I like to have a little background noise going while I do any writing or coding. Today, I had the Pink Panther Strikes Again which is quite possibly the last good Pink Panther movie that was made before Peter Sellers prematurely left the planet. As a kid, this was one of the first big fight scenes I remember outside of a few dust-ups on Star Trek. Apparently, Peter Sellers was greatly inspired by Frank Sinatra's impromptu fight with a Korean spy (played by the always awesome Henry Silva who would go on to play lots of other evil roles like Kurt Zagon in Steven Segal's epic Above the Law) in the original Manchurian Candidate:
Frank Sinatra vs. Henry Silva in the Manchurian Candidate.
Inspector Clouseau vs. Cato in the Pink Panther Strikes Again.
Another cool old school fight is from Alan J. Pakula's the Parallax View which is about Warren Beatty investigating some very sinister corporate brainwashing:
Warren Beatty's healthy glass of milk leads to some name calling and a big drag out fight that ends up in a gift shop! Check out that sweet painting above the bar!
I'm surprised that Rod even gets back up after some of these hits!
Finally, some classic Sonny Chiba action from the Street Fighter which was particularly brutal for it's time with x-ray shots of skulls cracking and some bad guy's family jewels getting ripped off! Sonny channels some sort of Bruce Lee anger combined with the look of intense constipation:
Over on Facebook, my friend Shauna asked for recommendations for good horror movies. I'm a sucker for a good scare and, barring the last 20 Saw movies, I must have seen every single horror movie ever made! I was lucky enough to grow up in the 1970's when a ton of seminal horror films came out: Dawn of the Dead, Brian De Palma's The Fury, the Abominable Dr. Phibes, the Amityville Horror, etc. With the exception of rare films like Let the Right One In, most modern horror movies forgo actual terror and suspense in favor of CG-driven gore. Now, I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but there's something to be said for the art of misdirection and reservation in horror movies. I'm going to use a non-horror movie as an example here. In There's Something About Mary, there's the scene where Ted catches his junk in his zipper. The scene plays out as a series of teases to the audience building up the situation through the dialogue and facial expressions of a growing cast of characters that show up to help him. However, the directors hold back from showing what actually happened until the very last second when the audience most likely already has their own image in their head and the comfort of not actually having to see it. When it is finally shown, it's a surprise and very disturbing not just because of the pinched off bulge, but the fact that the audience wasn't expecting to see it! Similarly in Ridley Scott's Alien, a lot of the horror is what's not seen and the anticipation of when it might be seen and what it might be.
So here's my list of ten great horror / scary movies in no particular order! On a final note, after reading through this list, I realized that some of my favorite horror movies are based on works by Richard Matheson: Stir of Echoes, the Devil Rides Out, and the Legend of Hell House. Most people are probably familiar with I Am Legend (a great book with two very mediocre film adaptations), but he was also responsible for the classic Incredible Shrinking Man (a great movie about existentialism) and the Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode of the Twilight Zone!
1408: oh man. I'm a little hesitant to recommend this one because it seems like two movies. The first half of the movie is scary and suspenseful and one of the best examples of a ghost movie ever made. Samuel Jackson's near pleading words of warning combined with the incredulous skepticism of John Cusack's character create a wholly tangible feeling of dread by the time the key is turned in the door of room 1408. The room itself is like a well-dressed cousin of a room from the Overlook hotel. Subtle changes and moods are created as the colors and shadows begin to crawl and darken. And then the movie turns to crap. The second half is completely amateurish and overblown with terrible effects and a horribly cliche story by Stephen King that uses all of his common plot devices all too predictably. By the time the movie ends, its become a glossy made-for-Lifetime-television piece that limps off screen like a wet blanket leaving a great party dragging it's better half begrudgingly after it. Is it weird that I recommend half a movie like this? I don't think so. I could also recommend the first half of Brian De Palma's the Black Dahlia or the first half of John Carpenter's Vampires. Here's what I would suggest. Watch the first half and then turn it off and watch the Shining!
Alien: a rescue mission on an alien world ends up bringing a murderous xenomorph on board a massive refinery ship. With the possible exception of Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (which I saw much later in my life), this was the first horror movie I saw that had a very high level of polish and sophistication. From Ridley Scott's assured direction to HR Gigar's bizarre alien design to Jerry Goldsmith's score, Brian Johnson's VFX, and the fantastic cast, Alien was a near perfect take on the space horror genre. The first 15 minutes of Alien set up the mood with no dialogue or narrative or cheap scares. Just a sense of foreboding as the opening credits wander listlessly over the outlined darkness of giant, sunless planet before segueing to sleeping passengers in a vast haunted house of a spaceship. When Alien came out, my parents wouldn't take me to see this movie, but they let my friend's Dad (who was a lawyer) take me. During the alien birth scene, I ran into the bathroom!
The Changeling: not to be confused with the Angelina Jolie thriller (which is also a great movie, but not a ghost movie), George C. Scott moves into a creepy old house which is haunted by the ghost of a murdered child. The cool thing about the Changeling is that the nature of the spirit seems to change over the course of the movie despite the ending conveying the consistency of what it actually is. There are no real special effects to tell the story other than the house's architecture, the cold lighting of winter, and the creaking sounds of phantoms moving across the floorboards. This is a creepy and bittersweet movie with strong characters and an older style of storytelling that's more akin to the Twilight Zone than it is the Amityville Horror (which came out the year before) which it was unduly compared to at the time.
The Devil Rides Out: stylish Christopher Lee investigates the occult in 1960's England while trying to protect his daughter from demonic forces. Starting in the 1950's, the Hammer studios in England turned out a giant catalog of stylish monster movies based on re-imaginings of classic stories like Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein. In the late 1960's through the late 1970's, the studio stretched its creative creative hands to embrace a variety of other genres ranging from the occult to martial arts / horror mashups (definitely check out Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires or Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter which is far better than Roman Polanski's comic romp Fearless Vampire Killers). This was the first Hammer movie to feature Christopher Lee as a hero rather than his fearsome take on Dracula!
The Exorcist: a classic story of demonic possession and the doubting priest who tries to save a little girl. I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend the 2000 re-released version that restored the never seen spider walk sequence which is VERY frightening to watch and wasn't in the original. Strangely enough, I first saw this movie in eighth grade when our English teacher showed us the uncut version one Halloween. I'm pretty sure that a teacher would get fired over this today! As far as the sequels, John Boorman's second movie is like a horror farce version of Indiana Jones (entertaining, but, ultimately stupid and irrelevant), the third movie is a slow moving character piece that doesn't go anywhere, and the fourth movie (a prequel) is a disaster cobbled together from versions directed by Renny Harlin and John Frankenheimer (neither director accomplished much with the material). SO, just stick with the original.
The Haunting: fantastic black and white cinematography adds a lot of spooky atmosphere to this movie about a group of scientists investigating a haunted house. The movie is famous for its startling cinematography and sound effects which create psychological scares rather than cat jumping out of the trashcan type frights. This was a brave and very sophisticated movie for 1963 when most horror movies were still dealing with troubled teenagers! Whatever you do, DO NOT get Jan De Bont's remake which is a complete piece of crap!
The Legend of Hell House: a group of scientists and psychics visit a haunted house which kills its visitors. One of the best haunted house movies of all time and very close in themes and feel to Robert Wise's the Haunting.
The Shining: it's hard to believe that Stephen King would think this is the worst adaptation of any of his stories (he obviously didn't watch all of Maximum Overdrive or Sleepwalkers!). In my opinion, this Stanley Kubrick masterpiece is one of the scariest haunted house movies ever made! A blocked writer, his fussy wife, and their telepathic son move into a hotel for the winter as caretakers. Stephen King went on to help make his own version of the Shining in 1997 which fleshed out the story a lot, but fell flat due to horrible acting and shoddy visual effects. It just goes to show you that creepy hotel interiors and an elevator full of blood go a lot further than CG topiary lions and nearly 5 hours of bland, made-for-TV schlock. On a side note, it's nearly impossible to find a trailer for the Shining ever since that great spoof (Shining) came out!
Stir of Echoes: The trailer for this movie makes it look really stupid (especially the choice of music), so I'm not surprised that almost everybody saw the Sixth Sense in 1999 and ignored this far creepier film that came out at practically the same time. Kevin Bacon agrees to go under hypnosis at a party and starts seeing ghosts when he comes out of it.
The Thing: John Carpenter's remake of the 50's classic is a vicious, gory, suspenseful and wonderfully imaginative story of an alien lifeform that attacks an Antarctic base. The visual effects in this movie still hold up really well and even look better than a lot of CG work used today. I first saw this movie with my Dad when we went to see Blade Runner in a double feature! Neither of us had any idea what the Thing was going to be about since we were more excited about Blade Runner. By the time the movie was over, we both realized we'd seen something pretty messed up and AWESOME!
Super inventor George Rascal (an upper class gentleman from the late 1800's) is teleported through time to a modern day CostCo where his delicate time travel device breaks and strands him. His sensibilities are challenged by the grandeur of the building, modern affectations, mountains of food and sundries, and the sight of women casually walking around with exposed belly buttons and pants hanging off their hips. Many of the store's patrons mistake him for a product demo person and hilarity ensues! Will Mr. Rascal be able to find items in CostCo to help him repair his time machine? I'm picturing Daniel Day Lewis in the George Rascal role and Kim Kardashian as his eventual love interest.
I've had a LOT of problems with Microsoft this week both on a personal and professional level. What's that saying, "fool me once, shame on me..." Well, Microsoft is on about their hundredth iteration and I don't know who's the fool or where the shame should be placed. There's one relationship with them I can't avoid (Windows-related unless I sink a ton of money into a Mac and repurchase all the software I have) and another situation I keep getting caught up in (work-related) which affects a lot more people other than just myself. I can't talk about the latter (yet), but I can certainly vent a little bit about the former.
In order to finish up some web development, I had to finally purchase a version of Photoshop more recent than 6.0. Since I can't afford to shell out $600 for CS4, I decided to get CS3 which is "Vista-compatible." I stuck in the disc and instantly got this error: "Setup has encountered an error and cannot continue. Contact Adobe CS for help. Internal error 2739" - OK, this is actually an Adobe problem. I'm not entirely sure why they just can't put a little more text in the error and tell me what it actually means. They obviously know what it is if they're telling me to ask them about it! As an aside, at work, we routinely ask our programmers to provide more information in crash errors so that if it's something we can fix easily without their assistance, we can go ahead and take care of it. This is one of the secrets to productivity: providing clear explanations of problems to empower individuals to fix problems without a lot of outside dependencies.
After a little research on the Adobe forums, I discovered that the problem was with a couple of DLL's. DLL's are Dynamic Link Libraries which end users like myself or my Dad or anybody else should never have to deal with. In fact, I always imagined that Vista would somehow make these problems disappear. Instead, they still definitely exist, but Vista just doesn't really report them, so I guess they did kind of disappear, huh? Another great example of this is when Vista just goes to an infinite black screen during the load process because a DLL is having a problem. Since I have a little bit of experience with DLL's, I opened up a command prompt and set about fixing the problem when I ran into this error:
call to DllRegisterServer failed with error code 0x80004005. - what the heck does that mean? Well, after some more research, I discovered that it means I'm trying to do something without administrative permissions. If that's the case, how come the error can't say that? Furthermore, how do I run a command prompt with administrative permissions? Well, you have to fire up a little something called an elevated command prompt. This isn't something that just appears in the Vista start menu. It's buried. When I finally found it, I was able to change the DLL's without any further problems (other than the fact I have to do it in the first place).
Next, after finally being allowed (on my own computer) to install Photoshop, I got this error: "This application requires an Intel Pentium 4, Intel Celeron, Intel Core Duo or Intel Core 2 compatible processor. (0/6/5894) This application may perform poorly. Are you sure you want to continue?" - Again, a Vista problem (http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/2006/12/64_bitswhen.html. The answer, just select yes and "don't show this message again."
I'm tired of Microsoft. Everything is on their terms no matter how supportive they pretend to be or how many times they promise to improve things. They're like a girlfriend who you think everything is fine with and then she says, "We need to talk."
OK, first off, I promise, this will be the last political post unless I run into another stupid white person.
I was at the Saddle Room last night saying goodbye to Matt and enjoying crappy, cold bottles of Budweiser. Chris (who is full of all sorts of great ideas and I really hope I get to work on the Bakersfield SWAT game with him some day) was just at the end of telling us about monkeys going crazy at a Bakersfield party when this guy who wasn't part of our group butted in.
"I'm taking a poll guys and I wondered whether you guys would answer a couple of questions. One. Do you think McCain should attend the debates on Friday and, two, who are you voting for?"
Aw crap. I took a look at the guy and saw all sorts of things that reminded me of the other jackass I had to deal with a couple of months ago: older white guy, baseball cap, not particularly intelligent sounding, etc. I seem to attract these guys for some reason. With our conversation interrupted, some of us pretended to ignore him by watching the football game while the rest of us answered unanimously: "Yes he should attend the debate and we're voting for Obama."
Let down by his fellow white men, the guy took the opportunity to update us on some news that might sway our collective opinions, "Did you guys know that Joe Biden has a terminal disease that's going to kill him in a couple of months and then Hillary Clinton is all set to step in and be Obama's vice president?"
"WHAT?!" we all voiced simultaneously. "Where did you hear that?!"
"The bloggers are all talking about it," he said. BLOGGERS?!
"Dude, I have a blog," I said. "I'm a blogger. My blog is full of all sorts of bullshit."
At the gym today, I was reading Entertainment Weekly which has a great interview with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Jon Stewart says something that really struck a chord with me, "...the take on Al Gore was he's too smart. Even if you're satirizing how wonderful they are, that hyperbole is setting them up for an expectation to fail, especially within the American political system now where authenticity - and apparently mediocrity - are the manna that the populace feeds upon. To set somebody up as if they're above us, and elitist... my God, you couldn't do anything worse."
Ah, it's that time again when I tell you all to vote responsibly this November. To reiterate what I say time and time again, I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote intelligently. That means no gut instincts or personal biases or falling prey to political smearing or scare tactics. That means, no voting for (or against) Obama because he's black. No voting for Palin because she's a woman. No voting for McCain because he's an old guy. No voting because Obama sounds like Osama. No voting for John because he's a Vietnam veteran. No voting for somebody based on their spiritual beliefs (unless it's directly part of a policy). No voting because somebody is too young or too old. No voting for the cutest candidate or the hockey Mom. It means that you take a look at each candidate's policies and plans for America and vote according to which of those aspects make this a better country for everybody. SO, here is what you should be looking at in order to choose the next President:
Tonight I went to my buddy's birthday party. I decided to wear Derek Jeter's Driven Black: a mysterious blend of exotic saffron, blood orange, and precious woods. I have two words for my experience: WOW!
Alan Moore ranks highly among my favorite writers and Dave Gibbons has been one of my favorite artists ever since I saw his Dan Dare work in the 2000 AD's my Nano (UK Grandma) used to send me from England. Watchmen is an amazing collaboration between Moore and Gibbons and one of the finest pieces of contemporary fiction I've read. Don't let the term "comic book" or "graphic novel" dissuade you from giving it some of your time and consideration. Time Magazine even placed it in their list of the 100 all-time novels (in the company of the Great Gatsby and Animal Farm), so that's got to give it some credibility amongst people who wouldn't normally pick up a "comic"!
Which brings me to the promotional Watchmen Motion Comics that my buddy Jake Hughes is working on. Jake has worked directly with Dave Gibbons to do an animated version of the comic book which is rendered panel by panel with 2D / 3D elements augmenting the original art. It's pretty damn impressive and really brings the story and art to life in a unique way. The first one is available on ITunes right now if you search for "Watchmen" or you just follow this link: http://www.ew.com/ew/static/watchmen/watchmen.html. Anyway, this is a support the peeps moment that I can't recommend highly enough!
"I'm an intelligent man," he said giving me a wild stare that begged me to challenge him, but I was already in the process of tuning out; focusing my attention over his shoulder on a cheap clock on the wall that he said would be the "probable target of anybody who wanted to break into his home for a quick fix." When I was a lot younger, I learned a trick in college speech class: if you get nervous when you have to address a large crowd, you look over their heads so that you don't have to make eye contact. Your audience thinks you’re looking straight at them. "I don't watch the news because I don't like anybody telling me what to think," he continued, "I mean, I'm a reasonably smart guy and I don't need anybody to tell me what somebody's saying when I can just listen to them and decide for myself."
There are times in my life when I just have to shut up and listen and this was one of them. Without realizing it, this guy knew every button to push on me and I had to sit there and put up with that. Well, I didn’t have to, but this day wasn’t about me and I wanted to be supportive for Mel while she visited with some friends. That’s what love is, y’know? To be honest, I’m pretty sure this guy was focusing on me because I was the only other white guy in the room. It started off innocuously enough with him telling stories about “Sweetie”; an ancient, rust colored, miniature poodle with a lazy eye and a bad temper that he cradled in his arms and petted softly like Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Things rapidly took a turn for the worse when he asked me who I was voting for at election time. “I haven’t quite decided yet,” I said trying to defuse the situation before it started.
“You know that Obama is a Muslim, right? It’s right there in his book, the Audacity of Hope. Hold on, I’ll show you.” He took his dog in another room and then returned moments later with a print-out of some email. The email was one of those bullshit things that people send around with a bunch of half assed facts and quotes on it about any number of topics. Steven Colbert refers to this particular style of information as "truthiness" which is a “a satirical term to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."George Orwell called it "doublethink"; “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… to tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.” At the bottom of the email was a single quote highlighted in yellow, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” He nodded his head slowly at me as I read the quote.
“I’d like to know what the context of this quote is,” I said, handing the paper back to him. “Have you read the book?” He shook his head no. “I’m a smart man. I don’t need to read the book. Everything he needs to tell me is right there.”
Sure it is. Here’s the full context of the quote taken directly from Obama’s book: “Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during WWII, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." That sounds pretty good to me. Nobody stood up for over 100,000 Japanese (a huge percentage of them U.S. citizens) who were interned after Pearl Harbor. How about all the U.S. citizens who’s lives were ruined during the era of McCarthyism?
The conversation (as one-sided as it was) continued to develop like a fart in an elevator.
"You never got into that Dungeons and Druids or Devils or whatever, do you?" "That's Dungeons and Dragons. No, I don't currently play it, but I played it a lot when I was a kid." "It's an addiction and it's sucks people in and twists their thinking." "I'd say it's first and foremost a game that people enjoy. Personally, I liked the narrative elements of the game and the sense of community. It's a game that expects you to think in a manner that combines creativity with analytic thought. If you're somehow addicted to it, you probably have other problems that are unrelated to the game."
"You don't go to San Francisco, do you?" Again with the expectation that somehow we're akin due to our skin color or religion. "Yes I do. I enjoy going to the city. I've applied for several jobs in the city and I like the culture and nightlife." "Hmm. Well, the only reason I go to San Francisco is to drive right through it. Lot's of crazy people up there."
"Freedom is not free and Obama and Hillary hate the military. They want to disband the military. They don't understand that you have to fight for what we have here."
It's weird to hear this type of thinking so close to home. Usually I hear it when I turn on the radio around Bakersfield or when I channel surf past Fox News. To be honest, I respect everybody's right to have an opinion, but I draw the line at opinions that can't be substantiated in any way. The world doesn't work so great on gut feelings and popularity contests. As I left his house, he waved in an encouraging manner to me and assured me that we'd hang out again soon. Fair enough. If we happen to hang out again on my turf, then you'll have to listen to me.
With the exception of an overly anthropomorphic monkey (a portent of awful things to come like Jar Jar Binks and a nuclear gopher family), Raiders of the Lost Ark was a terrific piece of film making that successfully paid homage to 1940's cliffhangers without becoming a parody. Its follow-up, the Temple of Doom, was a large scale screwup that largely ignored everything that made its predecessor enjoyable in favor of a Goonies style sidekick (I know Goonies came out the year after, but Jonathan Ke Quan played identical parts as both Short Round and Data) and a high concentration of Troma-style visceral visuals (chilled monkey brains anybody?). The Last Crusade was an overall enjoyable film with a great first act followed up meandering father / son schtick and, finally, a satisfying ride off into the sunset to end the series. Which brings us to the latest entry in the series: Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull.
I set my expectations really low prior to watching the movie. From the look of the trailers, the movie already seemed to be suffering from the Lucas-style clash of visual noisiness and thematic clutter that were prevalent in the Star Wars prequel trailers and were more than telling of their respective final products. As evident in the Star Wars original trilogy special editions, Lucas has a problem with subtlety (something that budget constraints imposed on the original Star Wars) and, left unchecked (he is the world’s richest independent film producer), his particular form of narcissistic creativity tends to drown out the entertainment value of his films rather than improve them. Three minutes of the Fifth Element’s congested skyline has far more impact than thirty minutes of various planets suffering from ten times the amount of traffic.
In the first twenty minutes of the movie, we’re quickly reintroduced to Indiana Jones who has been captured by Nazi-like communists (only Cate Blanchett’s Russian purr and Dora the Explorer haircut differentiate her villainous aspirations from Raider’s Major Toht) and forced to locate a mysterious artifact buried somewhere in a labyrinth-like warehouse in Area 51. Luckily for him, her mother-country-renowned mindreading skills (which never manifest themselves again for the rest of the movie) fail to purloin the artifact’s secrets from his archeological mind, but do ensure that the audience will have to endure two more hours of mumbo jumbo to reach the same conclusions together.
One of the biggest problems with the movie becomes evident in the first big action scene. In the original Raiders, much of the movie’s fun was watching Indy make mistakes both intellectually and physically and suffering as a result. This thematic throwback to pulp-grade heroes made his victories and successes that much more exciting. In the Crystal Skull, much like the relaunches of Die Hard and Rocky, Indiana has become less of a hero and more of a superhero where any amount of damage inflicted by stunt and set piece is shaken off with an incredulous been-there-done-there smirk and a quip. This imperviousness to any sort of damage makes it difficult to connect to the character since there’s never any real sense of danger. It’s almost like age has inured his body rather than slowed him down which puts the believability of the conceit on the audience rather than the character. Personally, I didn’t buy it.
The Crystal Skull’s story has too many problems to make sense of. It has the structure of a honey-do list where elements are checked off regardless of order, planning, or necessity: nods to the series prior installments are rattled off to please the fans, themes are introduced and then thrown away before they can develop, major plot points are revealed through prequel-quality dialogue that causes the pace to stall out, new characters are introduced with imposed familiarity and little relevance other than simple mechanics to drive disparate parts of the plot along. As with the Star Wars prequels, the burden of responsibility here falls on the screen writer (Lucas) since the cast is made up of some truly talented actors that are capable of much more.
Much ado has been made of the movie’s action set pieces which should be the icing on the cake and not the prime motivator for the entire picture. We have Capoeira Mayans, a nuclear bomb exploding, multiple waterfall drops, a Mayan surprise party, a jungle clearing truck (re-appropriated from the opening scenes of the Phantom Menace), sword fighting between moving cars, video game style crushing blocks, and a vaporized villain (which pales in comparison to past villains’ demises). By the time, the movie reached its Mission to Mars finale (which was actually nearly identical to 1983’s Wavelength), I finally realized that the movie would have been better split up into 15 minute mini-movies and shown on the SciFi network before Stargate Atlantis. There’s at least four different movies going on in the Crystal Skull and none of them are very strong.
My friend Stephen summed up the movie the best. Since the Last Crusade, we’re had entirely new franchises in the same genre appear: the Mummy, Tomb Raider, National Treasure, the made-for-TV Librarian series, and, to some degree, the DaVinci Code. None of these movies have improved upon Raiders of the Lost Ark, but rather than use the opportunity to show the audience how a real adventure movie can be made, the Crystal Skull has, instead, snuggled up with the new comers.
Last Thursday represents the last time I want to see the green, sparkling Lucasfilm logo pop up in a movie theater. I've been burned too many times and so Lucas and his works are now relegated to the same big budget, egotistical director's kid's table that Michael Bay and the Wachowski Brothers are sitting at while the adults do more interesting things. He'll be in good company until the day he decides to order off the menu.
Infamous: open world games usually aren't my cup of tea. I enjoyed the original Mercenaries, but I've never been a fan of GTA or Oblivion or Fallout. With Infamous, I feel like I'm playing a game that establishes a great balance between traversal elements, combat, and superhero empowerment. I can play it in small doses a mission at a time or I can settle in for hours of hunting down shards and side quests. I can only fault the game on a few points: some unnecessarily awkward fall-to-death platforming, far too accurate snipers, and a storyline that I'm not terribly interested in (the moment-to-moment gameplay easily trumps the weak narrative).
Moderat: great team-up project between Apparat and Modeselektor sounds like two step / garage combined with lush ambient soundscapes. Artistic and somewhat danceable at the same time!
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: back in the days when the mainstream view of Mars still had canals and ancient pyramids, Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame) wrote a series of books about a Confederate Civil War soldier named John Carter who gets spirited away to a version of Mars populated with warring Red and Green Martians. The writing is super pulpy and occasionally quaint, but the scope of the story is epic and the setting is consistently awe inspiring! Supposedly, Robert Rodriguez is directing a film version in the near future!
Kings: hmm. Not sure what to make of this one yet. It's got a slight science fiction feel to it since it takes place in an alternate reality where north and south kingdoms are in civil war. It's also got a Christian subtext in it's re-imagining of the story of David and Goliath. The cast is great (anything with Ian McShane is a must watch), the story is mildly compelling, and the production values are good. Everyone at work has watched it, so I'm running through it on Hulu to keep up with the geek talk around the office!
