Behind the Mask
Is it a horror movie, or a documentary about a horror movie? Or a horror movie about a documentary of a horror movie? It is none of these. It is simply awesome. A really unique film that amuses and entertains.
Grandma's Boy
The story of a video game tester tossed out of his apartment and into a spare room in his grandmother's house. Perhaps a little excessive in its drug usage, but one of the most hilarious movies in this universe, and perhaps others. A true and insightful look into the world of video game development! (close, anyway)
Live Free or Die Hard
I enjoyed watching it, but in retrospect it's not nearly as good as the first (or the third, for that matter, although it is still better than the second). Having the movie set over several states eliminates a lot of the claustrophobic drama of the action genre, and while Justin Long acted very well, he took valuable screen time away from The Bruce. Nonetheless McClane's ability to survive nearly anything persists. True story: Kevin Smith played the character of Kevin Smith.
Transformers
Michael Bay's best movie yet. Still not as good as a real good movie. I went in expecting the transforming sound effect, and it delivered. Starscream!!
Hello, world.
After three weeks of dicking around, doing nothing, sitting on their asses, pretending they were going to help me, lying to my face, and generally being asshats, Verizon finally decided to come flip the switch that activates our DSL line today. And then it only took an hour and a half of wrestling with the retarded modem they sent us to get a working network connection. Praise be to Gunpei.
While I was disconnected from the inter-tubes, I took the opportunity to watch a bunch of movies I had been saving up. Here are my accounts of the ones I can remember:
300
A very, very cool action movie. Calling it "revolutionary" may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is quite fun seeing Sparta's elite soldiers mop the floor with their hapless challengers.
Anger Management
A great vehicle for Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler's strongest points, those being psychotic sociopathy and rageaholism, respectively. They're very good individually, but due to each's alpha-male nature they don't play off one another very well. Plot is largely inconsequential.
Big Nothing
Very good acting from David Schwimmer as well as from the rest of the cast (who I've never heard of). The plot was pretty good, too. Unfortunately the direction really ruins this movie, as the scene cuts are all somewhere between jarring and confusing. If it was based on a book, I bet the book is pretty good.
Bobby
A lot of good talent and filmmaking, but the (numerous) parallel stories didn't really come together until the final few minutes.
Borat
Very funny. Not planning on ever watching it again.
Children of Men
Interesting sci-fi premise. I was into the story, too, until the part where they forgot to film the ending.
Deja Vu
Denzel Washington delivers a good performance as usual. Unfortunately this is one of those movies where Jerry Bruckheimer has to invent his own laws of physics to make the plot work, and that doesn't work for me. See Pirates for related commentary below.
The Departed
If the Boston accent needed a representative movie, this would have to be it. It's not too deep, and not too complicated, but does a great job of showing gangsters at work. Again, Jack Nicholson gets to show his sociopathic side, and it meshes well with the overall motif of the film.
The Girl Next Door
Elisha Cuthbert is hot.
The Godfather
I finally got to sit down and watch one of the most lauded films of all time. In the end, I find it difficult to describe, because it is such a fundamental film that most modern critique is based on it. I felt like Michael's character early in the film was a little blurry, but otherwise there is nothing wrong with this movie. It's just fantastic.
The Godfather part II
How can you make another Godfather? Flesh out the backstory of Vito Corleone as he becomes the Godfather, while contrasting it with the development of Michael Corleone into the seat of strength himself. Also, Robert DeNiro. I don't know if I would say it's better than the first, but I would place them at roughly equitable quality.
The Godfather part III
They should have stopped at 2. Part 3 isn't a "bad" movie, really, but it doesn't come close to the standards set by the previous ones. Al Pacino is too goddamn old.
Idiocracy
Definitive Mike Judge. Luke Wilson does a fantastic job of playing an extremely average man, and as tends to be the case in Judge's writing, the stupid people around him are hilarious in their realism. Perhaps not as impressive as Office Space, but if you liked that, you should watch this one too.
The Illusionist
Before watching this, I was convinced that Jessica Biel could only play roles from the inside of a bikini; but I was extremely surprised to see her play an aristocrat from Olde Europe. The accent may not have been quite right, but her demeanor and expression were good, and she still looked great despite having most of her best features hidden by an antique dress. (The movie itself was god-awful.)
The Last King of Scotland
An interesting story about a general who overthrew the Ugandan government and slaughtered his people due to his own paranoid delusions. Yes, an interesting story, but not necessarily a long or detailed one. The movie was alright, but you could be just as entertained by reading the WikiPedia entry.
Let's Go To Prison
I saw Gob from Arrested Development and jumped - and got pretty much what I expected. Let's Go To Prison was a pretty amusing movie, but not very well put together. Good for a laugh.
Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl
I had resisted watching this for a long time due to my not being a teenage girl, but eventually I had to see this for myself, given, you know, pirates. I'm glad I did, because the same incredulosity that makes me hate Jerry Bruckheimer's interpretation of reality makes for very cool fantasy action, especially where zombies are involved.
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest
Same as above, plus an undead squid-cthulhu-man with a Scottish accent, and a cliffhanger ending to lead up to the third movie (in theaters this week).
The Prestige
Much, much better than The Illusionist, I would even go so far as to say that this is a good movie. To be honest, I didn't care for David Bowie's portrayal of Nikola Tesla - I felt that he should have been slightly more crazy. But in general, the acting was good, the writing was good, and the direction was 50% good. The first half of the movie was a real pain because of the confusing narrative: main character A is reading main character B's journal, which incurs the voice-over of main character B, but some parts of the journal talk about main character A's journal, which recursively incurs the voice-over of main character A, as A reads about actions B executed based on the actions of A which were documented after the fact in A's journal. Yes, it is very confusing, but worth muddling through for the great story within.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Not a bad movie, but there were not as many homocidal robots as I would have preferred.
School for Scoundrels
Billy Bob Thornton gives a great asshole performance as usual, and Jon Heder is... well, he allows the movie to be funny.
Shaun of the Dead
Funny, sure, but not consistently. Looking forward to seeing Hot Fuzz.
Shrek the Third
Just as amusing as the previous two. Really short, though, under an hour and a half all told.
Smokin' Aces
My first thoughts were, "Wow, Ben Affleck's acting is uncharacteristically poor." A few minutes later, his character died, which resolved that problem but is symptomatic of the film's larger issue: no real content. The plot reeks of an M. Night Shyamalan one-twist-in-the-end affair, and the storytelling in the meantime relies wholly on wanton action sequences which are, for the most part, not that great.
Spiderman 3
Too ambitious, Spiderman 3 attempts to accomplish enough material for two movies in the space of roughly one and a quarter. The result is a slew of important characters that are cut for time and end up extremely underwhelming. For its case, I will say that it's better than Spiderman 2, its fake-science not nearly as rampant or intellectually offensive.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fix some websites and watch some StarCraft 2 videos.
Hollywoodland is a weird movie. Not like Man of the Year, where someone took a comedic (and insightful) premise and tarted it up with a vapid plot about implausible computer fraud, or like Stranger Than Fiction, which was neat but basically Science Fiction for People Who Aren't Nerds; this one, I really enjoyed watching, but when it was over I couldn't really think of what to take away from it. I'm not going to say it had a bad ending, because for that to be true it would have to have had an ending.
Once again I've been sinking entirely too much time into my hobbies despite overwhelming demand from my scholastic obligations. As it turns out, 23 credits is a lot! Who knew. The good news is that this is the hump semester, and assuming I pass (which is feasible) I've got nothing but EE and general education next year. Perfect for video gaming.
If anyone is actually using my RSS feed/s, surprise, I messed with them again. This calls for a celebration.
My classes this semester may look like a lot, but as Malcolm X once said, "Moderation in all things." The majority are solid classes, and a few have substantial project work, but there's a surprising amount of smooth sailing mixed in. Software Engineering is a lesson in big development projects; my dev team has 25+ members, and I'm sure I'll end up doing no work. And Engineering Economics is oddly reminiscent of middle school mathematics. I wouldn't say I'm made of free time but I still have enough to throw into saving the world.
While it didn't bother me terribly that Pan's Labyrinth was entirely in Spanish, I feel I was due a little warning. Perhaps the moody sans-dialogue commercials should have tipped me off.
It's 2007 - that's just super.
I was planning on doing a "2006 in review" post much like I had done for the previous year, but as it turns out I've barely blogged anything over the past 12 months. Except perhaps games, which you can read on my Glog page. Instead, here are some items that fell through the cracks:
The
NextNew Generation of Consoles
I usually reserve my commentary on such things anymore, since it is obvious to anyone reading my stuff that I eat, breathe and bleed Nintendo fandom. I will state that I think the Wii was probably rushed out the door a bit too soon, as certain features are still substantially lacking. I will also say that I think the only thing worse than the Xbox 360's launch (and subsequent 12-month mourning period) was the PS3's launch. Nevertheless, there is a 360 title and a PS3 title in development that I am intellectually interested in.
Blue Dragon
Not very long ago, Microsoft realized that its strategy of being an American company was not winning many fans in Japan. The land of the rising sun still being a fairly powerful video game market, someone decided that what Microsoft needed was its very own Japanese-style RPG (this, classically (read "pre-DS"), being the most popular kind of game in Japan). Enter Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series; Nobuo Uematsu, soundtrack composer for the entire Final Fantasy series; and Akira Toriyama, notorious artistic designer for Dragonball; and, at least by the designing cast, it appears to shape up like a revival of Chrono Trigger. The use of color and trumpety soundtrack are also very reminiscent of Dragon Quest 8, and I doubt this is a coincidence. Blue Dragon was released on December 7th in Japan, and quite easily became the Xbox 360's best selling game of all time in that region.
At this point, I should state that I know virtually nothing about how the game works; currently my interest is piqued purely by knowing who is involved in it, and having heard the soundtrack. At least for now, this item is to be continued.
White Knight Story
There's still a lot unknown about this one, but the trailer is, I would say, fairly intriguing. The preview starts out simple enough - it's story and dialog driven, which is to be expected; the action-based battle system appears complex but with great benefits; and then the main character turns into a mecha-style giant armored knight. That's just cool.
Upcoming DS Games
Since anticipating games on the Glog doesn't work quite how I want it to yet, I don't really use the feature. Nevertheless there are some upcoming DS games I am already all but sold on.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Justice for All (Jan. 16th)
OBJECTION! I replayed the first Phoenix Wright for DS a little while back, but my appetite for more cases to solve and try continues to grow.
Dragon Quest IX (Nov. 20th)
A far-off release date, but it already looks awesome. I watched a roommate play DQ8, and while it's visually engaging and has some good character customization, the battles were just super boring. A large part of Japan is understandably upset with the decision to change the Dragon Quest format so drastically, but I welcome it with open arms; a multiplayer action-RPG is almost always a good decision.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (Q2 '07)
The Gamecube FFCC was an interesting concept, but hard to flesh out with the Gamecube+GBA hardware scheme. And since the DS, boasting wireless multiplayer and a built-in second screen, came out shortly afterward it wasn't hard to imagine a Crystal Chronicles for it being a runaway success. Apparently it's taken them forever but they're finally doing it, and it looks pretty good. Anyway, it could still be the same old game as far as I'm concerned, because when you could actually get all the required materials together to play it FFCC was great fun.
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (??, likely 2007)
Probably involving a lot of crosstalk between the DS Crystal Chronicles project and the real-time battle system development for FF12, Revenant Wings also looks pretty cool. While watching my CE roommate play the actual FF12, I was extremely skeptical of the "Final Fantasy XI Offline" at first, but the way they develop the fights in the game actually makes the system pretty exciting, and recreating that in a multiplayer fashion should be superb.
Glog Development
Last I worked on the Glog project, I was trying to make a more intelligent search box, and got hung up on something with stopwords in SQL fulltext searches (it's a lengthy trick to explain, but you can click here to see an erroneous search result). There's probably a not-too-hard workaround for it, but I have so many games waiting at the gates right now that it will take a while for me to get around to it.
Basically everyone who has commented on or tried to help me with Glog development has noted that the lack of color and styling is a huge failing that, if corrected, would likely make people actually desire to use the website. I agree with this prospect, however, there are still enough backend issues that I must make sure the site is technologically solid before approaching this. I've barely even mentioned efficiency/running time concerns, which I'm ... very concerned about.
Moving On
Every time I return to the Pennsylvania homestead, I am reminded - visually, not literally - of how much useless crap I accumulated in my youth. Eventually I suppose I will have to do something with this massive pile of Star Wars memorabilia, but that is for another time.
This break I have made some progress in organizing my old video games. Since I've barely touched my N64 and SNES in the past few years, and can either emulate or wait for Wii Virtual Console releases to catch up if I want to play their games, I have rounded up all the associated hardware, accessories, and game cartridges and plan to release them into the economy at my next convenience. If for whatever reason you are interested in used vintage SNES or N64 goods, contact me and perhaps we can work something out.
Conclusively
Most of 2006 wasn't anything special as far as I can recall. Politicians are still scumbags. The Internet is still a cesspool of buzzwords. Jack Thompson is still hilarious. The end of the year of course heralds new gaming bounties, both with the new systems and with an absolute bumper crop of DS titles. 2007 should be an interesting one.