Psychonauts
horaay just got this baby from amazon courtesy of young jb! can't wait until the weekend to play the bejaysus of it, finally a game that's weaned me off all the fps madness!!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Superman Returns....to the drawing board hopefully.
Superman Returns is good and the 147 minute running time does fly by (heh!) quite painlessly, but watching it on DVD and taking notes like the dweeb I am has produced more niggling questions that some of you out in the geek-o-sphere might be able to help me with. It seems that no matter how high profile an action movie is there is still a tendency to let logic out the door, and anyone who questions it gets told 'look it's a decent Superman movie whadda want!', well maybe one that made more sense.
I call this the Batman-Skateboot Conundrum, I can suspend my disbelief that character like Batman exists within his fictional universe but when he just happens to have ice skates in his boots when he fights Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin (1997) when he has just found out about him in the car on the way over it really annoys me. So either he has the skates in his boots all the time on the off-chance of meeting an ice based villian or he has multible boots in the boot of the Batmobile! anyway, that's an argument for another day, onto Supes....
The timeframe of Kypton exploding and the events of the movie. We can probably expect, or be forced to accept, that the technology of Kypton is suffciently advanced and to do things we can't comprehend. But there is supposedly a several thousand year gap between the explosion and little Kal-El getting to earth. The time frame makes sense in terms of making Kypton far enough away from earth not to be detected by humnaity, but this distance makes the likelihood of a craft that can stay on course and keep the infant Kal-El in suspended animation for that long mindboggling. Surely there would be some psychological/physical ramifications from spending 'several thousand' years in a little capsule.
Oh, and then Superman can make the round trip in Five years! Does he not need some sort of rest or sustenance? what kind of packed lunch to you take into space?
Kyptonite We know it's a just a plot device to make Superman vulnerable and to help along as HH would say the PFF quoitient of the movie, which is fecking high enough already, but how exactly does it affect Superman?
It seems to only affect him when he touches it, and then he's fine if he stays a little bit further away from it, it's kinda like characters closing that big metal door to keep the scary ice away in The Day After Tomorrow. When there are traces of it on the structure Luthor is on, Superman is immediately powerless and all those bad men (they were dark clothes just so you know) start beating the shite out of him (so Christians can get their surreptitious S&M rocks off?). So getting far enough away from it allows Supes to fly again and get power from the Sun (surely making him Ra more than the Jesus) fine, then he heads back toward the structure with no ill effects and lifts the whole fucking thing out of the water, close ups of his hands show there are far more prominent peices of Kyptonite all around him yet he can fly the whole thing into space when previously he couldn't even fight off Kumar (an Indian missle expert, you gotta love Hollywood) and a guy with a clown on the back of his head?
Luthor's Plan Using the crystals, Luthor plans to implant them in the sea and grow a new continent. The fact that this new continent will be entirely made up of icy crystals seems not to bother him, he still thinks it will be desirable, even though he has comepletetly obliterated most of America, whose gonna buy his shitty ice houses? What cartographer made all those maps for him and was he/she not a bit suspicious? What 'pleasures' did he show poor old Noel Neill?
I call this the Batman-Skateboot Conundrum, I can suspend my disbelief that character like Batman exists within his fictional universe but when he just happens to have ice skates in his boots when he fights Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin (1997) when he has just found out about him in the car on the way over it really annoys me. So either he has the skates in his boots all the time on the off-chance of meeting an ice based villian or he has multible boots in the boot of the Batmobile! anyway, that's an argument for another day, onto Supes....
The timeframe of Kypton exploding and the events of the movie. We can probably expect, or be forced to accept, that the technology of Kypton is suffciently advanced and to do things we can't comprehend. But there is supposedly a several thousand year gap between the explosion and little Kal-El getting to earth. The time frame makes sense in terms of making Kypton far enough away from earth not to be detected by humnaity, but this distance makes the likelihood of a craft that can stay on course and keep the infant Kal-El in suspended animation for that long mindboggling. Surely there would be some psychological/physical ramifications from spending 'several thousand' years in a little capsule.
Oh, and then Superman can make the round trip in Five years! Does he not need some sort of rest or sustenance? what kind of packed lunch to you take into space?
Kyptonite We know it's a just a plot device to make Superman vulnerable and to help along as HH would say the PFF quoitient of the movie, which is fecking high enough already, but how exactly does it affect Superman?
It seems to only affect him when he touches it, and then he's fine if he stays a little bit further away from it, it's kinda like characters closing that big metal door to keep the scary ice away in The Day After Tomorrow. When there are traces of it on the structure Luthor is on, Superman is immediately powerless and all those bad men (they were dark clothes just so you know) start beating the shite out of him (so Christians can get their surreptitious S&M rocks off?). So getting far enough away from it allows Supes to fly again and get power from the Sun (surely making him Ra more than the Jesus) fine, then he heads back toward the structure with no ill effects and lifts the whole fucking thing out of the water, close ups of his hands show there are far more prominent peices of Kyptonite all around him yet he can fly the whole thing into space when previously he couldn't even fight off Kumar (an Indian missle expert, you gotta love Hollywood) and a guy with a clown on the back of his head?
Luthor's Plan Using the crystals, Luthor plans to implant them in the sea and grow a new continent. The fact that this new continent will be entirely made up of icy crystals seems not to bother him, he still thinks it will be desirable, even though he has comepletetly obliterated most of America, whose gonna buy his shitty ice houses? What cartographer made all those maps for him and was he/she not a bit suspicious? What 'pleasures' did he show poor old Noel Neill?
His henchmen. There is a vague explanation that he met all his henchmen in prison, but surely there should be some chemistry between these goons? for a director as smart as Singer it's a surprisingly dumb movie dialogue wise, especially when you have the great Parker Posey on board, do these hench men ever have conversations? Do they never question what's going on? Why do they hate Superman? Did he put all of them away? Do all criminals have an a priori hatred of Superman no matter what their crime or how they got caught? What is the 'clown gang' that's mentioned briefly as a news story, sounds a bit Batman Forever if you ask me. What is it about DC Comics and clown henchmen, it works when they are the Joker's henchmen but why does nearly every Batman villian The Penguin, Riddler, Two Face, Mr Freeze have clown henchmen as well? fucking clown henchmen, they really grind my gears.
Other minigripes Doesn't Superman piss you off when he goes on about smoking? like when he keeps blowing out Lois's fag (incidentally doesn't her tiny wee head and toothpick neck make the cigarette look like a length of pipe). What does he care about smoking, he could smoke 1,000,000 fags and be ok. Plus the cabbie's cigar sets off the gas explosion and the henchman who tries to grab Luthor's cigar and gets immediately chrushed. Speaking of him being a dick, it's not really fair on the dog when Clark Kent throws the base ball into the horizon....
I'm sure there's loads more, but I'll leave that to other Superman Returns nitpickers: Cinematical, Peter David, astronomy nitpicks. Oh wow, Ghost Rider's out soon, I'm sure that'll make loads of sense....
Other minigripes Doesn't Superman piss you off when he goes on about smoking? like when he keeps blowing out Lois's fag (incidentally doesn't her tiny wee head and toothpick neck make the cigarette look like a length of pipe). What does he care about smoking, he could smoke 1,000,000 fags and be ok. Plus the cabbie's cigar sets off the gas explosion and the henchman who tries to grab Luthor's cigar and gets immediately chrushed. Speaking of him being a dick, it's not really fair on the dog when Clark Kent throws the base ball into the horizon....
I'm sure there's loads more, but I'll leave that to other Superman Returns nitpickers: Cinematical, Peter David, astronomy nitpicks. Oh wow, Ghost Rider's out soon, I'm sure that'll make loads of sense....
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Escape from Clunkerville!!!
wow all these dudes look funny.....they're not, except for Carman Electra, I can forgive her anything after making one of the best comedy shows ever...Carman Electra's HyperMix...what? was that meant to be comedy?....
this guy was meant to be a kid in a Nacho Linbre spoof bit, but they replaced him with a stunt midget, at this stage in the movie it was unclear whether it was intentional or willful incompetence, it's a bit of both as it turns out.....I must buy Hannibal Rising and Epic Movie on DVD when they come out. Not to watch, mind you, they would be kept in a lead-lined case and only used in emergencies: whenever people go "so you do film studies, huh? Do you just sit around all day watching movies?" Then I would whip out these two fuckers and make that person watch them both in a row so they feel the burn of actually keeping up with contemporary films. There have been previous rants on this.
Spoilers Ahead, but Epic Movie was totally spoiled before I got near it.
Spoilers Ahead, but Epic Movie was totally spoiled before I got near it.
Where can one begin with Epic Movie? the only way I can deal with it is by reading other people's reviews of it, like in a psychological support group sense, reading the reviews are 100 times funnier that the film itself. Hey, I knew it would be bad, but it is nausatingly bad. The trailer is quite amusing, but you don't know going into it that you have already seen every ' funny' joke in the film by seeing the trailer.
If you've seen the trailer with a Superman clone getting shot in the eye, going 'ow my eye, you shot me in eye! why would you do that!' you have seen not only one of the few vaguely humourous bits in the movie you have seen the entire Superman spoof bit, that's it. The characters positioning on the poster has little relation to their screentime. I'm scared that Superhero! is still in production, with this and Scary Movie 5 on the cards.
This movie made me fondly remember Scary Movie 4, as if it was the best film ever. What that film had at least was endearing performers in Anna Farris and Craig Bierko parodies of overwrought films like War of the Worlds that were ripe for parody and a sense of some wider politcal and social world, Leslie Nielson's cry 'but i want to find out what happens about this duck!' when being told of intergalactic attack in a school class room an attempt at least at satire.
One of Epic Movie's fundamental problems is that it spoofs movies that already have strong comedic and lighthearted elements. The awful performances by these bargain basement looky-likeys throw into sharp relief the comedy acting skills of the likes of Johnny Depp and Frank Black etc. I fear whoever cast their Danel Craig-look-a-like doesn't know what Daniel Craig actually looks like. The very brief presence of a Borat-a-like towards the end just reminds you of how funny Borat was and how painful this is, also the Borat-a-like's appearance in the trailer has no relation to his appearance in the film itself.
If you've seen the trailer with a Superman clone getting shot in the eye, going 'ow my eye, you shot me in eye! why would you do that!' you have seen not only one of the few vaguely humourous bits in the movie you have seen the entire Superman spoof bit, that's it. The characters positioning on the poster has little relation to their screentime. I'm scared that Superhero! is still in production, with this and Scary Movie 5 on the cards.
This movie made me fondly remember Scary Movie 4, as if it was the best film ever. What that film had at least was endearing performers in Anna Farris and Craig Bierko parodies of overwrought films like War of the Worlds that were ripe for parody and a sense of some wider politcal and social world, Leslie Nielson's cry 'but i want to find out what happens about this duck!' when being told of intergalactic attack in a school class room an attempt at least at satire.
One of Epic Movie's fundamental problems is that it spoofs movies that already have strong comedic and lighthearted elements. The awful performances by these bargain basement looky-likeys throw into sharp relief the comedy acting skills of the likes of Johnny Depp and Frank Black etc. I fear whoever cast their Danel Craig-look-a-like doesn't know what Daniel Craig actually looks like. The very brief presence of a Borat-a-like towards the end just reminds you of how funny Borat was and how painful this is, also the Borat-a-like's appearance in the trailer has no relation to his appearance in the film itself.
My main geeky gripe is not only attempting to spoof movies with an inbuilt parodic postmodern elements but the wholesale ripping off of jokes. The worst offender is a Wolverine-clone (played and I kid you not by a character called 'Groovy') giving a character the 'finger' with his claw, shamelessly ripped off from X-Men itself, and a joke from Joss Whedon to boot. When a parody movie steals from the source of its parody you are in serious trouble. The lacklustre Samuel L. Jackson look-a-like repeats a line that's less funny that the original:
'get these goddamn snakes off this godddamn plane',
surely parodies should be more outrageous than the original film rather than more conservative. He then repeats/steals a great line from Dave Chappelle (Because!I'm Samual L. Jackson! that's the way I TALK!) . Another aspect is no attempt to think of the global market, there are a few Harold and Kumar go to White Castle jokes that make no sense in territories where it's called Harold and Kumar get the Munchies. Despite all this awfulness, honourable mentions have to go to Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Crispin Glover, Kevin McDonald, Jim Piddock, Hector Jimenez, Tony Cox...wow, look at that some of the most intelligent and hilarious comedy actors of this time period, and no laughs, where could the fault lie...
'get these goddamn snakes off this godddamn plane',
surely parodies should be more outrageous than the original film rather than more conservative. He then repeats/steals a great line from Dave Chappelle (Because!I'm Samual L. Jackson! that's the way I TALK!) . Another aspect is no attempt to think of the global market, there are a few Harold and Kumar go to White Castle jokes that make no sense in territories where it's called Harold and Kumar get the Munchies. Despite all this awfulness, honourable mentions have to go to Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Crispin Glover, Kevin McDonald, Jim Piddock, Hector Jimenez, Tony Cox...wow, look at that some of the most intelligent and hilarious comedy actors of this time period, and no laughs, where could the fault lie...
What's scary about this movie (beyond the sexism, racism, toilet humour etc., presuming you knew it would have that anyway) is that writer/director team Jason Friedberg and Adam Seltzer neither seem to like or even understand the films they parody. The makers of Blazing Saddles and Airplane! had a real love of movies and their conventions, and made films that call out to be rewatched for the sheer amount of visual and verbal gags they contain. The source movies they spoofed were so pofaced that they required parodies that had every pause crammed with jokes. Epic Movie is the antithesis of these films, its lack of jokes forces you to remember the jokes from the films it supposedly spoofs just so you don't top yourself during the movie.
p.s. put this on the DVD box....
Epic Movie's creators and ideal audience (and I doubt this exists) share not only an ignorance of contemporary movies but and utter contempt for them and those who watch them.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Robocock!
TCAL has this post on the demented Troy Hurtubise, who has come up with this Robocopesque body armour for all the boys in Iraq, he's loving it, coming up with whatever crazy gadget that will maim or poison insurgents, and a bizare 'cock-clock', apparently the groin is the best place to keep a clock, who'd a thunk it.
In this youtube video he keep's referring to himself in the third person and how he looked to Star Wars and Halo for inspiration?!
Frightening, people may occasionlly give me some good-natured ribbing for my obessions, but I'm not trying to make Robocop REAL!
bring on the fuzz
Fucking
Brilliant!
Monday, February 05, 2007
Trivial Pursuits
Spoilers below, if you haven't seen Children of Men (I don't know what constitutes a 'spoiler' most films I watch are spoiled by a) the actors, storyline, directors, composers gaffers, best boys and everyone else who even ate a doughnut on set or b) my jaded and cynical outlook.
I have just watched the fine Children of Men on DVD. It's very good but with some, sledgehammer moral/politcal points. Phew, lucky a white English man is on hand to deliver the African lady's baby and pass on some long forgotten parenting techniques or the human race would be fucked!. A saviour ship at the end is called Tomorrow what about calling it 'Hope' or 'This is the end of the film insert your own moral here and dispose of your rubbish in a bin'.
There's even a Kula Shaker track on there, is this not meant to be the future? No one plays Kula Shaker now, how could they conceivably be played on radio in 2027, even nostalgically. Who were those Mad Max types hiding in the woods? Why can't characters just drink and smoke anymore without each vice been despatched in a symbolic way/useful plot device? Kittens, cows, greyhounds etc., why is infertility only a human disease?, thought for moment in the greyhound bit that the race shown on the screens was prerecorded and they would watch an empty track in a poingant surreal scene....but no. See in science fiction you have to explain things like this, but if it's mainstream literature you can leave gaping plot holes and it's ok.
Check out this Salon review of the film apparently it's really great and original, if you never watch or read any science fiction, good as it is Children of Men is to dystopic science fiction as Unbreakable is to proper superhero movies.
Anyway, as if my custom, I checked the trivia and found this gem:
When Owen enters the dining room in Battersea power station, the large black and white mural behind him is "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso. The painting was Picasso's expression of disgust over the Nazi bombing of Gernika, Spain during the Spanish Civil War, which killed an estimated 1600 civilians.
Wow! I was wondering what the big squiggly picture thing with the wonky horses was. Top 'Trivia' there imdb kids, what else might they discover:
In Apocalypto Jaguar Paw is saved from sacrifice by an eclipse of the Moon. The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, visible at night, you know that big white circly thing. The Earth is that big ball under your feet.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Buzz Sweets=Chav Kid Crack (CKC)
My Sundays suck, it's recurring neightmare where no matter what time I go to bed on Saturday night (mind you it is normally 5am) I always end up staring at my phone at 10am thinking how long I can stay in bed and still make it to work to provide roasts for the lovely people of the Golden Triangle area. Last night I got to bed relatively earl (1am, earlt for me) I hadn't been in on a Saturday night for ages and forgot how bad Saturday TV is, it's like some sort of parallel dimension of badness, when I saw Al Murray's Happy Hour, I felt like I was watching Storm Saxon or something. Thank god for the great Harry Hill's TV Burp, makes a Saturday night in that bit less suicidal.
Anyway after work on Sundays, I normally go the Londis round the corner and buy three for a £1 "Buzz Sweets" (this week's choices: Shrimps, Strawberry Fizzy Logs, Blackcurrant Rings). Normally go round to see Double H, aka H-Factory, but she wasn't in so I have to eat them all myself and my teeth hurt. These are the Norwich Chav kid equivalant of crack or something so I call them CKC for sort, they cause hyperactivity, itchy teeth, and the little guy on the packet starts singing 'Scooter' songs at you if stare at him too long. Man I really need, to go brush my teeth...now!
*God these sound like euphemisms for down below diseases, "oh I can't go out tonight because I've got a blackcurrant ring and I keep laying strawberry fizzy logs".
Anyway after work on Sundays, I normally go the Londis round the corner and buy three for a £1 "Buzz Sweets" (this week's choices: Shrimps, Strawberry Fizzy Logs, Blackcurrant Rings). Normally go round to see Double H, aka H-Factory, but she wasn't in so I have to eat them all myself and my teeth hurt. These are the Norwich Chav kid equivalant of crack or something so I call them CKC for sort, they cause hyperactivity, itchy teeth, and the little guy on the packet starts singing 'Scooter' songs at you if stare at him too long. Man I really need, to go brush my teeth...now!
*God these sound like euphemisms for down below diseases, "oh I can't go out tonight because I've got a blackcurrant ring and I keep laying strawberry fizzy logs".
Saturday, February 03, 2007
WONDER WOMAN
like the way they can't even name Hitler and Mussolini...but Red Buttons get's a full title.
No Wonder Whedon Woman
This sad news from Superhero Hype, my news website of choice, that Joss Whedon is no longer attached to the Wonder Woman movie (from his official blog):
I'm no longer slated to make Wonder Woman. What? But how? My chest... so tight! Okay, stay calm and I'll explain as best I can. It's pretty complicated, so bear with me. I had a take on the film that, well, nobody liked. Hey, not that complicated. Let me stress first that everybody at the studio and Silver Pictures were cool and professional. We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work. Non-sympatico. It happens all the time. I don't think any of us expected it to this time, but it did. Everybody knows how long I was taking, what a struggle that script was, and though I felt good about what I was coming up with, it was never gonna be a simple slam-dunk. I like to think it rolled around the rim a little bit, but others may have differing views.The worst thing that can happen in this scenario is that the studio just keeps hammering out changes and the writer falls into a horrible limbo of development.
This sucks, but if you study contemporary cinema it's to be expected, are the studios really going to trust a leftist, feminist sci-fi geek with a multi-million dollar franchise ? (as much as we'd like it to happen) God know's who they're going to get now, Brett Ratner? Bryan Singer ? (they would never be mentioned in the same breath before Superman Returns)...in a perfect world Kathryn Bigelow would direct Wonder Woman.
The sad fact is, you are never going to get a satisfactory Wonder Woman film until the Hollywood system stops being fundamentally sexist and racist, so we'll expect the 4-D smell-0-vision version in the year 4,000 then....
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Jaysus! Tomb Raider in Ireland
Did a wee rant on The Community At Large inspired by this fine Adam Hughes Tomb Raider cover.
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