Yeah, this film is going to be a disaster of an epic scale, but yeah, people will go see it because it’s got a hunk in the lead and it’s basically Titanic but no one gets out alive. Um, hopefully. I have the feeling that somehow, someone will make it out alive. Hey, think like a Hollywood writer looking to make the best of any tragedy: history says everyone died there, but what happens if there were people who were just out of range of the doomed city who saw it all go down? Yuck. Anyway, my Friday blew. I got nothing done thanks to some SLOOOW as hell wi-fi. How slow? Even though the connections was “Excellent” (so sayeth my computer via pop-up message as I glare at that stupid little box and want to strangle it), I was stuck at the startling and less than adequate speed of 11.0 kbps, BOO. Anyway, tomorrow is another day, I guess. I need to fly out of here early to mail off a big box of books, so I’ll be trying to get in some updates and posts as soon as possible, as there’s a LOT going on in my inbox.
Look, as much as I love Frank Miller’s incredible graphic novel 300 and its amazing (and historically inaccurate) take on the 300 Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae, both it and this sequel (which seems to be based on Miller’s yet to be released follow up, Xerxes) are turning some younger people into ill-informed dopes. I actually overheard a conversation a few weeks back between some kids who tried to use the film and comic to write up a report a history class and yes, they all failed. One kid tried to blame the history teacher because “He’s old and he never even read the comic OR saw the movie!” which made me dash away to laugh myself silly. Ah, you kids… always trying to find the easy way out of some hard work.
That said, has those meddling kids gone and watched 1962’s The 300 Spartans, they might have failed with a higher grade as their teacher was probably around to see that flick. Or maybe they should have cracked the assigned books and checked out this video instead? Hmmmm. Well, lesson learned, I hope. Yeesh – some of these kids better wise the hell up before history forgets all about them one day…
So, here they come. The first of many TV spots for this upcoming remake. Is it me or are people THAT jaded now that this otherwise fine-looking remake/reboot might not be as big as some on the internet are saying? Eh, not that I pay much mind to what others say on the Internet, mind you. I’m just worried that our new “wait it out” culture will wait it out for the first big early review that merely mentions a flaw, cross their collective arms with a mighty “SEE!,I told you it would suck!” and then go torrent the video off some pirate site only to discover it’s not the train wreck they thought. Of course, trying to get those people to pay for anything entertainment wise is a tough haul, but Hollywood loves to keep trying. Me, I think the film will do just fine when it hits a multiplex near you next month.
Of course, I still CAN’T see any darn movies at all around here now that the two closest movie houses are DEAD. Boo. What kind of crap area is this now? We USED to have five theaters in walking distance not so long ago. My “local” theater is now something like four or five miles away at least. Probably more, as I haven’t checked around for a replacement theater in a while. Eh, small world problem considering REAL issues facing too many these days, right? But hey, little things (like a decent cinema) DO mean a lot to some folks…
I’ve never trusted machines much even though like most of you, I tend to take them all for granted. Heck, we built those stupid machines (and even built the robots that build most machines today), so it’s not like they’re going to NOT do what we want them to like a mistreated pet suddenly turning on its owner, right? RIGHT?Wrong. Granted, plenty of industrial and freak accidents claim some while humans using machines constructed for menial to major tasks to kill other humans has been a thing ever since man started inventing and building stuff. Someone gets mad enough or crazy enough and even the most innocent looking tool gets used to do someone in, usually in a pretty messy manner. If Lizzie Borden had say, an old rolling pin instead of an axe, she might have merely lumped up her parents and not hacked them to bits. Even with an axe, bad aim is still pretty deadly…
Amusingly enough, I wasn’t planning on doing a RFotW at all (well, for a few days at least) until I was walking home and realized that it was indeed that day where superstitious people go out of their ways to avoid danger and paradoxically set themselves and others up for accidents. If you’ve ever spilled a hot or cold beverage on yourself or someone else or the ground because some idiot was jumping out of the way of a black cat, diving past a ladder, threw a handful salt over their shoulder into your eyes or anything else deemed to ward off bad luck, you probably know what I mean, correct?
Anyway, taking its cues from !950’s “B” horror and Italian giallo films and adding a few (for the time) modern twists Sean S. Cunningham’s 1980 horror flick is to many, a classic. Granted, back when it was released it was labeled as “misogynistic” (despite a girl being the last survivor and a plot twist I won’t spoil here for those who still haven’t seen this one) along with a bunch of other genre films that put BOTH male and female characters in peril and if you want to see it as such, I’m not going to change your mind. However, when you take into account the guys get it as badly as the gals here, I’d say the film is shocking because it actually doesn’t discriminate when it comes to who gets the axe, arrow, machete or other modes of mean-spirited dispatching… Continue reading →
Somewhere before and in between Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo II, members of Polyphony Digital (seemingly working under the name Cyber Head) worked on a little game called Omega Boost which was released for the PlayStation in Japan in April of 1999, the US that August and in Europe a month later. Japan got the awesome and hilarious TV ad above for the game (the US ad was amusing, but not as nuts as the Japanese one) and when the game arrived at the small indie game shop I worked at, it spent a decent amount of time in the store play stack. Back then, the game was impressive to me and many others right away thanks to the opening movie that still packs a punch:
Thankfully, other than the slightly unwise replacing of the Queen-style rocker that opens the import with some alternative tune that’s OK in terms of it’s title (“Fly” by Loudmouth) but lesser than the original theme music in terms of impact, the US version got the same explosive intro:
By the way, note the “Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jean” autograph reference – I loved that tiny bit of fluff because it was a little detail only a film buff would latch on to right away and smile at. As far as the gameplay went, it was an arcade-style space shooter with 19 stages, some cool planetary and tunnel missions along with a number of intense boss battles and a ton of cool bonuses for the dedicated players out there. Some game critics unfairly compared it to Sega’s Panzer Dragoon games, which only made sense as a frame of reference if you were a PS owner who also happened to have a Sega Saturn in the house. There were some minor similarities, but Omega Boost was more a technical showcase for the PlayStation hardware than Panzer Dragoon ever was on the Saturn.
The game was actually in production as early as 1996 (or perhaps sooner), as a series of Japanese demos I have here shows the early work on the game back then was making for a very different-looking experience running at 60fps with simpler polygon visuals and a few more viewpoint choices. Oh, you want some videos of that for proof? Well you’ll need to come over if you want to see them, silly. I’d thought someone would have posted them on YouTube already, but nope and nope so far. Get on it collectors who never open your stuff, I say!
Oh, all right. One day I’ll get off my butt, dig out those PlayStation Club demo discs and have someone shoot footage of me playing them, but I just haven’t had the time to get onto that and some other projects. As usual, I digress. Anyway, the game wasn’t exactly a “blockbuster” in terms of sales or review scores, but it’s definitely one of those side projects where you could see the quality right from the beginning. Of course, with Polyphony so darn occupied with the vastly more popular Gran Turismo series of games, it’s hard to even think of a new OB rolling out from them any time soon. That’s not to say that is SHOULDN’T be done at all, folks. I’m just hoping that if there is a follow-up or remake, it gets the attention it should on a few fronts the original certainly didn’t.
Eh, perhaps I’ll bite the bullet, download a PlayStation emulator from somewhere and figure out how to record some gameplay. It shouldn’t be that hard to do, although I generally dislike using emulators over an actual console…
Here’s an answer to a question I was asked by not one but TWO readers in person within the space of a week or so (yes, people ask me stuff on the street when they see me) about coverage of some of the bigger AAA titles and why I don’t spend a ton of space covering them like other sites. It’s mostly because I prefer to NOT rush out a review before or with everyone else and partly because I can;t get access to loaner debug units like I used to a few years back. Complain, gripe, whine, et cetera, et cetera. I miss my old PR wranglers who did me the occasional odd favor, but what can you do, kids? Meh, life goes on! I was supposed to get a trumpet blast with that last sentence, but I’ll settle for a bleated out note on the STL Ocarina I’m reviewing…
Anyway, I actually liked last year’s big celebrity-packed TV ad much better, but this has its fun moments:
Granted, I’m a LOT more interested in Call of Duty: Ghosts for the single player campaign (no matter how long or short it turns out to be) and YES, I’m much more interested in the upcoming Wii U version just to see how it turned out (Yes, *shocking!* isn’t it?), as Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 wasn’t bad at all on Nintendo’s overly maligned (by some of the Internet’s troll-iest under bridge dwellers) console which REALLY just needs some love and a lot more good games from first and third parties, as there’s NOTHING fundamentally wrong with it at all.
That said, it certainly looks great on any system I’ve seen it on, so I guess everyone will have it on their a favorite console soon enough. Yeah, that’s right. I’m a root for the underdog guy myself these days, so there you go…
Seriously, the last movie theater here is still closed and I’m feeling a bit morose and annoyed about that fact. I’m hoping that asbestos issue is resolved and it gets opened back up soon. The nearest theater is a multiplex a train or bus ride away, but I’ve heard that it’s overpriced and a pain to get to because you need to walk a bit after the public transportation jaunt. That and it’s packed with the most infuriatingly ill-mannered viewers who pay no heed to cell phone turn-off notices, bring bawling toddlers into R-rated movies and commit other low crimes against civil behavior that a normal person would go mad if they went there on a regular basis. From my source who frequent there because he’s hooked on films more than I am (well, he tends to watch more crap movies than I do), he also knows that the staff lets their friends hang out there (once they buy a ticket) and sneak into the other theaters to catch other films unless there’s a supervisor hanging about to keep things in check. Granted, that stuff has been going on since movie tickets have been sold, so it’s no big deal to me. On the other hand, I can see that being annoying to anyone trying to run a legitimate business where profits need to be calculated on a per-seat basis…
Anyway, reviews seem good on this Carrie remake, so that’s at least a good thing to see…
Okay, so I finally caught The Hobbit on HBO when it premiered on Saturday and yes, I fell asleep about 25 minutes in. That was bad, however I did wake up about 25 or so minutes later and sat through the rest of the film, save for a quick break to boil some water for tea. Granted, I was a bit sick and a little bit tired from the cold that was knocking me around, but still… the film did drag-on a bit (yeah, that’s supposed to be a pun). I liked it overall, but after that blazing opening sequence it took a while to get going again then between jokes it’s pretty much a non-interactive CG movie that winds its way up, down and all around to that ending where you just so happen to look at your watch and realize as Smaug’s eye opens and the credits roll that you’ll need to come back to that theater to see what happens thanks to that big dragon not quite revealing himself. I’m gathering this sequel will have TOO much of Smaug for some tastes… but in my opinion there’s no such thing as too much of any dragon (unless it’s that damn purple dinosaur Barney trying to pretend he’s one)…
One clip, a quick TV spot and that dopey prank pulled here in NYC on some unsuspecting citizens strolling into a coffee shop. Of course, in that latter gag, my brain saw the holes in this one right off the bat. If that’s a neighborhood place that’s been open a while, wouldn’t any regulars NOTICE that new wall there or be miffed that their favorite spot was replaced by a wall. Okay, maybe the place was shut for construction with a sign on the door or whatever. Also, a few of those people look as if they were bought in by the studio to act surprised at the action. Granted, most look genuinely shocked, but in this damn city, SOMEONE would have called the cops even on the first scare.
Yeah, I’d have been that ONE guy standing there at the cashier laughing and looking for wires on that guy and wall while still trying to get my damn coffee with a hearty “Hey crazy lady! take that shoving tables crap down the block to McDonalds!” Hell, I’d have even offered her a nice, tasty plain aspirin (I keep a bottle in my bag at all times). Yeah, I’m VERY hard to market anything to. I just like what I like and try to get you do like it as well…
Carrie opens nationwide (except the theater where I live that’s closed. Stupid theater!) on October 18, 2013.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 