Now Playing: Idiocracy

This was the second comedy I saw this weekend and it couldn't be more different than Beerfest if it tried. Fox dropped this on seven cities across North America with zero publicity so we can expect it on DVD roughly three Tuesdays from now. Writer-Director Mike Judge was similarly shafted when Office Space came out to no fanfare in February, so one can see how he might be a little angry at history repeating itself. I can't say it's a travesty comparable to someone shelving Gone With The Wind, but the film made me laugh more times than not and was surprisingly intelligent considering its "stupid" subject matter.

Luke Wilson plays an average guy frozen in a military experiment along with a prostitute played by Mya Rudolph. They wake up 500 years later to find the world has gone stupid which is hilariously explained early in the film as rednecks breeding faster than educated people. I died laughing watching the "family tree" graphic as it swelled exponentially on one side.

The laughs build from there and the primary reason behind the jokes being as funny as they are is courtesy of the narrator. He sounds exactly like the voice of those old NFL Films highlight movies we all grew up with as kids, and it frankly wouldn't surprise me if that's who Judge used. It makes sense in context to have that exact voice narrate and his deadpan delivery of certain lines, particularly how the locals view Wilson's manner of speech, laid me right out in hysterical laughter.

There are a few missteps though, and a big one is Dax Shephard as Wilson's attorney. People can claim he's funny until they are blue in the face, but to me he comes off as a less shrill version of Will Ferrell. In short, he sucks. Quite a lot in fact. But as a counter-point to his lameness, Judge created President Camacho who is one of the greatest supporting characters I've seen in a long time. A former wrestler turned President of the America, Camacho is hysterically over the top and it cracked me up how he could turn from friendly to hostile and back to friendly all in the span of about four seconds.

Since it'll be on DVD soon enough, check it out the second it does. There are so many countless background sight gags that multiple viewings aren't so much required as demanded. It's relatively easy to get past the jokes that don't work, because somewhere in the background are three that do. It's a shame Fox didn't appreciate it more, but frankly I'm not surprised. If you're in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles or Toronto then hunt this film down and see it in the theater. For everyone else, it'll be on disc soon enough.

Now Playing: Beerfest

Comedy is probably the oddest element known to humankind. What makes one person laugh until tears stream forth can make another person hurl in the theater aisle. It's all a matter of personal tastes and a little perspective, and there are not two more disparate comedies than the ones I saw this Labor Day weekend. So let's start off with Beerfest, the latest and arguably greatest from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. This is the group who came up with perennial college dorm room favorite Super Troopers and the less well received, but infinitely superior, slasher comedy Club Dredd.

Beerfest opens at the funeral of the head of the Von Wolfhausens. Two of the Broken Lizard guys normally relegated to background status are front and center as the two grandsons who must take their grandfather's ashes to Germany and spread them at the famliy resting place. Once they arrive in Deutschland, they run into Oktoberfest in full swing and the riot which ensues is one long sustained belly laugh. The scene just builds and builds and I was on the floor laughing. They were sent to meet a certain man and when he picks them up he takes them to an underground beer drinking ceremony called Beerfest and all hell breaks loose. It turns out their grandfather stole a beer recipe, and fled to America as an exhile. The guys are beaten down and shipped back to the States in humilation.

Once back on American soil they decide to form a squad to return as conquerors to the next year's Beerfest. That's also all you need to know about the movie other than Broken Lizard goes out of its way to pull laughter from you. A lot of it is pretty dang gross, bordering on nasty, but I laughed more times than not and it's hard to argue with that. By contrast, My Fair Lady didn't seem to find it half as funny as I did. But I freely admit to being a sucker for Americans shamelessly mocking bad German accents and everytime the German team started speaking I started laughing.

Speaking of which, the Germans are led by none other than Jurgen Prochnow who proves to be as fearless at comedy as he is at drama. There's one long running gag referencing his most famous film, but the thing that got me was another joke aimed at that same film which Prochnow sort of tosses off as an aside. I just howled when he said it.

Kevin Heffernan, though, has consistently proven himself the MVP of the troupe as the go-to guy who can get it done. Here he plays Landfill, a compulsive eater and all around screw-up who sees this tournament as his shot at redemption. The places he takes the character are priceless and I was laughing pretty much every time he was on screen. Cloris Leachman though was hit-or-miss as Great Gam Gam, the great-grandmother who lords over the main family. She's in full on Young Frankenstein over-the-top mode and while some of what she says is funny, a lot more just isn't.

But overall the hit-to-miss quotient immensely favors the hits so if you're looking for pure, unadulterated, albeit very strange, comedy then Beerfest is a pretty solid flick.

GUN a AAA Title? Hahahahahaha!

I picked up GUN this weekend which, as noted below, hosed my plan of dropping below 10 games in my console backlog. The good news is that the game looks pretty short even factoring in all the side quests. I'm north of 60 percent finished already and I've played it for two days. What impresses me most is the voice cast which is uniformly stellar. I don't know how I managed to completely miss a game starring Thomas Jane with a father played by Kris Kristofferson and challenged by villains played by Lance Henrickson and Brad Dourif. That's the kind of voice work that demands attention especially when all of them get into their roles. Henrickson in particular rips stuff up as the most ruthless SOB the War Between the States ever produced.

What stuns me though is how this game was marketed last year as a AAA title by Activision. I have to laugh heartily at this because I picked it up for $20 in accrued store credit at EB and that was the right price point for it. There's no way in Hades I'd pay the full $50 (or $60 for the 360 version) that was originally charged. It's fun, but not fun enough to warrant multiple play throughs. Once I'm finished this thing goes up on the trade block.

One thing that stuck in my head which I wasn't able to figure out were the animations. In short, they're junk. You stand in front of a badly done model and watch them gesticulate wildly even after they stop talking. I knew I'd seen those somewhere else but couldn't place it. I knew they looked ugly as hell in that other place too, and it stumped me that anyone would use them in the first place let alone twice. Lightning struck this morning.

The same animations were used in the half-ass Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow. I ought to go back into my review and knock 10 points off it for reusing such poor animations. I thought the game was sloppy to begin with but now I consider it even more of a disaster than I originally did.

In so far as Gun is concerned, it's not bad but it's far from great. It's very much a GTAIII-lite set in the Old West which is a setting sadly ignored by almost everyone. With every company in the world pushing a WWII shooter of some sort almost no one (to my knowledge) is working on a Wild West shooter. Outlaws is considered one of the finest games in the entire FPS genre for good reason.

It got it right.

Playing through that back in college was akin to starring in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and it was glorious to experience. Everyone involved not only knew what the cliches were, but reveled in them with an infectious energy.

Gun is missing that same energy but as far as time wasters go it's not a bad one. But it's a B-title at best that doesn't come close to the AAA status Activision said it was.

And Still 10 To Go

Beat the latest game I've been working on tonight but I picked up Gun yesterday while My Fair Lady and I were at the mall.

Nuts.

And Then There Were 10...

The title refers to the number of uncompleted console-oriented games I have sitting on my shelf. For any gamer, having the console backlog down to just 10 is nothing short of amazing. I'm not trying to blow my own horn here, just saying that a combination of perserverance and budgetary limitations can result in good things. When I lived in my old condo, I bought some shelves from Target for my DVD library. The bottom shelf was for my game collection (the difference between "collection" and "library" will be discussed at a later date) and that is where it's remained despite both continuing to grow.

My DVD library in particular has overwhelmed my shelves so I'm planting the new arrivals and the "Now Playing" titles in front of the others. This hardly masks the problem that I have a very real addiction to the format. If anything, it reinforces it with every new addition. My game collection though I figured out how to separate what I've played from what I need to burn through.

I divide the games by console then alphabetize accordingly. On the left are the PS2 games and on the right are the Xbox games. In front of that one row are two stacks of games, both for their respective consoles. The two stacks are my "on deck" stacks and those are the ones I have not finished. There are a few in the "completed" row that I haven't finished either, but in the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds I'd rather not waste another second on them. This week I've already yanked and traded in several titles I knew I'd never spend another second on, and Chaos Bleeds needs to go away as well. But the Buffy fan in me insists on hanging onto it despite it being little more than awful fan-fiction in digital form.

Focusing on the front stacks gives me 10 titles to power through, and that could be down to nine as soon as tomorrow evening. My Fair Lady didn't get home until 10:30 p.m. last night due to insanity at work being reinforced by people who don't know how to communicate worth a flip.

Ironic considering these are attorneys.

What that has meant for me this week is lots of alone time at Casa de Skim which lets me focus on burning off these remaining titles. This won't be completed by next week though because two of them are Jade Empire and Dark Cloud 2, neither of which are considered short RPGs. Fortunately, none of the Final Fantasy series is in there because that by itself would be a 50+ hour timesink and that I just can't do anymore. I tried it with Dragon Quest VIII and while the game was certainly charming for a while, it just dragged on to the point where I would have to power level all four party members by another five levels at least.

All for the sake of beating a single boss not quite halfway through the game. This is when I realized I can't devote 100+ continuous hours of my life to gaming anymore, which is why the goal of completing my backlog is so dear to my heart. If I can absolutely finish off the fabled backlog completely then I might actually be able to enjoy gaming again. As it stands, I've been in a funk lately because Titan Quest is the only good game I've played in months and even that was nothing more than Diablo III in Ancient Greece/Egypt/Babylon.

Oh, and September I'm essentially taking a break from gaming and the internet for the most part. I've been playing around with one particular screenplay for a while now and I'm actually ready to sit down and grind it out. The trouble is I keep distracting myself so for all of next month I'm removing said distractions. No games, no extraneous activities. Only movies and writing about them are allowed as distractions. I'll still be around on the web, and hopefully blogging away in the meantime, but for the most part I'm going to be focused on the 120 pages I want completed by the end of the month.

Finally, I have a goal worth completing. After that, October is Casa Repair Month with every weekend devoted to replacing tile and carpet and finishing off the backyard so My Fair Lady and I can sell the place in the spring. This leads up to the biggest gaming months of the year in November and December when literally everything that can be pushed out the door will hit store shelves. At which point the backlog will swell up again.

It's a vicious cycle, but someone's gotta do it.

CNN: Compassionate Guys Apply Within

Ahh, the joys of technical gaffes. News Busters.com put up this story about CNN anchor Kyra Phillips pulling a Naked Gun during President Bush's remarks in New Orleans. Apparently she went to the bathroom with her mic on and the following is some of what was said:

Phillips: "Yeah, I'm very lucky in that regard with my husband. My husband is handsome and he is genuinely a loving, you know, no ego--you know what I'm saying. Just a really passionate, compassionate great, great human being. And they exist. They do exist. They're hard to find. Yup. But they are out there."

Bravo, Kyra, bravo. Gems like this is what keep all of us tuned in to the news these days. Funny stuff.

I'm Turning Whiter

Found another white hair on my head just now. I've found them in ever increasing numbers lately so joy upon joys. The upside is that I still have my hair and the same hairline as I had in college. I think my hair skipped right past the grey stage and went straight to white. Not sure what that's about but by the time I'm 40 the last of the brown should be gone from my head.

Of course I'm prognosticating a decade down the road on an internet blog so let me get you a salt shaker with that. Just call me Nostradumbass.

Oblivion Overhauled

This is a game-related post so if you have no interest in gaming whatsoever, I have plenty of other non-gaming stories to choose from so enjoy.

I haven't commented on Oblivion before now in any depth because Bethesda to me is what EA is to a lot of folks. They're a big dog that makes games with a lot of promise but wraps them in a blanket of stupid that's so thick it makes enjoyment difficult. I found a lot to love about Morrowind but you were either not powerful enough or supremely powerful with literally nothing in between, the loot was non-existent, and the storyline was convoluted enough that it screamed "bad anime!"

Where it excelled was in the editor, which allowed the mod community to add in all the missing fun, and Oblivion is no different.

The world is vast and so densely detailed it blows your mind. The screenshots sure as hell did it no justice though because the original game fresh out of the box looked nothing like what we had all seen during the previous months. That's because the PC version was ported straight from the Xbox 360 version and anyone who tells you different, Bethesda included, is outright lying. Everything from the menu screens to the background textures to the way the camera zooms up someone's nose when you talk to them screams console. After installing and playing for a grand total of 15 minutes I couldn't take it anymore.

So I spent the next four hours grabbing texture mods and making graphical adjustments to the game. Now it looks dazzling and runs just fine on my machine. I immediately turned off the light bloom and shadow effects because not only do those automatically kill system performance but I think they detract from the immersion. If you want to see how light bloom can be righteously abused check out Fable. I'm good going without.

After I fixed the graphics, the menus (DarkUI is an absolute must), and the zooming in, I actually started playing the game. This is when I realized just how bloody small and inconsequential you feel at the start of the game. The world is absolutely huge, you will stumble onto at least five sub-quests just walking from Point A to Point B, and all of it feels unique. But the problems with the gameplay don't appear until you level up a few times. By then you're feeling pretty confident that you can take out some rogue bandits and certainly those low-level goblins in that cave you passed by. Not so fast there, hombre.

Apparently everything in the game world levels alongside you. The result is you start out swimming against the current and the situation never improves. That full suit of glass armor you earned? Yeah, the bandits in that cave over there are all equipped with it now to match your skillset. WTF? This is an absolute game killer to me, regardless of any good it may accomplish in other areas. Combine that with Bethesda's staunch refusal to put quality loot in any chest ANY WHERE and us loot whores are out of luck. By comparison, I picked up Titan Quest a few weeks later and haven't put it down since. Not only do I feel like I'm accomplishing things by improving in skills, but I have more loot than I can shake a staff at.

This is all a long way of saying that Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul 1.3 is finally out and I can't wait to dive into it. You can check it out right here and the release notes can be found at this link. There are so many additions and changes in this mod it borders on a total conversion, and I'm fine with that. Oblivion had a lot wrong with it from the start and again it's taken the mod community to fix everything Bethesda should have done right the first time. OOO 1.3 adds thousands of new items, tons of new quests, restricts levels, and ups the challenge significantly. People may point at it and say, "Why would you like this? If anything the mod makes the game a hell of a lot harder!"

Exactly. The point the mod makes is that it makes the game harder by balancing things as they should have been to begin with. I don't expect to be able to take on a minotaur right off the bat, but by level 45 I should be able to wipe the floor with him and anything else coming out of the Oblivion gates. With the default version of Oblivion, that level 15 minotaur I saw at the beginning would increase in strength and power over time so much so that when I'm level 45 he's still several levels higher than me. That's an example of the ridiculous line of thinking Bethesda had when they brainstormed the game. It's the GOTY only in so far as ambition is concerned. The world they created feels like a living, breathing one and you physically can't play for 10 minutes at a time. Fire it up and kiss three to four hours of your day good-bye, even if you curse Bethesda's name in the meantime.

But when you combine OOO 1.3 with a handful of other mods (like I said, DarkUI is a must for the menus before you even start it up once) and Oblivion could well be the terrific RPG everyone claims it was right out of the box. Either I have different standards, or everyone else is in thrall of Bethesda's achievement. Maybe it took getting beaten down by the raging suck that was Titanic for me to refuse to give anyone an automatic pass based on the size of the project attempted versus the end result. I can appreciate what Bethesda accomplished, but now I can enjoy what they should have finished with.

When Your 360 Explodes...

Check out this post at the AVS Forums and you'll see that some people have actually managed to decipher the Xbox 360 error lights. Whenever the consoles go belly up, the green light around the power button turns an angry red and blinks. Several enterprising, not to mention astute, members of AVS figured out how to reset the console and figure out what the blinking lights translate to. For example:

Turn on your "dead" xbox. Wait for the 3 red lights. Once you get them hold the "Synch button and the eject button down simultaniously. All four lights flash. (0) Press the eject button again and only one light (1) press again and all four light up (0) press again and two lights (2). Error code is 0102. compare this code to the table below to find out what is wrong with your X360. Is it overheating? Power Cord? Hardware?

The Code I got is 0102 which means the computer does not know the problem as it is not hardware or heating or anything like that. Could be dust, loose solder or static! I use a can of compressed air and my X360 IS BACK!!!!!! I do not know for how long but I played last night for several hours and had not one Hiccup. This after a whole week of the dreaded RINGS OF DEATH!!

I can't begin to describe how helpful this is, people. As more codes are unlocked, they'll continue updating the list. I'm not surprised that Microsoft never released this info, but I hope they do come out with an official list soon. If you have an Xbox 360 and are reading this blog, then chances are you're at least somewhat technically proficient. If we can repair our own machines without going through the hassle of sending it off to have dust blown out of it then bully for us.

Now Playing: March of the Penguins

This may as well have been titled National Geographic Presents Cuties On Ice. My Fair Lady and I watched it the other night and were thoroughly entranced by the march of the emperor penguins across miles of open, and frequently shifting, ice to their breeding ground where they will pair up with a mate to produce a single egg that may or may not live to see the end of the winter. The lives of these birds is incredibly harsh, but watching them waddle their way across the ice all for the sake of their annual mating ritual was oddly endearing.

Of course, Morgan Freeman's earthy narration maintains a steady course en route to the happy ending. Along the way, there is heartbreak, joy, death, life, and regurgitation. If you're a fan of snow then this is absolutely the film for you because never will you see weather this cold. Even after watching the behind the scenes documentaries, which aren't the usual useless EPK crap, we see just how blasted cold the Antarctic becomes in the dead of winter. Watching those birds cluster together for heat is incredible, as is seeing dozens of birds essentially stuck in a crevice courtesy of the shifting ice mass. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress, and it's to the film makers' credit that they never once try to interfere.

Some real fun comes from watching the penguins with cameras strapped to their backs underwater. It's literally mind blowing to see how they hunt for ice fish. You see them shoot down into the black abyss, only to rocket back up towards the ice and peg a small fish hiding in the ice above. How they do it remains a mystery, even more so after watching it in action. Overall, this is a wonderful documentary from National Geographic and highly entertaining to boot. Plus, those emperor penguins are just as cute as they can be.

Weather Issues

You never really miss rainfall until you're put in a situation where you go without it for roughly three months. Meanwhile, the sky is bright blue, sunny, and cloudless. Oh, and the temperature averages 103 degrees.

My Fair Lady, my parents and I went to Planet Hou-ston this weekend to visit my relatives and it rained there non-stop. It also looked like it had been raining for the last year because everywhere we looked the vegetation was a lush verdant green. Amidst endless complaints (from both of us) regarding our frizzed-out hair, we had a very fun time. My Fair Lady though failed to heed my (endless) warnings of how my family loves everything cold and to dress appropriately. The four hour drive down resulted in My Fair Lady wearing my dress coat because the vent in the front of the suburban was pointed right at her.

My former roommate and his wife love reminding me of how much I hate the cold, yet they've been unaware of the specific nature of my dislike for it. It's not that I outright hate cold weather by itself, it's that I don't like to be unprepared for it. In Texas we have hot weather followed by six weeks or so of cool to cold weather, then the barometer soars back up to hot again. I'm fine with that as it means there's only six weeks or so of the year when I'm uncomfortable. But the flip side to that is we don't stock up on cold weather clothes here since they are largely unnecessary. Were I to live in Quebec or Chicago then I would have the appropriate wardrobe and attitude since cold there is expected.

Where my hatred was born though was in my mother's household. If it's 105 outside, it's at least 68 in her house. If it was 73 outside, it was between 65 and 68 in the house. Every. Damn. Day. My aunt's house in Planet Hou-ston was exactly the same this weekend, and the suburban we rode in was frozen out too. Grow up in a household like that with a natural aversion to cold and see how you feel once you get out of there. My Fair Lady asked recently why we never covered up in blankets, to which I casually asked her to point out how many blankets she saw in the house. She thought about it for a second, then noticed there were none. I nodded and said, "Exactly my point."

Obviously that was a heck of a digression away from the much needed rain currently soaking DFW courtesy of a storm system that hit Sunday as we drove back to town. Along the way we hit a patch where the temperature was 107 out. By the time we again stood on our doorstep it said 77. Any more of this and we'll have to stock up on wood and hot chocolate. But at least the ground is getting soaked, and the entirety of Dallas is no longer a fire hazard. At least until the heat returns, which should be around Wednesday.

Now with 75% Less Flavor

I don't eat cereal as much as a I used to but I'm an ardant fan of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I have been for a long time, as a matter of fact. Since marrying My Fair Lady, she has tried to convince me that eating healthy at least some of the time is a good thing. Apparently she believes in me a "future investment" so it's only a matter of time before I'm traded on the market in Chicago. I can mentally picture investors getting squeamish when they hear I knocked back Jack in the Box for lunch yesterday.

"Sell! Sell! Sell!"

At any rate, we were in Tom Thumb a while ago and came across a box of the aforementioned cereal. The top of the box heralded how it held 75% less sugar and was therefore healthier. I warily eyed it but decided it couldn't hurt. Just for good measure we picked up a second box because they had a two-for-one sale going.

That should of registered as a warning.

I tried some the next morning and could barely swallow the first bite. My Fair Lady looked at me concerned.

"It's like eating fiber straight from the source," I said.

"You mean you don't like it?" she asked.

"Let me put it this way. I may make it through this bowl, I may not. But regardless of that, there will never be a second bowl poured in Casa de Skim so long as I draw breath."

We went to Lowe's last weekend to look at carpet samples because October is overhauling the house month. We're re-doing the tiles downstairs, and putting down new carpet upstairs in addition to painting everything. The intent is to sell the place next spring and buy a house somewhere. While looking at the carpet samples though I spied one in particular. I poked it, prodded it, and paid close attention to it. Then I licked it.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked an incredulous My Fair Lady.

"Taste testing," I said. "This one tastes better than that damn cereal, too."

"Very good sweetie, but I remain dubious on whether Lowe's grants discounts for licked merchandise."

Cheaters and Lawn Care

For those who haven't heard, Texas is in the middle of one of the worst droughts in its history. Actually, that's only partly true. Far West Texas (the El Paso area and such) have received more rain than they normally do and the result is massive flooding. Basically the state weather patterns are backasswards this summer. One thing that has remained constant in the DFW area is the color of everyone's lawns.

Yellow. Or a slight shade of brown.

If your lawn is not one of these colors and even has so much as a hint of green in it then you are definitely cheating on the water restrictions. I'm looking at the Park Cities in particular, but I don't believe they actually have restrictions. They have fountains, and I retain the right to mock them because that's where I was raised.

My Fair Lady and I were talking about what sort of lawns we'd like in any future homes we buy and I would love the lush green and verdant French-style gardens of Louisiana and plantation lands. I would not, however, want to pay the exorbitant costs associated with the required premium landscaping only to see it burned up in a month-long 100-degree heat wave. So we're content to pay over our small backyard with sand and paver stones and call it a day.

This is what happens when both of you have four black thumbs between you. See green grass. Kill green grass through no fault of your own. Pave over it and call it a parking lot.

PS3 as #1? Uh, Not So Much

Analysts have proven yet again that none of them were at E3 this year. 1Up has this story that discusses findings by The Yankee Group where they speculate that the PS3 will be numero uno this generation, with the Xbox 360 right behind it, and the Wii a distant third.

Pardon me while I snicker. Loudly. With great enthusiasm.

Anyone that was at the final E3 knows Sony had a disasterous showing. It was an absolute disgrace bordering on the level of Biblical regarding how epic a failure it was for them as a company and for the PS3 as a piece of hardware. This generation will set dividing lines among console gamers moreso than it will establish which brand will reign universally supreme.

Japan is Sony country pure and simple. I think the PS3 will absolutely kick butt in Japan, followed closely by the Wii. Microsoft may as well not even try to get into Japan anymore because no one there cares about the Xbox brand, period. My intuition regarding the shortages once the 360 was released was due in part to resources being diverted to the Japan launch because Microsoft actually believed it still had a chance there.

Uh, not really chief. But thank you for playing.

As I've said in the past, this next generation is going to see Microsoft take over the North American market and most of Europe, which will actually be shared with Nintendo's resurgence. Nintendo will absolutely be second at the very least in Japan and if they hit a sub-$200 price point on release, they could well be number one in the US as well as Europe. Every single person that has played with the Wii is sold on it. Absolutely everyone I know that has heard anything about it wants to play with it right this second. The 360 is a close second among them as to which console they want sharing shelf space with the Wii.

I hope to God that Nintendo doesn't take as long as it usually does between first-generation releases as it normally does, but even if that remains the case at least I'll be able to download N64 games on back and buy GameCube titles I missed. Every single Zelda game, Eternal Darkness, the Mario games, and the Metroid series are insta-buys for me. That's several games right there, and I haven't even touched the original Wii content.

Sony as the first place? Not even close. Take the projected Sony and Nintendo numbers and reverse them and you have how this generation will close out. Not the other way around.

Now Playing: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

What is it about Shane Black comedies that makes them "almost ran's" in my book? The first Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout both have moments where they truly work, but for the most part come off as grab-bag cliche-filled explosion-fests where the heroes are screwed up but somehow figure out how to beat the bad guys in the end. The only work of Black's I've ever loved was his contribution to Predator, the success of which I attribute more to it being shot in the jungle far removed from studio interference. The less said about Last Action Hero the better.

So imagine my surprise when I watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang this past weekend and spent almost the entire time laughing my head off. This is Shane Black Unfiltered and the result is a film utterly unhinged that gleefully mocks the entire Los Angeles experience. Even when the film turns deadly serious towards the end, it quickly counters with a one-two punch of inspired comedy that do not cheapen the shocks. Instead, the comedy further proves just how out of his league the main character, Harry Lockheart, really is.

Lockheart isn't played by Robert Downey, Jr. so much as lived by Downey. Lockheart is a motor-mouthed petty thief from New York who stumbles into an audtion following a bungled robbery. He's convincing (hilariously so) enough that the producer (a vile Larry Miller) immediately sends him to Hollywood for a screen test. Lockheart gets partnered with a gay private investigator named Gay Perry (an equally inspired Val Kilmer) since the role is for a detective story. Shortly after arriving they become embroiled in a real life murder mystery involving Lockheart's childhood dream girl, played by delicious newcomer Michelle Monaghan.

Both Lockheart and his dreamgirl grew up as fans of hardened detective novellas so that's where they pull ideas from as bodies continue piling up around them. Lockheart's narration is priceless because he frequently breaks the fourth wall, so to speak, by sometimes interrupting his own thoughts during flashbacks with tangents and even telling people to get out of the shot. Black must have had a field day writing the script because the industry spoofs are as spot-on as those in Entourage. Imagine Ari Gold with gun and you have a good idea of the type of guy Lockheart is. You can tell that Black could have gone either way with the ending and he even admits as much via Lockheart's voice over at the end. Overall, the movie is a hugely entertaining, violent, pulpy, and raucously funny noir comedy.

Now Playing: 24 Season 2

I haven't written about my slavish devotion to The Jack Bauer Power Hour because I frankly haven't experienced it. The fanaticism among 24 fans would normally turn me off to a show, but the first season had two things front and center that fascinated me. The first being Kiefer Sutherland and any chlid of the '80's wants certain actors to nail it every time they step up to the plate. I've been a fan of his father's since birth, and I've been a fan of his since cutting my teeth on Stand By Me and The Lost Boys, two films benefitted more by nostalgia than anything else. Kiefer Sutherland somehow always managed to wind up in films that were probably a few million budget dollars away from the Blockbuster direct-to-video bin, and that frustrated me as a fan. I wanted him to succeed, and badly. Then he found the role of Jack Bauer and Kiefer Sutherland will forever be enshrined as a god among men.

The second thing that intrigued me was the format of 24 episodes each representing one hour of a single day. The concept was sound, but since the amount of absurdities the show packs into each hour grows episode by episode you eventually have to look past the concept and just go with it.

Since fans of the show grew rapid around season four then became full-blown fanatics after season five, I figured I would go back and start catching up. I'd say roughly 80 percent of the show's surprises haven't been ruined for me yet, though I am aware of certain places the show had ended up. For the most part though, I went into Season 2 with a clean slate and since I watch Season 1 right before Season 3 started it's been a while since I was last hanging with Bauer. I may discuss some spoilers below if you haven't seen it yet, but I'll try and stay away from the big ones.

Season 2 starts up a year after Season 1 ended. Jack went through hell that first year and came out of it bruised and ruined both personally and professionally. He starts out Season 2 an empty shell of a man, and watching him come back to life over the span of 24 episodes was fantastically entertaining. Sutherland is unbelievably good playing Bauer as the uber-patriot the politicians in Washington would love. He's faced with the ultimate crisis: A nuclear bomb is in the hands of terrorists somewhere in Los Angeles and he has to find them and diffuse the bomb within 24 hours. Of course, he also has to navigate a hellish labryinth of political intrigue, government interferance, rogue agents, a ruined wedding, and his daughter's penchant for being the biggest dumbass ever on television. This last point is one I'd like to take a second to single out and laugh at. Kim Bauer, gamely played by Elisha Cuthbert, is easily the worst character on television in the last decade.

Yes, I'm taking the entire cast of Passions into account here.

Once the season gets going a few episodes in the pace is relentless... except when it cuts back to Kim Bauer. At those points, the show's entire momentum comes to a crashing halt and just lays there whimpering. The upshot to watching it on DVD was fast forwarding through every single Kim scene in the entire season with about four exceptions. Not only did this cut roughly three hours worth of viewing time right off the top, but I survived with my IQ in tact. I laughed the hardest near the end of the season when she's holding a gun on her nemesis while on the phone with her dad. When Jack calmly tells her to do exactly what he says I fell down laughing, but absolutely roared later on when she was suddenly "tougher" because of the experience. In short, Kim Bauer is useless.

On the other hand, literally every second not devoted to Kim Bauer is vastly entertaining. The political backstabbing surrounding now-President David Palmer builds to several emotionally wrenching crescendos with the fates of a few major players ending on surprising terms. Jack Bauer, meanwhile, ends his first day by executing a child pornographer then sawing the guy's head off all to re-infiltrate a gang that may or may not know where the bomb is. Jack Bauer kills more bad guys by noon than most Marines kill in their entire careers. It's gloriously fun stuff watching the bad guys go about their evil ways because you know how seriously screwed they are the second Bauer finds them.

I have to give credit to the show runners because the bad guys are absolute in their convictions, beliefs, and abilities. The threat never veers into silly terrain, and there is no monologuing from any of the villains. The villains have a job to do, and Jack Bauer's job is to stop them regardless of who gets caught in between. Another thing I like about the show is how the mastermind villain doesn't appear until late in the series. However many red herrings there are in the previous 15 or 16 episodes, the arch-nemesis won't show up until the final stretch. Personally, I dig the heck out of that slow build. I wish the uber-villain was a little more substantial this time out, but it works in terms of laying groundwork for the future.

There are more than a few implausibilities throughout the show but I absolutely fell in love with 24 after this season ended. What I loved even more was how ballsy the final episode closed since it ended on a major cliffhanger with a few minor ones thrown in for good measure. This was the season where things were clearly setup for the future and the ending didn't back away from that promise at all. I'm now curious to throw on Season 3 so I'll be moving it up in my Netflix queue soon.

Now Playing: Glory Road

By now, Jerry Bruckheimer has effectively cornered the market on the inspirational "based on a true story" sports drama and I thought Glory Road would be just the latest in a long line of them. Turns out I was right, but it also turns out that the film is vastly better than I initially pegged it. Every sports drama cliche takes its turn on center stage, but the film benefits from a tremendously entertaining cast of actors all led by Josh Lucas in his breakout role. Up to this point I'd considered him an acceptable non-face actor meaning he could hold his own but nothing he did made him stand out.

His portrayal of famed Texas Western coach Don Haskins is tremendous and Lucas brings a world weary gravitas to the role I didn't think he was capable of. Haskins uproots his family from Fort Worth where he coached high school girls basketball and moved them to El Paso, TX, for the chance to coach Division I college basketball. Since the shool was in the middle of nowhere and barely had an endowment for textbooks, Haskins had to recruit wisely. So he sent his scouts out into the field to track down the most talented and unsigned players he could find.

The majority of them were black, and it was to Haskins' eternal credit that he never once viewed them as such. He says right at the start that he doesn't see color. Instead he sees quickness, agility, and skill, all of which can lead the team to the big time if properly harnassed. The fact that all of this is conveyed in the first 20 minutes is a tribute to the economics of the storytelling because one thing Glory Road does is move. It may bob and weave here and there but the film always has its eye firmly on the glory the team would eventually achieve.

Even when the film falters three quarters of the way through it somehow manages to be entertaining. We can't imagine the racial hardships these young men must have gone through, but instead of doling it out throughout the film it seems that everything happens in a single restaurant scene where a player is assaulted in a bathroom while the white customers look away disapprovingly. Meanwhile the coach and players complain about how they're always treated poorly and such. We only see boos and jeers two or three times compared to the constant roars of approval from happy Texas Western crowds.

Of course, it all leads to the big showdown against Kentucky who is coached by a near unrecognizable Jon Voight. He hams things up a bit, but even under all that makeup he pulls a solid performance out too. The ending is never in doubt, and the movie is fun enough that you'll immediately switch on the extras once it's over. Watching Pat Riley (yes, that Pat Riley) talk about that climactic game with awe is beyond cool. Especially when you consider how Texas Western's big center dunked right over Riley's head to start the game off.

Glory Road may not have any surprises, but it's a very fun and well-made movie to just kick back and watch on an afternoon.

#1 of 5

Damn you Dead Rising. Damn you for looking like so much fun it should be criminal. Wednesday sees the release of an all-zombie all-the-time kill-a-thon for the Xbox 360 and I so want it right now. My long standing philosophy regarding video game consoles has been to wait 18 months after release before I even consider it, and then only if there are five must-own titles available.

It hasn't been 18 months yet, but Must-Own Game #1 hits this week. Four more to go and since numero dos, Mass Effect, is slated to hit sometime this fall, then it looks more and more like Casa de Skim will welcome a new console sometime around May of next year. In theory, the infamous BC list will include more of my games than Halo 2 by then. Also, we should have a house by then but I hestitate to say that with certainty. With the way the real estate is going in our area we should be able to make quite the mint on our place especially with the minor renovations we'll perform over the next three months or so.

I remain both anxious and cautious regarding the 360. Anxious because in the next year there are going to be some absolutely killer games released. Cautious because enough people, more than have been officially reported at least, continue to have their consoles fail. My Xbox and PS2 are the first ones I ever bought and that's how they should stay. If I plunk down $400+ for a console then it damn well better work for the next several years.

But Dead Rising looks absolutely brilliant. You play a photojournalist trapped in a small town mall surrounded by legions of zombies who are all looking to take a bite out of you. The theory is that everything around you is a weapon and the demo saw players whacking zombies with teddy bears while running around in a dress, cooking things in the kitchen only to turn around and smack a zombie in the face with the hot frying pan, and so on.

Basically the game could be the smash hit of the summer, and it's earned the coveted #1 spot.

Now Playing: Dog Soldiers

My dear friend Guy was gracious enough to buy this for me around my birthday a year or two ago and only recently did I take it off the shelf and check it out. For that my friend, I sincerely apologize for being late to the party because this is absolutely one of the best action/horror flicks I've seen in years. The banner headline on the cover art isn't far from the truth with the genre masterpieces it references because Dog Soldiers liberally cribs from all of them. What stunned me was how effectively it pulled from those admittedly better films.

When AvP was gearing up there was an interview with Paul "Weak Sauce" Anderson where he talked about how devoted a fan of both Aliens and the original Predator he was and how he'd studied them in depth. His intent, at least in the interview, was to take the best of what worked there and let the two beasts rumble. The result, as we all know, was a disaster. I pull this reference out of thin air because writer-director Neil Marshall must have done the same exact thing with the difference being he knew what the hell he was doing.

The result is an extremely gory, scary, and hilarious thriller set in the Scottish highlands. A team of SAS soldiers is on a training exercise when they find the other team they were meant to rendevous with utterly slaughtered save one. The survivor is pretty much missing his chest and before they can figure out what's going on they get ambushed by something very large and very unseen. During their escape they run into a woman driving past who picks all of them up and takes them to a farm house in the middle of no where. Naturally, their enemy is right on their tail and the result is an Alamo-style stand-off with automatic weapons and werewolves.

To Marshall's credit, he doesn't screw around with needless amounts of setup and he certainly knows how to ratchet up the tension along with the body count. He also spares no expense with the full-body animatronic suits for the werewolves which, much like the Aliens, were shot perfectly. You always see just enough to let your imagination fill in the blanks, except when it comes to the carnage they wreck. If this film is any indication, his next movie The Descent should be absolutely terrifying not to mention extremely graphic in terms of violence.

Which basically means Dog Soldiers resolutely kicks ass and takes names.

Now Playing: Children of Dune

This is one of those reviews that is obscenely late due to many reasons so I'm trying to recall as much as possible several months after the fact. The first thing to state was that I was an unabashed fan of the original novel, hated the Lynch version (which I'm routinely mocked for to this day), and loved the SciFi mini-series version of the first book warts and all. The thing people either immediately accepted or refused to get past was how it would vacillate between sound stages/sets and location shooting. One shot would be out in a real desert and the very next shot would be on a sound stage and people just couldn't get past that.

I liked it because I felt it added to the hyper-reality of Frank Herbert's book which, let's be honest, is more than a little out there. The ideas and themes advanced in the novel are as old as time, but the setting for the discussion was so fantastical that one could only truly capture the feel of the novel by going off the deep end too.

Which brings me to the sequel mini-series set several years after the ending of the first one. Paul has grown tired of being the Messiah to the desert people, The Fremen, and his advanced sister Alia has grown up to be his right hand in governing the galaxy. Naturally, the rival houses in the Imperium and the Bene Gesserit are still fuming over Paul usurping the power they've held over the galaxy for centuries. Meanwhile the Fremen continue to terraform the sand-covered world of Arrakis which has caused the sand worms to move deeper into the desert, taking the spice with them.

If you didn't understand a single word in the above paragraph I'm not going into explanatory detail. Either you're familiar with the Dune universe or you can look it up on Wikipedia. Here is a good starting point. Suffice it to say the second mini-series picks up after the first one and improves on virtually all aspects of the original from the acting down to the sets. This chapter is massive in both scale and budget which helps to keep the jarring transitions to a bare minimum. Out of all the actors I'd say Susan Sarandan is the only one left stranded as she Lady MacBeth's her way through the six hour saga. She does little other than scheme, plot, and chat up her right hand man. Oh, she wears a new costume roughly every new scene she appears in.

In the interim, the first two hour block wraps up the Paul-Chani story in a way I didn't expect, but wasn't entirely surprised by. Barbara Kodetova remains one of the most scorching hot European women I've ever seen, and the fact that she could absolutely kick my ass is immeasureably cool. Ditto Daniela Amavia (Alia) who is both formidable, powerful, and searingly hot. Of course, since all Dune works are Grecian tragedies in disguise Alia quickly goes insane thanks to visions of her (late) uncle Baron Harkonnen, brilliantly played once again by Ian McNiece.

Parts two and three deal with the children of Paul and Chani, Leto II and Ghanima, and their own personal ascensions to the throne. One thing I'll give the crafters of this series major credit for is tapping the spirit of Frank Herbert's novels better than anyone else ever has. Whether the outlandish costumes, which are more toned down this time, or focus on religious iconography tends to throw you, this remains an excellent series to check out.

It would have been nice if P.H. Moriarty hadn't continued to play Gurney Halleck as if he were acting in another movie, but his role is kept close enough to a minimum so that he doesn't outright kill scenes like he did in the first one. Children of Dune is highly recommended from this viewer, but if you're not alreayd familiar with the material then this one won't make things any easier for you.

E3 Changing... In Theory

The news all over the interwebs today is that the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is going to change due to certain top exhibitors taking umbrage with various media outlets, primarily the Blogosphere, and their respective coverage. I won't link a direct source since all of them say the same thing so hit Gametab and take your pick. The conclusion on all of them is the same though.

E3 as it has been for a decade will no longer be business as usual. By "business as usual" I of course mean "distract you with loud/large exhibits while showing you as little of the games as possible." Which of course is exactly what a trade show dedicated to video games needs to do. Anyone that's ever been to E3 in a professional capacity knows that it takes the rest of the month to recover enough to re-enter society. It's loud, pulsing, and you see roughly 20 percent of what you wanted to see IF YOU'RE LUCKY.

In the meantime, the expo gets to claim they had the largest numbers in their history and the concession stands at the LA convention center make a ton of cash. But all must not have been wine and roses following this year's convention, as pointed out by all the stories today. The short version can be summed up like so:

...Now in theory, these shows are primarily geared towards connecting businesspeople. To that end, E3 was (again, in theory) only open to industry folks and journalists. In recent years, however, the number of people attending have skyrocketed, in part because E3 registration was a moderately open process.

One source I spoke with told me that media access is indeed a problem, but it probably does not factor in greatly to the decision to downsize the show. Nevertheless, there are plenty of complaints from insiders about how "blogging" in particular has made the shows more difficult, if only because floor people are instructed to speak only of what they are approved to speak of, lest another half-baked headline make the rounds.

Bill Harris translated that last paragraph to mean the industry doesn't want to see negative comments during or after the event. I disagree with him to an extent.

I think Sony is the one who doesn't want to see any negative feedback period, regardless of what it does, and heavily restricting access is the expo's way of pacifying the 800-lbs gorilla. Sony has screwed itself into the ground so hard so frequently with the PS3 fiasco that it's no longer possible to take them seriously in any capacity. This is nothing more than their way of lashing out. Here's the catch though - higher numbers of show attendees equal more revenue for the expo itself and the city of Los Angeles.

As with all things, when there is this much money on the line calmer heads will eventually prevail. There may be fewer crowds next year, but when the expo organizers find themselves in the red by Day Two then emergency meetings will be called. Those restrictive changes will be "lessened" within the next six months after "serious negotiations" and "high-level meetings." They'll spin the precipitous drop in attendance, and resultant internet mockery, as an experiment that everyone learned something from. The next year, 2008, will see even more attendees than 2006 did as E3 changes the registration process to basically let everyone back in under the guise of something completely nonsensical.

Sony, on the other hand, is walking into an unmitigated disaster come this fall and next spring. The PS3 will be the high-dollar mega-ton bomb many suspect it will be, and Sony will spin like crazy as they watch another of their proprietary media formats go down in flames exactly as the others have. I've said this for a while now and will continue to beat the same drum. Sony is exactly where Nintendo was just prior to the N64. Sony's hubris has doomed the PS3 before it's even out of the gate which is terrifically unfair to us as consumers.

We don't even have the console in our hands to judge, yet here we are levying the death sentence upon it without so much as playing one game. Oh that's right. The games look identical to those on the 360 and all of the "exclusives" not personally made by Sony are no longer exclusives to the PlayStation name brand. Meanwhile, you don't see a PS3 version of Halo 3 anywhere in the pipe, do you?

Sony was harshly beaten down this year, and justifiably so. They showed us nothing impressive, told us it would cost a bundle, and that we'd all buy it anyway because they were Sony. We unanimously rejected that notion, and they sulked and took their ball to go home. Along the way they told the E3 organizers how "unfair" us bloggers were on poor little them, and that we should all be excluded indefinitely from E3. Sorry there, hombre, but this is a free country and a free interweb. I can say anything I damn well like wherever I like.

If you don't like it, then try offering up a counter-point other than "no fair."

28 = Magical Number

Casa de Skim would like to take this moment to recognize the number 28 as the Official Numero of Casa de Skim. Of what mighty significance does this numero play in the awe-inspiring awesomeness of this site? Allow me to explain...

The number eight has long followed me. Initially it would appear the number belonged moreso to my sister than I because she was born on August 8, 1980, which put her eighth birthday in 1988. To my knowledge that's where the number ends for her but for me it's continued to pursue me. Things of life changing significance tend to happen most to me whenever there is an eight around somewhere. Ditto the number two in My Fair Lady's life.

When we met the first time it proved to be a disaster. It was awkward and bland and she and I were the only ones at the party that actually spoke to one another and we both left individually and never looked back. This would be in December of 2001. Fast forward two months to February and on the final Wednesday of the month at a group event where we hit it off. I asked her out the next day for that weekend and we've been together ever since. The day I asked her out?

February 28, 2002.

When we were looking at possible wedding dates we had a slew of options including September 11. The moment that date came up there were some discussions about it but I looked a little further back in the calendar and found the perfect one.

August 28, 2004.

I left my most recent job on the 28th of June and started the following week at a place that I plan to make some sort of career out of. The potential of this start-up is literally through the roof and I lucked into the sort of position you don't get everyday. We're in a profit sharing program and once the profits start rolling in then we're granted a percentage based on how involved we are per trade show we're involved with. As the Director of Technology I'll find myself involved in literally every trade show we do for the forseeable future. Hello, payday.

This past week, My Fair Lady took the bar exam and by all accounts is "cautiously optimistic" about how she did. We don't find out until November sometime as to what the results were but I believe firmly that she passed. One graduate from Harvard who received the highest grade on the bar of his class famously began a speech thusly:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I stand here today as an example of a wasted effort."

His point was that you only need a D+ to pass and he busted out something around 900. Employers may applaud that extra mile but you can rest assured the simple fact that you passed is fine enough by itself.

So we're out of the house all day this past Saturday and when we get home we check the mail to find a letter from the Big Downtown Law Firm that My Fair Lady wanted to work for. All indications were that she would receive an offer letter. It wasn't so much a matter of "if" but "when" however she was extremely nervous all the same. As it turns out, this letter was the one contained in the envelope I pulled out Saturday night. As I read the letter to her, the tears of joy and excitement streamed forth from her eyes and it felt like vindication for the endless struggles she's endured for the past decade. She's wanted to be an attorney for almost as long as she's been alive, and here it was laid out for her in black and white. We made the effort for her to sign and seal the letter that night and I drove her to the post office then and there. She was excited about dropping the envelope in the mail and when they call her tomorrow to confirm her start date I can imagine her jumping so high her head gets stuck in the ceiling.

The result of this letter and her signing on with them is the end to a saga that has had more twists and turns than a pretzel factory. We can finally start paying off the credit cards, get her back on insurance, take care of a hundred different things we've needed to do for the past three years but haven't been able to afford it, and so forth. In addition to the money, there is the simple potential for her to become what she has always wanted and so richly deserved: A high powered attorney at law. I'm tremendously proud of her, and know she's going to kick nine kinds of butt at this firm as she helps build up their real estate division. The date on Saturday was July 29.

They mailed out the letter one day prior.

Lohan Gets Served

Lindsay "Nosecandy" Lohan was on the receiving end of a brutally honest and hilariously spot-on letter from Morgan Creek Productions top dog James G. Robinson that threatened legal action against her if she didn't curb her all-night partying during the shoot. Apparently when you call in sick repeatedly then you had better not have been out partying the previous night where only 400 people can ID you.

Thanks to The Smoking Gun for obtaining a copy which you can view in its full glory right here.

Can't Stop the Awesome

Blockbuster's new slogan this summer to get people to rent is "You Can't Stop the Awesome." They're right but not about their stock. You really can't stop The Awesome, you can only see it delayed.

"The Awesome" I'm referring to would be Netflix. How exactly I made it so many moons without this service I'll never know but I'm a fan for life. To put it in context, go to Blockbusters or Movie Trading Company and rent a season of 24. The price tag is roughly $20 for the box. Now I pay roughly $15 or so a month for two discs at a time and can burn through the entire season in a week and a half and still crank through several more films from my queue.

The caveat is how the tend to shift frequent renters to the back of their line if you turn-and-burn films overnight. Netflix can't make all its money back like that so they can throttle your account back a ways. I know they get my films back first thing in the morning the day after I mail them. I have the receipt confirmations. But I've figured out that by simply delaying my return of two films by as much as three to four days means I can literally turn-and-burn with impunity for the next month. So by throttling myself (insert pun here) I get more bang for my buck than I ever could at Blockbusters.

Which I haven't actively gone to since I was in high school and flirting with a cute redhead who worked at the one near my house. I'll still hit them every now and then if I absolutely can't wait for the Netflix mail call, but otherwise I have no reason to go there.

Ever.

Can't stop "The Awesome?" You're right on that, Blockbuster. Too bad for you The Awesome comes to my house in the form of Netflix and my lazy behind never has to walk into your stores to find tons of copies of the latest Will Ferrell movie but anything from 10 years ago is relegated to the bargain bin or worse - unavailable except by special request. Thanks guys, but I can request plenty from Netflix. Once My Fair Lady is working again I fully plan to expand our plan from two discs at a time to three. Staggering that out should be no problem whatsoever, and will definitely let me burn through future volumes of the Jack Bauer Power Hour with fury.

Wikipedia Owned by The Onion

I have some personal hostility towards Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, lately and that's primarily due to what I view as blatant elitism and hypocrisy. They claim to want to collect the entire world's information and post it on the internet. Fair enough, and that remains a noble goal to boot.

Yet in their collection of the world's knowledge the editors can apparently delete entries at their personal whim. Again, fair enough because if it's privately owned then they can do with it as they please. What I view as blatantly hypocritical is when they earmark Gaming Trend for deletion, give no reason as to why, yet continue to leave other lesser topics alone. Were this over the history of cancer I might have a bigger problem as that actually is a worthy and relevant topic to have as much data on as possible.

So why then does the Dark Phoenix saga have so much data it actually causes your brain to melt from too much nerd? And how the hell is that even remotely important, let alone merit an entry while a gaming website with a 38K Alexa count does not?

But my complaints were rendered irrelevant today when I came across The Onion's absolutely stellar beatdown of Wikipedia and the hilarity is start to finish. For example:

The commemorative page is one of the most detailed on the site, rivaling entries for Firefly and the Treaty Of Algeron for sheer length. Subheadings include "Origins Of Colonial Discontent," "Some Famous Guys In Wigs And Three-Cornered Hats," and "Christmastime In Gettysburg." It also features detailed maps of the original colonies—including Narnia, the central ice deserts, and Westeros—as well as profiles of famous American historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Special Agent Jack Bauer, and Samuel Adams who is also a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.

God bless The Onion. By all means please check out the full smackdown right here.

Reason #463 To Always Have Tools Handy

So I go to the local Chevron this morning and pick up a regular 20 Oz. Dr. Pepper. Personally I prefer the taste of the bottled kind to the can kind, but that's just me. I get back to the office and run into my first obstacle. I can't get the dang thing open.

I twist and I turn and I tear up the skin on my right hand but that blasted bottle cap remains solidly in place. I then switch to sneaky mode and crack the plastic ring underneath the bottle cap thinking that may help. No dice. I then look around the office for anything resembling a vice or a pair of pliers.

All I find is a whole lotta nadda. So what's the next obvious stop?

The admin's office so he can call up the engineering crew in the back of the building so they can bring in the big gun tools. Yes, all for a soda.

At this point it's become a personal crusade to open that blasted bottle. I expect when I get it back I'll have nary a drop left in it, but at least the seal will have been defeated. I'm all about sacrificing my pride for the greater good here.

So let this be a lesson to you boys and girls: Always have a pair of pliers handy because you never know when the Dr. Pepper Company is going to hire Hercules on as a temp worker in their bottling plant. It pays to be prepared.

Gaming Trend Pimpslaps StarFarce

Over the years computer game developers and producers have gone through different types of copy protection schemes because it was assumed this would stop pirates altogether. The only things it did was: 1) slow them down by hours instead of minutes, 2) piss off regular paying customers who would experience slow-downs and any number of problems caused by wonky copy protection. The most recent and nefarious of all these schemes was Starforce.

The short version is that it installs hidden hardware drivers onto your system then forces a reboot before you can fire up the game that came with it. The drivers regularly phone home to Starforce HQ (located in Mother Russia) and have been traced back to corrupting optical drives and CD/DVD burning software like Nero. Most other game sites just took it in stride and rarely if ever mention whether a game has Starforce on it.

My editor at Gaming Trend, however, has decided to take things one step further.

He posted this thread at the official Starforce forum and the gist of it is that any and all reviews of games with Starforce installed on it will receive an automatic 10 percent penalty straight off the top of the final score. Regardless of how good the game is, that 10 percent is automagically gone before the game is even played. If, however, Starforce screws up our computers during any point of our review window that score drops to a big fat goose egg.

I can't wait to see what happens when publishers and other sites get wind of this and we have a major AAA title receive a 0 percent score because the install of Starforce screwed up one of our machines. I am absolutely behind this because draconian copy schemes are only going to remain in effect as long as we the consumer put up with it. If we actively strike out against this sort of thing then maybe the little guy can make a difference after all.

Viva le Resistance!

Now Playing: Eight Men Out

I'm kicking myself for not seeing this gem before now, but John Sayles always worries me. When he hits its a powerhouse film like Lone Star but when he misses he does so by a wiiiiide margin with a rambling, aimless dud like Limbo. But the man is known as the go-to script doctor in Hollywood and with good reason. He's been used on more than a few blockbusters like Armageddon and Apollo 13 because the man has a way with words most of us can only dream of.

Eight Men Out is a terrific tale brought home by an ensemble of actors that have all made significant names for themselves. I think around this time was when both John Cusack and Charlie Sheen were coming into their own so it's fascinating from a historical point of view to go back and see them before fame took hold.

This is of course based on the infamous Black Sox scandal surrounding eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox directly throwing, or having knowledge of the plan to throw, that year's World Series. I love old Chicago and seeing it shot how it was is gold for a history nut like me. It's also a fun and fast moving story that shows how one little suspicion slowly builds to the complete unraveling of the scheme by two reporters. Sayles himself plays Ring Lardner, one of the two reporters, and I thought it was a distraction having him at the center of things. It'd be like M. Night Shyamalan being a supporting character in his films rather than his normal "Captain Exposition" role. At any rate, it remains a solid piece of historical film making and one that's highly recommended.

I'm actually enjoying getting caught up on the blog now, and have a few more reviews to knock out. I'll get to those throughout the week and right now I need to also burn through season three of The Shield. Hopefully it's as good as the first two seasons were.

EDIT: I actually realized tonight when I logged back in that I never hit publish. This review is from the first of June and should have gone up then but didn't. Feel free to enjoy it now, and also note that I've since burned through season 3 of The Shield and packed in a few new movies too.

Pwned

Okay then, so it's been a good long while since I've been around. Not worry though, things have changed dramatically in the last month (and change) and all for the better. For the busier to be sure, but for the better none the less. Take this afternoon for example when I pwned the former IT admin of my new job:

The story of how I ended up at my new gig is a fascinating one that shall be relayed forthwith in another post. For the matter at hand, accept that I now and the Director of IT at a start-up production company in North Texas. The former IT guru was canned the week before last after six months of sitting on his butt doing absolutely nothing. As the days go on I become increasingly convinced that he fixed his mother's computer once and followed that with a declaration to the world that he was an IT Man.

Sadly, this condition is far too frequent in the IT industry. People assume that since you work in IT that, much like auto mechanics, you must know exactly what it is you're talking about since they themselves are ill equipped to detect when said IT gurus are talking out of their asses. This new company will have several websites dedicated to its client base over the course of the next few years, yet they remained unable to get the first one up after months of "trying."

I use the quotes on that last word because it took me all of 15 minutes today on the phone with the host company's tech support to get the site up and running. I also learned the difference between an actual directory and a virtual directory, received a crash course in Microsoft IIS, and now know how to setup and route websites on this server in the future.

In short, I totally pwned this asshat and can now do pretty much whatever I want in the company. So, to recap:

Asshat = At company for six months, unable to establish web site and wastes money buying unneccesary tech toys.

Yours Truly = At company for four days and has IT inventory completed, website up and running, and a plan for the department's direction.

You see that smile on my face? Ear-to-ear, baby.

Now Playing: Network

I had a big long post already worked up and then my computer crashed and took it with it. Everytime I've used Blogger recently it's had an auto-save on it but apparently it wasn't working tonight.

Good job, asshats.

The short version is that I flat out loved this flick and am frankly amazed that I managed to get all the way through both film and journalism school without having seen it. Fortunately I've rectified that and it's absolutely going in my rotation of frequently watched flicks.

While I agree that Peter Finch is brilliant as disgraced newsman Howard Beale, I disagree with giving him the Oscar over Robert DeNiro in Taxi Drive. In hindsight, that's just plain wrong. Faye Dunaway on the other hand deserved her Oscar and more for playing a woman so obsessed with ratings and network shares that she can't stop talking shop even in the middle of sex.

There is one bravura scene after another, but my favorite has to be one towards the end of the film where the network executives (lead by a blue suit wearing Lance Henriksen in one of his first roles) are re-upping their contract with a modern communist guerrilla organization. Their leader can't stop complaining about getting squeezed on the syndication rights and hearing that sort of talk considering the situation had me in stitches.

This is on everyone's Top 10 of All Time lists for a reason, folks. If you've never seen it then you simply must do so. It's even more relevant these days when the television they spoofed in the 1970's could well be the television of the present day.

Now Playing: The Office (BBC Version)

It wasn't until the very, very end of this series (and by "end" I'm refering to the Christmas specials that capped the Wernham-Hogg saga) that the show clicked for me. Up to one specific moment I considered the series was an amusing, sometimes laugh out loud funny, sendup of the daily monotony of the office environment populated by a quirky and confused lot of characters each with their own problems.

What I wasn't prepared for was one of the best, and most subtle, romances on television. The ending was an emotional suckerpunch that stunned me because of how well the show had defined and shaped each individual character. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Office was a two part series that aired on the BBC a few years ago that chronicled the daily goings-on of a paper company in Slough as seen through the eyes of a documentary crew. Everything about the environment screamed redundant hell and that's what the brilliant creator-writer-star Ricky Gervais focused on. The minutia in the every day life of photocopying, invoicing, and tracking costs of paper reams provided ample opportunity for Gervais' character, office manager David Brent, to ham it up and act like a rock star god for his fellow employees. The catch is that everyone hates Brent because he's so much of a boor that no one can stand him, yet Brent remains completely oblivious to it.

The heart of the series though was the relationship between Tim (the brilliant Martin Freeman), a sales man, and eternally engaged receptionist Dawn (the equally brilliant Lucy Davis). The way these two circle around one another provided the beating heart of the series, and if it wasn't for the terrific performances from both actors it would never have worked. Freeman deserves to be in everything because his simple looks, gestures, and under-his-breath comments are never short of gaspingly funny. Witness his look of sheer aghast horror in season two when his pregnant co-worker mimicks the position she and her husband used to conceive.

My Fair Lady actually walked into the office to see why I was roaring laughing.

The show is never as consistent as Monty Python's Flying Circus was which is why I disagree with people who put this in their Top 10 Funniest Shows Ever lists. It tends to be more consistently amusing than consistently hilarious, but then you'll get something like episode four from the first season where it's physically impossible to keep from hysterically laughing as Tim, Brent, and sidekick Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) sing along to "Free Love On The Free Love Freeway." Words simply cannot do that episode justice.

"Gareth, get the guitar."

Now Playing: The Dukes of Hazzard

I have only the fondest of memories about the old show as does any male who grew up in the early '80's. I recall my tin trash can with the General Lee flying through the air while Boss Hogg shouted after the Duke cousins for foiling his latest scheme. I'm sure somewhere on the can Roscoe P. Coltrane was shaking a fist at the sky.

But on the back was none other than Daisy, Goddess of the Short Shorts. Catherine Bach could lay a young boy out cold with a glance, or cause him to spontaneously combust by bending over. It was the simple pleasures the show reveled in, none more obvious than using an orange Dodge Charger to defy gravity at least once every episode. It was never the smartest show, but it was entertaining for 5 to 12 year olds everywhere.

Which is exactly who Warner Bros. aimed the film version at and they managed to bullseye their target. I'm a big fan of Broken Lizard, especially their horror knock-off Club Dredd, so their involvement in the film meant I had to at least check it out. Color me surprised because it wasn't a disaster by a long shot because in spite of Stiffler and Jackass living up to thier eternal namesakes, they captured the soul of the show.

It remains silly, simple fun and stars an orange Dodge Charger that defies gravity. In the special features the stunt coordinator even says as much when he explains the show was "All about the car!" What cracked me up even more was how the majority of stunt people involved in the shoot were among the heavy hitters in Hollywood. They had the stunt doubles for all the major A-list action stars, as well as the creme de la creme of professional stunt drivers were all involved and for one simple reason.

An unabashed love of that car. Which takes center stage about three quarters of the way through and from that point on I was in Hogg heaven. It's obvious that every person on screen was too because the ways they use the car are magnificent. From the moment when they try to leave the University of Georgia on through the end that car is the star and it shines as only the General Lee could.

Up to that point you have Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott relentlessly mugging, while Jessica Simpson has exactly one good scene (you'll know it when your jaw hits the ground and your tongue rolls out). The actual acting is left to Burt Reynolds (Boss Hogg) who obviously doesn't care what film he's in, and the great MC Gainey (Roscoe) who laughs maniacally while never coming off as dangerous. It ends up being nothing more than a silly story about another land grab attempt by Hogg and the Dukes have to win a race in order to stop him. It's as silly as it sounds, and exactly like the show.

What sold it for me was how they used the narrator, the way they used the car, and the blatant silliness of Broken Lizard star Kevin Heffernen who's hysterically funny in this. It's enjoyable, silly fun and worth at least a Netflixing.

Inconvenient Timing

Here's what going to E3 results in: A massive lack of sleep and time to write up all of your personal coverage. The week before, during, and after E3 absolutely kills any personal time you may have, or think you have, and this is especially true if you actually work the convention. I've seen people compare it to other things but unless you're actually there in the thick of things you have absolutely no idea of the amount of work covering that beast is.

Which is why this article at The Escapist is mandatory reading. It captures the excellent love-hate relationship veterans have for the show and the month of May in general. Everything game-wise gets announced or rolled out then instead of parceled throughout the year. As such, all of us who cover it in a professional sense dread May like the coming of a typhoon. We know it'll kick our teeth in as it does every year yet we gladly stand in the path and say, "Please sir, can I have some more?"

All of this is the long way of saying my personal life is about three weeks behind thanks just to this one week event. Now add onto that My Fair Lady's graduation from law school that same weekend, chase it with an endless series of parties, and top it off with plenty of family events and exhaustion is a kind way of describing my current frame of mind. Heck, my writing guide even called the other day to ask where I'd been and once My Fair Lady finished explaining just the short-hand version he wished us luck and hoped to see me again sometime in his life.

On the flip side, Gaming Trend has been doing very nicely thanks to all this E3 coverage. We strive for excellence and made an extremely solid showing on the floor this year with the publishers and developers so hopefully that will translate into some exclusives and such. It's nice to be a part of something for so long and see the fruits of your labors actually get noticed and respected by the industry.

As for the movie reviews here I have several I'm working on now. Some have been dazzling while others are just mediocre. Since it's sort of a slow day at the office I'm going to see if I can't knock out at least two of them today with more on the way. Here's hoping real life allows it.

Sony & Common Sense Part Ways

Games Industry.Biz posted a story today that gives completely undeniable proof that Sony and common sense have officially fallen out:

In an interview with Japanese website IT Media, partially translated by IGN, Kutaragi said: "This is the PS3 price. Expensive, cheap - we don't want you to think of it in terms of game machines."

"For instance," Kutaragi continued, "Is it not nonsense to compare the charge for dinner at the company cafeteria with dinner at a fine restaurant? It's a question of what you can do with that game machine. If you can have an amazing experience, we believe price is not a problem."

The full story is right here.

Let me take a moment to point out that for all of us and everyone else who was actually at E3 the response to Sony and the PS3 was unanimous: Are you out of your f&*#in' mind?!?!?

There is no way on God's green and verdent earth that I'm paying $500 for a gimped, non-upgradeable console, let alone $600 for the full version. Bear in mind that when held side by side, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 illustrated IDENTICAL quality. So why would I pay $200+ more for Sony's latest version of Betamax?

Sony has lost it completely. This is one of the most stunning instances of corporate hubris this century has seen, and that's saying something. No one cared that Sony had playable PS3 games on the floor. Let me say that again just to clarify for the hard of reading:

NO ONE CARED ABOUT THE PS3 AT E3 2006. AT ALL.

It's not like it was close. This E3 was an unmitigated disaster for Sony in the United States and anyone who says otherwise wasn't there or is in denial. There is no middle ground. All of the demos we saw for the next generation of console games were impressive, but when your chief rival has a console out for $200 less than yours and shows off tons of second-generation titles and all you do is say you're better than they are then you're doing it wrong.

I never thought Microsoft would completely clean Sony's clock but at the same time that's mostly Sony's fault. Sony is so convinced of its own superiority that they think just because their name is on the console we'll buy it. Take another look at that price tag, hombres, because that's the price beyond which no one but the early adopters will pass. The PS3 is going to be a disaster the likes of which Sony hasn't seen in a generation and this one is entirely on them. The goal of the PS3 was never about high-def gaming, it was always about forcing Blu-Ray onto a market that neither wants nor cares about it. Everyone is more than happy with current DVD tech, and the revelation that HD-DVD upconverts existing DVDs to look even better than they do now all combines to make me laugh at Sony.

On the other hand, Nintendo pwned both Microsoft and Sony by convincing the entire convention that their console was a must-own on Day 1. I've never been an early adopter for anything anywhere, but I want a Revolution (I refuse to call it the Wii) the second it's available. Having played with the controller, I'm an absolute believer. Should the developers program this gem correctly we could be looking at a smorgasboard of extremely fun games. If Nintendo also lets us download and own previous generation titles, then I'll sing hosannas from on high. It's unbelievable as to just how responsive and intuitive the controls for the Revolution are until you try it yourself.

As for Microsoft, I still can't play my existing library on the 360. Should they correct that with the backwards compatible list by this time next year, I would definitely upgrade. There are too many things coming down the pipe that are must-owns. Combine that with the beautiful functionality they're adding to the XBL Marketplace and that's the system to have in the house right next to the Revolution.

The PS3 can sit outside in the cold where it belongs. With 200+ titles for the PS2 coming out by the end of this year alone, I have exactly zero reason to upgrade for the cost of both a 360 and a Revolution. Besides, since Microsoft also will have Grand Theft Auto 4 on the 360 next October Sony is in dire straits.

But hubris won't let them see it.

Now Playing: The Rock

I recently re-played Half-Life 2 to get ready for the expansion pack this June, and the Nova Prospekt sequence got me in the mood to watch this 1996 gem again. For you non-gamers, that level is a massive run-down prison complex that you must infiltrate to save a friend. Running across the cracked and faded linoleum tiles made me think about the famous washroom scene in The Rock so naturally I had to re-watch the whole thing which I haven't done in years.

Dear God I love this film. It's massive, overblown, and the simplistic script is wholely underdeserving of the fetishistic attention to detail director Michael Bay brought to it. But all the bombast in Bay's arsenal combined with this story to make for a hell of an entertaining film. And Ed Harris was robbed of an Oscar nomination for this, by the way.

The story has a Marine black ops team gone rogue capturing Alcatraz Island with 81 tourists as hostages and aiming 15 poison gas missles at San Francisco. The Feds and the Pentagon send in a Navy SEAL team along with Nicholas Cage at his highest strung and an ex-convict-SAS-all-around-badass Sean Connery to take out the missles. Of course, things don't go as planned and it builds to the washroom scene that has me on edge every single time I see it.

The SEALs under Michael Biehn's command infiltrate the prison through the showers but the Marines are tipped off by a nifty motion sensor (that later has a cameo in Bay's Bad Boys II). The Marines cover the SEALs from above the showers and Harris and Biehn have a magnificent verbal sparring match and the normal intensity of both actors rises considerably. It's obvious from the start what's about to happen but the tension of the scene just keeps escalating and escalating past the point of no return. Harris and producer Jerry Bruckheimer both point out in the commentary that Brig. Gen. Francis Hummel was one of the toughest parts Harris ever played, and knowing that the guys on both sides of the issue are good men caught in a bad situation only amplifies the sheer fury of the sequence.

Can you tell that's one of the scenes I'll watch over and over again?

I always wished the film kept some of the SEALs alive and they, along with Cage and Connery, continued to fight the Marines through Alcatraz but sadly it was not to be. What remains is watching Connery kick ass while Cage plays a funny second fiddle to a guy who has no problem throwing a knife into an enemy's throat. Bay's talent for showmanship and Americana is on full display especially at the end of the film when he beautifully shoots the Bay City in all its considerable glory. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend it.

A Perfect 10? Um, Not Quite.

I recently acquired Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal in a trade and right from the start it felt like developer Insomniac Games was off theirs. I never played the first one, loved the second one, and loved the fourth one, but this was my first exposure to part three. The odd sense of humor, deranged supporting characters, and wildly inventive weaponry is all in place but it still feels like the team was spinning their wheels a bit. They came back strong for part four, but this one gets an 80 percent from me.

Yet on the cover is a bolded quote from PSM saying it's a "Perfect 10!" The only thing missing from that is OMGWTFLOL!11!1!!! I swear these people get four levels from an early build as their sole review copy and because they want more freebies they fellate the developer. I realize I may sound like a hypocrite since my score for Space Rangers 2 was used in the marketing campaign for the US release, something I'm damn proud of by the way, but that was a review from the heart for a game that was obviously built as a labor of love.

Now compare that with what is in essence a yearly update. I admit to loving the R&C series deeply because when those games connect I could play them for a month at a time. There is a mind-boggling amount to do and collect in all of them but Up Your Arsenal feels... arbitrary. Like there was a looming deadline so they just recycled everything from the first two games, made up the plot as they went along, and called it a sequel. At least with the next one, Deadlocked, they tried something new and it worked extremely well.

At least I didn't pay for it is the best thing I have to say. Oh, and bring back the plasma whip for the fifth game, guys. That thing rules.

The Revolution Won't Be Televiised

By now you've probably heard the internet collectively groan as Nintendo announced the official name for its forthcoming console. CNN Money is probably the best source for it, but it's everywhere now. The Revolution as we know it is over.

Say hello to "Wii" and say good-bye to any respect Nintendo may ever have from the fans who grew up with it.

Bill Harris of Dubious Quality is quickly becoming the Zen master for gamers because of such accurate statements like this:

Don't even try to tell me you're surpriised. Nintendo is your slightly creepy uncle who never made it past the fourth grade and can't have a normal conversation, but he's a world-class banjo player.

That's as accurate a statement on this idea as any I've heard. Nintendo has routinely confounded gamers for 20 years now and that trend doesn't appear to be going anywhere soon. I honestly do not understand a company that is so completely in its own world that it still thinks anything it does is a license to print money. If that idea is in hand-helds they're spot-on. If it's in marketing a new console that ALREADY HAS THE PERFECT NAME then they prove themselves to be very, very retarded.

Nintendo has a "kids only" rep in a lot of people's eyes and this sure as heck won't change that. Gamers have already positioned themselves into the usual camps of haters/lovers/indifferent and those party lines won't change between now and when the console launches this fall. This remains my most anticipated console of the next generation because it does exactly what the others don't: It innovates, tremendously. But then the Nintendo marketing department (read: the slow kids in class) gets involved and names it something stupid and suddenly the luster is gone.

That's not the way you go into E3, guys.

God of War II

For sheer "sweet merciful Christ" jaw-dropping action there are few that can compete with last year's God of War, a game so epic in scale and sheer in size that only a horrific design decision monumental in nature could undo it.

Funny enough, that's exactly what you encounter 2/3 of the way through. Not to spoil anything but the second you see Kratos, the main character, fall through a portal into Hades just turn the game off. Accept that at some point Kratos finished his task and stormed Mount Olympus and you won't regret all the time you've previously invested in it. I'm convinced that reviewers stopped playing sometime during Pandora's Labyrinth because up to that point it was the Game of the Year. Ten minutes later... not so much.

I bring up my old feelings because 1Up posted this trailer earlier today for the sequel and it absolutely kicked my teeth in. Whatever else happened late in the first game, up to that point it was wonderous in the variety of ways you could inflict pain on your foes. Kratos was a tremendous bad-ass the second the game started, and he only grew stronger (and angrier) as the game progressed. There were so many awesome kill moves that left me speechless that I believe I drooled on myself more than once.

I'm man enough to say it - a game left me so slackjawed I actually drooled because I could not comprehend that someone could make a game so blindingly cool. I seemed to take their fumble late in the third quarter personally because it was literally perfect up to that point. No complaints whatsoever.

On the plus side, the sequel's design team has heard the fevered cries of the damned and supposedly won't put anything as awful as Hades back in the follow-up. I'll believe that when I see it, and I bloody well am going to play the game start to finish before I render judgement deadlines be damned.

But this trailer gets me hungry for more. Heck, that last shot alone is one of the coolest things I've ever seen and that's saying something considering how many wicked things come before it.