue each has combined wouldn't even come close to the run time of a full episode. Really, the show is about three bros and sometimes a fourth and their trips through space and friendship. Which brings me to my next point.

Why its popular:

So despite the fact that I do indeed love me some Star Trek and enjoyed this journey back to the franchises beginning, I have to admit, if I was a TV exec back then, I would have cancelled the show too. The third season, while featuring a few iconic episodes, just goes over the silly line, the bad line, and the forced lame-o moral message line too often. I mean I love seeing space Abraham Lincoln referring to Uhura as a "Negress" and then stealthing around in the brush during a battle, the former being cringeworthy historical intrigue (like watching almost any cartoon made before 1950, especially Disney) and the latter just being awesome. However, its also really really silly, just like the aforementioned two toned face guys episode, and by the end of it, I was glad it was over. However, there was something there in its short three season run the resonates to this day, something so awesome that it spawned six movies and millions of super hard core fans. For me, its because of our main characters. Its the relationship between Kirk, Spock, McCoy and sometimes Scotty and the way they approach situations that makes the show interesting and have lasting appeal. It's an amazing bromance space opera, and as such it lends itself to the kind of deep seated attachment that begets strong fan-bases .
Now I'm sure there are other reasons, such as the actual sci-finess of the show and its forward thinking sociological messages that people in the 60's may have actually thought was awesome. For me, its the bromance that remains, and will probably last for generations to come.

Would I recommend it?

Difficult to say. I had a hell of a time watching this show. But DAMN is it campy. So, here's how this breaks down. If you are a fan of...
Studying media history
Campy Sci-fi
Old school Bromance
William Shatner and his face

Then you should watch the show. If you are not a fan of the above, then maybe give the original series a pass, read about the important plot points on the Star Trek wiki and start with TNG and the movies.

Live long and prosper Lazer readers!