Well, not “FREE” free (or is it FREE “free”?)… you’ll have to go dutch or whatever and buy a ticket to see him (or play illegal mall mega-plex tippy-toe, you cheap bastard) and sadly, it’s look but don’t touch once you meet up. That said, I think you’re guaranteed some exciting times, a few laughs and maybe some tears before the break-up just over two hours later. Hey, he’s Superman, folks – he has to move faster than you.
Anyway, go see Man of Steel if you haven’t yet – it’s pretty darn good.
Ah, Nintendo. old and reliably entertaining and yes, safe in many ways much like this classic Abbott & Costello routine. Nintendo is a rather special case, as the company seems to weather storms of negativity with an eternally sunny outlook that overlook a few pressing problems. Granted, part of the company’s issues stem from a combination of few internal and external pressures. Impatient gamers not quite realizing the company puts out games when they think they’re ready and not because they’re demanded (which takes time the content-devouring masses of today don’t seem to have) and a lineup of mostly old favorites that get rolled out seemingly at random while others sit on the sidelines until there’s a dev team free to work on them. Methinks Samus Aram is getting a little too much arm fat hanging out with that lazy Ridley as they catch up on “B” movie marathons on really lazy weekends. And don’t get me started as to what Slippy is up to in his spare time…
As a gamey old fart who truly appreciates this more “hand-crafted” approach, I love most of the company’s classic games quite a lot, as do millions of other devoted fans of all ages. That said, like a mom making the same favorite meals like clockwork each week, a little spice is probably necessary once in a while to kick things up a notch and appeal to a wider palate. Nintendo may be “safe” and a “special case” in one respect, but the other half of that coin is they’re also like that cute three-legged puppy you’ve adopted where you’ll sometimes find yourself laughing at it as well as with it as it playfully scampers about the room…
Jeah, jeah, I know it’s Jägermeister and NOT “Jaegermeister”, folks (oh boy, do I know the difference… but I don’t do that anymore, so perhaps I’ve thankfully forgotten?)… just roll with it, mmm’kay? Anyway, another nice and loving look at the heavy metal thunder about to roll into theaters soon in Pacific Rim. I must say that WB has a nice lineup of sci-fi/fantasy flicks this year between this, the just opened to positive press Man of Steel and the upcoming sequel The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Of course, I’ll be camped out at home with the video versions as well once all are released, as this seems to be the best way to see any new movie to get the full story and way too much behind the scenes info at one’s leisure and NO crazy people yelling at the screen like they’re on a damned talk or reality show set on a roller coaster. Bleh…
OK, while I’m not quite sure The Nicholas Brothers AND Charlotte Greenwood would like you to buy a PlayStation 4, (well, it didn’t exist back when this film was shot), you get the idea here, right? Sony’s knockout E3 presentation and MUCH clearer consumer rights strategy for used games, which SHOULD still be standard issue for all companies, won the day along with some great upcoming first and third party titles. Still, it’s kind of pesky that this is the big thing people are talking about. Hopefully, this will lead to an actual discussion that will also affect the future of content “ownership” and keep it normal longer than some other companies and individuals who want it dissolved into a service-driven monetization scheme (bleh) just because it’s “simpler” and “easy to use”…
Memo to “future-proofing” tech companies: Leave us game, movie and other media collecting hounds alone and go make your money on other items that maybe SHOULD be seen as lease worthy, I say. Digital content is great and provided there’s access to it, convenient. However, as 100% of the people out there can’t get to it 100% of the time, companies that try too hard to play with our rights deserve a little less love (and Microsoft has dipped a bit on a few gift card lists, that’s for sure)…
(video swiped from YouTuber Rinoa Leonhart)
So, the Xbox One. Yeah, THAT Xbox One. Did you know it has the computational POWER of ten Xbox 360’s? No? Well, Microsoft says so and while it’s probably true as the sky is blue (under certain circumstances) and the sun always rises even if you can’t see it (always, so far). Amusingly enough… I was planning to post that clip above BEFORE this article appeared (you WILL laugh at some point while reading it, trust me), but I got busy tinkering on a review and man, I feel as if they’re writing my lame comedy material for me and I don’t even OWN a Kinect.
At this point in damage control mode, you have to wonder when they’ll just start sending out white or black vans rolling around neighborhoods to grab random strangers off the street and MAKE them play a game just to show off how much POWER their system has. POWER, I tells ya… Granted, you still can’t use it offline unless you’re online first (subject to change based on day of the week and a update to the licensing agreement) and that new Kinect is always on even if you shut it “off”, but POWER! Wondrous working POWER… *Crack*, BOOOOOM!!!
OK, OK… I’ll knock it off now… Jeez…
(Thanks, Alistair Knight!)
Us-ually, I like to write up these RFotW posts alone, as I sometimes rely on memory and a re-viewing of a film to do some precision pre and post watching-progression in a few notes before writing. That said, I actually hadn’t planned on writing up The Magic Sword at all, but I was dropping off a loaner game at a friend’s, he happened to let me know that the movie was coming on TCM in about twenty four minutes and asked if I wanted to hang out and watch it.
My eyebrow went up, as I’m quite a busy guy this week… but I can be bribed under the proper circumstances (usually with food). “Toss in a pizza for two as a bonus for the pleasure of my company and we’re on”, I gently “suggest”. Hey, I’m no fool and double hey, he owes me a favor anyway, so it’s a deal.
A call was made, no anchovies were laid and thankfully, that pie was here exactly two minutes before the film started. I hadn’t seen it for a number of years, so I figured “what the hell!” as it would be interesting to see what happens when I sit down with an audience (hey, an extra person is an audience to me!) to catch something I’m usually trying to concentrate on alone for later article-worthy purposes. Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and men (and Bemis) get steamrolled into heckle-filled hilarity as the film in question wasn’t quite as good in some aspects as remembered… Continue reading
Bleh. “We are experiencing operating difficulties… please stand by.” OK, after ignoring it for a wee bit too long thanks to too many downloads, program uninstalls and reinstalls plus a few registry cleanings, my laptop is chugging along like a dead frog. I’m needing to clean up and defrag the hard drive, so things are moving slooooooower than usual today. Well, it won’t take TOO long. Oh, it’s only four hours and (checks Defraggler again) twenty two minutes, thirty-seven seconds left, than a reboot and maybe clearing out a few more games to the larger external drive if I need even more space. Bleh. OK, off to do something else constructive until then. I’ll have some cool Batman-related news for you shortly. If you’re in NYC in a few weeks, you’ll love this. and maybe walk away with something awesome… and pocket-sized.
Here’s the second translated trailer to D3Publisher of America’s upcoming EDF sequel. It’s nice to see these rolling out in English, as they’re funnier when you can understand the campy dialog delivered with relish. I think D3 copy/pasted old press info into the YouTube description, as they note a 2013 release when the game seems to have gotten a February 4, 2014 launch date already on a few sites and Namco Bandai’s European YouTube page. Oops. Well, if it changes to this year, I’ll be a lot happier, but let’s see if this gets corrected (before I dance around the room too much again)…
Spoiler: Wait, didn’t (almost) everyone die at the end of 300? End spoiler. Well, OK, this sequel that takes up things after the events of the original film isn’t supposed to be “historically” accurate (hell, the first film certainly wasn’t) and you hopefully won’t see a headless, zombified King Leonidas blurping around, but I bet this trailer really gets the testosterone rumbling in all the right places for some folks. I didn’t like 300 that much until my second viewing, as I didn’t read the graphic novel until I decided to borrow a copy from a friend and play “shot for shot” with it. Hey, I like stylized film making, but I thought it was a wee too much CG-heavy in pretending to be a moving comic book. Still, it did well and got Snyder doing more and cooler stuff, right?
… But you should also add a bit of protein as well. Lizard chunks make a tasty addition to any meal, folks. Just cook them at the proper temperature, watch that sodium and remember, portion control is key. TIP: Using a smaller plate gives you the illusion of a larger meal. Add a small salad to your lunch or dinner and eat it first to become more full and avoid the trap of heavier fatty foods as filler. Er, OK, OK… I really have nothing else to say about this upcoming movie except for if it’s terrible I’ll be really disappointed. Well, I’ll still catch it on cable a few too many times just to check out the mechs and monsters, but yeah, if it tanks, it’s a shame for all that hard work and tons of money spent creating all this lovely wreckage…
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 