Thoughts of a Random Gamer

Quantum: an indivisible entity related to energy and momentum of an elementary particle such as a photon. AKA...really small! But I'm not here to give you a physics lesson and my roommate, the one who could actually explain this idea to you, is off grading freshman chemistry exams.

Looking back, it has been a long long time since anyone has posted a movie review, so I have decided to do just that. Oddly enough, it ends up being a game anyway, Max Payne. The flick is a decent shoot-em-up, although I must admit that I never really got involved in it. I guess that I was more of a Hitman kind of guy.

Max Payne starts out looking like a nice, crisp, somewhat old fashioned cop movie. Slightly overexposed film gives the appearance like there are more grays in everything which helps to contrast the dark office spaces of the cops. To go along with the noir feel, as in any crime drama, you can expect to see serious heat packed on both hips.

Max is working as a detective/secretary for unsolved murders. Basically, he just files paperwork for all the cases that the station cannot solve. While working these other cases, he spends his time searching for clues to his own wife's murder, which occurred a number of years beforehand. The whole movie is based on him trying to find the third man involved in her murder. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to develop into anything worth watching.

It's hard go into too much detail on the plot, without destroying the story for all of you who have not watched it yet. To keep it spoiler proof, Payne discovers that a bunch of the criminals he is searching for are tripped out on some sort of narcotic. This drug is known to lead to intense hallucinations of Valkyrie that fly around, destroying people. Interesting enough, the drug is called Valkyr. Also, each criminal has of a tattoo of a Valkyrie on their wrist. What could this all mean?

The trail goes from hot to cold , literally, but I don't dare say more on that. Just know that it heats up again for a crazy gun fight at the end of the movie that, as many movies these days do, overplays the slow motion gun dodging sequences brought about by the Matrix. Have they not been overused enough yet?

I would agree with most critics out there in only giving Max Payne about 2.5 stars out of 5. It's not anywhere near the type of movie it could have been. There were too many things left hanging at the end, with no evident desire for a sequel. It should also be noted that there are numerous characters that appear in the film, but do not add anything to the plot.

Go see it if you really enjoyed the game. However, know that it doesn't have much to do with the game besides the name and the guns. You may be better off to save your 8 to 10 dollars and wait until it hits DVD for home consumption.

Game on Gamers!

Windows Only: A while back, I was poking around engadget and came across a post about a D-Link media streamer that pumps online video to your TV from popular sites like Hulu, College Humor, YouTube and others, provided you have a plug-in. In that post, they referenced a program called PlayOn:

"...but we'll stick to rocking PlayOn with our 360 and PS3."

I was intrigued!

I decided to follow the link and soon found myself on www.themediamall.com. I decided to download and install PlayOn (free beta trial for 60 days) to give it a go. Now, anyone that has stumbled across this blog probably knows that the 360 will soon be adding Netflix's Watch Instantly support, but PlayOn touts some other nice features, like streaming from Hulu, ESPN, CNN and YouTube. After reading about the benefits and not being patient enough to wait for the (weak Netflix just announced an agreement with Starz Play - check it out!) selection of Netflix's streaming catalog, I fired it up and I must say, it's quite impressive. They just released another version of the beta which enables Netflix account access (the initial beta I installed did not have that enabled yet).

The system operates over uPnP on your network, and you have to have the service installed on your computer to work with your 360 or PS3. Since I don't have access to a PS3, I'll walk you through the 360 version.

If you've ever streamed media from your computer to your 360, it's easy as pie to get PlayOn to recognize on the 360. Go to your media tab and change the source to PlayOn: computername. Once that is set, you will see a list of the different sites to choose video from. I didn't really care much for the sorting method - you really need to know exactly what you're looking for - and there isn't any sort of search functionality. However, they are planning support for Hulu user accounts, so you could actually log in to your Hulu account and PlayOn will list the shows you subscribe to from Hulu.

Once you have selected the show to watch, you launch it just like any other video you'd watch on the 360 (press A if you've never watched a video) and it buffers for a couple seconds and then you have your media. The quality is actually pretty good - not HD, but you certainly can't complain.

When the 360 update hits, I don't know if the service will still be compatible, but until then, it's a great way to get streaming media off your dinky computer or laptop display and on to your big beautiful TV. Also, if you're on a PS3 and you don't have the hope of Netflix streaming media in the near future, but would like that benefit your 360 counterparts will soon be getting, PlayOn adds that and much more.

One last thing: every once in a while I suffer from a bad connection, or perhaps it's a bug, but I am unable to connect to the server source and it'll display an "Unable to Connect" message while waiting for my media options to display. If you experience this or know how to remedy it, leave a comment! Now I'm going to get caught up on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia!

source: PlayOn!

As a Star Wars fan who has been let down by the very material that I love I feel I need to write another installation in my little "What I Hate About" series dedicated to Star Wars. With that, remember I hate you just as much as I do everything else.

Hayden Christensen. He was okay in Jumper but the movie was shit to begin with. My problem with Hayden's portrayal of Anakin is for a time, Macaulay Culkin was rumored to be in the running of Anakin Skywalker. Like anybody in my age group, I watched Home Alone I and II, The Good Son, My Girl, and a handful of others and wondered what the hell happened to Macaulay. The roles he would have starred in were given to his brothers and he basically disappearred. He has things Hayden does not, experience and fans. From The Good Son we know he can play a bastard and from My Girl we know he can insight sympathy. Look at it this way, if Lucas thought about giving a cameo to N'Sync, and continues to alienate die hard fans, the least he could have done was revive Culkin's career and cast him as Anakin.

Palpatine's dialog. Every time the Emperor speaks I'm reminded of an episode of Family Guy. "Something, something, something, dark side, something, complete!" The only real lines he has are the throwaway dialog from the prequels. In the original trilogy he only appears, in person, in Jedi. That episode of Family Guy sums up every word he says.

Being an asshole, simply to be an asshole. Darth Vader had some motivation for why he turned to the dark side. Even Tyranus had a slightly discernible lust for power. Why did Sidious go bad? Did he want to rule the galaxy? He was bad before he had his goal of running the galaxy. Did he want to kill Jedi? Was it to oppress the innocent? None of the reasons I come up with seem valid. When watching a movie or playing a video game, the main antagonist can't be an asshole simply to be an asshole. It's like kicking a puppy just because you can. If you kick a puppy, do it because it is chewing on your couch. Do it because it's just way too cute to not be kicked, but have a reason. On a side note, the Joker has no real motivation for being an asshole but he does it with gusto and is considered the antithesis or balancing force to Batman.

Merchandising. I have a couple of Star Wars lego kits and the DVDs, of course. I mentioned Jar Jar and now I have to extend to Grievous. There are far too many characters that were conceived purely because they would make a good toy(coughs)Ewoks. I haven't read the expanded universe book detailing Grievous' descent from alien to robot. I don't care about his motivations or his health problems. What I do care about is how much of a bad ass he's supposed to be even though he sounds like he has lung cancer and runs at the slightest visage of defeat. Again I can picture George Lucas sitting in his living room saying, "How about a 6 limb being... no robot... robot being... that has a terrible cough and is supposed to be a total bad ass. Nobody could get sick of hearing him wheeze and the toy will sell like children's chewable crack. GOLD!" Add to the characters the star ships and speeders designed and manufactured for the movies by Mattel and we have a recipe for shittiness.

No sympathetic characters. The only time true feeling of camaraderie or encumbrance came in Empire. It's the darkest one with the least meddling done by Lucas. The viewer felt the emotion when Han was lowered in the carbonite chamber, the tragedy of finding out Vader was Luke's father, and the fellowship of Luke abandoning his training to rescue his friends. This was in stark contrast to A New Hope where no matter how close Vader came to targeting Luke the viewer knew nothing would happen to him and the Rebellion would destroy the Death Star. The princess was a righteous bitch, Han was a greedy prick, and Luke simply couldn't act. In Jedi we got a taste of the Force but that was overshadowed by cheap quips, Ewoks, and the stereotypical asshole known as the Emperor. The prequels were no different. Big name actors/actresses had to frown constantly and no trepidation was felt past the moment it occurred.

Forced poorly written and executed love story. It might have been the lack of chemistry between Portman and Christensen, or the shitty dialog they shared, but at no time did I believe a Queen/Senator would or had actually fallen in love with a slave/Jedi 7 years younger than her. This philosophy is more like sleeping with the pool man or aspirations of being a cougar. Sure it's fun and all but she's going to choose a bread winning husband over the dirty pleb. I complain because this sordid affair was supposed to be the driving force of Anakin going over the edge.

The Clone Wars. Speak to an orthodox Star Wars fanboy and The Clone Wars was a stroke of genius. Let me put this directly and monosyllabically, it was not. I hate anime, see my previous post, and tainting Star Wars with it does nothing short of piss me off. It debuted on the Cartoon Network in 10 minute format and added to Star Wars canon, those are points in its favor. Otherwise they weren't very story driven, action driven just like all anime, and are a poor excuse for hopeless fathers to say their neglected young children are "watching cartoons."

George Lucas. I give that man all the credit in the world for coming up with the idea. That is where his involvement should have stopped. The movies are the canvas but the real painting and artwork are done by people like Timothy Zahn, Kevin Andersen, and Irvin Kershner. Lucas, like all major Hollywood types is a greedy asshole. His greed has clouded his judgement. I've given him credit for creating the idea, but I'm also going to give him the much deserved credit of shitting on it. Star Wars now belongs to us, the fans. It has gone beyond a late 70's early 80's scifi blockbuster and deserves to be catered to us. I want to see an R rated Star Wars movie following the life of a Sith. I want to see characters like Mara Jade and Talon Karrde hit the big screen. I want to see George Lucas pull his pretentious head out of his pompous ass.

With the recent release of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I feel the need to stand on the soapbox provided for me by Grundy the Man and rant aimlessly about the shortcomings of a franchise that has seen me from an itch in my father's pants to a malicious 20 something year old. Granted my soapbox is more like the kind a bar of Lever 2000 comes in and my audience is well, you.

Jar Jar Binks. I think we can all agree that Jar Jar was a completely useless and annoying addition to canon. I'm not a fan of the Gungans but Jar Jar is the poster child for why I hate them. What was going through Lucas' mind? Let's make the only comic relief a clumsy semi sentient amphibian with a lisp who also speaks broken English... GOLD! No one could get sick of him after the first 30 seconds. There was some payback for the fans by making him the senator who recommended emergency powers for Palpatine but that could have been easily done by any of the other nameless senators. I'm not well versed on the expanded universe between episode 3 and 4 but I hope Jar Jar was beaten with plastic hangers and dragged behind a landspeeder.

Jake Lloyd. The Star Wars movies are about the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. Jake Lloyd made it so I wished he was mutilated by Obi-wan and then killed by the Emperor before his prepubescent ass left Tatooine. I've watched the auditions from the special features disc and he was hands down the worse. Have you ever seen Jingle All the Way? Um, I haven't either... Anyway I wanted to kick his ass in it too.

Star Wars: The Phantom Anus. Okay maybe that was the porno parody but this bullet point stands for Episode I. They had Liam Neeson and Ray Park and they threw them away. There was the laughable and consequently insulting puppet that looked nothing like Yoda and the rest of the Jedi sat around looking sad and serious all the time. Then there was the pod race, which might have been cool if it wasn't completely unnecessary and absorbed an hour of screen time. It did have a great fight scene at the end but the double bladed lightsaber looked completely unmanageable and if not for the skill of Park would have looked even more forced. It did however make way for the aforementioned porno, which I haven't seen, but I imagine there is a scene with a massive double headed dildo "doing damage."

The Skywalkers and the Solos save the day... again. This might gain me some nerd cred but I've read roughly 40 of the novels from after the movies. They're not Dickens by any means but they pass the time nicely. There's one theme that resonates through the majority of them. The Star Wars universe is held together purely by the Skywalkers and Solos. Much like the pages of a Hustler are held together by dried ejaculate. If not for them the universe/pages would fall apart revealing the deepest depths of depravity.

The Empire is composed solely of the British. I distrust the British as much as I do every man, woman, child, race, creed, and animal but I don't think they deserve to be the enemy a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Let me elaborate. I think it would have been more fitting to have the Germans or Russians be the main ethnic enemy stereotype. After all they were the conclusive evils in the last century, A New Hope did come out in the middle of the Cold War, and frankly has anybody forgiven the Germans for the Holocaust? Even the Chinese or Arabs would have made a little more sense, I don't know anybody who still harbors aggression toward Great Britain for the American Revolution.

Rereleases. I like the special editions because I like Star Wars. I'll pause a second to let everybody catch their breath after that gasp of surprise. (pause) I actually enjoy Star Wars so much that I would like to be able to watch the old versions as well as the new. They were cutting edge in their day and just because the special effects were outdated it doesn't mean cinematic fags like myself don't want to still appreciate them in the proper context. It's a bad habit in Hollywood to release a movie then either remake it, or remaster it. Is anybody else insulted that the guns were replaced by walkie talkies in ET?

A couple of weeks ago, I was in town visiting my parents, when someone suggested that we go see a movie. That seemed like a good idea, so off we go to the nearest theater. After looking over the movie listings, it was decided that Tropic Thunder would be good film. Mind you, this was being attended by myself, my wife, my mother, father and fourteen year old brother. Awkwardness ensued.

The movie starts with a series of fake trailers, that shows past roles of all of the movie's fake actors. It is a bad reflection on trailer's nowadays when I can hear my mother behind me, asking when those movies were coming out... If nothing else, this provided enough back story to establish all of the film's characters.

The concept of the film is simple. Three actors of varying levels of success and a rapper, join forces to make the best war film ever. Robert Downey Jr. has been generating major buzz, as he plays the role of an Australian actor, that underwent a skin pigmentation procedure, in order to fully embody the role of an African American. As one would imagine, egos clash from the very beginning of filming.

Frustrated with the lack of focus and structure, the director decides to take a different approach to the film. His plan is to drop the actors into the middle of the jungle with only a script. The jungle would be wired with cameras and explosives, allowing the director to film everything gorilla style. Placing the actors in an unfamiliar environment is meant bring out real fear in their performances, especially when caught off guard.

That is all you will get on the plot, because I hate spoilers. Instead, let's look at the performances of each of the title characters. Robert Downey Jr. provides an outstanding performance as an actor that has played so many characters, that he doesn't know who he is anymore. The fact that he takes himself so seriously throughout the mock filming, adds further authenticity to his role as the straight guy.

On the flip side of that, Jack Black plays a character that rose to fame through his unique talent to fart on command. His character had gained notoriety through lowbrow films in the same vein as Dumb and Dumber. He has decided that he wants to grow as an actor and take on a more serious role, but he first needs to confront his personal demons. Of the three main actors, Black plays the most minor and forgettable role.

Ben Stiller was not only the lead actor of the film, he also penned the script and acted as director. It becomes very obvious that his character was written as a vehicle for living out a childhood dream of being an action film badass. He steps up to the plate as a naive actor, trying to get his career back on track. All that he is looking for is mainstream acceptance, but his inability to cry, derails this efforts.

The film was a very funny send-up on modern action films, featuring countless cameos from Stiller's buddies. Among the most notable appearances include Matthew Mcconaughey, Nick Nolte and Tom Cruise. In a twist that few saw coming, Cruise steals the show with his performance as a no nonsense film executive, with a penchant for rap music.

Overall, there is an air of satire that tends to get in the way of story progression. It is almost as if the humorous scenes were written separately from the rest of the story, then like a demented game of connect the dots, badly fashioned into this horrible monstrosity of a plot.

Bottom line is that Tropic Thunder is a collection of tremendously hilarious scenes that are connected by a convoluted and downright aggravating storyline. Due to the apparent lack of structure and planning, there is no consistent flow to the plot. As a result, the conclusion of the film seemed very rushed and inconclusive. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone, unless you are looking a mindless exercise for your funny bone.

In the funniest scene of the entire film, I learned that when acting, "You never go full retard." Check out the clip below:

Too kid friendly. First off, you can take the Resident Evil and Manhunt franchises and shove them up your ass. Their problems are a completely different can of worms.

There are a handful of good M rated games on Nintendo systems, emphasis necessary, but that doesn't mean they appeal to mature audiences. Look at their best selling and top rated games. They're mostly first party, rated E, sequels, and some are better on other consoles. I've owned most Nintendo consoles with the exception of the SNES, DS, Virtual Boy(shudders), and GB Advance.

The formula. Let's look at a specific genre of horror movie. I'm not sure of the name but there are enough out there to merit a genre subset. Teenagers, it always involves teenagers or college students, are on their way some place with or without friends and family and they get lost or take an ill advised shortcut. Their vehicle breaks down or they get pulled over and then all but one or two are killed by inbreeds, hicks, or unstoppable evil forces, occasionally it's all of the above.

The bad guy usually gets away, or there happened to be many unknown, which leads us to...

Crappy wannabe cliffhangers. Some movies are so epic they're entitled sequels simply to encompass the massive scope of the characters and world. Others well, I imagine there's a machine with "Sequel-O-Matic" printed on the side, manufactured by Acme. No matter what script it churns out, the requisite is a cliffhanger the-bad-guy-gets-away ending... Oh, and it only produces scripts and story lines inked in shit and printed on toilet paper. Remember what happened to Wiley Coyote every time he bought something from Acme.



The supermodel main characters. Don't get me wrong, I love beautiful women and have nothing against male underwear models, but it's pretty much guaranteed that if you're an attractive person in a horror movie, you're going to die. Apparently only ugly people decide to pick up knives, hoes, axes, or chainsaws to bring pain and suffering to their fellow man.

Less is more when it comes to attire


Since there are beautiful people all over, why not help some sweaty palmed awkward teenager viewers toss one off? Because it completely fucks with real life. So the teens who were going camping in the middle of nowhere, presumably not for the first time, all decided to wear next to no clothing, flip flops, and high heels. The hell with that, when I go camping I have boots, jeans, and maybe even long sleeves and a jacket. I'm also with someone who has a gun and if I hear weird noises I run.

Gore over story. I liked Hostel. Generally I hate horror movies because they have no substance. I liked Hostel because it told a story I've heard so many times before but made it more personal and intriguing. I liked Saw for the same reason. What I don't like is the sequels. It seems that at the end of the day, somebody said "Thank goodness we wrote a good story for the first installment. Now we can just mindlessly display gore and rake in the cash." It's like the underwear gnome business model in South Park. "1. Show gore. 3. Make money." Where the hell is the "Tell Story" step between the gore and money?

Horror porn. Generally I can give a few gore allowances in movies. So the director thinks my mind can't visualize what it looks like to sever a head, fine show me. Now it's when a director thinks I actually want to see what it looks like to cut somebody in two with a chainsaw, or that I want to see what it looks like to have an arm cut off over and over, that I take issue. Who the hell are these appealing to? Maybe there are a passel of Se7en's Kevin Spacey's who masturbate in their own feces while reading Guns and Ammo, that have to see gallons of blood and innards before they can comfortably go to sleep at night. This is certainly not me.


PG-13 theatrical release and then an unrated DVD. I have to ask, where is the artistic integrity in Hollywood? I understand that likely it was never there, but if you shoot a movie one way and only cut scenes if there is a congruity issue with the story as a whole, then the movie should be complete. Why the hell are there movies being shot one way, and then cut down to bare bones to release to a wider audience? It's like eating a piece of cake and deciding you don't need the frosting just yet, you'll eat it later. It might still be good cake but for me the frosting makes the cake.

Punishment for loose morals. Smoke cigarettes or drink? That's a stabbin'. Have premarital sex? That's a stabbin'. Do drugs? Oh, you better believe that's a stabbin'.

Unstoppable hacker slasher. He walks with a machete, walks, and nobody can seem to get their keys in the ignition fast enough to say, "That wasn't even close." I guess I've never had Jason walking after me, so I can't say for sure if I'd have problems starting my car like I do every day. Let's say you can't get your car started, you can still run. Run and find a legion of goth kids to slow him down, they want to die anyway, and at least one of them has a gun or knows how to make a bomb.

Remake after remake. This speaks for itself, there are no original horror movies.

I know that this is an old set of videos but I enjoyed it, so I figured it was worth posting. I am a person that worships at the alter of Kevin Smith films. He was given the opportunity to sit down with four other luminaries from the arenas of television, film and print. The line-up is a classic group that includes comic mogul Stan Lee, actor Jason Lee of Mallrats and Chasing Amy fame, Star Wars legend Mark Hamill, and director of Mission Impossible III and Lost, JJ Abrams.

The round table discussion took place over three years ago, but is a nerdgasm nonetheless. Enjoy:

The original source of this video can be found HERE

I'm an ill tempered cynical little man. It's either a gift or a curse to find so many shortcomings with various media. On my list this week is anime. I'm mystified by the Japanese. The smaller faster take on technology is phenomenal but then they pump out shit like anime.

9. Seizures. If you have to display a warning before a television program because it may or may not pass the Harding Test and cause you to bite off your tongue while fitting on the floor, there's a serious problem.

8. Big eyes little mouths. The animation doesn't have to be Disney golden era material, look at "South Park." The only time I've seen a living person that remotely resembles any character in anime is a junky with half dollar sized eyes looking for their next fix. On the same topic, how is that junky supposed to suck dick for their next fix with such a tiny mouth. I figure they're more likely to get shived in the face than get a hit.

7. Big mouths little eyes. You might be wondering, "how can you say they have big eyes and little mouths and turn around and say they have big mouths and little eyes?" First off, shove it up your ass, this is my article.

Secondly, have you ever noticed that during the terrible joke at the end of Pokemon how everybody laughs at its stupidity? I'm assuming it's the same forced uncomfortable laugh when a hot chick at a party tells an awkward joke and you don't want her to feel dumber than she really is. Now notice how the character's eyes seem to disappear and you're attacked by their teeth? Teeth so large they couldn't logically fit them in the tiny maw they had a second earlier. When they're angry their eyes stay big and their mouths get huge but that goes without saying.

6. Comedy that's not funny. This is tied to number 9. I can give them some credit for the shitty joke at the end. I watched "Duck Tales" and "Darkwing Duck" growing up and I loved it. They had end jokes that made even my 7 year old self scratch his forehead in bewilderment as to what was supposed to be funny. The difference is their duck bills didn't drastically change shape implying a serious and instantaneous jaw injury and ocular cave in. End joke aside, when the characters laugh and you figure you're supposed to laugh with them, I instead picture someone putting on a straight face, shaking their head no, and then scribbling in a legal pad. Now that makes me laugh.

5. Anime culture. This is not Japanese culture but anime culture. I'm a nerd and I have some questionable unhealthy obsessions. I'm capable of seeing the problems with intelligently debating who the most powerful, not best mind you, super hero is. It's Superman by the way, but I dare you to tell an anime nerd that anime is in fact, shit. You'd be lucky to get out of there without a wound inflicted by the replica sword sitting on the mantle. They just don't see any faults with their obsessions and will proudly wear a "Dragonball Z" t-shirt and strut around like they're the Fonz.

4. Hentai porn. I don't know where to begin with this. Porn is great. Cartoons are great. Porn in cartoons is disturbing. This is not peanut butter and chocolate, a situation where two individually fantastic entities come together to make something even better. If you actually whack off to anime porn, do the world a favor and get sectioned. Also, don't be surprised when you start molesting children or feel a strange impulse to sniff a 6 year old's bicycle seat.

3. Stupid samey convoluted stories. So a person with huge spiky orange hair is a master of an ancient martial art and has to get a diamond to a mountain in a land far far away by walking and shooting fire out of their wrists. Along the way they encounter some sort demon that wants to bring about the end of the world by stealing the diamond so they can place it on their mountain which is not so far away. You find out the spiky haired fop had some parent issues and has friends with similar abilities but the demon, through reincarnation, is actually the main character's father but blah blah blah. I just made all of that up but does it sound familiar?

2. Cheap animation. The character jumps in the air and delivers a kick or fireball or something stupid but all you get to see is the character grunting with an I'm-taking-a-shit look on their face, flashing lights, and lines moving behind them. A final light flash states the attack worked. The enemy is now horizontal with their huge mouth open and tiny eyes closed, things are clearly moving in slow motion because the lights and lines are slower. After 10 shit sniffing seconds of the characters standing still in various positions in front of an abstract flashing background, one attack has been delivered and the fight will go on for another 5 minutes.

1. Dubbing. I hate watching dubbed movies. I can read subtitles all day but I don't like watching the character's mouth move when there isn't dialog. It seems more like a ventriloquist act than action. They could say anything and fit it into the animation in one way or another. What is entertaining is muting the anime and then playing music or audio from another television show. Try watching "Dragonball Z" while listening to "The Golden Girls" and you'll get to watch Blanche beat the stupid out of Sophia.

I hate, HATE, romantic comedies. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. Don't get me wrong I like movies with a romantic theme like The Last of the Mohichans. What I don't like is watching the same movie more than once if it wasn't worth a watch the first time, though the title has changed and it has a different cast. Here's 11 things I hate about romantic comedies.

11. The formula. This is NOT formula 51. The romantic comedy formula is more likened to Crystal Clear Pepsi. It takes materials that are fairly well liked and received, dramas and comedies, and strips substance from them.

Every one you see goes, verbatim: guy/girl meets girl/guy, courtship containing some uneducated jokes ensues, a problem occurs that falsely and unsuccessfully leads the viewer to believe the guy/girl won't be able to be with the girl/guy, a mockery to surprise occurs that allows them to be together, and they live happily ever after. In a rare turn of events, they actually can't be together, but everybody is still magically okay with this. The real problem lies with you seeing it all coming like the climax of a porno, pun intended.

10. Julia Roberts. I can't watch well written and directed movies like Conspiracy Theory because her collagen injected lips take up the whole screen and wipe shit all over the spectacular performance Mel Gibson is delivering. Why do I hate Julia Roberts you ask?

She plays the same part in every movie. It's not the likable part that so many other actors and actresses play. It's the want-to-be-tough-but-always-comes-across-as-ridiculously-needy-and-vulnerable part. Also her forced laugh is comparable to the shrill of a banshee and spreads her lips like an abscessed rectum.

9. Hugh Grant. I can't think of a movie this man has been in that I find humorous or engaging in the slightest. He's British, which I guess is a point in his favor. There are tons of kick ass British actors. It's just a shame he feminizes the bad assery of men like Christian "Mother Loving" Bale, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McClellan. The latter is admittedly gay but he's nowhere near as gay as Hugh. I figure I've popped one too many pills when I see a babbling douche nail Elizabeth Hurley for 12 years.

8. They emphasize romance over comedy. There are a few exceptions to this. Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, and the Farrelly Brothers put romance in the backdrop of their comedies. You can't have an hour of pure raunchy comedy without a lesson learned, I'm pretty sure it's movie canon.

7. R Rated Disasters. Granted some of the R rated romantic comedies are actually funny (see number 8) but rest assured there is going to be a sequence where the male lead has graphic sex with a beastly woman or the female lead with a man who'd have to wax his back to be considered hairy. This particular sequence doesn't have to involve the aforementioned unattractive one night stand but it always takes cheap shots at people who are less than attractive for comedy sake. This is like going to a funeral and laughing every time somebody cries.

6. Feminizing the male lead. Movies like P.S. I Love You make me question the blatant heterosexuallity of men like Gerard Butler and Matthew McConaughey. Butler played King Leonidas in 300 and Hollywood turned around and released P.S. I Love You the following year. I know there was an ad wizard sitting in a meeting who chimed in with "We have to release 300 first, otherwise no real man will go and watch it after P.S. I Love You." I can sum up McConaughey's performance with two words "Kate Hudson." Don't see a movie that stars the both of them.

5. They're degrading to men physically. I can't quote the exact study but I remember hearing that women are likely to laugh at the sight of small shrivelled penises, "love muscles" to the rest of us. I can't cite the origin of this one either, but isn't it said that "it's not the size of the boat but the motion in the ocean?" This concept seems counter intuitve to me but falls in line with my current understanding of the female psyche. Watch a romantic comedy and there's going to be a joke about a guy having a small "staff of penetration."

4. Degrading to women mentally. This leads to a degradation of women physically when they date a good looking guy who they expect to treat them like queens, but end up beating the hell out of them for not doing the dishes by the time he gets home. All the while she's trying to convince herself that it was her fault for not doing the dishes and he only did it because he really loves her and will change someday after he stops sleeping with her best friend and regains his lost glory of being the captain of the football team. Resorting to bringing home flowers every night after work and crossing the hottest desert without water to buy her a box of tampons. Damn that was a tirade, but you get the point, right? Wait, I don't think there was one.

3. There's no room for character development. The heartthrob at the beginning is the heartthrob at the end. The jaded man-hater best friend at the beginning is still the jaded man-hater at the end. The archetype that might change is the womanizer/slut, because that's bad and they have to learn a lesson for this movie to be considered wholesome.

2. Unrealistic pieces of garbage. I'm not an everything-has-to-be-completely-realistic-or-I-don't-want-to-see-it kind of person. I like fantasy and science fiction because I know before I walk into the theater that my condescending disbelief has to be checked at the door. I figure that's the case with most movies I watch. My complaint with the lack of realism in romantic comedies is it doesn't reference the football team's worth of dick stuffed into the female lead before meeting the man of her dreams and being completely faithful. It also doesn't show the male lead picking up the perscription of antibiotics for the searing case of chlamydia he caught from a barfly a few weeks prior to meeting little miss sunshine. The opposite is also true.

Take Grease for instance. How and why the hell did Sandy turn into a leather clad cigarette smoking trollop just to please Danny? Doesn't that smell a lot like a divorce off camera a year after the car went airborne and flew away from the carnival?

1. Restraining orders. The actions taken by men to win the affection of women in these movies and subsequent lack of rejection is comparable to a serial killer in the making. I can just picture Jeffrey Dahmer breaking into a woman's house while she's at work, to spell her name in rose petals only to find it scared the hell out of her. Now he has to serve time in jail for breaking and entering and stay 300 yards away from her at all times. No wonder he turned gay and decided to eat people. That's maybe a little drastic and almost completely unrelated.

The meaning of the word "no" is completely lost in almost every romance movie. When a woman breaks up with a man, or vice versa, the relationship is over. It doesn't mean you destroy her/his wedding day with even the slightest expectation of winning her/his, or their family's, affections back. Also how many times have you seen a woman say no to sex in a romance movie then end up saying yes after being physically forced. At least Thelma and Louise got this one right.

Let me start by warning you that this post is going to be absolutely swimming in SPOILERS, so don't say I didn't warn you! I would also like to get it out into the open that I thought this was an exceptional film. That said, I felt it that the credits should have ran about 15 minutes before the actual ending.

The film's director Christopher Nolan nailed the feel of what a Batman film should be when he took a turn toward the dark roots of the original comics. That is why I was so shocked at what I saw at the end of the film, and not in a good way either.

So lets set the scene again: The Joker has been captured, Harvey Dent is supposedly dead...(we'll see how long that lasts,) and now Commissioner Gordon and Batman are gonna set around and chit chat about symbolism, like a couple of old bats at a swap meet...

Really? I kept waiting for the scene to freeze and have Zack Morris walk out from the side of the screen, providing some useless commentary on what we had learned today. Then, in true homage to crappy NBC sitcoms, a "The More You Know," shooting star would fly across the screen.

If you don't know what I am babbling, about see the below clip that hilarious send-up, courtesy of NBC's The Office:



Nolan had worked so hard to make Batman a character that was deep and mysterious. This ending exchange made the director look like a pretentious bastard. Why you say? Because he has assumed that as uncultured Americans, we are too stupid to notice the symbolism in the movie. To further exacerbate this, they decide to break it down like we are a Film Appreciation 101 class filled with kids who spent their infancy sucking on lead paint chips! In fact, just thinking about it again starts to makes me upset.

Sure, it was a cleaver new way to explain the origin of Two-Face, some would even say it was great. The emotional toll weighing on Harvey Dent would have driven any man bat-shit bananas. But the moment a director allows it to be spelled it out to the audience through dialog, they have pissed away all credibility. The whole ending sequence came off as more of a way for the crew to pat themselves on the back at how smart they were. It would have been better to remain unsaid, and let the audience come to to their own conclusions.

Let me say once and for all, Hollywood, we are not a bunch of dumb drones who need to be spoon fed a plot line. For the love of Christ, give us a little more credit than that! Any momentum that the film had, was killed at that exact moment. To me, this proved to be a sizable blemish on what was an otherwise great experience. So if you haven't seen The Dark Knight, go see the it. If you have already seen it, go see it again. Just do yourself a favor and leave once the Joker is captured, your bladder will be thankful too.

Below is the theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight:

Background

Every so often I get the urge to watch a movie that I first watched when girls had cooties... the make believe kind. Most are from an era before teenage malcontents decided to take a gun to school to earn self respect through gunfire. These are typically R rated, viewed for the first time on televisions in startling 480i. Televisions that were generations behind the V-chip or the fascist approach parents take nowadays toward the viewing habits of their children. These gems unknowingly traumatized me when I was a child and made me the semi-schizophrenic adult I am today. Such is the case with Aliens.

For some reason I got a real itch for this movie after not seeing it for more than a decade and viewing it for the first time when I was 7. Considering Aliens: Colonial Marines is just around the corner I think that is enough to merit a review of the derivative material.

I'm not sure how socially acceptable it is for me to say, but I think Sigourney Weaver is a handsome woman. If I got a piece of that action, I would be perfectly comfortable letting her be the man. I'm also a fan of James Cameron, and recently reading the story of how he pitched Aliens made me like him all the more.

Do you want to hear about it? Of course you do, Twentieth Century Fox wasn't in the mood to make Alien 2 after the lukewarm outing of Ridley Scott's Alien, but James Cameron had an idea and wouldn't take "no" for an answer. He went to the pitch meeting with no materials. He walked up the the chalk board in the conference room and wrote "Alien" and turned around. He turned back toward the chalkboard and wrote "Aliens" and turned back toward his audience. Finally he turned back to the chalkboard and put a line through the 's' making "Alien$." He was given a $18 million budget and the rest is history.

Plot

The main plot is an extension from Alien. In Alien, a commercial towing crew goes to the planet LV-426 tracking an unidentifiable signal. During the search, one of the crew gets a nasty spider with acid for blood latched onto his face. Shortly after he's taken back on board it falls off. An alien with a mouth for a tongue and a phallic shaped skull leaps out of his chest and scampers away. It grows and then kills the the crew. In a nerve wrenching climax Sigourney Weaver, aka Ellen Ripley, tries to blow it up on the mother ship but fails and has to kick it out the window of her escape pod like an unwanted child. She then goes into hibernation.

She gets awoken roughly 57 years after Alien. The planet is now inhabited by terraformers and suddenly and unexpectedly all contact is lost. If you've played any modern first person shooter you know the general premise of this movie. Hard assed trash talking space marines go to another planet to kill dangerous aliens with their penises, er, I mean huge futuristic machine guns. You find out a little more about the alien society. It's not limited to killing people, they also kidnap people to be used as incubators for more aliens and they have a hierarchy similar to an insects, complete with a queen and worker aliens.

The sole survivor of the alien infestation is a little girl named Newt. You get to see a young Lance Henricksen and Bill Paxton. A Bill Paxton before he became "that guy" in so many other movies.

Good

There's blood, cursing, gun fire, and acts of heroism. The special effects are phenomenal, even by today's standards. There are some genuinely frightening moments and, hey, it's science fiction. I love science fiction. This movie solidified James Cameron as a household name aside from his work on the Terminator franchise. This also inspired several space horror movie clones and countless video games using the same hard assed space marines.

Bad

Of course I liked the movie. Otherwise I wouldn't have wasted my time writing such a lengthy review. I can pick a few nits and they are summed up like this: Alien Versus Predator and Alien Versus Predator: Requiem.

Those movies are a couple of not so subtle nor spectacular editions to the horror porn genre. I understand the genre's place in cinema, everybody deserves to have their fetishes on display, but at least the writers could regurgitate some semblance of a story. Here's how they both go: people get infected with aliens, predators kill aliens, the end. There, I summed up both movies in one sentence. Save yourself the money to buy/rent the DVD and certainly don't waste your time if they show up on a movie channel. Unless they play to your fetish, then happy whacking.

Final Thoughts

Not many 80's movies have aged well. This movie has aged nicely. It's the Cindy Crawford of 80's. Still kind of old but still well worth it. It also has a "sign of the times" in that every character smokes. The heroes are chain smokers and the not so heroes are not so much smokers. You can tell this is from the era before the only villains smoke rule.

PriestBeast went over the general synopsis of the film in his earlier post, so I will save my inane banter about the plot. I will just cut into the meaty stuff...

Wall-E has proved that Pixar is truly the master of digital film making. Never before has an animated feature been able to contain so much life, especially from seemingly inanimate objects. The movie hearkens back to the days of silent films with Charlie Chaplin. Hardly a word is spoken for the first half of the film, yet there is an amazing story that draws the in audience as it develops. I found the story progression to be more compelling without the dialog. The silence entices you to watch, noticing the details, in order to fully grasp what is going on.

Delving further into the silent film theme is the relationship between Wall-E and his "pet" cricket. I would go as far as to say that Pixar has never created two characters that have had a tighter bond. Every frame shows a deliberate attention to the development of this friendship. There is a genuinely emotional link expressed through nuanced body language, that can be seen in eyes of both characters. It is a very mature way of telling a story, that very few Hollywood studios would be able to pull of.

Speaking of maturing, Pixar decides to venture away from "summer popcorn flick" territory with the film's underlying themes of commercialism. Fortunately, the filmmakers do not allow the theme to get in the way of telling an interesting and fun story. While not hitting you over the head with the message, they subtly show what could be a very real future for our species.

The idea of having an agenda present is an interesting turn, from a studio that has traditionally made films that were fairly neutered. Hopefully Pixar will continue branch out and mature, maybe even touching on topics that would otherwise be viewed as taboo in animation. Who knows, maybe someday Touchstone will release the first rated "R" Pixar flick? If Wall-E is any indication, it could be sooner than we think!

Below is the theatrical trailer for Wall-E:

Background

Unless you've been living under a rock since 20-diggity-5, I say diggity because I'm led to believe Iran stole our word "zero," you may have heard of a small art house film called The Dark Knight. This is a sequel to the wildly popular Christopher Nolan reboot of the Batman franchise Batman Begins.

It must be stated that this is a highly biased review. I have an unhealthy man-crush on Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan has done nothing short of awe me since I saw Memento in 20-diggity-1, back when I was convinced Saddam Hussein was trying to steal the word "zero" with WMDs. Thank the Almighty that Nolan's vision of Batman doesn't even resemble the Joel Schumacher homoerotic theatrical abortions of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. The latter not only burned the franchise to the ground, but sprinkled it with salt in hopes no other movie could be made.

Plot

At the end of Batman Begins Wayne Manor was burned to the ground and a "better class of criminal" was on the loose. The Scarecrow as well as many other Arkham inhabitants were free and the Batman was synonymous with bad ass. This leads us to the opening of The Dark Knight.

Bruce Wayne has moved from a multimillion dollar mansion to a multimillion dollar penthouse and the Batcave has been substituted with a different hole in the ground, albeit one that's better lit and has fewer actual bats. There are Batman impersonators wreaking havoc in the name of justice. The Joker, which you learn from the elaborate and well executed heist scene in the first six minutes, is our main antagonist with support from Sal Maroni and a breadth of the best the Gotham underworld has to offer. Lieutenant Gordan has his own unit in the Gotham police department, Rachel Dawes still fills her role as love interest/conflict to Bruce Wayne, and a new District Attorney, former IA detective Harvey Dent, is on the scene promising a brighter tomorrow.

The kingpins of Gotham are getting sick of Batman ruining all their fun and the Joker stealing their money so they decide to pool it all together and send it to China. Things don't work out, as any viewer would expect, and the mob is forced to turn to the Joker for aid. The Joker requests the modest sum of half all of their money to kill the Batman. This is not even the halfway point of the movie. If I say anything else it'll spoil the movie and if you really want to know the goods, you can send me a message. Suffice it to say Aaron Eckhart has plenty of character development and no part of the story is out of place, each scene leads to the next. A few deaths and dark jokes later the movie ends on an incredibly uplifting and somber note.

The major themes of the movie are human nature, escalation, what it really means to serve justice, and being the hero. Not necessarily the hero Gotham wants, but definitely the hero Gotham deserves. Loose ends are addressed in a matter of fact manner, with a few nagging questions I'm sure will be answered in the unrated 3 hour edition released on DVD this coming Christmas. An example of this is how does Bruce Wayne get away with squandering millions of Wayne Enterprise's money on his toys without leaving a paper trail? Well... he doesn't.

Good

In Brokeback Mountain fashion, people are tossing each other off over Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. I'm certainly not the first to say it and will not be the last, but he does a masterful job. A true professional taken from society at the peak of his career. I guess now I'll have to ask for a seat in the massive circle jerk of praise coming from this movie, and no matter how many showers I have to take afterward, it was well worth it.

Not only does Heath Ledger do a fantastic job, but the entire cast wowed me. Eric Roberts played the part of Sal Maroni. It certainly plays to his type casting but you really need someone who knows how to play the part. Casting Michael Jai White as Gambol, William Fitchner as the Bank Manager, and Anthony Michael Hall as Mike Engel, each well known actors, in a combined screen time total of less than 15 minutes is a stroke of genius. They add depth to otherwise ancillary characters and make the whole experience that more believable. There's even a cameo by Tommy "Tiny" Lister towards the end of the movie. Needless to say type casting for him but a very pivotal role.

I watched this in IMAX. The first six minutes and roughly 20 more throughout were all filmed in IMAX film stock. There are stomach churning scenes that add real cinematic value to the action. On top of the slight vertigo, the IMAX I went to served beer. That's right. You could get tanked while watching a two and a half hour movie. Unfortunately the crowd combined with my misanthropic nature prevented me from leaving my seat, but it was the thought that counts.

The cast, the script, and the atmosphere were all positively sublime and merits a view, or two, from even the most jaded movie goer.

Bad

There is very little to complain about. Not to spoil too much, but there's a scene where the Joker throws Rachel out a window and Batman follows her. Don't worry she is saved, but what kind of gets me, is they don't show what the Joker does afterwards. We assume everybody else at the penthouse party is unharmed but that's just the thing, we have to assume it though we're given no logical cue as to what transpired after Batman jumps out the window.

It's little things like that that bother me. The cinematography is fantastic as well as the realistic approach in art direction, but I can't say for sure if emphasing IMAX film stock hurts the experience or makes any difference.

For some, certainly not me, the savagely dark tone is a turn off. I preferred this adult approach, which I remind you is based on adult source material, to something more lighthearted. It alienates the parents who want to take their children to a movie based on a comic book. If you want a comic book movie with a lighter tone, do us both a favor and watch Iron Man. It's a comic book based movie that has a sense of humor but not the same sense of humor wrought from watching a clown make a pencil disappear. Watch the movie and the term "disappearing pencil" takes on a whole new meaning.

Final Thoughts

A fantastic movie that deserves all the praise it has gotten. It doesn't feel like two and a half hours and it is not for children or the faint of heart. The actors and acting are A-list and if I see a better movie until Batman 3, I'll crap my pants where I sit. They'll have to clear the theater. I will be glad when it breaks the $600 million box office hold Titanic has had since 1997.

Rated: G

Will Smith.  An actor with films that make him seem superhuman.  I, Robot.  MIB. I Am Legend.   This time, in Hancock, he is a superhuman character.